Another way to be frugal with food...

Have you seen the price of bread at the grocery store lately?  All bread is, is flour, and water, and yeast, with maybe a few other ingredients tossed in occasionally.  My husband use to like a certain type of bread that on the label stated that it was a "2 pound loaf".  That bread was actually good for store-bought bread, but the price over the years has rise, and now runs about $3.85 a loaf, yes, per loaf.  And, so with a husband who eats for the most part two sandwiches each day, one kind for breakfast, and one for lunch, that gets pricey. 

Three years ago, we decided to change that and I started making bread here at home.  I still use the same basic flour, water, yeast, a little bit of sugar, and an egg, but the price is a whole lot different.  I spend less than half for two loaves to the store-bought one. 

This one looks a lot prettier that mine do, but you get the idea.  We do actually save money, inspite of the not so sad fact that we now eat more bread.  Could you blame us, it just tastes so good!  It does my heart good, not to mention my ego when, on the occasion I do buy a loaf at the store, my husband tells me, "You NEED to make more bread, this just doesn't taste right." 

I have a recipe now for sheepherder bread, and the recipe appears similar to what I already do, just in a different style of pan so I hope to try making that this winter. 

Don't get me wrong, I have not completely stopped buying bread at the store.  I still buy hamburger and hot dog buns, but I just haven't quite gotten the hang of those, but I do have a recipe.  Maybe I will start that after I conquer the Sheepherder loaves.

What's for Dinner? Hot Dog Soup? Read on and find out!

I knew that I needed to make Beef today, after all, "It's What's for Dinner!"  So, I decided on the Coke Roast recipe that I found in my fairly new Crockin' Girls Cookbook that I talked about in past posts, and so I went looking for a recipe that sounded good.  After looking through the cookbook, I decided to, instead of making something totally new and foreign, to make this one.

Doesn't it look yummy?  I am planning to serve it with freshly mashed potatoes, last time I made egg noodles, and rice is also an option, but this just sounds good, and in about 3 hours, it will smell amazing throughout my house!

I know that I make a lot, and I mean A LOT of Beef recipes, and I understand that for some people beef roasts, and steak and even sometimes hamburger is hard to come by due to the costs at the grocery store.  It use to be that way for me also, hamburger use to be about all we ate, and even that was sparingly, and sparcely, until I met and married my husband.  He grew up in the dairy industry, and for the past 15 years has farmed for a larger family-owned farming and trucking operation ( not our family). 

The only reason I say this is that we raise our own steer each year through the Spring, Summer and Fall, then come December, "Dinner", as I like to call them, go off to visit the butcher, and then white paper packages makes it back to our house, in late December, only for "Dinner" to show back up again in March/April.

This is not something that is available, feasible or otherwise possible for a lot of people because of where you might live, or other reasons and I understand that, I was once there.  I have a few friends that raise chickens, so they have a seemingly neverending supply of fresh eggs and poultry that they eat.  So, as with us, when they are able to get something different, it is a treat. 

If there is tuna fish or peanut butter or ramen-style noodles on sale, you learn to make due.  It is amazing how many ways you can use, peanut butter, or tuna in different dishes if you put your mind to it.  Of course probably not in the same dish, unless you prefer that.  But, there are certainly ways to stretch you dollar these days.   

When my now 19-year old daughter and I first moved to Idaho, we had very little of anything, and so to make meals fun we would try out different things.  One of her favorites, still to this day is something we called, "Hot Dog Soup"  it was a really simple concept and easy to pull off.  The best part, it is a cheap and filling meal.  For the two of us, we would buy a cheap package of 8-10 hotdogs, and I mean cheap, usually less than a dollar.  I would cut up 1/2 of the package of hotdogs into thin round disks, then take one package of ramen noodles, usually chicken flavored as it was our favorite, but you could certain try beef or any other flavor you prefer.  I would prepare the ramen as directed on the package, adding the hotdogs before the noodles, so they have a few more moments to warm and cook through, and then adding the flavor packet from the noodles at the end,, and combining just as the package direction states.  And, there you go.  Easy, and inexpensive.  All for about $1.25 you have a hot and filling meal, sometimes with leftovers, and even the rest of the hotdogs from the package for another meal.  Now, that is frugal!

Recipes and a Good Book!

Have you read this yet?  The Author Joanne Fluke, has written several of these murder mysteries, and each book has numerous recipes, and not just for dessert!  I found myself, reading throught the chapters, reaching the point where a recipe had been included, then I would stop reading the mystery portion, and actually read the recipe.  They sound delicious, and I am planning to make some of them.

I have borrowed three of these mysteries from the library.  Carrot Cake Murder being one, Devil's Food another and, Apple Turnover.  These books each have a dessert title, and the food is a part of the storyline because the Heroine, Hannah is a caterer and bakery/coffee shop owner.  The books, in so much as I have read so far are comical at times, and have the moments where I cannot wait to turn the page, and do not lag in the middle, as some books do. 

I can't wait to read the next book, and try the recipes!

It's a Canning Time of Year!

I get this way each year in the late Summer/early Fall.  I am not sure if it genetic or environmental.  The reason really doesn't matter, but what I try to accomplish every year seems monumental. 
Last year it was tomato sauce.  100 quarts of tomato sauce!  That was my final tally.  I was even shocked!  This year, I am a bit more diverse, most due to the good and bad that is my garden.

My husband is a farmer by trade, and so he grows a lot for the company he works for.  Super sweet corn, russets- I even learned something new this year after 9 years of marriage, and that is that there are early and late potatoes, sugar beets, winter wheat, barley and hay.  So, our garden is relatively small because of things he grows at work.  This year our garden consisted of cucumbers, green bell peppers, pimento peppers, cantalope, strawberries, and pumpkins.

I have frozen the corn in cob form mostly, we have eaten ourselves relatively sick on cucumbers and cantalope, and I have frozen the peppers.  The strawberries were mostly eaten right off the vine by the girls, and as for the pumpkins, we check them almost daily as they are in varying stages of ripeness.  It is comical that I can cheer up a three year old, just by asking her to show me the pumpkins.  She then gets so excited and animated to show them to me.

As for the potatoes, I will freeze some of it, but I was told about a way to can them so I decided to give it a try.  The processing time on them is enormous, three hours in boiling water, but they sealed and appear to have weathered the adventure so we shall see.  Also, we have so many potatoes that my husband traded some with our neighbor for some apples, as they have sort of a mini orchard at their house.  I have made some crock pot apple sauce that smelled divine, and I will also freeze pie filling for later in the year.

You might notice that I skipped over the tomatoes, and all for good reason.  Last year, my plants looked sickly and dingy and sad, but I ended up with a huge crop of amazing tomatoes.  As for this year, The plants are chest high, healthy and robust, with hardly any tomatoes on, and very few of them have ripened.  The term "early girl" is there for a reason, I would think.  I am hoping that a miracle happens before it fully freezes but at least I still have leftover sauce from last year so we should be fine!

What a Lovely Day...

I will hope, for the most part! 

This morning is the first of many "Late Start Wednesdays," which means that Robyn's school, and also the others in the district start at 10:45 a.m. instead of at 8:15 a.m.  This is suppose to allow for teacher meetings, trainings, and the like so that the kids do not miss full days throughout the year...we shall see how this works out.

So, after we drop Robyn at school, it is off to the Library for our first Storytime, so looking forward to that, hopefully Anna will sit still!  Then we have to head to Twin.  First to drop off Robyn inserts for more work to be done on them, which luckily the cost is already covered and not an additional expense.  Then, the dreaded activity of the a.m., blood work for me...yuck!  My Doctor and I are still not sure why my extremities are falling asleep at any moment, other than the decided upon nerve damage, which we are still trying to determine a way to lessen that from happening, so the next step is to have a panel of blood work done to see any possible clues that way.  The fun part, ha, ha, ha...Anna will be there with me.  I will be more worried that she will see. 

Then, is is home to clean house.  A friend and her family are coming from Utah on Saturday, and I need my house to at least look like a tornado has not passed through recently.  Good Luck with that, right? 

How long could you live without...

a Microwave?

The reason I ask this is because we found this last week that we were about to adjust to living without one if we did not go and get one right off.

