Author Archives: Nora

Grocery Update & Menu Plan

09 Monday Jan 2017

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I’m trying to bring the grocery shopping back under control this month – mostly as relates to the number of trips per week.  This week I kept it to two.

First, I went to Wegman’s.  The primary purchase was to replenish the milk supply, but I picked up our other needs at the same time.  Apparently the Tuesday after New Year’s is not a good time to shop at Wegman’s.  Many departments were bare, including cereal which could easily have been stocked before the holiday.  Another person in the store commented to me about this also.  As a result, I ended up not getting everything on my list.

Later in the week I went to BJs.  Most of these items had store coupons.  I also topped up our milk and bread supplies.

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This may not play out exactly as planned, but here’s what I have in mind.  Nothing is particularly perishable so if things move around a bit it will be fine.

Saturday:
Chicken & walnuts
Rice
Peas

Sunday:
Take out pizza for those of us who were actually home

Monday:
Tacos

Tuesday (we have an evening activity to work around):
Kids: Chicken nuggets
Adults: Homemade pizza

Wednesday:
Chicken pot pie
Green beans

Thursday:
Spaghetti & meatballs

Friday:
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza

Lemon Chicken

06 Friday Jan 2017

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I got ahead of myself and posted a recipe yesterday.  Here we go with the Friday posts.

This is a simplified version of Martha Stewart’s Roast Spatchcocked Lemon Chicken.  I include the link because it is the more “complete” recipe.  It also includes instructions on how to spatchcock a chicken.

All that being said, our family prefers chicken thighs so I make this with just thighs, and usually leave out the shallots because I don’t always have them around.

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Lemon Chicken
inspired by Martha Stewart

Ingredients:
Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (enough for your family, though leftovers make great white chili or chicken salad)
Lemons, sliced (enough for one slice per thigh)
Salt & pepper

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 425°.
  2. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
  3. Slide one slide of lemon under the skin of each thigh.  (If you have a child that doesn’t like lemons you can leave theirs alone.)
  4. Salt and pepper the chicken.
  5. Roast for 45-50 minutes or until your thermometer reads 165°.

Banana Cake

05 Thursday Jan 2017

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I’m planning to change things up just a bit for 2017.  Recipes and travel thoughts seem to be the most popular topics.  So, Fridays will be recipe day.  Frankly, I have lots of recipes I could share, my biggest barrier has been remembering to take pictures to go with the text.  I’m going to work on that.  That means Thursdays will absorb some of the topics that were discussed on Fridays, including travel.  We don’t travel enough to dedicate a day every week to that topic.

I’m also going to try to expand on one of the past weeks accomplishments to make it the center of the Tuesday posts.  I’ll identify it in the heading.  (Hopefully soon I’ll be going back to edit the headings of some of the past posts because I’ve learned that having many posts with the same title is a problem.)  Mondays are going to stay the same for now, though I’m debating how to handle the menu aspect since significant chunks of the year aren’t particularly well planned because of all the activities going on.  I may try a few things and see how it goes.

Anyway, here’s your first Friday recipe of 2017.

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Banana Cake
recipe courtesy of The All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking

Ingredients:
2 large ripe bananas
2 Tbsp sour cream
2 large eggs
1½ tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
¾ cup + 2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking soda
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
10 Tbsp butter, softened
1 cup chocolate chips (or the remainder of the bag after making Ganache)

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
  2. Line the bottom of a non-stick springform pan with parchment paper.
  3. Combine the bananas and sour cream in a food processor.
  4. Add the eggs and vanilla.  Process until smooth.
  5. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour through salt).
  6. Add half the banana mixture plus the softened butter.
  7. Beat until just moistened.  Then increase the speed and beat for another 1½ minutes.
  8. Add the remaining banana mixture in two portions, mixing thoroughly after each.
  9. Stir in the chocolate chips.
  10. Spread evenly in the pan.
  11. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 30-40 minutes.
  12. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing.
  13. Cool completely before dusting with powdered sugar or frosting with Chocolate Ganache Glaze.

Chocolate Ganache Glaze

Ingredients:
¾ cup heavy cream
1 1/3 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

  1. Bring the cream to a boil.
  2. Remove from heat and add the chocolate chips.  Stir to melt.
  3. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes.  Stir until smooth.
  4. For pourable glaze, cool to room temperature.  For frosting, let stand until spreadable.

Last Two Weeks’ Accomplishments – Christmas 2016

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

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Things have been busy.  While I finished the Christmas shopping with time to spare, there was still plenty of wrapping and cooking to do.

  • We made Christmas cookies.  We usually do gingerbread, but I tried sugar with icing this year.  The boys like gingerbread better so once we’re through our dessert backlog in another week or so we’ll make those.  I also found some eyeballs this year, but the preferred to us them upside down as tree decorations.  Each boy has their own tray, then I used up the batter & icing with some Christmas trees with actual eyes.
  • We relaxed.
  • We ate.
  • We assembled many LEGO sets and played many video games.
  • We saw Rogue One.

December 2016 Grocery Review

02 Monday Jan 2017

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Well, this month was VERY high.  Some of that is to be expected with the holiday meals – we had 3 big ones, and the holiday sales that allow you to stock up for the future.  But, this is still higher than I expected.  Hopefully it will be balanced out by a lower January.

  • December TOTAL: $1,642.06
    • Stop & Shop: $325.35
    • Wegman’s: $531.48
    • BJs: $356.26
    • Other: $428.97
      • Local: $198.35
      • Star Market: $119.21
      • Trader Joe’s: $48.85
      • Target: $62.56
      • Other: $0

I had hoped to have all of my shopping done for this week last week, but I forgot one item so I went back to Wegman’s on Monday.  The place was pretty empty, which was refreshing.  So, in the glare on the right is the clam juice I forgot.  I also got some crackers for my evening get together Tuesday night; flour, sugar, and Polar which were on sale through the end of the year; milk to last us the rest of the week; some sale M&Ms; meatballs, which they were out of last time I went; and extra lemons, salmon, and puff pastry for our Boxing Day dinner.

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We won’t be eating leftovers this week, but I’m planning to eat through what we have.  I will be going to BJs, and maybe Wegman’s later in the week so we’ll see whether that affects the menu.

I decided to use up some of our vegetable leftovers by having shepard’s pie.  So, on Saturday I went to Stop & Shop for ground beef.  Everything else here was on sale except the fruit cups, for which I at least had a coupon, and the cheese, which we just use a lot of.

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Grocery Update – Christmas Week

26 Monday Dec 2016

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I’m not making any grand plans for meals this week, just gearing up for next weekend’s cooking.  I posted the menu last week.

On Tuesday I went to BJs.  None of this is actually for Christmas week.  We needed the milk  and bread and I picked up most of the rest with BJs coupons.

The next day I went to Trader Joe’s.  The primary goal was granola bars and apples (they’re smaller than those at BJs, which the boys prefer).  I had been wanting to try coconut oil for my granola so I picked up a container of that.  The meat is for dinner; I don’t usually buy meal there.  The peppermints were an impulse treat.

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On Friday, I did my last big pre-Christmas shop at Wegman’s.  I also picked up a turkey at the farm stand (not pictured).

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About Twin Gifting

22 Thursday Dec 2016

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This may come across as more of a complaint than I intend.  Obviously anytime someone gives a gift they should be thanked and the gift enjoyed.  But, having had twins now for almost 10 years, there are a few gifting mistakes that folks without twins tend to make consistently and that are fairly universally viewed negatively by twins and twin parents.

So, in reverse order, here are four twin gifting fails.

4.  Failing to adhere to the same vs different established toy protocol.  This one is tough because each family’s rules are different.  But, families with twins, especially same gender twins around preschool age, have a preference here.  Either their twins are used to having their own version of every toy so they don’t fight over them.  Or, they’re used to having two similar toys that likely end up shared so there’s more variety.

As they get older, if you would like to give two gifts, two similar games is better than two copies of the same one.

Or, as their interests develop, two similar valued items targeted at the interests of each child.

 

3. Wrapping two different valued toys together on the assumption they will share both.  Twin children automatically assume one toy is for each child, even if they will be shared eventually.  They know when one is of substantially higher value than the other so the one who unwraps the lesser item is always let down.  Don’t add a small item just so there are two things.  One shared present is fine, so long as it is a shareable item like a game, tent, large container of blocks, or such.

2. Which brings us to the next issue.  LEGOs are not shareable toys.  Please do not buy one large LEGO set to share; two smaller ones will be much more appreciated.  Yes, the big sets are expensive and more eye popping for kids.  But, twins do not want to work together, alternating pieces on a LEGO set even if they can be convinced to do LEGO at the same time.  I have yet to run across a LEGO set where sections are designed to be built in parallel, though that would be an interesting idea for LEGO to explore with the really large sets.

1. Finally, please do not buy two items and wrap them in one piece of paper with both names.  I’ve seen this with similar and identical items.  It’s a bad look, and the kids know.  Twins are individuals and would like to be treated as such.  You went to the trouble of purchasing two gifts.  The least you could do is wrap them separately with their own names.  Pick one for each child (they will automatically switch if they want).  Unwrapping the gift is at least half the fun.

