Plain and Not So Plain – Page 866 – Free Homeschool Books & Resources for Every Family

Last weeks frugal productivity —new weekly series 1

amy / 09/09/2014

Part of my “job” as a wife and mother is to be frugal with the resources that God has given to me. There have been many times that I have been wasteful, non productive, fruitless, and inefficient in my life but when I have those times, it makes me realize I can do better. We can’t ALWAYS do everything right the first time, then we would have no room for improvement in our lives. I love finding new ways to cut back on bills and pushing myself to learn new skill sets for life.

That is why I thought I would encourage you with my list of things that I do each week that I feel make me productive by saving us money, being resourceful by using what I have, and bettering my life by making it more effective.

Here are my last weeks frugal productivity………….

My husband made me this last year, a very simple piece of wood with some screws in it. We had it hanging inside to put all of our bath towels onto to cut down on all of the towels that we can go through in a week. I moved it outdoors for the summer for the children to hang their pool towels on but have since moved it back indoors. Now I can save by not washing so many towels each week with the children.

Our good friend, Kathy made each of my children an embroidered towel with their name on it. Now everyone knows which one is theirs. This is great for our family.

I made my own bathtub scrub instead of buying a store bought kind.

2 parts baking soda
1 part salt
1 part borax powder

Mix and put in an old Parmesan cheese container.

Sprinkle inside of tub and squirt with some vinegar. Use a scouring pad(green) to get rid of grimy tub.

I froze about 10 quart sized bags of shredded zucchini.

We made many batches of zucchini chips, which usually get eaten up within the same day around here.

We buy ALOT of pita bread around our house. We love it with homemade hummus and grilled pizzas. I wanted to try and make it myself.

The results weren’t too bad. I think I needed to concentrate and make them more perfect rounds. I will keep perfecting the recipe and then come up with a good final one. BUT we at least tried it and it tasted just like what we buy at the store.

We made some homemade bread. Now that it is getting cooler, I don’t mind baking so much. This bread is a favorite of our families. It has a nice soft, honey flavor that we all enjoy very much. Ezekiel bread rec ipe here.

Since we had our homemade bread to eat, we didn’t need to worry about coming up with another thing for snacks in the afternoon. I just put some butter and jam on the bread and that satisfied the children until dinner time.

We also used up our rhubarb that we had in the freezer and made some raspberry rhubarb jam.

I myself have been trying to keep myself on a good “clean” eating plan. Here are some of the things I have been enjoying this week:

Peaches and homemade granola. If a person liked yogurt it would go quite well with this. I love it just plain. Very tasty.

This has been a great meal for me for dinner. I take and chop up the following:

cucumbers
green onion
beets
cranberries
feta cheese
sunflower seeds

I then assemble them onto my lettuce leaf and eat. I only need to eat 2-3 leaves and I am full.

I made a big pot of cabbage soup this week and I have been eating many bowls for my meals. This is a great filler soup. I made some extra whole wheat pasta and added it to the soup with some Parmesan cheese on top.

We have an abundance right now of fresh veggies for cheap, that is why I have been focusing my meals mainly on them to use up the resources that I have without sacrificing the health content of my meals.

What about you? Have you done any frugal productivity this week?

Eliminating Processed Foods Series—our month long challenge part 10–week 4 menu

amy / 09/08/2014

The problem with having a stocked pantry and having many get togethers is that you eat much processed foods. It seems we have a week where we get on track and then all of a sudden, we through a BBQ or have an open mic and we are back to eating unhealthy again. As this past week winds down we will be able to get back into routine a bit and focus more on quality of food and not so much on quantity and other person’s persona of what we should be eating.

My pantry is looking quite bare lately. I am slowly using up all our foods that we are looking to eliminate. I was excited to find whole wheat pasta that costs the same as the “white” kind at Walmart and Meijers. That is a no brainer of which ones to choose when the cost is the same. Now the only problem is …..we have to try it. I was going to mix it half and half with my white pasta to get used to the taste and texture of whole wheat. Will keep you posted. **update, have been using it just fine with no complaints from anyone.

This week I really focused on getting rid of the things I wanted to “use up” in my refrigerator, freezer, and pantry. One of those items was mayonnaise. I had a 1/3 of a container left and didn’t want to waste it. So I took some ground up chicken, and ham–from Easter that was in the freezer and mixed it together with some chopped up pickles and chopped onions. This made a great tasting sandwich spread.

