Where to Buy: Seeds!

We just moved into a cute basement apartment that has a yard and a place to plant a garden. I am so excited to have my first yard to take care of! I needed some seeds for the garden and some flower seed to make the grounds look pretty but did not want to spend a fortune. Here are the results of my quest: At Dollar Tree they had no seeds at all and at Big Lots they just had bulbs. Finally, I went to Family Dollar and found every seed I could want!

I ended up buying:

Zinnia
Wildflower Mix
Bachelor Button
Shasta Daisy
Delphinium
Nasturtium
Cosmos

Cantaloupe
Squash
Cucumber
Cabbage
Spinach
Carrot
Zucchini
Pepper
Lettuce
Cherry Tomato
Garden Bean
Sweet Corn


Parsley
Chives
Sweet Basil

Here is the best part: The Zinnia's and Wildflower Mix were in big boxes for 1$ each and the seed packets were 4 for 1$ plus they are having a buy one get one 50% off sale on all seeds and bulbs! I got 21 packets of seeds and 2 boxes of seeds for about $7.00. Now that is eating economically!! Can you tell I am excited? I will post some pictures of my garden once it starts growing!

Week 2: Shopping List and Recipes

Week 2: Shopping List
 
Meat
(1, 3) 2 lb ground beef

(2,6) 1.5 lb chicken breast

(5) 8 oz deli turkey

(5,7) 1 pkg turkey bacon


Refrigerated

(2, 3, 5,7) 16 oz colby jack cheese

(3,7) 8 oz sour cream

(6) 8 oz fat free cream cheese


Fresh Produce

(2) 2 avocados

(4,5) 1 bunch romaine lettuce

(3) 1 head iceburg lettuce (or small bag shredded)

(3,4,5) 6 roma tomatos

(7) 8 russet potatoes or small bag

(7) 1 bundle green onions

(4) 1 bundle fresh basil

(1,) small bag baby carrots

*desired fruit to use as sides


Canned/Packaged

(1) pkg sloppy joe seasoning

(3) 1 pkg taco seasoning
(6) 1 pkg. Ranch dressing mix

(1) 6 oz can tomato paste

(1) 1 package hamburger buns

(2) 1 can Hunts Pasta Sauce

(3,5) 10 count flour tortillas (2 pkg. for a family of 5 or more)

(3) 1 bag corn tortillas

(4) 20 oz bowtie pasta

(4) 16 oz jar Alfredo sauce (Light or Sun-dried Tomato Basil)(6) 1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies

(6) 1 can black beans

(6) 1 can corn

(6) 1 can reduced fat evaporated milk

Staples
eggs, rice, milk, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, flour, oil, parmesan cheese, ranch dressing, chili powder, onion powder

　
Meal 1: Sloppy Joes
1 lb ground Beef
1 sloppy joe seasoning packet
1-6 oz can tomato paste
4-6 hamburger buns

　
Brown ground beef; drain excess fat. Add tomato paste, 1 1/4 cups water and seasoning packet. Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve on hamburger buns and with carrot sticks
　

Meal 2: Chicken Parmesan with Avocado
Adapted from Cuisine Paradise

2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, halved lengthways
1/2 cup flour
2 tablespoons milk
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup pasta sauce
2 avocados
1/2 cup cheese
romaine lettuce
　

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat 1 piece of chicken breast in flour(shaking off excess), dip in egg mixture then coat in breadcrumbs. Place on prepared baking sheet. Lightly spray or brush the prepared chicken with oil, bake for 10 minutes (turning after 5 minutes). Spread 1 heaping tablespoon pasta sauce over each chicken breast. Arrange avocado slices over sauce and sprinkle with cheese. Return to oven and bake for another 5 - 7 minutes or until golden and chicken is cooked through.

Chop up romaine lettuce and serve with desired dressing and chicken.

　

Meal 3: Homemade Crunchwrap Supreme
Adapted from Culinary Couture Blog

6 large flour tortillas
6 small corn tortillas
1 pound ground beef
1 package taco seasoning
sour cream
cheese
shredded lettuce or iceburg lettuce chopped
2 roma tomatos, diced

　
Brown ground beef in a skillet, then add taco seasoning (according to package directions). Set aside. Bake the corn tortillas in the oven at 400 degrees for a couple of minutes, until they are golden and crunchy. Microwave the flour tortillas, one at a time (because they cool off quickly), for about 10 seconds to warm them up; this will make wrapping easier. Lay out the flour tortilla. Spoon some of the seasoned beef into the center of the tortilla. Top with shredded cheese. Place the crunchy corn tortilla on top of the cheese/beef; spread a dollop of sour cream on top of it, then toss on some diced tomatoes and shredded lettuce.

