Right now, they are illegal to have in five out of the six New England states.  It’s only in Connecticut where it’s okay to have one in your vehicle.

Some people may say that it’s cheating the system to have a radar detector.  Maybe it is.  Some also say that they encourage people to speed.  Maybe they do, but once the thing goes off, people WILL slow down.

I’d rather see people be forced to slow down once in a while, than not at all.  What do you think?

But you know what’s slightly annoying?  That I always seem to run out of the toner before anything else in the kit.  With the Proactiv, it was less of a problem since I had all those kits, and plenty of toner.  Still, I decided to only use the toner with every other wash, so I could use up all of the Proactiv and get rid of it, once I was FINALLY able to get them to stop the endless auto-shipments.

I had noticed that on AcneFree’s website, they do sell the products in the kit separately.  But I think this is only on the website, as I’ve never seen the products sold separately in any stores, at least not at any of the stores I go to.

But it seems that the AcneFree people know that some people use parts of the kit faster than others.  With their auto-ship program, they will also throw in an extra product of your choice for free, including the toner.

Sounds good, but I won’t bite.  I will NEVER buy products on auto-ship again; if it’s anything like Proactiv, you have to jump through hoops to cancel it.  Also, it looks like you can’t slow down the shipments – a 60-day supply is actually more like a 120-day supply for me, as I can only use the stuff once a day, not twice.  Twice a day makes my skin red and irritated.

I’m also not going to pay high shipping fees for a few bottles of toner alone, plus, I would rather not have these people get a hold of my credit card number or address, snail or e-mail.  Then they will hound me to the ends of the earth about getting auto-ship.  Proactiv STILL bothers me regularly about coming back, saying they miss me.  Missing the steady stream of money they were getting from me is more like it.  It’s as annoying as someone who won’t stop trying to sell you patio chairs, when you don’t have a yard or a patio!

So here’s what I have been doing:  The ingredients in the Neutrogena astringent/toner product are almost identical to that of the AcneFree product.  The only real difference is the fragrance.  An 8 ounce bottle of that goes for $5.99 at Stop & Shop (I just bought one there today).  When the AcneFree toner runs out, I just pour some of the Neutrogena stuff into the container (which takes up less sink space than the big Neutrogena bottle does, space here is at a premium, the big bottle goes into a cabinet).  Then, when the toner in the AcneFree container runs out, by this time, the cleanser and the repairing lotion do, too, and it’s time to buy a whole new kit.  Then when that toner runs out, I pour in more from the Neutrogena bottle.

Hey, it works, and it saves me from dealing with shipping costs, auto-ship, and all that annoying crap!

Well, not really…it doesn’t HAVE to be that way!  Low and slow cooking of beans does a lot to remove the “gassyness”, as does soaking the beans overnight before cooking.

Beans are tasty, nutritious, and cheap; you don’t have to worry about getting purchase order financing to pay for them. A one-pound bag of dried beans costs less than $1.00, and can feed a lot of people!  You can cook them one day, and then use leftovers for other recipes.

For example, last night I made this Slow-Cooker Black Beans recipe.  I served it over plain white rice and a side of corn.  Then I can take leftover beans and corn and make this Creamy Black Bean Soup.

The master slow-cooker recipe is a good one, if you want to cut back on meat, but don’t want to give it up altogether.  It contains chicken broth, bacon, and ham, but not a lot of it.  The meat is there mostly to add some flavor, but you could actually leave it out if you wish, and use vegetable broth instead of the chicken broth.  It’s also a good way to use leftover ham.  When you cook a whole of half ham, there are always leftovers!

Canned beans are fine, but are a little more expensive than dried.  If you have a slow-cooker, definitely cook dried ones that way, it takes all day, but it’s so little effort.  So if you are looking to save money on food, the humble bean is a great way to go!

I found this recipe in the book “The Best of Mr. Food:  Slow Cookin’ Quickies”.  This is a must-have book if you have a slow-cooker.

