Friday, January 25, 2013

Frugal Ways to Wash Fruits & Veggies

 

 

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My friend, Holly sent me this -


Organic fruits and vegetables certainly cost more than their counterparts in the produce section. But, if you cannot buy organic because of your budget, you need an easy solution for washing your fruits and veggies that doesn’t cost a small fortune.

Special produce washes can be really expensive but if you are wanting to remove pesticides from your food, they can be very tempting. Honestly, these products are just not necessary. All you really need is a vinegar solution. Cook’s Illustrated tested and found that vinegar kills about 98 percent of bacteria – including salmonella – on the surface of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Instead of spending a chunk of your grocery budget on chemical solutions, try these four, frugal ideas for washing your produce.


Click Here to go to Penny's website to read the entire article.  Super DIY ideas...

So here's how it's going...

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I made yogurt yesterday at 3:30pm, it's only supposed to take 4 hours in my not so nifty YoGourmet Yogurt Maker.  I gave it longer, checked it at 9:30pm, it was soup, which entailed me leaving it in the incubator hours longer than it was supposed to be in there and ha vine poor hubby getting up, turning it off and putting it in the fridge for me at 2:30am.  That was the bad news, the good news is that it's yogurt!

Fast forward to this morning, we're heading to see the grandkids.  NOT!  We have ice, Louisville has more ice, so we're hanging around until mid-day hoping the roads clear, "hoping" being the operative word.

In the meantime, I have to give Maggie a bath and she has tangles!  Not fun for her or me, either.  It must be some kind of strange karma this month, every day is a new disaster!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Laughing Quadruplets


Could this be any cuter, really???

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Tammy’s Eye Tutorial

 

This woman is simply amazing.  Everybody, regardless of their age, can learn wonderful makeup tricks from Tammy.  I love her eyes, she’s using MAC's Saddle and Down Brown, two of my very favorites.  I just wish my end results looked half as good as hers.  And mostly I enjoy her because she’s so real.  No pretense here, this lovely woman just tells and shows it like it is.

At the end of the video she contours her face, this is absolutely fascinating, ladies.  Enjoy, enjoy… ~ Jan

And don’t forget to subscribe to her YouTube Channel, you will be notified every time she posts a new video.

Here’s her link

Little grandchildren can be brutally honest!

Abby and I just had the following conversation:

Abby:  How many numbers are you, Grammie?

Grammie:  (not understanding what she's talking about) Huh, how many numbers?

Abby:  Yes, Grammie, how many NUMBERS?

Grammie:  (the light dawned) Oh, I'm 63 numbers, Abby

Abby:  Sixty three, SIXTY THREE, wow, those are really big numbers Grammie...

And you know, she's right,  those are  really big numbers, Abby...

It's gonna be one of those days!

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I got up this morning, ready to put green beans in the crockpot, and couldn't find the can opener, anywhere!  LC and I have turned the kitchen upside down, even looking in the trash, because I'm not so bright anymore, with no luck, it's gone, kaput, vanished.  How does a big red can opener just disappear?  Only in my kitchen.

So then I'm making bacon for breakfast, because as you all know, bacon is the perfect food.  And I bought this wonderful Wright's Hickory Smoked Bacon at Sams yesterday, so I was in for a treat.  And I always eat mustard on my bacon, always.  Doesn't everybody???  But the bacon splattered and burned my face, it still hurts, waaaaaa.

Then, as the picture shows, the lid fell off the mustard and dumped on my plate.  Which brings up another grievance.  I love, love, love Plochman's Mustard, it's just so much better than that nasty French stuff.  But the cap is horrible.  It clogs constantly, you can't get the mustard out, it's been this way since the beginning of time.  That's why I have this big blob of mustard on my plate and the mess on the jar.  I was squeezing really hard and I just popped the lid off.  I don't know my own strength, obviously.  *blush*

Last year, for a brief moment in time Plochmann's changed that gawdawful lid to  a snap top and I was estatic.  But wouldn't you know, they abandoned the snap top and went back to the old top.  Why????  Which reminds me, I need to send Plochman's an email this morning begging and pleading for the new and improved cap again.  Oh, and it's time for my monthly email to Trader Joes, begging them to come to Heavensville, looks like I'm going to be a busy girl, even if nobody listens to me.  Hey, you gotta have a cause!!

