Liven Up Veggies

I don't know about you, but sometimes we just get tired of plain, boiled vegetables.  They can end up being leftovers for several nights in a row if they aren't spiced up a bit. 

I try to avoid too much fattening additives in my cooking like cream soups and cheeses, but every once in a while I will add some to a veggie to give it a kick. 

This week I made Cream Cheese Corn.  I had a huge block of cream cheese that I bought at Sam's a while back (for the cream cheese Trisket cucumber snack I posted about).  I boiled the corn (frozen from last summer's garden), drained it and added a little salt, pepper, minced dried onion (maybe 1 TB) and probably 6 oz. of cream cheese cubed.  It melted into a creamy yumminess. 

What do you do to spice up vegetables for your family?

Hot Cocoa Mix

We love hot cocoa around here.  Boxes of it seem to be economical when I can get them for 1.00 each but after one round of everyone having a cup, there doesn't seem to be many packs remaining in the box.

I started making homemade hot cocoa from a Betty Crocker recipe which we all love but it requires at least 4 cups of milk and can be time consuming when everyone wants a quick cup right away to help us thaw from playing outside.

Although this winter has been so mild in TN (did we even have a winter this year??), I found an instant recipe that seemed to be reasonable in price and I was willing to try it for an after school snack today.

It made about a half gallon bucket and 5 out of the 6 Fish Sticks said it was very yummy.  The other one wanted more sugar in his to which he was denied.  :)

Hot Cocoa Mix

4 c. powdered sugar

2 c. coca

5 c. powdered milk

2 tsp. salt

4 tsp. corn starch

2 pinches cayenne

Freezer Inventory

 I hesitate writing this blog post because some of you might make the false conclusion that I am OCD and I promise you, I am not.  I do like order and I do strive to be organized.  I also am not a perfectionist....here's the BUT....but, I am the manager of 8 people and I do have a total of 4 refridgerator/freezers so I realized recently that it's important for my own sanity to know what those bottomless, frozen pits contain.

SO, I took everything out of them, tried to organize them someway (like meat on one shelf, veggies on another, etc.) and then wrote out an inventory for each one.  The 2 in the laundry room I taped to the door.  The one in the basement and the one in my kitchen I keep in my Home Management notebook.  I wrote them in pencil so I can easily add tallies and erase them.

 The benefits of doing this is that it helps me tremendously in meal planning.  It also helps me not keep things in my freezer for eternity until there is more frost on them than food. 

Before I do my monthly meal plans, I can quickly scan the freezer inventory lists and can see if I need to buy more pork or if I have lots of squash from this summer's garden that I need to use up.  I know this will also help me when I begin to plant the garden next month.  I can gauge how much vegetables we have eaten since last summer's garden so I won't over plant any particular vegetable.  Speaking of, anyone want any frozen yellow squash or zucchini??  I'd love to erase some of those tallies!  :)

Pot Soaker Tip

A few month ago I found a recipe for homemade dishwashing powder.  I was so excited about trying it.  The recipe called for one part Borax to one part washing soda and a few drops of lemon essential oil.  Unfortunately the recipe did not clean my dishes, it left a sandy residue on everything and even made this white crust on the inside of my dishwasher (which unfortunately is still there).  So what was I to do with this half gallon bucket of dishwasher powder that I didn't want to use anymore?
Then I discovered something wonderful!  I sprinkled a heaping tablespoon of it one night to let my nasty, caked-on crock pot soak.  One hour later that goop just came right off with a few scrapes from my bowl scraper (an old credit card would work fine for this too).  It doesn't bubble or make suds, but somehow the combination works great as a pot soaker.  Now I keep a bucket under my sink to toss in my yucky pans and pots.  It works wonders.  Give it a try!

STRAWBERRIES

Strawberries are only 79 cents for 16 oz. this week.  I bought 40!!!  We love strawberries and I have learned over the last year to STOCK UP when things go on sale to use throughout the year.  I did this last year and we have enjoyed fruits all year long that I froze. 

Now if I can only make the time to wash, trim and freeze them all before the Fish Sticks eat them fresh!

Drug Store Run This Week

 At CVS I purchased 5 Revlon eye shadows, 1 bag of CVS jelly beans and 2 Soft Soap body wash.
The body wash was 2 for $7 with $5 ECB back.  That made them just $1 each.  There was a coupon for $1.50 off in Smart Source from 2/12.  That meant that I got both for free and even made $1.00 total.

The eye shadow was $5.49 each and I got $4 ECB back on each one with a limit of 6.  They came to $1.49 each.  Supposedly there was a $1 off coupon floating around from SS 1/29 but I didn't have it in my coupons - bummer.

The jelly beans were 99 cents with 99 cents back in ECBs so they were free.

 So my total before tax including my future ECBs was $6.45.

At Walgreens I purchased 2 Soft Soap body wash, 2 Desitin, 1 Colgate, 1 Walgreens Nasal Mist and 3 caramels.

 The body wash was $3 each with a $3 Register Reward when you buy 2.  I used 2 of the $1.50 off coupons making them both free.

The Desitin was $3 each also with $2 back when you buy 2 (other J&J baby products were on sale too).  I printed 2 $1 off coupons from the internet making them $1 each.

The Colgate was $3 with $3 back in RR making it free but with a 75 cent off coupon from SS 2/26, I made 75 cents from purchasing it.

The nasal mist was $5 with $5 in RR back so that was free also.

When I got to the check out I realized I had 6 items and used 5 coupons.  Remember Walgreens has a policy that the paper transactions can not exceed the number of items??  I then could not pay for my total using the Register Rewards from last week.  I grabbed 3 caramels at the check out totaling another 99 cents so that I could use 4 Register Rewards to pay.

My total minus tax but including RR for next week's purchase was $1.25.

Rice Pudding

Yesterday we tried a new snack. I noticed when I was menu planning that Fix-It and Forget-It had Old Fashioned Rice Pudding in the dessert section.  A Mexican friend taught me to fix Sweet Rice for the Fish Sticks several years ago and I thought maybe this recipe might be similar.  The texture was not soupy like the Sweet Rice but most of them really liked it.  I thought it made a great snack too and the best part was it used ingredients I keep on hand and I made it at lunch in the crock pot so it was ready after school.

Old Fashioned Rice Pudding

2 1/2 cups cooked rice

1 1/2 cups whole milk (probably any would do)

2/3 cup brown sugar

3 eggs, beaten

3 Tb. butter, melted

2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 c. raisins (we left those out)

Mix all ingredients and pour into lightly greased crock pot.  Cook on high 1-2 hours or low 4-6 hours.  Stir once during last 30 minutes.  Serve warm and cold.

So yummy!  Try it!