Wednesday Gardening Day

Hi friends, 

I intended to write this yesterday, but something went wrong with my head as I was finishing up with garden stuff, and I had a bad dizzy spell. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening motionless and without electronics. I woke up feeling better today. So, hopefully this was a one-off thing. I do get dizzy easily from movement, so there's that. Not to worry.

Anyway, back to gardening.

March may signify the beginning of spring, but it's been cool and wet this week. Nevertheless, I did get some gardening stuff done. 

First, I got out my gardening journal (my pink spiral notebook that doubles as my "motivational journal") and listed what seeds I have already begun for this season (tomato, kale, beets, celery, onions, and Brussel sprouts). I began these seeds two weeks ago in flats under lights indoors.

Next, I pulled out all of my seeds, even old ones. I discarded really old packets -- more than 10 years old was my guideline. Then, I sorted the seeds according to when and where I'd start them. Would I start them outdoors in the ground or indoors in flats? Would I start them in March or April or May? Once sorted, I labeled several boxes (when and where starting) and plunked seeds into each's appropriate box. I now have a firm plan and some organization for starting all of this year's seeds. The beauty of sorting into boxes is that after I begin particular seeds, if I want to succession sow (plant some more later in the season), I can plop the packets of seeds into a second box after starting in an earlier month. Ex, I plant lettuce several times during the season, so after starting lettuce this week, I'll put the packets into a box labeled "late May" for a mid to late-summer harvest. And again for veggies like kale that do well in both spring and fall here, I'll have a box for starting seeds in June.

After this organizational exercise, it was time to start some more seeds in flats under lights. This week I began turnips, a different kind of beets, several types of lettuce, Swiss chard, nasturtiums, and red, white, and "blue" (really a deep purple) petunias. I also soaked parsley seeds in water overnight to start today (Thursday) in Wednesday's tray. And since I love to make lists, I entered the types and quantities (how many cells or pots) of seeds that I began this week into my "gardening journal." I gave my flat of seeds some water and have them under lights for a little heat while they germinate. And now I wait.

If you're on the fence about planting a vegetable garden for this upcoming season, I think it's worthwhile if you have the sunny space and time. From what I've been hearing, we can expect even more food inflation later in 2022, due to increased transportation costs, higher prices on crop fertilizers, and water restrictions for farmers in key growing states like California. There's always something that doesn't grow as well as I'd planned or has some sort of pest problem, but I've never had a garden that didn't give me my money's worth.

Making Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream

Funfetti Cake Batter-flavored ice cream

My daughter planned to curbside-pick up whipping cream and strawberries for both our household and my son and daughter-in-law (2 packages strawberries and 2 containers whipping cream) just before Valentine's Day from Target. When she got the notification that they were out of stock of the strawberries, I told her to skip the whipping cream, too. Well, somehow, Target didn't get that last message in time. They included the whipping cream with my daughter's other personal purchases and charged her for it. She didn't realize this until she came home and unpacked her purchases. So, we were stuck with this whipping cream. I paid her for it and then was thinking, thinking, thinking how I could use it all before it spoiled. 

sprinkles from Target online, shipped to our address,
 less expensive than in store at Walmart or Fred Meyer

Enter the idea for ice cream for both daughters' birthday later this month. Ice cream is a great way to "save" extra heavy cream. The freezer essentially preserves the whipping cream, and the ice cream can be eaten any time in the coming months. Both daughters love cake batter ice cream as well as funfetti anything. I added a canister of rainbow sprinkles to my recent Target order (great price, btw, $2.99 for 9.3 oz) and made plans to do the ice cream this week.

Many recipes for cake batter ice cream call for cake mix. That's fine if you have cake mix on hand. I don't, so I searched around for ideas. I had a hunch that a mix of both almond and vanilla extract would be part of the recipe. As I was searching, I came across a reddit thread with a poster suggesting a mix of almond, vanilla, and butter extract. Guess what? I have all three of these. (The proportions suggested were 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon butter flavoring, and 1/2 cup of rainbow sprinkles stirred in to a standard ice cream base of 2 cups whipping cream, 1 cup whole milk, plus unspecified sugar.)

So, I made the ice cream, using the following measurements:

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup 2% milk (I didn't have whole milk)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon butter flavoring (Wilton)
• 1/2 cup rainbow jimmies

our ice cream maker has been one of our favorite wedding gifts
 from all those years ago

In a large mixing bowl with a spout, I stirred together the cream, milk, sugar, and flavorings (not the sprinkles just yet). I poured the mixture into my pre-chilled ice cream maker. I churned slowly for about 25 minutes. When the ice cream reached soft-serve firm, I churned the sprinkles into the mix. I had tested a sprinkle in a small amount of milk to see if it would bleed into liquid and it did. As a result, I decided to add the colored jimmies once the ice cream was no longer liquid. After churning the sprinkles in, I scooped the finished ice cream into a large plastic container with a lid and smoothed the top (so I can lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the top once it's frozen hard). The ice cream is now hardening in my deep freeze.

I will put a sheet of plastic wrap resting on
top of the ice cream after it's frozen.
This will help prevent ice crystals from forming.

