Easy Pressure Cooker Mac and Cheese

This is my grandson's favorite mac and cheese.  It's my idea of fast, easy food.  A win-win!

Although I made this in the Instant Pot, I have tried it in two other electric pressure cookers with good results.

March Snow?

My grandson is spending a week with me, and this is a quick VLOG of what we have been up to....

We included some snow footage and a quick, fun spring art idea that can be adapted to all ages.

Grandmama's Jelly Roll (Recipe included)

This is how to make my Grandmama's Jelly Roll.  I use homemade jelly in mine, but you can alter it with any flavor you like.  (The recipe is posted under the video on YouTube. It is pretty simple....and a great use of pantry staples.)

Chinese Pot Roast -- Crockpot Recipe

This is a family favorite -- even my pickiest loves it.  As always it is a versatile recipe and you can alter the veggies to suit personal preference.  You can use almost any cut of beef because of the slow cooking.  You can also use the same concept with a pork loin.

Feels so good!

It feels so good to have yarn back in my hands.

I'm about 7 rows from finishing the white shawl.

Fire Safety Reminder

Just a gentle reminder -- daylight savings time change is almost here.  Check your smoke detector batteries.

Casserole Recipe

This recipe is such an easy recipe.  It is really versatile.  I've used canned goods, home canned goods, rehydrated dried goods, and/or a variety of leftovers in the past.

Christmas Continues

I know it is now the middle of January, but my side of the family was going to have our Christmas celebration on Old Christmas.  Mother Nature kind of put a few kinks in our plans.  Of course, as things have gotten busier we have had a hard time getting us all together.  We’ll keep trying, but for now we are just exchanging our gifts as we see each other. Mama bought me a beautiful apron with a Christmas design on it and  she also made me a beautiful red rose doily.  I love red and this fits perfectly on the stand in my entryway.  In fact, it couldn’t have fit any better if she had measured and custom designed it.

A Favorite Gift

My grandson made this apron for me for Christmas, and I finally used it this week.

The top hands are the ones he traced himself.  He drew me all kinds of goodies on there — muffins, cookies, and an orange.

I’m almost afraid I’ll mess it up, but I know he was so excited for me to have it to use.

Last Week of 2017 Frugal Happenings

While we weren’t at home for the last week of the year, we did do several things that I consider frugal.

 1.  We turned the heat down, cleared the fridge of anything that needed to be frozen, and left everything ready for an easy return.

 2.  I packed as much of our food as I could — including pre measured seasonings, etc. to save time.  Because we were on vacation we did want to do a few easy meals.  We picked up freezer pizzas for one night’s splurge.  The cost was still less than eating out, and I had a more or less kitchen free night.  On the other days I used the pressure cooker whenever possible to free up as much time as possible.

 3.  My daughter in law and I went out briefly the day after Christmas.  We found sweaters marked down 75% off.  I picked up two for me, two for her, and two for my daughter.  (We usually save some money for after Christmas shopping.). We also found 3 pairs of  pants for my grandson.  I bought both girls a couple of tank tops for layering.  (I’m more of a turtleneck for winter kind of person.) I did buy leggings for myself and a pair of extra thick slipper socks.

 4.  We were unable to transport leftovers home easily.  We made a point to use up what we could the last day.  Then my grandson and I went out to feed the seagulls anything we thought they would eat.

5.  We boarded our pets at the vet’s office.  We opted to leave at an early hour to be able to pick them up before the long New Year’s weekend.  This saved us $132.

 6.  We ordered my text books online, and they were delivered.  I was fortunate that my soon to be brother in law was able to pick them up for me.  The cost is always less online.

 7.  We did all our laundry the night before we left.  Coming home with clean clothes is nice, and ironically it saves on my bills, too.    

Sunrise over the Atlantic

Best Christmas Gift Ever!

One of the downsides to being named Shara is that I never can find anything personalized.

This year my sister and her boyfriend gave me the best gift ever.

A monogrammed dish carrier with a 9”x13” casserole dish.

Then they added the message to the dish.

I love, love, love it.

B

Sometimes You Just Have To

One family tradition that I miss since developing food allergies is having doughnuts on the weekend.

If the crowd was here we would buy a dozen.

If just a few of us were here, we might only buy 2 or 3 doughnuts.

Either way, it was something we did as a family.

For some time now I have sat and watched them eat their doughnuts.  

Not a big deal, but I really wanted one, too.

Today I made these.  

Old fashioned glazed doughnuts

They’re a yeast free, cake type doughnut with just a hint of nutmeg.

Sooooo good!

The recipe is from Nicol Hunn.

It is in the book Gluten Free on a Shoestring Quick and Easy.

She also has it on her site.

I have all of her cookbooks, and can honestly say I’ve never had one of her recipes let me down.

In fact, even those who don’t like/have to eat gluten free seem to like them.

As usual, I did make a few changes to her recipe because for one I am that kind of cook, and for two I am into using what I have on hand.  I did not have plain yogurt, but I did have cottage cheese.  I simply took 3/4 of a cup out and proceeded to mostly mash the lumps out of it.  I also didn’t want mini doughnuts.  I used my regular non stick doughnut pans in a 350F oven.  I started with 12 minutes, but ended up cooking them for 15 total.  The final change I made was to make a simple thin glaze because I really love that Krispy Kreme glazed feel and taste.  

Even my pickiest household member with texture issues really liked these.

Plans Change

Our plan for Sunday had been to stay home for a lazy day.  We thought we might venture out to the library, but that was about it.  Early morning we got a call from our son.  Our daughter in law has been sick and they were looking at a crazy upcoming week — including appointments with two medical specialists.  After some back and forth in conversation, it was agreed we would meet halfway and bring our grandson home with us.  We were, of course, excited to do so.    

We hadn’t been on the road more than 30 minutes when they called.  They were on their way to the ER.  We continued heading that way and told them we would just meet them there.  (They’re almost 6 hours away without Thanksgiving traffic.). We were within two hours — including mega holiday delays and accidents on I-95.  We actually got off and went back out to the coast to go up that way — when they called and said they were home.  We told them to stay put and we would just meet them at their house.  (Please send up prayers and positive thoughts for her this week.)

 Long story short, we opted to spend the night and head out early Monday morning.

 I’m hoping that knowing he is covered will allow her to rest, give her peace of mind that he is covered, and take a little stress off of them this week.    I always enjoy his visits and this visit will give me a chance to do so Christmas spoiling — so we started with putting up the tree and baking sugar cookies.

Purple Lover

This bag and matching wallet are my early birthday present from my husband and daughter.

(My birthday isn’t until November.)

I carry so much stuff in my bag — epi-pens, blood sugar monitoring “stuff”, glasses, wallet, a juice bottle, etc.  that I need a pretty large bag.  This fits the bill.

Chocolate Espresso Cake

We had a great weekend.  Lots of games, reading, toy playing, and the works.

We were able to attend one of our grandson’s soccer games.

It was so fun to watch the 3 and 4 year olds play!

We went to the mall for lunch and rode the carousel.

We didn’t come back home until Monday, but after hours of driving we decided we didn’t really want “real” food.

I baked a chocolate espresso buttermilk cake and made cream cheese frosting.

The recipe is from The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free.

It is delcious!

I made a 9 x 13 pan since my cake mixes are double the size of hers.  

We had plenty for us and still sent some with my husband for the work week.

The End is in Sight

Those three quarts of purple hull peas represent the last of my quart jars.

The concord grape jelly is finished and cooling.

I'm down to about 20 hodge podge smaller jars that I will fill with small batches.

One of the perks of canning -- for me anyway -- is that I have to stay with the canner.

I'm finding lots of time to crochet as a result of that.

