Slice it up or cube it and let it dry out then buzz it in the food processor. Use as breadcrumbs. It's what I do with any failed bread I have or the heels of loaves I buy that get dried out.

In the oven right now - a pan of stuffed green peppers. This is the first time I've ever made them, so we'll see how they turn out. I stuffed 3 of the halves with a mix of left over red beans & rice and some corn, and the last half pepper with left over cous cous (ran out of red beans and rice) I remembered a little too late that I meant to dice up some left over chicken and mix it in, so oh well, vegetarian it is. One half and some soup on the side for dinner tonight, another half tomorrow, and I'll freeze the other 2 to eat at a later date. II'm working on keeping the freezer stocked with meals that I can thaw and eat so that I can stop buying Lean Cuisine/Stoffers dinners for nights when I just don't have the time.

Oh.. I have no intentions of submerging my hand in the water more than finger tip depth. I usually have just enough water in the pot to barely reach over the jars when I place them in, and another pot of boiling water waiting to pour over them to raise the water level 2 inches above the tops of the jars.

As for afterwards, I tend to leave things to cool for atleast half an hour (yes, I know the directions say 5 minutes but so far it's worked out well) before attempting to remove the jars. I think at that point I'd probably still use the tongs but have the glove on the other hand to catch the jar as soon as I lift it up out of the water. I'd feel much safer doing that than trying to raise the jar all the way out of the pot and back down using just the tongs. My short stumpy arms don't have to lift the jar quite as high that way.

I got suckered in by a demo back when I was in college for one of those amazing knives that will cut everything, including a brick or a sneaker but still manage to slice a tomato. They offered not one but TWO for $10 and if we promised to give it to a friend so they could try it out, we got a third one as well as a filleting knife and 6 steak knives. Seeing that I was a broke college student at the time with just one incredibly dull knife to my name, I took the deal. I never expected the knives to last long, but I figured for 10 bucks hopefully between the three of them they'd last me till I graduated college and I could afford better knives.

I've been out of college for 12 years now and while I don't remember when exactly I bought these, it was fairly early in my college career. I still have one of the knives and use it almost as often as my henkles chefs knife. And its not that only one remains out of the original 3 I got. I gave one to a friend as promised, and eventually gave another to my mom. She still uses hers to this day. In fact she helps out in the community kitchen of the temple she belongs to regularly and takes it with her because she can't stand to use their knives. And she refuses to let anyone else even touch it! So it sees very heavy usage as does almost all the chopping and dicing for 150 people a week. The one I gave to my friend is still in use at his house too - in fact it carved the thanksgiving turkey last year.

Amazing how far that $10 has stretched!

Brilliant!!

I finally got a pressure canner that is very tall - and me being 5'2" it's hard to grab the jars with tongs and raise them up high enough over the edge of the canner and then lowered into it without using a stepstool - which is not something I like to do in the kitchen near a big pot of boiling water. I'll have to get myself one of these before the next canning season!

An experiment that went very right for me tonight - carrot and potato soup made from bottled carrot juice that was given to me. I just can't drink the stuff as is, so I used it for soup. It couldn't have turned out better. Some nice crusty bread on the side to dunk into the soup and I was in heaven.

Coming back to report that my carrot soup was an absolute success!

I sauteed 4 cloves of garlic, half an onion and a stalk of celery in some olive oil, added 2 bottles of juice, a glob of chicken stock concentrate (the better than bouillon stuff), 3 diced up potatoes and seasoned with nutmeg, cumin,paprika, and tumeric. Cooked will the potatoes were tender then puree them in the soup with an immersion blender. I actually had to do that twice.. the first time I'd used just 2 potatoes and it was still too watery so I added a third and pureed again once it was cooked. Add a couple of heaping spoonfuls of dry milk powder (instead of cream) and blend once more.

It was the most luscious creamy soup I've ever made. Now that I know how well it turned out I'm going to make a larger batch and freeze it without the milk powder in it. I know when making cream based soups the cream should be added just before serving. Does anyone know if this still applies if I'm using instant milk powder as well? Or can I add that when making the soup and freeze it that way?

I'm coming back to add something that I made for the first time today - Carrot and potato soup. Sure, the way I made it would be absurdly expensive (I used 2 bottles of organic carrot juice that were given to me) but it could have just as easily been made with regular carrots.

