Lunch on the go

I know you have those days when you need something to grab and go, well here's a good idea even if it's going back to those childhood days!

Peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich! 

Oh ya! So delicious, so quick and so easy!

2 slices of whole grain bread
Peanut butter, no additives just peanuts is what you're looking for in the ingredients, try Adams peanut butter.
half a banana
tiny bit of honey

There you have it, and even an extra half of banana! :)

Optional:

Try toasting your bread first for a little something different.

Bread: $.40
Peanut butter and honey: $.10
Banana: $.05

Quick natural lunch for $.55 you can't get much better than that! 

A healthier potato soup

I was craving Potato soup like nobody's business and I was very disgruntled because I've only ever had it with sausage, bacon, butter, and cream....so how was I supposed to eat it and stick to this 28 day challenge?
So this is what I came up with...and it was DELICIOUS!

Potato Soup

6 cups vegetable broth (I used water and bouillon cubes for this)
3 medium potatoes- chopped
2 cups carrots - diced
1 clove garlic - minced
1 onion - diced
1 tsp Italian seasoning
                                              pepper and salt

Directions:

Put broth on stove and bring to a boil. While broth is heating up cut up garlic and onions, saute.
When broth is boiling toss in potatoes, carrots, garlic, onions and seasoning.
Cover and simmer for 45 minutes.
Voila! You're done! Simple as that!

Optional:

If you want it thicker mash up some extra potatoes in the soup or add in corn starch. Or add in more vegetables!


Add ins:

Kale, celery, pretty much any vegetable.
If you want it to look more like potato soup consider a splash of almond milk.

Approximate Cost:

Potatoes: $.25
Vegetable bouillon: $2
Carrots: $.50
Garlic: $.05
Onion: $.25
Seasonings: $.01

Total: $3.07 for about 4 servings.

Take in to consideration these prices very on anything you buy on sale or when in season or if you grow it! Also the highest cost in here was the broth, this can easily be changed by making your own vegetable stock. Lots of options to lower this price. But $3 for a healthy and hearty dinner, not to bad! 

Homemade laundry soap

Homemade Laundry Soap

What you need

1/2 cup washing soap 

1/4 cup borax

1/2 bar of soap 

24 cups of water  

storage container(s)

What you do

This is the scary part, cut up the bar or soap into slivers. I used a knife, but I'm sure there a million other things you could use to do this safely! 

Once that's done pour 4 cups of water into a big pot and bowl the water, put heat on low. Put in the soap slivers a little at a time. Stir until the soap is melted into the water. 

Add the rest of the water to your storage container or where you're going to mix everything up in 

Add the washing soap, borax and soap mixture and stir all together.

Let sit 24 hours 

and you're good to go!

My mixture was a bit slimy, but it works great! Use 1 cup per load. 

If you want it to be more scented use a few drops of essence oils.

Fish Tacos

Okay so fish is really something unusual for me to cook with! I am not the biggest fish fan! But I argued with myself and decided that I want to add it to my diet. So with out further ado here is what I came up with to make my belly happy with my decision! 

Fish Tacos 

First you need to grab 

6 medium flour tortillas 

lime 

shredded lettuce

cheese

Spread

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup mayo 

1/4 cup cilantro 

2 tablespoons taco seasoning

(for a little bit healthier version and the way I did it is cut out the sour cream and mayo and use 1 cup plain yogurt instead) 

Filling

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 lbs cod (or some yummy fish) cut into 1 inch pieces

1/2 tablespoon taco seasoning

Time to cook 

Combine sour cream, mayo, cilantro and taco seasoning in a small bowl. Mix and set aside.

Heat a large skillet on med-high. Combine cod, vegetable oil, lemon juice, and taco mix in med bowl mix together and pour in large skillet. Cook stirring constantly for 4-5 minutes or until fish is flaky. 

Once cooked cover a tortilla with the sour cream spread, fill with fish, shredded lettuce, cheese, and set a slice of lime on the side. MMM! Good to go! :) 

P.S Serve with some rice, and beans of course! 

Oh! and also can make a great taco fish salad! Yum! 

Sun dried tomato spinach pasta

Sun dried tomato spinach pasta

What you need:

1 cup sun dried tomatoes

1 cup chicken or vegetable broth

2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup onion (diced)

1/2 cup asparagus (diced) 

3 garlic cloves (minced) 

2 handfuls of spinach(or however much you like)

1/2 tsp crushed red peppers

1/2 tsp basil
salt and pepper to taste
Linguine pasta noodles

optional: 1 cup Chicken, Shrimp, Italian sausage, ground beef, shellfish

Step 1: (If you have the sun dried tomatoes in oil skip this step) Boil broth, put in bowl soak sun dried tomatoes for at least 15 minutes.

Step 2: Sauté garlic, onions, asparagus in olive oil, red peppers and basil until onions are almost soft. Put in handfuls of spinach and cook 2 more minutes, set aside.

Step 3: Boil water, cook noodles.

Step 4: Chop up sun dried tomatoes a bit, stir in with spinach mix and chicken broth.

Step 5: Drain noodles put back in pot.

Step 6: Mix sauce in with noddles, cook on med-high heat until dish is hot. Approx. 2 minutes

Step 7: Grab plates, grab forks, make salads, don't forget garlic bread and parmesan on top of pasta!

