My Christmas Goodie List… So Far

I brainstormed the other day to come up with a list of goodies to make at the holidays.  Some are the tried and true that we always seem to do every year and a couple of things I haven't made in years.

Here is my list:

Chewy Gingersnaps - love these!!!

Lemon Bars - love these too!!!

Thumbprint cookies - I fond candied cherries at the dollar store

Gingerbread - haven't made this in forever and my coworkers have requested it

Rum cake - love it but have never made it myself

Sugar cookies - it isn't Christmas without an afternoon spent decorating sugar cookies

Rum Cake

I say "so far" because should we decide to add onto the list or make something else entirely we probably will.  We always seem to anyway.  The list is short as there is always more than enough at the holidays and we do tend to get a little carried away.  This year I'm trying to curb that a bit.

Gingerbread

I like to come up with my list early so I make sure I get everything we need ahead of time.  It is no fun to set out to make lemon bars when you don't have any lemon juice.  Plus having a plan allows me to take advantage and buy the things we need when they are on sale rather than having to pay full price.

Lemon Bars

I have plain white paper plates in the pantry that I plan to use for giving goodies to friends and neighbors.  I had thought about tins or Christmas themed containers but decided to save that money and put it toward ingredients instead.

Cherry Thumbprint Cookies

What are your favorite goodies?  Do you make a list each year?  How much of it do you give away to friends and family?

Another Thrifty Christmas Gift

Make a hot cocoa mug!

I love this gift idea and I have given variations of it a number of times.  It is quick to put together and great as a coworker, teacher or neighbor gift.

Grab a Christmas themed or even a plain red mug.  You can find them super cheap at thrift stores and at the dollar store too.  Fill it with two or three packets of hot cocoa mix (or your own homemade).

Add a bundle of miniature or Christmas shaped marshmallows by simply placing a handful in the center of a square of cling wrap.  I've even sprinkled in some chocolate chips with the marshmallows.  Then pull the corners together and tie with some curling ribbon.

Tuck in some mini candy canes or peppermint candies and you're done.  I like to set the filled mug in the center of a large square of clear or colored cellophane and tie it up with ribbons and bows too, but more cling wrap or even those treat bags they sell at the dollar store will work just as well.

For the adults you can add a mini bottle of peppermint schnapps.  Yummers!

Cheeseburger Macaroni

In the olden days, when my son was young, we liked Hamburger Helper's Cheeseburger Macaroni.  Still do, but the sodium content makes it one of those things I have to stay away from.  Not to mention, I'm not entirely sure what is in that box.  MSG and I don't get along very well and I know that is one ingredient that is listed on the box.

For years I've tried various recipes that tout they taste just like the stuff.  The last recipe I tried came pretty darn close.  But still a little off and way too salty for my taste.  So the girls and I have been experimenting and we came up with our version.

Cheeseburger Macaroni

1 lb. lean ground beef

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 3/4 cup beef broth

2 cups milk

2 cups elbow macaroni

1 cup grated cheddar - sharp, medium, or mild

Over medium heat brown ground beef and onion in a large deep skillet or pot, drain fat.  Stir in seasonings.  Add broth, milk and macaroni.  Combine well.  Turn down heat and allow to simmer 10 minutes stirring occasionally.  Test macaroni for doneness.  Remove from heat, sprinkle cheese across the top.  Stir in cheese, thoroughly.  Serves 4 to 6.

The girls gave this recipe their seal of approval and that is all I need.  It makes for a super quick meal to prepare too.  If you happen to love that box of Hamburger Helper, give this recipe a try and see what you think.

Look What Cindy Did!

Not too long ago one of my readers contacted me asking if I might be interested in making a trade.  I think bartering is a great deal of fun so I was game.  I had something she was interested in.  A vintage embroidery pattern that I had acquired on eBay.  She offered up this book!

When I got the book I was super excited to dig into it.  What I love, that she has done here, is given some great history about the people that headed west during the gold rush, but also about the quilts they made.

There are also some great quilt patterns in here that I am seriously interested in trying.

Cindy did such a great job putting this book together and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.  Now I'm anxious to make a few quilt squares too.

If you love quilting and want to add this unique book to your quilt book collection I think this would be a great one.  Cindy also has a book out on crazy quilts and another one for quilting with handkerchiefs.

I know how much work it takes to not only write a book, but to get it published.  Great job Cindy and thank you so much for sharing this book with me.

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

I used some of our free eggs, free bacon, free orange juice and free English muffins I got last month to make Sunday breakfast.  Free food always manages somehow to taste better, I think.  Ha, ha.

I spent the majority of my Sunday writing and writing and writing.  It was heavenly.

This was a good pizza with a whole wheat crust

It was definitely a used it up kind of a week for us.  I had lots of this and that leftover in the refrigerator.  I veered off our meal plan this week so I could prepare meals that would use up these things before they went bad.  Monday I used leftover Canadian bacon, pepperoni, grated cheese and leftover pineapple slices that I chopped up to make a couple pizzas for supper.

Used up the last of the sweet relish too

Tuesday I served up leftover smoked sausages.  I had mine with leftover salad and my oldest finished up the leftover baked beans while my youngest had leftover Sunday dinner.  I took the leftover Sunday dinner in my lunch on Monday and again on Wednesday.

I had two leftover hard boiled eggs so I chopped them up.  I used a rubber spatula to scrape out the last of the mayonnaise and had just enough to mix up the egg salad.  I took one of our free English muffins and toasted a half to top with the egg salad for breakfast - twice.

I also added a couple tablespoons of milk to the mayonnaise jar and shook it real good to get the rest I couldn't get with a spatula.  I added the milk and mayo mixture to our latest batch of homemade salad dressing.  Made it so much easier to rinse out the jar for the recycle bin too.

Oh my gosh, these were good!

Wednesday evening I cut up four slices of our free bacon leftover from Sunday breakfast, cooked it crispy and scrambled it together with half a dozen eggs, also free.  Then I warmed up half a dozen leftover flour tortillas and added a bit of leftover grated cheddar.  I pulled a jar of our homemade salsa out of the pantry and voilá.  Breakfast burritos for supper and they were delicious.

We had cream leftover from the prior week's shrimp and pasta alfredo.  Thursday evening I pulled a new box of pasta (49¢) out of the pantry and made a batch of fettucine alfredo.  I served it with leftover salad mix that I added some leftover black olives too and an assortment of leftover salad dressings.

By Friday morning I was scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to what to fix for lunch.  I ended up taking leftover salad with a couple tablespoons of leftover grated cheddar sprinkled on top and half a hamburger bun to toast.  It worked.

Last summer I had made up a small container of homemade pancake mix to take camping.  I used that up with a couple of our free eggs and some milk for another breakfast for supper meal Friday evening.  We had homemade syrup and apple butter to go on top of the pancakes.  I fried up some more eggs and sliced a couple of apples that were rolling around in the crisper drawer.

Saturday it was back to the smoked sausages and hotdog buns left in the refrigerator.  I put some tater tots in the oven.  I found them in the bottom of the freezer in the kitchen, I had pretty much forgotten about them being in there.  I also cleared out the crisper drawer and used up the last of our salad fixings.

I used up the last of my face cream from the tube I had cut open a couple weeks ago and finished digging out the rest of my pumpkin pie chapstick from the tube with a toothpick.  Now it is all gone (sniff).

Right now we have a bottle of ketchup and a bottle of mustard sitting upside down in our refrigerator and a bottle of shower gel set upside down in the bathroom.

On the way home from a meeting Saturday afternoon (Robotics is about to start up again) we dropped off library books and checked out new ones.  To save on fuel the youngest and I hung out there until the oldest was ready to be picked up.

I used up another empty toilet paper tube and stuffed it full of dryer lint to make a fire starter with.  I used a sheet of my daughter's homework (she was done with it and it was just laying there) to wrap up another tube I had filled up the week before.

We shared spinach leaves and bread heels with the chickens.  I had lots of extra spinach and I could have used the bread heels to toast for our breakfast but they love my bread and I love them so that is how that worked.  I also shared some of our blueberry bagels with them.

I worked several hours of overtime, all from home.  I plan to use that extra bit on my paycheck to pay off the girl's coats that I put on my JC Penney card.  I'll have a few hours again this week as well to add to the pot.

I washed and reused several Ziploc bags.

I did not do any grocery shopping this week.

So after all of that gleaning of the leftovers my week wasn't just thrifty, but downright frugal.  And my kitchen cabinet I keep the food storage dishes in is really, really full right now.  Food waste = zero.  Mission accomplished.

How was your thrifty week?

Need A Thrifty Christmas Gift?

One of my favorite things to give is the gift of a really good breakfast.

Pancake Mix

Pancake Syrup

Jam

Hot Cocoa Mix

Tea

You can choose to purchase your items at the grocery store or you can make them yourself.  For recipes click on the items above.

I use this to make our favorite pancake syrup.  Recipe on the bottle!

I like to put my syrups in a Snapple bottle.  You can put the pancake mix in a plastic bag and tie it with a twist tie and then sew a simple little drawstring bag to tuck it inside.  Jelly jars or jars you have saved to recycle work great for the jam, cocoa and tea. 

I'd love to make some of these

Assemble all of your items in a cute basket or gift bag.  You have just made a very nice and thrifty gift for someone special on your list.  Good job!

How I Care For My Sweaters

I wear my sweaters nearly every day.  I have a variety of colors to coordinate with an assortment of sleeveless and short sleeved tops.  My work environment is what I would describe as professional casual attire.  We have a dress code and it is rather specific, but coat and tie is not the norm for everyday.  A nice sweater fits the bill quite nicely with the added benefit that it keeps me warm.

It is very easy to mess up a sweater in the wash.  I know because I've done it.  More than once.  Nothing is more frustrating than to accidently mess up a piece of clothing you spent money on.  Or to have it fade and pill after just a few washings.  Through trial and error I finally figured out what works for me.

I use the short wash setting on my machine, set it for normal soil and a medium high extraction, as sweaters soak up a lot of water, warm water with a cold rinse.  I use a minimal amount of soap and fabric softener and let it run through the cycle.  I have a hand wash cycle on my machine, but the sweaters come out really soggy.  I found the short wash cycle is gentle enough.

After the washer shuts off I pull them out immediately before they have a chance to wrinkle and put them on my drying rack.  This rack was our clothes dryer for over a year in our RV.  It works great.  I plan to take it with me to the future retirement house.

The red sweater is 20 years old!  Still looks new.

They dry overnight and then are ready to hang.  Sometimes the cuffs are still a little damp so I will usually leave them hanging in the laundry room an extra day to make certain they are thoroughly dry.

So far all of the sweaters I've purchased in the last year have remained brightly colored and pill free.  They haven't shrunk or stretched either.  I'm sure some you have other ways of washing sweaters, but I just thought I'd share with you how I do it.