August meals and recipes

I have finished out August menu and a lot of you have asked for the recipes, so here they are! I am not srue what days we are having what meals, but at least they are done!

Chimichangas:
1 lb. cooked beef, pork or chicken
1 jar (16oz.) salsa
1 16oz. Refried Beans
1 4oz. Diced Green Chili Peppers-I leave these out
1 1 1/2 oz. Burrito or taco Seasoning Mix
16 8 in. Flour Tortillas
16 oz. cheese-whatever kind you want

1. Mix the meat, beans, salsa, seasoning, and chilis. Heat till warm.
2. heat the tortillas a bit to make them easier to fold.
3. Add some of the mixture to the middle of the tortilla, add some cheese and fold up the ends, then the other ends.
4. wrap in foil. Freeze. When ready to eat, place in baking dish (still in foil) and bake for about an hour if frozen or if thawed, about 30 minutes.
Tacos:
I just precook ground turkey and add homemade taco seasoning. Then I freeze in servings.

Spaghetti:
I cook the turkey, add the sauce and some seasonings, then bag and freeze.

Lasagna:
1 pound sweet Italian sausage
3/4 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup minced onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
2 (6.5 ounce) cans canned tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
12 lasagna noodles
10 ounces ricotta cheese
10 ounces cottage cheese (you can use all ricotta or all cottage cheese if you dont want half and half)
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced-I use the mozzerella that is already cut for sandwiches
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1.In a Dutch oven, cook sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic over medium heat until well browned. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water. Season with sugar, basil, fennel seeds, Italian seasoning, 1 tablespoon salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons parsley. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.



2.Fill a large pot with the lazagna noodles and then fill with HOT water. Let sit about 30 minutes. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg, remaining parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.


3.Preheat oven to 375


4.To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with a third of mozzarella cheese slices. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers, and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil: to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese.


5.Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil, and bake an additional 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.


Chicken with gravy
4 pieces (or however many fit into a glass baking dish) of chicken or pork chops
1 onion
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can chicken broth
4 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp salt

Put the chicken in the baking dish. Cut the onion up into rings and lay them all over the chicken. Mix together the rest of the ingredients and then pour on top of chicken and onions. If you are using the crock pot, just pile it all together and cook for 5-8hours until nice and tender. If you bake it like I do, 1 hour on 350.
This is soooooo yummy and delicious and so easy to make. It takes like 5 minutes to put together!

Tosatdas:
Corn Tortillas
Canola Oil
2 cans pinto beans(or a can if refried beans if you don't want to make them)
Cheese
shredded lettuce
1. Heat oil (will only need thin layer in pan) on stove top Fry up as many corn tortillas as you will need for your family. Or,you can bake these of course!

2. Empty pinto beans into a separate pan on stove top and heat through. If your brand of beans seems to have a lot of liquid, drain a little off the top. But you do want SOME liquid. Then mash beans with a potato masher. Add a handful of cheese to thicken. Then season with salt, and any seasonings you like. I add salt,cumin and garlic powder.

3. Top tortillas with beans, more cheese and lettuce. We eat these with sour cream and taco sauce. Enjoy!


Pasties: (thanks to my mother in law. Apparently these are really big in the UP!!)

1.5 pounds of Groud Chuck or hamburger - browned (I used turkey)

1 medium onion - diced
1 Can Peas & Carrots -drained
1 Large Can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1/4 can of milk
5 or 6 potatoes, peeled and sliced thin OR diced into small cubes
Pie Crust
13 x 9" cake pan or casserole dish

Preheat oven 350 degrees. In a fry pan, heat the Grd Chuck/hamburger and diced onion until well cooked (salt & pepper to taste) Remove from heat and let cool. In the casserole dish, mix together potatoes, peas & carrots, Cream of Mushroom soup and milk, add the browned meat and mix. Make your pie crust, roll out rectangular and not too thin, large enough to cover the baking dish. Place the crust over the meat, trim the sides of the crust making a few slites for vents. Bake at 350 for approximately 45 minutes. Ready to serve. Cut as you would cake. Can be served plan with brown gravey or as many Yoopers Do with Ketsup!
Chicken and rice casserole:

1 can Cream of chicken soup
1 can Cheese or cheese and broccoli soup
For creamier version add
1 can cream of mushroom or celery soup
1.5 cups rice
3 Cups chicken Broth or water (add salt to taste)
1-½ cups chopped broccoli (we use frozen I would steam it first if you use fresh)
½ lb - 1lb chopped or shredded chicken
2-3 cups Shredded cheddar cheese
1. Cook rice in chicken broth, until done.
2. Add cans of soup, Broccoli, and chicken spread into 3qt casserole pan and cover with cheese. Place in the oven for 20-30 minutes (or until cheese is melted and golden brown). To spice it up add Salsa and sour cream as a topper.

Lemon chicken:

4 boneless chicken breasts ($1.75lb on sale)
2 tbsp corn starch
1 egg (.20)
a few dashes salt and pepper
oil for frying
Lemon sauce:
juice of 1 lemon (.50)
1 c. water
1/3 c sugar
2 tbsp vinegar
few dashes of salt
2 tbsp corn starch

1. pound chicken breasts out until even
2. heat 1/4" of oil in frying pan
3. In a small bowl beat the egg with corn starch and salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in mixture and add to frying pan. cook until done, set aside

For sauce:

1. In a small sauce pan add lemon, water and sugar bring to a boil stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved, reduce heat to low simmer
2. add vinegar and pinch of salt
3. In a separate bown mix 2 tbsp corn starch with 2 tbsp cold water until smooth. slowly pour into lemon mixture and stir until thickened.

To serve:
slice chicken into strips and pour sauce over, serve immediately. For a prettier presentation paper thin lemon slices can be used as garnish

Adjust sauce to taste by adding more vinegar if necessary
Pork chops:
 
We are having this a few times, so I will do it 2 different ways. I don't really follow a recipe for ether of them, I just guess the amounts!
 
Dip pork chops is an egg/milk mixture, then dip in breadcrumbs/Parmesan cheese mixture. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.
 
The second way-Keith like this better!
 
Dip pork in egg/milk mixture, then in breadcrumb mixture. "fry" in skillet to brown on both sides. Remove from pan. Add 1 can cream of mushroom soup, about 1/2 cup milk, a few slices of cream cheese and a few splashes of worseshire sauce. Combine and scrape all of the drippings off of the bottom. Return the chops to the pan, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
Italian chicken-crockpot:

1-2 chicken breasts

1 stick margarine or butter
1 pkg. dry italian seasoning
1 pkg. cream cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
noodles or rice

Place chicken in crock pot with margarine and italian seasoning. Cook on low until chicken is done (so, 6-7 hours I'd say--check it though!). Take out chicken and whisk together in crockpot the cream cheese and soup. You can soften the cream cheese first though so there are less chunks. Place chicken back into the sauce and warm through. You can thin the sauce with milk if you need to.
Spicy BBQ stuffed chicken:

boneless chicken breasts or thighsCheese soup:

8 slices pepper jack cheese
0.5 cup barbecue sauce, plus more for basting

Portion chicken into serving-size pieces. Butterfly each piece of chicken so it forms a pocket. Fill with a spoonful of BBQ sauce and a slice of cheese. Fold to close. Grill until chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes, basting with additional BBQ sauce, if desired.
Freezing Directions:
After folding chicken closed, place on a tray and flash freeze, then place in a freezer bag, seal, label, and return to freezer. To serve: Remove from bag and thaw in refrigerator.



12 potatoes, peeled and diced-I did not peel mine tonight and I used red potatoes

1 yellow onion, diced-I leave this out, I hate onions!
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon pepper
5 cups milk
1 (1 pound) loaf processed cheese food (such as Velveeta®), cubed
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
salt and pepper to taste

1.Combine potatoes, onion, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 tablespoon pepper in a large soup pot. Cover with water; bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the potatoes are very tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain potatoes, and return to pot.

2.Stir the milk and cubed cheese into the potatoes. Season with dill, salt, and pepper. Cook and stir over low heat until the cheese is melted, about 10 minutes.

3.I froze this is single serving sizes-I has 7 of them. When I reheat it, I will add some shredded cheddar cheese and some bacon on top!

My couponing trip today!

I am so excited to blog about this weeks couponing trip! I was my best one yet! I went to 5 stores (one was the same store in 2 locations), spent a total of $32.96 plus I got a $4 and a $1 store reward bucks to spend later. Without coupons and my store cards, I would have spent $167.08!!! That's a savings of 80.2%! OK, so here's what I got and how I got it. I so wish I had more coupons for these items, I could really go crazy!

Walgreen's:

-I bought the pkg of 6 dove mens+care soap bars and used a $4/1 coupon. They were 2/$12, however, they only had one and the checker let me have it for $6!
-I bought 2 carefree liners and used 2 $.50/1 coupons plus one from their ad to make both of them free!
-I bought 2 Wonka chocolate bars and used 2 $1 coupons that I printed and 1 $1/2 coupon from their printable to make them both free!
-I bought 2 deodorants that were 2/$6 and you get $4 in RR if you buy 2.I bought 2 and used 2 $.75 off coupons.
-I had to have a few fillers because you have to have as many products as you have coupons, so I bought 4 of the $.19 Christmas soaps!

Rite Aid:

-I bought 2 spray n wash and used 1 $1/2 coupon and got $2 in RR
-I bought 2 gain dish detergent that were in sale for $.89-I didn't have a coupon, but we needed it!
I bought 2 U by Kotex that were on sale for $1 and used 2 printable $1 coupons to make them free!

Shaws (grocery store)

-I bought 2 pkgs of croutons that were on sale for $1 and I used 2 $1 coupons making them free!
-I bought one bottle of hand soap for $1
-I bought a bottle of bubbles for the kids and a pkg on clearance of paddled with balls for the kids with no coupons!

Stop and Shop (grocery store-I had to go to 2 of them to get all of the deals)

-I bought chocolate milk and m&ms for Henry, as my friend says, the price of shopping with kids!
-I bought 2 small blocks of cheese that were on sale 2/$5 and used 2 $1 off coupons
-I bought 12 pkgs of razors! This is my favorite from today.....the store had them on sale by one get one free. I had 6 coupons for buy 1 get 1 free. So I got all 12 pkgs of razor FREE!!!!!

What a weekend!

There is so much to do here on the weekends, and it seems that we keep packing the weekends with activities! But it is great family time, so none of us mind! Friday night Keith and the boys went to the Newport Gulls baseball game with another family and their kids. It was t-shirt night, so the boys both got gulls shirts. Henry loved his, wore it the whole game and then slept in it! He loved the game. Tyler tolerated the game, but had fun with his Friends! The games are really inexpensive, so I think they will be going to quite a few games!

Saturday we decided to get up early and drive to Six Flag New England! What a drive to get there, 2.5 hours! But it was so worth it! We got there when the park opened, and the kids all had a blast! Even rode most of the kiddie rides and love them! Here are some of the picture we took!

                                              Merry Go Round

                                E's first roller coaster!

riding the monster trucks

conducting the train

T on the Sylvester ride

E and Keith in the ship ride

playing in the water

this is my favorite picture!

driving the tooncar

Twith bugs

Then on Sunday we went to the 4H fair! It was really small, but the kids enjoyed it. The had a bunny petting area that was a big hit! Even E loved holding them!

Working out, eating better, blah, blah, balh!

I have blogged before about loosing weight. A friend and I were chatting about it the other day and she said something that made me think, and I think she is right!! She said that not only should you write down your goals, but why you are wanting to achieve them and how you are going to go about achieving them! The more I thought about this the more it made sense to me! So here is my list of weight loss goals!
1-I want to get healthy. I want to be around for my kids and I want to show them how to eat healthy. I can't get them to eat things that I don't eat!
2-I want to get in shape. I don't want to be out of breath when we are running around in the yard!
3-I want to feel better about myself in my clothes! It sucks when your pants are too big in one area and too small in the other! I want to put on something and know I look and feel good in it!
4-I want to run a marathon! Ok, so maybe not a full one for a while, but start with a 5K and then a half marathon and then we'll see!

