susiej/reviews

* Scott Towels: 30 Mega Rolls
* Scott Bath Tissue: 10 12-packs

Here’s the best part:  For one year, you won’t have to run out to the store to buy these bulky items, and lug them home. To win, leave a comment with your favorite household, kitchen, family, or money-saving tip. If you need some inspiration, check out the tips at Scott Common Sense. Here is my favorite tip, peeling potatoes without “peeling”, from the Scott page:

Boil potatoes with the skin on. When done, drain. Fold a SCOTT Towel in half and pick up a hot potato. Gently rub the potato back and forth and the skin comes right off. Shake the potato skin off and reuse the towel. It saves time and clean up. When finished, just discard the towel or, better yet, go green and place the towel and the peelings into a compost pile for next Spring’s gardening.

Inspire us here with your tips, (does not have to involve a paper towel!) and I’ll select a random winner to win a year’s supply of Scott Bath and Towel products on December 1, 2008. US Residents Only.

Filed under: contest, cooking, household by SusieJ - 10 Comments →

I know he’s only trying to help, but sometimes when my husband is at the store to pick up the Milk and Eggs, he buys more milk than we need. There’s always a valid reason, “It was on sale!.” But rarely, is milk ever that good of a deal. Unfazed, he takes the carton of milk to our deep freezer that we keep in the basement so that the milk will get good and solid. And preserved. This is really not a good idea. Here’s what usually happens…

• A frozen container of milk takes FOREVER to thaw.
• The cream always get separated, and you have a mixture of of slush on the top and goop on the bottom.
• Sometimes, realizing that the gallon of milk is not thawing as quickly as we need, he’ll set the milk on the counter at room temperature to speed things up. This usually results in sour milk.
• Just when you think the milk is completely thawed, you pour it on the kiddies cereal only to find Ice chunks falling out of the carton and into the morning cereal.
• The expiration date is completely out of whack, as we usually pull it out of the freezer way past the date printed on the carton. This causes great confusion among the children in the household.

The grocery store is less than five minutes away; we could have easily had some nice fresh milk, flowing freely out of the container. Still, I love it when my husband goes to the grocery store.

The Parent Bloggers Network teamed up with Ore Ida to promote their new Steam n’ Mash potatoes. If you haven’t tried them yet, they are a pre-washed and scrubbed, peeled bag of cubed potatoes that you steam in the bag in your microwave. You simply add butter and milk and mash. Instant mashed potatoes — but they’re real! This is one shortcut that’s hard to mess up.

Filed under: cooking, products by SusieJ - 2 Comments →

While his big brothers are away at school, the boy, who believes brown eggs are chocolate, and I spend our mornings together cooking ourselves a feast. Because Eggs Are So Incredible and Edible, we began by mastering the poached egg. It’s our specialty: The Circle Egg Sandwich. (Recipe follows.)

Yes, this was his first try at poaching, and he ate all three eggs.

In honor of World Egg Day, Friday, October 10, and the inspiration of the Parent Bloggers Network, find a friend and share a circle egg sandwich. Because,

if you give a boy an egg, you’ve fed him for a day; teach him how to crack an egg, and he’s fed for life.

How To Make A Circle Egg Sandwich

You will need:.

• Egg Poacher
• Water
• Eggs
• Salt
• Bread
• Glass for cutting the bread
• Butter

1. Fill the bottom part of the sauce pan with 3 inches of water. Add some salt and vinegar and bring the water to boil.
2. Carefully crack the eggs, and drop them into the egg poaching inserts. You can add a pinch of salt to the eggs.
3. Once the water starts to boil, turn down the heat so that the water is simmering.
   Carefully put the poaching insert on top of the sauce pan of boiling water. Put the lid on so the eggs will cook.
4. We like a firm yolk, so the egg will cook for about four minutes.
5. Meanwhile, use a glass to cut your bread into the shape of a circle.
6. After toasting your circles, you can butter your bread. (Always nice to let the butter pop across the table as you do this.)
7. Lift the cover of the egg poacher, and check to see if the yolk is the way you like it.
8. Use a spoon to gently lift the egg out of the poacher, and slide onto your circle egg toast.
9. Top with the other piece of circle toast and enjoy.

Filed under: cooking, kids, products by SusieJ - 1 Comment →

I’m always willing to direct my friends to my favorite meal planning website, soscuisine, but only when I’m asked, “What are you doing for dinner?” I love soscuisine for three good reasons:

1. The menus are constantly updated to take advantage of produce that’s currently in-season. This does save money, but the real plus is that this guarantees that I won’t miss out on anything each season. Like, I’d hate to miss fresh peaches.
2. It uses fresh foods; no broccoli casseroles.
3. It’s French… actually it’s Canadian… but French. (Sometimes I like to have a little fun with myself and see how far I can go deciphering the whole site in French. Then I realize I have four boys to take care of, and I don’t have time for this, so I click that “ENGLISH” button in the very, very top right hand corner, and move on.

Tonight, I followed the farmer’s market menu and had pork chops marinated in brown sugar, garlic, and soy sauce, with plain basmati rice, FRESH apples and a tomato basil salad… which I amazingly grew myself.

But sometimes, I improvise… A lot. First, I will explain that I pay very close attention to the grocery list. I buy everything listed that I don’t have. Then, when figuring out what to make for dinner, I scan the menus looking for anything that strikes my fancy. For example, I’m looking at the roasted red pepper soup. I have the red peppers in my fridge, but there is no way my kids will eat that soup, no matter how good it is.

So my mind starts whirring, and soon, I have a meal in my head, based on the red pepper, and a few of the other items on the soscuisine grocery list for the week. Here goes:

1. Cook pasta
2. Cut red peppers and red onions into small pieces
3. Sauté red peppers and onions in olive oil and salt in skillet on stove until perfectly browned – just a tad charred.
4. Add black pepper.
5. Drain pasta; reserve one half of pasta and cover with fresh parmesan cheese.
6. Pour the other half of pasta into the skillet with the red peppers and onions.
7. Add feta and parmesans cheese to skillet… maybe some fresh herbs too.
8. Cut up any fresh fruit available in fridge and put in bowl.
9. Serve plain pasta to the kids; but demand they taste the red pepper onion mixture.

So, instead of red pepper soup that my kids would have hated… we had red pepper pasta. I should probably be a little more cautions about sending people to a meal planning website that I don’t technically use as a meal-planning website. I use soscuisine simply for inspiration. And sometimes, that little spark is all we need in the afternoon.

Filed under: cooking, food by SusieJ - 1 Comment →