One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 2140 of 2143 - I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Give Us Our Daily Bread

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

In an effort to get back to basics, I’ve been making our bread for the past 6 weeks and loving it. Goodbye old sandwich bread with unknown ingredients, hello wholesome filling food with ingredients that are both local AND I can pronounce. So far our favorite recipe comes from Bob’s Red Mill Baking Book: Bob’s whole wheat honey bread (local wheat and local honey). I took El’s advice and am now baking just one day a week and freezing the rest to use throughout the week.

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Buying More Local Food

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 25, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I stopped by the local organic farm again today and picked up 3 dozen eggs, fingerling potatoes, 2 onions, a bag of their mixed greens, Swiss chard and a loaf of honey orange bread from a local bakery. We have never tried Swiss chard before so I thought I’d bring it home and give it a go. We tried a piece raw and decided the stalk kinda tastes like an earthy celery and the top pretty much tastes like nothing but has a good crunch. I think I will chop it up and saute it tomorrow and see if it tastes any better. It sure is pretty though! Better looking than the prettiest bouquet of flowers…. and cheaper too!

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How to Make Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

We bought a White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer about 5-6 years ago and had only used it a handful of times. This past summer I started experimenting with a few recipes and by summer’s end we had produced a handful we really liked. I think our all time favorite is Mint Chocolate Chip, followed by Vanilla Bean ice cream. Last night we whipped (or I should say churned) up 2 batches of ice cream: Vanilla Bean & Blueberry Vanilla……delicious! Here are the recipe for the Vanilla Bean:

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
6 egg yolks
2 cups milk
4 cups heavy cream
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean

In a double broiler combine the egg yolks, milk, cream, and sugar and heat at med/low temp. Cook the mixture on med/low til it coats the back of a wooden spoon (like a thick custard). Cut the vanilla bean at both ends and scrape out the seeds. Add seeds and vanilla bean to mixture and continue to stir til the mixture thickens about 5-10 min. Pour mixture into a pitcher and let it cool in the frig for a few hours. After ice cream mixture has cooled (remove the vanilla bean) pour it into the ice cream canister and churn til you can churn no more (about 20-25 min). Pour ice cream into a freezer container and pop it into the frig for a few hours to harden and enjoy!! Great topped with chocolate syrup or by itself!

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Making Homemade Mozzarella Cheese

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 22, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Last night we had a few of our neighbors over for a cheese making party. We supplied the cheese making supplies from the New England Cheese Company, and beverages and asked everyone to bring an appetizer. What a success! We learned how to make mozzarella and ricotta cheese. Jokes were flying, and the guys had fun trying to shape the mozzarella into balls. Harder said than done. One added basil to his crescent moon shaped mozzarella, one ended up with something that resembled a turkey, another was some sort of flatten log and finally one that actually was in the shape of a proper mozzarella ball. Good times.

Next time, whatever the next get together is, I think I’ll ask everyone to bring something local to share. Everyone likes the idea of a “still” party. Who knows, we might be making local moonshine the next time around!

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