Football Season

I got some kind of stomach virus last weekend that knocked me off my feet for most of 3-4 days. After a week, my digestive system is starting to get back to normal and my appetite may be coming back! I can't remember the last time I've been sick like that and am so glad to be feeling better. Being sick definitely threw my week off course and thus, it's been very quiet here! 

 Go Redskins!

Football season is upon us! We love football at out house. And by we, I really mean my husband.


I have a really hard time following football. I see big guys running with the football and that's about as far as I get.

On the flip side, I really enjoy football snacks. Oh yeah! Dips, little weinies in sauce, cheese and crackers, stuffed jalapenos, meatballs, dips... did I mention dips? I love them all. I don't have any trouble at all following football snacks!

If only "football snacks" was a sport. I'd be a most loyal fan!

Well, this year I decided I would not be left behind during football season. I would try to learn a little more about football so maybe, just maybe, I could have at least an elementary knowledge of the game. I know just enough to enjoy watching baseball, basketball and hockey. Surely I could learn about football too!

I'd seen "women's guides to football" at bookstores in the past so I did an Amazon search. Then took my findings to my library to see what they had. I ended up with a generic Football For Dummies and Get Your Own Damn Beer, I'm Watching The Game: A Woman's Guide To Loving Pro Football.

So I don't condone the language in the title of the latter book but it was the only "women's guide" my library had. Besides, it's proven to be a very good read so far! And quite the conversation starter for anyone who sees the book!

I can't guarantee that I'll turn into a big football fan or that I'll retain a lot about the game. But I'm making an effort... and I'm sure I'll learn something!

Do you enjoy watching football or are you there for the snacks?

Inspiration for wreath from here and here.

No Spend September: Week 1

The first week of No Spend September went very well! We were away for Labor Day weekend so our challenge began on Monday 9/2.

• We paid bills and allotted money to the necessary categories. 
• My husband declared that he would not look at daily deal sites for the month of September. He loves them and finds all sorts of good deals this way but we don't want to be tempted to spend this month! 
• I followed some of the techniques in this book and did some serious planning for a one-time grocery shopping trip and monthly menu planning. This took extra time but we can already see the savings! 
• Cooked 14 meals plus spaghetti sauce, rice and some other meal components for the freezer. 
• I miss thrift store shopping! We drove right by the Salvation Army while doing our monthly shopping. Funny--I don't go to thrift stores that often; maybe once a month, but when we are purposely avoiding shopping I want to go!
• Same with eating out--we had several instances where it would've been so easy to eat out but I packed snacks to hold us over and we ate at home.
• We did stop at Culver's for FREE one-scoop sundaes with coupons sent for Andy's birthday. Culver's not only sends the birthday person a free coupon but also one for a relative of the birthday person. So nice! We had to stand against the temptation of ordering a Butter Burger and I had a weak moment when I caught a whiff of onion rings. But we stayed strong and enjoyed the freebie without purchasing anything else! We didn't make a special trip to Culver's but stopped there when going by anyways. 
• We've been careful to plan trips to make the best use of time and gas.
• I hung some laundry to dry; also cut the dryer time down for other loads. Most dried in less time or I hung them on the back of a chair to finish drying. 

I'm sure there are other frugal things but that sums up the week! 

The first week went well so we're continuing onward!

Dividing Nuts Into Portions

 Each month we buy some bags of nuts for snacks, usually from Trader Joe's. Their nuts don't have unhealthy oils and are very good quality.

Nuts are expensive and eating too many of them is counter-productive to weight loss.

So to help them last longer and make sure we ,meaning I, eat only an appropriate amount, I've started portioning them out into small containers and baggies at the beginning of the month.

We love this--the nuts are ready to grab and go and they last longer too!

When following the serving size recommended on the back of the bag, we end up with 15-16 servings of each kind of nut.

I don't have enough reusuable snack containers so I used sandwich bags too. To cut down on waste, we just put the empty bag back in the snack box to reuse the next month!

This has worked so well, I've been prepackaging other things too like cottage cheese and grapes. Super handy for packing lunches!

28 Dinners for September

As I mentioned yesterday, to help with planning our once-a-month grocery trip, I made a list of dinners that we'll be eating in September.

I tried to take into account for Saturday and Sunday nights when I want easy stuff and also a few nights where we will be gone in the evening. For the nights where we will be away over dinner time, I just wrote in "Early dinner/big snack" and no specific meal plan. We'll either do leftovers or snack type foods that night like cheese, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, veggies, nuts, etc. We always have something of that nature on hand so it should work out great!

Most meals will be served with a veggie or salad which I will come up with at the beginning of each week. I will choose 7 dinners off the list each week and put them on my weekly menu plan.

There are some repeats throughout the month; these are listed in no particular order! Meals marked with** indicate freezer meals that I made after shopping day and are ready to cook and eat!

Warning: Lots of links in this post!:-) 

1. Sunday: Breakfast-in-a-hurry**
2. Sunday: Tomato soup, cheese melts
3. Sunday: Rice Salad
4. Sunday: Spinach and cheese casserole**
5. Saturday: Hot dogs
6. Saturday: Hot dogs
7. Saturday: Bunless burgers**
8. Saturday: Bunless burgers**
9. Early dinner/big snack: leftovers or snacky meal
10. Early dinner/big snack: leftovers or snacky meal
11. Early dinner/big snack: leftovers or snacky meal
12. Rotisserie-style chicken #1: Chicken salad lettuce wraps
13. Rotisserie-style chicken #2: Mexican chicken skillet
14. Rotisserie-style chicken #3: Chicken gravy over brown rice
15. Skillet spaghetti
16. Pumpkin curry soup (with chicken added)
17. Crockpot Pork Stew**(substituted pork instead of beef)
18. BBQ chicken legs
19. Crockpot Lentil and Rice Pilaf
20. Crockpot Taco Soup**
21. Crockpot Thai Chicken with peanut sauce**
22. Crockpot Italian Sausage with peppers and onions**
23. Crockpot Cheeseburger Soup**
24. Beef **and Veggie Casserole (used beef instead of pork)
25. Chicken, sweet potato, green bean bake
26. Meatza
27. Breakfast-in-a-hurry
28. Baked tilapia or salmon

**Many of my freezer meals this month were crockpot meals that I assembled in gallon bags and then popped in the freezer. These were very fast to put together!
 

How I Grocery Shopped This Month

For this month's grocery shopping, I decided to follow a lot of the advice in this book and do all my shopping at once for the whole month. Besides, staying out of the stores more is good for our no-spend month!

I still will buy more fresh eggs this month and I kept some money out to buy chicken breasts when they go on sale; the sale should be coming around again soon! In addition, I have a Groupon for a produce box that I will use later in the month to supplement our supply of fresh produce.

This wasn't too different than usual since I often do a lot of my shopping at once. But this time, I did a lot more planning. I first took a thorough inventory of my pantry, fridge and freezer. Then I began making a meal plan for the month. I planned 28 dinners and made sure we would have enough things on hand for breakfasts and lunches.

After this planning was done, I started making a shopping list. I already have lists of what we buy at what stores with the prices. I used my store lists and the sale ads to determine what I needed to buy. I then tweaked the menu plan and grocery list in order to stay in budget.

This all took extra time but was well worth it. When shopping, I knew exactly how much of specific products I had at home so it helped me as I made decisions. This helped me save money and as a result, came in under budget! Very good for our no-spend month!

After shopping, my kitchen table looked like this:

A closer view in case you want to see what I bought! :-)

Part of my menu plan was based on a freezer cooking session which I did the next day! Now we have 14 meals plus some extras like spaghetti sauce, cooked brown rice, cooked lentils and shredded cheese in the freezer to use throughout the month.

It was a full couple of days--planning, shopping and then prepping and freezer cooking. But now, a week later, our hard work is definitely paying off as I'm able to pull food out of the freezer and so much of the planning has already been done!

I will share my list of 28 dinners tomorrow!

Homemade Mayonnaise

I've been wanting to try making my own homemade mayonnaise for a long time now! The raw egg thing kind of freaks me out so I've  waited to try it until I had a good source for farm fresh eggs.

Store bought mayonnaise usually features less than healthful oils and often sugar too! So by making my own, I'm able to use good oils and make a more healthful product.

I had "make homemade mayo" on my list for this week and then I saw that Money Saving Mom is hosting a "Make It From Scratch" challenge. I don't know if I'll join in every day this week with a new project/recipe but today I will!

I had read several recipes for mayonnaise and finally decided on this one from Happy in Dole Valley.

