WIS, WWA | kombucha observation
Since my digestive system has calmed down, I am still drinking kombucha, just at a slower rate. Please enjoy Chiquita observing the kombucha bubbles.
Her fluffy cheeks are really 10/10.
What I Spent
I spent:
- $37 at Safeway
- $30 on a Hungry Harvest box
So, $67.
(Are Gen Alpha kids still obsessed with the whole 6-7 thing? My kids are all Gen Z, so I have completely avoided the 6-7 craze. Ha.)
What We Ate
Saturday
I made a big bowl of Greek pasta salad, and I cooked some shrimp to go with it. I used the Barilla protein pasta, of course. It honestly tastes like regular pasta to me, and I appreciate that it makes pasta salad a little bit more of a stick-to-your-ribs meal.
Sunday
I worked, and I ate Greek pasta salad with shrimp for my lunch. After work: a trusty bowl of cereal. 😉
Monday
I worked again, had Greek pasta salad with shrimp for lunch again, and had a bowl of raisin bran after work.
Tuesday
I was originally scheduled to work (three in a row), but a coworker needed to swap. So she took my Tuesday shift, and I took her Thursday shift.
I ate the very last of the pasta salad for dinner, since Zoe was with friends.
Wednesday
I saw I had some frozen blueberries that needed to be used, so I made some blueberry pancakes. It's been a minute since I had a pancake night!
Thursday
Shift 3! Overnight oats for breakfast, and for lunch, I had a rather random combo of things.
Here we have cottage cheese with fruit, some popcorn chips, an orange, some cucumbers mixed with a Greek yogurt dressing (just plain Greek yogurt with dill, salt, pepper, and garlic powder...plus two pieces of chocolate. 🙂
After work: plain shredded wheat with a banana, because I am always trying to get plenty of fiber.
Friday
I'm off today (two Fridays in a row!!), and I have absolutely no idea what my plans are for dinner, but I will figure out something easy.
I have started subbing canned great northern beans for pasta in many dishes. Adds fiber and protein while decreasing cooking time and cost.
Saturday: This was the final day of the county fair, which is also always the most tiring. I have a couple of hours in between getting home from the rodeo and leaving for the dance in which to feed everyone. I always make it as easy on myself as I can. In this case, that meant thawing a quart of gyro-spiced ground beef to mix with the rice I had cooked in chicken stock in the morning. I also added some feta cheese before heating that up. Pickles for a very low effort vegetable.
Sunday: Grilled steaks, leftover chicken-y rice, leeks (the ones I entered into the fair --grand champions 🙂 sliced and cooked in butter, chicken juices, and cream; coleslaw, and my daughter's grand champion gingerbread with whipped cream. The gingerbread was one of her fair entries. They only need three squares for judging, so I froze the rest of the 9"x13" inch pan of it for dessert this night. These were grand champion, too. It was a very victorious meal.
Monday: Hamburger steaks with milk gravy and some leeks in the gravy, mashed potatoes, leftover coleslaw
Tuesday: I had both leftover steak and hamburger steak, which I divvied out according to preference. Most people had leftover mashed potatoes, too, although a couple of people had fried bread. And carrot sticks.
Wednesday: Bacon and cheese omelets, fried potatoes, cherries
Thursday: I thawed a whole, fully cooked ham, then I cut steaks off of that and fried them because this is not the weather to turn the oven on to bake a whole ham. I also made mashed potatoes again, and we had corn on the cob from the produce bus in the city (most places have trucks--this is New Mexico, and so the produce comes in an old school bus), watermelon
Tonight: The whole family is driving to town--100 miles--so my eldest can get his unrestricted drivers license and all the kids can get their passports. I was planning on making a Spanish tortilla before we leave so it will be ready when we get home at dinnertime. However, I reserve the right to eat at Sonic or something if our DMV and passport appointments run late.
Oooooh! Getting everyone a passport sounds like fun days ahead!
Sounds like a great victorious meal- congrats on all the fair wins!
For those who are interested (I certainly was), there's a photo in today's post on kristin's going country blog of the grand champion leeks prepared as kristin describes above. And there are photos of her daughter's grand champion gingerbread and the raw leeks in her Tuesday post. Congratulations to the winners!
