You are indeed welcome here and I think we are going to get ahead of you, LOL, our insurance that you will return.
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Tasty Treats to Make With Mulberries
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Posted June 16, 2009 - 11:19 by Linsey Knerl
Filed Under: Frugal Living, Food and Drink
Photo: Linsey B Knerl
It’s one of my favorite times of year. The volunteer mulberry trees in my yard have begun popping with mulberries, and the kids have come inside from a morning out in the yard with purple mouths and sticky hands. I’ve never been a huge fan of cooking with the berries – we usually just grab some off the tree, wash, and eat. This year, however, I’m determined to supplement my groceries with the tiny dark berries. Here are my favorite ways to put them to good use.
What’s a mulberry? These tiny, purple/black berries look like tiny raspberries, but aren’t as tart or sweet. They are actually at bit on the bland side, as berries go, and they fall easily from the tree when ripe. (The berries set on a white color, then darken through varying stages of pink, red, and finally purple/black when ready to eat.)
How do you harvest them? There are as many ways to pick the berry as there are to eat them. I use a combination of letting the kids go out every morning when it is cool and climb up into the tree to hand pick them. They eat half of everything they harvest, but it is a fun activity for them to do in June, and it gets some of the picking done with no effort on my part. When my husband and I have found that most of the berries are ripe, we put down a large blanket under the tree and shake the branches, letting the ready ones fall to the blanket below. (Obviously, you will want to use an old sheet or blanket, as it will get rather stained in the process!) Then we shake all the berries to the edge of the blanket, dump them into a bucket, and bring them in for rinsing. (I use a salad spinner to rinse and gently extract the water from them. They are very delicate!)
What are they good for? Like most berries, they can be used for baking, jellies, and desserts. My favorite way is to eat them by themselves, and they should be used within 2 days of picking for the best flavor. I’ve also found a few very good recipes for ever the beginning berry hunter to explore:
Mulberry Muffins (via Marilyn Maggio at AllAboutStuff.com)
¼ cup shortening 5 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt
2 beaten eggs 2/3 cup milk
2 cups flour ½ cup mulberries
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream shortening and sugar together. Add eggs and mix well. Sift 1 ½ cups flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add this mixture to egg and sugar mixture alternately with milk. Sprinkle mulberries with remaining flour and stir lightly. Bake in grease muffin pans for 25 to 30 minutes.
Mulberry Preserves (via Just Berry Recipes)
20 fl Juice from damaged mulberries
2 1/2 lb Sugar (5 cups)
2 lb Mulberries
Using damaged mulberries, reduce them to juice in the usual way. Put the juice into a preserving pan with the sugar. Bring to the boil, stirring, and then skim. When moving vigorously, tip in the mulberries. (They should be ripe but not soft enough to mash.) Take the pan from the stove and leave until the fruit is warmed through (taste one). Then put back on the heat and boil gently for about 15 minutes. Pour carefully - so as not to break the fruit - into a large bowl. If, however, you are using a stainless steel preserving pan, you can leave the mulberries in it.
Next day, bring to the boil and simmer steadily for 15 minutes, or until setting point is reached. The point of this careful method is to keep the fruit as intact as possible. You can avoid breaking the fruit ‘by gentle stirring, and by simmering the fruit very slowly. Put into jars to store.
Other fabulous ideas include:
Mulberry Pie
Mulberry Cobbler
Mulberry Ice Cream
Mulberry Wine
(Note: It is not completely agreed upon whether you have to remove the stems in every recipe you make. Some baked items, like pies, can contain stems. They will soften and absorb the flavor of the dish, and no one will likely notice them. Other dishes, like the ice cream, will require you to remove the stems and caps… a very time-consuming practice.)
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13 Awesome Money Saving Sites We Love at Wise Bread
8 comments
Posted June 7, 2009 - 21:25 by Greg Go
Filed Under: Frugal Living, Shopping, Lifestyle
unique
Photo: Unique Among the Crowd / iStockphoto
When we found the 190 best money saving resources on the web, there were a few sites that made us say “wow!” and stood out from the crowd for one reason or another. Some had really awesome features, some eliminated lots of pain and hassle, and others were just so unique we had to mention them. Here are 13 of the best of the best money saving sites on the web.
There are 3 reasons we really like Retail Me Not:
1. Huge database of online coupon codes and printable in-store coupons.
2. It’s like a virtual coupon organizer that’s always there when you’re shopping.
3. Users vote on the reliability of coupons, so the coupon usually works the first time we try it.
Retail Me Not makes it super easy to browse or search for coupons:
* Firefox Add-on that tells you when the online store you are at has available coupons. Let’s say you’re on Amazon.com. This add-on will tell you how many coupons are available for Amazon, and provide a link to get those coupons. Handy! Now you don’t need to go somewhere else to check for coupons before checking out.
* Toolbar for IE and Firefox that gives you the full experience of being at RetailMeNot.com no matter where you are on the web. Always have access to coupon search, coupon submission, the latest new coupons, and even chat with other Retail Me Not community members.
* Printable coupon search engine that allows you locate and print out manufacturers’ coupons and local offers. For example, I can type in “pizza” and my zip code and immediately get a bunch of printable in-store coupons for Domino’s, Papa Murphay’s, Chuck E. Cheese, etc.
Awesome Feature: Every coupon has a reliability score based on user votes.
Anyone can answer the question “did this coupon work for you?” with a simple click on the “yes” or “no” option (no registration required). By not requiring registration, Retial Me Not gets the most user input possible on the reliability of the coupons, which makes the reliability scores even more, well, reliable. No more wasting time trying dozens of different codes that don’t work!
Sure, Fat Wallet’s got a huge forum community helping us weed out the bad deals and find the really hidden gems. Yeah, there’s a big coupons database too. Those are both awesome parts of Fat Wallet, but what gets us really excited is... cashback shopping!
Get 1-50% cashback on purchases you make through Fat Wallet at hundreds of partner stores. Okay, there’s only a handful of stores with 20% or more cashback, but there are plenty of huge stores that offer very nice 3-12% cashback on purchases made through Fat Wallet.
Our favorite cashback stores include Bloomingdale’s (4% cashback), Restaurant.com (20%), PETCO (8%), GoDaddy (12%), Shutterfly (7%), Home Depot (6%), Orbitz (3.5%), eBay (1%), and Dell (3%).
Fastest way to see if your credit cards or cell phone plans are the best deals you can get.
Forget about manually comparing dozens of confusing plans. Let BillShrink do the work for you and save money within 5 minutes. BillShrink will analyze your needs based on your current usage, and recommend plans that will save you money.
BillShrink can quickly analyze your usage pattern using your last statement. For example, if you’ve logged into your cell phone’s website before, you can just enter your phone number and password, and BillShrink will retrieve your information. You can also fill out a short form to describe your usage pattern and current plan parameters.
eCoupons has a no nonsense website that looks very similar to hundreds of other online coupon resources. But if you look closer, you’ll find three hidden gems of the bargain hunting world.
First, there’s the grocery coupon “swap meet”. You mail in unwanted, unused and unexpired printed Manufacturer Coupons, and your account gets credited. You can then use those credits to “shop” for grocery coupons that you can actually use. You’ll get those coupons mailed to you. Click here to view available coupons. Nifty.
Second, eCoupons has listings of coupons for individual colleges and universities. Students can bookmark the page and quickly find coupons that are available for stores on campus. How convenient!
Third, eCoupons offer cashbacks for tons of great stores like 1-800-Contacts, Buy.com, Newegg, and REI.
Weird name but incredibly cool concept. Zilok is basically “Craigslist for rentals”. You can rent your stuff out or rent someone else’s stuff for a day.
For owners, get more out of your purchases. Or maybe even get them for “free”. How much of your stuff is just sitting around? Renting out that power tool or patio heater or kayak just a few times could pay for the item!
For renters, you can save money by renting, instead of buying. How many things do you buy and only use a couple of times? Stuff like canoes, laptops, cameras, cars, books, baby strollers, and everything in between is available for rent from someone near you.
If not for the money, you can also do it for the environment. Fewer new purchases means a healthier planet. Daily Candy put it really nicely. They said Zilok helps in “connecting you with other people in the community to support a green lifestyle with peer-to-peer renting.” We love the idea (and the phrase) “peer-to-peer renting”.
Brad’s Deals is unique because there’s one passionate bargain hunter behind it all — Brad Wilson. You could call him the uber bargain hunter. He has been publishing online coupons and deals daily since 2001, when he started the site to show friends where and how he saves money via deals. He even provides scanned Black Friday mailer ads from popular stores so you don’t have to fish them out of your mailbox. Now that’s commitment!
Brad’s commitment to saving people money has been featured on Oprah, The Today Show, ABC News, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, and USA Today.
Best thing about the site? From the email alerts to the daily deals posts, everything about site oozes personality. It’s like a trusted friend giving you some advice about deals. You feel like you can trust Brad. Despite the site’s popularity (and what must be a very busy Brad), even the contact email address for the site goes directly to the uber bargin hunter himself!
Sweepstakes Advantage is really the only choice for sweepers looking for a site that is both comprehensive and trustworthy.
Giveaways are organized by prize being given away, frequency (daily/weekly), rules (24-hr entry, snail mail), and location restrictions. There is also a nifty checkbox next to each listed sweepstakes so you can easily keep track of which ones you’ve entered.
The reason this site is a go-to resource for sweepers is the very active community of over 150,000 members (wow!) who help make sure the sweepstakes listed are legit, so you don’t have to constantly wonder if you’re entering a scam.
(Wise Bread’s resident sweeps expert, Linsey Knerl, recommends Sweepstakes Advantage for serious sweepers. Check out Linsey’s ultimate guide to sweeping — Sweeping 101: What the Real Winners Know — to learn other best practices of winners.)
One of the easiest way to save money is to setup an automatic transfer from your checking to your savings account at regular intervals (for example, when paychecks are deposited). That way, you’re paying yourself before you have a chance to spend all that money in your checking account. You can do that and more with SmartyPig.
You set a goal and choose the amount you want to contribute each month to reach that goal. SmartyPig automatically pulls that amount from your checking account each month. Just like a savings account at your local bank, SmartyPig pays an interest on the money deposited and all deposits are insured by the FDIC. You can get cash from the account with a debit card or electronic transfer.
But unlike your local bank — and this is the really neat part — SmartyPig allows other people to help your savings grow. You can make your goals public to friends and family, so they can contribute to your savings if they want to.
What a cool way to save money for college, a 3-month backpacking trip, or other big purchases like a car or house.
Deals Catcher is one of the largest deals websites around. The deals are published by a full-time staff, which ensures that they’re of the highest quality. Deal Catcher also has a very large and active forum community of over 50,000 people. You can ask questions about deals and the hundreds of people on at any given time will be quick to respond.
Make sure you bookmark their Sunday Saver site, which complies weekly sales circulars and Sunday paper ads. Use this instead of buying the Sunday paper to save yourself a few bucks (and a few trees).
My favorite feature is Deal Catcher’s price comparison engine. It is a great way to immediately verify whether you are looking at a deal or a dud.
Current Codes is a no nonsense coupons and discount code database. There’s no complex navigation, image-heavy decoration, or any of the other non-essential things that clutter up websites. Current Codes is an accurate and comprehensive database of coupons. Period.
There’s a full-time staff whose only jobs are:
1. scour the web for all available coupons and discount codes, and
2. verify their accuracy.
And when we say it’s “no nonsense”, we mean it. If you like your websites clean, simple and to the point, Current Codes is the place for you.
Online since 1999, TechBargains has been saving me money on computer components and other electronics since the last decade. Where other deals sites look at everything, TechBargains is focused on only tech deals.
If you like gadgets, TVs, video games, computer gear, cameras, and all things tech, TechBargains is a geek shopper’s nirvana. On the other hand, if you like shiny new gadgets at great prices a little too much, then maybe you should stay away. You’ve been warned.
Do you love entering giveaways on blogs? Then Prizey was built just for you.
They list giveaways from bloggers, and also post details like the deadline to enter and what kind of hoops you have to jump through. (90% of giveaways only require posting a comment.) Subscribe to the feed to get the latest giveaways in the blogosphere.
It is insanely easy to win blog giveaways. While national contests announced on TV and radio have thousands of contestants, blog giveaways often have less than a hundred. The chances of winning are fantastic and Prizey makes it even easier.
Prices and Coupons bridges the gap between price comparison and coupon codes. Let’s say you want to buy a camera. Going to a price comparison engine (like Google Shopping) that will tell you the prices from different stores is a good first step. But wouldn’t it be cool if the price comparison engine also told you if there are coupons available?
That where Prices and Coupons comes in. Unlike typical price comparison engines, Prices and Coupons’ search engine takes into account applicable coupons and discount codes. So now when you compare prices, you know you’re getting the best possible deal without having to look for coupons for each of the stores manually. Saves so much time.
MedWatch logo MedWatch - The FDA Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program
Nature & Health Co., announced a voluntary nationwide recall of the company’s supplement products sold under the following names: LibieXtreme, Y-4ever, Libimax X Liquid, Powermania Liquid and Capsule, Herbal Disiac. Lab analysis by FDA of these products found they contain either tadalafil, an active ingredient of an FDA-approved drug for erectile dysfunction (ED), its analog aminotadalafil, or the analog of sildenafil, an active ingredient of another FDA-approved ED drug, making these products unapproved drugs. The undeclared ingredients may interact with nitrates found in some prescription drugs such as nitroglycerin and may lower blood pressure to dangerous levels. Customers who have these products in their possession should stop using it immediately and contact their physician if they have experienced any problems that may be related to taking these products.
Read the 2009 MedWatch safety summary, including a link to the company’s Press Release, at:
You are encouraged to report all serious adverse events and product quality problems to FDA MedWatch at www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm172433.htm
Kesso Foods, Inc. voluntarily recalls8 oz. and 16 oz. Kesso Foods Low fat All Natural Plain 2% Greek Thick Yogurt Because of The Possible Presence of Salmonella in An Ingredient Obtained from Plainview Milk Products Cooperative
Contact:
Vea Kessissoglou
718-777-5303
646-436-6366
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - July 10, 2009 - Kesso Foods, Inc. of East Elmhurst, NY is voluntarily recalling 8 oz. and 16 oz. Kesso Foods Lowfat All Natural Plain 2% Greek Thick Yogurt. The affected product has a “SELL BY” date up to and including August 10, 2009. The yogurt is being recalled because it contains nonfat dried milk manufactured by the Plainview Milk Products Cooperative of Plainview, MN. The nonfat dried milk has been subject to an FDA recall due to potential Salmonella contamination. There have been no complaints or reports of illness reported to Kesso Foods, Inc. up to date. The voluntary recall of our product is a precaution to ensure our client safety.
Salmonella is an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and other with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis. For more information on Salmonella, please visit the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’s website at http://www.cdc.gov.
The affected product is packaged in 8oz. and 16oz. white plastic container. It is only distributed to retailers in New York State. The 8oz. container bears UPC number 669541537767 and the 16 oz. containers bears UPC number 669541537774.
Consumers who have purchased products covered by this recall should return them to the store of purchase for a full refund. Consumers with questions or concerns about the recall may call Kesso Foods, Inc at 646-436-6366, Monday-Friday, 11am-5pm, Eastern Time.
MedWatch logo MedWatch - The FDA Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program
FDA is evaluating interim safety findings from an ongoing study of Xolair (omalizumab) titled Evaluating the Clinical Effectiveness and Long-Term Safety in Patients with Moderate to Severe Asthma (EXCELS) that suggests a disproportionate increase in ischemic heart disease, arrhythmias, cardiomyopathy and cardiac failure, pulmonary hypertension, cerebrovascular disorders, and embolic, thrombotic and thrombophlebitic events in patients treated with Xolair compared to the control group of patients not given the drug. Xolair is approved for use by adults and adolescents (12 years of age and above) with moderate to severe persistent asthma who test positive for reactivity to a perennial airborne allergen, and whose symptoms are inadequately controlled with inhaled corticosteroids.
FDA is not recommending any changes to the prescribing information for Xolair and is not advising patients to stop taking Xolair at this time. Until the evaluation of the EXCELS study is completed, healthcare providers and patients should be aware of the risks and benefits described in the prescribing information, as well as the new information from the ongoing EXCELS study that may suggest a risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular adverse events.
Read the MedWatch safety summary, including a link to the Early Communication about an Ongoing Safety Review, at:
You are encouraged to report all serious adverse events and product quality problems to FDA MedWatch at www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm