Meal plan for February 16th – 22nd
Well, it’s official; I’m an idiot.
If you follow me on Facebook, you’ll know that Troy and I were looking for a new series to watch. He wanted to start Game of Thrones, but we don’t have HBO. We settled on The Walking Dead (streamed on Netflix with our Roku), which is where the “I’m an idiot” comes in. Because I’m a giant wimp and these kinds of shows freak me the freak out. We’re a little over one episode in, and I’ve spent half the time out of the living room and the other half yelling “ack, it’s a zombie”!!!
No kidding, it’s a zombie. It’s called The Walking Dead. Moron.
Can someone tell me why in episode 2, when the main character is stuck in the tank, he never once tries to DRIVE THE ARMORED VEHICLE????
The Facebook discussion brought up some excellent suggestions for series to watch. Check out all the ideas if you’re cruising for any new shows.
In “my kid is a big boy” news, Jack has his first loose tooth. Growing up, we had little tooth fairy pillows where we could put our newly freed chompers to safely wait for the tooth fairy’s cash visit. Jack doesn’t have one, but I have some limited sewing skills, and Troy has some fine drafting skills.
Jack initially wanted a pillow shaped like a Nerf gun. Then a Chinese throwing star. Troy threw out the suggestion of a shark, and then sketched out his idea.
I’m going to make it later tonight, but I’ve modified the pattern a bit. I hope I can make it turn out like it appears in my mind.
This long weekend has been crazy already. Our weather this “winter” been downright tropical compared to you East Coasters. We had maybe two days of frost, zero snow, and it’s almost 60 degrees and sunny outside. I’m going to mow the lawn tomorrow, as well as start all my seeds for the spring/summer planting. This year I am trying potato grow bags because for the last few years, I’ve planted potatoes in some of my raised beds, and they take up so much darn space. When you garden on a big scale, in a small space (we use about 25% of 1/5th an acre), anything you can do to maximize the space is important. I am hoping these bags will give me a decent yield while freeing up valuable raised beds.
Troy and I had a date on Friday night, and Jack spent the night at my inlaws. He told me he had Starburst, gumballs, and Dairy Queen for dessert. Spoiled little punk. Troy and I parked in a downtown area a few towns over, and just walked until we found a place that looked good. The restaurant was full, so we sat in the bar and took full advantage of their Happy Hour food specials (neither of us drink). When I used to put on giant expensive events for my last job in Los Angeles, I once hosted a dinner (on the company’s dime mind you) at Katsuya in Brentwood. That is where I fell in love with seared Shishto peppers as a dish. This restaurant we went to on Friday randomly had them as an appetizer, and Troy and I were fighting over who got the last one. I need to grow these things!!!
Meal plan time! Just a reminder that I only plan our dinners for the week. For breakfast we tend to eat the same things (homemade Greek yogurt for me, a sandwich for Troy, and whatever Jack’s heart happens to desire that morning), and lunches for the grown ups are leftovers of what we had for dinner the night before.
Monday:: Yakisoba, these brussels sprouts, and the last of the lumpia from the freezer (sob).
Tuesday:: I have a late work thing, so the boys are having “boy day” and Troy will make pizza. Of course.
Wednesday:: Homemade chicken tenders, coleslaw, and biscuits.
Thursday:: The gnocchi I made two weeks ago, and roasted root veggies.
Friday:: Popcorn dinner. Fav night of the week!
Saturday:: We’ll be eating with my sister and her family.
Sunday:: Family dinner at my parent’s house.
This week I spent $3.50 at the farm for raw milk, $43.31 at the grocery store, and have $45 budgeted for my Costco trip later today.
What are you having this week?
Every now and then I have to go a-Googling for US-to-UK translations… (more often than not I’ve looked the same thing up several times, but it just won’t stick in my limey noggin!)
I had one such occasion with this blog post today. “What the blinkin’ heck is lumpia?” I thought to myself, for some unknown reason in a Dick Van Dyke style British accent. “It sounds, well, lumpy…”
Anyway I looked – and now I know you’re referring to spring rolls! Hopefully not in the least bit lumpy 🙂
The word ‘gyros’ often inspires the same confusion-Google-clarification-forget loop on a semi-regular basis too (doner kebabs for any equally confused Brits).
So there’s a quick peak into the random workings of my brain, in return for the many entertaining gawps we get at yours, Sarah. Love it! Long may you continue!! xx
Spring rolls (at least hear in the states) are Thai egg rolls that aren’t cooked. They’re stuffed fresh. Lumpia has cooked innards that you then fry.
Doner kebabs? Oh I must look that up! Love you brain; thanks for the peak.
I’m in Northwestern Connecticut and we have gotten so much snow this winter! It was -13 degrees F when I got in my car this morning to head to work. So jealous you were able to go outside for more than 5 minutes without the risk of frost bite!!!
I’ve seen a recommendation of growing potatoes in car tyres, basically you start with one then as the plant grows you stack another tyre and keep going.
https://brightonpermaculture.org.uk/permaculture/articles/218-growtyres
Depends on how you feel about having car tyres kicking around your garden but I always thought it sounded fun.
I almost gave up on the Walking Dead during the second season but I’ve stuck with it and the central characters get really good as it goes on. I’m another person who loved The Wire (named my cats after characters from it) but I hated Treme. My recent Netflix binge has been Gilmore Girls but I’ve got to season 6 and it’s turned bad, I’ll keep going though because I ain’t no quitter (except for The Flash which I just deleted off the TiVo). Orange Is The New Black is good too, and Lilyhammer, both of those are Netflix originals I think.
Yeah, Treme is hard to love. My son is a jazz musician so I think that’s a huge reason why I love the show so much and I became fascinated with the story-telling of New Orleans after Katrina, And the acting is very good, IMO.
