Cakes for 100 and More! Strawberry Shortcake!

As finding my best way to serve God in Our Awanas church program, I figured out, I should make desert.  So each week I make desert that will need to serve 100 or more people (kids and adults).  Now the thing to realize is there is a budget.  Ready!  Here it is!  I have got about $20 to let God do miracles with!  So I am going to share my recipes with you on how I get it done!

So I just served strawberry cake last night and I thought we were going to have to roll the adults out of the room.  Everyone was getting their cake to their seats and then going for their dinner.  Wow!  It really gave me the sense that, yep, God is using me and this is what it is for!  So this cake is a hit!  This is a picture of a test version I did before I made the big pans of it!

RECIPE! for 100!

4 boxes of Yellow Cake mix ($4)

1 jar apple sauce ($2)

1 dozen eggs ($1.50)

4 boxes Strawberry Jello ($4)

4 tubs of white icing ($5)

1 Large bag of frozen strawberries from walmart ($6)

1 cup sugar (on hand)

So you make the cake via the directions, except substitute the oil with applesauce.  When the toothpick comes out clean, pull it out and poke holes all over the cake.  Make Jello as directed and immediately pour over hot cake.  Let cake cool to room temperature (you can skip this, if you are in a time crunch, just becareful not to crumble the cake when you spread icing.)

Spread icing all over the top.  Defrost strawberries and smash them up, so they are crushed.   Add sugar to the strawberries to make a sauce with a juice.  Spoon strawberries all over the top.  Put in fridge until you serve it.

 

When I make this, I am using 2 13 by 24 inch pans.  I am also an industrial oven. 

I hope you enjoy.  I am going to put the other recipes I come up with.  But you can see, I can make that $20 go far.  I have a mud cake and a pineapple upside down cake recipe.  If you have any box cake recipes to share, please send them my way.  I need 2 more recipes.

~trish

Keeping the grocery bill LOW?

Scratch, Scratch, Scratch.  No I do not have an itch!  The easiest way to keep the bills low is to only buy the staples and make things from scratch.  This is a picture of my chicken pot pie.  The biscuits are  another round I made from scratch.  I froze the rest, so that they will be convenient later, for biscuits and honey.

Now I love couponing, but after a couple of months I remember, all I am really buying is a bunch of processed food.  Remember those packages of short bread cookies I got for $1 a package, still have half of them.  I do not really even like eating them, but I am in major calorie intake mood with nursing.  So couponing is a luxury, since I spend more and on things I do not NEED.

So I have 2 major fundamentals when it comes to shopping for food: 1. Cook from Scratch and 2. Buy in bulk on the big items.

I am always encouraged when I check out other families who are keeping their grocery bill down.  I read 2 articles this evening that made me want to share this with you, the first at  life in a shoe and the second at frugalhacks.com

I realize there are a lot of other things I do that help.

1. Soda is a luxury item.  When I buy it, it is for the sole enjoyment of my husband and me. So it is generic root beer and a diet soda.  The children will have a treat of root beer, once in a while (like once a month).  Why? Soda is yummy!  You can drink and drink and never be satisfied.  I can gulp water and be satisfied, I can go through 4 cans of soda and still not have my thirst quenched.
2. Buy excessive amounts of meat when it is on sale at an unbelievable price.  Stock up!
3. Control on the snacks.  Now our one outlet on snacks is the little snack cakes and the powder donut bags.  Why? because I can get them on the super cheap at the day old bread store.  Just the other day, our store had buy 10 bags of donuts for $3.  That is unheard of as a price, so I bought 10 and froze them.  I will buy the boxed snack packs for less than a dollar. (I do buy generic oreos, this is my husbands weakness.  And he only eats 3-4 cookies each night with his glass of milk)
4. Milk is costly, never waste great fresh milk to cook with, use dry.
5. Use what you buy!

 

Now one thing that was listed that I have not given much thought about was buying in bulk produce in season.  I buy in bulk to can, but did not think to buy in bulk for fresh consumption.  Mostly because I am wishy washy on what I feel like eating fresh.  Now we are blessed in this part of Florida, because we have a lot of large volume farmers markets.  I mean where they have nothing but a box truck full of green peppers only.  I like the idea of eating what is in season and cheap.  My fear is, it is a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive to get there and would my small children be able to keep up with the amount of food I would get from a box of each and only having 2 things.

One way I could work around this, would be to get a couple of families to get in as a co-op and make food boxes every 2-3 weeks. Or instead can/ freeze my left-overs. So I will think about this a bit more and figure out how to incorporate it into my life.

 

Good luck saving.  I keep thinking about this couple I met, while I was still fresh in college doing an internship.  Denny and Pat, senior volunteers, who lived by and constantly chatted the same slogan every day, “Waste not, Want not”. Ten plus years later, this slogan resonates in every part of my life. And grows to take over other parts.  Funny is that this seed was planted for ten years before it ever took root.

~trish

June 2010 Bulk Cooking Menu

This took me a bit of time to get together.  Like I said before, planning is key!  First I came up with my meals and the recipes.  I have a list below that show what I am making, how many it serves and the total number of meals I am making of it.  To make things easier, I linked the recipes for you.  Some I had to type out and post, some I changed the recipe from how I would make it to one that was already on the web.  For some of you, you may have never thought about cooking in bulk like this before, so I want to make it as easy as possible to follow along.
Menu List

Chicken	Servings	# of Meals
Creamy Chicken Casserole	6	2
Chicken Pot Pie	6	2
Chicken and Sausage cassoulet		2
Jambalaya	8	2
Ground beef
Lazy Lasagna	6	4
Cheeseburger Pasta	6	4
Tuna
Tuna Casserole		3
Tuna Cakes		2
Sausage
Red beans and Rice	6	2
Stuffed Shells	6	2
Beef Tips	6	3
Beef Stroganoff	6	2

Alterations:
Jambalaya: I will be using canned tomatoes (diced) instead of fresh tomatoes.  I will be browning the cooked chicken and sausage as it says.  I will make the mixture and then freeze and will cook it later in the crock pot.
Tuna Patties: Calls for bisquick in the recipe.  I am not buying it.  I found a recipe for baking mix here.
Beef Tips: This recipe is for a huge amount, I am cutting the recipe in half and assuming it will suit 3 meals of 6 servings.

Now, sorry I did not type it all out, but it is so much easier to hand write my ingredients for each meal.  So I scanned the pages for you.  Here they are:

Just click and you should be able to print.
Now from here, I consolidate my list to create my grocery list to shop from.

I then check my pantry for what I have, so I can delete it from my list.  From this list, I am using my $0.68/lb whole chickens and the 4 pound can of tuna I already have. 
After, I cruise sam’s club (website) to see what I can buy in bulk and mark it on my list.  I also check out the weekly ads to see if it can beat the price.  I plan to buy first at walmart to price match anything and then go to walmart.  My initial approximation is that this will cost me $200 for 30 days.  Now if you read about my frugal finances, I get $300 every 2 weeks.  So for the next 2 weeks no doubt, we are eating from the freezer.  But the following 4 weeks, we will eat about every other night.  This way I can make our favorite, fried meat, rice and gravy with green beans.

As for cooking this bulkiness, that will be a later post.  The nice part is after all this work, I can always repeat this bulk planning with just the shopping and cooking effort.
If you bulk cook!  Please leave me a comment and send us a link to your blog where you post any of your recipes.  Coming up with the meals I want to eat is my hardest part.

~trish

What a $100 feels like to me!

So I have told you in the past that I spend about $150 a week only and that is to buy everything but gas.  What is more shocking to others is that I typically do not spend more than $100 on groceries.  Of course, it is usually, HOW!, What do you eat? and so on.  So today I did my stock up shopping by buying based on sale adds.  Now this is not my normal spending/shopping week.  I have a LOT of stuff here I normally do not buy!  But when I spend a $100, this is about how much I get for it.  I am missing 1 bag of frozen nuggets, 1 loaf of bread, and 2 cans of generic ravioli that I already gave away.

What you do see is: 3 loaves of bread, 10 packages of 8 oz kraft cheese, 5 bags of frozen chicken nuggets, 4 family stouffer’s dinners, 2 V8 fusions, 4 syrups, 2 bags of flour, 1 sugar, 1 lb sausage, 3 packages of hotdogs, creamer, tea bags, cream cheese, 2 mandarin orange cans, celery, 2 packages of lance crackers, 2 bags of cereal, 4 bags of bagels, and i variety bag of frito lay chips.

