Cheap & Cheerful Suppers With an Easy Pumpkin Recipe

Friday

homemade pepperoni pizza
kale*, cabbage*, tomato* salad in homemade vinaigrette
steamed carrots

trick-or-treat cookies (Circus Animal Cookies)

Saturday

spaghetti in meat and tomato sauce
sautéed kale* in beef fat
no egg, no milk apple* cake (applesauce* snack cake with chunks of apples* baked in), this recipe, no nuts but with apple chunks added

Sunday

vegetable*-beef soup, with garden celery*, potatoes*, herbs*, and store carrots plus beef
leftover apple* cake

Monday

tuna-macaroni salad with celery*, carrot leaves*, mayo, sweet relish*, tuna, cooked pasta over shredded cabbage* in vinaigrette
avocado wedges
pumpkin*-applesauce*

leftover Halloween cookies

Tuesday

carne asada over brown rice
topped with chopped fresh tomato*, cilantro*, and avocado
sauteed beet leaves* cooked in bacon fat
steamed baby carrots*
stewed prunes*

applesauce*-raisin bar cookies (these ones)

Wednesday (needed an easy dinner, as my husband and I had to leave the house early for the evening)

meatloaf, which included a slice of homemade bread, celery*, onions, herbs*, and seasonings along with ground beef

gravy made with drippings, ketchup, remaining sauce from Tuesday's carne asada
oven fries roasted in beef fat
canned green beans
pumpkin*-applesauce*

applesauce* bar cookies

Thursday

scrambled eggs in ham fat

sautéed Brussel sprout leaves* with garlic*

carrot-raisin salad with peanut dressing

smashed purple potatoes*

applesauce* bar cookies

*denotes from home garden/orchard

Notes

The garden harvest continues to wind down. I go outside, dodging raindrops, to get leafy greens several days per week. Daughter picked a bunch of kale and washed and wrapped in a towel to add to our lunch greens this week. We still haven't had a freeze, so everything remaining in the garden is still okay. What remains is the same as last week, just less of it -- kale, Brussel sprout leaves, Swiss chard, beets, turnips, cilantro, and radish. Here's an odd thing, we still have a couple of blueberries ripening on bare branches, branches that have already lost their leaves. I picked the ripest ones the other day to nibble on while raking leaves.

In an exciting bit of news, there's a mother on my homemade crabapple cider vinegar! The other exciting thing tonight, I caught brief views of the Beaver Moon (November's full supermoon) as the clouds would occasionally part. Last night the moon was at its peak, but tonight 's showing was no slouch either.

No grocery shopping this week. I do need to pick up bananas for smoothies and will do that in the next day or two.

Recipe

Pumpkin-Applesauce

for 1 pint

Stir together 1 cup of applesauce and 1 cup of pureed pumpkin (canned or home-processed, could also be made with pureed winter squash). Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of sweetening, such as maple syrup, honey, brown or white sugar, plus a sprinkling of cinnamon (1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon). Mix well. This is a mildly sweet and mildly flavored fruit sauce, not as sweet as applesauce and adds a bonus of vitamin A and fiber.

Beyond the Pie

It's a rainy, rainy day here. November is the wettest month of the year in the Seattle area, with about 6.5 inches of rainfall on average. So when I think of autumn, I think of chilly and wet days -- a perfect season for the warmth of pumpkin-filled meals.

For those wishing to imbibe in copious amounts of pumpkin (or butternut squash for those who prefer squash over pumpkin) this month, but don't want to OD on pie, here are some of my favorite ways to use pureed pumpkin in savory recipes. Sub in squash du jour for pumpkin as your tastes dictate.

Pasta with a pumpkin (squash) sauce in place of a tomato sauce

• Pumpkin/squash, Italian sausage, sage, onion, and cream sauce tossed with penne pasta. 
• Or, a twist on traditional lasagna, using a pumpkin/squash béchamel sauce in layers with lasagna noodles, cooked ground beef or cooked Italian sausage (with or without some cooked chopped spinach mixed in), cottage or ricotta cheese, then all topped with some Parmesan cheese. 
• Or, a pumpkin/squash, cream (or milk/alternative milk), sage, onions, Parmesan, garlic sauce over pre-made tortellini/ravioli.

Pumpkin puree as the topping on a Shepherd's Pie

• Libby's recipe blends pumpkin with mashed potatoes for the topping. Pumpkin is naturally lower in carbs than potatoes. Blending the two reduces overall carbs while satisfying the taste for mashed potatoes.
• For an all pumpkin topping (no potatoes), check out this recipe from Seasonal Intentions. The pumpkin topping is slightly spicy, with cinnamon, chipotle, and cardamom. For vegetarians, this recipe could easily be modified. It is chock full of vegetable flavor and texture, including turnips, kale, carrots, onion, and seasonings. The beef could be omitted and beef bouillon replaced with vegetable broth.

Pumpkin Bisque

• Taste of Home has a delicious pumpkin bisque recipe on its website. I made this last year, using saved bacon fat for sautéing the onions and garlic, but then skipping the bacon topping as a garnish and subbing in ham cracklings (see this post for cracklings). Diced ham would also be nice, or skip the smoked meat topping altogether. I subbed Swiss cheese for the Gouda (Swiss is more economical for me) and used coconut milk for the heavy cream (dairy issue for me). The bisque is very tasty and fairly simple.

Crockpot Pumpkin Chicken Chili

• If you're looking for a dump and go pumpkin chili recipe, this one is a winner. The pumpkin, beans, and chiles are all canned -- simplification, indeed. The green chiles are the kind that stores like Walmart sell for 78 cents/generic-brand, 4-oz can of fire-roasted chiles that add some heat, or mild ones by Ortega that sell for $1.24/4-oz can. They pack a lot of flavor for a little money. The canned beans can be replaced with home-cooked beans from dried, to save a little money. I frequently cook large batches of different types of beans and freeze in pint containers to use another day in soups and chili, as needed.

