Frugal Friday

This week has gone by in a blur. I don't remember much to be honest. It's been a dreary week in Michigan and I am sooooo ready for nice weather. Just some sunshine and a warm breeze, that's all I want. :)

On Monday, I went diving into our fabric stash to make curtains for the kids bunkbeds. We've had this fabric for years and let the kids pick out whatever kind they wanted.

Three kids in one room and a lack of privacy? Problem solved.

On Tuesday, we were contacted by a farmer friend who had some chickens that weren't the right size for sale. My husband and some helpers processed 45 chickens for free!! On Wednesday, I packaged all of the chicken into family sized ziplocks and we split the meat between three families.

On Thursday, we bought a birthday card at Dollar Tree instead of Walmart. ;) (huge accomplishment, right?)

And today I am making up a menu for the next week so that we are prepared whenever we find a moment to go shopping this weekend. :)

Monday Menu 3/24

Our menu runs from Saturday to Saturday this week so there are eight meals per category.


Breakfasts (with fruit and milk)
Baked Oatmeal
Grits
Cupcakes (Yep, cupcakes)
Eggs and toast
Baked Oatmeal
McDonalds :)
Toast with cream cheese and strawberries
Biscuits and gravy

Lunches (with veggies and dip and water)
Pigs in a blanket
PBJ
Grilled Cheese
Quesadillas
Tuna Salad
Lentil and dumpling soup
Church meal
Fried Rice

Dinner
Red beans and rice with sausage
Taco Bell (This was NOT planned, Sunday was a VERY busy day for my kitchen and I forgot to feed my people...)
Italian meatloaf with tomato basil pasta
Hot pockets (homemade, don't worry!)
Mom in Law's for dinner
Cauliflower crust pizza with breadsticks (We're not a low carb family but I'm all about getting in more veggies!)
Chicken Enchiladas
LEFTOVER NIGHT!!

Snacks
graham crackers
fruit and veggies
iced vanilla chai lattes
popcorn

Frugal Friday

Yeah, I'm jumping on the alliteration wagon that is so common among bloggers. ;)

Frugal Fridays are going to have a post about the frugal things that I have done this week. There are a lot of things that I do that I don't realize are frugal until I mention them to someone else. I am a cheapskate by nature so some things just come to me by instinct. Frugal Fridays will help me to pause and reflect on my habits and maybe they will be able to bless someone else. :)

FRUGAL FOOD
This week we spent $65 on groceries and house stuff. That was mostly dairy and produce. We did buy some ice cream and two bags of chips. The kids love that we have an Aldi so mom can buy the fake doritos or sunchips there without blowing the budget. Our normal budget is $125 per week and includes all of the household stuff and medicine plus diapers and animal food.

I learned how to make a Vanilla Chai Frappe this week, I'll post the recipe next week. It's our new favorite fancy drink.

We made peach tea with the leftover peach syrup from our homecanned peaches. The kids love it. We've been focusing on drinking more water and herbal tea instead of dairy and juice for healthier and cheaper living. ;)

All of our leftovers became lunches for my husband.

I planned to use a venison roast as two meals. We had it for dinner with potatoes and carrots on Sunday night and then for dinner as a venison and barley soup with herbed biscuits on Thursday. I am working on perfecting my herb biscuits. They are almost as good as the cheddar biscuits at Ruby Tuesdays and they have no shortening and are half whole wheat.
 
I made homemade burger buns and french fries to go with our burgers this week instead of purchasing them ready made.

Frugal Cleaning

We use homemade laundry soap on a regular basis and I use bounce dryer sheets unscented cut in half for our anti-static needs. We used to use a bounce bar but I've found that they are not lasting nearly as long as they used to so we switched back to sheets.

I don't use paper towel or paper napkins. I have rags that can be rewashed or thrown out if needed and washable cloth napkins that get tossed in with our towels. We did use my stock of paper plates this week because I have been fighting a cold/sinus issue and standing up hurt.

