Baked French Toast with apple pie topping

Have you ever been called a cheapskate? I have, and I own  that title!! I have some bread that isn't bad but it's going stale and dry. I hate throwing food away, so we looked for a tasty way to use it up, and found one. Baked French Toast.

I will say, as with almost any recipe I find, I wind up making it my own by tweaking it here and there and using ingredients I have on hand. That's what we did today, too. My son actually did all the work in making this yummy lunch treat.

In the meantime, here's the recipe we worked out.

Baked French Toast with Apple Pie Topping

Preheat oven to 350F

8 to 10 slices stale bread
4 large eggs
1 cup milk
3/4 tablespoon vanilla
1 pint of apple pie filling (You could also use a can of apple pie filling)

Lay the bread slices, overlapping slightly, in a well greased 9x13 baking pan or dish.

Mix the eggs, milk, and vanilla very well until light and frothy. Pour the mixture over the bread and let it soak a couple of minutes. Drop spoonfuls of the apple pie filling over the top and spread it out.

Cover with foil and slip into preheated oven for about 30 minutes. Remove foil and finish baking, another 30 minutes, or until lightly browned and toothpick test proves doneness.

Remove from oven. Let rest 10 minutes. Serve it warm on a plate with melted butter drizzled over or powdered sugar sprinkled on.

Here's a picture of the finished product, plated. It was super good. Like a cross between bread pudding and custard, with a hint of apple pie thrown in!

And here's the video showing how we did it!

When life gives you lemons or cranberries

Last fall I canned up quite a few jars of cranberry sauce. I'd had the berries in the freezer and in anticipation of moving off-grid, I started canning everything in there. The sauce was one thing. However, I'm pretty sure I measured too much water into the pot of berries and sugar because every last jar of cranberry sauce was runny and soupy.

We've been eating it anyway, but I canned it in pints and we can't go through a pint before it goes bad. No real refrigeration, you know. (Next time I'll use half-pints.) Well, we had it with a "Thanksgiving" style meal the other night. Home canned chicken, gravy, stove top stuffing (don't judge - it was on sale, I had coupons, and it's tasty), and a few other homemade items. Still had about 3/4 of the pint left after dinner.



Today I decided I needed to do something different with the cranberry sauce, so I searched through the recipes on my computer and came up with a quick bread recipe to use. It was actually a pumpkin bread recipe, but after tweaking it a bit, the result is moist, delicious cranberry bread!

Here's how I made the bread:

   1/4  Teaspoon baking powder
   3/4  Teaspoon salt
   1/2  Teaspoon cinnamon
   1 Teaspoon baking soda
   1 2/3  Cups flour
   1 1/2  Cups sugar
   1/2  Cup oil
   2 eggs
   1 1/2 cups cranberry sauce

Sift together baking powder, spices, baking soda and flour.  Beat
together other ingredients, then gradually add sifted ingredients.
Mix well.  Bake one hour in greased loaf pan at 350 degrees or until
it tests done.

I would probably use about 1 1/2 cups of any wet syrupy fruit in this recipe. Let me know what you think if you make it!

Blackberry season is here and a recipe for cobbler!

We have wonderful wild blackberries growing right here on the homestead, and we are so grateful for them. We just have to beat the birds to them!

Well, today we did it. And we picked about a quart and a half of delicious, juicy, ripe blackberries. Purple fingers is only part of the reward for braving the thorns and brambles.

What a treasure! Of course, the first thing I did was make a blackberry cobbler from them. It was so yummy!

Here’s what I did:

After I washed the berries well, I sugared them with about 1 1/2 cups sugar, then covered them and let them macerate for about an hour to bring out all the beautiful juices.

Then I melted some buttery spread in a glass baking dish which is about 9 inches square.

Next, I mixed up my cobbler batter. This is nothing more than 1 1/2 cups self rising flour, about 1/2 cup sugar, and enough milk to make it thick, like pancake batter. I used my Nido powdered whole milk for this step and just put about 3 tablespoons of the powder in with the other dry ingredients. Then I added water and stirred till it was the consistency I wanted.

I poured the batter into the melted butter in the baking dish.

Then I poured in the macerated blackberries, trying to get an even layer to within about an inch of all edges of the pan.

I baked it in my Coleman stove top oven at about 325F (it could be baked at 400F in a conventional oven) until the sides and bottom were golden brown and a knife inserted in the center came out clean. It took about an hour in the Coleman oven.

After letting it cool about 30 minutes (this was the hardest part, just letting it sit there!), I mixed up some whipped topping using 2/3 cup whipped topping powder and 2/3 cup cold milk made from the Nido powdered milk. Dolloped generous portions of the whipped topping onto the cobbler serving in a bowl, and we had fresh homemade blackberry cobbler!

Nothing better in the world!!

Technorati Tags: homesteading,cooking,foraging,blackberries,blackberry cobbler,homemade

Just a little financial update

I'm on a fixed income so just before the beginning of every month, I write out my budget for the upcoming month ahead. Not much really changes from month to month normally. However, my next SS was dropped by $134 for Medicare. (Trying to get out of that since I'm already low enough income to be on my state's expanded medicaid anyway.) Anyhow, I did account for that decrease when I wrote out my budget, which includes regular payments, a small go-phone monthly coverage, Exede internet, gas for our generator/truck, propane for cooking, groceries and incidentals. You know. Regular stuff. (Off grid so I allow extra for the genny gas.) Oh, and I owe my older daughter some money for helping us out last week with gas and propane money. Hope not to have to do that again.
 
This month I also needed to get the connections and gas line for a propane heater. So, we picked up some things at Lowe’s. That cost more than I expected! Well, we get it all home after our other shopping and some parts don’t fit correctly. So, Saturday (tomorrow as I write this), I’ll send my son back to town to get everything we actually need. Weather predictions for later next week are for some frozen precipitation so we want to get that heater installed before then. Well, by the time he gets things traded around for what we need, we should be getting refunded some money back to my bank account, so that’s always a plus.
 
We filled up the empty propane tank and got the partially filled one topped up. Got 10 gallons of gas for the genny, filled the truck with gas, and got motor oil and fuel treatment. Had to pick up a couple of things at our local discount store to set us up for the month in that regard. Paper items, mostly, plus dish washing liquid.
 
As for shopping, I kept it very low. I finished using a Tractor Supply gift card on, what else, deer corn (2 bags) for chicken, goat, and pig feed, and a bag of dog food. I also got a bag of orange slice candy. Didn’t need it but, dangit, sometimes I just want orang slice candy! LOL
 
We went to Harbor Freight with another gift card to get a couple of items we need on the homestead plus to use a 20% off coupon and also get a couple of free-with-purchase items.
 
Then we headed back to our home town for groceries, where we found 16 ounce bags of frozen vegetables for just .68 each. Got 10 of those and will be canning them since our freezer is really just used for refrigeration. (Only running it a few hours a week to keep things cool but not frozen.) Also picked up the makings for our New Year’s Day meal (blackeyed peas, canned spinach, hog jowl) and a few other items. Total there was only about $30. With what I have on hand already as far as home canned meats and stuff, it’s all we needed.
 
I paid what bills I could online, then I’ll write a check for the land payment. That old fellow doesn’t do internet stuff. lol I’ll hold enough in the bank for my internet payment on the 8th, of course. Monday we’ll need to head into town to get feed bread. That place was closed before we could get over there today. The feed bread helps tremendously with reducing our overall feed costs.
 
The chickens are pretty consistently laying 2 eggs a day. Not a lot, I know, but we let them build up in a basket on the table then have a breakfast-for-supper day or I use them in other recipes.
 
I’m thinking things will always be tight budget-wise, but I’ve always made it before and I’ll make it again.

Technorati Tags: budget,homestead

The Homestead Cheapskate: Eggy supper from frozen eggs

I still have eggs in my freezer from late last summer, so I’m trying to use them up before we move. I probably have another 2 dozen to go, but today I made a sort of pizza flavored self-crusting quiche with 6 of them.

If you freeze eggs, you will need to plan a day ahead to use them since they need to thaw in the fridge. Trying to quick-thaw them just means you wind up cooking them!

Last year, I bought some small portion cups with lids. Each cup holds one whole egg. I washed the eggs (remember, they were fresh from the hen house), then cracked each one into a portion cup. Then, I added a pinch of salt and gently stirred them just enough to break the yolk but not enough to incorporate air. Air in them will make them freezer burn faster. I stacked them in the freezer, level, until they froze solid. If I remember right, the cups were 2 ounces each.

Recently, I’ve been working on using them up in as many ways as possible. They aren’t suitable for fried eggs, but they are ok for scrambled eggs or for using in recipes.

My “quiche” recipe is pretty basic and simple:

• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 6 eggs, mixed together
• 1 cup milk

Mix all together well and add other ingredients you like or are trying to use up, such as chopped or shredded cheese, chopped onions, chopped bell pepper, spinach or other greens, bacon/sausage if you want, herbs, seasonings. It’s really up to you. I don’t go over about 2 cups total of extra ingredients.

For today’s supper, I used a bit over a cup of canned diced tomatoes that were in the fridge, some fresh oregano and rosemary I chopped up, about a half cup of cheddar cheese I sliced thin, and some garlic powder. I mixed all that into the basic egg mixture, poured it into a well-greased skillet, and baked it at 350F for about 45 minutes. The top was bubbly and a knife inserted in the center came out clean. It won’t get a real pie crust on it, but the bottom and up the sides a bit will be crusty.
I served this with Parmesan cheese and home canned salsa.

With just Parmesan cheese.

With home canned salsa on top.

It turned out very good with a pizza-like flavor and aroma. Mozzarella cheese over the top of it would have really been awesome, but I forgot to get that out of the freezer.

If you make this, let me know how you did yours!

Lowe's lumber haul!

On Tuesday, we headed to town to do a couple of things that we could only do in the bigger town, which is also our county seat.

One thing was to take the smaller 12 volt solar water pump back and trade it for another one, at Harbor Freight. Not sure what happened but even though we tested it first at our current location, and it worked, it didn't work for pulling water up out of the well and actually started smoking! They swapped it out with not really any questions asked, but I did tell them what happened to it. Got another one exactly the same, so we'll probably use it just to help push water into the cabin across level ground.

I went on Ebay and ordered a larger, submersible 12 volt pump that we can run off solar/batteries. Still need at least 2 of the blue, food safe 55 gallon drums for water storage. All things come in time, so we may be using plastic storage totes for water storage to begin with. A very sweet friend sent me some money through paypal which helped me get the bigger well pump. Thank you! You know who you are!

Went to Lowe's to see about the price of various lumber that we need to build walls inside the cabin and extend the sleeping loft. We talked about seeing if they had any "remnant" lumber, so my son went to ask one of the associates. Well, that guy is actually a friend of ours and we didn't realize he works there! He took us around the side of the building, outside, where there were 3 bundles of lumber. Two of the bundles included MDF panels, plywood, 2x's of various widths and lengths, 1x's of various widths and lengths (some were a bit curled at one end), scrap pieces of paneling, short pieces of trim molding, a full sheet of very heavy lattice, and more that I can't recall at the moment. There was a price attached to each bundle as well as a plastic envelope showing the original value if they were full price. We offered $40 for each bundle and he accepted it! If we had paid the asking price, it would have been around $130, and the original value was a little over $300. So, we got an astounding deal to get them both for $80 + tax.

The third bundle looked like all wood fence boards for $100 and I might have been able to get that, too for probably $50 or $60, but cash is king and I'm not! lol So, I had to pass that one by. I sure could have used all that other lumber, though! Maybe next month there'll be more good deals on bundles! Besides, what we did get completely filled the truck bed and we had to put some of the longer boards through the sliding back window and into the cab!

That truck bed was completely filled! There's lots more under there that you can't see.

The worst thing to happen, though, was that when I put one of the boards into the truck bed, it bounced a bit and hit my wrist right on that bone that's under my thumb. Ouch!! 14 hours later and it's still hurting, so I wonder if the bone might be cracked or something. I'm having to be very careful how I move my hand so it doesn't hurt.

The Homestead Cheapskate - Popcorn off-grid style

It's been years since I made popcorn on the stove in a skillet. I remember it being so good! Well, I have a harder time shaking a cast iron skillet and lid over the stove these days, so I looked up Alton Brown's method in a steel mixing bowl.

Did a half batch in a steel bowl and burnt it to a crisp! LOL So, I got out my smallest stock pot and lid and did a regular size batch in that. I still scorched it a little (practice makes perfect) but it was mostly very good. We've been craving some popcorn and this seemed like the perfect time to try it.

Instead of melted butter, I mixed coconut oil and butter powder together. Then, when the popcorn was done, I heated the "butter" just till it started to melt and poured it over the popcorn. Sprinkled in some Parmesan cheese, too. My son added Louisiana hot sauce to his portion. I just wanted the buttered-parm cheese alone without hot sauce. We ate all but the scorched pieces of the popcorn, which will go to the chickens tomorrow. (They have less discerning taste than we do.)

Here's the directions I followed -- mostly. I don't have peanut oil so I used corn oil instead, but I did do the method in the recipe. Next time, I'll use lower heat.

Alton Brown Perfect Popcorn

We are never disappointed with recipes and tips from his channel and website. And, best of all, so many things he does are just fine for off-grid cooking! You can't really get much cheaper than a batch of popcorn for a nighttime snack or for eating while watching a movie. I hope I can get one of the actual stove top poppers to make it a bit easier!

By the way, I get nothing for linking to the popcorn recipe. I just thought y'all might enjoy it!

The Homestead Cheapskate - Part 2 Food preservation

In the midst of everything else that's going on (see my previous post), I still need to take care of the everyday things. One of those things is food preservation. And my favorite method of preserving food is canning. Next, is dehydrating, but for this part of The Homestead Cheapskate, I'm dealing with canning, and doing it safely.

Because of the need to get the freezers emptied before we have to move, I am "binge canning" now. Today, I canned ground beef.

Now I'm going to tell you right from the get-go: I only use the safe tested methods from the USDA, Ball, Bernardin, and several university extension services that do the food safety testing. I don't play fast and loose with our health and canned foods can be extremely dangerous if you aren't following tested procedures and methods.

We did get one freezer emptied (and yes, there were some freezer burned things in there. Bad homesteader!), and I found things that could be canned up to further empty the other freezer. One of those things was a 10 pound chub of ground beef. I also have some beef patties that I'll be canning very soon, plus several packages of fruit that I'll can in light syrup in a few days.

The meats I'm canning were bought when a local store was having crazy low meat prices. I don't buy meat until they have those kinds of prices. I'm not a "weekly shopper" kind of person. I ONLY shop for groceries that are deeply discounted, on sale, or in season at very low prices. We are likely to bring home 30 pounds of chicken because it was on sale, but we might not get any other meat. I don't necessarily have a plan for the on-sale meat, but I know we'll use it. The 30 pounds of chicken? I got it for $1.99 for 10 pounds! I canned most of it. We ate a meal or two out of it. And I left out some chicken legs to put in the freezer for frying. 30 pounds of chicken will probably give us 40 meals. I build my meal plans around the things I have.

The 10 pounds of ground beef I canned today produced 13 pints, which translates into 13 meals for us. How will I use it? I'll use it in any recipe that calls for a pound of ground beef, I'll put it in soups or casseroles, I'll make tacos or burritos with it...lots of ways.

How did I can it? I followed the USDA recommendations for Canning Chopped or Ground Meat. It turns out perfectly, as you'll see in the video I made while canning it.

The Homestead Cheapskate - Part 1 The Electric Bill

Probably nobody is more of a cheapskate, skinflint than me. Not in areas where quality far outweighs a cheap price. But in areas where "making do or do without" really counts.

For this installment of The Homestead Cheapskate, I'll address saving on the electric bill. I'm sure many of my tips will be just a rehash of things you've already read or learned in the past. I'm hoping some of them, though, will be a little newer to you. My goal is to so reduce my electric bill and electricity usage that a moderate solar array will actually supply all my power needs. It's a work in progress. At the end of this post, I'll show you our solar setup so far and my goals for extending its use.

1. Unplug those chargers! The "phantom" load on phone chargers, and other chargers, is pretty small. But it still exists. Every hour of every day, even when not in use, those little chargers are pulling power. The more you have, the more power they pull. Unplug them when you're not actually using them. Better yet, seek out a way to charge your devices without having anything plugged into a socket. I use my laptop and a USB cord to charge my cell phone and other devices that need it. I also have a "vape" MVP (I think that's what it's called) that holds a charge for a long time and can plug into my phone to charge it up. It's the mini-USB end and it works for other devices as well. Once the MVP is fully charged, I can use it for my phone 2 or 3 times without needing grid electricity.
2. Monitor your hot water usage! I do laundry in cold water unless something is really needing warm water, like extra dirty towels. Most of the time, though, cold water will work just fine. I also don't own a dishwasher, though they are pretty energy efficient, so I wash dishes by hand. I make sure my dishes are well scraped of any garbage. I fill up my dishpan with hot, sudsy water (it holds less than the actual sink), then I half fill the other sink with plain hot water with about 1/2 cup of white vinegar in it for rinse water. Even plastic items come out squeaky clean from the rinse. I've only used about 1 1/2 to 2 gallons of hot water for rinsing and about the same for washing. Rinsing under hot running water can use many times more than that!
3. Switch the kind of light bulbs you use! Right now, I'm using CFL bulbs but the next bulb purchase I make will be LED. I get the brightness I want and only use a tiny fraction of the power. They also don't generate heat, which is a real blessing in the summer time since it reduces the need for so much running of the AC, which is a window unit.
4. Monitor your electric stove usage! I do have an electric stove, and really wish I could have propane here. I can't, so I do the best I can with what I have. In this case, I actually turn the breaker off to the stove unless I really, really need to use it. After all, it's a 240 watt appliance. If I'm doing oven dishes, I do several of them at one time. Maybe a casserole, potatoes, and bread all together so that I'm only running the oven once for the whole meal. Even side dishes, like green beans, will go in the oven with the rest of the food in oven safe dishes or small skillets. I also make good use of my crock pot or my roasters. I have a large turkey roaster that can do double duty as a table top oven. In the summer, you'll often find it out on the table on the back deck where I'm baking bread in it. Yes! You can bake bread in a roaster and it does get brown! It bakes in exactly the same amount of time, doesn't use as much electricity to bake, and doesn't counteract the AC since it's baking outside!
   
5. Turn off or unplug anything you're not using! I know, this should go without saying. But how many times have I left the bread machine plugged in, the coffee maker plugged in, or a light on in an unoccupied room. Yes, I'm guilty of all that. I bet you are, too. But part of reducing electric consumption is becoming more aware of what's going on in your home. The best method of making sure nothing is sucking those phantom loads is to have things plugged into an outlet strip. Just flip the switch on it, and you will have turned off everything that's plugged into it. Use these for your TV, stereo, DVD player, printer, computer...I'm sure you can look around and see lots of items that would be just fine if you switch off their power!
   
6. Find and use non-electric appliances and kitchen tools! A short run-down of things I use in my home are a manual egg beater, hand crank grain mill, hand crank Victorio food mill, hand crank meat/veggie grinder, wire whisks, mandoline...I'm sure there are more I've forgotten until I am actually cooking. You get the picture, though. I can use my manual egg beater and whip up fluffy whipped topping for cobbler in the same amount of time (maybe less!) than it would take to get out an electric mixer, plug it in, put in the beaters, and do the project. I still have to wash the beaters and I have to wash the manual beater, so that time is the same. The major difference is that I can get the manual beater out, use it, and be done, and not use electricity for it! Same for all the other things I mentioned. They are easy to set up, easy to use, and easy to clean in minutes.

And, here's my solar setup. It's pretty small -- only 205 watts -- and 2 batteries. But, it is very useful when the power goes out. I can plug my modem into the inverter (10 watts) and my laptop (65 watts) and still remain connected to the outside world.