Menu Plan Monday: Menu for Week of 3/9/15

This is a hard Monday for me.  Daylight Savings Time is kicking my butt along with a sinus cough that won't go away and not enough sleep, even without Daylight Savings Time.  And I got some bad news from my family back East in regards to my grandma (she's going in for emergency surgery on her hip today after breaking it early this morning, she's got blockages in her neck and has had a mini-stroke so far this week...it's not looking good.  And I love the woman to death, so even though she's old...it's hard), so yeah...I'm kind of out of it today.  And to top it all off, my husband is working late a lot lately, so it makes it kind of hard to get too enthusiastic over dinner when I'm okay eating toast with butter and jam on it for dinner (when it comes to me, I just don't get too excited over food...weird I know).

But, the menu plan has to be made because otherwise I'm at a total loss for what to have for dinner and then on the nights where my husband is home he'll get grumpy if I just shrug and say, "I don't know" if he asks what is for dinner.  Luckily I've been hitting a stack of cookbooks hard this last week to make money stretch and coming up with different meals to try (necessity being the mother of invention and all of that), so I did at least get it done.

You will notice more eggs in this menu.  I've found that eggs are an excellent budget stretcher as they are filling, get necessary protein into the meal and my daughter will eat them (which is a definite bonus to me).

So, here's this week's menu.

Menu Plan for Week of 3/9/15

• Monday:  Chicken Salad Sandwiches (using leftover chicken from last week), potato chips
• Tuesday:  Pancakes, bacon, eggs
• Wednesday:  Noodle bowls (I'll share that recipe after I make them...super easy, really easy to personalize and it's kinda fun to do), mixed veggies (for at least MY noodle bowl)
• Thursday:  Pork Roast, leftover mixed veggies (with cheese), super baked potatoes
• Friday:  Egg and Cheese Bake
• Saturday:  French dips, salad, oven fries
• Sunday:  Leftovers (if there are any, if not it's Pizza night)

 Baking Things to do (on Monday/today...it's going to be an exhausting day):  Jelly muffins, bread and scones (muffins and scones are for breakfasts this week as I have both kids home for Spring Break).  Also make ranch dip to have with carrot sticks (determined to break this into my daughter's snack time routine as it's a lot healthier than a lot of other stuff she considers "food").

Desserts:  Applesauce cake (muffins will double as dessert fare as well).

Frugal Friday (Money Saving Weekly Recap): Week Ending 3/6/15

Well, another week as come and gone, so it's once again time for Frugal Friday!  So, some of the ways I saved money this week are...

1.  I cooked our meals at home instead of getting ready made meals to just stick in the oven or take out.

2.  I redeemed my Disney Movie Reward points, well some of them, to get my daughter the above DVD for free, which I'll put aside as one of her Christmas gifts. If you sign up with them you can get points for reading the newsletter in your e-mail as they put random codes in there, you'll get 100 points on your anniversary for being a member every year, etc.  I like to buy older Disney movies on Amazon off the marketplace sellers as they can go as low as 4.00 for a brand new movie and when you buy them new, not only can you get them cheap, but you also get the code paperwork as well.  I hadn't redeemed movie rewards in quite a while (I leave the codes in the DVD cases until I redeem them and then I throw them away, so I always know a code is good when I stumble across it) and between that and bonus points to try and keep me coming back to the site and such, I was able to get her the DVD.

I also plan on using some sticker paper I have around here to print off some Princess stickers and such for another Christmas gift later (around Christmas, of course).  They are available to print on the movie rewards site for free for members.

3.  I had made orange juice last week that while we drank a bit of it, we weren't going to finish it before it went bad, so I used the remainder to brine some chicken in for dinner earlier in the week.  It was tasty and the orange juice didn't go to waste that way.

4.  Instead of watching TV or movies at night, since my husband has been working odd hours, I instead have been listening to CD's on my computer (using battery power vs. TV power draw).

5.  I am recycling an old coffee can to make into a coin bank for my daughter.  I think she's really going to like decorating it (I'm going to wrap the can in some art paper that I bought at a used store, a big ream of it, a long while ago.  We use it for tons of stuff around here...making wrapping paper, doodling paper for my daughter, etc) and I won't have to throw out a perfectly good metal can.

6.  I mended some clothes instead of letting holes get bigger to the point I'd have to throw them away and am working on more.

