The Adventures of Cracky the Slow Cooker

Meet Cracky. He is my slow cooker. I can't call him a crock pot, because he was made by GE. He is one of my best kitchen friends. In the short amount of time that we've known each other, Cracky and I have had several adventures together. I can fill up his crocks with tasties and leave the house for a whole day's adventuring and not worry if my minions are having to suffer without food because Alpha Man says he has never cooked anything. How that man managed to survive without me is a mystery. How he manages to survive WITH me is an even greater mystery. I'm not easy to live with.

The first time I broke out this cooker was the day after I bought it. I had wanted one ever since Christmas, when my friend was telling me about hers. After looking at the ones I could find, this was the only one that had crocks that were big enough for meal sized portions. Most of them have crocks that are 1.5 quarts, this one has 2.5 quart crocks.

One day, I left for the day and left everyone here plus a kid who likes to come over and hang out. Because I expected my adventures to take me over 100 miles away, before I walked out the door, I put in a batch of taco meat, a recipe of beans and smoked sausages, and another crock of chicken legs in General Tso sauce. Prior to that, I had made meatballs, spaghetti sauce, and BBQ pork. It's so easy to use this thing to make enough food for a few days' leftovers for lunches and snacks!
Thus, I named my slow cooker Cracky, and invited him into our home as a welcome family member.

Today, I wasn't feeling well and had a few errands to run, so before I left I set up a turkey breast, a pot of spaghetti sauce, and threw in some cauliflower with a mix of stuff from the fridge. I had a little bit of leftover cheese sauce, a little bit of beef broth, some fresh butter, and some cream so I mixed that up and sauced it with that. I figured it would become soup-like in nature.

6 hours later, everything was finished. Thing 1 and Thing 2 had pasta for dinner with meatballs while Alpha Man and I had turkey and cauliflower. He put spaghetti sauce and parmesan all over his turkey and just slopped the cauli onto his plate. It looked kind of like gruel... I ate a little turkey and 2 bowls of soup. It turned out so pretty, I was inspired to write this up. I dipped mine into a bowl and cut a few green onions on top of a sprinkle of cheese and a grind of pepper and he goes "I hate it when your food is prettier than mine," and I was like "You mean always?" Now, I will tweak the cauliflower recipe and maybe post it one day. It needed salt, but doesn't it look nice?

Bacon bits? How about making your own!

We really love bacon in our house and if you eat low carb, you know that bacon isn't nearly as unhealthy as people seem to think and bacon fat makes a nice fat to cook your other tasties in.

A week or two ago, I was at a small, local grocery store and they were doing a remodel. They were throwing things into the discount bins left and right! I picked up 5 3 pound packages of bacon ends and pieces for $2 each! That means that a pound of bacon in those packages equaled 66.6 cents (I told y'all that Alpha Man was a devil...)

If you've ever bought bacon bits in a store, you know the ones that are made from real bacon are extremely expensive. You get a tiny 3 ounce jar for almost 3 bucks! Whaaaaat? So I brought home 15 pounds of bacon for 10 dollars. I cooked a package and we ate some on salads and such, then I cooked another but I kept putting off freezing the other packages, even with the food saver. Last night, I finally gave in and chopped them all into bits and cooked 9 pounds of bacon into bacon bits for freezing. I used my large dutch oven for this and just stirred them while they cooked. Then, I would drain and put in another batch.

It's pretty easy to make your own convenience foods like bacon for salads. Once I was done, I spread them all out onto a cookie sheet and froze them. Then, I put them into quart jars and stuck them in the freezer. Now whenever we have salads, we already have our bacon made, so my life is that much easier. And the best part? I got this much out of it.

That is 4 quarts of ready to eat bacon bits for what it would have cost to buy only 4 tiny bottles of the ones from the store. So watch those meat sales! And if you find one of your stores is remodeling, go in often! You never know what they may be closing out on and marking down.

Making butter from cream from the grocery store AKA the Loveliest Butter in the World

Yes, I know, it has been a while, but I only have so much attention span to spread throughout my myriad projects and schemes that are constantly whirling about.

