Crock and Roll

I love my crockpot, particularly on days like today.  Every Monday Keely has Aqua Therapy. It would be so easy to just order in or swing through Burger King on the way home.  I find it just as easy to toss something in the crock pot for a hot, healthy home cooked meal.  Today was a chicken day. I found a super yummy recipe on Pinterest (as I am typing that word I sing it in my head opera style).

It's Crock Pot Creamy Italian Chicken from a blog called Life as a Loft House. This is the second time I have made this recipe. My thought was to Kimify it by adding some canned or frozen mixed vegetables and serve it over a nice big hot biscuit. A sort of deconstructed chicken pot pie.  However, I had no such vegetables in my pantry or freezer. I would have known this if I had gotten to my inventory earlier in the day.

Regardless, it was still a nice hot meal waiting for us when we got home. We finished up Keely's homework while the biscuits were baking. I cut two into quarters and tossed them into the crock pot to see what would happen... dumplings(!) that is what happened.

On the menu plan for tomorrow are Tamales with pintos and cheese and green salad. Tomorrow morning I will be finishing my inventory and then running to Price Chopper to take advantage of their Can Crazy sale and pick up some canned veggies which I clearly need. Once that trip is done I will only need milk and fresh fruit from the market for the next couple of weeks.


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Update on last night's shopping trip. Let me tell you how much I love the Ad Match policy at Walmart! I super pink sparkly love it! The ad matching combined with the coupons I had saved me a ton and got me some super deals on several items and then savings overall were great!

Here is a little sampling. Purex detergent is $2.97 for a 33 load bottle at Walmart.  Price Chopper had it on sale this week for $1.99. Walmart matched that price. I had a $1.00 off coupon so I got the detergent for $.99! I bought 4 to add to my stockpile. That was a sensible purchase... My splurge purchase was Hershey's Simple Delights. Walmart had them for $2.98, they matched the Kmart price of $2.49 coupled with my $1.50 off coupon and I only paid $.99 for a bag of chocolate! Yippee.

Menu Planning and Ad Matching

I am going to try menu planning. To go along with that I have decided that this week in addition to my regular coupon clipping, I am going to test out Walmart's ad match policy.

There were five coupon inserts in the paper this week. I clipped what I know I will use and put those in my binder, then dated and filed the inserts for later use.  I have not found a site to do the ad matching for me so I did that while watching Keely bowl on the Wii. Click here to read what inspired my insanity.

I spent part of the morning downloading several menu planning printables to try out and decide which works best for me. 

This one leaves room for eating out, ordering in and leftover nights.

This one is a 7 day meal planner with room for a shopping list.

This is another 7 day meal planner with shopping list. 

I can't believe then volume of information and templates that are out there for this sort of project once you start looking.

I am getting ready to go on my shopping trip to pick up some basics I need for the week. My plan for the rest this week in this area is to take stock of my freezer and pantry so I don't keep buying items I have on hand but forget they are there. (Sort of how I wound up with 5 bottles of soy sauce and 4 things of table salt, which will last me the rest of this decade.) 

I have a cute envelope template, that I will be making this week, for my savings projects.  Please post if you have decided to join me and we can keep each other on track.  

Check in tomorrow for how the Ad Matching Expedition turned out.