Homemaking on the Homestead

This week we did not need anything from Costco. It was a quick and easy grocery trip to Winco... Veggies and fruit were a big portion of the haul. I still had lettuce left from last week so decided to get a bag of spinach to add to our salads. I was planning on making the oven baked chicken fajitas and already had a green pepper in the fridge so I purchased a red and orange pepper and some cilantro for the recipe. For dairy I bought the typical milk and half-n-half and I also got a small package of cheddar cheese slices for sandwiches and a container of parmesan cheese and a small container of sour cream. I'm able to eat cereal now so picked up a box of raisin bran. I have a hard time with milk still (hubby drinks it mostly) and bought a box of almond coconut milk. I love that stuff. Goes great on cereal. Also I use it with Instant Breakfast. I know they are not the healthiest but for right now it's something I can consume easily and g...

Wednesday Snap Shot will have a little different look for awhile. When I'm back up and running again, I'll return to the previous format. Happy last Wednesday of the month. Is it just me or does this month feel like it's flown on by? This last week has been a nice week. The best news is my oldest daughter had her baby! She had a baby girl, Caylah Marie. I love the name. She was 13 days late. My daughter lives in Kentucky and so we were on the phone talking and texting the days prior to Caylah's birth and during her labor. She has had all of her children at home. But, this time the baby was in a very odd position with her should stuck in my daughters pelvis. She ended up having to have a c-section. Not the way she wanted it to go, but with a happy ending for both mama and baby, it was the best. Due to the complications Caylah had some breathing issues right after birth, but was soon over them. They are both home now and resting...

Well here we are starting the last week of the month. Time is flying by it seems. I didn't get my Asian chicken soup made last week so that is what I'm making tonight. I'll take pics and post it later in the week. It's such a yummy alternative to chicken noodle soup. The rest of the week.. Corned Beef Hash I have a little corned beef left and some hash brown potatoes in the freezer. I'll make a quick skillet corned beef hash and serve it with a nice green salad. Oven Chicken Fajitas I found THIS recipe and it looks so easy and good. I'll cut the recipe in half for the two of us. A nice salad and maybe some black beans will be served on the side. Meatloaf I still have 2 more meatloaves in the freezer from when my daughter was here and helping me last month. I plan to serve the meatloaf with potatoes, green beans and beets. That should do it for the week!

I remember 20 years ago I'd go grocery shopping at Costco and have two of those flat bed type carts full of food! And then at Winco I'd have two grocery carts full of food. Nowadays our grocery hauls look MUCH different and I'm enjoying it. Here was this weeks haul from Costco... I bought a package of precooked sausage patties. We use these to make breakfast sandwiches because they are quick and simple. I also bought some ranch dressing. I buy Gregg's Ranch because I think it's the best tasting ranch dressing. I've tried other brands and always end up back with Gregg's. The mouthwash was also on sale and came to price much less expensive (almost half the cost per ounce) as the generic brand at Winco. Now we have enough mouthwash to last us a very long time! :) I had originally planned to use corned beef (or pastrami) lunch meat to make our Reuben sandwiches but could not find any. Well I was able to find pastrami bu...

Wednesday Snap Shot will have a little different look for awhile. When I'm back up and running again, I'll return to the previous format. Good morning and Happy Spring! Is it looking like spring where you are?  I just spent a good deal of my morning texting with two of my out of state daughters. Always nice to spend time catching up with them. My oldest daughter is 10 days late with her baby and is getting impatient. Those last days of pregnancy can be so difficult especially if you are late. My week has been good so far. I had a few of my kids here over the weekend and that was so nice. My daughter did the cooking which is always great! :) Yesterday was grocery shopping day and we restocked the kitchen with food for the week.  I'm planning another grocery haul post soon.  Being Frugal I had tacos on my menu for Monday night. When I went to make dinner I realized I also had some leftover potatoes from the weekend. ...

Happy Monday everyone! Another week of menus and I've been trying to figure out what sounds yummy and easy to make. Hopefully this menu will fit the bill. Tonight I'm making tacos. I have some soft flour tortillas that need to be used up and hamburger in my freezer. Plus I have all the extra trimmings in the fridge, the lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and salsa. For the rest of the week here is my plan... Chicken Soup I'm going to make my new favorite version of chicken noodle soup. Instead of noodles I use pot stickers that I buy frozen from Costco. I add a little soy sauce or Yoshidas sauce to the chicken broth to give it a yummy Asian twist. I'll serve a salad and crackers with this. Reuben Sandwiches A couple weeks ago I found some rye bread on sale at Costco and grabbed the 2 loaf package and put it in the freezer. This week I'll get some corned beef or pastrami from the deli and some swiss cheese to make reubens. ...

This week in "Friday in the Kitchen" I'm sharing my recent  grocery haul with you.     Now that my last child has left the nest cooking and grocery shopping are looking a lot different. As I mentioned on Monday's blog post it's taking me some time to adjust to how much food is enough. My brain still thinks big, the grocery needs are small. An example of how small is milk. My hubby and I are not big milk drinkers. After a few times of tossing milk that had gone bad before we could use it up we've finally figured out that we only need a ½ gallon every couple weeks. I still laugh at the contrast of many years ago when all 8 kids were still at home and we went through a gallon a day. And even as my kids left home I still had teenagers and they could go through a lot of milk as well. So it's been a process of downsizing the groceries as well as teaching myself to think smaller, as in much smaller. I thought I'd ...

Wednesday Snap Shot will have a little different look for awhile. When I'm back up and running again, I'll return to the previous format. Good morning/afternoon (depending on where you are at) . I hope your week is going well. My week has been good. I've had several good days and then a few days all I wanted to do is sleep. Yesterday was a positive day for me. My hubby and I went shopping. We hit three stores, Costco, Winco (grocery store) and Walmart. I actually made it through all three stores. I'm loving the progress I'm making. I still wear my FitBit and challenge myself to walk a little more as often as I can. Yesterday was a record at a little over 5000 steps. One of these days I'll be back to my regular 10,000 steps a day. We've had a few lovely spring like days so I took advantage of that and walked outside. Each time I again challenge myself to walk a little farther. I made it down my road...

I'm struggling with how much to cook for two people. My youngest son always did a great job of eating up leftovers. Also my appetite is small right now and between that and swallowing issues (which are improving, but still difficult) I eat tiny portions and end up with to much food left. Last week the pork chops did not get made and we had the pulled pork for 3 nights. The new challenge is to figure out how much is enough. My brain still wants to cook for lots of people! 😃  Anyone else cooking for two find it a challenge? On the plus side I find when I have to much I can freeze it into individual servings for use in my hubby's lunch. Today is my youngest son's birthday so we're going to go and visit him and get a bite to eat with him to celebrate his day. For the rest of the week here is my game plan... Pork Chops Trying again with these. I plan to either bake or fry them and make gravy with the juices. I'll serve baked...

Wednesday Snap Shot will have a little different look for awhile. When I'm back up and running again, I'll return to the previous format. ********************** Since it's been a few weeks since I posted a WSS I wanted to share the biggest change for me and Tobin with you. Our youngest son has moved out and we are now officially “empty nesters”. It's been a strange transition, but we are enjoying it in many ways. He had planned to move out right after my surgery but when things turned out the way they did, he put it off until the end of January. He wanted to make sure if his help was needed he was around. By the end of the month I told him we were handling life and he needed to do what he felt was best for him. He'll be 20 in another week and I felt he needed to move forward with his own plans. So far he's doing great and I know it was a good choice. Also during my recovery time my daughter Hannah and her family moved to a ...

  I'm not sure what Menu Monday will be looking like over the next several weeks. Mostly because of my eating restrictions and the fact that my daughter Emily came up from Sacramento and spent a week with me in the middle of February and while she was here she cooked up several meals and put them into individual servings in the freezer. These are the meals that my hubby has been eating. I've cooked a couple of times so far but my energy is returning and I'd like to see if I can do a little more in the kitchen. Some of my kitchen endeavors are going to be super simple. Tonight's dinner is an example of that. I have orange chicken and pot stickers from Costco in the freezer. That is easy to cook up and hubby is in charge of salad making. So we'll have that for dinner. I know I can eat the pot stickers and I'll see how I do on the chicken. I've also been able to have basic salads (no hard or crunchy type veggies in it) as long...

I want to thank each of you who have left me comments of well wishes, prayers, and offers to help me.  Healing has been about all I've had energy to deal with and have not been able to get back and reply.  Hopefully over the next few days I can do this. I've had several people ask me how I'm doing in my recovery. I wanted to give you a little more of the details and an update. This honestly has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to walk through. Recovery has been long and difficult. It has left me feeling exhausted most of the time. However I do seem to be turning a corner now and that has been so nice. It has been 6 weeks now since my surgery. My main surgery, the one for my hiatal hernia (Nissan w/Fundoplication is the official name of it) has healed very well. I'm thrilled with the results of this. I don't have any more heartburn or acid reflux and no longer need to take any medications for this. I slee...