What I thought

I need to preface, I have never chosen cake batter ice cream for myself before. This is a flavor my daughters often choose. I'm more a coffee or chocolate flavor gal when it comes to ice cream. Does it taste like commercial cake batter ice cream? My daughters will have to be the judge on that. And I won't know what my daughters think about this homemade Funfetti Cake Batter ice cream until their birthday later this month. However, if I were to make this again, I would increase the sugar by about 2 tablespoons and increase the almond extract to about 3/4 teaspoon. Otherwise, I thought this was pretty good. I wasn't sure about the butter flavoring, so I only added 1/2 teaspoon at first. After adding this amount and tasting, I added the other 1/2 teaspoon. Because taste can be such a personal thing, I would recommend adding the flavorings in parts and increasing to the suggested amount based on one's own taste.

I wash and reuse the plastic containers that
shortening (Crisco) comes in -- perfect size
for a batch of homemade ice cream.

I still have another pint of whipping cream to use this week. As soon as I can get the chilling chamber re-frozen, I'll be making a chocolate fudge brownie ice cream for my husband's birthday in April.

This is one of those times that my kids and husband are very glad that I waste not, so they can want not.

If you were to find yourself in a situation such as mine -- an extra pint of heavy cream about to expire -- how would you use it?

Another Weekend in the Frugal Life

one of my fun new snack containers for making homemade snack packs

I'm struggling to get through today. So, I thought I'd focus on some positives in my life, in particular, frugal triumphs.

• we ate all meals at home, all scratch-cooked
• we had a homemade pizza dinner on Friday while we watched a free movie on the Roku, Get Shorty (on Pluto TV- a free subscription service, has ads, but hey, I need a break from time to time to use the restroom or get a cup of tea)
• I used YouTube on the Roku while I exercised indoors. Anything I might normally watch on YouTube can be watched on the Roku. I was using music selections (50s doo-wop) to motivate me while I exercised.
• I washed a whole bunch of plastic bags to reuse. I hung these all on the clothes drying rack. I turn them inside out about a day after hanging, then allow to continue drying.
• We also used the clothes drying racks to hang some laundry this weekend.
• I used my cute little snack containers that my daughter gave to me over the weekend, filling them with various goodies and mini cut veggies. I could also eat my snacks off of a plate. But these are more fun.
• I paid bills online and over the phone (the one bill that doesn't have an option to pay online). I saved the cost of several stamps. However, I don't think I recouped the cost of internet access.
• We're in a rainy pattern right now. So I took advantage of the indoor time to organize and inventory the pantry. I mentally set aside a couple of items for our Easter dinner and placed an order to be shipped for basics that I don't want to run out of (raisins, flour, sugar, peanut butter, brown rice, canned tomato paste, non-stock baking spray, and rainbow sprinkles to make funfetti desserts).
• I also inventoried one of the freezers, and I found a whole chicken bought in early 2020. I pulled it out to thaw and oven-roasted it on Monday for our dinner. Everyone loved having a Thanksgiving-like dinner on a regular weekday evening.
• I've been in a funk lately, so I read a couple of online articles (instead of buying books or magazines), which resulted in me using my motivational journal to work out my internal dialog. The "motivational journal" is my 79-cent spiral notebook bought in the school supply section of Target. I knew what I'd be using this notebook for, so I chose a color that I like. It's pink. It's been a bargain. 79 cents to dialog with myself or $$$ for therapy. Easy choice for me.

Where we messed up. 2 family members had ex's to pick-up one day, but they didn't coordinate. So, gas was used to go to the pharmacy and back twice in the same day. Wah wah.

So that was my weekend. What frugal triumphs have you had recently?

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for Late February

Another week of simple meals at our house. You will notice that on several nights, we finished off different garden vegetables for the year. Always makes me a bit sad. As you may have guessed, we like to eat a lot of vegetables. Oddly, I sometimes have to remind myself to cook some meat every now and then, too. After looking at what we ate this past week, I think this next week will be one of those weeks with more meat. Anyway, here's what we had for dinner this past week.

Friday, pizza and movie night (we watched Some Like It Hot)

pepperoni pizza, roasted pumpkin cubes (the last of our garden pumpkins and winter squashes from 2021. :-( sad me), canned green beans, celery sticks, brownies

Mexican-inspired dinner

Saturday
Homemade Mexican -- refried beans and cheese, canned corn, canned tomatoes, homemade flour tortillas, with last of the garden carrots, steamed, brownies

Sunday

lentil-vegetable soup with homemade cheese buns

Monday's hot dogs after a busy afternoon

Monday
toasted hot dogs in bread wraps, Parmesan potatoes (last of the potatoes tonight), steamed carrots, radish green salad with boiled eggs and bacon bits in citrus dressing

I love frittatas!

