Cheep chicken

Cheap Chicken! After thinking that I got a great deal last week on the Tyson boneless and skinless chicken breasts or tenders, and after canning 8 pkgs of them, what did I find today at Fry's while mulling around waiting for a Prescription to be filled? Tyson boneless/skinless chicken breasts or tenders, the same thing as last week and the fireman there kindly pointed me to the sign that read, .69 lb. What! .69 lb.?! Yes, what a steal. All of you couponers hyperventilating right now, I already checked the coupon for any Tyson chicken product that was in the paper about a month ago and it expired on Wed. Free chicken would have been just too much to hope for. But this is a great deal. I don't know if it's just at my store though since it's an unadvertised special. So when you're at Fry's for .99 milk, check in the chicken bins to see. And if you do find them, switch them out with the Bashas rotisserie chicken for meal idea #3 on the budget meals for this week. The pkgs. that I picked had 3 breasts in them, one pkg. was .65 and the other .96, so you could fill up on chicken for a lot less than what I had originally planned on.

Funeral Potatoes

I know, the photo doesn't go with the title. I've decided to go back to the old posts that had recipes in them and clean them up to just be one recipe, so that when you click a recipe you don't have beef in the chicken category and candy in the chicken category and so on. For the Funeral Potatoes recipe I had originally put down a website and when I go to that now nothing happens, so I found the recipe that I think is close to the one my mom used to make. I also have one that the hubs uses for caterings and the ward uses for ward dinners that I will post in another post.

Funeral Potatoes Mesquitemamma as posted on http://www.grouprecipes.com/

32 oz bag of frozen shredded hash browns

2(10.3/4 oz.) cans cream of chicken soup

2 Cups sour cream

1 1/2 C grated cheddar cheese

1/2 C. melted butter or margarine

1/2 C. chopped onion

2 C. finely crushed corn flakes

2 T. butter or margarine melted

Grease 9x18 baking dish and preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl combine soups, sour cream, cheese, onion, and the 1/2 cup of melted butter. Gently fold hash browns into mixture. Pour mixture into pan. Combine crusted corn flakes and the 2 Tbs. of melted butter and sprinkle on top of potato mixture. Bake for 30 minutes.

*If you want to, you can use cubed potatoes instead of hash browns but you will need to increase baking time to 55 minutes.

*Add leftover ham if you want to make this into a Potato and Ham casserole

Blueberry Muffin Adventure

Yesterday while trying to figure out what to make to feed the family, I remembered that I had some gorgeous blueberries in the fridge that I wanted to use up before they went bad. Now it would seem that I am the only one eating fresh fruit in the house these days so I decided to find a recipe for blueberry muffins on the net. Me. The queen of the boxed muffin mix making a "from scratch" blueberry muffin. I lived through it and the results were great. I did use an egg substitute though (water, oil, baking powder) and that altered the texture a little. They were crumbly when they were fresh and warm and one kid exclaimed "They're great! It's like eating cobbler!" So we adapted and got a fork and ate blueberry muffin cobbler. This is the kid that doesn't normally eat anything unless it's covered in chocolate, won't eat fruit unless it's in the form of a four berry sundae or won't eat anything unless all of the nutrients have been zapped out of it, so it was a small, small victory for me. So I thought that maybe because the blueberries were so big and that's why the batter had a hard time sticking to them and they fell apart, or it could have been that I didn't measure the berries. I just kept adding them by hand until it looked right, or it could be that things without eggs in them just don't work the same as things with eggs. But I had one a couple of hours later, OK, I had TWO a couple of hours later when fully cooled and it/they was/were as a blueberry muffin(s) should be. Yum. I want one just thinking about it.

I actually think that this would work well to make my own mix if I wanted to. I would just measure out the dry ingred. and bag them, bag the streusel ingred. separately and if I add the butter, freeze them, then all I would have to do when I wanted fresh muffins is to add the wet ingred. and bing I'm in business. I found this recipe on Allrecipes.

To Die For Blueberry Muffins

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:
1-Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2-Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. (whoops, I mixed the dry ing., then dumped the wet all in at once.) Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3-To make crumb topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, (I use a pastry blender, not a real blender, that hand held thingy that looks like it could slice a hard boiled egg), and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4-Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

Menus for what's on sale July 22-July 28

Need some inspiration for what to serve for meals this week? Or need a plan more than inspiration to keep within a limited budget? I worked up a week's menu with what's on sale this week at Arizona grocery stores. I came up with $65.31 for three meals a day, seven days a week. If you use coupons from the Sunday Newspaper coupon inserts, you should be able to save $3.29 on this total. We are a family of four, 2 adults, 2 teens, so that's what I base the portions on. You may be able to use these portions for a family of six and more if only a few more items are adapted or the list is tweaked to your family. I've just listed ideas, not days to be served so that you can adapt best to your schedule and family.

