Whoa. What a week.

Hubby had stents put in his heart last Friday, and thankfully, the surgery was very successful.  He feels so much better already.  But it’s been a whirlwind for me, the VA chose to have him get this work done in a hospital 3 hours away.  In addition to taking off work for that, my son-in-law has had 2 job interviews this week, and I took off early those days to keep the kids, since Ayla went back to work last week.  He got the job, he starts Monday, so YAY for Shane!  But I do kind of feel like I’m barely keeping my head above water.  If it weren’t for Tahnee pitching in I don’t know how I’d manage.  She brought us Subway sandwiches for supper last night.

Last week I made homemade pizzas, something I haven’t done in a while.  I made the dough, I sautéed 4 colors of bell pepper, plus an onion, til everything was sweet and tender, I even made the sauce.  I baked the crusts for 4 minutes, then added the toppings and baked again, to guard against soggy middles.  Here’s how it went:

 

 

 I added sliced green olives and pickled garlic to my pizza.  SUCH a good flavor!!!  Thanks again to my co-worker John for that pickled garlic, it is so addictive.  So is his marmalade, but that’s a different post.  I ended up with 3 extra crusts, 1 large and 2 small.  So I wrapped them in foil and froze them, along with the leftover sauce.  I can definitely see me making pizza for lunch one day this weekend.  We’re out of mozzarella, I wonder how a cheddar or provolone pizza would taste? 

I had a very frugal weekend, if you don’t count the trip to Goodwill

Actually, even including what I bought at Goodwill, it was frugal.  I spent just under $30, and got a lot of good stuff.  A pair of jeans for Ayla, which she needs for work, a pair of shoes and a shirt for Drake, 2 outfits for Zane, a Spiderman cake pan, and a baby sling.  Ayla had given hers away, not realizing she was having another kid so soon.

 

Poor Drake has my feet, which means nobody will ever be able to buy him a pair of shoes without him around to try them on.  I see shoes in his size at thrift stores all the time, but won’t buy them.  I know what ill-fitting shoes are like on these wide, flat appendages we are forced to call feet.  More like duck flippers with toes, if you ask me.  Having him there to try them on was great, assuring I didn’t waste my money on shoes that hurt his feet.

 

As for that cake pan, with 2 little boys in the house, one of them is bound to want a Spiderman birthday party at some point.  Drake is already a fan, so maybe for his next birthday that will be the theme.  Although I was already gearing up for a train-themed party this year, but it’s not like the cake pan will go bad.

 

Following our trip to Goodwill, we gassed up the car so I could get to work this week, up 20 cents a gallon from 2 weeks ago.  Then we were off to the library.  Drake was hesitant about returning the one he checked out last week, but when he got in there and found others that were just as cool, he was OK with it.  Ayla got a card for herself, she doesn’t need mine now to check out books, and she let him check out 2 books for this week.  Following the library, we went to the park at the Landing.  It was chilly with the wind coming off the water, but very pleasant.  And we ran into some friends from church, so that was fun.  There they are, down by the water:

 

I made this week’s menu pretty much vegetarian, the only meat involved was a half pound I had stashed in my freezer, plus a little bacon.  So far nobody has complained.  And it dropped my weekly grocery bill a lot!  Our menu is as follows:

 

Taco soup (1/2 lb ground cow)

Chili (kidney beans)

Veggie frittata, roasted onion potatoes

Lentil curry

Bean with bacon soup

 

I always keep bacon in the freezer, I’ll lop off a bit to flavor the bean soup.  I had bought fresh broccoli and one each red, yellow, green and orange bell pepper for the frittata.  I ended up using very little so next week I’ll make homemade pizza, to use those items up.  Slowly caramelized peppers and onions are my FAVORITE pizza toppings, and broccoli cooked slowly in with them ain’t too bad either.

 

I made the fritatta and potatoes Saturday.  Looks yummy, huh?