Now, how am I going to do this?! Well, we are members of the Y, so I need to make myself go more often!

1-I am going to work out at least 3 days a week.
2-I am going to eat a vegetable (other than corn!) at dinner every night.
3-I am going to walk to the library on Friday mornings. This is our library day and it is just under a mile there, so we are going to start walking there and back!
4-I am going to weigh in on Mondays!

So each week on Mondays I am going to blog about my week, how I did, what was good, what was not so good, and what to do for the next week!

Kite Festival

We set off to go on a morning hike yesterday. Then I remembered that the kite festival was going on, so we decided to check that our instead. It was ok! Not much there, and very little kites in the air. There was not a huge wind, so that was part of the problem. But we made the best of it and everyone had a great time! We looked at a few kites, the boys made kites at a craft table and we walked along the rocks at the beach. It was a good way to spend some time together outdoors. However, I would skit the kite festival if we were going to be here next year!!


                                            the boys liked this kite the best!

making kites

Tyler's kite

Henry's kite

E in the Mei Tai the Elizabeth made for us-she loves being on my back!

Tyler took this pic of us. I love how well it turned out!

couponing

I have been couponing for a long time. In CA I loved going to the commissary with my stack of coupons and see how much I could save. When the extreme couponing show started, of course I watched! Since then, I have changed the way I coupon and have learned so much. While I am no where near an extreme couponer, I have built a pretty good stockpile of things that don't expire. I don't and will never buy things that we won't use. To me that is just silly! But if I can get something for free or close to free, I am going to use all of the coupons I have! My favorite thing to stock up on is toothpaste! Since we moved to RI, it is a little different for me to coupon. We don't have a super walmart, just a regular one that is old! The Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS are really small and don't carry all of the items that are on sale weekly. There is no Kroger and no Target! So my deals are limited here unlike when we were in VA. If one store did not have something, I would just go to another. Here, not so much! But I am making it work and still getting some great deal. I follow a few blogs and Facebook pages of other couponers. They help me with the deal match ups. My favorite two are the Krazy Coupon Lady and Freetail Therapy. I have a coupon binder that I love! I used the printable page dividers from the Krazy Coupon Lady and it si so easy for me to organize them and to find them! It did take me forever to get it put together, but now that it is done, I am so happy that I did it this way. Here is what my coupon binder looks like:

Today I made the rounds, going to Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Walmart. While I was not able to get everything on my list, I did get most of what I wanted/needed. Here is what I got for $9.50:

-6 tubes of Colgate toothpaste=all were free with the sale price and the coupon
-1 box of Sally Hansen wax strips=paid only $.99
-Finesse Shampoo and Conditioner=B1G1 plus both of them had a try me label on them where I can get the total amount of the purchase which makes them free when I get the rebate!
-4 scotch magic tape=$.22 each with the coupon
-2 fly swatters=free with coupon
-4 cans of beans-I had no coupons for these, but we needed them and they were cheaper at walmart than the grocery store!

So my total for all of this was $9.50 for 19 items or $.50 each!! That is a 91% savings!! If I would have had the coupons, I would have paid over $47! I love the thrill of a good good buy!

Fireworks

We went to the base to watch the fireworks. There is a great place to sit on the grass at the water and see them over the bridge. The kids all got bathed and in their jammies (I am not sure why we did this, as they all got pretty dirty running around before they started!) The family next to us has a really sweet dog that loved the kids. She kept coming over and sitting with us. Of course the kids loved it! The fireworks were some of the best I have seen the finally went on for over 5 minutes straight and was amazing! Just like at the baseball game E fell asleep during the fireworks. The cutest thing was Keith told all of the kids that they have to keep their shoes on. E had hers in her hand and was sleeping holding them. When I took them out of her hand, she started screaming! All in all, it was a really great July 4th weekend!

                                      The is one of my favorite pictures of the kids together

The bridge at sunset

The dog joined us to watch the fireworks!

Watching the fireworks!

