Brownies from Scratch

I love shopping at our local 99 Cent store.  Mostly everything in the store is 99 cents and many things are great deals.  There are some things I pretty much never buy there (food products from China, American food products that have been "shrink ray-ed" specifically for a $1 store, etc).  But every once in a while they have amazing deals that are too good to pass up (like the industrial-sized Best Food mayonnaise for 99 cents which will last us for a year or so).  A few months ago I bought a giant-sized bag of baking cocoa for 99 cents even though I rarely (never?) have baked with it (I usually just buy brownie mix).  Today I was bored so looked up a brownie recipe (from scratch) and it came out really good!

A Quick Catch Up in 5 Points and a Recipe

Point 1.  We have had guests for more than a week and one group is still here (thus the lack of posts recently).

Point 2.  I am still loving my new Note 2 so as soon as things calm down around here I will put my old smart phone, tablet, and digital camera up for sale (it replaces all of these with ease).

Point 3.  I became totally sold on the Note 2 when I was able to go on our library's website and check out free ebooks then download them to my Kindle app.  Both my old smart phone and my tablet didn't do this very well (I think because the processor in the Note 2 is blazing fast).

Point 4.  All of our guests have decided they need to move to Las Vegas ASAP.  My SIL, who is a dentist, even called to see how she would change her licensing so she could practice in Nevada (that group is from Connecticut and none of them wanted to go home to more snow...I don't blame them).  Hopefully we will have lots of friends and family living here within the next year or so!

Point 5.  I have been cooking and cleaning like a dervish.  Fortunately hubby cooks most meals (Filipino food) but I have been doing a ton of baking.  Cooking at home--everything from breakfast and dinner to snacks--is an excellent way for our guests to save money on food while they are here.  Every couple of days hubby takes everyone out (like to the Hoover Dam or Red Rock Canyon) so I can do a quick house cleaning and laundry.  This also works out well.

And a super simple recipe for Leche Flan.

A friend of mine made this flan at our house last year when she was here and it was great.  She cooked it by steaming it on the stove but since the stove was occupied a few days ago, I tried cooking it in the oven (much simpler) and it came out great!

First, set up a 13 x 9 baking dish with smaller pans in it for the flan (I use small loaf pans and can fit three, side by side, in the large baking dish).  Add hot water to the big pan so it surrounds the smaller baking pans.  Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Caramelize 1 cup of white sugar in a heavy bottom sauce pan on the stove.  Be sure to keep stirring the sugar until it melts.  When it gets to be a light caramel color, remove it from the heat and pour into the small loaf pans (it will barely cover the bottom of these pans; if it doesn't cover them all the way, don't worry about it as it will spread out once it gets in the oven).  BE CAREFUL doing this.  This is the scariest part about candy making because if you get any of this melted sugar on you it will cause a SEVERE burn.

Let the pans sit for a minute while you mix up the flan.  In a blender, put one can of evaporated milk, one can of sweetened condensed milk, four eggs, and a teaspoon of vanilla.  Blend well.

Divide this mixture among the small loaf pans then add a bit more water to the water bath part of the big baking dish.  You don't want it so deep it spills over but you want it to reach up the sides of the smaller pans.  Use a sheet of foil to cover the three pans collectively (not the entire baking dish) then put this in the oven for about an hour and a half or until the tops look a bit dry.

Remove the smaller pans from the water bath and let them cool for a few minutes on top of the stove.  Leave the big pan with water in the oven until it cools off then you can dump it.  After about ten minutes, run a knife along the sides of the flan then put a pie plate or other plate with a lip over the small pan and quickly flip the flan out.  You can eat it right away but I think it is better if allowed to set up in the refrigerator for about an hour.

Greek for Dinner

Yesterday hubby said he wanted a gyro (donair for my Canadian friends) for dinner tonight.  Since our local grocery store had a gallon of milk on sale for $2.89 (a loss leader), we picked up the milk and I used half of the gallon to make yogurt.  With a bit of this yogurt I made tzatziki sauce (really simple, just mix yogurt with garlic powder and dill).  Then we walked to the $1 store because they usually have naan bread which we use for the Greek sandwiches.  Unfortunately they didn't have naan bread today and I didn't want to buy it at the regular grocery store because it sells for like $4 a package of six pieces of bread.

I told hubby I would just make the naan myself but he didn't look happy about it (FWIW I've tried making naan bread before and they usually come out like hockey pucks).  So I hopped online and found this recipe.  I used a bit of the yogurt I had made, followed the instructions exactly, and the naan came out perfectly!  Soft, pliable, tasty...hubby will have a nice dinner tonight!

Today's Post

I guess my little day off yesterday gave me renewed energy today.  The first thing I did was walk then I did some work for a client then I scrubbed the house.  I was in rare form today!

And a quick recipe:
I just learned this and was surprised how easy it was.  Anyway, it seems like many times when we eat meat in Chinese restaurants it seems very soft and not nearly as chewy as when I stir fry at home.  Then I was watching America's Test Kitchen (love PBS!!) and they simply soaked the meat (beef and pork in their recipe) in water with a teaspoon of baking soda in it.  15 minutes later they drained and washed the meat, then stir fried it.  It was called "velveting" the meat so we tried it and it really works!  The meat comes out just like it does in a Chinese restaurant!

And some cool links:

• How one woman paid off serious debt in 18 months
• Retiring at 27
• How one student escaped student loan debt

Daily update

• Walk: 2 miles (919 miles to go!)
• No spend: Stayed home and didn't spend any money today.  Yeah!
• Update this blog: yes
• Update client's blog: yes (and with a long and interesting post to make up for skipping Saturday)
• Photo: yep
• Genealogy: another family sheet worked on (I have 15 generations listed out with tons of gaping holes so I never run out of family sheets to work on)
• Writing: lots of writing done today on my newest book idea

Kale Chips

I tend to snack all day when I am home.  In an effort to make my snacking a bit healthier, I have started to make kale chips whenever I remember to buy kale.  The recipe couldn't be easier.

First, pull the kale off of the hard stems, wash it, and dry it (you want it dry because you want it to dehydrate not steam).  Spread it out on a cookie sheet then put it in a 350 degree oven until it looks really dry.

It's incredible how much it shrinks but it ends up really tasty and a bit like potato chips.  Some people sprinkle it with olive oil and salt but I like it just plain.

Daily update:

• Walk: 2 miles (982 miles to go!)
• No spend:  Today we stayed home and spent $0
• Update this blog:  yep
• Update client's blog:  yep
• Photo:  yep
• Client work : 1 hour
• Genealogy:  lots of form printing today
• Writing:  decided to condense this as I am losing interest in my book and as long as I do some writing each day I will be ahead of the game.  Today I wrote for only 1/2 hour.

7 Days Left of 2013

We are all ready for Christmas and I am really really ready for 2014 to begin...

• Another of hubby's cousins just came into town and she will take us and a couple of other cousins (he literally has hundreds of cousins!) out for Christmas dinner tomorrow so that is our final (I think) Christmas plan.  We are going to a buffet for dinner and we had a buffet last week with the other cousins and someone is going to need to roll me to the start point for our New Year's Day volksmarch because I am eating so much!! Eeekkkk
• Speaking of eating, I baked a couple of pumpkin pies today just because I want pumpkin pie and the Thanksgiving-Christmas holidays seem to be the only time I make such pies.  I ran out of Crisco, however, and ended up using half butter and half Crisco for the pie crust.  I'm still waiting to see how this concoction comes out but I definitely think Crisco is better for pies as the butter seemed to make the crust too squishy to work with.
• We still have no set plan for New Year's Eve (but this is Vegas so there is no excuse NOT to do something for New Years Eve as there are so many options from going to the Strip to a Nightclub to a casino, etc).
• I am also ready for our no spend month to begin in January.  December has been the month of shop shop shop and now I want to save save save.
• 2014 is going to be the year of walking for me.  Also the year that I try to do less media consumption (I really don't need to know what is going on in the world every minute of the day as it is mostly bad/violent/psychotic stuff plus I figure if an event is big enough I will probably hear of it anyway).  ditto for social media--I need to DO more stuff and less editorializing/redditing/getting my ego stroked with likes and upvotes/etc.
• Here is my grandmother's famous pie crust recipe: put 2 1/4 cup of flour in a big bowl.  From this flour take out 1/3 cup of the flour and put it in a small bowl.  Add 1 tsp salt to the big bowl of flour.  Add 3/4 cup Crisco to the mixed flour and salt and cut the Crisco in (kind of mash it with a fork to blend it with the flour until the stuff is crumbly).  To the small bowl of flour add four tbsp water and make a paste.  Add the paste to the flour/Crisco mix and combine (don't knead it like bread, just mix until it sticks together).  You might need to add a bit more water if the mix is too dry.  Roll out on a floured surface.  This makes two pie crusts.

Merry Christmas everyone and thank you for reading my blog over the past year and adding so many positive, supportive comments :)

An Update, A Recipe, and More

It's been a busy weekend.  Here's what's been happening

• We went to a cutting horse show (photo above) which was fun (and free).  Who knew Las Vegas was such a horse place?  There seems to be horse shows of one kind or another about every other weekend here!
• It's kind of a rainy weekend.  Fortunately the rain isn't at all like it is in Seattle but it has been gray and overcast since Friday.
• I'm worried about the hubby.  Most of the time he is perfectly fine but occasionally he seems a bit off.  Some of this is due to swings in blood sugar (which has happened a few times and really freaked me out) but I think some of it could be something else so I need to somehow get him to his doctor and see what is going on.  I have been worried about this before but the SIL mentioned seeing the same thing and said TAKE HIM TO A DOCTOR so that is on my list to do this week.
• I got more work out of the blue.  While the big project is on hold, my friend called me and asked if I wanted to do a smaller project with some fire chiefs I had worked with five or six years ago.  Of course I said yes.  It's kind of strange to have people from the past coming out of the woodwork lately.
• I talked myself into and out of getting a table this weekend.  When I get fixated on something, that is all I think about and suddenly I felt the need for a tablet.  I looked, I researched, I shopped.  I looked at 7" tablets which were cute but only slightly bigger than my cell phone then I looked at 10" tablets and I think that is the size I want one but at nearly $400 it is out of my budget for now (it isn't an emergency so I can't take the money out of our emergency fund no matter how much I want it).  So I have decided to wait.  Impatiently.
• And here is a recipe for chili I saw on TV today.  It looked really simple so I gave it a try and hubby gave it two thumbs up.  Brown ground beef and onions with a bit of salt, chili powder, garlic, and a diced jalapeno.  Add a can of diced tomatoes with the juice.  In a blender, blend a can of black beans (with the liquid, don't drain them) and a jalapeno pepper.  Pour this into the ground beef mixture and simmer.  Add some chopped cilantro.  I served it with grated cheddar cheese, chopped onions, and sour cream.  You can also use this for a base and add chopped celery, canned whole beans and/or any other chili ingredients you can think of.  It was really tasty!

Today I am Making Pumpkin Pies

Even though we are kind of foregoing Thanksgiving tomorrow (since no one is in town and it is just the hubby and I we will eat Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant) it doesn't seem like a holiday without baking something so today I decided to bake pumpkin pie.  Some people find baking overwhelming (kind of like I find cooking--for me baking is simple but cooking is difficult) but this is a pretty simple recipe that makes a really tasty pumpkin pie..

First, my grandmother's pie crust recipe:

• Put 2 1/4 cups of flour in a bowl
• From this flour take out 1/3 cup of flour and put it in a smaller bowl
• Add 1/2 tsp salt to the bigger bowl of flour and mix
• Next add 3/4 cup Crisco to the flour and salt and mix with a fork (it will look crumbly)
• To the small bowl of flour add 4 tablespoons of water and mix into a paste
• Mix the paste with the Crisco and flour in the bigger bowl and mix until it holds together (not a lot of mixing, just until it forms a ball.  I use my hands for this).
• Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the pie crust.
• This will make two 9" pie crusts (either the bottom crust for two pies or the top and bottom crust for a single pie)

Then I used this recipe from Libby's to make the pie.  This makes enough for two shallow 9" pies.
Bake, cool, and serve with whipped cream!  Yum!!

Update and a Recipe for Pizza

Not much happening this week...

• Good: the election is over so there are no more political attack ads on TV and the quantity of mail arriving in my mailbox every day has dropped drastically.
• Not good: Time goes by fast enough already so I would like to enjoy Thanksgiving before moving full force towards Christmas.  Unfortunately these stores think people need to hit up pre-Christmas sales before their Thanksgiving turkey has even digested.  
• Activity this week: I have jumped back into genealogy research.  I received my great grandfather's death certificate in the mail and I was right--his mom had died soon after he was born so the lady everyone thought was has mom was actually his step mom.  Then I was able to find the death certificate for his mother and brother who died in the early 1900s which had eluded me for ages.  Yeah!
• Coming up:  me and the hubby's anniversary!  That will make 26 years!  Time flies!!  I'm still undecided what to get him but I am thinking about sending him for a massage, manicure, pedicure (he loves these things), and taking him to lunch at Fogo de Chao.
• I really want: a Samsung Galaxy S II cell phone (plus the plan from Walmart which is $30 a month for unlimited texting and internet plus 100 talk minutes).
• Sad: a casino in Washington that the hubby used to frequent closed without notice this week.  Not only is this a loss for the many elderly people who played poker together each morning there (often their only chance to get out and socialize) but it is a huge hit for all of the employees who are out of a job without notice right before the holidays.  I'm hoping they all had emergency funds but I am doubtful because most were younger people with small kids.  Double sad.
• Saving money: we haven't yet turned on the heat.  Instead we bundle up in blankets in the evening when we watch TV or read.  I was so happy that our electricity usaged dropped from 50kwh a day to 10kwh per day that I would rather be chilly than increase our electricity bill.
• Undecided: the Twilight movie marathon is tomorrow.  I still haven't decided if I can sit through five movies straight.
• And a recipe for pizza: I made this pizza (in the photo) for dinner last night.  It is so easy to make that we rarely buy pizza.  Here's the recipe: in a bowl mix 1 cup of hot tap water and a packet of yeast.  Mix in 1 tbsp of sugar, 1 tbsp of oil, and 1 tsp of salt.  Add flour 1/2 cup at a time mixing and kneading the dough until it forms a ball.  When the dough is no longer super sticky stop adding flour and knead the dough for a few minutes.  Oil the ball of dough then set in a warm place to rise.  When the dough has doubled in size dump it in an oiled pizza pan (I use and oblong cake pan) then pat the dough out flat.  Set in a warm place and allow to rise for about 1/2 hour.  Then make your pizza.  I add spaghetti sauce from the jar, whatever type of cheese we have on hand (cheddar, mozzarella, etc), and then our favorite toppings (pepperoni for hubby; onions, tomatoes, and uncooked ground beef on my side).  Bake at 425 degrees until done. 

Five Things...and a Recipe for Flan

First things first...

1. I am SO happy that my friend was successful in court today.  For 13 years he has been in court, defending himself against criminal charges in one of the weirdest cases I have ever seen (the prosecutor "lost" the evidence and a few months later it miraculously appeared, the prosecutor added parts to the evidence to make it more illegal!?  The case was dismissed over and over only to have the prosecutor refile the charges again and again hoping for a different outcome...).  Scary stuff but he prevailed so I am happy!
2. Something I should have read before I wrote my book (it wouldn't have changed the outcome but this was an informative article). p.s.  I have found that I am horrible at self promotion!
3. This was a nice article.  I think I shall do a spending fast in the near future (I need a vacation so I need to save money for our next vacation).
4. The party went great yesterday.  I estimate that we spent about $75 on the food and everyone had lots of leftovers to take home (hubby cooks enough for an army every time he cooks).  Sorry I didn't get any pictures but everyone started eating so fast it looked kind of icky to take photos of half eaten dishes.
5. I have kind of decided that I will probably never be a full time writer but I am working on polishing up one more manuscript to enter it into this contest.

And here is the super simple recipe for flan that I told you about yesterday.

• Caramelize one cup of sugar in the bottom of a pan (this pan should be able to go into a double boiler).  You can see in the photo above that I don't really have a double boiler, I just use two pans that fit together which allows me to put water into the bigger pan then put the smaller pan inside of that.  The point is that when cooking a milk thing--this recipe uses a lot of milk products--cooking it directly on the burner would scorch the milk so cooking it over water is how not to end up with a scorched dessert.  To caramelize the sugar just put it in the smaller pan directly on the burner then stir and stir until the sugar melts and turns brown.  Be careful not to get any of this on you because it can cause severe burns (this is just like making candy apparently).  After the sugar has caramelized, put it in the bigger pan which you have part-way filled with water (this stops the sugar from continuing to cook and harden a bit).  Be sure to not put too much water in the bigger pan or it will overflow when you set the smaller pan into it.
• In a blender mix 4 eggs, one can of sweetened condensed milk, one can of evaporated milk, and one teaspoon of vanilla together.
• Pour this mixture over the caramelized sugar and cover.
• Bring the double boiler to a slow boil and cook for about an hour and fifteen minutes.  Remember to keep adding water to the big pan so it doesn't all boil away.  The finished flan should be set and not runny.  Allow to cool.
• When the flan is cool, run a knife around the edges then put a pie plate upside down over the pan.  Flip it over so the flan lands nicely in the pie plate (this was my problem yesterday...it didn't land nicely).  Refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving.
• It will be difficult to clean the pan because the caramelized sugar will stick to the pan like glue.  What I do is add some water to the pan and bring it to a boil, scrape a bit, then dump it down the drain.  This heats up the sugar enough to release from the pan with the least amount of effort.