Crock Pot Applebutter

I was inspired to make applebutter in my crock pot by this post from my cyber-twin Monica! And since I am all for cooking if it doesn't keep me in the kitchen all day, this was the perfect recipe for me! I had done this once before with some so-so applebutter that we had purchased and made the so-so applebutter into the best we had ever had...of course I did not write down how I came to that result. I am trying to take more notes on these little adventures in cooking, so when it turns out good I can actually reproduce it! This turned out really good, not perfect, but really good. Worth trying just to smell it cooking!

The ingredients:

2 large jars of no sugar added applesauce

(rinse out one of the jars to store the finished applebutter in)

1 1/2 cups organic sugar

4 tblsp. ground cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 adorable 3 year old assistant (Lily)she loves and insists on helping me cook

Mix the ingredients in the crock. Cook on high for 12 hours and low for another four hours. Once it really started to simmer, I vented the lid with a butter knife placed across one end of the crock under the lid. This allows the sauce to reduce and thicken. I did stir it occasionally just to see how it was thickening, and to keep it from scorching around the edges. My crock pot gets pretty hot!

This is the finished sauce after I transferred it to a bowl, so we could have some warm and to let it cool before I put it in the jar. The two jars of applesauce made about one jar of applebutter.


Read more Kitchen Tip Teusdays at Tammy's Recipes!
Read Homemade Thursday at Ship Full of Pirates!

Cute Therapy

What? I'm playing dress up with my girlfriends....

....Josephine....

aka....Josie

picture credit==abby

Menu Plan

Monday
B-cereal, toast
L-tuna salad, saltines, or pb crackers, oranges
D-chilli, baked potatos, cheese, sour cream


Tuesday-
Brunch-pancakes, turkey sausage, oranges
D-BBQ chicken thighs, macaroni and cheese, peas


Wednesday-
B-oatmeal, nuts, raisins
L-strawberry and banana smoothie, turkey and cheese sandwices
D-potato soup, cornbread, peach cobbler


Thursday-
B-eggs, toast,applebutter oranges
L-baked sweet potatos, hot tea
D-baked chicken, mashed potatos, green beans


Friday-
B-cereal, bananas
L-fried rice with veggies, fruit
D-homemade pizza, brownies


Saturday-
B-pumpkin muffins, boiled eggs
L-chicken noodle soup, corn bread

Food Lion Mark Downs and K-Mart Super Double Q's

We did not do any CVS shopping this week, but our efforts to collect coupons for Food Lion and K mart really paid off! First at Food Lion, I bought 8 pounds of lean ground turkey, a 4 pound beef roast, and 3 five pound chickens that had been marked down. I bought ten pounds of frozen vegetables, 2 boxes of cheerios, 2 packs of wipes, two jars of whipped cream (very important), and two boxes of saltine crackers. I paid $39 and change for a lot of meat and vegetables! I came across a new site this week that gives great details on shopping at Kroger and Food Lion. Check out Southern Savers for all the details!

Next up was K-mart. I found K-mart to be overpriced much like CVS tends to be. I collected a lot of coupons that could have potentially been good after doubling up to $2. However, I set a goal of not using any coupon that did not make the item free or less than a dollar. I also wanted to try to get a total of $50 before coupons because I had a $5 off $50 K mart coupon. My purchases totaled $55 before coupons. After coupons my total was $12.77. A lot of items were free after coupons, some were more than a dollar, but it averaged to .57 per item. A good result considering these were all item we need or will use.

Read more savings stories at Money Saving Mom!

Kiss My Lipstick...

Actually Kiss Sarah Palin's lipstick! One of the many buttons I read last night at a rally in my town! I wasn't sure all day that I wanted to fight through fifteen to twenty thousand people and thirty-five windy degrees to see her and say I was there, but I did! If you know me, you know it takes something special to bring me out in the cold and a crowd to do anything!

I decided I liked this lady in the first couple of minutes of hearing her speak at the republican convention. She is well spoken, extremely poised, and smart. Read all about her on the biography page of her website.

Her conservative stand and Christian worldview is enough for me to get excited about, but I love the fact that she is a breastfeeding, baby wearing, mother of five! I told Tommy, "It is ridiculous how excited I am" waiting for her to come on stage last night. Here are a few pictures from last night....

CVS Deals

It was a good week at CVS! The end of the month is always a squeeze on the grocery/household budget. The baby items in particular will be very helpful this final week of October. The Just For Men hair color was free after extra care bucks and I had a $2.00 off coupon and I will receive a 7.99 rebate. This item will be donated, but will end up a $9.99 profit for us. We don't celebrate Halloween, but the little girls are dragging around their dolly stuff in their "punkin' heads". When they tire of them we will donate them as well.

In summary: 12 ECB's to start, three transactions, $5.83 in cash out of pocket, end with 10 ECB's for next week. Abby uploaded pictures and threw in one of Rose;) since she always tags along to CVS with us.

Check out Money Saving Mom for other great deals!

October News

October has been a busy eventful month in our house. I am terribly behind on posting, so I thought I would catch up on things in one post.

October has been a good month of schooling for us. Everyone is doing very well and our schedule seems to be working well. In a nutshell, we are up by 8, chores and breakfast are done by 9, most are done with lessons by lunch time. Jacob has to work for a while after lunch usually. But he has some big books to work through. Tommy has taken on the responsibility of teaching grammar to the kids in the evenings. He is doing a great job too! Jacob has started Algebra this year and is doing very well. Samuel is learning to be more disciplined with his time and is completing his work most days by lunch time! Abigail does more than all of us pretty much everyday. She and Anna have started preschool curriculum with Wendy and Lily and Wendy is loving every minute of it. Wendy is a sponge right now! Abby is also practicing for a December recital for piano. She will be playing "We Three Kings". Anna has become quite the reader. We are very proud of her progress and is learning cursive and has nice hand writing.

In sports news, we had a month filled with soccer games and a baseball tournament. Samuel's travel baseball team had an excellent showing in the AAU state tournament. They took second in the tournament which made them 9th in the state! We really enjoyed watching Jacob and Samuel play soccer for the first time since they were age 4 and 6! They played their hearts out, and enjoyed it even though they only won one game. In other news.....Anna's soccer team, coached by her Daddy, has not lost a game and is playing for the Championship on Saturday, weather permitting. Go Fighters!!

October has been great, but not without some stress too. Little Wendy had a terrible fall on the playground....scared this Mama really bad! She fell from the top of a rock climbing wall, and pushed her two top teeth into her gums. We thought they were knocked out completely, but x-rays showed them pushed up in between her permanent teeth. So sad and painful for Wendy, but she is unbelievably tough. We are just waiting for her to heal and are not sure what will happen with her four top baby teeth. Wendy is trusting God to bring down her teeth. We are so thankful that God protected her from other serious injuries because she fell eight feet. Praise God for protection. The very same weekend of Wendy's accident, Jacob had his new bike stolen out of our garage. Obviously this was very concerning to think someone would come into our garage and steal something. The great news is that Jacob's bike was replaced by friends of ours that are in a community group called the Jaycee's...another blessing!

In baby news, Rose is nine months old! She loves food and is currently cutting teeth number six and seven! Her tooth filled grin is almost as cute as her gummy grin was! She is really getting around, by army crawl, our second to crawl this way! She definitely makes her presence known with lots of baby talk, squeals, and giggles. She is such a joy!

I cant' finish this "newsletter" without introducing the newest member of our family. Her name is Josie and she is a sweet heart with a face that is so ugly it's cute! She's a boxer and is full of playful energy and seems to need all of our attention, which we are happy to give!