Meal Planning Revisited

So I have not done well meal planning on my own. I decided to try E-Mealz. For $1.25 per week they plan 5 dinners for you with a detailed shopping list.

I will be able to use the left overs for the other 2 meals and/or my lunches. The cost of the food for 2 people is aproximately $40 per week. I will see how it goes and update in January

Why am I thinking about 2012?

I will tell you why. Because I was down this weekend. I said 2011 would be my "Year of Change" and I have been feeling like I failed that goal. But then I thought some more. I did not declare it would be the year of perfection... And although I did not change into perfection I did change alot this year. I am not going to go into all the details, but I know in my heart how I have changed. Now I cannot let those changes go. I must keep working on them. So i am declaring 2012 the "year of Growth" All the changes I made in 2011 I want them to florish in 2012. I want to be a better person tomorrow than I am today!

We love Books!

Audrey loves books we read all the time! Our favorite books are Usborne Books. They are such good quality books. Plus many are interactive. We love the touchy feely books and the lift a flap books! I am excited to get her a magnetic book for Christmas. Check them out at http://www.juliasusbornebooks.com/

If you like them click on host an eshow at the bottom tell your friends and earn free books! Simple as that

A square a day in May

Well, it's not May and I cannot crochet a square a day; but I want to do the Square a Day blanket




I came across this blog and I thought it would make an awesoem first blanket! Here are my first two squares

So far I really like the different patterns and I cannot wait to see how this progresses!

Meal Planning

As a single mother, my money only stretch so far. And I know where I waste the most money is on food.. I have tried and tried and tried to get on budget with my food. I ALWAYS fail. So here I am trying again. I did the best when I was meal planning. I do the worst when I just buy (obviously) I was thinking of joining ez-mealz, but that is only good for dinner. So I am going to try meal planning again. The thing I have the most trouble with is my actual budget. After my bills are paid it only leaves $20 a week for food. $20 a week is not enough for 2 people, but I will try again anyway. I will update my progress as it becomes progress. :) Wish me luck and comment with tips if you have any

11/1/11

November is here so that means I can think about Christmas and NOT feel guilty. And although I am talking about Christmas today I will be posting my halloween posts this week.
When I was young I have VERY fond memories of getting a Christmas tree. And I want getting ready for Christmas to be special to Audrey. So the date is set Novemeber 26 will be our Christmas day. I am going to get a tree with my dad on Nov 26 and Audrey and I will decorate the house. I know she is little, but I am hoping it will be fun!

Now I need to stop talking about Christmas and start working on it. I have TONS of gifts to make this year!

More crochet

Turns out I really like crocheting (and as a positive side note. It keeps my hands & brain busy so I am not snacking at night) I made a dishrag last night. At first I thought it was pointless to make dishrags because you can get them so cheap. But then I used it. They are like the original Mr. Clean magic eraser. This is my new favorite rag to clean with. I am definitely going to be making more. As you will see in the picture I need to make more too to get more practice. The left side looks horrendous LOL It was my fist attempt at finishing off I started on the left. You can tell!

So I think I have found a new hobby. Now to find a way to keep my yarn organized.

Learning to crochet

So I decided to learn how to crochet. It was much easier than I thought. It took me a day of practicing stitches and watching videos and 2 days to make my first project:

It is not quite finished. I need some black yarn and it was sold out yesterday at the store I stopped at. I cant believe how nice it looks. I used a pattern from this website: Sesame Street Crochet Hat Pattern
Audrey loves it!!! The first thing we did this morning was try it on and she was all smiles! I think there may be more crochet in my future.

Homemade fruit leather AKA fruit rollups

So here is the low down on homade fruit leather. This is my second attempt at making it. The first attempt took 18 hours this attempt took 8. The secret LEAVE YOUR OVEN DOOR CRACKED. You can use any type of pureed fruit. The easiest way for yor first attempt. applesauce. applesauce can also be .mixed with pureed fruit so you get the flavor with less expense. I used 1 jar of applesauce on 2 plastic wrap lined baking sheets. The first I mixed with a jar of banana baby food, and the second I colored with food coloring to make rainbow fruit leather. Kids seem to like things better with color...
I poured the unsweetened applesauce onto the pan and spread it to about 1/8 in thick. Put dots of food coloring on it and mixed it with a spatuala. I also sprinkled with Ball fruit fresh to keep the color from darkening too much, and I put it in a 170 degree oven overnight WITH THE DOOR CRACKED When I woke up in the morning it was done! I put it on wax paper and cut it like fruit by the foot and put it in a jar.

Cost analysis: Aprox $2 made 18 mini fruit roll ups. Fruit roll ups on sale (or store brand) are about $2 (but I also used 8 hours of electricity. HOWEVER fruit leather is about $.50 each and this is fruit leather not sweetened corn syrup. So if you are doing it for health benefits, clean eating it is worth it. If you want a fun kitchen project worth it. If you are being frugal not worth it unles you have an abundance of fruit during the preservation season.

Dinner in a muffin pan

I don't really follow recipes for simple food. I gather ideas off random blogs and make my own version. I belong to an online cook club and our October ingredient was apples, and I recently discovered a blog that posts recipes using only ingrediants from Aldi (a discount grocery store). Anyway, all those ideas together I created "Dinner in a Muffin Pan" It was so easy and so quick I will do this again. Audrey even liked the food "Oh, Wow" she said when she tasted her "muffins"

So my dinner in a muffin pan consisted of BBQ chicken pizza, cream filled apple "dumplings", and glazed carrots.

I used 1 refridgerated package of biscuits. I flattened each biscuit and put it in the muffin tin. 5 of them were apple I took 1/4 block cream cheese and microwaved a couple seconds so it was soft and mixed it with 1/2 container of pudding (individual single serve vanilla). I put the pudding mixture on top of each of the 5 biscuits. I cored and sliced an apple. I put the apple pieces on top of the pudding mixture. The onto the pizza muffins. (these can be made any way you would make a pizza) I chose BBQ chicken. The remaining 5 biscuits were sprinkled with garlic powder. I sautted onions and chicken on the stove until the chicken was fully cooked (I used 1/2 of a boneless skinless chicken breast) On top of the biscuit I layered in this order, BBQ sauce, chicken onion mixture, and sharp cheddar cheese. I had 2 spaces left after making the "muffins" so I decided on a veggies. I filled each spot with frozen carrots added a tsp of butter and a sprinkle of brown sugar. I baked the whole muffin tin at 375 about 20 minutes until the biscuits were done. It was good. The apple biscuits were not very sweet. You could probably sprinkle brown sugar before the pudding mixture if you wanted it sweeter. But I liked them as they were.

Cream filled apple "dumpling"
refridgerated biscuits
cream cheese
vanilla pudding
apples

BBQ chicken "pizza"
refridgerated biscuits

BBQ sauce
onion
chicken
cheddar cheese

Enough to feed 2 with extra for mom's work lunch

Introduction

Why do all blogs have to start with an introduction... After your blog is established how many people actually come back and read the first post? Oh well, here it is.
I am a single mom to an only child. I have been having the blogging itch lately and did not know what to blog about since my thoughts, ideas, and projects are so random. So I decided just to blog about our little life. There will be kitchen projects, menu planning for 2 (or 1.5 lol), craft projects, outings, and whatever else I feel like talking about. The posts probably won't flow in an order that makes sense to anyone, there might be times when I dont post for a week, the pictures will be far from professional, and there will always be clutter in the background. And maybe, just maybe, there is another single mom to an only child out there that I can inspire.  (We all want to be an inspiration right?!)