February Menu Plans

 Since I am home again today I decided it was an excellent time to prepare my February dinner menus while having a second cup of coffee.
I am going to follow my previous plan of alternating slow cooker meals with quickly prepared meals on work nights. There are a few special occasions coming up in February, a birthday party for youngest son and his cousin, Valentine's Day (GF & I will go out to eat), my birthday (once again GF and I will go out to dinner) and a raffle that we attend each year. Also on Friday nights GF has been either cooking or taking me somewhere to eat since I do not get out of work until late. So the only Friday I needed to plan for was the last one of the month since my aftercare job has been cancelled for that evening due to a big school fundraiser. (another hit to the bank account..boo). Slow cooker meals are in bold. Meals using leftovers are in italics and meals prepared in under thirty minutes are underlined. I am also trying a couple of new to me recipes that I have indicated with an *.

Dry Rubbed Pork Roast*, mashed potatoes, green beans with walnuts

Pork Stir fry, steamed rice, egg rolls

Beef Brisket, egg noodles, broccoli with garlic and herbs

BBQ Beef sandwiches, oven fries, peas

Pumpkin Lentil soup, Hawaiian rolls

Chicken Marsala, parmesan risotto, salad

Roast Turkey breast, stovetop style stuffing with dried cranberries, Corn

Slow Cooker Swiss steak*, egg noodles, broccoli

Turkey burritos, yellow rice, green salad

Mom's One Pot Dinner* crescent rolls

Shrimp Orzo Skillet, salad

Spaghetti with meatballs , salad

Herb crusted eye of round, au gratin potatoes,  green beans

Honey glazed chicken, mashed potatoes, mixed veggies

Skillet Lasagna, salad, garlic toast

Corned beef with cabbage, potato pancakes, carrots

Balsamic glazed Salmon*, basmati rice, broccoli

Gail's Pork Adobo (giving this a try in the slow cooker), steamed rice, asian blend veggies

Horseradish encrusted tilapia, garlic potatoes, coleslaw

Chicken stew, whole wheat biscuits

Mom's Chicken paprikash, drop dumplings, green beans

Modenese Pork Chops* white and wild rice, corn

More Days off

  We have gotten yet another blast of arctic cold yesterday and today which means subzero temperatures and more time off from work. I'm not a fan of going out in the cold weather but I am a fan of getting paid and when we have these days that does not happen. So I am less than happy about the unexpected time off. On the upside I am saving money on gasoline, my house got a good clean and I didn't have to do it after an 11 hour workday, and I am all caught up on my dvr'd tv shows.  Yesterday was youngest son's birthday (also nice to have time to spend with him) and for his birthday dinner he requested the Broccoli-cheese soup I buy from BJ's Wholesale club

And instead of traditional birthday cake son asked for a Cheesecake factory frozen cheesecake. This I can also get from the wholesale club.

So despite the frigid temperatures I was off to the wholesale club to pick up these special items for my baby. I have to admit that his idea of soup and crescent rolls for dinner really hit the spot. And the cheesecake was wonderful.  I added a nice pot of lapsang souchong tea to my meal

Today's plan includes laundry. I have a couple of loads built up in the hamper that need doing. My refrigerator needs a good clean out as well and I want to wash down the walls in the upstairs hallway and down the staircase. Despite having hand rails and nagging from Mom people just kee putting their dirty hands on the wall itself.
I also am going to bake. A loaf of bread and a batch of shortbread cookies.
Tonight I am headed over to oldest son's house and I will take cheesecake leftovers for pregnant DIL with me. Oldest son is not a dessert fan. We are going to be going window shopping for a travel system for the upcoming baby. This will give me an idea of what to budget for this item that I want to get for them. Then son suggested we get our favorite Chinese carryout and eat at their house. I am on board with this plan.

My son the miracle worker!

  Believe it or not we have been without a fully functioning bathroom sink for about 2 years. It amazes me how long that time frame looks in print when it really didn't seem that long in actual time. Adult son renovated our old and tired bathroom while college age daughter and teen son and I were visiting family out of town two years ago. At that time we were having issues with the sink draining very slowly. Despite removing the pedestal sink from the room, replacing the drain pipes inside the sink and running a manual snake down the pipes inside the wall the drain continued to be so slow and eventually stopped draining entirely.
We moved tooth brushing operations to the kitchen sink and hand washing to the bath tub. On and off adult son has putzed around with the sink trying to get it to work. No luck. Son in law that used to work in plumbing tried and said he thought we'd have to tear out the kitchen ceiling to get to the section of pipe running from the sink. The ceiling already has issues from the bathroom renovation (replacing section of drain pipe from bathtub) and a leaking second story porch that adult son has since fixed. The holes remain and frankly I just didn't want more holes. Adult son has promised to totally remove and replace ceiling but there just hasn't been the time and the money all at the same time so far. Needing to get serious about this issue he has promised this ceiling will get replaced SOON.
In the meantime son had a few days off from work and according to him got bored. I wish he'd be bored more often. He has a buddy with an electric snake that he borrowed. He once again removed the pedestal sink from the bathroom to get to the pipes inside the wall and ran that snake. Funny thing happened, when the sink drained the water backed up in the bath tub. Hmmmm....Adult son then made use of the hole in the kitchen ceiling to remove a section of bath drain pipe and run that electric snake directly into that pipe and amazingly enough that seemed to do the trick. Both tub and sink now drain beautifully!!!!! According to son the problem was at the t-joint where both sets of drains came together.
Now that the sink was working once more son decided we needed to upgrade it a bit. It is the original 1929 bathroom sink that was put in when the house was built. The porcelain is in great shape for a sink so old ( few rust stains but overall not bad) but it had two separate faucets for hot and cold water. It also had a capped off center hole that we suspect once held a soap dispenser. Son took a trip to Home Depot, came home with a center faucet, a new drain cover  (the old drain cover was a simple rubber stopper), and two caps and got to work. The result:

 

All three of the kids and I agreed it is really awesome to once again be able to brush our teeth and wash our hands at a bathroom sink. Its the little things in life.

Country Pork Stew

  Saturday was my twice a month cleaning day at the company my GF is a plant manager at,  so despite wicked weather and nasty roads it was off to work GF and I went. It sure was a nail biter of a ride and the snow just continued to fall through out the morning. We had a bit of a reprieve temperature wise with it being in the high teens (been a long time since I thought of those kinds of temperatures being relatively warm, lol) and on the ride home to GF's house we actually had some sunshine.  GF treated us to a lunch at Chipotle with some gift cards he got for Christmas then we made a quick run into the grocery store to pick up some minor things for dinner and Sunday breakfast. Minutes after we arrived home it began to snow again and continued until well after we'd called it a day.  All I have to say is the 2014 Farmer's Almanac has been spot on correct so far this winter. I am going to go out on a limb here and say I expect that its prediction of even more snow for February is going to be a good one. <sigh>
Thinking about dinner for the two of us (college age daughter and teen son opted to remain at home with adult brother) I dug around in GF's freezer and came up with a package of pork cubes. We'd picked up some potatoes and carrots as well as a can of diced tomatoes on our shopping trip so I turned to an old favorite recipe of mine for Country Pork Stew.
In a heavy dutch oven over medium heat I heated a bit of olive oil, added 2 teaspoons of minced garlic and the pork cubes to brown. Once I had a nice color on the pork I added the can of diced tomatoes, a large onion (peeled and cut into eighths) 4 potatoes (peeled and cubed), a half pound of baby carrots, 4 tablespoons of tapioca, 4 cups of beef stock, some freshly ground pepper, a teaspoon of sage, a teaspoon of thyme and a half teaspoon of rosemary. I popped on the lid, turned the temperature to low and let this simmer for 2 1/2 hours. A package of crescent rolls baked in the oven was the side dish.
For GF who is a major fan of pork this was the perfect winter dinner. Unfortunately my cell phone camera is acting squirrely and I was unable to get any pictures. :-(
Hot, filling, delicious.

Antarctica called....