I am a huge fan of Shaklee Basic H2 for All purpose spray, degreaser, and window wash. It lasts forever. I've had that bottle since NOVEMBER and use it all the time!! This week I ran out of dishsoap and just didn't have the time to get to the store so I did some googling (FROOGLE moment!) and discovered that you can use Basic H2 for dishwashing. I used about a half teaspoon per sinkfull of water and it works at least as well as the cheap dishsoap. I do love the New Dawn Platinum Power Clean soap but it's best saved for the really tough messes. That stuff is not cheap. I went through one bottle in about 6 weeks. Next month, I'm trying out the Shaklee dishwash and I'll let you know what I think.

We use good ol' hydrogen peroxide to clean the toilet and sinks in our bathroom. I sometimes use bleach but I have an allergy so hydrogen peroxide is my chemical of choice.

Frugal Fun

We spent a lot of time this week playing with scrap lumber and cardboard. My kids can be so creative.

Our "tv" time came from Hulu this week. I watched a couple of episodes of Bath Crashers while I was playing with yarn. We don't have the Hulu plus subscription at this time but I am thinking about it.

We were finally able to get out of the house and walk this week. We went to the library for some fun books on our current studies in reptiles and colonial life.

Frugal Hubby
We're also saving quite a bit this week on car repair, thanks to my husband's ability to fix things. Our bearings need to be replaced and doing it himself will save us at least five hundred dollars. :)


Have a blessed weekend!

Leftover Pork Roast Papusa

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am a lover of Latin American foods. My favorite comfort food of all time is the humble tamal. I have always been intimidated by the thought of making tamales though because most of the recipes that I find are very intensive and make over fifty tamales.

While on pinterest the other day, I discovered something called a Papusa. It's kind of like the fast food version of a tamal. Instead of being steamed in a corn husk, papusas are lightly fried in a pan kind of like a pancake.

 A skillet full of chopped pork roast with one chopped chipotle chile in adobo, chili powder, cumin, garlic, and salt. It was spicy in the pan and that's good when you are going to encase it in masa.

 I used equal parts of water and masa with garlic powder and salt to taste. Let it set for ten minutes or so.

 Roll it into an egg sized ball. (It should feel like playdoh but with a bit more texture to it.)

Shape into a bowl and fill with cooked pork. You can also fill these with beans or cheese or anything that sounds yummy to you.

 Pinch the edges over the filling until you can no longer see any of the stuffing.









 Play Pat-A-Cake.  You want them to be less than half an inch thick. If the filling starts to leak out just pinch off a bit from the edges or form the bowl and cover it up.

 These are ready to be fried and waiting on a piece of parchment paper so I don't have to clean a pan...I'm lazy like that. Wax paper would work and I will use that next time because it is way cheaper.

 We put a drizzle of coconut oil in our pan over medium high heat. Cook each side of the papusas for about 3 minutes.

I actually like them more than tamales!!

I wanted to make a curtida (cabbage and vinegar slaw) to go with them but I was distracted by my other kitchen projects so that will have to wait for another day. We had them with sour cream, cheese, salsa and rotel. We also had peaches on the side because I don't like having a meal that is only protein and carbs.

Isn't it lovely? :D

Carnita Nachos

My husband and I have a decided weakness for Latin American flavors. In fact, our favorite taqueria, El Taco Loco, is less than three blocks away. This is a dangerous place for our budget to live. ;)

We love carnitas, anything choriqueso, tortas...tamales...mmmm....what was I typing about again?

We could easily eat at El Taco Loco EVERY night and never get bored with the food. However, we simply can't afford to take all six of us out to dinner every night, no matter how inexpensive El Taco Loco's menu is!

That means that I needed to learn how to make some yummy craving satisfying food in less time than it would take to pack up the kiddos and walk the three blocks to authentic flavor heaven.

 One of the laziest easiest ways for me to bring the flavors to life is in the form of a pork roast. I buy a good sized pork roast (NOT loin) and toss it in the slow cooker with onion and garlic until it's done. Everything in the crockpot gets dumped into a Tupperware container and stored in the fridge. We could eat part of the roast as a meal with carrots and potatoes and we do sometimes but sometimes I just want the meat made ahead for other meals.

Last week, I made Carnita Nachos. We had an opened bag of tortilla chips that needed to be used before they were stale. I was feeling particularly lazy and didn't want to spend more than a few minutes at the stove.

I took a bowl full of cooked roast and cut it into bite sized pieces. I tossed the meat into a pan with salt, cumin, and chili powder and cooked it until it was heated through and crispy chewy. The reason I don't use loin in this recipe is the lack of fat content. I don't want to have to add fat to fry the meat so I use the naturally more fatty cuts to save time.

My cute spice containers

Repurposed Parmesan lid

I layered tortilla chips onto my baking sheets, added cheese and cooked pork for the big kids,

 
green peppers and pork and leftover choriqueso for my husband, and lots of red onion and green pepper and leftover choriqueso and pork to mine.

 Our toddler doesn't chew tortilla chips very well yet so her nachos are made on whatever random crackers that we have in the house. That way she can eat the same thing that we do but it's not a choking hazzard.

The trays of nachos were popped into the oven at 400 until the cheese was bubbly. I served them with our usual taco night choices. Homemade salsa and rotel, guacamole, lime juice, and sour cream.

  My taste buds were quite content by the end of the meal. That only used about a quarter of the roast. Stay tuned for more recipes!

Egg Roll GUTS?

One of our favorite meals is Eggroll Guts. {$6.69 for 6 servings} It is NOT a pretty dish but it is yummy and filling.

Once upon a time when I only had one kiddo running around, I would make eggrolls for the fun of it. I always found myself eating the filling of the eggroll as I was making them and a family favorite was born. We eat it over rice ($1) and have chow mein noodles (50 cents) on top for crunch. This recipe serves 5 plus a toddler with one lunch portion for the next day.

Start your rice BEFORE you start cooking the meat and it all should be done at the same time. (2.5 cups of rice/one pound, 5 cups of water, cook on high until boiling, turn to low for 15-20 minutes or until as done as you like it.) I always make extra rice for leftover night.

1 pound of ground meat (We use pork from the hog we buy each fall.) {$3}
1 head of cabbage, finely chopped/shredded {$1.19 at Aldi}
1 carrot shredded {maybe 5 cents}
half an onion {25cents}
1/2 tsp ginger {5cents}
1 tbsp minced garlic or 3 garlic cloves or 2 tsp garlic powder {10 cents, we buy minced garlic at Sams for a steal}
1/4-1/2 tsp white or black pepper (negligible)
dash of sesame oil {40 cents}
soy sauce to taste {15 cents}

Brown the meat with all ingredients (EXCEPT the cabbage and sesame oil) in a 4-6 quart pot. Add cabbage, mix it all up. Put the lid on and cook over low heat until the cabbage is mostly cooked but still a tiny bit crisp. Add a dash sesame oil and soy sauce to taste. IF your favorite chinese place puts peanut butter on their eggroll wrappers (many do!) add just a spoon or two of pb and mix in before adding the cabbage.

Korean Beef Strips

with mushrooms and sugar snap peas from Aldi

Have I mentioned lately how much I adore Aldi? 

On our trip last week, we found sugar snap peas at less than $2 a pound and mushrooms for around 50 cents for an 8 ounce package. I was so excited and we immediately changed our menu to accommodate our bounty. We managed to find marked down chuck roast at Kroger to add to our vision of stir fry goodness.

We sliced up the chuck roast and marinated it in a blend of soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, vinegar, and sesame oil. We based our recipe off of the flavors found here. However, I don't measure things often so that was just my springboard into fun flavor. I added some orange zest, some fish sauce, and a little bit of peanut butter that really seems to round out of the flavors of the Korean Beef that is in our regular monthly rotation. 

Whenever we have citrus, I keep the scrap peels in a bowl for zesting. Waste not, want not.

 I sauteed the beef in a big pot because my wok is almost dead. When it was about halfway cooked, I added the veggies (carrots mostly for color) and the leftover marinade and brought it all up to a simmer and promptly got distracted. The very bottom burnt a bit when I was out of the kitchen but I was able to transfer the good stuff over to the dying wok without losing too much of dinner! We served this over Basmati rice. The kids kinda liked it but hubby and I were very happy with the way it turned out. Sweet and spicy and we fed the whole crew for less than $12.

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Kitchen Scrap Stock

I have been encouraging my kids to eat better these days. Every Monday, I prepare two pounds of carrots and a bunch of celery into easy to eat veggie sticks. When the hunger monsters start circling the kitchen then they get directed to the veggie stash or the fruit basket.

This Monday I had an epiphany.

Those leftover scraps were mounded up in a random container on my counter and I was wishing for a compost bin. I hate the thought of wasting food at all. However, a compost bin is not likely to happen thanks to all of the neighborhood strays who would love to play in it and spread the mess around my yard.

I looked at the veggie scraps in the pot that I had grabbed out of sheer laziness.

"That could be stock!" I thought and I ran to google just to verify. Sure enough! 

 It could be done!!

Yet another FROOGLE moment, frugal tips that I found through Google!

Back to the kitchen I went.




I added an onion, a tablespoon of minced garlic,

 

 some dried thyme, a lot of dried parsley, a bit of celery seed,

 and a light drizzle of olive oil and two bay leaves.

I cooked the veggies on low heat until soft and yummy smelling fragrant. Then I added 6 quarts of water and let it simmer for a few hours.

 I do caution you though. If you make this, the vultures will start to circle and ask what's for dinner. "It smells like good food out here, Mama!" They will sniff and look into the pot hoping for something marvelous and they will make rather entertaining faces when they realize that it's just kitchen scrap soup. I poured my stock into jars and put them in the fridge to use the next time I make rice or soup.

I love the convenience of this stock. With meat based stocks there is a lot of skimming and reskimming. I just poured my stock into jars through a sieve that I stuck on top of my canning funnel. No mess, no fuss, and best of all NO WASTE! :) I now have a baggie in the fridge to gather any scraps that we have for the next stock day.

Tuna Casserole (without condensed soup)

One of my favorite comfort foods of all time is Tuna Casserole. I'm not talking about the fancy baked dish with the special topping that dear Martha makes. I mean the stick to your ribs throw a few cans of stuff together with pasta, glob it into a bowl, and go watch tv with the family kind of Tuna Casserole. However, I am married to a rather picky guy who simply won't settle for cans of anything tossed haphazardly into a pot and eating in front of the tv is a RARE occasion.

In my opinion, this recipe meets both of our qualifications.

Start a pot of salted water to boil.

Open two cans of chunk light tuna in water. Toss into a pan, liquid and all. Push tuna to the side of the pan and add a tablespoon or two of oil to the liquid. Swirl together and plop 1/3 cup of flour on top. Mix into a paste. Cook for a few minutes and then add about a cup of milk. Stir tuna back into mixture, add one pound of frozen peas. Stir well. Add salt and pepper and more salt and pepper to taste. If you're used to cans of this and that in your tuna casserole then you will be shocked at how much salt that you think is needed to get it to taste just right. I add a little bit of onion powder and a teeny pinch of nutmeg too. Add another cup of milk if needed. I don't typically measure I just add it until it's a little runnier than I want it.

When water boils add 12-16 oz of pasta. I like the bowties. Cook according to package.
Drain.
Mix together pasta and tuna mixture as soon as peas are warmed through. Serve with a generous sprinkle of fresh cracked black pepper.

Cost
12 oz Aldi Pasta 89cents
2 cans Starkist tuna bought on a discount rack at Walmart 90 cents total
1 pound frozen Meijer brand peas 88 cents
2 cups of milk- 32 cents (Aldi milk was 2.45 a gallon last week.)
Flour 4 cents (Flour was 1.89 for five pounds, there are 20 cups in five pounds of flour.)
Spices 10 cents
Oil 8 cents
Total cost for SIX servings $3.21 or 54 CENTS per serving!

