Cheap & Cheerful Meals for the Last Week of September

Friday
pepperoni pizza, stuffed grape leaves, fruit compote (banana, apple, plums, preserved figs), oatmeal- butterscotch chip cookies

Saturday
burgers, garden corn, plums, cole slaw, carrot sticks, blackberry cheesecake ice cream

Sunday
lentil vegetable soup, biscuits, chocolates (from last Christmas!)

Monday
chicken tamales, seasoned rice, refried beans and cheese, sautéed kale and onions, plums in spiced fig syrup, cookies

Tuesday
tamale pie (using leftover chicken and beans from Monday), sautéed pumpkin blossoms/garlic/onions, cabbage and kale slaw, fresh plums

Wednesday
scrambled eggs with green onions, sausage links, sautéed mixed cole crop greens (kale, cauliflower leaves, Brussel sprout leaves), roasted purple potatoes, stewed prunes

Thursday
spaghetti with meat sauce, sautéed mixed cole crop greens (kale, cauliflower leaves, Brussel sprout leaves), fresh plums

breakfasts -- waffles, biscuits, carrot-spice rolls, toast, cream of wheat, instant oatmeal, yogurt, frozen blackberries, fresh plums, tomatoes, eggs, peanut butter, toasty o's cereal

lunches -- tomato-basil soup, grape leaf and beef soup, pumpkin soup, leftovers, apples, tomatoes, plums, lentils, refried beans, seasoned rice, peanut butter, garden potatoes

snacks -- any of the above, plus roasted almonds, peanuts, graham crackers, popcorn, cheese crackers, raisins, pop corn

I am still trying to use as much produce from our garden, orchard and berry patch in our meals. With a waning garden, this means I scavenge for vegetables more than in the high season, for example, the leaves from Brussel sprouts (picked judiciously leaving most on the plants while sprouts develop), leaves on cauliflower (same as Brussel sprouts), grape leaves as a leafy green, pumpkin and squash blossoms now that no more fruit would have enough time to fully develop, and corn husks for making tamales. As a berry bonus, the fall crop of ever-bearing raspberries provides a handful of raspberries every day. Not much, but makes a good snack for the lucky person happening to be in the garden first in the day. Despite using all I can find in the garden, I will be putting in another order for groceries this week, and it will include more fresh produce than pick-ups made in summer.

All of the bread products and desserts are scratch, as are the various soups from the week. And we did have a lot of soup this past week, as the rainy, cool weather came on strong. We had lentil-vegetable soup, grape leaf and beef soup, tomato-basil soup, and pumpkin curry soup.  Our rainy week sure did give me more time and motivation to cook and bake.

What was on your menu this past week? Any stand-outs that you can't wait to eat again?

My Week, Autumn Begins

We had an extremely wet weekend, prompting me to get some harvesting in. I finished harvesting the tomatoes and pulled out all of the basil. The basil had been in small planters on the deck, which means I could repurpose those planters for a fast growing vegetable in my fall deck garden. I chose radishes for those 2 planters. I planted the seeds thickly, not for the root ends, but for use as greens, both in salads and cooked. I chopped and froze most of the basil, saving some for bruschetta later in the week, and I made a basil stock with the stems to use as a base for basil-tomato soup.

The furnace came on and I just let it. In previous years, I've shut the furnace off until the first of October. Because we've saved so much money in other areas this year (and we still have an earned income), I'm "splurging" on early season extra heat. My husband, who is a very thin man, really appreciated the additional heat.

I cooked a winter squash from our garden for dinner one night. I saved the seeds that I scooped out, setting aside about 40 for planting freezing the remaining seeds for roasting when I have more pumpkin or squash seeds from other meals. Cool weather makes one long for foods like winter squash. After a heavy rain that night, the next morning I pulled up all of the green bean plants and tied them in a bundle to hang upside down for the seeds pods to finish maturing for next year's green bean seeds.

On the last afternoon of summer I decide to tackle the pots of tulip bulbs. Earlier in summer, the squirrels made a mess of my tulip pots, eating many of the bulbs in the process. When I noticed this, I moved the pots of remaining bulbs and soil to a place those cute but pesky critters couldn't get to. Finally, on Tuesday I had the time to replant the remaining bulbs. I just know that if I just set the replanted bulbs back out on the deck, the squirrels would come along in short order for another snack. This time, I covered the 2 pots with red net onion bags which I tied to the pots near their bases with string saved from a large sack of dried beans. I'm waiting to see if the furry bulb fiends will attempt to get into those pots. So far, so good. Do you save things like net produce bags and used string, too?

Mid-week I dug the potatoes. This year's harvest was not as plentiful as I'd hoped -- about 25 pounds. I sorted them and set aside about 5 pounds for seed potatoes for next year. (I'm doubling my potato patch next year, so will need double what I've been setting aside.) That leaves us with about 20 pounds of potatoes, which should last us through November, maybe into December. In addition, I'll be buying a couple of 10-lb bags of russets when I find them at a good price.

I also harvested the last bucket of plums and almost all of the tomatoes. I dried most of the plums this months and now have 4 full quart-size bags of prunes for winter. The tomatoes are mostly still green, and I have them laid out on a large towel to slowly ripen. The ever-bearing raspberries are just now ripening their small fall crop. These are such a delicious treat at this time of year. We've set up a bed to which we'll move some of the rogue ever-bearing raspberries, doubling our fall raspberry harvest in a couple of years.

Special lunch this week

Because we just don't go out to eat any more, I wanted to make a special lunch for my household -- sliced cheddar cheese, crackers, dried cranberries, roasted almonds, two types of our own apples, green fig pickles, and squares of dark chocolate. I also found a bottle of sparkling water in the pantry to go with our repast. I used a large wooden tray on which I placed two large grape leaves to go under the cheese slices and crackers. I thought it looked pretty in a very fall-like way, and all was delicious. What are some of the little ways that you celebrate autumn?

Why do I like doing this and why take the time to make it look nice? Making the effort to do this nicely feeds our sense of luxury without spending any more than our usual lunch budget. As a bonus, we tend to gather and sit a while when I make an effort, as opposed to everyone helping themselves to a pot of soup on the stove and then scattering to their corners of the house.

extra posts

Two extra posts for your weekend reading. 

• One, a question on how I can use about 1 liter of totally flat cola. Read and add suggestions here.
• And the other, our cheap and cheerful meals for the week. All of the details, here.

I hope you all had a wonderful week. What were the highlights of your week? Any savings this week?

Enjoy your weekend!

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers For This Past Week

kale, cheese, bacon, and onion biscuits --
a nice change from plain biscuits and squeezes in a bit of vegetables

Friday
homemade pepperoni pizza, sautéed turnips and greens, winter squash, plum pie

Saturday
bean tacos (topped with cheese, diced tomatoes, green onions), Swiss chard, carrot sticks, plum pie

Sunday
eggs topped with simple marinara, rice, cole slaw, applesauce

Monday
chili, kale-cheese-bacon biscuits, rhubarb sauce

Tuesday
chili, bruschetta, rhubarb and apple sauce

Wednesday
hotdog cook-out, homemade buns, garden slaw, fresh plums, sautéed summer squash

Thursday
pancakes, turkey bacon, sautéed kale and onions, fresh plums

Humble meals

We are still eating a lot from our garden -- tomatoes, turnips, Swiss chard, kale, winter squash, plums, green onions, herbs, apples, green peppers, rhubarb, summer squash and more. As you can imagine, this really stretches our grocery budget this time of year and ensures we eat really well.

Breakfasts included toasty o's cereal, toasted homemade bread, homemade cinnamon rolls, homemade yogurt, fresh plums, frozen blackberries, tomatoes, juice, coffee, and milk.

Lunches were more varied, including graham crackers with peanut butter, a cheese, cracker, apple platter, toasted pizza sandwiches, dinner leftovers, raisins, more plums and tomatoes, bananas, pbj's, popcorn, and a pot of carrot soup.

I'm a very lucky person. All of my family members enjoy simple home-cooking. I call our meals "cheap & cheerful" because these meals are budget stretchers while bringing smiles to my family as we gather around the kitchen table.

What was on your menu this past week? What meals are budget stretchers for your household?

What Would You Do With a Liter of Flat Regular Cola?

This bottle is left over from last December. Yeah, old, I know. It's been sitting at the back of the fridge for almost 10 months. I've used a little here and there, mostly in barbecue sauce for sloppy lentils. 

I'm determined to use it up in the next two weeks. I need specifics - recipes, instructions, or links. How would you use 1 liter of completely flat, sweetened cola? I've used the fruity soda for gelatin, but somehow I just don't think that would work with cola.

Suggestions, please, in the comments. I also have about 1 cup of flat root beer in the fridge, if you have any suggestions for that one.

My Week, Kitchen and Garden

This past week centered around and kitchen and garden. 

We did indeed finish picking blackberries. (Remember that pillow-sized bag of frozen blackberries?) I have since moved on to the plum tree. The plums ripen over a couple of weeks, so I harvest and process over this whole period. This past week I made prunes, plum jam, plum pie, as well as served a lot of fresh plums in compotes, yogurt, and out of hand. I also make chutney every fall, using plums, apples, raisins, and onions. I'm out of onions for the time being. So the chutney-making will have to wait until I can get another grocery order placed. (Gee, I miss those days when I could just run out and pick up 1 thing when I needed it.) Our fruit bowl currently has fresh tomatoes, plums, and a couple of bananas. Once I finish harvesting the plums, I'll move on to digging potatoes. I hope those did well!

This is the perfect time of year to be using our electric dehydrator. Our cool September house benefits from the heated air spewed into the kitchen by the food dehydrator. In addition to drying plums I've also been drying herbs this week. It looks like this will be the last oregano and sage harvest for the year. I cut both plants back as far as I dare go. I now have about 3 cups each of loose-packed dried oregano leaves and sage leaves. Our oregano harvest was not as good as previous years. I'll be working on that part of the herb garden next spring, weeding and mixing in some compost in hopes of getting the output higher again.

This has been about the most frustrating gardening year in terms of dealing with critters. The other day I noticed something had been on the deck and in the raised trough planters. Whatever "it" was, it didn't do a great deal of damage. Then Thursday morning I caught a squirrel in one planter digging up the turnip plants. I replanted those turnips, and I hope they'll take hold again. Then I put a stick fence all the way around the trough. Afterward, I checked the kale trough and found several severed leaves and some half eaten stems. I assume it was the little squirrel doing the damage. I salvaged what I could to use in a couple of meals then built another little fence around that trough. The weather turned chilly earlier than usual and I think this squirrel is looking for food as well as burying spots for his winter stash. I do wonder if the squirrel knows something I don't know about this coming fall and winter.

