Feed the Freezer and Pantry.

I can see the writing on the wall and hence I'm feeling the urge to stockpile. Plus I've just got that cooking feeling again. I've decided that I need to jar some of my own marinara sauces instead of spending $3.50 a jar for the store bought stuff. So this week I'm going to make a batch of various marinara sauces, some simple and some more fancy. I'm new to this whole canning/jarring thing so I'm just going to use a big stock pot since I don't have a canner. I however am going to invest in a pair of canning tongs.

Here's a great guide for how long to let your jars boil.... CanningUSA.com

The National Center for Home Food Preservation has lots of tips and guides on how to can and jar your own foods. They as well have trusted recipes.

Following their advice I'm going to use the "approved" recipes and then I'll make some of the non-approved recipes and freeze those instead. Lord knows I don't want to mess with botulism.

Non-Approved Marinara Recipes:

Basic Marinara Sauce by Tyler Florence

Heart Healthy Marinara Sauce by Giada De Laurentiis (I say healthy because it has yummy carrots in it)

And I plan on finding a good marinara sauce with mushrooms, since this is what we always buy from the store brands, but I'm going to have to wait and find a good deal on mushrooms.

In addition to the canning, I am going to make some homemade ice cream. There's just something about the thought of making it myself that gets me excited. I absolutely LOVE ice cream and the hubby and I got an electric ice cream maker as a wedding gift that we have yet to use. I always thought it'd be a time consuming, and expensive process but after doing some research on it it seems like a piece of cake, or wait maybe a scoop of ice cream!

Ice Cream Recipes:

Butter Pecan by Elise at Simply Recipes

Fudge Brownie Ice Cream by CookingLight.com

Better than Blue Bell Vanilla Ice Cream by Betty, the low carb guru (I'll be trying this one out for my hubby since he needs sugar free ice cream)


My goal by the end of the week is to have a stockpile of yummy ice cream and marinara sauce sitting in my freezer and pantry!

D.I.Y. Friday - "Kiddie Kitchen Korner"

Ok so this posted early so happy Hump Day!

I love my lil monster and I love LeapFrog's refrigerator toys. However what I don't love is the obstacle that they create when I'm in the kitchen trying to cook. The Fridge Farm keeps my son busy and away from his leg warmer tendency but I'm the type of cook who gets things in and out of the fridge on an "as need" basis. So having my leg warmer sitting in front of the fridge poses a hazard. 1) I have to spend 5 minutes to manuver the farm and all its animals to one side of the fridge (we have a double door fridge) or 2) I scoot the leg warmer out of the way for a minute to open the door and he sees all the goodies, tries climbing in or grabs anything he can reach and refuses to move so that I can close the door. Either way something had to change. Idea! Magnetic Chalkboard.

I've seen sheet metal at a reasonable price for squares at the hardware store and I know that they have great new chalkboard paint as well. Thus my plan was hatched.

I started out by deciding where this chalkboard needed to go, I chose the end of our cabinets (obviously a lower cabinet as my son isn't 8 ft tall). This end happened to be opposite the stove/oven and far away from the fridge. There is plenty of room for him to stand in front of this cabinet and I can still get into any cabinet I want. After measuring the space where the chalkboard would go I headed up to Lowe's and purchased 2 sheets of 18x26 sheet metal, metal primer and chalkboard paint.


Now when painting metal surfaces it's very important to use a primer. I chose a simple gray spray paint primer. I laid the sheets out and lightly coated one side with the primer. Following the directions I let it dry for about 2 hours before applying the 1st coat of chalkboard paint.


I let the 1st coat of chalkboard paint dry for a day, because I had to work, before applying the 2nd coat. After the 2nd coat dried I grabbed my adhesive squares and went to work. Instead of attempting to cut the sheet metal (which you should only do if you have the right equipment) I overlapped my sheets to fit snuggly in the space. After the sheets were secure, I rubbed chalk on them and wiped it off. This sets the paint or something like that, hey I just did what the box told me to do.


I decided I need to add a piece of molding on the bottom to create a finished look, and catch any chalk dust so I'm working on getting that painted and attached. But for now I have a great place for my lil monster to play and stay safe and clear in the kitchen.

Cost Cutting Christmas Gifts

Times are tough, I don't have to tell anyone that. But what makes it feel even worse is when its Christmas time, Christmas is the time of the year when people are always compelled to splurge and shop and give great gifts to their friends and family. While the idea is great most people end up going overboard and putting themselves in debt. Which I have been known to do myself in the past. Its hard to limit myself. I want to give the people that I love and care about lots of things, the things that they want and that I know would be a very special and extravagant gesture. However I just can't afford to do that anymore. And as much as it hurts me, I know it would hurt much worse if I went ahead and made those large purchases. And then in turn it would hurt those friends and family as well because the financial struggle would be evident in the coming months. So no this year I'm sticking to my game plan and my budget. Instead of going out and getting each of my bosses and coworkers and then there's the lil monster's daycare teachers, ah the list goes on, $20 gifts a piece I cut back drastically. I decided to make homemade gifts and take my chance at doing some home canning. A task I'll admit had seemed like too much work, a little hokey and well kind of gross. I mean I grew up on Smuckers! But instead of doing pickles or jam, I found this great chutney recipe. (Yes the recipe I made for Thanksgiving) It was such a hit and I've bought chutney for friends as gifts before, so why not try my hand at it.

Let me tell you, this was the easiest present I've made! Literally it took less than an hour from start to finish and cost less than $20 for 6 jars! That's 6 people for under $20! I just used a big pot I had to boil the jars (which I had purchased for $7) instead of using a canner. I followed the recipe like usual and when it was complete I pulled the hot jars out of the water and filled the jars up. Put the lids back on and then sat them all back into the pot of water. Made sure the water covered the tops and let it boil for about 15 to 20 minutes. I didn't have a rack to lift the jars out of the water so that was fun trying to use a pair of tongs, but it worked. I sat the hot jars on a towel and let them cool overnight.

Instead of spending any money on wrapping my gifts I went "green" and used brown paper lunch sacks as my bags and went without the waste of tissue paper. I printed some cute holiday labels and placed them on the front of the paper bags. Then I printed out the nutritional information and some sample uses along with a recipe to use the chutney with. A simple homemade heartfelt gift that I know my friends will enjoy. And instead of breaking the bank I stayed in my budget!

Of course you can use any chutney recipe you find but I used the Cranberry-Pear Chutney from CookingLight. And then I found some helpful tips on canning at BellaOnline. I hope you all have happy and fun holidays!

D.I.Y. Friday - Family Photo Wall

There is a huge trend right now for great looking photo walls. Whether it be a look down memory lane or recent pictures, everyone wants a put together look. Something like you'd find at Pottery Barn, and I was no different. As a somewhat, History major, history buff, family stories finder, legacy looker, geneology fan I knew I had to create a photo wall with my husband and I's family history. It really started when we were planning our wedding and I decided it'd be a great idea to have pictures of our parents' and grandparents' wedding pictures on a table at our wedding. Something about showing the long line of love that we came from, yeah yeah sappy I know. So thats when I started collecting the photographs and since then I've found a few more. Since the majority of old photographs are in black and white I went with that style and recreated b&w's for those photos that were in color. I grabbed some great black frames and various white matts at good old Wal-Mart and we were on our way. I found the perfect quote in vinyl lettering on ebay from awristacrafts and had our last name's initial cut from Woodland Manufacturing. This way I was able to select the exact size, color and font for the letter!

Now that I had all of the photos, frames, my letter and quote it was time to layout my wall. First I laid everything out on the floor so that I could figure out exactly how I wanted the items to look. Then I cut magazine pages to match the sizes of my items. The magazines would represent my frames and I would be able to tape them on the wall without the fear of messing up my wall if I needed to make adjustments.

Once the magazine pages were up and I was set on my design I began replacing the pages with the actual frames and items. Instead of using nails that would ruin my walls, I use foam adhesive mounting squares. This made the task even easier since I could just line my picture up and press. Super simple and easy.


Pottery Barn has great tips and tools for creating your own memory wall. For design ideas check out their "Creating a memory wall style guide".

D.I.Y Friday - Photo Letter Frames

10/2/08 FYI: I fixed the broken link to the shared pictures, guess all the action crashed the link so I'm hosting it elsewhere!

Inventive, Distinctive & Personalized by You!
(and an easy DIY project!)

You've seen them in model homes, designer dream showcases and on the Oprah show. They're gorgeous and a true conversation piece. Letter Perspectives is the creator and it is the gift you give to someone who has everything, but only if you can afford to drop $150 as a starting price. OR, yes there's an or, you can DIY it for a fraction of the cost.

Begin with your idea, what do you want you frame to say? It could be your last name, it could be the traditional things like HOPE, FAITH, LOVE, FAMILY, it could be KITCHEN, or do a sports theme for BASKETBALL. Whatever you get the point. I chose to do WELCOME, so that I could put it in the entry hall.



You can either take the pictures yourself or you can use the work of others. Sites like Flickr allow you to save photos for free (as it was pointed out, let me make it clear you can save photos for free for your own personal viewing pleasure, professional photographers who post on Flickr typically have a setting so they can't be downloaded and/or watermarked images) or you can subscribe to sites like iStockphoto, for a minimal charge and download professional images. So start searching for images, things related to the style you want to use. So if your word is KITCHEN, look for images of things like utensils or spices. If your word is BASKETBALL, look for images like nets, balls, bleachers, hoops or courts. I've got a great start with the help of a friend (Gatorhightowers) for you here. So once you've gotten some great images you might have to do a little photo-shopping on them to get your desired letter.

Then just upload your letters to a photo print site like shutterfly or snapfish, where you can print 4x6 or 5x7 prints for as little as .15 cents.

Once you get your letters in it's time to start shopping for a frame. If you choose an uncommon number of slots, say a 7 4x6's frame is going to be difficult to find pre-made. However you can look for a frame that will match your dimensions and have a matt made for usually under $30. My suggestion would be to watch the flyers for a 50% off coupon and use it to buy your odd sized frame. That is how I was able to purchase a $50 frame for $25. Which brought my frame costs to only $35.00. Much better than $150!