Life As I See It

Unemployment is rising, stocks are dropping and the economy looks like it is going to get a lot worse. Here are a few tips to weather the storm. Remember, the best way to earn money is to not spend what you have unless you have to.

Bulgar Wheat-I wrote about Bulgar wheat in a previous post. Bulgar wheat can be used to extend your meat dollars and also decrease your fat intake. Just prepare the Bulgar wheat by cooking it in your microwave or on the stove. As with any grain, the formula for cooking is 2 to 1; 1 cup of Bulgar wheat to 2 cups of water. Cook the Bulgar wheat on high for about 8 minutes in an open microwave safe bowl. After the microwave shuts off cover the Bulgar wheat and let it set until all of the water is absorbed by the wheat. You can then add the Bulgar wheat to all of your ground beef dishes; you can freeze any Bulgar wheat that you don't use. I add about 20-25% Bulgar wheat to my ground beef. I also make vegetarian Chili with Bulgar wheat; I just eliminate the ground beef when I make the chili. You can add Bulgar wheat to your soups and stews also. Most of my soups should really be called stoups as they are thicker than soup therefore more filling. Fresh cooked Bulgar wheat can also be used as a nutritious hot cereal. Add raisins or other fruit and a little milk to the cereal.

Meat Dishes-Meat is one of the most expensive items in your food budget and it is going to get more expensive. Stretch the money you spend on meat by considering meat as a condiment for your vegetable dishes. Buy cheaper cuts of meat and prepare them in the pressure cooker. Meats cooked in a slow cooker usually come out more tender than if the meat was baked or fried. When you make meat loaf add cooked rice, Bulgar wheat or day-old bread as a filler. Always have a salad with your meat dishes and your family will eat less meat and they will be eating much more healthy. If you add cheese to your meat dishes, use the cheese as a garnish not as 25% of the dish. This will save you medical bills later in life.

Vegetables-Kids often rebel at the thought of eating vegetables. It's easy to make vegetable dishes more appetizing to kids. Consider making a cream sauce with soft tofu (recipes are on the Internet) or adding a bit of spaghetti sauce to the vegetables with a dash of Parmesan cheese on top or your could just add a small amount of your family's favorite shredded cheese. Kids love to eat raw vegetables dipped into ranch dressing. Make a thin mustard dip for raw vegetables by adding a bit of water and olive oil to your family's favorite mustard. Be creative and make a couple of meals each week meatless meals. A meatless meal of cooked spaghetti made with a store brand spaghetti sauce that you have jazzed up and a side salad is a cheap, nutritious and filling meal. A simple vegetable treat is to slice ripe tomatoes about 3/8" thick and place on an oven-proof flat dish. Spray the tomato slices lightly with olive oil and garnish with oregano, garlic and parsley. Put a 1" square of your favorite cheese in the center of each tomato slice and cook into your toaster oven or regular oven broiler until the cheese melts and the tomato begins to cook. Your family will snap them up. Buy vegetables when they are on sale and in bulk. Parboil the raw vegetables if necessary and put in quart baggies in your freezer. Peppers, onions and tomatoes can be frozen without any parboiling. You can grate potatoes that you bought on sale for hash browns using your favorite recipe. After parboiling put the hash browns in your freezer in quart baggies. When you serve boiled potatoes you don't have to drown them in butter; pour low fat or no fat salad dressing on them for a delicious treat. When buying frozen vegetables at the grocery store buy the largest size that you can afford and separate them into quart baggies when you get home. The best tip is to grow as many of the vegetables that your family loves yourself.

Lunches-Lunches can be made for about $2.00 per lunch. That is much better than buying lunch at a fast food place for $6.00 to $10.00 and healthier too. That salad at a fast food place that you paid $6.95 for can be made at home much cheaper and without the sulfates. Talk to your kids and find out what they consider a perfect bag lunch. Add a little treat each day such as grapes, a few raisins, a couple of pieces of candy or a fruit that they don't usually get. Beware of adding seeds or peanuts to the lunch as your child eating them can make another child with allergies deathly ill. Some schools have banned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A little note stuck into the lunch bag that tells them how much you love them makes the lunch taste much better. Talk to them when they get home and ask how their lunch was. Often kids will love a baloney sandwich today and hate it tomorrow. A baggie of raw vegetable slices with a small bit of ranch dressing in a separate container will make your child the envy of his pals.

Transportation-Gas prices have fallen but are expected to rise again. Combine your trips. Plan your trips for the week. Car pool if possible to get to work. Have one parent take other kids to Scouts or ball practice and rotate the assignment. Keep your car serviced and in good repair to make it last longer. Go on the Internet to find the cheapest gas in your neighborhood. Before you go to the grocery store call your neighbors and ask if they want to go with you. After a few times they will return the favor. Get in the mind set that if you use your car you are wasting money and you will see the difference in your fuel bills.

