Easter, Easter, Easter! I'm Starting to Plan Our Easter Dinner

This year's Easter dinner may be the most normal we've had since 2019. That's hard to believe. In 2020, we didn't get together with our son and daughter-in-law (Covid). In 2021, the two of them came over and we had a cookout around our patio fire ring. This year, I'm planning a traditional Easter dinner. Thanks to my two daughters giving me the gift of dinner-cooking for the whole month, I actually want to make a big Easter dinner. The wonderful thing about this year's special holiday meal is that I think I have absolutely everything I need on hand.

Here's the plan, so far.

• I have a half-ham in the freezer that I bought last spring. I plan on baking it a couple of days in advance so I can slice it in advance and reheat on that Sunday. I'll lay ham slices topped by canned pineapple slices in a baking dish, covering with foil and heating, then serving with a mustard sauce along the lines of this recipe but baked instead of pan-cooked.
• I have 2 large cans of yams, some pecans, brown sugar and butter, all the right ingredients to make this praline sweet potato casserole. I can assemble the casserole a day or two in advance and keep refrigerated then bake on Easter.
• I have canned green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and fried onions for the traditional green bean casserole that is on a Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup label. Green bean casserole is quick to assemble, so I will make that on Easter.
• There are 2 small (10 oz) bags of Brussel sprouts in the freezer. I'll oven-roast those just before Easter dinner. I like Brussel sprouts tossed with olive oil and kosher salt then roasted until lightly caramelized.
• I have bulk sausage, peppers, and mushrooms in the freezer. I'm thinking a rice pilaf with those ingredients. I made a similar pilaf for Thanksgiving that was well received by all. We don't have any fresh potatoes right now, so I think a rice pilaf will make a nice alternative starchy dish.

Okay, so the above is my list of dishes I will definitely make. I'm also considering the following:

• hot cross buns or dinner rolls. If I don't do the hot cross buns, I have a really good pan roll recipe that always turns out great and is easier than crescent rolls.
• dessert -- rhubarb custard pie? lemon bars? carrot cake cupcakes? Any easy Easter dessert ideas out there?
• a salad, using whatever I have growing indoors or out. If I have enough kale, a salad along these lines with dried cranberries and almonds in a vinaigrette.

These are my Easter dinner plans. What have you got planned?

Beating the Inflation 2022 Woes

 

Life is getting expensive. Inflation 2022 isn't just in our imagination. It sometimes feels like there's nothing we can do about it. We may not be able to drive down gas, or grocery, or heating fuel prices on our own. But there are thousands of little ways we can save by being thoughtful about our spending. Listing the little ways I'm working to save money is empowering. It really does help me feel like there is something I can do (and am doing) to fight the effects of inflation.

I washed plastic bags and hung them to dry on the clothes rack. I do this about 3 or 4 times per month. I toss bags with holes, that had meat in them, or that feel greasy. I also wash sheets of plastic wrap and hang those on the clothes drying rack. When the sheets of plastic wrap are dry, I hang them over the edge of the stand mixer's bowl. I baked a two-crust pie yesterday and used up the last of my remade and frozen pie pastry. So, I'll be using the cleaned plastic wrap to make more pie dough for the freezer later this week.

I hauled more of the compost that we had delivered by dump truck. I was curious about the price we paid in comparison to what I usually spend when I buy it by the bag. So I did a little math the other day. I normally try to spend about $4 to $5 for a 1-cubic foot bag of compost from Fred Meter. Because we ordered a large quantity of compost to be delivered, we got a good price per cubic yard, about $45. there are 27 cubic feet in 1 cubic yard. Our price per cubic foot, then, was about $1,66, less than half what I'd pay at Fred Meyer if buying by the bag. I should add, this wouldn't be economical at all if we didn't have need for so much compost. It just so happens that I had plans for a large quantity of compost for this year's gardening season. We top-dressed and reseeded our front lawn. We covered many planting areas with a layer of compost, I enriched all of the vegetable and berry beds with compost, we mulched the base of all of the fruit trees and the long hedges that surround both front and back lawns, and we developed a large, new spot for heat-loving veggies, working several inches of compost into the parched and depleted soil in this area. This will be my new pumpkin, corn, pole bean, and pepper patch.

I harvested the slightly tough turnip leaves from turnips that overwintered but never developed sizable roots to use. In early spring, late-summer planted turnips, kale, Swiss chard, and sometimes beets come back. The roots of turnips and beets are often not great, but the leaves of all of these provide nutritious greens for our meals. I pick the leaves even as the plants are beginning to bolt. Here's a turnip that will flower to set seeds soon. The leaves are still edible, although a bit tough. I slice them narrowly across the grain to cut through the fibers, then either sauté them in some oil with onion and garlic or add them to soups and stews. It's basically a free vegetable as a reward for my gardening laziness -- not cleaning out the beds until late spring.

We've begun using a pitcher for drinking water again. We drink tap water, here. Oftentimes, someone has just finished washing their hands or dishes in the kitchen sink, leaving the next water to come out of the faucet warm to hot. Instead of running the water for a minute to get some nice cold drinking water for each glass someone wants, we fill a large pitcher with cold water all at once and pour our glasses from that pitcher. We may only save about a gallon of water per week, but every savings counts toward a larger goal.

We've been using a yearly calendar that one of us received for free in the mail as a car trip planner. When one of us knows in advance of an errand needing to be run, they write it on the calendar. At the next family meal, we discuss our upcoming errands, which direction they'll take us, and how we can bundle errands so we aren't making the same or near-same trip two or more times in a week. Several of us take regular prescriptions. A few months back, we noticed that two different family members drove to the same pharmacy, two hours apart. They could have driven together and saved that extra car trip. Since then, we've tried to bundled our errands as much as possible. Oftentimes, more than one of us needs to go to the bank or library or grocery store. I do believe we're saving a lot on gas these days. I noticed we're not filling the tank near as often as we had previously.

and a bonus

I noticed that when I pour something that is measured, I have a tendency to put just a little bit back. I do this with laundry soap. I pour a capful, then pour back just a little bit into the jug. I also did this with chocolate chips the other day, I poured the amount called for into a measuring cup then I poured back just a little bit into the bag. Am I stingy? I don't know. But this is a habit I've had for a long, long time. I think doing this over and over does add up to savings. Do you do this, too?

20-Something Cooking

When I was in my 20s I had gathered some cooking experience. by the time I was 9 years old, I was baking cookies as often as my mom would allow. Just a little older,  I loved Home Ec in school. By middle school, I was tasked with preparing one dinner per week for the family. And when my mother's cancer began to limit her stamina and mobility, I moved back in and did the cooking for her. But my cooking wasn't great, just passable. It wasn't until I married that I really got an education in how to cook from scratch.

My daughters can cook -- I made sure of that. It's not a hobby or something they really enjoy doing, but they can cook enough so that some day when they're on their own, they'll eat more than chips and soda. Both daughters are somewhat busy right now. Despite that, they have been making good on their promise to prepare dinner for every night of April so far. 

I thought I'd share some of their meals with you friends. I must say, they've done a great job so far. The two of them made out a menu plan for the entire month, divided up the nights, and shopped for a few convenience foods to make up for a lack of time and/or particular expertise. As I promised, I'm keeping up with the baking of bread and desserts, so they can rely on those foods as needed. And I'm harvesting what I can from the garden for them to use each day (mostly salad greens and cooking greens).

So here's what you make for the family when you're 20-something and have limited time and finances.

Homemade pizza, using a scratch crust and canned spaghetti sauce, greens from the garden with shredded cabbage for a salad with scratch dressing, carrot sticks.

Hummus, made with canned garbanzo beans, crackers, carrot and cucumber sticks.

Meatball sandwiches, using commercial frozen meatballs, rest of canned spaghetti sauce and shredded cheese from the pizza, hotdog buns (instead of pricier sub sandwich buns), plus steamed carrots and canned green beans in a sauce of cream of mushroom soup.

Homemade bean and vegetable soup, graham cracker and peanut butter "sandwiches", sautéed turnip greens from the garden with onions.

I think my daughters are making sensible choices with what to buy for convenience and what to make themselves. They both know how to make bread dough (pizza crust, which is less finicky than loaf bread), but don't have the time for making sub sandwich buns. The canned spaghetti sauce worked both as a pizza sauce and a meatball sauce, and they planned for using the leftovers. They know I keep cooked pinto beans in the freezer at all times, so they knew they could use some in making a bean soup. But they bought canned garbanzo beans, as they wouldn't require cooking but could be turned into hummus as is from the can. The graham cracker-peanut butter sandwiches doubled as a grain and dessert and were very, very easy to do.

It's only been 4 dinners, but I'm very happy with the meals at this establishment. So much so, I think I'll stay the rest of the month. I'm grateful to my daughters for doing this, and I'm proud of their ability to plan and execute an entire month's worth of dinners. 

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the Last of March

Friday

scratch pepperoni pizza (using homemade frozen pizza dough), steamed broccoli, steamed carrots

Saturday
everyone for themselves after the picnic at the park and cake -- frankly, I was stuffed and couldn't even think about eating dinner. I did snack on raisins and cheese later.

Sunday
homemade hummus (using peanut butter in place of tahini -- tasted good), cheesy bread, carrot sticks, leftover birthday cake and ice cream

Monday
leftover sandwich fixings and deli salads, carrot sticks, sliced strawberries and bananas, homemade cream of sorrel soup, leftover cake and ice cream for those who wanted some

Tuesday
meatloaf and gravy (I used frozen chives and garlic greens fresh from the garden liberally in place of root onions and garlic cloves in the loaf), roasted root vegetables (turnips and beets from garden, onions and carrots from the store), sautéed turnip and beet greens, potato chips

Wednesday
Mexican bean soup, toasted tortilla strips

Thursday
tomato soup made from tomato paste, water, onions, garlic, herbs, salt, topped with Parmesan cheese, toasted cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks, last of the potato chips

Breakfasts included toast, cereal, homemade yogurt, frozen foraged blackberries, orange juice, eggs, and homemade blueberry muffins. Despite the chilly mornings, I didn't make any hot cereals this week. This afternoon I finally set the crockpot with steel cut oats. One daughter in particular will be very happy tomorrow morning. Also, I had put off making yogurt for several days. Yogurt is my favorite breakfast. But making it does take time and some effort. I finally got around to making another batch on Wednesday. On Thursday morning I was grateful to have my homemade yogurt again. (I can't eat commercial yogurt -- additives.)

Lunches included spinach soup, cream of watercress soup, a really yummy chive and potato soup (like leek and potato soup), rhubarb-strawberry sauce, bread, peanut butter, cheese, carrots, salads made with cabbage, watercress and radish greens, raisins, eggs, and leftovers. I'm trying to use up the frozen remnants from last year's garden. Earlier this week, I found a gallon-size Ziploc bag of chopped chives in the freezer. I decided to make a pot of chive and potato soup for lunch one day. This was a hit with my family. With the smoothie blender and potato flakes, it was a snap to make. I can make this soup several more times with the frozen chives. Then I'll move on to the garden chives, which are also about ready to begin cutting.

I have a birthday coming up in April. My daughters came to me today and said they'd like to do all of the dinner cooking for the month of April as their gift to me. So, for the next few weeks, I don't have to cook everyday suppers. I will cook Easter dinner and keep up with baking, though. But this will be such a treat to not cook dinner for several weeks. This will be the longest stretch of not cooking daily evening meals in literally decades. They may spoil me, and I may never want to cook dinner again!

Those were my meals for the week. What was on your menu?

Have a wonderful weekend!

Early Spring Picnic at the Park

one of the large frogs in the center of the photo

Although my daughters' birthday was two weeks ago, we finally celebrated with our whole family this past weekend. The two of them had wanted to go to the park for a picnic. The day we originally chose was slammed with rain from sun up to sun down. So, we rescheduled.

While we normally get a lot of rainy days, here, this March has seemed unusually rainy, cold, and dreary. But this past Saturday we had a sort of break in the rain. It was cloudy and cool, with sprinkles here and there. We bundled up and took a picnic lunch to the park anyway. My son and daughter-in-law were able to join us, making us a party of six.

