Saturday, October 30, 2010

Hamburgers and Homemade Buns

So, I had this bread:
I really really didn't want to throw it away. So I used it to make breadcrumbs to put in hamburgers

The reason it looks like that is probably because I used too much wheat flour, so  when I kneaded it the gluten strands were cut. Or it didn't rise enough, or both.


Making this meal I started making the buns first.

Dissolve 1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoon) yeast in 1/4th a cup of warm water.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter and heat 6 teaspoons (3/8 cup, if you have a 1/8 cup measure like me) in microwave. Add 2 tablespoons (1/8 cup) sugar and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Beat in 1 egg and then add to the yeast water. Blend well then add flour till a proper dough for kneading (about 2-4 cups or so)

Knead till smooth and elastic, when you can get a proper gluten window.

Place in bowl and cover with warm tea towl. Or if you don't have a tea towel (like me) heat a cup of water in a microwave safe dish for 2 minutes. Quickly place your bowl of dough in the microwave and do not open the microwave. This keeps it nice and moist and warm, just like the tea towel. Rise about 45 minutes to an hour.

Punch down dough and cut (don't tear, that ruins the bubbles!) into either 12 small balls or about 8 larger ones. Roll into a ball and slightly flatten between your palms.

Place on a well greased baking sheet, and either cover with tea towl again or do the trick with the microwave. I had two pans (for the 12) that I placed my raised cooling rack over one pan so I could fit both in microwave. Rise for 30-45 minutes.  ( I started my hamburgers at this time*)

Preheat your oven to 350. When finished with rise brush with egg white or butter, Bake for 12-20 minutes until golden brown.  Make sure you let them cool on wire rack for 10 minutes before trying to cut, these will be the BEST hamburger buns you have ever eaten, so soft and delicious!!!!

*For the Hamburgers 
I grated my too dense wheat bread and just poured some into my thawed hamburger meat. (sorry I didn't measure!) Added 2 eggs and some salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Formed into patties and pan fried. I added the bacon grease I had from frying up bacon for these burgers and the twice baked potatoes (another recipe for another time) to cook in. We had barbecue sauce for those who wanted it, and cheese and bacon to place on the burgers.

Was the best homemade meal! I hope you try it! Tell me how it goes!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Monkey bread

Reason for drop was not using a bundt pan, center was a bit gooey, but good!


Okay, I have been craving a recipe for homemade monkey bread for MONTHS. Its also called cinnamon Pull-Aparts. I wanted to make it with Brittany back in Missouri, but unfortunately cooks.com was letting me down. All I could find were the ones that used refrigerated pre-made dough. But now, I have found it! A recipe completely from scratch!

And please note, though I made this at 6 am, (couldn't sleep), it can actually be made the night before and put in the fridge to rise and baked in the morning.

Dough:

1 package (2 1/2 teaspoons) yeast
1/4 cup of warm water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
3/4 cup warm mlik
1 egg
3 cups flour

Dipping:
1/2 cup melted butter
Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Sugar combined

Start with dissolving the yeast in warm water while you heat the milk and melt the butter. What I did was measure my milk in my larger sized pyrex liquid cup, put the butter in and heated in microwave. Stirred that up and added the salt, sugar and egg and whisked together. I then mixed my yeast with the 1/2 the flour and added my cup of liquids, and mixed in the other flour.

Once it is combined into a ball knead until smooth on a floured board/counter-top.  A good way to see if your  bread is kneaded enough is to do the gluten test, which I promise is coming up in a soon post. For a quick overview without pictures, pinch off a bit of dough about the size of a quarter and rub between your fingers to stretch it. If you can see light through it, its good.

Cut up the dough and roll into balls, dip in the butter, and then dip in the container of sweet cinnamon-nutmeg-sugar.

Place in a bundt pan (or if you start making like me and think you have one only to realize you don't, a glass mixing bowl that is oven safe. Made the center more goey but still good!)

Cover, Let rise until double, or about an hour on counter. Can also be put in fridge to rise over night and bake in the morning, however take it out of the fridge and let it rest on the counter to warm up for at least 45 minutes.

Bake in oven at 350 for 30 minutes. Mine took 45 minutes because I was not using a bundt pan and therefore had a solid center.  Cool in the pan on top of a rack for 10 minutes, and then invert onto a plate. Unless you want to burn your fingers from the ooey gooey goodness, I would wait a few more minutes to eat.