But back to breakfast, I clean up the mustard, hubby announced that he would trek to Wally World this morning to get me another can opener, but it won't be a red Kitchenaid like the one I have now,  but at least it's a temporary fix.  Then I fix coffee.  How can you screw up a K-Cup?  Well, I didn't, but when I poured in my splash of Half and Half that I just bought yesterday, it curdled the damn coffee!!

And it's only 8am!!!  Oh joy...

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Brrrrrrr….

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The evolution of dinner….


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When I was growing up we never had  "dinner" we had  "supper."  But we've eaten "dinner" now for years, thanks to a hubby who has little quirks about these things.  He hates it when people eat supper, and he a has a thing about always including a spoon with the table settings, even if you're just eating a sandwich.  The man has issues.

But anyway,  I was reading a book yesterday, it was from the turn of the century and they were talking about "getting supper."  It made me smile and think how much we've changed.

When my grandmother "got supper" she had to kill the meat and preserve it, grow and can the vegetables, churn the butter, gather the eggs, her whole life centered around gathering food for breakfast, dinner and supper for her family of ten chldren and cooking it on a wood stove.  But in my mother's house, our "supper"  consisted of newly evolving foods from the grocery store.  Things like frozen corn, packages of dry spaghetti sauce,  our beloved Jeno's Pizza Mix in a box, my favorite Blue Bell Bologna and the always present packaged bear claws and Maxwell House Instant Coffee, mom's "treats" that were always in the house.  Oh,  the times they were a changin.'

And then came my years in the kitchen when the boys were young, when "getting dinner" often consisted of boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese, and fish sticks, which our family still loves, with peas, you have to have peas with that meal.  We had things like Hamburger Helper, and Totino's Pizza, Campbell's Condensed Soup and we ate box after box of Velveeta,  it was all about processed foods in those years.  And even though I baked bread, stirred together homemade pasta, baked pie, cakes and cookies, and cooked "real" food for my family, we all enjoyed the salty, processed food that was affordable and readily available in the grocery store.  We bought cooking oil in a gallon jug and fried everything.  I went thru countless tins of Crisco and always used Blue Bell Margarine.  It was so good, but oh, it was not healthy eating.

And now here I am in my old(er) age, trying to eat clean, not much processed food, a lot of whole grains, fresh fruit and veggies, yogurt, olive oil, and lean meat.    But I wonder if I'm in the minority, the younger generation's dinners often consist of eating out, or fast food, or picking up pizza.  Things aren't what they used to be, but when I look back at what has evolved over the years, I'm more than ever convinced that grandma's way was the best.  Fresh meat with no hormones,  eggs, vegetables grown with no chemicals, butter instead of margarine, that's the way people are supposed to eat.  But to do that today costs a small fortune!  

Just an observation from me this week, makes you think about what you've eaten during your lifetime, doesn't it?

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Darius Rucker and Adele “Need You Now”


They’re absolutely phenomenal!  It just doesn’t get any better than this….

Precious little grandchildren

 

Oh my, Lindsay sent these today, its the first picture of them playing together. They're growing up so fast...

Paul and Linda McCartney


They were so young.  A little nostalgia for you this morning, thanks to Carlene who sent me this charming video.

And, this old footage of Merv Griffin and the then unknown, Sharon Stone, touring Kings Row and Carnaby Street is wonderful.  Oh, she was so lovely…

Enjoy this little trek down memory lane on a Sunday morning… ~ Jan

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