Cheap & Cheerful for (oh my goodness!!) the end of October

Where did the month fly to? We'll be planting spring gardens before we know it, at this rate.

This past week --

Over the weekend, we had rice and lentils, snacks, garbanzo bean spread, salads, and fruit. One daughter and I volunteered at a charity luncheon on Saturday and frankly were too full ourselves to eat much for dinner that night. Sunday's dinner was more usual, with the lentils, some veggies, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, and potatoes.

Monday -- daughter put together a dinner of baked squash, leftover rice and lentils, spinach-onion-tofu saute

Tuesday -- hot dogs in whole wheat buns, tomato wedges, sauteed cabbage

Wednesday -- (family dinner) grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato bisque, potato chips, curried slaw, pumpkin eggnog

Thursday -- leftover tomato bisque (I made a huge pot on Wednesday, sent some home with my son, and we still had enough for last night), whole wheat Yorkshire pudding wedges, tossed salad of lettuce, cabbage, tomato, and cheese cubes with homemade dressing

Friday -- after our discussion about cabbage the other day, I picked up some turkey Polish sausage. I'll be making sausage, mashed potatoes, and cabbage for dinner tonight. Thank you for the idea the other day!!

I was looking out the window today and had a thought about the landscape in autumn. Colored leaves lay everywhere in a haphazard way, yet the world looks beautiful in all of their mess. Usually I associate beauty with a somewhat tidy appearance. But there is something beautiful in nature's untidiness. In case you hadn't guessed, no one in our house has raked any leaves yet. Perhaps this weekend. But if we don't get to the raking, we can still enjoy nature's untidy beauty. Anyways, just my thought as I gazed out my window. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Oh, how I love cabbage (and other romantic odes)

I was chopping cabbage last night and thinking to myself how much I love cabbage. It isn't that cabbage is the yummiest food on Earth. But it's cheap (49 cents/lb the past month at Fred Meyer -- a bargain for veggies), keeps in the fridge for weeks and weeks, and is versatile enough to make either a hot dish or a cold salad.

Last night, we had sauteed cabbage, seasoned with soy sauce, garlic, ginger and a pinch of sugar. Tonight I'll add cabbage to our dinner of soup and sandwiches, as a slaw-style salad like this curried peanut salad, using peanuts from some trail mix which has had all of the other goodies gobbled up. I try to keep a jar of sliced red or green cabbage in the fridge, just waiting to be added to impromptu salad snacking. It's handy stuff for quick side dishes. I don't buy a lot of the usual convenience foods. But I do consider a head of cabbage to be something of a convenience item, as it doesn't require a lot of prep work, and can be ready to eat in minutes.

This time of year, cabbage makes into many of our meals and snacks.