Christmas..no not billions of dollars in toys, or other gifts..steak dinner, turkey with all the trimmings, fudge, lots of fudge, for all on the gift list. baking, and more baking....

This baking stuff aint free! but it is so worth it, this month nothing is getting paid extra, no debt accruing, but also no special jumps down..I wish I was debt free, but regardless I would still spend about the same on Christmas, debt or no debt I want my splurge of a dinner...and yeah we JUST went to the store, and went again tonight...twice in one week! what are we thinking! we are thinking steak needs to be bought (and the next couple days arn't such good days for us).

You know we might even have to go again while the brother and company is in town...he is worth it, his kids are worth it, I am not going to try and cook dinner for my normal budget for him, I am going to try and make it edible though (and the lousy food here has nothing to do with cost, I am just a bad cook in general..though I can cook the steak, bake a potato, and nuke some veggies just fine! heh and oddly enough I cook a terrific turkey dinner!)

Anyway....family, friends..christmas..these are worth wasting some cash on..just not going into debt for.

Sorry I can't help myself

more mollasses cookies for tonight, plus some rolls.

The rolls are a bit 'sourdoughy' but still good, least the kids are demanding more of them....

Later today I need to make some fudge for my husband to take to work.

Yesterday we made fudge for my son to take to music class and he actually got to do a lot of the work. I like this recipie, rave reviews and easy enough for a kid to make.

Yesterday we recieved two gift cards with cash..our steak dinner is once again bought by our wonderful Uncle ..best present all year!

Course it is also the first

So I am not a good cook, I am a good baker, in general..I have my moments but in general food is 'soso' and baked stuff is 'awesome'.

Last night was another 'so-so', a little more on the not so good side of so-so, than on the not so bad side.

Today leftovers for lunch was met with less than normal enthusiasm......I decided to fill my kids in on a secret..I am not a good cook, they should just eat it, and hope tonight is better!

Really I would love to have perfect meals each and every night with ust the right spices, but it isn't my talent, and letting the convenience foods do it for me, isn't actually much better flavorwise. Until I can afford a chef to cook dinner each night, we are just going to have to deal with what I cook.

so ust eat it, and be greatful you have food...oh and pass the pepper!

So I woke up cold and decided the best cure was to bae, that and I have a list a mile long of things I aught to be baking.

I got butter out to soften for pumpkin bread (sweet not to good for you, but oh so good) Then I decided I wanted the oven on now, os I made oil oatmeal muffins (healthy, but good) since hte butter still wasn't soft enough I made buiscuts....and then whole wheat bread....then I finally was ready for th epumpkin bread I started with..and I only got out half the butter I needed! URGH

A simple case of lack of planning.....or lack of looking, I used my memory to know how much to get out..when will I learn I have no memory!

I had to tunr the oven off while the bread finished rising, and now in a few minutes the butter will finanly ALL be soft to make the pumpkin..but the oven is in use, baking the bread! sigh.

Ok so how with 'only' three kids do I have 9 teachers!

4 for my youngest, two are 'nursery helpers' during church, and two are Sunday school teachers.

2 for each of the older two kids, team teaching is the norm.

and 1 for my Husband and I..we are never allowed to go to seperate classes, I had enough work to do as it was!

Though I like to bake so it isn't as bad as all that, trouble is I was thinking I had more time..but today was the last Sunday school before Christmas..Next week is the Childrens pagent (GMC will be in it!) and the week after is the sppecial combined service.

Now I just need to go make the rest of the cookies to go share tonight for the caroling....My cooking was specifically requested!

While I do feel pressured to cook now, I also feel..special, they like it!...one guy refused to eat breakfast because he knew I would have muffins..good thing I stayed up last night to make em!

And the kids in the nursery see my 'yogurt' containers and immediatly head for the table to chow down! Fortunatly I generally go with low sugar part whole wheat fruit muffins. Otherwise with the number eaten some would be wired on a sugar high.

(for the real chefs, real recipe. … or as real as I ever get is at the very bottom...really waaaaay down, honest)

Cornmeal crusted chicken

Step one: Read recipe from fancy swanky magazine for people with too much time on their hands.

