Easy Homemade "Irish Cream" Body Scrub - Sweet Gift Idea!

Good Wednesday night to all! Recently, my friend Tina Fox invited me to a FREE class she was planning on attending at our local public library. The class (held last night) was on making homemade Irish Cream Body Scrub. That sounded enticing, so I hopped on over there and partook of the fun. It ended up being a simple and quick project that has so much thrifty gift-giving potential! I don't have a smart phone (I lovingly refer to it as my Dumb Phone - - hey, ignorance can be bliss!!), so Tina used hers to take this lovely picture that showcases all the necessary things to make the body scrub. The instructor at the library was very supportive of the fact that I am totally "glomming on" to her idea for my blog, too!

Here is what she did: mix together a 4 pound bag of sugar (about $2) and a 20 ounce bottle of Dawn Ultra Hand Renewal with Olay (about $3 without coupons). She used a hand mixer to make the process easier. Now, you can stop there.....OR, you can add essential oils. I added a few drops of McCormick Peppermint Oil to mine, but it smells great either way. The bag of sugar and bottle of dish soap made a huge bowl of sugar scrub, so the lady had several different containers to package it in. Tina said she had given out a similar scrub at Christmas, and had packaged it in baby food jars. For a larger gift, a salsa jar would also work. Any type of glass jar saved from a future in the trash is great! Spraypaint the lid, tie on a wooden stick for stirring, add a pretty ribbon and tag, and it is ready to give!! I kept the one I made last night for myself. It is on the kitchen sink, and I keep finding excuses to go wash my hands :)

So, to be ready by Christmas, SAVE YOUR JARS!!! ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE BABY FOOD JARS!!  Have a fun, frugal and fabulous day, from our house to yours!!!

"Hey Grandpa, What's for Supper?" Turkey Casserole...

I suppose I could have entitled this post "Turkey Leftovers Part II", considering my post several weeks back on Turkey Pot Pie. If you're looking for a super easy and tasty way to use up some leftover chicken or turkey, you have landed on the bulls-eye! On Saturday night, I baked a turkey. We ate a little of it but ultimately decided to cover it and put it in the fridge to have after church the next day. We went to church. We came home. Then, we ate......and ate and ate through Sunday lunch and supper as well as Monday lunch and supper. The hubby and I both took turkey, dressing, gravy and the other usual suspects to work today for lunch and we STILL had some leftovers lurking in the fridge. Puppy and Leonard even enjoyed some, of course. Now, I frown on wasting food, or anything else for that matter...so I had to use up the rest of this ol' bird (he could have been young, though....or "he" could have been a "she"...but I digress). To me, leftovers are the epitome of frugality PLUS they pose a challenge to my creativity that I actually appreciate.

Peering into the fridge, I remembered that I had run out of flour the other night making little muffin-tin pizzas. Darn. That put a damper on my plans until I saw the bag of corn meal hanging out patiently, beckoning me to pick it up. Sure - - why not. And so began my new "recipe": turkey casserole. I didn't think of taking a picture until I had dumped a big scoop of casserole and an even bigger scoop of cranberry sauce onto my plate a bit haphazardly. I could have staged it better for a prettier picture, I guess, but you'll get the idea. With its delicious cornbread crust, doesn't it look yummy?

Turkey Casserole

First, preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 by 13 pan (I used glass).  Then, mix up some cornbread batter:  2 to 2 1/2 cups cornmeal and 1 egg, plus enough milk to make it "mushy" and enough water to make the mixture pourable. Next, in another bowl add the following and mix together :

Can of creamed corn ( I felt like the "cream" in the creamed corn probably kept it moist

Can of green beans

About 2 cups of leftover turkey, cubed

About 1 cup leftover stuffing

Now, pour only enough of the cornbread batter on the bottom of the pan to cover it. Add turkey / veggie mixture and cover with remaining cornbread batter. Bake for 45 minutes. After I removed mine from the oven, I poured the leftover turkey gravy (had about 1/2 cup, which I watered down to make 3/4 cup so it would pour easier) over the top of the whole thing. 

