So far in September

I went to my parents’ house last Saturday (9/5) to can spaghetti sauce.  My dad planted lots of tomatoes and they weren’t hit by the blight, so my mom decided to share with us.  I started with a bushel of tomatoes and ended up with 15 pints of spaghetti sauce.  I followed the recipe from the USDA for meatless spaghetti sauce, which you can find here.  I did two things differently than the recipe.  I didn’t remove the seeds from the tomatoes (which is probably why it didn’t cook down as much as it should have) and I added a tablespoon of lemon juice to each pint jar.  My mom is paranoid about acidity levels– although I’m not sure it matters if you pressure cook it.

Also, I pulled up our tomato plants (except for the volunteer cherry tomatoes) to make room for some lettuce, kale, and arugula.  I haven’t planted it yet though.  Yikes!  It may be too late now.

I’ve also been busily working on home-made Christmas gifts.  I finished a shawl for my MIL and started the Slanted Gretel Tee from Interweave for my mom.  I also bought fabric to make these notebook and pencil holders for the kids on my list.  I’m using denim and corduroy left over from pants that DH and I can’t wear anymore for the cover.  I’ve cut them in strips to make three stripes.  I also plan to applique pictures of dinosaurs and/or flowers on the outside cover.  We’ll see how that goes . . .  I started the first one to make sure it was going to work out.  It’s done except for sewing up the section along the top and appliqueing the dinosaur on the front.  Anyone know of a good, simple outline of a t-rex good for applique?  My drawing skills leave something to be desired to say the least.  I started cutting out the fabric for the other four and plan to start doing them assembly line style.  I think that will make it faster and cut down on the mess in the house while I’m doing it.

It’s been forever

Just a few of the things I’ve been up to:

-picked 20 lbs of blueberries.  I froze about 7 quarts and canned blueberry syrup and spiced blueberry jam.

-picked 4 quarts of wild blackberries.  I made one pie and froze the rest for pies this winter.

-canned green beans.  My mom planted a row of beans for me at her house, and I went up there so she could help me can them.  I ended up with 20 pints. They are Tenderette, I think.

-froze dragon’s tongue beans this morning.   I got just a hair more than 4 pints.  I don’t think that’s too shabby from a 6 foot row of beans in my tiny garden.  We also had a huge batch (just to eat) earlier in the week.  My husband sauteed them in butter with tomato and onion.  They were delicious.

-planted peas, zucchini, squash, and cucumbers.  They are starting to really take off.  The peas have one bloom.  I hope they can stick out the hot weather for a few more weeks so I can have a fall crop.  The cucumbers are starting to climb my trellis (bamboo stakes with twine between them).  The zucchini are blooming and I see some yellow squash starting.  It won’t be long until I’m overwhelmed.

-speaking of being overwhelmed by squash, a lady in my knitting group gave me some squash and we got lots of squash in our CSA pickup this week.  I cut up some of them and ate them in a salad.  I made two loaves of bread with a yellow crookneck squash.  It was a little bit dry, but okay.  Last night we had summer squash casserole (from Joy of Cooking) and I froze two cups of grated yellow zucchini for bread later.  I still have two largish patty pan squash.  I think I’m going to slice them, coat them in egg and flour, and fry them.

-My tomatoes have the late blight, which makes me extremely sad.  We’ve eaten a few, but I’m just waiting for it to start spreading to the tomatoes.  I tried to stop it from spreading by cutting off all of the infected leaves and throwing them away, but it didn’t work.  If I see it on any of the fruit, I’m picking them all.  We’ll just have fried green tomatoes a couple of times, I guess.  I also plan to pull up and burn the plants and I just ordered some broccoli, kale, and arugula seeds.  It may be too late for a fall crop of those things, but I’m going to try.  If it doesn’t work, at least I’ll have some seed to plant them early this spring.

-Good news on the tomato front– the CSA I belong to doesn’t have the blight.  Hopefully, that will remain the case and I’ll be able to get some tomatoes from them to make spaghetti sauce or whatever.

-I’ve gotten a couple of green peppers and they are delicious.  Unfortunately, I planted the jalapenos right next to them, and the jalapenos are not hot at all.  I thought it would be the other way around.  Oh well.  I’ll know better for next year.

-The basil has been going crazy.  I’ve made pesto a couple of times over the past few weeks and made a double batch last evening.  One is in the freezer and one is in the fridge for dinner tonight.

-My parents are in the peach and apple farm part of the state this weekend.  They are going to pick up some peaches for me!  I froze a whole bunch year before last.  This year I may freeze some, but I’d also like to dehydrate some using the dehydrator my mom is letting me borrow.  I think I’ll be more likely to eat those and I think my daughter will like them too.

