What did I make?

Sensible Sisters Supper Club

Are you tired of hearing WHAT'S FOR SUPPER? or I'M HUNGRY?

Come and create eight healthy, low-cost, homemade 4-6 serving meals

(plus some extra homemade goodies) once a month.

First session is Friday, February 4th at 5 p.m.

You must be registered by Friday January 28th at 5 p.m.

(we need to have time to clip coupons and buy the groceries).

Prepay for your meals and take them home for the freezer the night of the event.

Average meal cost is $8.
Convenient, affordable, healthy fun!

What are you waiting for?

We buy the fresh groceries for you at the best price we can find.

You show up, assemble the meals, and take 'em home with you.

Call me, email me, or facebook me for more information and to register.

Bye bye summer hello delicious diet food

Well, now that baseball is over it can only mean one thing. The summer is gone. It goes by faster and faster every year. Only 13 days until SpudFest!

The state tournament game isn't even worth mentioning. It was that bad. It just wasn't their day.

I got some time to myself this weekend. It was completely spontaneous and unexpected. It started because I had a fight with a box of "do it yourself" highlights which required me to head to town and find someone to fix it and ended with my whole family camping out for a night sans me. Here is the note I found on the table when I returned home.

It was lonely. I didn't sleep well. Then I got over it and made some delicious diet food.

August 1st was the start date for the family Biggest Loser contest. I am taking it slow and making better choices about food and also getting off my bum a little more. In fact, my oldest and I went for a slow run the other night and it was fantastic.

Anyway the delicious diet food....stay focused, Rani.

I had a container of low fat cottage cheese staring me in the face and I needed to use it up.

What else can a hungry girl do but google cottage cheese recipes?

This one was so easy and I had everything on hand. I used my blanched and frozen spinach and I was so pleased with the results.

Crustless Spinach Quiche

2 boxes frozen spinach (thawed)

1 container plain cottage cheese

1 small onion (chopped)

2-3 egg whites

salt, pepper, garlic and red pepper flakes to taste

olive oil or cooking spray

Drain the spinach really well- the best way is to squeeze handfuls of it over the sink.

Finely chop the onion and saute in olive oil until golden- about 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, mix the onions, spinach, cottage cheese, egg whites and spices until well blended.

Pour mixture into an 8x8 pyrex, pie plate, or scoop into muffin tins.

Baking time is about 45 min for an 8x8 or pie plate or about 20-25 min for muffin tins.

These freeze well, and can be left out to defrost before being reheated in the oven. They can be frozen baked or unbaked. Two of these with a whole wheat pita bread makes great lunch!

I used the rest of the cottage cheese to make a taco fiesta casserole for supper. YUM!

zucchini pizza bites

What kid doesn't like pizza? I may have posted these before.

This time I sliced the zuc length wise and made longer pizzas.

I also roasted mine with a bit of olive oil and seasoning salt (for flavor) before I put the sauce and toppings on them. Then I broiled at 500 for 5 minutes. MMMMMMMM

The kids gobbled them up. I was glad they got their veggies:)

Recap - week 2

I cheated.

I bought apple juice for the girls it was $1.97. Then I bought cilantro (66 cents) and avocados ($3). They were yummy. I am not perfect at this no grocery thing. But I try.

Sunday we had grilled pork chops at coach's house I brought veggies from the garden for the grill doused in olive oil and fresh basil and sage and a fruit salad made from my blueberries, pears, peaches and some leftover star marshmallows from the 4th. I have no idea what we had for lunch that day.

Monday - roast beef, potatoes, green beans, choice fresh fruit for lunch. The kids had dentist appointments we ate soft foods, whatever they could handle) and drinks for supper.

Tuesday - Big breakfast, eggs, bacon, hash browns, tuna for lunch, leftover roast beef sandwiches with gravy and potatoes for supper, apples and oranges.

Wednesday - ham and cheese sandwiches and apples, chicken fajitas, pico de gallo and guacamole for supper no fruit, I forgot, but we ate smore's :)

Thursday - eggs for breakfast, little Caesar's at Sertoma park for lunch, supper was at Scotland as we visited Grandma and Grandpa they grilled hot dogs and hamburgers for us

Friday - we didn't get home till late afternoon, we ate leftover chicken from the fajitas on corn tortillas in the oven with pico de gallo and cheese = I called them tostadas, Maleah called them pizza's then I checked my blogs and pioneer woman made a variation of it, too. You know what they say, great minds...

it's cool enough so I will be

making this banana bread today.


