Spinach Tortillas

SPINACH TORTILLAS

2 cups water
4 cups loose, fresh spinach
6 cups wheat flour
1/2 cup butter, softened (can substitute coconut oil)
2 tsp. salt

Note:  If you leave out the spinach, these are just regular tortillas.

Place water and spinach in blender and blend until spinach has been liquefied.  Place water mixture with all other ingredients in your Bosch mixing bowl and begin to knead.  At this point, add more flour if needed until dough cleans sides of bowl.  Add as little flour as possible so dough stays as moist as possible.  Knead for 8 minutes on Speed 2.  (If you don't have a Bosch, you can use a Kitchenaid mixer or just mix dough in a bowl, then knead by hand.)  Let dough rest while you heat your griddle or Villaware Tortilla Press*.  Break off lime-sized pieces of dough.  Roll out into very thin circles and place on hot griddle for about 30-60 seconds per side.

Notes:  We call these Shrek Tortillas.  (We don't even own that movie, but the kids know who he is.  I don't know if this actually makes it more fun for the kids, or if they have figured out that when mommy says "Shrek" that just means "spinach" in mommy language.)  Eat them while they're HOT and you'll be in homemade tortilla heaven!  You can also freeze them for later use by cooling completely and placing in a ziplock bag.  I buy the large bag of baby spinach from Costco. You can also experiment with the flour by using half wheat, half spelt, or another combination of flours.

*I use the Villaware Tortilla Press, which I have really enjoyed having.  It presses out the dough and cooks it at the same time.  However, it does make the tortillas quite thick.

Fruit leather

I LOVE my Excalibur dehydrator. I use it frequently for yogurt making and have also used it to dry pears, peaches, and even bucket lids we were washing & drying for our wheat storage.  I've even heard of people using it to dry boots (but...yuck...I'm kind of a germ freak...)

Today my Super-Husband found a smokin' deal on strawberries.  I've never seen them cheaper than .99/lb so we picked up 20 pounds.  I froze two cookie sheets full (later to be used for smoothies), saved 3 pounds for eating for breakfast, and made fruit leather with the rest.

I have a really easy recipe for the fruit leather.  The thing is, you can stretch out your fruit with apple or pear sauce so you don't have to have only one fruit in the leather.  Neat, right?  But, don't worry--you can also just use one fruit and I'm sure that would be very tasty, too.  It's a forgiving recipe because if it's too watery, it just takes longer to dehydrate.  No biggie. 

FRUIT LEATHER

4 cups applesauce
2 cups strawberries (or other fruit)
3/4 cups water

Put all ingredients in blender and blend thoroughly.  Pour into dehydrator trays so it's about 1/8" to 1/4" thick.  You need to have the mats they sell for your dehydrator that are meant for liquid items, or you can line your trays with plastic wrap or parchment paper.  Set at 115 degrees and dry for 8-10 hours.  Drying it at a temperature below 116 degrees will preserve the enzymes which are super healthy.

You can add sugar to sweeten these up, but why?  If you must, consider an alternative sweetener like agave, stevia, raw sugar, or fruit juice.  Refined sugars are bad, bad, bad.  (I use white sugar sometimes, but only when we're making a treat.  I'd like to wean us from that.)

Mine are in the dehydrator right now.  I made some with plastic, some with parchment paper.  I also made some with just straight strawberries.  I'll let you know how they turn out in the morning!

Also see www.simplylivingsmart.com or www.greensmoothiegirl.com for more inspirational food ideas!

NEXT DAY UPDATE:  I just looked at my fruit leather and discovered some things that need improving.  First, if you are using an alternative to the mats that come with your dehydrator, use plastic wrap but avoid parchment paper.  Perhaps wax paper would work, but trust me, parchment paper does not.

Second, I would go for at least 1/4" thickness.  I was leaning towards 1/8" but mine got paper thin.  It still tastes great but it is VERY thin.  It's pretty much strawberry paper.