Tuesday
broccoli and sausage frittata, with brown rice and chicken stock gravy, avocado slices, ginger apple-fig sauce

one daughter made dinner tonight for us

Wednesday
tuna salad on cabbage leaves, carrot sticks and dip, canned green beans, homemade French bread and butter

other daughter made dinner this night

Thursday

vegetable and lentil curry over brown rice with raisins, peanuts, and homemade chutney garnishes

Thursday was a baking day. I made granola (again -- gotta use up some of our oats), blueberry muffins, and some bar cookies, a recipe from one of my mother's first cookbooks. My family liked them, but I thought they were on the dry side and just okay. They were coconut-almond bar cookies, to which I also added dried cranberries. If I were to make these again, I'd use a smaller baking pan so they would be thicker, and maybe use more coconut and almonds. While I was making them, I was thinking that the recipe was a bit skimpy on both almonds (1/4 cup) and coconut (1/2 cup). Perhaps this was a recipe holdover from wartime just a decade earlier. Anyway, I think I may try them again and tweak the recipe a bit. I liked the idea of a coconut bar cookie. The recipe just needs more of the goodie ingredients, in my opinion. So, I baked the sweet things on Thursday and will bake bread for the week on Friday. Lately, I've been quadrupling the pizza dough recipe for Friday's pizza dinner and using 3/4 of the dough to make 2 large loaves of French bread. This seems to be about the right amount of bread for us for one week and we all really like French bread. So, I'll do this again this week, make one large pizza and 2 loaves of bread.

Other meals this week --

Breakfasts: crockpot steel cut oats, bran muffins, granola, homemade yogurt, toast, juice, fruit, coffee, tea, cocoa, milk

Lunches: various pureed vegetable soups, peanut butter sandwiches, eggs, cheese, crackers, fruit, juice, carrot and celery sticks, canned and frozen veggies, brownies, and leftovers from dinners

That's what we ate this past week. What was on your table this week?

A Peek at My Indoor Garden in February

I just wanted to show you the progress of my tall indoor vegetable garden (I have the small one filled with sprouting seeds for spring planting). Earlier this season, I discovered that radishes did the best for indoor production, both roots and the greens. Here's a photo of 3 shelves of radishes about 5 weeks old. I can see now that I could have planted them more thickly. This is a learning experience.

I harvested some of the radishes the other night for a delicious winter salad. I used the greens and the roots as the base of the salad, then added 2 sliced boiled eggs and a sprinkling of bacon bits. To top the salad, I quickly mixed up a dressing of orange juice concentrate, herb vinegar, olive oil, and salt.

In another week, when I need to start another flat of seeds indoors for the garden, I'll put the milk container pots outside on the deck to complete their growing, and I can continue harvesting radishes as they mature.

My primary goal with this light garden has been to begin more seedlings indoors to plant out in spring. However, we've really enjoyed growing some of our fresh greens indoors in the heart of winter.

Following Up on Last Week's Post "Tweaking My Morning Housework Routine"

I've been thinking about some of your comments from last week when I wrote about how I'm still tweaking my housework routines. Two related thoughts that stuck with me concern letting some tasks slide when life gets busy and prioritizing the work that is truly most important to me, personally and in my role in my family. 

Priorities

While I personally want to remain healthy, it's also critical that I stay healthy (physically, mentally, and spiritually) for the benefit of my family members. For that reason, I dedicate a sizable chunk of my time each day taking care of the different aspects of myself. However, I can't spend all my time just on me. I do have a role to play in my household. My priorities in my role in the household echo some of my priorities for myself. It's my responsibility to ensure there is healthy food available, the house is generally clean, and that I do what I do with a budget kept in mind. I see myself as the support system for my fellow household members. So, those are my basic priorities. 

Letting some tasks slide

I can't always do everything I want to support my family, as life sometimes gets in the way of my best planning. When that happens, I've found that I need to have an idea of what can slide and what really needs to be done. One suggestion in the comments was to let some chores (such as making the bed) slide if I have to choose between doing those or taking my daily walk. For years, I've been doing a version of this, just not thinking it all through. 

When something comes up and I have to skip some tasks, I have a few items that I just cross off my list for the day. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but skipping a shower is usually the first thing I cross off. I can take a sponge bath in less time than it takes to get the water in the shower hot enough to get in. I also skip chores that don't accumulate doubly if I miss a few days or even a week, such as vacuuming or dusting. Laundry does accumulate, so I try not to skip that. So do dishes. Disorganization can really accumulate. So a daily tidying up is at the top of my list to do each day.

This past week, I was thinking about other jobs that I could let slide, if needed vs. those that I really do need to stay on top of. Here are my two lists so far:

Jobs to put off a few days or even a week without consequence, or as I like to call it "thoughtful procrastinating"

• dusting
• vacuuming
• folding some types of laundry (socks and other undergarments)
• grocery shopping (I can usually stretch what I have on hand by several weeks if need be)
• ironing -- I've put off ironing for so long now, I don't even keep the big ironing board downstairs near the laundry room. I use a small table top ironing board when I'm desperate. I mostly wear clothes that don't need ironing, or I use my dryer as an iron. In contrast, my mother used to iron every week.
• mopping the floors -- unless they're obviously sticky, a swept or even vacuumed hard floor makes the room feel cleaner.
• fancy meal prep -- when filling stomachs has been the goal, bowls of oatmeal with dried fruit and milk has been enough for an evening meal.
• cleaning the shower walls -- if I'm strapped for time, I will scrub the floor of the shower, but postpone washing the shower walls for a few days to a week. It's the floor of the shower and the drain that can look unsightly in our house.
• cleaning the oven interior. Unless we're hosting a gathering, my family won't mind if there are a couple of small spills inside the oven.
• organizing the pantry or other closets. While I would like to have them look orderly, I can get by with a slightly disheveled look to the pantry and closets.

