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Thursday, June 23, 2011

Making a floor cloth

Materials needed:
canvas, scissors, knife, straight edge,
primmer paint, acrylic paints, iron, varnish.
Big flat work surface, patients and
imagination helps.






1 The first thing to do when getting ready make a floor cloth
is buy your cloth.
It's really a thicker canvas material, that is made for floor cloths.
I usually buy mine off eBay, and get free shipping too.
It will come by UPS or Fed-Ex in a big roll.

2 Now to figure out the finished size:
if you know where it's going to be in your home,
like in front of your kitchen sink, measure that areas length and width,
that you would want the rug to be. Make sure it would fit where you want it!!
Now figure how big to cut your canvas cloth.
The finished product will have a
2" hem all the way around it.
So you have to add that hem size to the finished size before you cut the cloth!!
Say if you want the finished size to be 24" X 38",
cut your material 4 inches bigger or:
28" X 42", that's so you will have enough cloth to turn under to hem it 2" on all sides.

3 Ok, now cut your cloth. I get my hubby, Rick, to cut mine.
He measures, usually on the floor.
then he marks it with a pencil.
then lays a flat edge down and cuts with a straight edge knife.
But scissors will work as well if they are sharp.


4 The next step is to paint your cloth with a good primer paint.
let it dry between coats and paint at least 2 coats.
This will give you a good finished paint job
and makes the canvas thicker, stronger and heavier too.


5 Now turn the cloth over so the underside in up.
You will hem the under or bottom side,
then turn it back over to paint the top!!!
Hemming it is a very important step.
I measure 2 inches in, all the way around and mark it.
then have your iron hot and ready,
fold your cloth and iron it under to make a good crease.
Then I use a double sided tape,
buy it in the tape section at Lowe's or Home Depot.
put the tape in the fold and seal it good.
You should have a nice hem all the way around when finished.
It takes a while to do it right. Be patient.


6 Next is to paint the cloth.
Be sure you turn it over to have the top side
that was primed on the up side!
Now, get ready to paint it!!
You can paint it all one color,
or do stripes or anything you want!
Use your imagination.
I have painted all kinds, even Christmas cloths,
or smaller ones can be used for place mats
and runners on your dinning room table!
I have even used stencils to make designs sometimes,
that way they all turn out the same,
like if you put a design in each corner,
you want them to all be alike!!

7 OK, Now if you are completely finished painting it,
you are ready to varnish it.
I use a good water based varnish with a gloss finish.
This will hold up better under heavy foot traffic over the years.
It gives your rugs a pretty shinny finish, protects the paint and colors
from fading and extends the life of your floor cloth.
Now be sure you signed it someplace, maybe on the bottom and date it too.
That's it, hope you had fun.

One tip, let it dry really well between steps.
Also, prime it before hemming it always because it will shrink some.
See some of my floor cloths:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1050343813416.8919.1070353375

email me if you have questions.

bungej@bellsouth.net

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Making Soap/ I'm cheap



I love to save money!

I also love to be clean and smell clean.

So instead of throwing away 25%

of my soap bars, I save them and

simmer them in water till melted.

Then just pour the new liquid soap into my

plastic soap bottles that I have saved.

Be sure to cool it first to room temperature.

Be careful, don't spill or burn yourself.

And be sure to label your new soap.


The first time I did this, I didn't put enough water in it,

and when the soap cooled, it hardened in the bottle.

So don't be afraid to water it down.

You can use this showering

or just to wash your hands at the sink.

Or wash your dogs!!

email me any time

bungej@bellsouth.net

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Cabbage low carb veggie




I love to use cabbage in cooking.
I have started buying whole heads
and running it thru my food processor.
If you use the top blade , not grating it, but the slicer side,
you will end up with "angel hair" pieces.
This head almost filled a gallon zip lock bag,
I will mix a cole slaw dressing using mayonnaise,
vinegar, splenda and celery salt.
Then when it's about time to eat,
I'll mix in a hand full or 2 in with the dressing.
If you mix it earlier, the juices from the cabbage come out
and make the slaw very runny and watery.

I like to use some in making a tossed salad also.
Sometimes I just get a small bowl of cabbage by it's self
and put Italian dressing or blue cheese dressing on it
for a snack or crunchy salad.
But I also use it cooking soups, stews and other things.
I like having cabbage ready in the refrigerator
to just reach in the bag and grab.
I have bought the bags already shredded,
but this way is a lot fresher and cheaper!
Plus you will get a huge gallon for the price of
that tiny little bag that's 2 weeks old when you buy it.

Email me at:

bungej@bellsouth.net
anytime


Michelle's cooking/organizing lesson


This is a great cooking and organizing lesson from my low carb buddy,
Michelle Machin. She's on the Atkins face book page about as much as I am.
I'm tickled that she wrote something to help us all on our low carb journey!!


Below are Michelle's words:

Every day I see people post here that they do not know how to cook, or need ideas for this, that, and the other. I'm going to put on my teacher/mommy/granny hat for just a minute and post two of my most important tips for food prep and portion control (yes, Atkins is about portion control, too).

Tip #1: Use measuring cups! Keep measuring cups where you need them. Go to the $1 store and buy several sets--I bought 10. (You don't need quite as many sets of measuring spoons--one for dry ingredients and one for wet ingredients.)

I keep a 1/4 cup measure IN my bag of shredded cheese. I keep a 1 cup measure in the box of cereal for the kids (well, I did...they don't eat cereal any more). I keep a 1/4 cup measure in the bag of blueberries in the freezer. If something needs to be measured, and I use it more than a once a week, the appropriate measuring cup stays in the container with the food. I also keep the cheese slicer in a gallon size zip lock baggie with the chunk of cheese--I hate using a wet slicer, and this one slices exactly 1 ounce.

When I was making four servings of PIM yesterday, I portioned some ingredients directly into the bowls. The cheese, however, needed to be used between the layers. I pulled out four 1-cup measures and put 1/4 cup of shredded cheese in each one. Then I put a 1-cup measure beside each bowl. When it came time to sprinkle in a layer of cheese, I used the measuring cup assigned to each bowl. That way, I made sure that each bowl got exactly 1/4 cup of cheese.

Tip #2: Buy a scale. You may think you don't need one, but you do. For years, I was stingy and used the scale I bought for WW back in the 1970's. Last year, I bought a new one--and I love it! It has a nice flat glass top, so I can use coffee filters, paper towels, or a paper plate to weigh the food, and it goes up to about 5 lbs (so I can use it for canning). I use www.fitday.com to keep track of carbs (or look them up) and it is often more accurate to use the weight. For example, yesterday I wanted to know the carbs in kale chips. I put all my washed, cut kale in a zip lock bag (part of the preparation process) and weighed the whole thing--it came to 4.7 ounces, and was much easier than trying to put on all that kale in measuring cups.

Thank you so much Michelle!!!

Now I'm gonna add my 2 cents worth! :-)
One of the first things I do if I'm going to be cooking a lot that day,
is to run a sink 1/2 full of soapy water with Clorox in it (about 1/2 cup).
I keep a white dish rag in it, that way,
as I mess up I can wash up easily and wipe down counter tops
between recipes.
I don't want e coli growing in my kitchen!!
Michelle said:
hot water deactivates the bleach when it comes to killing germs
(works great for whitening, though).
That is one of the things they taught us in the
food service management classes
(I held my certification for about 25 years).
See, yall, even I learned a good lesson today!
Love Michelle for all her great thoughts and worlds of knowledge.
I gotta go watch the Casey Anthony trial now and paint.


OK...lesson over! there will be a test soon!!!
Email me:
bungej@bellsouth.net

Asian Marinate for Fish low carb recipe


Asian Marinate for fish.

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
3 teaspoons mustard
3 tablespoons soy sauce
6 tablespoons cooking oil or olive oil

Mix together, pour 1/2 of sauce over fish filets to marinate.
Save the rest to use on fish on your plate.


I LOVE fish and I'm expanding my ways of cooking fish all the time. I also love to use Old Bay seasoning all over fish and cook in butter in a frying pan, medium heat, non stick pan. Very easy and so good too!!!

Email me at:
bungej@bellsouth.net
anytime

Ketchup & Soup low carb recipes




Good Morning all you wonderful,
beautiful Atkins friends!
I'm happy and busy this morning.

Already made a pot of low carb soup and Linda's
"better than Heinz Ketchup". Pictures will follow soon.
The Ketchup is a wonderful surprise,
it really is better than Heinz!!
It's GRRRRREAT, like Tony the tiger says!!!
Hope everyone is good today.
Hugs and kisses to all.
No cheating on your low carb journey!!

oh, don't be afraid to make this,
I had all the ingredients already,
you probably do too.
You don't even have to cook it,
just mix with a spoon.

EVEN BETTER "HEINZ" KETCHUP
6 ounce can tomato paste
8 ounce can tomato sauce *
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons white vinegar
3 tablespoons granular Splenda or equivalent liquid Splenda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/16 teaspoon allspice
1/16 teaspoon ground cloves
1/16 teaspoon cinnamon
1/16 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix all of the ingredients well. Optional but recommended (see my update below): simmer, covered, for 20-30 minutes. Cool then chill before serving. Keep refrigerated.

Makes 1 3/4 cups or about 28 tablespoons
Do not freeze



http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/evenbetter_heinz_ketchup.html

The recipe for the soup is from fatsecret:
http://fatsecret.com/recipes/cabbage-and-tomato-soup/Default.aspx

Directions

  1. Dice onion.
  2. Shred cabbage.
  3. Add diced tomatoes.
  4. Add tomato paste.
  5. Add water.
  6. Add stock cubes and salt and pepper to taste.
  7. Bring to boil and cook for one hour.

I added:
2 cups of frozen okra and
1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
and 1/2 teaspoon butter
brought it all to a boil, turned heat down to simmer,
and cooked about 1 hour.

If you wanted, this would be a good base to add chicken or beef to.
I love soup and am always looking for new recipes that are low carb.

email me any time: bungej@bellsouth.net

Monday, June 13, 2011

Tim Corrects US News Health report

U.S. News Health recently came out with an article ranking the most popular diets, and of course, Atkins was one of them. We know that they won't give them top spot on the list. It's too politically incorrect. (And if you don't understand what politics has to do with it, go see the movie “Fat Head.) But they ranked it lower than even I thought they would. On the Atkins Facebook page, U.S. Snooze, oops, I mean U.S. News, wanted to know what we thought. Here's my answer;

What do I think? I think you got it absolutely WRONG!!! First, you base the rankings on how well it adheres to the US Government's guidelines. WHO SAYS THEY ARE RIGHT? Certainly not us! Even if it is the government's business to tell us what to eat (and it isn't!) they should base their information on science, not special interests. But like most other government agencies, that is not the case.

Second, you seem to have very little knowledge of the Atkins Nutritional Approach. You make the same uninformed, uneducated assumptions that many others do about what Atkins is all about. You look at the first phase, and conclude that it constitutes the entire program. IT DOES NOT! Atkins is a whole foods diet. It is about removing the focus from processed foods, and getting back to the basics that our bodies were designed to run on. On Atkins, most people eat MORE vegetables than they have in their lives. Lean meats, dairy products vegetables, and yes, even fruit and grains are part of the overall plan. On the whole, it is not as much about restricting carbs as it is about eliminating bad and unhealthy carbs (refined grain and sugar.)

Third, you make the mistake of assuming that eating saturated fat MUST lead to heart disease. After all, everyone knows that! So a diet unafraid of saturated fat like Atkins is automatically put at a disadvantage. The only problem is, there is NO scientific evidence proving that saturated fat is linked to heart disease. NONE! In fact, quite the opposite. Just because "everyone" knows something, doesn't make it true! The most heart healthy diet on the planet is one developed by a cardiologist; Dr. Robert C. Atkins!

Fourth, the way to control or prevent Type II diabetes is to control and level off blood sugar levels. The two biggest culprits in causing blood sugar spikes and elevated levels are refined grain and sugar products. Which of your higher ranked diets eliminate these two things? The low carbohydrate ones severely limit them. Atkins completely eliminates them! Dr. Atkins called his diet a "godsend" for Type II diabetics. Dr. Atkins, as usual, was right!

Finally, I see Atkins as being handicapped throughout the "Best Diets" test, largely because those of us who are successful on Atkins know that it isn't a "quick fix" diet. It is a new way of eating, a new lifestyle, an end to the roller coaster of dieting, a way to stop the yo-yo dieting that is destroying people's metabolisms. It is the Atkins Nutritional Approach. It hardly belongs in the same category as the other diets that you consider to be "better!"

So there!

Have a happy day, free of the chains of sugar!

Tim Conway

Friday, June 10, 2011

BACON food of the Low Carb Gods














    • OK.. are you all ready to hear about my latest experiment
      with our favorite food :BACON????????



    • I found this beautiful bacon package at my little store on sale, 3 pounds for $2.50, it was bacon pieces and ends though. But I bought 3 packs, froze 2. I used some of the bacon last week doing the chicken wrapped tenders. but most of the bacon is the ham/meat looking pieces, but in funky shapes. I kept thinking "there's got to be something I can do with this!". Well, I put it all in a baking pan and baked it for about 25-30 minutes, till done. Poured the grease off (never throw away bacon grease, put in refrigerator for later use).
    • OK I then stored it in the fridge over night to cool completely .
    • Then I....drum roll please......... put it in my blender
    • and crunched it up into tiny pieces!!!!!!
    • Could have used my food processor too, either one would work well.

    • Now I have this awesome Tupperware bowl of bacon bits that I made! I have used in in salad for 2 nights.
    • BUT this morning, I put it in my scrambled eggs.

    • OMG was it good!
    • Moral of the story:
    • never pass up bacon when it's on sale!!!

