Cheap Pagan Bitching

Blessings Darlings!

So far with this unemployment I've been doing the usual stuff.  Looking at the finances to see how long before we have to start taking money from the emergency fund, moving money from the places I've already been taking surveys for cash, finally being able to weed the garden and get a big planting of green beans in.  

Today I move into 'Cheap Pagan Bitch' phase, and see how to live on less cash.  Obviously this is going to require plenty of garden work to get us fed.  And I suppose we might qualify for about $20 a month of food stamps until my social security retirement actually starts arriving.  (I didn't realize that their info 'you can apply up to 3 months before you want to start it' meant 'it takes at least 3 months to get you into the system.  Apply REALLY EARLY".)  

 So no one's getting more clothes for a while.  No paid entertainment - free concerts at the Amp, bringing picnic dinner is still a go. No buying more music, it's free radio apps.  And I quit smoking, which will save us about $30 a month.

Used books are allowed.  New books . . . so tempting!  So many of my friends are authors and I'm already behind on buying ALL THE BOOKS.  But I'll live without them.  OTOH, I'm NOT stopping the money for Patreon's I'm in.  

And, clearly, I won't be harassing Byron Ballard and Amy Blackthorn and all the others at Free Spirit Gathering. 

I can't change what we pay for rent (which is pretty low for the space we have) or health insurance.  We need the medications we're on (well, I might be able to reduce blood pressure meds soon, but we'll see.) 

 We have to eat, and we will reduce our spending on that with the help of the garden and cooking from scratch - but we were already spending relatively little on that.  I certainly will be making more food from scratch - all the loaf bread, egg roll and dumpling wrappers, all egg rolls and dumplings, maybe even all corn and wheat tortillas.  But not the English Muffins and biscuits - only the Chubby Hubby eats those and there aren't small recipes for biscuits.  I'm going to continue to buy those because I don't want to stand over a hot pan cooking English Muffins at this time of year (and I don't think we have the round things to pour the batter in.  I've done this enough to know that the thinner poured batter ones are better than the bread/muffin like cut-and-cook ones.)  Bread will be baked outside in bread maker.  Much baking will be done outside in toaster oven.  Air frying will be done outside in . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . air fryer. 

My husband will pitch a fit if I switch from good Chinese thin and thick soy sauces and go to big bottles of Kikkoman JAPANESE soy sauce.  He might just have to live with that.  You know how some folks have lots of different types of vinegars?  He's like that with soy sauce.  And a little bit with vinegar, too, really.  But I digress . . .

Cars - I could take my car off the road, rather than get new tags and pay personal property tax on it.  I probably won't, and just get 1 year tags instead of two year.  

Electric bill - Might go up a bit, with more home cooking.  AC is set at 80 days, 77 nights.  If the heat dome hits here the bill will go up.

Hell if I know what I'm going to do about propane for winter heating.  The tank is at 20% now, fine for the water heater.  The 'poor tax' for partial fills (the delivery charges, same if you get 100 gallons or 500 gallons or 50 gallons) is at least $35 per delivery.  I don't know if the cost per gallon is going to go up or down from where it is now.  And the company hides the cost it is per gallon now until you put in an order.  Snort.

We'll get by well enough.  I have assets I could sell.  I have a little money left in my IRA.  I'd rather not tap them at age 66, of course.   And I'll probably start very actively (vs the low-key stuff I've got going on now) look for a job in a few weeks, after I decompress.  Anywhere in Maryland (and I'm 2 miles from the border) pays more an hour than I've been making, which should offset increased gas cost in driving there.

Frondly, Fern

Clothes Repairs

Blessing Darlings!

As I mentioned in the last blog post - while our income is finally up and stabilized, we still need to be frugal/cheap.  One way we're doing this is to keep our clothes wearable as long as possible.  This means, amongst other things, that we .... okay, *I* need to do clothes repairs.

