All You Grocery Challenge Daily Roundup - Day 2

Tuesday - Day 2

So, we are done with the second day of the grocery challenge. I did pretty darn good, though I can't say my husband did. He's going to be the death of me, I swear. LOL. He took my older son with him to go work on our land and tend to the garden, and on the way home they grabbed food at Taco Bell. He spent $9.88. He also spent $2.29 on a gallon of milk. I did send him over to get the milk though. So, I will now be adding this to this week's totals.

Breakfast/Lunch:
We all got up late this morning, so we had a brunch. I made more blueberry pancakes today. Although, I tried to make them from scratch and they tasted funny. Darn Betty Crocker recipe. Yuck! I will not be making that recipe again! We also had eggs and toast.

Dinner:

Since my husband and son were gone, I knew I had to make something that wouldn't require too much time in the kitchen. With two kids under the age of 3, you don't know what they will get into when your back is turned. I had had something else planned for dinner, but we will just have that another time. I had frozen homemade mac n cheese with broccoli a few weeks ago, and I threw that in the oven for dinner. It seemed to take forever. I guess I forgot that it usually takes more than an hour to cook when it is frozen. But it was tasty and the kids ate it quickly. We then had some fruit cocktail and for dessert, a chocolate chip cookie.

I used up the Nestle swirl chocolate chips that I got on clearance last week for $1.49 a package. These turned out yummy! I baked up about 30 of them, and the rest were scooped out, flash froze, put in freezer bags and placed in freezer for future use.

Along with the cookies and the pancakes, I also made bread today. 6 loaves to be exact. I made up one set of loaves while the little man was napping. I decided that I wanted to get some extra loaves in the freezer, so as soon as my bowl was free, I started making up another 3 loaves. I am thinking that I need to invest in another large mixing bowl and 3 more bread pans. That way I could 6 loaves at a time. Wouldn't that be sweet?

Sandwich Bread Recipe

I was asked to share the recipe I use for making my bread. This is actually a recipe I got from a fellow member at Frugal Village. If you would like to look at the original recipe, you can click here. This recipe makes 3 loaves of awesome sandwich bread. I buy my flour at Aldi's for about $1.50 for five pounds (Sam's Club has a really good price on theirs also - 25 pounds for around $9) and I buy 2 packages of 1 pound yeast at Sam's Club for about $5. Keep the other yeast in the freezer until you are ready to open it. This will extend the life of the yeast past the expiration date.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons yeast
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon of sugar
3 cups of warm water
9 cups of flour
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup melted butter, shortening, or oil

Directions:
1. In large bowl, add 1 tablespoon of sugar, the yeast and 1 cup of warm water. Let set for 10 minutes.
2. Mix the yeast in well. Then add the 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup sugar, salt, and butter or oil. Mix together. Mix in 3 cups of the flour, one cup at a time. At this point, I use a whisk to get it really mixed well. Then mix in the remaining 6 cups of flour, one cup at a time. When it starts getting too hard to mix with a spoon, use your hands.
3. Place dough on floured surface. Knead well for about 4-5 minutes or until dough becomes elastic.
4. After kneading, put the dough in a large oiled bowl and flip to coat both sides with oil. Loosely cover bowl with plastic wrap, and place in a warm place. Let it rise for 1 hour.
5. Punch down dough to remove air bubbles and divide into 3 loaves. I do this by shaping into a circle and making a peace sign type shape to divide the circle into thirds. Then since I do not have a dough cutter, I use a pizza cutter - this works great!
6. Shape into loafs and put into greased loaf pans. I shape mine by making it into a rectangular shape with my hands (you can also use a rolling pin but this doesn't work well for me). I then roll the dough up, while folding in the ends once in a while - kind of like making a burrito or soft taco. When I get to the end, I pinch the seams together, then pat down the seams and place in loaf pan. If that doesn't make any sense, please see the pictures.

7. Cover pans with dishtowels (I also place the plastic used earlier underneath the towel) and place in a warm area for another hour. Loaves should double in size.
8. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

It is ready when it turns golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped! Remove from pans and cool on a cooling rack!

If you have any problems cutting it, stick the loaf in a freezer bag for an hour and then try to re-cut. Or, you can just wrap and freeze without slicing.

Words of the Week Wednesday

Every Wednesday I write about 1-3 sites I have found recently that I think you will like to go visit. Today's sites are:

1. Stouffer's is having a contest on their site. Usually I don't post contests, but I really think that it's a very interesting contest. In order to get an entry into the contest each week, you have to post a goal of how many times you want to eat at home with your family. Then at the end of the week you fill in how many times you ate at home, and that enters you in the contest each week. I think it is a wonderful that they are promoting eating at home with your family. Not only does it promote family and together time, it also saves you money. You can check out the contest at Take the Challenge -Let's Fix Dinner.
2. Have you ever made homemade bread? It is so yummy. But many homemade breads are not good as sandwich bread. Ever try putting peanut butter and jelly on regular homemade bread? Doesn't work very well. I found a delicious recipe for homemade sandwich bread. A fellow member at Frugal Village posted it on there and it is so awesome! You can find the recipe on the White Sandwich Bread thread. While you're there, browse around the rest of Frugal Village. It is a wonderful place where people share their frugal tips with each other.
   
3. Erin from $5 Dinner.com was recently featured on Raychel Ray. You can see the show segment here. Erin's blog centers around how she feeds her family for $5 per meal. She uses the stores' weekly ads and coupons to plan her meals for the week. She not only provides recipes, but also pictures of the meals when she makes them. She also just got a contract to write a cookbook! Congrats Erin!

If you have any blogs or sites (anything dealing with frugality, money or coupons), please leave it in my comments and I will look it over for possible inclusion in the next Words of the Week Wednesday.