frugal – Page 2 – Lauren Warnecke

You Can Can Cranberry Juice!

On the road toward self-sufficiency in the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse, I’ve managed to can and preserve tomatoes, beets, and cucumbers, but I imagine no apocalypse is complete without a Vodka cocktail.

This is one of three reasons I decided to try my hand at making cranberry juice on the 4th or July.

The other two reasons? I had three bags of cranberries in the freezer leftover from a 10 for $10 sale at the grocery store about 10 years ago, and, they’re red. You know… 4th of July. I can be patriotic sometimes too.

This recipe comes from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which has become a dog-earred crusty staple in my household. The description even mentions the inevitability of adding this juice to cocktails, and after this I may never see another bottle of Ocean Spray.

Cranberry Juice

Cranberries (fresh of frozen)
Water
Granulated Sugar (to taste*, optional)

Directions:

In a large, deep saucepan, combine equal parts cranberries and water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to boil gently for about 5 minutes (the berries will burst open… don’t be alarmed).

Transfer to a strainer lined with a few layers of damp cheesecloth. Let drip, undisturbed, for about two hours.**

In a clean pan, combine juice with sugar, if desired.* Heat to 190-F and hold at 190 for 5 minutes, without letting it boil.

Ladle hot juice into hot, sterilized jars leaving 1/4″ headspace (2.5 bags of cranberries made about 2 quarts of juice). Center the lid and screw band down fingertip-tight. Place in canner completely covered by water and bring to a boil. Process for 15 minutes. Remove lid and turn heat off, and wait 5 minutes before removing from the canner. Cool on the counter and store.

* To put your portions into perspective, I used about 1 C. of sugar for my 2.5 bags of cranberries, and it’s a little too sweet for my taste.

** This is Ball talking and I didn’t have 2 hours to let the juice drain naturally. Though it’s probably the best practice and I’d never dispute the canning Bible, let’s face it, I let it sit about 30 minutes, squeezed a bunch out manually, and everything seemed to turn out fine.

How I kicked cable out of my life, and a realization about The Price Is Right

Apparently crafty runs in my family.

On a visit with my brother I noticed his TV was running off of this funny thing with two long metal tentacles….

omg. They make Digital HD rabbit ears?!? Seriously?

We’ve been wanting to ex-communicate cable from our household for awhile, but going down to basic service means losing the HD picture on our very (very) large TV. That kind of defeats the purpose, so Crafty Bro recommended this beautiful little contraption to pick up the main stations with a crisp HD picture.

Add in a little Hulu and Netflix and it’s all the TV you could want for about $20 a month (plus a small investment up front for the antenna). I’m not selling out my blog and advertising for Hulu; I’m just seriously excited by the opportunity to stick it to the cable company and still be able to watch Top Chef in HD.

Sounds like a win-win. Thanks, Bro.

The downside? If there is one it might be that you can’t record anything to a DVR, so if you want to watch TV live it will be on the major networks with commercials. That might not be so bad, since I tend to either do pushups, dishes, or both during commercial breaks.

Or it might just mean that I watch less television, which wouldn’t be bad either.

So here’s where I get to my next point. I was watching CBS for the first time since, oh, 2003 and came across The Price Is Right. No more Bob Barker; no more Rod Roddy, but same old Price Is Right.

Sort of…

…until dream boat Rob Wilson (the first ever male model on the show) struck a pose and pointed an enthusiastic thumbs up towards a home theatre set in the showcase showdown. After I picked up my jaw from the floor, I thought ,“Rock on, Price Is Right! Go on with your bad self.”

I don’t know who’s idea it was to be fair about who can and can’t promote a blender and a trip to Fiji on television. Maybe this is Drew Carey’s version of having your pets spayed and neutered. Either way, CBS making the choice to start objectifying both sexes is a darn good one, and a decision that I hope will pay off for them (especially since it’s one of the five channels I’ll now be watching).

Obligatory Blog Post About Being Thankful on Thanksgiving

If you decide to take a little time today between the food and the family and the football to check the interwebs, I’m sure I will be one of perhaps millions of blog posts appropriately themed on being Thankful. We bloggers are smart like that in that we’ve figured out that readers generally like posts that are timed well to a particular holiday or event. So what is going to make my blog post about what I’m thankful for stick out more than any other that pops up in your newsfeed?

Not much. Probably….

But in spite of my self-loathing lack of confidence that I stand out among other thankful-themed posts, and the honest belief that very few people read my blog on a regular basis (thanks Mom and Julie)… I’m going to do it anyway.

2012 has been a year of drastic changes in my life. I moved. My relationships with friends and family have changed. My job(s) have changed. I have withstood heartache, hardship, and more change in one year than a person should be able to handle. While I’ve alluded ambiguously to some of these over the last several months, a rant on gratitude won’t be the thing that causes me to spill on my personal life, but I will say that the year has brought with it a total shift in my mentality, my self-worth, and ultimately my happiness.

I think I had been craving a life that’s less complicated. A life where the “stuff” around you doesn’t matter. A simple life that I can actually afford. Working an average of 60 hours a week for four months hasn’t exactly brought me to the simple life I envision, but my frame of mind has completely shifted. I am better able to recognize what I need, and what I don’t. I’m better able to take care of relationships with the friends who matter, and let go of the “friends” who don’t. I’m living closer to Earth; eating more vegetables than burritos. All in all, I’m grateful for who I am, and I feel more comfortable in my own skin than I ever have.

When I started this blog, I’m pretty sure THAT was my ultimate goal… exploring a simple life in a big city and finding myself in the process.

And, let’s be honest, I’m pretty awesome.

Oh, that, and, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be thankful for the meal that is about to make its way to my face in a couple hours. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pickled beets, the family’s famous Gulliver’s Corn (don’t worry, I’ve been begging Mom to write a guest post so you can get your hands on the recipe), and a homemade(ish) pie from yours truly.

Apple. With homemade whipped cream.

Delicious.

The Crock Pot (a.k.a. “Old Faithful”) makes tomato sauce

tumblr_mb490p2Heq1qmywbko1_500 — “Old Faithful”

I pseudo inherited my crock pot from my mother while foraging her basement on a Sunday trip to the suburbs. This 1975 Sears “Crock Watcher” is older than me, but undoubtedly in better condition.

If the 70’s got anything right, it’s the slow cooker. The idea that I can stick something in there at 6am before I leave for work, cover it with liquid, and come home to a good smelling house AND dinner still boggles my mind, and I do it about every other week…. sometimes more, sometimes less.

Lately Old Faithful has been working overtime cranking out tomato sauce to stock up for the winter. I bought 30 pounds of tomatoes from Midnight Sun Farm over the course of three weeks and have made tomato processing an obsession.

After an epic fail on the stove of sauce that was way more juicy than saucy, I revamped my approach. Ok, it wasn’t entirely a fail, just a misunderstanding between me and the tomatoes, really. After consulting mom (my go-to for kitchen mishaps) and my friend and fellow canning-enthusiast Toni Camphouse, I opted to try the slow cooker approach, and I’m never turning back.

Homemade Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Tomatoes (duh)
Salt
Lemon Juice
Canning jars and lids

Core and quarter tomatoes and fill your slow cooker. Prop the lid open with a spoon and cook all day on low.

tumblr_mb4acn3HC51qmywbko1_500 — The great tomato stock-up begins…

Using a blender or immersion blender, puree the tomatoes until smooth. Pre-fill canning jars with salt and lemon juice. For quart jars, use 2TB lemon juice and 1 tsp. salt*. Half those if using pint jars. Add sauce to jars and fill to 1/2″ from the top. Cover with lid and band, twisting until hand tight.

