Budgeting and stocking my pantry

Right now, mid-autumn, finds some of the lowest prices of the year on many basic grocery items, including potatoes, fresh squash, canned vegetables, canned pineapple, cream cheese, butter, turkey, ham, fresh celery, canned pumpkin, nuts and other holiday baking items, and coffee. This is the time of year that I do the largest of my stocking up, to feed us well, through several months, and avoid some of the high produce prices of mid to late winter.

canned vegetables, potatoes and celery
When I find a stellar deal, I think in terms of months, not weeks, to gauge how much I want to buy. WinCo has had canned vegetables on sale for 33 cents per can for the last couple of weeks. I calculated how many cans we'd likely go through between now and early March, and bought 8 cases, and may pick up 1 or 2 more cases (12 cans per case). It sounds like a lot, but we will go through all of this, and probably faster than anticipate.

I also noticed that canned pumpkin and canned yams, in the larger 29-oz cans, were a good price at WinCo when I stopped in last week. I picked up a few cans with the remaining cash I had with me. I will be stopping in this coming Friday, to stock up further on those. And in looking at this week's ad for Fred Meyer, potatoes in 10-lb bags are advertised for 88 cents/bag (limit 2). Fresh potatoes will keep in my pantry and fridge, through January. I will be buying about 80 lbs. this year.

By purchasing so many of our vegetables in cans, this year, I have freed up space in my freezer for a particular, non-canned vegetable -- celery. I will be buying several (maybe 8-10, depending on price) bunches of celery, to chop and freeze, to use in soups and casseroles, throughout winter.

loss-leader meat purchases
Turkeys and hams are also a good buy between now and Christmas. I will buy 1 whole turkey for Thanksgiving, and a second for the freezer., to roast in late winter. I have 1 ham remaining from last year, still in the freezer. I will use that over the holidays, and buy 1 or 2 more for the freezer. (I can usually find ham at the same sale price just before Easter, as I can at Christmas, therefore no need to really stock up on ham.)

I've been watching the retail price for whole turkeys by reading the weekly USDA retail report on turkey supply and price. If you follow that link, there are prices for the different regions of the US. All but the PNW and Alaska have a retail price available for whole turkey this week. The low end of prices on whole turkeys is 37 to 69 cents per pound. There's also this, from the USDA "Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook", October 18, 2016, "Price forecasts were reduced across broilers, turkeys, and eggs for 2016 and reduced for broilers and eggs for 2017." This is in an article talking about export production and price. But this information, combined with the weekly price report, does suggest that local retail prices on whole turkeys could be lower this year, over last year's pre-Thanksgiving deals.

baking supplies
I have already bought about 15 pounds of nuts, about a dozen packages of chocolate chips, a couple of bags of coconut, and enough powdered sugar to get through the year's baking needs.

ability to afford these stock-up months
How does one afford to do all of this stocking up? In part, I have set aside grocery money in the past few months, just for this purpose. In the late summer and early fall months, I deliberately spend less than my monthly budgeted amount of $190, in order to save extra for the months of November and December.

But also -- many of these items are a bargain, compared to comparable foods we might eat. Such as canned vegetables (33 cents/15 oz) compared to some of the fresh/frozen vegetables (often 79 cents/lb and up). During a big stock-up month, like right now, we shift our eating patterns to focus on these less expensive versions of foods.

A couple of my "rules" for sparing cash in the budget, this month:

• This is not the time of year to be buying out-of-season strawberries, or expensive cuts of meat.
• We eat from some of our stock-up items, as a way to curb spending right now.
• Menus rely heavily on the less expensive foods, like beans and whole grains, and eggs when bought as loss-leaders.
• Limit splurges, and convenience items, as much as possible. To make humble meals more interesting, this time of year, I begin opening jars of homemade pickles, chutneys and relishes.

Those 8 cases of canned vegetables are not just for mid-winter. Our meals are using those right now. Canned green beans, peas and corn are good just as is, but are also versatile in what you can do with, or add to them.

Canned peas are good hot or cold. As a hot vegetable, I rinse them, then add dried mint and butter. Or, I can make a simple hot soup, with canned peas, pureed, as the base, and cubed, cooked potatoes and carrots added, plus some ham or chicken stock with bits of meat. As a cold vegetable, canned peas are nice added to macaroni and potato salads, slaws, or gelatin aspic salads.

Canned corn is great added to Tex-Mex dishes, or, made into an egg-based entree, like Corn Pudding, or, baked in cornbread. As a cold dish, canned corn is good made into a relish, adding some green or red peppers (or canned pimentos), onions, vinegar, sugar, salt and pickling spice.

I have always been fond of canned green beans just as they are. But I also like to serve them hot, with either sauteed mushrooms, or, chopped, toasted almonds, or, topped with a cracker and butter crumb topping. As well, canned green beans are good cold, in multi-bean salads, dressed in a vinaigrette.

WinCo has had acorn squash for 78 cents each -- not per pound, but each, where I live. I pick out the 4 or 5 heaviest ones. At over 3 pounds each, our cost is about 25 cents per pound -- and that's an excellent price per pound for a vegetable. We're eating acorn squash 3 to 4 meals per week. Yes, it can be redundant. But I am trying to savor this time of year, with fresh squash in abundance.

We are eating bean-based meals about half of each week, and frozen, low-cost meats like the remaining turkey from last year, chicken hindquarters, and ground beef bought for under $2/lb, for the remainder of each week.

Right now, I am holding off on buying fresh oranges and avocados. In about 1 month, the price on both of those items will begin dropping, and will be more affordable.

Instead, our fresh fruit selection is limited to a few remaining pears and apples, plus bananas, purchased either at Trader Joe's for 19 cents each, or at WinCo or Cash & Carry, from 40 to 48 cents per pound. We also have foraged blackberries, our tree plums, and rhubarb sauce in the freezer, to round out some of the fruit selection in November.

By eating less expensive meals for this entire month, we free up enough cash in the grocery budget to afford to stock up for future months. As I was looking through my purchases last Friday, I noted that about 75% of what I bought that day were purely stock-up items, foods that will last us longer than 2 weeks.

Creating lovely papers for wrapping spa gifts, using tea-staining technique

For wrapping my hand-crafted spa gifts, I had thought to buy some pretty scrapbook papers. Being the cheapskate tightwad thrifty frugal careful-with-money person that I am, I chose to "make" lovely papers using print-outs from my computer and tea.

For the overwrap, itself, I chose to use a favorite poem by Keats, Ode to a Nightingale, as the motif for my paper. In an elegant script, this makes beautiful paper. (I typed the poem on my laptop, using Zapfino font, and played around with spacing and type size until I was satisfied for use as wrap paper.)

My printer is ancient, from around 1996 (and it was a hand-me-down at that). But it works well enough to print out black and white text and images.

To transform the appearance of the printed poem to something more decorative, I tea-stained the print-outs.

To tea-stain paper:

• soak the paper in a strong black tea, 1 sheet at a time, for about 20 minutes. (I do this in a jelly roll pan, with raised edges.) I used 2 Dollar Tree bags of tea per 12 ounces of water.
• Once the paper is completely soaked, gently lift the paper out of the tea, and allow to drip bake into the pan for a minute. Carefully transfer the paper to a large baking sheet. Bake at 200 F degrees, for about 6 minutes. Peel the paper up and turn over to finish the drying, another 2 minutes in the oven at 200 F degrees.
• remove paper from baking sheet, and cool for a few minutes.

• the paper will be slightly crinkly, I prefer to use an iron on a low setting to smooth this out part way. You can also place the dried, tea-stained sheets in a book for a few days to flatten (Take care with the iron, this is paper, after all, and flammable.)
• if you have a couple of large baking sheets, you can speed up the drying process, by baking 2 or 3 papers at a time

For the labels, I wanted some contrast between the wrap papers and label papers. I selected a design from thegraphicsfairy.com ( a resource for crafters with free images available to print out). I played around  with the size and shape of that image on my laptop, until I had the proper size and proportions for my project, making a larger and smaller size.

The tea-stain on the label papers is darker than the wrap papers. There are 4 ways to get a darker stain on paper. 1) stain and dry the paper, twice, or, 2) use a tea of greater strength, so that the tea is as dark as coffee, or, 3) leave the paper in the tea for a longer period of time, or 4) use hot tea (it's reported that hot tea will result in more orange tones). I used a stronger tea, 4 Dollar Tree bags to 10 oz of water, instead of 1 or 2, stirring the tea, and pressing the bags against the pot, as it steeped, to release as much color as possible, and I allowed my sheets to soak in the tea for about an hour. The darkest sheet was made with fresh, hot tea. The other two sheets were stained with cold tea.

After pressing my papers, I set out to use them. Here is how it all comes together.

I used my sewing machine to sew envelopes from the paper, for the bath tea sachets. (I can give more detailed instructions on making envelopes in this manner tomorrow or the next day. These envelopes could be useful for packaging a variety of gifts, envelopes for tea, seeds, gift cards, for example.)

I cut wide strips of the paper to wrap around the bars of soap,  as a sleeve, and used a glue stick to seal the edges closed on the back.

To use the labels, I cut out around the design, hand-lettered my label, and affixed with glue stick.

Cost -- my sheets of decorative papers cost about 6-7 cents each, to make, all inclusive of paper, printer ink, tea and oven use. In comparison, buying scrapbook paper would cost about 25 cents (if on sale, plus tax and gas to get to a store) for equivalent sheets. My labels are even more of a bargain, at under a half-cent per decorative label, or 7-8 cents per sheet. In comparison, I could buy decorative, self-stick labels for about $3 to $6 per sheet.

A lot of time goes into creating gifts like these. To reduce the time per unit, I do all of these items in batches, assembly-line fashion. But I do enjoy the process of creating something to give to someone else.

more later this week . . .

Gift-making: lavender soap plus where to get free cellophane to wrap bars of soap

There is something about this new batch of soap that I am particularly drawn to. Do you find you have things in life like that for yourself? Maybe it's the color, or texture, or fragrance. I'm not sure. But I do love how this turned out, and how it looks with the lavender spa cloth that I knit.

Here's how it all went:

I used the same spaghetti noodle box, that I used in the batch of Honey-Almond-Oatmeal soap last week, for the lavender soap mold. The box held up fine for a couple of uses.

I taped up the end that I had opened to get that last long bar out. And I relined the box with new plastic wrap, this time not gluing it into place. The soap edges had a slightly neater appearance with the first batch, having glued the plastic to the cardboard. But, overall, this batch looks good, too.

The soap looks beautiful.

I un-molded it the next morning, and cut it into 4 bars.

With the lavender soap, I tinted the soap base a pale shade of lavender, to coordinate with the lavender spa cloths that I knit earlier this fall. I added dried lavender buds that I cut from my garden and air-dried this summer, then ground partially in my coffee grinder just before melting the soap base. And I added some lavender essential oil. The kitchen smelled amazing while I was making this batch.

Immediately after pouring the soap into the mold, I sprinkled the surface with more dried lavender buds. By gently blowing on the surface, I could see where I needed to ever-so-gently press the buds into place. This soap formed a skin very quickly.

I am now onto wrapping my soap, both to preserve it's freshness and to add to the presentation of this hand-crafted gift.

Where to find free cellophane?
I have the one cellophane bag that I mentioned previously. I've decided to save that for packaging for my hand-crafted bubble bath (more on that another day). Where else would I find cellophane?

I bought a box of tea earlier this week, and as I was opening the package, I had a lightbulb moment. Tea boxes often come wrapped in lightweight cellophane to preserve the tea's flavor.

By carefully cutting the cellophane open, I can get enough for 2 bars of soap, from one box of tea bags. I used glue stick to seal my wrapping closed. I'll be digging into my pantry to find more cellophane-wrapped packages to scavenge from. (update on the cellophane hunt -- I found a large sheet of cellophane in my gift wrap stuff! It was the packaging/outer wrap for a set of shirt boxes, bought long ago. Woo hoo! Wiped off the dust and got all 8 bars wrapped.)

Next, to find presentation for these bars of soap. I'm feeling inspired by some favorite sonnets and poetry. Hmmmm. . . wrapping soap, to be continued.

A breakdown on costs and timing for making soap as a gift.

Now is the time to be looking for high-value coupons for Michael's and Hobby Lobby, for the soap base, and maybe the essential oils. I buy essential oils, online, through Amazon and Bulk Apothecary. As I use lavender essential oil in many bath and beauty products, I buy it in 4 ounce bottles through Amazon. I buy this brand and size -- Calily &8482; 100% Premium Pure Lavender Essential Oil - Large 4 Ounce - Therapeutic Grade Oil, (4 Oz. / 118 ml). The fragrance is good, for my use, and the price is awesome for pure lavender essential oil. A bottle this size lasts me 2-3 years.

For the soap base, I think you can get the best price per pound with a 50% off coupon to a craft store, like Michael's. The regular price is about $10 for 2 pounds, with coupon the price was $5. I used a little over 2 pounds to make 8 bars (I had soap base leftover from another gift). So, for the mold I used, a 2-lb block of soap base would make 7 bars, making 2 batches. Each of my bars was about 5 ounces, and cost about 72 cents per bar for the soap base. Adding in the cost of the oil, my lavender soap came close to 85 cents per bar.

Finding the right mold took a few days of contemplating. When I settled on the pasta box, I still needed to figure out how to line the box, and calculate how much soap to melt for the size box I chose. Purchased molds are simpler, but they add to the cost of making soap. (Info on calculating volume for a box is in the post on making Honey-Almond-Oatmeal soap which I linked to above.)

I like to pack the soap into airtight containers, using waxed paper between bars, and leave for a week to harden a bit more. So, to make soap as a gift, one would want to do so about 2 weeks in advance of needing those bars for gifting.

Just a teaser for tomorrow --

What do you suppose is in this envelope? Hint, it's another spa gift. I'll post about making those, and the envelopes, this week.

One more thing. It's looking like I'll have some extra spa items. I'm still going through everything, and seeing what will fit into a small PO package. But I feel a giveaway coming on! Stay tuned!

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the first week of November

Friday
It's been a very busy day, today. Taking one daughter someplace, an hour long appt for myself, grocery shopping at WinCo, peeling trimming and chopping 15 pounds of carrots, and I still need to do laundry and clean up the house. I'm too tired to do much for dinner. I'm thinking something that will use canned veggies, some of the carrots I chopped and use the food processor to do onions, all combined with frozen turkey in broth.

• turkey, vegetables and dumplings

Saturday

• leftover turkey and dumplings

Sunday

• turkey tacos, using frozen turkey, refried beans, cheese and chopped tomatoes, in a fried corn tortilla shell
• carrot sticks

Monday

• turkey, bean and cheese burritos
• oven-roasted carrots

Tuesday
Baking day. I baked 2 weeks of bread for us, 4 loaves of sandwich bread and 4 loaves of French bread. I plan on using one loaf of French bread to go with dinner tonight.

• tomato, kale and onion frittata
• French bread
• canned corn
• canned green beans
• pickled beets
• pudding/stale cookie dessert

Wednesday

After several meals of turkey, we are on a meatless streak for a few days. I soaked some black beans overnight, and I'll make a large pot of soup to last 3 nights (and a couple of lunches).

• black bean and veggie soup, topped with cheese
• home-fried tortilla chips
• last of pudding dessert

Thursday

Last night's soup was delicious. Tonight, I'll serve more of the soup, along with garlic bread on one of the loaves of French bread, that I baked on Tuesday.

• leftover black bean and veggie soup
• garlic bread
• carrot sticks and 1000 Island dressing/dip

This weeks big cooking used my large stock pot, both times! I made the turkey and dumplings that we ate for a couple of dinners and a lunch, and then later in the week, the large pot of black bean and veggie soup. So far, we're not tiring of the repetition. And this is giving me more time to do other things, like make gifts. 

We'll eat the last of the black bean soup for tonight's dinner, which is very handy considering I have an appointment this morning, then a few errands, and later this afternoon, if both daughters are home in time, we'll go over to our local Christmas store for a little holiday inspiration.

So, what was on your menu this week? Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

How not to waste a batch of failed cookies

We all have that fail in baking from time to time. Sometimes it's overdone brownies that no one wants to eat. Or a cake that's way too dry. In our case, this time, the "fail" was intentional, a batch of intentionally "bad" cookies, for a class assignment.

One daughter had an assignment to make 50 "beautiful" things and 50 "ugly" things for one of her classes. She chose to make cookies. For the 50 "ugly" things, she burned some, made them misshapen, and some she sprinkled with black pepper.

This tin of cookies sat in our pantry for almost a month. I was concerned they might mold. To my surprise, no mold, just really hard cookies.

I set out to salvage what I could from them. I used a serrated knife to cut off the tops of each cookie.

Then I crushed them coarsely with a large spoon in a bowl. I added some melted butter, a sprinkling of sugar, and dumped the whole shebang into the bottom of a baking dish. (The sugar and butter are optional. I added then to conceal the off-putting flavor and texture of these cookies.)

After dealing with the cookies, I made a batch of scratch cornstarch pudding, butterscotch-flavored. While that was still hot, I poured it over the cookie crumbs.

After allowing to cool, I put the whole thing into the fridge to chill.

I wasn't going to try any, due to the milk thing, and my bad track record with milk. But my daughter raved about it. So, I had to have some, and then some more. Good thing I took a pill. Yeah, pudding, it's my one weakness.

Honestly, this is one of those homemade desserts that no one could guess was a concealed baking "fail". I've done this with brownies, topped with chocolate pudding, and cake topped with jam and vanilla pudding. I think of this as poor man's trifle.

An aside, about scratch pudding -- do you all have a good recipe for cornstarch pudding? Do you know how to turn plain pudding into butterscotch? For butterscotch pudding, use dark brown sugar in place of white sugar, skip the vanilla extract, and at the end, swirl in 1 tablespoon of butter.

When not doing the cheapest thing ends up still being the frugal thing

Time and energy are valuable assets to frugal living, that's a given. However, they come in limited supply for all of us.

Some days, my schedule is simply jam-packed with must-do's. Pushing something to a later date isn't always possible. On those days, a little money spent for convenience, will spare enough time to get it all done. But I don't want to go overboard on the spending for convenience items.

It's a simple question, really. How can I make my day work better by spending just a little money?

On Monday, I had just those circumstances. Too much to be done. Not much that I could push off to another day. And yet, a frugal meal still needed to be on the table for dinner.

I had leftover taco filling that was to become burrito filling, if I made a batch of home-made flour tortillas. Making tortillas is one of my least favorite kitchen chores. It's a work-out on my arms, and it makes a huge mess. Just didn't want to make them. Fortunately, commercial tortillas are also a frugal convenience. Spending just a little money on tortillas could buy me enough time to get the rest of my list for the day accomplished.

I was out picking up office supplies, so I grabbed a package of tortillas, spending $1.19 for 10. The cost to make those same tortillas at home is around 30 cents. So my net expense in buying convenience was 89 cents. I saved 30 minutes or more, plus my energy, by not making tortillas that day. It was the least expensive compromise I could make in an otherwise scratch meal. Yet it yielded the same or similar results -- tasty (and frugal) homemade burritos for the family.

So, sure, it would have been cheaper to make the tortillas myself. But spending that 89 cents, net, meant that I could get to all of my other work for the day, which I see as a big gain.

Saving on carrots does come with some upfront work

If buying a 25-lb bag of carrots was as simple as bringing them home and popping them into the fridge, I suspect that stores would sell a lot more carrots package this way. However, as with many methods for saving money, this one comes at a cost in convenience, and upfront time taking care of this large amount.

I don't have a shelf in my fridge that is large enough to accommodate this size package. I have to repackage 25 pounds of carrots into 5 pound bags.

But also, there are always some carrots that will rot or mold quickly, if not taken care of right away. They need to be peeled, trimmed and chopped into sticks or dices, and stored ready to use in the fridge or freezer.

Last Friday, I spent an hour doing just that. I bagged up about 15 pounds of carrots that were in good condition, for use in a few weeks. And I peeled, trimmed and cut into sticks another 10 pounds, to use right away. My end result with these carrots was 2 good-sized bowls of ready-to-eat carrot sticks.

An hour is a lot of time for my aching shoulders, to work over the counter. But the pay-off comes in both the savings on the carrots (a savings of about 14 cents per pound, over buying in 5-lb bags), and in my future convenience for preparing meals.

I can instantly add carrot sticks to lunches and dinners. Or, I can toss some with oil and roast in the oven, for an easy side dish. Or, I can simmer with onions, ground unsweetened coconut, curry powder, garlic powder and salt, then use my immersion blender for a super easy curried carrot soup (my lunch on Saturday).

The inconvenience of dealing with so many carrots on Friday will level out with the convenience in future meal prep.

I only find these large bags in a few places around town, our restaurant supply, Cash & Carry, produce markets and stands, and WinCo. I would imagine that Costco and Sam's Club would also carry this size bag. They are sometimes referred to as juicing carrots.

How long will this bag last us, you wonder? In cool weather, our carrot consumption is high, with homemade soups, roasted carrots, carrot salad and carrot sticks as one of the few fresh veggies we keep on hand. I think this bag will last 2 months, for us. At 32 cents per pound, I will substitute cooked, pureed carrots for pureed squash and pumpkin in many baking recipes. For Thanksgiving dinner, I'm experimenting with preparing ahead, then reheating at the last minute, curried carrot soup, for a simple starter to the meal. And most of our fresh salads will now heavily feature raw carrots, such as carrot-cabbage slaw, carrot-raisin salad, and carrot-apple Waldorf salad.

Do you have any favorite carrot recipes you can add to my growing list?

October 2016 Grocery Spending Journal

October 3. Stopped at Imran's the ethnic market next to Home Depot, for 2 green peppers (2/$1) and 5 very ripe bananas (29 cents/lb) for making banana bread. Spent $1.49 (Oddly, the very ripe bananas were getting eaten up and I had to hurry to make any banana bread at all. Lesson learned, buy more bananas when that cheap!)

Oct. 4. Fred Meyer for Senior Discount day. Again with the nice touches, I got a cup of Starbuck's coffee plus a cookie when I walked in the door, and a carnation when I left. Oh, I spent a lot of money today. I know it's all good, stock-up stuff, but boy did it feel weird to spend close to $200, on food, OTCs and gardening supplies.

What I bought -- 1 head of cabbage (49 cents/lb), 4 large cans of coffee, 2 decaf, 2 regular ($4.49 each), 4 15-ounce jars of natural-style peanut butter ($1.35 each), 3 butternut squash (69 cents/lb), just over 2 lbs of walnut halves ($5.39/lb), 8 half-gallons of whole milk (90 cents each), 1 gallon skim milk ($1.75), half-gallon soy milk ($2.51), almost 10 lbs of whole almonds ($5.39 lb, plus I had $1 off coupon to use on these nuts), 3/4 lb dry-roasted edamame ($4.49/lb), 2 bags chocolate chip ($1.97 each), 1/10 lb black pepper ($19.79/lb), 2 half-gallons orange juice (90 cents each), 2 large jugs of unfiltered apple juice ($3.99 each). Plus, I picked up my lunch for today here. I stopped in after a long doctor's appointment. By the time I was almost done shopping, it was near 2 PM, and I was beyond needing to eat. I went to the deli section and bought a kale salad, a pot sticker salad and turkey breast, spending $5.98. It turned out to be enough for 2 days of my lunches. So, less than $3 per lunch isn't all that bad, for a take-out lunch that was healthy. Total spent on food today -- $130.42

October 14. My trip to WinCo. I bought a little over a lb of candy corn, at $1.48/lb,  1/2-lb of baking cocoa, at $3.08/lb, 2 lbs of raisins, at $1.79/lb,  4 acorn squash at 78 cents each,  2/3 lb of sunflower seeds at $1.70/lb, 1 lb of chopped dates, at $2.14/lb, 5 lbs of carrots for $2.28, 72-ct of corn tortillas for $2.18, 10 bananas at 48 cents/lb, 5 bags of chocolate chips for $1.68 each, a loaf of bread for $1.98, a package of English muffins for 88 cents, a 12-ounce package of bacon for $1.98, 5 Hershey's miniatures at $4.98/lb, and trick or treats for $3.98. I received a bag refund of 6 cents, using my own bag. total spent, $38.30

October 21. Fred Meyer to pick of 3 freebies, and get milk on sale. I bought 8 half-gallons of whole milk for $1 each, and 2 half-gallons of orange juice for $1 each. I also found 2 containers of coffee on clearance for $3.99 each, and got my 3 freebies -- a box of BelVita breakfast biscuits, a Hershey bar and some Airheads. Total spent today -- $17.98

October 22/ Stopped by Dollar Tree to pick up some non-food items, but also bought 1 box of crackers, to use in coffee hour, after church next Sunday. Spent $1

October 23. This month has been an aberration from my usual shopping and spending, for groceries. More evidence that I'm just not myself, these days. I'm coming down with a cold, feeling tired and yucky, and needing lunch and dinner for all of us, today (Sunday). We stop at Albertson's on the way home from church, and visit the deli. We decide on fried chicken for dinner, and some salads and meat for lunch. There was enough salads leftover from lunch that for dinner I could stretch then with the addition of some fruit, cooked pasta and cucumber, for us all at dinner. And there's enough leftover fried chicken to pull apart to turn into dinner for Monday, in something, and then use the bones in soup stock. So, we spent $18.89, and managed 3 plus meals out of it all.

Total spent for the month, so far -- $208.08

October 26. Stopped in to Trader Joe's for bananas, bought 16 bananas for 19 cents each. Spent $3.04. (Trader Joe's is in same complex as Hobby Lobby. My art student daughter likes HL art section better than Michael's. So when she needs something like paper, paint or pencils, this is where we've been going. And I can go into Trader Joe's to get bananas while she shops for art stuff.)

Total spent so far this month -- $211.12

October 28. WinCo one last time for the month, after an appointment nearby. 3 acorn squash at 78 cents each (I find the largest, weigh them, and only buy the ones over 3 lbs, for a per pound of at most, 26 cents), 2 bags of shredded coconut for holiday baking (green tag this month, so on sale), $1.38/each, 4 more bags of on sale choc chips (2 milk, 2 semi-sweet), $1.68/each, pound of raisins at $1.79/lb, 25 lb bag of carrots, $7.98 (32 cents/pound), 8 6-ounce cans whole olives, 78 cents/each, 4 cases (12 cans/case) of corn, peas, cut green beans, French cut green beans, 33 cents/15-ounce can, more candy corn (used a lot of it in trail mix for coffee hour at church), $1.48/lb, some wrapped candies for future treat-making (undisclosed varieties as some members of family read this). 3 bags for 6 cents each refund. Total spent $47.50

Total spent for the month $258.62

This month clearly deviates from my usual spending patterns. I feel like I bought too many prepared items, and way too much sweets. Maybe it's time for some changes, or maybe this was a one-off thing. Not so much in the dollar amount, but in the extra items I bought. We all need a break from time to time, if we can afford it. So, I'm trying not to be hard on myself for needing that break.

What I bought this month:

Produce

2 green peppers
31 bananas
1 head cabbage
3 butternut squash
4 half-gallons orange juice
2 large jugs of unfiltered apple juice (about 90 ounces each)
3 lbs raisins
7 acorn squash
1 lb chopped dates
30 lbs carrots
48 assorted cans of corn, peas, green beans

Meat

12 ounce package bacon

Pantry

4 large cans coffee
2 bags coffee
4 jars peanut butter
2 lbs walnuts
10 lbs almonds
3/4 lb dry-roasted edamame
11 bags chocolate chips
1/10 lb black pepper
2 lb candy corn
1/2 lb baking cocoa
2/3 lb of sunflower seeds
72-ct corn tortillas
1 loaf bread
1 package English muffins
5 Hershey's Miniatures
trick or treats (individual bags of pretzels)
Hershey bar (freebie)
Airheads (freebie)
BelVita breakfast biscuits (freebie)
1 box of crackers
8 cans of large olives
2 bags of coconut
1 lb wrapped candies, assorted, for treats in the future

Dairy

16 half-gallons whole milk
1 gallon skim milk
1/2 gallon soy milk

Ready-made meals

deli kale salad
deli pot sticker salad
deli sliced turkey
3 deli salads (about 1 cup of each: seafood, slaw and fruit/jello/whip cream)
8 pieces fried chicken
deli turkey and ham


This month, I had $573.02 available to spend on food items. I spent $258.62. Going in to November, I had $314.40 as a surplus. Add that to my usual $190, and in November I have $504.40 available to spend.

I'm not usually a big canned veggie person, but at 33 cents per can, that's a deal I can't pass up, especially as canned veggies are just so easy for winter. I bought and ate way too much sugary stuff this month. I have to curb that, as it is not good for my health. I'll try better next month. I did buy a lot of nuts in October, which will last for several months. I'll be looking for good sales on pecans in November. My buy price for pecans is between $9.50 and $9.75 per pound. I'll buy 3 to 4 pounds, if I find my price. And of course, whole turkeys, potatoes, celery, sweet potatoes and pumpkin or squash.

I've mentioned this before, but I often buy the 25-lb bags of juicing carrots for our fresh-eating carrots. Once I get the bag home, I go through it all, and sort out the ones that are likely to go bad the fastest. I set those aside, peel, trim and chop or cut for sticks to be eaten right away. The rest, I bag in paper bags, in 5-lb increments, then over-wrap in a plastic bag and store in the garage fridge. These carrots will keep like this, with no extra attention, for a couple of months. I sometimes, chop and freeze about 5 to 10 pounds, too, for convenience use in cooking. At 32 cents per pound, these make a thrifty substitute for all or some of the pumpkin in pumpkin pie/cake/muffins, as canned pumpkin is usually around $1 per 15 ounce can. Just an FYI, if you're living on a tight grocery budget, like I am.

I hope that October was gentle to your wallet!

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the last full week of October (is it really almost November? Ack!)

"hamburger squares" -- 3 lbs of seasoned ground beef, pressed into a jelly roll
 pan, to the edges, baked in the oven and cut into 15 squares,
easier than making a bunch of individual patties

Friday
A simple meal, but enjoyed in the relaxed setting of the living room. This is the very last of the roast pork from earlier this week. I was a bit apprehensive about the flavors not jiving with Tex-Mex, but as it turned out, they were delicious!

• refried bean, leftover rice/pork, cheddar tostados, with fresh quickie salsa and a packet of hot sauce from somewhere, IDK
• leftover kale and onions

Saturday
Having items like chili in the freezer has been so handy these last couple of weeks. When I am in between cooking big, I have something to fall back on, until I'm ready for a lot of kitchen work. The herb-garlic blend I made earlier in the week is now in the freezer. I can get out pinches of it to add to butter, for garlic bread, or to add to cooking rice, easily enough. Adds flavor, but no extra work for me.

• chili from the freezer
• herb-butter on French bread, toasted
• spaghetti squash (from garden)

Sunday
I'm catching a cold, or should I say, I actually caught the cold. Today feels rough. I don't want to cook. My daughters and I will make a stop at the grocery store deli after church, to find something quick and easy for lunch and dinner, today.

• fried chicken (deli)
• deli salads, leftover from lunch, and stretched using our fruits, fresh veggies and some cooked pasta
• carrot sticks
• herb-butter toasted French bread (herb butter from last week)

Monday
We didn't eat all of the fried chicken, so I plan on adding it to a salad. Should be good. I'll also bake 2 whole squash, so I can have extras ready for tomorrow night. Odd combo, the salad and baked squash, but whatever works, right?

• Chinese chicken salad, using 2 leftover pieces of deli fried chicken, shredded cabbage, shredded carrot in Asian-inspired dressing (chive blossom vinegar, oil, soy sauce, garlic, onion powder, ginger), and topped with
• homemade fried chow mein noodles
• baked acorn squash (I baked 2 large acorn squash, to use tonight and in soup for the rest of week)
• blackberry-rhubarb sauce from freezer

Tuesday

• acorn squash soup (using leftover baked squash, and chicken stock from bones of fried chicken)
• seasoned rice (using minced herbs from last week, now in freezer)
• hamburger patties (done as a slab in the oven, making a large rectangle and cutting into 15 squares), saved the juices and fat. Will make gravy with juices, tomorrow.

Wednesday

Busy day, today. Nice to have dinner ready and waiting, mostly. I think there's enough leftover soup for Thursday, too.

• leftover squash soup
• leftover seasoned rice, to which I added some sauteed onions and beet greens, leftover from today's lunch
• leftover hamburger squares (I froze them all last night, but can pull what I need out of the freezer to reheat quickly), topped with
• gravy made from hamburger drippings, some of the beef fat, dried thyme, chopped onion, garlic powder and soy sauce for color and flavor
• leftover blackberry-rhubarb sauce

Thursday

• leftover squash soup
• slider patty melts -- more hamburger squares, served as sandwiches on
• French bread slices with herb/garlic butter, grilled chopped onions and cheese, then grilled

Something I noticed about my cooking style, when cooking big -- I tend to go all in with the work, and don't worry so much about mess, or getting my hands really messy. I'm fast and furious, trying to be as efficient as I can. The works goes faster, this way. And since I know I'm only doing this twice per week, I don't mind the big clean-up that comes with big cooking.

I used my food processor to chop 3 large onions. About 2/3 of that went into the soup and the other 1/3 I kept in the fridge to add to other items, like sauteeing with greens, for an omelet, one day, and making a quick beef and onion gravy on Wednesday, and then grilling and adding to the slider patty melts. Very handy.

I hope your week went well. What was on your menu? Do you make squash soup in fall? This batch turned out deliciously, and took advantage of some leftovers, and a small amount of chicken stock that I made with the bones from fried chicken. 

Have a great weekend!

I've been making some of the soap for gifts

I'll be gifting some of this soap in less than a month. I didn't want to make the soap too far in advance, as glycerin soap gets "weepy" with age, IME. I don't know exactly what that age is, maybe a few to several months. In any case, I wanted to make this as close to gifting, as I could, but still insure that I would have extra time, in case it didn't go as planned. (You know life -- it never goes as planned!)

This is the honey-almond-oatmeal soap.

I used a goat's milk glycerin soap base, bought at Michael's with a 50% off coupon, honey-almond soap fragrance, bought at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon, honey from my pantry, oats from my pantry, the cardboard box from some spaghetti noodles, lined with plastic wrap and sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, from my pantry, at the end of pouring, I sprayed with rubbing alcohol, from my cupboards.

Since there is so much information on making melt and pour soap, already, out there. I thought I'd just give you some specific info on questions I had for my own batch.

How much oatmeal (or other dry matter like coarsely ground herbs/flower petals) in a batch of soap?

• no more than 1/4 cup ground oats (1/3-1/2 cup rolled oats) per 1 lb of soap base. I used about 3 tablespoons of ground oats, per pound and a quarter.

What form of oats to use in soap?

• the type of oats used in bars of soap is somewhere between colloidal oatmeal (finely ground, like a flour/meal), and quick-cooking oats. I took my regular rolled oats and ran them briefly through my coffee grinder, to get the right grind.

How much honey to add to soap base?

• some recipes called for as much as a couple of tablespoons of honey per pound of soap. I used 1 tablespoon of honey per pound and a quarter.

What to us for a mold?

• I used a long, narrow spaghetti noodle box, roughly 10.75 inches by 2.75 inches. This will give me 4 almost square bars of finished soap, that I will cut with a chef's knife.

How do I prepare the box for a mold?

• I used duct tape to tape the open end, closed. I used glue stick inside, to glue that opening flap on the inside, shut.
• I used an x-acto knife to slit the top of the box, down the center, and then the ends of the box, so that once slit, I had "flaps" that opened up the box, for a long, narrow tray, about 1  1/2 inches deep.
• I sprayed the inside bottom of the box, very lightly, with spray adhesive. This isn't completely necessary, but I wanted the plastic wrap to stay in place, when un-molding the soap. A little glue stick would also work. I allowed the glue to partially dry, for 20 minutes. It was tacky at this point. See notes on reusing box, as it didn't go perfectly.
• I then lined the box with a sheet of plastic wrap. This was tricky, at first, but ultimately worked out. I was able to reposition the plastic wrap, as needed, when lining the box.
• before pouring in the soap, I lightly sprayed with non-stick cooking spray -- this step was super helpful in un-molding the soap.

How do I find out how much soap to use for my box mold?

• I didn't want a bar as thick as the depth of the box, but one that was a little over an inch thick
• I calculated the cubic measurement of my box, with about 1  1/4 inches as my depth (width multiplied by height/depth multiplied by length)
• I entered my cubic inches into this calculator online to convert cubic inches to liquid volume
• for my box, my cubic inches was 36.95, and I used 1  1/4 pounds of soap base
• my resulting bars are about 2.68 inches by 2.75 inches, but only 1 inch tall. A lot of soap seemed to remain in my melting can. So, for future bars of soap, in this box, I'll add about 2 extra ounces per pound, of soap base. I can always pour extra soap into a yogurt container.

How do you keep bubbles from forming on the surface of the soap, after pouring?

• immediately after pouring the soap into the mold, I sprayed/spritzed the surface of the soap with rubbing alcohol, using the spray top to my fine-mist spray bottle (a repurposed body mist bottle)

How do I keep the sides of the box from bowing out, after filling with soap?

• I used 2 hardbound books -- before pouring the soap, I set a book right up against each of the long sides of the box, holding the sides of the box in place -- a very lightweight, make-shift vise of sorts. It worked well-enough for me, to yield bars with straight sides.

How long do I keep my soap in the box?

• I left mine in overnight. The next morning, I tried flipping the box over to un-mold and the soap wouldn't come out. So, I put the box into the freezer for half an hour. 

Will it come out of the mold easily?

• I had trouble getting my soap bar out of the mold. I used a table knife to loosen it. It was primarily stuck in the corners. I undid one of the taped ends of the box, to retrieve my soap.

Can I reuse my box mold?

• this is why I went to the trouble to adhere plastic wrap to my box. I want to make a differently fragranced set of soap, when this batch was done, using the same box. Ultimately, I did get the soap out of the box. I will reline the box with new plastic, I think, and try to reuse the same box.

What do you do about the lines and marks from the plastic wrap?

• I wasn't careful enough with lining the box with the plastic, so the obvious answer for me is to be more careful to line the box next time, without wrinkles, as much as possible.
• otherwise, you can smooth out many imperfections on your soap, using a plain terry towel. I simply buffed my soap until the markings were less obvious. This is homemade hand-crafted soap, so some imperfections are to be expected, and desired. Having added oats to the soap worked great as a camouflage for some of the imperfections. My next batch will have semi-ground lavender buds in it, again concealing some of the imperfections from pouring into a make-shift mold. 

How do you cut the large bar into individual bars?

• After measuring and lightly marking my long bar, I used a chef's knife, with a quick push downward (no sawing). Worked like a charm.

I like how this hand-crafted soap turned out. It was easy enough, and the cost was reasonable. I was able to buy the 2 ingredients that I lacked, the soap base and the scented oil, with coupons, substantially reducing my cost per bar. Each bar came to just under $1, including tax. The top photo shows 1 bar of hand-crafted soap along with one of my hand-crafted spa cloths (at about 80 cents each). Those two items together, tied with a pretty ribbon, would make a nice gift, and the total cost is under $2.

To wrap each bar of soap, I will use some cellophane that I have here. I have a large cellophane bag that  I will repurpose, by cutting into squares for wrapping individual bars.

Next week, I'll make the lavender soap, to pair with the lavender-colored spa cloths that I knit. 

How to make crispy fried noodles out of thin spaghetti, for topping Asian soups and salads

These aren't exactly like commercial crispy chow mein noodles, but they are very good in their own right.

I was making an Asian cabbage and chicken salad the other day, and wanted to top it with crispy noodles. I've made crispy lasagna noodle squares before, so I knew this was possible to do from dried pasta. I thought you might like to try this sometime, too.

Here's what I used and did:

• dry, thin spaghetti noodles -- I used whole wheat and it was "thin spaghetti" (if you use someting else, you'll have to adjust your timing of cooking the pasta in water), about enough for 1 serving of pasta
• 3 teaspoons corn starch
• oil for frying, no more than 1/2 of a saucepan of oil (too much can overflow when noodles are added)

Break uncooked noodles in half. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Drop the thin spaghetti into the water, and stir to separate. Set the timer for 4 minutes. (This thin spaghetti normally takes 5-7 minutes to cook. So, for other pasta, I'd subtract 1 minute from the low end of cooking time suggestion.)

After 4 minutes, drain the noodles, thoroughly. Spread on a dinner plate.

Sprinkle the noodles with 1 teaspoon of corn starch. Use a fork to toss the noodles and corn starch together.

Sprinkle, again, with 1 teaspoon of corn starch, and again toss with a fork to distribute the corn starch.

One more time, sprinkle the noodles with the last teaspoon of corn starch. Use your fingers to toss the noodles, thoroughly, picking up any corn starch on the plate beneath the noodles.

Allow to stand for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Bring oil up to about 350 degrees, over Medium heat. Test the oil with one piece of spaghetti to see if it begins sizzling right away. When test piece is sizzling, well, remove it from the oil.

Drop small pinches of the noodles into the hot oil, in 3 separate spots in the oil. The oil will foam up significantly, from the moisture in the noodles. When the sizzling is almost done, the noodles should be cooked.

Use a slotted frying scoop to remove cooked noodles, and place on a paper lined plate. About half way through frying all of the noodles, transfer the fried noodles to a new plate lined with paper. Continue using the old paper-lined plate for remaining noodles.

After the noodles have cooled, they can be kept in a tightly-sealed container in the pantry for a few days.

I am considering frying regular white spaghetti noodles, to use in haystack cookies, this holiday season. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Making cinnamon-fragranced pinecones, for cheap!

This is another very inexpensive and terribly easy home decor project, that I see for sale in stores -- yes people buy these!

If I didn't have free pinecones I could gather, then maybe I could understand purchasing scented pinecones. But for anyone who has a wooded area near their home, or a woodland hiking spot nearby, or a lovely treed park to visit, the bulk of this project is free. And it can provide a lovely outing, to boot!


You know those cinnamon pinecones in large, red mesh bags, sold in craft stores this time of year? They're usually right by the door, so you can't miss their fragrance, as you walk in.

What I love about them.
I love their fragrance. I love the natural beauty of a clean pinecone. I love that you can have a mass of them, affordably, to adorn your home decor.

But I don't love their price, at $10 per bag. Especially since I can walk right out my front door and find wonderful pinecones, in several sizes, shapes and shades of brown, just laying at my feet.

The other day, I knew I needed to get outside for a few minutes. So I brought a paper sack and went out to the evergreens in the front yard. Under the Western White Pine were these gorgeous, elongated, white-tipped pinecones. I filled my sack, then brought them to the garage to sit until I could get to them. (hands on time 10 minutes, plus I got a nice, but brief, outing)

level of difficulty of this project -- very easy
what I used:

• foraged pinecones (I've used Western White Pine, but any fallen cones will work), enough to fill a turkey roasting pan
• roasting pan, line the bottom with foil or a sheet of parchment (this is a great use for that sheet of foil that has been used and washed, multiple times, and is on it's way out the door)
• cinnamon fragrance oil (the amount will vary with your preference, as well as strength of fragrance) Fragrance oils are less expensive than essential oils, and often the fragrance has a more potent and lingering aroma than their essential oil counterparts. But essential oils can be used, too, and may have aromatherapy benefits. 
• **You can fragrance these with any fragrance you please. Nearer to Christmas, these would be wonderful if fragranced with a woodland pine oil. Or, you may prefer a blend of spices, like and apple pie oil, or spiced pumpkin pie oil
• small spray bottle (I've reused a small body-spray bottle. Normally, I use this bottle for spray starch for ironing.)
• water
• newspaper and a large plastic bag

Foraged pinecones are a happy abode for all kinds of tiny critters, none of which I want in my home! The cheapest and least toxic way to take care of the bugs is baking in the oven.

I brought my sack of pinecones into the kitchen and dumped them into my foil-lined turkey roaster.

I popped them into a 200 degree F oven for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, I removed the roaster from the oven, and gently turned the pinecones over, to expose any damp ones. The pinecones, themselves, were not terribly hot. I was able to handle them with my fingers.  But then again, I have "asbestos fingers". YMMV.

I put the roaster back into the 200 degree F oven for 25 additional minutes.

Take care with the baking. Check on the pinecones from time to time. Don't leave them unattended. While I had no problems with mine, dried-out pinecones are flammable, and we are talking about putting them inside a heated oven.

After baking, I removed the roaster from the oven, and gently set the pinecones on sheets of newspaper, spread out on the kitchen floor. A fully dried pinecone should be open, and feel lightweight. I was a bit apprehensive about what this might smell like. I was happily surprised that the pinecone-baking had a pleasant pine wood smell. (hands on time, 10 minutes)

Your drying time may vary. Weather conditions where you found the pinecones, their size and the amount in the roaster will affect the length of time required to throughly dry pinecones.

After cooling for a while, (at least 30 minutes, I didn't get back to working with these for a couple of days), I gently shook them, and picked off the moss and pine needles. I lightly brushed off residual dirt with an all-purpose scrub brush. I spread the cleaned and dried pines cones, single layer, but close together on a clean sheet of newspaper. (hands-on time, about 15 minutes)

Time to add fragrance.
The amount of water to use is minimal. It's used to diffuse the fragrance oil over all of the pinecones. I used 1 tablespoon of water, poured into the small spray bottle. To the bottle, I added the fragrance oil. I began with about 10 drops of the cinnamon oil, and tested on my pinecones. It didn't seem strong enough, so I added another 30 drops. Shook well and sprayed over the pinecones. Turn the pinecones over, and spray the other side. To get all of the fragrance out of the spray bottle, I held the last few pinecones, as I sprayed with the bottle upright, and then at the very end, dripped the last bit of fragrance onto some cones. (hands-on time, 5 minutes)

All of the pinecones were put into a large, doubled plastic bag, and sealed the bag tightly. I set the pinecones to infuse with fragrance overnight. Several "overnights" passed, as other things came up. But about 1 week later, I opened the bag, dumped out on clean newspaper and sprayed with another tablespoon of water mixed with about 30 drops of cinnamon oil. Once again, I put sealed in the large plastic bag. (hands-on time, 5 minutes)

By the next morning, the pinecones were nicely infused with cinnamon fragrance, and ready to go into a bowl or basket. These aren't heavily scented, but have a nice, subtle aroma when I pass this spot in the entry hall.

Total hands-on time: 45 minutes, spread out over several days.

I will probably need to refresh the fragrance a couple of times throughout the season.  And I will likely switch over to the Woodland Pine scent that I used on holiday pot pourri last winter, when December begins (I added cinnamon and cloves to that pot pourri, so I don't think the fragrances will compete).

Cost to make: I bought the cinnamon fragrance oil at Hobby Lobby, using a 40% off online coupon, for $2.62, including tax. I used about a quarter of the bottle, about 70 cents worth. The pinecones were free. My electricity cost to run the oven was about 10 cents (or less). My total cost for this project -- 80 cents.

Just an FYI, Dollar Tree sells a cinnamon-apple fragrance, for a mere dollar. Or, you can use coupons at Michael's or Hobby Lobby, or you can order cinnamon fragrance oils online, through Amazon, candlescience.com, or naturesgardencandles.com (all about $2.50 to $3.00).

The various online instructions called for much less fragrance oil than satisfied me, like 8-10 drops. Different oils will be more or less fragrant, depending on brand, aroma, purpose for the oil. The cinnamon oil that I found, locally, is candle oil. Perhaps the aroma has less strength in candle oils. or perhaps it was due to the fragrance, as it was a cinnamon roll fragrance, with definite vanilla overtones to the cinnamon. In any case, 8 -10 drops would not have given me the fragrance I desired. I believe I used somewhere around 50 drops, total. Still, it was about 1/4 of the bottle, and very cheap.

You could drip the fragrance oil onto the pinecones, if you were careful to drip into the center of each cone, so as not to stain the outer petals with oil (if that matters to you). The purpose of spraying the cones with a water/oil blend is to diffuse the fragrance evenly over the cones and avoid oil staining. (Just an FYI, incase you'd like to do this but don't have a spray bottle handy.)

Some folks prefer to wash their pinecones in a basin of water, before drying. I opted to skip that, as it seems to me it would just add to the baking time. Since we're not going to eat these pinecones, or place them on white upholstery, I figured drying, then brushing them off, would be adequate for cleaning. I suppose if the pinecones were truly muddy, then a rinse in water would be beneficial.

Incidentally, if you don't want fragranced pinecones, but just want your pinecones au naturel, baking, then a quick brushing off, will give you clean and bug-free pinecones for using indoors.

Sometimes it's not what you eat, but where you eat, that makes a meal special

In summer, we enjoy grassy picnics, waterside dinners on the beach, and pleasant summer cookouts around the fire ring. These venues make our humble meals feel special, without even changing the menu.

This autumn, we've continued along the same lines, but more appropriate for this cool and wet weather.

Picture a glowing fire, deep cushions, soft fabrics, and amiable companions -- all that is needed for a little dolce far niente. This is how we've been enjoying our simple Friday suppers, as of late. Whatever is on the menu, we plate and take to the living room, to dine by the glow of the fireplace.

It's pleasing. It's simple. And for just a little while, we are removed from daily life.

A truly frugal indulgence.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for mid-October (the humble bean burger starts the week)

Friday
I spent about 3 hours in the kitchen making enough bean burger patties to get us through 4 suppers and a couple of lunches. I had to dedicate my entire afternoon to this endeavor. But the payoff was that I didn't have much preparation for suppers for several evenings in a row.

• bean burger patties, topped with tomato slices and 1000 Island dressing (made from homemade green tomato sweet relish, 3 ketchup packets, mayo and chive blossom vinegar)
• whole wheat penne pasta with butter
• baked acorn squash, seasoned with brown sugar, cinnamon and butter

Saturday

I volunteered at a fund-rasier today and I am very glad to have dinner practically ready for plates. I'm tired.

• leftover bean burger patties, topped with tomato slices and leftover 1000 Island dressing
• whole wheat rotini pasta
• baked acorn squash

Sunday

• leftover bean burger patties, topped with tomato slices and leftover 1000 Island dressing
• oven fries, seasoned with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and chipotle pepper
• leftover acorn squash
• cucumber salad in dressing of last of Ranch dressing mixed with oil and vinegar

Monday 

In the comments on last week's Cheap & Cheerful post, Brandy from The Prudent Homemaker mentioned preparing grape leaves as a side, recently. Grape leaves are a super nutritious leafy green that gets very little recognition. Her comment inspired me to go out and see if I could find enough tender leaves for making a batch of stuffed grape leaves. I have everything I need, here. I think these will be tasty with the last of the bean burger patties.

• leftover bean burger patties, again served with tomato and 1000 Island
• stuffed grape leaves (leaves blanched in microwave before stuffing with rice, raisins, garlic, onion, almonds, cumin, oregano, olive oil, salt and lemon juice. After rolling up, steamed in the oven with lemon juice, water and salt, dish covered in foil)
• freshly baked French bread (yep, it was baking day. I did sandwich bread and French loaves)
• curried peanut coleslaw, with a zip of curry and chutney (I left out the frozen peas)

the second "cooking big" entree -- roast pork loin

Tuesday

Today was my big cooking day for the week. I spent about 5 hours in the kitchen, but was able to make-ahead quite a lot, to get me through the next 3 or 4 days.

• herb and garlic-crusted pork loin
• herb and garlic roasted potato wedges
• oven-roasted carrots and onions
• leftover cole slaw
• leftover stuffed grape leaves
• chunky applesauce

Wednesday

I've got some lingering cooked squash and thawed pumpkin puree in the fridge. I'll use both to make a batch of pumpkin muffins. I can do those in the morning, and have them ready and waiting at dinner time, to round out a meal of leftovers.

• leftover pork loin, I poured some minced herbs in water over the slices, before reheating
• leftover carrots and onions
• leftover applesauce
• canned green beans
• pumpkin and squash muffins

Thursday

This is the last night of the pork loin. I'm thinking to cube it and combine with either rice or noodles, along with more of the herb mixture. I'll need a veggie or two to go with this. I'll see what's still in the garden, when the rain lets up.

• brown rice with minced herbs from earlier in the week, diced roast pork, and olive oil
• French bread slices, spread with minced herb-butter, and toasted in oven
• fresh tomato slices
• kale and onions sauteed in bacon fat

I feel like I am getting most of my dinner inspiration from all of you, these days. So I send you all a big thank you! I have some frozen leftovers I can use over the weekend, then I have to come up with something else. Any ideas? Ha ha! I'm getting lazy. I don't want to even do my own menu planning.

I hope you all had a great week, and have wonderful plans for the weekend. Wishing you well!

Spiced beverage "starter" (or, how to make the spicey part of spiced apple cider in advance)

I shared this on facebook a couple of weeks ago. But because I know not all of you do facebook, I thought I would share it here, as well, simply because I've enjoyed having this in my fridge this autumn. I think of it as a spiced beverage "starter".

You may be wondering why I don't just simmer drinks like cider with the spices in them. Obviously, there's the instant factor that I appreciate. But more importantly to me, is pre-infusing some water with the spices, then adding the cider or juice for a brief heating, helps retain heat-sensitive nutrients, like vitamin C.

It's all of the yummy spices of autumn, infused in water, strained, then stored in the fridge. I use the infusion to add spice to hot apple cider, or make a spiced tea with Dollar Tree black tea bags, some apple juice and a spoonful of sugar or honey.

I've been using whole cloves, ground cinnamon (sticks would be nice, but cost more for me) and some allspice berries.

I make this infusion, either in a single cup, in the microwave, to enjoy right away or I make an entire pan of it, and keep in the refrigerator, for impromptu mugs of spiced drinks. Making this "starter" is an easy way for me to have an expensive-tasting drink at dollar store prices.

To make infusion, by the mug:
I put 1/4 teaspoon of whole cloves (or 2 pinches ground cloves)
2 or 3 whole allspice berries (or pinch of ground allspice)
and a 1-inch piece of cinnamon stick (I use 1/8 teaspoon of ground cinnamon) 
into about 1/8 to 1/4 cup of water.

I microwave in 25 second intervals, about 3 times, and allowing 2 or 3 minutes in between intervals, for steeping. I remove any whole spices with a spoon, and either add a black tea bag and apple juice and water, for an apple-spice black tea, or, I fill the mug with apple cider and a bit of honey or sugar, for hot spiced cider, and heat all, as needed.

While making this one mug at a time has been nice, I also really appreciate making a pint of the spiced infusion, for several days of spiced beverages, made easy.

For a pint of spiced infusion:
I put 3 cups of water into a stainless saucepan,
along with 1 tablespoon of whole cloves,
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon (or 2 whole sticks of cinnamon), and
1/2 teaspoon of allspice berries.

I allow this to heat, just below a simmer, on the stove for about 1 hour, until reduced by about 1/3 in the saucepan. It makes the house smell fantastic, by the way!

Then I pour it through a strainer, into a glass jar, and keep in the refrigerator. It has been keeping just fine, for over a week, for me. Spiced beverage "starter" just waiting for my cuppa.

To use: pour about 1/8 to 1/4 cup of infusion into a mug or cup, and add black tea, and/or apple cider, along with about a teaspoon of honey or sugar, if desired. Heat in the microwave.

I'm enjoying this for my own personal cups of apple-spiced tea, but it's also been nice to add to a family meal for the crowd, at the last minute. Hope you enjoy!