Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for a Week With Tough Moments

Friday 

Friday

While my husband drove me to and from an appointment this afternoon, one daughter made dinner for the 4 of us. We swung by where my other daughter was cat-sitting for the week to get her to join us for a dinner and movie. We watched Death to Smoochy, a Robin Williams comedy, while eating a mac, beef, tomato, and cheese skillet dinner. Tasty and a relaxing evening.

Saturday

Saturday

Just 3 for dinner, my cat-sitting daughter's last night with the cats. My husband made scratch flour tortillas with refried beans, for those eating beans. We also had garden carrots, frozen peas, and some cheddar cheese.

Sunday

Yay! Both daughters here, so we had a cookout. 

My husband made hot dog buns for us and got the fire going.

Sunday

We had hot dogs/buns, garden tomatoes, sauerkraut, sautéed cabbage, and cooked garden apple bites, plus all the condiments including this year's sweet relish. 

The couple my daughter was cat-sitting for texted mid-way through dinner to ask if she could go back and give the kitties one last snack, as the couple's train was delayed and they wouldn't be home for a couple more hours. Both daughters went to the cats' house. While they were there, we had a small earthquake. A lot of people in the area didn't feel it. I felt the chair I was sitting on jolt. My daughters thought a door in the house had slammed shut. My husband thought something happened but didn't know what it was. And my niece in the city didn't feel it at all. Both daughters came home shortly after.

a plate of garden potatoes and carrots from Monday's pot roast

Monday

Monday

I made a pot roast with gravy, garden carrots, garden potatoes, and garden tomatoes. One daughter and I dug potatoes in the morning. It was nice having an hour with her after her week away with the cats. Both daughters love helping with this chore. It is a little like a treasure hunt.

Tuesday

Tuesday

I had just about finished putting dinner together as I began to feel worse and worse. My family was very concerned so we headed to the ER when my husband got home from work. It was a long and hard evening. But just so you know, I'm okay. 

My blood sugar plummeted at one point so my daughters found the vending machine and brought back some crackers for me. That and a piece of cheese, plus 2 cups of juice from the nurse's station was dinner for me. By the time we returned home very late, we were all too wiped out to eat anything substantial. So dinner would wait until the next day.

Wednesday

Wednesday

This is what we should have eaten on Tuesday -- chopped leftover pot roast in gravy over scratch biscuits, along with garden tomatoes and our own tree stewed prunes. It hit the spot and didn't suffer by waiting an extra day. One daughter very kindly reheated and plated everything for us.

Thursday (I'll add a photo later, posting this early)

I'm roasting a whole chicken this afternoon. Meanwhile, my daughter will make sides of garden potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cabbage roasted on a sheet pan. She'll also make a gravy to go with the chicken.

That was my week in meals. What's been happening this week with you? Anything special on your menu this week?

The sun came out about an hour ago. So now I'll go get a bit of vitamin D and take a walk.

Stovetop Pumpkin Pudding for a Delicious Fall Treat

 

I didn't plan on making pumpkin pudding this past week. It all came about as a batch of botched spiced pumpkin puree that we were to have with dinner one night. I had my daughters helping me in the kitchen that evening, and we seemed to get very distracted with our conversation. Story short -- a mistake, bug mistake was made in measuring the ground cloves. The pumpkin puree was simply too strong to enjoy with the meal. That spicy pumpkin sat in a container in the fridge for several days. I wasn't sure if I'd bake pumpkin bread, make a pie, or do something else. Then one daughter reminded me how much our family enjoys pumpkin pudding, the kind you make on the stove.

Thursday afternoon I turned the too-spicy thick pumpkin puree into a tasty pudding. I used a basic cornstarch pudding recipe, omitting the vanilla extract. I think I used about 1 cup of spiced pumpkin puree for a "2 cups of milk" recipe. Otherwise I followed the cornstarch pudding recipe as usual, blending cornstarch, sugar, salt together, then stirring in milk and cooking until thick. Near the end, I stirred in the pumpkin and finished cooking. My family loves this stuff and so do I. I made myself a batch using soy milk and about 1/2 cup of the spicy pumpkin, so I could have some too.

My guess is you could also make a tasty pumpkin pudding with a box of pudding mix, which would even be simpler. Simply stir in a 1/2 cup to 1 cup of pumpkin puree into the finished pudding plus a bit of spices like cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and/or nutmeg.

Sometimes I want the taste of the filling of pumpkin pie without making the crust. Stovetop pumpkin pudding is an easy way to get that taste I crave.

A brief update -- last week I had 6 separate medical/dental visits. Those appointments wiped me out. My doctor has asked me to delay having the extraction for a couple of weeks. I have some health complications right now that need to be figured out and mediated before using anesthesia of any kind. Whatever is causing my symptoms, I am hopeful will be easy to treat. More soft food for me.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers (with some random photos of my kitchen)

Another week of homecooked meals. Since I failed to take pictures of our meals most days of this week, I thought I'd intersperse some random glimpses of the kitchen's most used areas.

Snack central
homemade instant oatmeal and oatmeal packets
from the salvage store (10 cents/box)
a couple of packets of free pop-tarts (free with coupon)
nuts, sunflower seeds, and raisins

Friday
spaghetti with meaty tomato sauce (using fresh tomatoes, canned tomato paste, garden garlic, parsley, oregano)
steamed garden carrots

I just have to say this -- freshly dug carrots smell so wonderful when cooking. I only added a blob of butter to the finished carrots, no salt or anything else. So delicious.

I did remember to take a pic on Saturday

Saturday

refried beans

homemade flour tortilla

tomato wedges

cheddar cheese

I asked my husband to make me an extra small tortilla, so I wouldn't have to grind my teeth down to chew. I was told to be very careful with the fractured tooth, because it could fracture further and cause some serious pain. So my husband obliged and made this cute little tortilla.

the fruit bowl area
The tomatoes on the counter are ones
that need peeling and using asap.
Small bowl of garlic cloves are pieces leftover from planting
garlic this week. I planted only the large cloves and
saved the smaller ones for cooking.
Avocados are great soft foods for minimal chewing.

Sunday

tomato frittata

white rice

steamed garden carrots

One daughter is gone for the week cat-sitting. So dinner was much simpler. Fewer people to cook for means simple meals in my mind. 

I love most things about our stove.
It has an old-fashioned look to it.
However, it burned out 2 igniters way too fast.
The red pot in back is a Whirly-Pop for making popcorn.
My daughter bought this on ebay
and says it makes the best popcorn.
You have to turn the handle
the whole time the popcorn is popping.

Monday

spaghetti sauce over pasta for family, over soft and crustless bread for me

well-cooked garden mixed veggies

Tuesday's dinner

Tuesday

bean burgers, topped with homemade relish and mayo

mashed potatoes

more steamed carrots

Where we keep the flavored vinegars, cocoa mix,
sugar canister, right next to the mixing bowl.

Wednesday

homemade tomato soup

scrambled eggs

crustless soft bread for me, toasted homemade bread for family

Thursday

Thursday

ground beef cooked with onions, garlic, fresh tomatoes, garden herbs, and a slurry of cornstarch and water to make a bit of a sauce, so I could serve it over

mashed potatoes

pureed kale soup

homemade applesauce, using our blemished tree apples

As you can see, I'm on a rather soft diet. Trying not to create a larger crack in that tooth by chewing anything harder than steamed carrots. I find myself just swallowing a lot of stuff whole, like the ground beef in the spaghetti sauce. It works for me. I'm finding lots of soft things to eat -- smoothies, avocados, cream of wheat cereal, ripe bananas, soup, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes. I do eat a few other more firm foods, but in total, I've been very careful with eating.

What was on your menu this past week? Have you ever had to prepare mostly soft foods for yourself or others? What foods worked well for you?

Have a great weekend, friends!

Putting Problems in Perspective With the Help of a Dream

You all know my current problems. Well last night, in my final dream of the night, my subconscious put everything into perspective. 

A voice asked me to draw a version of myself on the wall. Which I did (and frankly, I'm a much better artist than this rendering, well maybe not "much better"). Then that voice asked me to draw a box showing how big my current problem was, which I did in red ink.

The voice asked me what the size of the box was. I replied "it's 5 feet by 5 feet." The voice asked how big (tall) I am, and is this a realistic representation of my problem? 

That's when I woke up. I'm 5'3", by the way. So I think the message that my subconscious gave me was that I was thinking my problem is almost as big as I am. In that moment, I realized I had inflated my problem significantly and allowed it to take up too much mind space. 

