Productive Morning in the Kitchen

Some days I get into the kitchen with a plan and it is a beautiful thing.

After my delicious morning smoothie I got to work:

I'm making homemade yogurt in the crock pot.

I made a batch of refrigerator oatmeal for my boys.

One pan of Banana Chocolate Chip Brownies.  (I had two elderly bananas that needed to be used up.)

A batch of Mediterranean Quinoa Salad.  (My go-to lunch and dinner this summer.  Throw it on a salad or eat it alone!)

5 pound of organic potatoes are baking in the oven.  Later today they will be turned into a delicious vegetarian casserole.

One pitcher of healthy lemonade.  (Today I also added lime juice.  So nice!)

And I had a whole lot of abandoned aging clementines that nobody is eating, so I decided that we would turn them into juice.  Voila!  Gorgeous and delicious.  I have drawer space now for something else that people actually do want to eat, and will have no trouble getting takers to drink the juice.

It feels good to have a plan, to use what I have on hand, and to piggyback various projects upon each other so that clean-up and appliance use is shared and maximized.

For instance:

--the Banana Choc. Chip Brownies called for butter, but I have quite a bit of coconut oil on hand, so I used that instead.

--the organic potatoes really needed to hurry up and get used, so I planned to make a casserole with them today.  (recipe here)

--I accidentally over-bought organic milk, so turning half a gallon of it into yogurt helps preserve it for another use.

--the clementines were actually given to us, but were getting old and the kids weren't enjoying the texture that much.  Since I already had the electric citrus juicer out, we decided to also use it for the clementines.  One of the kids came along and volunteered to do the juicing, because, you know, that's a fun thing!  :)

--the quinoa salad helped me use up one garden-fresh tomato and the last half of a cucumber.

--the oven was in use for baking the brownies, and then went on to bake the potatoes as well.  (only one pre-heating time needed, and there will be plenty of time for the taters to cool down before I take them on to the next step later today)

I love, love, love to use up the food I already have on hand!  Am I the only one who would enjoy successfully clearing the shelves of the freezer and pantry and not having to go to the store for a long, long time?!