How to Party Hardy Affordably

by Gina Blitstein · 0 comments

Throwing a party can be a big undertaking. It can also add up to a big expense. You can help keep party costs down – while keeping the fun factor up – with some careful planning, creativity and the willingness to to immerse yourself in some do-it-yourself projects.

Here is a collection of tips for throwing an affordable party that’s fun for all.

Before you par-tay

Decide on a theme – Themes aid decision-making and steer you in a cohesive direction that will save both money and time. If there’s a guest of honor, make sure you take his or her interests and preferences into account above all else.

Set a budget – It’s not fun or exciting but there has to be a limit to how much you spend on a given celebration. With your budget in mind, you can allocate funds accordingly.

Plan every detail – Not that a spontaneous party isn’t a lot of fun but planning ahead allows you to decide upon the most important elements, what supplies and materials you need to make that evident, and to avoid straying off theme and budget. The more planning time you take, the more likely you’ll have time to price-shop and/or do more yourself, which will save money.

Make a list – and check it twice! Write down everything you need for the party so you won’t be caught without, including:

  • food and beverages
  • serving ware
  • decor
  • invitations (if necessary)
  • activities

Party Food

Unless it’s a dinner party, keep foods simple to prepare, serve and eat. Individual servings are easier for guests to enjoy while socializing. Consider appetizers and/or desserts for your party fare. It will provide a wider assortment of foods and will probably cost less than an entire meal.

Party Ware

Unless the party is formal in nature, you probably have much of what you need in terms of dishes and serving pieces already on hand. Look through your cupboards, or in your attic or garage. Serving pieces need not match each other – in fact, it creates a fun, eclectic vibe when they don’t. Instead of buying new, re-purpose or style-up what you have.

Party Decor

Table linens, like tablecloths, placemats, table runners can be fashioned from any number of items you may already have or can be purchased inexpensively, like fabric remnants, sheets or beach towels.

Of course you can get creative with your materials – especially if you dig deep within your theme. Regardless of the party decor you decide upon, remember the basics – they’re classic for a reason!

  • Balloons
  • Streamers
  • Tissue paper
  • Banners
  • Candles
  • Glitter

Any mass-retailer, party shop or craft store has these basic party supplies. The Internet is packed with festive things you can do with just these basic supplies to up the festive factor in your party zone. Simply search for homemade party decor related to your theme and get your craft on.

Party Activities

From charades to karaoke, party games have a long history of being interactive and inexpensive to implement. The ones that are most fun relate to the theme of the party.

In conducting research for this article, I came across a number of clever and frugal party ideas, including these:

For decor

For activities

For food

For favors

Wishing you many happy and affordable parties using these ideas. Cheers!

What are your favorite inexpensive party ideas?

Purchasing Supplemental Insurance? 3 Tips for Making Better Decisions

by Miranda Marquit · 0 comments

You probably know that insurance policies can protect your assets. When you buy insurance, you are purchasing peace of mind, as well as a policy designed to help you pay for expensive catastrophes, whether it’s a health problem or your home is destroyed.

The right insurance policies can be a big help in ensuring that you are properly covered, and that one disaster doesn’t completely wipe out your finances. However, many policies have holes in coverage. Your health insurance might not cover dental costs, and your car insurance might not cover the costs associated with long-term disability.

Depending on your situation, supplemental insurance might be necessary to cover the gaps. Carrie McLean, from eHealthInsurance, offers 3 tips for making better decisions about your supplemental health insurance coverage as you shop around:

1. Work With a Licensed Agent

“Many licensed health insurance agents also sell supplemental plans. It doesn’t cost any extra to work with an agent, and it can help you get a better view of your coverage options,” says McLean. She also suggests that you check with online agents that can provide a variety of quotes for dental, vision, accident, and critical illness plans. “It’s easy to get quotes and purchase online,” she points out.

2. Don’t Use Supplemental Coverage as an Alternative to Traditional Major Medical Coverage

Supplemental insurance can be very reasonably priced. However, it’s important to note that they are inexpensive because they are limited. “Supplemental plans are just that,” says McLean. “They are intended to supplement your regular insurance plan. They will not provide you with the comprehensive coverage and access that traditional plans do.”

Instead, check with your regular plan, see what is missing, and use supplemental insurance to cover the gaps if you need it. I’m thinking of getting a dental plan with an orthodontics rider, since I know my son will need braces at some point. However, we can afford to pay our vision expenses out of pocket, so getting vision supplemental insurance isn’t really necessary. Think about your needs, and make sure you come up with a comprehensive insurance strategy that works for your situation.

3. Know What You’re Buying — And What You’re Not

McLean points out that you need to read the fine print, and get clarification when you don’t fully understand something. “It’s easy to qualify for dental and vision coverage because the benefits the provide are specific and limited,” says McLean. “Don’t expect everything to be covered 100 percent.”

She also suggests that you carefully examine the policy, since “not just any illness or injury will result in a big payout.” There are always conditions to be met before such policies start paying out. It’s important to know the exceptions to supplemental coverage as well. Before you buy, you need to know exactly what you’re getting into.

Bottom Line

Supplemental insurance coverage can be a great help to your finances. It helps you get more complete coverage, and it can result in better protection for your finances. But you need to be careful. Don’t get too much coverage, and don’t buy coverage that isn’t likely to do you any good.

Prepaid Debit Cards: Financial Training Wheels for Teens

by Jessica Sommerfield · 0 comments

Prepaid debit cards have been around for several years, but in recent years are becoming increasingly popular, especially with teens, college students, and their parents.  Learning how to handle money responsibly and operate within a budget are important steps for teenagers and semi-independent college students before they get out on their own and are faced with overwhelming financial responsibilities.  Many teens have learned the hard way that getting a credit card as soon as they turn eighteen isn’t always the best rite of passage. The biggest trap of credit cards is that they give the illusion of access to money you don’t have — a credit limit, which is usually a lot more than teens have ever seen in their bank account.

On the other hand, dealing only in cash isn’t ideal, either. Cash is more likely to get lost or stolen without any hope of restitution, and can’t be used for online shopping and transactions, a must-have for this generation. For this reason, prepaid debit cards are a great compromise between the need to have a defined spending ceiling while enjoying the benefits of credit-card capabilities. Here are a few of the best advantages of setting up a prepaid debit card for your teen.

  • Prepaid debit cards for use by teenagers with adult supervision provide an opportunity for teens to learn how to budget their spending. Parents also have the option of receiving a statement (as with a credit card) to see where their teens are spending their money and address any concerns. This provides a natural teaching environment with room for mistakes and failures without the lasting consequences of racking up credit card debt.
  • Parents and teens may direct deposit funds, load, or transfer funds onto the card. Direct deposit is free with most prepaid debit card providers, who may even wave other card fees if funds are direct deposited.  This is much easier than always loading money on the card manually.  If you have to load manually, it can be done anywhere there are cash network services such as a local Wal-Mart or Kroger. You can also transfer funds from your own prepaid card to your teen’s card.
  • Prepaid cards are accepted anywhere that accepts Visa or MasterCard. This is a huge convenience for teens, since we all know that between iTunes, e-books, and gaming, teenagers do some of their heaviest spending online. Prepaid debit cards are even accepted when booking flights, as long as they have a Visa or MasterCard logo.

Disadvantages of prepaid debit cards

Although the advantages of prepaid debit cards are great, there are a few disadvantages.  The biggest immediate disadvantage of prepaid debit cards is their numerous fees.  Without carefully choosing a card that best fits your needs so as to minimize the affect of fees, you can easily waste a lot of money by using a prepaid debit card. Shop around online at sites that compare cards and their fees. If your teen will be using the ATM a lot, choose a card that offers free ATM withdrawals; if they’ll be using it mostly for retail transactions, choose a card that favors this usage.

Secondly, prepaid card do not necessarily teach teens how to handle a credit card later on. They may still struggle with the temptation to max their credit limit and struggle with the reality of repayment and interest fees. Prepaid debit cards will also not build your teens credit score, a vital prerequisite to making large purchases such as a car or home.

Although there  is  certainly some potential for abuse, it would appear that prepaid debit cards are a safer, controlled, and convenient solution for helping teens practice financial responsibility while avoiding the pitfalls of credit card usage.

