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Again, I am not overly impressed with the deals this week.

Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

1 (16 ounce) package dry penne pasta ($0.99)
8 roma (plum) tomatoes, diced ($0.99/lb)
1/2 cup Italian dressing ($1.99/package - Ken's brand)
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese ($2.99/7-8oz package)

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Place the penne pasta in the pot, cook 10 minutes, until al dente, and drain.

In a large bowl, toss the cooked pasta with the tomatoes, Italian dressing, basil, red onion, and Parmesan cheese.

For more Bargain Meal ideas, head over to $5 dinners.

Bargain Meal of the Week

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I am pretty unimpressed with they Hy-vee deals this week. Hopefully that means that next week will have some great ones.

Beefaroni
1 pound ground beef ($1.99/lb)
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese ($1.79)
2 (15 ounce) cans tomato sauce (Hunt's tomatoes $0.88 each - I think it would be fine to substitute 1 or both cans of sauce for tomatoes, depending on your preference)
2 tablespoons butter ($0.58/lb)
1 (16 ounce) package uncooked elbow macaroni (use one of the Hy-vee pastas on sale for $1)
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Crumble the ground beef into a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until evenly browned. Drain.

While the ground beef is cooking, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add macaroni, and cook until tender, about 8 minutes. Drain, and stir in butter. Transfer to a large casserole dish, and mix in the ground beef, tomato sauce, and Cheddar cheese. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the top.

Bake uncovered for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until heated through and bubbly.

For more Bargain Meal ideas, head over to $5 dinners.

Classy

Late yesterday afternoon I got a call from daycare saying that Barrett had thrown up twice and needed to go home. So I went to pick him and Bodie up for the day. After Curt got home, about an hour later, I started to make dinner and discovered I'd forgotten the spaghetti part of our spaghetti and meatballs. While I was at the store buying spaghetti, I decided to look to see what kinds of alcohol sales were going on, given it was St. Patrick's day and all. So I found what I thought was a good deal on a 20 pack and bought it. As I was walking out of the store I ran into Barrett's teacher. She said "I know what you're doing tonight". Great. One hour after picking up my sick kid from school I am caught buying a large amount of beer. Real classy.

What is it?

Unfortunately I think Bodie has inherited mine and Curt's lack of creativity or imagination. Yes, he does crawl around the house meowing like a cat but that is about it.

This was the painting Bodie brought home yesterday. I asked him what it was and he first said "I no know" then told me it was a butterfly...

This is his hand print, which crazily enough looks like his hand... (other kids' looked like a puppy or a birthday). Sorry about the sideways picture...

Here is the best one. The kids did some sort of painting which looks like they put paint on the paper and folded it in half to create a design. Then the teacher asked them what it was and all of the pictures hung with their caption. Bodie's didn't have one. His teacher told me she kept asking him what it was and he wouldn't answer. Something popped in my mind right away, but I'm curious to know what any of you think it is...

Bargain Meal of the Week

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First of all I have to brag about the awesome whole chicken deal I scored at Hy-vee last week. For the past few weeks I have been trying to use my $0.59/lb whole chicken rain check from early February but they've been out of chickens each time I go in. Thankfully they had 2 in stock last week and I picked the larger one for my purchase (5.04lb @ $1.79/lb). Evidently Hy-vee was having a "Meat Sack Sale" which scored me 20% off my purchase ($2.60 - which is more that 20% but this was the only meat I bought, so I'm not sure how that worked but I'll take it). Then the girl was trying to calculate how much to credit me for using my rain check, and finally settled on $6! So I bought my chicken, originally costing $9.02, for a mere $0.42! Or just over $.08/lb. Can't beat that!

At first look of the Hy-vee ad, I immediately knew I had to use my Mother-in-law's potato soup recipe. It definitely isn't the most frugal to make, but with the deals this week it is definitely a better bargain than any other time this winter (and at 8 degrees this morning it is sounding really good).

Cheesy Potato Soup

8 slices bacon, crumbled ($1.99/package Oscar Mayer brand)
1 pkg frozen hash browns ($0.98 Lynden Farms brand)
4 cups water
2T chicken flavored bouillon granules
1/2 c margarine
12 slices American cheese ($0.88 Kraft singles)
1c green onions
2c sour cream ($0.99/16oz)
2c milk ($1.18/half gallon)
1t salt
1/2t white pepper

Prepare bacon in skillet over medium heat. Drain and crumble. In a large stockpan combine hash browns, water and bouillon granules. Cover and place over medium low heat until hash browns are thawed and crumbled. Add bacon and remaining ingredients. Stir until well blended. Cover and cook over low heat about 20 minutes (always seem to take longer than this for me) or until potatoes are tender. Do not allow soup to boil.

For more Bargain Meals of the Week head over to $5 dinners.

More Potty Training

What isn't more exciting than a post about my son's peeing habits?! Saturday morning I thought we would try an "underwear day" and see where Bodie might be again with potty training. The underwear went on and I put him on the potty chair about every 20 minutes. Well about 2 minutes after "trying" he had an accident. Curt put him back on the potty, gave him some apple juice to maybe propel him to pee (but he didn't) put clean underwear on him and sent him on his way. Bodie came upstairs to help me clean and had another accident. I carried him downstairs and put him back on the toilet. I really talked up the positive reinforcement, telling him how I knew he had tried to make it to the potty (he hadn't), next time he'd do it (really had my doubts), and that it would be ok. He got a skittle for sitting there and then I asked him if he wanted to get up and put his underwear on. He told me that he needed to go potty, and just sat there. And sat there. And sat some more. Finally he wanted some more apple juice and I obliged (he doesn't normally get juice at home so if it works to help get him potty trained he can have it). He drank his juice and started getting very fidgety. Oh, I could tell a big moment was coming. Would he pee in the potty chair? You betcha he did! But it wasn't the great moment I thought it would be. He screamed and cried as he peed. Oh boy! You would think that peeing was the most painful thing he had ever done. Now, normally if this happened I might think he had some sort of infection, but since it didn't happen until he peed on his chair, I think it just scared him, really bad. I tried to find information on "toddler scared of peeing" and google asked if I meant "toddler scared of seeing". Hmm...no thanks. Anyway although I couldn't find any credible information on it, I did see some message boards where parents had the same problem, so I guess Bodie isn't completely abnormal. So, he's peed. He actually sat on various toilets in our house for about a 2 hour span trying to pee in all of them, and screaming each time any pee came out. Even saying to us "you need hold my hand" when he had to go.

On Sunday I wasn't even going to say the word potty, as the events of Saturday seemed pretty trying for him. But he was insistent and asked to go potty 3 times during the day (still screaming but seemed to get better with each try). The biggest accomplishment though came yesterday at school. I told his teacher in the morning what we'd been through over the weekend, just in case Bodie started screaming in the bathroom there. And when I saw the daycare phone number come up on my caller ID at work, minutes after sitting at my desk I was afraid (but it was Barrett's teacher calling for a quick question). When I returned to pick Bodie up after school I asked him if he'd gone potty and he gave me a look that seemed to say "I don't really want to talk about this right now Mom!" But his teacher jumped in and told me that HE DID GO PEE. ALL BY HIMSELF. AND DID NOT SCREAM!!! She said he looked a little scared when he came out of the bathroom, and made a little mess, but did great! I'm not sure when we will really start pushing him with the potty training. I'd like to see him go without screaming a few times and then we can work towards the actually training. At least we are making some progress though.

Bargain Meal of the week

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Last week Christine asked for links to the Hy-vee online ad. I apologize for not including links in my posts. I wish I had a good excuse but the truth is I'm just lazy. I'll try to work on that.

If you access the Hy-vee ads on line here (I had to type in a location to get this to work so you'll need to refresh with your own location) you can see there are two ads - View Ad and View Online Ad. This clears up a lot of questions for me because I'd often get confused in the store when I'd see a sign advertising an Advertised Price and I didn't remember seeing that price in the ad.

Sale Prices are indicated next to the ingredient.

Skillet Pork Chops with Potato and Onion

2 tablespoons vegetable oil ($2.48/entire bottle - not sure how many Tablespoons that is)
4 pork chops (1/2 inch thick), trimmed ($2.49/lb)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese ($0.17 Hy-Vee Brand)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
4 Yukon Gold potatoes, thinly sliced ($0.30 for Russets)
2 medium onions, sliced ($0.23)
3 cubes beef bouillon
3/4 cup hot water (FREE!)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Coat the pork chops with flour, and place in the skillet. Brown about 4 minutes on each side.

2. In a small bowl, mix the Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Sprinkle 1/2 the Parmesan cheese mixture over the pork chops. Layer chops with the potatoes. Sprinkle with remaining Parmesan cheese mixture. Top with onion slices.

3. In a small bowl, dissolve the beef bouillon cubes in hot water. Stir in the lemon juice. Pour over the layered pork chops.

4. Cover skillet, and reduce heat. Simmer 40 minutes, until vegetables are tender and pork chops have reached an internal temperature of 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).

For more Bargain Meals of the Week head over to $5 dinners.