Monday

breakfast

yogurt and berries with granola on top

lunch

leftovers from party this past weekend

dinner

leftovers from party this past weekend–the children enjoyed this part, being able to eat all the yummy foods from the party. For myself, I stuck to a plain diet . I learned from the week before how awful I felt and did not want to repeat that.

Tuesday

breakfast

breakfast burrito

lunch

leftover macaroni and cheese

raw veggies cut up

watermelon

sandwich spread on bread for anyone who liked it

dinner

This day, I went to our Farmers Market and came home with a bunch of fresh veggies. We made vegetable pizza and topped some with turkey bacon. I made my own sauce, used our own bacon bits, some cheese and lots of veggies.

We also had some corn on the cob and watermelons slices

Wednesday

breakfast

pancake muffins and yogurt smoothies

lunch

leftover pizza from dinner

sandwich spread on bread

dinner

lentil rice casserole in whole wheat tortilla with lettuce and homemade salsa

corn on the cob

watermelon

This dish has become a staple in our menu this past month. It is something my husband enjoys and there aren’t many meatless dishes that he enjoys, it is cheap, and it is good for us. Oh, did I mention it was SUPER EASY to make???

Thursday

breakfast

english muffins with egg and bacon

lunch

leftover lentil rice burrito

dinner

BLT sandwiches with chicken rice soup.

My little ones don’t enjoy BLT sandwiches. I took my homemade bread that I made this week and put slices of it on a cookie sheet. I then topped each slice with a piece of homemade Velveeta cheese and a piece of bacon. I broiled it for a few minutes and had a great sandwich for my children.

Friday

breakfast

smoothies

homemade bread made toast and peanut butter

lunch

leftover soup

cut up veggies

dinner

We did peanut butter and honey sandwiches for the younger children to tide them over until our Open mic at night to eat.

We served up everyone with a nacho bar, brownie-strawberry skewers, hummus and pita chips, veggies and dip, and licorace and jelly belly beans.

We also had a Smores bar and that was fun to have.

Thank goodness we have a vast amount of hungry teens that attended, it was less food for us to have as leftovers.

Saturday

breakfast

burrito and smoothies

lunch

leftover nacho

dinner

on the road….

Today we went to visit Dad down at work and then head to the park together. We packed a cooler full of sandwiches– peanut butter and honey for little ones, sandwich spread for older ones. We took apples, and cut up veggies, brought along a bag of Monster cookies that we made this week, and some pretzels we bought on sale.

Sunday

breakfast

pancake muffins

I finally was able to purchase REAL maple syrup. I bought a large container and paid way more than the fake syrup I used to buy but my food spending allotment has been extremely lower so I was able to purchase it as an investment into my children’s bodies. Funny, my little ones prefer the “sugary” kind over the real. Takes time to strip them from their corn syrup sugar.

lunch

leftover sandwiches

apples

cut up veges

dinner

mexican haystacks

I have a friend who does these each week, I thought I would grow tired of “routine” foods but this has worked out well. It is easy to have in the crockpot or oven warming while we are at church and then come home to an easy meal all prepared, we just have to assemble.

Today we tried her version instead of our Mexican version. I didn’t take pictures —just mixed some chopped chicken, tomato sauce, black beans, chili powder and cumin. Let is cook on low in my crockpot all day. Made for an easy dinner.

Even though I might not say that we had veggies and fruit with our meal, whenever I assemble the little ones plates, I ALWAYS fill a few compartments with whatever veggie or fruit we have on hand. If I don’t have fresh, I put frozen or dried. We have lots of frozen grapes, applesauce, and blueberries in the freezer to grab for dinner. We have been serving lots of cucumbers this past month.

I am happy to say that I have quit my coffee creamer. I LOVE my coffee in the morning but have started drinking it black this week and it has gone well. My husband made me a cup with creamer and I didn’t even think it tasted that good. I will continue on not adding it to my drink and be rid of that processed food.

This wraps up our month long processed food elimination. I really do feel like we are FINALLY on a good path. Most everything that I buy now will be a basic food, that I will take and create something out of it. No more letting someone else prepare something that I can do myself.