Freeze Mister

Face it - not only are food prices sky high, but even more dollars are washed down the drain in uneaten food. Things that you meant to cook but never got around to before they went bad - something you cooked but the kids didn't end up eating very much of. You know the dance.


Here are some interesting approaches to saving more food (and more money)!

FREEZING YOUR CASSAROLE

Freezing an extra casserole doesn't have to mean that all your dishes are in the deep freeze. To freeze a casserole without its dish, line the casserole dish with plastic wrap, folding wrap over the edges, and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Add the combined ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap; freeze.

When frozen, lift the food from the dish using the edges of the plastic wrap. Wrap in freezer paper or place in a resealable plastic freezer food storage bag. Return to the freezer.

When you're ready to cook the food, remove it from the freezer and discard the plastic wrap. Place it in its original dish, cover and thaw in the refrigerator. Bake according to the recipe directions.

COOKED PASTA

Cook a pound -- bow-ties and rotelle are best for this purpose - -until barely al dente (so that when you reheat, the pasta will not be mushy) and then freeze (unsauced) in freezer-ready container for adding to a hot sauce or microwaving later.

PASTA SAUCE

Make a batch on Sunday afternoon and store in containers (be sure to leave a little space at the top for expansion). Cream sauces do not freeze well.

VERY RIPE BANANASFor an instant protein-rich smoothie store ripe bananas in the freezer, peeled, in freezer bags and blend them with skim milk and soy protein powder.

PIZZA DOUGHIt thaws quickly at room temperature. Also, when you make pizza, cook an extra pie or two, let cool without cutting, wrap and freeze for later. Just pop the pizza in a 400F oven until hot, then cut and serve.

BACCONRaw bacon, wrapped side-by-side in pairs in parchment or waxed paper and then enclosed in foil is great for keeping portions on hand.

POTATOESLook for organic shoestring, shredded or crinkle cut fries or hash browns without additives. You can cook them quickly in the oven or in a skillet and top with browned ground beef and cheese or serve them with eggs.

SOUPS & STEWSSimmered and braised dishes freeze well. Many recipes provide a large enough yield that you can freeze at least a quart to serve later. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator.

How to Freeze
You can freeze myriad foods: cake, cheese, bacon, berries, and other fruit. Sauces, broth, and pureed baby food can be stored in ice-cube trays and frozen. Here are some tips on how to ensure your foods don't end up tasting of freezer burn.

1. Slice breads before you freeze for easier removal.

2. Freeze in small portions, so you can just defrost a serving fast and easily.

3. Wrap well. Use containers and plastic wraps that were designed specifically for the freezer. Make sure there is no air in bags and wraps. If you are storing sauce or soup, keep room at the top of the container for expansion of the liquid.

4. Be sure to label the package with the name of the item and date of preparation and storage.

5. Place newer things in the back of the freezer and use the older items in front.

How to Thaw
Overnight thawing in the fridge is best, but if time is of the essence, you can immerse foods in cold water -- bag or container and its contents -- and keep changing the water until it reaches room temperature. Transfer soups, sauces, or stews to a saucepan and heat slowly, covered, until the mixture comes to a boil; be sure to stir often. For other individual portions, defrost uncovered in the microwave and cook and serve as soon as possible.

Little Toys Little Hands

About the time my youngest had started crawling and pushing every possible thing into his mouth is the time that my oldest was at an age where legos ruled. We tried the unending battle of keeping them isolated to one room and the door closed but that made me feel like he was in isolation. 

Do you have a similar problem? Small toys around small hands? Or - are you just plain tired of stepping on plastic pieces of pain? Try this:

1) Bathtub playtime - close the drain and let your dry child play in the dry tub with his tiny toys. No pieces can roll away and cleanup is pretty easy. 

2) Inflatable pool - we got a small inflatable sided yard pool and put it in our playroom. This was set up specifically for lego work or when we were creating with beads.

You still have to be an always-diligent watchdog, but these simple cures help keep small pieces under control :)

Box Tops

Just about every school in America collects the Box Tops for education squares you find on the sides of popular food items. Contrary to it's name, Box Tops are rarely on the actual top of the box and instead are in hard to reach places (you're testing my patience JuicyJuice).

The great thing about these little bugs is that they are free. They are on items that you are already buying and do add up to earn your school money so don't let those go to waste. But clipping them can be a pain. Here are a few tips that make it do-able for me.

I'm hoping you recycle, but if your area doesn't support it, mentally insert (trashcan) where I've said (recycle bin).

1) Put your kids in charge of finding them. Each load of groceries has one or two, let your kids go on a scavenger hunt to find them. If they are easily removed (like from the top of cereal boxes) go ahead and do it then, otherwise have them circle them in black marker to remind you and then put the item away until it is empty.


2) Place a pair of scissors and a ziplock bag next to your recycle bin. This can be taped onto it, on a nearby shelf or pinned up on the wall behind it. As you go through boxes and cans to be tossed away, go ahead and clip and stash them.

3) Make it fun! Talk with your class teacher or school about having a contest between the classes to see who can bring in the most box tops. The class with the most wins a pizza party! Schools can easily earn $2000/year just in box tops so a $40 party is a good investment.

4) Clipping box tops is a good way to ensure you're checking the packaging closely. Often you'll find other coupons on the back or inside of packages you might otherwise have missed.

Happy clipping!

CAMEO Giveaway!!!

One of my favorite blogs is a site called Better After. This site is amazing on it's own because it features entry after entry of photo-filled Before and After stories. Refinished furniture, house exteriors, clothing, even room makeovers - whatever her clever viewers are up to. It's a true inspiration and is really what kicked me into gear on refinishing my son's play-kitchen.

This week they are doing a giveaway of a Silhouette CAMEO cutting craft machine. You know all those small detail pieces you use in scrapbooking? Or the crazy cute vinyl lettering you've been seeing lately? This can do those in a snap! FREE PEOPLE! It's time saving and money saving and up our alley.

Check out her blog and contest here : http://betterafter.blogspot.com/

5 cents per load Laundry Detergent

I've seen enough episodes of 'Extreme Couponing' to know that's not for me. Have you seen it? It's an entire show about people who spend 20+ hours a week clipping and organizing coupons both physical and digital ones and map out big shopping trips to save money. The result is a house-full of stuff for very little money.

While this seems like it would be up my alley, it's just simply not.I still have that twinge of excitement when they get to the end of the show and the woman scans the groceries to total $300 and then WHAM the shopper whips out all their coupons and double coupons and BEEP BEEP BEEP the total is reduced to $1.55. That's exciting guys. But... I know it's the result of months of planning and clipping and I'm not entirely sure that's worth 18 boxes of Rice a Roni and more Juicy Juice than my children will ever consume in their lifetime.

Saving time? No. Saving money? Yep. Making my life easier and more streamlined? Nope. So I'll pass.

However, I did just hear about an interesting money saver I'm going to try out next week. Please let me know if any of you have tried it and your results...

Homemade Laundry Detergent


Most name-brand detergents average to .21 cents per load of laundry. While that doesn't seem like much, when you consider my little family of 3 alone does 3 loads of laundry per week it adds up. A friend (thanks Lisa!) shared a recipe she found online that is easy to make powder laundry detergent that is .05 cents per load. Um, I like saving don't you?!

At first I was a bit skeptical, but if it works on her kid's dirty baseball uniforms then it can work on mine!

The recipe is simple:
1 bar of Ivory Soap (other soaps are fine too - Zote of Fels-Naptha or any that don't contain moisturizers)
1 cup of Borax (a natural whitener and deodorizer - she suggests the brand 20 Mule Team)
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (NOT BAKING SODA - It's in the laundry aisle)

Step one: shave the bar of soap using a cheese grater.
Step two: mix the powders in with the soap shavings until you get a nice mixed powder
Step three: store the powder in a plastic container in the laundry room
Step four: use one tablespoon per load (that's not a full cup guys - one tablespoon)

I'll post pics and feedback when I smell my clothes (hey, you know you do it too when they are fresh from the dryer).

Have any of you guys tried this?

Star Wars Party For UNDER $100

Birthday parties are one of the things I just can't keep a budget-hold on. They always seem simple enough but then all the little things start adding up.

When my son was turning 6 he wanted a StarWars Lego party. We invited 20 kids and I had given myself a firm budget of $99 for everything.

Invitations : $0
First we emailed invitations. Because I'm a graphic designer I had the tools to create something just for him but Evite has some really cute options. Consider using StarWars phrasing such as : IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY, A FUTURE JEDI WAS BORN - HIS NAME WAS (first name) SKYWALKER. You have been chosen to join the party to celebrate his 6th birthday.WILL THE FORCE BE WITH YOU? RSVP. All new jedis report to command at 1pm, etc. The point is to spend your time choosing an image and modifying the information instead of licking envelopes or spending a fortune on stamps. Click and it's done!

Decorations: $7
In past years I've always done birthdays big. Like petting-zoo big. So I didn't want this party to feel skimpy. You'd be surprised how far streamers can go. I got black, grey and blue streamers for .50/each at PartyCity with a coupon and put them EVERYWHERE. They were covering every doorway vertically like 1970s beads. We have a stairwell overpass and they hung down over that. Every lamp. Everywhere.  I also bought 2 jumbo packages of balloons ($2/each) and blew them up manually. So it seemed like the entire floor was covered in white or grey balloons. My son drew some StarWars pictures to add to the decoration and it also kept him busy while I baked :)

Activities:
At 6 years old they needed a few stations and diversions to keep the party moving.

BALLOONS: $0
The balloons served that role initially without me even planning it. Evidently battling each other with balloons is huge fun for boys. This easily took about 20 minutes of the first part of the party waiting for everyone to arrive and they were all sweaty and exahusted by then. I've done a floor full of balloons at every party since then.

BALLOON PUZZLE: $0
After everyone had arrived and the balloon fun had been exhausted, I told them there were puzzle pieces inside of some of the balloons that had clues we needed to find. They had to sit and squeeze and pop all of the balloons that had a puzzle piece in it and then work together to figure it out. The puzzle pieces were rolled up paper with one word on them each. They loved popping the balloons in different ways and quickly realized they could look through the white ones to see if it contained a note inside. The note told them to go outside where the next activity was waiting.

LEGO FORT: $0-$10
Because this was a Lego Star Wars party, we built a lego fort. We had recently moved and had access to a lot of empty boxes which I taped back up and spray painted all different colors - every color of spraypaint I already had. If you don't have boxes, check CraigsList in your city - people who have just moved give their boxes away for free just to get rid of them. It's where we got ours in the first place! If you don't have spray paint you can use regular paint or cover them with construction paper.  I glued them together in different ways to create a fort large enough to where they had to crawl in but 3-4 kids could be inside at any given moment.

WATER GUNS: $1/KID = $20
I filled up buckets and big bowls of water and placed them around the yard and back porch. Each kid was given a water gun and they had a war in the back yard running and hiding in the fort and around trees. A few were really damp but it was a nice day and they dried quickly - it's just water!

DARTH VADER PINATA= $15 + Candy $15
We purchased a Darth Vader head pinata at PartyCity and spent a big part of the budget on candy. We used our plastic light sabre to let each child take a swing. If you don't have one, a big stick painted blue with a black handle will do or just call it a sabre and they will be happy. I used brown paper lunch bags with each child's name already written on it in Sharpie for them to hold and put their collected candy inside.

GIVEAWAYS: $11
Each child kept their brown paper bag (1.99 for the whole box of bags) and candy from the pinata as well as their personal water gun. They also received a candy light saber (recipe below, about .50/saber) to take with them.

Food:
YODA PUNCH: $9
We made Yoda Punch for everyone. It's one container of lime sherbert and one 3 liter of Ginger Ale in equal parts. I ended up making 2 batches of it because everyone was so thirsty! Total with plastic cups : $4 sherbert, $2 Gingerale, $2 cups

CAKE: $8
I made this StarWars cake using yellow cake mix and chocolate frosting. We happened to already have the mold and the chocolate to create little chocolate lego men and the octagons. I free-handed the StarWars logo. The topper is an actual lego creation my son already had.

PRETZLES, CHIPS, GRAPES: $10
I got paper plates and snack foods that I could put out for any who were hungry. The party was from 1:30-3:30 so I didn't feel required to serve a whole buffet which helped the budget significantly. I did put out paper plates and napkins and people just grazed as they wanted to.

That's it! Everyone had a great time, it didn't involve a lot of pre-work or after clean-up (except all the balloons) and our total was $95!

$14 Play Kitchen

Christmas time is somewhat stressful for everyone. The lack of time, money, patience and pizza is alarming. This year I wanted something big for each of my sweet kiddos - the youngest of which is a culinary mastermind who needed his own play kitchen. Since everything in the market was either very expensive or pink and plastic, I took matters into my own hand.

This started out as a very old cabinet with a drawer. My mother had already refinished it 20 years ago and it was again no longer being used.

The first thing I had to do was find a "sink" after searching home stores I realized porcelain or metal were just too fragile and resorted to PartyCity where they had these hard plastic chip bowls for $1.99. Initially I had imagined a circle but hey, this was cool too. And the hard plastic is exceptionally durable.

I drew around it with a pencil and then cut about 1/2 inch inside of that line so the sink would have a lip to keep it in place.

Dabbed around it with some strong adhesive glue and let it sit.

The rest was just paint! I took off all the doors and hardware and used an oil based white for the top. I used white because that's what we had leftover from another project. I painted one door all silver to give the illusion of a refrigerator door and changed the handle (.99 from rummage sale and .99 acrylic paint from Hobby Lobby). Same for the red (acrylic .99 paint). I used the same silver paint on the hardware and put the doors back on.

I did have to cut out part of the back of the drawer so the bottom of the sink could slide back and forth.

Because the drawer had two raised panels, I used the silver to make one look like a little oven. Black rectangle of construction paper and a picture of muffins cut out of a cook book glued on complete the effect. (Handle we already had but those are about $3 at the store for one)

The top i painted a rectangle in the same silver and then used black acrylic paint to make circles (.99 Hobby Lobby). Once dried, I used some of the red paint and some of the silver paint to make swirls for each burner. We happened to have glitter glue in our craft area to add to it but it isn't necessary.

Then I took wooden handles (.59 for 4 smaller ones and .99 for the two large ones) and painted them black with grey tick marks for the burner handles. Painted one red for the hot and used blue marker on the other for the cold. Screwed them in and voila.

On the full red door I had to put something in the middle to break it up since there was no way of making the previously decoupaged pear invisible so I put in a little hand-painted sign.

The faucet is two pieces of PVC pipe glued together - one inserted from the inside which has a thicker base so it won't come through (it took 15  minutes before the child was trying to take the faucet off ). Each pipe piece was $2

And here it is for Christmas morning:

I think Santa did pretty good :)