A Second Look--March 27, 2013

We had a couple of snows this week. One was a dusting and one resulted in several inches. But because it's Spring (or so the calendar says), they melted pretty fast. While I'm ready for warmer weather, I do love the beauty of the snow so that is what I featured this week. It may be the last time for several months before I can show snow again (I hope).

Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

or What is a Cost Basis and Where Do I Get One 

on Stocks Over 50 Years Old?

Nothing says togetherness like working side by side on taxes.

The end is not in sight. :(

Timing

We saw ice on the side of the road, but the roads were dry.

This is what one of the areas that we drove through yesterday looked like. Today it is covered with 12 inches of snow with more falling. Timing is everything.

Thankful Sunday, March 24, 2013

(Aaaaakkk!! I have lost my post. I'm not doing well remotely.)

In the meantime, that means that I am visiting my parents for which I am thankful.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Mar. 22, 2013

 It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

Zilch

This Week's True Food Confessions

Not much cooking this week, although we did make a good broccoli cheese soup and a nice salad to go with our frozen pizza. The rest of the time was leftovers, frozen burritos, and peanut butter cookies.

It was a week during which we struggled with our cooking and eating. We had take out pizza one evening, that was planned, and Subway another night that was not planned. The rest of the time we had leftovers and stuff found after rummaging through the freezer. There have been a lot of other things going on and the focus has not been food. It was a little scary how easy it was to slip back into the old ways.

Didn't seem to get my own picture of our pork chops.

However, we did manage to try a new recipe this week. It was Pork Chops with Balsamic-Honey Glaze  that came from Cook This Not That! Easy and Awesome 350 Calorie Meals by Zinczenko and Goulding. The carnivores of the family were excited with this choice since we were having "real" meat two weeks in a row. Theodore and Wally made the recipe which involved a simple glaze of vinegar, butter, honey, rosemary and red pepper flakes on grilled pork chops. The recipe was supposed to be an alternative to the Cheesecake Factory Grilled Pork Chops and save 1628 calories over those.

The results.  Everyone liked their pork chop, but wasn't thrilled by it. The meat was a little tough and the flavor kind of bland. We will not be making pork chops this way again. Next time, we are looking for recipes that involve cooking the chops in the slow cooker or the oven. We have enough meat left from the package to have another meal, so we will be doing this soon.

As for next week, there is still a lot going on and we'll be gone for the weekend. We'll see how things go.

Until then...