Hearty food day

No real time for cooking so far today so when daughter requested leftover vegetarian baked beans and Morningstar breakfast patties for breakfast, I thought that would be a hearty, warm meal.

Then for lunch we had sandwiches: commercial peanut butter, homemade peanut butter and strawberry rhubarb jam we bought at the farmers' market. Sandwiches were on hot dog rolls.

Lunchy dinner

My daughter looked at me so earnestly last night and asked for blueberry jelly to go on her blueberry bagel for breakfast. Target carries plenty of strawberry, grape, raspberry and blackberry jelly, orange marmalade and a few other fancy schmancy preserves hovering at the $4 mark. They had a Smuckers orchard's finest blueberry preserves, 12 ounces for $4.29.

I bought it-- very good stuff.

For dinner tonight, we made tuna sandwiches since I didn't feel like cooking. My husband added cheese and crackers for some reason. We served with sides of veggie booty and my spiced peaches. Almond milk to drink and for dessert-- vanilla ice cream with the rest of the spiced peaches. I finally tasted them and they are really yummy.

Perfect for a peach sundae.

Dinosaur breakfast

Someone gave my daughter one of those strange sandwich cutters that makes your sandwich into two dinosaurs. She asked me to use it today, so I tried, but our Archer Farm bread from Target didn't quite fit. So we had one dinosaur and some smaller pieces.

We had an unusual breakfast today, because I didn't have the strength to think about it. We made a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich, with cheese balls, and raisins.

She loved it.

Mommy's PB&J sampler

The other day we were pressed for time so I made my daughter this PB&J sampler for lunch.

Bread: from the freezer, one of my homemade wheat baguettes.

Jellies:

• one little sandwich was PB & grape smuckers
• one little sandwich was PB & my mother-in-law's strawberry jam
• the last little sandwich was PB & wegman's seedless red raspberry jam
  

Leftover plan

I'm looking forward to breakfast tomorrow already...

If we have real maple syrup, I'm going to have a vegan breakfast of Morningstar breakfast (sausage-style) patties and leftover cornbread.

If we don't have maple syrup, I'm going to use my mother-in-law's homemade strawberry jam for my cornbread...

Or maybe, if I don't want to go vegan, I'll use a little of my imported French butter on my cornbread.

Turkey and Brie sandwiches

Today's lunch was a subtle variation on last night's dinner.

Today, we had simple turkey sandwiches with brie and lettuce, on multigrain sandwich bread from Giant, and seedless red raspberry jelly from Wegmans. Then for a side we had the leftover Dole Italian Salad with chianti vinaigrette and I added dried cherries for a new flavor.

Fabulous. Heavenly. So simple and so cheery.

Caviar and PB&J

We're having our dinner party tonight so for lunch I'm serving peanut butter and Gayle's homemade blueberry jam on Giant's multigrain sandwich bread. Serving with leftover corn on the cob, carrots and green pepper from my garden.

Last night I had caviar for the first time! Frank made crackers with liverwurst and cheap caviar. He said the cheap caviar is better than the mid-grade. It basically gave the liverwurst an extreme salty flavor.

PB&J Taster's Platter

My daughter has enjoyed a lengthy repetition of PB&J for lunch lately. To spice things up, I made a peanut butter taster's platter for lunch (with a side of corn). I sliced the baguette my husband bought into thin slices and prepared three mini peanut butter sandwiches: JIF Natural Peanut Butter and honey, PB and the American classic of grape Smucker's jelly, and PB and organic raspberry fruit spread (that shockingly has vitamin A & C). The preschooler selected PB & honey as her favorite and has eaten two PB & honey sandwiches, the two others, the corn, and a glass of chocolate soy milk and is now on a glass of water.

Cream of Wheat Morning

We're supposed to get a winter storm today. My office has already called a snow day, their cautiousness is in part due to the fact that we have an adult day care center. It's nice for me, because I don't get paid holidays, but I do get snow days. Anyway. You know those people who go to the store and buy bread, milk and eggs on threat of snow? I'm not one of them. Bread, milk and eggs are far from my list of necessities. I'd be more likely to head to the liquor store for wine, Wegmans (or Antoinette Chocolatier) for some quality chocolate, and some fruit. Yep, then I'm ready to weather a storm.

We are once again running out of food. This month's grocery tab is around $125 so it's no surprise that the pantry is near-bare. But it is the 19th! So that's $6.58 a day. For a hearty winter breakfast, we opted for Cream of Wheat today. The cream of wheat dilemma always floors us. How much to make? We end up making "about" four servings according to the directions and end up with enough for an army.

This box of Cream of Wheat came from Aldi. Per one cup of prepared cereal, there's 20% RDA of calcium plus 50% iron. I up the nutritional content by using powdered milk instead of water to make it. Then for flavor, I stir in a teaspoon of jelly. In this case, blueberry Trappist jelly.