    • if anyone ever wants to contact me:
    • bungej@bellsouth.net

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

fish filets/tartar sauce/slaw, low carb recipes

Good Morning beautiful healthy eating friends.
I'm painting.... feeling great! Very energized today!!
Gonna be a hot one here in Georgia today.
If you are in a hot area of the world, drink lots of water!!

I took fish filets out of the freezer for our dinner. Will bake with butter, lemon juice and Old Bay seasoning tonight on the grill on the porch. I just put all in a pan, just like if were baking it in the oven. The pizzas did great last night out there. This is my new favorite place to cook this summer!
Will make cole-slaw with chopped/shredded cabbage, mayonnaise, little vinegar, SF sweetener and some celery salt. Shredded a whole cabbage yesterday with my food processor, into angel hair. love it like this!

I also make an easy tartar sauce for my fish.
I don't measure much:
1 cup good mayonnaise
1/2 cup onion
1 big dill pickle
I just put that in the blender or food processor and blend till smooth.
pour into a jar and refrigerate. It gets thicker after it sits a while.

This is an old and simple recipe, I got it from my wonderful Aunt Velma.
She lived in Gulfport, Miss., right across the street from the ocean.
Their OLD
2 story home was washed away in
hurricane Camile in 1969 (I believe).
Anyway, she was an awesome cook. I spent several
wonderful summers there with
Aunt Velma, Uncle Elerbe and my cousins.
I learned a lot those years, roller skating down the sidewalks with Margie.
and eating great seafood that my Aunt Velma cooked.
They would get fresh shrimp at the docks when the shrimp boats came in.
She would boil them up with small red potatoes, onions, smoked sausage, corn on the cob. It's called "Low Country Boil".
They had a big screen porch on the side of the house,
with a picnic table on it.
We would line the table with newspaper.
She cooked and drained the low country boil, and spread it out on the table.
I can smell it now.
She sliced lemons and had the tartar sauce for dipping the shrimp into.
What wonderful memories!!!
What a wonderful family!



Hope you all have a great LOW CARB day. I'm still looking forward to this time next year!!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Hot Summer Low Carb Ideas

I grew up a city girl, but my older sister was more a country girl (10 years older than me). I got married real young, but my first garden was a big one. We planted 114 tomato plants (my brother in law had started the plants). I have never seen so many tomatoes in my life as that first garden, (in 1968)! I canned tomatoes by the quart, then made everything else with them that I could think of, ketsup, chili sauce, even made sweet pickles with the green ones towards the end of the growing time. My older sister lived 2 doors down from me, she had her own huge garden, so she was no help to me at all. We didn't even have air conditioning back then, just a small fan in the kitchen!! those were the days! So I learned to "can" foods and freeze too just because I loved doing it really, not because I had to.
I still love canning my own foods. Used to love to garden, but with my back problems, never again.
Cooking has been one of my favorite past times, my whole life, that's why I gained weight I'm sure. Well, I still love cooking but have had to find new recipes. And I've learned that almost any OLD recipe that I really want, I can probably "tweak" it to make it LOW CARB now for my Atkins way of life.
I'm going to make some of Linda's famous ketsup this week.
Just made sugar free jello for our night time snacks. Rick is not following this low carb diet so much, so I put a can of mandarin oranges in his, juice and fruit. But mine, I just make peach sugar free jello and I'll add some whip cream on top.
We are having home made low carb pizzas tonight for dinner. It's so hot here in middle Georgia, that I'm going to make them on the grill tonight out on the screened-in porch.
What are yall doing for low carbing cool treats?
Email me if you don't want to leave a message. (bungej@bellsouth.net)

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Slow Cooker Pepper Steak low carb recipe


Ingredients

  • 2 pounds beef sirloin, cut into 2 inch strips
  • garlic powder to taste
  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 cube beef bouillon
  • 1/4 cup hot water
  • 1/2 cup chopped onion
  • 2 large green bell peppers, roughly chopped
  • 1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed tomatoes, with liquid
  • 3 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon sugar substitute of your choice
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

  1. Sprinkle strips of sirloin with garlic powder to taste. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat the vegetable oil and brown the seasoned beef strips. Transfer to a slow cooker.
  2. Mix bouillon cube with hot water until dissolved. Pour into the slow cooker with meat. Stir in onion, green peppers, stewed tomatoes, soy sauce, sugar, and salt.
  3. Cover, and cook on High for 3 to 4 hours, or on Low for 6 to 8 hours.
This recipe came from Allrecipes.com
I modified it a little for us on Atkins or low carb diets.
It would be good served on top of low carb noodles.

Fat Head the movie

Fat Head the movie
I hope you watch this! it's FREE!!

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