Busy Weekend

We had a pretty busy weekend in the kitchen!

Not to mention the busy week so far that I'm posting this 2 days later! I'm so glad we cooked ahead, definitely great to have food ready to eat on those busy nights!

Hubby made Ham and Bean Soup ... which produced enough to snack on for lunch and snacks on Sunday along with a small bowl with dinner AND enough to make 8 individual lunch servings and TWO large containers (that I'm debating on freezing) along with 2 medium size bowls for 2 meals each. This all from a leftover ham, bag of dried navy beans, 4 large carrots that were shredded in food processor and 2 onions that were finely chopped in food processor. Chicken stock AND chicken bouillon and miscellaneous spices were added ... and WOW is it good!

So I just asked Hubby what he thought his secret ingredient was and he still insist it the ham. Hrmmp. AND he soaked the beans something like 48 hours and ran half of them through the food processor to thicken up. All I can say is yummmm yummmm yummmm.

Ummm, he made a TON of soup ... that's 9 containers and that did not include the 3 we used Sunday night ... oh my.

Hubby also made a special dinner Saturday ... Chicken stuffed with spinach and egg noodles on the side. Chicken came from the freezer along with a package of spinach ... we used swiss cheese (instead of blue) to mix the spinach with (I prefer blue next time) and the egg noodles were baked with a cream of mushroom and chicken broth combo to make a delicious creamy sauce. This was a pretty stellar dinner!

I need to get the recipe up for you all ... this is DELICIOUS stuff :)

I made Chicago Style Hot Dogs Sunday night and also cooked up a package of cheddar brats ... my dad requested I set aside a hot dog for his lunch Monday. It breaks my heart to hear him request food like that for a lunch the following day. Had no idea that he was eating toast with a cup of Styrofoam soup before he went to the rehab facility. Sorry, I have no NEW pictures but here's from a few weeks ago :)

This time around, we slice baby dill pickles in half long ways ... much much better than that sweet relish I accidentally bought! Hey! I don't normally eat the stuff.

And then, of course, I had to do my salads in the jars. Had to endure Hubby shaking his head at me and my dad inquiring look. Hey, it works for me so I'm doing it!

 3 heads of romaine, cut down the length 4 times and then cut/slice to make an excellent bite size piece of lettuce ... pure heaven in a salad in my opinion!

 give them a spin dry

 Ran out of canning jars so ended up using the food saver plastic containers

Filled up the drawer in the garage fridge for the week! NOTE: there is a small bag of coleslaw mixed in to give it crunch!

All the above food should be enough to get us through the week mostly for lunches and dinners as we
deliberately made extra for leftovers. I plan on getting back to the gym this week and also anticipate a busy week ahead of me so this will be good. Knowing that something is available for my dad to make a hot meal is pretty comforting.

It's definitely been an adjustment for us this past week. We realize, even though my dad does not want to admit it, that he needs supervision for both his medication (insulin is 5 to 8 shots a day minimum) and pills (40 a day) ... just too much for me to take care of in addition to work and other stuff. I think he is probably lonely during the day with no one around, even though he says he is fine, I don't think that's true.

Monday, we were running late leaving the VA (didn't get to the office til 2:30!) so on Tuesday, after going back to do blood work, we stopped at an Assisted Living Facility I checked out (I went to about 10 total, this is the one that I felt most comfortable with) ... he was somewhat warm to it but that evening was very upset ... offering me his full social security check and such to let him stay here ... there really really REALLY needs to be a book to deal with this stage of a parent's life. After many tears, many false accusations (you don't love me, you don't want me, send me back to Indiana), we finally calmed down. I CAN NOT provide the care and attention he needs working full PLUS time.

Sniff. I feel the need to head back to the kitchen and cook something else now ...

I'm linking up with Works for Me Wednesday, Kitchen Tip Tuesday, Frugal Tip Tuesday, Thrifty Thursday,