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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Winner Take All Giveaway! $833.00

To enter for this giveaway go to Shake the Salt and join the fun!

Faith

Win Organic Juice from Briana's Bargins!




Would you like to win some organic juice? If so go over here and enter, better hurry this ends 2/07/09!

Southern Grit quick...and yet old fashioned...how do I do it?




Okay I am a true southern girl (my folks would not agree because I have spent more than half my life in Southern MO...and talk too fast) I love LOVE me some southern grits! True to southern form it is actually against the law to make quick grits. And staying true to that form I stick to the law. However while watching this show on Food Network Bobby Flay makes grits quick, easy and does not break any southern laws!

I had to alter the recipe a bit because his goes with shrimp...which also sounds yummy!

What you will need for one serving:

1 Cup water
1/3 Cup stone ground cornmeal (yellow or white)


place the water in a potThen add the gritsStir the grits


turn the eye (burner) onto medium high and cook stirring often until thick (you choose your thickness preference) about 5 minutesServe with salt and butter. Enjoy! Do you have any all natural recipes you want to add to the organic frugal freak blog...PLEASE DO! Just add your recipe blog post (not home page) to Mr. Linky below.

Enjoy! To get other great frugal recipes check out The Grocery Cart Challenge!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Diapers and Wipes...how to be frugal




Diapers and wipes...man they can eat your frugal budget can't they?

They can cost around $1000.00 a year! $20 a week on diapers and wipes x's 52=$1040.00 that includes only cheap diapers and wipes!


Well.......a friend of mine recently showed me that you can have cool diapers and be frugal...and environmentally friendly!

-and get this it's REALLY EASY!!!!!

And the cost: basic is $300.00 a year! This price includes ORGANIC Diapers and wipes!!!!!!!!!!!

or with accessories it's $360.00(the first year only, after that it's back to the $300 mark)

Before we start...your might think this is gross...I hate gross stuff, so just note it's not gross or hard to do AT ALL! I have done it and it's really not so bad!

When my grandmother was growing up cloth diapers were a nightmare...but lucky for us we have lovely new technology that makes cloth diapers just shy of a dream come true.

It's called bumGenius!



No leaky cloth diapers (no more so than regular diapers-when they get full they leak)
No plastic covers-the diaper is the cover!
No boiling the diapers!
You can get cloth wipes too!

You just rinse them out, spray them down, throw them in the bin and then later you wash them in the washer...it's really not so bad! Don't worry it's no different washing diapers in the washer than washing your bloomers!

Things you will need to do this:-every home is different but I am giving you a run down each on basics and basic accessories I have links to the page on Cotton babies that the item can be found in.



Basics:
Organic Cloth diapers
Organic wipes
pale with lid (a small bucket with a lid would work!)
Natural lotion for the pale this is the stuff to make sure no bacteria grows in your pale!

Accessories -I highly recommend these as they will make this journey much easier!
sprayer (to wash out the diaper-attaches to the toilet)
wipe warmer (this will help insure the wipes stay wet)

Free Coffee From Panera-Today ONLY

Monday, January 26, 2009

Menu Plan Day and Shopping day Adventures


Photobucket

This week should be a lot better! I will still be over my $70 mark and a lot closer to my $100.00 mark but we had to buy a lot of meat that was on sale (we cook in bulk so we must buy in bulk)

First I will list my menu then my shopping trip. Everything in blue I had to buy ingredients for. If it's half blue and half red then I had to buy the ingredients for some or all of it and I posted a link for the recipe to it for you.

Don't forget all my recipes are usually from America's test kitchen, I just use zaar and all for you.

