Menu Plan Week of February 27th

Well, I am re-learning a lesson that I haven’t had to face since before I signed up for e-mealz.com. See, e-mealz promises to keep their meal plans within a certain budget. It just happened to fit our budget so it was perfect! Since it had been a while since I had done Meal planning on my own, last week I went WAY over budget! I mean, W.A.Y., as in I only had $30-40 left for this week! Well, depending on your personality, you either freak out or accept it as a challenge.

I was excited to face the challenge. Over the past few years, especially, I had been looking at my home management in a different light. I have previously made a crock pot of beans and packaged them in “can” portions for meals that call for canned beans. My husband has hunted and filled our freezer with game. I have stocked up on basics when I could and now that I’m working from home, I have more opportunity to make meals or elements of meals from scratch. So here’s how it worked out:

(First, I have to say it’s amazing how God provides because unbeknownst to me, at least 2 of our meals last week made enough for two full meals and one was easily doubled to create a different meal using the same main ingredient so you will be seeing a lot of the same meals as last week on this menu)

• Tacos/Burritos – had a lb of ground beef in the freezer, I buy taco seasoning in bulk so already had that, already had tortillas (though could have made them if things were really serious! haha) & leftover tomatoes, lettuce, etc. from last week
• BBQ Chicken Pizza – home made pizza dough, bbq sauce already on hand, leftover BBQ chicken made in the crockpot for sandwiches Sunday, cheese leftover from lasagna making, onion on hand.
• Fresh Salmon Burgers - last week’s made enough buns and burgers for another meal
• Lasagna – I split it into two pans last week so there is one for this week
• Deer Chili – thanks to my husband’s hunting
• Frozen Pizza – always have one on hand

So as you can see, we are far from starving! And after a trip to the store this morning to get a few things, I was able to keep in the budget!! **Happy Dance!** Mission Accomplished!

There are two more recipes I wanted to share with you – one I used last week out of necessity and one, well, due to a chocolate emergency!!!

I had forgotten to buy hamburger buns for the bbq chicken sandwiches so I found this quick 40 Minute Hamburger Buns recipe. I made them with all whole wheat flour at my husband’s request – they were YUMMY and we got a dozen buns! What we didn’t use that night, I froze for future use.

Picture from Taste of Home

Friday night was the chocolate emergency. We had purchased a giant tub of vanilla ice cream for my son’s 4th birthday and accidentally left it at home. As you know, vanilla ice cream is just a vehicle for chocolate syrup. Before getting the ice cream out, I grabbed the chocolate syrup, knowing it was kind of low, to see if there was enough. Sadly, there wasn’t. So I googled and found this recipe and made my own!!! Now I was too impatient to wait for it to cool completely so that night it was slightly runny (but still yummy!), but last night when I tried it again, it was sufficiently cooled and the consistency of store bought! Yay! The recipe made enough to re-fill the container so I’ll be set for quite a while!!

Picture from smallnotebook.org

From Tee to V

T-shirts are great for so many reasons - they are comfy, casual, easy to wear and easy to transform. This post doesn’t cover a dramatic transformation, but I have recently been asked to alter a basic tee neckline to a V-neck and thought I’d give you a step-by-step tutorial for this popular and simple alteration.

Here is the Tee in question:

Basic crew neck, with ribbing. Basic, but not very feminine or attractive. So the first step is to get rid of this ribbing. I do this by snipping into the center back just below the stitching on the neckline. Then follow the stitching line around to just past the shoulder seams.

Then, lining up the shoulder seams, I fold the shirt front in half. You won’t get the shirt completely flat, but just make sure the neckline ribbing matches and the fabric below it for a few inches is smooth. Since the t-shirt I’m using has a front logo, I am using this as the point at which the V will stop. (If your shirt is plain, try it on first and mark with a pin or marker the point at which you want your V to stop.) Draw up from that marking to join the shoulder where you stopped cutting.

Cut through both layers down to the V.

Your original ribbed neckline is now removed and you are ready to re-finish your new V neckline.

There are a few choices for finishing your new neckline. If you are lucky enough to find matching new ribbing, you can use that to obtain an authentic finish. I have found that bias tape is a stable and acceptable alternative. Opening one side of the bias tape flat, I start pinning it to the outside, center back of the t-shirt.

Pin all the way around and when you get back to the center back, cut the bias tape about 1″-1 1/2″ longer than necessary to meet the beginning of the tape’s raw edge. Fold the end over itself about 1/2 an inch, lift the beginning of the tape and place the folded end underneath.

Pin through all layers.

Sew all the way around, starting at center back, back stitching at start & finish.  Remove Pins.

Fold the bias tape to the inside of the shirt, bringing about 1/8″ of the shirt fabric with it, just to be safe. Pin all the way around, snipping the V to the first line of stitching before pinning & sewing.

Press neckline & there it is – you have a much better, less choking, V-neck tee!

What do you think? Is this something you’ve done or think you might try now that you’ve seen how easy it is? The same thing can be done to sleeves – cut off and finished to be a tank top. The possibilities are endless with altering t-shirts so I hope this gets you started!

Weekly Menu February 20-26

Happy Wednesday! Just dropping in to post my Dinners this week!

• Easy Lasagna
• Chicken Enchilada Leftovers from last week
• Fresh Salmon Burgers with Lemon-Scented Challah Buns and Sour Cream Dill Sauce
• Homemade Pizza
• Tuscan White Bean Soup with Prosciutto
• BBQ Chicken Sandwiches
• And trying this new Ezekiel Bread Recipe this weekend

While I have several tried & true recipes, I can’t help trying new recipes, mostly found on pinterest. Have a new sewing post ready to go out soon – thanks for reading!

Weekly Menu

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

I forgot to post my menu yesterday, but it works out because, since we’re on the topic of recipes & it’s Valentines Day, I thought I’d share with you a “recipe” we made last night to give away today!

Source: griffithsrated.blogspot.com via Jaime on Pinterest

You can find the recipe here at the original source, but just for expediency, here’s how it works:

What you’ll need:

- square pretzels
- Hershey’s Hugs or Kisses
- plain M&Ms (I was late in the game and could only find peanut butter – still YUMMY)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200°.  (If your oven runs hot you may want to turn the temp down to 170°.)

 

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or Silpat.  Place the pretzels on and top them with the hugs.  

 

Bake for 4-5 minutes until the chocolate is shiny and soft (but NOT melting – they should still hold their shape).  

 

Carefully place an M&M in the center of each hug and press it down to spread the chocolate.  

 

Allow to cool completely (a few minutes in the fridge works perfectly) and enjoy!

My son is 4 and this was a PERFECT project for us to do together. He was able to unwrap the hugs and set them on the pretzel, and when the pans come out of the oven, they are just slightly warm so while we cautioned him on touching them, just for general practice’s sake, they were not piping hot. Not all of ours looked as perfect as these pictures depict,  but that’s the charm of it, right?!

Here’s what’s planned for the rest of the week:

• Saucy Asian Meatballs, rice & salads
• Sauteed Boneless Pork Chops with Tomato Sage Pan Sauce (not used last week)
• White Chicken Chili (Trying to use some beans in my cupboard)
• Simply Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
• Chicken (or maybe I can talk my husband into making us some Venison or Wild Boar), rice pilaf & Salads.

DIY Birthday Party

Somehow 4 years have passed since my son was born. It’s gone from this:

to this:

quicker than it feels possible! Over the years we’ve done several themed birthdays and there is always a diy element to each party, but this year we went DIY crazy!

The one consistent DIY element is the cake. My mom-in-law, Patti, made all of the birthday cakes for each of her 4 children & this was definitely a tradition I wanted to carry on. Problem was, I had never in my life decorated a cake so I was relieved when she was willing to help me. Here are the cakes we made in previous years:

1st Birthday Cake by Patti

1st Birthday Baby Cake by me!

2nd Birthday Cake (Mater by me, Lightning by Patti)

3rd Birthday Cake by Patti

So this year, like many 4 year old boys, my Tyler is into Super Heros. With the help of Pintrest, I found all the elements I needed to find inspiration for a complete DIY Super Hero Party! First, I found this invite and printables birthday package on Etsy:

From ThePartyProject on Etsy

From ThePartyProject on Etsy

Rose from ThePartyProject was wonderful to work with. I just purchased the package, gave her all the party details and uploaded a picture of Tyler in his Batman jammies and she did all the graphic magic. I just printed it all and added some props and we were good to go. With this as my inspiration, I also found this cake on Pintrest:

Inspiration Cake

We made some slight changes and came up with this:

Our Actual Cake

This year we added a brand new element for us – fondant! And actually, I was so drowned in printables (which I wouldn’t have finished without Auntie Katie’s help!) that Patti did all the fondant work the night before. We have our eye on a birthday cake for Elise that will also use fondant so I hope to learn how to work with it on the next cake. I know some friends who make their own fondant, but since it was so new to us, we simply bought the pre-made stuff at Michael’s.

Here are some more pictures of how it all turned out:

Tyler & Grandma making the cake

Pow * Zap* Ka-Boom & Straw Flags

Pow Napkin Rings

Water Bottle Labels

Goodie Bag Station, Birthday Sign

Caped Lollipops

Cape-Making Station

I found the idea for t-shirt capes here and got the printable logos here. We had the kids glue on their chosen felt super hero logo to their chosen cape as they arrived using Fabric Glue, but it had to sit and dry the duration of the party. If I had to do it over again, I would have pre-made the capes or used an iron-on fusible so the kids could wear them for the party, but I think it was fun anyway and a great party favor to take on the road.

As always, we had a super blessed time with family, friends and laughter. I hope my son will come to appreciate all the love that goes into these handmade birthdays, but in the meantime, I’m having a lot of fun!

Meal Plan February 6-11, 2012

Meal planning. We all say we’re gonna do it. We know we should. We know it will make our life easier in the long run, but dread that time spent thinking and planning it all out.

I personally have gone about this several different ways and they were all good for each season I used them (in other words, there’s no wrong way to go about it). When we were first married, we were on a strict Hamburger Helper meal plan (and the store brand, not the name brand) since we were both still in school and living in L.A. When we moved to a more affordable locale, I started to look into lower fat, more nutritious meals to make and somehow found Cooking Light Magazine. I subscribed started to pull out the recipes that sounded good and organized them by meat/course into a binder. Then I would go pick from those meals, plan the week (or two), make my lists, etc.,  etc. Well that became such a long process, especially after having kids. While visiting Dave Ramsey’s site, I saw an ad for eMeals and felt like $5 a month was WELL worth my sanity. They plan meals for you and make your grocery list in a way that is easy for you to cross off a meal you won’t need or don’t like. They have lots of meal options for large and small families so if that appeals to you, do check it out!

Upon looking to stay home, we were looking for as many ways to cut expenses as possible, so I went on the search again for meal planning help (FREE meal planning help). I stumbled upon SayMmm.com. Now, I have not done all the digging around this site to make me an expert but I will share with you what I’ve learned so far. Here is how it looks to plan for the week:

It takes a little work in the beginning and by that I mean, you have to enter in the recipes you want to use (or the ones you find online). You do that by copy/pasting the recipe, link & title, but then after you do that 1) It’s saved in your recipes and 2) it automatically makes a grocery list for that recipe. After you assign the recipes to days of the week on the Plan tab (you can plan breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks if you want!), just click on the shop tab and tell it which days on your plan you want to include on your list. Voila – a grocery list!

Divided by store location with a list of common kitchen items to check – you may already have them in your cupboard. You can also add any other items you need (like bread, eggs, milk, etc.) and it will remember your added items by keeping them in a section on future lists. You can click on those items to add them from then on out.

OH! Almost forgot to mention – once your list is made, you also have the option to log in from your smart phone and get a list like this:

which allows you to check things off as you grab them! SO GREAT!

So anyway – I did not mean this to be so long. If anyone’s interested, I’ll post my meal plans as I make them … with links to the recipes … in a far shorter post … promise.

• Spicy Tilapia with Pineapple-Pepper Relish
• Cheeseburger Salad
• Healthy Yogurt Breakfast Parfait with Blueberries & Granola
• Slow Cooker Barbacoa Beef
• Poppy Seed Chicken Salad
• Crusted Honey Mustard Chicken
• Sautéed Boneless Pork Chops with Tomato-Sage Pan Sauce

Pick Your Plum

I love to shop online – especially when the alternative is trying to shop with kids in tow – it makes life so much easier! (For a good laugh about shopping with kids, click here). I also love a good deal and somewhere along the way in my online shopping, bargain-seeking adventures, I signed up for the daily Pick Your Plum email and I’m so glad I did. If you haven’t heard about Pick Your Plum, it’s a site that posts daily deals of crafty goodness – quality notions, jewelry-making supplies & more! Here’s an excerpt from their site:

• We have limited supplies on some of the most swank supplies. We have agents out in the field who find killer deals on high quality products.
• We delicately slap prim-o crafting supplies on our site at a stellar price!
• We sell it ’til it’s gone or ’til time is up.
• You leave feeling like you just won Martha in a crafting contest.
• The supplies arrive in 7-8 shipping days and you’ve just picked your ‘plum’! Doesn’t it feel good?

So far, I’ve gotten some really cool stuff like this giant rick-rack variety pack

Picture from Pick Your Plum

And this fun necklace with a “gun metal” finish

Picture from Pick Your Plum

And there are many awesome things I’ve passed up…variety packs of fold over elastic, adorable cup cake baking cups, ruffled leg warmers for girls…as they say on their website, “Don’t blame us if you overdose. We only sell products we would use ourselves.” So once again, just something cool I’ve come across and thought I should share. Be sure to sign up for the daily alerts so you can get in on the deals as they’re posted!