Poor Man's Minestrone

Poor Man's Minestrone or, as my Mom always called it, Hamburger Soup... Whatever you want to call it, it made a yummy dinner on this chilly gloomy day for me and the boys!  It was the third workout in as many weeks for my 38 cent crockpot and it did its job like a rockstar!

This is a clean out the little bits left in the fridge, freezer, and pantry kind of dish...

Next time it might be a little different depending on what veggies I have that need to be used but to make the soup today, I broke up and fried 1 lb of hamburger.  When that was nearly done, I added about 1 cup of sliced baby carrots I'd forgot about getting for snacks, 4 sliced up ribs of celery that were right on the edge of turning wimpy, and the half an onion rattling around the bottom of the vegetable crisper, roughly diced.  I let this cook until the vegetables were starting to soften.

Meanwhile, into the crockpot went the end of a bag of frozen corn, the end of a bag of frozen peas, a big handful of frozen green beans, 2 packets of dry onion soup mix, and a can of diced tomatoes.  I added the burger mixture and a couple of tomato cans of water (gotta get all that tomatoey goodness!), set the crockpot on high, and gave it a good stir.

Now, this is the really important step in making this soup so pay attention!

I went to the laundromat and did my laundry (yay for clean clothes!) while the soup simmered away and the flavors blended just like magic.  Yup, I just walked away and forgot about it for a couple of hours.

When I got home, I added a little more water, the end of a box of shell macaroni, approximately 2 tsp Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning, and walked away again for about 30 minutes.  Then it was time to dip it up and enjoy with a couple of crackers...

Love in a bowl!!  Or, if you're like me, in a big coffee cup!

A Tale of Two Soups

In the past few months I've been introduced to a few Pennsylvania Dutch recipes that have an unfamiliar component called a Rivvel. I haven't quite decided if I like them or not, but I am intrigued enough to want to play with the recipe. A few days ago, Jason's Mom made a big pot of Potato Soup. Potato Soup... with Rivvels.

First appearances were very much like the potato soup I am familiar with and love. But the taste was a bit different. And the texture didn't feel like the thick and silky yumminess I crave on a cold wintery day. I'm not saying it was bad, just different.

I guess this is a good time to stop and explain what a Rivvel is.

It's a kind of free form noodle, or dumpling, depending on who you ask. On their own, they make me think very much of the Spaetzle I always got with my Vienerschnitzel at Seigfried's when I lived in Salt Lake City. But in soup, I'm struggling to love them.  I found this recipe for soup online at cooks.com that explains how to make them.

RIVVEL SOUP  

2 c. unsifted flour
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 tsp. salt
4 qt. chicken broth
2 c. corn

Combine flour, salt and egg together and mix with fingers until crumbly. Drop rivvels (little noodles) into broth. Add corn and simmer 10 to 15 minutes. A rivvel is a "little lump" or noodle.

Photo from fotosearch.com

Switch the broth for milk and corn for potatoes and it's pretty much the soup she made. She's also made a version with navy beans and a bit of shaved ham. Searching, I found another site that called the recipe Amish and said it was a Depression-era way to stretch common (read "inexpensive") pantry items into a meal that would satisfy lots of hungry tummies. Add a few crackers and you have starch on starch on starch, so fill tummies it would!

The soup I had in mind when she said Potato Soup takes a bit more prep work to bring it all together...

KATHY'S CREAM OF POTATO SOUP

In a stock pot or Dutch oven, bring 2 +/- pounds of cubed potatoes to a boil in just enough salted water to barely cover. Cook until fork tender.

Meanwhile, in a saute pan, melt 5 Tbl butter and add a chopped onion and an equal amount of thinly sliced celery and cook until translucent.  Add 3 Tbl of white all-purpose flour and stir until well combined. Cook for 2 minutes longer so you don't have a raw flour taste in your finished soup. Scrape into boiling potatoes and stir to combine and work out any lumps from the rue.  Reduce heat and add milk and/or heavy cream. Simmer, stirring often, until thick and creamy - don't let it boil after adding the milk because milk scorches easily. You may need more as it thickens to get the right consistency. When vegetables are tender, add black pepper to taste. Adjust for salt.

To serve, ladle into bowls. Top with a dollop of sour cream, some crispy crumbled bacon, chopped chives and grated cheddar cheese.

Oh yum!  I'm hungry now...

Sheepherder Potoatoes

Finished dish... see how the water has thickened into a sauce?

Both of my Grandmas were young wives with young families to keep fed during The Depression. They had to get really good at making something out of nothing... My Grandma Clarke made a dish she called Sheepherder Potatoes that fits that description.

By the time I came along, she had a few more luxuries and made them in an electric skillet. That's what I remember and am trying to describe here. Once she had her skillet nicely warmed, she'd thinly slice potatoes and add them to the skillet with enough water to cover about 2/3 of the way and add a pat or two of butter and salt and pepper.  Be generous with the pepper!  Then she'd put the cover on and step away to do whatever else needed doing in her day while the potatoes simmered on low for a couple of hours.  They only need a gentle stir once in awhile when you check to make sure there's still water on them. When the potatoes are soft enough to start breaking apart, the dish is done.  Spoon out a taste and adjust the salt and pepper to taste.  The water will have thickened from the starch cooking out of the potatoes to make a peppery sauce, or gravy.

Everything is in the pan and ready to start simmering away.

Sounds simple?  It is.  And I think that's part of why it tastes so surprisingly good!  It's totally uncomplicated... just honest, simple, down-home comfort food.

I attempted to make some on top of the little Coleman Camp Stove that serves as my indoor cooking appliance on this mostly off-grid adventure.  I didn't achieve perfection with a dull knife, no cutting surface, imprecise heat, and a foil "lid" but I improvised with what I had and got close to what she made.  And they tasted pretty darned good!!

I can't remember now if there was a meat she served these potatoes alongside or not but while I was eating them I had visions of a green vegetable, maybe like sauteed spinach or chard, and a nice pan roasted trout.

Yup.  I'm STILL jonesing to go fishing...

Taco Seasoning Mix

You knew sooner or later I'd jump on the bandwagon and make up my own mixture to season taco meat, right?

Well, I did it.

After a great amount of research (aka reading everyone else's recipes and the reviews of them that I could find - there must be at least 100 variations!) and taste testing the powder against my favorite chemical-laden store-bought packet here is the recipe I've decided on:

Taco Seasoning

Very scant 1/3 cup chili powder
2 Tbl Tony Chachere's Bold Creole Seasoning*
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp dried oregano
Scant 1/4 cup cumin
Very scant 1/4 cup paprika
2 Tbl cornstarch
1 Tbl minced dehydrated onion
2 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbl sugar
1 Tbl brown sugar

Mix together and store in tightly capped jar.  Makes approximately 1 1/4 cups.  Use 2-3 Tbl per pound of taco meat according to your tastes.  Simply brown and crumble the meat then add the seasoning with about 1/2 cup water and simmer for a few minutes.  Then you're ready to make some yummy yummy tacos or burritos or nachos or taco salads or...

Isn't it pretty?  I like it A LOT!  I like that there's no weird preservatives that I can't pronounce (unless there's some in the Tony's and I didn't look... I like that stuff too much and don't want to risk that there is something there that will make me want to kick that can to the curb).  And I like that this one is pretty straight-forward in the spices.  Some of the other folks out there in blog land use interesting stuff like cocoa powder and smoked paprika and I guess that's fine if  you want to incorporate those flavors.  I was seeking a really tasty, basic, use it in the weekly dinner rotation kind of taste and that's what I've got.  I also like that it's cheap!  I am estimating (because I used spices I already had on hand) that the total cost would work out to about $2 for the entire batch.  And I estimate it will make tacos 12-13 times.

The recipe above (minus the onions because I didn't have any) filled one of these cute little Classico jars that originally came home filled with pesto to the rim with enough left over to make tacos today.  I've kept the jars all along because I plan on spray painting the lids with brushed nickel paint and labeling with a cute round chalkboard label for the contents inside to store all my spices and mixtures like this.


Note:  Tony Chachere's Bold Creole Seasoning is a spicy seasoning salt.  If you don't have it, substitute your favorite seasoned salt or use 2 1/2 Tbl salt and 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or use 1/4 tsp cayenne and 1/4 tsp ground black pepper).

Forgotten Skills

Photo credit:  Village Green Network

One of the Facebook/Blog pages I follow started this morning off with these words:  "Amazing how a decision to start growing your own food cascades into so many different things in your life. New friends (invaluable support), baking your own bread, making your own taco seasoning, making your own laundry soap. The list goes on and on..."  (Karen Taylor of Old Pa Farm) Not sure my list of mostly forgotten skills would look exactly like that but the words and sentiment got me thinking about how many old and [by many people] forgotten skills I use in my day.  Some things I do because it's how I learned to do it growing up and some is a conscious choice for either thrift or to leave an environmentally softer footprint on the Earth.

I garden.  Most years I do anyway.  And I will be when this coming Spring finally gets itself underway.  In the past I've used much the same methods I learned from my Dad - organic for the most part but willing to bring in a chemical for limited use if I found myself dealing with a pest I couldn't otherwise control.  In the past, I've hired someone to rototill the ground but this year I'm going to experiment with creating permaculture beds.  That's something I'm pretty excited about!

I preserve garden produce for later use.  This summer I want to make red and green salsa, dilly beans, apple pie filling, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, garlic preserved in vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, refrigerator dill pickles, strawberry freezer jam, frozen diced tomatoes, and several dried herb blends.

I cook from scratch.  Well, sometimes.  I admit a lot more boxed stuff has slipped in during the past 18 months.  It's been a time of big adjustments that affect all parts of my life and that's part of the reason that real cooking has fallen by the wayside.  It's something I laugh about now and then, but Derek loves the TGI Friday's(TM) Tater Skins from the freezer isle and would eat them 3-4 times a week... I about had a heart attack right there in the frozen food section when I saw the price and started making them at home.  Mine are so much better he tells everyone that they "are the bomb!" And I want to get back to even more real cooking over the coming months.  One of the first things I plan on doing is getting my sourdough starter going again and making our bread.

I make many of my own cleaning products.  Again, I've slipped a little in doing this but getting back to it more and more.  I've found that I can make my own product that is very effective for much less money. Some of my forays in cleaning products have been laundry soap, dryer sheets, and a concoction (I hope I can replicate) that did an awesome job getting puppy stains out of our carpets.

