Prudence

My Bible reading for today comes from the book of Proverbs.

A house and wealth are inherited from fathers,

but a prudent wife is from the Lord.  Proverbs 19:14

From the American Heritage Dictionary:

Prudent: Careful or wise in handling practical matters; exercising good judgment or common sense.

Prudence suggests foresight, developed skills, an ability of discernment, and an element of savviness in procuring and using resources. In speaking of homemaking, a prudent person contributes positively to the household, making decisions for the well-being of all and not just for their own benefit.

I strive to be prudent in my role in our home and family. I have a decent ability to foresee future needs and outcomes developed over years in my role. And I try to use what I have to prepare for future occasions and events.

How I'm trying to be prudent today

We have a large plum tree that is loaded with Italian Prune plums right now. The branches are burdened with the weight of plump blue and purple gems, sagging considerably, nearly touching the lawn.

I know that in winter we will be longing for homegrown fruit. My homegrown fruit is basically free and is never prayed with pesticides. And it tastes better than grocery store fruit. We can only eat so many fresh plums before they rot. It would be wasteful to simply allow the excess to spoil. 

So, I got outside this morning and picked 3 buckets of the ripest plums.  And they're now in the dehydrator turning into prunes. This tree's fruit will ripen over the course of a week to 10 days.  I will have to harvest plums daily and run the dehydrator 24/7 for a week to dry the bulk of the plums. But in the end, we'll have lots and lots of prunes to enjoy all winter.

Other ways we use our plums -- open-faced pie, plum kuchen, plum crumble, plum chutney, Chinese plum sauce, plum jam.

Hi friends,

I was in the middle of writing today's post when news came across of the assassination of a young man who was tremendously significant in many young peoples' lives. I won't be finishing up that post today. I have to get a dinner on the table early before heading out to a mid-week at our church. If you're a praying person, regardless of where you stand politically, I ask that you pray for the widow and small children of a young man, Charlie Kirk. Thank you.

What are your must-have condiments, and do you or have you ever made any of them yourself?

This topic came up at the dinner table the other day. We each had different opinions on which condiments are must-haves, as well as which ones we think we'd enjoy eating homemade. We also debated what defined a condiment.

Here's what Merriam-Webster says is a condiment:

"something (such as a seasoning, sauce, garnish, or topping) that is added to food usually after the food is prepared and that enhances or adds to its flavor."

Here's my must-have condiment list for savory foods:

• mayonnaise
• ketchup
• mustard
• pickle relish and pickles
• soy sauce
• chutney
• salsa
• barbecue sauce
• flavored vinegar

My family members add:

• tartar sauce
• ranch dressing/dip/seasoning
• hot sauce
• queso

Of my list of must-haves, I've made ketchup, mustard, pickles and relishes, chutney, salsa, barbecue sauce, and flavored vinegar. My family prefers commercial ketchup to my homemade. But they like my barbecue sauce. My husband prefers my homemade salsa. We all thought the homemade mustard was too hot. I make tartar sauce, and we all enjoy it. I prefer my chutney, pickles, and relishes. They're good, and they're unique. My family has never had commercial chutney, so they have nothing with which to compare it. I've never made mayonnaise. I know it's not supposed to be super complicated. However, I like the long refrigerator life of commercial mayo.

There are other condiments that we enjoy having periodically. These are simply my must-have ones, those that I make sure we always have on hand. 

So what are your must-haves, and what's your experience with making your own?

After 4 weeks, I finally did a major grocery shopping. I didn't spend as much as I would have thought. Why would that be?

So like it says above, I finally did a stock-up shopping after 4 long weeks. I'd been popping into the local Walmart to pick up milk, cheese, and bananas once per week (spending under $10 each week), but that was about it.

Then last Friday, I made a WinCo run. I had been keeping a list going as we'd run out of items. I brought a fist full of cash and a bunch of shopping bags. I cruised through the aisles, picking up the foods on my list. I thought I would spend a lot, a whole lot. 

At the check-out, I was rather surprised that I "only" spent $125.73. After allowing our supplies to dwindle for a month, I had anticipated spending closer to $200.

I was thinking about why I didn't spend more. Here's what I think. Like many questions in life, the answer is multi-faceted.

• Our garden has been in heavy production for the entire month of August and now into September. We have featured garden fruit and vegetables very heavily in all of our meals, meaning we used more produce and less of the ingredients that we would need to purchase to replenish. Most dinners included a serving of fruit and 2 servings of vegetables this past month. We snack on garden fresh fruit when hungry between meals. Every lunch contains 1 fruit and at least 1 veggie, sometimes 2.
• We used purchased foods that are low cost or practically free throughout the month. We turned to our surplus of dried beans instead of using all of our meat for protein. We used our copious supply of saved meat fat in place of vegetable oil or butter in cooking. This meant that I didn't need to buy more meat or more vegetable oil/butter.
• As our garden will continue to produce enough for our meals for another month, we have no need to stock up on frozen or canned veggies just yet. The only produce I bought at WinCo were 2 bananas, 1 bag of carrots, 1 bundle of celery, a bag of potatoes, and a bag of onions. We'll have enough produce with this purchase plus garden fruits and vegetables to last several weeks and still have variety.
• Stocking up on groceries may be more cyclical for some of us. Right now I'm still coasting on what we have on hand and not yet needing to make our big autumn stock-up purchases like a case of canned tomatoes and a case of tomato paste and a jumbo 50-lb bag of onions to get through fall, winter and spring. I'll need to buy those items in two to three weeks.

The lesson I learned is that August is a very good month for me to skip major grocery shopping. By shifting away from the pricier purchased foods and incorporating more of the almost free garden produce and low-cost purchased foods, fewer expensive foods need to be replenished after a month of eating.

Maybe you're curious what I actually bought at WinCo on Friday. Here's the list:

10-lb bag of potatoes (I'm 3 weeks away from harvesting our potatoes)

10-lb bag of carrots (I just have a small patch of carrots that we mostly eat as baby carrots)

2 bananas

bundle of celery (for fresh eating, our garden celery is better for cooking)

3-lb bag onions (to get me through until I buy a 50-lb bag in a few weeks)

10 cans tuna (still on sale)

1 jar mayo (still on sale)

2 large cans tomato paste (for pizza sauce)

1 large block cheddar

1 large block mozzarella

bag of pitted dates

25 oz of frozen sausage (on sale)

2 pints natural peanut butter

large bag roasted peanuts

large bag oats

salt

bulk cinnamon

bulk onion powder

bulk garlic powder

bulk peanut butter powder

bulk pickling spice

bag of raisins (smaller amount than I would normally buy, as we have so much fresh fruit)

2 lbs sliced pepperoni (on sale, to divide into 10 smaller bags for making pizzas)

1 gallon milk

5-lb bag whole wheat flour 

2 5-lb bags organic white flour (no additives that I'm allergic to)

2 canisters of cocoa powder

And that's it. I really didn't need all that much, even after going 4 weeks with minimal grocery shopping.

I have to include some pertinent information to our overall grocery spending. I will be receiving another delivery of beef (quarterly deliveries) in a week. That, of course, bumps up the actual grocery spending considerably this month. But that meat will last 3 months, so I divide the meat cost over those months when figuring monthly grocery spending for my own purposes.

Sometimes Simpler Is Best

I started out looking for a healthy apple dessert recipe. We still have an abundance of fresh apples. And apple crisp couldn't be it, as I just made that the other day, and I can only do oats every once in a while. I found many really delicious-looking apple goodies. My two favorites were Apple Fritter Bread and Apple Pie Squares. But both had way too much sugar and/or fat for what I was looking for. 

I may still try to make an apple-filled cinnamon swirl bread this weekend. I could do that with less sugar, and yeast breads can get by with less fat than most baking powder-leavened treats or pie pastry goodies.

But what I ended up going with was a batch of mini cookies, and I served those with apple slices from our surplus of apples. Although chocolate chip cookies don't sound like they're in the same league as a fruit-based dessert, because these are mini cookies (using the small cookie scoop), each one has a relatively small amount of added sugar and fat. The addition of fresh apple slices make the cookies a healthy choice in my mind. And yes, I did just have 1 cookie with my fresh apple slices.

I still have lots and lots of fresh apples to use. What are your favorite apple desserts? Bonus points if it's a healthy dessert.

It Feels Like the Bottom of the Barrel

I'm down to 2 packages of beef short ribs from our beef deliveries. I had nothing thawed for tonight's dinner. 

Rummaging through the meat freezer, I came across an old package of hamburger patties that no one knows when they were purchased. One daughter thought she might have bought them a couple of years ago. She said she would be thrilled if we used them up. 

There was about 1/2 cup of loose frost in the bag, and the patties themselves were covered with frost. I could just imagine the burgers would be freezer tasting, and the texture might not be great. 

I wasn't sure how to use them, but thought perhaps I could turn them into a meatloaf or meatballs.

After thawing 3 of the patties in the microwave, I ran them through the food processor along with bread, onions, celery leaves, and lots and lots of seasonings. Hiding any off flavors was my mission.

I baked the seasoned meat as a loaf, topped with ketchup. After baking, I added pickle and tomato slices and drizzled 1000 Island dressing over all. Surprise, surprise -- this tasted good!

I have 2 remaining long-in-the-tooth beef patties from this bag that I will turn into meatballs next week, using this same technique of running the patties through the food processor with bread and lots of seasonings.

The rest of our meal tonight also had that bottom of the barrel feeling. I used the last 2 potatoes (1 wrinkly, the other okay) as oven fries, mixed the last of the applesauce with some home-canned spiced figs in the blender for fig-applesauce, and stirred a small container of mayonnaise (from a picnic a few weeks ago) with the last of the sweet relish and some ketchup to make 1000 Island dressing. Man, I need to go grocery shopping soon!

Have you used preformed burger patties not cooked as patties before? What type of dish did you use them in?

If It Doesn't Bring Me Joy, I Won't Do It on a Sunday

This is how I view working on Sundays. 

I do enjoy baking cookies. So although baking is part of my work, it also is something that brings me joy. So I do bake cookies or pies or make dinner on Sundays.

I don't particularly enjoy painting the deck railing. So in this project I have never spent a Sunday afternoon painting. 

the completely finished part of the deck railing

I do, however, enjoy looking at a finished painting project or a partially finished one.

I'm a bit behind where I thought I'd be in this project. I "lost" 3 days to painting this last week. Last Wednesday it rained. (I was secretly gleeful over not being able to paint that day.) Sunday I didn't paint. And then Monday (yesterday) I was too busy to paint.

The next section needs top coats on 4x4 posts, and their finials need sanding and painting.
The section beyond that needs paint on all 4x4s, top coats on balusters in between 4x4s, and finials sanded and painted.

But I'm making slow but steady progress. Fortunately, we have about a week until the next rain is in the forecast. I'll be working as hard as I can these next few days. I hope to get everything done that is on the deck level and not worry about the stairs this year.

The far, far end hasn't been touched,
neither have either of the railings down the stairs.

I still haven't done a major grocery shopping. This will be 4 weeks without a stock-up shop. I've made a couple of runs to the neighborhood Walmart for milk, cheese, coffee, and bananas, and one quick run to Grocery Outlet for sausage and bacon for yesterday. But no other grocery shopping. I'm surprised we've made it this far. I will have to work a WinCo run in later this week. We need a few items that I only buy at WinCo (freshly ground peanut butter and bulk bin items).

If I found painting deck railings to be a source of joy, I might be further along in this project. As it is, having a break day and doing more enriching things gives me a peace that's more valuable than finishing the painting.

Last-Minute Labor Day Prep

a spicy apple crisp for the first day of September

I thought it was just going to be the 4 of us for a Labor Day cook-out. Then last night my son and daughter-in-law let us know that they'd be able to make it after all. A cook-out with just the 4 of us was going to be low-key, using up some foods from the fridge, cutting up apples, slicing some tomatoes and roasting hot dogs. With 6, not only would the meager leftovers not stretch for all, but we wanted to make this more special than the low-key plans. It's been a couple of months since we'd had our son and daughter-in-law over.

