We added some leftover yams on the side and had a bowl of miso soup (from mix) as well.

Leftover Turkey Lo Mein

Ingredients

• 3 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1/4 Teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 4 Cups cooked spaghetti
• 2 Teaspoons sesame oil
• 2 Tablespoons peanut oil (we used canola oil)
• 4 Minced garlic cloves
• 3 Cups broccoli florets
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 1 lb turkey, cut in strips (we just eyeballed the amount)
• Green onions to garnish (optional)

Instructions
1. In a small bowl, mix together the soy sauce, brown sugar, oyster sauce, and red pepper flakes. Set aside.

2. Combine the pasta and sesame oil in a bowl. Toss until well coated.

3. In a large skillet over medium-high height, saute the garlic, broccoli, and onion for 5 minutes in your chosen oil (peanut, canola, or other). Add the turkey and saute for 5 more minutes, or until cooked through.

4. Add the pasta and sauce mixture to the skillet and cook 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly.

5. Garnish with green onions and serve.

Samples, Freebies, & Coupons 11-23-09

I love Thanksgiving week. It’s great because it’s a short work (or school) week, and there’s lots of delicious food on the horizon. Since I’m not traveling out of town this year, I’ll get to relax, eat a lot, enjoy the company of friends, and work on my novel.

I’m not into Black Friday shopping, though I know many other people like to snag the deals on that day. Black Friday Ads.com has all the ads for the Black Friday deals. Also, Mash Up Mom has a post where she’s collecting all the best deals, so check that out as well.

Before everybody gets distracted by all of the food and festivities, lets get some freebies and deals, shall we?

Freebies & Samples

• Kashi TLC Chewy Granola Bar
• Slippery Stuff Lubricant
• Tampax Pearl
• Garnier Nuritioniste
• Prilosec OTC
• Always Infinity
• Hellman’s Mayonaise
• Caress Skinwear Collection
• Degree Women Fine Fragrance Collection
• Pond’s Rejuveness
• 3 Free MP3s from Amazon.com (Thanks Hey It’s Free!)
• Seventh Generation Hand & Dish Soap (Thanks Hey It’s Free!)
• Holiday Renewal Package from Veria (Thanks Money Saving Mom!)

Coupons

• $1 off Seventh Generation Baby or Cleaning Products
• BOGO Meow Mix Coupon
• $1 off Annie’s Cereal & $0.50 off Annie’s Homegrown Products (Thanks Organic Deals & Coupons!)

If you love getting free samples and coupons, let me recommend signing up for Vocalpoint. I’ve been a member there for a few months and it’s like the surprises never end. I receive free samples and coupons in the mail constantly, and these are high value coupons. Recently I received $2 off any Pantene Shampoo and Conditioner, plus five $1 coupons. Another time I got two $3 off a box of Kashi (which equaled free cereal) plus a ton of $1.50 coupons. It’s a great site because once you sign up these coupons and samples just start showing up.

$25 Restaurant.com Gift Certificates for $3

Restaurant.com has another great promotion going on.

Their current promo is 70% off any order, which means you can save on Dinner of the Month Club purchases and gift certificates. That makes the $25 certificates only $3.

This is a great way to save money while eating out. You can read my full review here.

To get this deal, you have to enter the coupon code TREAT at check out, and it will take 70% off your order.

Friday Freebies, Samples, & Sweepstakes 9/17/09

It’s Friday! That means the weekend is right around the corner, and it’s time to celebrate with some freebies!

Mars’ Real Chocolate Relief Act is still going on, so if you haven’t gotten your 4 coupons yet, sign up today! Next Friday will be the last Friday to request a coupon. Read all the details.

Freebies

• Sun Crystals All Natural Sweetener
• Kashi Cereal: Honey Sunshine or GoLean Crunch
• Betty Crocker Potatoes (Newsletter Sign-up)
• eBook: Crochet and Knitting Patterns from Red Heart Yarn
• Honey Nut Cheerios
• Total Blueberry Pomegranate Cereal

Contests & Sweepstakes

I don’t usually feature contests, but there aren’t that many freebies this week, so I figured I’d mention a few that I’ve noticed lately.

Sign up for Ideal Bite and enter for a chance to win a signed copy of Marie Digby’s new album. Click Here

Herbal Essences Tousle Me Softly Sweepstakes. This is a sweepstakes and instant win. The big prize is a $500 gift card, plus hundreds of other giftcards.

It’s Lean Cuisine free lunch Friday, where you can enter to win free Lean Cuisine entrees for a week. They’re doing this every Friday through October 29th, and there’s 10 winners a day. You can enter every Friday. (Thanks Freebies4Mom!)

Join Pillsbury.com for over $30 in Coupons

I just signed up for this today, and I figured I should pass this along to my readers. All you have to do is sign up for their website (super short form: name, birth date, zip code, state, email address and password) and you have instant access to recipes and printable coupons!

When I went to print there was $33 in savings, including $1 off Pillsbury® Simply Refrigerated Cookie Dough, which I will be using ASAP to cure my chocolate chip cookie cravings. Some of the recipes look really tasty (and easy) like the pizza bubble ring or the big birthday cookie.

Special Deals & Sales for 9-9-9

Looks like a lot of retailers are cashing in on 09-09-09 with their or special deals and sales in honor of the date.

Amazon has several great MP3 deals today. There are over a thousand MP3 songs available for free! They also have 50 albums for $5 each.

All Threadless T-shirts are on sale for $9 today. This is a great deal since usually only limited quantity sizes go on sale, but today you can have the pick of any shirt for $9.

Restaurant.com is doing a special 90% off sale! This is amazing, making $25 gift certificates only $1. Those savings are phenomenal, so make sure to jump on this now, before the good restaurants sell out. This sale will last for 99 hours, until 9/13 at 3:01AM PST. Make sure to enter the code NINETY at checkout to get the deal! And I thought the 80% off deal was as low as they would go.

ETA: This offer has been extended, so you can still get in on it! It will now expire 9:09 PM PST on 9/13/09.

Saving Time & Money: Weekly Menu Planning

This is something new the boyfriend and I tried last week and I am pleasantly surprised by how much easier it made our week go.

This is how things used to go each night: dinner time comes and we spend about an hour or so trying to figure out what we want to eat/what we can make out of the ingredients we have on hand. Most of the nights we ended up eating pasta (we always have that on hand). Some nights there was just nothing to eat. We had all kinds of odds and ends, but nothing that really made a meal. Trying to make dinner was frustrating and time consuming.

That pattern had to go. So, last weekend the boyfriend and I sat down and decided to plan a menu for a week of dinners. This was something we’d never done before. My parents always played it by ear. We decided to make it kind of flexible by just planning out seven meals, but not necessarily scheduling them.

I wasn’t sure how easy it would be for us to make the list. We looked at all of the ingredients we had on hand and started naming off things we could make with them. At the same time, we wrote up our grocery list, adding ingredients we’d need to buy for our meals. Those items inspired other meals we could make.

This was the list we ended up with:

• Chicken quesadillas and guacamole
• Pasta and garlic bread
• Chicken fried rice and egg drop soup
• Perogies with sausage and green beans
• Pizza and salad
• Eggplant parmesean
• Slow cooker lasagna

We went grocery shopping once–this saved us time and money. There were no extra trips to the corner store to buy some necessary ingredient for more money than it would cost at the grocery store.

This saved us even more time each night. Previously it was 8 or 9 (sometimes even 10PM) before we finally sat down to eat. We were wasting tons of time trying to figure out what to make for dinner (and getting distracted in the process). With the list, all we had to do was pick was dinner we wanted and then make it. Each night we sat down to eat by 7PM.

I’m absolutely amazed how something so simple could make life so much easier. I recommend everyone try it. Even if you just have to make dinner for yourself, just take a few minutes to plan your meals for the week. The time saved alone makes it worthwhile.

Save Money Dining Out: Restaurant.com

Let me tell you a secret: the boyfriend and I love to eat out. We like going out and enjoying different restaurants, different foods, different atmospheres. Where we live in Chicago there are tons of family owned restaurants and little holes in the wall with lots of charm and great food.

Eating out is expensive. When I was growing up my family hardly ever ate out (it was hard to do cheaply with two adults and four kids). I learned that eating out is a treat, not a necessity. It’s much cheaper to cook at home.

If I was asked to make a list of the easiest ways to save money, do not eat out at restaurants would be near the top of the list. The boyfriend and I do eat out, but only on occasion since it is so expensive. I’ve recently discovered something that’s going to make this whole dining out experience much cheaper.

Enter Restaurant.com. The main goal of this site is to save you money while dining out. How great is that? Basically they sell $25 gift cards to select restaurants for $10. That’s like getting $15 of food for free–over 50% off. Their Dinner of the Month
club can save you 60% or more AND earn you free gift certificates.

I searched for participating restaurants and there’s almost 100 available within five miles of my apartment. I can’t wait to give this deal a try. The main problem will be picking a restaurant from all those choices.

To make this even better, they’re running a promotion right now where you can buy $25 gift certificates for only $2. Yes, you read that right: only $2. Those savings are huge! Use the code TASTE at check out. This offer is valid through 8/31/09.

So if you’re going to eat out anyway, whether it’s a weekly thing or just a special occasion treat like us, you should really give Restaurant.com a try. It will save you major money. Just make sure you read all the rules for each restaurant: many of them have minimum purchase requirements, you can only apply the gift certificates when you’re dining in, etc. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

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