All the other ingredients were cheap enough - 3 potatoes, half an onion, a stalk of celery, a spoon of better than boullion, and a couple of heaping tablespoons of dry milk powder instead of cream. And of course whatever seasonings you want to add from your spice cabinet. This time around it was nutmeg, cumin, and tumeric. Cook everything in just enough water, run the stick blender in the pot for a bit and done! I got probably 4 - 5 servings of soup out of this that's hearty enough to be a meal with some crusty bread on the side.

While per serving this comes out cheap, it's still not a cheap meal to make because we hav to first have $25 to spend on the truffle salt. For me, that's a week and half's groceries most of the time.

Of course, for those who can afford to splurge on the truffle salt during more flush times, it's a great meal. But I think the problem with comparing it with pasta with tomato sauce is that it doesn't provide the same kind of nutrition. Not that a jar of prego poured over pasta is the most well rounded of meals but atleast it provides some veggies and so I could eat it a few times a week if it came down to it. when money was really tight and still feel like I was getting a decent meal. This dish, while delicious to me seems more like a side dish to go with some veggies and meat than as an entree. But then, I'm pretty fussy about getting a well rounded meal no matter what the budget.

That being said - a block of parm is most definately something I keep in my fridge at all times, even on my tight budget. I buy an 8 oz piece probably no more than 3 times a year and use it very sparingly. Just grating just a tiny bit of it over my plain pasta with sauce kicks it up several notches and makes it feel less like an 'end of month broke' meal

Just for fun I calculated my average cost for a plate of spaghetti.

$0.08 1/6 lb pasta (I stock up when pasta goes on sale for 50c/lb)
$0.28 - 1/6 of a quart jar of home canned crushed tomatoes (a quart jar holds 1.66 lbs of tomatoes purchased at $1/3 lbs)
$0.10 - a tiny bit of finely grated parmesean
$0.05 - assorted other items from my space cabinet - purchased from the ethnic stores
= 49 cents for 1 serving with cheese!

Of course, other than the pasta, I make this 6 servings at a time, refrigerate or freeze and boil my pasta fresh for each meal. This was an interesting exercise though. I rarely calculate cost per meal or serving, but my goal is to stay under $1/meal most of the time. Of course, I make up for staying this far under by splurging on cans of artichoke hearts every now and then and eating them in a single sitting.

I've done that in the past, and probably will do it again in the future. I just don't want to get into the habit of having cookie dough easily available. It's too easy to just pop a few into the oven a couple of times a week, while if I'm going to buy cookies, I probably do it just once or twice a month.

Everyday around here is a 'end of month budget' kind of meal for me right now, and I keep my food budget to between $10 and $20 a week for myself. I think that all things considering, I eat pretty darned well.

A dozen eggs for $1.99 will give me protein for a week, especially if I supplement it with beans in some of my meals.

Flour is cheap, and home made bread is easy enough. And tends to come out nicer than the 99 cent white bread.

Kale is cheap - a 99 cent bunch will make 4 meals when sauteed with garlic, an onion, and half an italian sausage per serving. Toss this with some pasta and top with a little grated parm and it makes a tasty hearty meal. Sometimes I switch the kale out for rainbow chard when it's on sale. I suppose just about any greens would work.

Half an onion, a can of sardines and a handful of whole wheat pasta once again topped with a little parm cheese is tasty and lands on my table atleast every couple of weeks.

Spaghetti carbonara is in regular rotation here too. Bacon is expensive, but I buy it on sale, wrap 2 slices in plastic and freeze. That way I can grab jsut a couple of slices to make carbonara without being tempted to eat it all for breakfast in a matter of days.

Soups are great - a bag of beans, a small amount of cheap meat of any sort, some stock make from left over chicken bones if I have it, or a dollop of Better than Boullion if I don't, onions, carrots, a jar of my canned tomatoes and whatever seasoning appeals to me, and I can feed myself for a week.

A rotisserie chicken can easily feed me for 12 or so meals. I realized one day that while I could eat it 4-5 times by having chicken with a side, I could stretch it a LOT further by using the meat in other dishes such as stir fries, soups, sandwiches, etc. And when I'm done with most of the meat, the bones make a great start for a pot of soup.

