Pumpkin Bread

I love making sweet breads for the boys and freezing them. It makes it so easy to have something for healthy for snack or breakfast at a moments notice.

Since my little escapade with our fall pumpkin and the creation of 20 cups of pumpkin, I have been making a lot of pumpkin bread!

Here is the recipe I use, which I tweeked a tiny bit from the Fat Free Vegan blog.

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed ( I tend to decrease the sugar)

1 cup pumpkin

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed well with 4 tablespoons water (2 eggs)

1 2/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or white flour)

1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1/4 - 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts or chocolate chips or all three!

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Oil loaf pan.

2. Combine the wet ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl and blend well. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

3. Add the liquid mixture to the dry, and stir well.

4. You could stir in the nuts and chocolate chips or just place them on top. Our family likes them on top.

5. Pour the batter into the pan(s) and place on the center rack of oven. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean--about 60-70 minutes for one large loaf.

Enjoy!

Jennifer

Harris Teeter Super Doubles!

Harris Teeter is doing their Super Doubles Coupon Event again! I am thrilled.

I get a kick start on planning my list using this blog. Here are her match ups. I use this blog a lot because she will offer all the match up's weekly for most of our local grocery stores.

Combining these match ups with the $20 of $50 coupons I was sent in the mail is going to save me a bundle. I am very excited!

Happy Shopping,

Jennifer

You don't have to be afraid of Tofu!

I get a lot of questions about my diet and usually the first one is, "What do you eat for protein?" I'll begin to rattle off my sources, beans, tofu...and usually I will hear, "TOFU!, I could NEVER eat tofu!"

Don't shy away from tofu! It is an inexpensive source of protein for vegetarians and vegans and perhaps those that do not enjoy meat. It took me a while to learn how to cook it the way my family liked, but now that I've got it, they really enjoy it. Really, I wouldn't lie to you!

I think what people are most afraid of is the gelatinous texture. Believe me, I get that, it makes me gag. My solution to that is to freeze it first. Freezing it completely changes the texture.

When I get home from Trader Joe's (the most inexpensive place for tofu) I just pop the whole container right in the freezer as is. Make sure you buy EXTRA FIRM TOFU for this recipe and others like it. When I am ready to use it I pull it out and let it thaw in the fridge. When I am ready to use it, I try to squeeze out as much water as possible with my bare hands and then slice it and lay it out on a cookie sheet as you see below.

Then I place paper towels over it and attempt to press out the water with a weight of some sort for about 30 minutes.

After it is done draining, you can marinate it anyway you like, which I would recommend because tofu doesn't have any flavor. I have a great marinade that we use that I hope to post for you. It is great for stir fry, sandwichs or just plain. Anyway, I digress...

For this recipe, my trusty helpers slice the tofu into strips.

Once you have a nice pile...

Mix up your coating. We tried a gluten free coating made from processing 1 cup krisped rice cereal and 1/4 tsp. cumin. (That large container of cumin is from one of my bulk purchases. We use a lot of cumin!)

Next set up your breading station. Egg whites w/ a little water, then coating. Coat each piece in the order you see below!

You could also use bread crumbs. These are mine from the freezer. I just take the ends of my bread and instead of throwing them out I save them in the fridge. When I have enough, I process them into crumbs and use them right out of the freezer. Saves money, besides a lot of bread crumbs from the store are filled with junk.

Next, fry them up in pan with a little olive oil until golden on all sides. They will still be soft in the middle. Set your oven to 400.


Bake for about 30 minutes until they are firmer. Flip them every so often. They will become even more firm as they cool.

Our family gobbled them up with some ketchup, even Chuck! But they are also wonderful with that Balsamic Maple Sauce or BBQ Sauce. A healthy, inexpensive alternative to chicken nuggets and fish sticks.

I got this recipe from Vegetarian Times magazine. Hope you will give tofu a try!

Check out Life as Mom for more healthy recipes in his weeks Ultimate Recipe Swap.

From Our home to yours,

Jennifer

Budget Question

A friend recently emailed me a question in regards to this post and my $50 budget.



Her question is..."When you say that you spend around $50 a week on groceries, does this also include tolietries, paper products, female products, and things of that nature?"



The answer to the question is most of the time, but there is a lot more to it than that and I'd like to explain a little bit further.



First let me start by saying that it had been my hope to be able to post my weekly shopping trips including pictures of what was purchased and how much was spent and saved. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. I simply don't have the time to keep up with that. I apologize for that. I was also hoping to talk more about my bulk shopping as well, but I never got to that either.



I use many different methods for keeping my weekly grocery budget low. In addition to matching coupons and sales, I also buy a lot in bulk and make almost everything from scratch.

I buy wheat berries, white flour, whole wheat pastry flour, oats, and sometimes rice in bulk. I am in a coop called Wheat Montana. I almost never buy bread or other baked goods such as cookies. Instead I'll buy 50 lbs of white flour at about $16 and make everything from scratch or wheat berries and grind them to make bread. I make bread about 3 times per week to feed these hungry boys. They also love to snack on sweet breads, muffins, scones, cookies, etc. and I make them all.



I buy spices and sometimes coffee in bulk from another coop called Frontier. I go in with some other families and get great quality items at a fraction of the cost. This is one of the brands of spices they sell at Whole Foods.



I also rejoined a produce coop. I was in one for about 4 years and pulled out about six months ago. The problem was we weren't eating enough produce because buying it in the grocery store was much too expensive, especially for our green drinks. So we decided to get back involved. Every 10 days the coop will purchase produce in bulk and split it among many families, making the cost low. I am very happy to be back in the coop, but I am going to have to increase my weekly budget. I'll be getting to that in another post shortly.



So, to get back to the original question, most of the time those personal items are included. But, a lot of these bulk purchases are not. My husband has asked me to change that in the new year and include them. When I am spending $50 a week on groceries, I am not normally buying many of the items I buy in bulk, thus making that weekly budget low.



I hope that answers your question. I'll try to post some bulk purchases in the near future. If you have an interest in joining me in any of these coops, let me know and I'll get you the information.



From our home to yours,
Jennifer

Pasta Fagioli Soup

I mentioned this soup on FB and got a lot of request for recipe. Since I knew that I'd be making it on New Year's Day, I decided to hold off in the hopes that I'd take some great pictures of preparing it. Well....things got a little crazy with family in town and that never happened. So all I have for you are some pictures of leftovers and one happy boy eating the leftovers. Sorry about that! But I am positive that you are going to LOVE this recipe. Everyone that I have ever made it for loves it. BTW, this is recipe was passed to me by my friend Emily, a wonderful cook.

Pasta Fagioli

1 lb of ground Italian sausage (hot or mild)

1 small onion

2 tbs olive oil

2 minced garlic cloves

4 c. liquid (combination of chicken broth and water, either 1 can broth and 2 c. water or 1 qt broth)

1 can (drained) or 2 c. white beans (I use dry and freeze in two c. portions)

1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained

3/4 c. elbow macaroni or other small pasta

salt and pepper to taste

1 c. fresh spinach, cut in strips

parm cheese to taste

1. Brown and crumble sausage and set aside. (You can see my son doing this here.)

2. Saute onion in oil until tender and then add garlic for a minute or so.

3.Add liquid, beans, tomatoes, macaroni, sausage, and salt and pepper; bring to a boil.

4. Cook for about 10 minutes or until pasta is tender.

5. Add spinach. Cook a few minutes until it wilts.

6. Serve it up with parm cheese.

He LOVES this soup! Hope you do too!

From our home to yours,

Jennifer

Imagine it, me crafty.....

I am not a crafty person, never claimed to be. It is just not my thing. I am amazed when I see the things people create.

We recently redid our bathroom. It came out wonderful and my husband did a great job! One of the things we hoped to accomplish with the new bathroom was a system to elimate the "towel problem". You know the one, it's where your child(ren) use a towel once, then toss it or hang it somewhere, then they take a new one next time. You are doing the laundry and have no idea where all these towels have come from or who to blame for them making it into to the laundry after one use.

We decided to default to our system of colors. In our house each boy has a color. We have colors, for cups.....

colors for bowls....

so why not towels!

So I hit Michael's...not my favorite thing to do, it overwhelms me to be honest. I see lots of great ideas, but not sure I can pull them off. Anyway...here is what I came home with, 4 wooden plaques and a bunch of wooden letters.

The boys set off painting their plaques and the letters of their name. I wish I had know that the tempura paint didn't really cover wood well. It took lots of coats and there still wasn't as dark as I wanted. Oh well....you live and you learn.

This is what we ended up with...

Then I glued the letters on and my husband hung them in the bathroom with a hook. We bought the boys new towels, each in their own color.

Here is the end result! Not too bad and I think they will serve their purpose.

I will never be a crafty person, but sometimes it is fun to pretend! And now I will know who left their towel on the floor!!

From our home to yours,

Jennifer

Menu Plan Monday

No, I didn't get my days of the week mixed up, I realize it is Tuesday:) I was simply waiting for my produce order to come in so I could plan my menu around it. I guess that might happen more than once depending on the produce schedule.

We have decided to increase our weekly budget to $100, but I am now responsible for paying all bulk orders. That means I actually have to save from week to week. NOT good at that, so we'll see! Another reason for the increase is that everyone will be going dairy free now that the weather has turned. We try to do that each winter, since we have some major skin issues in this house and the dairy intensifies the eczema. Lastly, we like to drink green drink every day in the winter to keep our immune systems strong. That costs a lot for six people.

Here is what I got produce wise this week. The total was $32.65. I will definately have to purchase some things at the store because this will not be enough.

It may look like a lot, but I was actually hoping for more. As with the rest of the world we are trying to get our diets back on track. So for the next 6 weeks Chuck and I are going to be doing this. I have major reservations about posting this on the blog for obvious reasons, such as, who likes to announce to an audience that you messed up royally and have no will power. So be kind and gentle to me, but hold me accountable over the next month and a half.

My menu plans will reflect this change. I am not going to have the boys following the plan because we don't want to risk an all out revolt. Therefore, I am going to be giving them meat at lunch time and we are going to do all veggie dinners for the duration of the plan.

Monday, January 4, 2010
Oatmeal, fruit, milk
leftover ham sandwiches, carrots sticks
V-Spaghetti w/garlic and oil, peas and meatballs

Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Cereal, green drink
PB & J tortilla roll ups, strawberries
V-Broccoli Cashew Teriayaki Stir-Fry w/rice and salad

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 (6 weeks starts today!)
toast, fruit, and milk
turkey sandwiches, cukes, grapes
V-Minestrone, salad, bread

Thursday, January 7, 2010
Pumpkin bread, green drink
Chick pea and pasta soup
V- Bean & Corn Tortilla Lasagna w/avocado, salad

Friday, January 8, 2010

pancakes, oranges, milk
turkey roll ups, cukes, grapes
Date Night

Saturday, January 9, 2010
Eggs, toast, green drink (dad cooks!)
Leftovers
Friend's House!

Sunday, January 10, 2010
Toast, fruit, milk
PB & J or tuna sandwiches, fruits & veggies
Chickpea Sensation Patties, zucchini w/garlic and oil, salad

For more menu ideas (more normal maybe :), check out http://www.orgjunkie.com/

From our home to yours,

Jennifer