Enjoy!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Halloween Pictures & classic "mummy dogs"


I just realized that I never posted my pictures of the completed chili breadbowls! So here they are in all their pretty glory.

Logan Loves his food pictures, takes great pride in them.

The Recipe I am posting is a Halloween classic, termed "mummy dogs" at this time of year, but otherwise known as pigs in a blanket any other.

I am sure you have probably had them before, but if you haven't, try them! They taste great and are cheap. My family ate them all the time, I remember eating these on Thanksgiving too, actually!

(NOTE: I haven't made these here yet, but they are my planned dinner for Oct. 31st. Must keep up with tradition. I saw them tonight at our Halloween party.)


Ingredients:
Pillsbury (or offbrand!) Crescent Rolls
Hot dogs, Cheddar Brat, what have you (maybe even tofu? haha!)
Sliced cheese: optional
Ketchup!


Wrap the dogs in your cheese if you choose and the crescent rolls, bake in the oven until golden brown (I look at canister). 
Let cool for a minute or two and dig in!

At the party tonight they had them without cheese and did two red dots of ketchup for eyes, was adorable!

I personally am a cheese addict so do cheddar brats with cheddar cheese slice.

Oh, and because I love my costume, here are a few pictures. It was made by this lovely woman on Etsy, whom though it took a long time I am happy overall.






Oh, and for those of you whom don't know, I am Blind Mag, from Repo! The Genetic Opera. As seen in this video: (sorry for bad quality, but wanted one that didn't have spoiler at end)

 

have a good night y'all!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

snicker-doodle/Oatmeal cookies with butter frosting

Picture is the Frugal Girl's, as is the recipe
My oh my! These are very very good! I made them today and they are sooooo easy!

I really thought it needed more liquid and that I had made a mistake writing down the recipe at first, but it is just a really thick dough, why you have to smoosh them yourself.

With a bit more brown sugar I would say these are snicker-doodles. They are great by themselves with out the frosting too! But she is right, I think that this needs about 2 or 3 batches of cookies for one batch of frosting.

I was going to use the left over evaporated milk from the pumpkin pie, but as I started the frosting I realized I used in the pudding I made... So I did a substitution of French Vanilla Coffee Creamer! Delicious but a little overpowering, I would leave out the vanilla extract if using creamer. Also makes it a bit thicker, so I had a drizzle instead of fluffy.

Here is the link to Frugal Girl's recipe and beautiful pics, sooooo much better than mine! : http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2010/10/wednesday-baking-frosted-oatmeal-cookies/

Friday, October 22, 2010

Bread bowls

Recipe at bottom

Great googely moogele! I was on a baking kick today. I made some bread bowls for the chili, some bagels, and I have plans to make oatmeal cookies later. Also I made Yogurt! So proud. :) I think part of this  occurrence is inspired by how happy I am to have yeast again, and so much!

Before I was buying the 4 ounce jars of Fleischman's yeast, but Safeway was out yesterday. (And that wasn't the only thing they were out of that has been disappointing me...!)  They just have the packets and considering that it would take three packets just to make Kathy's rolls, not a good deal. AND they would not have more until MONDAY. So I went over to Three Bears to see if they would have some beloved yeast for me. They had the little packets... Dang!
And then, hidden, I saw it. The 2 pound package of Active Dry Yeast from RedStar! I LOVE Redstar yeast so much better, partly because their headquarters are in Wisconsin, and I grew up in Minnesota. The only company I have ever seen my family was RedStar, I was just using Fleischman because Safeway carries no RedStar :( PLUS its only like 2 dollars more for this 32 oz package compared to the 4 oz jar! I bought it up in a heart beat, rushed home and poured it into my smaller green jars. (I had been using it for bread flour, switched to an ice cream bucket)

 2 pounds of yeast, 25 pounds of all pourpose flour, 10 pounds of sugar, 5 pounds of bread flour and 5 pounds of cornmeal make a happy baker!


Now here is the recipe I used for these yummy yummy Bread Bowls (makes 3)

1 1/4 Cups Water
3-4 Cups Bread Flour
1 Tsp Salt
1 1/2 teaspoons Sugar
3 tablespoons Cornmeal
1 packet (or 2 1/4 tsp) Yeast

Mix all together and knead for a few minutes till smooth and elastic. Let rise for 30 minutes, then punch down and separate into 3 sections. roll into a smooth ball.