Pumpkin Sausage Chili

• Italian sausage is a natural pairing with pumpkin. Pioneer Woman's Pumpkin Chili recipe is closer to traditional chili recipes than the crockpot chicken chili recipe above, in that it contains ground meat, canned tomatoes, and bell pepper. Read the comments and suggestions above the actual recipe. She discusses how Libby's pumpkin is closer in flavor to butternut squash, what swaps can be made (including making this vegetarian), and it's flavor profile. 

These are a few of my favorite savory pumpkin dishes. Do you have any favorite pumpkin or winter squash (non-pie) dishes?

Is it too soon to talk turkey?

So, I've been receiving emails from stores and restaurants describing/advertising their pick-up Thanksgiving meals. Most are just the common T-day foods. One in particular came from a local restaurant and their menu looked good and more interesting. We sent an e-gift card to our son and daughter-in-law from this restaurant a couple of years ago, and now we're on their email list. Anyway, it's very expensive ($57 per person, not including dessert), but it did get me thinking about what I want to serve our 6 at our little Thanksgiving meal.

For the mains

When you have just 6 people, a whole turkey sounds like far more turkey leftovers than we would want. I've done bone-in turkey breasts before, and those are a good size for a smaller group. They're not as budget-friendly (priced per pound) as the whole bird. But it's an option.

Last year we did a whole chicken, roasted as I would a whole turkey, and a smoked pork loin. I have both whole chickens and a pork loin in the freezer. So if I went the same route as last year, I wouldn't have to buy the main meat. 

The restaurant I mentioned above is providing roasted turkey breast, sliced turkey leg confit, and honey glazed ham as their mains in the package.

For the sides

I think I want variety in texture as well as flavor. And I don't want too many starchy foods. So, I think I'll have purple mashed potatoes (from our garden's purple potatoes, everyone loves the color surprise), roasted sweet potato chunks, and bread, celery and sage stuffing. I have everything for those dishes except sweet potatoes. For vegetable dishes, I have canned green beans, dried mushrooms, and onions on hand. I could make a green bean casserole in a homemade mushroom soup binder and topped with homemade onion and bread crumb topping. I do our green bean casserole this way every year, due to my dairy intolerance. I would like to do a salad. I don't know if we will have anything to make a salad from on hand. So I will have to buy ingredients for a salad. I will make a gravy with the chicken drippings and homemade chicken stock. I may just skip any sort of cranberry sauce, and instead serve home-canned chutney alongside both the chicken and smoked pork. And I'd like to have olives. We all love olives and I haven't been buying any lately due to price increases. I'll get some for Thanksgiving.

The package with the restaurant includes a four cheese mac and cheese, vanilla yam puree, garlic mashed potatoes, brioche truffle stuffing, roasted seasoned green beans, country gravy, and orange cranberry sauce.

For dessert

I will bake an apple pie, using frozen apple chunks and homemade pie pastry, and a pumpkin pie, using our pureed pumpkin, soy milk, sugar, eggs, spices and homemade pie pastry. I will need to pick up whipping cream for the pies.

The restaurant does not include dessert with the package, but offers an add-on of $16 for either an apple or pumpkin pie.

For beverages

I can ask our son and daughter-in-law to bring some sparkling cider and/or mineral water for our cold beverages, and I'll serve coffee and tea with the dessert.

So, it looks like I will need to buy sweet potatoes, salad ingredients, olives, and whipping cream for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Have you given thought to your Thanksgiving meal for this year? Is turkey a must for your group? Are you hosting or guesting this year?

Sayings My Parents and Grandparents Used to Help Teach Financial Responsibility

I was thinking about all of the little sayings my parents and grandparents had to teach us how to be good stewards of our family's resources. Many of these lessons I carry with me today. How many of these did your parents or grandparents used to say? What other little sayings did they have? 

Here are the top 10 that I remember from my childhood:

"Put a sweater on if you're cold."  Save energy. Be prudent with resources.

"Clean your plate."  This extended to using every bit in a tube of toothpaste, scraping out the mayonnaise jar, using that last square of TP stuck onto the cardboard tube. The lesson was to don't be wasteful.

"Let me show you how we can fix this." From worn shoes and torn jeans, to pilled sweaters, we repaired (or took to a repair shop) our worn or torn clothing. Shoe repair shops used to be common. Of course, the types of shoes people used to wear daily often had leather soles, which can be replaced, in contrast to sneaker rubber soles. When I was first allowed to wear blue jeans to school (7th grade), I fell in my practically brand new jeans and tore the knee. My mom took me to the nearby 5 and dime (yes, there was still a 5 and dime back in my town in the 70s, although everything cost way more than 5 or 10 cents). We looked at the sewing notions on the wall and found a large patch of an orange. It wasn't how I really wanted my jeans to look, but I had to compromise. A large orange on the right knee of my jeans was better than not being able to wear my jeans to school. It was my mother who showed my sister and I how to shave pills off sweaters using a ladies non-electric razor. We extended the attractiveness of many sweaters by shaving off pills.

"Go in or go out. Don't just stand there with the door open." I still use this one with my own family members. It's closely related to "decide what you want from the fridge before you open the door." All about saving energy. No need to heat or cool the outdoors.

"A stitch in time saves nine." I didn't understand this one for a long time. It was finally explained to me that if we repair something early enough, we won't have a big repair later. Very true about clothing repairs. That hem that is falling down on a favorite skirt? Fix the hem now and you won't have a big repair later. Ditto on torn seams or small holes in knits.