 I don't have sunflower oil on hand so I substituted olive oil and grapeseed oil. Almost every recipe I read said to use extra light olive oil and not extra virgin as the taste will get really strong. My olive oil is labeled as a combination of refined and virgin. To be on the safe side, I combined it 50/50 with grapeseed oil. We'll see how it tastes after it sets a while!

The mayo was super easy to make. I used my food processor; you can also use a blender, immersion blender or by hand with a whisk.

First, I gathered my ingredients.

Then I put the egg and seasonings into the food processor.

After starting the processor and mixing the ingredients, I began pouring the oil in very slowly.

And lo and behold, we have mayonnaise!

We thought it tasted very good! I plan to use it in chicken salad tomorrow.

Have you tried anything new recently?  I'd love to hear about it in the comments section!

**This post is part of the Make It From Scratch week at Money Saving Mom.**

Book Review: Cut Your Grocery Bill In Half

I recently borrowed the book Cut Your Grocery Bill In Half with America's Cheapest Family from the library. It was a wonderful read and gave me some new ideas and a fresh dose of motivation to work on fine-tuning my grocery spending.

I used to be a super coupon queen but since changing our eating habits, I just don't do as much of that as I used to. I still use coupons though when I can, just not in as large of quantities as before.

When folks ask me about coupons, I always tell them that coupons are only one way of lowering the grocery budget. While coupons, especially if your store doubles or triples the value, can help to drastically reduce your out of pocket costs, there are many other strategies to cut your grocery costs that are easy to put into practice wherever you live and don't depend on the coupons available or your grocery store coupon policies.

I loved that this book was not just about using coupons but thoroughly covered many aspects of grocery spending. The big emphasis was on planning and efficiency. The more planning you do--from your pantry/freezer inventory, to menu planning, to shopping once a month, to freezer cooking--the more you will save, both in time and money.

The authors, Steve and Annette Economides, grocery shop once a month for their family of 7 and at the time of writing, spent only $350 a month! This book isn't about just eating beans and rice either--they eat a good amount of meat, fresh fruits and vegetables.

We currently spend $300-350 a month to feed our family of two adults, plus regular hospitality. This includes food, cleaning supplies, paper products and personal care products. It doesn't include dog food, vitamins, or eating out. I'm not out to drastically reduce my monthly amount but rather to find ways to make my dollars stretch a little further. We find that we feel so much better when we don't eat many grains so we try to stick with that fairly closely while eating at home. The downside is that a low-grain diet isn't quite as cheap as eating more breads, pasta and cereal. Could I feed us a low-grain diet more cheaply? Yes, probably, but most likely I wouldn't be able to cut the amount in half at this point, except in dire circumstances. Then you just do what you need to do!

The strategies in this book are ones that can be applied to each family's situation and dietary needs. I'll mention a few tips that stood out that I would like to implement.

• Before menu planning, make a list of main dishes, veggies, fruits and starches you have to choose from. This makes menu planning super simple since you'll just have to match up the meat/main dish with a side or two.
• Before grocery shopping and menu planning, take stock of what you have on hand by taking complete inventory of your fridge, freezer and pantry. Make notes of breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack foods you already have. 
• Menu plan for 2 weeks, then work up to planning for the entire month!
• Food for thought: A fridge or freezer outside or in the garage can be an energy hog. The higher temps make them use more energy. 
• The Economides family would eat out for $18 or less (usually take-out). I wonder, since there are just two of us,  if we could do this for $10 or less for those meals when it's been a super crazy day and we want something quick. Some ideas for this are Chinese carryout, chicken from grocery store deli, dollar menu items and pizza. They suggest adding some side items from home for many of these options. And obviously, if going to  a sit-down restaurant,
• Because they shop once a month, they make sure they're stocked up on canned fruits and veggies to add variety at the end of the month when the fresh produce is gone. I use a lot of frozen veggies but know a few canned goods wouldn't hurt either.
• To know how much of a certain item you use in a specific time frame, label cans/jars with 1,2,3,4 etc. of however many you bought and the date purchased. When you get to the last one, you can tell how long it lasted and how many to stock up on when on a good sale or to last the month.
• 1 chicken, 3 meals: Roast a chicken. Divide meat into 2 piles. Use 1 pile for chicken salad sandwiches for meal #1 and then divide the second pile to use for stir-fry or stew for meal #2 and make soup for meal #3. I've used this idea before; many chicken recipes would work with this technique. 
• The authors are big on Once-A-Month Cooking. They cook and freeze 17 meals each month right after their big shopping trip, divided into categories such as 5 beef dishes, 6 chicken/turkey, 2-3 pork/ham and 3 misc. dishes such as lentil vegetable soup or calzones.The other meals are roasts, chicken and things that can easily be made fresh.
• A quick tip I know will come in handy for my own freezer cooking is to label pans on the end for easy reading once stacked in the freezer!

