No More Boring Drive Thru or Diner Biscuits and Gravy

I almost cruised through the drive thru at McDonalds this morning, but the line was a little TOO long for my liking. Then realized I had all the ingredients to make Biscuits & Gravy at home. Back in the old days I baked biscuits at Hardee's and learned the secret to good biscuit making. Although we used real buttermilk, I can make an awesome baking powder biscuit that is just as good and fluffy. Ditch those Grands biscuits, you know those flaky ones you pay out the ear for... you now have an awesome and quick recipe to make your own right here.

Take those and add some sausage gravy

And then get this lovely little concoction..

Gravy from McDs is frozen in sausage like packaging and warmed up and also their biscuits are frozen and nuked in a microwave. Do yourself a favor and make your own. No preservatives and you know exactly what is in your food. If you want that little McD's taste, add a little bit of sugar to your gravy. 

And now for your recipes:

Baking Powder Biscuits - 

2 C flour

1 T baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 to 1/3 C shortening (more makes the flakier biscuits)

3/4 C milk

1. Mix the dry ingredients together then add shortening. 

2. Use a pastry blender, a couple of knives, or just your clean hands to mix the shortening into the flour mixture until it is spread throughout.

3. Make a hole in the center of the bowl by moving the ingredients to the sides.

4. Add milk

5. Stir with a fork until all ingredients are mixed thoroughly, but do NOT overmix it.

6. Roll out on a floured board to 1/2" in thickness and cut out the biscuits with a cutter or a drinking glass.

7. Put on an ungreased baking sheet/pan and bake at 425F for 12-14 minutes or until light golden brown on the edges of the top of the biscuits

8. Remove from oven, then pan and put on a wire rack to cool. You can brush with butter on the tops if you want, but it isn't necessary.

9. Serve.

You can easily double this recipe if you have a hungry group to feed. I also use this recipe with the lesser amount of shortening to make dumplings for my chicken soup or beef stew.

Sausage Gravy

This is on you to suit your tastes, but this is the method to make this.

Brown 1/2 pound of sausage and reserve about 1/4 cup of drippings, add 1/2 to 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1 tsp sugar (optional) to the drippings and add a little more flour if needed if it doesn't 'sop' up the grease in the pan. Add 1 C milk and cook on medium heat until it begins to thicken. If it is too thick, add more milk until you get the right consistency a little at a time... maybe about 1/4 c at a time. Season to your preferences or dietary restrictions.

Just a good old comfort food that can be made for a few dollars and made up in advance to eat the next morning before work or school.

An Old Singer 128-13 Sewing Machine in Combination Table

My first antique sewing machine renewal project.

Back of case - Before

 Case Front - Before

 Case Right Side - Before

 Case Left Side - Before

And then the machine table:  Before -

After

This little machine is the 3/4 size machine with electric and the light. The Singer 128 Model is the electric and more 'new-fangled' version of the Singer 28. It has a vibrating shuttle in it instead of a regular bobbin that most of us are used to sewing with. I don't want to plug it in until I get the wires covered that run from the machine to the little covered box on the side. The plug that goes into the machine and plugs into the wall is in pristine condition. So after this machine is cleaned up and the wood is repaired and a solid piece again, I'll plug her in and see if the light works or if the motor still works. 

A little background checking for this machine were found with these links: 

How to identify Singer Sewing Machines made before 1950 that don't have model numbers on them

The Combination Table this machine uses

Singer Sewing Machine Serial Number Database

Singer 128 Manual

Singer 128 Service Manual

A History/Biography Lesson on Isaac Singer (neat read)

Polishing Nickel plated parts DIY

Re-birth of a Vintage Japanese Branded Sewing Machine

Okay, I did another garage sale thing yesterday and brought this baby home. Her cabinet is in bad shape and she is a little dusty with quite a few cobwebs. It's another Japanese Branded Sewing machine where many badges of all different names are put on a sewing machine. This one has embroidery cams to make designs while stitching. So first things first we will take it out of the cabinet and fix the leg that has become unattached. Then the machine will be totally cleaned and re-oiled. Then we'll put her back in and test her out.

For those of you hitting google trying to find these machine manuals and parts, it is a tough ride. We rely on one another to post the information we find to save us days or even weeks of research. So anyone looking for the Coronado, manual or info... go to the Singer website and type in W231 for the manual in the manual search page. Apparently I have a White machine after all.

