Wow. Time flys

My lonely, neglected blog is still here. I'm going to try to clean it up a little and go back to posting some. I think i said that before though.

It seemed like such a long winter this year. Is it that the one you just went through always feels that way? Nicer weather keeps teasing. Hopefully its here to stay.

I'm still working quite a bit. Trying to reign that in a little.

I miss having bloggy friends and reading about everyone. I miss having a online diary where I can share, complain and see my own struggles in other peoples posts.

Hello again, again.

Ha! So not funny.

It took weeks to get my fridge fixed. Then it died again the next day. Amazing since it seemed liked they replaced every major part. Waited another week for the repair guy who threw his hands up in the air after a hour and told us we would be getting a new fridge. Had a extended warranty but it still ended up costing me $200. My love affair with kitchen appliances may be over.

I made a bunch of meatballs and chili today. Waiting for it to cool so I can put it away and head to bed. It seems so warm today. I just think its because its so humid. My hands and feet always hurt in weather like this. Looking forward to crashing in front of the fan :)

Schedule easing up.....

I have a few days off and a lighter schedule coming after this week. I'm so ready.

My fridge is still broken. The back-up-closes-by-bungee-cord fridge is holding up ok. Hopefully when the guy comes out in the morning he finally gets it fixed. I have a big cooking day planned for the morning and need it.

Planning on making a big batch of chili, crockpot carnitas, buffalo chicken dip, blue cheese spread, and pumpkin muffins. We will be eating the carnitas in the evening with rice and beans. After dinner (hopefully) we will put a few dozen burritos in the freezer. I'm cant wait till dinner, I love mexican food.

Garage sale season is starting. This weekend will be my first chance to go. I'm so excited! I have a new favorite goodwill that that been keeping us very nicely clothed but I could use a few more tops.

Off to finish up my plan and grocery list.

Wow, crazy week

I just had the busiest week. New things kept popping up, fridge died, schedule changed again and again. I'm am so happy that its a new week :)

Big lots has some great furniture right now. I spent half of Sunday driving around to different stores to pick up matching pieces of the Attic Heirlooms collection. Yay! After 5+ years of looking I finally found a set I am happy with!

My 2nd child had a job interview this week and will start working as soon as we get his work permit. He will actually be working with me :) I can't believe 2 of my children will be working. Wow, time goes by so quickly!

I am getting in a little surfing, checking email, and preparing to turn in early to catch up on my sleep. My legs hurt, I bought those shape-up sketcher's and boy after my first week wearing them I can really feel it. I really love those shoes. I can tell the difference after just a week. I felt it first in my calves and it has slowly moved up my legs and I can see a visible change in my mid-section as well. That right there makes them worth the $100 price tag. I bought the work version and they are great. Most slip resistant shoes help but they have great grip, they do not slip even in grease.

Off to get a hot bath and a good night sleep.

Grey skies again....

I miss the pretty weather we had last week. The sunshine was so uplifting.

I had a good Goodwill thrift week. Was able to find really nice high end swimming trunks for the older boys and a bunch of NWT young men's shirts.

Tried a new spaghetti sauce recipe, made chicken pho, and a big batch of pasta salad this week. Have plenty of leftovers so I don't need to cook tonight. Going shopping for the week in the morning and have to make food for a potluck on Sunday. Can't decide if I want to make sweets or snacks. Also need to restock the freezer, might try to fill it a little this week.

Off to make my menu and to-do list for the morning.

Chicken pitas

This months Cooking Light magazine had many yummy looking recipes. On page 32 they have a spicy chicken shawarma recipe that we tried tonight. It was pretty good but not a "keeper". We also had hummus and Greek salad.

I marked close to a dozen different recipes in the April 2010 magazine. I have a few magazine subscriptions that were $5 amazon specials. I keep a stack near the bathtub for relaxing and inspiration.

I like the idea of a spicy chicken pita but the flavor of this recipe was not strong enough for my tastes. I have a really good hummus recipe from recipezaar but I was able to bring home hummus and kalamata olives from work today at no cost so I saved some time there.

