Banana Peanut Butter Frosty

I ran across this recipe from moneysavingmom.com about a year or so ago, and we lovvvvvvvve it. It is so simple, inexpensive and DELICIOUS. What I love about it is that it can serve as breakfast, lunch OR dinner in a pinch. Plus, the bananas give it enough sweetness that it can satisfy your sweet tooth instead of eating something much LESS healthy. (I've considered making it with chocolate milk, but that sort of defeats the "healthy" purpose!)

The recipe is the easiest thing ever,

1 cup of frozen bananas
1 cup of milk
1 (or two) tablespoons of PB
1 tsp ground flax seed
2 tablespoons of dark chocolate chips (optional)

Blend and serve! Thanks Money Saving Mom!

Organizing and Donation

I had about an hour of uninterrupted time this morning while the baby was sleeping and my big girl was out having fun with her grandpa. I decided to tackle a few organizing quick hits -- the girls closet, my linen closet and our pantry in the basement. I was able to get the big girl's winter clothes packed away until little girl was ready for them. I also weeded items out of the pantry and linen closet for donation or trash.

I haven't really touched on this before (that I can think of,) but I try to clean out our pantry of overstocked or nearly expired items about quarterly. We are very fortunate to have a food pantry and clothes closet about a mile from our house, so it's easy for me to take the items by when I am headed in that direction. It's been a really good exercise for me and the girls in remembering to think outside of ourselves. They love making trips to the food pantry to drop off food for the "hungry people." ("Hungry people" is not intended to sound condescending in any way. That is the best way I could think of to describe what we were doing when my oldest was very young. In that context, what we're doing makes perfect sense to her, and I love the innocence of it. When she was about 2.5, my mom took her to drop off some food. Some older volunteers from the church were leaving, and my sweet pea shouted to them, "Wait, we have your lunch!!!" So sweet.) I think it is especially though provoking (even for a four year old) because it causes you to realize that you sure don't have to go far to find people in need. We have people in great need in our very own neighborhood.

$40/week edition...

As I mentioned last week, things are a little tight around here this pay period. We had about a $300 shortfall in our budget for these two weeks, so we had to pull back a little (or a lot) in a several different areas. To be honest with you, I was feeling really bummed about having to cut our small budget at all, but it really didn't matter all that much in the end. The sales weren't great, and since my budget was limited, I skipped over the junk and stuck with the stuff that was truly nutritionally beneficial for my family. (Ok, except for the pizza.)

I made three trips to different stores this week.

Price Chopper:



My pre-tax total was $14.38. I saved $24.38.

Hy Vee -



I'm not quite sure what my exact total was at HV because I also bought air filters out of our household budget. I think it was just shy of $14.00.

At Hen House, I got:

2 dozen Land O'Lakes Eggs
2 Smart Balance butters
1 Peach Whole Fruit Sorbet

My total was $7.34 pre-tax. I saved $6.93.

Oh yeah, I also picked up a bag of SunChips and 2 Reese's PB Cups at CVS for free. Yay!

Quite honestly, I'm a little bored with our "usual" food. Since I'm not a big meat eater, we have a fairly limited dinner rotation, and I'm definitely growing weary of it. (If anyone has any great vegetarian recipes, I would LOVE to hear them.) Even still, I'll make a cavatini this week for sure. Other dinners will include, grilled cheese and tomato soup, pizza, baked potatoes and breakfast for dinner. We'll be snacking on yogurt, cottage cheese, banana smoothies, apples and peanut butter (my new favorite,) and tortillas with black beans and cheese. I'll also be sharing my family's favorite chocolate chip and oatmeal cookie recipe later this week.

World Food Programme...

I just joined Bloggers Against Hunger through the World Food Programme!

Olive Garden's Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip

A friend of mine made this recently for a wedding and for the baby shower we hosted last week. It is exceptionally good, but I didn't realize it was Olive Garden's recipe until I asked for the recipe. Here it is:

1 cup chopped artichokes
1/2 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed
8 OZ. cream cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
dash pepper

In a small saucepan, boil artichokes and spinach in a cup of water for 10 minutes. Drain in colander. Heat cream cheese 1 minute in microwave or saucepan till hot. Then, stir all of the ingredients together. Reheat to serve if necessary!

For more recipes, see Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, Tuesdays at the Table, LifeasMom, Joy of Desserts, Grocery Cart Challenge.

