Andrea

ma & pa steel, that story is HYSTERICAL! Thanks for sharing it! Trudy, nice score! I wonder if our Dollar store has coupons like that? I need to research that! Annarchy, your bolillos are in the bread machine! (Yep, I'm lazy. I let the bread machine do my kneading for me) I'll let you know how they turn out. Today is a NO DRIVE, NO SPEND, NO EXCEPTIONS day. DD asked if I could drive her over to a friends house. I made her ride her bike. Gosh I'm a mean mother, making my 15-year old ride her bike 9/10ths of a mile in the wind! Wind! Woohoo, this means I can get two loads line dried today! They're only sheets so they dry almost instantly, but still, two loads in one day! I'm on a roll! Of course, my DH (who HATES crunchy towels) couldn't resist sticking his head out the window and saying, "Putting that college degree to work, I see." Hmmmm, I wonder if there's a way to make the towels EXTRA crunchy?!?

Thanks for the recipe, Annarchy! Those sound great! I think I might experiment with mixing the dough in my bread machine and replacing one cup of white with wheat flour. I know they wouldn't be as authentic but then we could feel less guilty about slathering butter on them! Had the first battle in a long war over "crunchy" towels with the family! The clothesline and lower electric bill are going to win this battle!

You are very welcome! I'm thinking I might be using the crust for lots of different things! It was really tasty with the sour cream, and I used the fat free kind to help control the fat and calorie content! For those who love baked beans but live in warm climates and hate to run their oven for long periods of time, my crockpot baked beans worked great! I took the lid off for the final two hours so some of the liquid would evaporate. We're going to be an extremely musical family for the next few days!

The crust was awesome on the Crusty Bean Bake! Great dish, I will definitely be making it again. The only alterations I made was the addition of cumin (love the stuff!) and I used tomato sauce instead of paste since I didn't have any. Looking forward to the leftovers tonight! With the leftover beans I made yesterday, I am trying "Baked Beans" in the crockpot! We'll see how it works out! I took 3-4 cups of leftover cooked red beans and some cooking liquid and threw them in the crockpot along with 1/2 cup of molasses, 1/3 cup ketchup, 2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard, salt, pepper, a small chopped onion, and 2 slices of chopped bacon. I brought it up to almost boiling and then switched the crockpot to low. I'm now going to ignore it for the next 3-4 hours!

Okay, cooking this recipe tonight with dried red beans that have been vacuum sealed in a quart size canning jar for 8 years. I am also using 1 pint of seasoned ground beef from storage. This recipe lends itself well to storage foods if you use powdered sour cream and freeze dried cheese. From the More-with-Less Cookbook: Crusty Mexican Bean Bake Crust: Combine 1/2 cup flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 2 Tablespoons shortening or margarine 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt (increase flour by 2 T if using yogurt) 1 egg, beaten Stir together. May be slightly lumpy. Spread thinly with back of spoon on bottom and sides of shallow greased 2-qt casserole. Fill with bean mixture (Crust may be stirred together in advance. Refrigerate until ready to use) Filling: Brown in skillet: 3/4 lb ground beef 1/2 cup chopped onion Add: 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoon chili powder 1/2 teaspoon tabasco sauce 2 cup undrained cooked kidney beans 3/4 (6 oz) tomato paste Spoon into crust and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven. Sprinkle over or serve alongside: 1/2 cup grated cheese, 1-2 cups shredded lettuce, 1 cup chopped raw tomatoes ********************************************************************* Obviously I don't have any tomatoes in the garden right now so I'll probably serve a bowl of salsa (again from storage) on the side as a tomato substitute.

Spring is officially here so, big sigh, time to hang up the clothesline. I know, I know it's not that big of a deal, but I've been so spoiled the past year by using the dryer! But reduced work hours means more time to save money by doing things for myself! I'll get back into the swing of it but in the meantime, I might just whine a little bit! I've also gotten back into making our own bread. I'm definitely saving money but for some reason my pants seem a little snug! Hmmmm, wonder why? Take care all and keep saving!

I was noticing that myself! Prices have certainly risen.

Just went through the grocery ads and it's looking like my weekend will be spent with yet more asparagus and pork loin. I'd like to can at least 20 more pints of ground beef but there is this thing called time! However, I think I can cram 20 lbs of burger into my freezer, so I'll probably settle for that!

2 liter soda bottles have worked really well for us for storing rice, beans, popcorn, and sugar. If you have a problem with pantry moths, one way I have combatted the problem is to pour salt at the top of the bottle when full. I only do this with white rice since that seems to be what the little pests seem to like the best at our house! So far, it's been working well. I recently opened a bottle from 2008 and it tastes fine, we're halfway through it. I picked up the salt trick from one of my Persian friends a few years ago and it seems to work much better than bay leaves for me. I've also found that the moths can and will eat through double bagged ziploc freezer bags but they haven't managed to eat through a 2 liter bottle yet!

Well find it and get it posted! I just planted my zucchini seeds and let's just say, I'm planning ahead!

Low-Cal, Fat-Free Zucchini Chips yellow or green summer squash cooking spray (Pam) spices of your choice Slice Zucchini or Crookneck squash into 1/4 " slices, place on dehydrator trays. Lightly spray with cooking spray then top with favorite herbs and spices, dehydrate until crispy. Usually 12 hours. We snack on these as a replacement for potato chips and also as salad croutons. Some of our favorite spice combinations are: garlic & onion garlic, cumin & chili powder basil & garlic Mrs. Dash chipotle I think these run about 20 calories for 1/2 cup serving.

