"The Scratch" Free E-Book

Here is a quote from one of my readers,
This is a great little book! Thanks! It is amazing how many people don't know how to make homemade pasta or homemade bread. It doesn't take much time and it saves a bundle. I recently bought a book from Amazon on how to make Artisan bread. It really only takes about 2-1/2 hours from start to finish and hardly any kneading and the bread is amazing. I bought an electric pasta maker at a secondhand store and you are right ...nothing beats the taste of homemade pasta and it costs pennies.

Keep up the great work!

The Scratch is our newest book about feeding a family on a budget. we have made this free book available to help familes like ours get started with three simple dinner meals. These three meals will help you save big dollars when you are ready to start budgeting.

If you would like a copy all you have to do is email me. I understand privacy is a concern for everybody and I promise that I will not share your email with anyone. Everything we do is done manually. I will check my email  a couple times a day and send you a pdf file.

The Book is free and you can share it with anybody you like as long as you do not try to sell it.

Simply put "The Scratch" in your subject line and sent to: rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

How To Make Pancakes Healthier - 8 Tips

We all love big tall stacks of fluffy white pancakes with crispy golden edges.
Not everyone can eat this kind of pancakes.
Here are a couple easy tips to make your next batch healthier while still keeping the flavor and texture.

1) Make them yourself instead of purchasing pancake mix.
2) Use olive oil instead of vegetable oil in your batter.
3) Use butter flavored non-stick spray instead of oil on your griddle.
4) Whole wheat flour instead of enriched, bleached white flour.
5) Add Wheat germ 1/4cup to a batch of batter.
6) Include Quick Oats to your batter, this should be added to wet ingredients.
7) Make your own syrup by boiling fruit (apples, bananas, pears, vanilla) in water then add sugar to sweeten.
8) Use artificial sweetner to make syrup.

Aging A Steak - Make It Taste Like It Was Expensive

You can get your free copy of my mini book "The Scratch" It is three great  meals you can make your family.
Simply send me an email and I will reply back with a PDF. I am doing this manually and I promise not to share your email adddress.
rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

We all enjoy going out to a steak house for a really good steak. The age the steak to give it a nice meaty flavor and cook it just the way you like it every time. The problem is if you are on a budget like we are, yo can not afford to eat at steak houses.
Rather than do without our family will eat at"Chez Henderson's" Steak House. Really it is fancy for eating good steak at home for a fraction of the cost.

Beside meat you do not need all of items to age a steak other than time. Wire rack, plate, paper towel are all you need.

We purchase some low costing sirloin for this one on Monday, wrapped each piece in paper towel, placed on the wire rack stuck it in the fridge for 24 hours.

After 24 hours we removed the paper towel and wrapped with new paper towel and place back in the fridge. If your meat continues to dampen the paper towel you must keep changing it.

Friday we had the day off work and headed down to the BBQ for a nice steak lunch. Asparagus was on sale and the baked potato rounded out the whole meal.

Oatmeal Make My Morning Go!

After most workout mornings oatmeal is my source of food. I really like making it the old fashion way in a pot. Since it only has to cook for 2 minutes it is the quick hot breakfast meal I prefer. I now use skim milk instead of water, I grab a handfull of raisins (loaded with Iron) and add them to the milk before I turn the heat on. A little brown sugar for sweetness without adding sodium and right after I put the oatmeal in the my bowl I add sliced banana on top (loaded with potassium).

You can get your free copy of my mini book "The Scratch" It is three great  meals you can make your family.
Simply send me an email and I will reply back with a PDF. I am doing this manually and I promise not to share your email adddress
rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

24 lbs Gone In a Month

Why am I posting this information on a budget blog/

It seems I may have caught a bug, the running bug. Feeding a family on  a budget is always tough but now fitness seems to have caught on in our family. Fitness requires food as fuel for the body. Similar to a casr engine, the better fuel you put in the better performance.

We are putting better fuel / food in our bodies and still living within our budget.

So far the whole family has lost 41 lbs!

You can get your free copy of my mini book "The Scratch" It is three great  meals you can make your family.
Simply send me an email and I will reply back with a PDF. I am doing this manually and I promise not to share your email adddress
rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

Chicken Roasted Two Different Ways

Roast chicken,

Roast chicken can save w grocery budget when you are trying to feed a family. As a follow up to my last entry. The grocery store had a sale on chicken that was so great I could not refuse to purchase some.

I picked up three chickens for a great deal. I put one in the freezer for future use and cooked the other two at the same time in my giant roaster.

To roast the chicken I decided to do two different styles;

The first chicken was very simple, was pat dry with paper towel and run with olive oil.

The second chicken I made a by combining equal parts 1 tablespoon of garlic powder, onion powder, poultry seasoning. I added ½ tablespoons of oregano and chili powder for some kick and finally 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for sweetness. I found the best way to mix spices is to use your hands.

I repeated the process of washing the chicken in cold water and patting dry with paper towel. I finished the second chicken by rubbing by hand my spice rub all over the chicken.

Here is a picture of the cooked chicken.

The meat has been used for chicken salads, sandwich meat, stir frys, and as part of roast chicken dinner. The bones will go into the slow cooker later for amazing chicken broth / soup

Sometimes The Grocery Store Will Dictate What You Eat!

I am all for clipping coupons to save money while grocery shopping. Unlike the extremists who can create major savings, my savings come mostly from spend $25 and receive $5.00 off.

Sometimes the grocery stores have loss leaders to get us in their store that are to good to be true. For example my local store had Iceberg lettuce for $1.49 a head. A competitor had the same lettuce for $0.33 and fryer chicken for $0.59 lb.

Without boring you another grocery store had an amazing sale on produce and vegetables.

I could not pass up on these deals, with $25 in my hand we shopped and we will be eating alot of chicken and vegetables this week.