I need to go to the grocery store and I am still working on my menu which should have been done Saturday :)

Parenting by text....( rambling updates)

Does that sound just horrible? We are a very wired family. Computers everywhere, multiple cell phones, and so little time. My oldest is also *sniff* almost 18! He is working, has bible study, backstage for the play at school, game club, etc. and is a great help at home still. The next 2 are online charter school ( they are almost 16 and 12) and then we have little man ( 2 1/2).

I am working a lot. Some weeks 7 days. I will continue to work crazy hours until August at which point I will be cutting that down to 1/3 and things should get back to normal. DH and I work opposite shifts and the older kids help with breakfast if the toddler gets up early.The oldest helps out a hour or 2 a week if there is a scheduling conflict. Everyone else has a responsibility to watch that they keep up with their schedule and chores and so far, its working well. Texting has become a big thing, I can still answer questions all morning, check on the kids, send reminders, etc. I never thought I would be a texter ( is that a word?)

I never have to work past 3:00 and the kids are still sleeping when I start work. DH works in the evening and he has weekends off. My house is pretty quiet except for the little guy, he loves making his rounds. Big sister is his favorite person to help him start the day, as she likes to watch some cartoons with him and tries to get him into the characters. Daddy wears him out in the early afternoon and he spends the rest of the time trying to get his brothers to play cars, go outside or to play Mario Bros on the WII while he pretends to play. As soon as I get home, he moves to me and we play and then have some quiet time. He is the funnest 2 year old. He is such a people person.

My daughter has really become quite the artist this last year. She is self taught and does the most amazing,manga/anime style pictures. Lately she has taken a big interest in character development as well. My oldest two are all about computers right now.

That's whats going on right now :)

Menu 3/8

I have a busy week this week. Only 1 day off and that day I have dentist appointments and errands to run.


Monday- Breakfast for dinner ( use Sundays leftover ham)
Tuesday- Cabbage soup (a hearty vegetable soup with smoked sausage and a spicy broth)
Wednesday- Mexican rice and black beans with chips and guacamole
Thursday- Leftover night
Friday- BW3 wings. Homemade potato wedges. Celery and ranch
Saturday- Little hamburgers, chips and veggies with dip.
Sunday- Cabbage rolls and mashed potatoes

I have a lot of frozen fruit that I would like to use up so I think we will have smoothies for breakfast most of the week. I plan on making a big batch of pasta salad for stretching out lunches and a batch of mini muffins for the toddler.

IMG00056-20100303-1858.jpg
Testing sending a post by phone :) Leftover beef roast from Sunday turned into taco salads.


***ok, that did not exactly work.

Saturday Menu Planning for 3/1-3/7

My ads arrive on Saturdays so this is my menu planning day. I look forward to Saturday afternoons. I think I enjoy the grocery ads as much as some people enjoy black Friday ads :)

Monday- Spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread and salad (DS1 cooks).
Tuesday- Cajun catfish, garlic pasta, asparagus and cheddar biscuits. Also my prep day for the week and grocery day if I need it.
Wednesday- Beef taco salads (shredded beef from Sunday's dinner).
Thursday- Favorite smoked sausage and potatoes with green beans (DS2 and DD cook).
Friday- Chili ( from freezer).
Saturday- Pizza night. Dads in charge of dinner this night :)
Sunday- Ham, twice baked potato casserole, and green beans. Oreo truffles :)


-Its been a long time since we had catfish. We rarely eat fish even though I always mean to include it more but 3.99 lb is not to shabby for catfish and I know the kids will eat it.
-We recently started using Costco tortilla strips instead of taco chips for taco salads and chili and a giant bag for less than $4 seems to stretch a lot farther then the best deals I get at kroger during the 10/10 sales.
-Saturday DH is ordering pizza so I am making the twice baked potato casserole halfway through for Sunday and also making oreo truffles since I will be busy Sunday but still want to have a big Sunday dinner.
-Everything is pretty easy, the only things that require extra time or effort are highlighted in red.

Test

Wow!

Wow! Almost a year since my last post. It certainly does not seem like a year. I miss bloging and the blog world. Hope to try and catch up with a few of my favorite bloggers and to start posting again soon. Not a whole lot as I am working right now. For anyone that followed my blog before, we did not move and are still in the same house. There was to much competition for the homes we tried to buy and its just as well as looking back they all would have needed a lot of work.

I am desperate for spring. Its been a long winter in Ohio, very dreary and cold. I am trying to start on spring cleaning already. Since its cold I am tackling office tasks and clothing first. Things that are easy to do while still wearing all these layers :)

Hello!

Hello! It feels like months since I have been in bloggy world. The house we were going to buy fell through. It was a short sale and the buyer was not being very cooperative when it came to the inspection and the agent said they had a back up offer ( which ticked me off) so we walked ( they had already not lived up to the terms of the contract). A week after we walked away the agent tried to get us to come back and was going to renegotiate a even lower price but it was to late for me.

Then we found another house. It was a bank owned property that had just come on the market ( on a Friday) but by Monday 4 people had put in offers and we had come in second. Sigh. I really liked the second one, even better then the first. It really only needed windows to make it ready to move in. They were gone because someone had paint balled them out while it sat empty. This was in a very, very nice area.

So, we are working, keeping our home spotless and waiting. I could live with my house always clean but not as bare as it is now. I feel naked with the rooms so empty and all my stuff packed away. We have had 6 showings, 5 left very positive feedback, 1 left no comment. We had one ridiculous offer so far and another who said they were interested but had to sell their house first. We live in a semi rural area where homes do not move to quickly so I am feeling pretty good about the number of showings we have had.

We had been looking only at cheaper homes but may consider a sideways move. We have also found someplace to rent in case that becomes necessary.

Ugh, I hate having a home on the market. I hope I never have to move again after this :)

I hope you are all doing well, I am just starting to get back to reading blogs and I hope I can catch up on what everyone has been doing.

Still waiting....

Its been crazy around here. Way to crazy for me to compose my thoughts enough to blog :)

We are scheduled to close on a house at the end of the month contingent on our financing going through and the home inspection going ok. Our current house goes on the market this weekend. If the other house does not work out we will still be putting our home up for sale. I have been working for the last 3 weeks and will continue to work until we only have 1 house payment to deal with although we do have someone interested in renting our house if we don't sell by June.

Adapting to going back to work ( 4 days a week, 32 hours) has not been to bad but trying to quickly get the house cleaned, decluttered and staged while working and negotiating on another house has been exhausting. I am working opposite hours of my husband so we have to make sure we are on the same page all the time.

I really, really, really want to tell you all about the other house but its not ours yet so I am trying not to get too excited until the home inspection is done. It most definitely needs work but it has so many of the things we want.

I am excited even if we don't get it though because my husband and I have really realized what we want down the road and we will be working towards that goal.

I will be back soon with details.

I would appreciate if you all would keep us in your prayers :)

We may be moving!!!

We may be moving. I don't know for sure and we will be super busy preparing just in case. I'm super stressed by not knowing. The situation is scary and exciting at the same time. I will blog about it as soon as we actually know something :)

Freezer goodies for the lunchbox.....

Yum. Mexican food. I think we had it almost everyday this week :)












It was also a good time to make extra for burritos. I started parttime work this week and thought it would be a good idea to make some lunch items.


We like spicy rice with beans and cheese in our burritos.






Some things to remember for freezer burritos-

1. Make small batches until you learn what flavors/textures you like.
2. Find a good brand of tortillas that will roll without cracking. Look for ones that are not to dry.
3. Don't make them to large.Most items you freeze should be smaller so they will reheat well. If you make them to large they will dry out when you cook them and still be cold in the middle.
4.Get all your supplies ready and set up a assembly line. Enlist help if you can.
5. Freeze items on a tray or cookie sheet until frozen solid then place in ziploc bags or another freezer safe container so you can take out just what you need.
6. Most items will heat better if thawed somewhat, so they do well in a lunch box where they will have a few hours to thaw.





Here is the tray we made :)

I purchased the tortillas and a restaurant size can of black beans at GFS and cut costs by getting cheese at Costco. Cheese is only about 2.28 lb in big bags at my Costco.












We also made twice baked potatoes. I don't use a recipe any more but used to use this one saving most of the cheese for pressing into the top after they are assembled. I freeze them on a tray and then place them into ziploc bags. Just don't make them to thin :)

Back in the swing of things......

We are easing into a new schedule around here. The first week went really well but we only focused on one part of it. Next week I am going to add on to it and continue tweaking, hopefully having everything worked out by the end of the month.

