The Ever-Growing Grocery bill

My food budget has gotten quite unmanageable lately.  With the hot summer evenings, I haven't wanted to cook much, so dinner was "out" most evenings.

But alas, the weather is cooling and school will be starting soon.  It's time for family meals around the table again....well at least something home cooked!

I found this neat little site called E-Mealz.  Here's their fancy little link:

It's really quite inexpensive; just $5.00 per month.  Why would I think that's inexpensive?  Because their meal plans, which can feed 4-6 people, are based on a $75.00 per week budget.  I don't know about other families, but we easily pay double that a week in groceries.  The $5.00 is worth it for me.  (On a side note, they also provide meal plans for 2 and those with special diets.)

It seems like it's going to be a great little service.  They provide a menu, recipe instructions and a shopping list organized by aisle.  No more looking in the fridge after work trying to figure out what I'm going to make for the family; no sitting down preparing my own menu and shopping list.

I'm excited to try this.

I just printed my first week's menu.  I'll let you know how it works out.

Blessings!

Raspberries

What to do with all these raspberries?

First, they have to be picked.  Then I usually freeze them for later use in recipes.  I make raspberry jam and I have a really great recipe for raspberry upside down cake (that came from my mom, the master baker!)  I had a wonderful raspberry smoothie this morning for breakfast. 

You'll notice, over on the right, that one of the blogs I follow is Mennonite Girls Can Cook.  They have the most scrumptious recipes on their site.  A recent one was for Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake and it looked so good, I had to try it this past weekend.

Here is the result.

I used King Arthur's White Whole Wheat flour and Philadelphia's 1/3 less fat cream cheese as substitutes in the recipe.  I wasn't all that impressed with the results.  I may have overcooked it a bit, but it seemed very dry and not very flavorful.  I may try the recipe again, sticking to regular white flour and regular cream cheese.  Hubby liked it.  He's such a good husband, he never complains about my food. 

There are still plenty of raspberries to pick, so I think I will make mom's upside down cake tonight or tomorrow night.  Put a bit of vanilla ice cream on it while it's still warm and we're talking heaven on earth!

Blessings!

Yum-O Rollover!

And it was indeed YUM-O!!!  The Rollover Turkey Vegetable Chili was really, really good.  Hubby was worried that it would be too hot & spicy for his taste, but it really wasn't.  I went a little easy on the chili powder at first, because of my extremely sensitive stomach; but as I tasted along the way, I ended up adding the full amount.

Older, not-so-picky eater helped me with this one.  She grated and cooked the zucchini, and stirred while I put the few remaining ingredients in.  While the first meal was a little more involved, preparing this one was quick and easy.  Just my style.

I would have taken a picture of older, not-so-picky eater helping me, but I forgot my camera at work.  So she took a picture of the final product with her cellphone.

Everybody agreed that this was good.  I think it's a keeper.  I will need to adjust the recipe to make just the Chili, though.

On another note, TLC is at it again.  "Extreme Poodles."  Need I say more?

Yum-O!

Well, not really Yum-O!  So I tried the new recipe last night.  The recipe is Rachel Ray's Rollover Turkey Bolognese with Whole Wheat Spaghetti.

My youngest, pickiest eater helped.  She handled grating the carrots and chopping the onions.  With tears streaming down her face, she said she was going to make her kids chop the onions when she was older.  I agreed that it was a great idea.  Hahahaha!

She helped all along the way, chopping and stirring.

We cooked whole wheat pasta and made a simple salad to go along with it. 

Voila!

The verdict?  My sweet, picky eater thought her first try at meat was ok.  Hubby thought it was great and picky eater's "boyfriend" was polite and said it was good.  Although his second helping was of salad, not the main dish.

I thought it was kind of bland.  It was full of onions and garlic, so you would have expected more flavor, but not so.  This is a perfect recipe for little ones, but I think I would add some green peppers to it, along with some spices to flavor it up a bit, for us adults.

You'll notice this is a "rollover" dinner.  Tonight I will take the left overs and make Turky Vegetable Chili.  Will let you know the results tomorrow.  It should be more flavorful, as I get to add chili powder to it! (Reminder to self, pick up some Rolaids on the way home.)

Graduations Galore!

Phew, it's been a very busy 4 days!  A niece and a nephew graduated; plus we had the grand daughter overnight on Saturday; plus I made a cake for a friend's shower.  Somehow I managed to do some cleaning, but it's never enough.  :::sigh:::

I'm thinking about hiring someone to come help me with spring cleaning.  I know, I know, summer is almost here, but I am so busy that I can't seem to get it done.  I'm also discovering that reaching over my head to wash walls and ceilings really aggravates the arthritis in my neck, which makes my neck and shoulder ache, which causes me to drop things.  So I think I can make a case for hiring someone to come help me at least wash the walls.  You'd think the two teenage girls in my house would help me, but.....that's another story for another day.

So, I have this friend.  Yes, I do have a few...stop giggling!  Anyways, this friend has her own blog called New Recipe Night (her name is Monika, check out my link to her blog over there to the right).  She has inspired me to start trying new recipes.  I think it will be an interesting adventure, considering I have a house full of the pickiest eaters!

I've chosen to use the Food Network/Chefs as a source for recipes.  This week I'm trying out one of Rachel Ray's rollover meals.  The recipe is Rollover Turkey Bolognese with Whole Wheat Spaghetti.  That recipe will be rolled over into two other recipes; Turkey Tomato Soup and Turkey Vegetable Chili. You can find it here.  Can you say Yum-O!!!!   I will blog the results tomorrow.

Have a marvelous Tuesday!