Category Archives: Watching my pennies

Menu Plans–February 28, 2016

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Today, I decorated the cake for my sister’s birthday.  We were supposed to have it last Sunday, but there were sick children, so we postponed until today.  As you can see from the pictures, I cut out a heart shape from waxed paper.  Then, I set the cut out heart on top of the iced cake and sprinkled the cake heavily with edible glitter.  After removing the heart shape, I placed the outer piece of waxed paper on, and sprinkled the heart cut-out with red glitter.  It was simple and looked nice.  We had lasagna my aunt made, beans, salad and this cake.  I took some roasted hazelnuts, as well.  We gave her some tea that her children helped Rob buy when they stayed here a couple of weeks ago.  It was just a simple, family birthday party, one of the every-day kinds of moments that actually mean a lot to me when I come to the end of a day.

We ended up being given a meal from a friend on Monday.   We actually ate 1/2 on Monday, and then ate the soup on Tuesday and Wednesday both.   So, I never did make up some of the meals I planned last week.  I love having the plan, though.  On the days when food doesn’t unexpectedly drop into my lap, it is good to have a plan:)

Sunday night:  We have some leftover pizza to eat.

Monday:  Chili (already made up from Saturday, just needs to be popped in the Crock Pot-busy day)

Tuesday:  Turkey burger meatballs.  I tried a sweet and sour pork recipe and there is an awful lot of extra sauce.  So, we will pick out the remaining pork pieces and eat them, and I will pour the remaining sauce over meatballs Tuesday.

Wednesday:  Soup in Crock Pot.  Probably turkey rice or vegetable beef.

Thursday:  Everyone going in different directions.  Leftovers–grab as you can!

Friday:  Lunch:  I have another sister and aunt coming to help with the big project.  I need to make extra soup on Wednesday to feed people for lunch.

Dinner:  Baked potato bar.  Rob and I are going to take the girls and spend the evening at some  friends’ house.  We are taking dinner, and spending time with their 6 children, ranging from ages 5 to 12 or 13.  They will be home around 9:30.  We will take a few games to play with the kids.  It should be a blast.

Saturday:  Leftover soup or baked potatoes.  Truthfully, Ja’Ana is heavily involved with a rummage sale for her upcoming mission trip, both Thursday evening and all day Saturday. It is an hour from our house, one way.  My niece is involved in a special Olympic-type basketball tournament, which she would like me to attend–2 hours from home.  I have no idea how Saturday is going to pan out.  I may be packing lunches.  I may be buying hot dogs or some such junkie food.  First, I need to decide how much of that I’m going to do, what Rob is going to take care of, and see how much energy I have after being so busy Friday.

Both on Friday and on Saturday, the new crock-pot I got for Christmas failed to cook the food by lunch time.  This is much different from my previous one, which cooked things really fast.  Of course, it was shorting out and probably wasn’t safe, but I’m having trouble adjusting.  On Friday, I had to make an entirely different lunch for the helpers and we had the crock pot for dinner.  On Saturday, I had to remove the chili and boil it in a pan, and it was still a little underdone, and I felt bad.  So, I need to keep experimenting, and allowing more time for cooking.  It actually caused me to feel pressured to have to scramble for food on days that were overwhelming to start with, and only made more stressful when I didn’t have food to feed these helpers.  So, I will cook the soup all day on Wednesday, and just re-heat it on Friday, and hopefully, I’ll get this new appliance figured out.

Use-It-Up Update–Feb. 25, 2016

IMG_2170

My project is moving along nicely.  Last night, I was able to finish re-filling the cleaned freezer from last week and empty another one in the process.  I found these berries from ’13 and ’14 (pretty icy and old), this mystery green soup (?) and those chicken thighs that look pretty freezer-burned.  Today, I will serve the green stuff for lunch, make berry crisp for the weekend helpers that are coming to assist us with sorting and moving loads to storage, and see if the chicken is salvageable.  I found some terriyake marinade in the fridge that I can dump on the chicken if it looks save-able and hopefully kill any off taste.

So, now, another freezer has been standing empty, thawing out, all night, and I will wipe it out and turn it back on this morning.  Then, I will start filling it up from another freezer, and so forth, until I have done them all.  I’d like to do one per weekend, until I’m done.  I should have an empty one to not turn back on at the end, but we do have pigs almost ready to butcher, so, I guess we’d better keep eating if I want that to happen.  I am pretty determined to not move or keep quite so many freezers.

IMG_2173

This is my garage fridge, nicely cleaned and sorted out by Patsy (with assistance) last evening.  She was in a cleaning mood.  I’m not one to argue with that, so while I worked on the freezer, I showed her how to remove everything, and wipe up the mess that was in there.  It was pretty bad, as this has been an extra fridge for us, and has been used for stuffing all of the bulk purchases, garden produce, etc.  Some jam had spilled all over the shelf, and she got it cleaned up.  There were other piles of yucky sticky stuff in other places, including under the drawers.  We both scrubbed part of it, but she sure did a lot.  I’m proud of her.  Now that my house fridge is broken, I wanted this one cleaned out to maximize it’s usefulness, since it is my main fridge now.  The one in the house is cool, so I am using it for lettuce, ketchup, etc.  Things like meat, milk, leftovers, etc. are going out in this one.  So handy, I know, trotting back and forth:)  The plan is to bring this one in, but we are so overwhelmed with the sorting/packing/storing things for the move, we just haven’t done it yet. So, between things from the back of this fridge, and some really old stuff from the freezer, we got a good-sized bucket of slop for the pigs, a freezer that will be ready to re-fill this morning, and a nicely-cleaned and organized fridge.   A little girl got a good lesson on how to clean a fridge, and that’s worth a lot to me, as well.

Food items I have used this past week include:  frozen fish, green beans, drinks I found while cleaning the garage, the items in the picture above, canned pears, canned potatoes, some bacon that was frozen and looking old (but was fine), and leftovers (quite a few).  We also got quite a bit of bread out of the freezers.  Rob served it for meals, and I threw some of the really bad stuff in the pig bucket I was filling.  When we are given bread, I put it in the freezer, but sometimes we don’t eat it all.  I’m not out anything, as it was free.  I was also ruthless with bowls of ???? that I found lurking in there. If it looked freezer-burned, I threw it into the pig bucket.  I’m sure somewhere in the past, I thought I’d want that leftover, but that time is past.  Now, I know that these freezers will be in relatives’ garages in-between houses, so I want to keep meat, produce, and frozen cheese and butter as my top priorities.  I still have a tremendous amount of meat to deal with, and want every bit of it, as we will not have the opportunity to raise our own meat again for a while, at least.

 

Saving Money–Week Ending February 21

IMG_2150

I had the cutest wood hauler carry wood for me on Monday!  He only charged me a few meals.  What a deal!  So frugal–he doesn’t even eat much!  He was so proud to carry such a big load.  When he was very little, he would carry one stick of kindling at a time–so had me load him up as much as I could now that he’s “big.”  After one look at my garage, with its towering stacks of boxes, which must look like skyscrapers to one so short, he informed me that the only reason he was going into that garage was to haul wood, because he always did that!  It was cute.  We only had Jake and Michaela (niece and nephew) for one night, since they didn’t have school on Monday.  Their mom and sister were visiting their oldest daughter at college, and their dad had to work.  So did I.  So, after a fun evening, I went off to work Monday morning and Rob and 4 kids had a blast.  We won’t talk about how frugal that wasn’t–they went to the movies and McDonald’s–thankfully our brother-in-law had a pretty good movie gift card to throw Rob’s way.  Apparently Rob fell asleep during the movie, and was poked awake by one of the kids and told to wake up and pay attention:)    I guess he was worn out by then.  Then they came back to the house and built Legos together until I got home and we all ate dinner.  Then, he and Ja’Ana took them home and stayed there until their daddy got home.

IMG_2159

Patsy’s 4H horticulture leader helped her start a spider plant in water a few weeks ago.  This past Friday, she helped her plant it into soil because it had a lot of roots.  She’s looking forward to growing it.

IMG_2161

I boiled up a huge bag of turkey bones that were in the freezer and made quite a bit of broth.  Some I froze and some I made into turkey-rice soup right away.  I put in more rice than I thought on accident, so it’s more like turkey and rice–not so much soup, but it is great.  I didn’t want to can this batch of broth because I was simply out of energy and time, so hopefully I will use up the broth quickly.  Lovana did use up a bunch in chicken chili verde on Thursday.

IMG_2157

I’m still using lots of onions from our garden.  They are one of the easiest garden items to store.  I just dry them well after pulling and washing, and then store them in a cool place.  The main bulk of them are on screens in the shop, and a small box-full is brought into the garage for immediate use.

I followed my $50/week grocery budget.  I’ve spent only $16 this week so far, and got mayonnaise for $2.50 jar (I got 2), and a few other things I needed.  Rob spent $3 on a gallon of milk.  So, the $31 will carry over until next week.

I continued to run back and forth from the garage to the kitchen, using the garage fridge for more perishable items.  The kitchen one is broken, and only keeps things cool(ish)–not cold enough for meat, etc.  I don’t want to buy another one now.

In my packing and sorting, I found a piano music book that I did not know I had that Ja’Ana is enjoying playing from.

We sold a few more items on e-bay.  My bank account is up to around $850 now for fixing up the new house.  I was able to save a bit extra and put it into that account as well,  for later–only $25—but every bit helps.  That’s the second time, so it’s an extra $50 I know I will love to have later.

 

 

Use-It-Up Project–Feb. 19

IMG_2151IMG_2152

As you can see, someone had left this freezer cracked open one day after removing some coveted corn dogs.  When I found that it was actually cracked open, and starting to thaw out, I was able to save almost all of the food because I caught the problem in time.  However, it iced up badly when it was re-freezing.

A main goal of my use-it-up project is to empty out one of my many freezers.   Clearly, this one was the one that got targeted first.  This past week, I was finally able to empty the rest of the items.  We have eaten food from all of the freezers, so I simply took the remaining items out of this one and put them into the spaces in the other freezers.  For the first time I can remember, I was able to simply open the door, turn off the freezer, put towels in the bottom to catch the water from the melting ice, and leave it overnight.  I did make a pot of broth and put it in there while hot to both cool the broth and melt more ice, but otherwise let nature take its course.   Easiest freezer cleaning EVER!  The next morning, I just wiped it out and started to transfer items over from other freezers to re-fill it.  I will work on emptying another one, cleaning it, sorting and organizing every item inside, and so on until they are all done.

IMG_2154

Items I used this past week:

Several loaves of frozen bread and buns that were given to us a while back, and I froze them.  I am only accepting 1-2 loaves at a time from now on until after we move so I can keep the freezers down.  There are at least 8 loaves still in there and they need to be used.

One huge-2 gallon bag of turkey bones from when we butchered last.  I made into broth.  I actually froze several containers of broth, but also used quite a bit, so space was gained.

A 10 pound bag of chicken thighs and drumsticks I got on $5 Friday a while back.  We ate chicken at least 3 times this past week.

Home-canned jars of tomatoes, green beans, fruit cocktail, peaches, applesauce, salsa,  jam and pickles, plus whatever I forgot.

Frozen blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, some shrimp that was starting to look freezer-burned but turned out great, a piece of fish (also suspect but turned out fine), frozen white beans, frozen turkey bits (I REALLY wasn’t sure about some of that–looked pretty bad, but the girls have been chowing it down in quesadillas daily-whew–and Lovana also made white bean chili from it and the frozen beans and some broth)

Many, many pantry and food items were used for 4H club last Friday.  I purposely chose recipes that would use my stockpile items.  Those included several cans of beans, broth, lentils, a whole chicken (I gave them a lesson on how to cut it up in that class, then they cooked it),  and many more.  I had to buy potatoes and a few other things. I had 9 recipes going in the 3 hours (Rob did 2 outside at one point)–it’s a bit chaotic, but super fun and a great learning experience.  We did use an entire 2-lb loaf of Tillamook cheese that day-haven’t done that for a while:)

I had to throw away a little package of sausage.  It was awful.  You could smell the freezer burn from across the room.  I’m glad it’s gone.  Overall, I’m delighted with this week’s progress.

 

 

Saving Money–Week Ending February 14

IMG_2105

This past week was a mixture of saving and spending–kind of like life–full of good and bad.  Here’s how it went:

The pigs continue to grow.  An appointment was made this week for the mobile slaughter man to come the first week of March and take care of them.  They are all spoken for, except 1,  and several are paid for.  We anticipate Rob’s labor will pay for our pig.  It got a little complicated when we realized a few weeks ago that one of them had not been properly castrated by the woman we bought them from.  After phone calls, and pictures being sent back and forth, she traded in the incorrectly fixed pig.  Thankfully, Rob was able to catch it with no problem and take it back.  So, it was not a complete loss as it would have been if we had been stuck with a viable boar.  They aren’t good to eat, and we have no need for a daddy pig.  The new baby is smaller, by far, then the other ones. So we are out a bunch of feed, plus the cost of transporting the pig and trading it in.   We are still not sure how we are going to handle that–but the good news is that we are still going to make enough money from the other ones to pay for our pig.  We will be lucky to break even on this one, though.

Rob picked up a temporary job and earned a bit of $.  He might have been needed one more day, but a piece of glass he had previously stepped on caused an abscess in his foot, causing us to go to the doctor for lancing and antibiotics.   She said he had to stay off of it.  The good news is that he is healing up nicely, now, and he did get paid for the one day.

We sold some dishes, cookbooks, home-school books, and a few small items from the shop on e-bay and a used book store.  We got over $150, which will bring our savings total for fixing up the new house up to around $600, once we get it all into the right account.

We did not buy a new refrigerator or popcorn maker when they broke.  I am using the fridge in the garage and a pot for now.

We had our taxes done instead of having Rob do them with Turbo-Tax as usual.  It was complicated this year because we had done some logging.   We had a fear that we would owe a lot, but that was not true in the end.  We also worried that our inexperience and lack of knowledge would cause us to make a mistake that would come back to haunt us later.  We will be getting a small refund.  I’m sure we paid taxes, but there was enough money withdrawn from Rob’s paychecks from last year to cover it.  I’m so glad we had this firm do the taxes.  They had a lot of experience in timber sales, which is why they were recommended to us  and knew how to calculate which part of the sales were actually profit, and how much timber was purchased when we bought the property (they don’t consider that profit).  We still do have expenses to pay, such as replanting baby trees, etc., so still are not spending the money until after we have paid what we need to.   Still, we had envisioned paying, and ended up not paying and even are getting a bit back—-happy day!

IMG_1580

We have been eating a lot of that cauliflower I froze last fall, along with many other vegetables I preserved by canning or freezing.

I shopped on Thursday at Costco for myself and 4H club, which was Friday.  I am in charge of cooking classes and there were 9 recipes to prepare for this week.  I purposely chose recipes that used my stockpile.  I didn’t have everything.    I didn’t have time for multiple stores, so got what I could at Costco and spent about 10 minutes in a Safeway getting the few remaining items.

I took the kids to McDonald’s Thursday after dance.  I figured we could afford that with the excellent news about the taxes.  Thursday was a crash and burn day for me–I could hardly drag one leg in front of the other, but needed to go with Rob to the doctor (we weren’t sure if he was going to be able to drive after they fixed him up–he actually could).  I also wanted to see what the Dr. found–had I gotten all the glass out, done something wrong, etc.  What did I have to do to take care of it at home? Since he could not see the bottom of his foot, it was all me.  Also, planning and getting ready for so many cooking classes for 4H is time-consuming, and I was exhausted because I had saved that job a little too long.  By the time I figured out that I was the one who was going to go to take the kids to dance, shop like  a maniac while they were in class, and do dinner as well, since Rob was in bed at that point with his foot up, I decided that Mrs. McDonald could make dinner.  They accidentally gave us 2 extra cheese burgers and an order of fries.  They caught the mistake and gave us the extra food for free, as they would have had to throw it away, and it was their mistake. We took them home to Rob and he didn’t even have to get out of bed to eat dinner.

It just gives me a larger appreciation for Rob.  I truly could not do well at living the life we lead without his constant help and support.  He has always wanted a large family,and promised long ago to bear his share of the load of the daily work involved with so many special needs kids. And he has.  He will do doctor visits, therapy, dentists, DHS visits, shopping, laundry, cooking, etc., etc., etc., as will I.  It takes us both. Let’s face it, we do SO much work ourselves because our kids either can’t or won’t.  Don’t get me wrong, we train them, but it often takes much longer to do a job than is normal, or it is beyond their ability.  Then you add in sometimes oppositional behavior, caused by neurological glitches, or just teen-age years, and it gets interesting sometimes.  So, we tag team the emotional part as well, and handing out the consequences, etc. He has never resented giving up the toys he thought he wanted when we were young, such as a fancy pickup, a boat, time for fishing a lot, hunting a lot, etc.  I feel like it’s Valentine’s Day all year long, because our love has grown and matured over the last 33 years to so much more than it was when we first got married.  I am blessed.

 

 

 

Use-It-Up Project–February 11, 2016 A.K.A. Yikes! Again!

IMG_2143

Yikes!  After having the inside of the refrigerator get melted while we were trying to fix its problem of icing up and stopping the fan, it looked awful, but kept working.  Until today…..  Unfortunately, it started icing up within a couple of days of its “fix” and by Wednesday we could hear the fan clicking on ice again inside the back panel.  By this morning, it stopped clicking totally, which happened last summer, leading to several hundred dollars of repairs.  The food I had placed inside was slightly cool, but not cold as it should be.  We had 4H today, and quite a bit of the food was slated for immediate use, so I put a lot of things into the garage fridge and made do today with a lot of running back and forth.  There seems to be a bit of coolness in the produce drawers, so I left the lettuce I got last night in there.  Hmmmmm.  Tomorrow, I will work on emptying the freezer into one of the ones in the garage, and I think that fridge is going  away soon.

Then……a few nights ago, my popcorn popper made a strange noise and stopped working. After fiddling with it for a while, we determined that it was dead.  So, I used up my popcorn popper this week as well. 🙁 I did make popcorn in a pan on the stove one time.

Frankly, this was not exactly what I had in mind for my use-it-up project, but we will survive and get all of that figured out.  It’s part of life.

I did use up the celery and potatoes I pictured above.  There were quite a few potatoes starting to sprout, so I took off the sprouts, peeled them, trimmed the brown pieces off the celery leaves and stalks I had been saving from when I made celery sticks, and some frozen clams and made clam chowder.  I also used some milk I had purchased on a really good sale and had been storing in the freezer.  The clams were frozen in recycled plastic cartons after I used 1/2 of a very large can of clams I had (think old lunchmeat container, cottage cheese carton, etc.–I do that a lot with things).  I feel a sense of satisfaction when I turn food that looks “bad” into something delicious that is eaten eagerly.  I had to pry the clams out of ice–they were frozen to the shelf–a feel-good moment when I got those used!

 

IMG_2145

We had 4H today.  I planned the recipes around my pantry and freezers and cupboards.  I used canned beans (several assorted), frozen chicken and hamburger, onions from my garden, home-canned tomatoes (several pints), tomato sauce and paste, and a bunch of other foods.  I had to buy a few things, but not many, considering we made 9 recipes.

Rob used some freeze-dried peas and spaghetti we had been given a few years ago in his outdoors class.  He showed the kids how to re-constitute them with hot water, and sent them home with peas to make at home.  He told them how that kind of food could be used camping or in an emergency.  He also helped them make home-made instant oatmeal packets for camping or home use.

IMG_2146

I used up a lot of assorted noodles from several bags.  We used a couple of jars of juice that were on a bottom shelf in the back and had been un-noticed.  I used some gluten-free pancake mix that had been around a long time.  I kept working away at veggies, fruits and bread products from the freezers.

I’m happy to report that I will be making hamburgers at my sister’s house on Sunday.  There are lots of buns that we were given a while back, and that will create even more space in the freezer.  I’m going to need my newly cleared space for the food in the freezer below the fridge that clearly needs to be emptied.  The freezer has a different fan/motor/system than the fridge, so it still works fine and the food is still frozen.  I just think the more things that are out of the house, the better, with the upcoming move.

 

Noodles, Noodles–A Versatile Casserole Recipe

IMG_2137

Yesterday, I grabbed some odds and ends of noodles that had been tucked into the corners of my pantry and cooked them all up.  There were corn shells, corn “egg” noodles, and quinoa penne pasta.  I just cooked it all in the same pot.  It made more than I thought it would, so I ended up making 2 large bowls of casserole.  I just used a basic recipe that I’ve been making for years.  I did not measure anything.  Here’s what I did:

IMG_2138

I divided the noodles into 2 large bowls.  In 1 bowl, I put a pint of home-canned tuna, broken up.  (a couple of cans would work)  In the other bowl, I put 2 small zip-topped bags of defrosted turkey that I had previously frozen during the holidays.  Then, I added peas (about a pint per bowl), cheese (about 2 cups per bowl), dried onion flakes (about 1 Tablespoon per bowl), and cream of mushroom soup (about 3 boxes of Pacific Foods brand divided between the bowls–I use that because it’s gluten-free, but any kind would work).    I added 1 small jar of mushrooms to the turkey casserole.

IMG_2140

I stirred it up. That’s it.   When dinner time came, I warmed up the part we wanted to eat yesterday in the microwave.  The oven works, too.  It takes about 1 hour at 350 degrees, but I was in a hurry.

In the past, I’ve used many different kinds and shapes of noodles.  I’ve sauted onions instead of using flakes.  I’ve put in leftover cooked carrots, or broccoli, or green beans.  I’ve made my own white sauce with mushrooms instead of cream of mushroom soup.  I’ve used different kinds of cheese.  The great thing about this recipe is that you can use up whatever you have and it comes out tasting great.  In one cooking session, I had both turkey casserole and tuna casserole, giving me meals that are going to taste a little different on several nights this week.  Truthfully, it made so much, that I gave my mom some, and probably will freeze one bowl full for another busy day!

 

Saving Money–Week of February 7, 2016

IMG_2120

This past week, I was able to spend a great deal of time on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday sorting, cleaning out, and even packing a few boxes that will go into storage.

I took some time out from sorting to cook.  The last thing I want to have to do is start spending extra money on take-out food because I am too tired to cook, or didn’t plan well.  I had Lovana make up some pizza crust mixes for the camper.  I also made up a bag into pizza that I had made a while ago.

IMG_2122

I plan to make home-made gluten-free biscuit mix in the near future.  Making mixes saves me both time and money.  I also use them to stock the camper to make camping more relaxing.

We did not spend the $50 that we budgeted for groceries this week.  We used our stockpile, canning, and freezers instead.  The only thing we bought from the grocery store was matches. We’ve been building a lot of bonfires while cleaning out, as well as our daily wood stove fire, and don’t want to run out of those!  I’m noticing that Ziplocks and Parmesan cheese are getting low, so I probably will take that money to Costco and get those items with it.  I’m thinking that lettuce/produce will take some of this week’s allotment.  We eat a lot of salad.

I’m noticing that, because I’m willing to dip into the stockpile and use up “special” grocery items, we are eating like kings and queens around here.

Both Rob and I sold several things on e-bay.  He’s finding a few things in the shop that he’s listing to see what happens, and so far, a couple sold.

We are putting all scrap metal that we find while cleaning onto a trailer and Rob will take it to the scrap metal yard soon.

As I pack and sort, I am making a big pile of items to put into the camper as soon as we get it back from the shop, where it is getting some warranty work done.  It is likely that we will need to stay in the camper for a couple of weeks after this place sells, and before we close on the new place, so I’m organizing myself for that.  If, for any reason, that doesn’t happen, we still plan to camp as usual, so it needs to be done.  I try to rotate the food supply in the camper each spring so things stay fresh.  This time, I’ve also picked out a couple of extra bins of food from the garage to pack under the benches of the dinette table.  I chose items like mac and cheese, canned soups, mixes (both home-made and purchased), etc.  I don’t use those items much on a daily basis, but do use them when camping.  If we do end up staying a couple of weeks in there, I want this extra food on hand to make things go more smoothly and to save money.  After all, I already own it!  I also am able to pick and choose out the convenience items before someone eats them.  I did a post on how I stock the camper pantry on a budget on Rob’s outdoor blog.

I have sorted out boxes and boxes of books and hope to make it to the home-school used book store this week.  They won’t take them all, but will buy a bunch of it.  Then, I’ll deal with the rest.  We took a huge load of miscellaneous items to a charity thrift store.  I know they will put the money to a good cause.

 

 

Saving Money–Week Ending January 31

IMG_2091

This week, I took a loaf of gluten-free bread from the freezer that was starting to get ice on it and turned it into gluten-free bread crumbs.  I thawed the loaf.  It was a little too wet from the thawed ice, at which point I decided to make it into crumbs instead of eating it.  I laid it out on the top of a cookie cooling rack and left the slices there for 2 days to dry.  Then, I broke the pieces into chunks and whirled them around in the food processor until they were crumbs.  I left mine quite large, like Panko crumbs.  They were still a little more moist than I wanted, so I cooked them at 250 degrees for 30 minutes.

IMG_2093

The entire loaf of crumbs easily fit into a quart-sized zip-topped bag.  I then froze the crumbs so they would last for a really long time.  I know they could be left out, but I prefer to keep mine frozen so they don’t get rancid, or have a chance of molding if they weren’t quite dry enough.

I continued my project of using up food. Since we are definitely putting the house on the market soon, I am now VERY committed to clearing some of it out.

We bought some plastic bins to start putting some of our things in.  We will fill them with non-essential items, packed well and put them in storage.  My brother-in-law has an empty semi-truck trailer he has offered to let us use for free.  There are 2 reasons for this.  1) To empty the house a bit so it looks nicer and is easier to keep clean while it is for sale. 2) Rob does not have a job, so we are not going to qualify for a loan.  So, we will have to sell this house, get the money, and THEN buy a new house.  This will leave us in the camper for a couple of weeks at least.  It will save us a lot of money if we can pack things into that trailer for free, even with buying a lot of bins so mice can’t get into our more fragile things.  Rob got a lot of boxes from the grocery store and I am packing empty canning jars in them.  Moisture and critters won’t bother glass jars.

We have made a hard decision to sell this place, but in the end, we should be able to buy a house free and clear, which will save us a lot of money.  That is the bright spot in this situation for me.  It will be much smaller, and probably won’t come with property, but we won’t know exactly what we will have to work with until we sell this one, so I’m trying not to think the worst.

IMG_2092

Rob got these flowers for free from Fred Meyers.  I trimmed off the “problems” that caused them to be free in the first place, and arranged them in my vase I got years ago from a glass blower.

I spent $51 at the grocery store this past week.  I was able to get 5 bricks of cheese (2 lbs), soda to take to the family dinner, salad ingredients, some milk, and some other things.  I was pleased with the amount of food I cooked from my storage.   I’m also pleased with the fact that my food is nowhere near gone.   We had guests on Friday, and ended up with 24 people at the family dinner Sunday.  (I did not bring all of the food, but did bring a bunch of it).  I love being able to entertain without worrying about a big grocery bill.

Rob went to an accountant this year, although he’s been doing the taxes himself the last few years.  This is because we sold some timber and want to make sure the taxes are handled correctly. We don’t want a costly mistake coming back to haunt us later.   The accountant told him we would probably need to hire a study done to determine the value of the timber when we bought the place.  It would be between $800-$1,000 for the study.  Then they would take the amount we sold it for, minus the amount it was worth when we bought it and the replanting fees, etc. and we would only have to pay taxes on the gain.  At the last minute, she mentioned that if he could come up with the original listing where the timber was valued for the sale, she could legally use that.  Amazingly enough, he had it in his files, and we were saved all that money!

We checked out library movies and books.  We’ve been watching t.v. shows on Amazon Prime.  I cleaned out the cereal cupboard.  It was full of crackers and cereal, some of which were just bits in bags.  People have already been eating those items up, since I put them right in front of their little fingers and eyeballs:)  We took a small walk along the Willamette river on Thursday while we were waiting for the girls.

 

My January Use-It-Up Project Update-Jan. 29

FullSizeRender

This week, I continued my project of deliberately using up items in my freezers, pantry and basement that needed to be used.  Some items are getting old, so I am specifically targeting them, and using other food storage to the max!

We had popcorn. I buy it by the 25 pound bag.  Mine is a few months old, so is in no danger of going bad, but it’s sure nice to have that crunchy, buttery treat on occasion.  I have a large plastic food-grade bucket I keep it in, then transfer a reasonable amount into a Tupperware container to keep in the kitchen cupboard.

I dug way back into one of the freezers.  I found 2 packages of steak from last year’s beef. One was t-bone and one was another kind–rib steak, I think.  I am thawing them in the refrigerator for our family Sunday dinner at my sister’s. We may add some marinade today and then Rob will BBQ them Sunday at her house, along with a couple of packages from her freezer. I like to use all old meat before the new to prevent freezer burn, but obviously missed these 2 packages. They came to light after I removed some other items from that freezer.  From that same freezer, I found an older loaf of gluten-free bread which I will make into crumbs today.  I also found a few more packages of peaches from 2014.  I thought they were gone.  So– you guessed it–Ja’Ana made another peach crisp. She just loves peach crisp and was very excited when I found those old peaches.   Yum!  These peaches were a little browned, getting kind of old, and really needed to be used, so we just added a little extra cinnamon and it turned out great.  We ate most of it for dinner last night–so no waste!

IMG_2064

I made soup from some broth that didn’t seal when I canned it last week.  I also used some of the meat bits from when I made that broth.  In that soup, I also used some canned carrots, onions from my garden, home-canned tomatoes, the last of a celery stalk that was pretty wilted in the refrigerator drawer, and some potatoes that were getting pretty shriveled.  It came out great and we had it both Wednesday and Thursday nights.  There is still a little left.

We used green beans and frozen broccoli for our vegetables this week, along with the vegetable soup.  We also had salads several times.  At the beginning of January, we got a lot of lettuce.  We are just finishing it up now.  It was very reasonable at Costco and Cash and Carry, when we bought a 3-pack of head lettuce, or a 5-pack of Romaine.  I figure that we ate about 8-10 heads of assorted lettuce this month so far.  Those 2 kinds of lettuce keep a long time for me.

I was able to use up a head of cabbage from our garden that has been stored in the fridge for 4-5 months now.  I simply put the heads in plastic grocery store bags, and refrigerated them.  I have great success with using cold-storage with carrots and cabbage, and still have both.  However, they are getting to the point of needing to be used.

IMG_2079

The big girls cooked twice.  Tuesday was Rob’s birthday and they made Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo, beans and birthday cake.  They got out the sparkling cider I had in the garage (also needing to be used) and made it into a celebration. On Thursday, we had leftover soup and Lovana made muffins and salad, and we had J’s peach crisp.

I am making progress with my project.  There are a few empty spaces on the pantry shelves and one of the freezers is starting to have quite a bit of empty space.  I promptly filled that space with some bread we were given, though!  (6-8 loaves)  I targeted that extra bread by making French toast one morning.  I made a lot and have been just having the kids warm it up each morning.  I am going to make another batch soon.  That space will empty quickly, because bread is so bulky,  and then I can see what is in the back and corners better so I can get it out of there.  The freezer that has the chickens and beef is starting to show some space.  Frozen bananas keep getting turned into smoothies (we’ve used at least a gallon in the last 2-3 weeks).

I will continue this project in February.  Now that we’ve decided to sell the house for sure, I have even more urgency to clear some of these items out so that we have an easier time moving.  I also want to be wise, though, and have plenty to use at our new place–so, as always–balance is the key.  In fact, we have pigs that will be pork in another month-6 weeks and will need room for that in one of the freezers.

I’ve decided to join in with Erika at The Make-Do Homemaker and try to keep the grocery shopping at $50/week.  I anticipate that there may be weeks when I can keep it even lower than that, as it is not uncommon for me to go a couple of weeks without shopping.  This week, for instance, we stocked up on cheese (5 -2lb bricks) because it was a good deal.  We also got some milk and a couple of other items.  The only 3 things on my list so far for the coming week are celery, Parmesan cheese and ground ginger.  I may need to add salad stuff, as we may run out.  Any extra $ will be saved for re-building the stockpile after we move.