I create things.  For Christmas I made Derek an afghan in his favorite sports team colors and since we have serious lack of bedding (thanks, in part, to puppy chewing) it's been helpful in keeping him warm on some of those unusually cold nights we've had lately.  Over the last year and a half I also made some of the items we've gifted for birthdays and Christmas, cards, our potholders and some of the decor on our walls.  Several items have used recycled or re-purposed materials.  I love that it saves money, but even more I love that it is unique, kind of quirky and very personal.

I do my own home repairs and upgrades.  Inasmuch as it's safe and I have the skills to do a reasonably good job, I do my own repairs and upgrades.  A recent example was replacing a burned out breaker in our box.  Calling an electrician would have run around $100.  A few friends telling me it was an easy do-it-yourself job and a Youtube tutorial later, I did it myself.  The new breaker cost $11.84, including tax.  Money savings aside, it was a powerful feeling when I flipped that switch and everything worked!

I get to know my neighbors.  For me, a sense of community is important.  I am a naturally friendly person and I like finding people nearby who can share information and skills and, sometimes, garden tools.  Besides, being sociable is a good skill to have... so many of us suffer from nearly unbearable loneliness these days.  I also want to try and barter for things I can't do on my own like get our one neighbor who co-owns a dog grooming business with his daughter to cut the dog's toe nails.  I've talked to him a number of times about gardening and learned that he's diabetic and baked goods won't appeal as a trade off... so I'm hoping this summer to woo him into a barter arrangement with lots of fresh garden-ripe tomatoes!

Could I do more?  Sure.  Will I?  In time, probably.  I've already started a list of upgrades and additions for the 2015 garden...

Tater Skins

Not long after Derek and I first got together, he came home with 'snacks' one night that included a couple of boxes of TGI Friday's Potato Skins.  I was flabbergasted!  They're almost $5 a box and you get like 6 or 8 skimpy little pieces with hardly any toppings.

Flabbergasted, I tell you!

And so I set out to remedy his spendthrift ways...  well, that's another post entirely but I did manage to convert him to my home-made Tater Skins.  Which is very cool because he didn't even know you could make them yourself.  So he was very very surprised at just how much better they taste, too!

In case you didn't know how easy this little treat is to make, here's my step-by-step instructions.

First, you need to bake some potatoes and let them cool.  I just wash them, wrap in foil, pierce with a fork and bake at 350F until they feel 'done.'  Then I set them aside until cool.  (In all honesty, you can go ahead and make Tater Skins while they're still hot.  It will work.  But you'll burn your fingers and they tend to fall apart more.)  Next you want to cut them into pieces.

The beginning cuts are just to make wide slices.  These are Idaho Russet #1s.  I guess they're supposed to be what passes as a baker these days.  That's the hazard of growing up in Idaho's Potato Capitol... you know how big spuds can really get and that the puny little things in the grocery store are a far cry from it!  Anyway, I cut these average-ish sized potatoes into fourths crosswise.

Then I cut each piece in half so I got 8 Tater Skins from each potato.  Yes, they are sticky.  And yes, your fingers will be a nasty feeling mess after just a few.

I used a teaspoon from my silverware drawer to hollow out each piece.  Leave about 1/8" of flesh attached to the skin so you get pieces that look something like this.

The flesh you are scooping out of the middle... is great for potato salad, baked potato soup or to chill overnight and cut up a bit more to make hashbrowns for tomorrow morning's breakfast.  Hashbrowns are the destiny of these beauties!

Arrange in a baking dish.  These are going in the freezer for later so I've set them on foil inside a plastic freezer dish to make it easy to lift out later and set on a baking pan.

I sprinkled with a bit of Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning (use your favorite seasoned salt), a little sprinkle of grated cheese, some bacon bits and more cheese.  I'll fold the foil all in on itself, snap the lid on and freeze.  When Derek is ready to cook them for his snack, he'll just need to pull the foil out and open it up on top of a cookie sheet.  Bake at 350F until heated through and the cheese has just barely started to brown.

Here's the haul I made tonight with approximately $5 worth of ingredients... one heck of a lot more than the 6-8 little chunks from the TGI Friday's box!!

There's a pan for us to munch on tonight and 4 snack boxes for later on.

And here's how they look after baking and right before you pop one in your mouth.  (I ran out of bacon bits... so these just have cheese but you get the idea, I'm sure.)

Mmmm... happy mouth!

That 70's Bathroom

I'm pretty sure I've whined about having bathrooms straight out of the 70's before...

But it's true!!

There's Harvest Gold fixtures and everything!  In the hall bathroom anyway (the master has the ever-lovely Avocado Green) which is one of the rooms I've been working on the past few days as I start to get stuff in shape for a visit from a wonderful friend I haven't seen since about the time we both graduated from high school 30 + years ago.  Sadly, for now we're stuck with the Harvest Gold so... I'm doing my best to rock that shade of awful!

Here's a couple of BEFORE photographs of this little bathroom I've all but ignored for the last 5 months.

