My Tireless Retirement – Week 137

 

I worked all day on Friday, which is my usual schedule, and I rode the bus to and from work.  I had a great day with my fellow employees and the people that patronize the senior center.  When I got home I took out one of the frozen par baked pizza crusts and made myself a pizza which I “baked” in my electric skillet.  It turned out perfectly and was so tasty.

 

I also worked a half day on Saturday to take a group of seniors to a veteran’s breakfast at the Warhawk Air Museum two cities over.  We were each handed a raffle ticket as we entered the museum and then got in line for breakfast.  Just as I was about to get my breakfast they called out the raffle ticket numbers and when they called the last one I said “No way!” and they replied “I believe we have a winner!”  You will not believe what I won.

 

Wow! 😲

A Styrofoam cooler filled with grass fed locally raised beef.  Oh my gosh!  I was absolutely thrilled and could not believe I’d actually won.  My group was so thrilled for me and then I had to think fast how in the world I would get this home on the bus!  I was able to divide it up between my backpack and my Trader Joe’s shopping bag I keep in my backpack and it was no problem.  I gave a package of the ground beef to one of my coworkers and she was thrilled.  Fortunately it was frozen so hard that it did not defrost at all on the way home until I could get it into my deep freezer.  Wow!  What a true blessing this is for me.

 

With Sunday and Monday off I got busy in the kitchen doing some meal prepping and canning.  First thing was to cut up a pile of apples and get them into my large and medium sized slow cookers to make into applesauce.  Next was to make up a batch of vanilla yogurt and then make up a double batch of granola.  Since I already had the oven on I also did some additional baking.

 

The next day I filled up the slow cookers again to make and can more applesauce and then I was off to Fred Meyer stopping to top off the gas tank on my truck at their pumps first and then into the store to pick up a few items on sale.  I wanted to get some organic whole milk, however they were completely out so on the way home I stopped at Albertson’s and got some.  Once back home I got the applesauce finished up and into the canner.

 

I worked all day on Tuesday and a half day on Wednesday.  I spent all day on Thursday canning apple butter and taco meat using a large three pound package of lean Angus beef I had bought on clearance during the summer.  I’m super happy about having some more jars of taco meat on the shelves again.  It is super handy to have it to make a quick meal with.  My “new” canner got a good workout this week after processing all of that applesauce and apple butter.

 

Thursday the tree guy had to come back out to finish grinding the stump.
I think the maple tree must've fought back a little because they ended up
burning up the belt on the grinder last week when they were here.

Meals I Prepared: 

This week I must’ve been in the mood for diner food.  But I prepared healthier and much less expensive versions of diner food at home.  I baked biscuits, made sausage gravy and scrambled eggs which kept me fed for two days.  I cooked a couple burger patties from the freezer, thawed a couple of buns, sliced a tomato and made hamburgers on two days.  A BLT helped me finish the sliced tomatoes and half of a leftover avocado.  That was super tasty!

 

A pizza made from one of the crust I had in the freezer along with a smattering of leftovers created another two meals to round out the week.  I also enjoyed granola and yogurt for a brunch as well as buttered toast, buttered biscuits with pear butter and a couple of leftover pumpkin muffins with my morning coffee for brunch.  It was a yummy week.

 

This is everything I canned in the past week 😁

It was a great week filled with good fortune and a lot of happy kitchen therapy and I loved every bit of it.  I am feeling so blessed.  I have much to be thankful for this holiday season and we are just getting started!