Would you give your teen a prepaid debit card?

Eggs: Low Cost, High Nutrition

by Gina Blitstein · 0 comments

The poor misunderstood egg. For years it was maligned as unhealthy, due to its relatively high cholesterol content, over-consumption of which can have a negative effect on heart health. Although it’s true that one large egg contains 185 of the daily recommended 300 milligrams of cholesterol, the American Heart Association reports that healthy adults can consume, on average, an egg a day without increasing their risk of heart disease, particularly if they eat an overall diet low in cholesterol.

Despite their cholesterol content, eggs are highly nutritious. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, eggs contain 6.3 grams of protein, which is 13% of that which is recommended daily for a 2000 calorie per day diet. In addition, eggs contain a wide variety of essential nutrients, for only 70 calories and generally less than 15 cents each.

Go ahead and stock up when you find eggs on sale. According to the USDA, eggs will remain fresh up to three weeks past the “sell by” date on the carton, provided they they are refrigerated between 33°F and 44°F. Of course unrefrigerated eggs should be discarded after two hours at room temperature, or one hour in warmer temperatures.

So, let’s celebrate eggs for their affordability, nutritional value and versatility. Here are some ideas for cooking eggs (and a couple recipes) that go beyond the standard breakfast fare of scrambled, fried or poached:

Eggy ideas for bringing low-cost, delicious protein to the table:

  • Omelette/frittata
  • Souffle
  • Homemade pasta, custards or mayonnaise
  • Egg Drop soup
  • Eggnog
  • Meringue
  • Deviled eggs*
  • Egg salad*

*Boiled egg tip – In case you refrigerated boiled eggs and can’t tell them from the fresh ones, give ‘em a spin; raw eggs will wobble.
Fancy egg garnish – Hard boil an egg; separate the white from the yolk. Neatly dice the white and press the yolk through a fine mesh strainer. Sprinkle both over dish to add a tasty, brightly-colored garnish.

Recipe – Spaghetti Carbonara

Ingredients

  • 8 oz spaghetti
  • 2 tsp salt
  • ¼ lb bacon, cut into ½” pieces
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 4 large eggs
  • ⅔ cup Parmesan cheese
  • ⅛ tsp black pepper
  • 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Directions

  1. Boil water in large pot for cooking spaghetti noodles.
  2. Add salt to boiling water, then noodles. Stir. Cook pasta 8-10 minutes until al dente.
  3. While spaghetti is cooking, fry bacon over medium high heat until crisp. Remove from pan and set aside, leaving drippings in pan. Turn down heat to medium.
  4. Drain cooked pasta into a colander.
  5. Cook garlic until soft in bacon drippings.
  6. Crack eggs into a bowl and whisk well.
  7. Return spaghetti to pan with drippings and garlic. Toss to coat.
  8. Pour in eggs, stirring while they cook.
  9. Add Parmesan cheese, pepper and parsley.
  10. Toss together and serve.

Recipe – Roller Coaster (Dutch Pancake)

Ingredients

  • 6 eggs
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 tablespoons melted butter
  • ¼ cup powdered sugar

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
  2. Put a buttered 9” x 13” baking pan into the freezer.
  3. Beat eggs in a bowl; slowly add flour and beat together well.
  4. Add salt, milk and melted butter; mix well.
  5. Remove pan from freezer.
  6. Pour mixture into cold pan and bake at 450°F for 18 minutes. Turn oven temperature down to 350°F and bake another 10 minutes.
  7. It is normal that the baking mixture will start to brown fairly quickly.
  8. The end result will be bumpy and golden brown.
  9. Let cool for a few minutes and then lightly dust with powdered sugar. Cut into serving pieces and top with butter and syrup.

There’s a lot we can we do with eggs to stretch our budget and make some truly tasty, protein-rich foods.

What’s your favorite egg dish?

Back to School: Time for a Sales Tax Holiday

by Miranda Marquit · 0 comments

Now that summer is almost over, it’s time to start thinking about back to school shopping. I just finished buying clothes for my son. The school provides all his other supplies, and he’s not old enough to need a laptop for school, so the whole process was fairly straightforward and simple.

For many back to school shoppers, though, things aren’t so quick and easy. If you have multiple children — especially if they have different school supply needs — you might have a long list of supplies. On top of that, things can get expensive.

One way to save money is to take advantage of sales tax holidays. A number of states offer sales tax holidays. These events provide consumers a way to save money, since they don’t have to pay sales tax on their purchases. For some, this can lead to reasonable savings on back to school items.

Some consumers even drive to neighboring states that hold sales tax holidays in order to take advantage of the potential savings. Before you drive to another state, it’s a good idea to think about the situation and decide whether it’s truly worth it for you.

First of all, it’s important to note that sales tax holidays don’t usually include everything. There usually isn’t a blanket holiday. Instead, many states only offer the holiday on specific items. Before you drive to another state, take a look at the list of items that qualify. Some states offer holidays on clothing, while others only offer it on school supplies. There are some states, like Alabama that offer the holiday on clothing, computers, books, and school supplies.

Compare your list of school needs to what is offered in your state for the holiday, or the surrounding states. Make sure that, if you make the drive, you will receive the benefit for the items you actually need.

Another consideration is that many states have limits as to how much you can save. You might only be able to save sales tax up to a certain purchase amount. For instance, in some states you only get the sales tax exemption on the first $100 you spend on clothing, or you might only save on the first $1,000 you spend on a computer.

It’s important to understand the maximum you can save with a sales tax holiday. Compare that with how much you can expect to spend on gas if you drive to another state. It’s vital that you take into account what you will spend getting to your shopping location. If you are close to the border, it can make sense to head over.

However, if you have to drive farther, it might not make sense. If the amount is limited, or if you can’t get all of what you need, it might not be worth it to drive so far. Make sure that you really will be saving enough to warrant the drive to another state. Run the numbers; it might be worth to stay local if you won’t actually come out ahead by heading somewhere else.

A sales tax holiday can be a great way to save a little cash at back to school. Just make sure that you run the numbers first.

7 Free Apps to Enhance Your Life

by Gina Blitstein · 1 comment

Electronic devices do so much to help us in our everyday lives – providing information, connection, entertainment, organization, convenience, time-savings – as well as opportunities to save. Some of the most helpful apps that can be installed on our devices are available for very little or no cost, while providing a great deal of value. Here are seven absolutely free apps that can enhance your life in a variety of areas:

Organization

1. Springpad – An extremely customizable, powerful personal organizer and assistant. Create notebooks filled with lists, to-dos, links, contacts… and by telling Springpad what it is you’re saving, it helps you consolidate, organize and retrieve your information easily and conveniently from anywhere. Springpad makes collecting recipes and meal planning a breeze, too. Its built-in integrations will notify you when, for example, the movies you want to see are in theaters or available on Netflix, a band you want to hear is performing in your area or an item you want to purchase goes on sale on amazon.com.

Vegetable Gardening

2. SproutIt – Plan out your vegetable garden with advice from this handy app, which visually displays your garden plan and guides you through the entire growing season. Get vegetable and herb recommendations, a planting schedule, growth timetable – all based upon your particular geographic area, email reminders of tasks and gardening tips from this easy-to-use app that will help even beginner gardeners succeed.

Uncluttering/Going Green

3. PaperKarma – Do you, like most people, dislike paper junk mail? PaperKarma can make it stop being delivered to your mailbox. Install the PaperKarma app on your smartphone and snap a photo of the unwanted mail; they contact the mailer, instructing them to unsubscribe you from their mailing list, and the barrage of paper junk mail stops.

Fitness

4. MyTracks – This easy-to-use app uses the GPS in your device to track your outdoor activities by path taken, distance, speed, duration and elevation. MyTracks displays your route on an actual google map so you can view your course and can provide voice announcements of your progress if desired. It saves your data history from each activity so you can share it with others, replicate a particular activity and course or compare stats from one activity to another. It’s also easy to share updates from MyTracks to your social networks.

De-stressing

5. Breathe2Relax – This smartphone app helps you manage stress by guiding you through diaphragmatic breathing exercises. This type of deep breathing calms and reduces anxiety by suppressing the body’s natural “fight or flight” reaction to stress. Use the app as you desire – to alleviate situational stress or adopt an overall relaxed sense of being.

Family Security/Communication

6. Life360 – This app, for iOS and Android, utilizes GPS technology to help you keep track of your family, allowing you to ensure that everyone is where they’re supposed to be. The app enables VoIP conference calls and group messaging to keep the family connected. The app also sends alerts of nearby crimes and has a panic button to help keep everyone safe.

First Aid

7. American Red Cross First Aid –This app provides instructions for handling the most common everyday emergencies. It includes step-by-step directions, videos and interactive quizzes to help you provide appropriate first aid on the spot. Safety tips are also included and information is pre-loaded so it can be accessed even if you can’t connect to the Internet.

No matter the area or need, electronic devices can make our lives more organized and convenient, less complicated, safer and healthier. These are but a few of the multitude of free apps available to help our devices serve us better.

What are your favorite free apps?

Avoid These 401(k) Retirement Plan Pitfalls

by Miranda Marquit · 1 comment

One of the best ways to save for your future is with a tax-advantaged retirement plan offered through your employer. Many employers offer access to 401(k) plans. You can receive tax advantages that include deductions or tax-free investment earnings.

Unfortunately, not all 401(k) plans offer you exactly what you need in terms of investments and low costs. The wrong setup for your retirement portfolio could mean thousands of dollars lost for your retirement. Here are some of the 401(k) pitfalls that can lead to an under-performing portfolio:

High Plan Costs

All retirement plans come with costs. The administration costs associated with a retirement plan have to be considered. It’s common to pay at least 1% annually in plan costs. This may not seem like a lot, but eventually it adds up over time. If you pay 1% on $10,000, that’s $100 a year. Not a great deal, but consider what happens as your retirement savings grow. If you are diligent and grow your nest egg to $500,000, now you’re looking at $5,000 a year in plan fees. And if your plan fees are 2% or higher, the situation is even more dire.

Once you save up enough money that the yearly fee is starting to drag on your returns in a significant manner, consider rolling over to an IRA. The costs are usually lower, so you don’t have to worry about the erosion of your returns due to high fees.

High Fund Costs

Not only do you have to worry about the fees that come with the plans, but you also need to be concerned about the fees that come with the funds offered by the plan. Many 401(k) plans offered by employers feature high-cost funds. These high expense ratios can be anywhere between 0.90% and more than 2% a year. This only compounds your fee problem.

Look for funds with low expense ratios. Index funds and ETFs often have fairly low expense ratios, so they can limit your costs. And, if your only options are high cost funds, consider rolling over to an IRA that allows you invest in your preferred low cost funds.

Limited Investment Choices

Some employer sponsored plans are rather limited in their offerings. This means that you might not be able to invest in the securities you prefer. Be especially wary if your options are so limited that company stock starts to take over your retirement portfolio. You need your choices to allow you some diversity in your retirement portfolio, as well as provide you with access to low cost options. And never put all your retirement eggs in the company stock basket.

Too Many Investment Choices

Rather than being stymied by a lack of investment choices, some 401(k) plans have too many investment choices. As a result of all these choices, some workers become intimidated and avoid making major decisions with their money. Instead, cash products are used for the retirement portfolio. Unfortunately, you are unlikely to be able to achieve the return needed for a secure retirement if you rely on cash products.

Don’t become overwhelmed with the investment choices. Identify two or three index funds or ETFs that make sense for your portfolio, and then invest in those.

Container Garden Update: the Bounty Begins!

by Gina Blitstein · 0 comments

It’s July and the container vegetable garden I planted the third week of May is beginning to produce. Catch up with my container gardening plans by reading what I wrote earlier this year on this site in No Space to Grow Vegetables? Try Container Gardening as a Frugal Alternative and Frugal Container Gardening in Action.

So far, I’ve harvested my entire crop of radishes and spinach; lettuce is still producing well and the green beans are at their peak. My tomato plants have been steadily flowering and are have grown dozens of tomatoes which are mostly still green; several of the cherry tomatoes, however, are almost red enough to eat! The green onions and carrots are micro versions of their eventual selves. I see numerous zucchini and squash blossoms, too. I’ve begun to enjoy a steady supply of herbs, including parsley, sage, thyme, basil, cilantro and marjoram.

Here are some tips I’ve picked up along the way that may help you with your own container gardening adventure:

  • Agility – The nice thing about growing vegetables in containers is that they’re easily moved to the most suitable location. As your garden grows, nature itself changes. Trees shade areas that were sunny in the spring when you planted your vegetables. The angle of the sun is always changing, causing your plants to receive differing quality and amount of sunlight throughout the growing season. I’ve also discovered that as plants grow, they create shade; I needed to move a pot of peppers because as the tomato plants beside it grew, they prevented the pepper plant from receiving the full sun it needed. Make sure every plant is situated for ideal sunlight conditions.
  • Water – Pay attention to your plants’ water requirements. Plants in containers require more water than those in the ground because they’re in a confined space. They will also require more water as they grow. Try not to wait until plants show signs of wilting before you water them – dehydration has a negative impact on plants’ development.
  • Weeding – As plants grow, so do weeds! Airborne weed seeds landed in my pots and took advantage of the ideal conditions to take root themselves. Without diligence, my vegetables could easily have become inundated by these intruders. I’ve found I have weeding to to every single day.
  • Check daily – Container gardens require little maintenance but you’ll want to check their progress regularly. By checking daily, you’ll know when your plants could use a shot of fertilizer. Because they grow so rapidly, tomato plants will need to be staked – or readjusted – frequently. You’ll also want to inspect your produce for signs of disease or insect infestation so you can take action to alleviate these problems immediately.

This is also the time (in my midwestern climate, at least) to consider planting second harvest and late season crops. Vegetables that take a relatively short time to reach maturity (and which are resistant to the peak of summer’s heat) can be planted several times throughout the growing season to extend your harvest. Just this week, with my first harvest of green beans in full swing, I’ve planted another crop to be harvested at the end of August. Next month I plan to plant more lettuce, spinach, green onions and radishes – which will germinate when it’s warm but will grow and mature when the heat of the summer is waning – for a fall harvest.

I’m learning a lot from my container gardening project; most importantly that a bounty of produce can be produced quite easily and inexpensively in containers.

What’s growing in your vegetable garden?

Is a GPS Still Worth the Cost for a Traveller?

by Jessica Sommerfield · 0 comments

The last four days, my husband and I went on vacation in Toronto. Since we both have passports, we figured we’d venture into Canada as we’d only been to the Canadian falls several years ago and hadn’t seen much more of the country. While we’ve always relied heavily on our GPS, we realized it’s about 6 years old and the maps are outdated. We’ve never had any problems around home, but were leery of the dependability of its maps of Canada. The unit we purchased, a Black-Friday special Garmin nuvi, was a basic model that hadn’t included lifetime map updates. Here are the options we had to choose from, what we decided to do, and the pros and cons of each.

Update our maps
To update our maps at this point would cost anywhere from $60-$90. While many new units include lifetime map updates, and allow you to update your maps as many as three times a year, ours did not include this plan. Sites such as Amazon for Garmin offer lifetime update packages for roughly $70. If we had a newer, albeit more basic GPS, this might have made sense. You could save money by purchasing a cheaper model of GPS and then adding a lifetime map update package.

Buy a new GPS
If we were going to spend this much on updating our old device, we concluded we might as well invest in getting a new one for not much more money than an update, possibly including a free lifetime update package and helpful new features such as traffic and construction updates. We didn’t, however, have sufficient time before our trip to shop for a GPS and hadn’t budgeted for the expense.  But there was one more option.

Use a smart phone GPS app
Our smart phones have an app for Google maps which includes a navigation mode similar to a GPS device. This navigation would be in many cases better than a dedicated GPS device because the cost is included in our phone’s data usage plan (one of the reasons GPS sales have gone down in recent years). While GPS applications on our phone would be perfectly fine for use in the U.S., we wouldn’t be able to use them out of the country without outrageous international charges.

We decided to check with our phone service provider to see what kind of package we could get for a few days of international data usage on one of our smart phones. This would include updated, dependable maps but at a cost. Our service provider added a $30 international data package to my phone for the few days we were out of the country. While we occasionally ran into problems with a poor or sluggish satellite connection while on the road, for the most part our Android Google maps navigator was highly accurate and dependable. We did notice that it sucked a lot more battery power than normal, so the phone had to be plugged into the car’s charging port almost constantly. We were using the navigation app nearly constantly for at least two of the days we were in Canada, and had no idea how far our data package would go. Thankfully, I received a text from my service provider that my package had been used up just as we were approaching the bridge back to the U.S.

In hindsight, we were able to rely on the flexibility of our phone service provider and the sheer luck of good timing to spend only $30 on our navigation for this trip. For future trips, however, we prefer to have a dedicated GPS device that won’t tie up our phones and has a more adequate battery supply for the demands of GPS navigation.

GPSs are wonderful devices to feel secure even if you have no idea where you are; a freedom that allows you to relax, explore a little, get lost a little, and always be able to get home. If you don’t have a GPS and you travel a lot, consider whether you should either purchase one or make us of smart phone technology.

Making the Most of a Homegrown Tomato Bounty

by Gina Blitstein · 0 comments

Tomato season is almost upon us! There are few crops a home gardener grows that can produce such bounty for such an extended amount of time. Once they start ripening, their abundance can become overwhelming. The way to get the most out of a bumper crop of tomatoes is to be prepared with recipes and methods for preparing, preserving and, most importantly, enjoying them long before the barrage begins.

Enjoying a homemade tomato bounty:

  • Caprese Salad – This is a classic, made of sliced tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, sprinkled with basil leaves, salt and pepper and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.
  • Panzanella – (also known as Italian bread salad) consists of cubed French bread, onion, cucumber and diced tomatoes with basil, salt and pepper and either dressed with extra virgin olive oil or a vinaigrette.
  • Salsa – For a dip that’s the hit of the party, cube tomatoes and add chopped sweet and hot peppers of your choice, diced onion, cilantro, a splash of lime juice, a bit of sugar and salt to taste.
  • Stuffed – Think of plump, round tomatoes as edible bowls. Serve them cold stuffed with chicken or seafood salad, quinoa, pasta, or vegetables; or stuff with cheese and breadcrumbs and bake.
  • Fried Green Tomatoes – Some folks don’t even wait for the tomatoes to ripen (or they make this dish at the end of the season when tomatoes must be picked lest they freeze on the vine). This recipe sounds divine.
  • Roasted/Grilled – Cooking tomatoes with dry heat evaporates their natural moisture, giving them a deeper flavor. Roasted or grilled tomatoes can be eaten alone, served on bread topped with cheese, used as as a pizza topping, stirred into pasta or risotto or mixed into a vegetable medley. Roasted tomatoes can be frozen for later use.
  • Sun-Dried in the Oven – Make your own sun dried tomatoes for pennies. Slice tomatoes at least in half, the largest ones in eighths so that the slices are of similar size. Remove most of the seeds and pulp with a teaspoon and blot tomatoes dry with paper towels. Sprinkle lightly with salt and lay slices on a foil-lined cookie sheet about an inch apart. Bake at oven’s lowest temperature from 6-12 hours, checking periodically and removing those that are dried.
  • Getting to the “meat” of the tomato – The most valuable part of the tomato is its flesh. If you’re planning to make puree (which can be used in a multitude of dishes) you’re going to need to get to that tomato “meat.” Here’s how: First, peel the tomatoes by plunging them into boiling water for one minute, followed by a dip in ice water. Remove from the water and the skins will slip right off. Next, seed the tomatoes by cutting them in half and scooping them out along with the whitish membrane with a teaspoon. The tomato flesh that remains can be frozen “as is” or pureed for sauce or soup.
  • Share/trade – As with any abundance, you can use your tomatoes as currency. Some ideas to consider:
    • Folks without gardens  appreciate it when the gardeners they know share their abundance.
    • If you’re a cook, some homemade tomato sauce is worth its weight in gold to a non-cook.
    • You can diversify your meals by trading some of your tomatoes for, say, your neighbor’s zucchini or your friend’s peppers.
    • A basket of homegrown tomatoes makes a very thoughtful, “thanks for watching our house while we were on vacation” gift.

Fresh, cooked, preserved for later…make the most of your tomato harvest by planning ahead for the bounty!

What’s your favorite thing to do with homegrown tomatoes?

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