This Week on the Dining Table

The "Tasty Treat" Edition..........

I felt like making my world famous carrot cake this past weekend since I had all the ingredients needed.  It's my variation of a recipe I cut off the bag of Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat Pastry Flour bag years ago.
I don't add the oil and sub apple sauce for that fully.  I also add more fruit/veg including raisins. It turned out so good and moist it doesn't need any frosting!
I know it doesn't look impressive and ignore that piece missing on the back end corner.  Somebody needs to taste test it and make sure the family doesn't get poisoned, right? ;-)

I still have a huge amount of carrots(had to buy a 5 lb. bag and don't feel like roasted carrots with the temps here now so does anyone have any carrot recipes(something for hot weather like a carrot salad)they can share?  Let me know. 8-)

Moving On....

Onward to the meal planning-

This is what was planned.........

1. Sunday--Fend for Yourself
2. Monday--Beef and Broccoli, Rice
3. Tuesday--Stuffed Shells, Salad

4. Wednesday--Chicken Pot Pie
5. Thursday--Leftovers or FFY

6. Friday--Breakfast for Dinner
7. Saturday--Rigatoni  w/Meat Sauce, Squash and Onions

And this is what really happened........

Here is this week's "food plan".....

1. Sunday--Fend for Yourself
2. Monday--Beef and Broccoli, Rice
3. Tuesday--Stuffed Shells, Salad

4. Wednesday--Chicken Pot Pie
5. Thursday--Lobster, Corn on Cob

6. Friday-Fend For Yourself(FFY)(I had leftover lobster)
7. Saturday--Breakfast for Dinner

Last week saw 5 nights of home cooked dinners, 2 nights of leftovers/FFY, and 0 night of Take-Out.
The only thing that didn't happen was the Rigatoni with Meat Sauce and Salad because, well.....Lobsters for $5.77 lb.!
Rigatoni moves to this week.

What got put into the freezer last week....
* 2 lbs. ground turkey breast
*  5 lbs. of ground beef

What got taken out of the freezer and used.....
* 1+ lb. bottom round roast
* 1 lb. shredded mozzarella
* 2 pie crusts
* 1/2 bag mixed Veggies
* 1 roll of Sausage

We used up that quart of liquid whole eggs I got for .50¢ this week.  If I can get that again at that price I will get more and put some in the freezer.
I used 1/2 of that leftover ham steak in the eggs I cooked for Breakfast for Dinner.  

2 trips to Weis(PMITA)Markets and Hubs' trip to Price Chopper had me spending $140.61 total this past week and brings my May Total spending on food to $447.04.
I spent more than that but those groceries purchased for the cook-out today will be tallied up under the Eating Out/Take-Out category.

I doubt I'll shop any more in May at this point and we are over $400.  Considering "things" lately $50 over budget is a-ok in my book.

I am at $17.75 earned in Ibotta rebates in May after Friday's trip to Weis. I really didn't think I'd even hit that this month since I didn't shop at qualifying stores until I hit Weis last week.

My savings percentage last week was 33.56%(without Rite-Aid trips)for May and the monthly savings total comes in at 39.54%(w/out R-A).  

I have 6 more food shopping/spending days in May.

Leftovers going into this week........1/2 ham steak(which will probably go to the dogs' dinners), quiche,stuffed shells(4 after I gave a bunch to the nephew/brother in-law too), beef and broccoli w/rice, 1/2 of a large chicken pot pie.
And we had no food waste.....yay!

Here is this week's "food plan".....

1. Sunday--Pork Tenderloin Sammies, Squash and Onions
2. Monday--Cook-out:dogs, burgers, salads, beans
3. Tuesday--FFY

4. Wednesday--Leftover Cook-out Foods
5. Thursday--Pizza take-out, Salad

6. Friday--Beef Stroganoff, Rice, Green Beans
7. Saturday--Rigatoni w/Meat Sauce, Salad

What needs buying for this menu? Mushrooms.  The only place they aren't too much $$ is Aldi so I'll need to hit Aldi this week when I go out on Tuesday.  Will probably pick up some fruit there too to get us to the end of May so I'll be spending a tad more

What's left on my master list of meals we can make from what's here...........

