A Little Snow When It Doesn't Snow

In my area (greater Seattle), we have a 5 to 6% chance of a white Christmas on average. This year, they say our chances of measurable snow on Christmas Day are between 15 and 20%. Every morning when I open the curtains I feel hopeful that there will be a fine dusting. But no such luck.

To get a "feeling" of snow, I use canned snow on the large glass panel in the kitchen door. I've had the same can of snow for about 10 years, using just a touch each year to get that wintry feeling. 

For those neat, rounded corners, I cut a template from an empty cereal box, hold the template against the window loosely, then spray lightly on the glass corners of the panel. I've found that a lighter application of  snow looks most realistic. One of my daughters says she loves, loves, loves the snow on the door.

Another 5-minute decorating project that I made this week went next to the side door that we use most and where packages are left by couriers. I cut boughs and branches of cedar, holly, and other evergreens and pop them into a pot of dirt. I added a bow and reused floral pick. I happened to be out adding "snow" to some pinecones, so I also gave a light dusting of "snow" to my greenery pot. Easy-peasy done.

As you can see, I like projects that give results quickly and without difficulty. These two projects met those objectives handily.

The Menu for Our Tree Decorating Party

Growing up, my mother would decorate the Christmas tree while my siblings and I were at school. We'd  walk into the house one afternoon, surprised to see a fully-decorated tree in the family room.

This may be part my own laziness, but also wanting to share the fun with my family -- we all decorate the tree together. In fact, we make something of a party out of it, complete with party foods and beverages. Like many families, mine likes its "special" foods to be a mix what of what we've had every year and a couple of new items.

This year, I set out cheese and crackers, pot stickers and egg rolls, carrot (our garden carrots) and celery sticks plus dip, homemade peppermint bark, homemade gingerbread men, cocktail sausages, Chex mix, mixed nuts and tangerines. Not pictured -- we enjoy generic cola served in saved (from many, many years ago) glass Coca-cola bottles.

The items I bought specifically for this party were the frozen pot stickers, frozen egg rolls, store-brand lil' smokies, Chex mix, and cola. I had the other foods on hand. Earlier in the day, I made the peppermint bark and gingerbread men. 

Peppermint bark is easy to make. I microwave 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips with 1 teaspoon of Crisco-type shortening in short bursts (20 seconds to start, reducing to 10-15 seconds for final bursts), stirring in between bursts until smooth. I, then spread this thickly on a sheet of waxed paper. Next, I melt about 1/2 cup of vanilla baking chips with 1-2 teaspoons of shortening and 5 or 6 drops of peppermint oil (found in cake and candy supply areas of craft stores), again in short bursts in the microwave, stirring in between bursts. White chocolate is high in sugar and scorches easily, so I uses even shorter bursts for this step. Once white chocolate is melted, I spread this on top of the still soft semi-sweet chocolate. I "decorated" the top of the bark with 2 Starlight peppermint disk hard candies that I had crushed with a hammer between sheets of waxed paper. Once the sheet of bark is made, I chill it in the fridge for an hour, cut into squares and chill for several more hours.

Making the Yule-tide gay; for the time being, our troubles are far away.

On Doing the Next Best Thing

Perfection is a master that will never be pleased. Often, doing the very best thing or saving the maximum amount of money just doesn't happen. Either we don't think of something in time, or our circumstances prevent that singular best move. Doing the next best thing is a strategy that may be more valuable than chasing after perfection.

Thursday afternoon I was busy with many tasks. In addition to doing a bunch of holiday stuff and making yogurt, I was also baking a batch of bread and making dinner. Our main dish for dinner was a meatloaf. I actually did think ahead in one area and prepared a double-batch of meatloaf for an easy dinner later this month. However, I didn't plan well enough in advance to get both the meatloaf and the loaves of bread into the oven at the same time, thereby saving electricity and about 10 cents total. I could have used baking pans that would all fit in the oven's small space and timed the rising loaves of bread to be ready when the meatloaf was assembled. But in my slapdash, trying to get everything done, I just didn't plan it all out thoroughly. I did however do the next best thing. I got the meatloaf into the oven as the bread was coming out. This meant that I didn't need to reheat the oven twice in the day. My oven takes about 10-12 minutes to preheat, so I estimate that I saved about 4 cents by doing the next best thing.

I think there's a tendency to devalue low amounts of savings. However, if I save 4 cents every day by doing "the next best thing," I save $14.60 over the course of a year. Again, we might assume $14 is small change. But in my area, that $14.60 will buy a lot of food, such as a 25 lb bag of rice. In my thinking, there's no such thing as small change. All change adds up.

The effort spent chasing after that absolute best, whether it's being the most frugal or seeking perfection in some other area of our lives is not only exhausting, but it can be defeating when we fall short. I may even give up on trying if I can't ever reach my admittedly lofty goals. Knowing that I can still have a small win when the big win is out of my reach is reassurance that I am still heading in the right direction. After all, a small win (or 4 cents) is still a win. As the saying goes -- life is a marathon.

Silver and Gold Paint Pens for Simplified Gift Wrappings

a little silver ink dresses up plain brown paper

The first Christmas we had our cat, she seemed to enjoy the ribbons and bows on our wrapped presents a little more than she should. Not only did she chew on the bows, but she swallowed a fair amount of the plasticky ribbons. This just wasn't good for her. 

From then on, instead of adding ribbons or bows to our wrapped gifts, I simply drew designs (simplified versions of snowflakes, trees, hearts, teddy bears and snowmen) and name tags right onto the wrapping paper. I used markers mostly. The side benefit was I saved money by not buying disposable wrapping extras. As the years progressed, my budget improved, and I've been able to buy special silver and gold paint pens. The pens last for years and have been used on several different holiday projects. 

the pens can be used on many types of surfaces

Here, I've used the gold pen to personalize a couple of ornaments for our Christmas tree.

This year, I'm using the pens on the brown packing paper that I asked you for suggestions on how to reuse back in September. I'm also reusing some white tissue paper that was wrapped around an item that I ordered from a vendor online. The silver and gold seem to show up best when I make my lettering large, as I've done on the "Julia" package. (As you can see, I'm not that artistic, nor is my penmanship stellar. But that doesn't seem to matter terribly much.) 