43-35

43- Walk through the Christmas displays at the store just for the fun of it.
42- Make a batch of homemade hot cocoa to keep on hand for snuggling up with a movie.
41-Schedule some mom and dad time into the hectic winter chaos.
40- Welcome yet another nephew into the world. Pray for Cubby, he has a long battle ahead.
39- Invest in your community. The Salvation Army and other giving organizations get hit hard this time of year with families in need. Bless them and do good.
38-Fill a shoebox. I keep a box of little gifts upstairs. My daughter used that box to fill a shoebox for Samaratin's purse to give to a child in a third, fourth, or fifth world country. The things in the box included toothbrushes, candy, soap, markers, pencils, small notebooks, crayons, small stuffed animals, and stickers.
37- Make your baking supply list. I'm nearly out of cocoa and vanilla!! This is NOT ok! ;)
36-Go over the black Friday ads and list the things that you really want. I never look for the huge deals on black Friday. Too much stress. However, we always get new movies so I have a list of what we're looking for from the 1.99 bins. We tend to buy new shoes that weekend too because Meijer and Kmart run buy one get one free deals. I'm hoping to go to Target this year too but just for the fun of it.
35-Search online again for the perfect wrapping paper.

56-62 Days Music and Pictures and Wrapping, Oh my!

I fell a bit behind in my blogging this week. We planned a party for my Dad's 60th birthday and I did a LOT of cooking and baking so I'm grouping the next week full of days into one post. I hope you don't mind. ;)

62-Get out the Christmas Music

I know that this is very very early for some people but hear me out. I LOVE the instrumental simple Christmas Carols. I enjoy the peace that I feel when those songs play softly in the background of my very chaotic life. I don't let the Jingle Bell/Santa Claus/Baby, it's cold outside type of songs play in the house until November but I do like ushering in the season of harvest and thanksgiving with songs of Joy, Hope, Peace, and Love.

61- Discuss family picture ideas and put it on the calendar.

We have so many ideas and plans but if we don't make a decision soon then we won't have any pictures to give at Christmas time!!

60- Bring out the Candles

Like the Christmas instrumentals that bring peace, the smell of cinnamon and spice bring an extra touch of peace to my home.

59- Ditch the Extra stuff

So many people rush and rush and rush that they never have the time to just enjoy the moment. We plan as little as possible for the Fall and Winter months. I still focus on family functions but the extra places to be and things to do are easily declined when my focus is making my home into a haven for my family to rest in.

58- Wrapping Ideas

Every year, my in laws host a wrapping competition. We post pictures of our wrapped gifts on facebook and let a couple hundred of our friends vote. In fact, the image that I chose to represent my 75 days of Christmas is our wrapping from last year. The winner typically gets expensive chocolate. We win a lot, not always but around fifty percent of the time. We need to start brainstorming ideas for this year! :)

57- Church Children's Christmas Program

This year I have decided that I'm not doing the Christmas Program. It stresses me out and there are a LOT of other people who are talented enough to come up with something. My friend Lisa volunteered this year and I am SOOOOO thankful to have this removed from my to do list!!

56- Cookie Dough

I try to put some cookie dough in the freezer for those days that I just don't feel like thinking but the kids want Christmas cookies. There are a lot of cute spiral freezer cookie rolls that you can whip up now to enjoy later.

63 days School and Game declutter

Yet another fun day of decluttering...don't you just love how excited I sound? ;)

Our homeschool year is coming to an end. We school through the summer so that we can be done by Thanksgiving and take off the entire month of December and part of January.

I sorted through the kids totes, the mom school tote, and all of our board games. Several were missing enough pieces to be thrown away. It's a good thing that most of them are on sale on Black Friday. By the way, the Black Friday sales are being "leaked" strategically  by stores now so if you are one of those crazy people who shops  with mass amounts of crazy people for crazy good deals then you might want to do some googling and game planning. ;)

66 Days Make Apple Butter

My daddy loves apple butter so I try to make some every other year or so for him. I don't love apple butter so I don't make it every year.

My recipe is pretty simple and has few measurements. We were blessed to be able to glean pears and apples this year so this recipe only cost me some spices, brown sugar, and new cannning lids.

I use roughly 10 quarts of applesauce. This year I used some pears with my apples when making sauce so the flavor is a little different. I also used cider instead of water to make my sauce. I like it more this way.

I added 2 1/2 cups of brown sugar, two pinches of nutmeg, and two pinches of dried orange peel. I set the burner on low and kept the pot fairly well stirred. After a day or so (Yep, I just turned the burner off at night. My pot kept things warm because it's awesome like that.) the butter was finally reduced enough to can. I like my apple butter to be twice as thick as my sauce so I let it reduce by half. I then water bath canned the butter in half pint jars for five to seven minutes. I ended up with about 16 half pints plus whatever the kids ate on the fresh bread that their daddy made.

67 Days Make Pumpkin Puree

I've talked about all the pumpkin goodies that we plan to give this year. So far we have processed two large pumpkins and a butternut squash. We've tried out several recipes that were ok but none that were amazing enough to give.

In order to make all these goodies, we need to bake the pumpkin and make puree. My husband is typically in charge of this because I am too easily distracted in my house of kiddos. Baking the pumpkins is pretty simple. You cut them in half, scoop out the seeds, put them on a baking sheet cut side down and bake at 350 until they are easily pierced with a fork. Let them cool. Cut off the skin and whirl in the food processor until pureed. Fill quart size ziplocks with pumpkin and pop in the freezer on a cookie sheet to keep them flat. These bags equal about two of the large cans of pumpkin puree that you buy in the store.

74 days! Budget and Blessing

Today was a busy day but I did manage to do some planning. We've figured out how we're going to set up the tree in the dining room.

Tonight we are going to talk budgets. We plan on how much we can set aside for hospitality, missions, shoeboxes, our family gifts, and extended family gifts.

This year we are going to help purchase a water filtration system and a safe stove for a family in Nicaragua. We like to do one shoebox for each child so we'll need 28 dollars plus four shoeboxes fully of goodies to be sent. I'll need to make a list of items to collect for these as well. I'm hoping to keep our gift spending down to a minimum by making as many gifts as possible this year, whether through knitting, crafting, or giving food or coupons to be used for food.

I'm going to need to make a notebook to keep track of all of this stuff. Maybe that will be tomorrow's post. :)

Canning Weekend and Menu

We had an insane weekend canning spaghetti sauce, applesauce, and peaches.

We canned 98 quarts this weekend!! I spent ALLLLLL day Monday snapping, blanching, and freezing a bushel and a half of green beans. Next year's grocery bill is going to be so much nicer than this year!! :)

Menu
Breakfasts
toast with nutella
cereal
pancakes
oatmeal
mush
eggs and toast

Lunch
grilled cheese and tomato soup
pork chops, green beans, grilled peaches
quesadillas and cucumbers
tuna sandwiches
egg sandwiches
pbj and fruit

Dinner
breakfast for dinner
grilled egg sandwiches and apples
egg roll guts with purple cabbage
chicken parmesan (hubby made this while I was still canning everything in sight)
over to the in laws
meatloaf, summer squash, green beans, and corn

Snacks
popcorn
toast
fruit and veggies

Dessert
fresh fruit
nutella pudding

Menu 8/19 to 8/24

We just got back from a very quick visit to family in West Virginia. I missed blogging last week because I was preparing for our trip and trying to put up as much of the produce as I could before we left.

This week's menu is going to be as simple as possible because we spent a LOT of our grocery budget on fast food over our 20 or so hours of driving/stopping to go potty/trying not to go crazy with four kids in the back of the van...

Breakfast
Nutella toast
oatmeal
mush with sausage links
breakfast burritos
eggs and toast
oatmeal

Lunch
lunchables
grilled cheese and soup
mac n cheese (boxed!!! lol)
pb celery with apples and raisins
tuna sandwiches
pbj

Dinner
breakfast! Probably pancakes and eggs and applesauce
dirty rice, applesauce, sauteed carrots and squash
spaghetti, squash casserole
 Ham and broccoli casserole
pizza-dillas and salad
smoked sausage with vermicelli and rice,  squash and onion saute

Desserts
Bread pudding with raisins
apple crisp
no bake cookies

Menu 8/4-8/10

We have a lot of leftovers this week from cooking for VBS and I plan to use those to my best advantage!

