How to Make Eggnog

Eggnog Scones

Feeding a family of 4 for $150 a month

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Thursday, November 6, 2025

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers With an Easy Pumpkin Recipe

Friday

homemade pepperoni pizza
kale*, cabbage*, tomato* salad in homemade vinaigrette
steamed carrots
trick-or-treat cookies (Circus Animal Cookies)

Saturday

spaghetti in meat and tomato sauce
sautéed kale* in beef fat
no egg, no milk apple* cake (applesauce* snack cake with chunks of apples* baked in), this recipe, no nuts but with apple chunks added


Sunday

vegetable*-beef soup, with garden celery*, potatoes*, herbs*, and store carrots plus beef
leftover apple* cake

Monday

tuna-macaroni salad with celery*, carrot leaves*, mayo, sweet relish*, tuna, cooked pasta over shredded cabbage* in vinaigrette
avocado wedges
pumpkin*-applesauce*
leftover Halloween cookies

Tuesday

carne asada over brown rice
topped with chopped fresh tomato*, cilantro*, and avocado
sauteed beet leaves* cooked in bacon fat
steamed baby carrots*
stewed prunes*
applesauce*-raisin bar cookies (these ones)

Wednesday (needed an easy dinner, as my husband and I had to leave the house early for the evening)

meatloaf, which included a slice of homemade bread, celery*, onions, herbs*, and seasonings along with ground beef
gravy made with drippings, ketchup, remaining sauce from Tuesday's carne asada
oven fries roasted in beef fat
canned green beans
pumpkin*-applesauce*
applesauce* bar cookies

Thursday

scrambled eggs in ham fat
sautéed Brussel sprout leaves* with garlic*
carrot-raisin salad with peanut dressing
smashed purple potatoes*
applesauce* bar cookies


*denotes from home garden/orchard

Notes

The garden harvest continues to wind down. I go outside, dodging raindrops, to get leafy greens several days per week. Daughter picked a bunch of kale and washed and wrapped in a towel to add to our lunch greens this week. We still haven't had a freeze, so everything remaining in the garden is still okay. What remains is the same as last week, just less of it -- kale, Brussel sprout leaves, Swiss chard, beets, turnips, cilantro, and radish. Here's an odd thing, we still have a couple of blueberries ripening on bare branches, branches that have already lost their leaves. I picked the ripest ones the other day to nibble on while raking leaves.

In an exciting bit of news, there's a mother on my homemade crabapple cider vinegar! The other exciting thing tonight, I caught brief views of the Beaver Moon (November's full supermoon) as the clouds would occasionally part. Last night the moon was at its peak, but tonight 's showing was no slouch either.

No grocery shopping this week. I do need to pick up bananas for smoothies and will do that in the next day or two.

Recipe

Pumpkin-Applesauce
for 1 pint

Stir together 1 cup of applesauce and 1 cup of pureed pumpkin (canned or home-processed, could also be made with pureed winter squash). Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of sweetening, such as maple syrup, honey, brown or white sugar, plus a sprinkling of cinnamon (1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon). Mix well. This is a mildly sweet and mildly flavored fruit sauce, not as sweet as applesauce and adds a bonus of vitamin A and fiber.

6 comments:

  1. My goodness your meals always make me hungry and also give ideas for our own future meals. And Wednesday's meal sounds so industrious for being an "easy meal"! An easy meal here is peanut butter and jelly! :)
    Going to try the applesauce raisin bar cookies...thanks for the recipe!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Amanda,
      I think what I meant was Wednesday's dinner needed to be easy as far as last minute work went. I assembled the meatloaf early in the day and had everything else either ready to go by late afternoon (like the oven fries ready to pop into the oven) or completely made and dished up (like the pumpkin-applesauce). PBJ or toasted cheese sandwiches would be our easy meal, too. :)

      The applesauce-raisin cookies are delicious and easy! I hope you enjoy them.

      Delete
  2. Your pumpkin applesauce recipe sounds tasty. We don't typically make applesauce with any sweetener anymore--I think our taste buds have started to evolve away from it. Commercial applesauce tastes sickly sweet to me these days. Anyway, I would have loved the recipe when my kids were little and would go through phases where they didn't want to eat veggies (I know, pumpkin is technically fruit .... ). I feel like that would be an easy sell to picky little ones.

    Sounds like we are both still getting small amounts of garden produce. :)

    I missed your pumpkin meals post. However, I do have a meal which I frequently pull out, which uses pumpkin puree. I think I've shared it before, but I'll add it here again. https://themodernproper.com/slow-cooker-chicken-pumpkin-curry

    It's a dump-and-go recipe, very fast, easy, tasty, and healthy. Ticks all the boxes.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kris,
      Oh, that chicken-pumpkin curry looks delicious. I'm going to have to try it soon! Thanks for sharing.

      Another way that I like to eat pumpkin puree is simply heated, add salt and butter, and have it as a side dish. This is what I had with my lunch today for an easy vegetable. It was tasty and I got some Vitamin A and fiber into my lunch.

      Delete
  3. i have a vague recollection of my mom having something in the refrigerator that had that slimy "thing" floating on top. Today I know that was a "mother" but I have no idea what she was making or if it was an accident on something left too long in the fridge. I don't remember ever eating anything fermented or vinegar of any sort.
    Alice

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Alice,
      I hope that what your mom had in the fridge was an intentional thing, although you said you don't recall eating fermented foods or the like. So I'm genuinely curious what could have developed a mother. Maybe an aging container of unpasteurized apple cider? My guess is it was thrown away promptly once discovered. The interesting things we discover at the back of the fridge.

      Delete

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