I love Hollandaise Sauce.  It tastes so rich and lovely drizzled over everything from lightly steamed vegetables to my favorite Old Fashioned Salmon Loaf.

Of course part of the reason it tastes so rich is because the typical recipe calls for 4 egg yolks and a full stick of butter.  And you’ve got to use a double boiler–a piece of kitchen equipment in this day of microwaves that many home makers don’t even own.

So over the years I’ve resorted to using those little powdered packets of Hollandaise mix. . . but they have been steadily creeping up in cost over the last few years.

In my quest to replace them I found this interesting Mock Hollandaise recipe.  I’ll be honest-it really doesn’t hold a candle to real Hollandaise.  It’s thicker-more of a thin sour cream texture than a drizzle-y Hollandaise.  You aren’t going to fool anyone into thinking that it is the original.  However if you enjoy it for what it is-a thick, rich sauce that you can whip up in just a few moments from ingredients that you always have on hand–then you’ll be able to enjoy it.

Time again for the weekly meal plan!

This week is fairly simple-nothing too out of the ordinary to deal with (thank goodness!)

1.  Standard schedule of meetings and after school type activities.  Scouts & Pool on Wednesdays, Yankee Bill has a meeting on Tuesday (today), Princess has her dance lesson.  The regular stuff.

2.  Monday I was in town all day with a meeting and errands.  So I needed a simple dinner.

3.  Tuesday (tonight) there is an ice cream social and talent show we want to go to.  Friday Yankee Bill has an evening event and I have a girls night out scheduled-so it’s just the kiddos that night.

4.  Yankee Bill will be gone all day Saturday with our motorcycle group.  Unfortunately every single one of my usual babysitters is busy on Saturday, so I guess I don’t get to go with him.

5.  I’ve got a lot of really nice lettuce in the fridge since it was on sale this week.  I’ve also still got those butternut squash up on top of my kitchen cabinets from last fall (gotta use those up soon!).   Last week when I was making the meal plan I forgot that Sunday was Mother’s Day and planned a fairly intensive meal.  I ditched that on Sunday and went with very uber simple because I didn’t want to cook.  So that nice big trout is still in the freezer.

6. As always my goal is to have one venison meal, one fish meal, one bean meal, one meatless meal and one soup meal per week.

Taking all that into account here is my game plan:

Monday: Super Size Submarine Salad with Macaroni and Cheese

While I was running errands I found a really nice loaf of “everything” Italian bread at Walmart marked down to $.99–I decided a big sandwich was just the thing for dinner.  3 kinds of lunch meat, cheese, tomato and lettuce made a delicious sandwich.  I used the leftover boxed mac ‘n cheese as a side.

Tuesday: Venison Curry over Angel Hair Pasta

I’m way behind on planning tonight’s dinner (it’s almost 4pm as I type this).  I’ll make a “This and That” style curry with odds and ends from the fridge, perhaps some canned carrots or beans from last fall etc.  I’ll quick defrost some venison from the freezer-I only need to partially defrost it and then if I slice it into thin chunks it should brown up quickly with some onion in my skillet before adding the rest.  I’ve got a bit of leftover rice in the fridge and a bunch of leftover angel hair pasta-so we’ll serve it over that.

This is my venison meal for the week.

Wednesday: Homemade Cream of Broccoli Soup, Salad and Bagels

There was a good sale on frozen broccoli, so I picked up several bags.  I’ll make a cream of broccoli soup from scratch and serve it with green salad (using that really nice lettuce!) and some of the bagels my neighbor gifted me with.

This is my meatless meal and my soup meal for the week.

Thursday: Grilled Lentil Burgers, Potato Salad and Pickled Beets

I’ve got a few lentil burger recipes to try-I’m looking for that holy grail of a tasty patty that doesn’t fall to pieces on the grill!  I’ll serve them on buns and put potato salad and some quick pickled/marinated beets.

This is my bean meal for the week (and another meatless meal).

Friday: Perogies & Salad

The kids love frozen Perogies for dinner when Yankee Bill and I aren’t around.  There should be plenty of leftover green salad to put with them.

Saturday: Pizza

Since we won’t be home for me to make Pizza on Friday I’ll make my Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe on Saturday instead!

