So last week I only managed two posts the entire week and now I’m posting twice in one day!  Maybe I should change my blog title to  from so not organized to so not consistent.  However, I feel so very accomplished this afternoon that I want to share.  I mentioned yesterday that I was going to follow the Fresh Start Series that Tiffany ran in January over at Don’t Waste the Crumbs.  Yesterday’s challenge didn’t go so well for me.   My youngest did eat leftover pancakes for breakfast and my husband had a leftover pork chop for dinner while the kids and I walked in the door with McDonald’s.  So much for my plan to make something Chinese out of those pork chops and “use the leftovers.”

Today the challenge was to create a grocery budget.  I already have a loose grocery budget that I follow weekly and I liked how her post discussed how it should somewhat match your dinner plate.  I already do aim for a set amount on produce but I don’t know why the thought of setting set amounts for the rest of the categories never occurred to me until I read that.   She also stated something in her post that really struck a chord with me, “Convenience costs more than hard work”  Wow, isn’t that the truth?  I will be practical though and say that sometimes the convenience is totally worth the price to me. 

I was armed with motivation after reading the post and knowing that tonight was going to be another one where our schedule was a bit hectic with my youngest son at swimming lessons until 6p.m., I decided I needed a plan to avoid taking the kids for another drive-thru dinner (not that they would mind).  Since we all had chicken last  night and I am honestly not sure how hummus crusted chicken will go over, I opted to switch our Wednesday and Thursday meals around.  I knew I’d be crunched for time  with STARVING children again tonight so starting at roughly 3p.m. this afternoon, I did the following:

• Mixed up a batch of these Breadsticks with Garlic Butter to try. The dough is rising right now. We were low on regular flour so I  used Whole Wheat Pastry Flour.  Wish me luck on that one!   

The dough is rising (I hope!)

• Browned my meatballs and finished cooking them in the sauce.  It’s a pretty small step but it will save us time tonight.

Meatballs and sauce are ready to go!

• Tore up my Romaine Lettuce so we would have a salad ready to go.  I usually buy the bagged salad but the price has been crazy expensive lately.

It really didn’t take as long as I thought to tear up the lettuce.

Then, I went ahead and prepped a little bit for tomorrow night’s dinner of hummus crusted chicken by cutting up all the vegetables (and realizing I forgot to buy an onion but I was adding asparagus (on sale) to the bottom anyway) and placing them bagged up in the pan so they’ll be ready to go!  

I just need to dump the veggies in the pan tomorrow. Maybe not the celery though…I think I put it in the pan on accident (it was already chopped).

I also realized that I had two open boxes of spaghetti in the pantry with very little spaghetti in either box and whole unopened box of whole grain spaghetti.  I guess I’ll mix them altogether.  The Barilla Plus is my favorite.  The whole grain is a fairly tough sell around here and I wouldn’t have bought it.  My husband bought it trying to be healthy which is great but I think he forgot how much he complained when I did cook it last time.  The Barilla Plus seems to be a nice compromise we all can eat without complaint.

What kind of spaghetti do you use?

I usually don’t do my kitchen prep until closer to dinner time so I’m kind of excited to have it done for today as well as having some of it done for tomorrow.  Now, I’d like to know who is going to volunteer to clean the kitchen?  SIGH. 

Posted by Jean in Uncategorized