*Shrimp Tempura
*Kielbasa sandwiches
*Tuna Casserole
*Chili Dogs, Beans
*Roasted Chicken
*Chicken and Dumplings
*Shrimp Ravioli
*Cheese Ravioli
*Hungarian Goulash
*Spaghetti and Meatballs
*Haddock Fish Dinner  new
*Chicken Tenders  new
* Rigatoni w/Meat Sauce new

We're suppose to get cold weather next Sun. and Mon. so maybe I'll squeeze Chicken and Dumpling and Goulash from my list into next week's menu.  It's getting to the time of year where I want to limit running the oven so more stove top, crock pot or cold meals need to happen.

What is getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Was last week's plan successful, did you go off plan or did you not even plan what was going to be eaten last week?

Any great deals on food at your stores this week?  

Sluggy

I Almost Died! Not Really

Since my Bread Store Outlet is still closed(2 months and counting)I have been reduced to this........

I had to pay full retail price for a loaf of bread at Weis(PMITA)Markets!

I tell ya, it about killed me to do it but we were totally out of sliced bread.
Ok, so it was on sale(kind of)so I saved a WHOLE .30¢ but still.......

I have a feeling my Bread Outlet will be one of the casualties of this pandemic and never reopen. sigh.

I'd bake my own bread but you have to sell your soul to the Devil to get yeast around these parts too!!


What are you having to pay what you consider too much $$ for lately during this crapfest?

Sluggy

The Great Road Trip of 2017-Part 1

Back after Hubs retired the end of June of 2017 we had BIG plans, I tell ya BIG PLANS!

We were going to take the Mother of All Road Trips from Pennsylvania to out West and back.
The trip ended up taking a whole month(mid July to mid August)and we hit many of the places/sites as we could fit into a month on the road.  We planned on knocking 8 states off our "Never Been There" List.

The first day was a long one with not much to talk about.  It involved a lot of driving and a lot of boredom.

We left at dark o'thirty on July 18th to set out on the first of many interstates.  We wanted to get to Kentucky by nightfall.  First was a stop for coffee, iced tea and breakfast biscuits at Mickey D's at home.  Then we were off down I-80!

This interesting thing was being towed Southward.  Some type of military vehicle bound for who knows where?

We hit the Maryland line from I-99 in PA.  Then it was westward onto I-68 through western MD.

 Of course we hit traffic and delays this being mid July.  Ironically this photo was taken somewhere north of the town of Accident, MD. lol

 We knew we were getting close to the state border when we saw ever larger hills to climb.....

 And then it was into "Wild and Wonderful" West Virginia.
We decided to just take potty/drink breaks and not do lunch and do an early dinner.

 We found a Bob Evans in South Charleston WV off the interstate and ate there.
I got my fav Salad with Pecans, Cranberries and Chicken.

 Hubs opted for a plate of white foods.....mashed taters, country fried steak smothered in white gravy, cole slaw and biscuits.

 Less than hour later we hit the Kentucky line on I-64, outside of Catlettsburg KY.

Eastern KY is not known for it's lovely vistas, unless you consider petroleum refineries lovely.
Two more hours(through some truly lovely parts of KY)and we were in Frankfort where our motel for the evening was located.
Except our Garmin couldn't find the motel for some reason.
We did find it and once in the parking of the motel the Garmin GPS found the motel too. lol
Thanks a lot Garmin!

I took this photo through a very dirty car window of the motel.  It was suppose to be a Days Inn but it also had a Knights Inn sign in the window.  WTF?!
Truly an au courant motel......with all the talk of transgender we stayed at a motel with "brand confusion".

We got a quick dip in their not so great pool(old but serviceable and nobody else in it)then it was back to the room to settle in for a much needed sleep.

Part 2 coming up next time..........the one where I avoid getting food poisoning.

Sluggy

Frugal Friday....the May 22nd Edition

Looking around here and this is what we did that was thrifty this past week...........

 * Remember those two rotisserie chickens we bought last week for $3.99 each?