Step two: decide there is no way I have time for 3 separate containers, one with egg, one with just flour and one with flour and cornmeal. Though pouring the flour cornmeal and egg sounds a bit messy, not workable, so one for flour/cornmeal, one for err...you know I am out of eggs again , so milk it is.

Step 3: Look for spices... contemplate using the ones listed in the recipe for about 4.6 seconds ... Then grab lemon herb, onion powder, and pepper instead.... reminisce about the pre kid days when I breaded lemon herb chicken and deep fried it....

step 4: Preheat oven to 425… Score one point for remembering to check for foreign objects in oven.

Step 5: Open pack of chicken one handed because UE is firmly ensconced in his place of honor on the other arm. Briefly consider the physics of cutting the chicken into strips (one handed) like I used to (and like this recipe says to do) Decide a trip to the emergency room would really delay dinner, and bread them as is.

Step 6: Remember that a meal consists of more than just chicken, decide pasta is relatively quick and take a break from chicken to put a pot of water on to boil.

Step 7: Bread chicken, while keeping a squirmy one year old from trying to help, but is unable to stay on the floor by himself. Place chicken in pan lined with foil, pat self on back for getting the foil in the pan one handed.

Step 8: Notice the water is boiling and try to figure out what sort of pasta. Finally decide on whole-wheat egg noodles will make up for the lack of egg on the chicken.

Step 9: Put the chicken in for 10 minutes like the recipe says, make mental note that there is no way it will be done in time since you didn’t cut the chicken, remember the cardinal rule of making chicken … it is never done!

Step 10: grab a vegetable and put it in a bowl in the microwave.

Step 11: decide all that spiced milk and flour shouldn’t be wasted and make a ‘roux’ err rue, err butter and flour gravy starter, melt butter in cast iron pot, add some flour, looks purty…then realize there is way too much flour for that kind of sauce ….. Add chicken bullion and a cup of warm water. Discover that a slotted spoon works well to remove lumps (and thank the one year old for stealing the usual spoon leaving only the slotted one available)

Step 12: Add milk to sauce like stuff, keep stiring like mad.

Step 13: check chicken since the timer dinged like forever ago sometime in the middle of the delumping process. Notice the chicken is well covered in dry flakes…drizzle some olive oil on top, run out of olive oil, make mental note to put it on the grocery list (yeah like that will happen!)

Step 14: wonder why the vegetables are not done yet …. Discover they were never started, put on for 3 minutes, stir noodles and wonder if they are done, Mutter under breath about how annoying whole wheat noodles are, they never look ‘done’ like regular, wonder if I will eventually develop a trained whole wheat ‘eye’ since I do recall the days before I knew noodles were done by looking …

Step 15: rescue sauce like stuff, taste test … Mmmmm lemon herb chicken, brings back memories.

Step 16: Put vegetables back in for 2 minutes, get strainer out to drain noodles, lock children out of the kitchen, leave strict orders to entertain one year old. Drain noodles, check chicken ... Turn chicken over and shake up olive oil to find more for the other side. Go rescue one year old and wait for Daddy to come home.

Step 17: Kiss Daddy ‘Hello’. Start getting into it then … yep that’s the timer for the chicken, just like old times.

K so that is the weird nightly thing going on here, last night it turned out very good, though I think I might try egg one day to see if it is crispy, I will prolly keep the rest pretty much he same, maybe more water in the sauce.


…………………………………………………………………

Baked Lemon herb Chicken

1-cup flour
1/3-cup corn meal (yellow)
2 tsp ish lemon herb
Sprinkle pepper
Sprinkle or two of onion powder

Mix them in a flattish pan to ‘dredge’ the chicken

Cup o milk (or a bit less)

Flour dish then milk, then flour again, pat seasoning in crevices and stuff.

Drizzle pan with olive oil, Put in chicken, drizzle tops with more olive oil
Bake 425 for umm. Till it is done! OK about 20 minutes, maybe 30.

For the ‘sauce’ I think cup of water, to one bullion, a pat of butter, mix another cup of water with flour in Tupperware shaker then add in, pour milk on tip stirring all the while.

