{wordless} breakfast for dinner

{wordless} breakfast

GF rolled oats sweetened with organic agave syrup and topped with fresh blackberries/raspberries.

Soooo good.

dinner was served (and cooked...and cleaned up...)

I want to talk about food, but not my grocery budget challenge. Not today, anyway.

Today...what I do want to talk about the fact that Lily and Mike made dinner for me for the first time ever last night -- a quiche, no less-- and it was amazing.

I had a killer headache and was laying down, so I missed the inception of the project, but from what I've been able to gather, Lily was thumbing through a cute little cookbook she got for Christmas and that gave them the idea to do up dinner. I was brought said cookbook and asked to pick a recipe, which I did...not realizing this was a *serious* endeavor. Soon after, they headed to the store to get the necessary ingredients needed for both the quiche and loaded baked potatoes, and then came back and did got to work.

I love watching them spend time together. That was the best part ♥

While eggs and cheese are among my favorite foods, I don't usually care for sausage. Still, I figured the quiche would be okay (read:  edible). Mike was of the same frame of mind, and I have to tell you, both of us were pretty floored after we took our first bites. So, SO good. Like I said before, amazing.

I'm pretty sure I complimented them at least 80 times as I ate, not only because it was that good, but because it was shockingly good and because I appreciated that I didn't have to make it.

And, just when the evening couldn't possibly get any better?? I didn't have to clean up after, either :)

I always thought quiches were labor intensive. They're not! Take a look:

Sausage Quiche

Ingredients:

• 1 pound mild sausage
• pie crust
• 2 cups grated Sharp Cheddar cheese
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups half-and-half

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Sauté sausage in skillet over medium heat, breaking it up as it cooks for about 10 minutes, or until no pink remains. Use a spoon to remove it from the skillet, tip to let the fat drip back into the pan, and then spread the sausage along the bottom of the pie crust.
2. Sprinkle the cheese over the sausage. Beat eggs and half-and-half together in a bowl with a whisk. Pour mixture over cheese. 
3. Put quiche in oven, bake 35 to 40 minutes - until center is not jiggly. 

Let sit for about 15 minutes before serving. 

Serves:  6-8

feeding my family on $40/week

Thanks to the wonderful world of Pinterest, I recently stumbled onto a blog post about a woman who feeds her family of six...on $60 per week. It blew my mind, as there are just the three of us and I spend well over that when I grocery shop; usually at least double.

I was amazed. Fascinated.

Curious.

Could I challenge myself to a similar goal? Shouldn't I be able to feed us on that amount of money? Less, even?

The more I thought about it, the more excited I became. It would require planning/organization, creativity, sticking to a list, using ingredients I already have on hand, and not being lazy in the kitchen. (Not that I'm saying you are lazy if you spend a lot on food. I am saying *I* am lazy because I buy a lot of convenience items that I could make pretty easily instead.)

So, I've decided to try it. My goal is to create tasty (and healthy) meals and snacks out of $40 worth of groceries per week, for the next four weeks starting Friday. I will shop for Week One tomorrow, and will report back with my purchases and their prices, as well as some meal plans (and possibly recipes) for the upcoming week.

I'm so excited! I can't wait to see what I come up with.

this one's for the birds...

I like making things. Not only do I like having a finished product that I created, but I like the process of creating. I like it so much that I will spend the good portion of a Saturday making suet cakes that I could buy at the store for less than $2 each.

Okay, that's a bit of a stretch. I didn't realize that it was going to take me so long, or how much effort would be involved. I'm not so sure this is a project I'll be tackling again.

Although, if I get some new feathered visitors to my backyard --or my cardinals come back-- I may rethink this.

You can use vegetable shortening, but since we had beef fat included in the cow share we bought this past summer, I used that. When using animal fat, you are supposed to chop it up before you put in the pan, but since I wanted to handle this as little as possible, I broke it up with a knife IN the pan. That worked okay, but I did eventually had to put some of the bigger chunks into my Magic Bullet, as they didn't seem to want to melt.

After it melted, I strained the very lumpy (ew) liquid through four layers of cheesecloth into another pan and left it for a few hours to cool. I forgot to grab photos of these steps.

Then, you melt it a second time, and strain it again. It looks a lot less disgusting the second time around, and you can almost pretend you're not poking a spoon around in animal fat.

Once it has been strained that second time, you don't have to let it cool before you start adding the treats for the birdies. First, I added a large dollop of peanut butter and stirred until smooth. Next, I added in some cornmeal...

...and then some rolled oats...

...and then the birdseed. 

Poured into a foil-lined 8x8 pan. (Most of the birdseed and all of the oats sank to the bottom. Oh well.) Left overnight to cool and set.

End result!
Four suet cage-sized cakes that smell whole lot like peanut butter fudge. The missing piece is already outside waiting to be sampled and these remaining three will go into the freezer for later.

And now? 

I'm going to spend the remainder of the day stalking my bird feeders watching for any takers via the kitchen window :)