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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?

Start living like a pioneer today, part 1

February 27, 2014 by Jana 7 Comments

Remember that old Heinz ketchup slogan “good things come to those who wait”? In case you’re not as old as I am, it was popular when ketchup was still regularly sold in glass bottles and you had to hit the 57 on the bottle in order to make the ketchup pour out without waiting until everyone else was finished eating before you started because it was so damn slow.

I think they could have simplified it by saying “be patient, asshole. The fries can wait and so can you” but perhaps that’s why I’m not in marketing.

Anyway.

Getting started on your pioneer project is just like waiting for the ketchup to come out of the bottle. It’s a slow, arduous process that makes you want to throw something. You have to exercise a tremendous amount of patience, even when you hit the 57 to make it go faster. You can’t rush it because the reward at the end is so worth it.

You do not have to shoot anything to feel more like a pioneer.

I read somewhere that it took the pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail roughly a year to save up the money and supplies they needed to travel. A year! That’s a long time, especially when you’re waiting to move–literally–on with your life. It’s necessary, though, because you need to make sure you have everything in place to make the transition as quick and with as little pain as possible. You need to be prepared for all the emergencies and situations, and when you get there, you want to reap the rewards as soon as you can.

I’m sure that for those guys, that year moved like an eternity. Like it was never going to be the time to go. At least that’s how I felt starting this project. It took me months before I had the scope and nature of the project outlined, gathered most of the supplies I needed (I still don’t have them all), and it was the right time to start. However, unlike traveling the Oregon Trail, you don’t need to wait for the perfect time. You can start your pioneer project at any time–today, even–by doing a few of these things:

Use natural light. Don’t get me wrong. I love my electricity. I do not, however, love high electric bills. Besides, pioneers didn’t have electricity in their homes. You can practice living like a pioneer by opening blinds, curtains, window shades, or whatever you have and allowing the natural light to come into your home during the day rather than turning on the lights.
Air dry your clothes. Again, without electricity, pioneers couldn’t use washers and dryers. So they air dried their clothes. You can do this, too, by hanging a clothing line in your backyard or, if you don’t want to freak out the neighbors with your underwear, set one up in your house (preferably in a room without carpeting. That will just cause a dreadful smell). You can use a drying rack, too.
Make your own butter. Pioneers churned their own butter. I don’t really know where to get a butter churn so I went searching for more modern directions. Although I haven’t done this yet but based on the instructions I found, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be too difficult. I will not be doing it by hand, however. I will use my stand-up mixer. But if you do this and do it by hand, let me know. I’d love to hear how it went.
Bake your own bread. Pioneers also made their own bread (probably to go along with their churned butter), and they did so often. So you can spend an afternoon making some loaves of bread. If you don’t have a bread machine–I don’t–there are dozens of recipes for making bread in your oven. Or, if you’re too scared of starting with a loaf of bread, you can follow the recipe below for drop biscuits. It’s a start!
Sew something. If you’ve read a Little House book, then you know how much time the Ingalls women spent sewing things. Curtains, doll clothes, dresses, quilts, shirts…they sewed it all. Which is why learning to sew is high on my list of skills to tackle for this project. But making the aforementioned items takes a skill level I don’t have. So I’ve been practicing by making napkins, sewing ripped seams and missing buttons, and working on 9 square quilts for my daughter’s dolls. If that’s not your speed, you can always go to the craft store and pick out a cross stitch to work on.

I have 5 more suggestions that you can do to start living more like a pioneer today, so look for those next week!

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The Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Sesame noodles with broccoli

February 24, 2014 by Jana 7 Comments

As I get deeper into this project, and the more research I do, the more I learn that there’s a pretty distinct set of pioneer values. And, as I learn more about those values (or, at the very least, create what I think are those values), the more I try to incorporate them into my daily life. Because at the end of this, I hope not only become more self-sufficient but change some of my ways of thinking.

One of the areas I’m working on a lot is food waste. Overall, my family does a decent job of not wasting food. Sure, there’s the occasional cucumber that might liquify or a container of leftover pasta sauce that sprouts some fuzzy friends or maybe a bottle of salad dressing that lives longer than it should. But for the most part, we’re good about not wasting food. When it does happen, and I have to do a major cleaning of my fridge and I throw out more food than I should, it bothers me.

That happened this past weekend. And there was absolutely no reason it should have. And now I’m on a mission to make sure it doesn’t happen again (at least in the volume it did).

