Croissant Day

January 30 was National Croissant Day.

My sweet husband got up early to do dishes, clear off the table, and make breakfast sandwiches on croissants for everyone.

Since he cleared off the table, I was able to try out more Christmas presents. Donut molds and a donut recipe book I got from Santa. Woohoo. I've been wanting to try baking donuts.

Jalapeno Dinner

January 29 was National Corn Chip Day. We don't fill the stock pot to the top any more with a seven times batch of taco soup. This year we made a double batch, though. 

The recipe calls for a can of pinto beans with jalapenos. We never do that. This year, however, we had some cans of diced tomatoes with jalapenos. I put in one of those cans and three regular cans.

I asked Jr. Jr. to pick out a bag of Fritos from the pantry to go with the taco soup. He picked Spicy Jalapeno Fritos.

Jeremy stopped by the grocery store on his way home from work to pick up some sale items and picked up a loaf of jalapeno French bread while he was there.

Ha Ha Ha Ha. So we had a jalapeno dinner.

Spouse's Day and Spouse's Day (Observed)

January 26 was Spouse's Day. Jeremy and I got a few minutes quiet time together but it was a pretty busy day for both of us. 

The next day, Jeremy and I got an actual date. Woohoo.

We took a sunset drive to American Fork to Maven Cinemas (used to be The Hub) to watch the premiere/special showing of DayHero, a local film starring the son of our entertainer friend, Dan Paulus. Marcus and his wife also came so we got to sit next to them.

It's nice to support people like that. The movie is now available on Pollard Pictures YouTube channel.

Jeremy and I had a nice drive home as well and enjoyed seeing the moon come up over the mountain.

Date Night!

A Day Off?

It seems the last few times I'm going to take a day off, someone's sick and it doesn't work out. I let everyone know that I was going to take a day off for A Room of One's Own Day on January 25. I said I'd make sure everyone got where they needed to go but that was it. Once they kids were home, they were on their own and they had to take care of Jet. Dinner was Fend For Yourself. I had plans for doing stuff in my room. 

Of course the night before, Lucky was sick so I kept him home from school the next morning. When he got up, he was fine. Yay. I was exhausted, though. I fell asleep once the other kids were at school and slept for a long time. Once Jet got up he and Lucky played together. Nice. So I definitely got some time to myself in my room but it was not what I was planning.

I did say it was FFY for dinner but I ended up throwing some pasta together for people to do whatever with.

I finally got a picture of me in my room last minute, too. To celebrate the holiday. 

I've had better times celebrating this holiday in the past but... oh, well.

It's Got a Notes Section!

"A Season of Family Meal Plans" by Jordan Page has a notes section with each recipe so I can write down if everybody liked a certain meal, if a substitution worked, or if I have an idea I'd like to try next time.

That way I don't have to try to remember when I go back to these recipes a year later.

So after making Honey Cilantro Chicken and Jeremy commenting that he would like it more without cilantro, I made Chicken Tortilla Soup and let the cilantro be a topping instead of putting it directly in it. I also made Creamy Corn Quesadillas on corn tortillas instead of flour tortillas to make them go farther.

Even More Celebrating in January

January 19 was Whisper "I Love You" Day. I whispered it. I tried whispering while texting but it didn't translate over very well. I had to explain to Jeremy that what I was writing was whispered.

It was also National Popcorn Day but we were so busy that we celebrated National Popcorn Day Observed. Jeremy tried some new flavors of popcorn seasoning (at the same time but in different bowls). Thank you, Jeremy.

January 20 was Penguin Awareness Day. Lucky created a slide show of penguins to the music, "Ride of the Valkyries," and called it "Ride of the Penguins."

The kids watched Penguins: Spy in the Huddle that day. It's become tradition when we can manage it. We also ate fish sticks which is also tradition because penguins eat fish.

 

January 21 was National Hugging Day. You better believe there was hugging. It was also Granola Bar Day and people did indeed eat granola bars.

 

January 22 was National Hot Sauce Day. I made baked mac 'n' cheese that had sauce in it and added cooked ground beef that needed to be used. #shelfcooking

We also took our last baguette and Jeremy made garlic bread out of it. 

That evening for FHE treat, we had cake batter blondies for Blonde Brownie Day but we didn't have white chocolate chips and I wasn't going to go to the store for them so I used regular chocolate chips and Jr. called them "brunettes." Heh Heh.

January 23 was National Pie Day. We celebrated that one observed because I was too tired at the end of the night but when we did celebrate it observed, we had vanilla pudding pie with pumpkin pie ice cream on it like we did for Thanksgiving. I forgot to take a picture but I put a picture of our Thanksgiving pie and ice cream on my blog January 2 of this year.

 

January 24 was National Compliment Day. Lucky and I gave each other compliments. It was also National Peanut Butter Day. Jet had peanut butter on a tortilla. He loves that.

Winnie-the-Pooh Day 2024

You know I like to menu plan based on holidays. Well, I kept it really simple on Winnie-the-Pooh Day this year on January 18. Peanut butter and honey sandwiches and in some cases just honey sandwiches. I had planned on apple slices and carrots but I ended up saying, "Eat whatever side dishes you can find." This was because Lucky, Jet, and I were in a hurry to get to a Winnie-the-Pooh even at the library where we were able to play games, listen to a beekeeper (get some honey sticks), and get some prizes.