It was a odd week here in the kitchen with DH doing a variation on low carb to jumpstart the new year. I tried to plan ahead but the first week is always really hard ( and expensive). I ate pretty much what he ate all week but allowed more carbs for myself as I lose weight faster than he does. I would just like to lose a few pounds but I really do feel better when I eat low carb, it makes me wonder if I have a sensitivity to one of the foods I end up eliminating. When we both do it, he tries to avoid most carbs while I try to eat more healthy carbs.

Why the picture of muffins then? Well, I also made muffins for the kids this week, quickly getting them into the freezer to avoid temptation. Little muffins for the toddler and bigger muffins for my daughter for breakfast. These are applesauce muffins off of recipezaar. My daughter is not a morning person and does not like to eat breakfast so the muffins are a treat to go along with her new morning routine. The little guys has stopped eating all his favorite foods so the muffins are also meant to help me out with that this week. Luckily he has decided he really likes steamed broccoli and carrots so he wont be eating only muffins all week :)

Hello 2009...

Wow. Time flies.



Change is is the air. My homeschooler just switched to a online charter school and the the change has been quite a adjustment. We will see how it works out.



We are rethinking our house. Its a big expense made bigger by our 30% drop in income and honestly its not my dream house. Its actually bigger than my dream home and while very nice I have come to realize a few things are missing that are very important to me. Privacy would be a big one. I live in a subdivision and while the lots are pretty nice sized its still not private enough. I don't want worry about what the neighbors or our HOA thinks about my yard or what I do to my house. Of course, its not a great time to sell so we will be staying put for awhile but still planning for a move someday.

We have also been thinking for some time of trying to find a new church closer to home and I think we need to try harder to do this. 2009 could be a year with a lot of changes. My focus right now is on prayer and keeping things simple so we will be ready for whatever happens.

...and of course my I want to lose 10 pounds and get more organized :)

Goodbye 2008....goodbye stuff...

DH has been home helping for over a week and you can actually see my basement floor! The garbage men are starting to dislike me, the curb crawlers are making a regular pass by my home and the people at goodwill recognize us as we pull up. I can barely breath through my nose from sorting through 16 plus years of dusty toys and collections....but I can see the finishline. Its located somewhere on the other side of a garage sale, a few craiglist and ebay listings and another few trips to goodwill but its there in the distance :)


I hope everyone had a great New Years!

What a nice week.....

I had such a nice week. Way to much yummy food but a wonderful week. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas :)

Its been really quiet. DH is home, he usually works a lot during the holidays but not this year so we have been working on projects and making plans for next year. DH works in the automotive industry so we have also been working on the "what if.." scenario.

We spent more on the kids then we planned. The 3 oldest all received the same thing for a total of $90 each. The little guy was much less.I did try to get the best deals on the items I bought.

The breakdown:

$50 Best Buy card ( got $10 back for each at Kroger and charged to reward card)
$27 Sansa 4 gb Mp3 players ( from black Friday, used ebates)
$12.50 Ohio State Hoodies from Finishline.com (originally $35, also used ebates, free shipping)

Hoodies are like gold in our house. I don't think I should even bother buying cute shirts anymore, no one ever sees them under the sweatshirts.

The kids were not expecting much and were really happy. The little guy got 2 toys from Amazon.com, a pair of 6.99 Skechers from Kohls and some clearance Cars cups from Meijer. He was so cute he did a happy dance the whole time he opened his presents. I wish I had a video of it as it was adorable.

This has been a inexpensive December comparably. We had a lot of blessings. Gift cards for restaurants as gifts, $125 from Craigslist, survey money, a $50 Meijer gift card reward from a credit card, the kids made $140 pet sitting, etc.

I did not hit my new grocery budget ( $300) but did stay under the old budget ( $400) while still splurging for the week of Christmas and making a Costco trip to stock up on items I only buy once or twice a year and buying many things that will last into January. I am torn between spending as little as possible in January or stocking up to be prepared for bad weather or loss of income. I am going to aim for as little as possible but not pass up any awesome stock up prices.

I made pita bread this week!I used the recipe over at http://www.tammysrecipes.com/ and it was really good. We had it with pan fried chicken breast, seasoned oven fries, hummus, greek salad, a lemon garlic dressing, and cucumber sauce. Yum, between that and beef tips for Christmas dinner, I ate way to much.

