My friend, fellow food blogger, and cousin (!) Willa will be hosting Kitchen Tip Tuesdays this week at her blog, Armstrong Family Fare.

Check out Willa's post with 6 menu planning tips, and add your own tip over there in a comment or with a link! :)

Joshua is home and slowly but steadily recovering from surgery again. Thanks for understanding as my online presence has been scarce these past few weeks! :)

I know I said I was giving up on making homemade yogurt after all my tries had produced less-than-stellar results... but a friend shared a jar of her really perfect homemade yogurt with me a few months ago, and I was inspired to try again.

I'm still using the same basic method I outlined in my post: heat milk to ~180 degrees, cool milk to ~115 degrees, add starter, and keep warm for ~8 hours.

But now, my yogurt has been turning out great! I know, that's crazy. How could something go from difficult to magical without even changing the recipe? Here is what I've been doing, with a few tips:

1. Heat milk on the stove on medium-low heat, with a candy thermometer stuck to the side of the pan. Don't stir, don't bother with it -- just get the milk to 180 degrees or higher. I try to do this when I'm already going to be working in the kitchen so I don't accidentally boil the milk for an hour and have a big mess on the stove to clean up. ;)

Tip: If the milk does boil, it will still make good yogurt.

2. Let milk cool in pan to 115 degrees. When it's getting close to 115, I check on it every 10-15 minutes.

3. I like to culture the yogurt in my crock pot. It's big, heavy/thick, and can be done on the counter top.

(I prefer to warm the milk on the stove rather than in the crock pot, though, because the crock pot takes so long [and hence a lot of "babysitting"] to heat up and cool down.)

Tip: To culture the yogurt in my crock pot, I first "preheat" the crock pot. Pour some boiling water (at least a cup or two) in the crock pot, turn on high, and get nice and hot. Turn off, and when you're ready to incubate the yogurt, dump out the hot water and pour in the warm milk.

4. Stir in the yogurt starter. I just gently stir it in... no whisking. Then, I put the lid on the crock pot, cover with thick towels (I get clean ones from the bathroom!), and let "grow" for 8+ hours.

5. When yogurt is done culturing, DO NOT DISTURB. This seems to be the key (for me) to really thick yogurt. I've been setting the crock (with lid on) outside to chill when it's finished culturing. Chill for 6-8 hours and yogurt should be firm!

Using these tips, my homemade yogurt has been thicker than plain yogurt from the store (but not quite as thick as Greek yogurt), without straining.

Why does it matter how thick my yogurt is? I can just strain off some of the whey to make it thicker, right? Well, yes... but here is why I want yogurt that is thick without straining:

1. Straining the yogurt is an extra step and extra dishes.

2. The end result (yogurt) is more expensive per volume when strained (you end up with less of the "yogurt" part).

3. I don't really enjoy having lots of whey on hand that I need to find uses for.

And lastly, a Plain Yogurt Eating Tip:

Frozen blueberries are our favorite fruit to add to plain yogurt! They're so sweet, and their flavor makes the yogurt irresistible! I like to add the frozen blueberries to our yogurt as we serve it.

I also love fresh or canned pineapple with plain yogurt. Pineapple is another sweet fruit that goes great in yogurt! :)

Next week, Kitchen Tip Tuesdays will be hosted by Willa at Armstrong Family Fare! Willa's stepping in to make my load a little lighter as Joshua will be recovering from another surgery at that time.

I am planning to be back at the computer blogging a little more this week... last week got away from me and I've been wearing myself out doing "life stuff"! :)

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. Removing labels from jars (April at I Think I Can)
2. Cooking dried beans (Keri at Growing in His Glory)
3. Sour cream and yogurt tips (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
4. 3 ways to cook dried beans (The Local Cook)
5. Softer hands scrub (Frugal in Florida)
6. How to make heart-shaped muffins (Anne Jisca's Healthy Pursuits)
7. Using breadmaker for jam (Tried It, Liked It)
8. Dishes within kids' reach (Gretchen at Extraordinary Ordinary Life)
9. Citrus zest in baking (Deb at Wholesome Homemaker)
10. Rolling pin substitute (Alea at Premeditated Leftovers)
11. Tupperware/storage tips (Cheryl at The Bz House that Love Built)

I'm curious as to how you keep your chest freezer organized. I've been trying to stretch my grocery trips to once every 12-14 days, and I'm happy with it so far, but my freezer is a wreck! I have a running list of its contents so I know what's in there, but with so many oddly-shaped foods in it (bags of bread, jars of broth, bags of veggies, etc), it just ends up being a huge jumble of stuff. Then I get annoyed when I have to dig through everything to find what I need. Any advice?