Starting with the bottom of the tortilla, fold the edge up to the center. Continue doing this in a clockwise or counter-clockwise movement until all of the tortilla is folded over, and the filling is entirely enclosed.

　
Spray a frying pan with cooking spray. Carefully place the Crunchwrap, seam-side down, in the pan. Press with a spatula and cook on medium-low heat, for about 3 minutes, until the bottom is nice and brown. Flip it over and cook for another 3 minutes. Serve.

　

Meal 4: Tuscan Pasta with Tomato-Basil Cream
20 oz. package bowtie pasta
1 (16-oz.) jar sun-dried tomato Alfredo sauce or regular light Alfredo sauce
2 roma tomatos, diced
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Garnish: fresh basil strips

Prepare pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, pour Alfredo sauce into a medium saucepan. Stir in chopped tomatoes and 1/2 cup chopped basil, and cook over medium-low heat 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Toss with pasta and serve with fruit.


Meal 5: Chicken Club Wraps
4-6 tortillas
8 ounces deli turkey
shredded cheese
8-10 slices cooked turkey bacon
4-6 tablespoons ranch dressing
2 roma tomatos, sliced
Romaine lettuce

　
Spread ranch dressing over the center of wrap. Add turkey, cheese, bacon, tomato, and romaine.
Fold sides in and then roll up.

　

Meal 6: Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken Chili
Adapted from: Rita's Recipes

2 chicken breasts, still frozen
1 can tomatoes with green chilies
1 can corn kernels, undrained
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 pkg. Ranch dressing mix
1 t chili powder
1 t onion powder
1 8-oz pkg. cream cheese
cooked rice

Place the chicken in the crock pot. Top with the tomatoes, corn, beans, ranch dressing, onion and chili powders, stir to combine then top with the cream cheese. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, stirring one or twice to blend in the cheese. Shred the chicken into large pieces and serve over rice.

　

Meal 7: Baked Potato Casserol
Adapted from: Very Best Baking

8 medium potatoes peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup light sour cream
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 cups shredded cheese
6 slices turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled, divided
Sliced green onions


Place potatoes in large saucepan. Cover with water; bring to a boil. Cook over medium-high heat for 15 to 20 minutes or until tender; drain. Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease 2 1/2- to 3-quart casserole dish. Return potatoes to saucepan; add evaporated milk, sour cream, salt and pepper. Beat with hand-held mixer until smooth. Stir in 1 1/2 cups cheese and half of bacon. Spoon mixture into prepared casserole dish. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until heated through. Top with remaining 1/2 cup cheese, remaining bacon and green onions. Bake for an additional 3 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Tip: This casserole can be assembled ahead of time and refrigerated. Cover with foil and bake at 350° F for 40 to 45 minutes or until heated. Uncover; top with cheese, bacon and green onions; bake for an additional 3 minutes or until cheese is melted.

　
Serve with fruit

　




　

　

　

　

Week 1: Shopping List and Recipes

I have some exciting news to announce-- I will now be posting all of my weekly meal plans, complete with shopping lists and delicious, healthy, and affordable recipes! The cost of the meals ranges from $5.00-$7.00 each and will feed a family of 4-6 people! Bear with me though, I wish I could provide you with nicely formatted lists and recipes that you could download but I just have Wordpad right now so I will be posting them directly on the blog. As soon as I am able to get Microsoft Word I will supply them in a nicer, downloadable, format :) Feel free to copy, paste, reformat, and print, for your personal use. My goal is to help you keep your grocery costs down! Enjoy!

Shopping List: Week 1

*Numbers in parentheses represent the corresponding meal

Meat/ Deli

(1,4) 2 lb boneless skinless chicken breast

(4,5) 1 pkg. turkey bacon

(7) 8 oz sliced roast beef

Fresh Produce

(4,5) 1 bundle green onions

(5) 2.5 pounds russet potatoes

(5) 1 small yellow onion

(6) 2 avocados

(6) 2 roma tomatoes

Canned/Packaged
(1) 10 oz pineapple (crushed or chunks)

(1,4) 1 bottle BBQ Sauce

(2) 2- 8.5 oz boxes Jiffy Cornbread Mix

(2) 2 cans chili

(3) 1 can Hunts spaghetti sauce (four cheese)

(4) 1-14 oz. can tomatoes with green chilies added

(5) 32 ounces (4 cups) chicken stock or broth

(6) 1 can (16 oz.) refried pinto beans

(6) 1 taco seasoning packet

(6) 1 can black olives

(6) 6-8 flour tortillas

(7) 1 packet Ajus sauce mix


Refrigerated

(2,4,5,6) 4 cups Colby cheese

(2,5,6) 16 oz light sour cream

(5) 8 oz fat-free cream cheese, softened

(7) 1 package sliced provolone/swiss cheese

Frozen
(1) 1 small bag mixed veggies
(3) 1 pkg. pre-made cheesy ravioli

 
Bakery
(3,7) 2 loaves french bread

 
Optional
Strawberries, grapes, or other fruit to use as sides.

　

Staples
Eggs, milk, minced garlic, rice, salt, pepper


(My total for all of the ingredients listed here including the optional fruit was about $48.00. That comes out to be about $6.86 per meal.)

Recipes: Week 1

Meal 1: Barbecue Pineapple Chicken (Slow Cooker)

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast
10 oz pineapple, drained
1 cup BBQ Sauce
*1/2 tsp of Crushed Red Pepper (optional - see tip below)
3 cups cooked rice
2 cups mixed veggies

Directions
Spray crock-pot with non stick cooking spray. Place chicken breast on bottom of crock-pot. Mix BBQ sauce, pineapple and crushed red pepper together, pour over chicken. Cook on high for approximately 5 hours or until tender. Shred the chicken. Enjoy over rice with steamed veggies.

*Tips: The crushed red pepper makes it a little spicy/hot. If you don't care for spicy, reduce the amount of red pepper to 1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon, or just skip the red pepper.

Meal 2: Cornbread Chili Waffles

2- 8.5 oz boxes Jiffy Cornbread Mix
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese 2 large eggs 2/3 cup milk cooking spray 2 cans chili Additional cheese, sour cream, green onion, ect. for toppings

Directions
Blend together cornbread mix, eggs, and milk. Stir in cheese. Spray waffle iron with cooking spray. Spoon batter onto preheated waffle iron. Cook 3-5 minutes or until crisp and done. Repeat with remaining batter. Transfer waffles to a baking sheet, and keep warm, uncovered, in the oven at 200° until ready to serve. Waffles can be frozen in zip-top freezer bags and reheated in oven or toaster oven.　

Serve with fruit or other desired side

Meal 3: Tomato-Ravioli

1 pkg. pre-made cheesy ravioli (great value)
1 can Hunts spaghetti sauce (four cheese)
1 loaf french bread

　
Directions
Cook the ravioli according to package directions. Drain, return to pan, add sauce, and heat to warm. Serve with french bread.　

Meal 4: Monterey Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/4 c. BBQ sauce
1/4 c. bacon bits (I use cut up turkey bacon)
1 c. colby and jack cheese, shredded
1 14 oz. can Rotel tomatoes, drained (canned with green chilies added)
sliced green onions
pepper

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pound out chicken breasts to flatten. Season with pepper. Grill chicken until no long pink (we used our George Foreman grill) and place on baking sheet covered with foil. Top each chicken breast with one tablespoon bar-b-que sauce, 1/4 c. cheese, 1/4 c. tomatoes, green onions and one tablespoon of bacon bits. Place in oven and bake until cheese is melted (about 5 minutes).

Serve with fruit or other desired side.　

Meal 5:Baked Potato Soup (Slow Cooker)

2 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, washed but NOT peeled. Diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1 small yellow onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
32 ounces (4 cups) chicken stock or broth
8 oz fat-free cream cheese, softened
1/2 tablespoon seasoned salt
optional garnishes: crumbled bacon, shredded cheese, green onions

Directions
Add potatoes, onion, garlic, seasoning, and chicken stock to slow cooker. Cook on high for 6 hours or low for 10 hours. Add the softened cream cheese and stir to incorporate.
Top with green onions, bacon bits, sour cream etc.

Meal 6: Seven-Layer Tostadas

1 can (16 oz.) refried pinto beans
1 1/2 cups mashed avocado (seasoned as desired)
1 cup light sour cream
1/2 tsp. taco seasoning 1 cup finely grated cheese 1 cup chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
1/2 cup sliced black olives
6-8 tortillas
olive oil for greasing baking sheet, about 1 tsp.

Directions
Place a baking sheet inside the oven and let it get hot while you preheat oven to 450 degrees, about 10 minutes. Carefully remove baking sheet, drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil on it and spread around with a paper towel, and put flour tortillas on the baking sheet. Toast tortillas in the oven until they're crisp and barely starting to brown, turning several times. This will take less than 5 minutes so watch them carefully.

While tortillas are crisping, put the refried beans in a bowl, stir to break them apart, and microwave 2-3 minutes, or until they're hot. Stir the Taco Seasoning Mix into the sour cream. Chop the onions, slice green onions, and slice the olives.

Put crisped tortilla shell on a plate and top with:
--a thin layer of refried beans (1-2 tablespoons)
--a thin layer of guacamole (1-2 tablespoons)
--a thin layer of seasoned sour cream (1-2 tablespoons)
--several generous pinches of finely grated low-fat cheese
--chopped tomatoes
--thinly sliced green onions
--sliced olives

Serve right away, with salsa or hot sauce if desired. You can keep the topping ingredients in the fridge and crisp more tortillas later to use any leftovers.

　
Meal 7: French Dip Sandwiches with French Fries

1 loaf french bread
16 oz sliced roast beef
sliced swiss/provolone cheese
1 packet Ajus' sauce mix
4-6 potatoes

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice potatoes into long strips. In large zip-lock, mix together 2 tbsp oil and desired seasonings (I use garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper.) Toss fries to coat. Place on greased baking sheet or line with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Slice french bread in half lengthwise. Layer roast beef and sliced cheese. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 7 minutes or until bread is toasted and cheese is melted. Prepared Ajus according to package directions for dipping and serve with fries.



 

Finding the Best Price

When it comes to online shopping, my favorite tool to use is Google Shopping. You enter what it is you are shopping for in the search bar and it will bring up every online store (and some local stores) that carries that item along with the price and shipping cost.

I do not shop online without first consulting Google Shopping because it has saved us hundreds of dollars! Just last night, we were dreaming about buying a nice canvas tent. We found the same one that my mother-in-law has. She paid $500 and this one was listed at $350 with free shipping!

Saving on Gas

 My husband drives a lot both for his job and for his work. Unfortunately, gas is a major chunk of our budget every month. We like to save every penny when it comes to filling up our cars. That is why we shop and fill up at Smith's. Each time we shop there, we swipe our rewards card (provided for
free) and we usually will save up 10-20 cents per gallon once or twice a month. It saves just a few dollars per month but hey we will take it!

For our next car purchase, we are considering buying a Certified Natural Gas vehicle. You can buy a car that takes only CNG or they also have bi-fuel options that take regular gas as well. There are natural gas stations all over Utah and all over the rest of the states as well. Right now in Utah, natural gas is only $1.49 per gallon! The car would almost pay for itself in savings at that price! Not to mention, this year you can get $0.50 per gallon in tax credits so if you decide to go CNG be sure to keep track of your gas receipts! A great place to find CNG vehicles in Utah is cngutah.com. To see if there is a CNG fill-up station near you, go here.

Never ask the question, "What should we have for dinner?" again!

Meal planning takes a lot of work and a lot of time. My life has recently become more busy and our budget still does not allow us to eat out very often. This is why I decided to subscribe to "Emeals" yesterday. When you subscribe, they give you a meal plan each week that has recipes and the entire grocery list. They create the meals around sales at your local grocery stores and have over 40 different plans to choose from. The meal plan I have chosen is the "low-carb" one. I liked how all of the recipes are healthy and they use a lot of fresh ingredients but are simple at the same time.

The subscription for 3 months costs $21.00. I found a coupon code that saved me over $3.00. ( I figured $17.00 was a small price to pay for all the work it is going to save me!)

Has anyone else used emeals before? What has been your experience?

I can't wait to try it out! I am going shopping today!

Buying Bread

So lately I have been going against everything I have been teaching on this blog.

I have been buying bread.

This is mostly because I have gotten lazy, but it is also because I have found the way to buy healthy-- relatively homemade bread. . . for cheap!

I have discovered the grocery store's secret-- instead of buying bread in the bread isle, buy it straight from your favorite grocery store's bakery! Everytime I have gone to buy it, it is always the same price: 3 loaves for $5 or $1.67 each!! And it is delicious and healthy! How can you not decide to be lazy when you discover something as great as this?

It is the same with buns and hoagies too! In the normal grocery isle the cheapest hoagie buns I could find were $3.65 for 6. I went to the bakery and got 12 large buns for $2.50. Not bad!