Therefore one of the purchases I've already made this year was material to use to patch clothes with.  The least expensive way I've found to be sure that I have a variety of colors of material for this is to buy pre-packaged 1/2 yard swatches of material at Walmart.  The brand is Waverly.  Solid colors are 97 cents before tax.  Since most repairs don't take a lot of material, one package per color lasts me at least a year, except for the black one.  I use a LOT of that to repair my work clothes.

So for $2 of material, and maybe $1 of thread, and I can save at least $10 that I'd have spent on new work clothes every year.  I probably save even more than that - repair one pair of pants and I save $15.  The shirts are 'only' $3 each, but if I only have to replace two instead of 5 a year, I save another $9.  By repairing 3 shirts the other night at work, I more than paid back the investment I made in material.

Yes, I repaired my work shirts at work.  It very was a slow night.  It was, arguably, work related.  My boss and the supervisor on duty were aware of what I was doing.  They may or may not be as hands-off if I repair other clothes at work.

By doing these repairs, I also reduce the amount of garbage I create, and, since most of my clothes are cheap cotton - reducing buying more of them reduces the amount of pesticides used and saves a lot of water use (growing cotton uses a HUGE amount of pesticides and a large amount of water.)

Oh - I don't buy the material in either white or tan.  THOSE colors of cotton I have plenty of, from saving salvageable parts of my husbands tan/khaki pants, and use them to repair his NEWER pants that need patches.  And those pants are way more $$$ than my cheap pants.

Reduce, repair, re-use, recycle!

Frondly, Fern

It's a New Year!

Blessings Darlings!

Yup, a new year.  New chances.  Mostly the same old bills.

Here there has been a change - after months of complications, the Chubby Hubby is now getting Social Security benefits.  He's in his 70's - so since starting it after turning 70 he's getting a monthly deposit that looks HUGE in our eyes.  Between that and my job all of our 'normal' monthly bills will be able to be paid without panic ... for the first time since 1991 (when he left his job with regular paychecks to start his own business.) 

How do I know that we'll be able to pay all regular bills?  Because I made a budget, of course.  We all know that we should know what our monthly regular bills are, but making budgets out of those figures can be scary.  It can show what we're doing wrong (we, for example, are spending WAY too much of our income on rent so CH has space for his business.) 

So, yeah, go forth and see what you spend on stuff last year, so you know at least what minimums you'll be spending this year.

I'm sure that we'll be tweaking this budget.  It doesn't have 'correct' amounts for things like health insurance/meds in it since Bob will be switching to Medicare and paying for that and some of the additional plans for that, and our higher income has me no longer eligible for Medicaid so I'll be paying health insurance and higher medicine and doctor visit copays.

Still, it's a start.

The current budget doesn't have room for savings, tho', and we need to get that in order.  At one point last month our savings account had only $38 in it!  Remember - that's the account that would also be  bail money for some of you who read this regularly, so some of y'all have a vested interest in us having cash in that account!

So our cheapness .... uh ... frugality is going to continue, along with refining what we really spend. 

And, seriously - why is propane still so expensive now that oil prices have dropped?  We finally we able to get the propane tank filled today, and it's going to cost around $950!  What's up with that?

At any rate, this is what we're starting our year with.

Frondly, Fern.

Fruit costs, Part 2

Blessings, Darlings!

It occurred to me - while shopping - that I left out some fruits yesterday.  They are fruits I rarely buy, and then only at local fruit stands or directly from farmers when in season.  They are peaches and nectarines.

I can't afford them in stores. 

But ... seconds from local farmers, or getting a full bushel at once for canning, I CAN kinda afford.  Huge, if blemished, peaches are about a dollar a pound.  One peach is at least two servings.  So they come to around 50 cents a serving. 

This price lasts about a month.  Which is why I can them.

Frondly, Fern

Restaurant scrounging, Part 2

Blessings Darlings!

More ethical ways food is available to those who work in restaurants.

We cut off the heels of whole loaves of bread before slicing the bread for things like French Toast.  Those heels often come home with me - they are great for stuffing, for croutons, for bread pudding.  The heels of the sweet breads (like banana bread) are cut off before we slice it for serving, too - those can be taken home as a sweet, or even made into ice cream sandwiches!