My only gripe is that he doesn’t tell you to brown the hunk o’ meat before putting it into the slow-cooker.  That’s actually a gripe I have with a lot of slow-cooker books.  By all means, if you can’t be bothered with this part, skip it…but it really does add more flavor and a much more attractive color to the meat.  Just heat some oil in a skillet and brown the hunk o’ meat until nicely browned on all sides.  Once that is done, proceed with the recipe as directed.

For the beer, I used good old Guinness – I had a couple of cans of it sitting around that needed using up.  I’m not a big stout drinker, and Mike prefers to get his on draught at a bar.  Even with that plastic gizmo inside that can that makes it nice and fizzy just like the tap, he says it still isn’t quite as good.  Although the recipe calls for 12 ounces of beer, I just used the entire 14.5 ounce can of Guinness.  Exact amounts of stuff are not always important in cooking.  In baking, yes.

The original recipe calls for a sirloin tip roast.  I could not find one at the store, and we didn’t feel like driving to 4700 different stores to find one, so I just bought a bottom round roast and used that.  Any cheap, tough cut of beef will work here, save the pricier cuts for another recipe.

For they mustard, I like Grey Poupon Harvest Coarse Ground – not too expensive and easy to find in most stores these days.  But of course, you can use what you like or have on hand.

For some reason, plain frozen pearl onions are a bit hard to find around here.  Most of the time they come with a cream sauce, and sometimes mixed with peas.  You almost NEVER see a store brand version of these.  But Birds Eye does make them, you just have to look closely.  It’s a pet peeve of mine, the ever-growing difficulty in finding any PLAIN frozen veggies anymore.  Half the stuff in the freezer section has some sort of sauce on it; sheesh, don’t people want to put their own stuff on it any more?

Anyhoo, onto the recipe!

1 (10-ounce) package frozen pearl onions
1 (4-pound) sirloin tip roast
1 (12-ounce) bottle dark beer
1/4 cup stone-ground mustard
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1 teaspoon pepper
* 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
* Hot cooked medium egg noodles

Place onions in a 4-quart slow cooker; place roast on top. Add beer and next 4 ingredients.

Cook, covered, at HIGH 8 hours or until roast is tender. Remove roast and onions, reserving drippings in cooker.

Whisk flour into reserved drippings; cook 10 minutes or until thickened. Serve with roast, onions, and hot noodles. I also like to serve some sort of other veggie with this.  Mr. Food suggests roasted root veggies.

Enjoy!

I also had a bunch of leftover items that needed using up – mainly, one red bell pepper, one zucchini, and one yellow summer squash.  I also had some fresh rosemary and oregano that needed using up, as well as some onions and garlic.  And then there was the cheese – a 15 ounce container of ricotta with only a couple of spoonfuls taken out of it, about 1/2 of an 8 ounce bag of shredded Cheddar, and a couple of pieces of Parmesan and Romano cheeses.  Pantry items included canned tomato products and dried herbs and spices.

Spaghetti squash is a form of winter squash that, when cooked, breaks into strands similar to that of spaghetti.  And then you can use it instead of pasta in most dishes – great for those on low-carb diets.

First, I cooked the squash by cutting it in half lengthwise, scraping out all of the seeds and nasty stringy membranes, placing the halves cut-side down on a sheet pan, and baking in a pre-heated 350°F oven for about an hour.  This is best done in advance, as you need to let the squash cool before handling it.

When it’s cool enough to handle, use a fork to scrape out the flesh; you will see how it comes out spaghetti-like.  Scrape it all the way down to the shell, discard the empty shell when you’re done.  Spaghetti squash can get kind of water-logged, so putting it into a colander to drain for a bit after you’ve scraped it from the shell is not a bad idea.

I made a quick marinara sauce – I sauteed a small chopped onion and a few minced garlic cloves in some olive oil, then threw in a 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes, juice and all.  I just kind of chopped the tomatoes in the pan with a wooden spoon.  Also added was an 8 ounce can of plain tomato sauce and a 6 ounce can of tomato paste.  I added some of the fresh oregano that I needed to use up, some dried basil, and salt & pepper.  The original recipe called for adding white wine, but I didn’t have any, so I threw in 1/2 cup of Sam Adams Summer Ale instead.

This was simmered for about 30 minutes.  It came to about 4 cups.

