Recipes

Growing up, there was only a few magazines that I remember my mom reading regularly and one of them was Sunset. I remember flipping through it and often seeing cool houses and wishing I could live in one of them. Other than that, I didn't really get what was so special about the magazine. But I was much younger then. Fast forward to today and Sunset is one of those magazines that invokes happy feelings in me. When I see their usual cursive "Sunset" at the top of the cover of the magazine,

Anyone get those $5 off Jennie-O coupons that were given away during an episode of The Biggest Loser in 2009? Well, they expired on December 31, 2009. On New Years Eve (HA - that would be December 31, 2009 - the reason for this story), I was busy in the kitchen finishing up cooking all of our party food when I realized that I didn't use my coupon! Perhaps most of you would have let it expire, but not this frugal mama! Hubby and I headed out in the cold to Food Lion (just before they closed, I

This cheese bread is easy to make and only takes 3 ingredients. Great to have along with spaghetti or other pasta dinners.

My husband isn't a big fan of canned refried beans, but he's LOVES them when I make them myself. Even leftovers of them get eaten up quickly. Homemade refried beans are super cheap and they freeze great. And while I am listing the recipe below for only 1 pound of beans, I don't cook such a small batch. If I am going to make them, I usually do at least 3 lbs at one time and I freeze the leftovers into smaller portions for future meals. Here's how I do them. You will notice that I DO NOT add

In our family, refried (pinto) beans are almost always served with the Mexican food I cook. While I love refried beans - my husband would rather have black beans. Here's how I make black beans for a side dish: Black Beans 3 cans of black beans; drained and rinsed 1/3 cup water 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (use less or none if you don't like spicy) 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 2 tablespoons lime juice Combine all ingredients in a

In the Summer, we have salad for dinner about once a week. Not only do I like how easy they are, but on a hot, mucky day, it's so refreshing to have a light meal such as a salad. Walmart had strawberries on sale and considering how great they looked and that we haven't had them much this Summer, I decided to buy some. Of course, we could just eat them as-is, but my mind turned to yummy various desserts I could make. But this week was also a week that I was determined to spend as little as

Tonight's dinner was Tortilla Soup. If you've been following my menu plan, you know that I post it on Mondays. I don't usually check the weather when making my grocery list, so little did I know that today would be one of the hottest days we've had since last summer! I don't like having hot soup when it's hot out AT ALL, but I decided to stick with the plan and it worked out ok. I didn't dish up a bowl for Mattie - it was a bit spicy and I know he won't eat it. So rather than even attempt it,

Tonight's dinner was Split Pea Soup with Ham, which I have a tradition of making the week following Easter (using leftovers from our Easter dinner). It's inexpensive and good for you. For those of you who follow Weight Watchers, this has a point value of only 2 pts per 1 cup serving. We love sourdough bread - especially when paired along with soups, so I served the soup with Monterey Sourdough Bread that I picked up at Sam's Club.