You know how I’ve been making an extra effort to use up things stashed away in our pantry/freezer for the past few weeks/months?  Apparently that’s a new trend that’s gaining popularity.  It’s called shelf cooking and there’s a whole hashtag devoted to the #shelfcookingchallenge.  Who knew!?!  I’m game!!  I love the feeling of using things up, plus it is in alignment with my efforts to reduce waste.  Not that I waste things in the freezer or pantry.  Throwing them away is not my problem, but rather, collecting things “just in case” to the degree that… Read more >

Like a true introvert, I got a little excited when some of our weekend plans fell through because I was in need of a low key couple of days.  We had some fun stuff planned (a local kids production of A Christmas Carol, church, farmer’s market, the usual…) but no dinner events.  Which meant I was free to shop for what I was in the mood for in that very moment. Kyle felt like salmon and we hadn’t had it in a while, so that was how Saturday’s dinner came about. We also had cilantro… Read more >

This little sweetie baked an apple pie with me and both kids have been eating it alllll up. I guess it’s more of a cobbler (and it looks red because we used red palm oil in the crust), but the kids are calling it pie, so PIE IT IS. Look at her all fresh and clean from in her jammies…dessert is a recent phenom in our casa and they are big fans.  We eat dinner on the early side and yet their bedtimes are getting later…I have a feeling we are going to need to… Read more >

Continuing food clean out mode.  This dinner was made with pesto from the freezer and sausage from the freezer. The main difference with cooking now, having quit our Costco membership, is that the amount of meat we have on hand is limited.  Whereas before, our freezer always had chicken breasts/thighs and ground beef, it’s not something I stock up on now.  I’m fine with it.  It means we spend less money on meat and eat less meat, even if I have to be slightly more on top of it with planning ahead.  The loss of… Read more >