Small World At Walmart

I went to walmart today. Shocker I know. But while looking in the kitchen section for a christmas present for my mom I seen a guy just a bit older then me grabbing all the utensils I list to buy in my cookbook and the living guide. My first thought was no way. Then I peeked at his cart that was full of paper towels, trash bags, laundry soap, dish sponges, kitchen towels, dish drainer, trash can, ect. I thought it cant be. The world is not this small. Why did i asume my writing was involved? Because in all my life I have never seen someone buying like that. I went with my brother when he did but that was my doing so it doesnt count.

So I put it out of my mind and finished my shopping. I swear people think the world ends tomorrow because everyone had full carts. However at the end was a check out lane with only one full cart so i got in line. Then i realized it was the guy from before. I got to get a good look at his stuff now and realized hewas buying all top name brand items and the expensivesizes of them.

Obviously i hadn't let myself believe it was because of my book but since i had it free yesterday it seemed more likely. Then i felt a bit bad. His total was just under $400 forthe same things my brother bought for just under $200. The only difference was brand names and product sizes.

So whats the lesson here? There isnt one. I just thought it was interesting so i wanted to tell you guys about it. Just think of the odds. A stranger living in my town, who read my book, shopping at the exact time i was. Too unlikely.

Open Faced Chicken Cordon Bleu

I got the idea a few days ago when I saw my Kroger had chicken breasts on sale. I was trying to think of something different to make and the idea came to me.

I started where I always start with chicken breasts... A knife. I like to use a knife with ridges.

Lay down plastic and set the chicken on one half. Then make a cut about half way down in the center.

Fold the plastic over the meat to make a plastic and meat sandwich. Pound the meat to about an even 1/2 inch thickness.

I mixed the coating and patted it on both sides. Then placed the chicken on a foil lined cookie sheet.

I spread the ham over the top.

Then covered it with pasta sauce and topped that with cheese.

And heres why the foil. The sauce and cheese don't always stay in place, but they will leave a nasty mess.

Home Made Ravioli

I've been thinking about trying it for a long while, and I don't know why I didn't until now.

I divided the dough into three then rolled them out and cut them in 4 each. Heres the cut pieces on the plate.

I scooped the filling onto the dough then brushed around the edges with water to make them stick together.

I folded it in half, pressed around the edges, then trimmed it with a knife to get rid of the extra dough.

I set the folded but uncooked ravioli in a strainer to keep the dough from sticking. I find that glass bowls attract stickiness.

I cooked them in a pan 1/2 full with boiling salted water. I should have taken a picture but I forgot. This is the cooked ravioli.

And here's the finished meal. I just topped it with pasta sauce and parmesan cheese.

Quick Chicken and Rice, Potatoes, And Christmas tree

A couple days ago I made the updated version of my quick chicken and rice from the poverty cookbook part 2. it was so yummy! It's basically the easiest comfort food ever if you use a can of chunk chicken.

I spread it out to that it would cool faster. And of course I had to have the shredded cheddar cheese.

Yesterday I made mashed potatoes and chicken chunk gravy. 

Here are my potatoes. My husband and I both love the potato skins, and their really good for you too, just make sure you wash them.

Heres my gravy and seasonings. The seasonings are already in the pan but I wanted to show you them. Onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, curry powder, cayenne, and a chicken ramon seasoning packet. I also added a can of chunk chicken but that was after the picture.

(please excuse the dirty bottles, I never really looked at them before)

This ended up really good, as usual. Both of these meals were comfort food, which is really what I love to cook.

And for my christmas tree:

I've had the angel on top for as long as I can remember. Same with the pink trim. My husband and I bought the tree and ornaments last year, and I bought the gold trim this year. This lights I also had for years before hand.

My mom would let each of us kids decorate a section of the tree with our own decorations when we were kids, but most of my ornaments were either broken over the years of use or just didn't go with anything (like my Precious Moments ornaments).

Saturday At My Parents' House

Like all other Saturdays (used to be Friday but my husband had a schedule change) we drive the 75 miles to see my parents.

This Saturday we had my moms stir fry.

Mom uses paper plates to save on dishes while we're there.

My mom used her general recipe that's in the poverty cookbook for beginners. But Saturday she used a whole chicken breast, a fresh onion, and a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables.

Also Since my baby's birthday was the 27th we celebrated with my parents Saturday by making the Chocolate Cake from the poverty cookbook for beginners.

