Spiffy Biscuits

Menu Plan, sweetened condensed version

2012-01-15T21:30:00.000-08:00

I am leaving, on a jet plane, in less than 72 hours. I can't believe that we actually pulled the trigger on this trip to Hawaii, but I am so proud of us for doing it! Parenting is the most exasperating and wonderful thing I have ever done, and it's tough to make your marriage a priority when you're in the trenches of 2 small boys. But, I would really like to stay married to the guy who calls me Spiffy Biscuits, forever and ever, so I know this trip will be good for us. Okay, enough mush! Cleaning out the fridge, lack of creativity edition;

Sunday; I made fajitas. I had all these random bits and pieces on the counter trying to figure out what to make, and my husband walked in and said, "make fajitas, you can use the steak, the onion, the mushrooms, and the peppers" Why couldn't I think of that?

Monday; Giving this a shot, I love anything with cabbage lately!

Tuesday; More allrecipes.com to the rescue, the Pesto has to go.

Like the gratuitous shot of my kids? I saw this magical pic on Pinterest of a baby fascinated by Christmas lights, so I wanted to recreate it. Great job Megan!

Dear main dish salad, you rocked my world.

2012-01-15T21:11:00.000-08:00

So I made this salad a couple of weeks ago, and though I can't take credit for the dressing that makes it amazing, I still wanted to share it with you. I looooove main dish salads. Usually Steak Cesar is my standard, but I somehow learned of the existence of Warm Bacon Salad Dressing, and felt an immediate urge to update my standard. This is the recipe I used, and of course I had to mess with it a bit, once I had made it a couple of times. I decreased the sugar to 1 cup, and altered the technique just a bit (thicken the dressing, then put the bacon back in so it stays crisp), but trust me when I say this dressing is fab. My most recent use of it then was over a spinach salad with grilled chicken, (which I marinated in some random oil/vinegar mix that was leftover from a pork roast my darling husband had done) sliced pear, hard boiled eggs, and cranberries. It was sooo good. Make it! Unless you don't eat bacon.

Source: blogs.babble.com via Megan on Pinterest

And then have this for dessert. After all, you ate a super healthy salad for supper.

A menu plan in preparation for VACATION baby!

2012-01-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

So we're going to Hawaii in a couple weeks. Like how I said that so casually, as if I go to Hawaii annually, and I'm really not even excited about it? Don't believe anything I say, cause it's nonsense! I have never been anywhere exotic, and I am SOOOOOO excited! My big bro is getting married, and his wife to be is obviously a genius, as evidenced by the destination! I'm freaking out of course; we're leaving our kids behind, and while I know beyond any doubt that Grammie and Grandad will take ridiculously good care of them, it's still hard. Not to mention that my traveling partners include my husband (hurray!) and my breast pump (Lord help me!). But it's good. So I'm working on using up all fresh stuff on the premises.

Monday; Quiche, cottage cheese, green salad

Tuesday; Chicken spinach salad (I hope to share this one, I think it's going to rock)

Wednesday; Beef stew from the freezer

Thursday; Chicken/tomato pasta (the only long cut pasta I have is Angel Hair, how did that happen?)

Friday; French Toast, citrus salad

Saturday; Pizza night!

Sunday; some Sausage/Gnocchi thing I saw on allrecipes, since I must use up a package of gnocchi, ASAP

I plan to make some Samoas inspired bars that I saw on Pinterest too, cause momma needs sweets. If they are good I'll find the link for you!

So I flaked out for a year, no biggie right?

2012-01-01T19:34:00.000-08:00

What can I say. I don't do guilt, but I'm sorry I quit writing because I miss it. I find myself thinking, "ooh, I should blog that", and then I have a twinge of missing out on the creative process that it brings. So I'm going to give it a shot. Here's what I've been up to the last year by the way!

Meatless Monday, extra cheese edition

2011-02-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

We love cheese here. It's one of those things that I never get tired of, and I've got years of evidence that my hubs doesn't either. And of course, Junior Pete is just like every other cheese loving kid, and would happily eat nothing else if given the choice. So this super easy recipe will surely be in my repertoire for like, ever.

Manicotti

2 cups ricotta cheese (roughly equivalent to a 15oz container, I usually buy the bulk tubs at Sam's)
3 cups shredded mozzarella, divided
1 cup grated parmesan, divided (I often use Asiago, it's comparable to good parm, but cheaper)
1/2 cup bread crumbs (I process leftover bread in the cuisinart and then freeze it to use here, in meatloaf, etc. Dried breadcrumbs would work just fine)
1 egg
4 tsp dried parsley (or 4 TBSP fresh chopped)
1 jar spaghetti sauce of your choice
1 box manicotti noodles

Put a big pot of water on to boil while you make the filling, and preheat the oven to 350. In a large bowl, combine the ricotta, 2 cups of the mozz, 3/4 cup of the parm, the bread crumbs, egg and parsley. Stir to mix well. Cook the pasta per instructions, drain well, and then lay out flat to cool a bit so they're easier to work with. Prepare a 9X13 pan by spreading about 1 cup of the spaghetti sauce on the bottom. To fill each piece of pasta use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut them open so they lay flat, and then place 1/4 cup of filling in each. Roll up and place seam side down in prepared pan. Once all shells are stuffed and in the pan, pour the remaining pasta sauce over the top, and then sprinkle with remaining cheeses. Bake in 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes.

Sorry I didn't get a post-oven, melty cheese beautiful shot after it had baked, we had been smelling it for long enough that I wasn't really thinking along those lines.

Printer friendly copy

A couple of thoughts. First of all, the filling picture isn't great, doesn't it look like crab spread? That made me think that crab manicotti would be beyond scrumptious, but that's big money talk too. Hmm.
This freezes perfectly, and I have part of this batch tucked safely away already for the next time it shows up on my menu. I love 2 for 1 cooking.

Menu Plan, 2/6-2/12

2011-02-07T07:06:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I didn't post this yesterday, I actually had it written on Saturday, look at me on top of things!

Sunday; Super Bowl disappointment was accompanied by the potato skins that I brought to the party, not sure they helped my PA born hubs, I think he's in mourning today. I only stayed for an hour or so, you can get by with that when you're pregnant!
Monday; Manicotti and Italian broccoli
Tuesday; Fry bread tacos and corn
Wednesday; Crock pot beef stew and homemade rolls (they're in the freezer from a huge batch I made :) )
Thursday; Mac and cheese with ham, roasted asparagus
Friday; Chicken tortilla soup (leftovers from the freezer, made roughly like this recipe, my verdict is not spicy enough, but then I would say that), quesadillas (my son's vocab includes the word "dunk", as in you must have something to dunk in soup!)
Saturday; Chicken fried rice

Sweets of the week are lemon cookies, and I plan to make pbj cookies today. I have big goals to post several of these recipes over the course of the week, hold me to it! I'm listing more vegetables this week as part of the menu because I'm more focused on what I have on hand, thanks to the grocery project I have going on. I think I will have enough fruits and veggies to make it until next Monday, but I expect to have the crisper drawers empty by then. I'm hoping for good sales!

Shopping trip, 2/6

2011-02-06T18:30:00.000-08:00

Safeway during the Super Bowl is a nice place to be. I spent $1.73 on the pictured items (I am including tax in all my transactions by the way, it's easier for me, plus you gotta pay it, so you might as well count it). The creamer was $1.69, so I figure everything else was free! A couple of tips for Safeway maximization;

Safeway is (sometimes) generous with free items coupons that dispense from the Catalina machines. They are the machines that print separately from your receipt when you check out, and it's up to you to watch them, because they spit out some good stuff. I always scope out the machines at self checkout, because people tend to ignore them, and both the cleaning spray and the soda were free thanks to coupons that I grabbed from self checkout. I have no idea what prompts them to print for certain people and not for others, but I can tell you that I grabbed another free item coupon from the one I used tonight, which the previous person had overlooked. This is like the cheap person's lottery! I won't get rich playing, but it's fun!

The taco shells and beans are part of an Old El Paso deal that is going on right now, and My Frugal Adventures hooked me up with some coupons that made this a great deal. The taco shells are .99/box, and the beans are $1/can, and when you buy 5, you get a $3 catalina for your next purchase. I got a slip advertising this cat a few weeks ago, and it said the $3 would be for beef or chicken, but it proved to be good for any purchase, which is more convenient for me. I paid for this transaction with a $3 cat from a few weeks ago, and that's always part of my strategy; if you pay for items that produce a catalina WITH a catalina, you reduce your out of pocket cost. I know catalina's are super confusing, so questions?

I have $22.18 left for the month, and I don't plan to do any shopping until the 14th. If you stop in Safeway in the meantime, look for a fresh supply of the Joy of Football coupon books, the $2 Rancher's Reserve coupon is awesome!

My first purchase of the month, and I didn't even have to leave the house!

2011-02-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

My darling husband picked up some milk today for me while it was still on sale at Wags, thanks babe! I have $23.91 left to spend for the month, and I have a catalina for Safeway that expires tomorrow, so I'm going to be planning a way to use that baby up. I'll keep you posted!

This item will not be in my gift registry.

2011-01-31T21:31:00.001-08:00

OMG, I had to share this one. Before you click on the link, what do you think that thing is??!?!

Holy lactose intolerance!

2011-01-31T18:59:00.000-08:00

I had an urge to buy enough food to last through Armageddon, but I reined myself in, and kept things reasonable for my final normal shopping day before I head into my little challenge. I spent about $50 today, which is a little more than usual, but over $10 of that was cheese, including some Tillamook that I had a rain check for at Safeway. Cheese is important. I did want to point out a couple of good deals around town that are still going on.

Haggar's;

Not unusual, lots of my produce came from them this week. They have grapes at $1.88/lb through tomorrow only, which saved my a trip into FTC where they are a bit cheaper at $1.49/lb, but there are pretty much no other reasons to stop there. Worth the extra .50 or so to me to skip another stop!
I needed to load up on our favorite cheap snack, popcorn, and Haggar's had an unexpected bonus for me, the 2lb bags are only $1.50 on sale (this wasn't in the ad, so I don't know when the sale ends). I hesitate to admit this, but I have tracked popcorn before to figure out the actual cost per batch, and I can tell you that a 2lb bag yields around 11 batches of popcorn, so about .14 cents per batch at this price. What other snack is that cheap, and loaded with fiber? By the way, I don't have any special equipment, like an air popper to make popcorn. I use the enamel covered cast iron pot that I make soup in, add 2-3 TBSP oil, and 1/3 cup popcorn, and then cook it over medium-high with the lid on, shaking it periodically.

Safeway;

Thanks for the free meat Safeway! The $2 beef coupon that I mentioned in the Joy of Football coupon book is available to load to your Safeway card if you haven't found it in the store. I actually used the loaded e-coupon, in addition to a paper coupon, and they both worked just fine on the 2 packages of beef that I bought today. I wanted cube steak, and the only pack they had in the store was $2, so free after the coupon, and then the other steak is Top Sirloin, probably for our date night this month, and it was $2.13 after coupon.
The asparagus that is $1.88/lb through tomorrow only is beautiful, I can't wait to eat it! Asparagus means spring too, and God knows we could use some of that considering how flippin' cold it is right now.
Bell peppers (red, orange, yellow) are $1, and the frozen bagged pepper strips are .99 with the coupon from the ad, or you can load it to your card. This one is through tomorrow only also. And apparently we really love bell peppers round here.

Walgreens;

Milk on sale for $1.99/gallon, which is a good omen for me. I am loaded up now with about 3 gallons in the fridge, plus 3 in the freezer. I usually keep 2-3 in the freezer for those spells when I can't get a better price on it, and we go through about 2 gallons/week, so I think we can get halfway through the month on what we have. If you've never frozen milk before, don't be scared. It takes up a lot of room of course, but just pour some out so it has head room in the container, and it will freeze fine. I don't notice any change in the taste, though it may get a little bit of sediment in the bottom. One thing to know is that it takes roughly 12 lunar cycles to thaw, so you gotta plan ahead (just kidding, but easily 4 days to thaw, think of it like a turkey).
Pudding mix is probably not an item I have purchased in the current millennium, but I was thinking how much my little guy would dig pudding pops, so the Walgreens in ad coupon to make each box .59, combined with the manufacturer's coupon here for .55 off 3 was enough to convince me. Why did they quit making pudding pops anyway?

So I'm ready to stop shopping for the next month, and I have a few projects that I'm cooking up, since I won't be spending much time at the stores! I know there will be hard moments when I have to pass a deal up, but I'm looking forward to getting my pantry overflow contained. Maybe I'll even share some pictures of the progress in that area, if I'm brave enough...

Menu Plan 1/30-2/5

2011-01-30T20:51:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling good about menu planning lately, it probably helps that January is almost over, and my January calendar has every square filled out with something I actually cooked, hurray! I currently use a very vanilla (and nearly free, just the cost of paper, ink, Internet service, the computer, blah, blah, blah) calendar from here to plan my menus, and I just post it on the fridge for quick reference. BUT, I have big plans for a cuter (and freer, if you can believe it, and if that's a word...) menu planner. I'll let you know when that's more of a reality and less of an abstract project floating around my brain. Anyway, here's the plan for this week!

Today we had grilled cheese and chicken soup, I definitely keep it really easy on Sundays, because we go swimming at 6pm, and I'm not up to a whole lot of excitement other than that.

Monday; Spanish rice in the rice cooker, this will be a first attempt for me so we'll see how it goes!

Tuesday; Greek salad, Feta cheese muffins. Anyone make a Greek salad dressing that rocks?

Wednesday; my nephew's turning 11 (this totally blows my mind), so we'll be having pizza at his house. I am under instructions not to bring anything, which I'm sure I can handle.

Thursday; Steak Cesar salad, Parmesan crisps, maybe some homemade bread.

Friday; Soft pretzels and cheese soup. I have tried making these 2 items together before, because it just seems like a great, fun, meat free supper for a casual Friday night (by which I mean we all come to the table in our jammies). I struggled with timing in a big way, because I didn't fully anticipate what a pain in the butt it can be to boil the pretzels and then bake them. The two steps are necessary in order to get that nice chewy thing going on, but this time I am prepared, and I will master this meal, for sure!

Saturday; pizza night, probably a Calzone for a change.

Last week's menu had a few highlights I wanted to share. I already mentioned the awesomeness of the lineup change in the form of steak sandwiches, make them already! The TVP thing was okay, I think I messed up a bit in that we wouldn't normally have any meat in the rice and beans, so it was like I was substituting for something that shouldn't be there anyway. My next TVP project will be meatloaf I'm thinking. My pizza night was great, the chicken/broccoli/Alfredo sauce was a hit, and I threw on some crumbled, cooked bacon that I had leftover, which I think will be a must in the future. At some point in the week, I made some Momma crack, and my hubs ate all but the one serving that I inhaled, so I am renaming it Daddy crack.

The meal that we may have enjoyed more than I expected was the chili topped baked potatoes, and let me tell you, it had many things to recommend it for sure. I had a small portion of leftover chili in the freezer, not enough that I could serve it as the main again, but enough worth saving, so I view that as a freebie. I bake my potatoes in the most low maintenance way imaginable; I scrub them, and put them in a preheated 475 degree oven, directly on the rack, no oil, no foil. Yes that is blazin' hot baby, and you can believe we don't eat baked potatoes in the summer. The method produces some awesome baked potatoes, the skin kind of blisters away from the flesh (without actually coming off), and the inside is moist and fabulous. This coming from a woman who really had no use for baked potatoes, for many years. The other awesome thing is that it produces no waste and no dishes! How often can you say that about anything you make?! I threw shredded cheddar and sour cream on top of the chili, and they were so tasty, sometimes the easiest things are the best.

For the boys.

2011-01-29T19:10:00.001-08:00

Just a heads up, and sorry for the late notice, but there's a fun event going on this weekend at the Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn to benefit SD Youth Hunting Adventures. It runs from 9-4pm tomorrow, Sunday, and is an exhibit of exotic, dead animals (I'm sorry, but how else should I say it!). Apparently they have some live ones too, a red-tailed hawk I believe my husband said?! Anyway, you'll have to contend with the stock show traffic if you go check it out, so I would recommend that DAD take the kids, you'll be glad to drop them off, and then you can go shopping! Worked out great for me today! It's $5 for adults, kids are free. Have fun!

Changing the meal plan with wild and reckless abandon, cause that's how I do.

