Recipe
Save A Lot: Deals for the week of February 23 – March 1, 2011
The deals from last week are continuing again this week, if you didn’t stock up on these great deals already you have another opportunity. Here are this weeks deals at Save A Lot. Sign up for the Smart Shopper Club, by doing so you will get a $5.00 off of $25.00 coupon!
Meats and Seafood
Hillshire Farms (Beef, Polska, Smoked Sausage) – $1.99
Use $1/2 coupon from 1/23 Red Plum (Expires 2/28/11)
$1.49 each after couponFast Fixin’ Chicken – $4.00
Pick 5 for $19.99 promo on going: Pick any 5 specially marked packages of your favorite cuts of fresh, frozen or smoked meats and pay just $19.99 (about $2 per pound).
Fridge and Freezer
Mr P’s Pizza (Supreme or Pepproni) – $0.59
Fisher Boy Fish Sticks – $0.99
Use $0.75/1 printable coupon from Fisher Boy
$0.24 each after couponOcean Market Fish Fillets – $0.99
Morning Delight Buttermilk Biscuits – $0.39
Home Churned Spread – $0.99
Fairgrounds Sliced Meat – $0.50
Armour Lunchmakers – $0.99
McClary’s Singles – $0.99
Deli Pride Sandwich – $0.99
Household
Luster Facial Tissues – $0.99
Ajax Liquid Dish Soap – $0.99
Pert Bath Tissue – $0.89
Produce
Red and Green Grapes – $0.99 per lb
Cantaloupe – $1.49 each
Vine Ripe Tomatoes – $0.99 per lb
Grocery
Frito Lay (Doritos, Cheetos, & Scoops) – $0.89
Maruchan Ramen Cups – $0.79
Red Gold Tomato Sauce – $0.50
Hungry Jack Specialty Potatoes – $1.00
Betty Crocker Hamburger or Tuna Helper – $1.00
Del Pino’s Canned Pasta – $0.69
Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix – $0.39
Portside Chunk Light Tuna – $0.53
Hargis House Vienna Sausage – $0.37
Hargis House Chili with Beans – $0.99
Hargis House Chili without Beans – $1.29
Sundia Fruit Cups – $0.89
Caskey’s Cream of Mushroom Soup – $0.59
J. Higg’s Classic Saltine Crackers – $0.89
J. Higg’s Cheese Bit Crackers – $1.49
Coburn Farms Hot Chocolate – $1.19
Portmann’s Tartar Sauce – $1.39
Kool-Aid Bursts – $0.99
Vista Sandwich Creme Cookies – $0.99
Chef Karlin Potato Pouches – $0.79
Ravella Swift Mac – $0.69
Remember you can use the $5/$25 printable coupon to sweeten these deals! Plus you can earn up to 5 additional $5 off $25 coupons for sharing the coupon with your friends.
For more information about Save A Lot’s coupon policies go here. If you find additional deals or savings please let me know and I will add them to the list.
Recipe: Friendship Bread
A friend, Jan Thornton, gave me my first Friendship Bread at my bridal shower and it was delicious. I have always wondered about the starter for that recipe then a couple years ago Jake’s cousin Mandy gave me another starter recipe. Here’s the starter recipes as well as the steps you need to follow to make the Friendship Bread:- 1 (.25 ounce) package Active Dry Yeast
- 1/4 cup warm Water (approximately 110 degrees)
- 1 cup All-Purpose Flour
- 1 cup granulated white Sugar
- 1 cup Milk
Dissolve yeast in water and let stand for 10 minutes. In a non-metal bowl combine flour and sugar. Mix thoroughly. Slowly stir in the milk and dissolved yeast mixture. Cover the bowl loosely and let stand until batter is bubbly. Do not refrigerate batter.
- Consider this Day 1 of the 10 day cycle. Leave loosely covered at room temperature or store in a ziplock bag.
- Day 2 – Squeeze Bag
- Day 3 – Squeeze Bag
- Day 4 – Squeeze Bag
- Day 5 – Squeeze Bag
- Day 6 – Add 1 cup of Sugar, 1 cup of Flour, and 1 cup of Milk and Mix in a Non-Metal Bowl
- Day 7 – Squeeze Bag
- Day 8 – Squeeze Bag
- Day 9 – Squeeze Bag
- Day 10 – Add 1 cup of Sugar, 1 cup of Flour, and 1 cup of Milk and Mix in a Non-Metal Bowl
Scoop out 4 (1 cup) portions for of the starter mixture and put each cup in a separate ziplock bag. Give 3 of the bags to friend and keep one for your family. With the left over starter mixture add the following ingredients:
- 1 cup Oil
- 1/2 cup Milk
- 3 Eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
Mix together thoroughly then add the remaining ingredients to the mixture:
- 2 cups Flour
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 2 teaspoons Cinnamon
- 1 large box of Vanilla Instant Pudding
- Optional Items to Add – 1 cup nuts, Chocolate Chips, Coconut, Raisins and more!
Mix the dough thoroughly then divide into two greased loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.
Once you have made the starter (the 1 cup you kept for your family) you can consider it Day 1 and proceed to Day 2 the next day. One of the problems I encountered the last time I did this recipe is that before long you have more Friendship Bread then you can give away. If you are getting too much and want a break from doing Friendship Bread for a couple weeks you can freeze the starter batch measured out into 1 cups for later use. The frozen starter bread will take at least 3 hours at room temperature to thaw before using. This gives you the ability to always have it to restart but also an opportunity take a break for a little bit too! Just remember to pull it out and start the process since it takes several days if you are planning on using it on a specific day! You’ve hear the saying that “Good things come to those who wait…..” this friendship bread is so delicious it is always worth the wait!
Photo by Binder of Daemons
Celebrating Valentine’s Day!
We love Holidays at our house! It is a wonderful time to celebrate with those you love and making more wonderful memories together! We started our weekend of fun on Friday. Jake and I had the opportunity, through swapping babysitting with friends, to go out for our Valentine’s celebration on Friday, February 11th. I will be sharing a little more about our adventure throughout the week. It was amazing time with my man and many great new memories were made. On Sunday we made blueberry heart pancakes with strawberry sauce and had the left overs this morning for breakfast!
Making pancakes with the family! Batter’s ready on for the pancakes, love turning everyday food into a fun celebration for special occasions! If you are excited the whole family will have a blast too!
Brina got a cup full of frozen blueberries all by herself to add to the pancake batter, so exciting! Brina helped get the blueberries out for the batter. She got them out of the freezer, measured the blueberries, and mixed them into the batter before cooking the pancakes. Even better is we talked about the memories behind the blueberries we were using. We picked the blueberries fresh from a friends yard during a fun evening together. Thankful for friends, fellowship, memories, and the opportunity to enjoy such amazing fruit during the winter season.
Frozen blueberries now in the pancake batter! The blueberries are so delicious! The girls always love it when we add them to their pancakes and I like that they are getting extra fruit!
Baking the blueberry pancakes on the griddle! We purchased the heart shaped pancake form at Dollar Tree several years ago and still use them regularly (it came with a star and bear shape as well). The girls enjoy getting super special shaped blueberry pancakes.
The heart shaped blueberry pancakes are ready! The pancakes were delicious with the big juicy blueberries in the shape of a heart!
Flash frozen whole strawberries! We pulled our flash frozen whole strawberries out. The girls and I had a great time picking them at a local farm and froze the ones we didn’t eat right away. One of our favorite ways to eat pancakes is with frozen pureed strawberries instead of syrup, healthier and delicious!
Pureed strawberry sauce for the pancakes! Once the strawberries had thawed for awhile I pureed the strawberries to use as sauce to dip the pancakes into. The family loves it and tastes amazing. We typically just puree the strawberries, if you want it a little sweeter you can add a little bit of sugar or honey.
Fresh strawberry sauce for dipping the pancakes into! Everyone got their own strawberry dipping sauce dish for their blueberry pancakes. Yummy!
Ready to eat our pancakes with sprinkles and strawberry sauce! The fresh blueberry pancakes are ready to eat. For an extra bonus we have hugs and kisses sprinkles as well as strawberry sauce for dipping! Delicious! What a fun way to start off the Valentine’s Day celebrations as a family!
Family Recipe: All American Corn Bread
The All American Corn Bread is my Mother-in-Law’s recipe. She has a lot of delicious recipes that we have enjoyed. The first four birthday cakes for the girls were made by Jake’s Mom. She would take the theme for that year and come up with something creative yet different for each of the girls.If you’re looking for a wonderful corn bread recipe you should check out this recipe. It is a great compliment to a pot of chili, soup, or any home cooked meal.
All American Corn Bread
- 2 cups Biscuit Mix
- 1 cup Half-n-Half
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 3/4 cup Sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup Yellow Cornmeal
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 2 Eggs, slightly beaten
Scald cream with butter, add to thoroughly mixed dry ingredients. Mix in eggs. Pour into greased and floured 13 x 9 x 2 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Allow to stand for several minutes before cutting. Serves 12
Photo by Tristanf
Rice Krispy Super Bowl Footballs
In celebration of the Super Bowl event tomorrow our family has put together Football Rice Krispy treats to share with our family and friends.
Football Rice Krispy Treats with Chocolate Frosting! We used an oval football cookie cutter to make footballs in celebration of the Super Bowl weekend. The chocolate frosting turned out pretty well. The girls had fun helping us decorate and eating the extra rice krispy corners that were not made into footballs.
Rainbow Football Rice Krispy Treats for the Super Bowl! The girls loved the rainbow colored footballs in celebration of the Super Bowl weekend. I recommend staying away from the yellow frosting because it doesn’t show up as well.
Are you doing any special recipes for the Super Bowl festivities?
Be My Valentine: Cookie Surprise!
Window Pane Heart Cookies made with love by the girls and their friends! We made these fun window pane Valentine Cookie Surprises this week. The girls had a blast cutting out the cookie shapes and adding the hard candy to make window panes! They taste pretty yummy too with the variety of flavors and textures. The cookie dough is your basic sugar cookie mix. We added the hard candies in the middle to make the cookies extra special. It was a wonderful baking adventure with our girls and their friends who were spending time over at our house. After having 5 young girls cooking in the kitchen it was a mess but they were so proud of their creations and goodies that it was worth the extra clean up time!
Sugar Cookies
- 1/3 cup Butter or Margarine
- 1/3 cup Shortening
- 3/4 cup Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1 Egg
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- 2 cups All Purpose Flour
- 20 to 40 Hard Candies (We used a variety of Lifesavers, Root Beer Float Hard Candies & Candy Canes*)
1. Beat butter and shortening on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, and a dash of salt. Beat till combined, scraping the bowl so everything is well blended. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually add the flour into the mixture.
2. Cover and chill dough for 1 to 3 hours to make it easier to handle when making cookies or cutouts.
3. Lay down wax paper and lightly flour. Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Use a variety of cookie cutters to make the shapes you want. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet.
4. Cut out a heart shape in the middle of the cookies. Fill the hole with a crushed hard candy. The candy will melt during baking creating the glass window pane hearts in the middle of the cookies. *We tried using up extra candy canes but they didn’t melt well (they tasted good) but I would stick to the one color hard candies like life savers!
5. Bake at 375° for 7 to 9 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are firm and light brown. Cool until the middle window are set then transfer to a platter.
Surprise Valentine's Cookie - this one had three different flavors! Life Simplified: No Grocery Shopping (Meals)
A couple questions we have been asked several times over the last month regarding my No Grocery Shopping challenge are – What have we been eating? Do we have any recipes? I am thrilled that we were able extend this challenge into February! The quick answer is the meals have been “simple”. Thankfully my family does not have any food allergies so we can be a little more flexible on what we eat.Here are a few ways we made our pantry stretch:
- Always Eat Leftovers
- Keep it Simple
- Make Meals with Few Ingredients
- Cook 1 Main Meal a Day
- Cut back on Snacks
- Make Meatless Meals
On typical day we eat toast, cereal, eggs, oatmeal or something we have on hand for breakfast. The girls have lunch at school so they are covered for that meal. Jake and I eat left overs for lunch (the left overs are usually from dinner the night before). For dinner I fix a simple, few ingredients main dish to feed our family of four then add fruits, veggies and other sides to compliment the main dish.
The first place I noticed a dip in the pantry was with the snacks. When the kids get home form school they are HUNGRY (they eat their school lunch at 10:30 AM) and are always ready for a snack. If it has been a busy day for me a lot of times they will grab an item from our “snack basket” on the kitchen counter which contains items such as granola bars, pretzels, crackers, etc…. We have noticed a dip in our dairy products too. The girls will often have a cheese stick or yogurt for a snack after school so those have been being utilized. Another snack they enjoy after school is a half of peanut butter & jelly sandwich or peanut butter with honey and veggies which gives them an extra boost of protein.
One of the neat parts about doing this challenge is I have started noticing trends in our family. I have seen what we eat more of as well as the items that get left behind more frequently. It is important to me that we all continue to get healthy meals and snacks, however, I want to eliminate wastefulness.
Along with the main meals we have a fruit and vegetable. We still have chicken and beef weekly as well as fish every couple of weeks. I will be adding the recipes for these items in the next day or two. It is our plan to continue this challenge yet another week!
I will continue to share with you the challenges, successes and what I have purchased so you can keep me accountable or even go through the journey with me by participating and sharing your story. I am thrilled that we can extend this goal and continue to use up the items we already have in our home!
Life Simplified is a series on getting rid of the extras in our life while learning how to enjoy what God has given us so we can continue to be a blessing to others. Our homes can quickly start are bursting with “stuff” and if you are like us we just have too much. I am doing a series on ways we are learning to simplifying our food, homes, and lives. When our hearts, lives, and homes get too cluttered we may start missing out on opportunities to serve and bless the people around us.
Family Recipe: Bean Dip for Chips
My Aunt Michelle St. Clair brought this amazing Bean Dip to my bridal shower. We still make it on occasion when we have guests over. It has a great mix of flavors and usually by the end of the night the dish is empty. The dip tastes best with any type of Corn Chip. It can be used for a party or an appetizer to before a Mexican meal.Bean Dip for Chips
- 2 cans Refried Beans
- 1/4 cup Onion (optional)
- 16 oz Sour Cream
- 1 bottle of Oretoga Taco Sauce
- 1 package finely Grated Cheese (Cheddar)
In a 9 x 13 pan layer the above, refried beans, then onion, then sour cream, the sauce, then cheese on top. Refrigerate for at least two hours before serving with chips. Optional – you can add chopped peppers for additional color and flavor.
Family Recipe: Karen’s Fresh Fruit Dip
If you need a super quick recipe to throw together right before the guests arrive you should try my great Aunt Karen Younger’s Fresh Fruit Dip. It is easy and a hit with everyone. The fruit looks amazing next to the white dip!Karen’s Fresh Fruit Dip
- 1 (8 oz) package Cream Cheese (soften)
- 1 (7 oz) jar Marshmallow Creme
Mix together equal parts of soft cream cheese and marshmallow creme. Stire well together, cut up fresh fruit and dip. Works really well with tart fruit.
My great Aunt Karen added a note on the bottom of recipe – “No double dippers, (smile). Enjoy!”
Love that this recipe is quick, easy and delicious!
Life Simplified: Meal Delivery
Dessert tray we delivered to a family! Every new year we set goals, challenge ourselves to reach new heights and to focus on what’s really important in life. In 2011 I have made it a goal to simplify my life more by enjoying the blessings and not wasting what God has given me. I will be sharing with you the successes and challenges on those specific areas in my life as I go through them. I have already shared with you my 1st Life Simplified Goal of No Grocery Shopping for the month of January. One of the most rewarding blessings in life is sharing what you have with others. My second Life Simplified Goal goes along with that piece.
My 2nd Life Simplified Goal:
- Deliver 1 Meal a Month to a family outside of our household
Explanation of the Goal: In 2010 I signed up to deliver meals to new Moms after they came home from the hospital, people who had surgery and various other volunteer opportunities. There were a couple months I didn’t do any meals and other months I had several extra meals to prepare. For example, in December I had 4 extra meals to prepare and deliver outside of our home before the week of Christmas, some of them being over an hour away, plus we had a Christmas Eve party at our house and guests staying with us for a week. While I enjoy the blessing of helping others I need to work on saying “No” once I have met my limit. After much prayer and talking with my husband we have decided it would be best for our family if I would stick to 1 meal delivery a month. Once I have delivered a meal in a month I will have to say no to any additional inquiries. There are so many people out there that need help, however, I have to decide what is best for our family too. I want the girls to continue participating in these amazing acts of service and having a limit will give us the freedom to continue to do it without putting our family in a spot we are over our budget. I think with all the people in our church and community that if everyone did just one meal a month for someone needing a meal there would even be extra to go around.
I will continue to deliver meals for people once a month. Below are the opportunities that I am currently and will continue to be involved in:
- Moms with Newborn Babies
- People coming home from Surgery
- Death in the Family
- Other Volunteer Needs for Meal Delivery
I have a hard time saying “no” to someone in need but in order for me to have the opportunity to continue ministering to others in this way I need to stick to the goal as well as respect my husband in his decision to help me with this area I love to volunteer. I will share with you the challenges, successes along the way so you can keep me accountable or you can even go through the journey with me by participating and sharing your story.
Life Simplified is a series on getting rid of the extras in our life while learning how to enjoy what God has given us so we can continue to be a blessing to others. Our homes can quickly start are bursting with “stuff” and if you are like us we just have too much. I am doing a series on ways we are learning to simplifying our food, homes, and lives. When our hearts, lives, and homes get too cluttered we may start missing out on opportunities to serve and bless the people around us.
