Work today so I can enjoy Thanksgiving with everyone else

I'm guessing that a fair number of you friends are either on the road to family or busy getting Thanksgiving preparations underway. I'm busy getting things done to host Thanksgiving at our house.

Last week I made up a list of work to be done with a calendar for when to do each task, beginning with tasks for Saturday. On Saturday I finalized the menu, went grocery shopping for everything we'd need, and made sure everyone knew how they would participate in the preparations.

Sunday was a day of rest.

Today, Monday, I finalized the menu again in the morning, then went shopping for the other items we'd need for our meal. Both daughters were home in the afternoon, so we made a lot of progress on our work list. We got the guest bathroom cleaned, all of the downstairs vacuumed, the dining room table set, the Christmas tree out and set up (we decorate after Thanksgiving dinner), the trunks of ornaments brought downstairs, the meat out of the freezer, a loaf of French bread baked for the stuffing, and a batch of no-milk condensed cream of mushroom soup made for a casserole. Oh, and I finalized the menu again later in the day. I also made beef stew for dinner and a batch of coconut-almond bar cookies so I could lick the bowl as my appetizer for lunch.

So far, this is the "final" menu

Roast chicken with tangerine-sage glaze

Smoked pork roast

Bread, sage, onion, celery, and sausage dressing/stuffing

Mashed root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, turnips, browned onion and garlic)

Green bean casserole

Sweet potato casserole

Carrot, celery, olive tray

Garden greens (kale, radish greens) and dried plum salad in sweet and tangy dressing

Gravy

Cranberry relish

Pumpkin Pie 

Cherry Pie

Whipped Cream

Sparkling cider and sparkling water

It sounds like a lot, I know. I do like to send our guests home with leftovers. And I like to have variety. We have folks with very different dietary preferences, and I aim to please if I can.

Tomorrow is another day of preparations. I'll be up early getting work underway. Wishing you well as you travel or prepare for your holiday.

Pumpkin Spice-Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies and how to modify recipes using home-cooked pumpkin

With clouds and rain returning this afternoon and Thanksgiving just around the corner, today seemed like a great day to bake an easy pumpkin treat. These are a soft cake-like bar cookie. What I love about cake-like cookies is they often have less sugar and butter. This recipe uses just 1/4 cup of butter and 2/3 cup of sugar. As a bonus, they have one whole cup of pumpkin puree, which means we all get a little bit more nutrition in our cookie. If the recipe below looks remotely familiar, that's because I modified the applesauce-raisin bar cookies I opted about last month to use pumpkin puree and chocolate chips (plus a wee bit more spice). Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice-Chocolate Chip Bars

¼ cup butter or margarine, softened

⅔ cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup pumpkin puree (use slightly less by 1 tablespoon if using thick or canned pumpkin)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 ¼ to 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or any combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg to equal the amount)

¾ cup chocolate chips (I use mini chips, but regular chocolate chips or chocolate chunks would also be good)

confectioners' sugar, about 1 tablespoon for dusting after baking

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease a 9X13 inch baking pan. (I use a Pyrex one.)

In a medium bowl, cream butter and brown sugar. Beat in egg, then pumpkin puree. Stir in salt, spices, and baking soda. Stir in flour and chocolate chips.

Spread in the prepared baking pan. Bake for about 25 minutes, until done in the center and edges are golden.

Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Dust with the confectioners' sugar and cut into 24 squares.

(My husband 's comment,"these aren't going to last long." I think they're a hit.)

Home-cooked pumpkin puree and recipes that assume you're using canned pumpkin

This was a question from Kris in the comments the other day. I realize that many folks don't have time to follow the comments and then follow-up on answers to questions there. So, I thought I'd post about how to handle the often times, more watery consistency of home-cooked pumpkin compared to canned in baking recipes.

You have a couple of choices in how to compensate for the less thick home-cooked puree. 

1) Dump your puree into a mesh strainer set over a bowl and leave it to strain in the fridge overnight. 

2) Cook the puree down in a saucepan, stirring frequently, until of comparable thickness to canned pumpkin. 

3) Bake your puree in a metal baking pan in a 300 degree oven for about 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes, bringing puree from the sides into the center and vice versa.

4) Adjust the liquids or dry ingredients when baking. 

For recipes that include other liquids (such as pie, cakes, muffins), reduce the other liquid by 1 to 2 tablespoons, amount depending on how much liquid the recipe calls for. So, for pie I reduce the milk/cream by 2 tablespoons. With muffins, I often reduce by about 1 tablespoon. With pancakes, I reduce the liquid judging by the thickness of the batter. I can eyeball how thick a pancake batter needs to be.

With recipes that don't include other liquids, such as drop cookies, I add 1 extra tablespoon of flour to the cookie dough.

Decreasing the liquid or increasing the flour seems to work well for me, although I do strain off excess liquid after pureeing just before packing in freezer containers.

Can you use carving pumpkins for food?

This pumpkin -- 13.66 lbs, 33 cents/lb, total cost $4.51.

These pumpkins are referred to as "carving pumpkins," Jack-o'-lanterns, or field pumpkins. They're inexpensive in stores because they are easy to grow given the right conditions. They need space,  full sunlight, warm summers, and long growing seasons, all things my own yard lacks. Anyway, their variety tends to be stringier and more watery than those labeled "pie pumpkins." Despite that, for the price, they're a great food for use in recipes.

Cooking

This is the first of two carving pumpkins that I bought this year. On Monday, I used the skin-on, stove-top cooking technique for this one. 

I halved the pumpkin and scooped out the seeds, then cut the flesh with the skin of the pumpkin still on into 1-inch wides strips, omitting the stem and the blossom end. I used as much of the pumpkin as I could, including using the flesh just under the stem, and only cutting away a tiny amount of the pumpkin to remove the scar of the blossom end. I should back up just a tad. When I bought the pumpkin, I looked for one with minimal scarring on the skin. I generally trim away scars, as they don't puree as smoothly as the rest of the skin.

Okay, back to cooking the beast. I cooked the pumpkin in two large batches in a medium stockpot. I added about 1 cup of water to the pumpkin slices at the start of cooking, just to get things going. I brought the pot to a boil, reduced to a simmer, and covered, cooking until the skins were so soft I could cut them with the edge of a spoon, about 40 minutes. I stirred the pieces from time to time, when I thought about it. This wasn't a super hands-on job to perform.

Once well-cooked, I removed the lid from the pot and continued cooking for about 20 minutes longer to reduce the liquid. After that, I removed the pot from the heat and allowed the pumpkin to cool for an hour. 

At that point I pureed it in the food processor, straining it in a mesh strainer in batches. The strained out liquid was reserved in containers to use a soup stock and as liquid in smoothies or baking.

The final result was about 8 1/2 pints of pumpkin puree, 

1 1/2 quarts of pumpkin stock, 

and about 1 cup of seeds for roasting and snacking. Disregarding the value of the stock and the seeds, my pumpkin puree works out to be about 53 cents per pint, less than half the price of pumpkin puree in my grocery store. Admittedly, home-cooked pumpkin puree is more watery than commercially-cooked puree. So this isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison.  Still, if I could reduce the liquid content of my puree to that of store-bought, I believe home-cooked would be considerably less expensive than buying pumpkin puree.

We use pureed pumpkin in numerous ways, in smoothies, in baking and pancake/waffle making, in soups and sauces, and most recently, in quiche. I use the stock in soup and as liquid in smoothies. And of course, we enjoy the seeds roasted and salted. I find inexpensive carving pumpkins to be a great food source for tight budgets, full of vitamins, minerals, protein, complex carbs, and fiber.

I have one remaining large pumpkin to cook. That one is over 15 pounds. I expect it will yield about 9 pints of puree. 

Electricity and Internet Outage

Hi friends,

We had an electricity and internet outage from last night just after dinner until this morning around 9 AM. Both are now restored. I'll be back this afternoon with the post I was working on then. Have a great rest of your day. 🌞

Using the Frozen Rendered Beef Fat in Roasted Vegetables

garden carrots and potatoes for a chilly fall day

I mentioned last we that I rendered almost 2 cups of fat from 3 pounds of beef short ribs. 

I keep this fat in a container in the kitchen freezer to use in cooking. When sautéing, it's easy to cut a piece of fat off and melt in a hot skillet before adding vegetables or lean meat. Oven-roasting vegetables takes one additional step.

I use about 1 tablespoon of beef fat for carrots and potatoes for 4 adults. I scoop the still frozen beef fat into a microwaveable dish, then melt the at in the microwave until liquid.

Using a spoon and a rubber spatula, I toss cut vegetables in the melted fat until all are lightly coated. The spatula helps to use as much of the fat as possible. 

I roast the veggies on a darkened  baking sheet. My rendered fat is unseasoned, so I sprinkle the veggies with salt before roasting.

I roasted this batch at about 425 F degrees for about 30 minutes, until toasty-looking.

My family loves root vegetables roasted in beef fat. My husband likes to remind me that Mc D's French fries used to be fried in beef fat. Are these as tasty as French fries? Perhaps not. But they're awfully good nonetheless. As for how much fat remains on the baking sheet after roasting.I needed to wipe out the baking pan a few times with brown paper before I could wash it in the dishwater. I imagine about 2 teaspoons of the fat wind up coating the vegetables while 1 teaspoon remains in the pan. We aren't eating gobs of beef fat with dinner. 

A wet autumn harvest

Although it's been a rainy and cool fall so far, I have still been able to harvest fresh veggies each week. 

Earlier this week I harvested a bunch of kale and fresh sage. I've got the sage drying right now. With the kale, I wrapped about half of it in a towel and plastic bag for the fridge, should anyone wasn't some fresh greens when making their lunch. With the other half a made a sweet and tangy salad, finely chopped kale, chopped dried plums, and a dressing of jelly, thyme vinegar, oil, and salt. The salad was big enough for several days of lunches. Another day I harvested some of the late planted radishes, using both the roots and greens in salads.

This morning, I timed it to get outside between bouts of heavier showers.  When I could see there was only a tiny sprinkle coming down, I put on some boots and ventured out into the garden. Most years, I just sort of abandon what remains in the garden after the end of October. This year I am trying to use as much as I can from it. I missed out on the final batch of unripe figs and crabapples. Between the cooler temps and the squirrels, I lost the last of the crabapples and unripe figs. Perhaps missing out on those last bits has propelled me to be more diligent about getting outside for the veggies. 

Today I harvested a large bunch of parsley and a bucket of Brussel sprout leaves. They were plentiful and most needed picking. I had no idea how I would use these two greens, but once inside again, I put them to good use for our meals. I used my food processor to throw together a quick batch of hummus using up the parsley and cooked the Brussel sprout leaves in tonight's dinner. I made what we call "beans and greens." This is a simple dish of cooked black-eyed peas, chopped fresh greens of any kind (kale or chard are our usuals), onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, cooking oil, kielbasa (if we have some), and water to make it just a little bit saucy. Tonight I also added 2 small, wrinkly garden tomatoes from summer's end of season harvest. "Beans and greens" are served over rice. It sounds basic and plain, but it's really pretty good. Tomorrow I'll harvest the biggest turnips for oven-roasting as part of dinner.

The garden is really winding down for the year. I am left with turnips, kale, Brussel sprout leaves, a few Brussel sprouts, one celery plant, a few green onions, parsley, and other herbs. I am reaching the point where if we anticipated a heavy snow or period of prolonged freezing temps, I would be mostly satisfied with losing the remaining garden veggies. But that's not likely to happen for another couple of weeks. So it looks like I'll be dodging raindrops for a bit longer as I continue to use up the last of the garden.

Just working at squeezing all of the value out of our foods.

Have a great weekend, friends!

Rendering the Fat From Last Night's Beef Short Ribs

I made beef short ribs for dinner last night. While we like them, they are terribly fatty. 

rendered and saved beef fat from last night's cooking, will add more today

I hate to waste all of that fat, though, especially with the high price of other cooking fats right now. So I saved as much of the beef fat as I could.

I browned the meat slowly in the early afternoon, rendering as much of the fat as I could before the meat developed too thick of a crust from browning. I poured off that fat to freeze. After simmering the meat with onions, garlic, and herbs for a few hours, I poured off all of the liquid and allowed the fat to rise. I scooped that fat off and into a container, too. 

For yesterday's dinner I pulled the meat apart and shredded it most of it, made a gravy with the skimmed liquid. I had a whole rib and the fattier parts of the other ribs remaining to use in a pot of soup for tonights dinner. Before cooking the soup I rendered the fatty pieces once more, pouring off that fat to save. Then I simmered the remaining pieces in liquid to soften it all up for the soup. After that liquid cooled I skimmed off more fat. My total skimmed and rendered fat for this day was 2 plus custard cups.

This afternoon, my daughter is pulled the remaining meat and fat apart (the bones were discarded last night after shredding meat) to make a beef and vegetable soup for us. While she separated meat from fat, I chopped fat and rendered that further. There was an additional custard cup of rendered fat from today's cooking, giving me over 3 custard cups of beef fat in total.

From about a three pound package of short ribs, I have about 1 3/4 cups of usable cooking fat now stored in the freezer. I use this saved fat when sautéing veggies or lean meats, when oven-frying potato wedges or making hash browns, in bean dishes, and melted then added to drop biscuit dough. In a pinch, rendered meat fat can be clarified (remove the meat flavor) and used in baking. I haven't done that in about 20 years. But it's there as an option, if need be.

My husband especially likes to cook with meat fat. He enjoys the meaty flavor it adds to simple dishes. We surprisingly go through almost all of the rendered fat that I save. When any meat fat has been sitting in the freezer for too long, I then use it as an aid in starting charcoal briquets for barbecuing. It all gets used one way or another.

As for the health impact of using rendered meat fat, I'm of the everything-in-moderation camp. I figure if we balance our use of meat fat with vegetable/olive oil, coconut oil, and butter, we won't overdo any one source of fat and will still reap the benefits of each type.

It's a running joke in our household that I plan on using rendered beef fat to make Christmas gifts -- some man and dog-pleasing chapstick (needs to stay refrigerated) and hand cream for the ladies. I suppose I could make mandles (beef-scented candles) for the men on my list. Oh the possibilities are endless . . .

Is there an aspect of hosting a big holiday meal that causes you the most anxiety?

My Thanksgiving cactus plants are just now blooming. I started
these plants from cuttings poked into pots of dirt a few years ago.
They now look like respectable plants.

For me, the anxiety moment is the last hour before our guests arrive. I've never come up with a way to make these last minutes less stressful. I'm trying to get the food ready while keeping the kitchen clean and also while getting myself put together (dressed, makeup, and hair). After everyone arrives, I do enjoy the gathering, even the cleaning up afterward. 

I was thinking about this today as I was making our Thanksgiving meal plans. I really began to dread the day. Even with preparing dishes ahead and finagling some help from family, there are still many tasks that need completing at the last moment. This is the aspect I dread most about entertaining.

How about you? Do you have an aspect or part of hosting a holiday meal that you dread or have anxiety over? And do you have any tips for dealing with the last-minute rush of getting everything completed just before guests arrive?

So I made one of your soup suggestions -- thanks!

One of the requirements of our little soup exercise last week was to use ingredients you had on hand at that time. Well, this week, I happened to have all of the ingredients to make one of the suggested soups. I made Chicken Pot Pie soup. 

I need to work on it, though. I had pie pastry for half of a single crust. next time I will make more of the pie crust strips, maybe using a full single crust of pastry. I also over-baked the pie pastry. I'll have to be more watchful the next time. Despite this, my family loved it. This is a fun and easier alternative to traditional chicken pot pies. If I was feeling like being fancy, I would cut the rolled out pie pasty into a single large shape for each bowl. It would be super fun to have a chicken cookie cutter for the pie pastry, I think.

Big thank you to Amy in the comments from last week for making this suggestion!

What are the bread rules in your house?

Oh my goodness, I made a great. batch of bread the other day, and quite by accident. The bread was soft and lofty. The accident was I had put the bread (3 loaves) into pans and left them to rise while I went for a walk, took care of some harvesting, and paid bills/reconciled accounts. I forgot the rising bread dough was on the counter. It was my husband that called out to me that the bread looked quite high. I quickly got back into the kitchen and preheated the oven, popping the pans in while it was still heating up.

I was lucky the bread didn't fall back. Instead, it remained high. Once it cooled, and  as I was bagging the loaves up, I could feel these would be soft loaves of bread. Lately, my bread has been on the dense side. It stales quickly and has been overly dry when used for sandwiches on day two or three. This new batch was a welcome change.

Here's the difficult part of baking a superior batch of bread -- there were still some slices of the old bread remaining to be consumed. I so badly wanted to cut into one of the new loaves. But I also knew that if I cut into the new loaf while there were still old slices leftover, there's no chance anyone in my family would eat the old, stale bread, ever. 

Our general bread rule is that the old loaf needs to be eaten before cutting into the new. The exception to this is when I'm planning to use bread with dinner. Fresh bread and butter alongside a bowl of soup is magnificent. 

The next morning, there were still a couple of slices of the old loaf left. I would be breaking my own rule if I ignored those. But I wanted a piece of toast with breakfast made from this really good bread. I thought about it while I dished up some apple and crabapple sauce. In the end I went ahead and sliced off a pice of the new stuff, feeling slightly guilty that I'd be making my family members eat the older bread. Yeah, I felt guilty for breaking the "bread rule." In the end it worked out. My husband toasted up the old bread telling me he likes the denser bread as it doesn't tear when spreading butter or peanut butter. We both got what we wanted. But still, I broke a rule.

What would you have done? Do you have any bread rules in your house? How do you make sure you use up bread before it goes moldy?

The Forever Home

My husband is just a few short years away from retiring, and we're living in the only home we've ever owned. I don't think this is the norm these days, to only ever own one home for the duration of one's working years. Many folks are prompted to move when their family grows in size or when employment is offered in another city. Of course, my little family rented for the first 8 years of our marriage. So it's not like we've only ever lived in this house. Still, we've owned this one for almost 30 years. Consumer data indicates that the average length of homeownership is just under 12 years. So, yes, we've been in our one and only owned home for way longer than average.

I was thinking about this just this morning. My husband and I had been looking at properties in another area the last six months. One particular property had many of the features that we hoped to find. In fact, I'd been checking on this home several times per week, seeing if they'd lowered their price or if the home had been sold. Well, yesterday they accepted an offer and this house is now a pending sale. While I had a moment or two of sadness that this would not be our next home, I also began to think that God had put us in a good home that would meet the needs we reasonably expect for the rest of our lives.

Our house is a two-story, but it also has a full bath and two bedrooms on the ground floor. All needs are on this main living floor, including access to a deck and laundry. There is a single step up to the front door where a ramp could be placed, if need be. An aging couple could live easily in this house. 

Back in 2016 we had some work done on our house, and in talking to the contractor, he said that his own house was his forever home. He had retrofitted everything needed for aging in place for himself and his wife. Then he joked that the only way he'd ever leave that house was feet-first (meaning carried out of the house to his final resting place).

So here we are, still in the only house we've ever owned, and I'm contemplating all of the positives of staying here. For one thing, making a move is expensive. The actual moving costs, the taxes and fees when buying and selling properties, and the needed improvements for the next property all add up. 

The cost to move across the country average about $5000. Between capital gains taxes (after the exclusion) and real estate transfer taxes, we'd be on the hook for another $15,000 to $20,000. (Property transfer taxes are significantly higher than average in the Seattle area.) Even in a near-perfect new house, there would be several thousand dollars in upgrades that we'd want to make right away, from new carpeting to new interior paint. This could be $10,000 or more. 

By not buying the other house, we've likely saved ourselves $30,000 to $35,000, and I feel like I've been extremely conservative in these estimates. That's a substantial chunk of change. 

In addition to the savings in dollars, if we stay in this home, we avoid the hassle of moving everything and the pain of leaving behind friends and community. 

This was never in our plans, but I'm now thinking this could very well be our forever home.

When buying the smaller, more expensive per unit, version of a product is the better deal

One of the rules I try to remember when bargain shopping mania overtakes me -- don't buy more of a perishable food than I really need, even if the larger size is less expensive per unit. 

At Walmart this morning, I was buying whipping cream for making pumpkin eggnog and for topping pie later this month. I was going back and forth on whether to buy the larger quart size or the smaller pint size. 

The quart was less expensive per ounce than the pint. I remembered my rule. I ended up buying the pint. And here's why. When I buy something perishable in a larger size than I really need, I end up trying to find ways to use the excess before it goes bad. That sounds like a good thing, right, that I'm using every last bit up? The truth is, if I was only planning on using 8-10 ounces of whipping cream for a batch of eggnog and another 4-6 ounces to top Thanksgiving pie slices, then the foods I'd make with the excess would be more rich foods than we really needed. All because I wanted to use it all up while saving money on unit cost.

So while my family would have been happy to eat the extra goodies I would make with leftover whipping cream, and while I would be happy to not waste anything, we really wouldn't need that many special foods. And excess rich food seems a bit of a waste to me. 

So in this sense, paying more per ounce, but buying less (which is actually the amount I needed), is actually a better deal for my household.

Ordering Tulip and Crocus Bulbs Online

So I wanted to show you some bulbs that I ordered online from K.Van Bourgondien at dutchbulbs.com. I placed my order in early September and they were delivered in October. The company ships at the appropriate planting time for one's area.

When I ordered, I had the Home Depot website open in one tab and the dutchbulbs.com site in another. I compared prices on similar packages between the two sites. In the end I chose dutchbulbs because their prices were very slightly lower for my total order than Home Depot's, and their selection was better. The tulips were an especially good deal, while the crocus were slightly more for the quantity I was ordering. I did have to pay for shipping. Whereas if I'd ordered from Home Depot, I would have received free shipping. I still came out very slightly ahead. Despite just a small savings, I had also heard good things about this company from others.

Here's my experience:

The box arrived about 10 days ago. I couldn't plant right then, so I put the box into our cold storage room. The box itself had ventilation holes, something I'm not sure about with Home Depot boxes for bulb shipments.

I ordered 100 tulip bulbs and 100 crocus bulbs. This is how they were packaged inside the box.

The bulbs were packaged in ventilated bags.

Upon opening the bag of tulips, they mostly looked very good, and they were good sized.

There was 1 bulb, however, that was very moldy. The rest of the bulbs were in good condition.

The crocus bulbs all were in good condition and were good sized.

lunchtime -- halfway through

We got them all planted just in time before the rain returned. So, I'll see next spring how they all did.

My thoughts:

If I were to order only tulips, I would definitely choose dutchbulbs.com again, due to their great prices on tulips in particular. I'm not too disappointed with the one bulb that was moldy. I would expect that could happen with a Home Depot order as well. Like I said, we shall see how they perform next spring.

By the way, this is an unsolicited review -- simply my opinion as a full-paying customer.

What was in my grocery cart for October? Contentment in Abundance

"I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need." Philippians 4:11-12

Our fridge, freezers, and pantry are stuffed to the gills right now. I had to really slam the lid down on the deep-freeze to get it to shut all the way this evening after adding more Brussel sprout greens. We have been blessed with abundance, and I'm grateful to my Provider for this blessing. 

Contentment in abundance is a Biblical principle laid out by the apostle Paul in his letters to the churches. It involves recognizing the abundance in our lives, gratitude to the One who provides all, generosity with others, and satisfaction with all that is provided.

Oct. 4  Shopping at Grocery Outlet and Walmart this day (local stores, 5-10 minute drive). At Grocery Outlet, I bought 2 boxes of graham crackers (off-brand 98 cents ea), 3 boxes saltines (off-brand 98 cents each), 5 dozen brown medium eggs (best price on eggs this week in my area $2.99/doz), fresh blueberries (just meh -- $4.99) and gouda cheese (very good $4.49) for a special lunch with one daughter. At Walmart (right across the street), I bought 2 3-lb boxes macaroni ($2.72 ea), 2 packs turkey snack sticks ($3.72 ea), 5 lbs carrots (($3.98), and a bunch of bananas (50 cents/lb). Combined both stores I spent $47.53.

Oct. 5  (Yes, the very next day) stopped at Grocery Outlet while running an errand with my husband. I bought 3 16-oz jars of Planters peanuts ($1.99 ea). Spent $5.97.

Oct. 11  The day we took a picnic lunch to the river area near us. While we brought our own food for lunch, we bought 4 slices of pie (2 pecan, 1 chocolate pecan, 1 raspberry) to take home. Spent $22.00.

Oct. 14  A big shopping at WinCo. I bought Gala apples (98 cents/lb), 10 lbs carrots ($6.98), 1 acorn squash (68 cents/lb), bananas (50 cents lb), head of green cabbage (87 cents/lb), 1 green pepper (78 cents), bulk sliced almonds ($4.58/lb), bulk natural peanut butter ($2.18/lb), about a pound of pepperoni ($6.10), 1 pumpkin (33 cents/lb), gallon milk ($3.39), 5 lbs organic flour for bread ($6.96), 2 lbs butter ($3.98 ea), 2 28-oz jars applesauce ($2.48), frozen fish sticks ($4.98), turkey breakfast sausage ($5.90), gallon oil ($5.97), 4 bags frozen peas ($1.18 ea), family pack b/s chicken breasts ($10.05). I spent $87.41.

Oct. 24  Outing to burger place near pumpkin farm. Spent $27.85 for 4 people.

Oct. 25  Walmart for a few things (mostly needed OTCs). In food I bought 1 gallon milk ($3.68), 2 packs turkey snack sticks ($3.72 ea). I spent $12.10.

Oct. 26  My husband and I had a date night out. We chose Taco Time. He had the beef nachos and I had the beef taco salad. We spent $16.07. It was a nice meal out. Taco Time is not bad for fast food. Everything there tastes fresher than other fast food taco places. For dining in, they serve the meals to the table and on real plates. At this location, the dining area is around a corner from the walk-up counter, so it feels more private. It was quiet the entire time we were there -- no other diners in the dining area. The drive-thru does a brisk business, however.

Oct. 28  Second big shopping day for the month at WinCo. I bought 1 bag of turkey breakfast sausage ($6.56) and 1 bag of pork breakfast sausage ($6.67), various meats for my husband's lunches ($8.56 total), 8 lbs butter ($3.48 lb), mayonnaise ($3.28), 5 lbs organic flour ( $6.96), 2 boxes marked down breakfast cereal (25 cents ea), Honey Crisp and Gala apples (98 cents lb), bulk peanuts ($2.38/lb), bulk natural peanut butter ($2.18 lb), bulk chili powder ($4.38 lb), bulk black pepper ($6.28 lb), bulk ginger ($6.08 lb), bulk sliced almonds ($3.98 lb), bulk cinnamon sticks ($13.88 lb), 1 acorn squash (48 cents lb), and some assorted bulk candy ($3.50). I spent $80.42.

Total spent on food for the month, including dining out and bakery purchase $299.35, which works out to about $67 per week for 4 adults.

We bought food at restaurants on three occasions this month, which is very unusual for us. However, we had decided to do a few local things in lieu of taking a vacation this year. So, while we spent $65.92 on restaurant/bakery foods, we saved a lot by not taking a vacation.

So what was in my cart?

for the pantry

2 boxes graham crackers

3 boxes saltine crackers

6 lbs macaroni pasta

4 lbs peanuts

sliced almonds (I use these in pesto and almond coconut bar cookies)

10 lbs organic flour (this is the only white flour that's available in my stores that does not contain barley, barley malt, malt extract, malted barley, or enzymes (barley-based))

gallon oil

jar of mayonnaise

2 boxes cereal

chili powder

ground ginger

black pepper

cinnamon sticks

bulk candy

2 containers natural peanut butter (not really pantry, needs refrigeration to extend time)

dairy and eggs

5 dozen eggs

Gouda cheese

2 gallons milk

10 lbs butter

produce

15 lbs carrots

2 bunches bananas

many lbs of apples

2 acorn squash

cabbage

green pepper

box of fresh blueberries

1 pumpkin

4 bags frozen peas

2 jars applesauce

meat

1 lb pepperoni (enough for 5-6 large pizzas)

frozen fish sticks

breakfast sausage (3 bags)

meats to cook for my husband's lunches

4 packs turkey snack sticks

family pack chicken breasts, b/s

other

3 meals or dessert out

Name One Soup That . . .

. . . you could make with what you have at home this week.

Soup is one of the most frugal foods, financially, calorically, and time-wise. You can add all sorts of odds and ends from the kitchen, cellar, garden or spare freezer. Soup is one-pot cooking at its finest. Start it on the stove or in the crockpot, and leave it to simmer until you're ready to eat. A bowl of soup, some crackers or bread, and you have a meal. Bonus -- on a chilly day, a steaming bowl of soup will warm you from the inside out.

Here's your challenge: Think of one soup that you could make this week using what you have on hand. Thinking of what you could cook with on-hand ingredients is a good exercise to do from time to time. It always helps me see the possibilities. Sharing your one soup, here in the comments, will also help the rest of us, as we think through whether or not your soup would work for our ingredients.

So, name your soup plus the list of ingredients it takes.

Anyway, I'll start. My soup is Cream of Green. I use kale, broccoli, collards, spinach, chard, or as I used this week, Brussel sprout leaves (they're like collards). In addition to the raw, chopped greens, I used 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, some celery leaves, nutmeg, dried thyme, salt, pepper, milk (I used unsweetened soy milk), flour, butter, oil, water. We topped our bowls of Cream of Green with cheddar cheese. A creamy and hearty soup.

Your turn. In the comments name the soup you could make with what you have on hand and list its ingredients.

Refilling A Depleted Emergency Fund

We all know that an emergency fund within our budget is essential to surviving the unplanned and unforeseen events that happen in life. Events this past winter and spring plowed right through my family's rather generous emergency fund. In fact, we needed to tap into money that we had set aside for retirement. (This was not tax-deferred money, so we don't owe any penalties for withdrawal). A slew of unforeseen events can wipe a person's account out in a matter of months. And it can happen to anybody at any time.

My husband and I add to our emergency fund each month, so its growth is never stagnant. But the amount added each month is not enough to quickly replenish the fund. Should anything else happen, we'd need to take more money out of that set aside for our future. So, we are attempting to rapidly refill our emergency fund. 

Here are my thoughts on how this is achievable.

How to refill after an emergency fund has been depleted

There are 2 ways to go about this, cut back on spending or bring in more money. Cutting back on spending can be the simpler way to go about this. while bringing in more income has more avenues to pursue.

• cut back spending in all discretionary areas and redirect that money towards refilling the fund. In the past, we've simply cut every variable category by a flat percentage. This works well for us and doesn't leave us feeling too deprived.
• bring in more money via yard/ebay/Craigslist/Facebook marketplace sales of used household items or clothing. Bring in more money through temporary side or supplementary employment (temporary holiday job, online gig work, such as Cambly or Upwork, start/rejuvenate and monetize a blog or YouTube channel, take on extra shifts with current employer, take on part time work through a new employer.

If you do just one of these checklist items, your emergency fund could be refilled with time. However, if you pursue several avenues, the time-to-goal can be dramatically reduced.

How it's going for my family

What we've done

• we had a yard sale this summer, getting rid of kid stuff and unwanted furniture while adding to our emergency fund.
• my husband has picked up additional work in his field. This is work he does remotely and can do on weekends/evenings. 
• I've cut our budget in many areas. Some of the basic frugal things we've been doing: diligently turning down heat when no one is home, cooking/baking from scratch regularly, using the oven for several items at one time instead of heating the oven multiple times, sticking to grocery lists when shopping, mending clothing instead of buying new pieces, harvesting as much as I can from the garden and freezing for winter meals, substituted free or cheap day outings in place of an extended vacation this summer.

The impact so far

We've already refilled about 40% of our emergency fund (and this is after we bought a second car). We're at a point right now that we could handle one major appliance repair or replacement, if need be. 

Our monthly contributions to an emergency fund are roughly four to five times what they normally would be. It's fair to say that we're being aggressive about saving right now, forgoing most discretionary spending. And yet, I don't think we feel deprived. 

I try to plan for fun but free or cheap entertainment and meals on a regular basis. We continue to have Friday pizza (homemade) and movie nights (library DVDs or what we can stream for free through library's apps, or borrowing DVDs from friends). We had a game day in early September which was a lot of fun. This month we went to a pumpkin farm. By mid-November there will be many holiday activities to enjoy for free or low-cost. For example, the pumpkin farm does a  Christmas thing between the middle of November and the middle of December. 

If all continues to go well, our emergency fund should be fully replenished by the end of 2025. That's not that far off.

Playing Hooky

A day at the pumpkin farm

I played hooky this morning. But so did my family. So I don't feel too badly about it.  October is quickly coming to an end. This would be our last week to go out to the pumpkin and corn fields.

This farm sits on 70 acres of land. I think the pumpkin fields use up about 4 of those acres. We made our way through the pumpkins for about an hour and put 1 mile on the step-counter app on my phone. When I would stop and stand still, it was so quiet. This is what I want in retirement, a place where it's quiet, like this.

There must be several acres in corn here, the corn rows that bound a couple of sides of the pumpkin fields, the corn maze patch, and a very large field of corn across the road from the public part of the farm.

The trees were gorgeous, the sky was pale blue with a few clouds floating by, and the sun shone on us this morning. We were very fortunate with the weather. It has been so rainy and cold lately. We all brought our boots to wear in the fields, as we knew it would be. very muddy.

When I say fields of pumpkins, there was literally one field after the next still filled with pumpkins, some fully ripe, others still green, and more in the early stages of development with blossoms still opening waiting for a pollinator.

This farm divides its fields up by size of pumpkin. There was the little kids' pumpkin patch, with pumpkins sized to appeal to the littles. Many preschool age kids were there this morning, and they mostly stayed in the little kids' patch. The patch we tromped through was filled with the large pumpkins, some as large as beachballs. 

The corn was in differing stages of growth. Some were being harvested to sell at the farm stand at the front of the farm. I inquired about the price per ear. They were $1.25 each. Ouch! I decided not to buy any at that price. I realize they make their money selling pumpkins, corn, and products at inflated prices. No worry, I would spend a some money in their little store in just a short while. I want to support their family-owned business so they continue to be a part of our family's adventures.

The sell snacks and coffee, also at inflated prices. However, I decided to bring something from home for us to enjoy at their picnic tables. I brought thick slices of freshly-baked pumpkin bread and a thermos of hot chai herb tea. We sat and talked in the sunshine while enjoying our little snack at the farm until a group of preschoolers and their teachers swarmed the area. I adore little kids. But what I really wanted in this moment was quiet.

We wandered over to the retail area of the farm. In the little store they sold, you guessed it, pumpkin butter, for $8.95 per jar.

Fortunately for us, we can make our own pumpkin butter for a fraction of that price.

They had a few interesting canned goods, such as this cinnamon apple syrup. One of the things I do when finding something interesting like this is turn the jar or bottle over and take a photo of the ingredients label. 

I can often reverse engineer a recipe for a homemade version of a product if the ingredients are simple enough. The syrup was even more expensive than the pumpkin butter. So again, I passed on this product. 

Here is an idea for a DIY gift-able that I wanted to share with you. The sign calls them "Simmer Pots."

Much of what you're paying for is attractive packaging. These would be super simple to assemble and give as gifts. They include dried fruit, like orange slices, dried herbs, pods, and spices, packaged in a canning jar, tied with baker's twine, and given a label with instructions.

They came in different fragrances. I focused on this one, as it looked appealing in the jar. It contained cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, dried orange slices, star anise, nutmeg, and rosemary. The directions say to put the entire contents of the jar in a saucepan with 2 cups of water, then simmer on the stove to fragrance your home. 

I told you that I did spend some money at the farm. I bought two gifts for my son and daughter-in-law for their upcoming birthdays, one, a jar of unusual jam (fig, raspberry, orange zest, and ginger), and two, a candle in a fragrance that both my daughter-in-law and I love, Fraser Fir. Yes, these gifts were expensive, but with the jam, it supports the farm, and the candle is from a local cottage industry business. Supporting small businesses that are local is a priority in my spending when possible.

After changing back into shoes when we left the farm, we made a lunch stop at a family-owned burger place. We went to this restaurant after visiting the pumpkin farm several years ago and wanted to go again. The burgers are really tasty and the onion rings are crispy. This burger place has been in operation and family-owned since 1959. It's cute. It's funky. And the food is perfect. What more could we ask for?

A day of hooky every now and then is rejuvenating. I'll get back to regular work tomorrow.