LAST CHANCE for Zevia Giveaway!

Today is the LAST DAY to enter my ZEVIA Natural Soda Giveaway!!!

Go check it out HERE.

Sluggy

The Ultimate Multi-Tasker...My Mobile Solar Oven

Last month, in the midst of our heatwave of  "Aught Ten", I decided to try something totally out of the box.

This box.....

Meet my newest kitchen gadget.......

My new solar oven...aka as a 2003 Dodge Caravan....my Car/Oven Multi-Tasker!

Why not put the heat that builds up inside to good use since I wasn't using the car that day?

So I set to making up some chocolate chip cookie dough and plopped it onto an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet and placed the sheet on the dashboard of my car in full sun.

I also placed my oven thermometer next to the pan so I could check the actual temperature inside the car.
Pan and thermometer safely inside the car, I shut the door at 11am. and told the kids hanging out at the house that day not to open the car for ANY REASON!

Here's the pan after an hour baking.....

And here it is a couple of hours later.....

The dough has spread out and each cookies is ringed by liquified butter.....yum!lol


Two more hours and we have this.....

The butter has reabsorbed(or evaporated?)and the cookies have plumped up slightly.

And here is what we got after 6 hours of solar baking.....

They are paler than normal since solar doesn't 'brown' stuff like a regular oven but they are cooked and hard.

Since my oven thermometer never registered more than slightly hotter than 150 degrees, I did throw this pan of cookies into the normal oven for a good 5 minutes after snapping this photo.
I know....kind of defeats the whole purpose of the off-the grid thing, right?lol

My recipe had raw egg in it and I didn't want to risk the chance of a salmonella chaser with the chocolate chips so a few minutes above 180 degrees was worth doing.
The next time I will try a no-egg recipe instead now that I know my mobile oven's flaws in the temperature department.

And the verdict?
The kids gobbled these babies down and declared them delicious!

Next time how about a pizza too and a pitcher of sun tea?

Sluggy

Mrs. Fix-It & Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

 From the annals of "It's Always Something"......

Well, the refrigerator has decided to have a nervous breakdown.
It's having "issues".
Too bad I can't medicate it....that would be the easy thing to do.

I noticed the fridge part wasn't very cool the other day and the ice cube trays in the freezer weren't making solid cubes(they were a bit wet).  Then I noticed there was ice build-up on the back wall of the freezer.
I did some internet searching and it sounds like the auto defroster thingy is dead or frozen.  (This also will keep the cool air from flowing into the fridge part.)  So I'm attempting to thaw it out and see if the freezer starts making things cold again.
Oh where, oh where is DJ when I need him SonyaAnn?lol

In the meantime, we've plugged in #1 son's mini-fridge from his dorm room and I've thrown all the frozen foods from the freezer part into the standing freezer in the garage.  Thankfully we have eaten down on the frozen stuff this month!  Even so, the dogs will still be having a FEAST for dinner tonight!!lol

Hubs just wanted me to go buy a new fridge when I told him last night that something was wrong with ours.
He's that way.....just replace things, don't bother fixing them.
I went shopping online to look for a new fridge just in case it comes to that.
We have a small, odd space for our fridge so I have to shop by size basically, then color, then price.
I found 1 fridge that will fit that's black.
It costs $2,300+......
ACK!

Now you know why I am trying to breath life back into the one we have!lol
Plus it's only 5 years old.....

If this fix seems to work, I'll be calling the appliance repair guy.  I'd rather pay him a couple hundred bucks instead of Sears $2,300, ya know?

We are also getting a house guest on Sunday.
#1 son is bringing home a friend from the camp he worked at this summer.  He was a fellow counselor.
He is from Great Britain.  They get a lot of international students working at this camp.....England, Spain, Turkey.....

And this 'chap' has nowhere to go next week.
There is no work at the camp and his flight home isn't for another week, so he's basically homeless as of Saturday.
So #1 son wants to bring him home to stay with us and then Hubs gets to haul the both of them back to the western part of the state the following Saturday, so #1 can move into the dorm and his friend can get his flight home.
So I have a non-working fridge and a stranger coming to stay for a week whom I have to feed.
I have a feeling he'll be getting a lot of take-out meals.
Yes, come to America and stay with a 'typical' American family and eat Pizza, Tacos and Chinese.....typical American food!lol

I'm off to go think of ways I can embarrass my son in front of his friend.....it's a long standing fine family tradition in this house.

If the fridge can't be saved perhaps I can set it up on blocks in the front yard(since we don't have a junk car to do that to).
Or I can walk around in overalls and nothing else and cook him possum and squirrel and other 'critters' for dinner and say "ya'll" a lot....oh wait!, I already do that last thing.

