Potato and tuna casserole

Okay, I know this sounds disgusting.  And to be honest with you...it looked horrible when I made it and I was SURE my kids would not eat it.  But, boy was I wrong.  They devoured it and asked if we could have it all the time.  I will be up front and tell you I had to make some adjustments.  It was pretty bland for me!  So this is the recipe with adjustments added:

3 T. butter or margarine
3 T. minced garlic (I used the kind in a spice bottle.  You could also use minced onion)
1/2 t. salt
dash pepper
3 T. flour
2 C. milk
1 6 1/2 oz. can tuna, drained and flaked
4 large potatoes, thinly sliced (sometimes we add a few more if we're feeling hungry)
1 cup shredded cheese

Saute onion in butter until tender.  Stir in salt, peper, and flour; whip in milk to make a sauce.  Continue cooking, stirring constantly until thickened.  And then stir some more just to make sure it's super thick.  Add tuna and heat through.  Layer potatoes in an 8x8 square pan; pour the tuna mixture over the potatoes.  Bake, covered, at 350 for 1 hour.  Uncover, sprinkle cheese on top, and bake 30 additional minutes or until potatoes are tender. 

tater tot casserole

After someone brought over a super spicy tater tot casserole for us when our 4th child was born, I decided to seek out something a little more bland.  I found this recipe online http://life-as-a-lofthouse.blogspot.com/2010/10/tater-tot-casserole.html    It's actually michelle duggar's recipe, and if anyone needs something that will feed a lot of people for a minimum amout of money, it's her.  I love it because the ingredients are simple, but it is so creamy and good and not overly onion-y.  Don't forget to stock up on your cream of mushroom and cream of chicken during the holidays (christmas, easter, and thanksgiving).

Tator Tot Casserole

Recipe by: Michelle Duggar

1 lb Ground Turkey (we just use whatever ground meat is on manager's special.  I got some ground chicken (cage free no less) for $1.87 a pound the other day!  It was kind of a strange color for ground meat (more white than brown) but my kids actually preferred it over beef)

1 (2 lb) bag frozen Tater Tots

1 can Evaporated Milk

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

1 can Cream of Chicken soup

2 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese (optional...but not really.  It's OOOH so good)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and then spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray, set aside.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, brown your ground turkey until thoroughly cooked. Drain the grease, and then pour the turkey into the baking dish. Then pour your bag of tater tots on top of the turkey, spreading them out evenly.

In a medium bowl, mix your soups and evaporated milk all together. After well mixed, pour the mixture evenly over the tater tots. Pop it in the oven, uncovered, and bake for 55 minutes! If using cheese, sprinkle on cheese after 45 minutes of baking, and then put back in oven for another 10-15 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

I hate shopping

For many reasons, I really dislike shopping.  Especially during summer break.  Not because I have all four of my kids home and have to take them with me (my kids are truly wonderful), but because they like to take their time and look at everything and insist that I push around that honkin' big race car cart that weighs 50 by itself.  It just takes a really long time and I feel like I've run a marathon by the time we're done (okay, I admit it.  I've never run a marathon but I'm always a sweaty mess).  So I've been avoiding going to the grocery store.  We ran out of food that I'd shopped for last time on Friday, but somehow I've been able to avoid going to the store by just being creative and using what we've got on hand: some pasta, a few pounds of ground beef, frozen spinach, cottage cheese...stuff like that. 

I thought I had enough things to make the stuffed spinach shells that I posted about here.  I went to boil the pasta shells and realized that there were only four left in the box.  I didn't want to go to the store.  Aside from gas costing nearly $4 a gallon and that we live a good distance from any store...it seems like I always spend way more money on those "quick trips" to pick up "one" thing.  So I really try to do enough shopping for two weeks in one trip. 

So what do I do when I don't have the ingredients that the recipe requires?  I get creative.  Pasta shells are just pasta, right?  So we cooked some spaghetti, layered it in a 13x9 pan, combined the rest of the ingredients together, spread those on top, and then topped with cheese and marinara sauce.  It wasn't nearly as good as the shells version, but it was still good and kept me away from the store one more day.

Yesterday, I still had no desire to go shopping.  I still had a couple pounds of meat...and then I remembered the recipe I'd seen in the friend magazine for dinner for dad meatball sandwiches.  I had everything for the recipe except for dinner rolls.  Thought about going to the store, but then remembered that I had yeast and flour, so I made my own.  They sandwiches were really good, but I wasn't a huge fan of the rolls.  They were alright, but a little dry, so I'm not going to post the recipe here.  Oh, and we substituted barbecue sauce for marinara sauce over the meatballs. 

So, there you go.  I was able to eek out two more days worth of dinners before having to go to the store.  Honestly, one of the biggest secrets for saving money is to just STAY away from the store!

The law of diminishing returns

I am not  an statistician.  Nor am I an accountant or an economist or whoever it is that uses this concept.  When I was in college, I bought a carton of raspberry sherbet, pulled out 3 spoons, and shared it right out of the package with my roommates.  It just seemed tastier that way.  In fact, when the sherbet was about halfway gone, I said with an ooey-gooey dreamy voice, "This just keeps getting better and better with every bite."  My roommate, who was a math major, quickly informed me that what I had just said was against the law of diminishing returns.  She then proceeded to explain to me that the first time you do something or try something, it is amazing!  But each time you do it, it looses some of that first time thrill.  So the 20th spoonful of sherbet should not taste as good as the first.  Makes sense, right?

I use this concept all the time now in my parenting, especially when it comes to fast food.  There was a time when we were both working, that we would go out to eat about once a week.  After a while, we got sick of fast food and then proceeded to "fancy" restaurants.  And then we got sick of the cheap stuff and would order the more expensive stuff and before we knew it, we were spending about $30 a meal (which is now my weekly grocery budget).  You know what the problem was?  We were doing it so frequently that it wasn't nearly as satisfying as it used to be.  We ended up digging deep into our pockets to try something new because the enjoyment of eating out was gone.  When I stopped working, we stopped going out to eat.  That was an adjustment for all of us.  But you know what?  By reducing the frequency of going out to eat, we've actually increased the enjoyment of going out!  And we spend less money.  It's now a treat and much more special.  For example, my sweet seven year old had the lead in the first grade play.  He worked SOOO hard at memorizing his lines and even had a solo in one song.  It was so stinking cute.  We decided to reward him by letting him choose a restaurant to eat at before the play in recognition of his hard work.  He picked McDonalds.  The kids shared a 20 piece chicken McNugget for $5 and two small fries.  He felt special and knew that we were proud of him.  If this was something that we did every week, it wouldn't have held that same special place in his heart.  So remember that next time you're tempted to go out to eat or start feeling bad because you don't have enough money to go out to eat as often as your kids would like.  STOP IT!  There's no reason to feel bad.  It's usually not good for you anyway, and when you actually do get to go out, it's more fun and more special, and your children will have fond memories of the occasions when you do go out.

New buttermilk pancake recipe!

I found a great new recipe for buttermilk pancakes.  The other one that I have on here is good, but these ones are pretty much divine.  AND they use 3 cups of buttermilk...something I have a lot of.  I got it on allrecipies.com, of course and here it is!  I put the batter into a ziploc baggie this time and snipped the corner.  I then made snakes (a huge hit) and the first letters of the kids' names.  It made a
TON of pancakes, so unless you want some for breakfast, too, you might want to halve the recipe.

Buttermilk pancakes II
by BURYGOLD

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together buttermilk, milk, eggs and melted butter. Keep the two mixtures separate until you are ready to cook.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. You can flick water across the surface and if it beads up and sizzles, it's ready!
3. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, using a wooden spoon or fork to blend. Stir until it's just blended together. Do not over stir! Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/2 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Fried Egg Sandwiches!

Fried egg sandwiches are another one of my FAVORITE things to make.  I used to make them all .the time as a college student and I've never gotten sick of them  All you do is fry up an egg or two and slap them in between two pieces of toast.   Super easy.  But THEN you get to add all of the yummies to customize your sandwich.  We usually spread some mayo on one of the slices of toast (but don't put it on for the kids...they don't like it).  We add a few slices of cheddar and sometimes even throw in some avocado or bell pepper slices if they're on sale (like they are at kroger this week).

