Cake Batter Pancakes

November 10 thankful: coupons and breakfast time!

So today is a toss up, I'm thankful for coupons (you'll see why)! And I'm also thankful for family breakfasts time-- which only happens on Saturday mornings. Usually it's french toast, waffles or pancakes. Sometimes biscuits and gravy makes an appearance. Usually there is sausage or bacon or both for the meat eaters. I love Saturday morning cooking. Jamie and I dance in the kitchen together around a "can you get the milk?" and "I need the eggs" chorus. Everyone is still in pajamas. No one needs to be reminded to "get your shoes on fast because we're running late!" It's just slow. Breakfast might be at 8 or at 10, it doesn't matter. We all sit and enjoy together unrushed for a change. (Of course this doesn't apply during soccer season. We had some 9am games!) Anyhow, I thought today that I'd like to do something fun. Something different. Something fluffy. Jamie's been wanting fluffy pancakes... and I thought "what's more fluffy than cake?" Soooo (can you see where this is going?) I am thankful that Betty Crocker rocked a sale a couple weeks ago at Kroger and I am stocked up on cake mixes. And I mean stocked. So, I examined the choices and went with a box of white cake mix. I did a little google work and saw several options of making pancakes with cake batter. Some said to use a cup of that and mix with X amount of flour. Some said to make as directed on the box for the cake. Some were in between. I decided I'd invent my own recipe. Jamie was concerned for his Saturday breakfast at this point. I was giddy!  I felt very inspired  by my Coupon Goddess' new blog A Beautiful Bite, even though her blog states that she wont be using mixes in the recipes there, she'll be doing everything from scratch. I am excited to see all the yummmmmy foods she posts about from scratch! I also think she would have been proud of my creativeness with my stockpile today!

I ended up using the whole box of cake mix. (Why not?) 

I also added flour, salt and baking soda. Mixed well. 

In separate bowl mixed milk with eggs and vanilla and poured into the dry ingredients very very slowly, stirring with wooden spoon lightly trying to incorporating the wet into dry fully by the time I was done pouring the wet... (I read this on the Pioneer Woman's Recipe, very important.  I didn't follow her recipe at all, just liked her tips. Though I do like her site and aim to try some of her things soon). So, then after it was all mixed together, but not over-mixed,  I followed her last part of her recipe. And melted some butter, and poured that slowly into the batter. I figured again "Why not?"! So then this, folks, is what I ended up with... 

Batter ready to make yummy pancakes

bubbles to tell me it's time to flip them

Lovely golden pancakes and LOOK... 

they are FLUFFY!

After I made a row of  plain ones for the kids, 

I added some tasty blueberries for Jamie and me

mmmm! 

waiting for something so yummy is so hard!

Micah didn't like waiting either. He was banging his cup, and the spatula I'd given him to stay quiet, loudly on the tray as if to say "I want cake! I want cake!"  er.. "I want pancakes! I want pancakes!"

with the pancakes, I made eggs

and sausage links to complete the Saturday morning yum-fest for my boys.

Before I knew it they had inhaled their pancakes, 

Matthew asking for another!

Would you just look at these happy people!

I had only just made my own plate

Micah thought they were wonderful. 

He also inhaled his first one and then tore a second one apart.

Thank you for the cake, Mom

Thank you for breakfast, Mom

Review: 

2 thumbs up from the kids.

Matthew said they were awesome and tasted like chocolate. 

I don't know how, I used white cake batter. Mark also said they were awesome.

I thought they were pancakes from Heaven.

Jamie thought they were too sweet though. I will try again... 

maybe with more flour, less vanilla and half the cake mix... mmmm!

Recipe:

Dry: large bowl (mix well)

1 box white cake mix

3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

Wet: separate medium bowl (mix well)

three eggs beaten well

2 cups milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

pour into the dry ingredients very very slowly, stirring with wooden spoon lightly to incorporate the wet into dry fully by the time done pouring the wet

Next:

3 tablespoons of melted butter

pour in slowly to batter, stir lightly

Last:

Pour batter onto hot griddle 

Flip

Eat!

