Minneapolis-Star-Tribune-cooksandcreates

With dinner, I made my "Famous" garlic bread....my boys love it, but it's just bread with butter, garlic, basil and parm cheese but under the broiler until it's browned (not burned!) The two cans of tomatoes made a huge amount, so I froze what we didn't use and that will make for a quick supper one of these nights. 

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(The kids fell in LOVE with this room - now they want bunkbeds for home!)

.....

The problem with us going on any type of road trip, is that we end up spending a small fortune on food.

Stop for a drink here. 

Kids are hungry. 

I wanna snack.

Anyone that has kids knows exactly what I mean. 

But, for this trip - other then the cost of our room - we budgeted only $120 for gas and any other misc items that come up. 

(Our room cost is covered by a gift card that we got for Christmas...we had a little over $65 left on it, which covered our dinner cost.)

Anyways. so only having $130 to spend is not a lot considering how much gas costs. 

(Around $3.30 a gallon here.)

Here's how I broke down the budget:

Gas: $90

Souvenirs: $10

My plan was to spend no money out of pocket for food.

First, we needed some breakfast food for our morning....

The kids always just eat cereal, so I packed up enough for two large bowls. Then some chocolate cheerios for me. Chris isn't much a breakfast eater, so he'll have coffee and the pecan rolls. The pecan roll-ups I found for only $0.25. The Silk shelf stable milk is perfect for road trips - we had a fridge in our room, so we could keep it cold. 

Next is all of our lunch supplies. Fruit punches, Lunchables and pretzels for the kids. 

(I got the Lunchables on sale for a $1.00 each - kids love them, can't beat that!)

I made some PB&Js for Chris and I to eat and brought tortilla chips for me and another bag of pretzels for him. We ate all of this on the way there...instead of stopping at some fast food joint and spending an easy $25 on burgers and fries. 

Plenty of water! This is essential for us! We were able to keep the bottles cold and just refilled them with tap water as needed. 

Finally...our room snacks. This is our stash for those late night cravings that we all seem to get while we're on vacations. Other then the cherry pie, it's all pretty healthy stuff. 

(P.S. Zone Bars - especially the peanut butter ones are the best thing in the entire world!)

And, since I am seriously the most forgetful person on the face of this planet...

this was my list to NOT forget our sandwiches and other items I stored in the freezer. 

Ahhh....Chick-fil-a.

That was almost more exciting for me then Great Wolf Lodge. 

A few months back, Chick-fil-a was having blog giveaways for their kids meals all over the place. 

I ended up winning two different giveaways.

So I got six coupons for free kids meals. 

(Each coupon was for a free chicken nuggets, fries and a drink.)

And I miss it dearly.

(Side note: If you've never ate Chick-fil-a, you are missing out BIG TIME!)

Anyway...I looked up and less then 5 minutes from Great Wolf Lodge -

there was a Chick-fil-a!!!!

I was so, so, SO excited to be able to eat there!

The plan was for the kids to each eat a kids meal, and for Chris and I have to have two of them. It ended that Chris and I couldn't resist and ended up getting ourselves a chicken sandwich, so we will still have two free coupons left over. 

That was a little over $6 for the sandwiches, it was SO worth it!

If you added it all up....that was 

1 breakfast

2 lunches

1 dinner

plus snacks

for 4 people....for practically nothing. 

I love it when I can do that. 

Next week, I'm going to show you how to save money while camping! 

Have a great week!

What are your tips for saving money on road trips? 

I'm linking up to:

Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Mad in Crafts, Keeping It Simple, Craft O Matic, It's So Very Cheri, Singing Three Little Birds, Destination: Craft, Serendipity and Spice, Homemaker on a Dime, Flour Me With Love, CRAFT, Sew Can Do, Sweet Anne, Brassy Apple, Lines Across, DIY Home Sweet Home, A Stroll Through Life, Sugar Bee Crafts, New Nostalgia, Coastal Charm

I love the bold colors of this one. It makes me happy just to look at it. 

My second favorite is her print titled "Are You Hiding Your Cross"

Kristi is one of the most open, caring people I know. She has a beautiful family- her husband, Mitch and three beautiful boys! And she is very beautiful herself!

Recently, I uploaded several of her pieces onto CafePress to make pieces of jewelry out of them. I really love how they turned out:

Here are a few more of Kristi's pieces that I love: 

Kristi sells prints through her blog, and you can also buy prints, jewelry and other items through CafePress too. Make sure and check her out! 

