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I asked you guys on Facebook yesterday for any tips or tricks that you had for homemade tortillas. I didn’t want to make them with shortening, but I’ve heard that that is the only way to get them to turn out right.

You guys had lots of great suggestions and so I tried my luck at making homemade tortillas today.

My husband’s response? “I think these are the best tortillas I’ve ever had!” Seriously??? Wow, what a compliment!! I think they are pretty up there for me as well, and I’m kind of picky with tortillas.

So what made the difference? Well, I think the biggest change was that I used coconut oil instead of olive oil. The second thing I did differently was to let them sit covered for at least an hour after I made them into balls.

Do you want the recipe?

Here’s what you need:

4 cups of whole wheat flour
1 cup of white flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup of coconut oil
1 3/4 cup BOILING water
Extra flour to help with rolling them out

Here’s what you do: (I used my Kitchen Aid mixer and dough hook, but you can do this by hand as well)

1. Mix all of the dry ingredients (flour, salt, and baking powder). Then add the coconut oil and mix thoroughly. I had to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl several times to keep the flour/oil mixture from coming out. Oh, and I HIGHLY recommend one of these types of measurers that is pictured in the second picture below. It makes measuring sticky stuff so much easier! (Mine is from Pampered Chef, but I got it at a garage sale).

2. Once everything is mixed, slowly pour in the boiling water and mix the dough up until it’s no longer sticky. I think I mixed it around 5 minutes or so.

3. Form the dough into balls and put them on a cookie sheet. I was able to make 35 balls with the dough I had and the tortillas turned out the perfect size for us. Cover the cookie sheet with a kitchen towel and let sit for AT LEAST an hour.

4. Heat up your griddle to HIGH heat (I would’ve tried a skillet on the stove, but that didn’t work so well the last time I did tortillas, so I tried the electric griddle instead).

5. Spread some flour out on a flat surface (I used a large cutting board for easy clean up) and place a dough ball in the middle of the flour. Sprinkle more flour on top of the ball and press down on the ball HARD with a pie plate to flatten it out in a circle. Peel the dough circle off the bottom of the pie plate and re-flour the top and bottom. Roll out with a rolling pin to the desired thickness. (Note: I tried just rolling one out without using the pie plate first and it didn’t turn out nearly as well).

6. Make sure that the griddle is fully heated, then place the tortillas on the griddle. Let it cook around 30 seconds, then flip it and let it cook on the other side for 30 seconds. Take it off the griddle and start on the next one. My 7 year old and I had a good little routine going…. she would cook the tortillas and I would flour and roll it out. They both took right around 30 seconds.

7. Enjoy!! I served the tortillas with homemade hummus and veggies, but I wasn’t really impressed with the hummus recipe, so I’m not going to share it. But I’m going to keep trying on the hummus too because we all LOVE hummus and I would love to make it from scratch. Any suggestions for homemade hummus recipes?

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your frugal recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

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Okay…. I have a confession to make.

Are you ready? You promise you won’t stop coming to Surviving The Stores?

I have never ever made beans from scratch before.  In fact, I’ve always been a little scared of it. And I have NO idea why!

But I have conquered my fear, and let me assure you, there is nothing to be afraid of!  It really is so much easier than I imagined it in my head.

You’ll likely see several beans and rice recipe variations over the next few months.   My goal is to make beans and rice at least twice a week during this season of surviving a layoff.  I really want our savings to last as long as possible.

So, are you ready? It really is so so easy and the whole family LOVED this recipe!

Here’s what you need:

2 cups of dry pinto beans (I’m sure you could use another type of beans too)
Water to soak the beans in
1 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1 Onion, chopped
Cilantro
Salt (to taste)
1/2 cup of your favorite Salsa
Cooked Rice
Grated Cheese (if desired)

Here’s what you do:

1. Put the beans in a bowl and cover with water.  Let the beans sit overnight (I, um, let them sit in the water overnight and until 4:00 the next day)

2. When you are ready to cook the beans, drain the water off of them and put them into a pot. Cover the beans again with water and bring to a boil.   Once the water is boiling, turn the burner down to low and let the beans sit covered for at least an hour.

3. Saute the onion in the olive oil until tender.

4. Put the sauteed onion, cilantro, salt and salsa into the pot with the beans.  Cover and cook about an hour more until the beans are tender.

5. Serve over rice and top with grated cheese if desired.

6. Enjoy!!

If you want to, you could drain the beans in the morning (instead of waiting until the last minute like me) and cook them in the crockpot all day on low with the other ingredients mixed in.

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your frugal recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

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I am so excited to share with you guys one of my absolute favorite super-easy recipes! This was a perfect meal to make this week since I got such an awesome deal on Classico Pasta Sauce this week at Brookshires. I usually make this meal when we are having company over, or I will make it and freeze it to eat later or bring to a friend.

Sorry about the lack of picture quality… we brought all of the ingredients to a friend’s house to make and I totally forgot my camera so I had to use my husband’s phone for pictures (pretty good for a phone though, right?)

Here’s what you need:

2 lbs of ground meat (I used 1 lb. of ground beef and 1 lb. of ground turkey)
2 jars of pasta sauce (obviously, I used Classico… by the way the Carmelized Onions and Garlic Classico is AWESOME!)
1 onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. minced garlic
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
7 ounces of Ricotta Cheese (about half of a container)
2 boxes of pasta (such a penne or rotini)
Italian spices to taste (I use parsley, oregano and basil)
2 cups of shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Here’s how to make it:

1. Cook the onion in a very small amount of olive oil. Add the meat and cook until almost cooked through, then add the minced garlic. Continue cooking until the meat is cooked through.

2. Add the 2 jars of pasta sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, and Spices and mix thoroughly. Allow to simmer for around 15 – 20 minutes.

3. While the sauce is simmering, cook the pasta according to package directions. I am trying to stay away from gluten for the most part (not going completely gluten-free) so I made one pot of rice pasta and another of whole wheat pasta. Once the pasta has finished cooking, drain the water off and mix with the sauce.

4. Grease or spray the bottom of 2 9×13 inch pans (or 1 large lasagna pan) and spread half of the pasta mixture along the bottom of the pan(s). Place small blobs of ricotta cheese over the first layer of pasta.

5. Put the other half of the pasta mixture on top and then sprinkle the mozzarella cheese on top.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for around 12-15 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

7. Enjoy!!

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your frugal recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

Related posts:

1. Top Weekend Restaurant Coupons! (2/10/12)

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I don’t know about you guys, but I think that spending $3 for a small and large pizza is a GREAT deal. My original plan was to get two small pizzas since both would have been free, but Ryan wanted a large instead and Mr. Jim’s was giving large upgrades for only $3! When have you ever seen large pizzas on sale for $3?? So we opted for one small and one large and it was way more than enough to feed our family of 5.

We took the pizzas to the park and had a little picnic in the pavilion, but before we left to pick up the pizzas I HAD to make some caramelized onions to go on top of my pizza. YUM!! If you haven’t tried caramelized onions on top of pizza, I highly recommend it (I would’ve added sauteed mushrooms too if we would’ve had some on hand).  In my opinion sauteed onions and mushrooms make just about anything taste better!

Normally I will have recipes on Meals With My Deals, but this was such a fun treat I had to share it with you guys!!

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your frugal recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

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This week I’m going to share with you one of my absolute favorite recipes! It’s super easy and great to make when pineapple is in season. You can use canned pineapple with it (remember that great 50¢/1 Dole Canned Pineapple coupon a few months back?) but since fresh pineapple is on sale for as low as $1.99 right now (or free this week if you have an Earth Fare store near you) then I would recommend using fresh.

You can use bone-in chicken pieces for this meal, but I personally prefer using Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts instead. My “buy it” price for BSCB is when it’s under $2/lb, and especially when it’s $1.88/lb like it is this week at Kroger.

I ended up buying the off-brand Heinz 57 sauce because this is the only recipe I use it for and even though I could’ve bought the larger brand-name bottle and used a $2 off coupon from the 3/14 SS (which would make it cheaper per ounce than the off brand), the bottle would end up just sitting in my fridge for YEARS! If you are feeling really brave, you can make your own Heinz 57 sauce (did you know it has pureed raisins in it??)

Here’s what you need:

2 pounds of your favorite Chicken Pieces
Salt and pepper to taste
Enough sliced pineapple to cover each piece of chicken (or 1 can of sliced pineapple in its own juice)
1/3 c. Heinz 57 Sauce
2 Tbsp. Honey

Here’s what you do:

1. Place chicken in lightly oiled (or sprayed) baking dishes. Season with the salt and pepper. Bake chicken in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.