Let rise a second time for about 20 minutes (pre-heat your oven at this point) and bake at 475 degree for 20-30 minutes.

Cool on wire rack, then slice off the top and take out most of the center. Place back in 300 degree oven and bake for 10 minutes to achieve a crisper crust and make sure the soup/chili does not soak in as fast.

Enjoy! Bon Appetite!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Chili and what I am working on! yay!

It's 3:05 Am. Yes I am awake, and will be the whole day. Yesterday I stayed up till 3 in the afternoon, went to sleep for 7 hours, and now have been up since ten and have fixed our sleeping schedule I am pretty sure.

At 3 AM I put a hunk of frozen hamburger in the crock pot, along with the single frozen bag of leftover chili from the beginning of the month to heat up. Once they are no longer frozen bricks, I am planning on adding some tomato sauce, and chili and Cayenne pepper. We want to go to the store to get some veggies and beans to add to this concoction that I plan on cooking all day long. I really mean all day!

(EDIT:) Throughout the day I then added 1 1/2 pounds of  red and kidney beans which then I had to split it into two pans. Some Frank's hot sauce and some tomato paste, and ONE de-seeded habanero (sp?) pepper. It has some really good kick! to town it down I used a little sweet barbecue sauce and 1 cup of black good coffee.  Tastes great! Its cooked in the crock pot for nearly 30 hours now!

What do you have to have in you chili? I am wondering if some bacon would be any good...


In other news, what did we work on yesterday that we stayed up all night? Only the STDs (Save The Dates) for our wedding! I am soo happy! Logan made the first one, I the second, then he the third. They are posted on my facebook for any that want to see the other two. We figured post cards a lot less expensive than traditional lots of paper, and are a lot more eco friendly than tons of paper that will be thrown away. I kinda wanted magnets, but this post card design is just so awesome! I am glad Logan made it for me. Yes he was the one that chose the rainbows, and he is sad I wouldn't let him say the card or boat turned to diamonds.


There is soo much meaning in all of the symbols and colors of our own design. The two characters are our avatars from the site we first met on. (which I guess I should post that story at some time...) And our first conversation was about the beautiful aurora borealis. I think that these just EXUDE our personalties, from my choice of "ides of March" being a literary reference, to his What to expect: sentence. And I will expound on the fact that "you could be on a boat too" later when I know for sure if we have the money to do what we want to do!

(Don't get what the what to expect means? Check out this video:





Anyways so yhea. That is what we have for our STDs, we got 100 postcards for 12 dollars thanks to my awesome searching skills. That includes the shipping, because otherwise it would have been just 3.99 for the uploaded custom design.

Sigh, Shipping to Alaska SUCKS. I almost got that Kitchen aide mixer I want for 50 bucks, but it would have been 111.10 to ship. So I am still waiting, and still searching for a good deal on a vacuum too.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Has not been my week...

No good recipes today either... Going crazy trying to do everything and not succeeding. But life goes on and things will get better when we get out of the rut.

That soup didn't turn out, so I tired using up the leftover rice by frying it and adding some bacon... Logan says its not that bad but I hate it. I said there would be some things not to do, so DON'T try to fry rice that is very soaked in broth that you tried to make into soup that didn't turn out. Also, don't forget to prep your bread before you put it in the oven by cutting a slit into it so it can expand. Otherwise your loaf will be really dense. Ask how I know.

Hope everything is going well for the rest of you! I have been going to anchorage a lot with my mom and not cooking a whole lot... Why lack of posts, so please don't kill me!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Good Cake, but the icing needs work...

So today was not my day for cooking either... First for dinner I had wanted to make some chicken and rice soup, one of Logan's favorites I have made before. This time however, I was using normal rice, before I used instant. I had a bit too much rice, it took over the whole pot. So instead of soup we had sticky rice with bits of green beans, corn, chicken and broccoli. Which give me points, I actually got Logan to eat borccoli! Oh yhea! Oh yhea!

I was having a sweet tooth so wanted to make a cake. The cake turned out really good, I combined a few recipes to make my own again. But oh it was soooo moist, very good! The icing... not so good. I have made the icing before, but never without a mixer. So I added some milk to try to make it thinner and easier to mix by hand... and it more looks like glue or as todd said "tapioca pudding".  I don't know how people made frosting before they had mixers!!!!

Delicious Yellow cake, would be good without frosting!

Crumb together :1/2 cup butter or crisco and 1 1/2 cup sugar


Add: 4 eggs, 1 tsp Vanilla, 1/4 tsp Almond extract, 1 1/3 cup butter milk  


Blend together:  2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt


Carefully mix dry mixture into the wet until incorporated. Get the big lumps out but don't over mix, that causes the flour to form gluten strands which will make the cake tough.

Pour into greased and floured pan, I used two round pans. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  Yummy yummy, I think better without frosting!!!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil

This is off topic of cooking, but something I am finding really really important. This is where some will probably say my crazy side comes in.

I feel everyone needs to watch this movie. I feel sick after it, but that is just because it is true. I am a previous Walmart employee. This movie has verifiable facts, and things I have witnessed myself.

The first thing I think about is their "low prices". You buy a shirt for 3 or 5 dollars. Think of what work would go into making that, how much the materials cost and the time. Machines are more efficient yes, but not that good. So how are the prices that low? By paying their employees crap. And not just the workers in China, though that is horrible and disgusts me too. The benefits suck. The health-care is minimal at best, and the company does tell its employees to look at supplemental things like food stamps and medicaid. This means you are paying for those employees as part of your taxes! Just so the wonderful wally-world can keep more of its precious profit margin.
So the higher ups can have a good cushion to sit on, and donate less than 1% of it. Really? Think about it, less than one percent. Thats 1 penny for every 100 dollars. 10 Dollars for every Thousand they make. Just 100 dollars if they make a million. Do you really need all of that +38 million and you choose to tell your employees (wait, no we weren't employees! We are supposed to be called Associates! Thats why they hate unions!)  tell your associates to work it out on 7.90 an hour, and look to the benefits you can get from the tax system???!!!! To feed their kids, or to pay for medical... Ugh, it disgusts me!!!!!!!!

And they destroy towns. They take subsidies and push out the actual moral stores. They destroy the environment in towns and basically murder people with bad practices, and don't get us started on GMO foods.  But stop listening to me. Watch this movie for yourself, PLEASE.

Here is the link for a free version on Google : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3836296181471292925


All in all, I work hard for my money, always have. I want the money I spend to go to a place that has the same morals. I don't want it to go to some bigwig's cushion. I want the people that work for my items to get paid the amount they deserve, just as I want the amount I deserve. Our Society is killing itself, trying to undercut others. Pay the amount you would want if you did the work for it. So if I have to pay 20 bucks to a person on etsy that really did make my clothes, I feel 150 % better than the 5 I spent on the walmart shirt.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Beef Tips and Noodles (aka sort-of Stroganoff)

This is a long time easy favorite of my Missouri family. The thing that makes this not stroganoff is the fact that it does not have cream in, most that I see (and my mom's too) use sour cream to give it a smoother taste.
However, this is a great recipe, and I have come to love it over the year I spent there.

How to make:

Cut stew meat into small pieces. Roll in a mixture of flour, and seasonings. Such as Season salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder. 


Place in a skillet with a bit of olive oil, brown the meat on med-high.  Then turn it down to low, add some beef broth or  water. 


Keep it simmering on low for about an hour or more, until the meat is tender. Watch the water level, add more as needed. If you have a lid for your pan cover it, but it is okay if you don't, I didn't this time, just had to check water more often. 


Once the meat is tender, start a pot of boiling water with a dash of salt and a drop or two of oil.  Cook egg noodles for 6-8 minutes, or as package directs.  Pour off water and either poor the sauce in the pot with the noodles, or pour into a large casserole dish for easier serving for many people. ( we had 8 at the table every night)


Again, this is a traditional family recipe for Logan, and I am happy that it tastes good. When I made it tonight, I didn't have season salt or the lid, but I tried. I added a little of italian seasoning which I think made it different but a bit more zesty.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Turkey burgers

So I made these a few days ago, but didn't have the time to get the recipe up. Here is what I did now.

Ground turkey was on sale, and I have never cooked with it so we figured why not make some turkey burgers instead of beef hamburgers?

I used my grater to make some bread crumbs out of the loaf of bread I made a few days before, it was getting a bit dry anyways. It was half a loaf and I used half of the crumbs in the 1 pound of meat. I also used 1 egg, some seasonings and grated cheddar cheese.

Mash it all up (I mix by hand) and form into flatish round patties the size of your buns. We were using up the rest of the buns from Gene and Kathy, and they were HUGE. So I just made 4 burgers and the burgers were still smaller than the buns. I am certain that this could have made 8 burgers though.

We fried them up in a skillet as it was raining too much and we don't have the charcoals to use the community grill.

Yummy Yummy they were. We ate with some green beans and tator tots. I think it would have been better with some barbecue sauce, but the meat is pretty tasty. The melted cheese inside made them gooey according to Logan, but I liked it that way.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Home Made Alfredo sauce

Oh My Gosh! This is SOOOO easy! I have no idea why my dad uses the seasoning packets or jarred! I think this is one of the easiest things I have ever made! Sooo delicious too! (maybe not very healthy because of cream, but still, let yourself live for a treat every once in a while!)

I looked up a few recipes, and there are many many different types. I wanted some thing easy with items I all ready had. Generally, the ingredients are butter, cream cheese, sour cream, or just whipping cream, and seasoning. Some add a bit of flour as a thickener.

What I did:

I took about half a stick of butter and one package of cream cheese and melted it down in the large skillet. After it was pretty much melted, I added 1/2 cup Milk and made it as smooth as possible. 
If I had had a nylon whisk I would used that, but never use metal in a non-stick or Teflon pan, it will scratch it up and start deteriorating in your food. 


Add your favorite seasonings, I used some pepper and salt, and a bit of garlic powder. I also added a bit of flour to thicken it. 


And there you have it! That is how to make the sauce, the important thing is to not stop stirring, or it will scorch.  I had cooked some chicken up in the pan before I made the sauce and put it to the side in a bowl, then threw it in the sauce with some stir-fry veggies.  I boiled the water for the noodles all at the same time. 


It was really good, and I actually got Logan to try one of each of the veggies. It was hard, but he admits that though he didn't really like the peas in a pod, they could be good by themselves. He however hated with a passion the broccoli. It will take a while, but eventually he will learn to like them :)

Monday, October 04, 2010

Caramel Apple Lattice Pie

Sorry again for horrible photos, I got out that cheap 7 dollar thing again to take these... Can't wait till Logan's phone and therefore my camera is fixed ;)



Okay, so I tried my best. They are not the most elegant looking things, but I am proud. :) According to Logan "THIS TASTES AMAZING" . Todd liked it too. I thought it was good for a first try, I have ideas for next time.


So with those apples that were on sale, I wanted to make a pie. Buuutttttt, I didn't want to make any pie, I wanted to try to make a lattice pie. I think they look cooler. And I wanted it to have caramel in it, like the pies that we had at the bakery I worked at that I always wanted to try but never had the money to buy.

First thing first, I needed a recipe. I pulled out all of my recipe books, and found nothing for either, and only one fully covered apple pie and a few pie/pastry crust recipes. Did a few searches on allrecipes.com and I could not find what I wanted, even using the ingredient search. So I guess it is time for a wildly crazy Wing-it creation!

I found one for "Never-Fail Pastry Crust" I liked the look of in my FCCLA-HERO cook book from school (was a fundraiser) and this is the crust that has been used for years and years. However, it made 6 single pies or 3 double crusted pies, and I did not need that much! Heck I am lucky I had two tin pie pans from my mom! So I roughly estimated half of everything. Also, the recipe called for vinegar, something we don't have yet (its going on the list! I keep looking at it in the store and decide we don't have the money for it yet)

(THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I DID. STATING CHANGES I WOULD MAKE AT BOTTOM)

2 cups sifted flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp sugar sifted together in large bowl. (Or mix in blender if don't have sifter hahaha) Cut in 3/4 cup lard or crisco with pastry knife (or two butter knifes hack hacking away till crumbly like meal)
In a separate small bowl, beat 1 egg (couldn't cut that in half) and 1/4 cup COLD water. Mix into dry mixture gently till balls up and then knead gently on lightly floured surface. Separate into 3 portions.
Roll out 2 on floured ice cream bucket lid with empty wine bottle, then place pie tin over, and flip pastry in. Press into sides evenly. Place in fridge. 







