A New-To-Me Book From the Library Book Sale

Our local library takes in donated books specifically for selling to raise money for programs and new books to lend. The book sale is on-going and always has a few new books. Books are $1 and magazines are 25 cents.

This week, my daughter spied this wonderful 1960 McCall's Book of Everyday Etiquette. She bought it for me, as she new I would like this one. Vintage anything to do with homemaking is right up my alley.

Since we're planning a brunch on Mother's Day, I thought I'd consult the etiquette book for tips. First of all, the suggested time is between 10 and noon and most often on Sundays. A brunch is typically hosted by "late-rising people for their late-rising friends."

It's expected that guests and hosts alike will not have had much to eat beforehand, so the menu should be heartier than a standard breakfast menu. 

The atmosphere for brunch is decidedly more relaxed than that of a luncheon. It's okay to serve the meal buffet style and may be eaten at a table or in the living room. Any serving is done by either the guests or the host/hostess, even if the household employs a maid (ha ha, I gave the maid the day off). Coffee and/or the main dish may be served by the host at the table, even if the remainder of the menu is served buffet style or family-style. Alternatively, all of the foods may be served family-style at the table.

Okay, so how am I doing with our plans for Mother's Day. First of all, we'll be having our brunch around 1:30. I like to go to church in the morning beforehand, and my son and daughter-in-law are a tad too late-rising to make it to a 10AM brunch. We all will have had very little besides toast and tea or coffee before church, so our menu will need to be substantial. 

Here are some menu suggestions from the book:

"You usually start with some fruit or fruit juice. Next is the main course of something like creamed chicken on toast, fried apples and bacon, mushrooms and chicken livers en brochette, waffles and sausages or scrambled eggs with fried tomatoes. Anything that isn't a bread itself, such as waffles, should have hot bread served with it -- biscuits, muffins or the like. Serve several kinds of jams, jellies or marmalades and make quarts of coffee."

Our actual menu:

I have frozen orange juice concentrate for orange juice. We'll also have sliced assorted melon (I'll buy one of those melon bowls that usually contain cantaloupe and honeydew). My daughters will be cooking the main dishes, so I need that to be quick and easy for them. I'm considering a peppers, onion, sausage, and egg casserole for one main and sliced ham for the other main.  As suggested by the book, I'll have a homemade blueberry coffeecake and some croissants (brought my by son and daughter-in-law) on the side. I will get out a couple jars of homemade jams and preserves for the croissants, likely raspberry and rhubarb. 

We don't all enjoy coffee. So I'll also provide some sparkling water, and two pots of tea, one black, and one herbal. And because no meal would ever be complete in my house without a dessert, I have a plan for a trio of small desserts: chocolate-covered strawberries, scratch shortbread (using the mold my daughters gave me 2 years ago), and mini (shot glass size) refrigerator cheesecake cups (using up leftover cream cheese, some gelatin, milk, vanilla, sugar, and graham crackers, then topped with berries -- I need to find an actual recipe).

Cloudy and cool at best, rainy and cool at worst for our weather this Sunday. We'll do Mother's Day brunch indoors. I like the idea of a casual meal in the living room. We really don't use our living room enough. So I think I'll cut some lilacs from the garden for the coffee table, have my daughter set up a nice music playlist for the google home, and we'll get comfortable in the living room. And we will definitely be doing this occasion buffet-style. There. Our Mother's Day brunch is all planned.

How about you? Will you be doing anything special for Mother's Day? Do you do any of the cooking for your own Mother's Day, or do you let other family do the work? Or do you prefer to go out for a special meal in a restaurant? Happy Mother's Day to all mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and motherly girlfriends.

Mother's Day Dessert

This is peak season for strawberries coming from California. The strawberries are large and sweet right now. Two weeks ago and again last weekend I had my choice of Mexico strawberries or USA (California) strawberries for the same price at Walmart. The USA strawberries looked so much better (more red and larger) than the Mexico ones. So I went with the USA ones on both occasions.

I made a batch of just over a dozen chocolate dipped strawberries when we celebrated both my and my husband's birthdays in late April. I sent the last of the chocolate-dipped berries home with my son and daughter-in-law that evening. As they were driving away, I promised my household members that I would make more chocolate-dipped strawberries just for us.

Last Saturday I went back to Walmart and found the same great USA strawberries. So Sunday afternoon I made a smaller batch (just 8) of the treat for my husband, daughters and myself.

I particularly love very dark chocolate. Semi-sweet chocolate chips are around 50% cacao, which really isn't that dark. So I mixed unsweetened baking chocolate with semi-sweet chocolate chips in a 50/50 ratio to make about a 75% cacao for dipping. 

Eight large strawberries used about 3 ounces of chocolate in total, costing about $1.50 for the chocolate. I used about 2/3 of a 16-oz container of strawberries (the 8 largest berries), costing about $1.72 for the amount used. My cost for 8 large chocolate-dipped strawberries was about $3.22.

Meanwhile, our local Safeway is advertising chocolate covered strawberries, 8 to 9 count, for $14.99 for a package. Melting chocolate in the microwave then dipping berries is about as easy a dessert as someone could home-make.

I saved over $10 by putting in about 15 minutes of work.

Just sayin' in case you're looking for a quick and easy dessert for this coming Mother's Day. I know I'll be making more for Sunday's brunch with my family.

I hope you're all having a good week.

Update on the Cream of Asparagus Soup

About a week ago I posted about a cream of asparagus soup that I made with the tough asparagus ends. Even after pureeing in the blender, it had short fibers all throughout. And thanks to the comments in that post, I was reminded I had a food mill that I could try.

So, in the photo above this is the soup as it was initially made. You can kind of see some of those short fibers.

This is my food mill. I use it each year to make applesauce. The holes at the bottom are larger than the holes of a mesh strainer. By turning the handle, the angled metal blade pushes the food through those holes, leaving whatever fibrous residue won't pass through.

I ran the string-filled soup though the food mill. The process took about 3 minutes of turning the crank. 

When finished milling the soup, I had about 2 tablespoons of strings left in the food mill, which I discarded.

The resulting soup was string-free and delicious. 

My take -- it's possible to make a creamy soup from those woody ends of asparagus using a food mill.

Thank you to the unnamed friend in the comment section for this suggestion.

Walmart Shopping With My Husband

Happy birthday to Kris, and happy Cinco de Mayo to everyone else!

Five full bags of groceries
I bring my own bags, ones from when they were free.
Bags are now 8 cents each.
I keep reusing the old ones,
patching with duct tape when they get holes.

This is what $66.64 will buy at our local Walmart. The other day we were seriously short on produce and a few other things. 

My husband came with me to Walmart, and we had several discussions while shopping. As you might guess, one topic was the high cost of some types of groceries. My husband asked about crackers and chips. I told him that I can bake a loaf of bread for half the price of the least expensive crackers. My loaf of bread would likely last twice as long as a box of crackers in our house, perhaps providing twice as much food value as the crackers. So for half the price, I can make double the amount of baked grain food. Now bread and crackers aren't the same thing. But we both decided that we get a similar experience eating crisply toasted slices of bread as compared to saltine crackers.

As for the chips, my husband's preferred chips are tortilla chips. The large bag of corn tortillas weighs just over 4 pounds and costs $3.98, a little under $1 per pound, or about 6 cents per ounce. The least expensive tortilla chips are about $2.56 per pound, or about 16 cents per ounce. I can make baked tortilla chips for my husband, brushing a small amount of oil on the tortillas then oven-baking for a few minutes, still keeping my cost per pound well, well, well under $2. We discussed how we prefer freshly-made tortilla chips over the bagged ones. We control the salt, and warm homemade tortilla chips are like the baskets of warm tortilla chips served in restaurants.

I also pointed out to my husband that by sticking to basic foods, for the most part, allows us to eat a wider variety of (and I think healthier) food on a budget.

So, my $66.64 bought us a lot of fruits and vegetables, a few "treat" foods, like the strawberries, uncured all-beef hot dogs, and the turkey snack sticks my family enjoys. I also bought an 80-ct bag of corn tortillas, so my husband can have some of his favorite home-baked tortilla chips. And I bought a can of frozen orange juice concentrate to have this coming Sunday for Mother's Day brunch. Orange juice has become a "luxury food" in our house, at $2.86 a 12-oz can. I stuck to Walmart's house brands for most of the packaged products.

Here's what $66.64 bought:

80-ct corn tortillas

1 can frozen orange juice concentrate

1 shaker onion powder

1 shaker garlic powder

1 lb sharp cheddar cheese

small bag frozen corn (12-oz)

large bag frozen broccoli cuts (32-oz)

large bag frozen peas (32-oz)

2 packages turkey snack sticks

1 lb all-beef uncured hot dogs (8 hot dogs)

two 3-lb bags apples

1 lb strawberries

5-lb bag red potatoes

5-lb bag carrots

3-lb bag mandarin oranges

1 bundle celery

1 green pepper

4 large Roma tomatoes

almost 3 lbs of bananas

1 head of cabbage

16-oz jar organic natural peanut butter'

Of course, there's no milk, butter, eggs, sugar, or other high priced foods, and very little meat. But still, my thinking is if you stick to basic foods, you can have a lot of variety for the money.  And my produce-hungry family members have a lot of fruits and veggies to choose from everyday to add to their lunches and snacks.

A Simple Cinco de Mayo Supper for My Family

I know, not quite Cinco de Mayo. But we'll be in the Mexican food eating mood this whole weekend. Tonight I made a very quick and easy Mexi-meal. I had been busy in the garden all afternoon, so simple it needed to be.

I thawed 1 container of scratch refried beans and 1 container cooked brown rice, plus a package of ground beef. I harvested the first of our lettuce and some green onions.

I had about 30 minutes to get dinner made and served, as one daughter had a meeting tonight. This worked really well and everyone loved it.

Steamed (previously frozen) brown rice, topped with a scoop of refried beans (made and froze earlier in the week), and some freshly-cooked Mexican-seasoned ground beef. On top of all of that was a generous dollop of homemade salsa (from last summer). The ground beef was the most time-consuming part of making this dinner. As sides we had small garden salads and tangerines.

A delicious, quick and easy Cinco de Mayo supper. We have some leftover cooked beef and a scoop of beans remaining. I'll use the two in a small tamale pie this weekend. If you've never made a tamale pie, that's another simple Tex-Mex meal -- a Tex-Mex filling (seasoned meat, beans, corn, tomatoes, and any veggies that sound like they would "go") topped with cornbread batter and shredded cheese, then baked until the cornbread is thoroughly baked. A favorite of my kids from their childhoods. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

I'm not giving up just yet . . .

Doesn't this look divine? Homemade cream of asparagus soup,

made with the ends of our Easter asparagus.

I sliced the pieces lengthwise and simmered them in water until soft.

Next I pureed them in the pitcher blender, added milk, onion powder, dried thyme, black pepper and salt. I thickened the soup with a slurry of flour and water. At the very end I swirled in 2 tablespoons of butter.

Don't you think this would be wonderful? Looks can be deceiving, however. I call this "cream of dental floss soup." The entire batch has short little bits of floss-like fibers throughout. My family thinks it tastes wonderful, but agrees the texture is off-putting.

But I'm not giving up yet. If it has "texture" perhaps I just need to lose that texture amongst other textures. My thought is to use this soup as a binder in a rice and chicken based casserole, one that also has some diced celery and perhaps some diced red pepper. I'll use brown rice, which adds more texture than white rice. And I'll give it a cheese and crumb topping. 

It isn't so much that I don't want to throw away costly food, as the asparagus ends were something most people discard anyway. And the rest of the ingredients were budget-wise too. It's the time and effort that I put into making the soup that I can't seem to just let go of. And that is what's driving me to use a soup that we simply didn't enjoy.

Have you ever cooked a dish that you didn't care for, then remade it into something else, hoping it would be better enjoyed in a new rendition?

In any case, I try to use every last bit of food in our house. And I'll try to use this highly textured soup in one way or another.

Bean Efficiency

We've been shying away from using beans in everyday dinners for several months. Then at our most recent hot dog cookout last Saturday, as I was putting out side dishes, I had a thought that baked beans or BBQ beans would be so good with that meal. And I've often thought how quick and easy bean and cheese burritos would be to make on a night when I needed a meal on the table in a hurry. But alas, cooking beans from dried requires advanced planning.

On Monday afternoon I was restocking containers of dried foods in the pantry, and I saw that the pinto bean container was about empty. This was the end of the previous sack of pintos, and I have a replacement sack of pintos ready to be opened. So I decided to cook up all of the older pinto beans and prepare them in a couple of ways that my family would enjoy.

And that's what I did. I cooked up the pintos, refrigerated them overnight (I got a late start cooking beans on Monday), then today I made enough refried beans for 3 family meals of burritos or beans to go on nachos and 2 family meals of BBQ beans to have with a hot dog cookout or to serve with cornbread and salad/fruit for a simple supper type of meal. I've now got 5 family meals of cooked and seasoned beans to help ease us back into putting beans on our meal rotation.

I know, a lot of folks cook up lots of beans at once and can or freeze those cooked beans. I just haven't consistently been one of those people. So this was my version of cooking beans once to eat for several meals.

The Menu Journal

chocolate-dipped strawberries for dessert at last night's gathering

I have this mini notebook that I've been using to record holiday and large gathering menus. I write down on one page the full menu and on the opposing page things I could have done differently or any opinions I had about how the preparations went.

The notebook itself was a freebie notebook I received when doing kitchen help at a tea. It really is tiny, about 3 X 4 inches, the kind that looks like a composition book, if you know what I'm talking about.

There's just enough room on a page for a menu or hints and tips.

I sometimes include whether something was a packaged product or pre-seasoned by a manufacturer, frozen or fresh, etc. Occasionally I add shopping lists, if a dish or recipe is particularly complex or requires unusual ingredients (like a spice I don't normally have on hand).

I began recording this information a couple of years ago, as I would frequently have post-thoughts about a gathering that I wanted to remember. An example, yesterday my son and daughter-in-law came over for a family dinner to celebrate my husband's and my birthday. I served a turkey breast, among other things. Afterward, I thought I should have looked through my jars of homemade preserves to find a spicy or herb-y preserve that would compliment the slices of turkey, something like the rosemary-rhubarb preserve that I make in early summer some years. I also might note if a menu was relatively easy to do.

I look through these menus when I'm planning another dinner, lunch or brunch. I know I can just do the whole thing again, or I can take parts of one menu and combine with parts of another. Having these lists and tips makes the whole planning thing so much easier. 

I keep the menu journal right alongside my most used cookbooks. Someday, perhaps my daughters will enjoy leafing through the various menus as they plan their own family celebrations.

Happy Friday!

The hens were generous today. They gave my daughter two eggs. My daughter wasn't expecting very many eggs. So this has come as a surprise. The hens are sweet and funny.

I didn't grocery shop this week. Maybe you can relate -- when we have a big holiday meal, we often have so many leftovers that there is no need to buy more groceries for a week or more. In fact, I haven't gone anywhere since last Sunday's church service. Now that feels odd to think I didn't leave the neighborhood. The furthest away I went this week was a few houses down from us to visit with the chickens while my daughter added feed and changed their water.

I've continued working in the vegetable and flower garden. Today I planted half of the tomatoes. I'll hold back the other half for a week, as a just in case measure, just in case we get pouring, cold rain, or the critters do damage. I've been planting flower pots with seedlings that I started indoors. This year I started petunias, violas, marigolds, and nasturtiums for flowers. The begonias over-wintered in their pots in the garage. I brought them outside a couple of weeks ago, and they are just now beginning to break the soil.

Today's post isn't just wandering thoughts. I also have a question for you. How do you feel when your grown children give you an expensive gift, or an expensive-for-them gift? Sometimes one or a couple of our kids will give us something that we feel costs more than they should spend on us. We want them to save for their futures. My two daughters bought some glassware for me for Easter. I saw them in the store and thought they were lovely. But I also noted the price tag per glass. They're not super expensive, just expensive for my daughters' stage in life. Oh but they're lovely and go well with our spring dishes. Anyway, I've had a difficult time with this gift. How does it make you feel to be on the receiving end of your grown children's generosity?

I can't believe we're up against the weekend already. What will you do to make this weekend beautiful? I plan on taking a long walk to see all of the neighbors' spring flowers and flowering trees, having a cup of coffee outdoors in the morning, baking a batch of rhubarb muffins, and potting more flowering seedlings on Saturday.

Dinner was exciting at our house tonight

The elderly hens that my daughter is caring for have given us 4 eggs so far. I used all 4 eggs in a Denver frittata, basically a Denver omelette baked in the oven.

The yolks were darker colored and more mounded once cracked into a bowl, as compared to grocery store eggs. My husband thought the eggs tasted richer. We all noticed how yellow the egg part of the frittata was.

The hen with the issue appears to be improving slightly, without any extra care from my daughter. Between my daughter and I we know exactly zilch about hens. Thank goodness for the computers, both for finding information and for the ability to email the hens' owner while they're traveling.

Last night's dinner was also exciting, but for a completely different reason. Yesterday was my husband's birthday. In our house, the birthday person gets to choose what we're doing to celebrate, including what's for dinner and dessert on the birthday. My husband chose Mexican food and a Rice Crispy Treat cake for dessert. Yesterday wasn't the big celebration. It was just the four of us. Our big joint birthday celebration will be this weekend, with our son and daughter-in-law joining the four at home to celebrate both my husband's and my birthday. My husband took time off work for part of the day yesterday. What he really wanted to do was go to Value Village, then play a board game in the afternoon/evening. We are so easy to please in our household.

I've been getting the vegetable garden planted this week. Monday I seeded the carrots. Yesterday I planted the kale seedlings that I started indoors. And today I planted the cabbage and Brussel sprout seedlings (also started indoors). I will need to keep an eye on the garden this year. I saw 3 rabbits on our property this morning. Although some of the garden beds have wire fencing, a couple of them do not.

Have you had the opportunity to eat very fresh eggs before? What's been your impression of fresh eggs compared to grocery store eggs?

How was your Easter?

Our Easter was pretty great. Church, cooking, cleaning, games, eating, clean-up -- a long day from 5 AM to 10 PM.

The menu was pretty much as I'd posted about, with the addition of fresh strawberries that I found at a good price and fresh mango that my son and daughter-in-law brought. I sent our guests home with lots of leftovers. Still, we have quite a bit of ham left. 

Tonight I made toasted ham and cheese sandwiches on some leftover homemade dinner rolls. Very yummy! Tomorrow I'll pull as much of the ham off the bone as I can to freeze, then make ham stock with the bone.

Although I washed most of the dishes last night, I still had a lot of clean-up to do today. I'm tired from Easter and I'm a bit distracted today. 

One of my daughters has a chicken-sitting job for a couple of weeks. The "ladies" are older and perhaps not laying as much or regularly. 

But my daughter has collected 2 eggs this week. One of the hens is having a little issue (that's what's distracting me this afternoon). My daughter has emailed the woman who owns the hens. However, they're out of the country and my daughter hasn't heard back from them yet. 

I hope to have more energy tomorrow. How was your Easter?

Easter Blessings

 

Happy Easter, dear friends! Wishing you a blessed day.

Our Easter Table is Set

(sorry about the poor indoor lighting)

The dyed heirloom tablecloth and napkins from my great-grandmother, a center doily from my grandmother, the ecru luncheon placemats from my mother, the mid-century china from my mother and father -- all ready for Easter dinner.

Under the napkins are pink glass dessert/salad plates from Value Village. Pink/ecru is my color theme this year.

Oldie but Goodie Easter Game That Even Grown-Ups Like

Here's a family favorite Easter game that is easy to set up last minute and makes a good ice breaker in larger groups, Guess How Many Jelly Beans.

All that is needed is a bag of jelly beans and a glass jar. Count the jelly beans and fill the jar. Then guests get to guess how many jelly beans are in the jar. You can have all guesses be known to others in the group or you can have guesses be done by secret slip of paper. My family does the secret guesses version.

 Just throwing this out there in case you're looking for something fun at your Easter gathering.

My Birthday Work Party in Pictures

For my birthday, the one thing I really want from my family is help on an outdoor project. Last year, we spruced up our front porch. This year, I asked my husband and daughters to help me transform a space where you might come and look at plants or the pond in the background into a space where you might linger.

At the back of our lawn was this small patio inside a semi-circular garden. On a stack of blocks and pavers sat a large urn, which I filled with flowering plants each spring. The patio was too small to place more than a couple of small chairs. And the neighboring plant life was overgrown and weedy.

In one day, we would make significant progress. As I remembered, I took photos of our work as it went.

the urn removed and the pavers scraped of moss in the early AM

after returning from Home Depot,
additional pavers and plants unloaded from the car

a side view off the little patio, everything's overgrown and weedy

a peek-a-boo view of the pond behind this garden spot

a lot of work and the pavers added to enlarge the patio
(we need to fix the brick mow strip still)
two hydrangeas planted
one daughter sweeping, the other watering

the patio is now large enough for a new settee and 2 new chairs

we brought out the new table, too

a closer view -- it's beginning to look nice

with a pop of color from 2 lime green cushions 
(I sewed the cushions from a thrifted shower curtain 2 years ago)

We filled 2 hanging baskets with begonias
 and Creeping Jenny that volunteered in the soil last summer.
The baskets are hung from 2 canopy trees in the garden,
one on each side of the settee.

the done-for-now conversation spot

We'll continue cleaning up the vegetation in this garden. Today we pruned the azaleas, pulled weeds, cut down pop-up trees, and transplanted some daisies. There's a pretty little Daphne off to the left behind one chair from which I'll try to root a branch. I'll split the plant and move part to the opposite side of the garden. We also plan on moving some sword ferns to this area and adding bark or wood chips as a ground cover in spots to tame it visually.

The patio furniture was my physical birthday gift. I ordered it from Home Depot, delivered a week ago. It's been in the garage waiting for this spruced up space.

I'm envisioning us enjoying afternoons on hot summer days out here. This would be the perfect spot to curl up with a good novel or have a peaceful lunch.

Easter's Pink Tablecloth and Napkins

I could hear my mother's, my grandmother's, and my great-grandmother's voices in my mind as I dropped the linen napkins and tablecloth into the pink dye bath. "Thank you," they said. "Thank you for using our things and not letting them sit idle in a closet. And thank you for being brave enough to try and change them and make them your own."

Changing something like old linens is not without risk. Colors could streak. Stains could look more pronounced. The dye might take unevenly. It does take some courage to experiment, especially with a much loved item entrusted to me by a previous generation of family. I reminded myself that these family linens would not become any prettier in the dark of a closet. I might never use them in their original white rendition. So it was worth a gamble, I thought. (The post where I talked about plans to dye a white tablecloth and stack of napkins can be found here.)

I will say that I did everything I knew to do to ensure a good outcome. I used liquid dye instead of powder. I added the salt and detergent recommended on the label of the dye bottle. And I allowed the linens to agitate in the dye for the full amount of time. I also rinsed, and rinsed, and rinsed the linens. Initially, the pink was more intense than I'd hoped. Rinsing in hot water repeatedly brought the hue down to something closer to what I envisioned.

I'm very pleased with the results. The color took well, uniformly. I would try this again with other linens, should I have a vision in my mind for making an old thing "new." One of the bonuses -- there were a few faint stains on the original tablecloth. Dyeing it seemed to make those stains less noticeable. Of course, YMMV, should you try to dye handed-down linens.

March's skill-refresh serving me well in April: cook and prep once to use in multiple meals throughout the week

April is nearly half over already. It seems like just the other day I was finishing up my month of cooking every night. If you remember, one of my gifts for my two daughters' birthday was to take over their cooking nights for the month of March. While I did this as a gift to them,. it was hugely beneficial for me, as well.

I really worked on my efficiency during March. I doubled up meals and meal components wherever I could. I planned ahead a week at a time. And I made good use of any leftovers that I hadn't planned on.

So, you may be wondering if I'm carrying any of what I worked on forward into April. Well, yes, I am! Last week I was cooking just for us three ladies at home. (My husband got back yesterday. He had a wonderful time with family.) I worked at not making extra work for myself for the whole week. One of the benefits of cooking for 3 women is we don't eat all that much. What I would ordinarily cook for the family of 4 seemed to last for 2 meals for 3 of us, with very little extra work. I only had full cooking last week on two evenings. My daughters each took a night. And last night we did a super simple hot dog cookout.

Now this week, I'm back to cooking for 4 every night. And throughout the week, I'm adding in bits of cooking for Easter dinner for 7. So I've been utilizing the skills I refreshed in March. 

This morning I baked the carrot cake cupcakes for Easter dinner. I frozen the unfrosted cupcakes in a doubled zip lock bag and will thaw and frost them on Saturday. While I was grating carrots in the food processor anyway for the cupcakes, I grated a few extras. Some of the extra grated carrot became a carrot-raisin salad for one at lunch today. More of the grated carrot went into tonight's tossed salad of lettuce, celery, and avocado. And the rest of the grated carrot is waiting for tomorrow's dinner, to be made into a carrot-raisin salad for the family. One chore of grating carrots will serve multiple purposes.

When I was searching the freezer for meat to cook for dinner tonight, I particularly was looking for a larger cut of beef, so there would be leftovers for a couple of nights. I pot-roasted a large chuck roast. I also baked the last of the russet potatoes (going wrinkly and need using anyway), and roasted two large parsnips. I also baked a rhubarb pie to serve as tonight's dessert as well as tomorrow's. But I unintentionally cut too much rhubarb. So I turned the rest of the rhubarb into rhubarb sauce (like applesauce in texture) to be added to Thursday's dinner. (Wednesday's dinner will be quasi-special -- my birthday. My husband's birthday is next week, so we'll do a big shared celebration later in the month. Anyway, no cooking on my part on Wednesday.)

For tomorrow's dinner, we now have leftover cooked beef, gravy, baked potatoes, and parsnips to go with that above-mentioned carrot-raisin salad. Dinner should be a breeze to throw together tomorrow. That will give me extra time in the day to work in the garden and to clean the dining room and powder room. I'll have some beef and gravy leftover after tomorrow's dinner. The rest will go into the freezer as the start of a beefy soup for lunch on Saturday. 

Working efficiently takes mental energy. I don't particularly enjoy meal-planning or work planning. But in the long run, it saves time and physical energy while producing meals for my family.

Our Easter Dinner Menu

the tulips that we planted last October -- they're looking pretty

Easter Menu

baked ham (in the freezer, bought on sale at Christmas)

roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic (will have to buy the potatoes)

oven-roasted asparagus (will have to buy asparagus)

green salad, probably a kale, apple, and dried cranberry salad (all ingredients on hand)

pumpkin souffle (all ingredients on hand)

scratch dinner rolls, using refrigerator roll dough (all ingredients on hand)

carrot cupcakes, cream cheese icing (all ingredients on hand, cream cheese in freezer)

What I plan to do or make ahead:

• set the table sometime during the week
• make cupcakes and freeze this weekend or sometime during the week
• make cream cheese frosting on Saturday and frost thawed cupcakes
• make refrigerator roll dough on Friday
• assemble the pumpkin souffle on Saturday and refrigerate overnight
• pick and wash the kale on Saturday
• will need to go to the grocery store for the potatoes and the asparagus, probably on Friday

What I will do or make on Easter Sunday:

• bake the ham
• roll out rolls and bake
• roast the potatoes
• bake the pumpkin souffle
• roast the asparagus
• assemble the kale salad

We have almost everything we need for Easter dinner. Grocery shopping will be super duper easy. Yay! I've spread the work over several days. For me, that's easier and less tiring than doing everything on the holiday. I will have enough to do on Easter day in addition to cooking. We'll be 7 for Easter dinner this year.

Are you hosting Easter festivities this year? Or are you joining someone else's meal? How are you making this holiday easier for yourself? Can you suggest any ways I can make my own Easter dinner easier on me?

Why I no longer strive for 100%

Remember your school days? On assignments, tests, and quizzes we strove for 100%, but would also be very happy with a 90 or even 80? Remember how we decided we had done well if we made a high mark?

Real life just isn't like that, at least it doesn't need to be. Early in my frugal marriage I worked to do everything 100%. I hung all of our laundry to dry. I cooked with all of the most inexpensive ingredients.  I always, always batched my errands. I really didn't leave any room for less than 100%. This is an exhausting an unsustainable way to live, unless you have a houseful of helping hands.

Now that I'm trying to eat better, the least expensive foods are often not the best ones for my health. A meal of potatoes, macaroni, and bread might be cheap, but would wreak havoc on my energy levels and weight. Likewise, eating only bananas, cabbage, carrots, and onions (the cheapest veggies year round for me) would leave me nutrient-deficient. Seed oils and margarine may be cheap fats, but I'm trying increase less processed fats, like butter. But butter comes with a hefty price tag.

As I was mixing the batter for a batch of scratch brownies the other day, I considered using all butter. not only would the brownies taste delicious and buttery, but I wouldn't be using any seed oils. However, as I said, butter is expensive.  My recipe calls for 1/2 cup of butter, vegetable oil, or margarine. 1/2 cup of butter is one stick or 1/4 pound. At close to $5/pound for butter at our local Walmart, using all butter would add over $1 to the batch. Meanwhile, the same quantity of vegetable oil would add just 25 cents to the batch. Hmm, use vegetable oil (a seed oil) and save money or use butter and choose a better fat for my health. But the choice doesn't have to be either or. I can do good for my health and my wallet and use half butter/half oil. A lot of cooking choices can be made in that same way. That same batch of brownies called for vanilla extract. I have both real vanilla extract and artificial vanilla flavoring on hand. Real vanilla extract is sooooo expensive, even the homemade variety. But I'm trying to avoid unnecessary chemicals in my foods. So as I added ingredients to the batter, I thought about which way to go on the vanilla. The recipe called for 1 teaspoon. Save money or eat better? But I decided to compromise. I used half imitation vanilla and half real vanilla.

In both cases with the brownie ingredients, the choices I made  saved me half on the expensive components. That's a 50%-er. back in our school days, a 50% on anything was a score one would be afraid to bring home to our parents. But in real life, saving 50% on some of our costs is substantial and in the long run, can add up to significant savings without compromising excessively on quality.

We try to eat organic produce, when the price is almost the same as non-organic. But for the most part eating organic is very expensive. Years back, one of my sisters-in-law confessed that she spent about $1000 a month on food alone for a family of two young children, herself and her husband. When I began to probe how her grocery bill could be so high, she told me they ate only organics. I've never been able to afford to spend that much on food. The idea of the "dirty dozen" fruits and vegetable list is akin to my 50% philosophy. If one choose organic for the 12 worst offenders and eat traditionally-grown produce for the rest, you'll be doing yourself a lot of good without spending too much on foods. My approach to the "dirty dozen" list to to grow as much of the produce on the list in my own organic garden, and not worry about whether or not something purchased is organic.

I've talked about hanging some of our laundry to dry. I don't hang everything. For one, I don't have the hanging space to hang it all. But also, hanging laundry is time and personal energy consuming. But I do hang about 50% of my clothing part of laundry. I choose the pieces that most benefit from hanging to dry. Cotton pjs, socks, and undies -- maybe a no on hanging to dry. Shirts and dress jeans -- definitely yes on hanging. So I spare some of my clothing the high heat of a dryer, but get the ease of using the dryer some of the time. Again, I'm saving about 50% on my heat drying.

While I will start most of our garden veggies from seeds this year, I won't start all of them from seeds. Over the years, I've found that some plants just do better with a nursery-started plant as opposed to my seed starting under lights. I'll be buying squash and pumpkin plants at Fred Meyer or Home Depot in another few weeks. Our short growing season means I can't just pop these sorts of seeds into the dirt and expect any fruit. And my home-started seedlings lack the hardiness to grow well and fast in our garden. If I want to harvest squash and pumpkin, I really do need to buy started plants. I certainly won't be spending next to nothing on starting my vegetable garden, buying some in plants. But I will be saving substantially on all of the other plants that I can start from seeds at home. I start most of my tomato plants from seeds under lights. But also, I buy 1 single well-developed tomato plant to give us some fresh tomatoes about a month sooner than my home-started plants. It's the best of both worlds for my garden. I start many plants from seeds, but also buy some nursery started plants where it makes a difference.

I guess what I'm saying is that in order to do the most good for my life, save the most money, and give myself a break from time to time, I routinely make compromises. Half this, half that seems to work really well for me.

Growing a Salad Garden in Storage Containers

I finished planting our container salad garden this week. Like last year, I've got 6 of these plastic storage bins filled with salad greens on a stand on our deck. The stand is just outside the kitchen door. Even on wet spring days, I can still pop outside to grab some salad greens for dinner without getting soaked. I'm guessing we're about 3 weeks away from first harvest.

I've been pleased with how well these storage containers have held up outdoors in our winters here. They are just ordinary storage containers that one might normally use for out of season clothing or sewing/needlecraft supplies. I have them tucked under the eaves of the house, but they still froze on our coldest nights. Yet, none have cracked, so far.

I didn't bother changing the soil this spring, but instead I added a handful of vegetable fertilizer to each container before adding the seedlings. Keeping my fingers crossed that they'll do just fine this way.

This afternoon I started a second batch of lettuce from seeds under lights indoors. These will be replacement plants at the end of May, when the current plants are about done or have all been harvested.

You may wonder, why don't I just grow salad greens in the ground with my other vegetables? We have quite a slug problem in our area. A single slug could decimate a young lettuce patch in a week, here. I only plant the most hardy of our vegetables in the actual garden.

So, growing the salad greens on the deck in containers (on shelves, no less) keeps the greens safe from the slugs, as well as provides us with greens a little earlier than if they'd grown in the garden.

A detour I didn't want to take

Hi friends,

I've been under the weather since last Wednesday. I woke up sick Wednesday morning with a bad cold. I was just starting to feel better when I caught another virus (different symptoms). So here I am today, tired, but on the mend. There are some nasty viruses going 'round that aren't covid or the flu. Unfortunately, we don't get to choose when we get sick.

I'm slowly catching up on all work. On the positive side, my week is mostly free for doing this catching up. My husband is visiting family out of town for a week. This will mean fewer distractions for me as I work.

While I'm really happy for my husband to be able to spend time with family, there's always a little part of me that feels left behind. My husband's family is spread out across the country. About once a year, he goes to visit a couple or three.

So, to help myself feel not so left behind, I try to do some special things for myself and for my daughters. Today, right after my husband was dropped off at the airport, I headed to the grocery store. In addition to restocking a couple of items in the pantry, I also bought a few special foods for the three of us, including some frozen blueberries, frozen whole green beans (the thin kind), bacon, some good coffee, and fresh strawberries.

You've seen my grocery shopping lists. I just don't buy fresh strawberries out of season or not for a celebration. So these will be a treat with breakfast in the morning. In the store, I perused the bakery section closely. There were some yummy-looking treats. However, I have these dietary issues. Then I thought I should buy some frozen blueberries and make some scratch blueberry muffins for my daughters and me, using my preferred ingredients. Add in the bacon and our breakfasts are looking scrumptious for the next few days.

I used the green beans in tonight's dinner. I made salisbury steaks and mushroom gravy to go with garlic green beans and steamed rice. The package of ground beef was too big for us three for one dinner, so I made enough salisbury steaks and gravy for tomorrow night's meal as well.

The kitchen now cleaned up for the evening, and I'm exhausted. I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with more energy. Have a lovely rest of your evening.

My Simple Easter Wreath

I spent some time today getting our house prepared for Easter. We'll have guests before, on and after Easter Sunday this year. So I want our house to look like we're celebrating Easter and not just a "happy spring" look.

Here's the wreath I quickly put together today. I used an Amazon gift card from my birthday last year to order a faux square boxwood wreath and a large weathered white cross. Those elements arrived this afternoon.

I used florist wire to attach the cross to the wreath and also to make a hanging hook on the back side. It was quick and easy, the way I like decorating to be these days. And I love how it turned out. I hung this wreath above the fireplace in the family room.

I also wanted to show you my spring bulb flower planter. I put this together a couple of years ago, scavenging all of the plants from other spots in the yard and potting them in an old, cracked, and moss-covered azalea pot, with a free-pile bird figurine. I love how the moss just grows on pots here. The flowers in the pot are grape hyacinth, a pale yellow primrose, a violet primrose, and a lone daffodil. All of the flowers are just now looking wonderful. A completely free spring flower bowl.

Do you decorate for Easter? Any favorite Easter decorations?

March 2025 Grocery Shopping

It's the last day of March and I don't think I'll be going out grocery shopping this evening. So, I'll tally up our grocery spending for the month and close this chapter.

March 2  My husband and I went out to lunch after church. We split a 3-entree/1-side Panda Express meal. We chose Broccoli Beef, Kung Pao Chicken, Orange Chicken, and Chow Mein for our side. They gave us 2 fortune cookies when they saw we were sharing a single meal. It was more food than we could finish. My husband took the leftovers in for his lunch the next day. We decided if we do Panda Express for a lunch together again, we'll split a 2-entree meal. Spent $13.04 While technically not "groceries," the meal did feed us, and we would have eaten something at home. And I took the lunch out of the grocery cash envelope.

March 5  Walmart for 1 package turkey snack sticks, canister onion powder, applesauce, bunch bananas, barbecue sauce. Spent $12.15 at Walmart. Then I went across the street to Grocery Outlet to pick up beet root powder. I add beet powder to my daily smoothies. Spent $9.99 at Grocery Outlet.

March 7  Town & Country for 2 bottles of sparkling water  to take to my brother's on the 9th. I was at Town & Country picking up a couple of birthday gifts for my two daughters -- items they'd both noticed when we were here together in February. The sparkling water is good for the price. Spent $4.00 on the water.

March 8  Fred Meyer for cucumber, grape tomatoes, package of chicken breasts to make an Italian chicken salad to take to my brother's on the 9th. The Italian chicken salad I brought contained cubed cooked chicken breasts, halved grape tomatoes, chunks of cucumber, shavings of Parmesan cheese, in a homemade herb and garlic vinaigrette. It was pretty tasty. We had leftovers later that night that I stretched with some steamed broccoli and more cheese. While at Fred Meyer, I was also buying pantyhose and hair accessories, gifts for my daughters for their birthday. Spent $10.63 on food.

March 12  WinCo for 2 canisters cocoa powder, frozen peas, frozen spinach, frozen broccoli cuts, gallon milk, block cheddar, block mozzarella, about 1 pound pepperoni, vanilla flavoring, 2 cans tuna, bulk peanut butter, bag of dried dates, bulk chili powder, bulk instant dry milk, 5 lbs carrots, celery, 1 head cabbage, 2 avocados, 1 red and 1 green pepper, 3 lbs apples, 2 lbs tangerines, bunch bananas, about 1 lb Roma tomatoes. Spent $73.00

March 22. We went to Starbucks to celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary. We used gift cards that had been gifts to us, so no cost for the celebration.

March 24  Walmart for 36-oz bag chocolate chips, frozen mixed vegetables, frozen broccoli cuts, frozen peas, gallon milk, uncured beef franks, 3 packages turkey snack sticks, small block cheddar, 3-lb bag tangerines, 5-lb bag carrots, celery, 4 Roma tomatoes, couple bunches bananas, natural peanut butter. Spent $53.86

March 27 WinCo for a whole chicken, 6 avocados, 3 large tomatoes, bulk raisins, bulk flax seed meal, bulk flaked coconut, bulk table salt, bulk peanut butter, block of cheddar, block of mozzarella, 4 cans tuna, 2 canisters cocoa powder, 1 jar regular coffee, 1 jar decaf coffee, 5 jars applesauce, 1 package dried dates, 1 bag pork sausage links, 1 bag turkey sausage links. I spent $92.58

At WinCo, a new brand of chicken caught my eye, Just Bare. No antibiotics, no hormones, no steroids, and they're raised on family farms. The price worked out to just over $2.00 per pound for a whole chicken, with no neck or giblets. I usually toss the neck and giblets, so that makes the price per pound more competitive with the Foster Farms that I often buy ($1.48/lb). Foster Farms has gotten really sloppy in recent years. I sometimes find a couple of livers in the cavity, adding weight to the chicken, parts that my family won't eat. Anyway, the whole chicken was clean just out of the package.

I rubbed my whole chicken with salt, pepper, sage, thyme, paprika, onion powder, and garlic powder. The chicken was delicious, and the seasonings added flavor to the meat and to the drippings, which I used for gravy.

I didn't include what we bought for my daughters' birthday celebration picnic or pie in the grocery spending, as those come out of a different budget. But, if you're interested, we spent about $60 total for those foods and slices of pie in the pie shop. (We had tap water to drink with the pie.)

My daughter bought me some candy this morning, she said because I did a last-minute favor for her. I told her it was unnecessary to buy me anything. But it was very sweet of her. Some candy -- no cost to me.

Total spent for the month of March -- $269.25

What I bought:

1 restaurant lunch out for two

4 packages turkey snack sticks

chicken breasts

whole chicken

sliced pepperoni

uncured beef hot dogs

1 bag pork sausage links

1 bag turkey sausage links

6 cans tuna

2 gallons milk

3 blocks cheddar

2 blocks mozzarella

bulk powdered milk

vanilla flavoring (artificial vanilla)

3 containers natural peanut butter

bulk chili powder

bulk iodized salt

2 bottles sparkling water

36-oz bag chocolate chips

flax seed meal

coconut flakes

4 canisters cocoa powder

1 jar coffee

1 jar decaf

2 bags frozen peas

1 bag frozen spinach

2 bags frozen broccoli cuts

1 bag frozen mixed vegetables

beetroot powder

bulk raisins (about 2 pounds)

2 bags dried dates

onion powder

6 jars applesauce

10 lbs carrots

1 head cabbage

2 bundles celery

8 avocados

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

3 lbs apples

5 lbs tangerines

3 bunches bananas

a couple pounds tomatoes

1 cucumber

grape tomatoes

You may have been wondering, "why all the cocoa powder? Why all the peanut butter?" The smoothies I make with beet powder -- the cocoa powder and peanut butter cover up the flavor of the beet powder. But beet powder is a good food for me. And I like to get a little beet powder in every day.

I don't know if you can relate . . .

I went grocery shopping this morning. It's the end of the month, I'm about out of cash for groceries until the first. This morning's shopping was at WinCo, where they only accept cash, debit, and checks. I don't carry a checkbook with me, and I don't have a debit card. So I have to bring cash to shop there. I brought all of the cash I had in the envelope at home. 

I also needed to stop and get gas with some of that money. I could charge gas, but I would be paying a higher price per gallon if using credit. So I bought $20 in gas on the way to WinCo.

I had counted how much cash I had on hand before leaving home. But I wasn't making a strong enough mental note on the amount, just that I had enough to buy a week's worth of groceries for us and get $20 in gas.

Once in the store, and seeing some of the prices on foods, I was motivated to add up the cost of what was in my cart and count the cash in my purse several times. I knew it would be a squeaker. I even used my calculator and the in-store scales to calculate how much my bulk items would cost. I swapped out some cheaper brands here and there. But I also bought a couple of more expensive versions of items on my list, because I felt the quality would be better. With those particular items, quality was a value for us. I didn't get the breakfast sausage that my husband requested, and I didn't stock-up on the applesauce that was on sale. I knew the final total would be tight, based on the amount of money I thought I had in my purse.

As I placed foods onto the conveyer belt at the checkout, I purposely left a few items to the very end. These were the things I felt we could most live without. My plan was as the cashier rang items up, and I could see the subtotal along the way, I would cut-off the purchases when I thought we'd exceeded the amount of cash I had with me.

I felt a sigh of relief when I could see that the total was below the amount of cash in my purse. As I pulled out the bills to count out to the cashier, I realized that there was a $20 bill stuck to another $20. I actually had $20 more than I had thought!

I paid for my groceries and met up with my husband in the car. At that point, I related to him everything that had transpired with the cash in my purse and the cost of the groceries, and that I had skipped his breakfast sausage. I asked if he would still like that sausage. At first he said not to bother. But then I told him I would use that $20 to take advantage of the sale on applesauce and canned tuna, and go back into the store anyway. Of course, at that point he was thrilled to get his sausage and said "yes."

So, I unloaded my paid-for groceries and pushed the cart back into the store. I was able to buy 2 more cans of tuna, 4 more jars of applesauce, my husband's preferred pork breakfast sausage, and as a bonus, a bag of my preferred turkey breakfast sausage.

Even though I had that extra $20 in my purse the whole time, it felt like I'd been blessed with $20 extra worth of foods for my family for the week. 

I'll have more grocery money in just a few days, but I won't get back to WinCo for another 2 weeks. By that time, the sale on applesauce and tuna may be over, and I might have missed my opportunity to stock up on those items.

I don't know if any of you grocery shop on a strict budget, either imposed by your planning or by shopping only with cash. But judging by some of the comments from you, here, at least some of you will relate to my sigh of relief when it turned out I had more cash on hand than I had thought and could purchase everything and more on my list.