Grocery Shopping in the Odd Week

I don't normally post over the weekend. However, I was thinking through my grocery shopping this week and wanted to write it out (for my benefit more than anyone else's).

As I've mentioned, my main grocery store is WinCo (every other week), and in the odd weeks I make a quick run (around the corner) to Walmart. I have specific foods, supplements, and OTCs that I buy at Walmart. So I wait for the odd week to pick those items up.

This week I needed a couple of supplements that both my husband and I take and some band-aids. So even though I didn't really need any foods, I went anyway and did pick up a couple of food items, too. I'm not sure why, but this was a chocolate-heavy shopping trip.

I bought the mega bag (36 oz) of GV chocolate chips ($9.42) ,a 3.52-oz bar of GV milk chocolate ($1.67), a 3.2-oz bar of GV dark chocolate ($1.67), and a 4-oz bar of GV unsweetened chocolate. ($3.14) The milk and dark chocolate bars are for future s'mores at our house, and the unsweetened chocolate is for making unsweetened chocolate-covered dried fruits or mixing with other chocolates when melting to make a darker chocolate. So a lot of chocolate. In addition, I bought a jar of GV coffee ($6.94), now my preferred coffee. I spent $22.84 at Walmart. I used some of the chocolate already in chocolate-covered raisins (sometimes I've just gotta have a bit of candy) and homemade magic shell.

I also stopped at Town & Country (a small regional chain in the Puget Sound area). They have an awesome natural foods bulk section. As much as I love WinCo's bulk bins, T & C has a few extra foods that WinCo doesn't sell. This time I bought some white whole wheat flour ($2.07) and also a dozen brown eggs ($3.99).  I can find eggs for less than $3.99/dozen now, but T & C's brown eggs (and maybe the white ones, I haven't tried them) are better than Walmart's regular eggs.  I spent $6.06 here.

My grand total for this week came to $28.94.

This coming week will be another WinCo week. I've been adding items to my list all week. My husband wants to come with me again. So I'll have to work around his work schedule. 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, friends!

Adding Years to the Lives of My Summer Socks

I don't know about you, but I can't stand the feeling of a hole in a sock on my foot. It just annoys me to no end. So when I see holes developing, I try to make time to repair them.

I'd reached the point of almost as many of my summer socks that needed repairs as those that were in good condition. This morning would be a good day to do a little mending, I thought. Then I looked out the window and the summer sun called me out to the deck and garden. I almost put off mending for another day. That's when I had the good thought to take my mending outdoors. Why not, right? The morning weather was good. The sunlight would provide better light for my old eyes. And I could get a little fresh air while taking care of a chore.

Some of the socks have already been mended in one spot and now have thin patches elsewhere on the toe.

This stitching shows, but I'm not picky about the look of the sock inside my shoe, just the feel.

Other socks will be repaired for the first time. For speed, I'll just use the white thread that I'm using on the white, gray, blue socks.

I use a rather untidy looking whip stitch to sew the holes and thin spots closed.

A few of my socks now have thin patches on the soles and heels. I only mended the smallest of those thin patches, as too much stitching under my foot would annoy me.

Some of my socks are on their last legs, especially those with numerous thin spots. Other socks should last through this summer and perhaps through next summer. What I've discovered is if I catch the holes when they're tiny, I can add a couple of extra years onto the lives of my socks, as holes in knits grow quickly with wear and movement.

I'm thinking that I will put  a couple of pairs of new socks on my wish list for this coming Christmas. 

Spray-Painted Cans as Plant Containers Two Years Later

Because sometimes people like to see how well something held up or lasted, I thought I'd share with you my institutional-sized cans (#10) that I spray-painted two years ago to use for potting basil plants.

These cans have lived outside for two full years. In fall, just before the rain season begins, I pull them under the eaves of the house, so they're not exposed to excessive rain, snow and freezing for the winter months. Then in late spring, after the worst of the rains are finished, I pull them back out from the shelter, amend the soil, then pot them with new basil plants or seeds.