With the cooler weather I've also been harvesting tomatoes. I've picked all of the orange to red ones and am moving on to the green tomatoes. In my area, tomatoes typically die from blight and not frost. Blight usually develops after a cool rain long before we get a frost. So I pick them as soon as the weather cools like it has this last week. I let some stay on the vine a little longer, so they can grow just a bit more. But I also hedge my bets and pick some now to ripen indoors, even if they're on the small side. In another week or so, I'll use the tiniest green tomatoes in pickle relish for this next year (another reason I need some onions).

I also made the last of the tomato salsa for the year, using up most of the garden cilantro. So, for the year, I made 28 pints of salsa. My family can really plough through it quickly. I'll keep my fingers crossed that this supply lasts a while.

My potted lettuce has been growing so slowly. I don't know if this is the low-light conditions from this time of year or from the cooler nights. Anyway, I moved 2 pots of Romaine into the house and under lights. I hope I can revive them and get more salads for the family.

I came across another World War 2 British series on youtube this week and managed to binge the whole series in a couple of evenings. It's titled Wartime Kitchen and Garden. There are 8 episodes, each about 23 minutes. The series was produced in 1993, predating the series Wartime Farm by nearly 20 years. Wartime Kitchen and Farm is perhaps not as polished as Wartime Farm, but it contains a lot of interesting and sometimes helpful information. Two of the "stars" are people who lived through WW2 and personally understood how challenging the war made cooking and gardening. The real benefit I find from watching these series is a sense of camaraderie with other folks who have needed to be resourceful, make-do, and resist wasting food. Here's the link to episode 1, Wartime Kitchen and Garden. Enjoy!

I placed a Walmart order to be shipped to my house this past week, stocking up on canned tomatoes, tomato paste, instant mashed potatoes, imitation bacon bits (we like them on baked potatoes and in green vegetables), and a giant tub of black licorice for October. Everybody likes a treat now and then. I also picked up an order with more meat, milk, and a couple of pantry items that I can't get shipped.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers

Meals this last week continued to be humble but tasty. We prepared everything at home, using a lot of garden produce and making as much from scratch as possible, including scratch flour tortillas, scratch biscuits, scratch bread, scratch yogurt, and scratch desserts. My job is all about providing food for my hungry family while staying on a budget.

Friday

pepperoni pizza, sautéed kale, tomato-cucumber salad, rhubarb-blackberry crisp

Saturday

lentil tacos, rice, tomato wedges, carrot sticks, leftover crisp

Sunday

peanut noodles, sautéed cabbage, tomatoes, plums

Monday

beef and bean burritos (in homemade flour tortillas), fresh tomatoes, sautéed kale, canned corn, plum pie

Tuesday (repeat of Monday)

more beef and bean burritos, fresh tomatoes, carrot sticks and dip, leftover plum pie

Wednesday

pancake and sausage roll-ups, Swiss chard and scrambled eggs, tomato-cucumber salad, sautéed cinnamon apples, scratch brownies

Thursday

chicken and dumplings (using 1 chicken breast, sage stock, garden kale, carrots, and scratch biscuit dough), fresh plums

Breakfasts included homemade yogurt, last of the fresh blackberries, chopped fresh plums, toast, oatmeal, eggs, juice, coffee, milk.

Lunches and snacks used the leftover refried beans and rice, a pot of Italian garden vegetable and lentil soup, scratch biscuits, bread, cheese, peanut butter, fresh plums, fresh tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, brownies, and popcorn.

Extra Post

Just one extra post this week -- using the stems from homegrown, dried herbs after removing the leaves. Read about that here.

I hope you all had a wonderful week. What were your highlights? Have you watched either Wartime Kitchen and Garden or Wartime Farm? How have shows like those benefitted you?

Using the Stems From My Dried Garden Herbs

a quart of oregano stock

If you grow and dry your own herbs, you may be like me and think that the twiggy/woody stems might be useful for more than just compost additive. 

This past week I harvested more sage and oregano, cutting stems with leaves on. After washing the herbs, I dried them in the dehydrator. Once fully dried, I removed the leaves from the stems and store them in airtight containers. Remaining is a pile of twiggy or woody herb stems. 

Not wanting to waste even one little bit, I made a broth with each batch of herb stems. In one saucepan I placed the stems from the dried oregano and into another saucepan I placed the stems of the dried sage. I added about a quart of water to each pot and brought them to a boil. I simmered the herbs, covered, for about 2 hours, then strained and refrigerated the resulting stocks to use in cooking later during week.

sage stock to use in chicken and dumplings

The oregano stock is very mild and added a nice flavor to an Italian vegetable and lentil soup. The sage stock was more highly flavored. It was used as the liquid in a pot of chicken and dumplings.

Using the stems from my dried herbs helps stretch my winter herb supply. I use a lot of both oregano and sage in winter cooking, often depleting my supply before spring growth begins again. Anything I can do to maximize what I grow is a savings, as it reduces the chance I'll need to buy commercial herbs come April or May. I still compost my herb stems. I just now do that after I make stock with them.

My Week, Early September (plus links to 2 new posts)

(links to 2 new posts near the bottom of the page)

Hi friends! These short weeks go by in a blur, don't they?

This past week, we've swung from so chilly that the furnace kicked in one day early in the week to Thursday, so warm we've got the windows open. We've had drizzle, fog, and sunshine, sometimes even all in the same day. My husband has been using the dry days to complete the painting of the deck railing. While I see these sunshiny moments as opportunities to hang dry the laundry.