I have single serve applesauce, single serve fruit, single serve juice, single serve bottled water, single serve oatmeal, and single serve drink mix. If I shopped like this normally I wouldn't be able to fit a weeks worth of food in my pantry!

Fortunatly I only have to pack it up...but how to fit it all in the car?

I actually used coupons today! We bought all the stuff for the trip and stull managed to stay under budget, due to flashes coupons.

One for diapers, one for wipes, one for oatmeal (which also happened to be on sale) one for detergent and one for err..ok several other things...oh chicken! I never buy canned chicken, but it sounds like the perfect thing to take to a hotel for lunch!

Speaking of lunch and breakfast and the hotel, I have access to a microwave! and a coffee pot, and a mini fridge! that totally makes my life easier! I still went with lots of convenience, this is what convenience is invented for IMO!

All week I have been unable to bake for one reason or another, till finally today! yesterday my husband found silicone papers for muffin tins..well not paper, cause they are silicone. I thought they were adorable and so hopped they worked because I hate cleaning muffin tins and I hate having to buy papers, not to mention the whole environmental thing of throwing away a paper for every muffin!

Well I am not entirely certain that making th esilicone liners was all that good for the environment but after a day of testing, they held up really well, Only one muffin stuck, and that was very edible..always eat the ugly ones . I did have to wash the liners, but it was so easy to get in the 'nooks' because it was flexible! I loved it, I did not spray them wiht oil or a fake version therof, even when the recipe called for it....

I still have a few other recipes to test it on, but so far I love them! I told my husband to go look for bread pan liners!

I made:

1. Pumpkin bread and muffins...very good, very sweet, not healthy bread for a picnic Sunday, muffins in freezer for another day.

2. Fruit muffins, with fruit juice and 'crasins', pretty good. for sunday school. (mine and a kid)

3. Oatmeal raisin muffins, recipe from Flash, I think. Like an oatmeal cookie, only better 'cause I never make oatmeal cookies right! for sunday school (a kid)

4. hoagies..the bread part, for steak hogies..soon as I cook the meat, if I can get to it before the kids eat all the bread!

I still have to make something for the other kids sunday school, and my kids have requested choclate cookies..not chocolate chip cookies, but chocolate cookies.

So I have to go find a recipe..maybe like a chocolate sugar cookie?

That is what GMC asked me to make today...'encourage adventure' part of my brain went to war with the 'you will be baking a replacement saturday night' part...

In the end the 'encourage adventure' won, and we made the muffins, with broccolii inside...

And the verdict is in..edible, actually pretty good!

For me it is between less than a month and two months, that is a lot of flour! and alot more than I used to use, I now bake more, and share more.....

I am looking at the dwindleing supply of flour and remembering filling it up literally 2 weeks ago. This is a bit rediculous, how did pioneers survive? did they get flour in 50 lb sacks? we hear how they did not eat meat like we do, and we know vegetables were hard to come by in the winter, so what were they eating? or maybe I just eat alot..well I do..eat alot that is.

Sunday we ran out of chocolate..normally that is ared flag to go imediatly to the store..do not pass go, do not collect 200$.

This week I managed NOT to go, we waited,

Monday..DH ate the last of the chocolate he had at work, and I mixed peanut butter with coco powder, butter and powdered sugar (actually really good).

Tuesday, I have no idea what DH did, but I baked muffins..and ate peanut butter with cocopowder (I am thinking of mixing it in bulk, rolling in balls and taking it to church..is very good)

Wednesday, I mixed chocolate syrup with milk, twice..but seemed to survive. (at this point I wasn't to concerned with DH, I was having enough troubles of my own) I also used the last of the flour to make pizza, and had to use some whole wheat (which my son loved, JC passed on)

Finally DH brought chocolate home wednesday night and today I had some..it was FAR better than last week...a little waiting does the palet good .

Out of gas...I made the milk last, but I can't do much about the gas, especially when we had to go to the library on saturday...Ok we din't have to, we wanted to pick up a reserved book.

So off to the store for milk, bread, unsalted butter, raisins, apples, bananas, and yogurt.

If we can keep it to that I will be happy.

