I just found a really cool new website called "Say Mmm". It is a meal planning and grocery list website. I haven't looked into it too much yet, but I love fun websites to help me feel organized. It makes the process so much more fun. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think!
http://www.saymmm.com/index.php
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Recipe Share: Salsa Burritos
Here's a recipe I picked up from a fellow KOAB reader. I love how simple it is to make and it really tastes fantastic!
Salsa Burritos
Serves 6
1 bag Morningstar Veggie Meat Crumbles
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 package frozen chopped spinach, defrosted (or use a 10 oz bag of washed spinach)
1 1/4 cups chunky salsa (use the heat strength of your choice)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
6 medium flour tortillas - warmed
In a large skillet, defrost crumbles over medium heat. Season with chili powder, cumin, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Stir in spinach and salsa; heat through.
Remove from heat; stir in cheese.
To serve, spoon approximately 1/2 cup mixture in center of each tortilla. Fold bottom edge up over filling; fold sides to center, overlapping edges.
Enjoy!
Salsa Burritos
Serves 6
1 bag Morningstar Veggie Meat Crumbles
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 package frozen chopped spinach, defrosted (or use a 10 oz bag of washed spinach)
1 1/4 cups chunky salsa (use the heat strength of your choice)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
6 medium flour tortillas - warmed
In a large skillet, defrost crumbles over medium heat. Season with chili powder, cumin, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Stir in spinach and salsa; heat through.
Remove from heat; stir in cheese.
To serve, spoon approximately 1/2 cup mixture in center of each tortilla. Fold bottom edge up over filling; fold sides to center, overlapping edges.
Enjoy!
Monday, July 25, 2011
Weekly Menu Plan: July 24, 2011
Here is this week's menu plan. A special shout out to the hubby who turns the big 27 on Wednesday, giving us an excuse to eat out one night this week!
Sunday: Hamburgers, corn, potatoes. I ended up buying 15 lbs of extra lean ground beef yesterday for $3.99/lb. So I turned 3 lbs into hamburgers and froze what we didn't eat for next week.
Monday: Tri-color Rotini with edemmame. Do you like how I just turned pasta and sauce into something really fancy sounding?
Tuesday: Salsa burritos...I will share the recipe later today.
Wednesday: Out for dinner!
Thursday: Taking out the 2nd whole chicken I bought a couple of weeks ago and cooking it up in the slow cooker. We will eat some for dinner and I'll turn the rest into chicken soup for Shabbos.
Friday: In honor of hubby's birthday and my MIL coming for a visit, I will be making a special Shabbat dinner. Chicken soup, Gigi's famous sweet and sour meatballs, butternut squash souffle, broccoli, quinoa, and cranberry peach oatmeal kugel.
Saturday: We are having people over for lunch. I will probably make cholent and leftovers from the night before and some friends are bringing items as well.
It's going to be a good week of eating!
Sunday: Hamburgers, corn, potatoes. I ended up buying 15 lbs of extra lean ground beef yesterday for $3.99/lb. So I turned 3 lbs into hamburgers and froze what we didn't eat for next week.
Monday: Tri-color Rotini with edemmame. Do you like how I just turned pasta and sauce into something really fancy sounding?
Tuesday: Salsa burritos...I will share the recipe later today.
Wednesday: Out for dinner!
Thursday: Taking out the 2nd whole chicken I bought a couple of weeks ago and cooking it up in the slow cooker. We will eat some for dinner and I'll turn the rest into chicken soup for Shabbos.
Friday: In honor of hubby's birthday and my MIL coming for a visit, I will be making a special Shabbat dinner. Chicken soup, Gigi's famous sweet and sour meatballs, butternut squash souffle, broccoli, quinoa, and cranberry peach oatmeal kugel.
Saturday: We are having people over for lunch. I will probably make cholent and leftovers from the night before and some friends are bringing items as well.
It's going to be a good week of eating!
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
You paid whaaaat????
I am 100% in love with Amazon. There are so many great features that can't be beat! I love their Subscribe and Save feature, as well as Amazon Mom. With these 2 features, you can save 30% on all types of objects! Plus, you never have to pay for shipping and things usually arrive within 2 business days.