I dumped the ricotta into a bowl, mixed one egg into it, as well as some more of the fresh oregano and dried basil.  I threw in a handful of the shredded Cheddar, and used my cheese shredder whosit to grind in some of the Parmesan and Romano cheeses.

I then sliced the zucchini and summer squash on the diagonal, diced up the red pepper, sliced up a small onion, and sauteed them in some olive oil.  While they were sauteing, I put a few cloves of garlic through the press, right into the saute pan.

Then it was time to assemble the casserole.  I used my 12″ round casserole, but a standard 9″ x 11″ lasagna-type pan would also have worked.  I started by putting a thin coating of the marinara sauce, just enough to coat the bottom of the pan.  Then, in went half the prepared spaghetti squash.  After that, half the ricotta mixture, in dollops evenly spaced.  Then, half the sauteed veggies were spread over, then a sprinkling of some Cheddar, Parmesan and Romano cheeses.  Then the layers were repeated – half of the remaining marinara sauce, the remaining spaghetti squash, the remaining ricotta mixture, the remaining sauteed veggies, and another sprinkling of cheeses.  Finally, it was topped with the remaining sauce and whatever was left of the Cheddar, Parmesan and Romano cheeses.

This was baked, uncovered, in a pre-heated 350°F oven for about a half an hour.  Since everything in it is already cooked, you just want to heat it through and melt the cheese on top.  It’s ready when it is nice and bubbly.

I had also made a loaf of French bread, which I started in the bread machine and then shaped and baked in the oven.  Rather than serving it with butter, I went the traditional Italian route with infused olive oil for dipping.  I chopped up some of the fresh rosemary and oregano, and put it on a small dish with some dried basil, crushed red pepper flakes, and a little salt & pepper.  Then I poured some extra virgin olive oil over it, just as they do at Carrabba’s.  At Carrabba’s, they also provide you with a small decanter of olive oil with the bread, so you can pour more over the plate of herbs if necessary.

It was all very yummie, and I got to use up stuph that might have gone bad, and best of all, I didn’t have to go to the store for a single thing!

So – next time you are wondering what to make for dinner, look at what you have on hand, and improvise!

I think the entire episode is available on one of Julia’s three “The French Chef” DVDs.  I’m too lazy to get up and look.  But these old shows are fun; sure, they do not have all of the bells and whistles, none of the fancy Kichler lighting that shows today do. But Julia was such a good teacher, so none of that really matters now, does it?

But I have to wonder about those 20-pound “behemoth” lobsters.  I’ve always imagined them to cook up tough, but I don’t know this for a fact, because I’ve never cooked one that big, nor had one at a restaurant.  I don’t think they are even allowed to catch them that big up in Maine, but they are in Massachusetts.  So who knows?

Anyhoo, this video is a basic guide to lobster, it’s tried and true.  So why not buy some live & kickin’ lobsters and give it a try?

I got the recipe from the Samuel Adams website; they have a great collection of recipes, as well as tips for cooking with beer, and pairing beer and food.  I highly recommend exploring this site, you will find some great ideas, and then there is the beer!  Sam Adams is currently the largest American-owned brewery (sorry, but Budweiser/aka Anheuser-Busch is now owned by a Belgian company).  Yet Sam Adams still makes some great beers, their founder, Jim Koch, is still very hands-on with the company.  No cheap swill beer there!

The recipe makes a LOT – four loaves.  I recommend making the full amount of dough, because in baking, adjusting recipes may or may not cause it to go wonky.  In my case, I baked up just two loaves, because I only have two loaf pans to bake them in.  After you get to the step of rolling each piece into a ball, take whatever you are not going to bake right now, wrap well, and freeze.  Cold does not kill yeast, it only puts it to sleep.  When ready to bake, take the dough out of the freezer, let thaw, and then proceed with shaping into a loaf and doing a final rise.

Anyhoo, here is the recipe.  Enjoy!