Because the pioneers didn’t have the option of food waste. They had to find a use for everything they had. There was no excess to just toss into the trash. They had what they needed, used it all in some way, and that was that. To start incorporating that into my life, I’ve established three ways to put our food to use and reduce food waste in my kitchen:

Leftovers
Composting
Repurposing

Recycling is its own entity and we do recycle everything we possibly can. My tree hugging, renewable energy field working husband wouldn’t have it any other way.

As far as the list, I’ll explain each one in detail in its own post (particularly the repurposing, which I know sounds strange. But think of it along the lines of popsicle stick crafts, macaroni art, or noise makers out of dried beans), and for this post, we’re going to talk about leftovers.

My family is big into leftovers. Not only does it reduce food waste but it saves money so there’s a double bonus to them. My husband and I eat leftovers for lunch most days and if there’s a big batch of something like rice, I’ll find a way to incorporate them into another recipe. That’s what I did with pasta.

I don’t know about you, but when I make pasta, I usually wind up making enough for 87 people. As we are a family of 3, we don’t need that much. So I typically find at least 2 recipes to make with a box of pasta or I leave the leftovers in the event that my daughter refuses to eat what I cook (the rule used to be if she didn’t like it, she got pb&j but she brings that for lunch every day. So now it’s pasta). Last week, however, I wanted to do something different that adding the noodles to soup or making two dishes to accompany the pasta. So I went through my trusty recipe binder (pics are forthcoming but it needs a major overhaul first) and landed on sesame noodles.

You seriously cannot go wrong with cold noodles in a peanut butter sauce. And I had a lot of noodles.

Looks are deceiving. There's a lot of pasta in there. — Looks are deceiving. There’s a lot of pasta in there.

Then I pulled the rest of the ingredients out of the pantry.

And I mixed a few of the ingredients with the peanut butter.

photo (1) — Peanut butter, soy sauce, and broth.

Then I added the rest and it looks a little gross but looks are deceiving.

photo (3) — Pay no attention to the burner that needs to be cleaned.

When the sauce thickened a bit and was smooth, I poured the peanut buttery goodness over the noodles.

For more efficient mixing and less dishes, use the container the pasta already sits in.

Wait about 3 hours for the noodles to chill and spoon into bowl (you can also eat directly from the container. No judging). I added broccoli for some extra nutrition and flavor. And also to not waste the broccoli in the fridge.

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Let’s do the Thanksgiving shuffle!

November 19, 2013 by Jana 10 Comments

Back in my personal finance blogging days, I would play a game that I totally ripped off from my favorite morning show. I called it “Money Shuffle” and I would go through my iPod, pick the first 5 songs that came up and then relate a personal finance story to each song.

I have decided to resurrect that game. It might have something to do with the fact that I heard it on the radio this morning.

For this version, though, we’re talking about Thanksgiving. Because it’s next week. Also, it coincides with Hanukkah for the first time in about 47,000 years and won’t happen again for another 86,000 years. Or something like that.

I might be off a bit on the numbers.

But I’m not off on the fact that Thanksgiving is next week. It’s my favorite holiday, and it’s particularly my favorite holiday to host. I love cooking Thanksgiving foods, having my family in my house is delightful (I swear, there’s no sarcasm there. I really do like having them), and in my house, Thanksgiving remains the official start to the Christmas season. No buying anything Christmas in my house until Thanksgiving has passed.

Insert angry rant about too much focus on shopping and the fact that Thanksgiving is all but erased. Definitely a soapbox issue for me.

However, much like my family on Thanksgiving day, you’re here for the food. So we’ll focus on that. And the fact that we’re going to play a fun game. Thanksgiving shuffle.

I’ve selected 4 songs at random from my iPod and assigned a Thanksgiving food to each. I don’t necessarily have a recipe for all of them, but if you do, please share in the comments.

Here we go:

I Hate Everything About You by Three Days Grace–I give this honor to canned cranberry sauce. It has no business being on my Thanksgiving table except for the fact that one of my in-laws prefers it to my homemade kind and gets sort of upset when it’s not there. But it grosses me out. The solid, ringed, gelatinous mass screams “I’m vile! Please don’t touch me!” yet there it sits, a revolting blob among the deliciousness of everything else. All for one person. You’re welcome.

Burn It To the Ground by Nickelback–Fine. Judge me for having Canada’s other shame on my iPod but any song that can work in the phrase “bat shit crazy” is okay by me. The epicurean honor for this song goes to deep fried turkey. Or, more accurately, the reason I will not let my husband deep fry a turkey. He’s accident prone. Even more so than me. And I’m pretty sure that if he attempted to deep fry a turkey, something would catch fire and burn completely to the ground. Even the fire department deserves a day off, husband. So no deep fried turkey for you.