I do however keep my pantry very well stocked. When I find non perishables very cheap, I buy enough to hopefully last me till the next sale. I have low price points for almost everything I buy, and if an item drops below that price, I stock up. Sardines get stocked at 50 cents a can, pasta at 40 cents / lb, cream of wheat (my preferred breakfast) at 1.50/box. This past summer I also started canning, buying produce at rock bottom prices and putting it up. I'm loving having jars of crushed tomatoes to use in my meals without having to go out and buy them. My red onion relish and tomato jam are great for dressing up plain burgers, eggs, sandwiches, wraps, etc for very little money, and home made jam is the perfect way to sweeten cream of wheat or oatmeal. My biggest expense last summer on these was the jars, but next year I'll be able to reuse the jars, so it will be even cheaper to do this. I've also bought a pressure canner, so I can put up a larger variety of items. I can't wait to get started!

My roommate on the other hand is like many other people who live flush at the start of the month, ordering out a few times a week and then scrimps at the end. Her usual end of the month meals are store brand hotdogs, white bread and turkey sandwiches, iceberg lettuce salads, and ramen noodles. And somehow she spends more on all that than I spend on my regular weekly food.

Caulifower is one of the few veggies on my 'ewwwww' list so I won't be doing that. I hadn't thought of using it as a base for a veggie soup - that has potential! I did a bit more research on thickening soups after posting earlier and have come up with either some pureed white beans or grating a potato into the soup to thicken it. Both are healthy choices. Adding a roux is another option I found, but the beans/potato sounds like it would be a lighter option.

Oh, and I meant to type cumin, not curry... I've had a carrot soup that had cumin, ginger, and cashews that was quite tasty, and I'd like to replicate those flavors, just without the loads of cream that went into the original recipe. But now that I think about it, curry powder could be interesting with carrots too. Maybe in the chunky veggie soup version. I got a foodsaver for christmas so I'll probably make a couple of version of soup over the weekend and freeze them up for easy access later.

I like to bake my own bread whenever possible, but living in an area that gets to 110 degrees in the summer, I tend to avoid baking then and give in to store bought bread.

As for spaghetti sauce - I do both. I like having it in a jar so when I need dinner in a hurry, I can boil some pasta, drain it, pour some sauce and some extra seasonings over it, heat the whole mess and dig in. But I also love my home made sauce which involves first canning my own crushed tomatoes in the summer, and then hours of simmering the sauce to perfection.

Beans are the same - sure, canned beans are wonderful to pop open and mix up a quick bean salad. But if I'm making bean and sausage soup, I start from scratch with dried beans.

Condiments are always store bought. Since I'm feeding just myself, a single bottle of mayo, mustard and ketchup last forever. Salad dressings are a mixed lot, I tend to have a couple of bottles of store bought in the fridge, usually of a creamy variety, along with a small mason jar holding a home made vinaigrette of some sort. I have been buying pickles from the farmers market from a lady who makes them herself, but hopefully this spring I'll change that and start making my own. Last summer I made several jars of jam and relishes for the first time, and there is absolutely NO going back any more.

I hate to say it, but even though I prefer home made, I buy prepackaged cakes and cookies. The reason for this is that what I buy is in a smaller batch than anything I would make, so I don't have a whole cake or a dozen cookies around the house tempting me.

I like to make my own stock, but I use it up faster than I can make it, so I end up buying jars of Better than Boullion. I use that most of the time except when I am making something where the flavor of the stock itself would be the focus - that is when my home made stock comes out.

I guess I do as the book says - take a look at which is the better option of the two for my situation and do accordingly. I find it funny that things I think are worth making (stock, jam) are items my mother scoffs at me for wasting my time on when she can buy them easily, while she gets all indignant at me about how I will buy the occasional TV dinner, saying she would never do such a thing. The line is obviously at a different place for everyone.

I just came home with a dozen bottles of organic 100% carrot juice that was given to me. This is way more than I can consume in a reasonable amount of time, especially given that I'm not particularly a fan of the stuff. I do however love carrots.

I've been thinking of turning some of it into carrot soup, but I'm not too sure where to start. Most recipes start with using actual carrots and cooking them till soft followed by blending them. This should make for a thick soup. But when I'm starting with carrot juice, what can I add to give the soup a bit more thickness? I'm also trying to keep this as light as I can (2 lbs down this year, only 28 to go!) so I'd like to avoid loading it up with cream if possible.

I know to start with an onion and some celary finely diced and cooked in a bit of oil, followed by adding the carrot juice, some ginger, and curry powder and some stock concentrate. But where to from there? How can I take this from 'hot carrot water' to a tasty soup?

Or.. I'd be open to any other suggestions to use up all this carrot juice in reasonably healthy and affordable ways.

I don't eat sandwiches often, I prefer my bread on the side with my meal. But when I do feel like a sandwich, I like chicken salad. That's usually how I use up the very last bits of a roast chicken chopped up with a bit of sour cream (or yogurt) and whatever seasonings and add-ins I feel like that day.

If you need an easy to eat and easy to prepare lunch, can I suggest a wrap instead? As much as I love bread, a wrap seems to work b for me to make a meal. Food can be cut into strips and wrapped up isntead of needing to be flat to fit between slices of bread. Leftover meat of just about any sort can go in a wrap - I've done chicken strips, sliced up porkchops, left over salmon even. Add your favorite veggies and a dressing of some sort and you're good to go!

Any of the following depending on if I want ready to eat or am willing to put a little effort into it:

- a chunk of cheese. Any kind. I'll even gnaw on some parmesan which I always have in the house.
- fruit with cheese or peanut butter. pears and chedder are good, apples and peanutbutter or nutella are awesome.
-yogurt with jam or honey stirred in
-a bowl of cereal, either dry or with milk
-pretzels with mustard

If I want to make a tiny bit more effort - 3 tablespoons of 'cake mix' (either equal amounts of devil food cake and angel food cake mix, or betty crocker choc chip cookie mix) mixed with just enough water to make a cake batter texture. Nuke for a minute. Instant warm gooey cake.

I recently discovered Tomato Jam on the Food in Jars website. After one taste I knew I was a goner. I've made two additional batches and am hoping for cheap tomatoes one more time this summer to make a third batch. I know I'll be making this every year from here on out. I considered trying to alter it with different spice combinations but decided that nah, not gonna. It's perfect the way it is.

My mom's tandoori chicken masala. It's been 23 years since she hit on this combination and neither of us ever uses anything else. I couldn't tell you what's in it because I still don't have the recipe. When I'm running out she mails me more.

My basic Pasta con Sardine. Sure I could fancy it up in a dozen ways, but when it comes down t it, I make this as a comfort food, or as a 'I have no food in the house' dinner, so all the extras usually aren't available. Pasta, a can of sardines, an onion, garlic, tomato paste, and cheese. All items I always have on hand even when I've reached the 'there's no food in the house!!' state. In fact, it sounds like a mighty tasty idea for dinner tonight. Off to the kitchen I go!

I looked through my bookmarks and can't seem to find the specific recipe that I ended up using. I know I found atleast a dozen versions of it online, I'm just not sure which one I ended up following. I know I didn't use pectin though, so maybe it was this one:

http://celebratefood.blogspot.com/200...

I didn't measure the black pepper I used, jsut ground some in right at the end before processing until there was enough to leave a slightly peppery bite that lingered at the end of a taste. It doesn't have a heavy pepper taste now and even the balsamic is pretty mellow but it most definately has more depth than just a plain strawberry jam.

For the balsamic I didn't use anything fancy, just a bottle of the cheapie stuff that I got at target for about 4 bucks.

Life tends to be too crazy for me in the months leading up to the holidays which is why I'm making an attempt at getting all my gifts made in advance if at all possible. For this reason I need to make items that can be made well in advance. The recipe uses simple and cheap enough ingrediants that I'll give it a shot and process a couple of jars to see how they turn out. If they get too touch, I'll jsut keep them for myself to use warmed up as a glaze over meats.

I'm doing jams and preserves this year. I have a family of 7 that I I need a token gift for each person, so they'll each get a different item out of this summer's canning spree.

So far I've made:
Tomato Jam
Zesty Peach BBQ Sauce
Balsamic Strawberry Jam with Black Pepper
Spiced Nectarine
Onion and Red Wine Relish

All these are made and once I decide who gets what, I'll custom make the labels for each one - right now I used blue painters tape to mark each jar with contents so I don't risk mixing them up.

Closer to the holidays I also plan on making bacon jam, and some mustard of some sort. I think the women will get the jams and relishes while the men will get the bacon jam and mustard. They all live in the same household so most likely they'll all share it all anyways.

Oh my. I must make this. Perfect for when I'm in a canning sort of mood but didn't get any fruit in my weekly bag from the gleaners.

For anyone with more canning experience than me - any ideas how long I need to process this in a hot water bath?

I swear, I walked into the kitchen planning to make a simple pasta with olive oil and garlic. Nothing more. Then I saw the bunch of rainbow chard in the fridge. And the jimmy deans sausage. Next thing I know I've added both to the olive oil after infusing it with garlic. Add pasta, flavor it up some more with a generous spoonful of my home made red onion and red wine relish, red pepper flakes, and a tiny bit of beef stock to deglaze the pan. Serve topped with some shaved parm cheese.

I have no idea what this dish is called, but it's mighty tasty. This is how I cook most nights, intending to make one thing and then pulling stuff out of my fridge as I cook to make something entirely different. Recipe, shemcipe. The only downside to this is next time I want this again I won't remember what the heck I did. Maybe I ought to start contributing to this thread regularly with notes of what I ended up making so I can find them again later.

Agreed. That is the only valid use for that otherwise vile stuff. Though I like some cheese on the outside of my grilled cheese sandwich too, so for that I grate a little of whatever I have in the fridge onto the top of the sandwich while the side against hte pan starts to cook, then flip the whole sandwich over so the grated cheese is between pan and sandwich. Cheese the other side and repeat. You get the gooey cheese inside the sandwich and cheesy fried crunchyness on the outside. Serve with a can of campbells tomato soup that you've fancied up with a drizzle of good balsamic and a chiffonade of basil. So tasty.

Replying to myself since I can't seem to edit my above post.
Update from this morning's breakfast - after about 18 hours in the fridge the yogurt set to a perfect custardy creamy delight. I topped it with some local orange honey and suffice to say I will never go back to those little overpriced tubs of greek yogurt again. Thank you so much for this recipe/technique. Greek yogurt has gone from a rare treat when I'm visiting friends in a larger city to something I can eat every day.

Now to explore different toppings!

I got a few in my CSA basket a couple of years back and was totally baffled what todo with them. Then I discovered this combination.

Split in half (or quarters if really big), wrap in a piece of bacon and cook till bacon is crispy. Meanwhile reduce some balsamic vinegar till syrupy. Drizzle bacon wrapped figs with balsamic, honey, and blue cheese.

EAT.

I always make sure I have envelopes of the lipton onion soup/dip mix on hand. I think the last time I actually used it to make soup or dip was in college. But I add half an envelope to any white bread recipe in the bread machine and get a herbed bread that is the perfect side for broth based soups. Any left overs are cubed and dried in the oven to make seasoned croutons with the seasoning going all the way through them, not just on the outside.

In the very back corner of my pantry is a ziplock baggie with a light brown powdery substance in it. It contains 1 box of angel food cake mix and 1 box of devil foods cake mix combined. I put 3 tablespoons of this mix in a mug with just enough water to make it into cake batter consistency, drop in about a tablespoon of Betty Crocker chocolate frosting in the middle and nuke for a minute. The frosting melts while the chocolate cake cooks and I have a single serve lava cake like dessert in 60 seconds. The cake part is just so so on it's own but I mix it up with the melted frosting and it turns into a rich moist chocolate cake. I always have the ingredients for this on hand so I can get my chocolate fix without having to bake or buy a whole cake.

Yum. This is the only acceptable use for squeezy cheese from a can. Once every couple of years or so I go to walmart and buy these two items together, then sit there eating them till I all but make myself sick. But I sure do enjoy it up until that point! After that I'm set for a while. Hmm, it's been atleast a couple of years since I did this last. I think I may have to get some canned cheese.

Wow. you just flashed me back to the year I spent in London with my grandparents when I was 10. I grew up in Thailand and my mom made most of our food frm scratch so I was fascinated by these perfectly rectangular fish fingers. I guess at some point I must have said I liked them because after that I seemed to be eating them All. The. Time. I was so glad when that year was over and I went back to my parents and real food! So what I'm saying is yes, they should most definately be on the list!

Thank you! I bought a bottle some time ago as it used to be my favorite dressing and couldn't stand it! Now I know why. I finally realized I wasn't going to use it and just tossed the bottle. I want my old catalina (the variety that had fake bacon bits in it) back please??? Gourds that was good over a big ole hunk of iceberg and some cucumbers.

This misplaced indian who taught herself to cook everything but indian food thanks you for this oh so easy recipe. I have everything but the coriander powder at home and there isn't an indian grocery in town. How important to the recipe is it? Can it possibly be found at a mexican market, and if so what is it called?

I ate very little indian food growing up and never felt the desire to learn how to make it, but occasionally crave a few dishes. Channa masala is one of them, so I'm going to have to try this out sometime soon!