Third, the applesauce trick worked great!  It took on the strawberry taste and stretched the strawberries much further.

Overall, it was a success!

A new way of eating

I've been slowly changing the way we eat over the past several years.  More whole grains, less refined foods, less sugar, less meat.  But now I'm feeling the need to change even more.  And I need help.  We need to eat as healthy as possible to protect our health.  However, like all other moms, I am busy and don't want to spend all day in the kitchen.  Also, we home school which keeps me on my toes, I have a baby who doesn't want me to put him down, and I have lots of taste preferences to deal with.  Luckily, we don't have too many intolerances.  We're all fine with wheat, dairy, etc.  I feel blessed about that.

What I need is simple ideas.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks.  If your idea is a simple two-ingredient throw-together dish, I want to hear it!

Here are my criteria:

• Focus on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and non-meat proteins.  
• No meats, poultry, or fish for now, but we're fine with eggs and cheese.
• No refined sugar or white flour.  No processed foods.
• No cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, etc.  Unless you want to be mean to Marty. :)
• If it has mustard or vinegar, I have to leave it out for certain family members so we try to stay away from those.
• Easy--not looking for gourmet, here. 
• Budget friendly
  
• Baby or kid-friendly--it would be great if I could feed it to the baby, too, but it has to at least please the children.

What do you think--should we make this a fun contest?  You could win... some of my homemade bread?  Some of my homemade yogurt?  A free concealed firearms permit class?  :)

I hope everyone will benefit from seeing everyone else's recipes!  Thanks everyone!

By the way, if you want to post a link to another website or blog with great ideas, that would be great, too.  I found this one, but her over-use of exclamation points is already driving me crazy.  (!!!!!)  Great information, though.  http://simplehealthytasty.blogspot.com/

This one is also great!  www.greensmoothiegirl.com

P.S.  I think I need to also mention how we are currently eating, for comparison's sake.  We eat only homemade bread made from freshly ground whole wheat.  We drink smoothies a lot which we make with fresh oranges and a tiny bit of milk & vanilla.  We usually have fruit with breakfast, fruit or veggie with lunch, and a veggie for dinner.  We do eat dairy but we don't eat much meat at all and when we do it's either ground turkey or boneless skinless chicken.  We have a bit of a sweet tooth so we do make treats a couple times a week.  We never drink soda--only water.  We generally don't eat processed foods but sometimes we will buy mac & cheese.  No food coloring, no artificial sweeteners, no high fructose corn syrup.  We focus on whole foods and cook most of our foods from scratch.  We just need to step things up a notch.

Fudgy Orange Brownies

I was thinking about what to make for a party I was attending later one night.  I was thinking about brownies, and as I picked up a box of oranges I just bought, a stroke of genius occurred!  ORANGE brownies--of course!  Why had I never thought of this before?  I combined my favorite super-moist brownie recipe with orange zest, and VOILA, a new favorite was born!  Enjoy!

Fudgy Orange Brownies

3/4 cup cocoa
1 cup butter, melted
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour
Zest from two oranges

Optional:
1 cup semisweet or milk chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans or other nuts
Powdered sugar sprinkled on top

Suggestion:  Hersheys makes a Special Dark cocoa powder that I think would be amazing in this recipe!  Next time I'm going to try it with dark cocoa powder and chocolate chips.

1. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla for 1-2 minutes or until light and lemon-colored.
2. Add melted butter and cocoa.  Beat together.
3. Add orange zest and mix thoroughly.
4. Add flour and mix just until combined.
5. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts if desired.
6. Transfer to a greased 9 x 13 baking pan.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with moist crumbs. 

Frugal Recipes-Chocolate Sauce, Orange Smoothie, Laundry Detergent

Chocolate Syrup

Add to milk, ice cream, or anything that needs a good dose of chocolate.

