Hope for Today

Strength for Today, bright hope for tomorrow. . . .

Be thankful in all things.  God IS good -all the time

More electricity saving tips

I noticed that our electric company auditor left some brochures on my table.    They were full of more tips!!  A couple of points of interest in them were:

1. If every household in the USA raised air conditioning temperatures by 6 degrees, we’d save the equivalent of 190,000 barrels of oil ever day!
2. 15% of residential energy is used for heating water
3. Another 15% goes for refrigerators and freezers
4. 24% goes into lighting, cooking, and running appliances

The Touchstone Energy Cooperative websites are full of more tips for you on how to make your homes more efficient and spend less money.  You can find them at www.touchstoneenergy.coop or www.tsesavers.coop

#18 Have a consumer audit done by your electric company

Today we spent several hours with a representative of our local electric company co-op as he went through our house from top to bottom looking for ways to help us save money on our electricity.   He used the new infrared camera to detect cold spots (leaks) in our walls where there is little or no insulation.  He used a smoke stick (no actual smoke was used) to detect air movement around/near windows, outlets, etc.  He inspected our duct work, our attic, etc. and gave us tips on what we can do to make things run more efficiently.  His official report and recommendations will come in the mail at a later time but here are a few things I remember:

1. seal up the joints (where one piece of duct work hooks to another) in your duct work.  And duct tape is NOT good enough.  There is special tape and a paint- on substance (whose name has left me) to use for that.
2. seal up air leaks around door frames with non-expanding spray foam.
3. leaks around your foundation can be sealed with expanding spray foam
4. make sure your exhaust fan duct work is in proper shape (he discovered that ours was broke- this let cold air come right into the house and exhausted the shower steam into the crawl space rather than outside)
5. make sure your dryer vent has a flap at it’s exit.  This keeps air out when not in use (and keeps small creatures like kittens out of your dryer vent too! lol)
6. Fluorescent light bulbs should last for more than a year (2-3 years is good).  If they do not, there may be an electrical problem in your wiring.
7. Good duct work has close to equal balance between cold air returns and heat registers.  If there’s not enough air coming in to your furnace (from the cold air return), there won’t be much air coming out (the heated air through your register).  Like trying to breathe with a stuffy nose.  This restricts the speed the hot air can travel at, which makes it hard to heat areas furthest from your furnace.
8. Furnace Filters and traditional “pink panther” insulation are made of basically the same stuff.  Air flows through your filter and so it will flow through your insulation as well. 
9. When getting quotes for insulation from contractors or installers.  Don’t just compare price.  Compare the number of  bags of insulation they plan to use.  Often times what appears more expensive, might actually be a better insulation job instead.
10. When trying to increase your homes efficiency, look at the pay back.  How quickly an improvement will pay for itself.  If you can’t afford to fix everything, start with the improvements that will pay for themselves the fastest.

Hope you find this helpful!

Banana Salad Breakfast

One of my favorite breakfasts (besides peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) is a very simple, delicious, and fast meal. 

Per person:

One banana sliced into a small bowl

2-4 Tbl vanilla yogurt (depending on whether you want a little yogurt with you banana or a little banana with your yogurt! lol)

1 Tbl (or small hand full) of pine nuts

Top your banana with yogurt and then pine nuts and enjoy a wonderful breakfast or snack!  And it is good for you!  You can use any nut that you want, really, I just love it with pine nuts best.  For kids, you can sprinkle some mini chocolate chips on it or use chopped peanuts.   My kids love to dip their banana into the yogurt rather than eat it with a spoon.

Poor Man’s Lobster w/ cocktail sauce

My kids needed to work on a family project involving meal time for Cub Scouts.   My tiger was supposed to help set the table (easy, he does that all the time).  My cub was supposed to make a dessert (cinnamon bread sticks).  My webelo needed to plan a week’s menu, prepare a shopping list, help with grocery shopping, and prepare one meal.  He loves seafood and wanted crawfish or crab or lobster for his meal.  I took him to the store.  He found crawfish, precooked w/ cajun spices.  We can’t eat cajun at our house so that was out and boy was he disappointed.  Next he found the King Crab and cheerfully said, “it’s only $10.99 mom!!!”  I looked at the package.  It was 10.99 per pound making the total purchase $25.00.  I explained that we could not afford to spend that much on just the meat for one meal.  That is what we would spend for the meat for 2-4 meals depending. . .    He then went to the shrimp section and begged for coconut battered shrimp.  To serve 5 of us we would have to buy 3 packages and that would cost $18.  I showed him the less expensive breaded shrimp and he grudgingly agreed that we would do that (Vande Camps fish was completely out of the question- lol).  The kids love to watch the lobster in the tank and so we passed by there and my webelo noticed the imitation seafood and it was on sale for .99 a package!  I asked him how he wanted it cooked, breaded, pan fried?  He said he wanted it just like it was but hot.  So this is what I came up with and it turned out fairly decent

POOR MAN’S LOBSTER

8 oz imitation lobster or crab meat (pieces, not flakes)

1 1/2 – 2 Tbl Butter

2 Tbl lemon juice

On medium low heat, melt butter in skillet (butter burns much quicker than margarine).  Separate the pieces of imitation seafood and  put them in the skillet.  At this point, you can turn the heat up a little if you watch closely.  Let the seafood simmer (no lid) until lightly browned (very light- it just needs heated through) on one side.  Turn and brown on other side.  Add 2 Tbl lemon juice, stir to coat all pieces.  Cover and turn to low heat until ready to serve (5 min or so is how long we left it)  Serve with cocktail sauce or on buttered noodles.  Serves 2. 

Cocktail Sauce

3 Tbl ketchup

1 tsp horseradish

dash of worchestershire

Combine and serve.  These ingredient amounts can be adjusted to suit your taste.