Monday Meal Planning

Good Morning I was sitting here in my fuzzy pajama pants wondering what I should write about today. Well we go grocery shopping every Wednesday , so thinking about what we should buy is always one of my top priorities of the week along with what to make for supper. Needless to say my life kinda revolves around food at some time during the day. I love food , I love to cook it and I love to eat it, and boy does my waist agree that it shows.

well normally through out the year we buy our food at fruit markets and meat markets.
The average spent is :
$15-17 dollars at the fruit store for what ever vedg that we want to eat that week. spinach or kale or collard greens ( one of those) a squash ( I like butternut) 4 carrots , some corn or beets , green chilli , potatoes , peas ( green beans work too), 12 eggs, 1/2 gallon milk, 1 Q half and half , and what fruit EA picks out for her normally bananas, apples, peaches, plumbs With these items I make meals to last all 7 days .

At the meat market :
We spend $25-30 dollars a week. This is what we usually buy:
1 whole chicken, 1 roast (pork or beef) , 1 lb lean hamburger, 1 lb bacon ( we like our bacon), 3 pieces carne asada (thin steak), 3 pork chops (if we didn't buy a pork roast) and that is about it again this much lasts for 7 days dinner for 3 each night and 2 lunches every day.

This is a picture of my dry goods area
please note the bag of tomatoes.

once a month we go to a regular store for:
dry goods (flour, oats, barley, molasses,beans, split peas,oat bran, flax seed, cream of wheat, corn meal), butter, spices, baking stuff ( vanilla, chocolate chips, baking powder, baking soda), and what ever else we can't find at the meat market/ fruit market

An example of a weeks worth of meals :

Wednesday:
Lunch: what ever we ate for dinner the night before
Dinner:Pork chops with peas and mashed potatoes or home made bread

Thursday

Lunch: pork chops

Dinner: Roast chicken with squash and spinach

Friday:

Lunch: leftovers possibly with leftover mashed potatoes (if there were any left)

Dinner: Chicken noodle soup with spinach, peas , carrot, what ever else I have laying around that hasn't been eaten

Saturday:
Breakfast: Barley, oatmeal, cream of wheat, (etc...)

Lunch : soup

Dinner: Roast with Potatoes, Carrots , Corn

Sunday:

Breakfast: Biscuits and gravy ( mostly bacon some times sausage)

Supper: french dip sandwiches ( save broth and meat it will be stew next week) ( some times fried chicken if I bought chicken pieces on wed)

Monday :
Lunch: Leftover dinner

Dinner: potato, hamburger, green chilli burritos

Tuesday:

Lunch: Leftovers

Dinner: Hamburger and gravy over mashed potatoes ( my equivalent to fast food )

Repeat


We will use or freeze EVERYTHING for a later meal from the water the vegetables were cooked in (for soup) to bones from the chicken ( for soup). We save meat from meals to make new meals all the time. we don't really have leftovers we just have new meal starters.
Normally we make 1 vegetarian meal a week (not shown in the example) We eat a pot of beans at least once a month (some times twice), and split pea soup once every two months.

This is not a fancy way of eating, We eat "special" food rarely.

My recipes are not gourmet, but they will fill your stomach, and most of them it doesn't take much to stretch them to feed more people.

Remember: " If some one comes over to your home unannounced near dinner , it doesn't take much to through another potato into the pot"

Kind Regards, KB

Snacks

Ok well now that I have a few readers lol, I can get down to business so to speak. The reason I started this blog was to share some helpful tips on saving money. A few years ago I was on some forums begging for advice on how to save and no one wanted to help, they did offer quite a bit of judgement and criticism though. Well at first I felt discouraged but that got me to thinking about how other moms may be trying to do the same thing so I may as well blog about it so I could help them. I never wanted to start a blog I thought that it would make me seem quite self absorbed, but hey blogs are free and can give a lot of people access to what I have to say. Well this explanation has gone quite long so lets get down to the topic at hand I did title this post snacks.


Snacks are a big deal to children and adults, but buying all that pre packaged stuff is a big waste of money and calories that could have had more nutrition. I try to keep fresh vedgies and fruit around for general grab and go feeding for my active 7 year old. these past weeks it has been some cherry tomatoes that my neighbor gave to us and surprisingly I find even the adults have been grabbing a few to snack on remember when you are offering fruit and vegetables to have them out in the open to draw attention to them when hungry people are on the prowl. you can have some sliced and visible in the refrigerator, because out of sight means out of mind.

how does this help save money? Well fresh is more expensive than PP (pre-packaged) but you can get more than one use out of them. Lets say for example that the tomatoes I have out do not get eaten by the time they start to go soft, I can turn them into a spaghetti sauce base, or slice them in half and put some onion and sliced cucumber with them covered in oil and vinegar for a side salad one night. another example is if I buy apples, Bananas, peaches etc.. I can turn them into another dish. lets say I bought a bunch of bananas and a few got eaten except for 3-4 of them and the ones that are left turned brown that makes them perfect for my flax-banana bread that CB loves so much!! In the event it is only 1 banana that no one ate I keep a gallon size zip lock bag in the freezer I peel the offending banana and put it in that bag to be added to when I buy more until I have enough for bread, cream pie, pudding etc... etc..

just remember to peel the banana before freezing it because when they defrost they are mostly liquid and that makes it hard to remove the peel from. you can add a little lemon juice to the bag if you like to help them not turn brown, however I don't and no one has complained about my bread, pudding, pie being un appetizing.

After I offer fresh food as a snack the leftovers get re birthed into another type of snack that I can offer for a few more days . <---- this is a big money saver !!!! I just use and reuse and reuse again until it was all used up, then what ever is left either gets offered to the neighbors chickens or a compost. Waste is well wasteful.

another old saying is "waste not, want not"

I have a few more snack tips that I will share in future posts .


Kind Regards,
KB

Milk Bread

today I made Milk bread to go with dinner it is the same basic bread recipe , but instead of 1/4 cup water I start with just the 1c milk

My Bread cloth

luke warm milk

yeast

yeast in milk

sugar

butter

salt

white flour

milk yeast flour, butter what it should look like before adding the salt

after all the flour is added it should look like this and feel like a 3 month pregnant belly

cover with warm damp greased cloth ( this is when I start the oven to warm the yeast to grow)

raised

grease your pan

knead out on floured counter

form into loaf

tuck ends under

put in greased pan

cover and let rise 1 more time

bake for about an hour

take out of oven and put butter on it

cover with damp cloth

let cloth sit on it for about 15 min crust will be soft if you prefer a hard crust don't cover it with a damp cloth !!!!!

happy baking !!!


Kind Regards,
KB

Bread

This is going to be an ongoing posting when I make a new bread I will post the recipe on here for every one to read . Please if you have any tips or questions feel free to ask.


Basic White Bread
1/4 c lukewarm water
1 package of active dry yeast
1t sugar
1/4-1/2t salt
1c lukewarm milk
4c(about) white flour

mix yeast and water and sugar let sit in a warm room for 10 min
add 2T flour and the salt mix with hand
add butter and then milk mix well then slowly add the flour

mix well cover with warm damp oiled cloth allow to sit for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size
knead for 5-15 min
form into loaf ( pre heat oven to 425-450)
put into a greased loaf pan and cover with cloth for 1 more hour

place in oven bake for about an hour or until golden brown and sounds hollow when thumped

remove from oven for soft crust put butter on top and cover with cool damp cloth
for hard crust don't cover


100% wheat variation

replace white flour with 100% whole wheat flour and add either 1 T of honey or molasses

I use King Arthur brand 100% whole wheat flour
also note wheat bread is denser and the crust is harder



Kind Regards,
KB

Natural Cooking

All Natural cooking , Even just the idea of it brings thoughts of going back to nature and extreme expense and time , and who can blame you the manufactures have made it so every prepackaged food is 1/2 the cost of buying the ingredients to make it at home and if you count in the time it takes to open a package vs the time it takes to make it what a deal !!! Except what is in the food that we are putting in our and our children's bodies? When is the cost effectiveness and the cost of putting some times unknown ingredients ( that can and do make us sick) on our plates worth it ? Well cooking naturally in our own homes ensures that we know exactly what is going into our food. Heck people have been eating real food for thousands of years when have you ever heard of Moses eating a serving of Twinkies? Or Cleopatra eating some pop-tarts?

