Lots of turkey leftovers on the menu this week. No surprise there. lol

Saturday – pizza night – Turkey Sandwiches!

Sunday – soup & sandwich day – Homemade bean soup, grilled cheese sandwiches

Monday – chicken – Turkey Tetrazzini – like this recipe, only using homemade sauce, and no mushrooms.

Tuesday – beef – Stir Fried Beef and rice

Wednesday – super simple – leftovers 🙂

Thursday – chicken – Turkey Pot Pie

Friday – Friday Night Fire/Beef – Steak, challah bread, brocolli

For more Menu Plan Monday ideas, visit I’m an Organizing Junkie.

We love to cook with (and eat!) honey. When we get down to the bottom of the bottle, however, it gets very hard to get the last of the honey out.

Here’s an easy tip to help get the honey out.

Put the honey bottle into warm water, warm, but not hot enough to melt the bottle is it’s plastic.

If the honey is crystallized, you can pour the honey out in a pan and heat until the crystals dissolve. If stored again, the crystals will most likely appear again, though.

The honey in the bottom of the bottle poured out nicely after a couple of minutes in warm water. It makes it so much easier than trying to scrape the honey out with a spatula.

For more tips, visit:

Kitchen Tip Tuesday
Tuesday’s Tip Jar

I got this recipe for Chocolate Oat Snack Cake from Frugal Recipes.

Chocolate Oat Snack Cake

1-3/4 c. boiling water
1 c. quick-cooking oats
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
1 c. packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1-3/4 c. all purpose flour
2 T. baking cocoa
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 (12 oz.) pkg. chocolate chips, divided

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl, combine water and oats; let stand for 10 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in oat mixture. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture. Stir in 1 c. chocolate chips.

Pour into a greased 13×9″ baking pan. Sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips.

Bake 40-45 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

This made a very nice, flavorful cake. No frosting needed! We all loved it. Even my visiting nephew liked it.

Even the next day, the cake was still moist. Even though there are a lot of us, I still make a 13×9 cake last several days. Hey, they don’t need a lot of cake anyway. You can’t tell there is oatmeal in this cake. You can’t see it, or feel the texture. Next time I make this, I’m going to use less sugar and whole wheat flour for at least half the white. I like to get every bit of whole grains that I can into my kids. Even at snack time.

For more recipes, visit:

I didn’t have time to bake the Garlic Parmesan Chicken last week, so I’m trying again this week.

Saturday – pizza night – Pizza, breadsticks, carrot sticks

Sunday – soup & sandwich day – Thanksgiving Dinner at church, Taco soup by daughter for supper

Monday – chicken – Oven baked pork chops , baked potatoes, yellow squash

Tuesday – beef – Steak, rice, cooked carrots

Wednesday – super simple – Slop made by my husband. Slop is the name our kids gave Dad’s recipe. Fried cabbage, potatoes, onions and hot dogs.

Thursday – chicken – Thanksgiving Dinner!

Friday – Friday Night Fire/Beef – Leftovers!

For more Menu Plan Monday ideas, visit I’m an Organizing Junkie.

I didn’t have time to bake the Garlic Parmesan Chicken last week, so I’m trying again this week.

Saturday – pizza night – Birthday Cook-out!

Sunday – soup & sandwich day – Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup, grilled Cheese sandwiches

Monday – chicken – Baked Garlic Parmesan Chicken , baked potatoes, green beans

Tuesday – beef – Dirty Rice, yellow squash

Wednesday – super simple – leftovers, carrot sticks

Thursday – chicken – Chicken Tacos

Friday – Friday Night Fire/Beef – Steak, Challah Bread, broccoli

For more Menu Plan Monday ideas, visit I’m an Organizing Junkie.

It’s that time of year again. It’s getting cold out. Time to start making hot chocolate!

Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix

5 1/2 cups powdered milk
1 1/2 cup cocoa
3 cups sugar
dash of salt

I give it a whirl in the food proccessor to make the milk a finer powder. I had trouble with it not all dissolving when I used it just out of the box. And it makes the texture like store bought mix. I adapted this recipe from another one that used non fat dairy creamer, like for coffee. But when I worked on getting all the trans fat out of our diets, that had to leave. The kids couldn’t tell the difference. They like to have mini marshmallows in theirs. But I like my chocolate straight!

We use 3 – 6 teaspoons, depending on how big your mug is. And how strong you like it to be. 🙂

I keep this in a canister right next to the stove. I don’t have a microwave anymore (and don’t want one) so I use the stove to heat the water.

Here’s the original recipe that I used. It’s very good, and does make a creamier hot chocolate. I just don’t like all the trans-fats. Do they make trans-fat free creamers yet? Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Hot Chocolate Mix

3 pouches dry milk
1 1/2 cups cocoa
3 cups sugar
1 1/3 c ups non dairy creamer
dash of salt

Enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate with your favorite kids!

For more frugal ideas, visit:
Frugal Friday at Life as Mom
Fantastic Frugal Friday