Photo by NCReedplayer

Halloween might be over, but it is not forgotten at the Frugal Upstate household. Despite the fact that we get over 200 trick or treaters a year, we still somehow wound up with leftover candy and the perennial question: “What do we do with leftover Halloween Candy?!”

I asked my friends on Twitter and we came up with 12 great ideas for using up leftover Halloween candy:

1. Save it for your holiday gingerbread houses (via VisitFingerLake)

2. Freeze it for later.

3. Add a cup at a time to rice crispy squares (via Jeremy Wright). If it’s chocolate or easily meltable let the mix cool a bit first

4. Chop and roll candy apples into crushed candy.

5.  Chop and use as icecream topping or as a decorative/tasty topping for an iced cake.

6.  Toss into homemade trail mix.

7. Chop and mix into brownies. Peppermint Patties or any chocolates/candy bars are especially good.

8. Make Molten Candy Cookies. Just take chocolate chip cookie or sugar cookie dough and wrap a ball around a mini chocolate bar.

9.  Make Leftover Candy Cake.

10. Make Chocolate Candy Corn Cookies (via Feels Like Home)

11. Donate the extra candy to a rehab center (via MommyBlogExpert) a nursing home (via backhomeagain) or a shelter (via luciagia)

12. Sell it to your dentist (via KingdomFirstMom and jodirotondo). Really! There is a program called “Halloween Candy Buy Back” that many dentists participate in.

So what do you do with your leftover candy. . . besides eat it!

This is the second year at the Frugal Upstate household that we have made our own, real, upstate NY maple syrup.

I have to admit, this project is completely Yankee Bill. He grew up with his Dad doing a very large scale maple syrup production out in the woods every year with a friend. It was an actual business-they made enough money each year to finance the family’s annual vacation. So obviously there are fond memories associated with the task.

Last year we started out by tapping the large maple that stood at the end of the driveway. We got tons of sap and made several quarts of syrup. . . but the tree had to be cut down during the summer (it was half rotten and blocked the driveway. . .) We were very happy to discover that the large tree shading the back of our lot is also a full grown maple, so syrup production was able to resume this year.

Thus far this year we’ve already made over a gallon of syrup. Today is another cold snap-which I hate for lifestyle reasons (spring, please just come already) but love for maple syrup production-those cold snaps followed by warming keep the old sap running!

Is this activity cost effective? Well, I guess that depends. Yes, we’ve used some propane. And it has taken several weeks (although much of that time has been unattended cooking time) and some effort. On the other hand, this brings back fond memories for Yankee Bill and he enjoys the process of making something (very satisfying as you know). To be blunt-real maple syrup is damn expensive-I’ve seen it for over $10 for a little pint, so our gallon plus is probably worth $80-$100 dollars.

The Halloween hand is just an adorable craft/snack project. The ingredients are simple and very cheap/frugal. Candy corn, popcorn, plastic gloves and bag ties! Watch this fun vlog to see exactly how to make your own.

A few notes:

You want clear plastic gloves for this project. Opaque or powdered surgical gloves would be a bad idea! The ones I used were so cheap and thin they were almost like cellophane-and in this particular project that works out perfectly!

You don’t have to use bagties. A piece of string or a rubberband would work just as well. I know you can get (again at the dollar store) a huge package of those little tiny rubberbands that get used for cornrow braids etc. Those would be the perfect size (and price point!) for this project.

For all that is holy, don’t use bagged microwave popcorn for this project. That would quickly turn it from a frugal Halloween treat to a very expensive one. Air pop some popcorn, or even buy one of those huge bags of popcorn they sell cheap in the potato chip aisle.

Enjoy!

Bananas consumption is rather erratic in the Frugal Upstate household. Sometimes Buddy and Princess are just in love with them, eating one or more a day. Other times they sit in the basket, getting spotty and black, completely ignored for no discernible reason.

During the summer I like to take the neglected ones, peel them, shove a popsicle stick in them and freeze-there you have it, a healthy bannana pop. Or I might throw them in the blender with some milk and make a smoothie. But both of those are more “warm weather” options.

As the air cools and the temperature drops, Banana Bread becomes a favorite. But even that can pall after a while. So next time you have some over ripe bananas, why not try these cookies? While they will never replace M&M chip or Pumpkin Chocolate Chip in our repertoire, they were a respectable way to turn those mushy things into a snack the kiddos would eat.

1 1/2 C flour
1 C sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 C shortening
1 egg-beaten
1 C mashed banana (2 or 3)
1 3/4 C quick oats
1/2 C chopped nuts (optional)

Topping: 1/4 tsp cinnamon & 1 tsp sugar

Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Cut in shortening*, then add remaining ingredients (except for topping). Beat until blended.

Drop by TBS on an ungreased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with topping. Bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes.

*Note: I always just use my hands to rub the shortening into the dry stuff until it resembles a coarse cornmeal consistency. I never can get the other “cutting in” methods to work.

Do you have any other ways to use up over ripe bananas? I’d love to hear them.

Photo by TommyP& KristyKay22

Friday night is Pizza Night at the Frugal Upstate house! For the last 2 1/2 years more or less every week I have made homemade pizza on Friday nights.

The kids love it and look forward to it, feeling like they are getting “junk” food. Yankee Bill and I aren’t exactly complaining about it either-we both enjoy pizza.

One of the great things about homemade pizza, besides it’s very frugal cost, is that you can control what goes into it and on it. I tend to make mine a bit lighter on the cheese, which cuts the calories and fat. We typically make pepperoni and cheese, although frequently we’ll break out to broccoli (if we have fresh on hand) or tomato (with slices of fresh). I’ve even tried my hand at a version of chicken BBQ.

And let’s face it, although pizza toppings would make even a piece of cardboard palatable, there is something about a great crust that really improves the total quality of your pizza.

For the longest time I just used the pizza crust recipe that came in my breadmaker cookbook. It was a decent recipe-tasted fine and all-but wasn’t anything special. I always had the feeling that although I was saving money and being much, much healthier than ordering out pizza (or even buying frozen pizza) I was somehow sacrificing on taste.

So last year when Amy from MomAdvice started experimenting with different pizza crust recipes I watched with great interest. I’m the kind of gal that likes to learn from other peoples experiences, and Amy gave me some great ones to learn from!

She started out in her initial “Homemade Pizza” post by detailing the way her family makes pizza, along with two crust recipes and a sauce recipe. She even gave directions for freezing the dough! I have been known to make an extra crust and parbake it for 8 min or so before freezing it, but I had never thought of freezing the raw dough.

Four months later in “Pizza Dough Revisited” she tried a new pizza dough & sauce recipe from a slow cooker cookbook. That was a success – despite her aversion to dough rolling.

Fast forward another two months and in “Dinner’s in the Bag” she not only shared another new crust recipe, but a way to speed up the entire pizza making process and tips for how to turn one batch of crust into breadsticks.

You’ve got to admire that kind of perseverance. Finally she hit the jackpot, at least as far as I am concerned, with her Pizza Hut Clone recipe.

Yes, it has more ingredients than the other recipes, so it’s a tiny bit more of a hassle to put together. The taste however makes it worth it. I was in a head cold induced stupor the other day and mistakenly made my old recipe on pizza night-everyone noticed the difference and was disappointed.

So without further ado, here is the king of all pizza crust recipes.

At least as far as I’m concerned.

Pizza Hut Style Pizza Dough*

1 1/3 cups water
2 tsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp cornmeal
3 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp yeast

Add ingredients to bread machine, according to manufacturer’s settings, and run dough setting. After the machine beeps, roll out the dough.

You can roll the dough into two 9×13″ pizzas (great for kid’s lunches!) or into two medium pizzas or a large pizza and an order of breadsticks (as instructed above).

Parbake the crust with a drizzle of olive oil on it at 450 degrees for ten minutes. Remove the crust and add sauce and toppings.

If making breadsticks, add your breadsticks at this time. Place into the oven for another ten to fifteen minutes or until golden and bubbly.

Enjoy!

*Note: Reprinted with permission.
**Note: Photos by Jeff Kubina, Adam Kuban, and Javier Psilocybin respectively.

You’ve heard my game day snack ideas, read and drooled over my Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe. . . Well, now it’s your turn!

While I’m rocking the seminars at Blog World Expo (Thank you Walmart for sponsoring me!) I would love you all to share your best money saving game day party ideas! Sometime in the next week, just mention the roundup on your own blog with a link back here, and then submit a link to your game day snack or idea post in the Mr. Linky below!

Easy Peasy!

Don’t know what to say? If you aren’t feeling creative enough to write your own blurb, feel free to copy this (and of course link the part between the “”s to this post):

This post is entered in Frugal Upstate’s “Game Day Snacks and Ideas Roundup”. Head on over to read more great game day party saving ideas.

You can enter more than one post, dig through your archives, or even send an idea to me via my contact form (see the nice little green tab at the top of the page?).

I can’t wait to see all the great ideas you all come up with! I think I learn just as much from all of you as you learn from me.

For example, in the comments section of my “Snacks for Game Day” post I found out that you could add peppermint patties to brownie batter. . . how sinfully good does that sound? How did I get to 36 years of life without knowing about this. I’m going to have to make brownies SOON!

Photo by _MPD_

1. Caramel Corn.

I just love this stuff! It is so cheap and easy to make, but tastes 100X better than the tore bought stuff. I promise you, if you make homemade caramel corn people will rave.

2. Deviled Eggs.

Folks just love deviled eggs-summer, winter, any time of year really. Eggs are pretty cheap too! Now it really is up to you whether or not you want to be crowded around the tv set with a bunch of men who just ate deviled eggs though. . .

3. Brownies.

Homemade, from a box, it doesn’t matter. Brownies are just great. Have you ever brought brownies to an event and had folks act disappointed? I think not. I can get a box of brownie mix at Aldi’s for $.89-and it makes an 8X11 pan of brownies.

4. Buffalo Chicken Dip

All the yumminess of Buffalo Wings mixed in with cheese and served up on a cracker or chip. Wowza. Folks will be asking for the recipe for this one! Look for it coming soon!

5. Nachos

A bag of store brand tortillas, a can of store brand refried beans, a sprinkling of cheese-It doesn’t have to cost a fortune! Melt in the oven for a few minutes and throw a few goodies on top like some chopped onions & tomatoes and you are in business!

I know that in the past I’ve extolled the wonder of Mapeline. But I have to admit-it doesn’t hold a candle to real maple syrup!

Yankee Bill grew up helping his Dad run a sugar shack early every. This was the real deal-100′s of maple trees, a truck with a tank and pump in the back to empty the sap buckets, and a weekend of non stop tending the fire to make sure the sap cooked down to yummy maple syrup. Apparently it was a heck of a lot of work-but that money was what the family used each summer to pay for their vacation!

Cut forward to this year. There is a big old half dead tree at the end of our driveway in this house that we bought in November. We are planning to have to have it cut down for various reasons this summer-but the tree guys told us it’s a sugar maple.

So YB decided to take a trip down memory lane. He found 3 taps and buckets leftover from the old sugar shack up at Mom’s place, and drilled the tree. The kiddos enjoyed drinking some maple sap right from the tap!

We used several large coolers as a holding tank. I couldn’t believe how much sap we got from that big old tree.

For the last 2 weekends we’ve boiled sap in our big turkey fry-er on the back deck. Once it had boiled down by about 2/3rds, we moved it into my biggest crock pot inside and left the lid off to allow for evaporation. Then the next batch of sap started on the burner. Then we filtered it by straining it through a fine cloth.

The end result is a little bit thinner than what you would buy at the store, but just as sweet and delicious. And of course not a bit of high fructose corn syrup to be seen.

We joked that we were probably spending more on propane than the syrup is worth, but in the end we wound up with 5 quarts of the most delicious syrup. And real NY maple syrup runs about $10 a pint. I’d say we probably came out $70 to the good on that one (not that I would have bought that much of the real stuff), plus the fun and education the kiddos got in watching and participating in the whole process.

Smells can be so evocotave of memories-YB and Mom were able to spend a few quiet moments out on the back deck, breathing in the steamy smell of syrup and remembering Pop.

And what do you know, it looks like that large tree on the back of the property might be a maple as well!

Our new house (closing on Oct 15th) was built at the turn of the century-1899 to be exact. Although there have been significant updates done-attic changed to a master bedroom, kitchen updated etc-there are a few, shall we say challenges.

The biggest challenge is, as in most old houses, insulation. There is no blown in insulation (although they did put that Tyvek house wrap stuff on when they replaced the siding a few years ago) and out of 30 windows in the house, only 8 are replacement windows. The rest are the old single pane windows, with storm windows for the outside.

We decided to attack the windows first in terms of insulation-then next year we will see about blowing insulation in.

I researched several options. The two main contenders were either using insulated drapes, or using cellular blinds. We decided against the drapes for the following reasons:

#1-We don’t know exactly how we want to decorate all the rooms yet. We are going to take our time and let some of them sort of evolve as we acquire things. So choosing drapes would be difficult. The cellular shades can be purchased in a neutral color, and hung on the interior of the window frame, leaving all the beautiful woodwork showing and giving the option of adding any style of drapes over the top later

#2-The styles of insulated drapes available is somewhat limited-plus I couldn’t find any that gave an actual R-rating. The cellular blinds are, as already stated, neutral. Plus there is a stated R-rating.

#3-Sewing drapes would cut down on the cost and address the availability/style issue-but would take time, and frankly with 2 kiddos, moving, setting up house etc, I don’t have any idea when I’d be able to get around to it. Cellular blinds will have to be installed, but installing 30 cellular blinds will take a lot less time than sewing 30 draperies.

The cost of the drapes wasn’t really the main issue-either option is pretty expensive. The expense is warranted in our case since we have some money saved for updating (ie won’t be incurring new debt for it), and the blinds will actually save us money in the long run.

Now just because I’m buying something expensive doesn’t mean I won’t be frugal about it! I know that this time of the year has several “Home” sales at JC Penney and such-and I wanted to be able to take advantage of sales that were held prior to our taking possession. So when I was in the house for the open house, I measured the height* and width of 27 of the windows (I knew that the 3 windows upstairs in the renovated master bedroom were double pane insulated windows). Then I made a spreadsheet of all the information.** On the top I listed my name, phone number and what the spreadsheet was for-Double Cell Blinds***. I was able to take this spreadsheet to several stores and have them quickly and easily come up with an estimate for me-I could have even called and then faxed it in to save myself even more time. The lady at JC Penney was very impressed with the whole thing

JC Penney and Lowes were both running sales. JC Penney is doing their window sale and the Bali Double Cellular Blinds were on sale-%65 off! Lowes has all their Bali products on sale 15% off. Note that this is on custom ordered blinds-unfortunately due to the age of the house, almost none of the windows are any kind of standard size that you could buy stock (premade and precut) blinds for in the store. Stock blinds are, of course, cheaper. Also I would be able to buy them more readily online.

JC Penney Total, with 65% off regular price=$3,318.19
Lowes Total, with 15% off regular price=$2,929.95

I would have hated to see what those JC Penney ones cost at full price. Geez!

And the extra bonus-unlike JC Penney, the custom ordered blinds at Lowes are returnable! So if I measured incorrectly somehow I can get my money back. Granted, I’d have to buy a replacement at full price, but that’s better than being stuck with a blind that doesn’t fit and having to pay for a replacement at full price. This is very reassuring, since I can’t get back into the house to measure the windows again, and the sale will be over 15 days before we close and get the keys. . .

Now, to mitigate the cost even further, Yankee Bill and I discussed if there were any windows that we could forgo the cellular blinds on. We decided to skip the front door-although it is glass panes on the exterior and interior doors, there really isn’t a nice way to mount the cellular blinds-we’ll do a thermal curtain on that one. Ditto for the back door, which also has a storm door. All 4 windows in the kitchen are replacement windows so those will be taken off the list. Two of the windows in the living room were replaced at some point with replacement windows. In that particular room we’d like to keep a bit of uniformity in looks-so we will buy the single cell blinds for those two windows to keep the look the same.

All of these should bring the cost down by $544.84, bringing the total to $2385.11. Then if I apply for a Lowes credit card, I get another 10% off my entire purchase, that comes to $238.51 (and I’ll buy another other painting/wallpaper stripping, caulking, woodhole filling supplies we need at the same time to get the 10% off and no interest grace period) . Grand total? $2,146.60.

Now, that’s not a small chunk of change by any means-but the current occupants spent $3,200 on fuel oil last year-and they had nothing but thin, unlined drapes on the windows. If we cut the cost of heating in half, then in 2 years we will have amortized the purchase of the cellular blinds, which should last us for the rest of our time in the house.

Obviously there are lots of folks out there who cannot afford to make a large purchase like this-so next time I’ll talk about other, more frugal ways to keep your heat from pouring out your windows.

*In old houses, where the windows may not be exactly square, or the bottom frames may be “settled” more on one side than the other it is safest to add about an inch to your height. Just in case. . .

**I made the following columns “Width, Height, number, cost, total, rooms”. The first two are self explanatory. Number was the number of this size window their were-I just put an “i” in that column each time I came across that measurement in my notes, then counted up the number of “i”s at the end. The rooms column is important so that when you actually receive your blinds you remember which sizes go where. When I was done I sorted the spreadsheet by Width and Height-so they were all in a nice order. The cost and total columns were blank. Then I hid the “rooms” column before I printed it out-that was info for me, not the stores.

***Blinds come in single, double or triple cell, as well as blackout. The more cells, the better the insulation. We decided to get double cell-it gets cold in NY in the winter!

With Labor Day approaching, many of us are planning on attending end of the season BBQ’s, potlucks and parties. Along with the fun and festivities often comes the responsibility of bringing along a contribution to the meal or snacks.

There are quite a few frugal standbys that I use for these type of “dish to pass” occasions:

Deviled Eggs
Homemade Baked Beans
Caramel Corn
Spicy Thai Noodles
Ranch Seasoned Oyster Crackers

But this year I decided to try something new. Inspired by the birthday luncheon that Meredith over at Like Merchant Ships hosted for her mother, I decided to add Fruit Kabobs to my repertoire.

Now, don’t get me wrong-fruit can be expensive, especially if you buy out of season. This idea is sort of a mid range frugal idea-there are things like the baked beans and caramel corn that would cost you a whole lot less than fresh fruit. But in the summer when beautiful, delicious fruit is plentiful and inexpensive you can really make a beautiful platter up frugally.

The premise is simple. You buy some wooden skewers, cut up a bunch of different fruit, and thread them on.

You can see that I used apples (tossed in a tiny bit of lemon juice), red grapes, green grapes, watermelon (made into balls with my small pampered chef cookie scoop-it was a pre frugal purchase-cubes would have done just as well), fresh pineapple (canned would work) and a can of Mandarin oranges. This was WAY more fruit than I needed to make my Kabobs. We were eating grapes and watermelon for a couple of days (oh-break my heart!).

For me the least expensive fruits were the apples and grapes (which I had the most of). So I made sure that they featured prominently on the skewers, with the more expensive fresh pineapple, watermelon and oranges interspersed. My pattern was green grape, watermelon, red grape, orange, green grape, pineapple, red grape, apple, green grape.

Now, doesn’t that look stunning? I used the end of the watermelon as a base to stick some of the kabobs in, then just stacked the rest on the platter. The small container of raspberries were from a U-Pick outing the week before.

Additional benefits to the Fruit Kabob:

#1 It just looks darn impressive. When I brought this platter out from the kitchen, people literally ohhh’ed and ahhh’ed. While that wasn’t my main objective, it did feel nice

#2 It was much easier to eat at a stand up BBQ type affair than regular fruit salad or a fruit platter would have been. Grab a skewer and you can hold all the fruit in one hand while talking and walking around.

#3 The fruit was distributed evenly among guests. Have you ever noticed when there is a fruit platter at a party, certain fruits go first? Watermelon, strawberries (which I didn’t use this time) etc go first, leaving the common apple and grape sitting there looking lonely. With the Kabobs guests were gently forced to take a little of everything.

frugal fruit salad potluck