I served my Turkey Casserole with a simple lettuce & cheese salad, cranberry sauce and rolls. And guess what........we still have a half a pan left!!!!!! It's like a miracle turkey or something. "Clark, that's the gift that keeps on giving..." To freeze or not to freeze? That, dear readers, is the question. I did find a really neat illustration on The Culinary Chase that humorously illustrates the various areas on a turkey that makes for the best leftover uses. Check it out:

Of course, I didn't use the "suggested" cut of meat for my recipe. For tonight's casserole, I went with the "anything goes" approach. Meat was flying (pun INTENDED) into the bowl from wings, legs, back and anywhere else from whence I could scrape it. The final verdict: Hubby said, "That's good, babe!" (usually won't eat the dark meat) and cleaned his heaped-up plate. Son said, "Yeah, Mom it was fine" and chased it with a Hershey bar, chips and popcorn. Personally, I don't know if I can handle any more turkey for a few more weeks, so tomorrow might be a Hamburger Helper night on Ridgewood Circle.

Have a fun, frugal and fabulous night, from our house to yours!

Warm, Homemade Sugar Cookies - - Yummy

You've been there - - we all have. You've just finished supper, it's freezing cold and pitch black outside, and you want something sweet.  Pronto. But who really wants to traipse out into the foreboding cover of night to make that dreaded trip to the grocery store or............dare I say it...........Walmart?!? Besides, if I set foot into Kroger hungry for something to satisfy my snack attack, I may not make it out alive. Well, okay........I will actually make it out alive, but with 576 pounds or 3 grocery bags of fatty junk in tow. Who wants that? Why not take the easy AND frugal way out, stay in your warm and cozy kitchen and whip up a simple, tasty treat tonight! You probably already have the ingredients on hand, and the family will love you. Sugar cookies are humble little nuggets of goodness that are not too flashy yet always satisfy that sweet tooth. You could even gussy 'em up with icing or sprinkles if you wanted to. I found a recipe not too long ago, tweaked it to make it my own and have since baked up several batches of soft, yet chewy sugar cookies. In fact, the scenario above describes my own dilemma tonight as I searched the cabinets for something sweet after our supper of chicken fried rice, mashed potatoes, macaroni & tomato and rolls. Here's how they turned out:

There are several reasons why I like these cookies:

1. Spoon them straight from the mixing bowl onto the cookie sheet (NO rolling and cutting) and enjoy super easy cleanup.
2. No special ingredients need to be purchased. This recipe is made with things you probably already have.
3. The cookie is light and soft, yet slightly chewy, which is a good thing!
4. Since it is, in fact, made with a few standard pantry items, it is inexpensive. I haven't calculated the actual cost, but I might do that out of my own curiosity later on.
5. They are quick to mix up (5 minutes) and bake (10 minutes).

Without further adieu, here is my recipe:

Tanya's Sugar Cookies

2 Cups sugar

1 1/4 Cup margarine

2 eggs

3 Cups self-rising flour

1/2 Teaspoon salt

Directions:  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together sugar and margarine in a mixing bowl with mixer. Add salt and eggs and continue until mixed. Turn off mixer and add flour, mixing by hand until batter is smooth. Drop 12 evenly spaced walnut sized spoonfuls of dough onto each cookie sheet. Bake 9 - 10 minutes or until edges appear slightly brown. They may still appear a bit under-baked on top when they first come out of the oven, but this is okay. They will firm up in a matter of minutes. Enjoy with a cold glass of homemade sweet tea. The recipe for that can be found HERE!

Have a fun, frugal and fabulous evening, from our house to yours!

Save Cash-ola on Birthdays: Make the Cake Yourself!

I had plans to have a leisurely evening. I had made enough chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes, green beans and homemade biscuits last night that I didn't think I would have to visit the kitchen this evening other than to warm up some grub in the microwave. Wrong! Okay.......I DID make some sugar cookies when I got home from work (will share the yummy recipe in another post). Anyhow, the cookies were well underway and my son had already eaten the complete first dozen when my husband arrived home from work armed with a Kroger bag and a special request. He asked me to make a Tasmanian Devil cake for a friend. Hmmmm.....a challenge.

I must admit that it is past my bedtime, so I will be brief tonight! I just finished the Taz cake, and I am satisfied with the results. Of course, it is not TLC Cake Boss quality, but it will work. While I'm at it, I might as well go ahead and show you some of my other cakes too! I don't always take a picture of them, but I think I'm gonna start so that I have something to look at if I ever want to make the same cake twice.

