Friday, June 7, 2013
Authentic Mexican Chorizo
If I can make it my self for less then it cost to buy it, then I make it. It really doesn't take that much time. I find you have to budget your time like you budget your money. I have 1 day every month that I do my major cooking and freezing and I do my baking about once a week.Chorizo (Mexican sausage) is a regular part of my monthly food preparation
First of all see the big thing of ground beef........see the yellow tag....those yellow tags are like Christmas for me, when I see the discount tag I stock up. So that is a $10.00, 5lb. chub of ground meat for $6.30. In this recipe I used only 4 lbs of ground meat and froze the rest for spaghetti later in the week. TIP: my family also likes to use this chorizo in our spaghetti, it's like spicy Italian sausage..well kinda.
4 lbs. Ground beef, pork, turkey ,lamb (whatever you choose...but if your budgeting choose the beef or pork)
2 tbs. salt
1 c. ground chili powder.
8 crushed hot dried chili's (or if you get crushed peppers when you order pizza, save those packets for your chorizo, use about 4 pkt.)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 medium onion finely diced
1/4 cup dried oregano
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 c. vinegar
put the meat in a large bowl.
Add all the other ingredients and mix it by hand like you would meatloaf. (if you aren't used to working with chili, I suggest using rubber gloves or your hands will burn. My hands are used to it now so I just dig in.) After it is well mixed cover and put in the fridge for 24 hrs. separate into freezer bags and freeze. Remember freeze it in portions that are suitable for your family's needs. I get about 4 meals out of this recipe. When you cook it you can brown it up and add it to scrambled eggs, into your fried potatoes, or in other recipes. Feel free to adjust the spices to suit your tastes.
4 lbs. Ground beef, pork, turkey ,lamb (whatever you choose...but if your budgeting choose the beef or pork)
2 tbs. salt
1 c. ground chili powder.
8 crushed hot dried chili's (or if you get crushed peppers when you order pizza, save those packets for your chorizo, use about 4 pkt.)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 medium onion finely diced
1/4 cup dried oregano
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 c. vinegar
put the meat in a large bowl.
Add all the other ingredients and mix it by hand like you would meatloaf. (if you aren't used to working with chili, I suggest using rubber gloves or your hands will burn. My hands are used to it now so I just dig in.) After it is well mixed cover and put in the fridge for 24 hrs. separate into freezer bags and freeze. Remember freeze it in portions that are suitable for your family's needs. I get about 4 meals out of this recipe. When you cook it you can brown it up and add it to scrambled eggs, into your fried potatoes, or in other recipes. Feel free to adjust the spices to suit your tastes.
Israel and James Christian's Story
Rising from the ashes: Local man recalls Eureka rescue
EUREKA
MEDICS carry Israel Jaure on a stretcher after Jim Christian, now of
Diamond Springs, rescued him from a burning building. News clipping from
1991 Eureka times Standard
The story that began for retired Diamond Springs Fire Chief, Jim Christian, on April 5, 1991, continued on April 17, 2011, and the end is still unknown. It is presented here in two parts and italicized sections are Jim Christian’s own writings about the event.
The story began when Christian was a firefighter in Eureka. It wasn’t my normal day to work because I had traded a shift … I opened the back door of Station 3 and stepped inside just as the klaxon in the apparatus room went off. The bay door was already going up and the three-person crew of Jim Ballard, Gary Cahill and Mike Bakke was getting into their turnouts. As soon as the klaxon quit the dispatcher announced. “Engine 1, Engine 4, Tuck 1, Engine 3 3F2, a structure fire, 1122 J Street, reports of children trapped inside.”
I was putting my breathing apparatus on when I heard Chief McFarland over the engine’s radio tell us to go to the south side toward the rear of the building. I didn’t have a portable radio of my own. I wasn’t even supposed to be there.
As I got close to the house, people actually grabbed me, urging me to the side of the house, crying that there were kids trapped upstairs.
There was an aluminum construction ladder leaning against the single story roof. Officer Tony Zanotti of the Eureka Police Department was standing on the roof… I climbed up the ladder. Zanotti grabbed my shoulder as I got to the roof. He said, “ If there is anybody there, they are right there.” He pointed to the window he had just broken. I looked at the fire billowing out of the adjoining room five or six feet away. There was fire at the top of the window Zanotti had broken. The smoke was pushing out hard and fast.
I looked around for the other firefighters from Engine 3. They were close and coming to help me, but I couldn’t see them. I thought I was alone. I remember thinking that I would not get out of this unscathed. I dove head first through the window…The impact partially dislodged my mask from my face and I breathed in a lot of smoke and hot air.I couldn’t see anything. It was dense black and very, very hot.
I was lying on the floor when I heard something that sounded like someone snoring. I straightened my mask and went for the sound. My hands found him, wedged in the small space.. I hadn’t been expecting someone so big.
Fifteen-year-old Israel Jaure was sleeping when a crashing sound awoke him around 7 a.m.
“There were flames everywhere and there was so much noise,” he said in a phone interview with the Mountain Democrat. “I panicked and screamed. I knew there was a way out through the back door of the kitchen and I opened the door to my room. A horrible blast of heat knocked me down.”
Disoriented, his body numb and his eyes burning, Jaure fell back into his bedroom and crawled as far from the fire as he could get. He lay on his back, in a space between the bed and the far wall. His body went into convulsions. “I was flopping like a fish out of water. It was like drowning and being burned at the same time. I kept saying ‘God, help me’ over and over.”
Finally the convulsions stopped and Jaure became acutely aware of his surroundings. ” I could see the flames all around me; I could hear my mother screaming for me downstairs, even over the noise of the fire. Then the pain stopped and all I could feel was peace.”
Jaure says he saw instances of his life unroll before him like a film. “I took the deepest breath of my life and when I let it out, my eyes dimmed, my hearing went away and I knew I was about to die.”
Jaure said he went to a place of total darkness; a lonely void where he had no body. “I called out in my mind as loud as I could. I heard a huge, heavy door open and the sound of thunder.”
Jaure felt himself being lifted and placed on his feet. He fell forward onto his knees into a huge beam of light. “God spoke to me and it was like shockwaves going through my body. He told me about my life, who I was and why I was suffering. Then he took me up on a high plateau and I could see people as far as the eye could see, dressed in clothing the color of lightning. I turned to look at God, but he stopped me. I was upset by this but a man with a shining face said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not your time to see Him.’”
“I couldn’t stand up because of the heat. I grabbed his right arm and tried to pull him toward me. The burned skin on Israel’s arm came off in my glove. I laid across the bed and grabbed his upper body and somehow got him over the bed to the floor near the window. I could hear Captain Ballard taking the window frame out to give us room.
I was dragging Israel toward the window when Mike Bakke came crashing through it. I was never so happy to have someone jump on me in all my life. We dragged him to the window and lifted him gently as possible through it. It was the first time I could actually see Israel Jaure.
Israel was placed on the shoulders of Engineer Tad Sundquist who carried him down to a Medic Unit. He was flown to San Francisco where he spent several weeks in a hospital burn unit. No other children were in the building.
Christian lay on the roof of the building resting, his turn-outs smoking. Then he went back to work fighting the fire. He wouldn’t see Israel Jaure again for 20 years.
Bakke, Ballad, Sundquist and Christian received commendations for their part in the rescue. Jaure’s parents brought a letter of gratitude to the fire department thanking the Eureka Fire Department, which stated, “He has become the memorial of your valor and the thankfulness which we cannot describe.”
Posted by
PART 2:
Rising from the ashes: Rescuer, rescued reunite in El Dorado Hills
ISRAEL JAURE and Jim Christian meet in Christian's El Dorado Hills home. Photo by Elaine Christian
Israel Jaure woke up in an ambulance. “I couldn’t see much of the man in the ambulance, but I heard him say, ‘He’s awake,’” and I heard the surprise in his voice.”
He woke again in Eureka’s General Hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses trying to enervate him. Then he woke once again, to find himself wrapped like a mummy. He could hear the engine of the plane flying him from Eureka to San Francisco. In St. Francis Memorial Hospital, Jaure woke once more, in a big metal tub of hot water this time. Again medical staff were surprised at his waking. “The air smelled like bleach and I lifted my hand to look at it and I could see my veins and muscles. It was horrible.”
Israel suffered first and second degree burns on 22 percent of his body and doctors grafted skin from his back and hips onto his hands and left leg.
“I was a boxer and felt that nothing could hurt me, so I was into drinking with my friends and partying,” said Jaure. ” Then I was burned and scarred; my friends looked at me with pity in their eyes. It was a pretty humbling experience and a dark time for me. It took years to recover. I coughed up soot for a year and my hair fell out when my skin started to regrow. I was angry.”
The grueling day-to-day recovery pushed his amazing spiritual experience during the fire into the background and Jaure admits to years of anger, wondering why this had happened to him. His parents moved the family to Arizona two years after the fire. The girl he’d been dating at the time of the fire in Eureka, Tracy O’Hara, had been at the scene of the fire and witnessed the rescue. She stuck by Jaure and they eventually married. They became the parents of six healthy children — the oldest daughter of their five girls is 16, and their youngest child, a boy, is almost 3. Tracy, 34, home-schools all the children. Israel, 35, changed the direction of his life and became a corrections officer working with maximum security prisoners for Pima County in Arizona.
Christian, now 59, moved to El Dorado County in September of 1991, five months after the fire, becoming assistant fire chief for Diamond Springs ,and after his retirement as fire chief in 2003, a fire management consultant and division supervisor on the Northern California Interagency Incident Management Team. Most recently, he oversaw the application of the Incident Command System to the recovery process at the San Bruno pipeline explosion.
Of the Jaure fire he said, “It made such an impact on me. I’d been in peril in other fires, but not by my own choice. Firemen get to do really cool things, but when the time comes to step off the abyss and you don’t know if you will be coming back, will you do it? I thought I was alone and I was scared to death. I made the decision to go in because if there was a kid in there and I didn’t go in, how would I live with myself?
“I thought about the incident every day and I put a photo of the house on my desk when I became assistant chief to remind me of where I came from and what firefighters are supposed to do. I wondered what kind of person Israel was. I knew he had been in continuation school. Had he become a good guy or not?” Eventually, to help himself process the impact of the event, he wrote an accounting of the fire and the rescue.
Christian told few about the incident that impacted him, but this year, 20 years after the fire, he shared his story with a friend and admitted that he had always wondered what happened to Israel. The friend did some Internet research and returned with two possibilities for Israel Jaure. Christian checked them out and one of them led to Tracy O’Hara Jaure’s Facebook page. He e-mailed her, asking if she were the wife of Israel Jaure of Eureka who had been in a fire 20 years earlier. When Tracy replied in the affirmative, Christian told her he had been involved in the rescue.
“It was my day off, ” Israel Jaure remembered. “She told me, ‘You’ll never believe who e-mailed me.’” Jaure e-mailed Christian back thanking him for whatever part he had played in the rescue. “I never expected him to be the guy who came in and got me.” The two exchanged phone numbers.
“He told me to call him anytime, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to intrude,” said Christian. Finally, he made the call and the two shared the details of the fire with each other in an emotional conversation.
On the weekend of April 17, the Jaure family came to California to visit Tracy’s father in Valley Springs and made a five-hour stopover at Jim and Elaine Christian’s home in El Dorado Hills. Both men said they felt an instant connection.
“I felt like I was going to visit my second father, one I had never met,” said Jaure. “It blew me away that I got to see the man who saved me.”
“They were like family we hadn’t met yet,” said Christian.”It was the most amazing and cathartic thing that happened to me in a long time.”
As a surprise for Jaure and his family, Christian had asked his friend, retiring firefighter Mike Wilson of the El Dorado Hills station, to drive the ladder truck by his home . On his last run as a firefighter, Wilson brought Station Truck 85 to show Jaure’s children. They knew the story of the fire and their father’s spiritual experience. ”I wanted them to know that there is something bigger; something beyond going to work everyday,” said Jaure.
Jaure had a surprise for Christian too — a silver pocket watch engraved with Christian’s name and “April 5, 1991,” the date of the fire. “Then he rolled up his sleeve and showed me the tattoo, ” said Christian, “I was trying not to lose it, but my wife looked and burst into tears and that was it.”
The tattoo on Jaure’s right bicep is new. “I wanted to do something for him,” said Jaure. The black ink tattoo is a large Maltese Cross with a pair of crossed fire axes in the middle. “April 5, 1991″ is tattooed above and below the axes and the words, ” James”, ” Christian,” ”Fire” and “Dept.” fill the arms of the cross.
For both men the reunion was a powerful experience.
“It was like a reminder of what God had promised me that day,”said Jaure.” I’ve had 20 years of life, we have six children and I am big and strong enough to deal with the prisoners on my job. I realized that God sees far and he was truly looking out for my interests.”
For Christian, it was all about redemption. “I’m not a perfect guy, but in the low times, I remembered that I had done something good once and it sustained me. To find out that Israel is a nice guy with a great family meant a lot.”
Both men declare their intention to keep in contact. “This is a lifelong connection,” said Jaure. When Jaure’s 16-year-old daughter thanked Christian for her life, it was the first time he realized the far-reaching impacts of what had happened during that fire 20 years earlier.
“The vast majority of people don’t come back to tell you what happened to them after they survive. I’m glad I know it was a good outcome,” said Christian.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Healthy Homemade Pancake/waffle mix
This is a pantry staple at my house. I make it about once a month. On mornings when my family wants pancakes its ready to go. It's convenient, healthy, and most importantly homemade so I know whats in it...no funky chemicals, preservatives or colorings. I make a huge amount but I will post a smaller recipe and then you can double as needed.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups All purpose flour
1 cups powdered milk or powdered butter milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Directions:
mix all ingredients in a large bowl and then transfer to a seal-able container. Store in your pantry.
To make pancakes
mix 2 c. pancake mix , 1 1/2 cup water, 1 egg and, 2 tbsp. oil or melted butter. for waffles reduce the amount of water to 1 c.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Pickled Jalapinos with yellow peppers
My Davina loves spicy food, the hotter the better. I planted a bunch of jalapenos in my garden this year so that I could can a bunch of pickled Jalapenos for her. She eats them with her sandwiches, soups pretty much any meal. But unfortunately with my pollination and poor soil issues this year I haven't had much of a crop yet. Saturday my sister went to Market on the Move and brought me a big bag of Jalapenos and I was thrilled. I had so hoped to be able to can some up for Davina. So today I went for my big shopping trip and yellow chilies were on sale for 3lbs for .99 WOOT! I bought 3 lbs and came home to can some chilies.
Ingredients
30-40 large jalapinos
30-40 large yellow chilies
4 cups water
7 c. white vinegar
4 tsp. canning salt
2 tsp. ground cumin
6 cloves whole garlic, peeled
First of all wash 6 quart jars with hot soapy water and rinse well. boil them in a large pot for 10 min. to sterilize. remove them and place them on a clean towel. In a smaller pot place your canning lids in simmering water.
In a stainless steel pan mix the water, vinegar, salt and cumin and bring to a boil, once boiling lower to a simmer. Cut all of your chilies into rounds about the same size. Fill your jars, packing the chilies in and add a clove are garlic on top. Fill with the hot pickling liquid and use your canning tool or a chop stick to slide down the edge of your jars to release air bubbles. Wipe your jar rims clean and put on you lids. Hot water bath can for 15 mins.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Keeping a full pantry for a large family on a budget
I used to be a big weekly menu planner. I spent hours scanning the adds, making list, and scouring recipes. It was time consuming and locked me into set meals on set days. I no longer do that, instead I build up my pantry and fill up my freezer. Then I make a list of meals I have the ingredients for the month. This is much easier now that we are not eating as many processed foods but it could be done by anyone.
I started by paying attention to the types of food I bought regularly and the meals my family enjoyed most. Then I would keep track of how much we eat of a particular food in a month. For instance, I make all of our bread, biscuits, pancakes, tortillas and the like from scratch, we are a family of 9 so I go through approximately 35 lbs. of flour a month. We eat a lot of Mexican food so we go through approximately 13 lbs of beans a month. When my pantry and freezer are full of the staples I can make meals according to my energy level and needs for each day. This also allows me to do one major shopping trip a month and saves me a ton of money because there is no impulse buying. If we run out of something before my next shopping trip WE DON'T EAT IT! That is the biggest money saver. If we run out of sugar we use honey or brown sugar. No flour means no baked goods. This rarely happens anymore, but it does happen. I can decide to whip up a cake or cinnamon rolls and I know I more than likely have the ingredients on hand. I no longer shop for our weekly needs or even our monthly needs, I shop to refill my pantry and freezer staples. Any produce that is on sale for cheap I can, turn into jam, or freeze.
The best way I have found to do this is to check the adds. When something your family eats regularly goes on sale buy a lot of it. For instance when pasta went on sale recently for .49 I bought 40 or so packages. I will not be buying pasta again until it hits a rock bottom price and then a will restock. Also buying in bulk. My flour, beans, rice, sugar, oats etc. are all purchased in bulk and stored in food grade buckets with gamma lids like these
Here is a sample of my freezer and pantry staples.
This list does not include everything in my pantry and freezer. I have 4 or 5 gallon sized bags each of green chilies, assorted bell peppers, and tomatoes in my freezer right now because of a trip to Market on the Move which is a local program to reduce food waste. I have a large bag of Jalapenos on my counter waiting to be pickled. Along with many jars of canned beans, jellies, jams, and tomato products. I also have many jars of dehydrated fruits and vegetables. Once you learn to think beyond next weeks meals and your menu and start thinking about food storage and extended pantry items, you start to look for opportunities to add to your staples. You start thinking about what's in season, what can I freeze, what can I can, what can I dehydrate, how can I put what I have to good use? Sugar was on sale last time I went shopping and because I wasn't trying to buy according to a menu and I had staple items at home already I was able to take advantage of that sale and stock up on sugar. That is something I won't need to buy for many months if not a year freeing up money to put towards another item that might be on sale.
Now onto my my list:
- All Purpose flour
- Whole Wheat Flour
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Corn starch
- Brown sugar
- Powdered Sugar
- Pumpkin spice
- Cinnamon
- sage
- Sugar
- Honey
- Coconut
- Powdered milk
- Olive oil
- Italian seasoning
- Chili powder
- New Mexican chili powder
- Chili flakes
- Oregano
- Cumin
- Garlic powder
- Dehydrated onion flakes
- Basil
- Bay leaves
- Salt
- Pepper
- Achote
- Popcorn
- Oatmeal
- Bran
- Flax seed
- Chocolate chips
- Dried cranberries
- Peanut butter
- Butter
- Eggs
- Raisins
- Prunes
- Frozen blueberries
- Frozen straw berries
- Frozen mixed veggies
- Milk
- Coffee
- Tea bags
- White rice
- Brown rice
- Canned tomatoes
- Tomato paste
- Tomato sauce
- Assorted pasta
- Italian sausage
- Whole chickens
- Frozen green beans
- Frozen broccoli
- Onions
- Garlic
- In season fruits and vegetables
- Assorted nuts
- Sour cream
- Mustard
- Ketchup
- Mayonnaise
- Cocoa powder
- Clear gelatin
- pectin
- lemon juice
Magnesium, why it's important and how to get more of it.
Magnesium is a mineral found mostly in leafy green vegetables and nuts. It is the fourth most important mineral in the body and 50% of your body's Magnesium is found in our bones and is responsible for over 300 reactions in the body. So it is a very important mineral and one we should all be trying to include in our diets. In fact it is estimated that over half of Americans don't get enough Magnesium. There are also some studies suggesting that Magnesium deficiency my be a huge factor in the increase of heart attacks.
Here is a list of the symptoms and complications caused by Magnesium deficiency.
- Calcium deficiency
- Irregular heart rhythms
- Weakness
- Muscle cramps
- Tremors
- Nausea
- Anxiety
- High blood pressure
- Respiratory issues
- Dizziness
- Fatigue
- Potassium deficiency
- Difficulty swallowing
- Poor memory
- Confusion
- Loss of appetite
- Hyperglycemia
- ADHD
- Epilepsy
- Parkinson’s disease
- Sleep problems
- Migraine
- Cluster headaches
- Osteoporosis
- Premenstrual syndrome
- Chest pain (angina)
- Cardiac arrhythmias
- Coronary artery disease and atherosclerosis
- Hypertension
- Type II diabetes
- Asthma
My favorite way to get more Magnesium in my system and the best way for your body to absorb it is to take a long warm Epsom salt bath.
So grow some greens and juice them and make salads with them. Eat more nuts, beans and peas. Finally grab a good book and take a soothing Epsom salt bubble bath, for your health.
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