I see Treaures! Today's Recipe Treasure comes from the recipe book of Mrs Lorene Osborn!
I decided to start out with an easy one. It is a Jello Salad. I know I have had Jello salad's like this before but never knew how to make it. So, this recipe may not be new to you, but it was new to me. I made it a couple weeks ago for the first time. Here is the recipe: 
Can you read it? It says:
Jello Salad (Agnis)

• 1 6oz box Jello, any flavor (Dry)
• 1 Big cool Whip
• 1 Small crush pineapple
• 1 pint cottage cheese

Mix Together-refrigerate.

Now I had to collect ingredients. I was not able to find the exact sizes of things she called for, so I looked up how much a "big cool whip" is and a small crush pineapple, and I measured out those amounts from the ingredients I bought:
Once it was all put together, it looked like this:
The after refrigeration it looked like this:

Then came the real test: did the Johnson's like it? Here we all are trying it:







Here was the reaction. We had 6 thumbs up responses:





AND one hold out that thought it was "OK":
All in all I really liked it and found it was a quick easy salad to make. I have made it a number of times with different Jello flavors since the first batch. I even brought it over to my friend's house for a pot luck-type meal, and I think it was well liked! All in all, it was a great recipe treasure to discover. Our favorite flavors of Jello so far were Black Cherry and Raspberry. If you try this recipe with a different flavor, we would love to know how it turns out!! 
What a great find! What will we try this week?! I guess I better go and start looking through the recipe box...

OK-So, I just discovered Estate Sales! Oh.My.Gosh. LOVE! I am also obsessed with Storage Wars and Storage Wars: Texas. And just like Mary, "I see Treasure!" She sees treasure in Storage Units, I see treasure in Estate Sales.  The first estate sale I went to a couple weeks ago was done by Smith Estate Sales and was in Moclips, WA. According to their website, it was the home of these people: If you look at the website, it tells you a little about the people that owned the estate. This is what it says about this couple: 

GEORGE AND LORENE OSBORN BUILT THE HOUSE IN 1941 THEY LIVED THERE ALLL THERE LIVES. SOME OF THE TOOLS BEING SOLD CAN BE SEEN IN THERE OLD PHOTO ALBUMS. THEY HUNTED, FISHED, CLAM DUG, HAD A GARDEN AND LIVED A GOOD LONG LIFE. GEORGE ALSO WORKED AT THE ALOHA LUMBER MILL IN ALOHA WA "ON THE POND"

I loved some of the fantastic items in their home and we bought some awesome tchotchke's (I learned how to spell that just now-thanks Google). But the item I found that is the biggest treasure as far as I am concerned is this:
A recipe box, full of handwritten recipes! EEK! How can those get lost in the shuffle?! I cannot let that just fade into the years, so I spent the best $1 I have ever spent, and bought the box. And now I am going to try to cook my way through the recipes in it!  I will continue to look for these little treasure boxes and cooking my way through the recipes. Look out later today for my first recipe from the box of Mrs Lorene Osborn!

So, I promised you that I would share my spooky Halloween dinner. I did not yet. Whoops. I will tell you though it was awesome.

We ate Monster meatloaf, Ghost mashed potatoes, Jello Worms, and Goblin toes (fried pickles). It was a delightful meal if I do say so myself! Here are a few pictures taken by my handsome husband:



And of course Wes (my handsome husband) could not help but take the parts of his meal and make a creepy monster man out of them:

It was a fun and yummy meal! I L.O.V.E making theme holiday meals! Yumm-O!
If you would like to know how I made any or all parts of this meal, comment or shoot me ane email. If there is enough interest I will post it on here-otherwise I will just respond to individual requests. I just don't want to spend the time to type it all out unless it is something you WANT (since it is a deals blog after all not a recipe one).

Do you remember last week I was begging for good grilling recipes so I would not have to cook and heat up my house in this weather? Well, Real Simple has an article on line right now of 22 easy no cook meals! I thought that was just what I need, and I thought I would share this great discovery with you. I have not tried any of the recipes yet, but I plan to over the next month here! Check out the article here.

Not really a money saving tip here, but a though and a quandary...

As you likely have read by now, our air conditioning has stopped working ans rather than get in debt to fix or replace it this summer, we have decided to just deal with it and get through the heat of the summer.

Admittedly it is hard some days (today is a scorcher)! But we are coping-lots of pool trips, stops in the mall or other air conditioned places, cool baths, lots of fans and LOTS of hydration. I am saving money on utility bills doing this which I guess is ht bright side.

I LOVE to cook, but refuse to heat up the hole house more to bake or even use the stove top, so I have become a grill master this year. I have been experimenting with cooking different things on the grill, but this is still a new thing to me...I have heard you can grill your pizzas, but have never done that...anyone tried it?

But here is the question...do you have creative grilling ideas? What have you grilled up lately?

Here is my favorite new thing to do on the grill...

Rather than make French Fries and turn on the hot grease in the house, I have been doing the following:

1) get out a good sturdy baking sheet (but not your best-it could get grill/black marks) and spray it with Pam.

2) cut up whatever kind of potatoes you have into bite size pieces and put them on the tray.

3) Season them with your favorite spices (Lately I am loving the following combination: Greek Seasoning, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Salt, Pepper, Seasoned Salt and a bit of Steak seasoning.)

4) Drizzle about 1T Olive Oil over seasoned potatoes and mix up with your hands.

5) Fire up that grill and put the baking sheet on it. Cook for about 20-25 minutes (or more depending on the size of your potatoes). Check and turn (with a long BBQ spatula) every 5 minutes or so.

6) When you take them off the grill, the pan will be smokin' hot-most hot pads cannot handle it so I double up on the hot pads and run it quickly to the stove.

SOOO yummy...

This rocks!! I love cooking, love new recipes, and love Emeril so this is the freebie for me! GO here and you can download Emeril's 20th anniversary cookbook for free!!

Thank you Frugal Living and Having Fun.