Jobs I can't really put off without feeling the consequences

• laundry -- I think we all know the "look" -- those clothes that we wear only when we are all out of everything else. And once those clothes are dirty, we're sunk until we do another load of laundry.
• tidying up -- this is one task I try to do each morning. And now that my kids are grown, there isn't that much to do. It's often just a couple of items that need putting away each day. A tidy house can appear to be "clean" even when I haven't had a chance to properly clean.
• cleaning the bathroom mirror -- cleaning the mirror makes such a huge difference in how clean the bathroom feels to me.
• washing dishes/loading the dishwasher. There's no point in not keeping up with dishes. The job has to be done and only grows with each additional meal or snack.
• taking out the garbage -- there's nothing so unappetizing in a kitchen as a garbage bin that is overflowing onto the floor. And if there's stinky garbage, the odor makes it twice as offensive. Ditto with the kitchen compost container. When it's full, it's got to go out.
• despite going a couple of weeks (or more) with skipping the cleaning of shower walls, I feel it's worth the effort to clean the bathtub every single week. Why? I love baths, and a clean bathtub just feels better.
• wiping out bathroom sinks takes just a few seconds and makes a huge difference in how clean the bathroom seems. No one likes to look at toothpaste spit in the sink, even when it's their own. But, I do encourage all of us to rinse the sink out after brushing teeth. It looks better and makes wiping the sink out easier.
• wiping down the front of the fridge and the handle. If the front of the fridge looks clean, maybe no one will notice the interior shelves need wiping down is my thinking.
• wiping the kitchen counters. This is not just a visual thing, but could be a health thing as well. So, we always wipe down the counters after meals.
• opening mail -- the obvious, a bill could be overlooked by not staying on top of opening mail. But also, mail accumulates. I don't save time by opening 1 week's worth of mail as opposed to opening each day as it comes. Still, I've been known to fall behind on this task. Here's my advice to others with this issue -- at the very least, know what day of the month your bills usually arrive, and make sure you check on those days. 
• bill paying -- I pay bills as soon as I open them or receive them in my inbox. There's no point in delaying, especially as you can often schedule a payment sometime in the future. And with late payment fees, there's every reason to pay on time or early.
• hanging up clothing or putting into the laundry hamper. Picking up two pairs of dirty socks does take twice as much work as picking up one pair. Not hanging clothing promptly that could be worn again doesn't save any work. It only makes the item look rumpled when I finally do get to hanging it and putting it away.

Jobs I'm not sure in which category they belong 

• cleaning out the fridge -- to a certain extant, it's important to keep up on throwing away leftovers. However, with the doors closed, it is definitely an out of sight, out of mind thing for me.
• cleaning the inside of the microwave -- ditto what I said about the fridge.
• I guess the same goes for cleaning out/wiping down shelves of kitchen cupboards, too.
• meal planning -- I get it, planning meals in advance makes the actual dinner prep a no-brainer. However, I've also done okay "on the fly" at times. So, if I don't have time to sit down and write out a meal plan for the week, I can at least be thinking each day what I can make, well in advance of the afternoon dinner prep time.

So how about you? Which household tasks would you put on the "thoughtful procrastination" list and which jobs do you think should go on the must-be-done list?

Busy Day Dinners That Don't Break the Bank: Hot Dog Wraps (in bread slices)

My focused work on Monday afternoon was preparing our tax returns. There didn't seem to be a logical breaking point until after 5 PM, and I still had to make dinner for the family. The afternoon had really gotten away from me. I briefly considered getting take-out. Then I decided I could probably make something with what we had on hand that would satisfy all, not require a lot of my energy or time, and not break the bank.

For a main dish I chose hot dogs in toasted bread wraps. I had hot dogs and a loaf of soft wheat bread in the freezer. The bread needs to be both soft in the interior as well as have a soft crust (for flexibility when forming into wraps).

For each hot dog wrap, I used 1 hot dog and 1 slice of bread. I put the bread into a plastic bag and microwaved it briefly to soften up the slices. 

I then buttered one side of each slice of bread. I also buttered the inside of a square pyrex baking dish. 

I placed a hot dog on the diagonal of a slice of bread on the unbuttered side. Buttering the bread helps the exterior of the wrap crisp up. The bread-wrapped hot dogs were placed side by side in the buttered baking dish. I baked the batch at 375 degrees F for 25 minutes. 

At this point, the outsides of each wrap were crispy, toasted, and buttery. As you can see, they hold their folded shape after baking.

One of the side dishes I chose for this dinner was equally easy, honey-mustard carrots. Simply a can of carrots heated through in a saucepan with a squirt of mustard, a spoonful of honey, a blob of butter, a dash of salt, and a tablespoon or two of water. This is a favorite side dish of mine because it's so easy, yet very tasty.

An easy-to-make dinner that was also easy on the budget. What more could I ask on my busy day?!

What are your go-to, easy-to-make dinners that don't break the bank for busy days that get away from you?

