I've enjoyed having a relaxing 4-day weekend with Joshua at home. We both love to cook, so with his extra time off we made gingerbread men with the kids, grilled some salmon, and I went through some cooking magazines from a friend.

Having no electricity on Sunday afternoon threw a wrinkle into my plan for chicken gravy and biscuits, so we had a snack lunch of cheese and crackers instead. Eliyahu made us laugh by his many comments along the lines of "This is the best lunch ever!! I mean, it's too bad we have no electricity, but I really love this cheese and crackers!!!" ;)

And now tomorrow feels like it should be Monday, but it's Tuesday! I didn't make a menu plan for this week yet, but I'll make a partial one and give a shopping update. (Hint: We got eggs and bananas and are going to hold off until after the holidays to go to Costco.)

Kitchen tips! Here a few shortcuts when you're baking cookies. :)

Rolling cookies in sugar:

When making a cookie recipe that requires the balls of dough to be rolled in sugar, put some sugar in a container with a tight-fitting lid and place dough balls in a single layer in the container. Put the lid on and gently shake to coat the balls with sugar! :)

Marking tops of peanut butter cookies:

To quickly mark the tops of peanut butter cookies, use a potato masher to mark a grid on each cookie. Dip the masher in flour first so it doesn't stick. My friend Tanya says she dips her fork in flour before marking peanut butter cookies, too. :)

Cookie dough chilling tip:

To save time waiting for cut-out cookie dough to chill, roll your just-made dough between two layers of waxed paper or parchment paper, to desired thickness. Chill the layers (fridge or freezer) and then cut cookies from each layer.

See also: Tips for cutting out cookies and softening butter

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Cinnamon-sugar blends/tips (Adrienne at Whole New Mom)
2. Remembering griddle temps & setting the table (Stacy at Stacy Makes Cents)
3. Tips for making successful deviled eggs (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
4. Veggie pizza tips (Cheryl B. at The Bz House That Love Built)
5. Christmas cookie tips (Christy at One Little Word She Knew)

My energy and motivation seems to have been zapped this week. I am so ready for a nice little Winter break from homeschooling! Instead of cleaning the house (or doing much of anything productive) this week, I've been taking naps and just doing a lot of thinking. :)

I woke up from one of my naps and before I even got up from the couch, "Chocolate No-Bake Cookies!" had popped into my head and I decided to just make some, right then.

Growing up, we often made no-bake cookies for parties and gatherings or just an evening snack. I had kind of forgotten about them, perhaps somewhat purposely since they do have a ton of sugar in them. ;)

Start-to-finish (minus the dishes), I had made a batch of chocolate no-bake cookies in 25 minutes. I had no waxed paper to drop the cookies onto, so I used one of my silicone baking sheets. I LOVE my silicone baking sheets. I can't believe how useful they are for practically anything baked!!

By the way, do not do what I did when making delicious-scented winter play dough. I let the kids use my silicone mats for "play dough mats" and the oils have been difficult to wash off! I should have known that things like peppermint oil, cinnamon oil, and clove oil are really super potent! The same things applies to my wooden rolling pin. ;)

And now, I hear Joshua and the kids getting home from a quick trip to the park. Time to pick up, have a snack, and get ready for bed! :)

My kitchen tip this week is from the archive. These cookies? Still yummy. :)

As I was baking molasses spice cookies yesterday, I thought of a couple butter tips to share! :)

I have two Rubbermaid butter dishes (so handy, with a lid that snaps tightly!) and I keep them both filled and not refrigerated, so that we never run out of soft butter to spread on bread, etc.

Ever open the butter dish to realize that it's almost empty, and the rest of the butter is in the fridge? This happened to me way too many times growing up, so I have always kept two butter dishes out in our home!

Having extra butter at room temperature is also handy for those last-minute cooking-baking frenzies. Without a microwave to soften butter, I've frequently raided one or both butter dishes for some soft butter for whatever baking project I hadn't planned ahead!

