Hot Dogs Anyone?
18 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in Food, Frugal Tips Tags: coupon, hot dogs, sale
I know these aren’t the most nutritious thing out there, but I love hot dogs and so does my familiy. Right now you can get a super deal on Bar S brand hotdogs. This past sunday there was a coupon in the Red Plum insert for $1 off 2 packages of Bars S hot dogs or you can go HERE to print the same coupon. Or like me use both! These regularly go on sale at grocery stores for $1 and Walmart often has them for $0.88 making for some cheap eats after coupons! You can make your own hot dog buns using my honey wheat buns recipe (almost to the bottom of that page). Enjoy some hot dogs on the grill this summer, YUM.
Frugal Tip of the Week: Homemade Body Scrub
17 May 2010 5 Comments
in Frugal Tips Tags: coconut oil, homemade body scrub
My son and I have a skin condition called Keratosis Pilaris. Our bodies make excess keratin in our hair follicles that causes bumps and redness on our arms and legs. Also, our bodies to not slough off skin cells as easily as other people. I have found that using cold pressed coconut oil on our skin as lotion has dramatically improved the redness and bumps. What has helped even more for me is making my own exfoliating sugar scrub (I don’t use this on my 3 year old’s delicate skin). I have an old cream cheese container that I put a few tablespoons of the oil in and soften the oil a bit (it is solid until 76°) I then add sugar until it makes a paste. You can also do this with salt if you prefer. Then I store this in my shower. Before I get wet I rub this on my arms and legs. It is just like those fancy sugar or salt scrubs you can buy at stores like the body shop for pennies comparatively. Coconut oil is not the most frugal choice for lotion, but it works better for our skin than other lotions. My target price is under $0.50/oz, which is fairly easy to find in a health food store in the cooking oils. Just make sure to buy cold pressed oil with no fillers. I like to buy organic as well. One way that I save on my coconut oil is earning amazon gift cards by searching the web with Swagbucks. I then use those gift cards to purchase the coconut oil!
You don’t have to have a skin condition to enjoy a body scrub though. It is a wonderful way to soften the skin. Another great thing…you know exactly what you are putting on your skin. There are not 30 ingredients that you can’t pronounce. It is all natural!
*Just a note, you don’t have to use coconut oil. You can use almond oil, lavender oil, Cocoa butter or even olive oil. And those are just a few! Use whatever you like.
In Honor of Pizza Thursday’s
13 May 2010 1 Comment
Thursday is pizza day in our house. If you have seen our menu, you will notice that every Thursday we have pizza. As children, both Dallas and I had pizza on Thursdays, so when I started making pizza every week we thought Thursday would be an appropriate day to incorporate it into our menu. We really love pizza in this house, if you can’t tell! Recently I have been getting a bit tired of our standard pizza dough and was in the mood to try something new. I found this wonderful thin crust recipe at Tammy’s Recipes. I have made it three times now and it always comes out fabulous! I like to mix my cheeses (mozzarella, cheddar and jack) and add fresh basil from my garden. Oh so tasty and fewer calories with the thinner crust. Lance really loves this one too. It will definitely be added to the pizza rotation. The best part is it’s done start to finish in about 35 minutes, including baking. Love that!
Baking Day: Molasses Cookies
12 May 2010 1 Comment
in Baking Day, Recipes Tags: baking, cookies, cooking, recipe, soft ginger cookies
These cookies come out of “the book”, my grandma’s cookbook. I would have to say that these are in my top 5 favorite cookies, which is really saying something for me who has hundreds of cookie recipes. They are Dallas’ favorite and Lance wouldn’t turn them down either. He is a lot like me though, in that he doesn’t turn down much when it comes to sweets! Is the insane sweet tooth a genetic thing? Must be if you look at my family….you know who you are!!! These are also one of Lance’s favorites to make. Since they are a rolled cookie, he gets to roll, cut them out and frost. Some of his favorite things to do!
Molasses Cookies
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup molasses
1 cup sour cream
4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
7 cups flour
USE A BIG BOWL
Cream eggs, sugar, molasses, butter and sour cream. Add dry ingredients. Chill dough in fridge for about an hour. Roll dough thick (between 1/4 and 1/2 inch) cut out with 3″ round cutter or in any shape you desire. We tend to have lots of dinosaurs around here. Bake 8-10 minutes at 350°. Do not over bake these cookies should remain soft. Frost with a powdered sugar icing when cool.(I use couple cups of powdered sugar, little butter, little cream cheese, vanilla and milk to thin). It’s a big batch and makes a ton. These freeze wonderfully.
Frugal Fun with the Kiddo
11 May 2010 1 Comment
in Frugal Tips
Yesterday after Lance got home from school he wanted to play together, which is a normal everyday occurance, but he wanted to do a photo booth session. We have recently switched from a PC to a Mac computer and it has this cool photo booth feature where you can take pictures of yourself with the webcam in all sorts of funny effects and you can see yourself on the screen like those booths that print out strips of photos. Lance and I had a great time being silly and emailing all the pictures to dad at work. Taking the time to be silly and have fun with your kids is one of the greatest joys in the world. And best of all, it’s free. Take a few minutes to be silly with your kiddos before they decide Mom is not the best one to be silly with!
Meal Planning: May’s Monthly Menu
10 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in Food, Meal Planning Tags: Meal Planning, menu planning
I know, I know this is a little late, but I just got it done. We have been eating out of the freezer mostly for the past week and a half. And we will be eating mostly from the pantry/freezer for the rest of the month. I have everything on hand to make the meals listed. I will just have to supplement in some fresh produce and maybe some milk. That’s about it for grocery shopping this month. If there is a frugalicious deal on some meat in the next few weeks, I may do a little stocking up, but we don’t NEED any. So it will have to be a crazy deal for me to spend the money! I did do a small amount of freezer cooking the last week and I have on my list of stuff to make for the month…refried beans, sourdough bread, and a batch of chili for lunches.
Frugal Tip of the Week: Homemade Daily Shower Spray
10 May 2010 1 Comment
in Frugal Tips, Recipes Tags: homemade cleaner, homemade daily shower spray
I don’t know about you, but cleaning is not something I enjoy. I did not get that clean freak, neat freak gene that is floating around my family. So, I like to find things that make cleaning easier for me…and also frugal of course! I hate scrubbing my shower. I think it may be the thing in the house that I hate cleaning the most. I love the daily shower sprays, but I don’t love their price. The refill for the scrubbing bubbles automatic shower cleaner is $4.64 on amazon right now. That is not a price I want to pay!!! I have combined ingredients from a few different daily shower recipes that I have found online and found one that works well for my shower and water hardness. Now, this recipe may not be the best for everyone. I think it really depends on the materials of your shower and your water. I have a glass and ceramic tile shower with moderately hard water and this recipe works really well at keep the shower clean so that I clean it less often. LOVE THAT! I have not done the math for a bottle of this, but I know it is under a $1 per bottle, it may be under $0.50 if you use coupons to buy your dish soap and dish washing aid!
Daily Shower Spray
In a 32 oz spray bottle mix:
2 cups white vinegar
1-2 T dishwasher rinse aid like jet dry
1 T or so of dawn dishsoap
water to fill bottle
Spray the entire shower after use and walk away! I have read that you can add essential oil like lemon or lavender to help disguise the vinegar smell. I use vinegar to clean many things in my house so it doesn’t really bother me. You can also put this mixture in the bottle of one of those scrubbing bubbles automatic shower sprayers. I did that until mine died, now I just use a spray bottle.
If this doesn’t seem to be working for your shower, do a google search and there are a ton of different recipes out there. Many use rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, it may be trial and error for what works best in your house.