-Away from the food aspect of simple, frugal, and green, my daughter had her 3rd birthday a couple of weeks ago.  While it wasn’t the most frugal or green thing ever, I did manage to find a secondhand headboard and to use the bed frame the previous owners of this house left us to gift her a “big girl” bed for her birthday.

Frugal Family Fun

As I’ve mentioned before, we are trying to pay down some debt that we acquired as graduate students.  It takes up more of our budget than I’d like, so I want to get rid of it as soon as possible.  That will give us more room in our budget for good food and energy-saving appliances among other things.

It’s kind of a drag though to focus so much on money and have very few fun things to do.  So many of the things we enjoy– going out to eat, going to the movies, taking trips to museums, etc.– cost money.  Our solution this month has been to go on picnics around our town.  A couple weeks ago, we took my toddler’s bike and packed a picnic lunch (organic peanut butter on bread from the local bakery) and went to the rail trail by the river.  It’s less than a five minute drive.  We would walk, but a toddler, a baby, and a four lane road prevents us from doing that.  Hopefully, they will at some point build the pedestrian road from our neighborhood down to the river and we will be able to walk.

We let my daughter ride her tricycle as far as she wanted down the trail.  We saw geese, a “waterfall” (there was water gushing out from the lock and dam along the trail), and DH climbed over a railing to pick a couple of wild black raspberries for her to eat.  The baby was content for me to push him along in his stroller.  When we walked back to the car, we found a nice shady, grassy, area and spread out our picnic fare.   We all had a good time and we spent no extra money.

Last evening, we had another picnic.  My husband’s  father’s day present was a table-top gas grill.  In the past, we have rarely grilled anything because it takes so long and requires us to keep charcoal on hand.  We’ve used the gas grill twice already since he got it at the end of June.  We packed up the grill and went to a local park with a playground.  We even took the dog with us.  Everyone had a great time and again it was a free “adventure.”

Dairy- Random thoughts

I’m kind of frustrated that there aren’t any good local dairy options in my area. My daughter and I drink milk, we all eat a lot of cheese, we eat yogurt a fair amount, cook with butter, and we eat more ice cream than we probably should.

I’ve tried buying goat cheese (several different kinds) from a great local source, but I cannot stand the taste.  At all.  It completely ruins the taste of the food for me.  It’s an incredible shame, because I really, really, really would love to substitute goat’s cheese for all of the cow’s cheese we eat.  I’ll probably try again, but for now, that’s not an option.

Cow’s milk is incredibly harshly regulated in my state.  There isn’t a single small dairy around here, and even if there were, they wouldn’t be able to sell raw milk or cheeses to us– it’s against state law.  We couldn’t even purchase a share in a dairy to get the milk, which I’ve read is a way people in some states are able to get around regulations.

Both of my parents grew up on farms drinking fresh raw cow’s milk.  My mom’s mom had a dairy cow until some time in the late 60s or early 70s when my uncle, an agronomy professor, convinced her there were too many bacteria in raw milk.  I think my other grandma stopped having dairy cows when she and my grandpap “retired” from farming.

I read all of these blogs from people making yogurt or cheese (Greening of Gavin, esp.) and I’m jealous.  If I buy organic milk from the store to try to make these things, they would be way out of my budget.  And if I buy traditional milk, my yogurt and cheese would be full of the hormones and other nasties.

I usually try to buy organic milk, yogurt, and cheese, but they are quite expensive.  We are trying to get a better grip on our grocery spending, so there isn’t always room in the budget for those.  I’ve been trying to cut a good bit of dairy out of my diet, so that we have more money for the good organic milk, cheese, and yogurt.  So far, so good.  And hopefully some day I’ll be able to join a cow share.

Black Raspberry Jam

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted.  The Friday before last I picked a quart of black raspberries in the city park near my house.  I took pictures of myself making jam and have just finally gotten around to posting them and telling all about making the jam.  I’m such a procrastinator.

So, I was a little bit hesitant to pick the berries, but there were a lot and about half the berries were ripe.  I figured I’d pick some and there would still be plenty for someone else to pick.  I mean, what’s the protocol of picking wild berries in a local city park?  I was worried someone else would be counting on picking them.  On the other hand, I hated to see them go to waste.    I decided to go for it, and if someone complained I’d offer to split the berries or give them a jar of jam to make peace.  Noone complained and it was definitely worth it.

Black Raspberries

I had some sure-jell I had bought several years ago to make gooseberry jam.  The recipe called for 2 quarts of berries, but I decided to half it.  That probably wasn’t the best idea, because the jam ended up not setting quite as well as it should have.

