Cheap & Cheerful suppers for the week

Thursday (this was one of the hot days, here. A cold dinner was much appreciated)
Pesto pasta salad -- cooked rotini pasta, garbanzo beans, cooked chicken, olives, canned diced tomatoes, pesto dressing, topped with dollops of pesto, served on lettuce
rhubarb crisp

Friday (not so cheap -- about $6 or $7 for all 5 of us -- but far cheaper than the usual $25-30 at Ivar's fast food fish bar)
fish and chips
carrot-raisin-peanut salad

Saturday (cloudy day, was great for pie-baking, and it cheered us all up, as my son left for out of town for a week, this morning)
leftover carrot-raisin-peanut salad
Swiss chard and garlic frittata
rice cooked in chicken broth
blackberry-rhubarb pie

Sunday (I had leftover refried beans to use up, which became the base for the soup. It was thick and hearty)
chicken-chili soup
bread and butter
leftover blackberry-rhubarb pie

Monday (It looks like it should be a good year for the beets, and we all enjoy them cooked and added to salads)
chicken-noodle soup
grilled cheese sandwiches
leafy green salad with julienned beet and cucumber (all from the garden)
fresh raspberries

Tuesday (this year's rhubarb, but plums from the freezer from 2 years ago, still fine!)
Tex-Mex black beans and rice, with 1 hamburger patty, cooked and crumbled into the skillet
topped with cheddar, diced, canned tomatoes and olives
rhubarb-plum crumble with whipped cream

Wednesday
linguine and meatballs in marinara (with the beet greens added, from the beet added to the salad)
leafy green salad with julienned beet, cooked garbanzo beans and cucumber
leftover rhubarb-plum crumble



I am trying to clean out the freezer a bit, to make room for summer produce surplus. It's tight in there right now. This week, I found some canned tomatoes, canned tomato paste, chopped plums, blackberries, marinara sauce and sliced, sharp cheddar cheese in the freezer, needing using up.

One of my daughters asked me yesterday evening, if foods ever go "bad" in the freezer. As far as I know, if the temp of the freezer is kept at 0 F degrees, food doesn't really spoil, but loses quality of texture and taste. The frozen plums in the crumble this week were from 2 summers ago. Mostly, the container just had a lost of frost inside. Have you ever heard of food actually spoiling in the freezer (if kept at 0 F)?

3 in 1 mint plants

I've been tidying up one spot in the yard this summer. My progress has been slooooooow. But yesterday I tackled one more little area -- the potted mints. I have pineapple mint, spearmint and peppermint.

I like to keep my mint plants in pots. In the past, I've sunk terra cotta pots into the ground, holding individual plants. They do a good job of corralling the mints, while keeping the roots well-watered. However, as you can see, the pots fall apart after a while, in our climate. And it just doesn't look so nice after a full season or two.

So, time to see what I can do with this area.

I bought a larger pot, one of those all-weather, concrete-looking pots. In it, I placed 3 tall-ish plastic pots (they look like 1-gallons).

I filled the outer pot with plenty of soil, then moved the mint plants into each of these smaller inside pots. I did have to root-prune one of the plants, and cut the whole thing in half, as it wouldn't likely do well, simply transplanted. But I do like how this project turned out.

In summer, I grow the mint in the shade of a blueberry bush. Our yard can really bake. But now I have the option to bring the mint plants up to the deck come fall, which I might find quite handy.

When we first moved into this house, the previous owners had mint growing in the front garden, only it was allowed to "roam". I spent the better part of every morning, for one entire summer, eradicating that mint from the yard. My aim is to never go through that, again!