 

Last Week’s Accomplishments – Freezer Audit

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

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The days are numbered so here goes –

  • All the shopping is done!  Wrapping is another matter.
  • We had one play date.
  • We had 4 dentist appointments.
  • We held a birthday party.
  • We had our first skating lesson of the year.  Our kindergartner has decided he wants to give it another go.
  • I planned the Christmas weekend meals and necessary shopping.  This includes my trip to Stop & Shop last Saturday, a trip to BJs today, and trips to Wegman’s & the farm stand on Friday.
  • I reorganized the freezers.  We have 3.  Two came from the old house plus the new house came with one.  I wasn’t making the most of them and it seemed wise to sort them out before stocking up on Christmas roasts.  There was nothing I expected to throw out, I just wanted to resort so I could better optimize what was where for location and frequency of door opening.
  • So, on the left is the main part of the freezer in the kitchen before.  Top right was the top drawer on that freezer.  Middle right is the empty freezer that hadn’t even been cleaned/put back together since the move; this one is in the garage.  Bottom right was the other freezer in the garage.
  • I took all the meat out of wherever it was and sorted it.  The ground pork I put in the fridge for dumplings Saturday night.  Everything else went into the previously empty freezer.  It is farthest from the kitchen and is therefore opened the least often.

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  • The closer freezer in the garage got all the bread – daily, banana bread, extra flour, etc.
  • The freezer in the kitchen got the ingredients, odds & ends, frozen vegetables, quick meal items, and ice cream.

Grocery Update & Menu Plan – Pre-Christmas

19 Monday Dec 2016

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There’s no way to deny it; I did a lot of grocery shopping this week.

On Tuesday, I went to Shaw’s, Stop & Shop, Target, and the farm stand.  This was the second to last day of preschool before the holidays so I was trying to get done as much as possible without extra people in tow.  (The last day of preschool I went to the mall!)

The only reason I was going to Shaw’s again so soon is that they had no oatmeal last week, we’re out, and its on sale until the end of this month.  I also bought one ball of pizza dough to use this week.

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I got a rather random set of items at Stop & Shop.  Everything except the cheese was on sale.  Pam gave $5 off for buying 8.  Since they’ll keep, I did.  I also got 4 gallons of milk that didn’t make the picture.

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I had a return to do at Target, so I got a few items there also.  Juice was on sale.  I’ve been working on a new price book (more on that in a later post) so I now know that Target has the lowest prices on single serve raisin boxes.  Green sugar has been hard to find; the eyeballs just looked fun.

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Finally, I went to the farm stand to order the turkey and pick up a few items.  The brownies were seconds, as were the peppers.  We ate one loaf of gingerbread for dessert that night; I put the other in the freezer.  The green beans went with the Shepard’s pie on Saturday.  Much of the broccoli, the red pepper, and the scallions went with the dumplings on Sunday.

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Now for the meal plan.  I’m going to cover next weekend also since I don’t expect to be posting much mid-Christmas holidays.  I’ll also finish up this week’s shopping below because it will make more sense after you see the Christmas weekend menus.

Saturday:
Shepard’s pie
Green beans

Sunday:
Pork pan-fried dumplings
Soy dipping sauce
Broccoli stir fry
Brown rice

Monday – Friday:
Hit or miss, but easy, as I gear up for next weekend

Christmas Eve:
Beef roast
Carrots
Twice baked potatoes
Sausage stuffing

Christmas Day:
Turkey
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Stuffing
Roasted buttercup squash with tahini sauce and pomegranate
Green beans
Brussels sprouts
Cranberry sauce

Boxing Day:
Salmon Wellington
Dill sauce
Pan fried potatoes
(we’re having guests who will choose & bring other items)

Desserts being made this week:
Gingerbread cookies
Sugar cookies
Creme brulee (CE)
Pumpkin pie (CD)
Pecan pie (CD)
Key lime pie (CD)

Now to continue the shopping pictures.

On Saturday, I had to pick up cakes for Sunday’s birthday party so I got organized and did the Christmas shopping at Stop & Shop.  Coke was on sale for a better price than BJs, but you had to buy 4.  The grape juice is on sale for the holidays so I bought enough to last a while.  Peas were on sale.  The roasts were on sale and even though we won’t eat them this week, it was too good to pass up.  The New York strip roasts were $3.99/lb ($10.99 usually) and the boneless leg of lamb was $4.99/lb.  I put all three in the freezer for another time.  Spending just over $160 in one shopping trip got me 600 extra gas points, or 60¢/gallon off.

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Last Week’s Accomplishments -Santa!

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

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I’m doing ok with the Christmas run-up, so here goes.

  • I took the younger two to visit Santa.  This is obviously much easier during the weekday so once they hit Kindergarten they’re done.  Our current Kindergartner would really like to go this year, but I think we’ll mail him a letter instead.
  • I cleaned up the tile/paint pile in the basement.  I know the bag of concrete is still visible in the picture, but it has made it to the garage.  It was starting to harden.

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  • We had some really sloppy weather on Monday so the boys got a few extra hours of video games in before school.

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  • We went to two math mornings.
  • We went to one play date.
  • We went to swimming and adventure classes.
  • We ventured to the mall on Saturday for a few Christmas items.