What Was in My Grocery Cart for November 2024?

Nov 4  I did my shopping at Walmart this week. I bought a pint of whipping cream, head of cabbage, bunch of bananas, 1 can of apple juice concentrate (for making spice cider on Thanksgiving, mixing in some crabapple juice and a sliced tangerine), 4 packs turkey snack sticks, 2 3-lb boxes elbow macaroni, 1 gallon milk, 2 2-lb bags powdered sugar. Spent $34.62

Nov 10  Fred Meyer after church for instant decaf coffee. We also got 1 bagged salad for free with coupon, and 2 bags of tortilla chips. Spent $10.47 

Nov 17 My husband and I stopped at Fred Meyer after church for milk While there we also checked the clearance aisle. I bought 1 marked down jar of coconut curry sauce (my husband wanted this -- it'll make an easy meal), 4 dented cans of green beans, 5 large cans of mixed nuts (no idea why these were marked down, but they were a steal), and a bunch of bananas. Spent $34.11

Nov 18 My daughter was near WinCo in the AM, so she stopped in and picked up some apples for us. spent $4.

Nov 23 My big shopping for the month at WinCo. 10-lb bag of all-purpose flour, 5-lb bag bread flour, 10-lb bag potatoes, 1 acorn squash, turkey breakfast sausage, 1 lb sliced pepperoni (for pizzas), natural peanut butter, salt, frozen fish sticks, mayonnaise, 5 lbs carrots, 8 lbs butter, dried dates, 2-pack pork sirloin roasts, celery, bananas, mushrooms, tangerines, apples. Spent $97.88

Nov 25  I needed to get just a couple of last things for Thanksgiving Day. First I stopped at Grocery Outlet 12 oz frozen sausage (for stuffing), 12 oz bacon. Spent $5.49 at GO. Across the street, Walmart 2 packs turkey snack sticks, 1 canister onion powder. Spent $8.44 at Walmart.

My total in person spending for November was $195.01. Eek! That's a little more than I'd planned. We also paid for our next batch of beef this month, even though we won't receive it until December. That cost $359.00 So, my total spending for groceries in November came to $554.01. December's spending will be a lot lower, even with Christmas and New Year's to shop for, simply because December won't be a beef month for the budget.

What I bought:

fresh, frozen and canned produce

head of cabbage

3 bunches of bananas

bagged salad mix

several pounds of apples

10 lbs potatoes

celery

bag of tangerines

fresh mushrooms

5 lbs carrots

acorn squash

frozen apple juice concentrate

4 cans green beans

dairy

pint whipping cream

2 gallons milk

8 lbs butter

meat

6 packs turkey snack sticks

turkey breakfast sausage

sliced pepperoni

fish sticks (for busy days, cheaper than fast food for a family)

2 sirloin pork roasts (for smoking)

pork sausage

pork bacon

large order of beef

pantry foods

6 lbs dried pasta

4 lbs powdered sugar

jar of instant decaf coffee

2 bags tortilla chips 

jar coconut curry sauce

5 large cans mixed nuts

10 lbs all-purpose flour

5 lbs bread flour

mayonnaise

dates

small jar onion powder

from the bulk section

natural peanut butter

salt

This was a very heavy meat purchasing month. Not only did we pay for our next batch of beef, but I also bought a few pounds of pork, lots of sausage (for Thanksgiving sausage and for daily breakfasts), and enough pepperoni for 5 pizzas. The turkey snack sticks add up. But I'm willing to buy them because they make a healthier snack than carb-heavy cookies, cakes, and breads. 

I also stocked up on butter this month, adding to the stash each time I found it on sale. I now have about 20 lbs of butter in the freezer. If it's still at it's lower price of $3.48/lb later this week, I may buy another few pounds, enough to get us through all of the holiday baking and tide us over till Easter sales. 

There are some foods we could do without (like the tortilla chips). However, a little fun food goes a long way in keeping spirits upbeat. For example, I used almost one entire bag of tortilla chips to make beef and bean nachos one night for dinner. I was using up some of the last of the garden tomatoes and green onions in this meal, too. My family loved having nachos as the dinner that night.

I didn't buy a whole lot specifically for Thanksgiving, as I've mentioned before. I figure I save quite a bit by cooking so much from scratch for this holiday. As Thanksgiving is "just" a meal holiday in preparations (as opposed to gift-giving with birthdays, Christmas, and other holidays), I can find the time to cook for a week leading up to the big meal.

That wraps up November. How did you fare with grocery shopping this past month? How much butter is too much to keep on hand in your household?

Holiday Tip # 1

I have no idea how many holiday tips I'll offer this season. Could be this becomes a list of one. I guess I'll keep count now that I've begun numbering them. Anyway, here's my first tip for the holiday season:

Pumpkin-Spice Eggnog made with frozen, then thawed eggnog

If you buy or make more eggnog than your household can consume before it spoils (or you lose interest), you can indeed freeze it now and thaw it later for drinking (or cooking/baking). And it will keep at 0 degrees F for apparently a long time (a couple of years or possibly more).

The date on this container simply says 2022. I'm guessing this was late in the year 2022, like December, and not early in the year, like January. So, let's say this is 2 years old.

I thawed it overnight in the fridge the other day. When I took the lid off, it looked like this, a little separation going on.

However, when I poured it into a jar so I could use the immersion blender on it, it seemed to reconstitute itself. So the separation issues may have not been serious ones, and this may have been drinkable without using a blender.

But, I did blend it all together, restoring its smooth, creamy consistency. I also added a good dollop of homemade pumpkin butter, transforming plain eggnog into Pumpkin-Spice Eggnog.

I could only taste a tiny bit, dipping a spoon into the 'nog and licking it, due to sensitive digestive issues with cow's milk. But I thought it was very delicious. And my two daughters completely agreed. (My husband is not a fan of pumpkin-spice as a flavor and wouldn't even taste this.)

In my family, we rarely go through more than a pint or pint and a half of eggnog in a week. We enjoy it, but it is very rich. So we drink this beloved Christmas beverage in small cups. Whether I make my own or buy eggnog, I find it best to freeze leftovers in pint containers, which is what I have done here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The pork roast just before it went into the smoker. It smelled so wonderful when it was done smoking. I won't know until tomorrow if it tastes as good as it smells. And after using the smoker, I got it all cleaned up for winter storage. 

The cherry pie. I am so looking forward to having some of this pie. Cherry pie is one of my favorites. I still have the pumpkin pie to bake. I'll do that first ting in the morning. I prefer a freshly-baked pumpkin pie over one baked a day or two early. I don't like a soggy bottom crust. 

I also have to roast the chicken. It's rubbed all over with an herb butter and waiting in the fridge to roast tomorrow. And I'll make a gravy with the drippings afterward. The rest of the meal will be cooking preassembled casseroles or reheating menu items that are fully cooked. It looks like I'm almost done with the prep. I hope all of your holiday work is about done now, too.

Wishing you all a lovely and festive Thanksgiving!

Is this year's Thanksgiving dinner frugal?

I made pie pastry and both fillings today. I'll fill the pie shells and bake tomorrow.

A recent survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation indicates that the average cost per person for Thanksgiving dinner this year is roughly $5.80, which while lower than 2023 or 2022 (which were the peak cost per person for Thanksgiving meals in the USA of all time), is about 19% higher than 2019. So, if your Thanksgiving dinner cost feels high to you, that's because it still is. Only time will tell if the next 4 years see a dramatic decrease in grocery prices.

As for me and my family, here's how I've made our Thanksgiving dinner as frugal as I could. I posted my menu yesterday. I'll repost so you don't have to look it up.

Roast chicken with sage-tangerine glaze

Smoked pork roast

Bread, sage, onion, celery, sausage dressing

Mashed root vegetables

Green bean casserole

Sweet potato casserole

Carrot, celery, olive tray

Garden greens (kale, radish greens) and dried plum salad in sweet and tangy dressing

Gravy

Cranberry relish

Pumpkin Pie 

Cherry pie

Whipped cream

Sparkling cider and sparkling water

The whole chicken was one I bought in summer and has been sitting in our deep freeze since. The glaze is made from garden sage, home-canned crabapple jelly, and the zest and juice from 1 tangerine (bought the other day at WinCo).

While at WinCo, I found a 2-pack of pork sirloin boneless roasts marked down for quick sale, for about $2.20/lb. That's a great price for boneless pork roasts these days in my area. I'll make a rub from garden herbs, garden garlic and some spices. Tomorrow, I'll smoke the roast in my Mother's Day gift smoker.

