Cheap and Cheerful Meals for Mid-October

Brussel sprout leaves — I choose those that are about 3 to 4 inches in diameter. I shred them horizontally before cooking.

Friday

homemade pepperoni pizza, sautéed immature summer squash, winter squash and pumpkins with garlic and onion, tossed garden salad, chocolates

Saturday

chicken in gravy, baked garden potatoes, coleslaw, carrot sticks, fig spice cake

Sunday

refried beans & salsa, homemade flour tortillas, steamed carrots, sautéed Swiss chard, fig spice cake

Monday

tuna noodle casserole, tossed garden salad (lettuce, spinach, beet greens, kale, lentil sprouts), banana bread

Tuesday

baked potatoes topped with kale in cheese sauce and bacon bits, curried peanut, sprouts and cabbage salad, carrot-raisin muffins

Wednesday

meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, carrot-raisin salad, sautéed Brussels sprout leaves

Thursday

kale, onion, and cheese quiche, rice and leftover gravy, canned green beans

Breakfasts included scratch waffles, toast, homemade granola, cream of wheat-type hot cereal, homemade yogurt, frozen blackberries, frozen plums, fresh tomatoes, milk, coffee and tea.

Lunches incorporated spicy bean spread, peanut butter, yogurt, cheese, eggs, bread, crackers, potatoes, celery, cabbage, carrots, frozen berries and plums, fresh tomatoes, lentil sprouts, raisins, sunflower seeds, peanuts, and dinner leftovers. My husband likes to make pan-fried potatoes and eggs for himself, while my lunches often include various leftovers from my previous night”s dinners along with some fresh produce. My daughters both love smoothies, salads, fresh vegetables, raisins, nuts and cheese.

Snacks were any of the above plus stove-popped popcorn, black licorice (I bought a tub of black licorice for the month of October), baked goodies like banana bread and carrot muffins. Also, 1 daughter bought some fun-size candy bars for the family. Those went too fast to think about.

Our meals were fairly simple, but very tasty. One of my favorite dinners this week was Tuesday’s baked potatoes with kale, cheese sauce and bacon bits. This is a meal we’ve made every fall for the last 25 years and always happily returned to.

As you can see, we’re about finished with the summer garden produce, using remnants such as immature zucchini and other squashes as a vegetable on Friday night. Those plants are now finished for the year. Our fall garden is in full swing. We’ve been harvesting lots of greens and using those delicious potatoes that I dug several weeks ago. I hope to get another few weeks out of our fall deck garden, weather permitting. At that point, we’ll turn to produce that we preserved as well as commercial produce.

What was on your menu this past week? Any special fall meals that you enjoyed? Do you ever make baked potatoes as the main dish with toppings? I hope all your meals were tasty and easy on your budget this past week.

My Week: It’s been a challenge

Hi friends,

It’s been a challenging week for me. (Challenges are good, right?) I am writing this on my phone because my computer finally died. I was able to get an additional year from it that I hadn’t anticipated. So I do feel good about that. And, as fortune would have it, I ordered a replacement a little over a week ago, before the crash. Perhaps you’re aware, there’s currently a situation where container ships carrying goods can’t dock on both east and west coasts, leading to about a 3 week backlog of store inventory that can’t reach customers. Yep, I’m one of those customers. My next computer will be slow in getting to me. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll have it before the end of the month.

Although I dislike the inconvenience, I’m already finding several positives to my situation. One, I’m finally learning how to best do things on my phone. Two, I’m spending far less mindless time online and more time in the garden. And three, this forced me to just take the plunge and buy that new computer. My old one had become a burden to use, and now I’ll have the joy of something that works well.

Back to my week of challenges. We had unseasonably heavy rain last Friday and Saturday. So much so that one of our fig trees began to uproot. Not at all in my plans, but Sunday afternoon I took a saw out to the garden and removed several of the heaviest branches on the leaning side. I’m not really that strong. Hard work. Now again, (working on that theme of finding the positives), this tree has overgrown its spot, so it did need some pruning. I got my work done well before planned.

Friday evening, I did make the sautéed grape leaves with a yogurt, garlic,and dill sauce. Update, while it tasted delicious, the grape leaves seemed tough to me. Maybe this is a dish that would work better with spring or summer grape leaves. Good to know, right? I did make another batch of stuffed grape leaves for our dinners on Monday and Tuesday which were yummy. Those may be our last stuffed grape leaves using fresh leaves this season. A few weeks ago, I froze several bundles of grape leaves to stuff in winter, however.

I pulled up the tomato plants, picking off all of the tiny, marble-sized green tomatoes for a batch of dill relish. I also found some immature cucumbers and zucchini to add to this small batch of relish. 

Thank you kind reader for the suggestion to make root beer beans. On Monday I made a large batch of root beer baked beans, using cooked pinto beans, green peppers, root beer, garlic, onion, ketchup, and salt. These were tasty and a fun way to use that last cup of root beer.

