2011...The year of nightmares!

UPDATE: Computer is (temporarily) back up and running! I hope to be back and posting soon! Thanks for your patience, oh my loyal five followers. (One of which is probably me, lol!)

I'm sorry I've been incognito lately! I have a ton of stuff to post (okay, maybe 5 or 6), but things have been a bit cuckoo here lately. I won't list them all and bore you, but i will tell you that my home computer totally went caput on me, so I'm writing to you from my Nook. Thank God I at least have that to use! However, without the files/pix from my computer, i cannot post anything except text right now. My husband seems to think I need a new hard drive, which is easy enough. So, fingers crossed, I'll be back to posting soon! I'll be happy to accept any spare prayers you've got hanging around! Maybe when I get my computer back, I'll go into more detail. It's been a year of trials, that's for sure! Have a happy day and I'll be back soon. Please don't forget about me! ;)

Dill Relish the easy way!

Being on an extremely tight budget has made me into an avid hot dog eater.  It's not that I just love hot dogs or anything.  They're affordable if you get them on sale or buy the insanely cheap ones (75c) from Aldi.  That being said, I like mustard, ketchup and relish on my dog.  I opened the fridge yesterday to find...argh!!..about 1/2t of relish left in the container!  This just won't do!

In the picture below, you can see my (cleaned) empty relish container.  I paid $1.99 for this at Bakers.  I remember this vividly because it was the cheapest one available and a lady who was grabbing one at the same time handed me one.  Funny the stupid stuff you recall.  Anyway, I thought....hmmmmmm....certainly jarred pickles could be cheaper, Yes?  No?  Maybe?  My hubby was going to Aldi anyhow, so I had him pick up a 24oz jar of dill spears for $1.49.   Then I put on my lab coat and goggles and conducted my experiment! Ha ha ha ha, said the evil condiment scientist!

The pickle jar has 12 spears in it.  I started by cutting 4 of them into

little chunks and dropping them into my mini food processor.  Interestingly,

I recall where and when I got this as well.  (It was my bridal shower by a gal named C***)

But I can't recall what I had for breakfast.  Old age is funny like that, lol!

I hit Low and away they went!  Turns out 4 wasn't enough, so

I ended up using 8.  I did not add any juice though.  Looks like relish to me!

I then took a funnel and poured the mixture into my cleaned container.

I had to use the handle of my small spatula to smash it in there.

And lookee heeyuh!  We have a brand spankin' new container of 

relish for only $1.00!  Half the price of the original!  Yayyy!  Success!

Funny what you can make (and save) with just a little prep work!

The only drawback?  Yellow fingernails...ewwwwwwww!

Notes:

Since I used 2/3 of a $1.49 jar of pickles, this came to only $1.00!  That makes me happy!  Funny how much we pay for convenience!  I'm sure if you had your own garden (I don't yet) and made your own pickles, you could make this for pennies!  For me, I'm happy to save half right now!  Try it yourself!  What kids of things do you buy that you could easily make?  It's so much more fun shopping at the grocery store when you seldom have to go down any aisles because you say to yourself as you look down each one...hhmmmmm, bread, nope, I can make that.  Uhhhhh, pepperoni?  Nope, I can make that.  Uhhhhhh, tortillas?  Nope, I can make that!  Laundry detergent?  Windex?  Nope and nope!  It's shocking, really.  Of course, this isn't truly homemade, but it is a money saver!

Update:  I had some today on ...you guessed it...a hot dog.  It tasted okay to me, but it seems to be lacking something...perhaps a little pinch of sugar.  I read the back of the container and it appears they add some dehydrated red bell pepper.  I don't have any, nor do I plan on making any, so I'll live with it.  It's not that different.  I just expected it to be exactly the same.  That's what I get for being a know-it-all.  :)

Spicy Pepperoni...you really can make it at home!

Here's what you'll need:

Ingredients:(This is for a whole 2 pound batch.  I made a half)
2Lbs 85% or leaner Ground Beef
2t Liquid Smoke
2t Ground Black Pepper
2t Mustard Seed
1 1/2t Crushed Fennel Seed
1-2t Crushed Red Pepper
1/2t Garlic Powder
1t Paprika
1/2t Sugar
2t (heaping) Tender Quick Curing Salt

Dump your meat in a bowl and throw spices on top.*

See the spice mix at 11 o' clock? That's my fennel and

red pepper.  I put it in my coffee grinder because I found

it really hard to crush.  I sold my mortar and pestle at a garage 

sale a few years ago.  Who knew it'd finally come in handy!?

With very clean hands (and NO rings on**), mix the meat and 

spices very well, kinda like making meat loaf.

Slap a lid on and put it in the fridge for 48 to 72 hours, remixing once per day..  

I'm assuming this allows the flavors to meld and the curing salt to do its magic.

On the day you will be cooking them (start early...it takes 8 hours!),

wrap a small pan with foil and use a rack to cover it.  I originally used

the contraption below, then figured out...duh!  I can use the pan and rack

in my trusty little toaster oven!  That way, my big oven is free for dinner!

After 48 hours (I cheated and it was only about 36 hours), I took out my

pepperoni mix and shaped it into really gross turd looking things, uh logs.

Pop in the (toaster) oven at 200 degrees and bake for 8 hours.

You need to take them out every two hours and turn them a 1/4 turn.

After 8 hours, remove from oven and you have two little pepperonis!

They don't so much as cook down as they seem to be dessicated.

I wrapped one up in foil to throw in the freezer right away.  The other,

I cut open the end to see if it looked red like pepperoni does.  It does!

I decided to pop this one in the fridge for a bit, 

then slice it up and freeze it! Sorry for the bad pix.

Notes:

*You will note that the Tender Quick is not in this picture.  When I first mixed it, I did not have any as of yet.  Earlier in the day, I had gone to the store and looked at the ingredients on the package...salt, sugar, sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite. All for about $4.00 yikes!  I then thought....mehhhh, I can make that!  Yeahhhh, righhhhtttt!  Read on.  You see, I (stupidly) thought I could just use some sea salt, some sugar and some msg or meat tenderizer, LOL! (There may be a fine line between arrogance and frugality, lol!)  JUST AS I was going to plop these on top of the meat, a moment of rationality hit me...hmmmmm, what if this was dangerous somehow?  I stopped what I was doing and headed to the trusty internet.  I figure it's always good to trust your gut...never steered me wrong yet!  

Well, my oh my, did I find some stuff!  You cannot, I repeat CANNOT make your own salt cure safely.  Key word here, people like me who think they can do it all themselves, SAFELY!  Turns out the average home cook/non-scientist type person cannot possibly measure out the miniscule amounts of the nitrate/nitrite mixture.  And even if you could, you couldn't get it to mix properly where the ratios would stay suspended properly in the mixture.  

It also turns out that the nitrates form some kind of gas (Nitris oxide?  Maybe I should have sniffed my meat mixture for a good night's sleep, ha ha ha...just kidding...really.) and that gas turns into nitrites or some silly thing like that, making the meat appear nice and pink like we're used to in cured meats.  There's your fancy, most likely incorrect science lesson, because I'm going off of memory from 2 days ago's internet search.  Turns out, if you don't do things correctly, and I'm assuming this means for people who are doing a dry cure over weeks/months, not the cooked kind like we're doing, you can actually get botulism!  I wasn't taking any chances, even if I was cooking the darn thing!  I ran right to the store and happily paid $3.98 for a bag of Tender Quick.  I did find some people online talking about how they just use their own mix of stuff, but invariably they were barraged with "What?! Are you crazy?  Do you  have a death wish?!" kinds of feedback.  I don't want to be one of those people...or a dead one.  Moving on...

**Okay, I gotta say it!  Everyone who knows me knows I'm a major germaphobe!  No, not the kind who washes their hands 837 times a day....just particular in some ways.  For example, I'll eat something I've dropped on my (usually clean) floor, depending on what it is, but I WILL NOT touch a bathroom door handle with my bare hands to if my life depended on it!  Speaking of creepy things...people with rings on, plunging their germ-infested jewelry into food products.  Not to mention, say the person makes this (pepperoni) product...gets meat lodged in their rings in tiny places you cannot see, it sours, goes rancid, produces toxic little germy things.  Then the person makes something else they plunge their hands into, essentially contaminating the next thing they're making!  Ughhhhh!  {{{Shivers}}} It's just gross.  People, I promise you, if you knew what kinda crud is trapped in your jewelry, you really wouldn't do this.  (Unless you have your rings professionally cleaned each time you make a meal, then forgive my rant.  You're rich, smart and very attractive!)  Save yourself and your family from getting sick.  Take your lovely jewelry off and set it aside (somewhere far away from the sink, lol!)  Your food will be relatively contaminant-free and your family will be alive.  It really is a win-win situation.  Thank you.  I'm done now.

Back to the pepperoni...while the texture was a little drier than I am used to, this is really pretty good.  The pepperoni from the store is just slick with fat.  Mine is not.  I kinda like that slick fat.  It's funny.  When it was in the bowl raw, I thought it smelled just like pepperoni.  After I tasted the cooked product, it was just a little different than I imagined.  Still quite good, still pepperoni-like, but just different. I used a little more red pepper than I probably should have.  It is pretty spicy...hence the name...spicy pepperoni.  If you are not a fan of spice, add just a little, or omit altogether.  I haven't tried it on pizza yet, but I'll let you know what we think of it.