2011-01-26T20:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I like to rap, which never fails to give my husband lots of ammo against me. So I'll never speak (or rap) the above title out loud, but thanks for letting me share it with you. I just wanted to throw out to the universe that I made an impulsive and fabulous change to my menu this week, and I would love to encourage you to taste the item that made me throw caution to the wind. Actually what it did is cause my pregnant body to say "FEEEED MEEE", which was pretty scary, I can't lie.

I have been making a steak sandwich for a long time, and it was fine, but nowhere near as good as this baby. Pioneer Woman has a way with food, particularly butter and beef, and I think she's a good resource if you're looking for new recipes that will have broad appeal, do not require exotic ingredients, and have reasonable prep times. Check her out! And make this sandwich! I noticed that Safeway has Cube Steak at $3.49/lb, and they also have a coupon in the Joy of Football (holy oxymoron alert) coupon book, which they seem to continue to have at customer service, for $2 off any Rancher's Reserve beef. That was a really long sentence...

Another random stranger's shopping list...

2011-01-26T19:44:00.001-08:00

I found another list, and embarrassingly, I've been holding on to this one for a while, knowing that I wanted to share it with you.

So I found this one at Haggar's, right around New Year's. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this woman (gotta be a woman, look at the paper and the handwriting), and would really like to talk shop with her. Not only did she definitely look at the ad, she wrote down the sale prices as a reference for herself! Plus I think she was making a yummy chip dip for New Year's.

Does anyone else look for lists? I actually passed one up at Safeway, the checker was looking at me weird. The real reason I didn't grab it is that it was boring, I would have let the checker think whatever she wanted if it had been a good one!

Final tally for next month's grocery challenge...

2011-01-25T13:15:00.001-08:00

So I have mentioned before that I want to emphasize how important it is to check your receipts for accuracy, and that to prove the point, I will be feeding my family for one month, just on the money that I've been overcharged in the past year. I am super excited to do this, I really think it will be great fun. I'll be honest, the last few months I really haven't been as diligent as I could have been, and I definitely let some amounts go. However, I do have $28.27 collected and ready to go, and I am totally confident that I can do it! February is my chosen month, so I'm gearing up. A few of the "rules" if you will;

All food that we ingest has to be paid for out of this money, including everything during my husband's working day. He has a habit of picking things up, even though I pack his lunch for him everyday, so we'll be working on that.
We go on a date once a month, and of course Valentine's Day falls during Feb, so it will be interesting (to me at least) exactly how I handle that...
I have been shopping strategically, within my budget, to prep for this, and I definitely want to point out that my existing supply of groceries is what allows me to even consider doing this. I'm not into deprivation, and I expect that pretty much everything I spend will be on fresh produce and milk.
I plan to give you regular updates on how we're doing, what our menus are, and whether I'm dying to get takeout pizza!

Does anyone work here?

2011-01-23T19:57:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time. I could apologize (and make excuses), but it wouldn't change the fact that I haven't posted for over a month, so instead I'll just suck it up and write something already!

The "Yes, I do still feed the people I live with Menu Plan"

Today; I made meatball sandwiches and some sort of fried potato pancakes, only round instead of pancake shaped. Don't turn your computer off yet please. The potatoes have potential, if they develop further I'll let you know.
Monday; God willing, my hubs doesn't read this. I got some TVP for super cheap, so I'm going to make beans and rice with it. This could be interesting, I'll be making corn muffins too, just to take the edge off.
Tuesday; Turkey Tettrazini! No one can say it like this woman...
Wednesday; Tilapia with rice pilaf.
Thursday; Roast Chicken, probably roast potatoes if I remember to get some lard (yeah, you read that right, lard is the bomb!)
Friday; Chili cheese topped baked potatoes.
Saturday; Pizza night, I'm thinking chicken/broccoli/alfredo for toppings so I can use up some of my roast from Thurs.

I don't usually plan my sides in great detail, unless they are a bit more complicated. Suffice it to say that we always have a veg on the side, and when we're done eating, we always have some fruit, or "Fute, Fute!!" as my son says. I hope he doesn't learn to say his r's any time soon...

For sweet fixes this week, there is mint chip ice cream in the freezer, and I just made some oatmeal/chocolate/peanut butter/butterscotch bars. I'm not sure why they had so many ingredients, but they better be good. The ice cream, however, has only 5 ingredients, and rocks my world. Combine 1 cup whole milk, 3/4 cup sugar, 2 cups heavy cream and a pretty generous teaspoon of peppermint extract, and stir until the sugar dissolved. Pour it into your ice cream maker, and follow the dang manufacturer's instructions for how long to leave it in there. About 2 minutes before it's done, add whatever random quantity of whatever random semisweet or bittersweet chocolate you have knocking around in the pantry, really well chopped (even pulverized I would say). Soo flippin' good. I just ate some in fact. And I'd like a bit more. If you don't own an ice cream maker and you're interested, I like this one. However, I would not, not, not pay that much for it, I think I maybe paid twenty some bucks? Shop around.

Safeway Daily Deals!

2010-12-13T13:16:00.000-08:00

Safeway has some nice one day sales going on right now. They started yesterday and I would guess they'll run until Christmas or close to it. The really nice thing that I see is that there is NO MENTION of a minimum purchase in order to get the deal. So today for example, I picked up Safeway brand flour, 5lb for .59, which is awesome! There is a limit of 2, and the tag in the store says "per household", so I chose not to do another transaction to buy more. Tomorrow, 12/14, they have store brand baking chips at .99/bag (and if you got the coupon book that was in the stores around Thanksgiving, there's a coupon for .50/1 bag to make them .49!), and then on 12/15 the 42oz quick oats are .99/canister. I assume we'll see the deals for the following days once the new ad comes out on Wednesday, and I'm planning to stop in and take advantage of at least some of these deals without buying anything else, so I'll let you know if that gives me any trouble. If you go past Safeway, you might consider running in really quick for some of these items!

Happy Thanksgiving.

2010-11-25T13:50:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am so thankful for my awesome family, especially my sweet husband and beautiful son, and I'm thankful that I get to be a momma again! I hope you all have just as much to be thankful for, and that you enjoy the day with your family!

PS, just in case you thought I had lost my mind, I will not be Black Friday shopping this year! No deal is worth that kind of stress to me. If you go, I'd love to hear about it!

The ultimate excuse for failure to do just about anything...

2010-11-15T15:57:00.000-08:00

So here's why I haven't been posting lately. We're officially 15 weeks, and I'm feeling great today, but I've learned that that does not mean I won't start puking at midnight. Sorry for the double negatives in that sentence! Anyway, I'm really hoping to pick up the reins again, we'll see how I do.

Cheap M&M's, hurray

2010-11-15T11:33:00.000-08:00

So there's a nice deal at Walgreens this week, the perfect way to get your feet wet with Register Rewards and get started on picking up holiday baking supplies, or holiday overeating, whichever is up your alley. I saw this on Hip2Save, and there's a lot of conversation over there about exactly which varieties of M&Ms to purchase in order to minimize the stress of the transaction possibly not working for you.

M&Ms 9.9-12.6oz bags are on sale for $2.50 each, buy 4 bags and receive a $5 Register Reward (RR) Remember that the RR is a coupon that prints after you pay for the items, can be used on your next purchase, and expires in 2 weeks. There are a few coupons out there that you can use on the M&Ms that will make this deal even better, although even without any coupons it's still a decent price for the candy.

Facebook has a coupon for the new pretzel variety, $1 off each bag. Just like them, and then you can print 2 copies per computer. Yesterday's paper had $1 off 2 bags of the holiday varieties too. I used 2 of the FB coupons, and one of the holiday varieties to get my out of pocket cost down to $7, and I still get the $5 RR to use next time. One note if you're not familiar with the RR, you CAN use that RR to do this transaction again, BUT it won't print another RR, since it's the same manufacturer.

I'm so proud of myself, I already started baking! I used Paula Deen's recipe for Monster Cookies, and they are yummy.

Voting location FYI for Piedmont Valley

2010-11-01T08:30:00.001-07:00

At my family Halloween get together last night, we discussed where voting would take place tomorrow, since the Piedmont Gym is in the construction area. My mom had heard it was at the Piedmont Library, but then when we headed home I noticed that the American Legion building's sign says that it will be held there. I didn't see exactly what it said, since my husband was going roughly the speed of light in order to get home to catch the rest of the Steelers game, and unfortunately the Meade County website hasn't been updated, but that seems to be the story. So go get the vote out tomorrow! Vote yes on 12! Or don't, it's up to you!

Hope you all had a good one!

2010-10-31T18:14:00.001-07:00

My unsolicted opinion on the time/sapce continuum.

2010-10-22T07:09:00.001-07:00

Not really. But after being a stay at home momma for over a year now, I definitely have some things to say about prioritization, and I've been wanting to share. Please feel free to weigh in! What I wanted to talk about today is deciding how to pick out money saving tasks that you want to commit to doing, based on how much time you have to set aside for those tasks. What I mean is that there are so many things you can do to save money in your day to day life, but you gotta decide which ones are worth your time investment, AND that you enjoy doing enough that you won't drive yourself freaking crazy trying to keep up with them. An example;

I love to make bread, truly love it, especially in the colder months. And I will NEVER make our sandwich bread. I have a lot of reasons for this; although I use some whole wheat flour (pastry flour is the best) in several of the breads I make, I have yet to make 100% whole wheat bread that doesn't sit in your belly like a rapidly hardening batch of concrete. Commercial 100% whole wheat however has overcome that issue through some kind of sorcery that they do, so I say, let them do it right and I won't worry about it. Homemade bread just doesn't last on the counter like commercial, so I would have to make it every few days, and then figure out what to do with the stale stuff, cause we just don't burn through it that fast (and I just don't need that many bread crumbs). Commercial bread however, especially if you freeze it until you need it, always stays acceptably fresh (again, sorcery). Finally, if my darling husband were faced with an unsliced loaf of homemade bread when he went scrounging for a sandwich, I'm pretty sure he'd look for some cereal instead. It's a guy thing, I think, and honestly I don't really blame him! I don't think that you should forgo all convenience in the name of frugality, particularly when the savings isn't huge. I can buy sandwich bread for $1/loaf (maybe less if I get lucky at the bakery thrift store), and while I've never figured the cost of a batch of homemade (umm, cause I don't like it anyway, so what do I care), I can't imagine it would be much cheaper.
So that's my platform, vote for me! I will continue to make pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, Cuban bread, and refrigerator yeast rolls on a regular basis to satisfy my need for my house to smell like Heaven. But I'm just not messing with sandwich bread!

So, while not every task needs to be examined in such detail, I think it's really important to spend a little time deciding what you want to do, and where you'll take some help from the grocery store. And if you hate doing some frugal task, figure out a way to make it less painful, because you're not likely to stick with something you hate, and then you'll feel all guilty about it. Why waste your life feeling guilty? Go watch Jersey Shore so you can feel better about yourself!

2010-10-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice Groupon deal if you're planning a trip to Sioux Falls between now and April. Spezia is a really scrummy Italian restaurant on Louise Street, and you can get a $50 gift certificate there for $25. It expires 4/25/11, and cannot be applied towards gratuity or tax. Spezia has great food, and the prices aren't bad, plus the desserts are really nice. I definitely think you could get a nice meal for 2 for $50! Try the Shrimp Fra Diavolo!

We always used to go to SF in the fall and do some Christmas shopping, but I can't think of any stores there that I would want to go to now, other than World Market of course! So, sadly I'll probably skip this deal. I doubt I can convince my husband to go, unless I promise a meal at Famous Dave's.....

Rapid City Swim Center Promotional Spot (and a pretty unflattering picture of me).

2010-10-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

Obviously, I'm not affiliated with the Swim Center, but I wanted to tell you guys about some of the stuff they offer. First of all, they have a really nice indoor pool, so if you've never been, I really recommend it! It's always clean, and they work really hard to make sure there aren't any unsupervised kids running around raising cane, so we enjoy going, even with a toddler. There are actually 2 pools in the building, a lap pool and a leisure pool. The leisure pool has a zero entry side (like at the beach, you can just walk in to the water), a really nice play area with a slide and other fun stuff, and also a walking channel. The channel is like a walking path with a current of water, so it's a good workout if you want something low impact.

As far as programs, they have plenty of stuff going on. I started taking junior to Water Moms in Motion when he was 3 months old, and I can assure you that he loved the water from the start. I've never seen a baby there who didn't look totally comfortable, even the little tiny ones. Water Moms in Motion is an aerobics class for pregnant women, or women with new babies, and they offer it on Tues/Thurs at 5:30pm. I haven't gone for quite a while, but it's a good workout and I would definitely recommend it. Another thing we have taken advantage of is swim lessons, and they have another session coming up soon. The next session runs from Nov 6-Dec 21, and online registration starts 10/22. Prices range from $30-$45, and most of the sessions are one day/week. We plan to sign up for Aquatots this time around, and I can assure you they really do teach useful stuff, even to babies/toddlers. Another thing we go to routinely is Family Swim. It's offered on Tues/Thurs/Sun evenings. Finally, we go to Chocolate Splash, which is on Fridays from 11-12pm, and is for kids under 6.

Christmas gift idea, for the XY set

2010-10-11T16:15:00.000-07:00

So the Groupon deal today in Sioux Falls is for the online retailer Red Envelope, which is very much a gifty kind of site. The deal is that you get a $30 credit at Red Envelope for $15, which is a nice savings. I picked one up so that I can buy this item for my bro for Christmas. I realize this is the smallest possible picture, and would love for you all to guess what the heck it is, but I'll be nice and just tell you; they're called fire wires, which are like flexible skewers for the grill. You can thread food onto them, marinade it in a bowl, and then throw them on the grill, and they'll take up less room and generally be easier to use. Here's the link to Red Envelope, there's plenty of other interesting items!

I'm still standing, promise.

2010-10-11T15:27:00.000-07:00

I honor of upcoming Halloween, I had to pick a creepy gravestone for this post. My point is that I'm really not dead, I'm still kicking. So here's the deal. I haven't posted for several days, cause frankly it's been all I could do to get out of bed, feed my son, and maybe take a shower. I have not been feeling well, but I think I'm doing better now, and I want to get our little blog back on track.

One of other my roadblocks has been trying to figure out what I should really be writing about. I don't want to post deals that are inaccessible to you guys, because I want budget living to be convenient and minimally time consuming. I have always tried to make it a point to post local deals that were available either without coupons, or with coupons that were currently available to print from somewhere on the Internet (or maybe in a current store ad, or something else that was still available). But then I got more into posting my grocery store trips, and I realized that they may be frustrating to you if you aren't already at that level of coupon use. But on the flipside, I think it's good to see what's possible by couponing. The other thing about living frugally that I want to emphasize is that it's sooooo not all about coupons. There are so many ways to save money on certain expenses, so that you have freedom to spend your money on the things that are important to you and your family.

So my point in all this rambling is that I'm looking for your input as to what you would like to see me focus on. I'm assuming that my only readers are people I know personally (if you don't actually know me, Hi, isn't the Internet a trip?!), so as I see you guys, will you tell me what you think? In the meantime, I'm going to try out some different topics and see what I feel like makes a good fit.

Cheap pumpkin related fun for the whole fam!

2010-10-01T18:48:00.001-07:00

There's a Great Downtown Pumpkin Festival going on tomorrow in Rapid, here's the link for the info on the Journal's website. I would love to go see Charlie Brown at the Elks, but I do not think for one second that my child would sit still for that.

Sunday ad picks, 9/26-10/2

2010-09-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, really quick, no frills, here's what I spotted.

Target

Orowheat bread is $1.50/loaf, I usually try to pay $1 or less per loaf of whole wheat bread, but this is definitely not a bad price for this brand.
A dozen eggs are $1, over my target price, but egg deals have been lacking lately.
If you have little kids, the infants and toddlers Hanes fleece is $3.50/item, so pants and a sweatshirt for $7. This is my favorite way to dress little kids when it's cold, absolutely no fuss!
If you're in the market, they have some Playtex bras on sale for $12, and mind blowingly, a handful of them have $2 coupons right on the label. I was in the market since I recently retired my nursing bras. Even this one.