An adorable, but pesky, small red squirrel got into my fall deck garden and dug many things up, including an entire pot of baby lettuces and another full pot of tiny radish seedlings. I feel for the guy. He’s got winter coming up and I sense his nervousness stems from this quickening of approaching cold. He is adorable and I hope he has a stash of pine cones some place. I was able to salvage most of the pots and planters, needing to restart just the 1 pot of lettuces and 1 pot of radishes. I hope there’s still time for these two. I’ve got them in the portable greenhouse, so even with cold temps beginning next week, they may do okay and provide some baby greens.

I also began some radish seeds under lights indoors. I’m using the bottom halves of plastic 1-gallon milk jugs for “pots” as their square shape means I can fit more in the tray under the lights. I planted the seeds thickly for greens not roots.

I’m in the process of picking all of the green, unripe figs this week. The temps are expected to get chilly next week, so I am working as fast as I can in the garden right now. Most of the figs best suited for preserving unripe are on the second fig tree. This tree is also overgrown for its space. I am pruning this tree as I harvest. I’ve discovered that this is actually an easy way to harvest the figs- take off a branch then twist the green figs off.  This year, I’m turning all of these figs into sweet whole fig preserves. So far, I’ve canned just over 2 gallons of whole figs. My family doesn’t seem to enjoy the figs whole, so I’m planning on trying a fig purée in spice bread and as a sauce on gingerbread in the coming weeks. I love Alice’s (our friend here in the comments) saying with her own family— “I’ll get you to eat this one way or another.”! I’m going to take that approach with all of these preserved figs. When I finish harvesting all of the green figs, I’ll move on to the crabapples. Those will hold another week, even with cold overnight temps.

Yesterday, I planted next season’s garlic. Friendly,cute, but pesky squirrel would just love to dig those up. So I covered the patch with a piece of insect cloth, held down along all sides with stones. I hope this keeps him out of the garlic patch until they can put on spring growth.

I brought in all but the last pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. Some of these are still partially green. They’ll slowly finish orange-ing up over the next few weeks. I had a total of 8 pumpkins this year. The last 1 may or may not reach a stage of enough-ripeness to harvest before cold. I’m checking on it daily. Tonight will be the first night of the season with a low temp in the 30’s. Finger’s crossed my last one will mature this next week. Otherwise, who here has used a green pumpkin in cooking? Recipes? Ideas? Growing pumpkins is such a joy. These are my “babies”. When I need a good dose of cheer, I wander out to the pumpkin patch.

The bunnies continue to delight as well as vex me. So adorable, but they’ve had one too many snacks in the garden this week. I’ve been waiting for this one — they found the tall pots of carrots. They just been munching on the green tops, so I’m okay with them for now.

While this post may sound like all I’ve done is harvest, preserve and plant, I also took some time to put up fall decorations. The pot at the top of the page is my fall color by the kitchen door. I stuck several stems of faux flowers into the dirt, added a Dollar Tree autumn whirligig, and a DT mini pumpkin. I try to find new ways each year to display my holiday collections of decorative items. We all go in and out the kitchen door daily, so hopefully this will be cheery and it didn’t cost me anything to make this year.

And that was my week. How was your week? What were some of the highlights? If you garden, are you nearly done with your harvest? Was it a good, fair, or poor year for your garden?

Wishing you a lovely October weekend!

Cheap & Cheerful Menu post in this link.

Cheap & Cheerful Meals for an Early October Week

Dinners

Friday

pepperoni pizza, sautéed grape leaves in yogurt-dill sauce, carrot sticks, chocolates

Saturday

refried beans, homemade tortillas, tomato wedges, carrot sticks, cole slaw

Sunday

lentil-vegetable soup, scratch biscuits, chocolates

Monday

root beer beans, sausage patties, roasted purple potatoes, stuffed grape leaves, tossed garden salad, preserved figs

Tuesday

Leftover beans, sausage, potatoes, grape leaves, plus blackberry pie

Wednesday

spaghetti with meat sauce, sautéed kale, cauliflower leaves and Brussels sprout leaves in cheese sauce, blackberry pie

Thursday

chicken in gravy, roasted purple potatoes, kale, apple, cabbage, raisin, and almond salad

Breakfasts included cream of wheat type hot cereal, carrot-raisin muffins, banana bread, toast, oatmeal, homemade yogurt, frozen blackberries, the last of the fresh plums, fresh tomatoes, coffee and milk

Lunches were varied this week and included cheese, peanut butter, spicy pinto bean spread, French bread, whole wheat bread, saltine crackers, raisins, tomatoes, leftover soup, cabbage, lentil sprouts, apples, bananas, lettuce, celery, peanuts, almonds, and graham crackers. We all seemed to put the ingredients together differently, with some of us making soups, some sandwiches, and some snack-y items like “ants on a log”.

