Angeline7270

Damn those girl scout cookies.

Q. How many waitresses does it take to change a lightbulb? A. Three. Two to stand around and complain about it and one to get the manager.

I'm not much of a sweet lover, but one thing my family has always done the past 25-30 yrs is make pumpkin rolls. They are like having pumpkin pie and cheesecake all in one...always the first dessert to disappear. Also, the next best thing to a perfectly cooked turkey(and gnawing in the crispy turkey tail..or "butt" as we call it), is a few cold slices the next morning, on Wonder bread with mayo...the only time, besides pb&j sandwiches, when Wonder bread is acceptable.

We have 5 sons, my MIL and BIL, as well as ourselves living in one house, so thrifty cooking and shopping are a way of life around here. My most helpful hints are to improvise with recipes, freeze indivual portions in ziplocs for quick heat and eat meals and get to know your grocer/butcher/fish monger. You can improvise most any recipe with what is on sale that week or what you have a surplus of. The ziploc meal portions are great when you have hungry teenagers always foraging in the fridge for food. Getting friendly with the grocer ensures a heads up on any future sales, and maybe even special discounts. I had an vendor at the West Side Market who every few months would give me a free case of speckled bananas in exchange for a couple loaves of banana bread. In return, I got enough bananas to bake with, and mash and freeze for months of future baking. Also...buy in bulk and freeze recipe sized portions when there's a great sale on meat or fresh veggies. I'm also always on the lookout at the reduced produce rack...I can get 6-7 red bell peppers for $1, one or 2 might have a couple soft spots...but if I cut around the soft spots, dice or slice and freeze in ziplocs the same day, I have red peppers ready to go for months...which is a timesaver as well. I also stock up onions when they are on sale and dice or slice and freeze half of them. Mushrooms freeze well if they are sauteed before freezing. Fresh herbs can also be pureed with a little water and frozen in ice cube trays...makes handy recipe size cubes. My favorite store offers lunchmeat and deli cheese ends for 1.59 a lb....hunks of ham ends are great in bean soups...and the cheese can be melted into a bechamel sauce for casseroles, sauces, etc. They also freeze well as is for future cooking. Also, stock up on butter when it is on sale, and freeze in ziplocs. Pints of whipping cream also freeze well, if you don't plan to whip it later...great for cooking tho. I also do little things, like use reconstituted powdered milk for baking or cooking...you can't tell the difference in the finished product. A great summertime meal is to make a pasta salad with whatever veggies need to get used up, you can even add some diced leftover meat or seafood from a previous meal. In the winter, the same veggies and meat can make a great stew or homemade potpie or casserole. We NEVER buy processed or convenience food...it's so much cheaper to make your own 'convenience' food....making homemade pizzas in quantity and freezing the unbaked pies is 1/4 of the price and incomparable in taste. Making homemade cookies is a great way to spend a little time with the kids, and you end up with twice the cookies for 1/4 of the price. Elbow macaroni is so cheap, and with a cheese sauce made from those deli cheese ends produces a mac and cheese that beats the boxed stuff every time...adding leftover meats and/or veggies makes it an even more substantial meal. A good investment are some sectioned tupperware-type containers to make your own "tv dinners", they pack great to bring to work for lunch...by lunchtime, they are partially thawed and ready to reheat in a microwave. No need for ice packs or a cooler. I hope at least some of this was useful to you guys...just things I've picked up over the years. A little frugality each day allows you a little extra in the budget for those "special" meals once in awhile...cuz we all deserve a little extravagence in our lives.

My favorite vendors have always been the ones who bothered to get to know me...who knew my family's likes and dislikes, our eating habits, etc. I've never had to haggle with the vendors who know me, they know what I like, and even set aside items for me knowing I'd be there later in the afternoom. I can recall one time where I was given a free box of bananas in exchange for making a few loaves of banana bread for a vendor. I was able to have days worth of fresh bananas for the kids, many loaves of banana bread, and additional ziploc's of frozen mashed bananas for future baking, all for the cost of about $3 worth of flour, butter, eggs and baking powder. Who needs to haggle when you have people like that around?

I braise pork shoulder quite often. Pretty cheap cut of meat, needs to braise or be smoked for many hours to be really good. What I ususally end up doing is starting it the night before in a 225 degree oven. By morning it's falling off the bones. I refrigerate the meat and the braising liquid separately, an hour or so before dinner time, I throw potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and cabbage into a roaster with the braising liquid, which i skim the fat off of after it cools. About 30 minutes before the veggies are done, I add the pork shoulder to reheat. For leftovers, I make shredded pork tacos or BBQ pork sandwiches, but save enough meat to make a soup out of any leftover veggies and the braising liquid, adding whatever stock I have on hand and maybe some cooked beans, pasta or rice. You get a lot of bang for your buck that way.

I'd start bu ying stuff for Thanksgiving...whatever i can buy ahead or buy and pre-cook. My MIL moved up here from FL in June, and her other 3 kids(and their kids), that are living up here in IL, are expecting a big, family Thanksgiving. If I were to run off with the $500, I'd buy myself some extravagant ingredients I wouldn't normally be able to afford. And a really good knife. Although maybe a hotel room under a pseudonym for Thanksgiving weekend would be a better idea. My advice..forget the in-laws, buy something YOU want.

I ran across this website a few years ago, and this thread made me think of it....Gallery of Regrettable Foods

Boiled peanuts can be made with dried, unroasted raw peanuts in the shell, too. Just takes a lot longer to boil them. Mine came out really good, after about 6 hrs of boiling. My mil who lived in FL for over 20 years said she never used the green ones, and never had a problem. I'm sure the green are much quicker, the recipes I've seen call for boiling them 1 1/2-3 hrs. Oh, well. The end result was the same, and I have the time...I'm home with the babies all day anyway. Maybe next time I'll try the green ones and see if I can see a big difference.

Sigh. I miss Cleveland.

They had Hacker-Pschorr Weisse on tap at the restaurant I used to work at. I really enjoyed that beer, no bitter aftertaste at all. I'd recommend it for someone who thinks they don't like beer.

We had a bottle of Yellowtail over the weekend and noticed an odd smell also, reminded me of a strong talcum powder. My friend said it hadn't been like that when she had tasted it in the store. ← Anyone watch Monk? It wasn't Aqua Velva, was it?

I found a website that sells a 5 lb bag of raw in the shell peanuts for 6.49. Not a bad price. Here's the link...kingnut.com? I lived in Savannah for a year when I was 21, I was addicted to boiled peanuts. When I moved up to Cleveland, I was able to get raw peanuts at the West Side Market. I moved to Illinois 4 yrs ago and haven't been able to find any around here...can't wait til they get here!

Maybe some green tomato pickles or relish. Relatively easy to can in mason jars, and you can enjoy them all winter.

I add sour cream to my pierogi dough and cut down on the eggs. It makes the dough less tough when you fry them in butter and onions after they are boiled.

I just made a second purchase at a place called Bulkfoods.com. The price are great, and the shipping is free, although they do charge a 4.95 handling fee per order, regardless of size.

I forgot to add that my brother in law didn't even get a cake for my nephew...ended up sending the hubby out to pick one up. It was, after all, the poor kid's birthday.

That wouldn't stop these people...they'd probably go dig through my closet looking for a robe for themselves.

My in-laws are a handful, too. Hubby's sister has 15 yr old triplets, and a bad habit of "dropping by" with them. We have 5 sons of our own, and coming up with something to feed all these kids at the spur of the moment is not an easy task. While I was busy trying to quick thaw some immense amount of food in the microwave, the triplets manage to drink all the soda and eat anything resembling snack food in the house. This past Memorial Day, my sister in law was supposed to host a cookout at her house, which she asks everyone to bring a dish to. Well, the night before, she drank too much tequila and cancelled on us. So I was left with a large pot of baked beans. The day after her hangover, she invited herself and her husband, her triplets, and her 18 yr old daughter and 23 yr old son over to our house for the cookout. Of course, she didn't bring a dish. At least I had the baked beans. I ended up having the hubby go out and buy a large box of preformed hamburger patties and chips, all of which we had to pay for. Not to mention all the soda and beer. I was also 9 months pregnant at the time and in the middle of packing because we were moving in a couple weeks. The year before that, 2 days after I got home from the hospital after having a c-section, my brother in law said he was going to celebrate his son's birthday at our house. I at first thought it would just be my family, my brother in law, and my nephew. Silly me. We ended up with the sister in law- triplets in tow, the other sister in law- who has banshees as children, even an uncle from out of state who ended up staying at our house for 2 days. I was only told that morning that i was cooking and was never told for how many people...until I started getting phone calls asking what time the "party' was starting. If it weren't for the vicodin pumping through my system, I think I would have killed them all.

In 1998, I had a huge garden and had designated a patch of it for my 4 and 5 yr olds to plant radishes, green beans and yellow squash. Later on in the summer, i had grilled some burgers and served them on sesame seed buns. My 5 yr old look at me excitedly and asked, "Mommy, if I plant these seeds, can I grow a hamburger plant?"