Cheap & Cheerful Meals for the Last Week of September

Friday
pepperoni pizza, stuffed grape leaves, fruit compote (banana, apple, plums, preserved figs), oatmeal- butterscotch chip cookies

Saturday
burgers, garden corn, plums, cole slaw, carrot sticks, blackberry cheesecake ice cream

Sunday
lentil vegetable soup, biscuits, chocolates (from last Christmas!)

Monday
chicken tamales, seasoned rice, refried beans and cheese, sautéed kale and onions, plums in spiced fig syrup, cookies

Tuesday
tamale pie (using leftover chicken and beans from Monday), sautéed pumpkin blossoms/garlic/onions, cabbage and kale slaw, fresh plums

Wednesday
scrambled eggs with green onions, sausage links, sautéed mixed cole crop greens (kale, cauliflower leaves, Brussel sprout leaves), roasted purple potatoes, stewed prunes

Thursday
spaghetti with meat sauce, sautéed mixed cole crop greens (kale, cauliflower leaves, Brussel sprout leaves), fresh plums

breakfasts -- waffles, biscuits, carrot-spice rolls, toast, cream of wheat, instant oatmeal, yogurt, frozen blackberries, fresh plums, tomatoes, eggs, peanut butter, toasty o's cereal

lunches -- tomato-basil soup, grape leaf and beef soup, pumpkin soup, leftovers, apples, tomatoes, plums, lentils, refried beans, seasoned rice, peanut butter, garden potatoes

snacks -- any of the above, plus roasted almonds, peanuts, graham crackers, popcorn, cheese crackers, raisins, pop corn

I am still trying to use as much produce from our garden, orchard and berry patch in our meals. With a waning garden, this means I scavenge for vegetables more than in the high season, for example, the leaves from Brussel sprouts (picked judiciously leaving most on the plants while sprouts develop), leaves on cauliflower (same as Brussel sprouts), grape leaves as a leafy green, pumpkin and squash blossoms now that no more fruit would have enough time to fully develop, and corn husks for making tamales. As a berry bonus, the fall crop of ever-bearing raspberries provides a handful of raspberries every day. Not much, but makes a good snack for the lucky person happening to be in the garden first in the day. Despite using all I can find in the garden, I will be putting in another order for groceries this week, and it will include more fresh produce than pick-ups made in summer.

All of the bread products and desserts are scratch, as are the various soups from the week. And we did have a lot of soup this past week, as the rainy, cool weather came on strong. We had lentil-vegetable soup, grape leaf and beef soup, tomato-basil soup, and pumpkin curry soup.  Our rainy week sure did give me more time and motivation to cook and bake.

What was on your menu this past week? Any stand-outs that you can't wait to eat again?

My Week, Autumn Begins

We had an extremely wet weekend, prompting me to get some harvesting in. I finished harvesting the tomatoes and pulled out all of the basil. The basil had been in small planters on the deck, which means I could repurpose those planters for a fast growing vegetable in my fall deck garden. I chose radishes for those 2 planters. I planted the seeds thickly, not for the root ends, but for use as greens, both in salads and cooked. I chopped and froze most of the basil, saving some for bruschetta later in the week, and I made a basil stock with the stems to use as a base for basil-tomato soup.

The furnace came on and I just let it. In previous years, I've shut the furnace off until the first of October. Because we've saved so much money in other areas this year (and we still have an earned income), I'm "splurging" on early season extra heat. My husband, who is a very thin man, really appreciated the additional heat.

I cooked a winter squash from our garden for dinner one night. I saved the seeds that I scooped out, setting aside about 40 for planting freezing the remaining seeds for roasting when I have more pumpkin or squash seeds from other meals. Cool weather makes one long for foods like winter squash. After a heavy rain that night, the next morning I pulled up all of the green bean plants and tied them in a bundle to hang upside down for the seeds pods to finish maturing for next year's green bean seeds.

On the last afternoon of summer I decide to tackle the pots of tulip bulbs. Earlier in summer, the squirrels made a mess of my tulip pots, eating many of the bulbs in the process. When I noticed this, I moved the pots of remaining bulbs and soil to a place those cute but pesky critters couldn't get to. Finally, on Tuesday I had the time to replant the remaining bulbs. I just know that if I just set the replanted bulbs back out on the deck, the squirrels would come along in short order for another snack. This time, I covered the 2 pots with red net onion bags which I tied to the pots near their bases with string saved from a large sack of dried beans. I'm waiting to see if the furry bulb fiends will attempt to get into those pots. So far, so good. Do you save things like net produce bags and used string, too?

Mid-week I dug the potatoes. This year's harvest was not as plentiful as I'd hoped -- about 25 pounds. I sorted them and set aside about 5 pounds for seed potatoes for next year. (I'm doubling my potato patch next year, so will need double what I've been setting aside.) That leaves us with about 20 pounds of potatoes, which should last us through November, maybe into December. In addition, I'll be buying a couple of 10-lb bags of russets when I find them at a good price.

I also harvested the last bucket of plums and almost all of the tomatoes. I dried most of the plums this months and now have 4 full quart-size bags of prunes for winter. The tomatoes are mostly still green, and I have them laid out on a large towel to slowly ripen. The ever-bearing raspberries are just now ripening their small fall crop. These are such a delicious treat at this time of year. We've set up a bed to which we'll move some of the rogue ever-bearing raspberries, doubling our fall raspberry harvest in a couple of years.

Special lunch this week

Because we just don't go out to eat any more, I wanted to make a special lunch for my household -- sliced cheddar cheese, crackers, dried cranberries, roasted almonds, two types of our own apples, green fig pickles, and squares of dark chocolate. I also found a bottle of sparkling water in the pantry to go with our repast. I used a large wooden tray on which I placed two large grape leaves to go under the cheese slices and crackers. I thought it looked pretty in a very fall-like way, and all was delicious. What are some of the little ways that you celebrate autumn?

Why do I like doing this and why take the time to make it look nice? Making the effort to do this nicely feeds our sense of luxury without spending any more than our usual lunch budget. As a bonus, we tend to gather and sit a while when I make an effort, as opposed to everyone helping themselves to a pot of soup on the stove and then scattering to their corners of the house.

extra posts

Two extra posts for your weekend reading. 

• One, a question on how I can use about 1 liter of totally flat cola. Read and add suggestions here.
• And the other, our cheap and cheerful meals for the week. All of the details, here.

I hope you all had a wonderful week. What were the highlights of your week? Any savings this week?

Enjoy your weekend!