The fall garden and an autumnal salad

kale, apple, cabbage, date and bacon salad, in tangy mustard dressing

We are in full autumnal mode with our garden right now. This is what it produces in the months of October and November, before it takes its annual winter rest.

We harvested the rest of the late pear tree. These pears have a thick, partially-russeted skin. Their variety is Conference. This variety is known to be productive and the pears are long-keepers. I harvest them in October, and they will keep in the refrigerator until January. They need a ripening period on the counter, for about 5-7 days, to soften up. Our pear harvest was spectacular this year! We've been eating fresh pears near daily, since early August, and have at least 1 large refrigerator drawer-full left (enough to give us fresh pears, near daily through most of November).

Later this month, I'll be harvesting cranberries. Our cranberries didn't do as well this year as previous years. It could be the extreme dry summer we had, or that the soil had been disturbed to plant a hedge adjacent to the cranberry patch. But, I didn't use all of the cranberries from last year. I still have a quart in the freezer. So, at least I have enough for a batch or two of cranberry sauce.

In the veggie garden, I still have 3 heads of cabbage. I've been picking the cabbage largest heads first, so I am down to the smallest of the patch, but which should fill our cabbage wants for the rest of the month, and maybe into the first week of November. If I don't get to using all of the cabbage before hard frost, cabbage is one of the veggies that I can put a row cover over, to "keep" the cabbage a while longer. I have a clear, plastic-sheet tunnel that I can use over the cabbage and kale, to "keep" those veggies all of winter. They won't grow past the end of this month, but can be held until use.

The carrots are as big as they will ever be this season. In our area, its understood that carrots pretty much finish growth by late September. But I can keep them in the ground until early November. I didn't thin them, as I should have, so what I have in the garden are lots of baby carrots. I've been pulling handfuls of small carrots all month. I have enough carrots to last the rest of October, using them twice per week in dinners.

I have 3 types of greens in the garden that are still doing wonderfully, radish greens, Swiss chard and kale. The Swiss chard is most vulnerable to frost, so I am using that mostly for now, leaving as much kale and radish greens for late month and through mid-November. The lettuce has just stragglers left. So our salads are mostly from the cole family, with an occasional lettuce leaf or beet leaf thrown in for interest.

I have pulled the largest of the beets, and now have small, 1 to 2-inch diameter beets left. We've had quite a rainy period, and it's possible the beets will gain in size over the next week or two, so I'm refraining from pulling any of these smaller beets now. I can leave them in the ground as long as the carrots, so there is no rush to harvest them. I do use some of the leaves, especially with the beets which were planted too late to really develop a root.

I still need to dig the other half of the potatoes. They were buried under the sprawling pumpkin plants, so I only dug the half that I could easily get to. I am hoping that I find many potatoes under the other half. I grew white potatoes and purple fingerling potatoes, using seed potatoes saved from past years. I've put away a dozen seed potatoes for next year, from the half-patch that I dug in September.

I still have tomatoes and apples, already harvested and in use in meals for this month. And my figs, although a bit on the late side of their harvest, are still sizing up, so I'm leaving them on the tree through this week. The tree is on a south-facing wall, so it benefits from the heat-trap effect. These fresh figs have been a nice addition to fruit cups. At the end of next week, any figs not sized-up will be used in spiced fig jam.

And that's about it for what's left in our garden for this year. The garden will rest from mid-November through early March. Sometime in March, the Swiss chard, and kale will make a comeback, before going to seed. In addition, the watercress will have seeded and be ready for use, and the sorrel, a perennial, will be up and at its tender best, at that time.



Gone are the lettuce, cucumber, tomato salads of summer, for this year. It's always sad to say goodbye to the delicious garden veggies of summer. But in exchange, we do get to say hello to the lovely, crunchy, dense salads of autumn.

Kale, apple, cabbage, date and bacon salad 

I've been making this particular salad for October. It uses items from our fall garden, and is packed with nutrients and flavor. It's especially frugal for me, as I grow most of its ingredients. And I think it would be easy to switch things up, according to what I have on hand.

I like the combination of sweet, sharp and salty. Apples and dates lend sweetness. Mustard and baby kale add that sharpness that makes it interesting. And bacon gives it that savory/salty taste that I love. Cabbage basically puts the kale on mute. It adds bulk and more healthy veg to the salad, without going overboard on the kale flavor.


Here's what I've been using:

1 green apple (Granny Smith-type), quartered, cored and sliced thin (skin on)
1 large handful of baby kale, finely shredded, about 1  1/2  to 2 cups of shreds (if you use mature kale, remove the stem before shredding)
2 cups of shredded green cabbage
about 10 pitted dates, cut into quarters, lengthwise (other dried fruit would work, too, such as dried cranberries)
2 to 3 tablespoons bacon bits (this is about 2-3 strips of bacon, fried, and crumbled)

Dressing:
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
2 teaspoons vinegar (I've been using my chive blossom vinegar)

Prepare the dressing in the bottom of a large bowl. Toss with the vegetables and fruits. Sprinkle the bacon bits on top, and toss just before serving.

This salad can be prepared several hours before serving, and kept in the refrigerator. Don't mix in the bacon bits until just before serving, to maintain their crunch.

serves 4 to 5, as a side dish (1-cup servings)

There's hope for my sad mums, isn't there?

When you buy a plant, you hope it will last longer than a month. Sometimes, weather just doesn't cooperate.

I bought a couple of mums back in early September. And they were doing great for a while. And then last week, I noticed the blooms were all droopy and withered. I checked the soil, and it was damp enough. So I began thinking maybe a light frost had hit them. One of my daughters had commented that around the 1st of the month it was quite cold in the morning when she left for classes. So, perhaps that's what happened.

Anyway, I cut all off the sad, limp blooms off, and found a bunch of new buds forming. There's hope yet!

I also moved the pots to the back door, on the south side of the house, where they will get more sun and warmth. I may bring them indoors, to enjoy in November for a few weeks. They do have a nice russet coloring that would be perfect for our home in these next few weeks.

Just wondering if anyone, here, has had success bringing garden mums indoors for a spell? Does it bother you, too, when you buy a plant like a mum, and it only lasts a few weeks? I like to think I get my money's worth, when I buy something.

Dollar Tree -- some of the great deals there

The old maxim, "you get what you pay for" is really true for some things. For instance, Kool-Aid is a pretty cheap beverage. Whereas real fruit juice can be 5, 6, 7 times the cost of the colored water peddled to young families with the thirst of oodles of neighborhood kids to quench. But real fruit juice contains many of the nutrients of the fruit it is extracted from. So, on the one hand, colored water with a bit of ascorbic acid added for the cheapo price of a quarter a packet, or, juice from real fruit, with the nutrients, anti-oxidants and phyto-chemicals from that fruit for a couple of dollars per family-size bottle.

That ramshackle house with broken windows, leaky roof and ancient bathroom fixtures may be priced to move, move, move. But in real estate, they say it's all about location, location, location, and I'd add, maybe also a bit about condition. They don't call them tear-downs for nothing. Meanwhile, a clean, well-kept, modest house, priced moderately higher than the falling apart shack, if chosen, would give you peaceful nights of sleep.

So, you sometimes do get what you pay for. If you're willing to pay more, you may very well get a better outcome on your purchase. But this isn't always the case. I've bought nice clothing for dirt cheap, and had it hold up very well for years, and I've spent what, to me, seemed like a small fortune on a pair of jeans that began to pop rivets on the second wearing (drat on that one, as they were cute, flattering, and bought with a Christmas present gift certificate).

And so it is with shopping for groceries and other household items. Sometimes it's just the luck of finding a good sale that brings you value beyond what you paid, like with loss-leaders at the grocery store. Other times, it's a matter of knowing where to buy certain items. You all know that one of my grocery shopping haunts is Dollar Tree. Some of their items fall into the "get what you pay for" category, with cheap, flimsy craftsmanship. But some items are a real deal, and I use Dollar Tree for my primary source of those items.

I thought that today might be a good day to exchange thoughts about what we've bought from Dollar Tree and found to be great deals. I'll start with my list.

• macaroni and spaghetti pasta (Pegasa brand), 24 oz bags, this works out to 66 cents/lb. For me that's a good price on white flour pasta.
• toothbrushes, 4-pack, soft, they wear out in about a month, but that's when I feel like I want a new/fresh one anyway.
• toothpaste -- sometimes this is a good deal, $1 for a tube of Aim, if I'm out. However, I find larger tubes of Colgate, on sale at Fred Meyer about 2 times per year, and for less (usually 89 cents/tube with coupon, but always a limit)
• bar soap, 3-pack of Dial basics -- again, sometimes I do find it on sale at Fred Meyer, but FM regular price is $1.50 for that same 3-pack.
• automatic dishwashing detergent, Sun brand, a powder -- this is one of my favorite items from Dollar Tree, because in my dishwasher, it works as well as Cascade did for me. (DT liquid automatic dishwashing detergent is horrible, though.) I'm not the only one who buys the Sun brand of auto-dish detergent, apparently, as they sell out frequently. So when I'm at Dollar Tree, if they have any in stock, I buy several boxes at a time.
• liquid dish hand-washing detergent, lemon-scented, LA's Totally Awesome brand, 50 oz -- it's not super great at really greasy pans, but good enough for most hand-washing, and doesn't strip the oils from my hands, AND 50 ounces for $1, that's pretty cheap. For some reason, the other scents have not been nearly as good at cleaning as the lemon scent, for us. Go figure.
• at back to school time, the student planner notebooks. Target sells student planners for about $4-$5 each. The DT ones may not be as "cute" but are a lot cheaper, at a dollar a pop. But the rest of the back-to-school stuff is overpriced at DT.
• pantyhose, my daughter is trying out a pair this week. I'll get her opinion -- oops, she said they tore/got a run on the first day of wearing them
• plastic hangers, when they have a bonus pack of 8 hangers, I buy them. I use plastic hangers not just in closets, but we use about a dozen for hanging dry laundry.
• moisture absorbing crystals (the kind to remove humidity from the air), this is another favorite Dollar Tree item of mine. DampRid is the familiar name brand. Dollar Tree carries the "home Store" brand. I buy these and use in bathrooms, bedrooms and closets. They do help with the mold/mildew from dampness, here.
• bathroom tile/grout cleaner. It has bleach in it. I use it on the kitchen sink, once per month (scrub with baking soda the rest of the month), and I use it on tile/grout for combo bath/shower, and bathroom sinks/toilets, weekly. I do water it down a little, so it's not so strong smelling. Once watered down, it's better for "maintenance" spraying (every few days, to keep mold at bay), rather than deep cleaning. But I prefer using it this way. Before buying the Dollar Tree tile/grout cleaner, I bought Target's Up and Up brand of the same thing for about $3 per same size bottle as Dollar Tree's cleaner.
• kitchen sponges, these are the kind with the green scrubbing side. They come 6 to a package. I cut each of mine in half, giving me 12 scrubbing sponges for $1. Good deal.
• those little felt things that you put under chair legs to help chairs slide on hard floors silently, and w/o scratching a wood floor, a package of 8 for $1, compared to buying a similar item at Target for $4 or $5.
• epsom salt, when they have plain epsom salt, I buy those bags, several at a time (they keep for years). The scented epsom salts are not as good a value, as the bags are much, much smaller than the plain, and the scents are not essential oils (which I prefer for scenting bath products).
• baking soda (I bought a case of baking soda last spring, for 59 cents per box). You can do better at a drug store, like Walgreen's, when they have an in-ad coupon, often at 50 cents/box. But I haven't seen that coupon in a year or two.
• poster board for school projects 50 cents a sheet. This is a great price. We had to buy poster board one year at a local drug store, and spent $1.50 per sheet!
• greeting cards, yet another huge favorite Dollar Tree item of mine. Most of DT greeting cards are 50 cents each. Some are $1, so you have to check for the 50-cent brand. But for 50 cents, I can send my non-frugal (and so would not appreciate my handmade cards) nieces and nephews a "real" birthday card with a couple of bills in it, and have the card not eat up my gift budget for them. In addition to individual greeting cards, you can buy packages of correspondence note cards. My daughter bought 10-packs of cute cards to send to her Sunday school class, announcing the beginning of the fall quarter. That was 10 cents per card!
• votive candles, 4-pack for $1. The best time/place to buy votives is after Christmas, at local drug stores, often for 10 to 15 cents each. But if I don't buy enough for summer candles or next holiday season, I can always pick up a 4-pack at Dollar Tree.
• crackers, savory types, as well as graham crackers and animal crackers, pretzels and rice cakes. I don't buy crackers, pretzels, rice cakes all that often. Those are special treat items for us. But when I do, I always buy them at Dollar Tree. Ritz-type crackers go on sale near the holidays for just under $2 a box at a regular grocery store. I buy the same sort of cracker, in about the same size package, for $1 at Dollar Tree. More elegant-looking crackers (for swankier shindigs), the large, circular crackers (Monet-brand at Dollar Tree), that you might use for making appetizers are also sold at Dollar Tree. When I'm babysitting, I bring little baggies of animal crackers, which I get at Dollar Tree, then portion out into small baggies. Rice cakes are over-priced (for what you get) in regular grocery stores. But at Dollar Tree, they're worth the splurge to me. 
• Dove chocolate bars, individual bars, 79 cents each. Dove chocolate bars are more expensive than the rest of the candy bars in grocery stores, usually 99 cents to $1.19 in a traditional grocery store, but only 79 cents at Dollar Tree.
• paper coffee filters -- I use these, as is, in the large coffee maker, made smaller as an individual cup coffee filter (for an old 1 cup at a time coffee maker, the washable filter is torn, and can't be replaced any longer), and sewn into tea bags for loose leaf tea.
• soy milk, comes in a 1-quart, shelf stable carton. I rarely see soy milk on sale below a dollar any more, so Dollar Tree's price is the best around. The brand is West Soy, a regular supermarket brand.
• kitchen washcloths. I actually buy these in 2-packs in the bath towel section. I buy the white ones, and use for wiping down counters in the kitchen. This is Dollar Tree, so you can imagine that these are not luxury, plush washcloths, but very lightweight, all-cotton cloths that are perfect for kitchen use. (I'd be disappointed in them if I was using them in the bath, though, way too thin.) 2/$1 is a pretty decent price for kitchen washcloths. And when they start to look dingy, I spread them out in the kitchen sink and spray the tile/grout cleaner on them, and allow to sit for a couple of hours. The sink and the cloths come out clean and white, once again.

Perhaps the worst deal at Dollar Tree is found in the home improvement/automotive section. It's the duct tape. You get hardly any tape on the roll, 10 yards. It's mostly cardboard roll. Whereas, at Home Depot, you can buy 55 yards of general purpose duct tape for $3.98. That's 5 & 1/2 times the duct tape for only 4 times the price, or like getting 15 yards of duct tape for free by buying it at Home Depot.

So, tell me, what are your favorite Dollar Tree items?

Frugal snacks from my kitchen

The snack industry is relatively young, if you think about it. 150 years ago, if you wanted a snack, you had your choice of bread (and maybe butter), an apple (if you had an apple tree), maybe a homemade cookie or homemade doughnut, or maybe a glass of milk. I imagine that most of the time, if you declared that you wanted a snack, you'd be told that you'd spoil your appetite for the next meal if you ate anything.

And yet, today, snack foods take up a large chunk of the grocery aisles, and the consumers' dollars. In my own quest to keep my grocery spending in check, I make most of our snacks. I don't make chips or crackers (at least not very often), as those are so time-consuming to make. So I try to find other snacky foods that satisfy the same type of cravings.

Nuts make very healthy snack material. but they're expensive. Seeds, however, have many of the same nutrients and snack appeal, but at a much reduced cost. I've told you that I buy raw sunflower seeds, then pan-roast them at home, myself. I spend $1.34/lb for sunflower seeds, putting them at the high-end of what I find acceptable in expense for snack foods (but still okay with me, as they are so nutritious).

These aren't pumpkin seeds. (But home-roasted pumpkin seeds from your Jack-o-lantern are also a super cheap snack food.) These are the seeds from winter squash, 2 small Delicata squash and 1 acorn squash.

I save the uncleaned seeds in the refrigerator, in a small bowl of water, up to 1 week, until I have enough seeds to make it worth my time to clean them and roast them. It took me a week to cook 3 squash and accumulate enough seeds to roast squash seeds this week.

To clean and roast, I dump them into a colander in the sink, and under running water I separate the pulp from the seeds. When clean, I toss briefly with oil, right in the colander. Then spread on a baking sheet and roast in a 350 degree oven, for about 10 minutes, remove from oven and stir, and roast for 5-minute increments, stirring between, until they are just golden. Sprinkle with salt and they make a yummy and super healthy snack (high in minerals, notably magnesium and zinc). If you have previously been throwing out the seeds from winter squash, then these would be a basically-free snack.

For that salty, cracker or chip-like crispy/crunchy snack, I turn to garlic toast. As I'm cleaning out my freezer, I went looking for bread products in there.

I found 1 hamburger bun, which had been frozen, thawed and frozen again, a potato roll from the sandwich lunch we had a couple of weeks ago, and this half-slice of homemade French bread. In a small dish, I mixed some butter, garlic powder and salt. then spread this on the halves of rolls/buns and bread. Broiled for a couple of minutes, until toasty.

And since I sometimes want a sweet snack, I made muffins, using up the last of the baked acorn squash from lunch and breakfast this week. Quick breads also make good snack material, and are easy to make.

I spent about 1 hour making snacks the other day, and prepared about 2 days of snacking stuff for my family (we're big snackers, here, and there are 5 of us). What I made not only was less expensive than commercial snack foods, but much healthier than anything I could buy in a store.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers with an average cost of $3.00 to $3.50 to feed 5 of us

Inside-Out Chicken Cordon Bleu

Tuesday
BBQ pork sliders on leftover dinner rolls
frozen peas
*leftover gingered pear crisp

Wednesday
pork and beans (using leftover BBQ pork in the baked beans)
roasted squash (one of the squash from "decorating" a side table in family room for Sunday's gathering)
cornbread
*tomato wedges with leftover bacon ranch dressing (from last Sunday's gathering)

Thursday
slider burgers (using leftover sandwich buns from last weekend, and dividing the last 2 hamburger patties, to make 5 sliders)
*with homegrown lettuce, onion  and tomato
leftover pork and beans
*applesauce (from freezer)

Friday
Mexi black bean soup (with green pepper, frozen corn, canned tomatoes, leftover cooked rice, topped with corn tortilla strips made from the very last 2 corn tortillas bought in June)
leftover sandwich buns turned into garlic toast
*blackberry-rhubarb crisp (I'm cutting the last of the rhubarb this week. This crisp was made from fresh garden rhubarb and wild blackberries picked in August and frozen. I used the same basic crisp topping as was in Wednesday's post for the recipe -- Gingered Pear Crisp, reducing the ginger in the topping to 1/4 teaspoon. That topping is pretty yummy!)

Saturday
leftover Mexi black bean soup
French bread
*cole slaw with cabbage from garden
*leftover blackberry-rhubarb crisp

Sunday
black beans and rice, green pepper and canned tomatoes
*garden beans and last of summer squash sauteed in bacon fat
*fresh pear slices
*cole slaw with cabbage from garden
sugar cookies (from last weekend's gathering)

Monday
Inside-Out Chicken Cordon Bleu -- using an oven-roasted chicken leg quarter (1 leg quarter split between the 5 of us). Chicken meat wrapped in ham and Swiss cheese (ham and cheese leftover from gathering at our house, wrapped around serving portions of chopped, seasoned roasted chicken). Spooned some chicken stock over all, and covered with foil, heated in oven for 15 minutes.
*leftover rice, cooked with chicken fat, rosemary and garlic
*sauteed kale, mustard greens and cabbage
*tomato and cucumber salad
*rhubarb-blackberry cobbler

Tuesday
*ham-bean-veggie soup (I had the ham bone from September's baked ham in the freezer. I made stock with it, picked the last of the meat off the bone, and then added cooked beans, garden carrots, potatoes, and Swiss chard, along with seasonings)
*curried pea and peanut cole slaw (using Lisa's recipe -- thanks Lisa!)
*leftover rhubarb-blackberry cobbler

Wednesday
*turkey and dumplings with garden beet greens, Swiss chard, onion, potatoes and carrots (turkey in stock in freezer), plus frozen peas and barley, topped with biscuit dough
*marinated beet salad over garden greens
*Asian pear slices
*apple pie


*indicates part or all of this menu item came from the garden or orchard

This is frustrating me to no end -- I can't seem to clear space from the freezers. Every day, I take a couple of things out of the freezer, but then later in the day, I add more. It has gotten so bad that I can't find things in there. I'm sure I have one more loaf of bread in the freezers, but after several searches yesterday, I came up with nothing. I am going to really work at using up some of the freezer contents. I know, too much food should not be a problem. Rant over.

I was thrilled on Tuesday to realize that I had all of the ingredients (cabbage from garden, frozen peas, canned peanuts and dressing ingredients) to make Lisa's Curried Pea and Peanut slaw (from March of 2014 -- recipe here). I had chives from the garden to add to Tuesday's version. It was delicious. Whenever I taste this, I wonder to myself why I would ever want to buy a deli salad at the grocery store.

In estimating costs per meal, I come up with about half of our food costs cover dinner for all of us, and the other half is split between breakfast and lunch. We are currently averaging about $6 per day for 5 adults. So our Cheap & Cheerfuls are costing about $3 or just a bit more, for all 5 of us. When our oldest was a baby, we spent about $30 per week on groceries (and had no garden). We now spend about $50 per week, are feeding 5 instead of 3, and have a garden and orchard. If we didn't have the garden or fruit growing on our property, I imagine that I would be spending about $100 per week. Growing our own produce has a big impact on our grocery bill.

The other huge money saver is that we buy the cheapest cuts of meat that our family will actually eat. I buy whole turkeys, chicken leg quarters (cheaper than whole chickens for me), 10 or more lb pork loins to divide into meal-size chunks, bone-in half hams, bulk ground beef, ground beef patties from a wholesaler, and frozen cod pieces. We get a variety of animal protein for minimal cost. But there is often some work involved, such as cutting up a whole pork loin, or roasting whole turkeys, or breaking up a 10-lb package of chicken leg quarters. It's well-worth the work. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts sell for about $1.79 to $1.99/lb, on sale. By buying the leg quarters, I spend 49 cents/lb. There is the waste of bones and skin to take into account. I estimate those parts to be about half of the total weight of the chicken. So, even if I double my 49 cents/lb to 98 cents/lb as cost of actual meat, I'm still coming out way ahead on price per pound for meat only. Plus, I use the bones and skin to make stock, and I save any fat from the meat to use in cooking. I do the same with bone-in hams. I use the bones to make stock, and render and save the ham fat to use in cooking. I make use of every bit that I purchase.

Our meals are humble -- no fancy ingredients. Suppers are often as simple as beans and rice or homemade soups plus bread and salad, and a homemade dessert. But everything is always fresh-tasting and delicious. I make my own short-cuts, such as pie pastry, made in bulk, that I keep in the freezer. And I've memorized many basic recipes, such as biscuit dough, so I can make dumplings without having to look up a recipe. Or alter that same biscuit recipe to pop a batch of scones into the oven. Or make drop biscuits minutes before dinner is on the table.

To make scratch-baking as easy as possible, I do a few things. I keep all of my baking ingredients very handy to the kitchen work area (the pantry is right next to the prep area). And I keep the most often used measures in the ingredient containers, themselves. For instance, I have a 1 cup measure in each of the flour containers, as I use flour most often in increments of cups. And I keep a 1/2 teaspoon measure in the salt jar, so I can easily measure 1/2 teaspoon or "eyeball" measure 1/4 teaspoon. I keep a 1/4 cup scoop in the sugar, as I most often use sugar in increments of quarter cups - 1 scoop - 1/4 cup, 2 scoops - 1/2 cup, etc. It's faster and easier, for me, than getting out and washing the measuring scoops and spoons for each recipe. I also keep a set of cups and spoons at my prep center. And I have separated all of the measuring spoons, so I can grab the one I need, but still have the rest to use later in the day. I wash them in the dishwasher, usually at the end of the day. Dollar Tree is a great place to buy cheap measuring spoons and cups, so I have several sets of each.

I guess you could say that I'm one of those throw-everything-together-as-quickly-as-possible sort of cooks/bakers. I don't worry about perfection in daily meals, and everyone seems happy-enough with my humble meals.

Gingered Pear Crisp

This was a fabulous dessert that I made the other week. You all know that I have a surplus of pears this fall. And many were blown off of the tree last month in some terrific windstorms we had. So, to use them up, even the ones which were a bit bruised, has been my mission.

I offer this recipe to you, as an alternative use for pears in your menus. It was very delicious, and warming on an early autumn day.

Fruit filling
4 cups of chopped, firm pears (save those very ripe pears for pear butter or sauce)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons flour

Crisp topping
6 tablespoons soft, butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger (just how ginger-y do you like your gingerbread/cake?)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2/3 cup oats
2/3 cup flour

Bake at 375 degrees F, for 40-45 minutes in a buttered 9 X 9 baking dish, until the topping is a deep, golden brown.

Combine all of the fruit filling ingredients in a large bowl. Dump into the buttered baking dish. Use the very same bowl/spoon (don't bother rinsing or washing it out), and combine the crisp topping ingredients. Spread the topping evenly over the fruit filling. (If your butter is refrigerator hard, soften it in the bowl, in the microwave for 10 seconds.)

I like to use real butter in the topping mix. It really does add flavor that margarine or oil just wouldn't have. Baking or cooking butter caramelizes the solids (small amounts of protein and sugar from the milk/cream used to make the butter). This caramelization produces an almost nutty flavor in the butter.

Pears have a lot of natural sugar to them, and little acidity. So I find I don't need to add much extra sugar to the fruit portion of this dessert, but do like a little tartness from the lemon juice.  You could also use a drizzle of honey, in place of the brown sugar, if desired. (And as it only calls for 1/4 cup of brown sugar in the fruit part, it would not be costly to sub in honey.) No brown sugar? I don't keep any at home either, but just use a scant amount of white sugar, along with a spoonful of molasses.

If you have a couple of apples that need baking (I had 2 apples that looked a bit "rough", and wanted to use them up), go ahead and add them, chopped, to the pears.

After mixing up the topping, taste it, to see if you need a bit more spice. And as I like to think, "tasting" doesn't really have any calories -- the act of mixing burns them clean off. Ha! Like eating celery, right? Chewing burns off the calories.

My husband really loves the crisp topping on this. And I have to admit, it is very yummy! Like crispy oatmeal cookies baked on top of the fruit.


I'm curious -- I like pears with ginger, are there any fruits that, in your mind, go well with ginger?

Really good food costs either time or money

There's no doubt about it, really good food (organic, freshly cooked, scratch-baked) will cost substantially, either in our time or our money. We could feed ourselves on junky cheap stuff. I could open packets of ramen, or blue box mac and cheese, night after night. But I want better. I want delicious, fresh-tasting vegetables and fruit. I want well-seasoned, but not overly salty meals and snacks. I want cheese, not cheez. But the good food I want comes with a cost.

To feed my family well, I choose to spend more time than money in making that happen.

• I choose to bake and cook almost exclusively from scratch
• I choose to hunt down bargains

• I choose to work with less-convenient packaging

• I choose to keep a garden and orchard
• I choose to preserve whatever I can each summer and fall
• I choose to forage wild foods when possible

• I choose to repackage institutional-size containers into more home-kitchen friendly sizes when I come home from the wholesaler
• I choose to shop at multiple stores

And so, I choose to spend a lot of time procuring and preparing food each day.

When you see my grocery totals for each month, they're made possible by the hours of work I put in each day. Your choices may be different. You may be in the position to spend more money and less time in meal management for your household. Or you may be choosing a blend of time invested and money spent.

This came up with me, personally, after church a couple of weeks ago. A gentleman friend of ours asked me what I do. I replied that I'm a homemaker. He countered with, "yes, but what DO you do?" (Emphasis on the first DO.) I could just be insulted and saunter off to my own corner. But instead, I chose to "educate" him on how some of us manage meals for our families, through labor in place of dollars. As I delved into the details of baking all of our bread, keeping a garden and orchard, canning and freezing for winter meals, and cooking almost everything from scratch each day, he began to have a look of incredulity in his eyes. I didn't even go into how and where I grocery shop. This was such a novel idea to him, that a modern-day homemaker might do many of the things that his grandmother had done.

I think our family DOES eat very well, almost every single day. Because we enjoy really good food. That is a priority for us. And I've found the way to make that happen, with an investment of my time, in place of our money.

Gotta go. I've got to get that golden brown, with fruit bubbling up over the edges, cobbler out of the oven!

Another one of those "you know this, right?" things: turning a cereal box into a sturdy mailing container

Needing a box to ship a rather small package, I resorted to an old frugal trick for making a box as small as possible. I used a cereal box, cut it down and turned the outer half of the two-piece box inside out (for writing a mailing label on the plain brown cardboard).

Cereal boxes can be pretty flimsy, as is. But there's a way to reinforce that flimsy cardboard with a second layer of flimsy cardboard. (Trust me, you do wind up with a somewhat sturdy box.) This isn't a substantial box that you might ship fragile items in, but non-breakable items-- definitely. AND, this is also a great trick for making small gift boxes to be over-wrapped in gift wrap, when you don't have a suitable gift box.

The holidays will be here soon enough, and I just wanted to make sure you knew how to make one of these boxes (you'll be needing to save various food boxes, for an assortment of sizes, and if your cereal consumption is like ours -- practically non-existent -- this could take a month or two).

How is this frugal, you ask? Well, this is frugal in two senses, if making a shipping box. One, by making a box as near as possible to the item's size, the box itself, and any fill material will weigh less, therefore costing less in shipping charges. And two, if my option is make a box that fits right now, or wait a few days until I come across a suitable box, I may wind up paying expedited shipping charges, because I'm running out of time to get a package in the mail. Getting that box made, packed and off to the post office, pronto, means I can use the slowest (cheapest) mail delivery option, and still have my package get to its destination on time.

I'll show you how I cut down a food box into a smaller box. Here's the one I made to send the giveaway spices to Mary (the winner of the drawing last week).

I used a store brand cheerios box and a pasta box, a ruler, pen and scissors, and glue stick and packing tape.

With the cereal box, I undid the bottom flaps on the box (the top flaps having already been undone to use the cereal), and flattened the box. I used the ruler to measure and mark the halfway point on the box to cut it into 2 equal halves.

After cutting the box in half, I redid the bottom flaps on one half, and secured with packing tape.

As is, the bottom flap will easily push in. So, I reinforced the bottom flaps on the inside of the box, with a piece of pasta box, cut big enough to cover the inside of the bottom of the cereal box. As luck would have it, the side of the pasta box (with flaps) was just the right size to use inside the cereal box, with flaps extending up the sides of the cereal box a couple of inches. I used the glue stick to glue this reinforcement into the cereal box.

With the other half of the cereal box, I carefully undid the side glue. If you look at the inside of the food box, you'll find the seam, where a large piece of cardboard was made into a rectangular tube.

Using a table knife, I very carefully slit along this seam, keeping as much of the cardboard overlap intact as possible.

I turned the cardboard inside out, and wrapped it around the other half box, to get the right fit. I "let out" the outer cardboard just a smidge, enough so this piece of cardboard will fit snugly around the other finished half of the box. If you have help, pull the outer box snug against the inner box, and at the same time, tape the outer box in place, along this seam. If you are doing this on your own, you may need to tape the outer box along the new seam, flat on the table, then slide/push the inner box into the outer box.

** important -- when you are done with this step, you want to have the flaps of the outer box at the open end of the inner box.

Fill the container as full as possible, adding packing material, as needed. Add a second piece of cardboard (I used the other side of the pasta box), to the top of your packing, to reinforce this end, when closed and taped shut.

Close the flaps and tape the box shut.

You now have a brown surface for writing your to/from information. I use a Sharpie permanent marker for the to/from, then I cover over with clear packing tape. I also, go around the box, with packing tape, one more time, to secure the side seam that I taped into place. And I tape all other connections of the inner and outer box.

It's not as quick and easy as if you had a box just lying around the house. But when you don't have a small enough box (or, in my case, any box at all), then this is a great little trick.

Cutting down a food box takes me about 20 minutes, total. My alternatives were to buy a box for a couple of dollars (and then pay shipping fees on top of the box price), or to go with Priority Shipping (the box is included and available at the PO), which would have cost several additional dollars in postage. So, for my 20 extra minutes, I saved a minimum of $2 or $3, which is an hourly wage of $6 to $9.

Mary, if you're reading this morning, could you comment on the condition of the box as you received it? Did it arrive intact? Should I have added extra tape or reinforcement anywhere? Thanks for your feedback!

Bacon ends and pieces

In yesterday's post, I mentioned buying bacon ends and pieces last month. I bought 6 lbs for under $2 per pound. Ends and pieces are just that, the ends and pieces when a large slab is cut for those nice, neat stacks of bacon. The portion of the hog, where bacon comes from, isn't perfectly rectangular, right? So, for packaging and presentation, the ends are trimmed off each side. The ends and pieces are packaged in a large lump of a pound or two, or up to 10 or 15 pounds, bought wholesale. Cash & Carry sells it as a "regular" item in 3-lb pouches (they occasionally get in large cases, as well).

Bacon ends and pieces are the same as regular bacon, just not so prettily lined up in the package (instead in a smooshed lump), and of non-uniform size pieces. BUT, they are HALF the usual price per pound of that regular bacon. What I have found is that a package of ends and pieces has several nice, full-size strips, a few too-long strips, several half strips, and lots of just pieces.

some "perfect" strips to use as a breakfast side

When I open a package, I sort the pieces according to how I'll use them. I first spread out 3 or 4 large sheets of plastic wrap onto the counter, and leave 2 or 3 square pieces of plastic off to the side (for wrapping up bundles, without having to wash hands in order to cut more wrap). I then begin pulling the bacon out of the package, and sort, as I go.

some half-strips to use at breakfast

I sort the pieces into piles: the perfect, save-for-special-morning pieces, the nice-but-too-long pieces, the half-size strips, the almost all fat pieces, and the very meaty smaller pieces. In a 3-lb package, about half of the pieces are in condition good-enough for breakfast strips (the perfect, the too-long, and the half-size strips). About 1/4 of the package is very fatty, and the last 1/4 is very meaty.

a pile of meaty bits, to chop and cook for quiche or topping baked potatoes

Once all the pieces are sorted, I wrap in plastic wrap and keep in the freezer until I'm ready to use them/cook with them.

a pile of fat to render and make "cracklings"

In this recent batch, I have enough bacon for 3 family meals of about 2 strips each, 2 meal-size packages of meat-bits, to further chop and cook for adding to quiche, or topping salads or baked potatoes, and 1 bundle of fatty bit (about 3/4 of a pound, maybe), that I'll chop into small chunks and render the fat from for cooking, and save the "cracklings" from rendering (those tasty, crunchy bits once cooked) to use to top soups, or for adding to cooked greens. The rendered fat adds wonderful flavor to soups, sauteed vegetables, cornbread, baked beans, and cooked leafy greens. (For how to render fat, here's a post I wrote on rendering ham fat. It's the same process.)

all packed up for the freezer -- the extra long pieces are in a bundle sitting
 on top of/front of the regular length, to give you an idea of difference
 between the "perfect" strips and extra long strips 

As in buying regular bacon, inspect the package to see if the pieces look meaty. If not, skip to the next pack.

I've seen ends and pieces at Trader Joe's, and understand that some other markets around the US also carry them (Winn-Dixie was one name, I remember).

Cash & Carry sells them because this is what restaurants use for "seasoning bacon" and for making bacon bits. They reserve the long-strip bacon for breakfast sides.

But I am using many of the ends and pieces as our breakfast side. It doesn't bother us that the pieces aren't all of the same length or look like mates to each other. For those short strips in the package, there are times when a shorter strip of bacon is actually preferred, like on BLTs. What do you do when you go to assemble a BLT? You break each strip of bacon in half! And when I use bacon as a chopped and crumbled topping for items like baked potatoes or spinach salad, the size of each piece of bacon doesn't matter.

So, in all, buying bacon ends and pieces is a win for us. The only, (and this is small), drawback, is the 20 minutes it takes to sort the 3-lb package. 20 minutes of my time yields a savings of at least $1 per pound. On a 3-lb package, that 20 minutes saved us at least $3.

September 2015 grocery spending journal

I went over budget last month by about $59, so this month, I only have $125.75 in the budget.

Sept 1. Fred Meyer for senior discount day. Powdered milk (7.55), store-brand Cheerios, 7 boxes (90 cents each), store-brand Rice Krispies, 2 boxes (90 cents each), store-brand decaf coffee, 11.5 oz cans, they were cheaper per ounce than the large cans, I bought 11 cans ($2.25 each), canned, whole olives, 2 cans (90 cents each), hulled sunflower seeds $1.34/lb (I bought 1.82 lbs for $2.44), ground nutmeg, 1/10 of a pound (3.60), onion powder (1.76), clearance bin 2 jars of pickled and roasted peppers ( 1-$1.59, 1-99cents), date pieces (1.30). Total spent $54.68

Sept 4. Cash & Carry, 3 lb bags of dried cranberries, in a case of two bags each. I buy 2 cases (10.86 each case), frozen corn, 5-lb bags, I buy 2 (3.49 each), canned sliced olives, #10 can, I buy 2 (4.78 each), heavy whipping cream, 64 oz, I buy 2 (7.24 each). Spent $52.74

Sept 7. Fred Meyer, milk on sale in half-gallons, 99 cents each, limit 6. Spent $5.94

Sept 9. Dollar Tree for 2 boxes of crackers and 1 pack of rice cakes, and 2 10-oz jars of peanut butter. Spent $5.00

Sept 11. Fred Meyer, for milk on sale, half-gallons, 99 cents each, limit 6 (5.94), also find 16-oz jars of Adams peanut butter for $1.50, I buy 16 ($24.00) Spent $29.94

Sept 15. Fred Meyer for butter, $1.69 each, limit 2. Spent $3.38

Sept. 18. Cash & Carry for 3 lb bags of bacon ends and pieces, I buy 2 bags ($5.82 each), 12.5 lb bag of popcorn (6.44), gallon of lemon juice (7.99). Spent $26.07

Sept 22. Dollar Tree for soy milk. spent $1.00

Fred Meyer for orange juice on sale, 99 cents half-gallon, limit 6. Spent $5.94

Sept 25. Cash & Carry for soy sauce, 1-gallon. Spent $4.25

Country Farms produce stand. I buy 17 assorted sugar pie pumpkins (49 cents/lb) and squash (69 cents/lb), 8 green bells peppers (1.98). Spent $17.42

Total spent for the month - $206.36, over my $125.75 amount by $80.61

Ugh! This leaves me just over $100 for October. The only good thing I can say right now is that at least there is nothing that I have to run out and buy this week. Although, I am still looking for vinegar and eggs at a good price.

I have been buying more "extras" in recent months. Things like crackers and cold cereal. We really don't need those items, but they've been nice for variety. I am rationing these out, however, to make them last as long as possible.

Well. . . we are pretty well set for supplies for the time being. And I am truly thankful for that. I am also grateful that we've been provided with the means to stock up like this.

Next week is Senior Discount day at Fred Meyer, and for once, I don't have a lot on my list to buy. The powdered milk is holding out (for adding to smoothies). I have enough coffee that unless regular coffee goes on sale, I don't need to pick up another can. I'll buy more nuts and seeds from the bulk bins, especially if any are on sale at the time. They make a good, energy-boosting snack for all of us. And my freezers are still quite full, which will deter me from buying too much that needs freezing. In fact, I need to make more room in the freezers if I plan on buying more than one turkey in November.

Sorry if I'm rambling. I do tend to think this all through while typing.

Anyway, I hope you had a successful grocery shopping month!

Planning a sandwich menu for a crowd

Here's our menu for our gathering last Sunday afternoon. In our invites we called it a light lunch, with a "start time" of 1:30 PM. Friends stayed until about 4 PM.

whole wheat buns and white buns for making sandwiches
sliced ham, sliced turkey, sliced Swiss cheese (w/ mayo, mustard, butter, salt & pepper available)
lettuce

grapes
baby carrots, broccoli pieces and cauliflower pieces, w/dip (Bacon Ranch salad dressing)
pretzels
peanuts
dried cranberries

frosted pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies
gingerbread cut-outs in the shape of leaves, drizzled with maple icing
a bowl of candy corn

self-serve pitchers of ice water, lemonade, and orange juice
self-serve pots of coffee, decaf and hot water for tea


This is not the least expensive menu we could have employed, but it was the most "self-serve" menu we could come up with, so that I could spend time with our guests.

Here's a tip for setting up the buffet table -- place the napkins and plates first, then follow with the side dishes, following with the sandwich fixings, then dessert. Guests don't tend to go overboard on the sandwiches, leaving little room for the less expensive sides. But they fill their plates in a more balanced way.

self-serve amounts

For amounts of sandwich ingredients:

2 to 3 ounces of sliced meat per person (or up to 4 ounces, if you're planning a game day lunch or for an all-men gathering)
1 to 1.5 ounces of sliced cheese per person (a little more, if you are slicing the cheese yourself, or if you're planning for more sandwiches. Remember, a slice of cheese is usually about 1 ounce.)
one-half head of leaf lettuce for every dozen people

For a light-lunch or reception crowd, count on 1.5 sandwiches per person.
For a game-day or meal crowd, count on 2 sandwiches per person, then follow up with additional snacks later in the game, or add substantial sides like potato or macaroni salad.
For a group of all men, count on 2 to 3 sandwiches per person.


For amounts of veggies and dip:

2 ounces of raw, trimmed veggies per person (if you're trimming the veggies yourself, you'll need more)
1.5 to 2 tablespoons of dip per person

For grapes:

2 ounces per person 



These amounts will leave you with some leftovers, but you shouldn't have way too much left over, nor shall you run out of anything.

With our group of 15 adults (mixed men and women), we went through just under 2 dozen sandwich buns, not quite 2 pounds (around 28 ounces or so) of meat, about 20 ounces of cheese, 1.5 pounds of grapes, 1.5 pounds of raw veggies and a cup and a half of dip. We also had pretzels, peanuts, dried cranberries and cookies on the table, which filled plates. We went through about 8 ounces of pretzels, 1.5 cups each of peanuts and dried cranberries.

And I have a winner . . .

So, for my teeny-tiny giveaway from last week, there is a winner --

Mary from Portland, please email me your mailing address! And whether or not you'd like the baggie of whole cloves to go with the canister of cinnamon sticks. (my email is  lili.mounce@gmail.com  )

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the tail end of September

These are the turkey-cream cheese-spiced fig jam-and watercress sandwiches from
 Wednesday. The stuff that looks like pickle relish is the spiced fig jam, a jam made
 from unripe, green figs (from our two fig trees), flavored with plenty of lemon juice
 and cloves. The watercress is our garden came back in early September. It's usually
 an early spring green, here.

Friday
turkey in gravy from freezer
*rosemary-garlic rice
frozen green beans
frozen peas
*apple pie

Saturday
leftover rice with beans
cantaloupe, strawberries, grapes (given to us)
tossed salad of lettuce, watercress, parsley and cherry tomatoes (given to us, even the dressing)
assorted pie (given to us)

Sunday
*olive, tomato, basil pizza
cantaloupe, strawberries (given to us)
*applesauce

Monday
hamburgers on homemade buns
cantaloupe (given to us)
*pears

Tuesday
black bean burgers, topped with leftover pizza sauce
*garlic toast (on bread that was given to us)
*watercress and tomato salad
*green, waxed and Romano beans

Wednesday
*turkey, cream cheese, watercress, spiced fig jam sandwiches, on homemade whole wheat bread
*fresh pears
frozen peas, corn and green beans

Thursday (my daughters and I were very busy cleaning all day, and this was the best I could do for putting dinner on the table)
*baked ham and pinto beans, with garden bell peppers and tomatoes
homemade bread and butter
frozen veggies (combo of corn, green beans and peas -- nothing exciting, but it did fill us up)

Friday
roasted chicken leg quarters, topped with marinara and sauteed green bell peppers
*rosemary-garlic brown rice
*sauteed yellow crookneck squash with garlic
*plum-rhubarb pie

Saturday
*Italian-style chicken and noodle soup (with tomatoes, green beans, squash, garlic and onions)
dinner rolls
*leftover plum-rhubarb pie

Sunday
a noodle dish brought to our house by friends -- very yummy! I added some heated up, leftover turkey sandwich meat, that had been sitting out for a couple of hours
steamed cauliflower and broccoli (I steamed some of the leftovers from our lunch gathering)
dinner rolls
*salad made with leftover lettuce from sandwiches, plus garden tomatoes
grapes, leftover from lunch
frosted pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies  :-)

Monday
ham and bean soup, using homemade chicken stock from Saturday, saved chicken fat from freezer, ham from Sunday's lunch, onion powder and leftover cooked pinto beans -- easiest soup I've ever made!
whole wheat dinner rolls
broccoli and cauliflower with dip (leftovers)
*ginger pear and apple crisp


* indicates item for this part of meal came from the garden or orchard

I took a lot of shortcuts in meal prep this week. My daughters had one week off in between the end of their summer jobs and beginning of fall quarter, and we stayed pretty busy. They had a lot of errands to run, things they had needed to do or get all summer, but never found the time. So I spent a lot of hours in the car. In addition, I've been planning an early fall gathering for Sunday, so have been busy with preparing and decorating for that event. (In other words, this gathering has been the impetus behind me getting the house all fall-like. So, don't feel like you're "behind" if you haven't decorated for fall yet. It may not even feel like fall where you live!)

So, I've been a bit busy, and couldn't do much more than sandwiches, burgers or frozen leftovers, most evenings.

Our gathering on Sunday was a light lunch. We keep a fund going for entertaining. We haven't used any of this money for months, so there is enough to cover the expenses of a simple lunch (and it won't have to come out of the grocery budget). But we did use many items that I have in stock here, anyways, such as roasted peanuts, dried cranberries, orange juice, lemonade, garden lettuce, coffee, tea, ingredients to make buns and cookies. I'll be using the entertainment budget to cover sandwich meat and sliced cheese, veggies/dip and grapes.

Last weekend, my daughters and I volunteered at a charity tea, and were gifted with a box full of leftovers, including a whole cantaloupe, grapes, strawberries, lettuce, parsley, watercress, cherry tomatoes, a Costco jar of peanut butter, and a small loaf of bread, as well as 5 slices of pie. We thoroughly enjoyed all of the produce items, and they filled out our menus for a few days. Using the watercress encouraged me to go out to our garden and really harvest our own late-summer watercress.

The fall garden is looking okay, not fabulous, but there is still plenty to harvest for the next month -- 4 heads of cabbage, Swiss chard, kale, lettuce, radish greens, beets, carrots, potatoes, only a couple of pumpkins, (and small ones at that), and some small onions. It's not abundant, but it is something, and will provide a good chunk of produce for October. In November, we'll need to rely on purchased vegetables, once again. Makes me sad that out delicious, fresh and organic produce is coming to an end for the year :-(

Moving into October, it looks like Soup-tober is back! I love a good supper of hot soup, fresh bread, and pie!

My edible decorating for fall

Fall is a fabulous time of year for edible decorating. Many produce items in fall are also long-keepers, so can remain unrefrigerated for a week or more. In addition, in fall, our homes are often cooler than they have been for months, extending produce life even further. And the colors and shapes of fall fruits and vegetables have visual interest.

As a person living a frugal lifestyle, edible decorating has a special appeal -- the decorations don't get tossed in the trash or need to be stored until next year, but they become part of the menu in future weeks.

For our gathering on Sunday, I had two places in the house where I wanted a little edible decoration -- the dining room table,

and a side table in the family room.

I didn't wash the squash and pumpkins, but used a slightly damp rag to wipe off any dirt. Soaking or washing in water could lead to premature mold development, if moisture settles into the crevices next to the stem. And as we'll be eating these over a period of a month, I didn't want to risk losing any to mold.

More on our gathering, later this week.

The little bare-branched tree is fully lit

I worked fast and furious, yesterday afternoon, getting the house all decorated for fall and Hallowe'en. We're having a few people over on Sunday afternoon. So, yesterday was my day to get the house in shape.

I put one more strand of lights on the tree, for a total of two strands. It's very festive, I think. And for a free decoration, not too shabby!

Here it is all lit up.

Have a wonderful weekend!

This is what happens when *someone* leaves the ficus on the deck a day too long, in fall!

Last October, the nights turned frosty, I became unusually busy, and the ficus became one of those "to-dos" that never got done. I had pulled the ficus up close to the house, hoping that would shelter it from the frost. And it looked like I got it into the house just in the nick of time.

To my dismay, about a week later, all of the green leaves began to fall off the branches. The bare tree sat in the kitchen, near the window, all winter and spring, with me hoping some leaves would sprout. No leaves ever sprouted. I pulled the tree back onto the deck, with the idea to removed it from the pot and begin again, with something else.

Mid-July, to my surprise, leaves began springing up from the base of the plant. I hadn't been watering it, or doing anything to care for it, so this was truly a surprise. My new plan was to get out the saw and cut the bare trunk and bare branches off, and begin again with this newly sprouting ficus.

Again, distracted with life, this never happened. Then last week, I was at Jo Ann's Fabric and Crafts, and what would I see there, bare-branch trees, covered in mini lights, selling for $29.99!! Well, I have the bare-branch tree, and I have strands of mini lights. I got one strand of mini lights wrapped around the trunk and some branches, and will work another strand on later this week, if I feel it needs it. I'm waiting till dark to check the lights.


So, here's a free fall/Halloween decoration for my house, all thanks to my neglect! Don't you just love it when something like this happens!

First day of fall, and . . . a tiny giveaway

So, you all know my giveaways are teeny-tiny, and few and far between. My apologies, but it is what it is.

I have a lot of shopping venues that I know many of you are not fortunate to have. I understand that. And it must be frustrating, at times, to read of a good deal I get n something, especially foods from the wholesaler (Cash & Carry). Well . . .

With the change of seasons, I'm already thinking and cooking with more of the sweet spices, like cinnamon, cloves, allspice, cardamom, nutmeg and ginger. Some spices are especially nice to have in whole form, for their appearance as well as flavor.

Whole cinnamon sticks were on sale last week at Cash & Carry. So, I bought an extra canister to send to one of you.

The postal limitation is to the continental U.S. (48 states). My coin purse isn't all that full, at the present, and postage goes sky-high when sending items outside of the 48 states.  I'm sorry about that.

So, if you're in the lower 48 (or you have an address I can send this to in the lower 48), and would like a canister of whole cinnamon sticks, just leave a comment, below.

I want to get this out to one of you quickly, so we'll end the entries at midnight PDT, Sept. 28.


In addition, if you'd like about a half-cup of whole cloves, I'll gladly add those to the package. Just so you know, these whole cloves would come out of my own canister (bought and opened a couple of months ago), not commercially sealed in a package, but poured out into a ziploc freezer bag. I can be a bit of a germ-a-phobe, so I understand if you would not want cloves from someone else's package. But I have plenty, more than I'll use in a year or two. If you didn't want to cook with them, they could also be used to make a pomander, or added to simmering spices.

So, that's about it for today. My daughters are on a 1-week break in between work and classes, so we're heading out for a girls-day.

You know this, right?

You can use leftover cooked grains (like rice and oatmeal) in muffins or other quick breads, by running them through a blender or food processor along with other liquid. Then add to your batter as part of the liquid portion.

A week ago, Sunday, I made a large batch of cranberry-almond-apple oatmeal, for breakfast. There were leftovers, which I worked on myself all week long. By Friday afternoon, I realized that I'd better use what was left, before it developed mold.

So, I ran it through the blender along with part of the milk for the muffins that I was making.

Voila -- Ginger-Pear muffins (with the blended oatmeal as my secret ingredient!).

In the past, I've also used plain, cooked rice, this way, in muffins, and seasoned rice pureed with milk, as liquid in savory biscuits. A plain or sweetened, cooked grain will work in banana bread, as the small amount of milk usually called for, or, as liquid in a coffee cake.

It works very well, and the oatmeal or rice is practically undetectable (with the exception of an odd piece of nut, here and there, when using a grain cooked with chopped nuts). This trick works best in a muffin or bread which is going to have a small amount of texture, anyway, such as my Ginger-Pear muffins, with the chunks of pears baked in, or, in the case of using cooked, brown rice, adding to a batter for a wholegrain muffin.