My First Cucumber Blooms

Yesterday as I was tying my tomato plants I noticed one of my cucumber plants has it's first blooms. I was very excited to see that, b/c they were looking a bit shabby, I actually thought they were going to die. I hope this is a good sign that they are making a good root system and in a few weeks start making some veggies. I should have taken pictures of my other plants as well they are growing so big.

Cheap Dinner Meal: Chicken Pot Pie

You start off with 2 frozen pie shells ( walmart brand $1.28 for 2 pack), one small can of vegall and one can of cream of chicken soup ( $1.50 for both), I had left over chicken so was able to use that at no extra cost. I used 2 large boneless thighs to make 2 pies.















Here is my cream of chicken soup and vegall and chicken mixed with about 1/2 cup of broth to thin some.














after you fill one pie shell, take the other and put on top, mine broke apart, if it does not you need to remember to put some vent holes in top. Also remember to cook on a cookie sheet so it does not drip onto the bottom of you stove.













Here is the finished results, very easy to serve with salad or some other side or just have alone. I was so happy that Gus liked it, since it tastes really good and is very cheap to make, especially if you have left over chicken you use. Total cost for 2 pies was less than $5.

Laundry Detergent

Well I got up this morning and took a look at my detergent and it was very congealed on top. I had to stir it quite a bit to mix it up well. I took an old detergent bottle and washed it out well and filled it up to take up to my laundry area.

I ended up using about 1/2 a cup, for my largest load setting. It does not make a whole lot of bubbles but you can tell the water is soapy. Even with the lavender essential oil it is not very scented. So far the clothes look clean and just have a nice clean smell.

My First Attempt at Laundry Detergent

First I wanted to show you my supplies and the cost. A 5 gallon bucket $4.26, Washing Soda right under $3, Borax around $3 and Zote laundry soap $.88. I ended up using just over half the bar of soap so you could use half and get two uses out of each bar. I will end up getting multiple uses out of each box of the other ingredients, so in the end this will be very cost effective.

I ended up using the recipe from the Duggar's website, since I had a 5 gallon bucket.















Here is my 1 cup of Washing Soda and 1/2 cup of Borax.
















Grated Zote soap, it was not hard to do at all. I thought it was going to be hard to grate, but was very easy.
















Here is the grated soap, melting in boiling water. I thought I did something wrong at first b/c the soap all clumped together, but as it boiled it all dissolved.
















Here is my dissolved soap, washing soda and borax all mixed and all I had to do was top off with water and mix well. I added a bit of tea tree oil and lavender essential oil for a mild sent.

I will update tomorrow after I use it to let you know how it works.

Making meals stretch

I am always trying to find ways to stretch the meat I buy for our meals.  Meat can be the more expensive part of the meal and if I can find ways to make it into two meals, I am very pleased.  So far I have found left over chicken the easiest to reuse.  One of the things I do is buy a whole cut up chicken and bake it in the oven or in my crock pot.  We usually have a good bit left over, so I will take that out the next night and either cook rice, scrambled eggs, and broccoli then add the left over deboned chicken to it and sort of stir fry it into fried rice.  Or I cook spiral multi-colored noodles, broccoli and add a sundried tomato with pesto sauce to it with the left over chicken and you have pasta.  Both of these are very easy to do and pretty inexpensive.

Recently I tried a new meal.  I bought a whole roasting chicken, cut off all the skin I could, took out all the insides and got it ready to cook in the crockpot.  I made a concoction of one can of cream of mushroom soup and one bag of onion soup mix.  I mixed those two together with around one cup of water.  I just poured over the chicken and cooked it on high for 6 hours.  Well the wings and legs cooked so tender the meat was totally off the bone.  I did not want to waste all that meat in the soupy broth, so I came up with an idea.  After it had cooled completely, I went througth the mixture and took out all the bones and gristle and fat and added any left over meat we had from that night.  The next night all I had to do was make a veggie and some rice and we ate the mixture over rice and it was really good.  So now I have a new way to use my left over chicken.  

If you have any ways you have learned to stretch a meal, please share! :)

Burnt Beans and a ruined pot...

Here is what happens when you forget you are cooking supper, while eating a snack with your kids.  The kids and I were enjoying a snack and Gus gets in from work.  I say "you sure do smell like coffee", he says "how did you know I drank coffee at work?".  I said "I could smell you as soon as you came in".  This should have been the first sign that I had forgotten supper, but no still no clue.  Gus and I had a short converstation and he heads up stairs to change.  The burnt coffee smell is just getting stronger and stronger.  That is when it hits me, I jump up and run into kitchen to see my beans burnt and stuck to the pot.  The pot had no hope, I soaked and soaked it but to no avail.  I had to trash it, good thing it was one of my old ones.

Gus was such a sweetheart and made me feel a little better by saying "it is not like you do this all the time". Which is true this is my very first burnt meal and we have been married for 6 years now.  Lesson learned, don't forget cooking beans on the stove while enjoying a snack with your kids.  

My adventure in making Bread

I have been wanting to give bread baking a try and finally got a recipe from my friend's blog A Life at Home. She got it from here Tammy's Recipes. So here is a little picture tour of my bread making. It was really easy and turned out better than I thought it would.
Here are all the ingredients I started with:













Here are all the ingredients once they were in the bread machine. I used the bread machine to do the kneading for me!













Here is what the dough looked liked once the kneading was done.













Here is the dough once I pressed it into my loaf pan, then I had to wait for it to rise.













Here is the dough once it had risen, about 30 or 40 minutes.













Here is the finished product! It was really easy and tasted great. Hubby did not like it that much, which disappointed me a little. However, the kids ate it up!