Anyway, I have fun with it. And it's more economical than buying single use bows, ribbons, and gift tags.

Paint pens are available at art and craft supply stores, such as Michael's, Blick Art Materials (dickblick.com) and Etsy, or all-purpose retailers such as Amazon and Walmart.

My Week -- More Exhausted Than I Thought

Hi friends!

I hope you all had a good couple of weeks. I didn't post last Friday because I was simply wiped out. Thanksgiving preparations and execution did me in. I thought I'd recover by the end of the weekend. But this time, I was wrong. I'm just now getting myself back together. The foggy headedness has lifted and I'm pulling out of a funk. So, anyway, here I am with a somewhat brief post.

Our Thanksgiving

My son and daughter-in-law joined us. This was the first time we'd seen the two of them since early July. So we made the most of our time together. We were also celebrating their birthdays which were earlier in the month. The weather was just dry enough to sit around a fire outside on the patio while they opened birthday gifts, then we came inside. Still being cautious, we ate at separate tables inside. Our house is about 40 feet from the front wall to the back wall. The family room and dining room both have large doorways, separated by a hallway, and spanning the 40 feet front to back. So, I was able to set up two tables, one pushed up against the family room window and the other pushed up against the dining room window. I'd say we were about 30 feet apart the whole time we were enjoying the Thanksgiving dinner. I had two sets of serving dishes for each table instead of our usual buffet set-up. I even set up a small dessert table adjacent to each dining table. This separated dining kept us well-distanced while we were all eating and had masks off. After dinner we put our masks back on while talking together.

Our Menu

I roasted a turkey and made 5 side dishes, a relish and crudité tray, and two types of pie. Here's the whole list: roast turkey, rice pilaf, Italian mac and cheese, roasted carrots, purple potatoes and garden Brussel sprouts, a green bean casserole, a sweet potato casserole, tray of homemade watermelon pickles, cranberry sauce, celery sticks and olives, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie. No rolls or stuffing this year. Both my daughter-in-law and I are currently minimizing wheat and/or gluten. I tried to make everyone's favorites while steering clear of obvious dietary no-no's. It was all delicious and provided lots of leftovers for the rest of the weekend.

This week I've been moving more in the Christmas direction, doing some online shopping, putting up some decorations, and planning my Christmas cooking and baking.

We have a large shrub (just off the driveway in the front of the house) that we decorate every year. It's conical and looks a bit like a Christmas tree. Some of these ornaments we picked up from free piles over last spring and summer and some we bought a year ago. In between rainstorms one daughter and I got outside to put these decorations and lights on.

While decorating indoors I played free Christmas music using Spotify and made myself more peppermint mochas. Budget holidays.

Indoor Vegetable Gardening

All last month I shared with you how our radishes were doing. This week I thought I'd show you how the indoor lettuce looks. It's growing nicely and will hopefully provide part of a tossed salad on Christmas Day. I also have kale and spinach growing indoors right now, plus my tomato plant (grown indoors from a cutting) has blossoms on it!

Other Stuff

Last Friday we had our usual pizza and movie night. I made a pepperoni pizza and we watched The Bishop's Wife (1947). I found the movie on Pluto TV for free (has commercials). We really enjoyed the movie. It was highly rated as a classic Christmas movie, despite its rather lackluster title. 

I didn't record our meals this past week but I recall we had turkey leftovers, a really good turkey and pumpkin soup, a couple of yummy pasta dishes, and scrambled eggs -- all home cooked. I also made a couple of salads from indoor, home-grown veggies. Aside from the Thanksgiving meal, I didn't bake much this past week. Just too tired. I did bake 1 large loaf of French bread and a pan of cornbread, but no extra treats.

Looking forward to Christmas Day plans, we're thinking we'll do our holiday meal with our son and daughter-in-law similarly to our Thanksgiving, with separated tables for the meal and wearing masks while opening gifts. I look forward to a time when we can actually eat in the same room again. You know, everyone has different levels of what feels "safe". I'd guess that my family is on the very cautious side.I'm also doing practically all of my Christmas shopping online to be shipped or curbside pick-up. This means I miss out on a couple of stellar deals. But I also think not being in the stores prevents me from making impulse purchases.

Do you have special foods that you make for the holidays? I've been thinking through my usual list of treats and decided on caramel nut bars, gingerbread men, frosted sugar cookies (special request from one daughter), almond crèche bread (sweet bread filled with almond filling and folded to look like swaddling), chocolate dipped dried apricots, and peppermint bark. I give a selection of these goodies to my son and daughter-in-law each year so they can enjoy the holiday baking, too. For our Christmas Day meals, I think we'll go with a brunch again, as brunches feel easier to me than big dinners, and our standard homemade pizza dinner.

I know I've been mostly absent from my blog this fall. Life became exhausting for me. I continue to work on building my energy levels. The good news is I think I may be popping in here a bit more often this month. I hope you all had a wonderful couple of weeks. Are you in full-swing holiday mode yet, or is that yet to come for you?

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!

My Week: A New Toy, Tree's Off the Roof and Domestic Duties

Hi friends. How was your week?

I mentioned last week that I'd ordered another light garden for starting seeds indoors. This was a birthday gift for 2020 and 2021 plus a Christmas gift for 2020. I had put off ordering something for my gifts for those occasions, telling my husband not to buy me anything, instead I wanted to choose something. I had thought I'd be buying some clothing. But had another idea. I decided to buy something that could be useful for my job here.I really couldn't get all of the seeds started that I wanted, nor did I have the luxury of letting seedlings grow until larger indoors before setting out in the slug-infested cool late winter/early spring garden. With this light set-up, I can now start as many seeds as I like and not feel like I'm rushing any of them before planting. And since I'd decided on this as my big gift for those 3 occasions, I also thought it would be a good idea to order it now and use it over winter to grow vegetables for the table indoors. My light garden arrived Friday morning. Yay! It came in 115 pieces. Boo! The website said "some assembly required." This wasn't "some assembly," this was "all assembly!" Anyway, it was a long 4 hours putting this thing together. The end result is an attractive and very functional unit for starting and growing a gazillion seeds each spring. I immediately filled 6 containers with soil and started some spinach seeds, 7 seeds per container. By mid-week, several of the seeds had sprouted already. I'm looking forward to spinach salads in another month to 6 weeks. On Friday, I also moved some struggling kale and lettuce potted plants under the lights, as well as my tomato plant that I grew from a cutting.

Friday evening was pizza and movie night again. It was Grace's turn to choose the movie and she chose an Australian animated film from 1972, Marco Polo, Jr. Versus the Red Dragon. We were able to stream it for free through our library's Kanopy streaming service. The film was entertaining and family-friendly -- a good choice.

Saturday was the day the tree guy came over. He went up on the roof and cut the tree into long lengths then moved them off the roof with a rope. Once the long pieces of trunk were down, he cut them into fireplace lengths for us to split in the future. The logs did some damage to our garden, but overall things look okay. After he left, my husband went up on the roof to put temporary patches in place. We have 2 holes in the roof that will need professional repairs. The good news is the holes are on the small side (could have been much worse) and the leaking was into attic space and not living space. While my husband put patches into place, I began the clean-up below, dragging branches to a mulch area and the logs to a place where we can split them. I worked until the sun went down then headed inside to make dinner. This was a tiring day.

Sunday is my day to recover. After church in the morning, I just do whatever I feel like for the afternoon. I went for a 3-mile walk, baked a large loaf of French bread, and puttered in the house and garden. On my walk I noticed more than a couple of houses have. Christmas decorations up, including Christmas trees in their living rooms. We're not to that point in the season yet. I'm still working on a couple of birthdays for this month, then I'll move on to Christmas decorations. 

I have been in the mood for some holiday cheer in my beverages, however. You know that I prefer to make treats instead of buying them. Doing so saves money and allows me to tailor the treats to what works for my health. One of my favorite Christmas-y treats are peppermint mochas. If I buy one at Starbucks, it'll cost over $4 for a short. I can buy a 2-pack of peppermint oil for baking for about $4, regular price (even less if using a coupon). A 2-pack of peppermint oil will make dozens of cups of peppermint mochas. These little vials contain 1 dram each. There are approximately 57 drops per dram of oil. I use 1 drop per small peppermint mocha. So, each mocha costs me about 3 cents in peppermint oil, about 3 cents of cocoa powder (184 teaspoons in 1 pound of cocoa powder), 5 cents in sweetening, 10 cents in coffee, and optional 10 cents in heavy cream when I have it, for a total of 21 to 31 cents for a homemade peppermint mocha. (If I could have regular milk, this would be even cheaper. I can, however, have heavy cream in my mochas. The sacrifices I make for my health. . .) $4 vs. 31 cents -- Starbucks has a racket going on.

I've been tackling my fall housecleaning in small chunks this year. This week, I did some detailed dusting/cleaning of furniture, washed more baseboards, and cleaned up the back door area. I finally got the last of the saved seeds into envelopes for planting next year and potted some spring bulbs into 3 pots. These are bulbs that I salvaged from 2 larger pots that I repurposed into vegetable pots for this past garden season. I had taken all of the flowering bulbs out in order to add some fresh soil and plant some spinach seeds. The dried bulbs had been sitting in a bucket on the floor by the backdoor for months.

As usual, I baked a lot. I gave up on trying to keep up with the demand for French bread when baking 1 large loaf at a time. And on Tuesday I baked a double batch of French bread (uses 8 cups of flour). I hope this will hold us for a few days. I also made another batch of yogurt this week. I make yogurt about once every 3 weeks, waiting until we run out before starting the next batch.

I've noticed that we have fewer and fewer critters coming to eat in our yard these days. I saw a larger bunny on the back lawn one afternoon and a smaller bunny on the front lawn another afternoon. My small red squirrel stills come by from time to time. He's funny, territorial, and seems to have an eating spot right outside my bedroom window. He drags a pinecone about twice the size of his head up onto the deck railing, perches on the center post, and picks apart the pinecone until he's done. He's left quite a mess of pinecone bits for me to clean up. But the entertainment value of having him around is worth the extra work. I do believe that he is the one who dug out and ate several of my spring flowering bulbs this past summer. Again, I try to be generous of spirit with these creatures and forgive what they do to my plants.

My daughters had a couple of things they wanted from Walmart this week. So I piggy-backed their pick-up order and bought carrots, cabbage, celery, bananas, and pepperoni. I really appreciated that they let me add to their order and they did the pick-up. This saved me an hour of my time to get our produce this week through them. I stick to the cheap supermarket fresh produce this time of year, for the most part, with carrots, cabbage, celery, and bananas fitting that description. I still have produce from our garden and orchard and canned veggies/fruit that I can rely on for fall meals. Currently, I'm harvesting Brussel sprout leaves, kale, Swiss chard, turnips, beets, green onions, cauliflower leaves, spinach, and nasturtium leaves from the outdoor garden and radishes (and their greens) and lentil sprouts from the indoor garden. In addition, we have a ton of frozen foraged blackberries, lots of home-dried prunes, cherries, apples, and figs, some frozen rhubarb, and many jars of preserved green figs to use for fruit and lots of already harvested garden-grown carrots, potatoes, garlic, pumpkin and squash to use for vegetables. Considering my grocery purchases of produce this time of year are fairly limited, we still eat quite a variety of fruits and vegetables. I can't say this enough -- having a garden is very beneficial. Even if all I had was a balcony or small patio, I think I would always try to grow some of our food.

I'll be picking up another order from Fred Meyer over the weekend to take advantage of their butter sale -- $1.77/pound (limit 5 with coupon). I also buy our milk at Fred Meyer now, as it's cheaper than Walmart and I think higher quality (always good results when making yogurt and freezes better than Walmart's milk). And I had a couple of birthday gift items I needed for my 2 family members with birthdays this month. I easily made the $35 minimum for a free pick-up.

It's been a good week, and I feel I was productive. What were the highlights of your week?

One other post this week. Read it here -- Cheap & Cheerful Meals.

