What's Cooking? Wednesday

Welcome to the fourth, weekly edition of

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and no doubt you are cooking up a storm for your Thanksgiving Dinner that will probably happen some time between noon and 6 P.M. If your house is like mine, though, the kids will be hungry long before the turkey (or ham, in our case) comes out of the oven. With permission of my sweet cousin, Sally, here is a recipe for delicious muffins. Sally calls them LOVE MUFFINS. The best part, they are quick, easy, and I can almost guarantee that you have all the ingredients in your cupboards already. Make them tonight and they will still be perfect in the morning. In fact, I double or triple the recipe, put three or four muffins in each ziploc bag and throw them in the freezer for my husband to grab as he's walking out the door in the mornings.

(I'm not a baker or a photographer so this picture does not do these LOVE MUFFINS justice!)

LOVE MUFFINS
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
2/3 cup melted butter or margarine
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt. In a small bowl, mix beaten eggs, milk and melted butter. Stir into dry ingredients, JUST until moistened. Pour into greased muffin tins or use liners. Bake at 350* for 20-25 minutes. While warm, rub a stick of butter or margarine on top of muffins and dip in cinnamon/sugar mixture. (We have a shaker for cinnamon/sugar because we put it on toast all the time. I've found that it's easier for me to shake the cinnamon/sugar than to dip a muffin in a bowl.)

What are you cooking this week? (Please be sure to check the comments section as well as the links.)

What's Cooking? Wednesday

Welcome to the third, weekly edition of

Thanksgiving is next week! Holy Cow!!! I know that you are all getting you menus ready for the big day. One of my favorite Thanksgiving foods is pumpkin pie. I love it but don't really like to make a crust. My cousin, Tammy, sent me this recipe for pumpkin pie cake and it has been a staple at our house ever since! You'll notice that the crumb topping has picked off most of the cake in the picture ... that's because the kids love it so much. They kept sneaking pieces until most of the topping was gone.

Pumpkin Pie Cake

Crust:
1 package white or yellow cake mix (set aside 1 cup for topping)
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 egg (optional)

Mix ingredients together. Pat into a 9x13 pan. Real butter will make the crust very flaky. Add the egg for a cake-like crust.

Filling:
1 large can pumpkin
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger
(or 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice to replace cloves and ginger)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 to 1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup evaporated milk

Mix ingredients together. Spread over crust.

Topping:
1 cup cake mix
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine (softened, not melted)

Mix until crumbly and sprinkle over cake.

Bake at 350* for 45-50 minutes or until knife comes out clean. Serve with whipped cream.


What are you cooking this week? (Please be sure to check the comments section as well as the links.)

What's Cooking? Wednesday

Welcome to the second, weekly edition of....

My kids love this recipe. The original name is Barbecue Meatballs but I've changed the recipe just a bit and we call it just "Meatballs and Rice". (And yes, it's pictured on a paper plate because some days I don't want to do dishes. And... It's a full meal with only three things - protein, carbohydrate and vegetable. Most days I'm lazy like that.)

Barbecue Meatballs

36 meatballs (either frozen or from your favorite meatball recipe)
1 cup barbecue sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
2 Tbs brown sugar
cornstarch

Put meatballs, barbecue sauce, ketchup and brown sugar in a saucepan. Heat to boiling. Sprinkle in cornstarch while stirring until sauce thickens. Serve over rice.

(In place of the barbecue sauce, I use Yoshida's Marinade from Sam's Club. My kids love it more than with the barbecue sauce, although they love the barbecue sauce variety, too. It's just a little more sweet with Yoshida's.)

What is your "quick, easy and cheap" (and yummy) recipe this week?

Headbands & Flowers

I'm thinking about Christmas... When you are working with a budget, like most of us are, it's never too early to get started. In fact, I'm probably getting a late start. Be that as it may, I'm working away.

About a year ago I saw the daughter of a friend wearing a cute headband. It was made of ribbons in the school colors and it was darling. My friend told me she had made it and referred me to the internet. I found this website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3276459/Ribbon-Woven-Headband-Instructions
Then I ordered some headbands from here: http://www.craftersvision.com/product-p/hp-hb25.htm

I made these headbands for my nieces. My favorites are the red one and turquoise ones. I think they are prettier if you only use three different kinds of ribbon - one for the outside triangles and two different ones for the inside diamonds. The green one was done with four different ribbons and is a little crazy for my taste.
I also made flowers and butterflies to clip onto the headbands. They were very easy to do - just glue a ribbon around an alligator clip and glue the flower/butterfly on top of the ribbon. This makes it easy to change the accessory on top of the headband.

