Creamed Tunafish on Toast... or Biscuits & Gravy's Trashier Cousin....

Snicker if you must, I realize this will  never appear on the Food Network, but this is the favorite breakfast of my brother and I growing up. Many a morning we would get up for school and my father would have a delightful pan of the rich milk gravy laced with whatever leftover meat we may have had or with our favorite version, tuna fish. Now, I'm not fond of canned tuna fish normally, but this is absolute ambrosia. The fact that my father, who worked third shift and, along with my working mother, had a farm to take care of, would take the time to make this for his children truly demonstrated that we were loved.

True, this the not the food of the rich and many a former soldier from WWII or Korea may recognize this as the colloquial SOS* (Sh*t on a Shingle for those not on this side of the pond) if made with chipped beef, but this is the food that I'd like to think my Great Grandma Nellie fed her children and working man husband during the Depression when money was short and there were many mouths to feed. This is a recipe that could have quickly been put together out of pantry staples and put on the table fast. If for no other reason than the fact that this was humble food served by honest people trying to stretch a bunch in a bad economy, you should try this meal. In many ways, the same thing could be declared about today's economy....

So try Creamed Tuna fish on toast. It may not be totally good for you but it will warm your soul and your belly and put a smile on your face! Enjoy!

Creamed Tuna fish on Toast 

Simple Pantry Ingredients

Ingredients:

• 1 Stick Butter
• 1/2 cup Flour
• 1 can Evaporated Milk
• Milk to Thin
• Salt & Pepper
• Tuna or whatever leftover
  meat you may have
• Toast to serve it on

Step 1: Melt your butter in a pan over medium heat taking care not to burn it. Next add  your flour. You can add as much or as little as you like depending upon how thin you want your gravy. For
general guideline, we'll start with a 1:1 ratio.
One stick (1/2 cup) of butter to 1/2 cup flour.
What you are essentially doing is creating a rue much
like you would to thicken anything, mac & cheese,
soup, a stew, etc.

Make the rue, taking care not to burn it.

Make sure you get out all the lumps. After you add
the meat, it becomes impossible to do so.

Step 2: Once the rue begins to thicken, add your
evaporated milk. This may be enough of a gravy
or it may thicken up on you depending on how
much flour you put in.


Add the milk and ...



Stir to combine.                                          

Who could go wrong with butter and flour?

















Step 3: Add  your chosen meat. Here we are utilizing
my personal fav, drained tuna fish.
Mix well.

Perfect technique for using up the holiday turkey or ham.
Or if your not that imaginative, put in sausage.

Step 4: If necessary thin with milk to your desired consistency.



Mix well.

















Step 5: Salt and Pepper to taste.
Stir in.

In the home stretch!

Step 6: Serve over toast and ENJOY! From my family to yours.. although honestly, I can probably eat the whole pan myself.....so if you don't like it.... pass it my direction...YUM!!!

Because Creativity Creates Reality....



Be Brave, Be Bold! You have
have nothing to lose!



  In honor of the upcoming Spring, I want to take you to one of my favorite places in the house.... the porch. Our porch is a tranquil, serene, beautiful area that I often go in the summer to read a book, talk to a friend or simply watch the farmers plow and plan their fields praying diligently that they aren't planting cabbage again (smells horrible when it rots!). However, this oasis wasn't always an oasis...

When we purchased our house, it was far from ideal. We bought it because we could see beyond the misguided decorating scheme (Seriously, polka dotted blue and white wallpaper in the dining room? White and red plaid wallpaper in the kitchen?) and notice that it had really good bones. I'm a firm believer that houses can speak to you and this house was crying out for someone to come back in and take care of it an love it. The porch itself was in a state. The previous owners actually used table salt (which we found on the porch) to melt the snow on the walk. The porch itself was painted flat white with peel and stick linoleum in various states of scruffiness. In short, anything I did was going to be an improvement so there was little room for fear.

In a word. SAD.

Like most new homeowners we didn't have any real money to put into any renovations that weren't absolutely necessary. After all, there were furnaces going awol and water heaters to replace! So gathering up left over supplies, art supplies I had and taking into consideration the room's use itself, I decided first to vacuum up any old bugs and get rid of everything the previous owners had left that was unusable. Then to scuff up the surfaces so that they would accept the paint, I used a rotary sander and sanded all the surfaces with fine grit sandpaper. Then I took TSP (found in any home supply store) and washed down all the surfaces. Then to eliminate any stains from coming through, I used Kiltz for acrylic paint and painted two layers. After that dried, we get to the fun part, PAINTING!!!

 

Step 1: Sectioning off a section of floor

              for where the rug should go.



I love paint. I love it as a noun and a verb. Paint is truly the great equalizer. When you don't have lots of money, you can still create brilliant effects just with paint. I painted the entire porch a battleship grey color that I had left over from another project. After applying a couple of coats and allowing them to dry, I immediately began loving the porch. But now to what makes the porch special. A rug. Not just a regular rug, but a painted rug. You see, the porch is very much used during the summer and winter months. In the summer months it's a pleasant place to linger, but in the winter months, it becomes a place for wood storage for our wood stove. Knowing this, I didn't just want to put out a rug to have underfoot that could cause a tripping hazard. Also, the farmers are constantly working the fields during the summer/fall months and a cloth rug would have to constantly be laundered. So the logical and creative alternative

                                                            was to paint a rug.



Step 2: Sectioning off your grid.



After the paint dried, I positioned our wicker seat to figure out how large the rug should be. After doing that I used painter's tape to section this part out. I painted the base, neutral color to act as the background and let that dry. Then I sectioned off the squares I wanted for the rug, using the linoleum as my guide.





Step 3: Applying second color.

 

Then painting every other square I set down my second color.

After the paint has dried thoroughly, remove your painter's tape and retape, this time taping the inside of the colored sections so you have the maxium amount of the background showing up. Using a stencil, stencil

Step 4: Tape off in the colored section's

(in this example, the blue section) edges

to bring your stencil to the very sides of the

neutral area, like a real rug.

                                                      your chosen pattern on this

                                                      portion. 

Finally, for added interest, I taped up a border and using a combing tool (you can purchase these at Micheal's or even your ACE hardware), I dragged the wet paint to the edge of the taped off board to act as the "binding off" area of my rug.

The finished result is below. A beautiful "rug".



Now with a new wicker set purchased after summer for a discount, and a few items we bought through the years at garden centers/dollar stores or we made, the porch is now a thing of beauty. It's a joy to sit out there and watch the Fourth of July fireworks or just the sunset going down over the trees.



The finished rug.



Most importantly, it has the cats' seal of approval and knowing how particular their taste, what could be better?

Tux approved!

 I think it just shows you that you don't have to have tons of money if you have the willpower and the creative drive to make your home, YOUR HOME. I hope you find this interesting and inspirational and maybe start looking at projects you can do. Life is too short not to live it beautifully and you have all the talent and ability to do this as well. So get to it!

The end result! Wonderful!



Growing My Own....



$2.19 just for sprouts. Even for the basic ones.

They go up from there!



Sprouts that is... sprouts... Come on this is still a family friendly blog!
Anyway, while the calendar says it's spring, the weather outside begs to differ. In an effort to try to eat more healthy and loose a chunk of weight, I decided to start eating more salads...but have you priced a decent salad out lately? $8-$12 for a salad and some of them are pretty basic. Besides, I don't even like lettuce so the prospect of spending that much for a vast quantity of something I don't like, offends me to my frugal soul. So what is someone to do in the midst of what still appears to be winter?

GROW YOUR OWN.

If you have been to any health food store you may have noticed these fancy little sprouting jars. I'm not even sure of the cost but it just amazed me how there is always someone trying to complicate and make money off of a simple concept. I've been sprouting my own sprouts of various kinds for about ten years now. It's nice to do it at home as you can control what exactly you want to eat and it's great to have something really fresh even in the midst of winter. To sprout all you need is the following:

Sprouting Seeds: I've bought these at both health food stores in the bulk section (to mix your own at home), in a container (like these) or (even cheaper) at ingredient stores like Niblack/Tadco. They should run  you about $6-$9 for a large container that will last you at least a couple of months if not more (depending on how much you sprout). You can go cheaper still in the bulk section getting only what you want.

A  Clean Canning Jar

Water

Plastic Wrap and something to poke a hole in it

A Rubber Band




First step is to open your seeds and pour about 1/8-1/4 cup of seeds into your canning jar.

Types of seeds you can sprout include:

• Alfalfa-pretty bland. Maybe at most a grassy taste.
• Clover-has a sweet tang
• Radish-tastes just like it's vegetable
• Fenugreek-personally didn't like. They use this herb in place of licorice in candy making a lot.
• Broccoli-Neve done broccoli but it is supposed to be a powerhouse in the world of cancer fighters

Secondly, add water to cover, cover with plastic wrap and poke some air holes (one or two will suffice) in the top of the plastic wrap. Band it with a rubber band to hold in place and soak your seeds for 8-24 hours.

 After soaking, drain the water off and put in a window to catch some sun.

Fourth step is the important one. Rinse your seeds twice a day with clean water. Typically, I put in enough water to cover, swish it around in the jar and gently strain it using my fingers over the mouth of the jar to strain out the water. You may loose some of your seeds this way but not much and you'll have quite a bit at the end anyway. Drain all the water out of the sprouting seeds. Any seeds/sprouts sitting in water will start getting and off spell and get mushy. If you see any mold, throw out the batch. If you don't rinse your seeds/sprouts twice a day they will start to dry out. You can salvage them if you miss one rinsing but too many will put too much strain on your developing sprouts and they may dry out and die.

Do this until the sprouts have reached your desired level of doneness. Typically I go for about 4-5 days. When you finish you will have about twice as many sprouts as what you bought in the grocery store for mere pennies. This is also a great opportunity to show your kids how plants grow hydroponically and to show them how great it feels to be self sufficient.

Now a side note. I have been doing this for at least ten years and never had an issue with any type of food poisoning. I've read that sprouts can pic up salmonella but I firmly believe if you take commonsense precautions and not say, rub your sprouting seeds all over raw chicken or a contaminated surface and always rinse your seeds with clean hands, you should be perfectly fine.

Happy Sprouting!



New Vintage

Oxymoron? No, let me explain. Today's adventures in crafting is still keeping us in the kitchen this time with towels. You see, recently I've come into possession of a large bag of household linens. Unfortunately, the majority of these were either stained beyond recognition, or damaged beyond use. I live by the motto however, make do or do without and so the few that were still in serviceable condition are gaining a new life through embroidery. A cross-stitcher myself, I rarely have walked outside that avenue of embroidery for reasons unknown, but I now thoroughly understand why our mothers and grandmothers would enjoy doing it... it's easy and fast! The local Joanne's has these wonderful Aunt Martha transfers that can be quickly ironed on to your project and then, once embroidered, easily launder out. You can easily finish one in one sitting or even over a couple of nights. It is also a great use for using up old floss colors because if you are like me, you probably have a bag full somewhere. The only thing I haven't figured out yet... why cups seem to have such a problematic equilibrium issue.... The always seem to be falling off a shelf somewhere....

The Little Loom That Could...

Ok, a not so secret secret. For years I coveted a loom. I actually took not one, but two classes to learn how to weave only to never really get the knack of stringing the warp onto the loom. Of course the cost of $400-$1500 for a loom also dampened my spirits a bit. Additionally, I have no desire to weave anything other than rag rugs so that cost is simply something I couldn't justify. So imagine my delight when I went to Country Treasures Quilt Shop in Brockport, NY and discovered these little gems! For approximately $150, you can purchase a large rug loom that is perfect for using up all those scraps of material left over from quilt projects or simply start to put a dent in your fabric stash. Additionally, for those who want to make their looms, there are instructions that you can purchase (on the Ebay periodically) for making your own loom for considerably less. Of course the frugal person in me would have loved to make one but the realist knew that would probably happen the next time I could walk on water so I bought one.

                   



Close up showing the loom's "teeth"

The loom actually uses material for the entire thing including the warp so it's perfect for those "near miss" fabrics that you bought for a project and didn't use. After warping, you simply weave back and forth and the end result is so much better than you could ever buy. My rug weighs in at probably five pounds (using my five pound cat as a general comparison to gauge weight) and is absolutely so comfy to stand on while washing the dishes. I am so delighted with the end result. It suits my frugal nature to a "T" to use all that fabric that looks at me so accusingly awaiting the day I actually get some time to create all those quilts I bought it for!

The end result... wonderful use of the fabric stash!