Well, I'm off to enjoy a fire in the fireplace and some list making. My to-do list today is pretty long, including a little kitchen zone recovery and some decluttering. If you have been following my packrat adventure, I am finally to the point where we are going through old boxes of toys. 16 years of rubbermaid boxes full of toys is A LOT of toys :)

If you have the gift of the ability to easily look at a item and decide to toss it or give it away, feel blessed, some of us were not born with such a gift ;)

Grocery shopping....

I have learned a new grocery shopping rule. It seems the last few times I have hit the bread store before going to Aldi, then guaranteed Aldi will have marked down their bread to .25 and buns down to .33.

I still like the bread store for Texas toast. It makes the best garlic bread. I bought 6 long loaves to make garlic bread for the freezer. Kroger also had parkay tubs on sale for .25 after coupon so it will turn out to be a pretty cheap batch. I also bought sandwich bread and buns, 2 nicer loaves of Italian bread, wheat for DH and 2 packages of Italian buns for future dinners. This was before Aldi so I ended up with a lot of bread as I could not pass up the loaves for a quarter. I now have a freezer stuffed full with 29 packages of bread. The hamburger buns are mostly for breakfast sandwiches.

I stayed on the new budget this week (reduced from $100 to $75) even with a small trip to White Castle. I hit Meijer, the bread outlet and ALDI. $15 of the budget went towards items for Christmas so I don't have to go over budget for the holidays.

Today to get ahead I need to make up and freeze all the garlic bread, cook up and bag 5 pounds of spicy sausage, and organize the pantry. I have used up a lot of things lately but I still have 40 pounds of spicy sausage in my freezer. It was a mark down at GFS but I have been slow to use it because it is in 5 lb. blocks. I pulled one yesterday to thaw so I can cook it up and bag it in meal size portions. It will be appearing on the menu 2-3 times a week over the next few months. Mostly as spaghetti, cabbage stir fry and as a topping for pizza or eggs. Hopefully during that time chicken goes on sale :)

*Just a note about all that bread. I usually don't have enough room for 29 packages but my freezer was pretty empty.

It's begining to look a lot like......every other day?

My tree is still not decorated. Its up but still bare. I can tell I'm just not feeling it because every time I start to think about decorating it, I feel exhausted. Like I just want to go back to bed until spring.

So I'm going to blog about it so maybe that will light a fire under my half-hibernating tooshie and I will just go in there and get it done.

:)

Menu Plan Monday....

A little late but I decided not to go grocery shopping so I had to change things up a little.
Last week we ended up about $20 over budget after a $11 trip to White Castle and a weekend trip to pick up sour cream and taco chips. I want to make sure things average out to less then $100 a week for the 6 of us so I skipped my usual Monday grocery store trip. I think I will pick up some items by the end of the week because I will need cabbage and there are a few sale items that I want to buy for Christmas Dinner.

Last week I managed to get a few batches of chili and taco meat into the freezer as well as about 2 dozen burritos. I made the empanadas from last week also but they never made it into the freezer :)

Monday- A hard to describe but super yummy mexican style spicy chicken and cheese croissant sandwiches.
Tuesday-Spaghetti and garlic bread
Wednesday-Breakfast for dinner
Thursday-Shanghai noodles -Sauteed shredded cabbage, carrots and garlic in sesame oil, seasoned with pepper flakes, soy sauce and ginger powder served with thin spaghetti noodles
Friday-Chili ( In the freezer from last week)
Saturday- Pizza and Wings, my sons birthday dinner, bumped from last week because he couldn't eat that day :(
Sunday-Bean soup with smoked sausage and fresh bread

Visit Menu Plan Monday for lots of great meal ideas!

The newly frugal.......

Thank you for your prayers. Jason is doing well and is up this morning ready to tackle chores so he can enjoy his day off from school with some video games ;)

I'm noticing more people interested in saving money either out of necessity or fear. I'm always wary to offer to much advice because most people really don't want it. Retailers are smart and will take advantage of this, I would not be surprised to see a slight increase in the cost of generics and ground beef because people will often buy on the assumption that these are always good buys.


So where would I suggest someone start?

Find something that motivates you, that presents information in a way that appeals to you. While I love The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn, its not for everyone. Dave Ramsey motivates lots of people to get out of debt. Sometimes it takes a book that really hits you where you live and makes you think about money, Your Money or Your Life by Joe Domingez and Vicki Robin has a lot of information meant to change the way you view money.

It can also help to tackle your finances from a different angle. Focusing on simplifying your life can lead to a more frugal lifestyle. Sometimes when I want something lighter to read I like to pick up Simplify Your Life by Elaine St. James. Its a small book and presents things simply and won't offer anything new to die hard tightwads but it's a fun little read.

Prayer request

My soon to be 16 year old is having his wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow. His birthday is also this weekend.

He's not worried but since they will be making him sleep through it I would appreciate any prayers that things will go well and he will heal quickly. My own wisdom teeth removal did not go well at all and I would hate to see my baby go through that.

Thank you so much :)

Adventures in grocery shopping.....

Meijer trip-

I dropped pot roast from the menu after seeing the sale cuts but luckily I found marked down ground beef. 10 lbs for 14.38! There are plenty of veggies and bananas hidden off to the sides including 3 bunches of bananas, apples, a avocado, green onions, radishes and cilantro. I bought 3 packages of flour tortillas for extra freezer burritos and a 100 pack of corn tortillas for taco chips, strips for salad, and enchiladas next week.

Total: 44.77



Giant Eagle

Plenty of sale pop ( usually the only thing other than gift cards that I buy there), cat food, a 2 jumbo packs diapers.

Used $5 in coupons
Total: 46.40
+ $4 off next order

Kroger #1

Plenty of marked down breads including .39 hot dog buns, .69 rye loaves, and .50 english muffins. Also a single serve Vault not shown :)

After $10 off coupon from different deal: $1.08

This kroger has a clearance section where I found some impulse buys, $2 dandruff shampoo, .50 place mats, .50 scrubbers and $1 bags of candy bars.

The bagels were to get the total to $10 to use the a coupon. Total after $10 off: .41

I had time while DH was at the dentist to hit 3 stores before he was finished then we hit a store across the street before we headed home. I'm happy we made that last trip because we found a bunch of marked down items.

Total so far: 92.56

I still need chicken wings for a birthday dinner but all the wings I saw were those ugly oversized squishy ones. Most ran about $8 for 4 or 5 lbs. I found some beautiful tiny ones when I went to GFS to see if they had any markdowns but they are $12. I think I will probably go back and get the $12 ones later in the week when I run errands.

I made a big batch of chili today using half the ground beef and plan on using the rest to make taco meat.

Menu Plan Monday

Wow, its been awhile since I joined in for Menu Plan Monday. I need it. I could get away without doing a menu for a few weeks because all the items in my freezer and pantry but many things including the flu wiped out most of my favorite pantry items. I need a menu so I can stay under budget in order have money free to stock back up. We have a busy week with a birthday, outside activities, wisdom teeth extraction and to much to name so as always the menu is subject to change :)

Monday- Ham salad plates (to use up leftover ham) with pasta salad (make extra for lunch boxes) and fruit.

Tuesday-Pot roast (make extra) seasoned potato wedges ( make extra) green beans

Wednesday-Chili (make enough extra to freeze 2 dinners) Try new cornbread recipe

Thursday-Beef burritos ( using pot roast, hopefully enough to freeze a few) beans, rice, salsa and chips

Friday-Spaghetti and garlic bread

Saturday- Iron Chef night (leftovers)

Sunday- Pizza and wings (birthday request)

Also on the menu this week:

Empanadas - I have some premade pie crusts I did not use for Thanksgiving so they are going to be used for lunchboxes.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Thanksgiving was nice......

The cookie tray came together nicely. I still have some scooped dough left so I think I will throw it onto the freezer for lunchbox goodies.

Instead of spreading cool whip across the the whole cake, I prefer to cut it, put it in muffin liners and then garnish. That way it is easier to serve and continues to look nice after people start taking desserts. I always seem to manage to forget to bring extra serving utensils anyway.

The mini Boston cream pies came out pretty well. They are still on the cutting board in the picture. We ended up having to leave early so I did not get to get a picture after I had put them on serving trays.

