Cheap & Cheerful menus for the week, trying to use things up

Fried corn tortilla, topped w/ refried beans, cheese, avocado, salsa and olives,
along with oven-roasted canned tomatoes and fiesta corn

Friday
for the one person at home that evening:
Fried rice, with spinach, mushrooms, peas, tofu and egg
Pumpkin-ham soup
Chocolate chip cookies

Saturday
Black bean tacos
Tomato Florentine soup
Pumpkin pie

Sunday
for the two people at home that evening (February is shaping up to be a busy month):
Black bean tacos
Oranges
Pumpkin pie

Monday
Pork roast with garlic and rosemary
Rosemary potatoes
Spinach and onions sauteed with bacon bits
Pumpkin pie

Tuesday
Fried rice (with eggs, peas, peanuts, onions, garlic), topped with a garlic and peanut sauce
Tofu and orange salad in a ginger-soy vinaigrette

Wednesday
Fried corn tortillas, topped with
refried beans, cheese, avocado, salsa and black olives
fiesta corn (frozen corn sauteed with onion, green pepper and chili powder)
oven-roasted canned tomatoes

Thursday
baked chicken leg quarters
canned tomato, onion, garlic, green pepper and herb sauce
brown rice
pumpkin pie (from freezer)


If I had to choose which meal was my favorite this week, I think it would have been Monday's pork roast. I took a 1-lb section of a pork loin out of the freezer, and chopped off about 3 ounces, to grind in my food processor for filling for wontons. We'll be having homemade wonton soup for dinner tonight, using the wontons I made on Monday (in the freezer right now), and homemade chicken stock with the bones from last night's dinner.

I was able to buy avocados for 53 cents each last week, and am now beginning to use them. For produce, I have some frozen plums, rhubarb, blackberries. strawberries, pumpkin, peas, corn, green beans, and spinach. I finished off the frozen green peppers last night. In fresh, I have 1 large pumpkin, 1 butternut squash, a drawer full of onions, 20 lbs of potatoes, a handful of oranges and about 10 avocados. I also have lots of canned tomatoes, whole and in paste. In the garden, I have kale, chard, radish greens, beet greens, sorrel and watercress, in small amounts, each. Its not a lot of fruits and vegetables, but it seems to be just enough.

My freezers still look rather full. Part of that is a frozen turkey and 2 hams, plus 20 lbs of chicken leg quarters, some pork and ground beef. I also have a couple of jugs of milk in the freezers. All of this takes up space. I imagine as spring unfolds, at least one freezer will begin to look more empty.

I have a strange aversion to using the last of anything up, it seems. I was down to just a small baggie of frozen green peppers, and had to practically force myself to just use it all. Strange, I know. But that is what my freezer tends to look like, lots of small bags of different things. But I do know that I will have to use it all up, or have it become so freezer burned, that it's inedible.

The other thing that stands out to me is that I really do just make-do, this time of year, especially in the produce department. Canned whole tomatoes may not sound like a side-dish to go with dinner, but they can be. Most of the time, I think of canned tomatoes as an ingredient in a soup or chili, but halved and oven-roasted, they become a side dish to go with some other entree. Or with the tofu and orange segment salad, on Tuesday. I don't have a recipe for tofu and orange salad. I just was looking around the kitchen for what could go into a "salad" for a fresher tasting side, paired with the heavier fried rice and peanut sauce. Tofu and oranges stood out as possibilities for something fresh-tasting.

Sometimes, I stretch the idea of what constitutes a serving of fruit or vegetables. Pumpkin pie frequents my list of vegetable-serving stand-ins. Or, as in Wednesday night's dinner, as I was heaping the sliced olives onto the Mexican-inspired dish, I proclaimed to one daughter, "olives are a fruit tonight". Would it be simpler to stop by the grocery store to buy more traditional pairings to go with entrees? Yes. but making do will save me money, and I think it makes the menus more interesting as a bonus.


Over to you. What was on your menu this week? Did you have a favorite meal?

Big girl playtime

Remember earlier this week I said I was ordering a portable greenhouse for getting seedlings ready for planting in the garden?

This is what came in the mail, in the box, of course ;-) I put on some really great music (because everything is better with really great music), and got right to it.

Putting it together was reminiscent of my many years playing with Tinker Toys. Remember those? Only, there was no real room for creativity with this greenhouse.

While I was putting it all together, it occurred to me, this is really women's work. Here's why.

With the men in my family, I see this going one of two ways.

1) not at all according to the instruction sheet, because as we all know, men don't need instructions. And there needs to be that requisite moment of wondering why the manufacturer sent all the wrong pieces.

or, 2) a matter of overthinking this, completely. Because, as we all know, there must be a "best" way to do this, a formula, a dozen or more "special" tools, pieces laid out tidily, not in a heap on the floor (as my get-right-to-it nature would have), but in an organized fashion, so that each piece is in easy reach at just the appropriate time. Now, this greenhouse would most definitely turn out perfectly, there's no doubt about that. It's just that a 30-minute assembly could potentially turn into hours and hours of meticulous execution.

As I said, this is definitely women's work!

(just kidding, of course -- <wink> )

Gifts, expectations, and what is right for our own circumstances

I've recently been in an uncomfortable situation where I was giving gifts to a few people, but feeling like my gifting abilities might be falling short of the recipients expectations. It wasn't that I felt they were expecting me, personally, to give a more extravagant gift, but that in general, they were accustomed to more extravagant gifts.

I engaged many around me in discussions of what would be appropriate, and just how much would be enough to satisfy expectations. This was an emotionally grueling decision for me. I think I spent more hours trying to decide what would be enough of a gift for this occasion, than I spent on last year's tax preparations.

This expectation to give more, comes up in a variety of settings. Our church will sometimes call out to the congregation to search within, to see if we can't increase our giving, temporarily. Or, a phone solicitor for a very worthwhile charity may phone and request a donation. Or, we're invited to a wedding where it does seem that a hefty gift to the bride and groom is in order. Or, what about when friends keep doing extravagant things for you, but you really don't want or can't reciprocate at the same financial level.

These touchy situations aren't going to go away. They will keep appearing, and I will have to continue making internal negotiations over how much is "enough".

This last time, though, I finally had to change how I thought about the value of the gifts I was giving. The change was from what is "enough", to what is "appropriate".

It is appropriate for me to stay within my budget. It is appropriate for me to be a cheerful giver. It is appropriate for me to choose a level of gift that falls in line with my other gift-giving.

In our own family, for the most part, we don't give extravagant gifts to our children or each other. And we don't feel guilty about that or feel we're displaying less love for one another.

In some families, large gifts between each other are the norm. And that doesn't mean they love each other more or less than a family who chooses to use their money differently.

It's easy to get carried away in the moment, and be more extravagant than appropriate. But if my values are to give my own children modest gifts, then doesn't it seem appropriate to give friends' children modest gifts, as well? Even if those same children were accustomed to receiving extravagant gifts from others?

It's really not even a matter of who is wealthier and who is not. It's all about personal values related to making gifts.

For me, it feels easier to give my children just exactly how much I feel is appropriate for any one occasion. So I use this as a barometer, when I am in doubt. Just how much would I feel is right with my own kids for this occasion? That thought, alone, will often help me set the scale for gifts.

In the end, on this particular occasion, I went with what my gut was telling me was an appropriate amount to spend, regardless of what friends or family might be accustomed to. Yes, it was far less than what I'd read was typical or could be expected. But it was in line with what I might give to my own children for a similar occasion.

I hope that my more extravagant friends will appreciate my friendship just for what it is, a person who will be there to help and support them through trials, and rejoice with them in their good fortune, and not measure my friendship by the money I spend on them or their families.

With charitable gifts, our family does place a high value on giving to mission-related purposes. But I also feel comfortable telling a phone solicitor that while I appreciate their charity, we may have already allocated our charitable giving for the year. I am happy to take their organization's name and number, in case something changes. And sometimes, I do end up giving to one of these organizations, later in the year. But sometimes, I don't, and I try not to feel like I have to save the entire world.

And with wedding season just around the corner, I'm already looking to our budget, anticipating a couple of weddings. Fortunately, most of our friends' kids won't have extravagant weddings. And I won't be in that awkward position of feeling like I have to "pay for my plate" at the reception with an equivalent value of gift. But if that did come up (and it could with one of my family member's kids), I would have to really give thought to whether I wanted to attend that wedding, or perhaps I could just send a gift, appropriate to my gift-giving values.

With regards to friends who keep doing extravagant things for us, well, we're in that murky area right now. Reciprocating, in fashion, would run counter to how we choose to spend our money. But we do appreciate their kindness and generosity. I think the most satisfactory answer, though, is to continue expressing our friendship in the ways that are most comfortable to us. True friends will value who we are and not how much we spend.

But it's still a difficult internal struggle for me.


How about you? Have you ever found yourself faced with expectations to spend more on a gift for someone else's child, than you would spend on your own? How did you handle this? How about those super generous friends who keep inviting you to expensive restaurant meals? Are you okay with reciprocating with a home-cooked meal?