Thanks, A. Marie. As I noted in that post on Tuesday, our county fair (like our county) is unbelievably small, so my announcement of "GRAND CHAMPION" is mostly a way to amuse myself since, to be honest, there is not too much competition. Still. The leeks did win over some very nice sweet corn! 🙂
Oh, Kristen, I meant to say: My kids still kind of smirk when 6-7 is mentioned, but mostly at this stage it's a way for adults to annoy them with it, because they HATE IT when we do the hand thing. Very entertaining to make them roll their eyes and say "MOM" in that particular voice of exasperation and embarrassment.
For fiber, have you tried Kashi Go Original? 7 grams fiber per ounce, all of it from "real" fiber such as bran (rather than inulin). Also 7 grams of protein.
My usual breakfast is about 4 oz yogurt, about 2 oz cereal, and some soaked chia seeds. Not only do I find it tasty, it's means a good nutritional start to my day, whatever else happens after.
Happy Friday, everyone!
The 6-7 craze ... I was talking with a girl the other day and we were sharing our ages. When I told her I was almost 67 (she guessed 16), she got the biggest grin, clapped her hands, raised them in the air and yelled 6-7! She's five.
We spent $101 ($51 at Aldi, $25 at Eastside Co-op, and $25 at Trader Joe's).
-- Raw cauliflower and dip; graham crackers
-- Wedding reception: pasta salad, potato salad, veggies and dip, bun, rhubarb bar and pecan bar
-- Egg bites, cottage cheese, and warm pumpkin bread topped with vanilla yogurt, toasted almonds and cinnamon
-- Mediterranean orzo salad
-- Banh mi sandwich (homemade bread, spicy tofu planks, cabbage, cukes, mayo, sriracha sauce) - twice, sooo good
-- Zoodles with homemade tomato sauce
Somehow 90% of my meals this week ended up being some kind of pasta dish, apart from Sunday when I had burritos, and Monday when I went to the cinema. On Monday I just had some fruit with yoghurt and pumpkin seeds before I left and then had some toast when I got back. I also ate a fair amount of candy during the film 😉
I don't know what I'll eat tonight, but it won't be pasta lol. I bought a plate, bowl and cup with Snoopy on earlier, which are sure to improve mealtimes!
I haven't had kombucha in a hot minute, but I really loved the Central Market brand. This wee:
M - ham sandwich at home
T - Enchiladas and a veggie I can't remember
W - Garlic Herb chicken thigh with potatoes and carrots in my mini cast iron skillet
T - TJ's Garlicky pasta, mini meatballs. green beans
F - Haven't worked that out yet - maybe tilapia? And I have two bell peppers to use up.
I spent $120 at HEB for two weeks and that included air filters (: And I ate all of my lunches at home, so I am going to take myself out to breakfast this morning. (:
WIS: Approximately $100, mostly at Food Lion.
WWA: For DH, sandwiches with sides of cheese, pickles, cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks, sweet peppers and plums or nectarines. For myself, I made spicy black beans and yellow rice with chicken in the rice cooker, followed by a pot of burger-vegetable soup. Watermelon and tangerines as fruit sides. For desserts, I made cookies and chocolate pudding.
WIS: $17.25 at the Regional Market and $101.50 at Price Chopper. The Price Chopper tab included $12 for a bag of 50 Maine clams (on special and steamed for free), plus $40 for a gift card for Grad School BFF's birthday.
WIA: I had two highlights this week. In addition to my second ratatouille of the season, I made a New England clam chowder for the first time, keeping a promise I'd made last week to Dr. Bestest Neighbor. I followed Clarissa Dickson Wright's Two Fat Ladies recipe (available on the Food Network site), with a few variations. The main one was that I substituted hot lobster stock (my own, made/frozen some time ago and thawed) for her boiling water. Dr. BN approved heartily of the lobster stock addition, but did say that he found the chowder a bit thin, as I did myself. Next time, I'll use more potatoes (and/or corn, as Dr. BN suggests) and use half and half instead of whole milk.
But here's the funny part: The good doctor also said that a thin chowder is more "Rhode Island style." According to the recipe as given in the second TFL cookbook (Two Fat Ladies Ride Again)--which Dr. BN has never seen--Clarissa picked up her first version of it when she was "cooking on a yacht out of Newport, Rhode Island." Does he know his New England chowders or what?? Not too surprising, though: As I've mentioned in the past, his mother used to take him and his two brothers across the state line from MA to RI whenever they wanted to indulge in non-kosher seafood without their neighbors or their synagogue finding out!