Tips and Tricks for Saving Money
Rather than pouring away leftover wine, pour into an ice cube tray, freeze and then put the frozen cubes in ziplock bags in the freezer. Good for future use in stews, soups and other dishes. Saves on opening a bottle when the recipe asks for wine.
Granola Bars
I tweaked the recipe for Oatmeal Raisin & Nut Cookies to make granola bars. In the future, I would add one more egg (bringing the total to 3 eggs) as they were a little crumbly. Mind you, they were gobbled up pretty quickly. You could add half a cup of peanut butter to replace half the butter to make Peanut Butter Granola Bars.
1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup butter or shortening, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs (I recommend 3 eggs)
3 cups big flake rolled oats
1½ cups raisins (or dried cranberries)
½ cup nuts, ½ cup hemp hearts and ½ cup unsweetened coconut
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line an 8×14″pan with parchment paper.
Mix the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt together in a bowl.
With an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy. Add brown/white sugar and bea until fluffy - a few minutes. Beat in the eggs.
Stir the dry ingredients into the butter-sugar mixture. Stir in the oats and raisins, nuts, hemp hearts and coconut.
Spread in pan and press down slightly.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes. After about 10 minutes, make the cuts for bars. I didn’t have time to transfer to another container. They were gone. Makes about 16 bars.
Oatmeal Raisin Nut Cookies
These were a great success. I’m going to experiment later this week and try to make them into a granola bar by adding ingredients and baking in a lined pan. I have heard that the cookies don’t have any calories when you eat them warm from the oven. Later, I heard that this is only true if you ate them standing up. [Wink]
1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup butter or shortening, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups big flake rolled oats
1½ cups raisins (or dried cranberries)
½ cup nuts, optional (I used pecans but walnuts or even Rice Crispies would work)
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Mix the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt together in a bowl.
With an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy. Add brown/white sugar and bea until fluffy - a few minutes. Beat in the eggs.
Stir the dry ingredients into the butter-sugar mixture. Stir in the oats and raisins and nuts.
Scoop up about a heaping tablespoon worth of dough and form into a rough ball. Drop on baking sheet and press down slightly.
Bake for about 18-20 minutes. Cool for about a minute on baking sheet and transfer to a plate or cooling rack. I made about 48 cookies.
101 Cookbooks has done it again. They have a recipe for Homemade Bouillon. Unfortunately, it’s in weight measures but it’s not the sort of recipe you could really mess up by adding a bit here or there. No MSG or other weird additives.
You leave it in the freezer so so you can use it anytime in rice, on pasta, in stir fries and jazzing up your soups. I am going to add some herbs like basil and thyme.
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/homemade-bouillon-recipe.html
Brilliant. A recipe for bouillon.
My neighbour is from Kuwait and she made a delicious and simple lentil soup. She gave me the recipe and I made it yesterday and it is pretty much idiot proof.
Lentil Soup
1 onion and 2 carrots, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tbsp oil
1 cup red lentils (use red, not green or brown - it really makes a difference)
1/4 cup rice
3-4 cups chicken stock (use vegetable stock for vegetarian)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Brown the onion, carrots and garlic in the oil.
Add the chicken/vegetable stock, lentils and rice and bring to a boil. Add cumin and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until the lentils are well softened.
Add more water if necessary. Mash with mixer.
Serves 4.
Lentils are high in fiber and an excellent source of protein when combined with rice or whole grains. Lentils are an important source of B vitamins, especially B3, which is essential for both a healthy nervous system and digestive system. They are also high in iron, zinc and calcium.
Last week, I was given a few bags of soybeans from my neighbour. Soybeans have replaced all of the tobacco growing in these here parts. You can eat them in their greener stage as edamame which is how they’re often served in Japanese restaurants. The bags I received were already in the dried bean form.
I didn’t know that soybeans are a complete protein. They contain all of the essential amino acids required for growth. According to A 2 Z of Health, Beauty and Fitness:
One cup of raw soybeans contains about 774 calories, 56 grams of carbohydrates, 68 grams of protein, 37 grams of fat and around 4 grams of sodium. They also contain 162% of the RDA for iron, 52% for calcium and 19% for vitamin C.
You can soak soybeans overnight and cook them in water just like regular beans. Salt Spring Seeds has a really good recipe here. I’m going to make soy milk for cereal the same way I made almond milk. I looked up some recipes for making tofu but this seems like a long and arduous process.
More information on soybeans and recipes can be found in these links:
http://www.soybean.on.ca/recipes.php#home
http://www.justhungry.com/cooking-whole-dried-soybeans
http://www.soyconnection.com/recipes/index.php
Yesterday I was talking to one of my mother’s old cronies and she was telling me about her cruise. As she was waiting in a wheelchair to leave the ship, she started talking to the gentleman in the wheelchair next to her. He said, “A year ago I was blind. Do you want to know why I can see again?” She was intrigued and said of course. He replied, “Kale.” Nothing else had changed. He could see again.
My mother used to cook kale. Kale is a form of cabbage with green or purple leaves where the central leaves don’t form a head. It’s a super vegetable.
According to the Choose Healthy Food website:
Kale’s benefits:
Kale is rich in calcium, lutein, iron, and Vitamins A, C, and K. Lutein has been known to prevent cataracts.
You can buy kale seeds from Heritage Harvest Seeds (my favourite seed company) and grow this amazing vegetable yourself.
We have two pear trees and the challenge every fall is what to do with all the pears. Last year, I made pear butter but that is a long and arduous process involving cooking down pears for hours.
This year, I made pear jam - an infinitely easier, faster and better-tasting preserve.
Pear Jam
5 pounds pears which translates to about 15 pears
Grated zest of a lemon
One can (about 12 oz.) frozen apple (or white grape) juice concentrate, thawed
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1 cup water
1 package Certo pectin (I prefer the powdered variety)
Sterilize your jars - I used three big ones. I wash them in the sink and rinse and then put them in the oven on 200°F for about 20 minutes.
Peel and core and chop the pears into small pieces. Mix with the lemon zest.
In a large pan, mix the apple (or white grape) juice concentrate with the vanilla bean and 1 cup water. Boil for 10 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean. Add pears/lemon zest mixture.
Bring to boil and cook over medium heat until pears are tender. Add the pectin and boil for 1 minute.
Fill the jars with the hot jam, leaving 1/4 at the top of the jar. Wipe rims with a clean, damp cloth. Boil the lids for about a minute in water and then fit the lids on the top of the jar. Screw on the round piece. As they cool, the lids should invert toward the inside of the jar. If not, refrigerate and eat. Alternately, you could skip the canning part, cool the jam and just freeze it.
I’m sure you’ve clicked on those “Save $2000 a year right now!” links and found out it involved packing and taking a lunch with you to work. Blech, you say. Who wants to eat a dry ham sandwich with an apple? You took them dutifully through grade school and you’re through with that.
I invite you to visit Lunch in a Box:
http://lunchinabox.net/
She is a Bento Box genius. Packed lunches will never be the same.
I touched on this a year ago when I wrote about her amazing jello jigglers here.
Cruise through her website and you’ll want to take a lunch to work.
Now you can “Save $2000 a year” and look forward to it.
Urban foraging
A few years ago while I was visiting my brother in Florida, I asked his neighbour if I could pick some of the oranges and grapefruits off their trees. He was delighted to have someone enjoy them and we made fresh juice every morning during my stay.
In Portland, Oregon, they have created Urban Edibles. According to their website:
“This project aims to make more available the natural food sources throughout the city that go undiscovered each year. Nut trees, berry patches, unsprayed fields of dandelion roots are all welcome. We invite you to share the sources you already know of, search for new ones with your friends, and participate in our official scouting days.”
There are ethics to the whole thing - ask permission before picking, just pick what you need, don’t overpick and some other considerations that they mention on their site. This is a good way for people to share their harvest.
In Los Angeles, they have a Fallen Fruit website. In New York City, there is Wildman Steve Brill.
Here in Niagara Falls, one of the public parks has blackberries and the residents are free to pick them. I would be happy to let anyone pick all of my mint because it just keeps growing and growing.
Just ensure that you ask permission first and don’t overpick.
