Please support the pork

I feel bad for the pig farmers. This whole "swine flu" thing has been hard on their already struggling industry. We are not supposed to call it swine flu anymore - it is now known as H1N1.

I heard this morning that China has halted the import of Canadian pork products into their country, even though there is no evidence that you can get the flu from eating pork. I didn't even realize we exported pork to China.

Some of our clients where I work are pig farmers/pig veterinarians. They have company names like "PigPharm" and "Swine Services Group". I kid you not! Funny names aside, they do have very stringent safety regulations. Our technicians have to shower before entering AND after leaving a barn to ensure that they are not causing any cross-contamination.

This is a big pork producing area, and I feel it is my patriotic duty to support the pig farmers in their time of need by consuming more pork products *grin*. (This despite the fact we are unable to produce a decent breakfast sausage around here. Why, oh why can't we have Jimmy Dean? It is a mystery.)

My family loves pork products of all kinds. Mmmm... pork chops, rolled ribs, schnitzel. Consider the triumvirate of bacon, ham & sausage. What would breakfast be without some sort of pork product?

I overheard Kirk tell Hope the other day, "I love you more than anything. Even bacon." What a romantic!

Around here we even eat pork hocks and pig tails. My mom makes wicked good pigtails. I'm not sure I would eat pig's feet though. I once saw a jar of pickled pig's feet. That was in South Carolina. I guess they are popular down there. Not so much here.

I also can't do pork rinds. Ewww.

My husband grew up on a pig farm. When we first started dating he took me into the barn to see the "weaners". That means the little pigs that had been weaned from their mothers. I misunderstood and though he meant "weiners". I wasn't so sure I wanted to know EXACTLY where my hot dogs were coming from!

Here is how I make schnitzel:

If you can't get schnitzel-cut pork where you are, use a pork loin roast. Slice the roast into 1/4 inch slices and then pound them thin. They will double or even triple in size when you pound them out.

Season both sides of the meat with a little salt and pepper.

Dip the slices into Catalina dressing and then into dried bread crumbs.

Fry the slices in a little vegetable oil. They cook quickly and you only need a few minutes per side (depending on how thin you pounded them).

You can serve these with sauce if you like - a mushroom gravy is a traditional way of serving them. My family likes them plain with mashed potatoes and red cabbage.

Help! I have hungry, hungry hippos...

Is it mean to call my kids hippos? I don't mean to imply that they are big. It's just that they're always on the lookout for something to eat. Ravenous wolves. Vultures. Like that.



This time of year money is always tight for us, so I am looking for some frugal snack ideas that will satisfy the vultures kiddos. Except snacks is maybe not quite the word...mini-meals would be more like it. Anybody got any ideas they'd like to share?



Speaking of mini-meals, here's one that I've been making for years...



English muffin pizzas



Pkg of 12 english muffins (I get mine at the bakery "thrift" shop 2 pkg. for $1.75)

Tomato sauce (about half a can = 50 cents)

shredded cheese (cost varies, but I shred it myself and it is about $1.00 a cup)

parmesan cheese

italian seasoning

other toppings (use up leftover meat and veggies)



I'm sure you know how to make mini pizzas. The trick to keeping the cost down on these is in the cheese. You don't need to use much at all, and if you sprinkle on a little parmesan cheese you get a big boost in taste for very little $$$. I make a big batch, cook them and let them cool and then package them in twos. I don't bother freezing them (I keep them in the fridge instead) and they go pretty fast. But they can be frozen and reheated in a toaster oven or microwave.



So, what do you feed your hungry, hungry hippos?

Ode to potatoes

Tonight for supper we are having beef and peppers (2 lbs eye of round @$1.99 per pound; 2 red peppers which were 4/$1.99), mashed potatoes (3 pounds potatoes @20 cents a pound, plus say 40 cents for the milk, butter, salt and pepper) and boiled carrots (2 lbs @20 cents a pound). That is $1.06 per person, and I don't expect any leftovers! I guess that's not exactly a "frugal" meal, but it is a good price for a beef dinner. Serving cheaper side dishes brings down the overall cost of a meal when the entree is pricey. (I guess that should be a no-brainer, but it took me forever to figure out.)

The potatoes, carrots and peppers were all on sale this week. I got a lot of potatoes and carrots. My family loves them both - potatoes especially. They would eat potatoes every night of the week if I would make them. I got them this week for $2 for a 10 lb bag, which is 10 cents a serving!

So many ways to serve them too...

~boiled, with butter salt and pepper
~mashed - try using italian dressing instead of milk - it gives the potatoes a bit of a zing!
~baked potatoes - with or without toppings
~seasoned roasted wedges - sprinkle with oil and seasonings and roast them in the oven along side your main dish (I also like to grill these in the summer time)
~homemade french fries - I oven "fry" them
~fried potatoes - a good use for leftover potatoes, just chop them up and fry in some oil and butter
~hash browns - basically fried, shredded potatoes - they cook very quickly this way
~potato pancakes - serve them with sour cream!

There's more ways than that of course, but these are our favourites.

Grocery shopping day

Score! Today was shopping day and I did really well.

I always check the flyers when they come and see who's got what on sale. I have one "main" store where I do the bulk of my shopping because they have the lowest prices over all, but I will make a special trip to other stores if they've got partcularly good sale items.

Aside: my main store is No Frills in Elmira, which is a little town about 20 minutes north of us. Even factoring in the gas, they're way cheaper. They have certain items (they rotate) that they put on sale for extended periods - sometimes as long as 3 months. It gives me time to take advantage and stock up over time and I don't have to buy it all up front. Plus, the store is in the heart of Mennonite country. You get to park your car side by side with the horse and buggies. I have got to put up some pics for you!

Anyhoo, this week No Frills had pork loin roasts for $1.49 per pound!! Yippee! I bought 13 pounds. This is boneless meat with very little fat. Ordinarily I would buy another 6 or 7 lbs of it but I already have two pork roasts in the freezer from the last time it was on sale. What I bought today is waiting to be portioned into chops. We will get 6 meals worth of meat from it.

I also stocked up on ground beef which was $1.99 a pound. That's a good price around here. I got 12 lbs of it. That will be good for 6 - 12 meals (depends on what I make with it).

That's pretty much how I buy all my meat - when it goes on sale for a really good price I get enough to last about 6 weeks. I know that in 6 weeks it will be back on sale again.

Meals today:
The last of the free bagels got eaten for breakfast. The butter was gone too. It's actually hard for me to estimate breakfast and lunch since everybody prepares their own.

For lunch I had leftover stew and yogurt with granola and raisins on top. Again, everybody else grabbed from the lunch box.

Dinner: after grocery shopping I didn't much feel like cooking a big meal so we had Kraft Dinner (2 boxes at .77 each) with a can of tuna mixed in ($1.49). With the milk and butter I'd say that was $3.50. There were just 4 of us home for dinner. And, yes, I realize there's no vegetables in that meal. But there was fish, so that's good, right?

And now I am going to go make myself a hot chocolate and head off to bed. (25 cent for a cup of milk and 21 cents for a serving of hot chocolate mix. Not that I'm counting *grin*)


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Dinner at my house

Holly has been sharing her menus and what it costs to feed her family. Let me say I am SO impressed by her frugality and resourcefulness! She aims to feed her family for 35 cents per person per meal. Yes, you read that right. Thirty. Five. Cents. Egads! That's awesome!

Now I have to tell you right up front - I don't come anywhere near that. I have a little different method of food budgeting. I try to come in under $20 per day for food costs for the six of us. With four ferociously hungry teenagers, it can be a challenge. Not so much the meals, which I have control over (except of course, when they show up unannounced with their friends *smile*), but snacks cost me A LOT. They like stuff that they can grab and eat fast - fruit, yogurt, and cookies are popular. Also cheese and crackers, boiled eggs and pepperoni sticks. But I am getting a head of myself.

Here's how it works for us: First of all, I plan all our meals a week or more in advance, planning around what I have on hand and then shopping once a week for the rest.

Breakfasts - everybody fixes their own. We get up and leave the house at different times, so I simply make sure I have breakfast foods on hand and everybody gets their own. Typical breakfast meals are a bowl of cereal or oatmeal (I make my own "packets" that they can microwave), toast and peanut butter, scrambled eggs and toast etc. but not always. I've seen my kids eat leftover hot dogs, spaghetti, whatever.

Lunch - everybody packs their own, but it is a little more structured than breakfast. I make and keep lunch options available and everybody grabs what they want for their bag lunch. I posted about how I do that a while back.

Snacks - I do the same thing with snacks as I do with lunches. I keep snack options available that I try to vary every week. I used to do a lot of baking when I was at home - cookies, muffins, quickbreads, etc. - but I don't do nearly as much as I used to. We have a bakery thrift store close by though, which is where I buy cookies, crackers and bread. My kids are like most kids - they will eat chips and junk food if it's around, and I do buy "treats" each week - but not a lot - too expensive! The "treats" are always the first to go and then they can choose from the list.

