Menu Plan for September 30 to October 6

Sunday
Oriental meatballs with orange sauce and vegetables on rice, simple tossed salad,pumpkin pudding  (pie without the crust, but with a dab of whipped cream of course! I am not a saint!) Too busy fooling with Tupperware to make a dessert, but in my defense? The meal was satisfying on it's own! I live to bake another day....

Monday
Salmon and baked home made "fries"

Tuesday
Oven roasted chicken breast with homemade cranberry sauce (made on Sunday) mashed potatoes and green peas & carrots

Wednesday
Homemade Leek and Potato Soup (made on Saturday, of last week) with GF Bread (time to try out those GF mixes I have stashed in the pantry!)

Thursday
Meeting night: Grilled Cheese, tossed salad,  Jell-0 for dessert - same fare for late homecoming travelers

Friday  Family Dinner
Ham with Hot Mustard Sauce,  Scalloped Potatoes, Vegetable Medley
(A steak for the beef eater!)
a "fancy" store bought dessert for our girls!

Saturday
Cabbage rolls and leftovers, with a can o'beans to stretch it, if need be!

I have been asked what we eat for breakfast and lunches.  Here is the simple answer!

At the beginning of the week, I like to prep as much as I can ahead to make salad for every meal as well as for easy lunches. For two old people, we go through an incredible amount of lettuce and fresh veggies.  Now that the man has his taste back, I am so enjoying the plethora of flavours in the produce department! Salad around here is defined as a mixture of various vegetables, or sometimes just one! If it is a meal? We add a bit of protein.  For instance, a chopped lettuce salad becomes a meal if you add a drained tin of red salmon .  If you make an oriental dressing, a few bits of roast beef or some quickly thawed shrimp makes a nice addition. Just about anything can be used to tart up the humble veggies for a very low "calorie cost".  As for portion control? It is the dressings you have to worry about, and I get around the need for "lots" by watering down the creamy store boughts with a bit of milk or vinegar, to make it stretch.  It halves the calories. The low fat versions aren't good for me, since they contain more sugars - taste has to come from somewhere!  I also like to use leftover vegetables or kidney beans  in my salads, since I firmly believe that  a vegetable only deserves to be cooked once. Reheating would mean another dirty dish, and that just isn't what I am all about, is it?

It was a dark and dreary night...

So how happy we were to wake up to the sun this morning!  The new blackout curtains are really doing the trick, so it is really nice to wake up well rested. I had no idea light could affect one's sleeping to that extent.  Better late than never, right?

This morning, I have all of the drawers out of the lower cupboards, ready for the helpers to clean out the corners. What a confusion! While they are doing that, I will organize and clean the bins before sliding them back into position. I had difficulty finding these wonderful things...made by Rubbermaid.  They have stood the test of time. We installed them in 1996, and they really make the bottom cupboards function well. With a pull you can reach whatever is lurking in the depths...if you don't have real drawers, these are the next best things, for sure.  So, the morning will be spent tidying, cleaning and generally organizing to the point where we won't be able to find a thing! LOL

IT IS FINALLY HERE!

Here is my nasty freezer.  I just cleaned it out a couple of weeks ago, but it only takes one 'hubby search' to displace every single item. My gluten free foods account for a lot of the bits and pieces I found tossed thither and yon. Now they are all in three containers. One for a mix of  buns and bagels, one for sweet things like donuts and another for waffles. It takes me quite awhile to work through a whole package of anything, and all I have to do now?  Is to buy only items for which I have room!

And I am doing a happy Tupperware dance!  I think my favourite part is knowing that having ice in a drink isn't going to take five minutes of shuffling to extricate the ice trays, not to mention the balancing act required to replace them!  The freezer has been transformed. It was a much easier job in than I anticipated!  Who knew that all of that stuff could be contained so easily?  The door holds one package of frozen cranberries, three pounds of butter and an unopened bag of stir fry vegetables.  And space!Lots of space! 

The bottom drawer holds our portions of meat that we package in vacuum pack bags and bread that will be likely used within a couple of days.  It is hard to believe that the jumble will be  never more!  I am relieved that we can keep  the selection of foods that we like, without the disappointment of finding freezer burn when we eventually try to use it. Oh happy day!  This has spurred me on to continue with the upper part of the frig...in the back of my mind of course, is the knowledge that Lady Amana is on her last legs, being well over sixteen years old. At least, she will go out in style, well groomed and organized!  I think these containers would be useful no matter how the refrigerator is configured.  That is my story and I am sticking to it!  I have room for more of the 'medium 1' size, which would be perfect to store one pound of hamburger.  At present, we portion out a huge amount from Costco into small freezer bags, but it would be so much easier to put the container on the scale, measure out the meat and pop the lid on. Ah....something to watch for in the sales on the Tupperware site!  Now it just remains to cut the instructions from the bags of fish, shrimp to tuck into the containers. I KNOW I will forget how long to cook those salmon fillets!