I was keeping things warm in the microwave to eat for dinner when sparks were spotted, and the most horrid smell of burnt metal came wafting into the kitchen/dining room.  To keep anyone else from attempting to burn down the house, I unplugged it.  Instantly, I felt a loss.  I really did!  That is bad, right? 

I was unable to keep dinner warm, and juicy.  I had to resort to rewarming on the stove and in the oven, which led to dried out fried rice, which became a salt filled mess, and burnt edges on the sweet potato fries.  I was so looking forward to that dinner.

Within a matter of an hour we had made the decision that first thing the next morning, we would bite the bullet and go buy a new microwave, after all, the one that just "died" had served me/us well for 12 years,so it was just time. 

Yea! Now I can again, boil water, defrost meat, and make popcorn!  We were without a microwave for less than 24 hours, and I felt like my daily life was coming to a halt.

The reason this seems to absurd and comical is that my Grandmother who passed away almost a year ago, was not at all a "slave" to technology.  She did not own a computer, she was given a cell phone for safety, but did not use it, and hardly ever even turned it on.  She did not have a dvd player, or a cd player, she never even had a VCR.  When family and I would discuss e-mail in front of her, she would tune us out.  She even had rotary dial telephones in her house until the day she died.  She was even given a microwave once, which she never used, and gave back to my Uncle when he needed a new one.  All she ever said was that it took up a lot of useless counter space.  My Uncle told me later that the instructions were still inside.  So, she had never even tried it out.  Another funny thing was that a few years ago, she bought a brand new car.  Which of course came equipped with things like Onstar and so many lights and fancy gadgets that she felt she was flying in a space ship.  The first summer she drove it back to NY from Wisconsin, she somehow changed the default language on the dashboard display from English to French, and was unsure how to change it back.  We all laughed and laughed over that one for a long time!  We were even all afraid to call her on the Onstar phone to avoid scaring her, and having to drive off the road into a ditch!

She never had the things that we all cannot seem to live without, and she had an amazing and full life.  I am sure that we can all learn from that!

Let's Play Catch Up!

So, I have been lacking a little bit. 

As far as the cookbook that I won, with all of those yummy looking crock pot recipes, the cola chicken one, tasted, pardon the pun...A little flat.  The chicken was moist, and there was a lot of gravy/sauce, but there was no real flavor to it.  So, sadly, that one is out of the family recipes.  Also another flop, but mostly on my part was the Hot Fudge Cake.  As it was cooking away, I kept smelling burnt smells, and so I turned my crock pot from the recommended High temperature setting, to Low, and then finally turning the crock pot off all together.  The edges were burnt almost to a crisp, and the center was close to raw.  So, while we did not like how this recipe turned out, I will probably still try it again, but do my best not to mess with the settings. 

Secondly, and in my mind, most important...my 5-year old, Robyn started Kindergarten on Tuesday!!!  Monday night, she was so excited, talking a mile a minute, wanting to make sure I knew just how much fun she would have, and how much she was going to learn...Only to arrive at the school Tuesday morning with a scared, tear filled, and nose running, soft hearted ball of nerves!  Wednesday morning, same thing...Wednesday afternoon, we started to turn a corner.  She saw a friend from her 3-year old preschool class, who remembered her! WooHoo!!! Wednesday night, a mile a minute talking about this friend who remembered her, and how they played together at recess, and even though they are not in the same class, they are going to still be friends...Then, this morning.  Thursday...tears before she went down to her classroom, perked up a bit when I mentioned that a trip to the Library in town would be her reward for being a brave girl and trying her best not to cry...Have to give her teachers a high five on what happened next.  Robyn was a bit weepy, and wanted my to give her hug after hug.  The teacher say, "Mom can't come in today Robyn, so give her a great big hug, then go sit down..." To which Robyn did.  I was able to walk out without the whaling of my soft hearted 5-year old wanting just one more hug!  I almost cried!

Another thing she has informed me of, was that "everyone" brings his/her own lunch, "everyday." She informs me of this with all the conviction she can muster, AFTER I bought a three month lunch ticket for her to eat from the lunch line in the cafeteria.

Wow, what Joy!