Cheap & Cheerful Meals -- Mid-November

Monday's roasting pan dinner

Friday
sausage pizza, beet salad, spiced fig-applesauce, chocolates

Friday is pizza and movie night, here, where I make a scratch pizza and we watch a free movie on the Roku. I was temporarily out of pepperoni, so I cooked up some Italian turkey sausage to top the pizza. Turkey sausage is dry and lean, and our current mozzarella is on the low-fat side, so I added a bit of cheddar cheese to add some fat to the pizza toppings. That little addition made the whole pizza very tasty. In addition to the pizza, I made a beet salad and some spiced fig-applesauce. The beet salad is a quickie to make. I use a 15-oz can of sliced beets (50 cents at Walmart), cutting the slices into matchsticks then dressing in vinegar, oil, salt, sugar, ground cloves, and onion powder to taste. I let it chill for 30 minutes while I finished up the pizza. And as I've described here before, the fig-applesauce is my homegrown and sweet-preserved unripe figs pureed with some applesauce and a bit of cinnamon and ginger to flavor. Our dessert was a chocolate out of the box of chocolates given to us last Christmas. Yeah, I can hardly believe that we didn't gobble up the chocolates before now, either.

Saturday
baked potatoes topped with greens in cheese sauce and bacon bits, roasted pumpkin cubes, curried slaw, pumpkin snack cake.

This was a busy day for us. We had a tree guy come out to cut up and remove the tree from our roof. After he left, my husband and I had a huge clean-up job to start in on. By late afternoon, my back was tired and I knew I still needed to make dinner. So I made something fairly easy with little hands-on time involved -- baked potatoes covered with greens in cheese sauce and bacon bits, along with roasted pumpkin cube, curried cole slaw and a no-egg pumpkin snack cake that I'd baked in the morning. For the greens, I chose Brussel sprout leaves. The tree removal was hard on the patch of Brussel sprouts, so I thought I'd better use some of the greens while I could. The pumpkin cubes came from another one of our small garden pumpkins. And like before, I washed and froze the seeds in the baggie with other squash and pumpkin seeds to roast up once I have a large amount. I was able to bake the potatoes, roast the pumpkin cubes, and steam the Brussel sprout greens in the oven at the same time, just putting them in the oven staggered, to reflect the different cook times needed.

I made these cakes for Monday, not Sunday.
Sometimes, I'm so hungry that I forget
to take a pic before devouring dinner.

Sunday
homemade flour tortillas. scratch refried beans,  canned tomatoes, cabbage in lime dressing, brownies

My husband made dinner for us today. I had some cooked beans in the fridge that needed using up, so I suggested he make something using those. He loves Tex-Mex meals, so that was the theme. My daughters and he prefer the flour tortillas fried (I like them soft), so for the 3 of them, they had fried tortillas -- a lot like those tortilla salad bowls that taco salads are served in. My daughters baked scratch brownies in the afternoon for our dessert. Some day, I think my daughters will reflect that someone was always cooking something in the kitchen during the years they were in this house. That's the way it seems. Earlier in the day, the two of them made a big bowl of popcorn for all of us, too. Someone is always cooking.

Monday
TVP and ground beef meatloaf and gravy, oven-roasted garden baby carrots and garden purple potatoes, garden tossed salad (radishes and their leaves, nasturtium leaves, watercress, beet greens, carrot leaves, lentil sprouts), pumpkin snack cake

I stretch 8 ounces of ground beef with some rehydrated TVP in the meatloaf. This serves four adults. The beef was 73/27, so there's always a lot of fat that seeps out of the loaf while baking. I surrounded the loaf with baby carrots and chunks of potatoes to roast in the fat from the meatloaf. There was still a lot of residual fat in the pan after baking. I used this excess fat to make a gravy to go over the meatloaf and vegetables. Waste nothing. I had about 1/4 cup of pureed pumpkin lingering in the fridge. This was just enough to bake a half-batch of pumpkin snack cake. I baked the batter in 2 small round bakers. After baking, I made a small batch of icing to frost the tops of each little cake. Two cakes served as small servings of dessert for our family of 4 for 2 nights. I continue to find leafy greens in the garden to use in salads. This last week, I found several rogue watercress plants. These are usually a spring thing for us. I picked lots of their leaves to add to a tossed salad. By the time I washed and tore all of the greens, I had enough salad greens for 1 family dinner and 2 me-lunches.

Making meatloaf gravy -- the fat from meatloaf often has zero zip or flavor. Even with rinsing the roasting pan with water to use in the gravy, at most I wind up with a tan thin paste. I stir some flour into the fat left after cooking the meatloaf, heat, and stir in liquid (rinsing from the roasting pan). To flavor, I add some dried herbs (this time I used thyme), onion powder, black pepper, and beef bouillon. If the gravy still tastes a bit flat, I add about 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar. Vinegar adds zip without increasing the sodium.

Tuesday
lentil-vegetable soup, French bread, pumpkin snack cake

We didn't use all of the gravy from last night's meatloaf, so I added the leftover gravy to tonight's soup. I was able to use more baby carrots in the soup as well as Brussel sprout leaves. Our Brussel sprout plants are still doing okay despite taking a hit from the tree removal. Each time I use the leaves in dinner, now, I have to rinse off the sawdust before washing the leaves. As you might imagine, sawdust is a bad thing to put down the garbage disposal. I had to unclog the disposal earlier this week. Now, when I rinse off the sawdust, I dump that rinse water outside. 

Wednesday
chicken divan (chicken, broccoli, cheese sauce casserole), garlic toast, steamed carrots, bar cookies

One of my daughters made dinner for us tonight. They each have 1 night per week. This not only gives me a night off, but is also strengthening their skills to take care of themselves. Sometimes they come up with an idea that they want to make. Other times, I check our ingredients and look for recipes that would be easy and quick to suggest. The chicken divan recipe called for basic ingredients: cooked chicken, broccoli, cheese, milk, flour, butter, mustard powder. A lot of quick and easy recipes call for convenience foods that I may or may not have on hand, such as cream of chicken soup. But this one didn't. And my daughter who made dinner today said that the recipe was very easy. I helped her by poaching a chicken breast earlier in the day while I was doing other things in the kitchen. But the rest was all "her".

Thursday
spaghetti in meat sauce, celery and carrot sticks

Thursday was my other daughter's night to cook dinner. I suggested spaghetti in meat sauce. I don't have a recipe written out for the sauce for her, but instead gave her basic instructions, using 8 ounces of ground beef, 6 ounces of tomato paste, minced garlic, onion flakes, dried oregano, salt, pepper. I asked her to save the fat from browning the ground beef. We'll use this meat fat in cooking at another time.


