Month End Report soon to come

The debt reduction percentage - includes payments that were made to come out of this Friday's paycheck....when it has cleared the bank I will post our monthly payoff total....

Kitchen Tips Tuesday

Okay....so even though it is not a backward day at Tammy's Kitchen tip...I thought I would still ask a question. I have what I thought was a zester, but when I used it this past weekend I could not get the zest off of it. I don't have a picture of it, but it kind of looks like the holes on the top left of this grater I found on-line.

So my questions are....Is that a zester? How can I get the zest off? Please help.

For Kitchen Tip go to TammysRecipes.com

Menu Plan Monday/And Follow-up

Well things didn't go according to plan last week. I went to a discount grocery store to do my shopping. (I am hoping to take the reciepts from both stores to do a comparison on the pricing to make sure that I am acually saving money) They were out of brown gravy and there chese was more expensive than Walmart's so I decided to go by Walmart later in the day....well that never happened so I did not have the ingredients to make a few of the items on my menu from last week. (We have decided to shop only one day a week to prevent us from overspending, it has been working so far) We had the missionaries over for dinner on Saturday so we ended up roasting a leg of lamb, which we had been given, in our rotisserie. We served yummy greek potatoes, and greek green beans which didn't turn out so well. Along with Fresh baked bread. For dessert we had Luscious Cream Puff which were excellent.

For this week we have:

(from last week)

Taco Bake

Red Beans and Rice

Sheppards Pie

Adding:

Lamb Gyros - from left overs

Pancakes, Bacon, Eggs

Chicken Pot Pie

Emilia and I had fun "taping" segments of her making Orange-Wheat Scones....as soon as I can edit the video clips I will post them. She is so cute in her pj's, with her apron and her kool-aid mustashe. I was origionally just going to post pictures of us making them together, but she wanted to do a cooking show....and since I was still in my pj...I graciously let her be the Star!!

For more Menu Ideas pleas go here.

Trip to California

Well this Summer we are flying all the way from the East to the West Coast. We will be going up to Greenesboro, NC which is about 4 hrs away to fly out to Burbank, CA. I am loving skybus.com, I like the fact that if you get there soon enough that you can get a really cheap seat. I am talking $150 each to fly cross-country. That is nothing to sneeze at. The only issue I am having is that they are taking so long to switch over to June Calendar so I can purchase our tickets. I am hoping that they are not discontinuing the flight between the to cities - that would be the pits. If they don't I might be able to fly my family of four for under $700 buckaroos. While out there we have talked about going camping, to Medieval Times among other things. I am so excited. I am hoping that we can get together with some friends of ours that are out on the West Coast. I emailed my mom 14 times yesterday talking back and forth about the trip. I am too excited to see her. I think the last time we saw each other was two March's ago when she was out here for my wedding. Emilia is excited to see her cousin who has a horse. She thinks that is the bomb!!

WFMW Master Baking Mix

It is Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks In My Dryer. My tip this week is how to make your own homemade Bisquick. I found it somewhere online, and have not been able to find it again. It is great. You can make pancakes, waffles, bisquits, muffins, cornbread, cakes, cookies.....almost anything that you can make with bisquick. If anyone is interested in the recipes you can make I would be more than happy to post them....just give me a shout.

Master Baking Mix

9 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1/3 c baking powder

1 tbs salt

2 tsp cream of tarter

4 tbs granulated sugar

2 1/2 c nonfat dry milk

2 c shortening (shelf stable)

Sift together the dry ingredients, except milk, together three times. Add dry milk. Mix well. Cut in shortening with pastry blender or two knives until mixture looks like cornmeal. Store in covered container at room temperature.

Well, this is what works for me. I am on my second batch and I am loving the savings from not buying the Bisquick. For more ideas go here.

Kitchen Tip Tuesday - Allrecipes

I just love allrecipes.com. It is such a wonderful site. It has a multitude of recipes, but I love that you can read reviews and see what adjustment to make off of the original recipe. One of the key features I like is the ingredient search that it has. If you have a few items on hand but you don't know what to make with them, just type them in, hit search and viola you have recipes to make. For instance my late mil (passed away a few months ago) was a wonderful woman. One of the funny things about her was that she would send us home from a visit (she's in Ohio, we live in SC) with food. I'm talking cans of food, bags of rice and general pantry items. I have a feeling that if we had lived any closer we would have been sent home with perishables too. Well, summer of 06 we went for a visit and she sent home 4 cans of white beans. I have no clue what to do with them, I don't use that particular bean in my cooking. So, if they are still good here are a few recipes that allrecipes.com suggests:

Sausage Minestrone yummy!

Tropical Quake Shake (okay not too sure about a bean/fruit shake, but interesting nonetheless)

White Bean Spread With Garlic & Rosemary (looks kind-of like a hummus)

But say I had a few other ingredients on hand....say chicken and onions. Then I just add those in the ingredients search (it has 4 fields for what you do want, and even has 4 field for things you don't want. You can exclude ingredients like: mushrooms if you don't like it)

So with white beans, chicken and onions in things I do want and mushrooms in the things I do here is what I came up with.

Caribbean White Beans

Caldo Gallega (a yummy looking Puerto Rican soup).

For more Kitchen tip go to TammysRecipes.com

Menu Plan Monday

It in Menu Plan Monday over on Organizing Junkie once again. We have discovered that a general monthly menu is nice to have all the ingredients for, but we are planning week to week what we want. This week Steve saw alot of recipes that he wants to try in Kraft's recipe magazine that they send out. I want to try all but one. A broccoli and cheese soup (made with Velveeta) Yuck! Not that I have anything against Velveeta, but eating a big bowl of it, in addition to the broccoli makes me want to gag.

Here are the meals that we will be having. In no particular order

Baked Potato Soup

Taco Bake

Red Beans and Rice

Sheppard's Pie

Waffles, Bacon, Eggs.

I am continuing with the breakfast, a soup and a bean heavy dish once a week. I am hoping that this will help cut our food budget. Although, next week I am going straight to my pantry and seeing what I can make out of that and our chest freezer. I know we have plenty to cook with needing only minor ingredients if we just did some planning.