A big thanks to Yahoo Group - vintagejapansewingmachines for the information I received so I can get done with this latest venture. :-)

The FREE manual for this machine can be found HERE

I Think I Want to Fix up some OLD Sewing Machines

This past Saturday I went out to the local citywide garage sales. I ended up bringing home THREE older sewing machines and only spent $2.00. NOT A TYPO! I bought one and two of them were free. The one free one needs just a bobbin case... $6.00 or so. The other freebie was an OLDER Dressmaker model in a cabinet that someone threw out at the curb. I'm spending gobs of time online trying to find what parts will be needed for which machine and joined even more Facebook & Yahoo Groups to find information on all of these since Google hates me and just wants to sell me more sewing machines or manuals. :-(

So everyone knows that the blog will be kind of quiet for a bit while I dig up some info. I'll try to feature each machine I have that I plan on working on for the topic of a post. I figure if I can learn to fix bicycles when I was a kid... what will it kill me to learn how to DIY a few sewing machines? LOL! Famous last words I'm sure!

So keep your eye out on the following players:

JC Penney Model 7057 Cat Number 868-4698 (I need to take a pic and will post it later)
It supposedly has a bobbin tension issue, but I'm going to clean it and check it out when I get a bobbin to fit it as it isn't the 15 style/size of bobbin.

Manual can be found here: http://www.singerco.com/uploads/download/1278_4538.pdf

Montgomery Ward UHT-J 1934 

 

All this baby seems to need is a bobbin case so as soon as I find one for the best shipping price AND price, I'm getting one.

Then I have the oldest machine that needs some major TLC

Dressmaker

This poor baby was thrown out to the curb and will require the most work so far to get her all fixed up. I need the shank, feet, bobbin winder tire and some bolts to attach it to the hinges in the cabinet so I can put it away. The cabinet has some paint splatter on it and I will work on getting that off as well. If anyone reading this blog post today has any GOOD resources for any of these machines or sellers of parts... please comment with info as I'm getting angry at google about this search stuff. I even used the UK version of google to get away from the eBay sales and nonsense things. I know there are free tutorials, manuals, and low cost parts out there. I just don't want to dig through 100+ pages to find it all.

Recipe Test Tuesdays - Wild Violet Jelly

Never made it before but so far so good.

Gathered my wild violets out of the yard then rinsed them under cold water. I'm surprised I got 2 heaping cups of these bad boys for the recipe I found. Took a while to get them picked. Who knows what people thought I was doing out in the yard.

So I boiled water and poured it over the top of the violets in a pyrex bowl to steep. I'll put them in the fridge and pull this out in the morning and make my jelly from the violet tea I made.


So I took the violets in their 'tea' and poured them through a strainer into a glass measuring cup. I added 1/4 C of lemon juice and it turned a purple color from this sick looking greenish color that it was. Poured it into a non-reactive pot. I set aside another bowl and put the 4 Cups of Sugar and 1 box of Sure Jel pectin and stirred it up. Poured it into the pot with the Violets and warmed it up to medium high and stirred it up. When it tried to foam I cut back the temperature to medium.

When I got done making it, I ended up with 3 1/2 pints of jelly. Mine turned a pinkish color at the end. Next to try a dandelion jelly.

How to beat the Cake Mix Companies at their own game!

It is frustrating to buy a cake mix at the store and pay some really HIGH prices for them to only make a 1" thick cake when it is all said and done. I can't afford name brand so knowing that they also come in generic kind of helps but they are also too expensive for what they give you. So for this blog posting today I will help you get the cake back to the original box size they used to give us and your cake WILL be a little bit taller.

Boxed Cake Mix Stretcher

1 egg
2 Tbsp oil
1/3 C Water
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 C flour (all-purpose is perfectly fine)
1/2 C granulated sugar

Prepare your cake with the ingredients stated on your package. Then add the above ingredients to the recipe. Mix according to the package instructions. Baking time and temperature will be the same as what the box says.

So when you make this in a 9x13 cake pan.... it will turn out nice and thick and YUMMY!

Sorry we got into it already, but it was GOOD! Here's my funky artwork using the left over colored sugar from my cookies I baked yesterday and used the melon baller to make the swirlies. The recipe for the frosting follows!

Buttercream Wedding Cake Icing: 
2 C Powdered Sugar
3/4 C shortening
2 egg whites
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients together and beat for 8-10 minutes. Recipe taken from: Family Favorites - From the Kitchen of the Brenneman Family Mennonite cookbook. Page 148

Chicken Whisperer & More

Sunday we headed to the Tractor Supply Co in Columbia, MO to see The Chicken Whisperer who was giving a mini-clinic on Backyard Chicken keeping.

We had a great time and would suggest that you check out his Facebook page to see his next stop so you can learn a little about the backyard chicken movement. Learn how to get started and really what NOT to do that you see folks do all the time on some of the larger followed webpages.

At TSC I was able to finally get a wheelbarrow for my gardening escapades. Clearanced for $30. YES! It came in handy yesterday for getting all the straw and mess from the garden plot all rounded up and put into a mulch pile.

After the trip to TSC we headed for Jo-Anns to get more plastic snaps for my training pants making addiction. (why do I subject myself to this torture?) Of course with a vehicle full of boys, they see a Goodwill Store and wanted me to stop there so they could check it out. Glad they suckered me into it as I landed a score with a Little Tikes basketball goal for Jake for $6.

I'll be busy for the next few days preparing the garden for planting and all fun things that make muscles you forgot you had ACHE. So the blog posts will be few.

Pizza Night!

Okay so everyone loves pizza (or you hope they do). Do you buy the pizza at the local Pizza Hut, Convenience Store, or Walmart? Or is your homemade from a chefboyardee pizza kit or pizza dough packet?

Pizza can be a really easy thing to make once you catch the hang of making your own pizza dough. My trick to a non-soggy crust is to pre-bake the crust for about 5-6 minutes before adding sauce and the toppings. This awesome little meal can be whatever you want it to be by whatever toppings you choose. Chicken, Bacon & Ranch, pepperoni, sausage, bacon cheeseburger, taco, veggie, or just cheese.

Pizza Dough Recipe

1 Tbsp dry yeast (1 pkt)
1 C warm water
3 C flour
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 C salad oil

Dissolve yeast in warm water, then add sugar, salt, and oil.
Then add 1 1/2 C of the flour and beat until there are no lumps. Add the remaining flour.
Let raise in the bowl for 30 minutes and then cut in half to make two pizzas.
Put the pizza dough on a lightly greased pizza pan or cookie sheet (shape does not matter). Spread the dough to the outer edges of the pan and then poke with the fork all around the crust. Repeat with the other crust on the other pan. If your dough tears at all, just pinch it back together. It's okay, the world will not end if your pizza crust isn't perfect.
Pre-bake the crust in a 400 degree oven for 5-6 minutes. Crust will not be browned but will have the look that it isn't wet anymore. Take it out and then add your ingredients of choice and top with cheese.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the cheese is melted and even crispy brown. It's your pizza, whatever way you like it, cook it!

Ideas for pairings of sauce and toppings:

• Taco
• sauce
• refried beans with taco seasoning added and hamburger (cook til warm)
• cheddar cheese 

Bake those together and then add:

• shredded lettuce
• diced tomatoes (ro-tel is good)
• chopped onion
• crushed tortilla chips
• taco sauce

As I said, make whatever you want and whatever you or your family likes best. Just don't go and spend a fortune going out to eat when you can make it at home and bake it later or right then. :-)

Eggs? What do I do with them all?

So anyone who has gotten chickens for getting eggs will know that most happy and healthy chickens will lay one egg each day. We forget in our infinite wisdom that we add more chickens to that mix and say... 5 more in my case will drop anywhere from 4-6 eggs a day. So instead of 'chicken math' issues, we see a new problem of 'EGG MATH' hitting our little homesteads. What do we do with all our extra eggs our families won't be able to consume? Just imagine it... in 7 days time you will have at least 3-4 dozen eggs. How many do you eat or use each day? Don't rely on selling them as you always have one  person to undersell you in your area. Pfft on $1.50 a dozen as it doesn't even cover your feed costs and even shelter for your chickens.

I got a little behind on mine last fall and donated some to a local food pantry. I cut egg cartons in half so it could help more folks. Then after I brought my eggs to a more reasonable amount, I hit the search engines to find recipes and how to store my excess eggs. I was surprised to see how long FRESH from the chicken eggs last even at room temperature. Two months or more depending on if I washed them or whatever. So I found some great recipes and uses and will share an awesome one in this post today.

Egg Noodles

2 eggs
1 C Flour
1/2 tsp salt

Mix the flour and salt together with a fork. Make a well in the center and put two eggs in the center. Beat the eggs first and then bring in the flour from outside the well to mix into the eggs. When fully mixed it is a sticky mess. You will put this out onto a lightly floured board and knead it. Do this about 5 minutes until it is a nicer shaped ball without any clumps left of dry flour. Let sit for about 5 minutes or so. Cut this in half and roll out SUPER thin 1/16" or less on a floured board. Then take a pizza cutter or a sharp knive and cut whatever size noodles you want them to be. (Think lasagna to linguine sizes too) Then lay these cut pieces on a wire rack or pasta rack to dry at least 30 minutes. No more expensive Amish noodle packages or the frozen packaged noodles! You can totally dry these things and put in the freezer if you have any left. (but you won't)
To cook these noodles, toss them in boiling water or soup and cook until al dente.

I've had to cut mine into smaller lengths so people don't steal too many out of the pot and leave others without. If you are gluten free, you can substitute your own gluten-free flour that works best for you. You do not have to use semolina flour to make good noodles. Just jump in and give it a try. You can make spaghetti, wide noodles, linguine, lasagne, ravioli, and even pizza rolls from this stuff. The trick is 'thin' to make a nice noodle. If you have a picky eater in the house, let them help you make this and they will eat their work.

Have a great day!

Tuesday is replenishing day!

So today is a day of replenishing the basics of items in the pantry. So today's job will be to make Chocolate Syrup, Laundry soap, and baking bread. The dish soap recipe has already been posted with the link in a previous article. As I walk through this blog, I will be posting the links to the recipes to give the author/creator of the recipes the credit they deserve. I will also try to post the good, the bad, and the ugly of testing recipes so I know not to use them again in future blog ramblings.

Chocolate Syrup recipe is from:
http://www.kitchentreaty.com/homemade-chocolate-syrup/

And makes 1 pint of syrup. You can reuse your chocolate syrup bottle, but wait until your syrup it totally cooled down before putting it in the bottle.

Bread Recipe is from:
Betty Crocker Gold Medal Classic White Bread

Lower the temp by 25 degrees and only bake 15-20 minutes for a less dark crust. No need to butter the outside. I've found that tossing a tea towel or kitchen towel over them helps keep the crust softer before packaging. You will need an electric bread knife for this one as it is as soft as store bought bread.

Laundry Soap Recipe is from:
 http://www.budget101.com/myo-household-items/whipped-cream-super-laundry-soap-3993.html

Feel free to jump in at anytime to make a recipe and even tweak it a little to make it your own unique recipe. We took the bread recipe to a new level by adding colored sugar and cinnamon before rolling it up and baking it. It was for our St. Patrick's Day meal.

I hope you enjoyed the blog today. Go ahead and get off the computer and try something new. Thanks for stopping by!

Canning to Save Time and Money - Getting Started

I just started to can things with a serious goal in mind last year when I got a call to come 'help yourself' to a bunch of green beans, corn and blackberries that got away from the folks who planted too much. Since we all know that we really can't snarf down mass quantities of green beans several days in a row without massive groaning from the family members, we have to do something with our tons of food we bring home from the store, pick your own produce places, or from your own garden. Many of us waste too much money on food from spoilage and those items we could have frozen, dehydrated, or even canned them for use later on. I'm guilty of this and I know I'm not the only person in the world to lose something in the fridge that would later become the fuzzy science experiment. So in order to get started on canning I had to have the basics. So here's the general start up list for canning:

1. Jars (Wide-mouth & Regular)
• Pint
• Quart
• Half-pint
• Half-gallon
• Gallon
• Pint and a half
2. Lids & Rings
3. Waterbath (Acidic, Fruits, Tomatoes)
4. Pressure Canner (Low Acid, Meats, Beans, Vegetables)
5. Canning Jar Tongs
6. Plastic headspace measure and bubble remover thingy
7. Free online study course & food preservation materials
• https://spock.fcs.uga.edu/ext/food/nchfp_elc/
• http://nchfp.uga.edu/index.html
8. Join various Facebook Canning and Preserving pages
9. Utilize the local county 4-H Extensions in your area for testing used pressure cookers or getting a specialist to come teach you how to can safely if it is available in your area.

Take advantage of food sales at the different times of the year and save your fruits, veggies, and meat in jars so that when their cheap season is over that you will have a stash to hold you over. We buy our hamburger on sale at the local grocery store, brown it and then can it in pint jars for use for any hamburger dish meals to add to a mix or pasta/sauce combinations. By storing meats in jars, you free up your freezer and also prevent that sad occasion when electricity is lost or your fridge or freezer dies and your food has gone bad. Trust me, it's more than canning for the Zombie Apocolypse. You worked hard for your money and don't just throw it down the drain with spoilage. We are far too reliant on our appliances and need to know how to handle a crisis before it happens, even if it is deciding whether to eat chicken or hamburger while trying to get to a dance class in 45 minutes. Grabbing the jar of whatever and heating it up in 5 minutes and tossing other ingredients to create a meal with it to be ready in 15 or so is better than sitting in a drive thru for 10 and still waiting for the special order to be done in another 5 or so. We've made our own lives hell with being slaves to fast food and restaurants. Time to wean ourselves from this and know what we are eating and where our money is going. 

I'm just at the beginning stages of this blog and will hit these main topics first and then throw in my recipes for the day if there is something new I haven't posted yet. Thanks for stopping by and maybe joining in this back to the basics movement. :-)

Laundry on the Cheap! Quit giving your money to the BIG companies!

Here's your penny pincher post of the day. As with this blog being my go to page with like personal favorite bookmarks for items we use in our daily lives, I will post pages to save them for you or my kids to be able to look up without fighting with Google Search.

Here's my story about stepping away from those horrible plastic jugs of overpriced laundry soap. Last summer I found this awesome recipe online at Budget 101 for the Laundry Sauce.

 http://www.budget101.com/myo-household-items/whipped-cream-super-laundry-soap-3993.html

My first recipe was made with Dove soap with the rose scent and it was okay. It smelled good so I made a little more. Second batch oozed over the top of the stove since I didn't keep stirring it like I should have. LOL! At least my stove got a good cleaning! The third time I made it was with the Fels Naptha bar as it shows in the recipe. I grated it and set it aside. The toddler decided to try it because he thought it was cheese. Needless to say, he won't try that again! I also set it up out of his reach, so keep that in mind when you have little helpers around. I'm needing to make more this week to restock the pantry.

Here's the ingredients for those of you to buy to make this and then make sure you bookmark the page the recipe is on as it gives a step by step walk-through on making it with PICTURES!

Mom's Super Laundry Sauce

Fels Naptha Bar
20 Mule Team Borax
Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (not baking soda!)
2 Regular Mouth Quart Jars -- with lids and rings
Blender 

You will pay less for all these ingredients that will give you enough soap for approximately 128 loads of laundry. It averages about $2 or less per jar as the borax and washing soda makes about 3 batches overall. The jars can be bought at second hand stores for as little as 25 cents each and you can re-use lids and rings from your canning endeavors. Check tomorrow's post on canning if you haven't gotten involved in that highly addicting past time.

Thanks for stopping by to read my page! Hope this helps you to keep a few dollars in your pocket so you can save it for something fun for yourself!

Diving in and going back to the basics

You never realize how you come to a point in life that you feel like you aren't getting anywhere until you reach it. Times now demand so much of our money to even feed our families or just have the basics with never a chance of frills and total fun frivolous things. We watch our neighbors swapping out cars every two years while we drive old beaters with over 200K miles on them that are paid for. We see fancy gadgets, jeans, power tools, and even kitchen appliances that we might hope to have, but will not be able to afford unless we work more hours or cut back on our spending to SAVE for it. Just recently we decided to make more items from scratch so that we aren't getting all the preservatives AND to just save money. No coupon clipping, as that was a fruitless venture of actually spending more money to buy the items that I probably WOULD NOT have bought had there not been a coupon for it in the first place.

So, while hitting this little time in my life of new recipes and adventures in baking, cooking and even making my own cleaning supplies, many times I've been asked for recipes that I've been making. So this little blog will become my journal AND my go to cookbook for anyone and everyone to follow along. I encourage all who read this to take a little time out of their day to make their own things. Quit relying on large companies to make your things for you and never know what all the ingredients are or if they are safe for you to eat. Remember just recently that a nationwide sub sandwich chain decided to take a certain ingredient out of their recipe after it was found it was also used to make yoga mats? Blech! Do you really want to eat that? What if I told you that bread is actually easy to make by hand? You don't need an expensive KitchenAid stand mixer or an expensive bread machine... all you need is a large bowl and a fork. So you say yeast packets are expensive? I agree with that, but if you buy it in the little jars and use 1 Tablespoon of yeast in the recipe for each package a recipe calls for, you can make bread for at least 1/2 the price of buying store bought.

Also, I hear people complain that it takes too long to cook a meal when their families are hitting all the after school or evening family activities and want to hit a fast food place because it takes too long to cook. Well, guess what... canning, freezing, or precooking meals on a day that you aren't running like mad will SAVE you time, money, and stress. In this blog we will look at living on a dime, learning how to cook, learning how to can, learning how to bake, how to care for chickens, gardening, and just tons more bits of info so you can survive the great recession without near as much fear. Feel free to interact and share your favorite recipes, garden plans, or whatever has helped you through the rough times. Welcome to the blog!