Happy Birthday Jesus!

Its been a tradition for years, to make the Lord a birthday cake on Christmas. It is a tasty reminder of why this season is so important to us.

Our frugal gifts to others...

Are you tired of hearing about my cookie press yet? I hope not because I wanted to show you what good use I made out of it for Christmas presents! :-)

I found these neat, unfolded, gift boxes at Walmart for $9 for a package of 8. They came

with "to from labels" and a cute sticker to close the box with.

They were adorable and made for a beautiful presentation for some home made cookies from the cookie press!

The kids made these for various relatives(with a little help of course;).

One of our frugal presents... a crazy puzzle

This nutty looking puzzle reminded me of our former (insane) dog, and I was actually laughing out loud in the store when I found it on a clearance rack! I just had to get it for the kids! I let them open it a couple of days before Christmas and they had a blast putting it together.

I have found a strange thing about my kids, perhaps some of you have too. And that is, they don't take real well to "old-fashioned" sorts of things- unless I make them! But once I make them drag down an old board game, pull out a deck of cards, or even buy them a new cheap puzzle- they can't hardly tear themselves away from them! Weird, huh?!? (It also ALWAYS makes a big difference if I play along too- strange phenomenon! But Dobson used to say that kids spell love t-i-m-e!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS...

Its been a busy few weeks-
-trying to push the kiddies to finish reading lists
-teaching regrouping (all of my kids find this to be one of the biggest challenges in the whole wide world!)
-preparing for Christmas
-making lots and lots and lots of Cookies!

We will be having a small dinner on Christmas- duck!
Then we will have a feast on Sunday and I will make TONS of food like I did on Thanksgiving and we will eat and play most of next week. It will be a time of food, fun, and kicking back! I will
likely have ham and a leg of lamb on Sunday. I love love love this time of year- we lock away from the world pretty much and we dig out all the cards and games (and Webkinz) and we play until our heart's content! We read of Christ's birth from the Bible, we also do our special Christmas box, we build a Gingerbread House, and we make a birthday cake for Jesus!

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!

For unto us....

Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Do your kids like to pick the crust off of their sandwiches?

I tell my kids not to, because its wasteful---- so since my kids are SO creative(creatively deceptive)--- they said they promised they wouldn't waste the crust:Abby, get down from the table!

Mmm French Bread...

These two loaves were some of the best textured french bread that I've ever made.

I used the French Bread recipe from More With Less, except using 1/2 spelt flour, and a few other changes.

I also let them rise on the baking stone and then tossed them in a preheated 400 oven for about 25 minutes. The recipe calls for an egg beaten with 2T of milk for the wash which gave it a very nice crispy texture.

Recipe as I made it:

2 1/4 t yeast
1/2 cup warm water

1/2 t sugar

Dissolve, then combine:

2 T cane sugar

2 T beef fat (or other fat)

2 t salt

2 C hot water

3 cups spelt flour

3 cups unbleached white flour

Knead until smooth and elastic. Let rise until double. Shape into loaves, score, and let rise until doubled. Bake at 400 for 25 minutes.

Quick Whipped Cream Chocolate Cheesecake...

I got a pic of the top of this- as I hadn't sliced it yet upon typing this up, but it was really hard to wait! DH and I went to a discount grocery store a week or so ago and I found some cheap goodies to make this yummy pie with that made for a nice surprise.

The basic recipe was on the lid of the Chocolate Whipped Cream and I couldn't believe how simple it was- and wondered if DH would frown, giving me the "that's not cheesecake" bit.

Well, I snuck him a piece a few minutes ago and he loved it!

Yah!

Here's the simple recipe:

Beat 8 oz of cream cheese with 1/3 cup sugar.

Once fluffy, stir in 1 container of chocolate whipped cream.

Pour into chocolate graham or chocolate cookie crust.

Top with shaved chocolate from semi-sweet baking chocolate- or chocolate chips.

Chill for 3 hours.

See how easy?!

Sweet!

(I got the whipped topping for .50 and the cream cheese for .79.)

Cranberry Beans-n-Bacon...

Adding beans to your menu plan can really help keep you frugal!

A few weeks back, I made a huge pot of black beans. We ate Black Bean Buffalo Chili for lunch and at supper I made a black bean salsa. I froze 4 bags for four other meals later on.

Today, it was cranberry beans with a pound of pork bacon. (I also added about 1 t ground mustard, 3 bay leaves, 3 minced cloves of garlic, 1/2 t paprika, fresh ground peppercorns, and salt.) These will be the main dish for lunch with some cornbread and corn on the cob and they will be a side dish tonight.

Leftovers will be frozen for later side dishes.
*These can be used like you would pinto beans in chili, etc.

Sometimes I cheat. Do you?

I made this Apple Crumb Pie the other day and well, I cheated.

I had a premade pie shell which was my first cheat.

But I also had some pre-peeled and sliced apples hiding in my freezer that I've been saving that I picked up on a deal at the Cash-n-Carry some time back.

Well- its December and there's so much to do and bake- it was time to cheat! ;-)

All I had to do was dump the apples in the pie shell, sprinkle with a little lemon juice, and top with the same topping that I use for fruit crisp. Easy peasy! It baked after lunch and was ready for dessert after supper!

More cookies from the cookie press...

We decided to put up our tree a couple of nights ago so I made chocolate cookies with the cookie press while my older boys went digging for the tree. DH wanted some with nuts, and the kids like their's jelly-filled.

And me, the more chocolate the better!

Fruit Salad with my wacky pears...

This fruit salad has crushed pineapple, sliced bananas, dried cranberries, raisins, and home canned pears. Sounds 'normal' enough, huh?

Well, everything but my pears were 'normal'.
Those pears however, were canned with lime juice rather than ascorbic acid.
See, they had been here for days and I was a little concerned about allowing them to sit any longer and I didn't have any lemon juice or fresh fruit- so- what's a frugal mom to do?
I had limes!
So, limes it was!
Now, alone, these are a little, uhmm- different, but in a fruit salad, they add a neat flavor and no one notices that its really lime! ;-)
So, just in case you ever find yourself in a pickle- or a mason jar- and out of the 'normal' stuff-- Lime will work!

Kitchen Tip : Cookie Press

Need a baked Christmas goody for a gift or party? Well, you could buy all the ladies on your list a cookie press- or you could buy one for yourself and make dozens of frugal cookies for everyone on your list!

My dd and I made these cute little butter cookies today. (I call them butter and not sugar, because they have more butter than sugar! Oh so yummy!)

They were made very quickly and easily with a cookie press.

No rolling and cutting and rolling again!

The press makes the cookies look like something right out of those Christmas tins.

I plan to buy some cute sugars, etc to decorate some for Christmas. It is one of our traditions, to make and decorate a big batch of Christmas cookies!

The press enables you to make a very neat cookie for gift-giving.
We have some new neighbors and I told DH that I would like to make them some of these soon as a house-warming/Christmas gift.
I love making cut cookies- but a press helps keep all the cookies more uniform so they bake more evenly and then there's that rolling, cutting, rolling, cutting thing... which can be totally skipped with a press! ;-)

(We did put some chocolate chips in the centers of some for fun.)

I filled our cookie jar with these- but I can hardly wait to get some pretty sugars for the next batch for Christmas Cookies!

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Visit Tammy's Recipes for more Kitchen Tip Tuesdays!

Beef Liver and Onions with Biscuits and Gravy

My favorite way to eat liver is 'calf' liver. Its not as strong as chicken liver or beef liver and it works very very well cooked this way, but here I had just regular beef liver.

Also, calf liver is great without gravy, I've just found that the biscuits (made from unbleached flour) and the gravy are a great way to eat the stronger tasting beef liver, as it appears to be more of a country fried steak!
***

Soak liver for at least 30 minutes to an hour in milk(with a beaten egg if you like) or salt water.

Dh is the 'liver cook' and he says this soaking process will help tame that strong taste. (But again, please note, if you have a hard time eating liver, do try calf liver, it is not as strong.)

Drain the liver and rinse, flour.

Fry in beef fat or lard for best flavor.

Fry at a low temp on one side, you don't want it too dark.

Cover in chopped onions.

Once browned, flip and lower heat and cover and continue to cook.

(Liver is easy to over cook and get too dark. Reducing the heat and covering will keep it from getting to crisp and dry.)

Drain on paper towels.

I served it to my kids chopped in pieces with biscuits and gravy and they gobbled it right up!

Kombucha bubbles...wanna see? and a story

Kombucha is huge source of entertainment around my house. I find it cool that I can make a drink that bubbles. I also think its neat, how it grows a scoby; a symbiotic colony of (good) bacteria and yeast!

My family however, thinks me and my kombucha are nuts!

My dh does nothing but tease and tease..... it all started about a year and a half ago when I got pulled over because I had a tail light that kept shorting in and out. Some days it would work, some days it would not work. Well, this young little officer, pulled me over (the reference to his age is important as you will see him trying to prove how much he knows), he ask me did I know about the tail light and I told him that my kids had just told me that it wasn't working. I told him all about how I had ran through water a few years ago and since then, it went through periods of going in and out and that we even kept an extra bulb but that it often would just blink in and out and the bulb would be fine. I told him how we had taken it to various places to have it looked at and no one could find the problem...blah blah blah... and then- he asked me to step out of the car.

Step out? Uh, ok officer.

Keep in mind, ALL of my kids are in the van, and we've just left Walmart and its about ten o'clock at night.

He gets me behind the van and proceeds to give me the wrap about how "he smelled something" and I had a VERY hard time not getting SUPER defensive and SUPER offended.

I said, "Officer, I don't drink and I have all of my children with me and we just left Walmart!"

:-)

He said, "Ma'am, I know what it smells like!"

-Gasp!-

I said, "Officer, I just had a sip of a pop my kids are drinking and if you like I can have them show it to you and perhaps you could smell it?"

"Ma'am, I know what it smells like."

What was really bad is, while we were standing there, I noticed all of these trees and they were full of blooms that sorta smelled like fermented peaches!

I thought; "Oh no! My goose is cooked!" I wondered if I should point it out to him because perhaps that was what he was smelling...well, I decided to point it out and you know what he said? Uh huh! "Ma'am, I know what it smells like, that's why I asked you to step out of the car!"

-Gasp!-

Part of me wanted my innocence proven and wanted him to get the whole department down to watch me take a breathalyzer- but what kind of example would I be setting in front of the kids if I caused any form of a stir, not to mention what they would have to go through while they waited, and waited, and waited!

So, finally I decided to just stand there- (stand still and see the salvation of the Lord)- and he ran my tag and my license- clean as a whistle!

He did write me a nice warning over the light, which still goes on the blinks!

But when I got home and told DH, he laughed and told me that it was the kombucha that he smelled! ;-) I told him that I hadn't even drank any that day! (Still being defensive!)

But after Dh quit laughing, he got offended too. He said, "Didn't he see that you were a mother and had a car load of kids? Did you tell him that you had just been to Walmart? How old was he? What was he thinking holding you up with all those kids?"

I laughed and said, "Perhaps you need a sip of my kombucha!"

...and we all lived happily ever after!

(Seriously- Kombucha is more like apple cider vinegar-and if I still sound defensive, just try to over look it. :-)

Black Bean Buffalo Chili...

My kids love to walk in the kitchen to discover that I'm cooking beans, because Beans=Chili!

But these black beans with ground bison, takes chili to a whole different level!

Here's is a rapidly-becoming family favorite:

1 lb. (soaked) cooked black beans

1 lb. ground bison; browned with 1 large onion, 1 bell pepper

1 T minced garlic

1 can tomatoes and green chilies

1 can tomato sauce (15oz)

-2 t chili powder (or to taste)

-1 t ground cumin (or to taste)

-1/4 t black pepper

-1/2 t sea salt

bay leaf

Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes on low.

*I serve it with crackers or cornbread. Mexican cornbread is very good with it!

(The price of this chili is a around $7, but it makes enough for two meals for my family. Good budget recipe!)

THIS WORKS FOR ME WEDNESDAY!