I really want to try these s'mores cookies, though.

Cherries

Yesterday, my son noticed the cherries on the tree in the front yard. I,completely buried in the unpack mode, said, "we should tell the neighbors about them before the birds eat them all." Every year I see them turning and then I forget and the birds clean the tree out in a matter of hours.

So, the neighbor came over with her grand quintuplets who are teenagers now. They picked and I complained about pitting the cherries and she told me a neat little trick about using a straw to pit them.

This morning she brought me two pints of cherry jelly.

Yum!

Anyone want some cherries?

Sweet Potato Crescents

see that tiny orange fleck, them's the sweet potatoes...

Sweet Potato Crescents

These are light-as-air. They are the closest thing that I have found homemade to those whack'em on the counter canned crescent rolls.

2 packages (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 can 15 oz. cut sweet potatoes, drained and mashed (fresh if you got 'em cook 'em first, duh)
1/2 cup sugar (go ahead use splenda)
1/2 cup shortening (you can substitute, but I think this is the 'light and fluffy' ingredient)
1 egg (use your 1 T. flax and 3 T. water no one will ever know)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
5ish cups of all purpose flour (I used a little more)
1/4 cup butter, melted (no subs for this one, not at my house anyway)

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in water; let stand for 5 minutes. Beat in the sweet potatoes, sugar, shortening, egg, salt and 3 cups flour. Add enough remaining flour to form a stiff dough. (about 2 cups for me)

Turn the dough onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes (I used the bread maker). Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease all sides. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch the dough down; divide into thirds. Roll each portion into a 12 inch circle; cut each into 12 wedges.(I can never get 12, but I do 8 and I like the size of them, they are big enough to fill you up and can even sub as the bun for a sandwich. Sunday I made sausage egg and cheese crescents after church, I baked my eggs on a cookie sheet in the oven and then cut rectangles to place on the roll. The kids gobbled them up.) Brush with butter.(I do this after they cook) Roll up from the wide end and place, pointed end down (*see photo below for what happens when the pointed end is on top), 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 40 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks Yield: 3 dozen. I put the butter on mine right out of the oven because that's what I always do.

These freeze extremely well. I made a little over two dozen and when we wanted some we nuked them for 20 seconds and they were soft and yummy.

No flakes, though...that would be a croissant...Croissants are made of a leavened variant of puff pastry. The yeast dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a sheet, a technique called laminating.Making croissant by hand requires skill and patience; a batch of croissants can take several days to complete. However, the development of factory-made, frozen, pre-formed but unbaked dough has made them into a fast food which can be freshly baked by unskilled labor.

That last part, unskilled labor, that's me and quite possibly, you :)

Here are the naughty ones that flipped me off; follow those directions even if the toddler is pulling on your pant legs the whole time you are in the kitchen, pointed end down ladies, pointed end down...

*

Snow day

I am fairly confident that chex muddy buddies made with wheat chex is pretty much health food. Nora agrees.

Totally unrelated; I tried to get a picture of the falling snow yesterday. This is the huge evergreen I would not let my husband take out when we made the basement walkout. It is BIG. Then there is the little tiny one in the front yard. See, snow can be pretty...sometimes.

Peter Rabbit, eat your heart out.

We put up 18 quarts and 6 pints of community garden carrots. I had to borrow not one but two pressure cookers from my neighbor. It takes a village to put up carrots.

Saving some for later

Nora smelled funny this morning. Since she is at the age where she takes two baths a day (mandatory after meal washes) I figured she had spit up or something. I carefully washed her face and cleaned her ears. Yikes. I think I found a whole meal in the folds of her upper ear. She is constantly putting food in her ears. I don't know why I didn't check that earlier. Note to self; pay more attention to ears during multiple baths.

Sharing

Hey,

Check out my new side bar box with deals and steals. I read SEVERAL deal blogs and websites and every time I find a cool deal I add it to the box. So click on the link if you want to find out more information!

Good luck and happy bargain shopping!

Momma bear and fuzzy hair

Maleah's first grade class had their play on Friday. It was a huge success. Maleah played the part of momma bear.

I have been experimenting with a few hair ideas for her since her hair is getting long and is all one length. We are trying to make it long enough to cut some off for locks of love. We have the urge to chop it, but as long as I can do something to it she seems to be satisfied.

Last night after her bath, I put rag curls in. Basically, I cut rags from an old sheet and wrapped one inch sections of her hair in it. She slept on it, soundly. This morning we took them out and WOWEE! Fuzzy, wuzzy hair. I think I may do a few things differently next time like try to be more uniform with my sections and take smaller section on the top part, but mostly she was really pleased with the result. I was thankful for an easy 'do this morning, too. Thanks to Jenn for the cool idea.

What's for dinner, mom?

If you are a parent or the cook in your home, for that matter, you probably hear this question every day.

I just stumbled upon this cool website that will help you have an answer for that question as long as you have a couple of ingredients in your fridge or cubboard, supercook.com.

From the website...

Supercook is a new recipe search engine that finds recipes you can make with only the ingredients you have at home. To begin, simply start adding ingredients you have in the green box on the top left. The more ingredients you add, the better the results will be.

Happy cooking!

look what I made

you can, too... go HERE

Peter Piper picked...

I have found the easiest refrigerator dill pickle recipe. I have cucumbers coming out of my ears. A dozen quarts are in my fridge. This recipe creates quite the zesty pickle but my family loves them. Thanks to Rachel Rappaport over at Coconut Lime for the original recipe.I dare you to check out her blog. You will be in heaven and she will be in your bookmarks faster than you can say coconut.

Runza

Remember those pockets I made this week?

Well I sorta forgot about the leftover dough in the fridge so I had to quick use it up today.

We made Runza's. Made me think of college, remember Kris?

I put mushrooms and Swiss in ours. YUMMO!

Huh?

This is was the notice on my Schwan’s Mike and Ike Tropical Typhoon Pops.

This product, when extremely cold, may stick to warm skin, lips, etc. Before eating, please briefly rub the product, WHILE STILL IN THE WRAPPER, between the palms of your hands to ensure maximum enjoyment.

Okay, I know I am not always the cleanest thinker, but come on. Where else would you put a popsicle? Are they covering their butts in case some kid rubs a Popsicle, not in the wrapper, all over his body?

My kids love the treats, but I am glad they can't read yet...

keeping busy

Last night, after we came home from the dentist #1 busied herself with Barbies. That left me to deal with #2 who was in no mood to play dolls. So we put together 3 jumbo puzzles, played catch with the nerf ball and a baseball glove, laced 10 under the sea lacing cards, played princess memory, played hot wheels and colored 2 robot pictures; all before 7:30 church while I was making supper and juggling a 3 month old.

This morning I had to plan something that would occupy him for longer than 2 minutes. So I got out the art stuff to make valentines.

First let me say that I believe Valentines Day is just a marketing gimmic to get mom's to buy tons more candy for kids and another chance for us to give in to commercialism by buying princess cards for the girls and superhero cards for the boys. In my almost years of dating plus marriage to the same man; perhaps 3 or 4 of those I have recieved a gift of (what else) chocolate or flowers. He's no romantic, but I knew that coming into this relationship (if you can decide that when you are a seventh grader). Besides it being generally a holiday geared toward adults and perhaps classroom parties it really has no meaning whatsoever to me.

That said I am frugal and when I garage sale or thrift shop I pick up leftover cards, art supplies and what nots for 10 cents here and there and put them in my art tub. Then when we need a project I get out the art tub and we go to town. This year I had 3 or 4 superman valentines that we cut and pasted on a empty coffee can for my son's mailbox to take to preschool. I then cut enough cards out of construction paper for all his friend and let him go to town. It kept him occupied for several hours this morning. All I had to do was make a list of his classmates names for him to copy. Now, being the perfectionist I am, I was tempted to make him keep his work area clean and have him put matching things on the cards; so I had to busy myself so as not to ruin his creative experience.

A fellow blogger posted a yummy oatmeal twist recipe and I wanted to try it out. As I was preparing the ingredients I saw two overripe bananas on the counter that needed to be dealt with and I had a handful of mini chocolate chips that needed to be included as well. I also wanted to use my new silicone bread pan I picked up while thrifting last weekend (seventy-five cents at the salvation army). So here is the recipe I came up with.

Banana Chocolate-Chip Oatmeal Bread
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 whole wheat flour (you can use all white, but I like to try and be healthy:)
1 cup rolled oats
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
Mix these dry ingredients together and set aside. In a larger bowl cream
1 stick softened butter
gradually add
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 2-3 whole)
1/4 cup buttermilk (meaure 1/4 milk remove 1tsp and add vinegar to make buttermilk)
On the slowest speed with mixer or by hand gradually add the flour mixture until batter is even with no lumps. You may add nuts if you like or chocolate chips in my case. Pour batter into loaf pan Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. YUMMO!

Guess how many days #1 has been to school?