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Meal Planning Update: June + July

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Sooooo… I never gave an update regarding June A. because my life was super full and B. because we did super lousy. But it wasn’t unexpected. We had many birthdays to celebrate, including the beau’s and my oldest friend from high school was getting married – as the MOH I had to plan the bachelorette and admittedly, that got a little out of hand. I remember filling the envelopes the first weekend in July and thinking, “okay, back on track this month,” and we did great!

Also to note, just because we blew our budget food / alcohol wise in June doesn’t mean we didn’t have any extra money to put toward debt, we put almost $200 toward student loans! Taylor participated in a market research gig and I made some extra YL cash. I need to do some more reading – Dave Ramsey – on how to control all cash in our joint account. I deduct all of our savings at the beginning of the month for upcoming expenses etc. but I feel like I don’t track the remainder amount. We could potentially be dumping more each month toward his student loans but I don’t like the idea of deducting all cash from our account, should an emergency happen or a spontaneous purchase. Any suggestions?

Now for July: we tried seven new meals! We did a ton of cooking this month and also ate out once or twice. I like how our attitude toward eating out has shifted – we’re both more selective in where we want to go. It feels more special. We’re both on summer hours now, getting out at 12:30 + 1PM on Fridays, so mid-month we decided to go out for lunch; something we never do. Ama Cocina is was! I have to admit, their selection for a vegan wasn’t as great as it has been in the past (they rotate their menu for the season and there’s a lot of summer squash on there = my least favorite veggie) but their sangria was two thumbs up! The waiter surely missed out on some extra cash by not coming back and asking if I’d like a refill because I gladly would have accepted. But maybe people drink less at lunch? Super delish – I need to find me a good red sangria recipe stat.

We decided to head out for TNO and splurge for the evening, pooling all of our leftover envelope cash for a fun night out. We drank beer and mimosas all over town, tried veggie dumplings, had brunch at 9:30PM, and I even purchased a new Free People shirt. It was a blast (and we took our first Lyft!) but we were hung over the next day, boooooo. But we did have $22 in our pockets, which was deposited toward debt.

Here’s a quick review of the seven new recipes we tried last month (thank you Pinterest):

Sloppy Joes! These are packed with veggies and taste just like a Manwich Sloppy Joe. The roasted portobello on the bottom isn’t needed but I personally liked the added texture and serving of veggie. A keeper!

“Beef” and broccoli with soy curls – this was our first time using the curls from the co-op and let me tell you, they were PERFECT in this dish!  The beau is a sauce master and this tasted so SO GOOD, dare I say better than any Chinese takeout we’ve ever gotten?! Well, at least in the protein and broccoli category… I did love my Lee Lin dumplings back in the day! I’m scheduling this meal once a month – cannot wait for August’s serving! Inspiration recipe here… the beau tends to throw stuff together and have it come out awesome. He said the biggest difference was that he coated the curls in cornstarch prior to frying, instead of adding it directly to the sauce.

Spring risotto from Bosh – this recipe took a long time to chop all the veggies and stir stir stir that rice but it was worth it. Admittedly, it was a little too acid-y, so next time we’re going to pair back the lemon juice to one lemon and get a sweeter wine. Also, if you aren’t use to cooking with a lot of fresh herbs beware – this has quite the kick of freshness! I liked it and loved it even more the day after with a sprinkle of nooch. We’re already planning our next risotto meal with mushrooms and basil.

Vegan alfrerdo: I choose this recipe because I knew we’d have leftover peas from the risotto and the beau loves his pasta. It too was a delicious dish but admittedly a tad sweet; I used sweetened hemp milk. Whoops! I’ll definitely repeat this recipe when I bring home some regular hemp milk.

 Jackfruit tacos: I’ve made jackfruit taco meat in the past using my crockpot but to be honest, I didn’t really like it because it was too sweet, despite using a spicy BBQ sauce. When I saw that Trader Joe’s was now selling jackfruit by the can, I randomly grabbed a can and got searching. That’s when I found this recipe – also a keeper! By baking the jackfruit for an extended period of time, it really dries it out and gives it s a great texture. It was a spicy recipe but perfect if you like that kick. We served it in a crunchy corn taco shell with a radicchio slaw.

