Project 365: Day 29

My new phone

Sorry for the dark picture.  In a quest to lower any bills that we can, we decided to go with a new cell phone plan that will end up saving us around $35 per month.  And it just so happens that I ended up with the coolest phone I've ever had :-)

Trying Something New

Me? Trying something new? I know, unbelievable, right? I'm just dripping with sarcasm here, in case you are reading this and don't really know me. It's so big, so revolutionary, I just had to share. Ready? Here it is...

I'm planning ahead!

Woo-hoo! That's big, ain't it?

Planning ahead meal-wise, that is. Not just planning out meals for the week--that's nothing new--but actually cooking them ahead as well. See, we have this problem of eating out WAY too much in our family. Unhealthy, of course, but even bigger of a problem is that it is very quickly d-r-a-i-n-i-n-g away our (well, hubby's) hard-earned money. The number of times eating out last week=7. It may be normal for some people, but for us that is just actually unacceptable.

The draw for me is the convenience, pure and simple. You eat somewhere else, that means someone else has to take the time to cook and the time to clean up. You arrive, eat, and leave, and you don't even make a dent in your clean kitchen. It's very attractive, I must say. However, there's the $$$ thing, as I mentioned earlier. Eating out is not so convenient when it comes to balancing the checkbook...

So anyway, after I came to this realization that things needed to change, I figured there was only one of two things I could do: either buy more convenience-type foods at the grocery store or do something like OAMC. The latter was out right away; I don't like a lot of re-cooked food that's sat in a freezer for a month, and we don't have a lot of room with our 1.5 freezers after harvesting from the garden. As for the grocery convenience food, at times it is more expensive than Burger King and more often than not, just as bad for you--or worse.

But then as I was making my meal list for the week, I had a thought. What if I just took one morning a week and pre-prepared (is that a word? it is now...) what I could for the next week's menu? Then everything wouldn't have to come out of the freezer, it would still be mostly-from-scratch meals, and it would be convenient at the same time. Does everyone already do this? Is this one of those things that everyone else just knows but it takes a kick in the head for me to figure out? Don't answer that.

So here's what the oldest three and I did this morning:

-precooked two meals' worth of chicken

-browned ground beef for spaghetti

-prepared the spaghetti sauce

-made 16 waffles

-made one loaf of blueberry bread

-crockpotted (another new word for the day) two meals' worth of pork

-made 15 individual scrambled egg circles for breakfast sandwiches

-cut up an impressive amount of lettuce

So! I'm excited to see how this experiment works this week. And just to set the record straight, yes, I love writing about the mundane happenings of everyday life. Isn't everyone as excited about new tactics for the running of a household as I am? Don't answer that.

Asian Sprout Salad

A while back I promised to post some recipes. Well, I kept thinking that it needed to wait until I could remember to photograph the end products, but you know what I've discovered? This is impossible. I have four kids home all day long, every day. By the time I get around to making supper/dinner/whateveryoucallit, there is no time or organization to take pictures.

Plus, there's really bad lighting in my house after 1 p.m. (this is the bane of my existence, quite honestly).

I just want to share some yummy things, most of which are really easy. This one's the absolute easiest of all.

Asian Sprout Salad

Lettuce (my preference for this salad is a butter and red leaf mix)

Chicken breast(s), cut up

Garlic

Ginger

Red pepper

Soy sauce

Hoisin or teriyaki sauce

Sprouts (I like broccoli sprouts best)

Grated carrots

Chow mein noodles

Marinate the chicken in the garlic, ginger, pepper, and sauces, then stir-fry. Or just stir-fry it all together. Mix the lettuce, sprouts, carrots, and noodles together. Top with the chicken. Sometimes I go ahead and toss the whole thing with some light asian dressing, but the husband does not prefer this.

Notice may be taken that I have no ingredient amounts listed. That's because I never use the same amount twice; I just throw in what looks right or what I have. Personal preference will dictate the amounts you use.

See? Easy. Not to mention super-cheap. I think next I'll share our other favorite salad, taco salad!

The Evil Overpopulator Strikes Again

I know it's been a long, long while since I've been visited by the blogging muse, but I'm going to go ahead and jump in today because I saw this and I want to applaud the sentiment. I don't really need to say a lot more because she says exactly what I think. I have heard that it is selfish to have more than three children, more than two children, more than one child, any children. For one thing, that makes me laugh--environmental impact aside--really? Selfish?! Somehow I doubt the people saying these things to me have ever tried to run a family and household full of children. Not trying to play the martyr here, but selfish is not the word that comes to mind.

In our family we try our best to be good stewards of the resources we are blessed with. In the interest of full disclosure, I fully admit that our carbon footprints aren't usually the number one aspect I take into consideration when making day-to-day decisions...usually it's the financial aspect. A blessing in disguise is that when you don't have a lot of financial resources, the environmental and financial aspects of decision making tend to intersect. I'm nearly positive that our one-vehicle, small house, strictly second-hand-shopping, gardening, ridiculously frugal "large" family of nearly six probably has a much smaller carbon footprint than your average American upper-middle-class family of four (population replacement level).

The best thing about being an environment-preserving parent of a "large" family, though, is that I can teach these things to my children. The way we live is something I try to pass on to them in order to have four future families being good stewards of the Earth.

