Talk About It Tuesday: Enchilda Recipe

Due to numerous reader requests, this week on Talk About it Tuesday I wanted to share with everyone a recipe that is quick & easy to make and my family's love.

When I make supper I try to keep my recipes to things that I already have in the pantry and tasty/fun. My husband & I don't like eating the same thing every week, so I am always looking at for new ways to make old classics and fun favorites.

The next recipe is a great version of enchiladas. I originally got the idea from Kraft Foods & Family, but decided that I did not like their recipe & decided to make one of my own. I thought that their recipe called for unnecessary items & too much of certain ingredients (like how much meat they required; the original recipe called for twice as much meat, but made only half the servings).

Ingredients for 5-6 servings:

10-12 flour tortillas

apprx. 1/2 LB ground beef

salsa (1-2 cups)

1 can black beans, drained

taco seasoning

fat free sour cream

shredded cheese

First, ground beef in skillet on stove & season with taco seasoning to taste (I usually use 1/4-1/5 a bag of seasoning). Next add the beans & salsa. I usually use around 1-1.5 cups salsa, but it's really just about how much you like. I think the more salsa & beans, the heartier the meal. Mix meat/salsa/bean mixture & cook until warm through out.

Next, I coat 2 large baking pans with cooking spray. Then I spread sour cream onto a tortilla & place in pan (A). Again, use as much sour cream as your family likes. Then scoop the meat mixture onto the tortilla, around 1/8 - 1/4 Cup should be fine (B). Then put shredded cheese on top of meat mixture (C). Now repeat parts A-C, so that you have an enchilada that has two layers of tortilla, meat & cheese.

Finally, cover the pans with aluminum foil & bake at around 30 minutes at 400 degrees, removing the aluminum foil the last 5-10 minutes. I try to keep an eye on it while it's in the oven & when it is heated thoroughly and the cheese is melted then I say it is done.

You can garnish with whatever you like, I used tomatoes because we had grown some in our garden. I really enjoy this recipe. One serving is more than enough to fill me up & my husband usually eats one and a half servings. One thing to keep in mind is that the more liquid that is in your salsa, the more liquid will come out of the enchilada during baking. Due to this I try & use chunky salsa instead of picante type salsa, etc. You can view the unaltered, original Kraft Foods & Family version of this recipe here.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, questions or concerns you would like me to discuss for Talk About It Tuesday please e-mail me at Savingyoung@yahoo.com or leave a comment.

Talk About It Tuesday

Last week I received an e-mail from a reader who recently read my previous post on canning. This reader wanted to give a little bit more vital information to the process.

Just read your article on canning (the part that states), "Before opening a pressure cooker after boiling, you must quickly depressurize them by running cold water over the canner until the pressure valve goes down BEFORE you can open the canner."

Lots of good info...however I wanted to let you know that everything I have read on canning says this is a HUGE no no. The rapid loss of pressure can easily crack jars just as a cool draft can. Running water over it is even worse, both methods are unsafe and can even crack the metal of the canner/cooker itself. I know my canner manual has safety warnings directly warning against both when canning. It says never to quick cool. You should always let it lose pressure without touching the canner or lifting any weighted gauges. Only when pressure is at 0 should you even check the gauge. If no steam comes out, then you are okay to open it, etc.

I wouldn't say anything, but considering it is also a pretty big safety issue I thought I'd probably better. I am glad for every article out there on canning. It is something people really need to learn and I know I appreciate seeing folks pass on the knowledge.

Big thanks to the reader who e-mailed me this valuable information. So what should you do the next time you decide to can; should you follow the steps provided in the post or the latter provided by this reader? My suggestion to you is first to do whatever your instruction manual (if you have a canner) states and secondly to do whatever works best and is safest for you. Both readers have had success in each of their own ways, so I think it's a matter of what way you can achieve your results with the least amount of risk possible.

Thanks again to this reader for sharing her information. Do you have any questions, comments, ideas, or follow-ups to anything you have read on my site or are just interested in discussing? If so, please email me at Savingyoung@yahoo.com or simply leave a comment.

Talk About it Tuesday: Meal Planning & Grocery Budget

Recently, I have been asked by some of my readers what exactly goes into my meal planning and grocery budget. Well as many of you know, my grocery budget is currently set at $220/month and includes all groceries, newspapers, toiletries, medicine, household cleaning products, pet food/supplies, and make-up. My grocery budget feeds/supplies a family of two adults & two cats. While others may have a lower grocery budget for a larger family, I am perfectly happy with our current budgeted amount because it is what fits the needs of my family.

Before I started blogging and using coupons, I was budgeted over $350-$375 per month on the above mentioned items. However, the reality was that I usually spent more than the budgeted amount because I would pay with my debit card and didn't realize quite how much I was actually spending. Now, I withdrawal half of my monthly budgeted amount twice a month & pay cash for everything. Using cash has made me more acutely aware of what exactly I was purchasing in the form of needs, wants, and cravings, which allows me to make the most beneficial purchase possible.

As I mentioned before, my current budget is $220/month. To me the key to determining a good grocery budget is finding what works best with your family. Yes, I have cut out some ready-made or pre-made type foods like cookies, mixes, etc... but I also purchase things that we love like Blue Bell Ice cream. In order to buy items like ice cream, I simply prioritize my grocery list and I use any money left over to stock up on necessities and to buy splurge items.

Now some of you may wonder, do we eat meat? The truth is my family eats meat everyday. In fact, I can't remember a single day that we didn't eat meat. What I try to do is buy basic meats such as ground beef, chicken breast, and pork chops; I only buy other meats when money is left over in the budget. Also, to reduce my cost on meats I only purchase it when it is reduced or on an extreme sale. Personally, I don't care if meat is reduced because it has two days before it reaches the sell by date. I simply freeze the meat when I get home and make sure it use it the day I defrost it. Another tip is when I buy chicken I try to save money by purchasing chicken breast that's on sale and still has the skin & bone. Believe it or not, but this can save anywhere from $0.50-$2.00 per pound.

Some may also ask do we eat out? The answer to this is also yes, but this does not come out of our grocery budget. If my family chooses to eat out, we take the money out of our monthly entertainment/recreation budget. Usually, we might make a movie night with delivered pizza or frozen pizza. Other times we will go out to eat and then go bowling or skating. Either way, eating out or special "dining in" at home comes from our entertainment budget.

Finally, we it comes to meal planning I must admit I'm a little sloppy. I almost never plan farther than a day in advance, but I truthfully should start trying to plan a few days to one week early. Right now I simply have a recipe box full of entrees I love to make that don't require fancy ingredients. I try to make meals that use my pantry staples like beans, frozen veggies, stuffing, etc...and I then make sure to purchase these items as soon as I run out because I use them so often. Every once & a while I will want to make a recipe that calls for something I don't normally keep stocked. When this happens I try to plan that meal a day or two early. Then when I go to the grocery store to pick up the special ingredient, I also be sure to check the clearance, mark-downs, and sale items at the grocery store for any other goodies that might be available. Also, sometimes I will plan a special meal with items I find on discount like steak fajitas or Sunday pot roasts.

So that's my secret to grocery budgeting and meal planning. I am thinking about starting to plan or even pre-make my meals up to a week early (I tried this for two meals last week & it was wonderful), but I doubt that I will begin to prepare my grocery list around my planned meals. I like having the option to buy what I want & make whatever I'm in the mood for and until that changes, I probably won't change my planning habits. I will keep everyone posted on any pre-making meal extravaganzas. Until then, check back in a few days when I will post some of my favorite recipes.

Thrifty Thursday

Recently, I found a great deal on this lovely bread machine at Thrift Town (a local thrift store). I was able to purchase it for only $7.99 and it appears to be in fairly good shape; it even has a timer delay option!

While I have tried making home made bread from scratch, I am hoping that this will make the process easier now that I do not have as much time since I am working and going to school. So far I haven't really attempted to make much bread in the machine because I have been eating Sara Lee Smooth & Soft Bread that I was able to get for free with the coupon that came out in last Sunday's paper. However, once I begin my bread making journey I will keep you posted with updates on my experience.

Free Meals at Chick-Fil-A

My coworkers & I had forgotten all about Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A. Today only, if you come in dressed up as a cow you get a free meal & if you were a cow accessory you get a free entree. So, my coworker & I made little cow patches out of plain 3"x3" paper & went to Chick-Fil-A. We both received free sandwiches & enjoyed every bit of it. Free food & fun, you just can't beat it.

If you want to learn more about Cow Appreciation Day check out MoneySavingMom.

Canning 101

After my mom read my recent post about wanting to make and can home-made gravy, she decided that I needed a little canning 101 lesson. She brought up many good points & tips that I thought were worth sharing. Here is her e-mail:

In the process of canning, you have to kill all bacteria that may be present. This starts with hot, clean, boiled (or I use extra high temp dishwasher setting) jars and lids and rims. I usually do the lids and rims in boiling water, as it keeps them germ free because you don't want to be touching them. That goes for everything. No touching. Use boiled instruments. Cleanliness is next to godliness here. Jars, rims, lids, should remain hot until canned. Usually the same goes for the food going in them.

Next, there are two methods for canning:
1) hot water bath
2) pressure canning

The hot water bath will not work for you in this instance of canning gravy. Hot water bath can only work for items which have either very high acidity (such as pickles packed with a brine (salt) solution with vinegar (dill pickles), or just vinegar and sugar (sweet pickles). or enormous amounts of sugar (fruit preserves). Some tomatoes used to be able to be canned by hot water bath, but new varieties of today's tomatoes don't have enough acid to enable this without pressure canning. Your grandma used to hot water bath green beans, but she never should have done that. We took a chance there.

Everything else should be pressure canned, using a pressure cooker/canner. Gravy, as would meats, or soups, or many veggies, and wild meats, should be pressure canned. I am unsure about canned fruit if it is not preserves.They make special pressure cookers for this because your normal pressure cooker isn't tall enough to put canning jars in.Follow instructions carefully so you don't explode the canner and scald yourself during explosion. Before opening a pressure cooker after boiling, you must quickly depressurize them by running cold water over the canner until the pressure valve goes down BEFORE you can open the canner.

Product that is not canned correctly can develop botulism, which is tasteless and odorless, but deadly even to taste test. People die from it. However, most spoiled product will taste and smell bad anyway, but absence thereof is no guarantee that it does not have botulism. Any canned product (even those coming in steel cans you buy) should never burst out when they are opened, as if they were under pressure. (Bad sign). So squirting when you open the can is bad. Bubbles in canned jar food- bad sign. Strange smell or color, don't trust it. Whenever in doubt, it is not worth dieing over.

So, for instance, when I make pickles, I do hot water bath. The hot jars are immediately filled with my hot pickles (or sometimes cucumbers and hot brine/vinegar, depending on type of pickle). I fill them pretty full with liquid, because it is hot and expanded and the contents have not settled. I leave about half the distance of the corkscrew area of the jar or less filled with the hot liquid. I place a seal on the jar, and then I put the rim on the seal. The lids are kept in a HOT boiling water mixture. They are difficult to get out, but they make a little wand with a magnet on it that you can put into the water and fetch the lid with. The rims are also kept hot. Place the rim over the lid. I DO NOT tighten the rim down. I only put it on just enough to hold the lid in place. Tightening it will make it impossible to get off, plus I believe the air might have to escape - I'm not sure on that. Don't worry. They will not leak.

I take my tongs (they make wide ones that you can purchase in the canning section of Wal-Mart) and they are as wide as the mouth of the jar. I quickly fill all 1-6 jars and with lids and rims placed on the jars, and using the tongs, put them immediately into a large canning pot (usually a tall enameled pot) that has water already boiling. There has to be enough boiling water to completely cover all the jars once the jars are all in place. Some pots actually have a jar lifter that you can use so you don't have to use the tongs one by one.

The trick here is knowing how much boiling water it takes after you have water displaced by 1 to 6 (or however many fit) jars. I usually know how many I'm going to put in at once, do a trial run with cold water to see if they are covered or if they overflow the pan. You get the picture. Be mindful of evaporation if you do many jars/times.

Once they are all in, they only have to boil a few minutes - I don't remember how many minutes. The recipe or canning instructions are usually on the pickle mix, or canning lids, or somewhere. What happens then is you will bring the jars out with your tongs after the timed bath and place on a towel, OUT of the draft. The last thing you want is a cold air conditioning vent draft to hit these jars and crack them. I saw that happen to grandmother once. She was not happy! She often covered them with a towel to avoid that.

You will start hearing a little "pop" which is the seal popping into the "down" position. Sometimes it starts while the jars are in the pan. Other times, it happens as they start to cool. This makes the air leave, or something. All seals should pop down eventually - IF they are canned correctly. If not, then they are not canned or safe for storage.

Anyway, it is worthwhile to also note, that you should never use any home-canned product if the seal is not "down." This is the middle of the lid is depressed or sucked down. When you unseal my pickles, for instance, you probably unscrew the jar rim, and then pry up the seal and hear it pop. You will note that the seal is "up" then after it pops, or a little dome shaped. I suspect that is where you get the name for the "Dome" brand lids. Also worthy of note is that while you may reuse a rim, you never, ever reuse the lid in canning. (the lid is the middle portion with the rubber seal.) Once the rubber seal has sealed, you cannot trust it to use to seal again for pantry storage purposes. Oh, it is OK for in the frig, but not to store on a shelf.

You will find some things called "quick canned." That usually refers to when you are canning and want to save out a jar to use something maybe in a week from the frig rather than stored unrefrigerated on a pantry shelf. In this instance the product is processed to the point it is put in the jars, but does not undergo pressure canning nor hot water bath method. You have simply made pickles, veggies, gravy, whatever, and wish to store it in a jar as opposed to Tupperware in your refrigerator. It has the shelf life that pickles, veggies, gravy, or whatever, usually has in your frig!

You will note that some things last longer in the frig. Pickles and preserves last a long time because of their natural bacteria preventing preservatives (vinegar and/or sugar and/or salt). You will also note that properly canned items can have their rims removed rather than tightened down once the lids have "sealed" and are cooled. Note, I didn't say pop the seal. The point is that the product is sealed and probably would have to be pried open and wouldn't need the rim. I never do that because I just don't. But I have seen it done.

Biscuits & Gravy

That's it, I've officially gone crazy & decided that no matter how hard I try I just really love fattening foods. For dinner the other night I made pot roast (in a crock pot), mashed potatoes, green beans, home made biscuits & home made gravy. Sounds good right? Well, it's too good. See I like gravy, but I love cream gravy made from fat drippings (especially from a pot roast). My hubby couldn't believe how much gravy I ate because we normally eat brown gravy, which he likes, but I don't like so much.

I told my husband that I would eat this gravy with every meal if I could and that's when it hit me...what if I canned my own gravy. So I made a big batch of it, canned it, & sealed it. I don't know how long it will be good for & I will definitely have to fiddle around with how to reheat it, but I'm excited. The only down side is, I've already opened the gravy to use with my lunch. I guess I will have to make some mental rules about how many time's I'm allowed to eat it per week.

I'll keep you posted if this ends up working or not. If it doesn't, I am going to try freezing it to see if that's any better. Hopefully, this will save me time & money, not to mention that I can have my favorite gravy whenever I want.

