Countdown to the Holidays! Chow Down

Christmas is coming, Christmas is coming!

We all have extra shopping to do in December, let's help ease the burden and chow down! I challenge you to do less (regular) grocery shopping in December. Eat what you have, go 'freezer diving', get creative, and save some money!

I have the habit of putting  leftover sauce into the freezer. Plus I usually stock up on the meat that's on sale for half price at my store. I know I have another half a bag of black beans, plus a few 'cans' in the freezer. And I REALLY need to finish that box of rice I bought... too long ago.

Is your food storage in a similar state? Will you accept the Challenge?

Chow Down Challenge:

1. Wait as long as possible to go grocery shopping this month and buy as little as possible. (I'm talking about regular grocery shopping, not Christmas Dinner.)
2. Use up what you already have. Get creative. Dig to the bottom of the freezer and the back of the pantry.
3. Save some money.

Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Love,
Valerie :D

Please comment or send your questions to me on the Homemaking Diva Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/HomemakingDiva or by email at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Countdown to the Holidays! - Use it or Lose it!

OK Canadians!

If you still have turkey dinner leftovers in your fridge, this is your warning. You want to finish up what you can for dinner tonight and then freeze or throw out the rest. Tomorrow is officially cootie-ville! :)

I had turkey dinner leftovers for lunch, and we'll be having some more for dinner. I've asked my husband to 'do' the turkey today (get the meat off the bones) and I'll be starting bone broth in the crock cooker when he's done and chopping the meat and freezing in baggies for other meals.

Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Love,
Valerie :D

Please comment or send your questions to me on the Homemaking Diva Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/HomemakingDiva or by email at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Countdown to the Holidays - Are you Ready?

Well, tomorrow is Turkey Day for me. Doing what I can now to make tomorrow easier.

I made the marshmallow salad (family tradition, NEEDS to be made 1 day ahead) and the white bean dip (from Saving Dinner, CAN be made a day ahead), I also chopped up a large cucumber, carrot, some celery, and a yellow bell pepper, and put them in a large zipplerware (ziploc + tupperware = zipplerware) container covered in water in the fridge. They're for dipping in the white bean dip, I'll fish them out with a slotted spoon tomorrow :)

That's three things ready and done. I also washed all the dishes and did a 15 minute tidy. Now I can relax, play with my sewing stuff, read, and hang out with my husband. (Which are great things to do on a holiday weekend!)

Tomorrow, I'm making the garlic smashed red potatoes in the morning, and having them on keep warm in my crock cooker all day (with a little butter over the top). Plus I'll cut my bread for stuffing before we leave to pick up my in-laws.

Sometime around noon will be time to preheat the oven, make the stuffing, and prep the bird. When the turkey's halfway done (or so) I'll make the pumpkin pie and pop it in the oven, too.

Gravy and the green beans are the only things that'll need to be done last-minute and they're both pretty easy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Love,
Valerie :D

Please comment or send your questions to me on the Homemaking Diva Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/HomemakingDiva or by email at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Countdown to the Holidays! Planning for Sanity

Thanksgiving is going to be here soon, so I'm doing my best to be prepared. Hopefully by the time you read this, I will have purchased my turkeys. I am bound and determined to find some at a good price, so I will be going to Walmart for a THIRD time, first thing at opening this morning (I'm writing this last night). You'd think Walmart would realize that they should stock up on items that are on at a really good price; I mean, if you keep running out of the turkeys that are on sale, maybe you should start ordering MORE?? Maybe?

Sorry. Rant over :)

I did sit down and finalize my Thanksgiving menu and update my planner page.

• White Bean Dip and Veggies
• Turkey
• Stuffing
• Gravy
• Garlicky Smashed Red Potatoes
• Nutmeg Green Beans
• Marshmallow Salad (family tradition)
• Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream

I've got the basics covered and a bit of my weird upbringing thrown in. The plan is to make the dip, chop the veggies, and make the marshmallow salad on Sunday. And the pumpkin pie can be baking somewhere around when the turkey's half done.

My favorite trick (and one you'll love too!) is to make the mashed potatoes (whatever kind you like at your place) EARLY. Then put it in the crock cooker with a little butter over the top on 'keep warm' until dinnertime. One less thing to do later. Just be sure to test run your crock pot first (you can make a potato chowder if you want afterwards) you don't want scorched potatoes on the big day! I got that tip from Leanne Ely who got it from Flylady.

I've got a few things to do each day from Thursday to Monday (including tidying the house in babysteps) so I'm not doing everything at once. Sounds like a plan to me!

Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Love,
Valerie :D

Please comment or send your questions to me at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Rhubarb anyone?

In my world summer equals rhubarb and blueberries. We've always had a rhubarb patch and blueberries grow wild around here, so .... :)

Yesterday was a little cool, so I decided it was a good day to bake! I made the first rhubarb pie of the season.... Mmmmm hello, summer!

