.: Mommy Doodles : Blog :.: December 2009

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

MyPunchBowl.com

MyPunchbowl giving away FREE $30 Premium accounts between now and end of 2009!

Punchbowl Software, Inc., developers of the start to finish party planning site MyPunchbowl.com, today announced that anyone who creates a new user account before 11:59pm PST on December 31, 2009 will receive a FREE MyPunchbowl Premium account upgrade. Valued at $29.95 (1 year subscription), Punchbowl will give away up to 10,000 Premium accounts by the end of the year. MyPunchbowl Premium provides users unlimited access to invitation and eCard designs as well as the ability to send advertising-free eCards and invites for one year. "Our site traffic has doubled in the last three months," said Matt Douglas, CEO of MyPunchbowl. "This is our small way of saying thank you for a fantastic year."

http://mommydoodles.mypunchbowl.com

To claim your FREE Premium account, sign up for MyPunchbowl before the end of 2009.

Company Contact: Matt Douglas, 650.814.3393 or Stephanie Fader, 508.283.4643

Monday, December 14, 2009

Homemade Christmas Gift 2009

Our homemade Christmas gift this year is a cookbook style collection of Christmas Goodies, along with Honey Roasted Chex Mix. Everyone is getting an e-copy of the booklet, click here to view and download for yourself and/or share with others.

My 4.5 yr old son and I designed the digital booklet. He enjoyed picking treats online and seeing me make his ideas become real on the pages. He even drew 'some guys' for the booklet which you can find below and on the back page.

Once the booklet was printed (by my sis at ISS), we folded, poked holes and tied yarn knots to 'hold them' all together! We shopped for the ingredients and made up a couple batches of chex mix. I also made bag toppers to match for the chex mix in the zip baggies.

Friends and family will be getting the bagged homemade treat. Click here for the official recipe of Honey Roasted Chex Mix.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Monday, December 7, 2009

First snow and my new shoes...

Finally put away my sandals, the snow began to fall here in Mass on Saturday, our first snow on December 5th!! So just thought i would share with you my new shoes! love them, found them yesterday @ Burlington Shoes for $24.98 !

Saturday, December 5, 2009

3 Weeks Till Christmas: Menu Plan & Batch Cook for December

Perfect post ...

Sent to you by Mommy Doodles via Google Reader:

3 Weeks Till Christmas: Menu Plan & Batch Cook for December

via Simple Mom by Tsh on 12/3/09

December is typically a very busy month for most families — holiday parties, school events, and shopping lists keep us hectic and busy. Keeping up with typical household tasks feels a bit intrusive and even a bit of a seasonal damper. Who wouldn't rather bake Christmas cookies than tackle the laundry?

Dinner easily falls to the wayside. Pizza delivery becomes all too common, and healthy, sit-down meals are set aside for convenient fast food or quick, frozen dinners.

With a simple meal plan, you can easily double your recipes in the first half of December, so that in the second half — when we're swamped with holiday festivities – all you have to do is thaw, heat, and serve.

I've written plenty about menu planning — how I sometimes plan a month's worth of meals at a time, how I use Google Calendar and Delicious to manage it all, and how batch cooking and freezer meals can cut my time in half.

For December, I'm incorporating all of these tools. Winter food can easily be doubled and frozen, so with a basic two-week meal plan, I can have our family's dinners stocked for the fun-yet-hectic holiday season.

This week's task for our 12 Weeks to a Peaceful Christmas series is to make a meal plan for December that incorporates batch and freezer cooking. Plan to cook more in the first half of the month so that you're free to enjoy the season in the second half.

Our December Plan

Here is my family's December meal plan. Feel free to copy verbatim, or simply get an idea or two to work for your household.

Friday, December 4 — homemade pizza and salad

task: triple my pizza dough and sauce batches, and use it each Friday
additional days: Friday, December 11, 18, and January 1

Saturday, December 5 — shepherd's pie

task: double the recipe and freeze the second
additional day: Saturday, December 19

Weeks 1 & 3

Sunday, December 6 – grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup

task: double the soup recipe and freeze the second; roast a chicken, cube it, and freeze in one cup batches
additional day: Sunday, December 20

Monday, December 7 – white chicken chili

task: use cooked cubed chicken; double the recipe and freeze the second
additional day: Monday, December 21

Tuesday, December 8 — tacos, beans, and rice

task: double the seasoned ground beef and freeze the second batch; make beans and freeze half
additional day: Tuesday, December 22

Wednesday, December 9 — stir fry (honey glazed or Pacific rim, depending on our mood)

task: roast a chicken, cube it, and freeze in one cup batches
additional day: each Wednesday — December 16, 23, and 30

cinnamon roll
Photo by Steven Depolo

Thursday, December 10 — French market soup

task: double the recipe and freeze the second batch
additional day: Thursday, December 24 (when I'll also make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning)

Saturday, December 12 – chicken and dumplings

task: use cooked cubed chicken; double the recipe and freeze the second (mix the dry ingredients for the dumplings and store in a separate container, then add the milk and cook that day)
additional day: Saturday, December 26