Day 24:

Well, I went and did it.  I ate the whole darn thing of yogurt all by myself.  People!  Where is my self-control?!  It was just so dang good that I didn't want to stop...and then it was almost gone, so I figured I should just finish it off.  Oy.  Why do I do this to myself?!  *shakes fist at all delicious yogurts*

Today, we are having spaghetti and ground beef; not quite meatballs, because who really wants to spend all that time spicing it, carefully patting it into little spheres, baking it, etc.?  Not I!  The noodles, spahetti sauce and diced tomatoes are from food storage, and the beef is from a HUGE tube of it that I cooked up to freeze today.  (I really should have sliced the pork roasts into steaks as well, but by the time I had hauled three dressers and 14 drawers upstairs, dragged a heavy locker unit downstairs and around to the garage, folded and lugged 4 or 5 baskets of laundry up the stairs, all by myself, I honestly just wanted to lay on the couch and watch Father Brown on Netflix.)  It smells great, and for the first time in a while, my kids are excited to eat it, so there's that.

Day 23:

Oh, guys.  The yogurt.  I made a ton of it, and added 2 packs of lime Jell-o to make it super healthy (ha-ha).  It tastes SO good, you guys!  I absolutely love it!  However, before adding lime Jell-o to a ton of yogurt, I probably should have done some recon to see if my family likes lime yogurt.  Um, they don't.  So, I've got this ton of lime yogurt, and I'm the only one who likes it, and I really, really shouldn't eat dairy.  And now, after a very nice bowl of it, I can't swallow, and I'm pretty sure it's worth it.

Isn't it pretty?!

So, being allergic, or sensitive, or whatever it is I am to wheat and dairy would have been so helpful to know about 30 years ago.  I would even take 19 years ago when I got married and started thinking about having kids.  Unknowingly, it was the effect of eating these things that made it so I threw up EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. for all six pregnancies, which really is a blast.  And guess what I absolutely craved?  Bread and cheese.  It's a sad, sad story, friends, but I'm glad I lived through it, and I'm glad I know now.  And, I'm also really glad I'm done being pregnant forever. 😁

Day 22:

My kiddos want to take yogurt in their lunches again, but, knowing that I can make it from food storage stuff (and one little store-bought yogurt cup), I couldn't justify buying a ton of little individual yogurts at the store; not this month, anyway.  So, I'm giving yogurt another shot in the InstantPot, but this time I changed it up a bit.  I read somewhere that you could add a can of sweetened condensed milk, which I happened to have in my food storage, to help with the taste.  Now, I will use just about any excuse to open a can of sweetened condensed milk, just for the opportunity to lick the lid and snitch any leftovers.  SO yummy.  Anyway, another person mentioned that they knew a person who added jell-o to their homemade yogurt to flavor it (which I also have in food storage...Yay!).  So, my hypothesis with adding both of those things, is that it will have a thicker consistency, and not require a lot of jelly for flavoring.  I still used half normal milk and half dry milk, so this really is going to end up being really cheap.  I'll let you know how it goes when it has had a night to firm up in the fridge.  Other than that, we ate chicken, rice, some granola from our pantry, and leftover chicken and dumplings.  It was Veteran's Day, so we all took it easy, enjoyed a fantastic new obstacle course park, and all of the kids took fantastic, long naps!  So much winning today!

Day 21:

My teenage daughter is FINALLY starting to feel a little better, and got some appetite back today.  The only thing that sounded good to her was rice.  I didn't have any made, and the InstantPot was full of chicken and dumplings in the fridge, because refrigerating food in its original prep pot is just how I roll, so it took some prep work to make that happen for her.  After putting the chicken and dumplings in two big tupperware bowls (I told you I cook in bulk...I can't help it!), I scrubbed out the InstantPot, then noticed all of the other dishes needed to be done.  After the dishwasher was running, the floor was mopped, the livingroom was vacuumed and the toddler had his fill of his Fly Guy books, I remembered the rice.  Oh, yeah.  THAT's why I came down here...  I'm grateful to have what feels like an endless supply of rice just out in the garage, because this child is a rice-a-holic.  Well, rice and toast.  And she's still skinny as a rail.  Friends, if I ate only rice and toast, I would blow up like a pregnant balloon.  (The thought of this makes me want to go running.)

