Cheap & Cheerful Suppers Plus Grocery Shopping for the Week

Grocery shopping for the week

My daughter picked up a bunch of bananas for me while she was at Walmart on Monday. Spent $1.60. I need my bananas for my lunchtime smoothies.

On Wednesday, I went to WinCo to buy Halloween treats and 5 medium/large pumpkins (28 cents/lb). I cook these large pumpkins (large compared to my garden pumpkins) with the skin on and puree for winter pies, breads, muffins, cakes, soups, and pasta sauces. I also bought a head of cabbage (78 cents/lb, some bulk peanuts ($1.98/lb), bulk cornstarch ($1.28/lb), bulk flax seed meal ($2.28/lb), bulk peanut butter powder for smoothies ($6.08/lb), ketchup ($1.18), boneless/skinless chicken breasts ($2.88/lb), a gallon of whole milk ($3.29), and 5 dozen medium eggs ($7.28). I spent $54.34, for $55.94 total for the week.

I spent $247.91 last week, which was the first time in the month I grocery shopped, so my monthly total so far is $303.85.

Dinners this week

Friday

Our first homemade pizza in months. I made a garlic, rosemary, olive oil crust, then topped with tomato-based sauce, pizza blend cheese, and sliced gyro meat that was leftover from my husband's and my birthday dinner in April (it's been in the freezer all this time). With the pizza we had sautéed Swiss chard and onions, and chopped apples. We watched Crazy on the Outside, with Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, a free movie on Freevee watched with the Roku.

Saturday

A vegetably meal tonight. Sometimes I just want lots of vegetables. We had black-eyed peas, baked with onions, garlic, celery leaves, thyme and olive oil. With this we also had steamed baby carrots, oven-roasted purple potatoes (using up the tiny ones), and cheese.

Sunday

Again with the purple potatoes. This time I chose some larger ones and baked them, then topped with a cheese sauce. Sautéed kale and grilled onions on the side.

Monday

I made beef and vegetable stew, using carrots, celery, and potatoes from our garden, and some frozen peas. I wasn't feeling great this afternoon. A stomach bug is going through our family and it was just catching me. Anyway, I took my bowl of stew to bed and suggested others make toast to go with their stew. I started to feel better after eating my serving of stew. 

Tuesday

This was my easy day, including making an easy dinner. I made scratch tomato soup and focaccia bread. So tasty and it hit the spot. 

Wednesday

One daughter made dinner for us tonight. She roasted a small garden pumpkin then mashed it with butter, baked a sheet pan of purple potatoes, and skillet-sautéed a large chicken breast, diced, seasoning the meat with onions, garlic, and tex-mex spices.

Thursday 

My other daughter is cooking tonight. She's making scrambled eggs, sautéed cabbage, slices of freshly baked bread and chopped fresh apples.

The air turned very cold this week, so I'm hurrying to get celery and the rest of the garden onions in. I washed and sorted 2 bundles (of 9) of celery this afternoon. I pulled out the good ribs for fresh eating, then chopped the rest of the ribs and leaves for the freezer, to use in soups, stews, sauces, and casseroles this fall and winter. The celery was very dirty, so I only took care of 2 bundles today. I covered the rest of the plants with 2 sheets for the night, in case temps really drop overnight. The next few days will be freezing overnight. So I hope to get all of the celery harvested by Saturday. I'm a little slow getting everything harvested this year. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now.

How was your week? Were there any especially tasty meals on your table? My favorite dinner this week was probably the pizza dinner, closely followed by all 6 other dinners. Can you tell I like to eat?

What's Your Dishwasher-Loading Protocol?

If you use an automatic dishwasher, and it's more than just yourself in your household, how do you go about loading the dishwasher. If you hand wash dishes, I get it. Sometimes with just one or two people, hand washing makes more sense.

We all try to get value for what we spend, right? So fitting as much as will actually get clean into an automatic dishwasher only makes sense, saving both water and energy.

With that in mind, do you prefer to have household members add their dishes to the dishwasher as they use them, or do you prefer to be the one loading the dishwasher and ask members to stack dishes in the sink or on the drainboard area of your counter?

