A Dinner Party

A few months ago, it dawned on me that our church had never really done anything to thank our elders and deacons all of whom have been serving our church for many years.  I know that people oftentimes give gifts of appreciation to the pastor and his family but we'd never done anything for our other leaders.  After some thought and discussion with my husband, a plan was hatched.  I decided to do something selfish that would be nice for them but also make me super happy.  My plan was to prepare them a feast and use it as an excuse to make gourmet food and practice plating.  I contacted the best cook in our church and asked for her help and we were off to the races.  It just so happened, that my college roomie was going to be visiting that weekend and she was excited to help.  She was a great asset and definitely helped things go along super smoothly.  We also invited members from church to help donate towards buying each of the couples a gift card to a nice restaurant as we wanted to give everybody a chance to participate.  My parents graciously allowed us to use their home even though their living room was currently under construction.  Here are a few pictures from the evening.

So I designed this menu.  I'm pretty proud of it as I've never designed anything before in my life.  It was an adventure to say the least.  We folded them into the napkin along with the silverware.  I wish I had gotten a picture of the real thing but I didn't. 

Kelsey, my college friend, was elated when I asked her to arrange the flowers.  She's really good at it and enjoys it so it worked out perfectly.  We had 12 people so we had to set quite a large table. When my mom was helping to get it ready, she remarked, "It looks like Downtown Abbey!"  One of the first remarks we got from the guests was that it reminded them of Downtown Abbey as well.  

These were our appetizers: Caprese with a balsamic reduction and bacon ricotta crostini.  I meant to take a picture of the main course but I forgot until all the plates were already set out.  We served a perfectly cooked balsamic pork tenderloin, spinach mushroom risotto and a roasted carrots. 

The woman on the left is my friend Laurel from church.  She's so sweet, southern and makes a killer pork tenderloin.  Seriously.  It was everybody's favorite and they oohed and aahed and said it was better than any restaurants.  

The dessert isn't the prettiest thing ever to look at.  We did strawberry parfaits, a homemade truffle, and a square of baklava.  

The serving quartet.  

I had a blast putting it on and I think that everybody enjoyed themselves.  Our reviews were very good.  Perhaps it is time to consider opening a restaurant.  

My Garden - a Midsummer Update

My garden turned out really pretty this year.  It is nothing spectacular but I enjoy looking at.  It is so peaceful and relaxing.  It is also the largest garden that we've ever grown which isn't saying much.

The main reason it looks so pretty is because I decided to plant butternut squash.  Only one or maybe two plants came up but it is covering 10 feet in every direction.  I hope we can get a lot of squash for this fall.  Our cucumbers (on the trellis) are also doing quite well.  We just picked our first one last weekend and we have one more ready to pick today and probably a couple of more for tomorrow.  We are also growing lima beans.  One piddly watermelon and sad little zucchini plant that I bought on clearance since our squash didn't come up.  The sunflower came up on its own leftover from last year.  We also grew carrots, lettuce and spinach this spring and I hope to replant them this fall. 

These are our crazy tomatoes.  Unfortunately, we have yet to get a ripe one off of these two giant bushes.  We have been getting some small ping ball sized ones off the plants in our front flower gardens.  We also have been harvesting herbs and a little bit of rhubarb this spring.  

We all love eating fresh veggies and watching them grow from little "babies" to big vegetables.  

Our Life in Bad Quality Pictures

Maybe one day I'll decide to be a real blogger and get a good quality camera along with some good quality camera skills.  Or maybe I'll someday be motivated to actually attempt to edit my photographs.  For now though, you're stuck with these.  They may not be beautiful but they do show whats been going on in our life lately.

The kids and I were blessed to get to take a trip with my family to go visit my Grandma.  I haven't seen her for 2 years.  Every time I see her, I just want to soak it all in cause I never know when it will be my last visit.  

We got back from our trip about an hour before dinner.  Since the cupboards were bare, we headed out to get a bite to eat.  Will's favorite part was this giant piece of ice.  He enjoyed licking it and sliding it around with his fingers.  Hopefully, the table was at least kinda clean. 

Ultimate crunchy mama moment - kiddo snacking on a carrot freshly picked from the garden.  I purposely try not to buy crackers and such because if we have them, I can barely convince my children to eat their lunch.  Kira will tell me, "I don't want lunch, I want a snack!"