"Money doesn't grow on trees"  or "I'm not made of money." We heard both of these often from my father. Our provisions are finite. Don't waste what we have and don't ask for what we don't really need.

"Money won't buy happiness," which is closely related to "no one ever promised life would be fair." And also "there's always someone who has it worse." Be grateful for what you have, find joy in the simple, and appreciate every good thing.

"Save it for a rainy day." Put something aside for hard times to come.

"Your eyes are bigger than your stomach." Don't take more than you need or can use, in food or other things.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Sometimes you can do more of the same, then have success. But other times, you need a new angle of attack. Either way, you have a chance at success if you keep trying. Whereas you will surely fail if you give up.

I hope some of these brought back fond memories for you.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers Plus Some Other Notes

Friday

scratch pepperoni pizza
sautéed Swiss chard*
scratch pumpkin pudding (the cornstarch kind, cooked on the stove with pumpkin puree* and spices added)

Saturday
beef fajitas (no peppers, though), w/homemade salsa, tomatoes*, avocados
steamed baby carrots*
open-faced plum pie (frozen plums*)

Sunday
kitchen sink tomato soup -- tomato paste, liquid from canned tomatoes, quinoa, celery*, rosemary*, garlic*, and carrot leaves*
toasted cheese sandwiches
roasted winter squash* cubes 
leftover plum* pie

Monday
meatloaf, adding celery*, onion, garlic*, herbs*, carrot leaves*, bread

gravy, made with drippings (bland), seasoned with garlic & onion powders, black pepper, thyme*, ketchup
brown rice
baby carrots* added to meatloaf pan in last half of baking meatloaf
sautéed Brussel sprout leaves* in beef fat with onion and garlic*

spiced fig-applesauce*

Tuesday
roasted whole chicken, gravy
oven-roasted potato wedges, roasted in some of the chicken fat from the roasted chicken
baked pumpkin* drizzled with cinnamon and brown sugar syrup
curried kale* and cabbage* slaw
stewed prunes*

Wednesday

Mexi-bowls, using leftover chicken, seasoned with cumin and chili powder, a can of corn, fresh tomato* and avocado, topped with shredded cheddar and fresh cilantro*

kale* and cabbage* slaw in mayo and salsa dressing

pear* sauce from the freezer

Thursday

leftover chicken and  gravy

roasted purple potatoes* in beef fat

sautéed beet greens and stem pieces*  in bacon fat and seasoned with garlic and onion powders

baked pumpkin* cubes tossed with butter and salt

apple* and crabapple* sauce

*denotes garden produce

Grocery spending for the month of October

Spent $123.62 this week at WinCo, $120.80 a couple of weeks ago at WinCo, and $22.78 at Walmart for bananas and 3 jars of instant coffee in between WinCo runs, bringing my in-store grocery shopping total to $267.20. To this total I add a pro-rated share of what we spend on beef deliveries of $119.66 per month. So my actual grocery spending is $386.86 for October 2025. I think that's pretty good considering it's for 4 adults. 

How the harvest is coming

This week I've spent some time outdoors cleaning up some of the garden beds, raking the empty ones smooth, and cleaning up the walkways in between beds. I still have food to harvest. We've used kale, Brussel sprout leaves and cilantro a few times in the last week or so. The beets are ready to dig up. But they can also stay in the soil for a month or more. Instead of digging them when I don't need them for meals, I cut leaves and stems here and there from the beets. We used beet leaves in dinner on Thursday. I'll wait to dig turnips, too, for a couple of weeks at least. While all of the celery is harvested and inside, I continue to sort through the bundles to find the best fresh-eating pieces, then chop and freeze other, stronger flavored ones. I do one or two bundles per week this way. I have 2 full bundles remaining in the fridge. 

Our fridge is still packed with produce. I expect by Thanksgiving we will have used much of what is there, fresh.

Non-Candy Halloween Treats Then and Now

One daughter was home today, doing work for her other two jobs. Her main income-producing job is as a substitute teacher in our local school district. In the past, she has mentioned the goodies that teachers and staff bring in regularly, some for rewards for students, some for the teachers only.

The other day I saw a memo being passed around social media encouraging people to give out non-candy treats this Halloween. Suggestions included packaged chips, pretzels, cookies and mini muffins, protein bars, pouches or boxes of juice, packages of ramen (ramen has been a popular food with teens and tweens for the last several years), microwave mac and cheese, and pudding cups. Many people on social media complained about not giving out candy to kids. But others chimed in that their kids already get a lot of candy in their everyday life and might appreciate a non-candy treat. I know my own kids regularly got candy at church/Sunday school and at youth group. (We homeschooled through 8th grade, so the only candy they got in those years of school was controlled by me.)

I asked my daughter if kids get much candy at school these days. She said yes, usually as rewards. One teacher she regularly subs for allows his students to earn points to be spent in the classroom "store" on Fridays. They earn points for good behavior, completing assignments on time, and good citizenship in the classroom. The store contains various snack foods, but also full-sized candy bars. His classroom is a SPED class for high school, and he's found success in getting student cooperation by offering those sorts of rewards. My daughter agreed that many kids these days have lots of opportunities to eat candy.

In our house, we've been at least offering a non-candy treat, some years only giving out non-candy treats, for many, many years. The first year we did this, I offered a choice between cheese and cracker hand-i-snacks and a traditional candy bar. All of the hand-i-snacks were gone in 30 minutes. We've also given out packages of pretzels, mini playdough, containers of slime, and small bags with stickers, tattoos, Halloween-themed trinkets and small amounts of candy. For the last several years we've given out individual packages of cookies. We've had kids be super-duper excited about getting these candy-alternatives. We've had parents thank us for giving out something other than candy. And we've had a couple of older kids be not quite so excited, but always said thank you.

My daughter said she couldn't remember when we just gave out candy. I then went on to tell her about my mother's recollections about trick-or-treating in the 1940s. My grandparents moved around the country a lot during the war, following my grandfather's job working for a military contractor. So the treats my mother received varied from region to region. But for the most part, she said her small bag was filled with home-grown fruit (apples, mostly), nuts in the shell, homemade cookies, small paper bags of popped corn, an occasional homemade popcorn ball, a couple of small pieces of candy (Tootsie Rolls were popular), and a penny or two. She said the pennies were one of the most exciting things to receive, as it meant she could go with her own mother to the store and choose a piece of candy, or she could put trick-or-treat pennies together with other saved pennies and buy a small plaything, like a game of Jacks. In my mother's day, receiving anything felt special this one day of the year. Aside from birthdays and Christmas, receiving gifts and prizes of any sort just didn't happen. Any rewards they received were often in the form of award ribbons, not toys, playthings, or candy. These days, kids get prizes and rewards all of the time. 

My daughter was very surprised to hear of how little candy my mother actually received trick-or-treating. In my kids' childhood, they came home with bags of almost exclusively candy. 

In my own childhood, we received a lot of candy, but also occasional cookies, baggies of chips or popped corn, pennies, some apples, and chewable waxed novelties. But it was mostly candy.

Perhaps because my mother had received so many non-candy treats on Halloween as a child, it seemed perfectly okay to offer kids cookies, apples, baggies of potato chips, and pennies when we would run out of Halloween candy in our own home in the 1960s. Our neighborhood had so many children, I'm sure we had around 100 trick or treaters every year, and it was practically a given we'd run out of the "real" treats. Were kids always happy to get an apple in the 1960s? I don't think so. I'm not sure I'd give an apple these days. I would fear it would be thrown through a window by some unsatisfied trick-or-treater.

But I do think there's a place for some non-candy treats as handouts for Halloween. Kids will get plenty of candy this Friday. My house will just provide some variety to their trick-or-treat bags.

I know I'm in the minority, here

As I walk around our neighborhood, I see all of these beautiful pumpkins on front porches. They look so cheery. The day after Halloween, however, many will end up in the garbage. I can't help but think these are food! I know I'm in the minority with this thought, but they can be cooked for people food, or cut up and fed to wildlife or pets. It just makes me sad to think this food won't be eaten.

To use as food

The flavor of carving pumpkins is not the same as pie pumpkins. Carving pumpkins tend to be bland. They also tend to be stringy. But I've found that running the cooked flesh through the food processor takes care of stringiness. As for flavor, I use the pureed pumpkin spiced in many applications, such as quick bread, cookies, smoothies, pie and cakes. Carving pumpkins tend to have less natural sugar than pie pumpkins, which actually makes the former more suitable for broths or neutral soup bases for vegetable soups, or for pasta sauce along with the addition of sage and Italian sausage, or in pumpkin curries.

Feeding wildlife

As for feeding carving pumpkins to wildlife, so long as it isn't contaminated with something like paint or candle wax, fresh pumpkin is safe for animals to eat. Birds and squirrels love the seeds. Squirrels will happily nibble on small chunks of raw pumpkin. Dispose of any remaining pumpkin pieces after a few days, as rotting or fermenting pumpkin could be harmful. The major issue with feeding wildlife pumpkin for a prolonged period is it could encourage the presence of undesirable rodents.

For your pets

Cut into small chunks and steamed until soft, some dogs enjoy cooked pumpkin, according to petmd. But consult with your veterinarian before messing with your pet's diet. Backyard chickens enjoy pecking at pieces of pumpkin, not as a substitute for their regular food, but as an addition. 

A last thought

If you just can't bring yourself to eat a Jack o' lantern pumpkin and you don't want to feed it to critters, wild or domesticated, pumpkin can also be used to "feed" your compost pile. Depending on what else is in your pile, chunks of fresh pumpkin could speed up the decomposition with the addition of moisture and nitrogen in the fresh pumpkin. 

Although I grow some pumpkins in my little patch, I also buy a couple of carving pumpkins each October. At 38 cents per pound, carving pumpkins are a super cheap vegetable. In fact, this year, I bought 2 pumpkins earlier this month, and then today I went back to WinCo and bought 1 more. I won't carve them. Instead, in the first week of November I'll begin cooking, pureeing, and freezing these pumpkins to use throughout the next year. I know, I'm in the minority here when it comes to buying Jack o' lanterns for people food.

Mom's Caramel Dip: A Recipe That Skipped a Generation

This recipe is from my mother (c. 1960), my kids' grandmother. One of my daughters makes this for us a few times every fall. She's the caramel dip expert in our house. From grandmother to granddaughter, the best simple, from scratch, caramel dip or sauce recipe, with a few of my daughter's comments.

Caramel Dip or Sauce (suitable for apple wedges, sliced fresh pears, sliced bananas, cooked sweet potato slices, simple baked custard or rice pudding, pumpkin pie, ice cream, or pretzels)

Yields about 1 1/4 cup

"What I really like about this recipe is it takes so few ingredients. It’s exciting to make something fancy without a lot of stuff." 

Just 5 ingredients, and one of them is water.

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup hot water

1 tablespoon butter

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a large, heavy-bottomed skillet, heat the sugar over low to medium flame, stirring constantly moving the sugar all around the skillet. (My daughter prefers to keep the heat on Medium, but stirs vigorously this entire step.)

