Homemade Carpet Spotter

Oh, do I need this right now!!

Check out this recipe for Homemade Carpet Spotter. Thanks to the "Damsel" over at My New/Old School for such great How To's!!

Caramel Apple Dip

Crystal over at Every Day Food Storage has a great Caramel Apple Dip recipe using…Powdered Milk. As well as a fun Pumpkin Carving Family Night! Check it out!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!!!

This weekend I made a little Homemade Pumpkin Puree with some small pumpkins from my Dad’s garden. Apparently, compared to the canned version, it is well worth the effort. We shall see…I will report back.

If you are interested in making some for yourself, check out the Pioneer Woman’s tutorial HERE.

I also decided to roast the pumpkin seeds…I was feeling very non-wasteful. It had been FOREVER since I had done that and Oh, what treat!

You just pull out all of the seeds and wash the orange goopy stuff off.

• Lay them out on a cookie sheet
• Pour 1-2 Tablespoons Olive Oil over them
• Using your hands, make sure the seeds are nice and covered
• Sprinkle a little salt or seasoning of your choice
• Then put them in a 325 degree oven for around 25 minutes.(check on them every 10 minutes or so to make sure they are baking nice and evenly.)

When you are done, you have some nice crispy seeds.

As you notice, my seeds are not terribly brown. That is because they were roasted at a low temperature, not toasted at a high temperature.

If you want yours nice and brown…bake them at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes.

Want another pumpkin idea? How about making your pumpkin into a chalkboard…

…or making it a nice metallic shade?

Hit the spray paint aisle and let your imagination go wild!

P.S. You might notice a few changes in this blog in the next little while. I will still be posting my own rantings and ravings, but I will also be posting the talents of others I see in the blogging world. Stay tuned!

Nutrition Ideas For 72 Hour Kits

The following is a great article found in the Ensign about what foods are a good choice, nutritionally, for your 72 Hour Kits...

Adequate Nutrition during an Emergency

Miriam Blackham Een, Nevada, USA
Miriam Blackham Een, “Adequate Nutrition during an Emergency,” Ensign, Oct. 2009, 70–71

"If you have a three-day emergency supplies kit, does it contain nutrient-dense foods? During perilous times, your body would especially need adequate nutrition. As a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutrition, I have developed a simple, healthy emergency meal plan for our family. The items should be rotated regularly for best results.

My minimum calorie goal for the three daily meals is 1,200 to 1,500, with 60 to 72 grams of protein and approximately 40 grams of fat, a combination that enhances satiety. The ingredients for each meal plan are simple:

Meal replacements and supplements. Include shelf-stable protein drinks, instant powdered breakfast drinks, powdered milk, and energy bars. You may want to use more than one type.

Each should provide 250 calories or more. Look carefully at the labels; snack or cereal bars are not as high in calories and protein.

• Dried fruit. Raisins and other dried fruits are good.
• Peanut butter. This is a great shelf-stable source of protein. If you have peanut allergies, you could substitute it with another nut butter or small bag of nuts. Or find other shelf-stable protein foods.
• Crackers. Include soda crackers or other crackers, preferably whole grain. You could also include granola if you won’t be using peanut butter to spread on crackers.
• Drinking water. Ideally you should have about two quarts or almost two liters of water for each person to consume each day. Store what you can comfortably carry in your emergency bag, and add a portable water purifier so you can use available water sources.
• Utensils. Include one cup with a lid (to be used as a shaker for mixing powdered meal replacements) and a butter knife.
  

A sample meal plan for one person for three days would include nine meal replacements plus 1½ cups or a 12-ounce bag of dried fruit, peanut butter to provide at least six two-tablespoon servings, and about 40 saltine crackers or another cracker equivalent.

Calculate the food amounts needed for your family and round to the nearest convenient product size that is commercially available, taking care not to round down too much.

These emergency kits are easy to assemble with readily available items. The meal replacements are nutrient dense and fortified with vitamins and minerals so you can reach or approach nutritional adequacy and meet special dietary needs. They don’t need to be heated, and you can easily store everything in a moderate-size duffle bag or backpack. Best of all is the peace of mind in knowing you’ve prepared for your nutritional needs should an emergency evacuation ever occur."

This last week was all about apples at our house. We received about 30 lbs. from an aunt and then 10 lbs. from a neighbor, so my brain been on overload trying to figure out how to use them. I thought about canning them, but I am getting a little burnt out, so I tried to come up with other ways I could use them.

One family favorite was this...Apple Tart!


It was insanely easy and wonderfully delicious, so a win/win for me.

It has very few ingredients...

Apples
Puff Pastry (found in the freezer section by the pie crusts)
Brown Sugar
Lemon Juice
Salt
Powdered Sugar

And that is it! Here is all you have to do.

1. Core your 3 to 4 apples and slice as thinly as you can (unless you are me and have an apple corer/peeler, then just use the apples at the thickness the contraption does it :)!)
2. Put the apples in a bowl and squeeze a half of a lemon's worth of juice.
3. Stir in 1 cup of brown sugar and stir around.
4. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt to bring out all of the flavors.
5. Let sit for a little while until the sugar turns into a tasty liquid.
6. Line the apples on a thawed puffed pastry
7. Bake at 415 degrees from 18-20 minutes.
   

For detailed instructions (with pictures), click HERE to see the "Pioneer Woman" at work.

Just One More...

Now that it is Fall, I find myself making many a Pumpkin dish. Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Cookies, Pumpkin Cake, you name it, I am making it...I LOVE pumpkin! But so often what I make calls for "Pumpkin Pie Spice" and I am often out. So it is handy to make my own when the need arises...

Pumpkin Pie Spice (1 teaspoon)

1/2 t. cinnamon, 1/4 t. ginger, and 1/8 tsp each nutmeg and ground cloves.

Making Spaghetti Sauce or Lasagna?

Italian Seasoning (1 teaspoon)

1/4 t. each oregano, basil, thyme, and rosemary plus a dash of cayenne

Pies or Cakes?

Allspice (1 teaspoon)

1/2 t. cinnamon + 1/8 t. ground cloves

More Food Substitutions

Here are hopefully a few more helpful substitutions...

Butter Substitution (1 cup)

7/8 cup shortening + 1/2 t salt

Milk Substitution (1 cup)

Non-Fat Milk: 1/3 cup instant non-fat dry milk + 1 cup minus 1 T. water

or

3 T. sifted non-instant dry milk + 1 cup minus 1 T. water

Whole Milk: 1 cup reconstituted non-fat dry milk + 2 1/2 t. butter or margarine

or

1/2 cup evaporated milk + 1/2 cup water

Sweetened Condensed Milk: 1 cup regular non-fat dry milk, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup hot water

and 1/4 cube butter.

Mix in blender.

Corn Syrup Substitution (1 cup)

1 cup sugar +1/4 cup liquid (same liquid as the recipe calls for.)

Handy Food Substitutions

Within the last few months I have had many opportunities to try my hand at food substitutions. Like HERE when I was making Chocolate Zucchini Cake or HERE when I was making Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls. So when I recently learned a new trick for making Baking Powder, I thought I would just post about a slew of them for the next few days.

image via bigoven.com

Buttermilk Substitution (1 cup)

1 T. vinegar or lemon juice + milk to make 1 cup.

Let stand for 5 minutes.

image via blisstree.com

Brown Sugar Substitution

1 cup white sugar

1-4 T. molasses (use 2 for light brown sugar)

Mix together with a wire whisk until well incorporated.

image via bbcgoodfood.com

Baking Powder Substitution

1/4 t. baking soda + 1/2 t. cream of tarter.

Mix just before use, cannot be stored.

Handy Food Storage Tip: Instead of storing large quantities of baking powder (which has a short shelf life), store baking soda (stored air tight) and cream of tarter (stored tightly sealed) in a dark place and they can store indefinitely. That is my kind of storage!

Sour Cream Substitution (1 cup)

For baking: 7/8 cup buttermilk or sour milk plus 3 tablespoons butter

Dips: 1 cup cottage cheese plus 1/4 cup yogurt or buttermilk, briefly whirled in a blender.

or

1 cup milk + 1/2 T vinegar

Choosing A Good Apple

Have you ever found yourself sorting through the apples at the grocery store, hoping to get the tasty, crispy ones and not the nasty, milly apples.

Well, no more hoping…here is a sure fire way to fresh, crispy apples all of the time.

Did you know that apples grown last season are still sold right along side with apples grown this season?

How are you to know the difference…?

Look at the bottom.

This seasons apples have a tight blossom on the bottom.

Last seasons, have a dry, open blossom.

So there you have it…no more nasty apples…you are now in control :)!

THE JUICER!!!

Well, another project down…75 pounds of Concord grapes. Whoa! I never thought I would see the end. My dear neighbors (the ones with the plum tree), also grow Concord grapes and those lovely vines have just snaked there way over our fence and into our lives. It is a beautiful thing.

I started picking last Saturday and just finished Tuesday. We are talking A LOT of grapes here and that is just what is on OUR side of the fence! I can’t imagine what is on theirs!

We decided to split our first batch and make half of it into just plain grape juice and the other half into grape jelly. So…to start off…RINSE!!

After that we put the grapes into this brilliant contraption called a Steamer/Juicer. My Mom bought one for our family to share and it is BRILLIANT!!

This is the middle part of the steamer/juicer where the juice collects.

Filled to the brim!

This is what it looks like all buttoned up.

Make sure and put a little something under the draining hose to catch any escaping juice.

Then you just wait. That is truly all you do. I would drain it every once in awhile, but you pretty much just let it sit and steam…for 60 minutes to be precise. Then when it is finished you can either bottle up the juice right then and there (which we did), or you can put that juice to good work and make some jelly (which we did).

To make the jelly you just start to boil 5 cups of Concord Grape Juice with a box of pectin until it is dissolved. After that, you can add 1 teaspoon of butter or margarine to help bring down the foam.

Then add the sugar all at once, 6 cups if you are using Concord Grapes. Bring it to a hard boil, stirring constantly and once you have reached that point, stir for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and quickly skim off foam.

Pour directly into hot jars.

And seal them up! Quite easy and VERY tasty!!

And when you are done your grapes look like this…very sad and thoroughly steamed. But they did a great job and we will be enjoying them all winter!!

Here is to antioxidants!!

Dry Bean Arithmetic

I have stored a lot of dry beans. Not because I necessarily use them, just so I have them in case of an emergency.

I had myself a bit of an emergency yesterday when I was in desperate need of Great Northern Beans for a White Chili I wanted to make. Things were too chaotic around here for me to run to the store, so I thought, why not just cook up some dry ones?!

I did (and it took me forever…a post for another day) so decided to make the soup for tonight’s dinner.

Now I have to say that I have done this before…made my own beans for this particular soup and whenever I have done it, it has turned out to be quite tasteless and I have been very disappointed. I figured the reason for this is I was adding too many beans.

So, I was determined to not make the same mistake again. But…I did. Can you believe it! Unbelievable!!

I was so frustrated, I did what I should have done in the beginning and went to the Internet. It took me a bit but I found just in the information I was looking for and thought it would only be right to pass it on…

From WikiAnswers:

“We recognize that sometimes you want to use canned beans, sometimes dry, so here's a handy chart to remind you of the various relationships between dry, cooked and canned beans:

** Dry beans expand to about 2-1/2 times their original size when soaked.

** A one-pound package of dry beans equals about 2 cups dry, or 5-6 cups cooked.

** One 15 ounce can (drained) equals about 1-2/3 cups cooked beans.

From http://www.calbeans.com/beanbasics.html

Using the information supplied above:

1 2/3 cups of cooked beans (point 3 above) divided by 2 1/2 (the expansion factor in point 1 above ) equals:

2/3 cup of dry beans cooks up to 1 can of cooked beans.

So, there you have it.

P.S. Due to the fact that dry beans take awhile to cook and therefore are not a great “quick” meal…

• Make up a large batch
• Fill freezer bags with 1 2/3 cup beans
• Freeze for up to 6 months

The convenience of canned beans at a fraction of the cost.

Photos courtesy of sadaf.com and greenasathistle.com

Just Dehydrate it!

I had a summer long desire to try my hand at food preservation and subsequently, opportunities are coming out of my ears! You know the saying, “be careful what you wish for”!

I have so many wonderful neighbors who have offered up their lovely produce and I am very grateful to them. We have canned peaches and applesauce, frozen peach cocktail, are getting ready to bottle our own grape juice, so when my neighbor next door told me I was welcome to ALL of the Italian Plums that were hanging from their tree onto our side of the fence, I thought…”what am I going to do with those?”

Good thing I asked my neighbor…she said “dehydrate them.” Sweet! I even have a dehydrator! So I picked about 50 lbs of plums and went to work!

The great thing about dehydrating it that it is SO easy! The prep is minimal and the dehydrator does all of the work. You just get to sit back and watch!

For plums, we just washed them all well and cut them in half (make sure and remove the pit). They say you can squash them flat with your hand before putting them on the tray, but I didn’t see much advantage…just more mess.

So I just laid them out.

When they are done, they shrink up…a ton! And they are surprisingly very good, nothing like the dried plums/prunes you buy in the store.

I was so excited about dehydrated fruit that when my local grocery store had a deal on pears…I bought a box! And they are DELICIOUS! (and I don’t even like pears!) My kids think these taste like candy and they are healthy to boot. A win/win!

The dehydrator I use is a Nesco and it is easy to use and quite compact. I looked on Ebay to see how much someone could get one for and there were prices as low as $16 for a lightly used one to $24 for a brand new one. Pretty inexpensive and a very worthwhile investment.

My next dehydrating project…fruit leather!