Tag Archives: cooking

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, California, meal planning, swimming, Walking by

Another rainy Sunday. We need all the rain/snow we can get but it does get old after a while. We were able to squeeze in a walk before it start really coming down. After that, I headed into the Auburn gym just to get some weights done. It was busy but I did my round and then left.

Tomorrow I have my monthly labs so I’ll see how much of an increase there is. It’s hard for me to tell if anything is different. The only thing is being slightly more tired. Well, I’ll know by Thursday or Friday.

Tonight we’re having one of the nut loaves I made with leftover brown rice. I have some small potatoes to use up so I’ll either bake them or mash them. Not sure which. Probably whatever is easier. I haven’t put together a menu for the week so I’ll look at what I have in the freezer and pantry. I will go to Winco whenever I swim again ( it’s just across the street from the pool). I thought Tuesday but now the weather is still saying winter storm warning. So I’ll just have to be flexible.{ sigh……}.

Nothing much on the calendar for this week. I have a thrift store load to drop off but can’t do that if it’s raining. Hopefully, we’ll get a few sunny days to do some outside things. 🙂

The Flylady zones are the Living room and the entry ways. It’s split because of the March starting on Wednesday.

another snow picture

That’s all the bamboo leaning over.

Here are a few of my new obsessions with Arhoj pottery

Simple Sunday and we got RAIN!!!!

Posted in California, cooking, covid-19, Flylady, husband, ikea, simple foods, Walking by

We woke up to rain and more is forecast for today, tomorrow, and Tuesday. The Mosquito Fire is still going but probably this is the boost the firefighters need. Yay. We walked with umbrellas but it was only a drizzle by then.

I started some minestrone for dinner in the crockpot using the cranberry beans from Ranch Gordo. Plus lots of veggies, onions, garlic, tomato sauce, and water. I think I might make some cheese toast on the side. This week’s menu will probably include some chicken, tofu, rice, and maybe a pasta dish. I reordered from amazon the freezer containers ( which were definitely worth it) and so I want to do some lasagnas and cheese enchiladas. I’ve tried freezing the mac and cheese and it just doesn’t freeze well. ( my version). I think you need to use Velveeta or maybe evaporated milk. Homemade mac and cheese is really easy. There’s a blogger on Youtube that thinks Wincos mac and cheese is real ‘home’ cooking. I don’t think she’s ever made homemade, probably too much work.

My arm is still sore from the Omicron shot but no ‘real’ reaction. I kind of felt off but that’s about it.

Tomorrow, I plan on going to the gym although if it’s raining too hard I won’t. Roseville is usually milder than here so that’s positive.

This week is the bedroom zone and closet. I will move my canning jars out to the garden shed as I’m done for the season except for applesauce. I’m planning to over to Apple Hill near Placerville to get apples, probably 20lbs. I’d like to get some heirloom apples but I’m not sure that’s what they have. There is a farm over in Petaluma that has heirloom apples but that’s 2-3 hours over there. Then I would like to put up the winter curtains but then I thought maybe I’ll do a between season one in a light linen. I’ll check if Ikea has any.

I have my appt with Dr. Laptalo on Thursday which happens to be B’s birthday. Not sure what he wants foodwise but usually the birthday person chooses their favorite meal.

Well, that’s a wrap.

Frugal Friday

Posted in books, budgets, California, cash envelopes, cooking, Uncategorized by

It’s been a fairly frugal week. Yesterday before the gym I went into Winco mostly to get some Ball Quart jars as I read somewhere Winco’s prices were the lowest. The quart jars were $13.73 so a good price. I also picked up some KA flour that was half the price of what Safeway’s was. All in all, it was slightly over $100. I used cash. Using the cash envelopes this month has really helped me be more conscious of what I’m spending. I still need to go into Costco for some basics like olive oil, sugar, coffee, and a bottle of champagne to celebrate our anniversary later this month.

I have a large load of tomatoes from our garden ripening so I can process them this weekend. I think I’ll do some salsa and sauce if there’s enough. I bought some jalapenos at Winco and will do some more refrigerator jalapenos and maybe some cowboy candy( sugary jalapenos).

I still have some more beets to can too as I bought another bunch at the farm stand last week. Maybe I’ll do that this morning as I’m not going anywhere today.

We’ve had home-cooked meals all week( tofu burgers, BBQ chicken,) and last night I did pasta and used some of the dehydrated cherry tomatoes in olive oil. It was quite good but I cooked the dehydrated tomatoes too much in the butter/ olive oil sauce and they were slightly overcooked but still delicious. I just did another batch of dehydrated cherry tomatoes and I’ll put them in olive oil as well. I think I’m going to buy a different dehydrator too. The one I have is round and plastic and doesn’t hold a lot and the one I’m looking at is square with metal shelves. I think that will work better.

I just finished reading Todd Borg’s new book,” Tahoe Moon”. If you love Tahoe like I do, you will love this latest thriller.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, Flylady, home stuff, pets, swimming, Uncategorized, Walking by

HAPPY JUNETEENTH TOO!

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY TO ALL DAD’S OUT THERE, of kids, and furry kids too.

After the fiasco with the Ooni, yesterday we lit the pellets again and did get the temperature to 990 degrees. So that was working and probably what we did wrong was not wait long enough for the temperature and I think I need to scale the toppings way back. I did go and order Ooni pellets just to have the right specific ones they have.

This morning we had a nice walk with only one other person who has been showing up all week. He’s nice and seems to be enjoying walking. I’m planning on making a Father’s Day brunch of baked eggs with spinach in the individual lodge pans, bacon, both real and veggie, biscuits ,and homemade jam. I’m not sure what I’m planning for dinner but I might do Praeger burgers with corn, and I have some potatoes to use.

Our weather turns very hot by Wednesday, so today is probably a good day to BBQ and sit outside. When it’s 95 out it’s just too hot.

The pool was really nice yesterday because there were not a lot of swimmers. Almost everyone had their own lane which is rare. I enjoyed it immensely. After that, I went to the newish Trader Joe’s for a few things mainly wine, and bagels. I also got milk and juice and microgreens which I love on sandwiches. I was out of there in 15 minutes. We are planning Costco this week, but my son loves his bagels for breakfast.

This week is mellow, no appts or anything, just normal day to day stuff and a trip to Costco. I’m sure Costco will be pricey as so many prices have gone up. Even their bagels which used to be 5.99 are now 7.99. and that was 6 weeks ago. There’s not much you can do except try and hold to a budget and not freak out.

Flylady zone is the bedroom, if you follow the zones. She had a good description of decluttering the bedroom on her website which is really awful aesthetically. But the person who runs her website does a good job describing how to start under the bed, then to the right of the bed then left. And she always says, just do 15 minutes. I think Flylady works if you modify it to fit your circumstances.

Here’s a few pictures from the week, a funny video of Ciri the ‘mama kat’.

That’s a vulture sunning itself.

The Gus(ter)!!!!

She’s playing with a TOY mouse!!!

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, Flylady, Uncategorized, Walking by

After a cloudy Saturday, today is bright and sunny. The rest of the week looks fabulous with temperatures in the 70s. I think I see BBQ this week.BTW, the series on Netflix, High on the Hog, how Black American cuisine changed America, and how we eat is truly phenomenal. So much history. If you have the chance watch it.

We had a nice walk this morning with no one around. We didn’t try to get there too early being Sunday I like to take my time.

Today is sheet day for us. We only have one set of sheets for our bed so we wash and put it back on. These linen sheets are about 4 years old and still wonderful. I’d definitely recommend linen sheets. I think these were only about $130 but lots of high-end sheets are way higher. IKEA has a nice set that we have out in Rubi.

I’m feeding my sourdough and think I’m going to do a nut one next. Walnuts, pepitas, and maybe sunflower if I get some unsalted ones. I’m averaging 2-3 loaves a week. One day to make the dough and then refrigerate overnight, then bake and enjoy for a few days. Then when that one is almost done I start the dough for the next one. Of course, this is now. Once summer hits I won’t be baking as it’s too hot to use the oven generally.

Tonight I plan on doing a stir fry with some leftover veggies. I need to get some tofu at the store though. This week is the bedroom zone and I finished that already.

Barclay has a busy appt week but I don’t so I’ll see what I get up to. I know doing some garden stuff and tidying up the garden shed. But I think I’ll plan a trip to the pet bookstore and maybe the library. Well, that’s a wrap up for today.

I thought you’d enjoy a picture of me after I got out of the hospital. This was dated March 26, so i’d been out of the hospital about a week. Heidi was with us for 2-3 weeks helping with everything. You can see my wig in my hand. My sweet boy was 10 and my daughter was 19 even though she looks younger.

Wednesday things

Posted in bread, budgeting, budgets, cooking, decluttering, prepper pantry, Uncategorized, Walking by

A beautiful walk this morning under the Snow moon. Quite bright and no one showed up whilst we were there. Sunrise is definitely getting earlier now. Venus is very visible too.

I didn’t swim yesterday as the Santa Fe’s window is still not fixed. It should get sorted this afternoon though and I plan on swimming tomorrow. When we went to Costco on Monday, I went to the service counter to get a new card and the person asked where I had my purse stolen. So I said right down the road at the Mike Shellito pool and she said wow, I was the SECOND person in the last two weeks that had their car broken into there. WOW, is all I could say. Nothing new with the claims but it’s early yet.

Yesterday I made sourdough cinnamon/cran bread.

It was good. I think next time I’d use brown sugar and a little more. My favorite is still the jalapeno cheddar.

My pantry challenge is moving along and I figured out breaking down the Costco shop into categories( non -food, food) and then I separated all the food for just this week such as strawberries,half and half) and then all the longer term items like coffee, blocks of cheese, I calculated the cost per week and how many weeks would it take to use and then added those totals. So that was kind of a revelation. So if I broke down just this week’s food it came to $43. Then the breakdown of food for the month(like the coffee) was $20 a week. That’s things like tofu, coffee, cheese, ramen. Then B went to TJ’s and spent $25 on food.( Well,some how two TJ’s chocolate bars ended up in his cart, but that’s ok. So, that’s @$88 give or take a few dollars. I usually round up so, $90 with $10 left over. Our meals have been delicious with tamales one night, Tucson Stew another night, pasta with homemade alfredo sauce tonight.

I still think this $100 a week for 4 people would be very hard if you didn’t have some sort of pantry or freezer back up. I’m not planning on doing any major restocking for the prepper pantry. I think I’ll just keep getting some things that I like to keep extras of and call it good. For some people the idea of a year’s worth of food is comforting. For me, it seems slightly fear driven ( I totally did this too) but maybe the lesson out of it all was FOR WHAT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES ARE, keep some pantry in case of emergency and decide how much that is. For us, I think a reasonable balance is maybe a months worth of stuff. Now remember, I have always ( since 1975) bought in bulk my beans, rice, flour,etc. So that’s nothing new to me. But all the extras was somewhat recent with the pandemic. ( Think extra soup cans, condiments, etc). Well, life is a journey and we can only hope to learn from where we’ve been to where we are going.

Barclay had a good visit with his transplant doctor and the good news is he will go off Jakafi. That’s an anti-rejection drug that runs @ $7,000 a month(OOPS, Barclay said it’s$17,000 a month). Fortunately, he has the grant actually from the drug company and UCD charity.

This month is my renewal for LLS and there is no funding for myeloma so I’m trying to not panic too much. I just keep checking daily as the funding can come in and then be gone quite quickly. Hopefully by the end of February which is my renewal month.

Today I’m planning to drop off the last of my Fiesta ware that I know I’m not going to use at the Hospice Thrift. Then a few other errands like an Amazon return.

2022

Posted in California, camping, covid-19, Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, Retirement, swimming, travel, Uncategorized, Walking by

I’ve said before, I never do resolutions anymore but I do set some goals as benchmarks to move toward. The top of the list is to keep doing things that are healthy for me/us. That would include walking almost every day, swimming 2x -3x a week, eating good food( which we do anyway), keeping positive( which I think we do anyway, but always a good reminder. I’m pretty disciplined with menus, budgets, groceries, Fly lady routines, and other chores.

Other goals would be for projects. The entryway windows where B has his desk are not doing well. They were wonderful old windows from a library in SF someone gave us. But now the wood is in bad shape so probably the first project will be taking them out and replacing them with a vinyl-type window. the footings under that part of the room should be done better too. The next 2 windows are in the sunroom. These shouldn’t be as complicated as the other ones as the wall is straight and not at an angle and it should be fairly straightforward. Other outside things are a fence along the nasty neighbor’s border. We hoped to do a privacy fence but I think that will be too expensive this year so we decided to put up 5-foot fencing to make the boundary more designated and we can even plant some things along it to create a barrier. Fencing and poles shouldn’t be more than $150 maybe and it’s a start. Right now it is the original (since 1950) 3-foot hog fence that has 4inch gaps. So this will be a good start. I’m pretty sure we are going to budget for the one tree to be taken down. I’m hoping the bid is @ 2500.

We’ve got 4 RV trips planned and I hope we can get reservations for at least 2 more maybe 3. I’d like to find one more new place to go. Last year was great with discovering Refugio State Beach and then the Wine Resort RV Park in Paso Robles. We definitely enjoyed full hookups.

My sister’s health is very precarious right now and she will go into hospice care soon. With Omicron, I won’t fly but we could drive back if she makes it into spring. We just don’t know and the details are somewhat sketchy. It’s been hard to deal with as she’s only 4 years older than me. What her husband said was, she was having difficulty breathing( she is on 24hour oxygen due to the Interstitial lung disease . Other than that , like why? I don’t have the details. It sucks really.

This week I have my 6 – month eye check for the macular pucker and I have Dr. Laptalo as well. I’ll swim at least once and probably call that good.

Last night I made a loaded baked potato soup and it was very good. Tonight I’m roasting a chicken and I’ll do some frozen nut loaf for B. Not sure what else, a salad and ? Then later in the week, I plan on making Beef bourguignon. I saw a recipe for mushroom bourguignon and I might do that for B.

Most of the week is supposed to be nice but there is rain tomorrow and Tuesday. I don’t think we’re supposed to get snow though.

Simple Sunday on a beautiful October day

Posted in cooking, Flylady, freezer cooking, Walking by

A lovely walk started the day. We ended up doing 4 rounds since(he who shall not be named) left at 6:45. He must be getting there right before us because he walks about 45 minutes. It’s ok…it’s dark and he is wearing now a headlamp. I wonder if someone said something to him about walking in the dark and coming up on people, which originally was our gripe with him. Anyway, we can’t see him and he’s on his side of the path( our other gripe is him walking in the middle of the path with his dog to his left, which puts him straight at us.) But he is moving over so a big improvement.

This is Gus, one of the kitties. He’s the biggest of all the kitties and very sweet.

The other night I made a delicious frittata and crispy potatoes. This was taken before it was cooked.

I added some of the pickled jalapenos on top and it was yummy.

This morning I whipped up a dish of spanakopita,one of our favorites, and made one freezer container too. I used a recipe from America’s test kitchen so we’ll see. The difference was beating 2 eggs with the feta and adding a bit of sour cream.

Yesterday, I also made borscht in the Instapot and we’ll have some of that too and then I put 2 containers in the freezer.

I’ve been playing ‘crafty’ and pulled out my old loops for making pot holders. This was our craft/handwork project in 4 or 5th grade. I think 4th.

These are 2 of the originals. How’s that for making something that actually lasts. They do look a bit worn.

Here’s the one I made the other day!!! I’m not very crafty at all, but occasionally I like to pretend and do something like this. It’s a bit hard on my hands( arthritis stuff) but I persevered.

This week is the bathroom zone and I’ll do some of that in a bit.

Here’s the back of the truck loaded….where does it all come from.??

Monday Musings

Posted in budgeting, budgets, cooking, Flylady, home stuff, Uncategorized by

It’s cloudy today. I guess no BBQ tonight. That’s ok, I have plenty of things I can cook. Because of chickens laying so many eggs, I will make a quiche of some sort. I have the pie crust in the refrigerator chilling. I don’t know why I resist making crusts. In the food processor it took all of 2 minutes to get it to form a ball and then into the fridge.

This morning I have already done the bedroom zone, made the quiche crust, windexed the mirrors and am still needing to vacuum.

I also paid the UCD bill for April by phone. I still need to do Allstate some time this week. That’s not due till April as well but I might as well do it sooner than later. I can remember vividly when we had zero money to pay bills on time and always had to do payments. Even our property taxes we had to arrange. Grocery shopping was limited and there was NO extra money for anything. I am grateful that we can pay what we need to. There’s not a lot left over but to me that’s fine as long as the basics are paid.

My son, who spends money like crazy,:) asked for a special edition Rockstar Pendleton for his birthday so I will do that too. It’s a throw size and quite stunning in reds and blacks with men on horses riding facing forward. I guess it’s from some game he plays.

The kitchen is back together and next we will move on to the entryway and B’s cubby. The one wall was actually an outside wall so it’s the siding on the house. It’s painted in the Navajo White I used originally around the house. We’re planning to use the semi gloss on that and the other siding too. I don’t think we’ll start this week but maybe Saturday. This area was a deck that we built right after we moved and remodeled. So 26 years ago. Then at some point we closed it in as room. At some point we should make the foundation of it up to code as it is only on foundation blocks. i don’t know maybe that would work but I doubt it and it would need concrete. Well, that’s out of my zone of things to think about.

Today is our no walk day and I don’t plan on going anywhere.

Simple Sunday

Posted in books, cooking, covid-19, Flylady, Uncategorized, Walking by

Daylight savings is so weird. I wish they would just pass the law and leave time in the spring alone since both mornings and evenings have plenty of light. I woke up at 4am on clock but it was 5am with the spring ahead. So I got up at 5:30 after I got the coffee going. We went out to walk about 6:10 or so and so really that was 5:10. AH was already there so I guess he’s on the same schedule as us. His dog crapped all over the path right where we walk but he didn’t pick it up. Just left it for someone else to do. Tomorrow is Monday and it’s our no walk day so that will give us another day to adjust.

We’re in for rain mixed with snow tomorrow. We need rain so can’t complain really. I’m planning to go to Costco tomorrow so we’ll see how that shapes up. I can hold off if necessary. Mostly it comes down to needing coffee:)

Flylady zone is the bathroom which I will do a little later.

I’m planning on a stir fry( tofu and veggies) for dinner with some rice. This week I wil BBQ( once the weather is nice again) some steak bits, tofu, and I have some chicken defrosting for a mediterranean dish with artichokes and olives. I also have a cabbage to use for something. We don’t eat the corned beef stuff and cabbage for St Pats day. I may make something similar with tempeh. Tempeh and cabbage and potatoes??? We don’t eat a lot of tempeh but it is good for certain things. I especially like tempeh reubens. You grill the tempeh, mustard,add sauerkraut and cheese. A trick I learned is to slice the tempeh thin and then soak in water for a few minutes as it takes away some of the bitterness that tempeh sometimes has.

After finishing the front room , I was pleased that the only thing I decluttered was 3 mini puzzles from so dollar store my son bought us for Christmas. We did them and now they can go to someone else. Other than that not much was deemed unnecessary.

T

The teak book case empty. This was a Salvation army find many years ago when you could still find deals there. I think I paid $20.

Some of the Easton Press Books.

The couch wall done.

More Easton Press and LP’s and photo albums.

It should be a good week. My daughter gets her 2nd covid shot this week. She’s a bit of a hypochondriac so hopefully it all goes well. The first shot did so I don’t expect any problem plus she will take a Tylenol and allergy pill when she gets home.