hummus costs HOW much?

part of the whole being frugal thing is checking the weekly flyers for sales. i have made it a habit to check online every thurday morning to see if any of the staples i need are on sale. yesterday, i noticed that one of the stores i frequent has hummus on special this week. i took a look at the specifics, and noticed two things

1) the hummus was on special 2/$6, meaning that each one was $3

2) each container held approximately one cup

SWEET MOTHER OF PEARL!!!!

is it just me, or does that seem ridiculously expensive to you? i make a lot of my own foods because i like to know what i’m feeding my children, and it usually saves money. i didn’t realise how much i was saving by making my own hummus. it’s super easy and way cheaper, and there are no scary preservatives in it.  i make mine in a food processor, but if you don’t have one, a blender or a handheld blender will do the job (not as quickly or efficiently, but it will get the job done)

HUMMUS

1  540ml / 19oz can of chickpeas

1-2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cumin

3 tbsp tahini (if you don’t have tahini you can use your favourite nut butter)

2 tbsp lemon juice

liquid from chickpeas

drain chickpeas, reserving liquid. dump them into processor bowl (or blender, or mixing bowl) wazz them up a a few times to break them down. add tahini (or nut butter) and wazz some more. add salt, cumin, lemon juice, and garlic and wazz again. (there’s a lot of wazzing in this recipe! so fun!) keep the processor going as you slowly start adding the reserved liquid. don’t add it all at once or you’ll have soup instead of hummus! keep going until the hummus reaches the desired consistancy. (takes about half of the liquid) i like mine to be pretty thick (think sour cream consistancy). put it in a bowl and break out the pitas! (or tortilla chips if thats your bag)

of course, the great thing about cooking is that you an adjust any of the seasonings to your own tastes. so if you hate cumin, leave it out. love garlic? throw another clove in! play around and have some fun.

ta da! easy isn’t it? and it will cost less than $1 (for over 2 cups of deliciousness)

next up…i’m gonna try baking pitas!

Evergreen

Not that I want to age myself here, but I’ve been quilting for about 18 years. The last few years I have gotten pretty serious about it and I now have close to 60 quilt tops completed. A friend of mine is the coordinator of evergreen artists’ market, a fair with local artisans held in prince Albert in November. She asked me if I’d like to have a table in the fair and for some reason I said yes! Its becoming painfully clear that if I don’t get my act together, I’m going to have only 3 quilts to sell. My problem is that I have never been particularly confident in my abilities. I realised several years ago that in fact, I’m a perfectionist. I’m not the control freak type who won’t let anyone else do the laundry cause they won’t do it right. I’m the type who won’t finish what I start because it isn’t turning out the way I anticipated. It’s funny, because USUALLY, if I persevere, I am very happy with the results. My problem here is that I’m asking other people to pay me for my efforts. What if it isn’t good enough? What if people think I’m charging too much? What if someone tells me its crap? What if I don’t sell anything? What if I don’t have enough variety? I could go on and on. I have to give my head a shake and get to work. If others think it’s good enough to sell, then I should too! Wish me luck! Here I goooooooooo!

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nine, ten, a big fat hen

there’s just something about a rooster crowing that SCREAMS farm. we decided last winter that we wanted some chickens, so we placed an order and we got 30 day old chicks in may. having been raised in the city, we had a lot to learn. thankfully, our library is a great resource and we got all the information we needed (and some we didn’t!) we have had a great time raising the chicks and it’s been a wonderful experience for the boys. we’ve done fairly well, losing only one chick at around the 4 week mark, and two hens and two roosters to a chicken eating german shepherd puppy that has since found a new home. the hens started to lay a few weeks ago, and as they mature more of them are laying and the eggs are getting bigger. in a few weeks, we’ll butcher the most of the roosters and have delcious free range chicken in our freezer. i won’t say that it’s cheaper to raise your own, but it’s nice to know that the animals had a happy life

 

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Life on the Prairie

     Shortly after we moved out here, my husband (I’ll call him Curly) left his career as a truck driver and after a couple of interim jobs, was hired on as a farm hand by the man we bought the property from. He’s been doing it for four seasons now, and while it can be very tiring and sometimes stressful, for the most part he enjoys it. (He won’t admit it, but I think he likes to play with all of the equipment) We have two young boys, Dude, who is 5 (or 5 1/2 if you ask him) and Poop (yes, that really is his nickame ) who is almost 2. I am a stay-at-home-mom, which is the toughest and most rewarding job I’ve ever had.
      Part of the deal with me staying home is that I try my best to save money whenever possible. We are certainly not lacking for anything, but we are on a budget, so i do my best to keep our spending to a minimum on things like groceries and gas. We are a 45 minute drive from the nearest major centre, so to be cost effective, I always plan so we can get all of our shopping and errands done in one weekly trip. I have a garden every summer and freeze or can as much as possible. We are so lucky that the previous owners loved to garden, as we have an abundance of fruit trees in our yard. I make all of the jams and jellies that we use and freeze some of the extra fruit for baking. we didn’t have a terrific harvest this year, but we still have had enough to keep me busy for a couple of weeks. i also love to bake and am looking forward to the cooler weather so i can bake without making the house unbearably hot. with curly home in the winter, i tend to do a lot more cooking and baking. we both also tend to put on some extra padding. once i get into the swing of things with the whole blog experience, i hope to share some of my favourite recipes with you, so you can put on some padding of your own!
 
 
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