 Wash and cut up 3 large honeycrisp apples. An easy way to do this is to place stem down on your cutting board, and then get a small, sharp knife and cut in thin sections down. I tried to take a picture of this on the left, but the camera is 300 kb, not even 1 mega-pixel lol. Essentially just do really thin cuts all the way down for 360 degrees. keep the apple together until the end, and then the sections easily come apart like an orange! 



Then sprinkle the apples with about 3 tbs white sugar and 4 tbs brown  sugar and cover if possible to shake or stir it all up.


As evenly as possible lay out the thin apple slices on the crust. Then put back in the fridge until caramel sauce is done.


For that I took the rest of the bag of kraft caramels we had eaten some of (39 pieces left actually) and poured in just under 2/3 cup Dulce De Lechce International creamer, as I did not have half and half and did not want to open the new galleon of milk. Microwave for about 3 minutes, stirring every minute. Then drip and pour evenly over the apples.




Roll out the last of the pastry and cut into strips, lay in a criss cross pattern across the top of the pie and brush with a bit of the Dulce De Lechce. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower to 350 for about 40 minutes. 



 Let cool on cooling rack for at least 10 minutes before cutting. Serve by itself or with some vanilla ice cream and a bit of the left over caramel sauce! XD


WHAT I WOULD DO NEXT TIME: I would make the full six crusts, so they could be a bit thicker. I would use double crusts on the bottom of the pies and place a thin layer of butter in between to make it more like a flaky puff pastry. Also I want to dab the apples with some pats of butter. I want to learn how to make a better lattice, but other wise these were awesome!!!! Yay me! 

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Oatmeal snack and Good Grocery Haul

Let's get the quick recipe out of the way :)
Logan has now done this twice, and it is his favorite. I thought I would put it out there for some other people to try since he likes it so much.

  1. Fill up (clean) coffee pot with hot water. 
  2.  Take largest heat proof mug (my fave is the green one we found at yard sale) and fill anywhere from 1/3 to half full, depending how hungry you are. (remember oats expand!) 
  3. Put in a little brown sugar and hot chocolate mix. 
  4. Pour in water to desired consistency and add a bit more sugar to taste (or even flavored coffee creamer! He says that's for tomorrow)
  5. ENJOY!!
Now, I just want to brag about how happy I am about money we are saving. We aren't the greatest yet, and we still had some impulse buys, but hey, it was still a lot of savings! 

We went to Safeway.com  and looked at this weeks ads to create a Grocery list before going to the store.
(Safeway is the only grocery store in town, besides Three Bears which I (and my mother for that matter) don't trust. Logan and I had stopped there once and the meat was green and the hams that were on sale were all leaking and disgusting looking packages... It just was not right.)

A night or two ago, I sat down with Logan and Todd to find 30 ideas for dinner for the month of October.It was hard, but we did it! Now it is quite obvious we won't do it in the exact order, but we can plan for those meals and make sure to use up the meat in the freezer and plan extra for leftovers (like left over homemade pizza sauce into spaghetti the next night) 

Now for our savings tally: We saw that cream cheese (which I love in everything, especially mashed carrots and potatoes) was on sale 2 for $3 when regular price is 4.18. You bet we bought some! Logan had to buy some pasta-roni sides, at 8 for $10 not too bad for a quick side-dish. We picked up 4 boxes of cereal at a buy 2 get 2 free price as well as B1G1 bacon and sausage rolls (GREAT for spaghetti). We grabbed the bag of apples knowing I could make a pie and some caramels for caramel apples! I have at position 8 (this friday the 8th in other words)  fried chicken so we grabbed my rain check a few weeks ago for 2 pints of buttermilk for 75cents that they had been out of at that time. 

All in all, we saved exactly $75  according to the store receipt with our Safeway card and coupons! That makes me feel good because I know it is all things we will use, good storage items. (I can't eat bacon that much, but it freezes quite well!)

Which all this stuff was a pain in the butt to carry home on foot! 6 blocks, and up hill of all things! But we loaded down his wheelchair and had cereal in his back and OJ balanced in a bag on his foot, lol! I carried 5 bags myself, so please don't think I made him do it all lol. Just realize we got that much with this plan for that cheap!

P.S. the whole way I was thinking how grateful I am that my mom had brought me home from the store when I bought the 25 lbs bag of flour for $13... XD