This Week On The Dining Table

This is the "Not Doing Much Cooking" Week.

 

Here's what was planned last week--

Sunday--Potato Crusted Flounder, Roasted Potatoes and Onions, Brussel Sprouts
Monday--Tacos, Corn
Tuesday--Lasagna, Garlic Bread, Salad
Wednesday--Chicken medallions, Spinach, Squash or Zucchini
Thursday--Pork Chops, Green Beans(from last Summer's garden), Mashed taters, Applesauce
Friday--homemade Pizza-maybe barbeque chicken pizza(using more of that mozzarella cheese & cooked chicken), Green Salad
Saturday--Leftovers

 

We were good with this plan until Wednesday.

Thursday and Saturday we had Sausage Sandwiches(one night w/Coleslaw, the other night w/Corn on the Cob).  The local market had a new brand from NJ on special for $1.99 lb. so I picked up a few packages.  Making those was quick and easy and didn't involve the oven and I jammed 2 pkgs. in the freezer for later.  Friday I took the rest of the chicken breast meat from that 8.5lbs. I got for less than .99¢ lb.(After using some for fresh chicken sandwiches for lunches....), and made chicken and dumplings.  I threw in baby carrots that were getting old that needed using up.

 So Pork Chops and Pizza are moving to this week's menu....again. lolz

 

 I spent more anticipated last week because of the sausage patties on sale, the son wanted a frozen pizza and I hit the produce stand in town on Saturday morning and spend an additional $10 on fresh produce.  So last week,  I spent  $56.36 on  $83.78 worth of groceries at 1 store & 1 produce stand.

If I don't buy any more groceries until Thursday, August 1st, I will have spent $357.86 for food in July.

 

**We did have some food waste this week.......Sluggy hangs her head in shame.......

We hardly ever have food waster anymore here so I'm not too broken up over this happening.  I just don't want it to become a regular thing, ya know?

A small portion of Coleslaw and a bigger portion(2 maybe?)of Fajita filling mix went to Food Waste Heaven last week.
  

Leftovers, that are still aok, going into this week's plan......1 portion of Lasagna, 2 sausage patties, 3 helping of Chicken & Dumplings.

 

This week is Band Camp so #2 Son won't be here for dinner all week.

I can't eat Thursday, due to Colonoscopy prep(yuck!)so I am not cooking and Hubs is on his own.

(I told him to get fast food because I don't even want to smell food cooking that day. lol)

 

(I've made bold the leftover items I've used in the menu below.)

 Here's this week's meal plan--
 

Sunday--Leftovers or Whatever you can Find in the Fridge
Monday--Leftover Lasagna for me, Sausage Sammies for Hubs
Tuesday--Chicken & Dumplings
Wednesday--Pork Chops, Green Beans, Roasted Taters
Thursday--Fend for Yourself night, I can't eat. eek!
Friday--Probably Chinese Take-Out as I won't feel like cooking but will be ravenous lol
Saturday--No Clue yet....maybe that grilled Pizza I never made ?

On the shopping list for these meals--turkey deli meat(for my lunches), bread and possibly more fruit.

There are a few Catalina deals at Weis PMITA Markets this week I might be tempted to do(Unilever and Purina)but I'm not sure yet if I will.  I might hit up the bread outlet this week as we are low on all bread products.

 

I'm figuring about $20 for the list above.....more if I do the Catalina deals.

That's what's appearing on the kitchen table this week here at Chez Sluggy.  Not much cooking or shopping going into August.

 What's getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Sluggy

July's Decluttering Porn

More stuff left the house this past weekend.....

Just one of a few things I got accomplished lately.
Go me! 8-)

Back later with the Menu Plan for the week and Grocery spending.....

Sluggy

She's Baaaaaaaaack......

My bloggin' Buddy JUDY is back!!!

Go check her new blog out HERE.

Sluggy
 

Teen Brain

You would think that after 2 older kids I'd be use to dealing with the dreaded teen brain syndrome.

You know what I mean, right?
Teens have so many hormones and things swirling around in their noggins that it makes listening, thinking and following directions very difficult, if not impossible.

I have told #2 Son at least 4 times now this week about a small chore I want him to do.
I left it up to him when to attempt this job and here it is Saturday morning and it's still undone.

On this point, we had a "go 'round" about the chore in question on Wednesday.
He came downstairs and I once again reminded him(reminder #2 or 3, I don't recall)about doing said chore and doing it on that day, since he seemed not to have any mojo to get it done asap on his own.

He looked at me like I was an alien(shut up....I see you thinking something about me out there!lol)and said that I hadn't EVER in my life said anything before today about doing this chore.
Really??!

Do I need to start filming video of me telling him so I can play it back when he denies I ever told him something or other?

