Bread Crumbs

One of the hardest things about cooking and hosting a Thanksgiving dinner is trying to figure out what the heck to do with all those leftovers.  This year a sweet lady I know brought a bunch of rolls for dinner and there were a ton of leftovers.  She didn't want to bring them home since she lives alone, and they had sat out uncovered long enough to start getting stale so I knew the Peanut Gallery wasn't going to help me get rid of them.  I also hated the idea of throwing them away, so I starting thinking.  This is almost always dangerous territory.

Luckily for me, I remembered Barbara (yes, the same one you've been hearing about lately!) telling me not too long ago that she made her own whole wheat bread crumbs.  Hot diggity!  I had a plan.  Although I don't use a lot of bread crumbs around here, I do use them pretty regularly because I make spinach balls at least one a month for handsome man.  I also sometimes do baked chicken nuggets (now there's a recipe I need to post!) or a batch of stuffed  mushrooms which also call for bread crumbs, so they would most definitely not be going to waste.

The first thing I did was leave the rolls out overnight because I didn't have time to deal with them on Thursday.  By Friday afternoon, though, I was ready to speed the drying process along.  So I broke the rolls in half and spread them out on a cookie sheet.

Then I baked them in the oven on about 250 to 275 for a while, checking them every 20-30 minutes.  After a while, the outsides were feeling pretty dried and crusty.  That's when I started breaking them into smaller bits, like this:

If I was smart I would have probably started off this way, but oh, well!  Live and learn, I guess.

Once I was sure the leftovers were nice and dry all the way through (no soft centers, people - it's important!) I put them in a gallon-size ziplock bag.  Then I put that inside another one to make sure crumbs wouldn't be flying all over my kitchen.  That's when I got out one of my favorite kitchen tools... the meat mallet. 

I used the flat side (of course) to smash those babies to little bits.  Look at it this way: even if you'll never use the bread crumbs, this was a good exercise to help you deal with that pent-up frustration that no one helped you clean up after that huge dinner, right?  (And if you're not into the physical labor part of this activity, feel free to use your blender or food processor!)

Once you've got your bread crumbs, be sure to store them in an airtight container in the freezer.

Freedom

I'm going to go ahead and apologize now for the lack of pictures with this blog post.  Since I'm not an ace photographer, I know you're not here for the pictures, but still.  They add a little something, right?  Well, for those of you who don't know, I am currently about 1,200 miles from home helping a friend out with a her first new baby.  But since my last post was about getting back to basics, I didn't want to wait a whole week before posting again, so here I am!  And although I am recipe-less in this blog post as well, I hope you still find something worth reading about.

The best thing about being here is (other than getting to spend time with a good friend and playing with a new baby that doesn't keep me up at night) is the freedom of not browsing my kitchen for good things to eat.  The down side (other than keeping track of my 17-month old in a non-babyproofed house) is not having the freedom to browse the kitchen for good things to eat.  Make sense?  Just hear me out.

I have a love-hate relationship with my kitchen.  When I was a working mom this wasn't a huge deal because I primarily home in the evenings, and that's not when my snacking hour strikes. Since I'm a daytime snacker, I would have a few healthy snacks available at the office for me to choose from when hunger hit.  It was relatively easy to make a good choice when I only had three things to choose from, and none of them were chocolate.  As a SAHM, I have a whole kitchen of food to choose from!  If I don't see what I want, I can make what I want, right?  And seriously, how many of us don't know where the chocolate chips are kept?  It's so easy to opt for the sweet snack if it's on your list of choices.

As I have been traveling and thinking this week, I realized that if I am going to be successful with weight loss and healthy eating as a SAHM, I need to follow the same rules I had as a working mom.And one of the big ones I have not been following is that I'm not planning my snacks.  I know it sounds trite.  We've read the advice in every doctor's office magazine weight loss article known to man.  But just because it's trite doesn't mean it isn't true.  And amazingly, as I have been a guest in someone else's home, I have been doing just that.  I don't raid the pantry.  I have a few things that I picked up from the store to have as snacks, and guess what?  That's what I am having! And it's remarkable how free I feel.  The funny thing about rules made for our benefit (like the ones good parents give us or the Commandments) is that abiding by those rules doesn't limit us at all - it frees us to do the things that we really wanted to do all along anyway.

