Fudge for the Lazy

I love homemade fudge, but, until recently, I rarely made it. I have a tendency to either burn the sugar or undercook the fudge, leading to less than optimum taste or texture. Plus, I live in Florida, so, the idea of standing over the stove stirring sticky candy is not always appealing.

However, I started making fudge more once I found a super easy recipe to make it. The magic lies with sweetened condensed milk. This is not to be confused with evaporated milk, by the way. Sweetened condensed milk is sweetened, while evaporated milk is just milk. Sweetened condensed milk gives foods a smooth and pleasant texture that is great for fudge and other desserts.

I usually make this in the microwave. You can vary the flavor by using different kinds of chips, or even subbing some peanut butter or almond butter for part of the chocolate chips.

Try adding nuts, crushed mint candies or other add-ins to mix it up.

Stupid Easy Fudge

• one pound (3 cups) chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup butter
• 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

Combine all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl. Cook at medium heat for 30 seconds at a time, stirring at the end of each interval. The fudge is done when all ingredients can be combined. Pour into a parchment or plastic wrap lined 8 in by 8 in pan. Cool in the fridge.

If you do not want to use the microwave for this, you can also heat the items in a double boiler over medium heat until melted.

Stupid Easy Winter Soup

This recipe came to me by way of my ex-MIL, a chef. She said they used to make it as a quickie second soup at the inn where she worked. Every time it was presented, it was the most popular selection.

This is one of those super tasty, but super embarrassing recipes. Jellied cranberry sauce? You feed that to people over the age of 12? Seriously, though, the result is delicious. It is just the thing to accompany a grilled cheese sandwich on a cold night.
Cranberry Tomato Soup

• 1 can jellied cranberry sauce
• 1 can diced tomatoes

Dump both of these in a sauce pan. Cook until heated through. Seriously. That's it. If you want to fancify it, you could add a drizzle of heavy cream, a handful of dried cranberries, or perhaps a bit of crystallized ginger.

Beautifully Animated GIFs

This one is my favorite:

There are many more food and fashion animated photographs here.

Wordless Wednesday

Mikhail9876

Pink Sherbet Photography

philipn

Preserving tomatoes with almost no work

I'm impressed. This blogger grows 2000 pounds of tomatoes a year. There's no way I could pull that off in my tiny, shady yard, but, I do buy some at the farmer's market when they are in season. I usually slow roast and freeze the ones I'm putting away. For those who wish to can but are overwhelmed by the usual work, check out this blog post: How to Preserve 100+ Pounds of Tomatoes with Almost No Work.

Like Coffee? Like Contests?

Just a short entry to let you know that jenzshoppin over at My Mom is a WAHM is giving away a $10 Starbucks giftcard. Head over to this post to enter.

Because I'm also cheap: the guide to group buying sites

I love eating in new restaurants. Unfortunately, I'd go broke if I ate out as much as I wanted. Luckily, I have found a nice workaround that has allowed me to double, if not triple, my restaurant budget.

By now, pretty much everyone has heard of group buying sites such as LivingSocial or Groupon. The concept behind the sites is this: you pay a small amount, such as $20, to get a larger amount, say $40 or so, in credit with a local merchant. These blow deals Restaurant.com out of the water. There's no minimum purchase to get the credit, and usually few or no restrictions on how to use your certificate.

So, none of this is news, so why I am telling you? Because I want to share a couple of my strategies for getting even more out of my discount:

1. Buy your certificate through a site like SwagBucks. Swagbucks gives back an amount of points that turns out to be about $2 back. Sadly, they no longer offer Groupon deals there, but, you can still buy EverMore and HomeRun.
2. Buy your certificate through eBay. They pay out 5% in eBay bucks. EBay bucks, of course, can only be used on eBay. However, I shop there enough that I always wind up using my bucks.
3. Buy through eBates. They usually offer 3% back, but sometimes double to 6%.
4. Make sure you buy using a rewards card. My rewards card of choice is my PayPal debit card, where I get 1.5% cash back each month.
5. Think you won't use a deal before it expires? Resell it on Lifesta. On popular deals, you can even make a profit.