One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1856 of 2143 - I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

1 Year Subscription to Vegetarian Times Magazine Only $5.49!

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on September 19, 2012 · Leave a Comment

DiscountMags is offering a 1 year subscription to Vegetarian Magazine for only $5.49 a year when you use code 7182 at checkout. Vegetarian Times is essential to healthy living. Each issue is filled with mouth-watering recipes, tips on making old favorites healthier, and the latest nutritional information to help you live better. Special features on health, diet, and fitness make this magazine subscription a must have for every vegetarian.

*This special rate will be live through midnight 09/20/2012 (EST). You can purchase this deal as a new subscription or to renew your existing subscription. You can also purchase additional subscriptions as gifts! This is such a wonderful magazine at an amazing price.

Go HERE to get Vegetarian Times Magazine.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Mavis Garden Blog – How to Harvest Dried Beans

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on September 19, 2012 · 5 Comments

Last night I harvested a few m ayflower beans. These beans have “said to have been brought to North America on the Mayflower by Ann Hutchinson in 1620.”

Originally I was planing on eating these beans when they were young and green, but somehow along the way I got side tracked. And so now, we are going to harvest them as dried beans this year.

How do you harvest dried beans? Well, it’s pretty easy actually.

Dried beans are ready to harvest when they rattle in the pod and their skins are papery thin.
Open pods, and remove the beans, and add the dried pods to your compost pile.
Freeze beans overnight before storing them to kill any tiny bugs.
Store beans in an airtight container, in a cool dark place, away from sunlight.

Beans can be used for planting next years crop, or you can do what I’m going to do, eat them this winter in soup. Yee- Haw! This pilgrim has her beans, and she’s gonna eat them too!

Weeeeee!

Have YOU ever saved dried beans before? What did you do with them? Do you have any favorite dried bean recipes you want to share? I do love soup you know.

~ Mavis

If you are looking for more information on the topic of seed saving…

Seed to Seed is a complete seed-saving guide that describes specific techniques for saving the seeds of 160 different vegetables. This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds. ~ Amazon

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Recipe – Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on September 19, 2012 · 8 Comments

Ice cold milk and an ~~Oreo~~ Zucchini Chocolate Chip cookie…

Ha Ha Ha.

The Handsome Husband gobbled these right up, without complaint. So either A. He was starving, or B. He really liked them. I even warned him there was zucchini in the cookies and he still ate them! Can you believe it?

I guess you could say we have a winner folks. So if you have a gluten of zucchini sitting around, go make these zucchini chocolate chip cookies. They are delicious {I should know, I’ve had 3 already today}.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda {15 Cool Uses for Baking Soda}
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded zucchini
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a medium sized bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl cream together the butter, eggs, vanilla and sugar until nice and fluffy {about 1 minute}. Add the dry to the wet and mix well. Fold in shredded zucchini and chocolate chips.

Use a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop and drop dough on a silpat lined pan or parchment paper and bake for 13 minutes at 350 degrees.

Cool, and serve with a big glass of milk.

Looking for more ways to hide some zucchini? Check out the Zucchini Houdini by Brenda Stanley. The Zucchini Houdini has recipes for main dishes to soups to salads even in desserts. Yay!

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Canning 101 – Pear Vanilla Jam Recipe

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on September 19, 2012 · 26 Comments

This recipe for Pear Vanilla Jam from Food in Jars is the freakin’ bomb! This is hands down the best jam I have made all summer. And just as soon as I can get my hands on some more pears, I’m going to make it again.

Serve it on toast, pour it over pancakes, scoop it out of the jar, whatever floats your boat, just find some pears and make a batch as soon as possible.

If you are making jam to give away at Christmas this year… This is the one to make!

Ingredients

8 cups chopped pears {I used Bartlett}
2 vanilla beans, split and seeded
4 cups sugar
1 packet liquid pectin {I used Certo}

Directions

Bring a boiling-water canner, 3/4 full with water, to simmer. Wash jars and screw bands in hot soapy water; rinse with warm water. Pour boiling water over flat lids in saucepan off the heat. Let stand in hot water until ready to use. Drain well before filling.

Chop enough pears to measure 8 cups. Place the pears, vanilla bean seeds, pods, and sugar in a 6 -8 quart pot, and cook over medium heat until the pears are soft. Mash half of the pears with a potato masher. Remove the vanilla pods, and bring to a boil. Add liquid pectin, stir and bring to a rolling boil for 5 minutes. Stirring constantly.

Ladle immediately into prepared jars, filling to within 1/4 inch of tops. Wipe jar rims and threads. Cover with two-piece lids and screw bands on. Place jars on elevated rack in canner. Lower rack into canner. {Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches. Add boiling water, if necessary.} Cover; bring water to gentle boil. Process 10 min. Remove jars and place upright on towel to cool completely. After jars cool, check seals by pressing middles of lids with finger. If lids spring back, lids are not sealed and refrigeration is necessary}. Yields {7} 1/2 pints.

See More of my Canning Recipes HERE

Need Vanilla Beans? Amazon has them HERE.

If you are looking for a canner, I used the Granite Ware 11-1/2 Quart Covered Preserving Canner with Rack to can my homemade pear vanilla jam.

If you need a tool kit, I use one similar to this one.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.