These still need the ends worked in, and I am out of starch.

I'll get those things done and these will go in my Christmas gift pile.

The blue/white combination is for my brother.

I think I am going to keep the red, white, and blue for myself to use in July.

How many days until Christmas?

I always start January with the best of intentions.  I promise myself things like "I'll make a gift each month" or some such nonsense. It just never seems to happen.  Tax season starts, other holidays roll around, birthdays come and go, and life just gets busy.   

 I saw Anne's post (found here) on how to make Christmas boxes from old cards, and I immediately asked myself how many days until Christmas.  It wasn't that I hadn't been thinking about it, because I actually had.  When my children were little we had a tradition of holding a week-long Christmas in July celebration.  We made Christmas cookies, watched Christmas movies, and listened to Christmas carols.  I don't have any little ones at home anymore, but that didn't stop me from listening to my favorite carols and crocheting. 

 I now have two people marked off of my list.  A sister-in-law and my sister.  I'm sharing a photo of the gift for my sister-in-law, but since my sister reads my blog, you'll just have to take my word on her gift until Christmas comes around.

This red doily is all starched and blocked.  One of my sister-in-laws loves the color red so this is perfect for her.

This yummy blue is called Peacock.

Truthfully, I wasn't sure about the color on the spool, but the more I crocheted with it, the more I fell in love with it.

Now I just can't decide if I want to part with it or not.

My sister's gift is just waiting to be packaged and I'll mark these two off my list.

First Week of August -- The Frugal and the Not So Frugal

The first week of August was a bit of full one.  Our grandson spent the week with us, we had additional guests more nights than not, and my husband brought home a summer cold to share with us all. So here it is -- The Frugal and the Not So Frugal

 1. Due to an increase in laundry I ran the dryer several times.  While this wasn't frugal, we were able to send everyone home with clean laundry and that was nice.

 2.  I spent about $125 on additional grocery and snack items.  The cost sounds high, but again we had larger than normal amount of mouths.  We also needed some quick food items because of the varying schedules for some of our visitors, who were in town for a wedding and all it entailed.  This comes out of our entertainment budget.

 3.  On the frugal front, we took advantage of back to school sales to pick up a few art supplies.

 4.  I used a Target coupon to get $10 back -- I purchased my grandson's fall shirts, socks, and a baseball cap.  I also bought him 3 school workbooks and a puzzle.

 5.  We used a coupon to get a free "icey" drink from McDonalds. 

6.  We paid out hundreds in co-pays for doctors' visits this week.  Yeah.  Not frugal, but better than with no insurance.  We are hoping that they've figured out what is going on with my husband.  I'll update more as time and information presents itself.

 7.  I checked a book out from the library, but haven't had time to read any.

 8.  I crocheted two doilies using patterns that were given to me.

 9.  I've continued to use up supplies whenever I could.  Household cleaners, etc are going down nicely.  I did, however, pick up a few items for canning soup and to fill in a few gaps in the pantry.  I took $87 from the grocery budget to do this.  This also included some additional items the doctor has recommended for both me and my husband.  

 10.  We ate out two meals.  Fast food ironically.  Our guests from out of state don't have access to some of the restaurants we have here.  They love a particular chicken restaurant so one meal came from there and the other was a Krispy Kreme doughnut run. That is it.

It is hard to decide if financially I considered the week to be a win, but I definitely consider it to be a success.  We had wonderful times, hopefully found a course of treatment for my husband, and I had a whole week of spoiling my grandson.  He and I did a lot of free things -- we played in a wading pool, colored pictures, baked snacks, read books, played with board games, and played hide and seek.  

Kind of Corny

My brother brought us a huge load of fresh sweet corn.  

37 more jars went into the pantry.

Menu planning got easier, because corn will need to be on the menu once a week until next season.

I jokingly told my husband he was going to have to be the "Bubba Gump" of corn.