Moving moutains or is it molehills

So as we prepare for baby # 3 we are also moving...temporarily in with my gracious in-laws, as we search for a bigger home to fit our soon to be bigger family.  We have happily made it to our 2nd trimester and our packing is under way.  Slowly but surely room by room there is less.  My big money saver for the week was a purchase I made on Monday.. 2 pounds of chicken thighs, boneless and skinless, and 2 fantastic dinners.

Dinner night one-----Chicken Stir Fry white white rice
I cooked the whole 2 pounds of chicken.  I browned them and then stplit them into 2 dinners.I picked up a large bag of stir fry veggies, with a teriakyi sauce and made white rice( I made 2 times...so I could used the rest for Dinner 2)

Dinner 2 I found on Pinterst...a great friend Carrie also a "Pin Head" as I refer to our addiction to this site!
The original recipe came from here.
 Mine made 8 wraps

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup cooked rice, (left over from Dinner1)
1 cup cooked, shredded chicken
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/4  yellow onion sauteed
2-4 mini red and yellow peppers
1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
2 cups shredded cheese (I used a mexi blend)
Sour cream (optional)
flour tortillas used the ones that we use for tacos
DIRECTIONS:
Softened the onion the peppers over low heat. Mix rice together with chili powder, cumin and garlic salt. Add remaining ingredients except for cheese and sour cream. Mix cheese and sour cream together, the add the mixtures to the tortillas. Roll stuffed tortillas, leaving edges open. Spray the tortillas all over with cooking spray.

I placed mine  a cookie sheet and but them in the oven at 425 until brown, it took 15 - 20 minutes.

Preparing for Spring Savings

So some of you know, I am the self titled "Garage Sale Queen!".  For those of you who don't know the city wide sales, which I prefer usually start in March.  I have a couple of tips for you sailing with kids. 
1. Start early.
2.  Know where the bathrooms are.
3.  Pack children snacks, and drinks.  We pack lunch as well but for beginners you may not make it that long with yours.
4.  Give your kids a shopping budget, let them know once they spend  it those are there items no more.  Giving them a dollar, usually in quarters, it a great way to do it, they are just as excited about the next sale.
5.  Know what you are looking for...whether it be clothes, home decor, crafting supplies.   Most times city wide sales have a listing of items, try and hit those sales 1st but do not rule a listings out that appears not to have what you are looking for.
6.  For those sales, city wide or otherwise that may draw a large crowd that you do not want to tackle with 2 or more kids in tow, go the last day or late, you get the best deals this way...for example.  I just purchased a Columbia diaper bag for 50 cents the last day late afternoon of a sale!  This bag retails for $110!  It has one scuff on the front but that is it, it still has the changing pad with it, and I am happy to say that maybe with this baby it will be the only bag I carry, it appears super durable!
7. Tote an extra set of clothes, for the kids, as you would if you were planning on a long travel day, for just incases.
8.  Have fun! browse items with your kids that you would never purchase, dream with them or tease, but have a good time, and if you are lucky talk a girlfriend into tag teaming, you watch hers while she shops and switch back and forth who gets car duty.
9.  In these early sales, make sure you dress yourself and the kids warmly, I even bust out gloves.

For those of you local ladies, I will post a reminder of the local sales and dates. I know the first city wide of the spring is Odell but I still yet have dates.

For those of you for used to follow my other blog

You will find some of the same money saving and healthy recipes on my new blog as well.  Many of you already know that menu planning is the first step in budgeting so here it is our Menu Plan from today until next week.  I have even included the detailed shopping list I used.  That is another big money saver for me, by the way.  Sticking to your list and going to the sections in your list that you have needs in.

Grocery List
Produce	Dairy	Bread/Cereal	Dry Foods	Sweets & Snacks
onion	Shreeded cheese	Hoagie buns	Brown sugar	Kool-aid for lunches
carrots	Butter		Sodium free chickne broth packets	pop
celery	Mozz shredded 1 large bag		Ketchup	water
garlic	Fat free cream cheese		Lasgana noodles
			TVP
			Taco Sheels hard & soft
			Refried beans
			Spilt Peas
Canned Foods	Meats	Frozen
Pasta sauce	Turkey Ham	broccoli
	Ground beef	Turkey meatballs
		Green beans
		French fries
		corn

 

*All strike through items are needed but are currently in my home!

Tuesday Night Taco Night!

Our recipe included TVP..and for those of you who aren't familiar with TVP, it is Texture Vegetable Protein it can be found in the baking isle at most large markets...next to the gluten free products. I rehydrate a cup and add it to 1 pound of ground beef(usually 80/20), and then add taco seasoning.

1 cup of TVP

1 cup of chicken broth( or sodium free stock)

taco seasoning (we use our own it is cheaper and you do not have to worry about egg allergies)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

hard shells

soft shells

sour cream( we use light)

salsa

Sides

Mexican corn ( recipe to follow)

fat free canned refried beans

Mexican Corn

Ingredients

• 1 bag of frozen corn cooked and drained
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
• 1/4 cup butter (or substitute)
• 5 jalapeno peppers, chopped
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan combine corn, cream cheese, butter, jalapeno peppers and garlic salt. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until heated through, stirring constantly after cream cheese begins to melt.

Wednesday- Roasted Asparagus Lasagna

• 2 pounds of fresh asparagus trimmed into 1 inch pieces

• The recipe calls for primavara type veggies, I used carrots and chopped spinach
• 1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms (we omit these the hubby hates them...but I figure they would be yummy)
• 2 T. olive oil, divided
• 4 T. butter
• 6 T. all-purpose flour
• 1/2+ t. salt (add more to taste)
• 1/4+ t. pepper (” “)
• 3 c. milk –or you can sub 3 cups of chicken stock
• 1 c. thinly sliced onion( it called for red but I used the yellow I had on hand)
• 4-6+ garlic cloves (
• 12 oz. Lasagna noodles, cooked and drained (100% whole wheat if you can find them)
• 1 1/2 c. (6 oz.) shredded mozzarella
• 3/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
• (optional) cooked, chopped chicken – I usually use chicken leftover from dinner from last week
  

1. Place asparagus and mushrooms (also chicken if you’re using it, and/or the primavara veggies) in shallow baking dish or roasting pan. Drizzle with 1 T. oil, toss to coat. Bake at 450 for 8-10 minutes or until vegetables are browned; set aside. Reduce heat to 350.
2. In large saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour, salt & pepper until smooth. Gradually stir in milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Set aside. In a large skillet (we use cast iron for everything), saute onion and garlic in remaining oil until tender. Remove from heat; add roasted asparagus, mushrooms (and chicken). (If I want to dirty fewer dishes, I’ll just saute the onion, garlic, and asparagus mixture all together in a huge cast iron frying pan.)
3. Grease a 9×13 baking dish with a stick of cold butter. Start layering: noodles, a third of asparagus mixture, a third of the white sauce, repeat twice. Sprinkle both cheeses on top.
4. Cover loosely (so foil doesn’t touch the cheese) and bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Uncover; bake 10-15 minutes longer or until heated through. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting. Yield: 12 servings.

The original recipe came from  I have changed it very little

Click here to check it out

So yes it is truley exciting glad to share my news!

So yes it is truly exciting, so glad to share my news!
While we are thrilled that God is blessing us with another one of his wonderful creations...we are also at a point where we realize it is time to buckle down and start spending more wisely...with laundry and groceries and sports, dance, toys and clothes for 3 children things will have to be different.  So I am new at this whole homemade thing...I am a store bought girl.  When I say that I do not mean the way we eat...because we do cook.   It is a rare occasion when we have fast food, pizza, hamburger helper...or other convenience food.  So join me as we learn how to save a couple more pennies!
Our 1rst exploration was making dish detergent which turned out great I used a recipe from another blog so I will most undoubtedly credit her Click here to check it out
 Dishwasher Detergent ingredients:
1 box Borax (4lbs 12 oz or 76 oz ) (2.15 kg) found in the detergent isle
1 box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (55 oz or 3 lbs 7 oz) found in the detergent isle
24 packages of unsweetened lemonade drink mix, like kool-aid. (**Note: lemonade will stain soap dispenser yellow, another option would be to use citric acid instead of lemonade. You can usually find citric acid in the canning isle )
3 cups Epsom Salt
Lemi Shine rinse aid

You use 1 tablespoon of the mix in the soap dispenser and if you have a 2nd dispenser like us that is where you use 1 tablespoon of the LemiShine.

We followed the recipe to a tee using the LemiShine in each load and we also used lemon Kool-aid( which did not stain my dishwasher soap dispenser as it warns that it may. My only complaint is that some of my older colored plastics appear to have a film on them. I will say my dishes turned out really clean and I have enough to last me quite a while!