Frugal craft time. Whoot!

This post will probably be of very little interest to those who read my blog for recipes and food related humor. I completely understand if you want to go ahead and read the next blog on your list.

A few days ago, a discussion was going on in the comments section of 50sgal's blog about cleaning products. Some of the commenters mentioned that they used items like vinegar and baking soda for cleaning and were pleased the results of such products. Anyhoo, I was thinking that one of the nice things about using a commercial cleansing powder such as Comet, is that it comes in a container with a perforated top. I had heard of the suggestion before of buying a cheese shaker like you find at pizza restaurants and putting your baking soda in that so that you can sprinkle it out like the commercial products. Another thing you could do would be to save an old spice container that has the perforated top and refill it with baking soda. If it smells like the spice that was in it, try putting some vinegar in it, shaking it up so the entire inside is wet, and leaving it overnight. Then the next morning pour out the vinegar and rinse it out. Hopefully that will take care of the smell!

The problem with using one of those ideas is that I wouldn't get to play around with my cordless drill! So I started experimenting this week. First, I took an old peanut butter jar and drilled some 1/16th inch holes in the lid with my trusty drill.



That didn't work very well as you really had to shake it pretty hard to get out the baking soda. I started small as I was afraid the plastic would break on me. I kept going up in size until I got to 1/4 inch. Unfortunately I did have some cracking but, I was able to snap the pieces back together and it's kinda hard to tell where the cracks are. I'll pause here since there's a short video in case anybody wants to grab a snack or pop some popcorn.

Ready?

Lights please!




*snort*I didn't even know our digital camera had sound on the video setting until I made this video. Perhaps if I had read the manual I might know stuff like this! LOL

Edited to add: In the video, I talk about adding some essential oil to the baking soda so it will smell nice. I think I added about 20 drops or so of the citrus blend in the video. Some oils smell stronger than others so use your own good judgment here as to how much to add. Please make sure that your oil of choice is safe for your skin and whatever surfaces you choose to use this on.

Chocolate AFC with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

I went shopping on Friday at the 'white bread grocery store' or WBGS as they had some good sales going on. I call it the 'white bread grocery store' because they literally do not sell *any* whole wheat flour in this store. I have no idea why.

Anyhoo, WBGS had strawberries on sale and when I went over and peered at them, they looked really good. So good in fact, that I decided to buy some and make some strawberries with balsamic vinegar and brown sugar.



Above is two pounds of strawberries ready to be washed, hulled, and sliced.



In the above container is 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and some freshly ground pepper. I know some of you are reading this and thinking Hairball has done gone and flipped her wig. Vinegar and black pepper on strawberries? [C'leen]That's like putting avocado on a cheeseburger! [/C'leen]. Trust me here, okay? Now I like it peppery so I used 13 grinds of pepper. I suggest grinding about five, stirring up everything all together and tasting it to see if it needs more pepper. You can always add more but, if you get too much then you are stuck! Once you get the strawberries to the place you like, put the lid on and stick them in the refrigerator while you make the cake.


Click to enlarge if you'd like to see the recipe. I did the Angel DeLuxe chocolate version of this cake. This is from my 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book if anyone is interested.



Here's some tips about the method of making an angel food cake. If you enlarge it you will see that they are using a wire whip in step three.

I looked in the front and found a picture of an wire whip as I was unfamiliar with it. I put black dots next to the wire whip and its description so it would be easier for you to see it. That old rotary egg beater makes me think of Mama Hairball. At one point, she had a collection of old kitchen tools displayed on one wall of her kitchen.

Now I've gathered up most of the ingredients for this recipe.

If you've read the recipe, you'll notice that I am missing the powdered sugar and shouldn't have the almond extract in the picture. I did use the powdered sugar as instructed but I goofed and add the almond extract to my egg whites. Oops!



Here's my twelve egg whites all ready for the cocoa mixture to be folded in. Lotta eggs, huh? Eggs were on sale last week for 98 cents a dozen so I decided to splurge. Between the coconut cake I made last week and this cake, I've got quite a bit of egg yolks in the freezer to use up. I've found one cake recipe that only uses the yolks that I'm going to try and I'm working on selecting some others to use up the darn things.



Now its ready to go in the tube pan. You may have seen that episode of Semi-Ho where Sandra Lee tells you on her show (but not in the written recipe) to grease your tube pan when she makes the angel food cake from the cake mix. Remember that she's drunk and has delusions of grandeur so when it comes to cooking advice it's best to just ignore her okay? The woman makes stuff like this and this with a straight face so she's obviously eight kinds of crazy, no? Now, Sandy does have her areas of expertise. She's your gal for hangover remedies, how to hang chandeliers in trees and how to make cherry flan that looks like an alien life form is gestating inside of it.

Sorry, I got sidetracked a bit there! Because you will not be greasing the pan, it is most definitely going to stick to the sides of your cake pan. Its like what my old employer used to say about linen clothing, "Its guaranteed to wrinkle so get over it." If your pan has little feet like mine does, then you can just flip it over and let it rest it on those feet. The traditional way is to invert the cake onto a glass bottle (like a wine bottle) so that the bottle fits into the hole in the tube part and leave it there until the cake has completely cooled. After the cake has cooled, you'll need a long flexible knife to free it from the sides of the pan.


I'm sorry for the quality of these next few pictures! You can't tell in this picture but, I've used my knife to loosen the cake from the sides of the pan. Here it is still attached to the bottom piece with the tube. Take your knife and run it between the cake and the pan and slip the cake off of the tube part. Notice the sides of my cake aren't perfect as they got a little cut up from me getting it out of the pan with the knife. Oh, well. This is only the second time I've ever made an angel food cake so hopefully I will get better as time goes by!



Here's some cake and strawberries for Mr. Hairball.



Here's the same out of focus cake with some whipped cream. Whipped cream is very easy to make, just some heavy cream, vanilla extract, and a couple of tablespoons of powdered sugar all beaten up until soft peaks form. Only takes a minute and tastes much better than Cool Whip.

Who wants some cake? Or would you prefer some of the strawberries by themselves?

Sandra Lee, the early years

Last night, I chose a cake recipe from my 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book to make for this week. There wasn't a picture of it on the page with the recipe, so I flipped through the rest of the book to see if perhaps there was one in another section. In doing so, I came across this drawing. (Please click to enlarge if necessary so you can read the text.)


I never would have guessed that Sandra Lee got her start back in 1950 when she worked in the Betty Crocker "Kamera Kitchen"!

Organization is your friend in the kitchen

Recently, I pulled out all of my kitchen canisters/containers so that I could clean behind them. Seeing them all grouped up together made me realize how having labels on all of them simplifies things for me, and for Mr. Hairball when he cooks on the weekends. I can also tell at a glance when something is getting low and needs refilling from the pantry, or to be added to my weekly shopping list.


I had to make one more label for the container to store the masa harina that I recently bought.

80's Music

I've got music from the 80's in my head today..





I had a big crush on Thomas Dolby.


This song always reminds me of our last big move. We told people we were moving and everybody was so happy and congratulating us on moving closer to a big city. We told them that actually we would be living even farther away from a big city than where we were living at that time. We got a lot of very confused looks from those who thought we were just plain crazy. To each his own. *grins*

Dinner from Wednesday

On Monday, I made some beef brisket with a spicy dry rub, and served it with some garlic mashed potatoes . I know that may sound like an odd combination but, I was craving meat and potatoes! This time however, I didn't use any fat-free half and half in the potatoes. I mixed about half a cup or so of powdered milk into 6-8 ounces of skim milk, heated it up and used that in place of the fat-free half and half. Dry powdered milk is great resource to keep on hand for stuff like that so I recommend keeping some in your pantry. I know some folks mix it up and drink it instead of fresh milk. Honestly, I can't take the taste of it straight up, so I try to use it in recipes where you can't taste it and save the fresh milk for when you can taste it.

Anyhoo, since my brisket was 4.64lbs/2.10466 kg, I had a wee bit leftover. I reheated it and the potatoes Tuesday night, and that was a quick dinner but, I've still got quite a bit left. I bought some masa harina the other day thinking that some fresh warm corn tortillas would be nice. I had just read Kelly's post over at evilshenanigans.com about her homemade flour tortillas, so I had tortillas on the brain. I've never made flour tortillas with lard so I need to try that too as I would probably love them. Sorry, I'm all rambly today! *smack self upside the head*

So I got out my ginormous bag of pinto beans, and measured out three cups into a colander and gave the beans a nice little bath, sorted through and got rid of any stones, cracked beans, etc.. and then drained out all of the water.




I put my nice clean beans into my crackpot ( I know that is wrong but, the spellchecker likes it better than crockpot and well, I am a crackpot!) and put the shredded up leftover brisket on top.

I didn't get a picture of it shredded so use your imagination.


Then I grabbed the following out of my spice cabinet of doom:
garlic powder
paprika
chili powder
liquid smoke
cayenne pepper
onion powder
Adobo seasoning from Penzey's spices ( I got this for free the last time I ordered from them. If they had a retail store here I would be so broke!!) I didn't measure I just eyeballed some of each and threw them in the pot.



I also threw in some freshly ground black pepper. Yep, some of the spices are duplicated and my garlic powder is AWOL in that picture but, we are being rebels today. Whoot!

I cooked it on high in my crockpot for an hour, and then switched it over to low and then it cook till supper time. So an hour on high and about 6 hours on low or until your beans are nice and soft. Why the crockpot you may ask when its cold and the heat from the stove would feel nice? Because the weather here has gone nutball city. The highs have been in the high eighties/low nineties the last two days (for you Celcius folks, think low thirties). With those kinda temps, if I have both the stove and the computer on it gets pretty warm in here!

If you need to get this going before you have to leave for work, don't mess with the hour on high and just let it cook all day on low or at least eight hours. Check your little book that came with your crockpot or slowcooker to make sure but, I seem to remember that every hour on high is the equivalent of two hours on low. My grandmother routinely let her beans cook in the crockpot for 12 hours on low. So please don't worry if you have a long day ahead of you.


I opened up the crock to check to see that the beans were cooked through, and broke up the meat with my spoon a bit. Then I tasted and adjusted the seasonings, and threw in some masa harina to thicken it up a bit. I added 1/4 cup but, I think 2-3 Tablespoons would have been better. Be sure and stir it up good all the way to the bottom of your crock so you don't have big blobs of masa harina.



Then I tried my hand at homemade corn tortillas.

Here are my dough balls ready to be squished out.


I don't have a tortilla press so I had to get in touch with my *gulp* inner Sandra Lee and get out the box of zippy bags. I resisted the urge to pile all the dough balls inside, snip off a corner, and squeeze the dough ONto something. Instead, I took one gallon sized zippy bag and cut down both side seams so that I could open up the bag like a book. Then I placed a dough ball inside and closed the "book" back up, and used a drinking glass as a rolling pin to flat out the dough ball into some rough idea of a circle. You can of course use a rolling pin. I just used a glass because I have a small kitchen and I don't have enough counter space over by the stove to use my rolling pin.


It will not be perfect so just let go of that idea right now. Then you peel back the top layer of plastic, and flip the tortilla over so the plastic is on top and the side with the tortilla is resting on your hand. Slowly start to peel off the plastic and expect it to stick a bit or even tear so do don't freak out if it does. Just pat it back together and keep going.



Then just plop it in your nice hot pan and cook on both sides till its done.



I selected a picture of one of my uglier ones so that nobody feels bad if their tortillas look more like amoebas than circles. I got better results as I worked my way through the dough. I do want to get a tortilla press though as it would go faster and I would have more uniform results. Keep your tortillas warm as they come out of the pan. I just put a folded up dishtowel on a plate and slid them under the fold as I finished each one. If you want to use store bought tortillas you can but, you should heat them up a bit before serving. You can use either flour or corn tortillas for this depending on what you like.

To eat these, you take some of the filling and place it on your tortilla and put whatever you want on top or leave it plain and fold it or roll it up. Eat with your hands or use a knife and fork if you prefer.

Time for plating and judging. Mr. Hairball said, "You have insulted my taste buds!" Just kidding, a little Iron Chef humor.

Actually he said: "Whoot! This is f'ntastic!"



Don't forget we've still got coconut cake in the fridge. Who wants some cake?

Cat pics

Momma Cat sez: "I better be getting some tuna for appearing on your stupid blog!" Her name isn't actually Momma Cat but, she prefers to be anonymous on the internet. You see, when she was a teenage kitty, she skipped town owing the local catnip dealer some serious coin.



I sleep easy at night knowing these two gals are keeping an eye on the neighborhood.

Old Commercials

Yesterday, I was over at Kitchen Retro checking out a vintage ad for the radio microphone from 1948. I wasn't alive back then but, it reminded me of Mr. Microphone from the 70's.

Mr. Microphone | Viral | SPIKE.com

I had a Mr. Microphone. *snort* I thought I was really stylin' with my feathered hair, velour shirt, tight jeans, old school roller skates, and yelling out Dyn-O-Mite! on my Mr. Microphone. Whoot!


Raise your hand if you or your family ever owned one of these? *raises hand*

Bottle & Jar Cutter | Viral | SPIKE.com

Okay, who had shag carpet like that? * raises hand again* Ours was green instead of brown though.


I miss Nancy Walker. I loved the snarky characters she portrayed like Mildred on McMillan and Wife. (For those that are interested, season one is available on DVD and if you have Netflix, you can watch it and the other seasons -some of the seasons are incomplete though- via their instant watch feature.)



*snort* I love the smell of advertising propaganda early in the morning. If you want a happy marriage you better get you some Bounty!

This poor woman should just pull an Elvis on the clothes and be done with it.




I still enjoy the music of the 70's.


This commercial obviously did its job as I am still using their tag line after all these years.



I remember how the "beef lady" became an instant sensation because of these commercials.

Coconut cake

Stop snickering at my coconuts!

I was watching crazy Sandra Lee one day, she made her Tapioca Cake and it just set me off. I got crazy mad and when I get like that because of her, I have to cook or bake something that she would consider "monkey business". Later that day, I saw the Coconut Cake Revival episode of Good Eats. When Alton Brown went into his stirring speech about the coconut cake, I teared up and knew I had found my recipe for this battle.

Mr. Hairball and I had never been big huge coconut fans until we had this cake. We didn't dislike it or anything but, we never made a point of seeking out dishes made with coconut. Now, whenever he questions why I am watching Sandra Lee and shouting obscenities at the television, I just say coconut cake and then he remembers that he never would have had the chance to enjoy Alton's cake if I hadn't become so violently angry that day.

Last week, I made up some coconut extract, milk, and cream. Yesterday, I shredded up more coconuts and made up more coconut milk, coconut cream, and baked the cake. Due to some technical difficulties beyond my control, assembling and frosting the cake had to wait until today. The coconut milk and cream I made this week is for future use. The extract needs 5-7 days to do its thing so when you first make it, you have to plan ahead. After you have your extract made, you will have enough for more than one cake so future cakes can be made all in the same day.

Now some of you are saying you'll just buy the extract, milk, and cream and go from there. You can of course do that, but I highly encourage you to make your own at least once. After tasting this cake made the old fashioned way, I can't go back to the store bought flaked and sweetened stuff as there is a huge difference to my taste buds. Fresh unsweetened coconut tastes completely different to me than the sweetened dried version available at grocery stores.

First, I strongly suggest watching the episode of Good eats if you plan to make this recipe. I have both parts of it here for your convenience. Each part is a little over ten minutes. I'm not going to go over everything he does as I don't want to bore you by repeating every single thing that Alton has said. I will point out where I did something a little different or where I think a point may be unclear or was not covered in Alton's show.



This is my coconut milk and cream that I made last week, mixed together and froze. The chunks are where it is still frozen.


Okay, I've tried a couple of times to use Alton's method of baking the coconuts to crack the shells to make it easier to extract the meat inside. All of my coconuts have been of the rebellious sort and refused to bow down to my will on this matter, so I had to get medieval on them. After I drilled the eyes and drained the coconut water, I got out my meat mallet and used the flat side to hit the coconut along the seam until it cracked and then did as Alton says to get the meat out. You'll notice that my coconut did *not* crack along the seam. LOL



Your coconut shell may decide to be stubborn about breaking away from the brown husk. If that occurs, you can extract the meat by using a knife with a flexible blade and score the meat of the coconut like you do a mango and just do your best to pop or peel the pieces and then remove the brown husk. If you can't get every tiny speck of the husk off of the meat, don't worry about it. If anybody gets snarky with you about this, just look them square in the eye and say one or more of the following:

A)*Look extremely shocked* " I know your Mama taught you better than that!"
B)"It's never a wise move to make the person who prepares your food angry."
C) "Bite me"
D) "Oh yeah?" *Drop pants/lift skirt and moon them*


The coconut is going to be shredded up anyway so just use the ugly bits for making the coconut milk and cream and save the prettier parts of the outside of the cake.


It's going to make a mess so be prepared for something like this after you have finished cracking and peeling your coconuts. Don't be surprised if you find small bits of coconut scattered about your kitchen and on yourself.





My blender died a while back so I after letting the coconut soak like Alton said, I just buzzed up my coconut milk and cream in my food processor. Then, I dumped the mixture into a fine sieve, and applied pressure with the back of a spoon to extract all the coconutty goodness into the bowl below. The rest of the cake I did as Alton instructed.

Depending on the humidity on the day you make this, your frosting may need to be beaten a little longer. In the past, I've had hand mixers that just couldn't incorporate enough air to take this frosting to the desired end state. (Here's some nice pictures I found for further reference of what your frosting should look like.) When that occurred, I would follow the directions as stated and then pour it into the bowl of my stand mixer and beat it on the highest speed for a minute or two to finish it off. Real life doesn't always work out nicely like it does on TV so we just have to be prepared to roll with the punches!

Here's the finished half of the cake that I set aside for Mr. Hairball's office.


It doesn't look perfect but this cake is unbelievably good. I really hope you decide to try this recipe for yourself.