My Life for Less

Breakfast Burritos

2009-11-29T17:57:00.005-07:00

My husband has been asking me for a week now to make breakfast burritos. So being the wonderful wife that I am, I went to Safeway and filled my basket with the ingredients needed for his favorite Mexican breakfast.

Breakfast Burritos:

1 tube of sausage
4 medium sized potatoes
1/2 cup salsa (recipe on previous post)
1/4 cup onion
1 tbs cilantro
8 eggs
1 tbs garlic
salt/pepper to taste
1 dozen tortillas
shredded cheese

I cook my potatoes in the microwave for baked potatoes just to speed it up. Otherwise fry your potatoes and put them aside.

Brown sausage, onions, salsa, garlic and salt & pepper in large frying pan (I use my GE electric skillet.) Add eggs & pre-cooked potatoes.

Roll ingredients in a warmed tortilla with a little shredded cheese.

Turkey Chimichangas

2009-11-28T15:18:00.010-07:00

I made turkey chimichanga's from the left over turkey from Thanksgiving. It is WONDERFUL!!

Okay my husbands comment when he ate his turkey chimichanga was "too bad I can't fix cars as well as you can cook!" Gotta love that! (He has been working on our car for two days, hoping to save money rather than taking it in for repair.)

STEP 1:
I took all of the meat off of our turkey and put the carcass in my GE roaster filled abut half way with water. I cooked this on 325 over night.

STEP 2:
When I got up this morning, I turned the cooker off and once it was cool enough to work with, I got the colander out and put it over a large pot. I poured a little at a time into the colander. I then took out the bones and shredded the meat. I repeated this until I was done. I ended up with about 4 pounds of meat that most people just throw away!

STEP 3:
I added green chili, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper to the turkey and cooked it for about 20 minutes. I then rolled the mixture with cheddar cheese into a tortilla and fried it for about 4 minutes on each side. I only used 1/2 of the shredded turkey and put the rest away for later. This netted me 12 chimi's. NOT BAD: 24 CHIMI'S WITH MEAT THAT MOST PEOPLE THROW AWAY!

While the chimi's were frying I made my salsa (recipe on previous post), guacamole and sauce.

SAUCE:
1 can of tomato sauce
1/2 cup sour cream
1 can green chili
1/4 cup salsa
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

mix together and bring to a boil.

GUACAMOLE:
2 avocado's
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup salsa
1 tsp lime salt (or squeeze a fresh lime/lemon if you have it)

place in food processor for 1 minute on high.

The end result: delicious!!

After Thanksgiving Blues?

2009-11-28T09:56:00.002-07:00

So we have stuffed ourselves silly! The dishes are done...Christmas shopping has started...Christmas decorating has gone amuck and what to do with all of those leftovers? I know that if you are in my house, turkey sandwiches only go so far. I would love to have everyone share their Thanksgiving leftover recipes. I will be posting mine in the next couple of days, please feel free to share yours!

Pizza Bake

2009-11-16T18:52:00.006-07:00

I was trying to come up with something quick and easy tonight...so I made this concoction. It tasted so good!

Pizza Bake
1 bag of small shells (FREE from Basha's)
2 jars of Ragu chunky sauce (FREE from Safeway)
3 cups of Mozzarella Cheese
1 pound hamburger/ground beef
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 TBS Garlic

Boil noodles as per directions.
Brown ground beef with seasonings in large skillet.
Heat sauce in sauce pan.

Mix together in a casserole dish with 2/3rds of the cheese. Layer the top with the remaining cheese. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes.

The kids named it for me....Margaret said "mommy it tastes just like pizza." So there you have it! I think that it cost about $3.00 for the hamburger, cheese and our salad.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

2009-11-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

I made Chicken Tortilla Soup today. I keep on mentioning that these are family favorites, so I must make a lot of favorites!

Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe:

4 chicken breasts
3 cups Salsa (I used my leftovers from a previous posted recipe)
1 TBS minced garlic
¼ cup diced onion
¼ cup green chili
½ cup cilantro (I used dried---I didn’t have any fresh on hand)
3 TBS cumin
1 tsp chili powder
5 cups chicken broth (I use the water that I boil the chicken in)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
White corn chips
Garnish with shredded cheese

I put the chicken on to boil in about 6 cups of water. Then I brown the onions, garlic, cilantro, cumin, chili powder, salt & pepper and green chili together. I remove the chicken, de-bone it and chop it. Then I place all of the ingredients together minus the corn chips and shredded cheese. I boil it for about ½ an hour and it’s done! I then Garnish with crumbled chips and cheese. Today I used mozzarella because that it what I had on hand….I usually use cheddar, but this tasted great as well.