Breakfasts this week included toasty o's cereal, toasted homemade French bread, homemade yogurt, frozen and dried fruit (raisins, home-dried prunes, home-dried dried cherries, frozen foraged blackberries), milk, canned tomatoes, coffee, tea, milk. I was too busy with other things to make pancakes, waffles, muffins, oatmeal or even Cream of Wheat. It was a get-it-yourself breakfast week, so I brought out a box of toasty o's for the cereal lovers in the family.

Lunches this week included salads from the garden, toasted tortillas and cheese, leftovers, frozen and dried garden fruit, bananas, sunflower seeds, almonds, cabbage, carrots, celery, lentil sprouts, kale, brownies, bar cookies, bread, graham crackers, rice, macaroni.

What was on your menu this past week?

My Week -- Lots of Carrots

this year's carrot harvest

The tree is still on our roof. That says it all, right?

We worked hard on Friday, trying to get some of the tree mess cleaned up, having a rather impromptu Lumber Jill contest. Surprisingly, my two daughters are pretty good with an ax. I'm better with a saw. The three of us were able to cut part of the tree into fireplace lengths using a hack saw, bow saw and an ax while my husband worked up on the roof cutting off what he could. We hope to have the tree removed on Saturday, weather permitting. And yes, there appears to be damage under the tree, which we can't completely assess until the tree is off the roof.

I harvested all of the carrots this week (well, all but 2 carrots left in place to generate seeds next summer). These are carrots that I grew in 2 large pots, so not a whole lot of space. In total, my harvest was about 7 or 8 lbs. The square footage of the surface of these 2 pot combined is about 5 sq. feet -- just sayin' as a guide to know how much carrot harvest we can get from such a small area. Next spring, I hope to plant carrots in 2 large troughs, which would triple my harvest. The big advantage to growing carrots in pots this past year was that we had zero wireworm damage. 

After pulling the carrots, I cut off the green tops to wash for use in cooking and left the whole carrots to dry out (unwashed) overnight. The next day I sorted the carrots by size. I was able to use even those teeny tiny carrots that might otherwise be thrown out. Some of them were really itty bitty. However, I used them in a large pot of vegetable soup for lunch on Tuesday. I also set aside some young carrots for Thanksgiving dinner. The rest of the carrots are bagged up and in the fridge to be used as needed over the next month.

Also on Tuesday, I harvested our first batch of indoor-grown radishes to use in dinner. I am so pleased at how these radishes are doing. The roots are large and free of bug damage, while the leaves are tender enough for salads.

I peeled, cubed and oven-roasted one of our small pumpkins, as it was beginning to feel a bit soft. I set aside a handful of the seeds to dry to use for next year's pumpkin patch and washed and froze the rest of the seeds to roast with those from other pumpkins later this fall (when we have more than just a handful).

We had a tornado warning in a neighboring county this week. How crazy is that? I guess tornados are not completely unheard of in the Puget Sound region. My brother lives in the county where the warning was issued. He said it was very, very dark for most of the day, but that they never saw anything resembling a tornado. In my own county, it was extremely windy with strong gusts. So, I quickly moved all of our patio furniture into the garage. Our power never flickered, but my brother said theirs did.

The weather has fluctuated between mild and pleasant, with sun here and there, and stormy and cold with hail pelting the yard. On the mild days I've taken walks through the neighborhood. Feeling in a holiday mood, for one walk, I made myself a peppermint mocha (using peppermint oil, cocoa powder and sweetening in my coffee) to sip as I toured the neighborhood. I did spy one holiday-themed wreath on a neighbor's door. Something interesting -- some of my neighbors spring-flowering shrubs are flowering right now. I checked out my own yard and found that my rosemary bush has put on new growth, too. This is exciting, as I can take another small harvest from my rosemary for use later this winter. 

I spent some time in the pantry organizing and refilling containers. I like to do this a few times per year. I always find surprises and learn what we need to use soon and which items we may run out. We have lots of canned tomato products, canned tuna, canned green beans, flour, rice, sugar, oil, oats, peanut butter, and raisins. We are just now transitioning to using more of the pantry staples as our garden slows down considerably. There are still Brussel sprouts, kale, turnips, beets, and Swiss chard in the outdoor garden, with, as I mentioned, radishes in the indoor garden. I'll be starting some indoor spinach under lights this weekend to add to our winter veggies. Up to now, I have been using one light fixture for growing indoors. I just recently ordered my birthday, Christmas, birthday gift (I often tell my husband not to get me anything so I can later order something I need or want) of another grow light set-up. I'll be able to not only expand what we grow for the table in winter, but also expand the seed starting in spring for our expanded garden.

I didn't make any grocery pick-ups this week, but I am putting an order together to get over the weekend or early next week. This order will have the remaining items we need for our Thanksgiving dinner.

I spent some time on Thursday getting caught up on bills and going over the budget for the winter season. I'm sure you've heard this but heating prices are expected to increase for most of us. So far, it looks like electricity will see the lowest percentage of increase (averaging about a 6% increase over last year), while the biggest increase will come on propane (about 54% increase over last year). The increase on the cost of heating oil and natural gas fall somewhere in between, at 43% and 30%, respectively. So, I'm trying to maintain a low indoor temperature for this month in order to "bank" some extra in the budget to cover more expensive colder months. I also have our 2 electric space heaters available to use to heat one or two rooms that we might all be sharing during the day or evening when I keep the rest of the house cool. This would also be a good time to get the draft snakes out and put them at the base of doors that we seldom use. Have you thought much about how you might keep your own heating bills from skyrocketing too much this winter?

And now here we are, back to Friday again. This past week flew past, perhaps because we were dealing with this tree mess. I hope you had a great week. What were the highlights for you?