Housing-Many homes are still not insulated properly. Insulation is no longer to increase your comfort; it is an absolute necessity. Check your home to find out where you are wasting energy and fix it. Lower the thermostat a bit to save energy. Lowering your thermostat 2 degrees will save about 3% on your fuel bill. If no one is home during the day get a programmable thermostat for substantial savings. All of the programmable thermostats that I have installed have an override for days that you have to be home. The plastic bubble wrap that is used for packaging can be used to make your windows more energy efficient. The plastic wrap can be had for free from furniture stores and appliance stores. They throw huge amounts away each week. Just cut the bubble wrap to fit the glass and then spray clear water on the glass to make it wet. Press the bubble wrap on to the glass; bubble side toward the glass. As the water dries the bubble wrap will adhere to the glass. One study suggests that this will make the window 15% more energy efficient. The view out of the window will be hazy but the light will come through. A simple black plastic trash bag, placed where the sun shining through the window can hit it, will often heat up to 95 degrees. This heat will be radiated into the home. Keep the drapes closed on windows that don't receive the sun. Go to www.builditsolar.com for hundreds of other ways to save energy.

Healthy-Eat more vegetables and fruit, wash your hands often and use a hand sanitizer often, exercise and stay active, lessen the stress in your life, keep working, make new friends every day, take yoga classes, volunteer, go back to school even if only to take basket making classes, take stock of your life every day, do everything to make your life simpler, when you receive help-pay it forward, do something unexpected and nice for someone every day, teach your children how to cope with life's problems and teach them how to interact with others. Live the most healthful life you can. Believe me; you can't afford the medical bills you will have later in life if you don't.

Gardening-With winter here it is hard to make compost as it won't heat up properly. You can still prepare for the summer by putting all of your compostable materials in a plastic trash can with a tight lid. The materials will keep partially decomposing and you will probably never fill the trash can but it will get much heavier. When the weather warms a bit just transfer the material to your compost bin and let it work. You don't need commercial fertilizers; you have everything you need in your backyard. Plan your garden now and be ready to work your soil as soon as the weather warms. There are many sites on the internet that will instruct you on how to start your garden under plastic or glass and increase your yields dramatically. With a bit of knowledge you can start your garden early and finish late. Use the Internet to learn how to grow the vegetables that you want to grow.

Websites To help You Manage Money-

www.MyMoney.gov This an excellent site that can teach you anything that you want to know about money. It includes information on budgeting, credit, mortgages and even saving for college. There are financial calculators and links to specialized government sites. There is an order form for a free "My Money" toolkit.

www.consumer.gov This is also an excellent site to teach you how to get the biggest bang for your buck. It is broken down into areas that will interest any consumer. It has so many links that it could takes you days to go to each of them. Don't miss this site.

www.consumercredit.com This site teaches you how to manage your credit debt. It has sites to teach you how to set up budgets, set up your personal finances, a section on bankruptcy, and many financial calculators.

www.irs.gov This site has much information for the consumer. Use this site for any questions on your taxes. I

www.hughchou.org This site has financial calculators for anything that pertains to money.

www.savingadvise.com This site is updated daily and has articles on anything that you spend money on. It is a well designed site with tons of useful information.

www.smartmoney.com This site is stock market oriented but it has an excellent section on everything from taxes to college planning.

I've tried most of the organizers out there and none seemed to do what I wanted them to do. Most had excess pages and features and were more rigid than I needed them to be. In my career as a construction project manager I stumbled on a system that worked for me.

One day I picked up a smaller spiral bound notebook because I needed to take notes at a progress meeting. I took all of the notes that I needed and then began to walk the project to address the issues raised at the meeting. I began to notice several items as I walked that needed attention and I wrote them down with the intention of discussing them with the job site supervisor. After I had gone over the items with the supervisor he gave me a long list of materials to be ordered for the project and I wrote them down in the notebook. After I got back to my office I reviewed the notes of the progress meeting and wrote the required letters and sent the e-mails outlining my actions to the job site supervisor. I ordered all of the material from my list and informed the job site by e-mail when to expect the material.

Over the next few days I continued to write down most of my actions in the notebook for documentation. (If you ever have to go to court you will find out that it's not who's right or wrong; it's who has the most paperwork.) In several days I had filled many pages with items that I felt were important.

When the material that I had ordered after the progress meeting was delivered to the job site the job site supervisor called to tell me that I had forgotten to order a couple of items that he had requested. I flipped open the notebook and saw that he had neglected to include those items in his material request. I got in touch with the supply house and ordered the items on a rush basis.

