2016 Blog Posts in Review

Welcome 2017!

A lot of people have been summarizing their last year and naming all the big challenges and changes they've had. Looking back over this year, with everything it is just "the second year".

It's been two years since we've moved to Washington. 2016 was the second year at my husband's job, second year at schools for my kids, second year in our house, second year planting a garden, second year in my calling (job) at church as primary president, etc. In all these things and more it feels like we've finally gotten the hang of things and just tried to improve on them. Hopefully 2017 is even better now that we have some experience under our belts.

I looked over my blog posts from 2016. It was interesting to see what things I posted about. Here's a a little summary:

I planned and posted 41 weekly menus, up to week 387 now! (Although most of these I posted when the week was already halfway over.)
To celebrate my 350th weekly menu, I hosted a giveaway.
8 Healthy Snack Ideas
Bits and Pieces (only posted one of these posts, since I started posting more on instagram)
2016 Goals (nice to review this a year later)
Homemade Playdough (this is still a favorite and is in my pantry right now)
Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and applied what I learned to my closet
Honey Garlic Chicken (one of my kids' favorite recipes. I usually make the chicken alone instead of with the roasted veggies and toss the chicken and sauce in angel hair pasta.)
I said goodbye to facebook (temporarily). I deactivated my account for a while and definitely feel like I can step away from facebook for a while and not miss out on anything. It does seem like it might be hard to go without it, since I sometimes use it to check on events, etc.

Sad to see that I only posted two recipes, and only one of which you can eat (since you shouldn't eat playdough). I tried quite a few new recipes and found some new family favorites. But my time spent blogging has been short. Life is busy, but I do love blogging. Hoping to post some new recipes in 2017.

Happy New Year to all of you! I'll be back tomorrow (hopefully) with a menu plan.

One Hour Rolls

These rolls are amazing! I've been making these rolls since 2001 when I was a newlywed and my sister-in-law shared the recipe with me. The rolls are light, fluffy, easy to make and they only take one hour! And delicious too! I've made these rolls more times than I can count, so I've perfected the art of making them. Here are some step-by-step instructions with pictures for you. Here's what you'll need. I buy pretty much all of the ingredients in this recipe at Sam's club, thus the huge containers. You need warm water, yeast, oil, sugar, salt, egg and flour. In the mixer bowl, add warm water (not hot), oil, sugar and yeast. Mix together. After ten or fifteen minutes the yeast mixture should be puffed up like this. Time to add the salt and beaten egg. Then mix in the flour. (I've used a mixture of half wheat and half white flour successfully.) Keep adding flour until the dough is manageable. It will be a little sticky, b

Week 394 Menu

Hi there! This week is flying by! So excited that we've been having blue skies and warmer weather. Our snow is almost all melted and little bulbs are sprouting in the flower beds. However, we had our 10th snow/ice day last week!!! Hopefully it was the last one. Life has been busy, busy and I need to plan out the rest of our week's menus, even though it's already Thursday. Here's what we've eaten so far and what I'm planning: Monday: chicken stirfry, rice/quinoa Tuesday: breakfast for dinner Wednesday: flatbread pizzas Thursday: roasted butternut squash, pasta, chicken sausage Friday: tacos Saturday: leftovers Sunday: pot roast, mashed potatoes, one hour rolls Alrighty, that's what we're eating this week. How about you? What's on your menu this week? Feel free to share. I love it when you do! More from Jenny:

Don't like your house to smell like food? I've got a kitchen tip for that!

I have a smallish, one story house and if I cook food that is kind of smelly, like onions, the smell tends to linger in every room. This is a pet peeve of mine and (also my husband's). Over the years I've found a few ways to cook smelly food without smelling up the kitchen. Use your garage! I use my garage quite often to cook things in. I open the window and it airs out, especially when you open the garage door. I'm sure my neighbors wonder what I'm cooking. I've used two different kitchen appliances in the garage: my crockpot and my food dehydrator. Crockpot - I did this very thing today since I'm simmering chicken, onions, carrots and celery to make chicken noodle soup tonight. I don't want my house to smell like onions all day, so I plugged it in on my husband's workbench. Food dehydrator - when I make jerky, I plug the food dehydrator in in the garage. I don't really want my house to smell like meat for hours

What is on your menu this week?

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