I Love Publix

For those of you not in Publix Land, you're missing out. Publix has this wonderful thing called Apron Simple Meals. You go in around 5:00 and there's this lovely person cooking up a complete meal for you to sample with the recipe and all of the ingredients right there. I LOVE it! I've made a few of these recipes for the family and they're all pretty great!

Tonight we had this week's meal, Cod Saute with Citrus Bearnaise and Quick Asparagus. I used tilapia because I had it, but it was delish! And the kids ate it all, which is icing on the cake (or milk on the cookie, since that was their dessert tonight!) There's a video below and the recipe at the above link.

 

 



Here are a few of the others we've tried:

Spicy Fish with Avocado-Chipotle Sauce and Skillet Potato Cake

Quesadilla Bake with Corn and Chile Taco Salad

Steak and Potato Flatbreads with Tomato Snap Salad





I know there are more, but these are the ones we've had recently. I'll share periodically what recipes we try and like!

As for the parsimonious factor: coupon! If you're new to couponing, some sites I recommend are:

• The Coupon Wizards & their Facebook page
• Insert Insanity & their Facebook page
• Southern Savers

I'm sure there are sites that cover other stores/areas, but these are the ones I'm familiar with.

I'm Gourmet

The downside to being six months preggers: I crave things that I sometimes can't find (or don't care to spend a fortune on.) The upside, at least for me: I'm suddenly a gourmet chef!

About midnight last night there were two things I wanted: a Stevi B's Loaded Baked Potato pizza and a filet with a mushroom marsala wine sauce and gorgonzola cheese.

Tonight I made the steak! It was absolutely fantastic! There wasn't a real recipe I used, I simply sprinkled the steaks with some garlic salt and cooked them on the stove in a little marsala wine. When the steaks were done, I removed them, poured the rest of the bottle into the saute pan, added the mushrooms, and let it simmer on medium high until the wine was reduced some. It reduced and thickened more after I took it of the heat, if you're going to try it. Spoon some sauce and gorgonzola on the steak and I served with some Idahoan Real Mashed Potatoes (best and cheapest instant mashed I've ever had!) seasoned with parmesan and garlic salt.

So I know being "parsimonious" means spending as little money as possible, and filets in a wine sauce doesn't EXACTLY fit that, but hear me out:

1. I'm pregnant. Which means I'm hungry. All. The. Time.
2. I'm pregnant. Which means my brain doesn't quite understand "logic".
3. When we were out the other night, filet medallions for one person was $30. I had mushrooms I needed to use or toss, I had garlic salt, I had parmesan cheese, AND I keep a stockpile of the Idahoan potatoes (which you can usually find for a whole freakin DOLLAR.) So, for the same cost I could have paid for dinner for just me - because face it, I'm not sharing (see #1) - I fed all four of us and we have leftovers! Suck it #2! That's totally logical!

Makes sense to me anyway...

Tomorrow I'm attempting the loaded baked potato pizza since the nearest Stevi B's now that we've moved is 42 minutes away. :(

Chore Charts

So, at our end of the year Girl Scout Leader dinner a few of us were discussing summer plans. While I'm thinking, "my summer is so planned out! We have camp one week, we're signed up for free bowling and free skating and we're going to hit the $1 movies and definitely take advantage of our Six Flags/White Water passes!" A friend did a heck of a lot better... She has her days planned out! I wish I had that much motivation during the summer, but I don't. She had one TERRIFIC idea though! She said her kids will start with two chores each day, if they do them, they're done, if they whine about them they get more chores added. I LOVE IT!

Unfortunately, I can't just toss out chores willy nilly... I need something cute and crafty to write them on - duh!

So, I needed something that I could change daily - chalk board, white board, etc. In a stroke of genius (ha!) I remembered seeing somewhere that glass works with dry erase makers. I dug through the drawer-o-junk, found the one [dying] dry erase market we had, and tested it on my least favorite drinking glass - that one that somehow ended up in my cabinet, and even though I don't like it, I don't toss it... Anyway - IT WORKED!

Because I'm a hoarder, this project didn't cost me a dime! I had everything I needed... Sad, yet, economically and environmentally friendly!

The frames started out cheap and Burgundy. I spray painted both white, after removing the glass, backing, etc. Then one I spray painted light pink and one I spray painted purple. Holding a can of silver metallic spray paint 3-4 FEET above the frames, I let the paint fall onto the frames. This way they were more accented by the silver than actually turning silver.

For inside the frames, using MS Word, I used a font I downloaded a LONG while ago called angelic, set my margins so my page was 8x10, and typed "Daily Chores" "1. 2. 3. 4.", and my appreciative, "...thank you!" One, I printed in pink, one in blue, each to match the colors going on in their rooms, and both were printed on green paper. Why green? Because at this point, I'm not going to the store, I had green, it's in both color schemes, and it's more fun than white. Good reasons.

I used the glass from a frame to mark the size to cut the paper, assembled them all, and decided they needed bows. They're for girls, after all.

Of course, I had ribbon in the right colors. Why wouldn't I? What I DIDN'T have? Hot glue sticks. Damn. Tacky glue it is! It took a while to set, but it worked! I missed that instant gratification hot glue provides, but hey, I needed a good HOUR to pound ONE nail into a bedroom door anyway, so it all worked out... Sigh...

Reese's Pie

I have to share my new favorite dessert!

It may have been done already, but if it has, I haven't seen it!

Back when I did catering, I could get this cookie dough that would make delicious, gooey, peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. They were the best! I don't have access to them anymore... :( So to make up for it, I make this...

Reese's Pie! Or Reese's bars, or what ever you want to call them, it doesn't matter, your mouth will be too busy watering to call them anything anyway!

The best part: they're super easy! Here's what you need

2 Betty Crocker chocolate chop cookie mixes + required ingredients
16-24 Reese's cups, regular size
A 9x13 dish

1. Follow directions on the first cookie mix, add an egg and a softened stick of butter. Mix until you have a dough.

2. Press the cookie dough into the dish.

3. Unwrap all of the Reese's cups and place them in one layer onto the cookie dough.

4. Mix up the other cookie dough and drop it onto each peanut butter cup. Fill in larger holes as you wish.

5. Bake at 350° until set and brown on top. The directions for large cookies says 10-12 minutes. I would say start checking then? They take a while. One of these times I need to actually time it. Unfortunately, unless I'm following a recipe that specifically needs a certain baking time, I've never set a timer for the oven.

**Alternately: lately I've been using one peanut butter cookie mix on the bottom and one chocolate chip cookie mix on the top. I prefer a little more peanut butter taste, but that is up to your preference. Directions are the same, simply get the peanut butter mix and it's ingredients (which are different.)

Also, the last time I made them, hubby picked up mini Reese's instead of the regular size. I cut them in half and used them, but I prefer the full size. If you drop the chocolate chip cookie dough on top of the full size, the dough spreads evenly and envelopes the Reese's - the mini's that weren't covered melted while baking..