Beery Bread

Makes 4 loaves.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons active dried yeast
½ cup warm tap water
3 cups whole-wheat flour
9 cups unbleached white flour
4 eggs, with 1 egg white reserved
3 3/4 cups Samuel Adams Boston Lager® or Samuel Adams® Boston Ale
½ cup honey
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, melted
5 teaspoons salt
½ cup or more sesame seeds

Instructions

To make the sponge: Combine together the yeast and warm water. Set aside to proof.

Put all the whole-wheat flour and 3 cups of white flour into a large bowl. Mix in the proofed yeast, the eggs, (reserving the white), the beer, honey, and butter. Beat with a wooden spoon 100 strokes to introduce plenty of air into the sponge. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

Sift together the remaining 6 cups of white flour and the salt. Slowly work this flour into the sponge. Turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead for 15 minutes until smooth and elastic. If the dough seems too wet and sticky, add a little more flour. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, or until double in size. Preheat oven to 350 F.

Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a floured surface. Shape it in 4 equal balls. Let rest 5 minutes. Knead each ball 5 or 6 times. Roll each ball into a loaf, and place in a greased 9 x 5 inch bread pan. Let the loaves rise 15-20 minutes in warm place. Cut the top of each loaf lengthwise, and brush with the reserved egg white mixed with a little water. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Bake for 45-50 minutes until the loaves are light brown.

I didn’t have any sesame seeds, so I just mixed some caraway seeds into the dough when I was mixing the flour into the sponge. Rye flour instead of whole wheat works very nicely, as well.

This is a very yummie bread and definitely worth the time and effort.  Cheers!

The casserole is pictured below, and is available from QVC for under $40.00.  This is of exscellent quality and is extremely versatile.  In addition to red, it also comes in blue or black.  Direct link to product.

This recipe for Summer Ale Chicken came with the roaster, and I tried it last night.  I cooked it in the oven; it’s a good way to get a dish that is traditionally BBQ’d cooked indoors, with no fear that you’ll set off the emergency exit alarm.  I like this setup for beer can chicken better than using an actual beer or soda can, because it’s more stable, the chicken won’t tip over when you are moving the pan to and from the oven or BBQ grill.

If you do not have this pan and want to try making this at home, you can certainly go ahead and use a beer or soda can.  If you are using canned beer, drink about half of it, never use a full can of liquid for this or else you’ll have a big mess.  Also, use a church-key style can opener to punch a couple more holes in the top of the can.  Then you set the can with the chicken on it in an oven-safe pan, large enough so that you can scatter the vegetables around it.  If you are doing this on a BBQ, the best bet is a large cast iron skillet; cast iron can definitely stand up to the high heat of a grill.

You can also purchase one of many kinds of beer can chicken racks; some of these will hold the can steady.  For some, you don’t need a can at all, you can just pour your beer right into it, much like my casserole/roaster getup.

First, preheat the oven to 350° F.  If using a grill, set it up for indirect cooking.  For a gas grill, turn off one of the burners.  For a charcoal grill, push all of the coals off to one side.  Please note that the grill has to have a lid that is big enough to cover the chicken as it cooks.  Then, you need to make the spice rub:

2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons paprika
2 Tablespoons coarse sea salt or kosher salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dry mustard powder
1 teaspoon chili powder

Just mix it all together.  Then, take a whole chicken (4-5 pounds), rinse it well inside and out, pat dry with paper towels, rub it all over with 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil, and then rub all over with the spice rub, including inside the cavity.  Reserve a little of the rub to add to the beer.

Set up the beer can apparatus.  If you are using the pan I have or something similar, pour your beer into it, don’t fill it up too high.  This recipe calls for a summer ale; I used Samuel Adams Summer Ale.  If using a canned beer, drink about half of it, use the church-key can opener to poke a couple more holes in the top of the can.  If you are using a bottled beer like Sam Adams, and don’t have the roaster insert as I do, you can just wash out an empty soda can and use a funnel to pour the beer into that.  Put any leftover spice rub into the beer, and then carefully place the chicken onto the can or roaster insert, basically you are sticking it up the chicken’s butt – I’ve often seen this method of cooking referred to as “beer-butt chicken”.  If using a can, stand the chicken up in the center the pan you’re using, using the legs to make sort of a tripod.  If using a rack, it will stay put on its own.

