Archive | September, 2013

Saving Money Feels Fantastic: Defrosting the Freezer

30 Sep

Hello again hello again!

Today was defrosting the freezer day. I remembered to read through her whole article this time before i started. 

http://www.squawkfox.com/2012/05/19/defrost-freezer/ – now, my freezer wasn’t filled with ice like the one in her article! It was actually completely clear of any ice which made me happy! Go freezer! Save money! so, I pulled everything out and got to scrubbing. 

scrub scrub scrub- my arms are now sore. 

It wasn’t that dirty but any dirt in a food storage area is too much in my book! I didn’t unplug it like she suggested – since that would be unplugging my fridge too. Undoes the smarts of it all. So i cleaned fast. Organized everything back in the freezer. Then, I pulled the fridge/freezer out from against the wall to clean from behind and under. whew. Now, we have a golden retriever (read: lots of hair) and tile (read: no carpet). So when you put those two together it means that we have dog hair skittering around the floor of our house, no matter how often i sweep, it is there 10 minutes later (Thanks Lady!) . So, as you can imagine, there was dog hair under the fridge. yuck. I refrained from taking any pictures of that! I’m so nice, aren’t I?

 I wiped the wall behind, back of the fridge and anywhere else that looked dusty. Then i started scrubbing the sides of the fridge and freezer. And, I got clever. I grabbed the Scrubbing Bubbles can and used it on the whole outside! It worked like a charm. The fridge is now sparkling clean. And that makes me happy.

And I’m happy to say, the only food I threw out was some old bread, got a little freezer burnt. Sad. But that’s the first food we’ve thrown out since Saturday’s fridge cleaning! I am rather proud of us. 

Until next time – Meal Planning (yipes!) – start scrubbing those freezers!

~Laura

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Saving Money Feels Fantastic : Fridge Raid

28 Sep

hello again, dear friends! 

Well, today i cleaned out the refrigerator – day 3 of the Food Waste Challenge that i’m doing on http://www.squawkfox.com/2012/05/07/organized-fridge/ . I started out feeling pretty good. I have been keeping up on what all is in my fridge. Or so I thought. I found more than I thought I would. Food gone bad and a fridge that wasn’t near as clean as I thought it was. =( So, out came every single item and scrubby-dub-dub. (enter a bit of a cinderella song).

I found 1 eggplant, a bit of green salad, 1/2 tomato, 1 avocado and 1/4 jar of tahini all gone bad. sigh. So, I have added that to the fairly empty diary for today. And now the refrigerator  is sparkling clean ( and finally figured out why nothing stands up right on a shelf in the door, it’s all bulgy-weird! haha, it’s not ME!) which is a very good feeling. 

You have got to check out the link above, she has step by step of cleaning out the fridge and putting it back together. Go ahead and read the whole thing, some of it you will shake your head and say ‘of course, i know this’ but who doesn’t need a nice reminder sometimes? One thing i don’t do, (and will go do if i can claw my way off this comfy bed  that i’m currently reclining on) is the vegetables in the ziploc bags. Hmm, might have to give it a shot. Now, we have a nice, friendly old fridge. Which means our crisper drawers are now ,well,  just drawers.  At least it doesn’t freeze our milk anymore. 

One thing i did not do with the fridge cleaning adventure, was pull it out and vacuum the back of it, but that is on my list for next week, when i’m in my cleaning clothes and my OH is at work. 

So, all in all, it is a very good endeavor, this emptying out the fridge. For intstance, who knew we had two partially empty jars of salsa? or 3 different hot sauces ( not mine!) ? Not only do you get out that which is nasty and organize that which isn’t, but you find items you didn’t know you had =)

Until next time – (cleaning the freezer!) – have a great weekend. 

~Laura

 

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Saving Money Feels Fantastic

26 Sep

hello again friends! 

I have recently stumbled across a great blog  (that i have been devouring the last day and a half) – and the writer has inspired me to do a week long Food Diary of what is wasted. yipes. I’m not sure this will be too pretty. Because I know, let me resay that –  I KNOW that we waste food way more than we should. See, my dad was one of many in that generation who repetitively  taught his kids to not waste any, and i mean ANY, food. if it went on our plate. we ate it. if it was in the fridge – we made something with it. food waste was throwing out $money$. 

Let me say – Thank you Dad for that lesson. I learned it. REAlly. I DID. 

it just….. slips the older you get i guess. So, i’m going on a mission to save more food, $money$, and to get my dad’s voice out of my head about how much $money$ i’m throwing in that garbage can (or the chicken bucket, thanks mom). 

And yes, i’m being brave and sharing it with all of you. (of course, if i didn’t tell anyone, i could mid-week give up. now i can’t. If anyone wants to join me, please do! i figure it can only help, right??? 

so, the facts: 

the page is http://www.squawkfox.com/2012/04/18/food-waste/   (i apologize for one of the ads on the side. i pretty much skim read until i can scroll down far enough on the page to not see it. dumb movie ads. ) She even has a printable  food diary. I will post every few days how it’s going and another link to that days’ blog page. =) 

How i am trying to reuse food items:

Today i am going to make a soup from chicken stock my mom froze for me, lentil beans i soaked myself, garbanzo beans my OH soaked and sweet potatoes and a whole lot of spices ( recipe: http://www.acouplecooks.com/2013/01/moroccan-chickpea-and-sweet-potato-stew/) i can’t eat tomatoes or onions, so i am omitting those from the recipe. I’m feeling rather proud of myself at the moment. so much savings! 

So, dear friends, i hope you go on this journey with me, or at least read along as i brave this possibly-tear-inducing-journey. But, the enticement? She says $1500 a year can be saved on groceries. I have a hard time believing that considering that implies that you are spending a whole lot more on groceries than we are. . . but. any $money$ saved is great! 

Until next time, 

Laura

What can i eat??

8 Sep

I originally wrote this post back in 2013, and while I now am eating nightshades again, the struggle is still on to eat healthy and still have variety. It is so very easy to get stuck in a food rut! foodallergiesmojo

My food options are shrinking…. About a year and a half ago I went Gluten, Dairy and Egg free, just to try and see if it helped with my digestion and my migraines. Let me tell you how hard this was for me to commit to : I am a culinary graduate who has learned to love aged cheeses, eggplant, ethnic foods, and the list goes on and who has always always always loved baking. Get some  flour, butter, sugar and more butter and it’s fantastic. Baking was, and is something that is calming to me.

Enter my naturopaths’s suggestion of going off all three of the major food areas and I balked. For about 4 months actually. I decided to wait until aaafter the holiday (cuz who wants to give up creamy mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie and ice cream?)

By that time, my stomach was a wreck. It didn’t matter what i ate, it didn’t like it. So, i committed. I would try it for a month. I really didn’t expect it to work, but it did! It took a few weeks and all of a sudden, my stomach wasn’t screaming at me all day, every day.

Fast forward to a month or so ago – i decided that i couldn’t take the fact that my stomach was not completely happy. I talked to my naturopath again and she suggested taking out nightshades. That’s right. everything that makes up a great stirfry :

Break my heart. So i cut out bell peppers. Then tomatoes. Then onions. . . Oy. I have not been able to cut potatoes out all the way though. I ignored forgot that they were…

So, please, if you can, go make some bread, a pie, stirfry and eat some french fries for me =D  just kidding.

If you’d like more information on the nightshades, this is a great article :

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=62

It’s kind of a lot to take in, when you are realizing your diet is shrinking once again! I miss me some tomatoes sliced with salt on top. just eat them with a fork. mmmm.

So Pinterest has become my close friend, not only because of the fabulous wardrobe that i dream that I now have, but because of the great recipes i have found. Here are some items that have become staples for me with this ‘diet’:

quinoa – hadn’t had this for years! it’s so delicous!

chicken – any which way i can make it

turkey  – ground, not ground, i’ll eat it

*did i mention i can’t really eat beef anymore either???

avocado – great source of protein. i buy a few each week to indulge in

zucchini – alone or on top of pasta. mmmm

Raw Meal protein shake – breakfast every day. it’s whey free and gluten free. vegan. delicous

almond milk – i just can’t stomach rice milk (too thin) or coconut milk (too thick) . almond does it for me!

fruits , fruits, fruits!

well, those are the most common. as you can see, not too much variety! If anyone has ideas, please share them! I am up for great dishes that I can eat!

~~~~~

I now frequently make granola, almond milk and almond butter from scratch and have started incorporating vegan recipes. What with finding out I have strains of ecoli and strep in my gut, along with being diagnosed with Lyme disease, I am trying to be gentle on this poor gut of mine. I don’t do near as well I should, but any step forward is in the right direction!

~La

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Pretzel Rolls to Die For!

7 Sep

the title says it all. i’m not kidding. these rolls are delicious. i have been craving bread (of any kind, really) for about a week now, so was perusing Pinterest (love it!) and saw this recipe for these killer rolls. Mine didn’t come out as gorgeous as the original bloggers’ , but i’m still proud of them! Next time, i’m doubling the recipe, 6 is not enough. 

I was so excited when i found this blog, she has a ton of recipes i want to try, but here’s the link for this one.  – http://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/pretzel-rolls/

this time i’ll let you go over to her site for the recipe, she’s got great pictures to go with it. i’ll throw  my pictures of my adventure down below, but i will say this is one of the first gluten free recipes i’ve had turn out great the first time i’ve tried it!!!! the only problem i had was because my oven bakes hotter than it says, so they browned quickly. I had to leave them in about 30 minutes longer than called for on low temp to get the middle fully cooked.  Oh, and I, of course, used duck eggs instead of evil chicken eggs =) 

Hope this inspires you to try baking! 

 

Image

 

very wet dough….

 

Imagein the baking soda bath (had never done this before!!!)

 

Imageet voila!!! the finished product. and yes, i had to cut into one to eat it right away! YUM

Happy Baking friends!

 

 

 

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