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for Mid-February

I haven't recapped our week's meals in a while. No time like the present to remedy that! I feel like I get ideas from your menus. I hope that my menus provide some ideas for you, too!

This past week's main meals, whether you call them supper or dinner:

homemade pizza

Friday
homemade pepperoni pizza, with canned green beans and steamed carrots

Saturday
vegetarian tostados -- refried beans, homemade flour tortillas (some were fried in oil, mine was dry-fried), canned tomatoes, shredded cabbage, and salsa, with carrots sticks

Sunday
lentil-vegetable soup, with scratch dinner rolls

Monday (Valentine's Day)
Asian-inspired meal -- egg and veggie fried rice (using frozen eggs), potstickers (freezer item leftover from the holidays), with steamed broccoli and tofu-chocolate whip for dessert

sausage and greens frittata

Tuesday
egg, sausage, onion, cheese, and radish green frittata (using rest of container of frozen eggs, and radishes I grew indoors), with Parmesan potato cubes and orange wedges

Wednesday
chicken nuggets (my daughter bought these), pasta mixed with leftover rice (from Monday), steamed broccoli, gingered fig-applesauce (made with green figs I preserved last fall)

taco soup

Thursday
taco soup topped with toasted corn tortilla strips and scratch brownies for dessert

As I mentioned before, we pulled together our Valentine's dinner from what we had on hand. Pretty much how we do our everyday meals. It all worked out and was delicious. Thursday's taco soup came about on Wednesday when I was searching for plant-based freezer meals to tuck away for a busy day. I found a recipe for taco soup for which we had almost all of the ingredients on hand. My daughter was making dinner this night and I knew she could make this. We decided to add a 4-oz chunk of ground beef to the soup. So, not a solely plant-based meal, but a low-meat freezer meal. (By the way, I have lots and lots of meat-based freezer meals. I was just looking for some variety in this department.) 

My favorite meal this week was on Tuesday, the frittata. We had made a similar frittata for our Christmas brunch. I knew we'd enjoy it just as much for dinner. I make frittatas for dinner a couple of times per month. They're like a quiche, but without the pie crust. This particular one was made special with the addition of browned sausage meat. I used 4 eggs, 6 ounces of pork sausage, 1 1/2 ounces cheddar cheese, some milk, half an onion, some greens, salt, and pepper. The frittata we made for Christmas brunch had red and yellow peppers in place of the greens. The Parmesan potato cubes were simply cubes of potato tossed with Parmesan, onion powder, salt, pepper, and a mix of oil and sausage fat then oven-roasted next to the frittata.

For most of the week, we've had cupcakes and Valentine's sugar cookies as our desserts. Thursday afternoon I had set aside time for baking, as we'd eaten all of the cupcakes and cookies at this point. I baked some granola, followed immediately by a batch of bran muffins, and those followed by a batch of brownies that I topped with chocolate chips when they came out of the oven (spread them as they melted). While the brownies were baking, I made a batch of hot cocoa mix for my family. By baking successively like this, I used one bowl, one set of measuring spoons/cups, one mixing spoon, and one rubber spatula. I didn't rinse these between uses, but washed them all at the very end of baking. Making my work easier.

Does it seem like I bake a lot of sweets/treats? The truth is, we all like different things. My husband likes hearty, but also really likes any kind of cold cereal because it's easy. So, I suspect the muffins and granola will be a hit with him. One daughter in particular loves cocoa. The other likes it, too, but she is just as likely to go for a cup of tea as a cup of cocoa. And both daughters will love the brownies. For me, I don't drink the cocoa (a milk thing), nor do I eat granola (an oat digestive thing). I'll have a muffin or two and a brownie or three. I expect that most of this baking will be gone by the end of the weekend.

We're about out of sandwich and toast bread. I had thought to bake some French bread on Thursday, then decided to postpone that until I make pizzas tomorrow (Friday). I'll do both pizza crust and French bread dough at the same time and save myself some work (same recipe for both). 

So, these were our dinners this past week. What was on your menu?

My Kitchen Garden 2022: What's New, What's Tried and True

Who here will be planting a vegetable garden this spring and summer? Can we talk vegetable gardening yet? I know many of you are still under snow and ice. (Sorry about that.) Maybe a little thinking toward warmer weather will be a good thing.

Earlier today (Wednesday), I started the first seeds of the season indoors in a flat under lights. Because I wasn't sure how easy it would be at planting/seed starting time to find and get the seeds, soil, and compost I needed, I ordered early. 

In October, I added several bags of potting soil for starting seeds to my curbside grocery order. I lucked out and they were sold out of the cheap brand and substituted Miracle Grow soil at a pittance per bag (I bought 6 bags of soil for $1.99 ea, reg. $5.99 ea). I needed potting soil for growing leafy greens indoors over winter, so I went ahead and bought what I would need in spring for seed-starting as well. In December, I placed an order online for the new seeds I would need for this year. And then this week, we had a truckload of compost delivered to our driveway.

That's a lot of compost. We were needing compost for a large part of our yard and having this delivered all in one go will save me the work of buying many bags in the spring, filling the trunk of the car multiple times.

