potato soup

One of my favorite things about fall is soups and stews, also with soup season also comes the sales on potatoes and vegetables.  2  weeks ago our local grocery store had 10lb bags of potatoes for $2.99 which is about $2 off.  They also had Large ham butt portions for $0.99 lb which is great because I get about 6 meals out of a 8lb chunk of meat.  This last week they had 2lb packages of celery and carrots for $0.99 each.  Well once I had the am cut apart and frozen I was left with a HUGE ham bone so I stuck it in the freezer so I could make potato soup, and Yesterday was the day I took it out to use. 

Potato Soup
1 large ham bone
2lbs of potatoes peeled and chopped (large pieces)
2 stalks of celery diced
3 carrots diced
1 med Onion diced
1/2 gallon of whole milk

I put the Ham bone in water(just enough to cover) and boil for about 2 hours, after 2 hours I add potatoes and the rest of the veggies. once the potatoes are cooked (45 min or so) remove the ham bone and remove pan from heat for about 15 min then I add the milk.  Don't dump it all in at once add and stir as you go because you may not need it all.  Put soup back on the heat on low until it is warmed through again then serve.  Sometimes I will add extra ham to it, if that is something you want I recommend adding the chopped ham when you add the veggies.

All in all this is one of my favorite soups and ultimately one of the Least expensive to make.

Applesauce

For all my food lovers out there this is by far the easiest and healthiest thing that I do. 

I Live in Apple country, we have a town about 15 miles from me that is the Apple capitol of WI, and has about 12 orchards in a 5 mile stretch of road, not to mention all the small ones around the town too.

Well I have always been a big fan of applesauce so when Braxton was around 6 months old I decided to go to the Orchards, get a bushel of apple and make applesauce.  This was the first time I had EVER attempted anything like this in my life so I wasn't sure what was going to happen.  I did have to do some research first and figure a few things out.
1. What kind of apples work best?
2. Do I want to add sweeteners
3. What is the Fastest method?

To answer the first one I asked the people that work at the orchards since they know their apples and they recommended Cortland.
To answer the second one I looked inside myself and decided NO there is enough natural sugar in apples
To answer the third one I went to my faithful old Ball Blue Book for Canning and looked at a couple of recipes.

Let me just add here that I own a tomato juicer that is also designed for taking peels and seeds out of apples too.  If you don't own one of these you will have to core and peel apples by hand or spend $20 to buy one.  I say buy one if you are making a large amount of sauce.

OK so here is what has to be done.  I slice the apples into quarters and put them in a couple of large pots with a cup or so of water and let them cook for a while. Make sure you stir them so they don't burn to the bottom of the pan.  Once all of the apples seems soft you can scoop them into the juicer/peeler and the applesauce comes out one side and the skins and seeds the other.  After all the apples have gone through this process the sauce needs to be cooked for another 10/ 15 min stirring very often to avoid burning.  If you want to add Cinnamon do it while it is still cooking.



Once they have cooked all that is left to do is put it in jars and process in a hot water bath for 20 min. 
Just Note that once you make your own you will NEVER go back to store bought again.

Beef stew

Well fall has finally started to set in so I am making a big crock pot full of beef stew tonight.

 I went grocery shopping and found a decent sized round steak for $3.29 but it was close to it's shelf life so the store had a $1 off coupon attached.  I cut it into bite sized pieces and poured a little red wine and worchestersire sauce on it and let it marinade for about 1/2 hour.  In the mean time I cut up 4 medium potatoes which the local store had on sale (10lb bag for $2.99)  I bought some celery and carrots which were both on sale for $0.99 a bag and threw in 2 cups of green beans and a cup of corn which were both out of my garden.  I added 1 can of Low sodium beef stock which I found in the reduced price cart for $0.50.  I then added some Mrs. Dash and Onions for flavor.  I just made a rue to help thicken it since it was more like soup.  I love the crock pot for stews it means I don't have to stare at it to keep it from burning.

I hope everyone is enjoying fall and all the warm foods that come with it.

I hope to go to the orchards is week and get apples so I can make applesauce and dehydrate some for traveling.

hotels

So due to my long absence I decided today was a good day to tell you about my Hotel deal I got the other day.  My husband is a groomsman in a wedding this weekend and it is out of town.  We both enjoy having a few drinks and decided that we would get a hotel room instead of one of us having to be a designated driver (that would have been me).

 The town the reception is in has 2 hotels a Super 8 and a little No name place.  Well since we were only going to sleep there for a few hours and take showers we figured the little no name place would be sufficient and most likely less expensive. 

When I called up the person on the phone asked what kind of room I said either a queen or 2 doubles we really didn't care either way.  Well after he looked he said the only room left was a 2 queen with a single, I asked for a price now assuming I was going to have to call the super 8 and hope they a smaller room, and he said it was going to be $69 plus tax.  Yes $69 for a 3 bed hotel room.  We figure this way if any of our other friends show up and drink too  much we can offer them a place to crash out, because I'd rather sleep in a hotel room full of people than lose a friend to drunk driving.

Well I hope everyone has a great a weekend.

Garlic Butter Tilapia

My house is not a big fish eating house but I am trying to find new recipes that make it more enjoyable. 
My newest one Is Garlic Butter Tilapia
I had a large bag of Frozen Tilapia fillets I had got on sale at Wal-mart. It was a 3 lb bag for $8 so I took out 5 fillets (in case My Mom wanted to eat)

I melted 1/2 a stick of butter in a sauce pan (big enough to fit the fish in so I didn't have to dirty any more dishes) I added 1 1/2 tsp of Garlic granules to to the butter as it melted and kept it on the heat so the butter would absorb the flavor.

I had some hot dog buns left over from a party that I dried out and made into fine bread crumbs.

A dipped each peace of fish into the Garlic Butter then into the bread crumbs.  I sprinkled the top with a little pepper and baked on 375 until the fish started to flake, probably about 20 min.

I served it with Green beans from the garden that I steamed and tossed with a TBLS of Roasted red pepper Italian dressing and a shake of Parmesan cheese.

I had really good intentions to do Mashed potatoes with this, but realized too late that I had used the last of the potatoes.

I was worried that the fish would have no flavor since I didn't season the bread crumbs but the garlic Butt flavor really came through.

New Adventure

I am just letting my followers know that I will be adding a new element to this site.  I will be reviewing products for companies and offering a link to purchase them.

Yes there will be a little incentive in it for me of coarse, however, I will be setting some of my own personal rules too.

Everything that I list will be reasonably priced, useful, and something I would use myself.  I will not Push anything on anyone, I will simply be reviewing and offering everyone a link on where to find and purchase it.

I of coarse am going to focus on Family friendly products as those are the ones most useful in my life.  I truly hope this works out since I love sharing new things with my friends and family.  I am not sure when the first product will arrive but I hope to be able to put it to use and review it as soon as it arrives.

Freebies

I have been so busy this summer that I have been neglecting my blogs and I apologize for that. 

Today I am going to talk about freebies.  There are a lot of freebies out there to be had if you just know where to look and if y are willing to work for them a little.

The first thing I recommend that you do is start a new E-mail with Hotmail or Yahoo because to access many of these freebies creates a ton of Spam mail.  This also helps keep your freebie updates from getting kicked to a spam folder in your regular e-mail.

There are many different types of freebies so I will go a few different ones.

1. Codes or coupons:  You normally have to google the word code, in relation to what it is your looking for. (ie Target codes) most of these are Free shipping or $5 off $75 purchase.

2. Samples: One of my favorites!  The best site for this is sweetfreestuff.com they will send you a daily link to free samples of items from Body wash to dog food.  Just remember these are samples so you get small quantities or 1 or 2 items. Another great way to free products is to go directly to the website itself, many offer free samples.  Procter and Gamble have a great one, and they send you e-mails when new freebies are available.

3. Search and win:  Swagbucks is one of my favorites for this.  I use their tool bar for searches and earn swagbucks, they also have codes to find(so it's kind of fun) plus multiple other ways to earn bucks, then you can cash them in for gift cards or hundreds of other gifts they have available. I have a Swagbucks link on the left if you just want to click and look around.

4. Surveys:  This one takes some patients and time but you can potentially earn money, free entries into contests or multiple other items.  I recommend looking into these pretty closely before you tackle them.  Inbox dollars is a good survey site, they also have an options of just accepting and E-mail and click Read and earn $0.02 each.  Takes a while but will earn you a little something.

5. Coupons.  I have to say yo are not going to find coupons for free items but you will find many many free coupons.  This saves me from having to purchase a Sunday paper as I can get almost all of the same coupons.  Although Procter and Gamble does do a HUGE coupon flier once a month and you do have to purchase the Sunday paper for that one.

There are many , many different options out there you just need to look around and decide which ones are right for you.

I just want to say that have a enough trail packs of Shampoo to last me for months.
Good Luck on your own Freebie search!