Once A Month Cooking - Potatoes

I got the idea for this HERE, at a woman's blog who occasionally does once-a-month cooking. She did potato skins, twice-baked potatoes, and mashed potatoes. I chose just to do the mashed and the skins.

Five-pound bags of potatoes were on sale for $0.99 last week at Smiths, so I picked up 2 bags. I had shredded cheese in my freezer from a sale last spring (where I got it nearly free), as well as some bacon in my freezer that I got for $0.29 per package in June with a great coupon. Then I also picked up one bunch of green onions ($0.89 at Reams). Total cost for this project is less than $4! If a serving is 2 potato skins, it comes out to about $0.12 per serving.


First I scrubbed the potatoes and poked them with a fork. Then I cooked them for 1 hour at 450 degrees in the convection oven.


After they cooled I cut them in half and scooped out the insides to make mashed potatoes. I mixed the insides with some butter, milk, and salt and pepper.


Then I scooped them into muffin tins and put them in the freezer for an hour to create individual servings.


While those froze, I filled the potato skins with cheese, chopped green onion and bacon pieces (not fully cooked so that when they get cooked later the bacon won't be too crispy).


Voila! I now have a freezer full of potato skins and mashed potatoes to use for lunches or dinners throughout the whole month! Not bad for less than $4 dollars!

Ebates

I thought I'd tell you about one of my favorite websites called Ebates. I do a lot of online shopping since I work all day and don't always have time to go to the store. The cool thing about Ebates is that you get cash back on your online purchases just by clicking through their site! They've got pretty much every site you could possibly want to buy from -- Nordstrom, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Circuit City, Dell Sephora, Expedia, Netflix, Home Depot, Pottery Barn, Red Envelope, Shutterfly, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on and on. The amount of cashback varies from 1% up to 15% for each store, and sometimes there are additional coupons listed on their site to help save you money.

Here's how it works:
1. Join Ebates by clicking HERE
2. Then simply browse their listing of stores and click on the store link to shop and make your purchase
3. Wait for the cashback to appear in your account
4. Every 3 months they send you a check with all your cashback

You also get a $5 bonus when you make your first purchase after signing up. Pretty simple, and a great way to save some cash on things you were going to buy online anyway!

So the next time you go to buy something online, remember to click through Ebates to save some money!