I used garden tomatoes (yellow and red), basil, celery, and oregano in the pasta salad

Anyways, we've been scrambling to clean up the kitchen, deck and patio. I haven't spent much time on housekeeping during this deck rail painting project. I also needed to come up with a game plan for our cook-out dinner. I made a run to Grocery Outlet this morning. Grocery Outlet has the best prices on bacon and a good selection of different varieties of hot dogs and sausages. I bought a package of bacon for bacon bits, a rope of kielbasa, and one bottle of mineral water. At home I had ingredients for the buns, 1 package of beef hot dogs, rotini pasta, pepperoni slices, and garden vegetables to make a pasta salad, kale and dried cranberries for a salad with bacon bits, cooked pinto beans to make a dish of baked beans, apples and baking ingredients to make an apple crisp, garden fruit for a fruit salad, cans of flavored sparkling water, and ingredients to make s'mores.

kale, cranberry and bacon salad

My daughters and husband have been helping me all day. Everything is looking delicious and clean. I'm now resting for a bit before putting on the final touches in 2 hours. And we'll all enjoy time catching up while sitting around the fire this evening.

hot dog buns just came out of the oven

Did you or will you do anything special today? Do you go to more effort to prepare a meal when family outside your household is coming than just you and the at-home loved ones?

Wishing you a lovely Labor Day. 

Pantry Dreamin'

I mentioned this in the comments yesterday that I some day hope to have some built-in shelves in our pantry. It's a small pantry, about 6 by 6 feet, and would best suit an L-shaped layout. The door is a pocket door, so I can't use the back of the door as storage space. Here's what it looks like. 

It's overflowing with stuff. Not everything fits on shelves. This is how it looks most of the time. Periodically I sort through stuff and organize the shelves better.

To the left is a tall plastic shelving unit (from my childhood). The shelves are about 10 inches deep. Built-in shelves could be deeper and accommodate more containers.

The back wall of the pantry has an 18-inch deep metal shelving unit. There are gaps on either side of both units, gaps that could be filled with shelves that run from wall to wall.

I thought today I'd share some of my pantry dreams, the elements of other pantries that I like and why.

https://www.thespruce.com/pantry-shelving-ideas-7197799

I love the decorative shelf supports in this pantry. This type of built-in shelving would be do-able for my husband and I. Here's a close-up of the support.

I also like the deeply colored cabinetry. It adds a dramatic flair to the pantry. Of course, my own pantry doesn't have any windows.

https://www.thespruce.com/pantry-shelving-ideas-7197799

Here's another pantry with decorative shelf supports. I also like the counter work area and the bead board backing. The counter can be used as a work area or additional "shelf" storage for containers.

sitbacklounge.com

This pantry came up when I searched "maximizing food storage in tiny pantry." Okay, so the pantry isn't exactly tiny, but the jars of foods have been massed in there, and they've used every inch of space, all the way up to the ceiling. I love how there's not a lot of excess airspace above the jars. The shelves seem to have been tailored to the height of the jars. It's definitely a bulk food pantry dream. Not many packaged foods in there.

thisoldhouse.com

Here's a small pantry. I like the furniture trim where a toe kick in cabinetry would normally go. I like the open shelves beneath the counter area. I prefer to be able to see everything and not have ingredients hidden behind doors or in drawers in the pantry. I also think open shelves provide just a hair more storage space without door or drawer hardware.

roomyretreat.com

I searched "storage in jars pantry." I imagine my glass jars storage to look something like this, with a variety of sizes and shapes of jars. I'm not sure how I would aesthetically incorporate packaged foods, which we do buy, as well as the bulk foods. Again, notice how well the jarred foods fit inside the shelf spaces. Very little wasted air-space above lines of jars.

https://happyinteriortime.com/ideal-dimensions-small-walk-in-pantry/

This pantry uses baskets on the lower shelves. On the floor it looks like square baskets of produce. Our pantry is on the warm side (adjacent to the main kitchen work area), so I don't store produce in the pantry. But I do like that look. It's open enough to see what's there, but conceals and brings harmony to the lower shelves. Despite the good, here, they didn't do a great job optimizing airspace above jars and bottles. I see lots of wasted space here. With how much I stock up, I need a design that will allow me to utilize all the space.

https://wonderfulengineering.com/25-great-pantry-design-ideas-for-your-home/

This is a beautiful pantry. I love the rolling ladder to reach the top shelf all around. They've added crown moulding around the top of the wall, very nice. That's one of those small details that my husband and I could do, would take up next to no storage space, but would add a room-like feel to the pantry and would go with other traditional elements of our house. As much as I like the ladder, it wouldn't be practical in our small pantry. I keep a folding step-stool in the pantry that I can pop open with one hand. For the time being, it rests folded up against the wall as you enter the pantry. Adding a hook to that wall would keep the step stool off the floor.

https://www.linenchest.com/en_ca/blog/post/20-pretty-pantries

Here's my last pantry. this one has an old school apothecary look to it, perhaps from the addition of the scale combined with the lines of identical jars filled with ingredients on shelves above the counter space. It looks like they've used several square shaped jars, which make the most of space.

If you were to design a new pantry, what elements would you incorporate?

Pantry Storage That Costs Nothing: Using Repurposed Glass Queso, Instant Coffee, and Pickle Jars

I've been saving empty glass food jars and their lids for a few years now. What I love is that since I buy the same foods over and over, I have a good-sized collection of several sizes of jars, but enough of each type to have some uniform food storage. 

I've wanted to transition much of my food storage to glass containers. And using repurposed glass food jars seems like the first step in this process.

I have a whole bunch of queso/salsa jars from my daughters. (They love queso and buy it for themselves often.) The jars are small, round, have a large opening, and hold about 2 cups. I grow all of the oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, and basil that we use in a year. In addition, I buy all of our spices from bulk bins. Till now, I've stored our herbs and spices in an oddball collection of plastic containers. Repurposed queso jars look to be a good size for herbs and spices. The labels on these jars peel off cleanly. My plan is to store all of our herbs and spices in these jars.

I'll need to label the jars, so I don't confuse ground cloves with allspice or oregano with marjoram. The easiest "nice" label uses chalkboard paint.

The jars above are on Mother Earth News, from the article, How to Label Glass Jars. My only cost would be chalkboard paint. Hobby Lobby sells a small bottle (enough for my labels) for $1.89.

Another jar type that I've been collecting is from our instant coffee. I've been buying Great Value Colombian instant coffee and saving the glass jars it comes in. The coffee is good and I love the glass jar.

The jars are tall, squarish, and are easy to grab and pour from. The only drawback is the top opening is not wide enough to fit a measuring scoop larger than a 1/4 cup measure. But I do like these jars and have saved about 5 so far. They hold about 3 1/2 cups by volume. I'm thinking pourable ingredients would work best with the small opening. 

These might be good baking "extras" jars, such as flaxseed meal, cocoa powder, chia seeds, coconut flakes, and chocolate chips (when I buy from WinCo's bulk bins or buy the super large plastic bag from Walmart). They might also be a good storage container for the grains and pulses that I buy in smaller amounts from the bulk bins, such as quinoa, steel cut oats, millet, wild rice, red lentils, yellow split peas, etc.

Since my baking ingredients and grains/pulses are rather obvious to identify, I don't think I'd need a label for these jars.

My last collection of jars are 32-oz pickle jars, again a purchase of my daughters. Go figure -- I make pickles from our own cucumbers, but still they want to buy more. I have 6 of these jars, so far (who knows when my daughters will get another pickle craving and buy more). 

Like the queso jars, the pickle jar labels come off cleanly. They have a decent sized opening, so scoop-able (1/3 to 1/2 cup max scoop) ingredients as well as pourable will work with these.

32 ounces is about the right sized container for small pasta shapes for my household, like rotini, macaroni, and small shells, and for some of the grains we eat but not in large amounts, such as cornmeal, grits, and barley, all bought from bulk bins. The biggest issue with repurposing pickle jars and their lids is the odor. I've had good luck with airing the jars and lids in direct sunlight for the day. I've also read that soaking the jars and lids for 24 hours in a solution of 1 teaspoon of baking soda for every half-cup of warm water will deodorize pickle jars and their lids.

The only type of label that I'll need on these jars for the above listed foods is cooking instructions. for example how long to cook the ingredient and/or ratio grain to water. Again, I like the chalkboard paint label as they can be changed when the jar is refilled with a different ingredient.

Am I the only one who saves empty glass food jars? Who, here, repurposes their "empties" for pantry storage? In your experiences, what sizes work for which ingredients?

My "Trick" to Get Myself to Do Work I Don't Really Want to Do

I'm not loving painting the deck railing. But they way things work in my household is the person who most wants a job done does it. The rest of the family really doesn't care that much what the deck railing looks like, but I do. So, this is my job. It's a good thing that I'm neat and can paint carefully.

Just how do I make myself get out there to paint almost every day when I don't want to? I do this with other challenging tasks and ordeals, too. I tell myself I only have to do a small amount, and I can decide not to do any more after that. When I was going through all my dental stuff, especially the four surgeries (not all were big surgeries, though), I told myself I only have to get through this one, and if I don't want to go any further, I can choose plan B instead.

When I'm cleaning up the house after a family event, I tell myself I only need to pick up this one small space. What usually happens is I find the cleaning up isn't so bad, I get into a groove, and before I know it I've finished the house. 

I didn't want to make dinner for tonight. I was tired. But I told myself I will just get the pasta cooked and set aside (I made a seafood pasta salad), then I could go rest for a small while before finishing up dinner. As it turned out, I had enough energy to do all of dinner and have it chilling while I rested.

It doesn't always turn out this way. Sometimes I do just the small amount I've convinced myself to try. I'm okay with that. At least I did a small amount of work. This reminds me of parents asking their kids to try a bite of a new food. Their hope is the child will discover they like the new food and eat more.But if they don't, at least they tried and had some.

This afternoon after my dentist appointment, I told myself I'd just go out and put a final coat of paint on the small section I did yesterday. I did that and then put two coats on one of the 4 X 4 posts and washed the section that I'll work on tomorrow. I didn't go all crazy and paint for hours, but I did get some good work in on a day when I felt tired.

And now. as I anticipate a lot of painting yet to do, I've been telling myself that it's okay if I don't finish the job this summer. This is how I'm getting myself out to paint each day, by not letting myself think the job is overwhelming. If I finish the whole railing, that will be great. But if I don't, I've already decided that that outcome will be okay with me. I can always do the rest next summer.

Anyway, this trick has worked to get myself started on many tasks. Do you have any ways you get yourself to do work that really isn't something you enjoy?

When push came to shove, I discovered that we could get by on meals with what's on hand (or mostly so)

I'm now half done painting the main deck railing. I will still need to paint the railings for 2 sets of stairs. But I'm not counting that part just yet. This is very slow and very hot work. Our deck is on the south side of the house. When the air temperature for our area is around 82 or 83, the deck is around 100. And since I'm painting black over white paint, it's taking several coats of paint to achieve complete coverage. Slow and hot work.

Anyway, I thought it best to skip my big, two-week stock-up shopping last Friday and focus on painting all day. One daughter was going to Walmart for something for herself. I asked her to pick up a gallon of milk and a small block of cheese for the family. And that was it for shopping for the week for me. So, a grand total of $6.90 spent last week on groceries.

If I'm going to skip a stock-up shopping, this is the time of year to do it. We have so much fresh produce coming in right now. I eat several figs, apples, and tomatoes each day. In fact, when I'm outside painting and hungry, I pluck a fig off one of the trees or pick a handful of cherry tomatoes to snack on without even going indoors.

Here's how our kitchen fridge looks without any meaningful shopping in a couple of weeks. Don't ask me to tell you what's in all of the jars. We have a couple of mystery jars lurking in the fridge right now. I'll deal with those in a week.

As you can see, no one is in danger of going hungry any time soon. It's probably a good thing I didn't go shopping last Friday, don't you think? 

I have a dentist appointment mid-day tomorrow, so I won't get a full day of painting in. Which means I need to work as hard as I can on painting Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Monday. This will give me a few days of cure time before the next forecasted precipitation. 

I'll skip major grocery shopping this week, too. Perhaps I'll ask a family member to go get more milk and cheese for us. Any Labor Day celebrations at our house will use what we have on hand -- meat from the freezer, produce from the garden/orchard, grains and other baking ingredients for dinner rolls and a pie. 

So, what have we been eating since Friday morning (when I would have done the big stock-up shopping)? 

We've had versions of cabbage/carrot/green onion salads (cabbage and green onions from garden), apples, pears, figs (all from orchard), blueberries and blackberries (from berry patch), peanut butter, cheese, tuna salad, frozen sausage, frozen beef, homemade bread, homemade pizza, various frittatas, oven fries and baked potatoes, Spanish rice, cooked garden vegetables, tomato/lettuce/cucumber salad (from garden), smoothies, cooked oatmeal, blueberry pancakes. 

As it turns out, we have lots of food in my house. Not that I ever doubted that. But we're no where near boring or repetitive meals. I think those would begin in about a month and a half to two months (as the garden harvest and our meat supply began to dwindle), if I did minimal grocery shopping of only milk, cheese, and eggs.

This will make my August grocery spending total rather low, with just one big stock-up shopping at WinCo and a few small stops at Walmart. The great thing is I've been able to put more hours into my painting project, hopefully finishing up well ahead of any rainfall.

Here's my question to you -- how long could you make interesting meals with just bare bones grocery shopping (like my milk, cheese, and eggs)? I know many of us could eat for a couple of months, but I imagine the last couple of weeks would consist of redundant ingredients.

Perseverance

I began repainting the deck railing last summer. I fell and separated my shoulder and had to delay finishing. So here we are, getting near the end of this summer and I'm just now painting the vertical parts of the railing. 

There are 13 sections to the railing, and I've mostly completed 3. When I began yesterday, I was grumbling so much to myself. Things kept going wrong. But I kept telling myself to be grateful I had work to do, and I was capable of doing such work. I grumbled on, all while working at the painting job before me. It was a day of me complaining in my head while reprimanding myself. It feels like this is an enormous task.

This morning, I wasn't looking forward to painting, but I no longer felt the need to grumble to myself. I don't enjoy this work, but I was able to do what I needed to anyway.

I think that's what perseverance is all about. Spending a vacation being entertained and fed wouldn't take any perseverance. The days would pass quickly, and I'd be feeling pretty pleasant about my vacation. Perseverance is when you continue on with a lengthy and often times burdensome task. You may not enjoy it very much, but you continue on nonetheless.

Saving for a big financial goal takes a lot of perseverance. My husband and I were extremely frugal for the first 8 years of our marriage. It was tough at times. We didn't take vacations, not even to camp. We paid for necessities and put the rest of our income into savings. It took 8 long years to save enough for a sizable down payment on our house -- 8 years of being extraordinarily frugal. But we persevered.

My progress on the deck rail painting job feels now much like it felt when we'd been saving for about 2 years of the 8. At that time, it was hard to see our progress. It mostly felt like we were working hard for little gain. As I look at all of the railing sections left to paint, it feels like I've made very little progress so far. But I know that in just another couple of days, the progress will be so much more evident. I remember a specific day during year 6 of our savings for a house journey. My husband and I were totaling our various savings and investments. We realized that we had saved a very big chunk of our goal amount. We could see on paper that our hard work was paying off. Buying a house was no longer just a hope, but something that would most certainly happen. That's the feeling I expect to have someday early next week. I will have completed enough of the railing to see that my hard work is paying off and it will most certainly be finished this summer.

In the meantime, I just need to persevere. I'll check back with you on the finished railing in a week or so.

Have a great weekend, friends!

It May Be Too Soon to Buy Your Fall Mums: How to Time Your Hardy Mum Purchase for Fall Decor

Where I live, the likelihood of 90 degree days has passed. I checked the long-range forecasts and we'll hit the low to mid-80s two days this week, and then next week and beyond our high temperatures will vary from low 60s to the upper 70s for the following 6 weeks.

Hardy mums prefer daytime high temperatures between 60 and 75, right where we'll be in my area after this coming weekend. Mums can tolerate temperatures that go above those marks for a couple of days, but heat stress beyond a day or two or three can cause wilting and impair flowering.

I bought small pots of yellow mums ($2.98 ea) while at Home Depot the other day and repotted them 3 to a large pot to use on our front patio. If the temperature is expected to go above 83 or 84 this weekend, I'll move the planted pots to the shade on the north side of the house for those days.

Most parts of the US have many more hot days to come than my area. Although it's tempting to buy mums for fall decor now, it may be better to wait until your forecasted daytime highs fall in the mid-70s, which for many parts of the US doesn't happen until at least mid-September.

If you do happen to buy your mums before the danger of extreme heat has passed, if your plants are in pots, you can move them to the shade in the afternoons on hot days and keep them well-watered.

When choosing plants, look for tight buds, in order to enjoy the most bloom time. To prolong blooms, deadhead regularly, water consistently and at the base of the plant and not overhead (to prevent fungus), and choose a sunny location for your plant that doesn't experience extreme temperature fluctuations.

When your overnight temperatures begin to regularly dip below about 45 degrees, you can bring potted mums indoors to enjoy the blooms just a little longer.

For right now, mid to late-summer, the cheery yellow will be a bright spot of sunny color on the patio. When mid-September rolls around, I'll mass out some orange and white pumpkins next to the pot of yellow flowers for an autumnal vibe for the remainder of the harvest season. 

Will you be buying mums for porch decor this year? When does the weather cool down enough for mums in your area?

Rendering Meat Fat in Pictures

I cooked a large fatty piece of beef on Monday. I used the meat portion in both Monday's and Tuesday's dinners, reserving the fat to deal with Tuesday afternoon. I mention rendering fat often here. So I thought this time I'd take some photos so you can see what this task looks like.

The day after simmering the beef, I cut the chilled fat chunks into 1/4-inch dices. This is about 3/4 to 1 cup of fat dices in the saucepan. As you can see, some bits are meatier than others. But mostly these are dices of fat. The tiny amount of meat will add flavor to the finished pieces.

I cook the dices on Low heat, stirring from time to time to prevent sticking and then scorching. I'm usually doing something else in the kitchen while the fat renders. But I can also leave it to render for periods, just coming back to stir every 15 minutes or so.

It's important to keep the stove on Low. You don't want the fat to smoke and scorch. You want the fat to slowly liquify and render almost all of the fat out of each piece. Cooking over a higher temperature would cause the outside of the dices to cook but leave large amounts of fat on the insides.

after pouring off most of the liquid fat

After a couple of hours of rendering on Low, the fat was mostly cooked out. I pour off the bulk of the fat into a small dish, so the last bits can render more thoroughly. Otherwise, the dices are just sort of frying in a pool of their own fat. Any large pieces at the bottom of the saucepan I cut into smaller bits with the edge of a spoon.

When I think all of the fat is rendered, I pour the remaining fat and the browned dices into a mesh sieve over the dish. 

I use the back of a spoon to press out as much fat as I can.

The 1 cup of fat dices rendered into about 1/3 cup of liquid fat. I keep the rendered fat in the freezer and use in small amounts in cooking. Beef fat is particularly good for oven-frying potato wedges or sautéing onions to make French onion soup or vegetables such as zucchini, tomatoes, and garlic to serve as a vegetable side dish or tossed with cooked pasta.

The cooked dices are known as cracklings. I keep these in a container in the freezer. I top baked beans and soups with cracklings in fall and winter. They add a nice richness to both dishes.

"Use it up" is a motto I follow. Using all parts of meat feels respectful to the animal that gave its life to feed my family. And that's what rendering fat looks like in my kitchen.

I also render ham fat. The cracklings from rendered ham fat are salty and tasty, almost like bacon bits. I use those in salads, for topping bean soup, and stirred into cornbread batter before baking. I use the rendered ham fat any place I want to add smokey/salty flavor, such as for cooking greens or frying eggs or to add some ham flavor to bean soup or baked beans, just a spoonful or two of the fat.