DIY Convenience Food

Today I made 16 burritos, indy wrapped them and stacked them in log piles in the freezer. I need convenience food and this is the first shred of an answer.

Have been thinking about ways to fairly painlessly nip and tuck our budget and one of the things I kept bumping into in my mind was "convenience eating." I know I don't seem like the Lean Cuisine type but every house has nights when dinner or lunch or a snack needs to be ready, instantly and there's no time for scratch cooking slow food. I tried to just use snack items for these times: granola bars, yogurt drinks, nuts, dried fruit...etc. Frankly, they aren't very satisfying and although I have good intentions I find myself saying, "Can we just run by that Thai place?" instead of picking out a granola bar and palming an apple on the way out the door. I wanted a real dinner, not snacky stuff.

We just had a trip to Michigan and back for the Thanksgiving holiday and we'll be doing it again for Christmas. We made amazing time there and back and for a while there I puzzling over and over about what in the world made the trip shorter than usual, both ways! Then I realized what it was. We never stopped to eat. I had the car fully stocked with food items, the boys had books to occupy them and A and I were discussing and reading a book of our own and so we never stopped except to gas up and we used the gas stops as potty breaks too so that meant even less stopping. Convenience food is my new nemesis.Most of the time the food you get on the run is terribly guilt-inducing because its expensive, and it's also extremely low in nutrition. I have been wracking my brain to solve the problem. I want food to stash in the freezer that is good for us but super quick (as in, a minute or two zap in the microwave and then eatable out-of-hand), stuff that tastes good and feels like a real meal.

There have to be other ideas out there...I have a dry brain lately and so the only thing I've come up with so far are these burritos. I was inspired by this blogger's idea and did something similar with ground turkey, black and pinto beans, frozen roasted corn (Trader Joe's is good!) and shredded cheese in whole wheat tortillas. I'd love more possibilities so that I can avoid the monotony of only one back-up plan when the going gets tough. Anybody got any other ideas?

Catching Up...*pant pant*

I bought curtains. Today was the day. We'd been freezing in Vermont all week and I'd been gulping mugs of tea and snapping a lot of pictures of crisp autumnal scenes and suddenly we were home and it was imperative that we have curtains on our windows. I am also itching to get out the flannel sheets, put away the shorts and light a lot of decorative candles.

Am still searching out the ingredients for yet another apple cake and plan to try a good hack at that this week sometime. Am also hoping to bring in from the garage a huge area rug that I found on a curb (truly, it was in fabulous shape!) and tuck its cozy self into the library on the third floor. As I type I am remembering just how heavy said rug is and adjusting my mental plan. Maybe A will have to help me. It is a long way up the third floor.

Tonight I roasted a duck for dinner. A lovely, free-range, organic duck that we bought from a farmer in Vermont. I didn't cook it quite long enough. All the same it was good...(I love duck)...and the gravy I made was exceptional. I recommend making a stock from the giblets to add to your gravy.

Ahem. But, yes...now I'm back to the land of mad laundry, manic carpooling and never ending landscape planning.

And I will get those boxes unpacked if it kills me. It might.

Busy Lizzy

 Cherries ripened so fast that we missed the picking season window! Oops! On to blueberries and peaches!

Here I am late at night, finally blogging for the first time this week. We've had a real doozy of a week beginning so far. Nothing terrible. In fact, nothing bad at all...just a whirlwind of activity. We've had home inspections, I had a visit from a friend, I've been painting with my Tuesday art group, the boys have been to the park and every night when we drive A home from work he's on a constant stream of phone calls. "Hello, this is A calling, I'm: looking for a stone mason, checking on the results of the radon test, wondering what paperwork you still need form us, wondering if we can arrange a walk-through, returning your call, trying to see if we can get a reference, hoping you can meet at 4, wondering why the document never showed up, and leaving you my fax number." Etc.

Whew.

Yeah. And that's pretty much what it feels like around here. Panic, rush, run, dash...and yet somehow, things are remarkably cheery. We all wish that Dee would take notes from the baby on sleep habits and work through this latest round of nightmares he's cultivated but, otherwise, life is pretty great. A bit over manic but great.

The boys, unimpressed with the endless stream of phone calls in the car

on the way home.

Today the landlord did that walk-through of our apartment with his realtor that I was stressing about and the house is frighteningly clean and orderly. Mostly orderly, don't look too closely at the mirrors or the cupboard doors and please don't inspect under any of the beds but, hey...it looks a whole lot better than it did. We haven't heard anything from him so we're hoping we passed muster and that things continue to move on well. The home inspection on our prospective white colonial went very well so from our end of things we're chugging right along on the moving process. Just before I let the landlord into our place he told A on the phone that he wants to start setting up showings with hopeful residents so, that means he's planning on our August move being real too. And I am saying over and over to myself..."I can keep this house orderly enough for impromptu showings non-stop from now until the end of August. I can." (Tell me you all believe in me...even if you know me well enough to know better.)

Our prospective home!

Planning big urns of annuals on those from steps in front of the pillars, a flag in the 

flag holder and a big excavation of those tired crew-cut yews!

But yes, life ticks on. The baby is one month old already...two days ago. I can't believe it. I am planning to take his one month portraits tomorrow...acne or no, my conscience wouldn't let me rest if I didn't give him his photographic due. And um...I'm getting some of the birth announcements all addressed and am hoping to mail them right soon. After I take said one month portraits I will share with you all the newborn portraits that I never did get around to posting because I was hoping to get the birth announcements (on which a few are featured) out first so as not to spoil the effect but, we're about to get quite behind if I don't just share. So, yes...I will.

Smiling for Daddy at his Father's Day meal

 

And also...the baby is smiling. Really, responsively, gurglingly smiling...(first daddy-grins were on Father's Day, no less!) And he's grown out of newborn clothes and I really, really need to figure out what I'm going to call him here. Need inspiration.

Listening to the rain dribbling blackly outside my bedroom window and feeling very cozy and as it is now the very late hour of 9:38 in the evening, I think I will retire. "The early bird....etc!"