Cheap & Cheerful Suppers: One Last Week of Meals Prepared by My Daughters

Friday (my husband's birthday)
Nacho bar with tortilla chips, ground beef, refried beans, cheese, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, sour cream, nacho cheese sauce, guacamole, plus scratch spongecake with lemon glaze

Saturday cookout (joint birthday celebration with our son and daughter-in-law)
hot dogs, kielbasa, buns, potato salad, grape tomatoes, fresh strawberries, stir-fried vegetables and rice, blackberry lemonade, scratch ice cream cake

Sunday
ham and cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, leftover desserts

Monday
Pasta Tina (cannellini beans, garlic, olive oil, chicken soup base, pureed and served on cooked pasta), garden salad, first-of-the-season rhubarb sauce

Tuesday
chili (canned chili enhanced with canned tomatoes, additional cooked beans, bell pepper, and cheese), blueberry muffins (packaged mix)

Wednesday
meatball subs (frozen meatballs, canned pasta sauce, hot dog buns, topped with cheese then broiled), honey-mustard carrots, canned green beans

Thursday

homemade chive and garbanzo hummus, crackers, raw vegetables, Cole slaw

Since my husband and my birthdays are 6 days apart, we have our bigger celebration (with our son and daughter-in-law and exchange gifts) on a single day somewhere near both birthdays (sometimes between the two or sometimes much later). We chose the Saturday after my husband's birthday this year. I told my daughters I would handle most of the food for this day, as they've been doing so much this month. But I also promised myself I would choose the easy way out for everything. I bought a deli potato salad, fresh produce to serve plain, and a stir-fry "kit" that was marked down as the sides. I bought hot dog buns instead of making them. For the dessert, my daughters baked the cake portion of the ice cream cake and I used the ice cream I'd made in late February for the ice cream layer. This was more expensive than a usual dinner for us, but far cheaper than a restaurant meal. My thinking is almost always "use what you have." With a fire ring and plenty of wood, a cookout makes sense for us. I have a simple ice cream maker, so back in February when I had a glut of whipping cream, I made a batch of ice cream to be used for this birthday celebration.And I have the right kind of cake pan (a springform) for making an ice cream cake. I do try to use the tools we already have.

This past month has been such a treat to not have to cook dinners. I think I've learned a few tricks from my daughters. Will I return to my all-from-scratch cooking, or will I adopt some of their shortcuts? Time will tell. On Sunday, we return to our regular meal cooking schedule. All good things must end.

How were your meals this past week? Any stand-outs?

Follow-up on Collecting Flower Seeds from Purchased Annuals

Last week in the comments, Teresa was interested in photos of the seeds I'd saved from some annual flowers I'd purchased. I have to admit I goofed in that post and kept calling my marigolds, geraniums. My apologies. I've since fixed that mistake and now will provide some photos and information on petunia and marigold seed collecting. 

In spring of 2021 I bought some petunia and marigold plants for the pots around my house. I wanted to save some of the seeds from both of these plants. I had mentioned that I didn't know what I'd be looking for with the seeds when it was time to collect them, so I had to go online and search for images of what I'd be wanting.

The marigold seeds didn't really look like seeds to me. But it turns out that they are. 

photo source: 
https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-save-marigold-seeds-1388591

After the blooms had ended for the summer, I was left with what looked like dead flowers on the stems. I didn't cut the fading flowers off earlier because I wanted them to set seeds.  When I pulled these dead "blooms" apart, they broke into bunches of long narrow seeds. Each little narrow whole piece is a seed.

To plant the marigold seeds this spring, I covered them in a light layer of soil in a pot indoors (under lights), then kept them watered. The seeds took a couple of weeks to sprout. I don't remember exactly, but about 2 weeks. 

Within a month of sprouting, I had a mass of small plants growing in this one pot. 

Today, I now have blooms forming on several of the small plants. I'll be planting them out in pots in early May for blooms all summer.

With the petunia plants, again I wasn't sure what the seeds would look like, so I searched online for photos. 

photo source:
https://www.gardenstew.com/threads/any-one-else-have-polka-dot-petunias.25755/

Petunias set seed pods at the base of where the petals had been attached to each bloom. At first, the seed pod is just a green protrusion, growing right out of that part of the flower, getting larger with each passing week. 

photo source:
https://indiahomegardening.blogspot.com/2014/04/collecting-seeds-petunia.html

When the pods are ready to harvest, they look like small, pointed paper-like balls. Each ball contains dozens of incredibly tiny seeds. If you don't physically harvest these seeds, the pods will burst open on their own and spread seeds themselves. 

the outer husks that once held petunia seeds

As I was transplanting some of the petunias I'd grown with collected seeds, I came across some parts of exploded seed pods.

I also came across this little guy poking his head out from under the pot.

To plant petunia seeds, I began indoors and under lights in March. I sprayed the top of soil-filled containers with water then pressed the seeds gently into the soil. I didn't add any soil on top of the seeds. I kept the seeds and soil damp until the seeds germinated, then began a regular watering schedule. 

You can also begin petunias outdoors after danger of frost has passed by pressing the seeds into the soil and keeping watered. With my pot of new petunias, I also added some seeds to the top of the soil after transplanting the seedlings. I did this to ensure I have a mix of colors that I want for blooming. Later in the season I'll thin these new seedlings to the best 3 or 4 plants per pot. We're still in our rainy season, so I expect these seeds will stay damp long enough to germinate.

I hope this gave you the information and visuals you were hoping for, Teresa.