Or go on and on about the tyranny of King George or lambaste English cooking....if you can call it cooking & do my Eliza Doolittle impersonation all week. ;-)
Ah Gaaaaaawwwwn!

Oh, so many choices.....

Sluggy

Is it Just Me?....

.....or does anyone else think that the Coupon inserts for the last 3 months or so have been one big SNOOZE?

Not only are the values pretty low on most coupons but there are NOT a lot of coupons for food!  9 out of 10 coupons are for HBA or other non-food products.  And most of the food coupons are for junk food!  Well, there is ALWAYS a high proportion of junk coupons anyway....

Or is it just that manufacturers hate my region of the country and won't give us useful coupons in worthwhile denominations?  (Except for those toothpaste coupons which we always get tons of and for large amounts....)

Or am I just a whiney, unsatisfied, bored woman who enjoys complaining? lol

This time last year I was in my glory with the awesome sales and multiple catalinas at Acme(though I did have to travel a piece to get to an Acme)....

What I got at Acme in 1 week last August...the refrigerated stuff(milk, yogurt, etc) isn't pictured.  $58.81 OOP(most of that OOP was for the 1st order before I had Cats to roll)for $1,014.91 worth of food and toiletries.

And here's just 1 WEEK of my haul during the multiple Double Coupon Events at Kmart last year.
From Aug. 16-22.....

Total spent $16.86 OOP for $585.50 worth of items.  And that's not counting various manufacturer's rebates, free movie tickets, etc. I earned.  I logged a lot of hours inside my local KMarts last year....this year I think I've been there twice to buy clothes for assorted kids and haven't used a single coupon there.

Of course, some of the products I bought last year we've since sworn off of.....like Pop-Tarts, paper plates, pudding cups, house fragrance thingys, energy drinks, etc. so if I was to redo these trips there would be less bought.

I look at these photos and get nostalgic for the hunt & the thrill.....who says frugality is dull?

And then I remember how tired I was after those weeks were over and I get an overwhelming urge to go nap!lol

Last year was all about multiple large trips concentrated into 1 week.   The Acme trips were made in 2 days, going through the register up to 9 times in a day....it was truly a full day's worth of work planning and executing.  The KMart trips were spread out over a week's time for each Coupon Event Sale, but I'd make 2 or 3 smaller trips a day and sometimes hit multiple stores in 1 day.  Both methods were tiring and intense, but after the 2 days or the week of trips I could go for weeks and months without shopping(besides picking up a few necessities during any given week).
If I had to label it, last year was the "Year of Manic/Depressive type of Shopping".   Immense hauls in a short period and then no shopping for long stretches in between....if you don't count Rite-Aid.lol

This year has been about more frequent very small shopping trips for deals and catalinas.  My local stores haven't had anything approaching Acme or KMart deals of last year, nor has Acme or KMart. These little shops haven't been as lucrative as the mega-shops or as exciting, but they also haven't worn me out or taken the hours of strategic planning(=hours out of my day)either.
Weis would run 1 or 2 Cats with some things I wanted(ketchup or cooking oil or dog food, etc.) but usually there were no good coupons to pair with the Cats(or the Coupons would come out the week AFTER the Cat deal) so you would still have sizable OOP even after rolling the Cat a few times....thus higher OOP, so you don't stock up on as much.
You'd still get a deal but not as good as those megas of last year.

Since I have a stockpile, I guess I'd be happy with the type of shopping of this year(smaller hauls and a bit more OOP) as long as a big honking MEGA haul opportunity rolls around 2 times a year to augment my usual shopping.

So what do you prefer? 
Those large shopportunities spread out over the course of a year or smaller cat deals more frequently during the shopping year?

What have your shopping habits been like this year?
Have they changed since last year?
What kind of deals would you like to see that you don't?
If you use coupons, are you using more or less than you did last year?
Are you buying different products from what you bought last year or about the same?

Can you tell I am bored and avoiding doing what I should be doing today?lol

Sluggy

Bloggy Buddies are Giving Stuff Away.....Go Enter!

A few of my fellow bloggers are currently holding Giveaways.
And you know what that means, don't you?......You can win FREE STUFF! ;-)

Go check out A.Marie's Giveaway HERE for Yoplait Splitz.

Go check out Marilyn's Giveaway HERE for Pillsbury Sweet Moments.

Go check out Noreen's Giveaways HERE for Staples, HERE for Breyers Ice Cream & HERE for Seventh Generation.

And mention that I sent ya.... ;-)

Lots of goodies to win!

Sluggy