Create Your Own Restaurant Experience at Home

Friday night around our house we like to go out and eat dinner at a reasonably priced restaurant. This usually happens about every other week since it's so costly to go out to a restaurant and feed a family of five. Instead of going out and spending the money that you would normally spend at a restaurant, try having a restaurant style dinner at your house, but go all out. One of our favorite things about eating at some of the restaurants we visit are the pre-dinner items that they bring out to the table. At an Italian restaurant I can't resist the bread and butter, or the chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant.

Try going all out at your house for your evening restaurant meal and provide all the things that the restaurant normally would, at about a fourth of the cost. For Italian, just use a family style tray of lasagna (my favoritre is Wal-Mart's Great Value), or for Mexican throw a quick batch of enchiladas together. Really set the mood and throw a table cloth on the table with either a candle or a small vase of fresh flowers. If your worried about the table cloth catching on fire with the candle and small children, try a Glade Wisp flameless candle (minus the fragrance) just for the ambiance. Try typing up a simple menu using clip-art from the web and use a report cover to really dress it up. One final item that you won't want to forget for your evening is some accompanying music.

Emergency Preparedness

In the past four to six weeks we've had two events occur that really got me thinking about how I need to be prepared for my family in the event of an emergency. The first event that happened was a mild ice storm that turned into a few days of no school for the kids. This wasn't a major catastrophic event, but it did inconvenience us for a few days. The second, and more terrifying for me, was a tornado. I was at home with our three year old when the bad weather started, and stressed for the next three hours, worrying about whether or not a tornado was going to hit our house. The tornado did happen, but thankfully not in our vicinity.

With the ice storm, it wasn't imminent danger I was concerned with, it was what necessities did we have or not have in the house to survive for a couple of days. The first thing I figured out that I needed was something to melt the ice off the driveway so that I could park either in the garage or in our driveway to avoid a potential accident by leaving my car parked in the street. I looked at two stores for ice melt, and discovered that I was probably a couple of hours late because they were sold out. I was finally able to get into our driveway with the help of a bucket of sand from my parents house, but decided that I would definitely get some ice melt in advance and store it in the garage for future use. The ice storm could have had the potential to be much worse, and it was for some residents since it caused power outages.

The tornado really caused me a huge amount of stress, and there were a couple of times I was literally in tears as me and my three year were in the closet with blankets and pillows surrounding us, waiting for the storm to pass. After all the storms had passed, and everything returned to normal I really made it a point to make sure we were prepared the next time. I'll be stocking up on water, as I think this is one of the most important things to have on hand, but I'm also thinking about what kind of alternative cooking method I can use if our electricity or gas are off. Our pantry is almost fully stocked for at least two weeks worth of cooking, but I have never kept powdered milk, so this may be something new we will add just to have on hand for an emergency. I'm actually making a list of what things need to be done in the event of a tornado, because I started panicking and couldn't remember everything I needed to do. Whatever you do don't wait until the emergency happens to get prepared.

(The picture above is not from our recent ice storm, but one from over the last couple of years)

Freebie:Kashi Frozen Entree

Kashi is one of the crowd favorites at our house, but coupons for Kashi are hard to come by. For a limited time, Kashi is offering a coupon for a free frozen entree.

IHOP: National Pancake Day Celebration

Flip for Free Pancakes - February 24, 2009

Join IHOP to celebrate National Pancake Day on Tuesday, February 24, 2009. From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., we'll give you one free short stack (three) of our famous buttermilk pancakes.* All we ask is that you consider making a donation to support local children's hospitals through Children's Miracle Network, or other local charities.

Saving Fresh Produce

Our family is like many other families with three children and a pet. We don't have a lot of time and our schedule can change at the drop of a hat. My husband has a job and works as a musician, our family is active in church activities, and of course there are family and school activities. It only follows that some of our fresh produce sometimes is not used. Instead of throwing it away we decided to freeze the produce we buy when it is in danger of spoiling. Today, my husband took two bunches each of cilantro and flat leaf Italian parsley, a green pepper, two onions, a bunch of celery, and a bulb of garlic and chopped them for freezing. Not only are we avoiding throwing away fresh produce but we are also preparing some traditional seasoning mixes for dishes we prepare regularly. We have two friends from Puerto Rico who turned us on to Arroz con Pollo (Chicken and Rice) and Arroz con Gandules (Rice and Pigeon Peas). These dishes both require sofrito which is a mix of olive oil, garlic, green pepper, cilantro, and onion. We made two batches of sofrito for the freezer. We also tend to cook Italian dishes that use parsley, onion, celery, and garlic. We made two batches of this blend as well. We labeled them and stuck them in the freezer for future use. Just think about it – grocers sell frozen vegetables that are healthy and in high demand. You can make your own frozen vegetables with less common and even exotic ingredients.

Product Review: Bar Keepers Friend

One of my favorite cleaners to use in the kitchen and bathroom has got to be Bar Keeper's Friend. It is a powdered cleanser with a mild abrasive and it has really made a difference in some of my cleaning tasks. We had heard of Bar Keeper's Friend from one of our friends who suggested we use it when we told him about the hard water stains our bathtub had. I was skeptical about its effectiveness though because I had used a lot of different cleaners and they barely even touched the stains. Bar Keeper's Friend really worked on the bathtub and I was a firm believer after that.

I have used it on our stainless steel pans to get cooked on grease off, our porcelain kitchen sink to shine the surface back to almost new, and the stove top for any tough stains. I've found Bar Keeper's Friend at Home Depot and Lowe's, and I'm sure it can be found at any hardware store. It is also available to purchase direct from the Bar Keeper's Friend site.

Free Trial Issue of All You

If you've been wanting to try out the magazine All You, now's your chance. Wal-mart's site is offering a free trial issue of the magazine, and if you would like to continue the annual price for 12 issues is $26.88. I like the All You magazine since it provides another source of coupons and many are different than what I receive in my Sunday inserts each week.