And finally, when I'm cutting a stick of butter for a recipe and there's, say, 3 tablespoons left over, rather than wrapping the little piece and putting it back in the fridge, I check to see if it can fit on a partly-empty butter dish. If so, I add it to the butter dish, and avoid all the random pieces in the fridge. :)

By the way, these cookies are so delicious! My mom has made molasses spice cookies with raisins for as long as I can remember, and they're one of my dad's favorites. Now, I make them especially for Joshua -- although we all really like them! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Cold/softening butter tips (Rachel at Trial and Error Home Ec)
2. Removing baked-on grease (Annie at Annie's Home)
3. Cleaning cookware (Kirstin at Loving Life)
4. Ground beef in bulk (Money Saving Habits)
5. Making powdered sugar (Cammie at Life...More Abundantly)
6. Using sour milk (Rachel at Trial and Error Home Ec)
7. Help -- homemade hollandaise tips (The Local Cook)
8. Cutting/packaging fudge for gifts/parties (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
9. Drinking glasses tip for families (Adrienne at Whole New Mom)
10. How to cut a pineapple -- tips (Stacy at Stacy Makes Cents)
11. Adding eggs to a hot recipe (Cheryl at The Bz House That Love Built)
12. How to freeze unbaked apple pie (An Oregon Cottage)

Having "a day off" from school or normal work always puts me in the mood to cook or bake something special.

I'll be honest: on our normal weekdays, I don't find much time for playing in the kitchen. I keep things quite simple and am usually doing good to just get dinner ready on time, despite how simple a meal it is. ;)

But on the weekend, when the kids wake up at their normal (early) time, and the day stretches ahead? I've picked out 3 recipes to make before it's even 7:00. Yes, I am more of a morning person. ;) Of course, usually by the time I've finished one of my "projects", too much time has slipped by and I am busy with meals and other tasks and end up shelving the other plans for another weekend. :)

Having company is my favorite excuse to make a more elaborate meal and do some extra special cooking! I have served very simple meals to guests (I am not superwoman, and have plenty of embarrassing flops in the kitchen, too!). But, if I can make the time, I like to make a nice meal with things we might not normally have.

Like this Natural Fruit Cake. It's so good!! I think the slices are similar to a good fruit and nut granola bar... and with ingredients like whole wheat flour, honey, and eggs, it ranks as a fairly healthy dessert in my book. (I do realize the dried fruit has sugar added to it...)

And with a food processor, Natural Fruit Cake is pretty quick and easy. It won't, however, be cheap. Even with buying our honey, nuts and fruits in bulk, Natural Fruit Cake is about $3 per small-ish loaf. That's acceptable for a special occasion, coupled with the fact that it's so rich and filling that a small slice is a perfect serving size. :)

My mom's homemade cheese ball is a long-time family favorite! I buy cheese and cream cheese in bulk to make this one a little more affordable. We've given cheese balls as gifts and had many compliments on this cheese ball recipe.

I try not to make cheese balls unless we're having company or taking it to a potluck, because I love cheeseball and crackers!! :)

I've not found any good, affordable sources for serving crackers to a crowd, unless I make my own, such as homemade "Wheat Thins" style crackers or Homemade Rosemary Crackers -- pictured at the top of this post. 

This summer, we bought crackers at Costco (discounted) which made cheese, smoked salmon, and crackers into an easy "special" snack option. Homemade crackers are not difficult, especially with a food processor (which I don't currently have). :)

I love hot snacks! And hot + cheese? Mmmmm. These easy baked jalapeno poppers are super good. They can also be made only mildly hot by removing the stems and seeds of the jalapenos, so even people who are "afraid" of hot things can enjoy them. :)

Homemade hummus is one of my favorite frugal (but still kinda fancy!) appetizers/dips. We like hummus a lot, so when I make it, I cook at least a pound of garbanzo beans (chick peas) in my crock pot for the hummus. The slow-cooked beans make a perfect, creamy hummus!

Cream cheese apple dip with fresh apple slices is my go-to fruit or dessert to make when we're having guests and I haven't made anything "special".

In the fall, I almost always have apples on hand, and I usually have cream cheese in the fridge. Cream cheese apple dip takes 5 minutes to mix up, and the apples can be washed and sliced even after company has arrived. Everyone loves this fruit/dessert! :)

Maple-glazed walnuts take about 5 minutes to make, and turn into an irresistible "candy" nut snack. This is another one of those really-good-but-not-cheap snacks, but ranks a little bit healthy with ingredients like walnuts, cinnamon, maple syrup, and butter. ;)

Dill Dip is another from-scratch dip option (along with the hummus above). I haven't tried this with my homemade kefir (or yogurt) cheese yet, but I want to! This dip doesn't taste just like Hidden Valley dip packets, but IS the best homemade dill or ranch-type dip I've found (and without the MSG).

And a little off-topic... cold weather gets me in the mood for sewing. :) I have some bags of flannel fabric that were given to me, and made time to sew new pillow cases for the children a couple weeks ago.

These snowman pillow cases are soft and warm and so cute! I use an old pillow case as a "pattern" to make my own. They're quick to make (with a sewing machine) and it's nice to have fresh, new ones to use. :)

We haven't gotten any snow yet here in the Seattle area... Joshua (who commutes to work every morning) says that's perfectly fine with him. ;) I know the kids and I will enjoy it if/when we get some snow this winter, though! Snow is way better than mud for playing outside, in my opinion. ;)

This month's Eat Well, Spend Less series posts are holiday-themed (of course!). For practical inspiration, check out:

Easy Appetizers for the Holidays -- I LOVE Jessica's ideas. Appetizers are one of the highlights of a fancy meal/party for me, and I know I'll be coming back to this post next time I'm brainstorming good appetizers to serve! :)

Stocking up for the Holidays -- Shaina from Food for My Family gives a rundown of what to have on hand for the holidays and reminds us to shop now! (I can totally miss the traffic and lines this weekend and next... yay!) :)

Make-Ahead Breakfasts for Christmas Morning -- Mandi at Life...Your Way shares her favorite mouth-watering extra-special make-ahead breakfasts!

Homemade Substitutes for Holiday Favorites -- Aimee from Simple Bites rounds up some of the best from-scratch versions of everyone's favorite holiday foods!! :)

Cheap and Easy Party Foods -- Katie at Kitchen Stewardship shares her tips and recipes for healthy homemade party foods. Her cooked spelt salad looks amazing! (Scroll down to see it here.)

10 Easy Homemade Food Gifts -- Amy at Keeping the Kingdom First shares her favorite festive homemade food gifts. I love all the extra-fancy treats like no-bake snowball cookies! (Scroll down to see them here.)

Coping with Lackluster Holiday Grocery Sales -- Carrie at Denver Bargains blogs about the absence of rock-bottom sale prices and some creative ways to get more groceries for less budget, despite the obstacles.

My own post for this week is Frugal Cold-Weather Comfort Foods. I'll also be doing a roundup of some of my favorite splurge-a-little company foods on Monday! Having guests is always a great excuse to turn the heat up a little and bake something extra special. ;)

After I made last week's menu plan, we did a big grocery shopping trip, with plans to wait at least 2 weeks before shopping again. (For groceries. As I type this, Joshua is out with the boys getting some much-needed tires for our van and some much-needed tennis shoes for Eliyahu...)

I'm actually hoping we can wait longer than 2 weeks between shopping trips again, because we end up eating everything (like every last bit of the 10-pound bag of organic carrots from Costco, which is possibly the cheapest vegetable side dish ever!). Plus, I'd like to avoid the crazy holiday traffic and busy stores. I'm a homebody. But, we'll see. :)

Here is my menu plan for this week!

Monday

Spinach Rice Casserole (love this!!) with leftover chicken added for some protein, steamed broccoli, cooked carrots

Tuesday

Baked Teriyaki Salmon, rice, steamed broccoli, cooked carrots

Wednesday

Pan-fried pollock, rice, green beans

Thursday

Oven-roasted chicken, seasoned baked potato wedges, cooked peas and carrots

Friday

Spaghetti and meatballs, green beans, salad, and Italian garlic bread

Saturday

Beans and rice, and any available leftovers

Sunday

Chicken gravy (using leftover chicken from Thursday) with drop biscuits, fruit

Lunches this week:

Beans or grilled cheese sandwiches or leftovers, fruit (oranges, bananas)

Breakfasts this week:

Whole wheat Swedish pancakes (crepes) (x2)
Regular old oatmeal (x3)
Fruit smoothies (including blackberries from our freezer and homemade kefir) (x2)

Other cooking/baking I want to do this week:

Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Granola Bars
Creamy pear pie (haven't gotten this made from last week!)
Homemade egg nog (for the weekend)

Visit Organizing Junkie for more menu plans! :)

All of my weekly menu plans can be found here.

I love finding out that I was wrong about not liking a certain food.

I thought I didn't like crepes. I'd only had them a few times, at restaurants, and despite their beautiful appearance, I didn't care for them at all. We'd made homemade crepes once, several years ago, with disastrous results.

If something is drizzled with fruit syrup and topped with whipped cream and I still don't enjoy it? That's pretty bad. Fruit and whipped cream is supposed to redeem practically anything! ;)

What possessed me to try making crepes again? I'm not sure, but I bookmarked this recipe months ago at Roots of Simplicity.

First, she uses whole wheat flour. I almost always like whole grain pancakes and waffles better than the pasty white ones. And secondly, she knows what a good Swedish pancake should taste like.

So, I gave it a try... and was amazed by the results! In fact, everyone was really impressed. We were eating these whole wheat crepes hot off the skillet without any syrup or fruit sauce or anything... because they are that good, all by themselves!

Then, we did finally sit down for our breakfast of scrambled eggs and crepes with the maple-sweetened kefir/yogurt and strawberry sauce I'd made. What a great breakfast! I ended up making crepes again the next day... and the following day for lunch... they're just so easy and yummy.

I had soft white wheat berries, which I used to make white whole wheat pastry flour for our crepes. Hard white wheat would also work ("white whole wheat flour"), but the original recipe warns against using red wheat (or "regular" whole wheat flour) for crepes, lest you turn out soggy-cardboard-tasting crepes.

I've been using my 10-inch stainless steel skillet to fry the crepes in either butter or coconut oil. It works perfectly, and nothing sticks to the skillet, at all. (I do the trick of heating the skillet before adding oil and cooking on it.)

These Whole Wheat Swedish Pancakes are super quick to make (5 ingredients!) and cook quickly, too, but they are also thin so I found it took longer to make them one-by-one in a skillet than it takes me to make regular pancakes on our two-burner griddle.

The kids ate a lot of these, too. I made a triple batch my first time, and we had no leftovers! I wondered what I was thinking, trying a triple batch of a new recipe for something I haven't liked in the past. But I was glad I'd made that much after all!

In all, I'm delighted to have a new breakfast recipe that's healthy and easy and we'll definitely be making these whole wheat crepes again and again! (And I will probably never, ever try a restaurant version of crepes again.)

See more of our favorite breakfast recipes here! :)

Oh, I'm way behind in announcing the giveaway winners for last week's Smart Sweets giveaway!

Thanks so much to Katie, who is giving a copy of Smart Sweets to these 5 winners:

lilyofthevalleyt@
ronngc@
hsmamafl@
saharaneeley@
theburns.fam@

If you were one of the winners, you'll be contacted by email soon with your free ebook! :)

There is still a discount code for this book. Use this code to receive 25% off your order: Tammy25

Discount code is good now through December 19, 2011.

We went grocery shopping this week! I am excited to be getting back into grocery shopping every 2 weeks (instead of every 7-10 days), and I must say... I was the only one at our house who complained as the variety got slim last week! :O I don't usually complain, but caught myself wishing aloud that we could go shopping as soon as the 2 weeks was up, because I was tired of not having whatever I wanted on hand!

But then I stopped and realized how blessed I am that my family was happy to eat whatever I made and that there had been no complaints from anyone, about any of the meals, and we were still eating lots of good food. :)

Anyway, Joshua went to the stores with my detailed list and did a great job of sticking to the list (and pushing a very heavy cart at Costco!). Here is what we got, which will allow us to wait at least another two weeks before going shopping again!

At QFC, a few sale items and some bananas (pictured above). There are 3 whole chickens in the bag for $0.88/lb, and the butter was $2/lb. I thought the butter was a good price, so we got 12 packages, but turns out it was only $0.05/lb. cheaper than butter at Costco, anyway. The chickens, however, were $0.11/lb. cheaper than Costco's chickens, so we saved a little on those. :)

QFC total: $50.99

Most of our groceries are from Costco, as you can see. ;) We spent over $250 there.

Read more for the prices of everything from Costco! :)

One of the great things about winter is that so many of our favorite comfort foods happen to be really frugal, too. If I can contain most of my baking urges to breads and main dishes and skip the buttery, sugary desserts, we're all set! ;)

I'm partial to some of these foods because they remind me of my childhood -- cold Ohio winters, sitting in the kitchen of my parents' old farmhouse, eating foods we'd grown and preserved throughout the warmer months. But before that starts sounding too rosy -- I do remember all the hard WORK involved... ;)

My family "did things" very simply. Special events were a bit rare and a big deal, and holidays were special because special stuff just didn't happen that often. We didn't have elaborate celebrations or gift exchanges, but that was okay. A day off school because of snowfall, or family gatherings -- it was special because it was our family... and I like that.

...and, our favorite cold-weather comfort foods are pretty simple, too.

Beans! Oh, all right, you already know I love beans... filling, delicious, and frugal. I almost always cook my beans from dried beans. I either cook a big batch and freeze some of them, or cook a big batch and we eat all of them!

On a chilly day, some freshly cooked beans waiting in the crock pot is a perfect meal. And not many perfect meals are that cheap. ;)

What do I like besides pinto beans (and some toppings)? Here are a few easy from-dried-grains recipes for variety:

White chili is so easy, and a welcome change if you eat "regular" chili often. We love this soup!

Hearty Beef and Lentil Chili is one of my newer discoveries. If you've never cooked with lentils, this is a great place to start!

Lentils don't get any easier than this Easy Lentil Soup recipe! Despite its simplicity, it's delicious. Our whole family likes it. I got lentils in bulk (25#) and this is one of the ways I serve them! :)

This veggie bean soup with spinach is one of my personal favorites. I can't get over how good it is -- when I follow the recipe. ;) It's meatless, colorful, and affordable. I like to buy the big 3-pound bags of spinach at Costco and make several meals with spinach, including this soup! (Leftovers freeze great, as well.)

This Gourmet Bean Soup is really as easy as 1, 2, and 3. You may end up standing at the stove wondering if you really did everything you were supposed to do for this recipe! Start it early, and then get busy doing other fun stuff (or make some dinner rolls and a salad while the soup cooks). :)

Beef and Barley Soup is one of my childhood favorites. I have a similar version made using wheat: Wheat Berry Soup.

My mom's vegetable soup... one of the common Sunday lunches after church. My mom would make this in the morning, leave it to simmer, and we'd come home to a hot lunch (only we called it dinner, of course). Having vegetable soup in the crock pot (or in the fridge, waiting to be warmed up) is one of my best tactics for affordably filling hungry tummies after a day (or part of a day) away from home. :)

While this one won't save you time (compared to making loaves of bread), it really ups the presentation of your pennies-per-cup soup when you serve it in a homemade bread bowl! Everyone LOVES these bread bowls when I make them. :)

Easier beans or soups during busy days and weeks:

Make large batches and freeze leftovers for a quick meal later.

Bread or rolls (made and then frozen) are a great side with soup.

Most soup recipes can be easily adapted for the crock pot.

Have a plan! My downfall is that soups need to be started early, despite the little hands-on time required. Having a menu plan is a huge help! :)

A favorite winter tradition: Sunday night popcorn! Dark before 5 in the evening, and we'd pull out the air popper and pop lots and lots of popcorn. My mom usually served home-canned apple juice or grape juice with our popcorn. Popcorn is a great frugal snack (even though I don't grow my own). :)

I don't usually get too fancy with beverages, but here are a couple I turn to when a friend comes over (or it's just been One Of Those Mornings).

Chai Tea Latte (pictured above) -- or this from-scratch spiced chai tea! Mmm... cardamom... :)

Hot cocoa on demand. This stuff totally saves my morning some days. :)

Since this is rather decadent (hello, eggs and cream and maple syrup!), I've been saving it to make when we're having company. No one can refuse homemade egg nog -- what a treat! :)

Joshua's specialty is making homemade sparkling grape juice (or other juice) when we have company. It adds a festive touch without costing much! :)

What do you like to make from-scratch this time of year? I'm sure I'm forgetting things. We have a more relaxed December than most... and hang out at home a lot. ;)