½ cup unsweetened cocoa

1 cup water

2 cups sugar

1/8 tsp. salt (a couple dashes)

½ tsp. vanilla

In a medium saucepan*, whisk together the cocoa and water.  Heat over medium heat.  Add sugar and continue to stir until sugar dissolves.  Bring mixture to a full rolling boil.  Reduce heat to medium low and boil for a full 3 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Add salt and vanilla.  Pour into a Mason jar and store in fridge.

*Make sure the pan is big enough or else it will boil over.

Easy Orange Smoothie

4 oranges, peeled

½ cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla

Ice (less=thinner, more=thicker)

Put all ingredients into blender and blend well.  Can add sweetener if desired (sugar, agave, or whatever you prefer). Great for a snack or breakfast.

 

Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap (From www.thefamilyhomestead.com)

1/3 bar Fels Naptha or other type of soap, as listed above

½ cup washing soda

½ cup borax powder 

~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size~

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan.  Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts.  Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved.  Remove from heat.  Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket.   Now add your soap mixture and stir.  Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.  Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel.  You use ½ cup per load.

**A few things to note about the soap** 

~The finished soap will not be a solid gel.  It will be more of a watery gel that has been accurately described as an "egg noodle soup" look.

 ~The soap is a low sudsing soap.  So if you don’t see suds, that is ok.  Suds are not what does the cleaning, it is the ingredients in the soap.

Powdered Laundry Detergent - Top load machine (From the Duggar Family website, www.duggarfamily.com)

1   Fels-Naptha soap bar
1  Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda*
½  Cup Borax

-Grate soap or break into pieces and process in a food processor until powdered. Mix all ingredients. For light load, use 1 Tablespoon. For heavy or heavily soiled load, use 2 Tablespoons. Yields: 3 Cups detergent. (Approx. 40 loads)

*Arm & Hammer "Super Washing Soda" - in some stores or may be purchased online here (at Meijer.com). Baking Soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent - It must be sodium carbonate!!

TIPS FOR LAUNDRY SOAP: We use Fels-Naptha  bar soap in the homemade soap recipes, but you can use Ivory, Sunlight, Kirk's Hardwater Castile or Zote bars. Don't use heavily perfumed soaps. We buy Fels-Naptha by the case from our local grocer or online. Washing Soda and Borax can often be found on the laundry or cleaning aisle. Recipe cost approx. $2 per batch= .05 per load!

Inexpensive Fabric Softener Recipes

Recipe #1
1  Cup White Vinegar
Add vinegar to rinse cycle. Works great. Removes residue and odors. Also helps to keep washing machine and hoses fresh and clean too.

Recipe #2

1  Container of Name Brand Fabric Softener
4  Inexpensive sponges, cut in half

Pour entire container of softener into a 5 gallon bucket. Fill empty softener container with water twice. (2 parts water to 1 part softener) Add sponges to softener/water mixture. When ready to use wring out extra mixture from one sponge and add to the dryer as you would a dryer sheet. 

Frugal Tips

I teach a mini-class on homemaking skills for our Relief Society (women's church group).  The latest class was on Saturday and the topic was Budgeting and Money-Saving Tips.  We also cooked some sauces (cheese sauce, chocolate sauce, and pancake syrup).  I have had a lot of requests for the information so I thought the easiest way was to post it here.  So, enjoy!  

If you have any comments or questions, the best way to contact me is to email me at sar.mckay@yahoo.com.  Enjoy!

Tips:

Always use a budget and stick to it!

Make food from scratch

Buy generic brands

Grocery shop once every 7-10 days

Use a shopping list & stick to it!

Avoid impulse purchases-stick to the essentials

Combine your errands & go out all at once

Do not eat out for convenience-bring food with you or go out in between meal times

Consider your needs vs. your wants

Plan ahead for meals on your calendar

Shop the ksl.com classifieds for used items

Re-evaluate insurance needs & shop for best rates

Call credit cards & ask for a better rate

Get OUT of debt & don’t carry a balance

Don’t buy processed or premade foods

Buy used clothing if possible
The library has more than you know-new books, online downloads, great movies, cookbooks, etc.

Garden and preserve your harvest

Give homemade gifts

Learn to make bread, yogurt, crackers, etc.

Invest in tools that will save you money long term including a mixer for bread, grain mill, dehydrator

Make breads, muffins, pancakes in large batches & store in freezer

Buy multiples of foods you can store

Use & rotate the food you store

Buy only food storage you will use regularly or that has a long shelf life

Buy from a food co-op

Make your own cleaners (all-purpose, laundry soap, fabric softener, disinfectant, etc.)

Eat less meat & more good grains & beans

Cut cable/Dish TV

Use less detergent per load for clothes & dishes –usually don’t need as much as it states on bottle

Use cold water more often for laundry

Clean the back of your refrigerator-dust build-up makes it work harder

Be organized-disorganization costs time & money

Be industrious-laziness is expensive

Garbage is cheap-don’t buy foods just because they’re cheap.  Buy for value, not just price.

Nurse instead of bottle feed if possible

Make your own baby food

Use cloth diapers & cloth wipes

Never let leftovers go to waste!

Learn to sew, mend, knit, crochet

Study the Great Depression

Educate yourself as much as possible-READ!

Keep lists of meal ideas on inside cupboard doors

Keep a notebook in your purse for grocery lists

Learn to cut hair—search www.youtube.com

Cut out breakfast cereal

Don’t overload your washer—it wears out sooner

Price compare for your prescriptions

Keep bottled water & snacks in your car

You can learn anything from youtube.com

Clean dryer lint after each load=more efficient

Buy ink in recycled cartridges

EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS

Pay financial obligations first, then budget out what’s left.

Resources:

www.providentliving.org

www.pinchingyourpennies.com

www.dealstomeals.com

www.youtube.com

www.freecycle.org

www.ksl.com –classifieds and free section

foodco-op.net (local organization)

www.utahcoop.org (local organization)

www.amazon.com

www.abebooks.com or www.half.com

www.hillbillyhousewife.com

www.simplylivingsmart.com

www.livingonadime.com

www.sarahsbakingco.blogspot.com (my blog)

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome

http://www.daveramsey.com/

The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn

Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey

Dining on a Dime by Tawra Kellam

More Money-Saving Tips from Sarah's friends

-Insist on proper hand washing and food handling technique.  Contamination of bacteria or viruses from your hands or body spreads disease and illness.  Cross contamination of unclean or raw foods to your mouth can cause illness.  Being sick is expensive!  Avoid it by being careful—especially when preparing food for other people, even in your own home.

-Shop around for doctor visits.  My daughter had an ear infection and we have a high deductible plan and knew I’d be paying cash for her visit.  Draper After-Hours by Fresh Market was $100-120.  Our regular pediatrician was $62-80.  The clinic inside Smith’s was $49 but the doctor printed out a coupon from their website for $10 off and said I could print one off every time I come in.  Her visit ended up costing only $39 plus $8 for her prescription.

-I stopped buying ziplock bags.  I just live without them.  I do have foil I can use.  And I save every plastic tub anything comes in and reuse it instead of ziplock bags.

-I stopped buying paper towels and use and rinse out rags instead.  There are some messes I would rather not go down the sink or into the washing machine so sometimes napkin gets used so the mess can go in the trash.

- I stopped buying tape.  For the most part I can use something else instead of tape.  To wrap presents I use string to tie the newspaper around the gift, no tape needed.  Staples often can take the place of tape as well and some how we always seem to have lots of boxes of extra staples.

-I only buy the fruit or veggies at the store that are on sale and will last more then one meal.  Like a $1.50 cantaloupe will get eaten by our family in one sitting, not the best deal...BUT a $1.50 bunch of bananas will last a few days.  And a $1.50 bag of carrots at Sam's club will last more than a week.

-Call your phone company about once a year and ask them to review your phone bill and give you a better deal.  I just called and my new phone bill will be $20 cheaper now.  

-Live without out it.  There is so much we can live without.  I am currently living without:  a garbage disposal, (The drains have screens on them and I keep a $1 plunger under the sink to fix the sink when it gets plugged up), two working toilets (we look the top off one and flush it by hand and used duck tape to fix the other), the van door closing properly (my hip does the job), cooking spray  (I just use oil in a squirt bottle), lotion  (we use coconut oil as lotion and for cooking), 409  (we use vinegar).  In the past I have lived without a drier, just hang the clothes up.  A washer, the bath tub makes a great place to wash laundry. Beds, sleeping bags do work on the floor.  A kitchen table--that did make eating a little tricky with children-- it was a picnic on the kitchen floor every night.  An oven-- it is amazing what you can cook in a microwave!
-Help clean up after parties and ward functions.  They almost always send you home with the leftovers.  We got a week’s worth of food and had more to share with our friends from our ward Christmas party.

-Use powdered milk in recipes instead of store-bought milk.

-Turn the heater down.  Our heater is set at 68 one the main floor during the day.  Heat rises so I have the upstairs set at 66.  Then we do the reverse at night.  If we are cold we put on socks and a light jacket.  And in the fall and spring we try not to use the heater or the air conditioning and open windows and use fans.  We also have blankets over many of our windows in the winter and some I even put some large pieces of plastic over the windows.  I like the plastic, it keeps the heat in and also lets light in so the house isn't so dark like with blankets.

-When I go to the book store I write down titles of books I find interesting (or take a picture on my camera phone) and then find them at the library.  99% of the time they are at the library.

-I also make homemade tortillas, tortillas chips, dinner rolls, yogurt, sour cream, ranch dressing, french fries, cereal.

-If you buy herbs for medicinal purposes try mountainroseherbs.com  Their prices and quality can not be beat.  I can get 4 times the herbs I used to get else where for the same price.

- I hope no one thinks too low of me for this, but I do check in the trash.  On big trash day in Sandy many people just put everything to the curb knowing someone will take it.  And often when someone moves they just start  tossing everything because they are just tired of packing.  So when my neighbors move I offer to help and I always take stuff home or see what they tossed in the trash and I take that.  I just got a working jig saw this way.

-Borrow, rent etc.  Follow the 90/10 rule.  Don't buy it.  We bought a cabin once.  The cost of owning a cabin was 100x what the cost would have been to rent one a once a month for a year.  In my opinion a boat would fall into this same category.  Boats are way expensive.  How many times a year do you honestly think your family will use it?  Unless you will honestly use your boat EVERY weekend then renting would be cheaper.  We don't need to own everything.

-Often a friend or neighbor has that thing you'll only use once and they are willing to let you borrow it.  We don't own a ladder, but all of our neighbors do and they store them outside.  We have open permission to just borrow them when we need to.  With renting or borrowing you have no up keep cost, no insurance costs or registration fees.  My only advice on borrowing is to make sure you are willing to replace the item for your friend if you ruin it.

-I cut everyone's hair in our family, including my own.  I learned to cut my own on youtube by watching a couple of really cute girls cut their own hair.

-Thin out things like sour cream by adding a little milk.  It makes it last longer and you use less of it because it is creamier and does blob off the spoon.

-I use 1/3 laundry detergent and then use baking soda for the rest.  I get baking soda in a big bag at Sam's club for cheap.

-Check the KSL.com free section regularly.  I needed 2 new toilets, and found 4 new ones for free on KSL.  I also recently got a free pinewood derby track from KSL for troops to use that can't afford to rent a track.

-Patch your clothes.  I patch everything.  And if it can not be patched I turn it into something new.  An old pair of baby pants with a whole in the bottom got the legs turned into little draw string bags to hold pencils.  An old t-shirt was turned into a vest.

-Newspaper, (from my neighbor who gets the paper) makes great wrapping paper.

-Plan all your driving to be done at the same time in the same direction.  This doesn't always workout, but most of the time you know that you need to go to Sandy sometime this week, and South Jordan on that day and the Temple on this day.  So plan your other errands that are in the same directing at the same time.

-We don't rent movies.  The library eventually gets most of the new movies.  We just wait and see them a year after everyone else.  And for that must see movie, go to the dollar theater.

-We improvise a lot.  Make do with what we have.  For dad's birthday we thought it would be fun to fill the shower with balloons so when we went to get in the balloons would all spill out onto him.  Well, to save money we didn't buy any balloons.  We filled kitchen trash bags with air, twisty tied them and wrote happy birthday on them.  We put them all in the shower and it worked great.  And then we still used them as trash bags.  We decorate kids’ parties with Christmas lights all around the house.  Cards are made out of scratch paper.

-In my kitchen there are 6 can lights.  I leave 2 of them with burned out bulbs all the time.  The other 4 lights provide enough light.  

-Before I ever call a fix-it man I look on line to see if there is some way for me to do it myself.  Just google “faucet tutorial” or “fix toilet tutorial” or whatever you are looking for.  There are so many great video tutorials online. It is not always possible, but most of the time it is.  And think creatively.  Most of us think we have to get help because that is what everyone else does, or what we have always done.  I have been taking my van in for years to have fluid put in our differential because it leaks.  Finally I thought I'd figure this out myself.  I went to Checker told the guys what fluid I needed and asked them where I should put it.  They walked out with me and showed me the one screw under my car to unscrew, pour the stuff in and put the screw back on.  Why have I been paying someone to do that all these years?  

-I needed our heater tuned up and green stickered.  I looked everywhere to see if I could learn that myself and could not.  I had heard an ad on the radio for a cheap green sticker and tune up price and I used them.  And I followed the guy around to see what he was doing.  Well, a tune up basically consists of vacuuming out the dust inside the heater.  I can do that myself next time.  

-I only shop at DI.  And we love hand-me-downs.

-Sell that stuff you don't need.  KSL is a great place to sell that cool thing you just only use 10% of the time.  We sold our pool table, spare snow tires to a car we didn't have anymore, our extra set of wedding rings, old basketball hoop that no one used...Most of us think we have to hang on to everything.  But it is really OK to be done with things and pass them on.  So for me it's the 90%-10% rule.  If something fits into the 10% category I don't need to buy it or keep it.  Do I use it 90% of the time or only 10% of the time.  Will this thing I want to buy help me 90% of the time or 10% of the time.

-Have a price book. Determine what price YOU are willing to spend for an item and try to get the item for less.  I usually have a price per ounce for various types of food.  For meat mine is $2/pound max boneless and .99 for bone in chicken. For cold cereal it is 10 cents/ounce, honey $2/pound etc.  Your price will vary depending on if you will use no name items, if you only use organic items, etc. 
-Savers has a 99 cents sale every Monday at 9am.  Everything that has the featured tag color is 99 cents.  I have found very nice (some still with the original tags on) items at these sales.
-Remember that just because it is in an ad does not mean it is a good price.  Just because it is at Costco or the Dollar Store doesn't mean it is a good price either. 

-Never buy cleaning products you can make yourself.  Why spend $2-3 on a can of Lysol when you can just use vinegar or hydrogen peroxide or bleach if you need something really strong.

-You are in charge of your money.  Make it work for you!  Tell it where to go and don’t let it be in control—YOU are the one in control!  Be a wise steward!  Laziness and poor planning are very expensive.

-If you save a dollar here, a dollar there, throughout the month, you could easily save hundreds every month. What would you do with all that extra money?  Pay off debt?  Contribute to fast offering?  Purchase a grain mill or mixer that will help you save money for years to come?