Kicking Kabobs

Teriyaki Beef Kabobs

2 lbs. beef top round steak (or pork or chicken pieces) cut into 1 inch cubes

¼ c. light brown sugar

¼ c. soy sauce

2 tbs. salad oil

¼ tsp. ground ginger

1 garlic clove, minced

1 can chunk or rings (cut up) pineapple or favorite veggies/fruits chunks

Set fruit/veggies aside. Combine other ingredients for marinade, add meat. Refrigerate at least 3 hours, stirring often. Set oven to broiler. Thread meat and fruit/veggies on metal skewers. (Pineapple quickly tenderizes meat so thread skewers just before broiling so meat does not get mushy) Broil 15 minutes or till meat is cooked as desired. Turn once while cooking.

You Might Be A Thai Food Addict If...

Here it is, my popular cashew chicken recipe. Feel free to substitute other nuts or liquid aminos for the soy sauce. I love this on rice sprinkled with sesame seeds and broccoli sprouts.

Cashew Chicken

1 pkg. boneless skinless chicken strips, cut into approx. 1x1”pieces.

1 c. cashews

Sweet rice wine

Soy sauce

1 tsp. ginger

¼ c. honey

Salt and pepper

1-2 tbs. minced garlic, to taste

1-2 tbs. minced onion OR ½  c. chopped green onions

Extra virgin olive oil or peanut oil

Roast the cashews in a skillet on medium heat with about 2 tbs. of oil and a dash of salt and pepper, remove when nicely browned, set aside. Add another 2 tbs. oil and 2 tbs. rice wine to pan, then add minced onion, garlic, salt and pepper, and ginger. Stir around for a few seconds and then add chicken pieces, stirring constantly. When chicken is nearly done, add honey and 3 or 4 shakes of soy sauce to taste, roasted cashews and salt and pepper. Stir constantly to keep from burning. Cook until it reaches a nice thick sauce consistency and chicken is done (white all the way through).

To serve: Pack1 cup cooked moist white rice in a 1 cup measuring cup, flip carefully onto plate so it keeps most of its shape. Top with broccoli sprouts, and then put a scoop of cashew chicken on top. Add more soy sauce if desired.

Now What?

Well we are in Northern Wyoming, finally in a little space we were able to rent. Finding housing as a low income large family has been a challenge. I'm going to talk a little about it here because if you are a family planning to camp out on your property while you build, you need to know the back up options. Basically, there are none.

Subsidized housing is usually only 2-3 bedrooms. Cheap rentals are also 2-3 bedrooms. We lived in just 1 bedroom in my brother's home, so that's not a big deal, we would have been happy to take a 1 bedroom anwhere, pay a tiny rent, and save the rest.

The problem is, the law says when you rent from an actual landlord, you can't have more than 2 people in a room. There is no such thing as subsidized 5 bedroom homes. There is no such thing as an inexpensive 5 bedroom rental. You are looking in the West at about $1200-2500 a month rent for a 4-5 bedroom, if not more. There is no rent aid available for that dollar amount.

Okay, I get it. I have a lot of kids. But they aren't exactly INCOME PRODUCING, like a herd of cattle would be! If I have a low income large family, $2500 might as well be a million.

If hubs had been able to keep his job in Utah, or if we could find work quickly while camped in a parking lot temporarily, we could feasibly do that kind of rent, but there would be no saving. Our house payment in Utah was $1200 for our 3 bedroom house, and we never made ends meet. That was when hubs was making 50$K a year. We didn't overspend, never went on vacations, bought secondhand everything, used Freecycle, never ate out, owned our used cars outright. We were never on government aid, ever, although I know we qualified. We did everything they tell you to do to live frugally and couldn't make it work; it all went to the house and insurances.

House poor. It's not a myth, or a legend.

The biggest pro to homesteading the way we plan to is to build the house as we can from scratch and NEVER mortgage again. Mort= death. It really is. We should never have fallen for the American Dream line they hand you about owning your own home right after you get married. You don't own. You are paying rent to a bank instead of a landlord, and the only investment pro is for the banks, not you. We should have listened to our grandfathers.

Security for our family means having a home we will never lose if hubs isn't working. We will always be able to cover property taxes and our utilities one way or another, but we won't have to risk our home every month.

Hubs has found some seasonal and part time work here, but nothing fulltime. It's too small of a town and everything in Wyoming is hours away from everything else. That's ok if you already have your homestead built and online work going, but not so great when you are trying to quickly save a large chunk of cash so you have a real home.

We are open to options at this point, looking for another place that can take us that is closer to our property, and full time work for hubs. We would do better if he could finish school, but, again, we have to live somewhere while he does that.