Zucchini

Well it is that time of year again.  The time when the zucchini start coming in and I have to figure out what to do with all of it.  I give lots away, but I am telling you that zucchini might be the answer to world hunger.  We do enjoy it in a stir fry and battered and fried, but our favorite way is in zucchini bread.  So when it all starts coming in I start shredding it and putting it in the freezer for bread.

We planted yellow zucchini this year too.  I mixed it with the green because we use it the same way.  I put it into two cup portions and freeze it in freezer bags.  I use a food processor to grate it.  It makes life so much easier.  I can't imagine grating all of that by hand.

This batch gave me thirteen two cup bags for the freezer.  I will use it mostly for bread but I may try putting it into some minestrone soup or spaghetti sauce.  It is not good for much else once it is frozen because it is too watery.  Here is what our zucchini bread looks like:

Yummy!  Both of these loaves will be eaten in a day.  By the way these are my favorite baking pans.

These are USA pans.  They have a thin coating of silicone on them so nothing sticks and you don't have to spray them.  You do have to hand wash them but they are awesome.  

Back After Forever

I am back after forever. I have been really busy and needed a break but I miss posting. Last week was our church's youth camp. We take the kids out in the community and they do service projects. It is so great to see teens serving others!  At night we had a band and praise and worship.

This shows the teens enjoying praise and worship. I just stayed with the girls at night. I love helping kids get closer to god. 

Getting lots done

We had a great Thanksgiving.  We went to my mom's house and ate Turkey.  I did go Black Friday shopping and got most of my shopping done.  I only have a few gift cards left to get and then I am done.

I also did my big monthly grocery shopping on Wednesday.  I went to Aldi my favorite store and then to Sam's my next favorite store.  I rounded out the trip with Wal-Mart for a few odds and ends.  I spend $285 on this trip.  I will go back mid-month for some milk and fresh stuff, but most other things are bought up.

I thought that I would share about how I have time to cook a full meal every night after working all day and do it mostly from scratch.  I used to be a big coupon shopper and got lots of stuff for cheap or free.  Don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to using coupons, especially for toiletries.  I started to realize that we were eating junk and that my grocery bill was not really all that low, so I started buying more whole foods and ingredients and making most of our foods. After I went shopping I went ahead and seasoned and cooked two chickens.  After they were cool I pulled all of the meat off and put the bones in a pot and make chicken broth.

 

 

I ended up with four packages of chicken and three packages of chicken broth.  From this I will make chicken broccoli casserole, chicken tortilla soup, chicken garbage bread (an inside out pizza crust with fillings and cheese), and some chicken noodle soup.

 

I also got some ground beef and mixed it with deer meat.  All of the men in our family deer hunt and we always have lots of ground deer meat but it is not the best for hamburgers and meatballs because it is so lean and won't stick together.  I mixed the two together with breadcrumbs and a few eggs.  I rolled out one pan of meat balls and 7 hamburgers.

 

 

I then stuck them into the freezer until they were hard.   I then put them in zip lock bags.  I then had enough meatball for two batches of spaghetti and enough hamburgers for two dinners.  Some kids prefer hot dogs so I will cook them a hot dog when we have hamburgers.

 

I also made a batch of granola and a half gallon of yogurt.  I will tell next time how I make the yogurt and granola.   Both are super easy and saves me tons.  We also make trail mix and what we call garbage bag snack mix.  The snack mix is just a bunch of crunchy snacks mixed together and then we store it in gallon Ziplocs.  The kids love it.

 

Most of this I will put in the crock pot frozen with the other ingredients and it will be ready in the afternoon.  I like having all of the prep work done.  It saves so much time.

 

Next time I will talk about the yogurt and granola and show how we eat it.  Yummy!



 

 

 

 

 







Slowing down

I am sitting here tonight with my feet up enjoying some down time.  We are almost done with soccer and there will only be a few more football games.  That is if they don't make it far into the playoffs.  I guess we will see.  I like being at a slower pace.  I like having time with the family in the evenings and curling up with a book or a knitting project. 

We made some cake pops that looked like eyeballs.  I got them at Aldi and it was fairly easy to make and they were good.

 

The little guy was so happy that he got all A's this time.  In our house if you get all A's you get to go out to dinner with a parent of your choice.  This is a big deal because we rarely take them out to dinner. 

 

 



Doesn't he look excited!

And last I did a monthly grocery shop this weekend.  I went to Sams and Kroger.  I spent $230 but that won't do us for the month.  I will probably spend another $50 a week for milk and fresh stuff.  I don't think that will be bad considering we feed seven plus all of the friends.

 

OH and this is Ashley and her sweetie during the game the other night.  I was working the concession stand and they put their heads in during their break.  Aren't they cute!

 



 

Fall

We finally have fall here in Georgia.  I love love love cooler weather.  I like to wear sweaters and sweatshirts and I like to cuddle up in bed with  my hubby under blankets.  I also like to drink warm drinks and read by the fire or knit.  When cooler weather comes I really enjoy walking outside and enjoying the cool air.

Last night was our 8th football game and it was cold.  I was OK in my coat and gloves but the kids were cold.  We just haven't had too many cold nights yet and I think they were caught off guard.  Oh well, me and the little kids left after the band played at half time.  They did really well and I am proud of Ashley and the rest of the band this year.  They work hard but they also have fun.

Today they are at a band competition and won't be home until midnight.  The will be tired but have fun.  Tyler also shot our first deer of the season.  We need four to feed us during the winter so we are praying for some more.  Yes, we eat deer meat almost all year from the freezer and it is a blessing.  You can't get much more grass feed than that!

Well, we have church in the morning and I am tired.  Time to sign off!

Saving money on snacks

Well we are in full swing with school, band, soccer and work.  With all of that we are in full swing with snacks.  In the summer we mostly eat our lunch late and grab some fruit in the afternoon and then dinner.  During the school year several of the kids have and early lunch and then we might have a late dinner because of sports.  Because of this we have to have some healthy snacks around.  One of our favorites is trail mix.  It can be really expensive if you buy it already packaged and some parts of it may not be something that everyone likes.  We usually make our own.  This is what we like to use:

 

I buy all of the ingredients from Aldi and they are reasonably priced.  We like raisins, peanuts, cashews and M & Ms.  If we are feeling cheaper then we leave out the cashews.  This runs about $8.00 to make and we have enough for all 7 of us to snack on it all week.

 

 

Sometimes we will add Cheerios or dried cranberries or other nuts but this is our standard recipe.  We tend to make this twice a month and we really enjoy this.  



Amost time for school to start.

Well. I go back to school in two days and the kids go back the next week.  I can't say that I am not ready.  We have had a good summer with beach trips, times in the pool, and church camps but now I want to get back to a regular routine.  I am tired of going to bed and leaving teens up.  I don't know why that bothers me.  I just like to know that everyone is tucked in before I go to bed, but with Steven having to get up at 5:30 for work we have to go on to bed and we leave the older ones up.

I did my monthly shopping trip this weekend.  I went to Sams and to Aldi and spent $350.  I will still have to pick up some milk and some fresh stuff so I am saying about another $150 for the month.  I think $500 to feed 7 people is not bad.  I could make it less by cooking more breakfast foods, but in truth during the school year we have to be out the door by 7:10, so I do buy cereal bars, pop tarts, and cereal.  I do cook scrambled eggs a few mornings a week and on the weekend I try to make muffins to eat, but those convenience foods for breakfast do get expensive.  I just decided to give myself a break last year in that area.  I work full time and have to cook and do laundry for 7 people.  The kids help when they can, but they stay busy with band, soccer and school and Steven works so much that I can't really ask him to help much in the house.  So there you go!

Ashley started marching band practice a few weeks ago and seems to love it.  She also broke up with the boyfriend.  Actually he broke up with her but I had the feeling that she has been want to break up with him for some time.  He was wanting to move the relationship to a more physical level and she doesn't want that.  I was proud of her but kid of sad that we won't be seeing him as much because he was a nice guy.

It is after  9:00 and these kids still aren't up.  I am just enjoying the quiet.  I told them when I start back on Wednesday that I am getting them up when I leave so that it is not such a shock next week to get up at 6:30.  Ha ha they should have fun with that!