Burn Time of Candles and Economy

I love candles. I love the scent of the wax while a candle is burning, as well as the scent of the smoke when I blow it out. I really love how candlelight flickers and affects shadows in the room. What I don't love are the exorbitant prices on premium jar candles that you can buy at pricey shops in the mall. 

Premium 3-wick candles

I had a thought that perhaps those expensive candles make up for some of their cost in a lengthy burn time. I went to Bath & Body Works website and discovered that their 3-wick candles have a burn time ranging from 25 to 45 hours. These candles retail for $24.50; but if you're savvy, you can find them on sale for as low as $9.50. Last year's candle day at Bath & Body works was Saturday, December 7. It's a once a year event and draws large crowds. (ask me how I know -- 1 daughter who loves, loves, loves these pricey candles) So, for as low as $9.50, your premium candle will burn between 25 and 45 hours, and cost between 21 and 38 cents per hour. Of course, I have to admit, I do love the fragrance of many of their candles. And perhaps that accounts for some of the premium price.

Taper candles

The burn time on taper candles is based on their length. The accepted rule of thumb is 1 hour per inch of candle. So, the 11-inch tapers that I've seen at Target for $3.99 a 2-pack will burn for 11 hours each at 18 cents per hour. Jo Ann Fabrics has a 4-pack of 10-inch tapers for $3.99. The burn time for these tapers would be about 10 hours each, for a cost of about 10 cents per hour.  My local Walmart sells Better Homes & Gardens 12-inch tapers in 12-packs for $5.47. The cost per candle is about 45 cents, for a cost per hour of burn of about 4 cents. As you can see, the price on taper candles varies considerably. When buying this kind of candle, it's worth the effort to check several stores, including your local grocery store. To make a price comparison with Bath & Body Work's 3-wick candles, it would take 3 tapers to achieve a similar amount of light. That means I would spend about 12 cents per hour of burn time for 3 tapers. Of course, in contrast to a jar candle which is a self-contained candle within a holder, taper candles need candlesticks. Although, many of us already own this type of holder.

Votive candles

Votive candles can burn between 10 and 15 hours, if appropriately sized for the holder. Ideally, you don't want much air space between your votive candle  and the holder, as the melting wax will pool in the base of the holder and won't be reached by the wick, shortening the burn time. In addition, you should extinguish a votive candle that has burned to within 1/2-inch of its base, to prevent cracking of the holder. This 1/2-inch of residual wax is not lost, however. You can reclaim this wax and make a new candle, see this post.

Yankee Candles sells some really nice votive candles, regularly priced at $2 each. After Christmas last year, I picked up a bunch of their holiday-scented votive candles for 50 cents each. With Yankee Candles, you're paying for the premium name brand as well as the scent. You can pick up decent votive candles from the local drug store for 89 to 99 cents each at regular price or about 40 to 50 cents each on clearance after the holidays. Yankee Candles says that their votives have a burn time of up to 15 hours. My local Rite Aid's website says that their votives have a burn time of about 12 hours. So, for a price as low as 50 cents per votive with a burn time of up to 15 hours, each hour of the candle's life costs about 3 cents. Granted, it takes more votives to create a similar amount of light as a larger candle like Bath & Body Work's 3-wick. Still, 3 votive candles can cost me as little as 9 cents per burn hour.

Battery-powered LED tea light candles

The hands-down winner for cost per burn hour for a candle is not even made of wax. If one is not picky about a candle being "real" or not, then battery-operated tea light candles are the biggest bargain. I bought a 4-pack of flickering LED tea lights from Dollar Tree several years ago and they're still going strong. Dollar Tree has since down-sized the package to 2 flickering LED tea lights. The packaging indicates that each tea light has a "burn time" of about 120 hours. That means that the cost per hour is less than a half-cent. If I group 3 of these together, my cost per hour is about 1 and a half cents. These are best showcased in some sort of holder. I've placed these in a variety of "free" holders, including canning jars tied with ribbon, nestled in juice glasses filled with candy corn or mini candy canes, inside painted and punched tin cans, and in textured glass votive holders. I've even placed LED tea light candles in ribbon-tied canning jars on top of wide glass candlesticks designed for pillar candles, as a bargain alternative to pillar candles for those holders.

This price analysis was an interesting exercise for me. I love my LED tea lights, but who knew they were just so economical?!

Making a Holiday Swag with Branches from My Yard

The elves have been busy in my neighborhood! 

I've been taking early morning walks this past week, enjoying all of the holiday decorations that my neighbors have put up. It seems that there are even more (and earlier) holiday decorations than previous years. Perhaps this is simply because so many folks are home during the week; but I also like to think that we're all doing what we can to provide cheer to one another through outdoor decorations.

This morning, one of my daughters came with me on our walk and we talked about what we could do to decorate our outdoor areas that are highly visible for passersby on the street. I mentioned that I have everything that would be needed to make a swag for the front of our garage: the evergreen and berry-laden branches in the yard, a 12-inch length of heavy wire (mine is green, but silver would've also worked as it would be hidden by the greenery and bow), and a weather-proof bow.

Once home, I grabbed my pruners and gardening gloves then clipped about 7 branches, mostly cedar but also a couple of branches of cotoneaster for their beautiful red berries. I piled the branches neatly on top of each other and used the length of wire to bind them all together about 6 inches from the top of the bundle, finishing on the back side. After adding the outdoor ribbon, my swag was ready to hang. I used our house's flag holding bracket between the two garage doors as my hanging spot, threading the long ends of the bundle's binding wire through the perforations of the bracket and twisting securely. 

I spent about 10 minutes making the swag and hanging it. This is so easy, yet it adds such a festive note to the front of our home.

I hope that my little effort brings a smile to someone passing by.

November Grocery Recap

Another month of spending more than I intended. While I don't feel I was panic-buying this past month, I was definitely emotional-spending. I bought a lot of treat foods and just generally didn't care (all that much) that I would be spending more than I had planned. However, I can also see that almost half of my shopping covered 3 holidays, 1 family party, and our now continuing Friday pizza & movie nights. My household budget allows an extra amount to cover holidays, in addition to the grocery budget. 

In addition to party, holiday, and treat foods, there are certain produce items that I like to buy for my family this time of year, and I'm willing to spend a little extra for them, such as the clementines and avocados. What is conspicuously absent this month/this season is a turkey. And I'm not feeling all that sad about it. I have to admit, the bratwurst were pretty delicious this year.

I shopped twice this month, both times at Walmart, three weeks apart and spent a total of $189.45. In addition to what I bought, I am also heavily (very heavily) leaning on my stock-up pantry for November through February. Our fridges, freezers, and pantries remain very full. I'll shop again sometime in mid-December.                          

Here's the breakdown of all of my November grocery purchases:

Some of these items I ordered specifically for Thanksgiving. (obv. I bought more than needed just for the holiday and plan to use at other times this month and next)

1 pack bratwurst sausage for Thanksgiving, $2.96

1 pack bratwurst buns, $1.98

spicy mustard, $1.27

3 bundles of celery, $1.26 each

4 cans cream of mushroom soup, 50 cents ea

2 10-oz bags frozen mushrooms, $1.98 each

pint whipping cream,  $1.98

I bought the following for our Christmas tree decorating party, again with planned extras for rest of the season

6 lbs clementines, half at $3, other half at $3.98

large box Ritz crackers, $1.96
2 litre cola, 67 cents
Little Smokies sausage, $2.87

16 oz cream cheese, $2.87

I bought the following for holiday baking

3 8-oz cans mixed nuts, $2 ea
2 2-lb bags powdered sugar, $1.62 ea

1 pound pecan halves, $9.48
24 ounces dried cranberries, $4.94

2 bags chocolate chips, $1.74

other special occasion foods

1 bag mini marshmallows, 88 cents, for hot cocoa

2 large packs of pepperoni, $7.47 each, for Friday pizza nights this winter

2 bottles sparkling cider, $1.96 ea, for Christmas and New Year's dinner

20-oz bag frozen sweet potato fries, $2.73, for a treat some night

The rest of the items were just for general use.

3 heads iceberg lettuce (25 cents each, so I figured why not?)
30 bananas, half at 42 cents/ lb, half at 38 cents/lb
2 Folger's decaf, $6.32 ea
1 Folger's regular, $8.12
regular mustard, $1
soy sauce, $1.62
sesame oil, $2.98
raw honey, $7.93
2 boxes toasted oat cereal, $1.23 ea
4 bags oyster crackers, 80 cents ea
2 jars applesauce, $1.98 ea
6 dozen eggs, 96 cents/dozen
12 gallons 2% milk, $2.18 ea
2 gallons whole milk for making yogurt, 1 at $1.50, 1 at $2.18
2 lbs popping corn, $1.83
2 whole butternut squash, $1.18 ea
80-ct corn tortillas, $2.44
4 avocados, 58 cents ea
1 bottle ketchup, 88 cents
large bottle BBQ sauce, $1.88

In addition to buying special foods to lift our spirits, I also think I'm spending more for many of the individual items because I'm not shopping around for the best prices or watching for sales. Also, I think for me personally, I buy more when I'm putting in an order to pick-up than I would if I were shopping in-person. It's super easy to add an item to my online order. In contrast, when I'm shopping myself in the store, I think twice about a lot of items and often skip an item or two that don't seem absolutely necessary. 

I will say that I continue to compare unit prices. I may be emotional-spending, but I haven't lost my mind entirely!

So, that's my personal analysis of why I continue to spend more on groceries than I have in past years. And I'm more than okay with it. There is a time and season for everything. This is my season to spend more on food.

What's a Few Raindrops When You're With the People You Love

As so often happens in the Pacific Northwest, the forecast shifted as Thanksgiving neared. However, it didn't look like it would be a complete washout, so we decided to make our outdoor plans a go. Mostly, the rain was just an occasional sprinkle Thursday afternoon. I had suggested everyone wear a parka with a hood. That advice made the difference between being miserable and having fun despite a few raindrops. It was a great day. We stayed socially distant and outdoors. 

This was the first time in almost three months that we've seen our son and daughter-in-law. To get together for Thanksgiving (and stay safe and keep to the governor's orders) meant we would need to do something entirely different. The idea of an outdoor cookout was floated to all parties. Maybe you can guess -- November cookouts are not the norm for our area. 

Around 11:30 AM, this is how the patio was looking -- rather damp, but the heavy rain appeared to be gone. We dried off the chairs, moved a couple of small tables into place, and I began my work transforming the patio into an autumn gathering spot. For social distancing, each household had their own side of the fire ring, more than 6 feet apart.

Over the last week, I'd gathered up all of our autumn-themed decor items, both from indoors and from the porches. I had a couple of table cloths, lots of faux flowers, candle jars, a lantern, faux and real pumpkins and squash, a wicker cornucopia, and some outdoor ribbon.

Since it was still looking like a drizzle could occur, I began my sprucing up with the most weather-proof items first, this time the outdoor ribbon. I tied bows around the 2 newel posts at the base of the deck stair railing. (You'll notice that we desperately need to paint the stair railings and  stair risers.) Ribbon is a super cheap way to decorate for holidays. This is Dollar Tree ribbon purchased about 4 or 5 years ago. I keep reusing it year after year.

Next, I placed a faux pumpkin at the base of the stairs leading onto the patio, one on each side. As I've mentioned before, our yard is plagued with rodents squirrels. Leave a real pumpkin out on the porch and by morning there will be nibble marks. So, for outdoor use, I opt for craft pumpkins. These two are from Michael's, also bought about 4 or 5 years ago.

I have 3 small square tables, which was just right for 1 table between every two chairs to share for drinks or plates. I added a candle jar with battery candle and small pumpkin as decor to the back of each little table. Again, a little ribbon turns a canning jar into a holiday candle jar. The battery tea light candles are from Dollar Tree, bought about 8 or 9 years ago but used judiciously (so they last for many years).

I have one longer bench table that I used as a complimentary decorative element, a second focal point of sorts. Here's where the bulk of my decor was laid out. While my husband was lighting a fire in the fire ring, I was quickly placing items. The table cloth was a piece of yardage from Jo Ann Fabrics about 20 years ago. The galvanized French flower bucket came from Michael's 3 years ago and has different faux flowers rotated in and out of it for the front porch, depending on season. It will go back on the front porch filled with cherry red faux geraniums for the Christmas season later this weekend. Today it held faux sunflowers. The lantern was a clearance find at Kohl's (used a $10 coupon) several years ago, with a clearance votive candle from after Christmas sales at the local drugstore in a cleaned out votive holder from an office gift 3 Christmases ago. The squash is something we grew this summer (actually, it volunteered in a patch in the yard -- Woo Hoo!). And to the left is a wicker cornucopia (bought at the thrift store 6 or 7 years ago) filled with more faux flowers. By the way, my faux flowers for outdoor use always come from Dollar Tree. 

Here's the whole autumn gathering spot, waiting for the six of us to, well, gather. Each chair had a throw blanket and pillow. Some of us used the throws as extra wraps when dusk fell and some of us used them for seat cushioning.

I mention where and how I've acquired all of the decor pieces that I used on Thursday to illuminate just how inexpensively this sort of temporary decorating can be. And in my case for Thanksgiving, all of this cost me absolutely nothing, as these were items that I already had but just moved around and into place for the occasion.

The candle in the lantern was lit just before our guests arrived. However, it wasn't until daylight faded that the candle's glow a became prominent added light source.

The sun sets around 4:30 this time of year. By 6 PM, the moon was peaking through the clouds and stars were out to see. The last of the logs were burning down, signaling an end to a wonderful afternoon.

In the aftermath, I asked all of my family members if they would consider doing something like this again. I received a resounding "YES" from the whole bunch.

You know, I recognize that a lot of folks have no interest in decorating an outdoor space to be enjoyed for 5 or 6 hours total. This is something that I do that I take considerable joy in the doing. Perhaps there is an aspect of home-keeping that particularly appeals to you. This is mine.

Happy Thanksgiving and have a wonderful weekend, friends!

Outdoor Thanksgiving Looks Like It's a Go!

The weather forecast looks like it should be dry for my town on Thanksgiving day, greatly simplifying our plans to get together with our son and daughter-in-law. The daytime high is only expected to be 46 degrees F, so we'll cookout midday over our fire pit on the patio. We should be able to remain entirely outdoors for the whole visit.  The sunset is around 4:25 this time of year, so I expect we'll not linger much beyond then.

The Menu (no turkey!)

bratwurst cooked over the fire

buns

sauerkraut, cheese, mustards

green bean casserole

praline sweet potato casserole

corn souffle

mashed potatoes and gravy

pickled beets

relish tray of carrot sticks, olives, homemade pickles

apple & cranberry crumb pie

pumpkin pie

hot spiced apple cider

I can put most of this together on Tuesday and Wednesday. Without a turkey to roast and time, the cooking should be simpler and more predictable. I'm using a lot of canned foods, including the sauerkraut, green beans (and soup for casserole), sweet potatoes, corn, beets, olives, home-canned pickles, cranberry sauce, pumpkin puree, and apple juice. The end result should be easy cooking for me. I even opted for pre-made buns and instant potatoes for this occasion. I'll be busy, but not so much that I feel exhausted.

One of the bonuses to having an outdoor Thanksgiving is that the house doesn't have to be completely clean. I'll be making the outdoor area as festive as I can, however. My decor plan for our patio is to pull together as much of the autumn pieces that I have around the house and porches (faux and real pumpkins/squash, artificial autumn flowers, baskets, lantern, cushions, blankets) and group them together, with this sort of look. (Cover Victoria Magazine 2014)

This shouldn't take me more than about 20-30 minutes to assemble -- simply put it all into place on the patio tables and chairs. My version may not be as well color-coordinated as the magazine cover, but I think it will be homey.

Wishing you all a good Thanksgiving week!

This Week's Menus Plus Homemade Brown 'n Serve Freezer Pizzas

wrapped homemade brown 'n serve pizza

We're plowing through our rotation of canned vegetables. This week, we made creamed spinach with some of those canned leafy greens. My daughter prepared it, adding a topping of Parmesan cheese over each serving. Delicious -- we all loved it! 

I roasted a whole chicken this week and managed 3 dinners from the bird, 1 lunch of chicken noodle soup, and enough stock for our upcoming Thanksgiving side dishes.

And we made desserts twice this week -- one a no-bake bar cookie and the second a cake. Both of these lasted for several days.

One of the side effects of this pandemic is that many of us are cooking dinners at home much, much more than normal. Sharing our weekly menus may provide much-needed inspiration for each other, as we find ourselves more and more drained from this experience. As you can see, my menus are all pretty simple and rely heavily on our pantry staples.

Saturday

fried TVP patties in a homemade teriyaki sauce

rice

canned beets in vinaigrette

canned peas

leftover peanut butter, cracker, and chocolate bars

Sunday

refried bean and TVP tostadas, using homemade fried flour tortillas and served with homemade salsa

canned carrots

canned green beans

leftover bar cookies

Monday

roasted chicken and gravy

canned cranberry sauce

bread and butter (it happened to be bread-baking day)

canned yams baked in a sugar, spice, and butter topping

oven-roasted frozen broccoli (drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of salt)

leftover bar cookies

Tuesday

leftover chicken in homemade marinara sauce (canned tomato paste)

pasta

creamed spinach with Parmesan cheese

leftover bar cookies

Wednesday

pigs in blankets (sausages wrapped in refrigerator crescent roll dough)

canned corn

green beans

canned pineapple

German chocolate cake

Thursday

chicken and dumplings with canned carrots and canned peas

leftover canned cranberry sauce

prunes stewed in pineapple juice (leftover from canned pineapple)

leftover cake

Friday

homemade frozen pizza (brown 'n serve pizza)

carrot and celery sticks

tangerines

leftover cake

Needing some family fun time, our foursome decided to make every Friday evening pizza and movie night. I make a pizza and we rotate who chooses the movie. Making a pizza from scratch each week adds up to a lot of work. However, making one large batch of dough and sauce for several pizzas at a time saves work over making small batches each week.

I bake the first pizza for us to eat right away, using a hot oven (about 400 degrees F) so that the bottom is crispy and the cheese and toppings are bubbly and golden. I prepare the rest of the pizzas as brown 'n serve pies. When I reheat them later they brown and crisp up without over-browning, like those dinner rolls which are pale but cooked when you buy them to be toasted in the oven at home. 

underside of part whole wheat pizza
before second bake time

I follow similar suggestions for brown 'n serve pizzas as I do for homemade brown 'n serve rolls. To make brown 'n serve pizza, I prepare the whole pizzas as I would for immediate consumption, except I bake them at a lower temperature. My goal is to bake the dough fully and melt the cheese, but not brown either.

topside of pizza before second bake time

To do this, I bake the topped pizza on a baking sheet at 350 degrees F (until the crust is thoroughly cooked, but the toppings and cheese have not reached the point of browning), about 18-20 minutes, depending on thickness and toppings. After cooling for about 30 minutes, I wrap the extra pizzas in plastic wrap and freeze. 

To reheat, I thaw the pizzas on the counter for about 45 minutes then brown them on an oven rack (no pan) for about 9-11 minutes at 380 degrees F. They turn out perfectly. 

Brown 'n serve pizza are my homemade version of commercial frozen pizza. I spend a couple of hours one afternoon to make enough pizza for several easy dinners without sacrificing any of the fresh-baked flavor or texture upon reheating.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Frugal Gift Wrapping Hacks

I've posted these two hacks previously, but old tricks can be useful again and again.

My son and daughter-in-law are celebrating birthdays this week!. I thought I'd get out to a store long before now to pick up more gift wrap. As you can guess, that just didn't happen this year.

For my daughter-in-law's 3 gifts, I had 2 large sheets of pink tissue, 1 small sheet of black and white striped tissue (from a Sephora birthday freebie two years ago), and some silver holiday curling ribbon. In addition, I printed another sheet of homemade birthday gift wrap, a tip that I posted about in 2019.

Here's how the wrapping went:

Gift no. 1

gift wrap hack -- wrap the package on the diagonal to save paper

the sheet of tissue was too small to wrap with the traditional method

turning the box on the diagonal means less paper is needed

(I placed a sheet of white copy paper on the top side of the box - here seen as under the box - so the label would not be visible through a single layer of tissue.)

fold up opposing corners and tape

fold in and up remaining corners to cover the rest of the package

once the package is flipped over, it looks well-wrapped

added some shiny silver curling ribbon to finish the package

Gift No. 2

gift wrap hack -- turning a sheet of paper into a gift bag

I had an assortment of small items for which I wanted a small gift bag. I used a single 9 X 11-inch sheet of homemade birthday wrap. A 9 X 11-sheet can make a bag that is about 4 inches wide, 1 inch deep, and as much as 6 or 7 inches tall. I chose to make a 4 X 1 X 5-inch bag.

I found a box with similar width and depth dimensions to the size of bag I desired. The length of the box simply overlapped the edge of the paper -- not a problem for this.

I wrapped the sides of the paper over the box and taped the paper side together (but not onto the box itself).

I trimmed the excess length of the paper, so that my bag base would be neater. Then I folded the remaining bottom end of the paper as I would do when wrapping the ends of a package -- sides in,

 

flaps down and taped

I creased the corners all around the box 

before carefully sliding the box out of my newly-formed bag.

I added handles with two short lengths of black ribbon by threading the ribbon through holes punched in the top of the bag and stapling together the ends of each ribbon (overlapped) inside the bag.

Once filled, I added a crumpled half of the striped tissue to the top. 

Obviously, a single sheet of copy paper makes a very lightweight bag, the sort that would not support being held by the handles alone if the gift has much weight.

Gift no. 3

No hack, just wrapping an upright gift in the second large sheet of pink tissue, other half of the striped tissue, and a bit of the silver ribbon.

I'm pleased with how they turned out and I hope my daughter-in-law will be too!

Keeping the Mood Festive: Our Pandemic Snack Jars

One of my roles during this period has been to keep my family's spirits up. All of our lives have been severely disrupted (to say the least) with the imposed restrictions on social and work activities, death or illness of family or friends, and fears of contracting the virus ourselves. It is easy for depression or anxiety to settle in for all of us under these circumstances. To counter this, I do whatever I can to keep the mood cheerful around here, such as these pandemic snack jars. 

Under normal circumstances, I don't stockpile commercial snacks or breakfast cereal, even when I do find a good price. My reasoning (which comes from our family's experience) is that these commercial goodies, like chips, pretzels, and cereal, are often favored over the homemade foods for quick snacks and gobbled up in a flash, regardless of how much I buy at any one time. Here's an example: Years ago, when triple coupons were a thing, I bought about 15 boxes of assorted packaged cereal at a steep discount. While the boxes of cereal were considerably less expensive than their regular price, the cost per ounce/serving was still above what I would spend for homemade foods. I don't eat most commercial dry cereals; so imagine my surprise when about 10 days later, I opened that cupboard to make room for more groceries and was met with 14 mostly empty boxes (the bran flakes were the only untouched box, ha ha).

So, keeping a small stockpile of commercial snack foods is out of the ordinary for our household. However, this is an out-of-the-ordinary time in all of our lives. Wanting to provide quick, easy, and quasi-fun snacking experiences for my family members, I did buy several packages each of saltine-type crackers, graham crackers, pretzels, roasted peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, raisins, toasted oat cereal, applesauce, and canned pineapple to have for quick and easy snacking. You'll notice, I deliberately did not buy the uber-fun, sugar-sweetened, brightly colored or super cheerfully-shaped treats. Those would be devoured far too quickly. I stuck with rather boring versions of snack foods. 

Even so, I've found the best way to ensure that our supply will last for months and not weeks is to ration what is available through some fun (fun is a subjective word -- my family thinks these jars are fun) jars on the kitchen counter. (As you can see, the jars themselves are simply jars that I already had -- nothing fancy.) To keep things new, I rotate what goes into each jar every Sunday or Monday. Some weeks I add a sweet treat like a very small jar of chocolate chips or small candy pieces. This week, we have Cheerios-type cereal, oyster crackers, raisins, roasted sunflower seeds, and candy corn.

To give you a comparison indicating how this is a change for us, in "normal" times, cereal would mean homemade granola or a cooked cereal, crackers would come out as an accompaniment for soups, raisins would always be available in the pantry, nuts and seeds would be occasionally out, and candy would be for special occasions, like movie night. In the past, snacking for us has mostly meant simple foods like popcorn, homemade tortilla chips, toast or pbj sandwiches, raisins/other fruit, carrot sticks, or any baked good. But nothing really sitting out on the counter, at the ready for impromptu munching.

Do any of you remember the character Julie from the TV show The Love Boat? Julie's position was that of cruise director. I've often thought of "cruise director" as an appropriate title for my own role in our household. On a cruise ship, the cruise director is responsible for entertainment, hospitality, and social events -- the job of making fun for everyone onboard. This may not be the Love Boat, but call me Lili the cruise director for the Mounce family cruise, which features such highlights as a pandemic and a heated national election. 2020 has been a doozy. Anyway, keeping jars of snacks has been a part of what I'm doing to keep the mood in our house festive and not gloomy.

As an aside, I'm so glad that I had already been planning a cook-out for our Thanksgiving with our son and daughter-in-law. Our governor announced yesterday that indoor gatherings with members from outside our household are prohibited, including Thanksgiving dinner. The only exception is if every person quarantines for 14 days or for 7 days plus a negative COVID test. So, outdoors for Thanksgiving it shall be!

I hope your week is off to a good start! 

Time for me to get back to cruise-directing.

My Nasturtium Surprise

a surprise nasturtium

Maybe you remember that a year ago spring, I planted nasturtium seeds in some hanging baskets instead of buying annuals. Then this past spring, I planted red leaf lettuce in the same baskets. Whether or not I'd be comfortable picking the lettuce when the baskets looked full and pretty remained in question at planting time. I'm happy to report that we had no qualms picking that lettuce. This past summer, we cared more about feeding ourselves than what things looked like.

the red leaf lettuce salad basket in summer

Anyway, sometime in mid to late summer, I noticed one tiny nasturtium plant growing in one of the lettuce baskets. One of the nasturtium plants from summer 2019 reseeded in the pot without my knowledge (not that I'd do anything to interfere with a free plant growing in a pot). 

So, I let the nasturtium plant grow for the rest of the summer and into early fall. This basket hung right outside the bedroom window, providing a beautiful view of cascading yellow nasturtium blossoms. They attracted a hummingbird on a daily basis, too, for my viewing pleasure (and I'm sure also for the hummingbird's gastronomic pleasure).

one of the nasturtium seed pods

Last Friday afternoon, I went outside to check on some plants on the deck and noticed that the weather had grown quite cold. It felt like we'd receive a good frost overnight, so I brought that basket into the kitchen. Sure enough, it did frost pretty heavily in our yard.

I am currently keeping the hanging basket on the kitchen desk while the new seeds finish ripening. If I can keep this plant alive for another few weeks, I should be rewarded with about a dozen nasturtium seeds to harvest for next summer's baskets.

While we enjoyed having the red lettuce in all of the baskets, I especially loved this one basket with both the nasturtium plant and the lettuce plants. I'm thinking that for summer 2021, I'll plant a few different types of seeds for edibles in the same baskets, including lettuce, nasturtiums, and perhaps some parsley and other herbs -- perhaps something like this:

Gardening is full of surprises. Often what I think will happen in the garden doesn't come to fruition, while that which I never anticipated comes along and surprises me. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

"This would be a better world for children, if the parents had to eat the spinach." -- Groucho Marx: Using Our Stash of Canned Spinach

This post is as much a call-out for ideas and recipes as it is my own experience in using canned spinach.

Over the summer and fall, I bought cans of vegetables for my winter pantry. Included in what I bought are: pureed pumpkin, sweet potatoes, tomato paste, whole tomatoes, sliced beets, carrots, corn, green beans (Blue Lake variety), Italian flat green beans, peas, and spinach. I was trying to amass a variety of orange, red, and green vegetables. I like to serve at least one orange or red and one green vegetable with each dinner. For the month of November, I have laid out a rotation that ensures we use the cans of vegetables in a balanced way.

Maintaining variety in how I serve each vegetable is the biggest challenge. I'm not a huge fan of canned vegetables; however, they do store neatly on a shelf instead of in my already-packed fridge and freezer.

This week, we tackled the canned spinach. I found that even with a rotation plan in place, we were still avoiding the spinach. 

In the past few days, I found two ways that were not only acceptable, but actually delicious ways to use the canned spinach: a personal omelet and a souffle that's not a souffle.

Spinach and cheese omelet

I was making my lunch the other day and there was a can of spinach sitting on the counter, staring me down. (I thought if I left the can on the counter, someone would eat it.) I was going to make myself a scrambled egg, then thought, "why not add some spinach?"

I made myself a simple spinach and cheese omelet by pouring a beaten egg into a hot, buttered skillet, spooned a little drained spinach on top of the cooking egg, added a pinch of nutmeg, some onion powder, salt, and a tablespoon of Parmesan cheese. When the egg was set, I folded the whole thing up. Easy-peasy done. 

My family members sat at the table with me and followed my first forkful with their eyes, waiting to see if this was something awful or something tasty. (Cue the iconic TV commercial scene with Mikey and Quaker Oats breakfast cereal Life, circa 1972.) I loved it, but I have yet to convince them to try the same for themselves.

I knew from cooking other recipes that spinach goes well with nutmeg, onion, garlic, and a variety of cheeses (cottage, ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan, cheddar, feta). That knowledge provided inspiration for both the omelet and this souffle.

Spinach Souffle (serves 4)

A variation of my personal spinach and cheese omelet, the souffle used: 

1  1/2 cans spinach
5 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
about 4 dashes nutmeg
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

about 3 tablespoons milk

about 2 tablespoons plain yogurt
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
 

In a mesh sieve, I drained and pressed most of the water from the canned spinach, then processed in the food processor using the chopping blade until mostly chopped, but not completely pureed.

In a large bowl, I beat the eggs with a whisk and stirred in the spices and powders, milk, and yogurt. Once smooth, I folded in the spinach and cheeses.

I baked the souffle in a well-buttered, glass round baker at 325 F (convection) for about 30 minutes, until the center looked puffy and set. 

I served the souffle topped with a quick, microwaved marinara sauce made from tomato paste, water, garlic powder, onion powder, dried oregano, salt, and red pepper flakes.

The family verdict? This was delicious and I think I converted all of my household to spinach-lovers with this souffle. The dish wasn't your traditional very puffed up souffle (which are made puffy by beating egg whites separately then combining with remaining ingredients), but more like a slightly puffy baked egg custard. If you've ever enjoyed Stouffer's Spinach Souffle, my version was along those lines.

The marinara-topped spinach souffle was accompanied by sausage links, roasted potatoes, and applesauce. However, for protein content (for a vegetarian meal), the souffle could stand alone with the protein in the eggs, cheeses, milk, yogurt and the spinach (a 13.5 oz can of spinach has 6 grams of protein). Total protein for the souffle was about 60 grams or 15 grams per serving.

For a first week of really trying with the spinach, I think I did well. But I am seeking other ways to use this canned vegetable. 

What are your favorite ways to use canned spinach? And actually, frozen spinach would fit here, too, as their textures are comparable once cooked. Recipes? Links? Ideas?

No Shampoo for a Month

I have a confession to make. I haven't used shampoo in a month. No, this isn't a "pandemic-hair, I don't care" moment. This came about because I was searching for a way to tame my unruly, naturally curly and frizzy hair. Well, it turns out that the naturally curly part is something I'm stuck with, but not the naturally frizzy part. 

About a month ago, I read about the curly girl hair method. Curly hair tends to be dry, as scalp oils don't slip down the hair shafts as easily on curly hair as on straight hair. To add to this, I color my hair, which increases the dryness. Well, dry hair attracts moisture from the air, leading to frizz.

So, one of the ideas behind the curly girl method is to "heal" some of that dryness by skipping traditional shampoos (which contain oil-stripping and drying ingredients) and wash the hair either with a sulfate and paraben-free shampoo or wash hair with a conditioner. It turns out that conditioners have enough of the cleansing agents needed to actually wash away dirt and bacteria and get the hair clean. (I never knew that!) The sulfate and paraben-free shampoos tend to be expensive, so I opted for washing with conditioner only. The bonus is since I'm "shampooing" with conditioner, my hair color (from a box) doesn't seem to be fading as fast. The sulfates in traditional drugstore shampoos are a no-no for colored hair, as they strip color while stripping oils.

There's more to the curly girl method, such as using gels to hold the curl in and never brushing the hair. But for now, I'm sticking with just my co-washing (washing with conditioner only). 

What I thought would happen

I thought that my hair would feel greasy or I'd develop dandruff. It didn't and I didn't. I thought I would need to co-wash my hair more often than I'd been shampooing with regular shampoo. I didn't. To clean my scalp, I use my fingertips to scrub the conditioner into the scalp, then rinse thoroughly before adding a bit more conditioner to the ends. In spite of my fears, I wound up with soft hair that feels and looks clean and appears to be improving significantly in the frizz department.

This doesn't surprise me

The success of using conditioner to clean my hair doesn't really surprise me all that much. About 15 years ago, I stopped using facial cleanser to wash my face. After struggling with some small patches of facial eczema for about a dozen years, I decided to ditch the cleansers and just "wash" my face with my moisturizer (a drugstore moisturizing lotion, not necessarily for the face only, but recommended for eczema). Like the hair and shampoo, I thought I might have to deal with break-outs or greasy-looking skin. I didn't. I used the lotion to wash my face, then rinsed with water before patting dry and applying a small amount of new moisturizer. The eczema flare-ups are few and far between, now, and mostly related to trying cosmetics to which I'm allergic. The bonus is my face never looks red or ruddy any more. I think that facial cleansers (even the expensive ones that are meant for dry skin) were simply too irritating for my sensitive facial skin. As I've gotten older and my skin has become a little more dry, I've switched to the heavier moisturizing cream by the same company (CeraVe, in case you're curious). Whether this is just good genes or ditching the facial cleansers, I do get a lot of comments that my skin looks young for my age. I hope that with even more time of co-washing my hair, its texture will improve to the point of just looking and feeling like normal, healthy hair, instead of always looking like it's been damaged. And maybe I can cut back on future purchases of expensive hair masks.

Do you remember when I said, "I also discovered that we can stop buying hair conditioner now. I think I have enough hair conditioner to get through this pandemic and the next one." Well, I now know how I'll be using up this surplus of hair conditioner.

Co-washing isn't recommended for straight, fine, and/or oily hair, although I have found a few women with thick and barely wavy hair that say co-washing works for their hair type, too.

Has anybody, here, used conditioner instead of shampoo? What were your results?

Thrifty This and That for the Week

I've been using the immature winter squash that I harvested just before a killing frost about 10 days ago.

The immature squash can be used much like summer squash. If the skin seems too tough for eating, I peel them first. This one in the photo was the most mature of the baby Hubbard squash that grew in my garden. (Our garden provided 1 fully ripe Hubbard and a bunch of immature ones.) I trimmed the ends, peeled the exterior, scooped out the seeds, and diced the remaining flesh.

Then I simmered the diced squash in water for about 20 minutes before adding to a pumpkin-sage pasta sauce. The yellow bits in the sauce below are the pre-cooked, immature winter squash dices.

I've been making a savory juice for my family with the liquid from canned tomatoes. When I drain a can of tomatoes, I save the liquid to mix with onion powder, garlic powder, celery salt, a pinch of red pepper, and a splash of water, all to taste, resulting in a delicious seasoned tomato juice. 

I wanted to share another of my wire-wrapping pieces. This is a beach-themed wire book hook.

I used a larger gauge wire (18 gauge) to bend into a wire hook. Then I added a length of chain and attached 3 charms. The lower charm is a piece of sea glass, found on our local beach, turned into a charm with wire wrapping. 

The pearl charm is simply a pearl bead that I threaded onto a short length of thinner wire. I spiraled the end piece of that wire to create a stop on one side of the pearl and made a loop in the wire on the other side of the pearl (for hooking the charm onto a jump ring). The possibilities for book hooks using wire wrapping, lengths of chain, and beads are endless. Just pick a theme and go from there.

I got a new-to-me phone -- a hand-me-up from my daughter. This is my first smartphone. My daughter was upgrading her phone to one with a better camera for shooting auditions. Lucky me! I'm very grateful for this gift as I'm not sure I ever would have bought a nice phone for myself. (Expensive tech stuff is not a very high spending priority to me.)

That's about it for the week. What's been some of your thrifty fun this week?