Frugal Fridays: Road Goodies

Clearly I am tardy but I feel like I have a fairly valid excuse. I was busy. I had no internet access. I was in the middle of no where! Well, I was in the middle of Nevada,Utah and Wyoming which is close enough.
Kurt and I decided that after over a year we should go visit some of our family and friends back in "the old country" . So we packed our bags and hit the road. Only we were a little bit sneaky and left early without telling anyone. So we drove through the night with the baby kicking me in the bladder and causing us to make way more stops than I'd like to admit to. Who knew such a tiny little thing could be so powerful? It was quite a fun adventure, all eighteen hours of it, really.
Luckily, over the last few years I have learned that there will always be certain things that occur when traveling with Kurt. First is that you always travel on the top half of the tank. This is something driven into him by his father. I just figure spending close to $4 a gallon gives Kurt something to do every time I need to stop. Second is that he will rarely let me drive which is likely because I terrify him. He terrifies me too, so prefer to chalk it up to chivalry. Third, is that for reasons I cannot claim to understand he will buy a soda and disgusting snack item and/or candy bar at 75% of the places we get gas. This also translates into mild confusion when I want to stop for an actual meal. I'm a perplexing sort of gal I suppose.
One day I will learn that despite my best efforts Kurt will forever see the grand road trip as a valid reason to fill up on prepackaged goodness. In the meantime, however, I will continue to make road goodies in an effort to only contribute funds to 75% of the gas stations stores we stop at. I figure I'm not only saving a little cash but also saving myself from having to eat that crap.

Frugal Friday Tip: Make a few special treats to take on long car rides. It's a lot cheaper than gas station food and far less questionable. As a bonus when you reach your destination your host can gobble it up to0!

Crunchy Caramel Corn (makes enough to fill my roasting pan)

• 1 2/3 cups popcorn kernels, popped (this is the amount of kernels, not the end product)
• 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Pop your corn and place into a roasting pan. Heat oven to 200.
In a medium pot combine butter, sugars, syrup and salt and bring to boil over medium heat. Boil for five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda.
Pour caramel over popcorn and stir gently to coat. Place into oven. Bake for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Transfer to a giant bowl and eat or bag it up for the road.


*Chocolate pretzels are another easy goody to make. I just don't recommend them for summer travel, but they are great at home for game day.

Purely Selfishness,Biscuits

Sorry about the crappy picture.

I have a confession to make. The primary reason for me posting this recipe today is selfishness. Sure, I'd love to share it with you. I want you to make these for your family and friends. Honestly though, I want to be able to find this recipe when I need it. I usually end up searching through my e-mail box to no avail only to move on to a word program and then to another. Now it's RIGHT HERE. I realize that there are all of five ingredients and I should have it tucked away in my mind by now but it just won't stick. So here I am .

This recipe comes straight out of a cookbook but since I haven't the foggiest idea which one, I'm going to go ahead and post it. It came about one Saturday morning six or seven years ago. I hadn't been living on my own for very long and lived mostly off of doctored up Pasta-Roni. It was cheap but a step above Ramen noodles so I felt pretty good about it. One night a friend of mine came up to spend the night and the next morning we found ourselves craving biscuits. Being of the mindset that cooking was fun (even if we hadn't quite figured it out yet) we decided to make our own rather than investing in the canned kind. On second thought, we probably were just too lazy to go to the store. I think at the time I owned all of one cookbook: The Nestle Tollhouse cookbook. I'd gotten it for my ninth birthday despite my disenchantment at the time the pages were tattered and spattered upon. The book held no biscuit recipe though. So we did what any 18-year-old would: Called MOM! My friend's mother kindly dug through her cookbooks and found this recipe for us. It is incredibly simple, very quick and has been a stand-by for me since that day. While these biscuits aren't as delicate as those with butter carefully cut into them I think that the ease of preparation makes them invaluable. It also makes me a whole lot more likely to actually make them.

Easy Biscuits (from somewhere in Jenee's Mom's cookbook)
Makes about 8 biscuits

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 400.
In a small mixing bowl stir together flour, powder and salt with a fork. Pour in oil and milk and gently stir until combined. Now we have choices...
a) Drop the biscuits about inch apart on a baking sheet or in a baking dish.
b) Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Flour your hands and GENTLY pat the dough into a round that is about 1 1/4 inches thick. Um, they're biscuits, just eye ball it. Cut into rounds (or other shapes if you're fancy) and place onto baking sheet or dish.
Bake for about 10-15 minutes depending on how large you made your biscuits. Serve warm.

Afterthoughts: These are also easy to add things to. You can add 1/3 cup of cheese, a tablespoon of herbs, or if you are making strawberry shortcake:a tablespoon of sugar.

Blueberry Muffins, simple enough

There are somethings things in life that are great because of one thing: They are simple. Then there are those other things that sound like they should be simple but really now, it's all a lie. Like bread for instance. It seems like one of life's great simple pleasures, just not when I try to make it. Moving is yet another prime example! You take the stuff from house A and put in in boxes. You then transport boxes from house A to house B and viola! You've moved! Only not quite. And gosh darn it the simple thing that has been evading me for years now is blueberry muffins.
As you read this I am sure you are thinking, "I have a great recipe for blueberry muffins! I will give you my recipe! Why didn't you say that you needed a recipe?" I could answer that but it would go delving into a place in my psyche that don't want to go. Let's just say that maybe it's a youngest-child-only-girl-two-year-old regression thing and I like to do it myself. Yes, I gave in and asked my mom for the recipe that my five year old niece says is the best. But that was on a loose piece of paper and I lost it at least three times. Plus, that would be admitting defeat even though the recipe came from a cookbook I gave her so technically I could say I gave her the recipe. Kurt kindly pointed out that his mom had a lovely blueberry muffin recipe. What kind of daughter in law would I look like though if I had to come crawling and begging for recipes? Silly boy. So clearly I'd much rather suffer through some nasty muffins than be a grown up about this all.
Sometimes suffering pays off in the end and being a grown up about my cooking isn't really a goal of mine. Finding a muffin that would make me sad when I realized that I swallowed the last bite is.

Photo disclaimer: I can never ever get a recipe to make 12 muffins or cupcakes or anything really. No, I am not being a pansy muffin cup filler, I just always end up with extra. I suppose if you wanted to you could add the extra batter in the cup and have crazy muffins. I like to play it safe here and just put it in some ramekins on the side. That's why the muffins in the picture look different, the just have bigger cups. Be nice to them, they're tasty.

Buttery Blueberry Muffins

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
• scant 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons sour cream (or plain yogurt)
• zest of one lemon*
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup milk
  
• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups blueberries mixed with a bit o' flour(mine happened to be frozen and that was fine)

Preheat the oven to 400.
Cream butter, oil and sugar until it's fluffy. Meanwhile, in a land not so far away, sift together your flours, baking powder and salt and set aside. Add in [to the butter mixture] egg, sour cream, zest and vanilla and mix until well combined. Mix in milk until combined-ish. WARNING: It won't truly combine and is going to look curdled and nasty like below. Don't freak out! Think of those little chunks as pieces of LOVE. When those little bits of butter melt you will dig it.
Add flour mixture into wet ingredients and mix to barely combine. Add in the bluberries and give it a quick stir. Divide into muffins tins and bake for 20 minutes.

*I know you think these will be super lemony but really it just balances out the buttery flavor. Roll with it.

Frugal Fridays: French Onion Soup

One of my brother's has a financial blog and IMed me this morning about a blog sharing idea he had. So here is the plan: Every, er, some Fridays I will write a post including a money saving kitchen tip and (hopefully) a wallet friendly recipe. The Brother will also post on his blog and everyone can be fat AND have a happy wallet. Here it goes.....

Kurt and I just bought our first home! It's a small condo not too far from where we were renting. We got a great deal on it and we're pretty excited about it. As anyone who has ever moved into something other than a cardboard box knows you (ideally) purchase a particular home because you like it. This is all great until you move in and realize how much more you would like it after you change or add about 53 "little" things. Turns out that a little times 53 equals a lot every time. Here's where it gets a little crazy...
Even though we didn't move very far the dates on our rental and our closing date on the house didn't match up. Fortunately, my brother kindly allowed Kurt and I to stay with him during the in between time. This was great because cardboard boxes don't hold up well in Denver's snow and we also really like his wife and two squids. The down side to that is that most homes don't have room for the food stockpiles of two families. So while pantry items were saved I have to re-build the fresh and frozen section of our kitchen. Can you say cha-ching?

So let's recap: New house+paint+53 "little" things+ empty fridge= happy stores/sad bank account. What's a girl with a new but empty kitchen to do? A few classic and tasty dishes can stretch your buck and please your stomach when it's not quite payday yet. So can some effective planning and budgeting, but that part is on my brother's blog.

Frugal Idea of the Week: Some classic food dishes have stood the test of time because our ancestors had times where supplies were meager. Having a few in your repertoire can save you money and make for a very happy hubby (or whoever you happen to be feeding).

French Onion Soup
Serves two with left overs for lunch

• 1/4 cup butter (that's a half a stick, Hint: it's cheapest at Costco)
• 2 yellow onions, sliced (read: cheap kitchen staple)
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
  
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 bayleaf
• 2 tablespoons flour
  
• 4 cups beef broth (mine was on sale, bonus!)
  
• 2 slices of swiss cheese (Also on sale, dang I'm amazing)
  
• 2 slices of bread

In a large Saute pan over medium low heat melt butter and add onions,garlic, thyme and bay leaf. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes until very soft and well caramelized. (Note: I am really impatient and suck at this. Wait it out, it's worth it.)
Add flour to onions and continue to stir and cook for about 5 minutes. Slowly stir in the broth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove bay leaf.
Place a slice of cheese on each piece of bread and place under broiler until the cheese is melted. Pour soup into bowls and top with toasted bread and cheese.

Thoughts: This soup was perfect for the snowy weather and so delicious. It's a well known classic that is nice enough for company and easy to make more of. If you find your self with an excess of these ingredients (say, from an awesome sale you found) make some to freeze for a night when you don't have time to cook.