I got a lot out of reading this book and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see if there are any other ways they could be saving money on groceries!

**I was not  reimbursed in any way for this review. All opinions are my own! Thanks to my local library for having this book available!**

No Spend September

We're in the midst of a job and financial transition. So we've determined that September will be a no-spend month!

Actually, maybe we should call it a "no frills" or "no extras" month for a  more accurate description!

We will still pay our bills--the mortgage, insurance, gas/electric and so on. We will buy groceries. We will keep the cars filled with gas. We will buy necessities.

We won't buy dog food but we have a brand-new bag that will last for 2 months. We won't be doing a pantry challenge as such, but will be working to stretch the grocery budget as much as possible--whatever I can save in this area would be helpful to use elsewhere.  We won't be eating out or going shopping except with gift cards that we already have. No thrifting or clothes shopping  unless we absolutely need something! We'll try to combine trips to save gas as much as possible.

We will enjoy being creative with what we have. We'll watch movies we already have or are on our Netflix or Hulu Plus subscriptions. We'll work on home projects that don't require extra spending. We'll eat at home for the most part and still extend hospitality.  We will be resourceful when we have to. We'll remind ourselves that this is temporary and this no-spend challenge is a way to stay in the black and be able to use our emergency fund for, well, an emergency.

We will count our blessings--there are many-- and remember that God is our Provider and our Source of all things. Finances and material blessings are just a small part of His provision.

Don't be surprised if most of my posts for September center around the topics of frugality, creativity and resourcefulness!  I'll also be sharing updates on our "no spend" challenge from time to time!

Would you like to join in with this challenge? Let me know in the comments! You can set your own rules and goals!



 

Bread and Butter Pickles

We love bread and butter pickles! The homemade ones are so much better than what we get at the store.

This recipe is from my Mom although a very similar one is in my Ball canning book.

Pickles are a fairly easy food to can or "put up" as the old-timers call it. These do require a standing time of 3 hours before finishing the cooking and canning process so plan your day accordingly!

The pickles and onions need to be sliced pretty thin. I use the slicing blade on my food processor to do this and it only takes a few minutes!

Bread and Butter Pickles
Makes about 8 pints.

16 cups (4 quarts) sliced unpeeled cucumbers-the small ones are best for pickles.
6 cups sliced white onions
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup salt (non-iodized, canning and pickling salt)
5 cups sugar
3 cups white vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
2 Tablespoons mustard seed

Combine cucumber, onion and garlic in large bowl. Add salt and mix. Cover with ice and mix thoroughly. Let stand for 3 hours.

After 3 hours are up, drain well. DO NOT RINSE!

Combine remaining ingredients (sugar, vinegar and spices) in  a large pot. (I use a 6 quart and it is big enough for everything.) Add cucumber mixture and bring to a boil, stirring often.

Fill hot jars to 1/2 inch from the top. Adjust lids.

Carefully put jars in boiling water canner. After water comes back to a boil, process jars for 5-10 minutes.

Let cool in canner for a few minutes then remove from canner and place on towels on counter to cool completely.

Let cure for 6 weeks or so before opening to enjoy.

Jars of bread and butter pickles make wonderful Christmas gifts!

Refrigerator Pickles

Andy's mom makes these pickles and shared the recipe with me. They're easy to make and very yummy!

These are refrigerator pickles so no canning is needed. Just fill the jars as instructed and put in the fridge for a few days before opening to eat.

Refrigerator Pickles

Bring to boil in saucepan:

•  1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups cold water
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons sea salt

Add:

• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Some dill, either fresh or dried

Pour over thinly sliced cucumbers in jars. Let cool.

Refrigerate several days before eating.

**Vinegar mixture makes enough for 1 quart jar. Any size jar can be used.
**Pickles stay good in the fridge for a while.

Enjoy!

