GORP ...and catching up...

Hey!  So, it's been awhile since I've posted...  again.  Over a month, jeeze...  and even longer since I've done a "sit down and chat with whoever reads my blabbering on" kind of post.

Anyway, if you follow me on Instagram, you might already know that my awesome best friend bought me a "late birthday" gift recently.  A book that I've been eyeing for quite some time: Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan!!!  I love it so, so much.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

I was browsing Pinterest recently and came across this board full of beautiful illustration inspiration...  the works by Carson Ellis caught my eye and I decided to start doing some research on this talented artist.  Turns out that, not only does she do album art/band posters/etc. for one of my favorite bands (The Decemberists), but she's married to the Colin Meloy, the lead singer!  I adore them both.  

Continuing my research, I found that Meloy and Ellis have created a series of children's fantasy books together, The Wildwood Chronicles.  Check out this video to learn more about the books and to watch Ellis draw a coyote soldier (also to prevent me from going on and on and on about it!).  I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys a good story.

Also gorgeous.

Anyway, you might be wondering why I'm going on about two seemingly unrelated books, but they have something in common that had been on my mind before ever picking up either book: GORP.  Good Ol' Raisins and Peanuts.  Trail mix!  Food in Jars has a recipe for GORP granola and in Wildwood, Prue -the main character-, grabs a bag of GORP to take along on her adventure....  We have an abundance of raisins in our house, peanuts were on sale at my favorite grocery store and Halloween left us with a heap of M&Ms...  this was obviously all meant to be.

Not to mention that it's easy enough that my six-year-old was able to make it (almost) on his own.

GORP (Good Ol' Raisins & Peanuts Trail Mix)

3 cups roasted, lightly salted peanuts

2 cups raisins

1 1/2 cups M&Ms (we used half regular and half peanut M&Ms)

Toss it all in a bowl.  Mix it up.  Enjoy!  ...but don't pick out the chocolate and leave the peanuts and raisins (Prue says it's illegal!).

4 week cleaning schedule

Gah!  There's so much going on that I want to share right now, but I've been told that I have to wait...

...So for now I'm sharing a cleaning chart that I made incorporating At Home With Nikki's "1 Hour Home Cleaning Routine".  It works when I remind myself to do it...

(click for a printable version)

Find more of my cleaning and organizing posts here.

This week's menu... 2/17/14-2/23/14...

So last week was an off week... I kind of planned the menu in my head, but my life was too busy to make time for a blog post.  Frankly, I'm proud of myself for getting around to it at all this week, albeit a little late...

This week's menu... 2/3/14-2/9/14...

It's only Tuesday and so much has happened this week...  Life is full of experiences to learn and grow from.

...this week's menu...

This week's menu... 1/27/14-2/2/14...

Thanks to living in an arctic tundra (otherwise known as the Chicagoland area in the winter of 2014), the kids' schools were closed today...  and will be again tomorrow.  Thus preventing my usual early week grocery shopping trip, since I can't take the little ones out in these frigid temperatures.  Hence, the first couple of meals on our menu this week...

...this week's menu...

This week's menu... 1/20/14-1/26/14...

...this week's menu...

Monday:  leftovers

Tuesday:  lemon chicken thighs and potage parmentier (never got around to it last week, what with a sick husband, then getting sick myself...  don't worry, a post will still be coming up on Create! Don't Consume! sometime this month)

Wednesday:  campanelle with Nikki's and my homemade marinara

Thursday:  pizza night

Friday:  BBQ sliders on pretzel rolls (the ones from Costco, YUM!) with peas (a "use what's in the freezer" meal)

Saturday:  beef and broccoli stir fry (another "use what's in the freezer" meal)

Sunday:  brats with homemade buns and corn

What's on your menu this week?

This week's menu... 1/13/14-1/19/14...

Menu planning went incredibly smoothly this week.  Country ribs were on sale last week, so I picked some up for this week...  Nikki and I did our planning for Create! Don't Consume! and I decided to try out potage parmentier (I've been reading Julie and Julia and am feeling inspired to try some classic recipes)...  and tonight we found a family pack of steak on sale.  It just all fell into place.

...this week's menu...

This week's menu... 1/6/14-1/12/14...

Apparently I'm in the mood for Italian food this week...

...this week's menu...

This week's menu... 12/30/13-1/5/14...

So, long time no post.  Sorry guys, the holidays are always a little crazy around here...  basically, from mid-October-Halloween-planning through mid-April (my Mom's birthday), I'm pretty busy...  but especially from Thanksgiving through Valentine's Day...  then come more birthdays...  anyway, I'll get into more of that in a future post.  This one is about our menu...

...this week's menu...

This week's menu... 12/9/13-12/15/13...

Oh, man...  I love the holidays, but holycrapamIexhausted!  Seriously, there's so much going on that I don't even feel like meal planning (which is something that I'd normally look forward to).  I'm sure I'll get over it once the holidays are through...

...this week's menu...

This week's menu... 12/2/13-12/8/13...

I've already written this post once, but our internet connection sucked for a few minutes and I lost everything, so blah-blah-blah...  busy week...  this post is late....  blah, blah, whatever...

Here it is.

...this week's menu...

This week's menu... 11/18/13-11/24/13...

So, last week's menu didn't go quite as planned...  While the recipes were fantastic,  I got bored eating the same meals so often.  If you look at the action plan, you'll see what I mean - lots of eating the same soup for dinner, then lunch, then dinner two nights later...  I just couldn't do it.  Maybe I'll try again after the holidays.

On a different note:  I'm officially down 25 lbs. since January!  Yay!

...and now for today's business...

...this week's menu...

This week's menu... 11/11/13-11/17/13...

So, I'm doing things a little differently this week...  My friend, Nikki, recently sent me a message saying that she wanted to do this:  wholeliving.com's action plan

Well, my weight-loss could use a kick in the butt, that's for sure.  To be honest, I've hit a BIG plateau and haven't really been motivated lately (thank goodness I haven't gained anything, but I haven't been losing the weight I'd like to either).  I figure that a little motivation from my friend and from Martha Stewart won't hurt.

Because I'm a mother and a wife, I'm planning my meals *around* Whole Living's action plan, I'm most likely not going to follow it exactly (this time, at least).  I'll be adding in extra proteins and making minor changes to keep my husband and kids happy and full.

(we'll be sharing more about this on Create! Don't Consume! as we go)

So, here it is...

...this week's menu...

This week's menu... 11/4/13-11/10/13...

When I started my menu planning for the week, I was interrupted and set the planner down on the kitchen counter....

...at which point, my husband decided to help with the planning...

...this week's *real* menu...

Quick Tip: natural rust inhibitor

After sharing my recent post about rust removal, a friend who works with metal informed me that, while lemon juice and salt might have removed the rust from my cheese graters they would also expose the metal and make it rust again and faster.  He suggested that I oil them to add some protection.

Between my friend and Google, I found that it's best to use food safe oils in the kitchen (for what should be obvious reasons).

So, here's what I did:

I laid out a towel over my workspace
and gathered my materials
(food safe oil [I used olive], a washcloth and the stuff i'm trying to protect)...

...I put a few drops of olive oil onto the washcloth...

...I dripped oil right onto the smaller hard-to-get-into areas...

...and buffed it in...

...then I wiped off the excess oil with a clean cotton cloth...

So shiny!

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve to get rid of/prevent rust?

Comment and share your knowledge if you do!

This week's menu... 10/28/13-11/3/13...

...this week's menu...

Monday:  Asian marinated salmon with broccoli

Tuesday:  Buffalo chicken pasta with peas

Wednesday:  Outback's potato soup copycat

Thursday:  MUMMY pizza night!

Friday:  Spaghetti night

Saturday:  Leftovers

Sunday:  Musaka

What's on your menu this week?

Natural rust removal...

I recently discovered a new-to-me YouTuber, Melissa Maker and her channel "Clean My Space"  thanks to one of my "old favorites" ("Organized Clutterbug") mentioning her in a video about natural cleaning.  Of course, I've spent most of my time over the past two days watching TONS of her videos!

This morning, I came across this one: "Clean My Space" - "Shine Your Flatware & Glassware | Day 5 of The 12 Days Of Clean!"  In this video, she goes over basic shining, but what really caught my attention was when she started talking about removing rust from flatware.

I have a couple of vintage cheese graters that are horribly rusted, but they look so neat that I can't bear to part with them (I only show the circular one here, as that was the rustier of the two)...

Note: none of these photos have been edited more than cropping (and text on one), I didn't want a filter to mess with how the rust looked.

This is how I cleaned them:

I started with my rusty grater...

Then I gathered my tools:

my (kitchen) cleaning toothbrush, 

a clean rag, a bowl with equal parts salt and lemon juice

and a towel or paper towel to work on.

I got some of the salt/lemon juice mixture on the toothbrush...

...and scrubbed it all over.

Then I buffed it out with the rag,

using the salt/lemon juice mixture as needed.

After washing and *thoroughly* towel drying.

NOT BAD!

Now, I will say that I probably still won't be using them for cooking,

but they look a lot prettier hanging on my wall without significantly less rust.

Check out my post about preventing rust from coming back once you've removed it!

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve to get rid of/prevent rust?

Comment and share your knowledge if you do!

This week's menu... 10/21/13-10/27/13...

I realized as I was typing up this week's menu just how lazy I'm feeling toward cooking this week...  and you know what?  I'm gonna go ahead and allow it.  Time needs to go toward more important things this week...  like Halloween costumes and winter knitting.  Especially with the possibility of snow in tomorrow's forecast.  

REALLY, Illinois???  Snow in October?!?!  

Lamesauce.

This week's menu... 10/14/13-10/20/13...

...how many days have I missed now?  ::sad face::

It's okay 'cause I've still posted a heckuva lot more than usual this month.  Keep on the sunny side, right?

The past few days have been crazy busy...  The kids had a four-day weekend, so we filled it with a pumpkin farm, some housework and our city's Scarecrow Fest.  Lots of fun!

"American Horror Story", Witches brew and pumpkin flavored *everything*, oh my!

Oh man, am I enjoying this month!

I've recently started watching "American Horror Story" from the beginning on Netflix, and I'm hooked.  I love everything about this show.  Especially when paired with my pumpkin spice coffee.

Last night, my friend Nikki and I got together, shared a bottle of Witches Brew (my favorite $5 wine) and did some planning/blogging, and stayed up way too late...  We came up with a neat idea to talk about a food item (or a few) each month.  This month, we chose pumpkins and winter squash --which we posted about today.

Hmm, what else?  ...I'm going to start my Halloween costume tonight...  I'm going as a fox (I made a tail a few years ago), so I'll be making this hat.

Oh, and we're going to the pumpkin farm tomorrow!  Yay!

I think I might have to make a fall bucket list.  There are some great ideas here.

...Now for a scary movie with the husband...

Can you tell I'm tired?
Do you get spacey and jump from one topic to the next when you're over-tired?