Lovin' this Independence Challenge; Laziest 'icing' ever

Lemon Shrimp...yup, this is me cutting down on animal protein. When the folks came back from Florida recently and gifted us with FIVE POUNDS of Royal Reds (oh, yeah!), we divvied the shrimp up into 1/2 pound bags and froze it. Totally resisted the urge to fry up and scarf down a pound of it for dinner the first night. Sadly, eating this sweet Gulf shrimp in smaller lots feels a little chintzy, but I will be happy to have it last longer. We had the leftovers from this tonight, with steamed broccoli added in, along with 1/2 jar of organic baby food peas that I didn't want to give to Grandbaby today since it'd been opened on Friday. (Yes, I hate wasting food so much I'm willing to eat baby food...well, as long as it's heavily disguised.)

HARVEST: Hubby harvested our first mess of kale from the late planting he'd done. Some of it is red kale, a new crop for us. I LOVE kale. What's more, I LOVE the Independence Challenge reminding me to get off my tuchus and go see if any of our winter crops are ready to be harvested.

WANT NOT: Unfortunately, a loved one was in the hospital over the weekend...a hospital two hours from here. Before we and some others hit the road, I tossed a box of Clif bars, bananas and a water bottle into a bag. So, during this family medical crisis, I did not eat any hospital food! (Our dear one is MUCH better and well on his way to complete recovery, thanks!!)

EAT THE FOOD: After getting only about 45 minutes of sleep Friday night, I did not feel like cooking when we got home Saturday night. Didn't want to go out to eat either...too much food in the fridge at home. But comfort food was definitely wanted, so I baked a box mix White Cake and topped it with the quickest, laziest icing ever: 2 cans sweetened condensed milk mixed with 3/4 cup lemon juice then poured over the cake.

WASTE NOT: Scraping out the edges of my powder make-up. I buy and use this powder stuff only for traveling, because it's more expensive than my everyday makeup. I don't want to waste even ONE application!

EAT THE FOOD: Our refrigerator is jam-packed with cheeses that need to be used up (bought before my resolve to eat less animal protein/eggs/dairy). To up the vegetable proteins, I added some freshly harvested, sautéed Swiss chard into the Rotel Dip that jazzed up my mushroom tacos. Didn't take much of the spicy cheese dip to take my vegetarian taco over the top!

Happy Monday!! Anything getting harvested, eaten, saved or wasted in your neck of the woods??

Make over: Unwanted cereal to snack; On a roll with leftover pork

  Double click on the pic if you'd like to enlarge the recipe. Bake at 250F for 15-20 min.

Oh, yes, I did buy Cheerios in a humongous, bulk package. Oh, no, Hubby won't eat them, and now that I'm into breakfast smoothies, I won't either. Solution: make snack food of the cereal--now Hubby's eating it by the handfuls. Though better with oyster crackers, this recipe worked well with the cereal too.

Ranch Cherrios

Hey, I didn't forget Meatless Monday yesterday. I had "Big Salad" for lunch. Really need to get on the ball and come up with some impressive vegetarian entrees though, if I intend for Hubby to embrace this Meatless Monday business. His salad had turkey on it. That's my favorite commercial salad dressing, btw. If I could make a Caesar dressing homemade that tasted as good, believe me I would!

   I am completely and utterly addicted to mellowcreme pumpkins. In fact, I consider it my great fortune that the only candies I crave are seasonal: these Brach's pumpkins, Brach's Christmas peppermint nougats, and Whoppers' Robin Eggs. Best thing about lovin' seasonal candies is that I get to buy 'em half price after the holidays!  

The sweetest little helper assisted me in making lunch this morn! Boy, do I LOVE using an infant front-pack carrier...and so does Grandbaby! We vacuumed this morn and then made lunch together. No worries, baby was sleeping when it came time for the frying!

Can't believe I ever used loads of paper towels to soak up grease, when newspaper topped with ONE paper towel turns the trick. LOVE spending less money on one-time-use products like paper towels.

I am the condiment queen. My Swiss chard/pork/carrot/onion egg rolls tasted so yummy with a mixture of hoisin and sweet chili sauces. These egg rolls transformed 1 1/2 leftover pork chops into our lunch today with enough leftovers for Hubby to have some tomorrow too. We are still getting Swiss chard and peppers from the garden. Yea! Oh, yeah, I ate the egg rolls even tho' it's not cheat day. Shamey Shamey! ;)

   Any leftover makeovers goin' down at your place tonight?

Better than pop tarts: Whole Wheat Applesauce Cake

Whole Wheat Applesauce Cake

Gonna have to trust me on this one, since I don't know how to make a picture of a whole wheat cake that makes it look tasty: this Whole Wheat Applesauce Cake is absolutely yummy! As quick to grab in the mornings as Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tarts but WITHOUT the excess packaging, high fructose corn syrup and preservatives.
   My cake is a riff on an American Heart Association recipe I came across years ago. Hubby, who likes eating healthy for breakfast and only eats stuff like waffles and sweet rolls occasionally, will eat this cake for breakfast each morning 'til it's gone with no complaints. Super easy to make, Hubby even makes this himself now and then to take hunting with him on hunting trips--that's how much he likes it!
Whole Wheat Applesauce Cake
1 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 cups unsweetened applesauce
3 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1 cup raisins
1/2 to 1 cup nuts or seeds (we like almond slivers but I used sunflower seeds this time)
Whisk together dry ingredients. Add remaining ingredients, stirring 'til thoroughly combined. Spread into a jelly roll pan. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes. (Alternatively, halve recipe and bake in 8" cake pan, adjusting baking time.)
   Of course, I had my usual smoothie for breakfast, but blended smoothies are hard to make when we're camping, so this is my go-to breakfast for those times. And if you care to satisfy my curiosity, what was on your breakfast table this morn?

10 Tips for a Zero-Waste Household by Bea Johnson — YES! Magazine

10 Tips for a Zero-Waste Household by Bea Johnson — YES! Magazine

Let freedom ring while repurposing beauty products; Baking flops still better than store bought goods

Happy Red, White and Blue!! Ringing in Independence Day with Crumb-topped blueberry Muffins. Just HAD to try a new recipe, even tho' I have one I like. Found these tasty but not as tender as I like, but DD pronounced them AMAZING. (NOTE: Just discovered an online reference about this recipe I'd found in Kentucky Monthly Magazine, and 1/3 cup of vegetable oil was left out of the recipe they'd published.)

Strawberry Cobbler made from frozen berries that I thought Mom had already sweetened. NOPE, not sweetened! I did wonder about this, but not being hungry, I couldn't make myself try one of the thawed strawberries. So this baking stumble could have been prevented. My cobbler topping is as sweet and tender as ever tho', and a little ice cream or drizzled honey will sweeten these strawberries right up! (The hot cobbler is pictured on the floorboards of our car, en route to where Hubby was yesterday...I don't have one of those lovely carriers that they make nowadays for toting hot dishes, so I make do.)

I just CANNOT make myself toss out products, even if I don't like them for their original uses.

• Bought this defoliator on final clearance for $5 bucks, but when I used it to remove my leg hairs, this handy dandy sander removed a bit of my skin too! Now I use this device for smoothing my rough heels. Works beautifully!
• I forgot my lotion on our trip to San Diego, so I ended up bringing home this lotion that's scented too strongly for me. I use it instead to "wash" my hands after I get hairspray or makeup on them during my morning routine. Keeps my hands from getting dried out during repeated washings! 
• This facial mask is one that DD left behind unused. As my skin is too sensitive for face masks, I use this as a body scrub instead. Works wonderfully well!

   I also use unwanted hair conditioner as shaving cream, and I know others do this too. My brain just isn't working this morn, but I know there are a gajillion ways to repurpose beauty products. Care to share any of your favorites?

Angel Food Cake leads to Chocolate Pot de Crème

Chocolate Pot de Crème in a vintage champagne glass
Pictured with my recent 25¢ yard sale tea towel find.

Anytime I bake an angel food cake I'm left with the challenge of what to do with all those unused egg yolks! Well, I've still got lemon curd in the freezer waiting to be eaten, so I went another direction this time with some of the yolks: Chocolate Pot de Crème, as found in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook.
   I used 3 ounces of bittersweet in place of  3 ounces of the semi-sweet chocolate, but this recipe was still WAY too sweet for me (yes, me, tho' I often say I could eat a whole cake). The recipe makes a lovely, smooth and creamy custard that is actually closer to fudge than pudding, if I'd stopped after two little bites, I'd have said I love it. Hubby seems to like it fortunately, but since it won't tempt me, it's the perfect dessert to have around!
   Really LOVE chocolate but for some reason not a chocolate fudge fan...more of a peanut butter fudge kinda gal myself. Wonder if I could make Peanut Butter Pot de Crème?! How about you: chocolate or peanut butter fudge?

Had a free carton of regular eggs but used one organic egg...see the diff?

Click to enlarge recipe. Caveat: Do not make this unless you like things SWEET!

Still trying to become more minimalist:
Should I downsize my vintage champagne glasses?
Champagne flutes keep the bubbles in longer,
but the ultra-thin glass of the antiques feels soo good to sip from.

Please eat some sweets for me while I watch Hubby eat Hican Pie Bars

Hican Pie Bars--substitute pecans if you want. Click on pic for clearer image.

Still working hard to reduce packaging waste by cooking/baking mostly from scratch. Since I've started trying to follow the 4-Hour Body suggestion to eat "slow carbs" (protein, legumes, veggies) except on the Saturday cheat day, it's been tougher deciding what to bake. After all, Hubby still wants his sweets. As he's most days out in the garden, yard or garage often tending to projects that I came up with in the first place, I can hardly deny him his just desserts!
   The trouble now is to find sweets that won't tempt me Sunday through Friday, while I wait for my cheat day. That's where these Hican Pie Bars come in. Hicans are a bit stronger tasting than pecans, and I'm not crazy for them...so I'm not craving these bars like I would be my fav: Lemon Pie Bars.
   My Hican Pie Bars are a riff on the Pecan Pie Bars found on MyRecipes.com, which I had made before. Added the butter flavoring because I like a more pronounced butter flavor in a pecan pie. When I'm short on time, I make these bars rather than a pecan pie, 'cause there's no mess from rolling out pie crust dough to clean up afterwards.
   Anyway, hope you're having an absolutely fabulous day. Eat something sweet for me, and I'll catch up on Cheat Day! 

Determined to wait for "cheat day," the "bite" in the pic went back into the pan!
At left: bars ready for the freezer; butter wrappers work perfectly to keep extra air out.
I remembered to buy more rechargeable batteries today. Love those little money savers!

Hican Pie Bars
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter or margarine, cut up
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 large eggs
2 1/2 cups finely chopped hicans (or substitute pecans)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 to 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring, as desired (optional)
Preparation
Combine flour, sugar, and salt in large bowl; cut in 3/4 cup butter thoroughly with a pastry blender until mixture resembles very fine crumbs.   (Or use a food processor.)  Press mixture evenly then firmly into a greased 13" x 9" pan. Bake at 350° for 17 to 20 minutes or until lightly browned.
For filling, combine brown sugar, corn syrup, eggs, flavoring(s) and pecan in a large bowl. Stir to combine then slowly pour in 1/2 cup melted butter while mixing. Pour filling over crust. Bake at 350° for 34 to 35 minutes or until set. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Cut into bars.

Not buying it: Tomato Sauce - paste easily converts to sauce

Paste to sauce: 6 ounces of paste, 12 ounces of water, 1/2 teaspoon sugar.

No longer buying cans of tomato sauce! Took a look at the ingredients in a can of tomato sauce...found water and tomato paste. Now I just buy paste and add my own water. Why pay for the added water?
   And if you're into preparedness, the little cans of paste save on storage space when compared with sauce.
   Though I do recycle all cans (first removing & tossing the labels in with the magazine recyclables), it takes less energy to recycle smaller cans. Yet another little way to lighten my impact on this lovely earth. For more ways to lessen our carbon footprint, visit Carbon Footprint.
   Came across a great article by Colin Beaven, No Impact Man: "42 Ways to Not Make Trash." No Impact Man's year spent trying to reduce his carbon footprint to zero sure made a BIG impact on me.
   The fact that going green almost always saves $greenbacks$ is icing on the cake! Speaking of cake, I hope to make one either today or tomorrow. Please leave a link if you've got a great cake post!!

Cheater salad dressings and some links to share

Cheater dressings: cheaper than commercially prepared, less packaging waste.

Okay, okay, I know I'm trying to make more of everything from scratch, but all this rain, rain, RAIN has me feeling very lazy. So today we'll be topping our salads with a cheater dressing: semi-scratch Italian made using a package of seasonings plus my olive oil, water and red wine vinegar.
   To console myself on not making the dressing completely from scratch, I remind myself that these cheater dressings do reduce packaging waste. The little seasoning packet tossed today is better than the big plastic bottle that packages a ready-made dressing.
   Same goes for the semi-scratch cheater Ranch Dressing, made with seasoning I buy in bulk, along with my mayo and milk. And there has to be a lower carbon-cost of shipping these seasonings without the added weight of the liquid ingredients.
   Tho' we recycle all plastic containers, using less plastic is always a good idea. Besides, we can expect high oil prices to raise the prices on all petroleum based or packaged products!
   I managed to visit the library yesterday. Brought home and skimmed through The New Frugality: How to Consume Less, Save More, and Live Better by Chris Farrell, the Economics Editor of Marketplace Money, an NPR broadcast. I say 'skimmed' 'cause I'm less interested in investing than I am in frugality. Aside from the usual "buy used, reduce, reuse, recycle" advice, the book shares several links to frugal sites.

   Please let me know if you visit any of these and come across any new frugal ideas!
Frugal Link Love from The New Frugality
Frugal Living on About.com
Frugal Village
Sustainablog.org
World Changing
Simple-Green-Frugal
1Green Generation
The Daily Green
Inhabitat
Green Yahoo
Greener Penny
Freecycle
TreeHugger (Love this site!)
Green Money Journal
Slow Food USA
Happy link hopping!!

Cooking the harvest challenge continues: Asparagus glut begins

Not that I'm complaining, but the asparagus is coming on like gangbusters! Every day new shoots inch their way up to harvest height.
   As for my thrown together pasta, what's not to love about big bits of melting Parmesan, pan-roasted walnuts and asparagus? (Seasonings: olive oil, butter, thyme, basil, oregano, rosemary, S&P.)
   BURNED the first batch of walnuts -- what a waste of walnuts, olive oil and butter! HATE waste, salvaged what I could by cutting off the black bits. The salvaged walnuts were tasty on a salad...leftovers pictured here.

Oriental Asparagus Salad -- minus ingredients I didn't have.

   The Oriental Asparagus Salad was just slightly cooked asparagus marinated in a dressing made of 1/4 cup seasoned rice wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 2 teaspoons sesame oil, 1/2 teaspoon crushed garlic and 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger. Found this recipe, which also called for fresh bell pepper and water chestnuts, in The Best Kept Secrets of Healthy Cooking by Sandra Woodruff, R.D. (recipes). Have yet to make a recipe of hers we didn't love!  
   Hope I can meet the challenge of all this asparagus. And we still have gobs of kale to eat! One of these days I'll get around to making these Kale Chips found over at Cooking.In.College.
   What we can't eat of our garden produce we do try to give away, so hopefully little will be wasted. Did I mention that I hate waste?!

Quest for homemade cracker recipe--by jove, I think I've got it!

Rolling out these Salt and Pepper Crackers, by Sunset Magazine, with Grandgirl2 was such fun.
   She rolled in one direction; I in the other. She was so sweetly dedicated to her direction that I did not have the heart to take over and roll the crackers "paper thin" as directed, so our crackers were a bit too thick.
   But, man, what a crispy cracker!! And soo easy! Rolling them out on the silicone mat made it extra easy to transfer to the baking sheet...cooked them right on this re-usable mat, instead of on one-time-use parchment paper.
   Now, our crackers were overworked a bit, as will happen with small hands, but I still think I've found my cracker recipe. Will know for sure when I roll out and bake the 2nd half of the dough, now in the freezer.
   Making crackers from scratch means less packaging waste, as compared to the commercially prepared crackers. But it also means better, fresher tasting crackers. Gotta love that!
   Raining, raining in our part of Kentucky this morn, but the dogwood tree out our window looks lovely in the rain.  
   Hope you're looking at something lovely yourself right now? As always, feel free to share what's out your window or baking/cooking/waiting to be eaten in your kitchen. People's comments/blogs are my glimpses into other worlds!

Oh, yes, I used every last lip-full!

Back before I ever worried over packaging waste, I started using a lip brush to get every last smidgen of lipstick from its tube. Why start this oh-so-frugal practice? Because they discontinued my favorite color lipstick! Wish I had every not-entirely-used up tube I'd ever bought...that last little bit seemed to last forever!
   The metal tube pictured here has finally been used in it's entirety, so Hubby removed the plastic insides and tossed the metal part in his scrap metal bin.

   In case you're wondering what's worth getting all dolled up over...Why, Chewy Peanut Butter Bars!

   Easy-to-make peanut butter cookies are always worth smiling over!


Chewy Peanut Butter Bars 
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Cream together the sugars and the butters. Add remaining ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined. Pat into a 13"x9" baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

It's cloudy and raining here in Kentucky. Hope you're finding something worth smiling about in your neck of the woods?!

Seitan: What was I thinking?!

Okay, I guess I forgot everything I learned from Michael Pollan about eating only what our great-grandmas would recognize as food. Whether from curiosity or the siren call of a bargain buy, I bought SEITAN, that vegetarian meat substitute.
   Hubby right off sent up a mutiny flag and refused to even try it. Well, Pollan and Hubby got it right, 'cause that stuff is pure MEH!
   To be fair, I also find chicken and beef to be pretty dull once the first couple of chews have worn off the seasoning. Unless I swallow my food whole, by the time meat or poultry is all chewed up, there's a whole mouthful of BLAH going on. I've been a bit of a flexitarian since I was a kid for that very reason. I only eat about a half to a quarter of a serving of animal protein 'cause I get awfully bored with chewing the stuff.
   That boredom goes triple for this seitan stuff. NEVER again!!
   I will keep trying to add more veggie entrees to our rotation though. Actually, I was so tickled as I was cooking the seitan because I thought it looked great as I sautéed it with onions and garlic before adding the mushrooms, peppers and eventually noodles too. If I had to, I could probably even get used to eating seitan, but I don't have to, do I?!
   Don't think I'll be throwing the leftovers away though. I'll be eating and regretting this stuff for a couple of more days now. Any regrets being served over at your place??

January's "spend less" focus: Eat from pantry; use less electricity

   Fearless frugalista that I am, I accepted an "eat from the cupboard" challenge over at Greenhab (exceptions: can buy fresh dairy/produce). And before my bravery could flag, when Being Frugal threw down a challenge to pick one month to use less electricity, I chose January.
   Hopefully challenging myself to a particular focus on electricity and shopping my own pantry this month will increase my chances of success with my resolution to spend less, save more in 2011. And it's not taking on too much with these types of challenges...even if every day doesn't breed success, the days that do will add up.
   How'm I doin' so far?

• There's a load of laundry out hanging on the line. 
• Lunch was veggie soup cooked entirely on the shelf of our woodburner. (No woodburner? A crockpot would turn the trick.)
• Pictured above are some onions slowly simmering in butter and olive oil (in the same pan the soup was cooked in). No prob if it takes all afternoon for the onions to caramelize, since this is a step-ahead for a future meal.
• And I air-dried my hair. Yeah, it looks air-dried, but I'm not going anywhere today. 

   I've been stewing over how to reduce my blow drier and cooktop usage ever since reading a post on EcoMama: Be PowerWise. Did I mention this before? Her post contains a link to an energy calculator that gives a ballpark estimate of how much energy (read $$) common household appliances/electronics use. Even if my appliances are more energy efficient than the ones used for the calculations, the estimates create a powerful picture of my dollars going down the drain (also picturing a bigger carbon footprint).
   Although I value quick cooking and having good hair days, I do NOT value spending money on one-time-use products like electricity!
   If you vowed to spend less, save more, how 'you doin' so far?

Oh, the little things we do...

Again in the interest of "mind the nickels and dimes and the dollars will mind themselves," I used a black marker to highlight the "normal" load amount on my laundry detergent scoops. Otherwise, it would be too easy to just guess...and end up using more than is necessary. I ALWAYS wash in cold water these days, but for loads containing sheets, towels and undies, I add a scoop of non-chlorine bleach alternative. Laundry detergent is yet another of those one-time-use products that I have always tried to spend as little on as possible, but these days there is evidence it's even hard on the clothes to use too much detergent. According to the WSJ article "The Great American Soap Overdose," too much detergent makes our "clothes dingy and our machines smell." And gotta love the quote in the article that says for many loads, we could do without soap altogether!

Reduce waste: Hand soap

So hard these days to find bulk liquid hand soaps that are not anti-bacterial and the one brand they have at our local big-box store smells noxious (to me, as I don't like scented soap). This has led me to start using bar soaps for everyday and only pull out the liquid soaps for when company comes, as most people seem to prefer liquid these days. Since the bar soaps come in little paper boxes as opposed to a whopping big plastic bottle, seems like this makes sense ecologically too.