Busy Friday!

Another day in the life of ME.

5:00 a.m. Pack Carl’s Lunch, Do dishes, Make Pork’n’Sauerkraut Stew.
6:00 a.m. Check email. Cook Chicken Wings. Read through Grocery Store Circulars. Count up Monthly Grocery costs thus far for December. Update Grocery Price List.
8:00 a.m. Get Ready for the day and find my most reputable “Teacher Outfit”.
9:00 a.m. Go to Wal-Mart
10:30 a.m. Make Bonnie’s Ornament. Add Scripture to Lori’s Ornament
11:30 a.m. Go to Josh’s School
2:15 p.m. Fight traffic
3:15 p.m. Go Visit Teach with Bonnie
4:40 p.m. Do dishes, Call MJ, Call Carrie back
5:15 p.m. Talk to Carl on the phone and do laundry. Re-learned auto fill for grocery price book.
6:45 p.m. Go to Josh and Xan’s for dinner.

Today has been eventful already! As we were preparing for Carl’s first Saturday off work in MONTHS… He went to take Boscoe out for a walk. Carl came back inside to tell me about the stuff the neighbors had on their curb. (He’s an Olympic Gold Medalist for Dumpster Diving!) We actually know of someone in need of some Christmas presents so we scooped this up in hopes that it will help! (If not, I guess * sadly* I will just have to keep it. JUST KIDDING! This is seriously a great addition to our playroom/game room.) Carl found a little Castle with a “rock climb”, a perch with a wheel and look out thingy slide and swing! How handy that will come when we’re babysitting!



Mary Jane and the boys are coming over tonight for pizza and cookie decorating so we’ll see how baby Penn and Isaac likes it. I’ll let you know how it goes!

New Year Tradition Hunger Challenge

The other night we had company for dinner and they had never had Pork Roast and Sauerkraut. Carl said this is an Ohio Family Tradition t have this meal for the New Year. Since we often have “special meals” through out the years, we decided to be thankful for all the years by having this dinner. I’m proud to report that the hunger challenge was a success totaling: $2.89!

Pork and Sauerkraut entrée
($1.70)
Ingredients:
1.5 pounds Pork Shoulder Roast (Hand carved away from bone) $1.16
1 TBSP Salt ($0.02)
.5 pound Cabbage ($0.25)
1 cup Distilled Vinegar ($0.17)
2 cups water
2 sliced carrots ($0.09)
1 TBSP Cornstarch ($0.01)

Directions:
Chop/slice cabbage into shreds (like Sauerkraut consistency.) Add Water, Vinegar and salt to large pot with cabbage. Boil until cabbage is translucent. (EASY FAST CHEAP SAUERKRAUT!) At this point you can either cook the roast in the cabbage with the carrots on the stove or put the roast in a pan, pour cabbage over roast sprinkle carrots slices over the cabbage and bake in oven at 400 degrees until pork is done. I put it in the oven for presentation’s sake. Once Meat is finished I spoon out drippings to make gravy on stove. Whisk in cornstarch and let thicken.

Mashed Potatoes:
($0.35)
Ingredients:
4 Large Russet Potatoes ($0.15)
½ cup Milk ($0.10)
1 TBSP Margarine/Butter ($0.10)
5 cups water

Directions: Boil Water and Potatoes until tender. Strain. Mix/Mash with milk and margarine/butter.

Frozen Broccoli:
Ingredients:
1/4 a Package of frozen Broccoli ($0.25)
1 TBSP Water

Directions:
Put in Microwave safe dish. Add 1 TBSP water and nuke for 4 minutes.

8 Dinner Rolls ($0.24)
See http://imabucket.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-got-that-lovin-feelingohhhhh-that.html for recipe.