My daughter, Kelly, modeling two of the headbands.

What's Cooking? Wednesdays

Welcome to the 1st weekly edition of...

I say that I really don't like to cook but that's only partly true. I don't like to decide what to fix and I don't usually like putting it together (although that's the best part) and I REALLY don't like the clean up afterwards. Because of this I have focused my cooking efforts on easy recipes. I've even compiled my own cookbook entitled If You Are What You Eat, I'm Quick, Easy and Cheap!"

Please post your favorite recipe. Ideally it should be a recipe that fits into two of the categories - quick, easy or cheap. However, if it especially yummy, please post!!!

Chicken Poppyseed Casserole

2 tubes smashed Ritz-type crackers
1/2 cup melted butter
1 lb cooked, shredded chicken
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
2 Tbs poppyseeds

In a bowl, combine crackers and melted butter. Set aside. In another bowl, mix chicken, soups, sour cream and poppyseeds. In a 9x13 pan, layer half the cracker mixture, all of the chicken mixture and the other half of the cracker mixture. Bake, uncovered, at 350* for 30 minutes or until sides bubble. You can also cover in plastic wrap and microwave for about 10 minutes. Serve over rice.


Please share your favorite recipe.

Couponing #2

I'm sorry I didn't get this posted yesterday. I had two drop in visitors and spent four hours at the school. My schedule was not my own yesterday. I'll try to get the rest typed and scheduled for posting....

Regional Websites & Where to Find Coupons

Abbreviations you might see...
These are some of the abbreviations you'll come across.
*RP = Red Plum (newspaper insert)
*SS = SmartSource (newspaper insert)
*P&G = Proctor & Gamble (newspaper insert and loadable onto your shopper discount card)
*IE = Internet Explorer (click this one if this is your web browser)
*FF = Firefox (click this one if this is your web browser)
*Cellfire = (Coupon site that loads coupons directly to your preferred shopper discount card)
*Shortcuts = (Coupon site that loads coupons directly to your preferred shopper discount card)
*Coupons.com

Regional Websites...
Philidelphia- http://www.momsneedtoknow.com/
Click on “Grocery Deals” at the very top. The links to online coupons are in red.
Acme, Genuardi’s, Giant of PA, Giant Eagle, Kroger, Meijer, ShopRite, SuperFresh (coming soon), Wegmans (coming soon)

Mid-west/Southern US - http://www.southernsavers.com/
Click on the grocery store link underneath her name logo.
Kroger (Dillon’s), harris Teeter, Food Lion, Harvey’s, Ingles, Piggly Wiggly, Winn Dixie, Publix, Bi-Lo

(This is the website I use for my Dillon’s store. I have to remember that the sales she lists go from Sunday through Saturday. My sales go from that Wednesday through Tuesday. Also, the prices she lists are usually between 30 and 50 cents cheaper than at my local Dillon’s.)


Fargo - http://fmcheapskate.blogspot.com/

Utah - http://thekrazycouponlady.com/ (Albertson’s, Smiths)

Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Arizona - www.pinchingyourpennies.com

Sacramento - www.krazycouponlady.blogspot.com
Type in the grocery store you want to search (i.e., Raleys) in the search box on the left side.

General - http://www.frugalcouponliving.com/ (Click on store deals - right side of link banner across the top)
- www.fabulesslyfrugal.blogspot.com (general Walgreens/Target, etc. PLUS Idaho)

Other Ways to Get Coupons...
I usually go to my favorite website for this area (www.southernsavers.com) and click on the coupon links that are embedded in the grocery ads they have listed. (Remember that most coupons can be printed TWICE from each computer.) I also get coupons this way (*NOTE* - I do not pay for any of my coupons) -

*www.couponmom.com
*www.redplum.com (internet copy of the Sunday insert)
*www.smartsource.com (internet copy of the Sunday insert)
*Product websites (like Nestle or Bar-S) frequently have coupons. It's often worth a check.
*Free product samples usually come with coupons
*Recycling Center - Our recycling center saves out inserts and will give me a stack that's an inch high every time I go in. If yours doesn't do that ask if you can search through the bin they have for the high gloss newspaper recycling. It usually isn't very dirty because people take in a stack of newspapers and don't mix them in with their garbage.
*College Newspapers - When we lived in Idaho we discovered that the college there included the newspaper inserts (Albertson's ads and coupons) on the day before we got them in the regular paper. I usually drove to the school and ran into one of the buildings where I knew they had a newspaper box. Right next to the newspaper box there was a recycling bin. You'd be amazed at how many ads I could pick up out of the recycling bin. It was fabulous!!!
*Schools - Many schools use newspapers in their classrooms (I did when I taught in Utah). Check with your child's teacher to see if they do and if they have any inserts they'd be able to share with you.
*Libraries - Our library here in Pratt has a little box for coupons that they get from their copies of the Sunday paper. I regularly sort through those for the coupons I know I'll use.
*Neighbors, friends, family members, Church members - If you know people who aren't sold on couponing but still get the paper, ask them if you can have their inserts.

