Grandad's Pie

Over at Today's Housewife, we are having recipes from our family members. I put my mom's veggie dip on there and also wanted to share this recipe from my grandad.

Low Sugar Millionaire Pie (Like from Furr's Cafeteria)

20 oz. can of crushed pineapple (in its own juice)

1 small box of no sugar instant vanilla pudding

1/2 cup of chopped pecans

1/2 cup of coconut (if desired)

Cool Whip (Lite) 2 or 3 large tablespoons

1 graham cracker or short bread crust

Mix cream cheese with pineapple juice (drained off crushed pineapple). Add the Cool Whip and the instant pudding and then mix in the pineapple, pecans and coconut. Pour into the pie crust. Add more Cool whip on top and sprinkle more chopped pecans on top. Then refrigerate.

Did you know?

I got this previously from my mother-in-law and it has some good tips in it. Thought I'd share!

Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to pick the little 'stringy things' off of it. That's how the primates do it.

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.

Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummm!

Reheat Pizza -- Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.

Easy Deviled Eggs -- Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

Expanding Frosting -- When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

Reheating refrigerated bread -- To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

Newspaper weeds away -- Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.

Broken Glass -- Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.

No More Mosquitoes -- Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

Squirrel Away! -- To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.

Flexible vacuum -- To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

Reducing Static Cling -- Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and ... ta da! ... static is gone.

Measuring Cups -- Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

Foggy Windshield? -- Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car When the window s fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

Reopening envelope -- If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.

Conditioner -- Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.

Goodbye Fruit Flies -- To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2' with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

Get Rid of Ants -- Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it 'home,' can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS
The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things around the house for us told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us something; he took the filter over to the sink and ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material ... I'm sure you know what your dryer's lint filter looks like. Well ... the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn't go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that's what burns out the heating unit. You can't SEE the film, but it's there. It's what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free ... that nice fragrance too. You know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box ... well this stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to potentially burn your house down with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months.
He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long! How about that!?!

Read Your Receipts

Have you been out to eat lately at a fast food place and noticed at the bottom of your receipt is sometimes a "prize" if you complete a short survey? I have become a master at scouring these receipts and finding the deals...even on the back. Here are some things I've gotten:
*Multiple FREE regular roast beef sandwiches at Arby's
*Frosty float from Wendy's
*Multiple 10% off one item at Burlington Coat Factory
*$1 off next purchase at Taco Cabana (got that one today)
*Free bean burrito or taco at Taco Bueno
These things take just minutes to fill out (online or on the phone) and are well worth it in my opinion. I just wanted to share this if you guys haven't taken notice of your receipts recently. Anybody else gotten some great deals out there for completing a survey for the company?

Sandra's Chicken Ranch Wraps

Over at Today's Housewife we are sharing recipes with chicken. Head on over and check out some new recipes. I forgot that this was the recipe I wanted to post for the "chicken" week!!
Sandra introduced this to me and I LOVE it! My family also loves it. I once served it to my brother who thought it looked so gross and ended up telling me that it as so tasty (and it's SUPER easy). Enjoy!!

Chicken Ranch Wraps

Flour tortillas
Chicken grilled or boiled and cut into bite sized pieces
1/4 cup of ranch dressing
Lettuce
Long grain and wild rice cooked according to the package

Mix the rice, ranch and chicken in a bowl. Put in a tortilla and add as much lettuce as you'd like. Roll like a burrito. Enjoy!!

Squidoo

I've talked on here before about Squidoo, but today I wanted to add it to Works for Me Wednesday. I'm sure you've never heard of this great site before. It's a fun way to make a little money on the side. I have been a member for about a year now and have probably made $100. The money takes a little while to come in. What you do is you make a "lens" about something that interests you that you think will interest others. I have quite a few (20) lenses. They range from my Freebies lens to my James Avery lens. They can literally be about anything you want. The more you have, the more money you make. To make money, you just make sure they are maintained. I do this by editing my lenses about every other day. This takes about 15 minutes to do all 20 lenses. At the start of the month, you will get $ for your lenses based on your rank--how many people visit, how much they buy off of there, etc. This really is just a way to organize information (amazon, ebay, etc.) in one place. Then instead of google getting the credit (and portion of the profit), squidoo gets it and they share it with you! This last month I made $20 for very little time invested. It's fun, free and easy! To learn more, click here. If you decide to sign up, use my referral here: Squidoo. TRY IT OUT!

Baby Cheapskate Give Away

Have you heard about this?
Baby Cheapskate Diaper Give Away
I am thinking about doing cloth diapers, so it sounds like a great deal!! Go and enter!

Today's Housewife

I don't really post on this blog anymore... Please go over to Today's Housewife and take a look around! :)

Target Clearance!!

We aren't finding out what we're having, but that doesn't stop me from shopping--I just buy a boy and a girl outfit... Whichever we don't use will be gifted away! I got these SUPER cute outfits for a steal today at Target. They were having a great clearance on a lot of their baby clothes. The first picture is a little cap, gown and blanket for $4.98 instead of $10! The second and third pictures were their 4th of July clothes--$1.99 instead of $8!!! The little girl headbands were $.99!! Plus the bibs come in 3 packs and only one of the girl ones says "4th of July." The other 2 match the outfit! The boy bibs have 2 that say "4th". So cute!

What would you like to see here?

I'm not sure if I should keep up with this blog. It takes a lot of work for me to put together the activities and food... I am also now blogging on Today's Housewife with some friends which I really enjoy. Is there anything you would like to see on here?

Preview of next week...

Next week on Today's Housewife where I also blog, we're going to be talking about coupons. I am a total coupon freak and can't wait to post on Thursday. Today was a GREAT coupon day at Brookshires! I went there this morning to pick up some fruit. I normally don't shop there, but I decided I would go there because they normally have decent prices on fruit. I found a few other things I needed and used a few coupons, not thinking I would save too much. I ALWAYS watch my total go down, so I was really surprised when I gave the girl $.55 coupons and the machine said Double and then Triple! Huh? So I ended up saving 46% which was $23.77. I figured something had to be going on, so I let the guy take my groceries out (they still do that there) and then went back in to look for the ad. There, on the front page was an amazing sight--Triple coupons up to and including $.60!!! Are you kidding me??? So I headed home on a mission. I had already saved so much, but I knew I could get stuff for FREE! On Thursdays, we get a free newspaper which has coupons in it, so I don't pay for them on Sundays anymore. Then I remembered the house down the street...vacant...forclosure...at least 10 newspapers on the front porch! So I went and helped them "clean up." I ended up with around 20 coupon insert packets which took me about 2 hours to go through. I cut out a lot and put the ones I thought I would use in an envelope. Out I went...again. It was a HOT day too! I spent at least one hour going up and down the aisles...sometimes more than once! My total was $89 something. Oh wait, I have a few coupons... I was still counting when I gave the girl my first pile of 20. I finished at 33 coupons! (I count to make sure they get them all because it drives me nuts when they go fast and skip one!) So, after all of that, my total was $29.33 and I saved 70% which was $64.90. Uh, impressive. Above is what I got on that trip--all name brand as you can see!! Most of it we will use--the rest I will donate. I also did another transaction while there because I had kept track of which coupons were great and I knew I had a few doubles, but they said (when I called to check before going) that they would only triple the first one. So I bought 6 things using coupons and the girl was shocked that my total was $0. I told her that if the coupons had actually counted correctly, they would owe me... Like the floss was $1.26 and I had a $.55 coupon--once, double, triple=$1.65. My savings was 100%. I had one other coupon and once again saved 100%. The manager kept having to come okay my total. If you'd like to learn my "tricks of the trade," check out my post on Thursday. Needless to say, I was very excited!!