What's for Lunch?

Life as Mom is doing her Ultimate Recipe Swap Thursday and asking for lunch recipes. Our lunches consist of leftovers, pbj's, or whatever I can think of that day. I'm just starting to do a regular meal plan for dinners, but lunches are definitely the last on thing on my mind. Today we are all going to be home for lunch because my oldest child couldn't go to school and my hubbie usually comes home for lunch on the days that I'm not working.
Our menu consists of Pillsbury savorings and tomato soup. Nothing fancy, but the savorings actually smell quite amazing as they are cooking right now. This whole lunch recipe thing is going to bother me all day now, but honestly we are so casual that what some might consider "lunch" recipes are what I would call "dinner" recipes. No worries, as long as the bellies are filled, right?

Coupons By Request

I have always had fair to good luck in emailing companies to request coupons for their products, but lately I have forgotten to do this. Go here to see a long list of companies who will send coupons when you email your requests. What a great way to add to your coupon collection! I think I'll use this list and just start sending 5 a day.
Thanks Frugal Coupon Living!

Harris Teeter Super Doubles 2/17-2/23

The total for the items pictured above was 9.55

Here is a breakdown:

Edy's Icecream -- .97

Reynold's Recycled Aluminum Foil -- .44

Dentyne 3pk. -- 1.77(we chew a lot of gum, and I found this in a 75% off bin)

Lance 8pk crackers -- FREE

Organic Valley whipping cream -- .19

Rhodes Warm and Serve Rolls -- .25

2 Dawn Direct Foam -- FREE

SoftScrub Gel Cleanser -- FREE

Sure Deodorant -- FREE

2 Ken's Honey Mustard Dressings -- .76 ea (gave one away)

Campbell's Select Harvest Soup -- FREE

2 Aquafresh Extreme Clean Toothpaste -- .20 ea

2 Kashi Heart to Heart Crackers -- .59 ea

Kellog's Smart Start Cereal -- .34

2 Old Orchard Juice -- .50 ea

I live about 45 minutes from the nearest HT, so it was hard to decide which 20 coupons to double. I was happy with my purchase though. I used some Register Rewards from WAGS to purchase other things like Diet Pepsi and my total was still only 9.74. I love the fact that you can redeem your RRs at WAGS!

Walmart Produce Deals

This week Walmart has some great deals on produce.

My favorites are:
Grape tomatoes $1.75
Brocolli $1.50

How much of these can one eat in a week though? The answer to that for my youngest son is A LOT. He pops grape tomatoes like they're candy. But anyhow, I came up with a way to stock up on this super healthy stuff while it's super cheap.

Freeze it! My plan is to barely steam the brocolli and lightly saute the tomatoes in a little olive oil, let them cool, and then put them in the freezer. Later, I'll put them in the saute pan with garlic and olive oil. Then boil some pasta, and toss it with the veggies in the saute pan. Of course, it will be begging for some parmesean cheese, salt and pepper at this point. We ate this meal two nights ago, and I really enjoyed it. Hopefully freezing the veggies won't change it much.

Freezer Cooking Weekend

I have been cooking up a storm, and I think I'm just about done now. Here are the meals or parts of meals that I have prepared for February.

Pinto beans (cooked last week)
Shredded chicken
Chicken strips
Rice
Scalloped potatoes with ham
Ham and lima bean casserole (something new, not sure if the kids will eat this)
Whole-wheat waffles
Bran muffins

The shredded chicken was really easy. I just filled my crockpot with chicken broth and a package of taco seasoning (both of these almost free after coupons) and then cooked the chicken in that mixture for 6-8 hours. It smelled amazing while it was cooking! If you don't have enough chicken broth, I think half water would be okay. After cooking the chicken, I just shredded it with two forks. I think this chicken will be great in some soft tacos.

Now, the chicken strips really turned out well. I cut them in half through the middle to make thin cutlets. I salted and peppered both sides of the chicken. Then I sprayed my pan with olive oil spray and waited til it had reached a good med-high heat. I let the chicken cook for 3-5 minutes on each side depending on the thickness of the cutlet. As they were cooking, I squeezed some lemon juice onto them. Then I just let them rest on a plat for about 5-10 minutes, and cut them into strips for salads, wraps, pasta dishes, pizza, etc.

Diapers on my doorstep!

