Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for Mid-March

my favorite food this week, a modified Eggplant Parmesan on Tuesday

Friday

Fry bread, topped with
Hummus (I was out of parsley, so I used frozen chopped dill instead, still quite yummy)
Ratatouille
Cole slaw

Saturday

Leftover hummus on Dollar Tree crackers
Lil Smokies in BBQ sauce
Fruit salad
Cole Slaw
Leftover plum pie

Sunday (power was out for about 5 hours. I can light the gas cook-top with a match for cooking, but the kitchen was getting dark, so simple dinner it was)

Maple-pecan pancakes and syrup

Monday

Sloppy Joe's on homemade buns
Sauteed cabbage, in reserved sausage fat, with a bit of onion powder sprinkled over, and about 1 teaspoon of caraway seeds, cooked till still bright green
Pumpkin souffle

Tuesday

Eggplant Parmesan (more of an eggplant/spaghetti squash/tomato gratin)
Herbed pasta (basil, thyme, olive oil, butter, garlic powder, onion powder and Parmesan cheese on penne)
Frozen peas

Wednesday

Chicken enchiladas
Spanish rice
Canned corn, with chunks of canned tomatoes, in about 1/4 cup of leftover enchilada sauce

Thursday (birthday dinner)

Hamburgers on homemade buns (baked on Monday)
Sweet potato fries (from Dollar Tree)
Frozen green beans
Birthday cake and homemade ice cream (made in December with whipping cream about to expire)


So, am I the only one who didn't make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day? With a birthday that falls on the holiday, we usually do something other than SPD foods.

I have to tell you about the modified Eggplant Parmesan. First of all, there wasn't any Parmesan in it. I used mixed pizza blend cheese. I also added 1 small spaghetti squash from last summer's garden, seeds scooped out, peeled and sliced, added as a layer in between two layers of eggplant. I don't bread the eggplant, but saute the peeled slices in a bit of sausage fat, then sprinkle each layer with seasoned bread crumbs and a small amount of cheese.. I didn't have any pasta sauce handy, so I used the tail end of a large can of tomatoes, cooked down with the juices and some seasonings added (herbs, garlic powder and onion powder). It was really good! And the house smelled divine while I was cooking.

What was the yummiest thing you made this week?

Just a heads-up, I'll be scaling back on blogging for next week, maybe just checking in once or twice. My daughters have spring break through Monday after Easter, and I want to snatch as much time with them as possible.  We'll use a small bit of that time in our trip to SF, and then hang around the house, go vintaging, hit the beach with a picnic if the weather is nice, and prepare for Easter.

Have a great weekend!

A day for celebration!

Happy St. Patrick's Day. I hope everyone has on their green, today!

In our house, today is my daughter's 21st birthday. I can scarcely believe that it has been that long since they were born. But time does pass, doesn't it?

This is finals week for the girls. One has a final today, and the other has a job interview. Gone are the days when life around them stood still so they could bask in the sunshine of being the center of attention. We shall celebrate when they come home this evening.

I've got a cake, thawing, that I baked last week. And a bowl of frosting all mixed up waiting to spread between the layers and on top. It's a vanilla cake with cherry filling and fudge frosting.

For our family dinner, tonight, we'll have homemade burgers, sweet potato fries (Dollar Tree), green beans and the cake plus homemade ice cream (made in December with whipping cream nearing the expiration date).

I wanted to show you something I made yesterday.


As this is a cause for celebration, I wanted to do something special with the cards and envelopes. Something that they might just hold on to. When I was at Jo Ann's Fabrics in February,

I saw these pretty velum papers in with the scrapbooking supplies. I thought how lovely they'd be as envelopes. And really not at all difficult to do.

I used an expendable envelope as the pattern. I slit the seams, with a table knife, of that envelope, so I could trace around it onto the velum.

I then cut the velum on my trace lines, and folded the 4 flaps into place.

It was a matter of using a glue stick to seal the flaps into an envelope.

To go with each envelope I used sheets of scrapbook paper for the cards.

They turned out sweet and only took about an hour from start to finish for the both.

Velum envelopes make a lovely holder for cards, invitations, or seeds from your garden to gift. And yet, they're not that difficult to do.

Just thought I'd share.

Have a happy St. Patrick's Day!