Also, A Beautiful Bite is giving away a kitchen aid mixer! Head over there now and enter to win! 

Jam jam and more jam

 I've been on a jam kick lately.  A dear sweet friend and mentor in my life keeps giving me pears and I keep making jam.  My first batch yielded 4 jars. I felt like it was a lot of work for not a lot of jars, but it was my first ever attempt by myself. My second batch yielded 11 jars (it was a lot of pears)!  Then I did a batch of grape jam. I think that was 6 jars. And then today another 9 jars of pear jam!  Here's a few pictures of the process.

 boiling the pears and sugar

 the jars all filled

the jars, filled and turned upside down to set (process)

YUM! I'll turn them over in the morning 

and they'll be ready to shelf! 

Happy Jam!  What kind of jam do you like to make? 

My next endeavor will be strawberry jam, I've made that last year but not this year yet. 

publix finds

This past week at publix was a pretty good deals. I got some frozen veggies (9 boxes) and salsa (4 jars) and ragu sauce (6 jars) and a couple other decent finds today. I have been very pleased with publix ads lately. I hope they keep it up. I spent $38 today on all deals and saved $42! Yay. I love when I save more than I spend! I didn't think to set it up and take a picture until after I had it put away, but that's alright. I'll try to remember next week-- which is also looking to be a great sale. Thank you publix!

coupon ramblings

Some people have asked me recently (different people at different places) if I'd do a class or something about couponing. I've held one "mini workshop" before and shared with some friends what I'd been doing/learning. I liked this. It was neat. I'm no expert and I don't have wall to wall storage but I do enjoy the couponing game for sure.

If you're starting out, I'd really suggest deciding first what method is best for you. There is a binder method which is pretty popular, where you cut out all the coupons in the inserts or a folder method (which is what I do), where you keep the inserts whole.

Then the next obvious step is to start collecting coupons. We get two double papers most weeks. That's four papers on Sundays only. Then I purge out the inserts (Red Plum, Smart Source, Procter and Gamble) and put the inserts into folders labeled with that week's date. There are other places to get coupons: friends' papers, recycling, the internet... Please Note: Dumpster Diving is ILLEGAL in GA and several other states.

But then after that, find yourself a good site to get the deals and sales on (I live and breathe by Southernsavers.com) and use the information that's out there. There are so many blogs and sites it's just crazy, but sift through and find what works for you!

Also don't think you need to go out tomorrow, armed with 200 coupons and try to buy your whole shopping list at one time. Creating a stockpile is a slow process. And let me tell you, it is even slower if you're operating your coupon game on a budget. You can't just go buy jelly be/c it's on sale. You need to buy jelly when you have a coupon and it's on sale and it's the rock bottom price you want to spend on it. Then get *cough* ten or however many you have coupons for. I'll be getting **cough** ten or so jellies tomorrow at Publix. Along with four pasta sauce jars, four deodorants, an unknown number of chefboyarde and four 4 packs of yogurt. Now, can I feed my family with jelly, pasta sauce, deoderant and yogurt? No probably not. But, when it's time to buy more of those items, I don't have to buy them... I simply go to the storage room and get one off the shelf. Last week I bought eight dressings, eight shampoos, and eight boxes of cheerios. The amount of items purchased are usually small. The amount of those items purchased are dependent solely on the amount of coupons I have available to me for those items. Sure, I still have to buy meat and milk and produce. But each week I aim to only buy those type items and then "deal" the rest. I don't want to spend full price money for anything I don't have to. .... ah, but I've rambled on. Sorry. I meant to stick to this theme and my thoughts got carried away... Keep it small. Don't try to get the whole sale ad with coupons just be/c things are on sale. Get what's on sale AND at it's lowest best rock bottom price when you pair a coupon or two with it whenever possible.

Another popular question is "How much time does all this take?" Well... usually it takes me about an hour or so per store I'm dealing with. By the time I go through the sale ad, select the deals I want to do, sort through my coupons/print online coupons, organize the coupons, do the math with the deals to make sure it IS the deal I want it to be and then get to the store, actually shop and all. I'd say an hour or so per store. Often I'll do a lot of leg work on Wed after the Publix ad is out for the next week so that I can go to the store Thurs or Fri armed and ready for savings! Then I'll also spend time working on Sunday for the regular ads at other stores so I can go on Mondays to what's good deals. I don't go to each store every week. And if you're just starting out, I'd recommend focusing on ONE store for a while until you have it down. If you overwhelm yourself with store hopping at the start, then you're going to become burnt out fast.

Anyhow, these are my thoughts, hope they help someone.
Feel free to comment, I'll try to answer any questions if there are any.

YAY for peanut butter!

I love when Publix has awesome BOGO sales and I love it even more when there are rockin coupons to pair with the sales! This week at Publix Skippy Peanut Butter is on sale BOGO and with a the rockin $0.75/1 coupon in this past Sunday's paper, the final cost was $0.49 cents EACH! I bought four jars today, utilizing the four coupons I had. I have ordered ten more coupons from a clipping service for $1.99 total. (Hopefully they will come before the sale ends next week Wed so I can get ten more!) And, my mom and a friend from STL are sending me their lovely Skippy coupons, so that's another 5 more from them! I'm pumped. We go through the peanut butter in this house, that's for sure. All in all, I'm hoping to spend around $11.30 total for 19 jars of peanut butter! We'll see what happens next week when the coupons come in!

It's been a while since I've been active in the coupon using, deal scoring scene... and I can say that I'm HAPPY to be back in it!

Today at Kroger I also scored some pretty ding dong cheap Hamburger Helper--nine boxes to be exact and feel pretty stoked about replenishing my dwindled stockpile with some good go-to items.

You'll see more coupon posts coming week by week, because I'm back at it folks!

storage

WAH CHA!!!

My husband was very handy yesterday. I was impressed be/c he doesn't showcase his handyman skills much, so when he gets to use them, I get all gooey about it! I want to share with what he did be/c it benefits my couponing so much. I got a small taste today when it all came together how those "extreme couponers" feel about their nice and beautiful and tidy stock pile rooms, because NOW I HAVE ONE!!!!!! And making it all nice and beautiful and tidy was so much fun! (not so much fun I want to be on that crazy show though).... but I labeled all the condiments with their expiration dates to be sure we use them up in time or donate them if we might not get there. Oh, but I got ahead of myself... here, let me show you Jamie's handiwork.

The white wire shelves to the back wall and the left side
are new as of yesterday. He hung me new shelves
to help make our storage functional.

The left side will be mostly cleaning and beauty
and storage/ziplock bags.

The back side will be beverage and baby

the right side is condiments, baking, cereal, crackers, pasta, --basically any food.


Couponing world.... HERE I COME WITH ROOM FOR IT NOW!

coupon score

Publix had a good sale going this week.

I'm SO pleased I got to get out of the house to do the sale! I didn't venture very far, but it was nice to leave the house and be by myself for a few minutes. The roads aren't great, I was sliding in a few shady still solid icy places and the stores are BARE! It was crazy. But I made it there and back... Here's what I got...

24 boxes (yes, twenty four) of cereal (all BOGO) for around 37 bucks, divided by 24 is around 1.50 a box. That's not super great, (not when I can get some deals for 1.24 or 1.15 a box) but VERY nice when the cost of a box of cereal is $3.99, so I ran with it. ... I will say the selection of cereal options were SLIM. Very slim. It was nuts, I had to really hunt the shelves to make my deal work out right be/c there were giant holes all along the shelves where certain kinds were bought out.

8 packs of rice for less than 4 bucks

2 packs of popcorn for free

1 32 oz bottle of olive oil for super cheap

1 pack of hot cocoa for super cheap

6 bottles of baby soap for SUPER CHEAP! roughly 7 bucks spent on SIX 15 oz bottles of Johnson and Johnson baby soap was totally worth sliding on the ice for! This is a big deal when they are normally $3.15 each.


All in all at Publix today I spent $63.42 and saved $91.15 .... YES! I love deals. I love going into Publix with my little list of BOGO deals and killing it!

Cereal shelf (first time it's touched the top of the next shelf, haha!)

Other goods shelf (... note the soap is not pictured be/c it's not stored out there)

***Also, I just did some math and I'm at 34.42 pounds of grains out in storage. Including pasta, rice, potatoes, flour and popcorn.... anyone keeping track of how many more pounds of grains I'd need out there for a 6 month supply?

Snow Day times 4 going on 5

Oh mercy. So seeing all the beautiful snow Sunday night falling down was wonderful.

Playing in the fun new snow Monday morning was so nice and new and exciting for the boys, truly wonderful.

Being home Tuesday due to the ice and having Jamie stay home with us for the day was a little like being on vacation and sort of wonderful.

Wed.... well... Wednesday we were starting to get a little cramped in here. The fun of it was gone. Why can't they go to school? Why can't Jamie go to work? There is still ICE every where. Atlanta just isn't capable of handling this type of storm. AND it just isn't getting warm enough to melt it all. Wednesday was a little trying. The wonderfulness was wearing off.

Today was Thursday... Jamie left for work and two hours later returned home after going not far at all, saying he'd passed accidents and people sliding left and right and sat parked on the on ramp to the highway for 20 minutes. Nope. No further going for him. The kids have used up all the fun from their toys and now the only thing that is fun is hitting each other or running from one piece of furniture to the next throwing your whole body into it and flopping around making the parents of the house a little crazy. I think Matthew is over TV and pbskids.org and can only color 400 pages in three days for fun. Today I printed him off MANY preschool worksheets including: counting, coloring, letters, matching, shapes... and he whizzed through then. Let me tell you that today was not so wonderful. I think we're all about ready to pull our hair out. I miss my car. I miss female companionship. I miss other human interaction besides the two small people in this house shrieking all the time.

Tomorrow will be day 5 of being snowed/iced in. There is no school tomorrow again. We've yet to know if Jamie will be going to work or not. (Granted, while he's been home he's been trying to work remotely. Try telling the squealing two year old to "shhhh daddy's on the phone" it's a joke!)


I will say this... THANK YOU JESUS FOR MY STOCKPILE. Seriously. I mean Saturday I was at walmart processing pictures... I saw CRAZY PEOPLE with gallons and gallons of milk in their carts, emptying the soup and bread aisles. I thought, "yah right" ... we've been down here 6 years, I haven't seen more than a couple of inches which melted the next day, you know? We're not going to see any snow sticking and staying on the ground for days ! HA! ... well I was wrong. but at least I was also prepared. We haven't run out of meals to make. We haven't run out of milk be/c I usually buy four at a time since these crazies go through it so fast. We haven't run out of canned goods. We're getting dangerously low on fruit but enough to at least make it through tomorrow I think: 3 bananas and 3 apples left and also a small bag of frozen blueberries. Today we did empty the eggs be/c I made a big "breakfast for dinner" and we ran out of (randomly) pepper. However, there is still meat in the freezer (two whole chickens, ground turkey from a crazy sale, hotdogs, and an opened and unopened bag of nuggets). We still have pasta and plenty of canned and frozen veggies... we still have bread in the freezer as well as nice homemade loaves I made yesterday. So, really we're doing okay. A friend made it to the store the other day and put a pic on FB of the EMPTY meat section. Trucks just can't get in to restock the stores. I don't like being out of eggs, that's just annoying. And I don't like not having a good stash of fruit for my fruit-a-holics, but I'm really pleased with how we aren't neeeeeeeeeding to go to the store. If the milk and cereal and chicken nuggets last... I think we'll be okay.

Food storage list

In case anyone is interested... Here's what I got off a website a while ago. I've started a word document with all kinds of food storage/canning/stockpiling/saving things I'm copying and pasting from different places. (Remember I don't' plan on going this crazy [yet] and most sites/people say to start with a two week supply then build to a 3 month and then to a 6 month and then to a year's worth for food storage starters. We'll see how it goes....)

Anyhow, I don't remember which site this if from but here is what one mom writes...

Here is what one basic year’s supply of food includes: it will provide about 2200 calories a day, which means you’ll probably get 1800 and your husband will get 2600. This is less than most people are used to, but it will keep you alive! You’ll have to ration, too, to make it last. Quantities are per person.

300 lbs grains- includes Wheat, Rice, Rolled Oats, Dried Corn, Popcorn, Flour, Pasta Products, Dried Potatoes, Quinoa, Amaranth, Spelt, Buckwheat, etc. Some lists say 400 lbs per person, but the current Church site says 300. Take your pick, according to what you can handle, storage-wise or hunger-wise. That extra 100 lbs provides an extra 435 calories per day.

16 lbs. powdered milk- this is just enough for cooking, about ¾ cup per day. You can store instant, regular powder, and canned milk. It takes about 5 (12-oz) cans to equal one pound of powdered milk

60 lbs sugar- this includes white sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, honey, molasses, jam/jelly, corn syrup, fruit drink mix, gelatin. If you have honey that crystallizes, set the bottle in the sun on a warm day, or put it in a pan of water on lowest heat overnight. It will become liquid again. You will want more sugar than 60 lbs. if you can your own fruit.

10 quarts cooking oil (2 ½ gallons)- yes, YOU NEED FAT. Your brain is made mostly of fat. Guess what happens if you don’t get any fat in your diet? Plus, it’s a lot of calories for very little storage space. The darker & cooler you keep it, the longer it lasts. Fats include shortening, cooking oil, butter/margarine, mayonnaise, peanut butter.

8 lbs salt per person- this is the cheapest of them all! In addition to the round canisters, you can buy salt in 4-lb rectangular boxes; these stack together more efficiently. At Sams’ Club, these boxes are just under $1. Woo-hoo! Two bucks and you have your personal salt for the year!

60 lbs. legumes, dried- includes soybeans, pinto beans, white beans, kidney beans, lima beans, anything that ends with ‘bean’ (unless it begins with ‘jelly’), black-eyed peas, split peas, and lentils. These are a great, inexpensive source of protein. Store the same as wheat- dry, clean, dark and cool if possible. It takes 4 ½ (15 oz) cans to equal one pound of dry beans.

14 gallons water per person. This is just 2 weeks’ supply, for drinking and a tiny bit for washing; the minimum our church leaders have counseled. You may also want a way to purify water for longer-term use. To purify, you can boil water for 2 minutes, or use chlorine bleach (plain only, not scented!) If the water is clear, use ½ tsp. per 5 gallons of water. If the water is cloudy, use double; 1 tsp. per 5 gallons of water.

Children do not need a full adult’s portion. For them, figure age 3 and under= 50%, ages 4-6= 70%, ages 7-10= 90%, ages 11 and up= 100%.

Obviously, kids' ages are always changing, so when I calculate what to have on hand (I inventory every Conference), I project out six months to a year. For instance, if someone is 6 years old, I count that child as 7 years. That way I'm not always slightly behind when it's time to replenish.


This is from a different mom on either the same or a different site... Here's what she keeps in storage.


WATER! (I have two 55 gallon drums sitting on my porch.)
Wheat berries (red and white) - this is absolutely the best grain to store because of it's long shelf life, however, you will need to invest in a wheat grinder if you want to use it. I got the Wonder Mill for Christmas last year. Even if you don't have a grinder or are saving up for one, I suggest buying wheat anyway. Buy it while we have it. I always think about the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat story in the Old Testament where he had the dream about the 7 years of plenty and the 7 years of famine.
Flour
Oatmeal
Grits (I live in the South)
White rice
Cream of Wheat
Popcorn
White sugar
Brown sugar
Pasta/ Spaghetti
Dry beans
Peanut Butter
Jelly
Ready to eat cereal
Crackers
Butter
Cheese
Powdered Milk - I suggest storing this in sealed #10 cans to extend it's shelf life. There are several sites that sell this. It's kind of expensive though.
Canned vegetables, fruits, spaghetti sauce, and beans
Canned meats (tuna, chicken, sardines)
Juice (concentrate and bottles)
Powdered eggs
Salt
Baking soda
Alfalfa seed (these are good for sprouting as well as some other dry beans)
Chocolate and candy

Food storage thoughts

Jamie and I have been watching a lot of Glenn Beck recently. Not a lot as we'd like to, as he airs every day and we don't find ourselves able to catch each show, but a lot more than we watch anything else. More and more I'm getting on board with the food storage idea. I joked in my last coupon post that our storage shelving is starting to look like a bomb shelter center.... well... yah. I guess it is. And I'm really okay with it. It might be a little embarrassing sometimes to have your cart loaded down at the store (like today, with 15 bags of chocolate chips and 4 bags of instant potatoes) but who cares? (more on that later).

I was given a big compliment by my husband yesterday and I'm really pleased with myself about it. He said that I was doing a good job with the food storage stuff. And when I stand back and look at it, I really like what I see. I need to do more with the long term storage, not just bulk storing. I need to start acquiring things like rice, beans, canned veggies, flour, sugar, salt (think Oregon trail-- haha) to stay outside and not go into our food consumption rotation. I've been able to replace my peanut butter stockpile recently and that was neat. I now have 6 jars outside and 3 inside. We know we'll eat them up, but it's nice to have them in reserve. I also recently got 8 boxes of cookie and corn muffin mix for FREE. Do we neeeeeed cookie mix boxes? Eh, probably not. But they really were FREE so I don't think it matters that they are out there. We still have a decent pile of pasta going on. I love reaching there for a pasta meal instead of paying full price at the store! We also recently stocked big time on crackers. Right now there are 4 boxes of saltines and two boxes of ritz. But they'll eventually be eaten up. Kroger Mega Event deals have been awesome.

Next harvest season, I'd like to look into seriously giving canning an attempt. That would be a huge addition to our food storage efforts. The other thing I want to start doing is WATER saving. I'm going to plan on buying my friend Nancy's (who's here weekly) favorite drink in 2 liters so I can keep the bottles after she uses them, rinse them and fill with good drinking water for storage. Glenn Beck's website advices a gal of water per person per day of storage goal--- the long term goal is to have enough food stored for a year... oh, ha, I hadn't mentioned that yet had I? well, um there it is. And anyhow, that's a lot of water, huh?! The short term goal would be a week. and then the next goal would be a month, then three months and then built up to 6 months and then the year's worth. THEN comes cycling. Be/c obviously you can't just leave a year's worth of food items in a room and call it a day. Things will expire. So we'd have to start buying for the house, and putting the new items outside and putting the older items inside, but we aren't there yet. *wink* not by a long shot. Are we becoming one of the crazy American families who think the government is bound for complete corruption (if it isn't already) and total failure and complete crash of the economy? Perhaps. If it doesn't though, and we have all this food stored, think about the money we're saving in the process since I'm coupon obsessed now...

Oh back to the chocolate chip news... Publix BOGO deals ROCK! Today I spent

$16.12, savings: $33.81. WOOOOT! Saving money rocks!

Planning for uncertainty also rocks. Even if I'm now labeled as extra crazy.... since I was well, crazy already. HA!

My chocolate chip pile... it needs a little tidying up, but shhh! (and then you also see the pringles pile from the Kroger Mega Event a few weeks ago)

condiments section: mayo, mustard, salsa, BBQ sauce, rotel, coffeemate, salad dressings, syrup, red sauce, peanuts, instant potato bags, peanut butter, crackers, baking mixes, rice packets, pasta boxes....