stuff I've tried round up and the 1 week check in

Ok so I haven't been blogging much lately...what can I say...life happens.  Anyways.  I have tried a few things from Pinterest lately that I have really liked.  Let's start with $5 dinners

why not?  I would love to cut our grocery bill down.  So I gave the dinners a shot and for the most part they are ok (the list above is half $5 dinners and half of the Freezer meals, I had leftover from last month)  So the cheap meals are Chicken or tuna casserole, chili and cornbread, grilled cheese and tomato soup, breakfast for dinner, chicken fettucini, and spaghetti and meatballs.  

First off I hate casserole, it makes me physically ill, but I tried the tuna one anyways and nope nothing has changed about my bodies ability to eat a casserole and a spent the night sick...blah.

I like the chili and cornbread because it all came from a box or a can and it took 10 minutes to make, the kids ate and I like it so I would call that a successful cheap meal,  I like grilled cheese and soup but the kids don't so that one is an adults only cheap meal.

Of course pasta is always an acceptable meal for our family, fettucini and spaghetti were a big hit.  Oh and breakfast for dinner...who doesn't love that?

conclusion: they were cheap and I liked about half of them, however they are not very healthy and these dinners still require the addition of a veggie.

UP NEXT:  Brownie Pizza

I made this for V day.  I simplified the recipe even more by using a can of cream cheese frosting and omitting the apple butter.  

It was delicious.  The frosted brownie was super sweet so the raspberries were perfect for on top because they were a little tart.

Up Next : A t-shirt Scarf and a DIY Cardigan

These are both super easy.  I took a sweater that fits me weird

and two t-shirts I didn't like anymore (for obvious reasons)

  and turned them into this:

I didn't use the hemming tape the sweater I just did a roll stitch to get a clean edge.  I also used a sweater so it was a little wavy when I finished but once it was washed once it took a better shape.

The above picture also serves as my "BEFORE" picture for my 14 day challenge.  It was taken on Wednesday when I took my first measurements.  So it has been about 6 days of working out and I'm starting to see some great results!

here I am today. 

Here is my inches lost report

Bust: - 4 inches (some may not like to lose in their bust but I am super happy to lose it!)

Waist at belly Button: -2 inches

Waist @ the dreaded love handles: -3 inches

Hips @ bum: - 2 inches

Thigh: - 1 1/4 inch

Calf: - 1 inch

Bicep: - half inch

Neck: -1 inch

yay!  If you haven't read about the 14 day drop a size challenge head on over to my previous post.  And get started today!  I have a pair of leather pants from High school that I would like to fit into and with these inches lost I am getting closer every day!

Freezer meals...my saving grace

Ok so I love to cook.  I really do.  I love to try new recipes and there is nothing I love more than that moment where you realize it turned out perfectly and may possibly be the best thing ever created! (yes I am that good of a cook...watch your back Martha...but don't stop selling recipes because I need them!)

What I don't like is doing dishes.  I hate dishes.  Cooking from scratch seems to create a lot of dishes, but eating less processed foods is important for our health and our budget so I cook a lot of things from scratch.

This month is going to be a little busy.  First of all we brought home a puppy named Zelda....

Isn't she cute? She was happy to trade in a box with 6 other puppies for the end of a King Size bed.  She has already claimed her spot.  As cute as she is, she is a lot of work, she likes to play and snuggle and she has to be fed 3 times a day, and of course there is the matter of house training.

Then of Course these two little monkey's still take a up a bulk of my day....

not that I am complaining cause they are pretty cute too :)  And they are totally psyched to have a new puppy in the house and nothing is more sad than a sleeping puppy to them, so not only am I working to train the puppy, but I'm training the girls on life with a small puppy...oh and it's about time to potty train Claire too (I see a lot of little messes to be cleaned up in my future).

on top of this Peter has started his second quarter of Grad school and is in class one night a week and doing homework a few more nights a week.   So dinner isn't always my number one priority and I have to admit that on more than one occasion I have served pancakes or had Peter pick up take out on his way home because I haven't left enough time to make something for dinner.