He continued to deny I ever told him to do this chore.
I know the child is suffering from an advanced case of teen brain and I explained to him what I meant.

Again, he looked at me like I had hot lava oozing out of a vent in my neck.
He shook his head in a way that says, "Poor mom, she's lost her mind." and left the room.

A bit later, as if to punctuate the point I was making, #2 Son returned downstairs to the kitchen to fix himself something to eat.
He took the second little French bread pizza out of the freezer(from the box of Stouffer's I got him the other day)and got busy in there heating it up.

I didn't pay attention to him really and got absorbed into whatever I was doing online.
About half an hour later I looked up from the computer as my nose was smelling something burning.
I yelled up to him and he flew down the stairs to the kitchen and started banged around all disgusted.
I looked up and he had a pizza pan in his hand with this on it.....

That slightly incinerated item was a pizza at one time.
It actually looks better in the photo than it did in real life.....
Ever the optimist(ha!)and trying to save the situation, I told him that charcoal is good for your teeth.

I could have sworn I saw daggers protruding from his eyeballs toward me at that moment.
;-)

Teen stood there clueless about how this had happened.....the pizza burning.
He said he had followed the directions on the box.

So I dug the box outta the trash and started reading them.
And it became apparent that what he did was combine 2 sets of directions-one for cooking it with a microwave and one for cooking it in a traditional oven.

One instruction said to bake at 350 for 30 minutes in a regular oven.

The other instruction said to bake for 2 minutes in a microwave and then place in a preheated 475 degree regular oven for 5 mintues.

So what does the teen brain afflicted youth do?
He preheated the regular oven to 475 degrees and baked it for 30 minutes.

*Thud*

And there you have it folks.
The argument that I HAVE told him about that chore I wanted done multiple times and he just hasn't processed the information correctly in his teen brain.

The old mom doesn't have Alzheimer's yet......
It's him and NOT me.
And hopefully I get this kid grown and out of the house before I do sink into the Alzheimer soup.

Sluggy



 

Perfecting My Wave

When I get silly I like to refer to myself in the third person when conversing.
You know......like when I disapprove of something and am talking to someone, I'll say, "We are not amused".

That sort of thing.
I'm just that silly.

Well come to find out, wanting to talk in the third person might be imbedded somewhere deep in my dna.

A few months ago I traced, via paper trail,(sources range from excellent to dubious though), my maternal genealogy back to European royalty.
Most of the connections are NOT sourced by me but taken from other trees of people I appear to be related to.

That gentleman in Erie, PA who I found I am related to via a maternal Great Grandfather's line(my mother's mother's father's line)and corresponded with about 5 years ago, is part of the Vassar/Vasser family of VA.  This line stretches back to the first immigrant to the New World, John Vasser who arrived at Jamestown in 1635.  Old John V. happens to be one of my 9th Great Grandfathers.
That's all well documented and many ancestors are right proud of that lineage.

But I turned my attention to John Vasser's wife awhile ago, Elizabeth Dowe(other spelling variations are Dow and Dew).
She also came to VA in 1635.
Her parents were Christopher Dowe and Elizabeth Franklin from England.
I traced Elizabeth's maternal line back 3 generations to an Ann Hare.
She was the daughter of Thomas Popy Hare.
I traced Thomas' paternal line back 4 more generations to a John Hare.
He married Jane or Joan de Neville, who was the daughter of Ralph de Neville and Joan de Beaufort, the Countess of Westmorland.
Joan de Beaufort was the daughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duck of Lancaster, of the Plantagenet house of England.
Yes, my ancestor was one of the bastard children of John of Gaunt and his mistress Kathryn Swynford(who he eventually married).
This line leads me back through the Plantagenet rulers of England all the way back to William the Conqueror(born 1024), who appears to be one of my 29th Great Grandfathers.
So even that line of my ancestry leads back to France.
I tell you I am finding all kinds of ancestors going back to France once I started rooting around deep enough in my tree branches.

My direct ancestor rulers are William(the Man), Henry I, Henry II, John I, Henry III, Edward I II and III,  and then I drop off into the minor nobility after John of Gaunt and upper classes of English society, before hopping a boat to America.
But being descended from the Plantagenet line means I am remotely related to all the rulers of England down through Liz II.
Do you think I can use my "connection" to the House of Windsor to get a peek "up close and personal" of the new royal baby? 8-)

Whoop dee doo I hear you say about all those stuffy royalty folks......
Yah, that's sort of my reaction as well.

But it still doesn't keep me from enjoying this cute little song from a BBC series called "Horrible Histories" that I found episodes for on You Tube.

Can't we all use a silly little tune to remember the Rulers of England by? lolz
Enjoy!





 Sluggy
H.N.S.R.M (Her Not So Royal Majesty)