I am making do with what is in the kitchen, including:
- stretching the remaining decaf black tea by drinking herb tea, made with herbs cut and dried from my garden 2 summers ago (if only I kept bees, the honey would be free, too). I am drinking mixed mint tea and lemon balm tea. Both very good, and I can drink them right up till bedtime with no after effects.
- making steel cut oats in the crockpot overnight a couple of nights per week. I add dried blueberries in the morning for "gourmet" oatmeal.
- ran out of white flour, so I'm substituting sifted whole wheat flour (to remove some of the bran) for all-purpose in some simple baking. BTW, this was horrible in a lemon mug cake, but worked well in a chocolate one. The wheat-y taste overwhelmed the lemon, but was disguised by cocoa powder.
- scrounging the freezers for overlooked items, I found a 3-lb box of frozen spinach, hot dogs, bacon, cream puffs, and smoked salmon. A few special items to get us through the last few days till Tuesday.
- using mint syrup that I made and canned 2 summers ago from my mint plants, when making chocolate-mint cocoa.
- used some milk that was a week past the sell-by date to make chocolate pudding. I packed the leftovers into a small canning jar for my daughter's lunch (this one loves pudding!). BTW, small peanut butter jar lids fit some, but not all, canning jars. The narrow opening, pint and half pint-sized canning jars must be a tad larger where the threads are, than the small, squat 4-oz jars and the globe-shaped, fruit-embossed 8-oz jars. Those latter two jars work well with plastic lids from commercial jars, like peanut butter ones.
- scraped out a jam jar and blended with plain cream cheese for a flavored cream cheese spread. Really delicious on saltine crackers.
There is still plenty of food in the kitchen. These are just some of the treats that I've made to make what we have left seem "special." You know how it is, the "good" stuff gets gobbled up quickly after shopping. What remains is all of the ordinary foods, or basic ingredients. I find that if I make extra efforts in that last week before a major shopping trip, then we don't feel deprived of any of that "good" stuff that we had earlier.
Senior Discount day is this coming Tuesday. I've been putting together my list and will refrain from buying anything that I plan on getting at Fred Meyer where my discount would apply, until then. The big challenge will be this weekend, with everyone home. I'll have to put on some creativity.