So I decided that this month I wanted to eat less take out and less pancakes and enjoy more balanced delicious meals at the end of the day, but I just don't always have time to do the prep work or clean up the mess.  So this month I am doing freezer meals! I found this post on freezer meals that promised I could have a bunch of freezer meals for cheap.  She recommends a cook book called Don't panic dinners in the freezer, my library had the sequel available so I checked it out.  (I hardly ever buy cookbooks, I always borrow them from the library first and if it is something I have to have then I buy it....hopefully used. My only exception is Martha stewart cookbooks...I love Martha)  So I spent 2 nights cooking and I have about 20 meals prepared.  There are a few more things I'm going to make to finish up a month of meals but I need to organize my freezer first....can you guess which freezer is mine and which one is from the bloggers?  hint... mine is a mess :) I'm posting it to show you that you don't have to be perfectly organized to do freezer meals. ( I subscribe to the just shove it in there and run method of freezer organization).

So bottom line:
1. The meals we have had so far are delicious we have loved everything.

2. I wouldn't call this a cheap method for making dinner but it was about the same cost as my normal "from scratch" groceries. (you can freeze just about anything so you can tailor your menu to your budget if cutting your budget is something you need to do).

3. I have a lot less dishes!  yay!  next time I'm going to avoid the meals that go in the crockpot because I hate cleaning my crockpot, it takes up half my dishwasher so I have to do an extra load when I use it.

4.  We have not had pancakes or take out once...YES!  I simply pick a bag out the night before and then I pop it in the oven or on the stove about half hour before dinner.  It's working great.

Time to go make dinner!

Food Glorious Food!

This is me at dinner...ok not really but I feel like this sometimes.  I love food!  Who doesn't (no nasty comments I'm aware some people don't love food).  I love the recipes that I find on Pinterest and I was just looking through my recipe board in order to start planning meals for the next few weeks and I realized that I have tried a lot of things and haven't bothered to blog about them.  So I'm just going to do a recipe rundown of all the things I have tried.

1.Lemon Fudge- Yuck.  It is like eating a mound of lemon frosting, WAY to sweet

2. Carrot Apple Coconut muffins-  I love them!  However I made them for the kids and they don't love them, the flavor is great but I need to puree the fruit and veggies next time so the kids will eat them, I do love that they are sugar free though.

3. Turkey taco lettuce wraps-Delicious!  I actually used ground beef because I just don't like ground turkey, but the lettuce wraps as a taco shell was delicious and even if you use beef it will save on calories.

4. Texas Roadhouse Cinnamon butter- Heavenly, I gave it away as christmas Presents this year.  yummo!

5.Asian Slaw- great, fresh salad.  I used broccoli slaw instead of regular cole slaw and I added some cold teriyaki chicken to it and used it as a main dish.

6.Sweet and salty roasted chickpeas- yuck...next!

7.Crock pot BBQ ribs- AMAZING! so simple and delicious, there were NO LEFTOVERS!

8. Hawaiian sweet roll Ham sandwiches- yummy but you won't feel good after you eat them.

9. weight watchers honey mustard crunchy chicken- really good but they only count as weight watchers if you use fat free dressing....which I didn't have

10. jalepeno poppers- perfect...Superbowl possibility.

11. Slow cooker thai peanut chicken- just kind of blah

12. Cranberry salsa- best thing I ever found on pinterest, there is a plate of it in my fridge right now and I'm taking it to christmas dinner.

13. double crunch honey garlic pork chops- I insist that everyone try this recipe, it is THAT good!

14. 7 Layer tostadas- fast and easy for a weeknight meal, and there is lots of variation possibilities.

15.Homemade Cherry limeade- of course it's good, its Cherry Limeade

16.  Caramelized Chicken- very good, If you are going to do it in a crock pot keep it under 4 hours otherwise you will have jerky...no joke...and don't go run errands and forget about it either.

17. Spring rolls with Spicy peanut sauce- I had to spice up the sauce a little bit but it was great, and I love spring rolls, there is a great step by step recipe on the link.

