Leftover Makeover Making My Day

I have been so busy this month. I do admit that some of that time has been my own decision to just play with Liam and veg with the kids. Still, we do have something to fill the time almost every day of the week.

The kids started Karate on Monday nights from 7-8 pm, Tuesdays are Men and Women’s Bible study at 7pm, Wednesday nights we walk around the corner to church and fellowship at 7pm, Thursdays are Library day till 7pm, Fridays nights are Fellowship Night at 6pm, Saturday’s are Free , and Sunday is the LORD’s day.

I have managed to get behind in my domestic duties this past week after finally catching up and in a groove the previous week. I am disappointed about falling back into the “I’ll do it later” trap last week. I procrastinated and made up excuses because I gave in to my body’s desire for slothfulness. I got on the computer and wasted time Googling, searching, blogging, Facebooking. You name it. I would start and stop cleaning different rooms, and just generally stayed in a funk.

I did manage to have my yard sale on the one day last week that it got up to 102 degrees… yes, I am an idiot. I cannot believe I allowed myself to put the sale off until the week of Summer Solstice – the hottest and sunniest period of summer. I developed dehydration sickness and malaise. On top of that, I only got 30 bucks out of it. I do thank GOD that I made any money at all. When I was sitting outside I kept trying to figure out why no one was out yard sale-ing… everyone else watches the local news and common sense kicked in after hearing the weather forecast the night before I am sure.

I did not sleep the night before the yard sale, instead electing to set the sale up in the cool of night. I crashed for a power nap while nursing the wee man before Matthew came home from work and then again at around 5pm. I ignored the mess and laundry that was piling up.

Around 10:45 Saturday night, I realized that I had neglected to prepare for my Sunday school lesson… DOH! I decided that I could pull off the “Three Parables” lesson without much preparation since I had heard it a dozen times or more in my life. So back to sleep I went to nurse my semi-migraine and sleeplessness.

Sunday morning the sun shone down on my yard as I walked to church and it looked like a war zone. I walked deliberately past the melee to get to church, stopping along the way to pick up my neighbor’s daughter for her first visit to FBC Overton. Once at church, I realized that I had not nursed Liam yet…  due to my focus on getting everyone to church on time.

After church I nursed, shopped, nursed and napped, cooked, and ignored the mess in and out of the house again. We were going to visit Matthew’s brother, Mark, and I knew that if I began to worry about the house we would never make it. We were late even with me trying to get ready early.

We brought potato salad, fruit salad, drinks, Bluebell Ice cream and chicken. Mark grilled a pork loin, the chicken and his fiancee Nikki made a pasta salad. We all ate until full, reminisced and laughed about the kids antics. Sophia became better acquainted with “Venitor” (Mark’s pet painted Dragon). Gaelynn and Israel played Wii Baseball, and explored Uncle Mark’s double Monitor setup on his computer desk. We had a lot of fun and upon arriving home and getting the kids to bed; I promptly fell asleep nursing Liam.

I awoke this morning when Matthew came to bed just as the first light of day was seeping into the sky. I “shook sleep from my eyes” and headed outside to pack up my neighbors yard sale items and take them to her house. I lost track of time and before I knew it, the kids were asking what was for lunch… never mind the fact that they wanted saltines and Cherry 7up for breakfast. This is not a normal breakfast menu in my home. I only had soda because it was on sale at Brookshire’s, Tuesday the women are coming here and next weekend is July 4. I quickly scanned the fridge…  some grilled chicken and some raw, beans, fruit salad, meatloaf, etc.

I grabbed the meatloaf, crumbled it into a saucepan, mixed in some soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, onion and garlic powder, and apple cider vinegar. Voila! BBQ sloppy Joes and fruit with milk; all in under two minutes.

Thank you, GOD for leftovers on a downhill kind of day….things are looking up now.

Meat and Meals on a budget

I have been taking full advantage of my local super marketplacing soon to be past sale date items in bulk packages and reducing them for quick sale.  I have found packaged fresh vegetables in steamer bags and loose veggies or fruit, like peppers and bananas, for a dollar a bag.  For $19.95 a flat I have been getting about 10 pounds of meat of various types and cuts.

These are my finds for this week:

Produce:
2 bags of fresh California Blend veggies, 2 bags of cabbage slaw, a bag of broccoli slaw, 2 large bell peppers, 5 lbs. bag of bananas, a bag of jalapenos and limes, and a bag of broccoli florets
Cost: $1.00 per listing or bag,  for a total of $9.00.

Meat:
2 packages of Pilgrims Pride Thighs and 2 packages of PP drumsticks, 2 pkg 1lb 73/27 ground beef, 2 pkg 80/20 ground beef, 1  Family size pkg boneless pork loin chops, 1 pkg pork loin steaks, 1 pkg chops, 1 pkg tenderized boneless chuck steak, 1 pkg boneless chuck steak, 1 skirt steak, 1 pkg BBQ seasoned leg quarters.
Cost: $19.95 a piece for 3 about 27-30 lbs = about $2/lb

I begin by placing the veg in the freezer of fridge depending upon when or how I am going to use it. Then I take all of the meat and organize it by animal and then be what I am going to do with it and set about processing it for the freezer or fridge.

I made pork chops with Asian slaw salad last Sunday and had leftovers for lunch Monday. Monday night we had Broccoli beef made from the tenderized steak that I cooked the day before and added the veggies and sauce that night  paired with rice. Tuesday I made BBQ drumsticks and thighs in my broiler accompanied by coleslaw and a potato salad I put together on Sunday afternoon to save time during the week.  Wednesday night we ate Bratwurst that I bought on sale at Wal*Mart for $3.50/pkg and frittered eggplant, zucchini, summer squash that a young lady from church gave me.

This morning I spent less than an hour processing the rest of the meat to be placed in the freezer for meals next week. 

I put up chicken seasoned with season salt to be fried and served with green beans and potatoes, lemon pepper chicken for pairing with one of the packages of California Blend Veggies and rice, a two pound meatloaf that is frozen in the dimension that I plan on cooking it in for easy prep – served with mac n’ cheese and peas, Garlic and Herb Chops paired with corn and carrots, plain boneless chops for stuffing served with spinach, and a large bag of cut and marinating beef steak for more broccoli beef made with the other California Blend Veggies.

With the five pounds of bananas I made three loaves of Banana Chocolate Chip Bread.  This time it turned out like banana flavored chocolate bread pudding in a crust…YUMMY!

I cannot tell you how awesome it is to finally be getting back into the groove of having a week’s menu planned ahead of time.  It allows me to send Matthew with leftovers to work and have some leftovers for me and/or the kids as well.