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

In the kitchen with lots of veggies.

 Blessings Darlings!

Welp, I HATE the new interface here at Blogspot.  It does less than the old one. It gives less info than the old one.  We hates it, we do.

Anyway, it's before 10 am.   Dishes done, garden done.  Will roast home grown veggies for a pasta dish to have with dinner soon.  Maybe I'll roast some beets, too.  Or at least some turnips.  The harvest is on, for sure.

 Yup. Spent the day cooking and cleaning.  More focused on the cooking than the cleaning.  Also paid the bills and ordered a fill for our propane tank.  

That's it.  Life just ... goes on.  

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

Spaghetti Sauce Search

Blessings Darlings!

Once upon a time, I used to make my own spaghetti sauce from scratch.  That was 30 years ago.  I've long since lost the recipe.

But our finances being as they are, I've got to go back to making that from scratch instead of buying even sale priced jarred sauce.  So we're trying on recipes.

This morning I made Alton Brown's Pantry Tomato Sauce.  Thick, layered flavors, zesty - too spicy for us to use on pasta for every-day use.  OTOH, we think it will rock in lasagna where we've found that most pasta sauces don't bring enough to the party.

This afternoon I made America's Test Kitchen's Quick Pasta sauce, from the Big Red "Family Cookbook".  That's a fine and simple recipe with a bright fresh flavor, but not as much layered flavor as I'd like.  I'd probably like wine added at the very least, and probably more basil and some oregano.  I think it will make a banging 'pink sauce', with the addition of some heavy cream.  If I could afford heavy cream.  And I wasn't on a diet.

I might mix the two sauces for our spaghetti dinner tonight as well as do the official comparison test.

Do y'all make your own spaghetti sauce? If so, is the recipe online?  Or do you buy jars?

Frondly, Fern

Pantry Stuff

Blessings, Darlings!

My son just finished making a sheet cake, and I've just started a sponge for a loaf of bread.  All this yummy use of on-hand ingredients leads to a question - do you know how much of what you use in a typical month?  At least of staples like flour, sugar, coffee?

I've been thinking about that, and compiling next-month's shopping list.  So I'm going to bore treat you to some of my figures.  Most are a bit more than I use in a typical month, but buying this month allows a LITTLE natural accumulation of supplies.

Minimum purchases from Aldi's (staples, no name brands, store profit goes to Germany, but GREAT prices):

Flour -           5 5-pound bags
Sugar -          2 5-pound bags
lunchmeat       3 pounds
croutons         1 bag ( really should make them myself)
soup - cream of  mushroom      5 cans
peas             2 cans
canned mushrooms 9 cans
canned tuna    5 cans
canned ham     1 can
onions              6 pounds
potatoes          10 pounds
canned tomatoes     6 cans (pints)
cooking spray        1 can
oil                  2 bottles 48 oz
napkins            2 packages
hash browns        1 package, frzn
frozen veggies       9 bags
Milk                10 gallons
eggs                 9 dozen
half & half          4 quarts
OJ                   4 half gallons
cereal                4 boxes
mac & cheese mix       3
scalloped 'tater mix      1
canned nuts        2 cans
bar cheese          1 1/2 pounds
sliced cheese        2 pounds
butter                  4 pounds
Coffee                4 pounds
salt                    1 round
Brown sugar        2 lb
saltine crackers     1 lb
apples                   15 lb
oranges                 8 lb
bananas                 11 lb
hamburger buns       2 packages
hoagie rolls              1 or 2 packages
yogurt                1 qt
lettuce                 5 heads
carrots                 8 lb
cabbage                2 of 'em
celery                   1
green peppers       1 package
garlic                    lots
paper towels         2 rolls

And those are just the 'normal' purchases I make each month.  The meat, meds, cat stuff, etc are all at other stores (and on sales if possible). I didn't even include chocolate of ANY type!

What are you 'every month' purchases?  How much money do you need to allot to those, before you can even think of buying other stuff? 

Frondly, Fern