Heather Solos's Blog, page 6

Countdown to Turkey Day: Grocery Planning

Welcome back, once again, to the Countdown to Turkey Day, where we are getting ready for Thanksgiving without overwhelm.

If you are joining us, here is what we have covered so far:

Cleared the tableSet the intention to keep it clear.
How is that going?Written a tentative guestFigured out how our guests’ needs affect our plansCreated our Soft Menu PlanMade a point to try to stick to the weekly chore schedule

While your menu plan is not final, you certainly have a good idea of what you will serve on Thanksgiving. With this in mind, you can create a general list of your upcoming grocery needs.

Groceries are expensive. I know, tell me something I don’t know, Heather.

Adding the cost of a big holiday meal to your budget can be stressful. It can be helpful to spread the cost of Thanksgiving dinner over several weeks rather than adding it to one grocery trip.

To do this takes planning, which is exactly what we are doing.

We want to ensure we can take advantage of every sale over the next few weeks. This isn’t about overbuying. It’s about knowing what we need and being ready.

Enter the Thanksgiving Day Spreadsheet

To create the bones of your Thanksgiving Shopping List, take your Soft Menu Plan and open a spreadsheet. (Go ahead and print out that list, you may need a second copy before we are done.)

I like to use Google Sheets as it’s easy to share with collaborators.

At the top of each column, place the dish’s name or recipe. If the item is not something you make regularly, you will also want to include a link to the recipe in that column to ensure you can easily find it when needed. If you have a backup option you are considering, put it in a column beside the frontrunner, but do not list its ingredients. You don’t want to end up overbuying.

Save this spreadsheet, as we will return to it several times in the next few weeks.

Please note that at this point in our countdown, menu items can still be changed as your guests have not been invited nor confirmed, so we still need to be flexible with our planning, if necessary.

Under each menu item, list the recipe’s ingredients and don’t forget to include the spices. They are critical. Apple pie without cinnamon isn’t the same.

Take the printable shopping list and list the items, not in your pantry or freezer. One way to arrange your list might be to start with your shelf-stable and frozen items that can be purchased now to perishable items that can only be purchased a few days ahead.

As you create your shopping list from your spreadsheet, remember to double-check amounts, for example, if you have butter for multiple recipes, make sure that your shopping list accounts for the total amount of butter needed.

Keep Track of the Purchased Ingredients

As you shop for Thanksgiving Dinner items over the next few weeks, mark them off of your shopping list. However, it is very important that those ingredients, like the butter mentioned above, are marked and set aside for Thanksgiving.

This is especially true for those of you who live in homes with either communal fridges (roommate situations) or if you have teenagers who may not consider that the butter in the freezer might not be available for their midnight batch of cookies.

A sharpie and some masking or painter’s tape may go a long way to prevent frustration leading up to Thanksgiving Day.

How is your Thanksgiving planning coming along? Is your table clear?

Countdown to Turkey Day The Soft Menu Plan

Welcome back to Countdown to Turkey Day, where we are getting ready to host Thanksgiving without overwhelm.

If you are just checking in, so far, we have:

Cleared the tableSet the intention to keep it clear
How is that going?Created a tentative guestFigured out how our guests’ needs affect our plansThanksgiving Traditions, The Good and the Bad

Thanksgiving dinner is one of those meals that comes with many expectations. There are a lot of traditions, some good and some that should definitely be left in the past. As we continue the discussion, I want to be one hundred percent clear that we are discussing recipes. It’s absolutely ok to continue to serve your cousin’s green bean casserole or your sister’s sweet potatoes with marshmallows, even if they aren’t your favorite. That’s the only compromise we mean.

We’re not saying to allow Great Uncle Wayne to drink too much and tell problematic stories or jokes. We also don’t think you need to accept anyone’s rude behavior. Boundaries are good.

Got it?

Here is your printable Thanksgiving menu planner

We even have a Thanksgiving Menu Printable – The Soft Menu Plan to make that easier. This printable has three columns, one for your ideal Thanksgiving menu, a second for your planned guests’ ideal menu. and then the third is for the great compromise.

