Just a little one, but it meant that I didn't get to purchase my greenhouse this past weekend or anytime soon, for that matter. It's OK. However, I have babies coming so I had to get something to keep them safe and to keep my animals safe. So yesterday, I bought more starter pots and a disposable aluminum casserole dish to act like my greenhouse. If they get too big for this casserole dish before I get my greenhouse up, then I will improvise with milk jugs.
LOL I have oodles of milk jugs!And 2 babies can probably fit nicely inside 1 milk jug.
Sometime today I will go shopping for 2 small cutsie pots for the other 2 plants that are on their way. I have to do this today, because they were shipped Monday and should be here today!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tomorrow at the latest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No worries, I will let everyone know when they get here! :)
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking
I love to cook traditional PA Dutch meals, but sometimes it is only me and my husband that eat these kinds of meals. Occasionally our son will eat, but he doesn't eat much, because he isn't fond of some of them. One meal I love to make (and eat!) is roast beef with egg noodles and mashed potatoes. To make this, I would typically buy a shoulder roast or a butt roast beef. But then half of it is wasted or frozen with good intentions then forgotten. When I do remember that I have leftovers in the freezer, I make an awesome BBQ with it!
To save money on this meal, I buy stew beef or beef strips for stirfry. It's the same thing and I cook it the same way, it's just a whole lot cheaper to buy it that way!
The way I prepare this meal is - I sear the beef in a cast iron skillet on top of the stove until the sides are nice and brown. Do not poke the meat. You want all the juices to stay inside the meat and if you poke it all the juices will run out. After it is done searing, I put it in a crockpot and cook it on low for about 8 hours along with the juices that I loosened with some water and scraped up to make a gravy. For more flavor, add a bouillon cube or 2 in the crockpot. Add more water if you need to, the pieces of beef should be covered. But if you are using a whole roast, do not completely submerge your beef. It takes the flavor outta your beef.
After your beef is all done, take the juice that it was cooked in, put it in a saucepan, add egg noodles and cook them according to the package.
Serve with mashed potatoes and another veggie, cause around here potatoes are not a veggie! They are a gravy holder :-) I like to put my noodles on top of my mashed potatoes. The hubby likes to put his noodles beside his mashed potatoes and put gravy on his potatoes.
Don't worry about browning your beef too much. It just makes better juices/gravy!
To save money on this meal, I buy stew beef or beef strips for stirfry. It's the same thing and I cook it the same way, it's just a whole lot cheaper to buy it that way!
The way I prepare this meal is - I sear the beef in a cast iron skillet on top of the stove until the sides are nice and brown. Do not poke the meat. You want all the juices to stay inside the meat and if you poke it all the juices will run out. After it is done searing, I put it in a crockpot and cook it on low for about 8 hours along with the juices that I loosened with some water and scraped up to make a gravy. For more flavor, add a bouillon cube or 2 in the crockpot. Add more water if you need to, the pieces of beef should be covered. But if you are using a whole roast, do not completely submerge your beef. It takes the flavor outta your beef.
After your beef is all done, take the juice that it was cooked in, put it in a saucepan, add egg noodles and cook them according to the package.
Serve with mashed potatoes and another veggie, cause around here potatoes are not a veggie! They are a gravy holder :-) I like to put my noodles on top of my mashed potatoes. The hubby likes to put his noodles beside his mashed potatoes and put gravy on his potatoes.
Don't worry about browning your beef too much. It just makes better juices/gravy!
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
I'm not Irish, I'm not a drinker even, but I like this holiday. It is magical to me :) When my son was small, we'd try to catch a Leprechaun. Days before St. Patty's Day, I'd make a little door out of construction paper and tape it to a wall in a discreet location. It had to look like it just "appeared" out of no where, and it had to be hidden so no one would know the Leprechaun was visiting.
We would then build a trap for the Leprechaun and the night before St. Patty's Day we'd set it out with little gold (chocolate) coins. In the morning, of course the trap would be empty, the gold coins would be gone, and little footprints would be all over the house in search of more gold. He always left little presents, tho.
Wish my babies were small again...
In other news, I bought my first plant for my greenhouse today. I bought it through a shop on Etsy. com. This plant is a called Mother Of a Million Babies. I bought 20 babies and will root them. I will definitely need to keep them away from my animals since they are toxic if eaten, and if the babies are not caught in time they will drop to the floor.
So, they will be kept in the greenhouse for sure! I don't even want to risk putting them outside because we have a lot of wildlife that comes to feed on my plants and in the bird feeders.
I have never seen this plant before, and so I am thinking that it will be easy to sell them once they get bigger and start having babies of their own.
I am bouncing from excitement!! I can't wait til they come!! Once they do arrive, I will need to fashion some sort of temporary greenhouse for them. Finances are not the best this week, so my greenhouse purchase got put on hold. That's OK. I am nothing but patient. yeah! Right!!!! LOL! But hey, I know my priorities. Paying the house payment and making sure we have food is more important that buying a greenhouse at the moment. It can wait. :)
We would then build a trap for the Leprechaun and the night before St. Patty's Day we'd set it out with little gold (chocolate) coins. In the morning, of course the trap would be empty, the gold coins would be gone, and little footprints would be all over the house in search of more gold. He always left little presents, tho.
Wish my babies were small again...
In other news, I bought my first plant for my greenhouse today. I bought it through a shop on Etsy. com. This plant is a called Mother Of a Million Babies. I bought 20 babies and will root them. I will definitely need to keep them away from my animals since they are toxic if eaten, and if the babies are not caught in time they will drop to the floor.
So, they will be kept in the greenhouse for sure! I don't even want to risk putting them outside because we have a lot of wildlife that comes to feed on my plants and in the bird feeders.
I have never seen this plant before, and so I am thinking that it will be easy to sell them once they get bigger and start having babies of their own.
I am bouncing from excitement!! I can't wait til they come!! Once they do arrive, I will need to fashion some sort of temporary greenhouse for them. Finances are not the best this week, so my greenhouse purchase got put on hold. That's OK. I am nothing but patient. yeah! Right!!!! LOL! But hey, I know my priorities. Paying the house payment and making sure we have food is more important that buying a greenhouse at the moment. It can wait. :)
Friday, March 15, 2013
Positive Affirmations
Yesterday's therapy session was about this topic. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a whole list of things you are good at? I don't mean the typical I am a good mom, I am a good wife, I am a good daughter types of things. I mean things like: I am caring, kind, nurturing, etc. That's hard. I had 2 whole weeks to make this list, but I procrastinated something awful and didn't make it until the very last minute. In fact, I was writing stuff down in the parking lot at the therapist's office!
Unless you are super egotistical, you know what I am talking about. It's healthy to have a positive outlook of yourself. I do not have that. But, through out my session, I said more than a few times, "Oh, I should have written that down, too." Then she gave me her pen to write that particular affirmation down. On the way home, I thought up more positive affirmations about me.
I'm not egotistical, I am someone who has a hard time believing in myself. Especially since I live with a house full of negative and selfish people. It is very hard to stay positive. I truly believe that is why fate has brought people into my life...to remind me that I am a worthwhile human being. It is sad that my own family cannot do this for me. What is sadder, is that I can't do this for myself. But, it is what it is and hopefully, with the right tools I can learn to do this. Meanwhile, my list is growing! One of my favorites I wrote down on my list is that I AM IMPORTANT. We all are, no matter what the people in our lives say to us!
Unless you are super egotistical, you know what I am talking about. It's healthy to have a positive outlook of yourself. I do not have that. But, through out my session, I said more than a few times, "Oh, I should have written that down, too." Then she gave me her pen to write that particular affirmation down. On the way home, I thought up more positive affirmations about me.