So, here is our super basic, eat-this-or-any-of-the-gajillion-other-leftovers meal for tonight:

Day 20:

So, I'm realizing how much meat we use in our dinners.  We went shopping again today and had to spend over $100 to get a free turkey.  I mean, who can pass that up?  Not us!  So, we got $125 worth of groceries; milk, almond milk, eggs, one yogurt so I can make more, ranch dressing, lipstick and cheese.  (Yes, I buy my lipstick at WinCo, and will continue to until I no longer have children who EAT it.)  All of the rest of it was meat of some sort. (Paul almost cried when I steered him away from the fresh fruit and veggies.)  So, one take-away that I've gotten from this experiment is that I either have to seriously beef up (*snort*) my TVP supply in my food storage, or we need to partner with a hunter.  (I'm actually scared to open the 5 or 6 cans of TVP that I already have, because I've never cooked with it before and I don't trust it to not be gross.  I should get over that.) 

When we were first married, we were so, so, SO poor, guys.  SO poor.  I got really good at making really cheap, meatless or near-meatless meals, stretching those whole chickens that I de-boned by hand over many, many meals.  So, I know I could go meatless again if I really had to.  But, I don't, and I really don't want to, so we're going to need some hunting buddies if the world blows up and we have to use our food storage for realsies, because it's a necessity and not just a fun experiment.  Any volunteer huntsmen or huntswomen?  I could swap you in wheat!  Wheat for meat; I like that.  I suppose I could learn to hunt myself...

Another thing I've learned, that I actually knew all along, but I re-learn it really frequently, is that I make WAY too much food at a time.  We have leftovers for days and days and days.  As in, my kids groan when I even touch it BEFORE any attempt to offer it to them for more meals.  I grew up in a family of 5 kids, and now have 6 of my own.  Cooking in small quantities has never been my forte.

I only managed one blurry pic of dinner tonight before it got snarfed by a kid.  We went to an uncle's funeral today where they begged people to take home the leftovers from the luncheon.  I have a feeling this is going to play into our breakfasts and lunches over the next few days.  For breakfast this morning, Paul whipped up some pancakes, including flour, dry milk and olive oil from food storage, all while I was out running (because he is fantastic).  It would be so much harder to do this experiment without his patience and support!  If y'all have a chance to marry Paul, you totally should. 😉😉😉

Day 19:

Chicken and dumplings tonight!  I finally used up all of my flour and got to open a food storage can to make the dumplings (which I totally thought were going to be the consistency of biscuits when I dropped them into the soup, then I ended up quadrupling the amount of dumplings because I kept adding more and more flour to thicken it up).  I also added potato pearls-- a suggested step at the bottom of the recipe, and it really improved the texture.  My kids LOVED this, which honestly, is pretty rare for my cooking.  Yay!

Day 18:

This week has been one for HUGE projects.  So much sanding, painting, unscrewing, rescrewing, and thinking grumpy "why the heck won't this darn bolt come off" thoughts.  I have patched up walls that had experienced a little too much teenage boy angst, and all the mudding, taping, sanding, breathing in of dust, texturing and painting that project entails.  I have painted our kitchen island, and then ruined it with clumping polyurethene.  I have changed out our kitchen faucet for one that doesn't spew water.  I have painted the loft in our kids' room with a little hand brush because I didn't want to change back out of my painting clothes to buy a roller when I realized too late that we no longer owned one.  Then, I painted a mural of a tree, with tons of "fairy sparkles" all around the walls (different colored glitter glue circles).  What does this mean?  It means that the rest of my house blew up, friends.  I'm a day behind on dishes, and my sick teenager hasn't been able to do her very necessary chores for the last few days.  Tonight, we're eating leftovers and oatmeal (technically, from food storage), and that's as gourmet as we're getting.  I'm just happy everyone is still alive. 

Check out that stack of dishes, guys!  Although it's hard to tell, it's actually organized over there.  I hate, HATE having dirty dishes in the sink, so I have three bins for dirty dishes; one for plates/ lids, one for cups/ bowls, and one for silverware.  The space in front of the bins is for large bowls/ pitchers/ jars that are too big for the bins.  I will never go back!

This is me, soaking wet under the sink because I can't tell the difference between "lefty loosey" and "righty tighty".

The tree!  Eventually, I will probably paint pink flowers all over it, but I needed to get the tree painted so I could put a mattress in there ASAP.  When you have 5 kids (at home) in a 3 bedroom house, you learn to get super creative with living spaces.  To make this loft, we punched a hole through the bedroom wall and built a living space over our lower staircase.  If you jump on it to push it down, you can squeeze a twin mattress in here.  Seeing as how our now-adult son used to have this "room", this was where the majority of the wall-patching happened.  This will be our 7 year old's new room, and we just moved the 5 year old into the 16 year old's closet.  A space for everyone!

I'll try for more creative food storage ideas tomorrow, guys!