Hiatus

As you have seen I haven't posted in a while. Due to recent time contraints, I need to take a break from many things and focus more on myself and my family.

I will still be trying to keep my budget under $300 and will post new things that I learn along the way. There just won't be the weekly posting of menus and lists.

I hope to pick back up in the near future when life slows down a little bit.

Thanks for following.

So cool!

So we all have moments/days/weeks/months where we are short on food money or don't have time to grocery shop.

I came across this awesome site. I am incredibly excited about it. Supercook

All you have to is enter the ingredients that you have and it gives you a list of recipes. Viola, dinner!

Rising Food Prices

This article was on Yahoo News. 4 Rising Food Costs That Will Hurt Your Wallet

I was suprised to see that milk wasn't on list, but maybe they are considering that to go under beef.

The "sweets" don't really bother me so much as I mostly bake my own. The upside for me is maybe they will reduce the amount of items that contain high fructose corn syrup.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins

I have a zucchini bread that I have been using for quite some time and it is great!  I wondered if I could alter it to make easier single servings. aka: muffins. 

Here is the recipe for the bread:

Zucchini bread

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 egg, beaten
1 cup sugar
1 cup finely shredded, unpeeled zucchini
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, toasted (I again use chocolate chips because I love chocolate)


Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease the bottom and 12 inch up sides of an 8x4x2-inch loaf pan; set aside. In a medium bowl combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg. Make a well in center of flour mixture; set aside.

In another medium bowl combine egg, sugar, shredded zucchini, and oil. Add zucchini mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy). Fold in nuts. Spoon batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.  I put foil on the top for the last 10-15 minutes to keep the top from getting too dark. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool completely on a wire rack. Wrap and store overnight before slicing.

And here is what I did to make muffins:

 I quadrupled the recipe (then used 2 tbs cinnamon instead of 4 tsp) and filled muffin cups 3/4 full baked at 400° for 18 minutes. They are awesome. Not fluffy like a blueberry muffin, but more dense.

Kids Eat Free (or cheap)

I found this great site. It's called Kids Eat Free Sunday.  You can type in your zipcode and the day of the week and see what restaurants your kids can eat free.

Always watch the register

1) We had pizza night. I had a great coupon for "buy a large get a medium for free".

2) Lesson learned. I will admit, I never watch my items being rung up at the register. I do look at my receipt when I get home. I was excited when I went to HyVee to get a Pork Shoulder, it was on sale for $1.99/ lb. Gotta love an unexpected savings! Well, when I got home I realized they rung me up at the full price of $2.99/lb. Ugh! Well, don't worry, I made a phone call and made sure I would get my money back. So my sweet husband went back to HyVee to get my $3.50 and to get my roll of hamburger, while the girls were at their dance class. Ugh! part deux. The rolls of hamburger we all gone! But thanks to my hubby, I got a rain check. So I still get my 5 lbs of beef. (Please note: I didn't spend extra gas to get my savings. He went to the HyVee next to their dance studio and I will cash in my raincheck tomorrow when I do my regular grocery shopping.)

Feeling the Price Change

I updated the prices on my spreadsheet tonight. It hurt. Almost everything that I updated went up 10¢-20¢! This makes an already very tight budget, tighter.