Mom found a recipe for twinkie filling so we thought we'd try it. If you find one you're self (I don't have it otherwise I'd link it) make sure you use unsalted butter because we didn't since we didn't have any. It still came out good, but it'd have been better. Also in my opinion a whole stick of butter is a little excessive.

My mom about to start injecting the twinkie filling into the cake. It was just barely underdone when we took it out so it collapsed in the center a little.

After a little while of injecting. It was cool because you could see the cake bulging up around the injector while she filled the space. Some bulged out after removing the injector.

After filling the cake as much as we could we ended up adding powdered sugar and coco to the remaining filling to make it a frosting and spread it over the cake. It was really really good!

Unfortunately my son fell asleep before we could serve the cake so I guess we'll just have to try again next week... I won't say no to cake!

Updated The Poverty Cookbook Part II FREE 12/03/12

I got the updated version of The Poverty Cookbook Part 2 up just in time for the free day today. So If you want to get the updated version then just go to 'manage kindle' on you're amazon account page. It'll come up with a list of the books and other digital content you have. Simply delete the book then go download it again for free today only.

Measurement converting

So I using the trusted old google search to confirm the measurement conversions I know, just to make sure, because I was going to add a conversion table to my cookbooks and I found this site.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/convert/

I've been on cooks.com before when I've googled for recipes of things I've never made before such as stuffed peppers or muffins just to make the first time to get the feel of what the ratios or cooking times should be instead of attempting to go into the kitchen blindfolded.

To be honest I didn't read all of it, I mostly just skimmed it and realized that there was so much more information on the page then I'd hoped for. There's instructions for measuring different textures for exact results and information like that.

At the top it a simple calculator, you tell it how much (1/4, 1/2, 3/4) of what (cup, teaspoon, tablespoon, gallons) and it goes to town telling you all the calculations for that measurement.

I'll still be adding a quick conversion chart in my cookbooks because I for one half a lot of baking recipes because I just don't need 3 dozen cookies, or a 13X9 cake. But there's always those tricky ones like 1/3 cup, 2/3 cup, and 3/4 cup.

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with cooks.com. I honestly just did a google search and found something helpful that I thought I'd share with you fine people.

Rocky Road Pie

I felt ambitious today so i made a chocolate pudding pie with a few extras thrown in. Essentially its based off a recipe i have for rocky road cheese cake, but with pudding instead. It came out amazing!

Chili and Corn bread

I made chili and corn bread fo dinner tonight. Ive been mixing it up with my chili recipe lately. One thing stays the same though, sour cream and cheddar cheese. I once seen in a cookbook there was a recipe for cheesy chili. I thought it might be interesting until i read the recipe. Chili and cheese. Instructions were to sprinkle cheese over chili. Was there instructions on aquiring the chili? Nope.

My chili in the pan after my husband and I ate.

My homemade corn bread. (Yes I know, my pan is dirty looking. Thats what cooking spray gets you)

And the finished dish. Chili, corn bread, sour cream, and cheese,.

Update possible

So i did a little looking around and found out that in order to have an update offered to customers you have to ask for one. So i did. And i got a reply from amazon saying that theyll review the changes and decide. It said that if the changes are big theyll send out an email. If their small then theyll simply make the update optional for readers, but youll have to go there yourself.

The email said id get a reply within a couple weeks.

It's over!

The beast has been slain. I finally finished rewriting/reformating/reediting my cookbook. It should be up tomorrow around noon.

My Thanksgiving

Well, the biggest food holiday of the year is over. Now it's time to hash out the details.

On thanksgiving I realized that although I had given my turkey plenty time to thaw in the fridge it hadn't. So In the early morning I put it in a sink of dripping water and hoped it would do it's job. During that time I made the cranberry sauce and got myself ready. I packaged up everything I thought I would need: butter, seasonings, flour for the gravy. We left around 11 something and had to make a stop at walmart to get a few things I had been waiting to get. After that we made the 75 mile drive to my brothers house.

Just after we got there I realized I'd forgot the sweet potatoes and my brother and husband left to the store to get some. I prepped the still just barely frozen inside turkey and ran some luke warm water through it to hopefully at least melt any ice left inside. Getting the stuff out was frustrating. Since it was still slightly frozen the guts bag was frozen in just enough that when I pulled it ripped and I had to dig out the gross stuff. I was like "don't know what this red thing is. Not gonna think about this gray thing..."