You can also BUY coupons on ebay and www.thecouponclippers.com. (It is illegal to sell coupons so they charge a small handling fee. I've never actually purchased coupons from either of these sites - I don't know why, I just haven't - but I have a couple of friends who have and love it! Turn around time is very quick. The coupon clippers are located in Florida so take that in consideration when you are totally up shipping time.)

Couponing #1

This is the first of five (or six or seven or....) posts about couponing.


General Couponing Information

I love to coupon. I started couponing when we lived in Idaho and I could attend a group in the next town over. The group leaders would go through the grocery ads and tell us what the best deals were, where to find coupons, etc. It was definitely my style... no-brainer couponing! When we moved to Kansas this past May I couldn't find a couponing group like the one I'd left in Idaho. Then I attended a Church event that was attended by women from surrounding towns. During the course of a conversation I had with a lady I discovered that she was a supreme couponer. We exchanged emails and I've since learned how to coupon here in Kansas. The leaders of our Church strongly discourage debt. Since we move a lot we have a hard time getting rid of the debt we incur every time we move. For the past couple of months I've felt like getting rid of our debt needs to be a main focus for us. I looked into going back to teaching (first as a sub and then applying for jobs for next year) but since I'm four months pregnant and have a three year old that didn't seem like a viable option right now. I decided that if I could save enough using coupons then I wouldn't have to go to work. That's when I started actively couponing again. (Sometimes I use my "extra" food budget money to help amass a year supply of food - another suggestion from our Church leaders.)

I've come to the belief that it is possible to coupon (and save major money) anywhere you live. I've done a little research using the areas of the country where I have lived or have siblings living and have found websites that offer the same help as my couponing group in Idaho. Over the next week or so I'm hoping to be able to detail the things I've learned here because there are some who stop me in the grocery store (after they've watched me save 50% or more) and ask how I do it. I'd like to be able to refer them to this blog as an easy "how-to".

Before you get started, there are a couple of things to know...

1) It will take about three months before you really see results. The first month you'll be excited that you have a year's supply of cake mixes and salt. The second month you'll feel unbalanced and be frustrated that you only have a year supply of cake mixes, salt and cold cereal. The third month things will start to even out and you'll notice a difference. (For example, my normal food budget is $200 every two weeks. This week I was able to only spend $80 on groceries for the next two weeks. This is because I have a stockpile of staples like cream soup, pasta, spaghetti sauce and vegetables that I have purchased in bulk over the past few months.)

2) I was told to use half of my monthly out-to-eat budget to start couponing with (to use on the great sale/coupon deals). I don't have an out-to-eat budget. We live in a small town that doesn't have a lot of restaurants. Also, IF we go out to eat it's a drive-thru experience on our way to another town to do shopping or something. I decided that I could spare $30 a month (or sometimes a pay period) to use on the smoking deals.

3) Know that about once every quarter (3 months) every item in the grocery store will be at it's highest price and at it's lowest. If you know (about) what the "usual" price is then you can be aware when the prices hit bottom. The key to getting the biggest bang for your buck (or the most stuff for your buck) is to use the coupons when the items are on sale.

4) There are many websites out there that give tips and tricks to super-size your couponing. The two I like the best are It's Hip 2 Save and Pinching Your Pennies. Both sites list lots of offers and great deals. If you subscribe they will send you emails every evening telling you of the deals they found that day. Also, on Hip 2 Save she has a lot of great how-to videos (look on the right sidebar of her blog). I highly - HIGHLY - recommend watching those videos. They are about 10 minutes each.

5) Use your coupons on sale items to get the biggest bang for your buck. Stores will allow you to use a manufacturer’s coupon AND a store coupon on the same item. That is called stacking. For example.... Say I am going to buy a box of Cheerios that usually costs $4 but is on sale for $2. I have a $1 manufacturer’s coupon that I got out of the newspaper insert (or printed online). I also have a 50 cent coupon that I cut out of the grocery store ad (store coupon). I get the $4 box of Cheerios for only 50 cents!!! That’s a savings of 75%.