Fair Trade Coffee at Walmart for $2.75

I made a (rare) trip to Walmart today for a few staples that I cannot find at Kroger (my favorite grocery store) and I found a display of coffee like the one pictured, except that instead of saying Rainforest Alliance, it says Fair Trade and it has a certified fair trade seal. I decided to try it (I also bought our regular coffee - Community Coffee). There was no price listed, but it rang up $2.75 and the receipt said the regular price was $5.88. We're going to try it in the morning, and if its good, I'll head back tomorrow to stock up.

Check out Comical Coupon Sense for more Thrifty Thursday :o)

Making Yogurt

My friend Erin called this morning while we were making yogurt. She asked me to post a picture tutorial on my blog. I figure, since there are already many really good one's out there, I would just link to one of those. Here is my favorite. I pretty much make it the same way she does. :o) Please post a comment if you make your own - I'd love to know what you use (kind of milk and starter - we use Horizon's organic whole milk and Stoneyfield plain for starter), how you do it and how you use the yogurt (ours goes in smoothies, mostly).

Farmer's Market Find

I put this box of granola bars in the picture to give a little perspective. This is one huge cantaloupe. Its actually the size of a small watermelon. Before I cut it up, I weighed it! 10 lbs, 8 oz.

The farmer who grows these is at the market each week with both cantaloupe and watermelons and his are the best we've ever had! As soon as they are in season in your area, I highly recommend locally grown, organic watermelon and cantaloupe - you will not believe the difference.

They're Back!

Look what we got to play with yesterday :o) It flew off before we really got to hold it, but the boys did get to touch it. Yay for cicadas! Can you believe that big green thing came out of that little brown shell? Amazing!

Baked Oatmeal Recipe

Erin (Hi Erin ::waving:: )asked for my baked oatmeal recipe. It is based on the baked oatmeal recipe from Money Saving Moms. I looked all over her blog and cannot find it, but I did print it several months ago, so I will post her recipe first, then mine.

MSM Baked Oatmeal:

Beat:
4 eggs
1 Cup Oil
1 1/2 Cup Sugar
Add
6 Cups Oats
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 t salt
cinnamon (optional)
Add:
2 Cups Milk

Let sit for 5 minutes so the milk will soak into the oats. Then pour into a greased 9X13 pan and bake at 350 for 25 minutes. If you like, you can sprinkle chopped apples and raisins and cinnamon on top before baking.

Here is how we make it here:

Beat:
4 eggs
1 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
Add:
4 cups oats
1/2 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup flax meal, buckwheat flour, oat flour, wheat germ (I just put the 1/2 cup measure out and add these things until I get to the top of the measuring cup - basically what you are looking for is 2 cups of flour - we just break it down as noted)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
cinnamon
Add:
2 cups milk (sometimes I replace part of the milk with a few tablespoons of pureed white or garbanzo beans to up the protein)

In addition to letting it sit for 5 minutes, you can refrigerate it over night before baking. This recipe makes so much that we only bake it once every 3 weeks or so.

Menu Plan Monday - June 23, 2008

Visit the Organizing Junkie for hundreds of menus.

Here's what we're having this week. I'm putting all locally grown items in bold.

Breakfast:

Baked Oatmeal
Toast with Blueberry Jam
Eggs and grits
Banana Nut Pancakes
Yogurt and fruit

Lunch (will include one fruit and one veggie):

Broccoli Cheese Soup
Grilled Cheese
PB & honey
Turkey Sandwhich
Chicken Salad Sandwhich


Snacks:

Carrot and Cucumber sticks with ranch dip
Blueberry Popsicles
Smoothies (strawberries, blueberries, bananas, yogurt, orange juice)
pumpkin scones
plums
watermelon (holy cow - this is the best watermelon I've ever had!)
Hummus and pita

Supper:

*Chicken Stir Fry over rice (some of the veggies for the stir fry are local - squash, onion, and green beans for sure and possibly more, depending upon what's at the market mid week)
*Hamburgers (found a source of LOCAL GRASS FED BEEF!)on a dressed bun (tomato is also local) with new potatoes and cucumber salad
* Chicken Enchilladas, squash and zucchini, broccoli
*Pan Fried Tillapia, black beans and brown rice
*Leftover Buffet

We are also having guests for the weekend. I plan to roast two chickens. I'm going to leave one whole and we can have it as roasted chicken with side dishes. I am going to take the meat off the other chicken and dice it. Half will go into chicken salad and the other half will be mixed with BBQ sauce. These will stay in containers in the fridge for quick sandwiches.

On a side note, this weekend, I cooked up a pound of pintos in the crock pot. I love doing this - its sooooo easy - the beans soaked all day Saturday then I cooked them Saturday night. We made refried beans out of some of it and the rest was packaged in 1 cup portions for another week. I'm trying to do this every week or every other week with different kinds of beans to give us a variety ready to use. We currently have white beans, black beans, garbanzo beans and now pintos in the freezer. Yay! I'll probably have to cook more garbanzos this week as we'll use the last of it for hummus this week.

Gardens, Blueberries and Kids

I sure hope these tomatoes start turning soon. This is two of our Roma tomato plants. We have 4 more Roma and 3 slicing tomatoes (can't remember the variety right off, maybe early girl?)

This is the potato box that my Dad made for me when he and Mom came up to visit. They're growing well.

Here is "garden cat". She "helps" me whenever I'm in the garden.

These blueberry scones are delicious. I substituted butter for the shortening called for in the recipe.

And finally, a cute kid photo. Here are the boys, keeping cool in our inflatable wading pool.