Recent Favorite Recipes

Now that I am a stay at home mom (until I get into medical transcription) I have more time to cook and bake and am actually enjoying baking things from scratch.

I just wanted to share some things I've been making. This first recipe I got from watching Rachael Ray one afternoon and it seemed quite simple and easy to make. It's called Fall Fruit Individual Crostatas. The recipe called for apples and pears but I only had apples so I skipped the pears. Aldi's had 3 lb bags of apples for only $1.19!!! Apples are in season so I'm not surprised they're so cheap!

I made the Crostatas and brought them over to our friends' game night get together and everyone loved them. It was very easy to make and even I loved how these tasted when I normally can't stand fruit pies. The apples were still a little crisp and not soft like in an apple pie. Hubby said that's the only thing he'd like better. I guess you can pre-cook the apples for a little bit to soften them up.


The next recipe I want to share is the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins. I first saw this mentioned on Money Saving Mom during her most recent baking day (I'm not ready to try my hand at spending a whole day on cooking and baking) and had to try them. I used whole wheat flour instead of regular flour and they tasted great!! Both my husband and daughter loved it! I also had my friend and her 3 boys try it when I met up with them the next day and it was all gobbled up! Next time I think I'll try replacing some of the oil with applesauce since the recipe calls for so much oil (1 1/2 cups). Also, my new must have kitchen tool is a silicone muffin pan! The muffins come out sooo easily!!

I've been making pancakes from scratch so I can add whole wheat into them. I'm trying to get whole wheat into as many things as I make now. For this recipe, I use the one found here. I just replace half of the flour for whole wheat flour. This makes enough to last us for a few days. I need to make a double batch of this and the muffins next time to put some away in the freezer.

Have any great recipes that you like to make with whole wheat flour that tastes good?

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Homeschool and Working from Home

Having been laid off this year has been a blessing in disguise. Actually, I think it was God answering my prayer and desire to stay home.
Two months before I got laid off, I was feeling quite "antsy", for lack of a better word. I was getting extremely frustrated at coming home from work, worn out, and too tired to cook or clean. I didn't have the energy to give my daughter the attention she needed. I wished so much I could just be a stay at home mom actually have time and energy to cook and clean the house. Little did I know the news I would get a month later.

So, here I am, home with my daughter and loving it. I am taking a medical transcription class so I can work from home and bring in income. I found out about this extremely affordable online class through a forum. Check out FTCC for their course. I'm not getting paid to mention them. I just wanted to share about them in case someone else is interested in getting into this field.

I also have been doing some research about homeschooling now that I'm home with my daughter. I chose to go with Heart of Dakota's curriculum from recommendations of my friends. There is so much information out there that it's quite overwhelming. I do want to share some resources that I've found and bookmarked that may help others looking into homeschooling or already are homeschooling.

Here is what I have bookmarked:

• Starfall (awesome free resource for kids learning to read)
• Activties in a Bag
• Homeschool Creations blog
  

Do you know of other great resources, especially free ones?

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Hasbro Games Deal at Toys R Us

I was going through the circulars in today's paper and saw that Toys R Us has an awesome deal on Hasbro games this week. They have a bunch of games on sale for $3.99 each that you can get a $2 mail-in rebate from Hasbro and get a $10 Toys R Us gift card if you spend $25 on Hasbro games.

I went this afternoon and bought:

• Candy Land
• Chutes and Ladders
• Memory Game
  
• Hi Ho Cherry-O
• Don't Break the Ice
• Ants In the Pants
• Cooties

My subtotal came to $27.93. I had a $3 off coupon from Geoffrey's Birthday Club to use since my daughter just turned 5. And I got the $10 TRU gift card for buying over $25 in Hasbro games.
I'll be getting a rebate of $14 for all those games.

So, after the rebate, my $3 coupon, and the $10 gift card, it's only $.93 for the 7 games! Is that a deal or what?? I'm keeping one of the games for my daughter for Christmas and I'm putting the rest into the toy drive my church is doing.

Note: the rebate from states only ONE rebate per GAME and only ONE rebate check issued per family, household, or address. So you can't buy more than one of any of the games. Also, make sure you bought all the games you want before you mail in the rebate form since you can only get one rebate check. And the games you buy have to be what's pictured on the form. The Memory Game is the only one where all versions are valid for the rebate. None of the charactered versions are valid for the other games.

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Week of the Family

I know this is kind of late but there's the weekend to enjoy Week of the Family here in Tampa Bay. Check out the Event calendar on the home page and check out this page for week long discounts at Lowry Park Zoo, Florida Aquarium and more!

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Coupon Giveaway Winner!

And the winner of my latest coupon giveaway is:

Comment #5, Steph

Congrats!

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Blog Giveaways 10/31

Whenever I want to buy something, I try to find out if there are any blogs doing a giveaway for the item I'm looking for. Right now I really want to get my daughter a balance bike and did a search on google's blogsearch and found 2 blogs giving away a Strider bike here and here.

Here's a giveaway for a food dehydrator. This one ends Nov 6 at 8am.

Win Just Tomatoes products here. Ends Nov 4th.

Don't forget to enter my coupon giveaway ending on Monday.

Do you have a giveaway going on at your blog? Post it here:

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Orbitz Twitter Giveaway-Today ONLY!

Enter to win one of 10 round-trip coach-class airfare vouchers by following Orbitz on Twitter and retweeting today's message that was posted by Orbitz.

Better hurry and sign up for a twitter account if you don't already have one in order to enter today!

Read the rules here.

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Fully Loaded Nachos - My Version

This is a repost from last year with some edits.

When I think of nachos, I think of nacho chips and cheese. Now, I think of my fully loaded nachos dish. Hubs and I were discussing what to make for dinner and I wanted something fairly easy and quick to make so we decided on nachos.

A friend had introduced me to this at Moe's Southwest Grill (I love hearing them all shout "Welcome to Moe's" when someone walks in). After having it at Moe's we saw how easy it is to make so we started making it ourselves and putting what we like on it and loading it up, hence the reason why I call it "Fully Loaded Nachos".

Here's what goes into the nachos:

• chips


• lettuce


• black beans


• choice of meat (ground beef, chicken, steak) - 1 lb of ground meat made about 4 servings (depends on how much meat a person likes to put on their nachos)
  


• cucumber


• tomato


• salsa


• cilantro


• salsa con queso

You can substitute any of that for what you like. I like to load up on the cilantro, cucumbers, and black beans. Mmmm! If you make this, let me know what you think. =)

Here's a picture of my plate of nachos. Please excuse the horrible picture. I need to replace that picture as soon as I make these again.

Go and join the Ultimate Recipe Swap at Life as Mom.

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Coupon Giveaway!

Ok, I have another envelope of coupons to giveaway. Majority of it are food coupons except for the few non-food coupons. These won't expire til mid-November or later.

To enter, comment on what coupons you commonly use. For me, it's Purina Dog Chow, Breyer's Ice Cream (when there are Qs for them), Totino's Pizza Rolls, Yoplait, Degree deodorant, Right Guard deodorant, Campbell's soups, GM or Kellogg's Cereals, OJ, olive oil, and some others that I'm constantly on the lookout for but can't remember right now.

For extra entries:
Become a Facebook fan for 2 extra entries and make sure to comment twice (just created it so please excuse the look - waiting on my new blog header and button design)
Follow me on Twitter and tweet about the giveaway (1 entry per day)
Blog about this giveaway (1 entry)

Please make sure to leave your email address in the comment or make it available on your profile. I will draw another winner if I can't find your email.

This giveaway ends 11/1/09.

Do you have a giveaway going on at your blog? Post it here:

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FL Aquarium Admission if you Twitter (Tampa)

Are you a parent with young kids and have a twitter account? If you do, you can go here and fill out the form to get free admission into the Aquarium tomorrow.

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