Peach Dinner Under 300 (#2)

I had a good bit of grilled chicken leftovers after I made the chicken salad, so what was I going to make?

In the cabinet I found canned and russet potatoes. So, here is what I tried:

1]Chopped up 1/2 cup of grilled chicken with a little bit of basil. (116 calories)

2]Wedged up a 1/2 russet potato. (55 calories)

3]Finally, I used a 1/4 can of no sugar added/light peaches. (45 calories)

This serving was 216 calories and a FULL plate.

The potatoes and chicken were already cooked from the night before, so I tossed them on the grill with the measured amount of peaches. I grilled it up and enjoyed a delicious meal before my husband and I went to the movies. The basil was a perfect touch to pull it all together. I am on this pretty serious basil kick. (We would normally pig out on fatty movie food, but this was filling enough to get me through the movie without too many nacho cheesy popcorn, dibs, large Icee cravings.  )


This will be a regular on the menu again very soon! I am going to try the fruit additions more often now that I am not so scared of the two inter-mingling on my plate! :-)

Hungry Girl Chicken Salad (#1)

Today I have been taken a break from my Crockpot and embraced my Hungry Girl cookbook! :-) This sandwich you see is an ENTIRE cup of chicken salad (145 calories) and a Thomas Light (High Fiber) English Muffin (100 calories) is incredibly filling and only a total of 245 calories. +ANOTHER PLUS+ All three of the kiddos and the hubby LOVED it too. This is a must try! So, let's get to why you are here... the recipe. :-)

Ingredients

1) 9 ounces of chicken

2) 1 cup of chopped cucumber

3) 2/3 cup of halved red seedless grapes

4) 2/3 cup of chopped apples

5) 1/2 cup of Fat Free plain yogurt

6) 4 tablespoons of Fat Free mayo

7) 2 Splendas

8) 1/2 teaspoon of lemon-pepper seasoning.

I grilled the chicken and chopped it up. We like big chunks of chicken, but you can do small bites if that is more your style. In one bowl, you want to mix the halved grapes, the chopped cucumbers and apples. In another bowl, you want to mix the yogurt, (I used Dannon) the FF mayo, (I used Kraft) Splenda and Lemon Pepper. Then you want to add your chicken and mix until fully coated. After fully coated, you will add the fruit/cucumber mixture and TA-DA! You can eat it solo or add it to crackers or bread.

I will tell you that I am one picky person, and I truly enjoyed this. It was a nice mixture of sweet and savory. It's not often that you can find a filling meal for under 300 calories. Thanks to Hungry Girl for this WINNER in the Crook house! :-)

Turkey Tuesday in the Crockpot! (#8)

No, it's not Thanksgiving, or even Marchgiving yet... BUT, I got a Turkey Breast Roast at Kroger and was thrilled that it had Crockpot instructions on the package. :-) On Monday, I took the Turkey and placed it in a bowl and added an ENTIRE bottle of Kroger brand Fat Free Zesty Italian dressing. ($1.79) and placed it back in my fridge until Tuesday morning. You read that right, nothing else. That is how my husband likes it. (Not to mention, one Thanksgiving when we were lucky to even have a turkey that was all we had, so a little Italian dressing and a LOT of prayer made a Crook family favorite!)

This morning when I was getting Malakai off on the school bus, I simply took my Crockpot from the fridge to the counter, and turned it on low. And back to bed I went. Tough life of a Supermom Cook, huh? 7 hours later like the wrapper said, I had this:

The picture isn't great (still working on the camera) but, this turkey just FELL apart. And smelled amazing. Just imagine on Thanksgiving, Easter or whenever you cook a turkey - to have the stove/oven completely available for foods other than a turkey. And this was taste tested by my husband and picky youngest, and was 100% approved by both! YAY for #8.These next 2 weeks are going to be filled with my Crockpot. Hopefully they are all as successful as this one! Happy Crockin'!

One Cheap Cookie!

I know my blog is based on my Crockpot, my Wok, and that sort - and these were not made in either of those, but sometimes a CHEAP, homemade cookie is needed. My kids (and I) prefer homemade cookies to Oreos and Chips Ahoy's - and in between paychecks, I cannot afford to get macadamia nuts, and fancy coffee to make awesome cookies. These are a staple in my kitchen, and the kids - they are peanut butter fans like myself. If I could find a way to dip peanut butter in peanut butter I would. :-) So, here is my simple PB COOKIE RECIPE.

1 cup Peanut Butter (I used Honey PB - such a good touch!)

1 cup Sugar

1 Egg

Preheat your oven to 350. Mix the egg and the sugar until well blended. Then mix in the peanut butter until thoroughly mixed. Ball up dough into the size of cookies you want. I like big cookies, and my kids share well. Place on a slightly greased pan. Take a fork and dip it in some sugar, I prefer brown sugar, and press the fork on the cookie in both directions. Cooking times will vary depending on the oven. My cookies took 11 minutes. The house smelled of delicious honey peanut butter. HEAVEN! You can always add a Hersey's Kiss into the middle for a thumbprint Peanut Butter cookie. I want to try the mini Reese's Peanut Butter cups. With the above ingredients, I made 15 medium to large sized cookies.

1 cup of Kroger brand Honey Peanut Butter (The jar cost $1.79, I only used a 1/3 - $0.60)

1 cup of Kroger brand sugar (5lb bag was $2.89, 1 cup would cost $0.26)

1 egg (Dozen cost $1.79, so 1 would cost $0.15)

These cookies cost me $0.41 cents to make since I had a coupon for free peanut butter, but without my coupon it would cost me $1.01 and that breaks down to $0.07 a cookie. These cookies are about the size of the Grandma's cookies that come in the individual packs, so I would say 7 cents a cookie is pretty good! Are they the most healthy choice? No. But, you don't need to avoid EVERYTHING that is not entirely healthy. :-)  It is all about moderation. Hope you enjoy my frugal cookie. :-) Until next time...

New Adventure...

BOWS! BOWS! and more BOWS! Alannah is obsessed with BOWS. And for what I pay for bows at the store, I should be able to make these. SHOULD is the key word. I feel I am a pretty crafty person, but that does not mean I will be able to create BOWS. I will start with simple bows, and hopefully be able to make the little ladies in my life awesome bows. And why blog this you may ask? Well, if I put it in writing, I am more likely to follow through. :-) So, this is my BLOG contract with myself to try and make some bows.

On that note, Hailey, Layla, Makayla and all the other little ladies in my life better look out for some Crook made bows in the mail. Until next time...

Birthday on a Budget!

Malakai's 7th Birthday Party was scheduled to go down on 2/11/12, the eve of his ACTUAL birthday.

This is Malakai when he was new. I would say a couple of
days old since most of his tubes were removed at this point <3


Well, with several scheduling conflicts, and this Momma get a stomach bug that was a killer, we had to postpone the party. But, that doesn't mean I am not going to make the WHOLE weekend about this kid. After all, he did change my life, and his Daddy's life. And with this weekend, I found another thing to blog about - Awesome cheap/free things to do with your kids! And that is what this weekend was ALL about.

Building and Growing at Lowes!

STOP #1} Lowe's Build and Grow - Lowe's does these kid friendly workshops on Saturdays about twice a month. They receive an apron their first time, and each workshop they attend they receive a patch to iron on their apron. On this particular day, they were building Valentine's Day Card Creators. The site suggests ages 5 and up, but you know your child. Alannah has a decent attention span, and she enjoyed her 3 year old self quite well. The workshop had about 30 kids and lasts between 10 and 11. Build and Grow with Lowe's Click on the link to get information on the next one they are offering. It is a racecar, and we are VERY excited!

1 hour of FUN, 2 aprons and 2 kid made creations = $0.00

Malakai getting CROWNED at Toys 'R' Us



The Birthday Boy!



Flying his Spiderman kite!

STOP #2} Toys 'R' Us - Our next stop was Toys 'R' Us. This is an adventure all in itself. There is SO much to play with and look at, you could literally spend HOURS in here. If you sign up for Geoffrey's Birthday Club, your child will receive a birthday card inviting them to the store. Geoffrey's Birthday Club Sign-Up The card instructs them to go to Guest Services, and let them know it is their birthday. And now for the fun! They make a HUGE deal of their birthday. They get crowned, and an awesome balloon. Next, they announce overhead to the ENTIRE store that the birthday child is in the store and that they would be walking around with their crown and balloon. (Malakai LOVED this part) So many parents, kids and employees stopped to wish him a happy birthday. In the birthday card, they receive a $3 off of any purchase gift card. Now, this doesn't seem like much - but, what I find is that my children can't ever decide on the item they want. It's too hard to narrow down. We spent a little over an hour looking up and down every aisle. Ooohing, and Ahhhing at all the AWESOME stuff. This particular day was very windy, and Malakai choose a Spiderman kite, so we could fly it when we got home.

Over an hour of fun, a Birthday crown, a Birthday balloon, and a Spiderman kite = $0.00 (The kite was $2.99, and his coupon card covered it. (Add the 2 1/2 hours of flying the kite that day - Toys 'R' Us gave us 3 1/2 hours of fun)

Malakai, the Birthday King, BK style.

STOP #3 - Burger King - Next was lunch. What better than a free Kid's Meal, that comes WITH a crown and a toy? If you sign up at the BK website, they will send a coupon for a free kid's meal for your child's birthday. BK Birthday Meal. Malakai enjoyed going in, ordering, and paying with his coupon. He felt like a BIG KID. The plus side to this was the toy. It was a Robot Grabbit Hand. And this was one of the toys he was thinking about at Toys 'R' Us, so SCORE one for BK. He wanted to fly his kite, so we got the food to go. Normally, you could spend an hour playing on their indoor playgrounds.

35 minutes of eating, a Birthday crown, a toy and the excitement of getting a "SPECIAL" meal = $0.00

Yay for 31 Flavors!

STOP # 4 - Baskin Robbins - Baskin Robbins is one of those awesome places that celebrates Birthdays, Anniversaries and just regular AWESOME coupons. And the perk with this particular club is there is NO age cut off. Baskin Robbins Birthday Club SWEET! Malakai and I drove to our local Baskin Robbins while the kids napped away. I was telling him about all the flavors. And he was excited to pick one. We spent some time looking at ALL 31 flavors before he picked Chocolate. Seriously? He is just like his Dad. Ice cream is the EASIEST thing to be adventurous with.  We sat on the bench pictured, and we talked while he enjoyed his cone. Malakai must have told me 20 times by now, that this was the MOST awesome birthday EVER. That kind of thing warms a Momma's heart.


1/2 hour of good conversation, a BIG chocolate Ice cream cone = $0.00


This was followed by me preparing his FAVORITE dinner, and a small family celebration with gifts. I know to some these things don't seem like fun, but I pride myself in the fact that my children truly enjoy the little things in life. And this entire day didn't cost me a DIME. (Except gas) And Malakai truly felt like the ENTIRE day was about him. Below, I am going to list links to the other clubs we joined. And the good thing is we got to use these throughout his birthday week.

SONIC Birthday Club
Denny's Birthday Club
IHOP Birthday Club
Wendy's Birthday Club


Others include Marble Slab, Firehouse Subs, Buffalo Wild Wings and SO much more. I enjoy freebies. And, the crazy thing is - I do find myself wanting to go to places that offer perks like these. Thanks, until next time...

Enchiladas a la Crook in a Crockpot (#7)

The only photo of this meal. :-(

Valentine's Day? I love this day. Not for your typical reasons. My kids are still little, and EVERY holiday is an excuse for shaped pancakes, food coloring and crafty fun. So, when I was scheduled to close at work, I wasn't too upset. (That is until I realized that I would be missing a new Glee, New Girl and Raising Hope!)

My husband's favorite thing I make is enchiladas. How to prepare him enchiladas when I am gone to work ALL day? Let's see if my CP can come to the rescue.

1] I took skinless boneless chicken breasts (on Valentine's Eve) and tossed them into the CP with 2 cans of red enchilada sauce, some diced up green chili's and let the CP do its thing on LOW. And in the morning, I got up shredded up the unbelievably tender meat - taste tested of course! It was Momma approved!

2] Warmed some corn tortillas up in a little of the enchilada sauce. Spooned some meat into the middle, rolled up and placed in the CP. I continued until I had finished one layer. Sprinkled sharp cheddar cheese on top with a drizzle of the sauce, and continued to layer. As you can see, I layered in a pyramid design. This was for ease of taking them out.

***My fear is that they would be soggy instead of the slightly crispy that we enjoy. ***

3] I put the CP on LOW, and headed off to work. The hubby said, they were done AND crispy in about 2 1/2 hours. SCORE one for my CP! He topped with a little sour cream, and enjoyed for lunch and dinner.

When I came home from work, I was excited to take a photo, and what I came home to was a single enchilada, an empty CP and 4 red sauced stained plates in the sink. Meal #8 a la Crockpot was a total SUCCESS! Until next time...