No TV Week

Well, no TV week has came to a close. It was wonderful I must say.
I would really like to see NO TV ever, in our household, but my husband isn't as on board as I am.
We only have one TV, and it's in our living room, so we always know what the girls are watching. I normally only allow them to watch TV after it's dark outside, kind of a way to wind down before bed. Now that it's beginning to get darker earlier, and also because it was pouring down rain ( THANK YOU) for two days last week, we were indoors more than often.

The no TV week, went incredibly well. It was so nice. The girls would help me make supper, and they helped me bake bread, brownies and such. They played with their blocks a lot, and we read a lot of books. While they were in the living room playing with their blocks, my husband and I were either reading our own book in there watching them, or we were playing right along beside them. I really enjoyed this week, and I think we will do it more often. I'm hoping to wean my husband off it , until we have no TV months, then no TV year, then just get rid of it all together. We live in a rural area where we lose power a lot anyways when it's storming, so we already have batter operated storm radios, which is really the only reason I would want a TV anyhow.

So, I encourage everyone to host their own NO TV WEEK, and let me know how it goes.

Frugal Suppers

I want to post some of my recipes, but for now I'll just do a quick list of some typical suppers we have around my house. We don't eat " commercial" meat, only fish and deer meat that we process ourselves, so you will see many veggie entrees, which is great for your body and your budget!

- Deer chili ( made with ground deer meat, canned tomatoes from the garden, beans and spices)
- Stif fry- Kids and hubby love this! Rice, soy sauce, and whatever veggies we have laying around, cooked in a big skillet.
- Breakfast burritos - scrambled eggs ( from our chickens), homeade salsa, tortillas, cheese, and peppers. The girls skip the peppers, but my husband and I love it.
-Grilled veggie sandwhiches on homeade bread. Made like a grilled cheese, except I add fresh veggies like mushrooms, sprouts, eggplant etc to it. We like it with swiss cheese, or mozzerella.
-Pasta with fresh veggies, and Pesto, PESTO is delicious. I'll post my recipe here in a sec. My 4 year old eats this like it's going out of style.
- Pasta with tomato based sauce, I make this with and without deer meat. I canned a lot of tomatoes back in July and these come in so handy for lots of things.
- Homeade pizza, made with whatever cheeses, veggies etc. we have around.

That is a list of our favorite dinners. There are lots of cheap ingredients in these, and they are easy. I cook a little more complex things ( like Spinach, artichoke lasagna, YUM!!) on the weekends and freeze them sometimes, but above kind of is an idea of a typical week. Beans, grains and ingredients for bread is relatively cheap. The veggies are mostly homegrown, home canned, or bought locally in season, so they aren't too expensive either. Probably the most expensive item we use is cheese, which can be purchased many times on sale and frozen.

Basil Recipe:

4 cups fresh basil leaves

1-2 cloves garlic

1/2 c. parmasan cheese ( grated, not the powdered kind)

Walnuts or Pecans ( pine nuts are traditional, but since we have pecan trees I typically use pecans)

Put everything above into a food processor or blender and then add olive oil until it is the consistency you would like. If I have a lemon, I squeeze one lemon into it, if not, it's okay without it.
This can be put into ziploc baggies and frozen flat, or can be stored in a Jar or airtight container for several days in the fridge.

Great on pastas, pizzas, veggies, sandwhich spread and more.

Sunflowers and Bread

Well these two things don't actually go together ( at least in the context of this post) but I haven't written in a while so I thought I would update on both.

Sunflowers: A few weeks ago , I took the girls to a magnificent sunflower field by our house. It was planted for the birds, Dove especially, and I must say, it was gorgeous.

Bread: I have been trying to make bread every chance I get. My entire family loves the carbohydrate goodness and instead of buying the stuff from the store I've been making it. I got a bread maker last Christmas and although I've used it since then , I really have broken it out this last month. Today I made garlic herb bread and jalepeno cheddar bread. We ate about half of the garlic herb bread for lunch, and will probably finish it off for dinner.
The jalepeno cheddar bread will be relished all week as part of my husband's, and myself's lunch.