Field Trip

Field Trip

Typically a day out means extra $ on food. Not preparing in advance can mean big bucks that you weren't planning on spending.

Whether or not you have a family, you need to plan on what you're going to eat. Going to a theme park for the day? Pick one thing you'd like to buy (funnel cake) and bring everything else from home. Taking the family to the fair? Let them each know they get their choice of one item and that's it. Having fun is not synonymous with spending money, in fact, it's usually the opposite.

PREPARE!

It's a special day, get/make special food! The McGraths spent the day at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, so Ron made chocolate chip cookies last night. I bought a few juice boxes (fruit + veggie juice boxes) but we brought big reusable bottles filled with ice cold water and the juice was just for a treat. I found some chips on sale (whole grain Pringles? They looked weird but tasted yummy) and that was Monty's treat after he finished his lunch.

The point is, a special day doesn't need to stress your wallet. Having portable snacks and treats is the best way to stop unnecessary spending. A few bucks for fries here and a few bucks for coffee and pop there really add up and just aren't worth it!

After a long day, the last thing you want to do is come home and cook a meal. We have a favorite meal around here that is fast, easy and healthy.

Taco Salad (sans Taco)

You'll need:

- Lots of leafy greens. This is a great way to get your kids to eat the darker greens - we always use baby spinach because it's the least bitter.

- Favorite Veggies ready for topping: shredded carrot, cucumber slices, peppers, whatever you've got in your fridge

- Ground meat of any kind. Always cook your ground meat with onion and garlic. Just frying ground meat can be very bland and kind of yucky. I also add a fajita spice mix from Epicure, but you could add chili powder or whatever seasoning your family enjoys. Vegetarians can use Veggie Ground Round (so so good) or skip the meat option. Love meat like a crazy carnivore? Add a bit of freshly cooked bacon to the meat list.... so delicious.

- Little bit of shredded cheese (we like Nacho mix but only if it's on sale/clearance)

Mix your salad in a bowl with whatever dressing you plan on using. This is not a recipe that suits sweet dressings like raspberry vinaigrette. Renee's Ranch has nice big chunks of garlic in it, so that's what we typically use.

After your salad is dressed, put it out on plates and begin topping with cold veggies and cheese. Be sure the salad and veggies are the biggest portion of this meal. You can't have this salad with half meat and half lettuce. 75% veggies, 25% meat and cheese works best for flavor and for keeping it on the healthy side. When your meat is hot and ready, top the salads and serve immediately.

Everyone down to the baby loves this salad. Want to get a 1yr old to eat a spinach salad? This is the way! We especially love to have this meal when I get a big box of organic baby spinach for 50% off - it's a great way to use most of the box and it's a really cheap meal.

Hamburgers and Chocolate Cake

Homemade Hamburgers.

Hamburgers are such a treat when they're done right. I didn't make the actual burger from scratch today, because they have burgers on crazy clearance right now and it's cheaper by the pound to get them pre-made.

When you are making your own hamburger you have to put a bit of

time in. Make a homemade barbecue sauce to mix in the meat before you make patties.

My Ever-changing BBQ Sauce:

Sautee onion and garlic until soft in a small amount of butter

Combine dry herbs and spices in food processor

I use: Salt, pepper, chili powder, parsley, basil, cinnamon, sometimes seasoning salt

Add 1 tbsp of each:

dark molasses

vineager

corn syrup or maple syrup

ketchup or tomato paste

mustard

Add onion and garlic, and puree

Stick a finger in UNPLUGGED processor and give it a taste! If you'd like more tomato flavor add more ketchup or tomato paste. Throw in some more cinnamon if you're making the bbq sauce for pork.

Put ground meat in large bowl, add bbq sauce (don't skimp) and get mixing with your hands. Form patties and chill until ready to cook.

Hamburger Buns

Now, if you've never had a hot hamburger on a warm-from-the-oven (NOT MICROWAVE) bun, you haven't had a real hamburger. Homemade buns are totally worth the effort, and if you're having company for a bbq - they are really impressive. You can make them ahead of time and let them proof in the fridge so you're not kneading dough with company over.

I half this if it's for 4 or less:

Ingredients

• 2 cups warm milk - not hot! If you want to leave milk on the counter for an hour or so beforehand, just use the luke-warm milk and make sure your water is a bit hotter than normal to warm up the milk
• 1/4 cup melted butter (not hot)
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 4 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 6 cups all-purpose flour, or as needed

Directions

1. In a large bowl, stir together the milk, butter, warm water, sugar and yeast. Let stand for about 5 minutes.
2. Mix in the salt, and gradually stir in the flour until you have a soft dough. Divide into desired size pieces, and form into balls. Place on baking sheets so they are 2 to 3 inches apart. Let rise for 60 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Bake the rolls for 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool slightly, then split them in half horizontally to fill with your favorite burgers.

Chocolate Cake

For Dessert? The best chocolate cake recipe I've ever found! It's vegan, so if you know any vegans b

e sure to pass it along... oy this is a good recipe! This is changed only slightly from All Recipes.com

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour ( or 2 cups cake & pastry flour + 1 cup all purpose)
• 2 cups sugar
• 6 tablespoons baking cocoa
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups water
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil ( or 1/3 cup oil and 1/3 cup applesauce)
• 3 teaspoons white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the first five ingredients. Add the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla. Beat on low speed for 1 minute. Beat on medium for 1 minute. Pour into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool.

What to top it with? Well, we had some eggwhites left over from the beginning of the week so we made a homemade marshmallow fluff, compliments of Martha Stewart:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/momma-reiners-homemade-marshmallow-cream

If you're not into marshmallow fluff (I'd love to meet you) make a standard icing by beating 2 tbsp butter and slowly adding icing sugar. I add a wee bit of milk when it's getting too difficult to mix and add flavour as desired (sometimes we use banana flavor which is a real treat!) but vanilla is the best on this super-chocolatey cake. Just stick your finger in and taste if you need more vanilla or icing sugar - it's hard to mess up icing. My sister makes a chocolate salt icing with big delicious flakes of salt - I don't have the recipe, but it's delicious and something to try.

* This cake recipe is great to make with kids. You can teach them the science behind mixing baking soda with vineager and of course they love to see the bubbles *

Penny Pinching

Penny Pinching

I didn't do any baking or cooking today, so I'm going to share a few more of my penny pinching tips that really make a difference in our house:

Milk

I love milk. I could drink a liter every day without noticing. We buy milk once a week (as a splurge) and drink it exclusively on it's own. We don't use it for cereal or baking. We use powdered milk for those types of things. Powdered milk costs $1.25 per litre, as opposed to $1.42/liter (which is for the cheapest milk, not the premium or organic varieties). The $1.25/liter is based on their mix suggestion, which is 1 1/2 cups for every 4 cups. I use 1 1/2 cups for 1.5 liters and get a far better bang for my buck and it just tastes like skim milk. Try a small bag of the powdered milk, see if you can handle watering it down to a "skim" or the difference in cost just may not be worth it. Make powdered milk well in advance (the night before you need it) so it has time to dissolve thoroughly - and you'll barely tell the difference (if you do it's probably in your head).

Candy/Treats

I love candy. I hate paying for it because it's like paying someone to produce something irresponsibly (look into Fair Trade sugar) that is bad for you! If you're going to indulge in something that is not even close to healthy, at least try making it for yourself! Think of something and you can probably make it (well, not red licorice or cheezies).

Some of our family favourites are:

Caramel.... yikes, only make this once or twice a year

http://www.recipezaar.com/Homemade-Caramels-149204

Suckers/Hard Candy

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/halloween-lollipops

Marshmallow

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/momma-reiners-chocolate-covered-marshmallows

Sponge Toffee (sometimes drizzled with chocolate)

http://www.life123.com/food/candies-fudge/toffee/the-best-sponge-toffee-recipe.shtml

Caramel Corn

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Caramel-Corn-IV/Detail.aspx

Chips

- No recipe for this one. If you have oil for frying, simply use a cheese slicer to get nice thin pieces of potato, soak them in cold water, dry them off as best you can and fry at 350 until crispy and golden brown. My kids like sprinkling the popcorn flavour powder on them, but I like mine with just a bit of salt. You will only need a small amount per person, these fill you up a lot more than chips from a bag.

Other Kitchen Costs:

- Stop using paper towel for everything! There are a few brands of 100% post-consumer recycled paper towel available now, so our family is getting used to having paper towel back in our life - but we still don't use it for much. Use rags and cloths! The amount of money you are throwing in your garbage or compost would blow your mind! Not to mention the environmental costs of using paper towel. I'm not sure what's so hard about using a cloth, rinsing it out and using it again - but we seem to be pretty spoiled about this. Just try eliminating paper towel for a week and see how you fare.

- Bags bags and more bags. How many of you send your kids to school with litterless lunches? Do you brown bag it to work? Besides the environmental plusses of doing the "litterless lunch" there are many financial plusses. Bags, saran wrap, waxed paper and aluminum foil cost money. It may not seem to be that big of a deal, but over the course of a year it can really add up. I have all these items in my cupboard, but some of them last for years (literally). Why not use something that can be rinsed and reused? We've been using the same tupperware for lunches for two years, and the kids have managed to keep track of them. We don't wash everything every night (what's the point?) but we make sure they get a good scrub at least once or twice a week or when the jam leaks out of the sandwich, etc. This is a great opportunity to open dialogue with your kids not only about the environment and their responsibility, but about what things cost. They may want the Spiderman ziploc bag like their friends, but maybe if they want it that bad they can do a few jobs around the house to pay for it themselves.

Pizza & Sausage Rolls.... and Sunday's Banana Cream Pie

Monty posing with today's pizza and sausage rolls. As impressive as this heap of food is (for only $26.00) we already ate two pizzas and five sausage rolls!

Pizza & Sausage Rolls

I've got a GREAT and fast pizza dough recipe that I use not only for pizza but for sausage rolls as well - so today, it's pizza and sausage rolls.

I double this recipe for each (pizza & rolls):

1 1/4 cups warm water

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp yeast

Dissolve sugar and salt in warm water. Sprinkle yeast on top and let proof (5 minutes or until bubbly)

Add to yeast mixture:

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup milk (or water)

Begin to add flour, one cup at a time up to

4c flour

Turn dough onto floured work surface and knead for 8 minutes or so (until you poke the dough and it springs back)

Cover with damp dishtowel/cloth and let rise for 1/2 - 1 hr.

Use this time to shred cheese, and prepa

re any toppings you'd like for your pizza.

Preheat oven to 450F

When dough has risen, punch down and remove from bowl onto lightly floured or oiled (I use oil) board. Separate into whatever size you'd like depending on crust thickness, etc. If you are uncomfortable stretching your dough, you can roll it out - rolling is also MUCH faster.

Place dough on greased or parchment lined cookie sheets BEFORE topping them. If you have any extra alfredo sauce or spaghetti sauce in the fridge use that for your sauce. I use a pasta sauce that has lots of veggies and spinach so that it's kind of snuck its way into the pizza without anyone knowing it. Bake for 12-14 minutes and let cool for a few minutes before cutting.

If you plan on baking for the freezer, I fully cook my pizzas before freezing. That way I can pull a few out before I go to bed and they're lunch-ready in the morning. Let the pizzas cool completely before freezing.

Sausage Rolls

Use the same dough recipe from the pizza, double if desired. While dough is rising I like to slightly brown my sausages so a lot of the grease cooks off before getting in the oven.

*I buy breakfast sausage in bulk. I don't always like buying bulk because for most people it means throwing more away. Buying frozen breakfast sausage made in Canada from Canadian meat can cost less than $2/lb if you're buying from a wholesaler such as National Grocer's or Costco. Price check, ingredient check (sometimes you don't want the cheapest option) and stock up! *

Roll dough into a flat 1 cm sheet. You may need to measure your sausage on the dough before you start cutting. Roll each sausage in enough dough to go around it ONCE and pinch the seam together. Bake at 425 F for up to 20 minutes depending on whether or not you've precooked your sausage and if the dough is browning nicely.

VEGETARIAN ALERT

Why let us meat-loving savages have all the fun? Red peppers are always on clearance (who can afford them full price?). Roast some peppe

rs and stuff the rolls with feta and peppers instead of sausage. Brush the inside of the roll with a bit of olive oil (and herbs if you'd like) to make it even more delicious.

These are great cold, hot, lukewarm, etc. The kids love a sausage roll in their lunch next to a half-sandwich. We usually have these eaten before we need to freeze them, but they'll last in the fridge for up to a week if you want to plan on a sausage roll week!

Breakdown:

$8.00 flour

$8.00 cheese

$2.00 spaghetti sauce

$3.00 pepperoni

$5.00 sausage

$26.00 made : 30 AMAZING sausage rolls and 29 DELIGHTFUL pizzas.

Take that, recession.

Banana Cream Pie

The family was invited to my parents house for dinner on Sunday, so I "splurged" and spent about $3.00 on making a banana cream pie to bring for dessert.

This recipe is adapted from Cooking Nook.com

3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla or banana flavouring
2 to 4 bananas, sliced thinly
1 - 9" baked pastry shell

Combine sugar, flour, and salt in a saucepan. Add milk gradually. Cook, stiring constantly, over medium heat until boiling. Cook and stir an additional 2 minutes and remove from burner.

Stir small amount of hot mixture into egg yolks, immediately add egg yolk mixture to hot mixture and cook for 2 minutes, stiring constantly. Remove from heat.

Add butter and vanilla (or banana flavour) and stir til smooth.

Slice bananas into the cooled baked pastry shell. Top with pudding mixture and cool.

I chose to top mine with leftover chocolate ganache from a few weeks ago, but you could make meringue from the leftover egg whites or top it with whipped cream.

*Don't throw away your egg whites - I'll be making marshmallows soon, and that is something you definitely want to try!*

Cottage Pie & Cookies

Cottage Pie & Cookies

This morning I knew I had to get some food in the freezer. I had clearance meat in the fridge that needed to be cooked, and I had enough ingredients to make Cottage Pie. I started at 9, and since I had the oven on (later in the day) I also did another batch of pretzels and some oatmeal cookies.

If you make "Shepherd's Pie", but don't make it with lamb meat, it's called Cottage Pie. There are 101 ways to make this comfort food, which is why it's so well loved - you can add your favorites, snuggle up on a cold day, and dig in!

I made 3 massive trays of Cottage Pie today, enough to feed our family of 6 for dinner and enough for either the adults or kids lunches the next day. Cottage Pie is time consuming (or it can be) so I like to make a few meals at the same time so it's not so tiresome.

Look up any recipe online, or a recipe from your favourite chef (we like Gordon Ramsay's recipe) and double or triple according to your family size and what you can buy on sale.

What I did today was:

Cook onions and garlic until soft, add celery carrots and peppers (frozen peppers from when they were DIRT cheap). I added a little vegetable stock to help it all soften.

Simultaneously browned ground meat (I did a chicken/beef mixture), strained grease and continued to brown. Added port and balsamic vinager and let it simmer down. I saved the ground meat drippings for gravy.

Add vegetable mixture to cooked meat, add tomato, herbs and spices and continue to cook for 1/2hr-1hr.

Steamed cauliflower and boiled potatoes. Because I got cauliflower on sale it was a 2/3 cauliflower to 1/3 potato ratio. I had half a brick of cream cheese and a bit of sour cream in the fridge so I threw that in to the hot veggies, and mashed with my hand mixer.

I reuse tin caserole dishes, so I filled them with the cooled meat and topped it with the cauliflower potato mixture. I covered the pies and wrote what was in it and how long to cook it for (do according to recipe plus 1/2 hour to defrost, my off teh cuff pie takes 1hr from room temperature)

Between making the Cottage Pie and dinner time I had a few hours, so because I hate to turn the oven on for one food item I decided to whip up another batch of pretzels and some oatmeal cookies. I'm happy to announce I found my FAVOURITE recipe for pretzels and have replaced the other recipe I had posted. This recipe is AWESOME and amazing and all things good. Try it, and send me a hug in the mail.

My Mom gave me a Depression Era cookbook for my birthday, and it has the BEST oatmeal cookie recipe in it. The cookies are crunchy and perfect and so good. I've changed a few things (butter instead of lard, etc.) but I think it's pretty true to the original:

Aunt Minnie's Oatmeal Cookies

1c butter, softened

1c brown sugar, packed

1c white sugar

2 eggs

1tsp vanilla

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2c flour

3c oatmeal (oats)

1/2 cup of anything you'd like to add (or keep it plain)

Cream butter and sugars together. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients. Roll the dough into a log on a piece of wax paper (or parchment, but it's more expensive) and cover with waxed paper (including ends) Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight. Preheat oven to 350F. Slice log of dough into cookies and place on greased cookie sheet (I always use parchment). Bake 10-12 minutes until light brown. Do not over cook. Eat. Do not over eat.