Busy Batch Cooking Day

I've spent most of this afternoon in the kitchen ... hubby and I decided to batch cook for the freezer. The original plan was to do lunches for him for work, but then I decided to do 2 meals for me too. I still have loads of Chinese and Indian meals in the freezer, but figured a couple of roast dinners would be a nice change. I have dishes to do 9 for hubby ... any meat left over will just end up frozen in Ziplocs.

I made macaroni cheese from scratch, hadn't made a roux since I was an 11 year old schoolgirl, and it came out perfect. Used almost a 1/2 gallon of milk, and then a pound of sharp cheddar and about 4oz of an Italian 5 Blend, in the sauce for one box of pasta. It made 2 nice deep trays full. One is being frozen as is, either for hubby to take to work when they have a pot luck lunch, the other will be portioned with his bbq pork dinners, along with either baked beans or corn. Some of the pork, corn and/or beans will have loaded baked potato mash instead of macaroni cheese.

His roast pork dinners will be with sage and onion stuffing, loaded baked potato mash, corn and gravy.

Mine will be with boiled potatoes, brussels sprouts, carrots, gravy and sage and onion stuffing. I do love my stuffing, even if I can only have a little bit because of the sodium content, but it's always a treat for me.

I've also got 2 chicken breasts roasting, and he has 2 smoking, so that I can slice the roast ones for future sandwiches, and I can do him a couple of bbq chicken dinners.

I still have to portion everything out once it's all finished cooking, so am getting a quick break, but it's all good.

Life Goes On

The past few weeks have been hectic, in ways. Hubby and I have got a lot done but in small dribs and drabs, our decluttering and reorganizing continues, and our black and white strays keep multiplying (thankfully, not with kittens, they just keep bringing more friends!).

Hubby's been working on my granddaughter's car off and on, replacing this and that. In the meantime, I've left my car with her as she has my great-grands to ferry around (and my car has ac which is a must have in these 90-100 degree temps most days). I do miss being able to wake up and head to the gym, but hubby and I went last Friday and I hope we'll be able to make it again this weekend. 

We got hubby a new shed, so he is getting all his "stuff" organized in there. I got him 2 of those holders that adjust so that you can use them for brooms and mops, so that he can hang his garden shovels and forks in them. He was quite chuffed ... and I got them from AVON so got a discount on them.

As he clears out the other shed (that he's just been piling stuff into  over the past few years), I am waiting for him to get to my ridearound so that we can go to the zoo. I can't walk around the zoo, even with my walker, because it is hilly so need my motorized cart to do it. The other thing I need him to get to, and get running again for me, is the rototiller, so that I can then pay someone to come till some of my back field and get planted with veggies. At the moment, all of my veggie growing is in tubs and troughs, so that I can sit and do what I have to.

I've started going to a chiropractor again, and even after only my first 2 visits, I'm seeing improvements in my body, for which I am very thankful. I have a long way to go, but every small step is a bit farther along in the journey.

For my birthday, we had a mini-vacation and went to Tryon, Hendersonville and Saluda, visited a couple of model train museums, a small air museum, and enjoyed some pretty scenery all around. It was a nice break, marred only by the worst Holiday Inn experience we've had in all our stays. Sad, really, as we do love our Holiday Inn's but everything came together wrong for this one, from no housekeeping, cold showers, the disabled-friendly room having too high a bed and too low a commode ... it just ended up being best just left behind as a bad memory.

Now that my health is improving and I am having more good days than bad, I am trying to focus on rebuilding my AVON business, which has suffered between my health, and the Covid stuff and gas prices, and people having a lot less money to spend on frivolities when they have to feed their families and keep the car running.

I've also been working on my models for the village on my train layout. Still no layout yet, more work for hubby to complete beforehand, slow going but I'm currently working on the fire station. Then I have to get back to working on his train turntable, his engine sheds and the service station. Still plenty to do and keep me occupied.

So, life is going on here in sunny South Carolina. Make that stormy South Carolina, as we've had some deluges with wind, thunder and lightning, the past couple of days. But I do love it here. I hate all the subdivisions popping up everywhere in what was the boonies, but I'm thankful that the builders let me raid their bins for scrap wood and stuff I can use for my train layout.

Well, time for me to get on and do ... enjoy your day