Menu Monday

Dinner:
Lasagna, salad, butterhorn rolls (home made) Chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake !

Rebecca's Birthday cake :)

Oven fried chicken, fries, butterhorn rolls, apple sauce, peas
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, quick yeast bread, apple sauce
Pancakes
Shepard pie, corn bread

Lunch:
Sandwiches, fruit
chicken nuggets, yogurt, fruit
bagels, cream cheese, fruit
sandwiches, fruit
hot dogs, pickles

Breakfast:
Cereal, Bananas
bagels, with cream cheese
oatmeal
cereal
coffee cake

Snacks:
cheese sticks
yogurt
apples
bananas
cinn. rolls. (purchased these last week on sale for .49 cents at Aldis)
thin wheat crackers with peanut butter

Check out "I'm an Organizing Junkie Menu Monday"
Check out my blog In My Mothers Garden

Making Yogurt Stretch!

Hi, I wanted to share how I try to make our Yogurt stretch. Now I know that there are some of you who probably make your own yogurt I have not gotten that far yet, but with 8 children who all love yogurt I needed a way to make it stretch and to make it tasty at the same time.

My daughter Rebecca and I have been trying to lower our calories and exercising in an effort to lose some unwanted pounds. :) I have purchased some low fat lite yogurt and of course the children all want some.

I usually do the majority of my shopping at our local Aldi's . They have a 32 oz plain or vanilla yogurt which they sell for $1.59. That is pretty good.

So what I thought I would try was to take one of the low fat yogurts with fruit and to put about a tablespoon or so in each serving of the Aldi's yogurt and mix. My children love this. It helps me to stretch that yogurt and to keep every one happy at the same time . :)

Do you have any ideas. I would love to hear them. God Bless, Kathy

Menu Monday

Welcome to Menu Monday.

I thought it would be fun to share my menu for the following week.

For a family of 10 a menu has proven to be a great blessing.

So here is our menu this week.

Dinner

Pull pork, homemade rolls, chips salad
Ham , Potato and Cheese Casserole homemade butterhorn rolls
Grilled Italian Chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, applesauce, bread
Meatloaf, rice, stuffing, quick yeast bread
Pasta, salad, bread
Pancakes
Pizza

Breakfast

French toast
Cereal
Bagels
oatmeal
Cereal- Banana
Oatmeal

Lunch

Pasta
sandwiches PB & J, yogurt
chicken nuggets, peaches
hot dogs, mixed fruit
Sandwiches grill cheese, pickles, fruit
Mac and cheese

Check out "I'm an Organizing Junkie Menu Monday"

Kathy

Yummy Chocolate Syrup!

Our Frugal idea for this week is homemade chocolate syrup!

We found this recipe over at Hillbilly Housewife some time ago and we just love it!

My daughter Rebecca made this just the other night.

It only takes a few ingredients and it comes out really good!

My children love this in their milk and it is great on icecream as well.

Give it a try I am sure that your children will love it!

God Bless, Kathy

Busy Day!

Today I decided to get some baking done. There is a cold going through our home so I decided to let the younger children take a day off from school to recover.

I needed to make some bread. We mill our own grain and my wonderful husband bought me a Bosh mixer several years ago to mix and knead the dough.



So I ended up making three loaves of bread. Next I moved onto some hard rolls. Tonight we are having Barbecue beef. My family loves this. We shred the beef after it is nice and tender and then we serve it on hard rolls with cheese.

After making our own rolls one day my family fell in love with them and the store rolls just are not the same any more.

I made 24 rolls so we could freeze some for future meals. I am trying to learn to make extra's if they freeze well since I already have the mess to clean any way! :)

Next I moved onto making 2 apple pies! I love apple pies! I have a recipe that you can check out here if you are interested! I had some extra apples so I did not want them to go to waste.



We are also going to visit a family tonight so my husband requested apple pie to bring along.

I do enjoy baking but it can be a lot of work :) I am so thankful for my children who help especially my oldest daughter who helped with the cooking and the dishes !

With ten people in our home to feed this food will not last long. For lunch we used almost 2 loaves of bread! Well it does help heat up the house!

I hope that you are all having a great day!