2. While the chicken is cooking, cut and drain the pineapple, and reserve 2 Tbsp. of the juice. If you are using a fresh pineapple, cut the top and bottom off and then cut off the sides. I didn’t have a pineapple corer, so my centers that I cut out aren’t perfectly round. Also, I juiced the cores in my Vitamix to get enough juice for 2 Tbsp and strained it into a measuring cup.

3. Combine the pineapple juice, Heinz 57 sauce and honey and pour over the chicken. Bake chicken an additional 25 minutes, basting occasionally.

4. Arrange sliced pineapple over the chicken and bake an extra 10 minutes.

5. Spoon the excess sauce over the chicken and serve with rice and veggies! I thought it went very well with sauteed spinach with garlic. ENJOY!

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your frugal recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

Related posts:

1. Top Weekend Restaurant Coupons! (2/10/12)

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I saw this Asparagus Casserole recipe when I was looking through the Easter Recipes eBook that I posted about yesterday and I just couldn’t wait to try it!

Asparagus is on sale for $1.47 a pound this week at Kroger, so it’s the perfect time to make this dish!

You could use it as a side dish to your Easter Ham this weekend, or add some cooked chicken to make it a full meal casserole. You could also use homemade crackers instead of store-bought. I’m planning on trying it again with homemade gluten-free rice crackers.

Here’s what you need:

2 pounds of fresh asparagus
1 can of cream of celery soup
1 can of cream of chicken soup
2 cups of crushed saltine crackers (I used about 1 1/4 sleeves)
2 cups of shredded cheese (the original recipe calls for Velveeta, but I’d much rather use the real stuff)
2 eggs

Here’s what you do:

1. Break off the ends of the asparagus. Just hold the asparagus at both ends and snap off the end — it will break where it’s supposed to (thanks to my friend Erin at $5 Dinners for that tip!)

2. Wash the asparagus, then put it in the crockpot.

3. Add the cream of chicken soup and the cream of celery soup, the crushed crackers, the cheese and the eggs.

4. Mix it all together really well and cook on HIGH for 3 – 3 1/2 hours.

5. Enjoy! I will definitely be making this one again!

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your frugal recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

Related posts:

1. Pet Coupons, Freebies & Deals Weekly Round-up! (2/10/12)

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I love having a crockpot. It would definitely be in my top 5 must-have kitchen appliances list. I love that I can put dinner in it when my youngest goes down for her nap at 1:00 and it’s ready by 6:00!

I’ve been trying to buy more natural, horomone-free, steroid-free meat, and the best deal seems to always be buying a whole chicken. And coupons.com always has some kind of coupon up for Gold N’ Plump All Natural Chicken. They’ve had the 75¢/1 coupon up for a while now.

So… here’s one of my favorite things to do with a a whole chicken.

Ingredients you will need:

1 Whole Chicken, you can leave the skin on if you want to or remove the skin
Crockpot
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil (if you take the skin off)
1 Tbsp. salt
2 tsp. pepper
2 Tbsp. Sage Seasoning (I used dried sage, but you could use fresh too)
Onion Powder (to taste)
Garlic Powder (to taste)
Dried Parsley
10-12 cloves of Garlic
3 Tbsp. of Lemon Juice

How to make it:

Place the whole chicken in the crockpot (make sure to take out the little baggy that’s inside the cavity of the chicken). Coat the chicken with the olive oil, and then sprinkle the salt, pepper, sage, onion powder, garlic powder and parsley onto the chicken. Rub the spices into the chicken until it is coated thoroughly.

Break off and peel the garlic cloves from the bulb of garlic. Stick the cloves inside the cavity of the chicken.

Pour the lemon juice over the top of the chicken (nope, didn’t have fresh lemons!). Cook on high for 3-4 hours or until cooked through.

I served it with brown rice and steamed broccoli. YUM!!

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your frugal recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

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I love having these freezer meals on hand for those nights that I just really do not feel like cooking at all. These meals are usually a little pricey, but many times you can score a great deal on them when good coupons are released (like a B1G1 Free coupon and a $1 off coupon that you can use together!)

Even though most weeks there will be actual recipes on Meals With My Deals, this week I wanted to share with you what I do to extend these meals further than the 2-3 they are made for.

I’m honestly almost embarrassed to say that I used to cook multiple of these meals at the same time so that I would have enough to feed everyone. The pasta and veggie portions are usually pretty slim, so one day I decided to just add more of my own pasta and veggies to stretch the meal further, and it turned out great.  We try to eat smaller portions of meat anyway, and there is plenty of sauce in one package (more than necessary most of the time, in my opinion).

Super easy, right? I’m seriously kicking myself for those times that I used up two bags just for our little family.

Meal straight from the package (yeah, not a lot, right?)

Fresh broccoli added.

Cooked pasta added.

Done! Definitely a meal that can feed our little family of 5!

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

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If you are a fan of Surviving The Stores on Facebook then you probably saw that I was asking about radish recipes the other day.  I got two packages of radishes with my produce co-op items last week (more info to come on produce co-ops!) and I had NO CLUE what to do with them.

I got some great feedback from Facebook and Twitter and decided to make a Cucumber Radish salad with Buttermilk.  I had a carton of buttermilk in the fridge from the scones that I made this past week and it always ends up going bad so I needed to find something to do with it.

We all love LOVE Mediterranean food, so this recipe was perfect for us.  This was my lunch today, but you can have it by itself or as a side dish along with grilled chicken, fish, or your favorite mediterranean dish.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 large Cucumber quartered and diced
4-5 Radishes sliced thin
1 cup of Buttermilk
Salt and Pepper
Sliced Onions or Onion Powder (we were out of onions so I just used the powder)
Minced Garlic (I put about a teaspoon)
Fresh or dried dill (I didn’t have any dill, but I DID have dill pickle relish!  I thought it tasted great!)
1-2 tsp. of white vinegar, unless you are using the dill pickle relish b/c it already has vinegar in it

Here’s what you do:

Mix all of the ingredients.  Chill in the fridge for at least an hour.  And enjoy!  So easy, so good for you, and SO GOOD!

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

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Well, we love Waffles and we love Pizza, so when I saw this recipe bringing both together I just had to try it! It ended up being very very easy and we all LOVED it!

This would be a great meal to make with the deals going on right now with the Gold Medal Flour coupon!

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup flour (I used whole wheat flour and it was great!)
1 Tbsp. Baking Power
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar or other sweetener
3 large eggs
1 3/4 c. milk
1/2 c. oil or butter
1 can of diced tomatoes
shredded cheese
Italian/pizza seasoning (I used TONS of basil in ours)
Pepperoni/sausage/whatever meat you have on hand

NOTE: You can use whatever waffle recipe you want to… I was planning on using a Yeast Waffle recipe, but it had to rise for an hour and half and when you start dinner at 6… well, we just went with a different recipe.

Directions:

Mix all of the waffle ingredients together well (up through the oil/butter).

Once it’s mixed well, add the rest of the ingredients and mix again.

Heat your waffle maker and pour a little over 1/2 cup of batter into it. I would recommend scraping the bottom of the bowl to get the tomatoes and meat that sink to the bottom.

Enjoy!!

This was such an easy recipe and was a hit with everyone!

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners Bargain Meal Of The Week where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

Related posts:

1. Pet Coupons, Freebies & Deals Weekly Round-up! (2/10/12)

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Raise your hand if you STILL have the free Mayonnaise in your pantry from the Target sale last year…. come on, be honest!

Here’s a super easy and YUMMY recipe for homemade basil/italian ranch dressing that you can make with that mayo:

You will need:

1 cup of Mayonnaise
1 tsp. White Vinegar
3-6 Tbsp. milk
Chopped fresh or dried basil leaves
Garlic Powder
Any other spices you want to add in (I added parsley and italian seasoning too)

Mix it together and you have a great salad dressing! The cost was extremely minimal since I got the mayo for free. I’m guessing around 10¢-15¢? Last night at dinner my oldest said, “Mom, this dressing is better than the ones you can buy!” What a great compliment! So yes, it’s kid-friendly too.

To go with our salad I made chicken and couscous. Couscous is one of my favorite starch dishes because it only takes 5 minutes to cook! I’ve used couscous instead of rice for Chinese food, instead of pasta for Italian food, and instead of potatoes too! I first found out about couscous when I went on the South Beach Diet a few years back. It was one of the only “pasta-type” foods you could have on the second phase of the diet because it has such a low number on the glycemic index.

