Budget friendly snack.

Hey guys have an easy snack recipe for you on my Channel. It is a quick and budget friendly snack that you can make ahead and freeze for later on. It is also perfect for summer , picnics and hangouts.

Click the link below to make this flatbread Samosa recipe. Be sure to subscribe to my channel and turn on the notification bell button. If you enjoy the video leave me a like and a comment. Thank you 😘.

Rescuing day old bread

So you bought a baguette 🥖 or some fancy Italian bread 🍞 , you didn’t eat it or eat the whole thing and now it’s dry, hard or stale.

That’s exactly what happened and I tried watching a couple YouTube videos to find out how I could restore it and make it edible again but all the recipes/ solutions involved an oven. Now if you’ve read any of my posts, you know that I don’t use my oven at the moment so I try to find recipes that don’t require one.

This is a very easy recipe that doesn’t involve you baking the bread 🍞 🥖.

What you’ll need:-

~ Bread of your choice

~ dried or minced garlic

~ butter or olive oil.

~ herbs 🌿 (optional)

The YouTube videos suggest you soak the bread in cold water then bake it in the oven for a few minutes. I tried soaking it then putting it in the pan but it only ended up soggy, so here’s how I did it.

Slice the bread 🥖 and put some butter or olive oil in the pan. You can also try buttering up the bread if you prefer.

Have your stove on low to medium heat and spread/ sprinkle your garlic powder or minced garlic into the pan and sliced bread. Place bread onto pan and when browned flip over before that side burns and then flip to the other side.

Repeat for all other slices. Serve with any sides and spreads if your choice. Bon appetite 😋.

Spring mix

Make this salad with ingredients you have in your pantry and fridge.

ingredients:-

~ 1 cup of pasta (your choice)

~ half of a medium green pepper (bell pepper)

~ 1 big tomato 🍅

~ scallions (spring onions)

~ a handful of well rinsed spring mix (arugula, spinach, lettuce 🥬 etc)

~ black pepper

~ herbs (optional )

~ celery salt 🧂 (optional).

You can add cheese 🧀, eggs 🥚, turkey 🦃 or anything else you want.

Rinse and cut up your veggies 🌶, cook macaroni with a handful of the peppers and scallions for more flavor. Add any seasoning of choice you want or salad dressing. And voila! That’s all she wrote😉 😘.

If you are like me this is enough for 3-4 servings but if you are a big salad eater then it will make 1-2 servings for you.

And all this can be achieved for less than a dollar if you have most of these in your fridge / pantry.

Pan Seared Tilapia with potato salad for less than $2

I love working with left overs and making it fresh and new.

This whole meal was done on a budget because it has become my passion to make beautiful, healthy and delicious meals on a budget and with basic kitchen appliances as not all of us have access to food processors, ovens, ranges, mixers, instant pots etc.

>> the bag of tilapia had about 9-10 cuts of tilapia in it. It’s a 2Ib bag and it cost less than $6.

>> the whole bag of potatoes 🥔 was about $3 dollars

>> the green peppers were 85 cents each.

>> green onions were 98 cents for the bag.

>> the box of cherry 🍒 tomatoes was about $2.33

This whole plate per serving is less than $2.

Ingredients:-

~~~Tilapia fish

~ 1 cut of tilapia fish

~ crushed chips / bread crumbs

~ 1 egg 🥚

~ seasoning of choice ( celery salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, ginger etc)

== cut tilapia into fillets, roll in beaten egg 🥚 and crushed seasoned chips. Place on greased hot pan till sufficiently cooked.

~~~ potato 🥔 Salad

~left over boiled potatoes (2 cups)

~ Crushed garlic (2 garlic not cloves)

~ 1 small green pepper

~ I spring onion

~ half of a medium white onions

~ half of a medium red onions

~ 6 cherry 🍒 tomatoes

==For my potato 🥔 salad 🥗 , I had left over per-boiled potatoes I was going to make chips with. I defrosted that and while that was happening, I stir fried some red onions, white onions and spring onions. I threw in some green pepper and cherry 🍒 tomatoes and let that fry together once done I added my potatoes in till it all came together.

~~~ for the fresh veggies,

~ cut 1 medium tomatoes 🍅

~ a little green pepper

~ a little spring onions.

== sprinkle this on your plate before serving for some added freshness.

I served it with the fish and it was delicious 😋.

Bon appetite.

Let me know how you cook healthy meals for your family on a budget.

When In Doubt.

It’s quite easy for me (us humans) to fall into doubt, either self doubt or doubt projected at someone else or something else. We go through the motions of believing, trusting and having faith in that person/ thing but the moment things start to deviate from the path or change we start to question everything (or ourselves).

I have learned that as much as I work on my faith in myself , people and spiritually, I still fall into the trap of doubt sometimes and it can be so subtle at times I don’t even realize it’s happening till I’ve fallen.

I don’t see myself as fickle and I like to self examine and take stock of my days, actions, choices and so forth and this is what I have chosen to work on at this stage.

So I tell myself, not everything in life is Constant but God is and so is His love for me. People will disappoint me and I also will disappoint them but that’s okay because no one is perfect and our mistakes do not define us. Learn from them, grow up and move on.

When the voice of doubt comes, choose to meditate on the good, on the positive , on the progress and on what’s working rather than the negative and what’s not working.

Give your self allowances to breathe. Life is about living not just existing so learn to experience life not just writing or reading about it.

I have realized that when I do these things that are positive and edify my soul, it drowns out the voice of doubt.

Seasons

This year has been a whirl of Ups and Downs but at long last I am finally where I am supposed to be. We go through seasons and each of them are geared to show and teach us something. Doesn’t mean the lessons will be easy, kind, good or even bearable but when we come through on the other side we end up forever changed. One thing to keep in mind is to ensure we come out the victor rather than letting the process break us.

What’s bee happening (if you’ve been wondering)

So for those of you who’ve been following my adventures, I am sure you’ve been wondering why my posts have been sporadic and all over the place?

Well I just recently moved! More like relocated really 😁 to a different CONTINENT!

If you’ve read any of my long distance relationship (Ldr) posts, you would know that my husband and I dated long distance and this spilled over into the first 2+years of our marriage with a lot of juggling of time difference, finding cheap flights and trying to squeeze as much quality time together while still trying to make a living or be functional members of society if you may lol

So the BIG move happened recently after going through more than a year of immigration processes, rejections and validations to finally bring us to today. Today represents our current state of finally living together and building the life we’ve always dreamed and planned for. It’s been just over a month since the move and I would love to say it’s been all sunshine and rainbows but no it’s not!

Transplanting your life isn’t as easy as they make it look and sound in the movies, books and songs. There’s a lot of back work involved. Documentation, work/ possible career change, money differences, shopping and food diversity, a different system and all that.

But all that is a walk in the park to finally have “Today”. We don’t have 6000+ miles between us anymore, no sleepless nights, no time difference, no horrible network problems and so forth. It’s not perfect but it’s still paradise.

I get asked if I would do it differently and change our process. I would love to say yes, but my answer is I don’t know if having the opportunity to do it differently would make us as strong as we are and as purified going through the fire (our process) as we have.

It’s our process and I am happy that we conquered it and made it to the other side.

Our story isn’t over by any means, it’s Just starting a new chapter ❤️.

The Search

Book Review :- Elle Burton and the reflective Portals By Peggy M McAloon and Anneka Rogers.

I am always open to reading books of different genre but not always of the children’s book variety. Reading Elle’s story pronounced (Ellie) I quickly forgot that it was for children. The character is one we can all identify with through the various struggles and challenges she faces and later overcomes. It’s a book about Love, loss, hope, healing, kindness and a lot of things we sometimes forget to teach or remind our children to be. Though this tale is woven through fantasy, it can’t help be anything but real. Elle Burton reminds us to be brave,honest and even believe in the magic of people, friends and family. Be sure to join Elle in her adventures in this first installment.

Lessons On Waiting.

I always admire those who just exude patience from every pore. They are content to wait and never give up, doubt or challenge the process they are going through.
In comes me like a tiny fur ball bouncing with excitement and vibrating with energy. Wait you say? ‘erm’ how do I do that? every iota of my being is pushing for results, answers, movement! anything to show progress.
I consider myself a patient person, but its the act of being patient that I sometimes find tasking.I want to be that person who waits with grace and finesse but sometimes I end up a quivering mess of almost tears and loud questions mostly punctuated with ‘WHY!’ LOL (So much for elegance).

I am blessed to say that not many a great things have tested my faith to the point of doubt, anger or recanting it, and yet going through Long distance relationship for four years and then long distance marriage (not on purpose) for almost two years, I find myself left with a lot of questions and a niggling feeling of impatience. But of course everyone around me thinks I am a Champ and they always punctuate this feeling with comments of how amazed they are, how they couldn’t possibly do the same if the positions were reversed, how strong I am and how well I am doing.

However, all I want to say is no! I am actually not that strong, I am just being strong out of necessity, because I have to be strong. It’s a survival mechanism, because the moment I stop being strong, I will probably unravel and it will take a lot to put this ‘humptidonty’ back together again. My husband on the other hand I feel drew the short end of the stick, I get to still experience the things I love, be surrounded by family and friends and not have a lot of things change or be too lonely.While on the other hand he has friends turned family around him, but no actual relatives close by and even though he has had to go through a couple of lifestyle changes, he doesn’t have me around to help out as a partner should.

So, on the issue of waiting, I have come to conclude that though everyone’s process is different, and we all lead different lifestyles, still we ought to find what lessons life’s teaching us as we wait. It would be very sad to go through it not learning anything at all.

What lessons have you learned from waiting and what lifestyle changes did you have to make because of it?