I put in the raspberries, sure-jell, and sugar in the pot and brought them to a boil for a minute or two (I forget what the recipe said).  I was supposed to wait to add the sugar, but reading directions carefully isn’t really one of my strong suits.

Cooking the Berries

I processed them in a water bath.  I don’t actually have a canner, but I figured this pot with a spaghetti strainer thing would do the trick.

Water Bath Canning

After I cooked them, I put them into a pint jar and three half cup (I think) jars with a little left over.  The left over is already gone.  Boy, is it good– even if it didn’t set as hard as it should have.

Black Raspberry Jam

On last Thursday, I walked by the berries and it didn’t look like anyone had been picking them– except the occasional one along the path.  That meant I didn’t feel bad going on Friday afternoon and picking another quart.  At my husband’s request, this time I made a black raspberry cobbler following the recipe in the Joy of Cooking.  It was really, really yummy.

I hope there are more berries this Friday, but I’m not keeping my fingers crossed.  On the up side, there are blackberries about to turn ripe in the park and at my parent’s house.   Last Saturday, I picked gooseberries at my parents’ and plan to make some chutney tonight.  I’ll try to post more about that and also our adventure at the u-pick blueberry farm where we are hopefully going to pick at least 10-15 pounds of berries next week.  I love berry season!

Frugality

I am definitely not frugal by nature, but I want to be more frugal. Partly because I don’t want to be wasteful and partly because I would like to really choose where and how to spend my money. I have some financial goals (mostly debt repayment, right now) that I’d like to meet.

My husband is kind of lackadaisical when it comes to money. Usually a bout of frugality on my part starts out with me crunching some numbers, convincing my husband we’re spending too much money, and him agreeing to spend less. For a little while, we do pretty well, but then we slowly slip back in to spending a little extra here and a little extra there until we’re back where we started.

I’ve read about a lot of people using cash and an envelope system or something similar to really get ahold of their finances. I’ve always kind of brushed the idea aside, thinking it wasn’t for me. The past couple of months, I’ve been thinking seriously about starting to do this. My husband has been reluctant, but I think I’ve finally convinced him to give it a try. We’ll see how it works.

My basic plan is a little bit different than some of the things I’ve read. I found a really great spreadsheet from Within Your Means and figured out how to really estimate those weird expenses that always seem to pop up and wreck and budget and to know exactly how much money we do have to spend on groceries, toiletries, and other non-fixed expenses. This guy recommends a weekly allowance, but that wouldn’t work very well for me. I get paid twice a month and my husband is paid once a month. My plan is to take money out each time I get paid– so we’ll have an allowance for a little more or a little less than two weeks.

I’m also not sure if I’m going to do envelopes or not. I’m thinking about splitting the money between us and maybe keeping some of it at the house for groceries. I don’t want to end up with all the money at the house and then going somewhere and ending up using the debit card because I don’t have any cash. On the other hand, I do need to probably separate out some of the money (gas for the car, definitely), so it doesn’t get sucked up into the grocery budget. Do you have any helpful hints or suggestions? What works for you?

Saag Paneer

We bought a half share in a CSA again this year.  Last year was the first time we decided to do that, and it was really great to have fresh veggies all summer long.  Like last year, this spring has also had a lot of wet, cool weather.  It’s not so great for many of the plants, but the lettuce and other greens must really like it.  Because we have a half share, we pick  up every other Tuesday.  I’m not sure how the farmer decided on that arrangement– it would be better for us in many ways to pick  up half as much every week.

Last week, we picked up both a huge bag of mesclun mix (boy, does that make great salads) and a big bag of spinach.  While we eat a salad with dinner most nights, that was too much for us to eat before it would go bad.  So, we tried to figure out something to do with the spinach and decided on Saag Paneer.

My husband was going to make it, but he has strep throat and spent yesterday afternoon sleeping.  I came home early from work to wrangle the babies, so he could get some rest.  I decided to let him sleep and cook dinner.  He had made the cheese in the morning, so it was in the fridge waiting for me.  I think he let it press a little bit too long.  Next time, we’ll probably take the weight off at 20 minutes like the recipe says.  I followed the recipe in Joy of Cooking.  It turned out great, but I could have definitely added even more spinach.  Plus, I managed to burn myself with the hot oil. Not badly, but I do still have a red spot this morning– at least I didn’t get a blister.

On the house-cleaning front, I have kept everything more or less picked up and swept on Sunday and yesterday.  I didn’t get to it on Monday, but the floors weren’t too bad yesterday afternoon.  I think if I manage to sweep 4 or 5 of 7 days each week, the dog hair won’t be able to take over.

Cleaning the House

I hate cleaning the house.  Every weekend I clean everything up.  And every Friday I come home and think, “How can this house possibly be so dirty again?  I just cleaned it last weekend.”  It’s incredibly frustrating and means I have less time to devote to other projects around the house that I’d really rather be doing, like cooking, knitting, or gardening.

