Keeping toddlers busy without breaking the bank!

Staying home with Roman full time has been challenging in a lot of different ways, but the most common problems I have is trying to find ways to keep him entertained and busy without spending a ton of money.  Living in the prairies I've had to adjust my activities with the seasons since being outside, which is free and fun, isn't always an option, especially in the winter.  Here are a few of Roman's favorite activities that are inexpensive or absolutely free!

YMCA Play Groups
This is by far one of our favorite activities.  I feel most cities have a YMCA/YWCA and they likely have programming similar to us here in Moose Jaw.  This play group is an excellent opportunity for Roman to get to interact with other kids and work on his playing/sharing/communication/negotiation skills.  Plus I get to visit with other moms and dads which is critical in keeping your sanity when you spend 95% of your day alone with someone who can only say 20 words.  I also love these play groups because they are offered every day of the week and they are absolutely free!

If you live in a smaller centre without a centre that puts on play groups, head to Facebook!  It seems like every town has a mommy Facebook page these days and this is a great resource to find other moms and organize your own play groups!

Museums
Now you might think that kids Roman's age (18 months) are a little young for a museum, and I would probably agree with you, at least depending on the content of the museum.  In Moose Jaw we are lucky enough to have the Western Development Museum that is dedicated to transportation, perfect for the boy who is obsessed with cars, trucks, buses, tires and any other vehicle that moves basically.  In our museum they have all kinds of classic cars, planes, watercraft, and even a full size train!  They also have a model train that Roman can turn on and off which he absolutely loves!  The Snowbird exhibit also gets two thumbs up from Roman because they have a cockpit that Roman can climb up into and steer the plane himself.  The museum is perfect for the afternoons when Roman just needs to get out of the house but it's too cold to go outside.

Roman's admission to the museum is free but it's $10 per adult to go, which can get very expensive.  Solution?  Get a family membership!  We purchased a family membership for $60 for the YEAR and we can visit any of the four Western Development Museums in Saskatchewan!

McDonalds!
Whether you're okay with your toddler enjoying a happy meal or not, McDonalds is actually a great resource for a cold or rainy day.  Why?  Because they have a play place!  Sure it's loud, and usually smells a little odd, but when you're in a pinch and need a place for your toddler to burn off some steam it's a great place to go.  Again, completely free!

Dollar Store Crafts
I don't like to spend too much on craft supplies for Roman because he doesn't exactly have the patience for crafts just yet.  He does seem to enjoy painting/coloring/gluing but when he gets bored with it things end up on the floor or in his mouth.  The dollar store is the perfect place to buy supplies because you can get a wide variety of items very inexpensively, plus they always have cute themed items for all of the holidays!

Crafts with little ones can really take a toll on your sanity so here are some tips for survival:
1. Under no circumstances should you ever, EVER, give a toddler glitter.  You're just asking for it.
2. When painting, put them in the tub.  This makes clean up so much easier.
3. Avoid liquid glue if possible, but if you can't then try to apply the glue for them and allow them to 
    stick the items together.
4. Assume it's going to be a disaster.  If it is you won't be so surprised because you expected it.  If it's
     not, then you can enjoy the shock and awe.

Winter can be a tricky time when you're trying to keep a toddler entertained and cabin fever can set in quickly.  Save you sanity and your money and try out some of these ideas before winter leaves us and summer moves in!  I think I'm being a little optimistic with that...

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Waffles

Enough said right?  What more could you possibly want for breakfast than a warm, heaping stack of banana bread waffles?  Chocolate chip banana bread waffles of course! 