For our picnic, I took the easy way out and picked up sandwich meat, cheese, buns, chips, deli salads, and fresh strawberries. We brought coffee and punch from home. You friends all know me by now, and know that I usually do things myself and rarely buy pre-made foods. Buying the picnic meal meant that I could mostly relax and not fuss over anything that day, which is not only a gift to myself but makes me a more pleasant person to be around. The lunch was delicious, easy, and less expensive than eating in a restaurant.

After our lunch we toured the large park. There are trails, native growth areas, and a large pond at the bottom of one of the hilly areas. The highlight was watching these huge frogs sitting on logs, hiding in the tall grasses, or poking just their noses up above the water's surface. I'm guessing the frogs were about 5 inches in diameter when all bunched up. One frog swam away from our peering eyes, and I estimate he was over a foot long with his legs stretched behind him. The frogs we see in our own backyard are tiny in comparison. So this was exciting to see large ones so close to home.

After enjoying ourselves at the park for a couple of hours we returned to our house for some cake and ice cream. When you're a twin, you wind up sharing so much in childhood. For their birthday cakes I always tried to incorporate both of their favorites. Sometimes I let one daughter choose the inside of the cake while the other daughter chose the outside. One year I even made two separate mini cakes so they could each have their own. This year, like a few other previous years, my daughters wanted to combine two types of cake and frosting, specifically a brownie bottom layer, topped with chocolate frosting, then a funfetti top layer of cake. The sides of the cake were frosted in chocolate icing, while the top was frosted in neon green and purple icing. The cake really did reflect both of their favorites.

For such a low-key birthday celebration, the day was really quite fun. We have spent so much time at home in the last two years that a day at the park seemed like a real treat. 

Little Things Really Do Add Up

If you put aside $5 a week, at the end of a year you have $260 saved. If you save all of your scraps of bread products (those ends, stale muffins, lone squares of cornbread, etc) in the freezer, before you know it you'll have enough for a strata or bread pudding. If you drink a half cup of water every hour, at the end of a 14-hour day you've consumed 56 ounces of water.

You may remember that last fall I harvested a total of 12 winter squash and small pumpkins. These weren't jumbo piece of produce, just small garden ones. Of the 12, 10 matured enough to contain mature seeds (the kind that you'd want to eat). When I'd cut into a squash or pumpkin, I'd clean out the seeds, wash them,  set aside a few for planting, then freeze the rest in a small ziplock bag (stored in the freezer). Well, by the end of the fall (after using all of the squash/pumpkins), I had 2 baggies full of edible seeds! This was enough to roast pumpkin seeds on two occasions last week, yielding enough delicious seeds for our family's snacking over a couple of days each time.

I'm used to the small size of the pumpkins that I can grow in my not-always-sunny garden. And when I open one up, I'm happy to find some seeds inside, but I never have more than a handful or two in any one pumpkin or squash. If I were to consider washing and roasting just a handful of seeds, I might not bother and compost them instead. By saving seeds over the course of using all of the pumpkins/squashes, there really was enough to "bother" with.

It was really satisfying to use all of the edible portions of each pumpkin or squash. And as a bonus, my family was super happy with the healthy and tasty snack.

An Easter Tree Done for Free

I can't take credit for the idea. One of our neighbors did an outdoor tree like this last year. And then this morning, while out for my walk, I saw they'd done it again. It's cheery, seasonal, and just so simple.

With my kids grown now, I have a lot of plastic Easter eggs that don't get the use they once did. A few scattered around the house look cheery, and my kids like to hide a few eggs for each other. But otherwise, I needed to find another way to use some of these.

We have a slim tree-like shrub just outside our driveway/kitchen door, yet visible to the street and passers-by. At Christmas, I put lights and outdoor ornaments on this tree. In February, I string it with pink-purple lights. I had been wanting some outdoor Easter decor. These plastic egg ornaments seemed like just the right thing.

I took a dozen small plastic eggs and attached wire hangers. I used florist wire, as that's what I have and it's cheap. The top end of each egg either had a small hole in it already or it had a dimple, which I poked a hole through using a corkscrew. 

I threaded one end of a 5-inch length of wire through this hole. Using pliers, I turned the end of the wire into a small spiral inside the egg half, preventing the wire from being pulled out of the egg's top.

I used the pliers again to form a hook on the other end of the wire. Once this was formed, I snapped the egg halves back together. Each egg and wire took about 3 minutes to do, so I think I spent about 35 minutes on this project in total.

We had a dry spell in our rainy day, so I headed outside to hang these "new" ornaments on our tree. I have a few kids-at-heart in my household who really love it when I decorate for holidays.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for a Cool March

I missed an extra week of Cheap & Cheerful Suppers. I'll try to remember everything we had, but there are a few days in there where I didn't write down what we had that are foggy.

Friday
pepperoni pizza, stuffed grape leaves, dried figs -- a very Mediterranean meal

Early last fall, I froze a bunch of grape leaves from our vines. I rolled about 20 small to medium sized leaves up, then wrapped those in several big leaves and tied with thread. The big leaves are for lining the cooking pan and placing on top of the stuffed small and medium leaves to hold it all down while cooking. I stuffed this batch with rice, garlic, onion , chives, dill, salt/pepper, a drizzle of olive oil and squirt of lemon juice. I steamed them with some chicken stock. These were such a treat in late winter. wOrking with the frozen, then thawed leaves is just a little trickier than working with fresh. The frozen/thawed leaves cling to each other and take patience to separate them all, but worth it. The figs were from our two fig trees. We don't usually get enough ripe figs to dry, but in 2021 we did. So delicious!

Saturday
bean and TVP enchiladas, sautéed garden greens and onions

Sunday

rice, scrambled eggs with cheese and sausage, steamed carrots

Monday
tuna sandwiches, Cole slaw (using last of Napa cabbage and red cabbage), canned pineapple chunks

I needed an easy dinner. I've been working hard on several fronts and too tired to do anything time-consuming.

