Saturday, January 31, 2009

Crockpot Sunday

Do you have plans for dinner tomorrow? Here is a great crockpot recipe that uses cheese which I (and many of you) now have a lot of.

Cheesy Cauliflower Soup

Serves 4

2 cups chicken broth
2 (8-ounce) packages frozen cauliflower (fresh is ok too)
1 medium stalk celery -- cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 medium carrot -- cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 small onion -- cut into eighths
1/2 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper -- to taste

1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese -- shredded

Throw all ingredients except milk and cheese into a crockpot and cook on low until vegetables are very tender, about 4-6 hours.

Carefully pour mixture into work bowl of food processor fitting with steel blade or into blender container. Cover and process until smooth. OR, if you like it a little lumpy and bumpy like I do, use a potato masher and have at it in the crockpot itself--mash to your heart's delight.

Place your cauliflower mixture into a saucepan; stir in milk and cheese. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until cheese is melted and mixture is hot.

Per serving: 235 Calories; 16g Total Fat; (59% calories from fat); 15g Protein; 8g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 46mg Cholesterol; 701mg Sodium

Food Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 1 1/2 Lean Meat; 1 Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates

SERVING SUGGESTIONS: A big green salad and some whole grain rolls make for a nice supper.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Deals of the week 1/30/09

I found a great new blog http://grocerygirls.blogspot.com/
This is the blog of a gal apparently living in Meridian, so the sales are local. She has some good info especially on old Meridian Albertsons (Meridian/Cherry Lane) because her husband works there.

Albertsons:
Boneless Skinless chicken breast 1.77/lb
Ex Lean ground beef 1.99/lb
Beef loin steak 4.99/lb
GM select cereals 2/$5 plus free milk with 4

Fred Meyer
Bone in Chicken breast .99/lb
Broccoli .88/lb
Grapefruit 3/$1

Monday, January 19, 2009

Crockpot Sunday

Chicken Breast Supreme
6 chicken breasts
mushrooms
can of mushroom soup
swiss cheese
chopped fresh chives
bacon

Put chicken, mushrooms (sliced or whole) in crockpot and pour the soup and chives over the top. Cook on high if chicken is frozen and medium if it is thawed for 3-4 hours. Top with cheese and bacon and cook another 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Serve with rice and steamed broccoli.

Deals this week

Hi,
The clearance sales are getting good now. I went out Saturday evening and found a few great sales. I'm not sure if they are continuing this week or not. Maybe today and then later in the week. Anyway, what I found was Target has 30% off the 50% off. I found a few great t-shirts for me and a couple of pair of Levi's for Marty all at great prices. A couple of my t-shirts were under $2!

Old Navy has a similar sale, 50% off the clearance price. I did find a couple pretty good deals on pants for Wesley who's legs are getting longer than his pants.

Kim wrote earlier in the week:
I found some great deals today. Macy's has an
additional 50% off clearance. JCPenney has an
additional 40% off clearance. Old Navy has an
additional 50% off clearance. I found some great stuff
for almost nothing.
Kim

Thanks Kim!!

I am doing my Costco membership renewal this week. If anyone needs a Costco membership, I would be happy to add you to ours. The best deal is if you split one. Each membership comes with 2 card (traditionally husband and wife), but they don't care who the partners are. So, the membership costs $40, if you split it, that is $20 each. Let me know right away if you would like to do this with us. I'll partner you up if I can.


Here is a great tip send to us by Starla. Also, look for Shelf Reliance at Costco this month. Here is a link to the items they carry. I know you can order these directly through costco.com with no shipping. Or you can order directly through http://www.shelfreliance.com/shop/frs

Eva Lu,
I don't know if this is a tip, but what I have liked is something I didn't think I was actually going to when I first got them. I bought 2 of those can roller things that they had on sale at Costco (probably 2 years ago) from Shelf Reliance. The ones that you put the cans in the top and they roll through and you rotate your storage with them. They are the ones that sit on a shelf, not the whole floor unit. I thought they were a pain, and took up too much space, but I put them together and found spots in my pantry for both of them. The labels are useless because they fall off all the time (I think my label maker will make better labels, just haven't gotten to it yet). But I love them now. I have soups and olives, tomatoes, etc. in them. I have such a hard time rotating my can goods that aren't in these rollers...it's glaringly apparent to me how well they work. I also can see at a glance if I am getting low on, for example, Cream of Chicken soup. I just wish they were smaller, I'd get more (or if I had more space somewhere!!). My in-laws have a huge, homemade one in the middle of their food storage room in their basement...if someone knows where a handier, small storage space friendly one is available, I'd love to know!

Love your updates!
Starla

Thanks Starla,
You and Kim get a prize this week for sending in tips!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Suze Orman Free Book Download

Hi Everyone,

Suse Orman was on Oprah yesterday and has offered her latest book "Suze Orman's 2009 action plan" for free for the next week. This offer expires Jan 15th.

The basics of her "plan" is to get out of debt first (credit card), then build up a savings of at least 8 months of your living expenses. Eight months is the average of how long it takes in this economy to find a new job if you lose your job. I think her ideas are sound.

She includes methods for getting out of debt and good investing ideas.

One thing that I am not sure about is her idea that you should be completely out of credit card debt before you build up a savings account. I think that you need at least a month's worth of expenses saved in an emergency account before you tackle the debt. This little bit in an account can give you peace of mind, be there if something happens, and is vital to becoming self reliant. I know on paper it may not be the best. You certainly can't earn much interest on money in a savings account and you are definitely paying out interest on the credit card debt. In spite of that, I believe that 1-3 month's expenses in an account is vital.