The good news about this is that I made one pound of pepperoni for about $2.50 (15.6 cents per ounce)!  (Had I used the beef I just got at Aldi for $1.39/Lb, it would have come in at about $1.50!!!  But I had to use up some old stuff first.)  I looked online at 5 different places for Hormel (7oz) Pepperoni to compare prices.  The average comes to $3.29 for 7oz (47 cents per ounce...yikes!).  I made over twice that for less money!  I'd say that's a pretty good savings, 66%!

This really was simple to make, so don't let the several day recipe fool you.  Just do it on a day when you'll be home all day and be sure to set your timer for every two hours to turn it.  That's it!  Easy peasy!  If you give it a try, let me know what you think!  Recipe courtesy of Tammy's Recipes.

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Sopapillas...the things that dreams are made of!

When I was a kid, we went to Casa Bonita restaurant near Denver a couple of times.  It was so exciting!  As an adult, I would probably think it was tacky.  But as a child...ohhhh, the beauty of it!  It was dark and mysterious, with trails/bridges leading this way and that.  There was Black Bart's Cave, a treasure chest you could pick an item out of, and cliff divers!  Yes, inside!!!  It also had some strange gorilla act involving that cliff diver, but most of all, my favorite part was the sopapillas!  They gave you as many as you wanted, too!  They seemed huge to me at the time since I was so small.  They were hot and so chewy, airy, delicious!  I got a hankering for making these because I've been making Mexican food lately (to be posted soon), so I Googled Casa Bonita Sopapillas and came up with this recipe.  I was so excited!  I had to make them right away!  Here's what you need:

Ingredients:
2C Flour, sifted
1/2C Water (may need more...add it by the teaspoon full)
2T Lard or Shortening
2t  Baking Powder
1t Salt
4C Veg Oil

Start by sifting your flour, baking powder and salt together.

Add in your shortening/lard

Cover the shortening with the flour mixture.  Using quick motions with your

hand break apart the shortening, all the while, trying not to touch the shortening too long.

The trick is to always keep some flour between your fingers and the shortening.

Man, that's hard to describe.  Anyway, you could always use a pastry cutter.

Your end product should look something like this.

Add in your water.  I just used cold.  I got to thinking about this.

Some recipes said to use very warm, but that will just melt the 

shortening.  I'm thinking of this kind of like a pie crust.  I don't

want the shortening to melt or the dough to be overworked.

Mix together.  It will take about a minute for the whole thing to come

together.  At first, you'll think there's no way it will, but it will.  Mine

seemed realllly dry with only 1/2C water, so I added some more a

teaspoon full at a time.  Dough should not be dry, but not sticky.

Roll into a ball and cover with a towel.  In this recipe,

there's apparently no need to let it rest, which is fine with me.

At this point, I put my grease on to heat up.  It's important to have

it at 400 degrees, so use a candy thermometer and watch it carefully.

While your grease is heating, spread some flour on a flat surface,

roll out your dough and cut into (relatively) square pieces.  I used

my old pizza cutter that has a little squiggle in it, like my husband

tried to use it for a screwdriver or something.  No, I haven't been

hitting the sauce, contrary to popular opinion, lol!

Because I knew it would just be me and Tommy, I used only a few

and put the rest on a sheet tray to freeze for later use.  Let's hope that works.

Slip your dough into the hot oil.  I say slip because it seemed the

ones I lay on top didn't puff as well.  So, slip them down into the

oil.  They puff up right away.  Once they puff, you can turn them.

They truly only take about 30 seconds total.  What's funny is, 

when you turn them over, they tend to 'fart' around the pan, lol!

They sputter and scoot around like a little motor boat.  Weird!

Remove from oil and put on paper towel to drain for a minute.

Do yourself a favor and do not bite into one right away.  These have

a lot of hot steam that escapes and you can burn your widdle wips. You
can serve these up a multitude of ways.  Rolled in cinammon sugar,
with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, or take a bite and drizzle some

honey on the inside, as shown below.  That's how they're served at
Casa Bonita. You bite it yourself.  They don't come with a bite out of it.  Never mind.

Notes: You can just eat them plain as they apparently do in New Mexico. According to my (quick and minimal) research, these originated in New Mexico a couple of hundred years ago.  I always just assumed they were (Old? LOL!) Mexican. I guess they're served with most meals in a savory fashion, as you and I might have bread.  Interesting, yes?

As with most homemade bread items, these were really inexpensive to make.  I'm calculating it to be about 48 cents!  Since this made about 20 whole ones and a bunch of little pieces which I won't count, that's only 2.4 cents each.  I'd say that's pretty cheap!

These were sooooo good. While they didn't quite seem the same as Casa Bonita, I think that may be because perhaps they use real lard.  Not really sure, but either way, they were heaven on a plate!  These are designed to be eaten right away, so if you fry them all, plan on using them within a couple of hours or they get all soggy and grease-logged.  When I try out my frozen ones in the future, I'll let you know how that comes out.
Have a happy day!  If you eat one of these, you definitely will!
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