Baking Day: Mother’s Day Lemon Bundt Cake
07 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in Baking Day, Recipes Tags: baking, bundt cake, cooking, lemon cake, mother's day
I am lucky, I have a never ending supply of lemons. However, that means I need to find ways to use all of these lemons. I have come up with a to die for lemon bundt cake recipe with just a few tweaks to a boxed mix. It has a wonderful tartness that goes so well with the sweetness of the cake and glaze. It’s ooey, gooey good. I am making this for my mom this weekend. It is one of her favorites, and mine, and my husband and just about anyone else who has tasted it! My dear hubby even thought I should enter it into the pillsbury bake off, but you can’t enter using one of their cake mixes….bummer no million dollar prize for me! But, you all get to benefit instead. I will share my wisdom! I don’t have a picture of the cake because I haven’t made it yet! Trust me it is outstanding. Oh, and it’s low fat…bonus!
Coby’s Lemon Bundt Cake
1 white cake mix (can use yellow too) I have done it with pillsbury and duncan hines brands
3 eggs
1/3 cup plain non fat yogurt
1 cup lemon juice
Zest of one lemon
Glaze:
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 cup sugar
Mix ingredients for about 2 minutes. Bake in greased bundt pan for about 35 minutes at 350° or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan onto a cooling rack on a cookie sheet or foil or something to catch the drips from the glaze. Brush on glaze while cake is still warm. Do it slowly so it can soak into the cake. Cool. Put on serving plate. Cover and let sit several hours before serving.
Crafting: No Sew T-Shirt into Vest
06 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in Crafting, Sewing Tags: Crafting, no sew, t-shirt reconstruction, vest
There are super cute vests all over in the stores right now. I wanted a flowy vest, but I didn’t want to pay $20 for one. So I went searching around online and found this cute and SUPER EASY tutorial on how to make one. It literally took my 5 minutes and only cost me a $1 for a black thrift store t-shirt. All you need is a pair of scissors, a big t-shirt (maybe you can steal one from your hubby!) and a bowl or other round object to trace for the hole. I will be definitely be hitting up my local thrift store that sells 10 items for $1 on the first of the month for some t-shirts to cut up and make into new stuff! You will have to excuse the terrible self portraits…no one here to help me with the photos! These are a great way to dress up a boring plain shirt! You could also embellish the vest however you see fit for some more pizzazz!
*Just a tip, I cut off the hem on the bottom as well. I wanted all the edges the same. Give the edges all a little tug after cutting and they will roll a bit leaving a cute edge.
Freezer Cooking for May
06 May 2010 3 Comments
in Food, Meal Planning, Recipes Tags: focaccia bread, freezer cooking, lasagna
This month I am a little behind on my menu plan and freezer cooking. I just haven’t wanted to get organized and do it. I have done a little freezer cooking over the past few days, but I have not had a whirlwind day of do it all at once. I just haven’t had time. These past few days in May, we have just been eating up some of the freezer meals we didn’t eat in April and I plan to continue that this week to eat up some stuff that just needs to be eaten. I think that is part of the reason I haven’t really made a menu plan for May. I have one that I have started working on today, but it is still a work in progress. I will post it later when I get it done.
As for the freezer cooking, this week was teacher appreciation day at my son’s school. I decided that a freezer meal in a homemade reusable tote bag (that folds into a built in pouch for easy carrying) would be something she and her family would appreciate. So, last weekend Lance and I made Lasagna, focaccia bread and brownies to take to both his teacher and the assistant in his class. We started by making the sauce on Saturday in the crockpot. I based the sauce on this recipe with a few tweaks of course, I used a giant can of tomato sauce with 1 T onion powder, 1 T garlic powder, 3 T italian seasoning and 1 tsp salt, oh and a bit of olive oil. It is much cheaper to buy the gallon sized cans of tomatoes at Sam’s club for $2.80 and make your own sauce for spaghetti, lasagna, pizza etc. than buying jar of Prego or whatever brand you like. This is the first time I have done this and I really like how the sauce turned out. We then based the lasagna off of a recipe I have of my aunt’s, although I left the meat out and used the sauce we had made the previous day. We ended up making 2 8×8 pans of lasagna for Lance’s teachers and 2 5×9 bread loaf pans for us. This was about 2 recipes.