Try it and let me know what you think!

Birthday Dinner for Michael Jr.

2009-11-14T21:49:00.001-07:00

Well Michael is 17 officially today. I always make the same thing for him. His favorites: hamburgers, mashed potatoes & shrimp. Doesn't sound like it goes well together, but he sure likes it.

When I barbeque hamburgers, I mix spices into the hamburger before creating the patties. I use garlic powder and montreal seasoning and simply mix it in. You can't imagine the difference by mixing it in!

Shrimp is one of my favorite dishes, but it is usually expensive! So I buy it when it is on sale. I happened to purchase this shrimp for $5 at WalMart, which is pretty darn cheap for shrimp. I hate how restaurants saturate shrimp with butter. I cook mine a little different. I simply put olive oil and garlic salt in a skillet, then put in the shrimp. I cook it on medium, covered for about 5 minutes. You can't imagine how amazing it tastes. And it doesn't feel like I'm eating a stick of butter!

A hint on making mashed pototoes: I use my kitchenaid. It is so easy! Put in the potatoes, stick of butter, a little salt and milk. Turn on the mixer and all done! Can't beat that and it is easier than hand mashing them any day!

Top it all off with a chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting and this has been Michael's birthday dinner for years.

I'll be honest, Michael is not a big fan of my cooking. He is a meat and potatoes type of guy and he doesn't like his food touching. So anything that I make mixing any ingredients he is stand offish about. Thankfully there is something that I can make that he likes!

Chilly Chili

2009-11-11T17:28:00.005-07:00

It was a chilly day in Payson, and I was on the go all day. It is Veteran's Day and it seems like everyone has somewhere to be and guess who is the taxi?? I knew this when the day started, so I decided to make Chili with my left over beans from yesterday. This meal was VERY reasonable. Here's the recipe:

o 3 cups pinto beans
o 2 cans stewed tomatoes
o 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
o 1/4 cup chopped red onion (double the flavor, 1/2 the onion)
o 1 tsp salt
o 1/2 tsp pepper
o 2 tbs minced garlic
o 2 tbs cilantro (I used dried)
o 2 tsp ground cumin

Brown ground beef with seasonings and onions. Once browned, put into crockpot along with beans & tomatoes. Cook on high for 2-3 hours, low for 4-6 hours. And you are done. Garnish with shredded chedder cheese if desired. Simple and best of all delicious!

Price:
Beans: FREE from leftovers from last night
Tomatoes: .29 a can at Fry's. TOTAL: .58
GroundBeef: $1.25 a pound at WalMart this week. TOTAL: $1.75
Onion: .25
Seasonings: less than .25

TOTAL DINNER: Less than $3.00 for a family of 6 and leftovers!!

A Winter Night Dinner for less than $2.00

2009-11-10T22:09:00.004-07:00

I thought I would be working late tonight, but my plans changed. So dinner was so easy! I had put on a crock-pot of beans before I left for school and when I got home, I baked up some corn bread. On a cool night after standing in line for Santa with the children it warmed the soul!

The beans were less than a $1 and the cornbread was FREE about a month ago at Safeway, I just added an egg and 1/3 cup milk. Gotta love that!

Oh So Good Salsa!!

2009-11-09T17:07:00.005-07:00

My husband was craving salsa this afternoon, so being the wonderful wife that I am, I made him salsa that was cheap!

I used my cans of tomatoes that I bought at Frys last week for 29 cents a can.

Recipe:

4 cans of tomatoes
1/4 red onion (love red onion--double the flavor means I use half the amount of onion, if you use a yellow or white onion, I would use 1/2 of an onion.)
1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro
4 oz green chile
2 tbs minced garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp red chile paper

I put the onion & cilantro in the food processor with the seasonings, once it is chopped, I put the green chile & tomatoes in on pulse twice, just to mix everything up.

I made a slew of salsa for less than $4...compared to a jar of salsa-->quite a bit less than what I made is $4 a jar.

Oh I hate to say it again but I have to: yum yum!

Pizza for less than $5

2009-11-08T14:30:00.006-07:00

Who needs Delivery? Why pay the prices that Pizza Hut & Dominos demand? I made two extra large pizzas today for less than $5 and it was better than delivery and it wasn't even DiGiorno's!

I used the following EASY no rise dough from allrecipes.com (my favorite place for recipes on the net!) http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pizza-Dough-I/Detail.aspx

I made one cheese & another veggie...I was trying to duplicate Dominos American Legends Pacific Veggie and I think I did a pretty good job of it. I used my FREE Ragu sauce, my 99 cent cheese and I just grabbed veggies that I had in the fridge and used my handy dandy canned tomatoes. FANTASTIC doesn't describe it enough!