We continue to eat from the garden, but more and more grocery store produce is entering our meals and snacks, such as the cabbage, carrots, bananas, and celery. I tried to keep snack foods available to everyone, making a batch of banana bread, carrot-raisin muffins, a loaf of French bread, a container of bean spread (puréed cooked beans, salsa, salt and oil), and some roasted almonds on the day I baked sandwich bread and a pie. I am constantly amazed by the quantity of food we eat each week.

What was on your menu this past week?

My Week, Making Tamales and Finding New Ways to Use Grape Leaves

the inside view of our homemade tamales, using our homegrown corn husks as wraps

Friday night I had made some stuffed grape leaves which gave me the thought that the same ingredients might also make a good soup. So on Saturday, I made a grape leaves, rice and beef soup, containing finely shredded grape leaves, onions, lots of garlic, dill weed, oregano, vegetable stock, beef bouillon, ground beef, salt and pepper. The soup differed slightly in ingredients, mostly the addition of ground beef. I really didn't know if my family would like this, but it turns out they loved it! So, the next day I harvested a bunch of medium-sized grape leaves, shredded them, and froze them in packets for soup in winter.

I made our year's supply of plum and apple chutney over the weekend, using our garden plums and apples, plus onions, vinegar, sugar, and spices. I'm looking forward to curry dishes this fall and winter. And I made sweet pickle relish using green tomatoes, green peppers, onions, vinegar, sugar, and spices. I picked over our tomato plants pretty well but didn't pull the plants out of the ground altogether. There could still be a handful of small greens ones developing which I could use to make a small batch of dill relish early next week.

We harvested our meager crop of corn for Saturday's dinner. It was tasty, but not much kernel development. I did, however, save the husks for making tamales. And I have the bonus of free corn stalks for fall decor. 

After shucking the corn on Saturday, I soaked the good parts of the husks in salt water overnight, then the next day I drained and wrapped them in a towel and refrigerated until I wanted to make the tamales. On Monday, I made chicken tamales. This was my first time ever making tamales. It wasn't as difficult or time consuming as I'd thought they might be. I followed a basic technique of making a meat, spice and olive filling plus a cornmeal dough. The meat I chose was b/s chicken breast. I simmered the breast in water, drained (but saved the liquid), then added seasonings and chopped olives. For the dough, I didn't have masa harina, so I used regular corn meal and it worked just fine. Masa harina is a grind of dried corn that is commonly used in corn tortillas. It's instantly binding and makes a good dough. Cornmeal is coarser, but when mixed with shortening and liquid from poaching the chicken breast, it held together enough to spread on the corn husks. I didn't use as large a quantity of shortening as recipes called for, yet that didn't seem to matter. BTW, I still had a pint of chicken poaching liquid leftover. I saved that for use in a pumpkin soup, along with some drained vegetable liquids after chopping green tomatoes, peppers, and onions for making relish. I save all kinds of liquids to add to the stock for homemade soup. I think saving cooking liquids and fats may be hallmarks of tightwads everywhere.

Speaking of saving oil, I don't know if you do this too, but when I use too much oil in roasting or sautéing vegetables (and it's clear there's a lot left in the pan after cooking), instead of wiping out the pan I put the oily pan in the fridge and reuse it the next day. So, after Wednesday's roasted potatoes and sautéed cole crop veggies, I put the oily baking sheet and skillet in the fridge overnight and reused them the next day. I laugh a bit because I think it would look strange to a visitor who might open my fridge and see "empty" but used baking/cooking pans. But I figure this practice is no worse than pouring the residual oil into a cup and storing in the fridge overnight. Again, I think this is just more testament to my waste-nothing mindset. Anyway, on Thursday I made a small batch of oven-roasted potatoes as a snack for us all, and the oily skillet was used for sautéing more garden greens.

I began sprouting lentils indoors again. Wednesday evening I set a 1/4 cup of dry lentils to soak over night. I drained the lentils Thursday morning, then left to do their thing in a jar on the counter. By bedtime on Thursday I could see the beginnings of sprouts emerging from the seeds. Looking good. Our garden bounty is beginning to wane a bit and I knew we'd want some cheap additional fresh veggies to add to October salads. Sprouting lentils is easy, doesn't take up very much kitchen space, and only requires the light we get through a window (for greening up the sprouts at the end of their growth). 

As I took my morning walk through the garden on Thursday, I thought more about the grape leaves. They'll be falling off the vines soon, so if I want to use more I should do so in a hurry. I picked a large handful and washed them to use with Friday's dinner. I'm planning on shredding the leaves, sautéing in some oil with garlic and onion, then tossing with cooked pasta, plain yogurt, dill, and additional minced garlic. Keeping my fingers crossed that this will be tasty.

And now here we are, back to Friday again. Tonight will be another pizza and movie night. It's my week to choose the movie and I've chosen The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. 

How was your week? Have you made tamales before? If you have, do you have any tips? 

Wishing you all a weekend of abundance!

One other post today -- Cheap & Cheerful Meals for this Last Week

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!

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers For This Past Week

kale, cheese, bacon, and onion biscuits --
a nice change from plain biscuits and squeezes in a bit of vegetables

Friday
homemade pepperoni pizza, sautéed turnips and greens, winter squash, plum pie

Saturday
bean tacos (topped with cheese, diced tomatoes, green onions), Swiss chard, carrot sticks, plum pie

Sunday
eggs topped with simple marinara, rice, cole slaw, applesauce

Monday
chili, kale-cheese-bacon biscuits, rhubarb sauce

Tuesday
chili, bruschetta, rhubarb and apple sauce

Wednesday
hotdog cook-out, homemade buns, garden slaw, fresh plums, sautéed summer squash

Thursday
pancakes, turkey bacon, sautéed kale and onions, fresh plums

Humble meals

We are still eating a lot from our garden -- tomatoes, turnips, Swiss chard, kale, winter squash, plums, green onions, herbs, apples, green peppers, rhubarb, summer squash and more. As you can imagine, this really stretches our grocery budget this time of year and ensures we eat really well.

Breakfasts included toasty o's cereal, toasted homemade bread, homemade cinnamon rolls, homemade yogurt, fresh plums, frozen blackberries, tomatoes, juice, coffee, and milk.

Lunches were more varied, including graham crackers with peanut butter, a cheese, cracker, apple platter, toasted pizza sandwiches, dinner leftovers, raisins, more plums and tomatoes, bananas, pbj's, popcorn, and a pot of carrot soup.

I'm a very lucky person. All of my family members enjoy simple home-cooking. I call our meals "cheap & cheerful" because these meals are budget stretchers while bringing smiles to my family as we gather around the kitchen table.

What was on your menu this past week? What meals are budget stretchers for your household?

What Would You Do With a Liter of Flat Regular Cola?

This bottle is left over from last December. Yeah, old, I know. It's been sitting at the back of the fridge for almost 10 months. I've used a little here and there, mostly in barbecue sauce for sloppy lentils. 

I'm determined to use it up in the next two weeks. I need specifics - recipes, instructions, or links. How would you use 1 liter of completely flat, sweetened cola? I've used the fruity soda for gelatin, but somehow I just don't think that would work with cola.

Suggestions, please, in the comments. I also have about 1 cup of flat root beer in the fridge, if you have any suggestions for that one.

My Week, Kitchen and Garden

This past week centered around and kitchen and garden. 

We did indeed finish picking blackberries. (Remember that pillow-sized bag of frozen blackberries?) I have since moved on to the plum tree. The plums ripen over a couple of weeks, so I harvest and process over this whole period. This past week I made prunes, plum jam, plum pie, as well as served a lot of fresh plums in compotes, yogurt, and out of hand. I also make chutney every fall, using plums, apples, raisins, and onions. I'm out of onions for the time being. So the chutney-making will have to wait until I can get another grocery order placed. (Gee, I miss those days when I could just run out and pick up 1 thing when I needed it.) Our fruit bowl currently has fresh tomatoes, plums, and a couple of bananas. Once I finish harvesting the plums, I'll move on to digging potatoes. I hope those did well!

This is the perfect time of year to be using our electric dehydrator. Our cool September house benefits from the heated air spewed into the kitchen by the food dehydrator. In addition to drying plums I've also been drying herbs this week. It looks like this will be the last oregano and sage harvest for the year. I cut both plants back as far as I dare go. I now have about 3 cups each of loose-packed dried oregano leaves and sage leaves. Our oregano harvest was not as good as previous years. I'll be working on that part of the herb garden next spring, weeding and mixing in some compost in hopes of getting the output higher again.

This has been about the most frustrating gardening year in terms of dealing with critters. The other day I noticed something had been on the deck and in the raised trough planters. Whatever "it" was, it didn't do a great deal of damage. Then Thursday morning I caught a squirrel in one planter digging up the turnip plants. I replanted those turnips, and I hope they'll take hold again. Then I put a stick fence all the way around the trough. Afterward, I checked the kale trough and found several severed leaves and some half eaten stems. I assume it was the little squirrel doing the damage. I salvaged what I could to use in a couple of meals then built another little fence around that trough. The weather turned chilly earlier than usual and I think this squirrel is looking for food as well as burying spots for his winter stash. I do wonder if the squirrel knows something I don't know about this coming fall and winter.

With the cooler weather I've also been harvesting tomatoes. I've picked all of the orange to red ones and am moving on to the green tomatoes. In my area, tomatoes typically die from blight and not frost. Blight usually develops after a cool rain long before we get a frost. So I pick them as soon as the weather cools like it has this last week. I let some stay on the vine a little longer, so they can grow just a bit more. But I also hedge my bets and pick some now to ripen indoors, even if they're on the small side. In another week or so, I'll use the tiniest green tomatoes in pickle relish for this next year (another reason I need some onions).

I also made the last of the tomato salsa for the year, using up most of the garden cilantro. So, for the year, I made 28 pints of salsa. My family can really plough through it quickly. I'll keep my fingers crossed that this supply lasts a while.

My potted lettuce has been growing so slowly. I don't know if this is the low-light conditions from this time of year or from the cooler nights. Anyway, I moved 2 pots of Romaine into the house and under lights. I hope I can revive them and get more salads for the family.

I came across another World War 2 British series on youtube this week and managed to binge the whole series in a couple of evenings. It's titled Wartime Kitchen and Garden. There are 8 episodes, each about 23 minutes. The series was produced in 1993, predating the series Wartime Farm by nearly 20 years. Wartime Kitchen and Farm is perhaps not as polished as Wartime Farm, but it contains a lot of interesting and sometimes helpful information. Two of the "stars" are people who lived through WW2 and personally understood how challenging the war made cooking and gardening. The real benefit I find from watching these series is a sense of camaraderie with other folks who have needed to be resourceful, make-do, and resist wasting food. Here's the link to episode 1, Wartime Kitchen and Garden. Enjoy!

I placed a Walmart order to be shipped to my house this past week, stocking up on canned tomatoes, tomato paste, instant mashed potatoes, imitation bacon bits (we like them on baked potatoes and in green vegetables), and a giant tub of black licorice for October. Everybody likes a treat now and then. I also picked up an order with more meat, milk, and a couple of pantry items that I can't get shipped.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers

Meals this last week continued to be humble but tasty. We prepared everything at home, using a lot of garden produce and making as much from scratch as possible, including scratch flour tortillas, scratch biscuits, scratch bread, scratch yogurt, and scratch desserts. My job is all about providing food for my hungry family while staying on a budget.

Friday

pepperoni pizza, sautéed kale, tomato-cucumber salad, rhubarb-blackberry crisp

Saturday

lentil tacos, rice, tomato wedges, carrot sticks, leftover crisp

Sunday

peanut noodles, sautéed cabbage, tomatoes, plums

Monday

beef and bean burritos (in homemade flour tortillas), fresh tomatoes, sautéed kale, canned corn, plum pie

Tuesday (repeat of Monday)

more beef and bean burritos, fresh tomatoes, carrot sticks and dip, leftover plum pie

Wednesday

pancake and sausage roll-ups, Swiss chard and scrambled eggs, tomato-cucumber salad, sautéed cinnamon apples, scratch brownies

Thursday

chicken and dumplings (using 1 chicken breast, sage stock, garden kale, carrots, and scratch biscuit dough), fresh plums

Breakfasts included homemade yogurt, last of the fresh blackberries, chopped fresh plums, toast, oatmeal, eggs, juice, coffee, milk.

Lunches and snacks used the leftover refried beans and rice, a pot of Italian garden vegetable and lentil soup, scratch biscuits, bread, cheese, peanut butter, fresh plums, fresh tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, brownies, and popcorn.

Extra Post

Just one extra post this week -- using the stems from homegrown, dried herbs after removing the leaves. Read about that here.

I hope you all had a wonderful week. What were your highlights? Have you watched either Wartime Kitchen and Garden or Wartime Farm? How have shows like those benefitted you?

Using the Stems From My Dried Garden Herbs

a quart of oregano stock

If you grow and dry your own herbs, you may be like me and think that the twiggy/woody stems might be useful for more than just compost additive. 

This past week I harvested more sage and oregano, cutting stems with leaves on. After washing the herbs, I dried them in the dehydrator. Once fully dried, I removed the leaves from the stems and store them in airtight containers. Remaining is a pile of twiggy or woody herb stems. 

Not wanting to waste even one little bit, I made a broth with each batch of herb stems. In one saucepan I placed the stems from the dried oregano and into another saucepan I placed the stems of the dried sage. I added about a quart of water to each pot and brought them to a boil. I simmered the herbs, covered, for about 2 hours, then strained and refrigerated the resulting stocks to use in cooking later during week.

sage stock to use in chicken and dumplings

The oregano stock is very mild and added a nice flavor to an Italian vegetable and lentil soup. The sage stock was more highly flavored. It was used as the liquid in a pot of chicken and dumplings.

Using the stems from my dried herbs helps stretch my winter herb supply. I use a lot of both oregano and sage in winter cooking, often depleting my supply before spring growth begins again. Anything I can do to maximize what I grow is a savings, as it reduces the chance I'll need to buy commercial herbs come April or May. I still compost my herb stems. I just now do that after I make stock with them.

My Week, Early September (plus links to 2 new posts)

(links to 2 new posts near the bottom of the page)

Hi friends! These short weeks go by in a blur, don't they?

This past week, we've swung from so chilly that the furnace kicked in one day early in the week to Thursday, so warm we've got the windows open. We've had drizzle, fog, and sunshine, sometimes even all in the same day. My husband has been using the dry days to complete the painting of the deck railing. While I see these sunshiny moments as opportunities to hang dry the laundry.

Unofficial summer came to an end with the conclusion of the 3-day weekend. How was your Labor Day? Did you cook-out? We had a fire-ring cook-out at our house to celebrate. I made scratch hot dog buns and we each roasted our own hot dogs. I also used garden tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and garlic to make one salad and garden plums, apples, blackberries, and preserved figs (from last year) to make a fruit salad. I also used garden kale in a cheesy kale and mashed potato casserole. 

And I made blackberry cheesecake ice cream for dessert, using foraged blackberries, heavy cream, milk, cream cheese, sugar, yogurt, and vanilla. We enjoyed all of it! 

The Tuesday following the long weekend, I put away all of the patriotic decor and dishes (red, white, and blue stuff). Appropriate to this next season, I pulled out the harvest tablecloth.

Frustrated with the mess of supplement and rx bottles in the cabinet, I made risers one afternoon out of cracker boxes. 

I taped the open end of an empty cracker box closed.

Next, I cut the box in half, lengthwise.

I slid one half inside the other.

Then stacked the now small box on top of a regular box.

Now doesn't that look better? We can actually find what we need now. And, it has stayed this way all week! That's the mark of success with these organizational projects -- it stays organized.

My fall vegetable garden on the deck is humming right along. The lettuce and spinach has been growing slowly, however the kale looks great (above). The kale will continue to grow for another few weeks. When cold weather returns, I'll push the deck planter up against the house to give it some freeze protection, extending its usefulness as much as possible. Beginning in late October through November we'll use the kale in meals. Sometime in mid to late December, the kale will die back and the plants will remain dormant through winter. In mid-March, it will return and give us several weeks of kale to harvest before going to seed.

I continue to freeze blackberries. Every time I think we're done with the blackberry picking, my husband finds more. I open the fridge door and there's another pail full. This is one of two jumbo bags of frozen blackberries. The bags are the size of a standard pillow. This is free food. Good thing we love blackberries!

I worked at making treats and snacks for my family again this week. The cinnamon rolls were a big hit, especially since I made it clear that they could be snacked on whenever and not just saved for breakfast. I also baked a couple of batches of bar cookies and made popcorn on several occasions. Making these snacks meant we used less of the commercial snack foods, like crackers. I've said before, we're a cracker-eating family, here.

New Posts

I got to writing up our grocery spending for the month of August. We spent a fair amount this past month. However, we did stock up quite a bit. You can read about it here in this post. 

Some of our pantry stock-up items were ordered online and shipped to our house. The boxes came packed with brown craft paper. I had quite the mound of crumpled paper in my dining room for the month. I finally got to getting that cleaned up. Now the big question, what can I do with all of this paper? Read about it here, and please add your ideas for how to use this. Yes, I do save and reuse this sort of stuff, just like I save string from commercial bags of beans and rice. No I don't have a ball of string the size of Minnesota in my kitchen drawer. This is the string that I use every summer to tie up tomato plants and in winters to truss whole chickens and turkeys for roasting. You know the drill -- waste no, want not.

And that's about it for the week. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. What's on the agenda for your weekend?

What Would You Do With Yards of Slightly Crumpled Brown Craft Paper?

My recent orders from Walmart.com came packed in boxes cushioned with crumpled brown craft paper. You should have seen the mound of paper I had in my dining room! As I was rolling it up to store more neatly, I was thinking of the ways I could use it all.

• a biodegradable weed barrier in the yard and garden
• layer of paper between layers of green tomatoes at the end of the gardening season
• wrapping paper (some of the smoother sections, perhaps ironed on LOW) for gifts at the holidays
• packing paper for shipping gifts at the holidays
• parcel wrapping paper for mailing
• compost additive
• scrap paper for jotting down notes

That's what I've come up with so far. What would you do with several dozen yards of slightly used brown craft paper?

At the end of my hour-long clean-up of this mound of paper, I stored in all in rolls fitted into a cardboard box. It's amazing that what was once a rather large mound can now fit neatly in a medium-sized box.

August 2021 Grocery Recap

grocery shopping with ration books during WWII
image source: 
https://flashbak.com/the-rationing-years-in-britain-1939-1954-21011/

In August, I made 3 curbside pick-up orders at our local Walmart and placed 3 online orders to be shipped to my home at Walmart.com, spending a total of $364.48. In some cases, it made more sense (and cents) to order items online. For other items, buying in-person (either in store or pick-up) was the only way to make those purchases. So that's why I take a hybrid approach when shopping.

With our garden producing so well, I was able to buy less produce and spend more in other food categories. So I stocked up on meat, nuts, flour, and a couple of other pantry items. I'm still working on completing my stock-up for the fall and winter months, thinking ahead to holiday menus and what I might need for those.

Here's a comparison of previous month's grocery spending:

Aug 2020   $92.18

Sept 2020  $182.30

Oct 2020   $304.52

Nov  2020  $189.45

Dec  2020  $77.98

Jan  2021  $54.07

Feb  2021  $184.66

Mar 2021   $152.77

Apr 2021  $447.19

May 2021  $285.53

June 2021 $127.98

July 2021 $293.58

August 2021 $364.48

My spending in August is on the high side (but not the highest ever) for my family. However, almost $150 of that was on fresh and frozen meat.

I'm just beginning to stock up on canned vegetables (carrots and pumpkin) for the winter. We went through a lot of canned carrots last winter. Not only are they easy, but they store on a shelf instead of the fridge, and the price is comparable to fresh. I'll pick up some more canned veggies this month.

Here's what I bought:

2 heads green cabbage, Walmart, 58 cents/lb
14 bananas, Walmart, 46 cents/lb
2 bundles celery, Walmart, $1.28 ea
.58 lb jalapeno peppers, Walmart, 98 cents/lb
3-lb bag onions, Walmart, $2.47
2  5-lb bag carrots, Walmart, $3.44 ea

3 packs turkey bacon, Walmart, $2.48 ea
2 24-oz packs bacon, Walmart, $5.98 ea
2  32-oz rolls pork sausage, Walmart, $4.78 ea
3 16-oz turkey Italian sausage, Walmart, $3.23 ea
20 1-lb rolls ground beef, Walmart, $2.88 ea
4 family packs boneless skinless chicken breasts, Walmart, $2.04/lb
jumbo pack (20-ct) Hebrew National kosher beef hot dogs, Walmart, $9.98

5 dozen eggs, Walmart, $7.47
3 gallons fat-free milk, Walmart, $3.07 ea
16-oz heavy cream, Walmart, $1.98
2-pack cream cheese, Walmart, $2.87 (for making blackberry cheesecake ice cream)

12 cans pumpkin, Walmart, 97 cents ea
12 cans carrots, Walmart, 48 cents ea
48-oz vegetable shortening, Walmart, $3.12
32-oz raw honey, Walmart, $7.93
8 20-oz raisins, Walmart.com, $2.94 ea
5 16-oz whole almonds, Walmart.com, $4.96 ea
2 35-oz containers cocktail peanuts, Walmart, $4.23 ea
32 oz pecan halves, Walmart, $18.68
4 boxes graham crackers, Walmart, $1.26 ea
4 bags chocolate chips, Walmart, $1.74 ea
4 10-lb bags all-purpose flour, Walmart.com, $2.50 ea
2 5-lb bags corn meal, Walmart.com, $2.36 ea
2 64-oz jars peanut butter, Walmart.com, $4.34 ea
8 lbs split peas, Walmart.com, $1.02/lb

12 cans tuna, Walmart.com, 74 cents ea
3 jars mayonnaise, Walmart.com, $1.94 ea
5 boxes bran flakes cereal, Walmart, $1.98 ea

My Week, Last of August

Hi friends,

And the month of August is over just like that! I was out walking in the neighborhood this morning and noticed many homes with autumn decorations up already. Lots of autumn-themed wreaths, a bale of hay or two, and even a small scarecrow adorning a front porch. One neighbor planted a pumpkin patch in her front yard, and she had a nice selection of big pumpkins growing. Her front yard receives a lot of sunshine from morning to evening. Meanwhile, in my rather heavily treed backyard, my own pumpkin patch is looking rather anemic. I have 3 small pumpkins and 3 extra small pumpkins, plus 2 small acorn squashes. It's time to consider taking out a couple more trees.

The blackberry picking is just about done for the year. Our "spot" got cut down in between weekends in late August and our own blackberry patch at the back of the yard is almost fully-picked. I froze somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 quarts of blackberries to use this winter.

Do you ever imagine how you could grow more food on your property if the grocery supply chain became became unreliable? I was thinking it all through as I walked our property the other afternoon. We're on a suburban lot, so it's not like we have unlimited space to garden. My best options would be to convert two spots to garden space, the back lawn and a patch that's in the center of our circular driveway.  My husband and I have been talking about that patch in the center of the driveway for a while. It's overgrown with trees and ferns and might be a nice spot to plant another apple tree plus have a sunnier pumpkin patch. Anyways, with the world feeling so crazy these days, my thoughts went to a place of "what could we do to help ourselves, if needed."

ripe radish seed pods

Back to reality, the radish seed pods are just now beginning to fully mature and dry out. I plucked a couple of pods the other day and split them open. The pods contain between 1 and 6 seeds each. I'm hoping to have enough seeds for planting next spring as well as growing sprouts indoors this winter. We'll have to see if I get enough for both planting needs.