So, with my love of Amazon in mind, I'm going to start a new feature on this blog called "You Paid Whaaaat????" The goal of these posts are to show an Amazon deal and compare it to the "real world" deal. I hope you enjoy and I hope you hop on the Amazon band wagon and purchase some of the deals! Please let me know of any deals you find or if there is something you want me to keep an eye out for!
"Real Life" Deal
Target Up & Up Size 4 Diapers Club Box (124 count)
$19.99
$.16/diaper
Amazon Deal
Luvs Ultra Leakguards Diapers, Size 4, 204-Count
$37.99
PLUS save 30% with Amazon Subscribe and Save and Amazon Mom!
Price drops to $26.59
$.13/diaper
Ok, I know saving $.03 a diaper isn't a huge deal, but if you save $.03/diaper for a whole year it can add up! For 124 of the Luvs diapers verses Target, you are saving $3.72. So, just for simple math, if you use 124 diapers a month, you will save almost $45 for the whole year!
Note: This post contains a link to my affiliate site with Amazon.
So, with my love of Amazon in mind, I'm going to start a new feature on this blog called "You Paid Whaaaat????" The goal of these posts are to show an Amazon deal and compare it to the "real world" deal. I hope you enjoy and I hope you hop on the Amazon band wagon and purchase some of the deals! Please let me know of any deals you find or if there is something you want me to keep an eye out for!
"Real Life" Deal
Target Up & Up Size 4 Diapers Club Box (124 count)
$19.99
$.16/diaper
Amazon Deal
Luvs Ultra Leakguards Diapers, Size 4, 204-Count
$37.99
PLUS save 30% with Amazon Subscribe and Save and Amazon Mom!
Price drops to $26.59
$.13/diaper
Ok, I know saving $.03 a diaper isn't a huge deal, but if you save $.03/diaper for a whole year it can add up! For 124 of the Luvs diapers verses Target, you are saving $3.72. So, just for simple math, if you use 124 diapers a month, you will save almost $45 for the whole year!
Note: This post contains a link to my affiliate site with Amazon.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Weekly Menu - July 17, 2011
I hope everyone had a great week and a nice Shabbat. We hosted lunch this Shabbos and I tried something a little different. Usually I make cholent and also buy chicken to make a whole separate entree. Definitely not budget friendly! So, this week I took out one of the bag's of marinated chicken on Friday morning and cooked it in the slow cooker. I took 2 breasts out for our dinner Friday night, and sliced the other 4 into strips for a big Italian chicken salad. Paired with cholent and sides, I think everyone left satisfied!
This week's menu is pretty simple as I work through stuff in the freezer. What's on your menu this week?
This week's menu is pretty simple as I work through stuff in the freezer. What's on your menu this week?
Sunday: Spinach cheese Filo Pie (from Trader Joe's)
Monday: Southwest Rollups from freezer
Tuesday: Egg Roll Lasagna from freezer
Wednesday: Parents might be in town, if not, some type of stir fry
Thursday: Homemade pizza
What's on your menu this week???
Monday: Southwest Rollups from freezer
Tuesday: Egg Roll Lasagna from freezer
Wednesday: Parents might be in town, if not, some type of stir fry
Thursday: Homemade pizza
What's on your menu this week???
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
New Osem Printable Coupons - save the link!
Thanks, Kosher on a Budget for pointing me towards these Osem (read awesome, haha) coupons. They are valid until May 2013 so you shouldn't have to buy a full price Osem product for a long time! Save the link, or download to your desktop, to print at your convenience!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
How I Stretched an $8 chicken
This week, I picked up a couple of whole chickens at one of the local Kosher grocery stores for $1.99/lb. What a great deal! I also came across a new blog with a post on how to stretch a chicken into many different meals. She worked with a 7lb chicken, and the biggest I could find was 4 lb, so I wasn't able to do quite as much, but I'm pretty proud with everything I did!
The main reason I loved this idea is because I'm letting my slow cooker do all the work. If you know me, you know how much I love my slow cooker, so this is really a perfect match. Here's how my day went:
7:00 am: Placed the whole chicken in the slow cooker and seasoned with salt, pepper and paprika. I wanted to keep it bland so I could use for other recipes. I set the slow cooker to low, got the boy ready and off to daycare/work we went.
12:00 pm: Got excited that I had a whole chicken cooking in my slow cooker and it would smell so good when I got home!
