frugal recipes

7 Ideas For An Easier Thanksgiving – Easy Tips

November 19, 2025 by 25 Comments

Try these easy Thanksgiving Tips and ideas to be better prepared for Thanksgiving! Prepare Thanksgiving meals easier and just get ready for the big day!

7 Ideas For An Easier Thanksgiving – Easy Tips

This is just a little reminder to take your turkey out to start thawing on Saturday if it is about a 20 pound turkey. I would start thawing any turkey on Sunday at the latest. I like to have my turkey thawed at least a day or two ahead of time so I can get it all prepared, in the pan and ready to just pull out and stick in the oven. I have so many things to do the day before Thanksgiving that this is one less thing to worry about.
For all you new or inexperienced cooks be sure to take out the “guts” or giblets as most people call them and the neck, which are usually stuffed inside of the turkey.
If you need to dry bread for your stuffing, lay the bread out this weekend so it will get good and dry. Break it up, place it in the bowl you are going to be mixing it in and have that much done ahead of time.

This weekend, wash and iron your linens for the table and get your silverware and dishes organized.
On Wednesday, do as much as you can so you’re not doing it all at the last minute. Clean the veggies for the relish dish and salads or side dishes. If you are making something like a sweet potato casserole get it all prepared so that all you have to do on Thanksgiving is pop it in the oven.
If you don’t want to be mashing potatoes two minutes before you sit down, mash them and place them in a crockpot on low to keep warm. You can keep them in the crockpot beautifully for one hour but no more. Beyond that, they get “yucky” quickly.

Most of all, for you new cooks or those of you cooking your first Thanksgiving dinner, don’t panic. It is really no more difficult than any other regular meal, except that you are probably preparing more of everything. If you are really nervous, do a trial run this weekend. Practice by roasting a chicken and making mashed potatoes, one or two sides and a dessert. It’s just like a mini Thanksgiving.

If something goes wrong (and most of us have had something go wrong once in a while), just laugh about it. Usually, it is the Thanksgiving everyone will remember with fond, happy memories. It will give you something to tell your future daughter in law, granddaughter or daughter about.

I remember being so scared my first Thanksgiving cooking alone. My friend who was older and who was going to be one of my guests told me how on her first Thanksgiving everything was perfect. The table looked great and everyone was laughing, joking and enjoying the food but half way through the meal she noticed something – she had forgotten the turkey.

She had set it on top of the fridge to move it out of the way for a minute and had left it there. Either no one noticed or they were too polite to say anything. Things may happen, but don’t panic – Thanksgiving wasn’t meant to be perfect– just a time of fun, enjoying being with friends and family.

For lots of quick and easy recipes and tips about scratch cooking and frugal living, take a look at our cookbooks!

[dining]

10 Ways To Use Buttermilk And Sour Milk For Cooking And Baking!

September 24, 2025 by 40 Comments

Buttermilk and sour milk are versatile ingredients that add flavor and richness to a variety of dishes! In this guide, you’ll find 10 easy and creative ways to use buttermilk and sour milk in your cooking.

Readers’ Homemade Buttermilk Questions Answered

We get many questions about buttermilk and our homemade buttermilk recipe like, “How do I use homemade buttermilk?” “What if I don’t have any buttermilk to start it?” and so on, so I thought I would try to clear up some of the confusion about making your own buttermilk today.

Yes you can freeze buttermilk. It is like milk though you must shake it well after freezing because it separates. You may not want to use it for drinking though because texture is different.
Dried buttermilk in the can works great. I use it all the time. It has an almost forever shelf life if unopened and it lasts almost as long when opened.
You can use buttermilk in place of milk in recipes but you must be careful if those recipes have baking powder in them. It messes up the leavening in the recipe. If you want, you can still use it. You just need to replace each 2 tsp. of baking powder with 1/2 tsp. of baking soda.
You can interchange yogurt, sour cream and buttermilk in most recipes. If you need your recipe to be looser, you can use 1/4 cup milk plus 3/4 cup yogurt or sour cream in place of buttermilk.
Let 2-3 tsp. of lemon juice or vinegar set in a cup of milk for 10 minutes to make sour milk. Be sure to put the vinegar or juice in the cup first and then add enough milk to make a cup.
Buttermilk and sour milk really shouldn’t be interchanged if you can help it. You can do it but it will sometimes change the texture of what you are making.

