HJ Waxing Moon

I am going to start off with mom's recipe as-is, so if you don't want to go any further you don't have to. But I do have some tips, tricks, and upgrades I've done to make it a little cheaper, and a little healthier along the way. But we'll get to that. Every year on Halloween, we had chili for dinner. It was a great way to have a nice warm dinner on for whoever wanted to eat it, whenever they were ready. Last minute costume adjustments, homework, etc. before trick or treating, plus that and the candy sorting... it made for a busy evening! So having chili in the crockpot was great, because we could have a bowl before we went out (thus ensuring no cranky, hungry kids being too tempted to dig into too much candy before we got home!) and usually another when we got home to warm up. We also figured out the best way to eliminate the gassiness usually associated with chili: Start this recipe before 10am! By dinner around 5 or 6, most of the complex starches that cause...

We are making so much progress on our home. It's really starting to come together, and I'm really excited about it! Hoping to get some new pictures taken here, soon. One thing we are finding is that, for whatever reason, our apartment gets VERY warm without any assistance from us. Even if we leave the door open with a nice cool breeze coming in during the evening, it warms right back up again when we close it. All I can think is that the neighbors must have their heat on full force! But at least it means I don't expect much in the way of a heating bill this winter. I notice we've got quite a bit of extra traffic coming in this week. Come join the conversation in the comments! We'd love to know what projects you're working on around the house, and what's on your meal plan for dinner. How did you hear about the blog? Wednesday: Chippy Dippy! We have a super busy day of unpacking and organizing today, so a nice, easy dinner is called for. It is really...

Half-week menus rock! Sunday: French Onion Soup Bumped from last week due to Life. Mr. Moon works the evening shift, and having meals ready to eat or easy to make when he gets home has really helped curb the urge to eat out. Also having to buy four new tires instead of the two we'd budgeted helped motivate sticking to the meal plan... Monday: Leftovers! French Dip Sandwiches What do you get when you have leftover "prime rib" roast, leftover french bread, and leftover french onion soup? Well if you scoop the onions out of the soup for the sandwich, you can add some flavoring to the soup broth and voila! Mr. Moon works, so at least it should be a quick "reheat" kind of dinner. After a day of unpacking and working, I'm sure he will appreciate an easy dinner. Tuesday:  Slumgullion Mr. Moon works. Fall gives me a craving for my mom's recipes, which are typically one-pot meals. I've worked out how to make this one from scratch, though ...

I pinned a recipe for slow-cooker Guinness french onion soup, and my sister-in-love asked me to tell her how it went. Well of course with an abundance on onions and just such a request, how could I resist?! Original recipe here: http://www.theskinnyfork.com/blog/2013/2/25/crock-pot-guinness-french-onion-soup Well I don't have internet at home right now, so when I went to make the soup I didn't have access to the recipe. Like I would have followed it anyway. So here's what I did, and then the usual "how I would make it better next time." What I Did: Julienned ~4 medium-sized red onions, and tossed them in the crockpot.  Sliced 3 smallish leeks (minus the top half of the green parts which were wilty), rinsed well, and tossed those in.  Crushed an entire head of garlic, where the head was only as big around as a quarter, maybe a little more--last year's garden garlic! I was also testing the theory that you don't need to peel the garlic when using a...

Funny garden update: We have a grey squirrel that invaded my sage today, and I scared Mr. Moon by opening the door and yelling, "EXCUSE YOU!" at it (he thought someone was invading the house!). I had seen some digging marks before, but hadn't had the motivation or time to deal with it whenever I noticed on my way in or out the door. I mixed up a little sriracha and garlic and water, dumped that around the plants, and am hoping that will keep the little bugger from digging up my sage again. There is plenty of dirt around here, he doesn't need to go digging in mine! We are so far REALLY enjoying this twice a week menu planning. Much easier to account for perishable foods this way! Wednesday Stuffed Peppers w/ gorgonzola & bacon Sides: Sautéed summer squash, steamed green beans Day off, lots of unpacking today! We kept pushing off the stuffed peppers because when we were thinking about dinner it was too late to take two hours to make it. So we roasted ...

Yes, only three days. We're trying out a new Thing were we do our menu plans twice a week, on Sundays and Wednesdays. We are hoping it will lead to less food waste if we keep up on our perishables a little better. Of course, that means I need a new fun banner for menu days, but we'll get there eventually! Sunday: Crockpot Chili Mr. Moon is working a double, and we haven't been great about dealing with the late-night dinners lately. Late night take-out on a tight budget leads to bad choices for the tummies and the wallet. Kicking off fall with a pot of chili sounded like just the right remedy for getting some wholesome food into us at the end of a busy day. Monday: Stuffed Peppers Mr. Moon is on call that evening, so it could be a late night dinner or sudden extra time to unpack boxes. Having something we can prep ahead is good! I'm not really a fan of the tomato-and-rice stuffed peppers, but I saw a recipe for some with chicken that looked good. It had c...

When we were moving in, the landlord did a walkthrough with us. He assured is the bathroom tub/shower area had been thoroughly scrubbed, and the faint brownish color on the one wall of the shower was staining from over the years. You probably already know where this is going, but we're going to take a detour first. The previous tenant also apparently had a fruit fly problem. Not having proper refuse disposal or cleaning supplies, Mr. Moon being here for a week before these systems were in place only made the fruit fly issue worse. IT WAS BAD. There are no pictures. Just me freaking out for weeks. We ended up putting out bowls of vinegar with a drop of soap, and after a few days of less-than-entirely-proper cleaning and refreshing the vinegar, the fruit flies seem to have died off. Thank goodness. We did scrub the cabinets in the kitchen. The area around the handles was nasty, and the shelves were dusty and dirty. We also wiped out the fridge, though that had pretty clearly be...