Bread Crumb Pasta

Please be sure to visit Designs By Gollum for more Delicious Foodie Friday posts! :O)

I saw this recipe on The Rachel Ray show recently and just knew that I needed to try it. I'm always looking for cost effective ways to make something both delicious and healthy and easy.
Everyone loved it and now it's become a regular mealtime favorite at our table. Please pretend that I garnished it with tomatoes. :O)

Ingredients:

1 pound of spaghetti

1/4 cup pine nuts or sliced almonds

2 cups fresh whole wheat bread crumbs

1 cup of Parmesan cheese

2 bunches of flat leaf parsley

1 whole lemon

2 cloves of garlic

2 or 3 tomatoes

salt, pepper, olive oil to taste

Directions:

Toast pine nuts or almonds in olive oil, add bread crumbs and cook until lightly browned, turn off heat.

Cook pasta

Add parsley to a food processor and mince. Add salt, pepper and garlic and blend in. While food processor is on, drizzle in olive oil until you get a pesto like consistency.

Add the pesto mixture to the bread crumbs and add the juice and zest of one lemon.

Mix in 1 cup of Parmesan cheese

Toss with the pasta and garnish with sliced, salted tomatoes.

Making home made laundry soap

I've been making home made laundry soap for 3 years now and I've never looked back! It's easy to do. You will however need to find some WASHING soda NOT BAKING soda. They are completely two different things. I ordered a case of Arm and Hammer WASHING soda(12boxes) from my local grocery store because I just couldn't find any. It was $27.00 3 years ago and I still have two boxes left. Once it's done, you only need to use 1 tablespoon of home made laundry soap for regular wash and 2 tablespoons for heavily soiled loads. Another thing about it is that it won't make any suds. But don't don't worry, it's not supposed to. You will also need a box of Borax (missing from pic) and a bar of laundry soap like Zote, which I buy from the .99 cent store. I've also used Ivory and Zest which work well, but cost more.

Love those buckets!

We buy ice cream in the large buckets which saves a lot of money on it's own. When those buckets are empty, they become re-purposed for all sorts of uses, including laundry soap and laundry soap ingredient supplies.

A true blue kitchen friend

My number one tip for making home made laundry soap, is using a Salad Shooter to do all of the grating. I found mine at Goodwill for $7.99. Mine also can be used for a cake batter mixer. It's saved me a lot of time and energy to say the least! When trying to be frugal, there's no reason to do it the hard way. I'd rather spend extra time with my family. I'm always looking for free or very inexpensive gadgets to help me accomplish both frugality and time with loved ones.

I like zote because it's soft and easy to work with, I also like Ivory

If you're using a salad shooter, you may need to slice your soap to fit in it

Start feeding your salad shooter with soap and........

Start grating

I like to grate a bucket full at a time

Add ingredients to food processor

Add 2 cups of grated soap to the food processor and process on high for 10 seconds. Add 1 cup each of the Borax and the washing soda and process on high for 20 seconds.

Finished laundry soap

Fumi Salad

I try to eat a lot of salad. This is a recipe that my friend, Sue was kind enough to share with me, after I raved about the one she made last week. I'm always looking for something to use cabbage for. I'm not very... uh.... fond of cooked cabbage. But it's such a frugal, healthy vegetable, I'm always looking for a use for it. And this recipe is great because you can customize it anyway you want to. You can add chicken and it becomes a meal, and best of all your home doesn't smell like cooked cabbage!


Salad:

1 head of cabbage, shredded
8 T. sesame seeds
2 pkg. top ramen (chicken and/or oriental) crushed
8 T. slivered almonds
5 green onions, chopped
1 T. oil


Dressing: (dressing is best made ahead and allowed to sit)

2 T. sugar
salt and pepper to taste
2 t. sesame seeds
3 T. rice vinegar
1/2 C. oil

Brown almonds and sesame seeds in pan with oil. Cool. Mix onions and shredded cabbage in large bowl. Add almonds, sesame seeds, crushed Top Ramen and season packs. Mix dressing and pour over salad just before serving.

Home Made Pizza

Every Friday is home made pizza night at our house. I found this Black and Decker (I thought they only made power tools) food processor at Goodwill for $14.99, which is the cost of one take-out pizza alone. This little beauty saves us a lot of green.


Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Recipe

2 C. whole wheat flour
1 t. salt
1 t. oil
3/4 C. of warm water
1 T. yeast
1 T. sugar


Directions:
1) Combine yeast and sugar in a small bowl and add 1/4 C. of WARM
not hot water and stir. After it bubbles up high, then start the next steps

2) Add flour, salt and oil to processor. Process 5 seconds on high

3) Add bubbled up yeast mixture. Process 10 seconds on high

4) Slowly, add 1/2 c. warm water while processor is on high

5) Keeping the processor on high, the dough should form a ball.
You may need to add a tiny bit more water, slowly to get it to form.
When it forms a ball, let it rotate 25 times

6) Cover it with a large bowl on a greased baking sheet for 10 minutes

Note: I always make two separate batches for one pizza. I never double the recipe in the food processor because I've found it's too rough on the machine, at least when I'm working with whole wheat flour.

The yeast is ready when it looks like this

For some reason at my house, it takes the yeast 15-20 minutes to look like this. I think the time will vary depending on the elements, so I go by how it looks rather than timing it.

Let the dough rise for 10 minutes

I oil the pan and cover my dough with a large mixing bowl while it's rising.

Roll out the pizza crust

I use a glass which seems to fit better than a rolling pin and gives a smoother result than using my hands to press down the dough.

Top with whatever you have on hand.

I buy red bell peppers and green onions inexpensively at the farmers market, dice them up and freeze them in bags for pizza and other recipes. I buy pepperoni and shredded cheese in large bags from Smart and Final, which lasts a long time and saves money instead of the over priced smaller bags from the grocery store.

here is the finished product

Making Whole Wheat Bread

I love making homemade bread ever since I acquired my Oster bread machine for free from Freecycle. I was even more excited when I found a bread slicing guide and electric knife at a yard sale (both for $3.00). I save my plastic produce bags to store the bread in and they're the perfect size for the loafs. I make two loafs a week.

1 t. salt
2 T. brown sugar
2 T. oil
1 3/4 C. hot water
3 1/4 C. whole wheat bread
3 T. gluten
1 1/4 t. yeast


Sift flour. add gluten to flour and mix thoroughly. To the bread machine, add in the order listed, the salt, the brown sugar, the oil, the water, the flour which is already mixed with the gluten. Make a little hole in the center of the flour and add the yeast. Close the lid and start selecting settings according to your machines setting for whole wheat bread. Let bread cool completely before slicing. Keep bread refrigerated.