The stuffing/dressing will be made with homemade bread, homemade chicken stock from the freezer, garden celery, garden sage, onion, and sausage bought at Grocery Outlet (salvage store) on Monday.

The mashed root vegetables are made from WinCo russet potatoes, garden turnips, garden garlic, onions, and carrots. The purchased veggies are budget ones.

The green bean casserole contains 4 dented and clearance-price cans of green beans (Fred Meyer), homemade cream of mushroom soup concentrate, and homemade onion-bread crumb topping. 

The sweet potato casserole is made from 2 clearance shelf cans of yams that I had in the pantry (Walmart, bought a year ago), clearance pecans from 2021 stored in the freezer, eggs, spices, homemade brown sugar, and butter.

The vegetable and olive tray is made from all store-bought ingredients. However, I had the can of olives in the pantry. Olives are very expensive these days. If I had to buy them right now, I would just skip them.

The salad uses homegrown greens and homegrown plums, with a dressing of homemade herb vinegar, olive oil, salt, and homemade crabapple jelly.

Gravy is made from the roast chicken drippings, flour, and homemade chicken stock from the freezer.

My son and daughter-in-law are bringing the cranberry relish.

The pumpkin pie will use home-cooked carving pumpkin, eggs, homemade brown sugar, spices, soy milk (so I can eat some, too) and homemade crust.

The cherry pie will contain our tree's cherries frozen from last summer, sugar, lemon juice,, almond extra, and homemade crust.

I bought the whipping cream a few weeks ago at Walmart. I'll use part to top pies and part to make more eggnog in early December.

The sparkling cider was a gift from my daughter's boyfriend a few weeks ago. (He came to dinner one night and brought 2 bottles. We drank one. He offered us the other to use on Thanksgiving.)

The canned sparkling water was leftover from our 4th of July gathering.

That explains what is going into everything we're having for Thanksgiving dinner. Here's what I actually bought specifically for Thanksgiving (even if we'll be using the leftovers for other meals):

• 2 lbs tangerines -- $2.88
• pork roast -- about $3.10
• bundle of celery -- 98 cents
• frozen sausage -- $1.99
• 10 lb bag russet potatoes -- $3.48
• 5 lb bag of carrots -- $3.48
• 4 cans green beans -- 45 cents ea, total $1.80
• fresh mushrooms -- $1.98
• onion powder -- $1.00
• pint whipping cream -- $3.37

Our total additional cost for Thanksgiving dinner is $24.06. The other foods used in the meal were purchased over time, intended for everyday meals. We would have to eat anyways on Thursday. So I don't figure those into the added cost of hosting a holiday meal.

I bought foods on clearance as I saw them throughout the seasons (canned yams, canned green beans, pork roast, pecans). I made my own products to substitute for commercial convenience products (canned soup, onion topping, brown sugar, pumpkin puree, salad dressing, homemade bread). Some of the newly bought foods are "budget foods," such as the carrots, potatoes, and celery. I shopped at "budget stores" like Grocery Outlet, WinCo, and Walmart. Some of our dishes will contain homegrown fruit and vegetables. However, the bulk of what I've used to make this meal were purchased. I don't think a person needs to keep a garden to do Thanksgiving frugally. The right menu selections combined with smart shopping and using what's on hand can produce a very yummy, budget celebratory meal. 

In answer to my question, I think for a holiday dinner, especially one where we're hosting guests, this year's Thanksgiving will be somewhat frugal while still being tasty and festive. 

Work today so I can enjoy Thanksgiving with everyone else

I'm guessing that a fair number of you friends are either on the road to family or busy getting Thanksgiving preparations underway. I'm busy getting things done to host Thanksgiving at our house.

Last week I made up a list of work to be done with a calendar for when to do each task, beginning with tasks for Saturday. On Saturday I finalized the menu, went grocery shopping for everything we'd need, and made sure everyone knew how they would participate in the preparations.

Sunday was a day of rest.

Today, Monday, I finalized the menu again in the morning, then went shopping for the other items we'd need for our meal. Both daughters were home in the afternoon, so we made a lot of progress on our work list. We got the guest bathroom cleaned, all of the downstairs vacuumed, the dining room table set, the Christmas tree out and set up (we decorate after Thanksgiving dinner), the trunks of ornaments brought downstairs, the meat out of the freezer, a loaf of French bread baked for the stuffing, and a batch of no-milk condensed cream of mushroom soup made for a casserole. Oh, and I finalized the menu again later in the day. I also made beef stew for dinner and a batch of coconut-almond bar cookies so I could lick the bowl as my appetizer for lunch.

So far, this is the "final" menu

Roast chicken with tangerine-sage glaze

Smoked pork roast

Bread, sage, onion, celery, and sausage dressing/stuffing

Mashed root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, turnips, browned onion and garlic)

Green bean casserole

Sweet potato casserole

Carrot, celery, olive tray

Garden greens (kale, radish greens) and dried plum salad in sweet and tangy dressing

Gravy

Cranberry relish

Pumpkin Pie 

Cherry Pie

Whipped Cream

Sparkling cider and sparkling water

It sounds like a lot, I know. I do like to send our guests home with leftovers. And I like to have variety. We have folks with very different dietary preferences, and I aim to please if I can.

Tomorrow is another day of preparations. I'll be up early getting work underway. Wishing you well as you travel or prepare for your holiday.

Pumpkin Spice-Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies and how to modify recipes using home-cooked pumpkin

With clouds and rain returning this afternoon and Thanksgiving just around the corner, today seemed like a great day to bake an easy pumpkin treat. These are a soft cake-like bar cookie. What I love about cake-like cookies is they often have less sugar and butter. This recipe uses just 1/4 cup of butter and 2/3 cup of sugar. As a bonus, they have one whole cup of pumpkin puree, which means we all get a little bit more nutrition in our cookie. If the recipe below looks remotely familiar, that's because I modified the applesauce-raisin bar cookies I opted about last month to use pumpkin puree and chocolate chips (plus a wee bit more spice). Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice-Chocolate Chip Bars

¼ cup butter or margarine, softened

⅔ cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup pumpkin puree (use slightly less by 1 tablespoon if using thick or canned pumpkin)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 ¼ to 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or any combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg to equal the amount)

¾ cup chocolate chips (I use mini chips, but regular chocolate chips or chocolate chunks would also be good)

confectioners' sugar, about 1 tablespoon for dusting after baking

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease a 9X13 inch baking pan. (I use a Pyrex one.)

In a medium bowl, cream butter and brown sugar. Beat in egg, then pumpkin puree. Stir in salt, spices, and baking soda. Stir in flour and chocolate chips.

Spread in the prepared baking pan. Bake for about 25 minutes, until done in the center and edges are golden.

Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Dust with the confectioners' sugar and cut into 24 squares.

(My husband 's comment,"these aren't going to last long." I think they're a hit.)

Home-cooked pumpkin puree and recipes that assume you're using canned pumpkin

This was a question from Kris in the comments the other day. I realize that many folks don't have time to follow the comments and then follow-up on answers to questions there. So, I thought I'd post about how to handle the often times, more watery consistency of home-cooked pumpkin compared to canned in baking recipes.

You have a couple of choices in how to compensate for the less thick home-cooked puree. 

1) Dump your puree into a mesh strainer set over a bowl and leave it to strain in the fridge overnight. 

2) Cook the puree down in a saucepan, stirring frequently, until of comparable thickness to canned pumpkin. 

3) Bake your puree in a metal baking pan in a 300 degree oven for about 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes, bringing puree from the sides into the center and vice versa.

4) Adjust the liquids or dry ingredients when baking. 

For recipes that include other liquids (such as pie, cakes, muffins), reduce the other liquid by 1 to 2 tablespoons, amount depending on how much liquid the recipe calls for. So, for pie I reduce the milk/cream by 2 tablespoons. With muffins, I often reduce by about 1 tablespoon. With pancakes, I reduce the liquid judging by the thickness of the batter. I can eyeball how thick a pancake batter needs to be.

With recipes that don't include other liquids, such as drop cookies, I add 1 extra tablespoon of flour to the cookie dough.

Decreasing the liquid or increasing the flour seems to work well for me, although I do strain off excess liquid after pureeing just before packing in freezer containers.

Can you use carving pumpkins for food?

This pumpkin -- 13.66 lbs, 33 cents/lb, total cost $4.51.

These pumpkins are referred to as "carving pumpkins," Jack-o'-lanterns, or field pumpkins. They're inexpensive in stores because they are easy to grow given the right conditions. They need space,  full sunlight, warm summers, and long growing seasons, all things my own yard lacks. Anyway, their variety tends to be stringier and more watery than those labeled "pie pumpkins." Despite that, for the price, they're a great food for use in recipes.

Cooking

This is the first of two carving pumpkins that I bought this year. On Monday, I used the skin-on, stove-top cooking technique for this one. 

I halved the pumpkin and scooped out the seeds, then cut the flesh with the skin of the pumpkin still on into 1-inch wides strips, omitting the stem and the blossom end. I used as much of the pumpkin as I could, including using the flesh just under the stem, and only cutting away a tiny amount of the pumpkin to remove the scar of the blossom end. I should back up just a tad. When I bought the pumpkin, I looked for one with minimal scarring on the skin. I generally trim away scars, as they don't puree as smoothly as the rest of the skin.

Okay, back to cooking the beast. I cooked the pumpkin in two large batches in a medium stockpot. I added about 1 cup of water to the pumpkin slices at the start of cooking, just to get things going. I brought the pot to a boil, reduced to a simmer, and covered, cooking until the skins were so soft I could cut them with the edge of a spoon, about 40 minutes. I stirred the pieces from time to time, when I thought about it. This wasn't a super hands-on job to perform.

Once well-cooked, I removed the lid from the pot and continued cooking for about 20 minutes longer to reduce the liquid. After that, I removed the pot from the heat and allowed the pumpkin to cool for an hour. 

At that point I pureed it in the food processor, straining it in a mesh strainer in batches. The strained out liquid was reserved in containers to use a soup stock and as liquid in smoothies or baking.

The final result was about 8 1/2 pints of pumpkin puree, 

1 1/2 quarts of pumpkin stock, 

and about 1 cup of seeds for roasting and snacking. Disregarding the value of the stock and the seeds, my pumpkin puree works out to be about 53 cents per pint, less than half the price of pumpkin puree in my grocery store. Admittedly, home-cooked pumpkin puree is more watery than commercially-cooked puree. So this isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison.  Still, if I could reduce the liquid content of my puree to that of store-bought, I believe home-cooked would be considerably less expensive than buying pumpkin puree.

We use pureed pumpkin in numerous ways, in smoothies, in baking and pancake/waffle making, in soups and sauces, and most recently, in quiche. I use the stock in soup and as liquid in smoothies. And of course, we enjoy the seeds roasted and salted. I find inexpensive carving pumpkins to be a great food source for tight budgets, full of vitamins, minerals, protein, complex carbs, and fiber.

I have one remaining large pumpkin to cook. That one is over 15 pounds. I expect it will yield about 9 pints of puree. 

Electricity and Internet Outage

Hi friends,

We had an electricity and internet outage from last night just after dinner until this morning around 9 AM. Both are now restored. I'll be back this afternoon with the post I was working on then. Have a great rest of your day. 🌞

Using the Frozen Rendered Beef Fat in Roasted Vegetables

garden carrots and potatoes for a chilly fall day

I mentioned last we that I rendered almost 2 cups of fat from 3 pounds of beef short ribs. 

I keep this fat in a container in the kitchen freezer to use in cooking. When sautéing, it's easy to cut a piece of fat off and melt in a hot skillet before adding vegetables or lean meat. Oven-roasting vegetables takes one additional step.

I use about 1 tablespoon of beef fat for carrots and potatoes for 4 adults. I scoop the still frozen beef fat into a microwaveable dish, then melt the at in the microwave until liquid.

Using a spoon and a rubber spatula, I toss cut vegetables in the melted fat until all are lightly coated. The spatula helps to use as much of the fat as possible. 

I roast the veggies on a darkened  baking sheet. My rendered fat is unseasoned, so I sprinkle the veggies with salt before roasting.

I roasted this batch at about 425 F degrees for about 30 minutes, until toasty-looking.

My family loves root vegetables roasted in beef fat. My husband likes to remind me that Mc D's French fries used to be fried in beef fat. Are these as tasty as French fries? Perhaps not. But they're awfully good nonetheless. As for how much fat remains on the baking sheet after roasting.I needed to wipe out the baking pan a few times with brown paper before I could wash it in the dishwater. I imagine about 2 teaspoons of the fat wind up coating the vegetables while 1 teaspoon remains in the pan. We aren't eating gobs of beef fat with dinner. 

A wet autumn harvest

Although it's been a rainy and cool fall so far, I have still been able to harvest fresh veggies each week. 

Earlier this week I harvested a bunch of kale and fresh sage. I've got the sage drying right now. With the kale, I wrapped about half of it in a towel and plastic bag for the fridge, should anyone wasn't some fresh greens when making their lunch. With the other half a made a sweet and tangy salad, finely chopped kale, chopped dried plums, and a dressing of jelly, thyme vinegar, oil, and salt. The salad was big enough for several days of lunches. Another day I harvested some of the late planted radishes, using both the roots and greens in salads.

This morning, I timed it to get outside between bouts of heavier showers.  When I could see there was only a tiny sprinkle coming down, I put on some boots and ventured out into the garden. Most years, I just sort of abandon what remains in the garden after the end of October. This year I am trying to use as much as I can from it. I missed out on the final batch of unripe figs and crabapples. Between the cooler temps and the squirrels, I lost the last of the crabapples and unripe figs. Perhaps missing out on those last bits has propelled me to be more diligent about getting outside for the veggies. 

Today I harvested a large bunch of parsley and a bucket of Brussel sprout leaves. They were plentiful and most needed picking. I had no idea how I would use these two greens, but once inside again, I put them to good use for our meals. I used my food processor to throw together a quick batch of hummus using up the parsley and cooked the Brussel sprout leaves in tonight's dinner. I made what we call "beans and greens." This is a simple dish of cooked black-eyed peas, chopped fresh greens of any kind (kale or chard are our usuals), onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, cooking oil, kielbasa (if we have some), and water to make it just a little bit saucy. Tonight I also added 2 small, wrinkly garden tomatoes from summer's end of season harvest. "Beans and greens" are served over rice. It sounds basic and plain, but it's really pretty good. Tomorrow I'll harvest the biggest turnips for oven-roasting as part of dinner.

The garden is really winding down for the year. I am left with turnips, kale, Brussel sprout leaves, a few Brussel sprouts, one celery plant, a few green onions, parsley, and other herbs. I am reaching the point where if we anticipated a heavy snow or period of prolonged freezing temps, I would be mostly satisfied with losing the remaining garden veggies. But that's not likely to happen for another couple of weeks. So it looks like I'll be dodging raindrops for a bit longer as I continue to use up the last of the garden.

Just working at squeezing all of the value out of our foods.

Have a great weekend, friends!

Rendering the Fat From Last Night's Beef Short Ribs

I made beef short ribs for dinner last night. While we like them, they are terribly fatty. 

rendered and saved beef fat from last night's cooking, will add more today

I hate to waste all of that fat, though, especially with the high price of other cooking fats right now. So I saved as much of the beef fat as I could.

I browned the meat slowly in the early afternoon, rendering as much of the fat as I could before the meat developed too thick of a crust from browning. I poured off that fat to freeze. After simmering the meat with onions, garlic, and herbs for a few hours, I poured off all of the liquid and allowed the fat to rise. I scooped that fat off and into a container, too. 

For yesterday's dinner I pulled the meat apart and shredded it most of it, made a gravy with the skimmed liquid. I had a whole rib and the fattier parts of the other ribs remaining to use in a pot of soup for tonights dinner. Before cooking the soup I rendered the fatty pieces once more, pouring off that fat to save. Then I simmered the remaining pieces in liquid to soften it all up for the soup. After that liquid cooled I skimmed off more fat. My total skimmed and rendered fat for this day was 2 plus custard cups.

This afternoon, my daughter is pulled the remaining meat and fat apart (the bones were discarded last night after shredding meat) to make a beef and vegetable soup for us. While she separated meat from fat, I chopped fat and rendered that further. There was an additional custard cup of rendered fat from today's cooking, giving me over 3 custard cups of beef fat in total.

From about a three pound package of short ribs, I have about 1 3/4 cups of usable cooking fat now stored in the freezer. I use this saved fat when sautéing veggies or lean meats, when oven-frying potato wedges or making hash browns, in bean dishes, and melted then added to drop biscuit dough. In a pinch, rendered meat fat can be clarified (remove the meat flavor) and used in baking. I haven't done that in about 20 years. But it's there as an option, if need be.

My husband especially likes to cook with meat fat. He enjoys the meaty flavor it adds to simple dishes. We surprisingly go through almost all of the rendered fat that I save. When any meat fat has been sitting in the freezer for too long, I then use it as an aid in starting charcoal briquets for barbecuing. It all gets used one way or another.

As for the health impact of using rendered meat fat, I'm of the everything-in-moderation camp. I figure if we balance our use of meat fat with vegetable/olive oil, coconut oil, and butter, we won't overdo any one source of fat and will still reap the benefits of each type.

It's a running joke in our household that I plan on using rendered beef fat to make Christmas gifts -- some man and dog-pleasing chapstick (needs to stay refrigerated) and hand cream for the ladies. I suppose I could make mandles (beef-scented candles) for the men on my list. Oh the possibilities are endless . . .

Is there an aspect of hosting a big holiday meal that causes you the most anxiety?

My Thanksgiving cactus plants are just now blooming. I started
these plants from cuttings poked into pots of dirt a few years ago.
They now look like respectable plants.

For me, the anxiety moment is the last hour before our guests arrive. I've never come up with a way to make these last minutes less stressful. I'm trying to get the food ready while keeping the kitchen clean and also while getting myself put together (dressed, makeup, and hair). After everyone arrives, I do enjoy the gathering, even the cleaning up afterward. 

I was thinking about this today as I was making our Thanksgiving meal plans. I really began to dread the day. Even with preparing dishes ahead and finagling some help from family, there are still many tasks that need completing at the last moment. This is the aspect I dread most about entertaining.

How about you? Do you have an aspect or part of hosting a holiday meal that you dread or have anxiety over? And do you have any tips for dealing with the last-minute rush of getting everything completed just before guests arrive?

So I made one of your soup suggestions -- thanks!

One of the requirements of our little soup exercise last week was to use ingredients you had on hand at that time. Well, this week, I happened to have all of the ingredients to make one of the suggested soups. I made Chicken Pot Pie soup. 

I need to work on it, though. I had pie pastry for half of a single crust. next time I will make more of the pie crust strips, maybe using a full single crust of pastry. I also over-baked the pie pastry. I'll have to be more watchful the next time. Despite this, my family loved it. This is a fun and easier alternative to traditional chicken pot pies. If I was feeling like being fancy, I would cut the rolled out pie pasty into a single large shape for each bowl. It would be super fun to have a chicken cookie cutter for the pie pastry, I think.

Big thank you to Amy in the comments from last week for making this suggestion!

What are the bread rules in your house?

Oh my goodness, I made a great. batch of bread the other day, and quite by accident. The bread was soft and lofty. The accident was I had put the bread (3 loaves) into pans and left them to rise while I went for a walk, took care of some harvesting, and paid bills/reconciled accounts. I forgot the rising bread dough was on the counter. It was my husband that called out to me that the bread looked quite high. I quickly got back into the kitchen and preheated the oven, popping the pans in while it was still heating up.

I was lucky the bread didn't fall back. Instead, it remained high. Once it cooled, and  as I was bagging the loaves up, I could feel these would be soft loaves of bread. Lately, my bread has been on the dense side. It stales quickly and has been overly dry when used for sandwiches on day two or three. This new batch was a welcome change.

Here's the difficult part of baking a superior batch of bread -- there were still some slices of the old bread remaining to be consumed. I so badly wanted to cut into one of the new loaves. But I also knew that if I cut into the new loaf while there were still old slices leftover, there's no chance anyone in my family would eat the old, stale bread, ever. 

Our general bread rule is that the old loaf needs to be eaten before cutting into the new. The exception to this is when I'm planning to use bread with dinner. Fresh bread and butter alongside a bowl of soup is magnificent. 

The next morning, there were still a couple of slices of the old loaf left. I would be breaking my own rule if I ignored those. But I wanted a piece of toast with breakfast made from this really good bread. I thought about it while I dished up some apple and crabapple sauce. In the end I went ahead and sliced off a pice of the new stuff, feeling slightly guilty that I'd be making my family members eat the older bread. Yeah, I felt guilty for breaking the "bread rule." In the end it worked out. My husband toasted up the old bread telling me he likes the denser bread as it doesn't tear when spreading butter or peanut butter. We both got what we wanted. But still, I broke a rule.

What would you have done? Do you have any bread rules in your house? How do you make sure you use up bread before it goes moldy?