I'm not egotistical, I am someone who has a hard time believing in myself. Especially since I live with a house full of negative and selfish people. It is very hard to stay positive. I truly believe that is why fate has brought people into my life...to remind me that I am a worthwhile human being. It is sad that my own family cannot do this for me. What is sadder, is that I can't do this for myself. But, it is what it is and hopefully, with the right tools I can learn to do this. Meanwhile, my list is growing! One of my favorites I wrote down on my list is that I AM IMPORTANT. We all are, no matter what the people in our lives say to us!
Monday, March 11, 2013
Researching
As I am researching, I am rethinking the idea of using that big garbage can to compost in. It's big! I mean BIG! I might just go out and get a smaller-ish type of plastic tub. I dunno yet. More research needs to be done first before I decide.
Also, I am reading that using worms for composting is a-whole-nother ball game. I might save that experience for when/if I get a bigger garden.
Also, I am reading that using worms for composting is a-whole-nother ball game. I might save that experience for when/if I get a bigger garden.
Why
Why do I let what other people say to me affect me so badly? A person that is so influentual as he is always cuts me down like a knife when he speaks negatively to me. Try as hard as I can to not let it affect me, it never works. Those words he utters become my mantra for the day. Welcome to my depression.
Planning and Plotting
I now understand why my therapist had me think of a hobby that I can do on my own, without the husband or the kids; just something for me. She said that I would enjoy the planning phase, and I am. I have been this excited before about trying new things, however my excitement diminished when I realized that no one was going to help me. In fact, they often discouraged me. This time it is different! This time, I don't care what they say or how they try to discourage me. I am going to start my garden and have my greenhouses.
The difference this time is, I am determined to make this happen! I do not need anyone's approval or help because I AM capable of doing this. If I need help, I won't rely on the people who are "suppose" to help me. I will hire someone.
So, with that said...I have found the store where I will buy my seeds. The husband doesn't have plans for the extra garbage can in the backyard, so it is mine to use for composting! :-) I just need to clean it out and figure out where to put it - in the shade or in the sun. Our house gets sun all day, but we do have 1 shade tree that shades the eastern part of the house. Should a compost pile be in the sun or in the shade? I'm thinking in the shade so it doesn't decompose too fast, but I really don't know. More research needs to be completed before that decision gets made.
And worms...are "live bait" worms the same as composting worms? I dunno...worms are worms to me, but I read that there are certain types of worms that are preferred for composting. I also read that I will need to buy good worms, because a good worm will live for years in a compost. This makes me think that "live bait" worms are not the same as composting worms. Can I just dig in the dirt to get my worms? We use to do that when we were kids and wanted to go fishing...who didn't, huh?
My day today will consist of researching worms and where to place a compost pile! LOL I am also going to visit my grandmother. Today is her 96th birthday! :-) Oh yeah...and cleaning. Blech!
The difference this time is, I am determined to make this happen! I do not need anyone's approval or help because I AM capable of doing this. If I need help, I won't rely on the people who are "suppose" to help me. I will hire someone.
So, with that said...I have found the store where I will buy my seeds. The husband doesn't have plans for the extra garbage can in the backyard, so it is mine to use for composting! :-) I just need to clean it out and figure out where to put it - in the shade or in the sun. Our house gets sun all day, but we do have 1 shade tree that shades the eastern part of the house. Should a compost pile be in the sun or in the shade? I'm thinking in the shade so it doesn't decompose too fast, but I really don't know. More research needs to be completed before that decision gets made.
And worms...are "live bait" worms the same as composting worms? I dunno...worms are worms to me, but I read that there are certain types of worms that are preferred for composting. I also read that I will need to buy good worms, because a good worm will live for years in a compost. This makes me think that "live bait" worms are not the same as composting worms. Can I just dig in the dirt to get my worms? We use to do that when we were kids and wanted to go fishing...who didn't, huh?
My day today will consist of researching worms and where to place a compost pile! LOL I am also going to visit my grandmother. Today is her 96th birthday! :-) Oh yeah...and cleaning. Blech!
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