Eric admiring the herb garden and drinking lavender lemonade.

Last weekend was AMAZING! Saturday was a beautiful day in Portland. It being a great day means you HAVE to enjoy the day outside. I mean it’s not often that good days come to Portland. After thinking about our options we decide to go out to Sauvie Island and just “check things out”. We’ve been out there before but never just cruzed around, checking out all the places there. So we decided to hit the road.

We drove all over the place and just explored. Of the many great places one that really caught my attention was the Blue Heron Herbary. I’ve never been to a Herbary so I wasn’t sure what to expect besides.. well herbs.There were a TON of them and the gardens were beautiful. I was blown aways by the hundreds and hundreds of herbs. There were several varieties of the same herb too. I think there were like 20 types of lavender. We bought a couple mint plants, just for mojitos, as well as lavender tea, pepper, and whole mess of other food items.

Kruger Farms for lunch!

After traveling over much of the island, we decided to stop at Kruger’s farm for a picnic. Eric had packed one before we left. It was so yummy. Eric made this great salad of jicima, tomatoes, cucumber, roasted corn, black beans, and I don’t know what else. Maybe he’ll post it on his website Grub n Glug. In any case it was terrific. The best was the avocados on it. After lunch we walked around the farm and checked out the place. I think we’ll go back when the berries are ready and go picking.

If you haven’t done so you should go to Sauvie Island! It’s super fun!

Last weekend we went to the Hillsboro Saturday Market. I have to say it was super nice. I really liked seeing all the vendors without all the craziness of the Beaverton Market. Beaverton’s market is just so HUGE, it’s cool and nuts at the same time. The Hillsboro market has the same produce.. just one a smaller scale. It was nice to go and feel like you’re part of a community. In any case it inspired Eric and I to go to the Farmer’s market on Tuesday. FYI there are farmer’s markets each day of the week all over Portland. So we went to the Tuesday Farmer’s market in Hillsboro. I LOVED IT! It was such a great night to stroll down the street, taste food, but some produce and of course stop at our favorite taco place, Ochoa’s. They have the BEST tacos!

I was having so much fun and just enjoying the evening I didn’t take many pictures. Here’s one of Eric!

I’m a little late posting this but thought I would.. because, well…. I LOVE Indian pickle. What’s pickle you say? Well Indian pickle isn’t like what you might think. It’s not Kosher dill, sweet or a relish. Indian pickle is made from vegetables and fruits. They are chopped into small pieces and either cooked cooked in edible oils or brined with many different Indian spices and plenty of salt. In this case I used lime. Pickle is this nice, spicy relish-type stuff that’s great on just about anything. My favorite is chunks of bok choy and pickle. I love the spiciness of it and the fruit. It’s like the best of both world. I LOVE lime pickle.

Last weekend Eric and I met up with a colleague of mine and a good friend, Rothrock, to show him around some good Mexican grocery stores in Hillsboro. As the three of us were shopping I notices that limes were dirt cheap and it got me to thinking about making pickle. Last year Rothrock and Julia made it together so I knew Rothrock would be the one to ask how to do it. He referred me to this great website: http://www.indianfoodrocks.com/. The site has some great Indian recipes and was quite the find. I can’t wait until it’s all made and we can use it. YUM!

Ingredients

10 limes, reserve 1 for juice
30 green Thai chillies
3/4 cup julienned ginger
1 tablespoon whole fenugreek seeds, to be added whole
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup salt
3 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp fenugreek seeds, to toast and grind
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp powdered hing (asafoetida)

Directions

1. Quarter 9 limes, reserving 1 for juice later, after slicing off the stalk scars. Pick limes with few blemishes and smooth skins. Wash the limes well, making sure that any outer wax has been washed off. Dry well. There must be no moisture on the limes.
2. Wash and dry the green chillis. Use less if you can’t take the heat; more if you want to up the heat! Cut the stem off and cut each green chilli into two.
3. Wash and dry a 2 inch piece of ginger. Peel it and julienne into slices that are about an inch long. I used about 3/4 cup of julienned ginger.
4. Add 1 tablespoon of whole fenugreek seeds.
5. Add the salt, sugar and the turmeric powder.
6. Toast 1 tsp fenugreek seeds, the mustard seeds and the powdered hing (asafoetida) for 4-5 minutes until the methi seeds are nicely tanned.
7. Cool completely and grind them to a fine powder in your coffee grinder or spice grinder and add it to the jar.
8. Squeeze the juice of 1 lime into the jar. Shake the jar well and set it out in the sun to cook.
9. Give it a good shake as you bring it in and put it out every day. Open it once every couple of weeks to adjust it for taste as well as to check to see how well it’s cooking.
10. When the juices have thickened and the peel soft, it’s ready. Let it rest for 4-5 days in a dark and cool place. Then spoon it – a very dry spoon always – into smaller jars and refrigerate to make it last that much longer.

Ok, I admit it. Early this year I was hooked on the TLC show “Extreme Couponing”. I found it utterly amazing that people could save that much money, but more than that I was SHOCKED at the organized hoarding some people do. I mean who really needs enough toothpaste for 180 years? Or how about 150 bottles of medicine that will expire LONG before you’d ever finish it. But……. it got me thinking. I remember when I used to coupon a little, back in the day and I’d save a little here and there but nothing shocking. I have to say the “Extreme Couponing” show inspired me to start couponing again. I mean, it’s like a game of found money and getting the most for the lowest price.

In the last couple weeks I’ve been saving what I consider a lot of money. I mean 50-70% savings on my grocery bill. I have to say that it’s really nice to save that much and enables the hubby and I to go dine out more with friends and family. As I’ve been saving people have been asking me things like, “how do you do it?”, “what sites do you go to”, etc. So this post is going to be about just that.

1. Between Eric and I we’ve created quite a shopping price book. We list the items we like to buy and how much they cost at each store. We then figure out the unit price cost and determine where that item is the cheapest at it’s regular price.
2. When the sales curriculars come we sit down and look at them and determine if there’s anything on sale that we need. We also compare the sale price to the lowest retail price. You’d be surprised how many “sales” aren’t really sales.
3. Next step is to compare our shopping list, sales items and all with our coupons. I get coupons from several places, the newspaper,coupons.com, redplum.com, smartsource.com and I always go to thekrazycouponlady.com. I’m a BIG fan of the printed coupons.
4. Then we create a list for each store identifying the items we’ll purchase, the coupons we’ll use and the final price we expect to pay. It’s nice because then we know, before we leave, how much we’ll expect to spend.

So you might be thinking that this takes A LOT of time. I won’t lie and say it only takes a few minutes. I does take a while but with a little determination you can make things quicker and save a lot of money. I actually took all of our data and put it in a database to make things easier and quicker for us. Now all we do is put the things we think we might get in a form, push a button and instantly we know if we’ve got coupons for that item, how many coupons and the value. Then I just have to export it to Excel, make a few formula calculations and instantly we know what the price of the item is with the coupon and how much we’ll be saving. If we’re not saving more that 50% of the lowest retail price for the item, it comes off the list.

OK, so lots of work.. what does it mean? Well, here’s an example:

In the photo are the following:

4 boxes of Morning Star Veggie Burgers
6 bottles of Tonic Water
2 bottles of Ginger Ale
3 bottles of Ranch Dressing
4 boxes of toothpaste,
1 box of tea
2 pounds of Tillamook cheese
2 Cantaloupe
3 Onions
5 bananas
5 tomatoes
3 bags of frozen vegetables
2 bottles of mustard
1 tub of plain yogurt
4 buns

So what so you think you might pay for that? Well, I can tell you, you’d spend about $106.00 retail for that. Me, I got all that for $50.00. Yup, $50 using coupons and store rewards. Pretty exciting if you ask me.

Here’s another one. This cost me only $6.00. I bought this all at Walgreen’s and only spent $6.00 out of pocket.

Here’s how I did it:

$24.00    Walgreen’s price for all items (4 shampoos and 4 hair products)
- $12.00 using 4 coupons from the Sunday paper that gave $3.00 off when you bought an Aussie hair product.
- $6.00 Walgreen’s register rewards from purchases made the previous week.
$6.00 out of pocket!

It’s pretty amazing when you start looking at things and think just putting in a few hours a week can get you such great rewards. This last weekend I bought a TON of stuff that we use and only spent $70.00. If we would not have used coupons and rewards it would have cost us $186.00. We SAVED $115.78, that’s 62.19% …. AMAZING!

I have to say I’ve drunk the juice and I like it. I like the challenge of figuring things out and getting the lowest price. An additional perk is that Eric and I now do the couponing and shopping together We’re doing a great job of keeping each other honest and making sure we’re not stock piling more than a couple months worth of anything, unless of course when we can get the item for free.

Happy couponing! Oh, if you have any questions I’m happy to share just post them here and I’ll answer them.

Recently Eric and I were at his parents house and I decided to make some carrot cake. I love carrot cake, and it’s one of the few cakes I can make that Eric will eat (He’s not a sweets guy). I love this recipe because it’s just super easy and well.. YUMMY! Ever time I’ve ever made it I get rave reviews. I’d love to say it’s my own creation but it’s not. I got it from epicurious.

Here’s a tip: When you take the cakes out of the oven to cool, consider putting them right in the freezer. I actually put mine in the freezer to cool. It gets them cool faster and keeps them moist.

So while you’re enjoying the holiday, BBQ with family and friends consider making this cake.

Ingredients

Directions

For cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper (to ensure that the cake will not stick), or place liners in 2 muffin pans for 24 cupcakes. Set aside.
2. Place the dried coconut in a cup of warm water to soften and set it aside for 15 minutes.
3. Place the carrots in a food processor and pulse on and off for 1 minute. Then add the pineapple and pulse until the carrots are cut into very small pieces and the pineapple is pureed, 1 to 2 minutes.
4. In a large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the brown sugar and use a whisk to break up any lumps.
5. Drain the coconut and place it in a medium bowl. Add the oil, vanilla extract, eggs, and carrot-pineapple mixture, and whisk to combine.
6. Add the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing with a rubber spatula to incorporate but not overmix. When the batter is almost mixed, stir in the additions, if using. Pour the batter into the prepared pans.
7. Bake for 55 minutes, or until the tops are a very golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. (It may look as if the cake is too well done, but it takes a while to bake because it’s so dense.) For cupcakes, the baking time is 35 to 40 minutes.
8. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes. Then invert them onto a wire rack and let them cool completely.
   
9. Fill and frost the cake with the Cream Cheese-Lemon Zest Frosting (for added oomph, add 1/2 tablespoon minced fresh ginger to the frosting).

1. In a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the cream cheese and butter on medium-high speed until combined and airy, about 2 minutes. Mix in the lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla.
2. Sift the powdered sugar onto a piece of parchment or wax paper. With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour the sifted powdered sugar into the frosting (use both hands to bend the paper so the sugar pours slowly into the bowl).
3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. If the frosting seems too soft to spread, allow it to chill for 15 minutes in the refrigerator.

Yield: Makes one 8-inch layer cake or 24 cupcakes