Sunday: Baked Trout with Wheat/Rice Pilaf, Grilled Leeks and Green Beans

The trout is from the freezer (still).  I’ve bought wheat to grind in my new grain mill, so I figure it will be fun to experiment with cooking it as a grain-so I’ll try the pilaf.  The Leeks are from the garden and the green beans are canned from last fall.

This is my fish meal for the week.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are you interested in learning more about menu planning? Check out my post “Why Plan a Weekly Menu” .

Dogs add a lot to our lives, don’t they?  Sure, they can be work–but where else in this crazy world could you possibly get the kind of unconditional love and adoration that you get from a dog?

The Frugal Upstate dog, Summer, is your basic “Heinz 57″ all American mutt.  My husband visited the pound 3 years ago as part of his job and fell in love.  Next thing I knew we had an adorable little black puppy.  The kids thought she was fantastic and she became my little buddy.

She’s still more my dog than anyone elses-when I go away on trips she refuses to eat the first few days I’m gone in protest

So when Walmart, Pedigree and Pet Armor said they wanted to send me some products for Summer to try out I thought that was a great idea!  And let me tell you, as soon as the box arrived and I opened it she knew there was something inside for her.

We had to try out some of the wet food immediately.  Summer mostly has dry dog food, with the occasional table scraps thrown in as a treat.  When I set up the food for my photograph and made her sit & stay she was quivering with excitement. . . she could smell that yummy food that I had opened!

As soon as I gave her the “ok” command she DOVE into it.  The food was gone in seconds.  I’ll say that’s a resounding “yum” from Summer!!!

I know what I’ll be having the family feed Summer the next time I go on a trip to get her to eat!

The other item I was sent to try was the Pet Armor flea and tick treatment.

Now I don’t know about where you live, but here in Upstate NY we had an unusually warm winter.  While it was nice not to have to shovel the walk as much, or to have any power outages from blizzards, apparently the mild temperatures didn’t kill off as many of the ticks as usual.  They are predicting a really bad year for ticks.  Blech.  We live in deer country, and deer ticks are what transmit the really nasty Lyme disease.  So keeping the ticks away from the dog and out of our home is a necessity.

These treatments really should be done once a month, and with the other brands we’ve used it has cost  a pretty penny.  The Pet Armor brand has the same ingredients as the other brands you might be familiar with, and at about half the cost your wallet will thank you!  You get 3 doses per box, and as long as they are kept sealed they don’t expire.  Bonus!

 You can bet the Frugal Upstate household will continue to use this product after my samples are gone.  All the protection and half the cost are things this girl likes to hear!

And that’s not all, along with this campaign is a great way that you can help your local shelter without spending a dime:

 Help shelter pets in need by participating in the PetArmor® Protection Promise! Throughout May 2012, one flea and tick treatment will be donated to the ASPCA®, or to a shelter of your choice. (up to 20,000 doses).  It’s easy, just “Like” PetArmor on Facebook and select the participating shelter you want the treatment to go to!

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.

Dear Frugal Upstate,

Photo by Florence Crayne

I’ve been using and love your Homemade Laundry Soap, but it’s got me wondering. . . do you have a frugal homemade laundry stain remover?  My kids (and frankly my husband) are hard on clothes.

Alice

Well Alice, here are a few inexpensive options you can use to deal with stains.  Remember, I am not a fabric or stain expert, and you have to use any method at your own risk:

1.  Use Fels Naptha, Octagon or another “Laundry” bar soap as a stain pretreatment.

Many people will just take a bar of a true laundry soap such as Fels Naptha, wet it and rub it into the stain.  Let it sit for a few minutes then toss it in the laundry as usual.

2.  Pretreat with Tide (or another product you feel really works well).

At one of the conferences I attended I had a really long, really interesting talk with one of the gentleman from a large name brand detergent company you would recognize.  I found it very interesting that he said yes, Tide really does get out the tough stains. . . but that most other detergents (like the brand he represented) worked just as well for normal laundry dirt.