While I don't think we should shame ourselves out of our fears, I do think sometimes my anxious self needs to do a reassessment.

I will no doubt be somewhat anxious the day of my extraction and reasonably afraid. I've come to accept that I will not be at ease with it all. That's just how I am. It's okay to face something difficult and not be at ease with it. 

By the way, I still don't know when this will happen. My medical doctor has to clear me for this, as I have some medical issues that need addressing to ensure a successful outcome. I'll give you all a heads up before hand, and I expect I'll be offline for a few days. Or maybe not. Maybe you'll be reading some rather curious and comical posts by me in the hours following, when I'll be a bit loopy from pain killers.

Anyway, this isn't at all about frugal living. And I apologize if you were hoping for more frugal thoughts and less about my dreams. Maybe I'll have something better tomorrow. 

Until then . . .

Over the Weekend . . .

Because I can't just let life come to a standstill right now, I kept myself busy with gardening chores.

shades of green, orange, and red tomatoes ripening on an old towel

After harvesting the very last of the tomatoes, I pulled up the plants and tossed them on the compost heap. 

this year's tomato bed is no more

There were quite a few weeds in there as well, so I spent a little time tidying up the soil. 

kale in front, garlic in back

I planted the late fall/early spring kale.

I cleared, enhanced, and dug soil in the back of the bed then planted next year's garlic. I planted 125 cloves. We'll see how many grow over the winter. I also spaced them more than last year and the soil is more moisture retentive with the additions I made on Saturday, with the hope of larger bulbs next summer.

about 1/3 of a pot of carrots

And I dug a bunch more carrots. I still have a bunch more carrots to dig as we need them this month.

This is my largest onion this year. We don't live in onion-growing country, as you can see. It's about 2.5 inches across at the widest. But it is an improvement over last year's onion crop.

We enjoyed a few fall raspberries. They're about gone for the season. I'll eagerly await next summer's berries all winter long.

The blueberry bushes are in full autumn color. You know, I'm not sure what I value more, the edible berries or the beauty of the leaves when they turn.

I'm enjoying the autumn-colored marigolds that I grew from seeds this past spring. Those seeds came from plants I bought a couple of years ago. I save a few seeds every year to start the next year's.

What we didn't get to this weekend was digging potatoes. This coming Saturday is supposed to be a warm one. So that could be a good day to dig some potatoes.

What were you up to over the weekend? And do you have anything planned for the coming weekend. Eek! I just realized that the work week is nearly half over!

Enjoy the rest of your day and evening.

A big thanks and a tiny update

Hi friends,

First of all, thank you to all of you who prayed for me concerning my fractured tooth. And thank you for the encouragement and support you gave to me. I know that many times, we read blogs and don't comment, but we're still praying or sending our support without actually saying so. And I thank you for those thoughts and prayers that weren't in the comments. I appreciate all of you so very much.

So, about today -- no actual post other than this. I had consultations today and got even more bad news. It's taken energy and talking this through with family members to reach a point of acceptance. But I am still fearful of what is to come. (Aren't we all when something is uncertain and we know will cause pain?) At some point I will reach the other side of my current dental issues. I look forward to that point.

I'll have more to talk about tomorrow. 

For now, here's a pic of one of my favorite furry friends, a small red squirrel. He's so quick, cute, and a bit nervous. In this photo, I think he's just "stolen" a plum from the plum tree. He brings his plums up to the deck railing and eats here where he can keep a watch for predators in the yard. He puts a smile on my face when he comes to visit. And yes, I'm pretty sure it's the same red squirrel that comes to visit every time. I think this one knows me and trusts me. He'll let me come outside and stand and watch him. The others scamper away as soon as I step onto the deck. 

My other bright spot today was noticing a new sunflower opened up. It's too late in the season for it to develop edible seeds for us, but the bloom is very cheery. Finding bright moments on a hard day keeps my head above water as I swim to shore.

Have a good rest of your evening/day, and once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for prayers, encouragement, and support!

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the Late Garden Season

We're still using a lot of garden produce in meals and snacks, although much of what we're now using has been harvested and brought indoors and not as much is garden fresh. But the meals have been delicious and wholesome. Here were our suppers for the week.