Unofficial summer came to an end with the conclusion of the 3-day weekend. How was your Labor Day? Did you cook-out? We had a fire-ring cook-out at our house to celebrate. I made scratch hot dog buns and we each roasted our own hot dogs. I also used garden tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and garlic to make one salad and garden plums, apples, blackberries, and preserved figs (from last year) to make a fruit salad. I also used garden kale in a cheesy kale and mashed potato casserole. 

And I made blackberry cheesecake ice cream for dessert, using foraged blackberries, heavy cream, milk, cream cheese, sugar, yogurt, and vanilla. We enjoyed all of it! 

The Tuesday following the long weekend, I put away all of the patriotic decor and dishes (red, white, and blue stuff). Appropriate to this next season, I pulled out the harvest tablecloth.

Frustrated with the mess of supplement and rx bottles in the cabinet, I made risers one afternoon out of cracker boxes. 

I taped the open end of an empty cracker box closed.

Next, I cut the box in half, lengthwise.

I slid one half inside the other.

Then stacked the now small box on top of a regular box.

Now doesn't that look better? We can actually find what we need now. And, it has stayed this way all week! That's the mark of success with these organizational projects -- it stays organized.

My fall vegetable garden on the deck is humming right along. The lettuce and spinach has been growing slowly, however the kale looks great (above). The kale will continue to grow for another few weeks. When cold weather returns, I'll push the deck planter up against the house to give it some freeze protection, extending its usefulness as much as possible. Beginning in late October through November we'll use the kale in meals. Sometime in mid to late December, the kale will die back and the plants will remain dormant through winter. In mid-March, it will return and give us several weeks of kale to harvest before going to seed.

I continue to freeze blackberries. Every time I think we're done with the blackberry picking, my husband finds more. I open the fridge door and there's another pail full. This is one of two jumbo bags of frozen blackberries. The bags are the size of a standard pillow. This is free food. Good thing we love blackberries!

I worked at making treats and snacks for my family again this week. The cinnamon rolls were a big hit, especially since I made it clear that they could be snacked on whenever and not just saved for breakfast. I also baked a couple of batches of bar cookies and made popcorn on several occasions. Making these snacks meant we used less of the commercial snack foods, like crackers. I've said before, we're a cracker-eating family, here.

New Posts

I got to writing up our grocery spending for the month of August. We spent a fair amount this past month. However, we did stock up quite a bit. You can read about it here in this post. 

Some of our pantry stock-up items were ordered online and shipped to our house. The boxes came packed with brown craft paper. I had quite the mound of crumpled paper in my dining room for the month. I finally got to getting that cleaned up. Now the big question, what can I do with all of this paper? Read about it here, and please add your ideas for how to use this. Yes, I do save and reuse this sort of stuff, just like I save string from commercial bags of beans and rice. No I don't have a ball of string the size of Minnesota in my kitchen drawer. This is the string that I use every summer to tie up tomato plants and in winters to truss whole chickens and turkeys for roasting. You know the drill -- waste no, want not.

And that's about it for the week. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. What's on the agenda for your weekend?

What Would You Do With Yards of Slightly Crumpled Brown Craft Paper?

My recent orders from Walmart.com came packed in boxes cushioned with crumpled brown craft paper. You should have seen the mound of paper I had in my dining room! As I was rolling it up to store more neatly, I was thinking of the ways I could use it all.

• a biodegradable weed barrier in the yard and garden
• layer of paper between layers of green tomatoes at the end of the gardening season
• wrapping paper (some of the smoother sections, perhaps ironed on LOW) for gifts at the holidays
• packing paper for shipping gifts at the holidays
• parcel wrapping paper for mailing
• compost additive
• scrap paper for jotting down notes

That's what I've come up with so far. What would you do with several dozen yards of slightly used brown craft paper?

At the end of my hour-long clean-up of this mound of paper, I stored in all in rolls fitted into a cardboard box. It's amazing that what was once a rather large mound can now fit neatly in a medium-sized box.

August 2021 Grocery Recap

grocery shopping with ration books during WWII
image source: 
https://flashbak.com/the-rationing-years-in-britain-1939-1954-21011/

In August, I made 3 curbside pick-up orders at our local Walmart and placed 3 online orders to be shipped to my home at Walmart.com, spending a total of $364.48. In some cases, it made more sense (and cents) to order items online. For other items, buying in-person (either in store or pick-up) was the only way to make those purchases. So that's why I take a hybrid approach when shopping.

With our garden producing so well, I was able to buy less produce and spend more in other food categories. So I stocked up on meat, nuts, flour, and a couple of other pantry items. I'm still working on completing my stock-up for the fall and winter months, thinking ahead to holiday menus and what I might need for those.

Here's a comparison of previous month's grocery spending:

Aug 2020   $92.18

Sept 2020  $182.30

Oct 2020   $304.52

Nov  2020  $189.45

Dec  2020  $77.98

Jan  2021  $54.07

Feb  2021  $184.66

Mar 2021   $152.77

Apr 2021  $447.19

May 2021  $285.53

June 2021 $127.98

July 2021 $293.58

August 2021 $364.48

My spending in August is on the high side (but not the highest ever) for my family. However, almost $150 of that was on fresh and frozen meat.

I'm just beginning to stock up on canned vegetables (carrots and pumpkin) for the winter. We went through a lot of canned carrots last winter. Not only are they easy, but they store on a shelf instead of the fridge, and the price is comparable to fresh. I'll pick up some more canned veggies this month.

Here's what I bought:

2 heads green cabbage, Walmart, 58 cents/lb
14 bananas, Walmart, 46 cents/lb
2 bundles celery, Walmart, $1.28 ea
.58 lb jalapeno peppers, Walmart, 98 cents/lb
3-lb bag onions, Walmart, $2.47
2  5-lb bag carrots, Walmart, $3.44 ea

3 packs turkey bacon, Walmart, $2.48 ea
2 24-oz packs bacon, Walmart, $5.98 ea
2  32-oz rolls pork sausage, Walmart, $4.78 ea
3 16-oz turkey Italian sausage, Walmart, $3.23 ea
20 1-lb rolls ground beef, Walmart, $2.88 ea
4 family packs boneless skinless chicken breasts, Walmart, $2.04/lb
jumbo pack (20-ct) Hebrew National kosher beef hot dogs, Walmart, $9.98

5 dozen eggs, Walmart, $7.47
3 gallons fat-free milk, Walmart, $3.07 ea
16-oz heavy cream, Walmart, $1.98
2-pack cream cheese, Walmart, $2.87 (for making blackberry cheesecake ice cream)

12 cans pumpkin, Walmart, 97 cents ea
12 cans carrots, Walmart, 48 cents ea
48-oz vegetable shortening, Walmart, $3.12
32-oz raw honey, Walmart, $7.93
8 20-oz raisins, Walmart.com, $2.94 ea
5 16-oz whole almonds, Walmart.com, $4.96 ea
2 35-oz containers cocktail peanuts, Walmart, $4.23 ea
32 oz pecan halves, Walmart, $18.68
4 boxes graham crackers, Walmart, $1.26 ea
4 bags chocolate chips, Walmart, $1.74 ea
4 10-lb bags all-purpose flour, Walmart.com, $2.50 ea
2 5-lb bags corn meal, Walmart.com, $2.36 ea
2 64-oz jars peanut butter, Walmart.com, $4.34 ea
8 lbs split peas, Walmart.com, $1.02/lb

12 cans tuna, Walmart.com, 74 cents ea
3 jars mayonnaise, Walmart.com, $1.94 ea
5 boxes bran flakes cereal, Walmart, $1.98 ea

My Week, Last of August

Hi friends,

And the month of August is over just like that! I was out walking in the neighborhood this morning and noticed many homes with autumn decorations up already. Lots of autumn-themed wreaths, a bale of hay or two, and even a small scarecrow adorning a front porch. One neighbor planted a pumpkin patch in her front yard, and she had a nice selection of big pumpkins growing. Her front yard receives a lot of sunshine from morning to evening. Meanwhile, in my rather heavily treed backyard, my own pumpkin patch is looking rather anemic. I have 3 small pumpkins and 3 extra small pumpkins, plus 2 small acorn squashes. It's time to consider taking out a couple more trees.

The blackberry picking is just about done for the year. Our "spot" got cut down in between weekends in late August and our own blackberry patch at the back of the yard is almost fully-picked. I froze somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 quarts of blackberries to use this winter.

Do you ever imagine how you could grow more food on your property if the grocery supply chain became became unreliable? I was thinking it all through as I walked our property the other afternoon. We're on a suburban lot, so it's not like we have unlimited space to garden. My best options would be to convert two spots to garden space, the back lawn and a patch that's in the center of our circular driveway.  My husband and I have been talking about that patch in the center of the driveway for a while. It's overgrown with trees and ferns and might be a nice spot to plant another apple tree plus have a sunnier pumpkin patch. Anyways, with the world feeling so crazy these days, my thoughts went to a place of "what could we do to help ourselves, if needed."

ripe radish seed pods

Back to reality, the radish seed pods are just now beginning to fully mature and dry out. I plucked a couple of pods the other day and split them open. The pods contain between 1 and 6 seeds each. I'm hoping to have enough seeds for planting next spring as well as growing sprouts indoors this winter. We'll have to see if I get enough for both planting needs.

You might remember, last summer my family decided to skip any sort of vacation for 2020. We used that savings to stock an emergency pantry. We relied on those staples all through winter, which meant I didn't need to venture out for groceries during the winter peak of Covid cases. Well, here we are into September of 2021, and we're not taking any sort of vacation for this year, either. In addition, we've now not eaten restaurant food, purchased movie or museum tickets, or bought stuff other than food and household necessities for this past year and a half. So, once again we have enough to restock our emergency/winter pantry. 

Whenever I have had a pity party moment, feeling sorry for myself for no vacations or eating out, I think about the satisfaction I have in knowing that we are putting together a full pantry and will have plenty to eat all winter long. 

Storing away food for winter was once a priority for families. I suppose this had a lot to do with farm life and growing the bulk of one's own food. But I also think there is wisdom in uncertain modern times to switch spending away from more frivolous spending and into pre-paying for basic needs, such as by paying off a mortgage early or stocking a winter pantry. Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Two posts for your weekend reading, if you're so inclined.

My substitution for brown sugar. I haven't bought brown sugar in about 20 years. I never had enough when I needed it or it was hard as a rock. So, I stopped buying it. Here's how I substitute.

I made the second batch of salsa this week. I don't use garden tomatoes for salsa but instead, I use canned tomatoes. I broke down the cost benefit for using canned tomatoes to make a fairly easy and quick salsa to can in place of buying commercial salsa. Read about it here.

Have a wonderful weekend. Stay safe, especially if you'll be traveling over the holiday. Once again, we'll be having a cook-out. Either hot dogs or burgers, some oven-roasted veggies, a fruit jello salad, a garden vegetable salad, and some blackberry cheesecake ice cream.

No Garden Tomatoes for Canning Salsa? Canned Tomatoes Work Just As Well

Canned tomatoes are also easier to use, as they are pre-peeled. The sensitive skin on my hands thanks me for using canned tomatoes, too.

I buy the institutional-sized cans of whole peeled tomatoes at our restaurant supply for $3.39/can. But they're also available through other outlets like Costco Business and Sam's Club or online through Webstaurant Store. 

Of course, smaller cans could also be used. The large #10 cans that I buy contain the same amount of tomatoes as about 7 1/4  14.5-oz cans of tomatoes sold in grocery stores. So, the price on a #10 can works out to about 45 cents per 14.5 ounces (or 80 cents for the larger 28-oz can). Our local Walmart sells the 28-oz can of diced tomatoes for 96 cents and the 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes for 92 cents each. Those would also be a relative bargain for making salsa. 

The least expensive salsa at Walmart is 6.6 cents/ounce. A pint of salsa at that price comes to $1.06. The cost for my homemade salsa, using canned tomatoes, homegrown garlic, oregano and cilantro, purchased jalapenos, chili powder, red pepper flakes, vinegar, onion,  and salt comes to about 53 cents per pint of ingredients, plus another 10 cents for new lids each year and a couple of pennies for the stove, or about 65 cents per pint jar. For reference, a #10 can of tomatoes makes 8 pints of salsa, using the recipe in this link.

I make 3 batches of salsa each year (total of 24 pints). My cost is about $15.60, total. If I'd bought that amount of salsa at Walmart, I would have spent $25.44. My savings compared to buying the least expensive per ounce salsa at Walmart is a total of $9.84.

It takes me about 30 minutes of actual work per 8-pint batch of salsa. The salsa is tasty. And I find it satisfying to home-can something and save money.

What to Use When All Out of Brown Sugar

It was so chilly this past week that I made crockpot steel cut oats for breakfasts. We like brown sugar, dried fruit, and chopped nuts on our oatmeal. I don't keep brown sugar on hand. It tends to turn into rocks in my kitchen. Instead, when I have a recipe that calls for brown sugar, or if I want a dish of brown sugar for oatmeal breakfasts, I make my own with granulated sugar and molasses.

For the most part, I just eyeball the amount of molasses that I use. But I do follow these rough estimates:

• 1 tablespoon of molasses for every cup of white sugar for light brown sugar 
• 1  1/2 to 2 tablespoons of molasses for every cup of white sugar for dark brown sugar 

When a recipe calls for brown sugar, such as cookie recipes, or if I'm making a pitcher of pancake syrup, I don't bother "making" the brown sugar, instead adding the white sugar and molasses separately. When I want to have a small bowl of brown sugar available for adding to hot cereal or sprinkling on individual pancakes as I stack them, I mix the molasses and sugar together at that time.

Mixing the two together is as easy as using the back of a spoon to mash the molasses into the white sugar. No special tools required.

Round-Up of Posts Week of August 26

This week . . .

We've had more cool and cloudy than sun and warmth this week. It sure feels like fall just slid on in. The cool weather made a great excuse to spend time in the kitchen cooking and baking. My family was pleased with this turn of activities while we're still technically in summer.

The figs ripened later this year than last. Last year we enjoyed ripe figs in late July, sharing with my son and daughter-in-law. This year, the figs didn't ripen until mid-August. That's an indication of our cooler summer weather this year. Anyway, I picked a bucket full the other day, using some fresh in meals and dehydrating the rest to enjoy later. 

After my last grocery pick-up, I made several jars of salsa. This week I've added more jalapeños and will be cooking up another 8 jars of salsa this weekend.

Our summer garden has provided almost all of our produce for this past week. But summer is fading, so I've continued to work on my fall garden. I transplanted a few more seedlings and planted some radish seeds. I'm hoping to have fresh fall greens and new root vegetables through mid to late November. 

This week, I have 2 posts for your weekend reading.

1) Making my grocery budget stretch during this period of food inflation is on my mind. In this post, I discussed my 3-pronged approach that helps me maximize our grocery budget.

2) What did you eat this past week? Anything especially stand out? In the second post, I've written out our meals for this past week, again eating all of our meals at home. 

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers This Past Week

Friday
homemade pepperoni pizza, medley of sautéed summer squash, tomatoes, green pepper, Swiss chard, apple wedges with homemade caramel sauce

Saturday
beef and bean tacos (with homemade salsa), cabbage, carrot sticks, rice, blackberry pie

Sunday
pancakes, breakfast sausage, sautéed Swiss chard, cookies

Monday
meatloaf and gravy, rice, roasted zucchini, fresh figs, blackberry pie

Tuesday
chicken and vegetable soup, biscuits, cookies

Wednesday
hotdog cookout, potato chips, sweet potato fries, carrot sticks, apple wedges

Thursday
chicken and gravy, rice-stuffed grape leaves, sautéed Swiss chard, cucumber salad, brownies

Tonight -- homemade pizza again. I love our homemade pizza more than restaurant pizza. In fact, more and more I am loving home-cooked meals more than restaurant meals.

Breakfasts this week included homemade yogurt and blackberries, homemade granola, homemade instant oatmeal, raisins, applesauce, bananas, toast, eggs, milk, coffee, tea.

Lunches were more varied as I tried to use what I could from the garden. Most days, I set lunch fixins' on the counter for each of us to put together our own lunches on our individual timetables. These lunch components included cream of sorrel soup, Italian vegetable and lentil soup, white bean and vegetable sandwich spread with homemade bread, various leftovers, cheese and peanut butter sandwiches, celery sticks, carrot sticks, fresh blackberries, apple & kale salad, squash blossom salad, crackers, cookies, brownies, ice cream.

One of the commercial items that I hope to use less of this next week is crackers. My family loves them and can go through a box in a day or two. I'm planning on making some different types of buns and biscuits this next week to go with soups or salads instead of getting out another box of crackers. Baking scratch breads would stretch our supply of boxed crackers a little longer.

What was on your menu this past week? Are there commercial foods for which you try to find homemade substitutes?

The Three-Pronged Approach to Saving on Groceries

Grocery prices have been inching higher and higher every month this year. Yet, our income remains the same. So, I am having to double-down on managing our food supplies, using every trick in my repertoire. 

You know that I compare prices when shopping. Once I get those groceries home, I work to get maximum value out of what I purchase. To simplify, I follow a basic approach to providing meals and snacks on a low budget that incorporates 3 straightforward ideas. 1) I push what is cheap; 2) I stretch what is expensive; and 3) I use every morsel and drop of all food.

Push What's Cheap and Plentiful

When I say cheap, I mean both foods that are cheaply bought or that I grow or forage. So, here are some specific instances from this past week where I either nudged or served my family the cheapest of my food supplies:

a jar of homemade instant oatmeal just before stirring it all up

kale and apple salad using garden fruit and veg
plus toasted almonds and raisins

white bean and garden vegetable sandwich spread
w/ homemade whole wheat bread

• homemade granola
• homemade instant oatmeal made with my food processor, adding brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and milk powder
• scratch desserts -- cookies, brownies, and blackberry pie using foraged berries
• homemade soups using garden vegetables -- 1) cream of sorrel, 2) Italian vegetable
• homemade bread
• salads from the garden, including a kale and apple salad one lunch, squash blossom salad another
• white bean and garden vegetable sandwich spread
• chilled bottles of tap water (to encourage inexpensive beverage consumption)
• more grape leaves stuffed with rice and garden herbs for a super inexpensive side dish and leftover snacking
• bottomless container of free foraged blackberries ready for snacking and meals

Stretch What's Expensive

Defining expensive is different for each of us. We all have those ingredients or foods that cost more relative to our budget. For my budget, meat, coffee, tea, chocolate, nuts, and butter all fall into that "expensive" category. Here are some ways that I stretched this category of foods this week:

meatloaf for 4 adults using 8 ounces beef stretched with TVP

homemade chocolate-almond candy

• I made large pots of tea with a single tea bag for us all to enjoy over the course of a day instead of each of us using our own tea bag. Savings -- 3 tea bags
• I love my coffee and decaf. However, to stretch what I have, I've switched from a 12-oz mug to a 6-oz tea cup for drinking coffee and decaf. Savings -- about 3 teaspoons of coffee granules per day
• I made meatloaf using TVP to stretch the ground beef. I rehydrated 1/2 cup of TVP granules and mixed with 8 ounces of ground beef to make a dinner for 4 adults. Savings -- 4 ounces of ground beef (I normally serve 3 ounces of beef per person in our house)
• I made scratch brownies with a mix of vegetable oil and plain yogurt instead of butter. Savings -- 1/2 cup of butter.
• When I baked chocolate chip cookies, I used 3/4 the amount of chocolate chips called for in the recipe. Savings -- 1/4 cup of chocolate chips.
• I used those remaining chocolate chips later in the week in a batch of chocolate covered almonds for my family. In our house, if we snacked on nuts, as is, we'd likely consume 1 cup of nuts in a day. Instead, I took 1/2 cup of whole almonds and coated them with melted chocolate for a candy treat for my family. Savings -- 1/2 cup of almonds. For our plain snacking during the week, I put out the much cheaper roasted peanuts. A note: while it's true we could just skip candy altogether, homemade candy is often a bargain compared to commercial candy. Example -- Hershey with Almond bar, 1.45 oz, 88 cents (Walmart). Homemade chocolate covered almond clusters, 1.45 oz,  about 40 cents.

Save and Use Every Morsel and Drop

I spend a fair amount of effort each week making sure we don't have to throw out or compost food. This week was no different. Here are a few ways I used every last bit of both purchased and homegrown foods.

