Posted on 07/24/2009 3:37:21 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny
Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition Category: Roundups | Comments(15)
Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no television, and absolutely no “creature comforts.” But he does have a lot of creatures, as in the mice and bugs that scurry about the cave floor he’s called home for the last three years.
To us, Suelo probably sounds a little extreme. Actually, he probably sounds very extreme. After all, I suspect most of you reading this are doing so under the protection of some sort of man-made shelter, and with some amount of money on your person, and probably a few needs for money, too. And who doesn’t need money unless they have completely unplugged from the grid? Still, it’s an amusing story about a guy who rejects all forms of consumerism as we know it.
The Frugal Roundup
How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Save Some Money. A fantastic introduction to home brewing, something I’ve never done myself, but always been interested in trying. (@Generation X Finance)
Contentment: A Great Financial Principle. If I had to name one required emotion for living a frugal lifestyle it would be contentment. Once you are content with your belongings and your lot in life you can ignore forces attempting to separate you from your money. (@Personal Finance by the Book)
Use Energy Star Appliances to Save On Utility Costs. I enjoyed this post because it included actual numbers, and actual total savings, from someone who upgraded to new, energy star appliances. (@The Digerati Life)
Over-Saving for Retirement? Is it possible to “over-save” for retirement? Yes, I think so. At some point I like the idea of putting some money aside in taxable investments outside of retirement funds, to be accessed prior to traditional retirement age. (@The Simple Dollar)
40 Things to Teach My Kids Before They Leave Home. A great list of both practical and philosophical lessons to teach your kids before they reach the age where they know everything. I think that now happens around 13 years-old. (@My Supercharged Life)
Index Fund Investing Overview. If you are looking for a place to invest with high diversification and relatively low fees (for broader index funds with low turnover), index funds are a great place to start. (@Money Smart Life)
5 Reasons To Line Dry Your Laundry. My wife and I may soon be installing a clothesline in our backyard. In many neighborhoods they are frowned upon - one of the reasons I don’t like living in a neighborhood. I digress. One of our neighbors recently put up a clothesline, and we might just follow his lead. (@Simple Mom)
A Few Others I Enjoyed
* 4 Quick Tips for Getting Out of a Rut * Young and Cash Rich * Embracing Simple Style * First Trading Experience With OptionsHouse * The Exponential Power of Delayed Consumption * How Much Emergency Fund is Enough? * 50 Questions that Will Free Your Mind * Save Money On Car Insurance
Glazed Maple Cornmeal Buttermilk Rolls
Closely adapted from The Cornbread Gospels, Crescent Dragonwagon
2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
2 t salt
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups stoneground cornmeal (I used a fine grind—let it soak longer if using coarse)
4-5 T rolled oats
1 t maple extract, optional (make sure it is NOT artificial)
1 egg
2 egg yolks
2 scant T active dry yeast (or 2 packages)
1/2 cup lukewarm water (no warmer than 120 F)
1 t sugar
2 1/2 - 3 cups unbleached AP flour
2 1/2 - 3 cups whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat flour)
cooking spray (oil)
Sweet-Salty Glaze (see recipe below)
Place in a large bowl the maple syrup, salt, butter, cornmeal and 2 tablespoons of the oats. Heat the buttermilk up in a pot on the stove to a boil—it will separate which is fine. Pour it over the maple syrup/cornmeal mix. Mix gently to cover everything with buttermilk and then let it sit for 10-20 minutes, depending on coarseness of cornmeal. When it is lukewarm to room temperate to the touch (insert your finger into the bowl), add the eggs and maple extract and mix to combine.
In the meantime, mix the yeast, sugar and lukewarm water. Set aside to let the yeast proof. When it is bubbling, add it to the cornmeal mixture, along with 1 cup each of the AP and whole wheat flours. Beat vigorously for 2 minutes. Then add the flours, alternating between the 2, 1/2-cup at a time, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl (after you have added about 4 cups total).
Dump the dough onto a clean, floured surface. Knead, adding flour as needed, until the dough is smooth and elastic, 5-6 minutes. The dough will be quite tender. Spray a deep bowl with oil and add the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and a towel and place ina warm spot to let the dough rise until doubles, approximately 1 hour.
While the dough is rising, prepare the pans: 2 12-inch rounds pans, 3 9-inch round pans or 3 12-cup muffin tins. Whichever you choose—or you can do butterhorns, for example, on cookie sheets—spray the pans with oil. Clean your work surface and lightly spray it with oil. When the dough is risen, shape the rolls as desired (if you use the round pans, make 1 1/2-inch diameter balls, which I was very haphazard about) and place them into or on the prepared pans. Cover again with plastic and a towel (use only a damp towel if you use the cookie sheets to prevent sticking) and let rise until almost doubles, about 45 minutes.