I ask because every time the dishwasher is getting near to full, enough to run a load, I have to pull out about a third of the items and reload those to make more fit. In my house, we all add our dishes as we use them. But I sometimes think it would be more efficient if I asked everyone to stack dishes in the sink. Then when I had time, I'd load it all as tightly as is reasonable. 

The way we've set up dishwasher chores in our household is the other 3 people take turns unloading the dishwasher, while I always finish loading it, getting as much in a possible, then start it.

If I asked my family to stack dishes in the sink, I actually think they'd like that. So I could load everything how I see fit, while making them happy. But that would also mean that dirty dishes would be out for the most of a day.

I also use the dishwasher for mixing bowls, casserole dishes, cutting boards, and some pots and pans, so it's more than just plates and glasses, which because they are of one pattern will tessellate well.

Anyways, what are your thoughts on loading the dishwasher? Do you prefer to be the one who does the loading? Do you work to make as much fit in as possible, or is that not a priority to you?

Tell me what you think.

This Week

I have testing fatigue

You may already recognize this from your's or a family member's health tests. It's the heart monitor I wore for the last week. It was adhered to my chest and had to stay on 24/7. It also could not get wet, so no showers, and I had to be especially careful when bathing not to splash it. I took very shallow and brief baths. It goes without saying, that some parts of me didn't get terribly clean for the week, as this little device had to stay dry and couldn't be moved. I got to take it off late yesterday. So today I got the first proper bath in a week. Although I'm growing weary of all of these tests, I do know that I'm getting closer to answers and a diagnosis.

I washed all of the dirty bags today 

The jar where we put dirty bags was full, and the box where we keep the dried clean bags was empty. A good time to wash them all. And now they're hanging to dry on the clothes drying rack.

Free pile in front of a store

I forgot to show these to you last month. These stones were on a free table in front of a plant store that was moving to another town. I also picked up some free plant food, and my daughter got 2 free, hand-thrown mugs. I love these carved stones. Right now they're on my desk holding down to-do papers. I see them every day.

Turning cold here

The weather turned especially cold this afternoon. I went walking in the morning and wasn't particularly cold. But by the time I retrieved our mail, it was so cold outside. I guess we're now into the cold weather season for my area and won't see really warm days for months.

How crazy is this? Roses are blooming while the birch tree has lost nearly all of its leaves. Its yellow leaves carpet the ground and walkway up to the front door. Looks like someone will need to get out the leaf blower this week. With this cold weather, I don't  imagine the roses will hang around too much longer.

Yay! Both daughters are home again

One daughter was dog-sitting for 9 days and came home today. Yay! We did get to see her during that period. We did Zoom dinners several nights, she also came by to pick up needed things a couple of times, and she came over for dinner and movie night last Friday. One of the days, I drove her back and got to pet the dog -- sweet doggie. Animals may be in our future at our own house, I predict.

Easy Day

Today was my easy day, so I made an easy scratch dinner (yes, there are such things). I made tomato soup from tomato paste, herbs, onion, garlic, and a bit of kale, plus water and salt and served it with herb and Parmesan focaccia. It was delicious, and I was able to make it all in advance so I could take it easy in the late afternoon. When you're going through a difficult period, I think you need to create an easy day in your schedule. Having a lighter day refreshes us, so we have the strength and stamina for the tough days to come.

Tomorrow, we're going shopping for pumpkins and trick-or-treat goodies. Looking forward to that!

What's been happening in your week?

A Lesson From Growing Potatoes

I finished digging all of the potatoes over this past weekend. 

I planted 3 varieties of potatoes in 2 beds last spring, purple fingerling (seed saved from last year's crop -- I don't recall the variety name), Yukon Gold, and Red Norland.  I gave the different potato varieties similar treatment, light, water, soil amendments. I was hoping for a lot of the red and yellow potatoes. As it turned out, the purple fingerling ones out-performed the other two by a huge margin. All of the red and yellow ones fit into 1 box, while the purple potatoes took up 3 similar-sized boxes.