A Dog's Life

Andy took these pictures of Rock the other day and posted them to Facebook with statuses about how "hard" of a life Rock has.

Naturally, he got lots of likes and comments on these updates, because very few can resist a picture of a cute dog! Especially such a sleepy one laying on a cushy dog bed and a chenille blanket which at the moment is being used as a pillow.

One friend left a great comment that sums it all up. 

She said,
"A very rough life!! He has to decide which side to sleep on and does he lay top to tail or top to head. On the blanket or off? Over or under? There is NOTHING easy about this!!! LOL

Oh, to have such a life!

Cucumbers and Pickles

A friend gave me a huge bag of pickling cucumbers.

Enough for a batch of bread and butter pickles...

Two quart jars of refrigerator pickles...

And a bowl of cucumber salad!

The cucumbers in our garden are done for the season so I was happy for this gift!

**Pickle recipes coming soon!

Guilty? (Video)

We found the remains of a rabbit in our backyard recently. We're not certain Rock had anything to do with the bunny's demise. However, this was his response when we asked him about it.

(If you're reading this via a blog reader, you may need to click through to view video.  And if you aren't able to view, let me know!)

A Reminder To Read Ingredients Lists

 New bottle on the right--the packaging isn't the only change!

Recently, I used up a bottle of lemon juice and pulled a new one out of my pantry to use.

While pouring the lemon juice out of the bottle, I just happened to catch sight of the ingredient list. It included sugar and several other ingredients I didn't remember reading on the bottles before.

A few days later, I was organizing my recycling bin--to make room and squeeze a few more days out before a trip to the dump. I came across the old bottle and looked at the ingredients.

Old on the left; new on right.

Sure enough, they were very different.

Now, I realize that most  bottled lemon juices have additives and the most healthy lemon juice is what you squeeze yourself from fresh lemons. So I'm not even going to pretend that one bottle was healthy and the other is not. I buy bottled lemon juice for the convenience; I know there are some things added. I just don't think there needs to be that many of them!

Old bottle on the left; new on the right.

We try to limit added sugar in many of the products we buy, so I am a little disappointed that the new formula now has sugar and a bunch of other  additives.

That said, I will no longer be purchasing lemon juice from Aldi. If I need to purchase bottled lemon juice, I'll be looking for the purest form available affordably. Otherwise, I guess we'll be squeezing and freezing our own using this method. Not quite as convenient, but it would work.

Anyways, this is a reminder to me to read the ingredients periodically since they are known to change over time!

Do you read labels?

Adoption Gift

Our precious Baby Boy that we have been babysitting for almost a year just had his first birthday.

And not only were we celebrating his birthday but also the finalization of his adoption which took place on July 25th!

We wanted to give a meaningful gift to commemorate his adoption but also have it double as a birthday gift since the party was a celebration of both!

One year olds usually get so many toys and things that I was pretty sure his parents wouldn't mind something else.

I started looking online and on Pinterest for appropriate gift ideas and finally decided on this.

It was in our budget and a printable so we wouldn't have to wait for shipping, giving us ample time to get it printed elsewhere. Also, his mommy had this pinned on her adoption board so I knew she would like it!

Alison from Ten Tiny Toes Designs was awesome! The printable file appeared in my email approx. 40 minutes after ordering!

We chose to have this printed at Wal-mart as a mounted print. We had a coupon too! We love how it turned out.

I had such fun  making these cards the other day so I used the same technique to decorate wrapping paper and a matching card for this gift. I love decorating paper bags!:-)

Just wanted to share this if any of you are looking for a nice adoption gift!

Eva's Eggs

Finally.

We've found an affordable source for fresh eggs! I'm very excited.

I've been able to get some fresh eggs from the farmer's market some weeks but they are usually $3.50-$4 a dozen. As many eggs as we eat, I simply cannot afford to buy a month's worth of eggs at that price. Even though they are worth every penny and are extremely nutritious.

So I was happy to discover that one of the ladies in the local Southern Gospel group that my husband is a part of has begun selling eggs from her chickens. For $2 a dozen. And she'll bring them to rehearsal each week, so I don't even have to make an extra trip even though her house isn't that far away.

I will gladly purchase what I can from her and then supplement with grocery store eggs if needed!