Now, slice up a couple of onions and scatter them around the bird.  Season the onions with salt, pepper, thyme, and add one bay leaf.  Place the whole thing in the oven.  If using a BBQ, place it over the part of the grill that is turned off/coal-less, for indirect cooking.  Also, if using a grill, pour some beer over the onions so they don’t burn.

A four-pound chicken will take about 75 minutes to roast in the oven, or about an hour on a BBQ grill.  My chicken was about five pounds and took about 90 minutes in the oven.  It’s done when the inner thigh measures 165° F with an instant-read thermometer, it will cook a little further as it rests.

While the chicken cooks, slice up one zucchini, one yellow summer squash, and one red bell pepper.  Season with salt & pepper.  About 1/2 hour before the chicken is done, add these veggies to the onions in the pan and stir to combine.

Once the chicken is done, remove from the oven or the grill and let rest for about five minutes.  Then, VERY CAREFULLY remove it to a cutting board  The beer will be NASA-hot; if using a can, the easiest and safest way is to grasp the chicken with wads of paper towels, hold with both hands, and then have someone else use tongs to carefully pull the can out of the chicken’s butt.  If you have the pan that I do, the top part of the insert (the part with the holes in it) will likely still be stuck up the chicken’s butt.  But since it has holes and it s tube, there won’t be any liquid in it, so you can pull it out with tongs when you place the chicken on the cutting board.  Still, a lot of liquid may come out of the cavity, so use a large cutting board to avoid a mess.

Carve up and serve with the roasted summer veggies.  Drink the rest of the six-pack of whatever beer you used to cook this with.  Enjoy!

I’ve said it before, and I’m gonna say it again – unless you can find lots of coupons for stuff that you would normally buy anyway, it’s usually a waste of time.  Maybe you’ll save money if you live on a diet of name-brand, over-processed junk.  Because that seems to be what most of the coupons in the Sunday paper are for.  As I’ve said before, we stopped getting the paper because there were never enough coupons that we’d actually use to make up for the cost of the paper.  That, and the fact the the telemarketers at the Boston Globe refused to stop calling me to sell me a full-week subscription, when I made it clear I only wanted Sunday.  I told the guy that if they called me one more time, I would cancel.  They called again.  I canceled.  No skin off my ass, and no more coupons for crap like Lunchables, Fruit Roll-Ups, and nasty, sugar-laden cereals.

So when I read stuff about people saying that their financial circumstances “require” them to clip coupons, I scratch my head in confusion.  WHERE do these people get their coupons, and WHAT exactly are they buying?  Is there some super-secret source of coupons for fresh produce, meats, poultry, and seafood?  Is there some little-known newspaper that has coupons for PLAIN rice, beans, flour, oats, etc.?  I ask this because if people are using a ton of coupons and claim to be saving money, they certainly can’t be getting them from the Sunday papers, or even from sites like that CouponSuzy thing.

However, there are occasions when we will use coupons.  For example, we often get store coupons from PetSmart and Petco in email.  Sometimes we get a good one, like $10 off a $50 purchase.  So we just go in there and buy $50 or so worth of Purina Healthful Life, which is the only stuff our kittehs will eat these days.  With five cats, they’ll go through it fast enough, it won’t go stale as long as you don’t open the bag until you need it.  Duh!

But if we got a specific coupon for say, traditional blue-bag Purina Cat Chow, we would not bother to use it.  They used to like this stuff, but we had to throw a whole bunch of it away because they stopped eating it, and eventually, it got stale.  Buying something that your cats won’t eat is a waste of money.

Oh, and parents, don’t bother trying to defend yourselves by telling me that your kids will eat nothing but overprocessed, overpriced chicken nuggets.  It’s YOUR fault for not introducing them to healthier foods at an early age; if you had, you’d be saving a LOT more money now!  Just because other mothers tell you that kids will only eat pizza, hot dogs, and chicken nuggets does not make it true.  If kids get hungry enough, they will eat what is put in front of them, and the more different foods you try, the better results you will have.  The Healthful Life usually costs about a buck more for an 18 pound bag, the cats like it better, and it’s probably better for them.  Even with a more expensive food, feeding cats is cheaper than feeding kids, anyway.