"When it starts to caramelize I  stir constantly. If I’ve been stirring for a while and it’s not caramelizing, I either turn the heat up, take a break from stirring maybe 30 seconds, or both."

In the meantime, heat your 1 cup of water. (My daughter heats the water in the microwave.)

Larger lumps of sugar eventually melt down. Keep stirring.

Continue stirring until all sugar is melted and caramel is light golden-brown. 

2. Remove from heat. Very gradually (about a teaspoon at a time) stir in the hot water, and stir rapidly as the bubbling subsides.

"If you add too much water at once, it seizes. Stir hard and vigorously. If it becomes very stiff, you might be adding the water too quickly." 

Stir and stir and stir after each addition of water.

When bubbling action after the addition of water has pretty much subsided (fewer bubbles), water can be added in larger amounts, about 1/4 cup at a time. Continue stirring, scraping up hardened bits of the caramelized sugar on the bottom of the skillet. Adding the water and stirring during step 2 is the most time-consuming part of the recipe.

3. When all water is added, return to heat, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer until it thickens slightly and reaches 228 degrees F.

4. Remove from heat and add butter, salt and vanilla extract. Stir well, then allow the caramel to cool. This syrup thickens substantially as it cools, and even more once refrigerated.

The whole process from start to final additions of butter, salt, and vanilla takes a little less than one hour.

Once cooled, pour into a jar and refrigerate. 

This caramel sauce/dip has kept in the fridge for 2 to 3 weeks (then it's gone) with no problems.

My comments: This is true caramel. Its flavor is deep and rich, with a hint of toffee. I love this stuff, and I can actually have some, as it has neither milk nor cream. We enjoy this as a dip for apple wedges this time of year.

Cheap and Cheerful Suppers for a Busy Harvest Week

I haven't done a Cheap & Cheerful post in a long while. I actually kept track of what we ate this week. So I'll share.

Wednesday's pears and raspberries
I included this photo because I thought you might not believe me
 that we are still harvesting raspberries this late in the season.

Saturday
beef and vegetable (garden Brussel sprout greens and frozen Asian vegetable mix) stir fry 
brown rice
tomato wedges (picked about 3 weeks ago and still ripening indoors)
fresh pears (harvested earlier this month, stored in fridge)

Sunday
bean and cheese burritos on homemade tortillas, with homemade salsa
avocado and tomato slices (our tomatoes, store avocados)
steamed carrots (store carrots, washing garden carrots sounded like too much work)
steamed broccoli (frozen from this last spring purchase)

Monday 
chicken in gravy over scratch biscuits (I used lots of garden celery and sage in the gravy -- it tasted a lot like chicken, stuffing and gravy)
canned green beans (easy night after a long day working)
baked winter squash (garden grown)
fruit compote (our apples, pears, raspberries)

Tuesday
chili con carne topped with avocado chunks
scratch cornbread
stewed prunes (our prunes)

Wednesday (a very busy day and evening, so it needed to be easy)
leftover chili con carne topped with shredded cheese and cilantro
leftover cornbread
fresh pears and raspberries

garden grown squash and pumpkins can sometimes
have thin enough skin to roast with the skin on and eat the skins, too.
And I know they haven't been sprayed with anything harmful.

Thursday
tuna casserole
roasted pumpkin cubes

This was a heavy duty work week for me. I am very close to being done with the harvest and processing. This week I made all of the fruit leather, 120 portions, and 3 last jars of preserved spiced unripe figs. I finished pruning the one fig tree while I was picking the other day, too. 

I took the easy route with vegetables on a couple of days, canned green beans, frozen broccoli, etc. I knew Wednesday was going to be a super busy day with a shortened dinner period, as my husband and I had a Bible study at our church this evening. Wednesday dinners are such a rush for us now. Our daughters are out until 6, but my husband and I have to leave shortly after 6. So my husband and I sit down around 5:15 for dinner, then leave food for the other two to reheat when they're hungry. Anyway, I made enough on Tuesday to mostly just reheat and serve. 

I won't lie, I had many moments this past week when I considered having someone go out and get some burgers or a pizza. But I really don't like fast food burgers and cheap pizza any more. I like my own cooking. And it feels like it's better for me.

What was on your menu this past week? Are you eating many seasonal foods?

Have a wonderful weekend. Anyone doing anything particularly fall-ish this weekend?

