Christmas 2011

I am still full with so much food from Christmas. As usual, I cooked more than we could eat and everything was so good. I haven't cooked in days just reheating leftovers. Unfortunately, my kids got sick after the holidays so we're always in bed these past few days. I was also able to finish ironing a basketful of clothes.

So what did we have for Christmas?

Hubby experimented on making stuffed chicken. He successfully deboned a whole chicken for the very first time the night before. We marinated it in soy sauce and lemon and stuffed it the next day with ground pork, chopped ham, bell pepper, onions, raisins, carrots, panko bread crumbs, hard boiled eggs, salt and pepper to taste then oven baked for an hour or so.

I also prepared tempura, steak, twice baked potatoes, crispy pork hocks, baked fish, store bought hickory smoked ham and sweet macaroni salad. Too much for a family of four! We didn't have any room for our dessert/drink root beer float.

Christmas is such a fun time especially for kids and those who love food like me. But the true essence of Christmas is not on the gifts and food but our savior's birth, He who makes it all possible :D

Pre-Christmas Menu

We had another week of awesome food as usual. Cooking is probably what I do best next to eating, how I wish it's saving instead. Before I rant about coupons again, here are some of what we had been eating all week.

Tinola (Filipino Chicken Stew) is basically chicken in broth sauteed in garlic, onions and ginger. Back home, chayote and green pepper leaves go into this dish. I used chinese cabbage, bell pepper and onion leaves instead.

Hubby craved for some baked potatoes so I made twice baked potatoes with mozzarella and bacon. I'll make these again for Christmas.

I used ground buffalo meat and ground beef for my meatloaf covered with bacon. yup, that's my free bacon over there!

Hubby again craved this time for sweet macaroni salad. It's my first time to make a sweet version and we like it. Lacks color though, didn't have any carrots inside the refrigerator. Recipe courtesy of our friend Arni. Ingredients include macaroni, mayo, condensed milk, chopped celery, raisins, cubed cheese, salt and pepper to taste. I am definitely going to make this again, reminds me of KFC's (Philippines) macaroni salad.

I experimented on some fish given by my coupon buddy. I didn't want to fry them, would've have been easier but I wasn't in any mood for lingering fish smell. So I lined the fish in a pyrex, drizzled with olive oil, seasoned with salt, pepper and light soy sauce. I sliced an onion, put some whole peppercorns, chopped onion leaves and popped them into the oven. It was delicious! My experiment was a success.

Lastly, hubby's favorite, STEAK! Broiled in the oven for less than 10 minutes, seasoned with steak spice and served medium rare.

No wonder I haven't finalized my Christmas menu yet. We've been eating really good food every single day. I couldn't ask for anything more, hmmm..maybe some desserts? Happy eating everyone! :D

Using Coupon$

FREE!

Bear with me as I can talk all day about coupons. I even used them for our Christmas gifts this year. I was so excited and we probably saved a lot by using them. Starting next year, I'll pay more attention to deals, be more organized especially now that I've started to price match. No need to go from store to store anymore but gotta be knowledgeable on all the flyers. All these make shopping more exciting, imagine all these strategic planning just for a grocery trip? May sound complicated but so much FUN!!!

Gifts!

Now it's not just about buying or shopping, it's getting stuff that we need on really low prices. It somehow takes away the guilt that comes from spending too much sometimes :D

mini stockpile

Birds of the Same Feather, Coupon Together

It's the last week before Christmas break, few more days before Christmas and I haven't cleaned the house, no Christmas menu and  have not accomplished anything except for the gifts, a little Christmas baking and trips to the store with my coupon buddy, Jocelyn.

We received a good news though regarding our permanent residency papers, we ought to celebrate this good news but there's so much to pay so our Christmas this year will just have to be a very simple one. Next year will be a BLAST! Around December of last year, we were stressing about renewing our work permits. Now, it's all about completion of requirements plus the fees. I am really looking forward to a MERRY CHRISTMAS next year!

Aside from the good news, another highlight of my year was me getting too engrossed with coupons. I have learned a lot from all the ladies out there and we have this group called Coupon Darlings where we talk about almost everything even things unrelated to coupons. These ladies rock and I haven't even met them. Having the same interests really brought us together, I ♥ the group period. Thank you ladies and Happy Holidays!

Change of Color

Our washroom had a little makeover a few weeks ago. We finally changed the shower curtain, found one that we liked especially the material and that has a decent price. It was dark brown in color. Our old one was color blue including the bath mats. We thought of changing the bath mats to brown as well to match everything but held on to the blue ones for a couple of days before finally deciding to purchase brown ones.