Roman loves to have waffles for breakfast and I like them because I can make a big batch and stick them in the freezer.  Today I knew I wanted to make a different type of waffle for Roman to mix it up a bit.  If you read my recent post about organizing my freezers then you know I have at least a double whack of bananas in my freezer.  **Interesting Fact: A whack is exactly 6; at least according to Mr. Kossmann, my high school physics teacher.**  I knew I wanted to make a banana waffles and when you think of frozen bananas you immediately think of banana bread.  So why not make a banana bread waffle?!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Waffles
2 cups flour
3t baking powder
1/2t salt
3 egg yolks
1 3/4 cups milk
4T melted butter
1t vanilla
3 egg whites
3T sugar
1 cup chocolate chips

Stir together flour, baking powder and salt.  In a separate bowl whisk egg yolks, milk, butter and vanilla.  Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix until well combined.  Using a mixer (or a whisk if you have forearms of steel), beat egg whites until they form stiff peaks.  Add sugar to egg whites while beating continually.  Fold the flour mixture and chocolate chips into the egg whites.  Scoop 1/2 cup of the batter onto a well oiled waffle iron and cook for 3-4 minutes until waffle is golden brown.

To Freeze: Prepare waffles as directed.  Allow them to cool then wrap in plastic wrap and freeze in a freezer bag.
To Serve:  Reheat them in the microwave or the toaster.

These waffles are amazing!  Even when they were in the waffle iron I was salivating just waiting for them to come out.  Don't limit these delicious morsels to just breakfast!  They would make an amazing dessert waffle topped with ice cream and chocolate sauce!  What I wouldn't give to have some vanilla ice cream in this house right now!  Anyone willing to deliver?

French Macarons

I think macarons come across as a very intimidating item to bake.  When I first decided I wanted to attempt these a few years back I prepared myself for the battle of a lifetime.  Turns out I had nothing to worry about.  If you can use a stand mixer you can make these cookies!

When I started thinking of fun things to make for Valentine's Day, one of the first things that came to mind were macarons.  There is something so fancy about these beautiful little cookies.  In the spirit of the special day I decided to color the macarons pink and fill them with buttercream frosting.  A red macaron filled with a chocolate ganache would also make a stunning cookie.  These macarons have just the right amount of snap on the outside but are still gooey and delicious on the inside. 

French Macarons
1 cup icing sugar
3/4 cup almond flour*
2 large egg whites
1/4 cup sugar

*If you can't find almond flour you can use ground almonds and force them through a fine mesh strainer to break it down into a flour like consistency.

Sift together icing use and almond flour.  Preheat oven to 325°.  Using a mixer whisk egg whites on medium speed until they start to form soft peaks.  Add in sugar and whisk on high speed until spiff peaks form.  Fold icing sugar and almond flour into the egg whites.  If you want to color your macarons this is the time to add a gel color, folding the color in until it is evenly distributed throughout the batter.

Transfer better to a pastry bag and with a round tip pipe 2 inch rounds 1 inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Lightly drop the baking sheets on the counter to release any air bubbles from the cookies.  Let the cookies stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.  Reduce the oven temperature to 325° and bake one sheet at a time for 10 minutes, rotating the tray half way through.  Allow cookies to cool on the baking trays for 2-3 minutes then transfer to a wire cooling rack.  Once the cookies are completely cooled, pipe or spread filling onto the bottom of one cookie and sandwich with another.

Believe it or not, macarons are extremely freezer friendly!  I would suggest baking the cookies and then freezing them before filling them.  Then thaw and fill when they are needed.  Just make sure to store them in a solid container in the freezer as they will crush if something is set on top of them.

Heart Shaped Valentine's Day Brownies

I am the first to admit that Valentine's Day is just another day in the Giuliano house.  I've never been big on Valentine's Day, except in elementary/high school when friends could send each other chocolate because that's obviously amazing.  Flowers are expensive and get eaten by the cat and chocolate makes me fat so John and I usually skip the gifts altogether.  Blasphemous to some I'm sure but it works for us.  Or at least it did until Roman came around. 

For some reason the little turkey makes me want to celebrate even the smallest of "holidays" just for his sake.  On a recent Mom only shopping day I came across some super cute heart shaped tins at Dollarama.  At the time I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them but I knew I wanted to make something for Valentine's Day.  The other day it finally hit me, brownies!!!  Who doesn't love brownies?!

