Thanksgiving for two, menu for 14 days

 
Thanksgiving dinner for two. 

We had leftovers for two more meals and then decided on meatloaf to finish off the stuffing, Brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce. Turkey went in the broth pot.

We sat down and made the menu for the next 14 days. Twice we will be out for doctor appts etc so those are eat outs.  We then decided on the other 12.

Grilled ham and cheese sandwich (bread or wrap) with soup (something in pantry)

Brat's patty sandwich with soup (something from pantry)

Fried cabbage with fried potatoes and cornbread

Haluski (use leftover cabbage) with smoked sausage and peas

Leftover turkey with apples and sweet potatoes skillet

Pot pie

Hamburger pie (like shepherds pie)

Turkey and Dumplings

Cuban black beans and rice

Philly steak either sub or pizza

Pasta e fagioli

Jambalaya 

Last menu we ate 5 out of 9... I forgot to list Thanksgiving LOL.

We have everything we need for these meals in the pantry/freezers.   

memories of late Husband, table up

 When Garry and I got married, he bought me an old tiger oak (veneer) table that would seat all us.  He would not let me put it up in the rental as we were starting to work on the one step above condemned house we bought. 

Then his daughter and I moved everything into that home even though it was not anywhere near finished, no running water in kitchen , okay no kitchen as half the floor had fell through to the basement. We both understood it would take years, did not need to be paying rent and mortgage and her and I could handle it with the little ones. He flipped but too late as we rented from his uncle who backed us so much he rented the furniture truck and drove it himself.  

He still insisted the table not go up until he got the dining room done. He was down to redoing the floor when he dropped dead at work at the age of 39 of a massive heart attack ... inherited from his father's side as we learned later. 

I put the table up that very night. Told my mother and kids to NEVER wait to enjoy stuff. Every day life is a special occasion. 

When we moved out of the old home I left the table for Daughter 3 who had her 4 boys and her man's 3 girls. She passed it back when she became homeless (spent $2000 on Christmas but did not pay her rent. Not sure she learned the lesson but her boys definitely did when their friends had to take them in). It's been in storage for six years.  

I saw it in the barn and told Hubby I wanted in the house. He was fine with that. 

 The veneer is coming loose and one leg needs reglued but Hubby already said something to H who repairs and builds furniture and he said to mention it again after Christmas and he would work it in his schedule to repair it. Right now H is doing Son 2 cabinet that was Mother's that fell apart. 

I used Howard's restore for golden oak and the applied Howard's bee's wax and let it sit here as this is the warmest room in the house. Was not much "oily" feel next morning. Wiped off and took it to the dining room,

And then had to find a chair I could sit in and not have my chin to the table. I used the computer chair for a couple hours and then Son 2 reminded me the chairs he gave me when I lived on 245 fit the table and they were upstairs in the sewing room. I brought one down. If his lady comes to eat, I will have him go get the other one (he only had 2 chairs) as she is small as me. 

I put the table cloth (folded in half as it was for this table at full 8 ft) on it, Hubby put the oil lamp on cake stand and the tempered glass I have the candle, butter, salt and pepper on (that gets moved if I need to put a hot plate on the table) back on the table. When we sat down to eat he mentioned he didn't realize how crowd the other table was  until then. 

If I hadn't seen the blanket while looking for other stuff I would not had realized we still had the table. I thought it had went back to her. Even texted her to confirm we were keeping it. 

ANYWAYS, it was a nice ending to a whacked out week.

On the gross side.

 E wondered why I peeled out of our driveway and hauled butt down the road.

I cut my thumb on the mandolin while cleaning it. Did not feel it but definitely saw blood. After 15 minutes of not getting it slowed down let alone stopped. I drove into the Urgent care as Hubby was over an hour away working. Holding it above my head while driving.

In total it bleed for 45 minutes. I am not on any blood thinners and have been off the aspirin for over 2 weeks (thank heavens) due to going in last Monday for injections.  

yeah it caught the nail bed also . 