Get Stoned by Hinder–Okay. PSA. Don’t get stoned before Thanksgiving dinner. You will probably eat everything at the table and therefore anger everyone else since there will be nothing left. That said, I totally get high off of stuffing. It’s my favorite Thanksgiving food, particularly the way I make it, which is my own version of Rachael Ray’s stuffin’ muffins. These are the reason I immediately change into yoga pants after dinner and also maybe just thinking about them is making me a little hungry. I swear I’m not really stoned.

Goodbye Earl by by the Dixie Chicks–A song about two women poisoning one of their abusive husbands and then hiding his body. I got nothing. But here’s my recipe for sweet potatoes. It’s my Nanny’s recipe and it’s delicious. Warning: it makes a tremendous amount of food. If you’re not hosting 75 people or an NFL team, half it:

Nanny’s Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients:

6 large cans Bruce’s yams or sweet potatoes
1 package dark brown sugar
2 jars marshmallow fluff
4 tsp cinnamon
2 sticks sweet butter or unsalted margarine
2 20 oz cans crushed pineapple in juice
1 package mini-marshmallows

Directions:

Drain and mash the yams or sweet potatoes, first by hand then with an electric mixer (I use my Kitchen Aid stand-up mixer).
Melt the butter or margarine, and combine with sugar and cinnamon.
Mix butter, sugar and cinnamon with the fluff. Add to mashed yams and mix well with electric mixture to make it creamy in texture.
Add the crushed pineapple with some of the juice. Mix well by hand.
Spray a 13×9 inch pan with cooking spray and pour the mixture in (leave a little room for expansion).
Bake at 350° for 30-45 minutes, until the top begins to look slightly solid and the rest is bubbling.
Add the mini-marshmallows to the top and cook until the marshmallow melt slightly and brown, but are not burned.

I made it! From scratch!

September 18, 2013 by Jana 4 Comments

Last week, I decided to participate in Money Saving Mom’s Make It From Scratch Week. I already make most of our food from scratch but there are some things that I’d been slacking on, so this was a great opportunity (and motivation and incentive) to give it a try (and to restart the pioneer project that kind of fell by the wayside over the summer when we moved). I made it through 4 of the 5 projects I had planned and only one of them turned out terrible. I consider that a major success. And I didn’t have to spend much money to complete the projects, which I also consider a major success.

Here’s what I did, along with the links to the pins that gave me the ideas:

Onion soup mix–I made this so I could make onion dip without those little packets. Either I messed up by using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream or this mix is not intended for that purpose. Doesn’t really matter, though, because it turned out terrible and also the turmeric made it an unappetizing yellow. I do not suggest you follow ink my footsteps and make this. However, if you have a good recipe for homemade onion dip, I’d love to see it.

Breakfast sandwiches–now that we live 15 minutes from my husband’s work, he feels that leaving 10 minutes before he needs to be there is sufficient time. I don’t get that math but math has never really been my strong suit. In any event, he doesn’t eat breakfast at home so in order to make sure that he does, in fact, eat breakfast, I made these so he can just heat them up at work and chow at his desk. And I eat them, too. Also I cooked the eggs in a muffin tin. That was fun.

Oatmeal packets–also a breakfast idea for my husband as I do not eat oatmeal, nor does our daughter. Because we’re smart and oatmeal is gross. In addition to leaving promptly 5 minutes late every day, my husband also does not pack his lunch the night before (please do not get on me to do it. He is a grown man and can put leftovers and fruit in a lunch box by himself) and this way he doesn’t have to spend extra time putting breakfast together, too. He can throw a bag in his lunchbox and heat it up at work. It also gives variety to the breakfast sandwiches.

Salsa–the previous owners of our house didn’t just leave use carpet stains and dog hair. They also left us a dying tomato plant that we’ve brought back to life and now it won’t stop giving us tomatoes. They come off at a rate of about 5000 a day. Before one round went bad, and some have because they produce faster than we can eat them, I decided to make salsa since I actually had all the ingredients in the house. Even fresh cilantro. Which is a pain in the ass to work with.

Glitter barrettes–didn’t get a chance to make these. But they’re on my list for the next installment of Pinterest project Tuesday. Which I totally need to resurrect.

Did you participate in the challenge? What did you make? And would you be interested in following along on my pioneer project?

The Townhouse Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Margarita Guacamole

Start living like a pioneer today, part 1

The Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Sesame noodles with broccoli

Let’s do the Thanksgiving shuffle!

I made it! From scratch!

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