and it wants its weather back. It seems as if Mother Nature is playing the same song over and over this year. Snow. Cold. Cold . Snow. Snow and Cold. Regardless of the weather the work week goes on. Temperatures have yet to get so cold and the snow so bad that another snow day would be called. For that my checkbook is grateful. I'll take that morning commute being three times as long as usual if it means getting paid. One issue we are having at home though in regards to the cold is that when temperatures hover around zero degrees in the early morning our furnace is struggling to get the house warmed up. We have a programmable thermostat similar to this one: . It is set for 68 degrees from 6 am until 8 am, then 60 degrees from 8 am until 2 pm, then 68 from 2 pm until 10 pm, then back down to 60 overnight.  Friday morning we awoke to zero degrees outdoors and  I noticed that after running for over an hour the main floor of the house was still only 63 degrees. A discussion with adult son J and looking at the subzero temperatures predicted for the upcoming week and we are going to try something new. Instead of fluctuating temperatures we are going to leave the thermostat at 68 degrees around the clock. We are hoping that this means the furnace will have to run less to maintain a constant temperature. The natural gas bill I received for heat (stove and hot water) mid January included the two days of polar vortex temperatures in early January. It was more than twice the amount of last year's bill for the same time frame (2013: $111.11....2014:$230.80). We have covered the main floor windows with window insulation, covered our French style patio doors with a sheet the is secured at the bottom with a heavy draft dodger and a throw rug pushed up on top of that (this door is always drafty). Our front door is insulated as is our side door. A shower curtain hangs at the top of the basement steps to prevent cold air from immediately hitting the furnace. We've taken all the measures that can be done to keep the main floor as warm as possible. Hopefully our new plan of a constant temperature while the weather is so severely cold will help the bill.

In the meantime we wander around wearing hoodies and snuggies like a cape and cover up with multiple throw blankets when sitting down.  And when we get really cold we all huddle in the bathroom where despite the furnace vent being completely closed it is perpetually sub tropical hot.

One Cottage Ham Two Hot Meals.

  My slow cooker has become my best friend since starting a second job at my primary workplace. Those 11 hour days are killer and it is nice to come home to a hot meal. I picked up a cottage ham on my day off and my plan was to pop it in the slow cooker and do a New England 'boiled' dinner sort of idea with it.  Tuesday morning before leaving for work  I gathered my ingredients, the cottage ham, potatoes, carrots, and cabbage:

 

I popped them in to my slow cooker and added water and set it:

 

When I arrived home a hot dinner was all ready for me.

Planned overs went in to the refrigerator.

Then it was time to assemble part two of my dinner plan. In the cupboard I had a bag of 15 bean soup mix:

 I put the beans into some cold water and brought it to a boil allowing them to cook for about 10 minutes. I turned the heat off, covered the pot, and let it sit overnight.

Wednesday morning I drained the beans and rinsed them, placed them in my slow cooker, added some hot water and ham soup base  the seasoning packet from the soup mix and the leftovers (including the broth) from the New England style dinner

Some crescent rolls baked when I arrived home and a good hot filling dinner was once again on the table within minutes.  Given the weather conditions, snow and single digit cold, this was a blessing.

 

 

 

Monday Holiday

 One of the many benefits of working in a school are the official Monday holidays we get. Last Monday was MLK day so there was no school. Nice to have the long weekend.
My middle daughter K received an automatic starter for  her minivan and needed someone to follow her to the mechanics and then take her and her boys on some errands. Mom was the go-to person.

I needed to make my own stop at BJ's for a case of envelopes for work so that was our first stop after we dropped off K's van.  She needed to shop for a few items so we were off to the regular grocery store. While there I picked up a cottage ham and some chipped beef as well as some Chocolate-hazelnut tea  . $15 out the door.

K was in need of some items from Target and I was down to my last two MegaRed tablets so that was our next stop. $11.94 for the MegaReds.

The two hours the mechanic told me daughter that he van would take stretched out in to four. Since I'd given up my day to take her and the boys around she treated me to lunch at Chipotle. I do love that restaurant.
With time to kill K suggested we stroll around Big Lots and TJMaxx. I managed to make it out of Big Lots with no purchases in hand but couldn't help but pick up a new sweater (yes I know I said no more clothing purchases) for myself off the clearance rack for $15 and a box set of 8 drinking glasses for $7 similar to these: .  We seem to always be in need of drinking glasses at home and it was a good buy.

After taking K and the boys back to pick up her car I headed home. Once home I checked on my bank account balance (yes the banks were closed but I wanted to see if a direct debit for insurance had come through on Friday) and getting a nice surprise in the form of a deposit into my checking account from my bank. It was my cash back rewards from the previous year for using my check card. Nice!!
The remainder of the day was spent giving the house a good clean and making dinner. I went totally off my menu plans I sautéed some chicken tenders in garlic, garlic oil and smart balance, I then tossed in some broccoli florets, some freshly ground black pepper and some grated parmesan cheese and tossed the entire thing with some cooked penne pasta.