Breakfasts:

Organic poptarts
Organic cereal
Eggs and Bacon (free range eggs, and nitrate free bacon)
Oatmeal
Banana Bread
Grits x's 2

Snacks:
celery and peanut butter
Banana Bread
Strawberry muffins I always use honey in the place of sugar with my muffins
apples
guacamole (my recipe below) and chips
Salsa and chips


Dinners:
-Pulled pork, fried potatoes, Caesar salad
-Chicken enchiladas (my oldest likes Mexican so I try to give it to him now and again), Nachos
-BBQ Chicken- Macaroni Salad, Potato Salad, pinto beans (with leftover pork fat)
-Pulled pork, stuffed baked potatoes (instead of cheddar I am making Boursin cheese and I am not adding the peppers)
-Brats, leftover sides
-Crispy garlic chicken, caramelized carrots,
-Leftovers

Recipes I must make this week to stay all natural and frugal:
Sandwich bread x's4
BBQ sauce
Salsa
Shampoo
Boursin cheese
Dishwasher Detergent


Guacamole Recipe:
4-5 avocados -very ripe
2 cloves of garlic minced-sometimes I add 3!
1 roma tomato very small dice
1/2 small onion very small dice
salt to taste

mash avocados add other ingredients, chill and serve.


Okay how my shopping trip went:

Woods:
Sea salt 2.25
tomato sauce 1.79
chili cheese sauce (for nachos) 3.34 (this was suppose to be $2-I will have to go back)
Tortilla chip 1.69
Corn Chip 1.69
Corn meal 3.15
flour 3.59 (for when I can't use wheat berries)
chipotle peppers 2.25
10lbs leg quarters 4.90
Boston pork roast (like 10-15lbs) 12.84
5 tomatoes 3.43
10 avocados 5.00
6 apples 3.28
organic celery 1.99
5lb grapefruit 2.99
10lb russet 2.28
1/2 gallon OJ x 2 2.38

Subtotal 61.62


Save A Lot:

vinegar 2.19
cream cheese x's 2 2.38
Baking soda .43
sour cream x's 2 1.98

Subtotal:
7.31


Wal-Mart:

Freezer bags 1.38
storage bags x's 2 2.76
120 Ziploc lunch bags x's 2-1.00 coupon 5.68
Degree x's 2 - 1.00 coupon 4.24

Subtotal: 14.06+tax=15.15

Prarie Grove Farm:

Raw Milk x's 2 7.00

Dillon's:
Brats x's 2 6.00

Subtotal: 7.24

Total: 98.32

This should be much lower next week for two reasons! #1 I plan on hitting discount stores next week and #2 I won't be stocking up on too much meat or other stuff such as flour, corn meal and salt type stuff...I pray. This week I just ran out of a lot of have to haves all at once!



Don't forget to check out The Grocery Cart Challenge for other menu plans and shopping trips! Plus great recipes~


The Grocery Cart Challenge Giveaway!



Hello everyone I just wanted to take a moment and tell you about the GCC giveaway. It's a great blog about how a mom helps her family of 6 live on $60.00 of groceries a week. This includes toiletries! She is the main reason I have this blog. So to check out her cool giveaway click on the picture above or the button on the left sidebar.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Free Organic Drink

Hansen is giving away free organic juice water! Go here to get yours!

Mambo Sprouts is having a contest to give 12 winners super seed by Garden of life...to enter go here

Mambo Sprouts also has some great online coupons, to see them go here


Enjoy!

Latte

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Homemade Mayo


Today I am going to show you how to make super easy all natural mayo! Cost totals will be at the bottom

What you will need:




















A blender





















Two egg yolks (I use free range eggs)





















1 1/2 cups oil (I use a olive/canola blend)





















around 1t to 1T lemon juice...your preference


Normally I would tell you to use the juice of a real organic lemon but I was not intending on having to make mayo this week so I just used some lemon juice I had in my fridge.

Okay to make your mayo first you want to add the egg yolks to the blender, then turn on blender. At this point you want to SLOWLY, VERY VERY SLOWLY add the oil:






















It will seem like forever but just as you get to the end of the oil you will hear the sound of the oil and yolk go from a water like splattering sound to a paste like splattering sound...music to your ears! Continue adding oil until all gone.

Then add the lemon juice:

















after you add the lemon juice you can turn off your blender and your mayo should look like this:
















Add to an air tight jar and the mayo should store/last in the fridge for about a week.





















Okay the total to make just over 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise:

free range eggs: .25 x 2=.50
Olive Oil: .12 x 12oz= 1.44
Lemon Juice: .59 x 1/2= .29

Grand Total: 2.23

don't forget to check out The Grocery Cart Challenge for other great recipes!