I began to think about the idea of writing everything in my simple notebook and found that it suited my needs perfectly. For about $3.00 I had hit on the system that works for me. I now write everything that I feel is important, needs to be remembered, material that has to be ordered, results of telephone conversations, results of meetings, to-do items and important contacts. I never tear pages out of the notebook (you will be amazed how often you will go back to review notes from a week or a month previous.) When a notebook gets filled, I store it with the other project records as project documentation. I also keep a separate notebook for personal use.

One word of caution: Never write anything in the notebook that is derogatory about co-workers or business contacts. It would be disastrous if you happened to leave the notebook where it could be read by others and there were derogatory comments about someone you have to work with every day.

I saw this on http://www.electoral-vote.com/icon.html. This is an excellent site for up to date election information.

House Republicans voted down the first bailout bill because they were afraid it would become just another government boondoggle. But after it was loaded up with more pork than all the pigs in Iowa, they changed their minds. Guess what? It has become just another government boondoggle. Sec. Henry Paulson's idea was to buy up all the toxic mortgages to get them off the banks' books. He long since shelved that plan. His next idea was to buy stock in the banks so they would have fresh capital and could start making loans again. However, instead of making loans, some banks are using the money to pay dividends, give executives bonuses, and buy other banks. For example, PNC Financial Services received $7.7 billion in government money and promptly spent $5.6 billion of it to buy National City Corp. Lawmakers are protesting but they should hardly be surprised since they gave Paulson unlimited authority to spend the money any way he wanted to, with hardly an supervision and no restrictions on what the recipients did with the money. In addition, Paulson hired the Bank of New York Mellon to run the program. On the same day Bank of New York Mellon received $3 billion itself, apparently deciding that it could use some cash. Hardly anyone noticed.

In keeping with the theme of this site which is to make your life easier and to save you money I thought that I would tell you about a food that I eat often; tofu.

Tofu has been a staple food in the Orient for well over 2000 years. It is used in so many different ways that it would be impossible to print a cookbook that would hold all of the recipes for the many ways it can be used. I did a Google search on tofu recipes and came up with 391,000 different websites with tofu recipes.

Tofu is the curd of soy milk. It is a nutritious food that is extremely low in fat, calories, sodium and relatively low in carbohydrates. It has a high protein content and is rich in iron and calcium. It is highly digestible and is a perfect food for heart patients and babies. When substituted for meat in your diet it can significantly reduce you intake of fats and calories. As tofu comes from the soy bean plants it is an environmentally sound food. Soy beans fix nitrogen in the soil and benefit crops.

Tofu comes in either hard or soft varieties and several textures in between. The soft varieties will not keep their shape after being handled too much and are best if used for dishes that do not require cubes or slabs of marinated, fried tofu. Salad dressings can be made from soft tofu. Tofu will make an extremely low fat, low calorie salad dressing or dips.

Dill Dip

3/4 cup of soft tofu
2 1/2 teaspoon of wine vinegar
1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp of sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp of dill weed
1/8 tsp of pepper

Mix all ingredients together in a blender. Place in the refrigerator for a few hours to let the flavors blend. Refrigerate any unused portion. Best if used within three days.

Creamy Italian Dressing

1/2 pound of tofu
2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp of vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp of pepper
1/8 tsp of red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp of oregano
Minced garlic to taste

Blend all ingredients until creamy. If desired a small amount of minced onion and/or pickle relish may be folded in after blending. Refrigerate any unused portion. Best if used within three days.

For an excellent baby food (no modified food starch, chemicals, preservatives, herbicides) take soft tofu and add cooked vegetables (leftovers) or fruit to the tofu and puree super fine in your blender. A little experimentation will and you will quickly find the proportion of vegetables to tofu that your baby loves. You will feel much better about feeding your baby this food than the store bought baby foods with all of the ingredients that you don't want in your baby's food. This can also be used for people that must have a soft diet. It is easy to make a palatable food from the tofu/vegetable mixture that anyone that needs a soft diet will love.

Up to now we have been talking about soft tofu. Firm or hard tofu can be marinated and fried in many ways. Below is a dish from one of my favorite sites, www.allrecipes.com. This will give you an idea of the dishes you can make from tofu. Remember, since you will not be using meat you will save money, you will decrease your fat and calorie intake and you will introduce your family to new tastes.

Stuffed Peppers With Tofu And Rice

* 1 cup uncooked brown rice
* 2 cups water
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 clove garlic, minced
* 1 (12 ounce) package extra-firm tofu, drained and diced
* 1 3/4 cups marinara sauce, divided
* salt to taste
* ground black pepper to taste
* 2 red bell peppers, halved and seeded
* 2 orange bell peppers, halved and seeded
* 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
* 8 slices tomato

DIRECTIONS

1. Place rice and water in a pot and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 45 minutes, or until tender.
2. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, and stir in garlic and tofu. Cook about 5 minutes. Mix in 1/4 cup marinara sauce, season with salt and pepper, and continue to cook and stir until tofu is evenly brown.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
4. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, press an equal amount of rice into each pepper half. Layer rice with remaining marinara sauce, and 1/2 the cheese. Press equal amounts of tofu into the pepper halves. Place 1 tomato slice on each pepper, and top peppers with remaining mozzarella. Arrange stuffed peppers in a baking dish.
5. Bake 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until cheese is melted. Serve 1/2 of each color pepper to each person.