One was eaten that night for dinner plus we had leftover meat from it.  I also had a handful of red grapes getting long in the tooth in the produce drawer.
So we combined those with the chicken, a handful of pecans, chopped celery, salt, pepper and mayo to make Chicken Salad for lunch on Thursday.  We have enough left for 2 more lunches. go us!
No money spent and using up what we have.
The other rotisserie chicken is in the freezer to be remade into a dish another day. ;-)

* I found money!

This shiny dime greeted me on the floor in front of the register counter last Saturday at Rite-Aid.

Total $ Found This Week...... .10¢
Total $ Found So Far This Year.....$45.18

*  I already showed what I got at Rite-Aid last Saturday.........

Nothing spent OOP.

* I did a big shop at Weis this week too.  Here are the best deals I got........

These 1 lb. bags of Carolina Blend rice(Jasmine and Long Grain)were on clearance 50% off for $1.25 each.

I got there just after the meat guy put out a gazillion 1 lb. packs of grass-fed ground beef.  They all had $3 off instant stickers on them so instead of $5.99 per 1 lb. they were $2.99 per lb.  The regular Weis beef was $6.29 per lb. so I scooped up 5 of those grass-fed packs at that price!
I also found ground turkey 1 lb. packs with $2 off instant stickers on them so instead of the sale price of $3.99 they were $1.99 each!

I found two of these Oikos blue label yogurt cups on quick sale for 50% off at .50¢ each.  I only have a photo of one because Hubs ate the other one already....this is the man who NEVER eats yogurt!  lol
I also used a .65¢/1 Oikos blue label IPQ which fully doubled to $1.30 off so I got paid .30¢ to bring these yogurts home. ;-)

And all this was bought for the Ibotta weekly Buy 8 items/Get $5 Back Offer.
There are only 7 items because they didn't have anything else I wanted at that Weis that qualified.
I'll get a Carvel ice cream Cake later today at my Weis to finish off this deal.
$28.83 spent plus another $14 after $3 Q for the ice cream cake for the cookout=$42.83.
I'll get back $8.05 for these 7 items plus another $2.60($2.50 cake, .10¢ any bag of chips I plan to buy for the cookout)and $5 for buying 8 items.
$42.83 spent, $15.65 back(plus 2 Giveaway entries on Ibotta)=$27.18 OOP on all this and an outrageously priced ice cream cake. ;-)

*  The only shoes that fit my wide feet are Easy Spirits.  They use to have outlets all over the place were I could get them for cheap but alas! All around here(Rehoboth DE and Reading PA)have closed up so I am reduced to buying them online.
My every day shoes are about shot so it was time to bite the bullet and buy some shoes.  They had a Mother's Day Sale(30% off even the sale priced pairs)plus free shipping so I ordered 8 pairs.  6 arrived(the new to me sandals didn't fit right so they are going back in the mail)but they didn't ship the last two pair I ordered(they were mauve!).  I checked my c/c balance and there is now a $96.60 credit on my card for the 2 pair they never shipped.  I suppose they were out but Easy Spirit never emailed me about it, just gave me back the credit.  asshats! So I am out $227.50 for 5 pairs of new shoes(3 clogs and 2 slip-on sandals).  I got a good deal and I can throw out 4 pairs of shoes now and won't need to buy shoes again for 2 years.

*  I had Hubs go up to Price Chopper Thursday and buy 3 lobsters.  They had a flyer Q to get it for $5.77 lb.  A great buy but lobster at any price is far from a cheap dinner.  We paired it with corn on the cob for $1 for 6 ears(another flyer Q)which was inedible unfortunately.  They will be getting an email over that wasted $1. ;-) But the lobster was yummy and bonus--Ex-College Boy didn't want his so I get to eat that leftover one for dinner tonight on Fend for Yourself Night....woohoo!

That's about it for  me this week other than watching lots of shows on Roku and Amazon for free and some book reading for entertainment.

What frugal wins did y'all have this past week?



Sluggy

How My Days Go Lately-Down Rabbit Holes

Not that this Stay at Home order has changed my routine much, other than traveling to visit friends/family, but I find myself escaping down rabbit holes with more frequency.
Rabbit Holes=starting on one thing online and ending up somewhere unexpected or totally different from where you began.

For example--A couple of days ago I was wandering around online looking at real estate.  We still don't have a pin in a particular scenario or where we will be moving to so this searching is sort of all over the map.  Well not ALL over the map as we have about a dozen areas I've been looking at.
One of which is somewhere in lower VA near where my mother's kin are from.

So I was showing Hubs a house we should buy(being cheeky as it is way more than we want to spend and the place is huge!)in Charlotte County VA near were my mother was born.  This place is currently on the market for $450,000.   8,328 square footage(including basement), 5 bedrooms/4 bathrooms on 9.48 acres with a detached 5 car garage/carriage house. For what it is, it IS a steal(because of the area).
The listing has it in the wrong county and calls it a "Queeen Anne Victorian" style house even though it was begun in 1810 and finished before the Victorian Era, but I digress.....

Sylvan Hill Plantation was owned by Paul Carrington, Jr.
Here's a miniature portrait of him from his later years in the Yale Art Collection..........

He was born 1764 and died 1816 in Charlotte County, VA.  He was married to Mildred Howell Coles(1769-1840). I have Coles cousins in my tree.

Anyway, after Hubs laughed about me actually spending that kind of money on that house I told him who had it built and he says to me, "You know I worked with a guy early on at my company who was a Carrington.  He told me once that he was related to the Carrington family in Colonial Virginia.  His people were a second tier branch of elites in Virginia, just below the Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe sorts.  Mike said one of the buildings at the University of Virginia is named for one of his Carrington ancestors too."

Hhmm...You know, I have a couple of Carringtons hanging on my tree as well as a Carrington(Hannah)who married a Nicholas Cabell(also a family name of one of the buildings at UVA).
Maybe Mike is one of my cousins?

Well you know what I did........I pulled out my family tree macramé and did some digging on Hubs friend.
Hubs said this guy, Mike, born and raised in NJ, died sort of young, sometime after 2000 when we moved here.
That's all I needed to know to start working back to link Mike Carrington to my macramé.

After about 20 minutes I found Mike's death date/year(2007)and his real name was Malcolm Michael Carrington, born and raised in New Jersey.
Then I found his father, in a newspaper article in NJ and knew I was on the correct path.  Dad was also a Malcolm Carrington, born in Chicago in 1916 then moved to New Jersey where he died in 1999.

That's Mike's father from his college yearbook from Lehigh University in 1939.

Then it was Mike's grandfather named *wait for it!* Malcolm Carrington born in Richmond in 1874, died in 1943 in Summit, New Jersey.

Here's his headstone.....

Mike's grandfather also graduated from Lehigh U. in 1896.
Malcolm I's birth puts him in Virginia and from there it was a snap to link his line up to the Carringtons of Virginia.

Here is Mike's Great Grandfather, Isaac Howell Carrington taken sometime around 1865.........

And here is his headstone..........

Anyway I could go on boring you with all this but I found that Hubs' work buddy Mike Carrington is my 7th cousin 2 x removed.
We share of common ancestor in Samuel Burks(1680 Albemarle Co., VA-12 Feb 1756 Albemarle Co., VA).
Samuel Burks is my 8 x Great Grandfather and Mike's 6 x Great Grandfather.

And see his Great Great Grandmother's name on the headstone?
Emma Cabell Carrington.....so she's a Cabell and through basically the same pathway as Mike she's my 3rd cousin 6 x removed sharing the same common ancestor.

I can't believe with all this intramarriage with cousins I've got on the old mossy tree I don't have 8 toes on each foot, webbed fingers and an extra eyeball on my chest or something!

And after that matter was done and dusted I spent hours adding more Carringtons, Cabells, Coles and Dandridges to my family tree macramé.

Of course just finding the ancestors and dates is just the tip of the iceberg.
After that I like to go through the records and get the "rest of the story"......the whys behind what happened to the people.

And just like that, between dealing with dogs, cooking, cleaning-there goes my day!!

Hubs likes to say most of my friends are dead and related to me.  I seem to like a lot more dead people than living ones. lolz

Sluggy