There is an incredible eCookbook and blog idea getting started that will be going on during October to help commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Here's some of the info from the Once A Month Mom blog:

Saving Second Base: A Breast Cancer eCookbook Project


We are looking for recipes and stories/memories related to those recipes of those you have known or loved that have survived or passed away from breast cancer. We will be using these recipes/posts throughout the month of October on A Southern Fairytale and Once A Month Mom.

In addition, at the conclusion of the month we will take each of these recipes and create a commemorative ecookbook that you can then purchase for yourself or as a gift to the loved one and/or their family. All PROFITS from the sale of these ecookbooks will go to the Susan G Koman Foundation. We (Tricia and Rachel) will keep NONE of the proceeds.

We hope that you find that this is a memorable way to honor those in your life and to relive some of their (or your) favorite culinary creations. Here is how you can contribute:

1.Include an original recipe. It can be one of the following: a recipe of theirs, a recipe of yours that they loved, or a recipe that makes you think of them/remember them when you make it.


2.Write a food related memory or story about someone that has survived or passed whom you knew or were close to that had breast cancer to go with the recipe.

3.Include a picture of that person, a picture of you with that person, a picture of the recipe, or another photo that would be appropriate.

4.A one-two sentence bio about you, include a URL if you have a blog.

5.Email all of the above to breastcancerebook@gmail.com

Note: Those entering will be asked to sign a publication release for print of the commemorative ecookbook.

If you have known a love one with a love for the kitchen that has survived or been a victim of breast cancer I hope that you will consider joining us by contributing a recipe and story, visiting during the month of October, or by purchasing the ecookbook in November!

[There's more information on the blog so hop on over and check it out so you can get everything you'll need to know!]
Okay, it's Stephanie again: this is one of those things I love about the internet. A casual conversation starts and then - you have something incredible happen. This is definitely a Cool Idea!

Yep, back to school time feels like the new year to me in so many ways. There are new outfits, new haircuts, new schools and let's not forget - new crayons! So let's take time to make some resolutions...

This is a really, really good time to get your meal planning organized. Check out Once a Month Mom or $5 Dinners for help.

If you need some help getting your home organization in hand then I suggest hoping over to Totally Together Journal and subscribing to the daily email. I guarantee you won't be made to feel guilty but you will get a daily reminder that it's time to do the dusting/ change the sheets/ send cards to friends/ or just take a day for yourself.

And how about taking better care of our personal computers. Personally, I've experienced four hard drive crashes and it took the last, and most catastrophic, for me to really learn my lesson. After that tumultuous even I did some research and found that Mozy online backup was what I needed. It pulls my files up into the ether at some point during the day when my I take a break and my computer goes idle.  There are several packages but I use the free version. It works for me. It might work for you, it might not, but I guarantee you that if you are a heavy computer user you need some kind of automatic backup system. Even if you use a thumb drive to backup some of your files you need something else because thumb drives are not indestructible - I can attest to this as well. So, pick something that works with your work style and budget so you won't get stuck empty handed in a horrible crash.

Do you have any new resolutions for the end of the calendar year?

I've been baking up a storm and bulking back up the freezer in anticipation of school starting soon.

Here are a couple of our go-to breakfast favorites:
Very Best Banana Muffins
Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cake from Once a Month Mom [actually called Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Coffee Cake]

And here's a new dinner favorite from $5 Dinners that I am almost certain you could do as a once a month cooking mostly in the crockpot so you could stock up the freezer - and let me tell you it is just that good!!

Cheesy Green Chicken Enchiladas - I will say that I didn't have any green enchilada sauce and the diced tomatoes I had were 'chili ready' so this is what I did.... I made the recipe as written but I only used half the cumin and since I didn't have sauce for the tortillas I used the shredded cheese that I always have in the fridge.

Here's what I would do next time... I'd add more heat to it. I loved the creaminess and if your kids are going to eat with you then you might not want to kick this up, but ours ate quesadillas instead. Next time I might toss in a small can of chopped green chilis with the chicken. Oh, and I'd add more cheese to the top. I love cheese and we always have it!!

I had the great fortune to buy 40 pounds of organic Granny Smith apples for $25 last week and jumped at the chance. We all know that price doesn't come around every day. Of course the next problem was - what to do with them.

1. We pulled out the nicest and smallest for Comfort and Joy to eat. I say 'smalles' because these are lovely BIG apples. Most of them are bigger than both of my fists put together. The girl love apples and good, fresh fruit is expensive this time of the year so this is a nice treat.

2. I peeled, sliced and flash froze about 10 lbs. This fit in two gallon zip freezer bags and I'll use these for pies and for baking.

3. I made the Once a Month Mom Apple Streusel Muffin recipe, in it's full form, TWICE. The first batch is entirely mini-muffins for the girls because my toddler trial shows that they are more likely to eat the entire muffin if the good streusel topping is closer to the muffin. The second batch is two-thirds full-sized muffins which I'll used for book group and 1/3 mini-muffins for Comfort and Joy.

4. Applesauce! I've already have four quart put in the freezer from two batches of apples done in the crockpot. This recipe was easy - I filled the crockpot with apples - about 12 - and set it on low for 2 hours until they fell apart. Stir and allow to cool. I'd do more but Comfort isn't eating it and Joy doesn't need more fruit in her diet - if you get what I mean.

5. And I still have more apples!! Seriously. There's still about 8-10 lbs probably. So, I'm thinking apple butter.

I know that certain apples are better for making certain things but at this point I want to make sure I use these before they get mushy. Granted my kitchen is chilly [~65 degrees] but these apples won't stay crisp forever.

So, if you have any ideas for easy, inexpensive and easy to save things that I can do with these apples I'd love to hear it.

Yep, we have more snow here in Virginia. It's a Winter Wonderland and thank goodness for Nick Jr. because Comfort and Joy have been out of school all week.

Being home all week also means that we're going through a LOT of food. Sure, we usually eat at home but the only meal that all of us are usually home together is dinner. Now, we're a family of four eating 3 meals a day plus snacks. Needless to say I am SOOO glad that Kroger had that mega deal sale last week and that we got out to Costco last night.

So for the next couple of days I'm going to post some of the recipes that have been keeping us going.

Breakfast has been easy. The girls love scrambled eggs and meat circles [trans. - sausage] so we had a big breakfast before going out to play in the snow.

Today, I pulled Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cake out of the freezer. This is a great go-to breakfast for us and I love making some smaller loaves to have around, too. This is one of my favorite Once A Month Mom recipes.

Come back tomorrow and find out what we've been enjoying for lunch. It's a yummy Cool Idea!

This is a site I've mentioned before - both here and to everyone who has ears. In fact, I was posting on Facebook last night about one of the recipes I was baking yesterday with Comfort and Joy when I found out that today I was going to have a guest post up at Once a Month Mom.

I hope you'll hop on over and hear what I've learned about once a month cooking. I also hope you'll stick around here for more on this topic because I have a confession to share in tomorrow's post.

Thanks!

First off I should say that even though Comfort and Joy are toddlers they do a pretty good job of eating. But they are toddlers.

Secondly, much of our amusement features around the renaming that Comfort have given to many of her favorite foods. Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Coffee Cake [from Once a Month Mom] has been abbreviated to Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cake. Parmesan cheese is 'cheesy sprinkles'. Ravioli is 'cheese hats'. Sausage is 'meat circles'.

It got DH and I to thinking that it resembled, in some ways, a short order restaurant. Then my mind began to think about the menu at Toddler Cafe. Of course, there would be pasta and chicken nuggets and dip. Dips would vary based on the item being dipped. If it's waffles - the dip is syrup. If it's nuggets - the dip could be 'yellow' [honey mustard], 'red' [ketchup], or 'white' [Ranch]. Same would hold true for veggies, except I doubt if anyone wants to use syrup, Ick.

Breakfast items that work well at our house:

• Eggs
• Meat Circles
• Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cake
• Waffles and Dip
• Cereal - Tiger Cereal or Daddy Cereal [Translation: Frosted Flakes or Mini-Wheats]
• Cereal Bar [Translation: Pop-Tart]
• Blueberry Muffins
• Cheese Danish

Lunch and Dinner Items:

• Pasta with Cheesy Sprinkles
• Chicken with Dip [Yellow Dip especially]
• Cheese Hats with Cheesy Sprinkles
• Cheesy Pizza
• Cheese Quesadilla

By now, you've noticed that my kids love cheese. They do take after their mom. In fairness, they do enjoy fruit and veggies too but these items don't have cute names - except for broccoli - which is referred to as 'trees' and generally eaten raw and plain.

I also kinda like that Comfort has adopted my mispronunciation of 'syrup'. Both of us only give it one syllable and even though her striking accent isn't mine, some of her speech patterns undoubtedly are. And as our Adventure Girls get older, and Joy begins talking more, I kind of hope that they don't leave too much of this behind. It's true that no server at a restaurant will ever figure out what they mean when they order cheese hats but it's still part of their background and part of what makes them unique. And personally, I think that's a Cool Idea.

Not that November and NaNo wasn't real life for me but now I need to actually make sure that all the rest of the pieces of our lives are picked up, too. So, I've begun to notice things around me a bit better.

Like the fact that it's the beginning of the month and the coupons have reset. Did you catch that, too:) Yep, the coupons.com and cellfire coupons are available and there are some great deals. Personally I'm grabbing more pie crusts and the diapers. Once a Month Mom has some great pie and cinnamon roll recipes with the pie crust and the diapers are self-explanatory.

Also, I'm off to Old Navy today to buy Comfort some long-sleeved shirts. Apparently while I was writing 70K words it turned cold here in Virginia and she only has long-sleeved shirts from last year and they are getting a bit tight. I noticed yesterday that Deal Seeking Mom had some great tips for shopping at Old Navy. Don't forget to head on over there and learn what you can.

And to add a bit of fun to your life, head over to Tia's Saving Cents and learn how you can download a copy of the UP soundtrack. Our whole family loved that movie and you can bet that Comfort and Joy are getting that on DVD for Christmas.

It's been many years since I, myself, went back to school, but this time of the year always feels like the time of new beginnings and with Comfort and Joy going to new preschools [Joy heading off to school for the first time] it is a big New Year for our house.

So, it's a good time for me to address some resolutions. Well, one resolution in particular - meal planning - has not been on my radar. I give it a cursory glance at best. Mostly creating meals out of the same 5-10 menus put in rotation and hoping that somewhere in there we'll go out and have leftovers to cover the rest of the days in a 2 week cycle.

This needs to change. We'll be on tighter schedules and I'll also need to be packing lunches so I'm going to REALLY need to make a concerted effort to get back on track.

What's my plan for getting back on track with meal planning?

• Take stock of what's in the pantry and come up with meals out of items that I already have on hand.
• Look back through the Once A Month Mom site [especially on the months that I didn't cook from the menu at all - like this summer] and see if there are recipes I can pull to incorporate into our repertoire.
• Go back through the Kraft Food and Family magazine that just came and pull out the recipes that I can see my family eating.
• Write out the meals I plan to make so that I have to be accountable. If need be, I might even create a section here to do this. Let me know if this would be helpful for you, too.

And there you go. I think that's where I'm going to start. This weekend I'll be putting together the plan for next week. That gives me a week to get back into the swing of things before school starts for Joy. Planning ahead is going to make things much easier. I know it will. I just need to keep saying it out loud to myself because it's not sexy but it is definitely a Cool Idea!

I've been following the Once A Month Mom Blog and enjoying the recipes. The burrito recipe from last month was one that I noticed but didn't make. The other night I was fishing around for something to make and noticed that I had most of the ingredients.

For the list and instructions go to the Once a Month Mom Blog but here's the list so that I can show you how I changed it.

Ingredients:
•1 pounds ground beef
•15.5 ounces pinto beans
•4.5 ounces green chilis, chopped
•15.5 ounces enchilada sauce, red
•1 packages taco seasoning mix
•8 ounces Monterrey Jack
•8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded
•8 each flour tortillas, med-large

I cooked the beef and added taco seasoning hat I buy in bulk from Costco. I didn't have enchilada sauce so I used a can of diced tomatoes with green chiles and didn't drain them. I had canned kidney beans instead. Add them to the pot and add the cheese.

We were running low on mexican shredded cheese and I figured Comfort and Joy would want quesadillas for dinner so I grated Pepper Jack and some Swiss to add to the pot. This gets melted into the meat/ bean mixture and then this 'goo' is scooped into the tortillas and put in a baking dish.

I had a bit of meat/bean and liquid left over and decided that since I didn't have left over enchilada sauce to put over the top of the burritos I would mix in sour cream that was left over from some other recipes. I brought it back up to heat and poured it over the top and then topped that with Mexican shredded cheese. Pop it in the oven until it smells good.

Boy, this was yummy and it was a great example of using a recipe as a jumping off point. As long as you are keeping the moisture/ dryness levels right and you aren't leaving out something key - like a leavening agent - you're usually fine.

So play with your recipes. See what you can create. Making things your own is definitely a Cool Idea!

Last month I proved to myself that I could grocery shop [excluding buying milk every week] once a month and get by just fine. This month I'm going to see if I can cook just once and see how it works. There are so many things about Once a Month Cooking that appeal to me that I've investigated doing it before. I like finding a majority of like ingredients and weaving them together. I like recipes that don't include a lot of processed ingredients and I like eating seasonally which I think is good for the food chain as well as our wallets. But I must admit that I've never really taken a stab at cooking once a month. 

So why now? Truly? Because someone else has done the work for me. Yep. I'm lazy. Tricia and Cortney over at Once a Month Mom have put together recipes, instructions and even the grocery lists necessary for an entire month of menus. I was coming late to the March menu because I didn't find their site until last week, then I waited to match up my grocery list I made based on what was on sale through The Grocery Game with the recipes I was going to make. I should say that I didn't make the entire menu of recipes. I don't have that kind of freezer space and I don't eat seafood of any kind, but I did make five recipes and a total of ten dinners and one nice breakfast.

I'll give these ladies some amazing credit, the grocery list is phenomenal and the step by step instructions to get through cooking the entire menu is incredible and takes the overwhelm out of the Adventure. I'd still love to be able to work more of my stockpile into the menu but I figure it'll come to that especially as I find standby recipes that we'll come back to again and again - already Comfort and Joy have pronounce the Pizza Roll-Ups a success and the Mexican Pasta was a hit tonight as well. 

So, my suggestion is that if you're curious about Once A Month Cooking check out their site. You can take as much or as little as you want from their plan so that it suits your needs. They also have information about making your own baby food, which in my opinion was so fun and easy that I can't believe mom's of the '70s were feeding us from jars, but that's another story. Check it out and give it a try and see if you can do it once a month. It's a Cool Idea!