Homemaking on the Homestead

Hubby and I did our grocery shopping in the evening after a long day with my doctors appointments and discovered that the stores were a whole lot less busy. Since we live so far away from the grocery stores normally shopping is done early. Since we were both pretty exhausted from a day at the hospital it was nice to be able to get in and out quickly. Our first stop was Winco and it was a smaller size haul. Fresh fruit is a must each week for us and we picked up the regular apples, bananas and oranges. I also bought a few cans to restock the pantry, diced tomatoes, cream of mushroom soup and spaghetti sauce. Tortilla chips were on sale so we grabbed an extra bag of those. I needed to restock a lot of my veggies I picked up cabbage, spring lettuce mix, romaine lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, beets and a bag of sweet mini peppers. I also went to the bulk section and got some more brown jasmine rice. The last items were...

Good afternoon! WSS is out late today due to a power outage. A double wide is being put in somewhere around here and I guess they had to shut off the power and move the lines so it could be delivered. In any case, all is good now as my hubby fired up the generator for a bit so we could have a cup of coffee (priorities, you know, ha, ha) and get some internet long enough for me to get this post out. This has been a crazy week since I last posted. I had visits from 2 of my daughters, grandbabies and my daughters best friend and her boyfriend came up as well. All good kinds of busy for sure. Yesterday I had 2 pre-op appointments for my upcoming eye surgery. It did help to give me a sense of peace. I still deal with throat muscle issues and that was a concern to me because I will have to be put out during the surgery. I feel a bit of stress at the thought of having to be put out again. After my experience in January and waking up to a complete nightmare it...

Good Morning and happy Monday! This week I have a couple busy days ahead and so I'm looking at quick and easy for those days. The first busy day is Monday and I will be doing another one of my pork meals. I cooked a 3# pork shoulder/butt roast last week and made a couple meals with it and this week I'll make the other two meals.    Monday: Cuban pork sandwiches (using my precooked pork), chips and a salad Tuesday: Orange chicken, pot stickers (both from Costco), rice and coleslaw Wednesday: Pork stroganoff (made like beef stroganoff but I'll be using my pork) over buttered noodles, broccoli Thursday: Leftovers, as I usually have plenty at this point in the week Friday: hamburger patties in gravy , baked potatoes, salad Saturday: Leftovers once again Sunday: Spaghetti, french bread, salad That should do it for us :) Hope you have a great week! Crystal

This was an easy grocery shopping week. My single stop was at  Winco. I only needed a few weekly basics. Here is what I purchased..    I needed a few fresh veggies and picked up a bag of salad mix, red cabbage, tomatoes and celery. For fruit I bought oranges and bananas. We have an apple tree that has been giving us a lot of apples lately and we didn't need to buy any. I also picked up my hubbies chips, and a loaf of french bread, a package of croissant rolls, 2 cans of olives for the pantry, 2 bags of salt.. I love that I can buy my Himalayan pink salt in the bulk section of the store. I got 1 bag of fine grind and 1 bag of course grind. My dairy and frozen items were ice cream, yogurt, half & half, milk and a bag of Popsicles for treats when my grandchildren come to visit. The total for this weeks groceries was: $41 (rounded up) ************************* Easy Chicken Salad for a...

Good morning! I'm a little on the later side with my post today. I guess I needed that 2 nd cup of coffee, ha, ha! :) This last week was a good week.  I was able to get a lot of things done around my house. Cleaning, cooking, time spent with my hubby enjoying the warm summer days, and several chats with my kids. So nothing grand but an enjoyable simple week. Goals My plan for today is to do some cooking. I have a pork roast to cook and a few meals I hope to get made from it. My home chores are: ~vacuum ~wash a load of sheets and change ours I also would love to go out and take a walk today but the smoke and air quality is still not great. So I think I'll do a Leslie Sansone walk instead. Frugal Living I made another batch of orange vinegar. I know I've posted this in the past but I love this stuff. I love the smell and I love how well it works and how frugal it is. My current batch will ...

  Stretching a chicken for several meals is nothing new.  When it comes to cooking for two people it's so easy to end up with way to much food. So by planning ahead you can create different meals and end up with extras in the freezer.   This is mostly a post to show what I did and give you some ideas of what you can do if you want to do a little food prepping, save money, and stock the freezer with the extras. I hope this gives you some inspiration!  I had a chicken in the freezer that I wanted to use and decided to see if I could get at least 3 meals from it. I did and more. Chicken is so versatile, you can make so many different things with it. Here are the meals I made: Roasted chicken, baked potatoes & gravy Mexican chicken & veggies over rice Chicken soup Not only did we eat 3 meals but I had enough to put 6 individual meals into the freezer for my hubby to take to work. This was a lot of mileage f...