Practicing Contentment by remembering the blessings of the week.

Right now I’m feeling a bit scattered and not collected enough to compose paragraphs.  Here are the blessings floating in my mind.

Warm Brownies.

First Steps.

Sewing Time.

A Nap.

A Healthy Child.

“Me” Time (under the guise of work).

Small projects done.

Hot tomato soup & fresh bread sticks.

Watching G hop from lap to loving lap during church.

Friends to hang out with when I need to be out of the house.

These are just a few of the things in my week that brightened my days!  May you recognize the blessings in your week.

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This week my big cooking project was Chicken.  It was my goal to have cooked chicken, broth and Chicken Pot Pie filling for the freezer.  After giving my Crock Pot and stock pot good workouts, my missions were accomplished!

I’ve been following Kate at Kitchen Stewardship and decided to follow her instructions for making broth.  I started Monday evening by putting 4 ½ pounds of chicken thigh pieces and 4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the stock pot with 6 quarts of water and vinegar.  Let it sit then fired it up.  Let it boil until I wanted to go to bed –about 4 hours.  Then I poured the liquid into the crock pot and added the chicken thighs.  The chicken breasts wouldn’t fit so I shredded them up.  I set the crock-pot on low and went to bed.  At an un-namable hour of the morning when GBaby had me up, I turned the crock pot up to high for another 3 ½ hours.  I added the veggies to the crock for about 45 minutes until the carrots were tender.

After straining the broth, I had cooked carrots for GBaby (see February Kithen Goals), two bags of shredded chicken, in addition to 4 cups of shredded chicken I set aside for the Chicken Pot Pie Filling, and about 5 quarts of broth.

I left 1 quart of broth in the crock-pot for the Chicken Pot Pie fill and returned the rest to the stock pot where I let it boil a while longer to condense (so that it won’t take up as much room in my freezer!).  After it boiled down, I had three, 3-cup containers of rich looking broth.

I added water, chicken, carrots, celery, onion, potatoes and spices to the crock pot until it was full, covered it and walked away.  At dinner time I added one can of condensed soup to one- 2 quart portion of the filling and topped with the biscuit topping (which I subbed in part whole-wheat flour) and popped our dinner in the oven.

Meanwhile, two more portions of filling went to the freezer.  I think they will come in handy for a lunch I will be “catering” next month.

When all is said and done, I only had to wash the crock-pot once and the stock pot twice.  Fewer dishes make me happy!

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Last weekend we celebrated GBaby’s first birthday.  Her birthday is two days short of falling on the same day my Grandma Foy celebrated her birthday for many years.  In honor of my Grandma, I made Grandma Foy’s Chocolate Cake for GBaby’s birthday.  My Mom was here to help which was good since she’d made it with the Master.  It was a hit!

Grandma Foy’s Chocolate Cake

2 Eggs

2 cups Flour

2 cups Sugar

3/4 cups Shortening

1 teaspoon Vanilla

1/2 cup Bakers Cocoa

1 cup Boiling Water

1/2 cup Milk

1 Tablespoon White Vinegar

1  teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon Salt

Directions:

1.  Mix together Eggs, Flour, Sugar, Vanilla and Shortening.

2. In a small bowl, dissolve cocoa in boiling water.  Add to first mixture and blend.

3.  In another small bowl, mix Milk, Vinegar, Baking Soda, and Salt.  Add to batter and mix thoroughly.

4.  Pour into a greased 9×13 cake pan.  If you are planning to remove the cake to decorate, add flour to prepare the pan as well.

5.  Bake at 325 until center pops up when poked or toothpick comes out clean.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

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I went back to my 2010 Goals List last night to check in on myself.  I’ll be honest, I fired off the list into cyber space and then didn’t glace back until now.

I’m happy to say that I’ve completley RAFTED my personl in-box. Purging, filing and sorting through over 600 old e-mails plus all the daily correspondence and junk that comes through.

I’m making progress in some areas (budgeting, grocery bills, healthier recipes) and have yet to start my progress in some other areas (exercise – hoping warmer weather will help with this one).  I have all year to work on it,  right?

How are you doing with your goals?

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After completing the Eat from the Pantry Challenge in January, reminded me that I am a very goal oriented creature.  In most areas of my life, having something to work towards is a motivator and I love being able to see the progress as I go.  So, for February, I’m setting some kitchen goals to hopefully produce food for my family that will be a little bit healthier.

1.  One plate salad meal a week. I find that  our menu often lacks the veggies that we should be eating and in the winter, it is a huge challenge to find good produce at reasonable prices.  But here goes – we’ll see how I do!

2.  Up the Whole Grains. I bake a lot and I use a LOT of regular un-bleached flour.  I am challenging myself this month that every baked good that comes out of my kitchen will have some portion of whole wheat or oat flour.

3. Back to the Baby Food. GBaby has moved past the mush baby food to eating a lot of what we eat.  When it seems like she needs more produce, I grab a banana.  Poor habits, I know!   So this month I will have cooked finger food veggies in assorted colors available in the fridge/freezer for GBaby’s meals and snacks.

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This week our home has been graced by family and friends, many the same who gathered on these days a year ago following the birth of our daughter.  This week we celebrated her first birthday.  She is healthy, learning things a mile a minute and such a happy little girl.  I can not imagine my world without her!  I am blessed by those who have supported us through this first year and are an active part of her life.  I’m especially blessed by the love and support and good relationships with family.

This week also has brought more sunshine and budget goals that were met.  My front porch and sewing area are stacked with supplies for bean bag chairs and I’m happy to get some sewing time this afternoon to work on them.

Tomorrow is a new month, new goals, new challenges.  Today, I have all that I need.

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So back at the beginning of the month, I took on the Eat From the Pantry Challenge. This is the first time I’ve taken part of this type of challenge and I have to say, it was a great experience.  For me, having my goals in mind as I was making decisions regarding our groceries throughout the month was a huge challenge.  It helped me to make decisions against impulse items and against purchases of things I would normally stock, but that we really didn’t need right now. I set four specific goals and here’s how it worked out.  Check back tomorrow for my February Kitchen Goals!

Goal #1: Shave $50 off the Grocery spending for the month.

Success! At the end of the month, we were under budget on groceries by $51.48

Goal #2 – Only 3 grocery stops after the big shopping at the beginning of the month.

I ended up with 4 grocery stops including a quick stop for milk and a quick grocery store stop for snacks while we were out for an unexpected chunk of errands.

Goal #3 – Batch Cooking once a week.

Success! The first couple weeks it was replenishing my baked goods in the freezer, then the Corned Beef & Cabbage stew, Minestrone, Marinara & Lasagnas.

Goal #4 – Split extra grocery money between our local Food Pantry and Summer Produce Fund

Done and Done

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I’m more of a “cook some extra” every week rather than a “take a full day to fill the freezer” batch cook.  On Wednesday, I started HV Marinara with the plan to make Lasagnas.  That went off beautifully.  I had one large Lasagna that went to the fridge to be used for a family gathering on Saturday.  Two small Lasagnas ended up in the freezer alongside three containers of Marinara. 

I had planned to have pasta and meatballs for dinner.  But, as I finished up the Lasagnas, I had extra cheese filling.  I decided that Calzones would be the perfect destination and a much better dinner choice!  So I whipped up some dough, added sliced up meat and baked them up.  I rolled the dough a little too thin so they leaked but they were delicious!

I will post the Lasagna and Calzone recipes next week – for today is Birthday Cake Day – GBaby is 1!  Next week I do plan a Chicken cooking day including broth, “cream of” soup mix and Chicken Pot Pie Filling.  Stay tuned!

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We have had fabulous luck with the first batch of soft shoes.  Remarkably, they have stretched like a good pair of jeans and still fit.  The second set I made have gotten a bit tight.  Somewhere in between I also made a fleece lined denim pair that are getting a lot of use.  So, it was time to make more shoes.

For the khaki pair, the canvas fabric was leftover from my Mommy-Bag, which was left over from long ago curtain project.  The brown fleece was just hanging around and the leather bottoms are from a leather shirt that I grabbed at a thrift store.  Since they’re soft and warm and usually rather difficult for the little people to take off, my nephew was jealous.  So I made a matching pair for him.

I made these cute black pair from felt left over from a sewing project HandyMan did (yup-he sews too!)  I lined them with scrap grey fleece.  This pair was particularly simple since both fabrics are non-fraying and I didn’t have to ‘hem’ any of the edges on the back piece.  I had pink thread in the sewing machine from another project, so I just went with it.

Next sewing project(s): Girl-kerchiefs, Bean bag chairs and t-shirt dresses.

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Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week.

This week we were blessed with multiple days of sunshine – in our rather gray climate, this is a huge blessing.  Not only does it warm the skies and lighten up the house it seems to add energy and motivation to the body too.

Other bright spots this week included visits from two of our brothers.  I enjoy watching GBaby explore the world with her uncles.  One of the visits also included a work-day which resulted in the completion of the framing for the closet we’re putting in our bedroom.  The framing was done with wood that was cut from our property that HandyMan milled last fall.  This is particularly satisfying from a ‘living off the land’ stance as well as making the project a little easier on the budget.

I’m thankful that another bump of swollen gums in GBaby’s tiny mouth has sprung free another tooth, we’re up to 9.  I was extremely grateful for a bit of personal time on Saturday morning to finish up some lingering projects.  I’m thankful for fireplaces and hot chocolate on cold winter days.

May your week be blessed and may you recognize the graces as they abound in your life!

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