I Won, I Won!!

I was quite tickled yesterday when I received an email from Coupon Teacher telling me that I had won her June giveaway- a $10 CVS gift card. Yeah! What a blessing that is to us!

She has details on her July giveaway here, so run over and say hi!

Works For Me Wednesday: Creamy Cole Slaw

Today's Works For Me Wednesday is the Summer Recipe Edition.

I'm sharing a quick recipe for cole slaw. It's delicious, cheap and easy to prepare and won't heat up your kitchen. It's a great side dish to many summertime meals, especially here in the South! If you have access to a food processor, this salad can be whipped up in about 10 minutes flat!

I've been making this for our church fellowship and other gatherings this spring and summer and it usually gets eaten right up!

Here's what you do:

Shred a medium sized head of cabbage and pour into a bowl.

Mix dressing ingredients together:

2-3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon celery seed
4 tablespoons oil
1/4 teaspoon onion salt(I use a little garlic powder or omit altogether.)
2 tablespoons vinegar
6 tablespoons mayonnaise

Pour dressing over shredded cabbage and mix. You can chill the salad in the fridge for a little while to let the flavors mingle or serve right away!

For more cool hot weather recipes, visit We Are THAT Family.

Garden Bounty

Our gardens are beginning to yield quite the bounty! I picked all of this last night and this morning.

Here's what I'll be doing in the next few days:

--Freezing green beans.

--Baking zucchini bread.

--Making Garlic-Dill Pickles. I've wanted to try my hand at these since trying something similar at the farmer's market a few weeks back. They were delicious!

--Freeze shredded zucchini to use in zucchini bread through the fall and winter. I freeze in 2 cup portions as that is the amount my recipe calls for. Just shred and freeze in a baggie. When ready to use, thaw and pour the contents of the bag, including the liquid because that's part of the zucchini, into the batter. Fresh zucchini bread made with a pureed orange added to the batter makes a delightful Christmas gift!

How are your gardens faring? What fresh foods are you eating now?

More Than Free Cheese and Very Cheap Waffles

I don't often shop at Harris Teeter but went this morning all geared up for their Super Double Coupon sale. Well, it doesn't start until tomorrow as I found out as soon as I got inside the store!! Since I was there anyways, I went ahead and looked at a few of the coupon deals, checking prices and such and then remembered this sweet cheese sale.

Kraft Cheese was on sale for $1.47 a bag. I had $.50/1 coupons from the little coupon dispensers/blinkies in the store.

Harris Teeter doubles coupons $.99 and under. So I got $1 off each bag of cheese, bringing the price per package to $.47 each. That is still pretty good but not the best part!

Kraft is running a promotion through July 12 at different stores where you get a catalina coupon (These are the coupons that spit out with your receipt.)good on your next order at checkout.

I bought 5 packages of cheese and paid $2.40. Because I purchased 5, a catalina coupon printed at the register for $4 to be used on my next Harris Teeter shopping trip!

The cheese was free plus I made $1.60 on this shopping trip!

Note: I personally really don't care all that much for pre-shredded cheese. Kraft is better than some brands, but I don't think it tastes quite the same or melts like cheese I shred myself. But for free, I'll deal with it! It will come in handy and shredded cheese keep well in the freezer, too.

This is the last day for the Harris Teeter sale on the cheese. But the catalina promotion continues through July 12. (I think that these can be done numerous times, too.)Starting tomorrow, the cheese is $2 a package and can still be a sweet deal if you're able to print these coupons.

Maybe some of you will be able to stock up on inexpensive cheese, too!

This deal has been going on for awhile, but is worth mentioning.

Super Target has some flavors of Kashi waffles on price cut for $1.79. A recent Vocalpoint mailer supplied me with five $1.50/1 coupons. I got all of these waffles for $.29 or a little less each(some were marked even lower). It turned out that all five boxes cost me about the same as one regular priced boxes! Money Saving Mom has the scoop here: scroll down to see details on the Kashi deal.

Again, I prefer to make waffles from scratch but I can't beat this price! I haven't tried any yet but my sister says that the blueberry variety are delicious!

Kitchen Tip Tuesday: Milk Substitutions

I wanted to bake a couple of items several weeks ago and discovered that I was out of milk and both recipes called for it.

Rather than changing my mind and not baking those two items, I decided instead to try to substitute something I had on hand for the milk.

I did have sour cream and plain yogurt so I decided to try both of those as substitutes.

I used plain yogurt in the cinnamon rolls and sour cream in the rhubarb dumplings. I thinned both with a bit of water to make it a bit more of a milk consistency.

Both turned out great! Since the cinnamon rolls were a new recipe, I can't compare them to anything, but the rhubarb dumpling dough was especially rich with sour cream instead of milk.

What milk substitutions have you discovered as you cook? Please share!

**Thanks to Tammy's Recipes for hosting Kitchen Tip Tuesdays!

Menu Plan Monday

I'm finally sitting down to write my menu plan for the week.

My parents are flying in from the Pacific Northwest this week, so I took that into account for meal planning. Although they'll be spending a few days with us, the main portion of their visit will be spent at my sister's house, getting to know my new niece!