Curried sweet potato and brussels sprouts via The Vegan Roadie. We met Dustin a couple years ago when he visited Troy and the shop – and even made a little video while in town. Now he’s working on a cookbook (!) and asked for recipe testers: we jumped at the opportunity! He sent us two recipes and this was the one that really stood out to me because the other one reminded me of the Moroccan meal we were eating that week, ha! I was hesitant but never said anything to the beau, and the evening I was prepping this meal, he admitted he thought he was going to hate it. Really, the recipe is super simple and looks to have odd pairings… we stand corrected! It was delicious! Good news: it’s a keeper in our rotation of meals. Sad news: I can’t share this recipe, as it’s not mine to share (and the cookbook hasn’t been released yet). Following along on his Instagram account has got me very excited for the book’s arrival, I’ll surely be grabbing a copy.

Last but not least: Gardein “fish” tacos. Super easy, super fast for a mid-week meal, and super tasty! All we did was bake the protein according to the package, toast up some corn tortillas, and add a slaw. The beau makes a killer slaw! Oh, and I added some pickled jalapenos for a kick. On the package last month I saw that Boulder Brands was holding a deal – buy any three items and send them your receipt, they’ll send you a $7 coupon. While we don’t buy these products on the regular, we did snag some chickenless tenders to keep in the freezer for a quick salad option. Worth it!

For July as mentioned, we only had the $22 leftover in regards to our food / alcohol budgets, but we did have close to $700 in other earned cash (Young Living, tax refund, market research) that was extra and deposited toward debt. That felt pretty good when clicking submit!

Post 2/23 for the month of August.

Seven years ago Monday…

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The first photograph I shared on this site.

…I published my first blog post. Seven years! I still remember sitting on my front porch in a rocking chair, typing away on the same laptop and hitting the publish button. And to think I thought it was only going to last a week. Ha!

Some of my favorite stats, because after all, I am a list (and numbers) gal:
– I’ve published 654 posts
– Most popular day of the week: Wednesday // I’d like to thank All Over Albany for this!
– I’ve had readers from 112 different countries!
– I’ve installed a plugin that will now show the most popular posts moving forward (because I don’t know how to show it lifetime wise), but I do know for 2017, this has been the most popular post. It was my most favorite too!

Much has changed over the last seven years – within this space and my personal life. If you’ve followed along from the beginning, you know I’ve shared A LOT about a wide variety of topics: from being single, food, hiking, running, to meeting the beau, to working hard and setting many goals, reaching some goals and failing at others, going vegan, my ever growing love for essential oils and much, much more. While I don’t write as often as I’d like, I LOVE having a spot to look back on, with photographs, to reflect on. It’s fun seeing where I was x amount of years ago.

I go back and forth about keeping the blog / posting with each passing year, especially now because I feel like there are SO MANY blogs out there and many (that I use to read) no longer feel authentic. I get it, sponsorships pay the bills, but I don’t always feel the opinions are real. Anyone else feel that way?

At least until the end of the year (when I have to reconsider paying for all of this), I’m going to make more of an effort to share. I saw in my blog feed that one blogger is going to try and write every weekday for the entire month of August, or as she’s calling it, Blogust. I know, I know, we’re already three days into the month but just read about it this morning and am going to give it a go!

Hiking Goodnow Mountain Fire Tower

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After packing up camp, I talked the beau into hiking another small mountain with me. I reassured him that while I hadn’t done any research prior to the trip, local brochures/reports stated it was a much easier hike. (Blue was rated difficult and Goodnow was rated moderate with benches along the way -ha!) The drive wasn’t too long, maybe thirty minutes from the campsite and easy to find, with a big white ESF sign on 28N. I had told him that if the lot was packed, I was okay to go home; hiking on a “highway” especially in the heat is not my idea of fun. We laced up, signed in and headed up the trail at 10:19AM.

Immediately the trail goes up, similar to a Catskill hike, but quickly evens out. You can hear the traffic for quite a ways, but the forest seemed much greener and enjoyable than the previous day. We only noticed a couple of  spots along for the guided tour; unfortunately there weren’t any print-offs at the start for us to read. I was surprised by the amount of trail work on this mountain: someone had been cleaning out the rock bars, there were a number of planks to walk on, a bridge and benches made of downed logs. It’s definitely a family friendly hike and lucky us, we only saw one family/group on the trail near the summit. Don’t get me wrong, you do climb a mountain, it just seemed like a breeze compared to Blue Mountain. After a final push to reach the summit before the group of kids, the fire tower was in view at 11:20AM.

There weren’t any views on the rock, but the views in the tower, as usual, were amazing. And this was a TALL tower! I’m becoming confident climbing them and this one made me stop two or three times to regroup… I just felt like I kept climbing and climbing… but it was worth it! And was very windy up top but the tower felt sturdy (unlike others I’ve been on). Just as we were soaking in the views, this little blonde girl, probably 5 or 6, came bopping into the tower with her dad; she was super cute! He took our photograph before the rest of the gang climbed in. We climbed down, ate a quick bar, and left the summit at 11:34AM – we had afternoon plans and needed to hit the road. The climb down was easy and uneventful – in the car at 12:28PM.

We were both starving by the time we reached the car, so we decided to make the trip to North Creek to grab some lunch. There was a cute little cafe, Izzy’s, that we each had a delicious sandwich at, and a local hiker decided to serenade us with a song on the piano. It was a wonderful way to wrap up a weekend away in the mountains. We’re already planning the next trip! Goodnow brought my fire tower count to 18/23 (my 13th ADK tower)

Hiking Blue Mountain Fire Tower

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For the beau’s birthday he wanted to spend the weekend up North camping – I was NOT going to argue with that! It was the perfect opportunity to try out some of the wonderful items we were gifted over the last couple of months and the tent we purchased using gifted money; reviews coming soon!

We took off late Friday afternoon with a jam-packed Prius and were checking into the Lake Durant State Campground before 6PM. I fell in love with this location a few months back when Paula and I stopped randomly to check it out – there are many sites right on the lake with gorgeous views. We anticipated it to be far more crowded than it was because many of the sites were booked when we were trying to make a reservation, but it was quiet and we got lucky with site #22. Maybe many canceled because of the predicted rain? Their loss!

I quickly got a fire going after helping set up the tent aka castle because we were cooking over the fire: foil dinners! A super easy recipe I picked up from my parents: chopped potatoes, carrots, onions, red pepper and protein of choice. Growing up this was venison or a red meat, now it’s ground veggie “beef.” Add some salt, pepper, garlic pepper, vegetable oil and a vegan worcestershire sauce, fold it up into some foil (make sure it won’t leak when flipped) and cook for a good hour while setting up camp / enjoying a beer or two. So SO GOOD!

We weren’t up super late because we both wanted to hike in the morning… aka I wanted to get in at least one peak while being that far away from home. We decided on Blue Mountain because it was the closest to the site – maybe a ten minute drive up Route 28N just past the Adirondack museum. I hadn’t looked up any trail reports on this hike because I assumed it would be easy – Jen said it was fairly easy and Paula wants to finish with her grandson on this peak – golly, I didn’t think so at all! The parking lot was already half full at 10:15AM when we started out and it felt like the first 20 minutes or so were easy and then it went straight up. Realistically, I have no clue how much time or distance had passed until the change happened. All I remember was the sweat DRIPPING off of me and looking up and only seeing a steep, slab rock climb. The beau was happy to see it was kicking my butt too every time I had to stop for 30 seconds to catch my breath. After 1 hour 19 minutes, we reached the summit (approximately 2 miles)!

Also to note: the trail goes up the rock NOT along the sides! I felt like the entire way up on the not so easy section there was a second trail that people had made. This makes me sad because it’s only widening the impact we have on that mountain. I just wanted to yell, “get on the trail!” to the 75 people we must have passed along the way but I didn’t want to be THAT person.

The summit did have a view just past the tower and cabin. We bumped into the fellows camping next to us on site #22 and they took our photograph and chatted while we ate a much deserved bar. But the best view was at the top of the tower! We waited our turn and climbed up to enjoy the breeze. The view was picture perfect! I realized once we were in the tower that this was my first hike with my husband! Still sounds funny to say out loud. And I don’t feel old enough to have a husband.

We didn’t stay at the top too long because more people arrived and the bugs were a bother when the breeze wasn’t blowing. It took us just as much time to climb down as it did heading upward, probably because we did stop to chat with a couple of people about other hikes in the area and because I was picking up trash along the way. People just threw their baby wipes, water bottles, etc on the trail… and it wasn’t there on our way up. Very sad…

The parking lot was full when we signed out and there were many cars lining the road. It was a wonderful view and one worth checking out, but I’d suggest going during the week or during the winter / off season if you don’t like crowds. Maybe even a sunrise? This brought my fire tower count to 16/23

Meal Planning in May

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I realized after my last meal planning post last month that I wasn’t going to have the motivation to keep it up on a weekly basis. And they were kind of redundant. So, I’ve decided to share new-to-us meals that we’ve tried after the month has ended and give an update on how we did for that month budgeting wise.

Here we go!

We tried three new meals in May, all thanks to Pinterest. It finally clicked in me that I should be using what we already have on hand to save money rather than searching willy nilly on the internet for something new and then having to go out and shop more. I know, a simple concept but I was skipping that step. We have a lot of frozen vegetables in our freezer from various Field Goods deliveries and I’ve always thought best to keep them until we need them… but I’ve always overlooked them, even when we “seem” to have nothing in the pantry / fridge. I don’t want them to go to waste, so I’ve been trying to incorporate them more recently.

Pizza is not a new meal to us but the beau made a new kale pesto using a bag of frozen kale from the freezer. It’s always full of stems if just eaten as is, so he whirled this up and it was delicious! Pine nuts, fresh basil, EVOO, nooch – so good! We had a bunch leftover as well, that I ate on toast and we used in a pasta dish the following night I do believe. Sorry no recipe but do a quick Google search and get inspired! Don’t judge my horrible green pizza picture… the vegan cheese turns translucent when baked and the lighting was off… at least it tasted delicious.

Another item we have multiple bags of in the freezer: butternut squash puree. I love butternut squash roasted but didn’t know what to do with it other than make a soup… and the beau isn’t a fan of soups. He likes soups but honestly prefers to chew his dinner – ha! After a little searching, I found the OMG vegan butternut queso from the first mess. THIS is a keeper recipe for sure. It’s on the sweeter side but I added some pickle brine and lime essential oil and it was perfect. The original plan was to serve it over chips as nachos, but we didn’t have any chips left so we made home fries and steamed up some broccoli… almost like a loaded potato. We also had a bunch of this leftover that I enjoyed over toast with a vegan egg and mushrooms for breakfast a couple times throughout the week.

Tempeh scramble wraps with roasted broccoli and a jalapeno dip spread. I know, this sounds like a hella mess and flavors all over the place but the verdict: also a keeper! When you’re making the scramble, it smells like an Italian dish. Then you make the spread and it smells like an American appetizer. Roasted broccoli just doesn’t seem to want to fit in, but it all comes together, especially by adding the pickled jalapeño slices. They were devoured out on the back deck before I could care what it a photograph would look like. Little tip: the recipe makes a minimal amount of sauce. I’d probably triple it next time to make it worth using the Vitamix.

Japchae Korean glass noodles with tofu. We’ve had these sweet potato noodles in the pantry for months now and had everything else on hand so it was an easy decision to give ’em a try and clean out the fridge. The beau made them when I was at a local trail series, which was perfect because I had something to scarf down after coming home late / running miles. This recipe is also a keeper! If you’ve never tried sweet potato noodles, pick up a package at your local Asian market. They’re super cheap and easy to whip up – a fun texture too! Sorry no photograph – I was too hungry to even think about a photograph (but think colorful noodles).

Budget wise we did great! We had $191 left over in our envelopes that was then applied to outstanding debt. We ran out of grocery money probably mid month, and tapped into the other envelopes (eating out and alcohol) to cover expenses. We only ate out once – at Tara Kitchen prior to the wedding – and the beau did frequent DD on a somewhat daily basis for his large unsweetened ice tea. This month also included our wedding party = we have a SHIT TON of leftovers. I’m talking 20 gallon sized bags in our freezer. You can barely open the doors! Annnnnnnd we’re both pretty sick of Moroccan food. My plan is to defrost a meal once a month until gone. Four bags are just the seasoned rice that we can incorporate more frequently but the meals, that’ll take some time until space is freed. I joke that some couples save a slice of their wedding cake to eat on their first anniversary… we’ll still be eating Moroccan leftovers! I think I’m also going to practice dehydrating meals such as this for hiking… get ready Paula!

We came up with an additional $115 extra dollars this month to also apply to outstanding debt. This included returning our cans and bottles (holler 6 cent center), cashing in scratch-offs from the holidays and an unexpected check from Young Living.