In-Season Recipe Swap - Saving Money by Using Our Garden

This week I was going to participate in the In Season Recipe Swap at Tammy's Recipes, but I didn't realize that lettuce was the main ingredient last week. I'm just a week behind, so what? I decided to post the recipe and link to the lettuce post anyway. This recipe is one way that we have been incorporating our home garden and saving money on groceries. All of the veggies in the recipe came from our garden except the onions (ours aren't ready yet).

I got this idea from a friend's party that we went to several months back. Someone fixed a layered salad and it was awesome. I decided to replicate the salad using what I had harvested from our garden. We had several items that needed to be eaten and this is what we did with them.

Our Garden Layered Salad

Lettuce (red and green leaf)

Tomatoes

Onions

Green peppers

Banana peppers, fresh not pickled

Crumbled bacon (I cheated and used the prepackaged kind)

Mayo

Sugar or Splenda

Put each of the first 5 items in order into the salad in layers. Sprinkle in bacon bits and cheese. Cover the top with mayo. Sprinkle mayo with a little sugar or splenda. I used about 3 small packets of splenda and it was great. Note: There aren't any measurements because you make to your taste.

Tried and True Recipes Work for Me

In my quest to save grocery money, I have made a discovery that really works for me - sticking to recipes that are tried and true.

My husband tends to be a picky eater, but my 5 year old will try anything and eats everything except beets (and he did try them). In previous weeks when I tried to plan menus, I would think that we continued to have the same old thing - chicken, hamburger, pork, chicken, hamburger, pork. I have tried to dress up these meats with new recipes. Some of which have been good, but mostly my family really likes what they like. So to save more money and utilize leftovers more efficiently, I have decided to stick mostly to the recipes that we know we like. This Wednesday that is what Works For Me.

AND THE WINNER IS...

Tara and Minding Momma. Since I don't have either one of your emails and couldn't access them through your profiles, please email me through my profile and I'll send the two ebooks right away.

Congratulations and thanks to all who entered.

Photo courtesy of Fotosearch.

Free Recipes Giveaway

I have two e-books that I have added to my site for purchase, but this week I am going to be giving both of these e-books away to two lucky winners!

To enter, you may do any or all of the following:

1. Comment on this blog post

2. Subscribe to the blog. If you're already subscribed, you have already been entered.

3. Add your link to my Mr. Linky for frugal sites (the new one for today). Please be sure that your site is a frugal or money saving site. If not, it won't count.

I will choose the winner on Friday, April 24th. Good luck.

Update: This giveaway is now closed and we have two winners.