A Good Thing

I am so excited to get extra freezer space! I have wanted a separate freezer since our family started growing, and so I told Jeremy that I wanted a freezer from Santa Clause. We have not used credit cards in over two years and so I put together a plan.

Before we went to the store to look at our choices, we disagreed on whether an upright or chest would best suite our needs and space. I won ;) Then, I figured out the perfect solution to getting the freezer for a reasonable amount of money

Here is how I was able to get it sooner rather than later:

            First I would purchase gift cards at plasticjungle.com for Home Depot since they seemed to have the largest selection and I could get free shipping. I was going to purchase these over a couple months to stretch out our budget. The freezer I chose retailed $549 but I saw it go on sale for $420, so I wanted to accumulate enough to cover the tax and wait for the sale price. Through Plastic Jungle, I could purchase the gift cards for 9% less than the card value.

            Once I had accumulated enough gift card money, I would go through Ebates to Home Depot to purchase the freezer. Shipping would be free. AND with ebates I could get another 3% cash back!

            So the breakdown:                   $ 549

- sale    $ 129 = 420                       

- 9%     $ 37.80 = 382.20      
- 3%     $ 12.60 =             

                                                            $ 369.60 Not Bad

Well… It was a good plan. But I continued to check craigslist just-in-case a reasonable price came up (I don’t mind buying used as long as it wasn’t ancient). Before I continue, you must know that I looked online for about 3 months before I was about to buy a gift card to start this process. The night I was going to buy the first gift card, my husband told me to “wait until tomorrow” (this is because he wanted me to focus on the movie we were watching instead of interrupt with questions). But the next day a good deal came up!

I found a freezer that was 5 years old, not used in a couple years but working, that was the same size as the one I was looking to buy. Fate. I negotiated it down from $195 to $150! Yahooo

I am so happy with it! Not only did we get a freezer so I can see what we have now, buy more sale items and freezer cook to my hearts content (I started last night with a box of potatoes my mom gave me); but it also prompted us to clean out our attached garage/office space. Purge and put away… too much of a good thing is a GOOD thing ;D

<--- By the way, I have to add that 98% of the stuff in there was squished in my tiny kitchen freezer and there is still stuff in that freezer. Crazy

2012 To Dos

I want to post a list of things I would like to do this year to keep me accountable and ensure that I have plenty of projects if I ever get lazy. So here goes with the projects I have been considering…

-          Start an herb garden (again…)

I would like to hang some planters on my patio after they grow. I am thinking of using paint cans hung on my fence, or something else to bring color. Hopefully I can learn how to keep them alive this time around. Last year the only thing that lived was chives, but I left them with my mom. Right now I only have Green Onions.

Along these same lines, I need to distribute the Lilly bulbs that I missed last year and I would like to plant garlic in the fall.

-          Make homemade shampoo & Rinse.

Depending on how this works I would like to use it on an ongoing basis. After reading about some recipes online, I am optimistic. I will have to figure out what works best for us and post the recipe.  

-          Make homemade Soap

-          Make homemade Pop Tarts

-          Organize my kitchen and bathroom cabinets.

 This includes labeling and containing. I have a start on my kitchen, but I have a long way to go! I will most likely have to wait until the summer to buy some containers since I found out a couple months ago that the Rubbermaid ones I have decided to use are seasonal… who knew?! Depending on how this goes I might go so far as to organize the freezer – maybe.

-          Learn how to use my new sewing machine to do basic projects and Halloween costumes.

-          Continuing with my Sauce Project, I would like to make my own Caesar Dressing and Mustard
-     Create art on my bedroom wall

Monthly:

-          I have to get on top of my filing! So… I think it is fitting to make this an official goal to schedule time on a monthly basis to file all the papers that are building up in my office.

-          Read two books minimum. This usually isn’t a problem, but sometimes it is tough not to get distracted by other things.

Getting ready for Holidays

My Halls are decked. Half of my house is blue and white, and the other half is Red and White. I am officially finished with all of my shopping and some of my projects. I have even decided what to make Christmas Morning and what treats to make the first and last nights of Chanukah. Good right. I am giving myself a pat on the back.

