Mending, mending and more mending

I've had my portable sewing machine out on the dining room table for a few weeks, and managed to tackle a pretty hefty pile of mending.

It seemed once the word got around the family that I was mending, clothing appeared in the pile on a daily basis.  I mended a seam in a skirt, patched 2 pairs of jeans, hemmed 2 pairs of jeans, zig zagged the edge of 1 bath towel, 2 bath mats, and 2 kitchen washcloths. I repaired the split and fraying edge of the placket on a dress shirt, sewed the two halves of a bra back together (it split right down the front, while being worn :-o ), I sewed closed a hole in the underarm of a sweater, and I fixed my comfy pj bottoms at the waistband.

this one nearly stumped me, but this shirt went from this

to this -- I hope this repair will give this shirt several more wearings

Repairing clothing and household items is satisfying on a couple of levels. It's nice to be good stewards of resources and extend the use of all of these items.

With a zip of the machine, the towels, mats and washcloths can be useful for many more years. No need to send them to a landfill for quite some time. And it's a pleasure to see items in good repair.

these jeans were about to lose their ability to be buttoned

this little fix should make the button hole last as long as the rest of the jeans

Also, mending clothing and household items postpones the need to spend money to replace any of these things. I would guess that all of this mending put off spending a hundred dollars or more on replacing all of these items.

And making minor alterations allowed us to buy items at a significant discount, by being willing to put in a small amount of work to make the item fit right. The two pairs of jeans that I hemmed were both thrift store finds. Both were in very good condition, just too long.

My sewing machine was put away late Friday afternoon, as I readied the dining room for Easter dinner. But I know it won't be long before that mending pile starts to grow again.

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My egg-citing inventory plan (sorry, had to use that play on words)

I didn't like the feeling of running short on eggs the past couple of weeks. I managed, but didn't like not knowing if and when I'd find more at my price point.

You know that I freeze eggs whenever I have a surplus. I've decided that I'm going to keep a fill-to amount of frozen eggs of about 8-10 dozen. 8 dozen eggs will carry me through 2 months of baking/cooking. So, if I don't find eggs on sale for a period of time, I'll have some back-up eggs in the freezer. As soon as I start to dip into those frozen eggs, I'll watch for a sale again, and buy enough for fresh use as well as keeping that 8 dozen amount in the freezer. 2 to 3 months appears to be the typical cycle for egg sales around here

Did anyone here ever work in a restaurant? In a previous life, I worked as a restaurant manager. When doing inventory and ordering stock, we had a "fill-to" amount. It was a preset amount, thoroughly thought out by the owner, of how much we should always strive to maintain of any given item. That's what I intend to do with buying and storing eggs.

The other thing that occurred to me was this -- in November, when turkeys go on sale for about the lowest price of the year, I always buy my year's supply of whole turkey. Well, the Easter egg sales may very well be the lowest price I'll see on eggs for this year. Other sale prices have been around the $1.25 to $1.29 per dozen point. 99 cents per dozen may be rock-bottom for this year. (A new California law regulating hen house size, is driving egg prices up. This law went into effect on Jan 1 of this year. Although the law is a California one, it's net effect will be a moderate rise in egg prices nationwide.)

I'm not to the point of wanting to buy a year's supply of eggs just yet. It is a lot more work to freeze eggs, than to say, freeze a whole turkey. But I'm willing to go to the work to freeze a 2 to 3 month supply.

So, do you want to know just how many eggs I bought this Easter season? You're going to think I've lost a few marbles on this. But, I'm venturing out there into stock-up territory. I bought 22 dozen eggs. Yep! You read that correctly. This should be enough eggs to last our family through July and maybe into August. My fill-to amount, year round, will be about 8-10 dozen. Out of this bunch of eggs, I'll freeze an even greater amount, just to take advantage of such a low price. About 12-14 dozen are earmarked for the freezer. Some will be frozen individually,  to use 1 at a time, while others will be frozen 3-5 in a container for quiches and frittatas, for family meals. (I use these basic guidelines for freezing eggs.)


And now that I'll have dozens of eggs, I'll be using eggs as the animal protein source for 2 meals per week. I typically serve an animal protein (meat, eggs, cheese) with dinner 4 nights per week, and a bean and grain based dinner 3 nights per week. It can vary from one week to the next, but this is how it averages out.

Eggs are not the protein powerhouses that meat is. A 3.5 oz portion of chicken has an average of 24 grams of protein (depending on the part of the chicken). A single large egg has 6 grams of protein. It would take 4 eggs to ingest the same amount of protein in eggs as in chicken. 4 eggs would be way too eggy for me. So, limiting eggs as the animal source of protein to just 2 days per week, for dinners, seems about right for my family.


Some of our favorite egg dishes include souffle, quiche, frittatas and Yorkshire pudding. Do you have a favorite way to prepare eggs as a supper dish?

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I've gotten back into making flour tortillas

So, you know that I had bought flour tortillas a couple of times this winter. I was just tired of making them myself.

But, with renewed desire to get our budget under control, I got back into making them myself.

We had bean, rice and cheese burritos the other night, and I made whole wheat tortillas, using this recipe, here. I used all whole wheat flour in the dough and white flour for rolling out. And I made a recipe and a half for the dough, but made each one larger than the recipe suggests, for burrito-size. It took me about 10 minutes to make enough tortillas for the 5 of us. I'm not sure what the grocery store charges for whole wheat tortillas. But I estimate that I saved about 80 cents over buying white flour tortillas from Dollar Tree.

I also made a food processor salsa, using canned tomatoes, tomato paste, some diced onions, chili peppers from the freezer, garlic powder, salt, vinegar, oregano, cumin and chili powder -- all the basic items that I use in making large batches of salsa in the fall for canning.

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