We have spent the past few days exchanging Christmas gifts with family and friends. It’s so nice to have them all purchased and wrapped and almost all handed out! There’s a little more delivering to do, but that will be soon finished. It was nice to have mini-visits with some people as they either dropped things off or we did.
I made up a huge batch of rice/bean/cheese burritos for the freezer. One bag was sent off as part of a gift, along with some banana-chocolate chip bread. The rest were frozen for later. Patsy will eat these every couple of days and they make a quick lunch or supper. When I sent Rob to the store a couple of weeks ago for tortillas, they were quite expensive–over $2.50 for one package, and I had asked for 2. He got them, because he was there and we are limiting our store trips. They were soon eaten because Patsy absolutely loves them. I needed a better solution for mass production of burritos for gifts or mass consumption by Patsy! Thankfully, while he was in the Dollar Tree getting a few items for Christmas, he found them for $1 per package. He grabbed a handful, and I was in the burrito business!
I spent a couple of hours perusing old magazines for recipes that used foods I have on hand. I found at least 20 recipes I could make that looked good, marked them with sticky notes and added them to my menu plan. I went ahead and menu-planned for the next 2 weeks, and Rob picked up the groceries I needed. I should be done for the year now:). Sounds funny, doesn’t it? It’s amazing that the the year went both so slowly at times, and so quickly at others.
Jake needed an “ugly sweater” for his Zoom class for school. His dad fixed him up with lights over his normal shirt, and they promptly quit working, so Rob fixed him up with yet another string of lights at our house. He also has a bow, as you can see, and he was pleased as punch with himself and his “sweater. ” He showed his class, then we put it all away and no one was stuck with a sweater that would not be worn again. He does about an hour and a half on the computer, and does homeschool the rest of the time. I supervise/help on Thursdays. I concentrate of Language Arts, and do whatever his mother tells me to do. I read, read, read to him for one thing. We recently finished the book, “Caddie Woodlawn” and are now working on the Wright Brothers.
We were given several squash. Rob cut 2 up and we baked them and ground them with the Foley Food Mill.
Even though each time we cook squash, we eat a lot of it immediately, I am getting a good amount frozen now. One of these was much sweeter than the other, so I froze the sweeter one for eating in cartons, and the less sweet one in baggies for baking. That way, it all will be used and enjoyed.
While I was at it, I cut up a Butternut and roasted it with olive oil and salt.
We snack on the cubes and put them on salads.
We picked the first batch of lettuce from Rob’s planting in the greenhouse. This is a kind from Territorial called Yukon Blend, promised to do well in cooler weather, plus some Buttercrunch. So far, the greenhouse has been completely unheated. The weather has been quite mild for this time of year.
But, it’s definitely cool enough to enjoy chili and cornbread along with other soups and stews.
Patsy and Michaela made cinnamon rolls for Christmas Day. Patsy’s been banned from making them lately, since they are WAY TOO GOOD! But, hey…Christmas, right? We are always looking for projects to do with Michaela, so Patsy has painted her nails red and green a couple of times lately. She did it again this week.
Rob also took them to McDonald’s for the free McFlurry’s today. Well, not quite free…you had to make a $1 purchase. It was a great, inexpensive outing.
Have a wonderful Christmas, everyone! We are planning a quiet one, but a fun one. I hope yours is fun, too.
We had another very quiet week around here. With the Covid numbers rising like they are, we feel it’s just best to stick to home for the most part. So, we concentrated on getting things done around here.
We went and got the school lunches several times. The small portions of canned peaches and pears from those lunches were stacking up in the fridge. Since we have so much canned fruit of our own, they are not on anyone’s list of foods to gobble down first. So, I froze a bunch of them on a cookie tray, then made a smoothie from some of them and saved the rest for another time. I also mixed raspberries with some and made more popsicles.
As I was making the smoothie, the mini-blender’s motor froze up. Rob tore it apart, fixed it, and hopefully we will have many more smoothies! It’s very old, and we have used it so much, it may be worn out, but for now, it’s working.
I did some sewing and made a Christmas gift using things I had on hand. I am very pleased with the gifts I have made, and especially pleased with the fact that I used some materials and supplies that I’ve had for years. I was able to get some supplies at JoAnn’s, such as several widths of elastic, this fall, and was glad I bought plenty. I don’t plan to go back any time soon.
I used a different method of menu planning this week. It was called the “I opened the little freezer on top of the fridge in the kitchen and tons of stuff fell on my feet” plan together with the “use it up before it goes bad” plan:). Every day , we ate some of the little bits of food I had saved at some point, mostly in little baggies (hence the avalanche!). They are slippery little guys! There were pork chops, hamburger and chicken breast in there, so I started with those, along with the 2 leftover bowls of soup in the fridge–split pea and chicken rice. There were little bits of various meats, rice and veggies, and assorted buns and breads. I added veggies and fruit as needed from the canning/freezing stash and made some strange combos.
I also roasted a Butternut squash and cooked a large Sweetmeat. I froze some of the Sweetmeat after I pureed it. We ate quite a bit of it during the week.
Rob had to go into the stores for the last few items to finish up the Christmas shopping. While there, he grabbed a couple of grocery items, but we needed very little as he had just shopped for us a few days ago. I did have him pick up 12 cans of Progresso gluten-free clam chowder, as they were on sale for 99c each and he was there anyway. That’s a very good price and we love to eat a can of that for lunch occasionally.
We organized and wrapped all the gifts and they are ready to drop off at people’s houses.
Patsy made some pretzels with white chocolate coating and bagged them up for Christmas. We used some pretzels purchased on clearance a while back and vaccuum-sealed for freshness, along with some white chocolate purchased on 49c on clearance a while back. It looks festive for pennies!
Some of Rob’s lettuce in the greenhouse is getting almost ready for us to eat. I’m excited! It’s not huge, but it’s not bad for an unheated greenhouse!
We ordered our seeds from Territorial as soon as their website opened up for orders. Today, we received all of it, but one packet. They said they are still packaging up seeds and will send us that one as soon as they get it packed up. Our seeds from Pinetree have arrived also. We are all set for another awesome growing season! Last winter, we ordered early, so were not caught in the frenzy of seed shortages. We did, however, have a hard time when we needed more of a few items mid-summer. All of the seed companies are stating that they expect high demand for seeds again this year, so we ordered even earlier than usual. We also ordered some fall veggie seeds as the fall/winter garden was a rousing success. We still have cabbage and celery out there. I’m going to pick more soon.
We also have a generous amount of seeds Rob saved last summer from part of our open-pollinated veggies, so we were able to order less than we usually would.
We continued our project of chopping our downed peach tree branches up and putting them out in the yard-debris bin. I think I will easily fit what’s left in next week and that job will be done.
We took lots of walks, in-between torrential rain showers, hail, cold sunshine, and fog. It’s getting challenging to get those in, but we are managing almost every day.
This pullover is for Michaela, my autistic niece. Recently, she saw me sewing quilts for her sister and Lovana. She really, really wanted me to sew her something for Christmas, too. She loves soft, fuzzy things and animal prints, so I knew this piece of fleece would be perfect for her. She dislikes surprises intensely, so I let her choose what she wanted made from it. She choose a pullover “like uncle’s.” He has a couple I made him years ago that he wears while working outside.
I used a pattern that I have had for years. I can see from the envelope that it cost $1.25 at the time I bought it. I have used it many, many times and have really gotten my money’s worth out of it. Thankfully, I had some fabric she liked, a zipper in my stash and some 1/2 inch elastic for the sleeves on hand. I am not doing any extra shopping right now, so was very relieved I had what I needed, especially a zipper that was the right kind that matched. I use the kind with the thick, wide teeth for these pullovers. That kind are usually separating zippers, but I just sew over the bottom and cut off any extra because I don’t need them to separate for this project.
Since she spends Tuesdays and Thursdays here, I used this as an activity. We try to keep her busy. So, one day, she watched as I cut it out. Another time, I had her take the pins out of some of the pattern pieces, then she got a chair and stared at me as I sewed. No pressure there:). I worked on it quite a bit over the weekend while she was not here, and only had to measure the elastic for the sleeves around her wrists and insert it. I did that yesterday, then finished it up. She tried it on. It is enormous on her, even though we cut out her size. Thankfully, she doesn’t care. She will likely layer it with shirts under it anyway.
Tomorrow, I will let her and Patsy wrap it up, because they both love to wrap gifts. Then, she will open it on Christmas and be as happy as a clam.
Or otherwise known as “Eating Cinnamon Rolls All Week!” Patsy has been making gluten-free cinnamon rolls all week long. There are some in the freezer, we have shared a few, but, I have to confess we’ve eaten quite a few! I think one of the reasons I have been enjoying them so much is because it has been a long, long time since I’ve had any, as gluten-free cinnamon rolls are few and far between in my world:) While gluten-free ingredients are not inexpensive by any means, it would have cost even more to buy them.
We have taken a few walks this week, for obvious reasons!
We finished up the cherry tomatoes. I picked them green and put them in a dish in the garage and most of them did ripen. We also finished the last of the larger tomatoes Rob picked green and wrapped in tissue. Not bad for the first week of December, we thought!
I got a small bowl of Yukon Mix Winter lettuce from the garden. I mixed it with iceberg from the store for 2 salads. I cut it off, rather than pulling the few bushes remaining, and maybe it will grow some more. Who knows? Not me. I’ve never harvested lettuce in December before. I’m thrilled with what I’ve picked and will happily pick more if it grows. There’s some little plants under my covered cold frame, but they were planted later than the ones I harvested today.
I also got some cilantro and some celery, which is still mostly leaves. I made soup with celery leaves and a small Waldorf salad with the tiny stems and an apple.
I have been working on a grocery list for the past week or so, by simply writing down items as we run out and scouring the ads for good deals. It took me until today to get a big enough list to use my coupon, as my menu plan has focused on my stored food. I sent Rob to Safeway to get the items and use the $10 of $50 coupon. He also had to go into Fred Meyers during the weekend to get prescriptions so picked up a few of the good deals there. I had him get plenty of head lettuce, carrots, milk and other things that will hold well since I don’t plan to shop again for 10 days or more, if we can make it.
I did notice I was making a few more substitutions as I cooked toward the end of this stretch, but it worked out.
I made a menu plan again, to continue to manage my food. I was able to use up a few more items that had been around for ages and lots of my preserved food.
A while back, Rob built me some wooden boxes to put empty jars in to leave me more “wiggle room” on my shelves until we use up more full jars of canning. We canned so much this year that he was afraid I might break some while shuffling things around getting desired ones out. Once the boxes are fully full, I should have no trouble fitting the remaining empties on the shelf.
I was also able to repurpose some food that was leftover from the free school lunches. Some celery went into soup and some chopped pears and peaches were mixed with my frozen raspberries and made into popsicles. One of the apples went into the Waldorf salad. Michaela helped drink up the extra milk and ate one of the leftover apples.
Snipped, dried tomatoes went into a pasta salad, dried zucchini went into a vegetable soup at the last minute so they wouldn’t get mushy, and grated zucchini went into a snack cake. We are sharing most of the cake with some friends, as there have been just too many desserts around here lately.
My Azure Standard order got lost for the first time, ever. After a few phone calls, they just mailed me another order, instead of sending it to the drop site. There were a couple of things they were out of, but I was glad they were so quick to make it right and glad to have the things I got.
I watched another beautiful, absolutely free, sunrise! It was even better than the picture.
Around 20 years ago, my niece Alissa joined our family. I sewed her a baby blanket. She named it “Animal.” Somehow, all these years later, I still had scraps left over and, at her request, made her a new, grown-up “Animal.” (She spotted those scraps one day (over 2 years ago), when I was cleaning a bit during homeschooling her, and remembered I had them.)
The patterned fabric, blue with stars, deep rose blender, green with little flowers, and yellow were the scraps. I kept with the theme of squares, as there were squares in the print, and just tried to match the colors in the print with fabric I had in my stash. My goal was to make a blanket that was grown-up enough that she could use it without feeling like she was carrying her baby blanket around with her, and large enough to wrap around her shoulders and use when she’s cold. Since she’s working at a Christian camp these days, I know she can use a blanket for her bed, as well, and this one will hopefully bring her lots of love since it will remind her of her childhood and many wonderful memories. I’m going to give it to her for Christmas. She knows about it, as I checked with her while I was making it to make sure it was what she had in mind after she asked me to make it.
Project #2: Lovana’s Garden
About a year after sweet Alissa came to live with her parents, Lovana and Ja’Ana came to live with us. Before they moved in, I started a quilt for Lovana. Yes. This quilt. I finished it this weekend. You could say it took a while for this garden to grow.
I’ve actually been working on this one for the last several months, since I’ve been home more because of Covid. I decided it was the perfect time to finish up some projects that have been around for far too long. I finally finished yesterday. She’s seen pieces of it over the years and has been told it was for her. I know she’s going to be very surprised when she sees it’s finally finished! This one will be a surprise, for sure, as I’m positive she’s long given up that she was going to ever get her quilt!
Since we are staying home as much as possible because of our Covid restrictions, I didn’t want to shop to finish these quilts. Even though Lovana’s was larger than I’ve ever done before, I machine quilted both of them, using one large piece of batting (cut in half) that was in storage in the loft above the shop. This close to Christmas, I’m sure the machine quilters are already booked up, and besides, I’m not going places right now, including quilt shops. I will admit, it was hard for me to keep things flat and smooth while I sewed simple lines across the quilt and there was ripping involved. I did prevail, and then hand-sewed the bindings down while watching more t.v. in one weekend than ever before:)
There was just enough fabric left over from 3 of the prints used in the quilt, and I sewed them together to make a back for Lovana’s. There was plenty of the green dot for her binding.
I had a large piece of muslin we had picked up from a yard sale and used it for the back and binding of Alissa’s.
I used up the batting from the shop loft, and even finished up a spool of thread and most of another one. One of these days, I will need to replace some of my sewing items, but for now, I’m rejoicing that I’ve been able to use up some things that have been taking up space for a long, long time.
Both quilts are showing up a little darker in these pictures than they are in real life. They are both a little brighter. Both turned out lovely. I am super happy that I got them both done, quilted, and finished in time for Christmas!
We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving at home. I used table decorations from past years, and a lovely table runner my aunt made for me as a gift one year. Even though it was just the 3 of us, Patsy enjoyed decorating the table and we cooked all of our traditional favorites like turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, cupcakes, and more.
It turned out to be quite a feast! We even remembered to light the candles:). My sister, her family, and my aunt dropped off a little Thanksgiving cheer during the afternoon in the form of caramel corn and M and M’s. It was especially nice to briefly see their cheerful faces. For dinner, we watched a movie as we munched finger foods. I made artichoke/spinach dip, clam dip, and dill dip and we had raw veggies and chips to dip into them. We also played a few rounds of “King’s Corners,” a card game.
We cooked a couple of the squash Rob purchased at a roadside stand. His cousin has since given us a couple more, so we will get those cooked up soon. I have 6– 2-cup cartons in the freezer now, and in addition, we ate and cooked with a bunch. Since that is another thing I was completely out of, I am delighted to get the freezer stocked again. I use cooked winter squash in any recipe calling for pumpkin. We like the flavor better.
I took the kids for the free school lunches a couple of times. They got some things they liked, such as a hot dog, white and chocolate milk, apples and baby carrots.
We ate pretty simply throughout the week and made a special effort to clean up any leftovers to make more room in the fridge for holiday food. We ate leftovers Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, I made vegetable soup, and turkey burgers. I made such a large pot of soup that we will eat that all week, and I’m sure I will need to freeze some. I also made a new menu plan for the week, focusing on using home-frozen and home-canned foods, along with pantry foods. I don’t need groceries for a couple of days, but am getting quite a list of things we’ve used up. I hope Safeway runs another $10 off $50, because I have enough of a list to easily use the coupon this time. Last month, I struggled to use it. That coupon usually is at the beginning of the month, so it would start next Wednesday if they run it this month. It will last until the following Tuesday. By then, there will be even more things on my list, I’m sure. I may need a little milk to get through, but I hope to limit my shopping again this month.
Patsy and Rob got the Christmas decorations out, and Patsy put them up.
It was a simple week. We are on a Covid “freeze” here in Oregon. We are supposed to stay home. So, I did. I haven’t left the house since Wednesday, and that was just to pick up Jake to watch him for the day. I’m a bit of a homebody anyway, but that is longer than usual, even for me. Rob only left once, and that was to take some bins over to Lovana’s house. He’s been cleaning the loft of the shop and found quite a few bins of her things that belong over there. He actually put in quite a bit of time up in that loft, cleaning, this week, and I hear it looks much better. I’m sure when I go up there, I will be thrilled that there are less bins and things are more organized.
The “freeze” is supposed to lighten up next Wednesday. But, until then, I plan to stay home and eat cupcakes. There could be worse things that could happen to me in this world:).
When Rob was out and about, chopping wood in the forest, he stopped by a couple of roadside produce stands. At one of our favorites, he got dry walnuts for only $1.75/pound, and grabbed 10 lbs. We’ve spent a couple of sessions cracking them out and have them all ready to freeze to keep them fresh for the year.
He also grabbed some squash and I cooked one on Saturday. They were only 35c/pound at one stand he found. I ground the baked squash with my food mill, and will freeze some and we will use some. I use winter squash like pumpkin, and was completely out in the freezer.
I cooked black beans and Patsy made taco soup, white beans in ham and bean soup, and split pea soup. It was all delicious and inexpensive, but this week will feature less bean-heavy meals. We ate bean meals multiple times, since there were leftovers along with the original meals.
After carefully menu-planning and shopping last week, and not planning to go again, I was thrilled to see in the Wednesday advertisements where we could get ham for 97c/lb at Safeway, one per family. It has been difficult to find good sales for ham this year, so Rob stopped in and got one for us, and one for my sister, as she does not go into stores right now. He also got the $1.47/lb butter, $5 Tillamook cheese, and inexpensive eggs and mandarins, since he was there. We chose to be flexible, and change our plans, since those prices are so rare around here. What we got was put into storage, either in the fridges or freezers, except the ham. We already started on that!
The library sent out an e-mail stating that they would be having a curb-side pick-up of a craft for all ages. The kids got polymer clay. They spent quite some time making things, and the next day, Michaela and Patsy enjoyed making things with the kit we got for her. One thing Patsy made was a set of 5 dice, then she and Michaela played Yahtzee with them. I thought that was creative!
The wood chopping continues. Rob now figures we have enough for the entire winter next year. The side of the shop is completely filled with a double row. He’s going to stop chopping for a little while, now that his area is full. We are burning the bone-dry wood in the woodshed. Once that empties out over this winter, we will likely move all of this wood into there to make sure it’s very, very dry. Rob has covered this new wood with tarps to protect it from the winter rains, and it will continue to dry out.
We saw a beautiful double rainbow one day. I thought of God’s promise to not flood the earth again, and did think that if I though Covid was bad and it was taking forever to get things “back to normal,” imagine how much worse it was for Noah and his family on the ark….just sayin’…..
Hang in there everybody and have a great Thanksgiving week.
The past few weeks, I’ve been doing some menu-planning. I don’t always do this, but I want to be sure to rotate the canned and frozen foods I have on hand, with the fresh ones, and use my summer’s bounty as wisely as possible. We also have some food-challenges I need to work with. Rob watches his weight, and doesn’t want to gain back the large amount of weight he has lost over the past couple of years. I am diabetic, so watch my carbs. I am also completely gluten-free, as wheat makes me very sick.
On Friday, the governor of Oregon declared that we would have a Covid “freeze” starting Wednesday, Nov. 18. Basically, this means stay home as much as possible like we did last spring, with a few differences. This made my planning slightly different. It’s not like we’ve been going lots of places or visiting around the state, but we will stay home even more, including on Thanksgiving Day. It will be the smallest Thanksgiving dinner I can remember, with only Rob, Patsy and myself on the guest list at this time.
I had done my planned shopping last Tuesday. It was the first shopping I’d done for over 10 days, as we have been utilizing our food storage, and I just needed a few things. Once this “freeze” was announced, our daughter asked Rob to take her shopping, as she doesn’t drive, and she wanted him and his car to haul it home. I had him pick up a few more items while he was out and about with her Saturday morning. They were necessities, like a couple more gallons of milk, more carrots, a couple extra cartons of eggs, and…… a bucket of vanilla ice cream….I had to scoop it into quart cartons to fit it in my bulging freezers, but I did it! We should easily be set for a couple of weeks. Then, when picking up prescriptions Saturday, I grabbed a little more produce to top things off. I’m missing my garden this week, that’s for sure.
Thankfully, we are loaded up with toilet paper and cleaning supplies. Our neighbor behind us told us today that he had just been to Costco today, and they were wiped out of t.p. and the place was “swarming” with people grabbing everything they could.
I’ve been to JoAnn’s and have plenty of elastic:) and projects to sew. (Priorities, right?)
I have powdered milk to use in a pinch, and lots of dry goods and cans in the garage, and all my home-canned and frozen foods, my 1/4 beef we just picked up last week and 3 turkeys and 2 hams. I have some other meat and fish, chicken and a little bit of pork. I have scads of frozen butter, as it has been on sale a lot lately. In fact, my autistic niece Michaela things I’m hilarious to have so many boxes of butter. She laughed and laughed when she saw them. It made her very happy. I think she likes knowing where to come for one of her preferred foods:)
I’m actually in better shape with my food storage than I was last spring. Now’s the time to use it. If I don’t manage my food storage, things might get too old, forgotten, or otherwise wasted. I don’t want that. I’ve worked too hard for this food.
When I menu plan, I use a very old-fashioned composition book and a pencil, as I have for years. I look on the shelves and in the freezers to see what’s there, especially if it has been there for a while and needs to be targeted, and look at our schedule for the week to know when I have time for long-cooking things like dry beans or making bread. This used to be more important when I was going more places, but it is still nice to have some days with less cooking than others. I make out suggestions for myself, always knowing I will add canned and frozen fruit each day, and I do it in pencil because I often change my mind!
In case you don’t have a magnifying glass to read the menu plan above, it is a loose, working framework of a menu plan with lots of ideas, many of which will get changed before the week is over, but most will be eaten as planned. I include lists of things to buy, make or do.
Soups include: Ham and bean, split pea, Oriental Pork Soup, Chicken Stew with Peppers, Black Bean Taco Soup (Not listed, but Patsy decided to cook that for her school cooking lesson on Wednesday) and Potato Soup (not listed, but made).
Breakfasts: pancakes, muffins, eggs, hot cereal, cold cereal, fruit
Lunches: sandwiches, salads, leftovers/soups
Main dishes: frozen salmon, spaghetti pie, tamale pie and pizza, leftovers. I try to vary the protein during the week, using beef, chicken, occasional pork and fish, and dry beans.
This week’s menu contains more casseroles than normal. Rob and I usually eat much more low-carb than this. Patsy likes things like pizza, Mexican food and spaghetti better. So, it’s a balance to please everyone. I expect if I post any more menus in weeks to follow, you will see more meals such as chicken with salad, green beans and a baked potato for those who want one, instead of spaghetti pie, as that is more typical for us.
At every lunch and dinner, I usually serve 1 or 2 vegetables, rotating between broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, green beans and any other veggie I can come up with. I often use cabbage or lettuce for salads as one of the veggies. Rob often makes salad with some bits of chicken on top his main meal, even if a casserole is available, and 1/3 to 1/2 or even more of our plates are normally full of some kind of vegetable or salad. Fruit is always available, canned or fresh. I rotate starches. Rice, potatoes, pasta, etc. are our go-to choices. Gluten-free pasta is not inexpensive like the wheat kind, so it’s a good thing we want small portions of it anyway, and we eat it only 2-3 times per month, on average. Potatoes and rice make the list more often, but a 10-pound bag of potatoes can easily last a month around here most of the time.
Sunday, for instance, I wrote muffins and apple crisp to go with our split pea soup. I got the split pea soup made, got sucked into a tree-falling project, and didn’t cook anything else from the list. It filled us up just fine. On Tuesday, I changed from meatloaf to spaghetti pie when I realized that there was sauce to use up in the fridge. Still, planning ahead reminds me of what I need to use up. It gives me a written list to refer to when I’m in a hurry to get started cooking and also helps me remember what to thaw out or if I’m supposed to soak beans ahead of when I need them. The age-old problem of “what shall I cook today” only has to be faced once a week, not daily, but I don’t feel locked into the list. If I feel like cooking something else, I just use my eraser.
I also write a list of things to cook or bake and often make things ahead of when they are needed, when I have spare moments. My freezer is usually filled with little cartons of broth, baggies of cooked brown rice and cooked pinto and other beans, containers of cornbread, baggies of bread or muffins, and so forth, for quick meals. There’s always a frozen casserole or two and soup to warm up in a pinch, since life doesn’t always read the list before throwing things our way:)
This week, I wanted to use dry beans a time or two, as I want to target stored foods, so I put down split pea soup and ham and beans, using the ham bone/broth/bits I made last week from a ham bone. The split pea soup met my criteria for at least one meatless meal each week. Rob and I have been doing that since last spring. It isn’t vegetarian, because I used ham broth, but is close enough for our purposes. I find that if I don’t plan to use the beans, we don’t use them often enough.
Last spring, when the pandemic started, dry beans were very hard to get around here. Rob finally found some pinto beans we needed after searching several stores, but the only way to buy them was in a 50 pound bag. We didn’t need that many, but it was that or nothing. So, he paid around $22 or so for that huge bag of beans, which seemed very inexpensive to me. You understand, then, why we have pinto beans so frequently. Even though I’ve shared small amounts with any family members who want them, I still have a lot left. I’m not afraid of buying in bulk, though. I re-package bulk items into glass jars and plastic ice-cream tubs and things last a long time in our cool garage. The key is to regularly use those bulk items so they don’t get too old.
He also picked up a 25 pound bag of gluten-free rolled oats for $5 and a 50 pound bag of Jasmine rice for $10, and 25 pounds of powdered sugar for $5, during the summer, because they were damaged (not all on the same trip). My brother-in-law jokes that when Rob goes to the store, God calls down to the workers, “break that bag NOW, cut that open on accident right now, mark it down quick! Here comes Rob.” I just know He takes really good care of us and our needs are always met.
I wanted a couple of crock pot meals, and especially one on Thursday when we care for both my niece and nephew all day. I found a recipe for an Oriental pork soup in one of my cookbooks, which I am changing to use up some canned baby corn we were given in a box of canned goods a while back. They were things Rob’s mother was given and couldn’t use, so I’ve been trying to target them. Since baby corn is not something I buy or regularly use, if I don’t make the effort to use the can, it will still be there next spring! I’m going to make it more like Chinese chow mien instead of soup, and am going to use a can of bean sprouts and some ground pork I have had for quite some time. When someone offers me food, I always say, “yes, please” and “thank you” and then find a way to use it. If I absolutely cannot, I pass it on to someone else.
I still have cabbage in the garden. I got a good amount of winter lettuce on Monday morning, some leafy celery, a little kale, some cilantro, and left some other things out there that I fear will not ripen before spring, if then. Rob’s tissue-wrapped green tomatoes are still ripening, and my cherry tomatoes that were picked green are ripening as well. There are still apples from my sister and lots and lots of onions in the back shed. I plan to use frozen and canned veggies frequently, and perk things up with the fresh ones here and there. I have fresh celery, carrots, potatoes, head lettuce to mix with the leafy lettuce from the garden, some mushrooms, a couple of cucumbers and zucchinis and some bananas and mandarins from the store. Much of that will easily last 2 weeks. We will use anything that might rot this week, and switch over to more preserved foods next week.
We will eat our way through the menu I wrote this week, then I will make another one for next week, moving any meals over to the next week that were not cooked or eaten this week. I planned lots of meals with leftovers since I don’t want to waste food. If there aren’t enough leftovers, I have frozen burritos I made for Patsy, and she loves peanut butter sandwiches. Rob and I love salad or soup, so I can always made another pot of soup if needed or try another recipe from a cookbook or magazine.
One other thing we tried last week was picking up a “to-go” lunch at the local school. We had not done that yet, although they have been available since last March. I had Jake and Patsy last Wednesday and wanted an activity for them, so I suggested taking them to get a bag of lunch, and they could see if they liked any of the things in it. We drove to the school and…..whoops!–Veteran’s Day–no lunches. So, the next day Rob drove them down and they each got a lunch. Each bag had a carton of milk, a carton of chocolate milk, a piece of pizza, an apple, an orange, some baby carrots, and one had a corn dog and the other had a hot dog. That was an awful lot of food, I thought! They ate what they wanted. They shared the rest. Michaela was thrilled to drink some milk from a little carton, and I was so happy she actually ate an apple, once I sliced it and added some peanut butter. She’s too old for the program, but the other kids shared their excess with her. I was glad there was some extra for her, since she was feeling left out. (I have apples and milk here for her, but I think it was the little carton….). Jake can’t have milk anyway, so it all worked out. Besides, he wanted cornbread, his favorite right now. So, everyone was happy. I think I will take them back at least once this week, and stretch those groceries just a little farther.
I’ll be the first one to admit that managing my food storage is a big job. Planning, home-preserving, rotating the food, cooking mainly from scratch…it’s all work. But, it’s worth it to me. I can keep my grocery bill much lower than many people can, and we can stick to our specialized diets while doing so. We are able to eat a healthy, varied diet that is far beyond the ramen noodles typically thought of as “budget food” and it tastes much better to us. Jake, on the other hand, LOVES ramen noodles, so I don’t have to worry about budgeting large sums to feed him when he’s here:). So, when planning your menu, find what works for you, and go for it! We are all different in what we like, want or need, but a little planning can keep everyone happy, healthy and well fed, even during a Covid freeze:)
I was able to complete a quick sewing project this week. I took the scraps from Patsy’s cape and made her a hat. Sadly, I lost my old hat pattern somewhere in the sewing room. Rob found me another one for free on the internet, and this is how it came out.
We had a very old peach tree at the back of our garden. We’ve been talking for quite some time about taking it down. After all, my sister owns a peach farm and we get all we want from her. Besides, we were very nervous about smashing the neighbor’s fence since so much of it was actually leaning over the fence….you know how these kinds of projects are. They get bigger the more you think about them. So we put if off. This summer, it began to lean alarmingly towards the beautiful fence our neighbor recently erected, so we became more committed to removing it before it fell. In reality, this picture doesn’t even really show how far it was leaning. The angle is wrong. Today was the day to get it down at last!
We were jump-started into action when we were visited by our neighbor on the west side of our house. We followed him into his yard to gape in horror at another neighbor’s yard utterly filled with a part of a huge cedar tree that broke in the last day or two and smashed a shed and filled that person’s entire back yard. He felt he should show us because the rest of the tree was starting to lean alarmingly toward our shop! After some consultation with a couple of neighbors, we found that a tree service was going to be called tomorrow. But, we knew we couldn’t delay any longer in removing our problem tree. That new fence the neighbor put up is too nice to smash.
Thankfully, we had live-streamed church this morning, and God provided a window of opportunity with no rain this afternoon. The minute we were done, the skies opened up and it poured. So, it just became a nice Sunday afternoon project that didn’t ruin our Sunday plans, and took much less time than we had feared.
I climbed a very short ladder and snipped off lower branches with hand loppers and then moved to the clean-up crew. Rob used his chain saw with the long handle to cut off branches, bit by bit, from the top down. We were very careful and pulled the branches toward our side of the fence and threw the branches into the empty garden. Some raspberries and artichokes were actually smashed a bit in the process, but we uncovered them ASAP. There were a few branches that fell over the fence. Thankfully, our neighbor had removed the fancy lights, per Rob’s request a few days ago, and we were able to pull the branches up and over using a garden rake without damaging anything. He came out as we were finishing and assured us that his side of the fence was just fine, we had not smashed, ruined, or destroyed anything in our efforts.
We used pruners to cut the branches into small pieces and filled the yard debris bin. Rob cut the larger pieces into firewood with his chain saw. We left the rest of the branches in the garden and will fill the bin again several times as the weeks pass by. The apple tree will come down this winter, too, hopefully. We get no good apples from it. It’s not ready to fall on anything, so it can wait.
Now my garden will get even more sun and grow even more veggies! The raspberries should be sweeter and grow better. The roots of the tree have been taking too much water from the back of the garden, and I’m hoping this helps. Doing this job ourselves saved us several hundred dollars, maybe more if it had fallen and smashed that lovely fence.
I had planned on shopping last Tuesday, and got the things on my list. I used my $10 off $50 coupon at Safeway and actually spent about $45. I stopped off at Winco and got a 68c/lb turkey and a couple of things they sell for less there. In the meanwhile, Rob and Patsy stopped off at a different Winco and grabbed 2 more turkeys. I’m delighted to have three turkeys now. The whole thing was complicated by the fact that Rob, Michaela and Patsy were on their way home from picking up our 1/4 beef when they stopped for those turkeys! It was a larger quarter than last year. So, we played “arrange the freezer” for quite a while, and it all fit, thank goodness.
While out with her, he found ham for $1.29 at Grocery Outlet, and bought 2 small ones. One hour later, when other family members went to get some, they were all gone. They simply haven’t been on sale anywhere this fall. Since he was going out again, I had him pick up a few more groceries, including a couple more gallons of milk with long pull dates, and we should be set for the next couple of weeks. I have reserved some of my monthly budget for an Azure Standard order later in the month, if I decide to do so.
Rob chopped wood 2 more times this past week.
So, we are loaded up with groceries and wood, so plan to spend this next week cozy and busy!
When we take care of Jake and/or Michaela, we always try to get some exercise with them.
One day, we walked across the Willamette River on a foot bridge, looked for rocks, and walked back across.
Everyone had fun and we got a good walk in. Since we did get a little rain it’s been a challenge to fit exercise in at times when it wasn’t raining, but Rob and I got several walks in here and there.
Rob took Michaela and Patsy up to the wood-cutting place one day. He got a little bit of wood, but mostly they had a picnic lunch and looked at some horses in a field, and enjoyed nature. He didn’t cut very much wood last week at all, because it rained some, and he had other things to do, but he did get a couple of loads. He’s back up there today.
Rob covered the wooden tomato cages with plastic and we put them over some of the fall/winter vegetables.
He also made a cover for the raised bed in hopes of babying along the veggies in there.
He’s got a batch of lettuce growing in the greenhouse. We are hoping the get it big enough to get a cutting or two. The greenhouse is not heated, so hopefully we will have some sunny days and it will be warm enough for it to grow in there.
When I discovered one of his geraniums he started from a cutting was blooming, I brought it into the house to cheer things up.
The cherry tomatoes I picked right before frost continue to ripen. It wasn’t hi-tech. I pulled off the clusters, left the stems on, and put them in a 9×13 pan on the dog’s kennel in the garage. Rob’s larger tomatoes he wrapped in tissue are ripening as well, but some are a little less than stellar. Still, we are getting enough that I haven’t had to buy any tomatoes yet. We finished up the garden lettuce I picked and had cabbage and broccoli from the garden to work with.
We thawed one of the 10 pound bags of hindquarters we got a while back for $2.90. I baked 1/2 with rosemary, de-boned it, froze the bits and made broth with the rest. It will be for casseroles. Rob BBQ’d the other 1/2 and we ate some and I made enchiladas for dinner tonight with 2 thighs.
We had potato soup, chicken-rice soup, and chili. I split one pound of hamburger between the chili and some chili-mac. I’m finding it best to try not to make huge batches of things these days. As it was, we had leftovers several times as I find it impossible to make tiny batches of either soup or chili. It comes in handy to have some leftovers, as there are times when we are in a huge hurry to eat, just not too much of the same food so we don’t have to eat it over and over for a week:). I made some chicken thighs with a honey -soy sauce glaze, pineapple, onion and peppers (I used frozen bits from our garden). It was really good. I baked blueberry muffins, cornbread, cherry crisp and a pizza.
I did a menu plan for the first time in a long time, and we stuck to it for the most part. I just used the same system I used for years, off and on, in the past. I write things down in pencil in a composition notebook, and also add in appointments or places we are going to plan meals according to our schedule. Then things are easily changed if they need to be. I often switch and swap meals within the week, or completely change things up at times. They are just suggestions. I don’t choose recipes and then go to the store for ingredients. Instead, I see what I want to use from my freezers and cupboards, then choose recipes or meals. Only then do I add an ingredient to my list, if necessary. This helps me remember to rotate the vegetables in the freezer, target pieces of meat that need to be used, or finish up things in the fridge or cans or packages of food on the shelves that should be targeted because they are getting older. It also saves me a ton of money when I’m well stocked, like I am now after canning and freezing all summer.
This week, I didn’t need anything more, so we skipped the regular grocery store. At the end of the week, I did send Rob to the bulk restaurant supply store with $30 for “to-go” coffee cups and lids, a large salad dressing and boneless-skinless chicken thighs. He got 2 bags of the chicken, and a couple of other things, along with the list, and came home with $3 in change. Go, Rob!
We emptied many, many jars of home-canned items and used a lot of frozen vegetables and meat. I also pulled quite a few items from the pantry shelves to use. Our bulk beef is ready to pick up and I need room in the freezers, which was good motivation for me last week. I went ahead and made a menu for this week, again, since it worked so well.
It’s nice to have so many good things to choose from, a cozy fire and lots of projects to work on.
