Freezer Inventory

Today my daughter had a friend over to play. While they played I decided to empty out our small chest freezer in the basement and see just what we had. Since I had to take time off unpaid when I had surgery money will be tight for a few weeks - so I wanted to see just what we had here that I could use up.

Here's what the freezer contained:

1 - spinach and mushroom pizza
1 - 4 cheese pizza
1 - pkg of chicken stir fry
2 - 1 quart bags of chicken enchilada (homemade)
2 - pork roasts
1 - ham steak
1 - whole chicken
11 - pkg of corn
2 - pkg of hot dogs
1 - pkg diced chicken meat
1 - pkg crinkle cut fries
1 - pkg bacon
3 - pkg of filet Mignon
1 - pkg mixed veggies
1 - pkg chicken tenders
1 - pkg beef sausages
2 - 1 pound pkgs of ground beef
1 bag of ice

I was thrilled to discover I had so much meat in the freezer - since that's one of the most expensive things to have to buy. I am planning on checking out the Angel Food website and possibly purchasing some of the packages offered there.

Angel Food Ministries & Christmas Gifts

Today I placed my order for the December Angel Food. I ordered the regular box (which includes a beef roast, chicken tenders, chicken breasts, pork chops, hamburger patties, a saulsbury steak meal, hot dogs, frozen carrots, frozen green beans, rice, steak fries, shelf stable milk, a box of mac & cheese, chicken broth, corn muffin mix, a dozen eggs, & a dessert item - which is usually a box of cookies), the #3 box (10 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts), and the #4 box (3 lb red rome apples, 3 lb sweet potatoes, 2 lb bag of onions, 1 sleeve of celery, 1 lb of carrots, 4 lb oranges, 2 lb lemons, 2 grapefruit, 1/2 lb raisins, & 4 lb of new potatoes). The cost for everything was $71. This will be the 3rd month that we've participated. The food so far has been great for the most part. The saulsbury steak meal will probably get tossed or given away - last time we got that it was pretty yucky. Since July about the only meat that we have gotten has been from Angel Food. There are 3 of us in the house and you get enough of each food item for 4 people. Since April doesn't eat much eat at all it lasts us twice as long. The steaks and roasts have honestly been better than the stuff we buy at the store. This program has truly been a God-send for us. And it's so nice to have a program that is not just for the poverty-stricken, and that there are no income requirements for.

Layne and I have been trying for weeks to figure out what to get for the workers that report to him at his job. We were going to pick up mugs and put a packet of cocoa and other goodies inside. Well, we decided not to because we did something similar just a few years ago. Instead we decided to make some "Pamper Me" gift bags. The bags cost $0.75 each, which is the biggest expense for these. But the bags would easily cost you $3 or more at Target. Inside the bag we will put a packet of cocoa ($0.04 each), some chocolate (approximately $0.10 per person), 1 candy cane ($0.10 each), a candle ($0.20 each), a candle holder ($0.50 each), a Christmas CD (CD & Jewel cases were given to us - so free!!!), homemade potpourri (about $0.25 per bag) tied inside some pretty fabric (fabric was free off freecycle). Total cost per bag will be $1.94!!! Not too bad at all. The chocolate was so cheap cause I bought a huge bag of it on sale at Kmart and I had a $1 off coupon that was doubled! After we make the bag up I will make sure to take a picture and post it, along with a picture of all the items in the bag.

Tip of the Day: Click on the following link and get a coupon for a free regular roast beef sandwich from Arby's with the purchase of any menu item.
http://arbys.fbmta.com/members/ViewMailing.aspx?MailingID=27917288257&StoreCode=7097&MemberID=27919504443
Enjoy!! The coupon is printable and there is no limit to the number of times you can print it. Yippee!

Too Many Doctor Visits

It seems as though these last couple weeks have just flown by and my poor blog has suffered for it. Between April having strep throat (again) and me going back in to the doctor for additional testing it seems as though we live at the doctors' offices. I do not even want to see all the medical bills that will start rolling in soon!!

Last weekend when we were out of town we ate out a lot. Which is not normal for us. So this week we've just been eating at home and trying to use up what we have here already. Tomorrow we will pick up our food from Angel Food Ministries. So our freezer will once again be full. After we pick our food up tomorrow I am going to sit down with a cookbook and pick out a few meals to get us through the next week. Since it's been getting colder I've been making more soups. This week we had a sausage soup - which was okay, but not fantastic. I actually would have preferred it without the sausage, which I guess would just be soup. : ) I also have a lot of eggs right now so I hard boiled some tonight for egg salad to have for lunches this weekend.

I don't know about all of you, but I am SO READY for the election to be over. Every commercial on the radio and television is political and that gets old real quick. I have tuning in to Saturday Night Live during this election season and boy is it funny! I could never run for any kind of public office if I knew everyone in the country would be picking me apart. You better be a pretty strong person to have to put up with that and not take it personal.

I hope no one is too disappointed, but I do not have a tip ready for tonight. April has a friend over right now and to be honest, it's very distracting. Who knew that 2 kids could be so loud!! Gotta get going for now to take April's friend home.

Can't wait for the weekend!

I am so excited for the weekend! This weekend we are going out of town to visit one of my younger brothers (Ryan) and his family. We will leave when I get off work tomorrow. Of course April said we should probably just leave tonight. : ) She is so excited, which I am very happy about, but she is driving me nuts about it. She wanted to pack her bags this morning but I was able to talk her into waiting till tonight. I'll have to post all about it and include some pictures on Sunday evening.

I started reading a book a couple days ago "God's Smuggler" which I borrowed from my mom. It's a great book so far about a young man who at first is just going through the motions of being a believer but finally is touched by God and beckoned to do his calling. I'm only a few chapters in and wish I had a few hours to myself to finish reading it. (sigh)

The weather is changing so quickly. It has been a struggle with April because she wants to still dress in summer clothes even though the highs are only in the 50's. Crazy kid, of course I can remember being the same way when I was younger.

Tonight I have a meeting at 8pm at a local political office. This is exciting because the elections are so near and I'm ready to be done. Being a team leader is a lot of work and I really don't feel I've done as much as I should, but I have done all that I had time for and I guess that has to be enough. It's also very disappointing because it means I will have to miss Grey's Anatomy, which really bums me out because I truly love that show.

The new Angel Food Ministries menu for November is posted. I'm telling you, if you don't participate already it is a great program. The people I know that have participated comment frequently on how surprised they are by how good the meat and produce is. I would have to agree. I usually buy the regular box, 1 meat box, & the produce box. I spend about $72 but the meat lasts me for a month and the produce lasts a couple weeks. It's a great plan for us, then we just have to pick up milk, bread, and a few other odds and ends throughout the month. Since there are no income guidelines it is available to anyone that could benefit from it.

Today's tip: Do you hate paying $4 for a package of fresh basil, dill, or other herbs? Check out your local Asian market. They have bundles of these fresh herbs for less than 1/3 of the price of our local grocery chains and they are in bigger bundles that are in better shape. I recently picked up a bundle of dill when I was canning pickles for $1.25 a bundle - and the bundle was seriously huge! When I checked the price at Hy-vee it was $3.99 for about half a dozen sprigs. The Asian markets are also a great place to pick up cheap tofu and other produce items such as avocados, cucumbers, jalapenos, leeks, green onions, etc. One thing to be aware of is that these markets do tend to have an odor, and they do store meat that is frozen out in the open. But I can stomach it if it means I'll save big on my produce bill!

The end of another weekend

Boy did this weekend fly by! We were so busy. Yesterday we picked up food that we ordered through the Angel Food Ministries. Boy what a good deal that was! One of the guys that works there was helping me to carry my purchases out to the car and was commenting on how big the program has grown here over the past months. It's no wonder when everyone is so strapped finanancially and the prices of everything are skyrocketing! It's such a great program and it's wonderful that there are no income requirements. Seems all to often its the middle income people who especially feel the pinch. The lower income get assistance, the wealthy....well they don't need anything. But the middle income people have to scrape to get by because they make too much to qualify for anything - of course they look at the income pretax and don't consider any living expenses. Oh well. Hopefully when we have a new president things will turn around. Although I seriously doubt they have that much control and it will take YEARS to get the country out of the enormous amount of debt that GW seems to have acquired.

Today church was wonderful. The Sunday school kids sang a song during the service. It's so nice to see some of them so passionate about God. Sometimes I'm not sure how much April is actually listening and she'll surprise me at an unexpected time (usually when I'm driving the car) by saying something like..."Mom, do you know who is in the car with us?" I'll ask "Who?" and she'll say "God and Jesus. Pastor says that they are in front of us, behind us, below us, and above us." Then I'll know she's at least getting something from it. She loves listening to Christian Rock in the car too. I get so tired of listening to the same songs over and over, but at least its good music! I really enjoy listening to KLOVE.

On to the tip of the day! One thing I like to eat is bacon. But it's such a pain to cook, grease splatters everywhere and they curl up and shrink to nothing. There are 2 ways to avoid this. One is to cook them at about 400 degrees for about 10 minutes (cooking times vary by oven). The other way is to place the bacon in a large frying pan and then to place another pan on the top of the bacon. Lift it periodically to check if it's cooked. This also heats the pan that is weighing down the bacon to cook both sides.