Make sure and season the sausage with salt and pepper. My family won't eat the peppers and onions, but if yours will, now is the time to dice them up and brown them with the sausage.

While the sausage is cooking, start washing and peeling your potatoes. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

Dice the potatoes into small bite sized pieces. Then you'll smooth your potatoes in a single layer onto a cookie sheet. Pour some EVOO over all of them. Here's my favorite from Trader Joe's! 

Season the potatoes too. Use whatever you have on hand. I happen to have some of the best seasoning in the whole wide world for my potatoes.... Jack Stack All Purpose Rub!

Place the potatoes in the oven for 20 minutes, or until tender. 

After the sausage is done cooking - drain the oil of of it. 

Now for the eggs. 

Crack 5 to 6 eggs and add your milk then shake them up, I like to use my Tupperware Quick Shake .

I use the biggest, deepest pan I have to cook the eggs. Cook the eggs until they are about three fourths of the way done. After the eggs are done - throw everyone in the pool. Then add the drained sausage and cooked potatoes in the pan. Cook on medium for about five minutes. Stir well to make sure everything gets browned a little more.

Add a cup of cheddar cheese - or whatever kind of cheese you have on hand. 

Stir everything up really well. This is going to be your last chance to season the dish, so make sure and give yourself a taste at this point to make sure it's yummy. If your family likes spice - add some cayenne pepper or Cajun seasoning. 

Using a 1/3 cup, start filling the tortilla's with an over-flowing cup.

Then roll them up by tucking and folding. Then you'll wrap each on in a paper towel. 

After your done with all 10 tortillas, you'll go back and wrap each on in plastic wrap.

Once I'm done wrapping up all the burritos - I put them into one larger freezer bag and stick them in the freezer. These don't do well to heat from frozen, it's best to let them sit out in the refrigerator overnight first. 

When you heat up the burritos, you'll remove the plastic wrap but leave on the paper towel. You'll cook each one for about 2-3 minutes. Serve with your favorite salsa and sour cream.

And enjoy! 

Note: If you wanted to make these into a lower fat version, you could use turkey sausage, low fat cheese and whole wheat tortillas. 

I'm linking up today to: 

Funky Polkadot Giraffe, 33 Shades of Green, Naptime Creations, Tip Junkie, Not Just A HouseWife, 

Lil Luna, Trendy Treehouse, HOH, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Simply Sugar and Gluten Free, A Stroll Through Life, Sugar Bee Crafts, New Nostalgia, Coastal Charm

I'm excited to announce that PrintRunner is going to let me giveaway 100 of their postcards to one guest of Cooks and Creates! 

As a small business owner, I currently use PrintRunner's stickers for my candles - they make great reorder labels. When I placed my order they came extremely quick and I the quality is great. I've been wanting to order some of their postcards too - these would be perfect for building brand loyalty. You can check out their postcard printing services to see all PrintRunner has to offer in postcards. 

Here are the details on the postcards: 

The best vacation was in the summer of 2008.

We went to Okoboji, Iowa. 

It's a fairly large tourist spot in northern Iowa. As a kid, my parents and I went about every 2-3 years. We would occasionally go with the entire extended family. 

Okoboji always feels like home to me. So many memories where ever I go. 

In the summer of 2008, we went with the whole extended family - there was about fifteen of us all together. We cooked out together, swam, drank...just had a good time. 

This is also that last vacation we would take as a family before my Grandpa and my Dad passed away. 

I'm looking forward to being able to taking my kids again, to build their own memories. 

These two cabinets are the only space for food. I do keep the kids cereal in the lower cabinets for easy access for them. And I have a small pantry in the basement, but for on hand storage - these two cabinets are it. 

I see all over the place the new cool storage ideas - I love the OXO Good Grips  storage containers, but they are out of my budget. So, I decided to come up with my own storage containers - I needed to find something that would keep the food fresh and would be budget friendly. Ends up, I already had some great storage pieces right in my refrigerator! 

I love this idea - because it was cheap! Just cleaning out old jars!

I even have a few old peanut butter and jelly jars that I'm using too - I've been saving everything!

After a bit of organization, here's my cabinets now: 

It's not a huge improvement, I know - but at least I have more room for groceries this week! I can't wait to find more jars - I'd love to store my almonds in there, and the black beans too. 

I'm going to be working over the next several weeks to reorganize my kitchen, I'd love to hear any tips or tricks that you could share!

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I'm linking up to: 

HOH   Stuff and Nonsense   504 Main   Chic on a Shoestring

It's a HodgePodge Life   Whipper Berry