My takeaway?  For 90% of the jobs the inexpensive stuff (or homemade!) is fine, but if you’ve got a really really tough stain you might want to try the good stuff.  So maybe, in the long run, it’s worth it to buy something like Tide, but to keep it ONLY as a stain pretreater-just rub a little bit of the liquid into the stain and give it time to work, then use the homemade detergent for the entire load.

3.  Use a Homemade Stain Soak

I found the recipe for this stain soak years ago in my copy of  The Complete Tightwad Gazette:

1 C Powdered Cascade (or other plain powdered dishwasher detergent)
1 C Clorox II
5 Gallons very hot tap water

Mix it together and then soak the stained articles overnight.  Do not use on delicate fabrics or fabrics that are not color safe.

4. Ignore the stain.

Yeah, this is actually a method! An item can have a stain and be completely clean. I don’t bother trying to get the stains out of the bottoms of my kids socks (they INSIST on wearing socks outside while I’m not looking) or my washcloths for the kitchen sink.

Personally, I like the idea of kids having “play clothes” and “school clothes” so that when they come home (and are more likely to be outside getting filthy) they wear clothes that are either already stained or that I don’t care if they get stained.  I’m working on implementing that here-maybe it’s something that would help you?

So what are some of your favorite frugal stain strategies?

One of the least expensive fruits in your local supermarket, per pound, is usually the lowly banana.

Poor Banana!  Although grown in tropical regions they are so plentiful and so well known that we sort of take them for granted.  I guess it’s true-if something is inexpensive most people tend to think it is unexciting.

Bananas really are a great fruit!  They are tasty in their various stages (I like them pretty ripe myself) and although their life out on the counter isn’t too long, and you don’t want to stick one in  your BDU pants pocket and then forget about it when you are going through training (ask me how I know.  Ewww. Smooshed banana) you can always chuck the extras that are starting to be a bit OVER ripe into a container in the freezer.  (note-they will turn to mush when they defrost, but that’s fine for baking!)

Fresh bananas can be eaten plain, sliced into cold cereal or oatmeal, stuck on a stick and frozen as a treat, cooked into Banana Pancakes or baked into Banana Bread, Banana Squares and Banana Oatmeal Drop Cookies.

Here’s another great way to eat your bananas-dehydrated banana slices!  They are super easy to make if you have a solar or electric dehydrator.

1.  Slice bananas into 1/8″ slices.  On one website I saw it mentioned that 1/8″ is about the same width as two quarters stacked on top of each other.

2.  Lay them on the dehydrator sheet almost touching.  If you like you can spray them with a bit of lemon juice to keep them from darkening.  It’s mostly an aesthetic thing.  If I’m in the mood to do that I just put my lemon juice into a clean spraybottle that I ONLY use for lemon juice.  Spritz it on (over the sink please!) and go.

3.  Dehydrate at around 105 degrees (if you have a thermostat) for about 10-12 hours.  I like to flip mine over about half way through.  You sort of have to peel them up off the tray.  When they are done they will be smaller, thinner, darker but still bend, like I’m doing in the photo.  They are actually more like banana fruit leather bites.  They are NOT going to get hard and “snap” the way the banana chips at the store will.

4.  Store in a zippered baggie, plastic container or glass mason jar.  Enjoy as a very sweet and chewy snack.  If I was packaging them for longer term storage I’d either use a vacuum sealer or some oxygen absorbers–and I’d still be aware that they would probably all stick together in a lump

If you want to, you can reconstitute them into a banana mush by soaking them in just enough warm water to cover them.   Then you can use them in any baked good or just eat as banana mush   I know in my house they all get eaten as if they were banana candy by the kiddos-I never get the CHANCE to store them for longer time periods.

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.

Congratulations to Colleen who won the Rubbermaid 2-in-1 Recycler!

And thanks again to Rubbermaid for hosting this giveaway!

I love gardening-you all probably know that by now!  I love to grow my own healthy, tasty food just steps from my back door, and I love that my kids are able to see how food grows and to make the connections between the environment, what we do and what we eat.  So you could say I was excited when Seeds of Change and Walmart offered to let me try the new Seeds of Change children’s Garden Starter Kits.  We chose the Kids Watermelon Stater Kit.

Of course, Seeds of Change offers all sorts of great heirloom and organic seeds-I especially like that they have so many uncommon varieties!  I frequently buy their seed packets.  These kits were something new though-they have everything your kids need to get the seeds started-you don’t have to buy a single other thing!

The watermelon kit came with two pots, a water tray to go underneath, the watermelon seeds, enough organic planting mix to fill the pots and an instruction sheet.
Since this was the Kids kit, I drafted Princess to help me out.  We got out a tray (to contain the mess) and sat down at the dining room table.  She started out by reading the very simple directions.

She cut open the planting mix and filled the two pots, which then were set into the little watering tray.

Following the directions, she added 1/4 cup of water to each pot.  Here’s a tip-use warm but not hot water-it will be absorbed more easily by the planting medium.  Or, if you’ve got time, open the top of the bag of planting medium, add the water in and then fold over the top and tape or clip it shut overnight.  That gives it time to absorb the moisture!

Next she used my sharpie to make 4 planting holes.  In gardening parlance the thing you use to make holes is a “dibbler“. . . so if you want to sound fancy you can call it that

She planted the seeds and then covered them with soil.  I filled out some plant markers with the item (watermelon) and the date.

We covered the entire thing in a plastic bag to keep the moisture in and put it downstairs in my seed starting rig to get going.  Most seeds like it a bit warm to germinate-and they actually don’t require light until they break through the soil-so you might consider putting your seed tray somewhere nice and warm to start with and then move them under lights in a cooler environment once they pop out!

They took a while-don’t get impatient, but the did pop up!  Woohoo, Princess has watermelon seedlings.

Now once the seedlings are up you have to consider how and when to plant them outside.  I know from experience that Watermelon cannot be planted outside until all danger of frost is past.

Trust me on this-watermelon+frost=disaster.

The planting instructions on the side of the box were very general-and they stated to give the plant 1foot of space.  I happen to know that watermelon is a vining plant and spreads-so that didn’t seem right to me. Perhaps it was a special cultivar with a bush habitat?  I had never heard of such a thing but it was possible.  I double checked the seed packet and it just said “watermelon”.

Never fear-see right at the bottom there where it says “need help”?  Well I called that number and got the voice-mail of the Growing Pro at Seeds of Change.  She called me back (and not because I was blogging about the kit-I made sure NOT to mention that in any way-I just wanted to be a regular customer) and we discussed the directions.

Turns out he seed included in the kit is their “Sugar Baby” cultivar.  It is indeed a normal vining watermelon and should have more along the lines of a 4 foot square section in the garden.  Turns out the directions are printed standard for all the kits. 

Now that my seedlings are up I’ll start hardening them off by bringing them outside for a few hours each day, starting in a more shady area and eventually working them up to spending the full day in the sun.  They are like babies at this point, you can’t just toss them out there!

Once we past our last frost date (that’s Memorial Day here folks-again, so jealous of you further south) I will take the seedlings outside on an overcast day or later in the afternoon when then sun isn’t so strong and I’ll dig a hole, toss in a trowel full of compost (melon & squash are particularly heavy feeders), place the seedling inside the hole, fill around it with dirt, pat it in firmly and then water the heck out of it to make sure the soil settles in all around the plant.  I’ll take the marker I used for the seedling and stick it into the dirt near the plant and we’ll be living large

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.

Time to start the week out right with a meal plan!

This week is slightly less chaotic than the last few have been.  As of right now we have only the “regularly” scheduled activities, more or less.

1.  Scouts for both kids and hubs playing pool on Wednesday, which means a hectic evening which calls for an easy meal.

2. Friday and Saturday some of my friends are having a yard sale at my house.  I live in the village with all the excellent traffic.  They live in the sticks.  I actually don’t have anything to sell!  Regardless, there will be people in and out and those days will be busy.

3. One of my friends is graduating from her Masters program this week and we will all be going to the shindig at her house on Saturday-so we’ll be eating BBQ & cake and I don’t have to cook.
4. As always my goal is to have one venison meal, one fish meal, one bean meal, one meatless meal and one soup meal per week.