I hope you do not mind my old pictures. I just love them! :)

God Bless, Kathy

Our Weekend Getaway!

Hi to everyone! I am so excited this weekend my husband and I will be going to our church's annual couples retreat! This is something that I look forward to every year!

I wanted to make sure that my children will have a bit of fun also while we are away so we are planning some fun and frugal ways of doing this.

Crystal mentioned over on Money Saving Mom that she was going to be baking and freezing ahead of time.

I decided this week to do a bit of cooking and freezing ahead of time also.

Yesterday I made three pizza's. I cooked the dough partially, let it cool and than added the toppings. I froze them so all our children have to do Friday night is just pop them in the oven and enjoy! No major mess. Here is the recipe we like to use.





We are also going to splurge and buy some Costco muffins for Saturday morning breakfast another treat. Off to the Red Box to rent a few movies for the weekend and a few snacks from Aldi's and they should be able to have a fun and frugal weekend!

We have even decided to grab a couple of those yummy muffins for our selves for our Saturday breakfast so we can just relax in our room a little longer and not feel rushed. Not to mention that it will also be much cheaper than running out for breakfast at a restaurant.

I will try to post some pictures of our weekend when we get back! Have a great and blessed weekend! God Bless, Kathy

Yummy Apple Pie!

Can you smell that crisp fall air? See the leaves changing colors?
Up here in New England that is what we are seeing and with the change to fall is the wonderful smells of Apple Pie!

I always look forward to fall for those wonderful apple pies. We went to a local apple orchard and we were able to buy some second apples for 38 cents a pound. So my husband bought us 23 pounds of apples.

We have made some fried apples and of course apple pie.

My dear friend Pam moved to upper state NY and she asked me a couple of weeks ago to write a post about making apple pie. Now that I cannot make her one, since she is no longer here, I told her that I would post the recipe on our blog.

Here is how we make our apple pie.

First I pick about 7-8 nice large apples. Peel and core and slice into nice size pieces. If you want the apples really soft you can slice them really thin. My husband likes a little bit of a bite so I do not cut them really thin.

After I place them in a bowl and add sugar, flour and cinn. I set this aside to let the sugar create a nice apple juice in the bottom of the bowl.


Then I prepare the pie crust.

Combine flour, salt and shortening.

Cut shortening into the flour mixture.

Then I ad 7-8 tablespoons of very cold water to form the pie crust
I add ice cubes to my cold water a trick that I learned from a friend to make sure that the crust really forms well.

Then form into a nice ball on a floured surface and I wrap with syran wrap and place in fridge for a little bit. I find that if the dough is nice and cool it rolls out better.

Cut dough into two equal parts and flour counter. Roll out dough for bottom half.

Carefully lift crust and lay into pie dish.

Add apples, pile up nice and high!:)

Add a few pats of butter. ( I often forget this part:) )

Roll out the other crust and lay onto the top of your apples.

I like to fold and tuck the upper crust under the bottom crust to seal the pie and to give me a nice thick crust.

Then I pinch the edges to give it a pretty look.

Add a few slits on top of the pie to release the steam.

Now it is time to bake. Oven temp 425 degrees 40-50 mins

I like to place foil around the edges so they will not over cook. I remove them about 10 mins before the pie is done.

The best way to know that the pie is done is when the juice begins to bubble out of the slits that you made in the top of the pie.

Yum, doesn't that look so good! It smells good too! Add some ice cream and you are all set!

Here is the Recipe:

Pie Crust-
1 cup of shortening
2 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
7-8 tablspoons cold water (add a little bit of Ice)

Pie filling-
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp cinn.
7-8 large apples peeled and sliced
3 tlb spoons of butter or margarine


Well Pam I hope that you enjoy!

God Bless, Kathy

Fried apples are also good so give that a try too!

Frugal Friday!

This week I thought I would mention a wonderful quick recipe that my family really enjoys!

One day about a year ago I was watching The Food Net Work and I saw Paula Deen making this really easy recipe.

Now I am always looking for some side dishes to add to our dinners to fill up all of our families hungry tummies! Bread is one item that I like to make. It fills them up and tastes great.
The problem is that I do not always have time to make bread that requires rising time.

