Just Over Two Months Left!!!!

I thought that I was getting better at being able to plan meals and stay organized, but it turns out that it was really only because of the garden out the back door.  Now it's back to being a bit of a struggle to keep on top of what I have decided is our highly-overrated need to eat regularly.  Yesterday I sat down with my calendar, a menu planner, and several cookbooks to see if I could figure out meal plans for the next two months, and was instantly reminded why I haven't been using cookbooks this year:

We can't use many of the ingredients.

Believe it or not, the "healthy" cookbooks are the worst.  The healthy "alternative" ingredients--even tofu--are completely off limits this year.  Not that I've exactly been losing sleep over not getting tofu or anything--let's not be silly here--but I did think I might be able to use those cookbooks. 

I thought it might help to keep a spreadsheet of all my canning efforts this year, and I think it will in general, but it's not much help with meal planning.  I mean, I KNOW we have pickles and salsa.  I don't need to look that up.  What would help is a list of things to DO with the pickles and salsa--and preferably not together. 

Thank heavens we both like soup, so if I make soup once a week from now until the end of the year, that will give us a few meals each week (leftovers are a HUGE part of our lives this year), and between the bread machine and myself, I think I could make bread once a week for two months, which means we can have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches regularly (and I can assure you that this year I have already eaten more of the darn things this year than I have the rest of my adult life combined), and we try to rotate in salmon, shrimp, and steak to provide some variety in protein, but I am counting the days until I can have a normal deli sandwich--you know, the sliced ham, turkey, or roast beef (all of which have injections or ingredients that make them off limits this year) ones that you pay an outrageous amount for at the deli counter.  Of course, we've learned to be bread & mustard snobs this year, so I don't want to go OUT for a sandwich--I just want the capacity to make my own.

I think I've gotten used to not drinking diet soda, and now that I have Julia Childs's pizza crust recipe, commercial pizza is dull and uninteresting, but I'll be glad to have olives back in our lives.  We're still going to avoid high fructose corn syrup as much as possible, though I might cave once in a while just to be able to use Worcestershire sauce or spicy Italian sausage occasionally.  And Grape Nuts for breakfast!  I fantasize about such things now........:)