After that ordeal I dressed it my usual way and put it in the oven.

A couple hours later my sister in law and I started the potatoes. It was still early but the men were drinking and playing video games so we wanted to do something. She washed and I peeled a few to give me a head start on cutting, then I started cutting and she peeled the rest. Then we filled the pans with water and let them sit. Potatoes won't oxidize (turn pink/orange/brown) if you cover them with water. Just don't leave them that too long because they will rot extremely fast.

Just after that my sister, her husband, and her 2 month old arrived.

My parents drove down to my town (70 miles from their house) to get my other brother who wasn't going to be getting off work until 3pm. My mom had the stuffing with here as well as the pie and dinner rolls.

My mom called me about 15 minutes from getting to the 'party' so I could start the water for the stuffing and give me a time table for throwing the sweet potato casserole in the oven. And when my mom got there I did the stuffing. I also started the gravy at that point since the turkey was done. (I tested the temperature since it was still somewhat frozen when I put it in the oven.

Shortly after that we ate. We all gathered in the living room wherever we found a spot to sit (aka mostly on the floor. But none of us minded, thats usually how we spend thanksgiving). In total we had 9 adults, my two year old, and my sisters 2 month old.

Heres what was left of my turkey after my dad carved it.

The turkey plate after dinner.

As you can tell, I forgot to take any pictures of the food before dinner. But heres the potatoes.

Gravy after.

What was left of the stuffing.

And the sweet potatoes.

Notice anything missing? I was so distracted that I completely forgot to do anything with the green beans and I forgot to set out the cranberry sauce. We did remember to serve the rolls my mom made but I forgot to take a picture. After dinner when we were packing up to go home I looked in the fridge to get my left over butter and saw the fruit and vegetable sitting there. Sigh. Well there's always christmas. (and no I don't mean I'll keep that exact stuff and serve it christmas. I'll make new.)

Oh and if you wondered, yes the turkey was just slightly pink (not undercooked, just slightly pink in the middle. so we the plate after my dad finished carving it just to be sure.) also, my parents took home the turkey to make soup and casseroles from the left over meat (such as the legs).

Cars: What Would We Do Without Them?

So my husband and I drove up to see my parents Saturday instead of Friday because he had his work schedule changed from Sun-Thursday to Mon-Friday. About halfway home my lights started to get really dim, then the speedometer and all those gages went to zero and the heat went out. Then we were coasting. I let it coast until I could see a mile marker in my very very dim lights then I pulled over to the side. Here in montana cell service is sketchy so when I checked my phone we were out of service. So I climbed onto the roof and stood on the roof rack as I searched for service. I got a bar for a second or two before it went away several times. So my husband and I walked until we got enough service to send a text to my brother. It only took about 100 feet or so when I got a bar. I texted my brother and told him to call mom. Right after that I got another bar so I could call mom myself. I told her we broke down, what mile marker we were at, and what had happened because my dad spent most of his working years as a mechanic.

About an hour later my parents got there and my dad looked at my car. He said the alternator was shot and he removed it to take with us. My parents drove us the rest of the way home and spent the night with air mattresses. (my mom had figured they'd have to spent the night so she threw in sleeping bags and air mattresses when they left the house). The next morning my dad took apart the alternator and cleaned it us a bit and got it to work enough to get the car home. So my husband and dad went back to the car with a full battery and got it home. My parents left after that.

Monday I called the auto parts store and had them order me a new one, which arrived today (tuesday). Last night I had my husband take off the old alternator and show me how it's done. My husband has a few people who car pool with him to work so I couldn't use his car, so today I put the old alternator in my back pack and rode my bike out in the cold and rain to the auto parts store 3.5 miles from my house. Then rode back with the new one (they give you a discount if you bring in the old one and switch it for the new one. I still paid $140 for it. ouch). When I got home I put it in and started the car up. And it worked like a charm.

Now that that's all over I can resume working on my cookbook.

Reformatting

Okay to be honest I've been putting off going through my beast of a first cookbook because of the work involved. I went through cookbook #2 and got my favorites and holiday pamphlets up. And now theres nothing left to do but my 1st cookbook.

I managed to get myself to sit down and start around noon today. It's not 3:30 and I have 1 info chapter done and I'm on recipe 3. I'm realizing that this is going to be a much bigger project than I had thought. However I am changing so much that amazon will probably offer an update to those of you who bought it already. I can't promise it though because that's all done by amazon. If not then I will schedule a free day sometime after the new file goes up.

