Author Archives: Sheila

Saving on Saturday

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Time for a confession, we have already spent out entire grocery budget for the month of February, well actually we spent it all by last Sunday aka “Junk Food Sunday.” I actually do know where all of it went and I am ok with it. But I definitely need to make sure that we use up all the food we have so that I am not wasting and going out to buy more. This week I have really been focused on not have any food waste. Monday, everyone took left-overs for lunch. Kendall ended up taking 3 separate days of left-over from the veggie tray to dip. On Tuesday, I made sliders to use the Hawaiian Rolls and cheese from the cheese tray. Wednesday was a pick your own left-over. Thursday, I took the rest of the broccoli and cauliflower covered with cheese slices and baked. I also used the rest of the baby carrot to cook as a side dish.

For lunch on Saturday (today) I cut up the rest of the chicken from Costco last week and made chicken and cheese quesadillas with Taco Fries. I used up the rest of the Taco dip by placing on top of French fries! This was an awesome treat at lunch! Everyone liked the fries! I am also going to count our Taco fries as a new recipe this week! We still have about 2 cups of chicken that is cut up.

I found this morning a new recipe to try in the crockpot. It calls for 3 cooked chicken breast. Instead of cooking chicken breast, I am going to use the rest of the chicken from Costco and also throw in a couple of sticks of teriyaki chicken that is left-overs from Chinese on Friday! I made 16 cups of chicken broth from the bones and skin of the chicken so I am positive that we have gotten our monies worth from that chicken.

Another way I am saving this week is by using gift card earned via Swagbucks. We hit Walmart last night and purchased some needed personal hygiene items, filters for our heating and air system and even water flavor packets using a gift card!

I am also keeping an eye on the cost of flights for our August trip to Disney. It would appear that I may be able to get round trip flights for less than $200 each!

Breakfast Casserole

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Breakfast is one of our favorite meal around here! Over Christmas I tried a several breakfast casserole recipes. Most ended up tasting the same or being more of a time consuming effort than I cared to repeat. So I was not expecting much when I tried this particular one. I am not sure where I found it and I tried to goggle with no success.

6 slices of bread ( this cause for crust removed but I left mine one)
Butter
1lb of bacon or other breakfast meat ( I used sausage)
1/2 cup of shredded cheese (increased to 1 heaping cup)
6 eggs ( I used 8 as that was what was left in the carton)
2 cups of milk
salt and pepper to taste

Butter the bread and the dish place the bread butter side up.
Top with meat
Sprinkle over cheese
Mix together egg, milk, salt and pepper
Pour over bread and meat.
Let sit for 8 hours or overnight
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes

I left the casserole in the oven overnight but the instructions say to allow to come to room temperature before heating.

A recipe winner and repeat!

Menu Planning Monday

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Junk Food Sunday is officially in the books. The goal this week is to use up the left-overs and stay sane. This is actually one of the slower weeks for us as far as activities go. I am only working two nights! Sadly, I don’t have a new recipe on the plan but I need to get motivated with posting about the last one.

Breakfast– Saturday- Bacon, eggs, grits and biscuits.Sunday- left-overs for me and the girls. Boys had men’s breakfast. Monday- muffins, Tuesday- bagels , Wednesday, Thursday, Friday- choice of toast, eggs, sausage, bagels, cereal or grits. 

Lunch-  Saturday- left-overs, Sunday-Mexican at a Resturant with friends., Matt has 3 salads, I have 2 salads and the kids have a combination of salads chicken nuggets and sandwiches. , Everyone is taking left-overs for Monday so it works out well 

Dinner-  Saturday- Rotiserie Chicken from Costco, green beans and corn (left-overs) and stuffing., Sunday- Junk FOOD Monday- vegtable tray and fruit tray with cheese tortellini , Tuesday- Han and cheese sliders and potato chips(yes all left-overs), Wednesday- Pick your own left-overs, Thursday- Salisbury steak and rice Friday- Pizza 

January In Review

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I don’t ever remember the month of January feeling so long….I honestly think someone stuck an extra six weeks in it. The good news is that it is over and we actually stay the course fairly well for the month. We were able to stick to our budget and made some really fun plans for this year. I plan to share those soon as well. As you can tell I have lots of plans!

Goal #1 Grocery Budget of $550- This was a close one at $552.98 for the month. I am going to call this one a success. I want to try and keep things on a even level more this year instead of huge month and really low months. We are headed to Costco for our monthly trip today and we also need to grab a couple more things for our Super Bowl party.

Goal #2 – Record and keep up with gas/ auto purchase- We spent $455 on auto related things including gas, oil change and wiper blades.

Goal #3-Use a cash envelope system for everything possible. Success!

Goal #4- Blogging- 15 post per month. 13 for the month. I do have another recipe to report on but just did not get it posted. This post should have also been in January so I am very close to success.

Goal # 5- Fitness- Goal is to walk 3 times a week. I managed to walk once a week except for the week I was sick. It is a start.

Goal #6 – Bible study- Goal- 3x a week – A fail

Goal #7-Attempt at least 52 new recipes this year.- This has been successful with keeping up with it so far. But the result are not so successful.
Tator Tot Casserole and Taco Tator Tots and Chicken Burrito Soup
I did try another breakfast casserole and will get a post up about it soon.

Menu Planning on Tuesday

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I am posting this menu a day late this week but I have a good reason, the crud. I actually started feeling sick last Thursday. I managed to stay in the game and work all day Friday. Saturday-I crashed and ended up staying in bed all day. Luckily that did the trick as I returned to normal and even worked on Sunday night.  One thing we have been thankful for especially with me being sick is simple meal or things that we can heat and eat.  

The evening are starting to get busier and I have increased my working time so things are busy,hectic and on some days down right crazy.  Pizza is becoming a go to easy meal for us and I am still using gift cards earned last year to cover the expense so another win win for the present. 

Breakfast– Special treat-gravy biscuit from Biscuit King. Matt and I shared our lunch money for this treat. Sunday- Breakfast casserole (new recipe) Monday- bagels, Tuesday- eggs, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday- choice of toast, eggs, sausage, bagels, cereal or grits. 

Lunch-  Saturday- left-overs, Sunday-KFC, Matt has 3 salads, I have 2 salads and the kids have a combination of salad, sandwich and grab and go. 

Dinner-  Saturday- Orange chicken and egg rolls, Sunday- Church pot luck- I sent cowboy beans and cornbread casserole. Monday- Shake and bake home version pork chops, scalloped potatoes and pears, Tuesday- Mini Taco, Wednesday- Pizza, Thursday- Crockpot chicken and dumplings. Friday- Spaghetti and Meatballs. 

Recipe Challenge Winner

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I admit that I was becoming quite discouraged with my recipe challenge. I have been really diligent over the past several weeks to not only locate but make sure we cooked and tried new recipes. Everything has been eaten, but disappointing as no-one wanted to have it a second time.

I am so glad to say that we found a winner this week. Burrito Bowl Soup . This is from one of my favorite recipe site! Another giant plus was that it actually called for two cans of refried beans which we had been gifted at Christmas but I rarely eat beans so this was an item that I was afraid would go bad before it got used.

I was reluctant to try this recipe for a couple of reason, first the beans and second it only cooks for 4 hours and that included adding in rice the last 20-30 minutes. I actually stared this at lunch on Monday between the girls doctor’s appointments. The crockpot switched over to warm and I simply turned on high before adding the rice. I had some left-over rice in the refrigerator so I am sure it was not the called for two cups. But even with all these things stacked against it, everyone agreed this is a repeat!

I did run out to the store to grab a couple of bag of chips to add to the soup as it was very liquid with less rice. The other change I made was to add a teaspoon of taco seasoning instead of cumin. This helped decreased the allergic reaction for Lily as well! Chips, cheese, sour cream and burrito soup for the win.

I remember to freeze a second and third dinner as I am trying to cut down on the amount of left-overs we have and reduce food waste as well.

Menu Planning Monday

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For some strange reason, my brain was saying that because the kids were out of school a couple of days this week, things should be less hectic. Of course, my brain was wrong. In fact, we have multiple things going on every night this week. The positive- no extra eating out this week. Pizza is free with gift card.

Breakfast- Saturday- fried steak biscuits. Sunday,-bacon and eggs Monday- Peanut butter and chocolate baked oatmeal,Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday– Choice of fried bologna, omelet, pop tarts, cereal, bagels or toast. 

Lunch–Saturday- chicken stew , Sunday-Gregg’s(local restaurant). Friday both Matt and I will eat out, Monday-kids had mac and cheese, Tuesday- chicken salad plate for me. Wednesday-ramen noodles, Thursday- something left-over. Matt has four salads this week. Kids have grab and go and sandwich on the days they go to school.

Dinner – Saturday- left-overs.  Sunday–Broccoli-cheese casserole Monday-Burrito Soup Tuesday– Sweet meatballs Wednesday-Pizza Thursday– Ham Bone soup Friday- Hamburger Helper.

Saturday Activities

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Today has been a really awesome day, the reason why because I am still in my pajamas and have no plan to leave the house all day! Lily and Kendall are on a youth retreat. Zach is at a birthday party for a friend. Another parent offered to pick him up and drop him off so of course I could not refuse.

I have managed to wash both the sheets on our bed and Zach’s bed. I was not able to hang out to dry but instead ran the dryer during the day to add some heat in the house. The weather is cold with a high of 40* another good reason for me to stay inside.

I made a stop by the grocery store last night. I found whole chicken on sale for $0.99 a pound which is a good price for my area. I prefer to get the already roasted chicken at Costco but we don’t have a trip planned to Costco in the near future. So this morning, I placed the chicken in the instapot. When it finished cooking, I removed the meat and shredded it. I made a huge batch of chicken stew. I have already froze one meal. It will probably work for at least one other full meal. The second half of the chicken, I am going to use in a new recipe this week called Burrito Bowl Soup. Look for a post about it on Monday hopefully.

This coming week is a lot different as everyone is out of school on Monday. Kendall and Zach only go to school on Thursday and Friday. I went ahead and put up the schedule for the week along with meals. I actually went ahead and prepared everything thing I could so that it will be a heat and eat week.


Recipe Challenge

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I was super excited to try the new recipe this week. It is one that I found on Facebook and thought this sounds good.  I actually planned to try this recipe for over a week now.    The recipe Taco Tator Tots in the Slow Cooker..

 Everyone was excited to try it. What is not to like about taco meat,cheese and tater tots? Unfortunately, that is exactly what it tasted like. taco meat on potato.  This was a unanimous vote for not again.  

On a brighter note, I found a casserole type meal in my freezer. I thought I had labelled everything properly but this had a torn bag on top of it. I am 100% positive it was not the label on the bag. So we played freezer lotto and just heated up the dish. It turned out to be a combination of turkey, cauliflower and broccoli topped with cheese and bread crumbs. We all ate it and even enjoyed it. Unfortunately this will not be a repeat for two reasons, first I still have not a clue what it is called nor where I would have placed the recipe. Second although the casserole was good it was not good enough for me to search the internet to find out what exactly was in it.

So far we are 0 for 2 with the new recipes.  Do you have one that we should try?