30 minutes into the rise, preheat the oven to 375 F. At this point, prepare the glaze.
When the rolls have risen, place them in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Then remove the pans, brush the glaze onto the rolls, sprinkle with the remaining oats and return them o the oven. Bake for another 6-9minutes, until the tops are shiny and browned. Serve warm.
Sweet-Salty Glaze
Adapted from The Cornbread Gospels
3 T butter
1 1/4 t salt
2 T light brown sugar
2 T pure maple syrup
1 egg
Bring the first 4 ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan on the stove. Stir to dissolve the salt and sugar. Remove from the heat and let cool to lukewarm. Whisk in the egg. Brush it onto the rolls as called for above.
Dragonwagon calls for adding the egg immediately—which I was worried would create Salty Sweet Egg Drop Soup—and yes it did. I am not sure if it is a typo or user error on my part, but I advise letting the glaze cool before adding the egg.
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* South Indian Style Aloo Mattar by Tigers & Strawberries
* Cha Dum (Vietnamese Meat Loaf)
http://thespicedlife.blogspot.com/2009/11/maple-buttermilk-cornmeal-rolls.html
CNN reports - Solutions - Urban Farms - Urban Communities Growing Fresh Food
Fresh vegetables and fruit can be hard to find in the inner cities, but one man
is trying to change that.
Ample Harvest shares leftover garden produce
Q. What exactly is the AmpleHarvest.org campaign?
A. It is a nationwide effort to diminish hunger in America by making it easy for
millions of backyard gardeners across the country to quickly find local food pantries
eager to receive freshly picked crops for their clients.
AmpleHarvest.org enables
gardeners to find food pantries within a specified distance of their home and then
view the pantries desired day/time for receiving donations.
10 x 10 project and Lawn to Farm envisioned by Urban Design Lab
The 10 x 10 project, comprising modular food production units distributed to schools,
community centers, and Boys and Girls Clubs, would provide children with a hands-on,
direct food production experience, as well as appreciation of fresh foods.
Overview of Urban Farming
Urban farms come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Almost all, however, share some
basic startup costs. Assuming a plot of land of at least half an acre, a list of
such costs would likely include:
· Rototiller ($4,500): a motorized plow that uses rotating tines or blades to
cultivate the soil and get the land ready for planting. This is the only mechanized
equipment necessary.
· Coolers ($4,000): Two upright produce coolers used to store fresh vegetables
and prevent spoilage.
· Other equipment ($1,000): garden seeder, wheel hoe, standard-issue tools, harvesting
bins, hoses, and sprinklers
· Sales & Marketing ($500): farmers market tables, display baskets, digital scale,
signage
· TOTAL: $10,000
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All stories here.
City Farmer News [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102851167062&s=1304&e=001wKqSRcGLFYCmQ8oTwZoD0FqvqAUsLAPd9JQ05llX5RZd3s8KWlqJfCDgl_cVJdgm7sJ2nkTJD2kNCXGi4ZfaizBBWt7-nEpbUKoYgZqzf6B3BOpXYwlR2Q==]
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Michael Levenston
City Farmer - Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture
www.hearttouchers.com
You will enjoy the site, when you have time to visit, it is from their newsletter that I got the Squanto story.
Cottage Cheese Loaf - Tana’s version<<<
Thank you for sharing your recipe, it makes me think of sliced tomatoes to serve with it.
Looks very good to me.
Howdy and a Happy Thanksgiving past to you too.
I do hope it was a special one for you.
Good job Granny. You’re the Best. Love you.
Harrison Daily Times - Harrison, Arkansas - Neighbor Newspapers ...
When it was stolen, Boone County Sheriff Danny Hickman said, it was also
loaded with dry groceries valued at about $4500. Hickman said the truck was
recovered in front of a liquor store in Carroll County, but there were no
groceries in ...
http://harrisondailytimes.com/articles/2009/11/27/news/doc4b0f1733c11a7674269986.txt
News from harrisondailytimes.com
http://harrisondailytimes.com/
He finds clothes in the bin and grows his own food: Meet the man who has spent NOTHING for a year
This posted on our local board:
A couple of years ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an article on New York Steakhouses and how they prepared and cooked their beef. As I recall, the paper payed particular attention to Peter Lugar’s Steakhouse. Anyway, the article had a couple of sidebars that I have found useful. The first is about buying and aging beef at home. This is what they said about that:
DRY-AGING AT HOME
This is the method we used to dry-age strip steaks. Food safety experts do not recommend any type of aging at home, because of the risk of food-borne illness.
1. Buy a whole USDA Choice strip loin, available at big-box stores such as B.J.’s or Costco.
2. Clean the kitchen and refrigerator with a solution of diluted bleach. Run all equipment through a hot dishwasher cycle. Wash hands.
3. Line a baking pan with paper towels and place a baking rack into the pan. Remove the strip loin from the vacuum pack and place it, fat side down, onto the baking rack.
4. Place the baking pan onto the bottom level of an empty or fairly empty refrigerator. Place ice packs around the refrigerator to make sure the temperature stays below 40 degrees. Avoid opening the door frequently.
5. Leave the loin aging for 2 to 7 days maximum.
6. With clean hands and equipment, and using a very sharp knife, slice off every piece of exterior meat, making sure no hard, desiccated tissue is left on any part of the loin.
7. Slice the loin into 1-1/2 to 2-inch steaks. Freeze unused portions.
I buy choice beef loins at a Sam’s Club in Greenville. I have never taken all of the sanitation precautions listed here. I try to have a clean broiling pan, but I don’t worry too much about the bleach. I let it age for 7 to 10 days. 2 days is way too short. I think it would be ok and probably better to wait 2 or 3 weeks. Folks in pretty warm eastern NC routinely age deer meat for more than 10 days in the open air without ill effects. I have never packed any ice around the thing.
I do use a very sharp knife to trim the loin. My wife’s dogs love the trimmings as well they should.
Here is the basic recipe to cook these steaks once they are aged:
Ingredients:
2 steaks; cut strip steaks or rib-eyes about 1-1/2 inches thick, filet mignon, 2-1/2 inches
2 teaspoons grapeseed or canola oil
Kosher salt
Instructions:
• Remove steaks from refrigerator 2 hours before cooking time. Dry them with a paper towel
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees, with a rack set in the middle.
• Heat a heavy, cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, until a few drops of water sprayed on pan evaporate within 3 seconds.
• Coat the bottom of the pan with 2 teaspoons of grapeseed or canola oil.
• Liberally salt the steaks with kosher salt, about 3/4 teaspoon for each steak.
• Place steaks in pan and sear for 2 minutes on each side, flipping only once with tongs.
• Transfer the steaks, still in the pan, to the oven and roast for roughly 8 to 9 minutes for 1-1/2-inch steaks to ac (an instant-read thermometer should register between 125 and 130 degrees).
• Let the steaks rest, under a tent of aluminum foil, for 5 minutes before serving.
I generally cut the steaks about 1 inch instead of 1-1/2 or 2 inches, so I cook them on top of the stove for about 1 minute/side and I cut down on the in the oven cooking because I prefer steaks rare, rare, rare.
Perhaps these steaks will not beat Peter Luger, or Ruth, or Morton, but they are very good and you can eat them at home where you pay much less and can drink as much wine as you like without having to worry about driving.
sounds interesting, but cannot verify the safety of the process..
Hi Granny,
My internet has been out for two days and may be done for some time. I’m fine... I may have to hook up the dialup account for a short time.
I found a site you might like in Google Moderator. Lots of tips here:
http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=3cfc
Austin Texas adopts a resolution to promote urban farms and community gardens
On a chilly Saturday morning, a steady stream of Austin residents lured by the promise
of fresh organic vegetables trickled into east Austin’s Boggy Creek Farm, where
tables of butternut squash and bell peppers greeted them.
A dirt path led visitors behind the market stand, where they found a three-acre
plot of winter crops including beets, arugula, carrots and leeks.
Farms in the middle of major cities are not a common sight, but a recent City Council
decision could make it easier for Austin residents to start their own farm like
Boggy Creek.
Mayor Hazen Pingree and the Potato Patch Plan of the 1890’s
During the second summer of the depression (1894) Pingree launched his “potato patch
plan,” which, as a work relief measure, has been described as one of the original
contributions of the nineties. The Mayor’s scheme envisioned the cultivation of
vacant lots by the city’s unfortunate, who were, in many cases, but a few years
removed from a peasant agricultural economy of Europe.
Since Detroit’s poor commission
was near insolvency and the city treasury almost empty, Pingree called upon the
churches to contribute funds for the purchase of ploes, implements, and seed.
“the
Mayor proposes to find out if those elegant churches are only for show or for doing
some real good,” a Pingree aide told a reporter.
Detroit Thrift Gardens of 1931 - The Depression Years
The outstanding popular success of the Mayor’s Unemployment Committee (MUC) and,
in the opinion of the mayor, “perhaps” its “most important undertaking,” was the
Detroit thrift-garden program. The suggestion that the MUC undertake this activity
came from Murphy himself, who had been reading George Catlin’s The Story of Detroit
and had been impressed with the account of Hazen Pingree’s famous “potato patch
plan” and the manner in which a substantial number of welfare families in Detroit
during the depression years 1894-1896 had grown a portion of their food on vacant
lots donated to the city for that purpose. The MUC decided in March, 1931, to undertake
a similar program of “vacant lot gardening.”
Community enCompass is taking the concept of the urban garden to the next level.
Officials call it urban farming.
Playing off the successful half-acre garden plot that grew last summer on a vacant
lot owned by Goodwill Industries, the Christian community development organization
in Muskegon’s McLaughlin Neighborhood has created the McLaughlin Grows Urban Farm
at Iona and Sophia streets.
With the help of the Community Foundation for Muskegon County and its Richard and
Marilyn Witham Fund, the urban farm is adding “hoop houses” to extend the growing
season year-round. The idea is to create business opportunities during economically
tough times.
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More on these stories here:
City Farmer News [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102855308939&s=1304&e=001_QNZhLzzNQDCOjU-72Cly2oxvSFVbD7D6YXGEI-aGZ5qpnQjTBbmU5dZ3qN6mxKzGb4pNl4cRH-iPmsS7jVHuGyJGB_wWabg-Huj8bjRao7nzib34oHhSQ==]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Levenston
City Farmer - Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture
Interesting way to handle meat, I have not tried it.
Neighbors lost all of theirs, after butchering and attempting to age it at home.
We raised pork and beef, took it to a special butcher site and picked up frozen packages, ready to eat.
Be careful, some things are best left to those with the proper equipment.
Free Cycle not long ago offered a walk in refrigerator and my mind went wild with uses for it, but alas not for my world today.
Interesting tips and recipes, thanks for both links.
Welcome to dial up hell, today, it keeps taking timeouts, as it pleases and for no reason and without the scanner going to use the line at the same time.
Could shut down and reboot, but have several history googles open and don’t want to start over.
As long as you are ok, that is all that matters.
>>> Be careful, some things are best left to those with the proper equipment. <<<
I agree.. I hope Dela looks at this and comments , because I won’t try it without some input..
I imagine that the ENTIRE Internet is thereby s-l-o-w and that after midnight your dial up should be just fine, again -- just like everybody else's dial-up, wi-fi, broadband, and satellite will be.
I'm thinking there's just tooooo much traffic online, like there is on Christmas Day, itself.
>>> Be careful, some things are best left to those with the proper equipment. <<<
I agree.. I hope Dela looks at this and comments , because I won’t try it without some input..<<<
Whew... Aging meat is a lost art... VERY few do it anymore.
Generally, you need to age it for at least 10 days to see much difference. Usually done for between 10 and 30 days - BUT slip-up or get careless and it is dog food.
Meat needs to hang and chill for at the very least 24 hours for the rigor mortise to run it’s course - then the muscle starts to relax as the enzymes start to work. It is a very temperature and humidity sensitive process to fully age meat. You need 32-35 degree temperatures and 85-90% humidity and you need air circulation around the meat. If it freezes, the process stops, if temperature is too high or if there is not good air circulation, the meat starts to rot...
In the article you show, the ice helps to maintain not only the temperature, but the all important humidity. Your refrigerator must have an air circulation fan and you don’t want to wrap it up with plastic or any airtight container.
My suggestion is if you want to try it, don’t use a whole loin - give it a test run with a few steaks if you can find some that are fresh and have not been packaged for too long.
(Sorry for delay in answering - since last Friday, I have been processing a deer. Froze some made some sausage and just finished canning last of it.)[DW]
In any event, that would represent a substantial increase in web traffic, and slow everybody down.
A list of Free EBook sites, several topics, from Universities:
[snipped]
Online free ebooks : electrical engineering
http://www.onlinefreeebooks.net/engineering-ebooks/electrical-engineering/
This blog site includes links to books on electrical engineering that can be downloaded for free in pdf format.
There are tables of contents as well as information on related publications for each one. It is updated on average less than once a month.
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Online free ebooks : geodetic engineering
http://www.onlinefreeebooks.net/engineering-ebooks/geodetic-engineering/
This blog site includes links to books on geodetic engineering that can be downloaded for free in pdf format.
There are tables of contents as well as information on related publications for each one. It is updated on average less than once a month.
More details
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* Rate
* Comments
Online free ebooks : mechanical and industrial engineering
http://www.onlinefreeebooks.net/engineering-ebooks/manufacture-mechanical-indust
This blog site includes links to books on mechanical and industrial engineering that can be downloaded for free in pdf format.
There are tables of contents as well as information on related publications for each one. It is updated on average twice a month.
More details
[Yes, there is a cookbook on this page...LOL]
Thanks Granny!
- - -
Archiving:
Tue 01 Dec 2009 12:09:01 AM MST · 4,819 of 4,819
nw_arizona_granny to All; Joya
A list of Free EBook sites, several topics, from Universities:
[snipped]
Online free ebooks : electrical engineering
http://www.onlinefreeebooks.net/engineering-ebooks/electrical-engineering/
This blog site includes links to books on ...
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