Cooking Archives - Jana Says

Making life easier FTW!

May 14, 2014 by Jana 13 Comments

I have a post/rant planned for next month all about how we tend to romanticize and glorify and extol the benefits of the simple prairie life when in actuality, it really was anything but. For today, though, I am going to talk about how while modern life is not the simple life, there are a few things that help simplify it. Or at least make it easier.

I hope that makes sense.

Also, am I the only one who hears the phrase “the simple life” and automatically thinks of that terrible show with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie? (Please, for the love of all that is holy, tell me no, I am not the only one.)

I fear I'm digressing. So let's regroup and get back to the point I was trying to make which is that there are some things in my life–and probably yours, too–that can alleviate stress, free up some time, and make life a whole lot easier. Like:

A crockpot. While I do love to cook, there are some days I just don't feel like it. Particularly on really hot days or days that I am exceptionally tired. Unfortunately, my family still likes to eat on those days. (When I worked in an office, my crockpot would have come in incredibly handy had I remembered to use it more.) Anyway. Going out to eat or getting takeout is not a frequent financial option right now so I have to cook. Enter the crockpot. I enjoy the fact that I can take 10 minutes in the morning, toss some raw ingredients in the pot, and let it go until dinner time. Saves time, saves money, and I don't really have to do much. It's basically the trifecta.

Delay start features. On both my dishwasher and my washing maching, there is a delay start function. I love this. It means I can run the dishes while I sleep and don't have to endure the loud, helicopter takeoff sounds and for laundry, I can get an entire load (save for folding) done before my daughter even wakes up in the morning. It makes getting these unpleasant household chores done much more tolerable since a good portion of them are happening while I am asleep. It's pretty ideal.
Auto bill pay. I balance my checkbook once a week and pay cash for pretty much everything. Having auto bill pay means that a) I don't have to keep track of a dozen due dates; b) don't have to manually login to a dozen accounts; and c) can keep to my once a week balancing schedule. It makes budgeting and planning so much easier and simpler and also? No late fees or stupid tax. The only time it becomes a pain is when I have my debit card number stolen (which happened recently) or a card expires. But that once every few years annoyance is totally worth the benefits.
DVR. I don't know if it makes my life easier or just enables my TV watching habit, but DVR is one of my favorite inventions of the last few years. I love the fact that I no longer have to choose between two shows happening concurrently, and I love even more the fact that if I can't watch something, I can record it without having to screw with a machine or a tape. It also means that I can skip commercials (win!) and go to bed if something is on too late (bigger win!).

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Online shopping. Living in the middle of nowhere, it's sometimes just a pain in the ass to get to a store. Also, I am lazy and sometimes just don't want to go to a store. Or the stores don't have what I am looking for (like my latest purchase, Essie I'm Using My Maiden Name). So I shop online. I can pick out exactly what I want, I don't have to contend with assholes in parking lots or in the stores, and I don't even need to wear pants. Plus, Amazon has a feature where you can set up recurring purchases that ship on a set day every month (good for household supplies like paper towels and dish soap) so you don't even have to remember to buy them. They just show up! I plan to utilize this in the future.

I'm a fan of pretty much anything that gets a task done the way I want it and with as little effort as possible. If it's one less thing I have to remember, it gets an A in my book. There are too many things I want to do to spend unnecessary time doing the things I have to.

How about you? What do you use in your life to make things simpler or easier?

Friday Favorites, volume 2

May 9, 2014 by Jana 9 Comments

I love the idea for this linkup. Sharing my favorite things and finding out what others like is not only fun, but it’s a great way to learn about new stuff I need to try or buy. So when you’re done reading what I’m loving this week, share some of your favorite things in the comments or on Facebook.

My favorite stuff this week:

Favorite song: Let It Go. Nope, not the one from Frozen. I’m sick of that song. This one is by Cavo, is totally different than the Idina Menzel version (fun fact: she graduated from my high school about 7 years before I did), and was in one of the Transformer movies. Have a listen:

Favorite drink: Dogfish Head Tweasonale. It’s a gluten free, strawberry flavored beer and it is delicious. It doesn’t have that typical beer taste so if you’re not gluten free (like me) but don’t like the taste of beer, you should give it a try anyway. You won’t be able to stop drinking it. Which you probably should, though, because drink responsibly, friends.