As you work through your menu plan, here are some things to consider.

How to plan a Thanksgiving Dinner Menu

Do your holiday meals feel well put together, or do they more often seem to resemble a potluck mishmash of flavors?

While you are sitting down to plan your Thanksgiving menu, try to think about how the elements of one dish may hint at an aspect of another. There is absolutely nothing wrong with serving the same family recipes year after year, but if you are the host and you want to add something new, don’t be scared to make a compromise. Just don’t expect to throw out every favorite recipe and not have a few hurt feelings.

Our Thanksgiving menu has a Southern/Cajun theme which you can find on this Google Spreadsheet from a past Friendsgiving.

The Cajun seasoning of the turkey also appears in the sausage of the cornbread dressing. The sausage is also used to flavor the collard greens. I swapped out the usual pecans for almonds in the apple, sage, and cranberry dressing to tie it with both the broccoli salad and the green beans.  Cranberries are in the cranberry sauce -surprise!- the apple, sage, cranberry dressing, and in the broccoli salad.  

In addition to a flow of flavors, textures should be considered, too. Crisp turkey skin contrasts with soft dressing, or crisp-tender green beans next to the soft-baked, rich feel of the apples in a dressing.

Some of Home-Ec101’s Favorite Thanksgiving Recipes

Here are some of our favorites:

Collard Greens, no holiday meal would be complete here without them.

Cornbread, we have both sweet and plain.

Roast Turkey if you brine your bird, skip the initial hot blast, or you’ll end up with a very dark turkey.

Cornbread and Andouille Sausage Dressing

You’ve got your mission and your printable, and now it’s time to go for it. Ready? You do know we are always happy to talk it out.

What will you be serving for Thanksgiving this year? Will you be trying new recipes or sticking to old favorites? Is there anything you are really looking forward to?

It’s always the cornbread dressing for me.

Countdown to Turkey Day: The Tentative Guest List

Today we will begin to figure out who you want to invite and what that means for your Thanksgiving dinner. Today’s assignment is a pen and paper exercise—you can use your laptop or phone. We don’t really care; use what works for your brain.

Who do you want to invite to Thanksgiving Dinner, and who do you have to invite for the safe of family peace? Yes, boundaries are a thing, but sometimes compromises are made, and we grit our teeth and invite that one relative that we would just rather not. Sometimes things can be unpleasant without being a compromise of our boundaries and morals.

As you work through today’s exercise, Please keep the following in mind.

Where will dinner be held?

Will everyone be eating inside your home? Is it a casual outdoor buffet? Do you need to think about where to put coats and shoes? What if the weather is bad, do you need an alternative plan?

Do you need to consider parking arrangements?

Seating

Do you have enough chairs? Place settings? Will you use disposable or will you rent? You will need to make reservations quickly if you choose to rent.

When will you have Thanksgiving dinner?

Will you be serving a late lunch or early dinner, or do you plan on having it as a traditional evening meal? In our family, we tend to have an early dinner, around 3 or 4 pm and then snack on leftovers later after all the leftovers have been done and the dishes have been put away.

How far will the guest need to travel?

Will they need somewhere to stay overnight? Is this something you will have to accommodate, or can they handle it independently?

Allergies, special diets and food sensitivities

Do any of your guests have dietary restrictions that are going to change how you need to prepare some or all of your food? Do you have the knowledge and capability to do so in a manner that prioritizes their health over your comfort?

If you do not have that knowledge, you should work with that guest to ensure their health and safety. That is your responsibility as the host. Please do not take that responsibility lightly.

Social Discomfort

When the guests walk in the door, will they be starving and cranky after a long drive?

Do they tend to get uncomfortable in all social situations and need to be assigned a task to ease some tension?

Are there known tensions between family members?

Does anyone have a problem with drugs or alcohol? Should this be a dry Thanksgiving (we are referencing alcohol, not the turkey)?

I know this can feel like a lot.

Remember that not everyone you invite will be able to come. However, it’s always better to be prepared than to be caught off guard.

What considerations do you keep in mind when making your guest list for Thanksgiving?

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving Guests

Will you be hosting guests this year for Thanksgiving?

(Canadian friends, we can set up an email version of the countdown next year just for you).

Here at Home Ec 101, we do not…OK, we try not to have all-day cleaning marathons. We break projects into manageable pieces spread out over time. Getting ready to host Thanksgiving is a big, often stressful, project. You’ve got the weekly chore chart to help you with your home over the next few weeks, but today we have a particular project in mind.

Today’s task is simple in concept, but the execution is where many of us run into trouble. Please know I am calling myself out.

It is time to locate your table(s) and any extension you will need for Thanksgiving.

But, Heather, I know where my table is. Why would you phrase it that way?

I don’t know about you, but in our home, the dining room table is where my husband works during the day. It also serves as a landing zone for everyone who enters through the front door. It is the repository for paperwork and odds and ends that do not have a home.

The kitchen table serves not only as the place to feed the preschoolers but as the crafting, coloring, and launching everyone for the day zone.

So yes, technically, we know where the tables are, but for many of us, the surfaces could use clearing and upkeep.

Today’s tasks:

Clear the table(s)Clean the table(s)Locate any extension that will be used on ThanksgivingIf you have an extension, save its location of it in your phone’s Note app or Google Keep.

Are you excited to host Thanksgiving this year?

Countdown to Turkey Day

Hello!

We are officially counting down to Thanksgiving 2022.

Thanksgiving is on the 24th of November this year, and we want to give you a full four weeks to prepare.

Many of you have been around for past Countdowns, but this year will be slightly different. Why? I have help. In other words, the countdown has already been planned, and we have all 28 days ready to go.

If this is your first Thanksgiving hosting or cooking for your family, we are here to help. We will be covering everything from getting your house ready to host a meal, when and how to invite your guests, food safety—you don’t want to be known for the great deviled egg incident of 2022, do you—menu planning that will please most, how to coordinate the timetable and much more.

It has been a long couple of years, but now with vaccines, testing, and common sense, we can make gatherings with family a reasonably safe possibility.

Remember, now is probably not the time to take on big home renovations to prepare for company. No one needs that kind of pressure. Life is hard enough. As always, we have the printable weekly chore chart to start getting your home ready. You can probably get the public areas of your house presentable in reasonable blocks over the next four weeks. As for that storage room, that’s what locks and boundaries are for.

This will be a good year. Are you ready to join us for Countdown to Turkey Day 2022?

Vegetable Beef Soup Recipe – Like Mom Used to Make

Updated by Heather in October 2022.

Bobbie Laughman added this recipe to Home-Ec101.com back in February of 2012. I’ve updated it slightly with new images and the adjustments my family makes.

Here is a link directly to the recipe for printing, but the adjustments we make are written out below.

Jump to recipe

When my family makes the recipe with leftover pot roast, we’ll use Better than Boullion to make stock and then start on step 4 by adding the tomatoes and skipping the two-hour simmer since the beef is already cooked.

We also kick up the seasoning a bit. We use a small handful of cloves, where the original calls for one garlic clove. We use two large onions and increase the other seasonings to either roughly two teaspoons or a tablespoon, as we play fast and loose with measurements. Sometimes we get crazy and throw in some rosemary for good measure.

I have noticed that finding any cuts with bones, much less marrow bones in them, can be hard now unless you go to a butcher.

I found soup meat at the butcher, which fit the bill perfectly.

Also, barley isn’t easy to find in most grocery stores in the south. I found it in Lidl over with the dried beans. Maybe it’s easier to find in high-end stores, but we’ve got a family of eight, and with four teenagers, high-end isn’t in our regular budget.

Here are some more pics from today’s batch.

Bobbie says:

Have you ever caught a whiff of an unexpected scent that suddenly sent you back in time? Figuratively speaking, of course. The sense of smell is a huge memory trigger, and if there’s a smell that says “home” to me, it’s the comforting aroma of simmering Vegetable Beef Soup the way our mom used to make it. Packed with veggies and beefy bits, it’s a hearty full-meal soup perfect for cold winter days. Serve it alone or paired with fresh-baked bread. It’s sure to warm the spirits as well as the tummies.

I didn’t get recipes for all the dishes my parents and grandparents used to make, but I’m thankful this is one I made certain to get written down before my chance had passed. When I asked her for the recipe, Mom said she’d give it to me the next time she prepared it because she didn’t think she’d remember everything unless she was doing it. So, she made the soup, telling me everything she did so that I could write it down. Some amounts were approximations, so I’ve had to work at it to get it to taste right. Mom always made it the day after we had a big pot roast, saving the leftover meat and all the meat juices to throw in the soup – which pretty much explains the nearly complete lack of beef gravy in family meals of our childhood. Chicken gravy? Yes. Beef? No. The meat stock always got saved for soup. But that’s okay: this soup is totally worth the trade-off.

To allow for room to stir and reduce the chance of boil-overs, I suggest a 6 to 8-quart pot with a heavy bottom*. Thin-bottomed pots will cook unevenly and are more likely to scorch and ruin your soup. (I make the mistakes so you don’t have to – just a public service I provide. Oh, and don’t try to pass off the burned soup as “Smokey Vegetable Beef Soup” – that doesn’t work, either.)  I prepare this in my 8-quart Tramontina stock pot, which I use for practically everything. Crockpot directions are also given, but if your slow cooker won’t hold at least 4 1/2 quarts, you’ll need to make a smaller batch.

When I was working to standardize this recipe so that it could be made as a standalone rather than as a follow-up meal after pot roast, I decided to use beef shank cross-cuts because I could obtain them at a fair price, and they’re great at yielding a lot of flavors if you cook them right. Some stores label these “soup bones.” Feel free to use whatever cut of beef is cheapest – the long, slow cooking of soup-making is great for tough cuts of meat.

Vegetable Beef Soup Recipe Yield: 5 quarts Vegetable Beef Soup Print Prep Time 30 minutes Cook Time 3 hours Total Time 3 hours 30 minutes Ingredients 2 to 2.5 pounds beef shank cross-cuts, or any cheap cut of beef, preferably something with marrow bones 2 quarts cold water 2 bay leaves 2 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 1 large can whole, peeled tomatoes (about 4 cups worth) 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram 1 teaspoon whole celery seed 2 tablespoons pearled barley (not quick-cooking barley) 1 large onion, diced 2 ribs celery, sliced 1 1/2 cups peeled, cubed potatoes 16-ounce bag of frozen mixed vegetables (the one I used had green beans, peas, corn, carrots and lima beans - 4 cups worth. Use fresh veggies, if you prefer.) Instructions Set your soup pot over medium heat and add the olive or vegetable oil.Once it’s hot, add the meat, turning to brown it really well on all sides. While the meat is browning, open the can of tomatoes.Remove the meat from the pot and set it aside. Do not drain the tomatoes – add the whole can. Use a large fork or wooden spoon to smash up the tomatoes against the pot's side. Use your spoon to scrape up the browned bits created from the bottom of your pot..Add the water, bay leaves, salt & pepper, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat and simmer for about 2 hours or until the meat is very tender. Be sure you’re just simmering, not boiling. Long cooking at a slow simmer helps to break down the collagen and tenderize the meat, while boiling can make the meat tough.Remove the meat to a cutting board. When it’s cool enough to handle, cut it off the bones and either chop it up or pull it apart into bits. Discard gristle. Skim fat from the liquid, if desired. (I don’t usually, unless the meat was particularly fatty.)Now, add everything else. If needed, add water to bring the volume up to 4 quarts. Stir to mix well, then turn the heat to medium-high to bring to a boil quickly. Reduce the heat to low and put the lid on. I always tilt the lid slightly. (Because I’m paranoid about boil-overs, even on very low heat. Don’t mind me. Move along.)Simmer for at least one hour. Two is better, in my opinion, so the veggies are quite tender, and the flavors can mingle and have a chance to get to know each other. Remember to remove bay leaves and bones before serving. This recipe makes 4 quarts of soup: enough for dinner with some left for the freezer. Make plenty and freeze a bunch for easy meals later on.

© Heather Solos Cuisine: American / Category: Beef

Bobbie Laughman is a leaf on the wind. Watch how she soars. Or, just send her an email at Bobbie@Home-Ec101.com

Like soup recipes? Here are some more good ones:

SLOW COOKER SMOKED SAUSAGE POTATO CHEESE SOUP RECIPEFRENCH ONION SOUPSAUSAGE AND SWEET POTATO SOUPSILKY SMOOTH GREEN PEA SOUP RECIPEOld image, kept for posterity

Why Won’t My Gas Grill Get Hot?

Dear Home-Ec 101,
The other night I decided to grill burgers, but I couldn’t get my gas grill to get hot. It was extremely frustrating, and I ended up cooking my burgers under the broiler (with much spite and bitterness, I might add). There was plenty of liquid propane. I just couldn’t get the flames high, even with the burners wide open. Do you have any idea why my gas grill wouldn’t heat?
Signed,
Flummoxed in Florida

Actually, I’m quite familiar with your problem and have had several frustrating evenings cursing my gas grill, too. (Hush, you charcoal grill owners, I want one of those, too—not instead of).

A gas grill—in this case, I’m solely referring to liquid propane—has a safety feature built into the gas regulator that is on the tube connecting your bottle of liquid propane to the grill itself. This safety valve will not open fully until the gas pressure has equalized between the bottle and the grill. If the burners are in the on position, the gas leaves the lines in the grill, and this pressure cannot equalize.

Thankfully there is a very simple fix.

Completely shut the valve on the bottle of propane.

Turn off all of the burners. Check to make sure none of your minions (kids) have turned on the rotisserie you never use or any other accessories.  Double-check to make sure they are all shut.

Ensure the lid of the grill is open.

Open the valve on the bottle of liquid propane fully.

Wait a few seconds.

Do a little dance, hum a little tune. Something. Anything except turn on a burner. If the hose from your bottle of liquid propane is short, you really only need 10 seconds or so unless you are trying to grill when it is VERY cold. If you have several feet of hose, you must wait a couple of minutes.

Now turn on the burner and light the grill.

It’s like magic, no?

No?

Ok, now we move up to phase two. It’s time to check for a gas leak. -You should perform this check fairly frequently to comply with safety standards.

Turn off all burners and the valve to the propane tank, too.

Get a spray bottle and partially fill it with very soapy water. (1/3 soap dish, 2/3 water -almost like you were going to blow bubbles)

Now spray the hose connections with your soapy water.

Click the picture for more tips!

Open the valve on the tank of liquid propane and then carefully inspect each connection. If any bubbles are forming, turn off the gas, reconnect, and tighten the fittings.

That should fix most problems.

Good luck!

If you want to spruce up other things outside your house, there’s a lot more information about keeping the outside of your house clean.

Send your domestic questions to helpme@home-ec101.com .

Stewed Chicken Recipe: A Comfort Food Classic

October ’22 update: I used to make this recipe regularly ten years ago when my teenagers were small. I’ve been meaning to make it again for years. I finally got around to it tonight, and they were circling the kitchen like vultures, with no memory of when I used to make it before. “What is this? It smells amazing!” I won’t let ten years pass again. It’s going back into the rotation.

This recipe for stewed chicken is a frequent request and a great use for those giant bags of leg quarters.

Leg quarters on sale are a mixed blessing. I’m not a huge fan of dark meat, but with the right seasoning, I can be persuaded. My usual go-to is a recipe for garlic and soy chicken thighs, but now -when the weather is cooler- I’ll be reaching for stewed chicken.

Can you blame me?

The recipe uses the braising technique, which produces a very tender chicken dish.

Please don’t be intimidated by the number of ingredients. Almost all of them are spices.

*Notes* The 3 – 5 chicken parts can include a mix of dark and white meat, a whole chicken cut up, etc. It is important to note that this recipe requires bone-i chicken.
It does need to be bone-in. I double the recipe to accommodate 10 lbs of leg quarters, which I stew in two pots. The extra sauce was welcome. This recipe can also be converted to a slow cooker, but this doesn’t eliminate a lot of steps.

Food safety note:
For those who may be worried about using the marinade… The difference between this recipe and a recipe where the marinade must be discarded is important. The sauce here is FULLY cooked. This is entirely different than brushing cooked chicken with a sauce raw chicken has touched after the meat has been cooked. Additionally, this is refrigerated the entire time and, other than the few minutes of preparation, is never stored outside of safe temperature zones.

And yes, when I updated the picture, I put the knife on the wrong side of the fork. You won’t need the knife.

Stewed Chicken Print

Southern comfort food perfect for cool weather. A warming, filling, budget-friendly recipe.

Prep Time 20 minutes Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes Additional Time 3 hours Total Time 4 hours 50 minutes Ingredients 3 - 5 pounds of chicken parts 1/4 cup lemon juice 4 green onions 1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes 1 onion thinly sliced 1/2 cup ketchup 1/4 cup cider vinegar 3 TBSP ground cumin 3 TBSP curry powder 1 TBSP total of the following herbs - a pinch of each- oregano, thyme, rosemary, black pepper 2 TBSP garlic powder* 2 TBSP onion powder 1/3 cup + 3 TBSP olive oil 5 TBSP sugar salt and pepper to taste Instructions Combine: lemon juice, green onions, diced tomatoes, thinly sliced onions, ketchup, vinegar, cumin, curry powder,, oregano, thyme, rosemary, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder in a bowl and stir well to combine.Place the chicken pieces in either a shallow dish or a large zippered bag and ensure the chicken is well-coated with the marinade. Place in the refrigerator and allow to marinate for at least 3 hoursIn a large, heavy pot, combine the 1/3 cup olive oil and 5 TBSP sugar and place over medium heat. While the oil is heating, Remove the chicken from the refrigerator and find a second dish to serve as a place to hold the chicken temporarily.Use tongs to remove the chicken from the marinade a few pieces at a time. Brown in the oil for 2 minutes on each side and set aside.Once each piece has been browned, return all the chicken to the pot, pour the marinade over the chicken and cover. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for one to one and a half hours until the meat is slipping from the bones.Serve over rice with your favorite vegetable © Heather Solos Cuisine: Southern American / Category: Chicken Stewed Chicken MarinatingStewed Chicken Browning the original pictures, you don’t see these

Help, My House is Full of Flies

Dear Home Ec 101,

Every day I am killing ten to twenty house flies and horseflies. This happens every summer. I don’t know if it’s the compost pile we have out back or the fact that one of our neighbors aren’t that great about picking up after their pets or our other neighbors don’t ever seem to keep the lids on their trash super tight.

I don’t know what causes this annual fly invasion but I am pulling my hair out and I need some help. What can I do to get rid of these pests? They are driving me crazy. I have tried fly paper and glue traps. I tried the baggy of water over the door, the flies keep coming. What can I do?
Help!

Bugged in Buxton

Flies are the absolute worst. It might be a sensory thing for me, but few things bother me more than trying to cook and being buzzed and dive-bombed by a pesky fly.

I have also tried and failed with fly paper, baggies of water, and glue traps. None of them did much except make a mess or add to an afternoon’s entertainment when some chaos unfolded and they were inadvertently bumped into. (See the fact that we have a plethora of children around here.)

This summer we have taken a two-fold approach to ridding our home of flies. First, as we have many children who are not always the best at quickly shutting the door, we got a magnetic screen for five dollars at the Dollar General. You can find a slightly less shoddy one at Amazon. This was just a test run; we’ll install a real screen door next year. This did cut down on our fly invasion.

However, I was still shelling out money to the older kids on the fly bounty I have.

Our second and much more successful tactic was using disposable, hanging outdoor fly traps. Oh, but Heather, you can make your own.

Do you have any idea how many times I have tried making my own fly traps? Many. I have tried and tested dozens of fly traps as experiments for this site over the years. Nothing has come close to this. I’ve killed a dozen flies here or there, drowning them in concoctions I’ve made from recipes I’ve found on various websites, including the agricultural extensions I always recommend as resources.

