Tag Archives: cooking

Watching my pennies

Frugal Accomplishments for this week–Nov. 9, 2015

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This week, we cooked up 2 of our huge Sweetmeat squash.  There are still a lot left, but I froze 10 bags and we’ve got lots to eat besides.  I also cut up a few Butternut squash into cubes and they have been used throughout the week for quick dinners.

We cooked quite a few things, including cauliflower, Swiss steak, lots of things from the 50 lbs. of potatoes I got for $10 a couple of weeks ago, and used several odds and ends that came out of the garden.  It frosted pretty hard so most things are dead now, so now my menu planning will focus on using all that we preserved.

Today, I cooked pinto beans with a little Anaheim pepper,  spaghetti sauce with 1/2 lb pork burger, stuffed peppers with the other 1/2 lb pork burger, and a huge batch of chili with pinto beans and hamburger.  This will be the basis of our meals for the next few days.

IMG_1665We got baby pigs to raise for meat and to sell.  If all goes well, we will be able to sell the others enough to pay for the cost of ours.  We have pre-sold most of them, so it’s a matter of them growing properly, and staying healthy.  We’ve only had trouble one time, ever, when a pig got tetnus and died, but that was very rare.  Most of the time, it goes as planned.

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I enjoyed watching a woodpecker that has decided to take up daily residence in a dead tree near our garage.  He just spends hours each day hammering and pecking on that tree.  It’s fun to watch.

We used the library and returned materials promptly and did not get fines this week.  When we couldn’t make it, we renewed our materials on-line.

We’ve done some extra cleaning and either used up the “surprise” items we found or donated them.

I’ve been sewing on Christmas presents.

Since Rob’s job loss in September, I have deliberately decided to focus on my blessings.  It’s easy to fall into feelings of self-pity, anxiety, fear of the future, anger or despair.  It’s harder to focus on the overabundance that we have been blessed with, the promises of Scripture-assuring me that God will take care of us, and the every-day beauty that surrounds me.  Worry will not change anything.  I might as well enjoy my time right now as much as possible and not ruin this season, this day, this time with worry.  Because in the end, probably at least a year from now, I will be able to look back and say, “Yes, it was hard.  It was unfair, it was awful.  We were blind sighted.  We cried a lot.  We felt betrayed by those we thought were our friends.  People who said they loved us, didn’t.  But, God was faithful, and we made it through!”  I firmly believe this with all my heart.  And, during this Thanksgiving season, I am truly blessed!

Gluten free, Saving Money

Lemon Loaf

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For the last couple of days, I have been drooling over the Simple Lemon Cake on the blog, Debt Free, Cashed Up and Laughing.  It looks so good.  I wanted to make it.  But, silly me, I did not know what SR flour was.  I am gluten-free, so maybe it was sweet rice flour?  I just didn’t know, but that loaf looked yummy!  After waiting patiently, I got the reply that it was self-rising flour.  That made sense.  Well, sweet rice flour would have fit into my gluten-free diet better, but that loaf still looked really, really good.  I still didn’t know what another ingredient was:  jelly crystals.  I wondered–pectin?  Who knew?  So, I asked again and it was…….Jello.  Sounded interesting, but I didn’t have any lemon jello on hand and I wanted to eat that cake tonight!!

Once that answer was received, Patsy and I set to work changing the recipe entirely to make it fit the ingredients in our pantry, and to make it gluten free.    If you want to make the original recipe, go to her blog.  Or, try this version.  It’s really good, too.  I save money every time I make my own gluten-free baked goods.  To buy one gluten-free muffin can cost a couple of dollars, minimum.   Even though gluten-free flour is expensive, it’s way less to make my own.  I also had a lemon languishing in the refrigerator drawer that needed to be used.

Mini Lemon Loaves

2 Cups 1-to-1 Flour (from Bob’s Red Mill)

3/4 cup sugar

1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

zest of 1 lemon

1/2 cup melted butter

4 eggs

3 Tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 cup milk

Glaze:  1 cup powdered sugar

2-4 Tablespoons lemon juice (start with the 2 Tablespoons, and add more as needed to make a glaze)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl, including the lemon zest.  Mix the butter, eggs, lemon juice and milk in another bowl.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry mixture and stir until well blended.  Spray 3 mini loaf pans (4″ x 2″) with non-stick spray.  Divide the batter evenly between the pans.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes, or until cooked through and slightly browned on top.     When the loaves are removed from the oven, set them on a cooling rack.  Pour the glaze onto the hot loaves, still in their pans.  Let set for 10 minutes.  Remove the loaves from the pans, and finish cooling on a wire rack.  The glaze will be cooled enough to stay on the loaves.  Makes 3 mini loaves.  Keep leftovers in freezer.

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Saving Money, Slow Cooker

Slow Cooker Swiss Steak

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FullSizeRenderWhen I need dinner in a hurry, I turn to my slow cooker.  This happens several times a week, because I am always in a hurry!

Recently, someone gave us some round steak.  So, I decided to make Swiss Steak.  I cut the steak into cutlets and laid them in the bottom of the crock pot.  I seasoned it with salt and pepper.  I chopped one small onion and 2 tomatoes onto the top.  I still have a few tomatoes left from the garden, so I used those.  When I don’t have any from the garden, I use canned.  I put a carton of cream of mushroom soup on top and turned it on to low for 8 hours.  My sister had ordered a case from Amazon, and shared several cartons with me.  I can’t tolerate any gluten, so the Pacific Foods brand is the one I use.

That evening, we had the Swiss Steak with cauliflower from the huge box a friend gave me a couple of weeks ago.   Tonight, I thickened the juices with sweet rice flour to make gravy and we had the rest of it with mashed potatoes and home-canned green beans.  I’m looking for ways to use the 50 pounds of red potatoes I bought for $10 a week ago.  I was delighted to get 2 dinners for almost free and they were really tasty, too.IMG_1651

food preservation

Freezing Squash

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Today, we decided to cut up 2 of the large sweetmeat squash and process them for the freezer.  We have been blessed with so many this year and I want to get started using them.  It takes quite a bit of time to cook, mash and freeze these large squash, to I like to put some into the freezer.  Early this morning, Rob cut them up and scooped out the seeds.  I baked them on cookie sheets lined with foil.

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I baked them until they were soft at 350 degrees.    It took between 1-1/2 hours and 2 hours to get them to a place where a fork would easily slide into them.  I got 4 large cookie sheets full from the 2 squash and was able to fit them all into my double ovens.  When we remodeled this house a few years back, I put in the double oven because we run a large 4H club and it makes the cooking classes go better.  I’ve found so many ways to use both ovens during days like this, and also at holidays, that I’ve always been glad I made that choice.

I set them out on the counter to cool down while I took Patsy to an appointment.  I intended to put the squash through the food mill when I returned, but Ja’Ana surprised me by getting quite a bit of it done before I came back.  Her arm was tired by then, so Patsy took over.  Grinding the food mill is pretty fun, but I was very happy to have the help with that part of the job on such a busy day.

The end result was about 10 quart-sized zip-top bags and a sizable bowl for using fresh.  Some of the bags are stuffed as full as they could get for evenings when we want to use it as a vegetable for dinner and some have less in them for when I want to use it for cooking.  For meals, my kids like it warmed up with a little brown sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top.  For cooking, I use it as pumpkin.  It is less watery and stringy as many pumpkins I have grown and we love using it in pie, muffins, pumpkin custard, etc.  I love having the frozen squash in my freezer to make my life easier on busy days!