Happy New Year!!!

We had a great Christmas and New Year. We are still not in in our new house yet but are hoping to move next week sometime. Please be praying that everything goes well for us.

I spent a day a couple weeks ago making freezer meals with my mom. She made a bunch of single serve meals for my 84 year old grandmother to keep in her freezer. Mt grandma lives alone and cried when my mom gave her the meals. She does not like to cook for just herself and does not usually eat very healthy, so it meant a lot to her to have healthy, fresh meals waiting for her in the freezer.
It was so easy for us to make one recipe and put a little aside in a separate container for my grandmother. If you know of someone who lives a lone, whether it be an elderly person, a single person, a college student, etc... consider doing this as a blessing for the. You will truly end up being the one that feels blessed when you see there reaction. My mom and I were.

So, can I just tell you how nice it has been to have meals in my freezer while we have been busy cleaning and packing! Especially since we are eating off of paper plates right now and all my kitchen stuff is packed :o) I just pop something out of the freezer in the morning, pop it in the oven at dinner time and throw the aluminum pan away when it's gone. Easy, easy, easy. I will probably go into shock after we move and I have to do dishes again!

I still do not have a computer (thanks mom for letting me come over and use yours!) but plan on dealing with that after we move. So hopefully sometime in February I will get back to posting regularly. Until then I will just give you tidbits here and there.

Happy Cooking!
~Caroline

Back in action...sorta :o)

I got a lot more done last week with hubby on vacation, than I have in the last month! I was finally able to get back to CVS and Walgreens and got some awesome deals. Unfortunately, one thing that I learned is that when your husband and 2 children are with you at the store and you are doing multiple transactions and they are ALL trying to help you, you end up loosing your receipts! And since my brain has been completely fried by some of medications I could not even remember the transactions and the amount spent and saved and all of that. So I am very sorry that I do not have any details for you all. Maybe this week we will get into that :o) I am taking baby steps to get to what normal is for me now.

I can say this, at walgreens I spent $10 and have $16 coming back to me in rebates! So that was a good money maker and it stocked me up on meds for the winter! Yee Haw!

I was also able to do a day of cooking last week. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed spending time in my kitchen all by myself cranking out meals. I will have to say that this was the best cooking session I have ever had! Seriously. Here are the specks:

2 meals-Citrus marinated Shrimp
2 meals-Pineapple Salsa with Salmon
2 meals- Italian Hamburgers
2 meals- Raspberry Chipolte Chicken
2 meals- Honey Sesame Pork Chops
1 meal- Savory Garlic Steak
1 meal- Mexican Flare skirt steak
2meals- Pork Chops ready to be BBQd
2 pounds- ground beef cooked and divided
4 meals- Alfredo Sauce
____________
Total meals made= 18 (plus 2 lbs. ground beef )
Total spent= $75!!!! That's about $4 per meal!!! Now remember I am only cooking for 4 people. But still I was flabbergasted that I did this good!

My mom has also made us :
2 meals- Pot Pies (one has already been devoured)
2 meals- Coffee Cakes
and she is planning on making this week:
Beef and Cheese Enchiladas
Chicken Enchiladas in a Cream Sauce
Re-Baked Potatoes

So our freezer is stocked and I can focus on hubby, kids, schooling, theraping, and getting better myself! God is so good :o)

Oh, did I tell you that it took me less than 2 hours to make and clean up all that food! I had to take an extra one of my medicines because I was feeling bad, and it gave me this huge kick of energy and I was just going like a mad woman!

I will try to post recipes and pictures of this stuff as we eat it up in the next few weeks so you can all enjoy it with me.

One last thing, I love to share how God blesses the Howard family. After my 2 hours of mad cooking I crashed on the couch and thought, "I really don't want to make dinner tonight." Right about that point hubby calls and says that one of his customers just gave him a bunch of food. Here is what a bunch of food was: 2 racks of BBQd Ribs, 2 BBQd Chicken Quarters, 1 very large BBQd Tri-Tip, a loaf of french bread all buttered and wrapped in foil, a big thing of Potato Salad, and a Big thing of their Homemade Baked beans! We called up my parents to come over and our neighbors and we all had a feast! I love it when we are blessed beyond what we need and we can turn and bless others with it as well! God is good. He has showed me that a lot in the last 7 weeks.

Sorry this became such a long post :o) I will chat with you more this week with recipes and pictures!
Blessings and Happy Cooking~Caroline

This is not a post about freezer cooking....

but it is a post about a craft project that uses Freezer Paper! So I thought it was OK for me to post it :o) This is a great way to make t-shirts and other stuff pretty.....http://www.craftster.org/blog/?p=94. If anyone has ever used freezer paper before for crafts I would love to hear about it.

Happy Cooking!
~howiesgal