Weekend recap & what I made for dinner last night

This weekend was an incredibly lazy weekend. Work last week was exhausting and by the time Friday night rolled around I was laying on the couch ready to pass out at 7pm. We stayed up so that Tom could watch the Bruins game and were in bed by 10. Yep, we're pretty wild and crazy people, going to bed at 10 on a Friday ;) We figured we would most likely wake up earlier than normal but go figure, the one night we go to bed ridiculously early Mika (the dog/alarm clock) decides she's exhausted as well and we don't wake up until our alarm goes off at 10am. Oh well, we had absolutely nothing planned for the day and obviously needed the sleep!

That morning I was browsing Pinterest as I always do, and came across this idea. I have always felt like the wall closest to the shower in our master bath was missing something and realized this would be the perfect addition to it. When we remodeled the master bathroom last year Tom took out the cupboards which was really closet space in the bathroom, so not only would the crates fill the void on the wall but it would also create more storage space, killing two birds with one stone. I shoved my phone with the Pinterest tab in Tom's face in the middle of his shower and exclaimed that we HAD to build the shelves right away. Luckily he agreed they would look great, and off we went to purchase all of the necessary supplies. I spent a couple hours on my knees in the basement staining the crates, waiting for them to dry, staining them some more, waiting for them to dry again, spraying them with water proof sealant, drying, spraying again. Last night Tom screwed on the hardware to hold them up onto the wall and put them up and I am SO excited to start using them!

 

So pleased with them!

The crate shelves were literally all we did this weekend, besides the usual grocery trip. Last night for dinner was a special, incredibly fattening treat for the two of us. I found a recipe (on Pinterest of course) for a cheesy potato soup in a soup bowl. Carbs and starch galore! It was super easy to make, fairly inexpensive, and there was enough left over for Tom to take for lunch today and freeze for dinner some other time. I threw a slice of bacon each on top as a garnish (because it wasn't fattening enough), and it was a great addition if you enjoy bacon/meat.

Cheesy Potato Soup

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup diced onion
2 1/2 cups peeled and diced potatoes
3 cups chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 3/4 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/4 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
Bread Bowls (optional/completely necessary in my book)

Directions
In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Cook onion in butter until softened. Stir in potatoes and broth, bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat and simmer 15 to 20 minutes, until potatoes are tender.
Puree potato mixture in a blender or food processor or using an immersion blender; return to pot over medium heat. Stir in cream, cheese, dill, pepper, salt and cayenne. Bring to a low boil and cook, stirring, until thickened, 5 minutes.

The finished piece- yum!

Meal Planning Part II

In my last post I talked a little about meal planning and how it has really helped cut costs when it comes to grocery shopping. Today I'm going to talk about another side of meal planning that helps save even more money. At the moment our family consists of two people plus three animals, but they don't really count when it comes to meal planning. When we first moved into the condo and it was all up to me to make meals each day, I often found it frustrating that there were not many recipes that only made two servings. I would make big dinners and either Tom took some leftovers for lunch the next day or it got thrown out.

A few months ago (it took over two years to realize this which means we were throwing way too much money down the drain), I stumbled across a web site a mom ran that talked all about freezing meals. Did you know you can freeze just about every type of food out there? Well I didn't, and it was like a light bulb went off in my head as I read through the different articles. It suddenly dawned on me that I didn't have to be throwing out all of this leftover food, instead I could put it into Tupperware or Ziploc bags and freeze it for another time!

Nowadays I try to make at least one "big" meal each week, usually on Sundays. This meal almost always ends up being some sort of casserole meant to serve 8 people, and I always follow it to a tee. This process has helped to basically cut our grocery bill in half, even though we are still spending around $60 on average each week. For example, we may go and spend $15 on ingredients that are not already in the kitchen to make a specific recipe. We eat the specific recipe for dinner one day that week, Tom takes a serving for lunch the next day, and the rest is split up into containers to be frozen and eaten at some point down the road (usually the next week). With some of the bigger recipes such as my favorite- Baked Ziti- I can get sometimes 3 extra dinners to put in the freezer! So even though we may spend a few extra dollars one week at the grocery store, if I can get four dinners plus a lunch out of the recipe I consider that a success.

Part of this blog will include recipes I have tried and loved, most of which end up in my freezer as part of my meal planning. The first recipe I introduce to you is French Dip, which I made yesterday for dinner and it was extremely popular. I always get nervous trying new recipes with Tom- mainly because every time he knows I haven't made it before he says things like "that scares me"- and I worry he'll hate it. Well last night I was extra nervous because the au jus sauce "scared" him. All my worries went away though as I sat with bated breath watching him take his first bite, when he turned to me with big eyes and enthusiastically said through his full mouth "mmmhm!" The recipe was incredibly easy and there were of course leftovers which were frozen and we will eat for lunch this weekend :)

Crock-pot French Dip Sandwiches

I found this recipe on Pinterest, the original site from here. I tried a couple different things based off the original recipe and it turned out perfect!

Ingredients:
2 lbs London Broil (or really any other roast)
1 packet Lipton Onion Soup mix
2 cups beef stock 
Dash of pepper
French or Italian rolls (this version of the recipe will make 4 large servings)
Swiss cheese (optional)

Directions:
1. Place the meat in the slow cooker.
2. Mix together the beef stock, onion soup mix, and pepper. Pour it over the meat.
3. Cook it on low for 6-8 hours.
4. At the end of cooking time, take the meat out and shred it with a fork While meat is out, run the "juices" from the slow cooker through a strainer to get any big chunks out of it, and into a separate bowl.
5. Place shredded meat back in the slow cooker (I turned mine down to "warm" at this point). Take half a cup of the leftover broth and mix it into the meat.
6. Turn the oven on (I had mine at 350), take out your rolls. Open up the rolls so that the inside is facing up, and place a couple slices of the Swiss cheese on each of them. Bake until the cheese is melted and bread is toasty.
7. Pour remaining "au jus" into little ramekins/bowls, spoon meat onto bread rolls, and enjoy! 

I would have posted a photo but was too excited/hungry to eat it :)  Next time!

And I'm Back

I really am the worst blogger in the world! Like I said in my last post (written in JULY), I knew these past few months would fly by and what do you know, it's already the middle of January! A brief catch up on what has been going on in the Kuhns house:

1. Tom is still working on becoming a police officer. A couple months ago we decided that if this is something he truly wants then maybe it is time for him to start looking somewhere else, besides Connecticut. After looking up different towns and states along the East coast, we decided the first towns to try would be Richmond VA and Savannah GA. Tom will be spending the weekend of February 15th in Richmond for testing/interviews, and is waiting to hear back from Savannah. He has also continued to apply to towns in CT because- as much as it would be exciting to move down South where it's warmer and the cost-of-living is less- we have made ourselves a home in our condo here, and the thought of leaving it all behind is kind of sad. This is what Tom wants more than anything though, and if it takes moving to Georgia to make his dreams a reality then I'm all for it.
2. We recently took an 8-week  therapy pet training course with Mika. Our hope is to one day get her licensed so that we can take her to hospitals, retirement homes, etc. All we need to do is pass the evaluation, which we have not scheduled yet as we are not sure what the future holds for us at the moment.
3. Back in September Tom and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary, and our five year together anniversary! Where has the time gone? How is it possible we've already been together five years? When we first started dating we were 18 and 20 and so young, now here we are 24 and 26 all grown up, making grown up decisions and paying bills and all that "fun" stuff. 

Me and the husband at my brother's wedding :)

                                                               Meal Planning: Part I

As I said in my last post, I really want to try and blog about ways I am saving my family money, as well as recipes I am trying that I have really enjoyed. For the second half of this post, I want to talk about something I have really gotten into the past few months; meal planning. When Tom and I first bought the condo (going on three years ago!", we were not the best grocery shoppers. We would go in with absolutely no plan, no idea of what we really needed, and would just wander the grocery store throwing whatever sounded good in the cart.  All of a sudden we're at the checkout and the bill is over $100. Every. Single. Week. This used to be okay while I was still taking classes and had plenty of money to spare, but now that I have way too many student loans to pay each month spending over $400 in groceries alone was not going to cut it.

I had to find a way to save us money on food, which led me to meal planning. I had never really put too much effort into deciding what we would have for dinner, and each night I would stand in the kitchen wanting to bang my head into the counter because I had no idea what to make. Oftentimes this would lead to me complaining to Tom and us ordering pizza or Chinese food and spending unnecessary money on takeout when we had just spent $100 on food three days before. I needed to stop this cycle of overspending which led me to my variation of meal planning. This is not something that takes careful planning, if you have 20 minutes of free time to sit down you can do it.

Every Sunday morning I sit down with the grocery ads and look to see if anything really great is on sale, especially meats, breads, or items we eat a lot of that are buy one get one free. Then I look in the freezer to see what meals are already in there. I always try to eat whatever we have on hand to save us money, while keeping the "menu" varied. Tom could eat the same thing every other day, I on the other hand get bored with food fast, so I am constantly trying new recipes. By sitting down for twenty minutes and coming up with a plan as to what will be made for dinner each night- along with a couple other tips I will get into in the next couple posts- I have managed to cut our grocery bills down to an average of $60 (on an expensive trip) a week, saving us a minimum of $160 each month. That's a lot of extra money ;)