Duelin’ Deals Blog by Marlaine

I will have to take more time tomorrow to discuss the new page to the left. It’s all the Mixes and Makin’s Recipes I’ve been putting up on eHow lately. All of the recipes use common ingredients around the house or ingredients that can be purchase inexpensively at Aldi’s or even Pick ‘N Save on sales. I will be adding to the page as I add more of my mixes to eHow. To see all of my articles, that deal with a wideeeeeeeeee range of subjects, visit MarlaineMarie at eHow.

Try to stay cool, Midwesterners – dang this humidity is horrible!
To all – stay happy!
Smiling!

My brother called a few days ago asking for my oatmeal recipe. I remember him scrunching up his nose at oatmeal when we were kids. I said as much to him. Evidently, I had made some oatmeal for myself and made extra for him, and he’d loved it! I devised this method because I like it this way – and it is probably not healthy – shrugging. We’ve had family members who lived to 90 who smoked. One overweight relative made it to 100! I am not a could-care-less type but I am not a health nut either.

I wrote this for MarlaineMarie’s Articles on eHow….

How to Make Incredible Oatmeal!

Oatmeal – Blahhhh – you say? Try this and try not to want it again and again!

Things You’ll Need:

* Regular Oatmeal – not instant
* Milk of your choice – whole makes it creamiest!
* Sugar – 2 tablespoons per serving
* Butter – 1 tablespoon per serving
* Vanilla – 1/2 teaspoon per serving
* Salt – optional

Step 1:
Use the directions on the oatmeal box to decide on the amount of regular oatmeal you are going to make. If you make extra, it can be reheated in the microwave, tasting even more mellow the next day. Each brand may have slightly different proportions. Sugar can be replaced with Splenda (it really does taste good for a substitute!) or other artificial sweeteners for those with diabetes. Salt IS optional – in fact, I don’t use it in oatmeal.

Step 2:
Use milk instead of water, adding about 1/4 to 1/2 cup extra. Put the milk and oatmeal together in a pot and mix together. Let it sit a while – 10 minutes or so.

Step 3:
Add the sugar and salt, stirring gently. Add the butter. Turn on the heat underneath.

Step 4:
Bring the mixture to a gentle bubble, stirring constantly. Let it bubble for about two minutes. Add vanilla and stir in. Put a cover on the pot. Turn off heat. Move the pot off the burner. Leave covered and alone for about 10 minutes.

Step 5:
This oatmeal is made to be enjoyed without putting more milk, butter, or sugar into it. Add a bit of butter if you really have to but this is soooooooooooooo good as it is right out of the pot, and so creamy!
Tips & Warnings

* If you are a sugar craver, try pouring some maple syrup or any of the flavored syrups out there over the finished oatmeal.
* If you like it sweeter, just add more sugar before cooking.
* This oatmeal is all about enjoying it so if you want more milk and sugar or butter on the finished oatmeal, add it. Do try it plain first. You might be amazed!
* Add a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter per serving with the mixture in the pot before boiling for another really different taste!
* If you are a chocolate maniac, try adding about a quarter cup of chocolate chips before the cooking process. You can skip butter completely when you use chocolate. (or add peanut butter – yummmmmmm – smiling!)
* Combine everything, except for the vanilla, and let sit in the fridge overnight to be ready to make for breakfast!
* If you add vanilla after any cooking process in any recipe, it retains more flavor and aroma!
* As always, when making my recipes, do not invite the food police to breakfast when you make this! This recipe is to make you love oatmeal – not necessarily to be healthy!
* If you think margarine is better than butter – Tisk! Use good, wholesome butter, or peanut butter, or skip it completely! It will taste a whole lot better!

There are also other great uses for oatmeal.
Try this facial:
* 1/4 cup of dry oatmeal
* 1/8 real mayonnaise
* The juice and pulp of a real aloe plant leaf, mashed.
Mix all together, heat to just warm in the microwave, and let stand about 10 minutes.
Prewash your face with the hottest water you can stand to open all the pours.
Use the oatmeal paste all over your face and leave on for 10 minutes.