ENJOY! 

Fabric softener

 Homemade Fabric Softener 

2 cups hair conditioner 

6 cups hot water

3 cups white vinegar

Pour everything into a big bowl. (I used a pot just because I was making laundry soap after this).

There will be large chunks of conditioner as you can tell, but the hot water will dissolve it easily. Whisk away! 

                                                    After pour into a container, I chose mason jars. 

When you use it about two tablespoons can go into your wash OR you can put this into a spray bottle and spray a towel with this mix, throw it into your dryer with your other clothes and you're good to go! 

Finished! 

Lets go over costs:

So on average your fabric softener can cost you about $.075/fluid ounce this costed me $.012/fluid ounce.

In a different perspective for one bottle at 120 ounces that's $9 vs $1.44

lets say you buy 1 bottle a month that's $108 a year vs  $17.28 that's a savings of $90.72 a year! 

I have an obsession...

So the first step is admitting your problem.
My problem, Pinterest.

This is me...

You think I'm kidding, but sadly I'm not. If you follow me on pinterest you probably see your wall covered in things I pin. I hope you enjoy it! ha

However, I have found a lot of really amazing things on this website, so I like to say this is a good obsession!

You've probably seen my "I love you because" board that I made for Brent and our 6 months. I just wanted to say this thing has been amazing! Brent isn't a very mushy person, and well, neither am I. But we both love to hear from each other what we love about each other. It has been such an awesome feeling to walk by and see what my husband notices I do and what he loves about me. Going back to the five love languages book this has really satisfied both of out needs for words of encouragement! 

If you are married, I highly recommend making this, it took me about 10 minutes to make once I had everything, costed under $15 (with leftover crafting supplies) and I'm hoping to have this for years and years to come. 

The best part of this is you can do whatever works for you and make it however creative you want it. 

This is how I made mine,

drove to Michael's

purchased

-wrapping paper($2)

-stick on letters($1.50)

-picture frame($5)

-tacks ($1)

-glue ($1)

-"love" and "xoxo" pieces ($4)

I drove back home

took out the cardboard back to the picture frame, and wrapped it with my wrapping paper.

Then after that stuck and glued on the letters, put a piece of paper on it so it was easier to read what we write. 

and then...put it in the picture frame hung it up, put two tacks in the wall, hung our initials up, and put the pen on top of it.

And Viola! Great way to say I love you daily! (I added wedding photos around it, I like to call this my love wall)  

What's great is you can add/remove/redo anything to this! I think I am going to possibly paint the frame a different color than white, Just not sure which color yet?...hmmm..decisions, decisions...

If you guys do make them let me see how they turn out by sending me pics and such! I'd love to see others creativity! 

Thanks for reading, MWAH! 

BEST.COFFEE.EVER.

So Starbucks does this thing called a pour over. I describe it as a manual coffee pot.
Well I saw one at World market for $7 and had to get it! BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE!
It makes a personal cup of coffee for you, just in the last week we've saved money on coffee by not over using any or dumping any out. It's delicious, and sooo quick!

Here's how ya do it.

Heat your water!

(ignore how dirty the stove is! Literally this apartment is permanently dirty in lots of places, I CAN'T wait to move next year!)











Scoop your grounds into the filter. (2 Tablespoons for 8 oz.)

Waters done.

Saturate your coffee grounds, and wait as your most delicious cup of coffee gets done.

MMM :)















(On a side note: Don't get me wrong, this isn't actually my favorite tasting drip coffee, French Press is where it's at! But they are hard to clean, and I feel like take way more time. Also if you believe in the healthy vs non healthy benefits of coffee. It's believed that a lot of why coffee is unhealthy for you is the oils in it..French presses happen to keep those oils which causes for so much tastier coffee. But with paper filters it extracts the oils from the coffee. Which still causes for a great cup of coffee. little fun facts of the day)

I'm doing this AGAIN...

So I stopped blogging because honestly, I had NO IDEA what to write about. But now that I'm finally settled into a life of my own that's full of adventure I figured, it's.time.again!
It's been harder for me than I thought it would have been to keep in contact with people since I've moved, so this should be a good way to let you all know what's going on in my life!
Lets get started.

What have I enjoyed about being married may you ask, and what have I learned in these last 6 months.
Holy cow it is hard! But I love every single moment of it!
Cooking, cleaning, learning, working and figuring out each others differences are just a handful of what I've enjoyed the most! Let me share one of them with you today....

Cooking (:

This is what for dinner tonight.....
CROCK POT MAC&CHEESE! yummmmm!

Mac&cheese is one of Brent's favorites...not so much mine. So I figured it was time to try and meet in the middle somewhere, and this worked wonders! And was still just as easy as it is from out of the box!

Recipe:

1 pkg. macaroni nooodles!
1 Tbl vegetable oil
1 (13 oz.) can evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon salt

4 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup melted butter

Optional: pepper, mustard, basil, parmesan, sour cream, garlic, anything you like in mac&cheese.... =D

What to do:

cook your noodles! grease your slow cooker. cover those noodles with vegetable oil. Stir in everything else. cook on LOWWWW for 3-4 hours, after it's done shove in your face!...how easy peasy lemon squeezy is that?! Annd don't forget to mention how DELICIOUS! 

Hope you try it out for yourself, you won't regret it ;)