Author: Connie Brannen

Categories
Meats

Freezing Sausage patties

My way of bagging meats to save money on baggies and have the meats organized in the freezer.
Ground sausage, straight from the butcher at the Grocery store.

Hello to all, on this misty and cold, North Florida day. I hope your house is in order and doing well. I have been really busy today so I thought I would do a shorter post for today.

Everyone may already know this food tip, but here it comes, anyway.

I am a bulk buyer when I can, on my meats to freeze or can, as I get a better price than paying a big price for a small package of meat. I keep Walmart zipper, freezer bags, and wax paper in stock at my house.

This package of sausage was $6.00 in cost but I pattied out 16 thick sausage patties and put a 1/2 of a piece of wax paper between each patty. Then I stacked most of the piles of patties by three.

I also keep the cheap zip-lock sandwich baggies in stock. As you can see in the photo. I almost zip up the bag and then I leave a part unzipped to squeeze all the air out of the bags and then finish zipping the bag closed.

All the sandwich bags are then put into one large zip-lock bag after labeling and dating the gallon sized zip-lock bag. I used to buy the most expensive freezer bags until I noticed that preppers were using Walmart’s zip-lock baggies, and they do know how to store food.

So I save money on the bags and buying meat in larger packages and taking a few minutes to portion it out and wrap it up for the freezer If I happen to bake up some biscuits, some of those go into the freezer also.

So this is a time saver for me, and I am able to have the best and freshest food possible.

I also make up my own biscuits and gravy–egg and cheese mc- muffin- steak biscuit-Chicken biscuit and you could go on and on, but I will stop here.

I do hope that these tips will be of a help for some of your house-holds, to have the best food for your family and to be thrifty in the grocery stores. And I save tons on fast food places as I hardly ever go to any of them, when I can make it myself. All it takes is a little planning ahead.

I hope that you stay awhile and browse through some recipes while you are here. I will post on Thur-Sat and Tuesday, so do come back to see me if you will. Thanks for the visit today. Connie B.

#CONNIEBRECIPESWISDOMFORPENNIES

https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

Categories
Casseroles

My Lasagna

lasagna that is hot out of the oven and dripping with motzarella cheese, with tomatoes that are vibrant red. and sharing the dish with 2-lbs of hamburger meat
Lasagna is calling my name. How about you? Do you hear it, calling your name?

Good morning from this North Florida, dark and grey, stormy looking day. Batten down the hatches and everybody stay safe, as it looks like we are going for a wild ride, this day.

I hope that you are safe, where-ever you may be!

I sit here watching the little house wrens, feeding like there is no tomorrow, as they attend to my bird feeders and wonder, how is this full today. Last night it was almost empty! I love watching my birds and feed them well. What is the cost of a little bird seed, when it brings me, such joy everyday? Out of the 25 apartments nearest to me, I am only one of the two that provide for these little wrens along with the big doves and smaller turtle doves. They brighten my cloudiest days.

Onward to the lasagna recipe, now.

Two pounds of hamburger A 13×9 casserole dish.

2 15-oz cans of tomatoes drained 2 15-oz cans tomato sauce

1 small can of tomato paste (any size) with 3 cans of water mixed together.

16-oz cottage cheese (any curd size). I chose large.

2 pounds of motzarella cheese shredded would look best. I cubed mine.

1 large onion chopped or sliced. 6 cloves of garlic minced.

1-TBSP garlic powder (not salt). 1 TBSP basil 1 TBSP oregano 1 TBSP sugar ( cuts the acid) 1 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper

1 16-oz box Penne noodles or your choice of noodles.

Boil the box of noodles for 8 minutes of a rolling boil and drain off water. Set aside for later.

Fry meat with the garlic and onion in a big pot and drain off grease. Add in all the tomato products along with the sugar and all spices. Simmer on #5 for 1 hour or longer if you wish.

Now, I am not Itiilian so please don’t bash me! As I know that ya’ll do the real thing and I do love yours more than mine!

Time to do the layers now in the 13×9 sized baking dish (or pan). I start by finely covering the bottom with sauce and then add a layer of the cheese.

Then a layer of noodles and next a layer of cottage cheese. Do all this in thin layers so that you will have many layers of pure goodness! End the layers with the cheese on top. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. I do hope that you try this one as it is one of my favorites.

Mix you up some minced garlic with softened butter and garlic powder. Spread over hotdog buns and broil just until toasted, to go along with this.

Thank you for your visit and do come back soon as I post on Sat-Tue and Thursday. Please share these recipes. Connie B. #CONNIEBRECIPESWISDOMFORPENNIES

Categories
Sandwiches

Cuban Sandwich

Supper tonight was a very nice Cuban Sandwich that only took about 20 minutes in the air-fryer.

Hello to everyone. I hope this is a good day for you with everything that is going on in the USA. I hope this will give you an idea for a meal sometime.

To begin with this recipe, I will let you know that I am not very experienced with GOYA MOJO marinade sauce. But my Cuban neighbor brought me over a delicious Cuban Panini Sub the other day and it was the best that I have ever had.

So I went over to surprise him with some cream-cheese danish that were hot out of the oven, he showed me his kitchen which had a huge pork loin that had been roasted and marinated with Adobo sauce. That was what my sandwich was made from.

So I tried to create one, myself. Of course, his was the very best but mine was pretty good also. So this is the recipe that I created.

2 pork-chops soaked in 1/2 cup of Goya Adobo marinade for 4 hours.

Pan Sobao Calientito (Sub-rolls) (Save-A-Lot Grocery Store). Cut 1 roll in half to use for one sandwich.

Put one of the chops in the air-fryer and sprinkle a little accent on it. You could cut the chop in half, horizontal as my chop was thick and I later did this after it cooked. It would have cooked faster.

A thick chop took 20 minutes at 370 degrees in the air-fryer and while cooking that I heated up a cast iron frying pan with 2 1/2 TBSP of butter and sliced one sub roll in half and then sliced it open. I put the bread in the butter and sprinkled some garlic powder on both sides and toasted the bread to a beautiful brown color. Squash the bread down while toasting it in the cast iron frying pan.

I cut up a dill pickle into thin slices and got out the mustard. I used 4 provolone cheese slices cut diagonally. And I microwaved a slice of spiral cut ham. I put 1/2 the cheese on the hot ham and 1/2 the cheese on the hot chop that was sliced to fit every edge of the bread.

After the first chop got done in the air-fryer, I started the second chop in the fryer just the same as the first one. (You do have to flip the chop over at the 10-minute time (Half-time and sprinkle with accent).

As the second chop was cooking for another day’s meal, I put the Cuban sandwich together while using a whole lot of mustard on two different layers and pickles the same way also. I also added an ice-cold coke to go with this meal.

I hope you try this! And if you can stay awhile then please do so. I will post again on Sat-Tue and Thursday and I hope to see you then. Thank you for your visit. #CONNIEBRECIPESWISDOMFORPENNIES

Categories
Soup

Hamburger Soup

A meaty hamburger soup that comes loaded with vegetables, a good soup for the cold day, it warms the soul.

Hello everyone, from Connie B. on this cold North Florida day. I made a pot of soup the other day and I thought that I would share the recipe with you. It was so good to me that I did not even need crackers with it.

I used mostly foods that I have canned up myself in this soup, except for the green lima beans and tomatoes, those I had to use a can opener on. I will write this recipe differently for you in case you are not a canner, like me.

You will need 2lbs of hamburger meat fried up with 1 large sliced onion and 4 chopped garlic cloves. Drain the grease.

A large soup pot.

2 15 -oz size can diced tomatoes

15- oz can drained hominy 15- oz can drained green lima beans

1 stick of thinly sliced celery Big can of carrots or 5 sliced carrots

4 15 -oz cans of water

Put cooked hamburger meat in the pot and add everything else to the pot also. Throw in a tsp of salt and 1 tsp of Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning. Cook on a low bubbling simmer for 1 hour.

You could change up your veggies if you like!

Thank you for your visit and stay awhile if you have the time and browse the recipes. Please visit again and share with your friends. I will post again on Thur-Sat and Tuesday. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

Categories
Jellies

Blueberry Jam

Big luscious and dark blueberries that are bubbling in a steel pot, arriving to their destination of becoming mashed for a great tasting jam.

Luscious blueberry jam for the canning pantry.

Good morning everyone! Today is a rainy day in North Florida.

I hope that you are happy and sassy today. Have some fun, whatever you choose to do today.

Here is a recipe to bring you joy, I hope. Just the photo, makes me want to open up a jar of this blueberry jam and have some on a bagel with some cream cheese.

The recipe ingredients are 8 cups of blueberries (I used mine out of my freezer).

5 to 7 jelly jars sterilized and clean with rings and lids (filled with boiling water) to keep the jars hot

A water-bath canning pot or a ( tall pot) Have this pot on the stove with water depth at 2 inches of over the top of jelly jars, for when they go in there. Have on #8 heat setting.

A shot glass worth of vinegar and paper napkins

Chop-stick to de-bubble jam in the jar. Ladle and jar lifter and folded kitchen towel for the counter, near the canner.

8 c of sugar (white)

2TBSP of lemon juice (bottle is ok).

1 tsp of butter 4- oz of powdered pectin

Or I use 3 TBSB of Mrs. Wages (It says forest berry pie filling on the package) Do not pick up the other package as it has clove and cinnamon in that one!

Wash and stem the berries if you did not before you froze them in the freezer.(I did already). Or use fresh!

Put the berries in a steel pot along with the butter and lemon juice. Bring to a rolling boil. Take off from the heat. Now spend a couple of minutes, squashing the berries with a potato masher. I spent little time on this as I wanted chunks of berries in my jam.

Put back on the stove now, on high heat, and add the sugar and pectin while stirring and stirring. Bring back up to a rolling boil and then let boil for 1 minute. Take off the heat and skim the foam off the top and now you are ready to jar.

Take one jelly jar that you have sitting there with boilig water in it and empty the water out. Ladle the jam into the jar with 1-inch headspace at the top. De-bubble with the chopstick to get the air out.

Dip a napkin in the vinegar and wipe the top of the jar very well. Put on the seal and band, only finger tight. Do all your jars the same way. Put them in the water-bath canner with the water 2 inches over the top of the jars. Bring to a rolling boil and then start the timer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, take carefully out of the canner and set them on the folded towel, and leave for 24 hours. You will start hearing the ping as each jar seals. This says (Job well done). If you can mash down on any lid, then it is not sealed so re-do the boiling water bath or start eating this jar now. But I very rarely have a jar that does not give me the ping sound that I love to hear!.

Jams and jellies are a great start for canners as they are quick and easy to learn and they taste amazing too! I do hope that you will try this recipe. It makes an awesome gift as my friends could tell you, that they love my jellies. As I do not need a lot of them but do love to can new ones up, I always share with them and they do bring my empty jars back to me.

Thanks for your visit, I do enjoy seeing my number of visitors going up each day. It tells me that I must be doing something right with this little blog of mine. I did try to re-organize the blog yesterday so I hope that helps you to browse easier for more recipes, while you are visiting me. And I do thank you for your visit as you each brighten my day, everyday. Otherwise I just might be a hermit!

I post as always on Tue-Thur and Saturday. Today is just a freebie day. So please ,do come back and feel welcome to share my recipes with your families and friends as this is the purpose of this blog.

Connie B. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

Categories
Side Dishes

Green Rice

Hello from North Florida on this cloudy and misty day. I hope today finds you well and with money in your pocket. Not for me, but I still want the best for all of you.

Today, I have no photo, as you just have to know that I just can not cook and eat everything that I post. But this is an older recipe of mine that I do enjoy. The reason that I call it green rice is that when you finish cooking this it will be green from the broccoli.

So, we need one big head of broccoli that is rinsed well and broken into flowerets.

Two cups of parboiled rice (This is a firmer rice when done.)

1/8 tsp salt and 3 TBSP of unsalted butter.

We all know that when you cook rice it is 2 to one, meaning 2 cups of water for every one cup of rice. Something I learned many years ago from the best cooks in my family, back then.

So in a medium pot put 2 cups of rice and 4 cups of water along with the salt and bring to a boil. Have your broccoli in there also. When it starts to boil real good, turn the heat down to number #3 or a low setting and put the lid on the pot. Cook for 20 minutes. When done add in the butter and stir it in.

I absolutely adore this green rice recipe and could just eat this all by itself. You could make changes to this recipe for yourself but I like it just the way it is!

Thank you for your visit today and I pray that this new year will be an awesome year for you. Stay awhile and browse my archives for more recipes if you wish and do come back for more recipes if you want. And as always share away with your friends.

I always make new post on Tue-Thur and Saturdays so yall come back you hear. Connie B. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com/greenrice

Categories
Sandwiches

Spinach Pizza

Spinach Pizza Extreme
Cast iron cooked Spinach Pizza Extreme.

I hope everyone is ready for the New Year that is coming in at midnight for North Florida. And I hope that you stay safe.

I am late posting today and I am truly sorry about that. So I will go right into the recipe for today.

This pizza was so good that I did not miss the fact that there was no meat at all on the pizza.

15oz jar of Ragu garlic alfredo sauce. You will only use 1/2 of the jar. And this is salty so do not add any salt to your pizza.

A hand-full of washed and drained fresh spinach leaves.

A bell pepper cut into 1/4 slices. Use only one of the sections cut into small pieces.

A small onion (Use half diced well).

Sautee onion and bell pepper in a dash of olive oil.

A can of black olives (Use 8 olives sliced into rings).

Mushrooms (I used dehydrated) rehydrated a hand-full in water and drained).

Parmesean cheese and Motzerella cheese. ( I grated my motz, frozen and it grated very well. 1 cup will do.

Pizza dough. I have 8 of them left in the freezer from my pizza dough recipe in my archives. If you make my dough recipe, please lower the salt. It made 10 and keeps for 4 months. Or buy or make your own dough for a 12-inch pizza.

Ok, I took my dough out of my freezer and thawed it out. Then I warmed my oven to 200 degrees for 7 minutes and turned it off, I oiled a metal bowl with a little olive oil and turned the dough over and over in the bowl and put it in the warm and turned off oven to rise a little for 1 hour.

I then put a little olive oil in my cast iron frying pan and threw about 1 TBSP of cornmeal into the pan. Put the dough on top of cornmeal and just kept pressing the dough out with my hands into the pan.

Melt a TBSP of butter and add 1/8 th tsp of garlic powder to butter. Butter the crust on outside edges only. Sprinkle edges with parmesean cheese and smear 1/4th of the alfredo sauce over the middle of pizza.

Oven at 425 degrees, and put pizza in to bake until brown. 15-20 minutes. Take out of oven and add the spinach leaves to the pizza, add the cooked onion and bell pepper. Toss on 1/2 of the shredded cheese. Put more alfredo sauce on now. 1/4th of jar.

Add the mushrooms and black olives and toss on the other 1/2 of shredded cheese, Continue baking at 425 degrees for about 13 minutes or until cheese is melted.

I hope you enjoy this one. I, for one will be making this one again. I made this recipe up and I am happy with this one.

Thank you for visiting and do come back for more if you wish. And please do share with your friends. I post recipes on Sat-Tue and Thursday. Connie B. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

Categories
Links I Follow

1920’s Gelatin Pudding

This is a recipe from one of my favorite blogs that I follow, as I like things of old and always have.

Oops, just type in Gelatin Pudding when you get there and it will pop up.

Thanks for your visit. Connie B. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

http://www.ahundredyearsago.com

Categories
December 2020 Sandwiches

Connie’s Sausage and Egg-Cheese McMuffin

A homemade sausage-egg and cheese McMuffin with mayo.
I call this one, Connie’s sausage-egg and cheese McMuffin.

Hello everyone, I hope this day finds you well as it is a beautiful sky blue day in North Florida today. And the little sparrow birds have already emptied out one feeder and they are working on the second feeder like there is no tomorrow.

But little do they know, there will always be some seed in the storehouse for them!

Today, I wanted to post this little recipe. Now you can always go to McDonald’s and have one of their sausage-egg and cheese McMuffins. But as I have no car, that is not one of my options.

So I create my own sausage-egg and cheese McMuffin. I really enjoy these, once in a while. So on to the recipe.

You will need some patty sausage meat or buy the pre-fab kind. I do not.

2 patties of sausage

2 fried eggs with salt and pepper

2 egg muffins

2 slices of cheese and mayo or your choice of condiment

I used my air-fryer to cook two thick patties of sausage. I used 370 degrees for the temp. setting and put the timer on for 12 minutes. At half-time, I flipped the sausages. And at the last minute of cooking the sausages, I threw on the cheese.

While this was cooking, I fried my eggs in a little olive oil and toasted the two muffins in my red toaster, which makes me think of the old-time dining car restaurants or the old-time cafes, from way back in time.

Ok, so now that everything is cooked, we just assemble our breakfast sandwiches Put mayo on the toasted muffins and then the fried eggs. Next comes the sausage and cheese. Next comes the plate with a glass of orange juice or coffee.

I do so hope that you will enjoy this breakfast sandwich recipe and check out more of my recipes while you are visiting.

I do thank you for your taking the time out of your busy day to stop by. Hopefully, you will come by again as I post on Sat and Tuesday.

Connie B. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

Categories
December 2020 Holidays Links I Follow

Christmas Dinner

This is a photo of December 25th, 2020. It,s main feature is a 20 lb, orange brined turkey which brined for 36 hours in a brine that I learned from Chef Jeffery.

I also made a creamy coconut pie with the coconut poured over the top and with real whipped cream from the can for added texture and taste. You will find my coconut pie recipe in my recipe archives if you wish to.

A Christmas Dinner with an orange brined turkey along with my creamy coconut pie. Also fluffy mash potatoes with stuffing and cranberry sauce. And a fabulous homemade pumpkin pie. December 25th 2020.
My Christmas turkey with my creamy coconut pie. A friend stopped by with the mashed potatoes and stuffing with the cranberry sauce. She also bought her awesome homemade pumpkin pie along.

I do hope that each and every one of you had a little Christmas dinner with a loved one or friend. It was a nice day for me and my neighbor. We had a lovely dinner while listening to Christmas songs on my laptop from Youtube. We also had minute made pink lemonade for our beverage.

Afterwards, we split up the dinner for the 2 homes. Now I have got to can turkey by Sunday! But I wanted to give you the brining recipe that I used on the turkey. First I had to thaw him for 2 days and get the paper packages out of him

The only pan that I had big enough was the aluminum turkey pans. I had 2 together and a hard cookie pan under them for firmness.

I used 8 ornges cut into 1/4ths.

1/2c. salt

3/4th gallon of water (Jeffery used a gallon, but he had a bucket and a fridge for it to fit in). I did start with the gallon but had to dip a lot of it out so I could pick up the pan to refrigerate the bird for 12 hours on the back side of the bird.

Then take it out and flip the bird on to the breast side for the next 24 hours to brine in the refrigerator

Back to the brine recipe. You have your water and salt and oranges together.

Add in 5 bay leaves and 1 TBSP of rosemary and 1 TBSP of thyme.

Add in 1 TBSP of black pepper corns. Stir this and have the turkey in the pan and pour this over it.

In, the morning to cook the turkey, you use a soup ladle to dip out all the brine. Stuff the oranges in the cavity of the bird. I used the same pan to bake mine in or you can change pans.

I like to cook a stress-free turkey. So I got up at 6 am and turned the oven on to 330 degrees and just put the bird in the oven and went back to bed. I do not smear butter or dip broth over the turkey as it is cooking. I did leave the oven light on for the bird. And when it browned I tented the bird with foil so he would not burn. As I wanted to cook the bird for 5 hours which was 45 minutes over-time as I always do. It was juicy and really good.

So, thank you for visiting today, and do come back soon, as I post on Tue-Thur and Saturdays. Check my archives for more recipes if you wish to. And share away with your friends. is the link to Chef Jeffery.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW7cBq7rpDRaM1-y2CT6L0A

Thank you again. Connie B. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com