Save Money, Great Deals!

I'm all about saving money, and it's been brought to my attention that you can get superb deals by stacking up your coupons. The show, "Extreme Couponing" on TLC (Wednesday nights) is amazing! The people on the show save thousands of dollars through coupons, literally cutting down there grocery bills by 90%!!! I'm officially inspired to begin my own coupon savings. =)

I follow the Krazy Coupon Lady, coupons.com, smartsource.com, redplum.com and have signed up on various product sites to receive my coupons and discounts. Often the product sites (such as Land-O-Lakes, Pillsbury, and Betty Crocker) have great recipe databases with select recipes for members only! It's great and best of all it's FREEEEEE!! Follow my lead to great savings! (pic obtained from http://blog.zap2it.com)

Best Meatballs and Spaghetti Recipe Ever! (from Barefoot Contessa)

I made this recipe for a Valentine's Day dinner for my boyfriend. Lady and the Tramp moment anyone? It was amazinggg. Never again will I praise any other meatball recipes. The only changes I made were due to laziness. ( I just used Ragu traditional spaghetti sauce to substitute the homemade sauce) I found the veal, pork, and beef all in one convenient package at my local Shoprite.

Ingredients

For the meatballs:

• 1/2 pound ground veal
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 cup fresh white bread crumbs (4 slices, crusts removed)
• 1/4 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 extra-large egg, beaten
• Vegetable oil
• Olive oil

Directions

Place the ground meats, both bread crumbs, parsley, Parmesan, salt, pepper, nutmeg, egg, and 3/4 cup warm water in a bowl. Combine very lightly with a fork. Using your hands, lightly form the mixture into 2-inch meatballs. You will have 14 to 16 meatballs.

Pour equal amounts of vegetable oil and olive oil into a large (12-inch) skillet to a depth of 1/4-inch. Heat the oil. Very carefully, in batches, place the meatballs in the oil and brown them well on all sides over medium-low heat, turning carefully with a spatula or a fork. This should take about 10 minutes for each batch. Don't crowd the meatballs. Remove the meatballs to a plate covered with paper towels. Discard the oil but don't clean the pan.

My Substitute: Use large container of Ragu Traditional, heat until simmering

Return the meatballs to the sauce, cover, and simmer on the lowest heat for 25 to 30 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked through. Serve hot on cooked spaghetti and pass the grated Parmesan.

Serves 6

Searching the web and I came across this picture. I love it! A world created out of words...ahh the possibilities. Inspiration perhaps for the aspiring author? Or an artistic look at J.K. Rowling's empire created from her beloved Harry Potter series? =p At any rate, this picture is gorgeous graphic design. Hats off to the creator. (picture found on examiner.com)

Halloween Theme Cupcakes

These are the Halloween cupcakes I made for my Literary Magazine Club. I varied with chocolate and vanilla cupcakes for each group (Frankensteins, Werewolves, and Mummies). The werewolves were by far the favorite cupcake of my club members. Yayyy for chocolaty goodness =) Tip: The darker the color your icing is, the more bitter it tastes, substitute brown icing for black coloring. don't even use brown dye, instead mix cocoa with your icing to achieve your desired brown. It won't be bitter, it'll be a nice chocolaty taste.

Day 1

After learning about free blog space at blogger.com from my friend Erick I immediately decided I would hop up to the task of creating my own blog. Apparently I am not so tech-savvy as I originally thought. I found myself struggling to get through the many menu tab items.What was this about posting? links/comments? and what the heck was up with the design formats? I now had to admit that I was behind my grandmother on the technology scene. She can easily navigate through Skype and Gmail, yet I, her 18- year- old granddaughter, could not manage blog settings, how shameful. Just another kid from the iGeneration? I think not Larry Rosen =p I plan on telling you all about my experiences with baking/cooking and sharing my pics/recipes, along with plenty of book reviews and a little bit of my own writing I hope to get eventually published. Wish me luck =)