 And there you have it folks.  My money saving accomplishments this week, small as they are.

Rosehip Jelly

This is the time of year where I seriously start yearning for Spring.  This year it's even worse because the weather is so darned...well Springlike!

One of the things I tend to do this time of year is I start to weed out things that we longer need and/or start figuring out things that need to be used before the new growing season starts.

Rosehips ended up being one of those things this year.  We have rosebushes in our yard growing in a lot of different locations and year before last I went kinda nuts harvesting rosehips in the fall and dehydrating them to use in different applications later.

Well, after cleaning them even I still had a ton.  I used some and made Strawberry Rosehip Jam that year, made some facial products, attempted to make perfume (that didn't work well), etc.  And at the end of the fall season I shoved the nice airtight container in with the rest of my herbs and conveniently forgot about it.  Until the day before yesterday.

See, I was cleaning out my herb collection (yes, I have one of those) and ran into the rosehips.  Checking the date, I realized I really needed to use them up before they started losing potency.  But, I don't really do much herb experimentation anymore, so I tried to think of something other than skin care products to make with them.

Watching "The 1940's House" I had an epiphany when I was watching and they mentioned children getting rosehip syrup as a vitamin C supplement.

I thought of making rosehip syrup out of the rosehips, but I was kind of worried about canning it as I wasn't sure how long it would stay good for and I was sure it would spoil pretty quickly after it was opened because of lack of preservatives in it.  So, I tried to think of something else.

And then it came to me.  I had made Strawberry Rosehip Jam a couple of years ago with tea rose rosehips (which was yummy), so I figured I could use the dried rosehips to make jelly.

And hey, I was right.  And it turned out really well!  I was thrilled as I have been blowing through jam and such around here just with toast and desserts, so I was happy to come out of this with essentially free (since I had all the materials around the house) jelly to use through the rest of the winter and spring.

Anyway, you can save this recipe and use it on your dried rosehips later in the year.  It tastes a lot like apple jelly, actually (part of that comes from the apple juice used to boost up  the flavor and the pectin content a little bit).

I used a traditional/standard jelly recipe for this, but doubled the pectin in the recipe as rosehips don't have any natural pectin of their own that I know of, even though they are (from the research I've done)  related to apples.   And hey, rosehips are naturally high in vitamin C, so double bonus to the jelly!

Note:  This recipe is not evaluated nor approved by the FDA.  I don't have a problem canning it, but that is me.  If you do not want to can this, just use freezer pectin and store your jelly in the freezer (follow the directions on the pectin package).  It will work fine.

 Rosehip Jelly:  Makes approx 10, 8 oz. jelly jars

 Ingredients:

• 6 Cups Rosehip Juice (recipe follows)
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 2 boxes (or 6 TBS) regular pectin
• 7 cups sugar

Procedure:

1.  Make Rosehip Juice

Rosehip Juice

• 1 1/2 Cups Dried, and seeded, Rosehips (you can use more if you want a stronger taste, but 1 1/2 cups is all I had)
• 6 Cups water
• Unsweetened apple juice

2.  Place rosehips and water in a large saucepan.  Heat to boiling, reduce to simmer and simmer 15 minutes.  Turn off heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

3.  Place a wire mesh strainer over a bowl or large measuring cup (I used my 8 cup Pyrex measuring cup for this).  Pour rosehip mixture over the bowl.  You can do one of two things now.  Take unsweetened apple juice and add to the rosehip mixture until you have 6 cups total of liquid or you can take the now strained rosehips, cover with water again and repeat the boiling/simmering process to get more rosehip juice.  I ended up adding about 2 cups of apple juice to get six cups of liquid.

4.  Prepare canner, jars and lids (use recommended jelly making guidelines for sanitation).

5.  Whisk together rosehip juice mixture, lemon juice and pectin in a large stock pot until smooth and there are no lumps.  Heat the mixture to boiling.

6.  While the mixture is heating, measure out the sugar, place in a bowl and set aside.  Also, pull out the largest whisk you have (this is a great time to pull out a balloon whisk if you have one).

7.  Once mixture is at a boil, add the sugar all at once.  You are going to have a huge sugar cube in the middle of your pectin mixture and this is where a whisk comes in super handy.  Use the whisk to break up all the sugar and whisk it into the liquid, so that no lumps are left.

8.  Switch to a wooden spoon and heat the mixture back to a rolling boil (a boil that can not be stirred down).  Keep boiling for 1 minute (or however long your pectin directions tell you to).

9.  Place jelly in hot, sterilized jars (skim off foam if there is any...I didn't have enough to worry about), place lids and rings on the jars and process in a hot water bath canner for 10 minutes.  Turn the heat off under the canner and remove the lid, but leave the jars in for another 5 minutes.  Remove jars with a jar remover to a tea towel or other protected surface to cool.  Check seal after jars are cooled.

Any jars that are not sealed should be used immediately.  Should keep for a year in the pantry if properly sealed and stored.

Once opened store in fridge.

Monthly Financial Goals and February Recap

 And so, it is time to do a financial goal checkup  from last month and also do my goals for this month.

Honestly?  Is "Survive" a goal or a mind set?  Ugh.  It has been so depressing financial speaking lately.  Last month we had a lot of small paychecks at the beginning of the month and despite working my collective butt off to save money wherever I could,we're making it but barely.

And then my husband, who just got the entire bottom of his mouth capped late last year (which had us, for the first time in years, adding new credit card debt to our bills, which was 10,000.00.  We only have 18 months to pay it off interest free, which isn't easy and then we have a second half we're going to have to deal with that will be 15,000.00.  I am really wishing I was a dentist lately)  has a dental emergency on the top of his mouth (the half he DIDN'T get done last year), so we have to find a thousand dollars somewhere to pay for that.  And then I have a yearly car insurance bill due soon, so I have to save up 300.00 for that.  And that is on top of just regular monthly bills I have to make and that is going to be hard because it is a short month and utilities for last month, that are due this week are high due to some major time in between reads on my meter.  Ugh. Just ugh.

Anyway, *deep breath*, goals this month are going to be a bit depressing as a result of all of this, so bear with me on that one.

But, first, let's see how we did in February...

February Goals:

1.  Recharge cell phone.
2.  When tax refund comes in remove at least 80% and put in savings (more on that one later).
3.  Budget for gift and dinner for holidays.   
4.  Save at least 20.00 somewhere!  

Well, I was able to meet all of the goals last month!  So that was good.

My daughter had a birthday that while not as fancy as she would have liked, it did get the job done and she enjoyed herself.  We ended up spending nothing on her birthday, other than about 15.00 in gifts that I spread the cost over two months to not hurt so badly.  I made her cakes with ingredients I already had, as well as cookies for her class.  We went out to dinner at a local restaurant, but we had gift cards a friend of my husband's had given him as a thank you for working on his house.  We had been sitting on those gift cards for quite a while, so I was glad we were able to give my daughter a special night out with them.

I got my cell phone recharged right before my tax refund came in, so that was nice that I didn't have to raid the refund for that.

Valentine's Day came and went without much fan fare.  The kids each got a container of Rolos that had been on sale B1G1 one week at the store (Rolo's are peanut free).  The kids enjoyed the treat and had plenty of Valentine's stuff to play with from their parties at school.  So, it worked out well enough.

I managed to save a lot of money on regular bills last month, with finally getting my son into local speech therapy and getting my phone bill finally dialed in right (for now).  I have also been trying to implement changes around here to save on fuel and electricity, although I won't know how well those work out until next month I think.

This month's financial goals are going to be very hard to accomplish.

March Financial Goals:

1.  Save 300.00 for car insurance payment.
2. Save as much toward 1000.00 for dental work as possible.
3.  Pay bills.

To accomplish some of this, once again, my husband and I are going to be going on a "if it ain't cheap we're not eating it" type of diet, which means not a lot of shopping, but living, once again, off the foods storage I just started rebuilding (man is that depressing even to write).  It's going to be a sad month to be sure unless I suddenly have an epiphany on ways to save money (which, I have faith that this can indeed happen).  But, such is life.

So, I am going to, for now, set my grocery budget at 50.00 per week around here (which covers the things the kids will eat) and we'll see where that gets me.  If nothing else, if I can make that work, it will save the necessary 300.00 for the car insurance payment.

Hope your financial outlook is a bit brighter than mine is this month.

Mending 101: How to Darn a Sock

And ode to my days at therapy where I darned a million socks!

Okay, so as lines of poetry go, that was kind of crappy.  But, seriously, it seems like all I do at therapy anymore is darn socks.

I'm not sure why, probably from being on his feet all day and having a history of not taking care of his feet very well, but my husband has heels that resemble cheese graters.  And his socks have always suffered for it.

This last year, we haven't had the money to buy him new socks every two months like we have had to do in the past, so I have learned the lost art of darning instead in desperation as I stared at piles and piles of holey socks.

Once you have darning down it can save you a lot of money, actually.  I've repaired dish towels, sweaters with holes that had tears in them from the washer and other things.  But, I want to start out with the most useful of darning techniques (at least to me) and one of the easiest to learn.  Darning socks.

I am new to the idea of teaching anything sewing related, so bear with me here as I try to walk you through this as easily as possible.

First, you are going to need a few things.  One:  Proper needles.  There are such things as darning needles.  If you do not have these and don't have the money to buy them, don't despair.  Just use whatever needle you have with the largest eye (as you're going to have to fit some pretty beefy thread through it).

Next up you are going to need some round object that you can fit into your sock to help you work on the hole without you pulling the fabric too tight, thus puckering the sock and making it uncomfortable as all get out to wear (I actually started by darning a few of my husband's socks that were beyond hope of repair to get this process down before starting on socks he'd actually wear).  A lot of older books suggest a lightbulb or actually a Darning Egg or Ball.  Me?  I use a play ball from my son's ball pit.  You can use anything round and relatively smooth.  An incandescent light bulb would work fine...personally I just can't stand the idea of something really breakable transporting back and forth to therapies and such in my knitting bag, so I stick with the play ball *laugh*.

One last thing you are going to need is the proper thread to do this.  Embroidery thread would work alright if you are pretty easy on your socks overall.  My husband quickly destroyed it with his cheese grater feet when I tried it on his socks, though, so I switched to this...

Twisted embroidery thread (much tougher stuff).  This stuff goes for about 2.00 per thing of thread at JoAnn Fabrics, but if you sign up for coupons you can use your 40 and 50% off a regular priced item coupons on these, or wait for them to go on sale (which is what I tend to do).  Either way one 2.00 thing of thread does quite a few socks, so it really is still pretty cost effective.

Okay and now the procedure.

1.  Take the ball you are going to darn with and work it down into your sock so that the hole is nice and centered on the curved surface.  Like above.

2.  Load your needle with thread (I go for a decently long amount) and start well beyond the hole in the sock.  Weave your thread in and out of the sock and working in straight lines (once again be sure to start well beyond the hole in the sock and then keep weaving your lines around and get closer to the hole).  Once you hit the hole do NOT sew the hole shut, but instead make lines of thread where the original sock was.  This is the first step to weaving a new piece into the sock.  See figure one for more detail...

3.  Once you are well beyond the hole in the opposite direction, weave your thread around the other way and create a cross hatch pattern to the sock.  When you reach your hole and the lines of thread, weave the thread in and out of the lines of thread you put down previously, creating a new woven piece to the sock.  See figure 2.

4.  Once the hole is woven shut and you are well beyond where the original tear was you can clip your thread, admire your handwork and realize you've now darned your first sock!

I realize this looks difficult, but it really isn't once you get the hang of it.  Yes, once you have a pile of things to darn this does get to be time consuming as you find yourself fixing all the holes you once thought unable to be fixed.  But, it actually is a kind of relaxing way to spend your evening as you sit watching a movie.  And it gives you great practice with your straight stitch in hand sewing *laugh*.

Hope this tutorial is found useful by some.  Good luck with your darning endeavors!

Note:  The graphs above were originally printed in the British pamphlets "Make Do and Mend" series for use during WWII.  I do not claim to be the artist who originally made them :).

Menu Plan Monday: Menu for Week of 3/2/15

Man, this is one of those days where menu planning was HARD.  Mainly because every single time I went to do it, all I could think of was, "Man, I'm so tired.  Need more caffeine to function."  And that would be as far as I would get on the menu planning front.

But, armed with a too-short nap (and a very unproductive day *sigh*) here I am with menu plan in hand.

Warning:  This menu goes kinda crazy in places.  It's amazing what oddball things you can get cheap on sale (thus the cornish hens on the menu).

Menu Plan for Week 3/2/15

• Monday:  Chuck steak, rice, salad
• Tuesday:  Orange Brined Chicken (recipe coming soon), Leftover Rice Pilaf (another recipe that I'll hopefully post soon), salad (trying to use up salad from last week before it goes funky)
• Wednesday:  Corned Beef and Cabbage (and other veggies of course)
• Thursday:  Parmesan Mustard Pork Chops (this is a recipe I'll definitely be sharing soon.  Super easy and tasty), Green beans, Mashed Potatoes
• Friday:  Cornish Hens, stuffing, leftover mashed potatoes and gravy
• Saturday:  Corned Beef Hash (using left over corned beef) with poached eggs.
• Sunday:  Beef Roast with roasted carrots, fancy baked potatoes (recipe coming soon on that too), bread.

Breakfast (out of the ordinary):  Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal (from freezer).  I'm really enjoying this for breakfast with a splash of milk on it warm.  Banana Bread (made it last night from some of the tons of bananas I have in the freezer).  Honey Oat Bran Muffins (on Saturday).

Desserts:  Maple Custard Pie, Apple Pie

And there you are.  Definitely an interesting week of eating ;).

Monthly Shopping Goals: March 2015

Well, the pantry is slowly being restocked between my 25.00 a week I've been putting aside, a 200.00 trip to Costco on Valentine's Day (where my husband and I got rice, sugar and some other essentials with a part of our tax refund) and just generally working on stocking up on things in my regular grocery budget from week to week as I ran into sales.  So, instead of doing a 25.00 breakdown per week like I have been, instead I think I'm going to switch to monthly goals on what I need to build up food stores around here as I'm hoping to start reducing my grocery bill to 100.00 a week instead of 150.00 a week around here soon just to see if I can do it and to save very needed money.  And hopefully it might give you some inspiration to help out in your building up of food stores too.

So, here are my monthly goals (some vague, some specific) on what I need in the way of food.

Bulk Stores:

Food:

I want to get some #10 cans of tomato products, at least, from the bulk stores to use in different applications and just because it's a good thing to have around for food storage.  I didn't realize that tomato products were so cheap this way until recently and am thrilled to find them as when I can things like salsa...a #10 can goes a long way to making salsa easier.  Not to mention other recipes (which I'll share at later date).

Get more cans of canned crab and shrimp to use in salads and fondue and such (Three Bears is the cheapest place I've found to buy these canned around here).

Get more chicken stock (I use it all the time and I like the Kirkland Brand of stock as it is the most allergy friendly).  I'm hoping to make more chicken stock and freeze it, but freezer space is kind of limited with meat and apples at the moment, so I'm thinking buying boxes might be the best option.

Get a big container of Hershey's baking cocoa.

Bath and Cleaning Supplies:

Get a couple more bottles of the cheap Windex, Lysol and dish soap.

Regular Stores:

Hoping for another sale at Carrs for cooking oil as I would like to get at least another bottle of it.  I hate to keep too much around as it does go rancid, but at the same time if I make fried chicken it blows through the cooking oil relatively fast.  If that fails, I want to get a thing of cooking fat from Three Bears.

I am hoping for a sale on laundry soap as well.  I went to Fred Meyer for their laundry soap sale today and wasn't happy that the stuff I normally buy for 6.00 on sale at Carrs was 9.99 for the same bottle and the huge bottles that were on sale didn't include the type I normally buy.  Here's hoping there's another sale on that.

Also hoping for a good sale on cat litter again just to add a few more boxes to my stockpile.  If you can find these on 5.00 Friday be sure to look for peelies (peel off coupons) on the cat litter.  I was able to score a box for 3.50 last 5.00 special!

Amazon.com:

I am budgeting out for a Subscribe and Save order in the middle of the month.  So far I have toilet paper, drinking chocolate (a more concentrated form of hot chocolate that my husband and I like because it takes a lot less chocolate to make a mug of hot chocolate and is also safe for my son from peanut cross contamination) and oats on order.  Other than that I will try to shop for around and see if I can find some good deals on there as if you order 5 items you save 15% versus 5% (I haven't got Prime yet). 

Other Online Sources:

I put together an order today for 3 lbs of nut free butterscotch chips from Vermont Nut Free Chocolates.  Sadly, three pounds of butterscotch chips cost me 25.00 after shipping, but these are one of the few foods my son will eat for positive reinforcers at school, so it was a necessary purchase.

So, there you have it folks.  My "here's hoping I can get this stuff" list for the month.  Do you have anything you want to get for your pantry this month?