Frugal In Florida

I had this on my menu and made it Monday night when I got home from work. But first, I started the bacon, onions & garlic and then sonny boy said he wanted to go to Target, and I NEEDED to go to Target (to return some stuff) so I finished dumping in the 2 cans of chicken broth and 3 cans of drained & rinsed black beans. Put in 1 tsp each of cumin & chili powder, set a lid at an angle on top, turned it to low and left the house. Before you all freak out now, Hubby came home within 20 minutes and the soup was not even simmering yet!!! I got home an hour later, turned it up to medium, took my little Braun immersion thingy (blender? chopper? Musher?) and pureed the heck out of the beans. I've had that thing since Princess was born, almost 19 years now, and I still forget that you can not hold the button on & take it out of the liquid ... ack! Anyways, this was yummy. Like real yummy. Like it's going in my soup file to make again and again ... woohoo!! Thanks Ly...

This time, I stopped at the bank, took out $200.00 and told myself that I absolutely MUST stick to my list and stay under $200.00. That was a challenge, but not really. I had a list. Pretty specific. Did not get to far off base. AND I only spent $152.00...should have been less but there were a few things that I figured I should get now. And then I get home, find out our friends are coming over for dinner with some lobsters (Oh Yeah!) and their little fry daddy to fry up some oysters AND shark chips ... and needed oil too. Almost all my canola oil is gone and I was looking right at it at Costco, and said no, I still have 1 1/2 bottles left (small 64 ounce things). Here's what I got: 2 24 pk welch pure juice $10.99 each 1 36 pk water bottles $3.59 12 lbs of naval oranges $12.99 6.5 lbs frozen b/s chicken breast $15.99 box of frozen breakfast turkey sausage $7.99 turkey lunchmeat $8.19 ham lunchmeat $5.82 4 pk crescent rolls (put back the prebaked ones & got the ...

Ok, so it's really Tuesday already, but I do have a 2 week plan (almost, 13 days) ... check back for recipes and links or head on over to Organizing Junkie's menu plan for tons more menus Sunday - burgers on the grill with shark chips Monday - black bean soup and cheesy quesidillas Tuesday - chicken, either grill (if not raining) or garlicky chicken Wednesday - pressed sandwiches and pasta salad Thursday - leftovers Friday - either out with friends OR steak & taters Saturday - either out with friends or steak & taters (from last night) Sunday - homemade pizza OR pasta with red sauce (from freezer) Monday - teriyaki chicken thighs & sesame noodles - keep an eye out for recipe on both as soon as i get time to type it up :) Tuesday - dinner franks and shark chips Wednesday - leftovers Thursday - soup & sandwiches Friday - Cesar chicken (marinate in Kens Cesar dressing and grill) Saturday - out with friends OR boating (which would mean dogs on the boat grill)

Ok, here's the recipe link for the sauce since I've had a few additional requests for it ... enjoy! http://recipesfif.blogspot.com/2009/09/meat-sauce.html

You ever do that. Something that you know you really shouldn't be doing, but do it anyways? I'm sick. I've been sick. Ack. Ick. Brrrr. Friday night, my g/f had her 50th birthday party at the Hard Rock in Hollywood. So off I went. Two drinks and came home as it's a long ride and well, didn't really want to be stuck out there til all hours of the morning. (HEY, there are not signs of the failing economy at this place, which is probably where I caught my germies) ... So I got home around 10ish. Not so bad. BUT my g/f and her family & b/f are going to come to our house at 2pm on Saturday to do a bbq (instead of out to dinner, they decided they'd like to do something casual at MY house). Fine. Not an issue for ME. EXCEPT, I woke up with a major migrane headache. Had to be the smoke and loud noise that I'm not used to. 2pm comes. Everyone shows up. Everyone (thankfully) is moving in slow motion as it turned out to be a very late night ... so glad I came h...

I will be the first one to say that pets are NOT frugal whatsoever. They really do require care that is not cheap, food, which you really should not just give them anything (meaning, the least expensive food) and entertainment. Heaven forbid something should go wrong healthwise because nothing is worse than trying to decide if you want to spend the money on Fido to make him well again or buy groceries for the month (been there, done that). I do have a cat. I adopted him. As hubby said, if it means saving a kitty's life then he would say yes. I did NOT want to get another pet. See the Missing Since February 1st, 2009 picture of the cat eyes? That was Kiki. He was Bengal. A very very expensive kitty. I did NOT buy him. He was pretty much abandoned by the guy down the street and I started to give him food and attention and next thing you knew, he was sleeping in the house. He was such a cool cat but quite the explorer. I still believe someone (maybe his original master) picked him u...

Here it is, the 13th and I’ve already spent my full grocery budget for the month. Since I need to get focused, I went ahead and made my menu for 2 weeks. Good friends are coming back after being gone for 2 months, that may toss my plan up in the air a night or two, or even three, I would just move whatever to the next day or take it off the list completely. Also, there is a Friday and Saturday out of the house, Friday is happy hour, so I left the steak & taters on there (in hopes that will lure me home at a decent hour) and Saturday is most likely going to be dinner out with a group of friends to celebrate a birthday. It’s really wasn't difficult to add another 5 to 7 days to the plan, I have so much food in this house it’s not funny and I really need to get back to using up what I have in my personal store … with the exception of bread and milk, and maybe produce I have NO need to go to the store. I think I will just completely skip the sale ads this week & next. Sunday...

Unfortunately (or, maybe I should say fortunately!) sonny boy was sick Monday night and stayed home from school on Tuesday. Drats. He missed the speech to all school children by the Almighty Leader of the United States of America. I personally don't think this was such a bad thing. I was going to send a note to school with him AND send a fax to the guidance office that I request he go to the library during the viewing. Did you know that the School Board of Broward County did not give the option to choose to watch or not? They said it was MANDATORY. Hmmm. Can someone please tell me where in the curriculum it covers this kind of stuff? Does this help my child pass a test? Will this help my child get into college. Will it give him a further push to receive his diploma? I think not. Then to make matters worse, they had a recommended assignment list. Hmm. Somehow I know that this would be a very very bad thing. Like in the letter F being written in BIG RED LETTERS. See, think about ...