Bread and Butter and Cider, Oh My

I'm still thankful I know how to bake and cook.

November 17 was Homemade Bread Day as well as National Butter Day. I made homemade wheat bread which we ate with butter (not homemade). I used the recipe I always use for wheat bread from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. "Darcy's Whole Wheat Bread."

I also made homemade alfredo sauce to go with spaghetti. I used the recipe I always use for alfredo sauce from Our Best Bites. "Guiltless Alfredo Sauce." 

A few people had toast for breakfast on homemade bread (Pantry Secrets White Bread recipe).

 

November 18 was Apple Cider Day. Several people had apple cider.

Birds and Food

One Saturday morning, Nichole, Lucky, and I got out in the cold to go birding with Utah County Birders at the Provo River Delta. It's open now. Woohoo. Jeremy and I loved going there to celebrate our anniversary back in May so I've been excited to take the kids.

It was certainly cold but fun to see the birds and spend time with those two. I love nature.

That evening we made homemade Panda Express food for National Fast Food Day, November 16. Sweetfire Chicken, white rice, and chow mein. Mmmmmm.

 

November 17 was Homemade Bread Day. I made bread with the intention of letting us tear into one loaf and slicing the rest. Jet had other ideas apparently. Ha Ha. I did get three sliced loaves out of it, though.

 

November 19 was International Men's Day, Have a Bad Day Day, and Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day. Jeremy was tired enough at work that he had to celebrate. Poor guy.

Spinach Days

March 26 was National Spinach Day. It was also Make Up Your Own Holiday Day and Jeremy wanted to make up the holiday, I Don't Have To Go In To Work Day, but it didn't work. Poor guy.

But we did celebrate Spinach Day. To go along with Spinach and salad dressing (our kids are into simple salads- spinach with or without dressing, lettuce with or without dressing), I made Creamy Garlic Pork Chops, Classic Mashed Potatoes (both from "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volume 1), and applesauce. 

I don't make pork chops (I didn't even know pork chops could come boneless, I never look for them in the store), I don't make mashed potatoes from scratch (I am an instant mashed potatoes person- they're so much easier), but I made both for this meal. I am definitely trying new things with these books by Jordan Page and The Page Company. And we're actually getting through the bags of potatoes that we buy from the store. Yay.

I'll tell you my true opinion. Pork chops were yummy. Mashed potatoes weren't as good. They were easy but I need to do a better job at seasoning them. More garlic, that's what we need. And the spinach wasn't part of the meal plan, but it was a good side dish and fit the holiday.

Speaking of spinach, the next day we had spinach again with our dinner, this time with more than just dressing. We had Best Ever Fettuccine Alfredo (with spaghetti instead of fettucine) and Butter Lettuce Salad (with spinach instead of butter lettuce). We also had some homemade wheat bread to go along with it.

I'll tell you my true opinion. I definitely did some shelf cooking with the alfredo sauce recipe. I combined cream, half and half, and powdered milk with water. Used up the rest of the cream that we had in the fridge and the rest of a container of half and half we had in the fridge. We still have another unopened container of half and half that Jr. Jr. brought home from a youth activity where they were making ice cream, so no hurry on that. Anyway, the alfredo sauce was good. I still prefer the alfredo sauce we usually make and will probably stick to that one, but it's okay to try new things, especially when you have ingredients you need to use up. The recipe I usually use is Guiltless Alfredo Sauce from ourbestbites.com and most of us in the family love it. O.K. About the salad. It was good. The green olives in it were a pleasant surprise for some people. Honestly, I got myself a bowl of the olives to munch on while I was making dinner. I like green olives. It was a good salad but not craveworthy.

As far as the homemade bread goes, we did the traditional tear into one loaf to snack on and slice the others after they've cooled. I know we're not the only family that does that. Jet used to tear into all the loaves. A little bit of this loaf. A little bit of this one. Thinking about that makes me laugh. So many fun memories with this family.

On a different note, March 27 was Manatee Appreciation Day. I did sing, "Barbara Manatee" to celebrate. And thinking ahead when a picture of a manatee popped up on the laptop a few days before, I took a picture of it so I could look at it on the holiday. Celebrating in simple ways. Tee Hee.

It's a blessing to be able to celebrate what we do. We have friends in Haiti who are dealing with things that we don't even have to think about dealing with. 

To take their children's minds off of what they are going through at this time, our friends set up Google Meets with people to take time to talk to the girls, read books, or whatever. Jeremy signed us up so we got to chat with them, show them silly Jet. Jeremy put together a presentation about animals and birds of Utah so they could learn about them and find out what birds Utah has in common with Haiti. Then he made a couple of balloon animals for them to see since that's what we do. I hope it helped. They seemed to enjoy it.

Let's Talk About More November Celebrations

Speaking of nachos- like for New Year's...

 

November 6 was National Nacho Day. This was what happened with my 13-year old.

Mom: Today is Nacho Day.

Jr. Jr.: I know. I've had a really hard day.

Mom (looks sympathetic)

Jr. Jr.: Today is not yo' day.

Mom: Groan. 

We also ate nachos.

 

November 11 was Veteran's Day. I got my selfie with the flag. It was sunny.

It was also Corduroy Day, you know, because 11/11 looks like corduroy. We were having breadsticks so had some fun with them.

It was also National Sundae Day. I made hot fudge sauce to go with ice cream and whatever else. Yumm.

 

November 12 was Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day. We had individual pizzas so everyone could choose their toppings. Some of the kids even had dessert pizzas after their main pizzas. They got the idea for s'mores pizza from the Fablehaven Cookbook.

Speaking of the Fablehaven Cookbook, for Spicy Guacamole Day on November 14, we made "Bubda's Sloppy Guac" and "Lost Mesa Corn Avocado Salsa, both from that book. They were perfect to go with taco salad for dinner and family members had fun making faces in the food (the instructions for the sloppy guac even say to make a hermit troll face). We love that cookbook! 

 

November 16 was National Fast Food Day so we pulled out chicken nuggets and fries from the freezer and soda pop from the pantry and called it good.

 

November 17 was Homemade Bread Day and National Butter Day and GWR Day. GWR stands for Guinness World Records. We had homemade bread with butter but we also had hot dogs on homemade buns as a nod to the world record Jeremy broke back in July of 2015. He built a giant balloon dog. So we had hot dogs.

For William Tell Day on November 18, I made apple crisp. Yumm.

 

November 21 was Gingerbread Cookie Day. I made gingerbread cookie people while telling Jet the story of the Gingerbread Man. There have been a few times since then that Jet will run into a room I'm in and call out, "You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." I love him so much.

That day was also National Stuffing Day so we had a bruschetta bake with chicken, stuffing, tomatoes, and seasonings. Yumm.

November 23 was Thanksgiving. That morning I took a moment for myself. I got up early to help Jeremy get ready for work- made him breakfast, made him a lunch (a snack really because he got out of work early for which I was grateful). I had Bing Crosby in my head. "I've got plenty to be thankful for." After Jeremy left for work, I decided to take a bit of time for myself before getting to work on laundry, doing dishes, hard boiling eggs for deviled eggs... so I wrapped myself up in a blanket, drank some hot chocolate, watched some TV, and felt thankful.

When Jeremy got home we celebrated with food, lots and lots of food.

He brought home a pumpkin pie from work which we put whipped topping on. I also made a vanilla pudding pie and we put pumpkin pie ice cream on top of it. Mmmmm.

 

November 24 was National Leftovers Day or Turkey Leftover Day. Yes, we ate leftovers of course.

 

November 26 was Charles Schulz' Birthday. We decided to have a Charlie Brown/Peanuts Thanksgiving to celebrate with foods the characters made in "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." Toast, popcorn, jelly beans, pretzel sticks. We also threw in some "peanuts" and "Peppermint Patties." And to drink we had lemonade because Lucy sometimes sets up a lemonade stand.

I also wore my bow earrings to celebrate his birthday. When some women in choir saw me and I explained why I was wearing those earrings, they suggested we go around the table giving psychiatric advice for 5 cents. So cute. I love my choir friends.

November 30 was Mason Jar Day. You know I love excuses to use my Fablehaven Cookbook. This time it was "Fairy in a Jar Layered Gelatin Treats." 

I couldn't find any gummy butterflies or gummy fairies but I could find gummy worms. Jeremy joked that it as more like "imps in a jar."

Some More Holidays

November 17 was National Homemade Bread Day and National Butter Day. 

Easy to combine holidays that day.

 

November 18 was National Apple Cider Day.

I figured after working for hours on Jeremy's book that day and the day before, I earned some nice apple cider in the composition mug.

 

November 19 was Have a Bad Day Day. Some of us took turns being grumpy for a bit. It never lasted too long. I kept commenting that it was just to celebrate the holiday. Both Nichole and Jr. fell that day. Sigh. You don't always have to celebrate, kids. Sigh.

November 20 was National Absurdity Day and World Children's Day. We talked about that in Nursery on Sunday. The adults did. The children were just absurd at times.

November 21 was National Gingerbread Cookie Day. I've been wanting to make gingerbread men again for years. My father-in-law gave me a recipe for gingerbread cookies so we made gingerbread men for the holiday. Hooray. 

Some of them came out in interesting shapes because they stuck so much to the cookie cutters. This is one that looks different depending on the angle you look at it. What do you think it looks like? 

Lucky and Jr. Jr. had fun with the end of the dough adding embellishments to the last cookies. I didn't make icing so we didn't have gingerbread zombies this time.

The day before, Nichole got a gingerbread man from a teacher at church. Sweetheart that she is, she shared with Jet. Then when she didn't have more to share, she made a gingerbread man out of cardboard for him, and we talked about the story of the gingerbread man. Lucky shared a story he made up about the Antarctic gingerbread man.