S.O.S.

No, not Save Our Ship.  Stuff on a Shingle.  It’s what’s for dinner.

Yes, that military stand-by.  Maligned by many, loved by more……hubby included.  Especially the way I made it tonight.

Leftover steak chopped up…..

Homemade mashed potatoes…….

Make a nice brown gravy and add the meat to it, then pour over the potatoes.

You can add a side of green beans, but I just wanted the SOS tonight.  Yum!

Quick, easy, easy on the wallet, filling.  What more could you want?

 

Memorial Day 2012

Today is the day we remember those who have served and are serving in our Armed Forces.

Hubby did his stint in the Navy.

Today is also the day that marks the first day of summer, the first day the grill is fired up, the first camping trip of the season.  It’s also a day to enjoy great food.

For us, that meant the Grill Master was in action.

He was grilling up steaks,

And brats, and hotdogs.

Inside we had baked beans,

potato salad, black olives, sweet pickles, and deviled eggs.

For dessert there was the family tradition…..Blueberry Surprise.

Start with a basic nut crust.  I used pecans.

Next, a layer of sliced bananas

Soften up some cream cheese

Add some whipped cream.  You could use homemade, but I was lazy

A couple splashes of vanilla

A half cup of sugar

Spread it over the bananas

Top with a can of blueberry pie filling.  Of course it would be better with homemade, but I haven’t made it into canning yet.

Pop this into the fridge to chill for a few hours.  If you can stay out of it that long.

How was your Memorial Day?

Sometimes It’s The Little Things That Make Me Happy

Sometimes it’s just the little things in life that can make me happy.

New shirts for hubby.

My white roses blooming.  They smell so good.

Blueberries on my blueberry bush.

Gerbera Daisies.

Pansies

Petunias

Marigolds

Suncatchers

DIL-to-be’s new fish

Sengi and Maya

What things make you happy?

First Ever Batch of Soap

I did it!  At least, I think I did it.  I made soap this morning.  First of course I had to gather all the right equipment.

I got a digital scale….

I got another stick blender just for soap making…..

I found a stainless steel pot…..

Two stainless steel spoons……

A plastic pitcher just for soap making……

Lye….

And a Pringles can for a mold…….

I forgot to take pictures of the measuring process, but here are the measurements for this batch of soap…..

1 lb of Crisco or Lard

6 oz of water

2 oz of lye

I started the Crisco melting on the stove…..

Then I measured out the water and the lye and put them (water first) into the pitcher.  I waited a little bit til the melted fat had cooled down a bit and the lye mixture wasn’t too hot.  Then I poured the lye mixture into the melted fat.  Next, I took my stick blender and started to blend.

It took about 30 minutes total to get it to trace.  I would use the blender for awhile, then I would stir it with one of my spoons, then switch back.  The blender was getting hot! 

Once it got to trace – where I could see where I had been with the blender and drops stayed on top for a second -

I poured it into the empty, cleaned out Pringles can.

Now, I’ll let it set up for a couple days before I peel off the can and slice it up to cure.  It’s already feeling hardened in the can, so I hope it turns out well.  I am so excited!

I am linking up to the Barn Hop, Like A Mustard Seed, Teach Me Tuesdays, Simple Living Wednesdays, Little Natural Cottage, Our Simple Country Life

Friday Musings and “The Shining” Hotel

It has been a really long week, but fortunately we are up to the long weekend.  Yay!  I can’t wait! 

This weekend I intend to make my very first ever batch of homemade soap.  I have all the equipment and ingredients gathered. I plan to get up early and run through the housecleaning so I can get it started early. 

After that I intend to spend some time with a friend, Church and visitation on Sunday, and major BBQ on Monday.  Ah….the summer fun begins.

While we ladies were on our retreat we had some free time so DIL-to-be, one of my friends and I went into town to visit and tour the Stanley Hotel made famous by Steven King’s The Shining. The hotel  and the grounds are gorgeous.

The view of Lake Estes from the hotel.

This is the main lobby seating areas.

Here are pictures of the main stair case going up to the hotel rooms.   We were not allowed to go up as it is for guests only.

The hotel was built by F.O. Stanley who built the Stanley Steamer cars.  Here’s one in the lobby.

We decided to take a tour of the Concert Hall which is supposedly the most “active” paranormally.  DIL-to-be is really into the whole ghost thing.  Me?  I have an opinion that is not generally accepted by mainstream folks so I’ll just keep that to myself.

Anyway, it is a lovely old building.  It was being set up for a wedding.

It was a beautiful hotel to visit and it was great to take a break from the retreat and just chill for a few hours. 

Check back tomorrow.  I hope to have pictures of my soapmaking.  Otherwise, have a great weekend!

 

Women’s Retreat Part 2

The retreat this year was amazing and exhausting…..

One of the best parts of the whole weekend was the obstacle course. 

We did the obstacle course right after my lesson on submission.  Now, most obstacle courses require some sort of physical prowess.  Not our course.  Ours required different skills.  First, one partner was blindfolded.  Then the other partner had to lead the blindfolded one through the obstacle course using only voice commands.

 

Then, at the end the partners would switch and go back through the obstacle course backwards.  The object of the course was to show the ladies that neither leading nor following (submission) are easy.  They both require a great deal of trust and patience to accomplish.

After a bit, our Drill Sargeant decided to throw a curve into the course and imitate Satan’s kill-steal-and destroy tactics.  The rest of the ladies soon caught on and delivered “prayer covering” to take Satan out.

We had a blast.

We played several games over the course of the weekend.  One of them was the Mummy Game.  See if you can guess who won.

We did our traditional communion around the campfire and made s’mores and sang praise songs.

 

Can’t wait for next year.

I’m linking to Titus 2sdays

Women’s Retreat Part 1

I’m back from the retreat and I think I’m recovered.  Going on retreat is always a load of fun, but it’s also a lot of hard work when you’re “in charge”.  I’ll post more tomorrow , but for now here are some pictures of the beauty we got to enjoy this weekend.

I hope you had a great weekend.  I’ll be back with you tomorrow.

 

 

Paring Down the Food Budget

It’s taken awhile, but I’m finally starting to see a lowering of my grocery bill.  I’ve been buying more ingredients and fewer products, plus we’ve added more bean meals.  I try to plan a nice variety of meals so the crew doesn’t balk about the additional beans.  Here’s my menu for the next two weeks as an example:

African Chicken

Pork chops

Meatloaf

Salisbury steak

Split pea and potato soup

Southwest beans

Pasta fagioli

Hamburger helper lasagna (homemade)

Hamburger helper Cheeseburger Macaroni (homemade)

Hurry curry

Baked chicken

Ham casserole

Stroganoff

BBQ

I won’t be serving beans three nights in a row, that’s just how I listed everything.  Here’s how the grocery list looks:

paper towels (I’m working on it)

ground meat

porkchops

navy beans

green beans

corn

peas

milk

lunch meat

spaghetti noodles

cereal

ice cream

bananas

crackers

french onion soup

beef boullion granules

chicken boullion granules

split peas

egg noodles

eggs

string cheese

brats

canned baked beans

hot dogs

steaks

baking mix

Remember, Memorial Day is coming up before my next shopping trip so I have included extra meat for a bbq.  Hubby is a master on the grill.  There are still a few things I need to work on as far as making myself, but I’m doing so much better.  Hubby is even drinking more lemonade (2 mix packets at 12 cents each plus my one cup of sugar for a gallon) and more tea rather than so many cans of coke.  Much easier on the budget.

I’m still working on it, but the budget is getting smaller.  Yay!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I love walking out to my garden every afternoon when I get home from work.  Everything is coming up now and I just like to drink everything in.  You probably can’t see them very well, but the spinach is up and the carrots and beets.

I even have a few strawberries.

And the tomatoes are flowering.

The flowers are up and the lavender is blooming.

I love watching my garden grow.  What about you?

Prepping for Breakaway

This weekend is our Women’s Retreat or Breakaway.  And I’m in charge.  Oy vey.

I’m in the midst of massive prepping to finish getting ready for it. Not only do I need to finish printing out the announcement sheets, but I need to practice my lessons and make sure all the other printables are done and in the bag ready to go.  Oh, did I mention I’m teaching two lessons this year?  And again….oy vey.

We like to take good care of our ladies on retreat so we have coffee and snack tables available the whole weekend.  I did my fairly extensive shopping trip on Saturday to pick up everything we need for it.

However, that is not the most effective method of transporting everything up to the mountains.  We are taking a truck (as usual) so I packed everything into a plastic tote.  Much nicer.

yes those are marshmallows. Of course we have s’mores!

While I’m almost ready for the retreat itself, I need to make sure things on the homefront are taken care of.  Yes, hubby is quite capable of taking care of himself, but I like to know he’s not subsisting on cold cereal and delivery pizza.  I’ll be cooking up his favorite dish (African Chicken) for him and I will have cold cereal and frozen pizza for him so he can have a “break” as well.

When I get home on Saturday afternoon, I know I will be far too pooped to even think about dinner so I’m making dinner tonight to freeze for Saturday.  I wanted something easy, something I could do in the crockpot tonight, and, bonus, a bean meal sinse we are trying to eat more beans to save on the grocery budget.  This is what I came up with…..Split Pea and Potato Soup.  Easy ingredients…..

A bag of split peas, about 6 potatoes diced, one onion chopped fine with 5 or 6 small cloves of garlic, and bacon.  I popped the bacon into the oven while I worked on tonight’s dinner.  Thank you Alton Brown and Food Network for that little trick.  So much easier than standing over the stove.

Put all the ingredients into the large crockpot crumbling the bacon.  Add a good sprinkle of basil and a good handful of dried thyme crushed up.  No salt yet, don’t want to harden the split peas. Water to cover, give it a good stir and let it simmer away on low overnight.  Tomorrow I will put it into containers for the freezer.  I’ll call hubby Saturday morning to pull the containers out of the freezer and I’ll reheat it when I get home and up from my much-needed  nap.

Oh, and tonight’s dinner?  BBQ chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy.  Hubby had corn too, but I didn’t want any for me.  Yum.

I’ll be doing my regular bi-weekly shopping early this week so I won’t have to cram it in on Sunday after church.  Busy, busy week.