Use it Up

January 12-Use-It-UP! 2024

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I am still on my mission to use many things from the pantry, freezers and canning shelves. Here are a few of the sides we had in the past few days.

I cooked home-canned green beans. We grow a Blue Lake variety for the green ones. This year, it will be a favorite–“Venture. ” The yellow ones are “Carson.” I usually grow both and mix them in the jars.

The potatoes are some red ones from a bag that showed up here ??? (someone bought them in the past–not me), and they were starting to sprout when I found them. I put some olive oil on them and some herbs and roasted them in the oven.

The macaroni and cheese is a box of Kraft from the pantry. My niece loves that kind, and that kind only, so I grabbed a few boxes when it is on sale. She and my grandson ate most of it yesterday.

I used up some lemons that were in the fridge drawer in lemon bars for the church young adult group. I still cook for them on Tuesdays, but things have changed slightly and sometimes all I need to bring is dessert, sometimes more things, depending on the need that day. This time, Rob barbecued 3 huge packs of drumsticks (we kept and ate part of the 3rd pack) and sent them with the gluten-free lemon bars. It was nice to get those drumsticks out of the freezer. I got 2 packs on super super markdown ($2.35/huge pack) and have been saving them for this purpose. The 3rd pack had been on sale as well, just not that great of a sales as that! Our food was put with other food from other people, to be enough to feed the group, which often runs 25-30 right now.

The jar in the background is full of chicken broth. We had a Costco chicken and I made broth from the bones. I either need to freeze it today or make some thing from it.

I made turkey meatloaf. I buy the ground turkey on sale and still have several in the freezer. Malcolm seems to love turkey meatloaf!

I also made some spaghetti sauce, using my home-canned marinara, plus some tomato sauce I had, hamburger, extra herbs, frozen onions, and cooked noodles from the pantry. In the end, there still wasn’t enough sauce and it wasn’t how I wanted it, so I added a jar of purchased sauce and that finished it off. I’m trying to slip some of that purchased sauce in when I can because we like the home-canned better and the few jars I have from the store are just sitting there getting older and older and older……

Rob made pancakes for breakfast. These are made from Pamela’s gluten-free pancake mix. The flecks you see in there are because there’s almond flour in that particular mix. We all love them. Since I am so sensitive to even the smallest bit of wheat/gluten, much of the time we all eat gluten-free around here. I do buy bread for them, and we are really careful about the crumbs. Occasionally, Grocery Outlet has the big bags of this mix for $13-$15. I just checked at the Natural Grocers store, and the same bag was $23. Because Grocery Outlet is hit and miss, when we see it, we buy 2 or 3 bags. Right now, they don’t have it, but I still have 2 bags left, so there’s time for them to get it in before I would have to pay full price for it. If they never get it again, it is what it is. Gluten free food is not inexpensive, but worth every penny to me.

As you can see, things are going well in the food department right now, here at my house. I did buy milk, 5 dozen eggs, produce, and a few pantry items a couple of days ago. My older daughter wanted to shop, so I took her and got what I needed at the same time. It’s hard to believe that I was out of anything–I keep such a large pantry–but a few things did run out. I did not stock up, but only got what I needed this time, as my goal is to force myself to use up a few items that have been there for a long time, while still giving myself the ability to cook at a moment’s notice without running to the store for basic ingredients. My niece and nephew are very specific as to what foods they will and will not eat, and are here frequently, so I do always keep “their” foods stocked. We are all in good shape for food now.

Friday Projects, Menu plans

What Did We Eat This Week?–January 8, 2024

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Every January, I like to go through cupboards, freezers and the pantry to really dig in and use up things that need using. I can’t really call it a pantry challenge, as so many on social media do, because I don’t plan to stop shopping. But, every year, I do reduce my grocery shopping in January and that’s what I plan to do this year, as well. At this point it is January 8 and I haven’t gone shopping since the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I will go soon, because I’m running low on eggs and milk.

I usually call it the “use-it-up” challenge, or something along those lines. The first thing I grabbed from the pantry was some bow-tie pasta that was getting near date. I cooked some and mixed it with some leftover cheese Alfredo sauce from Christmas Day. Some was eaten by one kid or the other and the rest went into this chicken noodle soup. The celery was some I froze from the garden, the carrots were some leftover baby carrots from the holidays and the broth was home-canned. The chicken was from a bag of thighs that seem to be getting a little freezer burned, but were still fine when I started getting into them.

I used some more of those thighs to make these taco bowls. I sautéed the thigh pieces and a bunch of onions from last summer’s garden in taco seasoning. I made brown rice for the base. There is a little more in the bottom of a gallon jar from a long-ago bulk purchase that I want to target for use in the next couple of weeks. I made guacamole from an avocado bought on sale, and added other toppings. We had the bowls twice. They were so good!

I dug out some ham broth from the freezer. I used more baby carrots from the holidays, a couple of potatoes, and some ham bits from the freezer with some lentils to make a soup.

We had home-made pizzas on the gf flatbread/pita bread I had made and frozen in December and had that twice.

I cooked a large batch of oatmeal with raisins for Malcolm to eat over a few days. He adores oatmeal.

I used home-canned corn, beans, broth, jams, fruits and more to add to meals. I also grabbed several frozen bits and pieces, such as frozen onions from 2018 (?really?-but they were fine), Anaheim pepper bits, a little baggie of pulled pork, hot dogs bought on sale, buns that were given to us a while back, and more. I threw away a couple of items that were beyond use.

It’s always exciting to me to see the little things I’ve saved get used. It’s food I’ve bought and paid for, grown, or at the least–put the effort and energy into cooking. I love using home-preserved food because that’s what I saved it for–winter.

I will not be that person who takes their pantry/freezers/canning shelf down to a small amount of food. The fruits and veggies need to last until next summer when I can grow or source some more. We get more beef in the fall. We may be getting 1/2 pig next spring and I just buy chicken and fish when I see good sales. But, with the large amount of jars of canned foods, 3 full freezers and a big pantry, I have no worries that I will run out. Even with the traffic that went through this house during the holidays, I can hardly see a dent in the canning. Partly that is because I’m putting most of the empty jars away in boxes and taking spare jars from boxes where I stored them so it still looks very full although we’ve eaten quite a bit.

I do want to keep things fresh, and rotate things. We’ve gone through all the freezers in the past few months, and I inventoried and sorted all canning last summer. The pantry in the garage has been cleaned as well a few months ago. So things are good right now and I want to keep them that way. I’m excited about seeing how this project goes during the next month and plan to see evidence of my efforts in the form of some empty spots here and there.

How about you? Do you do a pantry challenge in January? Or some kind of modified one with your own rules? I’d love to hear what you are doing in the comments below!

Saving Money

Thriving In My Thrifty Week-Jan. 4, 2024

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We take a lot of pleasure in feeding birds and looking at them. Much to our surprise, when we pulled the car over so someone could stretch, there was this woodpecker on a tree right outside the car window. It didn’t seem much bothered by us, so we stayed and watched it for a while. Finally, we got bold and Rob crept the car closer, and it scooted around to the other side of the tree–but still didn’t fly away.

Rob and Malcolm feed the birds in our yard on a regular basis. They got a joint Christmas gift of some bird food and suet, so are looking forward to doing that soon.

Malcolm enjoyed the age-old excitement of mud-puddle stomping while his cousin was in her horse lesson. Rob turned his head for one minute and …..let’s just say we had to change the pants once they got home. So fun!

Rob, my niece Alissa and my nephew, Jake, all celebrated their January birthdays at a family birthday party. We figured it out that Rob and Alissa have not missed one co-party for the past 23 years, since she was 1 year old. That’s so special to us all! We had a family dinner. My sister cooked delicious steak (Alissa and Rob’s favorite), chicken curry, mashed potatoes (because that’s Alissa’s favorite), and broccoli. I made the chocolate cake (Rob and Alissa’s choice) and Alissa made the vanilla cake with Pokemon decorations (Jake’s favorite). Everyone had a great time.

My Territorial seeds came. I wanted to order them before December 31 because I had saved a postcard from my last order (last spring) that gave me 10% off my order before that date. I had gift cards from this Christmas, some left on the ones from last year, and some cash that paid for it easily. The 10% paid for postage and a few packs of seeds. I was delighted that a couple of old favorites were back on the available list, but we are going to have to try a new kind of Roma tomato this year. I picked out 2, both with the most disease resistance I could find, as I had a lot of trouble with disease last summer.

I had ordered the ones I wanted from Pinetree earlier when I first got that catalog and they are here, as well. The bulk of my seeds are from Territorial, but there are a few things I really like from Pinetree, and now I have them all.

I plan to do a post on seed choices later on. I’m planning a lot of posts, actually. I am so excited to say that I have a new computer that WORKS!!!! I’m so excited. I was gifted a significant part of the money for that for Christmas, and we made up the difference. It wasn’t just my blog that was no longer working on our old one….but now a lot of things work very well. I’m hoping to get back into the habit of blogging once again. It was so tedious on my iPad, since I can’t type properly on it, that it killed some of the joy in the process. I guess one-fingered hunt and peck with do that to a person:).

food preservation, Gluten free

Homemade Gluten-Free Tater Tots

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I have been having a hard time finding tater tots at the store. When I do find them, they are very expensive and the last bag I purchased simply crumbled into little bits whenever we cooked them. However, I did find some bags of potatoes on a really good deal–20c/lb–and bought about 30 pounds. I have a couple of projects I wanted to do. One was making tater tots. I had done it one time before and we liked them, so it was time to try again.

I combined several recipes I found on the internet. I wanted plain ones, not including cheese or onions or many spices.

I parboiled peeled, whole potatoes–10-15 pounds–not sure because I used several partial bags, plus one full 5-lb one. Mine stayed in the hot water a little too long–about 8-10 plus minutes because I got distracted. I believe 4-6 minutes for small potatoes and 6-7 minutes for really big ones would be about right.

After cooling them enough to handle, I grated them and put them into a bowl. Sadly, some were so cooked it was more like pushing mashed potatoes through the grater–oops! I filled 2 of the largest Pyrex bowls I have with shreds. The following recipe is for one large bowl, which was about 5-7 pounds of shreds. Mix:

One large Pyrex bowl of parboiled potato shreds

1 Tablespoon Cornstarch

1 Tablespoon 1-1 Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/8-1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder (to taste–mine are not hot at all

I formed them into little logs with my hands and fried them in a little bit of canola oil until they were brown. Because I parboiled my potatoes too long, I confess some of mine are more like fried mashed potatoes. They still taste good, if I have to go with how many disappeared while I was frying them off. There were 5 of us here nipping on them, and yum! is all I have to say.

The only other time I made them, I didn’t cook my potatoes too long and there were distinct hash-brown like shreds in them, which finished cooking as they were pre-fried and also baked afterwards for serving. I will do that again next time.

I cooled them on paper towels and put them on a waxed-paper covered cookie sheet. That pan went into the freezer to flash freeze and I will transfer them to baggies once they cool. When I made these before, I simply warmed them up in the air fryer or oven when we wanted to eat them, just like I would do with the frozen ones from the store.

I’m excited to have tater tots in the freezer again. There were so many possibilities I saw on the internet, including adding cheddar cheese, onion powder, green onions or chives and more. There were also lots of different combinations of flours to use as binders, such as potato starch, regular wheat flour (for those it doesn’t bother), and other flours. I concluded that the main things were potatoes, salt, pepper and a little flour of some sort to bind it together. It did take quite a bit of time to form and pre-fry all these. I ended up with that huge pan full, plates and plates that people snacked on or ate for dinner, and a few extras that didn’t fit on the tray.

Holidays, Saving Money

Thriving In My Thrifty Week—Dec. 27, 2023

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We have spent the past few weeks working a tremendous number of hours, getting ready for Christmas and enjoying ourselves tremendously in the process!

Because we work with our niece and nephew, and because there was a school holiday, we searched for fun things to do together on the days they were with us. We had the added joy of having our daughter, Patsy, home for a couple of weeks. Of course, there were our grandsons and many other family members and friends to spend time with, as well, so we were never bored.

We snacked on popcorn many times. We did puzzles. We played games. I read aloud an entire advent story that is basically a chapter a day in a serial story leading up to Christmas. Rob and I had a really fun Christmas party with our Sunday School class.

We visited an attraction called Storybook Lane, where scenes from books and movies were set up with stuffed toys, lots of lights and other items, a model train, etc.

Malcolm liked Santa, but mostly the candy cane he got. My nephew and Patsy liked the churros and donuts they got at the concession stand. Other than food for a food drive and snacks we bought, this was free.

Other things we did was watch the movie “Elf” for free in a theater near us. Again, it was a food drive, so we just popped into Wilco and bought a bunch of cans of food. We got some snacks just because it made the exceedingly rare occasion even more fun. We did have a blast.

2 Costco gingerbread houses were decorated by different sets of kids. We attended a free ornament-making event and a simple gift making event, and a friend’s cookie decorating party with various kids.

The grandsons had a preschool Christmas program, where all the adorable kids got up and sang (or didn’t sing) for all of us. Zai crawled around the stage during his song. Malcolm sang a bit and then would randomly leap into the air. So cute.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were spent with various family members. Then we sat around like zombies all day yesterday, except for a trip to the dentist. We have one more small gathering on Saturday, after a few days of work this week. I’ve got to say the exciting activities seem to have dried up in our area, so we plan to do mundane, but fun, things like library, YMCA swimming pool, more popcorn, more puzzles and games, and perhaps a little cooking. We will see what we actually get done. It should be a good week, whatever we choose.





Holidays, Saving Money

Thriving In My Thrifty Week-Dec. 5, 2023

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After a crazy, busy week, I went outside and was surprised to see that my garlic had really started to grow. This was some organic garlic I had purchased from Azure Standard. I forgot to take it out of the plastic bag it came in and it started to grow. I decided to plant it and now it’s growing!

You can see some leeks and parsley still growing in that raised bed, as well.

Our Christmas program went very well. I’m guessing there were between 90-100 people involved in it, maybe more. The true message of Christmas was given and many people attended.

I was excited to be a part for the second year. We had rehearsals every night, except one, and one final dress rehearsal, then 3 performances. The final rehearsal offered a chance for special needs guests to come and enjoy a quieter atmosphere so there was a small audience that night, which was good practice.

I have cooked a lot with my home preserved food this past week. I’ve made vegetable soup, several apple crisps, spaghetti, applesauce muffins, and more. We’ve eaten canned fruit and jam along with frozen bread, veggies and various proteins. Some meals went out to others and many were gobbled up by us.


I was super tired Monday, but am bouncing back quickly. That’s a good thing because I’ve needed to work a little extra already this week and it’s only Tuesday! Some weeks are like that.


Holidays, Saving Money

Thriving In My Thrifty Week-Nov. 26, 2023

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I’ve been enjoying my Thanksgiving flowers all week. We hosted this year and I made several bouquets to put here and there. I used some flowers my daughter had used the previous week for a party she had. I was amazed that part of them were still good. Rob grabbed a few more from Trader Joe’s and I combined them. Then I plan to pull out the old ones as they get yucky, and keep enjoying the newer ones as long as they last.

Unfortunately, I was quite sick the entire week before Thanksgiving week so I wasn’t able to get as many things done ahead as I would have liked. It all worked out in the end. I had family members pitch in and, together, we got the job done. We had a lovely day and many family members were able to come and celebrate.


The day after Thanksgiving dawned clear and crisp. We loaded our nephew and grandson up and took off to find a tree. We haven’t had a live tree for over 5 years, so we have no “favorite” farm. We just drove out, followed a sign, and easily found a nice place. Rob helped the boys cut down the tree and we brought it home on top of the car.

We got the decorations out of the shop and got them up. This upcoming week is insanely crazy so I wanted that job done this weekend so we can enjoy the decor before it’s time to put it all away!

I am in the Christmas program at church again this year, which means rehearsals every night this upcoming week, except one, dress rehearsal and then 3 performances next weekend. We also have extra work training one day, and a full work schedule. To help myself out, I have some pre-cooked meals in the freezer. I have all my home-canned “fast food” and many ingredients in my freezers and pantry. We should make out fine, despite the busy week.

I sat down this evening and ordered seeds from Pinetree Garden Seeds. They had a 15% off Black Friday sale, which was awesome. There are a few things, like Carmen peppers and cabbage mix, that I always get there. I will do a Territorial order later on. I am excited to feel like the new gardening year is right around the corner!

Garden, Saving Money

Thriving in My Thrifty Week-Oct. 18, 2023

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We are still getting a few scraggly vegetables from the garden; a few cucumbers, snow peas, tomatoes, boc choi, a handful of green beans, and carrots. It’s nice to have more manageable quantities, but to not be entirely finished with produce.

I’m delighted with my new mixer. One day, on the way to church, Rob noticed a “free” box on the sidewalk. This mixer caught his eye and he hopped out and snagged it. Of course, we had no idea if it worked, but after church he found the switch wasn’t working properly. He tore it apart, and fixed it, which I find quite amazing, especially with a toddler 2 inches away, “helping.” Now it works great. It looks like it was used very little. So fun to have!

I have lots of kitchen help. He’s especially fascinated with washing dishes right now. That is good because I have been cooking and cooking lately. We have so much good food and it makes me happy to use it, so we eat at home. Since I’m in an extra-busy season of life, I have been writing out my menu plans. This helps me use food I already have from my abundant harvest this summer, but more importantly gives me a list to follow when I’m in a hurry. I don’t have to think it up AND make it, and I can get some things prepped ahead. There are a couple of evenings where people here need to eat before I get home from work on my new schedule and I like to leave easy home-made healthy options.

Although the flowers are waning, I’ve been picking bouquets. There are still many lovely blooms.

We’ve saved seeds from some zinnias and marigolds, dill, and some other plants. I was also unable to keep up with it all and I noticed the dill has reseeded and is about 3 inches tall. It won’t survive the winter but I hope there are plenty of volunteers next spring. I’ve been using what did come up—just snipped off entire tiny plants and cooked with them.

We’ve been utilizing free and inexpensive activities with the kids, since my niece and nephew have been spending the week with us. Our grandson loves to run so we try to get him out as much as possible. Our nephew likes Pokémon Go annd for me to read aloud to him. Our niece likes car rides. They all like popcorn and a movie. We ate SO much popcorn this week. Thankfully, we had plenty as my mom gave us a big bag not long ago. And butter…….we kept the dairy industry going this week? It was a fun week and I think we all had fun most of the time. I will admit I’m looking forward to a few more restful days that are coming up before long, though.

camping, Garden, House Projects

Where Have I Been?-October 13, 2023

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Thank you for all the concern from all of you checking if I’m ok. I am more than all right, but have had an extremely crazy summer, which is why I haven’t found time to post very often. Also, our laptop will no longer make posts —it’s very old— so all blogging has to be done on my iPad, which is harder, and I find myself putting it off. I hope to do better because I want these posts for myself in the future to look back on.

In September, we spent a week camping. We went to Detroit Lake, which is in the mountains not far from our home.

Although our youngest grandson didn’t sleep in the campground with us, his dad brought him up a couple of times. One time we took both boys fishing. It took all of us and we caught nothing. We had so much fun, though. We went back to the campsite and roasted marshmallows and the boys played. Another day, Rob, Malcolm and I all went fishing and we did get 5 between us. Fun! We ate 2 and froze the rest.

Rob and I have been working so many hours in October that I can hardly catch a breath. My sister’s family will be going on a vacation in the future, including the kids, so we will be having a vacation, too. We have been able to work extra before and will work extra after, so we will be financially fine, as long as we stay frugal. My project list is growing by the day in anticipation, plus we will go camping again for a few days.


The garden is almost finished. Rob chopped up the last of the peppers yesterday and I dried them. I’ve been pulling plants as I can and have about 1/4 of the garden cleared. There are a few more fall crops but most are finished.

I’ve filled so many jars I’ve lost count. I do have a written list so I could count them, but I haven’t had time lately. We cleaned out all 3 deep freezers, completely organized the canning to make sure older items are in front and the new stuff is behind. I’ve frozen veggies and fruit and the newest are on the bottom and the older on top. We have already finished up quite a few of the older things I found. We received our 1/4 beef from the farmer we buy from each year and now have any leftover beef from last year in a place to grab before we grab the new. We had a gift to spend at Costco and did that and put those staples in the pantry to be rotated correctly. In August, I utopped up some pantry items with an Azure Standard order and have our drop next week that I have ordered from. As well. I tend to order a bunch then skip a month or two or even three since I get bulk items from there and they last a long time.

We are slowly cleaning the shop and garage and other areas. Rob has already been hauling things off to donate and we have more ready when he gets time. Our neighbor kindly took a bunch of our stuff to the dump. We have tossed, recycled and even burned quite a bit. This is a big project but we have at least started and can tell where we’ve worked.

I didn’t keep the garden weeded very well, but still got lots of food from it. I didn’t sew or quilt at all. I went so far as to take my sewing machine camping and didn’t even sew one stitch. I have been cooking, but not baking as often as I do sometimes.

These are just a few of the things we have filled our time with over these past few weeks. I hope to catch up with you all soon!

Garden, Saving Money

Thriving In My Thrifty Week-Aug. 28, 2023

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I spent a lot of time preserving last week. I also enjoyed my flowers as I went to and from the garden.

My table looked like this for most of the week. Early in the week, my sister shared beans, corn and peaches from her place. The tomatoes keep ripening on our vines and other veggies do, too.

This is how my outside table looked late that same night.

Rob dug out my drying racks and I pulled the onions. We had many more, but we have been eating, sharing and preserving with them. We have plenty left for winter use.

I used quite a few mild and spicy peppers to make a pepper sauce, canned whole and diced tomatoes and made bruschetta in a jar.

I used lots of odds and ends of food up. I made the rest of the tomatoes that wouldn’t fit in a canner into pizza sauce. I will make pizza soon or freeze it.

Bananas became banana bread. You can also see the melons I picked—Ha Ogen. We have had several from our bushes and there are more ripening. They are like a honeydew in many ways, but maybe a little firmer. Peppers were put into a big pot of refried beans. The last bit of a Costco chicken was boiled to make broth, then made into chicken and noodles. Because we’ve been preserving so much, some meals have been less than stellar, so it’s been nice to get time to make a few that are more tasty.

The yard and garden look terrible because they are so weedy. Once I get through this busy preserving time, I think they will be getting some serious attention. I’m glad the weather has cooled down—it’s so much easier to work out there?

Making My Home A Haven