It is finally nearing the time to start putting our plants in the ground. We started our seeds indoors that need to be a little plant first before being placed in the ground, and they are already growing. We planted them less than seven days ago.  Wow! My husband and son expanded our garden area so that we will have room to plant zucchini and beans. This is our first year for the zucchini and beans, and I am looking forward to the harvest once they start growing. We will also continue growing tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, and basil.

We are starting everything from seed, so hopefully everything we touch will grow (keeping fingers crossed over here). I don’t have much of a green thumb, but I consider it a great honor to keep the bad bugs and weeds out of the garden. We saved some of the seeds from our basil plants last year, and I can’t wait to get them into the ground. We over planted our basil last year (six plants), not expecting it to do so well since we’ve always grown them in containers. It was like a basil jungle, we had bags and bags of the stuff. We finally pulled four of the plants out near the end of the summer and the two remaining plants still produced enough for our needs.

Our last frost date is around April 15th, so we’ll be keeping everything indoors until it’s time to transfer everything. Check NOAA’s site to get an estimate of when the last frost date is in your area. Select the state you reside in, and then follow the chart to the city where you reside or that is closest to you. The chart is then divided into three categories of 90, 50, and 10 probabilities indicating the date and the probability, or how likely, frost will occur at that date. To play it on the safe side you can opt for the 10% probability, which means there is only a 10 percent chance that frost will occur after that date. We are using the 10% date, which is April 13th for Oklahoma City and will plant somewhere around that date.

As you can see we started a new raised bed garden right on top of the grass. We did this last year as well, and had no problems with weeds or grass coming up through the dirt. The new raised bed offers a lot more space than we had last year, and once we are in the full swing of growing season, we’ll really be able to tell how many plants the bed will be able to hold.

Here are the little seedlings that have started to grow:

One of the the items I purchase at Aldi to speed things along for dinner, and make things simple is their Reggano Stroganoff Skillet Dinner. The dinner by itself tastes fine, we’ve had it several times in the past, but last night I went above and beyond the ingredients that are called for. I sauteed onions and garlic in olive oil, and then added ground turkey along with a little salt and pepper. After the meat, onions, and garlic were done I then continued to follow the directions on the box to finish the meal. Traditional stroganoff calls for sour cream so I tossed a spoon of that into the mixture as well. What I didn’t think about until later is that I could have thrown mushrooms, and other herbs into the mix as well. I was impressed with the results of the stroganoff, and more importantly, so was my family.

As I’ve written before, we drink skim milk on a daily basis, so I keep Half & Half on hand for mixing with our skim milk to provide something close to whole milk. In the case of this dinner I put a little more Half & Half than milk in the mix because I know that it creates a thicker cream when it’s cooked down, and the Half & Half did not fail on it’s end. I have prepared the recipe with skim milk in the past, and the cream sauce works fine with the skim milk, but if you want a thicker texture to the sauce, use something more than skim in the recipe.

Don’t just think of the box as the meal, think of it as the base for a great meal. Add your favorite herbs, spices, and vegetables to the mix to create something your family will ask for again. My favorite part is that I don’t feel guilty about serving stroganoff from a box to my family after preparing last night’s dinner, and getting a new insight on cooking from watching the Julie & Julia movie. Thank heavens for movies!

In our quest to come up with new and exciting things to offer our family to eat, my husband had the brilliant idea of making crepes for dinner one evening after watching Giada De Laurentiis. I was a little hesitant because I’ve seen them made several times on The Food Network, and it looks difficult. My husband actually took on the task of making the crepes and I was impressed with his skill of turning out great looking crepes. I’ve given him the official title of “Crepe Maker” until I am brave enough to try the process myself.

The crepes are a simple recipe requiring only five ingredients: eggs, flour, milk, sugar, and salt. The ingredients are pantry staples and lend themselves to an inexpensive meal. The recipe calls for whole milk, we only drink skim, but I keep half and half in the refrigerator for cooking purposes so we mixed some skim and half and half to get the milk fat to the right proportion. Once you have the crepe batter prepared and ready for filling, the possibilities are endless. We made savory crepes since we were eating dinner, but I can’t wait to try these for dessert as well.

Our filling for our dinner crepes was a combination of chicken, peas, garlic, onions, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese. We sauteed the chicken, garlic, and onions in olive oil along with the salt and pepper, and tossed in some frozen peas for color and flavor. Once the crepe was cooked on one side, we flipped it over to continue cooking the other side. While it was still cooking, we placed the filling in the middle of the crepe and topped with parmesan cheese so that the cheese would begin to melt. Once the second side is finished cooking (less than a minute), roll the crepe and place it on your plate. Enjoy!