You can buy couscous in boxes or plastic containers at just about any supermarket, but I prefer to buy it in the bulk foods section of Whole Foods or Central Market (much better price) and put it into a jar of my own.

I had several cans of Cream of Mushroom soup left from when they were 12¢ at Target, so I added a can of soup to a pot, along with 2 cans of water and let it boil. Then I added about 2 cups of couscous, let it return to a boil, put a lid on it, and took it off the burner immediately. It’s ready in 5 minutes!

I heated up some grilled boneless/skinless chicken breasts that I had cooked the night before (got them for $1.98/lb which is about the highest I will pay for non-organic Boneless/Skinless chicken) and mixed it in with the couscous after the 5 minutes were up.

My kids ate up the couscous/chicken combo and my husband loved it too. I personally wasn’t incredibly impressed with the flavor, so I think I’ll add a few more spices next time I try this dish.

All in all everything cost under $4 (all of the veggies were from a produce co-op that we pay $10 a week to be part of)!

Now it’s your turn! What kind of recipes did you come up with to use with your deals? Please link directly to your recipe below.

I also highly recommend heading over to $5 Dinners’ Bargain Meal Of The Week page where she categorizes meals by different store deals!

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Last week I announced a new feature here on Surviving The Stores called Meals With My Deals. Each week I will post a recipe as well as a linky for you guys to link up to your recipes!

This week’s recipe is: Veggie-Turkey Burgers!

I am part of a Fruit and Veggie co-op with a local group in my area. Each week one of the members heads over to the Farmer’s Market in Dallas and picks up the fruit and veggies that look good and are on sale. Because there are so many of us in the group, we can get a really good discount on buying the products in bulk!

But when I have lots of veggies in the fridge, usually the only thing I can think of to use them for is salad. So I got creative one night and tried the following recipe which turned out to be GREAT!

You will need:

1 lb. of ground meat (I used ground turkey, but you can use any type)
Veggies – I used carrots, celery, tomatoes, and grilled jalepenos
1 egg
About 1/2 cup – 3/4 cup of oatmeal or bread crumbs
Spices – whatever you think would go well (salt, peppers, garlic powder, tarragon, parsley…. whatever you want to throw in)
Sliced Avocado (if you like it)
Lettuce
1 Small Onion – sliced thin
1 Tbsp Olive Oil (to saute’ the onions in)
Bread (who says burgers always have to be on hamburger buns??)

Now to put it all together:

Turn your veggies into veggie-mush with a food processor. I LOVE my one-touch mini food processor and use it all the time.

Dump your thawed ground meat into a bowl along with the veggie-mush.

Add the oatmeal or bread crumbs, egg, and any spices you want to put in there. Mix it all up really good with your hands… it’s so fun too!

Heat your grill (I use this one) to around 350º and cook your burgers thoroughly.

While the burgers are cooking, slice your avocado and saute’ your onion (i.e. cook it in a small skillet along with the oil until the onion looks clear and starts smelling REALLY good).

Once the burgers are done, put it all together and enjoy!

The best part is that my kids had no clue that the burgers were full of veggies!! (The kids did opt out of the avocados and onions, though).

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**Remember, next Thursday I will add a Link-up so that you can link to your “Meals With My Deals” post! While it is not required, I would love it if you grabbed the “Meals With My Deals” button to add to your post. You can get the code for it HERE.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the recipes you all come up with!

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I am so VERY excited to introduce a new weekly feature here on Surviving The Stores!!

We all get some incredible deals at the grocery stores each week, but what do we do with them? How do we turn these great deals into meals for our families?

Each Thursday I am going to post a recipe with how I used my deals that week. Want to know what you can do with free mayonaise? Or some creative ways to use those free boxes of cereal? Me too!! I’m excited to learn and try out some new recipes along with all of you!

Are you ready for the best part??

Each Thursday underneath my recipe I will post a link-up so that you all can link to your “Meals With My Deals” recipes! I can’t wait to see the recipes that everyone comes up with!

Since I’m announcing it this week, I will post a recipe and reminder next week, and then the following week (Thursday Feb. 25) I will add the section for you guys to link to your recipes!

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Pet Coupons, Freebies & Deals Weekly Round-up! (2/10/12)