24 Hours of Pantry Cooking

It's been 24 hours of pantry cooking and I just wanted to share how it has shaped out so far. Yesterday for lunch the boys and I just had a corn dog and Becca had a cheese sandwich (her choice). We snacked on yogurt and fruit. For dinner we had macaroni and cheese, baked beans, corn, and mandarin oranges. Later in the evening everyone had air popped popcorn (which we bought the seeds at Lehman's in Ohio!). Everyone was full and happy.

This morning the kids all had Cheerios and juice. I just had a cup of tea and yogurt since with this cold my appetite is not what it usually is. Becca just helped me stir up a pumpkin roll and it is in the oven baking and later Jacob will help me mix up the frosting. This is one of my hubby's favorite desserts and we happened to have all the ingredients on hand so this will go with dinner tonight. I'm still not sure what dinner will be yet, but I will keep everyone posted. I think lunch will just be sandwiches, chips with dip and celery slices, and milk. So far so good!

How are you creative in the kitchen? What are you making tonight for dinner? Please share!

Pantry Cooking

I once mentioned to someone that our funds were running low that particular week and so I would be doing pantry cooking for several days. "What's that?" they asked. Well, it basically boils down to searching your cupboards to see what you have and making meals out of those ingredients. Otherwise known as making do with what you have or trying to scrape by. It happens to all of us every once in awhile...the grocery money is scarce for the week, someone is sick and doesn't feel like going to the grocery store, or you have a lot of odds and ends in the cupboard and fridge that need to be used up.

That is where I am at this week. Last Saturday I actually spent $93 at the grocery store and have no idea what I ended up with because our cupboards are fairly bare. I was tired and needed to just grab a few things after our week long vacation and ended up just spending too much because I hadn't planned ahead. I could run to the store today and stock up on real food this time around but after spending $93 (which is above our weekly budget) I do not want to go shopping until this Saturday. Plus, I am coming down with a cold and just don't want to go anywhere. So that leaves me with three days worth of meals that I need to plan by looking through the pantry and fridge and seeing what I can come up with. Breakfast will be easy as we have plenty of cereal, oatmeal, and cocoa wheats. Lunches can still be fairly easy as we have peanut butter, some lunch meat, macaroni and cheese, and a few cans of spaghetti o's. It will be dinner that I will need to become creative with. My hubby arrives home hungry and likes a big dinner most days. There are the lazy nights where we just eat a frozen pizza or even just grab a bowl of cereal but most nights I enjoy cooking for the family and making a good meal. Now I need to find some good meals out of our limited supply and I am looking at this as an adventure. There IS food in this house, I just need to come up with some creative ideas to make a good meal out of this food. Frozen chicken breasts and potatoes will surely become one of those meals. We have plenty of frozen and canned vegetables and fruit so that will round out the meals. I have yeast and flour on hand so can make my aunt's famous rolls (Hi Auntie Jane!) that my whole family adores. So the next few days will be finding me being creative in the kitchen and using up some food that is just sitting in the cupboards. It teaches you not to run to the store for every little thing and while I may need to pick up a loaf of bread or gallon of milk at the convenience store, I will be steering clear of the grocery store this week.

Going to the Zoo

I loved going to the zoo as a child. We didn't live close to one so I was only able to go a couple times while growing up. I still love zoos. So when I knew we would be near Cleveland I asked Ben if we could go to the zoo there. I'm glad that some of the in-laws had the same idea and planned a day that we could all go there together. We got there a little late so only had three hours to look around so did miss a lot of the exhibits but the kids were thrilled by what they saw.

This is Jacob, and if you look closely you can see a black shape next to him which is a monkey that was just sitting there. He loved seeing it up so close and I just wish this photo would have turned out better.

I thought Joe would be terrified at seeing this big guy up close but he just watched him move about the enclosure.

This snow leopard was enjoying his pumpkin and then noticed myself and another lady pulling out a camera. He actually smiled for the camera!

This shark was probably one of Jacob's favorite exhibits. He stood there for at least five minutes just watching it swim around with another shark.

And this monkey? There was another monkey in the enclosure that kept bothering her, I am assuming it was her baby. She tried getting a drink and it came over and bothered her. She tried clinging to a branch and it followed her. She tried coming up to the window to look at us and it was right beside her. Finally she just flopped down in exhaustion and gave up trying to get a moment alone. She reminds me of someone...

Welcome to Lehman's

I'm not sure how many of you have heard of Lehman's before but it is an awesome store in Kidron, Ohio that is somewhat out of the 1800's. Lots of old time country things for sale and just such a neat store to walk through. I've seen the catalog before and loved looking through all the products so I was thrilled when Ben's step-dad and his wife asked if we'd like to drive up there with them!

I bought my camera and was all prepared to take several photos of the inside but became so engrossed in looking around that I forgot until the very end, when we were in the room which had all the electric and wood stoves for sale. Unfortunately, as you can see, that photo did not turn out too well. But I at least have proof from the above and below photos that I was there!

It is easy to overspend at a store like this so we tried to only buy what we really wanted. We ended up with a coffee mug (which I have been using every morning for my tea), two magnets, several post cards, a soy candle, soap homemade by the Amish, some old fashioned candy, and three bars of Zote soap...which I will be showcasing in a recipe later this week here!

If you ever get a chance to swing by this store I highly recommend it, or else stroll through their website to see what they have. I told Ben that if we lived closer it would be a store that I would frequent often.

Another original store that we stopped at was Planktown Country Market in Shiloh, Ohio. My mother-in-law shops there often and when she mentioned it was a Mennonite store I was intrigued and had to visit. It is a wonderful small grocery store that has a little bit of everything, many things being natural. I picked up some spices, homemade apple butter and strawberry rhubarb jam, sweet pickled garlic (don't knock it until you've tried it!), black strap molasses, and a few other goodies. It is my dream store...I wish we had something like that around here, I would shop there weekly. The meat and cheese looked delicious and the produce was sold in huge bags for a steal. It would be an awesome place to get wholewheat flour, raw sugar, raw honey, and more. Those who live around that store are awfully lucky!

Do you happen to have a favorite "original" store in your area? I'd love to hear about it!

There's No Place Like Home

We arrived home on Friday and I have been trying to catch up on sleep and household duties ever since. Surprisingly, the ten hour trip to Ohio went amazingly well and all the kids behaved and hardly fussed once. This may be because we left at 4am and they slept half of the way but I am still in shock about how well they did going there. On the way back, not so much. We once again left early in the morning and they slept for several hours but the last four hours of the trip Rebecca got car sick (over and over again) and Joe got extremely fussy. Even Ben and I were terribly tired of the long drive by then and just itching to get back home. We only stopped once, to get breakfast, and drove the rest of the way through.

It's true, there is no place like home. While the vacation went well and we were able to visit several family members and friends and see many local attractions (more about all those later this week) it is just plain difficult to be away from home for a whole week. The kids started to get whiner and whiner as the week went on and I started to loose track of what day and date it was. It still went much better than I expected, considering that Joe has never been out of the house for an overnight stay and the older two had only done that once when we stayed overnight when visiting a zoo. This was the first time the kids, or I, have ever been away from home for a week. It was fun but it is also good to be home once again. I never thought I would say that there is just so much vacation that one can take!

I'll be posting pictures and more about our vacation later in the week. For now I need to catch up on laundry, get some food on the table, and get back to all my regularly scheduled household duties!

Check Back Next Weekend

New postings will be up starting next weekend (the 14th). For now my family and I are on our first vacation in seven years!

Scrubbing Day Is My Favorite Day!

I doubt many of you can name the show that the line above is from. It's a running joke in our family because when I was little my cousin and I watched Pippi Longstocking and she was sliding across the room with her scrub brushes on her feet scrubbing the floors, singing that song. My cousin and I didn't have any scrub brushes, so we stuck a couple sticks of butter on our feet and slid around the kitchen like that. You should have seen (and heard!) how angry her mother was when she walked through the door!

I always think of that incident and that song when I am scrubbing my own kitchen floor. And scrubbing day is not my favorite day, one of the least favorites in fact. I love my clean floor after all the scrubbing but it is amazing how messes tend to gravitate towards a newly washed floor. It seems that on floor mopping day is when the kids decide to walk into the house with muddy feet, or spill sticky juice on the floor. It never ceases to amaze me how the floor can be sparkling clean one moment and look terrible within an hour. But for one hour it really is clean enough to eat off of.

I have been cleaning like a crazy woman the past few days and still have quite a bit left to do. We are leaving for vacation soon and I want this house to be inviting and cozy when we return so that we can just relax for a few days. It is next to impossible to accomplish such a task when I have three small children making a mess behind me. For example, I worked in the kids room yesterday for over half an hour while the kids played in the playroom. When I was finished with the kids bedroom I noticed what a mess the kids made in the playroom. This happens everytime I work on one room...they are busy messing up another room! It's exhausting and downright maddening at times.

And today I had such high hopes in getting the floors scrubbed, some more packing done, and the dining room and office room worked on. But I had forgotten about Jacob's speech therapy so we will need to run there first. And now the cat is getting a Urinary Tract Infection (which she gets several times a year) and I can't leave her while we are on vacation like that so I need to run to the vet's office 20 miles away to pick up a prescription for her. Believe when I say it is not fun trying to get her to take that medicine. She knows what it is and knows that she doesn't want it and does everything in her power to escape while I am giving it to her and try and puke it up when I am finished. Wrapping her in a towel and holding her down only helps a little. Amazing how a 12 lb. cat can become so strong at a moment like that.

This has been my week thus far! It is SO exciting!!