As a side note: I want to mention that mixing the half and half and skim milk isn’t an exact science for me. I am not attempting to be perfect to get the correct ratio of half and half and skim milk; I just eyeball it. Since I know that half and half has a high milk fat content (10-18%) and skim milk has less than one percent milk fat, I know that mixing the half and half and the skim milk will get me somewhere close to whole milk which has a milk fat content of around 3.25%. I’ll let you have fun and figure out what ratios work for you.

• Credit card companies can no longer raise rates on existing balances
• Companies can no longer charge a fee for going above a credit limit unless you sign up for a service
• Bills must be mailed at least 21 days before the payment is due
• Companies must provide 45 days notice prior to changing fee amounts or other substantial account characteristics or term
• Credit card companies can still cancel you or lower your limit without giving you notice

There are also a number of other changes and other things that have not changed. I recommend reading the below links to read all about the changes. One thing is for sure – when you deal with credit card companies, you are playing with fire or you are playing with snakes. In either case, the fire can become out of control or you will be bitten.

USA Today story on Credit Card Changes

US Credit Card Charge Offs Up, Deliquencies Down

New Credit Card Rules Allow for Maneuvering

Once again, I will be participating in a local consignment sale held by Pass It On here in Edmond, Oklahoma. The sale takes place March 5th and 6th and will give me the opportunity again to make some extra money, save myself some time by not having a garage sale, and allow me to pick up some items that my kids may need.

Just Between Friends is also another organization that holds annual fall and spring consignment sales. The fall sale offers consignment events in twenty two states.

If you are planning to participate in any of the fall consignment sales I recommend collecting your items now, preparing them for the sale, and getting your tags ready. It does take a little time and effort on your part to get ready for the sale, but it should be worth it in the end. Just remember when preparing your items that they don’t have to be perfect, but ask yourself if you would purchase the item at the price your asking.

We had a family function on Sunday and I was asked to bring a dessert, which was fine, except that I didn’t have all of the ingredients on hand to make any of my standard desserts. I searched the pantry and came up with a few options, but wanted something that would be decadent. I settled on making a Pineapple Upside Down Cake that turned out to be much better than I expected. The cake was incredibly moist, even though the intended texture of the cake was dense. I followed the recipe to the letter, except for a substitution for the cake flour which I did not have on hand. I found an easy substitute for cake flour by combining cornstarch and all purpose flour. I was pleased that I finally had another use for cornstarch, and that I actually keep it in my pantry.

The cake was super simple. I used a round spring form pan and sprayed the inside with cooking spray so that the cake wouldn’t stick once it came time to release it from the pan. I also placed a sheet pan on the rack just below the spring form pan in anticipation of any leaking from the cake. My foresight paid off, because the sheet pan caught all of the drippings that would have ended up making a huge mess at the bottom of my oven. I actually covered the sheet pan in aluminum foil since I was also not interested in cleaning up the mess there either. This one is definitely being added to my list of desserts I can whip up in no time flat.

While there are literally hundreds of ways to go green, not all of them will save you money. If you’re interested in only making changes that will save you money up front without spending anything out of pocket, make a few simple changes that are low cost or no cost up front like:

• Use your own bag at Target for a 5 Cent credit for every bag you use
• Use your own bag at CVS and get $1 in Extra Care Bucks on every 4th visit (must purchase a bag tag for $.99)
• Compost and recycle to reduce the amount of garbage bags you need
• Adjusting your thermostat in the winter(68°) and summer (78º)

When you’re ready to spend some money to save some money, you can still start with baby steps by:

• Replacing your incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs
• Get routine maintenance on your heat and air unit so that it runs efficiently

When you’re ready to spend some more money to save money over the course of a few years, here are a couple of pricier options:

• Replace old appliances that aren’t Energy Star rated
• Replace windows with energy efficient windows

Dave Ramsey has posted a brief list of ideas for cheap dates on his website. If you aren’t familiar with Dave Ramsey, he is a personal finance guru. He isn’t the type of guy talking about advanced high finance or anything along those lines. The main principles he talks about are simple – avoiding debt by saving, using good behavior with your money, and doing what you love. He is also a Christian although you’d need to listen to his radio show or podcast for a while to really hear that. His books are very encouraging if you are looking to pay down credit card debt or debt in general. Follow this link here for his Valentine’s Day date ideas. I highly recommend listening to his free podcast that you can get at the iTunes store as a free download.

Don’t miss Free Pretzel Day on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 from 10:00 a.m. through 3:00 p.m at Auntie Anne’s Pretzels. This is a free, no strings attached, pretzel, but I’m sure as with all things that are free to the masses, it will cause pandaemonium somewhere. Limit of one original or cinnamon sugar pretzel per person please.

Also, if you like their pretzels as much as we do, sign-up for Pretzel Perks to receive monthly emails which include coupons, and other great offers.