Budget Friendly Meals- Super Pretzels

These are super simple. Make the SAME dough recipe I've already given you about a million times. Shape into pretzels or pretzel bites (about golf ball size spheres). Brush butter on and top with pretzel salt. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

Serve with cheese or tomato dipping sauce.

Weddings, Bridal Showers, Birthdays, and Baby Showers

I have added lots of new labels to my etsy shop recently for all of the events listed in the title. Here are pictures and links. These are really cute on the bottom of Hershey's kisses, Reeses peanut butter cups, and Rolos.

Bridal Shower

Wedding Reception

Baby Shower

Wedding

Birthday

Any of the above designs are available in whatever colors you would like.

Locked!

So this week, I went to the grocery store to get our weekly groceries. Well when I got home, I brought all the groceries to our apartment door where I discovered that I had left my keys in the car. which was locked. And I don't have a spare key anywhere. So I left all the groceries sitting outside and walked to campus to get my husbands key to the apartment.

Luckily I had the next day off work, so I did not need to drive anywhere. While the husband was at school, I spent a good hour watching youtube videos of how to break into your car with a wire hanger. We tried it and were miserable at it. We don't have the money to call a locksmith, so we called a few friends to see if they knew how to break into a car. none of them did.

Thank you Provo for turning out a whole slew of goodie-goodie return missionary boys who don't know how to break into a car. We are surrounded by boys of the perfect age group who should have done this as kids. but anyway.

So we decided to give it another go ourselves. I wish I had a picture of the contraption that we used, but my camera seems to have decided to stop working on me. This time around, at the end of the wire hanger, we wrapped a circle of craft wire. We looped the wire around the handle on the inside of the car and pulled on it, opening the door. yay.

What are your experiences with locking your keys in the car?

Budget Friendly Meals- Tacos

Tacos are super easy and fast. you can't go wrong with this one. First brown your ground beef and add taco seasoning, following the directions on the package.

Second, dice up all your toppings. I just have lettuce, tomato, and cheese.

Last, put it all together into a taco shell or tortilla.

Note: your taco shells will be vastly improved if you heat them up in the microwave/ oven before using.

10000 Pageviews

I hit 10,000 pageviews today. Thank you to all 10,000 of you who have visited my blog.

Budget Friendly Meals- Breakfast For Dinner

The main part of this meal is the peach french toast, which is what I am going to give you the recipe for. yay.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Start by standing all your bread up in a deep baking or casserole dish

Next, whisk together the following:

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup of cream

2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cinnamon

a pinch of salt

Pour the mixture over your bread and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

Then make this yummy looking sauce by following these instructions:

Melt 1/2 cup (one stick) of butter in a microwave safe bowl

When melted, add 3/4 cup brown sugar and 2 tbsp. corn syrup.

Microwave until hot.

Last, add 1 tsp. vanilla

Pour over bread

Add a peach slice or two in between each slice of bread

bake for 30-40 minutes

Serve with bacon and eggs. yum.

Papa Murpheys Garlic Chicken Pizza Knock Off

You will need:

Pizza dough

2/3 cup ranch dressing

1/2 tbsp. garlic powder

as much as you want of the following:

green onion

tomato

chicken

parmesan cheese

First, you make your pizza dough. Here is my pizza dough recipe:

1 tbsp. yeast

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup water

2 1/2 cups of flour

1 tbsp oil

1/4 tsp. salt

Put yeast and sugar in bowl. Add water and stir with spoon. let sit for 10 minutes as yeast activates. Add flour, oil, and salt. Mix for 6 minutes on speed 1 on your kitchen aid. Let rise for 45 min.- 1 hour. Roll out on floured surface and use for whatever you want!

I live at a high elevation and it comes out perfect for me every time. If you don't live at a high elevation or have a recipe you like better, than by all means, use your own favorite pizza dough recipe.

Second, cook your chicken.

Third, chop up some tomatoes and green onion.

Now for the assembly. Roll out your dough on a greased pizza tray or pizza stone. Put your ranch dressing and garlic powder on the crust and spread around. Top with half as much cheese as you want. you will use the rest of the cheese later.

Next, add your tomatoes, chicken, and green onion.

Top with remaining cheese.

Bake at 350 Degrees for 15-20 minutes. enjoy!

Black and White Stripe Skirt Tutorial

I started by cutting out 4 1/2 inch strips out of black and white satin.

I cut out the yoke from the pattern listed below.

Then I sewed all the strips together to form one big square of fabric.

Then I cut out the skirt pattern (C) from Simplicity 2315. It was pretty basic. Cut and paste. There is only 2 skirt pieces besides the yoke (if you don't put the ties or buttons on it like shown on the front of the pattern), so all I had to do was sew the sides together. Easy.

Here's how it came out:

Date #3

The third day of Christmas is three french hens, so it was a no-brainer that we would have a french night.

The first step was to speak in a french accent the whole night. This part quickly failed because my husband cant do a french accent and I was annoying myself by my awful one.

Next we made dinner. Crepes and French bread. Now I know that these don't go together by any means, but that's the fun of it, and they go with the theme.
Lastly we build marshmallow and toothpick sculptures of the Eiffel tower.

Exact replica. How could you not tell what that is supposed to be?

Liquid Soap from Bar Soap

You will need:

1 bar of soap

a really big pot

a cheese crater

15 cups water

First take a bar of soap. You only need ONE. I used this Ivory soap that has been sitting under my bathroom counter for like a year because we never use bar soap. Any brand will work, though.

Sorry I don't have a picture of the next step. Take the soap to a cheese crater and grate the entire bar. It will come out looking like parmesan cheese. Don't eat it.

Dump all the soap flakes into a pot of water. Heat on Medium-Low for about 5 minutes. Stir until all or most of the soap flakes are dissolved. It does NOT need to boil. Take off of stove and let cool for several hours or even overnight. As it sits, it will thicken.
When it reaches handsoap consistency, pour it into a leftover soap or shampoo bottle with a squirt spout using a funnel. This recipe make about a gallon of soap, so it will not all fit into one bottle.

Make sure to have a large backup container to store your remaining soap. Just keep it underneath the bathroom sink, and refill the soap dispenser as necessary.

Budget Friendly Meals- Toasted Ravioli

First, a disclaimer: It is not a fast or easy meal. If you are looking for something quick to whip up for dinner, this is NOT a recipe for you. I set aside a 4 hour block of time to make these, but it was totally worth it.

You will need:

dough:

3-3 1/2 cups of flour

5 eggs

1 tsp. salt

filling:

16 oz. ricotta cheese

1 1/2 tbsp. oregano

1 egg

1 tsp pepper

a pinch or salt

as much parmesan cheese as you want.

Step 1: Mound the flour and salt up into a volcano shape. Make sure the opening in the middle is plenty wide.

Step 2: Crack the eggs into the middle of the volcano.

Step 3: Whisk the eggs with a fork, slowly incorporating the inside edges of the volcano. Warning: this is extremely messy.

After about 1/2 the flour is incorporated, it will start to form a crumbly flour/ dough mixture. At this point, start kneading it. My dough was still a little flaky, so I added a couple tablespoons of oil and water. Knead for approx. 5 minutes or until dough is slightly elastic. Add more oil/ water or flour as needed.

Step 4: Split the dough in half and wrap in plastic wrap. Let sit for 30 minutes.

While I was waiting, I mixed together my filling. Just put all the ingredients into a bowl and stir. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Step 5: Roll the dough out into a long skinny strip and roll it through your pasta machine on its widest setting. Repeat this 3 or 4 times.

Then knock the machine down a setting or two and roll the dough through 3 or 4 times again.

Last time, change the setting on the pasta machine to an even thinner setting. I ended up using a 5 for my lowest. Roll the dough through 2 or 3 times.

Step 6: Cut circles out of the dough.

Put them on a floured baking sheet.

Step 7: Spoon about a tablespoon of filling onto each circle and fold it over pressing the edges together.

Step 8: Use a fork to press the edges together and make a pretty design.

Now, you can either be done here and boil them for about 5 minutes to eat or you can fry them up like I did:

Melt a couple tablespoons of butter in the microwave. Dip your ravioli into the butter and then into bread crumbs.

Cook them in oil on low-medium heat.

Serve with marinara sauce.

To make my marinara sauce, I used a regular can of tomato sauce and stir in a little bit of garlic powder, oregano, and parmesan cheese. Heat in the microwave for about a minute.

I only used about half of my ravioli dough and filling and it made about 20 raviolis.