This is really great just before a shower. If you use a washcloth and wipe it off your face, use it on your body as a quick scrub. Oatmeal is great as a body scrub, too. Then use your normal bath soap as usual and rinse.

NEVER use regular soap on your face! Using the plain wet wash cloth as a scrub and the shower to rinse your face is far better for your facial skin than using a regular bar of bath soap!

Though late for Easter, here is a way to make perfect hard boiled eggs every time! You can find this recipe and other articles on various topics on eHow by MarlaineMarie.

Sometimes those thick green yolks can be kind of unpleasant because it usually means the yolk is over cooked and dry. Avoid them with this easy method of cooking! While I can’t guarantee that there will be no green around the yolk, if you use this method, they will probably be lemon yellow and fully cooked! With the price of eggs being so high, don’t buy eggs on impulse – try to wait for a sale.

Refrigerated raw shell eggs will keep for about 4 to 5 weeks beyond the pack date. They really are best kept in the carton they came in but, yes, I put some in the egg tray I saved from two refrigerators ago because it takes less space and more convenient to grab an egg or two when I need them. When you know your eggs are getting on the old side time-wise, consider hard boiling them – they will keep at least another week.

How to Make A Perfect Hard Boiled Egg and Then Peel It

Step 1:
First of all, make sure the eggs weren’t bought the day before. Eggs that are too fresh are nearly impossible to peel and usually don’t leave much of the whites intact when pealed! Buy eggs at least a week ahead of time for easiest peeling.

Step 2:
No matter how many eggs you want to boil, put them into a pot that has enough room to completely cover them with cold water, plus an extra inch of water and three inches of boiling space. Do a maximum of 2 dozen at a time to insure even cooking.

Step 3:
Put the pot of water and eggs on the stove and turn the burner to high.

Step 4:
Watch the pot. Yes – it will boil even if you are watching! (Don’t look for the first two minutes -hehehe- will cut down your watching time!) When you see it in a full rolling boil – when the bubbles are nice and vigorous – turn off the burner. Leave the pot right where it is and do other things for half an hour or until the water is cool.

Step 5:
To peel… If you have older eggs, they will peel in one sheet most of the time. If they are new…… tisk…… don’t use them to boil unless you want spooned out eggs, like three minute breakfast eggs. Roll each egg gently on a counter top after a starting tap until most of the shell is cracked all over. Run cold water over the cracked egg after breaking through the membrane at the big end.

* New eggs sink to the bottom. Older eggs have more of an air pocket and will float. If they rise out of the water, they are probably too old to use.
* If you want to save a dozen or so eggs for hard boiling, keep them in the carton, mark with a sharpie pen and place low in the fridge, away from regular use eggs.
* Putting a tablespoon of salt in the water will keep those surprise cracked eggs from losing so much of the whites into the water.
* If you see that you have a “hard peeler”, use a teaspoon to scoop off the shell instead of massacring it in hopes of finding an easy peal spot.
* When using the timed boiling method for “breakfast” eggs, if you aren’t sure the eggs are done, lift an egg out of the boiling water with a spoon. The shell dries in five seconds or less if it’s hard boiled. If it takes longer than five seconds, your egg will be softer boiled.
* If the eggs boil too long, the green yolk will develop – so keep an eye on the pot near the point of boiling.
* Store raw and boiled eggs lower in the fridge. Sometimes they freeze when they are too close to the cooling element.

While I have worked in restaurants, supper clubs and breakfast dinners as either cook or chef’s assistant, I never really thought I could write up recipes that I’ve come up with. My success rate has soared so, now, when I say – “Dinner is an experiment tonight” – Brad says Yeehaw! I grew up not knowing that mashed potatoes could be made without using a box of flakes so I had a big disadvantage when I started my first job in a buffet style restaurant…. but I was wide open to learning the basics. If you know the basics, the variations are endless and sometimes unbelievably good!