5:00 pm: Sent hubby a text message to ask him to shut the slow cooker off and take out some chicken for ds (dear son - I'm going to start using blog lingo because I'm that cool).
6:00 pm: Got home and enjoyed the lovely smell from the kitchen. DS surprisingly ate all the chicken that DH (figure that one out) put out. I took the chicken out of the slow cooker and started separating some of the meat from the bone. It was literally falling off the bone.
6:15 pm: There were a lot of chicken juices in the crock pot so I used some as a gravy and a couple of cups to cook some quinoa for a dinner side tonight and tomorrow. Also cooked up some green beans.
6:30 pm: I was starving so I ate my portion of chicken, quinoa and green beans for dinner while DH and DS played downstairs.
7:00 pm: DS eats what seems like a cup of quinoa and then goes to bed. DH takes out what he wants to eat for dinner. Basically what was left of the chicken were some side bones with meat and the breast portion.
7:30 pm: I separated all the meat from the bones and put the bones in the crock pot. I decided to take the meat and freeze it for a later date. I think I will probably use it for a big pot of chicken soup at a later date.
7:40 pm: Now the best part. I put all the bones back in my crock pot, added an onion, a bay leaf, some seasoning and 8 cups of water and set to low to cook a chicken stock overnight. I have never made homemade stock before so I'm really excited to see how it turns out!
So, that's how I stretched my $8 chicken. How do you stretch your food? I would love to hear your ideas, especially because I have another 4 lber in the freezer!
The main reason I loved this idea is because I'm letting my slow cooker do all the work. If you know me, you know how much I love my slow cooker, so this is really a perfect match. Here's how my day went:
7:00 am: Placed the whole chicken in the slow cooker and seasoned with salt, pepper and paprika. I wanted to keep it bland so I could use for other recipes. I set the slow cooker to low, got the boy ready and off to daycare/work we went.
12:00 pm: Got excited that I had a whole chicken cooking in my slow cooker and it would smell so good when I got home!
5:00 pm: Sent hubby a text message to ask him to shut the slow cooker off and take out some chicken for ds (dear son - I'm going to start using blog lingo because I'm that cool).
6:00 pm: Got home and enjoyed the lovely smell from the kitchen. DS surprisingly ate all the chicken that DH (figure that one out) put out. I took the chicken out of the slow cooker and started separating some of the meat from the bone. It was literally falling off the bone.
6:15 pm: There were a lot of chicken juices in the crock pot so I used some as a gravy and a couple of cups to cook some quinoa for a dinner side tonight and tomorrow. Also cooked up some green beans.
6:30 pm: I was starving so I ate my portion of chicken, quinoa and green beans for dinner while DH and DS played downstairs.
7:00 pm: DS eats what seems like a cup of quinoa and then goes to bed. DH takes out what he wants to eat for dinner. Basically what was left of the chicken were some side bones with meat and the breast portion.
7:30 pm: I separated all the meat from the bones and put the bones in the crock pot. I decided to take the meat and freeze it for a later date. I think I will probably use it for a big pot of chicken soup at a later date.
7:40 pm: Now the best part. I put all the bones back in my crock pot, added an onion, a bay leaf, some seasoning and 8 cups of water and set to low to cook a chicken stock overnight. I have never made homemade stock before so I'm really excited to see how it turns out!
So, that's how I stretched my $8 chicken. How do you stretch your food? I would love to hear your ideas, especially because I have another 4 lber in the freezer!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Weekly Menu Plan: July 11, 2011
I wrote out my whole post, but I accidentally deleted it, so sorry this will just be a recap of the menu plan!
Monday: Taco pasta. We have leftover taco meat so I am just going to mix it with pasta and sauce...what could be bad.
Tuesday: Mushroom barley soup.
Wednesday: Pineapple cranberry chicken - ended up not making it for Shab so still have all the ingredients ready to go!
Thursday: Homemade pizza
Friday: Marinated chicken
What's on your menu this week? Please share your ideas with me!
Monday: Taco pasta. We have leftover taco meat so I am just going to mix it with pasta and sauce...what could be bad.
Tuesday: Mushroom barley soup.
Wednesday: Pineapple cranberry chicken - ended up not making it for Shab so still have all the ingredients ready to go!