The glue dried purple and then Doc used steri-strips as he felt stitches would cause more issues and I had it pinched together so well he had to turn my hand to see the cut.

He said to let it come off on it's on. Probably 5-10 days and not use the pad of the thumb for at least 5 days . No getting it wet and use gloves while cooking. I have gloves .

Hubby took one look and added a wrap that I can slide on  and off to keep me aware to not use it. At night I had another one taped on and it was a good thing as I woke more than once to Charlotte licking the wrap. 

OH well.

In the pantry

 I still have grape jelly (from juice) to make

I still have apple jelly (from juice) to make

I still have tomato paste (from canned tom.) to make

I have turnips I will end up canning 

I have radishes I will end up pickling.  

I now have 15 gals of apples to deal with as we finished clearing the last tree. It even over whelmed our Amish neighbors.

I know after Thanksgiving I will have turkey meat to freeze and broth to can.

After Christmas I will have prime rib meat to freeze.. but probably no broth as the butcher shop said there probably would be no bones but I could stop in if I wanted bones for broth. Not sure I want to pay for bones. 

I need to make more homemade noodles as we are not out. As I am now getting free eggs I can make the noodles for just the price of the bread flour.

In the pantry ... remember I "put up" for 18 months, it was a year until the kids had to come get food last year. By bumping it up to 18 months we can make a year and still help the kids.  FYI, my buckets hold 25 to 35 lbs.

This is the basement door in the hall. My onions hang here. I don't really have a good storage at this point for keeping onions but Hubby can get 6 lbs from the Amish for less than I can get at the store until around Jan.

Looking down the stairs. Starting to the left and go right , the bucket you barely see is White Lily white cornbread mix, then regular AP flour, then sugar, then regular bread flour, then long grain white rice then just barely the bucket of minute rice. 

Oils, vinegars, on top of cabinet nuts and M&Ms that Hubby make trail mix from along with muffin mixes.

This holds dry mixes of just about everything. Jell-O, pudding, cake, stuffing, crackers, dry milk, Bisquick that Hubby can not live without etc.

Cookie mixes in the washer. They are Hubby's that he likes to make so I keep them separate and don't have to worry about mice getting in the washer with the lid that goes on it. Rubber maid is dried mashed potatoes and mixes for baked doughnuts.

 Lots of empty canning jars, buckets have White Lily AP flour, White Lily bread flour, White Lily self rising flour, regular self rising flour, regular oats, quick oats and 00 flour > I call this the bucket room as it has the most buckets , Hubby changes what he calls it almost daily.

more canning jars, gray frig is dairy (heavy cream, half and half, extra milk, cheeses, some beverages , freezer part is breads or such. Black frig is fresh produce and the freezer is produce and bagged turkey. 

Shelf unit next to black frig is the appliances like crock pot, roaster (behind jars) cake decorating stuff, al. pans and my bigger pans I use for bulk cooking.

The other shelf unit is paper goods, foils, freezer back, vacuum bags, paper plates , ice cube trays for broths or fats. Some larger serving dishes

Where the rug (actually dog bed as Charlotte likes to lay there during storms) is the door to the mechanical room where the furnace, water softener, breaker box and water heater is.

Freezers 2 and 3, 3 is at the door. Three has fruits, nuts and desserts, two has a veggies, pork and poultry and some odds and ends.

Freezer 1 beef, sausage, bacon, breads, meat fats, condiments like carmelized onions etc. The shelf unit at the end is canning stuff and camping things if Hubby needs it. 

