Next Week's Meal Plan

I shopped last night for next, since I won't have a chance to shop at the beginning of the week. So here's the plan for what we are eating:

Sun - Poppyseed Chicken, hamburger buns w/ Parmesan cheese
Mon - Leftovers (this is a busy night, so I like to have leftovers on these nights)
Tue - Weeknight Lasagna Toss w/ green beans
Wed - Leftovers (another busy night for us)
Thu - Birthday Party at our house: Corn dogs, Chips, Drinks, Cake, etc.
Fri - Frozen Pizza
Sat - Out

I also have the ingredients to make this Mexican Breakfast Casserole in the crock pot, which I hope to do Saturday night. We are home on Sundays with the exception of church, so I like to have a nice breakfast for the family. My husband will love it. I'm adding pork sausage to mine.

Oh, and I tried this Oatmeal Pancake recipe this morning. I was so excited to have a pancake recipe from scratch that I could sneak some oatmeal in to, but guess what - my kids gagged. Seriously. My 1 year old ate it, but my older 2 couldn't finish more than two bites! I think the oats make it a different consistency, because I don't think it was the wheat, they are used to wheat.

Fry Bread with Chili

This is one of my super cheap and easy dinners. Sorry, I have no pictures, we ate it up too fast! Fry's has had some great deals on Hormel Chili and I have probably over 60 cans of chili in my stockpile. I got them all free with coupons! They are great because they have a long shelf life and they are a great source of protein. My husband could eat almost an entire can himself, but I like to stretch it out even further.....so I make this fry bread to go with it:

Navajo Taco Fry Bread
2 cups flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup evaporated milk (I usually just use whatever is in my fridge!)
Abt 3/4 cup water

Mix dry ingredients and stir in water and milk. Knead and divide into 4-6 parts. Roll out in circles until desired thickness. Fry in oil on med-high heat until brown.

Top with chili & cheese!

Okay, with my free chili and ingredients on hand, this recipe costs me next to nothing to make. Probably less than $1. You can find cans of chili on sale for $1.00 each, so even if you buy the chili, this is pretty cheap!

This time I made it, I used 2 cans of chili, because my husband took the leftovers for lunch, and there is usually leftover bread. But, if I serve with a veggie or small salad, then 1 can would stretch for my family (husband and 6 & 3 year old kiddos) for our dinner.

You can also top the leftover bread with honey for a yummy treat!

Once a month cooking, etc.

So, we are in the midst of spring break and I'm spending lots of time playing with my kids...but I did want to share a few ideas with you.

I recently ran across this recipe for burrito filling that you can make in a big batch and freeze. I did this last weekend and it was great! I added spanish rice to mine to help make it stretch a little further, and my husband raved about them! Yay! What a simple lunch when there are no leftovers to take.

I love the concept of cooking in bulk to save time and money.

Money Saving Mom does a baking day once in a while and fills her freezer full of yummy baked goods. Check around her links for her other baking days.

Mommy Making Money does this with her meat - chicken and ground beef.

I love being able to cook extras and freeze them, to make things from scratch and take advantage of sale prices by prepping the food for future meals.

Gap - 30% off coupon through March 15th

Click here for the coupon. It's good at Gap, Gap Outlet, Old Navy and Banana Republic! The details: Get 30% off during our Friends & Family event. We're calling it Give & Get because for every purchase you make, we give 5% of the amount you spend to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; and in thanks, you get a 30% discount on your total purchase.

I think I might do some shopping this weekend!

Spring Break - On a budget

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted last. We've been busy around here.....and now it's spring break! We are on a year round school schedule, so we have 2 weeks off! I decided to stay home and plan activities with my kids. So we made a calendar and the kids got to help me stick little pictures on each day with fun activities to do.

Here's a few things we are doing for cheap/free:

• Library Story time
• Picnic at the park
• Krispy Kreme - my kids have never been inside to see how they are made. So I think we'll go watch them being made and get a free one off the line. Then we'll just buy some milk to go with it and be good!
• Dollar Movies - we have a theater here that has older movies for $2 a ticket! We'll bring our own snacks and go see a fun kids flick for under $10
• Campfire. We'll go find some place nearby to roast hot dogs and marshmallows and enjoy being outside
• Hiking. There's a place we can hike that's fairly close to our house. Even if we don't make it to the top, it's still something free and we can be outside and enjoy nature.
• Movie night. Rent movies, get out the sleeping bags, pop popcorn and watch movies together. My kids love to do this or have a picnic on a blanket in the family room.
• Crafts. Kids love to create. Use paints, markers, glue, scissors, scraps, etc to let them make some crafts. I need to run to Michael's to pick up some fun art projects that we can do next week. They have tons of stuff in the $1 range.

Coupons you can use to get some fun freebies the kids will love

• Sign up to get a B1G1 free pretzel coupon from Aunt Aunties. My kids love to go play at the mall, so this will be a fun treat when we are done!
• Yummy - B1G1 free sundae coupon at B&R.

I also bought some fun "snack" foods that we don't normally buy so they feel like we are having some special treats on break. I've been making breakfast more and they are always surprised when I pull out a fun goodie from the pantry. I was kind of dreading the two weeks, staying home and trying to not spend a lot of money (it's birthday season in our family).....but so far it's been great! Mostly I'm trying to focus on my kids. Have fun and laugh with them. Most things can wait until they are back in school, so I've put "life" on hold to just have some good family fun.