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Final thoughts on the ‘Sneaky Chef’

My copy of The Sneaky Chef cookbook is due back at the library soon, so I thought I’d post some final thoughts on my experiments.

This weekend, I tried making the “beefed up onion soup” from the Secret Chef cookbook.

I won’t be making it again.

The recipe was simply too sweet. It called for vidalia onions, pomegranate juice, and the orange puree which has carrots and sweet potatoes. I guess you can see why it would be a bit sweet!

I’m sure it was plenty healthy, but it just didn’t work for me. Next time I make onion soup, I’ll use several types of onions and base it more off of the Panera Bread recipe instead. If I have some puree on hand, I might toss it in, but I just don’t know.

Last night, I made some Sneaky Chef marinara sauce. It had canned tomatoes, tomato paste, an onion, seasonings, and some white and orange puree in it. It, too, was on the sweeter side but it was decent. Not the best marinara I’ve ever had, but I’m sure it was plenty healthy.

The best recipes we’ve tried from the cookbook were the hummus and the strawberry/banana smoothies. I’ll likely be making those two again.

I don’t think I’ll have a chance to try any more recipes before I need to return my book. That means, I won’t have a chance to try the purple puree (baby spinach and blueberries) or green (baby spinach, broccoli, green peas) or a few other simpler ones.

The bottom line:

Of the four recipes I tried this week, two were keepers, and two were “no thanks, I don’t want seconds.”

Making the purees did take a little while, but once you do it, you typically will have enough to last for several recipes. Based on the puree flavor, I think the white puree (cauliflower and zucchini) would be the easiest to hide in foods, since it’s more bland than the orange (carrot and sweet potato).

I might try to experiment on my own by adding my own veggie purees to my own recipes.

But, for now, I won’t be buying my own copy of the book. I might on down the road, especially if I have a hard time on my own.

Blogging for one year

I’m not sure exactly what happened this time last year, but it seems like quite a number of folks started frugal living/personal finance blogs — myself included.

Happy blogoversary to us all! Yay for sticking with it for a year.

My blogoversary is on Thursday. I’ll have a post reflecting on some of the things I’ve learned in the last year.

Others include:

Free From Broke and a fabulous giveaway!

My Investing Blog — you won’t want to miss this huge giveaway!

Out of Debt Again — check out her giveaway and be sure to subscribe! She has a goal of reaching 100 subscribers

Common Sense with Money — and, you guessed it, some great giveaways!

I’m betting there are some more blogs out there celebrating a year (or more) of blogging. If that’s you, feel free to leave your blog link below.

Gathering a few first-aid kits

I debated whether to buy a prepackaged kit or put some together myself. Based on what we need, I decided to go with a prepackaged kit for our car, and a duplicate kit for our home plus a few extra things such as a full tube of Neosporin.

In the future, I’ll probably be able to buy items a la carte when I need to restock the kits, but for now I need too many different types of supplies. It’s cheaper for me to go this route.

To save money, I went to Ebates* and typed in Drugstore.com. I saw that I’ll get 6 percent of my purchase price back with my next Ebates check. Plus, I was able to click a $5 off $30 coupon on Ebates since I’m a first-time customer with Drugstore.com. I’ll get free shipping, and since I’m purchasing FSA-eligible items, I used my handy FSA debit card to pay for these supplies with pre-tax dollars.

I chose a kit for $12.92. After comparing its contents with several other kits, I decided this one was the lowest-costing option that also contained what we might need.

What’s in your first-aid kit? Did you buy a prepared kit, or did you do it yourself? Do you have non-standard items with your kit?

* Referral link

Photo from Drugstore.com