Lots and Lots of Chicken

I bought 6 packages of Tyson Chicken Breast on the bone for .99 cents a pound. My total bill was $15.39. I brought it home...rinsed it all and put it in 2 large pots, fill with water to cover..add 1 stalk of celery to each pot. Bring to a boil...reduce to simmer..cover and cook for 1 hour.

I have 18 huge pieces of chicken from this batch. I personally prefer to have boned chicken when I am boiling it but I use boneless sometimes as well. I always use boneless to grill.

I pulled all the chicken and cut it into chunks.....Skimmed the fat off of the broth. I used 3 breasts tonight for our dinner. Chicken and rice...YUM a family favorite! I put about 1 cup in a small baggie and spooned a few teaspoons of broth over it so it wouldn't dry out and stuck it into the fridge for quesadillas tomorrow night. I made homemade chicken salad with part for lunch over the next few days. The rest I divided into family size portions for Chicken Soup, and Chicken Pot Pie for later. This saves me money and time!

Tip for Laundry Soap

I have so many questions about the homemade laundry soap that I use...I thought I would give some clarification. First you can get the recipe that I use HERE

The pictures above show the first step...you can cut the soap into small pieces but it will melt much faster if you grate it. Also after you have it all combined into the large bucket...keep stirring it until it is cooled....I leave it sitting in my kitchen floor for a few hours and stir it when I walk by...of course I don't have little ones who might want to "play" in it.

After it sits..it WILL be lumpy....it is OK....really...I promise!!! Every time before I refill my container..I have to really stir the bucket....and still it will be thick and clumpy as I dip it into the funnel but after I add the last part of water and shake like crazy it is just fine!

I have been using it for almost a year and I love it! Smells good! Saves me a HUGE amount of money!

I bought a boat load of chicken on sale....tonight I pounded it...to make it nice and thin...marinated and grilled it all. We ate chicken sandwiches tonight...served with all the fixings and instead of chips or french fries I served baked potatoes and raw carrots, cucumbers and celery (of course with a little lite ranch:) After the chicken was pounded it was thin enough to cut in half diagonally and make 2 sandwiches out of each. Usually I would use the rest to put on a big salad but I am going to try something different.....I post tomorrow about it!

I LOVE crock pots....I have the one pictured below..it holds 6 quarts and it is pretty.....not that that helps the cooking but it helps me every time I walk in and see it! I use mine all the time. They are relatively inexpensive...I have 2....my other one is small for dips and things like that.

Yesterday morning I loaded it up with boneless skinless chicken breasts......15 to be exact(on sale at Kroger last week :) I filled in all the way up with water. I didn't season these at all because of what I needed them for but sometimes I do this for chicken soup and I season the water. I turned it on low and left it for 10 hours. Oh my goodness...TENDER!!!!

This is the breakdown of how I used the meat.......6 chicken and cheese (remember all that free cheese!!) quesadillas. I would normally use 3 for my family but I was feeding another family of 6. It really doesn't take a whole lot of meat on these.



5 chicken breasts I used to make Ritz cracker caserole.....we don't eat many caseroles but this one is so good.....1 can cream of chicken soup......3/4 cup sour cream(you can't taste it I promise!) 1 sleeve Ritz crackers(Iuse the whole wheat kind) 1/2 stick of butter

Shread chicken with fingers and put on the bottom of pan...I usean oval casserole dish.....9x5 mix soup and sour cream together and spread over the top of the chicken. Crush crackers over mixture and drizzle melted butter over all. Bake 30 min. at 375 I serve with veggies and a salad.




The remaining 4 chicken breasts I froze covered in the broth and I will use them at another date either for quesadillas or for chicken and rice. Either way the crock pot was already running so why not load it up....now I am partly ready for another meal.

Who's a Turkey?

I bought a few Turkeys after Christmas when they were on an amazing sale and I froze them. This is one that we ate the last week of our "eat on $10" deal. Yummy! I sprinkled it with pepper and garlic salt and cooked it according to the directions that came with the turkey. Super easy!! We ate it the first night with veggies and then I cut the rest of the meat off and sealed it good and tight and we ate turkey sandwiches for the next several days.

Oh Yes I did!

I might have gone to Publix last night and pulled 8 of the $2.00 off 2 Kraft shredded cheese coupons from the blinkie and left the store...maybe empty handed.....and drove across the street to Kroger and used them for the buy 8 kraft cheese for 99 cents each. I might have put 16 in my cart and used the the 8 / $2 off coupons and I might have gotten them all for free. If I was the kind of gal to do that sort of thing....and I AM!!

I did buy yougurt and a box of cereal....my total 67.01 out of pocket 6.23 I can honestly say, that has never happened before!

Last week

Well we will be finished this Friday with our 10 a week challenge. I have learned a few things....we eat a great deal of cereal.....I mean a GREAT deal and I ran out after the first week. It has been the biggest thing that my kids have noticed. Next time I will have that better stocked. I did go to CVS last night and I got 4 boxes 50 cents each of Rasin Bran....you would have thought it was Christmas.

2nd thing that I have learned......I can make this work on less. We still have a huge amount of food left! We have enough of just about everything to make it another 2 weeks. I would run out of meat but otherwise we could do it!

3rd We eat a lot of fresh fruit. It ran out last week and we have had many fruit smoothies over the last week and we have enough for the rest of this week but it is not the same as fresh!

4th Eric went to Haiti during the challenge...it helps put things in perspective.....he told stories of how the orphans wanted fresh water........seriously am I going to complain about fresh fruit when they want water????? We are soooo blessed!!

Menu week 1

Ok so we are at the end of week one of only spending $10 a week for 4 weeks so that I can help our daughter fulfill an amazing dream. I have had so many people say that I should write more about the things that we are eating. Well we will see how the last week is???? I may be asking for you all to have us over for dinner?? :) But for now there hasn't been a drastic change. I really was so stocked...the only thing that I didn't have much of was toilet paper. There was NO way that I could stay within my $10 budget and buy TP so I burned my CVS bucks on TP...I know...I know.....but I will build them back up again! I saved enough to still get a few items and rebuild without coming out of my pocket!


This weeks menu was:

Breakfast....

*Whole wheat choc chip muffins( you will be seeing these a great deal as my whole family loves them and we have plenty of stuff to make them)
*Cereal....we eat alot of cereal for snacks as well.
*Pancakes
*Eggs and pancakes
*Oatmeal...another thing my kids like to snack on.
*Grits

Snacks....
*Bananas
*Carrots and celery...dipped in ranch of course
*Cheese and crackers
*Blue corn chips and salsa
*homemade muffins

Lunch....
*Cheese roll ups
*soup
*Turkey subs
*PB&J
*left overs
*Ravioli...it might have been the kind in a can?? :(
*salad

Dinner....
*Breakfast...eggs,bacon and pancakes
*potato soup and grilled cheese sand.
*grilled pork,salad, mashed potatoes, broccoli,cauliflower and carrots and rolls
*Chicken and dumplings, green beans and mac&cheese
*Roast, roasted potatoes, green peas and carrots
*Pizza....ice cream
*Quesadillas, chips and salsa and cheese dip


That is it through Friday night. It will help my meal planning because Eric will be in Haiti all next week....he eats a whole lot! :)

Weekly Shopping

Well I have officially started our $10 a week journey for a month. I am oh so excited about the journey. It does take much planning but I really think it will be doable. This week I bought:

2 gallons of milk
18 eggs
lg box of Raisin Bran(50 cents at Publix)
lg package beef bologna
1 pk feminine thingys :)

I have $1.02 left for the week.......I will wait and see what is on an amazing sale at Publix starting on Thursday.