I love that you named your cats after characters from The Wire! And I also love that you didn’t tell us what their names are (Do people who post such information realize that many times they used those as one of their security questions for their bank or credit card accounts?! Social engineering, people, beware!)
OINTB is awesome although I admit I’m dragging my feet watching Season 2 and I don’t know why because I really loved Season 1. Lillyhammer is also fascinating (to me) because of the look into Norwegian culture but I’m having a hard time getting into it. Maybe because I can’t watch it while I’m folding the laundry since I don’t understand Norwegian.
I completely binge-watched The Sopranos on Amazon Prime last summer (watched ALL episodes in 5 days, yikes) and I loved it although I really hated Tony Soprano. But I really liked the show.
Sarah, I think those iconic shows are usually a “loved it or hated it” situation. Personally I couldn’t get into “Six Feet Under” or “The Shield”. There’s an ongoing battle between fans of “The Wire” and “The Shield” as to which is a better show but I’ve never understood why people liked “The Shield” because I hated it and had to stop watching after several episodes 🙂 I will say, though, that the first time I watched “The Wire” I turned it off after 10 minutes. I’m not a prude and actually I’m quite a potty mouth IRL (but not on my blog so kind of the opposite of you!) but the non-stop swearing and the fact that I couldn’t understand what they were saying outside of the swearing was a huge turn-off (English isn’t my mother tongue). But the next day I turned it back on (“darn it, there MUST be a reason why I keep on reading that this has been voted the best show ever in all kinds of polls and surveys!”) with the subtitles on and that was all she wrote. I also watched all 5 seasons in 5 days. But it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. One of my fascinations is knowing that some of the actors are actually British but they do SUCH a great job playing Americans… from Baltimore. I suck at accents so that really blows my mind. Also, a lot of the actors were actually not actors at all but people who live in the communities described, which again blew my mind because the acting is excellent.
Tires have some pretty toxic properties in them, so I’d prefer to not grow edibles in them. Might be fun for flowers or other ornamentals?
I used to LOVE Gilmore Girls when it first came out!
I had to run out of the room while growing up when Lassie went to warn the family a baby was on the train tracks! Geesh. Obviously I have a low threshold for excitement.
LOL!!! You sound like my nephew!
Most important thing I’m eating this week is pancakes, ’cause that’s what we do on Shrove Tuesday. English pancakes are different to American ones (http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/basic-pancakes.html). So the plan is pancakes rolled around roasted veg and tomato sauce and baked in the oven and then sweet ones, I’ll have mine with bananas and honey and everyone else with lemon juice and sugar! Then we probably won’t eat them again for another year!!
I love it! The youth at church today served a “Fat Sunday” breakfast after the service today; Twinkies and an ice cream bar.
Can I make a suggestion on your banana? Slice it in half lengthwise, and roll it in a tiny bit of sugar. Heat up a pan with a little butter, and caramelize the banana. It’s so good!
I’m crazy excited because Amazon Prime Video has the complete series The Wire right now. I think it’s the best show that’s ever been on TV. I think this is the first time since the series ended that HBO has released it anywhere. They haven’t even run it again on HBO, except for the first season which they ran on HBO for a couple of days before or after Christmas. I’m binge watching because I’m afraid it will disappear before I can get through it!
I totally agree that The Wire is one of the best shows I have ever seen and let me tell you I have no sympathy for drug dealers IRL but I was really rooting for a couple of (bad) people on the show. You really have to see past all the bad language (for those who turned it off after the first utterance of motherf****r!). My favorite scene, actually, was when McNulty and Bunk were examining a crime scene and the only word out of their mouths was “F***!” repeated so many times and with so many intonations that it might as well have been a fully scripted dialogue because you know exactly what they’re saying. It thought it was genius!
I ended up buying all the seasons from Amazon Instant Video a full year before HBO let them stream it for free, aaargh, I spent over $99 for them. But at least I’ll still have them if the free deal ends (and when my current free Amazon Prime membership ends). I can watch this over and over again and never get tired of it. Some seasons are stronger than others but all in all, the best show. I really didn’t want it to end.
The actor who plays mayor Carcetti (sp?) plays Littlefinger on Game of Thrones and the actor who plays Omar showed up in a couple of episodes of Community and I was geeked out big time, lol. My husband doesn’t want to watch The Wire so he doesn’t get it when I get so excited about seeing those actors again. Oh and the actor who plays Bunk has a major role in “Treme” which is also a really, really good show if you happen to like jazz. It’s by the same creators as The Wire.
I tried watching The Wire, but maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to start it? I returned the season to the library before it was due. Willing to give it another shot.
I watched a couple of seasons of The Walking Dead but never really got into it. I was screaming every 2 seconds too because I’m easily startled and scared 🙂
You should be able to get GoT from the library, no? This is how we watched the first 2 seasons last year (we enjoy watching TV shows when they’re already several years old!). Since we liked it so much and we don’t have cable and I’m VERY forgetful, we decided to buy all the seasons on DVD and/or BluRay so we could re-watch them before a new season was released. In the meantime, I read all the books. Honestly, the first 2 books are very good and very very close to the TV show, which is excellent. The other 3 books are… meh. I hope the TV show is better. We just started watching it from the beginning again and will buy season 4 with Amazon gift cards squirrelled away from Swagbucks as well as some Discover Rewards this month or next. I really wish it wasn’t so explicit though because our 13-year-old son would absolutely love the story. Damn it, HBO.
I just posted our menu for this week on my blog. I made menus through March this past week, using mostly what we already have on hand, I’m so excited about it! I’ll be making those chicken gnocchi dumplings this week as well.
I’m so jealous that you have warm weather. I haven’t seen my lawn since before Christmas. I love the snow but it us time for it to go!