They've surprised me how well they have held up. The paint has not chipped or cracked so far. And the bottoms haven't rusted out yet. I suspect they will fall apart at some point. But maybe I'll get another couple of years out of these cans.

In any case, I think I've made good use of the cans and had a place on the deck to grow my basil each summer.

For those waiting for my better sweet and spicy pumpkin seed recipe, it will be a couple more days. We've had a heat wave here and I've not wanted to use the oven. Once I've had a chance to make another batch, I'll write up a recipe. Thanks for hanging in there. I'm sure you all can relate to not wanting to heat the kitchen when it's already too hot.

When the Cat's Away, the Mice Will Play: Dinner Date for Two at Home

One night recently, both daughters were out and didn't want dinner saved for them. This is fairly rare for them both to be gone at dinner *and* not want something saved. Usually at least one daughter will want us to save a plate for them to eat later or have at lunch the next day. Not so this time.

My husband and I were completely free to do whatever we pleased for dinner. We talked about going out for dinner. We did that last fall when both daughters were out. But then I thought of the abundance of wonderful foods that we have in the freezer, fridge, pantry, and garden. So I set out to put together a first class meal using what we have.

Here's the menu:

fillet steak -- a good, but small beef fillet, the size that's just right for one or two
sautéed mushrooms -- rehydrated dried mushrooms given to me at Christmas from son and daughter-in-law
grilled zucchini -- from the garden
tossed salad -- garden greens, homemade croutons, homemade mustard vinaigrette
baked potatoes -- from a bag in the pantry

and let's not forget dessert!

strawberry sorbet topped with homemade dark chocolate magic shell -- sorbet, s & dil brought at birthdays; magic shell, melted chocolate chips, unsweetened chocolate and coconut oil

My husband asked what I thought we'd pay at a restaurant for this type of dinner. My guess -- if we split a steak dinner at a casual steakhouse, but each got a small scoop of ice cream for dessert, I think we'd spend around $30 plus tax and tip. I'm certain our own cost for a steak dinner at home was under $10, likely closer to $7.

Every last bite was delicious!

What's one of your best homemade meals in recent memory?

Did my plan to eat down the freezer and not buy so much at the grocery store pay off?

I'm sitting here with the last 3 receipts from my WinCo shopping trips. I shop at WinCo every other week and do a fairly big stock-up to mostly last 2 weeks each time. I fill in where needed in the off weeks at our local Walmart, but don't spend much on those shopping trips.

So a little over a month ago, I spent $108.82 and bought  34 items at WinCo. Two weeks ago I spent $111.00 and again bought 31 items at WinCo. This past Friday I shopped again at WinCo and spent $83.19, buying 22 items. 

Where I cut back

I harvested the beets this week, using the leaves in meals and freezing the leftovers.

Since I'm trying to reduce the excess in my freezers before we fill it again with summer produce, my main focus of cutbacks this week over prior weeks was fruits and vegetables. This last week, all I bought in produce were some bananas, a watermelon, and a bag of carrots. By buying less fresh produce, I'll be forced to use the frozen produce I already have and the garden produce now ready to harvest. My usual number of produce items (fresh and frozen) seems to be between 12 and 14 for each shopping trip. Only purchasing 3 items was a significant reduction for me.

Instead of buying a head of cabbage on my last WinCo run,
 I harvested our first head of cabbage from this year's garden the other day.

I thought I would have saved more money than I did, though. My savings this week over previous ones was only about $30. In looking closer at my receipt, I can see that I bought several sort of expensive items, which bumped up my total cost. I bought 3 bags of organic flour that I use for bread and any baked goods that I eat (this flour contains only wheat, no enzymes, barley malt or malt extract which I can't tolerate, $6.63 each) and 2 whole chickens of the more expensive Just Bare brand ($8.98 each). Although I'm trying to use up ingredients that we have on hand, particularly in the fridge and freezer, I'm also starting to stock-up for the fall, this week buying extra flour and chicken.

using garden greens in salads instead of buying fresh or frozen green vegetables

So, taking the purchase of those stock-up items into account, I do think that curtailing my produce purchases paid off.

