Dried Mushroom Powder

About a month ago Meijers had 8 oz packages of mushroom buy 10 for $10 and get one free so I got 11- 8 oz packages of mushrooms. They were some nice looking mushrooms weren't they?

I wiped them all clean and sliced them, placed then in the dehydrator.

That's a lot of slicing. LOL

All nice and dried and waiting for the next step. I ran them through the food processor and ground them up pretty good but still not as fine as I wanted them so I ran them through the blender after that. They came out nice and powdery. Makes a great addition to soups, spaghetti sauce, soups and more when you have family members who will not eat anything with chunks of mushrooms in it. LOL My son will not eat mushrooms, little does he know that he has been eating them for months. I know I am a sneaky mommy!! LOL

The finished mushrooms on top. I put about 2-3 teaspoons in things that I cook.
Below the mushrooms is dried celery. Meijers had them on sale 10 for $10, get one free just like the mushroom. I got 11 packages of them, washed the celery, diced it and then dehydrated them. This was I can get celery in my hubby because he doesn't like celery but if they are really small pieces he will eat them.
And these will be good for a year.

Easy Peasy Stuffed Turkey Rolls

I haven't been able to blog for awhile because my garden finally came in so I have been busy canning. Plus I was busy caring 24/7 for a disabled uncle. His dementia and sundowners was getting worse and wearing me out. He went into a nursing home last month because I could no longer care for him 24/7 I am sorry to say.

For dinner tonight I made stuffed turkey rolls, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, home canned green beans and opened up a can of jellied cranberry sauce. The men folk must have really liked it because they cleaned their first plates and went back for seconds. LOL

A couple of weeks ago our local store had Jenni O turkey tenderloins on sale for buy 2 get 3 free. I got 10 of them total. I took one package today and sliced the tenderloins in half from side to side, end to end. Pound each one out a little between two pieces of plastic wrap to make them about a 1/4 inch thin. Then I took some store brand chicken stuffing mix, made it up and put two scoops on each piece of turkey, rolled them up and secured them with a tooth pick at each end. Place them in a casserole dish and then placed the rest of the stuffing in the middle. Placed in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes then took them out, opened a jar of roast turkey gravy, spooned it over top of everything and placed back in the oven for another 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

Before cooking of course. :)

Lookin good!! YUM!!!

Tender, moist and oh so yummy!! :)

An easy peasy Thanksgiving style dinner for any day of the week. Have I made you hungry yet?

Cleaning cast iron

I love to cook in cast iron however some times when foods get stuck in the pan its a pain to have to soak hen srub the stuck on food and then having to reseason the pan. A few years ago I learned the easiest way ever to clean stuck on foods and not have to reseason it. While the pan is warm scrap out all the stuck on food with a metal spatula. Then pour about a half a tablespoon of oil into the pan and add a big pinch of koshar salt. Take a couple of paper towels and scrub the salt and oil all over the pan to loosen any bits of stuck on food still in the pan. When you have it all loose simple wipe out the salt and oil. Take a clean paper towel to wipe out any remaining oil and you are all done. Your pan still has it's beauitful shiny non stick surface and you didn't have to spend an hour or so heating up the kitchen with you oven just to reseason your cast iron. Simple, cheap and easy. The three things I like most when it comes to cleaning. :)

Homemade Beef Vegetable Soup

We love homemade soups. Especially in the winter time. A nice hot bowl of soup and a slice of homemade bread with butter on it is one really nice body warming meal. One of our favorite soups is beef vegetable. Since there is just two of us that like eating soups I don't want to waste time and gas making small pots. Instead I make big pots and then can what is leftover. Last week we had a cool day so I took advantage of it and made a big pot of soup. We had enough for the two of us for dinner that night and then I canned the rest. I got 7 quarts out of the left overs. This soup was made using 1 1/5 pounds of cubed beef, 2 large round white potatoes, cubed. Three bags of frozen mixed vegetables, parsley, 1 small onion finely chopped, beef soup base, salt and black pepper. The total cost was under $10 and gave me 8 main dishes for two people. Not bad when all I will have to add to the meal to complete it is a loaf of homemade fresh bread and some ice tea.

Since I bought everything to make it on sale so I saved money there and when you factor in the time is would take and the money for cooking 8 small pots versus cooking one big pot and canning it I save even more. One more added incentive is that homemade soup beats Campbells in a blind taste test almost every time. :)

Canning corn

Meijers had fresh corn on the cob on sale this past week for 14 cents an ear. These were huge ears. I bought a total of 4 dozen. I canned a total of 16 pints. Below is a picture of the first 8 pints. The rest I didnt get canned until the next day. I had cooked 6 ears the night I bought the corn. Then I used 38 ears to make the 16 pints.  I cooked the last 6 on the grill today. It was so good!!

Each pints holds a little more than 2 ears and the jars have more corn in them then you get when you buy store bought canned corn. I figure with the cost of supplies, gas and time each jar cost me about 45 cents. Quite a savings when it cost me 85 cents to a dollar for a can of corn in the stores around here. And mine is a better quality because I know what is in there. :)

I hope by the time summer is over to have canned at least 50 pints of corn. I am trying to get back to the way of life my grandparents and my husbands grandparents lived. They bought very little at the store and rasied most of their own food each year. His grandparents had their own small farm where they raised cows for meat and milk, pigs for meat, chickens for meat and eggs, goats for milk and cheese and had a very large garden and woods for heating and cooking.

I will never be able to live like they did as I live in a town but I can grow as much as I have room for and can it and buy more from local farmers to can. So its all good! :)

Memorial Day Cookout

I cooked hamburgers and hot dogs out in the grill today but since the temp got up to 97 outside and it was very muggy we ate indoors. I made potato salad and pasta salad as sides and girlled fresh corn for the vegetable. For dessert I made an old fashion pineapple upside down cake in my grandmothers 1930's Griswold frying pan. I love that pan and use it at least twice a week. I cook mainly in cast iron. To me it just gives food a better flavor then the non stick pans do. And since I keep them well seasoned clean up is a breeze. :)

For a frugal tip I save the juice from canned fruits to make cakes and quick breads. If a cake recipe or mix calls for 1 1/3 cups water. I use the juice I drained from a can of fruit and add just enough water to make 1 1/3 cups liquid. That way I get to use every bit of what my money bought. :)

Below is the pineapple cake I made today in my grandmothers cast iron pan. I used the juice from the can of pineapple I opened as part of the liquid I needed for the cake mix. The recipe called for 1 1/3 cups water. I had one cup of juice after draining the contents of the can so I just added 1/3 cups water to get the amount called for. There was 5 guys here and they ate over half the cake. I have just enough for the 3 of us to get a piece later tonight.

Beef Stroganoff

For dinner tonight I made a quick and easy Beef Stroganoff by using home canned stew meat and homemade powdered mushrooms. It must have been good since they did not leave anything. :)

No one in my family likes mushrooms including me but I feel they do have some value in our nutrition so I set out to find a way that I could include them in to our menus. Last year I bought and Excalibur Food Dehydrator and starting dehydrating food for the first time. I love using the dried foods in my daily cooking. Then I heard about vegetable powders made from dehydrated foods so I decided to try making mushroom powder. After drying the mushrooms according to the directions I then ran them through a food processer. They didn't come out finely ground as I wanted so I decided to run them through my coffee grinder that I bought just for grinding herbs and spices. Worked great as you can see below.

To make the stroganoff I used two 12oz jars of stewmeat that I had canned last year, placed them in a pot, added two cups of beef broth and one tablespoon of the mushroom powder. Brought it to a good simmer then added three cups of egg noodles. Covered and cooked until the noodles were done. Added a little cornstarch slurry to thicken the broth and sourcream. And I was done. A main dish that would take me normally at least 30-40 minutes done in less than 20. I served it with corn on the cob and a tossed salad.

My own little hamburger helper type meal only better for us because I controlled the salt and it was healthier to because I used lean stew meat instead of fat laden ground beef. And it was cost effect to because I bought the roast on sale that I cut into stewmeat when I canned it. The roast was on sale for $2.29 a pound and ground beef at the time was $2.99 a pound.