More adventures in cooking from scratch...using Pinterest.

Had a craving for chocolate, so my son and I made these chocolate muffins.

I love finding new recipes to try using Pinterest. Here is the recipe for the above Chocolate Muffins. I tweaked very little other than using all purpose flour instead of wheat and vegetable oil instead of sunflower oil. I also didn't have buttermilk on hand, so I substituted lemon juice and milk. They were very yummy!

If you use recipes you find on Pinterest, I recommend you create a board to repin the pins you have tried. Not only does it make it easier to find those pins again, but it also validifies that Pinterest is a very useful way to spend your time because you are using all those ideas you have pinned.

I have a lot of food finds pinned to my boards. Feel free to repin!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Adventures in Internet Baking

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I would be experimenting with baking from scratch. Sometimes a recipe sounds awesome, but you just don't have all of the ingredients on hand. So far the results have been pretty good, especially considering that I like to "tweak" recipes to make them my own.

Here is one of my latest exploits:

Tropical Isle Biscotti Recipe

Prep: 25 min. Bake: 30 min. Yield: 18

Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup vegtable oil

2 eggs

1/4 cup lime and lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup almond flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup flaked coconut

1 teaspoon grated orange peel (cut orange in half when done and squeeze juice into mix)

Directions

In a small bowl, beat sugar and oil until blended. Beat in the eggs, lime & lemon juice mix, vanilla and almond extracts. Combine the flour, almond flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add to sugar mixture and mix well. Stir in coconut and orange peel. Squeeze in juice from grated orange.

With lightly floured hands, shape into a approx 2 inch wide rectangle on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet (you may need to divide the dough in half for two baking sheets). Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until set.

Place pan on a wire rack. When cool enough to handle, transfer to a cutting board; cut diagonally with a serrated knife into 3/4-in. slices. Place cut side down on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 5-6 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks to cool. Store in an airtight container.

This recipe is based on the recipe for Lime Coconut Biscotti originally published in Healthy Cooking August/September 2011, p33.

 

Posted with Blogsy

From Scratch...

I have talked before about how much I love Pinterest. It is just so inspiring. So many people comment on how it is a vortex to waste your time, but I have found many useful tips and tricks from the site. My favorite is the Fauxbreeze that can be found on my Frugal Me board. So Simple! I have also found that I am dressing and accessorizing better-- at least in my opinion. I have also created a Pinterest Stuff I Have Really Tried board to not only show other that it is a valuable tool, but also to prove to myself that it is not a waste of time.

Last month, we bought a waffle maker from Target. We used a boxed mix to make the waffles and they were less than appealing. We decided that we would make a batch from scratch. Which prompted a pretty funny conversation with my 6 year old.

Little Man: Mommy can we go to the store tomorrow?
Me: Why? What do you want from the store?
Little Man: Scratch!
Me: What do you want? <insert me confused>
Little Man: You know! Scratch...to make waffles from!
Me: Oh! Scratch isn't a specific thing, it means using ingredients to make something homemade. We have to pick up the ingredients to make waffles.
Little Man: Well, can we do that? 

Sadly, we still haven't made the waffles from Scratch, but I now have a stock pile of baking ingredients (including more bags of flour than I realized I already had). I started thinking while I was pinning recipes to my Food board on Pinterest that growing up, we didn't buy a box of cake mix. There were no cans of apple pie filling. When we wanted to bake something, we pulled out the Watkins cookbook with my grandmother's handwritten notes in the margin. Somewhere in high school, the cookbook was shelved and boxes started to take over the cabinet. I still use boxes, but is my son missing out because of this? It would be cheaper to make stuff from scratch even with coupons for all those box mixes.

I still have my grandmother's cookbook. It is very brittle with age now, but it is nice to have that little bit of family tradition and history. So I have decided there will be no more box mixes in my house. I do of course have to use up the mixes I still have, but I will not be purchasing more. I have quite the collection of recipes now from Pinterest, but do you have any particular favorite boards or blogs to watch for? Maybe a favorite waffle recipe? ;)

The Saving Addiction

For the past six months, I have been couponing. Now don't get me wrong, I have talked about couponing before and Walmart price wise was always the best deal. However, that is where the coupon matching comes into play. My local Publix accepts competitors coupons and I have to say that my savings would not work without this. The idea is to watch the sales circulars for the Buy One Get One sales that Publix runs every week...then pair that sale by stacking 2 manufacturers coupons with 2 store coupons. You can use 2 coupons because you are buying 2 items...even though the one will be discounted at the register, it still counts. Publix has store coupons each week plus my store accepts Target coupons (watch the fine print, sometimes store coupons are one per customer, not per purchase).

Yes, I do pour over the ads and scour my coupon batches to match stuff up, but technology is there to make things easier. I follow several coupon and savings blogs that match up the coupons for the sales. I used to follow the Krazy Coupon Lady, but found that I couldn't use all of her advice. (I tried the binder idea, but couldn't keep up. Right now I have the binder to organize my loose coupons and use file folders for my sheets of coupons from the paper and printed on the Internet.) She has just too many stores that I couldn't use, like Albertson's...oh, how I wish Albertson's were still in the area. I still use her site for links to printable coupons, but not so much for the deal match ups. One site that I found and absolutely love is Addicted to Saving. She is a Florida girl which means that these are deals I really can use. I love the Publix coupon match ups! Another great place to find matchups are the forums on Hot Coupon World. They list the sale items posted in the circular and then follow up with the coupons that correspond to the sales.

The trick to couponing is to have multiple copies of your coupons. You can buy coupons off of sites like Ebay, but I am leary of doing that because there are some dishonest people out there passing fake coupons that you will get charged the minimum $2,500 fine for using. You also need to be careful of what printables you download. (3/17/12 Update: You may check out the list of what currently circulating coupons are out there at the Coupon Information Corporation.) The best option is to either get your friends and family to give you their paper inserts or to buy multiple copies of the Sunday paper. Some cities will even allow you to have multiples devlivered to your house. I only get one copy of the paper delivered to my house, Sunday only. I admit this is because I am a bit lazy. I don't want to have to go out to buy more papers if they don't have any worthwhile coupons that I can use. Sunday Coupon Preview will give you a list of the coupons coming out in the Sunday paper, but I have found that sometimes there are slight variances, so I don't always rely on it (it is a great tool for planning Sunday shopping trips when you know a coupon you can use will be coming out that day).

So am I really saving with coupons? Well, yes and no. I average about 50-70% savings on every shopping trip. I am still spending as much as before, but we have a fully stocked pantry and freezer chest. My son has a variety of snacks to take to school and we try new foods out that we might have hesitated about before. We are also eating out less because we have things stocked in the pantry and freezer that are quick to cook when we don't feel like cooking (I.e. chicken fingers). Now a lot of the coupons are for processed food items, so you might not find that this is something that would work for you. But there are great deals on frozen vegtables and canned items. While fresh is always the best option, these are a pretty great second. Just remember everything in moderation.

Book Review: Simply Fresh

When I was in college, there was a Ruby Tuesday in the mall. I wasn't that big of a fan. Flash forward a decade and I love it. They have a very sophisticated yet still casual concept when it comes to their food and dining atmosphere. Yeah, they aren't just burgers any more.

Andrews McMeel Publishing has put out a new cookbook called Simply Fresh: casual dinning at home by Jeff Morgan. With over 100 recipes that have been inspired by the many dishes that grace the tables at Ruby Tuesday, this cookbook is one deserving your kitchen. The recipes are simple using fresh ingredients and easy to follow directions.

Now I love cookbooks, but I admit I have a problem following directions. I have to add my own spin to things. One of the recipes that I tried out was the Tomato Soup with Fresh Basil on page 82. Yes, couldn't leave it be. I added canned lump crab and diced frozen shrimp. This chunky soup is so rich and flavorful that even my husband who is not a fan of soup or tomatoes asked for seconds. We used the leftover soup the next day to top corkscrew pasta. Like all soup, it was even better the next day. Sorry, I don't have any pictures. We ate it all before I even thought about it.

Pictures of course are the best part of a cookbook. I know it is cheaper to publish a cookbook sans photos for every recipe, but I have never understood why that should even be considered. We eat with our eyes before we ever taste our food. I will not buy a cookbook that does not show me what the recipe will look like. That is another reason I love this cookbook. There are pictures galore.

Yummm...this is all making me hungry. Time to get cooking!