Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

Hey Ya'll!! Hope ya'lls Thanksgiving was amazing!! Mine was busy busy busy!!! After watching the Texans game we took the kids on an hour 1/2 drive down to the families place for good grub and a few too many drinks haha!!! 

I hope those of you who did the black friday shopping all came back in one piece. I know I don't go, I worked at Wally World for years and I just refuse to go out into the madness! 

Today I've got a great recipe for you, better then take out in my opinion!!! I usually have to make a double batch of this cause the kids and their dad just go to town on it!

Ingredients-
1 lb chicken cut into 1 inch cubes (I use tenders cause its easier to cut into cubes)
1/2 oil
1 cup cornstarch (more if needed)
2 eggs 
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 vinegar
3 tbs soy sauce
5 tbs ketchup

Heat oven to 350

Take your sugar vinegar soy sauce and ketchup and mix together in a bowl and set to the side.

Heat your oil in your frying pan.

In a seperate bowl mix your eggs and milk, put your cornstarch in a seperate shallow dish.

Dip your chicken first into the egg wash then coat in the cornstarch and straight to the frying pan.

When they are good and browned transfer them to a shallow baking dish.

When all your chicken is done give your sweet and sour sauce another stir and pour the whole bowl evenly over your chicken and bake in the oven for 20-30 min.

Serve with rice, and as a side dish I always make peas and mayo.

Ok, ok.. I know it sounds weird. Ok, here ya go TRY it. 

One can of peas, one large spoon full of mayo and a tsp of salt and tsp of pepper. 

It's sweet, its yummy and its my kids favorite side dish.

Enjoy ya'll

Healthy PB cookies

Well the weather sure is frightful here in the great northwest!!! Got a few power outages... But not in this house, yet.. :-/
So my kids love peanut butter, what kid doesn't? None that I know. So here is a healthy quick recipe for peanut butter cookies.
Ingredients:
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup honey
1tsp baking soda
1 egg
Mix it all up and drop onto your baking pan. Small drops, cause they spread big.
Make at 350 for about 10 minutes.
Let the cookies sit on your pan got another 10 minutes, they will continue to harden, they are delicate so be careful.
Enjoy your healthy snack, I didn't get a picture of the final product cause the kids devoured them before I could!!

Chicken n' Broccoli

Hey ya'll!!! Busy busy thursday it's been. I'm actually just sittin down to watch a few episodes of my favorite show, Supernatural... Oh my wow.. isn't Dean just dreamy?

Oh... yea sorry... so after the long day we had here the last thing I wanted to was slave over a hot stove. My mother sure did teach me right.. being an island girl she sure knew some tips and tricks of her own, now this recipe can be modified for crock pot cooking as well.

Chicken or Beef n Broccoli

Ingredients:

1lb chicken or beef (if using crock pot you do not need to pre cook chicken or beef)

1tbs sesame oil

1 1/2 cup soy sauce

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tbs fresh minced garlic

1 tbs cornstarch

1/2 bag frozen broccoli

Directions:

Take your chicken or beef and dice into 1/2 inch chunks.
Cook that up with your garlic.
Once your chicken or beef is cooked through add in remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.
Cover and simmer over low heat for about 20 min. ( I usually wait and start my rice pot at this point)

Serve over a warm bed of rice. No need to add extra salt or pepper. As my kids would say ... its so ono mom!

Enjoy ya'll!!

Homemade Laundry Soap!!!

WOW!!! What a LONG weekend. Sorry ya'll the laptop has been down the last couple days, but watch out, I'm back in action. 

So first of all, veterans day weekend was an absolute BLAST!!! Started out the weekend by doing one of my favorite things, you got it, line dancing at the local country bar!! That's me there in the middle with the white lace shirt on. :)

 Followed by a day out in the woods with my older brother!!! Beers, Mud, and woods? Can I get a hell ya???

 My most favorite past time!!! Gettin a little mud on them tires!!! Doin it country style!!

 

Well, that was my weekend!!! 

Today I have some homemade laundry soap on the menu.. Love love love this recipe, I will never buy store bought soap EVER again!!! Took me literally under 30 minutes to make. No kidding. Plus it smells amazing, I don't have to use fabric softener unless I'm doing my towels that is. :)

Ok, here we go.. 

Ingredients:

2 bars fels naptha or zote bar laundry soap grated.

1 box borax

 

1 box WASHING soda not to be confused with BAKING soda. 

Oxi Clean I use the smallest tub of it. 

Scent Booster such as downy unstoppables or gain fireworks. (entire bottle of it.)

I mix all of my ingredients in double bagged trash bags then transfer to my container.

Grate your soap and pour ALL the named above items into your trash bags, give it a toss or 10 and transfer into your preffered container. 

The oxi clean comes with a scoop. I reuse the scoop and use it to put my soap into the DRUM of my HE washer, DO NOT put in the soap tray, but into the yes DRUM. 

 

It really really is cost effective, a child ran off with my receipt so I'm going to be making another batch in a few weeks and will post my savings and exact measurements on the boxes of ingredients and some more pictures to come.

Please, if you have questions or comments, please feel free. Love getting feedback!!

Till next time, later ya'll!!!

 

The Sweet Smells of Home!

Afternoon ya'll!!! Ok so here is my do it yourself natural home fragrances!! Get rid of those expensive plug in air fresheners, talk about a waste of money!! Plus, what's in those things that make them smell so good? Ooooh, I dont know either, but I don't know if I really want to chance my children or myself breathing it in!! This recipe takes less then ten minutes to throw together, and its once again all natural!

Today I will be featuring my favorite! Orange Cinnamon or Apple Cinnamon.
 

I will be giving you the recipe I use for my mini crockpot that I use to heat this. 

2 Oranges, I quarter my oranges (if using apples I do the same.)

4 sticks of cinnamon

4-5 whole cloves

a dash of allspice

a dash of nutmeg


I toss all my ingredients into my mini crockpot

Cover your ingredients in water.

Place it in your crockpot and turn it on low. LID OFF! Your water will eventually evaporate yes.  Just keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn, I've left mine on low literally all day and never had a problem with it burning. 

Run it for a few hours, and if you like you can tranfer to a jar and save your scents for later use. Use up to 4-5 times. Store your leftover scent in a sealed jar in your fridge for up to 2 weeks. 

Its smart, its easy, its all natural!! 
 
 

 

"Out of the Box Mac and Cheese"

Howdy ya'll!!! The weekend is upon us. I've got a few posts for ya'll today. First up is My "Out of the box Mac and Cheese" 

I have three little ones under the ages seven and under. When they are hungry, they are HUNGRY!! So, I ask, what child doesn't like Mac and Cheese?? Exactly!! It is comfort food for the young soul.  Boxed mac and cheese has so many extra preservatives in so, this is where my freeze dried foods come in handy. Yes FREEZE dried, no additives so extra preservatives. Wholesome, natural, and HEALTHY foods. 

Ingredients - 

3 cups cooked macaroni (today I used Ziti though)

1/2 a cup of the cheese powder blend

1/4 cup of the butter powder 

1/2 cup of lowfat milk (which I made out of the milk powder)


Directions-

Boil your noodles and drain well.

mix all above ingedients together until creamy. 

serve and enjoy. (I added a little extra salt and pepper to my own, but the kids at is as is and came back for more!!)

This recipe took me 15 minutes.. including the time to boil the noodles. 11 minutes to al dente and its done in no time at all. The best part is, you KNOW exactly what you are feeding your kids and yourself.

I bought my freeze dried foods over at walmart, they have a decent variety of emergency/everyday/food storage cans there! Reasonable price as well!!! 

Until next time ya'll, keep on preppin!!
 
 

BLT...Junk Salad

Evening Ya'll!!! 


So, I LOVE LOVE LOVE BLTs... But, there is just never quite enough meat (says my kids dad) so I decided to put a twist on it!! I found a similar recipe on Pinterest. This is my personal take on it. 

This recipe fed my three kids, their father and myself with leftovers for tomorrow. I must add that all three of the littles came back for seconds!!! Winner in my book!!

BLT Junk Pasta Salad.

Ingredients-

Romaine Lettuce, however much you desire, I used to hearts of romaine.

One box of pasta of your choice. Tonight I used Tortelle 

Half a package of bacon, fried crispy and chopped into bacon bits

1/2 lb ground turkey browned
 
one can olive slices

4 Roma tomatoes chopped.. I tossed them in the pan that I cooked the bacon and turkey in for a minute to add some extra flavor to them.

tablespoon minced garlic (for seasoning your turkey)

1 1/2 cup mayo 

tablespoon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

First I cut my romaine hearts and gave them a good wash!

Next I cooked my bacon then my turkey. I cooked all the turkey in this tube but reserved half for a meal later this week! After my meat was done I got rid of most of the juices and popped my tomatoes in, just to give it a little flavor.

All the while my pasta has been cooking to al dente!!

 

 Turkey, Tomatoes, Olives, Bacon, Mayo, a Bit o' Mustard and Pasta at the bottom.

Time to toss it up

The final product!!!

 

 Yea, its sideways I know :)

Throw some of that yummy lettuce in your bowl.

Add the junk pasta on top and ENJOY!

 

 

 

The wonderful thing about this is you can do so many things with this salad, you can add any or everything you want. Pickles? Sure, Carrots? Sure! Cheese?! Dang, that's what I forgot!! 

 

Have a wonderful evening everybody. I will be back tomorrow with more!!! 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

Homemade Mini Corndogs!

Afternoon Readers!!!!

  Whew what an intense week it has been already. With that dang election over and done with my prepping and frugal living has been jump started!! I'm more determined then I have ever been to prepare for a real economic downfall! 

  Well, on a better note I have an amazing, easy, and kid friendly recipe that I am going to share with you today!

Mini Corndogs, how much do we spend on a box of regular corndogs? I want to say please correct me if I'm wrong, but they usually come in a box of 10 at walmart in the frozen section and you pay no less then 10 bucks for them. Hmm, well what if you could make twice as many for about the same price and you don't have all those nasty preservatives in them? Yes please!!

So here is the Recipe for just one meal. This would also be something that you could make a bunch of and pop into the freezer for quick easy meals, for those busy days juggling laundry, housework and everything else. 

Recipe for a single meal-

1  box jiffy corn muffin mix 
 ( one egg and 1/3 cup of milk) - ingredients to make the corn muffin mix
2-3 hotdogs of your choice. 

Directions-

Mix corn muffin mix as directed on the back of box. 
(preheat oven to 400 degrees)
Fill muffin tins with muffin mix
Cut hot dogs into slices and place into muffin mix
Bake in oven for 15-20 min
  Let cool and serve

I served mine with my "Out of the Box Mac and Cheese" and grapes :) Kids are happy, mom is happy!! Now how simple is that??

** BLOG UPDATE**
This second time around I tried putting the hot dog slices in the muffin tins first then adding the cornbread mix and let it sit for a couple minutes to let the mix sink to the bottom of the tin. Turned out wonderful!!!  

Prepping the right way!!

Hello readers!!!
   First of all I would like to introduce myself. My name is Nicole, I'm a sweet southern girl who happens to be living in the great northwest! I am a stay home mother of three beautiful babies, 4 days out of the week I also watch a little boy who is just tons of fun and is my son's bestest friend in the whole wide world.
   This blog will take you through my steps to become a successful prepper, to be prepared for the worst when it hits. To become a more frugal human being in my way of life and to teach my children the value of the little things in life. 
 With our economy sinking more and more every single day, my goal is to go back to a more simple style of life, a HEALTHIER style of life.
  Let me ask all you readers a question? If we had a crisis and there was no more water, no more power, if you were trapped in your home for weeks, what would you do? Exactly, most of you don't know. It isn't to be taken lightly, a crisis could happen at any point, and no I am not talking about the zombie apocalypse either.

  Within this blog I will add DIY projects, prepping projects, recipes healthy and some that I just love!! All ins and outs and odds and ends!!

Please!! Join me in my journey to prepardness and SELF reliance!!!! You are also more then welcome to follow me over at Pinterest http://pinterest.com/sassypants1005/