So it was our anniversary and my sweet husband sent me this giant bouquet.  If only  he'd sent me a maid service to clean up the mess in the background.  ; )  We enjoyed a nice dinner at our town's second fanciest restaurant.  

We don't use bath towels here.  I just throw my kids in the dryer and they come out all nice and toasty.  Just joking, just joking.  Will is really into the dryer right now.  

The other day I realized that I haven't done any crafty projects with Kira for awhile.  We decided that firework artwork would be very appropriate.  While Kira enjoyed the artwork, she is actually terrified of real fireworks.  I don't think they would be so bad if it happened during the day but it is just too emotionally overwhelming right at bed time. 

Aww, my little handyman.  Isn't it nice that we have such helpful children?  

I'm not ready for this child to learn how to open doors.  No, no, no, NO!  He is already dangerous enough without being able to go outside whenever he wants.  

Office Decor

One of the perks of Aaron's new job is his own office.  He actually has the second largest office in the building.  When he arrived, it was completely empty.  No artwork, office furniture besides a desk, computer and chair.  He's a typical guy and not much into decorating but the white nothingness was starting to bother even him.  Since at his office he will never be required to have a real live client there in the building, he is allowed to decorate in whatever manner tickles his fancy.  One fellow employee has pictures of his family and another employee has superhero posters and Star Wars figurines.  Aaron isn't super into any one thing so we took a trip to the store to find out what he liked.  One thing we noticed that he was drawn towards was modes of transportation such as pictures/artwork involving ships, planes, bicycles, and maps.  All of the artwork was $25-100 each so I decided try my hand at some DIY pieces of decor.  Here is what I came up.  I think I spent a total of $10.  Since completing these different pieces, I've had an even better idea of how to decorate.  Right now I'm thinking of producing my new ideas in time for Christmas.  Aaron reads my blog so I don't want to post any spoilers.  

Without further ado, here is what we came up with: 

We found this picture with the mat already attached on clearance for less than $2.  

Instead of buying a brand new frame, I purchased this beauty with the creepy doll picture for $4.50 at Goodwill.

I then painted the frame with some paint we had leftover from our bathroom and stuck the new picture inside.  

I'm not sure how much I love the anchor but for now it works.  We also added a family picture and a romantic picture of just Aaron and myself.  Hopefully, those will remind him to come home at the end of the day.  

Help!

I have a problem.  El Majoro Problemo!  I really want to start sewing my quilt together but I can't decide quite how I want my squares.  Here are my two basic options:
A) Random placement of the squares

B) Colored squares matched up inside of the white squares

I'm can't decide which I like best and it takes a lot of time to get it all out and play with it so which makes it even harder to compare.  I'm hoping that by taking these pictures, I'll be able to get a better idea of which I like the most.  Please let me know what you think.  I'm dying to get this baby together but I know that I'll have to live with the choices I make for the rest of my life!  

A Few Book Recommendations

Every so often I see a plea on facebook for some book recommendations.  In fact, I've been known to do it myself when in desperate need.  I wanted to compile a quick list of book suggestions.  These are all books that I've read in the recent past and I also tried to focus on ones that you may not have heard of.  For instance, I could recommend Unbroken, The Hiding Place, anything by C.S. Lewis but you hopefully have already read and love all of those.  The following aren't my favorite books ever but I did enjoy each one of them.

True story that reads like a thriller/mystery: 
The Spy Wore Red is the true story of a model turned spy during WWII.  She gets assigned to Spain.  The book focuses on her becoming a spy and then focusing on finding out traitor in their midst.  Who can it be?  Try not to read it after dinner as may end up staying way too late into the night.

Non Fiction:
Nothing to Envy is all about the the history of North Korea up until the time it was written (I think it was published around 2012).  What makes this book fascinating is that the author tells the history of North Korea through the stories of several refugees who have escaped from North Korea and into South Korea.  It is part fascinating and part horrifying.  The interesting thing about this book is that I started it right after finishing 1984 and the parallels were amazing.  Orwell was onto something as he described communism.
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is the story of 4 female spies during the Civil War (or War of Northern Aggression, or War Between the States, or whatever else you want to call it).  The crazy thing about this book is that I didn't really like or particularly identify with any of the four spies and yet I loved it.  It was absolutely fascinating and you learn so much war history as well as social history.  Oh, and there are pictures.

Foodie Read: 
I've been a fan of Michael Pollan for several years, so I was not surprised to find that I loved Cooked. 
If you have already read his other books, go ahead and skip the introduction.  It is really long and he basically just summarizes his points from his other books.  He focuses on the elements: Water, fire, earth and air.  He uses each element to talk about a certain type of food and its history.  For instance, the fire section is devoted to real deal BBQ.  And no, BBQ is not synonymous with the grill.  You know a food author is doing something right when he makes you crave BBQ.  Good thing we live in the self-proclaimed BBQ capitol of the world.

Fun Historical Fiction:
For an easy read with some serious themes, check out The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.  In addition to an interesting read, you'll learn about Chinese and Japanese Americans culture during WWII.  It focuses on the bittersweet aspects of life when it comes to family and love.  It tells the story of a Chinese American boy who falls in love with a Japanese girl right as WWII starts.  I appreciated this book because it wasn't just straight up chick lit.  In fact, the main character is male.  While it did focus on a romance, it is also part mystery and part historical fiction.

Guilty Pleasure (or maybe horror):
My sister recommended that I read a YA book called Code Name Verity.   This is quite a violent book and it isn't very happy.  It is the story of two best friends, one a pilot and the other a secret agent, during WWII.  The book starts out with the secret agent captured and being forced to write her story for her captors.  This is another one that you won't be able to put down especially as you get into it.

The next few books on my list are The Train to the Crystal City, Recapture the Wonder, Everything I Never Told You, and Miss Buncle's Book.  We'll see which ones I actually pick up and whether or not I'll finish them.  What are you reading this summer?  What should I add to my reading list?  I'd love to hear if you actually read any of my suggestions and what you think of them!

How to Eat Better For Less

A couple of people have recently asked me about my food budget so I thought I'd share some of my top tips/personal guidelines for shopping. 

I love food.  If you haven’t figured that out yet, you probably haven’t talked to me in person or read more than one of blog posts.  If we were rich, I would live on nuts, expensive types of seafood such as shrimp and lobster, rich cheeses, locally raised cattle and poultry, berries in and out of season, and we would take exotic foodcations around the world. Ha, a girl can dream.  We are a single-income family and that single-income isn’t particularly amazing so we live on a budget.  Here are some tips on how we keep our food budget very low.

Money is such a relative thing these days.  One man’s poor is another man’s rich.  Here are a couple of food related examples. 

There are two basic extremes: 1. the lady I heard on the radio who said she was spending $250 a week for a family of five and thought her budget was fairly low (maybe she had three teenage sons who live to eat.  I acknowledge that this very really possibility). 2.  The stories you hear of the family of 5 who only spends $250 a month on food. 

Where do we fall on that chart?  Well, without going into any details, I will say that we are somewhere in between.  I think that our food budget is very modest but, at the same time, we don’t starve or constantly pinch pennies on every little thing.  As I mentioned in the previous post, if you include the 2 ½ y/o, we eat for less than $4/day.  If you only count Aaron and myself, we probably eat for just a little more than that.  I once read a blog post about someone who was on a tight budget and spent just about the same amount as our family for a family our size.  She wrote up some of her favorite recipes which included several hot dog recipes and recommended buying chips at certain times to save money.  Way to depress this foodie.  I like hot dogs and chips once in a while but for the same amount of money she could be eating much yummier and diverse food.   

So I’m going to share with you some of my food buying guidelines. I'm not going to call them rules because I sometimes "break" them.  But first a few qualifications:

1. Let me start by saying that they are only guidelines.  I once made hotdogs wrapped in crescent rolls served with a side of tater tots for dinner.  I loved every second of rebelliousness and I still have yet to repent.  I break every single one of these guidelines from time to time with no shame. 
2. We try not to be judgmental of others’ food choices.  I used to catch myself judging the person in front of me at the grocery store based upon the food in their cart.  Then I got pregnant with Kira.  Driven by my morning sickness, I quickly loaded my cart with ginger ale, ramen noodles, mac ‘n’ cheese, crackers, and cereal.  Talk about a log in my own eye.
3. We love to eat food with other people no matter what it is.  I am very blessed to say that we are remarkably unpicky eaters.  I firmly believe that food is meant to be shared and I would love to share it with you even if all I have to offer is hot dogs and potato chips.  Seriously.  I personally used to be terrified to make food for certain people because they had, what seemed to me, rigid eating guidelines.  Can’t eat gluten, wouldn’t eat meat, only ate organic, etc.  Fortunately, I’m getting over that phobia and I never want to appear that way to other people unless I find out that one of us has a severe food allergy. 

Here are several cheats/qualifications:

• We have a separate budget for eating out.
• We have a separate budget for helping others out which I sometimes pull from when we have company over for dinner. 
• We grow a garden and do not include the expense in our food budget.  Friends and family sometimes give us some of the overflow from their gardens.  This really only saves us any money for maybe 2 months in the summer. 

Ok, so now on the guidelines.  I have quite a few so I’ll break this up into a couple of posts.

Guideline #1: Plan out your menus in advance.

Easy peasy.  It takes a little work but saves a lot of money and time.  That you can know that lettuce you used on your wonderful panini today won’t be wasted but can be used up tomorrow in a salad.  And you won’t be making as many trips to the store so you can save on time and gas.  It also saves on frustration.

Guideline #2:  Shop at more than one grocery store. 

I realize that this one might depend on how many small children you have.  I currently shop at two different grocery stores and buy milk at a third.  I personally like to begin my shopping trip at Aldi as they generally have the best prices.  I like to get some of my produce, most of my meat and my cheese from Kroger.  I try to avoid Wal-Mart like the plague.  Some people will tell you that shopping at Wal-Mart all the time is the cheapest way to go.  That is actually wrong.  If you compare the prices and the sale prices, you’ll find that some things may be cheaper at Wal-Mart but quite a few of them are cheaper elsewhere.  All you need to do is start comparing prices and quality.  Spend some time soaking up the sale ads. 

Guideline #3:  Figure out the best time to shop at your store. 

One day, I realized that the there was an unbelievable amount of meat and produce marked for quick sale at my grocery store.  I realized that the employees of those departments starting marking it down at a certain time every day and if you come about 30 minutes after they start, you can find some great deals.  The other day I scored some nice quality ground chicken for $1.50/lb and some bananas still in great shape for $.38/lb.  I stuck the chicken in the freezer for the world’s best chicken burgers and whatever bananas don’t get eaten the next few days will also go in the freezer to someday be made into banana ice cream or smoothies.  One time I asked the employee marking down the bananas what was wrong with them.  He responded that his store was required to mark down a certain amount of bananas a day and that they always tried to get rid of the overripe and bruised ones but that sometimes they had to mark down the ones that were perfectly ok. 

Guideline #4:  Stock up during sales and pay attention to coupons. 

This one is easy.  If my favorite brand of chicken thighs goes on sale for $.99, you can bet that there will be 4-5 packages in my freezer the next day.  This doesn’t work so hot for dairy products or fresh fruit and vegetables but it works great for meat and pantry items.  I am not an extreme couponer.  Most coupons are for items that I would never spend money on in the first place such as certain brands of cereal or snacks for kids.  However, I do try to spend about 5 minutes a week checking some online coupons.  I occasionally can get free toothpaste or a few cents off of feta cheese.  It takes so little time that I consider it worth the effort.  Also my Kroger routinely gives out coupons for items I actually buy such as a free package of Kroger brand frozen veggies.

Guideline #5:  Go Meatless or at least use Less Meat

I consider myself to be very blessed as I’m married to a man who actually eats vegetables.  He even is willing to eat vegetarian meals semi-regularly.  He will ask for meat if we have too many vegetarian meals in a row but generally it is not a problem.  I typically try to average 1-2 vegetarian meals a week.  In the summer this means that we eat a lot of garden veggies.  In the winter we focus on hearty soups with freshly baked bread. 

If your husband is a die-hard fan of meat, your best bet is to try and go for a Less Meat approach.  In other words, increase the veg factor and decrease the meat.  Instead of serving each person a whole chicken breast (though chicken Piccata is to die for), I generally will make a stir fry or curry.  That way I can use 1 lb or less of meat and increase the vegetables.  Or if I’m making lasagna, instead of using a whole 1 lb of meat, I will use 1/3 lb and add in some spinach and roasted veggies.  I used this trick on my meat-lovin’ family and they didn’t complain.  Think about how you can make the vegetables the star of the plate and the meat more of a side dish.

Guideline #6: DIY

If you make it yourself, it will not only save you money but will almost always taste better.  For instance, I can make a loaf of homemade whole wheat bread for probably around $1 and 7 cups or so of homemade Greek yogurt for $1.  Don’t even get me started on pie crusts, biscuits, granola, jam, or pizza.  Yes, it is work but the results are more than worth it. Other hot DIY tips are to buy a chicken with the bone on (it will be cheaper) and then use the leftover bones to make some good quality chicken broth.  Or buy a large piece of meat when it is on sale such as a pork loin.  Cook the whole thing and then freeze the leftovers in small portions to be used for different meals. 

Guideline #7: Don’t buy processed foods and focus your shopping on the edges of the store

I do not regularly buy cold cereals, already-made dishes from the frozen food department, lunch meat, chips, cookies, or crackers.  Instead, I focus my shopping on the edges of the store.  I can get almost everything I need in the produce, meat and dairy departments.  Not only will this save you time and money but it should also keep you healthier.  Instead of giving my children crackers for snack time, we try to have things like fruit, fresh veggies, cheese or something homemade like a slice of bread with peanut butter on it. 

Guideline #7: Stock up on food when it is on sale

Whenever I see meat go on a good sale, I buy several weeks worth and stick in my freezer.  The same applies to pantry staples.  Whenever my favorite brand of peanut butter went on sale for about $0.40 cheaper than normal, you can bet that my cabinet was quickly filled up with 5 containers.  I try to buy as much as we can eat in the relative near future combined with how much I think our limited cabinet space can hold. 

Ok, so what does this actually look like on our table?  Here is a sample of our meal plan for the week.  I don’t always do a great job of planning out the side dishes in advance so you might notice a few “gaps” in the plan. 

Breakfasts:  We eat a lot of oatmeal (baked, stovetop, with bananas mushed up in it, and even refrigerator style).  We also have things like pancakes, scrambled eggs, a Dutch baby or German pancake, and yogurt.

Lunch: We primarily have leftovers for lunch.  Kira does eat a healthy amount of peanut butter and jelly utilizing homemade whole wheat bread, natural PB and homemade strawberry jam.  If we have no leftovers, I will oftentimes make up quesadillas and we do average one box of Mac ‘n’ Cheese per month (gasp!).

Dinner:

Monday: Eggels (a bagel as a sandwich made with scrambled eggs, cheese, cream cheese, ham and spinach), hash browns on the stovetop and cantaloupe and grapes.

Tuesday: A roasted whole chicken using an (I managed to get an organic chicken for the same price as a regular one by combining Kroger coupons and a sale), oven roasted potatoes, lima beans (Kira and Aaron love them for some reason), and pineapple.

Wednesday: Malaysian Mango Chicken Curry over rice (using the leftover chicken), and the leftover pineapple

Thursday: Spaghetti al Tonno with salad (lettuce from our garden!) and freshly baked bread

Friday: BBQ Pork and Mango pizza (I’ll be utilizing some BBQ pork that I made a few weeks ago and froze), roasted broccoli

Saturday: Roasted Veggie and Black Bean bowls topped with guacamole with chips and salsa on the side.  This is the best EVAH!

Sunday: Beef and Bean Chimichangas (I plan to make them up the night before and then pop them in the oven after we get home from church), guacamole, cilantro lime rice, pineapple

I tried to pick dishes that would utilize mango and avocado this week as those two items are on sale.  I also plan on topping just about every dish with some fresh cilantro as my cilantro field is quickly going to seed. Kira loves to go over to the cilantro and stuff a few leaves in her mouth.

And that, my friends, is how we eat.  I’m sure that I left out a ton and probably inserted an extra heaping of typos.  Any thoughts?  Hot tips?  Questions?  

Someone may or may not have tried to eat dirt today