Besides that, if you are one of the first 250 people to order the 3 print book set, which, by the way, is
priced so low that you get 3 books for the price of one, they will also throw in a free Menus On A Dime booklet! How cool is that?

Click on the cook book to go to their site and check it out for yourself.

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Living On A Dime’s Big Sale

Aunt Barbara’s Mexican Wedding Cakes. See recipe here.

These are light but taste similar to shortbread

Dipped Pretzel Sticks

These are easy for even the smallest child.

Super easy and super good, creamy fudge. See recipe here.

Anne

Anne

Peanut Butter Cookies With Kisses. See recipe here.

Peanut Butter Cookies With Kisses

We also made:

• Molasses Cookies (See recipe here)
• Peppermint Bark (See recipe here)
• Martha Washington’s Bon Bon’s (See recipe here)

All the cookies laid out for the neighbors

After the plates were wrapped, we drove around town caroling and handing out these lovelies to our dear friends and neighbors. We had a couple neighbors gone, so those will probably be distributed tonight.

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Baking Day!

A couple weeks ago, we enjoyed hamburgers made with homemade buns. They were fabulous! The recipe used was from the Tightwad Gazette for Cuban Bread.

This a quick yeast bread. It takes half the time than normal yeast breads and it is super easy!

Ingredients
5-6 cups flour
2 T. dry yeast
2 T. sugar
1 T. salt
2 c. hot tap water
1 T. sesame seeds, oats, or poppy seeds (optional)

1. Mix 4 cups of the flour with the yeast, sugar, and salt.
   
2. Pour in hot water and beat 100 strokes, or 3 minutes with a mixer.
   
3. Stir in the remaining flour until the dough is no longer sticky.
   
4. Knead 8 minutes.
   
5. Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with damp towel.
   
6. Let rise 15 minutes.
7. Punch down.
   
8. Divide into 2 pieces, shape into loaves and place on baking sheet.
   
9. Cut an X 1/2 inch deep on top with sharp knife.
   
10. Brush with water and sprinkle with oats.
    
11. Place on the middle shelf of a cold oven.
    
12. Place a cake pan of hot water on the lowest shelf.
    
13. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake 40-50 minutes until deep golden brown.

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Homemade Hamburger Buns

Anne created the fried ramen noodle recipe and my son, Joe, created the green bean and bacon topping.

Anne Fried Ramen as told by Joe
Servings: 5 or 6 people (maybe 7 or 8 for people who eat a little)

5 packages of pork or oriental flavored Maruchan Ramen packages
7 to 10 eggs (generally you use two eggs to one package of ramen, but I like it a little less eggy)

You may crunch up the noodles before you cook them, or you can leave them long, but you’ll chop them up anyway while frying them. It’s easier to handle them when they are crunched up. Put all the noodles in a pot of water and heat it short enough not to bring it to a boil but long enough to separate the noodles. While that’s cooking, crack the eggs in a bowl or blender and purée them… the eggs that is. Not the blender. Once the noodles are done cooking, strain the water out and put them back in the pot you cooked them in, add the puréed eggs and mix well.

Put a table spoon of oil in the bottom of two frying pans and add the egg and noodle mixture. I like to cook on high and after a while turn it down to medium to let the sliminess in the eggs cook out a little. While frying, use a pancake spatula to chop and turn the eggs. Sprinkle the flavor packets over the noodles to taste (I do two to each pan while the egg is still cooking then I might add another afterward if needed). Once the egg is cooked, the fried ramen is complete.

Green bean and bacon topping
Serving: 4 or 5 people (or more)

Bunch of bacon (I use bacon ends)
Couple hand fulls of frozen green beans
Couple hand fulls of chopped and diced onion. You can use rings if you wish, although I’ve never tried that. It’d look cool.
Salt
Dash of garlic powder

Optional: Bell peppers or jalapeños (not pictured). You’ll add them when you add the green beans

I like to cook this before I cook the fried ramen and use the bacon grease to cook and flavor it later.

First you’ll want to chop the bacon in to bite size pieces. In a frying pan cook the bacon and onion. When the bacon is half cooked, add the frozen green beans and a few dashes of salt and a dash of garlic to taste. When the beans are cooked and hot all the way through, scoop them out of the frying pan (leave the grease) and put them in a covered dish and fry the ramen in the bacon and onion grease.

Once everything is done, top the ramen with the bean topping and don’t think about how fattening this is. Just do a couple jumping jacks after your thirds to justify it.

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Anne’s Fried Ramen

Anyway, here’s this weeks’ menu. Sunday has already come and gone, though.

• Sunday – Ham, scalloped potatoes
• Monday – “Green Soup”. Dennis dislikes split pea, but loves green soup. Think he’ll notice?
• Tuesday – Swiss steak and potatoes (can you tell we gleaned potatoes last week?)
• Wednesday – Enchiladas
• Thursday – Cabbage soup with homemade bread
• Friday – Hamburger pie
• Saturday – Pizza!

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This Week’s Menu

• Sunday – Swedish Meatballs (We ended up making a switch)
• Monday – Herbed rice
• Tuesday – Spaghetti
• Wednesday – Pancakes
• Thursday – Toasted cheese sandwiches or leftovers
• Friday – Beef Soup & homemade bread (We ended up not having this last week)
• Saturday – Meatloaf

Notes for the week:

Take the ham out of the freezer on Friday for Sunday’s meal (next weeks’ menu)

Have a great day as you serve your family!

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This Week’s Meal Plan

• Sunday – Tacos
• Monday – Leftovers
• Tuesday – Turkey Soup
• Wednesday – Hamburgers with homemade buns
• Thursday – Meatloaf
• Friday – Beef Soup & homemade bread
• Saturday – Swedish meatballs over noodles

Notes for the week:

Take out hamburger on Tuesday. Make sure to bring out enough to form meatballs for Saturday’s meal.

Have a great day as you serve your family!

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This Week’s Dinner Menu

Notes for the week:

Take turkey out of the freezer Sunday
Cook turkey Tuesday
Divide turkey Wednesday into meals.

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This Week’s Dinner Menu

Check out Mystery Meat Macrophotography to learn more about processed meats than you ever wanted to know… in photos.

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You Will Never Look At Meat The Same Again

In the evening, drain and set a few cups aside for one meal.

Add a can of tomato something, garlic, chili powder, cumin, and lots of salt to make chili. You can also add hamburger if you want to. We serve with chopped onion and shredded cheese. We have also enjoyed it in bread bowls that we made.

The next day, take the leftovers and smash them. If they are too juicy, run them through the food processor (the blade) and make refried beans to have as nachos with more cheese, onion, lettuce, sour cream.

The next night, have homemade pizza with sauce, any kind of cheese, and anything you can find to put on it, even if it’s just hamburger…or just cheese!

The next night, take the remainder of the smashed, seasoned beans and have burritos.

The next day, take out the beans that were set aside and add something tomatoey (my own word), but don’t make it runny, lots of salt, cumin and make some hush puppies or corn bread. Serve the beans over.

The following day, make up some macaroni. Throw all the leftover beans in with the drained macaroni then add cheese. If it needs thinning, ad a bit of water or tomato something. Wha la! Chilimac! To stretch it, make a bisquick topping and spread it over the whole thing.

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How To Live On Beans and Rice For a Week, almost