Saturday: Fall on the Farm, an Emergency Lunch & Burgers on Fumes

We got up this morning and pretty much had to get everybody out the door because I had already booked us for a morning at Blooms and Berries.

It’s one of those fall-on-the-farm places where you can pretend you’re a farmer for a few hours: tractor rides, pumpkins, corn mazes, and about a million things for kids to climb on and play with.

And every year, I swear they add more.

Today was also one of their bubble days, so there were bubbles everywhere.

We did the tractor ride. We did the pumpkin stuff. The kids played. They did the low ropes course.

I think we basically did everything.

The Lunch Plan That Did Not Happen

Blooms and Berries hosted our family and had given us a gift card to use while we were there, so my plan was very simple:

The kids will eat burgers and hot dogs there.

Perfect.

Except while the kids were doing the low ropes course, we were waiting for everyone to finish, and for some reason it did not occur to me that this would be the perfect time to get into the food line.

Why?

I don’t know.

By the time everyone was ready to eat, we walked over and discovered what looked like a solid 30-minute wait.

At this point, we were on borrowed time.

Daphne was getting tired. Everyone had eaten some of the snacks I’d packed, but they were ready for an actual meal. It was getting sunnier. And we had somewhere else we needed to be later that afternoon.

Abort.

No burgers.

No hot dogs.

Instead, we used the money toward pumpkins.

Apparently We’re Carving Pumpkins in September

The kids were VERY excited about the pumpkins.

It is September 26.

We’re going to carve them anyway.

We’ll carve pumpkins now, and then we’ll carve more pumpkins for Halloween.

Why make one giant pumpkin mess when you could make two?

We also brought home some apple cider to try together.

And then we headed home, where I suddenly remembered:

I now have to feed seven people lunch.

Emergency Lunch for Seven

Here’s the problem.

I’ve been out of town twice this week.

I haven’t done a Costco run.

I haven’t placed a Walmart order.

I had specifically planned on the kids eating lunch at Blooms and Berries.

This is why we keep chicken nuggets in the freezer.

I immediately put a tray of nuggets in the oven.

Then I started looking around for anything else I could turn into food.

I found cooked ground beef in the freezer.

Excellent.

I also had leftover pizza sauce from Tuesday’s focaccia pizza.

I heated the ground beef, added the pizza sauce and then doctored it up a little. Pizza sauce gets you most of the way to a meat sauce, but I wanted a little more flavor, so I added garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.

Done.

Instant meat sauce.

I cooked a box of pasta.

Made a box of macaroni and cheese.

Cut up the remaining random vegetables I could find—some peppers, a couple of carrots.

Added Cutie oranges.

And suddenly we had lunch.

Nuggets.

Pasta with meat sauce.

Mac and cheese.

Fruit.

Vegetables.

Meanwhile, I ate the last of the stir-fry from last night.

Was this the lunch I planned?

Absolutely not.

Did seven people eat?

Yes.

That’s a win.

Then We Had to Get a Teenager Ready

We also had a deadline today because my oldest daughter had a big evening planned.

One of the lovely things about having a large homeschool community around us is that people create events for the teenagers who don’t necessarily have traditional school events like homecoming.

Tonight was their fall boat cruise.

Before the cruise, she and her friends were going out to dinner, which meant she needed to be completely ready to leave around 2:30.

So after emergency lunch, I switched over to hair and makeup and getting her out the door.

Then the rest of us headed to Mass.

We Took the Kids Into a Grocery Store

On the way home from Mass, I looked at Chris and said:

You know what?

Let’s just stop at a grocery store.

We almost never take the kids into the grocery store with us.

But Fresh Market was nearby, and we still had no real dinner plan.

Fresh Market is basically the fancy grocery store.

You’re not going in there to buy your normal giant weekly grocery haul.

You’re going in there and finding the fancy version of everything.

And the kids still really wanted the hot dogs they had been promised this morning.

Fine.

We found fancy hot dogs.

We bought buns.

And then I remembered something important.

I Have Burgers in the Freezer

This summer I bought frozen burgers at Costco.

We tried them and thought they were…fine.

Not my favorite.

But they’re perfectly good meat, and I’m certainly not throwing them away.

Tonight was their moment.

I grabbed some arugula while we were at the store, and suddenly I realized we actually had a completely legitimate dinner plan.

Burgers and hot dogs.

A Very Solid Running-on-Fumes Dinner

Back home, we cooked the burgers and hot dogs.

The kids who were home had hot dogs.

They each got to pick an individual bag of chips from the pool stash we still have hanging around.

I added more fruit and vegetables.

For Chris and me, I used the arugula and made burger salads.

And you know what?

It was a solid dinner.

Nothing fancy.

Nothing particularly creative.

Just burgers, hot dogs, salads, chips, fruit and vegetables.

And after the week we’ve had, that’s exactly what dinner needed to be.

We’re officially running on fumes over here.

We’ve used the frozen nuggets.

We’ve used frozen ground beef.

We’ve used leftover pizza sauce.

We’ve finished the stir-fry.

We’ve pulled out the forgotten frozen burgers.

We’re down to random peppers and carrots.

But we made it….and of course I still haves some Dinner Insurance in my freezer, but we need to restock the fridge!!!

Tomorrow Chris is going to Costco.

The restock is coming.

And then maybe I’ll start cooking like a normal person again.