This recipe is one of my favorites:

Meatloaf With Tofu And Bulgar Wheat

2 pounds of lean ground beef
1 package of onion soup mix
1 egg
1/4 cup of Bulgar wheat (see page 7 of this blog)
1/2 pound of tofu (soft or hard)
Finely chopped green or red peppers (optional)
Ketchup or cream of mushroom soup for the top of the meatloaf.

Directions

Prepare the Bulgar wheat and set aside to cool. Crumble the tofu into the smallest pieces that you can. Put the ground beef into a large mixing bowl and make a well into the center of the meat. Add the onion soup mix and the egg. Mix the ground beef, egg and onion soup mix well. After the meat mixture is well mixed add the tofu and cooked Bulgar wheat and mix well. Place in a loaf pan (I lightly spray olive oil in the pan for easy removal) and dress the top with ketchup or the cream of mushroom soup. Place into a preheated oven and bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until done. A time saving tip is to prepare two or more meatloaf dishes at a time and freeze the extra dinners. On those cub scout or soccer days you will have a meal that takes minutes to get on the table. another time saver is to make your own TV dinners out of your leftovers. RubberMaid makes plastic TV dinner plates with covers for your freezer. I'm trying to get away from plastic so I bought sectioned Corningware plates with reusable covers.

This post is too small to really do tofu the justice it deserves. This is an excellent food with huge health benefits. It will stretch your food dollars and decrease your fat and calorie intake. Investigate the Internet for recipes and you will be amazed at the variety. Any recipe that you want for your family, say Italian Spaghetti,can use tofu instead of meat. Investigate scramble "eggs" made with tofu; scrambled "eggs" a heart patient can love. There is a Chinese grocery not too far from where I live and I buy my tofu there. It is always fresh (and cheaper) and the store owners will often give you hints on how to use tofu.

It's almost time! Halloween is almost over and the price of pumpkins will drop dramatically. Then I can put my stock of pumpkin by for the winter. Pumpkin is a very nutritious food for your family. Oh, I almost forgot; it makes very economical meals for your family. Now who doesn't want to save money!

The ways to use pumpkin are almost endless. We Americans are stuck in a rut. We feel that the only use for pumpkins is in pies and Jack-o-Lanterns. What a waste of nutritious food, using the pumpkins for decoration. Just wait until you try pumpkin soup. I did a Google search on pumpkin recipes and came up with 414,000 different web sites with pumpkin recipes.

There are several easy ways to prepare pumpkin for cooking. You can bake them, microwave them or steam them. My preferred method is to steam them. I have a large stock pot with a steamer insert. Just cut your pumpkin into large chunks and clean the seeds and stringy mess from the chunks. Save the seeds for your family, dry them and roast them for a delicious snack. BTW-the squirrels love them. If the pumpkins are not hybrid you can save a few seeds to grow your own pumpkins next year. Hybrid seeds will not always reproduce true to the parent plant. After the pumpkin is cleaned put the chunks in your steamer and steam until the pulp is very soft. Remove from the fire and let cool completely. When cool, remove the pulp from the rind. You can then either freeze or can the cooked pumpkin for future use. You can either dice them or puree them before freezing.

Here is a recipe for Cream of Pumpkin Soup. This recipe came from www.allrecipes.com. This is an excellent site with recipes for just about any dish that you want to make. I really can't envision you outgrowing this site.



INGREDIENTS

* 3 tablespoons margarine, softened
* 1 tablespoon brown sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 4 slices whole wheat bread
* 1 cup chopped onion
* 2 tablespoons butter, melted
* 2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth
* 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1 cup heavy whipping cream

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F(200 degrees C). Combine butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Spread butter mixture evenly over one side of each bread slice. Place bread, buttered side up, on a baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until bread is crisp and topping is bubbly. Cut each slice of bread into 8 small triangles or squares.
2. Saute onion in butter in a medium saucepan until tender. Add 1 can chicken broth; stir well. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.
3. Transfer broth mixture into the container of a blender or processor. Process until smooth.
4. Return mixture to saucepan. Add remaining can of broth, pumpkin, salt, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground pepper; stir well. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally..
5. Stir in whipping cream and heat through. Do not boil. Ladle into individual soup bowls. Top each serving with Cinnamon Croutons.