We do have a small freezer in the barn, I use it for leftovers and meat that will be ate in the month. By April, lates May it will be cleared as it's the freezer we use if we end up making ice for the Amish neighbors if the pond doesn't have enough water or freezes.

ignore the double buckets as you saw those in the down the stairs pic. The first single bucket is the White Lily white cornbread mix the next one is semolina flour. The next 3 buckets with crates on them is dried sliced potatoes, dried hash browns and dried cubed potatoes. Crates are white potatoes and sweet potatoes.

applesauce. fermented foods, veggies, condiments  1st shelf unit. Coffee , coffee syrups, booze next unit (I cook more with booze than I drink and Hubby only drinks hard cider now days) , last unit Charlotte's Den I am clueless why she claimed that spot but she kept digging the canned goods out of there to lay so I just put a bed in it for her. Spices and herbs on the two shelves about her bed (I have over 100 and yes I use them all) and then top shelf is the extra pasta.

Bucket closest is Jasmine rice, the other one is Basmati rice, container on floor beside it in home grown dehydrated greens and herbs. Shelf units is pie filling and juices, other is soups, more pie filling and some grocery store canned veggies.

Bucket is par boiled rice, bottom shelf is pickles of different kinds , then dried fruit, then canned fruit and pickled beets then more canned fruit and then homegrown dried fruits and veggies.

left four buckets of 25 lbs. sugar AKA emergency supply for M  Shelf unit is different pastas, bucket is ramen noodles.

condiments, canned butter, Crisco, flavored vinegars and oils. Top shelf has dried veggies and canned red bell peppers. Karo syrup beside butter.

Taco shells, tomato products like pasta sauce, sauce, pizza sauce, hot salsa, mild salsa, green tomatoes, already got empty spots there .  Bucket on crate is for homemade noodles which I am out of, upside down bucket is for coleslaw that I can or kraut if I ever decided to go that way. Behind those buckets is more pasta, wild rice, black rice and risotto rice. Next unit is beans and canned meat. Combination of store bought or home canned. Bottom shelf has different lentils and broths . Bucket is brown sugar and XXX sugar and container in corner is corn starch, baking soda etc. Kitty bucket (there is two that Son 2 bleached and passed to us for storage) ) hold bags of smoke chips for the smoker.

Right side against wall, special flours, yellow corn meal, syrups sugars, stuff to make desserts from. The one between that and the condiments has lemon and lime juice, fruit butters, jellies and jams, more dessert stuff on top. 

beans, most of it home grown. 

Dining room dry goods used daily or weekly, bottom shelf is dried fruits. Next is different sugars, vanilla beans and paste, powdered lime and lemon juice and different syrups (some are medical used like elderberry and molasses) Next shelf is bfast items and dried soups and flavorings One more shelf up and you have the stuff Hubby uses for his trail mix, different crackers, peppers, bouillon, some dry mixes of sauces and gravies that is hard to make for just two.  Next up, fig newtons, different salts, herbal tea and the glass container that holds the family size tea bags for our kettle tea. Up one more shelf, powdered drinks, extra family size tea bags and herbal tea . Top is extra tea. I buy tea once a year. I know what we use. 

I had to move the 3 plastic pitchers I have that sits on this. I have one for whisks, one for wooden spoons and rubber spatulas and one for cooking utensils. Left to right, self rising flour in ice cream bucket, White Lily self rising on top of it, Ap flour next with AP small can for when I need to dust the board, instant flour, then bisquick and almond flour. 

Baking supplies, corn starch, baking soda, pomegranate molasses malts, stem ginger (thanks to Great British bake off) all the little goodies of adding different flavors as Hubby is definitely in to giving me new recipes.

I do have half a dozen cooking oils on roll care and two dozen bfast bars boxes on top of another cabinet . Hubby does not get "lunch time" when hauling so he carries trail mix and bfast bars that are not sticky or crumbly as he does not like the mess in his truck. Dust is fine, crumbs isn't LOL.

I usually get asked how much we end up pitching due to it going bad. Very little. If I have something that needs used up I either plan to use it or ask Daughter 4 or Son 2 if they could use it. If it is flour or sugar I pass it to M and she just refills it with fresh . They go through 25 lbs. of sugar and 50 lbs. of flour A WEEK. Sometimes more like when canning. Believe me, I've been to her house to ask if she had something that I ran out of like yeast.

