I am a Big Fan of Dream Dinners!

Friday night we made the "dream dinner" that I prepared last Tuesday. It was some of the best chicken I have ever tasted (the chicken was cooked the whitest that I have ever made). I prepared the Orangey Asian Chicken while I was there - the preparation was a little more involved than I was expecting but Jackson's Sunday School teacher (Rene) helped me some and for that I was thankful. Here are the top three reasons we loved the "dream dinner":

• First, we are not expert cooks, and therefore, having all these meals to choose from shows us how we can make great summer-time meals (they even suggest what side to have with your meal). We are getting a 20 percent discount this month on our meals, thanks to Ashley, so we can make 5 great meals for cheaper than going out to eat. I making four three-serving meals next Thursday and one six-serving meal. I will be preparing five different meals in all. Normally it would be $75 but we are getting it around $50 and you can freeze these meals for up to 3-4 months. I am going to be making McCormick Honey & Dijon Glazed Salmon, Buffalo Chicken, Chicken Yakitori with Rive, Tuscan Steaks, and Sesame Crusted Pork Chops. Yum! I am so sick of everything we have been eating so with this we get restaurant-quality food without the price.
  
• Second, I love how we make everything there and all we have to do is cook the meal once we get home.
  
• I am a huge planner so this gives me no excuse not to have time or to not feel like making dinner for that night.

With the Orangey Asian Chicken that we made Friday night we were able to stretch it into two meals and they suggest having white rice with it. All we had to do was:

• Heat the sauce that I had already prepared
  
• Place the chicken in the breaded zip lock bag that I had already prepared
• Brown the chicken using veg oil in a skillet and then pour the sauce over the brown chicken in a baking pan
• Bake the chicken for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees and it was ready!

Ps-Charlie is a great cook and a perfectionist when it comes to cooking...he should have gone to culinary school!

Go here for more info
http://www.dreamdinners.com/main.php?static=index

Back to the Food Budget

• I went to Kroger this week and had to spend $100 because I had not gone in weeks. With VBS, and going out of town, we really have not stuck to our food budget all too well.
  
• I used about 10 coupons at Kroger. I had a coupon for pop tarts, Nutrigain bars, cereal, yogurt, toaster strudels, drier sheets, etc. All items that we normally use. I have been using coupons for 6 months now and I am getting better at figuring it out. If I have a coupon for under $1 I use it at Kroger because they double my coupons up to $1. So if I have a coupon for .50 cents they will give me another .50 to make it $1. If my coupon is for a $1 or more I will use it at Walmart because it is so cheap there on certain items. I would strongly suggest that you compare two or three stores prices with what you normal buy weekly and it might surprise you on what stores have better deals. I also finally read SuperMarket 101, an e-book by Money Saving Mom, and she had a link to a great coupon organizer book that you can get for $14 at http://www.smartspendingresources.com/services.html
• CVS has great deals this week especially on baby products. If you buy $25 worth of (diapers includes) you get $5 back to spend on anything in the store. I have huggies coupons that I will be using so I will not be spending the entire $25, plus I will be making money since their diapers are on such a great sale.
  

New meal ideas:

Breakfast: Cinnamon roles from Pillsbury that only take 20 minutes (all you have to do is put them in the oven) and cost usually $2.30 (and you can usually find a coupon for them
online) Jackson has eggs and yogurt alternating every other morning with cereal as well.

Lunch: For Charlie we are struggling with what to pack him. Any suggestions? We are going to try this new hearty soup. I really like these new chicken wraps that you heat up in the microwave. Jackson loves grilled cheese sandwhiches and, praise the Lord, he is trying more new things. He even ate some of a cheeseburger the other day for lunch. He love nutter-butters (which is new).

Dinners: With Jackson I found these potatoes that are meant to cook for 7 minutes so he eats them every other night. He loves potatoes! We are going to try waffles for dinner sometime soon with our waffle maker. And of course, we are trying dream dinners this month.

Jackson's eating: Has gotten better. It is totally my fault but he was having 20 ozs of whole milk a day through a bottle. He is now cut that in half to 10-12 ozs. It was a little rough but not as nearly as bad as we thought it was going to be. One night he woke up at 3 am talking and playing for like an hour Charlie said (I did not hear a thing). He asks for his bottle in the morning, so we do not know if we are going to get rid of the night or the morning bottle first. If I was used to drinking 20 ozs of coke a day, I would try to cut it in half first and get my body use to that for a week or so and then try to ween myself off the rest of it. He refuses to drink milk through a cup (he drinks half juice/half water in a cup all day long). But, once we get rid of the other bottles, he will only be offered milk and not a lot of juice. He will definitely be out of bottle by September 12 (his 2 year old birthday). Poor Jackson, our next baby is not going to have to go through any of this!