Thursday: Homemade pizza
Friday: Marinated chicken
What's on your menu this week? Please share your ideas with me!
Friday, July 8, 2011
My First Target Coupon Trip
Can you guess how much I spent at Target? Here's what I bought:
1 Up and Up Dishwasher Detergent
1 Up and Up Dishwasher Detergent
4 boxes Market Pantry Cereal
2 boxes Barilla Pasta
2 boxes Morningstar products
1 Colgate Max Fresh Toothpaste
1 Oral B Floss
The retail value of all these items is $26.87 and I got them all for $15.18! Go me!
Ok, so it's definitely not extreme couponing, but let's be honest, those people get JUNK! All of these items we use on a regular basis, so I might as well buy them with cuopons than paying full price.
Here's the key to my success. Let other people do the work for you! There are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of blogs out there that give you weekly deal match ups for all different stores. They tell you what's on sale and where to find the coupons. For example, check out Hip2Save.
For instance, the Colgate Max Fresh Toothpaste is on sale this week at Target for $2.49. There was a $1 off manufacturer coupon in the newspaper and an additional $1 off coupon that I could print. That means I got the toothpaste for only $.49! If you ask me, that's a pretty great deal!
Now, I'm not about to go around digging through people's garbage to take their newspapers, but these sales happen all the time. I don't care what kind of toothpaste we use, so I can just buy whatever's on sale when we need it.
So, over all - it was a great experience and I suggest you give it a go, too. Good luck shopping!
Ok, so it's definitely not extreme couponing, but let's be honest, those people get JUNK! All of these items we use on a regular basis, so I might as well buy them with cuopons than paying full price.
Here's the key to my success. Let other people do the work for you! There are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of blogs out there that give you weekly deal match ups for all different stores. They tell you what's on sale and where to find the coupons. For example, check out Hip2Save.
For instance, the Colgate Max Fresh Toothpaste is on sale this week at Target for $2.49. There was a $1 off manufacturer coupon in the newspaper and an additional $1 off coupon that I could print. That means I got the toothpaste for only $.49! If you ask me, that's a pretty great deal!
Now, I'm not about to go around digging through people's garbage to take their newspapers, but these sales happen all the time. I don't care what kind of toothpaste we use, so I can just buy whatever's on sale when we need it.
So, over all - it was a great experience and I suggest you give it a go, too. Good luck shopping!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Weekly Menu Plan: July 3, 2011
Sorry I'm a little late with the menu plan - I don't even know what day it is! Anyway, here's my plan for this week. What are you planning on making?
Sunday: Barbecue
Monday: Leftovers from barbecue and Shabbos
Tuesday: Black bean burgers - I love these, they are super easy to make and delicious - you will love them, too!
Wednesday: Spaghetti Pie - we have a lot of cheese to use up so I am going to make 2 - one for now and one for freezer
Thursday: Pizza using homemade pizza dough
Friday: Pineapple and cranberry chicken - just throwing it together. I have had a can of crushed pineapples for awhile so I wanted to find a way to get rid of them
Sunday: Barbecue
Monday: Leftovers from barbecue and Shabbos
Tuesday: Black bean burgers - I love these, they are super easy to make and delicious - you will love them, too!
Wednesday: Spaghetti Pie - we have a lot of cheese to use up so I am going to make 2 - one for now and one for freezer
Thursday: Pizza using homemade pizza dough
Friday: Pineapple and cranberry chicken - just throwing it together. I have had a can of crushed pineapples for awhile so I wanted to find a way to get rid of them
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The Cash Envelope
I want to start by saying I love using my credit card! It's so simple and quick that you really can't beat it! But...it is not helpful to budgeting. It is too easy to shop, shop, shop and swipe and go. So, we are starting something new this month. It's a tip I learned from Money Saving Mom. The idea is to have cash envelopes (literally, an envelope) for different aspects of your budget. For example, you would have different envelopes for groceries, gas, household items, etc. At the beginning of the month (or week), you will take out the budgeted amount for that envelope. We are going to begin with just a groceries envelope since that is the part of our budget we have the most control over. On July 1, I went to the bank and took out cash for our groceries this month. I will update how the envelope goes at the end of the month! Oh, just heard ds, gotta go - have a great day!
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