I am so excited to do this....It has made me think.....I may return to my $400 a month and restock very intentionally and see how long it takes me to do this again.....We desperately need new flooring.....that may be a way of getting it.

multi tasking

Today was productive! The day started early and went very well. Yesterday I make a huge batch of homemede spaghetti sauce which we had for dinner last night. Today I made 2 large batches of lasagna. I didn't cook them...I just put them together and froze them. It always makes me feel good to know there is a meal ready for another day.... a crazy day! And it really didn't take much time.

Last week I bought a huge bag of apples. We prefer a really crisp sweet apple...Gala or Fuji.....these were very tart and softer than we like to eat but......perfect for baking! Emily and I worked together to peel and slice the 20 pound bag. It didn't take very long and of course we had a great time together. I bought one of these handy dandy apple peelers...which is a great alternative to the expensive kind. We found it on clearance for $3.oo a few years ago and it works great. It doesn't slice them for you but it peels very well....and the kids love to crank it!

We put them in large bowls....sprinkled with a little sugar, cinnamon and a few pats of butter. We threw them in the microwave for 5 min......took them out stirred them and then another 5 min. We had 2 large batches of these....we let them cool and put them in freezer bags to use later for apple crisp.

Yes ,I know that my pictures are all out of whack!!! Our PC is going crazy and I am having to use Eric's lap top.....I can't make it work???? I do not have time to continue to fiddle with it:)

Menu for Aug. 3-9

Breakfast: Cereal, French Toast ( I made 48 extra pieces this morning for the week and froze them...I'll post the video I took this morning later :) ) Oatmeal, Grits, Toast and Eggs.

Lunch: Grilled cheese, PB&J, Turkey, egg salad dinner left-overs, Cheese roll ups, Salad, fruit, pickles, blue corn chips and baked crackers.

snacks: carrots, protein fruit smoothies ( I get my protein from Shaklee...expensive but oh so healthy and a "grand-ma treat"), apples, grapes, banana bread, cheese, yogurt, baked crackers and whole wheat choc. chip muffins.

The above stuff doesn't change very much from week to week.

Monday: baked chicken with ritz crackers, mac & cheese, salad, baked pot. and carrots

Tuesday: grilled chicken, corn on the cob, green beans, oven baked potatoes

Wednesday: salad with sliced grilled chicken( I'll make enough Tuesday for Wed. ), bread, strawberries & grapes cut up together.

Thursday: Breakfast for dinner....eggs, bacon, toast, grits, hash browns

Friday: grilled flank steak, baked pot., salad, steamed veggies, brownies (we usually have Pizza on Friday night but we are cooking for a family who's father is serving in Iraq so we wanted to make it special)

Saturday: We are going to a pool party so we will pack sandwiches & baked crackers.

Sunday: Pork Roast, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, bread, any and all fruit and raw veggies still left

Sunday's Shopping

Oh boy did I have a great shopping day....here is the list and later tonight I will post my menu for this week.

Aldi:
4...gallon milks @1.49 each (the only thing that I do not like about the milk is that they do not carry 1%)
red grapes 2.99
lg baking potatoes 10lb 3.49
6 doz eggs @.69 each
6 tomatoes 1.99
strawberries 1.99
lemons 1.99
avocado 1.29
organic blue corn chips 3@ 1.69

$29.64


Publix

3 Mueller whole wheat spag.
6 cheerios
4 Brownie mix
6 Boxes Dog treats
1 Kraft BBQ
2 Mt Olive Dill Pickles
2 Toothpaste....arm n hammer
Ritz Crackers
4 country crock spread
10 packages steam in bag frozen veggies
4 Yoplait
2 six pack water bottles ( this was the penny item)
Pace picante sauce

$26.52

Total spent $56.16...my weekly budget for the 7 of us is $70 so I have $13 to spend at BJ's for meat.


CVS was great this week as well...I only spent .52 out of pocket and I got

2 lg Stayfree Maxi pads
2 notebooks
5 bottles of soft soap bpdy wash
and bunch of rain checks for items that they were out of stock on!