Homemade Graham Crackers--I Already Love These!

Photography from MarthaStewart.com

I found the recipe on Martha Stewart's website. I didn't change the ingredients, but I took shortcuts where I could on the instructions. We haven't tried them yet, but there are some in the oven right now!

Deliciously Irish

I put my Irish heritage to work last night and served cabbage stew for dinner. This is what it had in it:

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1/4 head cabbage, chopped

2 potatoes, chopped

1/2 cup ham, chopped

seasoning salt

paprika

Sautee onions in a couple tablespoons butter. Add cabbage and cover with water. Cover and simmer 10 minutes. Add potatoes and more water if needed, season with seasoning salt and paprika, cover and simmer 15 minutes. Stir in ham and cook until potatoes are done.

We served ours over mashed potatoes, which turned out well for two reasons: the stew was a little salty, so it helped tone it down a bit, and it made it go around a bit more--we were hungry! Even our two-year-old gobbled it up.

Cost of dinner: about 5o cents.

Sunday Dinner

No pictures today, but our dinner was scrumptious so I had to share. It was probably the most expensive meal of the week, but it still didn't exceed $5.00 for the whole family. The menu?

Barbecue Beef Sandwiches-made with a roast I got on sale last week and homemade hamburger buns I pulled out of the freezer.

Sweet Cole Slaw-made with your basic slaw ingredients, but I grated my own cabbage and carrot for a fraction of an already cheap cost. Since these veggies are in season, this was super cheap!

Homemade Baked Beans-made with excess sauce I spooned out of the crock pot from the beef and some already-cooked-beans I had in the freezer.

Freshly Squeezed Lemonade-made from lemons picked out of my in-laws' backyard! You can't beat free.

To top it off, there was enough leftover beef to store for TWO future meals! Of course I'll need sides to accompany those meals again, but it's so wonderful to get three dinners for the work put in to one!

Dessert from Pantry Staples

Most people get a hankering for dessert every now and then. Since our dinner last night was...less than impressive...our stomachs were calling for reinforcements only a couple hours later. So I peeked into the pantry to see what we had, and this is what I saw:

Doesn't that just speak, "No-bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Drops" to you? (No-bake Cookies, Mountain Bars, whatever you call them) I used my mother-in-law's recipe because it's my husband's favorite for this reason: they set up at room temperature and he can eat them sooner! I always make one alteration: an additional cup of oats.

1/2 cup milk

2 T cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

2 T butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup peanut butter

3 cups quick-cooking oatmeal

Combine sugar, cocoa, milk and butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to boil, boil 1 minute, then remove from heat. Off heat, add peanut butter, vanilla and salt. Stir until well blended. Mix in oats one cup at a time. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto wax paper. Let cool.

Eggs-ellent Creations: Hash Brown Quiche

Still working from what we had on hand this week, I cooked up a pretty simple dinner the other night that ended up being pretty tasty. No real recipe here, because you can use whatever sounds like a yummy combination, or what's available in the kitchen. I started by grating potatoes and adding them with a little butter into the bottom of a pie plate. I baked it at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes to allow the hash browns to crisp a little, then took it out and dumped in my fillings: cheese, ham and onions.

Then I beat a few eggs with salt and pepper and poured it over the top, returned it to the oven and baked at 350 for about a half an hour. We ate ours with homemade biscuits, since this dish by itself wasn't enough to be filling!

Gourmet Leftovers

My sister wrote me a letter recently, in which she described the difference between having goals and having plans. I have lots of goals for thrifty living, but I have yet to develop a real plan (thus the reason for this blog). So in the meantime, we're eating leftovers: both the typical, "we ate this for dinner last night" kind and the "I didn't use all of this last month, so I have some left this month" kind.

Anyway, that's what I've been cooking with this week.

Last night it took the form of sweet and sour beef stir-fry, with the best sauce I've ever made--really! I didn't measure, unfortunately, but here are my approximations:

1/2 lb ground beef, browned

2 T olive oil

2 carrots, chopped

1/2 large onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1/4 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1/4-1/2 cup pineapple juice

1 can condensed tomato soup

2 T brown sugar

1 tsp garlic

1/2 tsp ginger

My beef was already browned and in the freezer, but you could brown yours and then use the drippings rather than olive oil...not sure what that would do to the flavor, though.

Saute vegetables in oil. Stir in beef. Add juice, soup, brown sugar, garlic and ginger; simmer until thickened. Serve over rice.

*I served ours over the leftover rice from the night before, which was seasoned with French Onion soup mix.

New Beginnings

I've been "on the quest" to be a frugal spender for the past few years. I admit, I do have a frivolous itch in me that surfaces occasionally. One purpose of this blog is to have a little more accountability for where I send my precious pennies!

Basic goals of the month:

-save $100 overall for my family fun fund

-spend no more than $70/week

-organize my pantry list, shopping list and menu

Tonight our dinner was French Onion Chicken and Rice, which I pulled straight out of the freezer and popped in the oven while we went for a walk as a family. We microwaved some frozen peas when we got home to add a vegetable.

Approximate cost of dinner for 3: $2.30