This recipe is for Sour Cream Muffins. These really work out great and are quick and easy to make! Even your children could make these with a little help.
The Frugal part of my recipe is the flour. This recipe requires using Self Rising Flour.
I bought this the first time I made this recipe ,but I could not believe how much more the self rising flour cost compared to regular white flour.

So to the internet I went to find a recipe to make my own self rising flour and here it is.

Self Rising Flour:
1 cup of white flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt

So for every cup of flour you use you just add these amounts of the other items.

This works out great and you could even make some up for later use.

These muffins are so good you just whip them up before supper and they come out of the oven smelling great!




You have to try them ! You just won't believe how good they are!
Here is the recipe just check them out here at The Food net work.

I hope that you give them a try and let us know what you think of them!

Oh I just realized that I forgot take a an after picture of them I am sorry!


To find some other great Frugal ideas just check out Biblical Womanhood.

God Bless, Kathy

Check out the rest of our Blog @ In My Mothers Garden!

Pepperoni Bread!

.

For all those who enjoyed our Pizza! Pizza! post we have another great recipe using the same basic pizza dough!

The pizza dough recipe can be found here

Along with the dough you will need. . .


1lb of Mozzarella cheese

1lb of Chedder 30-40 pepperoni slices (or as much as you want)

And anything else you want!



We usually double the recipe, so we are able to make four breads. If you make a doubled version and only eat 1 or 2, that's fine! These make great left overs!

After mixing the dough and letting it rise, I place the dough onto a well floured counter and form it into a nice round ball. Then I cut the dough into four pieces.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. These take about 20 minutes to cook.

To make a loaf of Pizza Bread I first roll one of the sections out into a rectangular shape (ok, I try to!)

Next I put about a hand full of cheese on the top portion,

Then I fold the dough over the cheese,


Next part is easy! More cheese!!


Now you can add pepperonis!


My mom doesn't care for Pepperonis, so we make her plain cheese,
OK, now you are ready to fold the dough over again, add more cheese and pepperoni!
Next fold in the ends and place on a well greased pan!
they should look like this. . .

They should look like "logs", now I add slits to the top, and brush on an egg wash (1 egg beaten)
Ok, I pop these into the oven! I set the timer for 10 minutes, afterwards I then switch the pans from the bottom rack to top, and the top to bottom. I set the timer for 10 more minutes.


OK! by now they smell soooo good!!!

The finished products! The egg wash gives the breads a "shine"!
Allright! Being very careful (these are very hot!) I cut the loaves into 2'' slices. I place them on a nice large platter and viola! Dinner is served and boy does it smell good! You could add chips, but this usually satisfies by itself. (yes, including my two teen age brothers!)

Doesn't that look good??
These are great plain, or dipped in warm sauce or Ranch dressing.
So enjoy, and let us know if you try this!!

God bless!
~Rebecca~

Pizza! Pizza!

.


Any one for Pizza?!


Rebecca and I thought it would be fun to share with you our favorite homemade pizza!
Every Friday night we usually make Pizza for a treat! Of course we are a large family of 10 so we double the recipe. Click Here for the website for the dough recipe.

After we make the dough we let it rest for a while. When we are ready to make our pizza we preheat our oven to 425 degrees and make two round pizzas reg size and one pan pizza in a stone deep dish ( thats for mom!) After many trials and errors we have decided that we like to precook our pizza doughs for about 10 mins.






My husband used to work at Dominoes for about four years until the gas was making it unprofitable to work there any more. One of the perks of working there of course was free pizza!
While he was there he learned to make a very good recipe called "Philly cheese steak pizza".
It is not quite the same but for those who have had it they come back for more!

You will need the following ingredients:
American Cheese
Provolone Cheese
Deli Roast beef sliced (I usually purchase ours at Aldi's )
Mozz. cheese
Peppers, onions and mushrooms are optional. Of course My husband loves these added.

We then return it back to the oven for about another 10-15 mins. The other two Pizzas are one pepperoni and one deep dish cheese.


Ummm, doesn't that look good!

Now the finished product!


This pizza is requested often and goes really fast!
We hope you enjoy the recipe!

Here is our wonderful pizza maker!