Baby, it's cold outside/this week's menu

Here in southwest Ohio, we've gone from a bright sunny 78 degree day yesterday, to 39 degrees and sleet and freezing rain today. I guess cold weather had to happen sooner or later, but it would have been nice for Mother Nature to give us a bit of segue between the two!

WHAT'S THE PLAN: My thoughts this morning are on cold weather meals, Thanksgiving preparation and Christmas. I have been collecting Christmas presents all year long and stashing them away in an upstairs closet. It's time to break open the vault and see what is in there and plan what else I need to buy. I'm pretty sure the grandchildren are all done, but this year I'm finding it extremely difficult to think of gifts for the adult kids and husband. Plenty of time for that after Thanksgiving.

I did end up buying a few groceries last week. $52 in all. I bought orange juice and box drinks (grandkid drinks - flavored water). Butter was on sale (finally!) for $1.99 a pound (it's been $3.49 - $4.29 for at least six months)! I bought 15 pounds of butter, brought it home and put 12 of them in the freezer. That should last us between 3 and 4 months. Sweet potatoes and acorn squash were on sale for $.49 lb, so I bought some of each. I also had to buy nutmeg for upcoming holiday baking. And I bought a pound of American Cheese.

My Menu for the Week:

Saturday
Chicken Noodle Soup (c)

Note: Noodles are added when heating. It's unsafe to can noodles.
Grilled Cheese sandwiches w/
homemade bread (h/m)

Sunday
Breakfast for Dinner
Pancakes (h/m)
Bacon
Peaches (c) in Yogurt

Monday
Oven-baked Cod (f)
w/pesto/bread crumb topping
Fried Potatoes (c)
Swiss Chard (g)

Tuesday
Beef Stew (c)
Biscuits (h/m)

Wednesday
Jeff cooks or Take Out

Thursday
Thanksgiving Dinner

Friday
Turkey and
leftovers

(c)= Home Canned
(f) = Freezer
(h/m) = home made or made from scratch

(g) = fresh from the garden

WHAT I LOVE: Grandchild #3, 2 1/2 year old Riley, spent the day with me on Thursday this week. What a precious child he is! This guy is willing to do ANYTHING you ask of him. Want to bake? Sure! Want to help stack wood? Sure! Want to do a craft? Sure! Want to go grocery shopping? Sure! From what I'm told, he can be a real active little hellion at home, but not here. He's sweet, quiet, well behaved and cooperative. Truly one of the benefits of being a grandmother. We made banana bread (he follows instructions beautifully), and once it was baked and he had a sample, I asked him how he liked it. This is his "thumbs up"! LOL