I'll be back on Wednesday

I've got a project that I'm working on, and fighting a cold at the same time. One good thing about both of those scenarios is I am not spending any money while I'm pre-occupied. I hope that your week is off to a great start!

Before I go -- a photo of something cute my daughter did for dinner tonight, mini pumpkin-shaped pizzas.

Cheap & Cheerful for (oh my goodness!!) the end of October

Where did the month fly to? We'll be planting spring gardens before we know it, at this rate.

This past week --

Over the weekend, we had rice and lentils, snacks, garbanzo bean spread, salads, and fruit. One daughter and I volunteered at a charity luncheon on Saturday and frankly were too full ourselves to eat much for dinner that night. Sunday's dinner was more usual, with the lentils, some veggies, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, and potatoes.

Monday -- daughter put together a dinner of baked squash, leftover rice and lentils, spinach-onion-tofu saute

Tuesday -- hot dogs in whole wheat buns, tomato wedges, sauteed cabbage

Wednesday -- (family dinner) grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato bisque, potato chips, curried slaw, pumpkin eggnog

Thursday -- leftover tomato bisque (I made a huge pot on Wednesday, sent some home with my son, and we still had enough for last night), whole wheat Yorkshire pudding wedges, tossed salad of lettuce, cabbage, tomato, and cheese cubes with homemade dressing

Friday -- after our discussion about cabbage the other day, I picked up some turkey Polish sausage. I'll be making sausage, mashed potatoes, and cabbage for dinner tonight. Thank you for the idea the other day!!

I was looking out the window today and had a thought about the landscape in autumn. Colored leaves lay everywhere in a haphazard way, yet the world looks beautiful in all of their mess. Usually I associate beauty with a somewhat tidy appearance. But there is something beautiful in nature's untidiness. In case you hadn't guessed, no one in our house has raked any leaves yet. Perhaps this weekend. But if we don't get to the raking, we can still enjoy nature's untidy beauty. Anyways, just my thought as I gazed out my window. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Oh, how I love cabbage (and other romantic odes)

I was chopping cabbage last night and thinking to myself how much I love cabbage. It isn't that cabbage is the yummiest food on Earth. But it's cheap (49 cents/lb the past month at Fred Meyer -- a bargain for veggies), keeps in the fridge for weeks and weeks, and is versatile enough to make either a hot dish or a cold salad.

Last night, we had sauteed cabbage, seasoned with soy sauce, garlic, ginger and a pinch of sugar. Tonight I'll add cabbage to our dinner of soup and sandwiches, as a slaw-style salad like this curried peanut salad, using peanuts from some trail mix which has had all of the other goodies gobbled up. I try to keep a jar of sliced red or green cabbage in the fridge, just waiting to be added to impromptu salad snacking. It's handy stuff for quick side dishes. I don't buy a lot of the usual convenience foods. But I do consider a head of cabbage to be something of a convenience item, as it doesn't require a lot of prep work, and can be ready to eat in minutes.

This time of year, cabbage makes into many of our meals and snacks.

How do you store opened packages of cream cheese?

For many years, I would store an opened package of cream cheese, as is, still in the foil wrap, inside the small box. What would follow is the cheese would linger in the fridge, to mold and/or dry out inside the foil package.

About a year ago I began keeping the cream cheese on a plate, under a small glass bowl, upturned. What I noticed was that the cream cheese not only did not mold readily, as it had in the foil package, but it also was in view in the fridge, and was consumed at a faster rate.

Anyway, this is my homespun cheese dome. You can spend about $15 to $20 and buy a cheese dome, or you can simply use what's in the kitchen -- a plate and a small glass bowl. Saving the cream cheese saves money.

Pumpkin-sausage pasta (using leftover canned pumpkin)

In answer to a request in the comments from Friday, here is something I do with leftover cooked or canned pumpkin. Since the amounts of ingredients varies with the number of servings, I've given estimates of what I use. You can adjust to your own meal prep situation.