Menus often change in restaurants like the one I work in (a national chain of family restaurants) pull some items from the menu every quarter or so.  Restaurants can find themselves saddled with products in dry stock that they are no longer using.  In the past year, our chain has stopped using a multigrain pancake mix, a dry mix for French toast, a dry cheese sauce mix for a cassarole, etc.  The unused mixes were given to workers who wanted them. 

Have a garden, and need mulch/compost ingredients?  A prep cook has the nasty outer leaves of leaf lettuce, and the stems, to contribute.  I can take home the rinds of melons after I've diced the good stuff.  Maybe the stems of broccoli that was cut and portioned for cooking.  Servers are going to have access to used coffee grounds.  The nitrogen level of those coffee grounds are amazing when added to a compost pile! 

Some of my previous coworkers took home the peels/top/bottom of pineapples.  They'd throw them in a pot with water, add sweet spices like cardamon, cinnamon, nutmeg, and some sweetener, and make a tea (if served hot) or pineapple ade if served cold.  Very high in potassium, they found that it was a tonic for legs after having spent an 8 hour shift standing.

We serve pot roast.  Out of a container in a steamer.  When the container is empty of pot roast, it often has a cup or more of a fat/au jus mix left.  I chill that, peel off the heavy layer of fat, and bring the au jus home to use as soup stock, or to cook barley/rice/whatever in, or use as a base for the stew mentioned above. 

All these are ways I get a 'second use' out of good foods that would just get thrown out at work. 

OTOH, the restaurant gives left over rolls/biscuits/some pies/etc to feed those in ... uh ... more need than its workers.  Since those items are NOT being thrown away, not going into the waste stream, those I don't mess with. 

Frondly, Fern

Restaurant Scrounging, Part 1

Blessings, Darlings!

RESTAURANT SCROUNGING

Those of us with lower end incomes - in my case, my second job isworking at a dead end restaurant job - don't have the income to get a real 'retreat' where we'll prepare for what will come in a future collapse.  We're too busy living too close to a personal la vida collapse now. 

However, that doesn't mean that we can't glean things from the not-yet collapsed world out there.

My mother in law, who worked as a waitress for years and years, is often quoted as having said that "A hungry waitress is a stupid waitress'.  She wasn't talking about being hungry making you stupid - tho' that can certainly happen.  Nor was she talking about either stealing stuff from work, or about eating what customers left on their plates (yuk!), but about maximizing opportunities.

And restaurant work gives you a lot of opportunities.

Let's start with one of the basic necessities of life - coffee.  I work closing shift at a restaurant, as a prep cook.  I've trained the servers to let me know when they are going to dump the leftover coffee, so I can fill a container and bring some home for my morning coffee.  No, it's not fresh Starbucks coffee, but it will give me my morning caffeine the next day. 

Many days I'm the person who chops scallions to top soup and salads with.  The green onions we use are the same green onions that grow into regular old white bulb onions. I chop off the ends with the roots, and bring those home to plant, using them as onion sets.  Free onions, for very little effort.  You have to plant those ends very shallowly, or they won't form bulbs, just so you know - I had to learn that the hard way.  OTOH, I found a lot of recipes that use green onions as a major ingredient with those first batch of 'failures'.  By the way, onions were vital in England during WWII, both because there weren't many other things to flavor food with and because they add a lot of vitamin C and such to the diet.  They are easy to grow here ... if you have sets. 

Often I'm the person who slices the lemons so folks can use them in their tea/water/add them to their lemonade.  The ends are cut off of the lemon first, so customers get more of the 'good stuff'.  I take those ends home, zest them, and have lemon zest for cooking.  Adding the zest to cakes, some cookies, and even to pancake batter is a wonderful thing.  And, again, free.  Zest might not be useful for bartering after a full collapse, when just getting calories is going to be an issue, but right now it means one less things I have to buy in a store for the home-cooking that we live on.  Work in a bar?  Many of them just use the peels of lemons in their drinks.  A friend's uncle who works in a bar takes the peel-free lemons home.  Lemonade!  Lemon juice!  Marinades!  A good source of vitamin C that you don't have to go out and forage

Sometimes restaurants over order things.  I noted that three gallons of milk were at their 'sell by' date yesterday.  Restaurant policy is that they don't serve things after that date.  I'm going to see if the manager will let me take one of those gallons home tonight, rather than just dumping it.  (Update - she did!)

The cooked carrots on the grill line steam table ... well, at the end of the day they are often nasty.  OTOH, the back up ones I occassional have in the prep hot-box are going to be in  good shape.  But mine, too, will be dumped at the end of the day, unless I bring them home and add them to some leftover beef from a previous roast I made, add some potatoes, and call it stew. 

Or - we start dinner shift with 5 or 6 pot pies made and ready to go.  They can't be saved and served the next day.  That is, they can't be served to paying customers.  OTOH, they are fine leftovers for my family.  Since they will be thrown out anyway, the managers don't mind me bringing ones left at the end of the day home.

More to come ...

Frondly, Fern

Unemployment!

Blessings, Darlings!

This last Sunday, May 17, at 3 pm, Corporate locked the doors at the restaurant Spawn and I worked at, closing the store.  No official advance warning, just a notice of a mandatory meeting about 'food safety issues'.  Oh, okay - for those who Googled the company, there was this announcement last month that they would be closing a bunch of restaurants. 

So Spawn is out of his only job, and I'm out of my #2 job.  He will qualify for unemployment.  I won't.  We will be able to see the severance package this weekend. Word is that we'll be offered two weeks pay (I worked there 19 months, he worked there 3 1/2 years), but what we'll have to sign away to get that isn't clear.  We MAY be offered jobs at other restaurants in the chain, but that's not guaranteed - nor if the Spawn gets hired is it at ALL guaranteed that he'll get his current pay.  He's gotten a LOT of raises while he was there, because he's that good.

Now, an $850 hit in our monthly budget is, of course, PAINFUL (that's what I was paid plus what the Spawn pays in rent). But we're applying for new jobs, and y'all KNOW that I can do the Cheap Bitch thing really well. Yes, veggies are going into the space I had meant to put a flower bed in. Yes, I spend this morning washing out 'lightly used' zip-lock bags for re-use.  Yes, I have bones and skin from chickens past browning in the oven now, for chicken stock later today.

You and I know the drill.  We've been around this block before. 

It's a real shame, tho', for many of our coworkers, who relied on this as their only job.  They really need good thoughts from all y'all for getting new jobs.

Frondly, Fern

Eating on the Wild Side

Blessings, Darlings!

So, as some of y'all already know that my husband neglected to read some of his e-mail ... so didn't send in something that our health insurance needed ... so auto payment of health insurance emptied our checking account of not just our expected $245 payment but an additional almost $2000. The $2000 for rent, utilities, food, etc.

We scrambled to cover the bills this weekend, and we will EVENTUALLY get the $ back, but it will take 2 to 4 months. So we are in financial pain just when we thought things would be calmer.

So ... let's talk about eating weeds again. It's something that *I* can do, but my husband can't. Wild greens have more flavor, or as my husband puts it "are too bitter". My husband is a super taster.

Now, he's right that most of the current round of wild greens available ARE bitter. The weather is getting hot, which contributes. The younger wild mustards and shepherd purses were tame. Early (pre-blooming) dandelions weren't TOO bad. But wild green things now are flavored to repel leaf munching insects, and apparently the plants see humans as bigger insects.

Therefore, in keeping score so far this week - Narrow Leaf Plantain: bitter, but added to soup and hot sauce added was fine. Miner's Lettuce: bitterness lessened by soaking in a few changes of water, was fine added to a tomato based spaghetti sauce to top pasta.

Today's adventure will be bind weed. Which apparently I'll have to mix with some other greens because "too much can have a laxative effect'.

Tomorrow I'll be finding out if thistle leaves, lightly steamed, really do taste like asparagus.

Frondly, Fern

Ham R Us.

Blessings Darlings!

We're not a particularly ham loving family.  I grew up Jewish and wasn't raised on it. My husband likes it on occassion.  My son doesn't like it.

That said ...

I walked into Aldi's to pick up a few groceries yesterday.  They had a few hams, all at $5 each, since today is the 'sell by' date.  I picked up the largest one that was left.  And extra eggs, and a package of English muffins, and a package of sliced American cheese.  I now have 6 'egg McMuffins' in the freezer, Navy bean soup is on the stove, split pea soup is going to be made, as will a ham and scalloped potato casserole.  AND I'll still have ham left over that I'll freeze to cook with later.

I'm glad I had a few extra dollars available! 

Frondly, Fern

It Happened Again

Blessings Darlings!

As y'all already know, I make a lot of things from scratch, or almost-scratch.  Like - my husband LOVES having Kahlua in his coffee in the evening.  He does this three or so times a week.  Kahlua is a pricy bitch, so I make my own.

And when we moved I lost my usual recipe.

No problem, go online and find another (the original was pulled from being online, because it was shared from a book without the author's permission, and the author or publisher said "Oh, HELL no!")

Since I've made stuff several times, it wasn't hard finding a recipe that I could tell had about the right proportions of coffee to sugar.  But in looking over the recipe, I could tell that the person who POSTED it (to Wikihow, which my protection software identified as a 'malicious' site) clearly had never made it. 

The first clue was that s/he said it would make about a quart of Kahlua-substitute.  Well, yes, the recipe called for 4 cups of liquid.  But the 4 1/2 cups of solids added, which dissolved into the liquids, DO TAKE UP SPACE.  Not one cup of space per cup of sugar/instant coffee, but enough space that the recipe made 6 cups, not 'about a quart'.

The second clue was that, since the mix was 50% higher in volume that was presented, the proof (alcohol content) of the finished product was going to be WAY too low given the relative volume of alcohol the recipe called form. 

To get around these problems, I used nice high-proof Everclear instead of most of the rum that was called for, and used brown sugar instead of white sugar to replace some of the flavor the rum would have brought to the recipe.  I could wing it, because I have experience and mad math skillz.

This isn't only a problem in online recipes, BTW.

And, for you Pagans/witches/wiccans out there - it's not only a problem in cooking.

But more on THAT in a future post!

Frondly, Fern

Chubby Hubby's Birthday - While Broke

Blessings Darlings!

We celebrated the CH's birthday today.  He took almost the whole day off! 

It started with a huge breakfast, eggs and toast and hamburger patties and two, not just one, pastry from the local great bakery.  Sundays are the only day we have meat with breakfast, and usually we have bacon, occasionally ham.  Today he opted for burgers.  So - big high fat high protein meal.  And the only thing I bought special (since I always have frozen hamburger patties in the freezer) was one pastry, since we usually go one and buy one to share every weekend.  That was $2.50.

Then we headed out, and spent the bulk of the day at Harper's Ferry National Historical Park ... because not only did we WANT to go there, but the park was free today (it's the birthday of the National Park system).  We visited lots of museums, walked along the Shenandoah river, looked at ruins of the canal system and factory buildings.  Learned a lot about John Brown's raid, water powered manufacturing, how often the Shenandoah river floods, etc. Had a great time.  Treated CH to a Coke and a box of candy cigarettes.  $3.25 for all of that.  Oh, and, for the first time, set foot on the Appalachian Trail!

Then we figured we'd have the dessert we had planned for after dinner BEFORE dinner, so we went off to Nutters Ice Cream Parlor in Sharpesburg, MD.  We shared this HUGE banana split (with extra hot fudge).  CH was astonished to see the size of it.  And even with the extra hot fudge, it cost only $6.75.

Total spent - $12.50.  Had a great time.  And too full for the steaks I bought (within the food budget) for dinner.  We'll have them some other night this week.

Happy happy happy.

Frondly, Fern

Fern Makes Pot Stickers

Blessings Darlings!

In our household, we like food.  Which explains part of our weight problems, but that's not what I'm writing about today.  We like food, and we want it to be tasty and have great texture ... and we need it to be inexpensive, because we're limiting our food budget to what we'd get if we were on the maximum amount of food stamps - that's roughly $410 a month for 3 adults here.

Which  means I cook a lot of stuff from scratch.  While I don't make hamburger buns or most pasta from scratch (the later because it's hard to get the right flour at all around here, let alone at a good price), I make make most of the rest of our breads.  Yeah, most of you have been reading long enough to know all this.

Last night I took out the Sacred Book of Chinese Recipes, and I made Pot Stickers - the dumplings that have the crispy bottom.  They are one of our Oh My Gods! recipes, amazingly good.  And not expensive, especially compared with getting them in restaurants, where they are often not even as good as the ones I make.

I DID cheat a bit, as I chose to NOT make the wrappers from scratch.  I've done it before, and I'll do it again, but that will be some day when I'm not working in the garden much of the day ... and yesterday I spent lots of time in the garden.

The entire batch of potstickers had an ingredient cost of about $10.50.  It made 96 dumplings.  That would have been 12 orders of potstickers in many restaurants.  And it would have cost $96 just for the pot stickers - never mind the drinks we'd have ordered, and the tip.

Now, we did not eat all those last night, even tho' we did them as our main course ... hell, it was our only course.  We DID eat half of them.  I'm going to wrap and freeze the rest tonight and we'll have them some other time, when I don't want to cook.

Cheap never tasted so good.

Oh - and I did NOT use any zucchini in them.

Frondly, Fern

End Of Month Eats

Blessings Darlings!

In a recent discussion in a Facebook group, the issue of getting thru' the end of the month on pasta or ramen came up.  And how boring living on those noodles are.

Well.

First of all, you KNOW my view of pasta vs ramen, right?  That pasta costs WAY less per serving, so go for that if you can?  But, onward to making noodles flavorful (and more nutritious) when broke!

First, of course, your herb/spice rack is your friend.  A shot of Sriracha sauce will kick up noodles.  So will garlic and onion - use the powdered form if that's what you have.  

Canned or frozen veggies can be added.  Don't have any?  Well, now that it's well into spring you can harvest what's growing wild.  Today, for instance, I'm adding the greens from wild garlic, for vitamins C, A, fiber, and flavor.  Here's a shot of wild garlic:

I'm also adding wild yellow dock.  This is more of a problem to add - it can be bitter, and the Chubby Hubby is a supertaster of bitter and HATES HATES HATES it.  So after I harvested it I chopped it, threw it in a bowl, and poured boiling water over it to blanch it.  I drained it after it soaked for a few minutes and had CH taste it - it met his approval.  For your viewing pleasure, a shot of yellow/curly dock: 

There are plenty of other plants growing right now that you can add.  Dandelions (again, bitter - you may have to soak/drain several times), plantain is coming up, creeping Charlie (nice peppery flavor), Corn creeper (boring flavor, but very nutritious), chickweed, etc.  Even the young leaves of clover can be used.

And let's not forget to use those pasta, as well as ramen, in soup.  Just add cheap cubes of boullion, and more wild greens (or canned veggies if you have them).  Leftovers, in broth, with noodles, is a grand meal.

So - eat well!

Frondly, Fern

Spring seeds

Blessings Darlings!

Yesterday I spent in the garden - today we have sleet and cold rain.  Pretty typical!

In today's part of "Quest for Vegetable Seeds", I was able to get to two different 'Dollar Stores'.  One I knew had seeds in (the Spawn had checked the day before, and reported 1 - they were in and 2 - they were 3 packets for a dollar) and one that I figured would have them as well.  Checking store #2 first turned out to be a good idea, as the seeds there were 4 packets for a dollar.  I got all the seeds they had that I wanted, then headed to the other store for anything else I could find.

So, for the sum of $6.50, I have two types of lettuce, three varieties of peppers, two types of summer squash, two types of hard/winter squash (sure wish any of 'em had had hubbard, but no), two types of radishes, two types of peas, cabbage, beets, turnips, cucumbers, beefsteak tomatoes, pole beans, and carrots.

I already have stevia, rosemary, oregano, thyme, ginger, turmeric, some green onions, one or two plants of Jerusalem artichokes, basil, purple sweet potatoes, lettuce, and turnips growing in the house for the winter.

I'll need some potatoes, some bulk beans, more onion sets, spinach seeds, etc.  I'd love to find peppers to make my own Paprika - I'd even be willing to smoke them. 

How's your garden planning going?

Frondly, Fern

Healthy Eating

Blessings Darlings!

So it's noon, and so far I've eaten the way .... sigh .... the way I feel I should be eating all the time.  Brunch was one small left over cubed baked potato, leftover home-canned green beans, diced onion and red pepper, all topped with a sprinkling of shredded mozzarella, nuked to heat it/melt the cheese.

Cheap, filling, two servings of veggies.  I dunno if I can count the tater as a veggie or not - it's certainly not a grain!  So I'm on my way trying to get 9 servings of fruits/veggies for the day.

Rah.

Frondly, Fern

A Cup of Tea

Blessings Darlings!

My Mother was one of eight children.  Her parents, and about half of her siblings, were immigrants to the US.  They did well, but let's face it - raising eight children takes a chunk of money, especially when 5 of them are hungry boys (trust me, the girls were taught to not take seconds unless the boys had eaten their fill).

Forward several decades.  Friday night, Shabbos dinner, in the suburbs.  One of Mom's sisters and 4 of her brothers (and their assorted still-living-at-home family members) are at our place for dinner. Everyone has eaten, the table cleared of dinner and now dessert plates, coffee/tea cups, and dessert have replaced the potatoes and brisket.  A few people have coffee with their dessert, but most have tea. 

How many tea bags get used?

Wait for it ... wait for it ....

At most, two tea bags are used.  Usually just one.

Because everyone STILL barely dunks the tea bag in their hot water long enough to color the water, then passes it to someone else who wants tea.

Now, I love me some tea, and prefer it a bit on the strong side.  But with money tight, strong tea is not something I get to have now.  I need to make that package of 100 Earl Grey tea bags I got for Yule last a year.  So I'm doing the barely dunking thing, and now using each bag for 3 cups of hot tea.

I'll be making up a batch of copycat Constant Comment tea soon, too, since I LOVE that for iced tea.  OTOH, I drink that far more in summer than in winter.

Remember, tea is full of healthy flavonoids and such, so are almost health food.

Frondly, Fern

Pumpkin Spice Lattes

Blessings Darlings!

Starting last year, the fall hype about Pumpkin Spice Lattes got my attention.  The hype is greater this year, and that 'rumor of unknown origin' that Starbucks 'is running out of' the stuff made my inner marketer smirk.  Ah, ADDED urgency - not just the limited time it's available, but now limited amounts!  Everyone to Starbucks, NOW!

Now, pumpkin spice lattes DO taste good.  But why would I buy one?  That has GOT to be one of the easiest things to make at home.  So today I brewed a pot of it.  On top of my usual dark grounds I added the spices.  While it brewed I figured the costs, because I'm like that.

The 24 ounces of coffee, with another 4 oz of half and half added, would equal a 28 oz cuppa. Let's say that would be around $5 at FiveBucks.  Cost to me to make it - 60 Cents.  That includes coffee, half and half, and spices.  I did not figure in coffee filter, water, electricity, or washing the pot costs. Five cents would be a SWAG estimate for those things.  So - 65 cents vs $5.  Maybe add a few more cents if I added whipped cream, but I didn't.

Not only does it cost less at home, but I can have this anytime, and without having to put on clothes or drive and use gasoline or incur any other car expenses. 

Now, I did NOT measure what I put in, so I'm going to give you estimates here. For one 4 cup pot of coffee, add -

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp FRESHLY GROUND nutmeg - pre-ground nutmeg has zero flavor
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground ginger - I may have used a bit more of this, to be honest. I like ginger a lot.

As always, adjust to your tastes.  You are not me. I am not you.

Frondly, Fern

Poofiness

Blessings Darlings!

I've been making my own laundry soap since about the beginning of the year.  It's a pretty simple recipe - grate a bar of soap, add a cup each of Washing Soda and Borax, mix well, use 2 tablespoons per load.  It's easy to make, with grating the soap taking the longest time.

So today I opened a new package of Ivory Soap to make a new batch.  It was ... dampish. I couldn't grate it.  How can I dry it?  I looked up 'nuking Ivory Soap' online, and found it was a COOL thing to do.  The stuff .... blooms.  It would have been a GREAT part of a lesson on foams while we homeschooled.

My family and I had a GREAT time playing with the blooming bar of soap.  And much to my delight, the expanded foam, once cooled, was a breeze to crush into tiny soap flakes, better than anything I'd grated for laundry soap making. I am exceedingly pleased with the results.  Well, the poofy flakes go rather more airborne and made me sneeze, but that's not a big deal. 

Frondly, Fern

Today's Haul

Blessings Darlings!

Just in from the garden and tabulating today's frugal harvest:

2 cucs, 9 oz total
1 zuc, 12 oz
green beans, 12 oz

Tomatoes are still totally green. Vines from the purple sweet potatoes still trying to take over the garden, but I have no clue if the sweet potatoes are growing under the earth.  No sprouts yet from the lettuce and spinach.

We ARE falling behind in eating the beans and cucs, so Suz is going to get some as gifts.  If we can work out our schedules!

Frondly, Fern

Freezer Eatin'

Blessings Darlings!

The funniest part of Eating While Broke - and there really are LOTS of funny things to it - is the 'creating meals out of the stuff buried in the freezer' part.  We're spending almost no money at the store any more - only milk, cat food, and a few odds and ends this week (small yogurt, can of water chestnuts, egg roll wrappers, etc) - but the Chubby Hubby thinks this week's menus are totally outstanding.

Sunday - Home made pizza, salad, fruit.
Monday - Stir Fry using Reduced price Mystery Raw Meat, home grown cabbage, home sprouted       bean sprouts, and rice.
Tuesday - Shish Ka Bob, using reduced priced beef, home grown zucchini, and onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, served in home-made pita. May need yogurt for sauce.
Wednesday - Korean Seafood Pancakes and ... probably seasoned bean sprouts.
Thursday - Kalbi (Korean BBQ Ribs) using reduced price thin flanken, rice, green beans, salad
Friday - Fried Chicken - from reduced price chicken, potatoes, broccoli, salad
Saturday - Pulled Pork - last of those 50 cent a pound pork shoulders, cole slaw, rolls, fried leftover potatoes
Sunday - Egg Rolls from scratch, using the pulled pork and some salad shrimp.  Will probably buy rather than make wrappers.
Monday - Rumaki - we now have a bag full of frozen livers from whole chickens we've bought. Will need to buy a can of sliced water chestnuts, spicy green beans, rice, salad

And when I type reduced price I mean the meat was already on sale but hadn't moved, so the store knocked the price down lower.  Cabbage, bean sprouts, and green beans from the garden are the main vegetables used this week.  Zucchini will start taking over next week.  Garden cucumbers and more cabbage are in salads.



The fried chicken and the rumaki are the only things that use 'intact' pieces of meat ... and in the rumaki's case the pieces are accumulated livers from whole birds made extraordinary.  The rest all use meat cut small and mixed with other stuff.

I've got sweet corn, but no idea where to fit it in.  I may freeze it.  Also have 6 granny smith apples, which I'll probably bake for desserts.  As a result of that ... we may need to buy some whipped cream.

Frondly, Fern