Pudding Pops-- Yum on the cheap.

The boys were starting to get picky about their snacks. They complained that they were sick of the regulars...animal crackers, carrot sticks, pretzels. Hum drum. Pretty horrible life, huh?

So I came up with pudding pops. I'm sure I'm not the first to think of them...but my kids and husband thought I was a genius. That's good enough for me.

We did the following combinations:

Chocolate pudding with crushed oreos

Vanilla pudding with chocolate chips (pictured above)

Banana pudding with butterscotch chips

I just mixed the instant pudding according to the directions, let it set up a little, added in the "extras", and then poured it into my .88 cent mold from Wal Mart, and popped them in the freezer. Yum!

Instant pudding at our local Wal Mart is about .89 cents per box and I already had the chocolate chips and all that in stock...so this was a super cheap way to jazz up plain ol' puddin'.

TIP: If you don't already have Popsicle molds, you can pour the mixture into a cleaned out single serving apple sauce cup and stick in a tongue depressor from the craft cabinet. We did this since our mold only has enough room for 4 popsicles and our pudding mixture made enough for more than 4!

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1 Chicken, 4 Hungry Mouths, 3 Delicious Dinners

Has anyone else noticed that chicken doesn't have bones anymore? Or skin for that matter. At least that's how it is in the grocery store. Everything is bonelessskinless. I can appreciate that sometimes bonelessskinless chicken is quicker to thaw and cook, it's healthier without the skin etc. But really, is it worth the extra price? Meat is one of the most expensive things on my grocery list. Anyone researching ways to cut down their grocery bill has probably read umpteen articles about how using more beans and lentils in place of meat is a good way to cut down the bill. I use this method myself and have come across many delicious no-meat recipes that I regularly integrate into our menu. But sometimes I just want some mean, ya know? So the cheapest way for me to go about buying chicken is, surprisingly, to buy a whole chicken. A regular, 4-5lb chicken costs me about $4.50 ($12-13 if I'm going free range organic, but that's not always in the budget). I don't know if you've ever noticed, but that's a whole lotta chicken. More than we'll eat at one dinner unless we have company over. So I roast the chicken (that beauty up above was dinner for us this past Thursday). Then I make 3 dinners out of it. Yeah, 4-ish dollars worth of chicken spread over three meals for 4 mouths (Margaux's not counted here because she's still nursing :)). Pretty sweet, eh? Check it out:

Thursday: Roast chicken with mashed potatoes, corn, and salad. After dinner, I took the rest of the chicken that we didn't eat off of the carcass and put it in a ziploc bag.

Friday: Angel hair pasta with pesto and about 1/2 of the leftover chicken, crusty bread, and salad. (I even had enough left overs for my lunch for the next 2 days!)

Saturday: BBQ Chicken Pizza. Made pizza dough, poured BBQ sauce over remaining chicken, dumped chicken on dough, spread with mozz and cheddar, added some onions and pickles and VOILA! We had my brother and sister in law over with their 3 kids and had plenty to go around.

I'd say I spent roughly $20 on these 3 meals including the chicken. I didn't have to buy certain things like the flour and yeast for the pizza dough because I keep those stocked in my pantry, but even if I did need to buy them, it wouldn't cost much more!

Another awesome thing about this is that it saves a bunch of time. The chicken was roasted on Thursday, so on Friday all I had to do was boil some pasta and blend up some pesto. So, it saves time and money... now that's speaking my language :).

Try it out for yourself!

Some Easy Peasy Recipes (Or as I like to call them, Pantry Cleaners and Wallet Savers)

These are 2 recipes that I use fairly often. I almost always have the ingredients on hand, they're delicious, and most importantly...they're cheap.

Mangia!!

Crockpot Shredded Chicken (serves 2 adults, 2 toddlers)

Ingredients:

3 Chicken Breasts (Or Pork Chops or any Combination of the 2)

1 Chopped Onion

1 Bottle of BBQ Sauce

Throw it all in a crockpot on low and cook til the Chicken's done, about 3 or 4 hours. Use 2 forks to shred the Chicken and Serve on Bread or Rolls.

Tip: Sometime the BBQ sauce will get too thin for my liking. When this happens I take the top off of the Crockpot for the last 30 mins and it'll thicken right up.

Italian Stew...or something. (Easily serves 4 adults, 2 toddlers)

2-3 Chicken Breasts or Italian Sausage

4 Cups of Chicken Broth or White Wine or Water

2 Cups frozen Spinach

1 Can of Butter Beans or Cannelini Beans

1 Can of Diced Tomatoes

Cook Chicken til almost done. Toss in medium soup pot. Add rest of ingredients. Cook til heated through and yummy. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese if you'd like.

Humble Homemaking Words to Live By:

Proverbs 17:1

"Better a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife"