Five Favorites: Birthday Freebies

For the past few years, I have gone on a "freebie spree" for my birthday. Just call me Mrs. Frugality. Here are my favorites from this year, with links to all of the companies so you can sign up and get your own!

No actual dollars were spent on this spree (nope, no BOGO or any nonsense like that, just 100% FREE!)

Favoritism, 5 things at a time

1.

Firehouse Subs

This "Club on a Sub" was devoured before I even thought of taking a pic of the inside.

Firehouse is the only one that doesn't have a coupon and that you only have one day to redeem. Just bring a valid ID in on your actual birthday, and you get a free sub!

2.

Noodles & Company

Wisconsin Mac & Cheese with Meatballs

Where has this place been all my life? I had never even heard of Noodles & Company before we moved to Fort Wayne. Since I passed one all the time, I signed up for their birthday club. This was my first time ever in there, and I got a big ol' bowl of anything I wanted for free. (Seriously, I had enough left over that I took some home.) It's counter-service, so I didn't even have to leave a tip! (Sign up here.)

3.

Baskin-Robbins

Always nice having a June birthday for this one.

A free scoop from Baskin-Robbins. Do I really need to say more? Yes, the cone was free, too. (Sign up here.)

4.

CVS

CVS $3 off $3

If you're a CVS ExtraCare member, check your email! This is the 3rd year in a row I have gotten a coupon for $3 off $3. And my favorite candy just so happened to be $3. Zero dolla, make me holla. (Sign up in store for ExtraCare then do the online part here.)

5.

Giving Back

Since you're getting a bunch of freebies for yourself, you should probably give something away. Be it your time as a volunteer, a meal for a friend or acquaintance in need, or as I did this year, a pint of my own blood.

There was a poster on the wall that encouraged selfies.

I just love the look of that full bag of blood.

I used to donate a lot in college and haven't since then. (I got screened out back in the early days of this blog) The process is so easy now--I just signed up online and went to the hospital down the street that has a full-time donation center. Unbeknownst to me when at sign-up, I also got a coupon for a free pint of frozen custard. (Give a pint, get a pint--get it??)

Two other freebies I haven't even gotten to yet are a free sundae from Culver's and a free gift from Sephora (ours is a counter in JCPenney). Never done those before, so I can't review them! IHOP also gave me a free meal, but I tipped and also paid for Cora and my BIL's meal. Not counting that one as "free."

If your birthday isn't any time soon and you are fortunate enough to live within a reasonable distance of the wonderful institution known as Krispy Kreme, you can get a free doughnut on Friday in celebration of National Doughnut Day. Enjoy it for me, since I miss that place more than I miss my own momma. Sometimes.

Meatless Meal: Spinach with Couscous and Pears

With one 'normal' meatless Friday left this Lent, I present to you a meatless recipe! Hey, some people do meatless Fridays throughout the year, so I guess this would be relevant any time. We've eaten this other times of year, too! We love it, and it's surprisingly filling.

Spinach With Couscous and Pears

Yield: about 6 servings

Ingredients
2 cups whole-wheat couscous
2 Tbsp. olive oil
3 cups water*
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
Salt
4 cups baby spinach
2 pears, cored and cut into 1/4-inch dice
4 ounces crumbled goat cheese

*If you want to make this non-veg, sub 2 of the cups of water with chicken broth and omit salt in step 2. I guess you could use vegetable broth, but I haven't tried it and can't vouch for it.

Directions
1. Toast couscous in a saucepan over medium-high heat until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. 2. Pour the 3 cups of water and some salt to the saucepan and bring it to a boil. Stir in the toasted couscous, cover, remove from heat and let stand for 12 minutes.
3. Transfer couscous to a large bowl; fluff with a fork. Stir in oil, lemon juice and mustard. Season with salt. 4. Toss with spinach and pears, top with goat cheese and serve. You can leave it out to serve at room temperature or cover and refrigerate.

I prefer this salad with warm couscous, so I only mix the amounts I need at the time and keep the couscous in its own container in the fridge so I can heat it up for leftovers.

Adapted from All You, November 2013

What I Wore and What We'll Eat

Double link-up Sunday, because, well, because I want to.

Outfits over thisaway.

Top and skirt: thrifted
Leggings: so old I don't remember, but I ran a 5K in them once
(ugh, can't wait until I don't need leggings for the simple task of walking outside
[read: it snowed AGAIN yesterday])
Boots: from Shoe Carnival, last year--and I think they may make it to next winter!

And the scarf? Oh, I just happened to WIN this lovely thing from a giveaway at Jenna's blog. It's from the Etsy shop DesignedByChloe, and it is awesome. It's in the 2 colors that can never go wrong for me--University of Georgia colors! She also sent me the nicest little hand-written note, so that's a double dose of awesome. Check out her shop for cute stuff and what looks to be free shipping (seriously, girl‽).

I really wanted to wear my hair down to church, but it got super-static on my coat right before we left. Lilla Rose to the rescue.

It doesn't match, and I don't care.

Now on to this week's noms.

Meal ideas over thataway.

Sunday: Chicken Parmesan. I better figure out the recipe, but I bet Betty Crocker has one, right?

Monday: Leftovers OR Breakfast for Dinner. I have no idea how much stretch that chicken parm will have to it, so I made a contingency plan.

Tuesday: B cooks. Knowing him, it will involve chicken, but if breakfast for dinner doesn't happen on Monday, I might push him that way.

Wednesday: Tacos. Who can argue with taco night?

Thursday: Pizza. Such an ambitious week over here.

Friday: Fish fry! At our church. All you can eat. Thank you, Lent.

Saturday: Ranch Pork Chops. Saturdays are tough around here because we go to church on Saturday night and I have to scrounge up dinner quickly when we get back. Unless I use the slow cooker, which is precisely my strategy!

I have also switched out my monthly meal planner to a calendar-style. All meals subject to change, as always.

What's On Our Table This Week?

At the beginning of March, I posted my menu plan for the whole month.

Now that we're more than halfway through said month, I thought I'd share what has actually transpired:

I went back and crossed out the stuff that never happened and the changes I've made to this week's plan. Between day-of dinner invitations from B's Grandma, his parents randomly visiting, and just having more leftovers than I thought we would, things change. I still am glad I switched to monthly planning though because I'm finding it a lot more freeing to be over-planned than to be under-planned. When I switched up this week's plan, I knew that I had all of the right stuff for those meals already bought.

For this week, I would like to point out that I always forget about St. Patrick's Day and have never made a special meal for it (the only tie I have to being Irish is being Catholic). I did a St. Patrick's Day-themed 5K this weekend though, so hopefully I'll at least remember to wear some green.

Sunday (tonight): Leftover ham and mashed potatoes (for the 3rd time!)

Monday: Slow Cooker Ranchero Chicken (from 5 Dollar Dinners' Costco in $150 thingy), on tortillas.

Tuesday: Leftover Ranchero Chicken

Wednesday: Homemade Pizza. B cooks. I asked him if he wanted to choose what to make, or if he wanted to be assigned what to make. He chose the assignment, so he's gonna make our homemade pizza! Last time I did this, I made the dough in our Ninja blender following their recipe, and it was easy and good and awesome. So he'll be doing that and topping it however he wants.

Thursday: Chili. I had scribbled something else up there, but I just changed my mind like 5 minutes ago when I realized I had a hankering for chili.

Friday: Quinoa with Corn & Beans. Also from the 5 Dollar Dinners meal plan. We've only had quinoa once before, so we'll see how this goes.

Saturday: Slow Cooker Chicken Parmesan. 5DD again and again and again. I actually had been planning on doing 5DD stuff earlier in the month, but it was always the ones that got nixed in the shuffle. I might doing too much this week, since all 3 of these are new recipes to me. (But how hard is the slow cooker, really?)

Let's hope 5DD doesn't let me down!

Check out JLW for some inspiration!

Meal Planning for March

I've done it!

I've successfully blogged 7 posts in 7 days! I've shared how we chose our daughter's name, asked some not-so-burning questions about food, shared my journey to finally calling myself a runner, dumped the contents of my purse for all to see, invited my readers to play Oscar games on Twitter with me tonight, and even gushed about my cell phone plan (no, really).

And today will end will end with a look at the future. The future being March, and what we will eat for dinner during it.

I started meal planning a month at a time recently, and it went okay. There were some weeks I had to tweak a lot of it due to life happening, but it was nice to just be able to hop back on the plan without having to scramble.

I'm sure you notice the scribble on the side--Lent starts this week, which means all Friday meals will be meatless this month. It actually isn't all that hard for us since I have been incorporating more meatless meals into our plan lately.

Some of the abbreviations on the list above are All You--meaning from All You magazine. I love this magazine, and most of the recipes from it have been superb. The "5DD" means the blog 5 Dollar Dinners. All of the recipes I'm using from it are from this post: 20 Meals From Costco for $150. We don't even have a Costco membership, but I liked the idea! (However, this is where some issues cropped up since most of those recipes contain meat!)

This week we have:

Monday: Italian Chicken & Potatoes in the Slow Cooker. (Recipe) I haven't actually gone grocery shopping yet, snow refuses to stop falling, and I'm horribly sick to the point where I can hardly speak above a whisper, so I'm not sure this is actually going to happen.

Tuesday: Mardi Gras Pancake Feast! I used to make my own pancakes, but decided last month to get a box mix to make my life easier. I bought the Meijer store-brand buttermilk mix, and it is soooo good! I'll probably add in some chocolate chips. And of course we'll go full-out with bacon, eggs, and whathaveyou.

Wednesday: Simple Soup After Church. (Note: that's not spaghetti like it says above, since I took this pic before we went to mass this weekend and found out about this). It's Ash Wednesday, and in the Catholic world, that means fasting and abstinence. Abstinence means abstaining from meat, and fasting means only one actual meal, and two smaller meals that don't equal your 'big' meal. Our church is doing a simple soup meal in the parish hall after the service, so that sounds good enough for us.

Thursday: Husband cooks! Not sure what he'll do. If I actually cook on Monday, we'll probably still have leftovers so he'll get off easy. If not, he seems to like cooking chicken in different ways.

Friday: Baked Penne with Vegetables. (Recipe) The recipe ingredients read like a lasagna, but it doesn't seem like nearly as much work.

Saturday: Leftovers. We're also going to a party at a pizza joint that afternoon, so I'm not quite sure how hungry we'll be for dinner.

Sunday: Ham and Mashed Potatoes. After reading Green Eggs and Ham to my kid for the billionth time, I realized that I cannot shake the southern pronunciation of the word. Hay-am. 2 syllables. Yes, I'm from Georgia, and yes, my Hoosier husband probably thinks I'm nuts.

Food For Thought, Literally

I sorta asked this question in another post, but I don't think anyone actually answered it. So now I will answer it myself.

If you could only eat 3 meals for the rest of your life, but you never had to worry about nutrition what would you eat??

So basically your 3 meals would meet all of your nutritional needs perfectly. No weight-loss diets, no wacky GI issues, no lactose-intolerance, etc. You could eat all of the same meal in one day or 3 different meals a day. But each meal, you only have 3 options. Each meal can contain up to 5 different foods/beverages.

I would eat these meals:

1. Pizza. Extra cheese. Rising crust. With a hard cider. Add a form of cheesy bread. Cookies & Cream ice cream with hardening fudge and sprinkles for dessert. And some Twix bars on the side.

2. A box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Retrieved from when the 'HOT' sign was on. Yeah, a whole box. Some scrambled eggs, bacon, and a strawberry orange smoothie.

3. Ground beef chimichangas.  On the side, chips and white queso dip (specifically the one from Frontera back in my hometown). McDonald's fries (had to sneak them in somewhere). Chocolate milk.

Now the real question is would you prefer this to the way we eat now?

Personally, I think I would. I know I never eat enough vegetables. I've heard of people who eat the same thing every day, and, honestly, it intrigues me. If I could just eat my favorites and never have to worry, I totally would! I'm not the world's most inspired chef, anyway. I don't think I'd ever get bored of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. However, I changed my 3rd meal a few times before I settled on the chimichangas, so maybe I am just better off as it is now.

What would you eat? And would your rather do 3 meals all the time or actually have to meal plan?

This Week's Eats

chalkboards and meal ideas with Jessica Lynn

Hey, who wants to see what's up in our kitchen this week?

That cutie on the left is my hilarious niece.

I know, it's cool as Jessica's chalkboard-thingy, but I'm going to admit right here right now that I. hate. chalk. So messy. Never can find the eraser. Makes that horrible noise. Gets your hands all dirty.

Dry-erase it is!

Sunday: Leftover Pizza. On my monthly meal plan, this was supposed to be something else. But circumstances changed, we attended a funeral yesterday, and last night B's dad bought pizza and invited some other relatives over. We have enough left for dinner tonight.

Monday: Chicken Pot Pie. Using the recipe in my Betty Crocker book. The pie-crusts are frozen ones, since my mom bought some at Thanksgiving and we didn't use them all (I make my apple pie crusts from scratch, thankyouverymuch). So they need to be used, and I want some CPP. (My first job was a waitress at a chicken place and that's how we abbreviated that order on our notepads. p.s. I was a terrible waitress.)

Tuesday: Leftover CPP. Hopefully we'll have enough left. If not, then it's hot dogs all around.

Wednesday: Homemade Macaroni & Cheese. I'm still on the hunt for the perfect recipe. I have cheddar and some gouda in my arsenal. Feel free to point me to the right direction in the comments! (Update: I used the recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook, using half cheddar and half gouda, then added a crumb topping. It was great!)

Thursday: Leftovers. Probably mac & cheese leftovers, but we'll just raid everything in there. 

Friday: Whatever + Martinis. Oh, I am soooooo excited about this weekend. B has Drill Weekend and is taking Cora with him so my in-laws can "rent-a-tot" for a few days. That mean I get to pretend I have no responsibilities from Friday night to Sunday afternoon! I might just eat some freezer taquitos or something, but I also got invited to a Mama's Night Out at a martini bar downtown through a group I've joined. 

Saturday: Soup From a Can. You don't even want to know how excited I am to just eat a can of soup and not care. It's ridiculous, really.

Desserts & Snacks: I really need to bust out these Homemade Protein Bars once again (especially for the husband to put in his lunchbox), and I have just a bit of cookie dough left in our fridge from something else. I'll wait to make those until the weekend. :-) I also have coupons for free fro-yo, a free Snickers bar, and a free small pizza (from the gas station) that need to be used. This weekend is gonna be grand.

This week I'm also partaking in the challenge at Conversion Diary to do 7 Posts in 7 Days. I usually only post once or twice a week, so this is a huuuuuuuge stretch for me! There of course will be link-ups, but maybe more 'real' content, too. And hey, the 7th day of it is Sunday so I'll have my entire month meal plan for March to share.

Meal Plans and Whatnot

We had a meal planning system. It went fine until a few months ago. The old system would have like 8 meals on the board--all ingredients bought in one big trip--and the night before I would decide what we were having. I guess I got lazy or busy or I don't know, but more and more I found that I hadn't thawed out the meat or hadn't even chosen the meal to make come 5pm.

After a strange spat about cooking and how I hate it and am not good at it and wish I had enough money to hire a private chef, we made the conscious decision to eat out more. Meaning twice a month. (We went to a whopping ZERO restaurants together in January.) Yes, we might be the most frugal people you may ever meet, in the fact that we had to come to that decision. To do this we actually needed to schedule our restaurant nights. I also asked B if he would cook twice a month (not just whenever I didn't feel like doing it and put him on the spot like previously).

All of that led to meal planning for actual days of the week. Y'know, like normal people do.

I went a little crazy and did a whole month, just to make my life easier.

I did have one drawback last week, though, as my Friday meal actually made enough for 2 nights. I'm obviously not an over-achiever in the kitchen, so we ate it again Saturday. I ended up making the Saturday meal for lunch today (for me).

Below is our menu for this week. We have no food allergies, aren't paleo or gluten-free, we aren't on weight-loss journeys, we eat for sustenance first and taste second, and our 2-year-old probably won't eat any of this. (Yeah, not even the nuggets. Maybe the pizza, though?)

Sunday: Homemade pizza and a salad. I'm hoping to make the dough in my Ninja blender using their recipe!

Monday: Homemade chicken nuggets. The class I'm taking on Coursera about Child Nutrition & Cooking showed just how easy it is to make these (flour, then egg, then panko, then pan-fry). Plus, Meijer had boneless, skinless thighs on sale which is the best cut but usually the most expensive.

Tuesday: Breakfast for dinner. Bacon, pancakes, fruit, and maybe eggs. I may sound lame, but oven-baked bacon has saved my sanity (and it tastes the same!).

Wednesday: Ground Beef Casserole (Shepherd's Pie, kinda). You brown a pound of ground beef, add a can of tomato soup, a can of drained green beans, and top it with mashed potatoes. We ate this a lot growing up, and I refer to it now by a family name. I have started adding some thawed-out mixed vegetables, since we're always a bit lacking in the veg department. So yeah, I think I turned it back into Shepherd's Pie with that. I might used ground turkey this week.

Thursday: Casserole leftovers

Friday: B cooks. Not sure what he'll make, but he better tell me before I go grocery shopping! (Otherwise, he'll probably take the spaghetti route.)  Update: he made lemon-rosemary chicken breasts, recipe from one of our cookbooks.

Saturday: Crockpot Sweet & Sour Meatballs, over rice. Found this through another blog, but here's the link to the actual recipe.

Animal-Themed Birthday Party

For Cora's 2nd birthday party, I found these invitations in my stash of stuff from (pre?)college.

Looks like my party theme just chose itself. Animals!

I looked at Pinterest a little bit, but I'm not one to go crazy with a theme. A lot of the Pinterest stuff narrowed it down to one category of animals (jungle animals, mostly). I decided just animals in general would make my life easier. Plus, the guest of honor was turning 2. She didn't give much input.

Let's start with purchased stuff. I bought some plates and napkins at Wal-Mart and Meijer.

I really love those cutesy animal plates and matching napkins, but they were part of a Baby's 1st Birthday line, and were the only things without the number 1 on them. I probably would have bought the rest if it was a year ago. (They were from Wal-Mart and very inexpensive.) On the right is Zoo Pals plates because I love them--each one is a different animal.

From Party City, I got a Pin the Nose on the Lion game. Even though there were no other young kids in attendance, it was a hit! B's brother and cousins were into it, and my mom forced me to play as well (and then I forced B, so basically everyone under the age of 31 played.)

This "blindfold" came with the game, but it only fits kids.

I love painter's tape a bit too much . . . 

Okay, onto the food. 

First, what animal-themed party would be complete without animal crackers? None, I tell you. None.

I bought some of the iced ones, too. Yum!

The rest of the food all had animal 'themes' (in a loose sense of the word).

Snake sandwiches. 5 dollar footlongs from Subway that we cut ourselves.
Yes, that's a tomato tongue.

Kangaroo kabobs

Protip with these that got figured out as we went along: half an apple is perfect for jamming the pointy ends in to.

Manatee meatballs

Panda Pizza.
These were just bagel bites, but I should have bought more than 2 boxes. They went fast!

Tortoisse Tortilla Chips & Salsa. (Again with the painter's tape.)

Camel Chips & Dip (my kid loves camels)

Cheetah Cheese & Crackers

Seahorse Soda and Walrus Wine

So after we played games, devoured all the food, opened all the presents, we of course had to have some cake.

