Tasty Tuesday

Cook Books

If you are like me you collect recipes from every source. Magazines, newspapers, hand written scraps from your friends house, Internet print out, and everywhere else. LOL!

Well here is my solution: Make your own cook book.

First you will need a few things. I had most of these around my house when I made mine.

• A 3-ring binder - 3" would be great and a clear pocket on the front is handy too.



• Page protectors - easy to keep clean!



• Left over craft paper and stickers if you want



• computer paper

I made a cover for mine to match my kitchen color and added a little title.

Then I made dividers labeling the section. Hints and tips, breakfast, breads, soups and salads, main dishes, kids favorites, pasta, cookies, deserts, and cake decorating ideas.

Next start adding you recipes. I have a mix of magazine cut outs ( I LOVE pictures.),

printed out pages,

and hand written. Some of the are on odd ball scraps so I just glue them to a piece of paper first.

A couple of hints here.

If you are printing from a blog: cut and paste to word or whatever program you use. Also include the name of the blog/site you printed from. This makes for easy referencing if you need help or more information about that recipe.

When dealing with hand written recipes, be sure to write who you got the recipe from or what book you copied from.


Also a binder with an inside pocket is nice. Sometimes you want to try a recipe before you add it or you simply don't have time to add it yet.

Are you lucky enough to have a spot to stand this baby up? Make sure to label the spine.

These make great gifts. I made one for my sister one year. It had red and white checked paper and I found some cute little ant stickers. Very Cute!! You can make it so individualized it's insane!!

Remember to think about Christmas, mother's Day, and birthdays. You could even make a smaller Blank Family Recipes Favorites. Make one for each sibling ! Or you could make one for a missionary, collage student, or newly weds.

Money Monday

Christmas Cash ( Thank Sharron for putting this in my head.)

I know we just got done with that holiday, however there are less than 365 until it is here agian.  So...we must plan ahead.  A few ideas to help you do so are:

Make a per person budget.  List all those you buy for. Include Giving Trees, church Christmas events and other such carities you participate in.  Divide it out by month or by paycheck and start saving that cash now.

Make a gift wish list.  For example my one and only princess wants an American Girl doll.  Oh joy to my budget.  LOL!!  So we will see, those things are quite spendy, but my kids only get stocking from Santa and one awsome gift from Mom and Dad (this year we got a Wii plus a game per person and one family game).
So knowing this is what Girlie wants I can now keeps my eyes and ears open for any cool deals on these ouch spendy dolls.  Plus I can look at sales, clerance items, internet deals through out the year for all of those on my gift list.

Work towards a goal.  I mean literally work.  My family works at our local fair every year for our house hold that equals Christmas cash and ride money.  What can you do to earn that gift money during the year?

Gift swap. What do you make that you can swap with a friend for something they make?  I have a cousin-in-law who makes beaded jewlery.  Anouther is a scrap book wiz.  I like to make sewing crafts.  We haven't done a swap as of yet but maybe one day we would.  It is an idea.  Think about it.

DIY. Make it a home made Christmas.  Now don't fool yourself this takes planning.  Both time and money.  It can be very rewarding though.  It is also great it you have a great stash of craft supplies, fabric, canning jars and wood.  A great stash of leftovers from other projects can save tons of cash.

Well those are my ideas.  Do you have any you want to share?

Tasty Tuesday

The Great Plate O Cookies

We all get them every year.  Some of us make them too.  It's always the plan for me but not always what happens.  However this year I plan I making them with one of my favotite friends so we will have fun.

On the cookie menue (so far)are:

Molasses cookies (Hubby's Grandma's recipe)

Peanut butter blossom cookies (kiss cookies)

Brownies with Hershey's creamy brownie frosting( recipe to come) topped wth Ande's candy bites

A variety of Spritz cookies.  These look fun.

What are some of your favorites to make and to get?  Got a link or awesome recipr to share?

Happy cookie making!

Money Monday

Giving Tree

In light of last weeks post about how we asked Santa to give more to those who need it and less to us who do not I felt as the main elf in our house I had better live up to that.  So I visited our schools giving tree and picked a couple tags off.   We are very blessed with all that we have and we feel it is important to give to those that really need it. We missed the cut off for our church's toy drive so school is the next best place.

 

I will be taking the kids with me to pick out the toys.  I want them to understand and to feel the joy of giving as well.