Frugal Food and Healthy to Boot!

I LOVE granola bars. Perfect lunch snack, late night snack…anytime snack!Love them.HATE the price for 5 little bars that last like 2 days! So I decided to take the plunge and start making as many of the snack-y foods that I like as I can.

Not only do they taste much better (and I actually know what's going into them!) but it is WAY cheaper! I got 3 batches of granola bars out of it. And a batch lasts well over a week! I'm going to estimate here, but I'd say I spent about $25 on ingredients (I had to buy all of them, I didn't have anything on hand. So I'd say each batch cost me about $8 (I'm rounding here for the sake of mental math) and I got about 24 bars out of each batch. That's like 33 cents a bar! Ok ok ok…Enough with the calculations...here's the recipe! This is SUPER DUPER easy to make (win!) and you can add ingredients to you want to suit your taste!

Granola Bars YOUR Way
Recipe adapted from online one that I can no longer find. So sorry!

Disclaimer: So I didn't take many pictures ok...any pictures)
while making these. But I did think to take a snap of the ones
I was nibbling on (ok...scarfing down) with my morning cup of tea. 

Ingredients

• 2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 cup shredded coconut (loosely packed)
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 2/3 cup honey
• 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cups dried fruit(s)/nuts/seeds etc... of choice

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Butter an 8x12 baking dish and line with parchment paper.
2. Toss oatmeal, almonds & coconut together on a sheet pan and bake for 10-12 mins, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Put in a large mixing bowl and stir in wheat germ
3. Reduce oven temp to 300 F.
4. Mix in honey and vanilla extract while the oatmeal mixture is still warm. Stir in dried fruit/seeds/nuts of choice
5. Pour the mixture into your prepared baking dish and press into place. Press reallllllly realllllllly hard. Basically until you can't squish it anymore. (I find wetting my hands and pressing hard with the palms of my hands really works well.)
6. Bake for about half an hour or so at 300 F until it starts to become golden brown.
7. Remove from oven, let cool completely before cutting into bars. (A serrated knife makes this easy.)

 Storing them in an air tight container in the freezer keeps them fresh and helps them hold together better.

Enjoy!!

Easiest. Curtains. EVER.

Ok, so it was sad.  Not sad as in hand-me-a-tissue-there's-something-in-my-eye...sad as in "I can't believe I am this lazy" sad. 

My kitchen has been in need of curtains since I moved into the house (3 years ago!!!  Go team procrastination!).  The windows had ugly brown metal blinds that definitely had to go.  But after shopping around, I couldn't find curtains that I liked.  I decided "I'll just make some instead!"  And then I didn't.  For 3 years. 

Until inspiration hit (YAY!)!  I was walking into the grocery store and there was a shopping cart full of stuff that was on clearance!  I couldn't resist the big red CLEARANCE. (Side note, I read on a wed design blog that red is a colour used to encourage action...hmmmm...) As I'm digging through, I notice a tablecloth there for 50% off.  It was $8.99.  It was 70"x70".

SCORE!  I have 2 windows in the kitchen that are 35" wide each.  At first I was all "WOAH gear down Big Rig, I can't make curtains!" and then I was like "Dude, it's sewing a rectangle and sticking a curtain rod through it".  And so began my "curtains from a clearance tablecloth" project.

I decided to do kind of the "cafe" style curtain.  Both because I like how they look, and it seemed the easiest option for "making it up as you go" :)

These curtains only had 3 simple steps..which I have since expanded to 7 for the sake of clarity.  (I figured Fold. Pin. Sew. didn't really cover it...)

Here it is, in more detail!
1. Remove table cloth from packaging, iron out all the creases and cut it in half. (mine was 70x70 which made it perfect for my needs.  You may have to cut to size to fit your windows).


Step 2, 3 and 4 make the ruffle and
the pocket for the curtain rod.



2. Fold over the cut edge a little bit and iron. (You don't actually have to sew a hem in it now, but folding it will give you a cleaner line for later. Trust me.)

3. Decide how long you want the ruffle over the curtain rod to be.  I decided I wanted it to be 3 inches. I also allowed 2 inches for the "pocket" for the curtain rod to go through. So I folded so I had 5 inches.  Iron a good crease and pin in place. 

4. Using fabric pencil or chalk (or pins for that matter) make a line marking out where you'll sew to make the pocket for the curtain rod.



5. If you want to add ribbon, this is the step for you!  I decided to put it along the bottom of the curtain.  Added bonus, I was able to use the hem that was already in the tablecloth as a guide to make sure the ribbon was straight.  I put it on the front and back of the curtains so that you could see it out the windows too.



Step 5. Pin the ribbon in place



I decided to put ribbon on both sides



6. To the sewing machine!!  Sew along the pins and the chalk/fabric pencil line you made for the pocket. 

7. Sew the ribbon in place (I made sure to line up the ribbon so I only had to sew a straight line along each edge of the ribbon and it stitched both the front and back ribbons in place).

 2 Curtains - ALL DONE! And it only involved sewing 8 straight lines! (4 per curtain).  That's my kinda project!!  :)

Please excuse all the dishes.  Prince Charming had just
finished washing up and they are all drying.  Isn't he great?

I did a silly happy dance when these
were hung.  I don't think I've ever
been so excited about curtains!



See? Curtains don't have to be a huge ridiculous expense, or a scary scary sewing project! 

Get creative and have fun!! :)

Happy 2012! The Meal Planning Begins!

Happy 2012!  I can't believe the holidays went by so quickly!  I was really enjoying and getting used to starting the morning (read: 11am when I got out of bed) with bailey's in the coffee and nothing to do but kick zombie butt in video games for the afternoon. 
Sigh.  Life must go on though. 
Thanks to all the foodies on Pinterest (and my complete disinterest in dealing with CH asking me what we're having for supper at 6:30 in the morning when clearly I'm not a morning person and haven't even decided what undies I'm going to wear for the day let alone what I want to eat in 12 hours...) I've decided to jump on the meal planning bandwagon. 

So I have planned the next 2 weeks.  (Ok...we started on a Wednesday, so I guess the next week and a half if you want to be all fussy about it).

I found inspiration at this great website Meal Planning 101 - her recipes are so yummy looking!  And last night we tried the Grilled Asian Beef Kebabs.  BIG. HIT.

They were so delish! 

While CH was being the grill master, I put together snacks and breakfasts.  I made homemade granola bars, and slowcooker oatmeal!  These are so fun to make because they were SUPER easy and can be customized to your own tastebuds!  They also turned out really yummy!  I may or may not have eaten a couple spoonfuls of the granolar bars pre-baking time...yum yum yum  I love honey!

Tonight is Japanese Noodle Soup. 

I'll keep you posted!  (And will try to remember to take pictures!)