squash blossom salad

• I made a beautiful and delicious squash blossom salad to have with lunches. Squash and pumpkin blossoms are often overlooked for their food value. They can be added to soups, casseroles, salads, or sauteed. The blossoms are delicate. I soak them in cold water to encourage insects to escape, then pull off the base of the blossom and tear the rest open along one side to lay flat, checking for bugs. I gently pat the mass of blossoms dry before tearing and arranging in a salad or sliced to add to cooked dishes. In the salad I made this week, I used squash blossoms, a tomato, and some greens, and arranged on plates. I dressed with an oil, vinegar, garlic, and thyme vinaigrette. As I said above, squash blossoms are delicate and this is not the type of salad to toss, but instead to arrange on plates.
• I used the bones, skin, and fat/drippings from roasting some chicken legs to make stock in the crockpot overnight. The next day I was able to pick off a bit more meat and then freeze this in the stock.
• When cooking carrots this week, I washed the carrots but did not peel them. Unpeeled carrots may not look as "clean" as peeled ones, but this ensured we ate as much of each carrot as possible. I also used the green tops of the garden carrots in the white bean and vegetable sandwich spread.
• I made a kale and apple salad early in the week, adding the bitter leaves from several garden lettuce plants that are going to seed. Lettuce leaves become bitter when the plants mature and develop blossoms. Most folks compost these leaves along with the tall stalks. I add them to salads that already have strong flavors. Every bit of edible garden produce that we eat from our garden during the growing season will spare some of the prime produce for freezing to eat later.
• When I cooked meat this week, I saved the leftover fat in containers in the freezer to use in cooking later.
• I rinsed and scraped the near-empty yogurt jars to add to the cream of sorrel soup. I also pureed the saved milk skin from making that yogurt, then added to the soup. When I make yogurt, I have to heat the milk to kill competing bacteria before adding the yogurt culture. This creates a milk skin that I then strain off for a smooth finished yogurt. I save the milk skin in a container in the fridge for use in cooking later. That's what I pureed and added to the soup along with the yogurt jar scrapings and rinsings.

This is my three-pronged approach put into action this past week. I know that sometimes it seems like I'm only saving a teensy tiny bit, but in the end, I am able to keep our grocery spending averaging less than half of the governments "thrifty" suggested food spending.

Weekly Round-Up of Posts

Our weather turned unseasonably cool and wet this past week, feeling more like fall than summer. I even made soup as a lunch for us on a couple of occasions and baked a lot as I tried to warm up the house a bit. This happens every August and it throws me for a loop. I start thinking fall when I should still be enjoying summer. Oh well, I'll have to get myself back into summer thinking.

I made a large batch (8 pints) of salsa this past week. My cilantro was ready for picking and I had the canned tomatoes, garlic, oregano already, so this was the week. I did have to buy the jalapeño peppers (as I don't grow those), adding them to my pick-up order on Monday. Next year, I may try growing one plant of jalapeños in a pot. My potted green bell peppers have done well this year. I'll make another large batch of salsa in a week, when I have more cilantro again. Sixteen pints of salsa should be enough to get my family through most of the year.

I also did some stocking up of meat. I bought ground beef, chicken breasts, pork breakfast sausage, Italian turkey sausage. It all seemed like a lot for us, but once I figured out how long this would last, I began to think I should put in another order just like this one. I'll do that next week. I also picked up a box of 5 dozen eggs. I could hardly believe how expensive eggs have become. This same sized box went from $4.75 a year ago to $7.47 this month. 

My daughters and I went foraging for blackberries last weekend, coming home with 3 ice cream pails of blackberries to freeze. It always surprises me that more people don't pick these wild blackberries. I mean, who wouldn't want free food, right? But that's their business. And it means all the more for me and my family. So far this year, I've just used the berries for fresh eating, as is and in yogurt, in pies, and freezing to use in winter. Later on in the season, I'll make a batch of pancake syrup and some jam. I freeze the pancake syrup in 1-cup portions, so I don't have to concern myself with mold growth if we don't get to using it all in a timely manner.

For your weekend reading pleasure, here are the latest of new posts.

My quirky (but useful) tendency of calculating the cost of everything has helped me figure out my goal inventories for our back-up pantry. You can read about how this relates to making pies and pudding in this post.

Do you use leftover pickle or olive brine? I used both this past week. Read about that here.

What was on your menu this past week? Our meals were simple but tasty, using as much as possible from our garden, orchard and foraging. The menus are in the post in this link.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers From This Last Week

As the garden is doing well and we've been blackberry picking, most of our meals contained a fair amount of fruits and vegetables. Our suppers continue to be humble affairs. But everything gets eaten and every tummy is full. 

Friday
scratch pesto and cheese pizza, sautéed turnip greens, rhubarb and apple crisp

Saturday

lentil tacos, fresh blackberries, cucumber salad

Sunday

tvp, rice and peanut sauce, sautéed summer squash and cabbage, blackberries

Monday 
meatloaf with gravy, rice-stuffed grape leaves, fresh figs, cucumber sticks, sautéed zucchini, blackberry pie

Tuesday
pepperoni, green pepper and olive pizza, marinated carrot sticks, fruit salad, leftover pie

Wednesday
chicken, vegetable and sesame chow mein, scratch brownies

Thursday
bean and beef burritos in homemade tortillas, salsa, cucumber sticks, marinated carrot sticks, brownies

Friday's dinner will be pizza, again. I had mentioned to my family that I thought I could eat pizza a couple of times per week. Tuesday -- pizza, tonight -- pizza. Fortunately, my family agreed that pizza twice in a week would be a good thing.

Breakfasts continued to be yogurt with fruit (this week blueberries and blackberries), toast, cold cereal, fruit, juice, and sometimes leftovers from dinner. Do you like dinner leftovers for breakfast, too? Sometimes a lentil taco just hits the spot at 7 AM.

Lunches were homemade soups (one -- Italian lentil and vegetable, the other -- turnip stems, carrot and potato), leftovers, peanut butter sandwiches, garden salads, cheese, fruit& toast, plus cookies or brownies

Snacks included popcorn, fresh fruit, cookies/brownies, peanuts, raisins, crackers

What was on your menu this past week?