Breakfast

1-Bagels, cream cheese
2-Cold Cereal, Smoothie
3-Cold Cereal
4-Eggs, toast
5-Cold Cereal, Smoothie
6-Cold Cereal
7-Cold Cereal
(If you would rather have pancakes for some of the mornings, buy Food Club pancake mix and Food Club syrup at Bashas for $3.76)

Lunch

1-PB&J sandwich, pretzels, brownie
2-Ramen noodles, cherries
3-PB&J sandwich, Cheez-its crackers
4-PB&J sandwich, plums
5-Individual pizzas, soda pop, brownie
6-Bagels, cream cheese, bottled fruit
7-Ramen noodles, Cheez-its crackers

Dinner
1-Hot dogs, Potato chips

2-Spaghetti and sauce, green salad, hopefully you got free Kraft salad dressing last week to use on this salad, garlic toast.

3-Zatarain's rice, canned vegetable of choice, garlic toast(use leftovers from dinner idea #2). Top the rice with shredded cheese if desired.

4-Hamburgers. Grilled peaches for dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top or make a delicious fresh peach cobbler or crisp.

5-Chicken, broccoli, red pepper stir fry with cooked Ramen noodles. You can use some of the broth if you'd like and thicken it with a slurry or you can season the vegs and meat with some soy sauce and a little brown sugar. If the package of chicken is more than you need for your family for stir fry, then freeze the rest for a meal next week.

6-Bacon sandwiches. If you have any brownies left, serve Brownies ala mode for dessert.

7-Grilled Sirloin and zucchini teriyaki marinated shish kabobs, canned vegetable of you choice.(Be sure and soak the skewers if you are using the wooden ones before putting the meat and vegs on.)

NOTE: I usually do not include in the grocery list that I make condiments like mayonnaise or jelly, mustard, relish, ketchup unless they are free or a great price with a coupon that week. I also do not include mayo or jelly or condiments each week because a family will rarely go through those items all in one week. And I only have allowed for one gallon of milk this week. Most families will need much more than this.

Here is a Grocery List for this week.
I know what you're thinking. "I don't want to have to drag 5 kids in and out of 4 different stores this week." Your choice, not forcing you to do anything that you don't want to do and granted certain families may have a harder time with this than others. But I am letting you know what options are available this week.

Fresh & Easy
Ground beef, $1.49 lb., packed in 2 lb. packages for $2.98, buy one
Hot dog buns, .88
Hamburger buns, .88
Fresh & Easy braided wheat pretzels, $1.59

Albertsons
Albertsons milk, $1.39 The total allows for one gallon, buy more if you need to but add it in your total so there's no surprises at check out.
Bing cherries, $1.97 lb.
Hunt's spaghetti sauce, remember the flier that you got in your Wed. paper? Well, go get it, there is a coupon for the sauce which will make it .77 (There may be more fliers at CS at Albies)
Fresh Express bagged salad, with Wed. coupon, .77, buy 2 bags
Yellow squash or zucchini, .97 lb.
Red pepper, .99 each

Bashas'
Valu Time vanilla ice cream, .99 with the Shocker! coupon in Wed.'s Bashas' ad, also $10 additional purchase
Food Club Potato or Kettle chips, .99 with Shocker! coupon in Wed's ad, also $10 additional purchase
Bar S meat franks, .99
Hormel Bacon, $2.88
Malt O Meal cereal. Buy 2 bags, get one free, coupon in Wed. ad, aprox. $6.00 for 3 bags
Maruchan Ramen noodles, 6/$1, buy six
American Beauty pasta, 10/$10, buy one package
Broccoli, .99 lb.
Stokely's canned vegetables, .79, buy 2 cans
Boneless top sirloin, $1.99 lb., buy 2 lbs.

NOTE: Other killer Bashas' deals this week that I have not put on the list are Cook's ham for .99 lb. I was at Bashas earlier this evening and they have them packaged in quantities for $8 or $9. My Bashas also had Food Club salted butter for .99.

Fry's
10 item mega event
1-Sunny D smoothie, .89
2-Sunny D smoothie, .89
3-Sunny D smoothie, .89
4-Zatarain's rice mix, .99
5-Zatarain's rice mix, .99
6-Coke or 7 Up or Sprite, .79
7-Cheez-it crackers, $1.49
8-Kraft or Sargento shredded cheese, $1.39
9-Jif peanut butter, $1.49
10-Welch's grape jelly, $1.49 (if you already have jelly, buy another brownie mix)
1-Lender's bagels, .89
2-Lender's bagels, .89
3-Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese, .89
4-Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese, .89
5-Dole bottled fruit, $1.29
6-Kroger microwave pizza, .49
7-Kroger microwave pizza, .49
8-Kroger microwave pizza, .49
9-Kroger microwave pizza, .49
10-Betty Crocker Brownie mix, .88
Black or red plums, .77 lb.
Large California yellow peaches, .67 lb, buy 3 lbs at $2.01
Fry's large eggs, .77 doz.
FMV bread, .88, buy 4 loaves
Boneless, skinless chicken tenders or breasts, $1.67 lb, buy 3 lbs., at $5.01

NOTE: If I don't put down a quantity, it is assumed that you need to buy just one package, or one pound of the item.

See http://www.couponsense.com/ or http://www.pinchingyourpennies.com/ for coupon information