Home-Made Char Siew (Chinese Roast Pork) served on Noodles

This is the is one of my favorite recipes which a wonderful cook Lily Ng shares on her blog. The glaze is so much better than any commercial preparation I've come across!

Ingredients

Marinate:

4 tbsp Hoisin sauce
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp soya sauce

1/2 cup sugar

2 tbsp wine - Mui Kai Lo

1 tsp 5 spice powder

1/2 tsp salt

Dash of pepper

Glaze (I've found leaving out the glaze doesn't make it any less delicious):

2 tbsp dark soya sauce
2 tbsp honey or maltose
2 tbsp oil

Method

Marinade pork with seasonings for 2 hours.(optional). Pork can be cooked as soon as it is marinated.

Transfer marinated pork on to the pressure cooker, close lid and let the pork and marinate cook for 10 minutes - time is when the pressure is build up.  Release the pressure by running cold tap water over the lid of the pressure cooker.

Open the lid and continue to cook the pork ribs on high heat until the sauce has thickened.  Stir constantly to prevent burning.

When sauce has thickened, transferred pork ribs to the grill or broiler.  Grill/broil until the surface is charred.

Coat charred ribs with the Glaze and put back to grill/broil for 3 - 5 minutes more.

 

Serve on rice or noodles.

About Staples, Office Depot and Office Max ink rewards

For those of you who do not know, the 3 office supply superstores offer a nice way to snag some free stuff (with a little bit of work).
Basically, each of the 3 stores offer store credit for depositing your used ink cartridges with them at the following rates:

- Staples: $2/ink up to 10 inks per month (20 inks if you are a premier member by spending at least $1000 a year) No additional purchase necessary.

- Office Depot: $2/ink up to 10 inks per month (you will need to also have spent the equivalent amount in cash at the store for the rewards to show in your account)

- Office Max: $3/ink up to 20 inks per month (you will need to also have spent the equivalent amount in cash at the store for the rewards to show in your account)

You will need to sign up with each store's (free) respective rewards program to take part in this. 

Staples is the easiest as you don't need to make any further purchases to earn store credit. They also often offer bonus ink rewards ($5-$6 per cartridge) with purchase of $50 worth of HP ink.

How do you get Staples premier status or take advantage of Office Depot's/Office Max's ink rewards program with little or no out of pocket costs?

All 3 stores often offer FREE after rebate promotions. I will keep readers as up to date on these as I can. 

Simply buy those items using your rewards account. The money spent counts towards your ink rewards account PLUS you'll get the items FREE. Use, sell or give away! 


How do you get those use ink cartridges?

• Save your own empty inks
• Ask people you know to save them for you
• Try craigslist.org (post a want ad or see if anyone is giving them away)
• Try on your local freecycle.com
• If all else fails, you can buy them on ebay

 

The Kindle Fire and Kindle with Special Offers (KSO)

So, yesterday, Amazon announced their very neat looking Kindle Fire.

That really stung because I bought the KSO for $114 just 2 months ago after much deliberation. :(

Since I'm a cheapskate, I've only used it to download FREE out-of-copyright books and have been quite happy with some of them which ties into our homesteading dreams:

 

There are also tons of other free e-books from Hans Christian Anderson (for the kids) to Jane Austin. If my readers have any other free (or cheap) e-book recommendations, please let me know!

 If you don't want to buy a Kindle, you can still download the books using their App and read them on other devices. Or, Google books is also another great resource for free classic books.

I got my KSO from Staples using my ink rewards so I got it for nothing out of pocket but it still stung.

Don't get my wrong. I still love my KSO but now I love it a little less. Now the newer version of KSO is $79. Argh!

 While I managed to snag the HP Touchpad 32 GB for $150 when they were having their fire sale, the Touchpad is nice, but Kindle Fire with its free video streaming with Amazon Prime is a nice feature.

I will also talk about ways to get free or reduced rates on Amazon Prime in another post.

 

If you're planning on getting just the regular Kindle, I strongly recommend KSO instead. The ads don't interrupt your reading and it's sold at a cheaper price. Some good offers from KSO have included:
- $10 for $20 worth of Amazon credit
- $15 off $30 school supplies purchases
- 20% off a select HDTVs
- 50% of Back-to-School groceries
- $25 off $50 select Back-to-School gear

The 50% off select groceries was what pushed me to get the KSO. There were some awesome deals to be had on coffee, vita coco and ramen. So, if you're thinking of getting a Kindle that's NOT the fire, KSO is definately the way to go!


* Disclaimer: I am an amazon affiliate.

Chicken Pot Pie

This is a great way to stretch out leftovers. I had some left over fried chicken pieces which I bought for dinner from King Scoopers. It's normally $4.99 for 8 pc but since they didn't have the dark meat that I wanted, and since it was late, I got some extra pieces for the same price. Of course, eating too much of that greasiness just made everyone feel stick so we had some pieces left over.

I removed the fried skin (that goes to the chickens - do NOT put this in your compost), saved the bones (for stock, then they go to the chickens), then cubed the meat. You can do this with rotisserie chicken as well.

Ingredients

• 3 pieces of chicken, cooked, de-boned, skinned and cubed
• 3 stalks of celery, diced
• 3 carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 medium onion, peeled and diced
• 3-4 large potatoes, peeled, boiled and mashed
• 1-2 cups milk
• Butter or oil for frying
• 3-4 cups water or chicken stock (preferred)
• Flour (for thickening)
• Salt & pepper to taste
• (Optional) 2 cubes of chicken bouillon, onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, nutmeg to taste

Method

1. Boil water and add peeled/diced potatoes. Reduce to a simmer and cook until soft.
2. Drain water.
3. Add milk and mash potatoes into a creamy consistency. If it's too dry or mealy, add more milk. Butter is optional. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Set mashed potatoes aside. 
5. Preheat oven to 350F
6. In a pan, melt butter (or use oil). Add diced onions and cook until soft
7. Add carrots and celery and cook until soft
8. Add diced chicken, salt, pepper and spices
9. Add water/stock and thicken with flour
10. Put chicken mixture into an oven-safe pan and top with mashed potatoes.
11. Bake uncovered for about 20 min until the potato top is a little browned.

 This is a very flexible recipe. The measurements do NOT need to be followed closely. This is not baking so just do everything to taste. I used carrots, onions and celery because that's what I had on hand. You can use peas, corn etc as well.

The mashed potato topping can be replaced with puff pastry, biscuit dough (then baked) or cornbread. It all works!

Home-Made Pumpkin Puree

This one was an undertaking that stemmed from necessity. I had this pumpkin which my mum grew in our garden over a year ago. It had been sitting in the kitchen since and was starting to get a little mushy and scary-looking.

So, in my bid to not waste it, I decided to make puree out of it.

I cut it into sections and it really didn't look too bad! I just had to cut off the top part which was rotted.

Next, scrape out the seeds (I saved those for another project) and the stringy bits. I saved those for the chickens. If you don't have fowl, be sure to save them for your lasagna garden or the compost!

Cut into sections.

Place sections face-down into an aluminum-lined pan shallowly filled with water.

Bake in a preheated over at 350F for about 30 min or until the flesh is soft.

When cool enough to touch, scrape the flesh out with a spoon.

The pumpkin skin went to the chickens and I stored my scrapings in the fridge for about a week before using an immersion blender to turn the flesh into puree. My pumpkin made about 2 cups of puree which was just perfect for making pumpkin muffins.

Home-Made Granola Bars

This is the first time I've tried making these. They are very easy to make and incredibly expensive to buy at the store. I found a good recipe at allrecipes. However, I made some modifications:

Ingredients

• 2 cups quick cooking oats
• 1 cup organic whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup organic sugar
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup organic apple sauce
• 1/2 cup honey - be sure to buy N.American honey. Avoid Chinese or Indian (actually Chinese) honey.
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons (homemade) vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a 9x13 inch baking pan with aluminum foil or parchment paper, and spray with vegetable oil spray.
2. In a large bowl, stir together oats, flour, molasses, sugar,  salt, cinnamon, chocolate chips and cranberries. In a smaller bowl, thoroughly blend apple sauce honey, egg, and vanilla; pour into the flour mixture, and mix by hand until the liquid is evenly distributed. Press evenly into the prepared baking pan.
3. Bake 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are golden. Cool completely in pan before turning out onto a cutting board and cutting into bars.

 This is a very flexible recipe. I added the cranberries because I had some leftover bits that have been sitting around for a while. We love chocolate so I added the chips.

I get my organic applesauce, crasins and chocolate chips (72oz), organic sugar and vanilla beans from Costco. So far, I've found their prices to be the cheapest, especially if you're able to pair the prices with their coupons.

If a reader has even cheaper sources for any ingredients, please let me know!

Sundays are my designated baking days.

Today I decided to make pumpkin muffins, try my hand at Julia Child's sandwich bread recipe, homemade granola bars and Char Siew (Chinese roast pork) noodles for dinner.

THE GARDEN

Before I start, I'm going to provide some background about my garden. When we bought our 8 acres of Agricultural property on the Colorado foothills in 2006, we had no clue about gardening, planting zones etc. I knew I wanted chickens and do some gardening - that was it. 

In 2008, we got some of our hill leveled. We decided it was time to set the foundation by planting some fruit trees and berry bushes. The problem was, we did nothing other than just digging a hole in the ground and putting some fertilizer before planting. The result was either dead twigs or sickly plants (and yes, I say plants, not trees or bushes). Our overall fruit production from 2008 - 2011 was about 10 berries at the most.

So, word of the wise: prep is VERY important. Here's an example of what our land looked (and looks) like after the leveling off.

So, as you can see, nothing but mountain grass (and some onions!) made it on that ground.

My Egyptian Walking Onions

These were the only plants that I planted that did well. Egyptian Walking Onions are great. They do well with little to no care, and can (obviously) withstand poor soils, drought conditions, wet feet, high altitude, and a searing sun.










Because of the relatively large size of the plot we decided to prep it by lasagna gardening.

We first removed any large rocks then laid cardboard. If you don't have cardboard, you can use non-glossy newspapers. Possible sources of free cardboard are: Costco, Sam's Club, grocery stores, craft stores etc. Be sure to pick the non-waxed/non-glossy ones. If possible, I try to pick the non-colored ones as well. Remove all staples, tape etc before placing it on the garden.

Next, we dumped old potting dirt, poultry bedding (pine shavings), horse manure which our neighbor kindly trucked over, cow dung, and chicken poop. If you don't have access to this, you can contact your local nursery. Many places sell composted manure at a reasonable price. Some will even deliver within a certain radius.

Other possible additions: non-greasy fruit and vegetable scraps, spent coffee grounds (your local Starbucks might be able to give you some for free), grass clippings, dead leaves, compost, seaweed.

I didn't add vegetable scraps since my chickens eat those and I didn't want to invite more mice into the area.

This is what the prep bed looks like so far

 The plexi-glass sheets were placed on top for solarization - basically an attempt to kill weeds and disease. Many sources recommend using plastic sheets for solarization but we've found that they tend to disintegrate, leaving hard to remove bits of plastic everywhere.

We therefore decided to just reuse the plexi which we had when we converted the existing greenhouse into a chicken coop. Here is an example of the effects of solarization:

If any of my readers have any advice or comments to add on this article, I welcome them. There is always so much to learn!

Deal for the Day:

xbox 4GB console for $180 free shipping!
Use coupon code: AFL4COUPON

Deal for the Day

$20 Chili's gift card for $10

Deal of the Day:

Timberland is offering 40% off Your Entire Order when you enter coupon code FRIEND11S at checkout. Offer valid through September 19.

Our local King Scoopers sells chicken thighs for $0.79/lb so I normally have some stocked and frozen in the freezer for days where I can't think of anything else to cook.
Today I made a 5-spice chicken with rice:


Ingredients:


3 chicken thighs (or breasts if you prefer)
1/4 tsp baking soda (optional)


Marinade:

1/4 c soy sauce or amino acids
1 tbsp 5-spice (you can get this easily at an Asian grocer)
1/2 tbsp minced ginger
1 tsp garlic powder



Sides/Garnish (all optional)


3c rice, cooked
Cucumber, skinned and sliced
Cilantro


Recipe:


(Optional step). Sprinkle baking soda on the meat and allow to stand for at least 1 hour. Rise. This tenderizes the meat and is the secret as to why the meat at Chinese restaurants are often so tender.


Mix the marinade ingredients then marinade the meat in it for at least an hour. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Place marinated meat on a backing rack (with a tray under it) and bake for 45 min or until cooked through. Broil on low for 4 min for an extra crisp if desired. 

Serve with rice, cucumber and cilantro.

The cilantro came from my garden and is greener and more fragrant than you can ever get at the grocery store.
A good place to get cheap fresh ginger would be at an Asian grocer. Here in the Denver area, it runs approx $0.99/lb to $1.20/lb vs at least $4.99/lb at a regular supermarket. They tend to shrivel up over time so the best way to store them is to peel and chop them into portioned chunks. Freeze chunks in a freezer bag. They last a LONG time this way. To use, just rinse off a chunk under water and use as you would fresh.

We are working towards moving away from cheap store bought meat as we were told from a reputable source that these meats tend to come from animals with cancer  where the tumors are just cut off and the meat is then sold cheap.

After much consideration, we've decided to try hunting this year for fresh, wild, sustainable meat. More on this later.

Deals for the day:

• Livingsocial has Whole Foods $20 vouchers going for $10. Limit 1 per person

• 20% off coupon at Toys R Us Stores 

You need to install shopkick app for Andoid or Iphone
After installing, add Toys R Us to your favorite stores, click on the 20% off Coupon, and click the "use this coupon" link in the top right.
Some exclusions apply, but valid on toys, bicycles, and more! Not valid at toysrus.com
Coupon good thru 9/24/11.

This should be good for the new Star Wars release.

• eBay is having a free listing day on all auction-style listings (up to 150 listings) all day today. This is a good time to clear out some of your stuff!

Disclaimer: I am a Livingsocial affiliate

Today I decided to use some cod fish which I bought on sale at Safeway sometime ago. I kept it a tad too long in the freezer and it was rather dry looking and freezer burnt. Not waiting to waste it, I decided to mask the reduced quality by mixing it up with some potatoes and making cod cakes out of it.
This is a slight variation of the classic salt-cod recipe.

Approx 1lb cod (defrosted)
2 large potatoes, cubed
1 medium onion, diced
All purpose flour for the breading
2 eggs
Salt, black pepper, Old Bay Cajun seasoning to taste

For pan-frying:

Olive oil
A pat of butter

Bring salted water to a boil. Add cod and potatoes. Boil then reduce heat to medium and cook until the potatoes are soft and the fish flakes with a fork. 

Heat the olive oil and butter in a frying pan.

Add a little salt to the flour and mix well.


Drain the fish and potatoes and allow to cool a little. Mash well. Add seasoning, onions and eggs. Form into patties and coat with the flour mixture. When the oil mixture is hot enough (oil should sizzle when you drop some flour into it) pan fry the patties until golden brown.


Best served with tartar sauce.

I didn't have homemade tartar sauce so I used some Heinz ketchup. I used the Old Bay because that's what I had on hand. I think any seafood seasoning would work well with this.

Verdict:

The cod cakes were AWESOME! Even David who isn't big on seafood cakes loved it. A+++. It was a really great way to consume a little too-old cod without sacrificing taste.

Here's a nice freebie from SuzieOrman.com


Will/Revocable Trust/Power of Attorney kit until 9/13 $59 value
Will
Revocable Trust
Financial Power of Attorney
Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care

Good until Midnight September 13th.
Enter code CNBC under the gift code option

Another notable deal is the Huggies Natural Care Wipes on Amazon. Comes to less than $0.02/wipe with Amazon Mom and subscribe and save. In case you didn't know, it's free to join Amazon Mom and you can cancel your subscription immediately after ordering.

I normally buy Target's UP & UP unscented wipes as they are normally cheaper but the Huggies ones are much nicer and tear so much more easily (I had a sample pack and really liked them)

The Beginnings...

OK. So this blog starts with my foray into making my own deli meat. Well, actually, it starts earlier, with having 2 baby girls and the sticker shock of buying 'all natural' deli meat.

My husband and I have been striving to eat better over the years and with the birth of our 2 girls, we wanted to make sure that they were not going to be one of their generation who will have a shorter lifespan than us.

So, back to the lunch meat. I did manage to find some Hormel All Natural Lunch Meat but at $4.99/7-8oz, it was just way too much to pay on a regular basis. So began my search online for a homemade lunch meat recipe. I found this one:

We used

Approx 2lbs chicken thigh meat

2 egg whites from our ducks +

A mix of sauces and spices in our kitchen:

Salt, black pepper, white pepper, ketchup, ketup manis (a dark sweet soy sauce found in Asian groceries), A1 sauce, honey, cumin, fennel and some onion powder.

Pulse everything in a food processor until lumpy. 

Shape in a foiled and oiled loaf pan.

Bake at 350 F until done.

Chill and slice


The verdict: Promising but a little too strong in BBQ taste. Our texture was off as well. I think we pulsed the meat a little too long - it turned out more like a meat loaf. It was still good but we'll have to re-experiment with this!

Here's a picture of what's left of it after a chow-down. As you can see, it doesn't look too hot so more on this later!