The winds gusts are chilling to the bone and I don't even want to go outside but the chickens and ducks still need food and water so out I go hoping it will be quicker than normal, ha ha it usually takes longer in weather that cold.  Luckily we haven't had to many cold days this winter. Yes I'm spoiled from all the 60 degree days we have had this winter. 
​On those cold winter days I like to make hearty meals even if it is only homemade soup or chili and a slice of homemade bread. I cook as much as I can on the wood stove, which helps save on propane costs.  When I want to make pot pie or shepherds pie I use the small counter top oven because it makes more sense portion size than heating up the regular oven. Here is short list of my favorite hearty homemade foods to eat on a cold winters day:

Soup/Chili
Shepherds Pie
Pot Pie
Macaroni & Cheese
Lasagna
Scalloped Potatoes & Ham
Pancakes with eggs
French Toast

Whatever meal I make I try to add lots of vegetables and some sort of protein either in the recipe or on the side to round out the meal. Yes my list above has lots of carbs but this is the only time of year that we eat that way, the rest of the year I prefer lots of fresh vegetables and fruit in place of all those carbs. 

Yesterday I started some broth in the crock-pot with part of the turkey carcass and veggies. I cook it on high for about an hour then turn it down to low and let it cook for about 8-12 hours depending on what else I'm doing.  It makes such good soup but this batch will went into the freezer. My crock-pot is to small to add the whole carcass so I will make another batch today.  We don't eat the neck, heart, etc. so I boil them up and the animals get those (no bones).  The water from boiling  those parts gets used to cook rice which I feed to the chickens and ducks (sometimes the dog gets a little too).  Depending on what I have on hand for veggies they get put in with the rice. They love it.  I try to get as much out of the turkey as I can, it only makes sense and it saves me money too. What do you do with your leftovers? 

Wow it has been hard to not cook a big meal like when my boys were still at home but I'm slowly changing what I'm doing to help with that. One of the things I tried was making meatloaf cups instead of a whole meat loaf for the 2 of us.  I made 6 meatloaf cups on a whim for dinner.  I tried to eat 2 of the cups but that was too much with a potato too and hubby agreed. The leftover meatloaf we ate a few days later but if I make them again I will freeze half right away for another meal. By the way I loved how they turned out too.  I used 85% lean so they weren't sitting in the fat, instead they were nice and browned & yummy!

Last Sunday we went out for breakfast or brunch you could say since it was about 10 am when we got there.  This Sunday however I made us brunch at home and saved about 3/4 of what it cost eating out (even with a restaurant.com gift certificate). We had biscuits & sausage gravy and potato puffs today.  

Once the sausage was cooked I took half of it out of the pan and put it in a freezer bag for another meal.  If I had to guess this meal costs us about $4.50 only because I bought a tube of biscuits and baked all 8, but we only ate 3 for brunch. We had leftover sausage gravy and I only baked a small tray of potato puffs so the rest will be cooked at another time as well.

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I made a pork roast in the crockpot on Sunday and we had quite a bit leftover. The top picture is BBQ pork for sandwiches that we had during the week. The bottom picture is what was remaining that I put in 2 freezer bags and put in the freezer for future meals. Making meals ahead of time is wonderful on those nights I come home from work and don't want to cook.  I need to go back to meal planning and prepping ahead it makes life so much easier. Plus it saves money because I'm not grabbing something on the way home.  I love leftovers! :)

This has already been posted on my Facebook page but I wanted to share the information again. On a recent shopping trip at the Ash Fork, AZ family dollar I found these waffles for $1.00 a box. They taste pretty good both my husband and I liked them. This is the type of fast food I like to keep on hand so when I come home late from work I can put a couple in the toaster, cook a couple eggs and have breakfast for dinner. Nice for a quick breakfast too.  They also have buttermilk waffles for $1.00 a box too.

I'm cooking on the wood stove again using leftover chicken making chicken soup for dinner and BBQ Chicken sandwiches for lunch. I pulled a bag of frozen leftover chicken from the freezer this morning, cut open the bag, put it in the stockpot, added water and put it on the wood stove to cook. Once the meat was thawed and broth was boiling I removed the meat and added dehyrated onion, dehyrated celery, barley, split pea and lentils. I added about a 1/3 of the chicken back into the broth and the remainder of the chicken I shredded and added BBQ sauce heated it thru and we had sandwiches. So out of the original chicken we ate 4 different meals. What a great money saver. 

Eggs are one of those food items we eat quite often. We raise chickens so we have fresh eggs daily.  I tend to cook my eggs on the wood stove in a cast iron skillet. The cast iron heats up quickly which I love.  I add some butter then the eggs to the skillet.  I like my eggs over easy which you can see that is how the eggs in the picture are going to be cooked. They just hadn't been flipped yet.  Yes I made a mess on the stove when cooking my eggs but I cleaned it up after the wood stove cooled down.  Cooking this way also saves me money on propane or electricity.  Happy Cooking!!

Golden Grahams is one of my favorite cereals and I always love it when I can find coupons for it. The coupon saves you $0.75 off of one box Golden Grahams Cereal.  Click here to print the coupon.  Yum!! Great for Back to School breakfast too!  

Want to save even more? You can save another $0.75 of Golden Grahams Cereal at SavingStar. Click here,  sign up & start savings.

Every Tuesday SavingStar has a healthy offer and this week it is 20% off of fresh Peaches. I happen to love Peaches so this is one offer that I will definitely use.  Be sure to check it out. Click here sign up & start saving.  Happy & Healthy Eating!!