The other thing is that you have an impulse to buy something, instead of putting it on a credit card, you must take it out of savings to pay for it. This makes you stop and think a little harder. It is much harder to spend "real" money. If you do decide to buy the item, then you must have a plan to pay back the savings account. I think a person with a savings account spends differently than a person with no savings.

As the book download, I haven't yet got it to completely download. I get pieces of it with errors. I think that the server it is coming from is probably a little too busy. I will just keep trying. I would just send out a copy of the file to those who want it if I finally get it, but it asks you not to do that. So, I guess I won't. :)

Good luck!
Eva Lu

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20081119_tows_bookdownload

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

#3

Good Morning,

Here is the next food storage top 10 item. It has to do with essentially making something out of nothing. It will require an explanation. The point is that if you are looking for ways to use what you have, you may find something more than what you thought you had. I had some mostly rotting pears, but found a new favorite.

3. Pear Vinaigrette - We picked pears at our parents home in Rupert. They were little and pretty scared, but we thought they would be good to eat, which they were. After a week, they were over ripe and would be rotting soon. Marty asked if we were going to can them. Uh, no, way too much work for the very small pears. We (ok Marty) had just made applesauce though and I thought maybe he could just run them through the applesauce maker, which he did. So we got sort of runny, but very tasty pear sauce. I looked up pear recipes on the Internet and found the pear vinaigrette recipe which is one of my all time favorites.

Here is the recipe:


Pear Vinaigrette



1 (15-ounce) can pear halves in juice, undrained (I just used the pear sauce)
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dash of ground red pepper

To prepare dressing, drain pears, reserving 1/3 cup pear juice. Combine pears, juice, vinegar, and remaining ingredients in a blender; process until smooth.

Yield: About 2 cups (serving size: about 1 1/2 tablespoons)

Sunday, January 4, 2009

New Year's Resolutions

Hi Everyone,
I have been thinking about what kind of Provident Living New Year' Resolutions I want to make and accomplish this year. Of course, I will keep working on building up and using my food storage. Not perfect, but practice makes more perfect. I think I really made some improvements this last year. I would like to know what food storage successes you all had, favorite finds for your food storage, or new food storage recipes you discovered last year. I am going to give you my top 10 of my best find of the year, many of which you have heard before, sorry. I'll send you one or two a day. If you post your favorite or favorites, I will give you a prize. You'll like it, I promise. If you are not in the Cloverdale Ward, I will still give you a prize. :)

1. Costco canned chicken (makes great soup and chicken salad) - I'm sure the church cannery chicken is good too, and maybe cheeper.
2. Costco (again) precooked bacon, shelf life 6 months, longer in freezer. Makes everything taste better. Relative low fat, 3 grams fat, 3 grams protein in 2 Tablespoons. I am on a low carb diet, so this is a great way to get a little more protein in my diet and no carbs. I recently tried heating it up in the microwave and then adding it to my cottage cheese. Delicious!! It made it a little crunchy.

Good luck and send me your top finds.

Winco deals

When I was at Winco last night I saw some great deals!!! Wheat Thins, etc. 1.24 a box max 4, Chex granola bars 6 per box $.98 a box.

Just thought you might want to know!
Jenny

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Deals of the week Jan 3

I saw a couple of great deals this week, I thought I'd send them out to you as I'm not sure how long they will last.

First, Costco has tamales on sale, I think the regular price was around $13, they are $4.88 for 13 pork tamales. I bought 3 bags and will freeze 2 of them.

Everyone of course has their Christmas stuff on sale at great discounts. Fred Meyer had, in addition to all the other Christmas stuff, white tissue paper. I think there were 20 sheets the final cost was $.24. I was there a couple days ago and they still a lot of Christmas stuff.

I have been out clothes shopping this week. I prepare taxes during the Spring and needed to get a few things for my "professional" wardrobe. The best deals I found this week are Dillards on New Years Day had a 50% off the clearance prices. The place was a zoo! They will do deeper discounts and have a 50% or 70% off the clearance price sometime in the next couple weeks. If you read in the paper or hear when it is happening let me know and I will let everyone know.

Kohl's had some decent discounts, but I think it will be better in a week or two. I found a couple nice things at Ross too. One was a cute jacket that was missing a button. At first I thought I would have to steal a button off the sleave, but then I saw it came with an extra button. It was marked down to around $9 due to the missing button. Burlington had some pretty good deals and some pretty nice clothes. I was excited to find a pair of brown pants that fit (petite = no hemming) and were a good price $11.99. I have looked everywhere for the perfect brown pants and finally found them. Yay!

I have been thinking about how we all will have to learn to be better crockpot cooks due to our new meeting schedule. I copied a few recipes out of a cookbook I found. I will let you know how they turn out. In the meantime, my favorite crockpot recipe is on my blog, myprovidentliving.blogspot.com. Just look on the right side under the labels. Look for Thai Chicken Crock pot. BTW I saw chicken thighs (with bones and skin) for $.99 per pound at Winco, in the fresh meat area. The Thai Chicken recipe calls for thighs and when fully cooked, the chicken will practically fall of the bones. Just take the skin off before you cook it.

Sorry it has been so long since I have sent out an email or posted on my blog. I've been a little lazy with Christmas and all. And as always, if you see a good deal, please share it with us all. Email me and I will pass it on.