What We Ate for Dinner: Drum Sticks

Yes, I have been cheating a lot lately.  I bought some cheap chicken legs at Smith's on Saturday.  When I asked Kimball what he wanted for dinner last night, he said "Chicken."  Not to be one to deny my toddler a simple request, I complied.

For lunch I whipped up my own mayonnaise for grilled tuna since we don't have any cheese.  (I know, I'll buy chicken, but not cheese.  I'm weird.)  Of course, now I am out of butter.

What We Ate for Dinner: Leftovers and Fruit

I went to the store and bought Kimball some fruit.  He ate about a pound of red grapes with his mac and cheese.  Does this mean I have fallen off the bandwagon completely?  Perhaps just these weeks until I get my food back from Mt. P?  Oh well, I have a surprise purchase for Monday.  I had to make a special request from the butcher.  I can't wait to tell you.

I'm Buried in Boxes

Well, we made it to our new place and are now working on unpacking.  We just got internet this afternoon.

I would like to report that I haven't gone to the store for food, but well, I plead guilty.  Moving has made it hard.  We have been eating the freezer meals I brought, but I have had to purchase some basics, like milk, juice, baby food, fruit and cookies.  Bryce views cookies as a basic food.  Oh, and I bought a chicken.  It was on a "manager's special" at Smith's for only $2.80.  I couldn't resist.

I have, however, made the most of what I have had.  For example, Sunday I decided to make bread.  I had enough flour for two loaves.  Half way through I realized I didn't have any salt.  I substituted soy sauce.  Since I used all the flour to make bread, one morning I decided to try to turn the roll mix I had into pancakes.  They were okay.  Kimball ate them.

It will be nice when I can get down to Mount Pleasant and retrieve the rest of my pantry food.  In the mean time, I will be sneaking off to the store every once an a while.

Baby Food and Cheating

We made it five weeks with my only food purchases being a carton of yogurt and a boneless turkey breast (which is still in my freezer).  Yesterday I fell off the band wagon and it was the baby food that threw me over the edge.  A baby can only live so long on broccoli, strawberry-applesauce and yogurt.  I am sure I could have dragged it out longer.  But, yesterday, I stopped being sure I wanted to.  Sure a bit of pride was at stake.  And I feel like because I said I would do something I should do it.  But the health of my baby was at stake and so I succumbed.

The real problem was that once I made it to the store and saw that strawberries were only $2.99 for two pounds, I decided everyone needed a treat.  Here is what I came home with:

For Stanford: 30 jars of baby food and two boxes of cereal.
For Kimball: 4 pounds of strawberries, bananas and syrup.
For Bryce: Ice cream, chocolate syrup and carrots.
For  myself: Marshmallows (for Rice Krispie treats!) and soy sauce.

Soy sauce, you are thinking?  That is a treat?  Well, we are dangerously low and soy is a basic ingredient in a lot of recipes I like to make.  Now that I think about it I should have got a can of coconut milk.  What was I thinking??  Shoot!  I have been craving this curry recipe.  I would even throw in my last two chicken breasts if I only had that coconut milk.  Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait until Stan runs out of food again.

By the way, Kimball ate an entire pound of strawberries himself as soon as they were clean.  It was the perfect treat for him.

The Votes Are In!

Thanks to all of you who took the time to vote.  I know this is all a bit silly.  But I'm having fun and love hearing from those who are reading my blog.  60% of you think that we should be able to purchase milk from a local dairy farmer.  I am grateful and relieved.  12 weeks of powdered milk is a bit much.

Your response has made me think a lot about what it might be like if there were some kind of disaster or emergency.  I think I had it in my head that if something happened I would be stuck with what I have in my house and would have to learn to survive with what little I had stored.  That presumes that the world would freeze and become static.  It never does.  I think it more likely that we would try and help each other out.  We would barter, trade, donate and purchase from each other what we need.  At least that is the disaster scenario that I am going to imagine.  The need to defend our food storage with guns I will leave to my husband.

So, I think this means that my experiment is changing a bit.  We will continue to eat from our pantry, but where I am able to purchase food from local producers, I will.  This new change is good because my purchase yesterday from the Norbest turkey plant is no longer cheating.  I bought a small boneless turkey breast roast, which was considered a "second"--meaning it had a defect of some kind, such as a packaging defect.  You can't beat $1.00 per pound.  I mostly bought it because I thought it rude to ask about factory "seconds" and then not buy something when the nice lady went to the trouble of getting them from the freezer for me.

Don't forget to VOTE

The poll to decide whether we can buy milk from a local dairy farmer ends on Saturday, April 30, 2011.  If you haven't had the chance don't forget to vote!

What We Ate for Dinner: Wheeler's

Last night we headed up to Kaysville to spend Easter weekend with Bryce's parents.  On the way out of town the kids and I stopped at Wheeler's Drive-In.  I don't think this was cheating because we didn't purchase any food at a grocery store.  Just so you know, I won't be posting any more dinners until we get back to Mt. Pleasant.  Happy Easter!!

Our Dairy Future is in Your Hands

Bryce and I have been debating whether it's cheating on our experiment to purchase raw milk and cream from a local dairy farmer.  The main reason I want it is for cheese and butter.  I can stand to drink powdered milk, but, well.  You've heard my rant about butter.

Bryce and I are calling upon YOU, the readers of our blog to settle the debate.  I have set up a poll on the side of the blog where you can vote until the end of the month.  At that time, we'll know whether we will have access to additional dairy or we will be stuck with what we've got.  Thanks in advance for voting.  Oh, and for reading.  You all are making this experiment so much fun.

I totally cheated!

I went to the store today to pick up some non-food items (i.e. diapers, wipes and deodorant).  And I did it.  I succumbed to temptation and I cheated.  But I had a really good reason.  Please don't be disappointed in me.  I realized today that I couldn't make yogurt because I didn't have any starter.  I looked on the internet for some freeze dried starter but it was less expensive to just buy some yogurt at the store.  However, I am making note that I should get some starter to keep with my food storage because if this were a real disaster I might not be able to get some yogurt at the store.  Will you forgive me if I post instructions on how to make yogurt?