I wanted to post the "craft" that I made today because I want to remember it for next year. I think it will be a hit on Christmas morning! My son is 4 so he is really into Santa, Rudolf, the Polar Express and our house elf. I have to be very careful that I do Santa right, or my smart cookie will ask me "Mommy, How come....?" so to keep the magic alive I am trying to stretch my creativity: Santa has his own wrapping paper and his own gift tags.

The tags are from Avery that I bought at staples and I used Silver marker and red glitter glue to write SC.

NOTE: my kids aren't the only ones who get Santa gifts. Any visiting family also get a little something from SC.

Holiday Countdown

Since my kids are still little, now is the time to create memories and new traditions. We began the Elf on a Shelf two years ago, but Connor was still a bit young to get it until this year. And I was thinking of a fun way to count down the month rather than a Chocolate advent calendar. Those, of course, do not include Chanukah. I was looking at other blogs and there are some good ideas that people have come up with to create their own. I thought I would do the same, but start out simple. Maybe I will exert more energy before December begins next year to come up with another way of doing it.

That being said, I am very happy with my chain. Connor (refusing to take a nap) “helped” by cutting up some paper with the paper cutter when I was finished. That was fun for him! Maybe next year he can help even more with this project – or better yet, make one at school that we can use ;)

Part of my Christmas Room,
the other side is Chanukah :D

I decided to count down to the New Year. I cut paper a little over 1 inch thick and numbered them. On the back, I wrote a little question or activity to do. I thought this would be something fun to discuss it during dinner or right before bed.

These ideas include:

• Everyone deserves a compliment. Give one to each person.
• It isn’t good to be wasteful. How can we reuse something we already have?
• What is a miracle? Have you ever seen a miracle?
• If you were a superhero, what super-power would you have?
• What does it mean to be polite?

Obviously all of these are geared toward my little kids. But it is a really easy activity. That can be customized toward the people in your family.

Yea shopping!

I felt the need to pat myself on the back, so I wanted to write about it.
I bought a pair of gloves (the same pair I bought myself last year that was stolen a week later) and a pair of pants for Connor at JCPenny.com. And I paid almost nothing!

I knew that I waned to buy some things as JCPenny so I went to GiftCardRescue.com and I found a JCPenny gift card for 15% off the card value. It took almost 2 weeks to get it, but just in time for the good sales.
Today and tomorrow the store is having a big sale like they do every year. I looked at Ebates.com and Shopathome.com to see where the greatest discount is. Timing is everything. Shopathome is having a bonus day and giving a rebate of 6%. Naturally I went to JCPenny though their link, chose my items then I used the coupon code HUGENESS online to get $10 off any $25 order plus free shipping to my local store.


This seems like a good deal to purchase this way... until you add up the numbers and figure out that it was AWESOME!


Here is what I bought:
Gloves (originally $45) bought for $23.99
Pants (originally $20) bought for $11.99 
   with $5 shipping and 1.89 tax =  TOTAL $42.87
   subtract shipping for code = $37.87 
   subtract $10 for the hugeness code = $27.87
   subtract 15% for giftcardrescue = $23.69
   subtract 6% for shopathome rebate = $22.27


So I saved (if everything was at full price): $49.62 
Ho-ray for the Internet!!

Ketchup at last

 So after making my spaghetti sauce I mentioned that I still had tomatoes left for Ketchup, or Catsup if you prefer. I was very excited about that since it forced me to make it sooner rather than later. This was super simple to make. I left the skins on the tomatoes, through the ingredients in the slow cooker (see a pattern here? Everything goes into the slow cooker!), and 8 hours later I had lumpy Ketchup.

The only down side about making this myself would be the ketchup smell that permeated the air in my house. But it made me confident that I was making what I set out to make. It was also very messy to use my blender because my blender doesn’t work as well as it should - the top shot off when I turned it on and made a mess everywhere! I think Santa should get me a hand immersion blender for Christmas so I can leave it in the pot when I blend. (... update: I couldn't wait for Santa. I had a store credit at bed bath and beyond and went over there to pick out my new toy which I've used a couple times in the last week since its purchase ;)...)

I really like that there is very little salt in this recipe. I tried to cut down on the amount of blending I had to do when the ketchup was finished by pureeing everything before I started the cooker. I am sure that this helped but I still had to puree in the end.