-Jill

Today I made some homemade buttermilk. Homemade buttermilk is the simplest thing to make! I had some milk that was left out and became sour. Mike in his ever efficient manner made sure that we all knew it was sour. (see picture 🙂

Here's how I made homemade buttermilk starting with markdown buttermilk in the grocery store.

At the grocery store today, I found some buttermilk marked down for .39 so I grabbed it up and made some buttermilk. It will be done in the morning, just in time for pancakes. Here’s the buttermilk recipe if you would like to try it. It works best with whole milk but it will work with skim. It will just be runnier. This time I just dumped the buttermilk into the milk container because I had already used some of the milk for biscuits.

-Tawra

One of our readers asked why it is okay to set out buttermilk and let it sour, but the sour milk in her child’s sippy cup is bad for her child.

Many people think sour milk and buttermilk are the same but they are different.

Buttermilk used to be the watery stuff leftover from making butter. These days, it is made by adding a lactic acid bacteria to regular pasteurized milk.
Sour milk is made by adding vinegar and lemon juice to regular milk to make it sour.
Spoiled milk is milk that has just been left out and has gone bad, like the milk in a child’s sippy cup.

To make homemade buttermilk, the recipe says to add 1-2 cups of buttermilk you already have to regular milk and let it sit out. The acid bacteria in the original buttermilk is what makes the difference. This isn’t a perfect example but it is kind of like the good bacteria and the bad bacteria in your stomach. You need the good bacteria to kill off the bad and to keep you healthy. It is the same type of thing. The bacteria in the buttermilk that you add to the milk keeps the bad bacteria at bay. Regular milk gone sour doesn’t have that acid in it, so you get nothing but bad bacteria in spoiled milk.

The same is true with sour milk. Vinegar or acid kills bad bacteria in the milk. That is why canned pickles last so long– because the acid in them keep the bacteria away longer.

You can interchange buttermilk and sour milk in a recipe but there is a difference between the two. Often, the difference is in the texture, so when a recipe calls for buttermilk I usually try to use buttermilk and not just make my own sour milk with vinegar (although I do use sour milk in some recipes).

Buttermilk pancakes or biscuits come out slightly fluffier using buttermilk than when you substitute sour milk. That’s why they’re not called Sour Milk Pancakes. 😉

[dining]

Zucchini Slaw Recipe – Great Way To Use Garden Leftovers!

August 29, 2024 by 19 Comments

Overwhelmed with zucchini? Try this quick, easy and delicious zucchini slaw recipe, a twist on coleslaw that will help you use those garden leftovers!

This easy zucchini slaw transforms garden-fresh zucchini into a delicious coleslaw. With just four simple ingredients, you can whip it up in no time and make the most of your zucchini harvest!

Zucchini Slaw Recipe

From: Norma

As I was shredding zucchini to put in the freezer, my 12 year old grandson asked, “I wonder what that would taste like made into slaw”. So he got a carrot and we made zucchini slaw. It was awesome!

So here is our easy Zucchini Slaw recipe:

I tried this zucchini slaw recipe and it was yummy! I also tried making it with our garlic salad sauce. Yum! This is a great way to use leftover garden zucchini!

-Tawra

[dining]

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using these links, we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Save Money At After Halloween Sales

November 1, 2023 by 8 Comments

After Halloween sales can be a great time to pick up a few things at a discount that can help you save for other occasions. Here are a few tips to help you!

Save Money At After Halloween Sales

Don’t forget to go to the after Halloween sales to get some great bargains on candy and other items. You can get many other things at after Halloween sales besides candy:

Packages of little toys for party favors.
Cupcake wrappers. Cupcake cups with pumpkins can be used all the way through Thanksgiving and if it is just for your family, most kids don’t mind if their cupcakes have a pumpkin wrapper on it, even in January.
Candles and candle holders
Napkins and disposable tablecloths

Do you have a graduation coming at the end of the school year and the school colors include black? Buy your plates, napkins, streamers and party favors now. Look for bargains on these types of products after every holiday. If the school colors are red, you can find great stuff after Christmas or Valentine’s Day, silver after New Year’s Eve, green after St. Patrick’s day and so on.

Get costumes for next year or pick up odds and ends if your kids like play acting or drama. We always kept a costume box. It had a lot of basics, including a black cape, sword, cowboy hat, cowboy vest, clown wig and nose, black gloves, etc.

You might be surprised about what you find. One year the store had 24 bag packages of lunch chips for a dollar. This was cheaper than it would cost for me to package them up myself. Happy Hunting!

-Jill

Easy Meal Planning Ideas! Planning Proper Meals

April 2, 2022 by 34 Comments

Here are some easy meal planning ideas to help you save money and time! Many people find planning meals daunting but meal planning can actually be easy! These tips and ideas will help you get started!

Meal planning ideas to save money and time! Many people find it daunting but it can actually be easy! These tips will help you get started!

We get so many questions over and over about meals and meal planning. While I was looking up something to answer one reader’s question about meal planning, I came across some notes I had written years ago from a class I had taken.

This statement I wrote is clear, simple and pretty much covers everything you need to know when preparing a meal.

Meal Planning 101

Meals should be planned, be regular, be on time, taste good, be nutritious, fit within your budget, smell good and be attractive.

It might help to write this statement out and keep it in your kitchen somewhere or with your coupons and meal planning things. Then, as you plan your meals, you can go quickly go over the list and see if your meal satisfies all or most of these points.

If you remember the above statement, that is all you really need to know about meal planning but I decided to add a little detail to it to give you some ideas about what that statement means.

Planned – Meal planning helps to save money and eliminates the last minute stress of wondering “What am I making tonight for dinner?!” This is the key to all meal planning and probably will save you more money than anything else. If you plan at least a week’s worth of menus. At least plan the night before or that morning what you will have.

Regular – We often know we need nutritious meals but sometimes don’t realize that having meals on a regular basis really helps our digestive system function better. That means part of good meal planning is picking a time to have dinner close to the same time each day.

Having regular meals also helps our families emotionally. We are built to like consistency in our lives, especially children. There is something comforting in knowing no matter what frustrating things happened throughout the day, when your family arrives home, there is one constant in their lives – dinner. If you don’t think this is true, try it for a week or two. Then stop doing it and see how your family reacts. Make setting a regular meal time part of your meal planning.

On time – Getting meals prepared on time can be a little tricky for new cooks. It takes a little practice but you can learn to do it. Start preparing the food that will take the longest to cook first. Then work on the next longest and so on. Also, do as much ahead of time as possible. This goes for everyone. Brand new cooks may want to set the table long before even beginning the meal because it is one less thing to deal with but later, with practice, you can usually set the table while you are waiting for something to cook on the stove. With practice, you will also get to the point where you can toss a salad while you are waiting for the potatoes to cook but this all comes with time. While you are learning, keep your meals simple and composed of just a few easy dishes.

Taste Good – Pick foods your family likes and learn to cook them. I know this can be a meal planning challenge for some of us. Some people have a harder time learning to cook than others in the same way that some are better at gardening or sewing but you really need to try the best you can to learn some basics.

It may take a little work but you need to find foods that taste good. You may have to try different brands and varieties of the food. This may mean learning things like being fresh doesn’t always mean something tastes better. Most of the time I can’t tell any difference when I use frozen or fresh broccoli in my cooked foods but I can tell a difference between the brands of frozen broccoli I buy. To save money, use frozen foods if you can’t tell a difference and use the savings to buy fresh foods where you really can tell a difference.

Be nutritious – I have touched on this a lot in other articles but basically this means you need to learn about nutrients and what your family needs. Study. We grab anything that has organic or healthy written on the label but many of us couldn’t tell you what main foods are more rich in iron or vitamin B. If you are that concerned about your family’s health and insist that you must eat organic, at least learn how many calories and what nutrients are in the food. Read a book or do some research on the Internet. Don’t just read labels.

Fit your budget – This is simple. You may want to have steak for dinner but your budget only allows chicken, so chicken it is. Staying within your budget when meal planning will help you avoid overspending.

Smell Good – You truly use all of your senses when you eat. If your family can’t get the food past their noses, it won’t make it into their mouths. Also, food smells have a strong impact on people emotionally, especially when the smells are connected with home and family. Consider how often you hear an adult talk about memories of home and half of the time they mention some smell they remember.

Be Attractive – Like I mentioned above, we use all of our senses. If the meal doesn’t look good or looks “gross”, they won’t eat it. This should be an important consideration in your meal planning. Don’t forget to use lots of different colored food. Not only does this help with eye appeal but it also is an easy way to know you are giving your family a more nutritionally balanced meal. Many different colors means well balanced. Don’t forget to use different shapes and textures of food, too.

Meal planning is one of those jobs we tend to let go because we don’t consider them as important or as pressing as other things– kind of like folding clothes and putting them away. We can get them washed and dried but not folded and put away. But doing these things and following through with them can really make our lives easier and get rid of a lot of stress and always saves us money.

Rethink some things in your life that you are letting slide including your meal planning. You might be surprised a what a difference changing a few things will make.

-Jill

[dining]

Quick and Easy Homemade Breakfast in 15 Minutes Or Less!

October 1, 2021 by 44 Comments

Do you feel too overwhelmed to make breakfast? By planning ahead and getting organized, you can have an easy homemade breakfast in 15 minutes or less!

Quick and Easy Homemade Breakfast in 15 Minutes Or Less!

I just finished writing a future newsletter about breakfast and I realized one of the reasons we don’t often eat breakfast is because we have difficulty managing time. Not only is it important to time things to get them done quickly but, when it comes to breakfast preparation, it is important to get everything done at the same time, too. This can sometimes be a big challenge to a beginning cook, but practice makes perfect.

Here are some helpful tips along with a simple menu I will use for my example:

Sausage
Eggs, scrambled
Toast
Coffee

If time is truly tight, then get as much done ahead of time as possible.

Things to do the night before:

(All of this should take not more than 5-10 minutes.)

Put the coffee and water in the pot.
If it comes in a roll, slice the sausage into patties.
Put the eggs in a bowl, mixed and ready to go.
Set the bread and butter by the toaster.
Place the pan or griddle on the stove ready for sausage and eggs and stage the oil for cooking by the pans.
Set the table.

Things to do in the morning:

Start the coffee.
Put the sausage patties in the pans and start cooking them.
Pop the toast in the toaster.
Flip sausages and start cooking the eggs.
Butter toast, stir eggs, dish up sausages and dish up eggs.

Voila! You’re done!

Of course, this process can vary from person to person. I’m sure some of us do it differently and I do it differently on some days, too. The point is to think through the order in which you will do things.

Start your longest cooking items or things that can be just popped into a pan and need no attention first.
Look for areas where you can save time. For example, don’t make trips back and forth to the refrigerator. Get everything you need out at one time and put it all back at one time.
Mix and stir items as closely to the things you are cooking on the stove so you don’t have to run back and forth. For example, if you are cutting up a bowl of fruit, cut it near the stove area so you can easily stop and flip the bacon.
Write down a list of quick and easy breakfasts to make. For example, place oatmeal in the crock pot overnight, have Egg McMuffins ready to warm and have homemade waffles made and ready to pop in the toaster.
Again, do as much as you can ahead of time, like having the table set the night before.

Most breakfasts for a family of 4 can be made in 15 minutes or less if you are organized. You might find everyone more excited about getting up in the morning and getting dressed if they wake up to the smell of something yummy cooking in the kitchen.

Try these breakfast ideas for your family:

Breakfast bowls
Breakfast burritos
Fresh fruit
Oatmeal with fruit
Toast with jelly or bacon
Breakfast sandwiches
Eggs, scrambled, poached or to your taste
Hard-boiled eggs
Apples, cut into quarters, with core removed
Bagels
Muffins
Dried apples or bananas
Oranges, peeled and quartered
Pumpkin bread
Banana bread
Zucchini bread
Bananas
Crackers and cheese
Celery sticks, spread with peanut butter
Cheese
Homemade granola bars
Beef jerky
Tortillas with cream cheese
Peanut butter snacks
Yogurt with fruit or wheat germ added
Milk
Chocolate milk
Homemade hot chocolate
Creamy Orange Shake
Smoothies
Apples, quartered and cored with 1 tsp. peanut butter on each quarter
Bananas sliced in half and spread with peanut butter
Bread or toast cut into quarters and spread with jelly, jam, peanut butter, spiced honey or honey butter
Crackers spread with peanut butter and jelly or jam
Place some peanut butter and honey on a pancake and roll up for a snack. This is great for leftover pancakes.

Many of these easy breakfast ideas and more are from our cookbooks!

[dining]

Quick And Easy Banana Split Recipes – Easy Desserts!

August 2, 2021 by 18 Comments

Homemade banana splits are wonderful cool desserts for hot summer days! Try these banana split recipes and ideas and please the whole family! [Read more…] about Quick And Easy Banana Split Recipes – Easy Desserts!

Dream Laundry Room Ideas

August 17, 2020 by 10 Comments

Dream Laundry Room Ideas

From: Cindy M
This is an idea for handling laundry/clothes that I wish I would have used when my kids were still at home. It would require a good-size laundry room but save a lot of bedroom space. There would be cubbies for everyone – socks, underwear, t-shirts, jeans, anything foldable would go in the cubbies – being folded straight out of the dryer. This would eliminate the need for dressers in the bedroom and the space they would take up. Hanging clothes could either go on a rack in the laundry room if space allows, or in the bedroom closets.

I have to admit this would be my dream laundry room! Since my laundry room barely has room for me stand in I dream of this type of a laundry room everyday! LOL Tawra

My dream laundry room would have an eight foot long and four foot deep table that is the perfect height to fold my clothes on easily with the cubbies and rods above it to place things as I fold them. It also would have a place to keep the ironing board up all the time with a rod and cubbies by it to hang the clothes on. Last but not least it would have a rack to hang all those things like dirty dish rags or towels which need to dry before you dump them in the hamper.

To be honest I love laundry so much I wouldn’t mind dedicating one whole floor to a laundry room. I wonder if more people would enjoy doing it if they didn’t have to do it all in a little 5×3 closet all the time. Cooking and doing laundry are two of the main “have to do” things done in a home and yet they always make theses little tiny rooms to do it in but we create these bathrooms that are so big you could play tennis in them.

I mean how much room do you need to sit on a toilet or stand at a sink to wash your face??? They give you an 8 foot vanity just to brush your hair and put on make up and often don’t give you even one foot of space to fold clothes.

They even are now giving you an area in the bathroom so you can have a couch to sit and read on. I’m sorry but I can think of much more pleasant places I would rather read then laying and looking at a toilet that 4 male members of my family just used. Makes no sense to me. Although if you are a mom with 4 little ones under the age of 5 that might be your only place to relax. : ) : )

Jill

Turn School Supplies Into Christmas Gifts

July 29, 2020 by 13 Comments

Just before school, when school supplies are on sale, is a good time to stock up on lots of little gifts that will be great for Christmas! [Read more…] about Turn School Supplies Into Christmas Gifts

Roast with Cranberry Sauce and Leftovers

March 23, 2015 by 14 Comments

Roast with Cranberry Sauce and Leftovers

From: Shelley
I loved your recipe for the cranberry roast (see below). It was awesome. The next day, I heated the leftover roast and gravy added about a tablespoon of soy sauce and 1/2 a bag of broccoli florets. I served that over ramen noodles and it made a wonderful broccoli beef type dish.

A lot cheaper than take out!

-Shelley

Cranberry Roast

1 pkg. dry onion soup mix
1 (3lb) roast
1 can (16 oz) cranberry sauce

Pour soup mix in a crockpot. Add roast and top with cranberry sauce. Cover and cook for 8 hours. To thicken gravy, mix 1 Tbsp. cornstarch and water and add to gravy. You can add carrots and potatoes 4 hours into cooking.

Photo By: matthewreid