Traditionally, Monday is Washing Day

Being the happy (but modern!) homemaker I am, I scoff at the tradition chore days and have set Monday aside for Grocery Store Shopping and Baking. As usual, Ariel accompanied me to the store and, as usual, I bought off her cooperation with a donut. When we got home, the baking and cooking part of the day began.

Even since our Semi-Annual Money Awareness Event (ie, Jeremy updating our quicken records) a few weeks ago, Jeremy has been trying to reduce his spending by not eating out for lunch. At first, he thought about going back to his old standby, the frozen burrito, but realized that if he wanted a quality burrito, it wasn't much cheaper than the Qualcomm cafeteria. So this week, we are experimenting with our own mass burrito production.

I tried to fry up some chorizo (I am actually planning on making a black bean/chorizo chile on Wednesday) but something when horribly wrong. I had intended on ending up with cute little (beef) chorizo sausages, but somehow got this mess:



Granted, the chirizo came in a big tube and not pre-defined sausage links, so I think that's the problem. Was I supposed to stuff my own sausage casings? Because I don't think I'm ready for that yet. I'm still pretty new to this meat thing. Like today, I went up to the meat counter and said, "Excuse me sir, but I'm a recovering vegetarian, could you please point me to some stew meat?" And I was directed to a package labeled - get this - Stew Meat. So Jeremy will not be getting any chirizo but I have two days to find the sausage links and try again for my chile.

Next, a big pot of black beans:



I overestimated our black bean needs and ended up putting a few tupperwares away in the freezer.

And, the easiest one, rice:



For dinner (cornflake crusted tilipia) I made a side of roasted potatoes and doubled the amount so Jeremy could use the potatoes for burritos too:



Ok, so now Jeremy has beans, rice, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes and salsa. If we can make that last a week my work today will not have been in vain.

My baking today also included our weekly bread:



And then onto our fun treat. Somehow, a few months ago I got in the habit of baking treats on Monday so Becky could take some home with her. Because while I do enjoy goodies, I don't need *that* many goodies in the house.

Today's baked good (and my first time making them) Chocolate Chip-Pecan Biscotti:



This looks like a lot of food when it's all lined up, but most of it just needed an initial set up and then it cooked itself. Still, it was easier to do when kids weren't underfoot so when Adam got home from school, he and Ariel had some quality outside time:



Apparently Boulder's official total yesterday was 10" . It's going to be a long winter.