Recipes

Tuesday Bites: Toast + Food Coloring = Monster Toast & Fun!

Mar 5 2013 by CC 2 Comments

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The kids were in for a treat this weekend, as I introduced a new playful activity known as Monster Toast! It’s cheap and super fun. All you need is milk, food coloring, white bread, and paint brushes!

1. Pour some milk into little containers and add food coloring.
2. Take your paint brushes and start painting a face on the toast
3. Cook the toast in your toaster.
4. Voila scary, yummy Monster Toast!

Check out our other Tuesday Bites recipes!

Filed Under: Pro Tips, Recipes, Tuesday Bites

Tuesday Bites: My Obsession with Old Bananas & a Yummy Banana Bread Recipe

Feb 26 2013 by CC Leave a Comment

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Little known fact: I have an obsession with buying reduced bananas at the grocery store. I swear I come home more often with browning bananas than I do with ripe ones. My family thinks I’m nuts! BUT, I buy them because they are cheap and I know that I get to make this wonderful banana bread with it. My kids sure as heck aren’t complaining when they are slathering butter on the slices and shoveling them into their mouths

Ingredients:

Part 1: Dry Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soad
1/4 tsp salt

Part 2: Wet Ingredients:
1 1/4 stick of softened butter
3/4 brown sugar
2 beaten eggs
2 1/3 cups smashed bananas

Instructions:
1. Heat oven to 375.
2. Mix together dry ingredients in medium sized bowl.
3. Then cream brown sugar and butter in a separate bowl.
4. Once mixed, add beaten eggs and smashed bananas. Use a mixer to mix these ingredients. Once properly creamed.
5. Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and beat until completely mixed.

Pour batter into lightly greased bread pans and let cook for 50 minutes.

Filed Under: Pro Tips, Recipes, Tuesday Bites

Tuesday Bites – Even More Freezer Meals with Beef Tips

Feb 5 2013 by CC Leave a Comment

If you missed my last installment of Tuesday Bites, it was all about Freezer Meals for Beginners! I’m gonna warn you, ever since my first journey into freezer meals, I’ve become a little obsessed with them and found myself, again this Sunday afternoon, preparing even more freezer meals!

Beef Tips were on sale at my grocery store for $4.88, which is the lowest I’d ever seen them, so I picked up a few packages and made the following meals:

Beef Panang (2)

Chicken & Salsa (2) (2lb chicken breasts & 1 jar salsa…super easy!)

Chicken Fried Rice (2)

Tomato Rice Soup (2) - Didn’t plan on this, but I had some left over rice from the chicken fried rice!

Beef Tip Stir Fry (2) (Used FREE packet of Kikkoman Stir Fry Sauce, w/ chopped peppers, onions & carrots)

Beef Tips for grilling (1)

I then used all the potatoes I’ve been getting as part of the Meat deal at Shaws and turned them into yummy Twiced Baked Potatoes. Wrapped them in foil and then put them in a freezer bag!

Twice Baked Potatoes (20)

Filed Under: Pro Tips, Recipes, Tuesday Bites

$1.00 off Bar-s Sausage Coupon + Warm Cheddar & Beer Dipping Sauce Recipe!

Feb 1 2013 by CC Leave a Comment

Woohoo! Let’s all get ready for SuperBowl Sunday with this $1.00 off Bar-S Sausage coupon…I know the sausage lovers in your family will be psyched with this one!

Click here to print a $1.00 off any Bar-S Sausage (2.5lb+) coupon! Then use it to make this delicious Warm Cheddar & Beer Dipping Sauce Recipe:

Warm Cheddar & Beer Dipping Sauce

1 bottle/can beer

1.5 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese

2 Tbs. all-purpose flour

8 oz. cream cheese

1⁄2 cup favorite salsa

2.5lb package Bar-S Smoked Sausage

Heat the beer in a medium saucepan until simmering. Toss the cheddar cheese with flour until coated. Add both cheeses to the beer and whisk until combined. Turn off heat and stir in 1⁄2 cup of your favorite salsa. Make the dip as spicy as you can tolerate. Serve warm with cooked and sliced Bar-S Smoked Sausage.

Filed Under: Coupons, Recipes

Freezer Meals 101 – My First Attempt at Freezer Meals + Recipes!

Jan 29 2013 by CC Leave a Comment

Don’t forget to “pin” this blog post on Pinterest for future reference!

It’s one thing to save a bunch of money on groceries, but it’s a completely other thing to know what to make with all the food you are buying? As I’ve said multiple times on this blog…I’m not a very good cook Every night is like an episode of Chopped at my house: Pasta, Mustard, day old bread & a can of tomatoes…GO!

I’ve been secretly coveting all the freezer meal recipes I see on Pinterest and finally, over the weekend, decided to give it a try. My grocery store was having a $1.99/lb chicken breast sale (which is the lowest it ever comes) + as a bonus I got a FREE bag of potatoes or carrots with each 3lb package of chicken I bought. Score!

In under an hour and a half and for just around $50 total, my husband and I were able to prepare 15 meals, including 2 lasagnas.

Freezer Meal Must Haves:

Quart sized Freezer Bags (Luckily I scored last year on holiday zippies!)

Multiple Cutting Boards - I own something like these which I absolutely love because I’m a stickler for contamination. Having multiple cutting boards allows you to cut chicken, veggies & beef separately and simultaneously if you are working in pairs!

Large working area – While my kitchen is not huge, I do have an island that served it’s purpose nicely as I was able to lay out all the ingredients and chop, mix and bag on the island.

Pete & I each tackled a recipe and made multiples of each recipe.

Here are the recipes I used:

Applesauce bbq chicken
Maple dijon chicken thighs <—made these with beef tips instead
Beef/chicken fajitas
Balsamic glazed drumsticks
Orange chicken
Honey garlic chicken

Some of the recipes were not created for freezer meals per se, however, I added the ingredients into a quart size freezer bag and then will cook on low for 6 hours.

I also bought a couple of Reynolds Slow Cook Liners because…I hate cleaning my crockpot…nuff said

Buy (1) Reynolds Slow Cooker Liners $1.87
Use (1) $.55/1 Reynolds Slow cooker liner coupon
Final Price = $1.32

I would love to hear from all of you who have been doing freezer meals for a while, favorite recipes, tips, etc. Please leave a comment on this blog post!

Don’t forget to “pin” this blog post on Pinterest for future reference!

Filed Under: Recipes, Tuesday Bites

Game Day Recipes – 30 Best Munchies for Your Crowd – FREE Recipe Download!

Jan 23 2013 by CC Leave a Comment

Are you having a superbowl party? If so, you may want to take a look at this FREE Best Game Day Favorites Recipe download containing 30 crowdpleasing recipes!

P.S. the Beer Soaked Buffalo Wings on page 15 sound amazing!

Filed Under: Freebies, Recipes

Tuesday Bites: Heart Shaped Red Velvet Whoopie Pies Recipe

Jan 22 2013 by CC Leave a Comment

Feel free to share this recipe on Pinterest

As soon as I saw these on Pinterest, I KNEW I had to make them! So I scooped up my $.50/1 Duncan Hines coupon and took it over to Walmart where I first picked up the Red Velvet mix for only $.88 cents. I then dug the Betty Crocker Cream Cheese Frosting out of my stockpile!

1. Mix cake batter as directed on box

2. Put in fridge for few minutes to thicken

3. While mix is in fridge, trace or draw hearts on parchment paper. For the first batch, I drew wider hearts and for the second batch I drew longer hearts. Turns out the wider hearts were better looking!