Easter Sales...

I must be crazy because I went FOUR different places this week. Truth be told, my husband did not get very many hours at work this week. The bad news is, that will really hurt our payday next Friday. The good news is, it makes it easier for me to make a quick trip to the store ALONE or with just one child. I don't feel like that makes a huge difference in how much I save, but it makes a really huge difference in how much effort grocery shopping takes. I also finally got almost caught up on organizing my coupons, and that really helped too. We need all the help we can get right now! Adding Easter and the need for preschool snacks in to the budget just intensified my need to do a really good job!

(Combined Target and Price Chopper)

I started my shopping on Wednesday at Target. I got:

3 boxes of Jello
6 bricks of Cream cheese
1 package of Recycled Reynolds foil

Pretax total was $4.30. I saved $9.78. Off to a good start!

After that, I went to Price Chopper. I got:

1 Betty Crocker cake mix
1 Betty Crocker frosting
1 package of Mission tortillas
1 can of Eagle Brand
1 can of artichoke hearts
2 boxes of Wheat Thins
1 box of Triscuits
2 boxes of Quaker Maple oatmeal squares
1 lb of generic butter
3 bricks of Kraft cheese
1 bag of Kraft cheese
1 bag of frozen spinach
2 2 lb packages of Strawberries

My pre-tax total was $24.09. I saved $36.06.

On Thursday over lunch, I ran to Hen House. I apologize because the picture turned out very bad. This is what I picked up:

1 package of Bumblebee Lemon Pepper tuna
2 64 oz containers of Tree Top apple juice
2 Aunt Jemima syrups
1 box of Quaker Hazelnut Latte oatmeal
1 dozen Eggland's Best eggs
1 gallon of Robert's hormone free whole milk
1 Jimmy Dean breakfast skillet

My pre-tax total was $14.96. I saved $16.00. (My quarterly store savings total came out at $177.09. Pretty good since I don't do much shopping there!)

And FINALLY, I took the girls to Hy-Vee. We went because I THOUGHT the big cans of mandarin oranges were on sale, but it was the little cans. We didn't even get any! We ended up with a few other things and a serious eye injury. It wasn't the best trip, but what's a mom to do?

Here is what we got:

1 package of unsalted butter
1 package of SunMaid raisins
4 Coke 12 packs
2 Cara Cara oranges (Expensive little buggers!)
3 lb bag of organic oranges

My tax total after $10 credit was $8.40. Definitely not my best trip ever. We might have been better of had we just NOT made this trip.

We're having Easter dinner at my mother in law's house tomorrow. I am making key lime pie and Olive Garden's hot spinach dip. Both recipes should be making an appearance today or tomorrow! I also pre made cranberry orange scone dough, so we can have warm scones for breakfast. The rest of the week is going to take some thinking on!

Happy Easter!

See also LifeAsMom.

A day in the life of...

Let's see...a recap of my last 30ish hours...

5:00 last night, little girl kicks already not feeling well big girl in eye at grocery store
7:00, Daddy gets home from work, and I take big girl to ER
11:00, diagnosis of double bacterial pink eye, double ear infection, upper respiratory infection, and yes a scratched cornea
11:30, 24 hour CVS
12:30, bedtime
5:30, alarm goes off
7:30-3:30, work
4:00-5:30, a few minutes at home + dinner
5:45 - 7:15, ballet + acrobatics class

AND FINALLY....

A very tired attempt at freezer cooking...


I made a double batch of my new seriously awesome cranberry orange scone recipe. I'm going to give one to my parents, so they can have fresh scones on Easter morning, and we'll have some too. (I'm going to try to start providing more Holiday morning surprises for my parents. I always WANT to, and I never get around to it. Time to start thinking about Mother's Day!) I threw the second batch in the freezer, so I can take them to work for a potluck we're having next Friday at work. I'm always happy when someone brings breakfast, so I figured I'd be that person this time!

Secondly, I cut up three lbs of organic onions that I got on sale this week. I LOVE having diced, frozen onions. It is SO convenient when I'm trying to whip up a recipe that calls for onions. This might be my single most favorite time and money saving cooking tip. Give it try! While I was at it, I finely minced a white onion for the Olive Garden's Spinach and Artichoke dip recipe that I will be debuting tomorrow. It's awesome. Really awesome.

And now...

10:45, bedtime