I am a picky cook, and the best deserts are made with butter..which is unfortunate, cause butter costs more than oil.

I was wondering this morning as my kids ate oatmeal with applesauce in it, if I could use applesauce instead of butter in a cookie or muffin, I know you can substitute it for oil, but not sure on butter....

HE really is wonderful, I may not agree with everything he does, but he is wonderful. and so willing to do little things just ot make me happy.

like flowers, he often brings flowers home from the store...unfortunatly we recently found out they make me sick..but he may still bring them only to leave them outside for me to see, I love flowers, I just have a brown thumb, turns out that might be a good thing if I am allergic to tehm! heh, never thought of that...

Anyway back to my wonderful husband. He is a 'food seperatist' he likes his food white for grains, brown for beef (and not all that brown, red in the middle please) I did grow up that way, but I know whole grain is healthier (and has more variety of color) so I keep trying to get more brown in the grain group.

So far we have switched to brown rice, completly..it is almost hard to go out to an oriantal restaurant cause the rice tastes so..well glue like!

We have also switched to whole wheat bread, and english muffins...and again going out for a cheap burger is sortof mutted in fun cause of the pasty bun that almost tastes like paper..sugary paper.....

Now we still have traditional pasta most of the time, and I keep looking into whole wheat. Well last night DH made an emergency run (not sactioned by me) and brought home whole wheat egg noodles I love em, better than any flower . I got a huge smile on this morning when I found the noodles!

We made it just over budget!
gas and groceries was 102! (and 31 was gas)

Course iut was supposed to be under budget to compensate for last week.....oh well, there is alwasy next week (and all I have left is a 50 dollar bill..so it has to be only 50!)

shred carrots
make applesauce..maybe apple turnovers
'thaw' yeast..find out if it lives
bake bread if it does
bake for church sunday
bake/cook for company friday..I think.
cut/eat strawberries
make/eat egg salad

I sent DH to the store with about $100 worth of food on his list, and that usually means it will go way over the 100, but I was impressed, gas and groceries, and a flower (I love my suprise flower!) all came to $140. Not to terrible.

Last week was only 50, so the two balance out rather well.

I hope to keep next week rather low also.

So I am getting good at this now, aside form the simple PBnoJ I managed to take yogurt, I put the frozen fruit in the bowl and added yogurt, the frozen fruit helped keep it cool!

A couple spoons a drink or two and some crackers completes a simple lunch.

I also have been expiramenting with the 'calzone' I am sure the inventor is lamenting the abuse I am giving, but it is working.

Aside form pepperonni we used beef n carrots, chicken (out of veggies!) bacon and green peas.

The crust is like sourdough bread, so it is pretty versitile going with anything (but not really all that sour, it tasts like pizza crust mostly) The only trouble is you have to bake it, that heats up the house a bit, but it is still pretty cheap.

For snacks I figured out if you wrap a knife and a peeler in a towel no one gets hurt, then put it and a mango in a box in the bag (less banging against the leg while walking.) Proly work for apple too, just havn't done that yet.

We are having chocolate fondu for the party Friday, and I have no recipie!

I hate that, I looked up a few, and aside form all taking some form of liqure they are all different!

Ok so they also all have some chocolate, and some form of milk (heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, half and half, whatever)Shall I just guess at a good combo?

We get pool use for our HOA fee, which is about all we get other than living here...

but anyway it opened, and I have to get off the computer to go right now.

Summer for us means lots of swimming, and lots of weird dinners....We like to eat poolside, but with timing and such, no grill options, fridge, microwave, or well anything. We have to pack and keep proper temperature of everything we eat.

tonight it is boring PB no J and carrot sticks and grapes, and lemon water...

On the grocery list for next week is some chicken patties (to heat at home wrap in foil and turn into sandwhiches) Plus some hotdog buns, not the heathiest meal, but not to terrible.

Now I just have to figure out something to eat the other 5 days, at the pool! (kidding, Friday we have company, so that will be at home .)

I used the recipie from strtessless and lrjohnson (thanks again!) to make blueberry muffins and it worked rather well. (still sticks to the paper a bit though..)

