Wednesday, 27 October 2010

• Tightwad October - Cook It and Do It Yourself

  Continuing the Tightwad October series
  

  Remember that extra milk we had from stepson's cows?  I used more than a quart of it making a double batch of oatmeal pancakes.  No - Jeff and I did not eat all 49 pancakes in one sitting. 

  I like to make extra pancakes and freeze them - just like Eggos but better .  Any recipe will work,  I just like oatmeal in mine for a little extra fiber.  After they have cooled,  I pack them for the freezer.  I usually use Tupperware-type containers but have also used bags.  I put a sheet of wax paper in between each layer.

   

  Always label anything you put in the freezer.  It is amazing how different things look once they are frozen. 

  To serve,  just microwave or toast however many pancakes you need.  They are very good - 90% as good as fresh made.  And way cheaper with simpler ingredients than the prepared ones for sale.

  

  Remember just a couple of weeks ago that I posted this dining room's makeover was done?
  Well, not quite!  Our house has white carpet in most all the rooms and after 8 years of hard living on it with messy adults, dogs and now grandbabies,  it was not as fresh as I would prefer. I've never much liked carpet anyway because of how hard it is to clean and to know if it is clean. 
  
  So - after 3 trips to Lowes this weekend, one trip was just to look, second trip was to buy one box of the tiles we thought we liked to see if they would coordinate with our current tile and the 3rd trip was to buy 32 boxes of tiles, borders, etc. 
  We plan on replacing the carpet in our dining room, living room and one hall. Jeff ripped up the carpet in the dining room and it came up easy with no glue holding it down. 
  
  So, if all goes well,  I guess we will start tiling soon.  Nope, we have never done it before except for some peel and stick tiles we put in our old house. 
  And if it goes badly when we try to do it,  I guess we will do all the prep work and then hire someone to do the tiling. 

   

  Lowes charges almost $4 a square foot just to lay the tile.  We are doing about 400 square feet so if we can do it all ourselves,  we will spend $1600 less than if we hired Lowes to do it.  The tiles we picked out were about 80 cents each, we also bought grout, spacer, etc.  I think it will cost us a little less than $2 a square foot when it is all done, maybe less - if we can do it ourselves.
  
  Do you ever cook and freeze food for future use? Any DIY projects you're tackling right now?

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