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.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
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!
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!
Monday, September 14, 2009
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
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
Monday, September 7, 2009
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.
Menu Plan Monday
I'm trying to get a little more organized in our kitchen and to make menu planning easier. Last night, I wrote a list of main dishes we usually have to see exactly how many we have. I ended up with over 25 meals that our family enjoys. I want to make sure that we allow some days for trying new things but I'll be using that list to help build our menu for the week. Let's see how it goes!
Monday - Burgers (on homemade buns), oven fries and cantaloupe
Tuesday - Crock-pot Beef Stew with crackers
Wednesday - Lasagna & salad
Thursday - Baked chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and cantaloupe
Friday - Homemade pizza (We have this every Friday and I don't even have to make it! Our 17 year old son is the pizza maker in our family....he also loves to bake cookies!)
What will you be having?
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Why We Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup
Do you read labels? If you don't, you might want to get in the habit of it. There are lots of things in our modern diets that aren't real healthy for us. I know....I know....something is going to kill me, it might as well be that, right? That's true to a point but there is a possibly "quality of life" issue you might want to consider.
Needless to say, we try to eat healthier so that we can avoid a lot of the medical conditions associated with the foods we eat. Here are some reasons we try to avoid the high fructose corn syrup:
Some consider high fructose corn syrup to be the reason why our society is overweight. Basically, HFCS is sweetener that's in all sorts of foods....items you wouldn't think would have sweeteners in them. Ketchup, barbeque sauce, sweet pickles, pickle relish, etc. Because it's in so many things, most people consume quite a large quantity but the American Medical Association recommends only 32 grams of sugar per day. That's hard to do when it's in everything.
A Washington Post article talks about 1/3 of all high fructose corn syrup brands contain mercury. Of course, we all know that mercury is toxic to animals, including humans.
Most recently, research is showing a possible link to "Colony Collapse Disorder" in honey bees. It's believed to be because bee keepers often feed it to their bees in the hopes of increasing reproduction and honey production. Unfortunately, when temperatures rise (especially during the summer months) the HFCS produces a substance called hydroxymethylfurfural which kills the bees. You can read more about it here.
All this to say, perhaps if there is quite a lot of controversy and the "unknown" related to a food item, maybe we should avoid it until we learn more about it.
Many of the items we want to avoid in our diets we can do so by cooking from scratch. There is a great added benfit when we cook from scratch, not only does it benfit our health and possibly decrease our waistline but it also helps our budget. Cooking from scratch saves money as well as our health!
Do you have comments or more information? Leave a comment and let us know!
Have a great day!
Mavis D.
Needless to say, we try to eat healthier so that we can avoid a lot of the medical conditions associated with the foods we eat. Here are some reasons we try to avoid the high fructose corn syrup:
Some consider high fructose corn syrup to be the reason why our society is overweight. Basically, HFCS is sweetener that's in all sorts of foods....items you wouldn't think would have sweeteners in them. Ketchup, barbeque sauce, sweet pickles, pickle relish, etc. Because it's in so many things, most people consume quite a large quantity but the American Medical Association recommends only 32 grams of sugar per day. That's hard to do when it's in everything.
A Washington Post article talks about 1/3 of all high fructose corn syrup brands contain mercury. Of course, we all know that mercury is toxic to animals, including humans.
Most recently, research is showing a possible link to "Colony Collapse Disorder" in honey bees. It's believed to be because bee keepers often feed it to their bees in the hopes of increasing reproduction and honey production. Unfortunately, when temperatures rise (especially during the summer months) the HFCS produces a substance called hydroxymethylfurfural which kills the bees. You can read more about it here.
All this to say, perhaps if there is quite a lot of controversy and the "unknown" related to a food item, maybe we should avoid it until we learn more about it.
Many of the items we want to avoid in our diets we can do so by cooking from scratch. There is a great added benfit when we cook from scratch, not only does it benfit our health and possibly decrease our waistline but it also helps our budget. Cooking from scratch saves money as well as our health!
Do you have comments or more information? Leave a comment and let us know!
Have a great day!
Mavis D.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Rolled Sugar Cookies
It happened. Last night everyone had a serious attack! It was the attack of the sweet tooth! Thankfully our 17 year old son who loves to EAT kicked into gear. Although he loves to eat, I'm very thankful that he also loves to COOK! I mean, if you're going to have a habit of eating everything in site, it's nice to have a corresponding habits that work well together...right? That's what I'm thinking!
Here is the recipe he used and let me tell you, it makes a LOT of cookies....which 5 boys can go through a LOT of cookies!
7 cups all purpose flour
1 cup milk
4 eggs (beaten)
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups coconut oil (you can also use butter, softened)
5 teaspoons baking powder
Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together. Cut in the coconut oil (or butter) until it's well mixed. Add the sugar, eggs and milk and mix well. Cover with plastic or a lid and put in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. This will make the dough easier to work.
When the dough is ready, take out a handful at a time and work it. Roll it out on whatever surface your using (we just use the counter).....you'll want the dough thin. Cut with cookie cutters and place on an oiled cookie sheet then sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes until they start to brown around the edges. Allow them to cool a bit before you remove them from the sheet. We also let them cool on a cooling rack for awhile before we put them in the cookie jar.
We made cookies that were about the size of vanilla wafers and we really liked that size because they are just right for little hands. We also think that they can be substituted for vanilla wafers in recipes that call for them.
These are simple cookies that are not too sweet but just sweet enough to satisfy our cravings and since they are homemade, I have no worries about letting our children have a few throughout the day. As always, cooking from scratch is always cheaper, tastier and better for you....even if it's cookies!
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