Financial Roundup

  It is time to hold myself accountable for my weekly spending. I have increased the number of days I did not spend any money, exceeding my goal of 4 free days and coming in with 5!! This coming week I am aiming to match this remembering that I will be needing to buy things for youngest son's graduation party.

Sunday: $0

Monday: $26 at eye doctor. 89¢ for burger buns

Tuesday: $26.85 for lunch & carousel ride at zoo

Wednesday: $0

Thursday: $0

Friday:$0

Saturday:$0


We are having another simple Sunday here this week. Errands were ran for GF to BJ's where I picked up a box of Damp-rid bags for my basement and a large container of magic clean erasers.$22.12 paid in cash from money earned from cleaning on Saturday. A nice ride and a special dinner request from GF for chicken Marsala with pasta and salad will round out the day.

Family Favorites

  Thursday was yet another perfect stay at home day. I finished up my laundry, gave the bathroom a good clean, cleaned the upstairs hallway and staircase including wiping down all the walls.  Next week my room (the attic) is getting a good clean, it has gotten very messy up there and I want to go through my clothing and put some aside to donate to charity. I also want to dig into old photos to get ready for a couple of picture boards for youngest son's grad party. I also intend to take down and wash all the curtains in the house.
Once I'd gotten all the chores I set myself done I turned to my kitchen. I'd invited eldest son and DIL and newest grandbaby over. It was Miss E's first visit to Grandma's house! I figured a meal cooked by someone else and including family favorites would be appreciated. And this granny needed some snuggle time with her newest babe.
I know that DIL loves flan (or creme caramel as we've always called it) so I turned to my favorite resource for this recipe, The Joy of Cooking. I had this dessert for the first time back in college at a restaurant and was blown away and I immediately began searching cookbooks (this was before the internet <gasp>) for how to make it myself. The Joy never lets me down, there it was, I gave it a whirl, and this recipe has remained my favorite ever since.
Creme Caramel (The Joy of Cooking)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
Bring to a boil in a saucepan, cover and let gently boil for 2 minutes. Uncover and let cook until melted sugar becomes a deep amber color. Immediately pour this into one dish or 6 ramekins swirling dish to coat sides. Place dish or ramekins into a 13x9 pan and preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Warm
3 cups milk
 until it is steaming. Whisk together in a bowl:
 5 large eggs
1/8 tsp of salt
 3/4 cup sugar.
Slowly add milk whisking continually. Mix in
3/4 tsp vanilla extract.
Divide evenly into ramekins or pour into dish. Add boiling water in 13x9 dish halfway up the sides of the pudding dish or ramekins. Place in oven and bake 1- 1 1/2 hours until set. Cool on a rack then place dish or ramekins in the refrigerator. Allow to cool at least 4 hours before serving.
After getting the flan in the oven I turned to making a pasta salad. I had a bag of tri colored wacky mac in the cupboard which I cooked, added some broccoli slaw, diced carrots, celery, red bell peppers, cucumber, and green and black olives cut in half. I doctored this up with a healthy dose of McCormack salad supreme seasoning and then dressed it with homemade White Balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

Into the fridge went the salad. Then having taken out a london broil earlier in the day I mixed together my favorite marinade, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup Kitchen Bouquet browning sauce, 1 tsp. McCormack Montreal steak seasoning blend and 1/2 tsp brown sugar. I poured this over the steak in a large ziplock bag and stuck it in the fridge to marinate.

 

Once Son & DIL and Miss E arrived I preheated the grill, cooked the london broil to medium rare, sliced it thin and served. With three sons at the table there was no steak left behind although we do have a small amount of pasta salad leftover. As for the flan it is nothing but a sweet memory.

 

An orgy of cleanliness and something a bit different

  Yesterday was highly satisfying for me. Outside of a small trip to take youngest son to pick up a job app at a new fast food joint near us and then dropping him off at girlfriend's house I spent my entire day in my home. It felt so good. Cooler temperatures in the mid 70s and rain most of the day meant I concentrated on doing inside chores.
Although I prefer to hang laundry outside I have gotten quite behind in my laundry chores plus I wanted to wash all the throw pillows and blankets from the living room so I decided to just go ahead and use the dryer and catch up. I still have three loads to do today and it is threatening rain once again. I will finish up with the dryer and then it is strictly clothesline useage from here on out.  After feeding the cat and the dogs I went down cellar and tossed the first load in the washer.
My next goal was to give my small kitchen a good cleaning. The fact that the kitchen while eat in is still pretty small and it took me a good two and half hours of cleaning should tell you how deep this clean was. Top to bottom literally with me using the swiffer duster to knock down a couple of cobwebs on the ceiling (I cannot tell you how much I hate popcorn ceilings and the way everything sticks to them. UGH), dusting the ceiling fan and the tops of the cabinets, and working my way down to giving the floor a good wash. Continuing to move laundry along: washing, drying, folding, putting away I moved into the living and dining areas of my home (the entire first floor), dusting (once again top to bottom...I love my swiffer with the extendable handle, makes those 10 foot ceilings a breeze), sweeping, vacuuming, cleaning glass cabinet fronts and the storm door windows.
Midway through my orgy of cleanliness I realized I hadn't taken out anything for dinner. I knew it was going to just be myself and adult son so I grabbed a package of three pork chops from the freezer. I checked my menu plans and decided to swap the greek pork chops idea for a new recipe I'd been eyeballing from Gooseberry Patch's 101 Farmhouse Favorites for Maple Pork Chops.
I took:
 1/2 cup maple syrup ( I used genuine but 'fake' syrup would be fine)
3 tbl. soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
and mixed them all up together. I placed the chops in a glass dish and poured half the marinade over the top as per the recipe directions:

I wanted to tweak this so I added about 1/2 teaspoon of rosemary to the marinade I poured over the chops then covered them and let them marinate for an hour, turning them occasionally. While they were marinating I scrubbed and put a couple of russet potatoes in the oven to bake and threw together a tossed salad.
When the hour was up I heated my gas grill and then put the chops on, turning every 6 minutes they were done within 18 minutes. I removed them from the grill, drizzled the remaining marinade over the top and plated them up with the potato topped with smart balance spread, plain nonfat yogurt, and salt and pepper:

Salad went into a small side bowl since I didn't want the dressing to mix up with the marinade flavor.  The reviews were good, both adult son and I liked the flavor and I was glad I'd added the rosemary. I think it would've been a bit bland without it.

What's been cooking?

  Having done my stock up shop for the summer I've been trying to stick mostly to the menu plans. On Monday I grabbed a package of ground beef out of the freezer deciding to make Sloppy Joes. Then I remembered we had no hamburger buns and it was too late in the day to make some from scratch. The eye doctor had called and my replacement contact lenses for my left eye were in so I knew I had to pick these up (mostly covered by insurance so only $26 for a 6 month supply) and it is located right down the street from Aldi so I grabbed youngest son to ride along and after I ran into the eye doctor he ran into Aldi for the 89¢ package of buns.  College age daughter is spending the week housesitting for friends so I knew dinner was going to be myself and my two guys who live at home. One package of buns was definately sufficient. I also made a mental note to myself to decide on a menu early in the day so I can plan ahead on things like homemade buns.
I chopped up half of an onion, a rib of celery, half of a red bell pepper, and pressed a clove of garlic into the pound of  defrosted ground beef in my dutch oven. I browned off the meat and veggies, drained out the fat and returned the mixture to the pan. I added about half a bottle of ketchup to this gave it a good stir and put the heat on low to simmer. My mom's recipe, simple and no special cans of sauce required.
Adult son has had a part time job at a local beverage store stocking shelves since he was in high school (he works this 3 times a week in addition to his regular flooring job) and on occasion he will bring home items that can no longer be sold (soda pop, junk food). Freebie!! He came home Saturday with a box full of assorted chips so instead of making homemade chips to go with the joes I pulled out a bag of plain chips. Bread and butter pickles chilled in the refrigerator rounded out our meal. The evening was spent 'porch sitting' with a good friend & neighbor. It is becoming our regular Monday night thing.
Last night it was just me. Youngest son stayed at girlfriend's house after our zoo trip and adult son was working his beverage store job and said he'd just grab something for himself afterwards. I pulled out a package of lamb chops, decided to just season them with some Penzey's Greek seasoning and then since it was storming outside I seared them in a pan on the top of the stove and finished them off in the oven. I decided to do a simple side of pasta and peas covering both my starch and my vegetable. Dessert was the last of a bag of cherries I'd gotten at the farmer's market while enjoying the season premier of Next Great Baker.

Summer Fun: Zoo Day!

