One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1368 of 2143 - I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Mavis’ 24 Days of Christmas Giveaways – Day 17

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By Mavis Butterfield on December 16, 2013 ·

I know, I know. Déjà vu, right? I did just give one of these bad boys away. But I just can’t help it. I love my Cuisinart Hand Blender so dang much. And now they have all these bright colors to choose from, so I thought you’d want another shot at winning one.

But on the off chance you don’t, you can opt to win a mini food processor, which is equally cool and comes in equally awesome colors.

One lucky reader will win a Cuisinart Mini Prep Plus 3-Cup 250-Watt Food Processor or a Cuisinart Smart Stick 2-Speed 200-Watt Immersion Hand Blender.

For your chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment below letting me know which prize and color you’d choose if you won. You can find the food processor colors HERE and the hand blender colors HERE.

Just answer that one question and you’re entered to win. Life’s pretty complicated sometimes, so I like to keep things simple around here.

Rules

1 entry per person/ip address. If you cheat, you will totally be disqualified.

This giveaway ends December 17th, 2013 @6 pm PST and the winner will be announced in the December 18th, 2013 edition of Mornings with Mavis. You will be notified via email and have 24 hours to claim your prize. If you do not claim your prize within 24 hours, the prize will be forfeited.

Due to shipping costs, this giveaway is only open to residents of the US only.

Good Luck! I hope you win!

♥ Mavis

You can stay up to date on all this giveaway madness by following OneHundredDollarsAMonth on Facebook, Twitter and Google+!

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Homemade Marshmallows Recipe

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By Mavis Butterfield on December 16, 2013 · 5 Comments

I’m not crazy about marshmallows. I mean I’m not not crazy about them either, I guess I’m just indifferent about marshmallows. I could take ’em or leave ’em. But when I saw this recipe for homemade marshmallows, I totally had to try it. I mean everybody knows homemade is better than store bought. Yep. That saying is still true. These were awesome!

Ingredients

3 packages unflavored gelatin
1 cup ice cold water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
Cooking spray spray

Directions

Pour the gelatin and 1/2 cup of the water into the bowl of a stand mixer and let sit.

In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, cover and cook the remaining 1/2 cup water, sugar, corn syrup and salt for 4 minutes. Uncover, clip a candy thermometer onto the side of the pan. Continue to cook until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F, about an additional 7 to 8 minutes. Immediately remove from the heat.

Attach the whisk to your stand mixer and turn on low. Slowly pour the sugar mixture down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. Increase the speed to high and whip until the mixture becomes very thick, approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Add the vanilla during the last minute of whipping.

While the mixture is whipping, combine the powdered sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl. Coat a 9×13 metal baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Add the sugar and cornstarch mixture and bang your pan around until you completely coat the bottom and sides of the pan. Return the remaining mixture to the bowl for later use.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, using a lightly oiled spatula to evenly spread it. Lightly cover the top with some of the remaining powdered sugar mixture. Set the rest aside for later. Allow the marshmallows to sit uncovered for at least 4 hours.

Flip the marshmallows pan over onto a cutting board and cut into 1-inch squares {I used a pizza cutter to cut them}. Once cut, dust all sides of each marshmallow with the remaining powdered sugar mixture. Enjoy.

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Mavis Butterfield | Backyard Garden Plot Pictures – Week 50 of 52

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By Mavis Butterfield on December 16, 2013 · 23 Comments

Backyard Garden Plot Pictures – Week 50 of 52

The last couple of weeks here in Western Washington have been a bit of a roller coaster. We woke up to nearly 2 weeks of temperatures below 30 degrees, with pretty much everything frozen solid in the garden. For awhile there I thought it was never going to warm up around here.

A few plants in the garden didn’t make it,but lucky for us, the Swiss chard did. 😉 Once the outer leaves are trimmed away we should be back to making Swiss chard smoothies and picking leaves for our backyard chickens to snack on.

Lucy puggle will show you around.

The turnips. Yep, they survived. Apparently they can handle being frozen solid. Who knew?

I guess they don’t call it winter kale for nothing because it survived as well.

The fruits and vegetables in the greenhouse however, are a totally different story.

Our 3-tiered pot of lettuce didn’t survive, but the young lettuce starts we started from seed in the galvanized tubs did.

All 8 of my Meyer Lemons died.

Can you believe that? After nurturing Lemon, the Lemon tree for eleven months, all her little lemon babies died. I haven’t had the heart to pluck them yet, but they are all soft and mushy so I know they are total gonners.

Perhaps a proper burial is in order?

A view from the back deck.

Are you still thinking about poor Lemon? I am. 🙁

I guess to everything there is a season. And if we lived in Florida, I’d have a boatload of lemons on my tree right now. {Or if I would have had enough common sense to bring the freakin’ tree indoors that might have helped as well}. So is life.

I guess all we can really do is learn from our mistakes, and try again next year. Right?

Are you trying to grow any citrus fruit this winter? How are your trees coming along?

Mavis wants to know.

This years garden is being sponsored by the awesome folks at Botanical Interests Seed Company. You can check out their website HERE, order their new 2013 Garden Seed Catalog HERE, or visit my online boyfriend Ryan’s blog HERE.

Up for a tour? Read about our behind the scenes tour of Botanical Interests Seed Company.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Mondays with Mavis – How to Feed Your Family for $100 a Month

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By Mavis Butterfield on December 16, 2013 · 9 Comments

Zaycon Foods – FREE

When I found out Zaycon Foods was offering ham a while back I decided to redeem all my Zaycon credit and get 20 pounds of boneless ham. I tucked one away in the freezer for Easter, and the other one we will be serving this Christmas alongside our annual dinner buffet.

Have you tried Zaycon ham before? How was it? This was our first time ordering ham through Zaycon {we love their chicken and beef} so I’m anxious to try it.

Albertsons $ 8.38

I asked The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird to pick up a lemon on her way home and this is what she came home with. Apparently she was craving clementines and cream cheese. Ha!

Target $12.97

Last week I had surgery on my Crappy British Teeth and knew I’d pretty much be drinking smoothies, hot soup and applesauce all week. So when Monkey Boy and I stopped by Target for some new socks {what was I thinking? Do you know how freakin’ packed Target is this time of year?} I grabbed a couple of cans of my favorite Campbell’s soups.

I’m not sure how the lentils and turkey breast ended up in the cart {let’s blame it on the meds} but I’m sure I’ll make something tasty with it soon. 🙂

Mr. Produce Guy – FREE

Thanks to Mr. Produce Guy, this past week we were able to get plenty of lettuce and apples for free. Just for asking! How cool is that? You can see all the food our family has saved from going in to the dumpster over the last year and a half HERE.

Last week I stocked up like crazy, this week, not so much.

How did you do? Are you finding yourself going over your grocery budget because of the holidays, or are you superhuman and and right on target for the year?

Mavis wants to know.

Total Spent This Week $21.35
Total Spent This Year $2130.43 {Yep, I’m over for the year}
Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $919.96 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, 6 Fruit Trees , 16 yards of soil}, Walla Walla Onions and 90 pounds of seed potatoes. Plus, supplies to make my own potting soil. I also picked up a boatload of heirloom tomato plants at the Seattle Tilth sale.

Read more Shopping Trip Stories.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.