menu plan monday - 4/21

first things first, having my menu planned out in advance last week was huge for me. i wasn't in the middle of doing one thing, then suddenly realizing that, crap! i have no clue what dinner is and it's 4:30! i made sure that in my day planner i made as a task for the day before to take out what i needed from the freezer so i wasn't hoist on my own petard.

just as a recap for my own neediness in this endeavor, a recap: monday through thursday pretty much went off as planned; friday j went out with the boys from work after a busy day/week, so i nuked some leftovers; by saturday, j was very very sick - not hungover, mind you, honest to goodness sick - so we had chef boyardee ravioli for dinner instead of the dijon rice and egg dish; hence it reappears on this week's menu (boys need comfort food, too!); and sunday i roasted the chicken, but we kind of picked at it - j's appetite still isn't up to par and i'm hoping that all he has is a bad cold, not the flu.

and now for the menu for the coming week:

monday: spanish rice casserole - this sounds so very yummy; most likely i'll make it with ground beef, but i've got some ground chicken that would also do well, i think. we'll have it with white rice, because i absolutely hate the texture of brown rice, i do not know why. apparently i'm unhealthy to the very core of my being, lol...but we will probably have a veggie alongside, like corn or broccoli, because i'm not all terrible.

tuesday: herbed pork chops with raspberry sauce - i knew when i saw this that i'd have to make it. j is a little twitchy about pork chops, but he yummed when i showed him this recipe. most likely i'll make this with blackberry jam, because that's what i've got hanging around at the moment.

wednesday: leftover veggie frittata - this just sounded awesome, and i'm really looking for ways to work more "not as heavy on meat" ideas into our regular rotation. both of us are definite carnivores, so left to our own devices, we tend to aim for meat. we try to balance that out, but both of us like egg dishes, so...this will likely have some leftover roast chicken in it, and we're both really looking forward to trying it.

thursday: SOS - bless my honey's heart, he confessed while we were talking food that he's had a hankering for some SOS, so we're a havin' it. i've found a few recipes for it, here and here most notably (probably will use one of the recipes from the second link), but the gist of it, for the uninitiated, involves ground or chipped beef browned then heated with a white(ish) gravy of some sort, then served over toast. it's an old military recipe, and is pretty good from what i remember, depending on who made it and how. haven't had it in years, but it's thursday's dinner and it sounds easy - sold!

friday: spaghetti with meat sauce - no recipe for this, but i think this is really my go-to meal. when i'm tired and cranky and don't wanna cook, this gets made more than anything else in our arsenal. j absolutely loves pasta and meat individually, but put them together and he's one of the happiest campers ever. i do it the simplest way possible: brown ground beef, pour off the fat, dump in a can of hunt's spaghetti sauce, heat through, ladle over cooked spaghetti. i've tried getting all super domestic and making my own sauce, but my attempts - although none have really flopped except one that i can remember - just haven't had the same joyous taste to j that hunt's has...so hunt's he gets... :)

saturday: dijon rice and egg skillet - i don't know why i'm so fascinated by this dish, but i cannot wait to try it.

sunday: leftovers - something from the freezer or from this week's adventures.

for more menu adventures for this week, head on over to the organizing junkie and share the menu love!

expired coupons and coupon trains

i just finished going through all of my coupons and pulling the expired (or the ones that are about to expire) ones. some i knew i probably wouldn't end up using, some i genuinely thought that i'd find a use for, and others i wanted to use but the item even *with* the coupon just didn't warrant what various places wanted to charge for it.

it's been a few months since i've done this, but i've put all of the coupons that i've pulled into an envelope and i'm getting ready to send them off to a navy base where i hope someone is able to get some use out of them. in case you hadn't heard, families on military bases are able to use expired coupons on base up to 6 months past the expiration date. the list i use most frequently i found here, and it's broken down by branch of the military, so if you'd rather send to one branch or another, you certainly can. i chose a navy base in japan simply because j's son is in the navy and is currently stationed in japan...very complex system i use to select a destination, i know...

i'd love to start a coupon train. they can be very fun, and it gives you a chance to get coupons that you might not have seen otherwise, or gives you duplicates for things that you actually would buy and use. for example, this morning there were a *ton* of baby coupons that i clipped because i know *someone* will be able to use 'em...but i don't have any real need for them. now, pet coupons? send 'em my way, pretty please... :D

i've only done a coupon train a few times, and it was something on a forum that i frequent. someone else organized it, and i was just a car on the train. i know there are pros and cons, but overall it was a positive experience for me and i know it has been for many others. plus, it's probably fairly difficult to get off the gound...so, the debate rages on for me. if you're interested, let me know in the comments, or feel free to send me an email at cricket@dagnabbitalready.com.

menu plan monday!

in keeping with my "to do" list, here's what (tentatively) we've got going in terms of our weekly menu:

monday: chicken alfredo (no recipe, using last week's roast chicken leftovers and bottled alfredo sauce)
tuesday: pork roast, veggies, mashed potatoes
wednesday: "chicken stroganoff" with rice
thursday: beefy mac skillet (from the campbell's kitchen meal mail that i can't remember exactly how i signed up...probably just from a link on their site)
friday: leftovers (or "breakfast for dinner", whichever is most appealing by then)
saturday: dijon rice and egg skillet (i found this recipe on the incredible egg site, i don't think it'll let me link to it directly, but i will likely reproduce the recipe here if it's any good...very like a sopa seca recipe - never mind, the link works now! *happy dance*)
sunday: whole roast chicken, veggies, rice

visit menu plan monday over at the organizing junkie's blog for more ideas!

hopefully this becomes an easy habit for me to keep...happy "menuing", all!

wow. just wow.

first there was a bit of a "thought drought", but recently i've just been so busy working and trying to work and holding down various forts that i haven't really had the energy to get out here. and that sucks, because blogging always has been an outlet for me to get and keep things straight in my head.

what's on tap around here...let's see...

• i've had some really great frugal shopping moments that i'd love to share about even if they are after the fact
• i've been sent two or three really awesome samples that i want to sit down and write some worthwhile reviews about
• i need to get more mentally organized in terms of menu planning and such, especially considering my schedule is so freaky of late, and that may be something that i can do here to not only get/keep it organized but also give me that measure of accountability that i always seem to need
• time. i had some...now where did i put it??

and on that note, it's time for me to pull dinner out of the crockpot and get the dog, the cat and the man fed...

linky lurve: the random edition

i'm hoping sharing some of what i've been reading lately will jumpstart that writing thing that seems to have eluded me of late. today's grouping, frugal links that have caught my eye over the last few days.

wendy at more than enough has a great list of 800 numbers for companies. call, let them know you'd like some coupons, and poof...they arrive. i've only just discovered wendy's blog, but i'm enjoying it; lots of interesting posts. unlike here, of late. ;)

something else from wendy: coupons.com has hit mypoints. i've been using mypoints for years, and i've been using coupons.com to print out coupons for what feels like forever. but i didn't know that they recently teamed up! very good news!

i'm very excited about the idea of making both cloth napkins and fabric bags...i've borrowed mom's sewing machine, now i've just got to figure out how to use it....got any great links towards that end? lemme know!

everybody's talking spring cleaning, which i don't think i've ever done....hmmmm....the lovely ladies over at home ec 101 have a post just for me! well, ok, my home isn't disastrously messy, but it would never pass a white glove test. the ideas are simple enough that i'm sure i can baby step my way to pristine. maybe. a detailed room by room plan is just what i needed! thanks, ivy! :)

i know if i could get myself into a better morning routine, my day would go much smoother. as it is, i've got the "getting up to get j's day going" routine pretty much in hand, i just need to get the rest of my morning into ship shape...

shopping but not spending

that's my goal lately....

i've been following money saving mom and her cvs tips for a couple of months now, and it really amazes me how many great deals can be had. i've impressed j a couple of times with some great deals (recently we got 4 2-liter bottles of coke, 1 2-liter bottle of dr. pepper and a 12 pack of coke for $.50...i loves me some coupons when they work like that!), but that is far from the norm for me. i do ok with coupons, but other than that one trip, i haven't really had anything where i've handed anybody $1 and walked away with half the store. baby steps.

today i ran two errands...i got some dog and cat food over at petsmart first. i had coupons, and i was gonna use 'em. i got a 5lb bag of nature's best dog food for clio, and a 3 1/2lb bag of iams digestive for the minouzer. i had $3 off coupons for both bags of pet food, which is why i bought those particular ones. i also had a buy one/get one free coupon for some cat food in a pouch. all told, $6.50 in coupons on what would have cost me $22.66. handed over my $16.16 gladly and skipped on over to cvs.

this month - or is it week? i never remember unless i'm looking at it :/ - if you buy $15 worth of certain dove products, you get $5 back in extra care bucks. i just got a *ton* of dove coupons in the mail, so i went to see what i could get into.

i bought 1 2pack of dove soap (2.50), 2 dove cream oil body washes (3.99 each), one dove cream oil lotion (6.99), and 2 lypsyl lip moisturizers (2.99 each)...i used one $5 off of $15 cvs coupon, one $3 off of $15 worth of beauty purchases coupon from cvs, 2 $2 off dove cream oil body wash coupons, 1 $1.50 off one dove cream oil lotion coupon, and 2 $1 off lypsyl tubes coupons. that took my total down from $23.45 to $8.88. *happy dance*

i also earned $10.98 in ECB's that i can use on a future purchase! (the lypsyl gave me $2.99 each in ECB's too) couple those with the $6 in ECB's that i already had and the $10 cvs gift card that i just got in the mail from redeeming some points on mypoints and i've got $26.98 to spend on toiletries and household stuffs...

i stumbled across this site today, and she has got the niftiest little cvs tracking spreadsheet that you can download to keep track of spending with your cvs card.

also, if you're new to couponing and want some tips on getting started with ecb's or with walgreen's and their rebate program, money saving mom is the place to go! her cvs beginner's tutorial and her walgreen's beginner's tutorial are both wonderful resources.

wherein i learn something new...perhaps...

as we speak - more accurately, as i type - i'm roasting a whole chicken. it's only a little over 4 pounds, but it's my first one. it's just this side of terrifying, i must admit. i checked the neck...or what i assume was the neck? was a large cavity...for the oft rumored "bag o' giblets" that notoriously has been accidentally roasted within the bird a billion and one times. i found what i can only presume was the neck bone? ew. and something else that also got tossed, but no bag o' stuff. i'm hoping against hope that the folks who sent this thing to the grocery store just knew that i would be the one purchasing it and therefore took care of this little problem already.

it's a fairly small bird. maybe they didn't have room for it? pardon while i go stare at the nesco intently and will this thing to cook...

ETA: yummmmminess...beautifully roasted, and yes, there was a heart and a liver and something else that i don't really wanna know about in there when i pulled the chicken out of the roaster. luckily, they weren't in any sort of bag or anything...yes, i can be a right dumbass... :) however, the chicken fell off the bones it was so tender, and i made the best gravy. plus clio got a bit of a treat with her dinner tonight in the form of roasted heart/liver...win/win for everybody...

how many topics can i fit in one post???

i currently have 100 links in my reader. oh my holy hell. there was a time not too long ago when that was de rigeur for me, but that time was quite a while ago.

some of the sites i've thrown in there have gotten overwhelming. like lifehacker. there's a new post every 2.5 seconds it seems like. wtf. every time i'm about to pull the trigger on unsubscribing from it, some post from heaven appears in its feed that i would probably not have found immediately otherwise, and i think, but lifehacker totally has its useful times....i shall keep it... and so it goes...

other than codependently wracking my brain about whether or not to keep lifehacker in my feed reader, today has been fairly quiet and serene. j was able to come home early and is grabbing a nap, which is awesome. he posted the most lovely post today, you can find it here. he's very thoughtful and sweet, my honey.



i have been off a day all week. tuesday i kept thinking it was wednesday, although wednesday i was fine, then today i've thought it was friday twice. i'm not sure why the internal clock is off so much. the good part is that tomorrow actually is friday, thank biff...



i'm toying with giving my mom the link out here. she never had the other link - oh, the horror if that had happened...oh mah gah... - and i never mentioned it to her. but a couple of months ago, oddly enough while i was quietly debating blogging again, she mentioned out of the blue, "have you ever thought of starting a blog?" ohhhh mom, if you only knew... this is definitely a different space, and i don't have a problem with her reading out here. it's just old hangups, i suppose...she knows that writing has always been an outlet for me. would be nice if i accomplished something with it, however...





if you haven't heard of or been out to the league of extraordinary wives, you might wanna take a toodle over. it's a lovely (i think) approach to improving relationships. j and i work very hard at our relationship, but most of it is not *work* so much as wanting to make our partner happy and content. we seem to be very much in tune with making sure that we each have what we need in our relationship. not that we're perfect - no one is - but, for example, we don't nag each other, we don't put each other down, we fight clean - on those rare times we fight, that is. i can only count on one hand the times we've argued, and each time it was because one of us was upset about something totally different and just didn't talk about it and we ended up fighting about something stupid instead. we work very very hard at communicating, which i think is essential. anyway, my point is, there is some excellent stuff over there, take a peek.



i think that minou is teething. she's cranky and listless. she's still eating, and is healthy otherwise. poor thing...i pried her little mouth open to peek this afternoon and i see where she's lost a couple of her baby teeth. hell, i'd be cranky too if i had teeth coming in again and pushing my old teeth out. clio could care less about this event, as long as it means the cat is not getting attention.



and i think that's it for now...felt good to purge the brain a bit...happy valentine's day, folks!

chicken divan

i made this last night, although i pretty much rewrote the hell out of the recipe, so i'm not sure if i can even say that's what i made...

instead of broccoli, i used a bag of frozen cauliflower and broccoli...i only used one 4 ounce can of mushrooms...left out the water chestnuts, but only because i didn't have any, love water chestnuts...used 1 can of cream of mushroom soup and 1 can of cream of celery soup...and i bumped up the cheese to a full cup, because mama needs not only a cocktail, but also her cheese.

i layered everything according to the directions - amazingly, that part i did follow - in the 4 quart nesco i recently inherited from mom since she - she says - doesn't cook any more. (side note: i also got her 18 quart nesco, and it was perfect for the turkey breast i cooked for christmas dinner. i'm scaring me now.) the 4 quart has pretty much taken the place completely of my slow cooker, since i can do everything with it that the slow cooker did, plus bake, roast, and god only knows what else...still learning... :)

let everything cook and do its thing, and 45 minutes later, spooned some of the best smelling stuff ever over some rice and fed it up to hubby. i don't believe i've ever had chicken divan, but let me say, this was awesome. the curry and the lemon juice were just perfect together, and the whole thing just melts in your mouth. i should also add, when i saw the recipe i initially thought, shred the chicken? screw that... but honest to all that is holy, the shredding totally makes the recipe...the texture of chicken chunks just would not have been the same.

tonight's dinner is still up in the air, unfortunately...but last night's leftovers on a baked potato were a very yummy lunch...