Catching Up March 2025 part 3

March 16 was Artichoke Hearts Day. We used it as an excuse to make a yummy alfredo pizza.

March 17 was St. Patrick's Day. I made two recipes from Sarah M. Eden from The Fiction Kitchen Trio Cookbook. Dublin Coddle and Katie's Irish Soda Bread. 

For dessert we had Oreo Mint Truffles.

 

March 18 was Sloppy Joe Day. We had open faced sloppy joes. It was also Forgive Mom and Dad Day. I kept asking the kids to forgive me for silly reasons. 

Lucky, Jeremy, and I went to see one of Jr.'s orchestra concerts that day. I love that he enjoys orchestra so much because music is very important to me.

See Lucky hiding behind that book? The elementary school read-a-thon was going on during that time so Lucky wanted to get as many minutes in as possible. He ended up being one of the top readers in the school and got a prize for it. The read-a-thon was Roald Dahl themed this year. One morning, Jeremy, Jet, and I were able to go to Parents and Pastries with Lucky.

March 19 was Poultry Day. We ate chicken that day. 

It was also Chocolate Caramel Day. I may have celebrated that observed the next day by making Olloch the Glutton's Caramel Biscuit Bars to go with our Vernal Equinox (March 20) food, Easy Fairy Folk Tortilla Pizzas, both from The Fablehaven Cookbook.

 

March 21 was Fragrance Day and French Bread Day. We took some of those artichoke hearts and made Cheesy Artichoke Bread from the Six Sisters' Stuff cookbook, A Year With Six Sisters' Stuff.

March 22 was World Water Day. It rained. 

I got a little break from the rain when I went out to the water of the lake. I was just going to take a quick jaunt out to look at the pelicans on the lake then I kept going and going and going. There were plenty of birds to see. What else was I supposed to do? I ended up making a complete loop around the Geneva Ponds between Vineyard Beach and Lindon Boat Harbor.

I finally got some sun... but it was in my eyes. Did I mention that March 22 was also National Goof Off Day?

After my morning off, my ministering sister invited me to her house for lunch with my other ministering sister to celebrate Nauryz, a celebration of the new year and Spring and a renewal of nature. We enjoyed some traditional foods from Kazakhstan. 

What a wonderful day for that.

Later I went for a nice little drive up the canyon. Beautiful on that rainy day.

Holidays, Shelf Cooking, and Bonding Time

September 10 was Ants on a Log Day. We had fluffernutter sandwiches and ants on a log. See my blog post for September 14, 2020 for an explanation why we celebrate with fluffernutter sandwiches on that day. We didn't have any marshmallow fluff so we used real marshmallows. #shelftember

 

Other Shelftember foods we had near that time:

Start with a box pasta meal. Add cooked pasta, some extra seasonings, and cooked bacon from the freezer. It stretches a lot farther. That's shelf cooking!

 

Sometimes I forget that something as simple as beans and rice works for a quick lunch.

 

Homemade bread, spinach before it goes bad made into a salad, casserole from the freezer (tortellini casserole from A Season of Family Meal Plans), and a banana.

 

My husband has always been better at throwing things together to make a good meal. He knows how to do shelf cooking. He took my leftover black beans and some polish sausages and veggies and made some yummy yummy food. He's awesome.

September 11, we remembered.

September 12 was National Video Games Day. I had every intention of playing video games that day but by the end of the day I was too tired. Sigh.

It was also Hug and High Five Day and National Chocolate Milkshake Day. 

Jet helped me make cornbread muffins to go with our dinner of Sausage Veggie Skillet (with extra zucchini because it was cheaper than yellow squash) and rice-n-cheese (instead of orzo-n-cheese because we have rice, not orzo). Both those recipes came from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3, of course. Our chocolate milkshakes were yummy.

September 13 was the Anniversary of The Animaniacs premiere in 1993 so we listened to Animaniacs music. It was also Roald Dahl Day so I put on music from Wonka.

After after school snack of parfaits to celebrate International Chocolate Day and National Peanut Day (and quoting the movie Shrek about how ogres, onions, and parfaits all have layers), I let the kids have the kitchen for Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day and they made pizza. 

September 14 was Eat a Hoagie Day so I made hoagies/buns for people to use and it was National Parents Day Off but I really don't remember what Jeremy and I ended up doing, if anything. I did get a picture late at night of the moon and clouds.

September 15 was Double Cheeseburger Day and National Linguine Day. We had spaghetti with sauce (it had hamburger in it- well, ground turkey, tee hee) and two types of cheese (double cheese, tee hee). #shelftember

September 16 was Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day and National Play-Doh Day. I was complaining about not having time to make play doh and Jeremy pointed out that I played with dough in order to make cinnamon raisin bread which tasted so good by the way.

 

September 17 was Monte Cristo Day. Did you know there is a Count of Monte Cristo musical? I found out when I tried to get Alexa to play music from The Count of Monte Cristo while I was making food and it put on songs from a musical. Fun. I decided to do something new this year and made Monte Cristo Slider Sandwiches from sixsistersstuff.com

Yumm. I made more later to freeze so we could pull out sandwiches when we wanted them.

 

September 18 was National Cheeseburger Day. So we pulled hamburger out of the freezer (ground turkey) and made smothered beef burritos from... you guessed it... A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3.

Of course walks, snuggles, and other kinds of bonding have continued. I love my family.

My parents made a quick trip to Utah for my dad's 60th high school reunion. They stopped by to see Jet and me one day. I love my parents.