Getting Fit On A Budget

Over this last year, we examined several issues concerning the way we lived, the way we ate, and the way we spent our money, and in doing so we have discovered changes that needed to be made in each area.  We tackled the issues one at a time and when felt like we had it in check with our new goals we would move on to the next item on the list.

Well, I'm glad to say we have gotten to the point where we can address our fitness levels. Over the last few years, life has really taken a toll on us.  Our stress level has been maxed out and we have used most of our energy just surviving day today.  Not anymore!  We are taking back our health, in the same manner, we took back our life, our food, and our money.

In order to do this, I need to lose weight and increase my strength, where Racey just needs to maintain his weight and increase his activity level.  How do we plan to do this while still living a frugal life you ask?

This is how:

• I will follow a low-calorie meal plan eating REAL food.  No diet bars or shakes, no 100 calorie packs, no frozen diet meals, just real whole food.

There are plenty of free online fitness sites that help you track your food, water, exercise, etc. They are easy to join and very user-friendly. I'm using My Fitness Pal if you want to join and be one of my buddies!

• I will cut back my carbonated drinks to 1 a day and drink more water.

• I will exercise three to five times a week.

If you have a gym membership that's great, but that doesn't fit into our frugal budget.  Plus, with only one car, I need to find things I can do here at home.  We have very nice mountain bikes we bought several years ago (when we were less broken than we are now) so Racey and I are going to start riding again.  For many years I've wanted to learn to do Yoga, but when I had the time I didn't have the money and vise versa.  Sticking with my frugal goals I found a great online yoga class that is totally free!  At this point, they have over 100 lessons available by the same teacher so I should be good for a while.  Last, but not least, I have two perfectly working feet I can walk with.  I certainly always keep frugality in mind, but I did buy a stability ball to work with as well for under $10.00.

• I will set trackable goals and make myself accountable for what I do, and take credit for things I don't do!

I have dedicated myself to an online weight-loss challenge.  I have a partner who I support through the challenge and she in return supports me.   In addition, other challenge buddies stop by your blog and comment and share things with you about how their trials and tribulations are going, which is a pretty good support if you ask me. Did I mention that's free too?

As for Racey, he is so happy to have me outside and in a good mood that any activity I come up with he is game for!

This weekend we hiked Kennesaw Mtn. (just over a mile +800 ft. elevation) on Saturday which burned 1213 calories.   Then, on Sunday, we rode our mountain bikes at Blankets Creek in Cherokee County with a calorie burn total of 1025.  All of these are frugal, free activities that don't require a paid membership to something or somewhere.  Besides, would you rather walk on a treadmill while watching TV or see the scenery in these pictures?

This weekend the weather is going to be nice again so I think we will go Geocaching (click the link to find out what Geocaching is all about) up north a little and either hike Kennesaw Mtn. again or find another trail at the bike park.  Needless to say, we will be outside enjoying life!

Hope to see you around!

Making Bread Crumbs

As I talked about yesterday, bread crumbs are very easy to make and can contribute to a frugal kitchen.  The only thing you need to make this product is stale bread, and who doesn't occasionally have a few slices that go stale!

I know many of you ladies could make bread crumbs with your eyes closed and one hand tied behind your back so I apologize in advance for such a basic post, but not to long ago I had no idea were to start! So this post is for my friends out there who like me are starting from scratch.

Ingredients:

• Bread - I bake my own bread so I had three mini or dinner loaves two of which I had tossed in the freezer sometime ago.

Slice bread and place in oven to toast.  Some ladies I know let the bread sit out on the counter or windowsill till crisp.

Once toasted crumble by hand and place in food processor.

Blend till the majority of bread has turned into crumbs.

I like to use my sifter to separate the larger pieces from the crumbs.

Then re-process large crumbs.

This is an in between size of crumb that I sometimes use for homemade casseroles as a bottom layer.

Here is a sample of the finished crumb.

I use a plastic container I found at Goodwill to store the crumbs.

Making Thriftiness Work For You

Most people I talk with concerning down sizing and frugality think that in order to live this type of life you must always be doing without.  That assumption couldn't be further from the truth.  Instead, living a frugal, self-sufficient life is simply understanding that it's your job to make most of the things you would normally buy, and source for the most reasonable price possible that which you can't make yourself.  Here are a few examples of things I have made instead of buying when the need arose.

I had three small loaves of homemade bread I knew would not be eaten before they went stale.  Most people would toss the bread into the trash or maybe feed it to the birds, but with a frugal mindset I decided to make bread crumbs.

The two loaves in the back had been tossed into my 'bread crumb bag'  in the freezer that is why they look a little wrinkly!

Take the stale bread, cut it into slices and place directly on the oven rack and toast it.  If you want to really be frugal, toast immediately after cooking something in the oven and you will be able to turn the oven off and toast the bread with the heat from dinner!  After toasted, place in food processor and 'pulse' till crumbs are fine.  Store in an airtight container.  If you want Italian bread crumbs here is the recipe!
Here is the link for step -by-step photo tutorial on making bread crumbs. 

I have very dry skin and was accustomed to purchasing lotions of every brand in the hopes of finding one that did what the label claimed.  Just the other week I made my first batch of body butter with all-natural ingredients and, to be honest, it's the best stuff I've found!  It moisturizes my skin and leaves it feeling soft even through the next day.  This is one of those times where I did spend money to purchase basic ingredients, but I was able to make a far superior product.
 

When Layna moved back home this summer she brought several items into the house, one of which was a Paula Dean jar candle.  The candle had only been burned a few times but she was ready to toss it.  Racey and I both love candle light so we eagerly saved it from the Goodwill bin.  After burning the candle all summer and loving the scent, the candles wick decided to move off center and would only burn for a few minutes before the wax would put it out.  Racey first tried to slowly melt the candle in the oven in the attempt to move the wick back to the center, and this did work for a while but the longer we burned it the more the wick gravitated to the side.  Then I had an idea!  As he tried to fix the candle in the oven it filled the house with the scent from the candle and that gave me the idea to use my tart burner to melt the wax and if we couldn't use the candle for light anymore we could at least use it for the lovely sent!

Here are the ways in which we used our thriftiness on this item:

• We didn't buy it, we saved it from the trash or Goodwill (people are always throwing or giving things away.  This is a great way to use your thrifty skills and save the landfills!)
• We used it for our pleasure and entertainment till it couldn't be used anymore (Don't buy or own items that just take up space and bring you no joy, only clutter)
• We attempted to repair it instead of throwing it in the trash (We didn't pay money for it after all so why not just be rid of it some might be thinking)
• Once the repair no longer worked we found another use for it as an air-fresher (most items can be re-purposed if you care to save it from the landfill)
• Once all the sent is gone we will save the wax for other projects we have planned 
• We will recycle the jar to hold something such as bath salts, foot scrub, etc

 As you can see thriftiness and frugality are not about doing without, but more about resourcefulness and using the products that are already around your home to meet your needs.  Many of us are fooled into thinking that our way of living and consuming will never end or decrease.  In reality though our planet has finite resources and our modern way of consumption will come to an end at some point if our budget doesn't get us first.  

In fear of being labeled a tree hugger here, I want to leave you with this thought...

Save yourself the money, save our natural, limited resources, and learn to live as if Wal-mart never opened their doors and you'll be happier for it!

Rediscovering the Pressure Cooker

Most ladies I talk with are working mothers and those that don't work outside the home volunteer, home school or take care of grandchildren so their adult children can work.  The one main theme coming from all these ladies is lack of time in the kitchen. Why is this?  We live in the 21st century, we have more modern conveniences than any previous generation.  We have microwave ovens, indoor grills, toaster ovens, blenders, rotisserie ovens,  bread machines, crock-pots, and $400.00 mixers just to name a few!  And somehow we still can't manage to feed our families fresh, non-processed food.

I've always been mystified by the housewives fifty years ago.  How in the world did they raise children, grow a garden, take care of the house, wash, dry and iron all the laundry and have three hot meals a day on the table.  I'm beginning to discover a few of their secrets, one of which is that they had basic kitchen equipment and knew how to use it.

One friend in the kitchen was the pressure cooker.  This piece of equipment allowed you to cook fresh, whole foods in a fraction of time.  Some of you are probably saying "so does the microwave", and I agree, except that the end product doesn't compare.  Most of us use our microwaves to reheat, or cook prepackaged, additive filled junk food, not fresh meat and produce.

