Chez Robinson

Menu Plan Monday - a day early!

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:04:00 +0000

I have been creating meal plans for most of June, but they never made it here. We've had a lot going on, and it seems I haven't found my way back here to the blog in a while. I'm going to try to get better about that. I really like having a record of what I've cooked and what we liked best.

This week's menu plan:
Monday - bean and cheese quesadillas with homemade salsa
Tuesday - hot dogs and pork and beans
Wednesday - chicken stir fry (from a packaged freezer meal)
Thursday - chicken enchillada casserole
Friday - leftovers

I am hoping to complete a few OAMC sessions closer to my due date. I'm trying out the chicken enchillada casserole to make sure we like it before I stash a few in the freezer.

You can find many more meal plans at Org Junkie's Menu Plan Monday.

Getting back to menu planning

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:55:00 +0000

It's been a while. We have big news here at Chez Robinson - I am pregnant with our first! I'm almost out of the first trimester, and so far I feel pretty good. I have been tired though, and dealing with some cravings and some mild food aversions, so meal planning hasn't been at the top of my list.

I know I have to get back to it though. We eat healthier and save so much money when we eat according to a plan. I have a fully stocked refrigerator, freezer and pantry, so this week's menu is using only what is on hand. There will be no trips to the grocery store!

Monday - baked chicken breasts and Browned Butter Pasta with Tatsoi

Tuesday - Tuna and pasta with a side salad

Wednesday - Sausage, mustard greens and rice and beans

Thursday - Stuffed peppers (stuffed with ground beef, rice, veggies)

Friday - Beef stir fry with lots of veggies, served over ramen noodles

Check out Menu Plan Monday for lots of great meal and menu ideas!

Seedlings

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:22:00 +0000

As of today all of our seeds are sprouting! I have two Jiffy greenhouses in the garage - one is growing all of our tomato and pepper seeds, and the other has broccoli, cauliflower and herbs.

I read somewhere that I should track what sprouted when, and since I'm sharing my gardening adventures here, I thought I'd log the seed info here too.

Starting out: Pouring warm water over the peat pellets in the greenhouse containers

Sprouted 5 days after planting:
Broccoli
Cauliflower

Sprouted 6 days after planting:
Thyme

Sprouted 7 days after planting:
Cherry tomatoes
Rosemary
Basil
Sweet Basil
Chives
Dill
Parsley
Italian ParsleySprouted 8 days after planting:
Big Boy Tomatoes
Bell Peppers
Jalapeno Peppers

We'll also be trying to grow strawberries and blueberries! (I couldn't resist these plants when I saw them at our local home improvement store)
This picture shows the berry plants sitting in the first layer of our herb spiral. I'm still trying to decide where to plant them.

I'm hoping to finish the herb spiral in the next week or two. We used all of the bricks we had on hand, so we'll be picking up more this weekend.

Meal Planning Monday

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:15:00 +0000

It's Monday, which means Meal Planning Monday at OrgJunkie. Cooking is so much more enjoyable when I have a weekly plan.

Last week's plan held up pretty well, with the exception of Friday's Scallops. I ditched that idea and settled for the traditional tuna and macaroni salad. I say traditional, because that is what my mother fixed for dinner every single Friday during every Lenten season of my childhood. It's so ingrained that I actually crave it on Fridays during Lent.

This week I'm working out of the pantry and freezer. I went to the grocery store earlier this week, with every intention of picking up a few sale items and not spending much money. I spent over $80, and I really didn't need many of the items I bought. Our house is full of food. So with the exception of milk, eggs and other fresh ingredients, I'm going to spend a few weeks cooking and eating from what we have on hand.

Besides, I need to get to the bottom of the freezer in the garage sometime - it is long overdue for a defrost and deep clean.

Monday - Takeout from our favorite BBQ joint
Tuesday - Leftover chicken and vegetable stir-fry served over pantry-staple ramen noodles
Wednesday - Chicken Piccata served over pasta (chicken from the freezer, everything else from the pantry - I'll finally open that jar of capers I've had forever!)
Thursday - leftovers
Friday - Lentil Brown Rice Casserole (pantry staples)

The Chicken Piccata and Lentil Casserole are new recipes, so I'll be posting reviews as we try them.

Find more great meal plans:

Meatloaf: Mexican Style

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:21:00 +0000

Hello to those of you who have found my blog! I'm so excited to know there are real people out there who might see this! :)

As promised, here is the recipe for Mexican Style Meatloaf.

Meatloaf: Mexican Style

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef (I used a mixture of ground chuck and extra lean ground beef)
1 jar salsa (I used mild, but use whatever you like)
1 can black beans (you'll only use 1/2 the can)
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste
shredded Cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Drain and rinse the black beans. You'll only need 1/2 of the can for this. I like using the leftover beans in scrambled eggs or omelets.

Mix the beef, 1/2 can black beans, 1/2 cup salsa and egg in a large bowl. Salt and pepper to taste, and add any other seasoning you might like. I added onion powder and seasoning salt.

Shape the meat mixture into a loaf-shape in the baking dish of your choice.

Once shaped into a loaf, make a channel or indentation on the top of the loaf, down the middle, for the salsa. Pour 1/2 cup of salsa on top. Sprinkle the top with grated Cheddar.

Bake for 35-45 minutes.

This recipe should give you 4 nice sized servings. If you are cooking for more you could easily double this recipe, though I would recommend cooking it as two loaves.

This is a slightly different twist on traditional meatloaf. I served it with brown rice and veggies.

Meatloaf: Italian style

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:27:00 +0000

I apologize in advance for not having any pictures to go with these recipes. Meatloaf, or at least my meatloaf, doesn't make for pretty pictures. Besides, dinner was later than usual and I was hungry. :)

Last night I made two meatloaves: Italian and Mexican. I do not use breadcrumbs in my meatloaf, and I'm only cooking for two, so I tend to make small, dense meatloaf.

Meatloaf: Italian Style

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef (I used a mixture of ground chuck and extra lean ground beef)
1 small can chopped mushrooms
1 can Italian diced tomatoes, divided (sometimes these are labeled "Italian", or just look for diced tomatoes with basil, oregano, etc)
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste
shredded Mozzarella cheese (or use Parmesan from the green can in a pinch)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix* the beef, mushrooms, egg and half of the diced tomatoes in a large bowl. Salt and pepper to taste, and add any other seasoning you might like. Last night I added onion powder, seasoning salt and McCormick's All Purpose Seasoning Blend (which is a variety of dried herbs).

*By mix what I really mean is "Take your rings off, wash your hands, stick your hands in the bowl and get it all together"

Shape the meat mixture into a loaf-shape in the baking dish of your choice. Since I was making two loaves I used a large glass baking dish that would hold both with room to spare.

Once shaped into a loaf, make a channel or indentation on the top of the loaf, down the middle, for the tomatoes. Pour the remaining half of the diced tomatoes into this channel. This keeps the tomatoes from running down the sides of the meatloaf and ending up in the bottom of your pan. Sprinkle the top with grated Mozzarella. I was out of Mozzarella so I used green can Parmesan instead.

Bake for 35-45 minutes.

This recipe should give you 4 nice sized servings. Or, if you are feeding a hungry man, as I was last night, one hungry man serving and 2 other servings. If you are cooking for more you could easily double this recipe, though I would recommend cooking it as two loaves.

Results: This is my standard meatloaf recipe, and we liked it as usual. This is the first time I've used grated Parmesan, and it was good. The Parmesan went well with the other flavors (of course!).

I'll post the companion, Meatloaf: Mexican Style soon.

Meal Planning Monday

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:17:00 +0000

I love Menu Plan Monday at I'm An Organizing Junkie. Although I've only participated once before (and that was nearly a year ago!) I frequently check to see what others have posted. It's a great place to get new ideas.

Meal planning works really well for me, and we save a lot of money when I have a solid plan. I'm hoping to set aside some time every weekend to plan our meals for the coming week.

Here is this week:

Monday - Meatloaf, brown sugar glazed baby carrots and steamed green beans.

Tuesday - Leftovers

Wednesday - Honey Mustard Chicken and steamed vegetables (New recipe!)

Thursday - Leftovers

Friday - Herb and Sesame Scallops with Orange and Fennel Salad (New recipe!)

Saturday/Sunday - Chicken Soup (New recipe!)

I'm trying a few new recipes this week. The Chicken Soup recipe is in a cookbook, so I don't have a link handy. I'll post more about it this weekend when I make it.

We observe Lent, so Fridays are going to be meatless for a while. I'm going to try to cook a variety of seafood or other meatless dishes so we don't end up going to seafood restaurants every Friday night. I have never cooked much seafood. In fact, canned tuna and frozen shrimp represent my entire experience with seafood in my kitchen. I didn't grow up eating fish or other seafood at home, so I think I've always been intimidated by the idea of cooking it. Maybe this Lenten season is the time when I get over that.

Check out all of the great meal plans:

Garden Update

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:14:00 +0000

The plans for our vegetable garden are coming along nicely. Yesterday we completed the first layer for the herb spiral. We built a brick circle, well, an oval really, and filled it with a layer of top soil topped by a layer of Miracle Grow Garden Soil. We had just enough red bricks to make the first layer, so we'll need to pick up more bricks.

Today I started most of our vegetable and herb seeds in Jiffy plastic greenhouse boxes. I bought the greenhouse boxes with little peat pellets that expand when wet. I know it's not really necessary, but as a complete amateur I thought these boxes might help me. Since I have no idea what I am doing I very carefully labeled each row of seeds. Otherwise I'll be staking carrots and expecting tomatoes to grow underground. :)

I still need to plan how I want to plant the vegetables in our garden. I know a compact, weed-free garden is better than a huge plot overgrown with weeds. I hate weeding anyway, so a compact garden sounds good to me. In the coming weeks I need to go ahead and draw out a plan.

So far I think things are going well. I'm really looking forward to watching the seeds sprout in the coming days and weeks.

Crustless Broccoli and Mushroom Quiche

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:59:00 +0000

While searching for an idea for dinner, I ran across a recipe for Crustless Asparagus and Mushroom Quiche in the April 2005 issue of Shape magazine. I read through the ingredients list, decided to substitute broccoli for the asparagus, and headed to the grocery store.

Later in the afternoon I started really reading the recipe, and it called for starting the quiche in a frying pan, then transferring it to a glass baking dish and finishing it in the microwave. The microwave? I've never made a quiche before, but I've had quiche, I am aware of the concept of quiche, and I've never heard of making it in the microwave. That's when I abandoned the recipe. I searched the internet and found generic instructions for crustless quiche, and decided to follow the recommended baking method. This is what I came up with:

Crustless Brocooli and Mushroom Quiche

Ingredients:
cooking spray
butter
1 1/2 cup broccoli florets
1 cup coarsely chopped white mushrooms
6 large eggs
1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)
1/2 cup lowfat sour cream
1/4 teaspoon paprika
3 slices lowfat Swiss cheese, coarsely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375

I briefly steamed the broccoli and sauteed the mushrooms in a tiny bit of butter. I sprayed a 10 inch glass quiche pan with a quick coat of cooking spray, then spread the cooked broccoli and mushrooms in the bottom. In a separate bowl I whisked together the eggs, milk, sour cream, paprika, salt and pepper. I poured the egg mixture over the vegetables, then sprinkled the chopped Swiss cheese on top of everything.

The generic recipe calls for baking it from 30-45 minutes, beginning to check on it after 30 minutes. I started checking on it at 30 minutes, and pulled it from the oven after 38 minutes. I let it rest on the counter for 5 minutes, then we dug in. It was perfectly delicious. I ate 1/4 of it. My husband went back for seconds and ate close to half of it.

This was fantastic, and I will definitely be making other variations of this. As an added bonus, my "You're putting meat in that, right?" husband ate it without complaint. In fact, he raved about it and declared it one of his new favorites. This further proves my theory that he doesn't miss the meat if a dish is hearty enough.

Here is the nutritional info provided by Shape for their version: 250 calories, 15g fat (7 saturated), 8g carbs, 20 g protein per serving. One serving is 1/4 of the quiche. Substituting broccoli for asparagus shouldn't make much of a calorie difference. I did add a tiny pat of butter to the mushrooms, but without the butter those numbers should be pretty close.

Meal Plan Planning

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:13:00 +0000

I had every intention of spending time this weekend coming up with a Meal Plan and sharing it as part of Meal Plan Monday. The weekend slipped away, and apparently with it any thoughts of meal planning. Today I suddenly remembered that I planned to plan, and that my lack of a plan meant I had no ideas for dinner tonight. I've been eager to try new recipes and dishes, so my only goal is to prepare something I haven't made before.

While flipping through an old issue of Shape magazine I found a crustless quiche recipe that looks good. I've never made quiche before, so it fits the bill. A warm egg dish also sounds good considering the cold evenings we've been having.

I'll share the results later!

Garden Variety Embarrassing Confessions

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:02:00 +0000

I've spent most spare moments of 3 of the past 7 days working in the back yard. I'm trying to rake and clean up the yard in general, get our small garden plot ready, and build our herb spiral. While preparing our garden plot I had an embarrassing realization:

There are substantial parts of our back yard which we have not raked since we bought this house.

And we bought this house six years ago.

We have a pretty large yard for suburbia, we don't have kids or even dogs who would explore the backyard, so the areas farthest from the house have been neglected. Like I said, embarrassing.

However, this led to a few unexpected benefits for the vegetable garden.
1 - No grass or weeds to clear, dig or pull up. The raking left dark, beautiful soil behind.
2 - I feel this area has essentially been self-composting all these years. The soil is rich and it smells like life. My husband laughed when I told him that, but I smell the promise and potential of growth.

I have high hopes for this rich, beautiful soil.

New year, new ideas, new plans.

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:41:00 +0000

So, it's been a while. :)

I stopped posting about my challenge last year when I learned an important lesson. My job, specifically the travel my job sometimes requires, ruins my meal planning. Everything was going very well until I hit the road on a 14 hour day. Maybe there are people who come home and cook after days like that, but, as much as I enjoy cooking, I'm not one of those people.

I am trying to do better. Now I do more cooking on the weekends, and more freezer cooking. I've started leaving casseroles in the fridge for my husband to put in the oven when he gets home before me. Also, I've been putting my 2 Crockpots back to work. These new ideas work well, and I need to get back into weekly meal planning and incorporate these ideas in my plans.

~~***~~

This time of year my head starts spinning with ideas for cleaning, organizing, gardening and home improvement. I guess it's a bit of a spring cleaning kick, but it seems to hit me early. Here are some of my plans for the next few months:

1 - Construct an herb spiral in the backyard
2 - Prepare an area for a vegetable garden in the back yard
3 - Create a space in the garage to start vegetables and flowers from seeds
4 - Clean out and organize the entire garage, including cleaning and applying garage floor coating to the floor
5 - FINALLY complete the master bathroom remodel

I'm hoping to use this blog to post my progress, especially with the vegetable garden. This will be our first vegetable garden, so this could be entertaining. :)

Tuesday April 8 - $0

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:06:00 +0000

I made biscuits from scratch! I've never made biscuits before, but I wanted some kind of bread, and had a few baking ingredients in the pantry. They turned out pretty good for my first time. I probably overworked the dough a little, but they were fine and tasted really good with butter and grape jelly.

Breakfast for me was egg salad made from a hard boiled egg from the fridge. DH took yogurt and granola bar to work. He has a stash of frozen dinners for lunch at work, and he ate one of those. I won't count that as coming from our freezer. For lunch I ate a portion of a boxed pasta mix. The remaining pasta was eaten with the leftover chicken casserole for dinner.

It was a stressful work day for me, and DH had to work late, so it was nice to have leftovers to heat up quickly when he finally made it home.

Total food cost today: $0

Food from the refrigerator:
yogurt
1 hardboiled egg
mayo
milk
1 egg
leftover chicken casserole
butter
grape jelly

Food from the freezer:
ice cream

Food from the pantry:
trail mix
granola bar
boxed pasta dinner
flour
sugar
baking powder
salt

Monday, April 7 - $0

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:10:00 +0000

For dinner tonight I made Broccoli Chicken Casserole. We really liked it, and I'll be adding it to my list of known good recipes. Along with dinner we finished off the leftover cornbread. We didn't eat the cucumbers in sour cream today, so we'll have that with lunch or dinner tomorrow.

DH took a frozen dinner for lunch, along with yogurt and a granola bar. I ate the last flour tortilla for breakfast (as a quesadilla). For lunch I ate leftover Brown Rice and Lentils, along with fruit salad made from the last apple and orange. This didn't amount to much, and I ended up eating a small frozen burrito for an afternoon snack.

We shared microwave popcorn and ice cream for dessert.

Broccoli Cheese Casserole (adapted from 101 Things to Do With a Casserole)
Ingredients:
2 cups chopped cooked chicken
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup Cheddar cheese
1 10 oz package frozen broccoli, thawed
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 small cans sliced mushrooms

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together. Spread mixture into a greased 9x13-inch pan. Bake 35-40 minutes, or until bubbly. Makes 4-6 servings.

The original recipe called for 1/2 cup green onion, but I didn't have any on hand. This was really good. I think it would also be great with cooked pasta as a chicken noodle casserole, and would be even better with bread or cracker crumbs on top.

Total food cost today: $0

Food from the refrigerator:
milk
yogurt
flour tortilla (last one)
cheese
sour cream
leftover lentils and rice (finished)
fruit salad (finished)

Food from the freezer:
chicken
chopped broccoli
beef and bean burrito
ice cream

Food from the pantry:
granola bar
2 cans sliced mushrooms
cream of mushroom soup
microwave popcorn

Menu Plan Monday

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:51:00 +0000

Menu Plan Monday at I'm An Organizing Junkie is a great source of inspiration and ideas for meals and menu planning. Menu planning is going to be a big part of my challenge - so I thought I'd start posting my Menu Plans too!

Monday - Broccoli chicken casserole and cucumbers in sour cream

Tuesday - Leftover chicken casserole with a frozen veggie blend

Wednesday - Creamy Crockpot Chicken and frozen green beans

Thursday -Leftovers with additional frozen veggies if needed

Friday -Steak, mashed cauliflower, frozen green beans

Saturday - Crockpot Sticky Chicken and frozen veggies

Sunday - Chicken salad made from leftover chicken

Sunday, April 6 - $0

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:00:00 +0000

For breakfast I made pankcakes from a boxed mix in the pantry. These were served with butter and maple syrup from the fridge. DH heated up a few pieces of bacon from the fridge to go with his pancakes.

We had lunch out with my Mother-In-Law. We went to a local Chinese Buffet, and she picked up the check (she always does when she invites us out to lunch). The buffet serves a cabbage casserole that is delicious! I've searched and searched but have never found a recipe that looks close to it.

For dinner I made another batch of brown rice and lentils, along with the last of the frozen pierogies. We also had a few of the leftover corn muffins. Of course, DH had his nightly cup of ice cream.

I spent some time organizing and making an inventory of the chest freezer in the garage. I can't believe how many boneless, skinless chicken breasts I have! Looks like we'll be trying out chicken recipes in the coming weeks. :) I also took the time to write out a meal plan for this week. I'll share the meal plan later today. It includes a few new recipes, and I'll probably post those if they turn out well.

Total food cost today: $0

Food from the refrigerator:
milk
1 egg
butter
maple syrup
bacon
sour cream
grated parmesan cheese

Food from the freezer:
pierogies
ice cream

Food from the pantry:
pancake mix
lentils
brown rice
red wine vinegar

Saturday, April 5 - $22

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:22:00 +0000

For breakfast I toasted the last bagel, spread it with cream cheese, and shared it with DH. DH also made coffee from ingredients in the pantry.

For lunch we ate at the Flowertown Festival. For $22 we sampled a variety of things from local restaurants. I planned to take water bottles along with us, but we rushed out of the house and I forgot them. We ended up spending $3 on 1 bottle of coke and 1 cup of sweet tea. We sampled BBQ pork sandwiches, coconut shrimp, shrimp cakes, a beef gyro, mahi mahi bites and a large cookie. All of the food was quite good. The mahi mahi looked like grilled chicken, and DH confirmed that it tasted as it looked.

It was hot and humid at the festival. There had obviously been a rain shower before we arrived, and we left shortly before another thunderstorm rolled through. I've lived in Charleston my entire life, but that humidity still gets me every year.

For dinner I tried a new recipe for Brown Rice and Lentils (inspiration here). DH rarely eats a meal without meat, unless it's a Friday during Lent, and then he has fish or shrimp. He's really not interested in vegetarian meals, regardless of health or economy. I could tell he was not looking forward to this experiment, and a few times he asked for chili and cornbread. I didn't have the ingredients for the chili he likes, so Brown Rice and Lentils remained on the menu. I offered to make him the rest of the Pierogies if he really didn't like it. I also made corn bread using a mix from the pantry and some frozen corn.

The Brown Rice and Lentils were amazingly good. I've never cooked (or eaten) lentils before, so I didn't know what to expect. The dish came out slightly creamy, and we ate all of it. We also finished the pasta and tomato sauce leftovers.

Total food cost today: $22 (eating out)

Food from the refrigerator:
Milk
Cream Cheese
Butter
Grated Parmesan
Leftover Pasta and Tomato Sauce

Food from the freezer:
Frozen corn
Ice cream

Food from the pantry:
Bagel
Coffee, splenda, creamer
Brown rice
Lentils
Corn bread mix
Mini microwave popcorn bag

Friday, April 4 - $0

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:14:00 +0000

My husband surprised me today. In an e-mail he told me he's interested to see how much we will save by eating out less for a month. I wasn't sure how happy he was about my new project, and I'm glad he's on board.

Everything we ate today came from our refrigerator or freezer. Lunch for both of us contained leftover pasta & tuna salad and fruit salad. Dinner was leftover pasta and tomato sauce and frozen pierogies with sour cream from the fridge (DH doesn't like pasta and tomato sauce as much as I do). DH had his usual ice cream for dessert, and I ate a SF Jello Pudding from the fridge. Luckily we have a small stockpile of ice cream in our chest freezer - DH eats a small cup every single night.

Total food cost today: $0

Food from the refrigerator:
Yogurt
2 Eggs, Cheese, Tortilla (breakfast burrito)
Leftover pasta and tuna salad (finished)
Leftover fruit salad (finished)
Leftover pasta and tomato sauce
Sour Cream
SF Jello Pudding

Food from the freezer:
Pierogies (1/2 box)
Ice cream

Eating Money No More - A One Month Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (-S) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:52:00 +0000

Welcome to my new blog. I'm starting this blog to document a challenge I've suggested to my husband - to spend as little as possible on food for one month. We will start this challenge on April 4, and the last day of the challenge will be May 4th. I've wanted to do a challenge like this for a while, but a holiday or a birthday always pops up, or for some other reason it wouldn't be a good time. Today I read through The (Organic) Thrifty Food Plan Challenge for at least the 3rd time, and I decided there's no time like the present.

Unlike Rebecca's challenge, I will not be following the food stamp guidelines, or calculating the cost of items already in my pantry or freezer. Instead I'm just going to eat as cheaply as possible, by eating what we already have, and limiting purchases. I'm also hoping to limit eating out during this time. My husband is a big fan of eating out, so we'll see if he stays on board.

I know we will be eating out at least three times this month. This weekend we are going to the Flowertown Festival in nearby Summerville, and we plan to sample the offerings from the local restaurants. On May 3rd we are heading to Beaufort for the annual Taste of Beaufort festival. Sometime in between we will get together with our best friends to celebrate a birthday. We have gift certificates to two restaurants, so I'm going to suggest we eat at one of those.

I'll try my best to post every day from now until May 4th to track our progress. We leave for vacation on May 5th, which to my mind is just another reason to eat frugally and save our money for the trip!