Dinner Wednesday night was brats with peppers and onions, wrapped in a whole wheat sandwich thin sliced horizontally, with spicy hot mustard.
I was wondering how far most of you have to drive to buy groceries. When I moved here, from the suburbs of Chicago, it was a real hardship to have to drive 30 minutes to a typical grocery store. I've adjusted, learned to plan ahead, now have an empty nest (a huge help!) and shop only about every 2-3 weeks. The receipt for a typical trip runs about $60-70. And, I shop at only one store, although there are two others choices of major grocery stores in that area. Of course, it helps a lot that I garden and have two freezers full at this time of the year. I do make an occasional trip to BJs, maybe once a month, for a few certain items. We have a gas station/quick shop to get my husband's gallon of milk when he runs out. There is a tiny so-called grocery store about 7 miles away, but I gave up on that long ago - the produce they have for sale would be in the compost pile at my house.
We had chicken thighs with Penzey's Greek seasoning, and roasted brussels sprouts and squash.
Chocolate Chip cookies!
I made two loaves of whole wheat bread with buttermilk, honey, oatmeal, harvest grains and wheat germ.
Leftovers at my house, too! Pasta with meat sauce, risotto with mushrooms and asparagus, roasted squash, carrots, potato and onion, and a green salad.
I had the night off from cooking, as my husband made ham and veggie omelets. All I had to do was toast the English muffins. Thermometer says 10* and going down!
When we built, I ordered custom-designed kitchen cabinets. My mother had a special lower cabinet for pans/trays, similar to yours, Baker Aunt; and I couldn't imagine living without one! She had thin vertical boards as dividers, but I omitted those. My only regret is the cabinet is only about 15 inches wide, and since I cannot pass up a cute new pan, I need it to be much wider.
I made hamburger "steaks", with Italian salad dressing mixed into the meat. I reheated leftover roasted squash in the toaster oven, on bake at 400*, and it was almost as good as freshly roasted. I also fixed risotto with onions, garlic, mushrooms and broccoli.
We had a simple pasta with meat sauce for dinner tonight.
I made a maple-apple upside down cake in my 14" cast iron skillet, using bourbon barrel aged maple syrup. It is delicious and made the whole house smell great. I also made gruyere-olive rolls, preparing them as you would cinnamon buns. They went into the freezer to have with soups for the next month or so.
Today I made corn chowder, for my husband, and I had mushroom soup that I made a few days ago. With the buns I made today it was the perfect meal for our snowy evening, the first of the season.
Today I baked KAF's recipe for pull-apart buns, but used whole wheat instead of the AP flour.
We had chicken thighs and roasted veggies - squash, potato, carrots, brussels sprouts, and onion - seasoned with Penzey's Sunny Paris, and green salad.
Today I baked orange cinnamon buns. I used candied orange peel, which I made from oranges I had used, in the filling. They are OK - the dough is great and was very easy to work with, but the filling needs more cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. The icing is simply orange juice and powdered sugar. My inspiration was the Tick Tock Orange rolls from Dachshound Lady on the OBC, but I didn't want to use orange marmalade called for in the recipe.
