Be Daring

Have you eaten a terrific dish at a restaurant and wished you knew how to make it?  I do all the time and love to come home, google it and try to prepare it myself. Sometimes it tastes perfect, sometimes it needs tweaking and sometimes it sends me back to google. 

Thai Green Curry is one of those dishes. International foods at Kroger help so much with jars of sauces and packets of mixes, many of them coming with recipes. 

Be daring and try your hand at creating your favorite restaurant dish!

More Meal Plans

I know August is almost over and I'm just now posting our meal plan, but I wanted to show you what I did this summer.  I have loved my meal calendar so much!  I wanted to add recipe cards to the system that are tried and true that I use over and over.  It led me to the site, where I have shared before, that has a monthly meal plan for Aldi grocery store, another one for Aldi in the fall and a last one of all Crock Pot meals.  I cut and pasted from the www.momadvice.com site and put into a document.  I made small cards for my calendar for each meal, using the guides that the web site gives for side dishes.  I tried my best to color code them based on the cardstock I had.  It didn't take me too long and I'm so glad I did it. 

For August I planned for us to eat 1 week from each new menu.  I left a week open for leftovers, breakfasts meals and meals on the run.  These are tried and true recipes that my family has loved for years.  It was well worth the effort.

Now that school is in full swing, our schedule is looking a bit crazy.  Beginning next week we will have a cross country meet every Monday, a middle school football game every Thursday and a high school football game every Friday.  That means 3 days a week we will either eat really late dinners or dinners that I need to pack on the go - otherwise we could have some huge eating-out expenses.  I'm hoping to go through my recipe files and find great recipes that I could pack for the games.  I plan on making a list of these recipes and then filing them together for On-The-Go menus.  It requires that I stay on top of my game, but it's essential to get us through the  next 10 weeks....until wrestling & basketball.  :)

Recipe cards

August  meal plan

A Toy Worth Buying

There are only a few toys that I would recommend to other moms. Toys that stand the test of time. Toys that invite creativity. Toys that include a wide age range. Toys that don't break the budget. Toys that don't break either. Toys that even the parents enjoy. Here's one we have loved. 

The Go To Dish

Do you have a recipe that is your go to when you bless others with a meal or when you host company?  One of my favorites is Creamy Chicken Burritos. Add a bag of blue tortilla chips, salsa, sour cream, maybe taco sauce and a salsa. Yummy and easy. Guess what's for dinner tonight?

Great Cereal Deal

Walgreens has Post cereal for 1.75. Match it with a $1/2 coupon from SS 7/28 and that makes them $1.25 a box. I grabbed 16!!

Mixing Up the Lunch Menu

School is in full swing and menu planning just kicked back in gear.  I wanted to start off the year with organization for breakfast, lunch AND supper - not just supper.  I've been trying to mix it up with breakfast so we are not just having cereal every morning.  I have also tried new things for lunches because my Fish Sticks are not peanut-butter-and-jelly-every-day kind of kids.  I don't blame them.

So I came up with a guideline to help me keep lunches creative.  This guideline helps me in my grocery planning also.

Mondays:  Sandwiches
Tuesdays:  Wraps
Wednesdays:  Soups
Thursdays:  Frozen packaged
Fridays:  Finger foods / Kabobs

Here's what we've tried so far in the last 2 weeks: 

M - peanut butter and Nutella, turkey & cheese, tuna salad
T - leftover chicken salad in a wrap, bacon bit and cheese quesadilla, and salmon & cheese quesadilla
W - leftover beef stew, canned ravioli
Th - Bagel Bites & Pizza Rolls (I'm not one to buy the frozen packaged stuff but we don't do any of the lunch meals at school so this a treat for my kids)
F - the picture below left today in their lunch boxes - It's pizza in a bowl with a side of crackers- they had it last week too and it was a big hit!

I'm always on the lookout for good lunches that don't hurt my grocery budget and don't take too long to prepare.

turkey ham, pepperoni, bell peppers, cheese cubes, olives & cherry tomatoes

Keeping It Running Smoothly

I bought this calendar at Walmart for our schedule. My daughter came up with a color coding system and I love it. Now all the Fish Sticks know what we are doing and when. Along with my meal planning calendar, I'm hoping to keep our crazy, big family running as smoothly as possible. 

My Favorite Vegetable

I love vegetables and one of my very favorite is spaghetti squash. This was my first year to grow it in my garden.

My best way to eat it is to cut it lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, lay open side down in dish with about 1/2 inch of water. Microwave 10 minutes. Scoop out with a fork. Add salt, pepper, butter and fresh Parmesan. Delicious!!!

A great lunch!!

Quick Lunch Idea

For lunch we made these yummy salmon quesadillas. Served with sour cream and homemade salsa made a delicious and easy lunch!  

Zaycon Meats

A couple of years ago, I read a blog post about a company called Zaycon Foods.  They provide quality meats at excellent prices in bulk.  I checked to see if they made deliveries in my area and they did not, so I signed up to be notified if they were to ever head this way.

Last year I received word that my town would now have drop offs.  Every couple of months, Zaycon notifies me through email of the meat sale that they will be running.  You purchase on line in large quantities (usually about 40 lbs. or so) and then they let you know when and where the pick up will be. 

This morning I got 93% lean ground beef.  The cattle were grass fed until a few weeks before slaughter and then given corn to fatten a little bit.  I paid $3.49 per pound.

So far, I have purchased boneless, skinless chicken breasts, bacon, spiral ham, breakfast sausage links and now ground beef.  I have been so pleased.  I love keeping my freezer stocked with quality meats at reasonable prices.  It helps me not have to constantly be looking for sales at my local grocery stores. 

The pick-ups are very convenient.  Mine is in a church parking lot in town.  The pick-up time is a 45 minute range.  I meet a refrigerated truck, they check their iPad for my order and load up my van.  It's so simple.  The meat is cold and not frozen, which allows me to freeze it in smaller portions when I get home.  This is one of the 3 food co-ops that I am involved in.  I can't wait to share the others with you.  Check out Zaycon and see if they are available in your area too!

I got 4 of these in my box.  Each is 10 lbs. of ground beef

Before freezing, I cut each log into 1 lb. (approximately) sections and put in freezer bags.

CVS Quick Deals

Got a few good deals at CVS this week. Soda was 69 cents, Herbal Essence was $1 each and Oral B Action Toothbrush was 99 cents. The store ad mentioned coupons in the Sunday paper so those were the only match ups I checked. I threw the ad and the coupons in the car and tore them out in the parking lot. Sometimes couponing doesn't have to be time consuming or planned in advanced. Oh yea, and the Starbucks iced coffee was free...and yummy!