Easter Meal Preps

 Chad and his family will be here tomorrow (Easter Sunday) so I decided to do as much as I could in the kitchen today (Saturday). 

I spent almost the entire day in the kitchen.

Using magic tape, I taped the four recipes up where I wouldn't have to be constantly picking them up or moving them out of the way. I planned to make Jalapeno Raspberry Chicken, Rolls, Lemon Blueberry Cake and Mac & Cheese.

A while back I had seen a receipt for Jalapeno Raspberry Chicken and have been wanting to try it for over a month. I decided this was a good time, except neither Chad, Nicole or Addie will eat jalapenos and finding jalapenos at any of the Walmarts around here has gotten to be a challenge lately. I had a few still in the fridge from Aldi so I used those and made one batch of sauce for Vince and me and one batch of sauce for them.

Below is a photo of the seasoned chicken thighs along with two separate jars of sauce. There's also a dish of mac & cheese. Tomorrow I will put the topping on the mac & cheese (Panko, grated Parmesan, melted butter and paprika) and bake it.

Next thing I stirred up was the rolls. This recipe is super easy and they can be shaped into hamburger buns too. I had planned to let the dough sit while Vince and I ate lunch, then shape them into rolls, put them in the fridge and tomorrow, I'll take them out, let them rise and bake them but the rolls were rising way faster than I expected. I guess I need to get used to the kitchen being warmer, except we have frost tonight and tomorrow night. Poor garden.

I asked Vince if we could put dinner off for half an hour while I got the rolls shaped and, of course, he was fine with that.

The last thing was the cake. I made this Lemon Blueberry Cake. It looks so good (and the batter tasted yummy). I hope it turns out good.

This one by far had the most ingredients of anything I made today. You can kinda see to the right where the Mac & Cheese ingredients start but there was a lot for the cake and I combined all the baking powder, soda, etc. in the bowl with the flour and I combined the brown sugar and the white sugar in one bowl or there would have been even more containers.

I ended up using 9" cake pans where the recipe called for 8" pans because I think I threw out my 8" pans because they were dented and looking pretty gross. I need to remember to get more because I prefer 8" layers.

The layers cooled and I took them out and put them in separate gallon size zipper bags and will ice and assemble the cake tomorrow morning and stick it back in the fridge (as directed in the recipe).

I will report back on how the recipes turned out.

Milk!

Today was a happy day for me! I was able to snag a gallon of raw milk. When we lived in Missouri from 2007 - 2011, we hadn't been here long when I heard about a dairy in Carthage where we could buy raw milk. It was in the middle of winter. Vince got home from work, it was kinda getting dark and I said "Would you like to go to Carthage and get raw milk so I can make yogurt?" I know that these days, he would say no but for whatever reason, he said ok. We left, we got near Carthage and I told him which exit to take. It had started snowing and it was very dark and neither of us have ever liked driving at night. We got off the highway at the exit and he said "What now? Left or right?" Hmm . . I have no idea. Did our phones even have GPS back then? He was rather upset with me, and rightfully so but in my defense, I have zero sense of direction, I cannot follow directions and I cannot read a map. I think I ended up calling the dairy and getting directions (again). Every single time we go to the dairy, one of us will say "remember that night . . " and yes, we both remember it. Today it was funny because we had been somewhere else in Carthage and were coming from a different direction and had to use GPS to get to the dairy. We both started laughing without either of us saying "remember that night . . ".

But, I got my milk. The dairy lady told me that so many people are wanting raw milk, they've set up a plan where you reserve your milk at least a week in advance. Our milk order has been placed for next week.

This is our milk shelf. My first choice is the raw A-2 in the gallon carton. My second choice is the Kalona brand (pasteurized but not homogenized) but it's sometimes hard to get too.  Vince bought the A2 milk a week or so ago, just so we would have whole milk in the house but I didn't drink it. I'll use it for biscuits or other cooking. Vince drinks 2% milk (he won't drink raw milk) and we both drink buttermilk. Kalona is my favorite buttermilk here. There's no place I can buy full fat buttermilk here . . that's my favorite.

Today it dawned on me that during the winter when the dairy doesn't have milk, that's when I cannot get the Kalona milk. I guess everyone buys it there when they can't get it from the dairy.

The Wood Stove - Report

 The wood stove isn't happening. :(   Not right now anyway.

The guys came out Monday morning, measured everything, talked about where we wanted the stove. We all decided leaving the two gas fireplaces alone and adding the stove to the corner where it could be easily removed and the gas fireplaces wouldn't have to be taken out was the least expensive option and probably the best because a future owner might not want to mess with a wood stove.

Vince and I had talked about it and we had a price in mind that we had decided we would do. 

The price quoted us for leaving the two fireplaces alone and putting in the black wood stove was very close to double what Vince and I had said we would pay. Really, they have to put one hole through a wall, and add the stovepipe. The pipe does have to go from the basement to the top of the main floor (basically two stories) and I think he said 8' above the roof but when Vince and I were making our calculations, we looked at the prices for double and triple walled stovepipe. 

In addition, and no matter who puts in the stove, we will have to move the radon pipe. Vince talked to the guy from Kansas City who installed our system and he will come and move the pipe. It will have to go through the deck, which isn't ideal but it's a big deck and if I had my way, I would have made it smaller when we re-did it several years ago so I'm not concerned about the pipe going through the deck.

There's a Mennonite guy who does some work for us and Vince is going to call him. I'm sure they install quite a few wood stoves in their community. They do such good work and are usually reasonable. 

