What Came Into the Kitchen
No new food today…working through all my leftovers!
Breakfast
We started the morning by finishing off the last of the bacon (you’re going to notice a trend here — we eat a lot of bacon).
Then I took the cinnamon rolls from yesterday — the smaller batch — and brought them back to life.
They had been sitting out (not cold), so I:
- covered them with foil (because I just want to warm them up…not toast the top!)
- warmed them in the oven for about 10 minutes
Then I made the frosting:
- 4 tbsp melted butter
- ~2 cups powdered sugar
- splash of vanilla
- enough heavy cream to make it spreadable (not too thick, not too runny)
Spread that over the warm rolls and popped them back in the oven for about a minute so it got all melty and gooey.
It honestly feels like you just made fresh cinnamon rolls — with almost no morning effort.
Kids had:
- Cinnamon rolls
- Bacon
- Fruit
A very good start to the day.
Mid-Morning (School + Snack Tray)
My teenager had friends over to do schoolwork, so I made them a little snack tray:
- Fresh fruit salad (Costco watermelon — solid 7/10 for early April)
- Toasted rolls from yesterday with butter
Simple, but really nice. If you come to my house…there WILL BE food!
Lunch
I did something fun with all the leftover pasta from yesterday:
Deconstructed pasta salads
- Pasta
- Veggies
- Olives
- Cheese
- The rest of the homemade beef summer sausage (now fully used up)
- Dressing on the side
My teenager mixed hers all together.
My other kids kept everything separate.
Everyone loved it — 10/10 lunch — and we cleared out a lot of leftovers.
Afternoon Snack
This one made me laugh a little.
- A little more cinnamon roll
- Diced, reheated steak (from earlier this week)
Honestly…a great combo:
sweet + protein = everyone happy.
Dinner (Holy Thursday Tradition)
Dinner tonight was one of our favorite traditions.
Every year, we make homemade crackers (Pioneer Woman recipe).
And I love this because:
- my 16-year-old makes beautiful, artisanal crackers (sometimes with cheese
- my 3-year-old makes…very creative crackers
But once they’re baked, brushed with butter, and salted — they all taste amazing.
My 10 year old LOVES to decorate the table…so she went all out and made a beautiful center piece with random things around the house.
What we served:
- Homemade crackers
- Brat bites
- Diced, pan-seared steak (used up the last from Sunday night)
- Roasted vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, red onion, red bell pepper, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and a splash of Liquid Aminos
- Steamed vegetables
Simple, meaningful, and really good.
After dinner, we did our feet washing tradition, which is always a special part of Holy Thursday for us. We draw names and take turns washing each other’s feet and just talk about the significance of it. My 10 year old was the ‘commissioner’ of this and made sure no one drew their own name.
No surprise…the 3 year old was VERY into this activity and insisted on ‘helping’ with each person.
Kitchen Flow (How It’s All Working)
- Cinnamon rolls → prepped yesterday, used again today
- Pasta + summer sausage → fully used up at lunch
- Steak → completely finished both the Sunday steak and flank steak today
- Crackers → fresh for tonight’s meal and leftover for tomorrow (will probably serve this with a tuna salad at lunch)
- Baking → front-loaded for the weekend continues to pay off
What’s Next
Tomorrow is Good Friday, which means:
- Fasting for me and my husband
- Meatless meals
I’ll still be doing some baking:
- Gluten-free carrot cake loaf
- Gluten-free Oreo pie (starting with the crust)
It will be a quieter food day, but still a meaningful one as we head into Easter.