  Now it is finally starting to feel like vacation.  Youngest son and his girlfriend M had planned on a zoo day and invited me to come along with them. I love the zoo so I said sure. We have a family + guest membership (which also allows us free access to hundreds of zoos across America..something we've taken advantage of when traveling) so getting in for all of us was a freebie.
The weather looked like it might not co-operate, sunny at 7 am but cloudy at 9 am. Finally at 10 am when we were picking M up it looked as if the sun was fighting to win this particular battle. Temperatures were in the low 80s. We'd discussed whether or not to take a picnic lunch along but in the end we simply decided to get either the McD's or the Pizza Hut food available in the main food court. I have budgeted some summer money for fun so the $40 I took along came from this money. I wasn't unhappy with the lunch bill since it came to just under $20 but I will say that next time we will bring water bottles along with us to keep hydrated since the price of a bottle of water has doubled since last summer. Yikes.
Just as we entered the Rainforest exhibit (indoors) portion of the zoo it decided to rain. <sigh> Well we were going to be inside for this so we forged ahead and enjoyed very much the orangutan who liked to wear her burlap sack on her head:

 

I was awed by the beauty of this parrot:

 

And a bit skeeved out by the enormous size of this capybara who is the largest rodent in the world. Ugh.

 

 When we finished up at the rainforst exhibit the weather had decided to be co-operative after all . We had lunch then visited the remainder of the zoo. I was so enthralled by my favorite animal, the giraffe that I totally forgot to pull out my cell phone and snap some close up pictures as all three of them fed from a perch right next to the viewing deck.  However I did remember to snap a quick pic as all of us laughed quite a lot over the antics of the meerkats

 

I figured we were all going to want to take part in the zoo's newest attraction, the Carousel of Wildlife, and we saved this treat for the very last. Created and built by a local carousel company each 'seat' is a different animal at the zoo. I of course choose to ride on the giraffe, my personal favorite, and from my perch I captured this cute picture of H & M:

 

It was truly a fun day. And no sooner did we reach home than thunderstorms rolled in, almost as if the weather was waiting for us to finish things up!

 

 

 

Simply Sunday

Some days are perfect not because they are filled with special events but because they are filled with small quiet moments. Yesterday was one of those days. It was a beautiful sunny morning. A pot of coffee doctored up with cinnamon started the day. I made a simple cooked breakfast of sausage links, scrambled eggs, and toast. GF had two showings scheduled at his house for the afternoon so while he painted the front door side-light panels I did some small chores to keep the interior up to viewing standards. Once we completed these jobs we showered, dressed, and collected his dog Jake and we all piled into the car for a Sunday drive. One of our favorite places to go is a small community just south of where GF lives called Hudson. We rambled in that general direction and spent a couple of hours checking out the real estate options for him available there. We agreed that as much as we enjoy the small town feel of the place it is not exactly what he is looking for.
A sandwich grabbed at a drive through and we headed back to his home. Thinking ahead I had taken chicken breasts out to defrost . I grabbed a container of a new to me spice blend from McCormick's

And made up a marinade from the recipe on the back. I put the chicken and the marinade in a pan 

While the chicken marinated I browsed GF'S pantry for sides. Au gratin potatoes and green beans were the winners.  I preheated the grill and got the chicken on 

Once cooked through I assembled our plates 

And we ate. I liked the marinade but GF wasn't so sure. Looks like this particular spice blend may come home with me.

The day ended with some reading and tv viewing and just enjoying each other's company. Small moments that added up to a relaxing day. 

June finances

It feels so good to FINALLY have my first two vacation weeks under my belt. What doesn't feel so great is that I only have four money-free days in that time frame.  This is the week however when it gets serious. I have one bill yet to pay for the month and one which will come out automatically. I don't consider bill paying in my definition of money-free since it has to be done and is not an option. On the credit side of things I have one more Saturday in the month that I will be earning money from my cleaning job. That money is ear-marked for youngest son's graduation party. I will purchase and mail invitations from that and the rest will be tucked away for food/drink. I have been thinking ahead towards the party and already have all of the decorations ( saved from daughter's party last year), as well as all of the paper goods. The party itself will be held at the pavilion at a local park which is free on a first come first served basis. This week I am going to be working on gathering photos and making a picture display of son. Food for the party has been decided on. Relatives have already offered to help by bringing dishes. I will be baking cupcakes and cookies, making penne with sauce, cheesy potatoes, pasta salad, baked beans, and coleslaw. I will purchase fried chicken and middle daughter will be doing a beef brisket. Fixings for the cupcakes, cookies, penne, baked beans, sauce and pasta salad are already bought. Drinks will be bottled water, soda pop, a dispenser of lemonade ( already on hand), and another of ice tea.  I am feeling prepared.
In any case here is how the week went moneywise:
Sunday: free day
Monday: grocery shopped: $98.84 on nonfood items, $16.99 for cat food, $ 304.72 on food.
Tuesday: bought flowers/plants $ 68
Wednesday: free day
Thursday: household cleaning items & clothing @ Target $72. Aldi $34.
Friday: gasoline $38.
Saturday: free day

This week is going to be different. My goal is five free days, anticipating a potting soil & veggie plant purchase for the raised bed box middle son made me, and the purchase of graduation party invitations.