We have a 7-cubic-foot chest freezer, which I think is a great size for holding lots of food (if well-packed) without becoming overwhelming to organize!

Here are some tips for how I keep my chest freezer organized and under control:

1. I don't have a lot of different, little items floating around. We buy things in bulk, so I usually have 5-10 pounds or more of any given item. Fewer items = easier to keep track.

2. We find and use medium-sized cardboard boxes that fit the width of our freezer. I have a stack of several boxes that fit just perfectly along one side of the freezer. I put smaller things (like individually frozen/sealed fish fillets) in the boxes, and it's fairly quick and easy to unstack them and get to what I want -- even if it's near the bottom. I find that boxes are the most efficient space-wise for the freezer. For "tote-like" boxes, just cut off the top flaps.

3. When stacking foods, alternate types. When I stack several bags of frozen veggies, or several boxes or bags of frozen fish or meats, I try to alternate the types as I'm stacking them. This way, I never have to move 3 bags of green beans to reach the corn! ;)

4. Take foods out of their original packaging and re-package them. See the bag of Pollock in the top right corner of my freezer picture above? It's actually stuffed with 2 bags' worth of fish. Many boxed or bagged freezer items are individually wrapped inside the bag or box, and can be opened and re-stacked or re-packaged to take up a lot less space, and this helps things be less crowded and more organized.

5. Put extras of things on the bottom of the chest freezer. We froze gallons of fresh blackberries last summer, and I keep a bag handy to use from. The other bags are packed in the bottom of the freezer, where they're out of the way.

6. Go through "the little stuff" and use it! I find that "the little stuff" tends to get freezer burn if it's not used within a reasonable time frame. I keep little things like bread crumbs (from homemade bread), dry yeast, chopped nuts, etc. in the door of my small freezer so they don't get lost AND so I can remember to use them!

7. Have a freezer inventory sheet. I made a simple one on a scrap paper with lists of my freezer meals and tallies (in pencil) for the number of each. Why tallies in pencil? It's easy to erase tallies as they're used -- or to add a couple more on later if I've made extras of something! So much nicer than crossing out a number to write a new one. :)

8. Every couple of months (or before any big shopping trip or stock-up), go through the freezer. I pull almost everything out, look over what I have, and stack it back in a reasonable fashion. It probably takes me 10-15 minutes to do this with my chest freezer, and afterward I have a much better idea of what I need to buy, or what I need to focus on incorporating in our menus. :)

9. THINK before you freeze. Some of my freezer untidiness is simply a result of freezing something to avoid having to eat it. Leftovers that we didn't really like? NOT a good candidate for the freezer. Sure, it'll keep the food from spoiling, but we probably won't feel like eating it later, and I'll just end up shuffling it around and around until it's so freezer-burned I throw it away.

The same thing applies to packaging. When I take the time to properly package something for the freezer, it stays fresher and I won't dread the possibility of freezer burn later. I've had food that I thought was probably freezer burned (due to my poor packaging) and I ended up waiting until I was SURE it WAS freezer burned, and then tossed it. How sad! It's much better to plan ahead and/or take the time to package well before freezing. :)

And on a related note -- label everything, even if you're sure you won't forget what it is.

10. Hmmm, I think I am out of freezer tips! ;) Anyone have a good one for my #10?! :)

By the way -- I'm sure that upright freezers are easier to organize than chest freezers, but I love having a chest freezer. Chest freezers are more economical than upright ones in a variety of ways (price, operating cost, usable space) which is why we decided on a chest freezer.

