The best meatballs ever. Seriously.

I love comfort food, and to me, there is nothing more comforting than pasta and meatballs. It's just such a homey food that nearly everyone enjoys. So I am always on the search for the perfect meatball. I don't like them hard, like a hamburger, I prefer them to be moist and tender and melt in your mouth - and today, I think I found my perfect meatball! And good things are meant to be shared, so here we go :)

Cheesy Italian Crock-pot Meatballs

- 1 1/2 lbs of a beef, pork, and veal mix (it comes pre-mixed at my grocery store in the meat section)
- 1 cup of steel cut oats
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 1 egg
- 2/3 cup Ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
- A handful of basil leaves minced (or 1 tablespoon dried)
- 3 sprigs of thyme minced (or 2 teaspoons dried)
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 2 teaspoons dried rosemary
- 2 Tablespoons mustard
- A few dashes of Worcestershire sauce
- Black pepper to taste
- Kosher salt to taste (I suggest around 1 tbspn, give or take)

Pre-heat the oven to 375

In a small bowl pour milk over the steel cut oats - they should be entirely saturated, add more milk if necessary - and let it sit and soak while you complete the next steps.

In a larger bowl mix the meat with all other ingredients

After the oats are saturated, mix in with the meat mixture - incorporate very well.

Rub a baking sheet with a tiny bit of oil, form your meatballs, and bake for about 15 minutes

Meanwhile, add the sauce of your choosing (homemade, store bought, whatever. The meatballs are going to flavor the sauce) into your crock pot. I use'd Mid's sauce, and needed 3 jars or 3 quarts.

Remove meatballs from the oven and transfer from the sheet to the crock pot with a slotted spatula and mix the sauce so that all of the meatballs are completely submerged/covered with the sauce. Cover and let cook on high for 5 hours or on low for longer.

Serve over pasta with garlic bread! Mmm enjoy!

Frugal in Forty: Update!

I have not abandoned my mission or forgotten about it - but things have been a little hectic and busy the past week or so, and I haven't had the time I need to blog about it. Don't give up on me though! I'm hoping to do some catching up soon!

Frugal in Forty: Day 12 - Meatless Mondays: Making Meals Multiply

Meat is without a doubt the biggest expense in our food budget. I spend easily more than half our weekly alotment on it. This is because meat is, by and large, the most important part of my meals. Growing up my mother always made a 3 section meal - meat, a starch/carb, and a vegetable. Obviously there were meals like spaghetti that excluded this, but as a general rule of thumb, you could count on there being meat at every dinner. This is something I have carried with me throughout my entire adult life - a dinner doesn't feel like a meal if it doesn't involve some kind of meat. However, I've decided to try and change that, one step at a time.

Enter, Meatless Mondays. I am going to attempt to make one meal a week sans meat. I chose Monday because I like the alliteration we usually indulge over the weekend, be it grill outs or family dinners or restaurant gatherings - so Mondays are a good time to give ourselves a break.

Tonight I made chili, and I used hamburger - which is what spurred this idea - I could have very easily omitted the hamburger from this dish. If I would have removed the cost of the meat, I would have had about 6 quarts of chili, packed with a ton of different types of beans (the secret to stretching meals like this!) and veggies for around $7.00. That is, in my opinion, a good deal any way you slice it! Not only does that break down to 3.50 a person, but this meal can easily stretch into three meals and a lunch of leftovers. Throw the chili on a baked potato, over some rice, mixed in with some salad, eat it with tortilla chips as a lunch or snack, the possibilities are endless.

The benefits here are not only financial, as we know that an excess of meat is not good for health either.

I will be spending time over the next few days brainstorming meals to replace on Monday's that are meat free. This won't make a huge dent in our bill, but I know that we must start with a single step before we run - after all, slow and steady wins the race - I hope to eventually cut our meat costs in half.

Do you have any meatless meals that you find you are able to make cheaply?

A letter of intent

When was the last time you wrote a letter by hand? Not on a computer, or a blackberry, or an iPhone - but on paper, with ink? This is becoming a thing of the past. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, it cannot be disputed that computers allow for much more efficient work - added bonuses like spell check and backspace make our lives lazier easier.

But it makes me sad to think that handwritten letters have fallen completely to the wayside. There's something so personal and endearing about hand writing a note. It takes intention and thought and extra effort.

This was something I realized today when I went to go write my Compassion Children a note online -- you no longer need to hand write notes, you can send emails and they will be delivered. I stopped short of "send" and decided that, instead, I wanted them to know that they are worth the thought, they are worth the extra effort.

There are other people in my life who I would live to convey that to as well. So I have decided to sit down and write today - to everyone that is on my mind. I understand that maybe not everyone will appreciate the sincerity in a hand written letter like I do, but maybe they will. Just maybe.

Frugal in Forty: Day 5 - A Time To Rest

As I've stated before, this journey is not only about becoming a better steward of our home and finances, but to bring peace and stability, a place of harmonious constancy to our lives. I believe that in order to achieve that, you must set aside time for rest. The home should be a place of solace and rejuvenation for your family. I believe it's important to set aside time free of schedule and business to just enjoy each other, and weekends usually are the perfect times to allow that to happen.

Remember, in a world of go-go-go, to stop, and breathe, and simplify!

Elegant Baby $75 shopping spree giveaway!

Who doesn't love free stuff? I know I do! And today I'm really excited about a giveaway going on over at Baby Loving Mama.

Right now she's sponsoring a give away from Elegant Baby for a $75 dollar shopping spree! As a mom, there's nothing I love more than buying things for my Twincesses, and this store knows how to call to my heart!

Elegant Baby offers everything from sweet baby bloomers...

Pink and White Ruffled Baby Bloomers


To adorable piggy banks...

Piggy Bank Green and Pink


To the cutest hooded towels you've ever seen!

The Olivia Owl Bath Towel

And everything in between :)

So head on over to the give away at Baby Loving Mama's Blog and enter for your chance to win!

Frugal in Forty: Day 3 - Out with the old, in with the new!

My girls are getting to an age where they no longer play with or need a lot of things we used when they were newborns. These things are taking up precious space in our living room and the nursery and are not being used. Swings, Boppys, Bumbos, Play mats, bouncy chairs, our rocker -- all things that take up a substantial amount of space unnecessarily. Enter, Craigslist! I love craigslist. You can get things out the door and recoup some of your cost for them - thus simplifying AND frugal! Put the money you earn in a fund towards new things that you'll need for your kids, monthly bills, or a special event you're saving for.

Today I decided to take two steps - since it takes some time for things to actually sell on craigslist, and not very much effort to list them. So, I also started thinking about and planning ways that I can cut down on our shopping list - which is really at the heart of frugal simple living. I'm utilizing mostly blogs to inspire me - reading up on ways to make meals cheaper and stretch further, what items are best to buy in bulk, and collecting coupons to help keep costs down.

What do you do to get the most out of your budgets?

Day 3 - Success :)

Frugal in Forty: Day 2 - Cleaning out THEIR closet

One would be under the assumption that the closet and dresser of 9 month old's would be simple and manageable - not in this house! These girls have clothes coming out their ears, in all shapes and sizes. In fact, I'm fairly certain they have more clothes than I do. Granted, there are two of them. Still, I found that a good amount of clothes were out of season or out of size. Just add it to the pile of donation clothes!

Our house isn't excessive, and the nursery is the smaller of the bedrooms, so every inch of space needs to be used wisely and organized. Because there was no "leeway", just having that pile of clothes out of place made everything feel chaotic, but now that things are in order it's much more relaxing.

Do you ever notice you sleep better when your room is clean? Cleanliness and order are peaceful, which is ultimately the goal of this endeavor - peace!

These baby steps are proving to be a wise decision for me. I am not overwhelming myself with an impossible list of things to do in one day, but rather taking effective steps to bring order and peace to our lives. This is not the same effect as I would have by simply cleaning - cleaning would be moving things around, shifting the chaos - this home detoxification is getting things OUT that are serving no purpose but to clutter. This way, at the end of the 40 days, things will not still be there, waiting to be shifted again, but we will be able to maintain the peace and order far more easily.

Here we go...

Half way through...

And sorted! Bags are going elsewhere, huge improvement!

And so - Day two: Success!

Frugal in Forty: Day 1 - Cleaning out my closet

Literally! Tonight I went through my dresser and closet and sorted all the clothes from each other. I removed and set aside all of my winter clothes to be put in a storage bin, and separated a huge pile of clothes to be donated that haven't been worn in months. They are obviously not clothes I value, or else I would have worn them already, and there are people who are in far greater need of them than I. My dresser is nice and empty organized now, and I am enjoying the way things are fitting better.

So day one was a success! One step at a time :)

Suppose a person is good and does what is fair and right ( . . . ) He gives bread to the hungry and clothes to those who have none ( . . . ) Whoever does these things is good and will surely live, says the Lord God. - Ezekiel 18:5-9

Moby Wrap

When I brought my sweet littles home from the NICU, all I wanted to do was cuddle them all day, they were so sweet and squishy. And despite my husband assuring me I needn't worry about the housework at that point, I felt the need to begin organizing our life after the chaos that was our life in the NICU -- enter, The Moby. The Moby is what is classified as a stretchy wrap. It's a long piece of stretchy fabric in which you can wrap and carry your baby(ies) hands free. This wrap was my life saver for for the first few months that the girls were home. You can find a myriad of Moby instructional videos on Youtube to help you figure out how to wrap singletons and twins.

A note* Despite the package stating that it can carry up to 35 lbs, it has been found that after 20 - 25 lbs the Moby stops being as supportive. It is also recommended that you do not carry your baby facing forward in the Moby - as it is believed it puts potentially harmful pressure on the baby's hips and is not correctly supportive for hip or spine alignment.

I strongly recommend investing in a Moby wrap. If you cannot afford to purchase one brand new ($40), I recommend checking out thebabywearer.com or the Baby Wearing Swap on Babycenter.com to find a gently loved one, usually for at least half the price! If you do buy a new one, remember that most often you can sell it once you no longer need it on the aforementioned websites as well to recoup some of your cost!

Frugal in Forty

Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify. - Henry David Thoreau, Transcendentalist author and poet

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak - Hans Hoffman, early 20th century abstract expressionist painter

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. - Elise Boulding, late 20th century author and sociologist.

For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. - 2 Corinthians 1:12, NKJV


I read an article today about the link found between sodium nitrites and the increased risk of cancers, wherein it declared that nearly all processed foods contained this harmful carcinogenic. Curiously, upon visiting the grocery store shortly thereafter, I took the time to check out the labels on the packages of yet-to-be-sliced sandwich meat at the deli. Surprise, surprise, I found row after row of sodium nitrate, sodium nitrate, and more sodium nitrate. On every. Single. One. And it's not just sandwich meat - you can also find this unnecessary color enhancing additive in hot dogs, frozen meats (mostly red), pepperoni, bacon (thank goodness my store sells natural nitrate/nitrite free bacon!), etc. Basically, if it's processed and/or red meat, you can count on it having this ingredient. *note, this does not include fresh red meat*.

I know there are people reading this who are probably rolling their eyes, I'm pretty sure my husband did a little, because it seems like every other day someone is putting out a new study about something else giving us cancer. People are beginning to wonder how much is real and how much is being used to stir up fear. But processed foods are something we've been warned about time and time again, for more than a handful of reasons. I decided to avoid my deli meat on today's shopping trip, which made me think about things that I can eat that are fresh and wholesome and good for you, which in turn led me to some blogs I read, that specialize in natural living, as resources. Most of them have one thing in common, frugality.

In the past this word was not a used in a positive light, it was usually used to describe people who pinched their pennies, were greedy, selfish, miserly. This is not the way frugality is usually intended today, and it certainly is not the way God wants us to live. The modern concept of frugality, however, I believe to be very God honoring. It's about *simplifying* - everything from our bank accounts to our refrigerator to our souls. It's about de-cluttering our homes and our priorities. It's about reassigning value from the inconsequential to the fundamental.

It is my belief that a frugal lifestyle is the way to holiness and a closer relationship with God. This is something I desire not only for myself but for my household. And we are surely in desperate need of some purging and purification. So, for the next 40 days I will be on a mission to begin a lifestyle of frugality for myself, my family, my home, and my spirituality.

It will be largely "out with the old - in with the new". I will be putting together new shopping lists, figuring out how to make food go further, re-organizing my home, re-budgeting, in short, completely revamping.

Great things are always accomplished over the course of 40 days in the bible, and I know I have a lot of work to do, but I am praying that this will be the start of a new life for us. With Christ, all things are possible.