I make a fresh cranberry sauce n the blender with a few soaked raisins and a whole peeled sweet seedless orange with a smidge of orange zest. So good to eat on a bed of lettuce and other greens like celery and cukes. Sprinkle some pecans and it’s a meal in itself. I’m curious to try the cranberry salsa. Or basically chutney. Sounds good with goat cheese and crackers

I love red lentils. I love making soup and adding barley. So filling snd tasty. Toasted barley makes an excellent tea. Simply bake the barley then cook the barley and drink the barley cooking water. It’s yummy and healthful. Then add the cooked barley to a salad or other dish.

I love my aunts pineapple upside down cake recipe which sounds like your grammas recipe. She made it in her cast iron skillet too. I make a simple pineapple upside down pancakes. I get those little cups of fruit, the pineapple chunks only so no cherries. The put them in my dash griddle after spraying lightly with a nonstick olive oil spray. Immediately top with a small amount of cake mix. My go to is TJs birthday cake mix. You can make the frosting included in the mix. I use that frosting to combine with cream cheese for my carrot cakes. Instead I top my pineapple pancakes with whipped cream cuz they are sweet enough. Very yummy even just in their own eaten like a cookie. I get cups like this are from aldis. They sell these type of desserts in sturdy glass cups. I don’t toss them but use them for various uses like my home made yogurt. The petit pot company sells lids for their dessert jars. So that way I have free glass dessert jars. You are amazing doing all your cooking in such a tiny kitchen. Good job on a low cost kitchen redo too.

Yum! Everything looks so good.

I love my aunts pineapple upside down cake recipe which sounds like your grammas recipe. She made it in her cast iron skillet too. I make a simple pineapple upside down pancakes. I get those little cups of fruit, the pineapple chunks only so no cherries. The put them in my dash griddle after spraying lightly with a nonstick olive oil spray. Immediately top with a small amount of cake mix. My go to is TJs birthday cake mix. You can make the frosting included in the mix. I use that frosting to combine with cream cheese for my carrot cakes. Instead I top my pineapple pancakes with whipped cream cuz they are sweet enough. Very yummy even just in their own eaten like a cookie

I love watching tiny house videos!

Fried corn coupled in the same dish with fried pasta is absolutely FABULOUS! Another dish I learned about around 35 years ago is simply cooking spaghetti and topping it with a "sauce" of melted butter, a bit of olive oil (warms up in the butter while it's melting), and finely chopped sauteed onion, cooking the onion in with the butter and olive oil. It's still one of my favorite "go to" dishes, and it's super fast and easy to make. Any pasta works well---and now I'm going to try it with fried pasta, which should add a whole 'nother dimension of superb flavor. I have to use onion powder now, somehow having developed a severe allergy to the proteins in onions some years ago, but the taste is still the same. I've coupled the pasta with either fried potatoes or with mashed potatoes, too, but that's just me. I like delicious simple foods put together. Add in some hot buttered peas, and I'm in food "heaven"! I really like mashed potatoes with a bit of ketchup on them (occasionally, not every time), and I REALLY like mustard on my hotdogs and hamburgers. Never thought about making mashed potato sandwiches with mustard, though I certainly have eaten a good amount of tater sandwiches in my day. Might try one with the beer bread I like to make and eat.

If you don’t like to cut up a chicken, you can bake the chicken then use the meat for a number of meals. Then the carcass can be save for a fantastic soup

Two things my mom and now I make are burgers with a bit of onions in ketchup gravy on mash potatoes. The other is salmon croquettes mix with American cheese cubed and mash potatoes breaded and fried, top with buttermilk. Sometimes she added fried onions to the mash potatoes.

For an empanada, my fav filling is corn and squash. Served with a solid chimichurri

For kale salads I like to Blanche the kale first so it’s easier for me to digest. And I think it improves the flavor too.

I bet you LOVE the free counter space and how many products you have available now in that cart! I need to get one of those too.

Sale the car.

Do you have any advice on selling? I need to buy I hate feeling I would get ripped off or be in danger or get robbed. Public meeting point also kind of sketch to me..

😂 I love that you have chili crisp!! And the real stuff too! Not the watered down hipster stuff for trader joes. That one leaks too oddly enough. It's like the oil wants to draw out under the lid. Have you thought of a plastic freezer bag? They're thicker.

Your house is gorgeous. You are so creative and resourceful!

Looks delicious

I just started using evaporated milk in a lot of my recipes recently I just made corn chowder. It’s such a simple soup to make and using the evaporated milk made it even more decadent. The best part was the soup was made with leftovers. Thanks for your channel.

I've seen several things you've done that will really help me with my eating. I have an allergy to liquid dairy products, but I'm able to eat most cheeses and butter (NEVER margarine!), so I'm going to try making my mac n cheese using oil as a replacement for milk. I also really like the idea of frying pasta--I've seen that in quite a number of videos and on Pinterest, but never got around to actually doing it. Now I think I'm going to be rather bold, so to speak, and fry some macaroni which will be used in my next mac n cheese. Two great ideas tried in one dish 😊.

Wow! Your slow cooker is actually a slow cooker! Well, you might not be able to make gravy, but at least you can leave the house with food in the slow cooker unlike me! I’ve had 4 slow cookers over the years and only one didn’t boil my food to death! 😂 I’m holding out hope on a slow cooker a colleague gave me. It’s definitely old school, avocado green and I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but I’m hopeful! 😊 I always admire your creativity with your recipes, especially the sauces and gravies you make. Little touches like that really elevate a meal. If we ever cross paths, I’ll still trade ya! 😂

This made me want to try tofu.

Now I’m hungry for tortilla soup. I’ve never eaten it before cuz restaurants always mak3 it with chicken and I’m extremely allergic to chicken. But I think pork would be a great alternative. And I have an air fryer so I could do the tortilla strips in there. Just lightly coat them with oil and cook on French fry setting that is 400 degrees for I’m guessing 5 mins. I love the idea to make the taco salad bowl. I have a mold for it that is for the oven but I never got it to work. I should the the tortilla on the outside and not on the inside then wrap with foil like you did. So smart! A local place here makes a killer taco salad. My go to salsa is their melon salsa. I also make a simple mango as well as cucumber salsas. Cucumber salsa is fine diced cukes with salt, lime and cayenne. Mango salsa is mango, red onion, cilantro, lime and fine minced unroasted jalapeño & salt to taste. My homemade salsa is tomato or tomatillo(roasted or boiled and peeled), garlic, jalapeno (fresh or roasted over the open flame on my gas stove or pan roasted if you have electric), cilantro, and salt. Can use canned tomatoes but use food processor or blender to make it. The roasted or boiled salsas freeze well for future use. I like to make up a big batch then freeze in smaller portions so it doesn’t go bad on me. I love salsa but I use them in small quantities as seasoning, usually on my eggs every morning or on a quesadilla for lunch or snack. The mango salsa goes quickly. I could eat fish tacos daily. Same with breakfast burritos with egg, meat and potatoes.

Tomatoes in Massachusetts are approximately $2.99 a pound. It's not always a bargain here!

Idk if you have heard of the app Too Good To Go but you can get good food that remains at the end of day for, in my area, around 1/3 of the original price. It is not active in every city but my family likes it so far.

we call it damper its a bushmans treat best served warm with treacle

I'm amazed at the variety of meals you made! Very inventive!

Love the crockpot and the instapot.

If you do the corn starch at the end, it wouldn’t matter if it boiled. It would thicken. You can either pull the liquid from your crockpot or use leftover broth or milk. You would need to do more than 1 tablespoon. More like 1/4 cup. Just stir into a slurry and add in. Then, let cook another 30 minutes. Newer crockpots just don’t get as hot as older ones. Such a pain.

I lived in California for a year about 20 years ago and noticed this was very common there.

Instead of sour cream, I use plain yogurt cuz I always have some. And sour cream bothers me, while yogurt never does. Plus I often make my own yogurt for pennies on the dollar. And it tastes amazing. I strain it to my preferred thickness and save the whey to add to soups or whatever cuz it adds a nice rich and tangy flavor similar to sour cream or yogurt without the creaminess

Could you freeze the soup with the evaporated milk?

Nicely done 😊

Very interesting. The meal looks so delicious.

Hi, Michelle. Thank You for the mini tour of your beautiful home and for your storage ideas. I also enjoyed your recipe.

I love to pickle onions and radishes and cucumber. I usually keep blanched slivered almonds and sesame seeds on hand and I make a cabbage salad that is similar except I use honey and not sugar. The cabbage soup for breakfast sounds good except I’d add an egg. Only cuz I need protein first thing in the morning. Chick peas would have sufficed too for me I think. Your baked potato idea looked really good. I love a good baked potato with nothing but butter and salt. Even once it’s cold, if the butter has permeated through the potato and I have a little salt it’s still yummy. I want to make that Trinidad dish too. Thanks for your inspiration

My fav filling for crepes is cottage cheese and fruit. To make the crepes perfect let them rest for at least two hours in the fridge to fully hydrate the flour. Then you can make them super paper thin and slightly crispy on the edges. See! You can still eat good on next to nothing snd not feel deprived

Great ideas. Of course your biscuits won’t be as fluffy when made with water instead of buttermilk. Chemically you need a soured milk product in the biscuits. You can use plain milk that you sour with a teaspoon or less of vinegar or citrus like lemon juice. Or you can use a spoonful of plain yogurt mixed in water. I make my own yogurt easily for pennies on the dollar. I’m amazed that your biscuits looked as good as they did. And milk in a gravy always gives it a nice richness as well as the nutritional aspect. My biscuits and other foods come out a perfect golden brown in my air fryer. Though I’m not vegetarian/vegan anymore I really enjoy meals that are low on the meat. I’m extremely allergic to chicken but I don’t miss it. I don’t eat much beef either as it bothers my stomach. I make my own bone broth with pork bones. It freezes very well. I also buy chicken for my cat and save all the bones in the freezer to make bone broth for her. I save some of the skin as well as it makes a richer bone broth. She loves it. I give her some of my pork bone broth too cuz all I use are the bones, water and a little vinegar. You can get the bones for next to nothing. I learned growing up very poor in my family how to make food stretch, especially the meat. Our family of six would get two meals out of a chicken by boiling the bones and skin the next day to make soup. We always bought whole chicken cuz they were cheaper. We could get a dozen eggs for 50¢ and a gallon of milk for a dollar. Back when the minimum wage was $3.25 in the mid 1980s that was still a good deal. With flour and the cheap bread from the day old store we could make a lot of stuff cheap. Especially cuz we had a garden every summer and netted smelt for free from the river and froze or canned everything we could get. We could barely afford to have heat in the house, this was in WA state, in the winter but we ate pretty decent cuz we knew how to make something out of nothing. I earn a living wage now the past couple of decades. I’m 60 now. I’ve always worked hard and never asked for handouts except for 6 months when I landed in the hospital with a life threatening illness and had to have major surgery and my job was janitorial so I couldn’t return fully to work at first so I got food stamps for a couple of months. Otherwise I’ve learned to cook and always ate well. I’m grateful for your channel teaching others to do the same. I love your ideas. I made an Asian style soup today by shopping around in my cupboards for leftovers. It was divine! Thanks again for your inspiration

The cupboards look fabulous! Thank you for the video!

Ypu obviously have a lot of money, so why are you mocking us poor people by acting like you can't afford to cook a $600 Christmas dinner? I doubt you actually served that "meal" on Christmas. You are disgraceful. You should be ashamed of yourself!!! 😡

I enjoy Gardein products and the meatball with veg looks delish!

Hi Michelle, Thank you for sharing. I have lived in an apartment that had a tiny kitchen. It was challenging to come up with ways to create more space. You are doing well. I wish I had an Ikea store in my town, but I guess the area I live in is too small for Ikea. There is a Daiso store in Bellevue, Washington, and I have gone to that a few times when I had appointments in Seattle. That is a two and a half hour drive away from me. So, needless to say, I don't go to the coast very often. Your crockpot meal looks absolutely delicious! I have been trying to eat protein every day. I am morbidly obese, but I am losing weight. I am doing it by counting calories and trying to hit the major food groups. You know, protein, fruits & veggies, and the occasional treat. My caregiver got me hooked on chia bowls. They are really yummy. And chia seeds while a bit high in calories, they are also high in plant protein, fiber, the omegas, help with satiety and weight loss. Since September 16, I have lost forty pounds. Anyhow, I think I need to buy some plant based meatballs. They look so yummy!

My young adult children live with me. We love Daiso, I was just there yesterday :) Do you own or rent? Thanks for sharing 🥰🍃🍂🍁💗✝

Great tips! The dinner looked delicious!

Great video Michelle thank you for sharing I love using my crockpot year-round but I do use it a lot more in these cooler months I'm going to do ham and beans tomorrow actually great big hugs 🖤

Your videos are always a treat!

Oh my I've just been Diagnosed with Melanoma . I had an MRI shows no Brain involvement. Will have a PET scan tuesday . Praying that is clear. Surgery will be in a couple weeks if everything is okay. 😊 it 's in God's hands. Thanks for suggesting a curtain for your storage cart. Ive got the same and don't like the clutter. Take care .

I should get a little cabinet for our kitchen. Our little kitchen is crazy right now

Isn't it funny that those of us that do the most cooking, have the smallest kitchens. And all of the people we know that have big or fancy renovated kitchens, do hardly any to no cooking. 😂😂😂

Looks delish, Michelle! I’ve never tried the plant based meatballs. Which brand is your fav?

Maybe a small plate for under the chilli oil? 🙂