The BIG DEALS! in this assortment. 

The chicken nuggets are 1 lb 10oz bags that were BOGO $5.99, I had $1 off coupon on each bag, so each bag was $2.  Compare that to drive thru wendy’s of 5 for $1!  I will add this in for a bento lunch or 2.

Lance crackers.  BOGO $2.89, I had $1 off each one.  So $0.89 for both!

Kraft Cheese. BOGO $3.69.  I had $2 off 2 and 10 of them!  So 10 pounds of cheese for $16.90!

 

So publix $41.60, Walmart $27.90, Winn Dixie $19.51, total $ 89.01

Huge thanks to!

www.southernsavers.com

www.iheartpublix.com

~trish

Balancing the money

I have been blessed in the past week and a half to share with others about living within our means, the best we can. I say "the best we can" because some things happen that are unpredictable like loss of job, change in pay, change in benefits, etc. at this time we either rely on our precious savings or try our best to accumulate the least amount of debt possible.

Personally, I will tell you we are living on our precious savings because of the premium change and the amount the company covers on the premium. This one due changed has stopped us from saving money every month to using money from our savings.

I am blessed that we did begin living under our means a year ago. In that year, we accomplished many things, otherwise would have been impossible. The sad note is, if we would have started this practice in the first place upon marriage, we would not have been affected. Bringing to mind...

The wise man saves for the future, but the foolish man spends whatever he gets.
Proverbs 21:20

Yep, we were foolish. Ouch! Hate to be foolish in God's eyes. But here we are today, less foolish and living with our foolishness from the past and knowing the changes we made a year ago are changes we will keep for a life time. Hopefully, we will be successful in teaching our children these principles.

So each and everyday, I keep my eyes open to new ways to help me improve, organize, and make it easier for me to spend my budgeted money efficiently with minimal effort. I will be sharing with you techniques to come in other postings. I will also further explain better budgeting techniques.

First off! Know how much you have to spend.
This is very important. You can not pull an amount out of your head and decide that is your operating budget. Operating meaning: groceries, clothes, gifts, dining out, entertainment, etc. I have learned to handle my family of five, that includes diapers, on $150 a week. It can be done!

Calculate: List everything you have to pay each month. So this is: tithe, mortgage/rent, insurance, vehicle payments, phone, electric, credit cards, loan payments, etc. Now list these all out and subtract them from your take home pay for the month.

You will probably have to average these out to get a good idea. Now the amount you have left, is NOT your operating budget. Next you need to take about 10-20% off this amount for emergencies and the things you do not expect (i.e., flat tire).

Now typically there are 2 different types of spouses: the one who buys the groceries and the one who doesn't. Not saying that groceries is the defining element of management, but it can make you or break you. I am the grocery getter, but I DO NOT pay the bills. I hate paying bills. Totally irresponsible at it. My darling husband as known this, ever since he asked me to marry him. I have had one brief stint of paying bills and in fear, he quickly took the ask back.

The non-grocery shopper needs money. A reasonable (to your budget, not expectation) amount. This might be the amount of one lunch out and $5-10 convenient store spree.

Now the grocery getters! you will have what is left minus the non-grocery getter amount to buy everything else. EVERYTHING!

At this point in your life, PAY IN CASH ONLY! NO MORE CREDIT CARDS! set the cash out and you have it until it is gone and then you wait until the next pay day.

Now you will notice that I do mostly speak to the grocery getters in the world. This is what can make you or break you.

Here is what you need to do:
1. Figure out you operating budget.
2. Set a certain day you get paid. Mine is Sunday Night.
3. Get paid as your bread-winner gets paid. Mine gets paid bi-weekly, so every 2 weeks I get $300. I set $150 away and use only one week at a time. I then get the rest on the next Sunday Night.
4. Make a plan! How are you spending it.

There are great missionaries that will help you. In SW Florida, there is the Christian Financial Counseling with Mahlon L. Hetrick. He will come to your church and do a church wide seminar over a couple of weeks. My husband and I attended this one at our church. He was amazing and brought new clarity to spending and saving.

If you are not in this area, you can get his book: The Money Workbook, Banking on the Bible for a Balanced Budget, Mahlon L. Hetrick.

Check your area out for local christian financial help.

Good luck! God Bless.