Walgreens

Here's a Register Rewards deal for you, Vaseline Sheer Infusion lotion is $5.99, and you'll get a $5 RR back, plus you can use the coupon here (must register) to save a buck. They will have a couple of good deals next week that you can use the RR on if you want to give it a try, and I really like this lotion so I think you might too!
One other thing that just cropped up, they have a FREEEEE collage print if you use the code FBCOLL at checkout, and pick it up in store. This is good 9/30 and 10/1 only, and it's a Facebook promotion, just so you know where it came from. If you don't have a local Walgreens (that would be you Bubbles!), you can have it shipped to you for only .99, I think, so still a good deal. These are so nice, I always get recent pictures and just keep it on the fridge until the next free one comes along.

Family Thrift Center

I'm irritated with them, they haven't had good deals on anything that isn't processed crap and I'm sick of it! Meat and produce please? This week, the American Beauty pasta is a decent price, .60/lb. There are some in-ad coupons for cheese, lunch meat, etc. but the prices are nothing great. I'm not going!

If you shop at Safeway, consider this fair warning...

2010-09-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I didn't get any recipes up today, I'll really try hard tomorrow! I also need to post Sunday ad picks, I'll really try hard tomorrow! I swear!

In the meantime, I had to share this with you; finding other people's shopping lists is one of my favorite grocery store games! Seriously, I love this peek into other people's lives. In the above example, I'm assuming the list writer is female, because the handwriting is super neat. I was excited to think maybe it was left by a Spiffy Biscuits reader (slim chance but you never know), because the first item is raspberries, which of course I've had things to say about. But then I saw "entrees", which I can only assume means packaged, frozen, whatever. So that's probably not someone looking to be super frugal with the grocery budget. Be forewarned, if I find your grocery list, I will conduct a highly unqualified psychoanalysis of whatever is on it! God help me if anyone ever finds my grocery list, complete with highly complicated annotations about coupons, e-coupon, catalinas, etc. Scary.

Check out this book on Amazon, someone is even more into this topic than me? I actually bought this book as a gift for someone, and regretted not reading it before I gave it to them.

Menu Plan, 9/26-10/2

2010-09-27T11:20:00.000-07:00

I am really ready for fall and cooler weather, but it's supposed to be in the 80's most of the week, so I'm trying to minimize my use of the oven still. Also, my menu plan fell apart completely last week, I didn't feel well and really didn't want to cook (or eat), so I made this week's menu really super easy so that I will have better luck following it (this is a promoting success kind of menu in other words!)

Sunday we had white chili.
Monday; grilled cheese with apple and mustard, and green salad (these sandwiches are the bomb, just slice the apples really thin)
Tuesday; taco salads (homemade taco salad bowls are really easy, just shape flour tortillas on an upside down muffin tin and bake for a few minutes, and then fill as desired)
Wednesday; asparagus quiche that I was supposed to make last week.
Thursday; crock pot pot roast.
Friday; BBQ chicken drumsticks, potato salad.
Saturday; meatball calzones

I haven't decided what sweets I'm going to make, maybe just some no-bake cookies.

Shopping trip, 9/27

2010-09-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

I had a really fun shopping trip this morning, not sure why but I just enjoyed myself! Thanks to my mom-in-law for watching junior, and to my awesome Safeway cashier Kimmey, who I adore! Here's what I did;

Safeway: I had a $5 catalina from my last trip, so I was ahead before I even started! I also had a few free item coupons that were set to expire on 9/30, so I burned those babies up. I'm going to try and write a feature on where to get free coupons soon, cause they are the funnest coupons of all! So here's what I bought;

The $2 Chex Mix was better than free after e-coupons from Cellfire and Shortcuts, plus a paper coupon from here.

The Pace queso was better than free after coupons from a contest that's over now, sorry guys.

The Coke was free after a coupon from mycokerewards.com

The Always pads were free thanks to a coupon that was included in a sample I requested a long time ago. Always request samples for things you use, they usually include good coupons.

The Campbells soup was free.

The eggs were $1.99.

The yogurt was .79/4 pack thanks to a rain check and coupons from here. The YoPlus is only $2/4 pack right now anyway, so $1 after coupon here if you need some.

The raspberries were 2.99

The Babybel cheese was 3.99 for 2 packs, thanks to a BOGO coupon from a while back.

So my total out of pocket at Safeway was 6.84, which is a 91% savings. I mentioned that the sales were pretty weak, so I picked up only things that I needed (eggs, yogurt) a couple of splurges (raspberries and the cheese), and of course the free things.

Next I stopped at Haggar's as usual for produce. I spent $7.92 on bananas, apples and squash, so we are set for the week! So, my total for groceries this week was less than $15, which is right in line for me; I mentioned last week that we usually spend $40/week, but when the sales are less than great, I cook from my stash and spend very little for the week.

Okay, so my plan is to write a menu plan and get that posted, and then I promised a couple of you my recipe for Key Lime cheesecake, so I will try to get that up today too! Here I go...

Wednesday Ad Picks, holy late edition, 9/22-9/28

2010-09-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

I just realized I hadn't posted this, sorry guys! I'm going to blame my oversight on the total lack of exciting sales!

Safeway

12oz Raspberries are $2.99, I got super excited for a second because there's an e-coupon for raspberries here, but it's only for the smaller sized containers. Boo. Still that's not a bad price, especially since they're out of season.
Fresh Express bagged salads are still $1, when I was in the store last I thought the pickings were pretty slim.
Lucerne cheese is $4.99/2 lb, block or shredded, this is an okay price if you need it, but I wouldn't buy it just to throw in the freezer.
Campbells Select Harvest Soup is $1 per can, so free after coupon here or here.
18 eggs are $1.99 with the in-ad coupon, not a great price, but better than $1.59/dozen.
Jif peanut butter is still $1.49/18oz with in-ad coupon.
Silk Soy Milk is $1.99 with in-ad coupon, so only .99 after .75 off coupon here (must register), which will "double" to $1 off. You know how I've harped on you to try almond milk? Well, I've never tried soy milk, does anybody have anything to say about it?

Haggar's

Bananas are .33/lb.
Celery is .59/bunch.
Jonathan or McIntosh apples are 3lb bags for $2.
Squash is .59/lb.
Green peppers are .60/ea.
They're having a Mega Meat Sale, which sounds pretty rad, right? I didn't see any mind blowing prices though. Chicken quarters are .59/lb, which is okay. Chicken tenderloins are 1.99/lb, again just okay.

Don's

Onions are .69/lb.
Oranges are .69/lb.
I haven't mentioned the store coupons that they update every week for a while, you can always find them here. They haven't had anything good for a while though!

Groupon, 101 (WADE, DO NOT READ THIS ENTRY UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH)

2010-09-23T09:25:00.001-07:00

Okay, this is just one of those things that sound so strange but are truly awesome. For those of you completely unfamiliar with Groupon, it's an online retailer that focuses on providing local deals for local businesses, like restaurants, spas, retailers, etc. By being featured on Groupon, these businesses can pick up some customers who might otherwise have overlooked them, and to entice us into buying, they offer a deeply discounted voucher for a limited time period. Unfortunately, Rapid City is not one of the locations where Groupon is available, BUT the featured deals for any given city may be an online store of some sort. And in that case, ANYONE from ANYWHERE can pick up the item. So, for example, today's Sioux Falls deal is a 16X20 canvas on which they will print your picture, and ship it to you for the price of $39. The site lists the value of this as $125, which of course I would never pay. But $39 for a BIG canvas is a nice deal, especially considering it includes shipping and tax (you gotta watch for the details of that with these kinds of deals, every one of them is different).

If you are interested in taking advantage of this, or any Groupon sale, be aware that it's only available for a little while. This deal will expire in about 12 hours, so get on it!

So I picked one of these up as a Christmas present, and I'll have a picture from our recent trip to Pittsburgh, featuring my adorable husband and kiddo hamming it up in front of Heinz Field, the home of the Steelers. This will go great in our shrine to all things Steelers corner of the office (not my idea of decorating, but I really like the guy so I indulge him).

Shopping trip, 9/21

2010-09-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

So here is my Safeway stop today. I also ran in to Wags for the milk, and then on my way home stopped at Haggar's again for the chicken. My total cost was 16.25 at Safeway, and I got another Catalina for $5 off my next purchase, thanks to the garbage bag deal I described in the video here. At Walgreens I spent $3.25 on the milk, and then at Haggar's I spent about $6 on the chicken (I realized how low I'm getting on chicken, so I picked up the drumsticks that are on sale through today only at .99/lb). So my week's worth of groceries was around $40, which is about right for us. I could probably have a tighter budget, but I like to have plenty of produce and milk around, and those things don't come free!

One thing people mention is that they don't want to make a lot of trips to various stores just to save a few bucks, and I completely agree. Usually, I have a 1 store limit, especially if I have baby cuteness with me. Today I was lucky enough to shop while he was at Grandma's, so I took advantage and made a few stops. But if I do have him, I just consolidate grocery stops in with other outings; when we go to story time on Thursday, I stop at FTC if they have anything, or maybe Target. After work on Wednesday, I might go into Wags since I drive past there. My point is, spending an entire day shopping is not my idea of fun, so I split it up to make it much easier. The other part of this is that I am a big planner. Seriously, I plan my entire shopping week at home with the ads, write out my lists in order of how the store is laid out, and consider whether I am going to additional stores and when to do so. I cannot tell you how much time this saves me in the store, it is sooooo worth it!

Shopping trip, 9/20

2010-09-20T19:22:00.001-07:00

I'd like to start sharing my shopping trips a little more routinely, so that you can actually see what I buy, how much I spend, and then it will tie in with my menu plans too. Plus, I love to look at other people's shopping trips, I don't know why, but it appeals to me somehow. I also used to love the feature in the Rachel Ray mag that detailed everything someone ate during a random day. Maybe I'm just obsessed with food? Anyway, I'll make a real effort to post these while the sales are still going on, we'll see how well that goes!

So this was my Haggar's trip today, me and Junior walked there, so I totally think we get bonus points for being earth conscious! I spent $14.18, and this is a pretty typical trip for me, I buy a lot of my produce there. I mentioned pretty much all of the prices on these in my Haggar's post here, and the prices are good through 9/21.

I think they have fair prices, and I've never been disappointed in the quality. I have a theory on the fruit by the way; I think of fruit as short term vs. long term. For example, the peaches, bananas, and pears are short term, and when they're ripe, you don't have time to ponder whether you should eat them or not, so I don't buy them in large quantity. The oranges however, will be fine in the fridge for a few weeks, so I can eat them now, while I wait for the short term stuff to ripen, and then go back to them after the short term stuff is gone. I know that buying too much is a problem for some of you, so try to think about it this way and see if that helps. My other long term fruit favorite is apples, but I've yet to see any great deals on them. The veggies I don't worry about as much, since I work them into my meal plans I know they'll get used within just a few days. The little jar is ginger, I've been wanting to make gingerbread, which is a seasonal craving that I have occasionally; not often enough to buy a quantity of ginger, which would be cheaper by the ounce, but wouldn't get used very quickly.

I'm planning on hitting Safeway tomorrow, and also Walgreens for some milk, so I'll post that promptly!

Menu Plan, 9/19-9/25

2010-09-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday; we broke rank and picked up Chinese take out. I am still swollen from salt overload, but it was so good!

Monday; I'm in a fall mood, but it's hot outside, how did that happen?? So, I guess we're grilling tonight, chicken cordon bleu and potatoes, I'll try to post recipes soon.

Tuesday; Chicken strips, deep fried and everything, and oven fried cauliflower and broccoli. Bar food comes to my house!

Wednesday; Our meatless choice for the week, asparagus and havarti quiche, so yummy you won't miss the meat! I'll post this recipe too.

Thursday; Honey dijon chicken, green salad. I haven't made this for probably 4 years or so, but when I was writing the menu I asked my husband if he had any requests, and he pulled this one out! How funny, we'll see if I remember how to make it.

Friday; Meatball sandwiches, green salad.

Saturday; I'm thinking calzones this week, my pizza dough recipe works great for this, fill with whatever you want and bake at 375 for 30 minutes. I'm thinking a seafood alfredo calzone would be a nice treat. Also, I wanted to mention if you'd like a wheat pizza dough, you can sub 1 cup of whole wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose flour, and it won't change the taste in the slightest. I haven't experimented with more whole wheat flour than that.

Sunday ad picks, 9/19-9/25

2010-09-19T06:06:00.000-07:00

Safeway has a Sunday ad, it's medium at best.

Fresh Express bagged salad is $1/bag.
Jif Peanut Butter is $1.49 with the in-ad coupon, which is not bad since it's still an 18oz container.

Family Thrift Center

I was really hoping for a great deal on eggs, but no luck this week. They have a few of their organic products in the ad that match up with coupons here, for example 220z of apple juice would be $1.69. For some reason, I can't open their normal page for store brand coupons, but I don't think I'm missing anything too exciting. It looks like cheese is 2.49/lb with coupon from here if it will open for you, which isn't bad if you need it, but not a stock up price.

Target didn't have anything that caught my eye. We were there on Saturday, and I know they have the LaCroix 8 packs of flavored sparkling water on a price cut right now to $2.50, so $1.25 with coupon here. I love this for entertaining, and I also love that the package lists the French name for grapefruit, "pamplemousse". Perhaps the funnest word ever.

Did you just hear a holler of joy from Piedmont?

2010-09-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

Milk will be $1.99 at Walgreens starting Sunday! Hooray!

Wednesday Ad Picks, 8/15-8/21

2010-09-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

Safeway

I've read that the Scrubbing Bubbles deal I talked about here is going on until 9/21, but I can't confirm that. If I do it again I'll let you know if it's still working, but really I think I'm done. 12 cans is a lot for our household, I'm actually a vinegar and baking soda kind of girl, BUT I don't do bathrooms, so my darling husband will be using this!
There are a handful of produce deals; CO peaches are .99/lb, potatoes are still 10lb for 1.99, pears are .99/lb.
There's a buy 5, save $5 promotion that will make for a decent price on 2 things I need, Nabisco saltines will be .99, and Maxwell House coffee will be $1.99 for the 10-12oz cans, plus there is a coupon here for $1 off 2. There are probably lots more items included in this sale, but only a few are included in the ad, so look for the special tags in the store to see if there are more good deals to be had. And don't go crazy buying Saltines, they don't keep as long as other crackers!
Kraft cheese slices are 2.49, and if you want to buy 5 (or a combination of these and other Kraft cheese products), the coupon that I mentioned a couple weeks ago, which you can still print here, would save you $5 total. Not bad, sliced cheese (other than nasty Singles type stuff) is expensive, and it keeps fine in the fridge.

Haggar's

Lot's of good prices on produce; green grapes are .99/lb, broccoli is .99/bunch, cauliflower is $2/head, oranges are 4lb for $3, pears are .99/lb, asparagus is 2.99/lb. Something tells me I'm going to spend most of my budget for the week at Haggar's.

Don's

Flour is 1.29/5lb, which is the best I've see for a while. I just bought 25lb at Sam's for $7.54 out of desperation.
Oranges are .69/lb, the best so far for the season.
Green peppers are .59/ea.

Someone better take the butter away from me.

2010-09-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

I was in a mood tonight, and nothing was going to fix it except chocolate. And this my friends, is about as much chocolate as this girl can handle. These cookies are pretty stinkin' indulgent, and I would definitely recommend if you need a fix! Mine are nowhere near as cute, but I've never had much patience with roll out cookies anyway. Even if these cookies don't trip your trigger, you should check out this blog, it blows my mind. I wish I had as much patience as this woman!

Free movie rentals!

2010-09-15T11:45:00.001-07:00

I hesitated to post about this, because I've had trouble with it, but after some customer service intervention, I thought I'd better share with you! There is now a Blockbuster Express kiosk at the Westside Safeway store, and Blockbuster seems to be pretty generous with free rental codes! I got an email with one on Monday, and it didn't work, but I rented a movie anyway. The previous couple of codes that I tried haven't worked either, so I emailed customer service, and they refunded the charge; you may have to do the same thing if you give this a try. Usually the codes are valid for one day only, and the one they emailed me today is WDVD1, valid till midnight today only. If you want the codes to be emailed to you, just sign up for their newsletter. If you don't use a code, it's only a buck/night, so cheap entertainment either way.

Redbox is the other company that has these DVD rental machines, and if you sign up for text messages with them, they'll text you a code for a free rental on the first Monday of every month. I actually prefer Redbox because there are more locations. They also charge a dollar/night.

What's the math on that?

2010-09-14T19:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's a "quick" video about a nice deal that you can get in on at Safeway right now. I'm sorry, I don't know how long this deal will last, so I would get in there if you want to take advantage of it. As I mentioned in the video, Bargain Blessings is where I got the details for this deal. She does a great job with Denver division Safeway, check her out.

I can't upload to Blogger, so I'm giving you the youtube link again. Sorry. I'll work on that someday!

Menu Plan, 9/12-9/18

2010-09-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, at least I'm posting it, even it if is late. Again.

Sunday; Hawaiian meatballs, which we were supposed to have last week, but I had to rearrange my entire universe to use up some chicken first. These meatballs are responsible for the scallions/green onions debate, see previous entry. They have a lot to answer for. But they were pretty good!
Monday; I had some chicken to use up. Again. Not sure why. Anyway, I made chicken lo mein, which is my code name for chicken with Ramen noodles, and I swear on those 130 dollar Dansko's that it is good. Basically you boil some water, cut some chicken into bite sized pieces, stir fry it for a couple minutes, throw in some minced garlic, cook a pack or 2 of Ramen noodles in the boiling water for 2 minutes or so, throw in some frozen veggies (or fresh really, I used fresh broccoli and frozen pepper strips tonight), add the noodles, a little bit of sesame oil if you have it, and about half the seasoning pack from the Ramen. Stir the whole mess up, and dinner is done. I got this idea from Real Simple, I think, a few years ago, maybe.
Tuesday; cabbage rolls, cauliflower with cheese sauce. Holy comfort food!
Wednesday; chickpea spaghetti, I'll let you know if it's a keeper. Meatless Monday is being relocated a lot lately.
Thursday; Date Night! We're actually going to see Rodney Carrington, will I see any of you there? Here's the kicker, we're going to see Jeff Dunham in November, so I told hubs that October date night will consist of a Wine Tasting followed by a Ballroom Dancing lesson.
Friday; Lentil soup maybe?
Saturday; pizza night, hurray for pizza night.

Spiffy biscuits invesigates the unknowable.

2010-09-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

So, I often find myself wondering about random things, and I wonder if others wonder the same things, but are not bothered enough to investigate? I'm afraid that I am often too lazy to just google it, whatever "it" is, but then other times I find myself sucked into Wikipedia for 3 hours, clicking on the related links. Either way, I annoy myself with my triviality.

But this, I needed to share with you. Hubs and I were debating the other night about green onions vs. scallions. The same? Surely not too different? He said they were different, I voted that they were the same. And now I'm tempted to go wake him up to gloat! Indeed, they are the same darn thing, although it seems that most recipes prefer "scallions", while the Safeway ad usually says "green onions". I think the recipes are putting on airs. Personally, I say gronions, which is a holdover from my high school years slinging hash at Taco Bell.

Regardless, I win!

You're going to spend my college money on those ugly shoes?

2010-09-13T19:57:00.000-07:00

I guess not cutie. Rest easy.

OMG, how 'bout these?

2010-09-13T19:55:00.001-07:00

I NEED these shoes. Anybody got 130 bucks I can borrow?

2010-09-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Lord, they're like a piece of art! Does anyone understand where I'm coming from?

Sunday ad picks, 9/12-9/18

2010-09-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

Safeway has a Sunday ad that has a couple of good deals.

10lb of potatoes are $1.99. Cheap eats people, I am planning to share some potato recipes too.
Cantaloupes are .99/ea with in-ad coupon. If you didn't get a paper today, and therefore don't actually have this Sunday ad, you may or may not find it in the store. Just be forewarned, but if you strike out check with customer service.
Whole wheat sandwich bread is .99/loaf with in-ad coupon, hurray! Now I'm hoping that they will be sold out when I go in to the store, so I can rain check that baby. My freezer continues to be quite full. I keep thinking I need to cook that stupid turkey. Please don't ask how long it's been in there. This message will now self destruct.
Store brand creamer is $1.69/32oz, again with in-ad coupon.
Organic people; 1/2 gallons of milk are $1.99 with in-ad coupon, I love that Organic milk tends to have a really long storage time. Is it longer than regular milk? Maybe it's a carton vs. gallon thing? Feel free to weigh in, I'm even more rambly than usual tonight. You can ramble too!

Family Thrift Center gets a pass this week. I didn't see a single thing that I felt would be a good deal. Target was a snooze too, but I didn't really look very close, I'll holler if I see anything.

Greek Chicken, authenticity not guaranteed.

2010-09-10T06:48:00.001-07:00

I really know very little about Greek food; Spanakopita, Feta cheese, olive oil and the healthiest diet in the world, right? That's about the extent of my knowledge. But I love trying new things, I think because I have about 25 years of picky eating to make up for (sorry about that Mom, I'm starting to see what a pain in the butt I must have been!) So, thanks to a great deal on Feta, (thanks Merissa!), I have been inspired to use my fabulous, salty cheese for more than just salads. Here's what I made last night.

Greek Chicken

2 chicken breasts, cut in half lengthwise and salt and peppered
1 TBSP olive oil (not extra virgin)
1 can diced tomatoes (14 1/2 oz)
1 can tomato sauce (8 oz)
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 cup chicken stock, or white wine
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
3/4 cup or so of artichokes from a can or jar (water packed, not marinated), drained, quarter them if they're big
1 can sliced black olives, or a handful of pitted Kalamata olives chopped
8 oz Orzo pasta

Put a big pot of water on to boil for the pasta. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat, and add the oil. Once it's hot, put the chicken breasts. Don't move them, just let them cook for a few minutes so they get some color. Once they're golden, flip and brown them until they're cooked through. Remove the chicken to a plate. Throw the onion and garlic in to cook until translucent, add more oil if need be. Pour in the stock to deglaze all the little bits off then pan, then add the tomatoes and tomato sauce, the basil and oregano and let it all simmer for a few minutes. At this point, your water should be boiling for the Orzo, so throw that in the pot with some salt and cook according to directions. Once the sauce has been simmering long enough for the diced tomatoes to be cooked, taste it and adjust seasonings, then add the artichoke hearts, and the olives, and put the chicken back in with any juices from the plate it's been resting on. Stir it carefully once the 'chokes are in, you don't want to break them apart. When the Orzo is done, plate it all up and put some Feta on top.

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Cook's ramblings

If you have a lemon, I would squeeze some juice in just before serving; a little acid would definitely brighten it up.
Orzo is a very small pasta, shaped somewhat like a grain of rice.
This would be great with shrimp. I was also think grilling the chicken would be really nice. But I can tell you my hubs raved about it just the way it is.
The great deal I got for the Feta is a buy one, get one free coupon that I used at Safeway, where the 24oz packages are only 5.99. The great bogo Athenos coupon still shows up on Facebook, so grab yourself one! Just like Athenos cheese, and then click on the coupon tab to find it. The sale at Safeway runs through 10/31, (I think) so plenty of time to use it! If you are not a Facebook user and you want a coupon, let me know, I still have one left. 2 big tubs for $5.99 is a great price!

Wednesday Ad Picks, 9/8-9/13

2010-09-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

Safeway has lots of in-ad coupons this week! Remember, you CAN combine a Safeway store coupon with a manufacturer's coupon.

7-Up 6 packs are $1.49 with in-ad coupon. Just a heads up, I was going to pick some up today (a splurge, usually I only buy soda if it's free), and the 8th Street store does not carry them. I guess I didn't really need it!
Mission chips are $1.29 with the in-ad coupon, and there are e-coupons at Cellfire for any Mission product. If anybody ever finds the MDA booklet, there are .55 off coupons in there that will double to make these only .29/bag, but again I didn't spot any of the booklets, bummer.
Welch's Healthy Start juice is $1.99 with the in-ad coupon, and there are coupons on coupons.com for $1.50 off, so only .50! I use this in smoothies all the time.
Hormel Lunch Meat is $1.99/8 oz package with the in-ad coupon from the smaller Safeway pull-out ad, and there is a coupon here for .55 off, which will double and give you a price of .99. I plan to buy a few of these, it's tough to get lunch meat in quantity, so while this isn't a mind blowing price, I'll still stock up. These usually have a sell-by of at least a couple of months out, so they'll be fine in the fridge for a while. There are also blinkie coupons in the 8th Street store for .55 off, but I can tell you these WILL NOT double. If you want to use them, just go to customer service after you check out and they'll reimburse you (I prefer to avoid the hassle)
Broccoli and cauliflower are .99/lb.
Sandwich bread is $1.25/loaf for the whole wheat, this seems to be the best price they're offering lately.
Frozen chicken breasts are $7.96 for a 4lb bag, and there is an e-coupon you can load here to take off $2. Remember, the e-coupons that you load from Safeway are notorious for not coming off, so if you choose to do this, I would definitely print your list of loaded coupons and be prepared to go to customer service. I'm not sure I want to deal with the hassle, but I can tell you these are really convenient; I used to be kind of snotty about frozen chicken (I honestly have no idea why, I sincerely doubt it's any different than the fresh stuff, maybe even better since it's not been frozen and thawed like the "fresh" stuff usually is), but I am a convert. I just used some of this tonight for Greek Chicken (no, that was not the menu plan, a deviation was required). Very handy!

Haggar's has some great produce sales!

Onions are 3lbs for .98, God bless you Haggar's! Paying .99/lb for them has been chapping my rear.
Pears are .99/lb, as are Gala apples.
Red potatoes are 1.48/5lb.
Gronions are 3 for $1.
Carrots are 2lbs for .99.
Cabbage is .29/lb.
Split chicken breasts are .99/lb.

Don's didn't really impress me, some decent produce prices but nothing I'd make a trip for. Haggar's definitely has them beat this week!

Family Thrift is on my list. And I don't mean my shopping list. Remember the pasta and pasta sauce prices I posted here? Well I printed the coupons, and you actually save .50 on 2, not 1. So price is .75 each, nothing special. I really found this to be misleading in the ad, and even on the coupon page on-line, it said nothing about buying 2 until you actually print the coupon. Grrr!

Menu Plan, 9/6-9/11

2010-09-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd see if I can make this more of a habit, we'll see how I do. This post will be retroactive since it's already Tuesday!

Sunday; broccoli/cauliflower cheese soup and homemade bread (I save all my broc/caul trimmings in the freezer for this, broccoli stems in particular are great to use and you can keep them out of the garbage.
Monday; we had tentatively planned a family get together at my Mom's, so I didn't plan anything; we ended up having to reschedule the get together, so I pulled out my secret stash of cheater products from the freezer and pantry, breaded fish, french fries, and a can of corn. I am definitely not above doing this!
Tuesday; tacos and homemade refried beans
Wednesday; chicken and mushrooms in a creamy pink sauce, roasted potatoes, green salad
Thursday; Hawaiian meatballs over rice, green salad
Friday; chicken tacos, guac, green salad (I'll think of you when I make these tacos Bubbles! Do you want the recipe for the marinade?)
Saturday; my adorable hubs turns 32 (!), so dinner is at mom-in-laws; what should I bring?

I would really like for my son to eat salad, so I'm going to try the immersion tactic and throw it on the table 3 nights in a row, with the hopes that he'll give it a try. Anyone interested in betting how well this works?

I made magic cookies yesterday, and I'm going to make raspberry-lime sherbet (or sorbet maybe) sometime this week too. Have you ever made magic cookies before? They are super easy, and produce no dishes, you mix graham cracker crumbs with butter, press it into a pan, throw whatever chips (chocolate or otherwise) and nuts you want on top, then pour sweetened condensed milk all over the top. I use homemade sweetened condensed milk, so I can't be sure, but I think the recipe is on the can of the name brand stuff (of course I have to do it a bit differently!)

Pass on the Sunday ads, 9/5-9/11

2010-09-06T16:56:00.001-07:00

I think there were a few deals to be had, but darned if I really care enough to find them!

Safeway

There is a Sunday ad, but it's lame to the extreme. What's with the junk food Safeway? I'd like some produce deals please.
I did want to mention if you're interested in the iTunes gift cards deal for a $5 catalina for your next purchase when you buy 2 cards, I was happy to find that they have $15 iTunes cards, so only $30 out of pocket and you get the $5 cat. Remember this ends tomorrow!

Family Thrift Center

Canned fruit is .58 each, 18oz of peanut butter is 2 for 1.98, a jar of pasta sauce is .50, and 16oz of pasta is .50, all with coupons here. They also have a few coupons for frozen items, like strawberries and pancakes that might go well with the frozen foods sale, see below.
The only other thing I saw that really seemed great is the frozen foods sale, one day only on 9/11; it looks like all frozen will be an additional 20% off. The Jack's pizzas are only $2 right now, so $1.60 after the sale, and I have a coupon for another $1 off 3, I'm really sorry but I don't know which circular it came from.

Walgreens and Target aren't even worth mentioning. Again, there are some Register Rewards deals at Wags if you want to try that out. Let me know if you have questions!

Cloudy with a chance of meatball cookies.

2010-09-04T18:36:00.000-07:00

So I made meatballs this afternoon. I don't know what it is about them, but I just love the little things, and having a supply in the freezer makes it so easy to pull together a meal when you barely have the energy to take your shoes off. And then you get to eat them! I wanted to give you a quick (hah!) overview of how this all works, not necessarily the specific recipe, but more the technique. I ended up with 12 meal sized portions of cooked meatballs, and what I want you all to see is that it really isn't any harder than making a big batch of cookies. In fact the parallels are significant.

You need a sous-chef. Discourage him from eating the "cookie dough".

There's the beef! This is about 7 pounds, remember it's $1.49 at Haggar's til Tuesday!

This is important; once you do your egg, bread crumb, onion and whatever the heck else you want treatment, you'll want to check the seasoning before you commit. I just made little bitty patties from both batches of meat, fried them up really quick, and tried them out. Perfect!

This is a meatballer (I made that name up, just go with it), much like a cookie scoop but it shapes all sides of the meatball. If you are making big batches, or even small batches, I recommend you drop a few bucks on one. It won't make perfect meatballs, you'll still have to shape them a bit, but it will give you a good start and ensure a uniform size.

I never fry meatballs, because the attention they require and mess that they make causes me extreme irritability. I bake them at 350 for about 15 minutes, and they keep their shape so much better, and don't splatter grease everywhere. Don't they look like greasy drop cookies? No?

By the time you get to the bottom of the bowl(s), your thumbs will be tired!

The end result. My 7 pounds of ground yielded 12 meal sized portions of cooked meatballs, which are now nestled into the freezer, waiting to be further crafted into spagetti, meatball sandwiches, pizza toppers, Swedish meatballs, and certainly many other yummy things. I know you guys are busy, so I want you to know that I timed this whole process, and even with breaks to dance with my sous-chef while singing "Carry on my Wayward Son", it took me almost exactly one hour, done and dusted! Hilarious side note; in the above picture, my crap camera advised me "a subject has blinked", and even highlighted the offending meatball with a little yellow box. Much like small children, it's very difficult to get your meatballs to cooperate for a picture.

My best Chinois yet.

2010-09-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

I love Chinese food, but making it at home can be a royal pain. It goes so quick and requires so many ingredients that I find myself stressed out trying to pull it together, with every pot, pan, and wooden spoon that I own dirty. Grr. So I have finally come up with a recipe that works beautifully for me, doesn't require a ridiculous amount of ingredients, tastes great, and left me with only one load of dishes. As it should be. Here's the recipe, then I have a few more comments to make. Cause I can't shut up?

Crispy beef stir fry

3/4-1lb round steak, very thinly sliced across the grain, lightly peppered
1/3 cup cornstarch
canola oil to 1" depth in a wok or large skillet
2 cups green beans
1 red or yellow bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
1 cup beef broth (low sodium would be best)
1 very heaping tablespoon of black bean garlic sauce
a couple splashes of vinegar (rice wine is great if you have it, if not any vinegar would be fine)
a dash of toasted sesame oil
a couple splashes of soy sauce (again low sodium if possible)
a couple squirts of honey
steamed white or brown rice

Heat oil over medium high heat. Combine broth, black bean garlic sauce, vinegar, honey, soy sauce, and sesame oil in a small bowl; stir well and set aside. In a zip top bag, toss the steak strips with the cornstarch to coat. Once the oil is hot, fry the steak in batches until very crisp and dark golden brown. Remove and place on a flour sack towel to drain. Carefully drain the oil out of your wok, leaving just enough to coat the pan, return the pan to high heat. Add the veggies and stir fry for 2-3 minutes, and then add the sauce mixture. Cook until the sauce is bubbly and starts to reduce and thicken, still over high heat. Once the veggies are cooked to your desired consistency, add the beef back in to the mixture, but do not toss to coat, as you will lose the crispiness. Serve over rice.

