Weekend Plans - Update

Homecoming on Saturday went really well.  I was hoping to be able to drop the girls off at the hair salon for their two hour appointment and then go home to get some stuff done.  However one of the other mothers wanted to be there, then the third friend called her mom to show up so I stayed and enjoyed a total mother/daughter day.  I just had to share a picture of my girl, she looked absolutely beautiful.

 

My nature is to not relax and enjoy the moment but to work my hinder off to get everything done.  I really had to remind myself yesterday to relax and just enjoy the time with the girls, which I did.  Time goes by so fast, I won't to enjoy these moments when they come.  A couple of them ended up spending the night so we had a nice time this morning chit chatting about the evening while I worked in the kitchen.  The down side is that they ate all the strawberries I was preparing for the freezer.  Oh well, I can always buy more strawberries!  The important thing is that the girls enjoyed themselves and wanted to be in the kitchen talking with me.

One of the items on my list was to prepare any items that were set to spoil.  When I did my Pantry Challenge earlier this year I was quite appalled by the waste.  I throw a lot of items away on a semi-regular basis.  As I like to do when presented with a problem I asked myself why we always throw so much away.  Here are a few things I came up with.

• Diets change - we tend to buy the same items every week until everyone gets tired of them.  I'm then left with a bunch of items that spoil and go bad.
• Buying for a specific recipe - When making recipes that require something I don't keep on hand regularly I tend to overbuy "just in case".  This leads to items I don't use that spoil
• Pre-packaged quantities are to large - Not everyone in the house eats the same items.  Take glazed carrots for example.  My daughter and I love them, the boys not so much.  I typically buy frozen carrots already prepared but we end up throwing half of them away because it's too much for the two of us to eat.  I then throw away raw carrots from lunch or baking because they don't get eaten.  By making my own glazed carrots I can freeze them in quantities we will eat without wasting either the fresh or frozen produce.
• Menu changes - I buy strawberries specifically for my strawberry salad and then don't make it.  We forget about the strawberries and they go bad.  This tends to happen quite a bit.

I ended up doing more 'freezer' cooking than what I planned this weekend, here is what I did;

• Carrots - I had some carrots I bought for lunch that didn't get eaten so I made glazed carrots
• Potatoes - My big bag of potatoes had a bad potato in the bunch.  Once one of them start going bad I get a little nervous so I pulled three of them out for dinner this week and then I made mashed potatoes for the freezer with the rest
• Bananas - Usually I just throw the banana in the freezer with peel still on.  However, peeling the banana gets pretty messy as they thaw.  I want to start making smoothies so this week I peeled the banana, sliced it and then threw it in the freezer, we'll see how that works out
• Strawberries - My plan was to core them and use them for smoothies.  The girls ended up eating the whole pint of them I don't have any left :(  They enjoyed them and that's the important thing.
• Mushrooms - I was planning on cutting them and then freezer them for future meals (i.e. mushrooms) but Sarah at A Real Housewife of NYC mentioned in the comments about drying them.  That got me thinking so I went on the internet to look up mushroom drying.  Here is the recipe I followed, they still seem a little moist so I don't know how great they will be.  I'll let you know once it's complete how it turned out
• Applesauce - I was given some apples from my MIL plus we had some starting to go bad in the refrigerator.  My kids love homemade applesauce so I made up a batch and stuck some in the freezer
• Tomatoes - I received two big bags from a friend a work.  I simply wash, core, dry and then put about five tomatoes in a freezer bag.  I throw the bags in the freezer and then use them for future recipes.  Because there were so many tomatoes in the bags and I let them sit for a few days I did have to throw out some of the tomatoes that had split and were starting to go bad.

Here is the status on the rest of my list:

•  Grocery shop
• Clean family room for homecoming 'get ready' day
• Wash, core and freeze two bags of tomatoes I received
• Make applesauce with apples I was given
• Go through refrigerator and pantry; prepare/freeze food getting ready to spoil (carrots, mushrooms and potatoes)
• Buy blinds and window treatments for living room
• Pick up paint samples for living room
• Finish striped cushion covers (still have a floral pattern to make)
• Take girls for manicures & up-do’s (our house is dress central for the dance)
• Chauffeur kids to park for pictures, dinner & dance
• Stop by parent’s house for miscellaneous tasks
• Clean master bedroom - I've started this but I'm only half way done.  I'm trying to do a deep clean so it will take a little longer than the usual lick and a promise.
• Start working on photo books I want to give as Christmas presents (I bought a Groupon for $50 of Mixbook products for $15) PLUS Mixbook is offering 60% off all products through 9/29/11.  Not done but I've gotten a great start.
• Thin flower beds & flowers for neighbor as well as work friends (rained so I wasn't able to do)
• Pull flowers out of planters (rained so I wasn't able to do)
• Replant flower bed on side of garage (rained so I wasn't able to do)
• Finish writing business plan for new venture
• Write a few posts for the upcoming weeks

I'm absolutely exhausted right now.  My plan for the rest of the evening is to sit hear with my husband chit chatting while I work on my photo albums some more.

Did you have a good weekend?