I started with a good cleaning.  The bathtub, toilet, and sink are actually in pretty decent condition with all the muck scraped and scrubbed off... they're just uglier than sin.  Which is kind of funny since it's almost the same color as the bedspread in the bedroom that this bathroom services.  Once the tub and tile were clean, I hung an ivory shower curtain liner ($1 for the rings and $1 for the liner panel at Dollar Tree) and used some of the extra drapes from the bedroom (the windows at my old house were a LOT bigger!) around the bathtub.  It was tighter than tight getting the drapery panels on the shower curtain rod!!  But for a free fix, I can expend a little effort.

Better Homes and Gardens it's not, but I think we can live with the Harvest Gold a while longer now...

You can't see it in any of the pictures but we also traded out the wimpy little showerhead for a nice big rainfall style one.  And I spray painted a neon green mesh trash can (gotta love the stuff you can find at Dollar Tree!) white for this room.  Now to fresh up the towels, parcel out the wall decor between bed and bath, get some cute soaps and stuff and put down a fluffy rug to make this room ready for its AFTER shots!

Everything is pretty simple and basic still at this point... but I'm repurposing things we already own and the FREE part helps me appreciate what beauty there is.  The liner makes the shower functional and the curtains do add privacy and the beginning of some sense of the room being put together.  There's a fluffy rug on the floor that matches one of the shades of gold in the curtain that makes for a nice spot to step out of the shower.

Not too bad for just using the extra curtain panels from the bedroom?

Fresh clean towels are also out.  We're short on towel bars so... in both bathrooms the clean ones are just folded and kept on top of the toilet tank.  It works because we're also not flush on towels so all we own fits in that spot.

What's funny about these tan towels is that when we first looked at the house, the lighting in this bathroom was so bad we thought the tub, toilet, and sink were tan.  It wasn't until we'd moved and replaced the scary old light fixture that we realized everything was harvest gold...

I decorated the corner of the counter with shells from all over the world:  The conch and abalone were my Grandma Clarke's from a trip to the CA coast in the late 1940s.  The sand dollar posed on the lip of the conch and the smaller similar shell up front was collected by a cousin taking an adventure and travelling as an itinerant worker all around the country during the mid-1980s.  Most of the small tan and brown ones my dad gathered on the beaches of the Mariana Islands when he was there as a soldier during WWII.   And the really tiny shells and bits of coral on top are things I picked up relaxing on the beach in Antigua.

At some point we do want to re-do this bathroom with white fixtures and a smaller simpler vanity cabinet.  Not fancy even then, just brought into the current century.

Adam's Skivvies

Adam might be right at home here. I got his favorite undies in the back yard... The first man wore the leaves to hide his nakedness once he realized his junk was out there but I don't recall that the Bible says he ate the figs.  He might have.  Lots of people do.

I don't.  At least I never have.  And I don't think I'd like them much.

Or maybe I'm judging them unfairly?

The only fig I've ever tasted, as far as I know, is one of those dried up brown chunks of yuckiness you find in the grocery store's produce section wrapped tightly in plastic on a little meat tray during the holidays.  I did not like it!  Not even a little bit.  I don't like raisins or dates, either, so not liking the figs could be anticipated.  But maybe there's still hope!  I'd venture a guess that it's all the extra sugar, but I don't mind a Fig Newton now and then.  Can't say those are ever my first choice in cookies, but they're not terrible by any means.

And I'm not really sure I've ever seen a fresh fig.  In pictures, yes, but not up close and personal. Figs were just not a fruit crop that grew in Idaho or Utah... but apparently they are in Georgia.

On several occasions, I've spent a little time talking to one of my neighbors.  He's quite the gardener and an awesome source of knowledge about the neighborhood, stuff that went on in this house before we bought it, what kinds of plants grow wild in the woods, Civil War history, and all sorts of other stuff.  A couple of days ago, he told me he was sure I'd find some wild fig trees somewhere out in the wooded section of our back yard because he has some.

Which, oddly, he keeps even though he says he doesn't care much for the fruit.

I say keeping them is odd because he told me he had more than 40 trees removed from his lot so you'd think a couple more that he doesn't really love would be no big thing.  He may keep them for his mom.  He did say that sometimes she comes and gets enough to make a batch of fig preserves.  She likes the stuff.  I'm sure (at least I hope) it's very much tastier than I'm imagining right now.

But I digress...

I've been wanting to go look for these fig trees so I can keep Derek from chopping them down before I get a chance to decide if I want one.  Or two.  Or maybe even three since more trees give more coverage from looking through to a neighboring house on the other side of the woods.

And them looking through at us... eek!!

Here are a couple of pictures I found to help me know what to look for:

Photo credit: http://allotmentheaven.blogspot.com/2011/01/fig-ficus.html
Lot's of good info on figs in that blog post!

Photo credit: http://allotmentheaven.
blogspot.com/2011/01/fig-ficus.html

There are a few trees with similar leaves out there.  Guess I'll just have to pay attention and keep looking for fruit.  I learned today that they don't flower first; the blossom is inside the fruit and never emerges into the daylight.

Adam might have found them to be his comfy clothes but I like a bit more coverage than these leaves would provide!  While the leaves of what I think might be fig trees out in our woods are somewhat bigger than on the surrounding trees, they're just not enough...  Guess I need to do my shopping at the plus-size fig tree!!

Any thoughts how I use figs? Favorite recipes?  Gotta decide if they earn a spot to stay!

I Love Saving Money

I am not brand loyal to very many things when I shop.  That's not a criticism for those that always buy the same specific brand of any particular product, just a statement that I don't.

Bounty, Scott, Viva... they're all paper towels.  All going to be used for the same lowly purpose.  (At my house right now, that purpose is primarily cleaning up puppy accidents!)  Similarly Charmin, Angel Soft or another brand of 2-ply is ok.  Left to my own devices, I will choose whichever one is cheaper that day.  Think about what it's for... why flush the extra dollars?

Photo credit: http://www.drugstore.com

When we brought the puppies home, we knew we needed something to clean up accidents.  Derek reached for Resolve.  A can like this lasted about a week.  At our local grocery store, the price is $5.49.  Being a cheapskate, I didn't want to pay that much again so I looked for a coupon but I didn't find one so I looked for it at the Dollar General next to the grocery store.  They don't carry it.

But I still needed something to clean up spots on the carpet.

What to do?  What to do?

I kept looking around the store and found a store brand clean up product that said it would eliminate pet odors.

For $2, I figured it was worth a try.

If it was crap, at least I wouldn't have wasted much of our very sparse funds.  And if it did the job, I'd look like a freaking genius for trying it.  High reward - low risk.

Premium Stain & Odor Remover

And after a week of using it... I like it.  I definitely think it's doing the job it is intended for.  The stains come up very easily and the house doesn't smell of urine or feces when you walk in.  Right when you are using it, it doesn't smell as perfumy as the Resolve does and it's a liquid you squirt on instead of a foam.  But it's getting the job done, I'm not big on perfume smells and I honestly can't think of even one good reason to get hung up on the foaming/non-foaming difference.

I recommend Dollar General's Premium Stain & Odor Remover for anyone who has pet clean up needs and wants to save a few bucks!

Genius.

Kitchen Re-Make

Here are some shots of the kitchen on the day the realtor handed me the keys at closing on our new house:

 

They were flat white, grungy in that sort of way that doesn't wash off and tricked out with some clunky door pulls and hinges vintage 1977.  Amazingly 35 years later this house had it's original kitchen.  If money wasn't an issue... like a major issue right now... we would have pulled it all down and put in new cabinets in a more functional configuration.  We would have also put in larger stainless appliances instead of the smallest of white ones.  But life is what it is and we are in make do mode.

So with about $3,450 investment and a couple of days labor, we turned the appliance-less old kitchen into this:

$3,300 of that is new appliances and installation fees.  The other $150 bought a Rustoleum Transformations kit for cabinets, a can of brushed nickel spray paint, brushed nickel door pulls and some various and sundry stuff like paint brushes, screws and shelf liner.

The spray paint was so I could re-use the once nasty antiqued brass hinges rather than plunk down $70-ish for new ones.  I thought that was one of my more ingenious cheap-skate solutions!

The most often asked questions we've encountered were about the Rustoleum Transformations kit.  People have inquired if it worked, looks good and is as easy to use as the box says.

It was pretty easy.  A bit time consuming, but definitely not difficult.  The simple steps of washing the cabinets, brushing on a deglosser and wiping it off with a clean wet cloth, putting on 2 coats of base color, brushing on the glaze and wiping it away with a wad of cheesecloth and then brushing on a finish coat - with drying/curing time in between each step - were very straight forward.  Of course, if  you have a slight bit of artistic ability or vision you'll be better able to mimic a wood grain look when wiping the glaze away...

It worked to transform the appearance of the whole kitchen.  The pictures speak for this fact, so yes, I'd say it worked.

It looks better than when the cabinets were painted white.  Did it achieve the pretty dark cherry wood finish I covet?  It hints at it but falls a little short.  But then I wasn't really looking for a miracle and would say we got pretty close to what we were expecting from the product.  This kitchen isn't forever... it's very much a 'for now' thing so falling short of perfection is ok.

My only REAL gripe about the product is that it chips very easily when bumped with pan or where two doors touch each other.  Yes, both of those incidents have happened already so I'm searching out a way to cover up little white spots.

And... trying very hard to be a little more graceful than a bull in a china shop so I don't make more chips!

Even More Cranberry Jelly

This is a continuation from yesterday's post:  What Can You Do With Leftover Cranberry Jelly?

• 'Lil Smokeys in a cranberry BBQ sauce with green onions.  Equal parts cranberry jelly and Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce in a crockpot with the 'Lil Smokeys.  Chop the green onions for a garnish when it's hot.  Fun to spear with frilly toothpicks as a party food!
• Flavor tea... would be good either hot or cold.  With some cinnamon perhaps?
• Cut thin slices and lay on parchment over a cookie sheet in low oven until leathery.  Trade to draped upside down on the bottom of a muffin tin so they form shallow bowls.  Then use a small amount of jelly and some cocoa powder in coconut milk to make mousse which is piped inside the bowl for serving.  Decorate with a mint leaf and a single dried cranberry.
• Cut into 1-inch cubes and dry in the oven on parchment paper to make fruit snacks.
• Thin with simple syrup, karo or honey and use to baste fruit on the BBQ grill.  Fresh pineapple, peaches, and apples all grill well.
• Thin just to a pudding-like consistency and serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
• Or thin to a pudding-like consistency and very gently fold into fresh raspberries for a pie.  Or... over a giant sugar cookie spread with lightly sweetened cream cheese.
• Mix in dried cranberries and any spices that sound good to you, stuff inside a cored apple then wrap the apple in pie crust and bake.  To serve, ladle hot vanilla pudding (the kind you cook) into the bottom of a shallow bowl.  Drizzle with just a bit of thinned out jelly and then place the baked apple in the center.
• Make your favorite oatmeal cookie recipe and press into the bottom of a 9x13 pan, reserving a small amount for the topping.  Spread a thick layer of cranberry jelly over the top, then sprinkle generously with white chocolate chips and broken up bits of the reserved cookie dough.  Bake.  Cool until well set and then cut into bars.
• Mix with Catalina French salad dressing and dry onion soup mix in a large ziplock bag.  Add 4 chicken breasts and freeze at least overnight.  On cooking day, thaw completely (marinating time) and then place in a baking pan and place in the oven at 350F for 60-90 minutes or until the chicken is done.
• Chop 1 large stalk of celery, 1 medium apple, and 1 medium onion. Saute in 1 Tbsp of butter until tender. Add to 3 cups of bread cubes and 1 tsp of savory leaves.  In another dish, combine 1/2 cup of whole berry cranberry sauce with 2 Tbsp of brown sugar, 1 Tbsp of frozen orange juice concentrate and a sprinkle of fresh ground pepper. Heat in a small pan until sugar is dissolved. Add to bread mixture and mix well. Bake in a greased casserole dish at 375 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes uncovered.  Serve with pork roast or pork chops.  Or use to stuff pork chops.

Ok, I've run out of ideas.  Actually I googled the last 2 to bulk out this post...

All along I was thinking the cranberry jelly was something quite smooth, but as I said it's not a product I regularly buy so when some of the pictures on the google search showed whole berries I had a moment of uncertainty.  So I'm adding this disclaimer:  If it does contain whole berries, you might need to blend it before making some of these dishes.

What Can You Do With Leftover Cranberry Jelly?

Photo credit: http://www.groceries-express.com/
default.asp?upc=3120001005

My cousin, Lanae, asked this question of her Facebook friends today:  "What can you do with over half a can of left-over cranberry jelly?"

Another of her friends and I started bouncing ideas off each other like we were contestants on a Food Network show and this was our mystery ingredient.  I'd normally never buy this stuff, preferring Grandma Burton's fresh cranberry relish instead but we came up with such yummy sounding stuff, I might just change my mind and pick up a can or two on the next grocery shopping trip!

To get them into a place that's easier to find, here's a compilation:

•  Mix it with cream cheese for a sandwich spread... would be good with turkey cold cuts and something green with a little peppery bite like water cress or arugula, I think.
• Thin it down with some water, olive oil and red wine vinegar to marinate pork chops. Would give them a kind of tangy, BBQ-ish taste if grilled or fried.
• Use it in a smoothie.
• Use in thumb print cookies.
• Mix with softened butter for a spread on toast or bagels.  (This will freeze for future use.)
• Mix with mayonnaise, and maybe a little milk if it's too thick, to make a dip for chicken nuggets. Maybe a bit of a coarse ground spicy brown mustard in that mix, too.
• Cut up polish sausage (or use meat balls - your own or from the grocer's freezer) and heat up with the jelly.
• To make a great snack for kids, mix with dried cranberries and cream cheese to spread on celery.
• Mix with mayonnaise and milk to get the right texture for salad dressing.  Flavor with sage, parsley, cracked black pepper and super fine chopped red onion.  Could also whisk in olive oil and red wine vinegar in place of the mayo if you don't want a creamy dressing.
• Whip with  cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, a splash of almond extract to make frosting for a white cake. Sprinkle the top with sliced almonds, dried cranberries and shaved chocolate.
• Put a pork roast, or butt, in the crockpot with jellied cranberries and a little bit of brown sugar.  Slice and serve as a roast (using the juices to glaze sauteed carrots) or shred for pulled pork sandwiches or Cafe Rio-like burritos.  Top the sandwich with a bit of creamy cole-slaw.  Use lettuce, tomato, onion, sour cream, grated cheese etc. inside the burrito.
• Mix with dried cranberries and use as the filling for turnovers using either your own or an off-the-shelf pie crust.
•  Mix with CoolWhip to dress a fruit salad or use as a dip with fruit pieces, graham crackers, pretzels, etc.
• Use with a bit of juice concentrate (cranberry or apple or maybe white grape), some finely chopped pecans, vanilla wafter crumbs. Roll into balls then roll balls in shredded coconut for some festive no bake cookies.
• Stir into apple jelly with some finely chopped jalapeno and then warm as a dip for coconut shrimp or crab rangoons.
• Mix into applesauce and eat warm. Maybe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream?
• Wine and cranberry sauce served over fish.
• Mix into applesauce then spread over parchment on a jelly roll pan to make fruit leather.
• Pour over Brie with pecans and heat in oven.  Serve with fancy crackers.
•  Flavor and color lemonade. Or limeade.  With, or without, vodka depending on your lifestyle choices.
• Make dough for sweet rolls, cut into rounds and spread with the jelly.  Top with walnut pieces and bake.
• Use as part of the crumb topping for a coffee cake.
• Mix with maple syrup and heat.  Pour over pancakes. Maybe pancakes made with dried cranberry and almonds in them?  Or stuffed french toast with cream cheese and nuts inside?
• Mix into melted butter and coat frozen dinner rolls. Put a pkg of vanilla cook pudding in the bottom of a bundt pan then the rolls and more melted butter. Turn out for pull aparts when baked.
• Mix with dried cranberries and pistachios. Make chocolate cupcakes and when baked and cooled hollow out a space in the center for the cranberry mixture. Top with chocolate whipped cream.
• Cook down in simple syrup to hard crack stage and pour out for stained glass style hard candy. Could add fruit and/or nuts for a brittle which would be yummy broken over hot fudge on ice cream. Or use it to make candied apples.
• Add to the ingredients for homemade vanilla ice cream for something that's a pretty pink for Valentines Day! There's a version that you can make in a couple of ziplock bags if you don't have, or don't want to use, an ice cream freezer.
• Mix with juice (cranberry, apple, white grape) and freeze for a sorbet.  Again, with or without added alcohol.
• Meatloaf, swiss cheese and a slice of cranberry jelly on a grilled panini.
• Put a few tablespoons and some chopped nuts into cooked oatmeal.
• Add the jelly and some dried cranberries to your apple pie filling.  I think I'd skip the cinnamon... and do a crumb (like Dutch Apple Pie) topping instead of a top crust.
• Mix with CoolWhip and freeze until it can be scooped out with an ice cream scoop. Use like ice cream in Cherry 7-Up for a fun float.
• Stuff peppers with sausage, rice, half can of cranberry, dried cranberries, sage and goat cheese. Or use that mixture in cabbage leaves or grape leaves.  Use cranberry jelly and port wine to make the cooking sauce.
• Fry hamburger. Then add the cranberry jelly and deglaze the pan with Dr. Pepper. Might need a bit of ketchup to adjust the acid, too. Use for sloppy joes with a bit of shredded sharp cheddar on top.
• Mix the jelly, chopped apples, chopped bananas, nuts, broken vanilla cookies, and mini marshmallows into whipped cream or CoolWhip for a fruity cookie salad.
• Make a salsa with fresh pineapple, mangos, sweet red onion, roasted red peppers. Mix the cranberry jelly with lime juice to season. Marinate chicken in the pineapple juice and then grill. Plate by spooning salsa over chicken and serve with rice.
• Mix into brownie mix. You might be able to cut back on any eggs or oil it calls for... stir dried cranberries, your favorite nuts and chocolate chips into the batter before baking.
• I also think you could use it interchangeably with the pie filling all those Pinterest posts show with Angel Food Cake mix. That would come out a pretty pink!
• Cranberry cream cheese baked french toast... cut bread into strips and place in baking pan. Cut jelly into smallish pieces and scatter among the bread pieces. Same with cream cheese. Mix eggs and milk with a little maple syrup and pour over. Refrigerate overnight and bake at 350 for about an hour.
• Make a syrup by mixing some of the cranberry jelly with water, sugar and corn starch. Cook until smooth and thickened slightly. Use with baked french toast or pancakes, grilled french toast, ice cream, cake, bread pudding, etc.
•  Layer slices of the jelly with apple and/or orange slices (rind removed), cheese (brie, or maybe muenster or a really fresh mozzarella) and rosemary springs in a sweet pastry dough and bake like a rustic tart.
• Thin a bit with some karo or simple syrup and marble into yellow cake.
• Open slits in pieces of chicken breast and stuff with cream cheese, chopped spinach, dried cranberries. Wrap in bacon. Slightly thin the jelly by warming or adding a tiny bit of water and baste the bacon several times while broiling.
•  Mix with heavy cream and powdered sugar until stiff enough to be handled. Roll into small balls. Dip into melted milk chocolate for fancy candies.
• Or... make it almost but not quite as thick and use for the pink layer in Neapolitan brownies. White chocolate fudge being the white layer.
• Toss with pieces of baked sweet potato then sprinkle with a crumb or streudel topping before serving. Would also work with carrots or winter squash...
• Mix into ground turkey with panko, lots of fresh herbs, finely chopped carrot, onion and celery. Maybe an egg to bind it together.  Form into a meatloaf and bake.
• Fill a cupcake pan/liner about half full of cake or muffin batter. Cut out shapes from slices of the jelly and place one in the center of the cupcake then finish filling and bake. Either frost, use whipped cream or a dusting of powdered sugar on top of your jelly filled cupcake or muffin.
• Make cherry or raspberry jello and let set. Cut into small cubes. Cut jelly into same size cubes. Carefully toss both with whipped cream or CoolWhip. Or... leave some of the jello cubes and layer into a tall glass for serving. Jello, jelly/jello/whipped cream mixture, whipped cream. Dress with chocolate shavings.
• Thin to a pourable stage and use to flavor champagne, if you imbibe, or sparkling cider, if you don't. Garnish with a little paper umbrella. Thinking... a Cranberry Mimosa.
• Cut into small pieces, toss with cooked and cooled country sausage, swiss cheese cubes, fresh herbs, mushroom stems and a bit of bread crumbs. Use to stuff mushroom caps. Broil until bubbly and slightly browned.
•  Use your vegetable peeler to cut wide flat 'noodles' from a zucchini. Then using that same mixture, with or without the mushroom pieces, and maybe some chopped onion roll inside zucchini noodles. Hold together with a toothpick and bake.

Ok... this is kind of an exhaustive list.  If we come up with more I'll add a Part 2 tomorrow.

Edit:  We did come up with more!  You can view them here.

Clean Up Day

I'm sure there is an annual clean up day in many communities around the world.  But for those of you who, like I did, find this a  strange new idea... clean up day is a designated day where you can haul junk to the curb that doesn't fit your every week trash can and the municipality comes around with a big truck to gather it up and haul it away.

We have such a thing in Salt Lake City!

Each year, a few weeks ahead of time, the City mails an over-sized postcard telling us the date of pickup, when it's acceptable to start moving trash to the curb and a reminder of the rules for what can be in our junk piles.  The dates rotate through all of the neighborhoods so everyone has a chance sometime during every year between March and October (I think).  We never know until the postcard arrives if our clean up day will be early in the spring or late in the fall.

When I moved here from rural Southeast Idaho, it was my first experience with a clean up day and over the years I've observed this ritual with many different emotions.  First was curiosity; almost overwhelming curiosity.  Then came a sort of disgust that the same people could accumulate so much junk year after year.  Later, I felt a bit of satisfaction as I joined the many roving 'curb shoppers' and scored some lawn furniture, planters, canning bottles and an antique dining table.  Some years I've felt relief as I had an abundance of trash that needed to be hauled away.  Other times I've sat inside and watched in utter amusement as car after car stops out front to rifle through my trash in search of their treasures.  In fact I'm watching someone out there right now!

This is my contribution for Salt Lake's Spring Clean Up 2012.  There's some rubble from tearing down the old patio structure in the back, a few odd pieces of dry wall from some minor remodeling in the basement, carpet scraps from the downstairs bedroom and a broken picnic table.  Long gone are the old metal electrical box and a couple of lengths of pipe... those are the prizes for the curb shoppers as they can be scrapped for cash.

Today is the day the truck begins in my neighborhood.  Most years, my pile gets picked up on the first day.  I'm kind of hoping to be a little farther into the cycle this round because there's still junk I'd like to add to the pile.

And I will keeping adding to it until I see the City's trucks headed down my street!

The Bartered Life

One of my favorite bloggers, Northwest Edible Life, posted a link from one of her favorite bloggers, Dog Island Farm, about the comeback of bartering.  I find the idea of bartering, or trading something I have that you want for something you have that I want without it being a cash transaction, very intriguing.  Especially notable is the Food Barter described in a NY Times article from March 2011 linked both in the picture below and in the post from Dog Island farm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/nyregion/13barter.html?_r=2

“We came to the conclusion that it would be really fun to get all of our food-centric friends together and do a swap on a larger scale,” Ms. Paska recalled. “When you make a batch of pickles, jam or the like, you often end up with excess that you’d feel comfortable letting go of for the sake of keeping your pantry interesting. For a few of those excess jars, you end up getting fresh, handcrafted foods for virtually no cost.”  (Kate Payne)

Would you be interested in joining me in this kind of swap?

I think it sounds like a tremendously fun evening and a chance to taste something new.  If I can get a few affirmative comments from local friends, I'll host a swap in May.

I May Never Toss a TP Roll Again

You may remember my seed starting project awhile back with tomatoes, pumpkins and sunflowers.  All are growing and thriving in their TP roll homes!  This alone was enough to make me think about saving my toilet paper rolls for next year.

But it seems like a lot more little projects are popping up to utilize this oft tossed bathroom remnant.

I bet you've seen them used as a way to organize extension cords and keep them de-tangled.  Works for all kinds of long cords, actually.  Not necessarily new, but a great idea!  And easy to cover with wallpaper, scrapbook paper or spray paint if you want something to blend into your decor better than a plain brown tube.

And how about to slip over rolls of wrapping paper?  I like this idea to keep them rolled up in storage.  It's annoying, to me anyway, when the paper gets ripped because part of it has unrolled itself while sitting in my storage box.


I also found another garden idea that I'm going to save them up for next year.  I think I like this idea a lot better than the newspaper seed tapes I made this year.  Awesome way to keep them neat and organized before you plant the garden.  The only thing I'd add to this idea is to write the kind of seed that is on the tape at the top of the tube.

And perusing Pinterest just now I found dozens of craft projects using toilet paper rolls.  There was everything from paint stamps, to gift boxes, to animal figure craft projects suitable to make with small kids, to amazingly intricate decor pieces that look a little like over-sized quilling projects to decorate your walls. Here's a couple of them that I might like to try one day...  Spray paint the flowers in pastel shades and wouldn't that wreath be pretty on the front door for spring?  And I think those black 'tiles' would be awesome on a wall in my master bedroom... maybe 2 on each side of the picture window or in a grouping above the headboard if I  move the quilt hanging that's there now.

So fun to contemplate!  Now... if I can just collect enough rolls for all the stuff I suddenly seem to want to make!

Yep, it's true.  Toilet paper rolls might just be my new favorite upcycle item.  I'm serious when I say I may NEVER toss a TP roll again!


(All of these pictures came from Pinterest.  I snapped none of them and claim no credit beyond the ability to cut and paste.)