Busy, Busy

Oh my goodness, today felt like go, go, go all day. By choice, of course. K is just getting over her cold. We had her in the Nap Nanny so she could breathe while she slept. Last night, we attempted to take the Nap Nanny away, assuming it would go just fine. We've done this before when she had allergies. She hated the Nap Nanny so she slept much better after we took it away. Not so much this time. Maybe she's still getting congested at night and we don't realize it? Either way, she was up from midnight until 3 screaming bloody murder. I'm honestly not sure if she slept after midnight at all. I know she didn't sleep a wink until 3 and then, after, any time I woke up, I could hear her babbling through the monitor. Needless to say, she is back in the Nap Nanny tonight. I woke up so exhausted, I was in physical pain and nauseous. I've got the best husband, though, and he took K so I could sleep a few more hours.

After waking for the day, we took a little drive to Babies R Us. I've really wanted to start making all of K's food myself. There's something extremely rewarding about knowing I took the time to cook and mash her food instead of popping open a jar. Not to mention the fact that it costs half as much to make her food as it does to buy the jar in most cases. Anyway, I'm on a rabbit trail. Our trip to Babies R Us was to buy some kind of food storage for freezing baby food in 2 ounce servings. Walmart had the Baby Bullet storage system for $19.99 but it only came with 6 containers. I had researched Babies R Us and found a 12 container system for $13.99 online and planned to buy that one after finding nothing at Walmart that would work (aside from the Baby Bullet). Once we got to Babies R Us, I found the store brand set that had 16 containers for $10.99. I bought two of those with a bunch of labeling stickers, came home and got straight to work. Today, I made 12 (2 oz) servings of carrots and apples, 6 (2 oz) servings of pears and 10 (2 oz) servings of sweet potatoes. Tomorrow I'll make some peaches.

Once I finished with the baby food, I started my freezer meals. I'm starting with just two of them to see how much I like it. It sounds amazing. Assemble ingredients in 1 gallon sized bags, freeze, dump in the crockpot in the AM and eat it in the PM. The great part about it, so far, is that I spent the same amount of money at the grocery store this week as I usually do but the two freezer meals I chose actually make 4 dinners so I'll have two dinners for a future week (or two). This week, I made Teriyaki Chicken and Lime Chicken with Black Beans and Corn. I found these recipes here:
http://www.ringaroundtherosies.net/2012/02/freezer-cooking.html
and here:
http://www.ringaroundtherosies.net/2012/04/more-freezer-cooking-meals-part-3.html
The Lime Chicken with Black Beans and Corn actually calls for cilantro but I can't stand the stuff so I left it out. Hopefully, removing it doesn't ruin the meal!

I finally organized the pantry and cleaned out the fridge. It really needed to be done. Remember in grade school when you wanted to organize your bedroom so you dug through the recycling, found cardboard (pasta, cereal, etc) boxes, cut them and glued paper on to them? No? Oh, maybe I was the only freak that wanted separate containers on my dresser for all of my things. Rabbit trail again... I had a point which was that is basically what I did. With the potential of the hubs separating when his enlistment is over in a year, I'm on a mad budgeting and squirreling spree. I wasn't about to run to HomeGoods or Ikea or even the Dollar Store to buy containers when I had a huge pad of colored paper, some good old Elmer's and lots of recyclables waiting to disappear. It might not be the prettiest of pantries but it works and it works darn well. I can actually see everything in there right now! I have things that I can use in the future for dinner that I never would have thought to use since it required digging to find them!

And, finally, dinner. After getting in one last nap, of course. Pork chops. We planned for steak but the choices at the store were less than awesome while the pork chops looked amazing. It doesn't hurt that pork chops are cheaper than steak, either. I browsed Pinterest and found this:
http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2008/05/grilled-pork-chops-recipe-with-soy.html
Which sounds amazing, right? Only, I have this issue with following recipes and I didn't have 4 hours to marinade the chops so I tweaked. My version was delicious, though!

Salt and Spicy Grilled Pork Chops
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup soy sauce
Juice of 2 (juicy) limes
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp cayenne powder
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 boneless, thick cut pork chops
Place all ingredients, except pork chops, in a gallon sized ziplock bag and swish it up. Using a fork, poke holes all over both sides of the chops. Place chops in the bag, lay them on their side in a container and squeeze the air from the bag before zipping it shut. Marinade for 2 hours in the refrigerator before grilling to desired doneness.
If you're not a fan of spicy, you may want to just use a sprinkle of cayenne or nix it altogether. The 1/8 of a tsp, leaves a nice heat.