minxybaby

A discussion about dinner I just had with hubby.

minxy_baby: Hey babe, how do you feel about meat loaf and mashed potatoes for dinner? Maybe with a side veggie or something?

nodeg: Sure, sounds good.

minxy_baby: I'm going to need your help though. I'll get the meat loaf in the oven, but you'll probably have to do the rest by yourself. You'll have to peel potatoes.

nodeg: Actually, I really feel like those frozen chicken strips. I've had a craving.

minxy_baby: You fucker! Well, in that case you can cook everything by yourself, and I'll just keep painting.

nodeg: heh No problem.

What is it with men and peeling potatoes? Or is it just my man? lol

Empanadas were on the menu, but I'm going to postpone those for a couple more days. I need time to get the house sorted out before I can spend several hours in the kitchen. (Reminder to myself: Update menu with ~~past &~~ future meals.)

I woke up at 6:30am. I laid in bed listening to the wind outside for 20 minutes. Then I got up, put on my painting clothes, quietly left the bedroom, and got straight to work. The second coat on the trim (including the window) is drying. I'm going to have to mask the ceiling in a bit. When it's dry I can start the walls. Yippee!! This is the last of my painting. Two coats on the walls, then my house can be sorted out. I'm glad I took it easy yesterday 'cause my body is back to normal.

As I was painting the window, Binka, the ever so affectionate cat, jumped up on the frame to get my attention. Luckily she jumped onto a mostly dry section, and only ended up with a little bit of white on her feet. She needs constant lovins, that one. :)

I am having my first coffee of the day. It feels good to be mostly done. These walls will probably take me into the night, but I've been waiting to get the living room done for what seems like forever! Once the house is liveable again, I can get to other chores... like laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, and the constant stack of dishes. The fun just never stops at Minxy's house! lol I am enjoying my leave though, believe it or not. ;) I should have a couple days in the end to just sit down and relax.

Current Mood: bouncy

The trim gave me an enormous amount of difficulty. I struggled with that for most of the day. I did 2 coats on the baseboards, touched up the ceiling, and put a half-assed coat on the window frame. The window is already white, so you probably wouldn't notice anyways. I couldn't do anything with that bloody tape!!! I swear you'd think I buttered the walls before masking them. Frick!

I forgot about supper till almost 6:00pm, when we were both starving. It was Indian night, so I went all out. It took me 2 1/2 hours!! We finished eating around 9:00pm. Hubby had to go out, so he asked if I wanted anything. I said I wouldn't mind a dessert, but I feel guilty 'cause of our challenge. I told him if he could find something small, then go for it because I want to make muffins or a sweet bread in the next couple days. He said Baklava would be perfect, and would fit in with our Indian night. He came home with a mini log cake. lol Everything was closed early so he had to go to the grocery store.

I updated my menu, and the food inventory list. We changed a couple meals, but that's to be expected. Tomorrow I think we'll have to change our meal again because of all the leftovers from tonight. Yay! Leftovers!! LOL This is the first night, which is amazing because I got so used to cooking for 4 people just so we'd always have leftovers. Now our meals are perfect everytime for just the 2 of us.

I used

xtown_traffic's Kofta recipe. Thank you so much, it was wonderful! I changed the spices a bit just 'cause I didn't have everything. I used some coconut milk too. Cross that can off my inventory! lol It was wonderful over plain Basmati rice. :) Thank you for sharing it.

I am pretty bummed about the painting progress. *shakes fist at

kasey9kahne* I expected to be at least halfway done the living room/hallway. Oh well, at least I can set the dining room back up and move the living room furniture into it. I just have a couple red spots to touch up and it'll be good to go. I haven't even started on masking the others walls. And after the butterwall incident, I think I'm going to do the trim first this time around.

I think after I clean all the brushes and everything downstairs, I'm going to call it a night. I deserve a break!

PS The wall colour is called "Fiery Red" and the trim is called "Popped Corn." (There will be more pics once the furniture is back in.)

Current Mood: tired

We went to the gym today. I got new socks and panties afterwards. Woohoo! (This reminds me that I should go start some laundry before it gets too late.) Hubby cleared the rest of the dining room for me. I started putting up the masking tape, but my heart wasn't in it. I really hate masking off the walls before you can start. My husband pointed out that a part of the wall needs to be repatched, so I couldn't get started on the painting till tomorrow anyways.

We got out of bed around 10am. I made a big brunch for us, with little sausages, fried potatoes & onions, eggs, toast, and coffee. We skipped lunch after all that food. We started dinner together when we got home from the gym. My husband did the fish, sauce (wasn't on the menu originally), and brussel sprouts. I did the rice: brown & wild mix, vegetable broth, seasonings, carrots, celery, and onion. It took about half an hour from start to finish. I wish the kitchen was larger 'cause we kept bumping into each other. lol

I'm pleased that we've been able to stick to our challenge so far. I'm glad the painting process has been started, even if so little has actually been done. I feel guilty for not going to the gym enough. (I'm getting tired of 12 hour shifts.) Time feels like it's just flying by... I wish it were going much slower! I'm feeling good though, and the weather has been nice. Speaking of weather, hubby pointed out big patches of grass when we were driving home from the gym. Spring is getting closer!

That's about all I have to say for today. I'm going to go throw a load in the wash, and maybe get back to masking the walls.

Have a good weekend!

Current Mood: calm

Binka (our black cat) was trapped in our bedroom for a couple hours yesterday. You wouldn't think she'd pee after just a couple hours, but she was probably drinking out of the toilet in the ensuite. She's a toilet diver. Luckily she only left us a small puddle on the bed and it didn't penetrate through to the matress. We didn't find out till it was time to go to sleep and had to do a last minute sheet change. Pets are so fun! lol

Her heighness, Vicki, won't go poo for me this morning because it's raining. Unfortunately for her that means she has to stay in her crate until she goes because I know she will poo on the floor if I let her roam the house. She is a ticking time bomb right now!

Thanks again for all the recipes and meal ideas yesterday. And thanks to

mysticchyna for showing me this site that creates recipes based on what you have in your cupboard. Cooking By Numbers has been added to my favourites list.

I've gotten behind on lj. I posted a couple times yesterday, and that ate away most of the time I was online. My cheesecake post was the hardest because I had to edit and upload pictures, and write out the recipe from my head (before I forgot). I'm spending the morning going back and catching up on your posts.

We went to the gym yesterday. My arms are killing me. I haven't been to the gym in about a week ('cause of work & other stuff going on at the start of my leave) and was feeling really guilty! We're going again tonight. I don't know if I'm going to try to make it there every day on my leave, or every second day. I guess I'll shoot for everyday, unless I have plans... like painting which I haven't started yet.

And finally, there are some pros and cons with this 3 month challenge. I'd like to share them with you...

( Pros and Cons )

Now I'm off to go catch up!

Current Mood: awake

I updated my food inventory post tonight. It's going great so far. Woohoo, we made it past day 3! lol

Some of you have really taken an interest in this challenge. At first I thought you might find these posts annoying, but since the interest is high, I'll continue to post updates now and then. If any of you take on this challenge yourself, please let me know! I'd love to have a challenge buddy. hehe

For the first 3 days I didn't sit down and do up a menu. Bad, minxy! I did have a menu in my head though, but today is the last day I planned for, so now I must write one up for reals. I'm thinking I should have rules for this too. Like a cap on the amount of fresh items I can spend every week or two weeks. And how often we can buy junk food like chips, or items to make junk food like my cheesecake. Maybe I'll just put a general allowance on what we can spend per week, and if we go under it, then great. What do you think? If you'd like to share how much you spend on groceries, please do! I'd like to know some of your grocery spending habits too.

( The Menu Past & Future )

And if anybody has any good recipes for ground beef (preferably using a minimal amount of ingredients) please post it or link it for me! Thanks!! I want to make a tuna casserole or a tuna pasta dish, but with all the tuna sandwiches hubby has been taking to work, I think he'll want to wait at least another week. lol

Current Mood: productive

( Inventory Pictures (+13) )

Current Mood: determined

My husband and I want to spend less than we currently are. I think we could save a lot of money if we stop eating out and buying groceries we don’t really need. We could probably live off the food in our house for 3 months.

I love to cook, but one of my problems is that I have a hard time deciding what I want to eat. I have a habit of buying too much food just so that I have options. I love being able to cook whatever I feel like, whenever I want. Trouble is, we can never decide what we want, nor do we feel like cooking after we settled on something.

Truth be told, we didn’t always know what was available to us in the basement. We knew we had a lot of food in the house, but didn’t exactly know how much and of what we had. So last night I took an inventory of our stock.

My mission is going to be to buy as little food as I can until the cupboards in the house are bare. I will create a weekly meal plan (making sure I always have at least 3 days planned) in advance. We don’t usually eat breakfast, so I will plan for at least 3 lunches and 3 dinners. This will prove difficult when I’m working, so it will be very important for me to stick to a weekly meal plan. Hubby is going to have to help me out on some nights. I will also try to use my slow cooker more often because it will make cooking dinner easier.

Below the cut is the inventory of most of the food in the house. The list does not include fresh items stored in the fridge (milk, cheese, juice, vegetables, luncheon meat), staples (bread, potatoes, onions), snack foods (crackers, popcorn, pudding, jell-o), anything from my baking cupboard (cake mixes, muffin mixes, pie fillings), drinks (coffee, tea, iced tea, Kool-Aid), or pickles and condiments (homemade pickles, homemade jams, peanut butter, mayonnaise, ketchup, relish). The items that are on the list are frozen, dry, and canned goods that can be used to make breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

( We are ready for a natural disaster! )

This has really been an eye opener. I knew we had a lot of food, but I really had no idea! Who has 12 lbs of ground beef in their freezer? lol I know we’ll have to buy some other meats eventually just for variety, but we’ll see how long we can go with all the ground beef and the other meats we already have.

This entry will be tagged "food_inventory" so that I can easily find it. I will update it as I use up the food, or when I buy more food. Sine this is going to be quite challenging, I might also update on my progress using the tag "food_inventory" to make new posts.