Pumpkin-sausage pasta

cooked pasta, according to package directions, enough to serve family, cook pasta, drain and set aside

large Italian sausage links, about 1/4 lb each, 1 for every 2 servings (I use 2 or 3 links for 5 adult servings)
chopped onion, about 1/2 large onion for 4-5 servings
minced garlic, garlic powder or granules, equivalent to 2 cloves of garlic for 4-5 servings
chicken stock, 2 cups for 4-5 servings
pureed pumpkin, canned or fresh cooked, about 1 cup
sage, fresh minced or dried crumbled, equivalent of about 1-2 teaspoons (or to taste) dried, rubbed sage
cream or milk, 1/4 cup
Parmesan cheese, 1/2 cup
dash nutmeg
salt, to taste
red pepper flakes, pinch
Parmesan shavings, for garnish, as much as desired

Remove sausage from casing, brown and crumble in a skillet. Set sausage aside. Pour off all but 1-2 teaspoons fat from the sausage. Saute the onion in the sausage fat. Add the garlic when the onion is translucent. Cook until onion is barely golden.

Add the pumpkin, chicken stock and sage. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Add the browned sausage and heat through. Toss in the cooked pasta, along with cream or milk, cheese and nutmeg. Taste and add salt and red pepper flakes. Garnish with additional Parmesan.

notes:
I sometimes use turkey Italian sausage, in which case there is little residual fat in the pan. For turkey Italian sausage, use about 2 teaspoons of olive oil to saute the onion.

This is a less-meat dish. you can certainly use more Italian sausage, if you have heavy-duty carnivores in your house. you can also omit the sausage for a vegetarian dish. I don't think this would be very tasty as a vegan dish. It seems to need the flavors of the sausage and/or the Parmesan. I go easy on the cream/milk. But if you like a creamier dish, use as much as 1/2 cup of cream/milk.

For buying Italian sausage, the butcher counter in our local Fred Meyer carries pork Italian sausage links to be purchased one at a time. When I made sausage pizza a couple of weeks ago, I bought just one sausage, to brown and crumble. It may not be the cheapest per pound way to go, for Italian sausage, but if you only want 1 or 2, it is simple to just buy what you need. I also buy the turkey version, in tray packs by Jennie-O. The turkey Italian sausage links in those packs go to mark down frequently, as they're sold refrigerated (not frozen, though you can freeze them once home). When I find them on markdown I will buy several packages, split into packets of 2 or 3 links, and freeze.

Very hearty and warming for a fall evening. I serve this with a green salad or green veggies, and a baguette, if we're extra hungry.

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Cheap & Cheerful for a mid-October week

It's getting cooler and darker in our area. We have curtains in the kitchen eating area which I've felt the need to close before we eat our dinner. We've been using a jar candle on the kitchen table some of the nights, too. This candle was a gift from friends last holiday season. We have a large assortment of candles and I thought this year, we'd try to use them. They do add a nice ambiance to chilly fall and winter days and evenings.

the weekend -- I think we ate a lot of eggs over the weekend. As I've been telling the family, I'm pushing eggs. I had a few dozen left from a major purchase in early September. One night my husband made French toast for dinner.

Monday -- my daughter made dinner for us. She made egg fried rice. She made this on Sunday afternoon, then reheated Monday evening. It worked great, and she made so much that I had some for lunches during the week, too.

Tuesday -- (family dinner night) beef and bean burritos, using leftover pot roast from last week kept in freezer, canned beans, commercial tortillas and cheese, chips and salsa (both Dollar Tree), baked acorn squash, tossed salad with homemade dressing, scratch cake

Wednesday -- leftover beef and bean burritos, tossed salad, pear slices, refried beans and cheese, chips and salsa, baked squash

