Rudy Family Rukus~Parenting tips and humor meet in one big "rukus"

  Last night for dinner I was inspired by kitchenmonki.com where I was doing some menu planning.  Working on three months at a time.  Now that is a challenge in itself but to also try to menu plan around items that are on sale AND that I have coupons for almost impossible.  I said ALMOST  I promise it can be done.  This is my secret.... oh and I didn't invent the secret I stole it from someone .  I theme menu plan.  For example on Monday we will be eating something from my Pampered Chef cookbooks,  Tuesday  my old standbys,  Wednesday Mexican, and so on and so forth.  You get the idea.  That makes it a little more flexible for me to match sales with my menu.  Anyway I digress what I cooked was Chicken Kabobs.  That's easy because I bought chicken on sale a few weeks ago and have it in the freezer and I have been going to my favorite farmers market for fresh produce once a week.  I followed Clair's advi...

Sorry I have been missing in action.  I have been enjoying some family time and I will have some posts about that soon.  Today I wanted to report on how the Budget Boot Camp is going. Last week I posted about menu planning and my 90 day Budget Boot Camp.  Today I am posting about how that went this week.  I am happy to report that I had some success with menu planning.  I sat down with my husband and we planned out 3 weeks of meals.  This is atypical as my husband is on vacation (more about that soon) so he was involved which I found very helpful.  We planned meals that were sensible, healthy, and that we like as a family.  I made a shopping list and bought what we would need for the week and then stuck to it.  We did spend a little more than usual because we went out of town and had a large family BBQ for the holiday, but it was nice to have a plan and not run back to the store several times. I was pleasantly surprised at h...

As I mentioned on Sunday I am a challenger in the Budget Boot Camp .  I am joining up with some of my favorite twitter and blogfrog friends and meeting some new ladies as well along this journey.  I am very excited to make new blogging friends and get my budget in shape! The first challenge is to make a menu and stick to it.  Since I have been working on this anyway I am very excited to continue meal planning as a way to help me save money.  I printed out the menu template from Beth at In Good Cents .  Wish me luck as I am trying to do three weeks worth of menus. If you would like to join me in this challenge please feel free!  Each week I will be posting the challenge and then a wrap up post on how the challenge went.  I will also be discussing it in my BlogFrog community so if you want to decrease your spending and get your budget in shape jump in NOW! Click the button and it will take you to our facebook fanpage.  Go ahead and lik...

My friend Lolli over at Better In Bulk did a post about what to do with your leftover turkey and I thought it was a great idea so I am going to tell you what I did with my turkey leftovers tonight. The picture isn't great but you get the idea. I made Tasty Turkey Tatrazzini (recipe from Pampered Chef ).  For the full recipe go to my blogfrog community.  I posted it here .  Please leave me a recipe that you use for your turkey leftovers.

So I don't usually blog about food or what I cook because that time of the day is so hectic for me. Probably why we eat out so much ugh. I know not very frugal. But one of my new found blogging friends posted yesterday about meal planning and how to get started. She suggests to get started just write down 15 meals. Which was totally stressful for me ahh. She has more steps. Those of you who are awesome click here to see the rest of her challenge. As for me I am going to start slow and list my 15 meals for you! The picture is of one of our new favorites Jerk Chicken Nachos--courtesy of Pampered Chef 1. Jerk Chicken Nachos 2. Skillet Lasagna--also pampered chef 3. Baked Potato Bar 4. Chicken Alfredo 5. Sweet and Sour Chicken or Pork 6. Pot Roast (or any roast) 7. Chicken Enchiladas 8. Tacos (usually beef and soft shells) 9. Hamburgers on grill 10. California Chicken club pizza--thanks again pampered chef 11. Spaghetti 12. Chicken Delight (AKA chicken balls or chi...