Pantry Challenge, Friday Update-Muffins Edition....

Okay, in trying to use up items from my deep freeze I decided to have a little baking afternoon. I might as well get the dishes and kitchen dirty all at one time, right?

I ended up making blueberry muffins (which were devoured in less than 15 minutes by my crew), peach muffins (which we are having for breakfast), and this applesauce bread. I doubled it and made two loaves. Oh me, oh my. It was so good. I'm glad I made two because now we can have the other loaf for snacks today.

Applesauce Bread:

1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup applesauce (I used my homemade applesauce and it already had the spices in it)
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar. Add the egg and applesauce. Mix well. Combine dry ingredients. Gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Slice while hot, slather on some real butter, and dig in.

Pantry Challenge Do-Over....

Last month after I announced my Pantry Challenge I ended up in the hospital for three days. And the pantry challenge didn't happen. Oh, my pantry got wonderfully filled by my sweet sister who packed it to the gills and by friends from church who brought us some meals. (Hey Jill, I hope I never forget Abbie recounting that shopping trip~~Get two of em!"). But, recovery and then pure laziness got the best of me and by Monday the pantry was bare bones. Now, that is the point of the pantry challenge, but I didn't go about it in the best way.

So, this month I am determined to do better.

Mark gets paid every two weeks so James and I bought groceries together yesterday. (By the way, if you have "big boys" who normally do all the hauling and toting and putting the buggies away, take your little one with you alone every once in awhile. It was so much fun to let James "do the man's work" since his brothers weren't there. He really was more trouble than help yesterday, but it always won't be that way--and it was precious cute and I wanted to imprint him trying to lift those heavy bags into the car without me on my mind. He had just a little help from me and we got that job done!)

Whoa!~I just wrote another whole post.

Okay, back to the pantry. I have stocked up for hopefully two weeks, with only going to be store for milk and fruit. I have fruit monsters here at this house and I am okay with that. I would rather see them eat fruit than junk. But why oh why does the fruit have to cost so much???? I am looking towards summer and fall when I can send them to the pear trees to pick their own fruit :).

Here are my goals for this month:

~Lower my overall grocery bill by $50 this month. This may not sound like a lot, but when you are feeding three big kids this is lots harder than it sounds. Its a baby step, but its a step.

~Send Mark to work with a lunch everyday. I fell off this train in a bad way in January.

~Use what I have in my deep freeze. I told Rebekah yesterday, "I spend all this time in the summer putting all the fruit up and I need to use it." Yesterday I bought big tubs of yogurt and we are going to have lots of peach and blueberry smoothies this month.

~Eat leftovers for lunch as much as possible. This is going to go over like a lead balloon with my kiddos, but oh well.

~Think about what I am doing in the kitchen with our food. I think this will be half the battle.

Okay, so here we go.

Today's menu:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, biscuits, sausage
Lunch: hot dogs, fruit salad, and popcorn (yep, popcorn-we have tons of it because the Scouts sell it each fall and I have ended up with a lot)
Supper: Yummy Crockpot Dinner-smoked sausage, potatoes, green beans, and onion in the crockpot. Pour one cup of water on top of it, plop a stick of butter on very top, salt and pepper like crazy, and there you go. Cook till its done.

I will update on Wednesdays or as I usually do, whenever the moods hit me :)

Today I am linking up at Raising Homemakers.
and Simple Country Home.

Pantry Challenge Update, Week 2

Well....

Today I was supposed to link up at Good Cheap Eats and discuss how my pantry challenge is going.

Its not going at all.

But I have a real doctor's excuse this time. So, I don't think I will be able to do it this month. But hopefully in February because it is something I would like to do.

We have had some meals delivered from church friends and my mom. And then Jill topped the cake by coming Sunday and buying up a bunch of easy groceries that the kids could fix themselves this week. I'm telling you, my sister Jill is the epitome of generosity and unselfishness. Of course, she made me laugh until my stomach was hurting again when she came, but it was worth it.

So, to say all that, I hope to be able to resume next month. I think it is a great idea.