Thrifty Meals Around $5 or Less - Baked Gnocchi

I made this for my girls a couple of weeks ago and they declared it delicious!  And blog worthy too.  So here you go!

Baked Gnocchi

2 pkg. potato gnocchi

1 jar pasta sauce

1/4 cup grated parmesan

1/2 cup cream

1 cup grated mozzarella

Cook gnocchi according to package directions, drain and set aside.  In a large pot heat pasta sauce with parmesan until it comes up to a bubble and the cheese has melted.  Remove from heat and stir in the cream.  Add in the gnocchi and gently stir to coat well with the sauce.  Place gnocchi into a lightly oiled 9" X 13" baking dish.  Sprinkle with mozzarella.  Cover in foil and place into a 350° oven for 30 minutes.  Remove foil and allow to cook until cheese is lightly browned.  Serves 8.

I "baked" mine it the microwave for 5 minutes and it turned out beautifully.  The girls said it was really good and I had a hard time not trying a bite because it smelled wonderful.

Here is the breakdown on what it cost me:

Gnocchi - 2 pkgs -  $2.00

Pasta sauce - 99¢

Parmesan - 50¢

Cream -  40¢

Mozzarella - 50¢

Grand Total - $4.39

I got the gnocchi at the dollar store and it is really good.  I got the pasta sauce on sale, parmesan at Winco for 2.38 a container, cream from a quart ($3.24) so it is less than a smaller container would be and the mozzarella was a loss leader for 99¢ a package.

In some cases costs are approximated.  Groceries prices vary depending on where you live.  I don't include condiments, oils, herbs and spices when I figure the cost of a meal as it would be incredibly tedious to do so.  Plus condiments are subjective as each person uses more or less.

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

Sunday morning I woke up to rain as well as peace and quiet.  So I settled in with a hot cup of coffee and spent my morning relishing the silence and getting caught up on some writing.  I really love my quiet Sunday mornings.

Around 9:30 that morning it really poured for nearly an hour and everything was drenched.  We had omelets for breakfast and then settled in to watch movies and DVDs from our own collection.

Monday was one of those days I don't really care for with back to back events scheduled.  My youngest had her school physical at 5:45 for next year and my oldest had an awards ceremony where she was recognized for being on the honor roll.  Fortunately both events were at the high school.  We arrived at 5:30 and didn't make it home until 9:00 making for a long evening mostly spent standing in lines.  Next time the young one needs her school physical it will be at the doctor's office.  Three hours is much too long to spend, in my opinion.

Tuesday evening the oldest and I attended a college fair for Northwestern, SWU, NYU, Tulane and George Washington universities.  It was good to see her get excited and I realized my summer is going to be spent filling out a lot of forms to get ready for the application process.  The time has come.

My oldest played with the band at their high school's graduation Wednesday night.  Hard to believe, but one year from now she will be the one graduating.  Where does the time go?

After the first half of the week things slowed down quite a bit and life was much calmer as we edged toward a much anticipated three day weekend.  Of course I had a long list of things I hoped to get done, but no pressure to complete it all.  I wanted it to be restful, as well as productive.

Last week I spent quite a bit of time working on a project I had originally planned to start during the winter, but didn't.  Finally, on Sunday, I got it started.  The Photo Project!  That big box of photos that has been staring at me since last fall (and the main reason I set up the project table in my living room) is starting to see some action.  It is going to be a big job, but I can do this!  One chunk at a time.

Despite the rain showers off and on we made some more progress on our garden and in our yard.  Again, no complaints about the weather as our lawn is looking great and so are our new flowerbeds.  Win!

How was your thrifty week?

Memorial Day

Christmas Project #5 - Christmas Cards

I love to make my own Christmas cards.  Last year I bought mine and it just wasn't the same so this year I knew I had to make my own.  And I did something a little different this time.  I made some of them out of our old Christmas cards I'd saved as well as paper, cardstock and envelopes I had in my stash.

Several years ago I bought a couple boxes of the invitation size envelopes from Amazon so I had plenty of those on hand.  I'd also bought a ream of white cardstock at the same time and I've been working my way through that ever since on a variety of projects.  After sorting through my collection of old cards I was ready to get to work.

I used my paper cutter to cut sheets of cardstock in half and then folded those pieces in half.  Then I decorated the fronts with images I cut from the old Christmas cards.  I used some of my scrapbooking paper to mattes the with images too.  I added some snowflake embellishments I'd bought at the dollar store to some of them added a little more pizzazz.

I love how nicely these turned out

Once I come up with this year's Christmas greeting I plan to type it up and print it out on some nice paper.  Then cut it out and glue it inside each of my cards.  Then I'll sign them, tuck in our annual Christmas letter, stuff them in an envelope, address them and send them on their way.

I have these fun Christmas stickers to add to my envelopes now too

It was a lot of fun and a very enjoyable afternoon spent crafting these cards.  I even had enough scraps left when I was finished to make a couple more gift tags.  I am really enjoying making my own tags this year as well.

For me sending out cards at Christmas is really important.  Often, for a lot of our friends and relatives, especially those that live far away, it is the only gift we give them.  So I try to make them extra nice and special.

It is kind of becoming a bit of a lost art.  Do you send out Christmas cards each year?

Investment Grocery Shopping

Saturday afternoon my oldest and I made a quick trip to Albertson's to pick up meat that was on sale.  They have their pot roast on again for $1.99 a pound and pork chops for 99¢ a pound.  

I bought four roasts and two large packages of chops.  I even found a package of breakfast sausage on markdown.

One of the loss leaders was boxes of granola bars for 79¢ a box.  I bought the max of four boxes to put up for school lunches in the fall.  

With the big bag of assorted chips and now the granola bars I've got a great start already and so far I've only spent $7.15 of my $10 monthly budget this month.  Even though school will be out June, July and the first few weeks of August I plan to continue to use my monthly allotment to continue stocking up with extra items as I find them on sale.

My oldest convinced me to get more ramen on sale for 12¢ each and some boxes of macaroni & cheese 2/$1 for easy lunches this summer.  I agreed as it will be nice for them to have these options whenever we run low on leftovers or they just want something different.

I divided up all the meat I bought at Albertson's along with the chicken and steaks I picked up from Fred Meyer on Friday into meal sized packages.  I put the packages into larger Ziploc bags to ward off freezer burn and then into the chest freezer in our garage.

Stocking up when there are really good sales, markdowns and loss leaders helps me a lot to control the amount I spend on our groceries and keep our monthly budget really low.  Making healthy and delicious meals for my family is important to me.  Making them affordable is too!

Vegetable Of The Week

It doesn't really matter what type of dietary lifestyle you lead, sometimes getting enough vegetables into your diet can be a bit daunting.  Keeping a variety that doesn't bore you to tears can be a challenge as well.  But, thanks to a suggestion from my nutritionist I came up with an idea to help me along.

The piece of advice I was given was to focus on a particular vegetable each week and come up with a variety of ways to prepare that vegetable each time.  Brilliant!  We have since dubbed it "Vegetable Of The Week".

I made a list of our favorite vegetables:

Broccoli - raw, steam, roast, sauté, include in recipes

Green Beans - sauté, roast, include in recipes

Asparagus - steam, sauté, roast

Carrots - raw, steam, roast, sauté, stir fry, include in recipes

Mushrooms - raw, stuffed, sauté, stir fry, include in recipes

Cauliflower - raw, riced, steamed, roasted, include in recipes

Cabbage - raw, steamed, braised, roasted, stir fried, include in recipes

Zucchini - sauté, roast, bake, include in recipes

Yellow Squash - sauté, roast

Each week we pick a vegetable that will be the main focus.  A featured guest at our table, so to speak.  We prepare that veggie two or three different ways and then move on to another one the next week.  It really helps to break up the potential for boredom or monotony and forces us to think of new ways to prepare our food.

Broccoli is one of those veggies that our family really enjoys and is extremely versatile.  We like to toss it in a little olive oil, minced garlic and some salt and pepper and then roast it in the oven until it just starts to crisp a little on the edges.  My oldest can't get enough.  And cream of broccoli soup is sooo good!

Our favorite way to prepare fresh green beans, hands down, has to be sautéing them in olive oil or bacon fat with sliced mushrooms and then finishing them off with a big spoonful of minced garlic and some soy sauce.

Asparagus is good sautéed or roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Or steamed and tossed with butter is fantastic too.

Carrots are awesome raw, steamed or roasted and tossed with butter, salt and pepper, grated or julienned into salads, grated and added to dessert recipes, or as part of a stir fry.

We love to stuff mushrooms, slice them into salads or to add with other veggies, and of course they are excellent as part of a pasta sauce or sautéed with peppers and included in an omelet.

Cabbage is another versatile vegetable that is great raw or cooked.  We use it a lot in a variety of salads as well as steamed and dressed with butter, salt and pepper.  It is also fantastic shredded and added to soups in place of pasta.

Zucchini and Yellow Squash really go well together and I will often slice them up and saute or roast them in olive oil with garlic, basil, salt, pepper and some butter.  Delish!  And of course zucchini is great julienned and used in place of pasta as well as shredded and used in muffins, bread, and Zucchini Bites.  I also diced it up and add it to soups and pasta, slice it and add to lasagna or shred it and add it to meatloaf.

So there are some ideas for you on what you can do with a variety of veggies.  If you have some other ideas please share them in the comments below.  I'm always looking for more ideas.

Thrifty Pea & Bean Trellis

We did a quick little project on Saturday in our garden as we are close to ready to start planting.  Our weather is warming up and the snow is off the peak so the plan over Memorial Day weekend is to put in the garden.  But first we needed to build a trellis for the peas and beans to climb.

The criteria for this project was to build something that looked nice, was sturdy and durable, and didn't cost us anything.  We scrounged around in the garage and came up with enough wood leftover from prior projects to build the frame, add some support pieces.

I had a box of deck screws to use to put it all together with and then we stapled up chicken wire because we have plenty of that around here.  I think it looks pretty good for a no cost project and will definitely get the job done.

Now on to the next project!