Disney Movie Night: Emperor's New Groove

It's an oldie, but a...well, an oldie.

Can you believe I've never seen Emperor's New Groove?  Or, I hadn't.  Until tonight.  In a search for movies we haven't seen yet, I decided we needed to give this one a try.  For our dining pleasure this evening, I decided to try my hand at Peruvian cuisine.  I've never eaten Peruvian food, let alone cooked it, so I had to do some research.

For dinner, we had Sweet & Spicy Beef Empanadas, Arroz Chauffa (rice with salami and pineapple), and Roasted Root Vegetables (beets, carrots, and turnips).  They were pretty good.  I was concerned about the rice.  I mean, salami and pineapple?  But it was yummy!  The empanadas were pretty spicy, so the kids didn't really like them, and I've never been a big fan of beef and cinnamon.  But they were OK.  The vegetables were good.

For dessert, I made Picarones.  These are sweet potato and pumpkin donuts.  Again, I was skeptical.  But they were actually good!  The donuts weren't overly sweet, but the powdered sugar on top was a nice complement.

Why we have 3 BOXES of Kosher Salt. (OR Why you need an organized pantry!)

I admit it.  I am guilty.

I am one of those people who goes to the grocery store and then just shoves things in the pantry without taking time to organize them.  This is especially bad on co-op nights when I get home at 9:00 (or later!) and am tired.  It's a bad habit.  I'll try to stop.  Especially after today.

Why today?  Well on the Organized Home Challenge for this week, today is Declutter Pantry Shelves.  I've actually been meaning to do this for a while.  My pantry was a mess.  I couldn't even shut the door all the way.  And the bag from January co-op with pantry items was just piled in front.  See?

And good luck finding anything in there! 

Now, in all honesty, it didn't take long to get this in shape.  Just going through, shelf by shelf, and putting things where they should have been originally.  I did get rid of a grocery bag of expired, half used items.   I also pulled out another bag of stuff for the food pantry.  Most of that was canned items I'd bought for a recipe and then either never used, or ended up substituting something non-canned instead.  Hopefully I'll be able to cut down on that with my new meal planning process that gives me time to make home-made substitutes.  

The biggest problem I ran into was duplicates.  I mean, who really needs three almost full boxes of Kosher Salt!?!?  I kept two in the pantry.  I mean, we will use it eventually.  The third I pulled out to go with my supplies for making household/beauty supplies.  I put kosher salt in my laundry detergent.  Helps make the clothes nice and soft.  I pulled all of those supplies (washing soda, baking soda, castile soap, essential oils, etc.) out and moved them down to the bathroom off the playroom.  Plenty of cupboard space there, and it leaves the pantry free for just food items.  I also moved the blender down to the cupboard where I keep rarely used appliances.  That let me slide the dehydrator farther back so the rice cooker would actually fit.

See the improvement!?  And the door closes now, too!  Here are a few close-ups of some of my tips for a cleaner looking pantry:

1.  On my "liquids" shelf (which also has my salt...), I have a metal cookie sheet.  See it on the left?  I put all of my oils, vinegars, honey, agave nectar, and cooking wines on this.  That way, if they leak, it's easy to pull out and wash off.

2.  Clear plastic bins for staples.  I have my most used pastas, sugars, baking soda, arrowroot powder, cocoa, breadcrumbs, etc. in these.  I also have ones for my flours, oats, cereals, and protein powder on the top shelf.  I do have a few boxes of special pastas that I've bought for a recipe: angel hair for sesame noodles, rotini for a soup.

At the bottom of the picture, you can also see my snack bins.  I have one for me and one for my husband.  I keep things like bagel sticks and pretzels in mine.  He has trail mix and Clif bars.

3.  Baskets to collect like items.  I have 4.  One basket holds snacks for the kids (mostly dried fruits right now).  That one is on the shelf with canned items.  I'm also using it to separate cans that I've bought for recipes or are just random fruits or soups from items needed for co-op recipes.  I'm really hoping to be able to cut down on the amount of stuff on this shelf.  But it's not bad.  A couple of cans of pineapple, some tomato paste, tomatoes with chiles, enchilada sauce, and stir-fry veggies (water chestnuts and baby corn).  The enchilada sauce and tomato paste I can probably make.  The tomatoes with chiles I might be able to can this summer.

I have another basket for crackers, taco shells, and croutons.  I also stuck my gigantic bag of dried chiles in there.  I didn't know where else to put it.

The small basket has mixes (ranch dressing and onion soup), yeast, and sprinkles.

The last basket is all baking supplies - nuts, coconut, marshmallows, and chocolate chips

I'm happy with it.  Now, how long do you think I can keep it cleaned up? :)

Meal Planning week 3: Planning ahead pays off!

When I started this new system of planning 4 weeks of meals and then shopping sales, I thought it would take a long time to pay off.   Turns out, it didn't!  My grocery list this week, once I take out all of the things I already have on hand, is only 23 items!  For a family of 5, that's awesome!  And most of it is fresh "stuff", which is my real goal.  I love that we are eating better, and a lot less canned and processed food.

Here is the menu for the next 4 weeks:

And here is the grocery list.  See if you have as much success as I did! :)

Organized Home Challenge: Week 1-1.5

It's time to get organized!  Check out the Organized Home Challenge over at Home Storage Solutions 101.  I'm excited to get my house all put in order this year.  It's part of trying to get my life put back in order.  I've felt just all discombobulated lately, and I want to change that!  (How often do you get to use the word "discombobulated"?  I love it!)

Weeks 1-2 of the Organized Home Challenge had to do with kitchens.  Surprisingly, this may be the most organized area of my whole house.  Probably because we have a pretty small kitchen, so everything has to have it's place or the whole room becomes a disaster very quickly.  That actually gave me an out the last week, because a lot of this was already done!

January 7 - Declutter small kitchen appliances.  Mine all have homes.  Most of them live in the pantry, on the bottom shelf: food processor, blender, rice cooker, dehydrator, and slow cooker.  The toaster and the mixer have cupboard space.  Done!

January 8 - Clear off kitchen counters.  This is a daily chore!  It seems like every time I go in the kitchen, there is a toy, the mail, or some random object sitting on the counter!  So, I'm just having to make myself more aware of picking things up as I walk through.  Done!

January 9 - Clear off the kitchen table.  We don't have a table in our kitchen, just in the dining room.  And it's usually cleared off so we can eat.  Occasionally the kids leave coloring books or something on it, so again, just being more aware and picking things up! Done!

January 10 - Declutter everyday tablecloths, napkins, placemats.  Do people actually use these everyday?  I can't remember where my holiday ones even are.  Maybe someday when I don't have little people who spill things...Done!

January 11 - Declutter excess plastic cups and water bottles.  OK.  This one I had to do.  How do we accumulate so many water bottles??  I didn't take pictures (OOPS!), but I think we threw out or donated something like 15 water bottles.  I kept the ones the kids got at summer camp - they are really good bottles.  Plus we have 3 large ones that we keep for camping - they went down to the camping tub.  The only cups I kept were the mugs (with lids) that we got from Walt Disney World last year.  They are awesome mugs, and souvenirs.  Done!

January 12 - Declutter ziplock bags, foil, plastic wrap, etc.  These already have a drawer that stays pretty neat.  Done!

January 13 (Reading Day)

January 14 - Declutter kitchen cabinet shelves/drawers.  This goes with...

January 15 - Declutter kitchen junk drawer.  Alright, this is where I had work to do.  I am constantly getting new kitchen gadgets.  I love gadgets!  But sometimes a good purge of the utensil drawer is necessary.  I have 2 drawers and a canister for utensils.  Here is what they looked like before:

Try finding something in that mess.  And who needs three ladles and 5 sets of measuring cups, anyway?  I went through and got rid of a bunch of junk.  Anything broken, stained, or starting to melt went in the garbage.  The rest of the stuff I got rid of went to Goodwill.  It made a huge difference just cleaning out those drawers!  Here are the after shots:

Up next is finishing the kitchen cabinets and then it's on to the pantry...probably the scariest part of my house! :)

Meal Planning Week 2 - a great week for sales

This week is a great week for sales for my grocery list!  Wow!  Almost everything I don't have is on sale, mostly on Cartwheel at Target.  I love weeks like this!

Here is the menu I created for the next 4 weeks:

And here is the grocery list to go with it.

Happy shopping!

Disney Movie Night: Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins has been on my mind a lot lately.  I've been wanting to go see Saving Mr. Banks; I just haven't had time yet.  And the Walt Disney exhibit is at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago right now.  I'm trying to figure out when we can go see that as well.  Plus, I'm working on early plans for our next Disney World trip and one of the meals I've been contemplating is breakfast at 1900 Park Fare, which includes Mary Poppins as one of the characters.  So, naturally, Mary Poppins was our movie for tonight!