I just happened to notice that there is  a terrific sale on the FridgeMates on my Tupperware lady's site, so I  ordered a couple of sets to transform the vegetable portion of my fridge - sure can't beat the value this week, can you?  A suggestion on one of the videos was to keep the odds and sods of condiments, etc. in the produce drawers to make room for these little beauties.  DONE!  One more interesting suggestion, from another video, was to use the largest container to make salad for a week, so you don't have to go through a big rigmarole to get a few fresh veggies on the table! LOVED that suggestion, because, when it comes to my lunches, I often skip them out of sheer laziness!  Hope springs eternal in the colourful world of Tupper.....


If you have a minute, check out this video for these marvels of modern science at work!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2tgoy3prhs&list=PL3F7C8E889BCC3D68&index=6&feature=plpp_video

Fall!

Is coming!  It may not be here right now, but the day is coming where I will be able to get out my new leather jacket and wear it comfortably! So far, in my winter wardrobe, I have one pair of INC pants that fit like a dream...or at least they did last year! Two leather jackets and a plethora of dresses. I won't have to purchase any dress clothes, but I will need a few outfits for every day shopping trips and the like. I have a fall coat that I bought last year, as well as a good winter coat and a new quilted jacket for shopping trips. What I do need (and I use that word lightly, having literally shelves full of purses in storage) is a good bag.  I really do have a thing for purses, and alhtough I rarely go back after buying and tiring of them, I can't seem to get rid of them easily. The styles seem to change just enough to make me want new, but I always think I will use the retired bags sometime in the future. So far? Not working out that way. So, one day, I just may go to that closet with a huge box, and discard all but the few that are my favourites. It seems like a shame, but there it is. You have to use a bag for awhile to see if it works for you, and it seems that my favourite style is a barrel bag, with no center pocket. Center pockets drive me out of my mind!  I  bought my first barrel bag thirty years ago, and literally wore it out. I bought one about eight years ago, and now it is on its last legs. So, the rule will be from now on in, ONLY BUY A BARREL BAG!!!  I have tried totes, clutches, small bags, large bags, cross body bags, you name it. But I always seem to go back to the simple black barrel bag. So now, I am in the market for a new one! Of course, I may buy a purple one this year....

So in the interest of just being curious, please answer "What is your favourite bag, and why?" 

Found something really good at the grocery store today!

That is absolutely life changing for me, but may sound ridiculously simple to you!  In the freezer section, in two flavours - regular and onion flavoured - were potato patties by McCain that had no gluten and 130 calories each, the exact number that is in my gluten free bread! So, in the morning? I can now have a change of pace, and eat one of these little beauties with my egg plus save the "cost" of calories for the butter for my toast! Now, big excitement? YES. Whenever I find a delish food that I can eat, it is an incredibly big deal, especially if I don't have to spend a fortune for it being gluten free!  Life is a series of small blessings, isn't it?

Nutrition Facts Valeur nutritive Per 1 patty (68 g) / par 1 galette (68 g)
Amount Teneur % Daily Value % valeur quotidienne
Calories / Calories 130
Fat / Lipides 6.5 g	10%
Saturated / saturés 1 g + Trans / trans 0 g	5%
Polyunsaturated / Polyunsaturated 2.5 g
Omega-6 / Omega-6 1 g
Omega-3 / Omega-3 0.3 g
Monounsaturated / Monounsaturated 2.5 g
Cholesterol / Cholestérol 0 mg
Sodium / Sodium 200 mg	8%
Potassium / Potassium 150 mg	4%
Carbohydrate / Glucides 17 g	6%
Fibre / Fibres 1 g	4%
Sugars / Sucres 1 g
Protein / Protéines 1 g
Vitamin A / Vitamine A	0%
Vitamin C / Vitamine C	6%
Calcium / Calcium	0%
Iron / Fer	4%

Just do it....

How easy is that advice to read?  How many things do you know how to do, but don't? Sometimes I think this information age isn't all it is cracked up to be...we all know how to be perfect in form and deed, yet do we do it ?  We might need an action age next, don't you think?

Like salmon, we must like to swim against the current! We are all so good at it! There is something in us that lets our hands dip into the chip bowl three or ten  too many times, and that little voice that tells us that it really isn't convenient to attend to our nails every day, so we will just skip it for now...... Hey, maybe it is stupidity? Laziness? All those qualities that aren't that flattering and so easily applied!  The trick is to make it our habit to do good things for ourselves. Build a solid routine of simple actions that make huge differences in our lives.

Good personal care, good diet, good movement, not necessarily of the bizarre, frenzied "Sweating to the Oldies" variety, but just plain old moving our body in fresh air. Definition of aerobic.  I know that since I simplified all of my routines, I have been doing a lot better in a lot of ways. I still have miles to go before I sleep, but the hardest part of a journey is the first step.