Add jars to water bath (making sure the water covers the jars by at least 1 inch). Once water is boiling, reduce heat to a rolling boil and set time for 30-40 minutes (30 for pint jars, 40 for quart). Remove from water bath and set on a level surface to cool (don’t shake the jars). Store for as long as you like, or about a year, whichever comes first.

* You can add seasoning to your sauce before you jar it, but I prefer to do it once I open the jar so the herbs and spices are fresher.

An end of summer second attempt at a window garden

If you’ve been following closely, you’ll know that I recently downsized from a house back into an apartment. While I love the apartment, I can’t say I don’t occasionally miss having a little plot of land to dig in the dirt.

To fill the void, I spent a good portion of my summer digging in someone else’s dirt. A lot of it. I worked at Midnight Sun Farm this summer and got free vegetables in return. We also planted a little window garden at the apartment.

Which was really beautiful.

Until it died.

Record heat, no rain, and too many jobs were the culprit in killing the little window garden. But fear not, I managed to save the marigolds for a little while, and one of the pansy plants lives on!

Using the basil plant I got in the CSA box a few weeks back, and two geraniums I picked up at the farmer’s market last week, and the garden is back in action and looking lovely. As I write this I’m gazing out my sunny dining room windows, past my little pink geraniums toward Chicago’s far north skyline, and thinking, life is pretty good, Lauren.

P.S. Seeing as I killed a bunch of Marigold plants, I thought now would be a good time to save seeds for next year. Inspired, I made this rather shoddy video showing you how!

What happened to What’s in the Box? and, a recipe for tacos

I’ll tell you what happened.

I couldn’t keep up.

and then I went on vacation.

and then, I thought, those posts just didn’t seem that interesting to me anyway.

So I ditched the weekly updates on what arrived in my box of deliciousness and opted to spend the time eating said deliciousness instead. What has resulted is perhaps one of the most culinarily creative summers I’ve had to date, and a REALLY conscious effort to not let anything go to waste. Once you’ve weeded carrots with your own hands you’ll never let them turn flimsy and brown in the fridge again.

So now comes that point in the post where I share a recipe, and although I can’t take credit for the nifty taco shell because I saw it on The Garden Pantry‘s Facebook Page and had to try it. The rest? Leftovers.

Lauren’s Leftover Taco Night

Ingredients:

Corn tortillas (make sure they are good quality and extra soft)
1/2 lb. Ground Turkey
1/2 packet taco seasoning
1 onion, diced
shredded cheese
sour cream
avocado
cilantro
lime
whatever veg is in your fridge: I used lettuce, scallions, cherry tomatoes

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 375 deg-F. Using a muffin pan turned upside down, press tortillas into the notches and spray with cooking spray. Bake 10 minutes for cute little crispy taco shells.

Brown the ground turkey in a skillet coated in non-stick cooking spray over medium high heat. Add the taco seasoning and diced onion and cook until onion is soft and translucent. Place turkey aside on a plate covered in paper towel to drain oil.

Prepare your tacos in the shells. with the meat on the bottom. Add your toppings, squeeze some fresh lime juice over the top, and pour yourself a margarita.

Recipe for the Perfect Picnic

Brie.

Grapes.

Italian bread.

Wine. Red.

Add a little greenery, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a bumpin’ twitter feed and a few thousand of my closest friends, and this is the making of a beautiful evening.

People do it up right at The Ravinia Festival.

There’s the mad dash from the gate. The in-fighting over the shaded spots close to the Pavilion. The pop up tables, real crystal, and vases of flowers. Everything you’ve heard about Ravinia is true. It’s at times chaotic and dripping with wealth, but the North Shore folks in khaki pants and claustrophobic lawn quickly fade away once the music kicks in. You settle into your bottle of wine, gaze up at the trees, and all your worries melt away.

For just ten bucks, you can sit in the most beautiful back yard in the tri-county area and hear some of the best musicians in the world. This particular Sunday it happened to be Idina Menzel with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Admittedly sniffly, and suprisingly crass, that bitch can sing.

What a glorious way to spend a summer evening.

Highland Park