Thursday, March 21, 2013

Super-delish Shrimp Alfredo

We try to be low-sodium around here, so we have to go it alone in the search for yummy pasta sauces. I plan a series of posts on sodium in foods, but for now, let's just say there are many hidden sources of sodium, and jarred pasta sauce is a major culprit!
The thing is, though, we love pasta and sauce, so we do a lot of experimenting to get good sauce. Here's a recipe for Shrimp Alfredo that we've pretty much perfected

You'll need
1/2 cup chickpea flour
1 can evaporated milk
24 ounces water
2-4 large cloves of garlic, crushed
olive oil cooking spray
chipotle chile powder
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan/Romano blend
1 lb frozen uncooked shrimp, thawed, peeled, & deveined
pasta of your choice

Liberally coat the inside of a large, deep skillet with the olive oil spray. Heat it on medium until a drop of water dances when dropped into it. Saute the garlic until it is deeply brown and nutty. Don't let it burn!

Add the evaporated milk and about half of the water to the garlic. Add about half the remaining water to the chickpea flour. Whisk the flour-water mixture until smooth. Add the flour-water mixture to the garlic mixture, and stir with the whisk to combine. Continue stirring until the sauce begins to thicken up. If the sauce is too thick, add more of the water. If it is too thin, cook and stir for several minutes until it thickens up. Add the cheeses and cook the sauce for about 5 minutes. In the meantime, cook the pasta according to the package directions. Add the shrimp to the sauce mixture and cook until no pink and curled up. Mix the pasta into the shrimp mixture. Sprinkle with a dash of the chipotle chile powder and enjoy!

If you use gluten free pasta, this recipe is celiac disease friendly.

Rural kids: Car Seats


When most parents think of car seats, the automatic association in for babies and toddlers. Did you know, though, that car seats are mandated for many kids? That's right, your school-aged kids might still need to be in a booster seat.

Here in Georgia the law is that all children under age 8 must be restrained in the back seat in a booster seat (belt-positioning boosters are best). There are some exceptions; if a child is 4'9" tall, he or she is exempt from the law, if the child has a medical condition which prevents booster seat use, or if the child is riding in a vehicle with no back seat.
A good general rule of thumb is this: if your child's shoulder reaches the top of the back seat and they weigh 90 pounds or more, they are ready to move to a seat belt only while sitting in the back seat. Otherwise, keep them in that booster!

Follow the Five Step Test - be safe out there!


Information for this post came from AAA, healthychildren.org, and safercar.gov. Visit these websites for more information on how booster seats can save our kids' lives in the event of a crash!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

3-meal Crockpot chicken

Part of living a country life, for me at least, is living frugally. For us, this means that instead of buying boneless, skinless chicken breast at around $2.99 a pound, I've been trying to buy whole chicken at around $1.00 a pound. It really depends on where I buy it. I have to be careful, because I'm on a sodium-restricted diet. I can't buy the kind of chicken that is full of "a solution," because that stuff is about 15% salt-water. Besides, it isn't very frugal to pay for salt water when you're meant to be paying for food!
You have to understand what a gross thing this is for me. Raw chicken makes me literally ill. I'm not quite as bad as my friend who can't even eat meals she cooks out of raw chicken, but the barrage of information we have about pathogens found in raw chicken, and how easily it can contaminate things in our kitchens leaves me feeling very sick. My way of dealing with this was to only purchase boneless, skinless breast of chicken and freeze it immediately. That was, if I did have to touch it, it was only to quickly transfer it to the crock pot or to a pan in a frozen state.
Enter the need to save money. We aren't being frugal just because we have a very limited income, but also because it's the right thing to do. Waste not, want not, after all. Still, I can't justify purchasing something at 3x the price just because it grosses me out. Pity, that.
In order to be able to handle the raw carcasses I place them in the sink and wash them down with cool water. I quickly remove the packet of icky innards and place it in the grocery bag to be thrown away. Ewww. Once the chicken has been rinsed thoroughly, I dry it with paper towels and then transfer it to the crock pot.
Then, I coat the chicken with a drizzle of olive oil and some spices. I like to use Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb blend.

Place the cover on the crock pot and cook the chicken on low for 8 - 10 hours. I usually cook it overnight. You can cook it on high for 4 - 5 hours if you need to.
Remove the chicken from the crock pot very slowly - it will fall apart if you are not careful!
This is the time to clean it up and get the bones out. I used the breast meat for meal #1 - cut it carefully and crisp it up in the oven under the broiler for about 3 minutes. Serve with veggies and a salad for a yummy chicken dinner.
Remove the skin and bones from the rest of the meat. Return the skin and bones to the crock pot, fill it up with water, and cook for several more hours. This is the most delicious chicken stock ever! To save it, carefully use a slotted spoon to remove the solids from the broth. Once you've gotten them mostly out, use a cheesecloth (or paper towel) lined colander to completely strain the broth. Ladle the broth into plastic cups and freeze. Once completely frozen, quickly dip each cup into hot water and dump the frozen broth into a freezer bag. When you're ready to use, just open the bag and add the frozen broth to a saucepan. It only takes about 5 minutes or so for the broth to melt and you have the perfect base for chicken soup, broth to make yummy mashed potatoes or rice, or stock for delicious chicken gravy.
Meals 2 and 3 of my 3-Meal Crockpot Chicken are made from the rest of the deboned chicken. I usually take about half of it and make chicken fajitas. I've made chicken and pasta with the other half. This deboned meat also freezes well. You can use it to make barbeque chicken, chicken pot pie, or any other recipe calling for cooked chicken.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Rural home: the Home Inventory

The Rural Romantic is all about living peacefully and fully. Part of peaceful living is peace of mind, and for me, that means knowing that I am prepared for things that could come my way.

Part of that is knowing what I have in case I need to file an insurance claim, and a great way to do this is to create a home inventory.

Making a home inventory can be easy and fun. Just follow these simple steps, and in no time at all you'll have a home inventory too!

1. Pick a room and make a video log or take lots of pictures of the items in the room. If it is your living room, for instance, you might take several photos of the TV and any multimedia equipment, game systems, DVDs or VHS (if you still have those), as well as some shots of the furniture. Don't forget your artwork or knick-knacks! Be sure to get images of the insides of drawers and cabinets!

2. Document everything. An easy way to do this is to use your video or photographs and write down objects as you see them in your recordings. Another way is to go room-by-room, starting with big-ticket items like TVs or computers, and working your way down. Either way, make your list as thorough as possible

3. Save a copy of your new home inventory in your home, but make sure you have at least one copy in a well-protected area away from your home. If the unthinkable happens, you'll know you have a safe copy as a back up. One great thing about current home inventories is the ready availability of free internet storage. Why not keep a copy on a cloud drive somewhere? Amazon.com is just one of many companies that offer free cloud storage for documents and photos.

4. Don't forget to update your list whenever you buy or sell items!


Do you have enough insurance? Make sure you can count on your insurance company. I rely on State Farm, and my agent Danny Edmonds! I don't know what we'd do without him!



State Farm has created a great home inventory worksheet! The Insurance Information Institute has an online inventory tool that is absolutely free! Both of these can be awesome resources as you create your own home inventory.



Take the Home Inventory Challenge with me! Use IIIs online inventory tool to create your home inventory, and post here about your experience. Was it easy? Was it too complicated? I am going to be transitioning from a paper inventory to their online inventory, and I will let you know how it goes!

Information in this post came from AAA, State Farm, and the Insurance Information Institute.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Cheesy Chicken Florentine with Pasta

In order to stretch a cooked chicken as far as its little poultry wings will go, I have been testing recipes that use cooked chicken. This is quickly becoming a family favorite.

1/3 of a cooked chicken
1 box of tri-color rotini pasta (ours is from Aldi)
1 large cup of frozen chicken broth (32 oz worth)
1/2 cup, more or less to taste, chopped bell pepper and onion
1 box (8 oz) cream cheese
2 big handsful baby spinach leaves (about one bag of pre-washed leaves)
2-4 tablespoons of flour
2, 15-oz cans of stewed tomatoes, juices reserved

Melt the frozen chicken broth in a large saucepan or deep skillet-type pan. Once it's thoroughly melted, set it aside. Use either no-stick cooking spray or a very small amount of olive oil to saute the bell pepper and onion. Once they are crisp-tender, add the stock back in and season to your taste. I always season with garlic powder and black pepper. Add the stewed tomatoes and cook on medium heat until reduced by half. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the packaged directions.
Once the tomato-broth-onion mixture is reduced by half, add in the previously cooked chicken. Add in the cream cheese and stir to melt and fully incorporate the cheese. Whisk the flour into the reserved tomato juice and add to the chicken mixture. Add the cooked pasta to the chicken mixture. Just before serving, add the spinach and cook just until it wilts, about 2 minutes.
Serve with sprinkle cheese (parmesan/romano or a blend).
This recipe is a very adaptable recipe. If you don't like spinach, just omit it. It's good with broccoli or green beans, too. Like more onion/pepper/garlic? Add it. Want it thicker? use more flour. Want it thinner? don't use the flour/tomato juice mixture. More chicken? Less chicken? Not chicken? it's all up to you.
If you change this and like it, let me know in the comments. I'd like to try YOUR version!

Natural Hair Care

Having a family goal of saving money and using more natural products has led me to some strange places, but one I'm actually enjoying is natural hair care. I have long hair, and I don't use anything on it like mousse, gel, hair spray, etc. I used to use just shampoo and conditioner, every other day. However, I suffer horribly from dry scalp and flakes. My mom-in-love suggested I go to a no-shampoo method. I had tried once before, following the curly girl method (though I'm still not too sure about the plop!). I didn't like the way my hair looked using CG. My m-i-l reassured me that this was different. I was skeptical, but I thought I'd give it a try. So here we go.

I used a mixture of baking soda in water instead of shampoo. I wet my hair as usual, and right there in the shower, mixed up about a tablespoons' worth of baking soda with the hot shower water in a cup. I slowly poured it over my head and massaged it in, then rinsed thoroughly.

After my shower, I used a spray bottle and thoroughly sprayed my hair with vinegar. I only had the regular kind, so I used that. Oh vinegar, what a tangy smell you have. Truth? It made me crave some salt-n-vinegar chips...

Anyway, I was able to use my pick to comb my hair with very little tugging, so the vinegar did the job of de-tangling well enough. It took about half an hour for the smell to dissipate, but eventually it vanished, leaving me fresh smelling hair.
Now it's a day later. This is usually my skip-it hairdo day, during which I *might* brush or pick it out, but usually just ponytail it and call it good. Today, though, my hair feels very soft and is not tangly (unusual!) so I have left it down.


(don't laugh at my admittedly laughable self-portrait skillz)

So far, so good. My head hasn't itched, which means this method hasn't made my dry scalp act up, I haven't had any yucky flakes, and my hair's not tangled. I'll let you know how this goes.

(and money-wise, you can't beat it...a tablespoons' worth of baking soda is about $0.03 worth, and even using a thorough spritzing of white vinegar is not even $0.01 worth! So 4 cents per cleansing, 15 times per month, approximately, and 12 months per year is about $7.20 per year!)

Jewelry Knock-off: Holly Yashi Greta Necklace

Holly Yashi has a gorgeous wedding necklace called "Greta."

It is lovely. It is so feminine. It is so $160. Ouch!

But looooook at it:


So I decided to make my own...

First, I recruited my 'help'


Then, I shooed the 'help' away. Sorry, Mini-me, maybe next time...

I had the components in my stash, but for price comparison I used

one heart clasp, just because


$8.23 from Fire Mountain Gems

Several colors of Swarovski crystal pearls and crystals, totalling $5.64 worth.
Pearls:
Creamrose in 12 mm, 6mm, & 3mm
Copper in 8mm & 4 mm
Powder green in 6 mm
Vintage gold in 6 mm
Crystals:
Moonlight in 6mm
Golden Shadow in 8mm
Air Blue Opal in 3mm
Indicolite in 4mm & 3mm
Erinite in 4mm

I generally purchase mixed-color lots and separate them myself to save money.

One length of chain, approximately 33" worth, along with miscellaneous head pins and jump rings, worth about $1.

My grand total for materials? About $15.

and...the finished product:





So what do you think?