Easy weeknight meal!

Pardon my horrible iPhone picture - but I didn't want to eat it before documenting it!  This was a pretty easy meal and didn't cost very much either.  This was a "hmm what can I throw together quickly and make a meal" dish.  No recipe so no real measurements!

 

I used a pound of ground turkey and cooked in the skillet.

I buy my broccoli fresh, cut it, and freezer bag it till I need it.  So in this recipe I used one of those bags that was normally a dinner serving for our family of 4. I added the broccoli frozen to the skillet and placed a lid on it to steam it (opening and stirring every couple of minutes)

In the mean time I'm boiling the water and cooking the macaroni.  Once the macaroni and broccoli is done, I add all three of those in a bowl together.  I toss in one container of Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese cooking sauces - this one was the garlic one.  Mix it all together and serve.  I think start to finish it took me about 20 minutes!

Summer Chore Charts

So my job has me working weird hours.  I currently have two shifts 530 am-0900 am and then again from 2:30 pm -5:00 pm - so I have a friend watching her during those hours and I'll pick her up and she will be with me from the inbetween time (which when she is at school is when I get most of the household chores done).  I don't want her to sit around and watch TV that whole time (which is honestly what she would prefer).  I have been trying to come up with things that she can do to help and to keep her busy and her mind not turning to mush!  In the process of trying to come up with some more idea's to put on her chore list (that I'm creating) I found this cool sight that has several pre-made character charts where all you have to do is type in what chore you would like them to complete.  If they had a character either of my children liked I would totally be using this chart as well!  Here is the link that you can follow if you are wanting to partake in this FREE chart!

http://www.freeprintablebehaviorcharts.com/chorecharts4-10.htm

Pantry organization

So my husband is gone on a trip right now so I thought I would fill up the time I usually spend with him organizaing things in our house that get overlooked, I started with the pantry.

This when we first signed for the house was just a closet, that top shelf was all that was in there.  My husband had the AWESOME idea of adding shelving.  I love the system that we chose because it can move houses with us, and we can move shelves up and down if we need to, to fit future needs.

 

Here is the before

 

 Here is the after, I was ableto move some things into a cabinet that wasn't full, and put like items together.

 

 I LOVE these new bins I found at target, they were $7.99 but well worth that price, they will last a while and they make me happy when I open that pantry door!

 We love jell-o in our house so I have SOME of our stash (yes there are about 30 boxes more in another location because I hit a sale with some coupons and stocked up!) that is easily accessible in this CUTE bin!  I haven't been able to do any labeling yet but it will be labeled accordingly!



It's produce season again!

 I LOVE when the produce is finally in season, it means HUGE savings.  So to offset costs in the winter I STOCK UP in the summer and freeze.  Creates a little more work in the summer but I'm ok with that because in the winter we are usually more busy with activities and if things are already pre-portioned I can just drop in the steamer and get dinner on the table quicker!

 

One thing I learned from my last post about using the foodsaver, is to NOT put broccoli in the foodsaver.  I cut up a dinners portion and put in a freezer bag and be done with it.

I also started canning our spaghetti sauce.  I added mushrooms, cilantro and onions to the mix that I purchased.  My husband is the only one that really eats the sauce so, I made smaller jars for his portion so we don't waste a whole big jar like we normally do of the jars from the grocery store.

I also recommend cutting up mushrooms and freezing.  These are the ball freezer jars (plastic) that are meant to be put in the freezer or the fridge.  I'm able to just drop them in our meal frozen and they cook up nicely.  I have also done this with onions.  I have a jar of each of these in the fridge, use them first and then go onto the frozen stuff.  Works out GREAT in our kitchen!

I LOVE these pouches.  I have about 20 of them between the "little green pouch" and the yummi pouches. (www.littlegreenpouch.com and www.yummipouch.com )  My family loves bringing these along any trip to snack on, and because you don't need utensils they are perfect for the car, tournaments where you sit in a gym/auditorium for HOURS (oh wait you don't do that?  Must just be our family, hehehe), and great for lunches.

First off I was making pineapple puree for my son who LOVES pineapple, but lets face it he is coming up on 4 and pineapple chunks leave him STICKY and anything in his surrounding area sticky.  I filled those pouches up and had not enough left for a full pouch.  I left it in my Pampered Chef Food processor that I love so dearly, and added handfulls of blueberries, black berries, and cut up some strawberries. 

Processed it up- 

(I love this food processor because i'm able to take out the blade and it leaves you with a bowl that is EASY to pour, scoop, or spoon out of.  Wereas a traditional food processor has a HUGE whole in the middle where the blade sits and you have to be careful when you are trying to get the food out of the bowl.

This little guy I got from Kitchen Collection for under $5.  TOTALLY WORTH it if you are going to invest in the pouches.  Makes filling SO much easier.

Then just fill it up.  Take a dry erase marker and notate what is on the inside.  Zip it up and store in the fridge!

Awesome drawer organization tools for the constant mover!

This unforunatly was my utensil drawer in my current kitchen.  I don't use these utensils that often so it was more a sight unseen type of drawer.  I was in the organizing mood when I found...

 THESE GEMS!  Look at them - they expand to fit the drawer.  This is full extended - because these drawers are circa 1970 and DEEP.

I was able to add 3 different sized ones into this drawer.  I do need to ad some non stick pads on the bottom of the drawer, because the drawer is SO deep that you can't see the back of the drawer and these slide back a little when you open and shut the drawer.

I was able to purge quite a bit of stuff, and was left with this LOVELY drawer that now is not such an eye sore.  These are going to be great when we move again, they will fit ANY drawer in ANY configuration.  These were purchased at Bed Bath and Beyond with a price of $6.99 for the largest one to $3.99 for the smallest.

Dollar tree Collage Wall

I used to have my childrens art displayed in our Georgia home in our Computer/Kid TV room.  I LOVED it there.  Totally brighted up the space and made it theirs.  I didn't have alot of extra wall space to put them in our Texas home.  So they sat in a closet until recently - waiting to be put back up.

(Sorry these pictures are so HORRIBLE. By lighting in my house is not that great and I worried that the flash on my phone would bounce off the frames and make it so you couldn't tell what i was taking a picture of.)  I found that Dollar Tree had plain flat fronted frames.  I bought 5 to begin with to see if I even liked where I was imagining putting them.

I LOVED how they looked.  I went out the next day to buy more.  My daughter has two great 11x17 peices that HAD to be on the wall - so I had to go and buy 2 frames from Hobby Lobby that were normally $14.99 but I hit them on the right day and they were 50% off.  I didn't feel so bad paying for them.  I hung them up with the 3M picture hanging velcro like removable tabs that I LOVE so much.  I definetly wouldn't have gotten them as straight as I did and as even as I did without them.

Closet revisit

Remember my closet?  In January I turned all my hangers backwards so I could tell what clothes I was and wasn't wearing.  Here it is March and I've only used half of the clothes in my closet!  I started pulling stuff I KNEW I wasn't going to wear again or that I know I haven't worn in sometime.  Alot of the stuff that is still backwards is actually summer shirts.  Which I'm sure I'll start wearing next month here in Texas.  Some of the clothes were hard to pull because, originally during my last toss obviously thought I would wear them again.  I know for sure there is a shirt in this picture that the last time I wore it was when I was 12 weeks pregnant - that was FOUR YEARS AGO!  It finally got tossed.

 I managed to get rid of 14 things - mostly winter stuff, and a few shirts that I'm honestly too old to wear and ONLY kept them because it had a turtle on it (I collect turtles).  I'm now able to have only HALF the closet and my husband uses less than half of his side. I'm hoping in the future that we will be able to toss some of his things so we can have a bigger section for shoe storage.

Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose!

Remember this guy?

Isn't it so much better now?  I didn't need to prime the inside of this because I paid a little bit more for it to already be included in the spray paint I bought.  The black was the cheapy kind so I DID have to prime it before I sprayed it.  When I sprayed the black I had it laying on it's open end so I didn't get any of the black inside.  I hand painted the open edge their so I didn't have to tape anything off. 

 

If you notice I have this contact paper EVERYWHERE in my house.  This was the last of it.  I did a light spray of clear modge podge (did you know they make spray paint style modge podge?  I didn't until a few months ago, it's AWESOME!) on the top so it would seal it and it wouldn't scratch as easily.  I also sprayed the basket black and it was still drying as I was taking this picture.

 

Doesn't this look SO MUCH BETTER?

I really need to touch up that dresser next to this - it was damaged in our move!

DIY stair stepping shelf

I started a tradition of making my children special birthday hats.  Until yesterday they hadn't been displayed in our new Texas home because I just don't have enough wall space like I did in Georgia.

 I made this GREAT display peice so you can see them all.  I got a $2.44 2x4 from home depot and you get 2 free cuts when you purchase it, so I had them cut it in 3 equal parts. It ended up being the perfect size...phew! 

 

I got some wood glue while I was there, once I got home, I glued two peices one on top of the other and waited about 2 hours for it to dry.  Then I glued the second peice right next to the bottom peice. They are pretty sturdy actually.  Primed and painted it to match (spray paint but of course!)

 I think it turned out to be a really cute and functional peice!  I might have to make another one just a BIT smaller to go on one of the shelves I display my turtle collection in, so you can see the turtles in the back!