I finally have vacation days again!!! That’s cause for celebration, because you all know how much I love my vacation days. They were in short supply since I used them all for maternity leave last year. Our fiscal year starts over on July 1–so today, I have just about 4 weeks of vacation to use again. I’m thrilled!
On top of having vacation days, life is good because my office gives us the option to participate in “summer schedule”–where we work an extra 45 minutes each day, and have 5 days off to use throughout the summer. So this week, I’m taking off Wednesday through Sunday, and only using one vacation day and one summer day. I have grand plans for my time off. Wednesday we’ll spend time together as a family, and grill. Thursday, I have to take Tiger to the vet for a teeth cleaning early, then will spend the morning on Once a Month Cooking, and finish the day with a haircut in the afternoon. Friday, I’m planning to sew and scrapbook all day. I have a couple of projects in the pipeline–placemats and coordinating cloth napkins, a school bag for Ethan, a blanket for Ethan, a bench cushion, a picnic blanket (waterproof), soakers for Ethan’s diapers to make them more absorbant, dryer balls, and unpaper towels. On Friday, I’m going to be specifically working on Ethan’s blanket and the picnic blanket. But you’ll hear more about those as I finish them.
This post is to give you a sneak peak at what the menu for the month holds. I discovered a great blog by another North Carolina blogger last week, and have based our July menu off of some recipes from her blog, The Test Kitchen of Melissa Fallis. Here’s what I’m going to be cooking, with links to the recipes I’m modifying:
- Pasta sauce
- Chicken bites with balsamic barbecue sauce
- Chicken pot pie
- Shredded barbecue chicken
- Chicken with honey sauce
- Sesame chicken
I’ve already made the pasta sauce, but I’ll be prepping and freezing the other five recipes this week. Stay tuned for a full-day’s report. In the meantime, here’s what my shopping list looked like for the month’s cooking:
Pantry Staples
3 cups Balsamic vinegar
2.25 cups Ketchup
Brown sugar
Worchestershire sauce
Dijon mustard
2 cups honey
3 cups soy sauce
Produce
Garlic
Ginger
5 onions
Oregano
6 carrots
6 celery stalks
3 potatoes
Meat/Poultry
28 chicken breasts
2lb ground meat (I chose chicken)
Shelf/Canned goods
2 large cans diced tomatoes
3 large cans tomato paste
42oz chicken broth
3 cans peas
3 cans cream of chicken soup
8 slices bread
Refrigerated
Grated parmesan
Eggs
3 boxes refrigerated pie crust
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