Time to share another frugal and yummy recipe! We love our crock pot as we have shared before and so the taco bake is a perfect dish as I can cook quickly in crock pot, but the family can enjoy a dinner favorite – Tacos!

Just as we have shared many times before, modify recipes to fit your family as well as fit what you have on hand.

We will share the recipe, and then some ideas next to it that would be good alternatives if you do not have that exact ingredient on hand! you can probably think of more modifications based on what you have!

Frugal and Health Tip: You will notice that we use less beef and replace half of the beef with rice, this makes it more frugal and healthier at the same time! Plus, you can use more rice or beans to increase the serving amount needed for your family size!

Let’s get started on making a Crock Pot Taco Bake!

First, here is the ingredient round-up:

• 1/2 lb of ground beef (or ground turkey) already cooked, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 of onion
• 2 tsp. of fresh minced garlic
• 1 cup of cooked rice
• 1 envelope of taco seasoning (we actually used Fajita Mix this time, or a jar of taco sauce, or even a can of tomato paste and tomato sauce with garlic powder, Bragg’s 24 seasoning mix, parsley, chilli powder and dried onion for a home made version.)
• 1 can of corn (frozen or fresh corn works too!)
• 1 can of tomatoes (frozen or fresh works too!)
• 1 12oz. bag of tortilla chips crushed
• 2 cups of cheddar cheese (we used a marbled cheddar this time)
• 1 can of beans (any type really works – we used pinto, but black, kidney, even a navy if that is all you have).

Steps to Make:

• Cook the meat, drain and rinse
• Add the cooked meat back in the pan and add the onion and garlic and brown with the meat
• Add the rice and taco seasoning to the meat mixture.  (if you are using dry taco seasoning, add the water needed from the envelope!)
• Stir in the tomatoes with the meat mixture
• Cook until blended
• Place the meat mixture in the bottom of the crock pot

• Then pour the crushed chips over the meat mixture
• Then add the layer of corn
• Then a layer of cheese
• Add the final layer of the beans

• Cook in the crock pot on low temperature for 2-3 hours

• Then just scoop and serve!
• Top with sour cream  (this is all we had on hand this time )
• Other great toppings that we have used before are taco sauces, salsas, olives, guacamole, green onions
• You can also turn this into a salad by serving with lettuce on the bottom and then the taco bake and your toppings! YUM!

This is what is looks like in the end!

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I am so excited to share this recipe with Y’All! Did you catch my southern drawl?  Well there is good reason.  I found a Paula Deen recipe that is absolutely amazing and has become a HUGE favorite in our house.  Its just so super yummy.  I have Paula Deen to thank for a fantastic new favorite!

This recipe is Paula Deen’s Corn Salad.  I like to refer to it as Paula Deen Fritos and Corn salad.  It sounds a bit ironic to put “Fritos” and “salad” in the same title – and honestly, this probably isn’t waistline friendly, but then again - I can’t think of many recipes (or any ) that are “waistline” friendly from Paula Deen. 

But before I thank Paula Deen – I first must thank my fellow mystery church member for this delicious introduction.  You see, my girls and I were at our church’s annual ladies tea and this salad was there.  I was addicted at first bite and determined to duplicate this at home as I knew that the boys would love it.  Plus, Fritos are Alex’s secret indulgence (kinda like dark chocolate, brownies and donuts are mine ) and many that know him know that he loves them as he even gets them as gifts.

Well, I enjoyed a few servings of this salad at the Ladies Tea (shhh…) but I was so busy gabbing that I was one of the last to leave and never discovered who brought this salad to get the recipe.

So I came home and Googled “fritos, corn, cheese” as there were the main ingredients that I noted and sure enough, tons and tons of links to the famous Paula Deen Corn Salad and seemingly so popular that I felt like I was living under a recipe rock! So forgive me if I am already sharing this recipe with you and you already know it way to well, but I had to share it as it is a new favorite around here and it is perfect for gatherings, picnics, parties and teas!

Plus it is really simple to make and so it is perfect for busy moms. Nearly every recipe I have shared on our site has been my own as I admitted that I don’t follow recipes, just get in the kitchen with what I have and make up something. I also have a few baseline recipes that I can build on to make something new.  But in this case, it is too perfect to perfect!

I did make a couple of very slight modifications to match whatever it was I had on hand or had recently gotten for cheap! Those modifications are in parentheses and really didn’t affect the taste.  So you can use whatever you have on hand and probably have a similar experience! I am not a fan of buying the exact ingredients for a recipe as shopping this way is not budget friendly, but trying to utilize what you already have to make it work!

This exact version is from food.com.

• 2 (15 ounce) cans whole kernel corn, drained
• 2 cups grated cheddar cheese ( I used marble cheddar)
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1 cup green pepper, chopped (I used an orange bell pepper instead that I got for .25 on this week’s shopping trip)
• 1/2 cup red onion, chopped
• 1 (10 1/2 ounce) bag coarsely crushed Fritos chili cheese corn chips

See more of our Recipes to save even more money for a healthier budget and to live healthier lives too!

It is time to share another favorite frugal recipe of ours with you today! Our goal with sharing these recipes is to show you recipes that we come up with combing the sale and markdown perishables we get each week along with the stock-pile foods (like pasta and tuna – two very common and very cheap pantry items!) we have in our pantry!

This week, we got onions and baby portobello mushrooms on markdown as well as sour cream on sale this week! With these three ingredients, we wanted to put together a casserole for a one dish dinner to please the tummies and taste-buds as well as please our thrifty budget! So we made Tuna Mushroom Casserole with Sour Cream sauce. It turned out to be extremely tasty and everyone loved it! It is a keeper and new addition to our recipe collection!

First, here are the ingredients needed:

• 1.5 packages Cooked and drained pasta (we used Penne)
• 1 16 oz. tub of sour cream
• 2 small cans or pouches of tuna drained and rinsed
• 1 16oz. bag of frozen peas
• 2 cups of diced onions
• 2 cups of sliced mushrooms
• Bread Crumbs (I didn’t measure this out, just sprinkled our desired amount on top).
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic of some sort (either salt, powder or minced, whatever you have!)

To Make:

• Cook and drain the pasta (we recommend some tips HERE to cook healthier pasta)
• Saute the onions with olive oil and salt, pepper and your form of garlic to make them caramelized in color
• Add mushrooms to the onion mixture and saute until soft.
• In a separate bowl, combine the frozen peas and the onion/mushroom mixture.
• Add the tub of sour cream and mix until blended.
• Then add the pasta.
• Finally add the drained and rinsed tuna and mix until well blended.
• Pour mixture into your casserole dish.
• Top with bread crumbs.
• Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes until thoroughly hot.
• Serve warm!

Enjoy!

We figured this dish to be one of the most affordable dishes and rings in at under $5 for a large family size 11×14 pan as we have stock-pile of incredibly cheap pasta and tuna.  The most expensive part were the mushrooms, but we wait for markdowns to make this even cheaper! Plus, it makes for great left overs for lunch the next day while at work to avoid eating out!

See more of our Recipes to save even more money for a healthier budget and to live healthier lives too!

A couple of days ago we shared a new cover photo on The Thrifty Couple on Facebook and asked you the name of the featured dish.  After sharing the correct answer – Hawaiian Haystacks – (congrats Stacy J. for getting the right answer and sharing your tips!) we received many requests for the recipe and thought we would share it.

Now, a quick personal story before we got on with the recipe.  In the first ten years of our marriage Alex actually despised it.  To be fair, its not that he disliked the meal, but rather the purity of it as he didn’t trust that the combination of ingredients would actually be tasty.  So instead of just trying it he kept adding different spices and sauces to try to “improve the flavor”.  By his own admission, he never gave my exact combination of ingredients a fair shake.   But recently, he budged.  He told me that if its my favorite he wants to try it exactly as I make it (one of the great aspects of this recipe is you can truly make it your own – see below).  He made it and he loved it! – he couldn’t believe that the coconut with all the other ingredients would create such a taste explosion in his mouth!  Let’s just say its in his top five favorite meals now!

In addition, this is a family favorite as not only is it delicious, but everyone loves that they can create their own plate and meal just to their liking.  Kids seem to eat better when they had a hand in making the meal and so when they create their own plate with veggies piled on, then they will be sure to eat it all up even more

We prepare this meal a few times a month.  It is a meal I pull out too when we need a fridge “clean out.”  What I mean is if you have been reading our site for a while, you will note that we spend the majority of our grocery budget on fresh fruits and veggies (see a few of our shopping trip results HERE) and with that, this dish allows for us to see what fruits and veggies are left that need to be eaten soon and throw them into one dish (the same for the stir-fry we make regularly too!). Plus this can be quite a healthy one-dish meal that is also very affordable and easy on the budget too! Double bonus!

First, here are the ingredients for the base of your Hawaiian Haystack:

• Cooked white or brown rice (whatever amount you will need for your family)
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup
• 3/4 cup of chicken broth
• 1-2 cups of diced cooked chicken (check out how we get our diced, cooked chicken for less)
• 1/8 tsp. pepper
• Shredded cheddar cheese (or other variety)

For the Gravy:

• Mix the can of soup, pepper, chicken broth and cooked diced chicken until heated through.
• Then take a scoop of rice on the plate as the bottom layer of your haystack
• Then ladle the gravy over the rice as the second layer
• Then top with the shredded cheese for the third layer

Now for the additional ingredients to create your Hawaiian Stack – you can use any and all of these ingredients and let each one build their own with the toppings they want in any order that they want: Please note, we HIGHLY recommend using the coconut and pineapple for each one and then whatever veggies wanted.  Don’t be like Alex and wait for years to actually put the coconut on due to skepticism and miss out   The combo of the savory gravy with the tropical sweet flavor of the coconut and pineapple alongside the crunch of the veggies is what makes this amazing together!

Here’s some of our recommended/favorite veggies/toppings (share with us some of your favorite toppings in the comments below):

• shredded coconut
• red or green cabbage shredded
• celery
• sweet peppers chunked (any color)
• diced tomatoes
• pineapple
• tropical fruit mixtures
• green onions
• fresh chives
• Parmesan cheese
• French’s fried onions
• Lo Mein Noodles

Just pile the remaining ingredients on top and then serve and enjoy!

Ours turns out a little different each time we have it as some veggies will be excluded if we don’t have them on hand.  So the picture above is our most recent concoction with the mandatory ingredients (rice, chicken, gravy, and cheese) plus coconut, pineapple, celery, red cabbage, tomato, green onion, parmesan cheese and French’s Fried Onions.

See more of our Recipes to save even more money for a healthier budget and to live healthier lives too!

We shared how to easily make your own butter (including organic butter if you use organic cream) and the joy of having wonderful, leftover fresh buttermilk to use and work with in your cooking and recipes! Not only do we use the buttermilk with our homemade pancake and waffle mix, but we also love to turn this fresh buttermilk into the most amazing Homemade Buttermilk Ranch that is creamy, luscious, fresh and a nice gourmet treat for any dipping or salad purposes! It is our favorite by FAR! We prefer this buttermilk ranch dressing over any other buttermilk ranch dressing that exists

You’ll be surprised at how easy easy it is to make and a very rewarding treat to enjoy!

Let’s get started on making Homemade Buttermilk Ranch with this simple recipe!

First, here is the ingredient round-up:

• 1 cup of mayo (you can use more mayo if you want a thicker dressing).
• 3/4 cup of buttermilk
• 2 tbsp. of minced fresh finely minced green onion (or chives)
• 1/8 tsp. of celery seed
• 1/2 tsp. of Summer Savory dried herb (we use Spice Islands that you can see here on Amazon, but they can be purchased most anywhere)
• 1/4 garlic salt
• Few dashes of pepper
• Few dashes of paprika

Step #1 – Place all ingredients in a jar:

• Just take the list of above ingredients and place them in a jar in the order listed!

Step #2 -  Shake, Rattle and Roll:

• Put the lid on the jar
• Shake the jar until all the ingredients are mixed well!

• Continue shaking until you see uniform mixture.
• Pass the jar to the next kid for more shaking fun!

That’s it – Just pour it into the jar that you want to store in your fridge and you are set to go with the best tasting Homemade Buttermilk Ranch with this super easy recipe!

This is what is looks like in the end!

Here’s how to use it:

• Served on your favorite salad
• As a chip dip
• As a veggie dip
• Or any other use that you would normally use ranch dressing for!

One of the best parts is that not only is this the best tasting buttermilk ranch silkiness in your mouth, but it is natural too as it does not contain any of those preservatives.  Please note, you will need to consume this dressing within a few days for this reason too!

See more of our Homemade Products to save even more money for a healthier budget and live healthier lives too!

We have been wanting to write up a post on cooking healthy pasta – tips and tricks that we have learned over the last year and use in our own kitchen! We are posting these tips because pasta can be a very frugal and affordable way to eat and feed a large family for less especially! Plus, there can be these awesome pasta sales and coupons for all types of pasta: regular or wheat and in a dozen different shapes.  But the question we are continuously asked is that no matter how frugal the pasta is, how can you make it into a healthy meal?

No matter the pasta stock-up supply you may have on your shelf, you can do a few simple tips to cooking a healthier meal with your cheap pasta!  This may also make it a little easier to serve those affordable pasta dishes more often!

We have learned most of these tips from The Doctor Oz show and we started implementing them immediately as they are so easy!

Tip #1: Cooking Healthy Pasta Just by Cooking Under Al Dente
Cook your pasta until right before Al Dente! Why?  Well, this is a healthier way to cook the pasta as when you cook the pasta to it’s very soft form, the sugars have been broken down for you and you get a high spike in your glucose levels.  When cooking to just under al dente, you do not experience such high glucose spikes.  This is good for anyone to consider when eating, not just diabetics!  It will also leave you fuller longer, which means not needing to eat as much (which saves money) and not having to refuel on food again so quickly.

Neither one of us are health experts, just a frugal family trying to eat as healthy as we can on our tight budget, so we will leave further explanation to the following sites:

• Healthology.com (Pasta Cooked To Al Dente)
• BrightOnYourHealth.com (Many details on Pasta Cooked To Al Dente)

How do we ensure cooking this way:  I boil the water first, then I dump all of the pasta into the boiling water and set the timer for 1 minute under the recommend Al Dente cooking time.  Most pasta boxes will give 2-3 recommended cooking times – we just choose the shortest and cut another minute off!

Tip #2: Dashing Cooked Pasta With Balsamic Vinegar
We love this one! We literally do this every time we cook pasta, and the kids have no idea (and they hate vinegar because they can smell it on our salads!).  This recommendation comes right from Dr. Oz.

From the Dr. Oz Show HERE:
Vinegar’s acetic acid slows down how quickly you digest and absorb glucose from starch; this helps to control hunger and makes you less likely to eat later. Add 2 tablespoons of vinegar to a starchy dish to stabilize your post-meal blood sugar.

As soon as we are done cooking, we throw the pasta in a bowl and toss with a few dashes of balsamic vinegar, then continue the preparation like normal! We even do this in the kid’s Annies Organic Mac and Cheese before adding the cheese sauce Shhhh!

Tip #3: Mixing Fresh Veggies to “Expand” the Pasta
We’ve been doing forms like this for a while, but our ideas expand as time goes on for tips on how to expand the pasta! We recently watched the Dr. Oz show where he had Hungry Girl on the show and she was giving ideas on how to “expand” your pastas with fresh veggies.

Hungry Girl’s Mac and Cheese made with 1/2 elbow macaroni and 1/2 cauliflower.

Again, it was something we already were doing, but the list of items we are adding is continually growing.  It is a brilliant idea to add veggies to your pasta and slip it in for the kids to eat and for the family to eat healthier without anyone really noticing the difference!  The newest veggie idea that we got from Hungry Girl was adding cauliflower to your elbow, rotini, etc. shaped pastas! FABULOUS!

After adding your “fresh veggie expanders” then just prepare like you normally would or the recipe that you were going to do originally!

So, with this in mind, here are some ideas that we have now on veggies to add to pasta to “expand” it! But we want to expand this list too, so share any ideas that you might have in the comments below.

• Fresh Tomatoes (all types!)
• Carrot Shreds
• Zucchini Shreds
• Sweet Pepper strips thinly sliced for spaghetti or in chunks for shape pasta
• Broccoli chunks
• Cauliflower chunks
• Mushrooms
• Peas
• Corn
• Squash
• Spinach
• Replacing half (or all if you have enough!) of your spaghetti with 1 spaghetti squash.
• Fresh herbs are a nice addition too for some extra healthy spice
• What other ideas do you have?

Our family can eat 2 boxes of spaghetti/pasta each meal, so by doing any of the above, it means 1 box and then a good serving of veggies quite easily!

Depending on the dish, we also add beans for a cheap healthy protein too! It actually works well!

We hope this post and these 3 Simple Tips to Cooking Healthy Pasta will help your family to eat a bit healthier while on a budget and incorporate that affordable pasta. You can literally do all three at each pasta meal you make.  But even if you don’t incorporate the veggies, the first two are simple and will make a big difference while not costing extra (or at least verry minimally as a cheap bottle of balsamic vinegar will go a very long way!).  Share with us any tips you have on cooking health pasta!

Also, don’t miss our Dr. Oz section to find Dr. Oz recommendations for less!

Photo Credits: LucioRestaurant.net, Cafemom.com, DoctorOz.com, StartCooking.com

You may have seen our post earlier regarding the nearly 40 lbs. of fresh pineapple that we picked up from our produce co-op for only $24.  This came out to be 16 pineapples, which makes them $1.50 each.  Considering that pineapple is in season from March – July, this is the best time of year to grab them and stock up on it for cheaper – then freeze it so you can enjoy it for several months after the season ends.  Also, although they are in season right now, they still sell for $1.99 – $2.99 each pineapple.  You can occasionally buy them for $1.50 each in the store, but it is much nicer to pick up a whole bunch for this price and get them very fresh as well!

So, yes, we will be freezing most of this stock of pineapple for us to enjoy later!

Let’s answer some questions first about how to freeze pineapple:

• You can freeze pineapple for up to 6 months in it’s own juice.
• We use them for homemade ice cream, our homemade smoothies and foods like this.  We haven’t tried defrosting and eating, but we do enjoy eating it as frozen chunks too!
• You can freeze it in slices or chunks.
• Depending on how you plan to use it – you can freeze with or without the core.
• We freeze with the core as we use it blended in one of the above ways we mentioned in the first bullet.  We have a Vitamix and so it is a heavy duty blender that can blend that tough core. Besides, we want the core as it is filled with extra nutrition.  (You can read about this extra “core” nutrition on the LiveStrong site HERE).
• We do not do anything extra to the pineapple.  We just literally cut the skin off, chunk it and freeze! We also are not super picky about cutting out the brown skin that is left (as this has nutrition too!) as it requires cutting into the pineapple quite a bit or taking loads of time to pick each one out.  For this purpose, we don’t dig those brown spots out either because the will be blended into our smoothies, ice cream, etc. with the power of the Vitamix.
• For fresh consumption, we will spend the time to pick most of the brown spots out because no one like the consistency of it when eating fresh!

Here’s How We Cut Our Pineapple!

It is actually extremely simple:

Cut the tops and bottom off.

Cut the pineapple in half down the middle (this makes it easier to shave in the next step).

Then, using your knife, shave off the skins.

Cut into thick slices.

Then cut into cubes!

How to Freeze Pineapple!

• You can freeze them into whatever quantities you want.
• When freezing in a bag, squeeze out as much air as you can to make them airtight (or use a vacuum sealer)
• We froze 2 pineapples per each gallon bag.

• When we go to use them, we will bring up one gallon bag from our deep freeze at a time – but only use the amount we need.  We rarely use an entire bag at once but rather typically use one bag of pineapple for several batches of smoothies (mixed with other items) or ice cream or other treats!
• The final step is to label your bag or container with the amount of pineapple and the date (to keep yourself from guessing how fresh the pineapple is months from now ).

So when you have the opportunity to grab pineapple for less, even if you are not sure how you would use it fresh, consider grabbing it and then freezing for future use! It is a great extra way to save!

Do you have any tips on how to freeze pineapple? What was your experience

Admit it.  Its been on your mind for most of the morning.  You can’t get it out of your head.  Yes, we’re talking about that all-important question – Can you freeze eggs?  You’ve come to the right place to answer this question and stop the worry and never-ending concern.  Here’s the answer…. YES! And here’s the nitty gritty on how to do it!

It is that time of year when egg prices drop and you can find some great deals on eggs.  So with that in mind and as we eat a lot of eggs in our house we love to buy them for much less and freeze them so we don’t have to buy them at the higher prices the rest of the year.    So a few years ago we asked the question ourselves – “Can you freeze eggs?” when the time of year came around that eggs were so cheap that we wanted to stock up!

Eggs are considered the “poor man’s protein” and what better way to help us stick to our budget and to help us stick to healthier eating than buying them at a rock-bottom deal and freezing them so we could continue eating healthier for even less (because we’re not buying them when they are so expensive).  But don’t think that springtime is the only time you can find great deals on eggs – we always loving looking for those markdowns (see the pictures below for an example) as you can often find them year-round!

Plus, another consideration is that not only are the “cheaper egg varieties” on sale, but also some of the higher-end eggs as well.  We prefer to buy brown or cage-free eggs when we can fit them in our budget, and so when the opportunity arises, we stock-up on them! Then they are prepared to be frozen so we can have them when we need them.

SO Here’s How You Can Freeze Eggs!

What you need:

• Eggs
• Salt or sugar (to prevent the yolk from turning into a gel consistency when defrosting)
• Something to measure out 1-2 cups
• Ziploc or other container to store

It is very quick and easy to prepare eggs for the freezer and a task that our 7- and 8-year old daughters like to do (and practice egg cracking:))

We found that about 5-6 eggs is equal to one cup.  We freeze most of our eggs in this quantity as we usually use about this many at a time!

First, crack the eggs in a separate bowl and measure them out (we measure by cups).

Second, add salt to the eggs.  You will want to use around 1/2 teaspoon of salt for one cup of eggs (if freezing individually just use a dash)! Adjust the salt amount based on how many you are freezing together!

Third, gently mix the eggs so the yolks break up a bit and mix with the salt.

Fourth, pour egg mixture into your Ziploc or other container.

Fifth, label your eggs with date and quantity and then stick them in the freezer!

Here is some additional information to help you preserve your eggs for use!

• Eggs can be frozen for up to 1-year.
• Defrost your eggs for 1 day before use in the fridge.
• You can use sugar instead of salt if you are using them for baking, etc.
• You can freeze individual eggs in an ice cube tray for use of one egg at a time.
• You can freeze the egg yolks and egg white separately if you need to.
• When freezing just the yolks, you will still need to use the salt (or sugar) to prevent it be like gelatin when you defrost them.
• When freezing just the whites, you do not need to add any salt or sugar – just mix very gently before freezing.
• Eggs can last quite a while after the “best by” date and still be just fine for use and consumption without the need for freezing.  You can see our previous post on this topic of Food Expiration Dates: What They Really Mean
• Mark your bag/container with either the number of eggs or the amount it is equal to if you plan to use them in recipes.  For example:  our bags say “1 cup” or “6 large eggs.”

So when you are in the store next and you see a super deal on your family’s favorite eggs, instead of asking “Can you freeze eggs?” now you know you can, how to do and ultimately save your family a little more money in this area!

Have your tried to freeze your own eggs before? What was your experience?

We love Spaghetti Squash and it is a cheap, healthy, hearty food that we serve all year round.  We actually like to serve it as spaghetti for a pasta alternative (which is a great way for Gluten-Free eaters to enjoy spaghetti as it is also cheaper than most Gluten-Free pasta too!).  Not only do we use it as a pasta alternative when we get it cheap, but we like to just steam it and use a little bit of homemade butter and eat it!  It is very good with this simple preparation.

So we saw this article on the AllYou site for ideas on how to cook and prepare Spaghetti Squash and wanted to pass long the information to you as it is a great option to have on hand! We also love that you can buy it for less and feed a big family too as it is filling!

There are so many ideas on how to prepare Spaghetti Squash, but check out the ideas on AllYou HERE to get the ball rolling!

How to you prepare Spaghetti Squash? 

We are often asked how you can save money on fresh produce with the accusative tone that you can’t.  This seems to be an area that plagues many money savers that want to feed their family healthily for less but don’t know another option outside of cheap cans of soup and store-brand macaroni and cheese.  Finally, the perception many people have of budget-savvy shoppers are those couponers that have showers dedicated to orange soda (an episode from Extreme Couponing) and that ultimately you can’t save money and be healthy at the same time.

Well, truth be told, you usually can’t find rock bottom deals or even FREE deals on fresh produce very often. It is a special treat when you can find a deal like that.  It certainly isn’t often enough to meet the needs of a single person, let alone a family.  But the good news is that our goal isn’t to get absolutely everything in life for a rock bottom deal! Our goal is to stick to our budget.  What this means is that we may have to sacrifice some items in different weeks in order to fit our needs within our budget.  But we prioritize what is important to spend money on, to stock-up on and to meet our family’s needs in a healthy way.

Produce is at the top of our priority list.  But often, in order to fit produce into our budget, you have to think creatively and outside of the box.  We are going to list just 30 ideas on how to save on produce that we have discovered and used ourselves to share with you so that you can include produce in your family’s diet while at the same time sticking within your budget!

1. Buy from a co-op
We have posted about buying our produce, both conventional and organic (whatever our budget allows for the week) through our local produce co-op quite frequently.  This is often our “go to” source for a fresh batch of produce as often as once per week! We actually share the results of what we get in our co-op basket on the weeks that we decide to get one! This is a year-round way to save each week!

2. Volunteer at a Co-op
Another way to stack the savings is not only buying from the co-op, but actually volunteering your time. This often means volunteering at the distribution site in some way. In exchange, you can usually get FREE produce or at least extra produce in your basket! For our specific co-op as an example, we pick up our baskets around 7am, which means those that offer to volunteer that day are there a couple of hours before to distribute the produce that came in.

3. Participate in a community garden
With Spring approaching, consider having your family participate in a community garden. There are almost too many different ways this is implemented to mention here, but the general idea is that gardening as a community is often easier and takes less time than trying to tackle the garden plot in  your own back yard.  You can find out more about how to participate in a community garden here and find one in your own back yard – to turn a phrase!

4. Buy from a local farmer
During the Summer and Fall months, we are able to buy from the local farmer’s directly as they will have stands or even signs attached to their home/farm advertising their produce sales. This is a great way to get very fresh (often organic depending on the local farm) for much less. If you also know a local farmer, consider establishing a relationship with them so that you can be some of the first to get first picks. This is a seasonal way to save depending on where you live!

5. Offer to be a farm help (or help with their stand) a couple of hours a week in exchange for produce
As you develop that relationship with a local farmer see if you can donate some of your time to help around the farm or with the produce stand.  Many farmers will give you free produce (and other products like eggs, meat, etc.) if you donate an hour or two of your time as often as they have availability. This can also be a good way to establish a solid work ethic for the whole family.

6. Glean
Yes, this is directly derived from the Biblical Principle of the farmer not over picking his field but rather allowing the poor to come pick the leftovers (Lev 19:9-10, Ruth 2). Although the true meaning is for the widow and poor, many farmers will offer a “gleaning” opportunity to the community as a whole.

When I was a child growing up in Idaho, I remember my family going to the potato farms after the harvest and the farmers allowing the community to go into the fields and pick their own remaining potatoes from what was left over. I would imagine that these types of offers from local farmers are all over the country. Some will be free (as it is also a service to them to get the remaining produce that their trucks did not pick up that would just be tilled back into the ground anyway) and some may charge, but either way – it could be a great way to save.  It was very memorable and fun for me as a child too!

7. Buy extra produce from a neighbor or offer other services in exchange
If you have a neighbor with a large or lush garden, they usually have way more than they can handle themselves. They will most likely be willing to sell you some at a large discount, but you can also consider offering services in exchange for fresh garden produce (including helping them weed and take care of the garden throughout the summer)!

8. Focused and exchanged gardening
Coordinate with several friends, family members or neighbors with good soil to each grow one or two items in mass quantity in your own gardens and when you harvest have a big exchange party. It ends up being cheaper when you can grow and focus on only one or two food items in bigger bunches rather than a bunch of small sections of different varieties! Let’s face it – some of us can’t grow a tomato if it killed us while others can’t help but growing them by the bushel! This gardening technique allows you to forgot those vegetables and fruit that you just can’t grow. Plus the likelihood of full and lush growth is better when you can treat the crop with the same care all around!

9. Grown your own
With that, if you do not have friends, family and neighbors to participate in a focused and exchanged garden, then just grow it yourself! It will still be cheaper that buying it from a grocery store, plus much more rewarding for you and your family. Kids seem to eat and enjoy something more when they themselves grew it!

10. Hit the seasonal sales and stock-up
Buy produce in season at your local stores. If anything, this assures that year-round you will get a nice variety of produce! Grocery stores will usually have 1-2 fruits and vegetables at a rock bottom price each week and then a handful on sale each week! This is the most basic and easiest way to save as you can also just make one stop for your groceries and sale produce!

11. Watch for markdowns
This is also a very common way that we save. Although you can’t count on a specific fruit or vegetable and likewise can’t establish your menu and grocery shopping, it is definitely worth checking and watching for those markdowns. Annually, we save hundreds grabbing markdown produce. The nice thing about it is that it adds variety, even on the non-seasonal produce. We either adjust our menu to incorporate our markdown produce over the next few days. In addition, we end up freezing a lot of markdown produce for future use (you can search on how to freeze different types of produce)!

12. Establish a relationship with local grocery store produce staff and get the almost ready to throw out produce
This is a secret tip, but it is a useful one! Grocery stores are required to pull produce on their shelves at a certain point – which is usually right before it goes bad. Sometimes if you are really nice to the produce staff you can request to pick up a box of all of the produce that they have pulled, especially if you promise to come get it quick.  We know a few friends that do this and the local produce workers will often just give them the box instead of even discounting it.

Now you may be asking, “What would I do with the older produce like that?” Well, most of it will probably not be very tasty for consumption as is, but we ourselves freeze turning or very spotted bananas for the best banana bread (we will share the recipe if you would like!), you can turn berries and many fruits (and veggies for that matter) into smoothies and juices. You can use older apples and pears for a homemade apple/pear sauce. If this idea intrigues you and you research this, we would love to hear your creative ideas that you find as well!

13. Buy Frozen
Buying produce in the frozen foods section is a great alternative way to save as it can save quite a bit of money all year round – especially when you can catch those frozen produce sales with coupons. We will sometimes buy frozen to fill in the gaps in our menu to prevent us from overspending on our grocery budget on those weeks it could be an issue. When there is a frozen produce sale or produce sale with a coupon, we will also stock-up at those rock-bottom prices to have produce for the future! Most of them are flash frozen and with a little steam heating, doesn’t come out much different than the fresh produce.

14. Watch and examine packaging
While you are shopping for produce, take a few minutes to carefully check all product packaging. Here are three examples:

• If apples are .97 a lb., but the 3 lb. Bag of apples is $2.58, you might want to consider going with the 3lb. bag to save a little more. If you have extra time on your hands in the produce department, those 3lb. bags are approximate and so you could grab a few and weigh them and get the heaviest bag as you will still just pay the $2.58 price
• We like to eat a ton of celery in our family. At our grocery store, the celery can be quite pricey at around $1.25 – $1.50 each bunch on the stalk. But there is a bag that sells for $1.98 that is the just pre-washed, cut and packed without the celery hearts or extras that usually get disposed of anyway; the package (for $1.98) is equal to two bunches of celery ($2.50- $3). We buy this as we save a little more.
• If you typically only use the crowns of the broccoli, consider buying just the crowns instead of the whole pieces with stems. You might see that the broccoli with the stems sells for .99 a lb. while the crowns sell for $1.19 per lb. But if you are going to throw out the stems anyway, then just buy the “more expensive” crowns – but as the crowns weigh significantly less than the stems, you will save money just buying the crowns!

Each of these examples will hopefully demonstrate that by just spending a bit of time in the produce section and considering how different produce types are packaged can add up over time.

15. Don’t buy wet produce
Water is quite heavy, so when you buy produce by the pound you can actually find yourself buying some water as well!  Either find produce that hasn’t been rinsed recently or at least shake them well before checking out.

16. Be very selective when you buy your produce
How often do you buy your produce and then just a few days later open your fridge to them out the item to use in your meal to find that it has already spoiled?  If you take the time to carefully select the under-ripe, quality items then the amount of unused produce you buy will decrease significantly!

17. Buy your produce items smaller when buying by the pound
Often when you cut your produce item they need to be consumed right away.  When you buy smaller sizes you ensure that the leftover portions not used in your recipe aren’t simply discarded.  For example, if we are buying apples by the pound we will pick out the smallest apples so that there is portion control and none of it is wasted.  We have found the same principle works with fruits like bananas. Once they are cut or open there really isn’t much hope in saving it.  Purchasing the smaller sizes prevent you from throwing away your money!

18. Buy the largest produce you can when the price is per item
If you are going to buy certain items sold individually, then by all means buy the largest item you can find (assuming good quality of course).  You might as well as you will pay the same no matter the size you buy.

19. Find those rare produce coupons
To find potential rare coupons on produce, always check our coupon database to see if there are any available produce coupons that you can use to lower your out of pocket costs. They do exist and are typically on the prepacked produce and salads.

20. Use Facebook or visit sites of companies that sell produce
For another coupon or discount possibility, visit and like the Facbook pages or the sites of produce companies. In the times we live in now, if a company does put out a coupon for produce, they often release these coupons to their Facebook fans. By already being a fan, you will be notified on your wall as to if and when a coupon is available! We have seen those most recently for avocados, Dole fresh fruits, earthbound farms, Fresh Express salads (and the list goes on)…

21. Price match
For any stores that price match in your area, this is a huge benefit as you can shop at one store, but yet take advantage of the prices of produce all around town! We do this quite frequently!

22. Freeze leftovers for a soup
Whenever there are veggies left over from a meal, keep adding the cooked ones to a container in the freezer and then when it is full, you can make a nice veggie or veggie beef stew/soup! Those soups already contain quite a combination of veggies, so it will just add to a yummy and unique soup not found anywhere else!

23. Can your extras
Can your supply for the off-season or when you can’t find a deal. Then you can have those produce deals and specials all year-round.

24. Freeze your supply
Almost all veggies and fruits can be frozen to use in the future. We actually freeze quite a bit of produce. Most fruits can be frozen in the state you bought them in. For veggies, you will typically need to do a light blanching and or steaming. The process will be different for each type. We suggest just Googling “how to freeze fresh ______ (fill in the blank)” and follow the instructions to freeze your fresh produce deals!

25. Buy dehydrated produce to rehydrate or even dehydrate your own produce
If you have a dehydrator, you can dehydrate quite a bit of fruits and some veggies. They will then be preserved for quite a while and you can eat them in their dehydrated state, but some can also be rehydrated in water – just google this too for the specifics for the types of produce you are looking to dehydrate and rehydrate.

26. Extend the life of your produce with special baggies
There are a variety of fruit and vegetable life extenders you can invest in to help extend the life of produce in your fridge.  Depending on whether you use it, it can be worth the initial investment to buy some of these to help your produce life stretch further than it does now. It makes those weekly specials worth stocking up on because you will know that they will last a little longer than normal.  Check out the fruit and vegetable food saver and preservation items on Amazon to get some ideas!

27. Store fruits and vegetables correctly
Research (Google again:)) how to properly store the specific fruits and veggies you bought. Some types of produce will last longer stored on the counter and some will last longer stored in the fridge. Again, helping your produce last longer is going to save you money because you can buy more on those weekly specials!

28. Revive those veggies
Perk up veggies (like broccoli, celery, carrots) in a bowl of ice water instead of throwing out to perk them up again and help the “limpness” disappear.  This will allow you to use those vegetables that day as if they were fresh veggies.

29. Grow your own green onion
Don’t forget about the ever-growing green onion that will regrow over and over again. We usually just let them regrow 2-3 times before replacing. But even if you only regrow one time, this saves you 50% on Green Onions!

30. Finally keep up with the produce savings on our site
Just as we mentioned to follow the produce companies on Facebook and print off those rare coupons, if you follow our site closely we will tell you when those awesome coupons are available as soon as we know ourselves!  This way you don’t have to follow hundreds of companies but rather just one – shameless plug added!

Finally, what tips did we miss and which of these have you used to save on produce?

Photo Credit: Fords Produce

We wanted to share how to make Easy Homemade Applesauce.  It really is very ridiculously easy and tastes so yummy! We will make as a treat for dessert or as a side dish.  Our favorite way to serve it is warm as it’s really quite amazing this way!

Tools and Supplies Needed

Here are the ingredients needed:

• About 6 medium sized apples (you will want around 1.5 quarts of cubed apple pieces).  I fill a 1.5 quart casserole dish with the cubed apples to measure this easily; I know I have enough apples when it is full. Experiment with different varieties of apples, as each type will create a different taste experience – sometimes sweeter, sometimes more tart.  But you can add any sugar or sweetener to taste if some batches are more tart than your family desires!
• A few dashes of nutmeg
• 1 tsp. of ground cinnamon (or less if you are not a cinnamon fan)
• 1 tsp. of vanilla extract

You will also need a way core, cube and peel apples.  There are many tools to do this.  I have simple tools in my kitchen, and so it takes me a little longer to peel the skins by hand with a paring knife.  It really does work though…I promise!

To peel and core, you could use any of the following (each of these are links to see what they look like!):

• Apple/Potato Peeler – After researching and seeing how cheap these are, we are going to purchase one of these.
• Hand Peeler  – I have this one and it is my favorite as I have been through many peelers, but this one has lasted a while and still works wonderfully!
• Paring Knives
• Apple Corer

You also need the following appliances/larger kitchen items:

• Pot to cook on the stove top or a crock pot
• Food processor, blender, hand blender or potato masher

Now that you have your ingredients and tools together – let’s get started on making a super Easy Homemade Applesauce!

How to make easy homemade applesauce:

• Peel, core and cube your apples until you have 1.5 quarts of apples.
• Pour your apples into your pan on the stove.  (You can also slow cook in a crock pot for 2-3 hours until soft if preferred).
• Sprinkle with a few dashes of nutmeg
• Add your 1 tsp. of cinnamon (adjust to taste – we like cinnamon!).  This is where you would also add any sugar or sweetener to your mixture.  We don’t use extra sweetener.
• Cook on the stove on medium for about 15-20 minutes until the apples are nice and soft
• About 10 minutes into your cooking, add the 1 tsp. of vanilla extract.

• After the apples soften, you will want to turn them into a “sauce”.  You can do this quickly by pouring into a food processor or blender and pulsing the mixture a handful of times until desired consistency is reached. You can also use a hand blender or even a potato masher.

• Either serve warm or refrigerate to serve cold.  You can also store the leftovers (if there are any) for a day or two and serve cold!

This can also be a baby food – just follow the cooking steps above, omitting the cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and vanilla! Use a sweet-tasting apple for the natural sweetener!

Making your own applesauce is very yummy and rewarding! It can be cheaper than buying applesauce from the store.  We have gotten applesauce very cheap with coupons and sales, but it is something all seven of us like to eat, so we can’t keep enough cheap store bought applesauce in stock.

Ways to Get Apples for Less

Here are some ideas to make your easy homemade applesauce even cheaper – being able to get CHEAP apples!

1. If you have an apple tree of your own – problem solved!
2. If you have a neighbor who has an apple tree, ask if you can pick your own to take the mess off their hands.  Usually, we have seen residential apple trees go to such waste as the apples fall on the ground before anyone can get them and go to waste! Instead, this is a great opportunity to ask any neighbors or friends with an apple tree if you can help with the clean-up before they fall
3. Pick your own at a local apple orchard – usually they charge by the bushel and it is typically a lot less than you will get in the store!
4. Buy from a co-op or local farmer’s market.
5. Buy apples that are beginning to turn at the local grocery store that have either already been marked down or ask if you can get a discount if you see that any are turning!  Turn them into applesauce right away!
6. Buy it on a weekly sale at your local grocery store or price match at Walmart!
7. Finally, you can stock-up when they are in season and can your own applesauce so that you have it throughout the year!

Don’t forget that applesauce is also a great replacement in cooking  to replace oil and in some cases even the eggs!

What recipes or ideas do you have with making applesauce or ideas on how to use your homemade applesauce in other recipes?

See our everyday frugal living section of our site for more tips and recipes and other do it yourself ideas!

Products mentioned in this post:

We wanted to share how to make butter and buttermilk quickly and easily! Making homemade butter is rewarding because you can make some pretty and creative displays and more – or just have fun making your own butter. It also tastes so creamy and fresh! There nothing like homemade fresh butter on a warm piece of homemade bread.  It is super-comfort food

All you need for this recipe is whipping cream – in fact, it can’t really be called “a recipe” because it takes just one ingredient and is so simple to make!

You will also need a way to whip the whipping cream vigorously.  Here are some fun and practical ways:

1. A glass jar with a lid and shake it vigorously for 10-30 minutes.  Our kids like to help and they pass the jar and it is a fun experiment for them too.  They do tire out, even passing between 4 of them, so one of us usually finishes it off!
2. A Blender
3. A food processor (our preferred method).

The process for how to make your own butter and buttermilk is around 15 minutes total.  If you are using a food processor, there is not much hands on attention required and only takes about 8-10 minutes!

How to make butter and buttermilk the easy way:

• Pour the whipping cream in the food process and start your machine.  Let it run for about 8-10 minutes or until it looks a little yellowish and separates like this:

• Once it gets to this state, you will want to drain the buttermilk off into a bowl

• Then I like to run the food processor for another minute or two after pouring out the buttermilk for any final separation

• Once it has ran for another minute, I finish it off by squeezing the butter with a spatula to allow and final buttermilk to drain off.  I squeeze several different times after folding it over between each squeeze.

• Then simply scoop the butter out of the mixing bowl and refrigerate.  It will be very soft, but it will set to a hard set once it is refrigerated (like butter from the store – hard from the fridge or turns soft on the counter!).  We store it in a BPA-Free plastic bowl with a lid.

Also, you can use the butter in this soft state to either make a flavored butter or to mold it into shapes that you would like! We like to make butter shapes for special occasions (and sometimes just because the kids love it!).  We like using the silicone food molds as they are much easier to work with and easier to release the butter, etc.!

We are using heart shapes since it is close to Valentine’s Day You can make individual shapes, or even one large shape.  As an example in this case, we could have used a large heart cookie cutter on a glass square pan and filled to the top of the cookie cutter with the soft butter and then refrigerate until hard.  Then we would have one large heart shaped butter!

You can see a whole slew of silicone molds for your butter whether large shapes or individual shapes for all seasons and occasions on Amazon HERE.  Some of these are really great prices and include free shipping too!

Finally, we love to use flavored butters on our different homemade breads. You can literally make so many numerous combinations, but here’s what we gravitate to most often:

• Garlic Butter – mix into your soft butter to taste with garlic powder or even fresh garlic minced!
• Herb Butter – mix into your soft butter your favorite combinations of dried or even finely minced fresh herbs
• Chive Butter – mix fresh or dried chives into your butter
• Honey butter – mix honey to taste into your butter
• Fruit butters – we have also mixed jams with the butters to make a fruity combination
• The possibilities are endless!

So, the next question is……Is it cheaper to make my own butter vs. buying it at the grocery store??

This is a GOOD question.  If you want to buy fancy butter in different shapes – then doing this yourself will most likely always save you money.  But honestly, we don’t do this often.  Most of the time we are making butter, it is because it is CHEAPER and because we will eat it no matter the pretty shape.

Here’s the criteria for making your own butter to save money:  Find out whether the whipping cream on sale?  Is the butter on sale?

With the above process, we used one pint of whipping cream.  This normally sells for around $2 each pint but you can regularly get it on sale for at least $1.50 or less.  So how much butter can you get out of one pint of whipping cream?  This pint makes around 1 cup of packed butter (or a little more). This would be equivalent to 2 sticks of butter. In addition, you also receive that nice buttermilk, which ends up being around 1 cup as well!

So the REAL answer to the question of “Is it cheaper to make my own butter?” is really going to depend on the sales each week.  If your store has an awesome butter sale, then buying the butter will probably be cheaper. If your store has a great whipping cream sale – then stock-up, make your butter and freeze it which means lots of savings for the next month or two! Also, watch for markdowns on both the regular and organic whipping creams.  We see these go on markdown quite frequently and this means even cheaper butter when you find those deals!

And the final question is…..What do you do with your homemade buttermilk?

You can google “recipes with buttermilk” and you will get tons of ideas.  We are going to reserve this for the next post to share what we have made with it, but we also want to hear some ideas from you too!

What recipes or ideas to you have that call for or use buttermilk? Also, share with us any of your own ideas for other  flavored butters you have made or molds you like to use.

There is a new Philadelphia Cooking Creme printable coupon for $1.00/1.   You can grab a deal on these at Walmart and Target!

Here’s the deal:

• Buy 1 Philadelphia Cooking Creme for $2.48
• Then use $1.00/1 printable Philadelphia Cooking Creme coupon = final is $1.48

We shared these last time when the .75 off coupon came out, but now it is an even better deal and so we wanted to share these ideas again.

We keep a few of these in our fridge and they are fantastic to pull-out for a quick dinner when mixed with pasta! Also, we have already tried about 4 of the recipes on the Kraft Philadelphia site.  They are really easy and very yummy!

With this creme, you can mix-in with a pasta, add a steamed veggie and a side salad.  The creme is very creamy, and our family is larger and so we actually mix 1 container with two boxes of pasta and it still tastes great and creamy!  For protein, we will add 1 cooked chicken and cubed breast or a can of tuna and we occasionally top with fresh diced tomato and green onion and fresh Parmesan!  With all of these ideas you have a quick, healthy, and very cheap meal and a variation of tastes with a few ingredients!

See more Hot Coupons

There is a new Fleishman’s Yeast printable coupon for .40/1 3-pack strip. With this coupon, you can get the yeast for .64 at Walmart (.21 each packet). Look under zip code: 84014 if you do not see it.

Here’s how:

• Buy 1 3-packet strip for $1.04
• Then use .40/1 printable coupon = final is .64 for three or .21 each
  

We shared our favorite white bread recipe and this also turns into great pizza dough as well and this yeast can be used for pizza crusts (replacing the bread yeast with the pizza yeast).  This is a VERY thrifty way to feed a big family and have fun making your own pizzas, especially when you use up your veggies and hamburger as the meats!  It is quite simple and super scrumptious too!

See the white bread recipe and use the dough for pizza crusts!

This last weekend, we made up our own Chicken Garlic Pizza, and it was so amazing!

Here’s what we did:

• Used our pre-cooked chunk chicken and soaked it in a pesto sauce (we used Classico Pesto, but any will version will be fine)
• We then used a mixture of minced garlic and the Classico pesto sauce as the sauce on our homemade pizza crust (after the pan was covered in melted butter under the crust!).  Just a little of this sauce goes a long way!
• We topped the sauce with the chicken
• Topped with a 2 cup package of Mozzarella cheese
• Topped with Fresh Tomatoes thin slices
• Topped with fresh cilantro
• Baked in a 425 degree oven for 12-16 minutes until crust is golden brown!

It was so good and a new cheap family pizza favorite!

See more Walmart Deals

See more Recipes

Here’s another great cookbook find and deall! As we have mentioned many times before our crockpot serves as a way to make super yummy cheap meals for a large family at a very affordable price.  Having more ideas easily at our disposal is a great way to maximize this way of cooking. So you can grab the Ultimate Crockpot Cookbook 750 Recipes. 

This is an electronic download onto your computer or mobile device with your Kindle app (i.e. Android, iPhone, iPad, etc,) for only .99!! You can see a sneak peek into this ecookbook here.

Go to Amazon here to download your Ultimate Crock Pot ecookbook with 750 recipes for .99!

See more Amazon Deals

Here’s a great find a great deal! We LOVE our crockpot as we can make super yummy cheap meals for a large family at a very affordable price.  But sometimes we get stuck in a rut about what to make, so when we saw this e-cookbook for only .99, it seems like an easy steal!

This is an electronic download onto your computer or mobile device with your Kindle app (i.e. Android, iPhone, iPad, etc,) for only .99!! You can see a sneak peek into this ecookbook here.

Go to Amazon here to download your Crock Pot ecookbook with 440 recipes for .99!

Thanks Coupon Princess

Have you ever wondered what the recipe is for Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits? Well…we really don’t know as I am sure that they wouldn’t disclose their secrets.  But I love the Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits!  In fact, they are honestly the main reason why I have ever gone to Red Lobster.  I am not the biggest seafood fan (however, our other seafood lovers in our house enjoy it there), so every time I have gone I order the chicken dish.  Mock me if you will, but I definitely can’t get enough of those Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits.

Because we are The Thrifty Couple, and since we have had issues in the past with eating out too much, we know that going to Red Lobster just for the cheddar biscuits is not a financially wise decision.  So what is a frugal gal in love with the cheddar biscuits to do?!  Try and experiment with some recipes to create our own!

I think I have developed my own version which is a close second to the Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits – the best part, they are extremely filling for our family of seven and super cheap too! And even better, you can throw this luscious, cheap and filling side together in just a few minutes before dinner!

Here’s how to make them!

Ingredients

Preparation

• Heat oven to 400 degrees
• In medium bowl combine all ingredients and mix until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl
• Hand knead the dough in the bowl approximately 12 times
• Make 12 equal balls of dough and place on a greased cookie sheet
• Sprinkle dashes of garlic salt on the top of the rolls

• Bake for 13-16 minutes in a 400 degree oven
• Serve warm and enjoy your like Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits at home!

Between the butter and garlic salt already in them, you can enjoy them without butter as they are already so flavorful.  It saves a bit more money that way as well as whenever we serve a bread side, we seem to go through a lot of butter.  But in this case, it is just the original 1/3 cup of butter!

Today’s Daily Dose of Thrifty is called “Dinner By 10.”  You may be wondering… “Wow, what does that mean??” and thinking we’re over here eating and feeding the kids into the late evening!

But we wanted to share what this means to us: it is a rule in our house.  As we have recently shared, in our “unthrifty” past, we had an issue with going into debt by eating out constantly! Not only was this a major problem due to health reasons, but especially because our budget could not handle it – thus the significant amount of acquired debt.

We had to create an easy rule for us to follow and even now we still do this in our thriftier days as this is still a temptation for us.  It is just so easy to justify blowing this part of our budget when it gets late into the afternoon or early evening and we don’t even know what we are eating or we haven’t made the necessary preparations for the dinner that night!

So the rule is “Dinner By 10″ – this means that we need to know by 10 am what will be for dinner that night! This allows for adequate time to defrost, set-out and make any necessary plans for dinner.  This little rule has saved us so many times.  Even when we have a menu planned out, simply writing it out is just not enough! If you have pot roast on your menu and you did not look at it until 3pm…. it is a little late and makes for a wide open door excuse to grabbing a bite out.

Also, if you work or are gone during the day, the “Dinner by 10″ rule can still apply to rule for your family.  Simply switch the time to 10pm the night before!

Our challenge to help you save your food dollars:  When that short hand hits the 10 in the morning or evening…. know and have a plan for the next dinner! Set that mental – or even literal – alarm!

See more Daily Doses of Thrifty

YAY! This AWESOME coupon has reset for the month of September. Print a coupon for .50/1 Old El Paso product.  This coupon will work for the taco seasoning packets that are sold for around .50 on sale at many stores or .68 at Walmart everyday.  This means FREE or CHEAP Taco Seasoning.

Get your .50/1 Old El Paso printable coupon here.  This coupon is found under zip code: 19464 and easily found in the foods category on the left! This coupon may reach it’s print limit quickly due to it’s popularity, so grab it now while you can!

We have shared this before, but wanted to share this again as it is always helpful for us to have ideas on how to use products from our stockpile, so here are these ideas again!

We stock-up on Taco Seasoning any chance we get as this makes for some really frugal and yummy recipes to help stretch our food dollars each week.  Some variation of Taco seasonings are used in our home 1-2 time a week (or more if we are really in the mood!)

Here’s some ways to stretch your FREE Taco Seasoning even further:

• Taco Salads – Just mix-in with 1 lb. of hamburger, even for a larger family.  This 1lb of meat can go a very long way when you add cheap tortilla chips and lettuce and then a bit of meat and toppings.  This is a very inexpensive meal that everyone loves and a little goes a long way!
• Taco casserole – we again will mix-in with 1lb. of hamburger, then mix with prepared pasta, can of diced tomatoes and onions and placed in casserole dish and topped with cheese (and olives if you have any in our storage at the time – these are hard for us to keep in stock ) Again, with the 1 lb. of meat – this goes a long way to feed a large family!
• Another way to stretch your food dollar is mixing in 1/2 – 1 lb. of hamburger with half of rice and mix-in taco seasoning for any classic taco recipe/usage.
• Finally, another way we use Taco Seasoning is to make a very quick Spanish Rice that our kids will eat! 

So print your .50/1 Old El Paso Taco Seasoning twice.

Do you have any ideas on how to stretch the food dollars with this FREE taco seasoning?

Browse the new printable coupons since it is a new month to see if there is anything else you want!

See more HOT coupons and FREE Stuff

Thanks Brainy Buyer

Earlier this week on our Facebook page, we asked you if you would like us to share the perfect white bread machine recipe that we finally discovered!  I had been experimenting with different recipes for a while.  We have some awesome recipes for whole wheat, oat bran and more, but we have a ton of white flour and although the hearty and super healthy breads are nice, there are just times you want to sink your teeth into a nice fluffy white bread!

So, after several attempts and tries at different recipes, we found the perfect recipe for a lighter and fluffy white bread!

Here’s our new favorite bread machine recipe!  The same recipe might be able to be used without a bread machine, I just haven’t tried it.

INGREDIENTS:

•  1 cup milk
• 1 1/2 eggs
• 2 1/2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups bread flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast

Just add all of the above ingredients to bread pan according to manufacturers directions. Use basic/white setting, light crust, and 1.5 lb. loaf. I got this bread machine recipe from CDKitchen called Lucious White Bread. With this recipe and a great deal on flour – we have literally made bread for pennies on the dollar!

The 1 1/2 eggs baffled me as I have never seen a recipe that called for 1/2 of an egg before – but I just cracked the egg into a small bowl, used a butter knife to split the yolk down the middle and then scooped out half the mixture (when carefully cutting the yolk, it actually stays into two halves instead of running everywhere!) This seems to work well.

In addition, we had some ask how to cut the bread just right.  This used to be something that we struggled with and then about 2 years ago, we bought the Norpro 370 bread slicer and it works really well! It has slots that you run your bread knife through and it will then make even slices all down your loaf of bread.  In addition, it has a crumb catcher, so it really is a seamless and cleaner process.

The Norpro slicer that we have and recommend is actually on sale at Amazon right now for $15.35 with FREE shipping with Amazon Prime or $25 or more purchase.

Also, if you are looking for a way to store your bread that also helps it to last longer (as there are no preservatives!) then we would also recommend the Debbie Meyer bread bags as they are made to help your breads last longer (same concept as the produce bags).  You can use these for any breads, including store bought rolls, etc. but we primarily use them to store our homemade breads in them.  We purchased them on clearance at Bed Bath and Beyond about nine months ago for $4.75. Amazon has them on sale now for $4.54 (with shipping for $4.99, does not qualify for Prime).  We used to have a plastic bread storage container, but it was long and skinny for the store bought loaves, and so it would never work for our homemade breads.  The Debbie Meyer bags come in different sizes and they fit odd or large shaped loaves without any problems. The box has 12 reuseable bread bags and you will get your money’s worth when your baked items can last longer!

See more Frugal and Thrifty Recipes

There is a new Philadelphia Cooking Creme printable coupon for .75/1.   You can grab a deal on these at Walmart and Target!

Here’s the deal:

• Buy 1 Philadelphia Cooking Creme for $2.48
• Then use .75/1 printable Philadelphia Cooking Creme coupon = final is $1.73

Remember what is awesome about this new coupon link is it will show up at the top left showing that its already clipped – no need for zip codes or searching through pages of coupons!

We have a few of these in our fridge and they are fantastic to pull-out for a quick dinner when mixed with pasta! Also, we have already tried about 4 of the recipes on the Kraft Philadelphia site.  They are really easy and very yummy!

With this creme, you can mix-in with a pasta, add a steamed veggie and a side salad.  The creme is very creamy, and our family is larger and so we actually mix 1 container with two boxes of pasta and it still tastes great and creamy!  For protein, we will add 1 cooked chicken and cubed breast or a can of tuna and we occasionally top with fresh diced tomato and green onion and fresh Parmesan!  With all of these ideas you have a quick, healthy, and very cheap meal and a variation of tastes with a few ingredients!

We wanted to post a favorite frugal breakfast recipe from our thrifty kitchen to yours on this Saturday morning!   This is a base recipe for both pancakes and waffles, and then each time we like to make something different with different fruit, chocolate and different mix-ins as well as a number of creative toppings!

We make this recipe that lasts us for a couple of months each time.  We store it in a reused #10 can with a lid, but any container (including reused Quaker Oats canisters!) will work to store this recipe.

Here’s how to make your base mix:

• 10 c. all-purpose flour (3 lbs.)
• 2 1/2 c. instant nonfat dry milk
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/4 c. baking power
• 2 tbsp. salt

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Stir together to blend well. Put in a large airtight container. Label. Store in a cool, dry place. Use within 6 to 8 months. Makes about 13 cups of pancake mix. This mix works for both waffles and pancakes.

TO MAKE PANCAKES OR WAFFLES:

• 2 c. homemade pancake mix
• 1 c. water
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp. oil (waffles – 3 tbsp.)

Beat smooth with a wire whisk or fork. This makes eight (4 inch) pancakes or four large waffles.

Also, we recommend printing this recipe for both the pre-made mix and the mix and taping it to your container so that you will be able to keep your container full of pre-made mix and find our pancake/waffle recipe easily!

We found this recipe several months ago on Cooks.com!

I was excited to see this sample! Why?  Well, I just started canning for the first time ever just this past week! We ordered 15 lbs. of organic plums from our co-op and turned them into plum jam (after the dozen or so the kids consumed!!).  It was a very intimidating task for me before-hand, but it as really fun and turned out well!

So, when I saw this sample, I had to tell you as I haven’t been this excited for a sample for a long time

If you are a canner, or want to start, per the recommendation of ladies in our church, head to the thrift stores now to get your glass cannning jars.  They are significantly cheaper and will be near impossible to find in the few weeks.  We found Ball and Kerr for .15 a jar (vs. .75 in-store). Also, we were able to borrow canning equipment from others in our church as well and so if you can find friends, neighbors, etc. where you can all share equipment, it will save loads of money! Now just watch for those cheap produce deals, or if you are blessed to have a fruit tree, then you are set!

On a side note: our organic plum jam is awesome! The first taste test was on homemade bread – YUM! However, I changed the recipe as I was floored that the fruit to sugar content was the same!! No wonder why we love Jam so much!! I canned 8 cups of plum jam, but only used 2.5 cups of sugar.  The taste of the natural fruit was already pretty sweet (they were very ripe when I used them) and so that amount of sugar was the right combination.  However, if anyone has sweetener alternatives that you would recommend for the future, I would LOVE to hear!!

Thanks!!

So grab your FREE Ball Real Fruit Classic Pectin Sample

See more FREE Samples

Thanks Money Saving Mom

Here is a nice FREEBIE for those who own devices that require Android App downloads! Jaime Oliver’s 20-minute meals is normally $7.99, but you can download it for FREE today only and instantly onto your Android device!

• Access 60 of Jamie Oliver’s quick and delicious recipes
• Watch videos guiding you through common cooking procedures
• See color photos of each recipe, including photos for each step
• Learn what ingredients and equipment Jamie recommends you keep handy
• Add ingredients to a shopping list, view by recipe or store aisle

Head to Amazon HERE to download your FREE app!

See more FREE Stuff

See even more deals on Amazon.

Thanks Savings and Stewardship

Betty Crocker has released their 2011 Best of Summer Recipes that you can download for FREE.  This 23 page e-book has some great recipes and ideas!

Thanks Utah Deal Diva

In continuation of our last minute super easy last-minute Holiday recipes, here is our next emergency recipe.

Many of you might have a holiday ham planned on your Christmas dinner menu for this week.  If so, we wanted to share a simple, 2-step homemade marinade that is so delightful to any palette!

You only need 2 ingredients!  How simple is that!

Here’s what you need: 2-parts of ginger ale and 1-part mustard! If you use 1/3 cup mustard, then use 2/3 cup ginger ale, etc.

To make:

• Make your 2-ingredient marinade
• Prepare your ham by making diamond slices in the top (make cuts about 1/2 inch into the ham both length-wise and width-wise.  This will create “diamond” shapes into the ham and allow the marinade to seep into the ham so that they ham can cook and soak up the flavors!
• Then pour your marinade over the ham (it will be thicker) and let is seep into the cuts and cook to package directions.
• Throughout the cooking process, using a baster, suck up the juices that leaked out and baste it over the top again.  You can also use a spoon for this too if you don’t have a baster.
• Serve and enjoy the sweet/tart and deliciously unique flavors of your Ham.

We have made this for both small and large family gatherings and everyone loved it and no ham was left over.  The slower the cooking the better as the ham just soaks up the flavors more and more the longer it cooks, plus it just falls apart and is so juicy!

You could even cook pineapple slices and maraschino cherries with your ham for an even more exotic flavor!

This ham is best served with either a butternut squash dish or sweet potato/yam dish! The flavors all compliment each other very well!

Thanks to the BaconBlogger.blogspot.com for the picture.

We wanted to share another holiday recipe with you today. Remember the theme of the last week before Christmas is easy last minute recipes but crowd pleasing! This really isn’t a recipe, but some refreshing and festive drink ideas that you can throw together at the last minute.

So next we will share a couple of really fun drink ideas with you! We saw a recipe in a magazine about 5 years ago for a Sparkling Champagne with Pomegranate – we wanted to share the original recipe and then some ideas to make it for a crowd of all ages!

The Original Recipe For a Sparkling Pomegranate Champagne:

• Remove the seeds from the Pomegranate.
• Soak the Pomegranate seeds in brandy overnight in the fridge. You only need enough brandy to cover the seeds.
• Then place a scoop of the soaked Pomegranate seeds in the bottom of the Champagne glass.
• Pour the chilled champagne over the top and serve.

We modified this recipe as we love Pomegranates and loved the idea of serving them in a drink! Our kids love the modified recipe, so it is a great drink for all ages!

• Remove the seeds from the Pomegranate
• Place a scoop of Pomegranate seeds in a wine/champagne shaped glass (the shape of the glass used really makes the drink fun as the Pomegranates will dance around in the glass!)
• Then pour Sparkling Cider, Sparkling Peach, Sparkling berry, etc. juice into the glass
• Then watch the Pomegranate seeds dance and explode in the drink like fireworks! It is so fun and the taste is awesome!

You can also serve a drink similar to this in a punch by making your favorite punch with half of the drink being a soda of some sort (for the bubbles!) like Sprite and then serve in your party glasses.  The “firework” effect won’t be exactly the same as in the glasses with Sparkling Juice, but it still tastes great!

One final drink idea that you can make with Pomegranate seeds is to freeze the seeds so they are like “mini ice cubes.”  These can be served in water, sparkling juice, punch and more. To do this, remove the seeds from the fruit.  Place a layer of wax paper on a baking sheet. Spread your Pomegranate seeds in as thin of a layer as possible. Then freeze the seeds overnight.  Then serve with your drinks!

We think that Pomegranate is one of the most fun and festive fruits you can use this time of year to make a fun holiday treat! Get creative and share some ideas on how you use pomegranates!

Thanks to HGTV.com and RubyRedPomegranates.co.uk  for the above pictures.

Mini Cheesecake Time! Super easy and yummy!

For the next four days we will be sharing some last minute recipes from dessert to main course – including drinks that are super easy and bring the WOW factor to the table or party! Since we are getting down to crunch time for the holidays, if you are like us, you are looking for recipes that are quick, easy, tasty and memorable!

So for the first recipe: Mini Cheesecakes both regular and chocolate with different variations!

We love, love, love this recipe! We have made it every year for many years. The original recipe was my mother’s and is still great.  We have also made some variations just to mix it up a bit and to kind of emulate a smorgasbord of cheesecake treats!

This is a perfect treat to take to a party or gathering any time of year and always bring the WOW to the crowd!

Here’s what you need for the classic recipe:

• 2 8oz. packages of cream cheese
• 3/4 sugar
• 24 Nilla Wafers
• 2 eggs
• Cherry Pie filling
• 24 muffin cups

Here’s how to make:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners.

2. Place one Nilla Wafer in the bottom of each cup.

3. Cream together with an electric mixer the cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla. You will want to make sure that this is “creamy” and not just mixed, but there will be a few clumps.

4. Fill each miniature muffin liner with this mixture, about 2/3 full.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes. They tops will not brown, but the edges will become a light golden brown.

6. Cool overnight in the fridge and then top with a teaspoonful of cherry pie filling right before serving.

For Chocolate Mini Cheesecakes:

• 2 8oz. packages of cream cheese
• 1/4 cup of Cocoa powder
• 3/4 sugar +1 Tablespoon
• 24 Nilla Wafers
• 2 eggs
• Cherry Pie filling
• 24 muffin cups

Here’s how to make:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners.

2. Place one Nilla Wafer in the bottom of each cup.

3. Cream together with an electric mixer the cream cheese, cocoa powder, sugar, eggs and vanilla. You will want to make sure that this is “creamy” and not just mixed, but there will be a few clumps.

4. Fill each miniature muffin liner with this mixture, about 2/3 full.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes. They tops will not brown, but you will know they are done when they slightly split on top.

6. Cool overnight in the fridge and then top with a teaspoonful of cherry pie filling right before serving.

Here are some ideas for different variations that we have tried and they ALL get our stamp of approval:

• Use a sugar cookie base for the crust.  We have used the pre-made Pillsbury sugar cookie and will take a small teaspoon full, roll in a ball and then flatten at the bottom of the muffin tins. This is Thrifty Al’s preferred crust!
• Hide a Hershey’s meltaway kiss in the cheesecakes for a sweet chocolate surprise. To do this, after placing the Nilla Wafer or Sugar Cookie crust, place an unwrapped Hershey’s Meltaway Kiss in the center and then cover with the mixture. You actually can’t even tell it is there and it makes for a true yummy surprise.  We highly recommend using the meltaways as you will serve this after cooling and the meltaways are perfectly soft for this. A regular kiss is too hard, but can still work.
• Top your creations with chocolate or mini chocolate chips right when they come out!
• Top with crushed nuts and caramel/chocolate drizzle.
• Use any flavor of fruit pie toppings (Blueberry, cherry, raspberry, etc.)
• Top with a Hershey’s Kiss in flavor of choice!

Enjoy this super yummy treat!

The picture above shows 3 regular Cherry and 3 Chocolate Cherry. You could divide your recipe in half and make half regular and half chocolate.  To do this, follow the original recipe, divide your batter in half and then add 2 TBS of cocoa powder and an additional 1 TBS of sugar to one half! This will make 12 of each in one batch!

Just in time for the baking week for Christmas! This is a super awesome deal for those Rice Krispy Treats! Even if you are not making Rice Krispies, they are one of our top cereals for breakfast too!

Here’s how to get two boxes of Rice Krispies and one package of marshmallows for $1.98 total:

• First, find your Walgreens ad so that you can price match the Rice Krispies at $1.99 each.

• Even if you don’t have an ad, Walmart stores carry their competitor’s ad in store!
• Then head to Walmart and buy 2 Boxes of Rice Krispies at $1.99 price match (regular or cocoa) and look for the packages that have the FREE marshmallows peelie coupon when you buy two Rice Krispies cereals.

• Buy 1 Marshmallows.
• Your total should be right around $4.98 for the three items
• Then use your FREE marshmallows peelie = $3.98
• Then use the $2.00/2 printable coupon for the Rice Krispies = final is $1.98 for all three items or .66 each!
  

Thanks I Heart The Mart for the deal and the pictures.

Then we found a fun website that shows several different fun holiday rice krispy treats that you can make! I love the Rice Krispy Candy Cane idea!  Head over to Squidoo for some ideas and share any links that you have for Rice Krispy treat ideas!

Often times, this time of year, we will use cookie cutter and make fun holiday shapes and then use colored sprinkles and even drizzle melted milk, dark and/or white chocolate on the treat!

This giveaway is now done but the recipe is timeless – check it out below! 

We were recently given the opportunity to try Pillsbury pie crusts.  We had some butternut squash that was given to us from a local readers garden that we had left.  We love Butternut squash and wanted to see if we could make a pie out of this squash.

We searched the internet and stumbled upon a recipe from the Farmer’s Daughter.  We decided to try this recipe above others because it had the least number of ingredients, least amount of steps and this gal won first prize in your local county fair for this pie.  That all sounded good to us so we gave it a shot!

Here’s what you will need:

• Fresh Butternut Squash to make 1 cup of squash puree
• 1 Pillsbury Pie Crust
• 1 cup heavy cream (we actually used 1/2 and 1/2 which was just perfect!)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 beaten eggs
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt

Here’s how to make:

(We did prepare our squash puree differently than she did.)

• Make your Squash puree first.  We cut of both end of the squash and cut the squash in half.  Scoop out the seeds and pulp.  Then with a vegetable peeler, peel off the skin.

• Then cube and chunk the flesh of the Butternut Squash.  Put in a pot of boiling water and boil for 10-15 minutes to where the squash becomes very soft (like mashed potato soft). Then drain and using a fork mash your squash to a puree.  Measure out 1 cup of the puree.

Time to assemble the pie!

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
• Following the directions on the Pillsbury Pie crust box, roll out your pie crust into your pie pan and crimp the edges.
• Then combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl and mix with with a wire whisk until smooth. Please note, it will be very liquidy, this is normal.
• Pour mixture into the pie crust and bake for 10 minutes.
• Reduce heat to 300 and bake for 50-60 more minutes until the filling is slightly puffed and the bottom crust is golden brown. We found ourselves cooking it for a little more than 60 minutes to get the slightly puffed middle and brown crust on the bottom.
• The pie will need to cool completely to set.
• Store in the refrigerator and serve with fresh whipping cream.

This pie was AMAZING and both Thrifty Al and myself thought that this could quite possibly be the best pie either of us have ever tasted! The pie itself turned out perfectly!

We made a second one to take to Thanksgiving dinner today – hopefully we can get our cream right as the pie looks just as amazing! The Pillsbury pie crusts were super easy to use, and very tasty.  It also took away the most laborious part of pie making (at least in my opinion) and I could focus more on the pie contents and perfecting that!

So….. How would you like to win a Pillsbury Pie Crust gift pack?

This set could make for a nice Christmas present(s), keep for yourself or even to be put away in your gift bin as a wedding gift.  Keep the FREE pie crusts.  The only thing that has the Pillsbury logo is on is the pot holder.  The pie pan is Pyrex and the nice measuring cup set with the apple shaped trivet, apple corer and apple timer.

It is EASY to enter!

Here’s how this giveaway works, there are four (4) possible ways of entering:

• Just leave a comment – either what your favorite homemade pie is to eat, make or share or other favorite things to make with Pillsbury pie crusts!

For additional entries:

• Like The Thrifty Couple on Facebook and then leave a comment to tell us you did.  If you’re already a Liker then even better!  Just leave us a comment and tell us you already are.

• Subscribe to The Thrifty Couple email updates PLUS then have our deals delivered to your inbox daily so never miss a deal or another giveaway! You must confirm your subscription before commenting (a confirmation email will be sent to you that you will need to click through to confirm that you would like to receive emails from us!)! If you are already a confirmed subscriber, just leave a comment for another entry. If you are already a confirmed subscriber, then just leave us a comment.

• Also, spread the love by telling your friends about this product and giveaway. Feel free to share this post and giveaway via email, or any social networking site of your choice. Of course, come back here and leave a comment on this post of each way that you shared.

This Giveaway will end on Monday, November 8th at 11:59 p.m. MDT. Get 1, 2, 3 or 4 entries to increase your chances of winning by following the ways to enter above.

A couple of addition points:

1. Leave a separate comment for each of the above things you do, each comment and activity you complete is an entry.
2. Be sure to leave your comments for entries here on this post to be counted as an entry.

*The information, Pillsbury prize pack and additional prize pack  have all been provided by Pillsbury through MyBlogSpark.

Plus – don’t forget about more upcoming Holiday giveaways!