Scrap Buster: Pennant Cards

I opted out of my weekly farmer's market trip last night. We're pretty set on veggies and I wanted to spend a little time at home by myself working on a creative project!

I don't know about you, but even though I love sewing and creating is part of who I am, it's difficult for me to carve out a little time and then to start something. There's always other work to be done and by the time I can sit down to work on something, I'm exhausted and just want to sleep!

So this time, I made myself use the time creatively. I quickly cleaned the bathrooms then sat down for a little crafty fun until my husband returned home!

I saw these cute pennant cards the other day so had decided I wanted to make some! I had cards and of course, plenty of scraps!

These cards are what I call "imperfectly perfect". I didn't make a pattern to trace for identical triangles nor did I measure anything. I just cut and arranged to my heart's content!

There was a time when I would've been more worried about getting everything just right. It's incredibly freeing to just create for the sake of creating! And enjoy the result!

One card got a couple black smudges on it and I cut a little heart and just stitched it on over the mark on the front.

I finished the cards off with stamping some words for birthdays, congratulations, and a thank you!

I have recipients in mind for several of these but am planning to make some more of these for my gift drawer because wouldn't a little stack of these cards make a cute gift?

Bubble Wrap Run

We are all about simple, free and low-tech fun around here! With the afternoon rains and/or heat lately, I've had to get creative to keep everyone productively busy when they can't go outside.

One can only watch so much Blue's Clues and Bob the Builder. (Or as Toddler Girl says, "Bubble Bill!" )

Toddler Girl(3) spotted a wad of bubble wrap in the office one day and asked to play with it. We taped it on the floor in the hallway so she could run up and down to her heart's content.

Toddler Boy(2) is a bit more tentative with bubble wrap so he hung around and watched for a while. He never did want to really run up and down on it but eventually drove the truck on it and seemed to prefer it that way.

To complete the theme, we also watched the Bubble Rap!

 What do you do when it's too hot or rainy to go outside?:-)

How I Plan My Weekly Menus and This Week's Menu Plan

It's been a while since I posted my weekly menu plans here. But I still plan each week! For me, it's key to using the food we have wisely and minimizing last minute restaurant visits because I have nothing planned.

There are many different methods and menu planning calendars out there. What works best for me right now is to make lists of meals on a piece of notebook paper. Nothing fancy--anyone can do this!

I make a list of breakfast, lunch, supper and snack ideas based on what I have on hand. I usually list 6-7 supper ideas--sometimes we don't use them all. Whichever meals we don't end up using get put on the next week's list.

We eat mostly eggs for breakfast and then I'll add a 1 or 2  other ideas to my breakfast list to keep it interesting. I will often make a more extravagant breakfast on Saturday mornings if we have time.

Lunches are based mainly on leftovers and some other quick and easy ideas in case we don't have leftovers.

When I make my menu plans, I plan almost exclusively from what I have on hand in my pantry, fridge and freezer. I don't grocery shop every week so I try to keep the basics for our meals stocked up to give me a good amount of cooking options!

Sometimes my meals don't make the most sense and may not seem to always go together. We don't really care about that--I do try to balance the meals with appropriate amounts of protein, carbs and vegetables. I've learned to just use what we have for the most part and skip making that extra trip to the store! We haven't gone hungry yet!

My menu ideas are pretty simple. It doesn't have to be complicated! In fact, over thinking this  and trying to come up with a bunch of blog-worthy meals can be overwhelming and stressful. What do we eat and what do we have on hand? When I answer those questions and not worrying about it being fancy or "right", my menu plan comes together in minutes instead of a long drawn-out task. It's ok to have peanut butter sandwiches or cheese toast on the menu! Sometimes I don't know what to make specifically but I know I have a pound of ground beef. So I'll just write "something with ground beef" on the meal plan. We often have Pasta Night on Friday. This week, I wasn't sure what I wanted to make so I just left it at Pasta Night. I'll come up with something by Friday night! At least I have an idea of what we're going to have. Sunday nights are usually leftover nights.

I keep a variety of bags of frozen vegetables in the freezer. My grocery store puts these on sale every 4-6 weeks for $1 a bag. I stock up and buy 10-15 at a time when they are this price since we eat a lot of veggies. If I don't have fresh veggies, I just choose one of those to go with our meal. Cheap and easy!

This summer, I've been keeping fresh veggies cleaned, chopped and ready to eat in the fridge. We pull these out to go with almost every weekday lunch.

I've found this way of meal planning really helps to make use of fresh food I have and prevents waste.  I plan some meals for specific days and then just use the others as we want to. I cross the meals off as we use them.

We like to have an afternoon snack so I plan for those on my list--usually fruit!

My menu plan for this week:


Breakfasts

• Eggs- will fix them different ways
• Berries, Nuts and Coconut 
• Eat Out

Lunches

• Leftovers
• Picnic lunch--rice salad, salmon, cheese/rice crackers, hard-boiled eggs and fruit (Sunday)
• Egg salad, rice cakes, veggies
• Cheese toast (sprouted wheat bread), tomato soup, veggies
• Egg drop soup, cheese and rice crackers, veggies
• Rice salad, hard-boiled eggs, veggies

Suppers

• Eat out (2x)
• Chicken gravy** on rice, zucchini chips
• Spicy Dijon chicken**, mashed butternut squash, veggie
• Pork carnitas rice bowls** with cheese, sour cream, black olives, chopped tomato and sliced green onions
• Tilapia, sweet potatoes, veggie
• Pasta Night

Snacks

• Pineapple popsicles
• Nuts and raisins
• Berry smoothies
• Canned peaches
• Leftover pancakes with peanut butter, canteloupe and blueberries
• Berry popsicles( made from leftover smoothies!)

  *My birthday is this weekend so there is a little more eating out on the menu because of that! My husband will take me to dinner one night and his parents are coming for an overnight stay and want to to take me out for breakfast to celebrate!

**Previously frozen foods.


This post is part of Menu Plan Monday!

More Pillowcase Bags

I finally got around to making up some of these easy tote bags made from pillowcases!

I'm a sucker for vintage linens or any linens I think are pretty so I had accumulated a small stack from yard sales and thrift stores. What I love most about these bags is that there is no waste or scraps leftover. The whole pillowcase is used and there's very minimal cutting! A good project for beginners or for trimming down your stash.

I had some spare time one night while waiting for dinner to finish cooking so I sat down and whipped up a pillowcase bag.

It turned out so cute and was so easy--much cuter than this one--so the next day I sewed up three more during nap time.

One was a king-sized pillowcase--it made a more squarish bag. The regular pillowcases make a more rectangle-shaped bag. 

I plan to keep two of these for myself and put the other two aside in my gift stash!

I've already used mine for groceries, library books and the pool and they worked great!

Saturday Morning Breakfast

 A leisurely Saturday morning breakfast!

• Hootenanny pancake
• Blueberry syrup--with fresh blueberries we picked on the 4th!
• Bacon

Have a  wonderful weekend!

Poison Ivy Relief

I must've come in contact with poison ivy and/or sumac while working in the yard last week. I wore gloves but not long sleeves--my arms are very itchy and rashy. 

I began googling and researching poison ivy after my mom suggested that's what it sounded like. As I read the symptoms of poison ivy/sumac/oak, I realized that it completely described my mystery rash last fall for which I eventually needed steroids to get rid of. So this may be the second time I've gotten poison ivy in under a year.

Awareness is huge--I now recognize that we have poison ivy and sumac on our property and can take care to prevent coming in contact with it in the future. I've washed my shoes, gloves and gardening tools since the oil from the plants that causes the rash can stay on these things a long time. I don't want to keep coming in contact with this stuff!

But in the meantime, it itches. Really bad. What's a girl to do?

I've been using calamine lotion and aloe vera gel. These do help to relieve the itching but what has helped the most so far is baking soda and apple cider vinegar!

• Mix small amount of baking soda and water into a paste and apply to rash.
• Let dry. It will be dry in a couple of minutes and will start to flake off.
• Rinse off baking soda mixture with cool water and carefully pat dry with towel. Vigorous rubbing can intensify the itch.
• Spray or pour apple cider vinegar over rash. This will burn but only for a minute or two. (Since the rash is on my arms, I let them drip dry over the sink for a minute.)

With this method, I usually have no itching for about 1.5 hours and then only tolerable itching up to 2.5 hours. Sweet relief!  The rash seems to be starting to dry up too!

I'd rather not use stronger creams and medications unless absolutely necessary, although if I get desperate enough, I have no trouble resorting to those. But I'm glad this natural inexpensive method is working for me right now.

Do you have any poison ivy remedies to share?

End Of The Month Food Prep

Usually by the last week of the month, I have pretty much used all of the grocery money from our cash envelope.

We still have plenty to eat. It just may not be our first choice or the easiest choice. But there is food; usually food that needs to be prepared in some way before it's ready to grab and eat.

By Friday, our choices were looking a bit slim and the fridge a bit empty. But a glance at the produce drawer told me otherwise.

There was plenty of fresh produce; it just needed to be prepped!

We had broccoli, two rutabagas, a large head of purple cabbage, some grapes, a bunch of kale, a cucumber and two zucchini.

I set these items out on the counter and by the time the morning was over, we had food ready to eat in the fridge once again.

• Broccoli, cucumber and  one zucchini cut up to eat as fresh veggies.
• Rutabaga peeled and diced into chunks to be cooked and mashed like mashed potatoes. 
• One zucchini sliced for stir-fry.
• Grapes picked over and ready to grab for a snack. 
• Kale chopped for cooking. 
• Large cabbage leaves set aside to be used for lettuce wraps.
• The rest of the cabbage made into a slaw. 

I had also boiled a dozen eggs  to have ready to eat!

Amazing how a little prep work can open up so many more possibilities for meals and snacks! And taking care to use these things prevents food waste and stretches my grocery dollars too.

2013 Garden

Here are some pictures of our 2013 garden.

I've been super slow in getting everything in the ground and then taking care of it but it seems to be thriving anyways!

My garden plot isn't picturesque--it's the "raised" garden bed that was here when we moved in; it had been neglected for a long time and the boards around the garden are pretty much rotted out. We don't have the time or energy--or expertise-- at the moment to replace it so we just used what we had and have been planting there as is. We did enlarge the garden space by about 3 feet in the front and 5 feet on the side. So some is level with the ground and some is raised!

Fortunately, our soil is very good--nice and brown instead of Carolina red clay! This is a blessing! 

I've gathered a little gardening experience over the years by planting a few things in flowerbeds and pots but I'm still learning as I go. I'm trying to remember to take notes as I go along so I can remember the details and learn from my mistakes and successes.

There are no weeds in the garden of my dreams...but this is reality. So you will see some weeds in these pictures. I try, I really do! :-)

Green beans almost ready to pick!

Pepper and onions.

Zucchini. We've picked three nice ones so far. Cucumbers are producing well too.

I have basil growing on the deck in containers. We had a couple Rubbermaid totes without lids so we drilled holes and made planters! I have dill in one but it's not looking so good at the moment. The basil is doing great! I've made this awesome Creamy Basil and Avocado Dip and have the ingredients to make some pesto.

Other things growing that are not captured in these close-up shots: tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, more onions in planters, Swiss chard and of course, our mystery plants.

How is your garden growing? 

Mystery Plants

A few weeks ago, I discovered a sizable zucchini/cucumber type plant in the garden row where I didn't plant anything.  The leaves were slightly different than my other plants of these types so eventually I determined that this must be a weed and pulled it out.

Well, imagine my surprise today when out of my bean rows, I saw three more of these vines growing happily. And these guys have blossoms!

Hmmm...I'm curious as to what they are and how they got there--perhaps from kitchen scraps I've used as compost?

A quick google search on various viney type plants tells me maybe  acorn squash or canteloupe?

Definitely leaving these in the garden and can't wait to see what they turn out to be!

Do you have any ideas what these vines may be?

Hand Me Downs

A friend gave me a bag of hand-me-down clothes today. I was super excited to find five pieces that fit and were things I can use!

The little white shirt/jacket looks like it will be fun to accessorize and layer over other pieces with skirts or jeans.

It was like Christmas!

As adults, we don't go through clothing like growing children do so we've found we just don't need as many articles of clothing! We don't get that many hand-me-downs, but when we do, I'm always happy to look through to see if there's anything we can use and then pass the rest along.

On the flip side, we love giving our extra clothes away as well if we know someone who can use them. I prefer giving them to someone before donating to a thrift store if possible. Freecycle is also a good option. As of course, yard sales!

Do you enjoy hand-me-downs?

Mud

Two minutes with my back turned cheering on Toddler Girl as she rode the tricycle all by herself was enough time for Toddler Boy to find a pile of mud.

And track it all over the porch and driveway.

He is a mud and dirt magnet, that boy!