Tuesday
bean with bacon soup, bran muffins

Wednesday
scrambled eggs, rice, steamed carrots, radish green salad

One of my daughters cooked tonight and I gave her this easy menu. I know scrambled eggs aren't considered dinner fodder in some households. My family has often had breakfast foods like scrambled eggs at dinner time.

Thursday

TVP spaghetti, canned green beans, cupcakes

This was the day I had some bad family news. Our plans had been to make a deep dish pizza and watch a movie. Instead, we threw together this simple spaghetti meal and put off the pizza and movie for the next night.

Friday

deep dish pizza (recipe courtesy of Kraft Foods from the 1980s -- my daughters love these vintage manufacturer recipes), steamed broccoli

Saturday & Sunday - I think we had some sort of Mexican refried beans and tortillas meal one night and lentil soup and rolls the other. I don't recall what else we had with these meals.

Monday
brown rice, peanut and vegetable sauce, bread pudding with fruit sauce

Tuesday
cream of green soup (using garden greens), garlic-Parmesan toast

Wednesday
tuna noodle casserole, radish green salad, rice pudding (leftover rice from Monday and a half slice of very stale bread I found in the fridge) plus the rest of fruit sauce

Thursday
KFC chicken-potato-corn-gravy-cheese bowls, radish green and watercress salad, carrot sticks, banana bread

I have to thank Alice for the KFC bowl idea. I had all of the ingredients on hand and this sounded easy and tasty. My family loved these!

I baked a couple of times during this period, bread, banana bread, muffins, no-bake cookies, and scratch cupcakes. I used some of our old, old and flat cola from Christmas season 2020 as the liquid and part of the sugar in the banana bread. It worked just fine and there's no cola flavor. This soda is flat and no one wants it now. So, I thought I'd use it as part of the sugar and the liquid in various recipes. I've done sloppy Joe mix and baked beans with flat soda, too. I just hate to throw it out. 

I actually did remember most of what we've had these last two weeks. How was your week? Any special meals or snacks you enjoyed?

Homemade Garden Cloche Winter Experiment

The climate in my area is moderate for winters. Most years we do get a little snow that sticks around for 3 to 7 days. Our overnight low temps can dip into the teens for about a week in December or early January. This past year we had about 1 foot of snow on the ground for the better part of a week with temps not going above freezing for that entire period (lows in the low teens some nights). I'd say this was a bit colder than typical. I'm giving you this info as background for my recent experiment.

I had been curious about whether or not garden cloches would help my overwintering of greens for early spring harvests. So I decided to use homemade cloches over part of the Swiss chard but not all. I made my cloches out of plastic 1-gallon milk jugs, cutting off the bottom inch of each jug. In fall around the time of the first frost, I put these cloches on 11 Swiss chard plants. I left them on the plants all winter, removing them yesterday. Occasionally wind would blow them off, and I'd go out and put them back on. When it snowed in December and January, the snow piled up on top of each cloche. I didn't do anything to clear the snow. I left about a dozen Swiss chard plants bare for all of winter.

As I mentioned above, Tuesday I removed the cloches. 5 of the 11 plants survived the winter and are now thriving. (In the photo above, I'd just shoveled new compost around the plants and pulled out the surrounding weeds.) 

In the section with uncovered Swiss chard, about 6 feet away, only 1 of 12 plants looks like it has spring growth on it. Others of these plants may put out some growth in a couple of weeks, or they may not. I'm not sure yet. However, one thing is for certain, the cloches brought about new healthy growth much earlier in the overwintered Swiss chard. I'd say this experiment was fruitful for me in coming winters. Our kale and turnips overwinter without covering, but the Swiss chard has always been hit or miss.

Why do I like to do these experiments? I think I'm always looking for ways to improve in my work. With gardening, that means harvesting even more or for more weeks of the year. If we ever truly need to rely heavily on our garden, it's nice to know that we can get more Swiss chard when not a whole lot  else is producing. The bonus is the milk jugs didn't cost me anything and have now been set aside to reuse next winter. I may try this next year to see if I can get the kale or turnip greens to start spring growth even earlier in the season. Anyways, my little free experiment.

Cheap Eats Share Time: The Supper Edition

Food prices just keep going up and up. I thought we could share our recent cheap meals, however we make them cheap. Some of us (or our spouses) hunt or fish, some of us are phenomenal bargain hunters, some of us garden, some of us forage, some of us raise animals for food (meat eggs, dairy), some of us can or freeze, some of us bake or cook from scratch, some of us may barter or exchange with others, and some of us are the queen of use-it-all-up. Whatever your skill set that helps you create a cheap meal, share in the comments one of your most recent cheap suppers. Give details please, so the rest of us can think through how we might adapt your meals to our skills.

I'll begin with our dinner last night. My skills are I garden, I bake from scratch, and I make broth with meat bones (use-it-all-up). For dinner I made a cream of green soup and garlic-Parmesan toast. I used a basket full of greens from the garden -- turnip leaves, kale, garlic greens, radish leaves, chives, plus some garden-grown garlic cloves -- steamed in the microwave, then pureed with some water in the smoothie blender. For the liquid of the soup, I used a quart of homemade chicken stock. I thickened the soup with a combination of instant  mashed potatoes and a flour/water slurry. I seasoned the soup with salt and onion powder. Just before serving I swirled in a handful of mozzarella cheese for protein and flavor. 

To make the garlic-Parmesan toast cheaply I used homemade bread, garden-grown garlic, and a half-and-half blend of vegetable oil and butter (instead of all oil), along with 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese (protein and flavor). I estimated that this simple supper for 4 people cost under $1.50. We all had as much soup and toast as we wanted. However I realize that this might not suit a true meat and potato lover.

I don't hunt or fish and I'm less of a bargain hunter than I used to be.  I use the skills and opportunities that I currently have. But I'm willing to try something new or at least barter with someone who can do what I can't. I'm very interested in hearing how you all are putting together cheap meals these days. Please share so we can all benefit from your endeavors.

Catching Up

I'm catching up on life in general as well as catching up with you.

I'm not ready to deal in reality, so I may not talk much about my family members right now. But a quick update. One, though, looks like she will be okay. This was the possible stroke. Not a heart attack or major stroke, but perhaps a TIA or something else. But she's doing better. Another, I haven't heard yet. The third, cancer was caught relatively early. But the fourth is the saddest one for me. It's my stepmom. Her cancer has spread already. Thank you for prayers.

Let's see, I lost a couple of days of productivity. But you know, that's okay. Today I planted the potatoes. I'm growing both purple fingerling potatoes and a type of white potato that I no longer remember the name. These might be Kennebec, but I'm not sure. I also planted two very wrinkly and sprouting store-bought russet potatoes. At the end of each season I set aside some of my harvest for planting the next year. I keep them in a produce drawer in the spare fridge until just before planting. The purple and white potatoes that I planted today are descendants from seed potatoes that I bought over 15 years ago. I've never had an issue with blight or other diseases that affect home-grown potatoes. If that does happen at some point, I'll buy new seed potatoes and start over. This season, I'm hoping to harvest 30-40 pounds of potatoes.

I also finally got around to baking more bread for the family. I'd been rummaging through our freezers looking for remnants of various quick and yeast breads to tide us over until I baked again. Whatever works, right? My family has been enjoying French bread this winter. It's light and airy qualities have made it a favorite for us. However,  my French loaves tend to spread on the baking sheets. So for the past couple of bakings I've put my French bread into loaf pans. The result is a light and airy loaf that can be used for sandwiches and doesn't get lost in the toaster (slices falling over in the toaster slot then hard to get back out). I took a short-cut in greasing the pans today. The one thing I really dislike about baking bread is greasing the pans, especially loaf pans with their inside tight corners. So I use non-stick spray. Since this stuff is not cheap, I reserve it for recipes that specifically call for baking spray or for muffins without paper liners. But, I had much to do today and I decided to make this chore easier.

After we had devoured almost all of the bread scraps salvaged from the freezer, we still had a lone square of cornbread and all of the crusts from making finger sandwiches (from a week ago). With these bits I made a bread pudding to have for dessert Monday. In our house, leftover rice, bread scraps, and leftover cooked pasta is incorporated into a custard-based dessert. All of these different starch-based desserts come together in the same way, I beat an egg with sugar, milk, pinch salt, and vanilla, then pour over the cooked starch that I've spread out in a buttered casserole dish. I bake until a knife inserted comes out clean. These custard and starch desserts have a long history with frugal home-cooks. They can be dressed up with a variety of sauces, like sweetened cream, stewed fruit, English hard sauce, jam, lemon curd, pancake or ice cream syrup, coulis, or simply sliced fresh fruit. Monday afternoon, I made a fruit sauce using blackberries (foraged) and rhubarb (garden) from the freezer, some sugar, water, and almond extract, all simmered on the stove until thick. Delicious and economical. I'm working on keeping food waste to a minimum for the time being. With grocery prices going up and up, I want to make sure we use every last morsel.

That's about it for today. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. And again, thank you for praying for my family. I am so grateful for your prayers. Be back tomorrow! 

A Day of Mixed Emotions for Me

Hi friends,

Just a quick note from me today. It's my daughters' birthday and we're trying to make it special. Just baked a scratch funfetti cake. The batter was tasty, so I hope the cake is as well. They wanted deep-dish pizza for dinner, so we'll be putting that together in an hour or so.

For those of you who pray, could I ask you to pray for some of my family? I have 4 family members with significant health issues right now. Two have cancer, one is hospitalized and waiting for tests, the fourth is waiting on results of a biopsy. I'm sad beyond belief right now.

I will probably not write up our supper menus for this past week. I will be back on Monday afternoon/evening. Have a wonderful weekend, all. And for any prayers, my heart is grateful.

Making Car Totes Out of Cardboard Shipping Boxes

We've had a lot of purchases shipped to our house over the past 2 years. I've been trying to find uses for the surplus of boxes. I flatten some to use in the garden, both to suppress weeds on one dirt path and as something to sit on when I'm working outdoors. My husband used some flattened boxes last summer to catch paint drips while painting the deck railing. I've used small boxes with the flaps cut off to organize shelves. And this week I made car totes for our car's trunk.

The grocery stores had been giving us courtesy bags for curbside pick-ups occasionally since October's ban on plastic bags went into effect, even when I'd checked the "no bags" box on the online order form. However, I noticed in March that stores were more inclined to put my groceries loose in the trunk if I had checked the "no bags" box. That was okay, and was exactly what I'd asked for. So no complaints from me. But I do want to keep my cabbages and cantaloupes from rolling all over in the trunk. So, this week I made some car totes for my trunk, so the pick-up employee can transfer my loose groceries to the totes. This not only solves the problem off loose foods rolling around, but I'm able to carry my groceries into the house much more easily.

You know me, not one to buy supplies when I have something usable at home. I used a couple of the cardboard shipping boxes to make totes. I cut off the top flaps by repeatedly scoring with a pocket knife, then cut a small flap into two opposing sides of the box, a few inches below the open top, to push in and form handles. 

I could have spent $10 to $15 each for a car tote. And yes, commercial car totes will last longer than my box totes. However, when my homemade totes wear out, they can go right onto the compost pile, and I can quickly make new ones out of newer boxes. I realize that mine are not as attractive as commercial totes. But, hey, they're inside my car's trunk, not on display in my house.

Let the Ordinary Be Ordinary So the Special Can Shine

My son and daughter-in-law gave us a generous basket of tea goodies for Christmas. There was tea, coffee, cookies, candies, fig jam, and chocolate-cherry curd. My first thought was to use the cookies as everyday desserts and the tea and jams with morning breakfasts. But then I thought about how special all of these foods are. The tea is a higher quality than what we normally buy, and the spreads are unique and not what we keep on hand. My son and daughter-in-law went all out with these special tea treats. If we ate them along with our ordinary foods, those average foods might be made a bit more special with their addition. But if we used these treats as they were intended, to have a tea party, this sort of special event would be memorable for our family, standing out all the more because tea parties are rare amongst our average meals. 

You've seen our weekly menus. My family eats very humble foods day after day. If my meals were described in color words, our everyday meals would be tan or gray. A tea party, in contrast, would be described as violet, sea green, or magenta. So we happily eat our ordinary meals, knowing that some special treats and meals can really stand out.

So that's what we've been doing this winter. It began just before taking down our Christmas tree (you can see it in the background of the top photo) and has continued every once in a while on a Sunday afternoon. I expand the Christmas tea goodies with homemade scones, egg salad sandwiches, and sometimes small cups of soup.

Who said tea parties are for children and old ladies? My family and I (husband included) have been making memories over cups of tea and plates of finger sandwiches and cookies.

This principle of only having a few special things amongst many that are ordinary can be translated into many other aspects of life. If you have to have the best of the best in everything, I think you begin to forget that what you have is the best, and you begin to take things for granted. If you always let your child choose a toy at the store when out shopping, the experience loses significance. If you travel for leisure every weekend, wouldn't you just long to have a quiet weekend at home for a change? Myself, I think I'd rather have a rare, but special, vacation. I like to believe that I would really savor every moment. 

Our tea treats are now about gone. I'm not sure my son and daughter-in-law had any idea just how much pleasure we'd receive from their gift.

A Trio of Homemade Gifts and Treats for My Daughters

Surprising family members with little treats and gifts is a source of fun for me. I thought I'd share what I made each day of the past weekend for my daughters (in celebration of their birth month), using ingredients that I had on hand.

On Friday I made these little apple pies for my daughters. I used the last of the homegrown apples combined with some dried apples that I rehydrated before combining with spices, sugar, a splash of lemon juice, and flour to thicken. I had saved some mini pie tins from commercial tiny pies a while ago. Perfect size. My daughters loved these, in part because little versions of bigger things are always cute, but also they said these were delicious.

On Saturday I was brainstorming non-food items that I could make. I came up with some fizzy bath salts. I used Epsom salt, baking soda, citric acid, food coloring gel, lavender essential oil, and vanilla fragrance oil. The combination of baking soda and citric acid is what causes the mix to fizz when exposed to water. These cute, almost-matching little jars were found at a free pile last summer. And I made a ribbon out of a scrap of floral purple and lavender fabric, tying tiny sprigs of lavender around the necks of the jars. I think these turned out really pretty. My daughters were both surprised and delighted to receive these on Saturday.

On Sunday I used the other half of the pie pastry (from the mini apple pies) to do homemade raspberry Pop-Tarts. My daughters said these were the best Pop-Tarts they'd ever had. Of course, I don't buy Pop-Tarts very often, so not a lot they can compare the homemade version to. But still, they really enjoyed having these for breakfast. I'll be making these again sometime.

I pressed the dough into a narrow rectangle then rolled it out, trying to get a finished rectangle that was twice as long as it was wide. Once rolled out, I cut the piece in half and squared both pieces by cutting off excess. The Pop-Tarts only used about 1 tablespoon of jam each. I moistened the edges with water, folded the pastry over diagonally, and sealed the edges by pressing the cut sides with a fork. After slashing the tops, I baked them at 400F for 10 minutes, placed small triangles of foil over the narrow points, then reduced the heat to 350F and baked for almost 10 additional minutes, watching carefully so as not to burn them.

I've had a lot of fun with these surprises. My daughters' birthday is later this week, so I only have a couple more surprises to put together.

I hope you had a lovely weekend!

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for Early March

So, here we are, the time in the season when I'm both scrounging in the freezer for remnant from last summer's garden and using up canned goods that I bought in fall. There's not a whole lot in the garden to harvest just yet. But what I can find, I use. Almost all of our meals were cooked at home this past week. My husband received a free lunch for a work Zoom meeting one day. The way they work it is they send him a voucher to use to have something delivered. He chose Taco Bell. The rest of us ate all of our meals cooked at home. When you eat your own cooking for long enough, you really do come to prefer it. I've reached the point where I'd really rather eat home-cooked meals than anything else. It helps tremendously that the other family members take a night per week, so I don't have to cook every night. 

My two favorite meals this week happen to be the two meals that I remembered to take pictures of. The pot roast dinner was so delicious. And of course, pizza is always a favorite for me.

Here's what we ate this week:

Friday

homemade pepperoni pizza, fig-applesauce, sautéed turnip greens and onions

I made a triple batch of pizza dough on Friday and froze two portions. To use, I thaw on the counter then press onto the baking sheet and allow to rise. Works great and I can throw together a pizza with less work on two of the three days. The fig-applesauce is more of my sweet, canned green (unripe) figs pureed (smoothie blender to the rescue) with some applesauce, ginger and cinnamon. 

Saturday
homemade Mexican -- oven-fried tortilla strips, refried beans/salsa/cheese, carrot sticks, radish green and watercress salad

My husband made the Mexican this night. I buy large bags of corn tortillas, keep in the fridge, and use them over a two to three -month period. My husband made chips by brushing with oil and baking until crisp. I cook large pots of pinto beans and freeze the cooked beans in 1-qt containers for easy refritos with the help of a potato masher and some seasonings. Again more garden greens for a salad. We're able to have garden greens (indoor and outdoor ones) 4 or 5 days per week now, although we're currently limited to radish, watercress, turnip greens, and kale.

Sunday
lentil and vegetable soup, cheese biscuits -- easy dinner for a Sunday evening.

Monday
pot roast and gravy, steamed carrots, brown rice, radish green and watercress salad, vanilla-rhubarb sauce

It had been a while since I'd cooked some beef. I found a small roast in the freezer and pot roasted it with lots of gravy, some onions, a bit of tomato paste, and dried garden herbs. It was delicious! I poured the gravy over the carrots, meat, and rice. I have just a small amount of rhubarb left in the freezer from last summer. Our garden rhubarb is about 1 month away from use. Time to use up all of the frozen stuff.

Tuesday
beef and vegetable soup (using leftover pot roast & gravy plus radish greens, canned carrots canned green beans, canned tomatoes, onions, garlic), scratch cornbread, rice pudding topped with raspberry jam

The soup was easy to make as well as tasty on a cold evening. I had about 1 cup of cooked rice leftover from the previous night. I baked a rice pudding (egg, milk, sugar, rice, salt, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon) in the oven with the cornbread. There was just enough for 4 servings. I topped each serving with a generous spoonful of homemade raspberry jam (last summer's garden berries).

Wednesday
tuna salad on bed of watercress, crackers, carrot sticks, tomato-macaroni-cheese bake

One of my daughters made dinner for us this night. We needed to have some tuna in our menus, so I suggested this to her. She's not a fan of tuna casserole, but does like tuna salad. So I picked some watercress to put scoops of the tuna. We both agreed that the dinner needed some more "heft," so she also made a tomato-mac-cheese bake.

Thursday
hummus, freshly-baked French bread, radish green and red cabbage salad, carrot sticks, no-bake cookies

My other daughter made dinner this night. She loves making hummus, so I pulled a qt of cooked garbanzo beans out of the freezer for her. She also used lots of the frozen chives we still need to use up. (The chives in the garden are coming up now.) The no-bake cookies were my baked treat for this week. I don't know if there are variations on no-bake cookies. I made the butter-milk-sugar-cocoa powder-peanut butter-oats-vanilla ones. Always a hit! I hadn't made these in years. My family was pleased.

Breakfasts for the week included: homemade cinnamon rolls, toast, crockpot Cream of Wheat, crockpot steel cut oats, yogurt, orange juice, apples, bananas, raisins, blueberry muffins, eggs

One evening last week, I made a batch of roll dough and made overnight cinnamon rolls. Basically, I set the rolls in the pan, cover, and refrigerate overnight. The next morning, whoever gets up first pulls them out of the fridge and they rise enough to bake in about an hour to an hour and a half. Fresh-baked rolls in the morning. The leftovers made great snacks all week. I use my crockpot for both steel cut oats and Cream of Wheat for easy hot breakfasts. Despite having cinnamon rolls, blueberry muffins and hot cereal available, some family members still prefer a traditional breakfast of eggs and toast. So that's always available, but they have to make it themselves.

Lunches and snacks included: several soups made with the smoothie blender -- tomato soup (using canned tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken stock, seasonings pureed), carrot soup (canned carrots, chicken stock, onion powder, seasonings), broccoli soup (frozen broccoli, chicken stock, onion powder), various leftovers, toast, peanut butter sandwiches, cheese, apples, oranges, eggs, carrots, celery, cabbage, radishes, raisins, bananas, canned pineapple, popcorn, scratch brownies, cinnamon rolls, no-bake cookies, saltine crackers

So, that's what we ate this week. What was on your menu?

Gardening Wednesday and a Little Reminder for Those Who Preserve Garden Produce

self-seeded watercress

We had brilliant sunshine today, but man oh man was it cold out. So I worked for just a short time outdoors. I first scavenged some watercress for a salad for tonight's dinner. Watercress self-seeds all over my garden area. Each March we have watercress for a couple of weeks, all free, no work on my part except to pick. After picking greens, I hauled compost to two beds, pulled some weeds, then came back indoors. Indoors I replanted some additional onion seeds, as my first batch of seeds from 2 weeks ago only partially sprouted. I think I'll need more than 7 onions next fall.

The other thing I did today, related to gardening, was add a page to my gardening journal. I told you last time that I had a page that detailed which seeds I planted, when, and how much. This new page is for making note of which seeds I'll need to collect from my plants for garden 2023. So far, I've found I'll need more kale, red lettuce, beet, carrot, parsley, and pole and bush bean seeds. Carrots, parsley, and, to a limited extent, kale are biennials, and I have those growing in my garden from last year still. Those will go to seed in mid-summer. I'll be able to collect bean, lettuce, and beet seeds late summer from this year's plantings. In previous years, I haven't thought about which seeds I needed to collect until late in the season, sometimes too late. I'm making more of an effort to be organized with my garden this year.

Also garden-related, I've been prepping for summer preserving. Several weeks ago I found 2 more trays that fit my 25-year old dehydrator on eBay. This expands my ability to dehydrate by 50%, which should help me get through more produce and hopefully not have some of the fresh fruit become overripe waiting for spots on the trays. The new-to-me trays were used, but clearly not nearly as used as my own. The plastic is so white compared to my old ones, which have yellowed. As you can see in the photo on the box, this model is designed for adding trays (original came with 4). I hope to find another couple of trays eventually.

In addition to the dehydrator trays, I've also bought the lids I'll need for preserving. The past two years I waited till later in spring to get lids, which meant I had a hard time finding the lids only. There appears to still be a lot of supply right now. So, just a little reminder to order any you might need for this year soon. 

That's it for today. I hope you all had a great Wednesday and are moving on to a lovely Thursday. Enjoy your day!

How to Estimate How Long Your Food Supply Will Last

An online friend and I have had a long back and forth about family food supplies and how long they'd last in an emergency. She specifically wanted me to gauge about how long her own pantry supplies would likely last her, not in days but perhaps weeks. So we came up with a system for quickly gauging how long a pantry would last a family if they had to stop buying food for a period of time. I thought I'd share in case any one here has ever seriously wondered how long their pantry would keep them fed in an emergency.

Step 1. Determine the household's caloric need per day. Here's a basic guideline from Bowes & Church's Food Values of Portions Commonly Used:

calories needed for adults
women 1800-2100, men 2400-2900
calories needed for children
under 10 years up to 2400
calories needed for teens
teen boys 2700-2900 teen girls 2100-2200
add on for nursing (+500) or pregnant (+300) women

My friend's household consists of herself, husband, 20 year old daughter living at home while attending local college, 15 year old son at home. We factored in activity level for each individual (very active son, sedentary self and spouse, moderately active daughter) and came up with about 9500 calories per day for their family. 

Step 2. I asked my friend to inventory her pantry, her fridge, and her freezer for calorie-dense basics, such as flour, rice, dried beans, oats, hot cereal, oil, peanut butter, raisins, other dried fruit, sugar, nuts, meat (and I asked her to specify whether it was bone-in or boneless and whether poultry, red meat, pork), eggs, butter/margarine/Crisco, and cheese. I asked for rough measurements by pound, not boxes, bags, or servings.

We weren't going to concern ourselves with items like crackers, boxed cereal, canned vegetables or fruit, or condiments, unless she felt she had an extraordinary amount of any of those. (It turns out she did have more than average number of jars of mayonnaise (9 jars --long story), and we felt since this was a high fat item, in an emergency she could use the mayo as part of the daily fat for her family.) The cookies, crackers, and cereal would likely be gone in a few days if she halted shopping, and the canned veggies and fruits, while they would boost nutrients and add interest, they wouldn't be as calorie-packed as some of the other foods. Ditto on frozen meals and frozen veggies. We did leave in raisins and other dried fruit because a pound of raisins provides almost enough calories for one person for one day.

Step 3. While my friend compiled a list, I jotted down the caloric values for these products, using units that the items are usually sold, such as pounds, gallons, dozen instead of per serving. I rounded the numbers to make calculations simpler. These are just estimates for the average in each group. Here's my list:

pantry

dried grains -- average calories per pound (inc rolled oats, rice, flours, meals, dried pasta), about 1600
sugar -- calories per pound of sugar 1750
dried beans -- average calories per pound 1500-1600
vegetable oil -- calories per gallon about 33,000

dried fruit -- average calories per pound 1300-1600
peanut butter or other nut butters -- average calories per pound about 2600
shelled nuts and seeds -- average calories per pound about 2600

mayonnaise -- average calories per 30-oz jar about 5300

meats

bone-in poultry -- average calories per pound (mix light and dark) about 750-1000
boneless poultry -- average calories per pound (mix light and dark) 500-700 (depending on type and with or without skin)
bone-in red meat -- average calories per pound around 1000 depending on leanness
boneless red meat -- average calories per pound around  700 - 1250 (depending on leanness)
bone-in pork -- average calories per pound about 700-1000
boneless pork -- average calories per pound about as little as 475 (deli ham) - 700 (pork loin) 

pork breakfast meat -- average calories per pound 1400-1800 (sausage and bacon)
fish -- average calories per pound 350-650

dairy

solid fat -- calories per pound (butter/margarine/shortening) 2400 to 3200
liquid milk -- average calories per gallon (as is or reconstituted dry) 1300, 2000, 2200 (skim, 2%, whole)
eggs -- average calories per dozen about 840

cheese -- average calories per pound about 1300-1700

Step 4. We combined like foods, such as flour with rice and pasta, to simplify calculations. And we used the arithmetic mean value for calories for each type of meat. After totaling the approximate calories for the items in my friend's inventory, I divided by the daily caloric requirement for her family. We were able to roughly guess just how long her food storage would last her family should she not be able to grocery shop as usual. 

As mentioned above, for expediency, there were many foods that we didn't include, such as jarred applesauce, canned soup, canned vegetables, breakfast cereal, etc. Most of those items were in single quantities or have relatively low caloric value. Those foods would increase the time my friend's pantry would last their family, but likely not more than a few days.

This wasn't just a mathematical exercise. My friend and her husband are currently digging themselves out of debt from a struggling business during the shutdowns. They accepted loans from family members to get through the worst and now that business is back up and doing better, they want to repay those generous relatives. My friend was thinking they could make an extra payment or two to both family members in the coming months if they had enough food to live on, or near enough (she could buy some high-nutrient vegetables, fruits, and milk, while spending minimally). As it turns out, she has enough in her pantry and freezer to last about 12 weeks. I suggested they hold back about 4 weeks worth of food for that proverbial rainy day, if their relatives don't need the loaned money immediately.

My friend had a lot of flour and other grains. She bakes their bread and other goodies in place of buying packaged items. She's also been trying to eat more vegetarian meals, so they had a lot of dried beans in stock. Her husband and son eat a lot of meat, though. However, hubby hunts and fishes and filled a deep freeze this past fall (and there's still a lot of meat left, I'm told). Despite their difficult times in the past couple of years, they really did have quite a lot of the types of food that one normally associates with emergency planning. In addition to holding onto a 4-week supply, I also suggested they not eat all of the ready-to-eat items, such as canned soup, crackers, peanut butter, and breakfast cereal. Instead, she should put some of those items away separately, in case of a power interruption that would affect cooking meals.

It should be noted that just because one has enough calories for their body's energy needs, the diet may not be balanced. This list isn't a prescription for what to include in an emergency pantry. I'd assume one would add various other foods that meet vitamin and mineral needs.

p.s. we came up with a couple dozen ways my friend can incorporate mayonnaise into their weekly meals, using the other ingredients she has on hand.

Celebrating a Couple of Loved One's Birth Month

My two daughters have a birthday later this month. I've been celebrating their birth month with small goodies every day. I leave these treats, one each day, as surprises for them to find. One day it was a small box of raisins, another day a small piece of chocolate, another day an individual fruit cup, you get the picture. It's not so much the actual treats that I think makes them happy, but me taking the time to do this each of the days before their birthday. I also leave a brief note with each treat wishing them a happy day. I love surprising my family and putting smiles on their faces.

Today's treat was a baggie of pretzels. I had some pretzels leftover from when I dipped them in chocolate for Valentine's Day. But I'd been holding these back as a treat for sometime in the future instead of putting them out for us to snack on. (I don't buy pretzels very often.) 

Anyway, I used bags from buying spices and cocoa powder that I'd washed and dried. These bags don't have zippers, so I needed something to tie them up with. The ribbon box is upstairs, near where my daughters were talking this morning. As I wanted to surprise them, I had to find some sort of tie or ribbon from my downstairs supplies. In my sewing stuff I have a bunch of fabric scraps. I used my pinking shears to cut "ribbons" from some black and white gingham scraps. I wanted to mention this as I've found that ribbons for tying gifts are a good use for narrow fabric scraps that don't seem to be big or wide enough for any other use.

As sappy as this sounds, I've been blessed to have family for whom I can do special things. It's a part of what gives me purpose.