Brownies
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1t vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup flour
1/4t salt
1/4t baking powder

Preheat oven to 350° and grease heart shaped tins.  Melt butter in a sauce pan over medium heat.  Remove pan from heat a whisk in sugar, eggs and vanilla.  Mix in cocoa powder, flour, salt and baking powder until well combined.  Pour batter into tins and bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes, do not over bake.  You want some of the batter to stick to a toothpick when inserted into the centre.  This way you'll have a delicious gooey brownie!

If you don't have or can't find the heart shaped pans you would also bake this recipe in an 8x8 baking dish, lined with parchment paper, and use cookie cutters to cut shapes from the brownie.  The best part of this option?  You can eat all the "leftover" bits!

I decided to amp up the yum factor a bit with a little bit of buttercream icing but the brownies are delicious even without it.  Hopefully this will be the only brownie I eat from the batch since I'm still recovering from the Christmas food gorging.  I plan to pop the rest of these ad boys into the freezer where they will wait for me until I need a chocolate fix.  So probably later tonight...

Spontaneously Creative's 2014 Cookbook!

It's a little later than I expected but the cookbook is done!

I had originally planned on publishing it through Kobo since I thought that would be easiest.  Turns out it's a lot more fuss than I expected so I decided to upload it to Google Docs and post it live here! 

Long story short this means that you can now have a printable, portable, concise version of all the recipes posted to the blog in 2014 for FREE!!!

Follow this link to get your very own copy!

*Just a heads up with the link.  I've noticed that it doesn't always work the first time you try to load it, so if that happens to you just give it another shot and it should work.

I feel like this should be a longer post but I really have nothing else to talk about.  I guess I could tell you about my day but it really wasn't anything exciting.  Just some grocery shopping, hanging out with John and Roman, blogging and cooking.  You know standard procedure. 

Anywho, thanks for supporting my little blog and I hope you find this cookbook useful!

A Weeks Worth of Meals Without Groceries

In our house we budget to buy groceries every other week, but sometimes I like to see if I can stretch it another week to save money and use up some of the odds and ends left in the fridge.  Inevitably we end up with those weeks where there is little to no food left in the house but it isn't time to buy groceries yet.  The easy solution would be to do a small grocery run and pick up some items, but sometimes I like a challenge!

Often the meals that come out of this week aren't necessarily balanced between protein, starch (we often have meals without a starch anyway), fruits and veggies, but it is food none the less and it needs to be used up.  I hate throwing out food but the only thing I hate more than that is having a freezer full of stuff and thinking there is nothing to eat.  In a recent post I cleaned out and organized our freezers, so I was well aware that there was a ton of food in there that should be used.  That's when I decided this week would be a week worth of meals made from what we already have!

For breakfast I usually have oatmeal and Roman will alternate between oatmeal and waffles that I batch cook and freeze.  Luckily we have a decent supply of frozen blueberries so I put those on top of his waffles.  Lunch is usually sandwiches, grilled cheese or leftovers from supper the night before.  Lately Roman has been loving smoothies for snacks so that will be a great use for my frozen fruits, including my massive supply of frozen bananas.  Now let's get to the suppers!

Monday
On my trip to the freezer this morning a package of pork ribs were speaking to me so I pulled them from the frosty box.  I will be the first to admit that I don't really know how to cook ribs; John would be the second to admit that I don't.  Obviously John couldn't cook the ribs this time since he was at work so it was left to me.  I decided to rub Steeped Tea's Smoky Tea-aki Rub all over the ribs then seared them quickly in a lightly oiled, hot pan.  I sliced up an onion and placed the slices in the bottom of a baking dish, then sat the seared ribs on the onions and dumped a good amount of BBQ sauce over top.  I used a mixture of Kraft Hickory and a Budweiser sauce since that's all I had in the fridge.  I baked the ribs at 375° for 45 minutes, flipping the ribs every hour or so.  I made some home fries in my Actifry and for Roman I heated up some frozen veggies in the microwave.

When all was said and done the meat fell off the bone no problem *phew*.  I thought they were pretty decent but apparently I underestimated the power of my ribs.  John went on and on about them for over 2 hours.  Apparently he is no longer cooking the ribs, I am.  I guess this meal kinda back fired...