The biggest problem is the dog hair.  The dog’s hair gets everywhere.  I decided this weekend that I need to start sweeping the floors every evening or at least every other.  I timed myself last night, and it only takes 15 minutes to sweep the whole downstairs.  That is– it only takes 15 minutes if everything is picked up like it was last night before I started.

Which brings me to the second problem– it takes much longer to do things like sweep or dust if the toys and other things aren’t already put away.  I’ve been trying to get my husband to switch off nights with me to make sure all of the toys are put away when we put my daughter to bed.  We’ve been doing a pretty good job.  But before this weekend, the toys were really disorganized.  That made it a lot more difficult to put everything away.  I spent a good part of Saturday re-organizing the toys.  If we keep up with putting everything away each night and I sweep each night after the toys have been put away, I think I’ll be able to devote a lot less time on the weekends to cleaning.

Scatterbrained

I’ve been trying to simplify the gift giving in my life.  My parents are really good candidates for simple gifts.  They have lots of stuff and when they want something, they generally just buy it.

So since Father’s Day is coming up, I decided to make a home-baked pie for my dad.  His favorite is coconut cream, so I decided to make that.  I googled “coconut cream pie” and the first result was a recipe for old fashioned coconut cream pie from Allrecipes.com.  I looked through the ingredients and it looked really good– until I got to the topping.  It called for whipped topping.  What kind of self-respecting coconut cream pie has whipped topping on it? A few of the comments mentioned substituting whipped cream (from scratch, not a can), but there was only one that I saw that mentioned meringue.  When I think of old fashioned coconut cream pie, I definitely think of meringue on top.  And even if whipped cream were more old-fashioned than meringue (which I doubt because then you’d probably be wasting egg whites and which old-fashioned homemaker would waste those?), there is no possible way that recipe calling for whipped topping with its hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup can be called old fashioned. </endrant>

Okay, now for the “scatterbrained” part  of the post.  Last night I went to the grocery store to do our weekly shopping– a couple days early.  We usually go either on Friday or on the weekend sometime.  There were two reasons I went.  1)  The baby has been a little bit under the weather and we needed some more infant tylenol.  2) I wanted to get the ingredients to make the coconut cream pie.  Guess what I forgot to buy– or even put on the list?  The ingredients for the coconut cream pie.  So I guess I’ll be headed back to the store tonight to pick up some coconut and maybe some vanilla extract. Argh.

Ack! What I’ve Been Doing Other Than Posting

I have been up to some frugal, simple, and green things this weekend.

On Saturday, I cleaned the house.  We have a large longish-furred dog and a toddler.  You can probably imagine what sweeping the floors looks like.  Luckily, the dog does usually eat most of the toddler’s mess.  The dog hair, though, is truly obnoxious.  If anyone has good ideas for managing it out there in blog-land other than sweep more often or brush the dog more often, I’d love to hear them.

On Sunday, I spent most of the day cooking and gardening.  We live on a small city lot.  There is one side of the house that gets a lot of sun, so I’ve been making bed and planting stuff.  We’ll see if we actually get some good yields.  Since it’s my first year, I’m guessing I won’t.  A couple weeks ago, I planted six tomato plants, six green pepper plants, six jalepeño plants, purple basil, rosemary, peppermint, and genovese basil.  I already had sage and oregano that overwinter in a pot from last year.  Sunday, I spent most of my time making a new bed for cucumbers, beans, carrots, and beets.  I bought the seeds from SeedSaver.org as a part of their heritage collection.  I’m not sure if they’re going to do anything or not, but look for reports (and hopefully pictures) as the season progresses.

I also cooked on Sunday.  We bought a 3 lb fryer at the local co-op.  They get their pastured meat from local growers.  I’d like to eat a lot less meat, but my husband is definitely a meat and potatoes kind of guy.  I love doing roasted chickens though, because they last for so many meals.  We roast them, save the left over meat for 1-2 other meals, and make chicken stock from the leftover scraps.  We freeze the stock to use in soups or to cook rice or in any recipe we decide to make that calls for broth or stock.

Because some of the basil was starting to flower, I decided to make basil flavored chicken.  I chopped some up with some garlic and put in in olive oil.  I waited for the basil and garlic flavors to seep into the olive oil– I’m pretty sure there’s a better word for that, but I can’t think of it.  After that had time to get tasty, I cut up some potatoes, carrots and onions and put them in a pan.  I stuck the chicken on top and rubbed some of the basil/garlic/olive oil mixture under the skin on the breast and poured the rest on top.  A very delicious meal.