We're expanding our garden again. This time, we're adding a new pumpkin patch with room for sunflowers, corn, and peppers, all heat-lovers. This new patch is in a circle inside our u-shaped driveway, a spot that really heats up and receives the most direct sun of any of our garden spots. (Our property is surrounded by large stands of massive evergreen trees.) Despite all of the sun, this has been a poor growing spot due to rocky soil that doesn't hold water in our dry summers. We'll leave several inches up to a foot of compost on a raised mound in this circle to provide a better growing medium. I've already begun moving buckets of this compost to our regular garden beds. In addition, our previous pumpkin patch will be used for other veggies, and the soil there will be improved with several wheelbarrows of compost. In addition to food-growing locations, we plan on using whatever compost is left in ornamental rocky soil areas and to top-dress our lawns.

Back to the vegetable garden. . . what's new is I'm trying celery, onions, and hot peppers for the first time. It's always a gamble the first year I try a new veggie. It usually takes a couple of years to get the location and timing just right. But I'm hoping for a little of each. I'm also doubling our potato bed space this year. I saved twice as many seed potatoes from last year's harvest to replant in March. My hope is we will have enough potatoes that I feel we can dig some new potatoes in summer without taking too much from our fall harvest. 

What's tried and true for my garden is Early Girl tomatoes. The last 2 years I had to use other tomato seeds and was somewhat disappointed in the tomatoes. Early Girl are the most reliable tomatoes for my garden. Other gardens with more sunlight or higher summer temperatures can grow a wide variety of tomato plants. I'm pretty much stuck with this one variety. The other tried and true veggie for us is kale. I grow an abundance of kale every single spring and summer, simply because it does so well in my garden. I have 2 kinds of kale, a Russian curly kale and an Italian type of kale, lacinato. Both grow well here and provide us with tender baby leafy greens for salads, and mature greens for cooking. The bonus with kale is it survives even cold winters here and returns with some tender new leaves beginning in late February, lasting until early April before bolting. My hanging salad baskets will return as well this spring. These were so successful in the first half of the season last year, then not as well when the summer heat really began. 

My complete list of veggies for this year include: kale, tomatoes, pumpkins, winter squash, hot and sweet peppers, sunflowers (for the seeds), sweet corn, pole and bush beans, lettuce, spinach, beets, turnips, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, carrots, onions, cucumbers, zucchini, and potatoes. If most of this grows well, we'll have variety both in summer and then for next fall and winter for our needs and some to share with others.

If you're growing a garden this next season, what do you want to plant? What would you like to grow but you don't have the right conditions (this would be eggplant for us)? What do you think you'll try for the first time this season? If you don't grow a vegetable garden, have you ever thought of buying into a CSA? What's been your experience with CSAs?

Tweaking My Morning Housework Routine

For the past several months, I've been working on my morning work routine in the house. I've got my personal self-care/quiet time set, so it's really been about trying to streamline and order my cleaning, organizing, and gardening jobs with the goal of greater productivity and freeing up more time in the afternoons for special projects, deep-cleaning jobs, or focused work. 

I was never an organized kid, teen, or young adult. When I started a family I felt like I was starting completely from scratch and flying blind. My mother had already passed away, so I felt I had no one of which to ask questions. Blogs (and the internet as we know it) didn't exist. I read a few books from the library. But still, figuring out this whole "be organized and get work done efficiently" thing was difficult for me. So I'm always on the lookout for other's ideas about their morning housework routines. 

These are the tasks that I try to get done everyday in the morning hours:

• clean up the kitchen from breakfast, start the dishwasher
• make the bed, tidy the bedroom
• pick up stuff from other rooms and put where belong
• get a start on dinner, at the least pull items out of freezer/set pantry items on counter, harvest garden produce needed for dinner
• tackle 1 cleaning job (bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming, fridge, windows/mirrors) 
• do laundry, declutter one small area, start bread/yogurt, or take out trash from bathrooms/bedrooms/office

I am in the process of determining the best order for performing these tasks. But I do get them done.

What I'd like to start doing on a regular basis:

• when cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast, I'd like to do a quick check on fridge contents to ensure I use up or freeze leftovers
• spend 15 minutes before making lunch planning out my afternoon projects
• I'd like to move my daily walk from afternoon to morning

I'm not sure when I'll fit my daily walk in. Currently, I walk sometime after lunch. However, that eats into my project time. So moving that to the morning might really help me. The other two items I'll just have to remind myself to do.

Are you naturally organized? How has your morning work routine evolved? What housework tasks do you try to get done first thing in the day? Are there any tasks you'd like to add to or delete from your pre-lunch or pre-paid work routine? I just want to say thanks in advance for all who add their input here. I am still trying to figure out what will work for me.

Just Another Day (Weekend) in the Frugal Life

I watched a rerun of a 1970s TV show for free on Daily Motion on my laptop instead of a paid streaming service. And we watched a dvd from our local library on family night, again for free (while munching on homemade pepperoni pizza).

As we no longer have an endless supply of plastic grocery bags (bag ban Oct 2021), I lined the household trash bins with plastic and paper mailers this week. The large ones are great for the kitchen and the smaller ones work in bathrooms, bedrooms, the office and the car.