So, while this isn't the way I had expected it to go, there's still hope.

Week 13, 2026 Stitching Report

Monday, March 23, 2026
Project: Winter Rose Manor (Day 2)
Stitches Made: 606
Percentage Completed:

Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Project: Winter Rose Manor (Day 3)
Stitches Made:263
Percentage Completed: 54.55%

Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Project: 4th of July Rules
Stitches Made: 447
Percentage Completed: 57.18%

Thursdays, March 26, 2026
Project: Winter Rose Manor (Day 4)
Stitches Made: 552
Percentage Completed:

Friday, March 27, 2026
Project: Winter Rose Manor (Day 5)
Stitches Made: 621
Percentage Completed: 59.58%

Saturday, March 28, 2026
Project: Nothing! No stitches today!
Stitches Made:
Percentage Completed:

Sunday, March 29, 2026
Project: The Lord's Prayer (Day 1)
Stitches Made:  626
Percentage Completed: 29.66%

Stitches Made in Week 13, 2026:

Total Stitches - 3,115 (519.16 per day)

A Day of ZERO Stitches

It's pretty unusual for me to (1) not many any stitches at all and (2) be in bed by 9 p.m.

Yesterday we were busy all day. We left the house about 7:30 a.m. and got home about 2:30 p.m. Then I cooked the chicken, cleaned and sliced the strawberries and made all those things for the freezer. Then we went out and got the deck and patio furniture out, got it cleaned up and put where it goes. Then I took a shower, then got wheat ground to make three loaves of bread. I'm not even sure what else I did but we sat down to watch a movie about 8:30. I tried to stay awake but I just wanted to go to sleep so I asked Vince if he cared if I went to bed. He said "Do you feel bad?" Nope, just tired.

I went to bed and briefly was thinking I should get up and make at least one stitch so I wouldn't have a day on my record with no stitching, but before I processed that thought, I was asleep and slept til 8:30 this morning.

Now . . 10:45 a.m., I'm sitting down to stitch. Got the loaves of bread shaped and in the warmest room upstairs to rise; cooked breakfast, a load of laundry is started and I'm planning to stitch until bedtime except for stopping mid-afternoon to make hamburgers. Vince has gone to the storage units to work, the dogs have already gone to sleep next to me so it should be a good stitching day here.

Sassafras Trees

 I'm pretty sure every place I've lived since I first moved out of my parents' home, we've planted a magnolia tree. Probably 15 or 20 years ago, we started planting sassafras trees in our yards.

Here, we have two trees that are small. We had three but . . deer love them!!  This is probably their fourth year. Vince rigged up some fencing to protect the two remaining trees but it needs a bit of sprucing up.

An old fashioned type root beer can be made from the roots. There's been some talk about it not being safe to drink so . . I doubt anyone is going to go foraging for sassafras roots but do some research before you do it.

When I was a child, my dad would take us out in the woods and find a few sassafras roots to bring home and he would make root beer. We didn't have Soda Streams back then and I doubt the little store in our little town even had fizzy water so we always had very flat, odd tasting root beer so I was never impressed. If I come across roots that I could harvest, I may try it again.

Besides them being pretty, I grow them for the leaves.  For gumbo lovers, the file' used in a bowl of gumbo is ground up dried sassafras leaves. Instructions for making file' can be found here. For most of us, gumbo is a cold weather dish. Harvesting the leaves is best done just before the leaves begin to change colors so the timing is perfect in about late August to mid-September to harvest the leaves, dry them, run them through the little Ninja chopper, sift them and have "fresh" file' for gumbo season.

Vince, Chad and I lived in Owensboro, KY for almost 10 years. The largest known sassafras tree is located on one of the main streets in Owensboro. Vince's best friend in Owensboro was Tom. His mother lived in the house where the tree was located and Tom had grown up in that house. The mom and Tom have both passed away but I was able to get leaves from that tree and make file'. I wish I would have kept some in a small bottle . . just for memories but that would have been something else Chad would find one day and think  . . oh, the clutter in this house . . and out it would go!  :)

Breakfast Prepping

Vince and I had to be in Carthage early this morning so we left home without breakfast. We ended up getting a light breakfast out between the four or five stops we had to make and that prompted me to come home and prepare some almost ready to heat and eat breakfast meals for the freezer.

The little Ninja chopper got a good workout!

And, the Souper Cubes are so handy. I'll pop everything out as soon as it's frozen. Most all of this will be used pretty quickly so it will probably go into zipper freezer bags instead of vacuum sealed bags.

Both "sandwiches" started with chicken breasts and jalapeno peppers. When it's time to serve them, I will heat the mixture with softened cream cheese, cook an egg and serve them either as a "pocket" using a tortilla or a sandwich using ciabatta bread

Half of the chicken mixture will be used to make my version of Jalapeno Chicken Pockets. I'll add a fried egg and some kind of cheese - cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan, pepper jack - whatever is open and waiting to be used.

To the other half, I added freeze dried basil, a bit of garlic, and extra EVOO - kind of pesto-ish.

These will be served in tomato/herb tortilla with a fried egg and probably mozzarella or parmesan cheese.

Aldi had strawberries on sale this week ($1.99 for a one pound package) so I bought four of those. Two are for snacking/eating and two were for making my favorite strawberry/matcha latte.

Next up . . feed the sourdough starter, get dinner served, eat, clean up the mess, get the bread dough ready to spend the night in the fridge.

I needed extra starter because both Nicole and Debbie need new starters.

The dough is now in the fridge and I can start stitching - 9 p.m. I must do better!