Lance really did layer the lasagna.
Mmmm...sauce.
Lasagna
1 lb ground beef
6 oz sausage
3/4 c chopped onion
1 16oz can chopped italian tomatoes
1 15oz can tomato sauce
2 tsp parsley
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp basil
*note I did not use any of the above this time since I made a meatless version and used the sauce I made the previous day. Therefore, I did not do the steps for cooking these below.
2 cups of cottage cheese blended in blender (2 12 oz containers)
*I used 1 16 oz container of cottage cheese blended and 8 oz of ricotta cheese since that is what I had on hand.
1/2 c grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano (I was out, used basil instead)
1 pkg cooked lasagna noodles
Mozzarella cheese
Cook meats and onion. Drain. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and spices. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 1 hour or until thick. Heat oven to 350°. Mix cottage cheese, parmesan, parsley, salt and oregano. Reserve 1/2 c. sauce for top layer.
In an ungreased 9×13 layer 1/4 each noodles, cottage cheese mixture, sauce, mozzarella cheese. Repeat 3 times. Spread reserved sauce on top and sprinkle with more cheese. Bake for 45 minutes. OR cover and freeze. Either bake from frozen 375° for 1 1/2 hours (for a 9×13 1 hour if you freeze in 8×8) or you can thaw in fridge overnight and bake as directed above.
I didn’t take pictures of the focaccia bread that we made, but here is the recipe. It is supposed to be a Maccaroni Grill Bread copycat, but I don’t think it tastes much like the bread there. Although, it is tasty.
Focaccia Bread
1 T dry yeast
1 tsp canola oil
1 T sugar
1 c warm water
2 T butter
2 1/2 c flour
1/4 c fresh rosemary chopped or 2 T dried (I used italian seasoning since I was out of rosemary)
1 teaspoon salt
Bloom yeast in sugar and water. Mix in 2 c flour and salt. Knead for about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Add flour if necessary (I used it all). Oil a bowl and put dough in. Cover and rise in a warm place for 1 hour or until doubled.
Punch down dough and divide in half. Let dough rest for a few minutes. Coat 2 9″ square pans (I used round) with spray. Press dough into pans. Melt butter and brush on the tops of the dough. Sprinkle rosemary over surface and press lightly into dough. Rise loaves until double again, about 45 minutes. Sprinkle a little salt over the tops and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes until lightly browned.
UP Next Chicken!
The rest of my freezer cooking was all about chicken. When I headed out to Sam’s Club to get dog food today, I picked up 2 of their big packs of boneless skinless chicken breast. I decided to make this wonderful Chicken in Peanut Sauce recipe that is specifically for the freezer. We will get 6 meals out of this recipe for our family of 3. Let me tell you, this stuff is amazing! I was literally scraping the pan with my fork eating the bits that were left after packaging for the freezer. When the time comes, I will just serve over rice. I even have some pre-cooked in the freezer left over from last month.
The rest of my freezer cooking was not really cooking, but freezer prepping. I put together some marinades for the chicken and froze the chicken in the marinades so that it will be ready to pull out and cook on the grill. With the warmer weather we like to cook outside and this is a way to make it easier. I mixed up a southwest citrus marinade with frozen limeade concentrate, sunny delight orange juice, cilantro and a mexican meat seasoning making 4 dinners worth. I have 2 dinners worth of teriyaki chicken with a bottle of teriyaki I had taking up space in the refrigerator and another 2 dinners with a marinade I had on had called sioux-z-wow. All I have to do is thaw the chicken in the fridge the day before cooking. Then, let it sit and soak up all the wonderful flavors. Look out grill, here we come!
Citrus marinated chicken ready for freezer.
