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 :)

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! 

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