Creamy Mexican Pasta

A few days ago we tried another new recipe, Creamy Mexican Pasta. It was super yummy! Super simple to put together with cream cheese, salsa, chicken, some milk and chicken stock. The kids were SUPER excited to have macaroni for dinner and even hubby ate this twice in one day :)

As you know this week I am doing reviews of my new cookbook. So far we have like 3 out of 4! I think we would have liked the Jazzy Ramen more if we had used a different type of noodle. Something with a little bit of a bite would have been nice with all the soft veggies, I may try it next time with a spiral cut pasta instead. The chicken tortilla soup was incredible. I didn't get a pic of it but man was it good! Tonight I am making Chicken Fajitas and fried rice, I will be using the fajita seasoning recipe and the fried rice recipe out of my new cookbook. I am really hoping they are both hits :)

Attempting to satisfy pregnancy cravings without breaking the bank.

One thing I have learned through 8 pregnancies is that I LOVE FAST FOOD when knocked up! On a normal basis I can take or leave fast food no problem. Actually I usually like to cook and eat at home most of the time, but when pregnant that goes out the window. I want fried foods, cheese, and tons of butter! So in a attempt to satisfy my cravings and still leave some money in the grocery budget for the other people in the household I decided to try and make my own fast food.

First off we have fried Mozzarella balls. I want fried cheese BAD! So I attempted to make them myself. It really was pretty simple. Chunk up some mozzarella, dip it in flour, coat with egg, then into the bread crumbs, back to the egg, re-coat in more bread crumbs and then freeze for at least 20 min. Once frozen deep fry in vegetable oil till they turn golden brown. In a attempt to be more frugal I used one egg and equal parts water, homemade bread crumbs, and drained on a kitchen towel instead of a paper towel. Those little golden gems turned out wonderfully, and no I didn't share! Next up is my craving for Pizza Hut's Cheese Sticks. I have tried every recipe out there to try and recreate these Cheese Sticks and nothing came close. I finally stumbled on the perfect cheese sticks the other day. I make up several batches of this homemade bread each week. I got the idea of cutting the bread in half lengthwise, melting some butter, mixing in some garlic salt and brushing over the bread (OK maybe dumping the butter on is a more accurate term!). Then top with some shredded mozzarella and bake till the cheese is golden. I served it with some spaghetti sauce and I was in heaven. Seriously I could eat this every single night for dinner no problem!

Whole Wheat Pancakes -Pantry Recipe-

Anyone who knows my children knows that we go through a obscene amount of frozen chocolate chip pancakes! Two boxes a week at least and that is being conservative :(

This month we are doing a pantry challenge so no more buying frozen pancakes and lets face it my kids are not going to suddenly start eating oatmeal. So that left homemade pancakes but as a mother of 4 children under 6yrs old I don't have the time to make pancakes from scratch in the mornings. That leaves making my own frozen pancakes. In an attempt to trick my children in to eating healthier I made whole wheat chocolate chip pancakes :) and then froze them individually. They are just as simple to thaw in a toaster and taste wonderful :)

Whole Wheat Pancakes

4c. Whole wheat flour

8tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Salt

4tsp Sugar

4 eggs

4c. Milk

8T Vegetable Oil

Mix all ingredients and make as normal but before you flip for the first time sprinkle with chocolate chips :)

Here they are all done....One batch makes about 40 pancakes.

Then once they are all done place them on a baking sheet and freeze. Once frozen place in a freezer bag and thaw in the toaster when ready to eat.

Of course I couldn't help myself I had to do a cost analysis on homemade frozen pancakes versus store bought.

Homemade: $3.65 for 40

Store Bought: $12 for 40

That is a savings of $25 for one month in our house or $300 for a year!

Dinner Prices

So for a long time I have been reading blogs about frugal cooking and how to stretch a buck when it comes to dinner. I have often wondered how much these frugal dinners REALLY cost and how much of a savings you get from applying their principles. So being the ever "quirky" person that I am I sat down with my grocery receipts tonight and worked out exactly how much tonight's dinner cost.....

Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Romaine Salad:
$5.76 Whole Chicken
$1.02 Potatoes
$0.37 Butter
$0 Romaine (WIC)
$0 Condensed milk (WIC)

Total: $7.15

Not bad for a family of 4 :)

Now as you know one of the basic principles of frugal cooking is to stack recipes so that you use the leftovers from one meal in a totally different meal the next night. Using the leftovers from tonight's dinner I will be making a casserole for tomorrow nights dinner....

Chicken and Rice Casserole with potato cakes:
$0.84 Frozen Veggies
$1.39 Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
$0.50 Rice
$0.94 Cheddar Cheese
$0 Chicken (leftovers)
$0 Potatoes (leftovers)

Total: $3.67

Again REALLY not bad for a family of 4 especially since this meal will also serve as lunch for the next day.

Plus I have the bones and skin from the chicken cooking in the crockpot right now to make chicken stock....so I am also getting 4+ cups of chicken stock for "free".

Thanks to the Happy Housewife for both these recipes and teaching me how to cook a whole chicken in my crockpot. It was yummy and I will defiantly be doing it again!

"Left Over" Pizza

No I am not blogging about old pizza in my fridge but rather my latest recipe. I don't know about you all but I always have leftover veggies in my fridge at the end of the week and I have no idea what I bought them for. A couple of months ago I was just so sick of trying to find ways to use these veggies when it suddenly hit me....PIZZA! You can put ANYTHING on a pizza and everyone will eat it! This weeks pizza has bell pepper, zucchini, spinach, tomatoes, homemade sauce out of the freezer, leftover lunch meat, green onions, and tons of olives on my side. The crust is super simple, 3c. flour 1c. hot water, and 3/4tsp yeast....that's it! This huge pizza managed to survive for a whole 12 hrs before it was polished off, can't say the same thing if I had steamed up the veggies and served them with something else. Plus I got an entire meal out of things in my fridge that otherwise would have gone to waste.

Baking Day

I try and set aside one day each week for my baking and since I didn't have to work today I figured I had best get it all over with today while I had the time. I made a few of the usual things like Banana Muffins for the girls and Bacon Biscuits for hubby. I wanted to make some bread for dinner tonight but I have some how worked my way through a 50lb bag of flour without realizing I was running out! Looks like I have a trip to Sam's club in my near future!

Way back as a newlywed I made these biscuits for Hubby and he has been asking for them ever since. I make them about once a month and it is a huge deal for him. They are a basic yeast roll with bacon, onions, thyme, and olives mixed in. They are super easy to make but they take so long that I hardly ever have the time to devote to them...in total 40min from start to oven! Lol that is probably partly because every time I make them I have a 5yr old "helper" I don't know why but she only wants to help in the kitchen when I am baking....maybe an inner pastry chef coming out in her? I can only hope :)

Kitchen update

Well I finally worked up the nerve and decided to do my 2 weeks of grocery shopping this last weekend. I normally spend about $150 a week on groceries for a family of 4 plus daycare kiddos, so I was expecting to spend about $300 when shopping for 2 weeks at a time. I looked over my menu for the next two weeks and reviewed my inventory and then wrote out my shopping list for the week. It was a REALLY long list and my cart was REALLY full but once I rang it all up I almost fell over....drum roll please.....grand total of $180! Are you kidding me!?

Now I understand what everyone is talking about when they say you save a fortune by shopping once a month. Now I am not quite up to THAT level yet and I am smart enough to know that I am going to have to pick up an item or two over the next few weeks but I know that even with the odd item here and there it will be way less that $300. We shall see how it goes and I will give you all an update at the end of the two weeks when we have the final totals.