Friday

Friday
taco salads -- tortilla chips, beef, beans, garden lettuce, garden tomatoes, garden green onions, cheese
plums and cookies for dessert

Saturday

Saturday

garden kale and tomato frittata

white rice

Sunday (sorry, no photo)

bean burritos

apple wedges

tomatoes

Monday

Monday

beef stir fry with garden cabbage and carrots

white rice

Tuesday

Tuesday

chicken pot pie, using garden pumpkin, green beans, celery, sage, garlic, parsley, and purchased onion, plus leftover chicken in stock

blackberry cobbler

Wednesday

Wednesday

more taco salads -- using the other half of the bag of tortilla chips, beef, beans, garden lettuce, garden tomatoes, garden green onions, and cheese

plums and blackberry cobbler for dessert

Thursday 

coconut lentil curry over brown rice

tomato wedges

Friends, can I ask you to pray about something for me. I'm sad, scared and worried about an upcoming dental procedure. I fractured a tooth all the way to the bone recently and saw the dentist today. She said there's no way to save the tooth, and I'll have to have it extracted. For those of you who pray, could you pray that I will have courage to face this. It will be months before I can have an implant placed in the bone tissue. I know others have faced this type of situation. Knowing that helps me. Are there dental procedures you've been faced with that have been especially difficult? I know others go through much more difficult situations. But this is what I'm going through right now.

Because I needed to distract myself from my lousy dental visit, when I came home my two daughters were around and they kept me company while I made our green tomato sweet pickle relish. We made 5 half-pint jars, enough for the year. I used small green tomatoes that wouldn't ripen indoors (the plants are blackening from blight brought on with the week of cold rains), a garden red pepper and a garden green peppers, 1 whole onions from the store, some spices, sugar and vinegar. I can't always get rid of the discouragements in life, but I can try to add some successes to bad days. It makes me feel like the good and bad are better balanced, rather than a strictly bad day.

Something just occurred to me, that I can add to the "good" side of the balance for today. Knowing that you friends are reading here really cheers me up.

Wishing you all a lovely autumn weekend.

You're still frugal even if you drop a treat item into your grocery cart, right?

I did my first grocery shopping since September 3 this morning. We have lots of food at home, so there was little of which we were running short. One daughter was free in the AM and wanted to pick up some personal things for herself. So it seemed as good a time as any to make a run down to WinCo (my favorite local store, but a good 20 minutes away).

I didn't have a lot on my list, some bananas, raisins, popping corn, peanuts, avocados, coconut oil, organic flour (no additives like barley), a gallon of milk, a jar of mayo, and oh yeah a pound of Swiss cheese for my husband and 2 packages of bacon for me. I spent $41.31 for the above.

Those last couple of items were definitely treat items for us. My husband loves Swiss cheese, but Swiss is never one of the less expensive cheeses at our stores. I like my morning bacon a few days a week. So these 2 packs will last until I decide we need more groceries, likely in about 3 weeks.

How do I justify buying treats like these once or twice per month and still call myself frugal? Being frugal is about the big picture. It's not about cutting corners in every area of spending and living a bare bones existence. It would be pretty hard to keep a lifestyle like that up for very long. It's the big picture. Are we living below our means? Are we saving for our future? Are we doing what we can to give others a little help? Are we paying all of our bills? Are we keeping up our house and car? Are we taking good care of our health? If we can say "yes" to all of those things, and there is a bit of change left in the piggy bank, then it's not only okay to drop a treat item into the grocery cart, but that treat will go a long way to stave off hunger for bigger, more costly splurges.

My family's experience has been that when we treat ourselves to small pleasures here and there, we don't feel the need to have a supersized TV, or the latest car, or a cruise vacation, or bling, bling, bling. We feel more satisfied in our daily life by having small treats, and then we can live beneath our budget, take care of our needs, help someone else with their needs, etc, etc. 

So yes, I think you can still call yourself frugal if you drop those occasional treat items into your grocery cart. It just doesn't need to look like there's a party at your house every weekend, judging by that same cart.

By the way, in the next couple of times I grocery shop, I'll be spending way more than that measly $41.31. I'll need to stock up on many items to get through winter, and that won't be cheap!

A Happy Surprise for a Gloomy Autumn Day

It's definitely autumn here now. I made applesauce this morning with the badly blemished apples. I wound up freezing 4 pint containers of applesauce. not a whole lot, but I was basically using up the apples that would probably not last long in the fridge. 

I brought in all 18 of the pumpkins and winter squash. I used part of one pumpkin in a chicken pie for dinner tonight. It's very wet this week. During a brief break in the rain, I popped outside to see if I should bring in the hanging begonia plant.

What a surprise! My begonia is not done for the "summer." It has not one, but two blossoms on it. I think it wants me to leave it out for a while longer.

This is just what I needed. The gloomy days of autumn are hard for me to adjust to. When I woke up this morning, I asked myself how I would make the day feel happy. Sometimes the answer is just outside the window.

I hope you're having a good week and not feeling the autumn blues.

Chutney and My Mom's Chicken and Cashew Salad

Chutney is one of those expensive condiments in the grocery store, selling for $6 or $7 an 8-oz jar at my local Kroger store. I can make 16 ounces of chutney for under a dollar, as I grow both apples and plums. If I had to buy the fruit as well as the rest of the ingredients, I estimate my cost would be about $2 for 16 ounces of chutney.

Over the weekend I made a year's supply of chutney for my family. We enjoy curried dishes, here. I also use chutney in a chicken salad recipe that my mom used to make in the 1970s -- so delicious!

Anyway, chutney is an end-of-garden-season recipe to use odds and ends of fruits, plus onions, spices, vinegar and sugar. My mom's recipe calls for purple or red plums, although any plum will work, it just might not be as pretty. Her chutney recipe makes 2 half-pint jars, one to have and one to share.

Here's the recipe if this interests anyone.

Plum and Apple Chutney (yields 2 half-pints)

1 1/4 cups chopped, unpeeled, pitted plums (red or purple preferred for color)
1 cup pared, chopped crisp apple

1/2 cup diced onion

3/8 cup vinegar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon molasses

1/16 teaspoon ground cloves

1/16 teaspoon ground allspice

1/16 teaspoon ground ginger

3/16 teaspoon kosher salt

dash cayenne pepper

Sterilize 2 half-pint jars and lids.

In a stainless saucepan, combine all ingredients. Bring to a boil, stirring as the sugar dissolves. Reduce to a simmer. Simmer, uncovered for 90 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Fill the sterilized jars. (Per Michigan State University Extension) Process in boiling water canner for 10 minutes. Cool in draft free location for 12 to 24 hours, check lids for seal, then store. 

The chicken salad that my mom made used some of this chutney. It was a favorite potluck dish as well as family supper. I'll give you that recipe, too, as it's a tasty, fall ingredient, main dish salad.

Curried Chicken and Cashew Salad (serves 4)

3 cups chopped, cooked chicken, cold

1/2 cup roasted salted cashew halves or pieces

2 cups chopped celery

1 cup diced apple

1 cup grapes, halved

1/4 cup sliced green onion

1/4 cup golden raisins (I use regular raisins)

dressing:

1 cup mayonnaise or plain yogurt or half mayo/half yogurt

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 tablespoons chutney

1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder, adjust for taste

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt

pinch cayenne

Combine dressing ingredients in a large bowl. Toss gently with the rest of the salad ingredients. Chill for 1 hour.

Other ideas for using chutney:

• in curry dishes, like lentil curry or chicken or turkey curry
• on a cheese and cold meat board as a spicy condiment
• stirred into cottage cheese
• spooned over a block of cream cheese, to use as a bread or cracker spread
• mixed half and half with mayo as a sandwich spread -- leftover Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas ham sandwiches
• on a toasted cheese sandwich, between the cheese and the bread, then broil
• mixed into mayo with curry powder as a dressing for a curried pea and peanut cabbage slaw
• as a glaze for meat, puree with a small amount of water
• spooned over a wheel of brie cheese, then baked. A sweet and spicy warm spread for crackers or bread
• pureed to use as a dipping sauce for egg or spring rolls
• as a condiment to go with grilled sausages, roasted poultry or pork

Any other suggestions? How do you like to use chutney?

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for Mid-September

Here's something new for my household's grocery shopping -- we bought 30 pounds of beef from a rancher with a small-scale operation. This was something I'd been wanting to do for a decade. Now was the right time. 

I wasn't sure how much freezer space 30 pounds would take up, so I didn't want to buy any more than that at this time. I'll buy more when we use all of this. 

This beef was a lot more expensive per pound than grocery store beef, but it is much more flavorful, and I know that the animals are well-cared for, and the quality is higher (ground beef is 85/15, the stew meat had just enough fat on it to make it tender without needing to drain the meat after searing). So, our meals for this last week begin with the first of our beef purchase.

Friday (my husband cooked and I forgot to get a photo)
beef, tomatoes, garlic and macaroni
apple wedges

Saturday (again no photo)
scrambled eggs
rice
tomato-cucumber salad

Sunday

Sunday
beef stew, using our garden potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, green beans, and herbs, plus beef
cornbread for the rest of the family

Monday

Monday
baked beans
sautéed garden veggies
apple wedges
cabbage and cucumber slaw
plum cake (for the rest of the family)

Tuesday

Tuesday
roasted chicken, gravy
mashed potatoes or slice of bread
cabbage, cucumber, tomato salad

Wednesday

Wednesday
leftover chicken in bbq sauce
white corn grits
apples and plums
tomato, cucumber, basil, garlic salad

cookies

Thursday --
I was super hungry and barely remembered to take a pic

Thursday
chicken soup, using leftover chicken, garden celery, carrots, green beans, herbs, and a store onion
fresh-baked French bread

cookies

Lots of good produce from the garden this week to go with 1 whole chicken and 2 pounds of beef. I've been digging the carrots for meals as I need them. So far, the first 2 pots have good-sized carrots. I don't expect the other 4 pots to have equally-large carrots, as those were planted and thinned just a little later.

Breakfasts included toasted homemade bread, jam and peanut butter, oatmeal, no-bake peanut butter-oatmeal cookies (my daughter thinks of these as breakfast cookies), eggs, coffeecake, cornbread and syrup, tomatoes, plums, apples, orange juice, and some commercial cereal and pork sausage. For lunches, we used some of the leftover roasted chicken in sandwiches, plus apples, plums, tomatoes, cabbage, and salad greens for produce. 

So, that's what we ate this week. What was on your menu?

How we stay warm while we delay turning on our furnace

Maple-Pecan Cookies

I tend to bake and cook more often this time of year than even in the dead of winter. This week I've baked cookies, a pan of cornbread, 2 coffee cakes, a 3-loaf batch of wheat bread, roasted a whole chicken, cooked beef stew and 2 pots of soup, made a pan of baked beans, and kept the dehydrator going with plums and tomatoes all week, on top of using the stovetop for quick-cooking. I'm doing all of this house-warming cooking because it adds a bit of heat to the house in these last few weeks before we turn on the furnace.

Italian Prunes, halved, pitted and dried

It may still be warm during the day where you live, but for us in the maritime northwest, the daytime highs have cooled substantially. A daytime high of 62 degrees F feels chillier  to me when the temperatures drop off in the early fall than when the cold winter yields to spring. To compensate, we're putting extra layers on our bodies and extra layers on our beds.

I've never calculated if using the oven more to add heat to our house is more cost-effective than just turning on the furnace. But I do know that I can tolerate cooler indoor temps better if I'm moving around in the kitchen. And putting on a sweater or an extra blanket is the time-proven action that pairs with turning the thermostat down a degree or two. In addition, my family loves all of the extra baked goods and comfort foods they're getting right now.

Anyway, for every week we put off turning on the furnace, I'm sure we're saving at least a little money on utilities.

Want to bake some Maple-Pecan cookies?

Here's how I make mine:

I use a chocolate chip cookie recipe as a guide, substituting maple flavoring for vanilla extract and chopped pecans for chocolate chips. I use real butter as the fat and increase the flour called for in the recipe. Otherwise, the Maple-Pecan cookie recipe is pretty much like the basic chocolate chip cookie recipe on a package of chocolate baking chips.

Here are the ingredients and measurements:

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon maple flavoring
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1  1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg and flavoring. Mix in salt, soda, flour and pecans. Chill the dough for 30 minutes. 

Drop dough by teaspoonful onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees F for 9-11 minutes, until browned and crispy-looking around the edges. Remove from baking sheet right away.

These cookies baking in the oven not only warmed me up, but definitely made my house smell like fall.

Do you use your oven more in fall to help warm the house, too?

What one fall food are you most looking forward to?

One daughter and I finished picking the apples from our three trees on Monday afternoon. It's actually kind of fun to pick apples -- like a game, trying to snag apples high in the branches using a picker tool without knocking them to the ground. We knocked 2 out of the trees, which I chopped up promptly and put in a bag in the freezer for making crisps, pies, cobblers, and spiced apple chunks later this fall or winter. We now have a produce drawer that is completely full of apples for cooking, baking and fresh eating.

While we were harvesting the apples, my daughter asked me what fall food I am most looking forward to. Hmm, that's a hard question to answer. Fall offers so many great flavors. Choosing just one fall food is difficult. There's pumpkin-spice everything, hot apple cider, roasted squash cubes, beef stew, chili con carne, gingerbread cake, pecan pie -- I couldn't decide what I want most.

Then this afternoon (Tuesday), I was taking a short walk with my other daughter and we both noticed the beautiful palette of colors on the trees' leaves in our neighborhood. This is my artist daughter. She and I often notice colors and patterns when we go for walks. The talk of fall foods came up with this daughter as well. Again, the consensus -- so many delicious foods to enjoy in fall. After all of this fall food talk, I decided the one food I am most looking forward to this fall is apple pie.

How about you? What one fall food tops your must-eat list this year?

Not having the right tools can make chores so much harder

I needed to clean the dryer lint chute this morning. Loads seemed to be taking longer to dry. And I know it can be a fire hazard to have a build-up of lint in the chute. We clean the screen with each load, but lint falls down beneath the screen. Speaking as a non-contortionist, that fallen lint can't be easily seen.

Anyway, I need to buy the right tool to make this job easier for me. But for today, the "tools" I had to work with were a wire coat hanger, lots of duct tape, a cardboard pasta box, and the vacuum cleaner. I improvised an extension for the vacuum hose with the pasta box and some of the duct tape. And I made one coat hanger/duct tape attracting tool after another to pick up loose lint and dust that the vacuum attachment couldn't reach. I did get the job done, but it took me about an hour and a half and lots of frustration.

Now on the flip side, having a good tool will make a job go so much more smoothly. After about an hour I grabbed a good flashlight so I could see down the chute and identify the remaining pile of lint/dust that was within my primitive tool reach.

An interesting thing -- we had been thinking the element on our 28 year old dryer was wearing/burning out, as loads were taking longer to dry. After cleaning the chute today, I put a load of sheets into the dryer, went to heat up a bowl of soup for my lunch, took my lunch break (which is only long enough to eat a bowl of soup), and came back to the kitchen to wash my bowl. Was I ever surprised when I couldn't hear the dryer operating! My load of sheets finished drying in about 3/4 of the more recent dry time.

I will be ordering the proper tool this very week. I could have used that hour of work time on a different project. Sometimes being cheap costs more in other areas.

Because a photo of my dryer is not terribly interesting, I also thought I'd show you one of my other projects from today -- a plum coffee cake for my family. I'm told it is delicious (contains milk, so I'm abstaining).

6 Jars of Kosher Dill Pickles This Year

These are about the last of the fresh cucumbers for us from the garden this year. Homegrown cucumbers have such a great texture and flavor. I miss them all winter long. We eat as many fresh as we can in summer. Then when the glut occurs, I make dill pickles.

I make my dill pickles as chunks instead of whole or spears. I find I can get more pickle matter into a jar by cutting the cucumbers into chunks in lieu of wholes. In addition, I can make the chunks relatively uniform in size. Whereas my whole cucumbers are all sizes, widths, and irregularities. When we want sliced pickles for sandwiches and burgers, the chunks slice up just as nicely as the wholes do.

So this is it for our family's dill pickles for the year -- 6 jars, five 20-oz and one 16-oz.. Let's hope no one goes on a pickle-feeding frenzy before next summer's cucumbers are ready.

I'll be making sweet relish with green tomatoes later next week. We go through a lot of sweet relish over the course of a year. I hope to make several jars when the tomato season comes to an end and leaves me with lots of small green tomatoes to use up.

Will you be making pickles or relish this year?

Easy Fresh Tomato Soup

Our weather is turning cooler. Our tomato plants are still providing an abundant harvest. We've been eating loads of tomato salads, sandwiches, vegetable medleys, and pasta sauces. And now today for lunch I turned about a dozen tomatoes into a pot of fresh tomato soup.

I used the blender to puree the whole tomatoes, skin included. Then, heated the puree in a saucepan along with fresh garlic, salt, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese until warmed through. Delicious and fresh-tasting, with a bit of natural sweetness. And very, very quick and easy.

What are your favorite ways to use up fresh tomatoes?