Dinner - I try to keep dinner to $6 per meal - so $1 per person. Here are some recent dinners:
Last night we had farmers sausage (on sale $1.99 for a package of 6), hash browns (3 lbs of potatoes @ 30 cents a pound, peeled and shredded and cooked in a little vegetable oil with salt and pepper, so say $1 for the whole thing) and braised cabbage (half a head of cabbage @ 99 cents a head, cooked with a little oil and seasonings, so say another dollar) so that works out to 67 cents a person. I was actually very surprised when I calculated out the cost. I really thought it would be more.

Tonight we are having beef stew. 2 lbs of stew beef was $7.98; 3 lbs of potatoes - .90; 3 lbs of carrots - $1.05; half a rutabaga - .35 , plus say 50 cents for seasonings. This made a giant pot - I estimate there will be 20 big servings - so that works out to .54 a serving. I will serve this with my free bagels.

I am fortunate in that even though I work outside the home during the day, I am home in plenty of time to make dinner. I usually have about 2 hours before my husband gets home, so I have enough time to cook "scratch" meals. Even so, I do keep a supply of "quick to fix" products in the house. Canned soup, dried pasta, etc. When the kids show up with an extra friend or two, a meal can usually be stretched by adding another side dish - I keep a container of biscuit mix at the ready (recipe here) for just such occasions! I also bring out leftovers. *grin*

This is a family favourite

This is not - and never has been - a homemaking blog, but I do have some ideas to share once in a while! Since I work during the day now, I don't have the time I used to have to prepare weekday meals. Dinner prep time is at a premium and my family likes a nice, sit-down meal for supper. Every supper. Ask anyone who's seen us - we are all big supper eaters. Canned soup and crackers is just not going to cut it for this family.

I have developed a repertoire of fast meals that are acceptable to my family. One of our favourites is sweet and sour meatballs on rice with boiled carrots. It's a very tasty combination. Actually, many of our favourites have meatballs so I make them often in large batches and freeze them for later use. They're handy to have around and there are lots of different meals that you can make with meatballs: spaghetti and meatballs, meatball and sauerkraut soup (Ok, so maybe YOU won't be making that one, but we like it!), meatball stroganoff, etc. etc.

Here's how I get sweet and sour meatballs on the table in under 30 minutes:

1. I get a pot of rice going in the microwave first because it takes the longest. (I cook rice in the mic instead of on the stove.)

2. Then I put a bag of frozen meatballs in a big pot. I empty a can of pineapple chunks with the juice into the pot and turn it on low. While those are heating up a bit I fill the empty can half full with water and add in some ketchup, garlic powder, vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce. I mix in about 2 tbsp. on corn starch and add it to the pot and let it simmer while I make the carrots.

3. Then I peel about 6 or 7 large carrots and run them through the food processor so they are sliced nice and thin (they cook faster like that). The carrots go on the stove to boil.

4. While the carrots are boiling, I chop up a green pepper and add it into the meatballs.

5. By the time the carrots are finished cooking, the rice is finished and the meatballs are done.

6. Serve the meatballs over the rice with the carrots on the side. Quick and easy!

Make this cranberry sauce. You will be so glad you did.

No one on my side of the family serves turkey with cranberry sauce. I'd never even heard of it until I got married and the first time I served turkey my in-laws were like, "Where's the cranberry sauce???" My husband had to run down to the corner store and buy a can of this revolting jellied cranberry stuff. I had a hard time looking at the stuff. but it made my in-laws happy, so whatever.

But there's still a part of me that just squirms at the thought of serving something that plopped out of a can to a guest, so a few years ago I went hunting for a cranberry sauce recipe. I found a good, basic recipe (cranberry sauce is ridiculously easy to make from scratch and soooo much better than revolting-jellied-plops-canned stuff) and over the years I've tweaked it until I have what is possibly the world's most delicious cranberry sauce. I even eat it. It's that good.

So for your upcoming Thanksgiving, please, I beg you. Put away your can opener. Spend 10 minutes making this stuff. You will not be sorry!

Basic Cranberry Sauce

1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
4 cups fresh cranberries

In a saucepan, cook the sugar and water until the sugar dissolves and the mixture boils. Add the cranberries and simmer for about 5 minutes until the cranberry pop. Remove it from the heat and let it cool completely. It will get thicker as it cools.

To Die For Cranberry Sauce

1-1/2 cups sugar
1 orange
1/2 t grated ginger
1 peeled and chopped pear
1 peeled and chopped granny smith apple
3 cups cranberries

Put the sugar and ginger into a saucepan and grate the peel of the orange into the pot. Then cut the orange in half and squeeze all the juice you can into the sugar mixture. Cook until the sugar dissolves and the mixture boils. Add the apple and the pear first and cook for one minute then add the cranberries and cook until they pop. Cool the mixture. It can be served cold or room temperature, but I prefer it warm.

Turkey Day Menu

Beth thinks I forgot the rutabaga - did not!! I simply didn't cook it yesterday. C'mon now, what is turkey dinner without rutabaga?

Here's the entire menu if you're interested:

~ turkey with onion, sage & garlic dressing
~ ham
~ mashed and gravy
~ carrots & rutabaga
~ red cabbage
~ green beans
~ my famous homemade cranberry sauce
~ rolls & butter

Pie and ice cream for dessert...if anybody's able to eat more after all that.

Beth, the red cabbage? I always used to make it from scratch but shhhh...this year I bought some canned stuff. I tried it earlier this year and I can't tell the difference. But if you were to make it, you braise thinly sliced red cabbage and grated apple in wine vinegar with brown sugar, onion and cloves. It has a sweet and sour taste. I remember you were skeptical when I told you it's my favourite Christmas dish, but it really is tasty!

Back to school

I've been getting ready for back-to-school this weekend. One of the things that I've been doing for years now is get lunch foods ready ahead of time so that the kids only need grab something and go in the morning. When they were younger, I had a chart broken into categories - Main (a sandwich, mini pizzas, cheese/crackers/meat slices,), Fruit (apple, orange, plum), Vegetable (carrots and dip, celery and cream cheese, salad and dressing) and Other (cookies, a muffin, fruit leather) - and they had to choose one thing from each category to make up their lunch meals. This way I knew they were getting a balanced lunch and getting variety throughout the week and each week the choices varied to keep it interesting. But it meant a LOT of work ahead of time.

I eventually got into a pretty good routine: I began to make/package extra of something when I made it. For example, when I made mini-pizzas (little pizzas on english muffins) I'd make a large batch, enough for the coming week as well as another week down the road. This worked pretty well with anything that would keep ok in the freezer or stuff like cookies that could be packaged into servings and keep on the shelf. Fruit didn't need prep and only needed to be washed ahead of time. I packaged up muffins or cookies as I made them through out the week. I had designated "bins" in the freezer, fridge and cupboards and to make their lunches the kids just reached in and selected a choice for each category from the bins. Basically, I had a "running inventory" available and just topped it up when it was needed, rather than have to make a whole weeks worth of lunch supplies all at one time.

Anyways, it's a pretty good system for me, but it does mean that I have to get a large amount done at back-to-school time because I'm basically starting from scratch again.

So this weekend I made:

• a batch of oatmeal and a batch of peanut butter cookies
• a double batch of blueberry muffins
• a bin full of carrot and celery sticks
• a batch of homemade "lunchables" (cheese, crackers, sliced ham)
• a batch of mini "submarine" sandwiches (this is what they will be taking tomorrow)
• a batch of bagels spread with cream cheese (these don't freeze well but keep ok for a week in the fridge)
• a dozen boiled eggs
• some dill pickles packaged into serving sizes
• plus there's lots of fruit and mini cucumbers in the fridge

I must tell you though, by the end of the school year I am MIGHTY weary of thinking up lunch time options and look forward to the break in the summer. You might wonder, if my kids are capable of fixing their own lunches during the summer, why don't they get their own during the school year? All I can say is it's something I still want to do for my not-so-little kids and it helps every body get out the door in the morning a little sooner. Plus, they help with the prep - they're certainly old enough and capable enough!

Pretty tasty

Grilled Pork with Tropical Fruit Salsa

Make the salsa with:

small can of pineapple

small can of mandarin oranges

1 ripe mango - peeled and diced

1/4 cup chopped red onion

1 tsp. chopped cilantro

1 tbsp. lime juice

1 tsp. minced ginger

chopped chili pepper to taste (I only like a wee bit)

ground pepper

Drain the canned fruit and save the juice. Mix all the fruit together with the seasonings. Add a little of the reserved juice (you don't need much) until it is all coated. Marinate it for an hour or more.

Using the reserved pineapple juice and a few tablespoons of the mandarin syrup, and 1/4 cup of bottled italian dressing, make a marinade for your pork. Marinade for one hour then grill the pork to your liking. While the pork is grilling, you can warm up the salsa if you like or you can serve it at room temp if you prefer. I grill it in a bbq wok.

When its done, serve it the pork with the salsa on the side. Rice and steamed green beans go nice with it.