Tuesday
Pizza is always a great meal when you're running out of groceries because you can put anything on a pizza and it's delicious!  I always make sure to pick up naan or pitas if I see them on the discount rack in the bakery because they freeze well and then I always have pizza crusts on hand.  Today I decided to top our pita crusts with crushed tomatoes, sliced artichoke hearts (which I found in the freezer), onion, pepperoni (also discovered in the freezer), and of course cheese!  I had originally planned to cook the pizza toppings in a pan before adding them to the pizza but I lost track of time so they had to go on raw.  Luckily Roman was nice enough to help me slice up the onions so the prep went much faster!  *NOTE: Don't panic he has a butter knife and I'm pretty sure it couldn't cut Jell-O.

Interesting fact, the key to a happy marriage in this house is making sure you burn a small pile of cheese on the baking sheet for John to scrape off and eat! 

I thought it was fitting that Roman ate his pizza off a Ninja Turtles plate tonight.  Roman loved the pepperoni slices on his pizza which surprised me because half a slice had my throat burning...  *TIP - If there is one thing you ever teach your little ones, teach them to sit in a designated spot when you open the oven!  I'm so glad I taught Roman this.  Now all I have to do is open the door and he immediately sits in his spot.  Makes it so much easier to cook when I don't have to worry about him getting into the oven.  Now if only the dogs listened that well...

Wednesday
I came across five chicken breasts on the verge of being freezer burnt so I thought I had better use them up.  There was also some asparagus in the fridge that were starting to look a little haggered so I decided to stuff those bad boys into the chicken along with some cream cheese that I found in the back of the now empty cheese drawer.  To spice up the cream cheese I added some minced garlic, tarragon and coriander.  I also spiced the outside of the chicken with salt, pepper and coriander. 

This one might actually turn into a full recipe post because it was that good.  Roman ate an entire chicken breast himself, along with 1/4 cup of peas, and some of John's chicken.  Either my chicken was that good or I forgot to feed him lunch...

Thursday
Tonight is a leftover night.  We already had a few things left in the fridge before this week started so it was time to clear some of it out before it went bad.  Plus we had company today and I didn't have a lot of time to cook.  Tonight we finished up some beef with egg noodles that I made after reading a post on Organize Yourself Skinny.  I didn't have all the ingredients for the beef so I made it up as I went.  Roman absolutely gobbles this stuff up so I kinda wish I wrote down how I made it.  Might have to give it another go and post it so I don't forget in the future.

Friday
The final day of cleaning out the fridge and freezer!  Tonight wasn't anything super creative.  I decided to pull out some sausage from the freezer.  It's the Kirkland mild Italian sausage and honestly it's the best sausage I've had in a long time.  Even though it's mild Italian it still has some good kick to it.  I decided to pair it with the last of the asparagus, which I roasted in the oven with a little olive oil and some salt, and leftover mashed cauliflower that was in the fridge.  It's basically the same as my Healthier Bangers & Mash recipe but with different veggies.  Roman loved the sausage and inhaled an entire link along with the veggies!  I don't know what we're going to do when this kid gets older.  We'll have to buy stocks in veggies and a small herd of cattle just to keep him fed.

A week without groceries wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.  Actually if I really had to I could probably stretch it for another 3-4 days.  Those meals wouldn't be very exciting but it's still food!

I'm about to get a little deep here so bare with me!  Think about the amount of food that we just had sitting in our house, that is still in the house, and one week ago I thought we needed groceries because we didn't have anything to eat.  It really makes you realize how fortunate we are to have access to quality, nutritious food and that we don't have to worry about where our next meal is going to come from.  I do understand that there are people in this country that aren't as fortunate and I think we should really be doing more to correct this problem before we try to solve the hunger problems of other people around the world.  Yes I'm aware that statement may be a little controversial but I'm willing to stick my neck out on that one.  Next time you walk past the Food Bank Donation bin on your way out of the grocery store, consider tossing in an item or two, every little bit helps!

