Waffle Mix

I recently purchased a new waffle iron as an experiment. I want to make waffles up ahead and put them in the freezer for our little guys. I was skeptical at first. I had read about it being done but still wasn't convinced until I tried it myself. Let me tell you, it's great! Finding just the right recipe....not so easy. Here is the one we've settled on. You can mix all the dry ingredients up before hand and then just add the liquids before mixing and making them or you can make them ahead and freeze them. To warm them, pop them into the toaster. Oh...and this recipe is easy peasy to double, triple or more!

Plain Waffles

2 c. flour
1 Tbs. baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbs. sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. milk (you can make this half water and half milk if you'd like)
1/4 c oil (we use olive oil but you can use what you prefer)

Combine all and mix well. Cook/bake on your waffle iron. To freeze for later use, put them on a cookie sheet and freeze individually. When frozen, transfer to a large freezer bag or container.

Flour can be a combination of half whole wheat, all whole wheat or half cornmeal. It's a pretty easy recipe. :)

Crock-pot Scalloped Potatoes with (Turkey) Ham

This has become one of our favorite meals. I'll make it and add a side dish of veggies to go with it and since we don't eat pork, I always use Turkey ham purchased from Aldi's.

Crock-pot Scalloped Potatoes with (Turkey) Ham

2 cups diced turkey ham
1 medium onion chopped
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1/2-1 can of milk (use the soup can to measure)
10-14 slices of American cheese, grated
4-5 pounds of potatoes, sliced thin (I slice them as I go so I don't accidentally slice more than I need)

Mix the soup and milk in a container....you'll use just enough milk to make it pour easily. Spray your crockpot with cooking spray to make clean up easier. Add in layers ....potatoes, onion, turkey ham, cheese, then pour on half the soup mixture. Continue until you have two full layers. Set crock pot on HIGH and allow to cook for 4 hours.

You can also do this in a 9x13 baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until potatoes are cooked through. We stick a fork in the middle to check them.  As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Menu Plan Monday

Our menu is pretty simple most of the time. I plan on sharing a few of the recipes during the week....especially our Crockpot Scalloped Potatoes and Ham that we're having on Wednesday. :)

Monday - Chicken and dumplin's with green beans

Tuesday - Chicken and Vegetable fried Rice - hubby made a TON of rice that needs to be used! LOL!

Wednesday - Scalloped Potatoes and Ham with sweet peas

Thursday -Sloppy joes with homemade buns and oven fries

Friday - as always, homemade pizza made by my 17 year old son. :)

Have you seen this new website?

I've been using coupons for quite some time but one thing I've found is that the coupons are regional and sometimes so are the sales. This makes using a lot of sites difficult and even depressing sometimes. Those who are lucky enough to live in areas that have CVS pharmacy, Super Target and other stores that have great sales and are really competeing with each other....well, I guess you could say I'm a little jealous! LOL!

In our area, we have the choice of Walmart (Arkansas is Walmart country), Sam's Club, a small Target, Walgreens and a couple of regional stores called Harps/Price Cutter and CV's Family Foods. Thankfully we now have an Aldi's that does save us a little money as well.

Anyway, I've also noticed our coupons are not always the same as other regions of the country which makes this site even better. It only has coupons that were available in our area. It's new and growing so be patient but if you live in the Arkansas/Oklahoma area....it might help you too! It's called River Valley Steals & Deals. Check it out....you might like it.

Have a great day!

Mavis D.

Menu Plan Monday

So....did you notice on Monday I didn't have a menu plan for the week? By Tuesday evening I noticed I didn't have one! I've been officially planning our menu for a little over a month now and this past week I just didn't get it done and I paid for it too.

The menu plan has helped me be a little more organized than usual when it comes to meal time. I know what I need to take out and I'm not searching at 4pm for something to fix for dinner. It also helps me plan around our basketball schedule because we usually have crockpot meals on those days.

If you haven't tried menu planning, why not try it. The way I started was to sit down and make a list of all the meals I make for our family. By the time I was finished I had a list of somewhere around 30 meals! Whoo Hooo! One for each day of the month! That would make planning a lot easier.

Almost all of the meals I make are made from items I normally have in the pantry and planning the menu on Sunday allows me to stop after church to pick up the items I'll need. This all makes for fewer trips to town (we live 12 miles from the nearest SMALL town) and one relaxed mom!

There are other ways to make menu planning easy and might be helpful to those with less experience. A friend of mine uses Saving Dinner but there are others out there that are similar. There are also programs that allow you to type in your recipes and then choose the ones you want to have for that week....many of those programs also have a shopping list function that after you've chose the meals you can print a "grocery" list from the ingredients. There are lots of programs to buy that do this but there are also several free programs. I recommend checking out the free ones first before buying one.

Do you have any menu planning suggestions? Share them with us!

Menu Plan Monday

Basketball practice starts this week so a couple of our meals will have to be easier than usual.

Monday - meatloaf, homemade macaroni and cheese, green beans

Tuesday - Scalloped potatoes and turkey ham in the crock-pot

Wednesday - Taco Salad (taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, tortilla chips) served with refried beans and sour cream

Thursday - Hot turkey ham & cheese sandwiches with side salad.

Friday - Homemade pepperoni & veggie pizza

Make Your Own Ketchup

Make it Yourself Monday

We've had a hard time finding ketchup without HFCS so I've decided to try my hand at making my own. I found a few different recipes and this one seems to be the best fit for us. It may have a little more garlic than you'd like but we like lots of garlic so it's not a problem for us. :)

I do think that once you try homemade ketchup, you'll end up preferring it, I know our family does and the cost savings is great!

Since I was also wanting to address cost, one requirement for the recipe had to be that it used tomato paste or sauce because it's cheap and easily stored. So, with out further delay, here is our favorite ketchup recipe!

2 6oz cans of tomato paste
4 tablespoons white vinegar (I accidentally used white wine vinegar but it still tastes ok)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
4 teaspoons molasses
2 teaspoons garlic powder (you can cut this back to one if your family isn't crazy about garlic)
2 teaspoons onion powder
1/8 teaspoons all spice
1 teaspoon sea salt (we prefer sea salt but regular table salt is fine)
2 1/2 cups of water

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer on low heat for one hour until it's as thick as you like. Allow it to cool completely before you pour into bottles....especially if you are using plastic bottles!

This recipe yields about 1 quart of Ketchup at a cost of less than $1 and all of the items it calls for are regularly stored in my pantry.