In Celebration Of Pi Day....

I made this Peanut Butter Pie :). My husband loves pie so he was thrilled when he got home from work to have this as dessert.  Sometimes it is just the little things in life that makes us all happy :)

Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

I made a big batch of crockpot spaghetti sauce not long ago that turned out really good. I thought I would share the recipe and also have a place to be able to find it again :)

1 -105 oz can of Tomato Sauce ( from Costco)

3-Tablespoons Oregano

1- Heaping Tablespoon Minced Garlic

1- Bay Leaf

2- Teaspoons Basil

1- Tablespoon Onion Powder

4- Tablespoons Brown Sugar

1- Tablespoon Parsley

1- Teaspoon Thyme


Add all of ingredients to the crockpot.  Cook on low 8 or 9 hours or so. 

" Cream Of" Soup Mix

 

 

I thought I had posted this recipe before but apparently I have not :( 

 

Anyway, I use this mix often in place of canned cream of whatever soups.  It is easy to use and stores well.

 

 

2 cups dry powdered milk

3/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup instant chicken or beef bouillon powder

1/2 teaspoon dried crushed thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried crushed basil

1/4 teaspoon pepper

 

Combine all ingredients using blender or food processor.

 

 

 

Store in an airtight container.  I store mine in a jar with the directions taped on :)

 

To prepare as substitute for 1 can of condensed cream soup in recipes, mix together 1/3 cup dry mix and 1 1/4 cups water in sauce pan. Cook and stir until thickened

Cabbage Skillet

I posted in my menu plan that we were having Cabbage Skillet for dinner one evening this week. Lena commented asking what that was. I actually had thought I posted this recipe already but I guess not :(  So anyway here it is:

1 lb browned and drained hamburger 

1/2 a cabbage chopped ( I have used green cabbage and purple. Both are good)

1 can, drained Italian diced tomatoes or 1 can regular diced tomatoes drained plus Italian seasoning to taste. ( I have used both depending on what I have)

Salt and Pepper to taste.

Add all ingredients to skillet and cook until the cabbage is the texture you like :) 

Easy Peasey! 

Ice Cream Cake

Here is a picture of the ice cream cake I made Kid # 5 for her birthday on Friday.

I have made several of these and have lost my orginal recipe so I am just gonna try to explain how I made it and then if anyone has questions feel free to ask them in the comments :)

First I went to Walmart and bought the 2 quart ( I think that is what they are) boxes of Great Value ice cream.  I bought one each of chocolate and vanilla.  I also bought one package of Great Value sandwich cookies.  The ones like Oreos.

Next I took a spring form pan, you know like you use for cheese cake, and used half the chocolate ice cream to put a layer on the bottom ( see picture above).  You have to let the ice cream soften so it can be spread but not to soft.  I did this on Thursday morning and then stuck the pan in the freezer 

with a plate sitting under it.

Thursday after noon I made this Chocolate Syrup .  While it was cooling I put my chocolate sandwich cookies through the food processer until crumbly then dumped them in a bowl and set aside until the chocolate syrup was cool.

When the chocolate syrup was room temperature I mixed about half of it into the sandwich cookies crumbs until the crumbs are well coated.  I then spread that on top of the chocolate ice cream and put it back in the freezer.

Friday morning I added half the box of vanilla ice cream on top of the cookie/syrup mixture and again put it back in the freezer.  Friday afternoon I drizzled a small amount of chocolate syrup over the top of the vanilla ice cream and spread it around a little, use your own judgement here.  Again back into the freezer until we were ready to do the birthday celebrating.

In the past I have left off the chocolate syrup on the top and have done Cool Whip instead.   I have also done frosting and chocolate and caramel sauce drizzle. I have also added caramel sauce to the middle layer after using the sandwich cookie crumbs.  Lots of options to do here.....

We have 3 days left of school and then we will be on summer vacation.  I hope to be back to regular posting very soon :)

Frugal Valentines Day

We don't usually go all out for Valentine's Day. This year I think we did pretty well staying frugal.

Kid # 5 is still young enough to have Valentine's Day parties at school. In her class they exchange cards and make boxes to use as mailboxes for the card exchange. She is all about Minecraft this year so I found some cards to make on Pinterest and printed them for her from here. She did the rest of the work.

I just had to buy a bag of miniature candy bars for approximately $3, otherwise I had the card stock and green paper. 

For her Valentine box we used an empty cracker box and green construction paper. 

I made some homemade toffee for my hubby for his gift the recipe can be found here . I put it in a cellophane treat bag which I already had and then a Valentine gift bag which I also already had. It turned out wonderful and he loved it. 

My hubby gave me the same thing he has given me for the last 10 years. A love letter he wrote to me. It is my favorite gift and I love getting them! 

He also gave me some candy and some new ear buds for my iPad. 

It was a fantastic and frugal Valentine's Day!

Homemade Dishwasher Soap

I have now used the homemade dishwasher soap that I mentioned here about 15 times or so.

I found several recipes on Pinterest.  Basically this is the recipe most used was this:

1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup Kosher salt ( or any kind of salt really)

I mixed then all together and use 1 Tablespoon per load.  I also use Lemi Shine because we have hard water.  Some of the recipes called for unsweetened lemonaide packets.  I didn't use that since I already use Lemi Shine.

My thoughts on the homemade dishwasher soap is it works ok. The main thing is to be sure and mix it well each use.  I will continue to use what I have then I will decide after that whether I will go back to buying dishwasher soap.  Normally I buy the Walmart Great Value brand powder which I love and works great.  It also last me along time.  So I will have to think on this some more as I continue to use up what I have made.

Fiesta Lime Chicken

I am way behind in posting about my Pinterest recipes we have been eating.  Tonight I made this chicken.  It was awesome!  The recipe can be found here

I used cilantro that I grew myself in a pot off my deck. 

I also had a tomato, cucumber, mozzarella salad with balsamic vinegar as the dressing. The cucumber and tomatoes I got free from my Mom and sisters gardens :) 

Great summer meal!

Few Recipes This Week July 7-13

I posted a picture on Friday of the English Muffin Bread I made here.   I found the recipe on Pinterest but here is the link to the original blog it was posted on, One Good Thing by Jillee . It was very good and I will for sure be making it again.

There are several Farmers Markets around us.  Yesterday I went to a fairly new one near my house and bought some blueberries.  Today Kid # 5 and I went to the bigger one along the river front here.  I also bought some blueberries there.  When we came home I decided to make a cobbler with some of them.  I used this recipe. 

Here is how it turned out, hubby ate some before I could get a photo :)

 

Last night we had this Tortellini and Pepperoni Pasta Salad.  It was awesome! 

 

Edit* - forgot to mention, I used dried tortellini from Aldi.  I cooked two packages, rinsed in cold water and then went from there.  I also used canned diced tomatoes ( also from Aldi) because that was what I had on hand.  I did use some fresh basil but I didn't have enough so I added some dried basil too. 

 

 

I recently tried this, cocktail drink recipe also.  It was not to bad :)

 

 

Few Recipes We Have Had Lately

I am way behind in posting the Pinterest recipes we have been eating.  So hopefully I can catch up.  I have been trying to remember  to take some pictures of them.  Some I have remembered, some not :)

I have made several crockpot recipes which we found good.  One is Honey Digon Chicken. The recipe is orginally found here.  I had some chicken thighs I found on "manager special" at our local Kroger, so this was a useful recipe to use them up.

We have had this Baked Ravioli, recipe several times.  It is a new favorite.  I buy the frozen Ravioli from Costco and it makes 2 dinners.  We make our own spaghetti sauce.  One of these days I will write down a recipe :)

On Friday nights, we have now deamed them snack nights instead of full meals.  I am a lover of dips so I have made a few for our snack night.

This Crab Rangoon Dip, now one of my new favorites.  I have made it a couple of times now.  I eat it with Tortilla chips :)

Another dip I have made is this BLT Dip.  It was very tastey also and will be making the rotation :)

Next up I made this Lemonade Pie.  We ended up sticking it in the freezer and eating it as a frozen pie.  We liked the taste of it better that way, it was very very lemony otherwise.  I also made the graham cracker crust it went into.  No recipe for that though.

 

Here is another recipe we tried and found to be pretty good. Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joes.  This was pretty easy to make and I do love easy!  Sorry we had eaten most of it when I remember to snap a picture.

Well there you go, hopefully I will be able to catch up with my goal soon :)

 

Little Of This, Little Of That

I have been home alone when my husband is gone to work for about 5 days now.  As in there are no kids here with us.  They are all gone here and there.  Kid #5 will be back on Friday though and so far she has been gone the longest.  She has went to stay with my sister.  It is nice that my sister and her family are now living close instead of in Arizona. 

Anyway, today I did a few odds and ends kitchen things.

First off I wanted to make a pork roast and use a recipe I found on Pinterest for it.  I can't find the link to the actually recipe but the just of it was:

1 packet dry Ranch dressing mix
1 packet dry Italian dressing mix
1 brown gravy packet.

Mix with 1/2 cup water and pour over your roast in the crockpot.  Cook 6-8 hrs.

I had a brown gravy packet and I had some homemade dry Ranch dressing mix ( that I didn't really care for when made into dressing or a dip but figured this would be an easy way to use it up) but I did not have any dry Italian dressing mix.

I turned to Pinterest again and used this recipe.  The only thing I did differently was use celery salt instead of flakes because that is what I had.  Here is my mix

While I was at it I decided to make some Taco Seasoning Mix also.  I used the last of it the night before.  We use it often and I try to keep it on hand at all times.  Here is what the mix looks like for it.

 

Both of these mixes took less then half an hour to make.  They were both made with spices I always have on hand.  I also like knowing what ingredients I am putting into them.

 

The pork roast turned out fabulous by the way.  I strongly recommend trying it :)

Few Recipes We Tried in February

I post about the Black Bean Soup , we had in February.  My goal was to try a new recipe every week this year.  So here are few other things we tried for February.

We had this Chicken Spaghetti , made by The Pioneer Woman.  It was fabulous and we will definitely be having it again.  I did a few things differently of course. I used one can of cream of mushroom and one can of cream of celery because that is what I had.  I didn't have any pimentos so I added grated carrots.  Because of the cooking of the chicken it made the meal more time consuming to make but it does make alot and we easily got two dinners from it.

One busy week night I made these Baked Chicken Fajita , these were pretty good.  I believe I saw that Kim at SKAMM Life, had these one time for dinner also, not sure if it was the same recipe or not.  Btw, once upon a time,  Kim and I use to be sister in laws ♥, go check out her blog, it is good :)  Anyway, these were easy to make and pretty tasty also.

Next up was " OMG Chicken" , this link takes you to the original recipe using Mayo.  On the Pinterest pin there is direction to do this with sour cream which is what I tried.  This recipe was OK, probably not something I will go out of my way to make again.  Maybe if I do the next time I will try it with mayo.

So there you go, maybe you might find something you want to try out........happy eating lol :)

Black Bean Soup

I love black beans, they are one of my favorite beans to eat and I often add them to tacos, chili and other soups.  Tonight I made this Black Bean Soup.  It as delicious and it will now be on the rotation.  Of course I originally found the recipe on Pinterest.

Of course I never follow a recipe exactly and I did a few things different.  I never buy canned beans.  They really are not hard to make.  I just made a pot of them yesterday when I was cooking dinner and put them in the frig until this morning.  I also did not use canned chicken broth.  I always have some in the freezer that I have made myself to use in place of canned.  One other thing I did is leave out the cayenne pepper.  Kid # 5 doesn't really like alot of spice and every time I add cayenne to things she says it is to spicy.  ( Not that she likes hardly anything we have for dinner anyway but one can hope ) 

Anyway we will be having this one again.  I am a little behind in posting my weekly Pinterest recipes.  I hope to be caught up before the end of the month :)  Stay tuned!

January Goal # 4 Has Been Reached

One of goals for 2013 was to try a new recipe that I pinned on Pinterest once a week.  For January, I set the goal of trying 4 new recipes.  I posted here about the first two recipes I tried.

Tonight we had Jolean's Cheese Potato Smoked Sausage Casserole.  Now I didn't have any smoked sausage. But I did have some leftover diced up ham in the freezer.  So that is what I used instead.  My husband really like this casserole and asked if we can have it again :)  We have enough leftover for at least one of his lunches and probably another dinner.  This was a hit!

Monday night,  we had Stove-Top Tamale Pie.  This was not a hit :(  I really liked it but the rest of the family was not thrilled by it so it will not be making the rotation.

One evening last week we had Honey Garlic Chicken.  I like this because it was a crock pot recipe and very easy.  This one went over well also and will probably make the rotation of meals.  I seem to always have every thing to make it.

So there you go there is my #4 goal for January.  I'll post more recipes as I try them :)  Maybe it will be helpful to someone.  I feel like we eat the same things over and over sometimes.

January Goal # 4

One of my goals for January that I posted about here was to try 4 new recipes from Pinterest.  In the last few days I have tried out  2 new recipes.  So I am half way to completing that goal!

I didn't take any pics of what I made but I do want to share the links with you.  The first was a ham and cheese braid that I found on Pinterest but it is originally from A Bear in the Kitchen .  I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  First off I made my own bread dough.  Then I didn't have a ranch dressing packet so I just used garlic butter.  I also used some left over ham that I had from the holidays.  This was good and pretty easy to make.  My family ate it all :)

Next up I made some homemade chocolate sauce similar to Hersey's.  The link I had led me to this blog but I don't think that is where the recipe originally came from.  This chocolate sauce was super good and easy to make.  I will be making it from now on instead of buying.

So there you go, only 2 more recipes to go to complete this goal for the month :)

Saturday Night Dinner/ Taco Bake

Tonight we ha this Taco Bake, a recipe I found on Pinterest but originally came from the blog I linked to.  This meal was awesome, we had it with a salad.  Every single one of the kids ate it including my 5 yr old nephew.  Kid # 3 even commented about how good it was and she hoped we would be having it again. 

We typically don't have Doritos but we do usually have tortilla chips on hand.  We all agreed it would be equally as good with tortilla chips as a topping.  Every other ingredient I we always have.  I love when I find recipes that everyone loves and that we usually have all the ingredients for!

One of my goals for 2013 is to try a new recipe that I have pinned from Pinterest every week for the year.  I'll try to post about the ones that we really like and that will make it into the family dinner rotation :)

Stuffed Green Pepper Soup

1 lb.- Ground Beef
1 cup- diced Onion -fresh or frozen
1/2 - teaspoon Basil
1/2 - teaspoon Oregano
1- ( 14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
2 cups- chopped Green Pepper
1 - ( 15 oz) can Tomato Sauce
3 cups- Water
1 Tablespoon - Beef Bouillon
1 cup - cooked Brown Rice

Brown beef and onion. Place in crock pot with the remaining ingredients on low 6-8 hours.  Or place in a large stockpot and simmer 1 hour.

*I usually cook mine on the stove.   I also do not cook the rice ahead of time if I am cooking on the stove.  If I do not have brown rice on hand I have use white rice also and it works fine.  We love this soup and I frequently make a double batch and freeze it for lunches.

List of Things I No Longer Buy Premade

1. Frozen waffles

2. Pancake/waffle mix

3. Syrup

4. Most soups.  I do still buy Tomato soup though cause I just haven't found a homemade version I like better.

5. Bisquick Baking Mix

6. Taco Seasoning Mix

7. French Dressing

8. Ranch Dressing

9. Biscuits

10. BBQ Sauce

11. Granola

12.  Frozen Pizza

13. Pizza Sauce

14. Spaghetti Sauce

15. Rice packets ( like the Lipton Rice ones you buy at the store)

16. Cream Soups

17. Italian dressing

18. Sloppy Joe sauce

19. Coffee Cakes

20. Muffins - I never buy the box mixes for these anymore.  They are so easy to just make from scratch

Taco Seasoning Mix

Here is my recipe for Taco Seasoning Mix.  I found this along time ago on All Recipes.  I usually triple this recipe and make one big jar at a time.  I store mine in a recycled salsa jar.

6-teaspoons chili powder

5-teaspoons paprika

4 1/2-teaspoons ground cumin

2 1/2- teaspoons onion powder

2 1/2-teaspoons garlic powder

1 1/2-teaspoons cornstarch

1 1/1 teaspoons cayenne pepper ( this does make it spicy.  I have left this out before when I have not had any and it was fine)

2- teaspoons salt

Mix all together and store in a jar with a tight fitting lid. 


To use  add :

2-tablespoons + 1 teaspoon  Taco Seasoning Mix and 3/4 cup water to 1lb ground beef.  Cook as you usually would.

Work in the Kitchen

This week I will be getting a few days of work with my daycare kids while their parents get the house they live in ready to sell.  Instead of going to their house today to watch them I had the babies over to my house.  I decided I could probably keep the babies entertained at my house and still get a few kitchen pantry items done in the process.  I went through my cabinets and refrigerator and this is the list I came up with:

1. Taco Seasoning Mix- we were completely out and I use this for many different recipes.

2. Cream of Soup Substitute - again we were completely out and I like to use this instead of buying cream of chicken soup in a can.

3. Seasoned Rice Packets- these are like those Lipton Rice packets you buy at the store.

4. Re fried Beans

5. French Dressing

I got the first two items done but when I went to make the rice packets I realized I probably did not have enough rice to get them done.  Thursday is grocery shopping day so I will get the rice bought then and finish the packets on Friday.

The re fried beans I will throw in the crock pot before I leave to go to work in the morning and they will be done by evening time.

The French dressing I am still hoping to get done before I go to bed tonight.

I'll try to post some of the recipes I use soon :)

Not a bad start considering I was watching a 22 month old and a 9 month old for most of the day :)