This is an asparagus themed day here at Arabian Knits. Come one, come all for your asparagus needs.

Now that the first of the season's asparagus is starting to arrive, I'm going to let you in on a secret. Those thin, pretty asparagus spears that are supposed to be the best ones? Unless you pick them from your own asparagus patch, or buy them fresh picked that morning, they are not what you want. Why? Asparagus dries out from the outside in, so if you are buying asparagus that was trucked in, and it is thick, the outer edges might be dry, but the tips and the inside will still be nice, the thin ones, already dry. Now, if you have asparagus in your garden or buy it from a local farmer, or your grocery store gets theirs fresh picked daily, then you are free to eat all the baby, thin asparagus you like, but be wary of the overpriced, spindly asparagus in the supermarket, especially in fall and winter (when it's out of season and automatically overpriced anyway).

Juicy and crisp asparagus for the family? Works for me!

Labels: Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen, Works for Me Wednesday

Perhaps everyone knows this already, but a really easy and quick way to keep your microwave clean is to put a glass measuring cup filled with hot water and baking soda (I usually do a third soda and two thirds water) and heat it for two to three minutes, then wipe down the walls, the door, the top and the base. If you do this every few days, or at least once a week, it should stay clean and free of most odors.

Lessening the workload in any way at all, works for me!

Labels: Homemaking, Works for Me Wednesday

After many years of supporting our local library through fines, I decided I'd had enough. Although I use our computer to put books/CDs/DVDs on hold and renew them, there were frequently times that I'd forgotten to check and the next day (or week) would find out that it was overdue.

What we do now is to go to the library on a particular day of the week. The children know that it is our library day, so they have their requests ready. There are occasions when we go another time, but that, too, is a set make-up day, so to speak. I know to check the library website each week on the same day, see what needs to be returned, what can be renewed and what is on hold waiting for us.

The other thing we do around here is set aside a shelf specifically for library items. We don't always keep them there perfectly, but when have just brought home a new stack of things or we are straightening out a room, everyone in the house knows what and where the library shelf is and puts their things there. When we have to return something, or see if it is still in the house, we know where to look first.

Especially in our homeschooling family of avid readers, which makes use of the library a great deal, this helps us avoid fines and keep track of library items. Works for me!

Labels: Family, Homemaking, Homeschooling, Works for Me Wednesday

Mothers everywhere struggle with getting things done around the home and still having time for their children to play and do fun things. One way I deal with this is to read to the children while they do their chores. Children are able to comprehend at a higher level listening than they do reading, themselves, so I pick books that are more challenging than they can read on their own. This accomplishes many things: The drudgery of the chores is lessened as they hear the story, the time passes more quickly, they stay more focused on their task, some things like folding and emptying the dishwasher get done, the children learn a little of what it takes to run a household, they gain a sense of responsibility and, best of all, I don't have to do it. I get the fun job of reading.

Works for me!

Labels: Homemaking, Homeschooling, Works for Me Wednesday

This week's entry is not going to be as long as my others have been. I'm stepping away from general practices and principles to a specific area. I'm going to expand on the whole stock pot theme from last week. Soup is a great way to avoid waste and to stretch a food budget. It is quite tasty, too.

Eating soup for dinner at least once a week is not only good for you, but it will cut your food budget by quite a bit. You tend to use a small amount of each ingredient, as the broth or stock or even water, draws the flavor out of the food. If you make your own stock, use the little bits of meat, vegetable, grain, etc. that you have languishing in your fridge, freezer or pantry, you will save even more money and avoid waste. Even if you start from new ingredients, you can use cheaper cuts of meat that take longer to tenderize and longer cooking vegetables, which also tend to be inexpensive.

There is so much nutrition in stocks and broths made from bones, so I highly advocate making and freezing them to use for soup (as well as sauces and cooking liquid for other foods). Much of the marrow and gelatin gets drawn out into stocks which makes it especially good for you, greatly magnifies the flavor and gets some much needed protein released into a dish without using a lot of meat.

This is not to discount vegetarian soups, we eat those quite a bit, too. We also eat meat soups that use other liquids, it is not as if those are not good for you. I would serve soup more than once a week if Rich liked soup more. He grew up eating a lot of soup and is a little tired of it. Still. I tend to make my soups thicker or heartier or creamier or with lots of melted cheese on top (like the French onion soup I'm making this week) to compensate for his soup issues. He likes soups better when they include any or all of those elements I listed.

Another benefit of soup is that, for the most part, they are relatively simple to put together, don't require a lot of stove time from you, and are a complete meal with some sort of bread type item or sandwich and/or a salad. So, healthful, frugal, flavorful and simple? Works for me!

Since it is almost Thanksgiving, I will share my After Thanksgiving Soup recipe with you.

This is highly dependent on what you eat at Thanksgiving, so it is a loose recipe. If you wanted to add anything like brussels sprouts, I'd add them in the last 15 minutes of cooking.

Defatted stock from turkey carcass, reserve fat to cook vegetables or use olive oil or butter if you are squeamish
A cup or two of leftover wild rice dressing (or some other starchy thing you want to put in - my onion comes from this, if you use something without onion in it, dice up an onion to saute with the other aromatics)
The small leftover turkey bits (save the bigger pieces for another dish)
4-6 stalks celery, diced
4 carrots, scraped and diced
6 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup chopped parsley leaves, for garnish, stems reserved
4 sprigs fresh sage
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped, fresh rosemary
Freshly ground pepper
Juice & zest of one lemon (you can leave the zest in larger pieces and remove them once the soup is cooked, or omit it or just use lemon pepper)
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt to taste

Heat fat in soup pot over medium heat. Add celery, carrots, garlic and onion, if you are using it. Cook until vegetables soften a bit. Add everything else. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, partly covered for 45 minutes. Taste to adjust seasonings. Serve with a sprinkle of parsley and your leftover rolls.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not

Labels: Frugality, Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen, Works for Me Wednesday

I always wanted to have hot breakfasts for our children and it always seemed like such a hassle, especially for such a non-morning person like me. What I have found is that long cooking cereals actually saved me time, because I could start them while doing other morning preparations, and have them ready at breakfast time. Also, if that isn't a possibility, they hold up to long cooking in the crockpot overnight, for a hearty breakfast in the morning whenever you are ready for it. We generally stock steel cut oats for our breakfasts which cook at a 4:1 ratio of water to dry cereal. However, in the crockpot, it takes a little more liquid, I do a 6:1 ratio. Cook on low, starting it right before you go to bed, and you have a healthful, tasty breakfast. It is really important to include a dash of salt, though, it seems to keep them from being too bland.

Something else we do is to cook up lots of extra scrambled eggs when we make them, and the next day we use the leftovers with a little cheese, salsa and maybe guacamole or sour cream in egg burritos. Our family, at least, does not enjoy reheated eggs, but when it is remade and rolled in a tortilla, all of a sudden it's tasty. And quick. When we make pancakes or waffles we make four times the batch and freeze the extras (between waxed paper or parchment in freezer bags) and pull the out to toast in the toaster for busy mornings.

The major thing, though, is to plan for a hot cooked breakfast, and stock up on the foods you will need. We always have tons of eggs, and we always keep steel cut oats in the cupboard (I buy them in bulk and store them in an airtight container), I buy bacon when it is on sale, as much as we can afford, and store it in the freezer, same thing with breakfast sausage, though more often I buy ground pork and we season it with salt, pepper, paprika, sage (lots), brown sugar, red pepper flakes and a touch of nutmeg because it is cheaper and we know what is going into our sausage. We make a bread pretty much every night, so there is something for toast, and we keep loads of tortillas in the house. Breakfast is our house is largely eggs or oatmeal, yogurt and fruit.

I do keep grits around and we occasionally have that. Yesterday, for instance, we had cheddar grits with diced ham, jalapenos and shallots (scallions are great in this, also) that I sauteed and mixed in, and fried eggs to serve on top. Creamed eggs are simple, quick and tasty with toast to dip into the egg yolk (grease a ramekin or custard cup well, drop an egg in it, sprinkle with salt, pepper, chopped herbs like chives, drizzle with cream and bake until done to your liking, roughly 10 minutes). Those eggs fried in the toast, with the fried toast cut outs on the side are lovely also. We eat Arabic breakfasts as well, like diced up feta and tomatoes, sprinkled with za'atar, drizzled with olive oil and eaten with warm khoubz Araby, ful with warm bread and herbed egg omelets ('ijja) and other foods like that.

As the mornings are getting cooler, we also frequently have cocoa, cafe au lait or milky tea to warm up little bellies. The key, though, is planning. Just as I plan our dinners for the week, I make a rough outline of our breakfasts for the week. Since I have children who could eat oatmeal every day of their lives, if I can't think of anything else, we always fall back on that.

Easier hot breakfasts for my family works for me!

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen, Works for Me Wednesday

Most people already know this, but in case you do not, hie thee to the local superstore or children's clothing store (or better, the websites, so they can send them to you!) of your choice to pick up inexpensive sandals and swimsuits for your children for next summer. I was able to buy sandals for Amira to last her almost until the second coming of the Lord last year, when Fred Meyer had the cheapie childrens' sandals on sale for $2.00 a pair. I picked up a number of sizes of boys' sandals also, though with the number of boys we have, and how rough boys are on them, they won't last quite as long, and I'll have to buy more this week for next year. I bought the nicer leather sandals for the children from Olive Juice Kids when they had their sale combo with free shipping and from The Children's Place Monster sale when I had an additional 15% off coupon.

Also, since our children are in swimming at the Y, we are able to swim more than just in the summer, but it makes their suits wear out. Just about every store in our area has huge markdowns on suits, and you can get them for under $5 in many places. We are stocking up.

Saving money on seasonal items works for me!

Oh, and here's another hint that we got from my BIL as a bonus. Free, just for today: Wash flip flops or plastic shoes or those foam sandals in the dishwasher to get the crud off of them.

Labels: Homemaking, Works for Me Wednesday

We all know how we're supposed to drink enough water, and more when it's hot. It's good for your body, it's good for your skin, and it helps you lose weight. The only way I like to drink water is arctic cold.

The way I make sure I get enough water to drink is to take old individual juice bottles, wash them in the dishwasher and fill them about a quarter to a third of the way with water, seal them and freeze them. I just grab a bottle, fill it with water, and I have nice cold water. I refill it until the ice completely melts. Then, I grab another one.

If you want to avoid the poisonous Chinese plastic, you can use glass bottles just as easily, but it's even more important to fill them only part way, otherwise you can end up with exploded bottles in your freezer.

As an added bonus, having these ice bottles in the freezer helps it to work more efficiently.

Having ice cold water readily accessible works for me!

Labels: Works for Me Wednesday

This is a quickie entry this week, but great for summer.

I have never been much of a fan of iced coffees, because the ice dilutes the coffee. I drink my coffee strong and black.

However, except for letting the children have small sips or cafe au lait, I am the only one who drinks it in our house. Since I still usually end up making a bit more than I can drink in a day, I use the dead coffee in the pot to make frozen coffee ice cubes in our ice trays. When they are frozen, I put them in a freezer bag to store them in the freezer. I use these for iced coffee drinks, or in chocolate milk. Even Rich likes that.

Finding a second use for old coffee that tastes good works for me!

Labels: Frugality, Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen, Works for Me Wednesday

Warning: Medical talk ahead, which mentions surgery and anesthesia.

This may seem like an odd Works for Me Wednesday entry, but here it is. I just had a c-section. My fourth. So, I pretty much know what has worked and hasn't worked before, and have very specific requests of our surgeon when we go into these things. Among them is what kind of anesthesia I want used.

My first time, I had duramorph in with the spinal block and was very sick and itchy. The second time I asked for something else, and recovered quickly, was off the cath sooner, had my IV out sooner and was able to eat, walk, use the facilities sooner. So, the third time I asked for whatever that was again. It turns out that I had nothing besides the spinal block. However, the anesthesiologist, who is also a friend of ours, wasn't completely comfortable with me having no pain medicine with my spinal, because the spinal only lasts about an hour or so, and he was concerned about my coming off of that with no systemic pain medicine. So, we said to go ahead and use a different medicine than the duramorph. I wasn't sick, I wasn't itchy, but I was back to slow recovery and a long post-op. This time I said no pain medicine in the spinal.

Our doctor (who is amazing, btw, and I wish we had gone with her every time since Elijah, in fact Dr. Maslow had specifically recommended her, but we hadn't been able to use her the second time, and forgot the third time), who trusted me and asked me the reasons I didn't want the pain medicine, suggested that I use a local anesthetic pump inserted at the internal incision instead of the systemic medicine. Since I was not trying to be some hero, I just didn't want to be slowed down from moving and getting tubes taken out of me, I said I was more than willing to use it.



Well this, my friends, is a miracle medicine. Our doctor said she mostly used it for hysterectomies, and the anesthesiologist said she thought it had initially been used primarily for infant surgeries, but all the nurses and staff saw how well it worked for me and said they were going to suggest it for their other c-section patients. On Q is this funny looking little ball (it was full when they put it in me) that pumps local anesthetic into your wound site at a particular rate per hour (mine was 4 ml per hour, and I don't know if they are different rates for different things or not) via a pressurization system. It lasts anywhere from two to five days depending on how much medicine they are dispensing. It stays in you, there are tubes taped to your body, and this ball that hangs off of you, and they give you a little fanny pack to keep the ball from dragging around and yanking out the tubes. That was the only awkward thing about it, but since most of the time it was in I was still at the hospital, it wasn't a big deal to me.

When the pump is empty, you just pull the tubes out. It doesn't hurt at all to pull them out. Our doctor said I could do it myself, or if I was squeamish about it to have Rich do it and if he couldn't do it to come into the office. We unhooked the pump from the tubing and I did it in the shower, and couldn't even feel it traveling. She also warned me that there would be about the same amount of tubing on the inside as I saw on the outside, so not to freak out if it looked like a clown pulling handkerchiefs out of his sleeve.

This pump reduced my pain from the surgery and at the incision site internally so much that I didn't have to take as much of the oral pain medication, and didn't feel any pulling or soreness internally or on my external incision site until the fourth day, and it was very minimal at that point. My mother in law asked why I pulled it out, she thought I should have asked for a new pump to attach to the tubing, since it worked so well.

I am a true believer now. I would do testimonials for the pharmaceutical company. This was, by far, the easiest recovery from a c-section I have ever had. If you have any surgery coming up which requires anesthesia, I'd suggest you ask about this little pump. On Q and a quicker, easier recovery from major surgery, that works for me!

Labels: Baby, Product Recommendation, Works for Me Wednesday

This week's theme for Works for Me Wednesday is recipes that are five ingredients or fewer. The steak is three ingredients, and the potatoes are six, so between the both, you have two recipes for fewer than 10 ingredients.

I have actually heard people talk about how hard scalloped potatoes are to make. They are not! This method is the easiest and tastiest we have found to make them. They taste rich and creamy and are not at all gloppy and gross. I have posted this recipe here before, but I will republish it for the sake of all the tired mothers out there who need a tasty side dish that is simple to put together.

To make slicing faster, I use my fake mandoline and use it on the second thinnest setting. I just whip through those potatoes in no time at all. This is one of the few times I use my garlic press, too, as I just squish the garlic into the cream with the thyme. It does take about a half an hour to bake, but the prep time is minimal, and it can cook away on its own while you prepare the rest of dinner.

Easiest Scalloped Potatoes

8 medium potatoes (if they are yukon golds or red bliss, you don't have to peel them), peeled and thinly sliced
salt and pepper
2 cups heavy cream
6 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons dried thyme (or 2 teaspoons if you have fresh)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a 9 X 13 inch baking pan, lay slices of potatoes in single layer and sprinkle lightly with salt and fresh ground pepper. Repeat until all potatoes are used up.

Add garlic and thyme to cream and heat in microwave for about a minute or two. Pour over potatoes, spreading the garlic and thyme around, and pressing the potatoes to make sure they are all covered.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until cream has thickened and edges are lightly browned.


Chipotle Rubbed Flank Steak
I think I've posted this before, too, but it bears repeating, because it is so tasty.

3 lbs flank steak
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon chipotle powder

Rub the steak all over with the salt and the chipotle. Grill over high heat/hot coals for about 10-15 minutes, turning once, or until it is done to your liking. This should be at most medium, medium rare is better. Allow to rest 5-10 minutes, and slice thinly across the grain. Serve with warm tortillas, corn or flour, lettuce, crumbled queso fresco, diced tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream, whatever you like, tomato rice and perhaps beans. This is a great dinner, and quick, quick, quick.

edited to add:

I just remembered this one. A friend used to make this and I started doing it. This is a loose recipe, I make it to be enough, whatever that looks like.

Grilled Salmon with Creamy Feta Sauce

3 lbs Salmon steaks
1/2 lb tomato basil or tomato olive feta, crumbled
2 tablespoons butter
enough heavy cream to thin the sauce

Grill salmon so that it is just done. If your fish flakes, it is overcooked, but you don't want it raw in the center either.
Heat feta with butter in a sauce pan to melt, and add cream to it to make it a more sauce like consistency. Serve over the salmon. Make a salad to eat with this, and cous cous or rice pilaf or some other grain, when asparagus is in season, some grilled or broiled asparagus is also great with this.

Great food with minimal fuss works for me!

Labels: Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen, Works for Me Wednesday

Since I am getting a little closer to D-day for our newest baby, I am gearing up to do something I do occasionally anyway: Doubling meals to freeze half. I invest in good freezer bags and those reusable/disposable plastic casserole pans that can go in the oven. I also have some foil pie pans so we can freeze things like quiches and even pies.

When I am making something that will freeze well, that we like a great deal, I try to make twice as much as we will need. Then, I put half in the casserole dish or freezer bag or cook the dish in the disposable pan, cover well with plastic and foil, if necessary, and freeze for later use. This makes it much easier on us if we are too tired, our schedule is too hectic or someone is ill. We can pull something out from the freezer, knowing that it is still wholesome, and tasty, and have dinner in very little time.

When we are recovering from my c-section and dealing with a newborn and sleepless nights, this will definitely be a good thing. I tend to freeze things like chilis, stews, soups, casseroles like shepherd's pie and chicken divan, lasagnes, meatloaf, quiche. Foods with cream in them tend not to freeze all that well, but you can still have quite a variety of foods for those times when facing dinner is too much. Bread also freezes well, so if you make extra, you can stock the freezer with that. Most of these just require some reheating, which anyone can do.

Pull out a (well labeled) meal, a loaf of bread, and toss together a salad, and you have a good meal for your family that you don't have to cook. It will also save on your food bill, keeping you from expensive frozen or instant meals, or relying on restaurants or take out. This definitely works for me!

Labels: Baby, Frugality, Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen, Works for Me Wednesday

I know this sounds bizarre, but let me explain. What parent doesn't have trouble getting his child to wash hands long enough and properly? I frequently observed our children waving their hands over the soap and dashing their fingers in the running water, wiping their hands on the towel as they ran past and leaving the bathroom with "clean" hands. We also had the need to teach our children the alphabet.

So, what is a parent to do? Why combine them of course. Two birds with one stone and all that. I have the younger children sing the alphabet song all the way through while getting soap on their hands and rubbing them under the water. Children are compulsive enough that if they mess up the alphabet, they will start over, so this solves the problem of time, even if they sing quickly. In the meantime, they are practicing their alphabet and reinforcing alphabetical order.

Our older children, of course, already know the alphabet, so this doesn't apply to them. If I catch them washing too quickly, though, I tell them to do so as well. Kind of remedial handwashing and alphabetical order all together. Maybe I'll have them start on the Greek alphabet.

Labels: Works for Me Wednesday

"Mama, I'm bored!"

Do you ever hear that over the summer? Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer wants to know how we combat summer boredom.

To be honest, we rarely hear that around our house, what with the built in playmates the children have in each other. However, something that we do that pre-empts any of the boredom, is we find out what activities are going on in our area, so we have a place to visit, or an activity we can do together that is interesting and fun.

One thing we learned about recently is that Regal Cinemas has a nine week Free Family Film Festival over the summer. It is in the morning, and first come, first served, because they cannot fill the theaters beyond their capacity, but they do G rated and PG rated movies for free for children and their parents. We already are looking at going to three movies this summer, and all it takes is being willing to be early enough to wait in line. Since the movie is free, the outrageous popcorn prices won't hurt so much and our children will be able to enjoy a movie during a child friendly time at the theater.

Finding fun, free activities to do with our children works for me!

Labels: Family, Works for Me Wednesday

There are certain events and holidays in which we know the kids are going to get lots of stuff. Birthdays and Christmas, especially, are times when they are given many gifts. We are very purposeful about teaching the children to be happy for other people receiving good, and keeping the focus on the religious significance of a holiday or the experience of a birthday rather than all the stuff. The problem is how to do it, when it is so easy for a young mind to see all the things and think that is what the day is about.

There are three things we do that have helped:

• 1. From the earliest age possible, involve the children in making pictures, cards and gifts for others aside from the things that come from you. We have seen the fruit of this, two examples: Alexander, in kindergarten, took his allottment of Christmas gift money to very thoughtfully buy presents for Rich, me, Dominic, Elijah and Amira. His gifts were things that were chosen specifically for each person, keeping that person's personality and interests in mind. On Elijah's birthday, this year, each older child wished to use some of his or her money to buy a gift for Elijah. They insisted on using the money they got from us as allowance or from their tooth fairy money, so the gift would be specifically from them. Of course, they still make decorated picture frames, birthday cards, crowns, pictures, and other gifts for people.


• 2. Do not give presents to each child for another's birthday.We have made a point of not giving a consolation present to any of the other children, regardless of how much they pout, when it is another person's birthday. We want them to learn that not every occasion means they have to get something, and to be happy when something good comes to another person. Likewise, we make sure they stay to watch all gifts being opened at birthday parties, rather than watching for their own and running off to eat or play, and we take turns opening Christmas presents, so that all of us can see what the other people receive and rejoice with them. The kids have done remarkably well with this. There are some people who, meaning well, give gifts to all of our children when it is one of their birthdays. We just put them aside for another holiday, their next birthday or an anytime surprise that comes on another day.


• 3. In advance of the gift receiving event, go through our things and find those items that can be given to the poor and shared with friends. This is probably the most important things we've done. We go "make room" for the new clothes and toys, by purging what we have. One of the most gratifying things I've seen come of this happened just this last week. Dominic said, after a friend of mine brought some new, neat toys to give to the kids, "I know what would make God happy and someone else happy! We can find toys upstairs to give away, so we have a place to put these." And he has started to do it. We have another bag of toys to offer to our church family, to give away on freecycle, and take to second hand shops.

The rewards of this kind of training are great. It really isn't hard, and the kids love feeling like they can give to others. It is a simple way to grow in grace, to do a corporal work of mercy and to encourage a spirit of generosity in the family. It also helps them to be giving and open handed with their siblings.

Teaching children to be generous works for me!

Labels: Faith and Morality, Family, Works for Me Wednesday

We have a larger family. Five children is no longer within the normal range of family size in the U.S. and it takes quite a bit of food to feed us all. We laugh now at recipes which use 8" X 8" pans or say things like serves 4. Since we live on one income, and it would actually be even more expensive for me to go out to work, even if I wanted to do so, we have learned how to make our budget stretch. A friend of mine thinks I should give seminars on grocery shopping and cooking as a service to homemakers and women who wish to be homemakers and thus add to our income a little and our pediatrician after asking if I was still at home with the kids said that of course I was, we wouldn't be able to afford five children if I was at work. Part of how I stretch our budget is by having a purpose for any leftovers.

Take breakfast, for instance. We like oatmeal here, partly because it tastes good, partly because it is inexpensive (especially when you buy it in bulk, as we do), partly because it is nutritious, partly because it is filling and easy to make. Most breakfasts during the week here are either oatmeal (steel cut or rolled, depending on how early we arose), or some sort of egg and toast with a glass of juice or milk. However, with boys that eat more than I do, who go through spurts of eating until we make them stop, it is sometimes hard to gauge how much to make. I tend to err on the too much side.

The fact is, though, that nobody wants to eat gloppy, leftover oatmeal. No matter how inexpensive it is, it is wasteful to just toss it, and costs us more per serving if we do that. Not to mention that we are pretty big on not wasting food as a general principle here in the Arabian Knits home. So, I use that leftover oatmeal to make bread. You can also add it to pancake batter or cookie dough. Today, I made four loaves of bread in our bread machine using the leftover oatmeal from two days ago that had been taking up real estate in our fridge. It was a container of about 1 1/2 - 2 cups of oatmeal. One became an oatmeal applesauce bread, another an oatmeal sesame bread, a third a honey whole wheat bread and the fourth a cinnamon apple bread. We freeze these and pull them out when we don't even have the time to dump bread ingredients in the bread machine, or when we forget to do so.

I don't really measure it, I just put about a third to a half a cup in the bread machine, add the fat (butter or olive oil), sweetener (sugar, honey or molasses), salt, flour (white or whole wheat), yeast and about 3/4 of a cup of liquid (water, milk, juice, beer, flat champagne, etc). I use the same ratio of other ingredients, I just reduce the liquid. I also watch it while it mixes in the first 15-20 minutes, and add more flour or liquid if it seems necessary.

By the way, our bread machine has been a food budget lifesaver. We bought our first two second hand at thrift shops for less than $15 each, our third we got on Freecycle. We basically work them into the ground and then get a new one. We make at least one loaf of bread a day, with some days seeing us make two or three or more. We use it to mix dough while we do other things, so we can make shaped loaves or rolls. I even have a bread machine recipe for croissant dough. We buy bread flour in 50 lb bags at a steep discount, and even our artisan breads cost about $0.20-0.40 a loaf.

I can almost always use leftovers from one meal as an ingredient for another food item or meal. I've used leftover cheese sauce to make a crustless quiche/soufflé type thing, leftover rice gets put into soup or fried rice, we've even made a sandwich spread with leftovers that was quite delicious.

Having a use for leftovers works for me!

Labels: Frugality, Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen, Works for Me Wednesday

Rich is a pilot, I am a knitter. What have the two in common? You might ask. There isn't a whole lot of overlap, it's true (although we have met lots of knitter wives at aviation events and lots of pilot husbands at fiber events). However, I have tried to make sure to listen to Rich when he talks about flying and I go with him to air shows and learn as much as I can about airplanes, because he loves those things, and I love him. Likewise, Rich has an amazing knowledge of knitting techniques, yarn, and he also attends fiber fairs, is planning how he can make me a spinning wheel (he even was inspired to try to make a circular sock knitting machine after seeing the one at Madrona). We both make a point of learning about and being interested in what the other cares about, because we care about the other. I know that Rich wants me to learn to fly, well more than the month's ground school and one hour air time I had in high school, and I will probably do it. Rich has asked me to show him how to knit, and he did it very well.

We both encourage each other in these endeavors and are sincerely happy when the other gets a chance to enjoy his/her chances to do these things. These are only two areas where this works, it really applies in all our areas of interest. So, while it helps that we have a lot of the same interests anway (I'll mention at least one of those tomorrow), even where we differ, we make the effort to love the things our spouse loves. It helps us to know more about each other, enjoy more time with each other and to learn to be less selfish, by being happy for the sake of the other person.

This works for us!



If you want to make some cool hearts like I did, click here. This is the only way I can stand those hearts, they taste terrible!

Labels: Romance and Relationship, Works for Me Wednesday

This one is kind of a lazy hint, that I think most people know already, but here it goes anyway. Use chocolate chips for frosting brownies.

Last night I made a batch of brownies. They were supposed to go with us to Home Group, but that was cancelled. So, after the kids went to bed, we made brownies anyway, because why not have two people eat a pan of brownies after eating a full dinner and two oranges? There's nothing wrong with that. Why are you looking at us that way? It's only natural, you have no right to judge!

Anyway. So, I made the brownies, and got out my trusty Belgian dark chocolate chips. When the timer went off, I checked the brownies, pulled them out and dumped about a cup and a half of chocolate chips on it. Let that sit until they started to melt, and spread it all around with the spatula. Then I turned on the coffee pot, and we had three brownies each while we watched Pride and Prejudice. If you really want to be fancy, you can press chopped nuts into the melty chocolate chips.

This definitely works for me!

Labels: Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen, Works for Me Wednesday

This is my first time making it in time for a Works for Me Wednesday!

Tuesday and Sunday nights are always quick dinner nights at our house. It is often a challenge to find something to eat that can be prepared quickly, taste good, fill us and actually provide some nutrition. Breakfast for dinner is how I sometimes handle nights like that, since it requires almost no thought or preparation. We had it for dinner last night, in fact. Scrambled eggs and toast, breakfast burritos, fried eggs and bacon, or, like last night, Nacho Breakfast.

Nacho Breakfast - Or How to Eat a Bag of Chips for Dinner

Take a pound of sausage, any kind of sausage you like. Brown it and render the fat over medium low heat. Whip up 15 eggs with some black pepper. Add a cup or more of salsa to the sausage once it is browned, stir it to heat and evaporate some of the liquid, pour the eggs over and cook as for scrambled eggs, sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese, about a cup or two and cook until the egg is cooked to your liking.

Serve each person a plate of the eggs over a bed of corn chips, top with some more salsa and sour cream. Sprinkle with chopped scallions and olives, if you like and have hot sauce available for those who want it. This serves six very hungry people or eight normal people.

It works for me!

Labels: Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen, Works for Me Wednesday