What's for dinner? 6.29.2014

So for dinner tonight I made Homemade Chicken Nuggets, green beans (the undercooked ones from last night), baked sweet potatoes (also leftover from last night), and a spinach and spring green salad (sounds fancy, but it all comes together in a plastic container from the grocery store). The bowl in the top right is a mixture of hotsauce and butter to dip my chicken in. All together was very tasty. 

What did you have for dinner?

This Mornings Harvest and Breakfast 6.29.2014

This morning after I had my morning coffee I went outside to pick what was ripe. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to add to the kids and I breakfast smoothies! I did learn that our chickens have been picking through the blueberries for their breakfast as well, which is probably why I didn't even get a handful.

The picture below is all of the fruit that went into our smoothies. 

• 1 Apple
• 2 Oranges
• Strawberries and Blueberries that I picked
• 1 Peach
• 1 Banana
• 1 Plum
• A Good Handful of Grapes (which are getting past their freshness point)

I put everything into my NutriBullet and done! Added some water to thin it and some ice to cool it and breakfast is served!

What's for dinner? 6.28.2014

Hi everyone. Tonight for dinner we had salmon patties, fresh green beans from the Farmer's Market which we picked up this morning, and baked sweet potatoes. I thought it was good and so did the husband. The kids on the other hand did not like the sweet potatoes. I don't know why because they were delicious. 

The salmon patties were simple. Two cans of salmon with the spine? removed. I didn't worry about the smaller bones or skin since that is where all of the wonderful vitamins and nutrient are. I just made sure to squish it all up really good. I added 2 eggs, salt and pepper, and some bread crumbs and mixed, in the squishy kind of way. I then added more bread crumbs, then some more bread crumbs. Fried them up in some olive oil, squishing them down with the spatula when I flipped, and bam! Salmon patties! with Miracle Whip, of course!

I put the green beans in a 9 x 13 and salt and peppered them, threw some minced onions in (yes, the dried minced kind), and drizzled them in olive oil. I then put the green beans in the oven at 375 degrees for not nearly enough minutes. They were not done all the way and therefore will be cooked again tomorrow for lunch. 

For the sweet potatoes I washed them with a brush, wrapped them in plastic wrap, and put them in the microwave for about 12 minutes. After they had cooled a little I cut them in half and peeled the skin off and mashed them with a fork. It was so easy. 

 

What did you serve for dinner tonight?

Ebates: It Really Does Pay to Shop Online

My lovely Aunt told me about Ebates. She had just received her first check and even though it wasn't very much, it was something. If you do any online shopping your going to want to sign up. For those of you that have never heard of Ebates let me tell you what it is. 

Ebates is an online rebate website. When you are needing to make a purchase from an Ebates approved website you use the link from Ebates and it opens up the website and you shop as normal. After you have made a purchase, Ebates automatically applies your rebate amount to your Ebates account. Each online store has a set percentage for rebate. Here are some examples:

Ebay (yes, Ebay is on there) gives you 1%. That isn't a lot, I know, but if you do a lot of shopping on Ebay it's basically free money. 

Sears gives you 6%!

Kohl's is 6%!

Even hotel finding websites. Hotels.com will give you 3.25% in rebate money. So let's do some math here. If you were to stay in a hotel for 5 nights at $100 a night ($500) you would receive.....$16.25 into your Ebates account for purchasing something you were already going to purchase.

The Apple store gives you 1% back so buying an iPad that cost around $500 would put $5 into your account.

Again, it's not a lot, but it's things you were going to purchase anyways.

There are a TON of websites on Ebates that I will not list and they have a lot of coupons as well.

They send out checks quarterly throughout the year. They also can pay through Paypal, which is always my preferred method.

You can sign up for your account here.

If you are an existing Ebates customer please let me about your experience in the comment section below. 

Plan to Eat: A Fabulous Meal Planning Site

Hi everyone. I have just begun using Plan to Eat and I am very happy with it so far. It allows you to input your recipe from just the link, which is a huge deal for me since I find most of my recipes on Pinterest and really just don't want to have to type everything in. You can sort your recipes in many ways so I'm sure everyone will be able to find their own way to use it.

In addition to storing all of your recipes in one place this site also has a wonderful meal planning section. It's a simple drag and drop style calendar where you simply drag your recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks to the correct dates and your done. Once you finish planning out your week, 2 weeks, or even a month worth of all meals in the household you can then print it out, also a big deal for me.

As if this site wasn't already awesome enough once you have your calendar planned you can then create your shopping list (which you can also print or use on your phone) for whatever dates you specify. So, if you create your meal plan for the month you can then go in each week (or however often you shop) and print your grocery list for that time period.

It is so easy to set up and use and very user friendly. Plan to Eat allows you to try it for 30 days free, without having to put in a credit card. Afterwards the pricing is not bad at all:

-1 month 4.95
or
-$39 for the whole year

Obviously, the year price is the way to go if you are going to use this site to handle all of your meal planning needs, which it is fully capable of. I can't wait to add this into my grocery routine for good!

Do you use this site? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think.