Using more garden produce the last week reminded me of how folks in England prepared meals during WW2. The government in England urged it citizens to grow a garden wherever they could find space and to plan meals around these homegrown vegetables. Heavy homegrown vegetable consumption would not only fill bellies without taxing the national supply of foods for sale, but the use of some vegetables could offset the need to use some purchased and highly rationed foods. For example, home grown carrots found their way into cakes, cookies, and oatmeal as a sweetener to spare precious (and imported) sugar. 

The only fruit I bought this week was a watermelon and some bananas (for smoothies). We've been using frozen blackberries and garden cherries, strawberries, and raspberries to heavily supplement our purchased fruit.

While I haven't been baking with carrots to save sugar this last week, I have been filling more of our plates each meal with homegrown produce and less with purchased foods. This not only saves us some money, but we are eating healthier. An example, the sweet and spicy pumpkin seeds that I've been experimenting with -- I could snack on cookies which contain sugar, flour, butter, egg, maybe chocolate, and other ingredients, at a cost of about $3 for a small 35-count batch. Or I can make the pumpkin seeds using less sugar, less fat, some spices and the free pumpkin seeds (collected from our garden pumpkins) for a cost of about 20 to 30 cents a 16-snack batch (each snack about 1-ounce per various nutrition guides). The pumpkin seeds are still a sweet treat, but they also come with protein, fiber, zinc, iron, copper, and antioxidants. For dessert tonight, we had homegrown raspberries. The main plate of our dinner had a large green salad along with a beef and veggie stir fry plus rice. Lunch included fresh cherries and homegrown cabbage, this produce taking up about 3/4 of my plate.

And here's today's progress report on our large freezer. 

It's almost bare enough to defrost!!! Woo hoo!!!

Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds -- First Try

All in my family agree -- these were tasty!!

I'm going to adjust the recipe a bit and then I'll post how I made them. Today's batch were a tad too sweet for me, a tiny bit greasy, not quite salty enough, and perhaps a bit too hot. I really enjoyed the sweet spices that I used (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg).  I used a combo of maple syrup and brown sugar to sweeten. The finished seeds had a very fall vibe. I think this is a winning way to roast pumpkin seeds if you like sweet and spicy nuts in general.

As you already know, I cook up several pumpkins each fall. I puree the cooked flesh and wash the seeds, then freeze both for future use. I keep the cleaned, dry seeds in sandwich-sized baggies in the freezer. There's right around 2 cups of seeds in each bag. To use, I simply thaw the baggie of seeds on the kitchen counter for a few hours, then blot to dry on a paper towel or non-linty tea towel before roasting.

I'll give a second batch a go over the weekend and post my recipe early next week.

Your Best Budget Picnic Ideas

We have about two months left of summer picnics, from big family reunions, to church potlucks, to just one or two at a park or the beach. Our family has a couple of picnics coming up later this month, and I was thinking about the many food options for picnicking on a budget. Of course, I thought I would turn to you friends for your suggestions. Let's swap ideas.

So, I'm looking for very budget-friendly ideas in each of the following categories:

• main dishes
• fruit and vegetable sides
• starchy sides
• desserts
• beverages

Here's my list.

main dish: non-mayo chicken salad sandwiches on buns, using leftover roasted chicken, lemon juice, dijon mustard, olive oil, celery, salt, pepper, herbs, garlic/onion powder

fruits and vegetables: watermelon slices

starchy sides: pasta salad with vegetables added, vinaigrette dressing

dessert: fruit layer bar cookies, the kind with a cookie base, a layer of fruit filling, and a topping of crumb mixture

beverages: infused water -- cucumber, mint, and melon infused water, or raspberry and basil infused water

What would you bring on a picnic while sticking to a budget?