Nothing has come even close to these hanging outdoor fly traps in effectiveness.

All you need to do is add water. and hang.

However, I do want to be very honest. These do have one drawback. As my English boss would say, they are a bit… whiffy.

The good news is that you don’t want to hang them right where you want to be. That would defeat the entire purpose.

The fly traps work to attract the flies, who then crawl in and get trapped. You hang them 20 – 30 feet away from anywhere the flies have been bothering you. We have placed the flies at the four corners of our backyard, and now, We have had exactly two flies in our house in the last three weeks. We will replace these bags in another week, which will carry us through the end of fly season, and that will have been well worth the cost for the peace.

Two.

It is a late summer miracle.

So exquisitely disgusting.Don’t forget to check inside for flies, too.

Now, if you have been struggling with flies for a while, it is important to do a thorough kitchen cleanout. A fly could have figured out an unexpected place to reproduce.

Check behind and underneath all of your major appliances and in all of your cabinetry for. . . a stray potato or onion. Unfortunately, flies love rotten potatoes and onions. There is also the sad possibility that a rodent passed away, especially if poison was used. It’s not fun, but disposing of the food/breeding ground source will allow you to get rid of your unwanted housemates sooner rather than later and enjoy your home in peace.

One last trick up my sleeve.

If you have a fly pestering you, and you just can’t get it to leave you alone. Turn off your lights and turn on the light in the next room. Flies are attracted to light and will be drawn toward the new light source, and hopefully, you’ll be able to shut a door between you and it to give yourself some peace.

If you have any domestic questions, please reach out to helpme@home-ec101.com.

How to Make Egg Salad

Egg salad is a classic recipe that can come in handy. Many years ago, When I was a very young mother, very lonely, and newly married, I belonged to a church that often asked the women to take turns hosting small groups.

I wish I had known how little pressure I actually had to put on myself. Each week that it was my turn, I spent too much time and money trying to do more than I should have.

The reality was I could have made a double recipe of this egg salad, bought a loaf of Wonder bread, cut off the crusts and served them with radishes and cucumbers and saved a lot of time, money and energy that I just didn’t have. Know better, do better.

So, I’m here to pass that knowledge on to any of you who may be called to host an event you can’t afford.

The egg salad recipe as written is the classic version. You can doctor it up however your tastes and traditions lean, and everything will be ok. This recipe also works well when it is too hot to “actually” cook.

Start by hard-boiling six eggs. Don’t know how? Guess what? We’ve got a post with four methods to hard boil eggs. We’ve got you covered.

Yield: 4 servings Traditional Egg Salad Print

Egg salad is a staple recipe, not only for when cooking feels like a lot of effort, but to keep in reserve for when hosting company on short notice and low budget.

Prep Time 5 minutes Ingredients 6 hard-cooked eggs chopped 1/3 cup mayonnaise Fresh ground pepper to taste Salt to taste Instructions Combine all of the ingredients in a bowlChill in the refrigerator (optional) Notes

To serve as a salad for company cut the crust off white bread (yes, like Wonderbread or Buttertop). Cut into triangles, You can then optionally spread with a thin layer of butter or mayonnaise before assembling.

Alternately you can use crackers or firm pieces of bread and vegetables and use the salad as a dip.

© Heather Solos Cuisine: American / Category: Vegetarian

Don’t just stick to the traditional egg salad sandwiches. Try using it as a dip, too.

If you use a firm Russian or Ukrainian-style bread, you may want to use fresh or dried dill as an accent seasoning.

For a fun experiment, I tried smoking a half-dozen hard-boiled eggs at 150º for 50 minutes. I used these to make egg salad in the same proportions as in the recipe above. I loved the results. The cold smoke was my second attempt of the day, for what it is worth. I tried a method I had seen previously where the eggs are smoked from raw at 325º for thirty minutes, and it was an abject failure. The eggs were a complete mess. They tasted fine but a complete disaster to peel. Using an InstantPot to hard boil eggs is now my go-to method.

What ways do you like to serve egg salad?