5 Things that are Cheaper and Healthier to Make Yourself #3

With our wonderful veggie box has come a lot of veggies that need to find uses before they go bad. This past week we tried our hand at making some wonderful chicken stock, since we also had a chicken carcass around. It was sooooo easy, and even better you can change it up however you see fit. It's also a great way to use veggies that are a little wilted like carrots, celery, etc. Best part: none of that MSG and other not so exciting/healthy stuff. Here is the bare bones recipe:

Chicken Stock
Ingredients
Chicken Bones/Carcass
Veggies
Spices
Water

Directions
1. Prepare any veggies and any fresh spices by cleaning, peeling, and cutting them into pieces that can Fit in the pot. No need to make small pieces.
2. Put chicken and veggies/spices in pot.
3. Fill with enough water to cover.
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for a long time (we did about 8-10 hours). Skim off any fat that rises to the top and stir occasionally. Your house will smell amazing!
5. Pour entire contents through a mesh or other fine strainer into another pot or large bowl.
6. Allow to cool and then refrigerate. Remove any fat from the top.
7. Freeze in whatever portion size you wish.

Now what kind of veggies and spices can you use?
Here's what we put in ours (what we had on hand):
Leeks, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, rosemary, dill, parsley, basil, pepper
Other veggies/spices that work well:
Parsnips, bay leaves, scallions, thyme, mushrooms, turnips

You can also make a veggie stock in a similar way.

How does it compare cost wise? Hard to say. But if these are thing that normally would end up in your trash (who wants to snack on limp celery and carrots), then it saves you money. You use something you would have thrown away and you gain something you would have purchased. Win-win in my book!

Publix Best Meals Happen at Home and Giveaway!

Publix has another one of thier awesome promotions coming up called "The Best Meals Happen at Home." Some of my best family memories are the meals that we prepared and ate together. Today it can be hard to get a homecooked meal on the table with all that we have to do. A fast meal does not have to mean fast food or frozen meals. That's what Publix's Best Meals Happen at Home is all about. Fast, Easy, Delicious food you can make at home in 30 min or less!

So what fun things can you find as part of "the Best Meals Happen at Home" event?

• In store savings on some great brands like General Mills March 8th-14th
• In store coupons available starting March 8th that don't expire until March 28, 2012
• Tons of great recipes found at BestMealsatHome.com. While you are there you can also sign up for their e-mails to receive recipes and coupons that could save you up to $200 this year.

To kick-off this great event, Publix invites you to visit BestMealsatHome.com and try one of their great recipes like this one for Crunchy Chicken Nuggets, which uses Cheerios to make some yummy nuggets.

Crunchy Chicken Nuggets

Servings:4

Prep Time: 15 min

Cook Time: 25 min

Assemble and refridgerate chicken nuggets up to 24 hours for an easy weeknight meal.

Ingredients

2 Cups Cheerios Cereal

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/4 cup milk

2 Tbsp. honey

1 Tbsp. mustard

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 400°. Spray with cooking spray or lightly grease 13x9-inch pan.
2. Finely crush cereal. Stir together cereal, salt and pepper; set aside. In a medium bowl, stir together milk, honey, and mustard until blended. Dip chicken into milk mixture; coat with cereal mixture. Place chicken in pan; drizzle with melted butter.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until crust is golden and chicken is no longer pink in center.

Serve nuggets with your favorite dipping sauce- BBQ, ketchup, or honey.

Publix, General Mills, and myblogspark also want to help you make your savings go even further by offering one of my readers a $25 gift card. I was excited to receive mine, and sure I can stretch it pretty far, but I'm sure you guys can stretch it too, especially with the great sales at Publix!

You can enter several ways, and I'm happy to introduce our new giveaway format: Rafflecopter. Use the handy form below to make all of your entries:

5 Things That are Cheaper and Healthier to Make Yourself- #2

The second thing that we've recently tried our hands at making on our own is laundry detergent. Laundry detergent is not cheap, sometimes we get some good deals to make some kinds free or cheap, but these don't seem to be often enough for my family. The recipe I used is actually the one used by the Duggars. I figure with that many kids, they must do a lot of laundry, and thusly it's probably a good recipe. You can find it on their site HERE. I've copied the text here for ease of use.

Liquid Laundry Soap
Ingredients
4 Cups - hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax

Directions
1. Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
2.Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.
3.Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)
4.Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

So how does this break down in cost? Well here was the cost for all the ingredients when I made it:
Borax- $2.99
Washing Soda- 2/$5
Fels Naptha- 99¢
Granted for the Borax and the Washing Soda, I only used part of the box. I have a front loader so even using the cost of the whole box it equals about 1¢ a load, so in reality it's a lot less then that . You can also use other soaps such as Ivory, so you could bring it down even more if you get a good deal on that. It's worked well for our clothes.

You can also find a recipe for powder detergent on their site as well. You can find that HERE.

5 Things That are Cheaper and Healthier to Make Yourself- #1

So while thinking of things to write on here lately, I've thought a lot about things we've been making ourselves here at home that have been huge successes, and that's when I came up with this series.

The first one I've grown quite fond of is Taco Seasoning. For dinner today, we had taco salads and I whipped up a new batch of taco seasoning. I think I like it more then those little packets, and well it's just healthier for you. Most commercial taco seasoning contains MSG and a ton of salt, which just isn't good for anyone. MSG can cause allergic reactions in a lot of people, and for a lot of people it causes headaches. The other great thing about making your own taco seasoning is you can add as much or as little as you like to adjust the spiciness of the food. I like to make a large batch of this and store it in an old spice jar.

Most of the spices listed are common spices that most people have in their pantry. A large jar of any of these spices is usually only $1-$3, and you could make several batches of taco seasoning with it. I don't have exact numbers, but each batch would cost about $1, and each batch makes about 15-20 servings (obviously using more means less servings). That means each serving is about 5¢. Price of a packet of seasoning is usually 50¢ (for store brand) to $1. Occasionally we can get a packet free with the purchase of something else, or get the name brand for store brand price, but it's still 50¢.

My absolute favorite part of the homemade version is the flexibility of it. You can vary the amounts of spices, change the spices a little, and change the amount you use in the dish. For example, I've substituted regular salt and seasoned salt for the sea salt before. I've also used dried onion instead of onion powder. If you are watching your salt intake, you can use less salt or use a salt substitute.

Here is the recipe:

Taco Seasoning
2 TBSP Chili Powder
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp Onion Powder
1/2 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1/2 tsp Dried Oregano
1 tsp Paprika
1 TBSP Ground Cumin
2 tsp Sea Salt
2 tsp Black Pepper

1. Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Store in an airtight container.
2. To Use: Drain off grease from pan. Add 1/4 cup water and 1 TBSP seasoning per pound of meat, more or less to taste.

Enjoy!

Recipe- Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns

I'll be honest, I haven't made this recipe yet, but I do consider myself fortunate in that I can read a recipe and tell if it is going to taste good, and this recipe looks amazing. I'm excited to try it in the very near future.

One thing that has always driven me insane is that whole wheat versions of any product at the store costs significantly more then the white version. This is odd to me since technically white products require more processing, but the reason is simple the demand is there for processed over whole foods. Simple supply and demand means the thing that is demanded more will often be cheaper. So that being said I am always searching for ways to make the whole grain version of foods.

Some people cannot stand whole grain products, but the more you eat them the more you will wonder why you ate the bland white products before. White products often require the addition of lots of sugar and/or salt to give them flavor, while whole grains have a natural flavor. We've come to love wheat bread over white, brown rice over white, whole grain pancakes, pizza crust, and muffins over the regular alternative, now eating the regular just doesn't seem as tasty.

Recipe- Whole Wheat Tortillas

This is yet another awesome recipe from Hallee the Homemaker. I'm all about changing my grains from white to wheat, so I love finding recipes to do so. I love mexican food, but I honestly hate how unhealthy most tortillas are, so I was excited to find this recipe.

Definitely go check them out!

Recipe- Corn on the Cob

There's nothing like corn on the cob, but even better is perfect corn on the cob. Hallee has a great method for cooking corn on the cob.

Photo Credit: Hallee the Homemaker

I don't really have anything to add to it because the method is exactly what I do.

Recipe- Pizza

Hallee has a great recipe for pizza. I love homemade pizza and wheat crust. I've come to love it more then any other kinds of pizza.

Photo Credit: Hallee the Homemaker

Here are my tweaks:

• Add lots of veggies. I like to add onion, green pepper, mushrooms, and olives to my pizza depending on what I have on hand.
• I like to use whatever cheese I have that works for pizza, so mozarella, Italian, Romano, Parmesan, etc.
• I brush the edge of the crust with olive oil.
• I haven't tried Hallee's crust, but wheat crusts in general are yummy!

Recipe- Cream Cheese Frosting

I recently made carrot cake for my husband's birthday (and before anyone thinks I'm mean, that is specifically what he asked for!), and of course with carrot cake comes cream cheese frosting. I searched for awhile to find a recipe that sounded good, and this one was perfect.

Photo Credit: Hallee the Homemaker

This recipe would also work for icing zucchini or pumpkin bread or red velvet cake, or any cake that you like cream cheese frosting on. 

Recipe- Hard Boiled Eggs

You'd think hard boiled eggs would be easy, but for many people they aren't. I love hard boiled eggs, and it took me awhile to fine tune cooking them. Sometimes I'd cook them for too short a time, and the inside was still runny, and others I'd cook them so long they were impossible to peel. Hallee uses a similar technique that I do, and it's quite simple. Check it out here.

Photo Credit: Hallee the Homemaker

Here are some things I would add:

• To cool the eggs quicker add ice to the water.
• To make eggs easier to peel tap the egg so one of the ends cracks while they sit in the cold water.
• Make a bunch. They're good for making egg salad, a quick snack, or quick breakfast.
• To store the eggs, don't peel until you need them and store in original container, or peel and store in a bag.

Recipe- Herb Roasted Potatoes

One of the ways to enter Hallee's giveaway is to share recipes of hers that you've made. This is one of my favorite potato recipes, I've made a similar one for quite some time, and this one is just as great.

Photo Credit: Hallee the Homemaker



Here are some tweaks I have:

• I like to cut mine smaller into about 1 inch pieces
• I prefer red potatoes
• I like to add dill to the spices.
• I like fresh chopped garlic and onion to add to the flavor. (You could use garlic or onion powder if you don't have fresh)
• I like to use seasoned salt for this recipe.

Now if only potatoes would go on sale sometime soon...

Bonus Friday Favorite: Recipe

While we are on the subject of Hallee the Homemaker, I wanted to share one of her awesome recipes. This recipe is for white chicken chili. I'm not a big chili fan, but I loved this chili. It had just the right amount of spice for me. It's not really chili season right now, but soon enough it will be!

Photo Credit: Hallee the Homemaker

She has a ton of great recipes especially for homemade (healthy!) breads. If you haven't checked out her site, it really is worth it!

Friday Favorites- Recipe

Lately I have been trying to cut out white processed flour from my diet and replace it with whole grains. I checked out this wonderful book from the library called King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking. It quickly has been added to my Amazon wishlist. I recently made some blueberry muffins from one of the recipes in the book, and they were delicious and you could never tell it wasn't white flour. I hope you'll try it out and enjoy!

Blueberry Muffins (as adapted from King Arthur Flour)
Ingredients
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
Coarse sugar for sprinkling (optional)
Flour for berries

Directions
1. Lightly grease muffin tin, or line with paper and coat paper with nonstick spray.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Cream together butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy and almost white in color. Scrape down bowl and turn mixer back on and add eggs one at a time, beating after each egg.
4. Add vanilla and sour cream, and mix until incorporated.
5. Add dry ingredients, mixing on low speed until batter is smooth. Scrape down sides and bottom to make sure everything is combined.
6. In a small bowl, mix blueberries with enough flour to coat their surface. (I've found this keeps the blueberries from sinking in the batter and from turning the whole thing purple).
7. Gently fold blueberries into batter, and refridgerate for at least an hour.
8. Preheat oven to 400F.
9. Scoop batter by the 1/4 cup into the prepared pan and sprinkle with sugar.
10. Bake muffins until a toothpick comes out clean, 22 to 26 minutes.
11. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes, then turn them out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Enjoy!

Friday Favorites- Recipe

I made these delicious pumpkin muffins a week or so ago, and I just had to share them with you.

Photo Credit: thepioneerwoman.com

Don't they look yummy? They were sooo yummy, and made the house smell great.

You can find the recipe for them here. This is also a great website for a lot of recipes.

Friday Favorites- Recipe

I made this recipe for Nutella Cheesecake Brownies the other day, and they were soooooo yummy.
The only thing I would change is for the cheesecake layer, cream the cream cheese and sugar first, then add the Nutella, then each of the eggs one at a time.

They were really simple to make, but oh so yummy. Definitely on my favorites list.

Friday Favorites- Recipe

I really, really love baking, so I just thought I'd share one of my favorite roll recipes. It's a recipe by King Authur Flour, one of my favorite kinds of flour (yes I have favorites).

I often make it for Thanksgiving, but they can work for all sorts of meals. They are soo yummy.

Check out these yummy Honey Wheat Rolls here.

Friday Favorites- Recipe!

A few weeks ago, I decided to make some individual cheesecakes for an activity at church. I had made full cheesecakes before, but hadn't made individual ones before. I wanted ones that were more like cheesecake, and not the ones with the nilla wafer in the bottom. So, in typical me fashion I searched the internet, and here is what I found. And I must say they turned out amazingly good.

So check-it out here.

It comes with tips on how to do it at the top, and the recipe is at the bottom.

Enjoy!

Friday Favorites- Recipe

I know I gave a recipe last week, but with it being the holiday season, I figured another cookie recipe wouldn't hurt.

Snickerdoodles
Ingredients
1 cup soft margarine or butter blend
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar + 2 tsp cinnamon for topping

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 400 F
2. In a large bowl, mix together margarine and sugar.
3. Blend in eggs one at a time.
4. In a medium bowl sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.
5. Mix dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Dough should be a little stiff.
6. On a plate combine extra sugar and cinnamon.
7. Form dough into 1 inch balls and roll into cinnamon sugar mix to coat.
8. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 8-10 minutes.

Makes about 24 cookies.

Enjoy!

Friday Favorites- Recipe

Sorry this is a little late today...

It's the holiday season and that means baking! Here's a great recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies. It's great if you love your cookies chewy.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
2 cups plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Directions

1. Adjust rack to center of oven and heat to 325. Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.
2. In a large bowl, beat the melted butter and sugars together with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla until combined about 30 seconds, scraping down the bowl and beaters as needed.
3. Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add the flour mixture until combined, about 30 seconds. Mix in the chips until incorporated.
4. Working with 2 tablespoons of dough at a time, roll the dough into balls and lay them on the baking sheets, spaced about 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, until the edges are set and beginning to brown but the centers are still soft and puffy, 15-20 min, rotating the sheet halfway through baking.
5. Let cookies cook on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then serve warm or transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.

Makes about 24 cookies.

Enjoy!

Friday Favorites- Recipe!

One of my favorite dishes to make is my version of Beef Stroganoff. It's one of my husband's favorite dishes, so I serve it often. I hope you'll enjoy it as well. I don't have a formal recipe, but these are my best approximations.

Beef Stroganoff
Ingredients
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 lb of Beef for Stewing
1 Tbsp minced Garlic
1 Small Onion, diced
6 White Mushrooms, diced
2 Tbsp Worchestershire Sauce
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 Tbsp Corn Starch
1/2 Cup Sour Cream
1 Package Egg Noodles prepared

Directions
1. Heat oil in a large deep-frying pan with lid over medium heat. Brown the beef, garlic, onion, and mushrooms.
2. When items are browned add enough water (about 4-6 cups) to the pan to cover the meat. Add the Worchestershire sauce and the salt and pepper.
3. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer.
4. Simmer until meat is tender and able to be broken into smaller pieces and water has reduced to about
1 1/2 cups. Remove from heat.
5. In a small cup, mix cornstarch with 1/4 cup cold water. Stir mixture into pan. Return to burner and bring to a boil over medium-low heat, stirring often. Boil for 1 minute then remove from heat.
6. Let stand for about 5 minutes. Stir in sour cream. Serve over noodles.

Makes 6-8 portions.

Enjoy!