How I spent my day

Sometimes I feel like I spend most of my time in the kitchen.  My daughter even wrote a paper for school about me and the subject was how much time I spend in the kitchen.  Go figure.

Last night I did not get to sleep until around 1:30am.  Ugg!  This morning started at 6am getting everyone ready and fed and off to school.  These are the piggies I made. Oh and that is the sweet cream I put in my coffee, my little bit of luxury.

Went back to bed at 7am until 8:30am then Sofia and I got up, had breakfast, looked at the newspaper, and unloaded the dishwasher.  Then I got this crazy idea to make a triple batch of spaghetti sauce.  I let it cook for about three hours.

This then led to me deciding to chop and freeze celery, and a mix of red and green peppers with onion and garlic. I use these for cooking quite often. I scoop it into muffin pans, freeze, then put veggie muffins into freezer bags.  When I need one I just take out a muffin.  Nice, easy, and handy.

I made lunch for Sofia and I.....Sofia ate, I got busy and never ate.  My bad.  I then cleaned and rearranged the refrigerator freezer and the big deep freezer.  That led me to see the ham bone and decide to make red beans for red beans and rice.  Hubs loves it and it will be cold this weekend so it's the perfect comfort food.
It also cooked for about three hours.  I got to use some of my chopped veggies, the ham, and sausage.

I put Sofia for a nap around 2:15pm and was still in the kitchen cleaning and cooking when Anna and Cooper came home.  I separated the cooled spaghetti sauce into three containers and froze it.  I had to wait on the beans to finish cooking.  Before long it was time to think about cooking dinner.  That is hard to do when you've been cooking all day.  I decided on stir fry beef. Sorry no picture.  I cut up the meat, made a marinade, let the meat marinate, started the rice, and got the stir fry veggies ready.  Got the stir fry going and fried a little meat for Cooper who won't eat stir fry.  It came out really good.  I cleaned the kitchen and we all watched American Idol.  We only like the audition part of the season.  Soon it was time for the kids to go to bed and for me to blog.  Sofia was crying and I had to go up to her four times before she finally went to sleep. I called hubs. He will be home in two days.  It's been a long week.  Tomorrow is a busy day and I need to get to sleep.  I will probably be dreaming about the Apple iPad which was revealed today...sooooo cool.

Ciao and good night

Scary Recalls - Must See

If you are a parent check out this link  SCARY RECALLS

Basic Pantry and Spice Rack Items

Spices and herbs do not last forever.  No telling how many years I have had some of mine...ewwww.  I have decided to start replacing them slowly because it can get expensive.  As I purchase new items I am writing the month and year on the container with a sharpie.   I am also adding a few new Asian inspired items.


This is a good quick pantry guide I found      Pantry Raid!


Here is great list of food items to stock in the pantry Pantry Partners

Here is a wonderful list of substitutions Ingredient Substitutions