This and that: what might have ended up in the garbage . . .

Things I salvaged this week

Some paper doilies from one of the church teas. They were used once, each, under plates of cookies. About to be tossed out, I quickly snatched them to take home, knowing I could use them again. I'll be using one of the larger doilies under my daughters' birthday cake next week.

The plastic outer wrap from a 20-roll pack of bath tissue. Fits our kitchen step-can perfectly, as a liner. I also use the large plastic bags that the 25 lbs of dried beans and 12.5 lbs of popping corn come packaged in, for liners.

The tail end of a loaf of sourdough that just didn't turn out well and became hard as a rock. It still tasted good, but was far too chewy to really enjoy. After slicing thin, I cut the slices into strips, then dices, and ran through the food processor. It still didn't become small crumbs, but more like barley-sized lumps. I added these bread lumps to a batch of chili at the last minute, and declared them a "meat substitute", as they kept that chew-texture for the first few minutes of eating the chili.

The scrapings from another pan of homemade cornbread. I can get one or two tablespoons of crumbs from each batch of cornbread. I scrape them into a container for the freezer, then when I have a half cup or so, add them to any recipe calling for bread crumbs. These were added, along with the rest of the freezer container-full, to a batch of bean burgers.


How about you? Did you snatch something up, just before it got tossed, this week?

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So I baked a cake . . .

I was desperate for a chocolate bar yesterday afternoon. I had errands to run, and the thought to stop and pick one up kept running through my mind. Although this would be a treat, it would still come out of the grocery budget.

To save that $2 on a chocolate bar, I decided to bake a cake once I returned home. It's not a fancy cake. Just an ordinary, weekday cake.

Part of the draw to the decision to baking a cake at home is the cake batter. Yeah, you know what I mean! Who here has never baked a cake with the primary motivation being to eat some of the batter?! Cake batter is one of the perks of being the baker, I say.

Since what I was wanting was chocolate with fruit (one of my favorite chocolate bars has chopped dried cherries and roasted almonds in dark chocolate), I decided on a chocolate cake with homemade cherry preserves and chocolate-almond frosting between the layers, and the top and sides covered in more of that chocolate frosting.

I baked two layers. I used one of the layers for last night's cake, and wrapped and froze the other for another day when I'm craving chocolate again.

I handled a craving which would have required me to spend more of the grocery budget, instead with a homemade treat using my supplies at home. I'd say that's a success in the financial column, but a failure in the diet column. Oh well, I'll start my diet on Monday. Yeah, right. . . .

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