My Practically-Free Garlic Haul

I showed you my garden potato haul a few weeks ago. Now I'll show you my garden garlic haul, all grown with sneaky little cloves of garlic that have hidden in various spots of my garden over the years.

About 15 years ago, I decided to plant some grocery store garlic cloves in my garden. Yes, I read the warnings -- viruses, pests, tiny crops. I decided to give it a try anyway. So, I planted 1 head of garlic (about 10-12 cloves) in my garden. The next summer, I dug about 10 heads of garlic from those cloves. I replanted some of these new garlic heads in a new spot in my garden the next year. And so on, and so on. 

Garden garlic is a bit like garden potatoes in that there are always a few sneaky heads that remain hidden from my trowel when harvesting and basically replant themselves for the next year. Most of the time, I'd notice in spring they came up but then forget about them by the time the tops died back.

This past spring, I found several spots in my garden with new garlic growth. As I had a hunch my garden would be more important in 2020 than previous years, I dug up what I found and grouped them all together in one single spot so I could more easily harvest them this summer. I'm not even sure how many individual cloves I planted last spring, maybe 40 or more, just a guess. In late August/early September, the tops were dying back and I decided to dig my garlic patch. This is what I harvested.

Some of these are full-sized heads of garlic, some are smaller heads of garlic, and many are swollen single cloves. All of these are usable in cooking.

To give you an idea of how much garlic I harvested, the head just to the left of the pile is about the size of a regular supermarket head of garlic. I harvested what I think is about 1  2/3 to 1  3/4 pounds, or the equivalent of about 20 or so heads of garlic. This is more than I would normally buy in the fall to last through winter and into early spring for our family of 5, years ago. 

I had left the garlic in a box for a month, curing for storage. The other day, I sorted my garlic according to use: those cloves that need using right away (a couple had begun to sprout), those for planting, and the bountiful remainder for use over the next several months. Yesterday, I cleared a spot in one bed and planted 3 heads (34 cloves, total) of the best of what I harvested in September. I'm hoping for a plentiful garlic harvest in 2021, too.

I've noticed a few green sprouts still in the garden that I missed either last spring or this summer when digging. I thought I did a thorough job. But that's just how sneaky garden garlic can be. I'll be finding garlic in my garden for years to come, all descendants from that one supermarket head planted many years ago.

My Blustery Autumn Weekend in Pictures

It was a wet and windy weekend here in the northwest. That's about what we can expect this time of year. Just before the rain, leaves swirled down, littering the lawn, garden, and driveway. At this point, the leaves are simply a beautiful reminder of the season. We'll get to raking them up later in the month.

As a result of the turn in weather, I spent almost all of my time indoors (with exceptions to darting outside to harvest whatever I needed for the time). It was a productive weekend. Here are visuals of the highlights:

autumn-inspired brownies -- very, very simple. Lightly place candy corn pieces onto top of batter before baking; do not press into batter. I used this recipe, but baked in the traditional oven at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.

bread -- with wet weather came cooler temps. Baking loaves of bread helped heat the kitchen just as we were sitting down to a soup supper.

crimson crabapple and spice jelly -- one of several batches in the next 2 weeks (our tree is loaded). Pro-tip: use lightweight scissors to clip the apples from the branches to harvest hard to pluck crabapples -- the picking goes much faster and doesn't damage next year's fruiting spurs.

3 small jars of bread and butter pickles with almost the last of the cucumbers

more dill relish with some green tomatoes that were showing signs of blight (trimming away the browning parts first) and garden-fresh dill weed. We now have 5 jars of dill relish to begin the year. I have a couple more blighted green tomatoes  waiting in the fridge to be made into sweet relish tomorrow or the next day.

herbs -- dill for the freezer and sage, oregano, and thyme to be dried

an early Saturday AM trip to Dollar Tree, picking up several bags of pretzels and jars of roasted peanuts for our winter pantry. The pretzels were a better buy at DT than Walmart's Great Value, but the peanuts were slightly more expensive at DT. Win some, lose some. I also bought some much needed liquid dish detergent, sponges, and a bottle brush.

All of this is not to say that I didn't have any less-productive moments. I played my share of games of solitaire on the computer and read lots of news sites while sitting by the electric fire in the living room (so very handy that fireplace). I also vacuumed and did laundry. But do you really want to see pictures of my vacuum or piles of laundry? I thought not.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! What kept you busy? 

A shout-out to anyone reading from Canada -- Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

A Little Autumn Outdoor Decorating

Today, a break from recounting my adventures in harvesting. You all know that I like to decorate my home for various holidays. It brings me a lot of joy to change up the looks of our house for each new season.

Will you be decorating for Halloween or fall? A recent survey polled Seattleites on what they might be doing this year to celebrate Halloween, as trick-or-treating and parties are likely to be "out" this year. The majority replied that they'd be decorating their houses for Halloween/fall. And you know what? If I were a betting person, I'd say they were polling my neighborhood, as so many neighbors have put up lights in their front yards and on their homes.

I talked it over with one of my daughters and we agreed that putting up decorations just for Halloween seemed like a lot of extra work, but that doing some decor that would be appropriate for all of autumn, through Thanksgiving, would be appealing. Besides, I really don't go in for the ghoulish Halloween decorations, but prefer understated, general-purpose autumn decor.

Since it is getting dark so early now, and lighting can be seen from the street as our neighbors drive passed, I put some extra effort into a little fall lighting project this year.

I had been eyeing some beautiful, lighted garlands in a catalog in August. Of course, these were pricier than I was comfortable with. So, I set out to make my own. I used two strands of mini LED lights (1 orange and 1 yellow, both ordered online) and several lengths of Dollar Tree faux leaf garland which I'd bought several years ago and have used in different applications each fall. I offset the light strands by about 2 inches, so the individual lights would appear closer together. Then I wrapped the faux leaf garlands around the light strands and secured the lighted garland to the surrounds of the kitchen window with cup hooks screwed in at the corners and center top of the wood window trim. 

The whole project took me about 30 minutes from finding the cup hooks and wrapping the garland and lights, to securing to the house's exterior. My cost would've been much less if I didn't have it in my mind that I wanted colored lights and instead had used some strings of regular (white) Christmas twinkle lights. In fact, this lighted garland would've been free had I taken that route. But you know, sometimes the heart chooses instead of the mind.

I also changed out the lights to all orange in the bush to the left of the kitchen window. If you'll recall, last fall I put an old C-9 string of lights on a conical shrub and filled the light sockets with green and orange lights only. This year, I bought some additional orange C-9 lights, so I could have all orange lights on this bush. Yep. the heart was in the driver's seat the day I made these purchases. Like I said, it brings me a lot of joy to decorate for the seasons and holidays. Money well-spent.

Lighted evergreen garlands for the winter holidays can be very pricy. This same sort of idea can be used with inexpensive Dollar Tree evergreen garlands or homemade garlands made from evergreen branches wired to a rope and wrapped with strings of mini-lights. I plan on making a couple of those for our house later this fall. Anyways -- just thought I'd share my latest home decorating.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

Green Tomato Pickle Relish: My Favorite Way to Use Those Tomatoes That Don't Stand a Chance of Ripening

Green tomatoes, lots and lots of green tomatoes. 

With a coolish summer climate in my area, the bulk of our garden tomatoes come to us unripe, just before the cool fall rains bring blight to the plants. Blight will ruin the fruit, so I try to harvest all of the tomatoes before I see those tell-tale dark patches in the stems. This means that I'm harvesting some tomatoes that are mature enough to turn red indoors, while others don't stand a chance of ripening due to their immaturity. 

We wait patiently for the larger, more mature tomatoes to ripen indoors. It's those latter green tomatoes, some as small as peas, that need a plan. These tiny tomatoes, along with any other small green ones, can be made into pickle relish.

I make both dill and sweet relishes with the green tomatoes. The Green Tomato Dill Pickle Relish is a tasty relish that is reminiscent of kosher dill pickles. We use it on hot dogs, bratwurst, and burgers.

I also make a sweet relish that tastes a lot like commercial sweet pickle relish. We use this sweet green tomato relish on dogs and burgers as well as in salads, such as macaroni, potato, chicken, egg, and tuna salads. 

I made 2  1/2 jars of the dill relish this past Saturday, then made 4 jars of the sweet relish on Monday. As we don't get that many cucumbers, the abundance of immature green tomatoes are welcome every fall.

Here are my recipes for both types of green tomato relish.

Green Tomato Dill Relish

yields 3 to 4 half-pints

Wash and sterilize jars and lids.

I chop both the onions and tomatoes in the food processor, using the pulse feature, then measure.
Drain vegetables in a colander for 30 minutes. After drained, put in a stainless saucepan.

• 4 cups chopped green tomatoes
• 1  1/2 cups chopped onion

Add the below ingredients to the vegetables. Simmer until soft (about 15 to 20 minutes), stirring occasionally to prevent scorching. 

• 1 tablespoon kosher or pickling salt
• 2 cups vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
• 1  1/2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small dried red chili pepper, minced, or large pinch of red pepper flakes
• fresh dill weed, about 1/4 cup, chopped, or 1 tablespoon dried dill weed

Scoop cooked relish, while hot, into sterilized jars, then seal and process in a boiling-water canner. The National Center for Home Food Preservation recommends processing relish for 15 minutes if at 1000 ft or lower, 20 minutes if at 1000 to 6000 ft, or 25 minutes if above 6000 ft in elevation. (Even though I hot-water bath my pickles and relishes, I still opt to store them in the fridge.) The NCHFP offers information on safe use of a boiling-water canner at their site.

Green Tomato Sweet Pickle Relish
yields about 4 half-pints

Sterilize jars and lids.

Use a food processor to chop the vegetables, then drain in a colander or mesh strainer for about 20 minutes to remove excess liquid. Discard the liquid.

• green tomatoes, washed, and chopped in the food processor, measure 2 cups
• 3/4 of a large onion, chopped in the food processor
• 1/2 of a green or red bell pepper, chopped in the food processor

After the vegetables have drained, put them in a stainless saucepan, along with the vinegar, sugar, salt.

• 3/4 cups vinegar
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1  1/2 scant teaspoons kosher or pickling salt

Tie the following up in a small piece of cheesecloth, then add to the saucepan.

• 1/8th of a cinnamon stick
• 1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
• 1 tablespoon mixed pickling spices

Over Medium heat, bring all to a boil, reduce heat and simmer (stirring occasionally to prevent sticking) until the vegetables are soft (about 15 minutes, or so -- the white onion pieces will be translucent).

Scoop relish into sterile jars, cap, and process. The National Center for Home Food Preservation recommends processing sweet relish in a boiling-water canner for 10 minutes if at 1000 ft or lower, 15 minutes if at 1000 to 6000 ft, or 20 minutes if above 6000 ft in elevation. 

By the way, my tomatoes are from the plants that I started from seeds on March 1 (mentioned in this post) These were seeds from a couple of years ago, but still had enough viability to give me several sprouts. I thinned the sprouts to 6 plants. One of those plants didn't make it, so I had 5 healthy, small plants to transplant to my garden in late April. The plants were quite a bit smaller than what I would have bought at the nursery, but they did well in my garden anyway (although ripening was about 2 to 3 weeks later than I might have expected with larger, nursery plants). It all worked out.

A September Recap for Groceries

Happy October, friends!

In September, I shopped on 2 occasions, 1 time hitting 3 stores, the other time just 1 store (trips 3 weeks apart), spending $182.30. That amount is greatly supplemented by the use of our emergency pantry/freezer, which I stocked in late spring and early summer. I spent more than I had planned in September. (My goal is to keep monthly spending to about $100 to $150, bringing my average monthly grocery spending to about $250 to $300/month when the use of emergency pantry is factored in). However, a good chunk of what I bought this past month contributes additional stock for the fall/winter pantry and freezer.

I'm shopping in-person for the time being, and 3 weeks seems to be my comfort zone. Any longer and I begin to feel antsy about running low on a few key ingredients. Any closer together and I worry about not-completely-necessary virus exposure. 

Here's what I bought:

Walmart (twice in month)

jalapenos -- for salsa

kosher hot dogs --Labor Day weekend

1 loaf of bread, some sandwich meat, and sliced cheese for a picnic -- Labor Day weekend

2.75 lbs beef stew meat

a couple dozen bananas

2 heads cabbage

2 bags pretzels

1 box graham crackers

2 bags oyster crackers

2 boxes cheerios-type cereal

several decaf and regular instant coffee

3 lbs dried black-eyed peas

12 canned corn

8 canned carrots

10 canned green beans

13 gals milk, whole and 2%

4.5 dozen eggs

6 frozen broccoli

2 frozen broccoli/cauliflower mix

12 frozen apple juice concentrate

6 frozen orange juice concentrate

1 bag frozen French fries

Dollar Tree

6 bags frozen blueberries 

Cash & Carry/Smartfood Service

25-lb bag of carrots
50-lb bag of onions
#10 can tomato paste

1-lb yeast

5-lb frozen peas

6-pack green bell peppers

50-lb whole wheat flour

cantaloupe

There are a few items that I bought that were just fun foods, since we're not eating out or getting take-out at all, such as French fries, sandwich meat, cheese, and a favorite bread just for a family picnic, good hot dogs for a cook-out, and the pretzels and crackers. These "treat" foods have been so enjoyed by my family; even the cold cereal was met with significant appreciation.

Going forward, this past week I did a thorough inventory and made up a shopping list of exactly what I want to buy in October to complete my emergency winter pantry/freezer. I am close to finishing and when I am done filling my stock, I'll be able to slide through the holiday season with minimal shopping. I'm not expecting a doomsday scenario with the virus, but my plan is to just stay out of stores this fall/early winter, if I can. I did read in the Wall Street Journal that stores are putting together "pandemic pallets" full of goods for this fall and winter in preparation for any surge in shopping. That's good news. No hunting for yeast, toilet paper, or flour. Last spring was a wild time to be shopping.

I'm still working away at the harvest this week. I picked the last bucket of plums this afternoon. I left about a dozen on the tree for my squirrel friends to find. Wasn't that nice of me? In reality, these were plums that I couldn't get to without risking life and limb. I started another batch of cucumber pickles, too, today. I feel so blessed this year. 

I hope that you're all enjoying a beautiful first day of October! Be back soon!

Garden-Fresh Potatoes Galore

Last spring, when this virus was first unfolding in the US, I made plans to plant an entire bed of potatoes in my vegetable garden. The bed I chose was one of the strawberry beds, an 8 X 4 bed. I transplanted all of the strawberry plants out of that bed and into the other beds to clear a spot. 

In the fall of 2019, I made the decision to not grow potatoes any more -- they're a lot of work to dig. So, we decided to eat all of the potatoes that I dug that fall and not save any for replanting. When spring rolled around and I changed my mind about the potatoes, I thought I was out of luck with the seed potatoes. Yet, to my delight, while cleaning out the garage in late March I came across a bucket of our potatoes that hadn't been touched. It wasn't a lot, maybe 2  pounds of potatoes. Next, I dug through the old potato bed in the garden and found a few stragglers that I had missed in the fall. Then I added 2 russet potatoes from my pantry that were sprouting. All totaled, I had about 4 or 5 pounds of potatoes to plant in the prepared, former strawberry bed.

With each mowing this summer, we mulched the potato bed with grass clippings. I'm not sure I'd recommend grass clippings as a sole mulch for potatoes, as they tend to mat with time. But they did do their job of holding in moisture and providing a dark place for potatoes to grow under the mat. In future years, I might add layers of shredded paper to the grass clippings.

The Harvest

First off, remember those 2 russet potatoes from my kitchen that I planted? Do you want to know how much I harvested from those? Well, I planted 2 russet potatoes, and I harvested -- drumroll please, wait for it -- 2 russet potatoes (wah wah). Yep, my russet potatoes only produced a single russet potato each. Fortunately, I did not put all of my potatoes into 1 egg basket (I know, mixed metaphors there). Instead, in addition to those russets, I planted  seed potatoes from our own potato stock that I knew from experience would be productive, purple fingerling potatoes. And were they ever productive. I harvested about 42 pounds of potatoes. And to make things even better, I only damaged 3 potatoes in the digging. (I can still use those damaged potatoes, just need to do so right away -- next week or so.)

I've always thought that growing potatoes is a great way to rejuvenate garden beds. I say this for 5 reasons: 1) I work the soil before adding the potatoes, digging deeper than I might if just planting lettuce or tomatoes; 2) I mulch potato beds heavily throughout the growing season, which not only helps hold in moisture but also blocks out weeds. I only found 1 single weed in the bed when harvesting; 3) that mulch, whatever I choose, gets worked into the soil when I harvest, enriching and aerating poor or depleted garden soil; 4) potatoes are harvested at the end of the growing season, meaning I leave a bed clean and weed-free for planting new vegetables in late winter or early spring (in this case, I'll move strawberry plants back into that bed in late fall); and 5) my rejuvenating work rewards me with lots of delicious, garden-fresh potatoes.

My back and shoulders are rather sore from yesterday's marathon potato-digging, but my mind is at ease, knowing we have enough fresh potatoes to last several months.

Making Plum Vinegar

Our Italian Prune tree has gifted us with so many ripe plums this year. In the last two weeks, we've eaten copious amounts of fresh plums and open-faced plum pies. And I've been making plum jam, plum chutney, and dried prunes to enjoy in winter. Today, I started a batch of plum-infused vinegar. I make most of our salad dressings from scratch, so it goes without saying that we use a lot of vinegar in our kitchen. I vary my homemade vinaigrettes by using a variety of flavored vinegars, from herb and chive blossom vinegars to fruity, berry vinegars. 

This plum vinegar is made with white vinegar and fresh, ripe plums. I've used regular distilled vinegar, as that is what I had. In an ideal world, I'd use a white wine vinegar for clearer flavor. 

This is how I made my plum vinegar:

• After washing the plums, I pitted and sliced them. For each pint jar, I used 1 cup of sliced, fresh plums. 
• I filled the jars with the plum slices, then poured vinegar over all to the fill line on the jars. I capped with a plastic lid and put away to infuse in a dark cupboard for about 6 weeks. I'll check the vinegar level after a day and top off if needed. (Sometimes there are air pockets between the plum slices that I miss when filling the jars with vinegar.)
• In 6 weeks' time, I'll strain the fruit out of the vinegar, add a pinch or two of sugar to sweeten and intensify the plum taste, and pour into bottles. That's it!

This is the time of year to be thinking about handmade gift-ables for the holiday season. Fruit-infused vinegar is so easy to make, yet so lovely to receive. A pretty bottle of flavored vinegar tied up with a bow and left on a neighbor's front porch in December would be a treat for the eye as well as the palette.

I hope all is well with you. I think about you all daily and wish I could be connecting with you more often. The harvest should be winding down dramatically in the next couple of weeks. Enjoy the rest of your day!

When Unhealthy Air Keeps Me Locked-up, I Turn to Google for DIY Instructions

The wind that we were expecting late Sunday, to scour out the smoky inversion, never arrived. And now, the forecasters are saying we could be in this "unhealthy" to "very unhealthy" air for most of this week. A now-sore throat combined with apprehension about what the smoke could do to my car's engine mean that I won't be going any where, any time soon. I had planned on doing a grocery shop this past Saturday, at which time I'd pick up the chili powder that I need for making more salsa.

In a moment of make-do attitude, I looked up recipes for homemade chili powder. Sure enough, there was a recipe that called for ingredients that I had on hand, primarily the dried chili pods (I use them for enchilada sauce, so I usually have a bag of them in the pantry).

This is what I used: dried red chili peppers, ground cumin, dried oregano leaf, garlic powder, and my handy, ancient (1980s) coffee/spice grinder. 

Following the recipe's instructions, I cleaned out the peppers then roasted them in a low oven before grinding them down. The chili powder tastes delicious, like mild versions of chili powder. The entire process, including rinsing the dried chilis, de-stemming and deseeding, roasting, then grinding took about 20 minutes, tops, and about half of that time I was simply waiting for the pods to roast or cool.

The bonus to making your own spice blends, such as chili powder, is if someone in your household has sensitivities to additives or is on a low-sodium diet, you can often leave those ingredients out. In checking the label on my empty chili powder container, the commercial kind had the following ingredient list: "spices (including red pepper, chili pepper), salt, garlic, silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent)."

If necessity is the mother of invention, then quarantines and other isolations are the mother of DIY via googled instructions.

If you're wondering this is the recipe that I mostly followed for the chili powder.

The "Super Massive Plume of Smoke" That Settled over My Area

 

A couple of you were asking about my area and the fire situation. While we do not have any fires near us, we are blanketed by a thick plume of smoke and haze from the California and Oregon fires. The other evening, one news source dubbed this a "super massive plume of smoke."

Here is a photo from this morning at about 9 AM. This is what the smoke and haze looks like in my backyard. The camera doesn't pick up the brownish tint of the sky or yellowish light throughout the yard as well as I am seeing out my window. If you look closely at the bottom of the V in the clearing between the trees, you can make out the silhouette of a couple of evergreen trees in the distance. These are behind the trees that you can see more clearly. Again, the camera doesn't pick up this image as well as I can see. But, these trees are on our neighbor's property, just over our property line. The smoke and haze are obscuring the view of these trees this morning. 

The air quality this morning is right around 200, depending on what source I check. This is the "unhealthy" to "very unhealthy" range for all individuals. The news has advised us to stay indoors with the windows closed. Even with windows closed and running an air purifier in one room 24/7, I've had a dusty feeling in my mouth and throat since yesterday morning. Parks, beaches, and some businesses have closed for the weekend. While this is not an emergency for my family, this is such a strange occurrence. I thought I'd update what it's like this morning for my area north of Seattle, for those of you who have expressed concern for our welfare.

BTW, air quality is expected to begin improving for us tonight into tomorrow morning. Until then, I am held captive indoors by air.

Is it ever economical to make preserves with store-bought ingredients?

Common wisdom is that if you want to save money, you shouldn't buy ingredients to make your own preserves, pickles, or relishes. While in many cases that's certainly true, I've found several instances where it did save me money to make some of my own preserves using store-bought ingredients. 

One of my favorites is tomato salsa. I make my salsa with almost exclusively purchased ingredients, including the tomatoes. I use canned, whole tomatoes that I buy in institutional-sized cans (known as #10 cans). I can get about 7 or 8 pints of salsa using 1 #10 can of tomatoes (cost me $3.10 to $3.50 a #10 can). I also buy the onions in bulk (50-lb sacks, at about 20 cents/lb), and jalapeno peppers (under $1 a pound). The other ingredients include garlic or garlic powder, salt, chili powder, vinegar, oregano (I grow), cilantro (I grow), and red pepper flakes (sometimes use those free packets that you can ask for with a pizza purchase). 7 to 8 pints of salsa cost me about $4 to make, or about 50 cents per pint jar, which is about 1/3 the cost of the cheapest commercial salsa at my local Walmart.

I love, love, love blueberry preserves. Bit I don't like the price so much. Walmart sells Smucker's Blueberry Preserves (18-oz jar) for $2.68. Bonne Maman 13-oz Wild Blueberry Preserves are even pricier at $4.34. I can buy a 10-oz bag of frozen blueberries at Dollar Tree for $1 ($1.60/lb) or a 40-oz bag of frozen, wild blueberries at Walmart for $4.88 ($1.95/lb). A 10-oz bag of frozen blueberries contains about 1  1/2 cups. So, using the Dollar Tree blueberries, I need 2.66 bags of blueberries, about 5  1/4 cups of sugar, 3 oz of pectin, and 2 tablespoons lemon juice (lemon zest in strips is also nice). This makes about 48 ounces of preserves for a cost of about $3.50 to $3.75, or the equivalent of $1.31 to $1.40 for an 18 ounce portion, half the price of Smucker's Blueberry Preserves. A comparable amount of wild blueberries (if I wanted to go the Bonne Maman Wild Blueberry Preserves route) would cost an additional 58 cents per batch, or $1.10 to $1.17 per 13-oz jar. That's almost 1/4 of the cost of Bonne Maman preserves.

You may recall that I make watermelon rind pickles, using the white portion of the watermelon rind. This part of the melon would otherwise be discarded, so I consider it to be free to me. However, I do have to buy sugar, spices, and vinegar to make those sweet and tangy pickles. If you can find watermelon rind pickles in your store, you'll see that they run about $4.75 to $5.00 for a 10-oz jar, or $7.60/16 oz. Even if I compared the price of homemade watermelon pickles to a more ordinary pickle, such as a bread and butter cucumber pickles, the least expensive jar of B & B pickles at my Walmart costs $1.84/24 oz. My homemade watermelon rind pickles cost me about 25 cents/16 oz (or 37 cents/24 oz).

Pickled carrots are another good example of making a pickle frugally with store-bought ingredients. I can buy carrots in 25-lb bags for under 40 cents per pound. The vinegar, spices, and sugar are also pretty inexpensive, so these pickles are a bargain to make and yet so nice to add to winter meals. Most of us likely wouldn't buy pickled carrots. So, a better cost comparison to the homemade pickled carrots is once again, the bread and butter cucumber pickles. Homemade carrot pickles cost me about 65 cents for a 16-oz jar, or 97 cents for a 24-oz comparison (to Walmart's B & B pickles) portion.

The trick to making preserves, pickles, and salsas inexpensively is to look for the main ingredient to be inexpensive to begin with, such as canned tomatoes, fresh carrots, to-be-discarded watermelon rind, or frozen blueberries. Sometimes this means buying in institutional-sized packages, other times on sale or from a discount store, or even buying "seconds" or imperfect produce. There are a couple of bonuses to making preserves and salsas with store-bought ingredients. One, even if it's a bad garden year, I can still make some much-enjoyed extras for our winter table. And two, I can make most of these preserves in the off-season, too, when I'm not overwhelmed with other end-of-summer tasks. 

Do you have any favorite frugal canning recipes that rely mostly on ingredients from the store? Please share!

Not Naturally Inclined Toward Organization

One of my activities for this summer has been decluttering and organizing cupboards, drawers, shelves, and closets for the whole house (with exception to others' personal spaces). The obvious advantage of doing this is less frustration when putting away or retrieving needed items. The bonus (which may or may not be greater than the organization part) is uncovering all of my forgotten supplies, often times in duplicate. A thorough annual or semi-annual clean-out is a necessity for keeping all of my family's belongings accounted for.

For example, I found 2 new rolls of clear packing tape. Packing tape is obviously good for sealing packages to be mailed. It also doubles as "scotch" tape for gift-wrapping, repairs torn freezer bags, laminates paper items (like recipes recorded on paper/cards), cleans lint and hair from clothing and upholstery, etc. We find this kind of tape so useful that I buy a couple of rolls per year.

I also discovered that I have enough pj bottoms for another winter season. I had thought I would need a new pair when one of my two current favorites wore thin in the seat this past winter. I also have enough sweat and fleece jackets to get through another cold weather season. And, I found that I had more socks than I need, so I donated 4 good-condition pairs to one grateful daughter. 

I pulled all of the gift items together that I've acquired over the past two years and now have them in one spot -- the designated gift closet (where they should have been all along). I've got a great start on holiday and birthday shopping/gifting for the coming season. 

In the kitchen I found several stashes of cleaned, gently used freezer bags. We now have enough freezer bags for all of our freezing needs this summer and fall. 

I also discovered that we can stop buying hair conditioner now. I think I have enough hair conditioner to get through this pandemic and the next one. 

And, we have not one but 2 ping pong balls for our table. I found each ball in a different cupboard. Go figure.

You may not know this about me, but I am not naturally inclined toward organization. When it comes to putting things away, my mind scatters in a multitude of directions. To give you an example of what I mean, I'll tell you about my recipe card file. 

The sorting dividers for my recipe box are alphabetized index cards (with A, B, C, etc tabs). I can never settle on just one section for a particular recipe card. For instance, with my recipe for rhubarb custard pie, some days I think "I'll file this under R for rhubarb, so when it's rhubarb season again next year, I'll know where to find it." On other days I think, "this recipe is for a pie, so I'll file it under P for pie." And yet on another day, I'll find myself certain that the most logical place for this card is under D for desserts. Even if I had the kind of divider cards that said Desserts, Entrees, Vegetables, etc, I might still find myself conflicted over which section to place the card. Can you imagine what it's like when I need to actually find a particular recipe card? I was making salsa this morning and had to search through several sections to find that card. I ultimately found it under T, you know, for tomatoes. *smacks hand on forehead* 

And if you think this sounds bad with me trying to organize a house, imagine what it's like when you throw a bunch of other people into the mix. No one here really gets my "system." So I may put item X away in the drawer with other Xs. Yet my husband will put item X in the drawer with Ys. Most of the time, we all just hunt around for whatever we're seeking. This really does make a good case for not packing cupboards and closets completely full, and instead leaving lots of air space around each item for better visibility. And that brings me back to my big task this summer -- getting rid of everything not truly necessary and organizing what is left. 

I sometimes throw out something that I later regret. This used to really bother me. (You know -- "I just knew I shouldn't get rid of that do-hickey. Now I am do-hickeyless right when I most need one.") I now look at this as one of the "costs" of getting and staying organized. Just about everything we do has a cost of some sort, be it time, money, or effort. So I may have a regret or two after this summer's clean-out. But for the most part, the wee bit more of sanity we'll enjoy when retrieving or putting things away will out-weigh the expense of replacing those do-hickeys.

I would like to say that the flip side to my lack of inclination toward organization is that I'm creative and spontaneous, and loads of fun to be around. However, I'm sure my mother would point out that I can be creative and fun while still putting my socks away in their proper drawer.

Back to decluttering my drawers.

Are you the naturally organized type? What are your secrets?

An August Recap for Groceries

Hi friends!

I often feel that my life doesn't relate much to the lives of others. I guess I feel peripheral, if that makes any sense. Despite that, today I thought I'd write a little bit about my mundane life, anyways, because there might be something in it that resonates with someone.

For the last several months, I've been using a variety of methods for getting my groceries while minimizing my risk of this virus, including Walmart's curbside pick-up service, Walmart's shipping, Target's shipping, Amazon, and more rarely, a quick in-the-store-grab-and-pay for a small basket of specific items (no more lingering or browsing the grocery stores). 

This morning, I did the Walmart curbside pick-up part of August's grocery shopping. They were sold out of Great Value mayonnaise this week, so I ordered Market Pantry mayo through Target.com (as part of a larger order to get free shipping). When I place an online order for groceries, I not only open a tab on my laptop for Walmart, but also for Target and Fred Meyer. Target's mayo was 3 cents more per quart than Walmart's, but it's available to ship this week. I compare prices and decide if it's worth it to me to shop a second or even third store for specific items. 

Yep, comparison shopping did not come to an end for me with this pandemic. I just acquire the groceries differently now. This month, I shopped 3 places -- target.com, Walmart online/curbside, and in-person Fred Meyer. 

For a while, I was using the earliest pick-up time slot, 7 AM to 8 AM. That was often the only time slot left during a week. Fortunately for this night owl, other time slots have opened up. This morning, I opted for the 8 AM to 9 AM slot. One daughter was coming with me as she needed to swing by Hobby Lobby for an art supply. (See, we're still batching errands, too.)

What I noticed about this month's grocery order

As in July, I spent far less on food than in April, May, or June. August's total grocery spend came to $92.18. This low total reflects that we're eating from our stores of food, plus the items that I bought did not include meat or cheese (stocked up on those in previous months) but were primarily canned, fresh, and frozen fruits and vegetables, some pantry items, and several gallons of milk bought early in the month.

Walmart has the option for them to make substitution choices if my requests can't be met. I always tick this box, as the substitutions have been a pretty good deal for me. In two instances, I was subbed a significantly larger size of the foods at no extra cost to me. This order, there was 1 non-food item with a favorable substitution --  a 34-oz bottle of hand sanitizer for the price of an 8-oz one. I was not as thrilled with the other substitution on this order. I had ordered frozen cauliflower, but was subbed the broccoli-cauliflower blend. This wouldn't be an issue, except I'd planned on using the cauliflower in places where I might have used pasta. I can still pour marinara sauce over the cauli-broccoli mix, but it won't have the same visual effect. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. My disappointment is not great enough to return the substitution. I can still use this product and it did not cost me anything extra. I'll try for the cauliflower the next time I place an order.

July's order came with a couple of surprises. They were marketing gadgets, fridge magnet clips, but still very useful to me. These large clips are useful as chip-clips to hold bags closed. This month's surprise was even better -- a free sample of a fresh peach. The peach was boxed and marked as a sample, so I know this wasn't an error. Lucky me, I get a free treat! I don't know if including these surprises is a new "thing" with Walmart, but I'm happy to accept them.

So what did I buy in August?

watermelon
corn-on-the-cob

fresh carrots

onions

cabbage

bananas

milk

canned beets

canned carrots

ketchup

mustard

mayo

coffee

decaf

oyster crackers

graham crackers

box of donuts (took these to the beach with coffee as a morning treat)

frozen wild blueberries (cheaper than the non-wild ones, go figure)

frozen cauliflower and broccoli blend

frozen peas

frozen broccoli cuts (cuts are less expensive than the regular frozen broccoli)

frozen brussels sprouts

frozen apple juice concentrate

The fresh produce will supplement what we have coming in from the garden and will be consumed in the next few weeks. We'll use some of the canned and frozen produce now, but a good chunk of it is tagged for use this fall and winter.

The weather this week has been all over the map. Early in the week, we were roasting in 90+ degree heat and eating cold salads for dinners. The temps have since plummeted 20 degrees and brought rain and clouds. Last night I made baked beans, mac and cheese, carrot sticks and watermelon for dinner -- a much more fall-like meal for our household. I have homemade burgers planned for tonight, but only if it dries up around here.

That's about it for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Fresh Apples and Sea Glass

Yesterday was an apple-picking day. When we planned our orchard, we guessed at when some fruits would ripen in our own yard and hoped for a variety of fruits and berries that would be ready over the course of the entire season, not all at once. We began with 5 apple trees. We've now lost two of them and are down to an early, a late, and a very late apple. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been finding some of the early apples here and there on the ground in the garden, partially chewed then discarded by either raccoons or squirrels. Time to beat those little rascals to our fruit, even if they're still a bit green. So, yesterday I took the large stock-pot, 2 ladders, and a jacket with deep pockets out to the orchard. Luckily for me, I'm still able to keep my balance on the ladders. I climb, fill my pockets with apples, then descend to add to the stock-pot. I came away with an overfull pot of apples yesterday. 

I did pretty well, only dropping 2 apples out of the whole bunch. When I realized I was getting tired and was likely to make a mistake or lose my balance, I called it quits for the day. This afternoon, I'll see if I can reach those last few apples.

The ripening of the early apples serves as a reminder that summer doesn't last forever and cooler weather is on its way. It's a bittersweet moment. I love the coziness of fall weather, but I love summer so much and know that I will miss it terribly until it arrives once again next year. This feeling serves as an impetus for me to get out there and do those summery things that I love, such as beach combing for sea glass. 

Remember my wire-wrapping jewelry? Well, I'm working on wrapping some of the sea glass that I've collected over the years to make pendants, earrings, and beads for a necklace or bracelet. The learning curve isn't too steep for wire-wrapping sea glass, but my technique is still definitely an in-progress thing. But it's been fun seeing what I can do with my collection of glass pieces. Here's a piece of green sea glass wrapped in silver wire to use as a pendant.

Back to those apples -- later yesterday afternoon, I cooked a pot of caramel sauce for dipping apple pieces. 

If you love the taste of caramel apples but are not keen on the precision for making a thick caramel coating for whole apples, an imprecise caramel sauce is just the thing. I like to cut the apples into wedges and place them around a pool of caramel sauce. This makes a delicious dessert or snack for my family members (and of course, for me).

And now, I'm back out to the orchard to get those last early apples. I hope you are enjoying these fleeting summer days!

Using My Emergency Food Supply

Back to my emergency food supply . . .

Building a supply is just the first part of utilizing an emergency food storage. Using everything up in a timely manner, minimizing redundancy, and maintaining variety in meals for the duration of the supply is the next step.

The other week, I mentioned that I have a simple but very effective manner for using all of the foods that I've stockpiled. This is literally a quickly scratched out plan, using a leftover calendar and page of a notebook.

Back in early May, I spent an afternoon taking inventory of several of the backbone ingredients to our meals, such as grains, meat and other protein sources, and fruits and vegetables. I could easily see that for some foods, we had an ample supply. So, metering out the use would be as simple as deciding to use each a set number of times per week. For example, we have enough rice and pasta to just say, "okay, we'll have rice 3 dinners per week and pasta for two." No need to make any sort of elaborate use-scheme for metering out those ingredients. Similarly, I bought enough raisins, peanut butter, and jarred applesauce to simply bring out 1 or 2 containers of each at the beginning of each month. Other foods, such as dinner protein sources, were a tiny bit more complex and therefore required more calculations and planning. 

For dinner protein, I have quite a variety in the freezer and pantry, including canned tuna, canned chicken, chicken leg quarters, b/s chicken breasts, whole chickens, breakfast sausage, pork bacon, turkey bacon, loose ground beef, frozen burger patties, hot dogs, a whole ham, frozen eggs, TVP, and an assortment of beans. I tallied up the servings of each protein source, then plotted out their use on a sheet of paper, allotting an entire calendar year. I've used tally marks to indicate how many meals of each protein source are to be used in each month. I made sure to plan for some holidays and celebrations, for which we might want specific foods/meats. 

not at all elaborate -- my quickly scratched out distribution of dinner protein
foods, using a page in a notebook. A bit of a mess, but it works.

To use this distribution chart, I circle the tally marks as I plan for each meat/protein when making out a rough menu plan each week. I received a free, small calendar this past January and had not yet figured out how I would use it. Anyway, this seemed like the perfect little planning tool for our dinner menus. Once per week, I take out the distribution chart and plot out the protein sources for each night of the week, noting the meats for the week first, then filling in with eggs, TVP, or beans for the non-meat days. If for some reason we don't use one or more of the meats for a month, then those foods become bonus meats to use in lunches. For example, we didn't use 1 batch of hotdogs and 2 cans of chicken in July. Those meats will now be added to August lunches.

July's dinner ingredient planning.
The upper left corner of the menu is where I add my grocery shopping totals.
I shopped twice for groceries in July.  Most of July's food
came from the emergency pantry/freezer stocked in April and May.

I spend about 5 minutes per week rough-planning our dinners. I don't choose recipes during this planning time, but merely allocate what meats we'll be eating on which night. As I do other things during the week, I figure out how we'll prepare the meats. In addition, our garden's abundance is also plotted out on the calendar as I see what needs using up. The other household members each cook a night per week, so the calendar (posted on our fridge) is there for them, too, to see what foods they should use in their meal.

I'm not one to go to elaborate planning for meals. This solution was simple, cost nothing, and has been a boon to our dinner planning for the past 3 months. I expect it will continue to be a success as we go into fall and winter, too.

I mentioned above that I took note of celebrations and holidays when distributing the protein foods by month on the first chart. With Thanksgiving and Christmas in a yet unknown period of transmission of the coronavirus, I've saved whole chickens to be used in lieu of turkeys for those holiday meals. I've also set aside special breakfast foods, such as sausage and bacon for holiday and other celebratory breakfasts.

You may be wondering, how is this an emergency food supply if we're currently using it up? Every couple of months, I am refilling most of the basic foods in our storage, so that we could continue to have an emergency supply for as long as we feel it's needed. This approach gives me the freedom to watch for sales and deals as I fill the developing gaps.

Anyway, this is the scheme that I've developed for using our stockpile. An easy-peasy plan for our emergency pantry -- no waste, no redundancy, and low effort meal planning. 

I hope you're all having a wonderful first week of August!

Our Sunday Brunch Cook-Out

Since we're still only gathering outdoors with our son and DIL (and they are the only ones outside our household that we're gathering with), we decided on a cook-out brunch for July's get-together. This worked out well. We were able to maintain some physical distance while spending good time together. After brunch, we set up the croquet set and enjoyed some backyard fun.

Our Menu

Make your own kabobs, using the following:

• chicken-apple sausage (cut into chunks)
• pork breakfast sausage
• pork bacon (strips cut in half to thread onto skewers like ribbon candy)
• bell pepper chunks
• pineapple chunks
• onion chunks
• new potatoes, purple fingerling from garden (pre-cooked for about 11-12 minutes in pot of simmering water)
• Chinese sweet sausage (brought by son and DIL)

extra dishes to round out the meal:

pan of overnight cinnamon rolls

quiche (baked the day before)

berries and bananas (garden raspberries and blueberries)

orange juice, sparkling water, and kombucha (brought by son and DIL)

I set up all of the food on a table on our deck. Each plate was lined with a sheet of waxed paper so that uncooked meat would not contaminate the plates from which we'd eat. My son and his wife went up to the deck to fill their plates first, then our household followed after they were done. (My son and DIL have more interactions with other people than we do, so we're just being ultra-cautious not to be in such close proximity that we're breathing directly on each other.)

We each assembled our own skewers on our own waxed paper-lined plate (threw out our waxed paper after putting the kabobs togethers and roasting). Then we each cooked our own skewers over a fire in the patio fire ring. At this point we helped ourselves to the extra dishes and beverages then ate our brunch in chairs set up on the patio.

I had almost everything in my kitchen to create this menu, only adding the chicken-apple sausage and green pepper to my shopping order for July. It was fun, changed things up, and very budget-friendly for us.

Entertaining within our current pandemic restrictions can be tricky. At least for right now, it's summer and the weather allows us to gather outdoors.

Sorry I wasn't here last week. I was busy all week, in large part, cleaning up outdoor spaces (scrubbing the brick patio, cleaning the deck, etc). I hope you all had a wonderful week!

My Emergency Freezer Storage

Although a dry storage pantry is a good way to keep many foods, I've found that's it's more economical to keep some foods in frozen form. This would include eggs, some of our milk, and most of our meat. 

• Powdered eggs are very expensive, yet fresh eggs are relatively easy to freeze and take up just a small amount of freezer space (see this post on freezing eggs). 
• With regards to milk -- as many of you likely discovered this spring, powdered non-fat milk is expensive. Powdered whole milk (I use whole milk for making yogurt) is even more so. Most of us only have so much freezer-space to give over to those large gallon jugs of milk. So, I freeze several months' worth of whole milk for making yogurt and enough jugs of 2% drinking milk to get through about 1 to 2 months. The rest of our emergency milk is powdered non-fat, bought as cheaply as I could find.
• I do stock some canned meat. However, for variety and economy, fresh meat kept in the freezer is my preference.

So, what all did I buy (or plan to buy) for my emergency freezer supplies? Here's my list:

eggs and dairy

• eggs, frozen in pint containers, 6 eggs per each container, total of 10 dozen -- egg prices are still low, so I may add another 5 dozen eggs to the freezer in the next couple of weeks. This would give us a 3-month supply of eggs.
• whole milk, frozen in gallons for making yogurt, enough to make yogurt for 3 to 4 months. (I will add some 2% gallons for drinking as room allows in the next few weeks.)
• 5-lb bags of cheese (I was able to buy a few bags of mozzarella when prices were super low -- about $1.70/lb)

meat

• frozen whole chickens
• frozen hamburger patties (Walmart, GV, less expensive per pound than fresh ground beef)
• frozen hot dogs
• frozen bacon (both turkey and pork, bought before prices skyrocketed)
• frozen pork sausage links
• frozen ham
• I may add 1 or 2 whole turkeys this fall

fruits and vegetables

• frozen foraged and garden berries -- we plan on picking wild blackberries again this year. Last year we picked 16 ice cream pails full.
• chopped rhubarb -- I freeze it on trays then put in a gallon ziploc
• quarts of homemade rhubarb sauce
• frozen orange and apple juice concentrate, enough for several months (Walmart, GV)
• some garden herbs, basil and rosemary -- they retain more flavor when frozen as opposed to dried

fats and oils

• frozen butter (restaurant supply, case of 30 1-lb blocks, bought when prices were super low)

There's a major difference that affects quantity and choice between a dry storage and freezer emergency storage -- capacity. Unless you live in an RV or tiny house, your capacity for dry storage is actually quite large. You can store canned goods in spare closets, laundry rooms, basements, cabinets/armoires/trunks in living spaces, under beds, behind sofas, almost anywhere except bathrooms (too humid for many goods). In contrast, with freezer storage, the limit is quite obvious. Many of us just have the freezer attached to our refrigerator. Some of us also have a stand-alone freezer. I'm quite fortunate to have abundant freezer space. 

If I had to prioritize freezer space while thinking of frugality and stocking up for an emergency, I would focus on meat (because the price on meat can fluctuate greatly and I wouldn't want to be caught out with too little meat for an extended period), eggs (they take so little space to store in the freezer and we know that egg prices rise every fall through winter), canned juice concentrate (also takes up little room, with cans fitting in gaps between other items), and some butter (but only if found on sale). 

With surplus garden or foraged produce -- if my freezer space were limited, I would focus on canning those items. And for the milk, I would keep powdered milk on hand instead of freezing gallon jugs of milk, as milk takes up a lot of space in a freezer and powdered is a good alternative in an emergency.

Also, you should know that I have other foods in my freezer, just none that I bought specifically to get through an extended period without shopping. For example, I freeze leftovers, homemade stock, homemade bread and buns, ice cream in season, other meat that I find great deals on, some frozen veggies, and odds and ends from the garden. These are items that we use on a regular basis and are not held aside to use at a later date.

In addition to the emergency pantry, we have always planned on using the garden and orchard for at least a little fresh produce from March through October. The garden and orchard have always been a component of our "back-up plan."


Next week, I'll share how I ensure we use everything spread over a long period, while maintaining a lot of variety every week.