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Okay, so here are some things I wanted to mention.

I buy round steak only when it is super cheap (duh Megan, isn't that the point of this blog?). I paid $1.99/lb for it at Safeway, probably in May, and bought a motherlode. I cubed and sliced all of it and froze it in meal sized portions. I cannot tell you how handy this is!
I know you may not have black bean garlic sauce or sesame oil in your fridge, but you should. Really, these are the only 2 ingredients in this recipe that are the least bit exotic, but it makes the flavor of this meal. Buy the tiniest bottle of sesame oil you can find and keep it in the fridge, and seriously go light with this stuff, it is strong. I'm sorry I'm not more specific with measurements, but you're making stir fry, not a souffle, so you don't have to be precise.
It probably goes without saying, but you can use any veg that you like. Broccoli would be great, carrots would work, mushrooms would be nice, etc. The green beans were great, thanks to my husbands coworker who gave us a ton, and whose name I never got! We appreciate it!
I don't salt the beef because the broth, soy, and black bean sauce have plenty of salt in them.
I always used to make fried rice when I made a stir fry, and letting go of this compulsion has definitely made me more relaxed about stir fry. Fried rice is really easy, but I don't like having to tend to multiple things that all need to come together at once, so steamed rice is a better pick for me. Anyone interested in a fried rice recipe? The beef alone would be great with fried rice.
I have to thank Sandra Lee from the Food Network for the idea to coat the beef in cornstarch and fry it, she was making some kind of stir fry on Money Saving Meals, and that was the only part of the show I caught. Frying the beef is offset by the veggies, right?

More random stuff.

2010-09-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

I stopped at Walmart today, and they have corn on the cob for .10/ear, that's a nice price! I didn't see anything else that was great price wise, I was hoping for cheap berries, but no go. They did have something that made me break my produce rule of nothing more than $1/pound though. Have you ever had champagne grapes? They are tiny little red grapes, smaller than a Skittles candy. They are soooo sweet and yummy, and it's really rare to see them in stores, usually only once a year do I actually come across them. If you are masochistic enough to go to Walmart, you should definitely check them out! I bought a clamshell package of them for $2.99, interestingly I didn't see a weight on them but I would guess maybe 12oz?

One other note, if you are interested in free swimming; the current free advertiser thing that the Journal puts out has a coupon for free family night swim at the Swim Center. This is a great deal, family swim is usually $9 I think (it may have gone up), and they have it every Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday evening. We used to go every Sunday without fail, but we took the summer off. I'm looking forward to starting again! You should find the Advertiser in the blue dispenser things next to where they sell the Journal. By they way, there is also a coupon for a free aerobics class, they have some great water aerobics there. I should probably start that again too...

Spiffy biscuits humbles herself, for a minute anyway.

2010-09-03T20:25:00.000-07:00

So I have to apologize to Haggar's. I recently commented on how much I dislike their ad as it always seemed like a mess to me, too much random stuff everywhere. But I picked up their current ad today, and I am super impressed, it flows logically for me, and the pictures actually match the descriptions! Oh the little things. Anyway, if they are on your route, I already mentioned a couple of nice deals here. I also see they have green peppers at .60/each, and on the 5th page there is a coupon for .75 off a gallon of milk, which will be 2.50 on Tuesday (sorry, I don't know the usual price of it, but they always advertise that it's 2 for $5 on Tuesdays), so with the coupon only 1.75! I am obsessed with milk.

One other note, on the $5 Kraft coupon here; through Saturday, Thrift Center has their shredded or block cheese, 8oz packages at 3 for $5, no limit is listed in the ad. I'm going to use my coupons there rather than at Safeway so that I don't have to mess with the limit of 3 that Safeway has in place. That will make the price $1.34/lb! Hurray for cheap cheese!

How much are Egg Beaters?

2010-09-02T12:08:00.000-07:00

This might make for a good deal, but I honestly don't know. There is a coupon for Egg Beaters here, and you can load an e-coupon to your Safeway card here. That would make for a total of $1.50 off, anybody know what these go for? Handy if you're making mousse or ice cream that calls for raw eggs. Chocolate mousse sounds good...

Wednesday Ad Picks, 9/1-9/7

2010-09-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

I'm baaaack! Thanks goodness too, traveling with a toddler is a tough gig; for those of you who haven't done so, just don't. For those of you who already knew that, why didn't you tell me??? Were you all laughing at me behind my back? Just kidding, it wasn't that horrible, but we are so glad to be home. Here are a few deals for you;

Safeway

First of all, just a comment, I will definitely be waiting to see if there is a Sunday ad this week before I go shopping. Since Monday is a holiday I would bet there will be some more deals come up for Sunday-Tuesday.
Mushrooms are .99/8 oz pack.
3lb grapes are 2.99 (I don't like to buy 3lbs at a time though...)
Hidden Valley dressings are 1.99/16oz bottle, if you've been loading e-coupons you should be able to get 2 for free. There are also coupons in the Make a Muscle book, but I've heard that several of you still can't find them.
There's an in-ad coupon for Kraft cheese, 8oz slices or 6-8oz shredded or chunk at $1.69. There is also a coupon here for $5 off 5 items. Unfortunately, the limit on the in-ad coupon is 3, so you'll have to find 2 other Kraft items if you want to use the manufacturer's coupon. When you print the MF coupon, it gives you a list of the participating products, so check them out to see if this is still a good deal.
Coffee-mate creamer, 32oz size is $1.99 with the in-ad coupon, so only .99 after the MF coupon here - you have to register in order to print the coupon.
This isn't mind blowing, but I'll probably take advantage of it; if you buy 2 iTunes gift cards, you'll get a Catalina for $5 off your next grocery purchase. This is nice because you're not going to get any perks for buying iTunes cards at a store like Target or Walmart. I like to buy these for my husband, so he'll get one for his b-day and I'll save one for Christmas. I definitely prefer to use these cards rather than keeping a credit or debit card on file with iTunes, this puts a limit on how much damage you can do!

Haggar's

I haven't really looked at the ad, as I find their ad to be terribly annoying with random things everywhere. BUT, junior and I walked to the store this morning (huge mistake, the wind almost knocked me over), and picked up 80% ground beef at $1.49/lb (I really am going to make meatballs, and that's a great price, you probably won't do better unless you find some marked down due to a short date), peaches at .99/lb, strawberries at $2/package, and grapes at .99/lb (thanks Haggar's for not making me buy 3lbs!) I'll let you know if there's any other fabulous finds there.

I wasn't around to pick up the Sunday paper, so I don't have a FTC or Walgreens ad yet. You can find them both online, but I like to have a paper copy to write notes on (what can I say, I think I'm a coupon artist or something, so I must have my needs met in order to perform!). Again, if I see anything, I'll let you know! I did glance at Walgreens ad to check for cheap milk (no dice), and noticed they have several free after Register Rewards items this week, so it might be a good week to give that a try and figure out how it works.

How to save money on a vacation

2010-08-30T13:49:00.001-07:00

A surprise post with ideas for how to save money on a vacation!

Don't take a small child.
Don't eat at Joe's Crab Shack.
Don't step foot in Ikea.

That's all I can think of for now, back to normal posts on Thursday, hopefully! I miss everyone, see you soon!

In my absence...

2010-08-23T07:44:00.001-07:00

So I probably won't have anything to say until I get back from our trip, and I wanted to turn you on to some other girls who have plenty to say about saving money! I added some links on the right side of the page to some blogs that I enjoy, check them out!

Hip2Save is a super active blog, there are always many, many posts every day. She covers lots of online deals, and also drugstore deals.

My Frugal Adventures is another really busy blog, she does online deals and grocery stores too. She's in CA, so her Safeway deals are a bit different from our Denver division store, but there's always enough overlap that it's worth checking out.

Bargain Blessings does an outstanding job of covering Denver division Safeway, and uses a great grading system on her grocery store deals, so you have an easy reference as to what's a good price. For example, free things get an A, and really good sales get an A-.

Little House on the Prairie Living is a local gal who covers all our local grocery stores, and also posts great frugal living tips. This is the only place you'll find stores like Family Thrift and Don's Valley Market (at least that I know of!), how cool is that?!

The Coupon Goddess is totally hilarious, so even though she's on the east coast and her stores are different, you should read her for a laugh. She does cover Target and drugstores, so some of her deals will apply to us out here in the midwest. I think of her as a provider of ridiculously funny anecdotes for a couponing mom to appreciate.

Change of pace; Knock off Wood is a site devoted to plans for furniture that you, yes you, can build yourself. I have done a couple of projects recently that I'll show you when I get home, in the meantime, start looking around! The woman who writes the plans is amazing to me, and I am always inspired by her site.

Are there any blogs you have found that you love? The beauty of the blog world is that someone is writing about every conceivable subject, in pretty much every language, you just gotta find them. See you all next week!

Everyone loves pizza! It's cheesy goodness!

2010-08-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

One of my menu stand-by items is homemade pizza. I absolutely love to make it, eat it , and even clean up the dishes from it! I really do feel that strongly about it, so I wanted to share the script with you. Here's the recipe, then a few comments.

Homemade pizza, yields 2 pizzas

3 cups flour
4 1/2 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp salt (I use Kosher)
1 TBSP oil (I use olive, any oil should be fine)
1-1 1/2 cups warm water

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl, or the bowl of a food processor with the dough blade in place. If kneading by hand, add oil and most of the water, knead for 10 minutes. Add more water if too dry, or flour if too wet. If using food processor, while it is running pour in the oil and then about 1 cup of water. Add water just until it forms a ball, and then continue to run until the ball has circled the work bowl about 15 times.

Cover the dough with a bit more oil, place in bowl and cover. Allow to rise in a warm place for about 1 hour. If time allows, gently knead back down and allow to rise again; this will make for a chewier crust, but is not necessary.

Heat your oven to 450, and prepare your pizza pans by greasing and dusting with cornmeal. Divide the dough in two pieces, and roll them or stretch them to fit the pan. Top with pizza sauce, then toppings of choice. Don't apply the cheese just yet. Bake at 450 for about 10-12 minutes, until the crust starts to turn golden, then apply the desired cheese and return to the oven for about 5 minutes.

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Okay, so here are my tips, brevity is not my gift.

The dough is super easy, and perfect if you have never made bread or kneaded something before. Here are some reference pictures. I have never had it fail, so don't be scared. I used to try and be neat when kneading by keeping the dough in a bowl; don't do this. You get better leverage if you knead on the counter, so it will get to the smooth/elastic stage quicker. If you have a food processor with a dough blade, this dough will come together in like a nanosecond.

This crust is good if you let it rise once; if you have time to let it rise twice, it's awesome. It becomes chewier, rather than just crispy. I'm sure you could throw it in the fridge if you want to make it a couple days ahead of time. Seriously, it's not fragile, so don't be scared. I like to brush the outer edge of the crust with butter and then sprinkle on some garlic salt for a special touch.

We have no need for 2 pizzas unless we have company, but I use this recipe to make 1 pizza and 1 batch of dough balls as I call them. I love bread sticks, they are the best part of take out pizza in my opinion, so I needed some kind of homemade answer to them in order to be satisfied with homemade pizza night. To make them, cut 1/2 of the above batch of dough into 24 equal sized pieces. Roll them into balls and place them in mini muffin tins that you have greased. Bake them for about 8 minutes in your 450 degree oven; you want them cooked through but really blond, not browned. Pour them into a bowl and toss them with butter, garlic salt, and Parmesan. They are the bomb!

Use pizza tins, cookie sheets, or pizza stones if that's your thing. Personally, I use these, pick them up at Walmart if you want to try them, I paid less than $10 a piece.

Toppings are the funnest part of making pizza. Some of my favorites are deli ham, black olives and canned artichoke hearts (water packed, well drained). I also make cheeseburger pizza, complete with dill pickles. Pizza can be a great way to use up leftovers. I made a BBQ pulled pork pizza with less than a serving of pulled pork, BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese and green peppers; my husband loved it. Salami and sliced green olives is yum. Pepperoni and green peppers is a great combo, I like to slice the green pepper into rings for an attractive presentation (somebody stop me, I'm turning into Martha). Canadian bacon or deli ham and pineapple is another classic. Someday soon, I will make a chicken/broccoli/Alfredo version; I have no doubt it will rock.

Hmm, did I miss anything? I've never really done the math, but homemade pizza is cheap, cheap, cheap! Often, the most expensive component for me is the black olives or artichokes, which are pretty much a must. If you're a Sam's shopper, they have pepperoni there, which freezes well. Mozzarella freezes fine when it's less than $2/lb of course, and I use tomato sauce rather than pizza sauce (what's the dif, really?).

Time wise this is a winner too. 10 minutes to knead the dough, then come back to it and spend the time it takes for your oven to preheat actually laying it out, and you're pretty much golden. Go open a beer!

Oh heavens, I almost forgot. This dough is perfect for making calzones too, I'm still drooling over one that had cubed ham, broccoli, and the motherlode of cheese in it. Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes if that's what you're after.

Sunday ad picks, lazy edition, 8/22-8/28

2010-08-22T15:36:00.000-07:00

I'm going on vay-cay Wednesday at the crack of o-dark:30 as we call it, and I don't need anything else cluttering up my fridge, I'm trying to clean it out! But since we do have to eat until then, and probably once we come home too, there are a few things worth noting.

Walgreens milk is $1.99 a gallon, you know how happy that makes me! I picked up 2 gallons this am, and the use by date is 9/7, so it will be fine in the fridge. The Land O Lakes milk is in the opaque plastic containers, and I don't know if that affects shelf life, but I have read that it helps the milk retain its vitamins, in comparison to clear plastic. Random note for you.

Safeway has a Sunday ad, It's full of junk food. And copy paper, 10 reams for $30. I have no idea if that's a good price, I just wanted to share that I think it's an odd thing for Safeway to sell.

Family Thrift has butter at 1.59/lb with coupon here. This is good marketing on their part, I wouldn't have paid any attention to the ad if I hadn't seen this on the front. They also have 80% ground beef at 1.79/lb, and I might pick some up, I used my last batch of freezer meatballs last week, and there's an empty spot in my freezer and my heart that I need to fill. Actually that's a lie, there's no room in my freezer, but I make room for meatballs. Anyway, if I make a batch of freezer meatballs, any interest in a pictorial? Okay, enough about meatballs. 34.5oz of coffee would be $4.49 with coupon here, is that a good price?

The Target ad bored me to tears, it might have been full of fabulous deals but I didn't see any.

Non-budget biscuit pampering

2010-08-21T06:32:00.001-07:00

So I had a gift certificate for a pedicure (thanks to my coworkers when I quit my job, a year ago), and one for a massage (thanks Mom for the b-day present!), and I went whole hog yesterday and used them both.

I gotta say, if I had $50 to blow, the massage is a waaaay better choice. Having someone fuss over my feet for an hour made me feel vaguely uncomfortable, and my heels are still like sandpaper! Obviously, I would have to put forth some effort to have smooth feet, and that's probably not going to happen.

But an hour long massage transfers you to paradise for a little while! Check out Margo if you're interested in a massage, she's a sweetheart.

Wednesday Ad Picks, 8/18-8/24

2010-08-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

Safeway has some sales again this week, though nothing as mind blowing as the sales with Catalinas last week!

Sargento cheese slices are $1.99/package with the in-ad coupon, combine that with the MF coupon you'll find in the MDA booklet and you'll pay .99/package after the MF coupon doubles. I also have a couple of e-coupons saved for this stuff. There is a limit of 3 and a minimum purchase of $10 to use the in-ad coupon, remember that minimum is pre-MF coupons, so always give the store coupons first at Safeway.
Jumbo Raw Shrimp in a 2lb bag are on sale for $9.98, and I'll use the $2 coupon from the Get out and Grill cookbook to pick up a bag of these.
93% lean ground beef is 1.99/lb, that's not bad if you prefer lean beef.
3lb clamshells of grapes are $2.99. Remember the produce coupon from the Serve up a Sandwich pamphlet!

