I grew up in the city. My meat came from supermarkets, neatly wrapped in cellophane. Then I married FringeMan and my world changed, so did my food. Beyond the market, I had no idea where meat originated and to be honest, I just didn’t care. I’ve always liked eating meat, but did not have much [...]
Low Cost Recipes – Less Money, More Food
October is all about finding the Cheap Tricks that help us live for less. We’ve talked about discerning needs vs. wants and how we can end impulse spending. Then we talked about making DIY liquid laundry soap and shower cleaner, but this week our focus is in the kitchen. Food costs money, but with a [...]
Love at First Bite – A Yummy Recipe List
If you’re like me, you’re always wondering,,, What’s For Dinner? Wonder no more. These are all of the yummiest recipes I’ve tried over the past two months. Black Bean Tacos Source: Cornerstone Cooking via Pintest We’re big Mexican or Tex-Mex or wanna-be NY-Mex fans. If it’s got beans and salsa in the recipe, we’re probably [...]
Craptastic 4th of July
I absolutely stole this picture from last year – 4th of July. Ever have one of those holidays where you should have gone out for Chinese food, put a For Sale sign in your yard, and moved to a land without people and holidays? Welcome to my 4th of July. My husband is working, [...]
Meal Planning, Pinterest Style – Recipes Included
Planning is not my specialty. Meal Planning is a foreign concept. Eating at my house is like playing Russian roulette with slightly less risk. I haven’t killed anyone with my meatloaf. Yet. I lack of organization and planning. Being a positive person, I say I am spontaneous. Spontaneity doesn’t work in the kitchen unless [...]
Favorite Winter Recipes: A Collection
I’m saying Hello to Monday with a few of my favorite winter recipes. I don’t know how it is where you live, but here in New York, winter is still in full force. We are in a homecooking, comfort food kind of mood. That’s why I decided to share my favorite winter recipes with you. [...]
Double Chocolate
It’s Thursday, a double chocolate kind of day. If you are from some alternate universe without taste buds and you do not like chocolate, I apologize. Maybe we’ll have a double vanilla Tuesday or something, but today is all about the chocolate. And the garlic. Yup. I said garlic. Chocolate + Garlic = Bad Bread [...]
A Popping Good Secret
I have loved popcorn for as long as I can remember, and when I say love, I mean an arrow shoots me through the heart and causes me to salivate every time I smell a kernel go pop. Butter makes it extra yummy-delicious. When we were kids, my mom had one of those groovy air [...]
5 Cooking Short-Cuts
I know you are all leery about taking cooking tips from me. I mean, I can’t even blame you. I did show you a picture of my upside-down-chicken, and I admitted to baking whole cloves into a loaf of bread. The truth is I’m really not to be trusted in the kitchen, not alone anyway, [...]
And One More Thing
The sewing machine we drove twenty-one hours north…you know, the “it’s only a sewing machine for crying out loud” sewing machine. It doesn’t work after all. To FringeMan’s credit, he did not say a word. Not. A. Word. He did do some head shaking, but really, that’s to be expected. In an effort to burn [...]
Full On Summer
Hello Monday! I’m actually liking you today, because… I am immersed in summer. I am at least three shades darker than January. Freckles have taken over my life. School, although only dismissed for one full week, is a distant memory to the kids. Sunshine, ice-pops, and chlorine detail our days. We can live like this [...]
FOOD: Thins The Wallet, Fattens The Face
Can we have a little chat about food? I’ve never been so grumpy about going grocery shopping as I am now. Is it me, or does it seem like it’s impossible to eat inexpensively? Last night I spent $101 dollars and change and filled my cart 1/2 way. 1/2 way people! I’m not buying golden [...]
Lowering the Bar for Moms Everywhere
Sometimes I think Martha Stewart and her perky little hand-stitched minions are the masterminds behind Pinterest. Once upon a time, like thirty years ago, it was perfectly sufficient to slap peanut butter and store-bought jelly on a slice of store-bought bread, throw it on a paper plate, pour a glass of milk and call your [...]
BBQ Novice
I am a BBQ novice. I was born in the north, New York to be exact. Please don’t hold that against me. I know for some it is the unpardonable sin, but just because I wasn’t weened on sweet tea doesn’t mean I don’t like barbeque. There’s something about southern food, and it’s more than [...]
It’s My Business
Today I’m linking up with Jennifer Rizzo and her Show us Your Shoppe linky party. I know many of you already know about my Fringe Vanilla, but I have lots of new readers and I wanted to share. So forgive me if you’ve been introduced before…please and thank you. One cold morning my neighbor, the [...]
In Anticipation of a Long Weekend Eating BBQ
My kids are off from school and don’t go back until Wednesday. They have bunches of extra snow days that they didn’t use this year. It was almost the year without snow and the snow we did get wasn’t worth mentioning. I am not complaining one little bit. We’ll be having fun and pretending we’re [...]