YUM!!

German potato cassserole

This meal seriously took me three hours to prepare.  I'm not sure if it's just because I had my baby strapped to my chest the whole time or because I'm slow. Whatever it was, it was kind of crazy.  In fact, it took so long that I ended up giving my kids cold cereal for dinner and saving this one for tomorrow.  The meal (prepared as directed)  yields enough casserole to fill an 8x8 dish AND a 9x13 dish.  My husband didn't get home until 6:30 (yes, he's a school teacher, no he's NEVER home by 2:30), and I knew he'd be starving, so I went ahead and cooked the 8x8 pan and the two of us ate that after the kids went to bed.  And it was delicious.  And, lucky me, I don't have to prepare dinner tonight.  Hooray for cold cereal.

This is something that I've never prepared before.  I'm always trying to introduce my kids to new foods and textures, so a while back, Velveeta was on sale and although I despise the stuff (I don't believe it has any nutritional value) and have never bought it in the 14 years I've been cooking for myself, I decided to give a recipe a try that included velveeta.  I figured that if my kids like shells and cheese, they'll like anything with velveeta, right?   I didn't realize that velveeta came in different sizes.  So when I went to the store to buy it, I hadn't written down how much I needed.  Come to find out that the 2 lb. block was only about 50 cents more than the 1 lb. block.  I validated the purchase by assuming that my kids would be in love with it and I could use it on all sorts of things.  They HATED the meal I prepared.  I don't even remember what it was.  But the sad thing was that I'd only used 4 ounces of a 32 ounce block of cheese.  Grumble grumble.

Then I had my baby.  And then I stopped cooking and forgot about my velveeta.  I saw it in there just the other day and hurried and looked at the packaging.  It said that it was good up until 8 weeks after opened (just goes to show you how much CRAP is in it!).  Considering that my baby is 7 weeks old and that I opened it a week before she got here, I decided that I'd better hurry and use it.  So I went to allrecipies.com and typed in velveeta under the ingredient tab/link.  Being the miser that I am, I selected the two recipes that used mostly ingredients I had on hand:  homemade mac and cheese, and german potato casserole. The only think I had to buy was bacon (and I found some chicken bacon as a manager's special, so that was a major plus.  I only had to spend $2 for 3 days worth of dinners).  I pulled the mac and cheese out of the oven and was greeted with protests to the tune of "EWWWW!  That looks YUUUUCKYYYYY!"  Which, as usual, was responded to with, "I know, but it's what's for dinner so you need to eat it."   After the first bite, though, they quickly changed their minds and said, "actually, it's pretty good!"  They told me I should add it to the favorite list.  So I did.  I'll post the recipe here later.

Here's the recipe for German potato casserole.  It looks gross, but we really liked it.  But anything with  mayo, bacon and velveeta has to taste good, right? 

It's by Dara Luburgh and this is here picture, too

 

Ingredients

• 5 pounds red potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks (We had regular,starchy white potatoes, so that's what we used)
• 1 pound sliced bacon, diced
• 8 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped (I sprinkled onion salt on top instead of using a fresh onion.  I maybe used 1/2 a teaspoon?)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise*
• 3 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 pound process cheese (eg. Velveeta), cubed

Directions

1. Place potatoes in a Dutch oven (I don't have a dutch over, so I just used a pot) and cover with water. Bring to a boil. reduce heat; cover and cook for 15-20 minutes or until tender. Drain. In a skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Using a slotted spoon, remove to paper towels; drain, reserving 1 tablespoon drippings.
2. In a large bowl, gently toss the potatoes, bacon, eggs, onion, salt and pepper. Combine the mayonnaise, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and reserved bacon drippings; add to potato mixture and toss to coat.
3. Divide half of the mixture between one greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking dish and one 9-in. square baking dish. Top with half of the cheese cubes. Repeat layers. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly.