Kitchen Tip Tuesday - Using Cast Iron & Stainless

I think most everyone has heard about the dangers of nonstick coatings on pans. I had a beautiful set of nonstick pans that I bought shortly after we were married. After hearing and reading about the dangers I slowly started to replace my pots & pans with cast iron and stainless steel. It takes some getting used to but I wouldn't trade them for nonstick anyday...even if they came up with a safe way to make them.

I wanted to share a few photo's of the pans that I use the most now. This first one is my absolute favorite. It NEVER leaves the stove except for a quick scrub if it gets really dirty. We use this for eggs, french toast, pancakes, cooking meat, etc. It was the first cast iron pan I bought and I only paid a little more than $10 for it. It's from Walmart. Check it out here. The great thing about Lodge pans is that they are preseasoned, which makes them much easier to ise. You can read more about seasoning cast iron here.

This is the other cast iron pan I use extensively. This is an oldie but goodie. It was given to me by a friend of the family and it had been with her family for some time. Not sure quite how old it is but it still works great. That's the thing about cast iron...it can survive for generations! Great to pass on to family, not only your actual pans but how to cook with them and your favorite recipes using them.

One of the great features of cast iron is that they don't take a lot to clean. I do not use soap on my cast iron pans because that can take off the seasoning (which is what gives you the nonstick surface for cooking things like eggs). I take a scrapper and scrap off anything stuck onto the pan under hot water. I also LOVE these stainless steel scrubbies. They also work very well with my stainless steel pots and pans.

This is a few of the pans from my stainless steel set, which was actually given to me by my mom. They are not anything overly fancy but they work fabulously! The set also came with a stainless teakettle and some stainless utensils. I do have a few deep cast iron pots and a cast iron dutch oven but they are SO heavy that I only use them if needed.

And this last one is probably my favorite from all of my stainless. It is about the size of a wok and is excellent for cooking one dish meals. I just LOVE it...not quite as much as my cast iron but it is definitely a close second. I just need to find a lid for it now and it would be so much more versitile and would probably creep past my cast iron frying pan.

I wanted to link to some information about why using pots and pans with a nonstick coating is not the best idea. Below are links to a few articles I have found. Mainly when you heat nonstick pans over a certain temperature they start to off gas toxic fumes. You can easily reach these temperatures just from preheating your pan. If you do use nonstick pans please make sure to use them over ONLY low to low/medium heat. Anything higher can release those gases into the air you breath.

Environmental Working Groups page about Teflon, PFOA & Scotchguard.

WiseGeek Article about the risks of using Teflon.

There is a lot more info out there about the dangers. Check it out for yourself! And please check out TammysRecipes.com for more Kitchen Tips!

Blessings!

Tackle It Tuesday - The Garden!

The office and the clothes are coming. I got more things organized and into the closet in the office and all of Bennett's clothes sorted and put into his bureau.



Our major tackle this past week though was our garden. We were finally able to borrow a tiller and get things tilled up. Erik finished cutting trees to edge our raised beds and we moved a bunch of horse manure from our barn to the beds and dug it into the top soil. It now looks like this!

I said to Erik, "Wow...it actually looks like we know what we are doing!" LOL. We are getting there. Seeds are all in and I will pick up my seedlings from one of the local farms down the road in a few weeks. I do still need to pick up seeds for carrots and peas (not sure how I forgot those) but everything else is in.

Our next tackle...wood for fireplace this winter, compost bins, painting the house, replacing windows, reside back and side of the house, finish work in basement, refence pasture...it just never ends!! We will work on something from the above list (along with the continued work on the office and the clothes).

To check out other tackles take a look at 5minutesformom.com.

Blessings!

Menu Planning Monday

Another week of menu plans and yet again I really didn't stick with my plan from last week! I've got to get better about this. I did have an excuse. The whole Turkey we were planning for about 1/2 of the weeks meals ended up taking a VERY long time to defrost (still going actually..I'm going to brine it tomorrow night and hope that thaws it out the rest of the way). We have 2 25+ lb turkeys left from our turkeys last year that we are trying to use up so that our freezers are empty when this years birds go to slaughter. That is now planned for Tuesdays dinner and we will be doing leftovers for the week most likely.

And we have a new recipe we are trying out tomorrow! They are called Blender Pancakes and I first heard about the recipe at Passionate Homemaking but also signed up for Sue Greggs newsletter and recieved it in her newsletter as well. Here is a shot of the rice and kefir in the blender. It is sitting on my stove waiting to be finished off and cooked tomorrow! Can't wait to try them!
I am continuing to soak my grains and add more whole grains into our diet. We've been using a lot of rice...a excellent and very frugal filler for meals.

And I promise to try to take more pictures of things. I made my rice gumble as I like to call it tonight and it looked so lovely in the pan but I forgot to take a picture to share!

On to the menu!

Monday - we are having friends over for a little cookout so on the menu is burgers (a mix of ground beef & goat) and probably some zucchini on the grill. I have a lovely watermelon for desert and they are planning to bring a salad (either green or potato). I purchased some buns but started soaking some flour tonight to make a loaf of bread and also to make some buns also. We will see how that goes! Here is a shot of the flour soaking on the stove.

Tuesday - Roast Turkey. I made a ton of applesauce this last week and put to much water in with one batch so I strained a little off and am thinking I will use that apple water to brine my turkey! Not sure how that will work but why not...right. LOL...I will keep you posted on how that turns out. I am planning on doing some potatoes and maybe some squash or brocolli (trying to use up some vegi's still in the freezer from last year also).

Wednesday - I have a meeting tonight at church and will need to leave as soon as Erik walks in the door so I will probably do something easy like pasta. Will definitely use some of the leftover turkey whatever I do.

Thursday - Turkey & Rice. I will be using a recipe that came from Laura at Heavenly Homemakers ebook, What to do With the Chicken in Your Kitchen.

Friday - Spending the day in Belfast, ME. They have an excellent farmers market. We will see what I get there for produce! The market has been open for a few weeks but this will be the first time I have been able to head down for it! Dinner will probably be Pizza on the Grill. It is supposed to be a lovely day so I definitely want to grill.

Saturday - We will be having dinner at a friends so no need to prepare anything. We haven't agreed upon what I am bringing to contribute yet.

Sunday - Goat Roast. I am finally going to committ to using one of the goat roasts that we have in our freezer! I've found a few recipes that I will look over to try (depending on what I have in the pantry to use). This is a great one for Southwest Leg of Goat. Great Goats also has a few great recipes. And here at meat goats they have a great downloadable cookbook with recipes for Goat.

Like I mentioned I will try to take more pictures of our meals as I prepare them and will keep you posted on how things turn out. Have a great week!

Frugal Fridays - Cutting Hair

I think I have already mentioned that things are going to get a little more tight in our budget starting in September so we've been looking at ways that we can cut things out of our budget. One of the smaller things in our budget that really adds up over the year is getting hair cuts. Because Erik is in the military he needs to have his hair cut pretty regularly (usually every 4 weeks). And then the boys are usually every 6-8 weeks. At a cost of $10 each per cut even if we estimate on the low end that is around $240 a year and could be as much as $300-$360!

So, I purchased this Wahl Clipper set:


But I didn't pay for it with cash. I am a member of MyPoints and I used my points to purchase an Amazon gift card that covered the cost of this. So...I got the clippers for free and I will probably save at least $200-300 per year.

I clipped the boys hair yesterday. Here are a few before and after photo's:



First Bennett before...
And after! His was a little easier than Aiden. Bennett has very fine hair that all grows straight. Aiden however has thicker hair with all kinds of cowlicks!

Not too bad for my first try!

And they are shirtless because the wouldn't keep on the bib to keep the hair off and both were so itchy!

And here's Aiden before...

And after!

I am pretty proud of my hair cutting skills! As tough as Aiden's was...it came out pretty good!

My frugal friday tip for you...first join mypoints to earn lots of free points! And then go and get yourself a set of clippers (especially if you have boys) and cut their hair yourself!

Check out more frugal friday tips over at BiblicalWomanhood.com!

Works for Me Wednesday - Going to the Library

Going to the library regularly is truly something that works for me. Reading all of these amazing blogs I have discovered a huge amount of recommended titles. I LOVE books. Did I say Love...LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. My husband calls me a book addicted. And I love to read them even more than I love having them. However, we are on a limited income so I cannot just go out and buy every book I want to read. This is where the library comes in!

We usually go to the library once a week or every other week. Not only do I LOVE to go but so do my boys. They also love books. Love to flip through them and love to have them read to them. They really enjoy going to the library with me to pick out a few books just for them to take out.

When someone recommends a title that I think I will enjoy I check to see if any of the local libraries might have it. I really like the whole read before you buy idea. That way I get an idea if I will REALLY like it or not. If the local libraries don't have it I check with other libraries to see if I can get it through interlibrary loan. This is usually the case.

Most of the time if I really enjoy a book I can just occassionally take it out here & there or jot ideas down from the book. Other times though...I absolutely must have a copy to refer to as often as I might need to (i.e. Nourishing Traditions). There are a number of different ways that I get my books as cheaply (of free) as I possibly can. Check back with me for next weeks Works for Me Wednesday to find out how!

And for other ideas of what is working for others make sure to stop by Rocks in My Dryer and maybe even share an idea or two of your own!

Tackle it Tuesday

Last week didn't go quite as planned for my tackle. The weather was so beautiful all week we just wanted to play outside ALL the time. I did get a few things done outside that needed doing though.

The garden is almost in. Erik borrowed our neighbors tiller and we got the garden tilled. We laid out almost all the logs for the borders for our raised beds. We will finish this up on Erik's days off this coming weekend.

For this week I am going to keep working on the clothing situation as we are supposed to be getting rain in the afternoons this week.

And here are the other two tackles I need to work on.

First...

I need to do something with all these apples!

I made my first purchase (thanks to our friends from church) from Crown O' Maine. They are a cooperative that provides all Maine grown items (mostly organic) to their members. This is the last batch of apples until the fall. We recently ran out of applesauce so I plan to make more and am not sure what else just yet.

And then...there is my office. This is no excuse because it was bad before this but I had two events this past weekend totalling about 17-18 hrs on my feet. I was a little tired so when I got home I pretty much dumped eveything on the floor in my office. I don't have anything scheduled for a while so I need to get things staightened up.
And Erik put these lovely shelves in the clothest so that I have more room to store things. I also now have a second file cabinet. Not to mention my new laser all in one machine that I haven't even taken the time to hook up yet.

And the floor...that's all of my filing right there...needs to move to the filing cabinet.

And all the books need to move back onto the book case.

Lot's of tackles this week (probably wont all get finished but I will keep plugging away at it!

Stop in next week to find out what I've finished and what else I need to tackle.

Blessings!

Tiny Talk Tuesday

I have two really cute things that Aiden said this last week!


First...I was not witness to this one. My parents were up and were sitting outside with Erik and the boys. Aiden came over and told them he was going to tell them a story about a boy named Bennett who didn't listen. He preceded to go on about how Bennett didn't listen to Mommy & Daddy and he ran out into the road and was squished as flat as a pancake. I'm not sure where he has heard this before because I don't believe we have ever told him a car could squish him as flat as a pancake but who knows! The really funny part though was after he told the story Aiden says, "I don't like kid pancakes!" LOL!! And what does my father say, "They are crunchy." I'm am going second hand on this because I was not there so I might be off by a bit. Too funny.


Yesterday Erik and I had to go to the local hospital to get some blood work done that we've been putting off (just general health, cholestoral, CBC, etc.). They were still doing my paperwork when they called Erik in for his blood draw so he took Aiden in with him. He thought the whole thing was pretty interesting. Aiden is going to need to go for blood work later this week so I mentioned this too him when he came out and asked if he would like to go in an watch while they took my blood. He was all excited to go. While we were in the lab I was talking with him about giving blood and again talked about him giving some blood later this week. He looks up at me and says, "But Momma, I don't want anyone stealing ANY of my blood."


Bennett continues on his talking spree. He NEVER stops talking. We can understand probably half now. He hasn't said anything really funny this week though.


Stop back next week to see what other funny things my kids are saying!


And don't forget to stop by Not Before 7 to share about your kids or to read some other funny things.