Caesar Salad Dressing
08 Mar 2011 2 Comments
in Budgeting, Cooking, Healthy Living
Over the years I’ve tried many different Caesar Salad Dressing recipes, but they are either too spicy for the kids, or too raw-eggy for mom’s nerves, or too… I don’t know, not good enough. I clipped this recipe out of a magazine when I was first married, and it’s been taped to a recipe card ever since. I can’t give proper credit, because, let’s face it, 13 years ago I had no idea I’d be sharing it here, and I trimmed off all the details.
This recipe is our favourite because it’s fairly quick to make, doesn’t use raw eggs, and doesn’t really require anchovies if you’re having a hard time finding anchovy paste in your small town grocery store, or if you’re trying to keep your meal inexpensive. I mostly make it without.
It’s best if you make it at least an hour before serving, but I’ve done it 5 minutes before and it was still tasty.
I don’t measure for this recipe anymore, I usually make a double batch, toss things in and adjust it to taste by adding salt and more Worcestershire, but the quantities on the original recipe are as follows:
1 egg yolk
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp anchovy paste or 2 anchovy fillets, minced (optional)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
In a glass dish or Pyrex measuring cup, whisk together egg yolk, lemon juice and vinegar for 30 seconds or until it starts to foam around the edges. Whisk again. Microwave for another 10 seconds or until the edge foams.
In a food processor, blend yolk mixture, garlic, anchovies, Worcestershire sauce and pepper. Blend until smooth. If you’re like me and prefer the clean-up of an immersion blender, just add the ingredients in a wide mouth mason jar instead and blend. With machine running, gradually pour in olive oil. Mix in parmesan cheese. If the dressing is too thick, thin with a little water.
Serve with crisp romaine, croutons and bacon bits.
Here are a couple frugal time-saving tips for you:
CROUTONS: Store bought croutons have to be one of the highest revenue generators for manufacturers because they are SO cheap and easy to make (hello? stale bread anyone?) and they charge $1.99 to $2.99 for a small bag. When you think about it, one package is the equivalent of 3 or 4 slices of bread. At that rate, that’s like a $12 loaf of bread! And it’s stale people!
Instead, I use the 2-3 day old ends of my bread loaves, cut them into cubes, drizzle a little olive oil, garlic powder and parsley and/or oregano on them, toss them together and bake a few minutes in the oven, until golden. Easy and cheap, especially if it’s coming off my homemade bread which costs me about 70 cents a loaf, plus electricity for the oven. Though I don’t always get them in time, my family likes them best when I take them out in time for crispy outsides and chewy insides. Mmm…
BACON BITS: I never, ever, ever buy bacon unless it’s on sale. Regular price for some brands is $5.49/lb and I mean, really… it’s just not necessary to spend that much. Instead, I wait until it goes on sale for $1.99/ lb and then I buy about 12 pounds of it, which lasts us about 8 or 9 months. It freezes beautifully because of how it’s packaged, so there’s really no need to ever pay full price. We rarely use bacon to eat on its own – it’s mostly used as an ingredient in recipes. So, even though I only need a few slices off a pound, I always cook the full pound, or sometimes many. It means just one greasy pan to wash, but lots of cooked bacon as a result. I drain and cool it, chop it and put it in little containers (or mini-baggies) in the freezer. When I start washing the lettuce, I take them out of the freezer. When I’m adding the dressing, I throw them in the bowl and the tiny pieces are thawed by the time the bowl makes it to the table moments later. Easy peasy.
LETTUCE: It is surely the easiest thing to grow on your own. Try it this season and see how it goes! We eat use it pretty much every day in season – on wraps or sandwiches, in a salad, for “tuna boat” lunches. We run out to the garden, pluck off what we need and enjoy it moments later. It doesn’t get better than that. I’m not a great gardener, but lettuce is something that even I can manage. It’s hard to keep up with the speed at which it grows though, (and you need to get it before it becomes too tall and bitter) so don’t plant too many. To keep it simple, you could even plant it in a planter on your deck! (I think I may try this with my tomatoes this year to make sure they get as much sun as possible). It’s never-ending lettuce for pennies. Easy, cheap and healthy. It doesn’t get better than that.
Enjoy!
This post has been linked to Tasty Tuesday over at Beauty and Bedlam. Jen’s post today makes me laugh… all about following recipes, or not. I’d have to say I use them as a guide, as I like to adjust for our desired healthiness, our tastes and our budget. And no, I wouldn’t mind at all if you didn’t post the exact quantities. Half the fun of cooking is the figuring out… :)
Cutting Back and Gaining More
05 Apr 2010 3 Comments
in Budgeting, Simplifying
When my husband and I decided to switch roles almost 2 years ago, our income was virtually cut in half. It’s been a big financial adjustment but we feel like we’ve finally set our priorities straight and we wouldn’t change a thing about it! It feels so good to be getting it right.
During this time, we’ve been very careful with our spending, and of course there’s nothing like necessity to push things along! In addition to stretching our dollars further for our basic living, we are also completely obsessed with eliminating our debt and that feels great! Bit by bit, we’re making progress.
There are some things that are non-negotiable for us in the spending department, like our tithe and healthy food. In addition to our shelter, we see those as our basic needs. But there is a long list of wants from which we’ve been cutting. Today we cut another: our satellite service.
For many years, we have suspended our service from June to September, but now we’re going to try cutting it completely. There are really only a few things we watch with any regularity and we can stream those online anyway. The only thing we can’t find so far is Oprah, and the reality is that I record it on our pvr/ dvr/ TiVo-type device daily and watch maybe one episode out of twenty, usually three months after the fact. I think I’ll be fine without it. It’s not worth it to me to spend $700 a year to watch Oprah.
As an added bonus, we won’t be as tempted to sit down and ‘see what’s on.’ So really, we’re cutting back but gaining more. There will be more time for games, discussion, reading, and all the nagging projects that have a way of falling to the back burner. TV enables my procrastination, and I truly don’t need help in that department.
Just wait and see how much I’m going to accomplish over these coming months. (I am looking to you to hold me accountable…)
Homeschooling: Just Go With the Flow
03 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment
in Budgeting, Homeschooling Tags: grocery shopping, pets
Everyone knows that there are times in life that are crazier than others, and parents know that kids are extremely generous contributors in the craziness department. We see it best on the rare occasion that the house is without children for a full day. It is calm. It is quiet. It stays WAAAAAY tidier without them. It’s exponentially easier ~ there’s no doubt about it.
In a homeschool setting, the craziness can seem overwhelming at times. The rugrats are around all day, every day. The messes are constant, the noise is always at a steady hum. I really wouldn’t have it any other way…. for now at least.
Amidst all the chaos, there are days I choose to just go with the flow and declare a ‘school free’ day. I do it becuase I can. I do it because there are times when we just really need a repreive. There are days when we just really need to go with the flow.
Well, this isn’t just one of those days. It’s one of those weeks.
On Monday, I thought we’d get off to our usual productive start. But the difference with this week came in the form of a plumber working in our basement, a service man working on our fireplace, and oh… it also came in the form of a new 8 week old puppy.
Meet Murphy:
Yes, he’s adorable.
It’s true.
He also comes with all the other puppiness that we get to enjoy those first few weeks; messes to clean, nipping to stop, the need for constant supervision. I’ve had many dogs in my life. I know that much like the way in which we raise our chidren, the work and attention we put in now will pay dividends. Plus, Murphy’s dad is a 130 lb Bernese Mountain Dog. He’s gonna be big and we need to get this right.
So far, he seems like a really great pup. He’s smart and he’s getting it. Thank goodness!
But it was Monday and despite the bedlam tha
t day, I was still trying to keep everything on track. In my momentary brain-fart (there really is no other expression for it), I set myself up with the societal expectation that an education must happen from 9 to 3, sitting at a table. In reality, children are learning all the time. One of the reasons we chose to homeschool was the ability to learn from everything around us, yet here I was trying to put our family into this one educational box.
The expectations I was giving myself had put me in a grump by mid-morning; I was feeling crushed under the weight of it all. It was pure chaos. When my brain fart ended, I realized I was bringing the stress on myself. I am a homeschooler. I can (and do) send my kids up trees to do their work. I can (and do) keep them working a bit through the summer. I can (and do) skip school on their birthdays. Why was I stressing myself out? I had to get with the program, or lack of program, as it were.
So, this is a week we will simply go with the flow. There will be little to no opportunity for bookwork so all the kids’ learning will come simply through living. What a novel idea.
On Monday, the snow was melting at an astounding rate, so the kids spent lots of time getting reacquainted with the grass. They built new lego ships. They did their tasks around the house. They read privately and also aloud to their little sister. They worked on a puzzle. Oh, and of course they played with their new puppy. But at 9am, they started their book work (math). It was 45 minutes before I realized that their mind (and mine even more so) was elsewhere and told them to pack it up. Yes, I was a hero.
On Tuesday, they accompanied me to the grocery store with clipboards and pencils in hand. I just love the sideways looks I got from some of the people we encountered at 10:00 on a school day. Thankfully, there were even more people who were fully aware of what was happening and they could see the kids working away totalling the bill. They were comparison shopping by volume. They weighed produce, they divided in some cases and multiplied in others. They rounded. They added. They ordered politely from the deli counter and received big smiles from the other side. We ordered a bit of roast beef and my favourite turkey breast this week — a big treat since it’s been a couple months since we had sandwich meat! The boys walked past the tortilla section and told me confidently that my homemade tortillas were better tasting, better for us, and cheaper. They are starting to get it.
We skipped over the grocery store apples and broccoli knowing that it would be cheaper (and likely more local) at the market 2 minutes down the road. The kids had to figure out how much we saved (so I could squeeze one more math lesson in there), but they also got to see how important it is to pay attention to how and where we spend our money. (Incidentally, for 10lbs of apples and 2 bunches of broccoli, store B was $10 cheaper than store A. As in ten dollars SAVED people! On two items! Seriously.)
I was pretty excited that the kids were almost as interested in the savings as I was. And what better way to learn than practically? It was a total teaching moment: be good stewards.
And today is Wednesday. I don’t know exactly what we are going to do today, but I know that it isn’t going to involve sitting down to do any bookwork. This is one week where will simply keep calm and go with the flow. We can do that. It works for my kids. And it totally Works for Me.
Kristen at We Are THAT Family has started her trip to Kenya with Compassion International, however Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer is reprising her former role as host of Works for Me Wednesday for a couple of weeks.