WARNING: I AM NO PROFESSIONAL NOR AM I A PHOTOGRAPHER...LOOK AT YOUR OWN RISK.

"Dukes of Hazzard" Cake made for a friend. It was so hard to get the red that deep, but I finally achieved it by adding a 10 cent package of Kroger brand drink mix to the white icing. It colored it AND flavored it cherry, which complemented the chocolate cake.

Litterbox Cake made for the Halloween Yuck Fest at my son's school a couple of years ago. This pic is a little old, but I thought I'd included it anyway. It is just a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, covered in crushed cookies (the kind you get like 50 in a pack for a dollar, LOL) garnished with broken up large Tootsie Rolls and finished off with a brand new washed cat litter scoop. YUCK!

And HERE is the Taz Cake. He isn't perfect, but I think he turned out pretty cute. I free-handed the whole thing, first with a tube of black icing. Then, I filled in the rest, using a toothpick for a bunch of it to fill in the spaces. It was fun because, in a way, I felt like I was in first grade again finishing a coloring sheet and trying to stay in the lines. I finished it off by piping brown stars around the edges.

A UK Wildcat cake made for a friend. From this angle, it kinda looks crooked, but it didn't look that way in person...hmmm.  Basically just one store brand cake mix and a can of icing here. And, of course, a little bit of homemade white and blue icing I made with confectioner's sugar, margarine and a few drops of blue food coloring in some of the white icing.

All these cakes certain things in common: store brand cake mix that cost about $1.00 - $1.25 and store brand icing for around $1.00 - $1.50 a can (don't forget to save the can!!). I used a very simple plastic decorating bag with tips that I purchased at my local Mighty Dollar for $1.00, and the round containers you see were salvaged from certain death by trash can by my sister, Tammy at a workplace function she attended. I noticed the other day that Dollar Tree now sells food coloring. I was thrilled by that discovery!! 

So, why continue to give your hard earned cash to the deli for a cake that has been frozen, thawed, decorated from a five gallon bucket of icing, and set in a display case for days all for about $15 - $20 for a cake this size (which is considered to be a 1/4 sheet cake). You can save some green and make your own for about $5.00, more or less, AND get the chance to create edible art yourself!

Have a fun, frugal and fabulous evening, from our house to yours!

Sweet tea, anybody?

You know, you just can't beat a good cold glass of sweet tea. This is probably not news at all to any of you, but up until recently, I didn't really realize I could make my own at home easily.  Other than with those powdered "kool-aid"-style drink mixes, anyway - - and I don't like those. They taste nothing like actual tea. Anyhow, I had been buying sweet tea by the gallon at Kroger and never paying more than about $1.50 a gallon.  Cheap enough, right? For most people, yes. But I am one of those people who enjoys the PROCESS of making things as well as enjoying the end result of the fruits of my labor. So one day my husband bought a box of teas bags at the store. I reluctantly followed the directions on the package, added some sweetnin' and...........hmm......it was surprisingly good! This began my love of making my own tea, and I would like to share my process with you. I learned some tricks that made it easier when making more than just a cup - like making a whole GALLON jug.

I have told you I like to save anything that might be of use to me later on. A well rinsed and cleaned plastic milk jug fits the bill perfectly as a vessel for homemade sweet tea. I mean, that's what they sell it in anyway at the store! Starting with a clean plastic gallon jug, fill it with water. Pour the water into a four quart pot and turn the heat on high until it starts to boil. Here's one trick I learned that made life easier if you use tagless bags: set a metal colander right into the water to hold the tea bags. Once it's time to take them out, all you have to do is lift out the colander and toss the bags into the trash.  Also, if any of the little tea leaves try to escape, the colander sorta helps to hold them in place instead of having yucky floating stuff all in your tea.

Okay, back to the boiling water..... Once it comes to a boil, I just turn off the stove and place 14 tea bags in. Now the kind I get comes as a tagless double package, so I actually only put in 7 double bags. Let that sit (or is the word "steep"? I dunno.....) for about 15 minutes.

While your tea is sitting - or steeping or sleeping or whatever you wanna call it, you can go ahead and add your sugar to the empty gallon jug. I love to use old aluminum kitchen tools, so I use my little metal funnel and measuring cup to make the process easier. You know what a grainy sticky mess sugar can be if it is spilled! I add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of sugar, depending on what I have available.

Remove the colander full of tea bags and allow the tea to cool for probably 30 minutes before you try to transfer it to the jug. The easiest way I have found to transfer the tasty, newly brewed tea is with a glass measuring cup with a spout.

Now, time to clean up your mess while you wait for the tea to cool a little more! After you've cleaned it all up, here's your reward:

I mentioned the cost of a store bought gallon of tea earlier, so what does my tea cost? Here's a rough breakdown:

The tea in the photo is from Dollar General.  I am NOT brand loyal to anything unless something just tastes bad. I am all about value. This box of 100 Smart & Simple tagless teabags cost about $1.25. like I said, I use 14 bags (7 double bags) per gallon. That works out to roughly 7 gallons at a cost of about 18 cents each. Now for the sugar. I usually get a 4 pound bag of Kroger Value brand sugar for around $2.15 on sale. There are about 9 cups of sugar in a 4 pound bag, so that puts each cup at about 24 cents per cup. Since I add 1 1/2 to 2 cups, it costs 48 cents at the most to sweeten my gallon of tea. Cost of container is FREE, of course. 

SO - - the total cost of a gallon of refreshing, homemade sweet tea is a whopping 66 cents! 

Hmm, that DOES beat $1.50 - - by 84 cents, actually. It saved me enough to buy a nice candy bar to enjoy with my sweet tea..........or a pack of gum..........or a small bag of chips.

Have a wonderful and blessed day from our house to yours!

Homemade Turkey Pot Pie

Well folks, for my very first fun and frugal homespun post, I would like to share with you my homemade turkey pot pie. I am sure many of you are in a quandary over what to do with all that leftover turkey and fixins' from Christmas. Never fear, you can create something beautiful AND delicious that will have everyone bragging and asking for more. Best of all, this recipe isn't really even a recipe (other than the dough). It is a composition of all the things you have in your fridge or pantry that you might want to throw into a pie crust. That, to me, is the best part. There is nothing worse that starting a recipe and finding out I am missing a couple of ingredients. I usually ALWAYS substitute something else or leave it out if possible. I don't like having to stop what I am doing and go to the grocery store. Ughhh.  It stifles my creativity and causes me to have to spend money. No thanks. Anyhoozle, on to the pot pie......

For the crust, I used my standard biscuit dough recipe, but in the spirit of using what you have, you could probably use canned biscuits! Here's my recipe:

2 cups flour

1 stick of margarine / butter (that's 1/4 cup, folks!)

2/3 cup of milk (water will work if you don't have milk)

Dash of salt

Dash of sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place all these ingredients in a big bowl until they are combined (if you stir TOO much, though, the finished product will be a bit on the tough side). Dust your countertop with flour and dump the dough out. sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough and start rolling out until you reach about a 1/4 of an inch in thickness. Next, turn your pie plate (or baking dish) upside down on top of the rolled dough and cut roughly around it to get the correct size for the bottom crust. Then, with the help of a nice and flat spatula, gently lift the dough and place it into the pie plate. You will have enough left for a top crust, too!

Are you ready for the fun part now? Start adding ingredients! Here's what I happened to have: 

2 1/2 cups more or less of turkey, which I cubed

About a cup of stuffing

About a a cup combined of both whole kernel and creamed corn

1 1/2 cups of leftover cream of chicken soup

I simply layered these things into the crust, adding my soup last so that it would drain down into the other ingredients and moisten them as the pie baked. Next, I decided that I wanted a lattice top on my pie. I re-rolled the rest of the dough and cut some strips. I added them to the top of the pie, weaving them as I went. You don't have to do this, as I think a regular, solid top would be nice too - - just don't forget to make some holes in the top so your filling can vent! I baked it for about 20 - 25 minutes, and here's the result!

Trust me - - there's no precision here, and it turned out yummy! The hubster and son were thrilled with the result, and the pie itself was so big, it took the three of us two different meals to eat it. I loved the fact that I only added what I had leftover. If I hadn't had any corn, I might have opened a can of green beans - - you get the idea. From our house to yours:  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Tanya