What lesson did I learn from my experience? Well, it isn't that purple fingerling potatoes will out-perform all other varieties for all people. In fact, where you live, perhaps the Yukon Golds would be the prolific potatoes, or the Red Norlands, or some other variety. The lesson I learned is that if a variety doesn't pan out, I should try a different variety next time, or change the soil conditions, or change my watering schedule. By changing things up, I can often find what works for my situation. If I had only planted Yukon Golds this past season, I might have thought potatoes just don't grow well in my area. In my opinion on gardening, it's always worth trying again with a change in variety or controllable conditions. Gardening is something of an experiment every year. Some experiments succeed and some fail. Hopefully for those of us gardeners, more of our gardening experiments succeed than fail. In this case, I learned that those purple fingerling potatoes will likely do better for me than some of the other popular varieties.

Many of you don't keep gardens, or if you do, don't bother growing potatoes. Why would any of this matter then to you? Trying again but changing conditions is a lesson that can be applied to many endeavors. It's by trying and tweaking how we approach a task that often leads us to success. And even if we find out we just can't grow potatoes, we will know that we did try as many ways and varieties as was reasonable.

I remember my first few pie crusts. Those things were tough as cardboard. I didn't give up, however. We had a yard full of fruit trees to utilize in the rental in which we were living. I searched out and tried several different pie pastry recipes until I landed on one that worked for my mediocre pie-baking skills at the time. 

Another example comes from when I went to repaint all of the rooms in our house when we first moved in. For doing my first room, I bought the cheapest brush at the store. After all, I was painting the interior myself to save money. I didn't realize some better brushes would make the job not only look better, but the paint would go on the walls more smoothly, making my job easier. When I finished the walls in that room, I headed back to Home Base (our Home Depot-type store at the time) to buy paint for the trim. The paint guy chatted with me for a while, uncovering that this was my first "big" paint job. I told him all about the troubles I'd had, and asked for tips on how to make the next room go more smoothly.  His first question was about the brush I was using. I showed it to him on the rack. He informed me that that grade of brush was really best for staining fences. He got me set up with a couple of better brushes. He was right -- making this one change made the paint go on more smoothly and the end result was a better look. Tweaking that one thing, the tool I was using, made all the difference. Had I not had that conversation, I might have thought I just wasn't cut out for house painting.

So, that's my lesson with this tale of potatoes, pie crust, and painting. I've learned that instead of giving up, changing one or two elements of a project can mean I have success the next time around. With gardening, I will always be tweaking what and how I plant and grow. I don't think there will ever be an end to gardening lessons for me.

As far as how many pounds of potatoes we harvested this year -- it looks like our harvest was around 32 pounds in total. It's not as much as I had hoped, but still enough for a few months for my family. 

Have you had projects or endeavors that you needed to rethink before you found success? It isn't always about skill level. Sometimes we're just going about something in the wrong way or with the wrong tools.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers Plus Grocery Shopping for this Week

Groceries this week

Early Sunday morning, I stopped by Walmart before church. Among the things I needed (specific supplements), I bought 1 bunch of bananas, spending $1.14 for those.

Wednesday, after another blood draw (6th blood draw in 2 weeks) -- the lab was near the restaurant supply (we call it Cash 'n Carry, its former name, but now it's Chefstore). One daughter came with me for prayer support and in case I didn't feel right after the draw, and also to help with large boxes and bags. At Cash 'n Carry we bought 50 lbs of onions $14.09, a case of 9 4-lb bags of raisins $88.89, a gallon of olive oil $38.19, 1.25 quarts of sesame oil $17.69, 15 lbs of butter $3.09/lb, 12.5 lbs of popping corn $9.39, a carton of popcorn salt $4.28, 5 lbs of pizza cheese $11.99, and a 5 lb block of cheddar cheese $15.89. We'll be eating well this winter. I spent $246.77. I mentioned a while back that I'd be spending a lot stocking up for fall and winter. This was one of those shopping trips.  For the week, I spent 247.91.

When I got home from Cash 'n Carry, I noticed a few of the onions were definitely on their last legs. This afternoon I took some time to peel and chopped those onions for the freezer. I have a few more that I'll do this to, so none will be wasted (or so we hope).

Meals this week

Friday

Friday movie and dinner night. We didn't watch a movie because we got a late start. So we watched stand-up comedy instead. The night before, my daughter roasted a whole chicken. I reheated some of the meat and made a little more gravy with the leftover drippings. We had chopped tomatoes, spiced apples, roasted garden potatoes, and Swiss chard with this dinner. The laughter and good meal were what we all needed.