Everyone had a good time, especially all the grandkids. We will be staying home for Christmas and it will be just us. We have not had to many traditional dinners the last few years, usually preferring to have Mexican food or beef tips. I'm not sure what I am going to do yet. My 15 is having his wisdom teeth pulled this week followed by his 16th birthday 3 days later. We usually go out to dinner on birthdays but we are cutting even special occasion eating out, so far he is thinking he wants pizza and buffalo wings. Sounds good to me :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!


Wishing you and yours the best this Thanksgiving.

Maggie

Ok, trying to throw things together

I needed to do the bulk of my shopping today, I had originally planned to go Tuesday but this weeks schedule is getting very full. My list was only half done so I had to guess on a few things.

I spent almost all of this weeks budget on holiday baking supplies but I should have enough for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I probably went a little heavy on the butter but it was on sale so I will just freeze the extra.

So, I spent the morning dealing with paperwork and phone calls, tried to finish up my grocery list, hurried to be first at the cheap haircut place, rushed through Meijer, hit CVS for some on sale hair color (yay, plus coupon!) and made it home just in time for naptime giving me time to color my hair. DH was with me for the first half of the day so things moved quickly. I'm glad I have a few things scratched off my list.

So for Thanksgiving desserts I'm considering the following:

Cookies tray
Peanut butter cookies with kisses
Chocolate chip cookies
Snickerdoodles
Dark chocolate cake mix cookies with peanut butter chips
Oreo Truffles (Double batch, they disappear first)

Dessert Tray

Store bought pumpkin pie and apple crumb pie ( only 1.99 this week!)
Decadent cake -ok, it's actually called Better than *** cake but I change the name :)
Some kind of mini boston cream pie style cake ( seems like a easy idea)
Lemon bars- this is a recipe I have never tried but if I'm gonna spend a couple days in the kitchen I want to try at least one thing new.

I made a really good carrot cake last year but not everyone likes carrot cake and it is a little more effort so I decide to skip it. I may still drop the lemon bars if something comes up or add something if things go well.

I'm going to make the cookie doughs on Tuesday and refrigerate them until Thanksgiving morning. Then the kids can scoop them for me and I can bake off fresh cookies. You can save time and dishes by making up multiple batches of cookies working from lightest to darkest so you don't have to wash the bowl over and over.Scooping them ahead of time is great if you have multiple events you need to cook for. Just keep a tray full of pre-scooped cookies in the fridge and pull out what you need.

I did make one impulse purchase at the store. Containers of key lime flavored cheesecake filling were on sale so I grabbed one thinking I could make some easy mini cheesecakes but I have since decided the package only contains enough for me :)

uh-oh....

I thought I was bringing a dessert for Thanksgiving but it turns out I am making the desserts, all of them.


Thanks honey for clearing that up .

Mini Cinnamon rolls

Certains things are a great deal this time of year. Make sure you pick up a extra tube of on sale crescent rolls to make these easy yummy mini cinnamon rolls

They would also be a great addition to a tray full of homemade muffins if you are expecting any guests for the holidays.

Pizza Biscuits

Pizza biscuits are a hit around here, all they are is a biscuit base and pizza toppings. We made a few different combinations and sizes. A muffin tin works well but I really prefer to use a mini loaf pan. I included 2 pictures of some that had been made in a mini loaf pan and also some mini "2 bite" buffalo chicken pizzas that were made in a mini muffin pan. I used a regular muffins pan to make some with the works but did not get a good picture.

We don't eat many biscuits around here but coupons are pretty common for both flaky tube biscuits and bisquick mix. Combined with a sale and a store that has double coupons they can be really cheap. You could of course use your own biscuit recipe or copycat baking mix recipe.

I prefer my pizza to be mostly topping and very little biscuit. If using tube "flaky" biscuits I carefully pull them apart into 2 thinner biscuits or use kitchen scissors to cut into 4 pieces for a mini muffin pan. I usually use bisquick though and just use enough to cover the bottom. I have also used pyrex rectangles to make larger pizzas but you have to be careful not to use to much dough and to leave it in the oven long enough to get it fully cooked. Top with a little sauce, cheese and your favorite toppings

Some tips:

-Go very light on the sauce
-Sprinkle with italian seasoning for that wonderful pizza smell
-Great to use up leftover spaghetti sauce and veggies
-Cool completely for easier removal
-Freeze for quick snacks and to use in lunchboxes

-