One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1695 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.

Easy Side Dish Recipes – Herb Roasted New Potatoes

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 11, 2013 · 5 Comments

Frieda’s Specialty Produce Company sent me a bag of Terrific Trio new potatoes {a sampling of blue, red and yellow potatoes} to try out, and let me tell you Bob, they were good.

The last time I posted a recipe for roasted potatoes a few of you suggested I use Worcestershire sauce and Dijon mustard, so I did. Holy canolies people, what have I been missing all these years?

Here is my super simple recipe for Herb Roasted New Potatoes:

Ingredients

1 pound new potatoes, unpeeled
2 gloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Place all the ingredients in a bowl and toss until the potatoes are coated with the mixture. Place on a baking sheet and bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for 30 – 45 minutes or until potatoes are tender, giving pan a shake about half way through cooking.

Serve warm.

What is YOUR favorite way to serve new potatoes?

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10 Cool Things to Do With Eggshells

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 11, 2013 · 20 Comments

With all of the effort my ladies go through to lay an egg, it feels wrong somehow not to use the whole thing. Plus, there are soooo many ways to use the shells. Even it you don’t have chickens, you can still totally use the shells from your purchased eggs.

Here’s a couple of cool ways to put those vitamin-rich eggshells to good use:

Use as a seed pot. Crack the shells open, rinse them, place them back in the egg carton, and fill the half shell with dirt. Then plant your seeds. When it is time to transplant into the garden, plant the whole thing {just gently crush the sides and bottom of the shell}–you won’t disturb the root system of your delicate seedling and the shell will easily compost.
Make your own houseplant fertilizer. Allow eggshells to soak in water for 3-4 days, then use it to water your plants.
Add boiled eggshells to coffee grounds before brewing to decrease the bitterness. Make sure to used boiled eggshells only to reduce the presence of bacteria. {I’m not a coffee drinker, I wonder if the HH will be willing to be my guinea pig on this one?!}
Boost the calcium in your tomato plants. Just place crushed eggshells in the hole when transplanting tomatoes–the extra calcium in the shells can help to prevent blossom-end rot.
Deter slugs by sprinkling crushed eggshells around your plants. They won’t slime their way across them so it creates a barrier between them and the plant.
Compost them. Simple, understated, effective. Enough said.
Clean stained tea pots. Put crushed eggshells, a little dishsoap, and water into a teapot. Swish it around and allow them to sit overnight. In the morning, dump the mixture, and you should have a clean teapot.
Clean your garbage disposal and pipes. Run eggs shells through the garbage disposal and down through your pipes. They act as fiber for your pipes, scraping the sides, and removing deposits as they travel. {If you’re really on top of things, you can use the mixture you made to clean out your teapot–ah, isn’t multi-purposing fun?}
Feed them to Fido. Eggshells make a great calcium supplement for dogs. Bake eggshells at 205 degrees for 30 minutes to destroy bacteria, then pulverize them and add them to the dog food.
Give the crushed shells to right back to your chickens. Make sure they are from eggs that have been hard boiled and rinsed to avoid introducing bacteria to the birds. {Although, several people have suggested that I do this, I don’t feed my chickens their shells.}

So, I’ve got to know, what do YOU do with your leftover eggshells?

~Mavis

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Mavis Garden Blog – Garlic Shoots

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 11, 2013 · 17 Comments

Last October I planted garlic in one of our raised garden beds. Yesterday, I pulled all the chicken fencing off the straw covered bed of garlic and was happy to find oodles of tiny green shoots poking through.

I had to place the fencing on the garlic bed because the chickens kept scratching around in the soil for worms and pecking at the tiny bits of green that were starting to make their way towards the sun.

I didn’t count all the little green shoots, but I’m hoping we will have enough garlic to use this summer for canning tomato sauce, salsa, pickles, and whatever else we can dream up.

Spring is on it’s way, and I couldn’t be more excited!

Did YOU plant garlic last fall? How is yours doing?

~Mavis

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

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 11, 2013 · 10 Comments

This past week was a really busy one in the garden, but I still managed to find a few grocery deals. My appetite for grocery shopping has totally taken a back seat lately and I don’t really mind one bit. It’s nice not to have to spend a lot of my time scouring ads and looking for deals when I can just stock up on what we really need instead of chasing the deals every single day of the week like I used to. Change is good. Here is what I picked up this past week.

Tacoma Boys – $2.99 Tacoma Boys still has Fugi apples on sale for $.60 a pound, so if you are driving by Tacoma anytime soon be sure and stop by and grab a few {or a case}.

Oroweat Bread Outlet Store – $5 Monkey Boy and I ran errands last week and stopped by the Oroweat Bakery Outlet in Tacoma. We stocked up on wheat bread and bagels for $1 a loaf/bag. If you’ve never been to a bread outlet before, you should give it a try as they are a great way to save a little dough.

QFC – $6.79 Monkey Boy was with me when I stopped to buy milk. I picked up a half gallon of local milk for The Girl and I and a gallon of store brand milk for the boy.

Bartering with Mrs. Hillbilly Mrs. HB called on Saturday morning looking for exactly 3 hot dog buns and she brought my poor deprived children some Granola Thins for their lunches as a trade.

Amazon – FREE A while back I redeemed some Swagbucks for Amazon gift cards and went ahead and ordered some Kashi Crackers and diced tomatoes with the gift cards. I didn’t can enough tomatoes last summer so this year I’mm need to up the anty {I’m thinking about 100 pints at least to get us though a whole year}.

Frieda’s Specialty Produce – FREE So far I’ve made Roasted Purple Sweet Potato Wedges with Rosemary and Thyme, and I’m looking forward to trying some new polenta recipes. I’ve never cooked polenta before so I’m not sure what I’m going to make with it yet. But check back a little later today and you’ll see what I made with those yummy new potatoes.

Albertsons – FREE I know there was a ton of deals to be had at Albertsons with double coupons on Sunday, but I really wasn’t interested in a lot of it. I was however able to pick up free tortillas, free Kikkoman soy sauce and free Arrowhead Mills cereal though with the following coupons though. Save $1.00 off La Victoria Tortillas Save $1.00 off Kikkoman Soy Sauce Save $1.00 off Arrowhead Mills Cereal

Home Grown Lettuce – FREE We harvested out first batch of homegrown lettuce last week!

Mr. Produce Guy – FREE Apples, pears, grapes and celery were all FREE last week thanks to Mr. Produce Guy and our reclaimed food boxes.

How did YOU do this week? Did you go crazy at Albertsons, find any awesome deals somewhere else, or stay home because of snow? Mavis wants to know.

Total Spent This Week $14.78

Total Spent This Year $386.56

Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $195.79 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, and 6 Fruit Trees}

Go HERE to 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.