RUM-N-NOODLES

Reducing a Sauce      Reducing a sauce is a good cooking skill to have that will come in handy in a variety of different recipes and making your own will help you stick to your budget.  Reducing a sauce intensifies the flavors of of a sauce and thicken it.  Thickening a sauce will help it stick to the food you are serving it on.  Picture it like this, if you put a nice thick spaghetti sauce on spaghetti it sticks to the noodles for a great dish, if you put tomato juice on spaghetti noodles you get bland noodles and a mess.        Reducing a sauce intensifies the flavors to make a great sauce, but can also be a little dangerous.  No, doing it wrong will not cause a zombie apocalypse but it could lead to a dish that you have to toss out and that's not good for your savings.  Be sure to avoid salt as much as possible until the very end, what may seem like a small amount of sauce in the beginning can be over powering in the end dish that is half the volume.        Now

Maple Bacon Monkey Bread      I saw monkey bread in the store the other day and it brought back some great childhood memories.  Weather you grew up calling it monkey bread, pull apart bread or puzzle bread, I can not think of a food that is more fun than monkey bread.  Add in some bacon and pecans to take this fun classic to the next level Ingredients 16 oz cans of jumbo refrigerator biscuits 1/2 stick butter 4 slices bacon 1/2 cup chopped pecans 1/4 cup maple syrup 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 1/4 cup white sugar      Start by cooking up the bacon (if you ask me that's the best way to start any project).  When the bacon is cooked drain it on some paper towels and crumble it into little pieces.  Next grab the butter, brown sugar and syrup and put them in a pot over medium heat, reduce this mixture by 1/2 stirring occasionally.  While the syrup mixture is reducing pop the biscuits and separate them.  Now cut them each into 8 pieces, when you have all the biscu

Drink Your Water      We have all heard we need to drink 8 glasses of water a day.  There are a ton of health benefits from drinking enough water.  The trick to sticking to your budget is drinking the right water.  The cost of bottled water is 300 times the cost of tap water.  That's 300 times not just 300%, that means for every bottle of water you buy you could have 300 bottles of tap water.  That is 37.5 days of water verses bottle.      I know there are reasons people love their bottled water.  The bottles are convenient, but there are really cool bottles for water out there that are convenient and just look better.  Look around a little and I'm sure you can find a bottle with a picture or phrase that fits your personality much better then the water company logo.      Not every community has great tasting tap water.  Not a problem, I use a pitcher with a filter.  I think the pitcher system is much more convenient that bottled water.  You can refill your new stylish