Cooking Club

I forgot my camera! So sorry! The appetizers were all amazing and we had such a great time sitting in Mona's patio and enjoying the gorgeous fall weather.

 We had Leabanese wrapped chicken appetizers that you dip in homemade hummus. Yum! We also had an amazing taboule salad. I am totally addicted! Orange blossom lemonade, and Lebanese Mate.

I made Sun-dried tomato and goat cheese Palmiers. Courtesy of the Barefoot Contessa

Maureen made fruit kabobs with maple cream cheese dip and cherry cream cheese dip. So delicious! We had a great time. Join us next month for traditional holiday dishes and desserts.

Cooking Club

Some friends and I decided to start a Cooking Club. We get together once a month and bring a dish that we want to share. Every month we have a different theme. This month we are working on Appetizers. We are meeting tomorrow at Mona's house. Mona is my new friend and walking partner. She is an mazing cook and baker. She is so talented and kind and generous. I am learning so much from her. Tomorrow night I will post photos from our appetizer day.

October-Harvest
November-Appetizers
December- TBA

Careful Budgeting

This last month I have gotten back into careful budgeting of my food bill. I got out of the habit for about 2-3 months and ouch! I realized I was going over the food budget weekly. Menu planning is essential. This is a typical Wednesday shopping trip for me. I go to two stores and sometimes three. I know it sounds crazy, but it works. They are all close to each other and I can stay under my $150 weekly budget. This includes 6-7 dinners, afterschool snacks and lunches for one week, and 7 or more breakfasts. Its not always easy to stick to it. Last month I went over on one week because of Halloween treats.

For about two months I was trying to stay close to $100. It was extremely difficult to do. I was wondering why and I realized that it's because everything I buy is fresh. Believe it or not, it is cheaper to cook unhealthy and out of a box. Is that insane or what? I refuse to feed my family that way, even if it is cheaper.

I know it isn't easy to stay within a budget especially for a large family, but I know you can do it!

Don't people cook anymore?

I have talked to so many women lately who say they don't cook. They simply don't enjoy it. I don't always enjoy it, but we can't live on fast food or cereal. The occasional cereal night is welcome in our home, but it doesn't happen often. When I have seriously sat down with someone and asked more questions, they finally admit they just don't know how to cook. Well, I tell them, you have to start somewhere. I knew some basics when I got married and just experimented. Sometimes I burned food. Other times it just didn't taste quite right. It still happens. I made a recipe for chili yesterday and it was more like soup. Oh well! We still ate it and it was yummy.

 Basically, I want to encourage women to learn the basics. Don't be afraid. Just do it! And please teach your kids to cook too. It is such a valuable lesson! When they are teens, they can help. When they go away to college, go on a mission, or get married, they will already have acquired the basics.

Drab to Fab!

This project is one of my favorites so far. The girls have been in need of a new nightstand for some time. We have painted their old one twice, but it has no drawers and so things look messy and cluttered. I love that each of my girls has a drawer now. I chose the black knobs to match their white chest of drawers. I am really happy with the results and so are the girls.

Progress

Remember this lovely chair? The paint is done, but I'm stuck on the fabric. I want it to be as funky as the paint color. Definetely bold and bright. Let me know if you have any ideas. Some Amy Butler fabric or something fun like that is what I'm leaning towards.

Blue Blue Blue

The boys headboards are finally finished. I have had these a few months in the garage. I found these on the curb on the way to pick up Wes from Piano lessons. They had a yucky oak grain on them. I sanded and primed and had to put three coats of blue to cover the primer and grain. It took forever because I had to let them dry between coats. I let the boys choose the color. I think they turned out nice. I would have preferred a grayer blue, but this is what they wanted. What do you think? Fun, huh? The middle photo makes them look lighter than they really are. The are more like the other pictures.

Double- Tiered White for Sweets for the Soul

Sweets for the Soul is a delicously yummy chocolate treat shop. They make cupcakes, brownies, truffles, and other amazing treats. The owner called me and asked for another two-tiered stand. This is what I came up with. She loved it! Yeah Red Hen!


I also sold 4 of my 6 cake stands that I had on consignment at the Ivy's Flower Station. Hooray!

What a Find!

Isn't it gorgeous? I was minding my own business on my way to the grocery store and what do I see down a street? A beautiful shabby chic find. It has great potential. i can't decide whether to keep it or sell it. I will attempt my first upholstery job. Wish me luck!

Budget and Projects

I am plugging along in my grocery budget. I have managed to lower the weekly food bill by about $50-$75. Some weeks are better than others. Shopping the ads is the secret, plus I receive great coupons from Ralphs in the mail periodically. I can't always count on those though, because I don't always need those things. But everything helps. Last week I didn't as well as the past two months, but menu planning is essential.
I also have tried a new sourdough bread recipe that is Yum! The family loves it! I have made yogurt twice so far. it seems to last about two weeks. We are using it for smoothies mainly. I love it plain with nuts and a little honey.

As far as the projects go, well you'll see what I've been busy with lately.

Bread Baking Day

Second rising after the bread has been shaped.
I later decided to put them in pans because they were spreading out instead of rising.
They weren't rising as much as they needed to after 4 hours, so I left them out overnight.

I baked them this morning at 6:30. Wish you could have smelled the kitchen. Yum!

The texture turned out great. The starter turned out to be pretty sour and my friend's recipe contains honey, so the flavor is sour with a bit of sweetness to it. A bit funky, but still yummy.

Overall, I feel that I have learned tons about baking and especially about sourdough bread. I've baked bread several times before and have always failed, so I had basically abandoned it for years. I'm gonna try again and make a couple of changes. I have the other starter that I need to try too. (the one made with yeast and sugar) I'll keep you posted.

Food Waste Tuesdays

Every Tuesday I have been going through my fridge because Wednesday is shopping day and I need to make room. In my attempt to be frugal and use up our leftovers, sometimes I still overlook food and it is wasted. It makes me so sad to throw food away.
So here we have two avocados, half of a pb&j sandwich, lentil soup, and leftover roast. I also threw away some celery(not pictured)
I hope to do better this week.

Exciting News for "Red Hen"

Ivy's Flower Station bought 6 of my plates on consignment. She just used one of my plates For Caprice's Bridal Gown's Trunk Show. It's a pretty posh Bridal Gown Boutique in Glendale. Hooray! My plates are out there and getting noticed. If you'd like to see more you can go to Ivy's Flower Station.com and that links to her blog called Diary of a Mad Florist.  I know they are hard to see under those gorgeous flowers, but my plates are down there.

Remember this desk?

 

Before

After 

Isn't it gorgeous? Willie was right to want to stain it instead of paint it. We love how it turned out and we have so much storage space. The top is huge! We have so much room to spread out papers, kids homework, etc.

Sourdough Starter

whole wheat flour and water

yeast, whole wheat flour, and sugar

This morning I walked into the kitchen 1 hour after feeding the starter and it was almost to the rim. Yahoo! This is day 3 of the starter. It takes about 7-12 days to get a good starter going that I can bake with.

Whole wheat flour, yeast, sugar, and water

When I saw that my first starter wasn't doing much, I cheated and started on one with yeast.
So, I have two going on right now.

A friend of mine in Arizona makes the most amazing whole wheat bread and rolls with her sourdough starter. She has been baking bread since she was about 11. She is truly amazing. Now, my other friend is baking with her every week and they bake several loaves for their families weekly.

Here is the amazing part about sourdough. It is a live organism that is stored in the fridge and is fed weekly with flour and water. That's it! Nothing artificial. As it sits out on your counter top and ferments, natural occurring yeast from the environment is collected through the air and forms in your mason jar. I have been reading on sourdough starters and am trying to get mine going because I am determined to learn to bake bread. Every time I try, it turns out too heavy, raw in the middle, etc. I stink at it. But I am gonna do it this time! I must! For the sake of my family!, We must stay away from preservatives and artificial sweeteners. Here's the interesting thing. My friend's bread isn't sour at all, it's more on the sweet side. If my experiment fails, a friend will be bringing me some starter from AZ. I'll keep you posted.

Modifying the Grocery Budget

Okay, it's Sunday and we still have tons of food left. We have had leftovers once and we still have more. Yesterday we didn't eat at home so we will have an extra dinner this week, but I am sure we will have more.
When I buy meat I buy family packs and they usually can work for two dinners. Depends on what I make I guess. It's looking like $150 will last more than one week. I'm sure I'll have to but more milk, but that's about it. Later in the week I will have a better guess at the amount. I am gonna try to get it down to $125.

Family of Six

Some of you might be thinking I am spending too much and others too little, but just know that I have 4 kids and I live in California. Actually, you'd be surprised at the prices around here. Many things are much more affordable than in AZ, especially since I get all my produce at a local grocery store.

My kids eat lots! I have almost two teens, so my bills will be different than many of you.
We also go through 5 gallons of milk weekly. Sometimes a little more.
We go through way too much cereal!! Way too fast!!

If you have any suggestions or great healthy and affordable recipes, please let me know. I love new recipes!

Meal Planning

In my constant quest to cut down our grocery bill, I have come up with an adequate budget for my weekly shopping bill. I have been teased by my husband and kids because I shop at two stores, sometimes three.
The last few months I calculated I could shop for 6-7 meals, lunches for 4 kids, breakfast for one week and after school snacks for about $175. I thought I could do better and I have been doing it for a little less when I am organized and have a menu.

Well, I have narrowed it down to about $150. I can probably do it for a little less, but I will not sacrifice fresh and healthy ingredients or my constant desire for new ethnic dishes. Have you noticed that eating healthy is more expensive than mac n cheese? I hate mac n cheese by the way. 

Here is the menu for this next week. I do my shopping on Wednesdays because that is when the ads begin.

The following is actually my menu beginning Tuesday.

Tue-   Tuscan Soup (So yummy) Made with sausage, kale, cannellini beans, and potatoes.

Wed- Spaghetti and Meatballs, steamed chayote, cauliflower, and carrots, and roasted red pepper and corn soup


Thur-  Breakfast Night  Mock Souffle(lots of veggies), hash browns, and juice  

Fri-    Puchero (Argentinian meal, sorta like chicken and vegetable soup) 

Sat-   Leftovers


Sun-  Baked Tilapia with brown rice and green salad

Mon-Homemade chili and corn bread

Tue-  Baked chicken Nuggetts and Baked French Fries, and green salad

Wed-Chicken Tacos, Brown Rice and Refried Beans 

I am pretty sure I bought more food than I needed for one week.
I am also really trying to cut down on fridge waste. I feel so bad when food spoils and I have to toss it.

*We are pretty flexible about the menu, sometimes I switch the dinners around to other days, so I just post the dinners, but I don't assign them a day of the week.

Hope that inspires you to be more frugal and more organized. It is one of my New Year's resolutions.

We will also be cutting back on cold cereal. It is so expensive! We all love eggs and oatmeal, so we will be having it more often. Cream of Wheat is also a great one. Plus, it's way healthier than any cold cereal.

Frugal Living

We have always lived frugally not only because of necessity but because it's smart. Our church leaders also constantly encourage us to live within our means and stay out of debt.

I have been inspired by some frugal and thrifty people to keep better track of my daily expenses. There are some expenses that we can easily cut down on if we are organized and a bit creative.
For example, we can shop at thrift stores for our clothes. I have found some really great clothes, curtains, fabric, plates, and even furniture.

My favorite brown corduroy jacket is from Gap, but I bought it at the thrift store. I have Gap, Banana republic, JJill, Guess, and other great clothes from thrift stores.
I have found Roxy, Hurley, Quicksilver, and other name brands my kids like. Do you know how much money I've saved? Tons!

We can also cut down on our grocery bill. We need to shop the ads and clip coupons. I am not great at the coupons, but I'm trying. Do your shopping and keep track of how much you need for your weekly meals and how much is going to unnecessary spending. You'll be surprised at how much you can save.

A New Business

I am starting a new business called "Red Hen." I have been busy making cake stands and last week I sold seven of them. I use vintage plates from thrift stores and estate sales and also new plates. I will also sell other vintage items such as my painted furniture. I am excited about this new opportunity. Soon I will have a website where you can check out my stuff and purchase some too.