I was in Target yesterday to pick up a script that I forgot to pick up the day before, when I made a trip specifically to pick up a script. Grrr. Anyway, they have a fair amount of clearance, including Glad brand garbage bags and Target brand frozen fruit. If you're going, check it out, those are items that you don't get for free, so clearance is nice!

Egg recall to be aware of.

2010-08-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

There's a huge recall on eggs that may be tainted with salmonella, and though I don't see that there are any cases in South Dakota, you should double check the eggs you have in the fridge. Here's the link to the current list of recalled brands and their lot numbers. I see that Lucerne is listed on here, that's the Safeway brand so double check! All my eggs have come from FTC lately, and their store brand is not listed. If you have a recalled batch, take them back to the store and get your money back, don't just throw them away.

Sunday ad picks, 8/15-8/21, actually make that just FTC ad picks.

2010-08-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

FTC

I like to have the occasional cup of tea, and fall is coming (hurray!), so $1.29 for 20ct organic tea bags seems reasonable to me, use the coupon here.
4pk of organic applesauce would be $1 with coupon here, if you aren't an organic person, it's cheaper at Target with the coupon from the Safeway Make a Muscle booklet.
8oz packages of Our Family cheese are 2 for $2 with coupon here.
The $1 coupon is available for Our Family organic milk half gallons, right here. I don't usually print this one in anticipation, but sometimes you get lucky and they mark this milk down to .99 when it's near sell by, and then you can use this coupon to get it free! I've noticed that my husband now sniffs the milk before he drinks it, apparently he's leery of me and my marked down finds! Milk freezes fine, just pour a bit out of the container so it can expand.
Not a produce or meat deal worth mentioning in my opinion!

I'll pick up Target and Walgreens tomorrow, if there's anything good anyway!

Triple X Biscuits

2010-08-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, this post will not save you any money, and it is definitely for adults only. But for some of you, who have nursed babies, I have no doubt it will crack you up.

So somehow, I am on the mailing list for Frederick's of Hollywood, which is like Victoria's Secret only trashier for those of you who aren't lucky enough to get their catalogue. Part of me thinks maybe I should call and request to be removed from the list, but I gotta be honest, some of the stuff amuses the heck out of me. Case in point; nursing bras are not particularly sexy, and I'm sure Frederick's would agree. Very much a form follows function kind of item, right? But amazingly, Frederick's carries a nursing bra, though they probably don't realize it. Check this out and tell me that your first thought isn't easy access for a hungry baby. And frankly, twenty eight bucks for a nursing bra isn't that bad! Probably wouldn't hold up very well in the laundry.

The best part is that when I pointed it out to my husband, he said "hey, is that a nursing bra?". Why yes honey, I think it is!

Safeway trip video, 8/15/10

2010-08-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a great Safeway trip! Definitely some good deals to be had until Tuesday. A couple of notes;

Safeway did have a Sunday ad today, I really didn't see much of interest to me. Cantaloupes are .99 each which is good. I can't think of anything else!

The Bakery Thrift store that I refer to is at 1430 Haines. I have lived here for over 20 years, and I don't know the name of a major road that I travel at least a couple of times a week. Hmm.

If you are interested in the C&H Sugar, Mission tortillas, and Glad coupons that I refer to, notice there are e-coupons on cellfire, and paper coupons in the Make a Muscle pamphlet which I found at Customer Service. Good deals!

My out of pocket will be around 11 bucks when I get reimbursed for the coupons that didn't deduct, and I didn't mention that I have 8.50 in Cats for my next trip! This is awesome, I don't expect to spend anything on groceries until we leave on vacation, maybe $1 in tax on some milk and produce!

Yet again, I cannot embed my video in this post. Here's the link.

Wednesday Ad Picks, 8/11-8/17

2010-08-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

Safeway
• If you watched my video, you know I told you the General Mills promotion would come around again, and it's here already! The basics on this one are not very basic. Really these can be kind of complicated to put together, because there are so many different items involved, all of which are not listed in the ad, and there are also some Catalina offers to consider. Catalina's are the coupons that print for a certain amount off your NEXT purchase. Here's the overview; if you buy 4 or more (up to 20) General Mills fruit snacks or cereal, you will get $1 off per item The promotional pricing then, assuming you buy 4 or more, is .99 for fruit snacks (like Fruit Roll-Ups and Gushers), 1.49 for granola bars and cereal (Nature Valley, Fiber One, Cheerios, etc.). The wording is not clear, but you DO NOT have to buy in multiples of 4, I purchased 5 items today and it took the $1 off each of them. The Catalina's are for $3 if you buy 5 of the fruit snacks, and $3.50 if you buy 5 of the granola bars, can be the Nature Valley or the Fiber One bars.

o So here’s a sample scenario. Today I bought 5 of the fruit snacks, at .99/box. I used 2 paper coupons for .50/2, which double to $2 total. I also had 2 e-coupons which took off a total of $1. My total out of pocket was $2, and I got a $3 Catalina for my next purchase. If you haven’t already been loading e-coupons, there is probably only 1 available, so that will be a variable for you. You can find the paper coupons here. This would be a simple introductory transaction to help you figure this stuff out.

o The next transaction I do will probably be along these lines. I will buy 1 box of Cheerios at 1.49, minus e-coupons and paper coupons those will be free. I’ll also buy 5 granola bars, probably a couple of the Fiber One, and some of the Nature Valley, so I can take advantage of more e-coupons, and paper coupons here, and get the $3.50 Cat back. I’ll also buy another 4 of the fruit snacks, so I’ll get a $2 Cat for those, rather than $3, but I don’t have any more e-coupons for them, just paper coupons, and that will still make them free when you consider the Cat. I’ll use the $3 Cat I got today to pay for these items to bring my out of pocket cost down even more. I know this is confusing as all get out, but you’ll just have to trust me that once you learn the ropes, this is a ridiculous deal.

 One more note on this deal, there are signs up in the store that if you buy any cereal and refrigerated almond milk (I think it was Blue Diamond brand, but please double check), you’ll get another $3 Cat. This is awesome, because the almond milk is $2.99, so basically you can try it free! I love almond milk, and I bet some of you are skeptical, give it a shot!

• Wow, let’s see if I can be more brief for the rest of this post! Bone-in chicken breasts are .99/lb, definitely a buy price for me. I know people are intimidated by boning meat, but boning chicken breasts is sooo easy, it’s the perfect way to try your hand at it. Plus you have the bones and skin to use to make stock, which is a bonus to me!

• Whole wheat bread is $1.25/loaf, I try to pay $1, but it’s been quite a while since they had it on sale. If you aren’t particular about whether it’s whole wheat or not, you can pick up the butter top bread for only .39/loaf, with the coupon in the Serve up a Sandwich booklet. I found these in the packaged lunch meat section at the Westside store today.

• There’s an in-ad coupon for store brand pasta, .59/lb, limit 6. This is the best price I’ve seen in months, they had it at .50/lb last winter, but nowhere near that since.

• Pillsbury Sweet Moments are a new item, in the same area as the biscuits in a can and all the stuff of that genre. They are ridiculous looking desserts, like chocolate caramel brownie bites and brownies that you heat in the microwave. I have been resisting bringing them in my house, but you can get them for free with the in-ad coupon, the MF coupon here, and the e-coupon here. Heaven help me.

• Plenty of yummy produce deals to be had, Colorado peaches are .99/lb, black grapes are too. When you find the Serve up a Sandwich booklet, you’ll score an awesome find, $1 off any produce; minimum purchase of $5 (does NOT have to be $5 worth of produce). My warning on this is that I have now used 2 of them, and neither has deducted, so be prepared to go to customer service. Worth it to me though, produce coupons are super rare.

After all of that yapping, I really don't have anything to say about other stores! If I see anything good, I'll post separately. Happy shopping!

Safeway teaser

2010-08-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

I am actually excited about some good Safeway sales on staple items, chicken, pasta, that sort of thing! I'll post tomorrow, the cloth diapers post made me drowsy. Or maybe it was the beer and leftover momma crack....

Twitchy continued...

2010-08-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the wrap up on cloth. I promised I would talk about how to care for cloth diapers, and I hope I made it clear that I am not a clean queen. We are talking about bodily substances here people, and I am a veteran nurse (well as much as one can be at age 30), so I don't use cute metaphors; consider yourself warned. No matter what you do, you will want 5 gallon buckets with lids, which you can pick up at Lowe's, Runnings, that sort of place. I have 2 for convenience. Adding some vinegar will apparently keep the odor down when you open the lid, though I never bother because we don't have odor problems, keeping the lids on is sufficient.

I would say there are really 2 approaches that you can use depending on the disposition of the people changing diapers. If you aren't squeamish, you can do the dunk and flush as we call it. Diapers with solid waste are suspended in the toilet while you flush. This eliminates most of the solid material and makes it easy to just throw the diapers in your bucket. Diapers that are wet only just go straight in the bucket.

If one of the diaper changing party members are squirrely about diaper contents, the best way to handle it is to use your 5 gallon buckets as a pre-soak; in an empty bucket, throw in a fair amount of mildly soapy water, and some vinegar. I would probably fill it halfway or so with water, and I would think 1/4-1/2 cup vinegar would be sufficient. As you change diapers, no need to do anything with them except throw them in the bucket. Using this approach would require absolutely no more contact with messy diapers than disposables would. Even if you throw them away, you still gotta change them! Once the bucket is full, the non squirrely member of the family pours the whole bucket into the washing machine, turns on the spin cycle, and then proceeds to the wash cycle.

So to actually wash the diapers, you'll need to follow the manufacturer's instructions, but they are all basically the same. I double wash mine with hot water for both cycles, using my homemade detergent, any additive free detergent is fine though. Don't bleach them, bleach is really hard on fibers and will age them faster. If you were doing the presoak, you could probably just single wash them, and maybe double rinse them. I absolutely never fold diapers in any way! They go into a designated laundry basket, and I pull them out as I use them. I do use one basket for the diapers, and a separate hanging bag for the liners, as it's more convenient than lumping them all in together.

If you're cloth diapering, you'd be silly not to cloth wipe too. I have something similar to these, though not exactly this item. For the "wipe water", we combine water and a tablespoon or two of plain old baby shampoo in one of those squeeze water bottles, and that way we can just squirt it on a wipe as needed. We keep the wipes stacked neatly in a hard plastic container that's just a bit bigger than the wipe is so they're easy to grab. It's about the only thing I do neatly.

I realize that one big barrier to cloth diapers is your day care situation. I am impossibly lucky in that my mom in law is available to watch my kiddo when I work, and she has no problem with cloth. A small in home day care might be the most easy to convince that they can accommodate cloth; I went to a momma and me swim class for quite a while, and the instructor did day care, and she seemed somewhat receptive to the idea. My pitch would be exactly what I said above, you have to handle any diaper to a degree, and for the day care provider to throw disposable in the garbage or cloth in a wet bag, it really seems no different to me. You gotta wash your hands afterwords, either way. If you absolutely can't find a day care who will take cloth, maybe you should just use the pre or flat-folds at home, and you can send junior with disposables. I would definitely think you would still save money compared to all disposables.

So, what are your thoughts? By the way, I'm blessed with a non squirrely husband, and I give him a lot of grief about it, but I still know I'm lucky! The sample comment I will never let him forget; when told that he would be escorting me to childbirth classes, on Valentine's day no less, he wondered if that was necessary, since he's "pulled a lot of calves." Thanks honey, I love being compared to livestock!

Paying for things that I immediately throw away makes me twitch.

2010-08-09T20:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm going to really try not to come across as sanctimonious. Or like an earth momma, cause I'm really not. But I am trying hard to be more conscious of what I throw away. And I am cheap.

This post is about cloth diapers. I have cloth diapered my son since his umbilical cord fell off, and I am a firm believer that cloth doesn't have to be expensive, annoying, stinky or otherwise unpleasant. When I was preparing to be a first time momma, I spent some time researching cloth for a couple of reasons. I have super sensitive skin, and I assumed that my offspring would be blessed with my sparkling wit, infectious joy, and flippin' itchy eczema. Guess what? He's never had worse than a pink butt. I have no idea if this is thanks to cloth, but it obviously doesn't hurt. My second reason is that EVERYONE was telling me how bad they tore, how much breastfeeding hurt, and how expensive diapers were. And I had an inkling that being a full time employee and a momma was going to be a tough combo. So I was definitely interested in the money saving aspect of things.

I ended up buying 3 dozen of the Bum Genius 3.0 "all in one" diapers. Basically, there are 2 styles of cloth diapers out there. All in one's (AIOs) are very similar is design to disposable; no pins required. They fasten with velcro, and have a unique set of snaps that allow them to be let out as your child grows, so you use the same diapers until your kid is potty trained. They come with an absorbent liner that also has snaps to keep it from being super bulky when diapering an infant, but larger when diapering a toddler. They also came with a smaller insert to use when diapering a newborn, and that insert can be used in combination with the larger insert if you have a heavy wetter. I bought mine from Amazon. In checking them out today, they only have second party sellers listed, and the prices are crazy. As I recall, I paid around $18 each for them. This site seems to have reasonable pricing, plus they have used diapers available, which might be worth checking out if you are nervous about the initial investment. I would highly recommend that you order one if you're thinking about it, and see how it works. You don't have to buy 3 dozen and drop a few hundred bucks right out of the gate.

The other option is a more old fashioned cloth diaper. My mom in law uses Gerber cloth diapers, fastened with pins and covered with a waterproof cover, when she watches my son. You can find them at Walmart pretty often, and they do have them at Amazon too. There are pre-fold or flat-folds available in this style, the pre-folds are supposed to be less origami like to put on, and are a bit more expensive. The overall cost of this option is way less than the AIOs, flat-folds are 12.99 for a dozen, and the pins and covers aren't going to set you back much either. I'm not as experienced with these, but I can tell you that once you've had just a little practice, the flat-folds are not hard to put on at all.

As far as the care of these diapers, please read this initial disclosure. I am NOT a particularly diligent housekeeper. My house is comfortable, never pristine. I do not obsess about stains, and I dust the ceiling fan once a decade. Were you to stop by unannounced, I would happily welcome you in, give you homemade cookies, and keep the lights dim. So when I tell you that cloth diapers do not generate a lot of extra work, know that I am someone who takes housework as somewhat of a personal affront.

When junior Pete was born (no that's not his name, he's neither a junior or a Pete, he just has many, many nicknames), I used the disposables that the hospital sent us home with because AIOs are a bit bulky for a newborn, and I wanted to make sure nothing was rubbing his umbilical cord. Once we were done with that business, we started using the cloth, and haven't looked back.

I know this is getting long, so I'll post about how I store and wash the diapers separately. Questions, thoughts or the opportunity to mock me are now available to you, just comment below!

Stick with me folks.

2010-08-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

Meatless Monday has got me in a rut. If you're a new reader, part of my menu plan is to make something sans meat on Mondays, because it's healthy, cheap, and gentler on animals and our planet. But lately, it seems like all I make is beans and rice. Which is good but hardly exciting. So today, I made, drum roll please....beans and rice! But it was unique, I swear.

Tex Mex Bean Pie (this name has not been trademarked and is subject to change. I'm actually shocked at myself for using the phrase "Tex Mex")

1/2 an onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 TBSP butter
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 cups leftover cooked rice
1 portion frozen cooked beans, or 1 can drained. Today we had pinto; black or kidney would work fine
1 cup cheese, Cheddar or Monterey Jack
2 eggs, well beaten
1/2 cup milk

Heat oven to 350.

Over medium low heat, sweat the onion and garlic in butter until it becomes translucent. Add cumin, chili powder and salt and stir to combine, remove from heat. You may need to use a splash of white wine or vegetable stock to pick up all the seasonings. Add rice, beans, cheese, beaten eggs and milk. Stir well to combine and then pour into a greased pie plate. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, and then let stand for 10 minutes before cutting. Garnish with sour cream, salsa, cilantro if you like that kind of thing.

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The menfolk will probably be fairly dubious when they glimpse this thing. Tell them to suck it up, it really does taste good. To take the edge off for them, I serve it with cornbread muffins, which menfolk of all age seem to dig. Cornbread is typically baked at 400 degrees, but my oven is at 350 for the bean pie, and I'm not the kind of girl to make them separately in order to be proper. They'll take a bit longer this way.

Cornbread muffins, made with honey and love.

1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBSP baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
2 eggs
4 TBSP butter, melted
2 TBSP honey

Heat oven to 350.

