Little Chef

Parker loves to be in the kitchen with me, and he loves to help me cook. To be honest, I'm not always welcoming to these loves of his. Certain meals just aren't condusive to having little toddler helping hands, and therefore, I can get a little stressed and just maybe a little irritated and just maybe I might raise my voice at him.

Anyway, today I let him help me make super. We made pizzas using tortillas. This was an easy meal for us since Paul was working this evening, and this was a perfect meal for Parker to help me make. He helped me stir the sauce. [This is a little free information here. I make my own pizza sauce using tomato paste. I just add water, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, sugar, and italian seasoning and you have it. Whenver I have left over tomato paste, I freeze it in ice cube trays so when you need a little bit for a recipe you have it there without having to open another can. These were also handy for making pizza sauce for two mini pizzas.] He put it on our "dough." Then, we had fun topping. He put his pepperonis in the shape of a Mickey head and adding some olives, mushrooms, and onions.

There was a moment when we were putting together our pizzas that I thought about one of my prayers of that morning. I prayed for God to help me be a good mother and to have a good attitude toward my children no matter what they do. There were moments that day when Parker was doing something that he shouldn't be doing where I could have handle the situation by yelling at him, but God helped me to diffuse the situation and to reroute him to good behavior. Blessings from God! God helped me to show grace to my baby boy and to love him unconditionally. Then, there I was enjoying this sweet moment cooking in the kitchen with my little chef. I couldn't have answered that prayer better by orchestrating my day myself.

Frugal Friday- Save the ends

I'm sorry that I haven't posted a Frugal Friday tip for the past two weeks. I wasn't feeling well one week and we were at Disney on Ice the next week. I really got to start doing these posts ahead of time and have them scheduled to post automatically on Friday. But that requires a little planning and I haven't been very good about that lately.

Anyway...back to the tip for today. Today's tip is to save the ends. I like to save the usually uneaten ends of a loaf of bread to make bread crumbs. When we finish a loaf of bread, I just put the ends in a bag in the freezer. When I have enough saved up, I grind them down to fluffy little bits of bread crumbs in the food processor and store them in an old bread crumb container (from when I bought bread crumbs) and put them back into the freezer. I actually like these bread crumbs better than the store bought kind because the texture is better. Doing this saves in two waves: you're not throwing away any bread and you don't have to buy any bread crumbs. I'm sure it would also be possible to use bread ends to make other recipes like breakfast casseroles too, but I rarely make them so it's breadcrumbs for me.

I also save the ends of onions, carrots, and celery and the carrot shavings and put them into a bag in the freezer. When I buy a whole chicken or split breasts, I will poach the chicken. Then, I use the bones and the ends of the onions, carrots, and celery to make stock. Again, I'm saving what I would usually throw away to make something else that I would usually buy. Plus, I think my homemade stock is better than store bought because I can season it the way I like it. Yum! Yum!

While we are talking about saving the ends, you can also save vegetable and fruit peelings, egg shells, and coffee grounds to use for compost. That way you can make less landfill trash and help out your garden.

It's amazing how what would usually be waste can be put to good use with a little bit of frugal thinking.