Cheap & Cheerful Suppers -- End of August

Friday (Movie Night -- we watched African Queen, checked out from the local library)
sausage, mushroom and basil pizza
garden green beans
curried cabbage, sprouted lentil, and peanut slaw
blackberries
microwave brownies

I'm still out of pepperoni. But we've been very satisfied with the sausage, mushroom and basil pizzas I've been making.

My heads of cabbage are still forming. So instead of harvesting a ball of cabbage for the slaw, I cut off one or two outer leaves from a few heads, then finely sliced those leaves.

Saturday (I don't remember what we had.)

Sunday

garbanzo bean and kale soup

drop biscuits

blackberry cobbler

I had a bunch of different liquids to use up, some from steaming vegetables, some from rinsing a can of tomato puree, and pasta cooking water. These were used as the liquid in the soup.

The leftover blackberry cobbler became the next day's breakfast.

Monday

sorrel, squash blossom and sausage soup

stuffed grape leaves

Mexican baked beans with beef

tossed garden salad

fresh blackberries

The baked beans were absolutely delicious. If you're tiring of traditional baked beans and like Tex-Mex food, try a Mexican baked bean casserole. I use 4 oz of cooked ground beef, added to 2.5 to 3 cups of cooked pinto beans, a little salsa, some fresh cilantro, chili powder, cumin, salt, water, vegetable oil. I baked the casserole at about 325 F until the water was mostly gone. It tasted like the filling to a good beef and bean burrito. Extras like cheddar cheese, sliced olives, chopped green onions, diced tomato as toppings after baking would make this really tasty.

Tuesday

pancakes with garden blueberries

bacon

blackberry-rhubarb sauce

Wednesday
spaghetti and meat sauce
sautéed zucchini and patty pan squash
cucumber and pickled chive blossom salad

fresh blackberries

I doubled the batch of spaghetti sauce for a quick meal next week, using 1 lb. of ground beef, a small handful of TVP dehydrated, 12 oz. can tomato paste, oregano, celery, garlic, salt, red pepper flakes, and water (including some of the pasta cooking water at the end). I also saved the water from cooking the spaghetti to use in Thursday's dinner as part of the liquid in the curry.

The pickled chive blossoms were added to the sliced cucumber salad. After I strained my last bottle of chive blossom vinegar, I put the jar of blossoms into the fridge. I use a tablespoon of the pickled blossoms in a salad, pulling the individual blossoms apart slightly. They provide the vinegar flavor in salads that I'd normally add some vinegar. In this salad, I added a spoonful of mayo and a pinch of salt to the sliced cucumbers and chive blossoms.

Thursday

chicken curry over rice

sautéed beet greens (we ate roasted beets with lunch on Wednesday)

leftover frozen chocolate cream pie and various ice creams

A couple of days this last week (those that 3 or more of us were at home), our lunches looked more like dinners. I've roasted and sautéed vegetables, made fried rice, baked desserts, etc. It just makes sense for our situation. I used the leafy green leaves from the carrots in a slaw and in fried rice. I used both fresh chive blossoms  (in soups and salads) and the pickled chive blossoms that are leftover from making chive blossom vinegar (in salads). I harvest the squash blossoms later in the day, using only male blossoms and only after the female blossoms have twisted themselves shut. We like the mellowness they add to sorrel soup. This was the first week that I've used our celery. And this is the first time I've grown celery. Our homegrown celery has a strong flavor compared to commercially-grown celery. I added some ribs to the fried rice and the spaghetti sauce, using both leaves and crunchy ribs. Instead of harvesting the entire plant, I cut off an outer rib here and there and am allowing the rest of the plant to continue to grow.

Our garden is producing really well, but most of what it's giving us needs someone to cook it into something. On the days that I'm cooking at least 2 full meals, I'm spending a lot of time in the kitchen. It's a season of my life. The positive part of all of this is a few more minutes with family each day. Opportunities like this will become fewer and further between shortly. 

what we've eaten from the garden this week

(I wanted to list this out just to see how much our garden is yielding right now. I feel very blessed.)

green beans

cabbage

lentil sprouts (from the kitchen "garden")

basil

oregano

garlic

thyme

rosemary

blackberries

parsley

cilantro

kale -- two kinds

sorrel

squash blossoms

grape leaves

dill weed

lettuce

spinach

nasturtium leaves and flowers

Swiss chard

blueberries

raspberries

rhubarb

summer squash

cucumber

chive blossoms

chives

apples

carrots and their greens

celery

radish leaves

beets and their greens

green onions

still waiting for potatoes, Brussel sprouts, tomatoes, fall turnips, pumpkins.winter squash, peppers, corn, and figs

Those were our meals this past week. Anything special on your menus? Do you ever have your large meal in the middle of the day and a lighter one for supper?

Have a wonderful weekend!

Grocery Shopping at the Restaurant Supply This Week

Last week I wrote about grocery shopping at Fred Meyer, primarily for milk and eggs (I also bought cheese, orange juice, bananas, and a box of marked down granola bars). That was the first time I'd shopped in a month, and I spent about $55.

I have a list of items I want to pick up before September, some of which is stocking up stuff for this coming winter and spring. In particular, I wanted a 50-lb sack of bread flour, 50-lb sack of sugar, a case of canned tomatoes (6 X #10 cans), a case of canned tomato paste (12 X 29-oz cans), 50-ln sack of whole onions,  and a gallon of lemon juice.I had been waiting to buy the onions until I could get new crop ones, so I wouldn't find myself with several spoiling onions within a few weeks. And this was that week! I've stored about half of the bag in our spare fridge and the other half I tiered in a cardboard box between layers of brown paper then stored in the coolest room in the house. I was out of bread flour and substituting regular all-purpose with less than stellar results, so it was time to buy another sack of the good stuff (expensive at 54 cents/lb, but less than the cost per pound in small bags). The tomato products are regular items that I buy every winter (good prices on both -- 3.8 cents/oz on canned whole tomatoes, 6.5 cents/oz on tomato paste). Canned tomatoes and tomato paste have jumped up in price in regular grocery stores in my area this summer. I've been completely out of lemon juice for several months. A gallon sounds like a lot, I know. It keeps in the fridge for many months and in the freezer for a few years. The gallon size was the most economical, and from my experience with cooking for my family, we easily go through a gallon of lemon juice in a year in lemonade, tea, desserts, Greek cooking, and as a milder acid in salad dressing. The sugar is to get us through jam and preserve-making season, the fall baking season, and all of those Christmas goodies. While at the restaurant supply store (we call it Cash & Carry because that was its name when we first began shopping there), I picked up a few more bananas too. My total came to about $136.

what I noticed

The prices on everything are increasing. I paid $5 more for this bag of sugar than I did the last time (a few months ago). Lemon juice is $2 more per gallon than a couple of years ago. While Cash & Carry's price on onions is better than what I'd pay at Fred Meyer, at 36 cents/lb, that's a lot more than what I paid in a 50-lb sack about 5-6 years ago (about 20 cents/lb back then). The other thing I noticed was the empty spaces on the flour shelves. I mentioned this at the check-out and the cashier said that shortly after a flour order comes in, it flies off the shelves. As this is a restaurant and bakery supply, I am guessing that small eateries and bake shops are making sure they have a good supply on hand.

I had thought I might also go to WinCo, but I changed my mind. The prospect of some peaches was tempting. I rethought that idea. We have so much fresh produce ripening every day right now that I just can't bring any more into the house. I also felt I'd spent enough for one day's shopping.

so where I stand with my stocking up

I was thinking about what else we might need. I keep a running list on my computer's notepad. I still need shortening (pie pastry), a turkey (for Thanksgiving), a 25-lb bag of carrots, and some nutmeg. Then I'd consider myself very well-stocked except for a few perishables that I will need to buy somewhat regularly, milk, eggs, cheese, a little meat (still have a lot of meat in the freezer, though), bananas, and a couple of seasonal items. If it turns out my garden potatoes did poorly (I won't know until October), then I will also add those to my need list. Otherwise, my fall stock-up is almost complete. 

Two years ago, I realized how nice it was to not need to go grocery shopping very often in winter. After that year, I decided I would try to minimize grocery shopping in future winters. This has worked very well for me. 

why I shop at a restaurant supply

There are a few main reasons why I like to shop at a restaurant supply for about half of my groceries. I pay roughly what I would at a warehouse store (factoring in the cost of membership to a store like Costco) without the temptation of lots of convenience or junk foods. (Restaurants don't buy jumbo boxes of Pop-Tarts or Oreos, but do buy jumbo bags of flour or cartons of cooking oil) I don't have to wait for sales to get a great unit price on pantry staples and some produce items by buying in institutional sizes. The convenience of buying a product in a super large package so I don't need to buy it again soon. Despite all of this, I still find better prices on some foods (like milk) by shopping in regular grocery stores. So I try to shop at both kinds of stores.

I think that's the end of grocery shopping for August. I'm glad to have it out of the way.