Buttered bread crumbs: an inexpensive topping that makes my casseroles "pop"

I use this bread crumb topping recipe for many of the casseroles that I make, from vegetables in a cream sauce casseroles, to Mac and Cheese, to Mediterranean tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini casseroles. Even a pyrex baking dish of plain, canned green beans when topped with buttered bread crumbs, looks and tastes like way more effort and cost than it really is.

The funniest thing happens with casseroles with this crispy crumb topping.  The top inch of the casserole gets taken, leaving the unadorned casserole or veggies, beneath, for "the next guy".

Simple and inexpensive -- about 6 cents worth of butter, plus about 4 cents worth of bread, total of 10 slim cents for a topping which really makes casseroles pop.


Crispy buttered bread crumb topping

In a small skillet, melt a generous tablespoon of butter, over Medium heat.

Tear 1 slice of bread into a food processor and pulse till crumbs.

Toss bread crumbs in the melted butter with a pinch of salt. Stir while sauteing, for about 1 minute.

Sprinkle over the casserole.

Toast, uncovered, in a 350 degree F oven for about 20 minutes. Serve.

Birthday pie

Within a 1-month period, our family has 3 days of birthdays. Our daughters in mid-March, then mine in mid-April, followed by my husband's, just 6 days after mine. That's a lot of cake.

We still have some cake in the freezer from my daughters's birthday. For me, another birthday cake would be cake-overload. So, traditionally, I've made a pie for my husband's birthday. It's always lemon meringue, as that was his childhood favorite.

Lemon meringue pie works well for this time of year, as I usually have lots of eggs still from Easter week stock-up, and it's not dependent on availability of any particular fresh fruit, and I've made enough of them that it's an easy variety of pie for me. (It helps that I have a very reliable recipe.)

There is one other aspect about baking a birthday pie instead of a birthday cake that I really appreciate. A birthday cake from scratch can take me several hours, start to finish. A birthday lemon meringue pie can be knocked out in about 1 1/2 hours, start to finish. Yet, homemade pies have that reputation of "extra effort", put into their making. So, I get brownie points. My husband gets his childhood favorite pie. And we aren't staring down another slice of cake for the immediate future.

Do you always make cakes for birthdays, or do you do something else?

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for mid-April

Friday

Pumpkin soup (made from mashed potatoes in freezer, frozen pumpkin, frozen ham)
Scratch biscuits

Saturday (birthday dinner)

Chicken enchiladas (from freezer)
Mexican chicken and vegetable soup (from freezer)
Homemade corn tortillas chips (daughter made)
Scratch birthday cake

Sunday

Leftover enchiladas
Frozen green beans
Fruit salad (apple, banana, last of strawberries from making birthday cake)
Leftover cake

Monday

Leftover pumpkin soup
Pasta and veggie salad
French bread
Leftover cake

Tuesday

Hamburgers on
Homemade buns with first lettuce from the garden!
Apple wedges
Oven-roasted potatoes and carrots

Wednesday

Mexi-style beans and rice (with canned tomatoes and black olives)
Rhubarb-blackberry jello
Carrot sticks and dip

Thursday (simple dinner, spent the day in the garden)

Bean, ham and veggie soup
Apple wedges
Homemade bread with butter

Another week of simple meals. We had beautiful weather all week long, so I spent as much time as I could in the garden. Which meant not so much time for cooking. No matter -- dreary weather will return soon enough and I can spend more time in the kitchen, then.

You know, even on a warm day, coming into the house and breathing deep the aromas coming from soup in the crockpot, it really took me by surprise yesterday afternoon. I had a breif moment of thinking, "wow, who's cooking something? That smells amazing!" I had to laugh as it was my humble bean, ham and veggie soup.

I'm working at using up foods from the pantry and freezer these weeks. The fridge is constantly looking bare. But I think this is what it will take to get some organization taken care of in both the freezer and the pantry. The bonus is that to do this, I'm just not buying as much at the store this month, so I'll be saving a nice chunk of change, to put towards the stock up months to come.


Did you have a favorite meal this past week? What were the easy to make dishes on your menu?

Scottish shortbread "fingers" recipe

So this is my mom's recipe. I've made other recipes, but still always come back to this one. Maybe that's because it's the one that tastes how I remember shortbread. The official recipe is for double this amount, but I like doing just a half recipe, and even then I always freeze some. It's rich stuff.

Scottish shortbread fingers

1/2 cup butter, left at room temperature (70 degrees F) for about an hour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1  1/4 cups of all-purpose flour, sifted and leveled with a knife

In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. (I do this with a spoon.)

Stir in the flour. It will look kind of crumbly, like this.

Use your hands to form the dough into a ball, as well as you can. The warmth of your hands will further soften the butter helping it to hold together, somewhat. Put this dough and extra crumbs onto a sheet of waxed paper or parchment, and press it into a block, about 3/4 inch thick, like this. If the dough is just too crumbly and dry, you can microwave all of it in the bowl for about 8 seconds, then try and press together.

Keep working it, until it looks more like this.

Place a second sheet of waxed paper over the rectangle, and use a rolling pin to very gently roll the dough to about 1/4-inch thick. If it cracks, just press it back together.

Cut off uneven corners and edges, and with your fingers, press these scraps into areas needing more dough. Continue pressing the dough into a rectangle, about 6 inches by 9 inches, with straight edges. (I use a table knife to help get the edges straight, by pressing the edge of the knife against the sides of the dough.) The warmth of your hands will help in forming the dough.

Roll over lightly with waxed paper and rolling pin one more time, to smooth the top. Doesn't have to be perfect as it will even out in baking. If dough breaks at any point, just press it back together with your fingers.

With a long knife (like a bread knife), cut the dough into 24 pieces. The reason you use a long knife is you want to press the knife down into the dough, not draw it through the dough (keeps the pieces neater-looking, this way).

Prick the top surface, lightly, with a fork.

After the dough has been cut and pricked, use a thin, metal spatula (like an offset spatula if you have one) to transfer to an un-greased baking sheet, keeping shortbread pieces about 1/2 inch apart.

Sometimes my dough is just a tad too crumbly and a piece breaks while transferring it to the sheet. I just press it back together, as best as possible.

Bake in a preheated 300 degree F non-convection oven for 20 to 30 minutes, in the center of oven. You don't want the shortbread to brown, but want it to look dry on the surface. Begin checking at 20 minutes, then every 3 to 5 minutes from there. this batch baked for 25 minutes. When the end piece is just beginning to show some caramelization, they're done. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.

My apologies that it took me all week to get this posted. I wanted to do more than just type the recipe, but wanted to show pictures of what it will look like at each stage in making the dough, so you wouldn't freak when your dough was more crumbly than any other cookie dough that you've made. And yesterday afternoon was the first chance I had to do some baking. I sure wish I could send some of this to you! Sharing the recipe is the next best thing, though, don't you think?

Anyways, enjoy, if you make it!

Do you know why cutting flowers from my own garden is a frugal thing for me?

these daffodils, lilacs and Solomon's seal
are the current bouquet on the kitchen table

The answer is not the obvious. It's not simply so that I don't go out and buy bouquets of flowers.

Our house will likely be our largest purchase, for my husband and myself. A house is meant to be lived in. It wouldn't make much sense to spend our hard-earned and saved money on a purchase that we didn't fully use.

By keeping our home as lovely as we can, we reap the benefits of homeownership, by actually spending more time in our home.

And when I bring cut flowers into the house from our garden, the beauty of those arrangements inspires me to keep the rest of our home as lovely as a garden bouquet. As a result, we find our home to be a very inviting place. We're taking full advantage of this major purchase of our home.

Have a girls' dress, but wanting a new apron

My daughter grew out of this dress years ago. The fabric was too cute to give away. Sometimes you just can't part with something. And, the dress itself was free from the annual clothing swap that our church used to host.

Anyway, I'd actually been out shopping for apron fabric earlier in the week. I wear aprons when I work at the charity teas, at our church every month. This past Saturday was April's tea, and I wanted a new apron for that event. My other aprons are just not terribly pretty or flattering, ones given to me as promotional items. So, a new and pretty apron was on my list.

At the fabric store, I just didn't find any fabric that I really liked. And then I remembered this dress, sitting in the stash of sewing fabrics. I talked with my daughter about the dress, and she said I could use it. This was after class on Friday afternoon. While she made the biscuits for dinner, I made the apron.

Here's the dress, a sleeveless, gathered skirt attached to bodice. When you look at the dress, you can see it has the possibility to become a half-apron, pretty easily, using part of the bodice for the waistband, leaving it attached to the gathered skirt.

I turned the dress over and cut up the back seam.

On both sides of the cut seam, I cut off 4.5 inch strips, to use to make ties.

Then I cut the bodice off, about 4 inches above the gathered skirt, leaving some of the bodice attached, to serve as the waistband.

After, pressing under the edges of the long slit up the back, I machine topstitched it down, creating a finished edge to the sides of the apron.

Here's the 4-inch portion of the bodice, still attached to the gathered skirt.

I turned the portion of the bodice under, and topstitched it into place, for a waistband.

These are the strips I removed from the back of the dress. I turned these into ties, by folding each in half lengthwise, right sides together, stitching, and turning right side out, leaving one of the short edges unstitched.

After turning the ties right side out, I tucked the unfinished end into the edge of the waistband on the apron, then topstitched into place.

And here's the finished apron. It's on the long side, so I may take up the hem. Bt I wore it as is on Saturday, and received many, many compliments. All in all, it took me about 1  1/2 hours, start to finish.

This is the sort of project that I find very satisfying. It was totally free to make. It was something I had wanted. It was quick and easy, under 2 hours, from start to finish. And I could use it right away.

My birthday cake -- and a new-to-me type of frosting

This was gooooood.

Have you ever made a Swiss meringue buttercream frosting before? I'd not made this kind, so it was a brand new experience, complete with learning curve.


I baked the cake layers, a cocoa powder Devil's Food cake recipe of my mom's. I wrapped the layers in plastic wrap and kept them in the fridge until Friday. I hadn't settled on a frosting and filling for it, but raspberry jam between the layers, and a topping of a white chocolate ganache, with some fresh raspberries sure did sound yummy. But currently, I lack fresh raspberries, raspberry jam, and whipping cream needed to make ganache. I did not want to go to the store to spend $2.50 on a pint of whipping cream, $3.50 on a teensy basket of raspberries, and another $2 or so on a jar of raspberry jam -- not when raspberries will be ripe in my garden in just a few months! Call me cheap.

Friday, I went on my morning walk, and decided to brainstorm various cake fillings/frostings that I could make with what I have on hand. That's when I remembered seeing a couple of pints of frozen strawberries in the freezer. Hmmm, now there's a possibility. And the bags of semi-sweet chocolate chips could make a nice drizzle for the top of the cake. Once home, I googled strawberry cake fillings. And that's when I stumbled upon a type of cake frosting that I'd never even heard of before.

Swiss meringue buttercream. What could that be? And could I do that on a first try at home? It helps that this cake would only be consumed by my family. If it went terribly wrong, we're a pretty un-picky lot, and would eat it, anyway. What's to lose but some butter, a few egg whites and 1 of those containers of frozen strawberries?

So, I made a strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream. The thing about Swiss meringue buttercream is it's a finicky little dickens. It seems to like everything just so. Basically, it's a sweetened meringue (egg whites that have been heated in a double-boiler, along with sugar and then whipped till stiff), combined with lots of butter, then flavored. The meringue part went well. And the first part of the butter went well. It was looking good . . . that is, until it wasn't. Suddenly, it looked like cottage cheese. Not at all like the fluffy frosting I saw in photos on the web. What went wrong? I googled lots of phrases trying to find a fix. After several attempts at fixing this mess, one of the fixes worked. Had I thrown in the towel 30 minutes, or 20 minutes or even 10 minutes earlier, I never would have arrived at this delicious, creamy, strawberry frosting. Thankfully, I didn't give up. My tenacity is what gets me through a lot of tight situations. I persevere and persevere and persevere. I figure, if I have the time, I can surely find the patience to keep working at a job.

The end result with my Swiss meringue buttercream efforts was a buttery-light filling and frosting, which retains it's shape beautifully in between the cake layers and on the outside of the cake, like a firm mousse. It slices beautifully. And it's not terribly sweet. I would definitely say we enjoyed this more than traditional buttercream.

I had also been thinking about a chocolate drizzle over the strawberry frosting. I used chocolate chips, melted along with a bit of shortening, until drizzle-able.  After cooling for a minute (so as not to melt the SMB frosting), I poured the chocolate over the top. I had a bit of leftover melted chocolate, which was about the perfect amount for making some chocolate curls on a flat baking sheet.

One would think the cake would be done now, right? In my mind, I kept seeing fresh strawberries on top of that cake. So, I splurged, and bought 1 pound of strawberries for $2 at Albertson's. And that was my total "outside of my home stock" purchases for this cake, $2. I splurged that $2 because I wanted this cake to be visually appealing, to me. It might not have mattered to anyone else in the family. But as it was my birthday, how I wanted it to look mattered more. You all probably know, now, that I often like things to look "pretty". I think that's just the way I'm wired.

So, that was my birthday cake for this year. I will definitely try making this kind of frosting again in the future. It was delicious. And as decorated cakes go, I also think, beautiful.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for a birthday week, making it easy on the cook!

Friday

Stuffed bell peppers (stuffed with taco meat found in the freezer, topped with tomato puree and baked)
Brown rice
Celery sticks and bleu cheese dressing
Biscotti

Saturday (we've had such a string of glorious weather, that we brought out the patio chairs and fire ring to sit around, while eating dinner)

Homemade pizza, topped with leftover taco meat from Friday's stuffed peppers, the tops of those peppers, chopped, black olives, as well as marinara sauce from the freezer and mozzarella cheese
Apple wedges
Roasted marshmallows for dessert

Sunday

Mini pigs in blankets (Lil smokies wrapped in scratch biscuit dough)
Sweet potato fries (leftover in the freezer from Dollar Tree, my daughters's birthday dinner)
Apple wedges
Frozen green beans with toasted almond slivers
Brownies (daughters baked from scratch)

Monday

Meatloaf (from freezer), topped with leftover pizza sauce, the last green pepper, black olives, heated in oven
Mashed potatoes (last of the shriveled potatoes from November's stock-up, with cream cheese, onion powder, garlic powder, chicken fat, chives)
Cabbage, kale and celery slaw
Assortment of brownies, biscotti and toffee bars for dessert

Tuesday

Frozen bean burger patties
Leftover mashed potatoes, leftover rice or whole wheat bread
Kale sauteed in ham fat, with ham "cracklins" as topping
Oven-roasted sweet potato chunks
Shortbread cookies

Wednesday

Scrambled eggs with chopped ham from the freezer added
Carrot, raisin and peanut salad
French bread with rosemary, garlic olive oil drizzled over slices
Shortbread cookies

Thursday

French bread pizza (using extra bread from Wednesday's baking and frozen pizza sauce)
Cabbage, kale and celery slaw
Oven-roasted carrots



So, you may have noticed that this past weeks meals were less labor-intensive for me. (Or maybe that doesn't come through in my post -- trust me, much less labor-intensive.) This has been my gift to myself for the week. A week of easier meal-prep. You see, tomorrow is my birthday. A couple of weeks ago, I began preparing extras and freezing them, just for this week. It's been very nice to not have to cook as much this past week. Of course, by the end of the weekend, my freezer will be empty of pre-made meals, and I'll need to return to cooking fill meals daily, again. BTW, my birthday dinner is also all taken care of. I found some Mexican chicken soup in the freezer, as well as a casserole dish of chicken enchiladas! Both were good the first time around, so I'm sure they'll be delicious tomorrow! Happy birthday, me!

What was on your menu for the week? Was it a wintry menu (due to cold temps in your area) or a spring-like one? This time of year it seems that I can go either way with the menu. It's not hot enough to not want to use the stove, and not consistently cold enough to necessitate a hot soup to warm everyone up.

Have a great weekend!

There *is* something that I'm picky about the brand

Most of the time, I could care less about brands. I'll eat any brand of mayo, any brand of tomato paste, any brand of soy milk -- I'm just not picky about brands, for the most part.

But there is one item that I am selective with. That's olive oil.

I don't know if you remember a couple of years back, but there were allegations that some olive oils weren't really olive oil. This situation got me looking into olive oil and how to improve my chances that what I'm buying is, indeed, olive oil.

certification and harvest date on the back label

From what I read, the 2 best indicators that an olive oil was legit are these: 1) the bottle is stamped with a "harvest date", and 2) the bottle has a quality seal, such as the California Olive Oil Council, which certifies the oil has passed some chemical analysis.

So, off I went in search of an olive oil that met these 2 criteria. I only found 1 brand of olive oil in my grocery store which had a harvest date stamped on the bottle, California Olive Ranch. And they also had the seal from the COOC, mentioned above. So that is what I bought a couple of years ago.

I brought it home, and was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. It actually had a distinct flavor to it. It's described as having a "floral, buttery and fruity aroma" with hints of green apple flavor. To me, it tastes a bit like an oak cask. I found it very appealing. You know how it is. You find something that tastes different to you than all of the rest. So, this is my preferred olive oil.

I've stuck with this particular brand for several years now. When the old bottle was nearly empty, I began searching around for a favorable price on this brand. I found that at World Market. I had seen this olive oil on sale, there, before. So, I just waited. And voila, as hoped, on sale, 25% off. It is a "splurge" item for me, at about $4.25 per pint.

Like I said, there's not a whole lot that I'm picky about, but with olive oil, I really am.


To keep my olive oil tasting fresh for as long as possible, I store the bulk of it in the fridge, pouring out only about 2-3 ounces at a time, into a small, dark glass jar with lid, to store in a cool, dark cupboard, for ease of use. My last bottle remained fresh-tasting until the very end, about 8 months post the "best by" date.

Do you have a food item about which brand you are picky?

Scottish shortbread, made with my 1/4 Scottish hands

I was out running errands yesterday, and at one of the stores, they had individual packages of shortbread cookies for 99 cents. There were just 2 cookies in each package. I was so hungry at that moment. I nearly bought a package. This was my second to the last stop, so I knew I'd be home somewhat soon -- not a hunger emergency. But I'd also been craving shortbread for a couple of weeks. I had it on my to-bake list for a while. But just didn't get around to actually baking any.

Even though 99 cents is not a lot of money, it just seemed more than the shortbread was worth. After all, shortbread is easy to make. It only takes 3 ingredients, butter, sugar and flour. And I could whip some up in under an hour, if I could just make myself wait that long.

I did resist buying the shortbread. And when I got home, I did make a batch. You see, for that 99 cents, I could make enough shortbread for the whole family, plus some to tuck away in the freezer, for my next shortbread craving. Of course, there would be no nice, red plaid packaging. But I think I could live with that sacrifice.

I do sometimes buy little treats for myself. But I try to limit those treats to items that I can't easily make at home. Like croissants. I once did make croissants at home. But they were so time-consuming to make, that I didn't feel they were worth my time to make from scratch.


Of course, I had to cost out the batch of shortbread that I made, just to make myself feel better.

1 stick of butter -- 49 cents
1  1/4 cup of flour -- 13 cents
1/4 cup sugar -- 5 cents
oven usage -- 7 cents

The full cost to bake a batch of shortbread (24 pieces) -- 74 cents. Yep! That was worth it.

Sometimes, saving money isn't the thing that motivates me to make changes

Do you know why I'm drinking way more water and way less coffee these days? Here's a shocker, it isn't to save money!

One day, I looked in the mirror and noticed this skin hanging down on my neck. Yep! I think I'm developing "turkey neck". Where did this come from? It really just crept up on me. Anyways, I am downing the water and nixing the post-morning coffee. Because water can help your skin's appearance to improve if you're on the dehydrated side. Hey, I'm willing to give water a try. It's monumentally cheaper than a neck-lift.

But, I'm not buying bottled water. I understand that not everyone has decent tap water, readily available. And if that's the case, I'm not knocking your choice to drink bottled water. But for me, we have good-tasting tap water in our area. And the price can't be beat. We pay less than half a cent for a gallon of water, here. If you triple that, to account for wastewater fees, it's still just 1  1/2 cents per gallon, or less than a 10th of a cent for an 8 ounce glass.

I do use a filter for our drinking water. It's installed in the fridge. I replace these every 9 months, at a cost of about $25 a replacement. That works out to $2.77 per month, or about 9 cents per day. We are all drinking a lot of this filtered water -- including myself, perhaps as much as 15 glasses per day, on average. So, dividing the cost of the filter by the water consumed (in glasses), each 8 ounce glass of water costs about a half-cent to filter. Our "complete" cost of drinking our filtered tap water, then is still under a penny per 8 ounces. In comparison, Wal-Mart sells Aquafina bottled water in a 32-pack of 16.9 oz bottles for $13, or 2.4 cents per OUNCE. That's 19.2 cents per 8 ounce portion, roughly 20 times what it costs to drink filtered, tap water from home. Oh wow! That's ridiculous!

Do you know what's really mind-boggling for me? During the recent recession, bottled water consumption did NOT drop off significantly (the figure is about a 3% cutback in bottled water consumption for the years of 2008-2009). And it's not surprising that Americans drink the most bottled water of any country in the world.

I used to think it was a sort of status-y thing, to be seen carrying around your bottled water, like carrying around that Starbuck's cup. Now I just think it's a mindless consumer thing.

So, I may be improving the appearance of my skin. And I'm certainly helping my body and not hurting it, by drinking more water and less coffee. As a bonus, I'm saving money, as tap water is way cheaper than coffee. Time to go fill up my glass!

Because really good food starts with. Really. Good. Food

I top-dressed the strawberry beds last week. This was the most sickly of
 the beds. I'm hoping the top-dressing will help in the rejuvenation process.

Do you remember the first really amazing strawberry you ever tasted? I remember mine. It was picked directly from the garden. I couldn't believe that this delicious, sweet, flavorful berry was related to those other things I'd always bought at the supermarket.

Being frugal with the grocery budget isn't just about buying the cheapest foods available. It's about obtaining the best foods possible within one's budget. Many of us do things like keep a garden or make our own soup stock from bones. These activities not only save us money, but they yield really delicious foods. Berries that taste like berries were meant to taste. And chicken stock that tastes just like chicken stock is supposed to taste.

We sometimes find ourselves fooled by the manufacturers, fooled into thinking "they" know what chicken stock is supposed to taste like, or the cheese sauce on boxed mac and cheese is how cheese should taste. And then we make something from scratch and wonder why ours doesn't taste like the manufacturer's version. Why doesn't grape candy taste anything like grapes? Why does strawberry jello only remotely taste like strawberries? Why does canned chicken-noodle soup taste more like salty broth than chicken?

I began growing a garden to save money and make sure we were eating enough healthy foods. What I found was that freshly harvested vegetables and fruits taste amazing. And to take this even further, I discovered that fresh apples, purchased or homegrown, taste way better than apple, fruit-flavored snacks.

I'm an accidental foodie, you could say. I didn't set out to prefer really fresh produce, or scratch-baked breads and treats. I set out to save money on groceries. I just discovered, somewhere along the way, that these foods taste really good.

Do you remember the homemade ice cream I made with my surplus of whipping cream, back in December? I had made a quart of chocolate ice cream, to save for my daughters's birthday in the freezer, over winter. This was some of THE best chocolate ice cream that I have ever tasted, made with real whipping cream, whole milk, real vanilla extract, cocoa powder and sugar. It was a bargain to make, and turned out to be as good as any "premium" ice cream available to purchase.

Because I have a small grocery budget, I need to dedicate almost all of my budget to really good, whole foods. I don't sweat that organics and free-range are not in my budget. I buy the very best foods available that do fit into my budget.

And as I am able, I go to the effort and work to keep a large garden. Why? Because really good food begins with really.good.food.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the first week of April

(no photos this week. My camera is on loan to a daughter who is taking a photography class this quarter. I'm happy to loan it to her. We've agreed to share it for the time being.)

Friday

French bread pizza, on a loaf of homemade French bread from the freezer, with green peppers and black olives for toppings (made extra pizza/pasta sauce for Saturday and for the freezer)
Frozen green beans
Toffee Bars

Saturday

Meatloaf (made double and froze half)
Polenta squares
Leftover pasta/pizza sauce
Kale sauteed in ham fat
Rhubarb-blackberry pie

Sunday

Black beans, rice, peppers and canned tomatoes
Carrot sticks and dip
Tortilla chips and salsa

Monday

Black bean burgers, topped with 1000 Island dressing
Sweet potato oven fries
Cabbage, carrot and kale slaw

Tuesday

Ham and bean soup from freezer
Pumpkin muffins
Carrot and celery sticks

Wednesday

Black beans and rice from freezer ( had it in the crockpot to warm while I worked outside all afternoon)
Strawberry, rhubarb and orange gelatin salad (using orange juice, orange zest, cream cheese, frozen strawberries and fresh cut rhubarb, stewed)
Pumpkin souffle (from frozen pumpkin)

Thursday

Cream of kale soup (made Wednesday while I made dinner, using 2 baked potatoes from the fridge, a large bunch of garden kale, ham fat, ham stock, some onion, shallots, garlic, nutmeg, flour to thicken, salt and only about 1 cup of milk so I can have some if I take a pill)
Leftover gelatin salad
Leftover pumpkin muffins

Another easy dinner, so I can work outside all day.

So I bought this handy-dandy tool in November, which I am really finding useful. It's one of those stick blenders that you can put into a pot of soup and whirl away to puree. I really wanted one for years, but thought I wouldn't use it enough to make it worthwhile. As it turns out, it's one of my favorite tools now. It's easier to clean than a stand blender, and far easier to use for pureeing soups. The blending part detaches from the motor part. I can quickly wash the blending part, and set to dry on the counter before putting in a cupboard for storage. The motor part stores in the drawer with my hand-mixer. I still use the stand mixer, and the food processor for other foods. The stick blender didn't replace those two, but gave me an easier option specifically for pureed soups, sauces, and gravy that turned out lumpy. I used it on Wednesday, when I made Thursday's soup. When I think of all the times I made pureed soup before, and had to wait for it to cool enough to pour into the blender or food processor, puree, then pour back into the pot to reheat -- the stick blender is such a time saver. I bought it on sale, and used it as part of my minimum spend to get a deal on a turkey, just before Thanksgiving. I am hoping it will continue to work well for many years.

Favorite food this week -- I think the gelatin salad was a big hit. I cut some fresh rhubarb and was looking for a way to use it that seemed new to us. I came across a recipe for rhubarb and strawberry jello, that also used orange juice and orange zest. I didn't follow this recipe, but it gave me a springboard for adapting my creamy rhubarb jello salad. Quite delicious, and it used up some shriveling frozen strawberries from last year's garden.

What was your favorite meal this past week? Do you have a favorite kitchen tool that you think is worth the expense and space to own?

The gigantic oil jug became a pantry storage container

I buy cooking oil in these 35-lb jugs, at the restaurant supply. One jug lasts about 9-10 months. They come packaged in an outer cardboard box. In the past, I've tossed the cardboard and the plastic jug into the recycling bin.

Last week, I had one of those "silly me" moments, "why haven't I used these jugs for storage before now?" At the very least, they would make good surplus rain water storage, or a large container for storing compost tea, both for the garden.

And I then I thought of all of the foods that I buy in large sacks that make the pantry look untidy. I recently bought a 50-lb sack of brown rice. Hmmmm

side by side with a 1-gallon vinegar jug, to give you an idea of the size

So I cleaned out the jug with hot soapy water and white vinegar. Several rinses later and it felt clean-enough inside. I allowed it to air dry for a day and then filled it up.

About 30 lbs of long-grain rice fit inside, and now my brown rice looks neat, tidy and is in an airtight storage container.

I can hardly wait for my new oil jug to be used up and empty!

I am working my frugal muscles, these days. I had a coupon for Storables for 20% off any purchase. I had thought to go there and buy a container or two for the pantry. This one was free! I may still use that coupon for shelving for the pantry. But at least I saved on the container.

My April shopping plans for groceries, household and garden items

We are pretty well-stocked in almost all consumables these days. It's a good feeling to not need very much. But there are a few items I'll be shopping for this month. Here's my list.

Fred Meyer

This Tuesday is Senior Discount Day at Fred Meyer, private label groceries, health & beauty,  plus gardening supplies, plus kitchen & household items are included.

I've almost used my box of fruit and vegetable fertilizer while working the beds for the season. So, I'll need one more box of that. And I need some potting soil, which will also receive the senior discount.

I'm needing lightbulbs. I will pick up a 4-pack of LED bulbs at Fred Meyer, using the discount. Fred Meyer has many of their GE lightbulbs on sale at 25% off this week, including LED's. I can combine the sale price with my senior discount, making LEDs very affordable. (A 4-pack of 60 watt equivalent LED bulbs is on sale for $19.99, and 40 watt equivalent LED bulbs for $16.86. I'll save 10% for my senior discount on those 4-packs, meaning the 60 watt equivalents will cost me $4.50 each, and 40 watt equivalents, $3.80 each bulb.)

While at Fred Meyer, they have Kroger vitamins/minerals on sale, buy 1 get 1 free. I'll pick up more calcium chews and multi-vitamins with iron, using the discount.

Also, I am almost out of decaf coffee. I have a coupon for Fred Meyer brand ground coffee. I can stack that coupon with the senior discount, and pick up one can.

Milk is on sale, Fred Meyer brand 1/2 gals 99 cents, this week, limit 6 w/coupon (this coupon also includes half-gals of oj, which my daughters like to take to class with them, and I pour into 8 oz. bottles -- far cheaper and healthier than buying soda in the machines). I can stack the in-ad coupon with the senior discount.

I went through the coupons which are loadable to my card, and in addition to a couple of free items, I found a bar-soap coupon. (Kroger brand, so will also get the senior discount) and an anti-perspirant coupon. (Not store brand, so only the sale plus coupon, but one family member specifically requested a stronger deodorant than what I normally buy at Dollar Tree, so I'll pick this one up.) I'll compare the prices to Dollar Tree's comparable products, once at the store.

On top of these deals, I have 1 catalina coupon for $2.50 off any purchase, and 1 mailed coupon for $1 off anything bought in the nutrition center aisles. (The brand of iron supplements that I take are found in the nutrition center, so I will get the senior discount, the sale price and the $1 off coupon on that.)


So, maybe you'll find this humorous -- since I started using the senior discount last spring, I've been getting an interesting selection of catalina coupons at the register, funniest being the one last month for adult diapers. I think they're making quite an assumption, here!

Cash & Carry

I'll keep a watch on Cash & Carry for sales on cheese (both Cheddar and Mozzarella), and laundry detergent. They have a bathroom tissue I bought last time, on the same sale, 48 rolls for $15.49. This particular tissue lasted us about 3  1/2 months, which is pretty good. So we'll go with the same.

Produce and bulk bin items from the ethnic market, Trader Joe's and WinCo

And I need produce. I'll go by the ethnic market, first, as their prices are lowest for a lot of produce. I am thinking I will find more apples for 49 cents per pound, and green peppers for 3/$1. Then sometime in the month, I'll go back to WinCo (making a stop by Trader Joe's en route for bananas), for carrots, other produce on sale, and pick up bulk bin items like raisins, dates, and sunflower seeds. WinCo's prices on bulk bin items was better than Fred Meyer's regular price plus senior discount, for the most part. When I was last at WinCo, I forgot to check for bulk bin cocoa powder, and compare prices to Trader Joe's cocoa powder (lowest price in town for cocoa powder, in my area).

Our garden is beginning to produce. We have rhubarb, now, and some leafy greens. We are still a couple of months away from strawberries and blueberries. But having home-grown berries make one very picky when it comes to buying grocery-store berries. I will wait until our garden gives us berries for my fix.

Dollar Tree

I'm now just making 1 stop per month at Dollar Tree. Just this little change in shopping really curbs my spending. I did a thorough cleaning of the bathroom cabinet last month. I found we had a plentiful supply of deodorant, toothpaste, floss, shampoo and conditioner, band-aids, sunscreen and lotion. But I will pick up more bar soap (if I don't find what I need at Fred Meyer), both for laundry soap and showering, toothbrushes and razors. My last bottle of liquid dishwashing detergent has such a perfume-y scent, too perfume-y for dishes. So, I've been adding it to the laundry soap. If Dollar Tree has the lemon-scented liquid dishwashing detergent, I'll pick up a bottle of that. As a laundry detergent, the perfume-y one is working great.

My brother has a birthday in early May, as well as Mother's Day. DT has greeting cards for 50 cents each. I'll go through my selection of cards at home, first. Then if I don't have something I want to use, on hand, I'll pick up cards for those occasions, this month.

In the food section, I will probably buy 1 box of crackers, to have with a cream cheese and herb spread some weekend day in April, and 2 quarts of soy or almond milk.


With exception to always needing milk, I am pretty well-stocked in groceries, for the time being. I'd like to use up some of the freezer stash and make room for spring and summer garden produce. Although I have a substantial surplus in grocery money right now, I may not need any of it for April.

Just a little info for you -- I find making out these shopping lists very helpful for me. By making out a list that covers all of the stores I frequent, and over the course of a month, I find I am much more thorough in my planning for the month. Back in the day when I didn't make out these comprehensive lists, I would find mid-month that, "oh, we're out of lightbulbs. Better run to the store." Then the next week, " oh we're out of dish detergent, better go to Dollar Tree again." You get the idea, right? By making a master shopping plan for the month, I can make sure I take advantage of any deals, special discounts, coupons, and lowest prices in town, and not have to back-track to all of the different stores because I didn't plan very thoroughly. Time and money-saver. So, basically, by having you guys here, reading along with my thoughts, you are all helping me to plan better! Big thank you, to you all!

When to cut tulips from the garden

There's a just-right point to cut tulips in the garden, in order to get maximum enjoyment indoors. I find that if I wait too long, my tulips will be spent within a couple of days of bringing indoors.

These tulips, right here, are right where I like to cut them. The buds are tightly closed, having never opened. If I cut them at this point, bring them in and pop into a vase of water, overnight, they become "perfect" barely-bloomed tulips, like the below photo.

With recutting the stems and changing the water, every day to every other day, they will be beautiful for an entire week. And yes, with tulips, I do cut the leaves with the stems, and submerge in the water, leaves and stems, all. It gives the bunch a fuller look, I think. And as tulips will only last, once cut, for about a week, anyway, I don't feel I'm shortening their "life" in the water any.

With each water change, I also give the tulips a pinch of floral preservative. If you don't have any floral preservative, there's a recipe for homemade preservative/food in this post.

Happy April, everyone! I hope you have tulips in your area now, or very soon!

Look what was in the free pile at Kohl's!

Okay, just a joke. No real "free" pile outside the doors at Kohl's. but you know how many garage sales have free piles? I was joking with my daughters about the free pile at Kohl's last week.

I had a $10 coupon in my stack of mail waiting for me when I returned from my trip. Luckily for me, it hadn't expired.

So off I went to Kohl's, coupon in hand. And going into the store I looked down and spied 2 pennies on the floor. Of course, I stooped to pick those 2 cents up. You never know when you're going to need 2 more cents, right?!

I wandered the home section of the store, looking for good deals. There are these knobs/hooks that I like. I picked up one of them a few months ago, on sale and with a $10 off coupon. But I knew I wanted another to make a pair of hooks on the wall. And this must be lucky day, as they were on sale, again!

I picked up one, price-checked it on the price checker machine, and found I needed to spend about another dollar to use the full $10 off coupon. In checking all of the clearance items, I found a bath bomb for 60 cents. This will make a great gift. Then I found a couple of gift bags, one for Mother's day and another for Christmas. Double great!

So i took my purchases to the cash register. After the gal rang them up, the total came to . . . you guessed it! 2 cents! I reached into my pocket and pulled out those 2 pennies. In and out the door with no money spent. The Kohl's free pile.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers beginning with an Easter ham

the bench on my front porch

Sunday lunch (we did our Easter family meal at lunch and scrambled for ourselves for dinner that night)

Baked ham
Homemade dinner rolls, using an overnight, refrigerator roll dough recipe
Marinated asparagus salad, with deiced roasted red peppers and celery (the only food item I bought especially for Easter was the asparagus)
Carrot sticks and celery sticks w/ bottled creamy Italian salad dressing (clearance rack) for a dip
Deviled eggs, olives, watermelon pickles
Pretzels and crackers w/ cream cheese, Craisin, pecan spread
Apple slices
Pecan pie
Rhubarb pie

Monday

Baked potatoes, topped w/
Sauteed kale, onions, ham dices, and smothered in
Cheddar cheese sauce
Steamed carrot chunks
Choice of leftover pie

Tuesday

Potato, egg, cheese, ham, kale and onion casserole, (made Monday as I made that night's dinner)
Fruit salad of bananas, apples, dried cranberries and almond slices
Last of the leftover pie

Wednesday

Ham and bean soup
Dinner rolls (using last of the refrigerator roll dough)
Cabbage, carrot and kale slaw
Rhubarb-blackberry sauce

Thursday

Kale and onion baked frittata
Oven-roasted sweet potato chunks
Brown rice with peas
Toffee bars

Just a short week this week. I didn't record the various menus from last week. Although I recall a batch of chicken enchiladas on evening, an easy rice bake another evening, and a ramen soup, made with 2 Cup of Noodles, some beaten eggs, frozen peas, shredded cabbage, onion powder, garlic powder and soy sauce made in minutes when we walked in the door returning from our trip. It was about 8 PM and my husband hadn't eaten yet. So, I made a pot of soup for the 4 of us and called it dinner.

When I make ham stock, I roast the bone first, then simmer in water. roasting improves the overall flavor. With this ham bone, I actually roasted and simmered it twice. After the first time, I picked off as much meat as possible. But a fair amount of fat remained attached to the bone. So I roasted it again, refrigerated overnight, and simmered in water the next day. I didn't get any more meat the second roasting/simmering. But I was able to make some pretty decent stock with the second round. And it rendered just enough fat to leave in the roasting pan for my oven-roasted sweet potatoes on Thursday evening. The second batch of ham stock is now in the freezer to use as a soup base for the next pot of bean soup.

Since returning from my trip, I've been trying to cook double batches as much as possible. My instinct is to cook just enough for one meal at a time. So this is mental work to overcome that instinct. But the end result is worth it, as I am gaining additional afternoon work time, on almost half of my days, for gardening. And now I have a few extra main dishes in the freezer to pull out on very busy nights. You may have noticed, Tuesday's casserole used very similar ingredients to Monday's main dish. I have baked extra potatoes, and sauteed extra kale, onion and ham. For the casserole, I sliced up some of the baked potatoes, and layered with the kale, onion and ham mixture. Then I poured milk and eggs over the top and some grated cheese. It was very hearty.

Tell me, what was on your menu this past week? Did you do an Easter ham, or do you have other Easter menu traditions at your house? We had pie for dessert on Easter. Does your family have a traditional Easter dessert?

March 2016 grocery spending journal

March 1 It's Senior discount day at Fred Meyer. I felt really prepared, my list made, coupons in my purse, calculator with me. But the shopping didn't feel like it was going right. You know? How some days it just feels like all is going as planned? This wasn't one of them! I think I let myself get bothered by rising grocery prices on a few items. And that just put a wet blanket on my happy shopping day! LOL!

Anyway, I did buy some necessary items, using my senior discount, and coupons. Again with the canned corn, I had another coupon to use, plus my discount, 6 cans at 44 cents each, a large box of powdered milk (great for smoothies) for $7.55,  a little over 2 pounds of raw sunflower seeds, at $2.24/lb (almost twice the price that I paid in the fall, but still way cheaper than tree nuts, for snacking), 1/2 lb of oat bran for $1.43/lb, almost a 1/3 of a pound of raw, whole almonds at $5.84/lb (I had intended to buy more almonds than that, but I bought the very, very last of the whole almonds), a couple of tablespoons of celery seeds for 45 cents, 1 gallon of whole milk for $2.33, and my free (with download coupon) individual container of plain, Greek yogurt. Also, not a food item, but for our vegetable garden, I bought 1 package of vegetable and tomato garden fertilizer for $4.91. Total spent on food, $25.15

I've been using the celery seeds to add to soups and sauces, for celery flavor, as whole celery has been kind of expensive this year.

Not food, I also bought acetaminophen, ibuprophen,vitamin C, some summer flowering bulbs, all with my senior discount combined with a couple of coupons, and buy one get one free offers.

I watched the cash register like a hawk today. One of my coupons didn't scan, and that was taken care of at the register. Then on the way out the door, I was checking my receipt, and found several items which should have received the senior discount, which did not. I took my receipt to the service desk and got everything amended. It was a difference of about $5, so worth taking those minutes to read the receipt.

March 1 On the way home from Fred Meyer I stopped at Dollar Tree, for soy milk (2 qts), a bag of pretzels, 24 oz. spaghetti, 24 oz penne (both work out to about 66 cents/lb). The penne pasta was new at our Dollar Tree this time. So it will be a nice change of shape for us. Spent $5 on food items (but also bought 1 tube of toothpaste, 1 package of dental floss, 1 package of coffee filters and 1 bottle of shampoo).

Total spent for the month so far, $30.15.

March 8. Fred Meyer has milk on sale, 99cents/half-gallon. I buy 5 milks, and 1 orange juice (same price). Also buy 1 large eggplant (99cents), about 9 lbs of bulk polenta (on closeout for 59cents/lb), almost 3 lbs of sunflower seeds (dry-roasted and salted, $1.39/lb), 1-lb package of breakfast sausage, on markdown for $1.49, 6 packages of Lil Smokies, beef cocktail sausages, on markdown for 99 cents each (13 oz packages). I also got my free (with download coupon) Lindt truffle candy egg. Total spent $23.52

March 8. While out running errands, I also stopped by Imran's (local ethnic market) for produce. I bought 21 small Pink Lady apples (49cents/lb), 10 bananas (49cents/lb), 3 green bell peppers (3/99cents), and 1 package, 72 ct, corn tortillas for $2.49. Spent $8.23 (I paid 12 cents more for the corn tortillas than I could have at Cash & Carry. I was remembering the price incorrectly, and I was hungry when shopping. Hard to make a good food decision when I'm hungry. But on the up side, at Fred Meyer, the polenta was 16 cents per pound cheaper than if I'd bought a 25-lb sack at Cash & Carry. So I came out $1.37 ahead on the polenta.)

Total spent for the month so far, $61.90

March 10. I had to make a return at Fred Meyer, so I went into the food section, and snagged a few deals. I bought another 5 half-gallons of whole milk, a 1 half-gallon of orange juice (limit 6 total, w/coupon), for 99cents each. I bought another large eggplant for 99 cents. I also bought 2 quarts of lite mayo for $1.49 each, a bottle of creamy Italian salad dressing for 49cents, and 2 small bottles of chipotle mayonnaise for 59 cents each. I picked up 3 packets of seeds for the vegetable garden, at buy2 get one free (spinach, Romano beans and snow peas). Total spent today, $15.56

Total spent for the month, so far, $77.46

March 11. Cash & Carry for all-purpose flour (I have a birthday cake to bake!!). Fortunately, one of the brands is on sale, $11.99 for 50-lbs. I also pick up 1 gallon of lemon juice on sale ($4.39) and 3 heads of green cabbage ($1.25 each). The cabbage are riced per head, not per pound, so I choose the heaviest-feeling ones. I've had the cashiers weigh them for me in the past, and they weigh right around 3 lbs each. So, I"m figuring they cost about 42 cents/lb. The lemon juice is on sale, about $1 cheaper than usual. I don't need lemon juice right now, but the spare jug can stay in the pantry until my current container is empty. Total spent, $20.13

March 11. Trader Joe's is just down the street. I like their price on bananas and cocoa powder. I buy 14 bananas at 19 cents each (and they were very large bananas this week), and 1 9-oz. container of cocoa powder at $2.49. Spent $5.15

Total spent for the month so far, $102.74

March 13. Walgreen's is right next to St. Vincent de Paul's Thrift store (Sunday is/was 99cent day). I stopped into Walgreen's for jelly beans, on sale w/ coupon 50 cents for 7 oz bags, limit 4. I buy 4, and spend $2.

Total spent this month so far, $104.74

March 15. Running a bunch of errands today, so stopping in places to pick up food for our trip.

World Market -- Cost Plus, for hard salami, 8 oz for $3.99 (doesn't need refrigerating until opened).
Target (right next door) for sliced provolone cheese, $2.64 for about a half-pound, 10 oz of raisins, $1.99, 3 containers Cup Noodles, 29 cents each.
Fred Meyer, for 1 box of 4 servings of Cup of Soup, Cream of Chicken, $1.49, a little over a half-pound of raw almonds, for $5.99/lb, and my free item for the week -- a Marie Callender Chicken Pot Pie
Walgreen's for 4 more bags of jelly beans, at 50 cents each.
total spent on these errands -- $16.51

Spent for the month, so far -- $121.25

March 16. Dollar Tree for Sweet Potato fries, for my daughters's birthday dinner. I bought 2 bags, as my son's girlfriend will be coming over, and I wanted to make sure I'd have enough. One bag is a wee bit on the skimpy side when it's just the 5 of us. Spent $2 (and I really didn't buy anything else there today -- that's a first!)

Spent for the month, so far -- $123.25

March 20. China town, SF, bakery for 3 buns for our lunch, $2.80 spent

March 23. Fred Meyer for butter (6 lbs, $1.99 each w/ coupon), 6 half-gallons whole milk, 99 cents each, about 3 lbs yams (99 cents/lb). Spent $21.08

March 23. Target for eggs, 99 cents/dozen, bought 20 dozen. Spent $19.80

total spent for the month, so far --$166.93

March 24. WinCo -- not very convenient for me, but it was in the general area where I was running other errands. Thought I'd stop in and check their prices, especially looking for asapargus at a good price. I bought celery (1 bundle for 88 cents, I weighed it and it was about 1  1/3 lbs, so a good price per pound for celery for this year), 5 lbs of carrots for $2.28, 10 lb bag of potatoes for 98 cents, about 3 lbs of bananas for 48 cents/lb, 1/3 pound of wheat bran (for bran muffins) at 43 cents/lb, haf pound of steel cut oats for  62 cents/lb, a half-pound of raisins for $1.79/lb, and almost half-pound of date pieces for $2.14/lb. This was 1 full, large paper grocery sack plus the 10-lb sack of potatoes, for $8.28, total (asparagus $1.88/lb, more than I wanted to pay)

March 24. Almost home, stopped by Imran's ethnic market for produce. Bought 5  2/3 lbs of Pink Lady apples, at 49 cents/lb, 3 green peppers for $1, yams for 79 cents/lb and asparagus for $1.79/lb. Spent $7.14

total spent for the month, so far -- $182.35

March 29. Wanting to check Easter clearance, I went by Fred Meyer on my errands. In addition to a few things for Easter, I also found turkey bacon (12 oz packages), on markdown for $1.39. I bought 3. Plus, 2 gallons of skim milk marked down to $1.75, and some red tape bananas at 49 cents/lb. Total spent on groceries -- $8.41

Total spent for the month of March -- $190.76

My new monthly budget is $190.00 for groceries. So, I spent 76 cents more than the regular budget. However, I had a surplus coming into this month of $124.24, giving me a total budget of $314.24. So, going into April I once again have extra I could spend, if needed. My budget will be $313.48.

Included in March's grocery shopping were snacks and lunch fixings for my trip (and to leave at home with my husband), all food purchased on our trip, stocking up on eggs for spring, some asparagus for Easter, and a couple of items for a birthday dinner. Considering all that went on in March, I think we did pretty well on grocery spending.

I'm glad I checked out WinCo. I'll be going by there once per month, I think. Their bulk bin section is fantastic. Prices on many items that I like to buy from bulk bins at Fred Meyer, were lower at WinCo. As it's a further distance from home, I'll have to make sure I keep our supplies from there, well-stocked at home. In particular, the wheat bran, raisins, dates, sunflower seeds and almonds will be on my list regularly for WinCo.


What I bought this month

Dairy
32-oz box of instant nonfat dry milk
1 gallon of whole milk
16 half-gallons whole milk
2 gallons of skim milk
1  5.3 oz container of Greek yogurt (free item)
2 qts. soy milk
half-pound sliced Provolone cheese
6 lbs butter
20 dozen eggs

Meat
1 lb of breakfast sausage
6 13-oz packages of Lil Smokies beef sausages
8 oz hard salami
Individual chicken pot pie (freebie with download)
36 oz turkey bacon

Pantry
about 2 lbs of raw sunflower seeds
about 1/2 lb of oat bran
almost 1 pound of raw, whole almonds
a couple of tablespoons of celery seeds
24 oz spaghetti noodles
24 oz penne pasta
1 bag of pretzels (snacks for our trip)
about 9 lbs polenta
about 3 lbs of roasted, salted sunflower seeds (snacks for our trip)
Lindt truffle egg (free item)
72-ct corn tortillas
2 qts of lite mayonnaise
2 8-oz bottles of chipotle mayo
1 16-oz bottle of creamy Italian salad dressing
50 lbs all-purpose flour
9-oz container of cocoa powder
3  1/2 lbs. of jelly beans
3 containers Cup Noodles
4-serving box Cup of Soup
3 buns, 2 w/meat, 1 w/durian
1/3 lb. wheat bran
just over a pound of steel cut oats

Produce
6 cans of corn
2 half-gallons orange juice
2 eggplant
39 Pink Lady apples
37 bananas
6 green bell peppers
1 gallon lemon juice
3 heads of green cabbage
22 oz raisins
2 bags of frozen sweet potato fries
4  2/3 lbs yams
10 lbs potatoes
1 lb asparagus
1 bundle celery
5 lbs carrots
1/2 pound date pieces

Vegetable garden
1 package of vegetable garden fertilizer
vegetable seeds (Romano beans, snow peas, spinach)

Yes, I am back!!

Good morning, friends!

Spring break turned out to be an exhausting, painful, fun, adventurous, wet, delicious and laughter-filled 10 days!

The painful part, (and maybe some of you have experience to share with this), the first day of our trip to San Francisco I did something to my leg/hip/groin. I noticed it in the airport when we deplaned and were walking towards the BART. I thought it was just a cramp that would go away in a few minutes. But it took several days to improve. Whenever I'd sit or lie down for any length of time, the pain would be back when I started walking again. Then the pain would ease with walking. By the end of the trip, the pain was mostly gone. And I thought it was a thing of the past. A few days after returning (a full week after the first inkling of pain), I took a bad step on uneven flooring in an antique shop, and all of the pain returned. Again to dwindle over the course of a few days. Then on Monday, I was squatting in the garden planting lettuce seedlings, and the pain was back. So, I'm trying to be mindful of this pain, and gentle my way through the days. Has this happened to any of you? In googling groin pain/strain, it doesn't look like there's much to do about it, except rest/ice/compression. Advil helps.

Onto much better parts of my spring break!

Okay, I'll get to the adventurous part. My son and his girlfriend went to Shanghai over spring break. My son's girlfriend is a university student, graduating this spring, so she still lives by the university schedule, meaning her vacation time is limited to breaks between quarters.. She's originally from Shanghai and she wanted my son to meet her family and see where she's from. My son is an adventurer. He is up for all kinds of travel. The two of them flew non-stop, 13 hours to get there. They stayed a little over a week, and flew about 11 hours, non-stop to get back home the morning before Easter. Wow! They had some adventure. Looking through their photos, they saw so many sights in Shanghai.

While my son was in China, my two daughters and I had our own adventure. We spent 3 whole days and 2 partial days in San Francisco. 4 nights of hotel stay was all we could afford, so we jammed in as much as we could in the mornings, days and evenings. Even with pain in my hip, we walked all over the city, up and down hills, along the waterfront, in neighborhoods and parks, through a posh district or two, as well as after dark in a rather shady part of town (this is where I grabbed my two daughters's hands, and whispered, "quick let's get out of here", as we practically flew ourselves back to a well-lit, well-traveled street). That evening was the only time I felt even remotely unsafe in the city.

What we saw--

We spent a day in the Legion of Honor art museum (and saw Rodin's The Thinker, Monet's Waterlilies, Raphael's Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn, as well as scores of other European paintings and sculptures. At one point, one daughter even said, "Rembrandt, is that THE Rembrandt?" This was exciting for them to see actual works from the great masters of Europe.)

The day that we visited the Legion of Honor, we brought a picnic lunch with us of hard salami and cheese sandwiches, apples and oranges, pretzels, cookies and water. We sat in the park-like setting on a bench, overlooking the entrance to the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. You can't get much more scenic in SF than that!

Our fee to get into the museum was very reasonable, a whopping total of $16 for the 3 of us. We were able to get a $2 discount on each ticket, by showing a transfer from the muni bus we took to get there, stacked with a student rate for 2, by showing student ID for my daughters. The Muni (SF's city bus system) was also reasonable, at $2.25 one-way, per person, for the 30-minute journey out to the museum.

typical selection of "appetizers" every evening -- this particular evening there
was French bread, artichoke dip, fresh fruit, a variety of cheeses
 and an almond tea cake -- enough for the 3 of us to call a light dinner

Later that evening, after a light dinner, we walked the hills of different neighborhoods out to the top of Lombard Street, then walked down the zig-zagging street to the base. A lot of folks like to drive down Lombard, but I think the best way to see this famous venue is to start at the top and walk down the steps, then at the intersection at the base, look back up to the flower-filled beds which are centered on this street's zigs and zags.

at the gate to Chinatown

The next morning, we walked to Chinatown. There's a fortune cookie factory, where you can watch the ladies folding fortune cookies. It's on one of the alley-streets parallel to Grant Ave (the main drag in Chinatown). I also took my daughters to see how the locals buy super-fresh fish, by scooping live fish out of a tank of water. My son and I had seen that several years back, and it stuck in my mind at how different shopping can be in different cultures. Chinatown was the only place in all of San Francisco that we bought food. We walked into a bakery and bought 3 buns for lunch, for a grand total of $2.80. That's it for our eating out in all of that city.

on the cable cars

We also rode the cable cars, walked along the waterfront, saw the old ferry terminal and Ghirardelli Square (free chocolate samples in both Ghirardelli shops in GS), went to the theater, climbed Nob Hill, walked to Union Square (another Ghirardelli shop giving out free samples, plus a super large Williams-Sonoma caught me eye).

the Painted Ladies in the background

On our last morning, we took a vote on how to spend those last precious hours. taking the Muni out to Alamo Square, the park which overlooks the Painted Ladies (Queen Anne Victorian row houses, seen in the background to the credits of the television series Full House).

The three of us enjoy walking, so this was a great way for us to really see the city. The few times we needed to travel a great distance, we took the BART (to/from airport), the Muni (city buses, took 2 round trips) and the cable cars (one-way, inbound, just a few blocks up from the waterfront, no line for the Powell-Mason line, whereas down at the waterfront there was a 30 minute line for the Powell-Hyde line). Muni is very reasonably priced ($2.25 most destinations in the city, in contrast to the cable cars at $7 per person), and well-worth the ride through the various neighborhoods.

Our hotel was at the base of Nob Hill, near Union Square. It was a boutique hotel, an old apartment building converted to a small hotel. It wasn't the cheapest place to stay in the city, but it was a far cry from the posh hotels in town.What sold me on this particular hotel were the amenities.

just part of my breakfast the first morning

Each room had a mini-fridge, stocked with complimentary bottled water and soda pop. The fridge alone was fantastic, for stocking lunch ingredients. But to have the free beverages was a bonus. There was a complimentary hot breakfast every morning, fresh apples and oranges in the fruit bowl all day, fresh-baked cookies in the afternoon in the lobby, coffee, tea and cocoa available in the sitting area all day, and an evening reception of wine and appetizers. As my daughters and I are not drinkers, we used the appetizers as our light dinner each night. The appetizer selection was quite good each day, with fruit, veggies, dips, spreads, cheese, little quiches, crackers, bread, and always a sweet treat. If we felt hungry later in the evening, we still had a stash of foods in our room, which we had packed with us.

Which brings me to. . .

what we packed with us

a whole hard salami (I had to borrow a knife from the hotel to slice each day, next time, I'd pre-slcie the salami)
1 loaf of home baked French bread, sliced
1 package of sliced Provolone cheese
exactly 3 oz of peanut butter, which traveled in my ziploc "liquids bag" on the plane
Cup of Noodles
Cup of Soup packets
crackers
pretzels
peanuts
sunflower seeds
raisins
jelly beans
home baked gingersnap cookies

The three of us only had 1 backpack each, which we carried onto the plane. Yet, by dividing up all of the food, we were able to carry all of the above with us. We used most of this for our lunches, daily, as well as snacks whenever hungry. As I mentioned before, by bringing some of our food with us, and by taking full advantage of the offerings at our hotel, we kept our eating out spending to $2.80, for 3 people for almost 5 days.

We had an awesome all-girls trip, with much giggling, fun window shopping, lots of sight-seeing, and more walking than I do in a month at home.


I hope you all had a happy Easter!