I guess I was in the mood to experiment. Instead of following the recipe exactly, I decided to check how much rhubarb actually fits in a pie. (I love my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but the pies always seem to be full to overflowing.) Guess what? 2 to 2 1/2 cups fits nicely in a Tenderflake crust - not the 6 cups called for in the recipe! (Yes, I cheat, but it's yummy and fast!) Made a note of THAT. Next time, I think I'll divide the whole recipe down to 1/3 or 1/2 of what it says. Last night I only changed the rhubarb. Turned out well, DH had no complaints! :D

While I was experimenting, and since I had picked more rhubarb, I decided to try making rhubarb stew in the crock cooker! Now I've been eating this since I was knee high to a grasshopper, and I've only ever made it in the microwave - not good, I know! (Plus it's boiled over in the microwave too many times.) My sister found a good stovetop recipe that she uses. So I coarsely chopped the rest of the rhubarb, put about 1/2 cup of water in the bottom of the crock, and poured some sugar over the top (no measurements... sorry). If you haven't had this before, you'll need way more sugar than I do, you can add to taste at the end, or in your bowl even. Crocked it on low for 2 hours, opening to stir a few times (I was pretty paranoid about it burning or something). And it turned out perfect! It was more liquidy than normal, so next time I'll put in less water, but it doesn't effect the taste - rhubarb stew is very forgiving.

I've been keeping an eye on the blueberry bushes in the backyard (heck yeah!) and neighbourhood... soon!

So anyway, thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Please comment or send your questions to me at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :D

Losing It With Leanne Challenge Day 14 - Still here!

January 25, 2011

Sorry about that! I am still here, really! :D You know how it is... life gets busy and all of a sudden you're way behind in your blog posts.

I'm still on the plan and having fun. I'm down about 4 pounds which is good for me. Slow and Steady, I like it! I kinda-sorta am on Losing It With Leanne Volume 2, but really it's a combination of weeks 1 and 2. I shared my lentil soup with DH and therefore finished it faster (plus I only made a half-batch because my crock cooker is little) so I'm still mostly snacking on the Kashi. I've been keeping my crock cooker busy with Dinner dishes, plus I've been busy and haven't made more soup yet, but I will make more tomorrow. It was pretty good, but I'm gonna try sauteing the onion and garlic before I start and it should be even better!

I've also been trying a new thing with the FLYlady motto Go for seven in 2011! There's a group of us FLYbabies on Facebook chatting and we came up with the idea of daily seven lists. Seven things that you want to do everyday - it's a spin on the FLYlady routines, as we aren't really good at that yet. My daily seven list is: Get dressed to shoes, Swish n Swipe, Devotions, One Load of Laundry (start to finish), Drink my water, Dishes, and Bless my Heart. If I get all seven done in one day I get a point, when I get seven points I give myself a small reward (I chose taking the time to scrapbook one layout) and when I get to 70 points I get $7 extra spending money for fun stuff. The points system is a little more complicated than that (I have other ways to earn points, too) so 70 isn't really that huge of a number for me. I've done six of seven today, and I'm off to do my seventh....right....now! :D

So anyway, thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Please comment or send your questions to me at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :D

Losing It With Leanne Challenge Day 5

 I'm using that crock cooker!! On tonight's menu is shredded beef. MmmmMMMmmm!! Man, it was easy and delicious! I was a little wary because it called for soy sauce and I don't like soy sauce (and of course I forgot the tip to substitute Worcestershire sauce until I'd already put the soy sauce in, so I used both) but man, oh man! I never should have doubted Leanne! It was fabulous!! I'm eating great and I'm on a diet!! - Go figure!

I did my meat trick that I mentioned in Day 1 of the Challenge I had an almost 3 pound roast, but I only needed 2 pounds for this recipe, but later I'm going to be making another beef recipe that calls for 3/4 pounds, so I cut a little less than a third off the roast for the other recipe, trimmed the fat like I was supposed to and, since I was a 'gicky' anyway with touching all the raw meat and having a 'contaminated' knife and cutting board, I cut the extra third of the roast into the 1-inch cubes that that recipe calls for. When I'm ready for that one, I'll only have to dump the meat out of the bag, I won't even have to touch it! :D

OK, here's a Crock Cooker tip for you: Get your manual and look up this statistic for YOUR slow cooker! My crock cooker's temperature settings are such that 1 hour on high equals 2 hours on low. What does that mean? Well, I was running a little late and I put the roast on at 7, and I was going to need it for 12, but the recipe calls for 6 hours on low, but I only had 5 hours.... so, for one hour in the middle of cooking, I turned it up to high, then turned it back down to low to finish. Then I could take an hour off the timer, because that hour on high did twice the work! Now, unless you have a recipe that has times for low and high, you won't want to change the temperature for too long. This dish was 'designed' to be cooked on low, so if I had cooked it for 3 hours on high, it might not have turned out so nice... Just sayin'. So go look up what the stats are for your crock and the next time you get your cooker turned on a little late, you won't have to sweat it! (And if you don't know where your manual is, google it!)

I didn't do my wii exercises, but I did do another coat of paint in DH's office, and that totally counts.

Oh! I totally got my sides backwards this week. I should know better. You're supposed to cook your sides in the order they'll go bad, and I did it completely backwards! LOL. (Squash and Brussels sprouts last longer than lettuce and spinach.) Oh well. My Romaine is in pretty sad shape, but everything else is holding up OK. I'm gonna be having salads as my sides for the next bit though. 

So anyway, thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Please comment or send your questions to me at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :D