Labor Day

It has been a good day at home. We survived the storm and lost electricity for about 45 minutes while attempting to feed everyone. We had company so there was 9 of us to get plates of food.

I made potato salad (cheap, easy, and filling), baked a small package of eight hot dogs, a small package of Italian sausage links, opened two small cans of baked beans, served a small frozen container of Omaha steak (care package a few weeks ago from MIL) of green beans, and I cooked a pound of pasta for my kids to make mac and cheese. They use a basic white sauce and we added some Colby cheese to it.

My husband's cousins brought two large containers of fried chicken, soda, and sweet tea from Publix. We don't shop there and go to Aldi instead. Publix ix right next to our house, but the prices are a bit harder on the budget. The chicken was amazing. Just saying.....totally amazing. I never fry chicken. I don't even know how to fry chicken. I do like chicken and often either bake it or put it in the crock pot.

I washed four loads of laundry today, using half the amount of detergent recommended, and used two dryer sheets total. I figure we can cut our pennies and eventually it will help us become wiser about where our money is going.

The hot dogs, sausage, beans, green beans, potato salad, and mac and cheese come from our own kitchen. I cooked everything except the mac and cheese. My kids did the mac and cheese and put it in the crock pot to keep warm. They did a good job.

My son and oldest daughter finished off the last of two boxes of cereal this morning. We have a small bit left in the last box which will probably go tomorrow morning. My husband ate the last five strips of bacon last night. I didn't know because I was looking for it to add to the potato salad this morning when I was making it. He said it was great.

My middle daughter chose to eat the marinated pork from last night with some steamed corn for breakfast/early lunch. There was a bowl of rice left over with some cut up pork in it. I put some butter in a pan, melted it, added some sliced onion, and the rice/pork mixture. I told my husband that it was fried rice. We did not have any soy sauce or anything like that. He said he liked it and didn't complain at all.

The left overs from yesterday are gone. I have a bowl of potato salad, a large bowl of baked beans, a small bowl of green beans, a bowl of mac and cheese, and a huge container of fried chicken left over for tomorrow. We will be eating this for lunch and possible dinner tomorrow. My cousins took some of the soda home that they brought over. They did not want the chicken or the sweet tea. They said that they usually don't eat any leftovers.

We do and always eat leftovers. I have a small amount of bacon fat in the fridge from yesterday's adventure with the cracked black pepper bacon. I considered using this to fry eggs, but the bacon was so spicy I am unsure if my kids will eat the eggs if used in bacon fat.

Any suggestions other then fried eggs? I would consider using the bacon fat to fry potatoes later this week.