Here are a few tips for cooking dried beans that are easier to digest (=less gas!).

1. Soak beans overnight or 8+ hours. Yes, you'll have to plan ahead for this one. Cook extras and freeze the rest, so next time all you have to do is thaw! :)

2. Soak beans in plenty of water. At least 10 cups of water per pound of beans is recommended. If it's not too much bother, you can also change the soaking water during the soak. I wouldn't set my alarm clock to do this in the middle of the night though. ;)

3. Cook beans in plenty of water. Use a large pot, and try to keep the water level at least double the level of the soaked beans.

Cooked pinto beans topped with mozzarella and sour cream

4. Cook beans slowly. Resist the temptation to turn the heat on HIGH! I usually bring my beans to a boil at medium heat and then cook on low (just enough heat to simmer) until tender.

5. Cook beans long enough. I find that a lot of the estimates aren't long enough for my climate/beans. Throw out the book -- just cook until tender!

If the skins start falling off, that's okay. Keep going. Your tender, easily digested beans might not look picture perfect. Mine are usually falling apart a little by the time they're completely soft. You can keep the stirring to a minimum, though, to avoid unnecessary mush. ;)

6. Wait until beans are fully cooked before adding sweet or acidic ingredients to them. Tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, molasses, and lemon juice will prevent your beans from cooking and becoming soft and tender and easy to digest. :)

7. Don't use old beans, or beans that haven't been stored properly (away from heat and light and air). They won't cook up right no matter how long you cook them!

8. I don't usually do this one since it seems rather wasteful (in energy) to me, but another way to de-gas your dried beans is to discard the cooking water half-way through and start again with fresh water for the rest of the cooking.

More reading on the topic of beans:

Cost break-down for my favorite baked beans recipe

My mom's chili, our staple all-purpose chili recipe :)

Crystal has a week-long bean-focused menu on her blog :)

"Beans in a pot": Yummy Pintos! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog (no recipes please; come back tomorrow for the In-Season Recipe Swap of recipes featuring milk!). Link to this post, and then add your page's link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed at my discretion. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Edited to add: Mr. Linky is just not working this morning. Please leave your link in a comment instead! Let's see if this works better. :)

Never mind: It's back up:

We like to use corn tortillas for our soft tacos. Besides being more affordable than flour tortillas, the corn tortillas have a wonderful flavor!

This huge bag of 100 corn tortillas was $3.85 at Costco. (I put half of the tortillas in the freezer right away, to use later.)

To cook the tortillas for soft tacos, heat a heavy skillet (preferably cast iron if you have it!) or griddle over medium-medium high heat.

Add a little oil (we prefer just a very thin layer; I use a refillable oil spray bottle to spray some on).

Fry the tortilla for a couple minutes on each side, until browned and cooked (as opposed at tasting "raw"!). The tortilla should still be somewhat soft and pliable, not crunchy or crispy.

Put taco fillings in the tortillas: we like our taco meat recipe, beans, shredded cheese, chopped lettuce, sour cream, and tomatoes, salsa, or hot sauce.

Enjoy your soft, flavorful, easy, and frugal little tacos! Yum! :)

The first time I made these, Joshua was skeptical. After eating one, he was "sold"! :)

Later this week, I'll be sharing a recipe that uses these delicious corn tortillas! :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post on a kitchen-related topic in your blog and link to this post. Then come here and add the link to your post to Mr. Linky! Please, no giveaways, since they expire and this is for timeless kitchen secrets. ;) Links that do not go to a specific post or link back will be deleted. :)

Starting Next Tuesday: Kitchen Tip Tuesdays will be narrowing the focus to specifically kitchen tips/tricks rather than including anything kitchen-related (recipes, organization, shopping, food, decor, etc.). This will enable readers to find helpful tips more easily. I hope to add a separate "recipe swap" type of feature soon for those who wish to exchange and browse recipes! :)

This week, I thought I'd share a quick and easy way to re-package large blocks of cheese after using some. :) Growing up, my mom bought cheese in large blocks (10# or more!) for a cheaper price. She then sliced it off as needed for shredding, sandwich slices, or snacking sticks. :)

After slicing from a large brick of cheese, cover exposed cheese with plastic wrap and secure with a rubber band. I've found it works best to slice the original wrapper off as the cheese is used, rather than unwrapping more than is needed at the time. You can also keep using the same plastic wrap every time you cut off some cheese.

I remember the first time I sliced off some cheese, when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I didn't securely wrap the cheese before replacing it in the refrigerator, and I definitely remember learning my lesson firsthand when I saw the dried-out cheese the next day! :)

If you want to buy cheese in bulk but won't be able to use it before it spoils in the fridge, there are some great tips on freezing cheese over here! :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post on a kitchen-related topic in your blog and link to this post. Then come here and add the link to your post to Mr. Linky! Please, no giveaways, since they expire and this is for timeless kitchen secrets. ;) Links that do not go to a specific post or link back will be deleted. :)

(new graphic designed by A Source of Joy!)

Cooking with stainless steel.

For those accustomed to using Teflon, the idea of using stainless steel for much more than boiling pasta can be a bit intimidating! I know, because I was there once too.

Even though my mom has been using her stainless steel cookware for longer than I've been alive, I honestly didn't do much cooking until after I was married -- at which point I was using my husband's Wearever Teflon pots and pans.

I loved using Teflon, but studies have shown that the fumes released during high heat are just not good for us (and DuPont, the maker of Teflon has lied about this for financial gain). (Since this isn't a post about the dangers of Teflon, I'll let you do your own further research if you desire!)

When our Teflon pans wore out, I relied on my cast iron skillet more than ever (read about cooking with cast iron here!), along with a few stainless steel pans from a garage sale. Even though my stainless steel pans weren't the highest quality (far from what I now use!) they worked well enough and keeping the health benefits in mind, using the stainless steel pans was not the nightmare I had envisioned! :)

(Read more...)

Here is my dried stevia leaf! A little goes a long way when using to sweeten herbal teas.

You can get a whole pound of dried stevia leaf from Mountain Rose Herbs for $9 (or you can order as little as 4 ounces for only $3.25).*

You can use stevia in more ways than just to sweeten teas, but since it is much sweeter than table sugar, a pound will go a long way! (A pound of dried herbs is also a large bag full!!)

A small bag of dried stevia leaf, and a bag of chrysanthemum buds, which combined make a delightful herbal tea! :) I've been experimenting with the amount of sweetness I prefer, as well as which herbal tea combinations taste best with stevia.

Brewing loose leaf herbal teas using herbs purchased in bulk is a very affordable way to drink tea! I probably get upwards of 60 cups of tea per pound of herbs. Using bulk dried herbs is frequently a much higher-quality tea than purchasing bagged teas, especially the cheaper brands of bagged teas.

Mountain Rose Herbs has a page about brewing teas which I found interesting. They estimate 40-60 cups of tea per pound, depending on how strong or weak you prefer your tea. (I like to drink many cups of weaker tea each day!)

Having a good tea strainer is essential for making loose leaf tea without a lot of bother and mess. You can use mesh strainers that lift in and out of your cup or pot (like this tea ball -- a lot of mess in my experience, or this mesh strainer).

But I really love my ingenuiTEA teapot (which I won, but would purchase if mine ever broke!). There are other similarly-functioning devices out there as well. I love the ingenuiTEA tea pot and use it multiple times a day; I did a video review of it a couple years ago (link to the video is in this post). :)

*Full disclosure, as usual: Ordering through my affiliate links to Mountain Rose Herbs does send 15% back to us. I recommend Mountain Rose Herbs since they have the best affordable organic herbs and ingredients I've seen so far! They are highly recommended. :)

I'd love to hear...

What are your favorite bulk herb combinations?

Do you have any recommended teaware?

If you sweeten your tea, what do you like to use? :)

Last week I cleaned up my cookware. Of course I had been washing my pots and pans all along, but there were a few spots from browning meat, cooking oil, and some rainbow coloring on a couple pans (I think that is from high heat -- although the highest setting I use is medium-high.)

Joshua, who is my go-to source for research (he loves to read!) ordered for me the most-recommended cookware polish: Bar Keeper's Friend Cookware Cleaner. (Scroll down on that page to find it -- it's specifically called Cookware Cleaner. I don't believe Amazon.com carries that particular one!)

I followed the directions and used a small sprinkling of the powder, rubbed very gently, and stood amazed at the results! My cookware, after 8 months of heavy use looks brand new, sparkling and shiny again! (I use non-metal utensils so it's not even showing signs of scratches; bamboo is my favorite though I also have plastic and silicone utensils.)

We ordered the four-cans-for-$15 on the website, and I'm guessing that'll be nearly a lifetime supply considering the small amount I used. Well, maybe not a whole lifetime, but it's going to last a long time! :)

Bar Keeper's Friend claims to be environmentally safe and contain no hazardous chemicals. (I say "claims" since I have not personally seen an ingredient list for it!) It was at one time labeled Kosher but no longer has the certification for cost reasons, though the manufacturing process has stayed the same.

Do you have any more tips for cleaning cookware? I'd love to hear them in a comment below! :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post on a kitchen-related topic in your blog and link to this post. Then come here and add the link to your post to Mr. Linky! Please, no giveaways, since they expire and this is for timeless kitchen secrets. ;) Links that do not go to a specific post or link back will be deleted. :)

Two of my brothers flew out to visit us again last week. We had a great time! :) One of the meals I served was this Italian Cream Cheese Chicken over Pasta. It's a favorite for both of them (and me!)

Easy to make, beautiful on the plate! I served some cooked green beans and Joshua made fruit smoothies for dessert for us. Yum! :)

What's your secret to serving an elegant meal with ease?

A few ways I've discovered for adding a special touch to a meal:

Use cloth napkins. Nothing says "You're special!" like a fresh clean cloth napkin!

Sprinkle your food. Herbs, spices, cheese, anything to fancy-up an otherwise pale casserole or dish! Parsley and shredded parmesan cheese are two of my favorites.

Use your nicest glasses! Fruit juice or smoothies served in wine glasses are extra special! :)

Use color. Whatever colors your main dish has, choose some different side dish colors. I do a lot of plain (frozen, cooked, then salted) veggies like corn, peas, green beans, or a peas/carrots mixture! And there's nothing wrong with serving more than one veggie at a meal!

I'd love to hear what you've discovered that adds a memorable flair to your guest's meal! :)

(new graphic designed by A Source of Joy!)

Please accept my apologies for the tardiness of this post; we have been away for a few days! My brothers are also here visiting us right now. I'll share pictures from their visit later! :)

Okay, today's kitchen tip is just coming out of the experimental stages. ;)

If you've seen my kitchen pictures, you can see that I was used to having a plastic dish drainer sitting on the counter at all times. While I like the dish drainer, it seemed to be a constant puddle and unloading it was my least favorite thing to do!

I decided to try experimenting with just not having the dish drainer out. Instead of stacking my hand-washed dishes in the drainer, I put a towel on the counter and put them on that.

Somehow having a few dishes on a towel is more motivating for me to get them quickly put away so that I can then have full use of my kitchen counter -- without an empty dish drainer in the way! :) (I used to intend to put the dish drainer under the sink when it was empty but somehowI didn't usually get to that step!)

And of course, I can easily throw the towel in the wash if it's stayed wet or has been used for a few days. This wouldn't have worked before I had a dish washer, but now that I do have one this seems to be the best setup! :)

What do you do for clean wet hand-washed dishes? Do you dry them? Let them air dry? I'd love to hear what works best for you in your kitchen! :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. Note: Please link to your individual post! Ask me if you have questions; links that go to your blog's main page will be deleted. Please, no giveaways since they "expire" and this is for timeless kitchen secrets! ;) Thanks for participating! :)

(new graphic designed by A Source of Joy!)

One of the best ways to consume larger quantities of dark leafy greens is to whirl them into a smoothie! This has been the easiest way to include even more fresh leafy variety into my childrens' diets.

If you've never tried a green smoothie, you might be amazed by how delicious they are! The first time I added spinach to a smoothie, Yehoshua (age 4) looked doubtful. He was excited about drinking something bright green, though, and even more excited when he tasted it and couldn't taste the spinach part! ;)

You can find our strawberry green smoothie recipe here; this is the combination we make most frequently!

As with just about any recipe, you can switch things around, add, subtract, and whatever else you want to do to come up with your perfect smoothie combo! :)

Here are some of the things we keep on hand and use in smoothies:

Bananas
Strawberries
Blueberries
Fresh greens
Milk
Almonds
Protein powder
Cream (best whipped separately and stirred in at the end!)
Yogurt or kefir
Xylitol
Extracts (vanilla, almond)

Tip from Joshua: For a creamier, fluffier smoothie, whirl the milk by itself on high for a few minutes before adding anything else!

Lindsay has a great post about making green smoothies, as does Laura!

And last week Lorrie shared her green smoothie recipe with a tip: Don't use frozen spinach! It'll be chunky and leave a strong flavor. :)

Any more green smoothie tips out there? Send them my way! :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. Note: Please link to your individual post! Ask me if you have questions; links that go to your blog's main page will be deleted. Please, no giveaways since they "expire" and this is for timeless kitchen secrets! ;) Thanks for participating! :)

Melissa writes:

I know you make pizza for guests quite often, so I have a question. We had friends over a couple of months ago and I had to make three pizzas to have enough for everyone. I was in the kitchen the entire time, pulling one out of the oven, waiting for the pizza stone to cool, rolling the dough out on another, topping it, getting it in the oven, etc... I didn't even really eat and it was just awkward for everyone that I was bustling around while they were eating. How do you fix pizza for a crowd without spending the entire evening in the kitchen? 

Thanks for the great question, Melissa!

(Tammy's Easy Pizza)

First, I don't use a pizza stone. I use pans. I have several round pans, but if I need to make even more pizzas, I pull out my rectangular pans, too! :) I'm guessing many folks would prefer the crust made on a pizza stone rather than made on a pizza pan, but using pans definitely makes it easier! :)

Secondly, since I have a bread machine, I use it to mix the dough for me. (Yes, even large amounts of dough. If it fits, I do it -- even if I have to "help" it in the corners a little as it kneads. Hasn't ruined my bread machine yet, so...) :)

The bread machine is handy since it has a timed feature with allows me to throw the ingredients in even hours before I am ready for the dough, set the timer, and get busy cleaning the house or whatever!

Thirdly, I butter all my pans, put a blob of dough on each pan, and get the pizza crust spread out and the toppings put on, usually before the guests even arrive.

I wait until the company is here before I start baking, since my pizzas usually only take 11-15 minutes to bake. I can bake two at a time, so if I am making 3 or more, I may start baking a couple before the guests are here, but I wait for the last two so we have some that's really hot and fresh to start with!

And lastly, I want to mention that pizzas (made with my easy pizza recipe) taste just fine (even GREAT!) even when they've sat on the counter for 15-30-45 minutes before being baked!

In fact, the last time I served pizza to guests, we were expecting them to arrive shortly when we got a call from them saying that they were just then leaving their hosue (over an hour away!). I was sprinkling the last of the toppings on the pizza when Joshua relayed their message, and I said, "Well, the pizza will just have to wait then!" :) I left the fully-made (but yet-uncooked) pizzas on the kitchen table and baked them about an hour later, when our guests were almost here, and they turned out EXCELLENT. :)

Pizza is very forgiving, as long as you make sure the crust is fully baked! I have had good pizzas and great pizzas and pizzas that I didn't care as much for, but our guests have never complained! :) (Maybe we just have polite guests!) ;)

Joshua's Grilled Chicken Pizza

Our pizza recipes:

Tammy's Easy Pizza (#1 FAVORITE!!)

Joshua's Grilled Chicken Pizza

Tammy's Taco Pizza (yum!)

Pepperjack Pizza (when you're tired of pepperoni...)

Homemade Chicken Pizza (more involved but a very delicious white sauce pizza!)

Homemade Apple Pizza (this is a dessert)

Tammy's Taco Pizza

Posts about making pizza:

Pizza Pans Q&A 

What to do when the dough comes out of the mixer/bread machine a little too sticky...

Bread and pizza questions...

When you want pizza but already have a main dish planned/made, this Italian Cheese Bread makes a great side dish to curb your cravings! :)

My homemade pizza sauce recipe 

Tammy's Spicy Pepperoni recipe (beef)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. Note: Please link to your individual post! Ask me if you have questions; links that go to your blog's main page will be deleted. Please, no giveaways since they "expire" and this is for timeless kitchen secrets! ;) Thanks for participating! :)