And so, here's my new snacking rules as a SAHM:

1. Plan and prepare snacks at night for at least the next day (preferably for the next couple of days).

2. Schedule times for the kitchen to be "open" and "closed" so I'm not constantly grazing.

3. Each snack should combine food groups to make them more filling (i.e. a small apple and 1 oz. cheese is more filling than a large apple alone!).

4. Each snack should be no more than 150 calories.

With a little hard work and self control, I'll be back on the bandwagon in no time at all!

Laundry Detergent

I know there are some of you out there wondering what the heck I'm talking about. Isn't this a blog about food? Can you EAT laundry soap? What does laundry soap have to do with cooking?

The Answers to these Questions are "Mostly", "I Wouldn't", and "More Than You Think". First let me say that although most of what I post here is food-related, every so often there will be something that I think is just so great that I want to share it here. And yes, there IS a recipe involved in making your own laundry detergent. I even used my stove. Add these to the fact that it cost me about $5 to make over three gallons of laundry soap, and I figure it's something most of us frugal and fabulous homemakers would like to know about.

I've been using homemade laundry detergent for about 3 months now, and I love it. I use a recipe that I got off the Tipnut website. It has 10 recipes, and I just used the first one I read, though I have increased the volume by 50%. I have also learned a few things in the process. The most important of which is this:

Washing Soda and Baking Soda are NOT the same thing.

The boxes you see above are borax (which you can find in almost any store) and washing soda. As you can see, it is yellow, not orange like Arm & Hammer brand baking soda. It is a little harder to find in the stores. The first time I tried making this over the summer I couldn't find washing soda, so I used baking soda instead. Just so you know... it doesn't work the same. Fortunately for me, a friend had called the Arm & Hammer company to find out where they sold it locally and told me where I could purchase it. If you don't know where to find it, you can call the number off the A&H website to talk to a representative: 1-800-524-1328.

The second (also important) thing I have learned is that when I use homemade detergent my laundry goes "sour" more quickly if I leave it in the washing machine for too long. By too long, I mean longer than a day. Occasionally I will start a load of laundry and just not get back to it for a day or two. In those cases, I check the clothes. If they smell a little musty I run the washer again with either a cup of white vinegar or another dose of detergent to freshen them up.

Laundry Detergent

6 cups water
3 bars soap, grated
3 cups Borax
3 cups Washing Soda
3 gallons water

When you purchase your bar soap, be sure to pick out a scent that you like. That's what your laundry will smell like. I sent The Honey to the store last night and he came home with this glycerin soap made by Dial. After checking to make sure the first ingredient was still "soap", I used it to make my detergent today. I found I prefer working with the glycerin-based soap because it grated so much easier and is clearer than the traditional bar soap so I can tell when it's melted more easily.

Pour the 6 cups of water into a large pot and add the grated soap. Heat over medium-low until the soap is completely dissolved. Be sure to stir frequently and not turn it up too high. It's not just food than can burn onto the bottom of your pot - soap can too! If you have other things taking your attention, feel free to turn off the burner and walk away. It will continue to dissolve while you're not babysitting it.

See how nice and clear the glycerin soap looks like when it's dissolved? If you're not using this type of soap, just gauge it the best you can. You want it as close to completely dissolved as possible.

Pour the soapy water into a large bucket. Add the borax and washing soda and stir until dissolved.

Add 3 more gallons of water and stir. You're done making the detergent!

If you have used washing soda and made it correctly, the top layer of the mixture will gel within a couple of hours. Be sure to stir it before use. The directions I have said to use 1/4 c. of detergent per load, but I get better results when I use 1/2 c. per load.

Another thing I highly recommend is to use an old liquid laundry detergent container for dispensing. Because this makes a large batch, I have no where to store it in my tiny dining room. So after the detergent has started to gel, I give it a good stir and use a plastic cup (yes, my hands are covered in the stuff!) to fill my old ALL container. Then the bucket of detergent goes into the pantry and the small container holds what I need for the time being. It also has a built-in cup measure (the cap!) so I can measure my detergent out with the same ease I enjoyed when I spent $5 on detergent for 32 loads.

Kitchen Essentials: The Microwave Egg Cooker

What a crazy week! For those of you who know me personally, you know that my family is buying a new home and we are gearing up to move. For those who just admire me from afar... now you know. Either way, it means I haven't had a chance to do much creative cooking or photo-snapping this week. However, for some time I have wanted to post about some of my favorite "kitchen essentials" - you know, things that you didn't always know about but now you can't live without them! For me, this microwave egg cooker thingie (I don't even know its real name!) is just one of those things.

Several years ago a good friend of mine (Laresa) told me about it. To be honest, I really stink at making hard-boiled eggs. For some reason I can never get them quite right. Oh, sure, they taste just fine - but getting them out of the shells was like performing delicate surgery! Half of the egg white would come off with the egg shell. I was hopeless. Until now...

So what is this thing anyway? Basically, it looks like a giant plastic egg. The one I have holds 4 eggs, though I believe you can buy some that hold more.

How does it work? The bottom metal piece comes out of the plastic egg and you fill the bottom of the egg cooker with water up to a certain line. Then you place the metal piece back on, gently put on the eggs, and cook the whole thing on high in your microwave as directed - I do my 4 eggs for 10 minutes. Then I leave the eggs sitting in the egg cooker for another 10 minutes or so until it cools some. This also makes sure the eggs are cooked completely. And yes, I know it has metal in it, but trust me - it's microwave safe.

What's so great about it? I can put this in the microwave and forget about it. I don't have to babysit a pan of boiling water on the stove, and I always have four perfect hard-boiled eggs when I'm done. No cracking or leaking, the yolk is perfectly centered, and (joy of joys) the egg shell always comes off for me so easily!

Where do you get it? I got mine at Walmart for $6.95 about four years ago. I assume they still carry them, but if you can't find one at your local stores, use Google and it'll take you to plenty of choices. I've seen them on eBay and other online stores, too. Skip the $30 varieties and just go for the one that is less than $10. Not only is it inexpensive, it will change your life if you are a big fan of hard-boiled or deviled eggs like my family. Hooray for the microwave egg cooker!

"I Am NOT Eating That!"

So what do you do when you're kids turn up their noses at what you've fixed for dinner? This actually happens to me on a regular basis because Horse Lover and The Monkey were "dietarily" spoiled as young children. I was a working mom who fed her family a lot convenience food. This was especially true when they were 12-24 months old. And although my cooking habits have changed, their taste for the junk food has remained. Since I refuse to spend my life only cooking the 3 meals they actually like, the battle with picky-eater-syndrome has ensued.

I use the word "battle" but that's really a misnomer because I refuse to fight about it. Been there, done that, doesn't work. So what does work?

This, my friends, is what works.

When I had this for dinner:










My daughter had this:











Did I cave? Did I fix two meals? No.

After a little taste of the sauce, my daughters really didn't want the Italian Rice with Steak, so they just had the rice plain with a little butter and salt. They had some of the broccoli and cheese, but I also gave them a little more shredded cheese for added nutrition. My kids also had the choice of fresh veggies cut up in the fridge - red and green bell pepper, and cucumber. Horse Lover really likes red bell pepper. The Monkey one chose green pepper and cucumber. Top it off with a slice of whole grain bread and butter, and voila! A well-rounded meal!

The trick, I have found, is to have their food choices out on the counter/table and that's all they can choose from. And those same choices are available to everyone - no one gets a special deal. I didn't want cold veggies or bread, so I stuck with the broccoli and Italian rice. If they eat a decent amount for dinner (including their veggies) they can have a healthy snack later if they get hungry. If not, not. See? No battle. It's their choice, and as far as they are concerned I could care less if they eat their dinner.

Just don't let them in on my secret.