Cheesecake for Breakfast???

Has it really been a whole month since I've written anything?  Well, most of school is in storage, most of our kitchen is in storage, and life is teetering and tottering right now.  We have our 4-H Record Books to keep us busy for a few days and I keep catching dd-14 working on her Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 book so she can finish the school year.  Wow, she's driven!

What's Schoolin'?

Jackpot!  I was at a homeschool store the other day checking out (with a used DIVE Biology CD that we will try this year) and noticed a stack of Three Cousin Detectives books by the cash register.  I called youngest dd over and she picked out the ones we didn't own yet.  They were each $1 or $1.50 - my kind of sale!  They are a second grade reading level (or third? I can't remember) and she read them quickly but they are such sweet mysteries.  Even the olders read them :).  Each centers around a fruit of the Spirit (or a Bible verse).  The three cousins actually get along and don't bicker the whole time like in some books that we've read.  This is the first one in the series:




What's Cookin'?

This was fun to watch:  Middle dd was watching Paula Deen on the Food Network at my mom's house when we stayed the week last week.  She missed the beginning AND the end of the episode but scribbled down the ingredients.  Then she set out to make it without even knowing what it was.  I figured you couldn't go wrong with ingredients like butter, graham crackers (we used Annie's graham bunnies; cinnamon or honey), cream cheese, eggs, chocolate chips (we used Enjoy Life), and only 1/4 C sugar...

It turned out to be a cheesecake and was super delicious.  Unfortunately for her... she doesn't even like cheesecake :).  She ended up liking this one though!

As she made it in the evening and it wasn't ready by bedtime (and they had been waiting and waiting and I'm such an ol' softy) I actually let them have it for breakfast the next morning.  But wait!  My standards got even lower because I let them have some the NEXT morning for breakfast as well before we packed up to leave, lol!  We don't even eat boxed cereal for breakfast and donuts, cinnamon rolls, or pancakes are rare treats.  Oh wait... we're eating boxed cereal almost every morning this week - yes, the standards sink even l-o-w-e-r :).  I think they are enjoying that part of our transition.  It was a struggle to find cereal that, although still a processed compromise, wasn't laden with artificial dyes, flavors, petroleum, high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified organisms, etc, etc, etc, but I settled on Cascadian granola oats and honey; and Barbara's Puffins.

Here is our tentative menu with limited cookware/resources:

- Baked chicken thighs.  I had to buy a baking dish but it was worth it.  Near the end I had to hide a few thighs for a later meal.

- Chicken-a-la-king (but made with 2 small pastured pork chops instead of chicken for a family of 5 so it was a ssstretch meal) using homemade cream of mushroom soup from the freezer and frozen peas served on Afgan flatbread I grabbed at the last minute of packing up the freezer food for travel ($1.99 at Kroger if you're local!  Ask at the bakery counter if you don't find any and they'll pull some from the freezer for you)(that's a long sentence!).

- Beef tacos using the following veggies sauteed from the local farmers market and then mixed with the precious cooked grass-fed hamburger meat:  bell pepper, sweet pepper, round zucchini, a round yellow squash, and tomato.  Served on regular white tortillas for dh and on Ezekiel's sprounted tortillas for dc and me.  I'm laughing at myself because I never noticed until posting the link that they do not have wheat.  You would never know (obviously!).  Garnished with lettuce, sour cream, and salsa.

- Quiche using regular store eggs and some very super precious pastured pork sausage [note to self: get some flour and baking powder].  I'll saute more of the above veggies to include also.

- Chicken pseudo-stir fry over rice or vermicelli (using the rescued chicken thighs and frozen veggies sauteed in lots of butter and EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), maybe even some coconut oil if I can find it in my mom's garage.

- Baked chicken (again) using Sanderson chicken that was on sale for $1/pound.  I hope to have leftovers for sandwiches or a chef salad.

- Frozen pizzas... yes, frozen pizzas.  I stood there at the store freezer for a while, sighed, and got Newman's Own brand hoping that it would have less additives; but I wouldn't really know because I chose to not even look.  I need to stock up on those Afgan flatbreads for homemade pizzas that we can make with our limited kitchen.  It's white bread but has very, very few ingredients.

I told the olders I would help them type their 4-H Record Books (we only have 3 more days to finish and polish them) so I'm off to be productive... or read an old Agatha Christie book I found on one of the rental's bookshelves :).