Rambling About Pizza

As the name of this post suggests this is about just pizza. Why pizza? Because it's so easy to make and the options are endless.

So a little trivia first. The first dinner item I ever made (all on my own) after my mom and I switched chores (I used to wash the dishes, and she would cook. We both hated our jobs so we switched) was pizza. I used her pizza dough recipe and I messed with it a bit here and there (and I still do) to make it my own. Later I started making calzones and other pizza products.

My taco pizza was a real hit with my family. I got the idea from a cookbook for kids that had a recipe with tortillas being used as pizza crust for personal kids pizzas and one of the recipe ideas was taco inspired. Of course it was a name brand cookbook so it wanted the person to use brand name ingredients and meat/taco seasoning instead of what I use.

My mom had a pizza once with a friend at MacKenzie River Pizza (a chain restaurant in montana, maybe elsewhere. I've never been there but there's one pretty close to our house). The pizza was Asian style with all those strange Asian sauce and vegetables. My mom says it was really good.

And then there's my all time favorite which is chicken alfredo (with bacon when we can). It's so simple and easy to make if you keep jars of alfredo on hand like I do.

So the point of this post is to remind everyone that pizza isn't just tomato sauce and pepperoni. It can be anything you want it to be. In the examples given it went from Italian to mexican, to asian, and back to Italian. the possibilities are endless with a pizza crust.

Thanksgiving! and Holiday Cookbook.

So this year for thanksgiving we're having it at my brothers house that he and his wife just bought. however they don't actually cook (unless you call frozen pizza cooking) to much so my mom and I will be doing the cooking. Which is fine cause I love cooking.

So I was at walmart yesterday (shocker) and I went ahead and bought myself a turkey pan. Two years ago when I hosted Thanksgiving I borrowed my moms pan and for Christmases and Easters I've borrowed the pan, so I decided it was time. It was almost $10 for a really large (bigger than a 13X9) about 3-4 inches deep and comes with a rack you set in there to set the turkey on and when it's done you lift it out and you have all the wonderful drippings to make the gravy with. My question? Where do you set the turkey while you pour the drippings into the skillet? Oh well, details.

I also bought the turkey yesterday. It's a 16.? (don't remember the full number but almost 17lb) from Jamie-O. My brand preference goes as far as "this one is $0.88lb and that one is $1.06lb, we're getting the first one" Of course when I took a picture of it for my book cover I had to use the black tape over the name because I don't want to get in trouble. Also I didn't pick it because of the name, I picked it because of the price.

And speaking of price... Holy Cow! Two years ago when I bought one it was 14lb and about $7.50 total. I understand why it's gone up but still it's just wow.

Finally on to my holiday cookbook: I woke up yesterday morning around 7am and realized I was going write that and never got around to it. So I had to get it all ready, call my mom and ask her to quickly edit it, email it to her and wait. She of course was fast at it (not just because it's pretty dang short). When I got it back in my inbox I had to put in the finishing touches and post it online. Then I realized I didn't have a cover photo or a turkey to take a picture of. So I went to walmart with my husband when he got off and we got our turkey and pan, and a few other things for thanksgiving. When we got home I was still figuring out my picture and I finally hit on a good idea. So I went out to the shed (in the dark with a flashlight regardless of my fear of zombies) and dug around untill I found our christmas tree decorations. Essentially I was picturing the classic picture of the turkey fresh out of the oven with all the vegetables and stuffing around it, only I used the tree decorations.

The book cover photo for my holiday cookbook pamphlet.

Okay so I might of had a little bit of fun making it and playing with the font which I downloaded after googling 'free christmas font'. I also got those little tree, snow man, holly, candy cane, and stocking outlines from the site. Basically their just another font. The tree is the letter S in that font and the stockings are the letter M and so on.

Anyway, so I got it all uploaded and ready to buy. I used the recipes I've been using for a few years now and I love. It is short with only 11 recipes but to me, the holiday's are a special time and the food is the most important part of it. (other then having family around I mean)

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! I'll post pictures of the food afterwards.

busy in cookbook formating

im posting mobile at 4am again so excuse gramer oops's.

ive been really busy with my latest cookbook that i posted a few days ago. i selected my favorite recipes from my exsisting cookbooks and reformated them into a collection. the first in a collection of branch off cookbooks. my next one will be a holiday edition, and as for the third poverty cookbook im working hard to get the formating together. in edition to those projects in working on going through my existing cookbooks and fixing the formating errors. i considered removing the exsisting cookbooks and reposting because i dont know how to convey to the  new readers that the bad reviews mentioning editing errors are outdated and that a new version is available. anyone with ideas please leave a comment.

Beef Stew Over Rice

Yesterday I made beef stew over rice. I've made it before using different ingredients and seasonings but I think I finally found my zen. Of course nothing trumps venison chunks but ground beef gets the job done.

While making it I got to thinking, why rice? Do people really know WHY everyone says to buy rice? Well no. I only know because I mom told me and she's the author of Poverty Prepping, so obviously she knows.

Rice is the thing you should buy for any reason. It keeps forever if you keep it dry, white rice anyway. Brown will go bad after a few years because it has oils in the skin. Those oils are incredibly good for you, but if you're looking for longativity get white.
It also lasts long in the fact that you don't need much to make a meal. 1 cup of uncooked rice makes about 4.5 cups of cooked rice (don't quote me on that).
Rice also fills you up quicker and keeps you full longer. For poverty households, that's key. Because you don't want to make meals that are cheap but don't fill you up or keep you full, then you would just have to make more food more often.
In addition to those three factors rice is cheap or expensive depending on where you buy it. At Walmart a 5 pound bag is about $7 (depending on the time of year) and at Costco a 25 pound bag is $8. A 10lb bag at Walmart is roughly $15. A 50lb bag at Costco is $18. So you really need to watch the price where you buy it. If you, or anyone you know has a Costco card I would highly suggest you buy it there.

Costco can be a double edged sword sometimes though. You buy these larger sizes or value packs thinking you're getting a deal, but if you don't keep track of the prices at other stores you can be sucked in by the idea of larger is cheaper. For instance at Walmart a great value brand box of toasted oats is 18 cents per ounce on the large box, but only 15 cents per ounce on the small box. Obviously the mentality of larger is cheaper doesn't apply to all things. Another instance being orange juice. If you buy the plastic 1 gallon jug you're paying more per fl oz than if you buy the small white card bored (looking) jug.

So the morel of the story is to always keep track of prices and buy things that don't go bad quickly, last a long time in usage, and fill you up.

Update

I haven't written in a while so I figured I'd just do a general update.

My husband has another tooth that he bit something hard and chipped a few days before his other tooth was polled. So we've been dealing with his healing wound and the chip. Now that the gum is healed enough to eat on it's easier but it's been hard for me to make food thats soft enough to not hurt either side. Which kind of threw off my 30 day challenge, but It's been going well otherwise.

This last weekend we took a trip over to Idaho and spent Saturday at Silverwood (a six flags theme park). It was pretty cheap because they're having a food drive for the local food bank. So the tickets themselves were only $25.99 compared to the almost $40 for the usual prices. It was myself, husband, and son. My parents, two brothers and one wife. My other brother is single right now otherwise he'd bring a plus 1.
It was really fun. A nice break from reality.

My sister had her baby last week too. She went to the hospital on Friday when we were visiting my parents and gave birth Sunday Sept. 9th. Her blood pressure was so high they induced her but she was still a bit early so things just took a while to really get started, then there were other complications with the birth. But they're both just fine. He weighed 6lb 10oz, nice head of brown hair. Very alert for a newborn.

We also had two brothers and one wife over a few days ago. My single brother took us all out to Pizza Hut, then we spent until 1 AM playing Apples to Apples.

So as you can tell we've had a busy couple weeks. I had time to blog but it was usually in the late evening while in bed, and I don't like uploading mobile.

Now that things have calmed down for a bit I'll start posting about food again.

To the Haters in The Review Section

When I do read the bad reviews it's usually people who didn't understand the point of the book or the audience I'm trying to reach. People with actual culinary training point out cooking wrongs I make, or rich people try to tell me that I'm wrong to use cheap walmart pots and pans. Or they hate on the fact that my mom reviewed my book (while making it known the whole time that she IS my mother). And they point out that I've reviewed my moms book (while making it known that I'm her daughter). Then they call us unprofessional for having reviewed each others books. Well, I finally replied, and heres what I wrote:

I refrain from reading the comments on my books because I know some will like it, and some wont. A Trend I notice however is that the people that leave bad reviews are the ones who know more than me or have more culinary training than I do. The thing is I'm an 18 year old teen mother living in a trailer park in a city population 30,000. My family has never had any amount of money over the poverty line so I've been eating and cooking poverty food all my life. You may say to buy the best your money can afford when it comes to pans and such, well guess what? I did. $18 and it hurt us financially but we needed more than the one pan I had to begin with that I had cooked every meal we'd eaten in for almost a year. 

