Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for Early to Mid-June: Using Lots of Garden Produce

this week's beverage experiment -- if rose-ade was good, perhaps lemon balm-ade will also be delicious
I packed a bunch of lemon balm leaves into a quart jar, then filled with water. I'll let it stand on the counter for 2 days, then sweeten. Here's hoping it's good.

Friday
homemade pepperoni pizza, frozen broccoli microwaved, apple wedges, leftover rhubarb custard pie

Saturday
refried beans, homemade tortillas, carrot sticks, Swiss chard, leftover cookies/pie

Sunday
chicken and vegetable soup, radish green and nasturtium leaf salad

Monday
meatloaf, gravy, brown rice, roasted turnips, sautéed turnip greens, rhubarb-Koolaid sauce, pumpkin pie

I used more of that Koolaid that my daughter bought but didn't like in a rhubarb sauce. It added flavor and sweetness, while using up something that was just lingering in the fridge.

Tuesday
pumpkin pie, ham and potato casserole, broccoli and turnip stem pieces

I used the leafy part of the turnip leaves in Monday's dinner. I cut away the thick stems. I was going to compost these stems, then I tried cutting them, and they seemed tender enough to cut, not stringy. So I set these aside to add to broccoli. They worked well and kept me from wasting another food item. By the way, you can do the same thing with kale stems, if you're using fresh kale in salads and don't want the thick stem pieces in a salad.

The casserole was tasty. I had about a tablespoon of cream cheese that needed using and some frozen chopped chives and garlic. I mixed these items into some mashed potatoes, then layered with ham chunks I had in the freezer. That ham had been frozen in ham stock. I saved that ham stock and used it in a soup for lunch the following day.

Wednesday
tomato soup, sandwiches, canned pineapple, rice pudding

Both of my daughters received coupons for free sandwiches at a local sub shop. One daughter used her coupon for a footlong sub tonight to serve with other items. The rice pudding used rice leftover from Monday's dinner. It's the baked kind of rice pudding.

Thursday

sandwiches, meatballs in BBQ sauce, radish green and lentil sprout salad, applesauce

The other daughter used her coupon for another footlong sandwich. We had an "incident" with one of the freezers (not the one my friend had her stuff in, thankfully). A couple of prepared items in the freezer felt like they should be used right away, hence the meatballs with dinner. Most of the rest of the frozen foods will be okay and safe to eat. I used a digital thermometer to check the temperature of various foods we had in that freezer.

spinach pesto on pasta using stems as well as leaves of spinach

Foods I'm harvesting

We are still stuck in a heavily cloudy, rainy, and cool pattern of weather. That means that the warm weather veggies of our garden are stagnating. However, I continue to find foods to harvest. I've used small nasturtium leaves in salads and large nasturtium leaves shredded in soups. I pulled out the last of the spinach plants from one pot on the deck and used all except the roots (meaning I used stems, leaves, flower heads not yet in bloom) in lunch one day. I made a pesto with the spinach plants, garlic, and Parmesan cheese. I tossed the pesto with cooked pasta. It made a delicious lunch addition. I also harvest a bunch of chives and garlic greens to chop and freeze for later in the year. I pulled a few more turnips for dinner one night. I roasted the roots and chopped the greens to sauté. Before I chopped the leaves I removed the thick stems. I set aside these stems to chop small to add to broccoli later in the week. On Tuesday, I steamed some of the chopped turnip stems along with some frozen broccoli, stretching my dwindling supply of frozen broccoli. I harvested rhubarb to use in sauce and to toss with sugar then dehydrate for use later. I also dehydrated more rose petals to use in winter tea. And of course, my indoor radish greens and counter top lentil sprouts always provide something for salads.

Lemon Balm and Rose Petal Tea Cake

My lemon balm is quite bushy this week. I read a couple of recipes online that use lemon balm and settled on this recipe for a lemon balm tea bread. The recipe reminded me of one I saw in a Victoria magazine many years ago. That recipe called for lemon thyme and rose petals, plus maybe the lemon balm. Anyway,  I decided to make something similar to that Victoria recipe. In the Taste of Home recipe, I used the lemon balm called for, but I also used 1/4 cup of finely shredded rose petals and about 3/4 teaspoon of lemon extract. I didn't have any lemon zest at home for the lemony flavor, hence the extract (which, oddly, I do have). The rest of the recipe I baked as directed, leaving off the lemon glaze, as I didn't want a too sweet tea bread. While I was chopping the lemon balm, I chopped enough to freeze for a couple more loaves of tea bread at a later date.

It looks absolutely beautiful, doesn't it?

Now the bad thing. The recipe only calls for greasing the pan, which I did. I think with this recipe, you should also line the pan with waxed paper or parchment going up 2 sides, so that it will come out of the pan easily. Mine stuck and then broke in half as I tried to remove it. Disappointing. I'll try again, though, as I really liked the flavors of the rose petals, lemon balm, and lemon extract.

Those were some of our meals this past week. What was on your menu? Have you ever had a cake not come out of the pan? It's frustrating, isn't it? Do you have a tried and true way to make sure cakes don't fall apart when taking them out of the pan?

Shopping and Gas This Week -- Early to Mid-June

I didn't grocery shop this week like I had planned to do. Friday evening, a friend called desperate to find some freezer space for some of her food. She came home from work in the afternoon and found her fridge/freezer had stopped working. She had thought this might happen soon, but was hoping it would be later rather than sooner. She went to Home Depot and ordered a new fridge/freezer. But it couldn't be delivered for almost a week (Thursday of this week). My friend lives about 5 minutes from my house, so she called asking if I had freezer room to spare for her frozen foods. I knew I could make this work for her. I shifted some of my frozen food around and made enough space for her frozen foods. I also lent her my hard-sided picnic cooler and all our frozen ice packs, so she could keep her refrigerated foods safe to eat for several days. 

Anyway, without my cooler I can't make yogurt. That left me with one extra gallon of milk (which had been set aside for yogurt) that my family can drink for the rest of the week. Which means, I have no real need to go grocery shopping just yet. And I didn't even order anything, food or otherwise. So I spent zero on food this past week. If you're keeping track, it's now been about 2 1/2 weeks since I grocery shopped last. We are out of bananas and down to the last few apples, but we're doing fine on produce despite this.  And I have plenty of eggs still. Milk, produce, and eggs would be the motivating purchases which would prompt a grocery trip. We'll get by for a few more days. And I'll have my picnic cooler back by then so I can make yogurt with newly purchased milk. So, big story just to say I didn't go grocery shopping this past week.

Gas for the week

Gas prices are still inching up, but not by as much this past week as previous weeks. In my town, unleaded was $5.83/gallon at 7-11. Last week, I posted that gas at this station was $5.79/gallon, so it's up 4 cents a gallon at this station. The Shell station currently has unleaded at $5.69/gallon cash or $5.79/gallon credit, which is what it was last week. If I drive one town over, where the Costco is located, lowest octane is $5.33/gallon at Costco. In this same town, I found gas for $5.39/gallon at an ARCO station. So, the benefit for buying gas from Costco is a savings of 6 cents per gallon this week. Not nearly as remarkable of a savings as last week. Gas prices seem to be see-sawing their way up, going up at one station before the rest, then the others catch up somewhat. It pays to shop around, using one of the gas comparison websites or apps, such as gasbuddy.com.