Our small space looked gorgeous afterwards, clean and tidy (special thanks to me) and love the new color. I can't wait to change the shower curtain again and try another color. Green or yellow perhaps? Such a cute space to decorate without any heavy furniture lifting or dusting involved :D

Back to Our Original Favorites

We're back to some Filipino food this week. During our latest trip to the supermarket, we bought upo (bottle gourd) and I sauteed it with ground pork, added some pork broth and vermicelli. Over the weekend, I also prepared two batches of thinly sliced beef, one is for Beef Steak (beef marinated in lemon and soy sauce, fried, simmered on the marinade plus onion rings) and the other batch is for Tapa (beef marinated in vinegar, lots of garlic, salt and pepper.)

Next on the menu is Tinola (Chicken Stew) and Milkfish in Tamarind Soup. Soups that are perfect for this cold weather brrrr :D

My Little Foodie

My daughter and I baked butter cookies the other day. She was more than happy to decorate them with loads of sprinkles. Some cookies had way too much sprinkles while the others ended up with just a little bit because she was also putting some on her mouth. Call it multitasking at an early age.

I make sure we always have sprinkles because she wants them on her ice cream and lately, on her jello. My little girl is a a foodie in the making. She eats anything and everything but she will tell you exactly what she wants to eat. She can also tell a food by the smell and she is always hungry! For her size, what she eats is just way too much for her.

She is always watching baking videos in You Tube so don't be surprised if you hear her saying the words offset spatula, cooling rack, crumb coat, piping bag, etc :D

Baking Day

I may not be the best baker but I still managed to bake a few goodies today. I made Lance's favorite puto and brownies. I plan to start my Christmas baking next week, mostly Cat's tongue cookies and some homemade oreos. The bread pudding, cupcakes and more puto will have to wait a day before Christmas.

I didn't want to bake too early because the kids will just finish everything unless I make huge batches. I am itching to start but this coming week is going to be a busy one again. If only the kids' Christmas vacation was scheduled a week before Christmas and not two days before :D

Suprise Freebies

2x Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap Dispenser = FREE, Airwick $9.97-$3=$6.97, Scrubbing Bubbles $6-$3=$3, Lysol Toilet bowl cleaner $4.98-$1

I was so excited to print the $5 coupon for the Lysol No-Touch. I printed two, which is the limit. The regular price for this is $14+ and it's on sale for $9+ at Walmart. Since the coupon says, one coupon/purchase/person, hubby and I did two transactions. It was during my transaction that I discovered that the price coming up was the original price of $14+. This gave me an opportunity (my first!) to enjoy the benefits of SCOP (Scanning Code of Practice). That's how we ended up with two free Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap Dispensers. I think I was smiling the whole day, free items bring out my cheeriest side :D

Now Showing

Movie Night

I'm into saving these days so rather than buy boxed honey garlic chicken wings or the cooked ones at 711, hubby suggested that we make our own. I used the chicken strips I normally use for Lance's chicken tenders, seasoned them with salt, pepper, garlic powder, rolled in flour then fried, coated with honey afterwards before serving them with pizza.

We definitely enjoyed the honey garlic chicken strips, pizza and the movie :D

From Our Table

honey garlic chicken strips and pizza

Another week has passed, only two more before Christmas! I gotta start planning our menu, one for the potluck and our Christmas eve menu of course. Then another potluck for a New year's party, a bridal shower and Lance's Birthday party. Oh and my birthday too! Which I don't plan to celebrate :D

I have no idea when to start, I am really BUSY these days. Weekdays are for the kids and anything coupon related. Weekends are for chores I didn't do the rest of the week.

Didn't forget my cooking responsibilities though. Thank you for instant noodles, canned ham, eggs, frozen pizza and frozen veggies for making my life easier and our tummy fuller.

scrambled egg and ham for breakfast

Hubby's fave--instant noodles with egg

Buffalo ground burgers

chicken stir fry with Szechwan sauce

shrimp balls

Tired, but with good food all week long? I ain't complaining. Bring it on :D

Our Food-elicious Week

I could spend the whole day glued to the laptop, browsing and couponing, only if I could but I got a family to take care of, a house to clean and tons of other chores. So this week, it's mostly easy meals and nothing fancy.

I cooked Chicken Adobo and used the leftover sauce on a canned tuna. The end result? Oily but yummy. Next time I'll take out the oil from the adobo sauce but I guess that's where the flavor's coming from. From now on, I'll save the sauces and use them to transform a can of plain tuna into something delicious!

Our week will never be complete without the ever present chicken stir fry with (whatever is in the ref) vegetables. Our sauce for the week: orange ginger sauce by VH. Hubby fillets the chicken, I marinate them in soy sauce and ground black pepper minutes before stir frying. Again, I ♥ cooking this, which is probably obvious by now.

Much as I love to cook, I am just too lazy in preparing breakfast. I will only start moving around the house when I'm done with my daily dose of Facebook and coupon sites except for days when hubby is around requesting for a proper breakfast. So today I served him egg salad, toasted bread and instant Tom Yum noodles. Breakfast anyone? :D

Black Friday

There's so much on sale, in stores and online, tempting but NO! Instead, we went to Walmart to pick up a few things. These days, Walmart is the only place where I want to be. This is where I use most of the coupons I get and I could spend hours looking at all the aisles if only I could. But with two kids in tow, everything must be done in such a hurry.

So instead of shopping, I am now more interested in getting good deals of things we normally use or we love to eat. I look forward to receiving mails because chances are, some of the envelopes are for me containing coupons. I may sound crazy but couponing is really addicting especially if you start getting things for free.

Today I used 20 coupons, my first time to use that many. All in all we should have paid $94 + tax but with coupons, we ended up paying $56 including tax. All the items with coupons should have been $60+ and the coupons deducted were worth $30.

I am still dying for that shopping trip where almost all things will be free but a little savings here and there, some cents and dollars off are more than welcome. We bought a lot of toiletries, juice and other supplies. Some went under the Christmas tree (hint: one is Braun the other is Oral B) and the rest went to our small storage cabinet that's slowly filling up already.

That's my awesome Black Friday shopping spree, what's yours? And my freebies are starting to arrive as well :D

Coupons=FUN & Savings!

Tylenol $4-$3= $1, VH Steamers (BOGO) $3, Slow Cooker Mixes (BOGO) $1.42, Oasis $1.25x2= $2.50-$1= $1.50, Stouffers $5.97-$2= $3.97, Listerine $4.77-$3= $1.77

For the past few weeks, I have been consumed by my latest hobby, couponing. I have never been serious about coupons until recently when I started to see other people's savings and there's this site among many other coupon sites that are very helpful when it comes to saving. I have spent so many hours on them lately putting Facebook the least of my priority these days. Well, I'm still as active on Facebook but only on the coupon pages to check on product match ups and freebies.

I have gone on several trips to use my coupons and have gotten some free by using them. So far, I got 5 boxes of Advil Cold and Sinus, Oasis juice and Listerine mouthwash all for free. Some items were buy one get one free and some $ off on certain products. It's not much yet but I'm learning how to best use those coupons. I have recently bought Tylenol for Lance just for a dollar instead of its full price.

Soon I'll have my own stockpile which will mostly contain of things we normally use and all these would come in handy for donations asked in school. If other people can do it, I can too :D

A Week of Yumminess

We have changed quite a bit of our grocery list for the past weeks. We are looking forward to more healthy meals and getting our grocery budget down. Those reasons and probably because we have grown tired of the usual meals. And also lately, I have been getting more and more food coupons so might as well try them.

We recently purchased a big styro pack of chicken breasts which my hubby loves. He prefers those over the other chicken parts since they're easier to fillet, delicious on stir fries and perfect for homemade chicken tenders that my son prefers over store bought frozen ones. I got to relax and let hubby cook several versions of his stir fries. So yeah, that chicken breast will definitely be on my grocery list again.

Aside from the chicken breasts, we also got some thick sliced pork chops without any fats/skin on. It was perfect for Pork Tonkatsu. The Panko bread crumbs is another must on our grocery list now. However, it's bottled Tonkatsu sauce for now, I'll do my own next time.

I also made Pancit Canton as I couldn't think of anything else to cook. We had a bag of shrimps, Mama Sita's mix and a bag of frozen veggies plus some fresh noodles so I threw them all in a pan and was done in under ten minutes. There were a lot of leftover rice the next day which I made into fried rice and partnered with fried chicken.

A new favorite of ours is the Tom Yum soup. We bought a bag of mixed seafood specifically for that. The last two batches that I have made were without noodles. The hot soup and white rice were just perfect for each other. Don't forget the fish sauce! This soup has so much flavor and easy to make. It's basically broth, tom yum paste, seafood and your choice of vegetables. Boil, season and you've got yourself the most flavorful soup ever.

Ever since I tried using ground pork for this adobo, I have never looked back. My daughter loves it and can eat three small bowls at a time. This time, I added hard boiled eggs just like you would on a normal adobo dish.

And there's this dish that my mom used to call beef stew but it's more of a version of Nilaga (Boiled Beef). The beef are sliced into small chunks, sauteed in garlic, onions and tomatoes, seasoned with fish sauce, boiled until tender before adding carrots, potatoes and cabbage. I added chinese cabbage for a change and some beef fats for more flavor (yikes!)

And before I forget, I finally used the raspberry cream cheese frosting over a tortilla. Healthy or not, new or old dish, a little tweak here and there, we had an awesome week eating all these yummy food :D