Cream of WHATEVER! { Menu Plan Monday}

I promised a while back that I would share how I'd learned to cream up our homemade spaghetti sauce naturally. You see, growing up we always threw in a can of cream of mushroom soup to our sauce. I love the creamy taste, but over the past year or so had become wary of the cream of "insert something here" soup that so many familiar recipes called for, so I started looking for a natural substitute. I found, and tried, a mix consisting dry milk powder, corn starch and various other things that you just added stock or water to when cooking. The consistency worked, but the taste was terrible!

Enter More With Less cookbook with it's basic white sauce recipe. (I realize this is not ground breaking news to the rest of the world, but it was news to me...and good news at that!) Knowing how to make a basic white sauce has opened up a world of possibilities for me in cooking.

Basic White Sauce ingredients include: butter, flour, salt, and milk. Basic Directions are: Melt butter. Add salt and flour and mix. It will chunk up so as you pour in milk, stir with a wisk. Continue cooking and stirring until thickened. More With Less cookbook gives variations of how much butter/flour/milk to add to get varying levels of thickness. I love it.

For the amount and consistency equivalent of a can of condensed cream of "whatever" soup:
3 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of milk
(You can add anything you want to make it a cream of "whatever you want" soup.)


Scratch Cream of "Whatever" soup off my grocery list! One more item down...many more to go!

Now for this weeks menu plan:

Monday
B:Toast and Eggs
L:Leftover rice, beans, and lentils
D:Mandarin Rice Bake (More With Less, pg. 132)

Tuesday
B:Overnight Crock pot Oatmeal
L:Leftovers or PB sandwiches on easy homemade bread.
D:Creamed Chicken over confetti rice squares (More With Less, pg 186)

Wednesday
B:Granola or toast and eggs
L:Leftovers or PB Sandwiches
D:Vietnam Fried Rice and Sweet Potato Bake (More With Less, pgs. 130 & 140)

Thursday
B:Granola
L:Leftovers or PB Sandwiches
D:Kusherie (Egyptian Rice and Lentils) or Lentil Barley Stew (More With Less pgs. 107&108)

Friday
B:Granola or Oatmeal
L:Leftovers or PB Sandwiches
D:Chow Mein (More With Less, pg. 133) (This uses bean sprouts which I'll try to grow starting today!)

Saturday
B:Granola or oatmeal
L:Leftovers or PB sandwiches
D:Quick Chop Suey (More With Less, pg. 133) (This also calls for bean sprouts :)

Sunday
B:Granola or Oatmeal
L:?????
D:Leftovers or sandwiches

**You cooking mavens don't forget to enter my Flirty Apron Giveaway while you're here! **

Homemade Pesto and Meal Plan Monday

This week went pretty well according to plan plus a little! We have been growing our first humble pot of herbs on our deck this year, and I had been just thinking it was time to look up recipes for homemade Pesto when I happened upon this post, by Busy Working Mama. It was just meant to be! Thanks for the extra nudge I needed Busy Mama! Here's where it all began:And yes, the only herb that seems to be flourishing there is Basil, and since we LOVE Pesto around here, I'm O.K. with that. :) Pesto is one of the things I'd been continuing to buy pre-made, so it was great to make our own! Here's how it ended up:


We had to half the recipe for lack of enough Basil. We ate it over whole grain penne pasta and enjoyed every bite! Thanks again, Busy Working Mama! Now for this week's plan:

Monday: Breakfast- Overnight Oatmeal in the Crock Pot
Lunch-Peanut Butter Sandwiches to finish off the homemade bread from last week
Dinner- Honey Baked Lentils (More With Less, pg. 106)

Tuesday:Breakfast-Leftover Oatmeal
Lunch-Leftover Lentils or Peanut Butter Sandwiches
Dinner: Mandarin Rice Bake (More With Less, pg. 132)

Wednesday:Breakfast- Homemade Granola
Lunch- Leftover rice bake or peanut butter sandwiches
Dinner- Easy Curry (More With Less, pg. 136)

Thursday: Breakfast- Granola or Toast and Eggs
Lunch-peanut butter sandwiches
Dinner- LEFTOVERS!

Friday:Breakfast- Granola or Toast and Eggs
Lunch- peanut butter sandwiches
Dinner- Homemade Pizza!

Saturday:Breakfast- Pancakes and Eggs
Lunch- We'll be at a friend's Birthday Party!
Dinner- Creamed Chicken over Rice (More With Less, pg 186)

Sunday:Breakfast- Granola or Overnight Oatmeal
Lunch- You never know!
Dinner- Maybe Vietnam Fried Rice (More With Less, pg 130)

While you're here don't forget to enter MORE WITH LESS COOKBOOK GIVEAWAY that ENDS TODAY, and enter to win an adorable Flirty Apron in Pink/Chocolate (ends 7/30). If you want to reduce waste in your kitchen, enter to win a set of very useful SKOY Cloth (2 winners, ends 7/30)

For more great Meal Plan Monday Posts, visit Org.junkie!

Two Toiletry Tips-Little Ways to Save

1. When I was growing up there were lots of toothpaste commercials out there showing a HUGE sparkly, shiny, nicely formed glob of toothpaste on a toothbrush. Something like this: Photo found at Clker.com

Well, until I married my business minded husband who has a keen eye for marketing techniques, it never occurred to me that you really didn't need that much toothpaste on your brush. I was the ideal consumer I guess, because I never thought about it. I just mindlessly loaded my little toothbrush with a nice big glob of paste every time! My husband still chuckles at me sometimes, because old habits die hard, especially ones that were done subconsciously! 'Nuf said about that one.

2. Next up: SOAP. Body wash became very popular in my college years, so much so that it was unusual to see classmates using bar soap for bathing.
Free Clip Art Provided by Artclips.com. Copyright 2007. All Rights Reserved.

I used it too, again, without putting much thought into it. Eventually, however, I began to realize how much of that stuff I used at a time and how quickly I went through it. I don't know that it's strategic from a marketing stand point, but I do think that unless someone is consciously making an effort to use small amounts at a time, just by nature of it being liquid it is extremely easy to overuse. On the other hand, bar soap is very difficult to use wastefully!

Oh, and do I need to mention that it's a lot cheaper and cuts down on unnecessary packaging?

For more Frugal Friday posts, visit Life As Mom!