I also tried it with cinnamon and apple. I think applesauce would be better than apple..

Now my only problem is I am am out of muffin papers! That and I want to find mini loaf paper, I think it will make the whole christmas giving of bread soo much easier if I have papers (pull out one batch, put in new paper, pour next batch, repeat as needed).

An online search came up with 12 for 5 bucks, a bit much for me, and the muffin ones was $5 for 100, I think we can get those locally for less, we just have to be at the right store.

You know when you get a hunk of beef to make a roast one side has the huge line of fat? That is what this lady on Orahs heart looked like! I mean seriously it was covered in fat! and they had to cut thru the fat to get to the heart to do the bipass! (oh and her lungs really did have black tar on them from smoking!)

I also learned that we love the one brand of peanut butter that has partially hydrogenated stuff, which apparently takes all the good out of peanut butter? And the butter spread I let DH train me to use is bad for you (for the same fat)

So now what? I was thinking I aught start cooking with more margarine and less butter and now I find I should dump the margarine!

Oh well, 20 some years of habits, I can take a few more to get healthier..first step use up the beanut butter, and margarine spread we have, second, try other brands/go back to butter sticks...

Well I broke the thermometer we had for yogurt, which kindof sucks, I am pretty good at telling when the yogurt is hot enough, but then you have to cool it, and I am guessing in the dark here, if I succeed we will have yogurt for the week, if not...

Wish me luck!

I tried the pizza thing as muffins and added spinache, worked great.

I treid bacon and cornbread, worked great

And I tried carrot (bit less sweet than DivaJens--I like sweet, but isn't so good for you)

All successes! I am on a role, 3 successes in one day (should make up for the near failures of yesterday)

i tried to make blueberry muffins banana muffins and pizza loaf.

The muffins are to 'eggy' and don't come out of the paper, so that wont get repeated. I am not even sure if I will send them in to sunday school or not (they are that bad .)

The pizza loaf is still in the oven so we shall see on that one.

edit: the pizza stuff is good, but JC doesn't like it, 3 out of 4 ain't bad though!

On request I am posting the hockey chili recipie, such as it is...

Oh and a warning, I am lousy at recipies!

2 cans black beans
1 can white
some onion powder
some pepper
some garlic.
some grnd cumin

Mix in a pot and let simmer a bit.

(real onion, pepper and such would taste better I am sure. If you are any good with dried beans that works too, I am not!)

I prolly have to explain why on earth this is called hockey chili...We used black and white beans, like a penguin, DH loves the PGH penguins, so it was hockey do GMC. As to the chili part....well I guess curry didn't sound right? Not sure. Anything slightly spicy with beans is called chili around here.

I read this trick now that I have my third (I really could have used it for my first two!)

Take a banana, peal only one stripe, use a spoon to scoop out a hole and use it as a 'bowl' to mash up the banana for your baby.

Doesn't work for the first few meals when you might need to thin the banana, but once you are on to fork mash only, scrapping with a spoon works even better and no bowl to wash! (once the baby is done hand the rest of the banana over to an older eater.)

Most Sundays I make a muffin or pack some fruit, or bake some cookies for the kids to share, if I have time I pack extra for my husband and I to share, only half the time there is no class for us to share it with, but that is beside the point.

This week, again, I ran out of time, err procrastinated to the last minute, and I had nothing to take to the adult class. Which left me VERY hungry, and I am sure DH was in the same boat. (we eat alot, going from breakfast at 7:30 to home for lunch at 11 is way to long for us!)

I can easily double a batch of muffins, but I have only enough pans for 3 Dz mini muffins and half a dozen big ones, which 6 is not enough to share, and cutting a loaf is not a very good idea, too many crumbs.

So either I need to not procrastinate and bake twice, or I need more pans. Or I need an alternate snack (still frugal)

Well I forgot to put our grocery cost up last Thursday, $60

So how did I manage that (finally)? No menu! Which means no 'must get for the meal' items on the list! Which means, no clue what is for dinner!

So err, does making a menu really save money?

No, not for us! but it is healthier, spicy noodles and macncheese might be cheaper and faster than any planned meal, but they are not healthy.