Today, we are going to talk about butter. Real butter. Delicious, delectable, decadent butter. This week, I found 7 half pints of cream on sale at the store for a mere .50 per carton. Being low on self control but high on innovation, I bought first, thought second. Yesterday, we made butter. Not only was this a great homeschool project, but it was also a great way to involve my minions in one of my food passions. Here is how we did it. We have, by the way, done this before, and I'll cover a few aspects of troubleshooting while I show you.

First of all, you need a plastic jar with lid (see how we use a recycled Miracle Whip jar? Alpha Man's bad habits sometimes pay off!!), 2 marbles, and a carton of cream. Contrary to what you may read on the web, do NOT use a glass Mason jar. See, we made butter with a Mason jar back before Thanksgiving, and it was wonderful. It was so wonderful, in fact, that we set ourselves up to make it again at Christmas, when the grandparents came for their visit. We were going to show off our butter making skills and then make grilled cheeses with our ultimate butter to go with the soup we were having for dinner. However, the glass jar we were using exploded all over Thing 1 while he was taking his turn at churning. Poor Thing 1! It was a waste of good cream, too. There was cream everywhere! It was all over him, my computer chair, and the carpet. He was so mad at me for coming up with this scheme. Whatever! My only regret is that I didn't get a pic.

Anyway, I digress. You only need the above supplies to make yourself a nice surprise. Pour the cream in the jar and add the marbles. Like this! Then put the lid on. Do not forget this important step!

Next, find a willing victim ... err ... I mean Participant! and they get to start shaking the jar. Everyone in the house should take a turn at this so that no one throws out their shoulder. Seriously, everyone, even the neighbor kid if he is over for a visit. And if you're old enough to find this online, you're old enough to realize that The Hard Part will be all your responsibility so let them shake the jar until you don't hear the marbles anymore (3-5 minutes), then take a look inside and you will have a jar full of whipped cream. Like this!

Now, you take over and reeeeeaaaalllllyyyy put your arm into shaking. Do whatever you need to do to create movement in that jar, while it is just whipped cream it will probably just slop from side to side or up and down with large, splatty plops that sound like you're slopping a wet towel onto the bottom of your bathtub. After a minute or two or what seems like a lifetime, it will suddenly become easier. Open it up and take a look. It will look like this, where it's all coming together in the center and you will see a little bit of whey starting to form.

Put the lid back on and keep shaking. It won't be long till there is a firm ball in the center. That is your butter.

Fish it out and put it in a bowl.
Take out the marbles and clean them off and salt your butter if you like. I like. The salt makes a big difference in bringing out the flavor and it doesn't take much.
While you mash the salt in, a little more whey will come out. Just put it back in the jar.

In the end, from a half pint of cream, you will have about half a cup of whey and half a cup of the most amazing butter you've had. So hide it. Or share it with your loveypies, your call.

Put the whey in a jar and save it for something. There are many different things it can be used for, perhaps as a soup liquid or if you have enough, you can make ricotta. We made 2 batches yesterday and I'm not sure how much ricotta I can make with a cup of whey but I'm going to try it out. It will probably only make a bite, but it will be a great bite.

Honk if You're Horny! Did I just say that?

Happy Halloween! Today I am going to show you how to make a proper hat for your work environment.

Any of you who know Alpha Man know that he really is a devil. Therefore, it is only appropriate that he wear horns for Halloween. He is, in many ways, a child at heart so I try to indulge him as much as possible plus he needs something to wear while he and Thing 2 go trick or treating in the neighborhood together. In the image below, you will see two hats. One is his hat from the place he used to work (it's tan), I had to remove the pieces from it to finish this project and the black one is the hat from the place he works now.

Normally, you would only need one hat but since this is a transfer, we had two.
You also need a hot glue gun, 2 circles of firm cardboard, slightly larger than the horn ends, 2 pieces of old fabric (I used a cut up holey sock from his drawer) and a pair of scissors. Oh! And my iPhone. I was actually making this as part of my flylady routine for the day, so I had to have the phone close by for using the timer and also the Pandora app. What did I ever do without that phone? I now carry the world at my fingertips.

Your first step is to cut a hole in the sides of the hat, a little smaller than the ends of the horns that rest against the head. This is because you not only need to allow for the glue but also for fraying the fabric so that it looks like the horns just shoved through, no longer able to be contained by a mere hat.

I'm sorry if my hands are dirty, I had just come in from working in the garden, pulling up the dead plants and thinking about putting in some Brussels Sprouts.
Your second step is to cut little snips around the edges of the holes and then pinch them over and over until you fray them out.

Next, take the hot glue and burn yourself with it a few times and glue the fabric to the back of the cardboard circle.

You need the cardboard for support and the fabric keeps the cardboard from rubbing around in the hair. While running the glue in a circle on the cardboard piece, burn yourself again just for good measure, then press the ends of the horns into the glue. By the way, we got those horns at Party City about 4 years ago. The paint is peeling so next year we will either repaint them or peel them completely.

Next, you insert and line up the horns inside the hat and at the a spot where the base joins the hat, you need to line it all the way around and (burn yourself!) press the fabric into it, taking care to make sure that the fray looks real.
Thing 1 took these pictures that have both of my hands in them. Didn't he do a great job? This, by the way, is the hard part and it's not hard.

Then you have the subject try on the hat. I done tol' y'all that he is a devil.

Now, some of you may be wondering what, if anything, happened to the other hat, the one from his previous job. We probably just threw it away, right? Oh, no. Not us! We did what any red blooded American family would have done. We torched it in the yard in a bizarre family ritual, complete with dance and chanting.

And Thing 2 roasted some marshmallows. Yep, that's a wire coat hanger, we like to do things fancy!

And that, as they say, is that. This is all that's left.

Beans, Beans ... They're Good for Your Heart

We (aka You Know Who) like beans. I put them in soups and stir fry and all manner of household tasties. Well, tasties if beans are your thing. There was a time when my mom tried to make me eat some beans from a can and I was too little to say anything other than "BUG!" and she kept trying to force it and then she looked and there was a big, brown beetle in there. That pretty much ruined the bean experience for me, though I would stand at the stove and pick the choice bits of ham out of the pot as I got older. Anyway! Alpha Man enjoys a tasty pot of beans and they're very healthy and inexpensive.

I usually keep a variety of canned ones on hand but haven't seen a coupon for them since I've started couponing again. I did, however, have 3 bags of dried ones in the pantry and beans freeze well so I soaked them and cooked them with no seasoning in order to try out something that I have deemed to be wildly successful. Yes! WILDLY! Successful.

I took the pot of cooked beans and set my muffin tins out on the counter. Then I measured out 1/2 cup portions of just beans into the muffin cups.

My friend asked me "Why half cup portions?" and I went on a 30 minute dissertation on portion sizes and being able to measure them out for recipes (I wanted to make m'self look like I'm clever, you know!) but really, it's because the muffin tins only hold half a cup :-P

After that was complete, I took the bean juice and poured it in to the top. This was so they would all stick together when frozen.

Then I stuck them in the freezer till the next day, when I ran a large rectangular pan full of hot water and set the tin in it for a few seconds and let the cubes come loose, lifted them out and put them back in the freezer for 13 minutes to refreeze the sides.

Toss them in a bag and you have a dozen 1/2 cup portions to add to any recipes. 3 pounds of beans made way more than a dozen, though, I worked on this for 2-3 days before they were all put up.

They're already cooked and just need seasoning. It takes about 2 minutes to thaw 2 of them in the microwave but some recipes I don't even thaw, I just toss them into whatever pot they're going in.
By the way, from a budget standpoint, this is waaaaayy less expensive than beans from a can it just takes more work plus you have the added benefit of knowing what's in your food.

And it's NOT a big, brown beetle.

Making Corn Pops Be Edible AKA Don't Waste Food!

Corn pops are, in my opinion, cold cereal's greatest fail. I never liked them as a child and I still do not. Neither do my children. Therefore, I'm unsure of why I ended up with a box in my pantry. They were destined for the food pantry when one of the children opened the box up one day, ate a bowl, and deemed the remains inedible. So here I was, stuck with them and nobody willing to take one for the team.

Today while cleaning in the kitchen some (a never ending job for a chronically messy person such as myself) I looked over at that open box as it mocked me from the cereal shelf, ridiculing my choices and my unwillingness to throw away perfectly good food. I decided it was time for some action. I opened the pantry door and spied a bag of reject marshmallows, took them out, and it was on.

These marshmallows turned out to be way too big for roasting and too big for s'mores, so they have been languishing in the bottom of the pantry for quite some time, begging for attention and love, which is what all marshmallows really need. You can clearly tell this is fact by this photo I took during a rare moment of marshmallow activity.

So I weighed the marshmallows out and cut them into small pieces and followed the recipe for Rice Crispy treats using the corn pops.

After they had set and gotten cool, thus less gooey, I cut one out and looked at it. It was, of course, a much more lumpy texture than crispies but still all glued together from the marshmallow goo. Then I plated them up.

So far, they are being given a passing grade in our extensive food testing facility. There have been no complaints from the rabble, I mean, the customers and the supply is beginning to dwindle. Weill I make them again? No. I hope to never buy another box of Corn Pops unless it's an accident.

Saving money on boneless, skinless chicken breast

Here is the post I promised several weeks ago about how to save money on chicken breasts. Lots of people LOVE chicken breasts but hate the price because they are always expensive! Not anymore if you just follow what I am about to show you.

This week, bone-in split breasts are on sale for $1 per pound. That's half the price of boneless, skinless breasts and I promise you that the bone in those things does not weigh much at all and you can do magical things with it. So wait for a good sale and then stock up if you have the freezer space! Here is a breast and my set up for boning it.

And here is a pic of the breast with some arrows to show you where you want to cut with your knife. See that line of fat on the bottom? If you start putting some small cuts there, you'll feel the knife come to the bone. Just start rolling your cuts in from there, staying as close to the bone as possible.

Then when you get to about the center, come up underneath and start cutting from the underside. This side will be a little easier, because you can use the cartilage as a guide. The breast will come off very easily. Also, pay attention to the long, teardrop shaped muscle that I've pointed out. It's special.

THAT, dearhearts, is your tenderloin. It is the choice piece of the breast, which, for many, are already choice pieces. It's the piece that you will see sometimes in packages and more expensive than regular chicken breast. I like to bone enough breasts that I have a batch of these and then either freeze them for later or make a batch of tenders. A lot of store bought tenders are just sliced breasts. If you bone them yourself, you should have a tenderloin on every piece and that alone makes it worth it to me to do the work myself.

So pull the bone back, and the end will usually have a tiny bone that you have to cut around. Don't throw the bones away! Toss them in a bowl to make stock with.

Pull off the tenderloin and set it aside. There is a thin membrane separating it from the breast, so this is easy. Then pull off the skin. This part is easy, too. I don't throw this away, either. Now you should have one large breast and one tenderloin. Do this again with each breast until you're finished with the amount you have bought.

I do this with several pounds of chicken at one sitting usually, but this time, I did one 4 lb package just to make this post. But when I do 30 pounds, I will pack them in portions of 2 or 4 and seal them for freezing with my foodsaver. I also sometimes slice them along the length and freeze them on a sheet pan before tossing them in a bag just like the IQF breasts at the store.

Next, I will put the bones in a pot, cover them with water and boil them for a short time, then remove them and take the bits of cooked meat off and make a pot pie or something right away. You can also make a great soup with them, just toss the bones back in and simmer them for a while so that your stock will be very rich, remove them and add whatever soupy things you like. Being a great cook isn't really a science.

Next (and this is not for everyone especially if you are afraid of fat, which I'm not lol) take the chicken fat and skin you cut off and dice it up into bite size pieces, slice an onion and throw it all into a heated pan. Salt and pepper them.

Stir these a LOT and let them get brown and crispy and the onions will sometimes burn a little and caramelize, however imperfectly, the fat will render and you can even save that out and use it to brush on vegetables when you roast them.

I added the frog because I read once that you need something green on your plate.

THIS is my favorite part. Your arteries will be begging you for mercy but your soul will love you.