18. Cajun Chicken pasta- it's like cajun fettucine.  I know that sounds like a strange combo but it turns out so delicious!

19. pf chang lettuce wraps- a new favorite!

20. crock pot orange chicken- meh.  It's ok but, there are better recipes.

21,ham and cheese crescents- it's ham and cheese and buttery rolls....of course it's good.

22. Honey soy glazed chicken- It is my experience that Martha Stewart will never steer you wrong in the kitchen.  

23. sliced baked potatoes- just not as good as I wanted them to be.  ok but not great.

24. Honey chicken- One of my favorites at the chinese takeout place, and a pretty decent make your own take out, but really heavy.

25. sweet and spicy honey garlic shrimp- So Amazing!

26.  cake batter rice krispie treats- eh I'll stick with the regular ones.

27. Best ever beef dip sandwiches- lives up to its name.

28.  Cheesy chicken lasagna- I'm lactose intolerant...I don't know what I was thinking, but Peter loved it.

29. Comeback sauce- It has a great flavor but it is way to heavy to be used on a daily basis...maybe if you were having a BBQ with fries....lots of fries.

30.  slow cooker coconut chicken curry- very good, very easy.  Great comfort food.

31. toasted ravioli- you bread and fry ravioli then dip them in sauce.  so delicious and bad for you, but they also take a lot of work, I don't think this will be a repeat.

32. Coca Cola Chicken wings.- yum!  mostly taste like sweetened soy sauce.  Who knew coke had such a prominent place in modern chinese cooking.

33. zucchini fries- too much work! you want fries make fries they are so much easier.  you want veggies eat veggies.

34. Dr Pepper sauced boneless wings- SO GOOD!!!  This is a definite for the superbowl!

35.  Crock pot Mac & Cheese- I have tried so hard to like baked mac n cheese and I just don't....blah.

36. Cinnamon roll pancakes- Fantastic breakfast!  And while your at it try the cream cheese topping...might as well go all the way right?

37. Crock pot kalua Pork-  The best part is that it cooks for 16 hours so you have 16 hours to drool over your crock pot.

38. Dirt Cups- Why I waited till I was 28 to learn how to make dirt cups I don't know, but they are a great desert for kids....or teenagers....oh heck everyone likes em.

Ok well that is it.   I hardly ever make the same thing twice so I'll keep trying new recipes and sharing them :)  

Texas Roadhouse Butter

This years "Christmas Treat" is Texas Roadhouse Butter with Old english oatmeal bread.    I found the butter recipe on Pinterest via a blog called Fly through your window.  Check it out, it's a cute blog.  The bread recipe is from a Williams Sonoma baking cook book and they don't publish this particular recipe on their website so I don't think I should publish it here.  If you live near me though I would be more than happy to let you take a look at my cook book.

Thank you to whoever gave me that book for my wedding 6 years ago.   I have used it many times and the recipes always turn out wonderfully!  If you like to bake I would recommend This book.

Anyways, the butter is super easy to make and it is fantastic.  I like to eat it on toast for breakfast.  I have learned in my limited experience of making flavored butter (my Dad always made honey butter for Thanksgiving....mmm) it is best to let your butter soften at room temperature.  DO NOT MELT YOUR BUTTER!!! You will get a weird butter in the end and you won't be happy.  

Enjoy!

Quite possibly the best...

This is quite possibly the best pork chop I have ever eaten!  Check out the recipe over at Rock Recipes.  

These Pork chops are coated in a flour and spice mixture and cooked in the tiniest bit of oil to get that great crunchy texture and then you add the honey garlic sauce on top and it is amazing!

Also I didn't have sage so I used Rosemary instead and it was still so delicious.  I made an entire pack of these chops even though there were only two of us eating and we have been having leftovers for lunch the past few days and each time we eat one we are just in heaven.

enjoy :)

Spring rolls

I Love Spring rolls! I have a favorite restaurant downtown that makes the best spring rolls, they are perfectly sticky on the outside and crunchy on the inside (also they put dried pork and shrimp in them and that never hurts).  So when I found this recipe for Spring rolls.  I was super excited to try it.

The hardest part of this recipe is tracking down the rice paper sheets ( I found them in Top Foods, they typically carry some nicer things and you can often find unusual things there, so if you can't find them at your favorite store, go to the nicest store in town and I bet you will find them there).

I sliced up some Nappa Cabbage, I bought shredded carrots, and I used green onions, and cilantro and Avacado.  I was too lazy to cook up any meat so we had veggie spring rolls.  I also made the spicy peanut sauce included in the recipe and it was a little bland for me so I added some garlic chili sauce, which was great but when the sauce began to cool it got a little firm, so if you want to add some spice use the chili sauce but add more water and soy sauce.

Yummy and dare I say...healthy?  I love it when that happens :)

Asian Slaw with ginger peanut dressing

Asian Slaw with Ginger Peanut dressing.  It's delicious.  I added some grilled chicken so that this could be our whole dinner and it was fantastic.  It is great for a whole meal but also a great asian salad option (as much as I love my old standby of cabbage and ramen noodles, it is nice to have an alternative).
I didn't use the regular coleslaw mix I used a broccoli slaw mix and it was really yummy.  Give it a try.

Cajun Chicken Pasta

I don't have my own picture so I borrowed this one from the original Pioneer Woman post.

I love this recipe, it is like cajun fettucini.  I love all the peppers and the cajun spice.  It's super easy, and your kids might actually eat it!  My kids won't eat anything that doesn't end in "'n cheese" so I had no such luck but I wasn't expecting any.  Peter and I loved it though.

Cranberry Salsa

I tried a new recipe for Thanksgiving this weekend.  You MUST TRY THIS!!!

Cranberry Salsa....Make it, taste it...Love it!

These really are the best

I went to pull up the link for these amazing beef dip sandwiches but the link leads to nothing now.  So thankfully I saved the recipe in a word document because when you call something "Best Ever Beef Dips", you know it's going to be good.

If for some reason the author stumbles upon this post ( which I highly doubt) let me know and I'll give you credit.  But for now here is the recipe for "Best Ever Beef Dips" by anonymous

Best Ever Beef Dip Sandwiches

         1 tablespoon minced garlic

         1 tablespoon dried rosemary

         3 bay leaves

         1 cup soy sauce

         6 cups water

         3-4 pounds beef chuck roast

         rolls or buns

         sliced provolone

Combine garlic, rosemary, bay leaves, soy sauce, and water in a slow cooker.  Stir to combine.

Place the roast in the liquid in the slow cooker.  Cook on low for 6-12 hours.

Remove roast from slow cooker and shred.  Place liquid from slow cooker in another container and remove bay leaf.  Return shredded beef to slow cooker.  Add a small amount to the reserved liquid.  Add just enough to make the beef nice and moist.

Place slice rolls or buns on a baking sheet.  Place one slice of provolone on each roll.  Place on the center rack of an oven under the broiler. (placing it on the center rack prevents burning)  Broil until cheese is melted and bread is golden brown.

Serve meat on the rolls or buns along side reserved liquid for dipping.

I found that 12 hours was the magic number for me.  This is the perfect recipe for a rainy october day.  yum!

Crazy Good!

Crazy Good is what I wrote next to this recipe after dinner.  I guess I loved it. Of course it is a recipe from Our Best Bites.  They are a new discovery for me, My sister in law gave me the cookbook for my birthday and I have loved everything I have made from the cookbook, so naturally when I saw this recipe For Sweet and Spicy Honey Grilled Shrimp on Pinterest I had to try it.

This picture is from Our best bites website...I was too anxious to eat my yummy shrimp to stop and take a picture.  I chose to marinate it for 48 hours.  The results were well worth the wait.  YUM!  There were no leftovers that night.

PS...I wasn't in the mood to start the coals that night so I just sauteed them in a hot skillet and they were still amazing!  I will definitely be trying this again during BBQ season!