I jumped on the internet and did a search for mayonnaise recipes.  The first one I came up with had tons of ingredients and promised a “bright tasting” version.  Bright tasting sounded about right for my slaw so I got out my trusty blender and the other ingredients and went to town.  Now it already was not the most inexpensive undertaking because I was using olive oil instead of regular vegetable oil.  I’m pretty sure you can buy a quart of mayo for less than a cup and a half of olive oil.

The resulting glop was a serious taste disaster.  It didn’t emulsify.  It was oily and olive tasting with a tang that just didn’t sit well with me.  I poured it out in the weeds.  I was two eggs, a cup and a half of olive oil and the other ingredients into this experiment and I will freely admit that it wasn’t the recipe’s fault, it was mine.

I gave up for about 5 minutes and then decided to give it another try.  I did my research and read a few more recipes.  I figured out why my recipe didn’t work.   I stumbled upon another recipe that promised to work AND taste great.  Well, what did I have to lose but another few eggs and some more olive oil.

I have to tell you that making homemade mayo is not for the faint at heart.  It is not the most frugal recipe in the world but the mayo I ended up with is much healthier than the store bought stuff.  If you decide to undertake this endeavor, I will also include these few tips.

Homemade Mayonnaise Tips

• Start with all your ingredients at room temperature.
• Add oil one drop at a time and mix until emulsified
• Do not rush the process – it is better to add oil one drop at a time than to put too much too fast
• Use a lightly flavored oil or a mix of oils – my olive oil decidedly flavored the mayo.

The real trick to this whether you use a whisk or a blender is to add the oil slowly at first.  The egg yolks act as an emulsifier but the yolk and the oil have to be totally mixed before adding another drop.  Add another drop and mix again.  Once you have a tablespoon or two mixed in then you can start drizzling it in but if you go to fast, it will separate and you will have glop.

My first and second tries at making mayonnaise took 5 eggs, 2 1/2 cups of olive oil plus all the other ingredients to yield a single cup of mayo.  It ended up tasting ok but was definitely not cheap.

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It doesn’t seem like that would be a hard goal to reach but with the cost of food (we have blown the grocery budget this month with 3 trips to the store) it is a little more challenging than it seems.  Amelia has me searching through my recipes and not finding many that are both frugal and lo cal.

One of my favorites is Salsa Chicken.  Boneless chicken breasts are marinaded in a salsa marinade and then grilled or broiled.

Salsa Chicken

1/3 cup lime juice
2 tsp minced ginger
2 cloves minced garlic
2 Tb olive oil
2 tsp chili powder
1 cup Salsa
1 1/2 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts

Mix first 5 ingredients in a small pan and bring to a boil.  Stir in Salsa and allow to cool.  Put chicken breasts in a plastic bag and marinade for 2 – 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Grill or broil chicken breasts, turning once and basting with some marinade when you turn them until done.  Make sure that chicken is done all the way through.

I use frozen bags of chicken tenderloins.  These cost approximately $7 for 5 lbs so this is a very economical main dish.  Salsa is a staple in our house so I always have a jar open in the refrigerator.

The recipe makes 6 servings at 225 calories per serving.

Do you have any frugal lo cal recipes to share?  I will pass them along to Amelia as well.   If you have one online, I will include it in an upcoming frugal lo cal recipe post so shoot me a link.

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I don’t use my crockpot nearly as much now that I don’t work outside the home but I still pull it out on busy days when I know that we are going to come in hungry and want dinner. It is absolutely my favorite kitchen appliance.

Easy Crockpot Chicken

• 1 whole frying chicken
• 1 small bottle salad dressing
• pepper

Wash and pat chicken dry.  Rub inside and out with salad dressing.  Any kind of italian, catalina, russian or french dressing will work.  I don’t think that ranch or bleu cheese would do as well.  Place into the crock pot and set heat on low.  Chicken will be ready in 6 to 8 hours.

Salsa Crockpot Chicken

• 1 chicken or 3lbs of boneless chicken breast
• 1 jar salsa (fruit salsa or regular mexican salsa)

Cut up whole chicken.  Wash and pat chicken dry.  Place chicken into crockpot and pour salsa over it.  Set slow cooker to low and leave for 5-8 hours.

Crockpot Lemon Chicken

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1″ pieces
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. pepper
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• 3 Tbsp. ketchup
• 3 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 3 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 6 oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
• 2 Tbsp. cornstarch

Mix flour with salt and pepper in a zip lock bag.  Place chicken piece in bag and shake to coat.  Shake off extra flour mix and brown in olive oil  over medium high heat. Remove chicken and place in a 3-4 quart crockpot.Mix the vinegar, ketchup, brown sugar, lemon juice, and lemonade concentrate in small bowl and pour into the skillet. Cook and stir, scraping to remove browned bits, until mixture comes to a boil. Pour sauce over chicken in crockpot. Cover and cook on LOW for 7-8 hours or on HIGH for 3-4 hours. When ready to serve, combine cornstarch and water in small bowl, mix well and stir into the sauce. Cook on HIGH for 20-30 minutes until thickened.

All three of these recipes are easy to cook and inexpensive as well.   Our kids and grandkids all love them and it’s really nice to be able to spend time with them instead of in the kitchen cooking the meals.  Try them out and let me know how they work for your family.

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Welcome to the April 6, 2009 edition of carnival of homesteading.  This was a difficult edition to put together as we had so many articles that had absolutely no relation to Homesteading and some of the ones that did were just sales pitches for something.  In order to maintain a quality carnival, we did not include them in this edition.

Mark presents Free Insulation – R Value posted at Insulation Rebate.

KCLau presents 5 Ways To Take Charge Of Our Finances posted at KCLau’s Money Tips, saying, “Are we doing the right things when it comes to managing our finances? Ask yourself five questions to know if you’re on the right track.”

Gardening

Vikki Lawrence-Williams presents How to Make a Seed Tape posted at Backyard Grocery Gardening, saying, “Why make your own seed tape? First, finding exactly the seed you want in a pre-made seed tape is almost impossible. Second, pre-made seed tapes are expensive! And third, it’s easier to space the seeds by placing them on a seed tape than doing it in the garden with wind blowing those tiny carrot and herb seeds. Be sure to check out our blog: www.backyardgrocerygardening.blogspot.com”

Nancy Muller presents A Ton of Garden, A Tiny Space: Vegetables for the 6″ Container posted at Recession Depression Therapy, saying, “Even the apartment dweller can grow a surprising amount of vegetables. Dig in and join the adventures of the Ton of Gardening, Tiny Space series.”

Cindy presents HR 875 Regulates Homesteaders, Gardeners and Organic Farmers posted at Small Homestead, saying “This is a bill that has the potential to eliminate local farmers markets, food cooperatives and organic farming.”

Miscellaneous

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Debt Elimination Tips: How To Reduce Debt With These Dos and Don’ts posted at The Digerati Life, saying, “Here are some strategies to cut your costs!”

The Smarter Wallet presents Budget Your Money and Control Your Spending Using This Simple System posted at The Smarter Wallet, saying, “Learn how to budget your money to control spending in your family and home.”

Recipes

Vikki Lawrence-Williams presents Recipe: Salt Rising Bread posted at Survival Cooking, Gardening and Emergency Preparedness Info, saying, “This is a bread developed in the early to mid 1800′s (1830-1840′s) by pioneers who couldn’t get a hold of “already-made yeast”- either because they couldn’t afford it or because they were too isolated. This takes planning, and a willingness for a stinky house, but if you don’t have yeast and want a risen bread, this recipe will be great for you! Check out our blog: www.survival-cooking.com”

Rani presents Potato and Corn Flake Casserole posted at Indoor Garden Musings.

The Austerity Kitchen presents Clostridium Capers: The Wonders of Salt Rising Bread posted at The Austerity Kitchen.

Recycling

Kathryn presents 8 Stunningly Creative Examples of Welding Art posted at Kathryn Vercillo on HubPages, saying, “These artists take old scrap metal that would just be junked and use welding arts to recycle it into functional and fun pieces for the home.”

Sustainable Living

Ishan B presents 25 Tips to Save Money on Vacation posted at Save Few Bucks, saying, “Practical Tips to save money on vacation. Thanks for taking out time to review this.”

Michele presents We have a composting toilet posted at A House Called Nut – Life in the backwoods of Finland, saying, “My experience of living with a homemade composting toilet system in the backwoods of Finland. Thanks very much for considering my submission! Looking forward to seeing next week’s carnival.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of homesteading using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: carnival of homesteading, blog carnival.

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I like easy dinner recipes that have few ingredients and I love cooking in the crockpot.  I can start things in the morning and they are ready at dinner time with very little fuss.

Crockpot Turkey Recipe

• 1 frozen turkey breast, NOT thawed bone-in (about 5 pounds) or boneless (about 3 pounds)
• 1 lb. can cranberry sauce
• 1 envelope dry onion soup mix

Preparation:

For bone-in turkey, put all ingredients into 5-6 quart crockpot, cover, and cook for 2 hours on high. Then reduce heat to low and continue cooking for 4-5 hours until turkey registers 170 degrees F on instant meat thermometer. (Some sources now say that 165 degrees F is acceptable for a safe temperature).

For boneless turkey breast, follow instructions above. When you reduce the crockpot heat to low, start checking the turkey after 1-2 hours. It may only need that much time to reach 170 degrees F.

Slice turkey breast and serve with sauce. 6 servings

Don’t you love the simplicity?  I have made similar recipes with chicken and they came out wonderful.  You can substitute any kind of fruit sauce (or even jelly) or use a whole chicken instead of a turkey breast.

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The villagers became curious and asked him what he was doing.  He told them he was making stone soup.  They answered that you couldn’t make soup from a stone.  “Of course you can, he told them and continued to cook.”   They became more and more curious and he offered to share some with them when it was done.

He looked at the most curious of the villagers and mentioned that it was a shame he had no onions to add to the soup as it would be much better.  Next thing you know, the villager had returned with a plump onion to add.  A little bit later, he mentioned to another villager that it was a shame he didn’t have any carrots as the soup would be much better and soon that villager had returned with some carrots.  He continued to cook and the aroma of the onions and carrots wafted through the village.  A few more villagers stopped by and he mentioned that the stone soup was coming along well but would be so much better if he had some leftover meat to add to it.  Several of the villagers scurried off, returning with meat to add to the soup.

Now the aroma of the soup was drawing a crowd and more villagers brought vegetables to add to the soup.  It was like a party.  When the soup was done, everyone ate their fill and the starving man was full and content and so were the villagers.

There are a lot of meanings to this story.  It’s about making something from nothing.  It’s about learning to share for the betterment of all.  It’s about using ingenuity to make your way in the world.  Today, I am using it as an introduction to what I have always though of as stone soup.

Soup Pot

I keep a quart container in the freezer and add any leftover vegetables to it including enough cooking water to cover them.  This ends up being layers of different vegetables, a cup of peas, a half cup of potatoes, some green beans, left over carrots, etc.  When one quart container is done, I start another.  This is my soup pot.

Stone Soup

When we have leftover meat whether it is chicken, beef, pork or ham, I make stone soup.  I take the left over meat and cut it into chunks.  If there is bone, I leave it in to help flavor the soup.  I then add water to cover and some canned tomatoes.  I let this simmer for an hour or two to make a good stock and then start adding the frozen soup pot quarts.  I simmer this for maybe another hour and season to taste and I have my version of stone soup.

This is virtually a free meal and it is always delicious.  It contains a variety of vegetables with a meat and vegetable stock.  I don’t have to buy anything except the tomatoes and it’s usually enough to feed us for several days.  If we get tired of it, I usually freeze a quart or so for a cold rainy day.

What do you do with your leftovers?

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A few months ago, a man stopped by the barn and wanted to know if he could have the horse manure for his garden.  We gladly agreed as the horses generate a prodigous amount of manure weekly.  It makes great compost but it has to be moved from the barn to the compost pile on a regular basis.  The man offered to bring us some fresh collards from his garden when they were ready.

Sure enough, the week before Thanksgiving he showed up with two huge heads of collards.  Collards are normally cooked with a piece of salt cured pork to give them flavor.  While I didn’t have salt cured pork, I did have a ham bone that I had saved from a recent ham dinner.

Collard Greens

The recipe for collards is fairly simple.  You wash the collard greens several times to remove any grit or dirt from them.  Normally you would strip or chop them but we cooked the whole leaves.  Next time I will chop them as they filled the pan when they were raw.  You put the ham or pork in a large pan and cover with water.  Add a pinch of red pepper and fill the pan with collards.  The collards will cook down pretty quickly so you don’t need to cover them with water.  If you use salted ham, you don’t need to add salt.  Cook the collards until tender and season to taste.

Venison Kabobs are now one of my favorite meals.  The kabobs can also be made with any lean beef.  You start by cutting the meat into bite sized pieces.  With Venison, you will want to remove any of the white membrane that is tough.  Put the pieces into a bowl of Zesty Italian dressing and marinade for 20 minutes.  Put the meat onto skewers and then directly onto the grill.  With venison, you will want to grill until well done.  If you use beef, you can cook to taste.

Venison Kabobs

We serve the kabobs with Ranch dressing.  We generally make twice as much as we think we will need and we rarely have left overs.  I meant to take pictures of them when they were done but we had finished them off before I thought about it again.

Venison is a very economical meal for us as Randy’s family hunts every weekend and they share the meat with us.  Of course, when Randy cooks it they also eat with us.

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by hjl

It’s bad enough that the cost of everything is going up but as rice futures soared, two major warehouse stores put limits on the amount of rice.  Both warehouse super stores serve restaurants which buy rice in bulk bags of 20 lbs or more and are limiting customer purchases to 4 bags.

This has not effected rice in smaller household packages at this time and Walmart says that they do not forsee any limits in their stores.  With recent bans of rice exports from the major suppliers worldwide, a rise in rice prices is to be expected and I would not be surprised to see shortages in some varieties of rice such as jasmine and basmati follow.

It seemed like a good day to explore some rice alternatives.  The following foods are made from different grains although it seems like quite a few are made from either wheat or corn.

Rice Alternatives

1. Bulgar – made from wheat, it has a nutty flavor and can be either cooked or soaked and eaten raw.
2. Barley – this is the stuff in Campbells vegetable beef soup that looks like wheat.  It is a grain with a nutlike flavor and a chewy consistency.
3. Couscous – a grain from North Africa, it has become more popular in America in recent years.  It can be made from wheat, millet, or barley.  Couscous has become one of my favorites.  I add a little olive oil and garlic instead of butter.
4. Quinoa – “The Gold of the Incas”  is an amino acid-rich (protein) seed that has a fluffy, creamy, slightly crunchy texture and a somewhat nutty flavor when cooked.  Quinoa can be purchased at your local health food store.
5. Millet – this is the small seed in bird seed.  It’s easy to grow as anyone who has a bird feeder can tell you and it is mild in flavor.
6. Kasha – is made from buckwheat groats. (Groats are the hulled grain) Kasha is popular in Eastern European countries.
7. Polenta – a dish made from boiled cornmeal.  This is truly an Italian dish and while I haven’t tried it, you can check out some of the polenta recipes.
8. Grits – no list would be complete without adding this southern staple.  Although recognized primarily as a breakfast food, there are dozens of ways to prepare grits.

Do you have any other rice alternatives?  Have you tried any of these?

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Tonight I am preparing Chicken in Raspberry Sauce. While this sounds like a totally decadent meal, it is actually not terribly expensive to prepare. I am also taking some liberties with the recipe as I did not have fresh raspberries or rice vinegar and I didn’t want to buy them for one dish.

Chicken in Raspberry Sauce

• 1/2 cup raspberry preserves (fruit only type)
• 1/2 cup frozen pineapple juice concentrate, thawed
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 2 T rice wine vinegar (I used balsamic vinegar)
• 1/2 t chili powder
• 1/2 t curry powder
• 1/2 t garlic powder
• 1/4 cup fresh raspberries, mashed ( I left these out and added a bit more preserves)
• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Serving Day: 1/4 cup fresh raspberries

Serves 6

Cooking Day Instructions:

Combine preserves, juice, soy sauce, vinegar, chili powder, curry, and garlic powder and mashed raspberries. Place raspberry mixture together with chicken breasts in a freezer bag and seal bag securely. Freeze, using the freezer bag method.

Serving Day Instructions

Thaw chicken mixture completely and place sauce and chicken in a large baking dish. Bake covered at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Remove from oven, transfer chicken to serving platter and top with pan juices. Garnish with fresh raspberries.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am freezing most of the recipe and cooking one serving tonight. It smells heavenly. This is one of the recipes from “Don’t Panic – Dinners in the Freezer”

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Honey Pecan Chicken

6 Boneless Chicken Breasts

Marinade

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 t fresh thyme, minced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/4 t pepper

Honey Cream Sauce

• 2 T butter
• 1 T shallots
• 1 cup Orange Juice
• 1/4 cup whiskey
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 2 T honey
• 1 T cider vinegar
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/8 t pepper

Serving Day

• 1/2 cup pecans, chopped
• 1/4 cup flour
• Olive Oil

Cooking Day Instructions

For the chicken: Mix olive oil, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper. Place chicken breasts in freezer bags, then pour olive oil mixture over chicken breasts. Freeze.

For the Sauce: melt butter in medium saucepan over low heat. Saute shallots in butter until tender. Add orange juice and whiskey over medium heat, and continue cooking until liquid is reduced by one half. Add cream. Continue cooking until slightly thickened. Add honey, vinegar, salt and pepper. Cool. Freeze separately.

Cooking Day Instructions:

Thaw chicken breasts and cream sauce. Mix chopped pecans and flour together. Dredge chicken breasts in flour mixture. Heat a small amount of olive oil in large skillet. Pan fry chicken breasts until golden brown and cooked through. Heat sauce over low heat until warm. Do not boil.

To serve, place chicken on individual serving dishes and pour cream sauce over chicken breasts.

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