Hearts in Service Blog

Even in the midst of sadness, I have had moments of joy as I prepare for Christmas. My children all look forward to the different traditions we do each year and even though they aren't spectacular, they are our yearly traditions. And it's what makes up home for us. Family is important to me and I'm thankful for my husband and children and I'm always thankful for these times when we can celebrate together. One of the things on my to-do list was making up menus for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I was finally able to sit down and get that done. Because we deal with different food allergies I always have to be selective as to what I choose to do, but I came up with something that works for us. I also tried to keep it simpler this year as I don't want to spend two full days in the kitchen. Christmas Eve - Appetizer Buffet Shrimp Platter Cocktail meatballs Pigs in a blanket Veggie Platter Cheese & Crackers Cookie Platter Eggnog Christmas Morning Homemade cinna...

My plan is to come up with a weekly menu utilizing the items I have in my pantry and freezer so I can use them up before we move. Everyone fends for themselves at breakfast time and many times I'm here by myself for lunch so I'm not going to list the lunch items. There is a tiny bit of turkey left so I'll probably make a turkey sandwich one or two days. I'll just cross of the items from my original post as I use them. Breakfast Food Granola Leftover Sweet Potato Casserole Muffins *Uses some of the oats, cranberries and the rest of the sweet potato casserole from Thanksgiving Monday Lunch   Chicken nuggets and French fries since Nathan is home  Dinner Spinach & Cheese Perogies with bacon & caramelized onions Peas *Uses up Perogies, 1 bag peas, chicken nuggets and French fries from freezer Tuesday Dinner Chili Cornbread Tossed Salad * Uses up ground beef, kidney beans, 1/2 bag corn, 2 cans of diced tomatoes Wednesday Dinner Lef...

I was looking at my pantry the other day and realized that I have so many cans, boxes and bags of things in there. Of course, it means more to pack. So I got thinking about it and decided to challenge myself to use up what I have over the next 5 weeks.  I'm still going to grocery shop for fruits and vegetables and some essentials but my goal is to plan my menus around what I already have in my pantry and the two freezers. One freezer is a chest freezer and the other is over the refrigerator. So this afternoon I took an inventory, threw out some expired and damaged things and this is what I'm left with. This does not include oils, vinegars or spices. Pantry Items : 1 28 oz. can pumpkin 1 14 oz. can coconut milk 1 can of matzo meal 2 jars of olives - 1 of Spanish and 1 Kalamata 1 3/4 of a jar of capers 2   1 cans of black olives 1 jar of mayonnaise 1 bottle of spicy brown mustard 1 bag kidney beans 1 bag chick peas 2 1 packs of taco shells 1 taco kit 1 bo...

It's time for some menu planning again.  I did a great job this week on groceries, considering the cost of everything has gone up and we live in one of the most expensive counties in New York State.  I spent $118 for a family of five (3 adult men), which includes meat, fresh fruits and veggies, and some specialty items. Here is the plan for breakfast & dinner.  During the week it's generally just me or Nathan and we'll eat leftovers: Monday B - waffles, juice D - Linguini with creamy clam sauce, homemade Italian bread, tossed salad, ice cream Tuesday B - Granola D - Loaded pizza macaroni & cheese casserole, homemade focaccia, tossed salad Wednesday B - Homemade cinnamon/raisin bagels, juice D - Roast chicken, roasted root vegetables, homemade biscuits, apple cake Thursday B - Cereal, juice D - Honey baked lentils, rice, tossed salad Friday B - Apple fritters, juice D - Homemade pizza - choice of veggie or pepperoni, tossed salad Saturday...

This is going to be one of these weeks where I need to hold tight to my meal plan.  We are very tight financially and I need to make things streeeeeetttttttttcccccccccccccchhhhhhhhh!  So I'm going to plan all breakfast, snack (for Emily) and dinner every day.  Lunch I don't have to worry about because it's just me most days. Monday B - waffles, juice S - Homemade flat bread, capanata. D - Sloppy chicken, homemade Italian rolls, steamed broccoli, apple pie Tuesday B - granola, juice S - Applesauce cookies D - Sausage & peppers, rice, tossed salad, chocolate cake Wednesday B - crepes with spiced apples, juice S - Homemade green goddess crackers, cheese D - Baked ham, scalloped potatoes, homemade biscuits, corn Thursday B - granola, juice S - Chocolate chip cookies D - Cream of potato soup with ham, homemade bread sticks, chocolate pudding Friday B - Homemade bagels, cream cheese, juice S - Cookies D - Baked Ziti, Homemade Italian bread, tosse...

It's that time of the week again to plan out the menu.  It's been so helpful doing this and other than one day this week, I stuck with the plan.  I felt like I was in such a slump for a few months and it's been nice to have the desire to cook again. Here's the lunch & dinner plan this week: Monday -  L -  Fish chowder, homemade biscuits D - Crockpot enchiladas, corn on the cob, tossed salad, chocolate cake Tuesday -  L - Paninis, chips D - Pepper steak, rice, sauted yellow squash Wednesday -  L - leek & fennel soup D - Southwestern lime grilled chicken, baked potatoes,steamed broccoli, peach pie Thursday -  L -  Western omelets, home fries D - Puerto Rican rice and beans, homemade tortillas, fried plantains, tossed salad, homemade ice cream Friday -  L - Leftovers D - Spaghetti with meat sauce, homemade Italian bread, tossed salad, Saturday - I'm away at a retreat so Dan & the kids are fending for...

Writing out the menu last week was really a very big help.  Other than one night, I stuck with it and as I planned my day it helped to know ahead of time what were going to eat. Here is the plan this week : Monday - Linguine con le Vongole (linguine with clams), homemade crusty French bread, tossed salad, chocolate mousse Tuesday - Grilled basil chicken and tomatoes, biscuits, corn on the cob, Parmesan crusted zucchini, ice cream Wednesday - Pepper-crusted, maple-glazed salmon, rosemary potatoes, deluxe cole slaw, blueberry pie Thursday - Pork chops with red chile pepper sauce, rice, steamed broccoli, ice cream Friday - Homemade pizza (choice of pepperoni or veggie), tossed salad Saturday - Leftovers Sunday - Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, homemade biscuits, steamed mixed veggies I'm looking forward to dinner this week! :-)

We love pizza and have it here on a fairly regular basis.  One of the things I love about homemade pizza is the ability to take just a few ingredients and come up with a different creation each time.  It seems like no two pizza pies are ever the same. With the holidays and different events we've had, I haven't actually made pizza in a few weeks.  So, I was thinking that it was about time but then I realized I was missing some key ingredients.  I had no mozzarella cheese nor any tomato sauce or jarred sauce.  That caused me to pause for a bit, but then I realized I had other things I could use. Last night we ended up with two very different kinds of pizza but both were delicious. One pie had ricotta cheese, roasted garlic, mushrooms and broccoli. The other was a Mexican style pizza with salsa as the base, cheddar cheese, peppers, black olives and summer sausage. Not bad for having none of the normal ingredients.  The best thing about pizza night ...

My children and husband look forward to Christmas every year, mainly because I try to serve food that we normally don't have.  It's hard to come up with new things each year that don't require me to spend my entire day in the kitchen!  This year I wasn't really feeling very inspired, but finally settled upon the following menu plan.  A lot of this is just prep work ahead of time. Here is the menu: Christmas Eve Baked shrimp scampi Lemon saffron rice Homemade garlic breadsticks Parmesan crusted roast asparagus Pear and greens salad I'm skipping dessert as we have a Christmas eve service with all kinds of goodies afterwards. Christmas Breakfast Cinnamon rolls Scrambled eggs Bacon Hash browns Christmas Dinner Lasagna Homemade Italian bread Tossed salad White chocolate peppermint cheesecake Sparkling Cider Other than the shrimp, there is not a lot of expense involved and yet, it will be different enough that everyone will be happy.

Dan got paid on Friday from the agency he works for and today from the church.  After paying the bills, he informed me that we have $160 to last us two weeks for gas, food and medicine.  Yikes!  Considering it costs about $100 to fill up both cars and we need to get a couple medicines, there isn't going to be any extra for food.So, once again we are on a self-imposed food challenge. It's a harder this time because we don't have as much in the pantry and freezer.  However, I'm going to push myself to come up with some meals using just what I have in the house.  It makes it fun to post the menus here so I'm going to do just that. Today's menu was cereal for breakfast, leftovers for lunch and for dinner I made scalloped potatoes, green beans from my garden and pears from a friend's tree last year that I had canned. I'm going to dig through my freezer and cupboards and see what I can come up with!

Today was day #6 of the food challenge.  I'm happy that I made it through the week.  Dan gets paid tomorrow, but I'm going to keep going another day or two until we have time to go grocery shopping.  Dan did an airport run yesterday and got a few dollars so we did pick up milk, half and half, sugar and some lettuce.  Other than those few things, my goal was to make do and we did! Everyone fended for themselves for breakfast & lunch. Dinner was fresh tomato and basil pasta sauce over whole wheat pasta. Homemade Italian Bread and salad. This week was good because the meals were filling and no one felt deprived.  The only thing we were missing was fresh fruit and the veggies were limited because my garden stunk this year! lol  So I'd say it was a success!

Today was a pretty bland day in the food department.  We had granola for breakfast and leftovers for lunch. For dinner, I took some of the leftover pork from last night, cut it into chunks and then made chili with iti.  I actually think it was some of the best chili I ever made. I'm not sure yet what I'll do for tomorrow, but I'll figure it out!

Today is day #4 of my food challenge to use it up, make do and do without until Dan gets paid.  I do see one of the benefits of purchasing meat and other items when they are on sale because we've had pretty good meals because my freezer had stuff in it!  Months ago I had purchased a huge slab of pork loin when it was on sale for $1.99 per lb. and cut it into 5 different pieces.  We used up the last of it tonight. Breakfast - cereal.  I definitely need to step it up here but we are all on such different schedules and I never eat a big breakfast and therefore, dislike making it! However, I'm running out of cereal so I may not have a choice soon. Lunch - leftovers Dinner - was AWESOME! lol Butternut squash soup. Garlic & thyme pork loin Roasted potatoes & carrots. Homemade biscuits. So far, so good.  I'm actually enjoying this!  It certainly helps to post it here because it keeps me going.

Today's food challenge went fairly well.  I have tons of eggs as we get some almost every week from a couple in our church.  So I boiled a dozen of them today for lunch. Breakfast - Homemade granola Lunch - Egg salad on homemade oatmeal bread, carrot sticks and pretzels. Dinner - Italian sausage soup with the rest of the loaf of bread. I had cookie dough in the freezer so I pulled that out this afternoon and made chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I forgot to mention last night's dessert.  I had about 2 cups of black raspberry ice cream in the freezer so I threw some ice cubes, ice cream, milk and a couple of globs of raspberry sauce in the blender and made milk shakes. So far so good!

Today was the second day of my self-imposed food challenge.  Breakfast & lunch were unimpressive.  Cereal for breakfast and leftover pizza for lunch. Dinner was delicious.  I had set aside 3 chicken breasts from the family pack I had used for dinner last night to use today. We had a Middle Eastern dinner. Chicken, peppers & onions flavored with Turkish seasoning and wrapped in homemade naan, tabbouleh, a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes & onions with balsamic vinegar and jarred pears from a friend's tree. Yummy!

I started off my first full day of the food challenge pretty well.  I can already see that I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the kitchen trying to be creative.  The other issue is that everyone is home this week!  Dan finished up his summer program and has a week off (no pay, of course) before he starts the fall program at his agency.  So I have to work hard to come up with three meals a day. Breakfast - Cereal or homemade granola. Lunch - Homemade pizza.  Choice of ricotta with roasted garlic, tomatoes & basil or red bell pepper & mushroom. Dinner - Basil chicken in coconut-curry sauce, rice, homemade biscuits, creamed butternut squash.  Dinner was awesome! I'll keep you posted.

You know the start of the Bible verse, "Man does not live on bread alone...?" Well, in this case, we may have to this week! LOL!!!  One of the problems, or maybe it's a blessing, of living without credit cards is when you come to the end of your money, it's really the end!  Between the church and Dan's extra job we have enough to pay our bills (which are a few), purchase gas & eat.   There isn't extra for vacations, clothing, car repairs, a new vacuum (which broke), etc.   If we do anything out of the ordinary, like the recent trip to the aquarium, it cuts into the food budget. One glitch we ran up against is that both boys have their licenses but that raised our car insurance an extra $250 per month which we do not have.  Until they have jobs, they are unable to contribute to this.  Dan gets paid next Friday and after filling up the cars we have absolutely zero, zilch, nada to live on for the next week.  Anyone else notici...

Someone asked me to post a menu based on what I got with my budgeted money. Unfortunately, this week's breakfasts have been nothing but cereal. It's been hard to muster up the energy to make breakfast as I'm still sick. Generally, I do have a different type of breakfast. Monday B - Cereal, juice L - at school (I do make Emily's lunch as she hates the school lunches) D - Someone brought dinner for us Tuesday B - Cereal, juice L - at school D - Italian sausage soup, French bread Wednesday B - Cereal, juice L - at school D - Homemade pizza (mushrooms and spinach on one; onions and red and green peppers on the other), tossed salad Thursday B - Cereal, juice L - at school D - Pork chops with homemade shake & bake seasoning, oven fried sweet potatoes, steamed mixed vegetables, homemade biscuits Friday B - Homemade onion bagels, cream cheese, juice L - at school D - Pork stir fry with veggies, rice, tossed salad Saturday B - Scrambled eggs, ba...

Prices have been going up so much lately and it's been difficult to keep my grocery budget under control. One store that I did most of my grocery shopping at was Aldi. They are really the cheapest around, but the nearest one is 35 miles away. Since gas prices have also gone through the roof, we have decided to start shopping at the local store that is 2 miles up the road. One way that I've tried to manage the budget is to take out cash and use that. The other day I took $75 cash out and decided to see what I could get for the week with that. Here is what I came home with: 2 - 8 oz. packages of cream cheese 1 gallon 2% milk 1/2 gallon orange juice 10 bags of frozen veggies (all kinds) 2 boxes of cereal 2 boxes of Sazon seasoning 1 bag of pretzels 3 cans of chunk white tuna 1 - 5 lb. package of pork sirloin 2 packages of breakfast sausage 1 - 12 oz. package of all natural bacon 1 package of sliced smoked turkey 1 whole chicken 2 lbs. onion 1 fennel bulb ...

My food budget has been creeping up since I started working and I need to plug up the leaks somehow. I know one thing that has helped is using the crockpot and prepping anything that can be before I leave for work in the morning. I am so tired when I get home and it's difficult to get motivated to cook. Having it either ready or mostly put together is a big help. The holiday didn't help with the food bill since I bought a lot of extras. So, I'm going to try my best to make things stretch through this week and into next. One thing that always helps me is to write out a menu for the week. Here is the plan for this week. Monday B - Cereal, juice L - At school D - Crockpot chicken & herb dumplings, tossed salad, fruit salad Tuesday B - Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, juice L - At school D - Italian sausage & peppers, Homemade Italian bread, steamed broccoli Wednesday B - Homemade Onion bagels, cream cheese, juice L - At school D - Slow cooker sl...