And if there happens to be a sale on the cat food (you usually have to have the rewards cards for PetSmart/Petco to get the sale price), we can save even more.  If we’re already well stocked on cat food when the coupons come to us, we’ll keep checking for sales, and try to buy then.  If not, we just wait until shortly before the coupon expires, or when we next need cat food, before we use it.

Another source of great coupons are the ones from CVS, if you sign up for their ExtraCare card.  Mike practically lives in CVS, he’s always in there picking up some scrip or another.  The more you spend, (there is a $40 cap on prescriptions & co-pays), the more ExtraBucks you earn.  These ExtraBucks can be used just like cash for just about anything in any CVS store, except prescriptions and co-pays.  And then sometimes we get some seriously kick-ass coupons, such as $20 off a $50 purchase of CVS brand products.  It’s not that hard to find $50 worth of CVS stuff that we want to buy and use.   I think they even let him use one of those coupons for his diabetes test strips, since he uses the CVS brand meter and the strips that go with it, they are non-prescription, and they cost over $50.

Shopping at CVS is something we do anyway, and so is buying their brand of products.  Okay, there are some CVS brand duds out there, back when I was still having periods, I found that their tampons are no good.  I liked the Kotex ones, but I wasn’t going to kill myself looking for a coupon for them, or buy a cheaper brand or one that there were coupons for.  If I came upon a coupon, great, but if not, no biggie.  In this case, I just wanted something that I knew worked, because you can’t place a dollar value on avoiding walking around in public with blood all over your crotch because you just HAD to skimp on tampons!

Okay, so here’s the deal—

*Store brand items are USUALLY just as good as brand names (the CVS tampons are the only bad example I can think of at the moment).  And they are usually cheaper than even using a coupon on the name brand.

*Fresh meats, poultry, seafood, produce, as well as PLAIN frozen veggies, PLAIN rice, bags of dried beans, grains such as oats, flour, etc, are ALWAYS cheaper than any processed version, even with coupons.  By PLAIN frozen veggies, I mean just that, just the veggie, no crappy sauce or anything.  By PLAIN rice, I mean rice that comes in ginormous bags for $5.00, not little boxes that come with seasonings, boil-in bags, etc.

*Sign up for rewards cards at places where you would normally shop anyway.  Out of stores, I’d say that the CVS one has had the biggest payoff, and we don’t have to go out of our way for any of it.

*If you eat out and/or travel a lot, consider finding out about rewards from your favorite restaurants/hotels.  We like to eat at the local TGI Friday’s, so I signed up for their Give Me More Stripes card.  In addition to earning “stripes” from eating there, they also send additional money-saving coupons.  I also signed up for Hilton’s HHonors program, since we stay at their properties a lot.  I’ve already earned more than enough points to book a free stay this fall for the New Hampshire Brewers Festival, and will also be booking a room at one of their properties for the Christmas stuff at Old Sturbridge Village, as soon as they announce the dates for that.

*And remember – if you use a coupon for $2.00 off a $7.00 widget that you really don’t need, you did NOT save $2.00 – you are OUT $5.00.

Use of the CouponSuzy site is free, but before you can print anything, you have to download and install some special printing software, which is also free.  This software is compatible with both Windows and Mac computers.

You can search for coupons by category, and even find local coupons, if there are any in your area.  There is also a section that has coupon codes for many popular internet stores, such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, etc.

But the grocery coupons are all for brand name items, just as the commercial advertises.  If you insist on only using brand-name products, you can see some savings here.  But honestly, we go in for store brands for most stuff, and they are still often cheaper than the name brand, even with a coupon. Always compare costs before you buy anything!

Still, it’s worth checking out – I did see a Sears Optical coupon for two pairs of glasses for $99.  And even factoring in the cost of paper and printer ink, this is probably cheaper than buying the Sunday papers for coupons.  They have a much larger selection, and you do not waste ink and paper because you only print the coupons you select.  So if you don’t need  that ab workout video that’s $2 off, for example, it will not get printed.

Here’s the commercial that is airing now: