The Promised Menu Plan

Ok, so here is the menu I came up with. I'm just listing the dinners because I'm too lazy to type it all out! For breakfast we generally have cereal or toast, and I plan on making some granola this week. For lunch it is usually leftovers or a sandwich.

Friday: Foccacia bread to share at our friend's house
Saturday: Dinner out! :)
Sunday: Pot Roast (we had a lovely visit with some new friends while sharing this meal)
Monday: Sausage roll (thanks Sarah!!)
Tuesday: Beef Strogonoff with leftovers from pot roast
Wednesday: Chicken curry with rice
Thursday: Jacket potatoes topped with leftovers or tuna

There's the sausage plait that Sarah recommended. It looks great! I made it on Friday and froze it. It is defrosting at the moment. I also had enough left over filling for another plait, butI was out of yeast, so I froze it in a baggie for later use.


In other news, I'm feeling woefully discouraged today and am thankful for the prayers of my mother and the encouraging words of my dear friend Christina. It is amazing how much power the tongue has-- to build up or to destroy. I'm going to continue to prayerfully plug along and trust that the Lord knows all that is happening below the surface. Though I see little progress in my life, He is at work, and He never fails.

Rejoicing in the little things

Those of you who know me know that I am not a seamstress. Yet I had an old body pillow with no pillowcase. I love having a body pillow-- they are so comfortable. When I was pregnant with Iain, a body pillow helped me sleep at night. Anyway, I was pricing pillowcases and I keep seeing them for $10-$15, which seems unreasonably high to me. And the selection wasn't particularly nice. So I dug out my sewing machine and made this pillowcase last week. It cost me a significant amount of aggravation, but it is the right color and made from a soft flannel that it is nice for snuggling. I bought two yards of fabric at Wal-mart for $2.50 a yard and I already had the thread, so it cost me $5 plus my time. So I'm very happy with it.

Maddening Menus

To make the most of resources, I always plan what meals I'm going to have for the week before I go shopping. Every week I spend at least 30 minutes looking through cookbooks, searching online, or staring into space trying to conjure up meals utilizing what I have on hand and what's on sale. Don't ask me how it is possible for a woman who has been cooking dinner every night for almost seven and 1/2 years to be stumped every week when it comes time to plan a menu. But there it is. So I was wondering if anybody wanted to help a bit this week? :) I actually don't have to cook tomorrow night since we're going to a friend's house. So I could possibly do some baking or freezer cooking to get ahead.

At any rate, I'm pretty well stocked at the moment thanks to a buy one get one free meat sale at Albertson's. We don't eat a lot of meat, especially beef or pork since it is expensive, so this is very exciting.

Here's what I've got:
2 packages bratwurst
1 package ground sausage
1 whole chicken
1 beef roast
2 packs of chicken breasts
2 packs of pork chops
Lunchmeat (also a treat!)
potatoes
fresh spinach
rice
pasta
curry paste
bananas
apples
cream of mushroom soup
diced tomates
canned veg
tomato soup
chicken broth
monterray jack cheese
eggs

So what should I make? I left off some staples and I can go to the store to fill in a few items, but we have plenty of food and we need to eat what we have. If you've got an idea or recipe, I'm all ears. I'll share my final menu plan after I figure out what it is.

Pizza Parlor Fun

Earlier this week I had the blessing of going on a little "mommy date" with Iain. We went to Flying Pie Pizzeria with the Idaho Mom's Network for a tour and we got to make our own pizza! Flying Pie is considered to be the best pizza place in Boise, and I must say that I agree. Here we are waiting to get started.


They had all kinds of fun hats for the kids to wear while they constructed their pizzas. Iain choose the crown, but it was so big that it looked like a royal rasta hat! He didn't leave it on for too long.


After washing our hands, we got to spread sauce and sprinkle cheese on our pizza dough.


And of course, there was some quality-control testing to be done.


Next came the meat and the olives. Yum, yum! It was very hard for Iain to be patient and not eat his pizza uncooked. I'm actually not sure if he is adding ingredients or taking them off in this picture!


Next we named our pizzas and gave them to the staff to be cooked in the oven. We called ours "Iain's Sampler". Then they gave us drinks and breadsticks and showed us the massive dough mixer. I couldn't believe the size of it. It makes enough dough for almost 200 pizzas, and they make the dough fresh every morning.


Next we saw our pizzas cooking in the oven. Then we got to eat them!


Iain and I both really enjoyed our morning at Flying Pie. If you are ever in Boise, you have to check them out!

Free Snacks!

I have a ton of things that I'm looking forward to blogging about, but I just have a minute, so I'll share this quickie. I got these for .68 cents today! Woohoo! I really like these fruit leathers for Iain (and me too!) because they're 100% fruit. Sadly, they're also a bit pricey. But I wrote to the company complimenting their product and requesting some coupons and they gave me some coupons for free fruit leathers. So I only had to pay tax on these. Writing to your favorite companies really pays off because you can get coupons for the stuff you love-- and maybe even a few freebies. What a blessing!

First American Halloween

We took Iain to a trunk-or-treat party on Wednesday night, and being the frugal mama that I am, I decided to make Iain's halloween costume. He is a train-- and a very sad one-- if you can't tell from the pictures.

He actually refused to wear this costume on Wednesday, so we transitioned to a backup. Iain the builder!

Here he is wearing a fireman's hat that they gave him that night. Costume # 3! It was at about this point, while admiring the candy haul, that Iain decided dressing up was ok.

So on Friday he wore his costume without too much complaint.



This was our first time taking Iain trick or treating, and it was such a blessing. I wanted to have a child for so long-- it is such a joy to get to do kid stuff with our son. He did very well saying thank you to everyone. We had dinner with our friend Melody and then walked around the block trick or treating. We all had a really nice time.

Mountain road trip

Last weekend we drove up into the mountains which are to the north of us. Iain and I were still recovering from a stomach virus and those windy roads were a little tough for us, but we made it and we had fun too.

The first town we came to was Horseshoe Bend. I couldn't believe the size of this stack of logs. Look how tiny I am in comparison! We had to stop and get a picture.


We drove up highway 55, which follows the lovely rushing Payette River for a long time.


The next stop was at Smith's Ferry, which was basically a few houses and a tiny store and restaurant. They had a cool old fire truck parked outside that Iain got to climb around on.




We spent some time taking in the views, throwing rocks in the river and checking out the yellow pine trees. There seems to be debate about whether they are called Tamaracks or Ponderosas.



Then we headed up the road towards McCall, stopping off in Cascade at a diner for lunch. It was so strange to be in an American country diner after living in England. I had biscuits and gravy and Brian had a burger and tater tot fries. There was not a single vegetable to be seen on the menu. Hmm.

Payette Lake in McCall is truly lovely and McCall is a nice town with a compact downtown/high street that you can walk with ease. It would only be improved if there was more of a local population. I get the sense that most of the businesses up there are serving tourists and seasonal guests.

We stopped at a public park on one end of the lake before walking around town. I enjoyed snapping tons of pics while we were up there.



Checking out the dock.


After walking around town, we drove around the lake and found a nice little spot where we could walk through the woods and get onto the beach. Iain had a blast climbing around and I had fun snapping tons of photos.

Beautiful autumn leaves.


Fun with sticks!


The mystery tree. (Upon further investigation, it seems to be a Tamarack.)



Beautiful driftwood.


Beautiful blessings.