Frugal Eats: Homemade Donuts

 

Budget Savvy Diva is here to help you eat well for less :) 

So check back every Monday for another frugal eats recipe :)

This week.......

Homemade Donuts

Organic Saving Saturday- Vegan Lettuce Wraps Recipe

Budget Savvy Diva has a VERY YUMMY and ORGANIC RECIPE for you :)

Vegan Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients:

• 1 pound extra firm tofu, drained and crumbled
• 2 tablespoons chopped ginger
• 1 tablespoon sesame or olive oil
• ¾ cup diced celery
• ¾ cup diced carrots
• 2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
• ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 head Bibb or Romaine lettuce or Napa cabbage
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Directions:

Heat oil in sauté pan; add ginger, celery and carrots. Stir and sauté for 5-7 minutes until slightly soft. Add tofu, soy sauce and seasoning and stir, cooking for 10 minutes. Add a bit of water in teaspoon increments if tofu is sticking to pan.

Remove from heat, spoon into lettuce leaves, sprinkle sesame seeds on top, roll and enjoy.

Make a spicy peanut dipping sauce by mixing together:

1 clove garlic, minced

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

1/2 cup tamari

1-2 tablespoons Sriracha or chili sauce

1/2 cup organic peanut butter

juice of one lime

2 tablespoons sesame oil

* You can trade out garlic for ginger or omit completely and substitute sunflower butter for peanut allergies.

Thanks! Organic Authority

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Frugal Eats: Baked Chicken and Rice

Thanks Budget Savvy Diva for this great recipe!

Frugal Eats: Baked Chicken and Rice

Ingredients:

1 c. plain white rice
1 large pkg. of chicken pieces (legs, breasts, leg quarters)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 envelope of dry onion soup mix
2 soup cans of water

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Frugal Eats: Italian Meatballs

 

For more frugal recipes and more ways to save head on over to Budget Savvy Diva!

Today:

 

Italian Meatsballs - perfect for pasta or a nice sandwich :)

Recipe- French Toast Sticks (Link Up)

 Our girls just absolutely love French Toast Sticks and I made the mistake a few weeks ago to stop at Arby's and pick up some for our 2 year old. Now every time that we pass a Arby's she starts yelling, "I want my toast sticks!!" So I decided that I would make my own version of French Toast Sticks and see if she noticed!! This recipe calls for a whole loaf of bread, which is a lot of French Toast Sticks. I wanted to be able to freeze a lot of it so that our girls could have them for breakfast for the next week. So you may want to make only half of this recipe if you do not plan on freezing any of it!

What you need:

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla 
• a loaf of Texas style bread
• powder sugar
• cinnamon
• maple sugar

Mix eggs, milk and vanilla in a bowl- beat ingredients together. Cut bread into 3 pieces per slice of bread. Soak pieces of bread into egg mixture for just a few seconds, long enough to coat entire piece of bread. Spray cookie sheet with cooking oil then places soaked pieces of bread on the cookie sheet. Bake in 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes. You will need to turn them over half way through. My oven seems to be on it's last limb (so we cook everything longer), so I did cook mine an additional 10-12 minutes to make them a little more crispy. Once they are done sprinkle them with powder sugar or cinnamon and serve with maple syrup!

My 2 year old loves them along with our other 2 girls! Now I just have to make sure that I keep a good freezer stockpile of them since she has eaten them almost every day since!

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FREE Holiday Pie Guide From AllYou.com

Get your very own Holiday Season Pie Guide from AllYou.com. Just submit your email here and get your own copy today! They will also send you other money savings recipes, tips and occasional special offers or promotions.


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Homemade Oatmeal Bags

So thinking more and more everyday of new ways to help save time and money, I read over at Money Saving Mom how she makes homemade Oatmeal bags and thought that this would be a great addition to my bulk meal plan. 

So I stopped at Kroger today and picked up 2 containers of Quaker Oatmeal for .50 each (on sale $1.50 each - $1/1 coupon) and came home to make a few bags of homemade Oatmeal bags!! My plan for this was very simple; Oatmeal, Brown Sugar and Cinnamon- that is it! My girls are a little picky on certain meals and I wanted to make something that I know they would eat. They can always add fresh fruit in the morning when they make it, but this way I have pre-made breakfast in a bag, ready to go!

Here are the ingredients that I used to make 9 Ziploc bags of Homemade Oatmeal:

• 1 Container of Oatmeal (3/4 of a cup in each bag)
• 1 Cup of Brown Sugar (about a spoonful in each bag)
• A Sprinkle of Cinnamon in each bag

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FREE After School Snacks Recipe E-Book

Recipe Lion is offering this After School Snack Recipe E-Book! This book has 27 fun and easy after school snacks for your little ones!! I think the Cheerios Nuggets sound interesting, I know our 2 year old will love that I combine her 2 favorite foods together!! Get your copy here.

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Batch Cooking Plans and Recipes!

My plan was to have one batch cooking day under my belt before school started. But with all the crazy things are family had planned all summer, it did not get accomplished. But once my coupon class, back to school supply drive and first day of school is over, I will have a little more FREE time.

My plan is to start off with a batch cooking day of items for my hubby and 2 oldest kids for lunches. Then I want to have a huge batch cooking day for our dinners. So for the last few weeks I have been searching the internet to find recipes that are easy for their lunches and some new dinner recipes. I do have a plan for the next 13 weeks of dinners, which I will share later. I thought I would share for now some of the places that I have been finding some really great recipes and some of the ones that I will use and share at a later date!!

Parents.com- Beef Nacho Casserole, Mango Magic Pops, Sweet Potato Chips
19 Chicken Salad Recipes -Buffalo Chicken Salad, Apple Juice Chicken Salad
Healthy Snack Recipes - Cinnamon Raisin Trail Mix, Bruschetta
All Recipes- BBQ Pulled Chicken or Pork Mini Sliders, Orange Chicken Stir Fry
Grilling Recipes -Grilled Pizza, Onion Chili Burgers
Copy Cat Recipes- Chili's Southwest Chicken Chili, Red Lobster's Cheddar Biscuits

Once I get my plan together, I will share more!! Do you batch cook? What types of things do you make?


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Black Forest Parfait Recipe

Sorry this is late, but at first I did not have any recipes to share with you today but then I received an email from Hershey's Kitchen Email Newsletter. Black Forest Parfait!! Doesn't it look good!!

Here is the recipe from the Hershey's Kitchen site!!!

Ingredients: 
Black raspberry ice cream
Vanilla ice cream
HERSHEY'S Fudge Topping
HERSHEY'S Triple Chocolate Dessert Toppings
Whipped cream
Fresh raspberry(optional)

Directions: 

1. Alternately layer black raspberry ice cream, fudge topping and vanilla ice cream in large sundae glass.
2. Top with whipped cream and chocolate dessert topping. Garnish with raspberry, if desired.

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FREE E-Cookbook for Breakfast Recipes!!

Download your FREE e-Cookbook for Easy Breakfast Recipes from RecipeLion!!! This e-Cookbook offers 29 Tasty and Easy Breakfast Recipes!! I just love breakfast and could eat it all day!! So finding new ways to make more breakfast meal is something I could not pass up!!!

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Chicken Quesadilla Recipe- Link Up!

We love going to this Mexican Restaurant near our house, but with a family of 5 and with everyone eating larger portions (the girls use to share a meal and the baby would take bits of ours) we spent $60 last time we went. That is a lot of money just for one dinner. So I thought that we would try and recreate their Chicken Quesadilla, chips and salsa, which are our 2 favorite dish there!!

Ingredients....
-1 and a half pound of chicken
-jar of salsa and chips
-seasoning of your choice (i just used a little onion powder and salt and pepper)
-soft floured tortilla shells

Directions.....
-Cook the chicken in water and your salt, pepper and any additional spices you want
-Drain the chicken, keeping a cup of the chicken broth
-Shred the chicken and place it back in the pan with the cup of the chicken broth from the pan and let simmer
-add a cup of salsa to your chicken mix, let simmer about 10 minutes
-in a separate pan, place a shell in the pan, cook about a minute, turn over and fill one side with your chicken mix and top it with your favorite cheese

-fold the shell in half and cook about 45 seconds - 1 minute on each side to get the shell toasted

*****you can add additional items to the chicken mix if you like- onions and tomatoes are in the ones that we get from the restaurant but we normally pick them out, but love the flavor so I had to add more spices to get the same flavor. Salsa is usually loaded with flavor so I thought this would be a great addition!

Here is the finished project, although they were not exactly the same taste as the ones at the restaurant they were very close. My hubby and my girls all said that they were better!!!

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Cinco De Mayo Recipes!!

With Cinco De Mayo tomorrow, I thought sharing this FREE Mexican Recipe E-Book would be fitting. There are 27 very easy recipes!! The Cheese Enchiladas with Green Sauce sounds so good, we may try that this week!!! Just click the picture above to sign to get your FREE recipe e-book!!

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Ummmm Meatloaf!!

Oh how I love meatloaf. You can pretty much add anything and it tastes great. So last night I tried a few different things to see how it worked out. My 8 year thought it was great!! So here is the recipe. Share with me the different things that you have tried in Meatloaf!!



Preheat the oven at 425

I used the following.....

-2lbs of Ground Beef
-1 egg
-1 can of Rotel Diced Tomatoes with Chilles (if you have been couponing for a while, you should have tons of these!!!)
-half cup of Sour Cream
-half of cup of Shredded Cheddar Cheese
-one bag of Lipton's vegetable dip mix
-Salt and Pepper to taste

I make mine a litter thinner, about 1 to 2 inches thick. I think it takes less time to cook and I don't have to worry about the sides getting dried out while I am still trying to get the middle done. I cooked it about 40 minutes, again it will depend on how thick you like yours.

Have leftovers? Slice your meatloaf and add it to some bread for tomorrows lunch!!

So share with me your favorite Meatloaf recipes!!!

Check out these other great recipes!! Here are few places to get some new recipes.
Life As Mom
Tempt My Tummy

Happy Valentines Day- Recipe Swap!

Pink Heart Shaped Pancakes!

This is easy. I just used regular pancake mix from Krusteaz, just add water. To get the pink is easy! You can either add red food coloring or if you have the crystal like red toppings that you usually put on sugar cookie (that is what I used). Just add enough to get the pink color.

To get the heart shape, just take a spoon and draw an outline of a heart with the batter.

Then fill in the empty part with extra batter. This is very easy, but I did have a few that did not look like a heart (more like a blob)!!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Have a Valentine's recipe that you would like to share? Link up below with MckLinky to your post of the recipe that you would like to share. Please link back to Just Trying To Save Money!!

Check out over 100 more great recipes at Beauty and Bedlam