Thursday -- turkey-noodle soup, pumpkin muffins, apples

Friday -- leftover soup tonight, with muffins and applesauce


Saving time this week -- On Tuesday, I made twice as much as we needed, so Wednesday was just leftovers, with a fresh salad and fruit. Thursday, I did the same, made twice what we needed so there would be leftovers for Friday. I need to buy more produce very soon.  I'll get out to a store in the next day or two. Otherwise, our supplies are still good. I cleaned up the pantry this past week and took a cursory inventory. It looks like I am well set for confectioner's sugar. Somehow I got overstocked on that last year. And I still have enough canned pumpkin for 10 pies. I do use pumpkin for soups and pasta sauce, though, so I will still buy more this fall. I am also well stocked on whole wheat flour, rolled oats, steel cut oats and brown rice. No chance of running out of grains any time soon.

How about you? Are you using what's on hand this month? Beginning to do some stocking up? Does anyone have a particularly good authentic Thai recipe, for a main dish?  I'm looking for an authentic, but easy to make, and with few extra ingredients to buy (given your standard American pantry) Thai recipe.

I hope you all have a great weekend. I will hopefully be around more next week, than the past couple of weeks. Life got crazy for a bit, there.

Corn starch to the rescue

My daughters have a special dessert that their brother enjoys. And as he was coming over for dinner, they said they would make this dessert. It's a yellow cake, with fudge frosting, and caramel sauce over the slices. Decadent, right?

Anyway, something went wrong with the caramel sauce. One daughter tried to fix it late Monday night. She finally went to bed and I found it like this, in the morning. The chunks are lumps of butter.

I told her I'd do something with it during the day, while she was in class. When heated, the lumps of butter melted, but a layer of butter would form on the top of the sauce when it cooled. My thought was that I needed a binder to hold the butter in the sauce. I cooked their sauce with a little cornstarch and allowed to cool.

After cooling, some of the butter did rise to the top. However, as what I had just made was basically a very sweet, thin pudding, I thought I could now mix in the butter that was on top of the rest of the sauce, using a mixer. And it worked beautifully. (see top photo) The pudding-like caramel sauce was cooled enough that the butter was held in the sauce, and could be poured over slices of cake.

Now who wants a slice? Incidentally, egg, flour, and arrowroot are also binders. All require cooking in a liquid to bind ingredients together.

Definition of insanity

You've probably heard this -- the definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result.

I feel like that is what I have been doing for the last couple of years. Same thing, same thing, but expecting to feel differently about it all. With awareness, and in response, I am trying to create a different path for my life. This has led to me taking classes and preparing for a career. It is also what prompted me to turn over some of the dinner-prep tasks in our house to other members of the household. And it has led me to judiciously use more prepared foods.

I am trying to listen to my body and my spirit. Always making everything from scratch is tiring. There are some good shortcuts available in convenience foods, such as the frozen pie crust that I used last week. I'm making burritos for dinner tomorrow night, and using canned refried beans. I know that I could make refried beans and save about 50%. But just knowing that I can wait until the late afternoon to start on dinner prep frees my mind to pursue something else for the entire day.

Other areas where I am simplifying include the holidays. Christmas gifting will be greatly simplified this year. And I really am okay with that. I've asked each of my children to tell me one thing, just one thing, that they'd really enjoy receiving this year. If I happen to also buy or make something else, that will be a bonus. We all have so much stuff, anyway. There's no need to add to the piles and piles of belongings. Fewer gifts, overall, mean less wrapping paper and ribbon, which also means less clean-up on Christmas day. Fewer gifts mean a simpler credit card statement in January. We may spend nearly as much as previous years, but the statement will be simpler to audit for errors. Fewer gifts mean more time to spend relaxing during the season, and on Christmas. Fewer gifts may also mean fewer headaches for me. Fewer gifts mean less waste in the garbage for December, less gasoline used to get to stores or have merchandise delivered to me, and maybe less of a sense of greed. Fewer gifts mean greater appreciation for the abundance that we already have. Less gives us more.

What I've discovered is that I don't feel like less of a mother, wife, homemaker, friend, sister, etc. On the contrary, simplifying my daily work has given me more energy to really be present with the people in my life. Just something I was thinking about.

Cheap & Cheerful

The week. My husband cooked one night last weekend and made curried potatoes and fry bread, and my one daughter who loves cookouts organized another hot dog roast, the other night. We are moving towards more egalitarian cooking roles in our family. My life is changing and it's time for our household roles to change, too. Here's what we had for dinner this week:

Monday  (daughter cooked) -- pasta and pumpkin, cole slaw

Tuesday -- baked squash, tossed salad, scrambled eggs

Wednesday  (leftover night for two) -- squash, microwaved potatoes, apple slices, baked apples, leftover-filled frittata

Thursday  (family dinner night) -- pot roast, carrots, potatoes, tossed salad and pumpkin pie

Tonight -- some leftovers from last night, but maybe not the meat. I think I'll freeze the leftover roast and use in burritos some night next week. For protein tonight, you guessed it, more eggs to go with leftover veggies, salad and pie

I was pushing eggs on the family this week. I have about 2 more dozen that need using quick, or else I should freeze them. Serving for dinner seems easier in my mind than freezing, right now. Eggs were cheap, with that last major stock-up, so it makes sense to just use them for the protein source in dinners for a while.

I hit the grocery store at just the right time on Tuesday morning. There was an entire grocery cart filled with marked down produce. I bought a few bags of tomatoes, apples and squash, for $1 per bag. I even got a small bag of Asian pears for $1 -- a rare treat for us.

For Thursday's dinner, I was looking for a homey dessert and thought of pie. I had a can of pumpkin in the pantry, and the rest of the ingredients for a filling, but the thought of making the crust sounded like more work than I had time for. So I bought a frozen pie shell, at 75 cents each in a package of two. While 75 cents is a lot more than making crust from scratch at 43 cents each (in this post I calculated my cost for pie pastry), I figured that a homemade pie using a commercial crust was still a bargain, compared to buying a dessert.

That's it for my week. How was yours? Do you buy ready-made pie crusts? If so, do you prefer the frozen ones or the pastry in the refrigerator section of the store? For me, the frozen ones were less expensive and already in a pan, so I went with those. I hope you have a great weekend! See you Monday.

"Instant" egg salad sandwiches, using deviled eggs

This has been my go-to lunch or breakfast for the last several days.

I made a large batch of deviled eggs three days ago, to use surplus eggs. I think they make a great snack; and having them all ready and waiting encourages other family members to eat the eggs. Anyways, I discovered that having deviled eggs all ready makes for very quick sandwiches.

For one 1/2 sandwich (that's all I ever eat, it seems), I take 1 slice of bread and spread it with mayonnaise (not necessary, but that's how I like my sandwiches). Cut the bread in half.

Then, plop a deviled egg onto one of the halves of bread.

Squish the other half slice of bread onto the egg. And voila, one egg salad sandwich.

One of my daughters thought this was a great way to use up leftover deviled eggs, you know, after a picnic or large family dinner/brunch. So, I thought I'd share, as it works so well for sandwiches in a hurry.

Pretty little jars

I saved these two pretty little jars from edible treats.

They are nice enough to hang on to. But what should I do with them? Make some infused honey or spicy mustard? Too pretty to throw away -- what would you use these jars for? Lucky for me the label on the honey jar peeled right off. I'll have to work a bit on the other jar's label.

10 of my favorite freebies of recent weeks

1.  email -- you can send a message to anyone, no stamp, immediate delivery, for free!

2.  library -- it's not just that you can get some books at the library, but you can often get the very one book that you want. Case in point -- when my daughter and I were vintage shopping for business ideas a month ago, my daughter saw a book that intrigued her. She spent several minutes browsing through that book. I took notice, thinking I would buy this book on Amazon as a Christmas gift for her. When I came home, I looked it up on Amazon, then had a thought, "hmmm, I should really check the library's database for this first. I could still surprise her with the book, on loan." Sure enough, our library's system had the very book on the shelf in anther branch. I had it sent to my local branch and picked it up later that week. My daughter was thrilled to see that book sitting on the kitchen table for her.

3.  youtube -- and other video sites. I use youtube to find music that I hear on the radio and want to listen to again. I also amuse myself with funny cat videos and other junky stuff. When I'm in a serious mode, I use youtube for self-help and instructional videos. Free entertainment and self-improvement!

4.  e-coupons on the grocery store's website -- I can load coupons onto my loyalty card to use in store, without buying a newspaper to get coupons. Some of the e-coupons allow for multiple use on the same coupon/purchase (like 5 jars of applesauce or peanut butter, getting the discount on all 5).

5.  journals/notepads on digital devices -- no need for paper or pen. I can write till my heart is content.

6.  online sudoku games -- I use these as concentration boosters a couple of times per day. Once upon a time, I actually spent money on sudoku and crossword puzzle books.

7.  online bill paying, again no stamp, and stamps are getting pricey! Bonus, the payment is made immediately, preventing late charges when I am absentminded.

8.  free shipping with online shopping. Not only do I get to shop while still in my pj's, I save gas, avoid crowds, and on many items I get a lower price if I shop around.

9.  tap water to drink in restaurants. On a chilly day, I've ordered a cup of hot water to sip with a meal. And nothing quenches thirst better on a scorching day than a cup of ice water.

10.  Walking for exercise. No special equipment, except feet. You can walk indoors in wintry weather, or outdoors on trails in the local parks or just in your own neighborhood when the weather is pleasant.

11. bonus freebie, linked to above -- public parks, as playgrounds for kids, walking trails for all, picnic spot for alfresco lunches, or grassy expanse for games.


Your turn -- what have been some of your favorite recent freebies?

Cheap & Cheerful for the week

Saturday -- beef tacos, carrot sticks, salad

Sunday -- beef and potato hash, eggs

Monday -- scrambled eggs, brown rice, sweet potato souffle

Tuesday -- chicken-rice soup from the freezer (I prefer chicken-noodle, but chicken-rice holds up in the freezer better, I think), crackers, tossed salad

Wednesday (family dinner) -- roasted chicken (leftover and frozen from the previous week), mashed potatoes, mustard-glazed carrots, dinner rolls, baked apples

Thursday -- hotdogs in buns, canned corn, apple chunks and banana slices

Friday -- turkey curry over rice, using leftover turkey from the freezer

It was a busy week with a lot going on in our home. However, I did clear time from my schedule to make a nice family dinner on Wednesday (my son was over and said that the dinner seemed very autumnal). But the rest of the week was easy fixins', here. Tuesday was Senior Discount day at Fred Meyer, so I did a major stock-up on that day. There seems to be a flow to our grocery supply. I stock up and we eat like kings for a week, then the following week we eat like ordinary folk, and finally the end of the month we eat more like paupers. I'm not complaining, just noticing. It may actually be a beneficial thing, as many of the cheapest foods are pretty healthy, like beans and rice, carrots, or cabbage. I did well at the grocery store, combining coupons with Senior discount on store-brand items. No more 49 cents gallon milk, though.

How was your week? I hope was well and that fall is settling in beautifully where you live. Have a wonderful weekend!

Radishes: a good buy in the produce department

You get a lot in a bundle of radishes for just 79 cents or so. I bought this bundle yesterday (for 79 cents). I think most folks break off the red root portion and toss out the leafy greens. Those leafy greens are edible, too. Wash them well (they are often sandy), pluck off yellowing leaves, then chop and add the greens to soups or stews. That's what I did yesterday. I had a pot of soup simmering on the stove and I used some of the greens in the soup, and the roots in a salad.

Radish greens are peppery and sharp. However, that sharpness is masked well in soups and stews. And they're packed with vitamins K, C, A, B(s) and E, plus potassium, iron, calcium, and zinc.

Don't toss those leafy portions! Yet another vegetable that you can eat all parts.