This little gem was a staple in the pre and post World War II decades.  It started getting a bad name after the war when the market was flooded with cheap models that were constructed with weak metals.
Cooks held onto their prewar pressure cookers and often several families shared a single cooker. In a time when fuel and food were rationed and shortages were commonplace, the pressure cooker was fast becoming a necessity rather than a mere convenience. In a bulletin to homemakers, the government promoted the formation of "canning circles" to best utilize scarce resources and urged people who owned pressure canners to share them with other families. Warning that "only a few canners will be available for purchase this year," it was suggested that six or more families share each cooker.

Hopefully by now, you can tell what my favorite kitchen tool is at the moment! Yes, my pressure cooker!  The little whistle sound it makes as it cooks is a sound that takes me way back in my childhood.  If your mother or grandmother cooked from scratch then you too know the sound I'm referring to.

I lucked out and found my pressure cooker at Goodwill for $6.86!  It is a Presto 4 quart cooker, and it had all the original parts along with the manual that was dated 1961, which I love!  When I started looking through the manual I was astonished at the cook time it gave me for fresh meat and produce.

Here are a few examples:

• Beans (Green or Wax)      3-4 minutes
• Broccoli                            2-3 minutes
• Carrots (sliced) 3 minutes (whole) 4-8 minutes
• Potatoes (Baking w/skin)   15 minutes
• Potatoes (for mashing)       10 minutes
• Cauliflower (whole) 5 minutes (flowerettes) 2 minutes 
• Corn (On-the-Cob)            3-5 minutes

•  Hamburger Patties            5 minutes
• Meatloaf                           15 minutes
• Beef Pot Roast                  8-10 per pound
• Ham, picnic, plain cut        30 minutes
• Pork Chops, Breaded       12-15 minutes
• If your family eats dried beans or lentils no more soaking over night just to cook for several hours the next day!    

• most items cook in 1/2 to 1 1/2 cups of water

As you can see the cooking times are very short.  To think I can come home from a busy day and have fresh green beans in three minutes, or prepare a meatloaf in fifteen is almost crazy to me.  Why would we choose a boxed meal that has no real nutritional value or a minced meat product that is formed into a shape to serve our families when we have such awesome tools to help us cook real food?   

If you don't already own a pressure cooker I would highly recommend putting one on your wish list.  You could try Goodwill, Craigslist, or Freecycle just to name a few.  If your mom or grandmother have one they are not using anymore they would probably love to give it a new home. If all else fails you can buy one new. They now make a model that is totally electric and is so easy to operate a child could do it.  I prefer the older style models that only rely on heat, whether from gas, electric stove, or even a fire pit if it comes to that. If you are purchasing a used one, be sure to check out the rubber seal and safety valve.  There are plenty of websites that sell replacement parts very cheap if any of those items are damaged.  I found several site that actually carry in-stock replacement parts for my 1961 model.

Here are a few website with recipes for pressure cookers Site 1, Site 2, Site 3 which is my favorite due to it having 101 recipes!

I will cook dinner tonight in my pressure cooker and hopefully post pictures on the blog tomorrow if I have time!

Can You Cook Without Eggs, Milk, or Butter?

Tonight I saw a post of Facebook by one of my friends/family who, by the way, has four children that said   "I have no milk and no cheese!  How do you cook dinner without milk and cheese?"  This gave me such a laugh because I can vividly remember being a young wife and mother and finding myself in the same situation!  Unfortunately for my family, that was before my preparedness skills had been developed.

Having a well stocked pantry can save you in more ways than one.  If you are like us and you are totally busy all day, everyday, then running out to the store for one or two missing ingredients is just a pain.  Many of you have young children and know quite well how inconvenient it is to load the kids up and drive to the store for one or two things, so much so that you would almost rather do without!  What if you could find a happy medium like something that would save you when you realize that you are missing one essential ingredient, like milk, eggs, or butter?

I have the answer for you!  It's dehydrated or powdered substitutes.  I know many of you are turning up your nose at the word 'powdered', but please remember we are using it to cook with, not eat as is.  In stocking my pantry for the unexpected, whether it be the loss of a job, an extra high utility bill, or an unforeseen major car repair, etc., these items are worth their weight in gold when I call them into use.

In my personal research and preparation I came across a company, Shelf Reliance, that sells all the essentials in a long term, shelf stable form which will hold for up to 25 years in most cases!  These items can be costly if you try and use them as everyday essentials, but if they are part of your stockpile or 'back-up' pantry then they are well worth it.  Tonight one of my grown kids turned their nose up at the idea of using powdered milk for their cereal until I told on myself and let them know that I've refilled the milk jug more than once with powdered milk and they didn't even notice!  This is really not my normal MO, but sometimes you just do what you gotta do.  My challenge for you is to look at the staples you use.  If you can find them in a shelf stable version then buy just one of each to begin your stockpile pantry in order to save yourself not only an inconvenient trip to the store, but buy just a little insurance as well.

Sidenote:  We've mentioned this site on one previous occasion on this blog.  In case you missed it, let us know in advance if you intend to actually purchase something from them.  We have a way to get you a discount on the items beyond the normal prices listed on the site.  And, for full disclosure, we have no affiliation or involvement with this site or anything like that, we just happen to think they have wonderful products that are tough to find elsewhere.

A Thrifty Kitchen

I have found that a thrifty kitchen is a busy kitchen!  Not because cooking is so time consuming, but because you begin to realize that half of what you're throwing away could be used in another dish or for another purpose. When you decide to quit buying prepackaged foods and begin cooking from scratch, your time will shift from grocery shopping to meal planning and preparing.

Here are a few tips I have found to be useful in my kitchen.

• Have a gallon size freezer bag handy, and as you prepare your meal toss any vegetables left over into the bag and freeze them.  Continue to add veggies to the bag until it's full and use all the "left over" veggies to make a soup.
• Plan your meals around 'intentional leftovers'.  On Sunday I cooked a ham for dinner, but I planned on using the leftover meat for sandwiches during the week.  By Thursday the meat had been eaten and the only thing left was a nice meaty bone.  On Friday I cooked a big pot of 15 bean soup and used the leftover ham bone for flavoring, and the remaining meat fell off the bone into the soup.  Those are what I call intentional leftovers.
• Designate one night a week as leftover night.  This usually works well for me on Wednesday or Thursday.  By that time I've cooked several meals and have a little of each in the fridge.  I pull everything out and divide it up according to who likes what the most and will cook just enough of something new to ensure that everyone is full.  
• Before you toss something in the trash, ask yourself if it could be used for something else.  If you have no idea, ask the Google (sorry, that's a Bush-ism, lol)!  For example, I realized my lemon and orange peals were great for freshening up my garbage disposable.
• Make your own mixes.  Here are recipes for several I use. (Bisquick, 'Lipton' style onion soup mix, pancake mix, 'Bakers Joy' pan release )
• When using the oven, try to bake several things at once and freeze the extra.  I cooked two meatloaves the other evening and froze one for dinner another night.  Not only does this save me time, it saves money by not using the gas another night.
• When making homemade cookie dough, make a double portion and freeze half of the batch another time.

This isn't an exhaustive list as you can see, it's just a few things that have keep our kitchen going when times were lean.  I would love hearing your personal tips and tricks.  If you're lucky enough to have older ladies in your life, ask them for any tips they might be able to share concerning a thrifty kitchen.

Frugal Kung-Fu Part 4

Take your Sword of Frugality and slice up your food bill so you can eat healthy... affordably!

Join a Food Co-op!

    Joining a food or farmer co-op of some kind can be a huge benefit and have a solid impact on both the health and budget of your home and family.  If you aren’t a part of one, start searching the internet or asking around for what’s local to you.

Melissa surfed around a little one afternoon and came across a farmer co-op in our area called Farmer's Market Baskets.  Joining this co-op and getting involved with the community there has literally changed our lives.  We began by volunteering twice a week and our involvement has grown exponentially in a very short time.  I am now their delivery driver and take anywhere from 100-150 baskets of produce to various drop off locations around the area.  Melissa and McClane help me run the route and they also cashier twice a week.  We also recently facilitated the opening of a new location across town to continue to expand and spread the blessings.

Another great reason to join a local farmer’s co-op is that while it’s not a guarantee, it’s much more likely that you’ll be eating produce grown at least somewhat locally.  While I’m not going to digress into a discussion about peak oil, believe me when I tell you that the days of the 3,000 mile Caesar salad are quickly coming to an end.

 This house is now overflowing with more fresh fruit and vegetables than we can handle.  Each week we end up with enough fruit and veg for three families and it literally costs us nothing except a few hours of our time.  We fight a constant battle to deal with everything we get before it goes bad.  We dehydrate, can and freeze like crazy people and then see that we give the rest away to family, friends, and neighbors who need it.  A couple weeks ago we ended up with nine huge cantaloupes.  Now, we like cantaloupe, but could you eat nine of them before they go bad?  We actually did, but you get the point.

Obviously not everyone reading this lives in the Kennesaw, GA area, but if you happen to be local, leave a comment with your email address and I’ll get in touch with you about hooking you up with Farmer’s Market Baskets.  You basically get 2-3 times the amount of produce you could get for the same price in the grocery store, or the same amount for half to one-third of the price, however you want to look at it.

Home Cooking Saturday - Chuck Roast

Today's home cooked meal is chuck roast.  This is an easy, hands free, and delicious meal.  When I was a young wife the only method of preparation I knew was to cook it in a crock-pot.  That method was fine if I started the roast early in the morning, but if I got a late start then I was out of luck.  The crock-pot has many advantages but speed is not one of them.  The latest method I've come to prefer is to prepare it in the oven.  I know this isn't new in any way, and I knew it could be done this way int he past, but it was always scary "real cooking" to me.  The crock-pot is kinda like microwave cooking.  Just put it in, flip a switch, and your done.  If that's all the more daring you'd like to be... well you can figure that one out on your own.  Here's the super-mega-skeery-real-cooking method:

Line a baking dish with aluminum foil.  Place the meat in the center and toss your roughly chopped sidekick ingredients around it, which in this case are potatoes, carrots, and onions.  Cover generously with salt, pepper, and minced garlic.

 

Loosely fold the foil over so the top is covered kind of like a tent.  This is so all the good moisture and flavors will be somewhat sealed in and won't just evaporate.

Toss it into the oven and bake at 350 for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until the internal temperature reaches 165.  If you're a gravy family, remove the meat and vegetables and place it on a serving plate, then just use the remaining liquid to make your gravy.  The gravy can be made a number of ways.  The easiest way I've found is to pour the liquid into a small sauce pan and add about 2 teaspoons of flour or cornstarch and whisk it over medium heat until it thickens.  Depending on how much liquid you had, you may want to add a small amount of milk which will add to the creaminess of the gravy as well as increasing the overall amount of gravy you'll make.  If you feel like you need it, add the milk before you add the flour or starch. 

When it's all finished, this is what you'll end up with:

In my opinion it's just as good as the crock pot method and takes a fraction of the time.

Passing On The 'Old Ways'

Yesterday was a very busy day for me.  I woke up early and headed to the farm where I picked up 1 1/2 gallons of fresh raw milk.  Then I drove to Loganville and sold 17 Farmer's Market Baskets at our new location which is the little cottage industry I sometimes refer to.  While 17 baskets is a small haul for the amount of time and distance I have to drive to get there, I see it as a starting point.  I am personally so thankful for the benefits my family receives from the baskets that I want to pass it on.

While I was there I had the chance to pass on some of the 'old world' life skills Racey and I are passionate about.  I took the raw milk and taught the family who's home we use as the drop off point how to make butter from the cream in the raw milk.  The kids took turns shaking and laughed and played as if it were a game!  I think that's an important concept in this style of living.  You have to involve the children in the daily chores to make everything work in the long term, but it also needs to be fun so they don't really feel like it's work.  By doing this you're teaching them valuable life skills like being self sufficient and making their own products, but also a responsible work ethic.  The butter isn't going to make itself.  If you want butter then shake some cream!  Forget the tendency to just pop into some big box store and pick something up that you have no clue when or where it was made and from what.

After the butter was finished we had butter milk left and in the mindset of waste not want not, we used it to make a pan of biscuits.  Once again the children were as interested as the mother.  They pulled their chairs up to the counter and watched every single thing I did.  They insisted that the flour tasted good.  The two year old, Corbin, dipped his little fat fingers in the buttermilk and sucked it off till his mama moved the bowl!  I wish I had taken more photos, but with four little ones five and under in age, picture taking wasn't very easy.  After the biscuits were finished cooking, everyone had a hot butter biscuit as a treat.  Yes, it was a TREAT!  The family was as happy to have the hot homemade butter biscuit as if it was something special from the store.

As the last person picked up their basket, the question came up of how to you use real carrots.  I started laughing and thought she was joking at first.  I asked her, "have you never eaten carrots before?", and she replied, "yes, but they are always cut up and ready to eat."  Again I laughed and shook my head.  It's really only funny if you've ever been as modern and spoiled as this.  I have, and when I look back at all the money I wasted on pre-washed, pre-cut, ready to eat convenience foods I realize the joke was on me.  It's silly, I know, but as a society we are being dumbed down when it comes to self sufficiency.  The more knowledge they take from us the more they can make us pay just to eat and survive.  Okay, okay, I'll get down off my soapbox here... maybe ;-)

As I left, I took a fruit and veg basket to my children's grandfather who is by himself now that their grandmother passed away last November.  I hate to use the term ex-father-in-law when referring to family as I have found when you have children even if the marriage doesn't last the family connections do.  He was very grateful for the veg, and we talked about the kids and life for a little while.  When I left he seemed a little happier than when I got there.  It's somehow nice to know that just a little food and companionship cane make a difference.  I had a 1/2 gallon of raw milk that was supposed to come home with me, but knowing who I was visiting and his love of 'old style' living I left the milk with him.  He was really excited about that, and of course then the stories started about how when he was a boy that's all they drank!

I backed out of the driveway and glanced back one more time before driving off and saw him through the kitchen window drinking strait from the jar like a kid!

By the time I made it home it was dark and I had been gone for almost 12 hours.  I was welcomed into a clean house with dinner ready on the stove, and my hubby waiting for me around the fire pit.  For all the hard work it was overall a great day.

Our Urban Homestead

 As we have said before we are Urban Homesteaders, basically farmers without the farm, so our little home sits in a quite little subdivision, and if you didn't know us you would have no clue who or what this house and the people in it are capable of doing.

 Some people pride themselves in the size of their home, how well decorated it is, and how many new electronic toys and gadgets they have.  In our house we pride ourselves on how many productive, self sufficient tasks we can complete.  This goal makes for a very busy and sometimes messy home.  Racey and I often say that our house is torn apart and put back together multiple times a day just because we work in it.

 This type of life style can't be lived by just one person in the family.  It takes a group of people working toward the same goal.  When our journey first started, Racey and I were the only ones on board.  Layna was the first of the kids to come around and consider some of the benefits that could be had by living this kind of lifestyle.  She had lived on her own for over a year and knew the price of food, utilities, toiletries, etc.. I must admit McKenna and McClane have both been good sports as well. This is a family operation that takes all of us but benefits the entire family.

I took this picture an hour ago showing Eddie and Racey chopping wood for the fire tonight.  If they're not careful it turns into a little "male ego" competition to see who can get the biggest stack!

Racey and Eddie worked and sweated all through this last hot summer so we would have enough wood to make it through the winter without having to buy any.  Now Racey is all stingy about when he will start a fire because he worked so hard on it.  In years past our fires were for entertainment purposes only and now they are primarily for heating (so he says!)

Heat is not the only thing that we have to stay on top of.  Laundry is a constant battle like it is in every household, and considering we don't use our electric dryer except for rainy day emergencies or when I really need to fluff what has dried on the outside line for a minute or two if it's overly 'crunchy'.

McClane is a typical teenager who frowns every time I pull the camera out!  He said this was woman's work and he didn't want me to take his picture doing laundry when he had been chopping wood just a few minutes before!  "Woman's work!" I said. Then he gave me a goofy smile so I would leave him alone and not smother him with that nice clean laundry!






Well it's Halloween evening, McKenna has worked all day outside the home and I have a hot dinner ready for her and everyone else.  We will start a small fire, open the front door, turn the porch light on and welcome all the little ghouls and goblins to our little urban homestead!

Home Cooking Saturday - Meatloaf

Today's Homecooking Saturday meal is meatloaf.  Meatloaf is one of those dishes that can be prepared countless ways and have countless ingredients.  In our house several people claim they don't like many of the ingredients in traditional meatloaf so I tend to lean towards fewer ingredients. As their taste grow and change I slowly add a few items into the mix.

Here is what I start with:

• 1 1/2 pounds of lean ground beef
• 1 1/2 pounds of ground pork
• Homemade bread crumbs
• 2 farm eggs
• 1/2 cup of homemade onion soup mix (dry)
• Water
• Ketchup

First I mix the beef and pork until well blended. If you have a free standing mixer this is very helpful, but if not, no biggie.  Just recruit whoever has the biggest, strongest hands in the family.

Next I incorporate all the ingredients listed above.  If your family likes any of the extra ingredients such as whole sliced onions, bell peppers, brown sugar, dry mustard, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, etc. this is the time to add it.

Since I just blogged about the The Tools of My Trade, I wanted to take a picture of my meatloaf pan. This is a fairly new item that has been added to my toolbox in the last year. I love it!  Notice how it has two pans that nest inside each other. The one on top has holes in the bottom to allow the grease to drain off the meat.  This is  very convenient and reduced the amount of grease in the meat. I also have a Pampered Chef stoneware pan that I have used for 10+ years that was my favorite and still runs a close second to this one.

You might want to lightly grease your pan with a little oil if it's not seasoned well so the loaf doesn't stick to the pan.  Divide the meatloaf into two portions and pack it into the loaf pans.  I used three pounds of meat because I wanted to make two loaves at once and freeze one for a later meal.  This is a really easy way to feed your family a home cooked meal when the time you have to work in the kitchen is just not there!

Lastly you will want to place the meatloaf in a preheated oven @ 350 and bake for one hour.  If your pan doesn't have drainage holes like mine then you'll want to drain some of the grease off as it cooks.  After an hour if you have a meat thermometer you can temp the loaf to verify if it's done in the middle. The temp should be between 165-170 degrees.  If it's not at the proper temp continue to bake until done.

Once it's done I drizzled it with additional ketchup and put it back in the oven to brown or glaze.












Meatloaf is easy to reheat as a leftover.   If you have never tried, a heated meatloaf sandwich the day after it has been cooked you are missing out.  Here are a few different recipes your family might enjoy.

• Beef or Turkey Meatloaf
• Paula Deen Meatloaf
• Alton Brown - Good Eats Meatloaf
• Glazed Meat Loaf II

I really hope this meal makes it into your recipe box.  Trust me, your family will love you all the more for it!

Tools of My Trade

Have you ever noticed how men tend to have tons of tools?  It seems like every new project requires a new tool until they reach 55 yrs. old or so, and by that time they have acquired every possible tool under the sun.  It's really no different for the homemaker.  We need special tools to do our job as well.  Have you ever tried to bake a bundt cake without a bundt pan, or peal an entire bushel of apples with out an Apple Peeler Corer Slicer?  I have and let me tell you it's no fun! 

This is a china cabinet I bought to display my nice dishes several years ago.  It became a display case of special items that I wanted to look at but not really touch or use except for twice a year.  As we began to down size and started cooking most everything we eat from scratch I realized how ill equipped my current set up and supplies were.  I had just enough space in the kitchen to get irritated.  Our knife collection consisted of one lonely knife who you had to strike a deal with before it would cut, and a mis-matched set of flaking non-stick cookware.  So I decided to convert my china cabinet into a working unit.  Out came all the "too nice to use" items and in went the things I used everyday, or at least once a week.

 

As you can see I have many different types of tools in here now.  On the bottom right, are two bowls with different types of flour for biscuit and bread making.  On the top shelf is the apple peeler I mentioned above and the remaining items ranging from colanders to mixing bowls to canning funnels.  I keep a small open dish of salt for easy measuring, and a ton of little things in the flatware divider in the middle.  This is now a useful piece of furniture that assist me in my daily routines.  Our kitchen is a working kitchen so the contents of this cabinet change as often as they need to.

This was not the only conversion in our kitchen.  We decided to make our kitchen table an island.  This was in the middle of the kitchen and living area so we figured it could be used to prep most everything and since we clean as we go, it would be clean and free for use at mealtime.  I placed a container I found at Goodwill in the center and filled it with hand towels, knives, and other prepping equipment.  When we sit at the table I just move the container and we have a dining room table again.

If your kitchen seems like it's not working for you, take some time to think about what you're missing that would make life easier.  If it's tools or utensils, hunt Goodwill, second hand stores, Craigslist, and especially estate sales.   If it's space, think about how you could extend your working area.   We more than doubled our 'kitchen' space by doing just a little re-arranging and re-thinking.  If you make your space work for you, it makes it much more enjoyable to work in your space!