My 2020 Challenge

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alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

floridacatlover wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 9:35 am Janet, since I’m not going to my friend’s house for Christmas, I’ve decided to go the non-traditional route and have pizza. You make so many creative meals from what you have on hand. Merry Christmas to you and Teddi.

Pizza sounds like a good idea..

Thank you in regards to being creative. As they say necessity is the mother of invention or something like that..lol.

Merry Christmas to you and Pippi from Teddi and me..
Janet Alliesmama
HappyDaze
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Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:11 am

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by HappyDaze »

alliesmama4 wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 6:19 am I was disappointed that Walmart was out of the small half ham I wanted for my holiday meals. The alternate was a larger ham for 16.99. No thank you. The cost was too much and way too much meat for me to deal with. I will have to think of something else.. It really is just a meal and it will not be hard for me to come up with something else. I was thinking ham would be traditional and I am trying to keep things as normal as possible to keep things going mentally. Not the end of the world if I do not have ham. There are people doing without a lot more so no complaints here.

Using up odds and ends for meals the last several days. Today I am going to fry up some breakfast sausage and add an egg for breakfast. lunch will be a nice salad. I have been craving a fresh salad. Dinner will be a small meatloaf with mashed potatoes that I had saved in the freezer. Will open a can of green beans and season it with some onion and a tiny little bit of bacon. I discovered that half of a half of a slice of bacon is enough to season a can of green beans. I saved two slices of bacon a while back in order to season my green beans. I can live without bacon for my meals but nice to have on hand to season things.

I have been thinking about goals for 2021. I have a lot of food stocked so going to try to eat down what I have. I am hoping to only supplement fresh produce and dairy as needed. Also when the time comes to buy needed items I am hoping to have built up enough money to purchase them with the cash and gift cards from my online surveys. I do have a some home and car repairs that are necessary but other than the needed repairs I plan on not buying anything in 2021. I am going to repurpose a lot of things as needed.

I am on track for paying my property taxes on time and I plan on keeping it that way. In the past I had a lot of unexpected storm damage to my roof but several years ago my insurance paid for a new roof. Also had furnace problems and had a new furnace installed a few years ago with the help of my electric company. I am still paying off the low interest loan of $43.00 a month but would like to step up the pay off so that is one of my goals for 2021.
Janet, both your positive attitude and creativity are contagious - so thank you for that!! Merry Christmas to you and Teddi from me and Lucy and Hope.
"All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. After all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog."

Charles M. Schultz
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

HappyDaze wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 8:41 am Janet, both your positive attitude and creativity are contagious - so thank you for that!! Merry Christmas to you and Teddi from me and Lucy and Hope.
Thank you Sheila..

Wishing you, your DD, Lucy, and Hope a Merry Christmas too.
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Been a long day I did not sleep all night. Teddi threw up on my bed and I had to strip everything down, including the mattress pad, and had to throw everything in the washer and dryer. After my aide left I crawled in bed with Teddi and we slept for 3 hours. We woke just in time to go out for him to potty before the heavy rain moved in. We have had high winds almost all day with gusts up to 45 mph. Teddi usually freaks out with the wind but found that if he is in my bedroom, on my bed, he feels safer. Moved a small airwave TV in to the room so that the sound would somewhat muffle the sound of the wind. Also with the utility room right next door the sound of the washer and dryer also helped to muffle the sound of the wind. Our temp was (64 F) (17.C ) today but with a cold front moving in is sliding down and will be in the teens tomorrow. Wind is still blowing fairly strong.

I cooked a pot or rice when I realized Teddi was sick and poached two small chicken breasts. I have more breast thawing out to cook for him tomorrow. He has eaten a couple of small meals of rice and chicken and so far seems to be tolerating food.

I have been working on what to have for my holiday meals. Walmart was out of ham in the size I wanted. Not a problem. Have a lot of food and it really is just another meal. My aide mentioned she is making pulled pork for one of her meals. I remembered I have a pound of pork in the freezer so I have that thawed out and will cook it tomorrow in my crockpot. Thought potato salad would go well with it. Trying to cut my carbs so will make it using frozen cauliflower in place of the potatoes. I do not have a full bag of cauliflower but do have a mixed bag of broccoli and cauliflower so I picked out the cauliflower from the broccoli. In a way it will make for a nice small bowl of faux potato salad about equal to the amount of pulled pork I will be making.

Today has been simple quick to heat and eat foods. Breakfast was two slices of gluten free toast with butter and decaf coffee.. Lunch was a small portion of polish sausage simmered in water and made in to a sandwich with gf bread and mustard. Dinner was canned chili with shredded cheddar cheese. Now drinking chamomile tea. The food was not compatible with someone that has gastritis. I need to get more organized. I have been saying that for years. Maybe 2021 might be the year..lol. My aide is off until Tuesday so I have plenty of alone time to make a mess in the kitchen..
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Did a little bit of cooking for tomorrow. I found a recipe for pulled pork in one of my ketogenic cookbooks. I did not have the same amount of pork as the recipe so cut everything in half. I had all of the other ingredients. I try to keep my house supplied with basic ingredients in order to cook more from scratch. It is still cooking in my crockpot since I got a late start today. I chopped the onion for faux potato salad however I still need to boil some eggs. I am going to boil extra eggs to make deviled eggs for snacking. The cauliflower is thawing in the fridge. I will throw everything together this evening while watching my holiday movies. The first tonight will be It's a Wonderful life. I have it memorized so I can just listen to the dialogue and follow it while cooking. I can see the TV from my kitchen island.

Breakfast was gluten free toast (2) with peanut butter and decaf coffee.

Lunch was interesting and spontaneous. I was warming up some rice and canned chicken for Teddi for his breakfast. I was not in the mood to cook anything for myself so I thought why not use some of the rice and chicken and add Thai yellow curry paste. I did and it was ok. Added some coconut powder and fish sauce. Stirred everything up and warmed it in the microwave. It was good. The texture was weird since there was no sauce to speak of plus I was using canned chicken that has a different texture than chicken that has been cooked fresh. I think if I ever do that again I will add a small can of mushrooms and the juice and it will give it more body and textures and also give the coconut powder some liquid to make a sauce.

Dinner was a grilled cheese and store bought gluten free tomato soup also had a dill pickle on the side. Dessert was cool whip with some banana extract and a few Cheerios thrown in. I pretended it was banana pudding.

I did not pay attention to how much bread I had left when I made my toast this morning. I assumed I had two slices of bread. Turned out to be two heels and one slice of bread. The heels of this particular gluten free bread are thick so I used a serrated knife and cut a lot of the crust off of the one side that was the outside of the slice. I did that with both heels and then cut them to match the size of the whole slice of bread.. Worked out well splicing the heels together in order to make a whole grilled cheese sandwich.

I saved the crust from a loaf of bread that I used to make my Thanksgiving stuffing. I will be cutting it in to cubes and add cooked breakfast sausage, cheese, and a mix of eggs, milk, and cream. It will be my Christmas morning breakfast casserole.

Teddi did not want to get up this morning. I woke him several times to go out but he would just go back to sleep. Finally around 10:30 AM he jumped off the bed and wanted to go outside. He came back in all full of energy and wanted his breakfast.. So far today he seems to be doing better. He is eating chicken and rice and begging for treats. I will feed him chicken and rice for the next several days and then switch him back to his fresh dog food from Petco.

Called a friend to see how she was doing. They had to put one of their cats to sleep last week. He was 15.5 years old. We talked for quite a while. I asked her what they were having for dinner tomorrow and she said, "ham." Her husband yelled, "It is kosher ham." He is Jewish. There is no such thing as kosher ham..lol. He fooled me one year with the same thing at Easter. I am wise to him now..lol. He is a reformed Jew. They do eat pork. When you go to their house around the holidays there is a Christmas tree and a really big menorah. Nice that they celebrate both of their religious holidays together.

Before the pandemic hit my friend had invited me and my aide to join them for a Friday night ceremony at his temple. We both had expressed interest in seeing what a Jewish temple ceremony would be like. Maybe hearing and seeing some of the same things Jesus might have experienced? My friend is Catholic but she does go to temple with her husband.

I am off to watch my movies. When I watch something on regular TV with commercials I tape them and do not watch them for at least 15 to 20 min. That way I can watch them a little bit late and can fast forward through the commercials.
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

I had a quiet day home alone except for Teddi. He alternated between sleeping, eating, and going out to potty. I usually open my utility room door even in the cold months because it faces south and the sun comes through the storm door and warms the room up nicely. Found Teddi sitting in the utility room several times with his back to the sun warming up.

I was on my computer a lot talking to friends and family that live far away. Nice to hear from them.

I made a breakfast casserole this morning using gluten free crust that I had saved from making stuffing at Thanksgiving. I had a recipe but was making adjustments to make a smaller pan plus using crusts instead of bread slices. The casserole turned out well except next time need to add more milk. It was made of bread crust, pork sausage, cheese, milk, cream and eggs. All basic things I try to keep on hand.
It was so filling I skipped lunch.

Dinner was pulled pork served over a tiny little bit of rice and faux potato salad. I did not get around to attempting to make the keto buns, baked beans, or Jello due to being busy on my computer. Plus it did take time to prepare the breakfast casserole and faux potato salad. Tomorrow is a less busy day and I will see if I can find the energy to tackle the keto buns.
Janet Alliesmama
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