I'll be seeing this soon

I can't wait! I read the whole Twilight Saga in one week. I'm going to see it Thursday night at Midnight,yay. Team Edward all the way!! I'm still debating if I should go get a shirt to wear that looks like the Cullen baseball shirt but Matt says only the 13 year olds will be wearing those...maybe I will, maybe I won't.

Bulk Cooking

Bulk cooking or once a week cooking is a great way to save yourself money and time. When my daughter was a newborn my mom and I would cook about 10 meals together in one day and then split them up between our families. I loved that since I didn't have much time to run to the store and figure out dinner back then.

Last week I made a large batch of turkey sausage, egg and cheese breakfast burritos and put them in the freezer. They are easy to reheat and I can control the portions. To reheat I just put them on defrost for 2 minutes and cook for one minute.

Today I made granola bars from scratch for Violet. I wish I had taken a picture because they look prettier than the ones from the store. The taste is delicious as well. I made 16 bars and I have enough ingredients to make them several more times. Here is the recipe, Playgroup Granola Bars.

For dinner I made burritos. A serving size was a large flour tortilla with a heaping half cup of filling. I made 16 burritos. They are huge! Perfect for a quick lunch or dinner.

Jill's Burritos-

• 2 cups uncooked brown rice
• 4 cups water
• 1(15 ounce) cans black beans
• 1(15.5 ounce) cans pinto beans
• 1 cup of frozen corn kernels
  
• 1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes and green chiles
• 16 (10 inch) flour tortillas
• 8 oz shredded taco blend cheddar cheese
• 1 can of chunk chicken

1.Combine rice and water in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes, or until tender. Remove from heat, and cool.

2.Place black beans and pinto beans into a colander or strainer, and rinse. Add corn and diced tomatoes with green chilies, and toss to mix. Drain the canned chicken. Warm up all ingredients in a large skillet. Mix in the cheese last.
Optional- Season with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and cumin.

3.Then start rolling up the burritos by placing a heaping half cup of filling into each tortilla. Get a large cookie sheet covered in foil or wax paper. Place the burritos seam side down on the pan. When your done, put the pan of burritos in the freezer to flash freeze them. When they get set and hard you can put them in a ziploc bag to store. To reheat defrost in the microwave for 2-3 minutes then cook on normal heat for a few minutes until hot.

I tried 2 different brands of tortillas so I have a different calorie count for each kind. The 160 calorie tortilla makes a 376 cal burrito. The 210 cal tortilla makes a 426 cal burrito. I think the lower calorie brand was called Don Pancho and the taste was better. Wish I didn't buy the other kind! Now we have 14 large (we ate 2 last night) burritos in the freezer that are healthy and preservative free. The total cost of ingredients was 12.oo so the burritos are 75 cents each!

I hope I can keep this up and try to make something in bulk at least once a week.

New Home

Our dreams are coming true! After 7 months of living in a spare room at my parent's house I can finally say we have our own home and my husband has a permanent job. This makes me so happy. We moved in on November 8, 2009.

Matt just informed me that this was his 8th time to move me since we met in 2006! Funny. I say "move me" because I was either pregnant or have my hands full with Violet and I can't really help with boxes. Lots of moving and I'm counting move in's and out's. But it's comforting to know we will be in our new rental home for at least the next two years.

Here's the only pic I have so far of the house. I can't wait to make it feel like HOME!

Did we get one?

Not yet...I'm getting so antsy! I know we have only been looking for a house for a week but we are soooo ready to move. We found a house to rent earlier this week and found out it already had an offer. Then yesterday we found a house in that same neighborhood and we are waiting to find out if we got it. We should know by today.

It's harder than you would think to find a house to rent that's in a good neighborhood. I have seen over 10 houses in the past week and half of them were eyebrow raisers. But an apartment is only about a 100 bucks cheaper a month than a home with a yard. I liked our previous first floor apartment but that will be a last resort.

Last night I was dreaming about being in my own place. Funny! I really did. We need a house. We need a house. hmmm, maybe I should chant, We will get a house. We will get a house. SOON!

Face in Hole

Ha Haaaaaaaaaaaa, this was fun. Try it out here. That's Matt, me and Violet in case you couldn't tell!

MILK

We recently started giving Violet hormone free milk and the organic kind can be pretty pricey. It sells for about 7 dollars a gallon at the Walmart. But guess what? You can get hormone free milk at Braums for 2.99! Awesome. Sometimes she goes through 2 gallons a week so this will definitely save us some money.

Here's info from Braum's website-

"We have always believed that the natural way is the best way. At Braum’s, we know that we can produce the best quality milk by feeding our cows natural, healthy ingredients. We do not inject our cows with hormones like rBGH to stimulate milk production and we don't add antibiotics to their feed.

We feed our dairy herd of 10,000 Holstein cows a mixture of alfalfa hay, corn, grain, whole cottonseed, soybean and more(the majority of the feed for our dairy herd is grown on our family farms.) This provides the cow with a well-balanced diet which is very important because what a cow eats directly affects the type of milk she produces.

So the next time you drink a glass of Braum's milk rest easy...it's 100 percent natural, tastes great and is rBGH FREE!"