I know what we use in a year. I have the same line for cleaning, dog treats(a little high now since we just lost two but Daughter 4 has 5 dogs so nothing will go bad) paper goods and personal items. Paper towel usage is down because I push the use the rag first.  Hubby just picked up pet friendly sidewalk salt and got enough for two winters. If we get a lot of freezing rain we will use twice as much because he KNOWS what we use in one year.

All the kids get rice off me, none really eat a lot of rice so it goes bad on them. They have learnt to come get it from me and as a family we get through it before it gets bad. 

Another thing I will point out, I am organized , everyone in the family knows where things go as they also know I date pretty much everything and it's first in first out to keep the "oh crap that got shoved to the back." I do have to watch that a bit more if Hubby takes something to the basement frigs and does not think to tell me he did. I've gotten to the point I go down and check every other day to keep that issue down also.

How often do I shop? Twice a month is the most.  One will be a major dairy and what ever produce (mushrooms, carrots and celery) that I don't have any more of. The second one will be milk. Maybe something that is on sale that I try to keep stocked like butter. Bfast bars and trail mix is once every 3 months if that. Flours is maybe 9 months but closer to 12 months depending on if M or the kids need some (M replaces, kids give kisses and hugs, I did have a grandson that did some of my chores while I bagged food up for him.)

Right now I am low of popcorn. We didn't grow any this year thinking we still had some in the freezer. I just pulled the last pint. 

Yes I live in Ohio and yes I have garden producing plus menu

 

You can see there are two behind this one.  How it looked (all 3 really) before harvesting.

This is what it looks like now

It's all covered back up now as it is snowing here today (Sunday)

I got  red and black radishes and their greens, 2 different mustard greens, two heads of lettuce, half of a gallon of spinach leaves, turnips and their greens, fire red Swiss chard and ford hook Swiss chard.

I kept some of the 2 chards radish greens, turnip greens and mustard greens for soups (Soupe Pelou from Twelve Months of Monastery soups and The Prudent Homemaker Brandy's Swiss chard soup). The rest of the greens went into the dehydrators and then grinded them up. I have 16 oz of powder organic greens (savings of $23.50 -$35.95) 

I based the coming menu on the leftovers and garden.

 On Friday's lunch ,son 2 brought his lady up to meet us and the right before turning in the driveway admitted he never brough a girlfriend home to meet us(female friends yes, girl friend including the one he lived with NO) . I fixed turkey (meat from freezer and broth I canned) noodles (M's noodles she gave me) mashed potatoes (last I got off B) green beans (I canned) and homemade bread with choice of peach jelly (I canned) or apple butter (I canned) . They took leftovers home and I shoved ours in the freezer.

We had left over mac and cheese and a small piece of smoked sausage (from Thursday). I diced the sausage, tossed in the mac and cheese and added peas I had froze from the gardens and served it with applesauce I had canned for our meal Saturday.

Sunday's meal is leftover steak chopped and added to veggies in frig made into an  frittata and make biscuits.

Monday's sausage gravy , biscuits and the leftover mashed potatoes of Friday made into potato cakes.

Tuesday's leftover stir fry, our local Chinese restaurant is now has their dining room back open. It's not a buffet like it was  but they have a good menu. I froze the leftovers. I will add veggies and maybe some rice.

Also on the menu

Soupe Pelou with brat patties (instead of brat like hotdogs)

Swiss chard soup with grilled ham and cheese (either bake bread as we are now out or use tortilla wraps)

Harvest chicken, apple, sweet potato and Brussel sprouts one dish 

Haluski, might add peas and need to add some kind of pork on the side to make Hubby happy.

Looking at making refrigerator pickled radishes, apple cider donut cake, homemade saltines and most likely more bread along with the biscuits. 

I have my back injections on Monday afternoon so I need to have a couple days of meals prepped before we leave for that. 

busy

 Since Hubby didn't get the heater installed in the first bay of barn. I had to move anything that would get ruined by freezing into the house. I still have boxes sitting in the front room, not as much and not the same boxes as I got that stuff put away but now have cleaning supplies to find a place for.

The four hours I spent moving things into the house, moving other stuff that won't freeze out to the barn, Charlotte spent chasing pigeons. She finally caught one (YUCK) but didn't rip it apart after she snapped it's neck. I yet to figure out how she caught it. Must have flew low enough for her to jump and catch it. She brought it to me. Thanks for the gift, took her in for a treat. Then tossed it over the fence into the field while she wasn't looking. One of the cats (E or H's cats) took off with it.  Charlotte then spent time watching E deal with hay *it's green still so he will feed it to the animals instead of storing it*. AND then went to watch H while he was burning scrap wood. Then went over to check out what Cheryl was doing, English neighbor.  I was glad to see her out and about (not so much about the bird) and more like herself. 

I told Hubby this morning I was going to fall clean the east and west lofts this morning. That would finish the second story (we have two sets of lofts). Then I was going to put the cleaning supplies away in those areas. He told me to put the grow light and table where I want it in the east loft and figure out where I want the grow cart as the big drying rack is where it was in the front room. BEFORE I moved the cleaning supplies up. 

I did clear some area in the laundry room (now half fall cleaned LOL) to put personal stuff. Actually let me see what we have and I figured we might want to pick up toothpaste. 

I put the bleach there and couldn't figure out why I had 6 bottles of bleach until Hubby mentioned that E was having trouble finding bleach for the house and barn (calf bottles etc) . I must have picked up extra to cover it if they couldn't find any. I know when that happened he ended up getting a bottle from each of the neighbors. They buy it by the case

HUM Maybe since Hubby is working  only one job this morning , he will be back this afternoon to carry all that up 😁.

We had corned beef hash and eggs for a late (after 8) supper. 

He mentioned Charlotte crawled up on him and woke him up this morning. Usually she just is curling up to sleep on him. But this time she kept pawing at him. So he got up thinking she wanted out and realized his alarm was ringing. It was on the 3rd round as he has it set to ring 3 times (he uses him cell phone for an alarm). So he gave her a treat for waking him up so he wouldn't be late going to work this morning. He very seldom gives treats. 

I have to only computer that updated to windows 11. Already moved what was in the center on the task bar back to the left. Deleted a few things off the task bar and then put excel and word on the task bar as I use them daily. MS word glitches a bit but they already said it would as they work out the kinks.

We were talking of a no spend except for necessities for the month of Nov. Then the spare manual can opener broke. I was going to wait until Dec but Hubby said order it now or the other one will break and we won't have ANY can opener. I told him I would just pick other food that I canned until it was replaced. But what ever I thought since it seemed to upset him I would order one. Not like we would starve to death. I've sanitized a flat head screw driver and used a hammer to open can goods with. 

We got the spouting down on the porches and basement ramp roof. $80 paid.

Hubby paid J for the two porches. He cut the price almost in half because Hubby was helping a lot and we did the clean up.

The only thing left on the to do list is move the pile of dirt from the yard that came from redoing the basement windows and dealing with a fuel tank that he is not sure he is going to use but doesn't want to get rid of in case he changes his mind. I'm like it's going to be nothing but rust and worthless as it gets older. Sell it or scrap it if you aren't going to use it. In this , he is his grandfather's child (mother's side).

I best get at it. Son 2 called last night to confirm he was bringing his girlfriend (He is 39 and she is 42) up to get his car and meet us next Friday. It's the first time since he was 18 yrs old that he has brought a "girlfriend" (has several female friends) home to meet us. Did not even bring the woman he lived with for 2 yrs home.  I brought it up to his attention of that and he responded that should have told us that she wasn't important enough to make that trip. I came back it should have TOLD HIM.  He admitted the attraction was "I can rescue her" along with 3 little boys that reminded him of his sisters to raising kids on their own. This one has already made it clear she doesn't need rescued (she supported the child's father for 14 yrs) and the father is active in his daughter's life. Son2 and her have been friendly (along with the daughter) for 4 to 5 yrs now working together at the VFW hall during events. SO it's not like ,here is someone you don't know to date mom with the daughter. Which as a single mom when I was raising him, he understood both sides of that. The daughter asked if he would go to Thanksgiving dinner with them... BEFORE her mother asked him . LOL

declutter and organize day

 I placed 6 orders. They were scheduled to come in on separate days. SIGH. I got 5 of them yesterday within 30 minutes. No way I could deal with it as  I was canning turkey broth and apple jam.

I have 5 canners worth of food to take down to the pantry now.

I said something to Hubby about should we turn on the heaters in the pump house(pump house has a thermometer so we can see how low the heat is) and barn (1st bay) . He quickly said no but then admitted he forgot to buy the pipe to install the heater let along install it in the barn. But he didn't think it would get that cold in the barn.

So today I am now moving anything that would be ruined if frozen . I might end up spending a week moving stuff around but I would rather be safe than sorry.

Hubby went down to the pantry then yelled up wanting to know where the corn beef hash was.  Answer "Canned meat section". "Where is that?" West wall, north end of shelves ( do you know how tempting it was to yell back same place it's been for 4 yrs?).  He yelled back " Why is it with the beans? then a quick "Never mind, it's protein area." He did notice that was where the broth was now also . I was putting it with the soups but the soups have "grown" since I canned soup this year.

Guess I need to get back to figuring out where to stash this stuff. 

Have a great day 

Blessed Be

PS. Charlotte is spending the day tracking birds that keep flying around the barn. She should sleep well tonight. 

Charlotte and blur of week

 She wasn't sure what to do with the whole seat to herself as she usually sits on my lap or gets crammed into a corner as the boys always stretched out.

We have found she is a quiet dog , like Wilbur, that was barking because Rascal was up barking and checking things out. She will bark at Pepper (E's dog) and Betty ( Jan's dog when they walk pass on their daily walks). But there is silence when the school bus and buggies go by. She does more looking out the windows than running to the door. 

She must have been taking the balls to get Rascal to play with her as I barely can get her to play with me and them. She will walk part way of the perimeter (like Wilbur did). 

 She was doing this before while we ate, I was surprised Hubby allowed it. Now she sometimes just sits there facing him while we eat. He won't let her put her head on his chair or lap. With his tremors he does drop food. But she waits until he tells it okay to get it. Rascal would wait also. Wilbur would not wait a freaking second.

She finally is sleeping again at night. Hubby said she only got him up once and it was before midnight. He went to sleep at 7:30. I warned him this morning that would be 6:30 next week. We have talked about getting another dog, not a puppy as I don't think she would do well with a pup. I definitely said spring unless she got so depressed like Tashy did when Tubby died. She's eating normal already, definitely still is got the routine of last potty before bed and then treats still. But the care free puppy is gone. She looked older after Wilbur died, she looks even older now. Grief does that. 

Our apple tree we were told when we bought the house wasn't very good. I even said we would cut down this year because it didn't make apples at all or not very big ones. IT RAN US OVER with apples. Even M was ran over and there are still apples on the tree. I will try to pick more for fresh eating as I am done with canning.

I canned ham broth, pork broth, turkey broth , apple sauce, and apple jam.

I froze all the fat. Still have to cut the turkey fat into cubes to bag.

I got my restock order from Amazon. They screwed up and doubled the one order. They aren't charging me since it was the warehouse's mistake.

Hubby got his hearing aid replaced. They are only a couple months old but it wouldn't connect to the app on the phone. The owner is his hearing guy and flat out said to Hubby that he was sending it back and requesting a NEW replacement not a repair. Actually got it within 2 weeks. I was noticing he was getting confused with only 1 hearing aid. He said something to the doctor about it and it was his "bad" ear was the one without a hearing aid so he wasn't getting all the information he should of to make decisions. Which is why he went and got hearing aids to begin with SIGH.

Canner about done with the last of the broth. I need to go pick apples also.

Blessed Be Everyone