Who do I write for? I write for my sister who has three children under the age of 4. Does she have the time to thaw the frozen meat before cooking it? No I don't think so. And yes, culinary experienced cooks might cringe. But it doesn't turn out bad. It tastes great, and to have meat is a treat for someone as poverty as my family. I cook for my brother who's 22, just married, and just now living away from home. Making dinner to him is calling ahead and picking up the take out. When they decided to start cooking by themselves they knew nothing. Her parents didn't cook, my brother never cared about the cooking process that my mom or I did. So when I write, I write for him. 

I never belittle my readers. I write as though I'm talking to a friend. To me, it's one long email to my brother, sister, or even my mom who's tired of the same old recipes she's been making for years. If I could delete one comment it would be the person (whom I do NOT know) who wrote with all the caps and lols. It's fine to not like what I've written in the book, but please understand that other people have different lives than you. This might be a holy grail for some even though it's a waste of time or money for you. 

Lastly, my mom. She has never hidden the fact that she's my mom, any comment she leaves she leaves it on the idea that you can take it or leave it. The reason she defends my book is because some people think that it's something it's not. It's not a book for the middle class, or the lower class. It's a cookbook for people with nothing. Obviously I would love a good set of pans, but it's just not practical for me, or for anyone else in poverty. We get by on what we can. why do I mention walmart so much? Well because I shop there so much. Where else can I get the exact same thing for a fraction of the price? Sure there's other stores, you can shop anywhere. I simply told the readers where I got mine. 

And yes I post on my mothers reviews, but have you read her book and then the reviews? She has the same problem I do with reviewers. She wrote a poverty prepping book all about how to stock up on food while poverty. Of course someone better off would have the money to buy the fancy freeze dried food and such, but it's for the poverty portion of the world. If you have a better way, than write a book about it and leave it at that. It's just sleezy to hate on someone else's book about a subject you've written about. Let the book speak for itself.

In conclusion, My mother and I do review each others books, and reply to reviewers who have gotten the completely wrong idea about the book in question. But we don't just troll each others review section. I will post a review on a book I've read regardless of the author. And If I've read the book and see someone posted a review that is completely out of place for the content in the book, than I will comment.

I have never claimed to be a professional. If I was than I would charge a lot more than .99 for my cookbooks. I'm just an average poverty american trying to help others in my situation. and for those of you not under the poverty line, disregard the poverty aspect and please just enjoy the recipes. If you don't want to use walmart cheese, you don't have to. If you'd rather use an expensive ingredient rather than a cheap one, go ahead. Essentially, this is a cookbook. the rest is a bonus for those of you who need it.

Case Lot Sale and More

Yesterday my Kroger store started their case lot sale. It usually lasts a few weeks so I didn't rush out to go on the first day. Usually they have the same basic things so I knew already what I wanted to buy.

On the bottom left is a case of 24 small cans of tomato sauce for $4.80.

On top of that is a case of 24 cans mandarin oranges for $14.16.

Bottom middle is 24 cans of diced tomatoes for $12.00.

On top of that is 24 cans of fruit cocktail for $18.96.

Bottom right is 24 cans of black beans for $13.68.

And on top of that is 24 cans of peaches for $18.96.

Ordinarily I get pears instead of the other two fruits but I still have quite a few left from last case lot sale where I got two cases of pears and the case of oranges, which I'm a few cans from out of.

I also would have got a few cases of cup-o-noodles but all they had was shrimp flavored left. 

While I was out I went to walmart and got a few essentials, as well as a few extras from Kroger.

5.5 LB slab of ground beef that I will be portioning out in 1/2 LB amounts and freezing.

Huge bag of cheddar cheese.

18 ct eggs.

24 cans of chicken.

Case of mountain dew, don't judge it's for my hubby.

At Kroger I got a large bag of mozzerella cheese.

A container of sour cream.

And a case each of regular cola and vanilla cola, store brand.

This, plus what I already have in my stock, will last me a LONG time. The parishables of course will last less time, but the cases of food will last and last. 

The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

I feel safe to admit that I have an addiction, well more like obsession. When I was little I lived in Kentucky and while there I had some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. It was so amazing. There was almost more cookie dough than ice cream, the ice cream tasted slightly carmel-y, and the chocolate chips were small enough to not be so hard they break your teeth.

Since moving to Montana I've tried to find one that's as good. The problems are plenty. Some have huge chunks of chocolate in them that are so hard from being frozen you just about can't eat them. Some have barely any cookie dough in them. Every time I go to buy ice cream I buy a different brand of cookie dough ice cream and I'm always met with sub-par quality.

I wasn't going to mention it on here since I'm sure no one else out there has such and obsession, but when I was explaining the different brands to my husband he suggested it. So when I buy a new carton I'm going to review it on here. Just for fun. Remember, you don't have to read every post I make. ;)

Pulled tooth, Junk Food, and Fried Rice Again

So My husband had his tooth pulled last thursday and it ended up being more than a simple extraction. The dentist couldn't get it out so he had to cut it in a few, more manageable, pieces. But then when he tried to get those out they shattered. He ended up cutting the gum and surgically extracting the pieces and sew up the hole. So my husband has been on some hefty pain meds and antibiotics this week. He also hasn't been able to eat anything solid until yesterday. For the week I was making him things like instant mashed potatoes and milk shakes. Nothing too healthy. And for myself I wasn't going to make a whole dinner just for myself, so I've been eating burritos and hotdogs and whatnot.

I did find the worlds biggest hotdogs. Well not really, but the biggest available at walmart.

Just for reference, I wear a size 7 wedding ring.

So, after almost a week of junk food my husband told me he felt up to some solid food so I went back into my cozy corner of experimenting with my fried rice recipe. And this time? I nailed it. One down, many to go. 

So heres my pans. Frying the rice and reducing the sauce.

And heres the final product. Tucked away to go with my husband to work for lunch.

So now that I've perfected my fried rice I probably won't mention it on here for a while. I'm doing a 30 days of new meals challenge that I will feature in my next cookbook. I was going to start it on the 1st of this month but with my husbands tooth it wasn't possible. 

Also on a side note, Fridays I go to see my parents and I don't usually cook, so I won't be including any friday meals.

Fried Rice

ive been working on my fried rice recipe for a little while now. once its perfect ill be putting the recipe in my next cookbook. for now, heres a picture.

im posting this mobile so excuse the gramer.

Instant Mashed Potatoes, Chicken Chunk Gravy, and Homemade Creamed Corn

My husband has a tooth cavity that the dentist just checked out today and it's really tender now so I decided to make food that would be easy to eat without a lot of chewing.

We don't have any real potatoes on hand so I used instant potatoes from Walmart but I made them a little thick so that the gravy doesn't mix together with it completely.

The gravy is scratch gravy featured in my first cookbook with the ramon noodle chicken seasoning packet.

Last, the creamed corn. I'm experimenting with ingredients right now but look forward to the recipe in my next cookbook that will be out hopefully by the end of september/beginning of october.

Excuse the somewhat dirty stovetop, I picked a somewhat small pan for my gravy.

This meal is a perfect example that not all meals have to have a lot of color. It's nice of course, but not essential to a great tasting dinner.

Mountain Dew Wake Up Call

So the other day I felt lazy and didn't make tea with dinner so my husband and I just had a can of Mountain Dew each. After dinner I told my husband that I wanted something sweet and he replied that Mountain Dew is sugary enough. So we looked at the back of the can and saw that it was 46 grams. But what does that really mean? So we got out the digital scale and switched it to grams and placed a small glass bowl on it and zeroed it out. Then I started scooping sugar in until we got 46 grams. We were both surprised when it ended up being about 1/4-1/3 cup.

So of course I had to take a picture and post it on my facebook for my family to see. After that I looked at the carton of ice cream we had in the freezer and seen that it was 18 grams of sugar for a 1/2 cup serving. You could litterally have 2 and a half servings of ice cream for the same ammount of sugar as one can of Mountain Dew.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the dew and will drink it from time to time when I'm too lazy to make anything else to drink.

Completely Homemade Enchiladas

I made the filling from scratch, the tortillas from scratch (recipe in first cookbook), and the enchilada sauce from scratch.

 I always make my own filling because I don't like cream of anything soup. And recently I've been making my own tortillas. The hard part was when I had everything rolled out and filled and went looking for a can of green enchilada sauce. I opened the cabinet I named Hispanic and stopped dead when I seen we were out of not only the green (which is my favorite) but the red as well. So I promptly threw a pan on the stove and started smelling spices. The only reason my husband knew it wasn't store bought was because I told him the story.

Right out of the oven. Yummy.

Homemade Chicken Patty Sandwich

I made a chicken patties from scratch using canned chicken and a little magic and they turned out really good. I also made an avocado spread which went amazing with it.

We also had homemade french fries and cold mac salad but I decided to take a picture as soon as I put together my sandwich and didn't think about how good it would look with the sides.

A little tip though: Don't put more than one patty on a bun. We only had three buns so I let my husband have two buns and I tried stacking mine. I ended up using a fork.

Meat Loaf, Mac N Cheese, and Green Beans

So I haven't written in a while because I was busy but now things are slowed down and I can post again.

 I don't remember when I made this but it looked so good I had to take a picture.

 In one of my cookbooks I have a recipe for lazy meat loaf which ISN'T what I made here. I used a real recipe that took effort and I love how it worked out.
 The Mac N Cheese is from my first cookbook and the green beans are frozen that I boiled in salted water.

Okay so I already took a bite before I took a picture.

Me and My Baby

Here's a picture my mom took of my son and I making pot pie.

 He's standing on my flour bucket so he could be up where he could see what was going on and 'help'. And no you're not color blind, my kitchen is only half painted so it's still got some green between the counter and cabinets.

Lasagna

I made lasagna a couple days ago. It was amazing. Nothing beats homemade lasagna.

Heres my dough balls. I only made enough for 2 13X9 sheets of dough.

And here it is rolled out. Once it was in the pan I stretched the corners a bit to make it more square.

I've got my sauce boiling and I'm about to add the meat. I did it together unlike my recipe because it saved time. To get just sauce for the bottom I just skimmed the top. And yes you can brown meat in sauce. Just mash it with the whisk and it will break up beautifully.

And here is the cheese mixture. I used ricotta in it because they had it on sale at Kroger. 

And going into the oven. I didn't get a picture of the finished product but you can use your imagination.

Car Trouble and a Semi-Homemade Meal

 We had a gift certificate for Les Shchwab for a tire balance and rotation that someone in my family won in a raffle at the volunteer fire department fund raiser. No one needed it until we got new tires for my husbands car recently and put them on ourselves because my dad was a mechanic for a long time. So yesterday my husband took the last half of his shift working for a bank of america call center off and we drove to the neighboring town where the certificate was written out to and got the tires done. And of course one of the joys of owning a car is taking it to have one thing done and the guy tells you you have something else wrong. The ball joint on the left side is shot so we'll need to have my dad fix that.

 Anyway, so when we got home it was late and I just didn't feel like making anything fancy so we had sloppy joes. We used store bought buns and a can of sauce so I didn't take any pictures. I just wanted to post this as a reminder that homemade food is great, and nothing beats homemade hamburger buns. But sometimes it's okay to splurge and eat something prepackaged and factory made. The buns were actually free because the call center is neighboring with the local food bank and when they have over stock they sometimes bring stuff over and let the employees take it home just so someone eats it and it doesn't get thrown away. But if we had bought it we can get it for $0.98 at Kroger or $1.00 at Walmart just depending on sales, and the sloppy joe sauce was store brand for $0.88. The beef is about $3.50 for 1lb but we already had some from a larger package. Either way you're looking at about $5.50 for 8 'sandwiches' which is still an amazing price considering if you went out to eat you would be paying about that much per 'sandwich' if not more.

Chicken Alfredo Pizza w/ Cheddar Cheese

Last night I made macaroni and cheese with chicken chunks in it. I completely forgot to take a picture even though I reminded myself over a dozen times. Tonight I made chicken alfredo pizza with cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella because that's what I had in the fridge.

I started by heating all the water and pouring all but 1/4 cup into the bowl, then I added the sugar and yeast to the measuring cup and let it sit. I added all the other ingredients and some flour to the bowl and mixed it with an electric mixer for a couple minutes.

I kneaded in the rest of the flour until It was a smooth elastic ball. Then I rolled it out and put it on the greased pizza pan and poured alfredo sauce on it, sprinkled shredded chicken, and shredded cheese on it. This picture is right after I put it in my preheated oven before I closed the door.

And heres right after I took it out of the oven. As usual I didn't time it I just looked for the golden brown yumminess.