Ok here’s a recipe I submitted to Woman’s World and they turned it down……….sigh …………. but it is worth a try because it is so good! Granted, I’ve re-written it and took out most of the “Healthy” parts……….smiling! The different textures of the toppings and the Sloppy Joe style sandwich make this a unique sandwich dinner that’s filling & often requested! I’ll be adding the recipes Woman’s World DID publish (and paid nicely for) soon. The ones published by Woman’s World are healthy but don’t groan – they are really yummy too!

Sloppy Joes Mexican Style

Sucio Jose’s!
Here’s a fast and easy, healthy alternative to hamburgers and a change from tired old sloppy Joes. It’s a taco on a bun! And so tasty, too!

2 pounds hamburger, well browned and drained, completely.
Add:
Packet of taco spice mix.
1 cup chopped red and/or green peppers
16oz can of tomato sauce, plus a half cup of water
Simmer until thick, about an hour.
While the meat mixture is simmering, chop up the toppings of your choice listed below.
If you are going to use a taco shell or two, just hand break a bit and then crush it in a bowl with a glass – mortar and pestle style.

Fill buns of your choice (Onion buns recommended) with the meat mixture and top with your choice of the following:
Chopped onions
Chopped tomatoes
Sliced black olives
Sour cream
Shredded cheddar cheese
Crushed taco shells

If you are going to use a taco shell or two, just hand break a bit and then crush it in a bowl with a glass bottom – mortar and pestle style.

* You can use Italian sausage in addition to the hamburger to spice it up nicely.
* I get the big 3 pound pack of Italian sausage when it’s on sale and put 3 or 4 (flat – not tangled) in a zipper bag to keep in the freezer until needed. Easier to grab 1 or 2 when I need them when they are in little packs.
* You can slice the sausages thin or take the skin off and brown like hamburger.
* It is easier to cut the sausages while they are frozen but easier to brown skinless if thawed.
* If you are going to buy the hot peppers, do not touch sensitive areas like the eyes when you are cutting them up. Yowich! You can buy little cans of hot peppers but be sure you can handle the heat before you dump a whole can in!

I will be posting this recipe on MarlaineMarie eHow articles. Go ahead and have a read or three on various subjects.

It’s been a veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy long time since we’ve ordered pizza to be delivered. For one, the price of a delivered pizza is unbelievably high! Two, the place that we used hooked us with their coupon for extra meaty pizza…… called Meat Lover’s Pizza… but only the first pizza was exceptionally great! Maybe because the phone number used was a first time call in for pizza to be delivered and they added more of everything but, I must say, we were disappointed in the next three pizzas. We used coupons when we ordered the 2nd and 3rd but both seemed to be missing something or another but we were charged for the extra ingredients anyway. The last pizza was free because the 3rd was completely wrong AND that free one was the last pizza we ordered from them ever. I will add that the pizza place tried to make it up to us but – dang it – the pizza we craved was not the pizza they delivered. We had to pay for delivery, a tip and a high base price, too, so I decided to try to get it the way we loved it myself and I knew I could do it a whole lot cheaper!

Here’s how you do it…

Things You’ll Need:

* On sale frozen pizza of your choice or try this with your fav frozen pizza brand! If you do use your fav brand, you will see that this turns out better than anything a pizza place delivers!
* Sliced pepperoni – 1/4 to 1/2 the pack
* Ham – 1/4 to 1/2 cup diced
* Ground pork – 1/2 to 1 pound
* 2 teaspoons Italian spices
* Chopped onions – 1/2 cup
* Mushrooms – 1/2 cup sliced
* Red and green peppers – 1/2 cup
* Mozzarella or Italian 3 cheese – 1/2 to 1 pound shredded
* Olives – Green and/or black 1/4 to 1/2 cup

Step 1:
Choose your favorite style of pizza – thin crust, oven rising, thick crust, Chicago style, or garlic bread. Any type will work! I’ve gotten really cheap oven rising pizzas from Aldi’s and they turned out fantastic – but beware, if the sauce or crust is lousy, it ruins the pizza! Even a higher priced frozen pizza can stand some pizazz!

Step 2:
Decide what you would like to add. Every extra ingredient is optional! How much you put on is also optional! If you only want pepperoni, ham, onions, peppers, mushrooms, olives and/or extra cheese, you are ready to build your pizza.

Step 3:
If you want sausage on your pizza, you’ll need to brown it first. Brown it quickly without stirring very often so the meat will stay a bit chunky. Drain off any excess fat. Add the Italian spices and stir in. If you like your onions softer, add them to the meat with the spices. I often get whole mushrooms and slice them thick to add them into the mix at this stage. Brown while moving the mix around just a minute more. Turn off heat and let it sit.

Step 4:
Now to build your pizza…… Get the pizza(s) out of it’s box and off the cardboard. Place on cookie or baking sheet or pizza pan – whatever you care to call it. A baking sheet makes it easier even if you are going to bake it right on the rack – if you don’t have one of those pizza peels.

Step 5:
Here’s where it all comes together…. Add the meats or meat mixture you’d like. Add the peppers, olives, and onions if you want them. Add the cheeses. We love the cheese – smiling!

Step 6:
Follow the cooking directions but plan on leaving it in up to five minutes longer. Always check at the recommended time though – better to see that it needs more time than see it go into the garbage or the dog’s food. (I recommend cutting a bad pizza up and adding maybe a half cup of chopped pizza to dry dog food each day til the pizza is gone – keeps your dog’s diet balanced.)

Tips & Warnings:
* Buy peppers on sale. Cut out the whitish membranes and seeds and rinse them, then slice or cut in chunks. Freeze in good freezer bags. When you need some for pizza, grab a handful from the bag and put on pizza. (Also a great idea for any recipe you need chunks of peppers for if there is a short amount of cooking time.)
* When you have left over ham, dice some of it up and put it in a good freezer bag – use when needed straight from the fridge just like the peppers!
* The more you stir while browning the meat, the smaller it crumbles. Very little stirring while browning gives you near meatball style browned meat – so if making spaghetti sauce, add herbs and a bit of bread crumbs to make easy, though uneven meat balls!
* When baking two pizzas at a time, they seem to cook differently than just one – they don’t get as crispy. Try to use round baking sheets so you can bake the pizzas on the same rack. If not, half-way through the baking time, swap the lower pizza to the top and the top pizza to the bottom rack and turn them around 180.
* Use a baking sheet if you want the pizzas softer and no baking sheet if you want them crisper but be prepared – these most likely will drip onto the bottom of the oven without a baking sheet or something to catch the drips.
* As always, when using my recipes, do not invite the Food Police to dinner!

No matter! This pizza is outstanding! Even my brother makes it this way and forgets about delivery! Even with the extra ingredients, this pizza is half the price. When you buy things like the pepperoni at a place like Aldi’s, you are paying less and can save some of the pepperoni for 1 or 2 more pizzas later on – maybe more.

I have always resisted buying mushrooms in quantity because I wasn’t sure what to do with them to keep them fresh. Whenever I buy a package, I poke holes in the wrap to let air in and put them in the fridge, or take the wrap off completely. Our local Pick ‘N Save had such a great deal on fresh mushrooms that I just couldn’t resist getting a bunch. I bought 6 – 8oz for $5! That is a lot of mushrooms at a really low price. We usually don’t use fresh mushrooms because they are usually over $2 for an 8oz package. Sigh……. but we love them so much!

I decided to try it this time because a spaghetti sauce we often buy from Aldi’s has pretty decent sized mushrooms in the sauce. I have seen that anything that can be canned can also be frozen somehow – usually!

