Furry Critters Who are Not Fans of the Snow
Snowball and Oreo peeking out at us!
We have two furry family members who are not big fans of the snow. They don’t like coming out and getting their feet wet. It is more appealing for them to just stay inside for the most part nibbling on hay, grain, drinking water, and sleeping. They did brave it a couple times and came out for treats sometimes, but not very often. Most of the time they would look at us like we were crazy for being out hiking around in the snow.
They would rather be hanging out inside eating hay! Such a tough life for the goats!
Leaning out the door to watch us. Oreo came out more often than Snowball.
Oreo came out to say “hi” and snag a fresh vegetable. Snowball decided to stay inside.
Recipes: Ham & Rice Stir Fry
Jake made this delicious Ham & Rice Stir Fry for dinner the other day. He made this out of leftovers we already had in the fridge. It was a hit with the family. Thankful for a husband who is great in the kitchen!
Ham & Rice Stir Fry Recipe:
- 2 cups Ham, cubed
- 2 cups Fresh Vegetables (broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and onions)
- 4 cups Steamed Rice
- 1 tablespoon Soy Sauce
- 1 tablespoon Canola Oil
Heat the Canola Oil on medium heat. Add the sliced onions and cook for 2 minutes. Mix in the fresh vegetables. Cook for additional 5 minutes. Add the rice and soy sauce. Gently mix together for additional 5 minutes and serve hot.
How to Keep Fresh Garden Vegetables Separate & Accessible in a Refrigerator Drawer
Refrigerator drawer full of fresh garden vegetables
We love it when our vegetable drawer is crammed full of fresh garden vegetables! The problem is at times it can be difficult finding the vegetable you want in the middle of all the other goodies in the drawer. Now that Spring is here and people are planting gardens, going to farmers markets, and stocking up on some of the great fresh produce in the stores I thought it would be a good time to share how I have found an easy and inexpensive way to keep the garden vegetables separate yet accessible while in the refrigerator drawer.
Solution – recycled bread bags! It seems silly but it really works well! You probably already have them around plus you can usually fit more bags into the drawer. We tried doing containers but every week we had a different amount of vegetables or they were overflowing among other things that just didn’t make them work well. As I was throwing out a bread bag the thought came across my mind that it would make a good “holder” for the garden vegetables.
The bags can be packed as little or as much as needed (and can be adjusted accordingly) plus they keep the vegetables separate so I can easily reach in and grab whatever veggies I needed at the time. It also made it super easy for the kids to pack their own lunches or to grab a quick snack from the vegetable drawer.
Here’s how we did it:
French bread loaf bag, washed & dried so it can be filled with cherry tomatoes from the garden
Once the tomatoes are all in the bag roll the remaining bag down until it is even with the stack of tomatoes
Bag of tomatoes ready to be put into the fridge drawer
Fresh veggies organized and accessible for the next meal
Fresh & Healthy: Our Garden – Beans, Peas, and Tomatoes….Oh My!
Purple Beans, Green Beans, Snow Peas, Red Cherry Tomatoes, and Orange Cherry Tomatoes
The garden is starting to take off and we are getting more of a variety of color as well as veggies. It is so nice having fresh garden produce in the fridge again! I saw more colors popping out this week too. Our family was able to pick purple beans, green beans, orange cherry tomatoes, red cherry tomatoes and snow peas. There’s nothing like eating a vegetable just picked moments before from the garden. It has been great having these for snacks and meals. I am hoping to see a lot more produce ready to be eaten in the next few weeks!a
While we are out of town the people watching the house and animals gets to pick what they need / want from the garden. Hopefully they’ll be able to get a lot of great food for their family too. It is my prayer that our garden will not only be a delicious treat for our family but a blessing to others as well.
What are you eating out of your garden this week?
Fresh & Healthy: Our Garden – Cherry Tomato, Zucchini, Summer Squash and Green Beans!
Our first pick from our garden…..a red cherry tomato!
We are super excited to seeing the fresh vegetables growing in our garden again! So far we haven’t had to water too much because we have been getting so much rain, now we need to get a little sun to help balance things out. Our first produce was ready to be picked the first day of June, one little cherry tomato! Since then we have noticed more veggies starting to pop up. We got our garden planted late this year with all the traveling, but we are hoping that it will be a fruitful year. We split the “first” produce of the year but cutting up the cherry tomato and putting it in a meal for the whole family to enjoy.
Zucchini, 2 for 1 Summer Squash, and a handful of Green Beans
We have started to slowly see the fruits of our labor in the garden this year. It seemed to take longer with us plant much later but we hope to have plenty to share with others. We have picked lettuce a few times for salads but since it is usually at dinner time when I busy prepping for the meal I have been forgetting to take a picture to share.
What are you eating out of your garden this week?
Fresh & Healthy: Lunch Box Meals
Lunch box goodies
About once a week I pack a special treat for the girls. This week in their little container I put two Hershey Bliss Milk Chocolate Meltaways and one of each color of M&M’s. The girls love getting these goodies and enjoy sharing with their friends as well. Here’s what they had today:
- Peanut Butter & Homemade Strawberry Jam
- Fresh Red & Green Peppers
- Fresh Strawberries
- Pita Chips or Quaker Granola Bar
- Yogurt
- Banana Muffin
- Juice Bag or Container
- 2 Hershey Bliss Chocolate Meltaways
- 5 M&M’s
Special treats in their lunch today
Fresh fruit & veggies
Tips on Making Lunch Box Meals Fun & Healthy!
School Lunch – PB&J, Chocolate Milk, Yogurt, Jello, Strawberries, Banana Pepper and Tomatoes
This year we made the decision to pack school lunches for the girls in effort to make sure they are eating a well balanced meal at lunch and to save a little extra in the budget. Since Jake and I have pretty much as taken lunches to work the girls thought it was a great idea. They now take their lunch bags to school every day but Friday, on Friday they eat the school lunch (usually it is a special meal like pizza or hamburgers or something else). Brina and Karlie have enjoyed being able to bring a lunch and most days they pick out the majority of the items they are going to take.
Here’s what I pack:
- Meat or Protein – PB&J, Soup, Sandwich or something easy to eat)
- Diary – Yogurt or Cheese Stick
- Fruit – Fresh Fruit or Applesauce
- Vegetable – Fresh Vegetable
- Snack – Pretzels, Teddy Grahams, Jello, etc…
- Drink – Water, Chocolate Milk, Milk, Juice, Box / Bag
School Lunch – PB&J, Cheese Stick, Jello, Fresh Strawberries, Juice Bag, Fresh Tomates & Banana Pepper
It is important to me that the girls get a well balanced meal at lunch time. One of the fun parts about packing lunches for your spouse and kids is you get to add in what our family calls a “special surprise”! Typically the girls / Jake do not know that the surprise has been added because they were not there when I was putting the finishing touches on the lunches or I put it in later that evening.
Special Surprises for lunch boxes:
- Something Sweet – about 1 or 2 times a week I will put in a homemade cookie, piece of candy or something sweet.
- Love Note – usually on a sticky note and sometimes written on a bag or sandwich container
- Random Shapes – sandwiches cut into shapes (squares, triangles, hearts, etc…)
- Special Drink – occasionally I will get a special drink (like one that fizzes when they add it to their water, chocolate milk, or something Jake enjoys)
- Mystery Smiles – I try to sneak mystery smiles into their lunches by using food, sometimes a random smile on a bag or other ways of sharing a smile (see picture below)
The key is to let your family know that you are thinking about them. Special surprises do not need to take up a huge amount of extra time. I keep a dry erase marker on the fridge and a sticky pad in the kitchen so they are handy for writing a quick note. If I make cookies I just bag some up when putting them away to stick in their lunches. Or if you find a special drink on sale stick that in the lunch box for them to enjoy. The girls express great joy in discovering and sharing their goodies. It doesn’t take me long to do it but it makes them feel loved and appreciated.
A banana pepper and two small tomatoes in a snack bag make the perfect mystery smile for a kids school lunch.
What items do you put in your spouse or kids lunches (food or special surprises)?
Living on a Budget: Groceries $40 for 4
It was a wild week, our family has a lot of fun adventures coming up so I am trying to stop on top of everything. Hopefully I will be able to share a little bit more about our upcoming plans before long. I was not able to get to the grocery store until late on Friday but thankfully was able to pick up almost everything I needed this week even if I did got a little over budget. Here is my weekly update on our Groceries $40 for 4.
Groceries from Save A Lot | Rite Aid, Walmart, Ingles, and Walgreens
Save A Lot | Rite Aid Groceries:
- $7.90 at Save A Lot | Rite Aid for 2 boxes Blue Bonnet sticks of butter, 2 boxes Quaker Chewy Granola Bars, 1 container Butter Spread (3 lb), and 1 bag Carrots (2 lbs). (All the items were on sale or clearance.)
Walmart Groceries:
- $0.00 at Walmart for 1 bag Whole Wheat Sandwich Rolls (on clearance), 1 bag Everything French Bread (on clearance), 1 bag Chocolate Chips, 1 box Popcorn (8 count), 2 liter Mountain Dew (price matched), and 1 box Idaho Potatoes (free product coupon). (Bought items on sale or clearance and paid with a gift card so the total was zero.)
Ingles Groceries:
- $42.84 at Ingles for 1 jar Peter Pan Natural Peanut Butter, 1 can Tuna Fish, 1 Starkist Tuna Fish, 2 boxes Pop Secret Popcorn, 2 loaves Laura Lynn Bread, 4 bags Laura Lynn Shredded Cheese, 2 blocks Laura Lynn Sharp Cheddar Cheese, 2 Laura Lynn sliced Cheese (16 count each), 2 boxes Breakfast Biscuits / Pancakes (on clearance, 10 count each), 6 containers Fresh Blueberries (on clearance), 3 bags Snow Peas (on clearance), 1 container Cherry Chocolate Covered Pretzels (on clearance), 1 container Roasted Soybeans (on clearance), 2 bottles Bare Naked Fruit Drinks (on clearance), 2 Laura Lynn English Muffins (6 count each) and 2 sweet Yellow Onions. Not pictured 3 bags of chips we purchased to take over to a friends house. (Everything I bought this week at Ingles was on sale, marked down, or on clearance. All the produce was marked down to $0.99 cents, I was able to pick up some more cheese on sale, and used some coupons for the items purchased!)
Walgreens Groceries:
- $0.65 at Walgreens for 2 dozen Eggs, 1 S6 Power Bar, 1bag Domino Sugar (4 lbs), and 1 two liter A&W Root Beer (everything was on sale, I used $9.59 in coupons, and I received $1.89 in Register Rewards back to use towards my next purchase.)
This week I spent $51.39 on groceries. Even though I was over on my budgeted amount for the week I was able to stock up on some items at the same time plus I had a little extra to spend since I had come under budget in previous weeks. I was thrilled to stock up on produce (blueberries) and diary items as well as other great fridge & pantry items this week. I hope that next week is better week and we can come under budget!
It is my goal to give you regular updates on this budget section so you can celebrate the good weeks with me and thump me on the bad weeks! As always you are welcomed to join the journey with me. I would love to hear your story and how you are doing too. The purpose of our family doing this it to watch our grocery spending while allowing us to feed our family, enjoy life, share with others, and yet stay on track with our budget.
Living on a Budget is a series of ways our family uses a budget to help keep us accountable with our finances. Life doesn’t always go as planned. We have used some of the ideas I will be sharing for years while others are ones we are just starting to implement as we continue finding ways to be creative and have fun with what we have been given. Having a plan in place allows us the freedom to be smart with what we have been given, get more creative when it is a tight (week, month, year or a season) and when necessary live a much more simplified life. A budget helps us stay on track so we have more opportunities to enjoy the many blessings we have been given as well as share what we have with others. There is so much more to life than having all the stuff. We may not have the newest or greatest items in our house, we drive used cars, and wear hand-me-down clothing…..however, if our family is taken care of and have love for each other and others we have more than all the riches in the world.
Fresh & Healthy: Fall Harvest – Community Supported Agriculture (Week 2)
We are enjoying our Fall Harvest with our Local Farm with Community Supported Agriculture program. The Fall harvest is 10 weeks long through our farm. We were thrilled to get the produce and fresh eggs. In our recent batch of eggs we had several that were huge with double yolks which the girls thought was really neat. Our family is doing a half share for this harvest.
Fall Harvest Week 2 of Fresh Goodies from our CSA!
Fresh goodies from our Local Farm! Items in our Basket this Week:
- 1 bundle White Radishes (with edible greens)
- 1 bundle Pink Radishes (with edible greens)
- 2 Butternut Squash
- 3 Green Peppers
- 1 Red Pepper
- 3 Eggplants
- 3 large Beets
- 1 Half Dozen Fresh Eggs
I am looking forward to eating these goodies this week! Anyone have a great recipes for Radishes or Beets? Thanks everyone for the delicious Recipes! To find out how you can be a part of a local CSA check out this post – Fresh & Healthy: Community Supported Farms
Fresh & Healthy: Deep Freezer Goodies – Summer Squash, Onions, and Tomatoes
Earlier this Summer we started stocking up our freezer with Fresh Produce - Summer Squash, Onions, and Tomatoes! One of the joys of having a garden and finding fresh produce on sale is being able to freeze the in season items so you can utilize them throughout the winter. This summer I have been able to stock up on several great vegetables through growing our own family garden, participating in a local Community Supported Agriculture program and shopping the seasonal clearance items at our local grocery stores. We now have a section of our deep freezer full of fresh veggies to eat through out the Fall, Winter, and Spring.
What works for me is freezing the vegetables in quart (or snack size baggies for the onions) size bags and putting four individual bags into one gallon bag. I pull the gallon bag out of the deep freezer put it up into the refrigerator / freezer upstairs and pull out one bag as I need to use it. When I have used all four bags I pull another gallon bag of the vegetables I need out of the freezer. I have been toying with the idea of getting the fresh seal bags but since I get the bags on sale usually for a great price and they work, I am not yet convinced it is worth the cost for our family. I am already looking forward to enjoying these over the next several months! What vegetables to you always try to freeze a little bit extra of for the winter months?
