Healthy Cheap Food

I am anxiously awaiting Father’s Day. My father is no longer with us. He died when I was 12, but at least we can celebrate Father’s Day with my husband. I am having fun going out with our boys looking for a great gift for Father’s Day for him.

I won’t post here the gift that I am getting for him or what my sons have been looking at because he reads this blog. But I can share with you some of the ideas we passed on in case it can help you find a great gift.

Here are some gifts we passed on: Fishing pole, fishing reel, new TV, shortwave radio, teddy bear, legos, pokemon toys(yes the kids thought those all would be great for daddy!), gift certificate for The Olive Garden, and collectible baseball cards.

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.

The Joy of Moving? Ha! There is no joy in moving. I hate moving, I hate packing, I hate everything about the experience. Luckily, I am not moving, but a friend of ours is and being a good friend means that I will be offering my help. It’s the right thing to do.

Of course, moving is a little less negative of an experience when you don’t have to go through it yourself. There are still plenty of negatives, but at least you only have to be around for part of it and the stress isn’t on you, it’s on the person doing the moving.

So this weekend I will be helping someone move. Yeah!

There are many bad things in the world. It seems like these bad things are trying to distract from our journey. It seems like these things are keeping us from reaching our goals. It’s very sad that this is true.

If we can be kept from our destination, there are some that will claim victory over us and we can not let that be. We must be diligent and not let others negatively affect us. That is why I love this quote from Bruce R McConkie so much:

Amid tears of sorrow—our hearts heavy with forebodings—we see evil and crime and carnality covering the earth. Liars and thieves and adulterers and homosexuals and murderers scarcely seek to hide their abominations from our view. Iniquity abounds. There is no peace on earth.

We see evil forces everywhere uniting to destroy the family, to ridicule morality and decency, to glorify all that is lewd and base. We see wars and plagues and pestilence. Nations rise and fall. Blood and carnage and death are everywhere. Gadianton robbers fill the judgment seats in many nations. An evil power seeks to overthrow the freedom of all nations and countries. Satan reigns in the hearts of men; it is the great day of his power.

But amid it all, the work of the Lord rolls on. The gospel is preached and the witness is born. The elect of God forsake the traditions of their fathers and the ways of the world. The kingdom grows and prospers, for the Lord is with his people.

I am flirting with the idea of making frugal living podcasts recently. I have seen how they have benefited educational sites that I use and I think it might be a great idea to implement them here. I am trying to come up with a list of topics that would work for these podcasts.

I am also trying to decide if it is better to go with a video podcast or an audio podcast. I think there are benefits in both, but there are also bandwidth considerations to think about. I don’t want to have to pay a lot to host it, but if I go with a video, I could use Youtube.

So any preferences? Video or audio? Any suggested topics?

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.

Being educated means knowing manners and the correct way of behaving. It seems like modern society has forgotten this concept. It seems like people want to have everyone respect them, but they are unwilling or unable to respect others. Being educated means being able to show concerns for the feelings of others and make decisions based on these concerns for others.

Since parents don’t seem to want to teach their kids manners, they only teach them how to be self absorbed. I wish schools could teach them, but we can’t or else we get complaining parents.

My husband and I have started a brand new website project. I have alluded to it in past posts, but now we have a new website to join our list of joint projects. First we had home weather stations, but now we have a new one, herbal natural remedies.

It’s going to differ from other sites we have done because this one will have a series of herbal informational pages as its main site and then be supported by the herbal natural remedies blog. This should make it sufficiently popular. I am anxious to see people take advantage of information about herbal remedies that we have collected over the years. It’s going to be great. See you there!