Taking all that into account here is my game plan:

Monday: Beans, Rice and Cornbread

That pork butt roast I had scheduled for last Sunday?  Yeah, turned out it was pork butt steaks!  I changed the recipe I used a bit and charged on with it.  There was one steak and a bunch of braising liquid left, so I decided to toss that, the leftover onions & carrots, and some soaked pinto beans into the crockpot for supper.  I’ll make a pot of rice (beans & rice make a complete protien) to go with, just like that “School House Rock” video I remember from Saturday mornings as a kid:

Cornbread just goes so well with it, and I have some leftover that I made this weekend for coffee hour at church, so there you have it!

This is my bean meal for the week

Tuesday: Venison Parmigiana, Angel Hair Pasta and Salad

I haven’t made my venison parmigiana recipe in a while-so it will be a nice change!  I’ll serve it (with extra sauce) over the angel hair pasta and put a salad on the side from the lettuce I bought at ALDI last week.

This is my venison meal for the week.

Wednesday: Frittata with a Green Salad

The kids actually aren’t that fond of eggs.  Yankee Bill and I like them so no idea what happened there.  A frittata is inexpensive, easy and quick-so we’ll try to see if I can get the kids to love it.

This is my meatless meal for the week.

Thursday: Potato Sausage Soup

Last week I defrosted a pound of Italian sausage (from my awesome organic 1/2 pig) and mixed half pound of it with beef for burgers.  That leaves me with a 1/2 pound defrosted in the fridge.  I’ll brown it up and make the P0tato Sausage Soup in my crockpot.  I know it’s getting to be spring, and that a potato soup seems to be a wintery dish, but it’s supposed to be cold and rainy on Thursday so that will work.

This is my soup meal for the week

Friday: Pizza Hut Crust Clone Pizza

It’s Friday, so we HAVE to have my Pizza Hut Crust Clone Pizza!

Saturday: Graduation Party

So I don’t have to cook!

Sunday: Baked Trout with Wheat/Rice Pilaf, Grilled Leeks and Green Beans

I found a REALLY big trout that my brother in law gave me in the freezer-so we will just do a simple baking of that.  I’m going to try making rice pilaf but mixing it 1/2 wheat berries and 1/2 rice–wish me luck!  I also have just a few leeks that I overwintered in the garden left.  I’m worried that they are going to go to flower, so I better use them now.  I read something recently about someone grilling leeks and it just sounded good-so why not.  The green beans will be canned from last years garden.

This is my fish meal for the week.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are you interested in learning more about menu planning? Check out my post “Why Plan a Weekly Menu” .

Here’s another cool program from Walmart-the new “pay with cash” for online purchases!

Up until now if you wanted to buy something online but didn’t have or want to use a credit card you were pretty much out of luck.  Enter Walmart.com’s new “pay with cash” program.

You place your order online, are emailed a bar code, then you go to any cash register at your local Walmart within 48 hours.  There they will scan in your bar code, you pay in cash and the order is finalized.  Then it will ship either to home or for “site to store”.

Here’s a video where I walk you through the ordering process:

Walmart’s Pay with Cash

The pay with cash program is NOT available with the “Pick up Today” program.  In that case just go into the store and pick it up off the shelf yourself and pay at any register

This program is great for those customers who may not be eligible for a credit card due to their age or their credit history, or just anyone who chooses not to use a traditional bank.

Also, because there are many more items available on Walmart.com than are present in the stores cash customers now have access to a much wider range of products.  Cash customers now also have the ability to order gifts and have them shipped to someone else-an option that has never been available to cash customers before!

What do you think? Do you have use for the “pay with cash” program?

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.

These “Light and Tasty Cornmeal Biscuits” are a wonderful drop biscuit to pair with a bowl of soup or a salad. They are much lighter than a typical cornbread but have a little more “tooth” than a typical biscuit. I love the fact that they are drop biscuits-which eliminates the entire messy “rolling and cutting” step.

Even if you have folks in your family who are not fond of cornbread I urge you to give these biscuits a try-they are a much more delicate flavor!

If you are looking for a more standard cornbread recipe, be sure to try my Sweet Northern Cornbread.  Of course both my Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe and my Apple Bread both use a bit of cornmeal to give more texture and flavor as well!