DJ's Sundries

When life is busy and days are long and tiring, its far too easy to grab dinner at the closest McDonald's.  That is not good for my pocketbook or my waist line.  I decided that it was time to fill the freezer with easy meal starters.  Like many of you, I have been pinning lots of freezer meals so I decided to start on Pinterest.  I headed to Over the Big Moon (click here ). To start with, I needed to figure out what I needed to buy.  I figured the easiest way to do this was to turn the recipes into a spread sheet.  I was then able to go through my pantry and make a shopping list.  Then I was off to the city to go to Costco and my favorite grocery store.  I have to say that I spent about $300, though I didn't use everything I purchased for these meals.  I did have quite a few of the staples on hand so $300 is a pretty good estimate. *Quick tip - Saving the spreadsheet for future freezer cooking days will enable me to quickly build my shop...

Click HERE to join the current giveaway. It's been awhile since I posted a recipe and even longer since I made this dish.  Many years ago, my brother-in-law taught me how to make Shepherd's Pie and it is a favorite with my family.  Isn't it funny how we forget those family favorites until something comes up to remind us?  This time the reminder came to my daughter when she tried a different type of Shepherd's Pie.  She came home and wanted this one so we made it.  The best part is that when you make 1, it's not that hard to make several so we made 2 more to freeze. Ingredients: 1 pound of hamburger 1 small can of tomato soup 1 can of green beans (I prefer French cut, but only had regular cut on hand) Mashed potatoes (this is the first time that we have used fresh potatoes.  I was taught to use instant potatoes) Cheddar Cheese - 1.5-2 cups shredded Optional - chopped onion (We used 1 onion to make 3 batches) Instructions: Brown hamburger an...

I'm back with another Pinterest recipe.  Can you say YUMMO?  This was so fabulous! Click here  to find the original recipe.  I served it with rice pilaf and green beans.  It was really simple to make and absolutely delicious.  I think the next time I make this, I will make a double batch and put 1/2 in a freezer bag for a future meal.  You've gotta try this.  You'll be glad you did.  Thanks for stopping by and come back soon for more projects and more.

One of the meals I prepared was this "Southern-Style Ham and Mac Pie" that I found on YouTube.  You can view the recipe by clicking here .  This was a super easy meal to prepare and my husband really liked it.  I made two so that I could freeze one.  It will make an easy meal for my family on one of my work nights. I thought it was "OK", but my favorite part of the meal was the scrumptious salad that I made to go with it.  I want to tell you how I made this easy and delicious fare. Ingredients: 1 bag of Spring Mix salad 1 Roma tomato - diced 1 cucumber - peeled and sliced 1-2 hand fulls of dried cranberries Dried almond slices - to taste Fresh grated Parmesan cheese - to taste Light raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing I tossed everything together in a bowl except for the dressing which was served on the side.  I originally got this idea from a salad kit that I purchased one time.  They used dried cherries, bleu cheese, and a different ...

So today I have a not-so-crafty-but-oh-so-yummy post and a bit of rambling so please bear with me. Early in March, I created a new chore plan for our household.  I divided the house into zones and divided the chores between the 4 of us.  Unfortunately, shortly after the plan was created, my father-in-law took a turn for the worse and passed away.  The "plan" flew out the door while we were trying to keep up with normal living and cleanliness.  This week we started back into the plan - which will be explained more thoroughly when I have a chance to create the control board for the plan.  I couldn't wait to institute the plan until the pretty control board is made, so we started it back up this week with paper lists on the fridge.  Part of the plan includes who cooks and when.  This ensures my family is fed on the nights when I work and the ones when my daughter works.  So far so good.  Today was my day to cook.  I knew we were out of sp...

As many of you know, my life has been very busy lately - especially over the last month.  My daughter (who does much of the cooking) had surgery the week before Christmas and she didn't bounce back as quickly as we expected.  My father-in-law has also had some complications related to kidney failure.  With all that going on as well as being sick for awhile myself (oh yeah, and during that time was Christmas and our anniversary), lets just say we have eaten out far too often and I've cooked far too little over the last month.  Obviously, this isn't good for our health OR our bank account :). On one recent crazy night, I stopped at Walmart to grab lasagna and a salad and saw a spinach salad kit.  I grabbed it with concern over the fact that my family really doesn't care for spinach.  It had spinach, sliced almonds, crumbled bleu cheese, dried cherries, and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  Much to my surprise, the only complaint was from my son who did...

I think the best part of all the food on Thanksgiving is all of the leftovers.  In fact, I like the things I make from leftover turkey better than I like the original turkey.  I decided to post what I made for dinner tonight with leftover turkey.  Now I will warn you that I don't measure the ingredients.  I go by what looks right.  I will try to "guestimate" the amounts I used. Ingredients: Left over turkey or chicken - chopped (I'm guessing I used 5-6 cups) Sour Cream - large dollop (1/3 c?) Large can of green chili enchilada sauce 1 package of tortillas 1 package of shredded cheese - (I used the value pack that was about 9.5oz of the Mexican variety) Directions: Heat oven to 375.  Pour enough of the enchilada sauce into the bottom of a casserole dish to coat the bottom of the pan.  Mix the turkey, sour cream and a handful of cheese together.  Add enough of the enchilada sauce to moisten the mixture but you don't want it too wet or soupy...