My Top 10 Free (Or Cheap) Things to Do in Fall

1. enjoying the color -- who would object to the gorgeous shades of red, orange, and gold in the foliage all around. Spend some time just appreciating the different colors in your yard, on your regular drives here and there, or go for a leaf-watching drive in your area.
2. sitting by a cozy fire -- whether in a fireplace, wood stove, or a bonfire outdoors, a cozy fire is lovely in fall. We have one last package of good hot dogs waiting for our final cook-out of the season. We won't have to battle the mosquitos this time of year.
3. watching a movie (streaming or dvd) in the evening with loved ones. Add a pizza and you have my favorite way to spend a Friday evening with my family.
4. hiking and long walks in the brisk weather -- fall walks are invigorating! When the weather is cooler, I rarely become sweaty on my walks. It's just pleasant. 
5. visiting a free pumpkin patch at a local farm. We have a pumpkin patch very close to us that charges an admission. But if we drive a little further, the pumpkin patches are free to wander. We visit one farm in particular every October and walk through the fields. They make money on their overpriced pumpkins, food sales, and merch in the gift shop. I usually buy one or two small items from the gift shop to gift at Christmas to someone on my list. But we bring our own hot spiced tea and cookies or quick bread to enjoy as a snack (they have picnic tables there).
6. collecting colorful fallen leaves. You can use leaves in craft projects or simply admire them on a mantel, table, or desk. I like to bring a few into the family room, which is our coziest room, and simply lay them on a tray on the coffee table. Does anyone remember making fall "placemats" by laying colorful leaves between two sheets of waxed paper and having a grown-up iron the waxed paper sheets together?
7. enjoying autumn picnics on sunny fall days. With a thermos of a favorite hot autumnal soup, some hot sandwiches wrapped in foil, and a pan of apple-spice bar cookies, a picnic lunch is easy and warming. Don't forget a moisture proof mat or tarp to lay on the possibly damp ground or picnic bench. Top the moisture proof layer with a fleecy blanket. Weather not cooperating? Have a picnic on the living room floor in front of the fireplace and bring out the board games.
8. getting outside in the evening to see the moon. November 4th to the 6th of this year are perfect to observe the full moon. November's full moon is known as the Beaver Moon. October and November moons are my favorite to catch. On nights when the moon is visible here, our skies often have a scattering of clouds that drift across the face of the moon -- so beautiful and autumnal. Check your local moonrise times for those days. 
9. using candles on the dinner table. We have a free pile pillar candle on a free pile candle stand that sits on our kitchen table in fall. We've been lighting it on evenings when dinner is late enough that it is dark outside. It's such a cozy autumn thing to do and costs nothing if you already own several candles.
10. starting a gratitude journal of some sort. With Canadian Thanksgiving in October and US Thanksgiving in November, fall is the perfect time to daily note the things for which you are thankful. A gratitude journal can be as simple as a photo journal on your phone -- taking daily photos of people or things for which you are thankful, more involved like a gratitude journal on the notepad on your phone or computer, or a full-blown prayer and thankfulness journal, handwritten in daily, giving thanks for one's many blessings

What would you put on your top 10 favorite free or cheap things to do in fall?

Mid-Month Grocery Shopping -- My Pumpkin Obsession

The first batch of apple and crabapple sauce fruit leather turned out great. I have 6 dehydrator trays. 

I cut each round into 4 portions, then rolled each up in waved paper. I'll keep these in the freezer until later this fall, when the fresh fruit from our trees is gone.

I made 24 fruit leather portions in this batch. Each one is the equivalent of a small dish of fruit sauce. My family and I sampled one of the trays, and we all thought it was good. I have a second batch of fruit leather now in the dehydrator, and I plan to do 2 more tomorrow and Thursday. I harvested all of the crabapples that I want this afternoon and turned them all into sauce for more fruit leather. And now I'm done with the food mill for the season. Yay! I can put one thing away.

On to the mid-month grocery shopping.

Do I really need two more pumpkins?

I made time last Friday to go down to WinCo. I could have waited longer, but I wanted to pick up a couple of large Jack o'lantern pumpkins before the rain rolled in. The bins of pumpkins sit partially out in the rain at WinCo, and I don't want to risk a mildew problem with the ones I buy. Our garden produced 8 smallish pumpkins, which we've been enjoying roasted. I wanted a couple of large pumpkins to turn into pumpkin puree for the freezer. Two should do it and get us through the year on pumpkin puree. I love pumpkin. And I love having a lot of pumpkin in the freezer. I eat pumpkin puree, as is, with butter and salt. I like a spoonful of pumpkin puree in a cup of apple cider tea. I love pumpkin-sausage-sage pasta. And I love, love, love pumpkin pie. Some years I can find canned pumpkin on clearance after Thanksgiving. But I can't count on that. So I'll ensure my pumpkin fix can be met with these two large ones to cook up in November.

It had been two weeks since my last grocery shopping, the one where I spent way more than I had expected and didn't have enough cash with me. I made sure to grab extra cash before I left this past Friday. I spent $120.80, and that includes some trick or treat goodies and a special treat for my husband.

Here's what I bought:

meat

pork breakfast sausage (my husband's favorite)
turkey breakfast sausage (my favorite)

1 pound sliced pepperoni (for pizzas)

pepperoni snack sticks (These are a treat for my husband. He enjoys them.)

dairy

block cheddar cheese

block mozzarella cheese

1 gallon milk

1 dozen eggs

fruits and vegetables

2 large carving pumpkins, a total of ~35 pounds

1 can frozen apple juice concentrate (for making spiced cider, blended with crabapple juice and spices)

4 avocados

6 bananas

6 cans corn

6 cans green beans

pantry

5 lb bag organic all-purpose flour (does not contain any barley or malt, so I can have foods made with this flour)

5 lb bag whole wheat flour 

10 lb bag unbleached all-purpose flour (for many of the treats I bake, especially if I may only have a tiny amount)

25 lbs sugar

bulk chili powder, about 1/2 lb

trick or treats

3 packages individual pouches cookies for trick or treaters, a total of 36 treats

Halloween is on a Friday this year, which ordinarily would mean we would get more trick or treaters. However, the weather forecast is for lots of rain that day. When it rains on halloween here, the trick or treaters give up earlier and go to fewer houses. I think we'll be safe with 36 treats. The houses in our neighborhood are far apart and set back from the street a ways. Most of the older kids prefer to go to the neighborhood next to ours, where houses are close to each other and to the sidewalk. 

I really didn't buy a whole lot on this shopping trip.  As usual, apart from my husband's meat snack sticks, I didn't buy any commercial snack foods. I bought basic foods from which we make many interesting (and some boring but tasty) things to eat.

I'm stocking up bit by bit on holiday baking supplies and some winter veggies that we like in canned form. The avocados were my impulse purchase. I allow myself a few dollars every other week for an unplanned buy. Everything else comes from my list. The unplanned buy can be a treat for me or someone else, or it can be something healthful like the avocados. Why the avocados this time? They looked good, were grown in the US, and were just 68 cents each. We've used 2 so far, and they've been perfect. 

I won't need to buy much of anything this next week, except perhaps a few bananas and coffee. I'll stop by Walmart when I'm out and about later this week or early next to pick those up. But I don't anticipate needing to do a major shopping until November. Now that sounds so strange to me. October is going by in a blur. I can hardly believe November is so close.

Grocery tip for tight budgets -- have a dollar amount in mind (and stick to it) for any impulse or unplanned purchases. If I'm too strict with sticking to my shopping list, I begin to feel deprived. $3 won't break the bank for us, and it gave our whole family a nice and unplanned healthy treat to add to meals. And because this is how I chose to spend our "unplanned" money, I was able to walk right past the very tempting boxes of Junior Mints (my favorite candy) at the checkout. BTW, I do often buy avocados, just not usually until later in the fall. It was a surprise to find them for 68 cents each so early.

So that was my mid-month grocery stop. I could have saved $13 if I'd skipped the pumpkins. But then again, I use the pumpkins as food. And at 38 cents per pound, that's a great price for a veggie.

I hope your budget is stretching as far as you need it to this October.

Two new ways for me to use some of our crabapple abundance

Crabapples are the overlooked fruit of the orchard, like stepchildren in the family of cultivated apples. They're usually too small to be considered for fresh-eating. Many varieties are quite tart and require the addition of sweetening to make them palatable. And small fruit size means the harvesting is a lot more work than their larger cousins. 

However, they do well where cultivated apples sometimes struggle. They're loaded with vitamins and antioxidants. And they're often quite prolific. You know me, I try to make the most of what we've been given.

It looks like there are more crabapples than I had thought. So far I've done 4 major pickings and there are still many more on the tree. Today I did a little pruning of this tree, as I had with the fig tree. I figure it can take a little pruning, if it's producing so well. I thinned out some crossing branches and areas where branches were building up moss, a sign the tree is too dense. As I pruned, one daughter and I plucked the crabapples off those branches. My daughter had about a half-hour before she needed to get herself ready to leave, and I really, really appreciated the help and companionship while I worked. Having help does more than just save time. It makes tedious tasks more enjoyable.

So far I've made crabapple sauce, crabapple juice, and crabapple jelly. I'm eager to find new uses for all of these crabapples.

In order to motivate myself to do another batch of these beauties, I decided to do something different with what we  would harvest today. 

I made a batch of crabapple cider vinegar followed by a batch of crabapple and applesauce fruit leather. I won't know for a few weeks if the crabapple cider vinegar turned out. And I won't know until tomorrow if we like the fruit leather. I'll make another batch of fruit leather if we like the taste of this one.

From what I read, making apple cider vinegar is a two-step process -- ferment the apples in a water/sugar/apple cider vinegar with mother (the clump of living organisms that works like a starter for batches of vinegar) solution to an alcohol stage, then strain out the apples and continue the fermentation process until the alcohol turns to vinegar. 

If this really works, I'll have a new supply of apple cider vinegar for pennies each year. I had a bottle of vinegar with the mother already, so no cost there. And the sugar was just a couple of tablespoons. Crabapples are free for me. 

I don't have a way to test the percentage of acidity, which means that homemade vinegar would not be a safe choice for making canned pickles. But it certainly can be used in refrigerator pickles (the overnight kind), salad dressings, marinades, ketchup and BBQ sauces, to add flavor to soups and stews, as well as for household cleaning and hair rinses.

After using a couple of cups of the crabapples in the vinegar, I cooked the rest as crabapple sauce. I blended the sweetened crabapple sauce with unsweetened homemade regular applesauce. It's a combo that we find pleasing. Some crabapples are actually on the sweet side. Not ours. Ours are quite tart and astringent. To eat as sauce, I blend it half and half with regular applesauce. The full-strength crabapple sauce (once sweetened) is, however, fine in applesauce-raisin bar cookies and applesauce cake, where the other flavors in the baked goods mute the astringency of the crabapples.

This evening, I have 6 trays of fruit leather drying in the dehydrator. If we like it, I have several new quarts of crabapple sauce, made today, to turn into additional fruit leather. Fruit leather will take up less storage space in the freezer, doesn't require additional freezer containers or canning jars, and will provide fruit servings when our fresh apples and pears are gone.

The rest of the harvest

I picked, washed, and wrapped the last cabbage head today. The carrots and their greens are now tucked away. I would like to do one more harvest of unripe figs and one more harvest of crabapples. And that just leaves one more meal of Swiss chard, the turnips and beets, and fresh radish greens, kale, and Brussel sprouts to use as we want this fall. And then I can dust the 2025 dirt off my hands for good.

Progress, yay!

Yesterday I harvested all of the celery, washed it, cut off the tops and chopped and froze those. I wrapped the rest of the bundles of celery in a large dish towel and slid into a plastic bag. It's all waiting for me in the fridge to deal with the rest (or use) at a later date.

I also picked the last of the rhubarb and washed it.

The celery was in the bed where I had wanted to plant 2026's garlic. So this morning I worked that bed and added compost. Then I planted 130 cloves of garlic. Another thing scratched off my list!

And this afternoon I pruned the fig tree a little more and harvested all of the unripe figs from those branches. I brought the figs inside and made 2 more quarts of sweetened, spiced unripe figs, my last preserving work of unripe figs for the year!

While I waited through the various stages of preserving unripe figs, I used the rhubarb, along with some apples, to make a rhubarb-apple cobbler for tonight's dessert.

Tomorrow I will dig the rest of the carrots, cut off the leafy tops and wash those. Then I'll chop most of the carrot greens and freeze for adding to soups this winter. I'll leave some carrot leaves in the fridge to use in salads this fall.

That will leave the second half of the crabapples (make sauce, jelly, and juice from them), all the turnips, all the beets, one last head of cabbage, and what's left of the Swiss chard for my harvest list. 

I can do this!

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!

5 Things in My House of Which I Have Too Many

I'm not a minimalist. I'm also not a maximalist. I like having the right tool for the job, and I like to think ahead to possibilities when I might need an object before deciding to get rid of it. But my house doesn't look overly cluttered with stuff. And yet, I was thinking today of all of the items that I own that are not being used and may never be used by me.

1 -- wooden spoons

I first began thinking about this idea when thinking about my crock filled with wooden spoons. I don't use wooden spoons for cooking as they don't seem hygienic to me, like bacteria could get trapped in the wood or something. Anyway, I've been gifted a lot of wooden spoons over the years, and every single one of them is pristine in appearance aside from dust. I need to donate these. That tiny corner of my kitchen counter would look more tidy if I just got rid of the spoons.

2 -- pillowcases

We all know that sheets wear out. This is especially so with the bottom or fitted sheet. I will often find a use for the top sheet when the fitted one is too worn for use, such as an outdoor movie screen, a paint drop cloth or a dust cover for the parts of our artificial Christmas tree. The pillowcases don't seem to wear out. They sometimes look dingy after many years of use, but they don't wear thin or develop holes. I'm not sure how to trim down my pillowcase excess or find a repurposed use. I'm open to suggestions.

3 -- mismatched plastic containers and lids

I'm thinking of all of those plastic food containers and lids that are jumbled together in a drawer in my kitchen. I'm also thinking about larger storage bins and lids. With both kids of plastic containers I seem to have mismatched containers and lids. Pieces crack and are thrown away/recycled. But then I'm left with parts that don't work together. With the food containers, I do go through that drawer about once a year, find lids that work with about half of the containers and recycle the rest. But what can one do with larger storage bins that have lost their lids?

4 -- old pairs of shoes

I'm not talking about simply out of style shoes that I don't wear any longer. I'm talking about worn out sneakers that I've replaced. I save a couple of old pairs to use when painting, mowing the lawn, tromping through mud, or for when my better pair is soaked from a walk in the rain and my feet still need shoes. I think I need to set a limit on how many old pairs of sneakers I could realistically need and dump the rest.

5 -- outdated technology items like cords, floppy disks, dial-up modems

My daughter was looking for a slim box the other day. We came across the laptop boxes from their 2013 university laptops. Inside one of the boxes was an unused power adaptor extension cord. In another closet was a box filled with old tech stuff that really has no purpose for us any longer. This stuff is really my husband's domain, so I don't feel I can just get rid of it. But it's still taking up space that could perhaps serve us better storing something we actually use.

What things in your house seem to multiply faster than you can get rid of them? Are you good at decluttering? Do you have a preference between donating stuff to a thrift store vs. repurposing it in your own house?

Where I am in the harvest for this season

What's left of the pumpkins and squash.
We've been enjoying them this past month.

I've been keeping this list in my notepad, updating as I progress. As you've heard all about my various harvesting, I thought I'd share the list.

This is what I've harvested and processed so far:

• apples from all trees -- fresh in fridge, applesauce and dried apples in freezer 
• pears from all trees -- I harvested the last tree a week ago Wednesday, now in fridge 
• plums -- all harvested, dried or chopped and in freezer 
• unripe figs -- mostly harvested and processed into spiced sweetened figs and fig puree for quick bread
• potatoes -- all dug and now indoors
• onions -- all dug
• tomatoes -- all harvested and indoors, green ones slowly ripening
• garlic -- all dug, still need to plant 2026 garlic from the best in this harvest
• carrots -- partially dug
• celery -- partially harvested, leaves chopped for freezer
• cabbage -- mostly harvested, cut second to last one yesterday and cleaned it, stored in fridge
• herbs -- all harvested and dried
• pumpkins and squash -- all harvested and indoors
• made year-supply of salsa
• made 8 pints of pickle relish, part sweet, part dill, using odds and ends from garden
• made rhubarb, plum, blackberry, and raspberry jams and pear butter
• made chutney
• planted 4 bins of radishes for greens, all have sprouted
• harvested 1/2 of crabapples and made sauce and juice

What I need to do to complete the harvest

• harvest beets -- end of month
• harvest turnips -- end of month
• finish harvesting carrots, celery, cabbage (1 left)
• plant 2026 garlic -- as soon as celery is out of its bed, the garlic will go in
• finish harvesting unripe figs -- 1 more batch, process into spiced sweetened figs
• harvest 1/2 crabapples -- process into juice, applesauce, and jelly
• finish harvesting the Swiss chard -- chop and freeze
• finish harvesting rhubarb -- 1 last cutting out there, will make a crisp later this week

I left a few apples, plums, and pears on the trees for the squirrels. I'll do the same with the unripe figs and crabapples. I only have jars for 2 more quarts of spiced sweetened figs. So I'll call it quits on figs after that last batch. And I only have space in the freezers and containers for 2 more pickings of crabapples. I wind up leaving a fair amount (all those high up) of crabapples on the tree every year. The critters enjoy them. 

I don't have to worry about harvesting all of the kale or Brussel sprout greens. Those will keep in the garden until January or February. I'll just pick those as we want for meals the next couple of months. The Swiss chard only has about 2 meals left on the plants. If we use those leaves for meals in the next couple of weeks I won't need to chop and freeze them. The radish leaves in bins are doing well and will be used in meals in late October through mid-November.

The month is nearly half over. I am working hard to finish up. I can see on my list that I am getting closer and closer.