From Safely Gathered In – Food Storage Friday: Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Many of you may already be familiar with this recipe, but I had never made it before.  We try to keep food storage recipes pretty simple on here (mostly for our own benefits, I think), but I seriously don’t think it could get easier (or yummier) than this.  Ready?

From Safely Gathered In – Food Storage Friday: Pinto Bean Burgers

I saw this bean burger recipe on Kath Eats Real Food and it looked SO good. I don’t know why I’d never thought of using pinto beans before.

 

Something else to do with all those cans of beans you bought. I tried this one and it’s not too bad.

From Safely Gathered In – Food Storage Holiday Gift: Peanut Brittle

Here’s another idea for a gift you can make for your neighbors and friends using food storage items.

Ingredients: oil, vanilla, dry roasted peanuts, corn syrup, baking soda and sugar

Start by spraying your baking sheet with cooking spray. And please tell me that everyone’s pans look like this?

Mix the peanuts, sugar and corn syrup in a microwave safe bowl.

Stir to combine. It won’t mix completely and that’s okay. Pop it in the microwave for 6-7 minutes. I did 6 minutes.

Be SUPER careful when you pull it out of the microwave. The bowl will be very hot.

Stir it up and add the oil.

And the vanilla. Pop it back in the microwave for another two minutes.

When you pull it out this time, add the baking powder.

It will foam and bubble as you mix it up.

Pour it quickly onto the tray and let it cool.

When it’s all cool

Break it into buttery pieces with your fingers.

Delicious peanut brittle all from food storage!

It would be cute wrapped in a cellophane bag or in these cute holiday Tupperware you can find in the stores right now.

More holiday gift ideas from food storage here.

Microwave Oven Peanut Brittle
adapted from the Allrecipes.com recipe here

1.5 cups dry roasted peanuts
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 pinch of salt
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda

Grease a baking sheet and set aside. In a glass bowl, combine the peanuts, sugar, corn syrup and salt. Cook in microwave for 6-7 minutes on high (700w); mixture should be bubbly and peanuts browned. Stir in oil and vanilla; cook 2-3 minutes longer.

Quickly stir in baking soda, just until mixture is foamy. Pour immediately onto greased baking sheet. Let cool 15 minutes or until set. Break into pieces and store in an airtight container.

From Safely Gathered In – Food Storage Friday: Pinwheel Cookies

This is the perfect recipe for all that leftover pie crust… and now I’m realizing that I’m about a week late posting it, since it would have been great to have this recipe when you all were making your Thanksgiving pies!  So, just make pie crust especially for this one (like I did), or make it next time you make a pie (Christmas?).  It’s definitely worth making a crust specially for this, though… I really liked these flaky cookies and will probably be making them again soon.

My mom actually did something similar to this when I was growing up, but she just baked the pie crust on the bottom of a pie pan, and sprinkled the sugar and cinnamon on top, and cut the pieces into wedges.  Perhaps you have your own version of this recipe?

From Survival Blog – Surviving in Caves, by Caver X. 

I got hooked on spelunking in the early 1990s in Tennessee. It was an adventure that would last for about 5 years and take me in several different caves including one that I went in between 35 to 40 times. There are basics to know when planning a cave trip…

Just in case you haven’t seen enough hardcore survivalist stuff around here recently.

From The New Old School – fresh sageâ??hair rinse

The Damsel is blessed with a ridiculously strong and healthy sage plant bush shrub-thing. And the amount of sage she uses in cooking during an entire year uses a sadly small percentage of its offspring. The Damsel loathes wasting things, so she went in search of other uses for fresh sage. Ages ago, the Damsel’s [...]

An interesting idea.

From The New Old School – making herb vinegars

Ah! This is the Damsel’s kind of project. Easy, quick, big payoff. Making herbal vinegar is as easy as kindergarten. It’s up to you which kind of herbs to use. What herbs do you love? Start there. The Damsel loves sage, and has a boatload of it, so there you have it. Take fresh, washed [...]

From Get Rich Slowly – Your Health is Your Most Important Asset

When Kris and I traveled to England and Ireland with her parents in 2007, I came home with a financial epiphany. Actually, the trip highlighted a concept that I’d only vaguely understood before: I was a slave to the tyranny of Stuff. I had accumulated way too many things in my life, and this was [...]

From Get Rich Slowly – Waste Less Food, Save More Money

Coming home after more than three weeks in Europe, our refrigerator was practically bare. Kris and I love food, and our fridge is usually filled to the gills with tons of good stuff, so seeing the vast emptiness was almost shocking. But in a good way. One of the drawbacks to keeping a full fridge [...]

From The Simple Dollar – Jealousy â?? And What You Can’t See

One of the nicest houses in our town recently went into foreclosure. The family that lived there seemed to have “everything” on the surface – a gorgeous house, nice cars, nice clothing, expensive cell phones, and so on. In truth, though, they were in debt up to their eyeballs. Now that house that they had [...]

Just a reminder on the importance of avoiding debt.