Combine dry ingredients. In another bowl, whisk together wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir just to combine. Divide batter evenly into a muffin tin lined with 12 paper cups. Bake until lightly golden, about 25 minutes.

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Momma Crack, disguised as chocolate.

2010-08-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

I made this for a family get together last night, and I kid you not when I took it out of the oven, there was a tough moment where I wondered if perhaps I should just give them the ice cream, so as not to have to share. My solution is that I will be making it again tonight.

When something is both butt widening, and really, really good, I call it momma crack. I know that's a questionable thing to say, and I obviously don't think crack is a joke, whether you're talking about the drug or the effect of low waisted jeans. I think my point is that if you wear low waisted jeans, you shouldn't eat this. Or use crack.

Chocolate Self Saucing Chocolate Brownie Cake thing. With Chocolate;

6 TBSP butter
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (kosher is fine, I promise)
1 3/4 cup sugar, separated
7 TBSP unsweetened cocoa powder, separated
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups water

Heat the oven to 350, and put the 1 1/2 cups water on to boil.

Melt the butter in a 8x8 baking dish. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and 3 TBSP of cocoa in a medium bowl, and then stir in the milk and vanilla. Stir until combined, this will be a fairly thick mixture. Spoon it over the melted butter (don't get too excited about getting it even, it doesn't spread easily and doesn't seem to matter).

In a clean bowl, combine the remaining 1 cup of sugar and 4 TBSP of cocoa. Sprinkle it over the prepared batter. Finally, pour the boiling water over the whole mess, slowly.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Serve with chocolate ice cream for the true momma crack experience, or also great with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

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Today; how to pit a cherry. Tomorrow; how to perform an appendectomy with your new cherry pitter.

2010-08-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

My faithful reader and friend Jody mentioned that pitting cherries doesn't sound like fun. I promise you the payoff is exponentially awesome!

Pitting cherries isn't my favorite job, but it is really not that bad. If you don't need your cherries to remain whole, use a paring knife to cut around the circumference, and then pop the pit out. If you want whole cherries and/or don't mind shelling out a few bucks, pick up a cherry pitter. Here is one at Amazon, not the same kind I have, but this one is pretty well reviewed. Locally you can find them at Someone's in the Kitchen. I would guess it takes less than 10 minutes to pit 3 or 4 pounds. WORTH IT!!!!!!!!!!

PS, thanks for the comments! Makes me so happy to know that someone actually reads my nonsense!

Sunday ad picks,

2010-08-08T14:23:00.000-07:00

Safeway's Sunday ad, thru 8/10 ONLY

Tide Stain Release is 5.99 with the in-ad coupon. Use the MF coupon from the 8/1/10 P&G insert and load the $3 e-coupon here to get it free. I actually have gotten this item for free before and have yet to use it; you use it in addition to normal detergent.

Tide detergent is also 5.99 with the same in-ad coupon, and there is a $2 e-coupon here, so combine that with the $1 MF coupon from the 8/1/10 P&G insert and it'll cost you 2.99, is that a good price? Someone has to tell me, I'm that hippie that makes her own laundry detergent...

Black seedless grapes are .99/lb, these look yum. Look for the "Serve up a Sandwich" booklet in stores and you'll get a $1 off produce coupon (with a minimum $5 purchase), so you could try these for free!

There is a MF coupon in this flyer for $3.00 off 10 ConAgra products. It's fairly unusual to see a MF coupon in the Safeway ad, and I wanted to point it out to you because you should be able to get cheap Hunt's tomato sauce with it. If you take it to FTC this week, you would pay $2 for 10 cans. I use the heck out of tomato sauce, it's perfect for pizza sauce, just add some Italian Seasoning or basil/oregano/granulated garlic. Mix it with water and some milk for tomato soup (I know that sound odd, but it's not any different than canned tomato soup). I could go on. But I won't.

Family Thrift Center

18 eggs are .99 cents, which hits my target of less than .6/egg. See my price book here.

Ummm, don't waste your time? There's a promotion on General Mills stuff, get .50 off per item if you buy 10 or more. There are always lots of coupons for these items, look here, here, or here. I don't see anything that will entice me to investigate this one further. This message will now self destruct.

Target

I was hoping to find some Crystal Light coupons to go with the gift card promotion, buy 4 at $2.98 each and get a $5 gift card back. I struck out.

Wow, nothing exciting guys. Sorry! What did I miss?

Cherry chocolate bliss...

2010-08-07T17:32:00.000-07:00

Cherry and chocolate are almost as good as chocolate and peanut butter in my opinion. Not quite as good of course...

Anyway, this is the season for the occasional great price on cherries, and I picked some up at Walmart a few weeks ago for .93/lb. And you better believe I pitted and froze some of those babies. All with this exact combination in mind.

Chocolate cherry smoothies

Combine 2 cups frozen pitted cherries with 1 serving of yogurt (I used the YoPlait Delights chocolate raspberry flavor just to make it even more decadent), add about 1 cup of chocolate milk or chocolate almond milk (which is on sale at Safeway for 1.99 right now, so only .99 with coupon here), 2 TBSP powdered milk if desired, and process in blender until smooth. Add more chocolate milk if needed for drinkable consistency, or ice to thicken it up. I cannot tell you how decadent this tastes, or how much kids love it!

$27.36

2010-08-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

So I continue to add to my overcharge grocery fund, and for those of you who missed the explanatory post, this is money that I am overcharged at any store, which I get back from customer service. The point of this post is that while it's annoying to have to read your receipt for errors, and then have an interaction with customer service that may or may not go well, it's so important because these amounts add up! The most recent contribution was from a Target trip where my coupons all scanned, but didn't take off the correct amounts (I've not had that happen before, it was quite odd).

I am going to continue saving, in my husband's beer stein, until next February when I will feed my family for a month on the total. Hopefully I won't be forced to go on a diet. And he won't drink a beer before then.

By the way, I had originally planned on doing this whole silly project until March, but they always have really good frozen food sales then, and I'm sorry that is stock up time! February should work just fine.

JCP shoes, final cut.

2010-08-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

This is my last shoe purchase and I am all set! These were 26.49 shipped, so obviously not quite as cheap as the first two pairs, but still a good price for something I have been looking for. The timing of this sale was awesome, the 1st pair of shoes I picked up is for an event, the 2nd pair for work, and this pair is for hiking! Even if I hadn't needed any of these shoes though, I would still have bought some and stashed them away for later, at these prices you have to think about your future needs. I would have loved to pick up some shoes for my kiddo, but didn't find any for him that I liked, and likewise nothing I saw would have worked for hubs. I'm happy though!

JCP shoes continued!

2010-08-05T10:31:00.000-07:00

The code is still working today, this was my pick for only $5.29 shipped! Ten2You is the code.

JC Penney's, cheap shoes delivered!

2010-08-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

The blog world is buzzing with this deal today. JCP frequently releases codes for $10 off a $10 purchase online. (This often coincides with the same coupon being mailed out for instore use. If you are on their mailing list, make sure you look at the crap they send you, because this coupon makes for very cheap stuff!) The code they released is Ten2You.

So I mentioned that they release these codes often, and the first thing I do when I see one is check out the clearance. You must pick something that is at least $10, 9.99 won't work. The bad part about these deals is that you have to pay for shipping, JCP won't let you use multiple promo codes on the same order. But the completely awesome thing this time around is that shipping is free for all shoes this month, no promo code needed!!!!!!! The website shows free shipping on shoes, and I got an email that it's for the whole month of August (the Ten2You code will probably only work for a few days.) So anyway, I ordered these shoes, and shipped to my house they will cost $8.47!

Wednesday Ad Picks, 8/4-8/10

2010-08-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, I just realized that I didn't post last Wednesday (started to, but didn't finish), or Sunday (started to, but didn't finish). This is not impressive, feel free to yell at me. I am forcing myself to post the Wednesday picks ON WEDNESDAY for once, and then I'll feel better about myself. Huh.

FTC Wednesday short ad

16lb lug of peaches for canning is $12.99. I LOVE peaches!

Don's

Cabbage is .27/lb.
Broccoli is .99/lb.

Haggar's

Plum's are .88/lb.
Chicken tenders are 1.99/lb. I used to buy these all the time when we had an Albertson's store, but haven't bought them since as I never see them at Safeway for this price. They are really convenient for chicken strips, or anything that you're going to cut the chicken up even more, like stir fry.
This one is up for interpretation, but the Haggar's ad has a rebate form from Kellog's Fuel for School. Buy 10 items and you get a $10 rebate. I do not see anywhere on the form that you have to buy the items from Haggar's (though it does have an Affiliated Foods logo on the top) so I would say you can purchase them from another store and submit the rebate. See the Safeway post below....
Cabbage is .29/lb.
Colby Jack is 2.99/lb in the deli, I try to pay less than $2/lb of shredded or block cheese, so that's a good price for slices.

Safeway

Corn on the cob is 6 ears for $1, SAT/SUN only
Whole chickens are .79/lb.
I understand there is a new pamphlet in the store that will correlate with several of the items on the 3rd page of the ad, I haven't seen it yet, but make sure and look for it. There were a bunch of bonus Cellfire coupons released this week that match up with some of this stuff too, so make sure you load them!
There's a Kellog's promotion right now, buy 10 participating items and get a coupon for $10 off your next purchase at Safeway. So for example, if you bought 10 boxes of Pop Tarts at 1.99 each, you'd pay 19.90, get the $10 coupon, and submit the rebate from the Haggar's ad to get $10 back. You could really stretch this one by looking for the Pop Tarts with the Rewards logo on them; they have special codes inside, and if you buy 10 different flavors you could enter all the codes and get 2 free movie tickets. (I doubt that Safeway carries 10 different flavors, but I really don't know.) There are lots of other items included in this promotion, but I wanted to throw the Pop Tarts idea out there since it would be simplest to use as an example and would net you the most stuff in return!
There is one other scenario that I came up with from this ad. Hellman's mayo is on sale SAT/SUN only for $2.49, which is less than impressive to me. But, there is a .75 cent coupon here, click on Prizes and Coupons in the upper right, fill out the form, and you can print the coupon twice. So that brings it down to $1.49/bottle after the coupon doubles. Still not mind blowing to me. So then, throw in the manufacturer's coupon from the current FTC ad for $2 off deli or lunch meat with the purchase of 2 Hellman's mayo's, and now you have my attention. To maximize this one, I would go the deli and pick up slightly over $2 worth of lunch meat. If you do this one, you'll pay $3 for 2 jars of mayo and the deli meat, which is not bad at all. If you aren't completely confused yet, there is also a Cellfire coupon for .50 off one jar of the mayo, and that brings your total down to $2.50. Now we're talking my language!

I realize that I threw somewhat more complicated scenarios at you with this Safeway ad, so tell me if you have questions!

Target Toy Clearance

2010-07-29T10:54:00.001-07:00

Target clearance is a fabulous thing, and when I stopped today I was thrilled to find they've marked down lots of toys to 75% off. If you are interested, you need to go ASAP, it will go quick!

I scooped up a bunch of stuff for Christmas, birthdays and got some Angel Tree gifts as well! This is a great way to be able to afford charitable giving.

New Cellfire coupons today

2010-07-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to save the new ecoupons at Cellfire today, every other Tuesday they release new ones!

While you're at it, make sure you have loaded all the available ones at Shortcuts too. I try to hit both sites every other Tuesday to make sure I have loaded them all. Nothing new for me today, but I bet there will be some coming soon!

Sunday ad picks, 7/25-7/31

2010-07-26T13:12:00.000-07:00

Safeway Sunday ad, these prices good through Tuesday the 27th only!

I already mentioned the pineapples for .99/ea with coupon from coupons.com a few weeks ago, but the coupon is also still available on the Del Monte website here, yeah!
Top Sirloin is 3.99/lb, and you can load an ecoupon to your Safeway card here. I would count on it probably not working, so print out a list of the coupons you have loaded and be prepared to go to customer service if you try it. If you find a package that is just slightly over 2.5lbs in size, that would bring your per lb price down to $3.20. If you can stop at Haggar's today or tomorrow, you'll pay 2.99/lb, without any hassle!

Family Thrift Center: wow, slim pickings. Another week I won't be stopping at FTC.

1 dozen eggs are .49 with coupon here. FTC has had some great deals on eggs lately, here's another one.
Limes are 3 for $1.
Taco Bell products are on sale, combine with coupon here for .75 off 2 items. The queso would be 2 jars for 4.25, that stuff is usually so expensive, so that's probably not a bad deal.

Walgreens

Not a single Register Reward deal worth checking out in my not very humble opinion!
But, they do have something that always makes me happy! Milk is 1.99/gallon, and just in time, we were completely out yesterday.

Target

Pedigree dog food is 18.99 for 40lb, I can't find any coupons available to print right now. This isn't a great price, but the best I see right now.

I'm changing the name of this section to the Sunday and Wednesday ad picks, since I never find exactly 10! Is this helpful to you guys? I only see the deals for things that I am interested, so I know it's not always well rounded, but I hope it helps you develop your skills for recognizing deals on the items you buy.

Pineapples!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-07-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

I was beyond excited about the Sunday Safeway ad, and had to force myself not to post this at 11:30pm last night, cause I needed to go to bed! Pineapples are 1.99 each, so if you have the .50 cent coupon that I posted about a few weeks ago, it will double and you can get them for .99! I think this is only good through Tuesday, I didn't look too close. If I spot anything else worth getting excited about, I'll let you know.

I was up last night at 11:30 because we had our monthly date night, and holy mother is that too late to be up! We went to Jonah Hex, which is playing at the Elks right now, and I thought it was a pretty good movie, not too gory which was a pleasant surprise. Someone at work had told me that on Tuesdays, you can have a buy one get one free date, as in tickets are 2 for the price of 1, as is popcorn and soda, so I checked it out while I was there, and was happy to see that it's every Tuesday, no special rules. Tickets are $4 each, so that could make for a really cheap date! I love the Elks, especially the upstairs theatre, it's such a neat atmosphere.

Walmart, seriously

2010-07-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

I made a rare trip to Walmart today and if you have reason to go there yourself, pick up cherries at .93/lb! That's an awesome price, though I can't tell you how long they will be that low, you never know with Walmart prices.

I also stopped at Don's for some cabbage, and it's always the little things that make me smile; some of the heads of cabbage are so cute and tiny, the 2 that I picked out only weighed 3 pounds total. Not only are they cute, but I won't end up with half a head of cabbage slowly turning brown in the fridge.

Happy shopping!

Wednesday Top 10, 7/21-7/27

2010-07-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

Safeway has some nice produce sales again this week;

Green grapes are .88/lb!
Green beans are .99/lb
Green peppers are .50/ea
Green broccoli is .99/lb
Green plums are .88/lb. Not really, they're really red or black plums but I had to keep the theme going.
Bumble Bee light tuna is .44/can SAT and SUN only.
There is an in-ad coupon for Yoplait yogurts, 1.79 for the 4 packs of YoPlus, Fiber One, or Delights. Combine this with the manufacturer's coupons here for YoPlus or Fiber One, or here for any of the 3, and they will cost you .79/ea after coupon doubles. Check for e-coupons too! Note that there is a limit of 3 and a minimum purchase of $10 is required to use the in-ad coupons. I would like to get at least 6 of these, so I will do 2 transactions, and the minimum purchase is BEFORE manufacturers coupons. SO, make sure you have at least $10 in items before MF coupons, and then give the store coupon first. Make sense?

Don's Valley Market, I haven't been out to Don's for weeks, but I have been hoping for cheap cabbage so I can work on a chicken chow mein recipe to satisfy my cravings, I will be headed out there this week!

Green cabbage is .39/lb (here we go with the green again)
Broccoli is .99/lb
Cauliflower is 1.89/head.
Cantaloupe is .49/lb

Haggar's

Top Sirloin is 2.99/lb, that's the best I've seen in a long time.
Kiwis are 5 for $1, that's a really good price too.
10lbs of Russet are $2.

Holy Hannah, I came up with more than 10 items this week! Amazing. Seriously, I know that this list is heavy on produce, and woman cannot live by this alone, but it's all I'm interested in right now, so I have tunnel vision! If you need to stock up on protein, this probably isn't the week to do it anyway, with the exception of the tuna at Safeway, and the steak at Haggar's.

Remember the best way to save on groceries is to quit thinking about what you "need" and focus on what's in season and on sale. That said, if bread doesn't go on sale soon, I'm in trouble!