You might remember, last summer my family decided to skip any sort of vacation for 2020. We used that savings to stock an emergency pantry. We relied on those staples all through winter, which meant I didn't need to venture out for groceries during the winter peak of Covid cases. Well, here we are into September of 2021, and we're not taking any sort of vacation for this year, either. In addition, we've now not eaten restaurant food, purchased movie or museum tickets, or bought stuff other than food and household necessities for this past year and a half. So, once again we have enough to restock our emergency/winter pantry. 

Whenever I have had a pity party moment, feeling sorry for myself for no vacations or eating out, I think about the satisfaction I have in knowing that we are putting together a full pantry and will have plenty to eat all winter long. 

Storing away food for winter was once a priority for families. I suppose this had a lot to do with farm life and growing the bulk of one's own food. But I also think there is wisdom in uncertain modern times to switch spending away from more frivolous spending and into pre-paying for basic needs, such as by paying off a mortgage early or stocking a winter pantry. Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Two posts for your weekend reading, if you're so inclined.

My substitution for brown sugar. I haven't bought brown sugar in about 20 years. I never had enough when I needed it or it was hard as a rock. So, I stopped buying it. Here's how I substitute.

I made the second batch of salsa this week. I don't use garden tomatoes for salsa but instead, I use canned tomatoes. I broke down the cost benefit for using canned tomatoes to make a fairly easy and quick salsa to can in place of buying commercial salsa. Read about it here.

Have a wonderful weekend. Stay safe, especially if you'll be traveling over the holiday. Once again, we'll be having a cook-out. Either hot dogs or burgers, some oven-roasted veggies, a fruit jello salad, a garden vegetable salad, and some blackberry cheesecake ice cream.

No Garden Tomatoes for Canning Salsa? Canned Tomatoes Work Just As Well

Canned tomatoes are also easier to use, as they are pre-peeled. The sensitive skin on my hands thanks me for using canned tomatoes, too.

I buy the institutional-sized cans of whole peeled tomatoes at our restaurant supply for $3.39/can. But they're also available through other outlets like Costco Business and Sam's Club or online through Webstaurant Store. 

Of course, smaller cans could also be used. The large #10 cans that I buy contain the same amount of tomatoes as about 7 1/4  14.5-oz cans of tomatoes sold in grocery stores. So, the price on a #10 can works out to about 45 cents per 14.5 ounces (or 80 cents for the larger 28-oz can). Our local Walmart sells the 28-oz can of diced tomatoes for 96 cents and the 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes for 92 cents each. Those would also be a relative bargain for making salsa. 

The least expensive salsa at Walmart is 6.6 cents/ounce. A pint of salsa at that price comes to $1.06. The cost for my homemade salsa, using canned tomatoes, homegrown garlic, oregano and cilantro, purchased jalapenos, chili powder, red pepper flakes, vinegar, onion,  and salt comes to about 53 cents per pint of ingredients, plus another 10 cents for new lids each year and a couple of pennies for the stove, or about 65 cents per pint jar. For reference, a #10 can of tomatoes makes 8 pints of salsa, using the recipe in this link.

I make 3 batches of salsa each year (total of 24 pints). My cost is about $15.60, total. If I'd bought that amount of salsa at Walmart, I would have spent $25.44. My savings compared to buying the least expensive per ounce salsa at Walmart is a total of $9.84.

It takes me about 30 minutes of actual work per 8-pint batch of salsa. The salsa is tasty. And I find it satisfying to home-can something and save money.

What to Use When All Out of Brown Sugar

It was so chilly this past week that I made crockpot steel cut oats for breakfasts. We like brown sugar, dried fruit, and chopped nuts on our oatmeal. I don't keep brown sugar on hand. It tends to turn into rocks in my kitchen. Instead, when I have a recipe that calls for brown sugar, or if I want a dish of brown sugar for oatmeal breakfasts, I make my own with granulated sugar and molasses.

For the most part, I just eyeball the amount of molasses that I use. But I do follow these rough estimates:

• 1 tablespoon of molasses for every cup of white sugar for light brown sugar 
• 1  1/2 to 2 tablespoons of molasses for every cup of white sugar for dark brown sugar 

When a recipe calls for brown sugar, such as cookie recipes, or if I'm making a pitcher of pancake syrup, I don't bother "making" the brown sugar, instead adding the white sugar and molasses separately. When I want to have a small bowl of brown sugar available for adding to hot cereal or sprinkling on individual pancakes as I stack them, I mix the molasses and sugar together at that time.

Mixing the two together is as easy as using the back of a spoon to mash the molasses into the white sugar. No special tools required.