I've also found that packing my chest freezer efficiently (especially the cardboard box tip -- #2 above) has really eliminated most of the frost accumulation. Only the top few inches of my chest freezer has a thin layer of frost -- the rest is completely frost-free -- after a whole year of use without defrosting! :) So -- I guess that's the #10 tip. ;)

Related posts:

Freezer meal tips
Labeling frozen food
Frozen food tips
Freezing casseroles without tying up a dish (video)

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. Use Pam to set nail polish (Frugal in Florida
2. Buttermilk substitute (Living So Abundantly)
3. Tart-making tips (The Local Cook)
4. Ground turkey and chopping olives tips (Robin at Happily Home After)
5. Shred chicken in your mixer (Shannon at Chickens in My Kitchen)
6. 15 green and frugal foodie tips (The Cheapskate Cook)
7. Meatloaf meatball tips (Tried It Liked It)
8. Cookie sheet comparisons (Gretchen at Extraordinary Ordinary Life)
9. 5 alternative uses for dish racks (Rachel at Trial and Error Home Ec)

I've got a bunch of questions to answer, plus it's been way too long since I've done a real family update-type of post! So, here is all of that... plus the first pregnancy picture of myself with #5 (thanks to my cameraman Yehoshua)! :)

I was wondering if you could tell us what you do for entertainment without TV and netflix. I know its possible but just curious.

As far as "screen" entertainment, we have an Xbox360. We use it to watch DVDs, and we have a small selection of our own DVDs. Some are educational (like Planet Earth or Matthew) and some are just for fun (like Up). :) We do let the boys play video games on the weekends (usually not on school days).

Pretty much any day of the week they are allowed to play games that use the Xbox Kinect (camera) because those are indoor exercise games (Fruit Ninja, Kinect Sports, etc.). With the weather being rainy so often, it's really nice to have an indoor exercise option for the kids (and me...) that is FUN! :)

And aside from that, we do things like board or card games, puzzles, books, drawing, play dough, building blocks, Legos, coloring books, Duplos, making tents with blankets, all that good stuff. :)

Tammy, do you ever use coupons? You can really save money on personal items like deodorant, shampoo, any vitamins or medicines.

I do coupons occasionally. We honestly don't purchase a lot of personal care items, but when we do (like for toothpaste -- since I'm partial to Crest Original) I usually have a $0.50 coupon which does help. And I try my best to wait for the Costco coupons to help lower our grocery budget for things we'd be purchasing anyway! :)

One thing I found for us personally was that since we don't use most of the items, even if it was free-after-rebate or coupon, we still pay 9.5% tax on the pre-coupon pre-rebate prices here in Washington and it just wasn't worth my time and gas to make a stop for items that we might end up needing (or might not use at all before they expired!).

I used to regularly do Rite Aid's single check rebate program and get some good deals on toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc. but they've changed that program and I wasn't finding good enough deals to warrant going often enough to use the "rewards" before they would expire.

I'm also a homebody, we just have 1 vehicle (so any errands have to be done at the busiest traffic times of the day/week -- and take away from our family time), I have 4 young children, and we eat a lot of plain "ingredients" like milk, butter, cheese, veggies, beans, etc... The store sales here usually are within pennies of what I can pay at Costco, and I admit I really like Costco. ;)

So... that's what has shaped my grocery shopping method for this season of our lives. :)

Have you considered teaching beginning music to a few outside kids for some extra spending money?

Yes, I have! I haven't advertised for any music students in recent years, though. I love teaching but don't feel that it's a good time for me to pursue it as a business.

Also, do you garden? Even a small vegetable garden can make a huge difference in your grocery bill.

I had some herbs in pots last summer, and hope to grow more herbs and some lettuce this year! We don't get a lot of direct sunlight at our house/yard due to all the trees nearby, and our summers can stay on the cool side (highs of 65-70 degrees) so that can make it tricky if you live in a shaded area. ;)

I also have a food saver and I LOVE it, but I find the bags to be pricey and felt guilty about throwing them away.... I now wash and re-use them repeatedly!! I write on the edge just like you do so when I cut them open to use nothing is written on the useful part of the bag. I have been doing this for more then a year now and find the bags work fine used repeatedly. I was wondering if you did the same thing?

Yes! I definitely re-use my FoodSaver bags, because they are really expensive. I bought my last box at Costco with a coupon, but it was still expensive! It's worth it to me that we *love* our freezer meals/food, though, and don't have to "endure" them. ;)

Even better than washing the Food Saver bags: if I've just frozen a casserole and then vacuum-sealed it, the FoodSaver bag doesn't get very dirty at all (since the food is already frozen when it goes in). When I take the food out, still frozen, and put it into a baking dish, I put the empty nearly-clean FoodSaver bag back in the freezer without washing it, to save it for later use.

This seems to put even less wear on the bags than washing them... and makes me a lot more comfortable with the amount of bag it takes to FoodSave a casserole. ;)

Family updates! (read more...)

I've really focused on stocking my freezer with homemade freezer meals during the month of January, and our freezer is pretty packed! I organized everything yesterday and took this picture of the meals I've made this month. These were all meals that I made for dinner, but made a double or triple batch and froze all the extra (mostly unbaked).

Casseroles are on the left, then breakfast burritos and chicken egg rolls, and a stack of homemade granola bars. These meals will probably be served with frozen veggies and canned or fresh fruit. (The meals pictured are recipes from my master plan list a few weeks ago.)

I stacked all the 8x8-inch casseroles in the freezer with the labeled edge up, so I can select easily. (See this post for more info about how I package/freeze my casseroles.)

Having a chest freezer sure is handy, especially as our family grows. We've had our chest freezer for a year now, and I'm wondering how I managed with just a small apartment-fridge-top freezer! I know I did, but wow... I don't think the kids ate as much 3 1/2 years ago as they do now. :)

Joshua made a trip to Costco last week, right before his surgery. He won't be able to lift anything for a couple months so he told me we were going to buy a LOT of groceries so I didn't have to make as many trips by myself with the kids. :)

I don't have time to do a price list for this shopping trip, but pictured above are grapes (Ruth's birthday request), butter ($2/lb.), sweet potato fries (using coupon -- $4.49/4lbs.), ground beef, and ground turkey.

And more: clementines (another birthday request), spinach (this kept well in the cold garage; used in lasagna, spinach rice casserole, and quiche for the freezer), milk, eggs, oil (we were out!!), and some baking supplies.

Also, but not pictured (it was a crazy day!), we got a rotisserie chicken for $4.99 which we ate for lunch along with some homemade potato wedges and cooked veggies. Ruth turned the chicken upside down on the way to the kitchen so the floor ended up getting mopped that day too. ;)

AND, we bought disposable diapers and wipes (using coupons) with some Costco gift card money that was given to our family. I got diapers in Moshe's size, but haven't opened them yet. They're in case the babysitter(s) want to use them (while I am at the hospital with Joshua in February), or for me to use after the new baby is born (in March). I cringe spending the money on something that will get thrown in the trash, but I know I will really appreciate the convenience when the time comes. :D

This is the cake Joshua made for Ruth's birthday! She wanted chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and hearts on top. I was glad Joshua had fun spending the time making the triple-layer cake and getting it just perfect. ;)

I was more than happy to just make a simple carrot cake for Moshe's birthday (same day as Ruth's). :) One bowl, one pan, and so quick to mix up. ;) We had a lovely birthday lunch at home for Ruth and Moshe on their birthday.

For our family, January's pantry challenge was a continuation of fewer shopping trips (2 for the month), getting my freezers organized (yay!), and starting to make and store some freezer meals.

We stuck to just 2 shopping trips, the freezers are pretty organized (and I know exactly what's in there), and I'm feeling more ready for the challenges ahead now that I've got most of my freezer meals made! :)

Be sure to visit the other bloggers who chronicled their January pantry challenges:

Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
The Finer Things in Life
Getting Freedom from Debt
Good Cheap Eats

Coming tomorrow: A family photo/update post, and I'll answer all your questions from this post about budgeting! :)

Here's an update to my post from 5 years ago about cooking with cast iron! I've been using it a TON for my freezer cooking the past few weeks! :)

P.S. Freezer cooking/pantry challenge update coming tomorrow, and a family/photo/Q&A post shortly after. Joshua is recovering well; thanks for caring! :)

One of the things I really enjoy about living a frugal lifestyle is the creativity involved! It's also exciting to me when I make new discoveries and learn new things. Although I've had a cast iron skillet since we were married, I'm just now putting it to good use. And of course, I'm wondering why I waited so long!

I grew up cooking with stainless steel cookware, for the most part. When Joshua and I got married, he had some Teflon cookware, and I got addicted to that nice big Teflon skillet, real quick. I mean, there was no scrubbing! I always dreaded cleaning stainless steel after cooking scrambled eggs, or anything with cheese... so much work! With Teflon, washing pans was as simple as washing a plate or cup, or maybe even easier, since the food didn't "dry on", it fell off!

Of course, I had my doubts about the safety of cooking with Teflon (and recent studies have indicated that it really isn't safe!) but it's easy to live in the here-and-now and just not want to give up convenience!

Although I've had this cast iron skillet since we first were married, I had bought it unseasoned (it was cheap that way!) and had worked on seasoning it but still much preferred Teflon. Yes, I knew that cast iron takes time to season... I just kept reaching for the easier (temporary) solution: Teflon.

Until recently, that is, when our Teflon skillet started wearing out, and food started sticking and burning. I decided to start using my cast iron skillet with a passion, and turn it into my new, "natural" non-stick skillet.

And you know what? I love it! I really do, and I'm liking it more and more all the time. Have you ever met someone who was attached to their cast iron cookware? (It seems most people are, when they've seasoned it themselves and used it for years and years!) Well, that's me... in a few years. ;)

Here's what I know about cooking with cast iron (it isn't much!):

Don't use sharp or metal utensils on it. (Update: I still usually use wooden utensils, but using metal isn't necessarily harmful.)

Wash with hot water, no soap. (Update: I usually scrub with a brush in hot water, and sometimes add a drop of soap. My preference is to wash the cast iron skillet LAST, in the only-slightly-soapy dish water that's leftover, and then scrub under very hot water, rinse, and dry.)

After washing, dry with towel and then heat the empty skillet on a burner for a few minutes to make sure it's really dry.

Tips for keeping a well-seasoned cast iron skillet:

Use your cast iron for browning ground beef or turkey, or any cooking that already has a high fat content. This will speed along the wonderful seasoning of the interior of your cookware!

Conversely, cooking acidic foods like tomatoes or applesauce in cast iron will eat away at the seasoning. This doesn't harm your cast iron cookware, and will add some iron to your diet. Keep in mind that simmering chili or applesauce in cast iron could change the flavor of your food slightly.

Seasoning tip: Coat the inside of the skillet with oil or shortening and set it on your stove's heat vent (from the oven) when it's in use. This is a nice "extra" way to season cast iron, especially when doing lots of winter baking! :)

By the way, for those of you who don't have a cast iron skillet but are interested, mine is Lodge brand, from Wal-mart and (I think) cost about $8. I think they still sell them for under $10. Sometimes you can find them at thrift stores, flea markets and garage sales, too.

Some of my favorite things to do with my cast iron skillet:

Make homemade refried beans. Mmmmmm!!! Somehow refried beans seem to taste better when made in a cast iron skillet! :)

Brown ground beef for tacos, casseroles or to freeze (for easy meal-assembly later)

Make turkey breakfast sausage patties or crumbles (pictured above). SO delicious -- I'll share the recipe later this week! :)

Stir-fry veggies. (I do use some oil when cooking veggies or non-greasy things like chicken breasts in my cast iron skillet. It's well-seasoned but still not quite like a Teflon non-stick pan would be, in my opinion.)

Pan-fry cod or pollock. A little oil, a little seasoning (garlic, salt, pepper -- very lightly!) and the fish cooks in just a few minutes per side. I've been serving my pan-fried fish with rice or cooked pasta, and sometimes a red or white sauce. It's a nice change from grilled or baked fish! :)

Fry pancakes. Except I now have a cast iron griddle for pancakes and don't usually need to pull out the skillet, too. I got the griddle for $39 on Amazon.com and while I like it, I wouldn't say I quite *love* it... :)

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. Streamlining making water kefir (Katie at Kitchen Stewardship)
2. Covering large bowls (Frugal in Florida)
3. 10 things to do with stale bread (The Local Cook)
4. Cleaning a burnt on pan (Gwen at Gwen's Nest)
5. Drying ziplock bags (Anne Jisca at Anne Jisca's Healthy Pursuits)
6. Stretching meat for people who don't like beans (The Cheapskate Cook)
7. Asparagus tips (Where The Kudzu Grows)
8. How to turn a brownie recipe into a cake (Cheryl at The Bz House That Love Built)
9. What to make from things you already have (Cheryl at The Bz House That Love Built)
10. Tips for making chicken tenders in bulk (Alea at Premeditated Leftovers)
11. Ground beef time saver tip (2 Make Ends Meet)
12. Uses for orange peels (Rachel at Trial and Error Home Ec)
13. Serving brussels sprouts (Jodi at Lg Family Farm)

Last January (2011), I shared some of my thoughts and plans after having re-evaluated our household budget. Having a plan in place to change even just a handful of our practices or habits has helped keep our budget on track throughout the year. I thought I'd give an update on last year's goals and brainstorm areas where I still want to improve.

My goal last year was to budget tightly enough to save for the "extras" that pop up in life -- like a new baby, vehicle repairs, medical things, etc. (Speaking of "medical things", Joshua's surgery this week went well [praise GOD!] and he is home recovering. He'll have a second surgery in February, and should be able to return to work in April.)

My plan for 2011 included:

Continue having 1 vehicle -- did this all year and are continuing :)

Continue having only basic phone service (no cell phones or long distance) -- same

Continue having Netflix (no TV, no movies, and no other movie rentals or purchases) -- Canceled Netflix in August, 2011

Continue menu planning -- did better, but not 100% on this

Discontinue restaurant/take-out eating (none, vs. the 6-8 times per year for the past couple of years) -- We ate out (as a family) twice, Joshua got take-out twice, and we got hot dogs at Costco 4-5 times, so... not really an improvement, but not too bad :)

Go to Costco every 2 weeks instead of every week -- we averaged shopping every 10-14 days, so much better than weekly! :)

Spend only $420/month on food/household/toiletries -- this has increased to $500/month; I'm just not sure what else I want to cut when it comes to groceries...

Continue to keep the heat at 64 or lower -- we did this, but getting the furnace repaired (by the landlord) ended up reaping much bigger savings, yay!

Wash towels and whites in cold water instead of hot (use a few drops of bleach instead) -- I went back to hot water for whites/towels, 1 load per week

Take shorter showers (this is a hard one for me!) -- I've been taking fewer showers, not that that's a good thing... ;)

Get Ruth potty trained (she's in Pull-Ups) -- did this in February, yay! :)

Go back to cloth diapers for Moshe (used disposables during December) -- went back to cloth diapers full-time and continued, aside from a 2-day break (just while flying to Ohio/to Seattle to visit my family)

Take a year-long break from buying stuff (we have so much already!) -- I *mostly* did this. Joshua got me a few gifts, though! :)

Shop around to see if we can get a cheaper car insurance rate -- looked into this but didn't make any changes

Recycle anything possible -- done

Call trash service and downgrade to smallest, customer-provided can (saving $7/month) -- did this, and have been able to fit our trash in the tiny can every week! :)

Get landlord to fix dripping faucet in bathroom -- fixed

Figure out how to pay bills online to save stamps -- found a couple I can pay online without extra charges :)

Continue blogging -- I mostly did this, in my bad-blogger way...

Get my recipe e-book finished -- Definitely did not get this done. I let too many things be my excuses/reasons not to make time to work on it...

Eating Well, Spending Less in 2012

I don't know how many times we've gone over our household budget and...

...the only category it seems we can realistically fiddle with is the food/household items budget.

While I don't think I can actually reduce this year's food budget (can we say growing kids?!), I want to do more without spending more.

Specific ways I plan to accomplish this:

1. Continue to spend nearly all of our food/household budget money on food (instead of things like diapers!), which is one of the ways we eat well and stay within-budget.

2. Continue to go grocery shopping every 2 weeks (or even less often). This practice, especially, means I have to plan ahead -- which is a good thing.

3. Continue to plan menus, focusing on using fresh food at its peak, not wasting anything, and eating lots of affordable foods like beans and carrots. :)

4. Resist buying foods that are expensive but don't provide good nutrition.

5. Do more freezer cooking, and not just for "special occasions" like surgery or having a baby.

6. Introduce new kitchen tasks to the children as they grow older. Yehoshua will be 8 in April, and Eliyahu is 6 -- they could be more helpful and independent if I took more time to teach them to cook. Starting beans in the crock pot, making a pot of oatmeal for breakfast, or getting carrots ready to cook are some of the things I'd like to get them doing more regularly and independently! :)

7. Finally perfect a homemade chicken broth (from the bones after making roasted chicken). I've attempted a few times and didn't care for the results. :(

8. Try to limit desserts more than we already do. Desserts tend to be unhealthy and expensive, anyway. :)

This month's Eat Well, Spend Less series posts are on the topic of New Year's Food/Kitchen Resolutions! Check out what these ladies are sharing:

Jessica at Life As Mom: Teaching My Boys to Cook

Aimee at Simple Bites: Food Resolutions

Katie at Kitchen Stewardship: Yogurt, beans, and chicken broth

Shaina at Food For My Family: Overall Kitchen Organization

Katie at GoodLife{eats}: Variety with whole grains

Mandi at Life...Your Way: The Key to Changing Your Diet for Good

Carrie at Denver Bargains: Reducing Kitchen Waste

Amy at Kingdom First Mom

Jessica at Good Cheap Eats is hosting Kitchen Tip Tuesdays for me this week so I can be available for Joshua as he undergoes surgery on Tuesday.

Head over to Good Cheap Eats to read Jessica's post and others' tips or to submit your own tips and links! :)

These Parmesan twisted breadsticks are so good!! They are light, fluffy, cheesy, and garlicky! I love the bits of melted Parmesan cheese inside and the salty, buttery garlic flavor.

I also love the fancy twisted presentation. These breadsticks will dress up a simple dinner nicely. When I make them, they're everyone's favorite!

And, since I make the dough in my bread machine, it's not too time-consuming for me to make these breadsticks. (Bread machine directions are included in my recipe, as well as making by hand.)

I buy shredded (NOT grated) Parmesan cheese in bulk at Costco for special treats like these breadsticks. Real shredded Parmesan cheese is one of my favorite "food luxuries"!

When I buy a big bag of Parmesan cheese, I re-package it into sandwich-size Ziplock bags. Then, I put the small bags into a large Ziplock freezer bag and freeze them. (Double-bagging like that keeps the cheese nice and fresh!) The small bag thaws quickly when I pull it out to use.

Freezing in smaller portions is one of the ways I'm able to shop in bulk for nearly everything, yet still keep a variety of ingredients on hand and minimize food waste. :)

I had planned to make meatballs for the spaghetti, since meatballs are one of Joshua's favorites and I rarely make them -- but time ran short (oops -- I mean, I was running late on dinner as usual!) and I just fried and seasoned the meat and added sauce. I cooked frozen green beans and we had our "three things" dinner -- spaghetti, breadsticks, and green beans! It was perfect.

I cooked the meat and sauce in my cast iron skillet. I've been remembering to use it more often since it's supposed to help boost iron levels in foods, and my midwife gave me the "get more iron" talk last week. ;) The simmering tomato-based sauce tasted a little "irony" to Joshua, but I didn't notice a taste difference. But, I don't trust my taste buds too much these days since my nose is constantly stuffy (pregnancy-related). :)

Anyway, the bread sticks. Make them! They're amazing. :)

The 3 randomly-selected winners in the Cultures for Health giveaway this week are:

Carrie (wholesomewomanhood@)
Amy (chiltonthompson@)
Amy (amydeihl@)

Many thanks to Cultures for Health for offering this giveaway! :) If you were one of the winners, I've already emailed instructions on choosing a culture to try! :)

The 5 randomly-selected winners in The Money Saving Mom's Budget book giveaway are:

Angela (LibraryGirl@)
tlcmom@
Rachel (drhotalen@)
Shannon (jellybeansjunk@)
teeners9@

If you were one of the winners, I've already emailed you so I can get your mailing address to send out your book! :)

In the event that a selected winner doesn't respond to my email, an alternate winner will be chosen and will hear from me through email. :)

Thanks for participating in the giveaways, everyone! :)