The Bristol Parade

The Bristol is the oldest parade in the country! We had to go check it out! It was only about 30 minutes down the road. We had been told by others and read that you needed to be there early to get a good seat. The parade started at 10:30 so we left at 7! There was virtually no traffic and it took no time at all to get there. We parked and found a great stop right on the street! Then we sat...for 2.5 hours!!! It was actually not that bad, there was a grassy area behind up that the boys played in with a few other kids and E went walking around the street saying hi to everyone and pointed out all of the dogs! The kids did pretty well, considering it was such a long wait for it to start. Once it started, Henry and Evelyn loved it. Tyler hated it! It was loud and he wanted to play in the field! Boy was it a long parade...3 hours! We were all ready to go by the time it ended!

                                The kids in their patriotic outfits!

                                  Watching the parade after it finally started!

                                            Evelyn loved this little car

                    
                                       Tyler with the firetruck when it stopped in front of us

The Pawsocks

The Boston Redsock's AAA team, the Pawsocks, play about an hour up the road. I was trying to come up with something inexpensive for us to do as a family, and the team was playing at home, so we decided to go! The tickets are really cheap, $5 for the kids and $7 for us, so for $24 all 5 of us went! We got general admission tickets, so the seats were first come first serve. We wanted to be as close as we could, so we were there when the gates opened...2 hours before the game started! The plus side...we got great seats...the down side...we had a LONG time to wait!! Once the game stated, the kids all loved it! E got a little ancey about the 5th inning, so she and I went walking around the stadium. Henry especially loved it, he first said he wanted to play on the team too and then at the end he wanted to know when his TBall games were! Tyler enjoyed it as much as he could, considering he dislikes sports greatly!!! The Pawsocks won the game! YEAH! And after the game, they had a really great fireworks show. E stayed awake through the entire game, but when the lights went out for the fireworks, she fell asleep immediately. The fireworks did not even wake her up!! We will definitely be going to some more of these games!

                            Henry's favorite thing was before the game when the drew the white lines!

                        waiting for the game to start

                             watching the fireworks

                                           E fell asleep!

                                                             Fireworks

Children's Museum

I know I blogged about the children's museum in the last post, but here are some pictures from the night. The water zone was the favorite of all three of them! I would have more pictures, however, the camera battery died while we were there!

Crane operator Tyler
Construction worker Henry

All three kids at the water zone in their wet smocks!

E playing in the water with a ball

E walking in her water smock, she was so cute!

Henry playing in one of the water tubs

Tyler opening and closing the doors to let the water flood the bottom

What a great evening

While the kids were watching TV yesterday, we saw an commercial for the RI Children's museum. The boys were so excited and asked if we could go. I said I would find out about it and they day went on. While looking at the website, I found that certain Friday's a month were free from 5-8. Just so happens that last night was one of those nights, so we decided to go check it out. It is smaller than the ones we are used to, but everything they had was new to us and things we have not seem before, so that was great! The favorite thing among all three of them was the water room. We spent a lot of time in there. We did both floors twice we were having so much fun!

When we were done we were all hungry and it was at least 45 minutes till we got back home and it was already 6:30, so we tried to find a place to eat. Not too far from the museum is a HUGE mall that has lots of restaurants. We chose Cheesecake Factory, and prayed that all three would behave. The last time we took any kid there, Tyler was about 12 months and threw a plate across the room and it shattered! The wait was about 30 minutes, so Keith took the kids across the street to a park and the capitol building. They had a blast climbing the marble steps of the capital and it really made the time go fast for them. We talked to the boys a lot about using soft voices and behaving in the restaurant. To our surprise, all three were as perfect as we could have hoped! Even Evelyn was not her usual squaky self! She just sat in her high chair and pointed to what she wanted! Tyler had grilled cheese, Henry had cheese pizza and Evelyn had grilled chicken and veggies. They each ate half of their meals, as did I, so we all have lunch today too! When we were leaving, we were telling the kids how proud of them we were and Tyler told us that he loved that place to much that he wants to go there for his Birthday Dinner!

We had to walk through the mall to get back to our car, and since we were so happy with their behavior, we got them ice cream cones in the food court. It was really late by then, 8:30, so I ran into children's place and got all three of them new jammies. We changed their clothes before we left and all three were sound asleep by the time we got to the intrastate! I am so proud of them and their good behavior. It was definitely one of the best nights we have had in a really long time!