At Home My Way

Recently I saw a post on Facebook where a young mom asked for tips on saving money on meals.  At first, I resisted to comment, knowing that some posts are intended for an inner circle of friends and not from old moms of childhood friends LOL. Later, I changed my mind.  I am passionate about saving money on meals.  I have walked this path myself when my own children were young and I am a blogger - so have lots of resources all in one place. I asked this young mom to let me know if she was interested in some frugal blog links. I told her that for me, the places to start were cooking once to eat twice and cooking from scratch.  Those two things make a huge difference rather than buying prepackaged/shortcut meals which really drain the bank account fast.  My young friend told me she works on trying to cook more scratch meals.  It occurred to me that she may think I mean she should make "from scratch" things like baking bread, rolling noodles, or ca...

Last night I made one of our favorite crockpot meals, Chicken -n- Biscuits .  While I had the oven cranked up, I decided to pop in one of my favorite things to have for lunch.  Corndog Muffins!  My husband thought this was a hoot.  He thought I was making cornbread muffins for supper and so when he saw hotdogs peaking out of the muffins, he just about cracked up!  (He doesn't know what he's missing!)  These little jewels are so tasty.  The combination of sweet cornbread and salty hotdogs really is yummy.  I especially love that in the morning, when I'm tired and can't dream up a thing to take with me to the office for lunch, I can grab these out of the freezer, stick them in a little container, and out the door I go.  At lunchtime, I just pop them in the microwave for a few seconds to warm them. I use my favorite homemade cornbread muffin recipe to make these Corndog Muffins.  This recipe is one that I got fro...

Breakfast-breakfast; what to have for breakfast?   This morning as I lay in bed, my tummy was already growling - hungry before I even stepped a foot out of bed.  Not a good sign LOL. My best plan of action is always muffins.  They mix up fast and I like them well enough that I don't miss the super size chocolate frosted and vanilla cream filled long john donut that I'm really craving (shhh...)! Back to the muffins... I LOVE pumpkin everything.  I especially love pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and bread.  I tweaked my normal pumpkin chocolate chip muffin this morning and liked it so much that I wanted to share it with you.  I subbed out 1/2 cup of the flour in the recipe for oats  so that I would get a heartier muffin.  I prefer muffins that taste like a muffin and not like a cupcake, ya know??  These muffins have the perfect texture now.  Perfect! Anyway, these muffins are DEEEEE...LICIOUS!  They are lightly spicy and have...

Our weather has been pretty much perfect here in Missouri for gardening!  I didn't plant a garden this year but that hasn't stopped the abundance of cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, and squash that we have been eating.  Seems like everyone is giving me vegetables and I'm not turning ANY AWAY! Personally, I've never been able to grow much zucchini because of the stinking (literally because they really stink when you smash them-eek!) squash bugs, groundhogs, and deer in our yard, but other people seem to really have the touch.  I was given a few of those beautiful, green, mammoth giants and I couldn't wait to dive in on some of my favorite zucchini recipes. I remember growing up when my mom used to make a chocolate zucchini cake.  Mmmm!  I love that cake and I consider it a special summer treat!  Since it's just Doug and I at home most of the time these days, I decided to try my hand at a smaller recipe to get my chocolate/zucchini fix instead of making...

Surprise Muffins   (Easy - Uses Pantry Ingredients) 2 cups all purpose flour 1/3 cup sugar 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup milk 1 egg 1/2 cup vegetable oil *Jam/jelly of your choice (optional) *Colored sugars for sprinkling (optional) Directions: PREHEAT:  Oven to 350 degrees COMBINE:  In a mixing bowl all of the dry ingredients. Stir well. COMBINE:  In a separate dish from the dry ingredients- the egg, oil, and milk.  Stir so egg is thoroughly blended with other wet ingredients. COMBINE: Wet and dry ingredients  and STIR, just until blended . PLACE: Muffin papers in 12 muffin cups/tin.  (I really prefer papers for these muffins.) SCOOP:  Approximately one heaping Tablespoon of batter into the bottom of each muffin cup. NEXT PLACE:  About 1 teaspoon of your favorite jam or jelly on top of that batter. TOP: With another spoon of muffin batter. SPRINKLE: With colo...

HOMEMADE ENGLISH MUFFINS I make up a big bowl of dough (the folks from MOTHER EARTH magazine and this blog showed me how) and from that bowl of dough I make a variety of dishes.  I can make round loaves of crusty bread - bakery quality - to serve with soups and salads.  I can make this delicious Homemade Pizza .  I also make rolls, bread sticks, and one of our favorites, Homemade English Muffins.  Yes.... all from the same bowl of dough, which can be kept in the fridge for my spontaneous cooking delight for about two weeks.  I posted the recipe for the dough when I posted instructions for the Homemade Pizza, but I will post it again simply because it is so good and easy.  Who doesn't have one minute to stir up homemade bread before you run off  to work?  You might think you don't have one extra minute in the morning, but after you taste recipes made with this dough, you will know that you have the time! No-Knead Dough 3 cups very warm wa...

School starting always puts me in the mood for new beginnings!  I don't even have any kids living at home IN school this year (our younger daughter IS a junior in college but she lives about two hours away from us) BUT I still find myself somehow inspired to get back with the program!  Time to start planning ahead and sticking to a plan.  Enough spending money on eating out! I haven't been very good this summer at making things for breakfast.  I ate my first bowl of homemade oatmeal this week.  It was so delish!  Sure beats all of the donuts (eek!) that I have been stuffing my face with this summer LOL. This morning I woke up early.  Feeling pretty good for a change, I jumped up and put a load of clothes that I had washed late last night into the dryer.  (I also haven't been very good at using my clothesline which I dearly love but don't seem to be able to fit into my schedule these days.)  Funny how things "come to you" but as I was...

I used to work in a daycare center when I was in about eighth grade.   I really enjoyed it!  I enjoyed spending time with the kids and also enjoyed getting a little bit of spending money.  It was not my first job since I had done lots of babysitting throughout the years, but it was my first job where I got an actual, regular paycheck!  Woo hoo! I remember the large batch meals that the cook made for the kids as always being VERY delicious (unlike some of the processed, microwaved food that is put out for kids these days ugh)!  So sad it's come to this....   Anyway, for breakfast, we often had a recipe she called "Six-Week Bran Muffins".  Basically it was a muffin batter made from bran cereal and kept in the fridge for up to six weeks (although I've never kept it that long).  You scoop the cold batter into prepared/sprayed or paper lined muffin tins and bake.  The muffins are lightly sweet, dense, and very moist.  I love them! I...

One of my nieces had a baby about a week ago.  Babies are always so exciting to me!  This baby is the second child for my niece and her husband.  Their older son is a little over two years old.   I wanted to take them a few freezer meals so that mom could spend more time with the boys and less time in the kitchen.  I tried to make something special for each member of their family.  For the two year old, I thought some mini corndog bites might fit the bill.  This way, my niece could pull them out of the freezer, microwave them until warm, and give her son a pretty nutritious lunch or snack without having to drag something out of a box (eek LOL). I'll post more about the other freezer meals that I made for them later on this week, but for now I wanted to post about the Corndog Mini Muffins.  I have posted about corndog muffins before (here) , but recently I saw a picture on Pinterest of corndog mini muffins.  They feature one chunk of ...