Pizza Casserole

What's for dinner tonight? Us, we're having Pizza Casserole. Cheap, easy, and healthy. I use ground turkey sausage and whole wheat or omega-3 pasta to keep it healthy. Under $10, easy to make, makes a lot, and you can make ahead of time. Took about 20 minutes to prep, but you're mostly just waiting for pasta to cook and the meat to brown. I used the down time to write this post, clean my kitchen, and eventually jump in the shower while it baked.

Brown the meat and cook the pasta at the same time.  Cook the pasta in a large pot so you can use it to combine the sauce and meat later.  Once everything is cooked, mix pasta, meat, and spaghetti sauce. Spread casserole into a 9x13" dish and top with mozzarella cheese. If you have any pepperoni, you can throw that on top too. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

One quick tip, I undercooked my pasta by 1-2 minutes so that it's not overcooked after baking. Recipe says you can freeze for 3 months. Easy to add additional veggies too! 6 Weight Watchers points per serving. Enjoy! Full recipe here.

Money Saving Tips - The little ones

Following up on my previous posting... I've listed the rest of the ways I try to save money each week.

Groceries. Do you throw away a lot of groceries because you forgot what you bought? I use to... maybe not a lot, but throwing away any amount of food is still throwing away money. Instead, try doing grocery shopping for only 3 dinners. That way, you remember the food you bought. Plus, if you go out to eat unexpectantly, your meat will still be good the next day most likely. Next, cut out the junk food at the grocery store. You know you shouldn't eat it anyway, so save the calories and your money!

Cheap meals. I dread the grocery store because the bill is always more than I want and I hate the pressure of figuring out meals for the week. Save yourself some effort and prepare 1-2 cheap meals a week. Ours usually include: Kraft macaroni and cheese, chicken legs, BLTs, or burgers.

Use up all those samples you've been saving. Do you have a closet or shelf dedicated to unused makeup, lotion, toothpaste, perfume, shampoo, body wash, etc? I do. You might need to organize it first to realize what you have, but I bet you're holding on to stuff thinking you'll use it eventually. I just found 6 travel toothpastes that I've been saving from my dentist visits. I've been working through all my mall lotions, perfumes, beauty samples, etc. I told myself I wasn't allowed to any new product until I finished what I already have. It doesn't save a ton, but it saves a little and clears up your clutter.

Stop buying the cheap crap over and over again. My husband and I made an agreement a long time ago that we would only buy the 'good stuff'. Buy it once and be done. Generally, not always, the pricier stuff will outlast the cheap stuff, and be cheaper in the long run. Or you'll be unhappy until you buy the product you really want, so then you end up buying it anyway. I've had my Dyson vacuum for 5 years now with no problems. Home improvement is another area... you definitely get what you pay for when it comes to paint, yard tools, or anything else that takes a lot of abuse.

Lunches and Coffees. Do you spend a lot on both of these each week? Try working on a budget for this. My husband and I use to take out a $20 bill each week to be used for our lunch and coffees each week.

House checking vs. regular checking. This is a strategy I used during college. If you find yourself overdrawing your bank account occasionally, try opening a second bank account for only bills. Whenever you get paid, calculate all the bills to be paid, and move that money over. That way, you always have money for your bills, and you know how much you can spend based on what's left in your regular checking.

No more presents/cards/flowers. The ladies may not like this one, but agree to eliminate presents between you and your spouse. Valentines day, anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas eat up a lot of money - especially cards and flowers which eventually end up in the trash anyway. Instead, take the money both of you were planning to spend and make an extra deposit to one of your SmartyPig accounts.

Impulse buys. Whenever we get an idea into our head, we want to buy it NOW! Give yourself a night to sleep on it, or a week if you can. Many times you'll talk yourself out of it, or realize an alternative or better plan.

Check Craigslist. This follows-up nicely to the previous tip... check Craigslist before buying something brand new. There are some things I would never buy used, but when applicable, used is the way to go. Some ideas: craft supplies, yard tools, kid's clothes and toys, small appliances, fitness equipment, games, movies, costumes, or any other one-time use product.

Avoid the malls. Pretty obvious one... If you don't have the money, don't go shopping, duh. If you want to save money or not live paycheck to paycheck, don't go shopping! It should be sporadic, not weekly or biweekly.

Money Saving Tips - The big ones

Below are some money-saving tips that I use everyday. I've listed the major ones in this posting that will actually show you real results. I've saved the smaller-ones for a follow-up post. The biggest theme here is to be conscience of your spending. If you're not already aware, you'd be surprised how much money goes unaccounted for on coffees, meals, drinks, and impulse buying.

• Make a calendar of all your bills. This helps me budget our money each pay period. I use a Google calendar to record all our recurring bills. Then, every payday, I calculate how much money will be coming out till next payday. This lets me know ahead of time if we need to be a little more conservative in our spending over the next two weeks.

• Act like you're poor. If you have a 'poor-man' mindset, you'll think twice about going shopping or eating-out excessively. Spend only what is in your checking account or if you decide to charge something, make sure you have enough to pay it off at the end of the month. And always be aware of your money and upcoming bills!
• Move all your cash into savings each payday. Every Thursday before payday, I check to see what the leftover balance is before we get paid. We have scheduled our bills evenly throughout the month, so that every payday can cover all the bills during that two-week period. (sending bi-weekly mortgage payments have helped tremendously, not to mention we send an extra payment each year without ever noticing) Then on payday, I either move over the carried balance into savings, or make a big payment to one of our debts. That way, we don't splurge the next pay period because we had leftover money and blow it on mindless crap.
• Coupons/Groupons/promo codes. Sometimes I feel like a cheap-o whenever I pull out a coupon, but oh well. Most of the time, coupons and Groupons dictate where we go for dinner. Groupons can obviously become dangerous, but I only tend to buy them if it's for a place we go regularly, or have been wanting to try. You can also sign up for a restaurant's mailing list and get free coupons sent. Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, and fast-food places usually have promotions they send out. Finally, when purchasing anything online, always do a google search for promo codes to apply at the checkout. Very rarely do I not find one promo code to use.
• Start a SmartyPig account. I don't care what your excuse is, everyone should have one SmartyPig account. The biggest reason why people can't save, in my opinion, is they always think about saving after they have spent all their money. You're thinking the wrong way. Pay all your bills, set aside some savings, then you can spend the rest of your money. The best part about SmartyPig is it withdrawals from your checking on a recurring schedule and you forget about it. We have ours set up to withdrawal every payday. We have three funds set up: Home Improvement, Vacation, and Juicer fund. There have been several times where something broke in the house and we needed extra cash. I just make an instant transfer to my SmartyPig debit card and then ran to Home Depot. We've set up a Car fund in the past to pay for insurance, vehicle tags, and other vehicle-related expenses which was nice. SmartyPig will get you excited about saving money. If you want to know more, or want an invite, message me. It's totally free and you earn interest.

Forks Over Knives - Documentary

Another Saturday, another documentary... Decided to watch Forks Over Knives, which by coincidence compliments my previous post about portion size. It took a while to get into the film, probably because some of the stuff is old news -- to me. But what eventually got me into it was their studies about the effects of a the Western diet compared to a whole-foods plant-based diet.

It's hard to summarize the film into one cohesive summary, so instead, I typed up some of the facts from the film:

• We spend more on health care in America than on our federal defense budget
• Lipitor is the number one prescribed medication in the world
• (used "...to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke and to decrease the chance that heart surgery will be needed in people who have heart disease or who are at risk of developing heart disease. Atorvastatin is also used to decrease the amount of cholesterol (a fat-like substance) and other fatty substances in the blood.")

• 1-2% of cancers are attributed to our genes... the rest are caused from how we treat and feed our bodies.
• Protein from animals promoted cancer growth, while protein from plants decreased cancer growth.
• A plant-based diet can reverse cancer!
• Even physically fit people are at risk because of their diets. I know I sometimes fall back on the notion, "hey, I'm thin and eat right most of the time." But even the fittest athletes can be at the same risk of cancer because of the amount of animal protein they consume.
• According to the United Nations, the cattle industry contributes to global warming more than the entire transportation industry.
• Heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S. Not smoking, drugs, alcohol, or even cancer.
• Below is how much we have increased our animal proteins and refined sugar over the past 100 years.

                                                    Then.............Now
                     Meat                      120lbs..........222lbs
                     Refined sugar          40lbs..........147lbs
                     Diary products       294lbs.........605lbs

Whole Food Steaks ($18 per pound)

Finally checked out Whole Foods today. Did some basic grocery shopping: eggs, milk, fruit, bread. Their meat counter was pretty impressive - so were the prices! We needed to pick up steaks for dinner too, but the prices were $15-25 a pound! We still wanted to give them a try just to see if it was worth it. The only thing I liked about the meat is it was all grass-fed beef. I watched a documentary a couple weeks ago, Food Inc., which detailed the benefits of grass-fed cattle. Anyway, we bought two NY strip steaks for $33 total. They were almost a full pound each, but still expensive compared to our local Hy-Vee. We decided to cut them in half and stretch our groceries an extra day. And it goes back to my previous post of cutting portion size. ;)

Conclusion? They were some damn tasty steaks! The fibers in the steak were beautiful. (Damn, maybe I should have taken a picture...) They grilled great and were super tender. My husband, who is recovering from shoulder surgery, was able to cut it with a fork! I served it with a baked potato, which were prepared just like Texas Roadhouse (I have it pinned on Pinterest if you're curious). I don't think we'll be buying all our steaks from here all the time - only because I can't afford it. But maybe it will be an occasional treat. I do think I'll be buying my fruits and vegetables from Whole Foods going forward because everything looked beautiful and fresh.

Portion Size

So I've been trying to cut down my portion size and therefore training my stomach to shrink and/or be satisfied with less. We randomly hear the facts about how we eat so much more than our ancestors, and Americans especially. Now I'm a naturally slender person, so I'm not talking about going anorexic or anything, so chill. The truth still remains that we usually eat too much especially when eating out. Trust me, I love food and can probably keep up with the best of them. But I do hate the food-hangover afterwards. It tends to happen after a heavy dinner from places like Texas Road House, Olive Garden, and On the Border. I've learned to make healthier choices from those places or eat only half the plate and save the rest for lunch. We've heard these tips before, but maybe it reminds you to you to re-think your portion sizes the next time you sit down. Another good idea is to track your calories. This can be a pain to do especially when eating out, but I've used MyNetDiary in the past to track my calories consumed and calories burned. It has a huge database of all sorts of ingredients, common meals/snacks, and even restaurant entrees. Did I mention it's completely free? I challenge you to track your calories for a week and educate yourself on calories - see where you're gaining those extra pounds each week. Another helpful tip is to preview a restaurant's menu online and their nutritional values before you go. You might be surprised how many calories your 'usual' entree might be.

So this got me thinking further... what are the facts? "Researchers say we are getting so fat it could have the same impact as an extra billion people in the world." Whoa! I never thought of it like that before. In America alone, 22 million extra adults could be fed by what overweight people eat. 

Then vs. Now

                                        Then                                           Now
Pizza...............................500 cal.......................................850 cal
Coffee...............................45 cal............................... .......330 cal
Popcorn..........................270 cal.......................................630 cal
Bagel..............................140 cal.......................................350 cal
Cheeseburger.................333 cal.......................................590 cal
Soda.................................85 cal.......................................250 cal
French Fries...................210 cal.......................................610 cal

http://inyourface.blog.ocregister.com/2012/06/19/heres-how-much-we-overeat/87201/
http://www.divinecaroline.com/22175/49492-portion-size-vs-now
http://www.delish.com/food/recalls-reviews/portion-sizes-then-and-now-america-growing

Smoothie Review

I went to Natural Thirst last week with a friend for lunch. Natural Thirst is another juice bar I go to located downtown, next to the library. I normally get a juice-drink and a wheat grass shot, but since I was going for lunch, I decided to try one of their meal replacement smoothies. I got the Avocado Alvanche: avocado, spinach, watercress, apple, and banana. Yum, right? lol My friend got the Mangomatic: mango, strawberry, and pineapple. My smoothie didn't really taste like much. It was even a little blah, but that's probably better than it tasting like vegetables, so I'm not complaining. Flax seed was also added to the drinks. I bought the large, but I will admit that I was still hungry. Below are the benefits our smoothies provided our bodies. I'll periodically post juice and smoothie reviews with nutritional benefits like below:

• Avocado - battles diabetes, lowers cholesterol, helps stops strokes, controls blood pressure, smoothies skin
• Spinach - anti-cancer properties (specifically prostate), controls blood pressure, protects eyes from cataracts, strengthens immune system, strengthens bones, healthy nervous system
• Watercress - cancer prevention (specifically skin and breast), removes free radicals after workouts
• Apple - protects your heart, prevents constipation, blocks diarrhea (wtf?), improves lung capacity, cushions joints
• Banana - protects heart, quiets a cough, strengthens bones, controls blood pressure, blocks diarrhea (there it is again)
• Flax seed - reduces your risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. weight-loss
• Mango - combats cancer, boosts memory, regulates thyroid, aids digestion, shields against Alzheimer's
• Strawberry - combats cancer, protects your heart, boosts memory, calms stress
• Pineapple - strengthens bones, relieves colds, aids digestion, dissolves warts, block diarrhea



Guess His Age...

I so want to be him someday... but as a woman of course. Short and simple read, I promise:

Bodybuilder Is A Medical Marvel