Saturday

Another chicken meal. My husband made flour tortillas and wrapped up seasoned leftover chicken. With the chicken wraps we had chopped fresh tomatoes and sautéed kale and garlic. Another meal that hit the spot.

Sunday

I simmered the chicken bones and my husband picked off as much meat as possible to make this really delicious soup. He added some canned pumpkin, the leftover chicken gravy, some stock and lots of garden veggies -- onions, carrots, celery, parsley, sage, thyme, potatoes, and green beans. It was very tasty. With the soup, he made scratch biscuits, also delicious.

Monday

A mixture of black-eyed peas and the last of the roasted chicken from last Thursday, some kale, chopped dried tomatoes, and lots of garlic and herbs over brown rice, with chopped russet apples on the side.

Tuesday

Swiss steak. Under the sauce of tomatoes and carrots is cube steak that we bought from the rancher. Very tender and flavorful. My family really enjoyed this meal. With it I served mashed garden potatoes (purple, red, and Yukon gold), and sautéed Swiss chard.

Wednesday

The Swiss steak made so much extra sauce that I had enough to make a soup the next night, adding the leftover black-eyed peas, some additional tomatoes, celery, more garlic, and garden herbs. I topped the soup with bottom-of-the-bag tortilla chips from a few weeks ago. I served this with scratch cornbread that I topped with cheddar before baking and baked delicata squash. I mixed up some brown sugar and set out salt, butter, and cinnamon for everyone to help themselves to top their own 2 halves of squash. I had 4 small delicata, perfect for splitting between the 4 of us.

Thursday

Tonight, one daughter is making ham fried rice for us, with chopped apples own the side. She taught today, so after she came home, she worked on dinner while I chopped onions. It was a lovely part of the day, catching up with her while we both cooked.

We are still using a lot of produce from our garden and mini orchard. This week, we used, garden onion, garlic, carrots, potatoes, green beans, celery, parsley, thyme, oregano, sage, tomatoes, apples, winter squash, Swiss chard, and kale in dinners, plus dried plums in breakfasts and lunches.

Our meals are humble, I know. But this is the type of cooking we really appreciate. Good basic foods prepared well is fine dining in our book.

How was your week? What were your favorite meals this week? Any special plans for the weekend? We'll be digging more potatoes, weather permitting. Then a few lovely autumn walks, and puttering around the house. A normal, wonderful weekend.

My Budget Autumn Decor

I've finally been putting out some autumn-themed decor this week, doing one room or area each day. This is the bay windowsill in the dining room. I've got our thrifted cornucopia filled with free pile faux fruit, berries and leaves plus one of our garden pumpkins, some collected-in-the-wild acorns, and the free pile candle holder plus free pile pillar candle (repurposed from the summer patio). It also 4 candle jars that I change seasonally.

I've shown you each season separately, but I don't think I've put them all together in one post before.

The jars are excess 1/2-pint jelly jars. My family doesn't eat nearly as much jam and jelly as they used to, so now I'm finding other uses for the canning jars.

The candles inside are battery LED tea lights from Dollar Tree, bought in 2016 or 2017. At that time you could get 4 lights in a package for $1. I'm sure they're now in packages of 2, and for $1.25. But I make them last by not leaving them on when its daytime and only turning them on for brief periods in the evenings. For October and November, I tied orange, red, yellow and brown plaid ribbons around each jar.

Just after Thanksgiving in late November, I switch out the autumn plaid ribbon for a green and red plaid ribbon. I don't retie the ribbons each time, but slide them on and off still tied.

For the Christmas candle jars, the spot where I use them is smaller, so I only use 3 candles. With the 4th jar, I fill this one with candy canes, as a budget holiday decoration.

Then when spring rolls around, the jars get a green ribbon, faux greenery, and raffia bow. These candle jars often come outside to the table on the deck during summer.

So that is some of my autumn decorating on a budget.

Are You Ever Amazed By How Much Extra Liquid or Creamy Substance You Can Get Out of a Tube, Bottle or Jar by Adding Water?

A week ago, I asked one of my daughters, who happens to frequent Dollar Tree, if she could pick up a bottle of liquid dish detergent the next time she was there. She looked over at the current bottle and asked if she should go that evening. At that point, there was not much more than a green film at the bottom of the bottle. I said "no, this should last us another 4 days." Well, here we are, a full week later, and by adding water, we've been able to do all of the hand washing with that little bit. (We also use a dishwasher for most items, so it's not like we washed ever dish, pot, or pan with that tiny amount of detergent.)

I'm just amazed at how much more we could get from that bottle. I think we have enough for another day of those items that need hand washing.

I about panicked when I saw my favorite deep conditioning hair cream jar was about empty. I made a special stop by Walmart to pick up more as a result. Without even opening the next jar, I decided to add some water to the bottom of the current one. I've been able to get enough conditioning substance to get through another week.

I co-wash with cheapo conditioner on a regular basis. When I could no longer get conditioner to come out of the bottle with a squeeze, I downgraded this almost empty bottle to my hair detangler. 

Sometimes, adding water can lengthen the time you have to replace a substance. Sometimes, it's diluted to the point that you have to use the substance differently from its original purpose. Take ketchup. When the ketchup bottle is about empty, I add water and save this ketchup-water to add to soup or baked beans.

Imagine all of the bottles, jars, and tubes that go into the garbage without this extra effort to rinse and continue using to the very last bit. Waste bothers me. But also, I feel sorry for those folks who don't get that same sense of amazement or satisfaction that I get, by using it all up. They're missing out. Not only is this a free satisfaction, but it actually saves money. Maybe this sort of thing isn't on their radar for fun times.

Back to the question -- are you ever amazed by how much extra you can get out of a jar, bottle or tube simply by adding water? Tell me I'm not alone in my frugal fun.

What Are Some of Your Favorite Pumpkin Foods?

'Tis the season to make all things pumpkin.

At my family's request, over the weekend I made a loaf of pumpkin bread. I used the recipe on an old Libby's canned pumpkin label, halving the recipe (to make 1 loaf instead of two), reducing the sugar by a couple of tablespoons and subbing part (3/8 cup) of the all-purpose flour called for with a bit of whole wheat. That last bit meant I could maybe call this a "whole grain." Okay, so not exactly a whole grain food, but better than all white flour.

Pumpkin bread is a family favorite here. We enjoyed it as snacks, breakfast, and dessert.

But we also really enjoyed the pumpkin pudding from a week ago. When there was one cup remaining, my family members had to play a game of rock, paper, scissors to see who would get it.

Other pumpkin dishes I've made this fall include oven-roasted pumpkin cubes as a side dish and curried peanut-pumpkin soup. 

A favorite holiday dessert in my household is this pumpkin cake roll (recipe in this link). I'm thinking this cake roll may find its way onto our Thanksgiving or Christmas menu. It's easier than it looks and always elicits compliments on its appearance.

I still have a bunch of garden-grown pumpkins left to work with. Looking for suggestions and favorite recipes.

So how about you? What are your favorite ways to use pumpkin?

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for a Week With Tough Moments

Friday 

Friday

While my husband drove me to and from an appointment this afternoon, one daughter made dinner for the 4 of us. We swung by where my other daughter was cat-sitting for the week to get her to join us for a dinner and movie. We watched Death to Smoochy, a Robin Williams comedy, while eating a mac, beef, tomato, and cheese skillet dinner. Tasty and a relaxing evening.

Saturday

Saturday

Just 3 for dinner, my cat-sitting daughter's last night with the cats. My husband made scratch flour tortillas with refried beans, for those eating beans. We also had garden carrots, frozen peas, and some cheddar cheese.

Sunday

Yay! Both daughters here, so we had a cookout. 

My husband made hot dog buns for us and got the fire going.

Sunday

We had hot dogs/buns, garden tomatoes, sauerkraut, sautéed cabbage, and cooked garden apple bites, plus all the condiments including this year's sweet relish. 

The couple my daughter was cat-sitting for texted mid-way through dinner to ask if she could go back and give the kitties one last snack, as the couple's train was delayed and they wouldn't be home for a couple more hours. Both daughters went to the cats' house. While they were there, we had a small earthquake. A lot of people in the area didn't feel it. I felt the chair I was sitting on jolt. My daughters thought a door in the house had slammed shut. My husband thought something happened but didn't know what it was. And my niece in the city didn't feel it at all. Both daughters came home shortly after.

a plate of garden potatoes and carrots from Monday's pot roast

Monday

Monday

I made a pot roast with gravy, garden carrots, garden potatoes, and garden tomatoes. One daughter and I dug potatoes in the morning. It was nice having an hour with her after her week away with the cats. Both daughters love helping with this chore. It is a little like a treasure hunt.

Tuesday

Tuesday

I had just about finished putting dinner together as I began to feel worse and worse. My family was very concerned so we headed to the ER when my husband got home from work. It was a long and hard evening. But just so you know, I'm okay. 

My blood sugar plummeted at one point so my daughters found the vending machine and brought back some crackers for me. That and a piece of cheese, plus 2 cups of juice from the nurse's station was dinner for me. By the time we returned home very late, we were all too wiped out to eat anything substantial. So dinner would wait until the next day.

Wednesday

Wednesday

This is what we should have eaten on Tuesday -- chopped leftover pot roast in gravy over scratch biscuits, along with garden tomatoes and our own tree stewed prunes. It hit the spot and didn't suffer by waiting an extra day. One daughter very kindly reheated and plated everything for us.

Thursday (I'll add a photo later, posting this early)

I'm roasting a whole chicken this afternoon. Meanwhile, my daughter will make sides of garden potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cabbage roasted on a sheet pan. She'll also make a gravy to go with the chicken.

That was my week in meals. What's been happening this week with you? Anything special on your menu this week?

The sun came out about an hour ago. So now I'll go get a bit of vitamin D and take a walk.

Stovetop Pumpkin Pudding for a Delicious Fall Treat

 

I didn't plan on making pumpkin pudding this past week. It all came about as a batch of botched spiced pumpkin puree that we were to have with dinner one night. I had my daughters helping me in the kitchen that evening, and we seemed to get very distracted with our conversation. Story short -- a mistake, bug mistake was made in measuring the ground cloves. The pumpkin puree was simply too strong to enjoy with the meal. That spicy pumpkin sat in a container in the fridge for several days. I wasn't sure if I'd bake pumpkin bread, make a pie, or do something else. Then one daughter reminded me how much our family enjoys pumpkin pudding, the kind you make on the stove.

Thursday afternoon I turned the too-spicy thick pumpkin puree into a tasty pudding. I used a basic cornstarch pudding recipe, omitting the vanilla extract. I think I used about 1 cup of spiced pumpkin puree for a "2 cups of milk" recipe. Otherwise I followed the cornstarch pudding recipe as usual, blending cornstarch, sugar, salt together, then stirring in milk and cooking until thick. Near the end, I stirred in the pumpkin and finished cooking. My family loves this stuff and so do I. I made myself a batch using soy milk and about 1/2 cup of the spicy pumpkin, so I could have some too.

My guess is you could also make a tasty pumpkin pudding with a box of pudding mix, which would even be simpler. Simply stir in a 1/2 cup to 1 cup of pumpkin puree into the finished pudding plus a bit of spices like cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and/or nutmeg.

Sometimes I want the taste of the filling of pumpkin pie without making the crust. Stovetop pumpkin pudding is an easy way to get that taste I crave.

A brief update -- last week I had 6 separate medical/dental visits. Those appointments wiped me out. My doctor has asked me to delay having the extraction for a couple of weeks. I have some health complications right now that need to be figured out and mediated before using anesthesia of any kind. Whatever is causing my symptoms, I am hopeful will be easy to treat. More soft food for me.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers (with some random photos of my kitchen)

Another week of homecooked meals. Since I failed to take pictures of our meals most days of this week, I thought I'd intersperse some random glimpses of the kitchen's most used areas.

Snack central
homemade instant oatmeal and oatmeal packets
from the salvage store (10 cents/box)
a couple of packets of free pop-tarts (free with coupon)
nuts, sunflower seeds, and raisins

Friday
spaghetti with meaty tomato sauce (using fresh tomatoes, canned tomato paste, garden garlic, parsley, oregano)
steamed garden carrots

I just have to say this -- freshly dug carrots smell so wonderful when cooking. I only added a blob of butter to the finished carrots, no salt or anything else. So delicious.

I did remember to take a pic on Saturday

Saturday

refried beans

homemade flour tortilla

tomato wedges

cheddar cheese

I asked my husband to make me an extra small tortilla, so I wouldn't have to grind my teeth down to chew. I was told to be very careful with the fractured tooth, because it could fracture further and cause some serious pain. So my husband obliged and made this cute little tortilla.

the fruit bowl area
The tomatoes on the counter are ones
that need peeling and using asap.
Small bowl of garlic cloves are pieces leftover from planting
garlic this week. I planted only the large cloves and
saved the smaller ones for cooking.
Avocados are great soft foods for minimal chewing.

Sunday

tomato frittata

white rice

steamed garden carrots

One daughter is gone for the week cat-sitting. So dinner was much simpler. Fewer people to cook for means simple meals in my mind. 

I love most things about our stove.
It has an old-fashioned look to it.
However, it burned out 2 igniters way too fast.
The red pot in back is a Whirly-Pop for making popcorn.
My daughter bought this on ebay
and says it makes the best popcorn.
You have to turn the handle
the whole time the popcorn is popping.

Monday

spaghetti sauce over pasta for family, over soft and crustless bread for me

well-cooked garden mixed veggies

Tuesday's dinner

Tuesday

bean burgers, topped with homemade relish and mayo

mashed potatoes

more steamed carrots

Where we keep the flavored vinegars, cocoa mix,
sugar canister, right next to the mixing bowl.

Wednesday

homemade tomato soup

scrambled eggs

crustless soft bread for me, toasted homemade bread for family

Thursday

Thursday

ground beef cooked with onions, garlic, fresh tomatoes, garden herbs, and a slurry of cornstarch and water to make a bit of a sauce, so I could serve it over

mashed potatoes

pureed kale soup

homemade applesauce, using our blemished tree apples

As you can see, I'm on a rather soft diet. Trying not to create a larger crack in that tooth by chewing anything harder than steamed carrots. I find myself just swallowing a lot of stuff whole, like the ground beef in the spaghetti sauce. It works for me. I'm finding lots of soft things to eat -- smoothies, avocados, cream of wheat cereal, ripe bananas, soup, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes. I do eat a few other more firm foods, but in total, I've been very careful with eating.

What was on your menu this past week? Have you ever had to prepare mostly soft foods for yourself or others? What foods worked well for you?

Have a great weekend, friends!

Putting Problems in Perspective With the Help of a Dream

You all know my current problems. Well last night, in my final dream of the night, my subconscious put everything into perspective. 

A voice asked me to draw a version of myself on the wall. Which I did (and frankly, I'm a much better artist than this rendering, well maybe not "much better"). Then that voice asked me to draw a box showing how big my current problem was, which I did in red ink.

The voice asked me what the size of the box was. I replied "it's 5 feet by 5 feet." The voice asked how big (tall) I am, and is this a realistic representation of my problem? 

That's when I woke up. I'm 5'3", by the way. So I think the message that my subconscious gave me was that I was thinking my problem is almost as big as I am. In that moment, I realized I had inflated my problem significantly and allowed it to take up too much mind space. 

While I don't think we should shame ourselves out of our fears, I do think sometimes my anxious self needs to do a reassessment.

I will no doubt be somewhat anxious the day of my extraction and reasonably afraid. I've come to accept that I will not be at ease with it all. That's just how I am. It's okay to face something difficult and not be at ease with it. 

By the way, I still don't know when this will happen. My medical doctor has to clear me for this, as I have some medical issues that need addressing to ensure a successful outcome. I'll give you all a heads up before hand, and I expect I'll be offline for a few days. Or maybe not. Maybe you'll be reading some rather curious and comical posts by me in the hours following, when I'll be a bit loopy from pain killers.

Anyway, this isn't at all about frugal living. And I apologize if you were hoping for more frugal thoughts and less about my dreams. Maybe I'll have something better tomorrow. 

Until then . . .