World War Two Rationing Stories From Those Who Endured

For your weekend reading entertainment, I thought I'd share a site I came across a couple of weeks ago. Between 2003 and 2006, the BBC collected personal accounts of experiences during WW2 in Great Britain. There are so many stories in the collection. I used the search term "rationing" and came up with 50 pages with 20-25 entries per page for that one search term. Some of the accounts tell of the horrors of war, others relate how mother's contrived meals on limited foods.

Anyway, there's some very interesting reading in these pages and more than enough to fill many weekends. Here's the site:

WW2 People's War: An archive of World War Two memories -- written by the public, gathered by the BBC

Enjoy the stories!

Growing Things: Updates

 

Remember those "white" primroses I dug up and repotted so I could move them into large pots at the entry to our house? It turns out that not all of them are white. This one here is sporting a purple bud soon to open!

My week-old watercress sprouts (grown on a wet paper towel in a dish on a window sill) are coming along nicely. I removed the plastic bag and pushed the table closer to the window. Keeping the plastic bag now off means I'll have to remember to water the paper towel daily to keep these sprouts alive.

Old-Time Baked Rice Custard

As I've mentioned, I'm needing to restrict my grains to primarily brown rice for the time being. I told a good friend that I was making and eating a lot of baked rice pudding, using my mother's 1950s-era recipe. My friend asked if I could give her this recipe. I thought perhaps this recipe was on my blog, but I couldn't locate it. Perhaps I was just thinking of posting it and never did.

Anyway, I thought I'd share, as this really is a delicious, frugal, simple, and gluten-free dessert that the whole family can enjoy. 

Baked Rice Custard

2 well-beaten eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk

1 1/4 cup cooked, cooled rice (I use brown rice)

1 cup raisins, optional

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dash cinnamon

Dash nutmeg

Oven 325 degrees F

Combine eggs, sugar, and salt. Gradually add milk. Add rice, raisins, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg

Poor into buttered 1-quart casserole. Set in shallow pan; pour hot water into pan 1 inch deep. Bake in slow oven 1 1/2 hours, or until a knife inserted in the center comes clean.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

So that was my mother's primary way to make this recipe. I've adjusted this to meet my need for simpler prep (skip the water bath), individual portions, and dairy-free.

I substitute soy milk for dairy milk, bake the custard in buttered custard cups, skip the pan of water as a water bath, and reduce the temp to about 300 degrees F. (The temperature can be reduced by 25 degrees F when not using the water bath method.) In custard cups, this bakes at 300 F for about 35-40 minutes and makes 5 to 6 custard cups.

I also like to change the recipe up a bit. One of my current favorites is almond-rice custard. I omit the cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and optional raisins and add 1 teaspoon of almond extract. For the almond rice custard, I like to top servings with raspberry or cherry preserves. 

I enjoy rice custard so much that I would choose this over cakes and cookies most days, which is a very good thing as I'm currently not able to eat cakes and cookies.

Another Spring Cleaning Task: Lining Kitchen Shelves

Actually, I only lined one shelf, the one that gets the messiest, where I store all of the bottles of cooking liquids like oils, molasses, soy sauce, vinegar, and honey. The oils, molasses, and honey are the worst offenders in the pantry. They drip down the sides of the containers and make a mess of the shelf.

I had put off lining this particular shelf for literally years. I didn't have shelf paper or anything to use in place of shelf paper . . . or did I? 

Remember all of that brown paper that came as packing material during the shutdowns? Okay, maybe you got lots of styrofoam pellets instead. I got reams of crumpled brown paper. I rolled up the paper and stored the rolls on end in a larger box.

I used some of the paper for creating a barrier between layers in boxes of onions, potatoes, and tomatoes harvested from my garden and stored in our cold room. I also used some directly in the garden to suppress weeds among vegetables. And I used some as gift wrap.

As I was cleaning up the "liquids" shelf in the pantry, I remembered my supply of brown paper.

I cut the paper to fit, taping down the ends.

I relined the pie tin that catches oil dribbles.

I made extra squares to go under the honey and molasses bottles so the jugs don't stick to the paper shelf lining. (The squares stick to the bottom of the bottles. As I lift a bottle or jug, the square paper comes with it, but not the shelf liner.)

And when I finished the job, this is how it looked. Nice, neat, tidy, and will be super easy to clean when the paper gets gunked up again. Bonus, I'll be able to compost the old paper and replace it with more of the free brown paper.

Yes, it would be nice if the paper had some sort of attractive pattern. But free is a pretty amazing price.

How do you store previously-used Ziploc bags?

I was washing zippered sandwich and snack bags the other day and wondering how others handle these -- if they save and reuse, how they wash, but especially how they store these previously-used bags.

We use these zippered bags for so many food items. They're just the right size when our leftovers and foods that need a covering are on the small side, like a few biscuits or cookies or an individual custard cup of my rice pudding. I find the bags to be easier to wash and dry than sheets of plastic wrap (which we also wash and dry until no longer usable). The bags will stand up on the tines of a rack to dry and are sturdy enough to last for many uses. Some of these bags are many years old. And they're in a variety of sizes. The original boxes are now long gone. So I had to come up with an organized way to store them for reuse so that my family members will actually reuse them.

After the bags are washed and have thoroughly dried, I sort them according to size and thickness (sandwich/snack vs. freezer bags). I roll up these piles and secure with a rubber band. I have an old roll and cracker basket that is long and narrow. And that's where I store the piles of rolled up bags. 

My family knows to check the basket first before getting out a new bag. 

When a bag is dirtied, it's stuffed into a tall container next to the kitchen sink. When that container is overflowing with bags, I know it's time to wash them all in a sink of hot soapy water. I wash and dry them all inside out, so the surface that will touch food is the cleanest part.

I know we've saved more than just a few dollars by washing and reusing Ziploc bags, as we've been doing this for decades, now.

What's your method?

Growing a Plate of Watercress Indoors on the Windowsill

Sorry I missed posting the last 2 days. We had a very busy weekend, followed by Valentine's Day (which was also busy). On Sunday, we had the opportunity to see the current play my daughter is in. As I've mentioned before, this theater is a comedy-only theater. And this current play was hilarious -- a very enjoyable time. Plus we got to see my son and daughter-in-law. Tuesday (Valentine's Day), was a busy day, too. Time with family members, a special lunch at home, then later a special dinner at home. It was fun and thrifty. 

Now I'm back, and I wanted to tell you about my latest vegetable experiment, this one indoors.

I started a plate of watercress seeds on a wet paper towel set on a plate on Monday. 

I covered the whole thing with a ziploc plastic bag to hold in moisture while the seeds germinate. I didn't cover the seeds with another paper towel, as I've read others do, but put the covered plate out of direct sunlight. 

2 days after starting the watercress seeds -- sprouts are appearing

The seeds are beginning to germinate. Watercress is a quick sprouting seed. Once more the seeds have sprouted, I'll move the covered plate to a southeast-facing windowsill. I'll loosen the plastic bag once the tiny plants begin to grow and will spritz with water daily. When the plants look sturdy enough to not have the plastic bag covering, I'll remove it and just keep the plate of watercress sprouts well-spritzed.

I collected these seeds from my garden watercress. It self-seeds throughout the garden, providing early peppery greens for us from mid to late-March through early-May. When seed pods began to set last summer, I pick off a few before the pods opened and spread seeds. I started my watercress with root-on watercress herbs purchased in the produce section of the grocery store 20 years ago. I planted the cress that we couldn't use before it wilted and it has just kept self-seeding all of these years.

Last winter I watched  several British Food Ministry films produced during World War II to help their population feed themselves during this desperately difficult period in history. At the beginning of the war, England was importing a lot of their food. One of the tactics used against them during the war was a blockade against shipments of food and other necessities, an attempt by the Axis powers to basically starve them into submission. One of the suggestions given by the British Food Minister was for citizens to grow watercress sprouts on a sunny windowsill in their flats or homes. 

Watercress is easy and inexpensive to grow, can be grown indoors in less sunny/warm months, and is high in vitamin C. Oranges and other citrus fruits would have been imports prior to the war. With importation blockades on the major shipping routes, oranges became very scarce. When a town could get oranges, they were usually reserved for children. England needed to find foods they could grow year round to provide the needed vitamin C for the entire population. 1 cup of fresh watercress has nearly 1/4 of the RDA of vitamin C for teens and adults and almost 1/2 the RDA of Vitamin C for children under age 13. And, a family could grow their own watercress as a daily dietary addition for just the cost of seeds.

I know I've recommended the following video before. Here it is once again with mention of growing watercress and mustard greens on the windowsill, beginning around the 1:00 minute mark.

Wartime Ministry Food, England: Mrs. T and Her Cabbage Patch

I'll keep you updated as to this watercress experiment. 

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers: A Week With Lots of Rice

There are two new objectives to our meals this week. One, I'm currently on an elimination diet to get my digestive system back on track. This has actually been going on (and getting stricter with time) for a few months. I'm currently not doing milk, yogurt, cream, glutenous grains, oats, xanthan gum, guar gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan, or tree nuts. The second objective for this and coming weeks is to use our frozen garden produce at least once each day. Many days, I use this produce in breakfasts or lunches. But I will also mention in the dinners this week where we used some of our freezer stash. 

Friday (just 2 for dinner tonight, so I went simple)

chicken fried rice (adding our frozen celery leaves and carrot leaves)

pumpkin pie (the filling was made with soy milk and I had mine without crust)

Saturday

refried sprouted pinto beans, mexi-style

brown rice

Cole slaw, made with cabbage and our sprouted lentils

Everyone else had flour tortilla chips in place of rice.

Sunday

chicken and vegetable soup (using our frozen beet greens)

garlic toast (I skipped the toast)

The family had brownie pudding for dessert. I had rice pudding made with soy milk.

Monday

beef stew (adding our frozen beet greens)

orange wedges

Everyone else had dinner rolls. I had 2 rice flour pancakes.

Tuesday

ham in gravy (with our frozen chives) over

brown rice

roasted pumpkin

spiced apple compote (our apple chunks from freezer)

Wednesday

meatloaf

brown rice

our frozen beet greens and onions, sautéed

Everyone else had mashed potatoes in place of the rice.

Thursday

curried lentils (using our apples, frozen, plus our plum preserves in place of chutney), over

brown rice

It's a good thing I like brown rice. For grain foods this week I had steamed brown rice, fried rice, brown rice pudding (made with soy milk), and rice flour pancakes. I really believe my main issue is with dairy and not gluten. Sometimes going on a strict eating plan for several weeks to months will help me get back to eating other grains, just not the milk, the various additives, such as the gums and carrageenan, or most tree nuts. My insides are feeling better, but I miss wheat products. 

On the frozen garden produce front, I've been organizing our freezers again, this time to bring all of the frozen produce into one place. I hope next week to finish that chore. By having all of the produce in one place, I will be able to plan meals to use this all up before we begin harvesting from this coming season's garden, orchard, and berry patch.

What was on your menu this past week? Do you have frozen garden produce to use up still? 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We'll be getting together with our son and daughter-in-law -- always nice to have the whole family together.

A Festive Plate of Valentine's Cookies

I have my daughters to thank for this plate of Valentine's cookies. One daughter made the sugar cookie dough a while ago and froze it. And the other daughter rolled it out the other evening, cut them into hearts then baked and decorated all of them. She used 3 different cookie cutters, a fluted-edge one from my mother, large plastic freebie cutter from our bank (many years ago), and the small heart cutter from their childhood Easy Bake Oven. My daughter gathered all of the topping/decors she could find from my baking cupboard and just went to town. 

I practically didn't need any coffee the next morning when I stumbled into the kitchen and saw this festive tray of Valentine's cookies.

My mother baked cookies to add inexpensive merriment to our family's holidays. When my daughter told me what she planned on baking, I asked specifically that she use my mother's heart cutter for some of them and sprinkle those with colored sugar crystals before baking, just as my mom did. Seeing those cookies on the platter brought back a flood of fond memories from my childhood. My daughter never had the chance to meet her grandmother. Yet, 60 some years later, the granddaughter is baking cookies just like her grandmother used to make.

Do you bake Valentine's cookies or make any special treats? 

You Have to See This: More Oven Cleaning (this time the racks)

I got my oven racks so clean, with so little work. This just amazed me. I put both racks into my farmhouse sink (a bathtub would also work for this task), added about 1/2 to 2/3 cup of Great Value automatic dishwashing powder (so, just the cheap stuff), and filled with very hot tap water to just over the highest protrusion from the racks. I left it there while I went to wipe the sides of the oven's interior. Ten minutes later I checked on the racks and could see this. 

Holy smokes! The baked on grime was dissolving from the racks and leaching into the water, without me touching the racks or water in any way. When I saw this, I had to grab my camera and show you. I couldn't believe that the racks were getting cleaned while sitting in the sink.

I went back to the oven to clean up my mess, then move some laundry from the washer to the dryer. About 25 minutes after last checking on the oven racks in the sink, I found this.

The grime was really coming off the racks. I decided to drain the sink and wipe the chrome bars, using an old sock/rag.

This rag was white when I began wiping, by the way. The grime had softened pretty well at this point, and I was able to wipe a lot of it off.

What I couldn't wipe with a rag, I used the green side of a scrubbing sponge. Quite a lot came off with the scrubber. I had an errand to run, so I plugged up the sink and added another 1/2 to 2/3 cup of dish powder and more hot water just to cover the racks. I came back an hour later and used a stiff brush to get the rest of the grime off.

This is how clean I got the racks with very little actual work. (But don't tell my husband this job was so easy!)

My oven is looking so good. I baked part of dinner in it tonight, and not only could I see clearly through the window, but the racks looked almost new, too. 

I can check oven-cleaning off my spring cleaning list. On to the next job.

Cleaning My Oven the Non-Toxic Way

After the holiday baking and roasting season, one of the first jobs on my spring-cleaning list was to clean the oven. I didn't start out to clean my oven the hard way. In fact, my plan had been to use the self-clean feature. I set the oven to "clean" then sat down to eat my lunch. I was actually looking forward to the extra heat the cleaning cycle would give to the kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a flash. I looked over to the oven and nothing. A minute later, another flash. And again looking at the oven, nothing. Then a bunch of flashes and I caught those. A few seconds later, a little fire broke out inside the oven. Not knowing what to do, I grabbed the box of baking soda (thinking I would douse the little fire) and turned the oven cleaning off. Only, the oven would not unlock as it was still too hot to be safe. 

So, I sat there, watching the little fire burn itself down, and after a minute, finally out. What worried me was that the little fire was burning right beneath the heating element. I was afraid the element could be damaged. When the oven finally cooled enough for me to open the door, I did. I waited for the interior to cool enough to get in there and scrape up the stuff that I should have scraped before cleaning. And before I knew it, I was cleaning my oven the old-fashioned way.

For my own health, I try to use non-toxic cleaning products as much as possible. Which means I don't use spray oven cleaners. As a bonus, what I do use for cleaning is often super duper cheap, using ingredients like vinegar, baking soda, hot water, and liquid dish hand washing soap. But as you know, cleaners like these also require a good deal of elbow grease to get the job done.

My oven cleaning technique was a bunch of scraping, scrubbing with baking soda and warm water, followed by scraping and scrubbing some more. I was able to get the floor of the oven pretty clean. The oven window was another story. Even though I'd just cleaned my oven in the fall, all that holiday baking and roasting left the window covered in baked-on grease splatters. I scrubbed that window with baking soda, a scrubbing sponge, some dish soap . . .and got no where. That's when I thought of scraping the glass with a paint scraper. I couldn't find the scraper that has a razor blade, but did find the flat edged one that I use when scraping old paint or varnish from furniture I plan on refinishing. But surprise, surprise, this actually worked. I first tried to scrape the dry window with little success. Then I thought to wait until just after I baked something and try cleaning the window when the oven was just a little warm. This was slightly better. Next, I added some baking soda and rubbed it around with a wet cloth. This is when I had success with the scraper. After scraping until the window was nearly clear, I then polished off any little bits of grease with more baking soda and water.

What I noticed was the part of the oven window that I began on first, when the door was still slightly warm, scraped off more cleanly and with less effort than the half of the window that had fully cooled. The heat from the oven must slightly soften the baked on grease, much like a warm from the oven cookie comes off the baking sheet more easily than when fully cooled. And the thin baking soda paste must have also led to some softening of the baked grease. Good things to know for next time.

I still have the sides of the oven and racks to clean. I've worked enough for one day. I'll tackle those tomorrow.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers in Mid-Winter

Mid-winter meals -- lots of meat, lots of potatoes, and lots of comfort foods. There was meat in our meals 5 of the 7 nights and some of the lunches. 

We're using near the end of fresh produce from the fall, homegrown and purchased (potatoes, turnips, pumpkin, and onions). As that's not nearly enough for family meals, we're also digging through the freezer for vegetables, using canned vegetables and fruit, and filling the gaps with winter staples like oranges and cabbage.

Friday (Friday movie and pizza night -- we watched A Prairie Home Companion)

scratch pepperoni pizza

mix of frozen broccoli and Brussel sprouts

orange wedges

As I was going through the deep freeze a week ago, I came across a mostly empty bag of Brussel sprouts and a mostly empty bag of broccoli. Either one alone wouldn't be enough for all four of us. But the combined bags were just enough. I have extra pizza cheese this month. One daughter had been staying at the house where she was dog-sitting for 10 days. Her sister was visiting her one evening and they wanted to bake cookies together, but didn't want to use the dog-mom's supplies. I traded them a bag of chocolate chips and a stick of butter for a 32-oz bag of shredded mozzarella one daughter had leftover. She had bought it to make pizza for her theater cast and crew and didn't need as much as she'd bought. I think I got a good deal. They think they got a good deal. We both won! Looks like Friday pizzas can continue without extra shopping.

Saturday (sorry, no photo)

bean burritos (sprouted pintos, seasoned and wrapped in scratch flour tortillas

roasted pumpkin cubes

Cole slaw

We continue to use the fresh pumpkins that we bought at the end of October and that grew in our garden. I've got them in the cold storage room (about 52 degrees F) and they're doing okay. I've got 3 left and will try to use them in the next couple of weeks.

Sunday

TVP "meat" balls with pasta sauce over spaghetti

frozen spinach and onions

My husband cooked tonight and this turned out to be very tasty. To make the TVP "meat" balls, he rehydrated the TVP, stirred in seasonings, oil, flour and an egg, then baked them. Other times, we like to fry these in oil in a skillet on the stove.

Monday

meatloaf with gravy

brown rice

roasted pumpkin cubes

sautéed cabbage and onions

I mentioned in the comments earlier this week that I've stopped using egg in meatloaf. It seems to hold together okay for me. This meatloaf was made with 12- ounces of ground beef, 1 slice of homemade whole wheat bread, some water, some tomato juice, salt, minced onion, garlic, and oregano. And again with the roasted pumpkin.

Tuesday

roasted chicken and gravy

roasted root vegetables (last of garden turnips, onion, canned beet root, canned carrots)

chunky hash brown potatoes

I'm so grateful that I bought several whole chickens last fall when I found them on sale for 99 cents/lb. We used one of these chickens for Thanksgiving dinner instead of turkey. They're pretty large (6 lbs or so), and provide a lot of servings. I cooked the last of the fresh turnips I dug in October. They kept just fine in the fridge these last months. We are out of fresh carrots and fresh beets, so I added canned ones near the end of the roasting time.

Wednesday

leftover chicken and gravy

pan-fried potato slices

Cole slaw

Thursday

leftover chicken in tomato sauce 

assorted pasta shapes or brown rice

sautéed cabbage and onions

One of my daughters cooked dinner tonight. She picked apart the roasted chicken from Tuesday and made it ready for making stock. Are chickens getting bigger? The ones I've been buying seem to be a pound heavier than what I used to find at the store. So far, we've had 3 family dinners and 1 family lunch with this chicken. There is enough meat left now for one more family meal, plus there will be stock with bits of meat for making soup. 

That's it for this week. What was on your menu? Do you find you eat more meat in winter than other seasons? Or is that just my family?

Wishing you a wonderful early February weekend!

A Dozen (Soon-To-Be) Flowering Plants for Basically Nothing

Happy February! Putting January in the rearview mirror is always a joyous event for me. Days are getting longer. The sun is getting stronger. And flowers are just beginning to peek out, some on their own and others helped along.

On my midday walk Wednesday, I spotted two houses with pots of primroses near the front doors. These pots looked so cheery. I wanted the same for my front door. The last time I was at Fred Meyer, they were selling primroses in the outdoor section for $1.79 per 4-inch potted plant. So tempting -- to have some outdoor flowers in late-January or early February! 

a dozen small plants rescued from their overly shady spot

I was ready to head out to the store and pick up a few plants when I remembered the primroses in my own yard. In particular, I had long ago planted several white primroses around the base of a new shrub. Over the years, the shrub has grown and now almost entirely shades out the struggling primroses. Well, what do you think a frugal person like me would do -- go to the store and buy new ones or lift and move the struggling ones to a better location, this time into my own pots by the door.

I used rumpled and used Christmas gift wrap to catch the mess of repotting

If you guessed that I would dig up the white ones in my own yard, you know me well. That's exactly what I did. I lifted a dozen tiny plants and put them into new soil in individual pots. I've got the tray of them up against the south side of the house, where they'll get more sun, be sheltered from harsher conditions for the next week or two, as well as size up a bit before replanting. I'll be cleaning up the outdoor pots in the coming days, readying them for planting the primroses.

I used fresh potting soil (not quite $1 worth). So my total cost for a dozen "new" primrose plants was about half-price of what it would have cost to buy a single plant at Fred Meyer. I can't wait for them to bloom!

Although it's great to save money and use what I have on hand, I do admit there is one downside. The plants at Fred Meyer were already blooming. I'll have to wait 2-3 weeks before I see blooms on my plants. But I remind myself, blooms at the end of February are better than no blooms at all. 

How to Do a Chocolate Pudding Makeover for a Pan of Failed Brownies

First, bake a bad batch of brownies. Or, more likely, take a failed batch of brownies (or cookies or cake). Crumble as best you can into a pyrex baker.

Next, make a batch of scratch chocolate pudding.

After cooking the pudding, thin it with 1/4 cup of water (so it will soak into the hard brownie bits or cookie or cake crumbles.)

While hot, pour the pudding over the pan of brownie crumbles. Allow to cool on the counter.

Once cooled, chill in the fridge for several hours up to overnight. After a good chill, cut into squares or scoop into dishes (cutting vs. scooping depends on how thin the pudding was).

Back story to the bad batch of brownies. My two daughters wanted brownies in a hurry over the weekend. They followed the recipe in my 35 year old microwave cookbook. The microwave we had 35 years ago had a much lower wattage than our current one. But my daughters didn't know that little tidbit off info. They microwaved the brownie batter for the amount of time called for for the lower wattage microwave, which was probably 2 minutes too long. 2 minutes in the microwave is a big over-cooking.

The verdict on the chocolate pudding brownie dessert? Two thumbs up all around!

Grocery Shopping January 2023

I have no plans to grocery shop until February. So, I'll post my end of month spending now.

Jan. 2. Fred Meyer. 3.55 lbs chuck roast ($3.99/lb), 2 16-oz containers cottage cheese (50 cents each -- marked down due to dent in side of containers), turkey bacon ($2.79), fresh mushrooms ($2.59), plus some marked down treats for my fam (39 cents box of movie candy, 2 packs Top Ramen 19 cents ea, can Chef Boyardee 64 cents). Spent $21.96

Jan. 9. Costco with my daughter-in-law. I mostly went to see what Costco carries and compare prices to those I know from shopping my local stores. What I bought -- 1 4-pack uncured turkey bacon ($10.59), 1 gigantic bag whole, pitted dates ($7.99), 1.5 lbs brown mushrooms ($5.99), 32-oz bag fresh Brussel sprouts ($4.99). My daughter-in-law used self-checkout that required credit or debit, so I reimbursed her $30 with cash after shopping.

Spent so far this month -- $51.96

January 12. My daughter wanted to go to WinCo and Walmart to pick up snacks and some lunch items for herself. I went with her and bought foods for the household. I bought 3 avocados (68 cents ea), bananas (53 cents/lb), 1/3 lb of bulk Parmesan cheese ($5.09/lb), 1 gallon whole milk ($3.17), and 2 cups of mixed nuts to make nut bars for my son and daughter-in-law for Valentine's Day ($4.38/lb). I love the bulk bins at WinCo. There's so much variety, prices in bulk beat the like packaged foods, and I can buy as little as I want and not have waste. I spent $11.29.

At Walmart, the only item I bought was the large package of Great Value fig bars. Spent $4.78.

Total spent today -- $16.07. Spent for the month so far --$68.03

January 17. Grabbed a burger at Five Guys with my 2 daughters using a gift card, located in same complex as Fred Meyer. Nothing spent out of pocket for the burger. I ran in to the store afterward to get a jar of decaf coffee ($4.99). Also checked the clearance aisle and found a can of peaches (81 cents) and a can of corn (39 cents). Spent $6.19.

Total spent for month so far -- $74.22

January 24. Gas was $3.99/gallon, inching back up.

January 26. Fred Meyer for a few items. I bought 5 dozen eggs at $2.19/dozen. That's more than double what I was paying back in 2021. I bought 1 bundle of marked down bananas (45 cents/lb) and 1 bundle of non-marked down bananas (59 cents/lb). Also, found 7 packages of turkey bacon marked down to $1.99 each and 1 can of carrots marked down (dented) to 53 cents. Total spent -- $26.94. I had a couple of non-food items and something to pick up for my daughter as well. While the eggs seem expensive now at 18 cents each, that's still a comparative decent price for high-quality protein foods. Plus, it's quick and easy to cook eggs for one person as opposed to cooking a roast for 1 person. 

total spent for the month so far -- $101.16

January 28. One daughter went down to WinCo and then Walmart to pick up some treats and lunch stuff for herself. I asked her to also get 3 things for me that I couldn't find or were not a good price at Fred Meyer (Fred Meyer was sold out of cabbage and store-brand fig bars, and their oranges were pricey per pound this week.) She bought 1 head of cabbage (82 cents/lb) and 1 package of Great Value Fig Bars ($4.78) at Walmart and an 8-lb bag of oranges at WinCo ($5.98). I reimbursed her $13.43.

total spent so far this month --  $114.59

What I bought this month

3.55 lbs beef roast

8 regular sized packages (10-12 oz) turkey bacon and 1 Costco package

32 oz cottage cheese
1/3 lb Parmesan cheese
1 gallon milk
5 dozen eggs

2 lbs fresh mushrooms
2 lbs Brussel sprouts
3 avocados
4 bunches bananas
1 can of carrots

8 lbs oranges

1 head cabbage

2 packs Top ramen
1 can Chef Boyardee
1 box movie candy
large bag pitted dates
2 cups mixed nuts
2 packages fig bars
jar decaf instant coffee

I don't normally buy so much junk (Top Ramen, Chef Boyardee, movie candy), but these were all treats and on the clearance rack. My two daughters got the movie candy, one daughter got the ramen (a flavor she loves), and my husband got the Chef Boyardee.

You might notice that we only bought 1 gallon of milk for the month. Gone are the days of needing 8-10 gallons per month for my household. I'm now nearly entirely lactose intolerant, so I don't even cook or bake with cow's milk if I think I will eat any of it. (I mix up some soy milk for those recipes that I would use dairy milk.) For my family members, I stretch the purchased milk with powdered milk I have in stock. 

We are using stockpiled foods still. So, we were not needing to buy very much in January. Low spending in January is pretty typical for my household for a couple of reasons. One, I don't find very many deals this time of year. Secondly, we try to eat healthier, less rich foods following the holidays. Thirdly, we anticipate high energy bills in winter for heat, so we can offset those by spending less on groceries. And forth, Thanksgiving through Christmas is a high spending period. We like to cut back on all of our spending in January to make up for the end of year excess.

That's it for January's grocery shopping. Do you find you spend less in January on groceries than other months? Or do you pretty much spend the same amount each month?

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers: Late-January Garden Harvesting

Friday

Friday

homemade pepperoni and mushroom pizza (using the end of the Costco mushrooms)

crabapple-applesauce (homegrown crabapples turned into sauce mixed with commercial applesauce)

mashed winter squash

Saturday (just 2 of us at home, so I made an easy meal)

chicken breast diced and cooked with canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs

brown rice

frozen broccoli

Sunday

Sunday

bean burritos, made with scratch flour tortillas and home-cooked, sprouted pinto beans

canned carrots

Monday

Monday

pot roast, potato wedges and gravy

honey-mustard glazed carrots

garden fresh kale and homegrown sprout salad

crabapple-applesauce

Tuesday

Tuesday

ham and eggs

garden fresh kale, sprout and cranberry salad

roasted pumpkin cubes

leftover potatoes and gravy

Wednesday

Wednesday

split pea, leafy green (frozen carrot greens, frozen celery leaves) and ham soup

dinner rolls (scratch, leftover from New Years and kept in the freezer)

canned pineapple

Thursday

Thursday

teriyaki chicken thighs with garden fresh Brussel sprout leaves and frozen turnip stem pieces

brown rice

Another week of dinners cooked at home. Not only does cooking at home save money, but I've grown to really prefer my own cooking. I can make foods exactly as we need them to be cooked, omitting ingredients that one or more of us can't eat while bumping up the vegetable content. Having a tummy that feels good after a meal is worth more than the leisure of meals out.

I'm trying something new. I'm sprouting dried pinto beans before cooking them up. I only sprout until they have tiny "tails". I've read that beans may be more digestible if sprouted before cooking. This was the first week I'd sprouted pintos for cooking, so I'm not sure if I can say whether or not they're more digestible. I'll be doing this once per week and see what I think over time.

Our garden is producing some leafy greens for us right now. If the weather doesn't turn horribly frozen, we should be able to harvest some greens several days per week for a few weeks.  We have mache, 2 kinds of kale, and Brussel sprout greens producing. In addition, the chives are coming up in a pot I put on the deck. Some years are like this, where we can harvest from the garden beginning in January.  

On the bad news side, we found some tiny bugs in the brown rice container. These are teeny, tiny bugs, small enough to fall through the mesh of a sieve. So, in addition to storing all of the brown rice in the deep freeze, we're also rinsing and straining the rice before cooking. I rinse about 3 times in a bowl of water, about until the final rinse has virtually no tiny bugs. A few bugs won't harm us, right? We'll be eating brown rice more often to try and use this up soon.

That's about it for our meals this week. What was on your menu?

Have a great weekend, friends!

Baking Soda Got Lumps?

As I've mentioned before, I use a combo of baking soda and vinegar in place of baking powder. I also sometimes use baking soda with cream of tartar when needing a dry version. And of course, I have several recipes that call for baking soda itself. I find myself using baking soda several times each week.

While I love how simply effective baking soda is in baking, it does have one drawback, lumps. Those pesky little lumps can be small enough to miss by sight but will show up in the finished product, lending an off taste to a bite of cookie or muffin. I've been asked a couple of times how I prevent these lumps, especially in cookie dough. 

There are 2 ways I've dealt with soda lumps. One option, I mix together butter, sugar, and soda in the initial step of any cookie recipe that calls for creaming butter and sugar before adding other ingredients. This little trick works well in cookie dough. My other method for handling soda lumps in batters and doughs is to use this small tea strainer. I add baking soda directly through the strainer, pressing any lumpy bits through the mesh.

I've been gifted many tea straining devices and tools over the years. I decided to dedicate this particular one to baking soda. Because I now only use the strainer on soda, I don't wash it after use, but instead I simply shake and tap it (mostly) clean afterward. And it's small enough to squeezes in alongside the container of baking soda in my cupboard.

So that's my little trick for dealing with lumps in baking soda.

Repurposing Expired Hand Sanitizer

Quick survey -- how many of you bought or were gifted more hand sanitizer than you or your family could use during the pandemic? Those of you who didn't accumulate excess hand sanitizer -- bravo to you!

Hand sanitizer is dated for expiry. The alcohol-based solutions do not become unsafe to use, but they may become less effective beginning a few months after expiry. In addition to the expiration question, some of us may have simply acquired too much hand sanitizer. 

Our family wound up with far more hand sanitizer than we could use. I bought. couple of bottles in early 2020. Small bottle were gifts with purchase in some stores.  And pleasantly-scented, pocket-size containers were a popular holiday gift in my house in 2020 and 2021. On top of this surplus, one large bottle smelled particularly boozy to some of us, and so was completely avoided. So here I am, lots of partially used bottles of hand sanitizers floating around our house, car, purses and jacket pockets -- some expired, some not -- and I needed to find ways to use the stuff up.

My first thought was it does a great job stripping my hands of natural oils, so it must make a halfway decent degreaser. What I didn't know was that it would also be good at breaking down soap scum. Here's what I've used hand sanitizer on so far: cleaning the bathroom sink, the synthetic solid surface countertop (Corian), the bathtub, chrome faucets and handles, the glass shower doors, the seat and exterior porcelain parts of the toilet, and a hair dye stain on a white cabinet door (required multiple applications and some rubbing, but the stain eventually came out). I was very pleased with how well this worked on the shower doors. I've tried a bunch of different products on the soap scum with mixed success. A rag and some hand sanitizer really got the doors clean. As this is a sanitizer, bathroom cleaning seems to be the perfect use.

In addition to the gel hand sanitizer, I also received some spray alcohol-based sanitizer as gifts. I have found the spray kind makes a great alternative to deodorant. After working around the house and getting a wee bit sweaty, I give a quick spritz under the arms, allow to dry, and I'm fresh smelling once again.

Always nice to find uses for something that might otherwise be discarded.

Old-Style Waffle Irons

I wanted to show you something you may not know still exists (and is still manufactured). Before there were electric waffle irons, there were waffle irons that sat directly on a heat source, like a stovetop. The first American stovetop waffle iron was invented in the second half of the 1800s. It wasn't until the early 1900s that a waffle iron attached to its own heating elements was invented. Technology for these early electrified waffle irons improved between 1920 and 1950, giving us the waffle irons we remember from our childhoods.

My own waffle iron is one of those old-fashioned stovetop contraptions. There is no electrical cord and no heating elements. It bakes waffles with the heat from my stove burner. It can also be used over a wood fire, so long as there's a grill for the iron to rest on. (My arms would get tired holding the iron steady over a fire for more than a minute or two.)

The iron consists of two grid paddles connected by a hinge. Each side has a built-in simple thermometer, with just 3 settings, COLD, COOK, HOT. To use the iron, I must first pre-heat both sides on my stove's burner. I turn the iron over a couple of times over the course of 5 minutes or so, until the thermometer's pointer is on COOK for both sides. At this point, I add the batter to the iron and return it to the stovetop. I manually flip the iron over to cook the second side about 2 minutes into cooking. When the steam seeping out from between the two paddles subsides, I know my waffles are baked.

My purpose in showing you my waffle iron is really just for information and entertainment. It's different from what most of know as a waffle iron, so I thought you might enjoy seeing it. Why would someone buy this sort of waffle iron, you may wonder. Here are a few pros to old-style waffle irons:

• They can't really break or stop working, as there are no electrical cords or elements which could short out. Old-style waffle irons could in theory continue to "work" for centuries. I expect mine will be handed down to one of my kids or sold at an estate sale to be used for many, many more years.
• They can be used over a fire in the fireplace or a grill outdoors, so in theory it could be taken camping.
• They're less expensive to purchase than most electrified models.
• Without an electrical component, they have a slim profile and can be stored in tight spaces. This was important to us when we first received it 35 years ago, as we were living in a small apartment with little kitchen storage.

Still, there are some downsides to a non-electrified waffle iron.

• There's a learning curve to getting the waffles to come out just right. Without an indicator light to tell you when the iron is heated or the waffles are baked, the cook has to make educated guesses for its use.
• Because the iron has to be flipped over halfway through cooking, this type needs more attention than electrified units that cook on both sides at the same time.
• Waffles take a little longer to bake, as the iron has to be flipped on the heat surface to cook both sides.
• It can't be brought to the table for cooking additional waffles while the family eats the first batch. Some families like to have the electric griddle or waffle maker at the table, so the cook can eat alongside the family.

Anyway, I was making waffles for my family last Friday and thought about how unique my iron is in today's world, and a few of you may not realize these are still in household use.