I need to cut it out with the posts that sound like birds chirping, huh?

One of my newest blog crushes is Jennifer from “Playgroups are no place for children”. (She also gets to live by Casey which makes me green with envy as Casey is one awesome bloggity date.)

Jennifer’s post for today is about being a cheapskate and her love of purchasing generic items. It started my brain spiraling in a million different directions so I thought I might as well dump it here since I am now going through the aisles of my grocery store in my head and thinking about what I will and will not spend money on.

I am not a careless shop-a-holic. I think and think and think before actually plunking money down on something with two exceptions:

I will totally splurge on eating out.

I do it with ease.

I hem and haw about spending money on clothes but I can drop a wad on a great meal without batting an eye.

I have always thought that was sad, but if you only knew the memories and pure love of food that I have. (Well, I did weigh 280 at one point, so maybe it isn’t all that difficult to grasp after all.)

Splurge number two?

The grocery store.

There are still times that I am quite enchanted with being an adult. Sure, most of the “I am grown up and on my own!” rosiness has worn off but there are still times when I am in the grocery store that I think “I can buy whatever I want with the money that I have??!!!! SQUEE!!!!”

So, I am not often overly careful at the store. I don’t clip coupons, but I buy on sale if I can and I am always aware of good meat sales. If I can save I will, but not at the expense of getting what I want.

That said? I genuinely like a lot of generic products.

GENERICS I WUV:

Medication: I ALWAYS buy generic if I can. This is the area that I see the price difference the very most. The savings are huge and the product is great.

Maxi Pads: (Warning! Possible TMI ahead!) They work fine for me. I am not a Mount Vesuvius period girl, so it’s all good. I do buy name brand tampons, though.

Spray Bleach and cleaning products in general: Clorox charges twice as much for an identical product. I’ll stick with my $1 bottle, thanks. Same with glass cleaner and toilet bowl cleaner. (Exception: Dollar store cleaners are hideous. Just so you know. They do not count)

Hair care and styling products: I wouldn’t have put this on the list before, but since my awesome sister-in-law, Nooncy bought me the “Don’t go to the make up counter without me” and “Don’t buy hair products without me” books, I am just FINE buying drugstore shampoo, conditioner and products.

You wouldn’t believe how much easier it is to style my hair how I want because I have EVERYTHING. Waxes, sprays, gels, putty’s, leave in conditioners, creams, EVERYTHING. And it is all thanks to Garnier. Before I had these books I would plunk down 35.00 for one bottle of shine enhancer. Now I have one I LIKE BETTER and it cost me $3.00!

So? I can have tons of products now for the same price and I love it.

Cereal: This is a split category. There are some generic cereals that are acceptable like knock offs of Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Mini-Wheats, and Sugar Puffs.

Shoes: I LOVE good shoes. But I also find cute shoes at PayLess, too.

Bras: After finding the Hanes All Over comfort Bra, I don’t know if I’ll go back to VS except for special occasions. I heart them.

Salsa: I love WalMart’s Black Bean Salsa. I prefer it over all others, actually.

Milk: I prefer the cheaper store brand, actually.

Eggs: Same thing.

Pull ups: They worked totally fine for us and were much cheaper.

Dishwasher Soap: I have to buy the better stuff that contains jet dry now, because my dishwasher kinda sucks, but my parents have a rockin’ dishwasher and generic is fine.

Skin Care: I HEART WalMart’s Equate brand of skin care. They knock off some very good products by Olay, Nuetragena, ect. and they work as well has the original for SO much less. Next to medication, this is the biggest money saver in generics. According to Fussy, Equate also has a generic Eucerine version that is only $3 instead of $15 that I MUST check out.

Teeth Whitening Strips: By Eqaute. Yup. They work swell and it’s $15 vs $30.

Body Wash: They work just fine, although I do love the Olay uber moisturizing one and Bath and Body Works makes my heart sing.

Meat: This is a biggie for me. I have to buy chicken, beef, etc. from the butcher. I only buy Tyson as a last resort.

THINGS I WILL NOT SKIMP ON:

Ice cream: Since my gastric bypass, Ice Cream makes me feel sick, but I love it. SO, the rare times I indulge it had better be GOOD.

Soda: ONLY Diet Coke for me, thanks. Generic soda sucks.

Cereal: Lucky Charms, Rice Krispies and Golden Grahams all have to be name brand.

