Ready made meals

Last week, I discussed how I pre-make breakfasts and freeze them. I should also say that I have been making double batches of dinner meals and freezing those. You just never know what can happen during the school year. There are times that a game will run late, or conferences start and end late, you have to drive every child you son knows home etc.

For those and many more reasons, I like to have meals in the freezer so I can just heat something up. Tonight, for example, I made a Mexican lasagna. I made 8 portions. Half of it went into the freezer. The way that I freeze lasagna is simple. I let it cool, cut it into square slices, and freeze on wax paper lined cookie sheet. When frozen, I put the individual portions into a plastic bag. This makes them very easy to thaw or reheat. (and it keeps the shape of the lasagna)

You can make so many meals that freeze very nicely. I try to avoid milky meals or potatoes. They don't reheat very well. I will freeze soups, just not creamy soups. Taco meat, meatloaf, burritos and spaghetti are good examples.

Want to know what is really cool?

When your kids, and some of their friends, post Bible versus on their Facebook pages a few times per week.

That's really cool!

Getting ready....

School starts next week. We have school supplies and school clothes. I am not ready, neither are the children. (I'm the weird mom that hates it when the kids go back to school. I just miss them!)

I do know that mornings can be hectic if you are not prepared. For that reason, I have spent the last couple of weeks preparing for school mornings. In the kitchen. I have been making muffins, pancakes and egg sandwiches. I'm trying to have the freezer well stocked, before school starts. I find it so much easier to thaw breakfast versus making the meal every morning.

I have just been making double batches when I have been cooking lately. I have also been freezing berries, mangoes and bananas for smoothies. There's nothing easier than to whip up a fruit smoothie and thaw a muffin and call it breakfast. Even if we get up late, smoothies and muffins are quite portable. (yes, we have been known to have breakfast on the way to school.)

Our smoothies:
Rice or coconut milk
Frozen fruit
Splash of vanilla
Splash of agave nectar
Small scoop of protein powder

Our breakfast sandwiches:
Wheat hamburger buns or English muffins (preferably on clearance)
Sliced rice cheese
Fried egg with broken yolk
Canadian bacon or regular bacon (whichever was on sale, combined with a coupon)

After I assemble the sandwiches, I freeze them on a cookie sheet and then transfer to a container. They thaw pretty quickly, in the microwave, usually about 30 seconds. The cheese is melty and yummy!

What a wonderful day!

I just found 2 spaghetti squash, 4 cherry tomatoes and 2 zucchini growing in the garden! I'm so very happy!! I was losing hope. But, there they are. Baby veggies.

Thats all that I have to say right now. I'm in the middle of pruning a 10 foot hedge down to a 6 foot height. It's exhausting.

Break is over, back to work.

What the storm left behind

The storm left me with mostly a mess to clean up. Over a month later, we have Hollyhocks. They came back. They look like a storm didn't even crush them.



I also found 3 more green beans in the garden. I will not be able to harvest enough produce to can or freeze, but I will proudly steam these 3 green beans, and have them with my lunch. My herbs are doing well once again. I will be freezing basil, oregano and cilantro. The peppermint, lemon balm and spearmint will be dried for tea.

I am going to the other farmers market this week. It may be farther away, but after the disappointment of the last market, I am truly looking forward to this journey! I am going to get lots o' zucchini! I usually have zucchini, spaghetti squash and yellow squash taking over the house at this time. I'm pretty sad that I don't, but I will this Thursday. I plan to get there when it opens and fill my bags. Then it will all be processed and frozen.

I may not have grown the bounty, but I will have it ready all winter long.

My stats

I just discovered that you can track your all time page views,with a new Blogger gadget. Okay, I thought, Ill give it a shot. Was I ever surprised to see my page view stats! I occasionally look at the weekly stats, but could never imagine that my all time views would be over 2,000!

WOW! Thank you to all that have stopped by. It's amazing to think that people would want to read my blog posts.

I am humbled.

Down time

We all need a little bit of down time.

I've been very busy this week. There is the major yard project that has occupied much of my time. There were school registrations. Many appointments. Errands to run. And we can't forget the usual cooking, cleaning and laundry.

It's almost 6:00 PM. I can smell dinner simmering on the stove. I hear the washing machine running. The dog is snoring and, I think, dreaming of chasing a squirrel. Hubby isn't home yet and the kids are at a friends party.

I'm laying on the bed reading blogs and email.

I don't feel the least bit guilty.

It's my down time.

I may even take a quick cat nap....