More restaurant deals!

If you thought the deal I posted a few days ago for restaurant gift certificates was good, wait until you read this...Restaurant.com is now offing 70% off already reduced restaurant gift certificates. This time you can get $10 gift certificates for as low at $0.90 & $25 gift certificates for as low at $3.00!

If you've never used Restaurant.com, read my previous post here, but use this new offer code instead of the old one. The new code is GOURMET. You enter it when you are viewing your shopping cart & your cart should show your new balance reflecting the 70% discount. Don't forget, for an even better deal make your purchase from restaurant.com through Ebates and earn 15% cash back from your purchase!

60% off restaurant gift Certificates.

Right now at Restaurant.com, you can get 60% off your already reduced gift certificates. Normally, you can buy $25 gift certificates to participating restaurants for only $10, but with the extra 60% off it's even better. Read about my experience here with restaurant.com & Ebates in a previous post. This site is legit & I have used my certificates in the past with no problems.

I just purchased 2 $10 gift certificates to a Mexican Restaurant in Downtown Fort Worth for only $2.60. What I did was I entered in my zip code, picked out the restaurant & certificate I wanted, then when I viewed my shopping bag I entered in promotional code FLAVOR & it updated my cart to show the 60% discount. After you have paid for your certificates, you can either print them out immediately or you can print them out from the e-mail they send you.

Also, what's even better is that I did all this through Ebates. So, not only did I get an extra 60% off my purchase, I will also get 15% cash back from Ebates on my total. If you don't know what Ebates is click here to read my previous post about they pay you to shop.

I love home made bread!

I just made my first batch of home-made bread (yes, home-made from scratch) and it is the most wonderful thing in the entire world. I have always wanted to try making bread, but have been intimidated by the process. I just always assumed to would take lots of time/effort and that the bread would be mediocre at best. Boy was I wrong. Not only was it easy, but it tastes decilious!

I went to one of my new favorite blogs/websites called Hillybilly Housewife and followed her Beginner's Bread recipe. It walked me through the entire process and was extremely easy to understand. I have no idea why I never did this before. I am definitely checking out all the other recipes listed on her site (many of which are old fashioned, from scratch, and very affordable), as well as checking out her monthly $70 menu plan! Thanks Hillybilly Housewife!

Do You Like Eating Out?

Do you like eating out, if so you should check out restaurant.com. It's a website that offers gift certificates to participating restaurants at a discount. All you have to do is enter in your zip code and the website will pull up a list of participating restaurants; including pictures, descriptions, and prices of gift certificates. For instance, within a 15 mile radius of where I live there are 7 participating restaurants and prices as low as $3 for a $10 gift certificate.

I know it sounds too good to be true, but I actually tried it out. During the holidays, I bought a $25 gift certificate for less than $10. The only stipulation was that I could only use the certificate on a purchase of $35 or more, with a party of 2 or more (the stipulations are different for each restaurant). After I purchased the gift certificate, they e-mailed it to me. My husband & I finally got around to using it last week. The certificate was for a Mexican restaurant in downtown. At first I was a bit skeptical, so I called the restaurant just to verify that they participated with the website and that my certificate was good. To tell you the truth, I was surprised at how nice the restaurant was & how great the food was. Our tab was $35 (we had more food than we knew what to do with) and I used my $25 gift certificate, which made total $12 after tax! I decided any time we had a large group of people or wanting to eat out again, I would definitely check out the restaurant.com to buy certificates at a discount.

Now if you think that deal is great & you are wanting to check out the site, just wait it gets even better. I was just checking my account at Ebates & saw that restaurant.com participates with Ebates. You get 15% cash back for purchases made at restaurant.com through Ebates!!! I am definitely going to purchase my gift certificate from restaurant.com through Ebates so that I will not only get a $10 gift certificate for $3, but I will get 15% cash back too!