Friends Helping Friends

September 19 was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Often we'll do pirate themed food but we didn't this year. Instead my friend, Stephanie, and I got together to make a meal. I supplied ingredients for making an Instant Pot dish, my go to honey garlic chicken from sixsistersstuff.com because she wasn't as familiar with using the Instant Pot as I am so I wanted to teach her. She supplied ingredients for making cauliflower rice. 

So we each learned a new recipe, had great bonding time together, and each went away with a meal for our families.

 

I did celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day by putting on some Monkey Island music.

 

September 19 was also Slimey the Worm's Birthday. This is how Jr. celebrated when I reminded him who Slimey the Worm was. 

Jr.: Oh, I love trash. I love you, Mom.

Then he realized what he said and corrected himself.

Jr.: AND I love you, Mom. AND I love you.

 

September 20 was Pepperoni Pizza Day, String Cheese Day, and Fried Rice Day. We didn't have string cheese but had shredded mozzarella cheese (string cheese is usually made of mozzarella cheese) which we put in the pizza crust. For the fried rice, I threw together whatever stuff in it. We had lots of frozen corn that needed to be used, etc. #shelftember

Do you remember... the 21st night of September? I went around singing that song that day.

A Few More Celebrations and Shelf Cooking

February 21 was the Anniversary of when the first Legend of Zelda video game came out. Jeremy and I celebrated it observed earlier in the month when we watched a special concert online of Zelda music.

 

February 22 was National Chili Day. I made chili and garlic bread. Yumm.

February 23 was National Banana Bread Day. When I went shopping earlier in the week, I bought bananas and hid them when I got home. Bananas don't last very long when Jet knows where they are. I was able to make them last long enough on this occasion so I was able to make Cinnamon Crumb Banana Bread for the holiday. The recipe came from "A Season of Family Meal Plans volume 1."

With the banana bread we also had Pizza Pinwheels and Seven Layer Salad also both from that book. That salad is not something I would normally make (it had peas in it and I don't like peas) but it actually tasted really good.

Speaking of that book, we're still enjoying trying out new tastes. And I'm learning better about adapting, substituting, and repurposing leftovers. Yay, shelf cooking. 

For example, I made Thai Peanut Lettuce Wraps. The recipe called for ground turkey but I used rotisserie chicken. We had Classic Fried Rice on the side.

Later, I used some corn tortillas and a bit of cheese, the leftover Thai peanut chicken, and made quesadillas. Jet and I ate a few and put the rest in the freezer for quick lunches or whatever.

 

Here are some other things we tried.

Hawaiian Pork Sandwiches with leftover Seven Layer Salad.

Sheet Pan Greek Chicken with Lemony Greek Rice. 

Easy Broccoli Pasta. The other recipe for that meal was Tomato Basil Salad. Since I didn't have enough fresh tomatoes, I used canned tomatoes and cooked it all up to make a sauce that we ate on toasted baguettes. #shelfcooking

I already talked about Leap Day but February 29 was also National Toast Day. So for dinner we had BBQ Pork Quesadillas with rice and toast and Lost Mesa Corn Avocado Salsa (that last recipe came from the Fablehaven Cookbook).

Quadruple Celebration Again

Like last year, we were able to celebrate four holidays in one meal on September 20. National Pepperoni Pizza Day, National String Cheese Day, National Fried Rice Day, and National Punch Day.

We had pepperoni pizza with string cheese baked into the crust. We had more of the fried rice from our pirate dinner the night before. We also had "jitter juice" made with Sprite, Tiki Punch, sherbet, and sprinkles. It was what Lucky's teacher gave the students in his class one time to help them with jitters at the beginning of the school year (with Hawaiian Punch, but we had Tiki Punch). Perfect for National Punch Day.

 

That day was also National Care for Kids Day. We didn't incorporate that into our dinner, but Jet and I went down to the Provo Library to get him another prize for reading. 

After we left the library, we just kept driving... all the way to Bridal Veil Falls to go for a walk and get some exercise. Love that bonding time with my littlest. He sort of posed for pictures this time.

He also went around saying, "Hi, waterfatl. How are you today?" And that's not a typo. He really calls it "waterfatl." So cute.

Quadruple Celebration Plus One

I got a picture for September 20, Pepperoni Pizza Day, String Cheese Day, Fried Rice Day, and Punch Day.

I didn't get a picture for September 21, World Gratitude Day, but I did express my gratitude to my husband and my children.

Triple Celebration

September 20 was National Punch Day. We've celebrated that in the past and Lucky made tropical punch Kool-Aid for us to go with dinner.

September 20 was also National Pepperoni Pizza Day and National Fried Rice Day. Guess what we ate along with our punch. We made English muffin pizzas and the rice was so good. It was boiled/steamed but the rice was sautéed first so I count that as fried. Tee Hee. 

The rice was based off of Budget Bytes' One Pot Teryaki Chicken and Rice with our own adjustments.