Tag Archives: homemade pizza

Simple Sunday

Posted in cooking, Flylady, meal planning, Myeloma, simple foods, Uncategorized, Walking by

I went down to Walmart for a grocery pickup. It went smooth and fast. They really have it dialed in and it was loaded quickly and efficiently. Part of the reason I did Walmart is you just can’t beat their prices. I checked out Campbell’s tomato soup at the store as I didn’t have any. It was $1.99. At Walmart it was .98 . So go figure.

I came home and put together a batch of cranberry orange scones. Scones are fairly easy but sometimes they don’t hold together so we’ll see. The recipe is NYT orange cranberry scones.

This week FL is in the living room zone so I plan on doing a few things this morning. I wasn’t feeling totally great so I’ll leave most of it for tomorrow.

Last night I made what I’m calling Tucson mix. Back when we were at U of A, being vegetarians, there weren’t a lot of options to eating out but there was a small health food shop that sold a bowl of brown rice topped with a medley of zucchini, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, and ?? Actually both of us can’t quite remember but I think that was it. They sold a bowl for .99 . So we ate there often. Yesterday I started it in the Staub and simmered most of the day. It turned out delicious. For my son( a meat eater) I sauteed some jalapeno cheddar sausage from costco and we also had some sauteed shrimp if anyone wanted to add that. I’m definitely adding this to the rotation in monthly meal planning. Next time maybe adding a yellow squash. I’m pretty sure it didn’t have eggplant because Barclay doesn’t like eggplant. Anyway it was a good first attempt.

Here’s the pizza from Friday night. Very nice!!

This week’s menu will include breakfast for dinner, Mac and cheese and salad, a new tofu recipe I saw in the NYT for BBQ tofu.

I just finished tidying the living room and dusted. I might do the windows or leave that for tomorrow. I still need to vacuum.

Rain is predicted all week with even the possibility of snow tomorrow. Our walk this morning was cold @ 36 degrees but NO one else showed up so it was nice. Everything was quiet and frosty! I can already tell I’m getting slight tingling( neuropathy) in my foot. Hopefully it will just an annoyance and NOT a problem. Velcade does cause neuropathy so I guess I’ll bring that up at my doctor appt.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgets, California, frugalism, meal planning, Myeloma, simple foods by

I made all our bread and snacks this week. The sourdough seed bread was really good.

The chocolate sheet cake went pretty fast too. I used my new hand mixer and the frosting got nice and fluffy. This morning I’ve got a pan of brownies started and am thinking about making some scones as well.

We were going to order out pizza but then we all decided to just stick with homemade cheese and one with pepperoni. That all will save $40. minimum. Pizza is very expensive these days.

So with me being on Vel/Dex two days( Wed and Thurs) cooking dinner is a challenge so my daughter is doing Wednesday night pastas and my son is doing Thursday whatever. Last night he did a turkey pot pie and a tofu pot pie. Boy, were they ever delicious.

This is the tofu one in one of my small Lodge pans!!! He ate it all!!!! it had tofu, mushrooms, carrots, onions, cream, wine, salt and pepper. Yumm.

So because I was dexed up I paid a bill early:) I guess that counts as a frugal win since now it’s one less to do. Actually almost every bill we have, is paid directly except this one and PGE. PGE because we’re on their balance program so that your bill is averaged over the year. For some reason they don’t do auto pay for that.Go figure.

My VW( Buggie) got an oil change this week so that cost but since I drive it under 2,000 miles a year the last time it was done was late 2019 so it was time.

I still need to plan a small shop for lettuce, and a few things next week. I haven’t decided to just go to the Holiday here or actually do a Walmart pick up. I guess I’ll think about it since I won’t do it till Sunday or even Monday.

B went and bought another stack of boards to turn the corner on the fence. We will do 3 panels down to block off the neighbors hoard of junk. Then that will be done. Sometime when the weather turns sunny again I ‘ll get a gallon of redwood stain and paint it. I like painting overall so I don’t mind doing most of that.

Earlier in the week I redid one of the Heywood chair covers. I use painters canvas and it holds up well.

This is the only keyhole Heywood chair I have. The others are solid back. The key hole ones are more valuable.

Basically, you just cut the piece to fit and then staple down. Pretty easy. This is the piece that I took off. I plan on doing another one today.

It’s raining out and it looks like rain for the next week with temperatures colder. I guess that’s good. The mountains will get much needed snow.

Budget Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, frugalism, home stuff, Myeloma, prepper pantry, social security, Uncategorized by

I’m trying to come up with a good blog title for Fridays. I’m not sure Frugal Friday quite fits.

Overall, we are frugal because we have no income per se except SS. So maybe just Budget Friday would work. I’ll see. But budget-wise, all Octobers bills are in. We do have the 2 annual bills of house insurance and Allstate which is twice a year. With ALL the insurance companies getting out of insuring California property, for the most part, we are now having to do the California Fair Plan which is added to the AAA insurance. We went from our annual bill being slightly over $1,000 to now we are slightly over $2,000. Quite a jump.

Costco was just at $450, so that will go on October’s food budget. About $70 was wine and beer. I did buy a bottle of nice champagne for celebrating birthdays. Actually, it wasn’t expensive at $15.00. Plus there were a few prepper items and 2 bags of Starbucks coffee that was on sale. With all 4 of us drinking coffee we go thru quite a bit. But I don’t see us going back to Costco till the very end of October or even the first week of November which could then include any Christmas food or items. Prepper stuff included tuna, Cholula sauce, TP, another case of water, extra butter, and extra cheese. The only thing I didn’t get and I need is some tamari sauce. I’ll probably just go down here to the store and pay their price. The best place to get low sodium tamari is Trader Joe’s but I don’t think I’ll be getting there any time soon.

So far this morning I have made pizza dough, washed living room windows, cleaned the ceiling fan, and am just about ready to clean the rest of the sunroom.

Our lovely fall weather continues with absolutely beautiful days with temperatures in the mid to high 80’s. Next week does have a few 93degree days but this time of year that doesn’t seem so bad.

Budget-wise, I did my LLS for the UHC premium and my medicare which they cover for 2 months so that will be here in a week or so. I am very grateful to LLS for my grant (myeloma) as it does cover health insurance. If we had to pay OP for us both it’s almost $700 so I’m not sure how the budget would do. Probably we would be in the red. But there are gifts sometimes even with having cancer.

B did order the boards for the house ( 5 of them) so that was $120 about. But the siding needs to be fixed. Other stuff, even the fencing by the barn is optional and can be put off if we don’t have extra money.

If you’re looking for a new TV series, The Boys, is quite good. It’s super heroes that are darker more evil and is well done. We just started Season 2 on Netflix.

Well, that’s a wrap for now.

Friday Stuff

Posted in Blood test, camping, cancer, Myeloma, Uncategorized by

Happy Valentine’s Day!

We don’t do much special since I hate crowds and would not even consider a dinner out on VD day. I did buy some nice carnations at Safeway and some roses at Costco so they are on the table looking pretty.

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It’s been a maddening week trying to get a camping reservation. Every single morning ( including today) I have been on the computer at 7am on the dot( watching the second hand) to reserve a spot and absolutely NO LUCK!

There are so many people trying to get reservations for August that it’s almost impossible. Today, I’m trying for 5 different spots and not sure if that will slow down the computer. But if I don’t do the 5 then there’s no chance. I’ll update after 7am.

NOPE>>>>>NADA>>>>>ZILCH

Let’s see what else. Barclay had to go back down to UCD med center to pick up an immunosuppressant drug because he’s had skin itching and slight rash.  That’s the one he’s been off of since December so they don’t want any GVSH happening.  We’re also dealing with medical bills from August that the Cobra was supposed to cover and they don’t have it straight. I’m ready to just chuck it and make payments. We’ve been trying to get this squared away for months and they just aren’t getting it.   They keep saying he had 2 insurances but he didn’t an only had the Cobra. What a PITA>!

I’ve applied to the LLS for my grant for 2020 and that will pay my AARP supplemental insurance.  They do such an amazing job and I’m grateful for the grant. If I ever have to go back on Revlimid they would help with that co-pay as Revlimid is a tier 5 drug and runs about $20,000 a month. With insurance you need to go thru the donut hole and then still it runs about $1500 a month.  I can’t see me going back on Revlimid but who knows.

Speaking of which, my labs came back very disappointing. They almost double!! ( well the Kappa light chains did) so that is a very bad thing.  I see my doctor next week so I’ll see how he sees this change. My ratio went up too but still is overall low at 6.58 mg/L. It’s the ratio that is more important. Still, it freaks me out that myeloma cancer cells are activating and multiplying. WTF….  well, I knew it would happen sooner or later as Multiple Myeloma is incurable but can be held in check.

Today I’m just planning on staying home and doing somethings around the house. I need to mop the kitchen floor and wipe the bathroom.

Tonight I think I’ll make a pizza Margherita although I ‘d need to run to the market for some fresh basil.

Friday stuff

Posted in Uncategorized by

I have nothing planned for today. So a nice day for puttering around and maybe do a few odds and ends that I’d like to work on. I saw this really cute plant ladder idea on Pinterest and thought what a neat idea. so I’m going to corral B into getting some 1×6 pine and make me one.  I realized I don’t really have any open wall space tough. So looked around and saw if I took my Star Trek poster down, that opens up a whole 3 ft space on in the dog space /my office space.  I think I’ll try that, and if it doesn’t work I’ll see where else it could go. I like the idea of corraling a lot of plants in one visual space.

Yesterday was a gym day and then I went to the Koffee Klatch to catch up with the library ladies. It was nice.

I was re-reading some minimalist blogs about minimalizing as if you are staging your house to sell. Well, I started looking around and saw a ton of things I would put away if I was selling.  But realistically I still want this stuff so I could see the dilemma. Visually, I think removing some of those things could help so I may ‘rearrange’ some things.

Tonight is a homemade pizza. Probably mushroom, black olives, cheese and a sprinkling of onion. I was going to make a BBq chicken one too, but I have only one pizza dough to use and I don’t want o make a whole other batch today.

 

Frugal Friday things

Posted in Blood test, bread, Uncategorized by

I made homemade bread yesterday in the Zojirushi bread maker. I wanted to make half wholewheat and half organic white but thought I didn’t have the WW flour. I found it afterwards in the pantry. Still it came out very yummy.

We took the load and more to Goodwill. Not really frugal except it’s stuff gone and clears space both physically and mentally.

I’m making homemade pizza tonight instead of ordering out which I kinda wanted to do.

Not frugal but the FOL decided to pay for the mistake of $99 for the website I bought but wasnt the right foremat. That was nice of them as I was going to just donate the mistake and not have them pay. But since they have a large donation that was a bequest to the FOL they budgeted $ for the website.  Also, they offered a $ gift to my daughter for actually doing all the website work.  It would have cost them hundreds to have someone else design it so it worked out well.

Not much else going on. Next week I get my bloodwork done and I’m a little anxious about it but overall not too worried about. It’s just once a cancer patient always a cancer patient in your mind.

This will be a no spend weekend since the budget is used up till next payday  😦