Yeah, I made that.

The cake was strawberry with vanilla frosting. It was so good!

I also made Cora her own little cake using a mug cake recipe and making it in a ramekin (in the microwave).

 While we were singing to her:

Just like last year, I had to cut it first before she really dug into it.
But then there was no turning back!

Some other thoughts on this party:

• My mom bought Cora helium balloons from the Dollar Tree. A buck for each balloon, seriously the best deal in town. (Yes, the fill them for you, too.)
• From now on, I will be making sheet cakes for birthday parties because there was barely any of this cake left. Also, it is really hard to write on round cakes because there's not much area on the top.
• I will also have more chocolate for the guests. The only chocolate at this party was Cora's cake. I debated buying Zebra Cakes, but ultimately decided against it. A peanut and M&M "elephant food" mix would have been a good compromise.
• I will check my food coloring before hitting up the store. Those zebra stripes were supposed to be pink, but my pink had gotten old and had to be chucked. Ah, well.
• More bagel bites!

I'm glad my mom was here to help. Not sure if she'll ever come back for Cora's birthday again because the weather here is awful in January--and then her flight back got cancelled, of course. There was basically a blizzard happening the day of her party, but there was no way in heck I was cancelling. Everyone showed up, though! (My in-laws drove up from Indy and the first thing they said was, "We're moving your birthday to June!") And everyone had a great time. We will continue January celebrations, even if it means she is only celebrating with Mommy and Daddy and her stuffed animals.

What I Wore Sunday (Football, Skirts, Contact Paper)

First off, happy September! This month means a few things:

1. Football is in full swing! I stayed up late to watch my beloved Georgia Bulldogs fall short of Clemson. At least it was a good game, right?

I found this football book for Cora at the library:

See how happy she is with her book??

That is, UNTIL we got to the letter F.

Whomp whomp.

Yes, the only picture of my team in the entire book is of our player fumbling the ball. I should probably just take this thing back to the library and be glad I didn't waste actual money on it.


2. September is the month of Skirtember! Hey, if the boys can have 'Movember' to grow nasty moustaches (I hate those things, by the way), why can't we have something, too? Today I chose my casual LBD with some extra stuff.

Black and brown, yessirree
Dress: Liz Lange Maternity from Target (nope, not preggers today!) // Cardigan and belt: Charlotte Russe // Cami bra: Maidenform // Sandals: Merona from Target

Outfit is just a re-worked version of this old thing. In that post, I discussed taking Cora to mass by myself and Chick-Fil-A. Well, today I also took Cora to mass by myself, and I also wanted to share with everyone that you can get FREE breakfast at Chick-Fil-A by going to make a reservation right here. Now you can't say I never gave you nothin', right? Except for those of you unfortunate enough not live near any of these delicious chicken biscuits. You should probably move.

3. Not sure how much this has to do with September, but we worked all day at our new house yesterday. I painted the pantry. Why does a pantry need to be painted, you ask? The short answer: because the previous owners were slobs.

My MIL and I also removed a ton of contact paper the previous week, including from the pantry. I have no idea why anyone feels the need to put contact paper onto laminate shelves, which are basically waterproof on their own, but I think these people (or possibly the owners before them) were addicted to the sticky stuff.

Here's your first before-and-after pic from our house.
Contact paper on the left shelf, removed on the right.

And you see how scratched up the wall behind the shelf is? Yeah, I tried to clean it, but it was a no-go. We found some paint in the basement, and I went for it. My FIL took out some of the shelves for painting, but the big one was just a bit too much so I worked around it. The built-ins are very nice (sans contact paper), so this was a fine solution for me.

Wall is scratchy!! Paint looks less green in real life.

Sorry, no complete after pics yet because we didn't have time to get all the shelves in. But soon! I'm happy at least one room in the house is done, even if it is just going to house all my food.

4. Extra pic of Cora because she did great at mass and looks cute today:

We all look cute today.