Healthy Cheap Food

I really have started to fall in love with certain types of candies. I never really had my favorite candies until recently, believe it or not. Sure there were candies that I enjoyed eating, but I never considered them to be favorite candies for one reason or another.

Now I have favorite candies and I seem to always try to keep them on hand. I love Junior Mints. They are awesome. I also enjoy Butterfingers and Baby Ruth cars. These three are my favorite candies. I hate to admit it, but I have been eating one of them at least once every day for the past month or so. I guess that means they are my favorite candies.

I just love eating good ethnic food when we go out to eat. Ethnic food can be a good break from the old hum drum food that we eat day in and day out at home. It’s also a chance to experience other cultures. My forays into ethnic food has allowed me the chance to find some really tasty food.

I love Mutton Curry from India. Yummy! I am craving it already right now. The taste of the curry, the taste of the meat. It’s all good.

I love Khao Man Gai from Thailand. I love the sauce they use. It’s just the right level of spiciness.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. I think you get the picture.

A friend of mine has been having a hard time making ends meet recently. I really feel for her. It’s been a tough year so far for her family and it doesn’t look like it will be getting better anytime soon. It’s even gotten to the point of her family not having enough food to eat.

She finally took my advice to go in and apply for food stamps. Hopefully she will get them very soon. I also suggested that she go to the Food Bank for help, but she has been too shy to do that. Yesterday, I went with her to the food bank for moral support. She was very happy with the food help she got.

I really suggest that if you need help with food, check out your local food bank.

I just love making chocolate chip cookies so I decided to share my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. It sure tastes good. I do hope that you enjoy this recipe just as much as my family does. My husband can’t seem to get enough of the great chocolate chip taste. My kids are always begging for me to make them again.

Just remember to double this recipe if your family likes cookies because they will be gone very quickly.

INGREDIENTS
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 cup packed brown sugar
* 2 eggs
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 teaspoons hot water
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
* 1 cup chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, and nuts. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned.

It’s been awhile since I used my sourdough starter, but today I decided to make some sourdough pancakes. Last night, I went out to buy maple syrup so we could enjoy it the sourdough pancakes.

I was surprised just how much the kids have fallen in love with the taste of sourdough. I expected them to not enjoy it but they have. Today they were clammoring for more when I cooked up the pancakes. It sure makes me feel good to know that they enjoy the good food as much as I enjoy cooking the good food.

If you don’t have a sourdough starter, now is the time to think about making one. It’s good, cheap, healthy food.

It’s been awhile since I posted a recipe so I guess it’s time to post another recipe. This time I am posting a recipe for great tasting brownies. Brownies are always a hit in my house and these brownies were particularly popular. They have a really unique, chocolaty taste that will satisfy every chocolate lover in your house.

Just remember to make a double batch of these if you’ve got a hungry family like I do!

INGREDIENTS:

* 2/3 cup all-purpose flour - sift before measuring
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 2 large eggs
* 1 cup granulated sugar
* 1/3 cup melted butter
* 1/3 cup flaked coconut
* 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
* 1 1/2 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted (1 1/2 ounces)

PREPARATION:
Sift flour with baking powder and salt. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs with electric mixer, gradually adding sugar. Stir in melted butter, then flour mixture, blending well. Into small bowl, pour about 1/4 of the batter; blend in coconut and almond extract. Into remaining portion of batter, blend melted chocolate.

Spread chocolate batter into a greased and floured 8-inch square pan; spoon coconut batter evenly over the chocolate later then spread carefully to form an even layer. Bake 30 to 35 minutes at 350°. Cool in pan on a rack, then cut into squares or bars.

I talked a month or so about storing up food as a good hedge against food inflation. It still is. Food prices are up several percent over the last month and any investment in food storage would have fared better than just about any other investment, just think about it.

Now, is definitely the time to put even more money into your food budget in an effort to save money. Just make sure you buy the foods that you enjoy eating or that you eat on a regular basis. The more you buy, the less you will have to buy later when the cost is higher. You are really only limited by the size of your cupboards, as long as you buy wisely.

I am considering opening up a food review site. I don’t know if it is something that people are interested in so I am making this post right now to get some feedback on it. I have come across a plugin for wordpress that makes review sites even easier to implement.

My husband could do the programming and I could work on the design of it. I think the hard part would be getting the first reviews made on it, but after that it could be a snowball effect as more and more people use and vote on it.

What do you all think?

One dish that I love to make up is corned beef and potatoes. It’s a healthy and cheap meal that is really filling and best of all, it tastes good!

Basically, I take three potatoes and a couple of sweet potatoes and I cubed them. My goal is to make them into very small pieces. I usually boil the pieces for a few minutes just to get them a litle softer and then I fry them up. When they are about done, I add a can of corned beef and fry them all together. If I am going for a spicy taste, I might add a cut up jalapeno or two. You can also add bell pepper if you want to.

All that’s left to do is to serve it up over rice. It’s a food my family just loves to eat.

Yesterday we went to the store. My husband does a lot of writing and sometimes needs to do some research on the topics he writes about. It’s not usual for him to buy research material at the store from time to time.

I was a little shocked yesterday. He has writing job about candy. He came up to me in the store with a bunch of candy bars and I tried to remind him about his diet. All he did was smile and put them in the cart. He looked at me and said, research! How can you argue with that? Sometimes he reminds me of a little kid.