So I ordered my extra large box of Luvs yesterday (my 3 yr. old still wears diapers to nap, and to bed) along with a Thomas the Train drum and kid's toothpaste from diapers.com, and guess what. They were delivered TODAY. And all for $24 and some change. See the post below to find out how you can do this too!

Super Cheap Diapers at Diapers.com

Here's a great deal on diapers, and the best part is you don't even have to leave your house! Thanks for the tip LifeasMom!

• Go to diapers.com and purchase 49.99 worth of diapers, wipes or anything else. Now, you have qualified for FREE shipping.
• At checkout, enter the promotion code NMCK4808 to get $10 off your order.
• If you purchase anything other than diapers, you also can get 10% off those items by putting in the promotional code 10PERCENT.
• Print and fill out this rebate form to receive $14.97 cash or a free subscription to Parenting Early Years Magazine.

Okay here is a scenario, that I worked out. This website has reasonably priced baby and toddler items, so you could really do this many ways.

Buy 1 Extra Large Case Luvs Diapers at 35.99 (sz 1: 264 ct - sz 6: 120 ct.)
Buy 1 Pampers Sensitive Wipes 384 ct. refill at 14.99
Total after promos and rebate: $24.52

Freezer Cooking Weekend

I have been encouraged after reading about the freezer cooking days going on at the Money Saving Mom and FishMama homes to do one of my own. Nothing huge, just a good start for the month.

Yesterday, I ran by Farm Fresh to get a few extras before the big snow came (I can't believe I'm writing that, but it's real). They had an incredible deal on chicken, and I scored 9 lbs. for $15. So I have had a 3 lb. package of chicken cooking the crockpot with chicken broth and a packet of taco seasoning all day. I just shredded it, and now have 4 freezer bags with 2 cups of chicken each. I am going to refer back to the list of 58 recipes using shredded chicken that I found on recipe zzar for future ways to use my stash.

I also cooked up every grain of rice that I had in my pantry, which wasn't all that much. In all I think I probably have about 8 cups or so to freeze. Rice is just one of those foods that I often want to use in a casserole or with beans, but in a pinch don't have time to wait for it to cook. Got that taken care of for a while.

Now I'm on to making a few batches of pizza dough in the bread machine, and baking some bran muffin batter that I have refridgerated and need to bake.

Farm Fresh: 75.38 in groceries for 21.80!!

Well I'm pretty pleased with this!

Quaker Instant Oatmeal
Aunt Jemima Pancake/Waffle Mix x2
Quaker Granola Bars x2
Ragu spaghetti sauce x2
Post Cereals (shredded wheat and raisin bran) x4
Old El Paso Taco Seasoning x2
Old El Paso Heat 'n Serve Sides (2 rice, 2 beans) x4
Skippy peanut butter x2
Helman's mayo
Arnold whole wheat bread x2
Dreamfields pasta x2
~2 lbs. bananas
~2.5 lbs. grapes
baby carrots
lactose free milk half gallons x2
I can't believe it's not butter margarine and baking sticks
Sargento shredded cheese x2
band-aids
Quaker rice cakes x2
All liquid detergent
Dole frozen strawberries
Welch's orange/pineapple juice

Total: 21.80
And this, is why I just LOVE Farm Fresh!!!

Eat from the pantry challenge

My pantry is full of food that I have gotten for free or really cheap, but it's not such a great deal if I don't actually use it.

When I read about the eat from the pantry challenge on my favorite blog moneysavingmom, I knew that this was the month to use some of those interesting ingredients I've collected. Next week, I'll start off with my meal plan, but I have had such a hard time planning meals this week. It seems that all I can do is plan the next meal.

Tonight it was black bean burgers and corn. I used a new recipe for the burgers and I liked them, although I thought they needed lettuce and tomato.

Blogging about my frugal adventures

It all started when I stumbled upon a blog about frugal living (thanks to the coupon consultant). It became my portal to the world of coupons, match-ups, rebates and all that is frugal. Six months later, I am ready to start blogging about my adventures. And I have high hopes for what I will accomplish with my new frugal lifestyle. You see, this is going to be the year that my husband and I take a big chunk out of our debt. If only I had known five years ago that there was a way to live frugally without any pain, I would have started then. Since I have had to make some dumb mistakes to find this way of life, I'll just be grateful that I am on a positive path and hopefully will help others along the way!