TheCG

None of them can understand me if I don't focus on it carefully.  They reeeeeally don't like the long "I" sound drawled out.

14 hours ago, Littlesister said:

Helman's mayo. 4.99 for 30 oz. That is crazy.  Wonder if I could make mayo. 

Yes, yes, you can.  

If you have an immersion blender it's easy peasy: https://40aprons.com/whole30-immersion-blender-mayo/

We paid $300 for 28 meals prepped and ready to go.  The ones she made for lunches have tortillas and fruit in them, but all the dinner ones are pretty low carb.  However...she cooks with very little oil or salt, so I’m having to literally add those to the meals.  There’s too many veggies in each of them, and when we asked her to leave out the cucumbers in half, there’s no way to tell which ones she left them out of.  I think we’re using them for ideas and working on making on our for next time...

MM, I submitted for approval to that group and was approved 2 minutes later, so I’m in.  I’ll PM you since I can’t remember who’s who on Facebook.

My contribution to the bacon discussion.  

We just ordered a short queen memory foam mattress for our camper, and I'm pretty certain that it would fit in the back of my Kia Soul if necessary...until we open the box.

I'm starting to get really tired of stuff being actively destroyed through the carelessness of the kids.

One of them decided it was a good idea to STRETCH the rubber seal of a bowl around the dishwasher pegs.  Guess what will never fit back in its groove again now?

I sat down and went through our debt spreadsheet again.  (Exciting Christmas 'round here, can you tell?)

With bonuses and other bits of "found" money, we've paid off $5500 of debt in 2 months.  Once hubby gets his truck reimbursement for this month, we'll thrown some more at it.

At least we're making some progress in the right direction!

Jeepers, google "price list notebook" and you'll find some ways people track prices on paper.

Our cell phone bill is outrageous - but we have 4 phones & 2 tablets, all with unlimited internet, text, and talk, and we definitely use the data on the tablets & 3 of the phones.

By the way, if you're looking for more info on blood sugar explained in an easy-to-understand format, I LOVE this lady's website and books: https://www.bloodsugar101.com

I need to go through it all again and get back to eating low carb.

We've figured out that nightshades (ie, potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, paprika, jalapeños, etc.) definitely don't agree with my system.  I was getting horrific heartburn every night until we figured that one out, so re-learning how to cook yet again.

Merry Christmas!  

It's after 10:30 and hubby decided that both teens should be awake by now (one has been prowling about for over an hour).  The one who is up looked under the Christmas tree at his one package and a journal for D&D and stated that it was all he got this year.  Completely forgot about stockings.  Hasn't remembered that they exist yet.

I have a cloak made from wool military blankets and lined with fleece.  Nice and toasty warm. 

2 hours ago, Ambergris said:

If you can't find a decent source, Kappy, watch for indecent sources.  With the White House occupied by someone who exemplifies and exalts each of the seven deadly sins, all manner of terrible things are possible.

I'm rather convinced that exemplifying the seven deadly sins, or at least a very skewed moral compass, might be required for the presidency.

Just now, Homesteader said:

 

I have the larger Presto canner. I usually only use the first layer of jars. However, if you use wide-mouth qts and pints, you can stack them (per mfg). I just did that with canning potatoes. I went a little overboard when digging/peeling a bucketful.    I seldom use it for cooking foods, though. For pressure canning, it requires 2 quarts of water in the bottom, which isn't too heavy for me. I'm also tall, so that may also help with the taller canner.  

I'm tall as well.  Good to know that It only requires 2 quarts of water.  I'd not be cooking in it, just canning.

1 hour ago, Ambergris said:

23 quarts is what, 60 pounds?  At arm's length?  Boiling hot?  That would be convincing for me, these days.

Yeah, it's definitely a consideration.

I think the time has come for me to invest in a pressure canner.  

I'll probably just get the 23-qt Presto one unless someone can make a convincing argument for something else.  I'm half-tempted to just get the 16-quart one, as it'll be lighter, but it's more expensive.

If I'm having to cut out nightshades and possibly more things, it's going to end up being basically impossible for me to find things ready made in the store, plus it would suck if the electricity went out with all my meat that's been delivered in it.

Do pressure canners normally go on sale for Black Friday or other points in the holidays?

Tonight should be our first hard freeze.

Grocery stores will be crowded today.

9 hours ago, Ambergris said:

Very strong.

A friend of mine had Butcher Box and loved it but went back to Cosco after a while.  BB was great meat, but did cost rather more.

If they ever get the Costco built out here, that might be an option.  As it is right now, we don't really have good options for cheaper organic/grass-fed/unicorn meat in stores locally.

I've been GF for 15 years or so now.  Celiac runs in my family, but I'm not going to eat wheat and be miserable so they do testing and tell me not to eat wheat because it makes me miserable.  We're now figuring out that nightshades are a major issue for me (I had been getting nauseated every night for almost a month - cut out nightshades, no more nausea!) to the point that I just cleaned them out of the pantry yesterday, leaving just a few things for hubby & the kids.

Meat is ordered from ButcherBox - it's a little pricey, but they deliver it frozen to my doorstop and it's grass-fed, organic, etc., and I don't have to deal with going and getting it from the store.

I'm the only one who cares about food quality in this house, but luckily hubby doesn't give me too much crap about spending extra and having to cook differently.  I've talked to him about possibly trying to reintroduce various nightshades after I've been off them for a while, and he's actually arguing for keeping them out permanently if that will make me feel better.  He's also the one who opted not to have a separate gluten cooking area anymore after the kids kept trying to move things back and forth between gluten and non.

Food storage is...what we have in the pantry, fridge, and freezer.  We do keep a bunch of water bottles frozen in the freezer and figure it could go a day or so without power if necessary.  I never started storing food again because we're still figuring out what to even eat for regular meals.

On 10/18/2019 at 7:05 PM, Midnightmom said:

 

Found this article about olive oil today. It pretty much says the same things as the other one, ONLY this one isn't knocking other products to make you want to buy HIS.

 

Seven Ways to Tell If Your Olive Oil Is Fake

https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/seven-ways-to-tell-the-difference-between-real-and-fake-olive-oil-article

 

BTW - as I said previously - REAL olive oil will not solidify if it is chilled/refrigerated. It may, however, get a tad bit gummy if it gets moisture in it AND is refrigerated. It returns to "normal" once it's warmed back up to room temp. I had to look this up because my onion & cucumber salad was getting a "film" on top of it. I think it is because I cut the acidity of the vinegar by adding some water to the brine. 

I wonder what the actual temperature is at which it does go solid.  Mine gets the little wax balls in it pretty quickly in the fridge.

10 hours ago, Midnightmom said:

(Bertolli's)

 

IF it is a mixture of oils, it is SUPPOSED to say so on the bottle. There is a "test" to see if your olive oil is "pure." Put the bottle in the fridge and if it solidifies at all, it is NOT pure olive oil! 

I'm pretty certain that if your olive oil doesn't solidify in the fridge, it's not actually oil.  Perhaps I should test with my stuff that I'm pretty dang certain is olive oil.

And yeah, I've pretty much decided that anybody who flogs 1 specific type as the holy Grail of _____ and no others can compare is likely full of crap.

4 hours ago, Mt_Rider said:

TheCG.....will you buy indoor lamps or indoor/outdoor lantern versions?  I love the Dietz ones I bought [had Lehman's gift card...expensive] but an oil lamp is such a simple mechanism, there is hardly any function to go wrong on cheap ones....except the roller to move the wick up/down.  Or you could search out antique ones.   

 

MtRider 

I'll probably get 2 of the Dietz Junior ones to play with.  They'll primarily be used inside, but I'd like ones that still look nice inside.  Might pick up some of the glass ones at Hobby Lobby - the Aladdin indoor ones are expensive!

We lived in a borrowed RV while they were setting our house up...that then got moved down to my brother's land for them to live in while they were getting their house set up.

I'm not sure Mom's quit twitching over the fact that we're both living in mobile homes yet.  Housing is just too darn expensive out where we are!

You could look into something like a POD or the U-Haul things that they just leave on your property while you load it and see if those would be cheaper.

Or see if a friend has an empty trailer you could borrow.

We bought a used shed and had it moved onto our property.  You could do that, then either use it for storage or buy one you could then use as a potting shed or greenhouse or....

We've just hit our first fall.  Now we're going to be on the see-saw that makes my respiratory system cranky.

I'm sitting here with pumpkin-spiced coffee (Dunkin Donuts brand) mixed with my regular coffee, and pumpkin spice stevia drops and cream in it.

I found the gluten-free graham cracker crust that hubby requested for pumpkin pie at the 6th store (and 2nd Walmart!) that I checked, along with the gluten-free Red Lobster biscuit mix (heavenly, I tell you).

Now, if only the kids had managed to finish dishes so I have a clean mixer and cookie sheets to start baking on....

I generally can't find non-hydrogenated lard in our stores...

...but I do have a few jars that I've rendered out of various meats!