When I was trying to come up with a menu for tonight, there were only a few obvious choices from the movie.  Cakes and tea?  Not really supper food.  Fish (that is what they were going to buy when they got sidetracked to Uncle Albert's)...I'm allergic.  Hmmm...what to do?

So, I decided to go with a menu based more on the location of the movie than movie references itself.     I found a recipe for the Guinness Stew they serve at the Rose and Crown at the UK Pavilion in Epcot, so I went with that.  I know...Irish.  But, it's close.  And delicious!!  I decided on scones for a side.

For dessert, I went back to the Rose and Crown.  Sticky toffee pudding.  The kids response?  "That's not pudding!  It's cake!"  My response?  "Heaven on a plate!"  I'm a sucker for toffee.

This was a great movie night, and one of my all-time favorite Disney classics!

A New Take on Meal Planning: Week 1

So I decided to try something new for my grocery shopping and meal planning this year.  Instead of doing one month at a time like I used to do, I'm starting the year by planning 4 weeks.  Each week, I'll plan one week to add on the end.  So, I'll always have 4 weeks of planned meals.

Why?  First, this gives me some flexibility.  If I just don't have time on the day I want to plan, it's not a huge deal.  I can put it off a day or two.  Second, sales!  If I have more than this week's groceries planned out, I can shop sales, coupons, etc. in advance.

So, how do I do this?  I have a monthly meal calendar in my planner (missed that post?  Find it here.) I use that to write out my dinner plans.

I don't really plan breakfast or lunch.  I have things I keep on hand for both.  Breakfast: eggs, bacon, cereal, bread, milk.  Lunch: salad mix, chicken that I've grilled, celery, dressings, soup (either canned or leftover and frozen), crackers, fresh fruit, and sometimes Hormel Compleats for a treat.  So here are my steps for creating my meal plans:

1.  Fill in Church Dinner on Wednesdays.  Our church has a community dinner every Wednesday before the kids' programs.  It's a great way to meet new people and fellowship with friends.  Plus the food is good!  If you don't have a night where you have a church or community meal, you could always have a pizza night or McDonald's night or just generic eating out night.  That makes one night a week really simple.

2.  Fill in special meals.  This month is J's birthday, so we'll go out that night.  We also have a pizza party for cub scouts.  Plus, on Saturday's when we have nothing going on, we like to do our Disney movie nights.

3.  Go through the freezer.  I look at what meat I have on hand and what meals from my cooking co-op I have.  Right now I have a lot from co-op.  I got a lot in November, and with the car accident, we didn't do a lot of cooking.  So, I have those to use up, plus we meet tonight so I'll get all of January's. I fill these in where I want to use them.

4.  Fill in the remaining nights with tried-and-true recipes or things I've found online that look good.  I have a huge recipe board on Pinterest that I've hardly cracked! ;)

So here is my meal plan for the next 4 weeks.  Meals with * are co-op meals.  You can either fill in a different main dish, find a similar recipe, or if you ask I might share! :)

5.  Make a grocery list.  This may be the long way, but I like to write down EVERYTHING I need so I can double check my pantry.  All spices, everything.  I use a printable shopping list I found on Pinterest from iamthatlady.com.  I print off a new one each week, write the dates at the top and fill out the groceries for week #4.  So I'm actually working from 4 lists at a time...but more on that later.

6.  For the current week (week 1), go through the pantry/fridge/freezer and cross off what I already have.

7.  Once I have my list of things I need, I go through adds and coupons.  I usually go through the weekly adds for the 3 stores I do my shopping at first and look for good sales (Target, Fareway, and HyVee).  I also look for Fuel Saver items at HyVee.

8.  Coupons!  I use coupons.com, coupons.target.com, and digital coupons from the Target app and HyVee site.

9.  Apps.  I use both Cartwheel by Target and Ibotta.

10.  Once I've marked everything that has a sale, coupon, cartwheel, Ibotta, or Fuel Saver, I sort things by store in Shopper on my phone and I'm ready to go.  Anything not marked goes on the Fareway list, since things tend to be a little less expensive there.

And that's it!  Here is the grocery list this week's trip.  I've marked the coupons and such that I've found.  Hope it helps!  Once I take off the things I have on hand, I'm left with a pretty short list!