Laundry: I have to have Bounce fabric sheets. As for laundry detergent, Gain and Tide with Bleach, oh, how I Love Thee! Jonathan did pick up a box of Arm and Hammer when they were out of the size we like to buy and I have to say that I am actually liking it. It’s kind of strong, but hello? You are talking to someone who could snort the entire laundry aisle of the supermarket and die happy.

Peaches: I will never buy anything but Dole Plastic Bottled Peaches again. We are having a torrid affair, and I don’t see it dying down soon. Fruit in general, I have to buy name brand or it is icky.

Ketchup and Mustard: The generics usually suck.

Diapers: I have to have pampers for my babies. The others gave them rashes.

Spaghetti Sauce: UG. I can’t even think about it.

Bread: I have to have Grandma Sycamore’s. Dude, if Granny ever kicks the bucket I don’t know what I’ll do.

String Cheese: I cannot tolerate generic string cheese. It has to be the one with the illustration of the string cheese guy with wacky string cheese hair (I totally can’t remember the name and can’t find it online, so it is what it is.)

Lunch Meat: This.is.huge.for.me. Is there anything more disgusting than “Pressed Meat”? EWE.

I eat a turkey sandwich practically every day of my life for lunch and so I have to have good lunch meat. I would really prefer to get it at the deli counter, but for some reason my husband is on the opposite end of the scale in this argument. We have agreed to compromise on Oscar Meyer Roasted Turkey Breast and call it good.

I’m sure that there are many more things, but I’ll leave it at this for now.

SO? You? Do you have issues with generics? Do you love them with the power of a thousand burning suns?

I like to cook. Actually, it boarders on love. For one birthday, Jon asked me what I wanted and I said that I wanted to cook a gourmet meal for people that I loved. 5 kitchens, three sets of china and an obscene amount of money later, fifteen of my friends and family sat down to THE BEST SIX-COURSE MEAL. I made everything, EVERYTHING by scratch (Including the herb poaching liquid for the Salmon Mousseline.) I even found Foi Gras to go on top of the Fillet Mignon.

I have a knack for it.

Baking? Not so much.

Unlike her, I am no award winning baker. I’m not even what I would qualify as a “Good” baker.

I’m ok at it.

I don’t bake often because I am not nearly as good at it as cooking. It is too precise and measured (No pun intended.) I have had some major baking catastrophes in my life. It seems like the times that I try “Extra hard” the worse the end product SUCKS. Some of my attempts would have made Julia Child run screaming out of the room to chug copious vats of her cooking brandy.

I have learned over the years to not be hugely ambitious and to not ever, ever tweak or alter the basic recipe. I almost always slightly alter a recipe, but nowhere NEAR the amount I change recipes when I am cooking.

I am attending a holiday cookie exchange party tomorrow. It means making TEN FREAKING DOZEN COOKIES. The good thing about it is that I only have to make one recipe and I will leave with 10 dozen various Christmas cookies.

This year I am making one of my favorite cookies. I took the recipe from Ina Garten on Food Network. My only tweak to this recipe is that I add finely chopped pecans to the coconut mixture.

They are totally worth the widening of the ass that consuming them causes.

Jam Thumbprint Cookies
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash
7 ounces sweetened flaked coconut
Raspberry and/or apricot jam.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until they are just combined and then add the vanilla. Separately, sift together the flour and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar. Mix until the dough starts to come together. Dump on a floured board and roll together into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. (If you have a scale they should each weigh 1 ounce.) Dip each ball into the egg wash and then roll it in coconut. Place the balls on an ungreased cookie sheet and press a light indentation into the top of each with your finger. Drop 1/4 teaspoon of jam into each indentation. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the coconut is a golden brown. Cool and serve.

Butter is the backbone of this recipe. Lots and lots of fattening, lovely butter. MMM… Use unsalted butter when you bake, people. It’s for your own good, trust me. Oh, and if you even think for a millisecond of using anything other than real, honest-to-goodness BUTTER, you and I may have to meet in the gladiator cage. Since I am freakishly weak, I may not be able to actually give you a smackdown for committing such a grievous sin like using margarine, but I will fight to the death trying.

Cream butter and sugar together. Add a generous teaspoon of vanilla.

*Beginning of “Hatred of Vile Imitation Vanilla Rant*

Please, please, PLEASE use “REAL VANILLA”! I cannot stress this enough. Fake vanilla sucks ass more than Internet Explorer. It is like taking an old wad of stale chewing gum, throwing it in some boiling water and calling it peppermint herbal tea. It HAS to be bad for you. I can’t find any statistics that prove that imitation vanilla flavoring has actually killed anyone, but I wouldn’t be surprised. So, DON’T BUY IT, PEOPLE! Because I care about your health, I really do.

*End of rant*

Slowly add flour to mixture and incorporate.

Roll dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap.

Chill for 30 minutes. (Smilee face optional).

While your dough is chilling, whisk your egg wash and gather the rest of your ingredients.

Roll dough into balls. Make most of your batch about 1.5 inches across. I make some of my cookies slightly larger (Below) and slightly smaller as well because of the way that I package them.

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Dip in egg wash and roll in coconut/pecan mixture.

Assemble on a non-greased cookie sheet and make an indent with your thumb. Reseal any cracking that occurs or your jam with run onto the cookie sheet. They should look like little bird nests.

Take a teaspoon and fill with jam. I like to use multiple jams when I make these as gifts. This time I picked apricot, raspberry and blackberry, and strawberry. I like a healthy amount of jam, so I use about a half a teaspoon instead of an 1/8th.

Bake at350 for 20-25 minutes. My oven burns VERY hot, so I bake at 325 for 20 minutes. Just keep an eye on them. When the coconut is browned, remove them from the oven and cool on a rack.

My favorite way to package these cookies is to stack them in a cellophane bag and tie it with a ribbon. You want the cookies to graduate in size. This is why I make some cookies slightly larger and some slightly smaller.

VOILA!

Eat up and enjoy.

I love homemade soup. I go through huge soup phases where it’s all I want to make and eat. (Sorry, family!) If you have a few basic soup bases, you can tinker and make dozens of different soups from one basic recipe.

This soup recipe is one of my very favorites. I get requests to make it regularly. Every Halloween, my friend, Brian, requests that I bring this soup to his annual party. One year I happened to have a spare pumpkin, so I hollowed it out and used it to serve the soup out of. So, along with the soup request, I get requests for the container as well.

First, buy your veggies. Really, you can use any kind of root vegetable-As many or few as you like. These are selections I have used in the past: Potatoes, pumpkin, squash, yams, sweet potatoes, turnips parsnips, onion, carrots, and leeks.

This is the recipe I used today. (Keep in mind that I rarely cook with strict measurements. Tinker, play, season to your taste)

2 large red potatoes
2 yams
1 cup mini carrots (Or 3 regular size carrots)
1/2 large butternut squash
2 leeks
1 medium sized onion
2 turnips
1 bulb of garlic
Olive oil (About 3-4 Tbsp.)
About 1 to 2 Tbsp. salt (To taste)
Pepper
2 tsp. sugar
Fresh herbs (Rosemary, thyme). You can use dried herbs if fresh are not available.
2 hamburger buns
2 cups chicken stock
2 pints cream
Milk as needed

Chop vegetables into chunks. Make them approximately the same size to ensure that they roast evenly. Place vegetables on a large cookie tray. Sprinkle vegetables with olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar, chopped herbs and toss it together with your hands until the vegetables are coated.

Peel the outside paper off of garlic bulb (Leave intact). Wrap in aluminum foil and place on vegetable tray.

Cover the cookie sheet with aluminum foil, shiny side down. Roast for approximately 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Uncover and roast for an addition 10 to 15 minutes until the thickest vegetables are fork tender.

Let vegetables cool until they you can handle them. Chop up roasted garlic bulb and and to veggies. Puree them in either a food processor or food mill.

Pour in chicken stock and heat.

There are different ways to thicken soup. You can make a roux, which is flour and a little milk whisked into melted butter, or you can use cornstarch or even instant potato flakes or riced potatoes. One of my favorite thickeners is to use bread. It is best if the bread is a little stale, but it doesn’t have to be. You can use any kind of bread, but I prefer to use thicker bread like homemade, or even English muffins of hamburger buns. Today I used hamburger buns because I had them on hand.

Cook until bread is falling apart (About 5-6 minutes. Pour mixture into a blender, mill or processor and blend until bread is fully integrated and soup is smooth.You can stop at this point and refrigerate the soup if you are making this recipe ahead. When you are ready to serve, add cream and reheat until slightly bubbling.

Pour into hollowed out pumpkin and serve.

:)