Back to the annual eating down of the freezers

So, last week I disciplined myself and bought very little at the grocery store. Okay, the truth is it was a Walmart week and I don't buy that much at Walmart. I buy most of our groceries at WinCo because their prices are better than Walmart. But Walmart is the nearby store, so I go there to fill in gaps every other week. But I like to think that I was disciplined last week.

Here's where I find out if I have any discipline in me. This week is a WinCo week. I've been making out my shopping list with the understanding that I have a lot of food that needs being used in meals still in the freezers. So, first off, no new frozen vegetables and no more butter. Also no new fresh apples. I have 2 bags of apples still. No mozzarella cheese. I discovered we have 2 blocks of mozzarella in the spare fridge. We only use mozzarella for pizza. I had become in the habit of picking up a new block every time I went to WinCo. Due to actually opening my eyes this week, I realized we have enough pizza cheese. I'm on the fence whether to buy a whole chicken again this week. I buy a specific brand and it's a much better price at WinCo than any other store in town. And I did roast one of the three that I had just this week. So, I may buy one more whole chicken.

In previous shopping trips I've bought perhaps 8 to 9 different produce items every other week. This week, I've only put bananas (need in smoothies), carrots, and watermelon on my shopping list for produce. I will continue to use frozen vegetables. But also, we're at a point in the summer where I can harvest more and more from the garden each week. When we finish our last head of store cabbage (by the weekend), I'll begin harvesting the garden cabbage. I'm harvesting lettuce and cooking greens several days per week. I have a bell pepper ready to pick. And last night we had the first of the zucchini harvest. This is a long-winded way of saying we have a lot of both garden and frozen produce right now and don't need that much more.

So my list for this week's "big" shopping trip -- in addition to bananas, carrots, and watermelon, we need milk, peanut butter, salt, raisins, peanuts, cheddar, canned tuna, and a bag of flour. Even though I have some flour at home, I want to work up to a 30 lb supply of whole wheat, a 30 lb supply of bread flour, and a 30 lb supply of all-purpose flour. So each time I shop I add a bag or two of flour to my cart. That's a pretty small grocery list, isn't it?

For the freezer -- here's the current state of the chest freezer.

As you can see, there's lots more room at the top of the freezer, and that's with adding 6 quarts of cherries this week (on the right side). My daughters have been good about using up their own foods (in the center). And I have been using frozen fruit and vegetables from the left side. I need to make more of a point to roast pumpkin seeds. That hanging bin is full of pumpkin and squash seeds. My family really enjoys sweet and spicy mixed nuts. I think I'll try a batch of sweet and spicy pumpkin seeds and see what they think. Do you roast pumpkin seeds? Have you found a tasty way to roast them?

We've used quite a bit of food from the freezers in the last 2 weeks. Tonight's dinner used a whole chicken, a quart of chicken stock, various leftover bread products (corn bread and stale ends of loaf bread), and celery leaves. Tomorrow night I'll serve leftover chicken and gravy, plus I'll use some frozen apple chunks in spiced apples for dessert, frozen peas, lettuce from the garden, a tomato from the fridge, and potatoes with frozen rosemary.

In some ways, it has seemed like we made room in the freezer rather quickly. But when I think about all of the other frozen foods left to use up, it seems like it will take a long, long time to use it all.

What's the state of your freezer?

Yes, you can use unripe sweet cherries in pies and cobblers

Every year we battle the raccoons, squirrels, and blackbirds for our sweet cherries. We've come up with a few tricks to outsmart them, fence them out, and entice them to eat something else. But it's still a battle. 

Last year, I decided that I would pick as many not-quite-ripe cherries as I could before the critters discovered the tree had cherries. I picked, pitted, and froze enough for 11 pies. This year, with warmer weather, the cherries began ripening a little sooner, and I fell behind.

This morning I woke up to a couple of raccoons having breakfast in the cherry tree. The raccoons are really very cute. One was lounging on the lawn, feeling full and happy while his partner was up in the tree. The two of them made such a cute picture. But I do have to defend my territory. 

So after my breakfast I began picking as many underripe cherries as I could reach. I spent 4 hours picking and pitting cherries. (I think the rest of the cherries will be better as fresh eating cherries, as they're ripening quickly.) I froze 6 quarts of the underripe ones, which will be enough for 3 large pies. And I still have 7 quarts of cherries in the freezer from last year.

You may wonder if I could freeze the ripe cherries. The issue is pitting ripe cherries. Our ripe cherries are on the soft side. The pitter doesn't work well on soft cherries. In contrast, underripe cherries have a dense firmness similar to sour cherries. The pitter I have is really made for a firm cherry.

The flavor of underripe sweet cherries is mild and not as acidic as sour cherries. So I add lemon juice when making pie and cobbler filling. To amp up the cherry flavor I add a few drops of almond extract. I realize some folks don't like almond extract. I'm sure that could be left out. We had a sour cherry tree many years ago, and I baked a lot of cherry pies each summer. I've been ver pleased that I could replicate a sour cherry pie using underripe sweet cherries, lemon juice, and almond extract.

Here's the stage of under-ripeness that seems to work. When fully ripe, these cherries are dark purple. For pies, I pick them when red.

For freezing I add sugar to the containers, but I don't bother with citric acid or lemon juice, as I figure preserving the color of the cherries is not as important in pie filling.  I note on the lid of each container the quantities of cherries and sugar. Later, when I go to make cherry filling, I know what I have. I also note that each container has enough for 1/2 a pie.

When I'm turning the cherries into pie filling, I add a bit of natural red color in the way of beet root powder. About 1/4 teaspoon beet powder to 2 quarts of cherries results in a dark red pie filling and has no beet taste.

Have I shown you how I vent juicy pies like cherry pie? After the top crust is set onto the pie filling, I use a sharp knife to quickly cut 4 wide leaf-shaped pieces out of the top crust dough. This seems to be enough to vent this sort of pie and is so much faster than doing a lattice top.

We've been eating the sweeter cherries on the tree for several days now. I do feel full of cherries at this point, and I will be okay if the critters enjoy a good portion of what remains on the tree. I have several pies worth of cherries in the freezer, and that was my aim.

Our use-it-up Independence Day dinner menu

I mostly try to use what we have on hand for other holidays. For this year's Independence Day, I am especially motivated to use frozen and refrigerated foods. It's just my "thing" this month. I'll save money and make space in our freezer.

So, here's my menu plan for the 4th of July:

• smoked short ribs (freezer)
• hot dogs (I'll have to buy, but we do enjoy cooking over a fire on the 4th)
• buns (scratch, using pantry supplies)
• sautéed corn (freezer), onion (pantry), green pepper (garden), garlic scapes (garden) in beef fat (freezer) with seasonings
• watermelon (bought a week ago and have saved for the 4th)
• curried pea and peanut slaw (peas-freezer, cabbage-bought a week ago and saved, peanuts-pantry) 
• oven-roasted potatoes (pantry) with rosemary (garden)
• fresh cherries (garden) and fresh raspberries (garden)
• cherry pie (freezer)
• s'mores (marshmallows-pantry, graham crackers-pantry, chocolate chips to make chocolate patties-pantry)
• iced peach tea (pantry tea bags)
• blackberry lemonade (blackberry juice-freezer, lemon juice-fridge, sugar-pantry)
• sparkling water (pantry)

The only thing I will buy tomorrow is hot dogs. Yep, that's it!

How will you be spending Independence Day (if you're in the US, that is)? 

This is my last post of the week. I'll be busy tomorrow getting stuff prepped. have a wonderful weekend. And happy 4th to all my American friends!

Not every cooking experiment has to turn out awesome

I used several items from the freezer in tonight's dinner. 

I was down to just one can of tuna, and I wanted to make a tuna casserole for 4 adults. 

I remembered the fish sticks in the freezer and thought they might work mixed in with the canned tuna. 

I also had some frozen pinto beans leftover from making Saturday's dinner. I thought those would add to the protein in my experimental tuna casserole.

I made a cream soup using up another container of frozen chicken stock and some frozen celery leaves.

In addition to macaroni, tuna, broken fish sticks and cream soup, I used more of the surplus frozen peas.

To top the casserole, I used all of the crumbs at the bottom of the fish stick bag plus some shredded cheddar cheese.

The verdict? It was okay. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was okay. I think that's fine with family meals, if they're just okay and not spectacular. Everyone ate all of their portion, so it wasn't bad in any way. Many of our family meals are "okay," and that's fine with us. I don't shoot for Bon Appétit or Gourmet magazine level meals for everyday. As long as we eat it and it's nutritious, then I'm satisfied.

What I did determine is that it would not be a good use of our resources to use fish sticks in tuna casserole on a regular basis. Their flavor and texture was lost in the casserole. But as it was, there were only 3  1/2 fish sticks at the bottom of the bag, and no realistic way to divide those up between 4 adults. So they fit their purpose this time, using something up in my attempt to eat down the freezer.

Progress on organizing the freezers and how we've been using some of the random "found" foods

I should have gone through the freezers before my last grocery shopping. I would have saved several dollars this week by not buying more of what we have on hand, example -- frozen vegetables and fresh fruit. In fresh fruit, I bought a whole watermelon and a couple of bunches of bananas at WinCo on Friday morning. We could have used the frozen fruit we have in smoothies and as fruit servings for at least a week. I found a large bag of blackberries, 3 gallon-sized bags of apple chunks, and a bag each of raspberries and blueberries at the bottom of the freezer. I also found 10 bags of frozen peas and multiple open bags of various frozen vegetables, including 2 open bags of spinach and 2 open bags of corn.

a very disorganized chest freezer
The only way to reasonably guess where something might be
was to try to recall when the last time was the item was used.
That would give us an idea of how far down it was.

So, what I did

Friday afternoon was rainy and dark, a perfect afternoon for going through the garage chest freezer and apartment-sized upright freezer. 

We sorted on the garage floor.

I didn't thaw the chest freezer. We need to eat down some of the contents before I can thaw it, as I don't have other freezer space to hold foods while this freezer defrosts. But I did organize this freezer really well, I think, especially as I did it using basic items we have at home, mainly thick plastic grocery bags (bags work well as they will mold to each other and stack), a Sharpie, and duct tape. We sorted and bagged almost everything, labeling each bag as we went. Our rule was that bags have to be able to tie closed, so contents won't spill out and undo all of our sorting.

budget freezer sorting "containers" and "labels"

We divided this freezer into 3 columns. The left column is loaded with stacked bags of fruits and vegetables. I put the bag of opened packages of various vegetables on the top, so we will go to that bag first when looking for vegetables to use in lunches and dinners.

See how well the plastic bags can stack?

The center column contains all of my two daughters' foods. They often make lunches in advance for themselves, so they can grab something ready-made quickly. They also have more particular tastes for foods than either my husband or I have, and will buy specific items just for themselves. So their foods do take up a sizable amount of freezer space. The right column is only partially bagged. It also has the hanging freezer bin that contains primarily nuts and seeds. Stacked on the very right are containers of cherries packed in sugar for pies and 3 bags of different types of corn flour and meal. Corn meals and flours become buggy quickly in my experience.

finished sorting and organizing for the time being

I moved all of the butter to the small freezer. I did thaw this freezer before our last beef delivery. Here's that freezer. All of the beef is on the top shelf. That's most of a very recent 30-lb delivery of beef. The middle shelf has 3 whole chickens, a single chicken leg and single chicken thigh, plus some containers of stock. The bottom shelf has breakfast sausage and more stock, plus two partial boxes of heat and eat foods, fish sticks and egg rolls (egg rolls now gone). And the door compartment now holds about 10 pounds of butter.

small freezer -- beef on top, chickens middle, not shown bottom shelf

The big task now is to form a plan to use the odds and ends as well as the current surpluses of foods of which we anticipate accumulating new stock in the coming months, like fresh produce, pumpkin/squash seeds, meat and pumpkin broths.

How to manage our current fresh produce supply

I think I will hold off on cutting into the watermelon and force us to use the fresh strawberries that are ripening and frozen berries and apples that we need to eat down. I'll save that watermelon for the 4th of July. I'll also hold off on cutting into the newest head of cabbage and use frozen vegetables in its place for lunches and dinners the next few days, again until the 4th. I'll use that fresh cabbage on the 4th to make a curried pea and peanut slaw for our holiday cookout. By saving the watermelon and head of cabbage until Friday, I won't need to re-buy these foods for our 4th of July cookout. One good thing -- I didn't buy more apples or tangerines this week. I still have most of a bag of each, and we'll make those last throughout the next 2 weeks.

berry pancake topped with blackberry syrup

What I found that we used over the weekend and today

• chopped apples in spiced, sautéed apples both Friday and Monday night for dinners
• pumpkin seeds, lots of bags of them. I roasted up a baggie for a snack on Saturday
• 4 egg rolls, we had them with dinner on Saturday
• cooked pinto beans and 2 partially used bags of corn, mixed together, sautéed in beef fat with onions and spices for Saturday's dinner
• a container of whey, used in a batch of blueberry and blackberry pancakes for Sunday breakfast topped with blackberry syrup (berries and syrup from the freezer)
• some chicken stock used in making grits to go with meatloaf for Monday's dinner
• cornbread and whole wheat bread, small amount of beef gravy in meatloaf for Monday's dinner

Happy surprises 

• more butter than I had thought, enough to last through summer at least
• one container of yogurt starter. I'll have to make another batch of yogurt and freeze more starter.
• a single cupcake (to the victor go the spoils -- that cupcake is mine!)
• two frozen things of dough for croissants
• a half chocolate croissant

I'll continue using up odds and ends, particularly as I tackle the other two freezer spaces.  (More odds and ends in those two freezers.) Tomorrow night's dinner will be an interesting experiment. I'll let you know how that one goes. I'll sort and organize the kitchen freezer and spare fridge's freezer later this week.

Whew! What a job this is.

Annual eating down the freezer challenge

It's come to that time of year once again. Our freezer is still full, yet we need to make a lot of room for this year's garden and foraging produce. 

We have two choices. One, we could buy another freezer. Or two, we could eat down what we currently have. I won't lie. I did have a moment where I thought buying another freezer might be a good idea. But my common sense kicked in, and we will once again try to eat up (or down) the freezers' (yes, multiple freezers) contents.

The first thing I need to do is take an inventory of the frozen vegetables in the chest freezer. Partially used opened bags of frozen vegetables have a way of drifting to the bottom of the freezer. I'm sure there are several open bags of peas in there. So, once I know what frozen veggies we have currently, I will limit what I buy in the way of frozen vegetables. I may use a small white board to track what vegetables still remain as we work toward eating down the freezer.

I should do the same with the frozen fruits, syrups, and fruit juices. I came across some dried figs and dried prunes in the freezer the other day. I am also aware that we have some remaining crab applesauce, crabapple juice, and blackberry juice. Do you have any suggestions for using crab apple juice or blackberry juice in summer? We also have some frozen cherries for pies, too. I need to start making plans to use these fruits, especially as this year's cherries are almost ready for harvesting. But first I need to gather all of the containers into one space, perhaps using another whiteboard to help motivate me to use these produce items in a timely manner.

Next I need to corral all of the bread products into one bag and make plans to do a bread pudding, some croutons, bread stuffing, and/or a strata. We accumulate lots of lone slices of bread, squares of cornbread, and muffins. Finding them and keeping them in one spot will help me use them.

After the vegetables and bread products I think I should gather all of the containers of stock, drippings, and fat to keep in one spot and make plans to use it. Since I've been roasting whole chickens again (instead of using b/s breasts), I've made several batches of chicken stock. It's time I start using it up. Do you have any suggestions for using stock besides as the broth for soup?

That will leave frozen desserts (ice cream, sorbet) and individual servings of various meals. My husband is the only one in the family who will eat everything served to him. The rest of us tend to freeze our leftovers, which is great as we're technically not wasting that food. But it does accumulate. So, I need to get my daughters to help me identify those oddball containers of leftovers.

The one food category that I'm not at all concerned about is meat. I keep all of the meat together in the tiny freezer and sort through it every other week. I roughly know what beef, chicken, and pork we have on hand and am making plans for how to use the older cuts of meat soon.

Am I missing anything? Do you have a method of attack for cleaning out your freezer and eating down all of the contents? You can guess what I'll be doing this weekend.

Have a great weekend, friends!

Birthday and Mother's Day 2025 Cookie Baking Gifts

This is turning out to be a show-and-tell week. 

I made this batch of chocolate chip
cake-style cookies using the small scoop

I've been wanting to show you the cookie baking gifts my daughters gave me this year for my birthday and for Mother's Day. They know I like to bake cookies and found gifts I would really appreciate receiving.

For my birthday they gave me this set of three cookie scoops. I've never had cookie scoops, instead I've always used a couple of teaspoons to scoop drop cookie dough. It's time consuming to use a pair of spoons while trying to make every cookie look neat and the whole batch look uniform.

My favorite scoop is the smallest one. I've baked a couple of batches of chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal cookies with this small one. I like the smaller-sized cookie you get with the smallest scoop. My daughters borrowed the scoops last weekend to bake cookies for an event at church. They made both snickerdoodles and gingersnaps using the medium-sized scoop. My guess is they would love if I made some chocolate chip or M & M cookies with the largest scoop. I'll keep that in mind when I want to do something special for them.

what I like about these cookie scoops:

• The cookies are uniform in size and shape, making them visually appealing when sharing with others.
• I don't just like the look of uniformity in size and shape, but the cookies bake evenly as they're all the same size and have the same mounding.
• It's fast and easy to scoop and drop the dough onto the baking sheet. I can't believe how fast it is to get the cookie dough onto the baking sheet with a scoop.
• My fingers stay clean in the process of dropping the dough.

The other gift was for Mother's Day. Again my daughters know that not only do I like to bake cookies, but I like the finished result to look attractive. (Maybe you remember a couple of Christmases ago they gave me a shortbread mold.)

This gift is an embossed rolling pin for imprinting a pattern on rolled out cookie dough before baking. The types of cookies that I will think I will use this for are speculoos, springerle, and gingerbread. If you've ever had Biscoff, that's a speculoos cookie. Springerle, the German anise flavored cookie, is traditionally made with a mold. However, I found recipes online to make a dough that will work with an embossed rolling pin. I'm looking forward to making those. And of course, gingerbread cookies, the thin kind, are a favorite of mine.

what I like about the embossed rolling pin:

• I can make really attractive cookies for gifting and sharing at the holidays, and to please me.
• It will save time and money in "decorating" the cookie by embossing the dough instead of using icing and sprinkles.

These gifts are special in a couple of ways. One, my daughters took the time to think of what I'd like. Two, these are money and time-saving gifts. I can use them to share or gift cookies that look almost professional with just a little effort. The cookie baking gifts are just the sort of thing I would want to buy for myself, but would talk myself out of because of cost. 

Do you use cookie scoops? What do you think of them? Have you tried an embossed rolling pin?