Freezer Organization - Save Money & Lose Weight!

I don't think I'm alone when I say that my freezers are like two black holes.  Food goes in but if/when it ever comes out it never really looks the same because it's been in there so long.  Every day when I open the freezer door to stick Roman's supper in there to cool off, I'm reminded that I really need to do something about that disaster.  So, today is the day my freezers are going to get a good clean out!

For the most part I'm a very organized person so the disarray of my freezers can drive me bananas.  Speaking of bananas, I have a massive amount of bananas in my freezer.  I think I might need an intervention.  But I digress.  Keeping an organized freezer not only saves you money because you can see what you have and use it before it turns into a giant ice ball, but it can also help you lose weight!  By strategically placing you're frozen treats, cookies, muffins and other tasty goodies you can save yourself some serious calories!  Or maybe I'm the only person that has so little self control that I shovel in a few frozen cookies while I'm taking out something for supper...

Let's tackle the fridge freezer first because it's smaller.  This poor freezer becomes a trap for partial bags of everything that just get tossed in when I don't want to go into the garage to put it back in the big freezer.  I found a few large freezer bags that only had a muffin size serving of rice left in them, which of course was so freezer burnt because the bag was left open that I could barely tell what it was.  These of course went straight into the trash, along with a bag of shrimp that was equally as freezer burnt.  I did however find some good things, like raviolis I made awhile back and a few partial bags of frozen fruit.  The amount of bananas I found was shocking!  I now have a bin in the freezer specifically designated for bananas because I have so many.  I really need to get baking!

Once I sorted through everything and decided what was staying and what was going, I organized the remaining food into categorical lines.  One for breakfast foods, fruit, veggies, and meat.  I just kept a few things in the freezer that we use regularly and the rest made it's way out to the chest freezer in the garage.  Luckily I'm almost out of Christmas baking so I have one lonely Hamantashen cookie and one piece of Puffed Wheat Cake left (Those have long since been devoured).  If you're trying to watch what you eat make sure to hide these bad boys behind the veggie or fruit lines.  The farther you have to dig for them the less likely you are to eat them!  In the door I store a few homemade squeeze pouches for Roman, a few stray popsicles, and all my herbs that I froze from my garden this year.

Now let's head out to the garage to tackle the real disaster!  I always have great intentions when it comes to the organization of this freezer but it never seems to last long.  If I'm in a rush things just get tossed in and then when I need to find something I have to rummage through it all and things get even more messed up.  The solution?  Diaper boxes!  If you have kids then you have a ton of diaper boxes, unless you managed to use them all when wrapping Christmas presents.  If you don't have diaper boxes, find a Mom, I guarantee she'll be more than happy to unload some on you!  I managed to fit in three diaper boxes in the bottom of the freezer, one for meat, one for freezer meals and one for fruit/veggies/random items.  Right now I don't have any meals in the freezer so this box is just holding some meat.  In the space towards the front of the freezer I have all my bread items, and on the bench in the corner I have some peach crisps.

So where are all the cookies I shovel into my face?  When presently all the good ones (in my opinion) have been eaten, but there is a bag of jam filled cookies hiding in this freezer.  I try to hide my treats amongst the bread so they aren't as noticeable.  Most of my trips out to this freezer are for meats and veggies for meals so by hiding the treats with the bread, I likely won't even seen them when I'm in the freezer!  I also try to position them away from the loaves of bread since that's the most common bread item I pull from the freezer.  Granted there is no stopping me when I really want a cookie.  Those bad boys could be nailed to the ceiling and I'd find a way to get to them!  Obviously Roman feels the same way as me because he couldn't contain himself when we found the peanut butter marshmallow squares.  Oddly enough he also felt the same way about a package of frozen pork chops...

So there we have it, my freezers are organized!  There is something so freeing and calming about a clean freezer.  It's similar to the feeling you get after you clean out the junk drawer in your kitchen, like a weight has lift and the fog cleared.  At least that's what it feels like to me.  Now that I can see what I have in my freezer I think it's time to use some of these items up!