The gardens are beginning to yield delicious goodies. I got a pile of cucumbers, zucchini and yellow squash at our shared garden this morning. I also picked one nice cucumber from my own little garden here at home. I have lots of small green tomatoes on the vines, which is pretty exciting and the green onions are ready to pull and eat as needed. My basil is huge and needs to be used. I'm looking forward to more pesto this year! I just weeded my little garden today so maybe I'll take a picture while we can still see the plants! haha

My basic plan for meals is here. I am switching a few things around on my supper rotation due to company this week. I'll be keeping breakfasts basically the same and lunches will be something quick and easy but a little more substantial(with a bit more forethought!) while my mom and dad are here.

Here's whats for supper at Mary Ann's House this week:

Sunday- green salad; a salad bar of sorts, digging through the fridge and veggie bin to see what looked good!

Monday-church meeting; I'm taking a pasta salad.

Tuesday-Chicken, fruit and lettuce salad, fresh homemade bread. In cleaning out my email inbox this week, I came across some delicious recipes that a friend had made for us a couple of summers ago. This salad caught my eye and I knew it needed a place at my table this week!

Wednesday-Crockpot rotisserie-style chicken, gravy, brown rice, sauteed zucchini and yellow squash, maybe a cucumber salad.

Thursday- beef and veggie kabobs on the grill, brown rice, salad

Friday-picnic date night; menu TBA

Saturday-omelets, toast, smoothies

**Thanks to Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Mondays!

Baby Leila

Leila and Mommy

We got to meet our new little niece, Leila Grace, last Sunday soon after they got home from the hospital. She was born June 4th, so she's now 1 week old. What a blessing she is!

My camera batteries died after only a few pictures. I was so bummed! Oh well.. we'll get more pictures later! Here's the best of the few that I took.

Leila and Daddy


Leila with Mommy and her big brother Knox. I think we interrupted mealtime!


We had Knox with us for several days while his mommy was in the hospital. He was so excited to see his new sister. We saw the pictures on the hospital website, but I don't think it was real to him yet. When we got to their house on Sunday, he walked in and saw the baby. He had a huge smile on his face and his eyes welled up with tears. He said, "Is that my baby sister from your tummy, Mommy?" It was so sweet!

Of course, I'm a bit biased but I think she's precious! She actually looks a lot like my mom(her grandma).

We praise God for her safe delivery and for a healthy baby!

Newborn babies are definitely a finer thing in life!

Baby

by Helen Steiner Rice

A wee bit of heaven
drifted down from above-
A handful of happiness,
a heart full of love.

The mystery of life,
so sacred and sweet.
The giver of joy
so deep and complete.

Precious and priceless,
so lovable, too-
The world's sweetest miracle,
Baby, is you.



**Thanks to Amy for hosting Finer Things Friday!

No-Rise Cinnamon Rolls

I don't often make cinnamon rolls for breakfast just because it takes a lot of time with the rising and such!

So when I saw this recipe for No-Rise Cinnamon Rolls at The Happy Housewife, I knew I wanted to try them. They sounded so easy and quick! And cinnamon rolls for breakfast would be a welcome treat!

Sure enough- these cinnamon rolls were quick to mix up and easy, peasy to make! They were delicious, although more like a cinnamon biscuit or coffee cake texture and flavor than a traditional yeast cinnamon roll. I didn't have any cream cheese on hand for her frosting so I mixed up my usual cinnamon roll icing of hot water and powdered sugar. I bet the cream cheese frosting would be delicious though!

The Happy Housewife says these can be made ahead and frozen unbaked in rolls. Just thaw, slice and bake! I'm thinking this would be a great make-ahead breakfast treat for guests.

I'll be making these again!

Grass-Fed Beef

We are so excited about our first order of grass-fed beef!

For our first order, we kept it pretty small to try it out.

Here's what we got:

--3 packages of ground beef

--3 packages of stew meat

--1 chuck roast

--1 eye of round(I am excited to try this cut. They said this is their personal favorite and is very tender cooked in 1 inch slices, as cutlets.)

--1 big bag of bones for broth, soup and maybe even one or two for the dog!

If we like the meat, our next order will be larger.

I did gulp a bit at the price. But I then realized that it's probably not that much more expensive than regular-priced meat at the grocery store. From what I've read about grass-fed beef, I'm hoping that the health benefits will far outweigh the price and be totally worth it! Another positive aspect is supporting a local family farm. I love it!

Dinner tonight: Grass-fed burgers on the grill!

Works For Me Wednesday: Shampoo For Stinky Hands

Anyone who deals with changing diapers or any situation that somehow involves coming in contact with, shall we say, human solid waste, knows how annoying it is to have your hands smell like the diaper you just changed.

After you've washed your hands.

With soap.

Several times.

Since I'm once again in the midst of potty-training, this tip is one I'm rather familiar with these days. I got this tip from an experienced mom somewhere along the way!

Squirt a small amount of shampoo, such as Head & Shoulders or equivalent, onto your hands. Work into a lather, making sure to scrub all the cracks and crevices. Rinse well.

Your hands should smell a whole lot nicer now! You might actually like to sniff them continually just because.

Getting the poopy smell off my hands certainly is working for me!

**Head & Shoulders was the shampoo recommended to me for this purpose. Works well for us since we use Head & Shoulders shampoo anyways. Not sure if other types of shampoo will work the same. Try it and find out!


**This post is part of Works For Me Wednesday, hosted by We Are THAT Family.