I was in the mood for something sweet after a long day and looked in the pantry. Canned pears….so I googled a recipe and gave it a shot! Thanks to this person for a yummy recipe!
Pear Cobbler
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Author Archives: athewriter
ATA Virtual Writers Retreat
I am really excited about this retreat tomorrow. There is still space available: https://audreyhughey.com/2023springretreat
So if you want to be inspired, meet cool writerly friends, and learn stuff, sign up today! I’ll see you there!
Still cooking…
Hey, everyone, I am still cooking! The other day I made Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp, and today I made Creamy Chipotle Chicken. It was delightful!
What have you made lately?
Vivir el Dream is free for Kindle!
Hey everyone! I wanted to let you know my debut novel Vivir el Dream is free on Kindle for the next five days so grab yourself a copy now:
http://bit.ly/allisonkgarciaauthor
This multi-award winning novel of mine is being shopped for the big screen. Fingers crossed! Hope you enjoy a free copy!
Continue readingJanuary Challenge Review!
I meant to write this last week but it didn’t happen! We ended up spending $221 on groceries last month and greatly reduced eating out by like half of what we normally do! I really enjoyed cooking and eating yummy meals from scratch!
In fact, my wife and I liked it so much we made a whole plan for February as well! We figured out some glitches to avoid for this month, and we need to restock some meat but are also experimenting with non,meat proteins (lentils and beans) as well!
So far for February we made chili, ribs, macaroni and cheese, banana cream pie, and lots of leftovers!
What fun things have you made lately? Any experiments gone wrong or experiments gone right? Let me know below!
Pumpkin Smoothie
We have continued our pantry-emptying journey. This week we ate shrimp with wontons, falafel, soup, biscuits eith sausage gravy, and pot roast with potatoes and carrots. We have eaten out once or twice but still going strong with our cooking.
Tonight I made pumpkin muffins and pumpkin bundt cake from frozen pumpkin. It only required three cups of pumpkin and we had four so I decided to make a pumpkin smoothie. Here’s the recipe:
Pumpkin Smoothie (serves 1)
- 1/2 cup pumpkin
- 1 1/2 cup milk
- 1/4 cup raw cane sugar
- Sprinkles of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves
Use a blender or whisk to froth up. Enjoy!
Waste not, want not! Now my kiddo had an extra full belly before bed (he only had pot roast and a giant cupcake and licking the spoon…lol growing boy!). I sort of wished there was more. Maybe I’ll find more frozen pumpkin as we eat away at our freezers!
Anyway, what recipes have you incented lately? Tell me below!
Tired of cooking…
So we got busy over the weekend and ended up eating out a couple times and I feel like it totally tanked my energy and motivation. I especially noticed it last night.
We still have used up lots of our reserves (as shown in pictures above) and have been marking off inventory as we go so we know what we have.
We haven’t bought many groceries at all, except for some fresh veggies, meat, dairy, and snacks but we did eat out more this week than the rest of the month.
All in all, I am happy with our experiment and want to continue it into next month but I do feel tired. Not gonna lie.
Financially, this has been pretty sweet. We have only spent $199 on groceries this month. I spent $90 on eating out. I have learned snacks and eating out are the priciest of all the things! Those $90 are really only 3 meals of eating out. Also of those groceries snacks were like $60 of it. Dang!
Anyway, any tips for yummy snacks that kids will eat and will travel well and can be made with pantry and freezer items? Our family particularly enjoys chips.
Tired but still cooking…
This week we have done pretty well, though we ate out one night and I bought tamales instead of making them (because I was hanging with a friend). We still have really only spent about $80 on groceries so far this month, which is sort of amazing. We spent about $30 eating out. Not awful.
My crab cakes didn’t turn out well and my soup last night turned out more like pasta (alphabet pasta really puffs up!)
Tonight is leftovers and tomorrow is tuna noodle casserole. Not sure what the rest of the week holds. I better look it up! We probably have some fresh veggies and a few things to buy this week. Overall, I am really enjoying cooking more.
Oh and I just saw the show Easy Bake Battle starring Antoni from Queer Eye. It is about home cooks making easy meals fast and learning hacks from them and getting new ideas. It is giving me awesome ideas! If you are out of ideas, I recommend checking it out on Netflix!
Any cooking experiments lately? If so, share below!
Only $32 spent so far
We are 10 days into January and so far we have spent $32 on food. We do need to buy milk, bread, and peanut butter today so that number is about to go up but I feel pretty darn good about this so far!
We’ve also done fairly well with fixing meals and not eating out. I’ve only bought a fancy tea at my coffee shop and have made coffee at home or the office. Today and yesterday I didn’t have milk for my coffee so I used Swiss Miss. A little trick I learned from my clients who’d been incarcerated.
We haven’t done as great with remembering the fresh veggies in the fridge but otherwise we have slowly been eating down our reserves, with things left! I have enjoyed pupusas every day since Friday and will snarf down the last 2 today.
A goal for this week is to bake bread. I also seem to have added some adventurous meals for this week. Crab cakes tomorrow and then pot roast and then turkey with stuffing. Oof. Wish me luck! It also looks like I was planning to make tamales on Saturday but ironically my friend reached out and wanted to try local tamales so might end up buying them at a local panadería.
I’ve actually enjoyed this challenge so far and, as always, having a menu for the week (and month!) is super helpful.
What helps you avoid eating out? What gives you joy these days?
January meals!
Well, friends! So far, so good! We cooked every night so far and have followed the schedule! We did have one snafu that I discovered last night.
Apparently when doing inventory on the deep freeze, I failed to put back 3 containers. So we lost some food! Thankfully 2 of them were pupusa things that I had everything to make from scratch. The other was not soup like I thought but Indian curry! Not a total loss.
Today I am making pupusas using a bit of brisket, refried beans, and cheese. We do have to buy cabbage, carrots, and cumin but not too bad! Smells good! I am about to eat the first 2, hoping they’ll be yummy for this evening! No curtido yet since my wife is picking up the cabbage.
What have you made lately?
Chica Creativa 