I still have a little ketchup in the refrigerator, so I just canned all of it. This made 4 pints.

Slow Cooker Ketchup 15 tomatoes (about 3lbs), chopped 1 can (15.5 oz) tomato paste 1 onion white or purple, chopped 1 cup brown sugar ½ cup red wine or apple cider vinegar (I used vinegar) 1 tsp. salt Pinch of dried red chili flakes Put all of the ingredients into a large Crock Pot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Stir occasionally. Puree when done. Add spices to suite your taste—cinnamon, cloves, paprika, celery seed, peppercorns, bay leaves and basil are commonly simmered into homemade ketchup.

Also found at Linky Party

This can store in the fridge for up to two weeks or freeze for up to six months. I canned and sealed them so they would last a little longer in the cabinet. So far the kids don't know the difference. But I know it is sooo much better for them!


Learned from the Ranch Dressing, and put my Ketchup in an empty bottle when it was finished. My son didn't say a word and asked for more and more as if it was the other Ketchup. ;)

Marinara Sauce

The other day, my mom and I were riding past a tomato field to get back to the ranch. “Those tomatoes look so good! Too bad we don’t have a bag to pick any” Mom said… well then I got a text the next day that the farmer was going to level the field with all those ripe tomatoes so we needed to get our butts over there and get picking. I wasn’t able to, but my dad went and got a whole bunch. Mom got enough to make tomato soup for an army (it was GOOD!) and I got a whole bag too. Nice!

Continuing with my “sauce project” I was going to try my hand at catsup. But my husband requested marinara sauce, which I was thinking about – until I went to make pizzas and realized we didn’t have any pasta sauce. Well, that convinced me. I went online and took the best ingredients from a couple recipes. My Mom has a recipe, but I really wanted to add veggies.

So I did it! I decided to put it in the crock pot overnight so it would be ready to can after I dropped Connor off at school.

Jeremy reluctantly helped me chop vegetables after trick-or-treating. If I was using canned tomatoes & tomato sauce, this would be a really fast prep. But since I was using fresh tomatoes, it took a while. I boiled water and added a couple tomatoes at a time, took them out of the water, and allowed them to cool so I could take the skin off and deseed them. I ended up using about 25ish tomatoes (I lost count). I cut up the firm tomatoes and tossed them into the crock pot, while I pureed the squishier tomatoes.

Here is the recipe that I used as a guide:

Slow Cooker Spaghetti Marinara Sauce 5 tomatoes, chopped 2 (15 oz) cans tomato sauce 1 can tomato paste (I didn’t need this) 2 small onions, chopped 3 cloves of garlic, minced (I used 1 tbsp of crushed) 1 bell pepper, chopped 12 mushrooms, chopped 2 carrots, chopped 2 small zucchini, chopped ¼ cup red wine (I used a sterling that was open ;D) 1 bay leaf 1 tsp black pepper ¾ tbsp basil ½ tbsp oregano ¼ tsp sage 1 tsp paprika 1/8 tsp  red pepper flakes 1 tsp sugar Put all of the ingredients into a large Crock Pot. Cook on low for 10-12 hours. Stir occasionally.

Towards the end of the 10 hours I had it cooking, it looked to me like there was a little too much water, so I uncovered the pot for an hour and that did the trick so I didn’t have to add the tomato paste. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to. When it was finished, it resembled a thick and chunky soup, so I took out a couple ladlefuls to puree. I wanted it to have a thick consistency, but still act as a sauce.

This smelled and tasted amazing! It ended up making 5 pint jars that I canned, sealed and labeled so they wouldn’t need to be kept in the refrigerator. When canning, you need to first sterilize the jars, submerge the jars and lids in boiling water, then fill the jars with sauce and cover asap. The top of the lid should be sealed under pressure so that air is not getting in. This process was quick since my 4 year old was at school, but I had to step over my 1 year old and keep her out of my sandwich bag drawer – which presented a different challenge.

Next time I cook spaghetti sauce, I don’t think I will cook it overnight – it made the house smell so good that it distracted our sleep. My husband is so excited to try it and is feeling particularly spoiled; I am thinking that I am going to have to make up another batch when this one is consumed. 

And I’m sure you won’t believe it, but I still have enough tomatoes left for a batch of catsup!