Part of this savings came from not using as much processed foods. This is taking some getting used to! My first issue is with using dried beans instead of canned. When you look at the price comparison it is SO much cheaper to buy the dried beans as well as being healthier (have you looked at the sodium content in a can of beans?!) but all the work to cook them before use is a pain in the rear! I have been working on dinner for over 3hrs now because I have to soak/cook the black beans before I can start the soup they go in. Now it is not like it is hard or anything but anyone who knows me knows that I forget everything that isn't right in front of me, so to remember 3hrs before dinner to start the beans is a real pain. I am going to start looking into soak/cooking the beans in a crock pot in the future. This is also an issue with making my own bread, I love doing it and it saves a fortune but remembering to make it with enough time for it to rise is another issue I am having. I have tried making bread for sandwiches in the past and it really doesn't work that well for us, no one uses it and it ends up getting thrown away. I decided to buy the sandwich bread and make the bread sticks/french bread/pizza crusts from scratch and that has been working really well for us.

I'm a busy little bee over here!

Well all the festivities are over and I have to say I am glad. I need a break from all the hub-bub and drama for a while!

I am happy to say that my garden is actually growing and looking pretty healthy if I do say so myself :D My zucchini are taking off like you would not believe, as are my cucumbers. My onions and tomatoes just sprouted and are tiny but growing well. I think that the only thing left is the bell peppers and they are taking their sweet time to sprout, I am starting to wonder if they are ever going to come up! My strawberry actually has about 4-5 white berries on it so we shall see if I get to them before the birds do.

I just made the best homemade french bread for dinner, it was so soft and light that I ate about 1/2 of it! LOL! I am happy to say that I won a bread maker on eBay for quite the bargain. Now I know that a "real" crunch mama would continue to make bread by hand but I am a tried mama! With 6 kids in the house under the age of 5 I really don't have the time to do all the kneading and transferring that is needed to make bread from scratch every day. After all you can only rely on the supervisory skills of a 4yr old so much before a catastrophe occurs. So this is my compromise with myself. I will continue to save money by making bread at home I will just be doing it using the bread machine. I am very excited for it to get here!

I also received the cloth napkins I ordered off eBay yesterday and have started cutting them down into smaller sizes for use on our table. I have about 5 done so I am happy to say we are now through using paper napkins!

Kitty litter wise I have to admit I am a complete failure at making my own litter. It was easy to do and the kitty did use it but it just took so darn long to do it! So in the interest of saving myself a little time and energy I have gone back to pre-packaged litter....gasp! My compromise towards being green was that I am not using the clay litter or the crystals anymore, instead I am using the recycled newspaper. For $2.11 a week I am happy to have all the work done for me!

My next project is going to be finding a natural household odor neutralizer. With 2 kids that still wet the bed and lose used Goodnights (YUCK) plus a kitty box just down the hall this house is starting to smell very unattractive! Bry says he can't smell it but I think he just says that so he can get out of helping clean. I use baking soda and EO on the carpets but I need something that I can leave out all the time to absorb the smells on a daily basis. We shall see what I find.

I think that is all my latest news and drama. Hope you guys are having a wonderful weekend!

Homemade "Pop-tarts"

Well I finally worked up the nerve to make these and I have to say that while they are not pretty they are really good! The homemade pie crust was the sticking point for me and this was my first attempt at making it. We shall have to see what the reviewers think of them, as you all know there is no one out there as picky as a 4yr and 2yr old!

Homemade Bread

In an effort to cut down our grocery budget (spent $1,100 last month) and eat healthier we are trying to cut out all the processed foods in our diet. I finally got up the nerve to make homemade bread again after having some disastrous results in the past. The loaf I made tonight actually LOOKS like bread so we are already ahead of the game. I haven't tried it yet since it is supposed to cool completely before you slice it. It is kind of on the small side...maybe it is because I only kneaded it for about 4min instead of 10 but my arms were tired! We shall see how it tastes :D Not sure what the cost comparison is for making it at home versus buying it in the store...Since it only took 2c of flour and a little yeast/milk/butter I would think I could make quite a few loafs for the amount I usually pay for one pre-made in the store. The question will be if I can get my hubby and kids to eat it without complaining that it doesn't look like what they are used to. My next loaf will be whole wheat...that should be interesting!

My next baking project will be to make homemade "Pop-Tarts" the girls love them but they are so expensive when you eat them at the rate my kids do (about 1box per 2 days). They seem simple to make the most complicated part will be making my own pie crust, never tried that before but it can't be as hard as making bread!