Cheap & Cheerful Meals in this post, here.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers This Last Week

first harvest of indoor radishes

Friday
pepperoni pizza, fig-applesauce, carrot sticks

Saturday
TVP meatballs and spaghetti, green beans, coleslaw

Sunday
spinach frittata topped with marinara, brown rice, steamed carrots

Monday
TVP, mushrooms, carrot greens in leftover beef gravy over slices of French bread, roasted pumpkin cubes and broccoli

Tuesday
tuna noodle casserole, garden salad (garden greens, lentil sprouts, indoor-grown radishes and their greens), chocolate chip bar cookies

Wednesday
chicken teriyaki over rice, steamed carrots, green beans

Thursday

vegetarian chili, cheese biscuits, carrot sticks

Breakfasts included oatmeal, toasty o's cereal, homemade yogurt, toasted homemade bread, peanut butter, roasted almonds, canned tomatoes, frozen blackberries and blueberries, dried prunes and cherries, juice, coffee, and milk

itty bitty carrots that I used in a large pot of vegetable soup

For lunches this past week, I made 2 large pots of soup, one garden vegetable and the other tomato-basil soup. We also used leftover cooked macaroni noodle, cooked rice, and pizza sauce, plus bread, peanut butter, cheese, peanuts, almonds, celery, carrots, cabbage, lentil sprouts, frozen and dried fruit, juice, yogurt, and milk. One of my daughters enjoys smoothies with her lunches and will often combine some yogurt, frozen blackberries, honey, and milk in a blender. We all like salads and combine chopped raw veggies with lentil sprouts and a creamy dressing for an easy slaw. I also just like simple meals, such as a meal of toast, cheese, nuts, and raisins.

We baked 2 large loaves of French bread, a pan of chocolate chip bar cookies, a batch of scratch brownies, and another batch of pumpkin-chocolate chip mini muffins this week. We seem to gobble up any and everything I bake.

Our meals are humble and very basic. I keep thinking that this weekly post must be boring to read. I sometimes wish I cooked more interesting meals. But this is the type of cook that I am -- basic, but meets our needs.

What was on you menu this past week?

My Week -- Mostly Good

Hi friends,

How has your week been? It's been a mostly good week, here. Wet and windy and all that brings to our area.

I was in the mood for chocolate chip cookies last week but didn't want all of the sugar and fat that cookies typically contain. So, I made chocolate chip mini muffins. The batch made as many mini muffins as the same amount of chocolate chips would make cookies. Only, I used more flour, less sugar, and less fat (and I used oil instead of butter). These were very tasty. I added a full tablespoon of vanilla extract and some molasses to boost the flavor of the batter, and whole wheat flour for part of the flour for added nutrients.

As it turns out, both of my green pumpkins are showing signs that they will turn orange. That's exciting for me. In total, we got 12 pumpkins and winter squash.

I thought I'd share an update on my indoor radishes. They really put on growth this past week. I think I'll start harvesting them for use in a toasted salad on Friday, where I'll use both the leaves and roots.

Believe it or not, I'm still harvesting fresh raspberries every few days. These are overbearing raspberry plants. They produce medium size crops in mid-summer and larger crops in fall if kept watered through summer. The small bowl above was harvested early on Thursday (Nov. 4). There are still more berries forming on the canes, which I expect I'll be picking in a few days. Depending on when cold weather sets in, I may or may not get 2 more pickings. (Or maybe not, keep reading.) We began this one patch with a single cane and will be moving some of the escaped canes to a new bed next spring to double our output of overbearing raspberries.

I'm still harvesting from the garden every day. I have Brussel sprouts, beets, turnips, kale, Swiss chard, green onions, cauliflower (that never flowered but I'm using the leaves), parsley, spinach, lettuce, and nasturtium leaves that I can pick, at least in small amounts. Planting several items in troughs and containers on the deck for a fall garden has worked out very well for us. The deck veggies seem to be doing better than those down below in the garden.

Late Thursday afternoon, a large tree came down onto our house, taking out the back part of the vegetable and raspberry garden. We've had some heavy rains and then Thursday had some gusty winds. The soggy soil loosened the roots enough that a big gust of wind was able to topple the tree. My husband and I spent an hour cutting away what we could and will work more on it Friday before hiring someone to finish the job. We're not even sure yet if there's significant damage to the roof as it came down onto attic space. One of us will go up to the attic to check for openings in the roof later today. While this was definitely not a good thing, our garden will receive more sun in spring and summer as a result of this tree coming down. Looking for the silver lining to this cloud. We've lived in this house for 26 years and have now had 8 trees come down unplanned, hitting the house on 3 of those occasions. You'd think we'd want to move to a treeless lot, wouldn't you?

I had another curbside grocery pick-up this week, again at Fred Meyer. This bag charge thing seems to be fluid. This week, no charge for the bags, and they were using plastic bags that were printed "Pick-up". I don't know if they were using up their old supply of plastic "Pick-up" bags so didn't charge me for them, or if the bag charge on pick-up orders only has been rescinded. I'll find out next time. Anyway, back to my order, I found eggs on sale for 85 cents/dozen in 18-ct cartons (with coupon, limit 5 cartons). I bought the limit, which came to 7 1/2 dozen eggs. This should last us a while. I also noticed that Fred Meyer's 5-dozen box of eggs was less expensive (and not on sale) than a few weeks ago, leaving me to wonder if egg prices are moderating a bit. 

A mostly good week. What were the highlights (or lowlights, as the case may be) of your week? Any interesting weather in your area? 

2 extra posts:

Getting More Servings of Fruits and Vegetables Into Each Day

Cheap & Cheerful Meals This Past Week

Cheap & Cheerful Meals This Past Week

Friday
sausage-pepper-olive pizza, spiced fig-applesauce, carrot and celery sticks

Saturday
TVP meatballs, marinara and spaghetti, sautéed kale, mini chocolate chip muffins

Sunday
eggs and sausage, pan-fried garden potatoes, steamed carrots, cole slaw, popcorn balls

Monday
Italian vegetable-sausage-lentil soup, scratch cornbread, spiced fig-applesauce, blackberry-rhubarb crisp

Tuesday
baked potatoes topped with kale in cheese sauce and bacon bits, pumpkin souffle, slaw salad, leftover blackberry-rhubarb crisp

Wednesday
pot roast with potatoes and carrots, cornbread, celery sticks

Thursday
chicken pot pie, cole slaw

Another week of all home-cooked meals. We must be saving some serious money without ever getting take-out or buying last-minute convenience foods. As you can guess, we're sliding into hearty fall and winter menus. We haven't had pot roast or chicken pot pie in many months, but this sure seemed like the week for those comfort foods.

We had half of a red pepper that needed using up, so Friday's usual pepperoni pizza morphed into a sausage and pepper pizza. I also had about a dozen or so olives lingering in the fridge, so those were chopped and added to the toppings. Spiced fig-applesauce made it to the menu twice this past week. This seems like a successful way for me to use up some of these preserved green figs and their syrup. My husband does a good job with TVP meatballs, so that job went to him on Saturday evening to go with spaghetti, tomato sauce, and sautéed garden kale.

Sunday was Halloween and we wanted something quick and easy for our dinner so we could get right to making popcorn balls. (We give out packaged candy but save the popcorn balls for ourselves.)  Eggs and breakfast sausage make such a quick and easy entree. On Friday I had browned 2 meals worth of Italian sausage when making a pizza. I used the second half of this cooked sausage in a soup on Monday, when I also made a double batch of cornbread to be used on Wednesday to go with the pot roast.

Breakfasts also reflected more cool weather cooking with a batch of crockpot Cream of Wheat and another batch of crockpot steel cut oats. We also had yogurt, bran cereal, various frozen and dried fruits from our garden, carrot sticks, canned tomatoes, applesauce, cheese, toast, coffee and milk.

It was get-it-yourself for lunch this week. We all made our own using cabbage, carrots, celery, lentil sprouts, cooked lentils, rice, bread, peanut butter, cheese, eggs, frozen and dried fruits, juice, popcorn, tomatoes, greens from the garden and dinner leftovers.

I only baked a few time this past week, making cornbread, fruit crisp, mini chocolate chip muffins, and 2 large loaves of French bread. The popcorn balls satisfied our sweet tooths, as did a microwave s'more set-up in jars on the counter (graham crackers, mini marshmallows, chocolate chips to be assembled and microwaved).

What was on the menu at your house this past week? Are you finding more comfort foods making it into your meals?

Getting More Servings of Fruits and Vegetables Into Each Day

spinach, carrot, and beetroot powders

A while ago I mentioned I was working at getting more servings of fruits and vegetables in each day. I think this is a challenge for many of us. And yet, as I get older, it seems more important than ever to try really hard to eat more produce for health and digestive benefits. So I thought I'd share what I've been doing that is really helping with this challenge.

I've been doing this for the last couple of years, with the past six months finally reaching what I think is a good amount for my body. I estimate that I consume about 6 full servings of fruits and vegetables each day. To get there, I have 2 key moments every day that help put me over this threshold.

The first key moment comes with my first meal of the day. I eat 3 small to medium servings of fruits and vegetables with breakfast each morning. I'm not a huge breakfast eater. If this meal looks small, keep in mind that I eat small to begin the day then add a snack mid-morning if I'm working physically. 

typical breakfast: carrot yogurt, prunes, canned tomatoes

So, this is a typical breakfast for me. The yogurt has 1 tablespoon of carrot powder stirred in, plus vanilla extract and honey for flavor. Those are home-dried prunes equivalent to 3 full plums. And the small dish of tomatoes is a few tablespoons of canned diced tomatoes doctored up with dried herbs and onion flakes. This is a sample meal. I switch up the produce depending on mood and availability, eating fresh cherry tomatoes, fresh berries or plums, frozen berries, carrot sticks, pumpkin puree, or other dried fruit. I have yogurt with breakfast almost every day. I rarely eat grains for breakfast. But when I do, it's something like Cream of Wheat or oatmeal and I stir in some fruit, grated carrot, or pumpkin puree. In one of the shows I watched on WWII in Britain, they were making muesli and adding a lot of grated carrot, chopped apples, and raisins to the oats. This is the sort of way I eat grains at breakfast, with a lot of fruits and veg mixed in. Breakfast done, and I've had 3 different fruits/vegetables in about 2 1/2 servings.

The other key moment where I sneak in extra fruits and veggies is my afternoon drink snack. I use this as a work-out recharge and endurance drink. It's fruit juice with vegetable powders mixed in. Beets have been shown to increase endurance in athletes, so I always add beet powder. I also add spinach powder, and depending on the juice, I sometimes add some carrot powder as well. My two favorite combinations are orange juice spiked with beet and spinach powders and apple juice with beet, spinach, and carrot powder mixed in. 

orange juice with beetroot and spinach powder

I drink a small juice glass of this as I work out each afternoon. Each glass contains about 5 ounces of pure fruit juice and 1 teaspoon of beet powder, 1/2 teaspoon of spinach powder, and 1-2 teaspoons of carrot powder when using apple juice as the base. I top this juice-powder combination with a little water to thin the taste. And I save myself some time by making a large glass bottle full, enough for several days of the week. If you're curious, the juice with veggie powder mixed in is not as sweet as plain fruit juice and has a mild fruit and vegetable flavor.

So, for your information, 1 teaspoon of beetroot powder is roughly equivalent in nutrition to 1 whole beet, 1/2 teaspoon of spinach powder is roughly equal to 2  1/2 tablespoons of fresh, chopped spinach leaves, and 1 tablespoon of carrot powder is equivalent to 1 large carrot. So, in my juice drink, I am getting 1+ servings of fruits and vegetables in a quick and easy refreshment. I could just drink a large glass of fruit juice, but by mixing in the veggie powders, I am getting more vegetables and greater variety than I might otherwise eat.

With these 2 moments in each day providing about 4 servings of fruits and vegetables, whatever else I eat at lunch and dinner puts me way over the 5-a-day that's recommended and into the 6 plus territory. I typically eat 1 small to medium serving each of fruit and vegetables at lunch and about 2 servings of produce with dinner. Like everyone else, I have "off" days where I just don't eat as much produce at lunch and dinner, but I do try very hard to eat my 4 at breakfast and afternoon snack.

a cup of frozen blackberries,
good thawed with a honey drizzle

We all know that fruits and vegetables can be expensive in the grocery store. My garden really helps with these foods. In winter I grow lentil sprouts and this year am growing radishes and other greens under lights indoors to supplement our usual purchases of celery, cabbage and carrots, veggies that are always on the less expensive side. I also buy bananas, fruit juice, and sometimes oranges (in season) and apples to provide variety when we're getting tired of frozen garden and foraged fruit in the off season. Remember all of those blackberries we foraged and froze? We're definitely eating a lot of those now.

So, these are the 2 things I am doing to make sure I eat more fruits and vegetables each day, produce-heavy breakfasts and super-charged juice in the afternoon.

Happy November 1st

one of a dozen popcorn balls

Hi Friends,

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Our family continued with a favorite fall activity and made popcorn balls on Halloween, following the recipe in the post in this link. Last night, we worked roasted peanuts into the popcorn balls. But I wanted to also say that sometimes we make our popcorn balls for Christmas, and then we work roasted almonds and pecans into the popcorn balls. Nut-filled popcorn balls are a very tasty way to do our holiday sweets.

our November dinner plates

And then this morning, I woke up and it was November. Suddenly, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's don't feel so far away. One November 1st tradition in our house is getting out the "turkey" plates. Away go the sunny, floral plates and out come scenes of autumn and winter on our dishes. It's a task I enjoy with the changing of the seasons. 

November 1st is a significant date for another special reason. It's my mother's birthday. She would have been 84 years old today. I don't think we ever stop missing our mothers after they pass away.

On another note, I'm making plans for Thanksgiving dinner already. I have a frozen, bone-in turkey breast and the fixings for family favorite casseroles and a couple of pies. I'll have my work cut out for me later this month.

How as your weekend? We had more trick-or-treaters than I'd planned for. I can never guess correctly in advance. I bought some of each family member's favorite candy, hoping for a few leftovers. Oh well. At least we had our yummy popcorn balls. Have a wonderful evening!

My Week: It's Definitely Fall Now

Last Friday, I made a Walmart pick-up order in the morning. The parking lot was about half full, and I was the only pick-up while I was there. They were out of a couple of items on my list and made substitutions with more expensive brands. Our state has implemented a plastic shopping bag ban in stores and all stores must now charge a bag fee. This went into effect on October 1. My family and I have since made pick-ups at a few different stores and have had differing experiences with the bag ban. With pick-up orders, most stores allow the option of not using their bags and having the employee transfer the merchandise to your own bags, avoiding the bag fee. The information for a bagless pick-up is not always easy to find on the order form. At Walmart, I have so far avoided the per bag fee, by ticking the bagless box on the form. However, they've continued to use bags and not charge me the fee. At other stores, I've either paid a per bag fee or had small numbers of items transferred to boxes or bags set up in my trunk. 

In the evening that same day, we had our usual pizza and movie night. We watched Beetlejuice, which seemed appropriate for the Halloween season.

Saturday was a day of puttering. I got quite a lot done and felt productive. I had been thinking about using the preserved figs and decided to try pureeing them and mixing them with the last of a jar of applesauce. I used our smoothie blender to get a good puree. There wasn't much applesauce in the jar, so this was mostly green figs. The flavor was flat and color was a little off-putting (pale green applesauce), so I doctored it up with about 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger. We all enjoyed this very much and I plan on making another batch to go with tonight's dinner. I think this would be a good solution for other fruits that don't seem popular in my household that we wouldn't want to waste. I have some pears in the freezer that I've been avoiding, but now think I'll puree and mix it with applesauce.

I made a delectable pot of tea over the weekend, using 1 cheap black tea bag and some lavender from my garden. I've mentioned this before, black tea with lavender tastes a lot like Earl Grey tea to me. I was able to get several mugs of tea from that pot.

I potted the tomato cutting that I rooted in water and have noticed it now has some new growth! I don't know if I'll be able to keep it alive long enough to actually grow a tomato or two, but I'll give it a shot. not only can I see new growth, but there are also the teeny tiny buds just beginning to form. This just might work . . .

Also this week, I picked the last 2 green pumpkins. One of the pumpkins has a slight yellow cast under the green skin. This one may ripen fully to orange, given time. The other pumpkin I'm not so sure about. I'll wait another few days to see if it, too, shows signs it could ripen before deciding if I should cook it as a green pumpkin or wait. I took a long length of vine with each pumpkin, with the hope that a long vine would continue "feeding" the fruits for a couple of days. Both pumpkins are sitting in a south-facing window, not that that would help with the dark and dreary days we're having this week, but a little extra light nonetheless. So, my morning ritual of going out to the pumpkin patch to check on my pumpkin babies has come to an end for this year. 

My new morning ritual is to check on my radish babies. The radishes are not only growing greens, but several radishes are now developing red, bulbous roots.

Later in the weekend I watched the Christmas edition of Victorian Farm. This was very interesting. The crew celebrated Christmas in the Big House -- the landowners home. Everything was much more elaborate than the humble celebration shown in a previous episode, from gifts, to gift wrap, and the foods eaten. I have made plum pudding before and may try it again this year. My recipe for plum pudding looks a lot like their recipe for Christmas pudding.

I packed up most of my collected seeds, using repurposed envelopes from solicitations for donations. We get a lot of requests for donations to various causes. I save the inside envelopes for purposes just such as this -- something to hold small items.

My new computer arrived, and I can't believe how much easier this is to use! I should be able to do some things with this blog that weren't possible with my last computer. I answered a lot of questionnaires to earn enough for this new computer!

On Wednesday, a bunny managed to get into a fenced area where the Brussel sprouts are growing. I spent a good hour fixing the fence. Fortunately the bunny didn't do too much damage to the sprouts. He did, however, manage to clean out the Swiss chard in another bed. Oh well, I can let a little garden produce go for nourishing our cute critters. I will, however, work on fencing for all of the beds before planting in the spring.

Our natural gas company is now sending out audits where they compare your natural gas usage to that of similar homes in the area. It didn't surprise me that our usage falls very low in comparison to other homes. We do keep our home on the cool side and we try to take shorter showers. While their comparisons were interesting, I think that their analysis doesn't take some things into consideration. The utility company doesn't know how many people live in each house (more heated showers or loads of laundry) or how well insulated each home is. In addition, some folks need to keep their homes warmer in winter. I don't think a utility company should be guilting some folks about their natural gas use.

My baking this week included 2 large loaves of French bread (instead of sandwich bread, for a change of pace), blackberry and rhubarb crisp (using frozen fruit from the summer's garden and foraging), no-egg pumpkin snack cake, and a batch of brownies. It seems to take a lot of baking to keep my family full! I also made a batch of yogurt on Thursday. I'm still using decedents from the same original yogurt as my starter, freezing a few cups of freshly-made yogurt every other month.

More baking, a garden coming to completion for the season, the furnace running daily, and lots of rainy days -- this definitely feels like fall is here.

What have you been up to this past week?

Two more posts this week:

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers For the End of October

Making Instant Cocoa Mix