Sunday-We went out to breakfast and out to lunch! I cooked enough last week! ;) Dinner will be fend for yourself. I will be having my leftovers from lunch and the kids will probably get grilled cheese.

Breakfasts
Oatmeal
Mush
Eggs and toast
Cereal
Omelets in a bag

Lunch
Quesadillas
PBJ
Cheese and crackers
Yogurt parfait
Tuna salad sandwiches

Dinner
Pasta Bake (leftovers)
Out to Mom in laws
Tacos (leftover beans and rice plus some cooked taco burger)
Mushroom Meatballs over parmesan noodles
Shepherd's pie

Desserts
Ice cream
Smoothies
something with nutella! ;)

Menu 6/30-7/5 and My New Nifty Glasses

I've had a lot of fun this past week playing with my food and actually trying out recipes that I've found on pinterest. I've done a pretty good job of not being a total glutton too. I did have a hard time last night as Hubby wanted dessert in the middle of the day and then popcorn for dinner and that was a bit hard to control but I didn't eat an ENTIRE batch of popcorn by myself so even that is an improvement. I am much more thankful at mealtime than I have been in the past. When we sat down to eat burgers on Saturday it felt like Christmas morning!!


This week's menu

Breakfast
Egg in Hole
PB and Banana Smoothie
Orange Push up Smoothie
Oatmeal and sausage links
Breakfast Burritos
Fourth of July Toast
Omelets and Toast

Lunch
"Lunchables" aka Cheese and Crackers
Yogurt Parfaits
Quesadillas and veggies with dip
Chicken Salad on Croissants, fruit kabobs, chips
Sloppy Joes, Macaroni Salad
Crockpot Pineapple Chicken over leftover rice
Hawaiian Burgers, grilled squash, cherries (We had an unexpected date so we moved this from Friday of last week to Saturday of this week's menu. Our menu week runs from Saturday to Friday.)

Hawaiian Burgers with Balsamic Grilled Squash and Cherries

I added garlic and ginger to the ketchup "recipe" that they suggested and next time I will add a little bit of honey to the squash marinade as we used supermarket squash that was inferior in flavor to the homegrown that we are used to eating.

Dinner
Italian Chicken over noodles (Crockpot recipe, throw chicken breast into crock with italian dressing. Cook three hours longer than planned, add mushrooms on a whim while noodles are cooking. Voila!)
Kettle Corn...yep, that's what was for dinner last night, don't judge
Ranch Chops, taters, carmelized brussel sprouts
Thai Peanut Noodles, sauteed veggies
Veggie Ham and Rice casserole, salad
Pancake Dippers, fruit


Dessert
Strawberries and Cream Pie

Strawberries and Cream Pie I used golden grahams because we didn't have graham crackers and I didn't want to go to the store and white chocolate instead of regular because I don't like fruit and chocolate together. O.o

How do they manage to get such pretty pictures of pie slices?? I just can't figure it out!

Chocolate Pudding
Snickers Icecream Bars (This is a very involved recipe ;) You have to drive to the store and grab a box.)
Nutella crepes with strawberries (why do I like strawberries with nutella but not just chocolate?!?)

In other news, I turned 32 years old this past week. As is tradition, I picked out what I wanted for my birthday and let hubby pay for it. ;) Ball recently reintroduced the 24 oz wide mouth jar. I've been ogling them since they went on the shelves in our local store.

My new fancy glasses! Redneck Chic right there!!

Hubby is a genius. There are tutorials for this all over pinterest but he simplified it. We bought a pack of plastic lids for our jars and he drilled a hole in the top just big enough for a straw. These fit in our van cupholders so much nicer than the full quart size jars. They replace my McDs tea habit nicely and are a greener option too! :) :)

Isn't that beautiful? The little guy in back is pretty cute too.