Yummy Asparagus

I just love this time of year...and no its not because we still have 30+ cm of snow outside but during this time (end of March) is the time of year when Asparagus is in season. This will last for a couple of months now; meaning that usually its about $1.99/lb. We didn't grow up eating the stuff but once we were married I found a delicious recipe for creamy spaghetti and it called for asparagus. Since trying that recipe we have been hooked. But there are a few tips I have learned along the way. The first time we ate it the bottoms were like trees, literally. They were hard, woody and chewy. Little did we know this trick to get ride of the "woody" bottom.

First you hold the asparagus with two hands, one on each side. I know there is only one set of hands in this picture but I couldn't hold them both and still take the picture.

When both hands are on either side you bend the asparagus lightly and the lower more hard spot with break off from the upper more tender part. This makings the eating asparagus experience more delightful since you won't be chewing away for hours on the tough fibrous part.

Once all the ends are snapped there are many ways you can cook it. I like to steam it and serve with a creamy cheese sauce.

On a side note after this delicious meal I made one of our favorite desserts Hot fudge cake and we decided to let the little guy try a bit. After we were finished feeding him he decided he wasn't done and started licking out the bowl and he was too cute to stop.



For more kitchen tips head on over to Tammys recipes

Meal Plan Monday

I don't really feel like this BBQ man in the picture above. I thought it was almost BBQ season this weekend but we woke to a snow storm this morning, all schools canceled and the weather man calling for 25 cm-30 cm!!

My meal plan is a little late getting posted because we were away this weekend spending time with our friends in Fredericton. So here is my thrown together plan for the week

Monday: Pork chops, sweet potatoes and asparagus

Tuesday: Tasty Lentil Tacos

Wednesday: Left over Lentil mix with rice

Thursday: Shepard's Pie

Friday: Hamburgers and homemade fries

Saturday: Pot luck (curried split peas over rice)

For more great meal ideas check out Organizing Junkie

Stocking the Pantry

Having a stocked pantry that is well organized has really helped save me time when it comes to creating a grocery list and whipping together last minute meals and treats. Here are a few things that I keep on hand in my pantry.

1. A basket filled with extra baking supplies (you can tell from the picture I picked the basket up at the local dollar store). Here I keep extra sugar, brown sugar, chocolate chips, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder...you get the point.



2. The next basket I keep lots of extra canned goods. I have evaporated milk for my donair sauce, cream soups for my fast and frugal meals, tomato sauce and paste.

3. This next basket is great for keeping lots of homemade mixes. I have ready made flavored rice mixes, taco and fajita mix and then for those times when I want to whip something together fast but I have a baby crying and holding on for dear life to my leg I can simple throw all the drys in and just add the wets by reading the directions on the bottle. This is also good for days when I want hubby to whip something up; he just has to dump and add the wet!



Here are a list of great mixes to have on hand. Also any mix can be made in advance by just placing the dry ingredients all together in a reused glass jar.

Pancakes
Wafles
Corn bread
Cookies
Muffins
Brownies
Cakes

For more frugal ideas head on over to Life as Mom

starting young

The babe is getting so big now and he wants to be a part of everything we are doing. So why not let him get practicing on his kitchen skills. I am working on an apron for him complete with a matching hat but until I get that done I simply just tied this apron up a little bit for him and put him to work!!
I think he should be flipping burgers by the summer!!!

Meal Plan Monday

I am so glad I sat down last week and figured out the rest of the months meals. What an easy job I had today of just switching a few things around.

What were cookin up

Monday: Honey baked chicken and wild rice (I will be taking the wild rice to a pot luck)

Tuesday: Pork loins, potatoes and sweet potatoes

Wednesday: Pita, hummus and veggies

Thursday: Baked beans and homemade bread

Friday: Away for the weekend.

For more great menus check out Organizing Junkie

Peterson Pizzeria

Every Friday I like to prepare a "take out meal". Pizza is usually the choice meal for our Friday nights as I have perfected my crust making skills and donair sauce!!



Using my favorite pizza crust recipe and my pizza stone I whipped together this thin crust pizza that was nice and crispy. One thing that I do for pizza is after it has raised I roll it out with the rolling pin. I find that this makes it into a really big pizza that will fit onto my stone and leave me with extras to make some garlic fingers. Another thing that I like to do is I cook my crust first with nothing on it for 15 minutes. Then I take it out and put the toppings on. I find this gets the crust cooked before you add the toppings so you aren't left with a soggy crust and a hungry impatient family.

For my garlic fingers I use the excess crust that I cut away from the pizza stone and spread it out onto a smaller pizza pan. Then I spread it with garlic butter (margarine with mashed garlic) and bake in the over from 10 minutes. Remove from oven grate with cheese and bake for another 5 minutes. Now this wouldn't be a special pizzeria night if I didn't have donair sauce to dip the pizza and garlic fingers into.

This simple donair recipe is a most for our pizza nights!!!

1 can of sweetened condense milk
1/4 cup vinegar
1 tsp garlic salt

whisk the 3 ingredients together and ta-da, the most delicious donair sauce.


During these past couple of weeks I have been busy preparing a presentation on frugalicious meals that I will be doing for the Ladies group at my church. With this presentation, and my love for $5 dinners blog, I began to price up my recipes to see if I was actually saving money. Pizza night was a great place to start so here is my breakdown on how much it would cost me to make

1 12 pizza (Pepporine, Salomi, Ham and cheese)
1 12 garlic finger
1 donair sauce


1 12" pizza crust $0.68 cents
Pizza Sauce $0.55
Toppings (Pizza meats 2.30 and 1 cup cheese 0.97) $3.27
1 12" garlic finger (crust 0.68, cheese 0.49, garlic butter 0.22) $1.39
Donair sauce 0.58


Grand total: $6.47

Can you believe that this delicious looking meal is under $10.


Now for fun lets see how much this would be at a local pizza shop.

Pizza Delight

15" pizza (3 toppings)
Large garlic finger

Grand Total : 19.99+ tax

As you can see making pizza at home is worth it for us. Ecspecially when you get cheese on sale!! The easiest thing we do with our cheese sales is grate, lay flat on a cookie sheet, freeze. Once frozen we place in a large Ziploc baggie and it gets tossed into the pizza basket in the freezer. Another thing in case you are wondering is what about the veggies on the pizza. This wasn't factored into my pricing because I always have frozen peppers and mushrooms diced up in the freezer pizza basket that I purchase on the reduced rack. I always use what I have on hand so even if I did add in their price it may only be 0.20-0.50 cents more.

For more great ideas check out we are that family

Powdered Milk

Since Micah and I have been married we have been drinking powdered milk. At first we were buying it at the Super Store but it didn't seem to taste as good as the skim milk I was use to drinking.

After about 1 year of drinking the stuff we decided to look into buying a large bag from dairytown in Sussex. This is where Micah's parents use to buy the milk for their family when they were growing up. So we got the number and for 3 years now we have been buying and drinking this delicious milk. For the first two years we shared the bag with couple friends of ours; however this year they didn't need any more so we actually having a whole bag.

The bags come in 25kgs. These little white garbage bins are used around our house to store the flours and our milk.

To make the milk we pour 4 cups of water into this blue jug.


Then we add 1 cup of the powdered milk and whisk it until mixed.

And finally we add 4 more cups of water. If we want it a little thicker then we add 3 cups at the end instead of 4.

Of course what kind of advantage would this be if it wasn't saving us money as we all know that milk is really expensive. Just so my US readers understand we pay anywhere from $3.05 -$3.65 for 2L of milk. And here is the break down for the powdered milk.

25 Kg = $190.00
$0.76 for 100 g

1 cup of powder = 140 g
140g = $1.06
140 g of powder = 8 cups of milk (2 L)
$1.06/ 2 L of milk OR $0.53/ L

~ As you can see from the math work above using powder milk saves us a lot of money/ per year or even longer as the milk is good for 18 months. Paying $190 for milk for ~ 18 months isn't bad.

So why choose to buy from Dairyland. Well here are the prices for the powdered milk at other stores around town.

Super store $21.99/2.5 kg ($0.88/100g)
Sobeys $10.49/kg ( $1.04/100g)
Co-op $ 22.49 ($0.90/100g)

It seems like a small difference but it sure can add up. Another factor for buying from Dairyland is the quality of the milk. The other brands are not as dense and you need to use more of them to make the milk. This is an investment worth making for anyone who drinks skim milk anyways and wants to save some money on the milk budget this year.