I have my Dad eating radishes with just about every meal and I really do think they keep his blood sugars down. I first read this information here but I hadn't read the thread about dehydrating them! Thanks for bumping this Dogmom! I'm going to dehydrate some for him and see how he likes them! If nothing else, they can be used as "croutons" on his salads.

More mushrooms and more zucchini, as soon as I'm done I'll start in on some herbs that need to be pruned back - oregano, rosemary, chives, and mints. My parsley seems confused this year!

mushrooms

8 1/2 pints of Violet's marinated mushrooms and 9 pints of seasoned ground beef finishing up! WoooHoooo, I hear you Violet. We have the world's best mushrooms here on the West Coast. Why on Earth are we buying canned crap from China? BTW, only 14 lbs of seasoned ground beef left to go this weekend! Let's get er done!

20 lbs of seasoned hamburger and 6 lbs of Violet's delicious marinated mushrooms! I have a feeling I'm going to be up late tonight!

I have two loaves of wheat bread rising on the counter. I have gotten out of the habit of making all of our own bread products because I've been working so many hours. Now that I'm not working nearly as much, I decided it was time to get back to being frugal. My daughter just got home from school and keeps asking if I can please bake the bread already! While my work schedule remains sparse, no more paying almost $4.00 per loaf of bread!

Okay, got 18 pints of asparagus done and have 9 pints of pork loin almost ready to come out. I still haven't gotten to the marmalade but it's only 5:00pm!

10 lbs of asparagus - salt free I LOVE canned asparagus dumped on top of a green salad but the commercial stuff is loaded with sodium. So, I'm canning away while the local asparagus is cheap and in season! 18 pints so far this year, hoping to get the jar count up to 56 (one a week) before the season ends! I'll also be making some orange marmalade for gifts out of our remaining citrus. We're getting a little tired of oranges, lemons and tangerines and I don't want any to go to waste! Happy Canning!

Okay, I know there's a bean thread around here somewhere but I can't seem to locate it! I found a great website with thousands of bean recipes: www.justbeanrecipes.com I tried the following recipe last night and it's definitely filling and healthy. And oh, did I mention it's CHEAP?!? I made a crockpot full that will feed my family for 3 nights with a bit leftover for lunch for right around $2.00. Or, 20 cents a serving. And, if I made it in the early spring when my garden was producing potatoes and celery, it would cost under 10 cents a serving. Paired with corn and melon straight from the garden and dinner is done for pennies a plate! Beans and Potatoes 2 cup dried pinto beans 3 large potatoes, chopped (original recipe called for them to be peeled. I left the peels on!) 2 stalks of celery, chopped salt to taste (I used some chicken broth) 1 large sweet onion, chopped Cook beans until tender - crockpot, pressure cooker, or canned if you're in a hurry. Add potatoes and celery and cook until potatoes are tender. Salt to taste (I used chicken boullion). Saute onion until browned and stir into potatoes and beans. I also added some tobasco at this point. DH and I are watching fat and calories so we ate the dish as is. I put grated cheese on top of my daughters dish and she scarfed it down. It would also be great with some ground meat or chopped ham mixed in. I kept ours vegetarian because I'm trying to make 2-3 meatless meals a week for both health and financial reasons. Probably not an ideal meal for diabetics although you could easily use jerusalem artichokes instead of potatoes and if served with a healthy side of fresh brocolli, it probably wouldn't cause a sugar spike.

I have 10 lbs. of ROUND peas in my freezer that I need to get dehydrated - gotta start making room for turkey! Luckily, I just got some of those mesh screens for my dehydrator so I'll have to take them for a test drive!

I also grew Stevia for a few years and found that if I left the root system in the ground, the plant would come back. However, the only way I ever really used it was to dry the leaves and then put the leaves in whole to steep with my iced tea. I would pull the leaf or two out that I used when I pulled out the tea bags. It gave a hint of sweetness to our iced tea and was pretty refreshing. However, stevia is difficult to grow in our climate and the snails seem to really enjoy the stuff! So, I let the stevia go and we've grown accustomed to drinking our tea without sweetener. I am currently growing Angelica though and supposedly the roots are also a good sugar substitute but I'll have to let you know on that in another year or so! It's definitely easier to grow.

Peppermint! I have a plant that escaped it's pot and was set out for world domination! I found some tea diffusers on clearance for 3/$1.00 so I'm going to dry up a ton of peppermint and lemonbalm leaves, package them in canning jars with a bit of gingham and ribbon and call them Christmas Presents! My house smelled wonderful for the first day or so, now we're all sick of the peppermint smell!

Grapes. They are some variety of red seedless and they were free! (I just had to pick them) I dried a few a couple of days ago and they are a bit more tangy than store bought but I think they'll be great in muffins and bread! So, my dehydrator will be full of grapes for the next week. I dry my onions until "crisp". As for the trays, mine requires a minimum numbers of trays to operate properly. The trays don't have to have anything on them, but they need to be there for the fan element to work correctly. Do you have the manual? (I have the one that Wal-Mart sells - American Harvester, maybe?)

http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/find_use?MED_USE=Anodyne This says the link is unsecured. I've been researching herbs and their uses and one of the best sites I've found is the Plants for a Future Database. They have an incredible search engine, including one that you can search herbs by their medicinal uses. The link above takes you to the search I did for anondynes (relaxants/pain relievers)