Natural cooking can be a cost effective way of eating and it has a bonus of making you feel better on the inside. It can help your children off to a great wholesome start and plant lessons in eating well that can last a lifetime.

This is actually where this blog and my life got started about 4 years ago.

I had been a Gerber feeding mother for years I bought EA all the special baby formulated prepackaged uber processed snacks and drinks thinking I was doing the absolute best I could do. I had grown up eating only home cooked meals and I thought that that way was soo out dated, and I could do better with modern foods.
Well then I learned how to make an apple pie that is what inspired it all. I had bought store made apple pies and frozen bake at home pies and never thought anything of it. I then got a stick in my butt over wanting to make a home made pie , so I went on toallrecipes.com/ and looked up apple pie . It looked simple enough :
5 apples
some cinnamon
some sugar
flour
butter

and the crust was even better!!!
flour
salt
butter
shorting ( I no longer use shorting)

and I made a pie it was easy as well.. pie

some time later I went to go buy another apple pie (my favorite pie) that the store had made and this time I looked at the ingredients listed over half of which I couldn't pronounce or know what they were . I thought back to the ingredients to the pie I had made ( that tasted better than store bought) and That is what opened my eyes .

watch try it look up a recipe for any thing you are in the mood for even if it is just peanut butter (peanuts) or jelly (fruit and sugar) and then go to the store and grab a modern processed package version of the same food ..... you may be in for a shock I know I was!!!!!





Kind Regards,
KB

Risky business or like I like to call it cleaning

I am Kind of down today , because I can't seem to figure out how to get my BLOG out there into Internet land . So today I am going to go through some things I do to clean.

I have a child as do a lot of people my sister included so here are some natural cleaners that I use in my home !!!!!!!!

I use a lot of vinegar to clean the kitchen area I put it into a spray bottle with water and a few drops of citrus essential oil my favorite is sweet orange.

for the bathroom area I use 1 t tea tree oil in a spray bottle along with 8oz of water It freshens things up nicely !!!!

WARNING TEA TREE OIL HAS RUMOR TO BE SOME WHAT TOXIC I DO NOT ADVISE YOU ALLOWING YOUR CHILDREN TO EAT THE CLEANING SUPPLIES !!!!!!
THESE SUPPLIES ARE MEANT FOR CLEANING IF YOUR CHILD IS THIRSTY I ADVISE GIVING THEM JUICE OR WATER POSSIBLY EVEN MILK

other than that I use a lavender spray for everything else it consists of 26 drops of lavender oil and a spray bottle of water and done !!!!!

side note if I need to use a scrub of some sort I use Baking soda and water as a paste .

I hope this helps if you have any questions please feel free to drop me a line

Kind Regards,
KB

Pea soup

Pea soup is one of my favorite dinners.

1 bag of dried split peas
5 strips of thick cut bacon
2 carrots diced
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste

chop bacon and fry it in your soup pot to that saute carrots , garlic and onion
add peas cover peas in water let simmer for 3-4 hours ( adding water as needed) until peas have become mush
salt and pepper to taste
enjoy!!!


Kind Regards, KB

“Have We Reached The American Dream Yet?”

Our Generation Was told , We were ALL told By our Parents, Teachers Coaches, Church Leaders, Government Representatives, Peers, and After-School Specials, That if YOU work hard, put in 110% , Do good in school, Go to College , abstain from illicit conduct that we will secede. That we are individually special, that we can become anything we wish , That every one who tries, becomes the middle class , that all of our dreams will come true , all this is due to us being privileged enough to reside in the Grand Old USA!!! We were told the only reason there is poverty is due to the fact that “Those” people are abusing the system, and that they are “Lazy” “Un-Educated” “didn’t try, or gave up too soon and that’s why they live in poverty.
My story is much like yours and every person we have all known, met, and been friends with, acknowledged, sat in a subway or a bus near, seen, judged, hated and loved. Just for clarification though I will explain and go into detail. I went to school to grow and learn to be successful. I achieved good/decent grades. I tested exceptionally well especially in the English language. I took my new knowledge and Confidence, and went forth into the world wide eyed and green as spring time. I failed and pulled myself together. I learned from my past mistakes, and achievements. I overcame childhoods misleading thoughts, and tried again. This time I was stronger and more intelligent. I did this a few too many times for my own comfort, but I “kept on keeping on”. I did all this to achieve the “American” dream. I gave 110% some times 245% and sometimes on my bad days .5% of myself. I overcame countless obstacles, all in order to become “middle class”. I had a baby, entered in “wedded bliss”. So needless to say I became WE. WE joined forces to fight against the unknown world, we over came obstacles together. WE fought, Cried, almost gave up, Kept faith, lost friends, made friends, pulled together and finally achieved the fabled “predominant class”. As new members of “middle class” that we have achieved in all it’s glory : A CAR ; that we are upside down on the loan , CREDIT; that cannot be used , HEATH INSURANCE; that we can only use on an emergency. We have been room mating it for almost 2 years and lived alone for 2 months. Currently we have been getting pretty creative in order to pay rent/ save money.
We tried; we gave 110% we made it above the poverty line!! In our budget we get about $40 dollars a week in food money after we pay bills. That is approximately $160 a month!! So let’s do some math!!!

AMERICAN MATH:

3People + 1 “good” Income = $160 dollars a month for food.
1 “middle class” job + older car = loan greater than the car is worth.
Ok credit + decent job + no credit cards = no house loan??
Home made food+ No eating out + No excess spending = No savings
Work Hard + give 110% + Education + love + family support + love of country = THE AMERICAN DREAM = SUCCESS!!! <- “REALLY??????” Some people say well KB,  Why don’t you get on public assistance? Well we don’t qualify for any; we don’t even qualify for half priced lunch for our beloved Daughter!!!  Then why don’t you get a job? Well people the answer are harder than you may think. With my halfway done college Education The only job I can get is at a Fast-Food Chain , and If I did that all my money I earned would go to child care cost!!! And as a Family we make too much to get child care assistance!!!!! Does any of this sound Familiar? Remember Kids “If you work Hard you will become successful!!!” Do we sound successful????? Kind Regards, KB We are the 99%
I am the 99%
please visit MY INSPIRATION FOR THIS POST

Stone soup

Hey all,
so today I am finishing up some chicken soup that I started on Monday involving a whole chicken!!!
This single chicken made so much that I brought some over to the neighbor's house in order to have room for noodles.
Chicken soup:
take whole raw chicken and put it in a large stew pot
add assorted veggies ( I used Parsnips, carrots, green onion and turnip greens)
add 4 cloves of garlic cover it all with water and a lid simmer on low for 3 hours
add seasonings ( I used salt, pepper, red chili powder, sage, thyme, oregano, rosemary , 1/4 t cinnamon ) let simmer for 2 hours remove from heat put in fridge for 1 day skim off fat on the 3rd day put on stove and simmer for and additional 6 hours to this add noodles ( I use my own recipe for egg noodles)
I also am making an apple pie and whipped cream.
When I brought the neighbors over some soup they gave me some eggs from their chickens!!!!
I feel very blessed today!!
Kind Regards,
KB

getting better at home-made items

In the past few months I have been dusting off my sewing machine trying to get back into the swing of things, my ultamate goal is to make mine and EA's clothes and then attempt DH's shirts. As I sit here typing and eating my granola I am also thinking up a new design for EA a new nightgown. I made the one pictured here earlier last week and It came out so well. I want to make EA& EB matching ones!! I have already finished all 3 children's Halloween costumes with lots of time to spare and a re fitting planned for the week prior to that infamous 31st day of October!!!

Kind Regards, KB