Favorite procrastination technique: Napping. There is seriously nothing better than napping, particularly with a nice, soft polka dot blanket like the one that lives on my bed. It looks like this:

Favorite quick recipe: Crockpot BBQ Chicken. Here’s what you do:

Add roughly 3 chicken breasts, a bottle of your favorite flavor bbq sauce, some garlic powder, 1 tbsp brown sugar and a dash of red pepper flakes to a crockpot.

Cook for 4-6 hours on high (if breasts are frozen, can get away with 3 or so if thawed).

Shred chicken and eat.

Favorite day of the week: Thursday. I’m pretty sure this dates back to college and $.50 mug nights at the Stone Balloon (RIP) but for some reason, once I make it through Thursday, I feel like I’ve finished a marathon. I never feel more relaxed than I do on Thursday evenings after the child is in bed.

Happy Friday! Enjoy your weekend!

The Townhouse Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Margarita Guacamole

April 29, 2014 by Jana 8 Comments

Over the weekend, I posted on the Townhouse Pioneer Facebook page that I both eliminated food waste and made due with what I had on hand (two important pioneer values) by substituting margarita mix for olive oil in a recipe for guacamole. My friend Jenniemarie asked for the recipe, I told her I’d post it so here we go.

Oh, quick side note–I have no picture because it was a last minute substitution/decision. Also, guacamole is ugly. Delicious. But ugly.

Townhouse Pioneer Easy Margarita Guacamole
Ingredients:
2 ripe avocados, peeled and pitted
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 tbsp jarred chopped garlic (can substitute with fresh. I don’t. I’m lazy. You can also use less if you don’t like garlic)
1/2 tbsp margarita mix (no tequila. Although I might try it next time)
Optional: finely chopped red onion, diced tomatoes

Directions:
1. Mash the avocados with salt and lemon juice
2. Add the remaining ingredients
3. Serve with crackers, chips, on thick, crusty bread or eat with a spoon from the bowl. Your call.

Note: guacamole browns pretty quickly so you’re going to want to eat this within 2 days. It probably won’t last that long but just in case.

The original recipe I ordinarily make would use olive oil instead of the margarita mix, and it also calls for fresh cilantro but I didn’t have any so I just left it out. It tasted just fine.

So that’s it. Simple, easy, and delicious. I recommend it.

How do you make guacamole?

The Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Homemade Butter

April 23, 2014 by Jana 14 Comments

It’s been awhile since I posted an actual project update. That’s mainly because I’ve been too lazy to work on any but this week, I decided I’d had enough of that. And also it’s spring break so I figured my daughter and I could ~~kill~~ spend an hour or two working on one.

I went through my Pinterest board of projects ideas and settled on a fairly simple and relatively inexpensive one–homemade butter. The timing was perfect, too, as I’m finishing up Little House in the Big Woods for next week’s book club discussion and Laura painfully details the butter making process. So it worked for ease, theme, and cost.

Since I don’t own butter churn and have absolutely no desire to ever own one, I used the instructions for making butter in a stand-up mixer (which I only have courtesy of my mother-in-law’s hand me down). I opted out of coloring the butter orange like they did in the book because shredding a carrot and combining it with boiling milk sounded like unnecessary work and more dishes to clean. Yellow butter works just fine for me.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients–3/4 tsp salt, 1 quart heavy cream

My daughter making a rare appearance on the blog as my helper pouring the cream into the mixing bowl

The butter starting to form and separate from the milk.

The mess that happens even if you use a towel and cover the mixer because towels have a limit on how much they can absorb.

Not pictured: the whipped cream phase that happens before the cream turns to butter, draining the buttermilk through a colander and rinsing the butter. Not sure why this last one is necessary but the directions said to do it and I did. Also not pictured are my disgusting, greasy hands.

After you mix everything up (takes about 20 minutes and you need to check it fairly frequently), you get butter that sticks to the paddle and buttermilk in the bottom of the bowl. Then you drain the milk through the strainer and it looks like this. Right now, it’s stored in a glass container in my fridge and if you have a recipe that involves buttermilk so I can use it up, please share.

This is the actual butter. After I washed it and rung out what was left of the buttermilk, it was kind of like a butter ball. I left it in a lump as I saw no need to mold the butter into anything fancy because I don’t care about that shit. And aesthetics mean nothing when you make butter that actually tastes like butter. Which I did, y’all.

This project was amazingly easy, albeit messier than I would have liked. Next time, I’ll still use the towel but lower the speed to prevent splatter and decrease the mess (and by extension, clean up time). And as far as cost, it’s really no more expensive ($4.49 for a quart if heavy cream at Walmart) than buying a pound of already made butter.

I cannot imagine having to do this with a butter churn. I completely understand how it took them all day to do. Before I was all “how the fuck did it take them all day? This is so easy! How slow did they move?” But now, having done it myself, I get it. I saw the effort my badass stand up mixer had to put forth to get it done. And just letting it go for the 20 minutes or so before I had to rinse, separate and mold felt like it took an eternity. Having to do it with my own strength and patience? Forget it that. My family would never eat butter.But if you have a stand-up mixer or even an electric hand mixer, I’d recommend giving this a try.

Oh, and the butter lasts about 4 weeks. I think. I’ll let you know in 4 weeks.

Have you ever made homemade butter? Did you follow similar directions?

April goals (and a book club giveaway!)

March 30, 2014 by Jana 7 Comments

I’m starting something new. I’ve seen it on other blogs and even tried it once before on a previous site. For some reason, it’s never stuck, but you know what? It’s worth a shot again.

What the heck am I talking about? I’m talking about sharing my monthly goals.

While I’m usually not one to put that kind of information out there, I think that it’s a good way to keep myself and my project on track. I have a tendency to self-sabotage when things are going well and I want to break that cycle. I’m hoping that by sharing my goals with you guys, it’ll keep me focused and also, because I did share my goals, I don’t want to seem like a huge slacker and I’ll actually be productive.

So here we go. For the month of April, I plan to:

Make homemade butter. This was the first pin I put in my pioneer project Pinterest board. I don’t know that it’s necessarily cheaper than buying store made butter but it’s one of the hallmarks of pioneer living. It’s time.

Crochet one dish cloth. After trying and practicing on a crochet hook and the knitting loom, I think crocheting is the way to go right now. It’ll be nice to put something homemade in my kitchen, too (you know, that’s not edible). I also have a goal to make it look nice, not like something my dog made.

Work on my business. Many pioneers were entrepreneurial, and that’s actually something I had going for me before I started this project. I own and operate a blogger mentoring program and this month, I need to finish the site redesign and update the menu of services.

Start our garden. This is more of my husband’s project than mine because he loves gardening. I do not. However, I need to be more involved and this means actually having an opinion on what we grow, how big the garden should be, and assisting in planting. It’s unpleasant but I’ll do it. Pioneers had to do shit they didn’t like all the time.

Participate in the Watch Your Wallet Challenge. I adore the concept of this challenge, hosted by Steph at Life According to Steph and Marla at Luck Fupus, particularly as you get to make your own rules. My rules for the challenge are: no stupid tax (late fees, library fines, etc), only make frivolous purchases using gift cards, stick to my grocery budget, use coupons more often, refrain from buying more craft supplies, and keep up with our 52 week savings challenge.

There are a few more goals on my list but there’s no need to share them. But what I can share is this nifty button I made for anyone who’s joining the Little House bookclub (it starts tomorrow!) and, below the button, is a giveaway for a complete set of the Little House books! That’s right, one lucky reader will get a chance to win all 9 books! Thanks to Steph, Jenniemarie, and Athena for assisting with the giveaway. Good luck!

P.S. Please excuse the horrible formatting of what you’re about to see. WP is being an asshole or I’m doing something wrong and can’t get it to do what I want. But I think you get the point.

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Making life easier FTW!

Friday Favorites, volume 2

The Townhouse Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Margarita Guacamole

The Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Homemade Butter

April goals (and a book club giveaway!)

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