WinCo Grocery Haul: A Healthy Haul

I've mentioned before that I go to WinCo every other week. It had been slightly over 2 weeks since I last went. The store is way down the highway, using gas and precious time to go there and back. From the time I left the house to the time I finished putting everything away, 3 hours had elapsed for this shopping trip.

Anyway, this is pretty typical of what I buy twice a month, with variation for season (like stocking up on sale canned veggies or buying seasonal produce), variation for those months when I buy a large bag of brown rice or whole wheat or all-purpose flour or other stock-up item, and for when I've simply run out of an item, like this time vanilla flavoring.

I titled this a "healthy haul" because I've recently seen some really unhealthy looking grocery hauls, filled with some of the worst of processed foods. Those other hauls are also a lot more expensive than simply buying the basics and cooking from scratch. But we all know that. 

This isn't everything we eat in a two-week period, as we have lots of other foods on hand at all times. And I buy some of our food directly from vendors/ranchers, such as our beef, our greens/beet powders for smoothies, and soy milk powder. Our actual total cost to eat all meals and snacks each month is between $375.00 to $400.00 for a household of 4 adults, for one month (I said that twice, I know). And that includes those extra purchases through a rancher and other online vendors/manufacturers.

Here's the haul.

From left to right, front to back, this is what I bought:

large bulk bag of roasted peanuts

large bulk bag of raisins

2 pints of freshly ground peanut butter

2 12-oz cans tomato paste

6 cans corn

6 cans green beans

small bulk bag sea salt

small bulk bag iodized salt

2 lb bag powdered sugar

small bulk bag flax seed meal

vanilla flavoring

4 boxes frozen turkey breakfast sausage

2 1-lb bags frozen petite peas

1 small bulk bag peanut butter powder

1 small bulk bag onion powder

2 whole chickens

2 3-lb bags onions (weighed 6  5/8 lbs total)

2 dozen eggs

4 avocados (hard to see against dark countertop)

8 Fuji apples (3.89 lbs)

1 head of cabbage

2 lb bag tangerines

4 lb bag oranges

5 bananas

10 lb bag carrots

1 bundle celery

2 lb block cheddar cheese

4 lbs butter

2 gallons milk

Total spent -- $114.75

My one regret, I only bought one bag of oranges. I wish I'd bought two bags. I think we could do with a little more fresh fruit this time of year. 

What's missing here? Not a lot of meat this time. I still have canned tuna, beef, pepperoni for pizzas, more chicken, and more breakfast sausage at home. 

What else is missing? I didn't need much in the way of baking supplies, except the vanilla and powdered sugar. I have plenty of flour, granulated sugar, spices, molasses, yeast, baking powder, etc. 

You know what else is missing? Packaged snack foods. I just don't buy them. Chips, crackers, fruit rolls, cookies, pudding cups, other commercially-baked goodies, sodas, or individual servings of anything -- I bake our own snacks from what I've bought. Or else we snack on foods as they are, like a spoonful of peanut butter, a slice of cheese, handful of raisins, handful of peanuts, stove-top popcorn, piece of fruit or a raw veggie. When we have our weekly movie night, we eat homemade pizza while watching the movie. When we want something salty like fries, I make them in the oven using whole potatoes or sweet potatoes. It works out better for me and my wacky body, and it saves us a bundle of money each month. 

I also don't buy pre-made meals or parts of meals, like bagel bites, frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, frozen waffles, boxed cereal, lunch meat, bottled salad dressings. I cook from basics.

Maybe this sounds weird, but I don't like soda pop. My husband and I prefer coffee, tea, water, homemade lemonade, hot apple cider, or juice over soda pop. The exception is about once each summer we buy the ingredients for root beer floats. And if we have people over, we buy sparkling or mineral water. My daughters will occasionally buy themselves a soda when they're out doing things.

We eat well, here. We're healthy. We enjoy good food. 

How long will this last us? For most foods, 10 days to 3 weeks for 4 adults. Other foods, more than a month (vanilla flavoring, salt). I will need more bananas in a week. We use them in smoothies. I make a Walmart run for bananas every other week. I may pick up more tangerines or oranges when I get the bananas. I like for us to be able to have about 1 piece of fresh fruit each day (preferably a citrus fruit this time of year) and a serving of frozen fruit or dried fruit each day. I pick up other things that are Walmart specific for us at those times, too -- bathroom tissue, facial tissues, dish and laundry detergents, any OTC pain meds, chocolate chips, unsweetened baking chocolate bars, instant coffee -- all are great prices at Walmart. 

We will still have some tomato paste and canned veggies remaining at the end of 2 weeks. They've been on sale at WinCo the last month, so I pick up a few cans each time, hopefully to have enough to get us through winter. For us, canned corn and frozen corn feel interchangeable, so I buy the canned (less expensive). We prefer canned or fresh green beans over frozen. So when the garden is no longer producing fresh green beans for us, we opt for canned. Two large (12-oz) cans of tomato paste is enough for 4 family meals of spaghetti sauce or 8 family meals of pizza sauce or 4 to 6 family meals (depending on what else I add) of homemade tomato soup. Tomato paste also can be turned into BBQ sauce or ketchup with the addition of a couple of other ingredients.

The flax seed meal and peanut butter powder are for breakfast smoothies, and those 2 bags will last 2 weeks. I keep both fresh onions and onion powder on hand. Onion powder adds a great boost of flavor to sauces, gravies, and soups. But we also like to use fresh onions in dishes. Both are good and have their own best uses. The 2 bags of frozen peas are enough for 4 family meals. The butter was also on sale. I picked up 4 packages, which will last through mid-December, including lots of holiday cookie baking for the freezer. Ordinarily, we go through about 1 pound every couple of weeks. 

With the milk, as I open each jug I pour off about 1 1/2 quarts to freeze. When both of the jugs are gone, we use the frozen milk for the last part of the two-week period. The sea salt is one of our table salts (pink Himalayan is our other) and the iodized is our baking and cooking salt. These two bags will last a few months.

I like buying pre-bagged produce for one reason. I pick out several bags and weigh each one. The 2-lb bag of tangerines really weighed about 2  1/4 pounds. The onion bags both weighed well over the stated weight. Ditto on the oranges. With celery, I look for the freshest bundles that are also very full, since they're priced each. For apples this time, the individual apples were a much better deal than the bagged apples, and I got to select the very best of the ones that were there, no hidden bruised apples which would cause disappointment.

I shop with a list that I put together over the course of the two weeks since my last big shop. I don't deviate much from my list unless I suddenly remember an item that should have been on the list. I'm a get in and get out sort of gal when it comes to grocery shopping. WinCo is usually crowded, and that in itself motivates me to just finish up and get out.

I want to add, I don't mean to shame anyone who buys a different selection of food. However, I wanted to post one of our typical shopping stock-ups to show what exactly we buy and how I use it all. Could we spend more on groceries? Yes, we could. But that would cut into our savings goals, such as in-home care for late in life and providing some financial security for our children after we're gone.

Just for fun, here are some possible meals I could make with what I bought this week (plus a couple of staples from home). Each dinner meal has at least 2 servings of produce, a carb, and complete protein. Each breakfast has carbs, fruits/vegetables, and protein. Each lunch has at least 2 servings of produce, carbs, and protein. For snacks, I try to incorporate fruits/veggies into almost all of our snack foods, as well. Doing so lowers the total calories and refined sugar, plus it crams just a few more nutrients into each day.

14 dinner possibilities

1-roasted whole chicken (leaving lots of leftovers), gravy, bread/celery/onion stuffing (adding bread from scratch), canned green beans, apple wedges 

2-chicken (using leftover chicken) in Italian-style tomato paste-based sauce, brown rice (rice had at home already), frozen peas, cabbage slaw, tangerines

3-Brinner -- sausage, eggs, pancakes (from scratch), carrot-raisin salad, orange segments

4-tomato-celery (use tops of celery) soup, toasted cheese sandwiches (bread from scratch), apple wedges with peanut butter, scratch vanilla cornstarch pudding

5-chicken, bean, cheese, avocado burritos (beans and tortillas from scratch), salsa (homemade) on the side, caramelized onions, carrot sticks

6-burrito bowls -- canned corn, brown rice (from home ingredients), chicken, salsa (homemade in summer), avocados, cheese along with celery sticks and orange segments 

7-frittata -- eggs, greens from garden, onions, cheese, along with roasted potatoes (from garden), sautéed and spiced apples (from garden or the fresh ones I bought), steamed carrots

8-chicken in peanut sauce with veggies, using some of cooked chicken, peanut butter plus chopped peanuts to top, celery, onions, curry powder (from home), garlic (from garden), carrot slices, over brown rice (from home), with chutney on side (made last summer) and tangerines

9-a quick dinner -- scrambled eggs w/cheese, frozen peas, cooked pasta (from home) with butter and herbs (from garden), apple wedges and celery sticks

10-corn and sausage soufflé, using canned corn, sausage and eggs, baked potatoes (from garden or bag I already have), Cole slaw, fruit cup of orange, apple, banana (mixed fruit cup is a good side/dessert to plan for end of shopping period, when down to just singles of each fruit)

11-chicken in BBQ sauce (made with leftover chicken, tomato paste and other ingredients), oven-fries (potatoes from garden or from bag already have at home), oven-roasted carrot sticks, canned green beans

12-fried rice with egg, cabbage, carrot, peas, onions, chopped peanuts plus rice, soy sauce and garlic (from home/garden), tangerines

13-scratch pizza (all but tomato paste from other purchases or garden), cabbage plate vegetable dish (retro 50s recipe using carrots, cabbage, onions, celery), fresh fruit or stewed prunes (garden) or sautéed apples (garden)

14-Spanish beans and rice (beans, rice from other purchases, tomato sauce based on tomato paste and spices, plus caramelized onions), carrot-apple-cabbage-raisin slaw in mayo (from home) dressing

bonus dinner possibility -- tuna melts (canned tuna, bread, mayo from home supplies, celery and cheese from haul), carrot sticks, frozen peas

5+ breakfast possibilities (we repeat breakfast ideas more than dinner)

daughter's favorite -- overnight oats (oats and cinnamon from home, with milk and raisins) OR homemade granola (oats, sugar, spices from home, smidge butter and peanut butter from haul) with milk, topped with chopped apple 

my favorite -- breakfast smoothies, using peanut butter powder for protein, bananas, leftover steamed carrots, flax seed meal, blackberries (from garden), puréed pumpkin (from garden or bought in Oct), greens powder (had at home), beet powder (had at home), smidge of peanut butter or avocado for fats with or without toast or sausage on the side

husband's favorite -- sausage, toast (from scratch) with jam (made last summer), milk, orange

pancakes or French toast (from scratch), spiced apple topping, boiled eggs or glass of milk for additional protein OR scratch apple-carrot-raisin muffins (baking staples from home) and a boiled egg for a take and go breakfast

baked rice pudding (rice, sugar, spices/flavorings from home, eggs, raisins, and milk from grocery haul)

5+ lunch possibilities (we repeat lunch ideas more than dinner)

cheese or egg salad or peanut butter or chicken salad sandwiches (bread from scratch, mayo from home), celery sticks, carrot sticks, fruit

chicken and vegetable (carrots, celery, peas, green beans, onions) soup from scratch (adding potatoes from garden, noodles, barley, quinoa, or rice from home for carb), fruit, cookies (from ingredients at home already)

curried peanut butter and pumpkin soup, biscuits (scratch) and fruit on side

snacky lunch -- raisins, peanuts, cheese slices, apple wedges, celery sticks, carrot sticks, bread (from scratch) and butter 

salad lunch -- enhanced slaw-type salad with shredded cabbage, grated carrots, chopped peanuts, cubed cheese, raisins, apple chunks, cooked garbanzo beans (from home), mayo (from home), vinegar (from home), salt, with toast (scratch) on side

snacks using what I bought

muffins -- variation possibilities from this haul only: 1) apple, 2) carrot, 3) raisin, 4) peanut butter, 5) whole orange, 6) banana, and 7) corny corn

cookies and snack cakes -- oatmeal raisin drop cookies, carrot-spice drop cookies, peanut butter cookies, apple-spice snack cake, carrot snack cake

peanut butter-raisin protein balls (using powdered milk and honey from home) 

no-bake shredded carrot-peanut butter-rolled oat-honey energy balls

for a candy treat -- chocolate covered raisin clusters, about 1/4 cup chocolate chips, melted and mixed with a little coconut oil and a large handful of raisins. Could also be done with peanuts for peanut clusters.

plain raisins, plain peanuts, cheese cubes, celery sticks, carrot sticks, fresh fruit

I'm not saying we will definitely be having these meals and snacks in the next couple of weeks, as we have lots of other foods in the freezers, pantry, and fridge that we can draw from. These were just a handful of suggested meals I could make, based on this shopping trip. The foods from my haul that don't get eaten before I shop again will simply be rolled over into use the following shopping period.

So that's what a healthy haul from WinCo, on a limited budget, looks like for my family and how it all winds up in our meals.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers Plus Another Pumpkin Recipe

This is Tuesday's dinner with the pumpkin soufflé. The soufflé isn't a super fluffy dish, but the egg does hold it all together and makes it lighter than straight pumpkin.

Friday (daughter made dinner)
scratch pepperoni pizza
roasted pumpkin*
frozen peas

Saturday (cook-out around the fire ring -- fun time!)
hot dogs
homemade buns, using part of the dough I'd made for a loaf of French bread this day

Swiss chard* sautéed in bacon fat
steamed carrots
s'mores

Sunday
bean and cheese burritos in homemade flour tortillas, beans cooked from dried
cabbage and nasturtium leaf* slaw
roasted pumpkin cubes*
leftover Halloween cookies

Monday
roasted chicken with gravy
bread, celery*, and sage* dressing, using chicken stock from freezer to moisten
sweet potato oven fries, roasted in beef fat
sautéed beet greens*, using some of the chicken fat from the roast chicken
pecan pie (courtesy of my daughters)

Tuesday
leftover chicken heated in salsa with avocado, tomato*, cilantro* (last red tomato from garden, a couple of yellow tomatoes left now)
brown rice
pumpkin* soufflé
stewed prunes*

Wednesday (daughter made dinner)

chicken and vegetable soup (vegetables -- celery*, onion, purple potatoes*, garlic*, carrots, frozen peas, herbs*)

chocolate chip muffins

Thursday

Shepherd's Pie, using beef,  celery*, carrot, carrot leaves*, beet greens*, onions*, garlic*, nasturtium leaves*, herbs* , and beef stock from freezer, all under a mashed potato topping. (I used the potato peels to make oven-roasted potato peels as a snack this afternoon. Yum!)

fig-applesauce* on the side

*denote garden produce

Pumpkin Soufflé

When I need an orange vegetable side dish, and what I have is pumpkin puree (and I want this to be a "fork-able" dish), I turn it into a soufflé of sorts.

Here's how I make it:

1 pint pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
about 1/4 teaspoon combined cinnamon and nutmeg
pat of butter to top casserole

Butter a small baking dish (I use a couple of small white Corningware round bakers).

Beat egg well with a fork in a medium bowl. Beat in the pumpkin, sugar, salt, and spices. Pour into the prepared baking dish and top with the butter pat.

Bake at 350 to 375 degrees F, whatever I need for the other foods I'm baking. If not baking anything else, I bake this at 350 degrees F. Total baking time -- about 20-25 minutes. A knife inserted in center will come out clean.

I use 2 of these Corningware bakers
for this recipe.
5 1/2 inches at opening and 2 inches tall

Notes

If what you're accustomed to for chicken soup comes from a can, cooking it at home adds a seriously amazing aroma to the kitchen. On Thursday I simmered the carcass from our most recent roasted whole chicken. The house smelled delicious all day. As we had chicken soup on Wednesday, I chose to freeze the resulting chicken stock with meat for making a chicken and vegetable soup at some future moment.

You may have noticed that there have been fewer garden veggies and more store bought ones in our meals the last couple of weeks. Earlier this week I started a batch of lentil sprouts, our first for this season. Lentil sprouts add bulk to our winter salads and sandwiches for just pennies.

Grocery shopping

I went to Walmart last Friday and picked up a couple of things, a bunch of bananas, a 3 lb bag of sweet potatoes, and a pound of lean grass fed ground beef. I spent $11.06, also my total for the month. (I also picked up cleaning supplies, as we were out of liquid dish detergent.) I'll be going to WinCo in the next couple of days and do a big stock-up then. My spending total will jump from that.

What was the best meal you had this week?

Your Best Hosting the Holidays Tips

Okay, I was freaking out yesterday, thinking I couldn't do all I needed to do for Thanksgiving, then Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day, then New Year's. There's the cooking, cleaning, planning games, and generally being a good host.

Then I remembered that I have done these holidays every year, and I have managed because I plan it all out and do some work in advance.

So I thought I'd share a tip, the ask for your input.

My Tip

For hosting and cooking for a big holiday meal. . .

Cook in advance, in particular make a freezer-stable pie pastry in advance and store in the freezer. I made this recipe this morning and froze it in 5 portions. They thaw overnight in the fridge before I need to bake the pie. For Thanksgiving this year, I'll be making 1 single-crust pie and 1 double-crust pie, using 3 of the 5 portions of this dough. I'll be using the other 2 dough portions in a sweet and savory meat pie for New Year's Eve. (There's a fun name for this meat pie -- Medieval Game Pie.)

Fool-Proof Pie Pastry (enough for 5 single crusts)

4 cups flour (if you want to use some whole grain, you can use 1 cup whole wheat + 3 cups white flour)
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1  3/4 cups shortening
1 large egg
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon vinegar

In a large bowl, stir flour, salt and sugar together.  Cut in shortening.  

In a small bowl or the measuring cup from the shortening, beat the egg with a fork then stir in water and vinegar. Pour over the flour mixture and mix until dough comes together. Chill for 30 minutes. 

Divide into 5 portions and shape each into a flat, round patty. Wrap each in plastic wrap.

This dough can handle extra flour, if needed, for rolling. Extra flour and handling will not toughen the baked product. 

The dough keeps, refrigerated, for 3-5 days, or frozen for several months. Thaw completely before rolling out.

Your turn -- tell us your best tip for hosting and cooking for a big holiday. Do you play any games after Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years dinner? Do you prepare foods in advance? Any that can be frozen? Feel free to provide links to recipes or the recipes, themselves in the comments.

Off-Season Garden Fruit

We have 2 fresh apples and 4 fresh pears left of our fresh fruit harvest from this season's trees. But that doesn't mean that we're out of homegrown fruit. 

I still have oodles of apple and crabapple sauce, and lots of apple chunks (from bruised apples) and Asian pear chunks (from our neighbor's fallen tree branches). I also have home-dried prunes, home-dried apple slices (from early apples that were softening), home-dried Asian pear slices, and homemade fruit leather rolls.

The applesauce and crabapple sauce are great to have on hand. However, for those who go off to work during the day, they make terrible portable food, lacking watertight food containers. We do buy some fresh fruit this time of year, tangerines, oranges, bananas, and some apples. As a supplement to those purchases, it's time to start using the dried fruit I made this summer.

This week I brought out some of the fruit leather rolls (I made 120 total). I also made little bags of dried fruit. Each of these bags has the equivalent of half an apple and 5 small plums, about a serving of fruit at lunch.

When we run out of the fruit rolls, I will make more batches, using the frozen apple and crabapple sauces.

By processing a lot of our tree fruit into dried slices/halves or into leather, I ensure that we will have garden fruit when the fresh fruit has been exhausted, stretching our grocery budget during the tough late fall and winter months.

Appreciating the Very Imperfect Garden Vegetables

When we shop in the produce section of the grocery store, we find attractive fruits and vegetables. Some leafy greens may have crushed leaves where they were bundled and banded to prevent tearing. But overall, the produce looks pretty good. We expect it to look pretty good. Would you buy a tomato that obviously had a touch of blossom end rot? Or a zucchini that was lopsided, bulging significantly more at one end than the other? Or an apple that had multiple blemishes?

This abundance of beautiful fruits and vegetables, all lined up in rows and layers at the market, is really not like what most folks ate on a daily basis before the 20th century. The introduction of pesticides, improved seeds, and the sorting out of imperfect produce for use in canned products has led us all to believe that everyone's produce should look consistent in size and shape, as well as be on the larger side. 

Before the mid-1800s, most Americans kept kitchen gardens. And if you keep a vegetable garden today, you know that an abundance of perfect produce simply isn't the case. My own garden vegetables look so imperfect that we often joke about who gets to eat more of the garden, us or the combined pests.

In case you've ever felt frustrated by your own garden's problems, I wanted to show you what our beet leaves look like.

Here are some of the leaves that I harvested for tonight. The very worst of the leaves weren't picked, as they were beginning to yellow and some looked a little diseased, common for this late in the season. But I was able to harvest a big bowlful to sauté to go with our meal. This is the third of such harvests. I only have about 10 beets growing in this small autumn patch. I planted a trough planter with beets after I had harvested the earlier vegetables (turnips I think) in early July. So I wasn't expecting a huge beet harvest, but we make the most of what we get.

These leaves have clearly been a meal or two for slugs. I wash the leaves and just ignore the bite holes. I figure that this is just a part of keeping an organic garden. You get chew holes or sometimes have to pick off crawly, slimy critters. But we still get our share of the food.

And this is what I think the garden experience used to be for most folks up until the mid-1900s. By the 1950s, there were several strong and effective pesticides available to home gardeners. No one really knew the hazards of these products at the time, so most consumers had  a positive view of them. It was "progress." We've now come full-circle. Most home gardeners don't want to use a lot of pesticides, fungicides, or herbicides on their produce. Part of the reason I personally keep a kitchen garden is so that I can provide chemical-free fruits and vegetables for my family. And we accept that bugs and slugs will ruin the perfect look that the grocery store displays.

I'm showing you some of our imperfect produce today for a couple of reasons. 1) so if you have a garden and wind up with lots of imperfect fruits and vegetables, at least you know that you're not alone. And 2) when I post my weekly menus and identify what comes from the garden, you don't have a mental picture of a refrigerator full of a blemish-free and perfectly uniform abundance. 

In place of grocery store perfection, I and my family appreciate home-grown flavor over appearance, health benefits of eating fresh and organic, and taking a step towards greater self-sufficiency in procuring some of our food.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers With an Easy Pumpkin Recipe

Friday

homemade pepperoni pizza
kale*, cabbage*, tomato* salad in homemade vinaigrette
steamed carrots

trick-or-treat cookies (Circus Animal Cookies)

Saturday

spaghetti in meat and tomato sauce
sautéed kale* in beef fat
no egg, no milk apple* cake (applesauce* snack cake with chunks of apples* baked in), this recipe, no nuts but with apple chunks added

Sunday

vegetable*-beef soup, with garden celery*, potatoes*, herbs*, and store carrots plus beef
leftover apple* cake

Monday

tuna-macaroni salad with celery*, carrot leaves*, mayo, sweet relish*, tuna, cooked pasta over shredded cabbage* in vinaigrette
avocado wedges
pumpkin*-applesauce*

leftover Halloween cookies

Tuesday

carne asada over brown rice
topped with chopped fresh tomato*, cilantro*, and avocado
sauteed beet leaves* cooked in bacon fat
steamed baby carrots*
stewed prunes*

applesauce*-raisin bar cookies (these ones)

Wednesday (needed an easy dinner, as my husband and I had to leave the house early for the evening)

meatloaf, which included a slice of homemade bread, celery*, onions, herbs*, and seasonings along with ground beef

gravy made with drippings, ketchup, remaining sauce from Tuesday's carne asada
oven fries roasted in beef fat
canned green beans
pumpkin*-applesauce*

applesauce* bar cookies

Thursday

scrambled eggs in ham fat

sautéed Brussel sprout leaves* with garlic*

carrot-raisin salad with peanut dressing

smashed purple potatoes*

applesauce* bar cookies

*denotes from home garden/orchard

Notes

The garden harvest continues to wind down. I go outside, dodging raindrops, to get leafy greens several days per week. Daughter picked a bunch of kale and washed and wrapped in a towel to add to our lunch greens this week. We still haven't had a freeze, so everything remaining in the garden is still okay. What remains is the same as last week, just less of it -- kale, Brussel sprout leaves, Swiss chard, beets, turnips, cilantro, and radish. Here's an odd thing, we still have a couple of blueberries ripening on bare branches, branches that have already lost their leaves. I picked the ripest ones the other day to nibble on while raking leaves.

In an exciting bit of news, there's a mother on my homemade crabapple cider vinegar! The other exciting thing tonight, I caught brief views of the Beaver Moon (November's full supermoon) as the clouds would occasionally part. Last night the moon was at its peak, but tonight 's showing was no slouch either.

No grocery shopping this week. I do need to pick up bananas for smoothies and will do that in the next day or two.

Recipe

Pumpkin-Applesauce

for 1 pint

Stir together 1 cup of applesauce and 1 cup of pureed pumpkin (canned or home-processed, could also be made with pureed winter squash). Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of sweetening, such as maple syrup, honey, brown or white sugar, plus a sprinkling of cinnamon (1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon). Mix well. This is a mildly sweet and mildly flavored fruit sauce, not as sweet as applesauce and adds a bonus of vitamin A and fiber.

Beyond the Pie

It's a rainy, rainy day here. November is the wettest month of the year in the Seattle area, with about 6.5 inches of rainfall on average. So when I think of autumn, I think of chilly and wet days -- a perfect season for the warmth of pumpkin-filled meals.

For those wishing to imbibe in copious amounts of pumpkin (or butternut squash for those who prefer squash over pumpkin) this month, but don't want to OD on pie, here are some of my favorite ways to use pureed pumpkin in savory recipes. Sub in squash du jour for pumpkin as your tastes dictate.

Pasta with a pumpkin (squash) sauce in place of a tomato sauce

• Pumpkin/squash, Italian sausage, sage, onion, and cream sauce tossed with penne pasta. 
• Or, a twist on traditional lasagna, using a pumpkin/squash béchamel sauce in layers with lasagna noodles, cooked ground beef or cooked Italian sausage (with or without some cooked chopped spinach mixed in), cottage or ricotta cheese, then all topped with some Parmesan cheese. 
• Or, a pumpkin/squash, cream (or milk/alternative milk), sage, onions, Parmesan, garlic sauce over pre-made tortellini/ravioli.

Pumpkin puree as the topping on a Shepherd's Pie

• Libby's recipe blends pumpkin with mashed potatoes for the topping. Pumpkin is naturally lower in carbs than potatoes. Blending the two reduces overall carbs while satisfying the taste for mashed potatoes.
• For an all pumpkin topping (no potatoes), check out this recipe from Seasonal Intentions. The pumpkin topping is slightly spicy, with cinnamon, chipotle, and cardamom. For vegetarians, this recipe could easily be modified. It is chock full of vegetable flavor and texture, including turnips, kale, carrots, onion, and seasonings. The beef could be omitted and beef bouillon replaced with vegetable broth.

Pumpkin Bisque

• Taste of Home has a delicious pumpkin bisque recipe on its website. I made this last year, using saved bacon fat for sautéing the onions and garlic, but then skipping the bacon topping as a garnish and subbing in ham cracklings (see this post for cracklings). Diced ham would also be nice, or skip the smoked meat topping altogether. I subbed Swiss cheese for the Gouda (Swiss is more economical for me) and used coconut milk for the heavy cream (dairy issue for me). The bisque is very tasty and fairly simple.

Crockpot Pumpkin Chicken Chili

• If you're looking for a dump and go pumpkin chili recipe, this one is a winner. The pumpkin, beans, and chiles are all canned -- simplification, indeed. The green chiles are the kind that stores like Walmart sell for 78 cents/generic-brand, 4-oz can of fire-roasted chiles that add some heat, or mild ones by Ortega that sell for $1.24/4-oz can. They pack a lot of flavor for a little money. The canned beans can be replaced with home-cooked beans from dried, to save a little money. I frequently cook large batches of different types of beans and freeze in pint containers to use another day in soups and chili, as needed.

Pumpkin Sausage Chili

• Italian sausage is a natural pairing with pumpkin. Pioneer Woman's Pumpkin Chili recipe is closer to traditional chili recipes than the crockpot chicken chili recipe above, in that it contains ground meat, canned tomatoes, and bell pepper. Read the comments and suggestions above the actual recipe. She discusses how Libby's pumpkin is closer in flavor to butternut squash, what swaps can be made (including making this vegetarian), and it's flavor profile. 

These are a few of my favorite savory pumpkin dishes. Do you have any favorite pumpkin or winter squash (non-pie) dishes?

Is it too soon to talk turkey?

So, I've been receiving emails from stores and restaurants describing/advertising their pick-up Thanksgiving meals. Most are just the common T-day foods. One in particular came from a local restaurant and their menu looked good and more interesting. We sent an e-gift card to our son and daughter-in-law from this restaurant a couple of years ago, and now we're on their email list. Anyway, it's very expensive ($57 per person, not including dessert), but it did get me thinking about what I want to serve our 6 at our little Thanksgiving meal.

For the mains

When you have just 6 people, a whole turkey sounds like far more turkey leftovers than we would want. I've done bone-in turkey breasts before, and those are a good size for a smaller group. They're not as budget-friendly (priced per pound) as the whole bird. But it's an option.

Last year we did a whole chicken, roasted as I would a whole turkey, and a smoked pork loin. I have both whole chickens and a pork loin in the freezer. So if I went the same route as last year, I wouldn't have to buy the main meat. 

The restaurant I mentioned above is providing roasted turkey breast, sliced turkey leg confit, and honey glazed ham as their mains in the package.

For the sides

I think I want variety in texture as well as flavor. And I don't want too many starchy foods. So, I think I'll have purple mashed potatoes (from our garden's purple potatoes, everyone loves the color surprise), roasted sweet potato chunks, and bread, celery and sage stuffing. I have everything for those dishes except sweet potatoes. For vegetable dishes, I have canned green beans, dried mushrooms, and onions on hand. I could make a green bean casserole in a homemade mushroom soup binder and topped with homemade onion and bread crumb topping. I do our green bean casserole this way every year, due to my dairy intolerance. I would like to do a salad. I don't know if we will have anything to make a salad from on hand. So I will have to buy ingredients for a salad. I will make a gravy with the chicken drippings and homemade chicken stock. I may just skip any sort of cranberry sauce, and instead serve home-canned chutney alongside both the chicken and smoked pork. And I'd like to have olives. We all love olives and I haven't been buying any lately due to price increases. I'll get some for Thanksgiving.

The package with the restaurant includes a four cheese mac and cheese, vanilla yam puree, garlic mashed potatoes, brioche truffle stuffing, roasted seasoned green beans, country gravy, and orange cranberry sauce.

For dessert

I will bake an apple pie, using frozen apple chunks and homemade pie pastry, and a pumpkin pie, using our pureed pumpkin, soy milk, sugar, eggs, spices and homemade pie pastry. I will need to pick up whipping cream for the pies.

The restaurant does not include dessert with the package, but offers an add-on of $16 for either an apple or pumpkin pie.

For beverages

I can ask our son and daughter-in-law to bring some sparkling cider and/or mineral water for our cold beverages, and I'll serve coffee and tea with the dessert.

So, it looks like I will need to buy sweet potatoes, salad ingredients, olives, and whipping cream for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Have you given thought to your Thanksgiving meal for this year? Is turkey a must for your group? Are you hosting or guesting this year?

Sayings My Parents and Grandparents Used to Help Teach Financial Responsibility

I was thinking about all of the little sayings my parents and grandparents had to teach us how to be good stewards of our family's resources. Many of these lessons I carry with me today. How many of these did your parents or grandparents used to say? What other little sayings did they have? 

Here are the top 10 that I remember from my childhood:

"Put a sweater on if you're cold."  Save energy. Be prudent with resources.

"Clean your plate."  This extended to using every bit in a tube of toothpaste, scraping out the mayonnaise jar, using that last square of TP stuck onto the cardboard tube. The lesson was to don't be wasteful.

"Let me show you how we can fix this." From worn shoes and torn jeans, to pilled sweaters, we repaired (or took to a repair shop) our worn or torn clothing. Shoe repair shops used to be common. Of course, the types of shoes people used to wear daily often had leather soles, which can be replaced, in contrast to sneaker rubber soles. When I was first allowed to wear blue jeans to school (7th grade), I fell in my practically brand new jeans and tore the knee. My mom took me to the nearby 5 and dime (yes, there was still a 5 and dime back in my town in the 70s, although everything cost way more than 5 or 10 cents). We looked at the sewing notions on the wall and found a large patch of an orange. It wasn't how I really wanted my jeans to look, but I had to compromise. A large orange on the right knee of my jeans was better than not being able to wear my jeans to school. It was my mother who showed my sister and I how to shave pills off sweaters using a ladies non-electric razor. We extended the attractiveness of many sweaters by shaving off pills.

"Go in or go out. Don't just stand there with the door open." I still use this one with my own family members. It's closely related to "decide what you want from the fridge before you open the door." All about saving energy. No need to heat or cool the outdoors.

"A stitch in time saves nine." I didn't understand this one for a long time. It was finally explained to me that if we repair something early enough, we won't have a big repair later. Very true about clothing repairs. That hem that is falling down on a favorite skirt? Fix the hem now and you won't have a big repair later. Ditto on torn seams or small holes in knits.

"Money doesn't grow on trees"  or "I'm not made of money." We heard both of these often from my father. Our provisions are finite. Don't waste what we have and don't ask for what we don't really need.

"Money won't buy happiness," which is closely related to "no one ever promised life would be fair." And also "there's always someone who has it worse." Be grateful for what you have, find joy in the simple, and appreciate every good thing.

"Save it for a rainy day." Put something aside for hard times to come.

"Your eyes are bigger than your stomach." Don't take more than you need or can use, in food or other things.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Sometimes you can do more of the same, then have success. But other times, you need a new angle of attack. Either way, you have a chance at success if you keep trying. Whereas you will surely fail if you give up.

I hope some of these brought back fond memories for you.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers Plus Some Other Notes

Friday

scratch pepperoni pizza
sautéed Swiss chard*
scratch pumpkin pudding (the cornstarch kind, cooked on the stove with pumpkin puree* and spices added)

Saturday
beef fajitas (no peppers, though), w/homemade salsa, tomatoes*, avocados
steamed baby carrots*
open-faced plum pie (frozen plums*)

Sunday
kitchen sink tomato soup -- tomato paste, liquid from canned tomatoes, quinoa, celery*, rosemary*, garlic*, and carrot leaves*
toasted cheese sandwiches
roasted winter squash* cubes 
leftover plum* pie

Monday
meatloaf, adding celery*, onion, garlic*, herbs*, carrot leaves*, bread

gravy, made with drippings (bland), seasoned with garlic & onion powders, black pepper, thyme*, ketchup
brown rice
baby carrots* added to meatloaf pan in last half of baking meatloaf
sautéed Brussel sprout leaves* in beef fat with onion and garlic*

spiced fig-applesauce*

Tuesday
roasted whole chicken, gravy
oven-roasted potato wedges, roasted in some of the chicken fat from the roasted chicken
baked pumpkin* drizzled with cinnamon and brown sugar syrup
curried kale* and cabbage* slaw
stewed prunes*

Wednesday

Mexi-bowls, using leftover chicken, seasoned with cumin and chili powder, a can of corn, fresh tomato* and avocado, topped with shredded cheddar and fresh cilantro*

kale* and cabbage* slaw in mayo and salsa dressing

pear* sauce from the freezer

Thursday

leftover chicken and  gravy

roasted purple potatoes* in beef fat

sautéed beet greens and stem pieces*  in bacon fat and seasoned with garlic and onion powders

baked pumpkin* cubes tossed with butter and salt

apple* and crabapple* sauce

*denotes garden produce

Grocery spending for the month of October

Spent $123.62 this week at WinCo, $120.80 a couple of weeks ago at WinCo, and $22.78 at Walmart for bananas and 3 jars of instant coffee in between WinCo runs, bringing my in-store grocery shopping total to $267.20. To this total I add a pro-rated share of what we spend on beef deliveries of $119.66 per month. So my actual grocery spending is $386.86 for October 2025. I think that's pretty good considering it's for 4 adults. 

How the harvest is coming

This week I've spent some time outdoors cleaning up some of the garden beds, raking the empty ones smooth, and cleaning up the walkways in between beds. I still have food to harvest. We've used kale, Brussel sprout leaves and cilantro a few times in the last week or so. The beets are ready to dig up. But they can also stay in the soil for a month or more. Instead of digging them when I don't need them for meals, I cut leaves and stems here and there from the beets. We used beet leaves in dinner on Thursday. I'll wait to dig turnips, too, for a couple of weeks at least. While all of the celery is harvested and inside, I continue to sort through the bundles to find the best fresh-eating pieces, then chop and freeze other, stronger flavored ones. I do one or two bundles per week this way. I have 2 full bundles remaining in the fridge. 

Our fridge is still packed with produce. I expect by Thanksgiving we will have used much of what is there, fresh.

Non-Candy Halloween Treats Then and Now

One daughter was home today, doing work for her other two jobs. Her main income-producing job is as a substitute teacher in our local school district. In the past, she has mentioned the goodies that teachers and staff bring in regularly, some for rewards for students, some for the teachers only.

The other day I saw a memo being passed around social media encouraging people to give out non-candy treats this Halloween. Suggestions included packaged chips, pretzels, cookies and mini muffins, protein bars, pouches or boxes of juice, packages of ramen (ramen has been a popular food with teens and tweens for the last several years), microwave mac and cheese, and pudding cups. Many people on social media complained about not giving out candy to kids. But others chimed in that their kids already get a lot of candy in their everyday life and might appreciate a non-candy treat. I know my own kids regularly got candy at church/Sunday school and at youth group. (We homeschooled through 8th grade, so the only candy they got in those years of school was controlled by me.)

I asked my daughter if kids get much candy at school these days. She said yes, usually as rewards. One teacher she regularly subs for allows his students to earn points to be spent in the classroom "store" on Fridays. They earn points for good behavior, completing assignments on time, and good citizenship in the classroom. The store contains various snack foods, but also full-sized candy bars. His classroom is a SPED class for high school, and he's found success in getting student cooperation by offering those sorts of rewards. My daughter agreed that many kids these days have lots of opportunities to eat candy.

In our house, we've been at least offering a non-candy treat, some years only giving out non-candy treats, for many, many years. The first year we did this, I offered a choice between cheese and cracker hand-i-snacks and a traditional candy bar. All of the hand-i-snacks were gone in 30 minutes. We've also given out packages of pretzels, mini playdough, containers of slime, and small bags with stickers, tattoos, Halloween-themed trinkets and small amounts of candy. For the last several years we've given out individual packages of cookies. We've had kids be super-duper excited about getting these candy-alternatives. We've had parents thank us for giving out something other than candy. And we've had a couple of older kids be not quite so excited, but always said thank you.

My daughter said she couldn't remember when we just gave out candy. I then went on to tell her about my mother's recollections about trick-or-treating in the 1940s. My grandparents moved around the country a lot during the war, following my grandfather's job working for a military contractor. So the treats my mother received varied from region to region. But for the most part, she said her small bag was filled with home-grown fruit (apples, mostly), nuts in the shell, homemade cookies, small paper bags of popped corn, an occasional homemade popcorn ball, a couple of small pieces of candy (Tootsie Rolls were popular), and a penny or two. She said the pennies were one of the most exciting things to receive, as it meant she could go with her own mother to the store and choose a piece of candy, or she could put trick-or-treat pennies together with other saved pennies and buy a small plaything, like a game of Jacks. In my mother's day, receiving anything felt special this one day of the year. Aside from birthdays and Christmas, receiving gifts and prizes of any sort just didn't happen. Any rewards they received were often in the form of award ribbons, not toys, playthings, or candy. These days, kids get prizes and rewards all of the time. 

My daughter was very surprised to hear of how little candy my mother actually received trick-or-treating. In my kids' childhood, they came home with bags of almost exclusively candy. 

In my own childhood, we received a lot of candy, but also occasional cookies, baggies of chips or popped corn, pennies, some apples, and chewable waxed novelties. But it was mostly candy.

Perhaps because my mother had received so many non-candy treats on Halloween as a child, it seemed perfectly okay to offer kids cookies, apples, baggies of potato chips, and pennies when we would run out of Halloween candy in our own home in the 1960s. Our neighborhood had so many children, I'm sure we had around 100 trick or treaters every year, and it was practically a given we'd run out of the "real" treats. Were kids always happy to get an apple in the 1960s? I don't think so. I'm not sure I'd give an apple these days. I would fear it would be thrown through a window by some unsatisfied trick-or-treater.

But I do think there's a place for some non-candy treats as handouts for Halloween. Kids will get plenty of candy this Friday. My house will just provide some variety to their trick-or-treat bags.

I know I'm in the minority, here

As I walk around our neighborhood, I see all of these beautiful pumpkins on front porches. They look so cheery. The day after Halloween, however, many will end up in the garbage. I can't help but think these are food! I know I'm in the minority with this thought, but they can be cooked for people food, or cut up and fed to wildlife or pets. It just makes me sad to think this food won't be eaten.

To use as food

The flavor of carving pumpkins is not the same as pie pumpkins. Carving pumpkins tend to be bland. They also tend to be stringy. But I've found that running the cooked flesh through the food processor takes care of stringiness. As for flavor, I use the pureed pumpkin spiced in many applications, such as quick bread, cookies, smoothies, pie and cakes. Carving pumpkins tend to have less natural sugar than pie pumpkins, which actually makes the former more suitable for broths or neutral soup bases for vegetable soups, or for pasta sauce along with the addition of sage and Italian sausage, or in pumpkin curries.

Feeding wildlife

As for feeding carving pumpkins to wildlife, so long as it isn't contaminated with something like paint or candle wax, fresh pumpkin is safe for animals to eat. Birds and squirrels love the seeds. Squirrels will happily nibble on small chunks of raw pumpkin. Dispose of any remaining pumpkin pieces after a few days, as rotting or fermenting pumpkin could be harmful. The major issue with feeding wildlife pumpkin for a prolonged period is it could encourage the presence of undesirable rodents.

For your pets

Cut into small chunks and steamed until soft, some dogs enjoy cooked pumpkin, according to petmd. But consult with your veterinarian before messing with your pet's diet. Backyard chickens enjoy pecking at pieces of pumpkin, not as a substitute for their regular food, but as an addition. 

A last thought

If you just can't bring yourself to eat a Jack o' lantern pumpkin and you don't want to feed it to critters, wild or domesticated, pumpkin can also be used to "feed" your compost pile. Depending on what else is in your pile, chunks of fresh pumpkin could speed up the decomposition with the addition of moisture and nitrogen in the fresh pumpkin. 

Although I grow some pumpkins in my little patch, I also buy a couple of carving pumpkins each October. At 38 cents per pound, carving pumpkins are a super cheap vegetable. In fact, this year, I bought 2 pumpkins earlier this month, and then today I went back to WinCo and bought 1 more. I won't carve them. Instead, in the first week of November I'll begin cooking, pureeing, and freezing these pumpkins to use throughout the next year. I know, I'm in the minority here when it comes to buying Jack o' lanterns for people food.

Mom's Caramel Dip: A Recipe That Skipped a Generation

This recipe is from my mother (c. 1960), my kids' grandmother. One of my daughters makes this for us a few times every fall. She's the caramel dip expert in our house. From grandmother to granddaughter, the best simple, from scratch, caramel dip or sauce recipe, with a few of my daughter's comments.

Caramel Dip or Sauce (suitable for apple wedges, sliced fresh pears, sliced bananas, cooked sweet potato slices, simple baked custard or rice pudding, pumpkin pie, ice cream, or pretzels)

Yields about 1 1/4 cup

"What I really like about this recipe is it takes so few ingredients. It’s exciting to make something fancy without a lot of stuff." 

Just 5 ingredients, and one of them is water.

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup hot water

1 tablespoon butter

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a large, heavy-bottomed skillet, heat the sugar over low to medium flame, stirring constantly moving the sugar all around the skillet. (My daughter prefers to keep the heat on Medium, but stirs vigorously this entire step.)

"When it starts to caramelize I  stir constantly. If I’ve been stirring for a while and it’s not caramelizing, I either turn the heat up, take a break from stirring maybe 30 seconds, or both."

In the meantime, heat your 1 cup of water. (My daughter heats the water in the microwave.)

Larger lumps of sugar eventually melt down. Keep stirring.

Continue stirring until all sugar is melted and caramel is light golden-brown. 

2. Remove from heat. Very gradually (about a teaspoon at a time) stir in the hot water, and stir rapidly as the bubbling subsides.

"If you add too much water at once, it seizes. Stir hard and vigorously. If it becomes very stiff, you might be adding the water too quickly." 

Stir and stir and stir after each addition of water.

When bubbling action after the addition of water has pretty much subsided (fewer bubbles), water can be added in larger amounts, about 1/4 cup at a time. Continue stirring, scraping up hardened bits of the caramelized sugar on the bottom of the skillet. Adding the water and stirring during step 2 is the most time-consuming part of the recipe.

3. When all water is added, return to heat, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer until it thickens slightly and reaches 228 degrees F.

4. Remove from heat and add butter, salt and vanilla extract. Stir well, then allow the caramel to cool. This syrup thickens substantially as it cools, and even more once refrigerated.

The whole process from start to final additions of butter, salt, and vanilla takes a little less than one hour.

Once cooled, pour into a jar and refrigerate. 

This caramel sauce/dip has kept in the fridge for 2 to 3 weeks (then it's gone) with no problems.

My comments: This is true caramel. Its flavor is deep and rich, with a hint of toffee. I love this stuff, and I can actually have some, as it has neither milk nor cream. We enjoy this as a dip for apple wedges this time of year.