I love the Orem Library and of course the librarians.

 

There was some Winnie-the-Pooh movie watching that day and we got out some plushie friends to play with. Jet loved that. A couple of them even came with us to pick up Jr. from school.

After the Winnie-the-Pooh activity at the library, I dropped the kiddoes off at home and went to a Relief Society activity where we talked about Self Care.

We did facials (I was humming "Wizard of Oz" music), self massage, drank hot chocolate, and did some meditation. It was relaxing.

 

It was a nice Winnie-the-Pooh Day.

More Celebrating in January

January 16 was Fig Newton Day. We ate fig newtons. Do you remember the commercial way back that said, "It's not a cookie. It's a newton"? I looked at the packaging for fig newtons and it calls them cookies. Ha.

It was also Appreciate a Dragon Day. Dad did some writing about dragons.

January 17 was Museum Selfie Day. Jeremy had some stuff to do at the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point so he made sure to celebrate the holiday while there.

It was also Popeye Day. I sang Popeye cartoon theme music over and over to the kids while we ate Popeye spinach.

It was also Hot Heads Chili Day. Let me tell you how I did some shelf cooking those two days, following "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volume 1.

I was thinking of making some spicy chili on Hot Heads Chili Day and the day before I was going to make lasagna soup with garlic bruschetta. Well, Jr. wasn't feeling the greatest that first day and said Ogre Stew sounded good to him. Ogre Stew is kind of like a white bean chili and it was a bit spicy so we had it for Hot Heads Chili Day Observed. 

The garlic bruschetta was supposed to use fresh tomatoes but we were out so I took a can of diced tomatoes, added the other ingredients, and cooked them up to make a sauce. Then I took my homemade baguettes (The Food Nanny recipe), cut them in rounds, and made them into garlic bread to put the sauce on top. It worked.

So the next day I made the lasagna soup to go with spinach salad. I also made cornbread muffins which were suggested in the book but I used a recipe I always use instead of the one from the book. That's another thing about shelf cooking. If I have a tried and true recipe why look for something else?

 

Lucky very nicely took pictures then edited them to make me green like spinach.

I Had a Bad Day

I had a bad day. Jeremy knew this and brought home flowers for me. He found the most cheerful bunch he could. 

He also brought me strawberry shortcake bars because January 15 was National Strawberry Ice Cream Day.

Then he got up in the middle of the night or really early in the morning to do dishes (Lucky got up and helped).

The next morning I found the baby doll head in the vase with the flowers. That cheered me up. 

I never mentioned something that happened a while back. You know how we used to put that baby doll head in different places for others to find (I blogged about it on May 14, 2022)? Not long ago, I watched Jet carry the doll head from the living room to the kitchen, open the refrigerator, and place the baby head inside. He hadn't participated in hiding the doll head before. I loved seeing that.

FHE Treat

I was in charge of Family Home Evening treat one night and didn't have to put a lot of thought into it. I opened "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volume 1 and looked at the desserts listed for the week I was on. We had everything on hand for "muddy buddies," they were easy to make, and... there you go.

Surprises of Cleaning

You never know what you're going to find while cleaning. This is what I found while changing the bedding on Jet's bed.

I don't even know what to say.

At Home Potluck

We celebrated National Sunday Supper Day with an at-home potluck again.

Since January 14 was Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day, that's what Jr. contributed. Jeremy contributed pasta and sauteed onions. I contributed apples. Lucky contributed colored flavored sugar water. For dessert, Jr. Jr. had hot chocolate with peppermint ice cream to put in it.

Jordan Page Has Taught Me Well

For Christmas, Jeremy got me "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volumes 1-4 by Jordan Page. I started with Week 1 of volume 1 (January-March) last week and am doing Week 2 this week.

I started out strong last week with French bread already made to use in some of the recipes. I cooked up some pork roast to use in several recipes, including a recipe coming up in a few weeks (I froze the meat after cooking it). I was able to marinade chicken early for Greek chicken and successfully made pita bread. Hooray. I was so thrilled about that. The recipe was right in the book.

In true shelf cooking fashion, I used what potatoes I had and other substitutions I learned from "Shelf Cooking 101" that I got for myself for Christmas the year before.

Jet was my big helper.

 

I still menu plan with holidays in mind but this helps fill in the gaps. Some of the meals I'm just not interested in making and that's okay. The point is not to make you do something you don't want to do but to make things easier on you. The books have other tips and tricks in them as well.

Jordan Page also hosted a masterclass about budgeting, productivity, and meal planning that I was able to participate in at home recently. One of the things she mentioned about saving money was only going out to eat when it's scheduled. It just so happens that that night Jeremy and I had a scheduled eating out date. It was the annual Golden Corral meeting for Utah County Birders. There was some weather so it was not as big a group as sometimes but we had good conversation with the birders who were there. I love our birding friends.

Before we left, I made chicken Caesar salad wraps for the boys. The next day I was able to use some leftover rotisserie chicken in our meal. Since January 12 was National Curried Chicken Day, I found a recipe in "Shelf Cooking 101" that used curry powder, Chicken Divan. 

I've learned a lot from Jordan Page from shelf cooking to organization/productivity. I am grateful for the things I've learned and the resources she has. Check out shelfcooking.com and funcheaporfree.com to learn for yourself.