2010-07-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owcLoxQUMPs
Here is my promised shopping trip, thanks for checking it out! I tried and tried to embed the video into the blog, but I struck out this time, so you'll have to follow the link.

There are some good produce deals at Safeway, I'll get them posted soon, or in my own good time, whichever comes first!!

Sunday Top 10, 7/18-7/24

2010-07-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted for the past week, I've been more into outdoors stuff and I'm still bored with shopping. That said, there are a handful of good deals at Safeway through 7/20, and I'm going to run in tomorrow to pick up a few items, so I thought I would try my hand at a video clip to give you a better visual of what I buy. Look for it tomorrow! In the meantime, if you're going to be in Safeway today or tomorrow, make sure to pick up strawberries at .99/lb!

FTC, total bummer of a week!

Nash Brothers frozen veg, 12oz bags, 6 for $6 with coupon here. Seems pretty good for organic.
Peaches or Nectarines are $1/lb, that seems to be the price at most stores right now.
There are lots of 10 items for $10 sales listed, I almost never find this to be a good deal. One example is the Crystal Farms butter, I almost had a coronary when I saw it in this sale, but it's 8oz packs, not 16oz, so not a deal at all! Of course you don't actually have to buy 10 items to get these prices, so if you do shop at FTC this week, don't let them trick you!

Walgreens

There's an in-ad coupon for printer paper, 1.99/400 sheets, limit 2. That's a pretty good price if you prefer not to buy the ginormous boxes of it!
Colgate Total Advanced toothpaste is $3.49 with a 3.49 register reward. There are lots of coupons floating around for this product too, but even without one, this is still a good way to introduce yourself to register rewards without spending a lot out of pocket.

Target

The Hanes bonus packs are on sale, for example 7 pairs of socks are $5, so print the Target store coupon here, and they're only $4!

Safeway's Sunday ad

Corn on the cob is 5/$1.
Fruit 2 Day is $1/bottle, and since it's a new product I was hoping to find some coupons for it, but the only one I have seen is for the 2 packs. Bummer!
Whole Roasted chicken is 3.99 with coupon here, I would print it rather than load it to your card. Seems like a decent price if the heat has gotten to your brain and you are not cooking!

Haggar's (these are good THROUGH 7/20 ONLY, sorry I was lazy!)

Lots of nice fruit offerings at Haggar's right now, peaches are $1/lb, pluots are 1.49/lb, Rainier cherries are $2.99/lb (not cheap, but they never are, and they are yummy), red and green grapes are $1/lb. Definitely worth a stop if it's on your route.

By the way, I was on smartsource.com checking out the coupon offerings, and they have one for Land O' Lakes light butter. What kind of horrible oxymoron is "light butter" supposed to be?

Where to find coupons?

2010-07-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

This could turn into War and Peace, but I'll give it a shot! Obviously, this site is geared towards new couponers, or those who aren't interested in spending a ton of time couponing. There are many, many places to find coupons, and I want to help you find the ones that will save your family the most money! Here are my favorite sources, and of course I can't share facts without sharing my opinion too!

Truly free coupons (the best ones!)

In-store coupons, like blinkies (the little widgets hanging off the shelves that spit out coupons), peelies (attached to packages), tear pads (again hanging on the shelves), and the occasional pamphlet that you see on display in the store. ALWAYS check these out, and if you are likely to use, take a couple! Be a considerate coupon user, and don't take all of them, please!
Mailers that come to your home. I can't think of the names of any of these, but chances are you get some! This is a good place to look for unique coupons, like restaurants, hair cuts, more service related than product related. Don't just chuck them!
The newspaper. These are only free if you would be getting the paper anyway, and frankly in our area, it's debatable whether they are worth it. Don't get me wrong, there are good coupons to be had in the Smart Source and Red Plum inserts, and I really like the Proctor and Gamble ones, but we don't get the same inserts that bigger markets get, and I'm jealous!
In magazines that you already subscribe to. I have at least 6 coupons for $1 off Smart Taste pasta, most are from parenting related magazine. I make sure to clip and save these before I pass the mags on.
Coupons that come directly from the company. On the occasion that I have been dissatisfied with a product, I have always gotten some sort of coupon from customer service. I have also received coupons when complimenting a product, which I try to do in equal measure!
Look for truly free coupons wherever you go, they pop up in all sorts of places when you are mindful of them. On the rare occasion that my husband goes to the grocery store with me, he is awesome at spotting them. Get your kids in on it too!

Coupons that you pay for in some way.

Internet printables (IP) are great. But keep in mind that you are paying for paper, ink, and ultimately your print and computer (and internet service, and electricity, and your nice computer desk, okay I'll stop there) when you hit print. Honestly, I've never taken the time to figure out how much it costs me to print an IP, but I have mentally assigned a price of 10 cents per sheet (which is probably high, but that's okay with me). So try not to go crazy with these, but do print the ones for products that you use, or high values that will make items free. Most IPs expire 30 days after you print them, that can vary a bit. Typically you can print 2 copies of any of these coupons. The first time you use any of these sites, you will have to install their coupon printing devices.
coupons.com, usually the best selection
smartsource.com, another good selection
redplum.com, can be hard to print sometimes
target.com, look for the coupon link towards the bottom of the page if you are on the homepage
safeway.com, can be printed or loaded to your Safeway card, though there are currently a lot of issues with them not being credited if you do load them. This is powered by coupons.com, so there is some overlap in what coupons they list, but they also have Safeway specific coupons, so I always keep an eye on it.
ourfamilycoupons.com for FTC store brand items
There are so many others, seriously you could spend hours looking through all of the IPs that are out there. Lots of brands will also allow you to access a coupon from their homepage, you may have to register to do that. If you have a favorite brand, check out their website!
Coupon clipping services. I'm no expert on these, because I almost never order from them. But if there are a few coupons or inserts that you want multiple copies of, there are lots of services that will package them up and send them to you. Coupons by DeDe is the only one I have ever used, and I found them to be very prompt, though there may be a cheaper service out there. You can also find coupons on e-bay, typically those are in lots of 20, but that would probably be the way to go if there is only one coupon you are looking for.

I'm sure I've missed some things, but that should give you plenty to get started! Questions?

Sunday Top 10, 7/11-7/17

2010-07-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

Not a bad week at FTC, and there are some Target deals to be had on apparel that I was happy about. Some of the FTC deals I've already mentioned, but here's my complete list.

FTC

Our Family cheese, 8oz, 4 for $4 with coupon here. That hits my target price of $2/lb.
Nash Brothers frozen waffles, .67 each with coupon here.
Our Family frozen veg blends, 12-16oz, 4 for $4 with coupon here (I wonder if they have my beloved pepper strips!)
Nash Brothers organic sandwich cookies, 1.49/pack with coupon here.
Bing cherries are 1.99/lb, which isn't bad. Otherwise I didn't like any of the produce prices. They also have a daily meat special this week, again I wasn't impressed!

Walgreens

Penway crayons or colored pencils, .49/pack. They actually have the same item at Target, Rose Art brand maybe? But Walgreens shows the 8pack of jumbo crayons at this price, and that's right up our alley!
Legal pads are .29/each with in-ad coupon, I love these to plan my shopping trips!
Obviously the theme here is school supplies, this is the time to start loading up so you don't have to pay full price. I also think about Christmas with these sales, markers and crayons are fun little gifts or stocking stuffers.

Target

Target.com has some good coupons for apparel right now. These will go fast, so don't hesitate to print them. I used the $2 off Merona women's tops on a shirt that was on sale for $6, so only $4. I also used the Hanes apparel coupons for $1 off on socks, which are on sale for 6.04, so 5.04 after coupon for 7 pairs, and I'm thrilled because hubs badly needed socks. The C9 apparel coupon scored me an even better deal on socks, 1.99 for 3 pair after coupon. It could be argued that socks are not apparel, but I didn't have any trouble using the coupons.

A new place to find Thrift Center coupons!

2010-07-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

This is new to me. FTC features a store brand of organic/natural items, called Nash Brothers. I noticed in the ad today that you can get organic sandwich cookies for 1.49/package with coupon. So I went to the usual site to print out that one, among others, and it's not there. Upon closer inspection, the listed site is nashbrotherstrading.com, and I did find this high value coupon there, along with some others!

This is really cool to me, not only is FTC the only store locally that features Internet printable coupons for their store brand, they also have printables for their store brand of organics! Currently, they have some coupons for the Italian soda and the granola, both of which are on sale in the ad. The only other one I did print was for the frozen waffles, there is a $1 off coupon that will make these .67 cents! There is some overlap, as some of these coupons are on the usual site too. Just to confuse you.

I was able to print 2 of these coupons for the cookies, and hopefully I can keep them stashed away for baby bribing purposes on the plane next month...

Using up fruit, for those of us less virtuous.

2010-07-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

So my last post was about making healthy smoothies with excess fruit. This post is a bit different. I had the fam over tonight, and made pineapple margaritas. They are super simple, and really I would encourage you to try whatever fruit you like for margs. Watermelon is nice too, and of course strawberry. Anyway, here's what I threw in the cocktail shaker tonight.

Pineapple Margaritas

Peel, core and chop 1 pineapple. Put it all in the blender, or half at a time if you're worried about capacity, and add about 1 1/2 cups water. Process until very smooth, about 2 minutes. Strain off the juice, reserve the pulp for another use. Chill until ready to prepare drinks.

For each margarita, combine 2oz Tequila, 1oz Triple Sec, 2oz simple syrup, about 1 TBSP lime juice, and 4oz pineapple juice, in cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake well. Strain into a glass that you've rimmed with sugar, add ice. If you prefer you could easily make this a blended drink.

Simple syrup is equal parts sugar and water, combined in a saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves. To rim a glass, set up 2 small plates. Pour a small amount of juice or water (I used lime juice) in one, and sugar in the next. Dip the rim of the glass in the liquid, then in the sugar to coat. Once you've done this, carefully pour in your drink of choice and people will think you're a pro! The usual choice for margs is salt of course, but the sugar was nice with the pineapple. If using salt, use kosher salt rather than table salt.

We also had fajitas, refried beans, rice, and flan for dessert! Yum. Now I'm going to bed!

What to do with fruit excess?

2010-07-09T19:14:00.001-07:00

Here is a thought on an over abundance of fruit, something I am often guilty of during the summer. It's so good and so cheap, I just go crazy! And then a few days later, I'm trying to figure out what to do with it before it goes bad. There is an easy fix for me that ensures none of it goes to waste, and equally important, it doesn't require a whole lot of time or effort. I just wash it, cut it up, and freeze it for smoothies.

Me and junior love to have fruit smoothies for breakfast or lunch. I'm not a big fan of fruit juice, I really want my kiddo to drink plenty of water, with sweet drinks only occasionally. But I feel a little better about smoothies, they actually have fiber and good stuff in them, not just sugar. Usually, I just keep a bag of frozen mixed berries on hand, but when the opportunity arises, making up your own blend is great! So a couple of days ago, I cut up a pineapple, a cantaloupe, and washed about half a pint of blueberries and the same amount of raspberries. I divided them equally into hard plastic ziploc containers (I don't like bags, I'm too lazy to wash them so they only get used once), and stacked them in the freezer. If you do it this way, the fruit will freeze into a solid mass, so if you have a problem with that, spread them on cookie sheets to freeze through, and then package. The fruit I used yielded 12 portions, I would guess about 1 1/2 cups each. As far as cost, I would say it was about $6 worth, so .50 per portion, not bad.

I can't really be prescriptive about how to make a smoothie, it's pretty much fool proof. I let the fruit sit on the counter top while I make a cup of coffee, so it softens just a bit. Put it in the blender with some form of liquid, usually milk, and a serving of yogurt, blend, add more liquid if it's too thick to drink, and you're on your way to a healthy breakfast. The blend we had this morning used some OJ that needed to get used up, and I also like to add some powdered milk, which is a nice source of calcium, and lends some creaminess. The OJ was perfect with the cantaloupe, it had a really nice flavor. If you have fresh spinach on hand, throw some in. You won't taste it, I promise.

It's kind of funny, I love cantaloupe, but the taste of it in anything other than its original form doesn't appeal. So tonight I was checking out Merissa's blog, Little House on the Prairie Living, and she made cantaloupe butter! I might have to give it a shot and get over my bias. Check her out! She's a Piedmont girl too!

E-Coupons

2010-07-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to import my excel spreadsheet into a post, so that you all could see how I track e-coupons. But I'm not smart enough. Basically, all the e-coupons that I load from Cellfire and Shortcuts are added into my spreadsheet, so that I have a super easy visual for products that I have multiple e-coupons for. For example, I currently have 4 coupons loaded for Betty Crocker Supreme brownie mix;

Cellfire, .75/2, exp. 7/12/10
Cellfire, .75/2, exp 7/26/10
Shortcuts, .75/2, exp 7/27/10
Shortcuts, .75/2, exp 8/27/10

There are also paper coupons for this product, so considering all e-coupons and a doubled paper coupon, I can get $4 off 2 of these brownie mixes at Safeway, through 7/12. The supreme brownie mix is pricey if not on sale, so I'll check and see when I shop this weekend, and maybe I'll get lucky! My point is that e-coupons rock (have I mentioned that before?), and if you spend a few minutes studying them, you can get lots of free products! Yeah!

LeBron James is going to Miami?!?!

2010-07-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

Just kidding, like I care. That said, hubs watched ESPN for what felt like an eternity last night in anticipation. Seriously, who cares?

Hmm, so what am I really going to talk about....

I better update you on how I'm doing with the no shopping challenge I set this month to try and clean out some stockpile groceries before they completely take over my house. Frankly, not worth a crap. It's not that I haven't avoided shopping, really I totally have. I've purchased only the few fresh things that I needed, including some things for the 4th of July. The trouble is that we have had so many leftovers that we haven't made any kind of a dent in what we already have, we're too busy eating leftovers. I'm going to keep at it though! This weekend at Safeway I'll pick up the following;

About a pound of green grapes.
International delight creamer with in-ad coupon and MF coupon here, so I'll pay a dollar for a big old bottle.
Lettuce, probably some romaine and green leaf, it's $1/bunch.
Since I have such a short list, I'm going to check out my current batch of e-coupons, and see if there is anything to be had for free. Seriously, if you haven't done e-coupons yet, get on it! Ask if you have questions!

Milk is on sale through Saturday at Walgreens, $1.99/gallon, and I have coupons for .55 off/gallon (I think that's what they were anyway), so I'll load up with a few. Next time I spot Land O Lakes coupons in the Sunday paper I'll make sure and tell you so you have them too!

Wednesday Top 10, 7/7-7/14

2010-07-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, the deals continue to be weak. Here's what we've got;

Safeway

Whole roasting chickens are .79/lb
Welch's juice cocktails will be .99 with in-ad coupon and manufacturer's coupon here.
Green grapes are .99/lb
Green onions and radishes are 3 for $1

Family Thrift

FTC always has a Wednesday ad in the paper, even though their sales cycle runs Sunday to Saturday. Sometimes the prices are from their big Sunday ad, but sometimes they have some new sales too. This week they were advertising a "truckload produce sale", which I will not be attending. I didn't see anything worth stopping for!

Don's

Eggs are .79/doz, not bad if you need them.
Gronions are 3 for $1 here too.

Haggar's

I don't have a copy of their ad yet, if there's anything good I'll let you know.

This should make you laugh...

2010-07-06T19:19:00.001-07:00

So while I was writing the post below, my son was happily playing upstairs. He can see me down in the office when I am on the computer, and he periodically came to the gate at the top of the stairs to say hi. While I was finishing the post, I noticed that he was sneezing quite a bit, and then giggling about it. Children are so easily amused.

So I went upstairs, and it looked like there was a cocaine milling operation set up in my living room. EVERYTHING was covered in white powder, including the rug, couch, recliner, and of course the child. In the kitchen? Same story. My son got into the spice drawer and with his newly improved fine motor skills, opened the cream of tartar bottle and spread darn near every bit of it throughout the house.

So, I proceeded to strip him naked, and he danced around the living room to Blondie on the ipod while I cleaned up. And yes, it was so ridiculously cute that I was not one bit mad at him. If you come over for supper though, I will not be serving lemon meringue. The point of this story is that you should feel free to ignore everything I have to say about organization. My toddler reminded me that I don't have a chance!