Houston, we have a problem.

My 4 inch by, oh, maybe 14 inch, chuck roast won't fit in my roaster :o(


Well, let me rephrase myself. It fits...with some tucking in along the sides, and I do have a bit of space on the ends. But overall, my cast iron roaster is simply too small. My mother said cut it in half and use 2 pans. Oh, the indignity of whacking this wonderful, marbled roast in half! Isn't it a beauty?

No, I don't usually covet meat like this, but this is special :o) I'm used to rolled roasts, or rump roasts...something more akin to the size of a regulation football. In our area here, pork is the meat of choice it seems. Boston Butts, Loins, etc. They are more readily available in the stores. Beef roasts, even a simple chuck roast, just aren't what I think of as a roast. Most around here are what I'd consider more of a thick steak than anything of a roast.

But I got this at the butcher yesterday when I ordered my bulk meats. The owner was cutting up a half a steer and his wife brought out some small cuts to cut them down more. I saw this one on the table and asked about it. She was going to cut it at least in half, if not thirds. No way -- it was just perfect, I thought. So I bought it.

Me.

Home alone here with no husband, no eldest son and fiance, no eldest daughter. Just me and 7 children. Seven younger children.

This roast could last us most of the week if I play it right.

I managed to get about 4 potatoes cut in half alongside the roast on the ends, and maybe 3 or 4 carrots cut into lengths as well. But my usual broth/gravy concoction doesn't stand a chance of being in there. Not without a serious drip shield along that pan! I simply mixed a bit of stock with a touch of flour to thicken slightly and poured it over. It will be covered and cook all day now. Around 5 or 6 pm we'll eat dinner :o)

Can you imagine how tender this baby will be? I probably shouldn't have bought it, being here with just the children, but I lack self-restraint. It just looked too good to pass up.

I imagine when Dewey reads this his mouth will be watering all over the computer :o) I could FedEx a plate overnight to you honey....

My last couple trips to the store have been a bit whacked out compared to our normal shopping. We had not done any real shopping for a good 18 weeks around here. Slow work, low paychecks and all those other budget-crunchers. We were buying the absolute barest of essentials. I've always loved Dave Ramsey's advice on finances, but really, a beans-and-rice/rice-and-beans menu gets rather monotonous after the first month!

The list from just this week at Wal-Mart:
3 bunches of Romaine hearts
2 boxes of GV Butter Crackers (we had some summer sausage I'd made)
2 bottles of ketchup
1 box of beef patties (not all that delicious, but they work great for quick 'salsbury steaks')
2 bell peppers
1 cucumber
1 block GV Monterey Jack
1 block GV Mild Cheddar
1 dozen GV cream of mushroom soup
2 loaves GV Wheat sandwhich bread (yes, we bake our bread but once in a while it's just nice to have sliced bread around)
1 mega pack Parents Choice diapers
1 mega pack White Cloud Pull-Ups
1 large box 33-gal trash bags
1 large box 13-gal trash bags
1 24-count pack Angel Soft toilet paper (didn't go to Sam's or I'd have bought a case there)
2 bottles GV dishwashing liquid
a can of Repel bug spray -- there are more fleas around here than animals right now and they eat me alive outside!

A trip to Save-Alot netted me this:
4 5-lb rolls of ground chuck (sale priced)
3 boxes of shell pasta (it was all they had aside from spaghetti and egg noodles)
2 boxes of Raisin Bran (for muffins)
2 large cans pumpkin (for muffins)
2 packages hot dog buns (yes, I could have and should have just made them...)
2 jars mushroom pieces

And we stopped at the farm stand and bought 2 boxes (about 40 lbs) of red potatoes and a bushel of Granny Smith apples for that pie filling we made.

All in all, I spent around $120. Not my best effort at shopping, but not my worst either.

Coming up, late October, Miss Emily will have her next follow-up visit to LeBonheur's in Memphis and we will make a mega shopping trip at a little Sam's Club there. I swear, it must be one of the first ones -- looks like a true little warehouse and nothing like the mega Sam's Clubs with all the fluff and nonsense in it. It's stocked full of things I can't get at our local Sam's.

We will pick up the large restuarant-zized cans of veggies there --
a dozen peas
a dozen potatoes
a half-dozen mushrooms
a dozen sweet corn
a dozen kitchen-cut green beans
4 2-lb pkgs of dry yeast
2 containers of baking powder
2 bags of baking soda
4 cider vinegar (we add it to the chicken's and goat's water)
2 cases of TP
5-lb tub of real butter
2 cases of eggs (15 doz. each -- that's a month's worth of eggs for us)
4 bags of frozen broccoli
1 case hot dogs and 1 case hamburgers for the freezer stock
4 jugs of Olive Oil
4 bags of bread flour *
2 bags of sugar *
3 containers each of Beef Base and Chicken Base
2 large bags of rice
2 large bags of pinto beans
2 25-lb pails of lard

I'm hoping to get to the butcher in Corinth for a case of ground beef and a case of stew meat for canning as well. We'll see how that goes when the time comes. For other meat needs, I'll get several bags of cut up chicken, 2 cases of the 1-lb rolls of ground turkey, a case of the small turkey hams and I'd love to find 4 really od, decent-sized rolled roasts. I haven't had a truly good beef roast in years. The beef around here seems so small. Pork is the local meat d'jour.

Some other needs would be things like 6 tubes toothpaste, at least 6 bottles of shampoo, and 2 large bundles of a mild bar soap. I'd like to find someone carrying Kirk's Castile locally, but so far, nadda. I need 6 boxes of Washing Soda and 6 of Borax for laundry soap, as well.

I'd like to stop at Ada's for some grains as well. If I do, I'll call ahead on prices for their high gluten flour and fructose, instead of the smaller bags at Sam's. I need some more Tea Tree Oil and some dried catnip and chamomile for tea, too. Ada's has a great selection of 'supplements' like that.

I'm good on cornmeal and have a bucket of popcorn to grind and add to it. We seem to be good on the miscellaneous pantry things like a small variety of canned vegs (in normal-sized cans like the rest of the world buys) and BBQ sauces, pasta sauce, etc.

Now to get with D and find out more about the #10 cans of powdered milk! I stock up on the Wal-Mart loxes when I can, but Sam's quit carrying any, and really, GV isn't our favorite brandtaste-wise. It's one we can live with, but if the finds are there and we can, we'd prefer something different.

As to the funds...well, if things go as planned on the budget for next month, we have an extra paycheck. A great bonus would be having some over-time start, but that's not likely at this stage of the game. I juggled around the payments as I could where I only needed a full tank of gas for Emily's Memphis appointment that particular week. The rest of the paycheck is all gravy in the budget.

Honestly, we need to restock the pantry here in a serious way and not the little ways we've been doing this month. But a part of me is wanting to order the remaining schooling needs (about $300 total, including reading books we have as just a wish-list) then worry about the pantry. Another part of me is screaming buy the materials to enclose the front porch and get the stove pipe for the wood cookstove and set it up!

It's a good thing I have so many weeks to keep this in prayer. If it were today, I'd try to pinch the budget just enough to go stock some more fabric :o) I'm a fabric-aholic. I admit it.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some pantry staples...let me know what you see missing from my list here.