Let me know what you think~

Count Down to Thanksgiving!

2009-11-07T22:22:00.002-07:00

I know, isn't it crazy that it is Thanksgiving time already? It seems like we just finished taking down the Christmas tree from last year. This year is bitter sweet for me. Last year was my last Thanksgiving with my mother. She passed away two weeks later from breast cancer.

Anyhow, I always cook for Thanksgiving. I am one of those crazy people who look forward to Thanksgiving and try to one up the year before....so I need your help. I am looking for the perfect addition to our traditional Turkey dinner.

So ladies...and I suppose gentlemen if you are out there: Your mission has been set, are you up for it? I'm looking forward to all of the new additions that you will post. Once I've had the Turkey Day feast, I will post what my husbands family thinks of it.

My mouth is already watering with anticipation!!

What's Your Favorite Vaue Meal?

2009-11-06T19:44:00.003-07:00

I took the night off of major cooking tonight. I made BLT's. Always a family favorite! So I got to thinking...what is your family favorite value meal? We all have them...the meal that we always have the staples on hand for and everyone loves. Feel free to share recipes as well.

Let the sharing begin!

Dinner for 6 for less than $3.00!!

2009-11-05T20:11:00.004-07:00

AND that was the entire meal, not per serving!

Dinner was great tonight! It was delicious and practically FREE! The only thing that I actually paid for was the chicken. We had chicken breasts, potatoes Au Gratin, and Birds Eye Veggies.

I love my electric skillet! I simply placed my chicken breasts bone side down in the skillet, set it for 350, put salt, pepper, garlic powder (you know I love the garlic!!!), and basil on top and covered it for 25 minutes--EASY EASY!!

As the chicken was cooking, I baked the potatoes Au Gratin as per the instructions on the box and put the veggies on to steam.

25 minutes later, my dinner was done! Did I mention it was practically FREE?

Best Laid Plans!

2009-11-04T19:56:00.005-07:00

You know, I woke up this morning thinking it would be a great day. I was off to a great start. I remembered to take the chicken, that I had gotten on sale from Safeway for 89 cents a pound a couple of weeks ago, out of the freezer. I knew that I was going to use my potatoes and Birds Eye veggies that I got for free from Fry's and life was good!

Then Karessa whined from her room, I don't feel good. Well she is 14,so I figure she can stay home by herself without burning down the house. So we left her at home and I started my day--which was pretty cool because I was on the local radio station talking about technology in schools. I didn't fumble too badly over my words! While at the radio station, my husband calls their non live line (thank goodness!) to tell me that our youngest daughter, Margaret, is in the nurses office and needs to come home. Ughhhhh!

Rushing back to school, posting my grades because of course they are due today! And then making substitute lesson plans for the rest of the day, I run home. Cleaning up these kind of messes are not what I enjoy most about being a parent! Then our middle daughter, Eve, called to say that she was sick and needed picked up from church. Now I have 1/2 of our family down with the sickness....let's hope and pray the other 1/2 stays healthy.

Needless to say my dominos coupons came in very handy tonight!!!

Tuesdays are LeftOver Days in My House

2009-11-03T12:23:00.004-07:00

Normally I work late on Tuesday nights so I leave it up to Michael to worry about dinner. Usually that means leftovers. (I'm sure that there has been several cereal Tuesday nights too!) So I thought that I would share my shopping excursions with you.

This week at Fry's I bought the following:

5 Birds Eye Veggies -- FREE
5 Betty Crocker Potatoes--FREE
5 Canned DelMonte Tomatoes -- .29 each can
5 Halls Cough Drops -- FREE

My total shopping 1.45---> So less than $1.50 for all of that! I simply used my coupons in conjunction with what is on sale this week. I'm sure that you will see these ingredients in meals to come!! Well minus the cough drops :)

Chicken & Dumplings Budget Style!

2009-11-02T18:48:00.004-07:00

Okay--some of you may balk at this one, but here I go......We had two whole chickens for dinner on Saturday night. Considering there are 6 of us at home, there were very little left overs, just bits and pieces that no one wants to claim. Since my children shy away from chicken salad sandwiches, I needed to come up with something else. So yesterday I steamed both of the chickens and used the drippings and all of the chunks of meat I could pull off of the bone to make Chicken & Dumplings Budget Stytle.

To my newly made broth, I added miscellanious vegetables that I had, you know from the fridge, that little bit of corn/greenbeans/carrots/peas left over that usually are thrown away? Any leftover veggie will do....or throw in your favorite veggie. Then I added salt, pepper, oregeno, minced garlic (oh everything tastes better with garlic!), and onion powder to taste. I boiled this for about an hour and let it cool and put it in the fridge to use for dinner tonight. (BTW, if you stick around long enough to read more posts, you will find that I often do things like this on the weekends to have great homemade meals on weeknights without slaving over the stove for hours! It was just steaming away while I boiled my potatoes for the German Potato Salad, I was in the kitchen anyway!)

Dumpling Recipe: (Remember this is enough for a family of 6 with a heaping load of leftovers)
5 tablespoons of shortening
2 tablespoons of butter
4 cups of flour
5 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of garlic powder
2 teaspoons of onion powder
1 teaspoon of basil
1/2 teaspoon of pepper

Mix the above ingredients until it crumbles. (I use my wondeful kitchenaid mixer for this)

1.5 cups of milk

Slowly add your milk until it becomes doughy. Again using the mixer.

I'm am so not fancy about this. I just pull about a golf ball size portion off of the dough and dump it into my boiling stew. It will sink, but don't worry...it will pop up shortly. Then I just continue until I have covered my entire pot in dumplings. I let this boil for about 5 minutes, cover and cook for about 10-15 minutes longer.

I would love to give you the cost of this meal...but it was all left overs, spices, crisco, flour and butter....so I'm guessing less than FIVE bucks for a delicious winter meal AND left overs galore!!

Tasting it right now: You would love it!!!

Yummy Yummy Yummy!

2009-11-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

Pulled BBQ Sandwiches & German Potato Salad
Well it is an amazing day in Payson, Arizona. The weather is wonderful, the kids are full of candy from last night's trick or treating and my crock pots are calling my name.

On a local run to the grocery store this week, Safeway actually paid me to leave there store! I bought 18 jars of Ragu Spaghetti Sauce that was on sale for 99 cents and I had a 35 cent coupon for each of them. Safeway in their marketing glory has quadruple coupons right now up to a dollar. So they paid me one cent for each of the jars of Ragu....after tax, I RECEIVED 2 cents to leave and take my booty with me! Just thought that I would share my booty this week :)

My husband has been craving a potato salad that his German mother used to make when he was a kid. The main ingredients are of course potatoes & bacon. Bacon is usually so expensive, so I have never tried it. Well Basha's had bacon on sale yesterday for 1.97 a package and Safeway had a 10lb bag of potatoes on sale for 97 cents, so I thought what the heck. For those of you watching your waste line, I'm not sure that this recipe is good for that--but everything in moderation right?

Just like regular potato salad, you cube the potatoes...I used 10 potatoes, and boil them until the are soft enough to poke with a fork. I fried four slices of bacon, removed the bacon and then browned 1/2 an onion (I always use red onion--more flavor=less onion), added about 1/4 cup white vinegar, a couple of tablespoons of sugar & water, some salt and pepper, mix it all together and top with fresh basil from my herb garden in my kitchen window (I couldn't live without this wonderful treasure) and you have German potato salad. I put mine in my little crock pot and am keeping it warm. (German Potato Salad is served warm). It is to die for!!!

For the pulled BBQ sandwiches, I used a roast from my freezer (a must in my world!!) that I bought at Safeway for 97 cents a pound, and some BBQ sauce that was in my pantry that was bought on a similar sale to the Ragu--so they paid me for leaving the store with their product :) I did have to break down and pay for hamburger buns full price at WalMart...79 cents.

Last week, if you bought 5 pounds of hamburger meat at Basha's they had free coupons for Dole salad, bread and spaghetti sauce. So for our veggie we had our Dole salad and my FREE Ken's dressing--> All with my coupons!

Total price of our meal..
$3.08 Roast
$ .25 4 slices of bacon
$ .20 10 potatoes
$ .79 Hamburger buns
FREE Salad
FREE Dressing
FREE BBQ Sauce
TOTAL: $4.32 AND we had leftovers!!

My Life 4 Less

2009-11-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

Well this is my introduction---so I should make sure that it is good right? Let me introduce myself: My name is Marlene Armstrong, I am married to the wonderful Michael Armstrong, who puts up with more than any one man should! I have four children from the age of 8 to 17. Like most of you, from the outside everything looks great, on the inside we know that we are struggling to make ends meet.

I am a teacher at the local middle school and needless to say my take home pay is not the best, usually about $1,800 a month. My husband brings home about half of that. So I started thinking...there has to be other people out there that are doing it and how do they make it?

I have always been a deal shopper, and now I am going to keep a record of what I do and how I do it, including yummy recipes that I use to create meals from my coupon shopping. Most people will tell you that coupon shopping is not worth it--I'm here to tell you that if we did not coupon shop, we would not be eating!

So feel free to follow along, see what kind of exciting messes I can get into and please feel free to let me know what you think!