I repaired the mesh sieve. The screen material had come away from the frame. I tucked the mesh back into the frame with the pocket knife and clamped it down with pliers. I hope it holds. But I can always repair it again.

I used what we had on hand to make Valentine's Dinner. I actually tried to buy fresh strawberries to go with dinner, but our local stores were sold out of fresh strawberries by Sunday afternoon. So, for dinner I made egg and vegetable fried rice, pot stickers, steamed broccoli, and tofu-chocolate whip for dessert. The dessert has only 3 ingredients -- chocolate chips, tofu, and vanilla extract, which I already had.

My daughter gave me these great little snack containers so I can my own little snack packs. I'm a big fan of dividing snacks and treats into single portions so I can control how much I eat at one time. These snack containers will let me put together protein and veggie or dried fruit snacks for myself. The grocery store sells tiny protein snack packs for about $1.39 each. I think I can do my own for less with these containers. Sometimes, special money-saving gadgets are a waste of money. But sometimes they really do save. I think these containers will fall under the heading of those that do save.

I froze 2 very dark bananas to make banana bread when we are all out of treats.

I split open the toothpaste tube to get every last bit out.

I used half a box of hair coloring to touch up my roots and temples, saving the other half to use next month. I had saved the applicator bottle from the previous month (washed out) for mixing half of each of the components. Afterward, I washed out the bottle and the plastic gloves for reuse next month with the other half of the box. I've been doing this for several months and haven't needed to do a full head coloring since sometime in fall.

So tell me, what were the highlights of your day (or weekend) in the frugal life? 

We Got Rocked, Plus Making Candy for Son and Daughter-in-Law

We got rocked again. No, that's not a bad thing, but actually a very sweet thing. Someone left some Valentine painted rocks on our driveway Thursday afternoon. Here they are. now I need to get busy this weekend and paint a couple of rocks myself to leave on others' driveways.

Every year, I make some Valentine candy for my son and daughter-in-law. It's nothing fancy, but they really appreciate it. So easy-- this must be the easiest candy I make. It's simply melted chocolate chips/melting wafers-covered mini pretzel twists. Don't these even look like little hearts?

Anyway, I make red or pink ones, using colored Wilton melting wafers and dark chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate with basic chocolate chips. The Wilton melting wafers keep for years. I've had the same bag for at least 5 years, bought at Jo Ann Fabrics and Crafts on sale. I buy several bags at a time in different colors to use for different holidays. 

The bag has some melting instructions on the back of the package that I think work well. basically, you melt the wafers in a microwaveable bowl for 60 seconds at 50% power, stir, then melt again in 15 to 20-second intervals, stirring in between melting. Once fully melted, I add about 1 teaspoon of vegetable shortening (Crisco) for every 1 cup of wafers or chocolate chips. This just helps thin the melted chocolate enough for dipping or coating.

I made 3 different flavors/colors of coated pretzels on Thursday in about 1 hour of hands-on time. I use a couple of forks to turn the pretzels in the melted chocolate and to transfer to a waxed paper-lined baking sheet. I place the sheet in our "cold" room (it's about 55 degrees F in there) to firm up over a day or two.

I just wanted to mention these because even if you think you can't make candy, anyone can make chocolate-covered pretzels. You know, there's a commercial brand of chocolate-covered pretzels. Flipz is the brand name. They sell for about $7 for a 24-oz bag at Sam's Club. I can make about 24 ounces of chocolate-covered pretzels for about half that cost, using 1 1/2 bags of chocolate chips (under $2 a bag) and about a half-pound of mini pretzels ($1.52 for 16-oz bag) for a total cost to make around $3.50 to $3.70 (depending on whether I use semi-sweet chocolate chips, milk chocolate, or 60% cacao dark chocolate). Colored chocolate, such as the red Wilton Candy Melts, if bought on sale or with a higher value coupon from Jo Ann's, cost me about the same.

One other Valentine thing to mention -- since my Cooky-Jar Sugar Cookies recipe made so many cookies, (66 total, I rolled them thin), I was curious how much sugar, fat, and calories they each had. I don't normally count calories, but I do like to know if I'm eating something that is super high in fat, sugar or calories, so I don't overdo it and then feel sick later. Anyway, I plugged all of the ingredients and their quantities plus servings (cookie count) into an online recipe nutrition calculator (I used the calculator on this site). I was very pleasantly surprised to find that each cookie has about 42-47 calories. Compared to many other cookies, this makes a very light, sweet snack with a cup of coffee or tea in the afternoon.

Anyhoo, I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Welcome to the Month of Soup-uary

I've had soup everyday of this month, everyday for lunches and several evenings for dinners. This began the week that my sinus infection was brewing. The day I went to urgent care, my daughter made a large batch of chicken, garlic, onion, and herb soup for our dinner. I was at the point of not wanting to move my mouth to chew or talk due to pain. So, she strained the liquid for me to slurp and set aside about a quart of this very flavorful broth for me to enjoy over the coming days.

To add variety and nutrients, I began adding some cooked veggies to a cup of the broth then pureed all in the smoothie blender, giving me an easy-to-make cream of veggie soup (minus the dairy, of course). This worked so well that when I'd finished my daughter's broth, I made another batch of chicken, garlic, onion, and herb thin soup for making additional pureed veggie soups this week.