Do I sound defensive? Maybe I am a bit, but I don't mean to be. It's not that I honestly don't care what other people do, because I do hope that others make good environmental decisions. But I say live and let live. While you'd never hear me chastising another for making a different choice, there are many who chastise overpopulation as the biggest drain on the world's resources, and that is what I'm trying to defend against.

8 Meal Ideas For Megan R.

Okay, I've been meaning to gather a list of some good meals for some time, and now (tired and pregnant) Megan needs some good meal ideas, so here's a whole blog post just for her! *wink*

These are mostly really simple easy-peasy recipes and all are fairly cheap. Some I have found elsewhere, others are just ones I've made up. Feel free to post some of your favorite meal ideas in the comment section.


1. First is Megan K.'s skillet baked ziti/penne. This one is more labor-intesive (but not much) than the following recipes, but I love this. It deserves a spot at the top. It's my favorite meal ev-ah(!) now. It's totally amazing just following the recipe, but I've tweaked it a bit to fit in with my own family's tastes:

-I like to make this with tri-color rotini, and I think it holds the sauce better.
-Once I just had Hunt's spaghetti sauce on hand and no crushed tomatoes, and that is our preferred base now.
-I put more mozzarella on top. You can never go wrong with more mozzarella!


2.. Easy, easy, easy quiche. I don't put the broccoli in.


3. Put a pork roast in the crockpot until it falls apart, mix in BBQ sauce, and serve on buns. How can you even get any easier than that???


4. Put a beef roast in the crockpot until it falls apart, mix in fajita or taco seasoning, and serve on tortillas with the taco fixings your family prefers. I can't ever go back to ground beef tacos after I started making it this way.


5. So, you put some chicken breasts in the crockpot...noticing a theme here?... When you're almost ready to eat you make some boxed stuffing, following the box instructions except replacing 3/4 of the water with white wine. Pour the stuffing on top of the chicken breasts, put some swiss cheese on top of that, pour a bit more white wine on top and cook until melted.


6. Cook some chicken breasts however you wish. For some reason I usually don't use the crockpot for this one. Hmmm, strange... Anyhoo, in a small saucepan mix up salsa with a good amount of brown sugar. Pour sauce on chicken breasts. Make some instant rice on the side. On each individual plate pour any extra sauce on top of rice.


7. Brown a pound of ground beef. (Feeling poetic today, apparently...) Mix in a couple cans of tomato soup, a bit of salsa, and a bit of cheese (usually I use Velveeta or cojack here). Once it has heated through, cut up four flour (and alliterative?) tortillas and mix the pieces in. Sprinkle shredded cojack, jack, or cheddar cheese on top, cover, and cook on low-med until melted.


8. Drive here. I promise you a great meal.

(Virtually) Free Money

I say virtually because it does take ten minutes or so of your time every week. To me, that's free money.

What is this free money I speak of? Well, I would like to introduce you to Survey Savvy. It's a pyramid scheme that really works. You take surveys, you get paid. Your referrals take surveys, you get paid. Their referrals take surveys, you get paid. Every once in a while I click over to check my balance, and usually I have about $20 or so waiting to be mailed to me. I request a check probably about every three months. It's not a full-time job or anything, but upwards of $80 a year in sweet, sweet, (virtually) free cash is, well, sweet!

So, the reason I want to tell you about it out of the blue today is because this time when I clicked over, I have to tell you my balance was waaahaayyy over $20. There must be a lot of you who have clicked the link in my sidebar, so thankyouthankyouthankyou peeps! Anyone who hasn't ever clicked the link and signed up, CLICK HERE for goodness sakes and get yourself your own SWEET (virtually)FREE CASH.

Disclaimer:
I am not being renumerated for advertising by Survey Savvy in any way. I just think it's an awesome deal and it works for me. You don't have to give away a ton of information or anything, in case you worry about such things (I don't). I have been signed up for about four years, and I know the wife of the developer, so I can say it's totally legit.

Free Chicken Sandwich at McDonald's

Today (5.15.08) you can get a free Southern Style Chicken Sandwich with the purchase of a medium or large drink.

We have to go out for chiropractor appointments at 11:00 a.m. today...guess where we'll be going for lunch?

Leapin' Good Deals

I get really excited about getting good deals, but this was one of the best deals yet. I got all of this (see picture at right) for.... drumroll please.... fifty cents! How'd that happen, you ask? A combination of two of my favorite ways to save money:

1. A LeapPad and six books with cartridges was being offered on Freecycle, and I totally jumped all over that one. I told the kids they had to share it, which they weren't too happy about, but they tried.

2. Then later that afternoon after we picked up the items off Freecycle, we were in the Salvation Army looking for a cheap table to restore, when I happened to come across another LeapPad for fifty cents. I knew there was no way it was going to work, but I turned it on, and lo and behold, it did!

I'll tally it again--two LeapPads, six books and cartridges, 50 cents. SWEET!

_______________________________

Now here's funny story having to do with these LeapPads. When we got home, the batteries were pretty much dying on both of them, and Emme's kept getting error messages. One of the little pieces of "advice" the voice in the LeapPad gives you is, "Make sure your book is resting comfortably in the holder." Approaching frustration, after the voice had repeated this instruction for the third time, I saw Emme lean her face down into the book, cheek touching it, whispering ever so softly: "Are you comfortable in there?"