Cut off dirt and any soft pieces. If they seem extra dirty, rinse them off or use a soft brush to clean them. Put wet mushrooms on paper towels and cover with paper towels. Do not rinse unless you are going to use them right away or the dampness will promote withering. Don’t use water unless you have to!

This time I sautéed onions first in a little butter and then added mushrooms, letting the mushrooms gently soften down. We used some on our hamburgers for dinner (Aldi’s had a great deal on onions!)………Wowow that was incredible! I put some of the mixture in freezer containers and into our big freezer.

I’ll use some of the onion/mushroom mix with fresh green and yellow peppers (green peppers that turned yellow – smiling), sliced browned Italian sausage, browned hamburger and an Alfredo sauce to pour over fettuccine noodles. It will quicken the cooking time and saves me a lot of fiddly work later!

You can also freeze them alone but never freeze fresh ones…. I tried that a while ago and those mushrooms turned to yucky mush! Sauté in butter or olive oil. OR simmer (do not boil) the cleaned and washed mushrooms in lightly salted water for about 15 minutes, cool, put into a plastic container or bag, add some of the cooking liquid, label, date (they will keep for a few months), and freeze.

You can also store the mushrooms for a few days or a week in your refrigerator by taking them out of any plastic wraps or containers and putting them into a paper bag. If you get them into paper bags and into the fridge once you get them home, they could dry out enough to be able to store them dried. They have to be completely dried though.

I’ve dried a lot of parsley, lemon balm, chives, and many other herbs using the paper bag in the fridge trick. Remove leaves from the stems to save yourself a lot of work later. Just remember to reach in and hand toss the herbs around a bit every few days – that way you can test the dryness. If you have cats, gather catnip and leave branches whole or in bigger pieces – they especially love catnip out of the fridge in the middle of winter!

I came across this real easy way to make that chocolate sauce that hardens up when spooned over ice cream and wow – it is sooooooooo good! And a lot cheaper!

I made a Boston Cream pie not too long ago and the choco coating I made got too thick and hard to cut. A few days ago, I noticed some chocolate chips left over from Christmas baking. I hadn’t really liked them in the cookies and was debating about what to do with them. They were duel favored swirled chips – caramel and chocolate – and the caramel flavor is lost in my chocolate chip cookies. So I thought I would give it a go and see if it would work on ice cream.

I put about half a cup of chips in a glass bowl with two tablespoons of butter. I put it in the microwave on high for two minutes. (I always use the cup saucer that fits over the bowl perfectly when I heat things up in the micro. Don’t use plastic wrap!) Be careful taking that out – it gets pretty hot. Mix it with a metal spoon slowly. The chips will continue to melt. If the sauce doesn’t seem runny enough, add just a bit more butter and stir it in. It will harden up on the ice cream. It needs to be able to run off the spoon.

This stuff is so good! When you buy up chips on baking holiday sales like we do, they are a heck of a lot cheaper than the hard shell chocolate stuff you can buy in the store.

And……….

You can choose the flavor you crave to use for topping. Butterscotch, peanut butter, chocolate, whatever fancy flavors are available or on sale or………….. at a discount place like Aldi’s. Those choco chips are perfect for this – and the butter is cheaper there too! Try choco chips with a table spoon of peanut butter first instead of butter and mix it. Or choco chips with a bit of vanilla when you heat it with the butter makes the caramel flavor. Remember when working with chocolate to add the butter, vanilla, peanut butter or whatever flavoring you choose before you start melting the choco. If you add anything with moisture after it’s melted, it will make the chocolate seize up and get grainy. It’s a yucky texture that’s hard to fix but a bit of vegetable oil mixed in sort of fixes it – though it gives it an odd taste. Adding some butter while melting tempers the chocolate nicely.

Be patient while mixing the butter in. Slow steady stirring works best.

Of course, a little more butter in the choco and you have one heck of an additional decoration type topping for a frosted cake. You can use it to drizzle over the cake or cover it! It will harden when the choco cools so work fast. Experiment with proportions and you’ll find other uses for this sauce. You can watch for sales on baking choco as well – and white chocolate sold in bulk. All these work about the same way. Just remember to under add the amount of butter first because you can always increase the amount later. Too much butter and then you will need to add more choco to thicken it up.

Another hint/tip………. I leave the left over choco sauce in the glass bowl covered by the saucer and store in the fridge. Just add more chips and butter to the bowl before microwaving and you will not be wasting any of this great stuff like you do with that expensive bottled version! (Have you ever looked inside those bottles when it seems like you can’t get any more out? Usually enough for another serving in there!)

Enjoy this one!

Originally posted September 26th, 2007 · 11:58 pm

Alfredo sauce and sausage over fettuccine………. ohhhhhhhh – it was yummy!

This was real easy and so good.

I had 3 uncooked Italian brats that I cut into sort of meat balls.
About 1 1/2 lb. of hamburger.
A nice big green pepper, chopped chunky.
A heaping cup of chopped onions – chunky.
About a cup of fresh mushrooms cut thick. (Was on sale)
A jar of Alfredo sauce that was on sale for $1 a jar.
One cup of whole milk.
Fettuccine noodles cooked. (Also on sale $1 per pound box.)
(If there were real food police, I would be writing this from jail…..sigh)

First I browned the hamburger and drained it. Then I added the cut Italian sausage and browned that. The cuts turned into nice little meat balls when they cooked.

Then I added the onions and peppers and let them sweat until soft. Next, I added the fresh cut mushrooms and just browned them a couple minutes. I added a half cup of water, stirring until it stopped steaming. I added about four more cups of water and set it to a medium simmer for about an hour. When the liquid was nearly gone, I added the jar of Alfredo sauce and rinsed the jar with about a cup of milk and added it to the the pan. Since it was a milk base, I set the simmer lower so it wouldn’t curdle and stirred often.

While the water went to boil for the noodles, I kept stirring the sauce and by the time the noodles were done, the sauce with wonderfully thick. If the sauce isn’t thick enough, just butter the noodles or use a bit of olive oil to keep them moist. When the sauce is thick enough, you can rinse those noodles with hot water if the butter or oil bothers you. (Does not bother us – sticking tongue out at food police!)

No extra seasonings, no extra salt or pepper. Just that simple process. The sauce from a jar has enough salt and spice to make this perfect and the sausage adds enough extra Italian flavor. I always find the jar stuff has too much salt anyway.

Here’s a tip about rice mixes as well………
The rice mixes always have way too much salt in them for my taste. So, I add 1/2 or 1 cup of extra long cooking rice and 1 to 2 cups extra liquid.

The proportion for good long cooked rice is always 1 to 2…… one part rice to two parts liquid. If you want it a bit sticker, use a bit more liquid. So if you add 1/2 rice to the mix, add an extra cup of liquid. For extra flavor, use homemade chicken broth instead of water. Then cook the mix as the package suggests. Be sure to use a pot with a tight, heavy lid. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes on low heat and then turn off the burner, leaving the pot there unopened for another 10 minutes.

About Heart Attack On A Bun and other misconceptions Australians have about American food. Smiling….. My handsome hub expected one heck of a shocking burger when we took him to try one. He had heard about it in Australia and was dying to try it. My brother and I had to search the internet to find it and figure out what it was & where it was sold. It sure wasn’t something I ever wanted to try. Well… Brad was disappointed. Then he told me that the typical Australia burger is served with egg on top! And their fries, (chips) are served covered with gravy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He can’t get over how few choices we have for bagged potato chips in the grocery store! He also tells me the candy aisles in Australia will pop my eyes out!

Tisk….

….and we talk about the food police!