I vary the soup each day by choosing a different cooked veggie. I try to use up leftover cooked vegetables from the previous night's dinner. For example, one evening I had leftover roasted onions, potatoes, and pumpkin cubes. I used these veggies the next day along with some frozen spinach, pureeing all with about a cup of the chicken broth. 

Another day, I had leftover buttered, steam carrots to use up. So I pureed those in more of the chicken liquid, thickening with some instant mashed potatoes.

The smoothie blender was from a free pile at my husband's office 2 years ago. We'd only used it for smoothies and pureeing fruit sauces. It never dawned on us that we could use it for pureeing savory foods. It works best with cold or room temp ingredients. Hot liquids cause expansion and for the seal to fail while processing. So I puree the veggies with cold broth, then pour the mixture into a microwaveable dish to heat. 

When I don't have leftover cooked veggies to use, I microwave-steam a custard cup of frozen veggies for about a minute and a half before processing with broth. I've used frozen broccoli and frozen spinach for cream o' green soups. I have some frozen mushrooms that I thought would make a great near instant cream of mushroom soup. And I'm thinking this will work with canned tomatoes, too. So far, I've been surprised by how delicious these quick soups have been. I especially loved the carrot soup. Yum! That was delicious! Broccoli has been amazing too. I stir in a bit of cheese to the broccoli soup after heating. The spinach soup was pretty good. But I think it would have been improved if I'd added seasonings like nutmeg.

So what's the point of all of this if I still have to make a large pot of chicken, herb, garlic, and onion soup? I get variety while making "soup for one". The rest of my family prefers their own style of lunch and doesn't always want soup. But I really enjoy soup in winter and want more variety than I'd get if I made a large pot of one recipe to use for the week.

Have you ever been forced by circumstance into trying something outside of your box and then discovered how beneficial this new process was? This is how I feel about my new way to make soup for one. The smoothie maker gets more use, I eat a larger variety of vegetables in my daily lunches, and I can have a hot, delicious, homemade lunch in about 5 minutes.

The Quest For My Mom's Perfect Valentine Cookie

Spoiler alert -- I haven't found it yet.

I do have my mother's heart-shaped cookie cutter, though. This one was part of a 4-piece "bridge" cookie cutter set, circa late 1950s. There was originally a diamond, a clover/club, and a spade to go with the heart. Somewhere along the line, the other 3 shapes were lost or given away. My mom played bridge with some neighbor ladies once a month or so when I was small. I recall her using the "bridge" cookie cutters to make finger sandwiches. And of course, she always used the heart cutter to make cookies for Valentine's Day. I have several heart-shaped cutters, but I particularly like this one for its scalloped edge.

My mother never iced sugar cookies, instead preferring to sprinkle before baking with colored sugar, nonpareils, or those little rod-shaped jimmies. (I've got that covered. I used pink sugar crystals.) Her cookies were buttery, crispy, and held the scalloped edge of the cutter. Here's my problem, I have no idea what recipe she used. 

I tried 2 recipes from her cookbooks so far and neither are it. The first recipe used a lot of flour. These are soft and cake-like sugar cookies that I make when planning on frosting afterward. The second recipe I tried was from her c. 1957 Better Homes & Gardens cookbook for Cooky-Jar Sugar Cookies. The recipe indicated that these were crispy. In comparing this second recipe to others that I found in cookbooks and online, the Cooky-Jar ones had a higher butter and sugar ratio to flour. I thought that would be a good start. 

Sugar tends to add crispness to cookies and also encourages spread. A recipe higher in flour tends to produce a cookie that is tender and cake-like. Butter tenderizes the dough and aids in spreads if in high enough amounts. I wanted the crispness from the sugar, the flavor and tenderness from the butter, yet still holding the cut-out shape when baking (so, reducing spread).

I did a little reading on cut-out cookies. In addition to the right ratio of ingredients, it seems that the best doughs rest in the fridge overnight before rolling and cutting. To help maintain the cut-out shape, pre-baked cut-outs should be placed on a baking sheet and chilled for about 15 minutes before popping into the oven. So, I made sure to take both of these steps.  I made the dough on Monday and chilled overnight. Then right after cutting out the shapes I chilled the baking tray and cookie cut-outs before baking. I do think those steps helped.

The cookies that held their shape the best were the re-rolls -- those rolled out from all of the leftover dough scraps, incorporating a little more flour than the initial dough. I think the BH & G recipe was close to what I remember from my childhood. The cookies were definitely crispy. They only partially retained the scalloped edge. But the flavor seemed to be lacking. I remember my mother's cookies tasting more buttery.

One thing I believe I did differently than my mother is I used all butter. My mother likely used half butter, half margarine. I don't know how that would have affected either the flavor or the spread.

Valentine's Day is just a few days away, so I don't think I'll be baking another batch of heart-shaped cookies. But I will be thinking how I can improve the flavor for the next time I make cut-out cookies.

My question to you, have you come across a recipe for a crispy sugar cookie that held its cut-out shape? Any ideas for improving the buttery flavor?