Homemaker Mode

(My Clematis is blooming – so pretty!)

I seem to go in spurts – I can be in homemaker mode one day and the next – not so much. Usually homemaker mode for me means planning ahead, experimenting and being frugal. The past few days I have been in homemaker mode. I pulled some chicken breasts out of the freezer and cooked them up in the crockpot. After shredding them I now have chicken for Sweet Chili Chicken Pizza, Chicken Spaghetti, shredded chicken for a lettuce salad and enough to freeze for later.

(Cheesy Creamy Chicken Spaghetti – yummy!)

I made the Sweet Chili Chicken Pizza and it didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. We love this pizza from our local Pizza Ranch and I am hoping to be able to make it at home. For one thing I didn’t have any pineapple and it was definitely lacking the pineapple. I also used too much pizza sauce and instead of using mozzarella cheese I used what I had on hand – which I think was Cheddar Jack. I’ll definitely try again and make a few tweaks and hopefully I can come closer to the Pizza Ranch one we like!

I also picked up some blocks of cheese on sale at Hy-Vee and shredded it. Now I have shredded cheese in the freezer. I don’t like actually shredding the cheese – I always make a mess and it’s somewhat time consuming but – I like having  it stocked in the freezer – I think it tastes so much better than the bags you buy at the store.

I did some research on chives as my chives are blooming right now. I harvested some and froze for later. I plan to freeze a bunch more. Then I harvested the blooms and have some chive blossom vinegar infusing in the cupboard. I’m hoping to make a Dijon mustard vinaigrette later this week with the chive infused vinegar to put on our shredded chicken salad. I hope it turns out as good as it sounds! We had chef salads for lunch over the weekend and it was so good to sprinkle fresh chives from the garden over the salads! I also chopped some up and mixed with a container of cottage cheese. Yummy! I’m planning to transplant some later in the season and bring in for the winter – hopefully we can have fresh chives all winter long!

(The color of the vinegar is so pretty!)

I made a big batch of potato salad to have for supper meals. It’s always nice to have a big salad to eat on throughout the week to go along with whatever we have for a main course. And it’s a great way to use up eggs when I have an abundance.

I also tried pickling some eggs with our over abundance of eggs. A couple we camped with last year brought jalapeño pickled eggs to the campground and Joe loved them so I thought I would try to make him some. In three weeks we’ll know if they turned out or not. It’s always fun to try new things and see how they turn out!