An Oldie but a Goodie

I have a cookbook that my mother gave me when I went off to college.  I remember getting it and thinking "what am I going to do with this?"

 

I lost the title page, with all of the publication information years and years ago.  I know it was published in the early '80's, but I have no idea of when it was actually published.

 

I have other cookbooks, but this is my favorite.  I've looked at more recent versions of this cookbook, but I don't care for them as much because they call for more processed foods.  This cookbook takes you back, and helps you make things from scratch... mac and cheese not from a box?  The directions are in here!

 

Ahh- the innocence of youth!  Over the 30 years since then, this book has been my go-to cookbook whenever I need to make a meal.  I remember poring over the book when I got my first apartment, and all of the cooking mistakes that I made along the way.  I still vividly recall the time I found out the difference between "6 cups of rice" and "6 cups of rice, cooked".  My God, we ate rice every day for weeks.  Do you know that 6 cups of rice cooks up into 18 cups of cooked rice?
Look at that cover!

 

The inside of the book.  The bottom two things don't even close anymore.  Every single time I turn a page, the pages fall out across the bottom.  Look at the wear along the binding.  The book is getting ready to fall apart!  What will I do when that sad day arrives?  Multiple pages are missing in the book.  The index is gone.  The front pages are gone.  Several pages from inside no longer have holes - they are ripped.  I've used the hole reinforcements on them over and over again, and over time, they rip.  Those pages are stuffed in where they belong, but they fall out if I'm not careful when I pull it out from the cupboard.

 

Damage to the pages... it's everywhere in the book.  Oil spatters, food spills are everywhere.

 

Ahh... but then that magical day occurred.  I went to Goodwill this morning.  Look what I found sitting on the shelves in the book section!

 

It's my cookbook!  Look at that beautiful cover!  Look at how clean and new it looks!

Look!  The bindings in the center actually touch each other!  There's no wear and tear on the center binding!
It even has a cover page.  BTW, the original publication date of this book?  1981.
Makes sense.  I went off to college in 1983.

 

 

Bright, shiny pages with no spatters or stains.  All pages are intact, no pulls or tears on the holes.
Heck, even the index is intact!

Even better... look at that price!
I'm not sure what my Mom paid for my book originally, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't under $3!
I feel like I hit the jackpot!  A brand-spanking new copy of my favorite cookbook
for $2.62.  I paid cash for this puppy... exact change... and I still feel like I won the lottery!



So, do you have a favorite cookbook that you go back to again and again?  Which one is it?  What makes it your favorite?

Community Supported Agriculture

Have you ever heard of a CSA?  Community Supported Agriculture is an idea which has been around for quite some time now.  I've been a member of several different CSA's over the years.

In a CSA, a farmer offers several "shares" of his crop.  These shares are offered before the season begins.  The consumer pays for a full season of produce for one full season in advance.  This helps the farmer with cash-flow, enabling them to buy seed and begin their season with cash in hand.  As a result, they don't have to take out a loan in order to begin their season.

When the garden starts producing, you will begin getting your "share" - a box of produce - once a week for the entire growing season.

You get to know your farmer.  In many cases, you also get to visit the farm. In some cases, the farmers will lower your cost of being a member of their CSA if you offer to help in the fields with weeding or harvesting a certain number of hours per growing season.

In my mind, the greatest thing about a CSA is that the food is locally grown.  I am directly supporting a local farmer.  I know my farmers, and I am familiar with their farming practices.  I also rest easy in knowing that their food is grown organically.

The biggest challenge is in eating through all of your produce in just one week!  In the spring, you will find lots of greens in the box.  Collards, Kale, beet greens... I have never been a fan of them, but I know how to cook them, and I will eat them when they appear in my box. 

I learned how to can and freeze fruits and veggies in self defense years ago when I didn't want the produce to go bad, but there was no way we could eat everything in time!  I began with jam and quickly moved out from there.  Freezing was easy for me.  We had a freezer, and most veggies only require that they be blanched for a few minutes in boiling water before they are submerged in ice water and then frozen.  For me, a young Mom with three kids under the age of four, I could prep and freeze a whole bunch of veggies during nap time, and get everything cleaned up before the kids got up and moving again.

If you live in a city, or in a house with no yard for growing lots of produce, a CSA is a great way to get healthy food into your life quickly and easily.  One quick trip each week to pick up your produce is all that is required.  When we lived in the city, we picked up our share from the farmer at the Farmer's Market.  She had a stand there, and we would go to the side, sign for our box, and rejoice in that week's bounty.  Now that we live in farm country, our farmers set aside a day for locals to come out to the farm and pick up their share.  The farmers are usually out in the fields somewhere, but we've met the dogs, the cats, the kids, and, occasionally, we'll actually meet the farmer or his wife.  One of our farmers delivers to the DC suburbs.  He takes his truck down to the city, and has picks up over a two hour period in different locations, varying from library parking lots to farmer's markets.    I met one woman a couple of years ago who drives out from the city to the farm to pick up her produce because she wants her kids to know where their food comes from, and she wants them to know that veggies grow in the ground. 

I've been a member of 6 different CSA's over the years.  This past summer, I wasn't a member of a CSA.  We didn't have the cash up front to put up for our share.  As a result, I spent a lot of time hitting up the farmer's market and my favorite little co-op produce stand.  I think I have enough to invest in a share again this year, but I lost my spot with my old farmer last year.  I'll have to see if she has an opening for me this year.  If not, I need to find another one. 

Even when I am a member of a CSA, I still hit up my local farmer's market once a week.  I love talking with the farmers.  I pick up extras of my favorite foods that might not be in my share.  I pick up large quantities to can and freeze.  Even better, I find many friends at the farmer's market, and I spend a lot of time catching up with people and exclaiming over how much the kids have grown!

If you are interested in finding out more about CSA's, or finding one close to you, follow this link:http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

On a side note, thinking about saving money with a CSA:  You are required to make a cash investment at the beginning of the growing season.  On the other hand, for about 20 weeks over the summer, you are receiving a box of veggies.  As a result, you are NOT going into the grocery store to find veggies, where you will be tempted to buy other items that are not on your list.  Depending upon where you live, your cost per week can vary anywhere from $24 to $40 a week.  You are responsible for checking into the farm, talking to the farmers, and finding out about their farming practices.  Because I hang out so much at farmer's markets, I know most of the farmers in our local area.  I know which ones offer CSA's, and I already know much about their farming philosophy. 

There is no way that a $40 a week/box for one person falls under the federal guidelines of $30/week/person as the bottom line for what it costs to feed a family.  However, I have 5 people in my family.  Breaking down a $40/week box by 5, I am paying $8/week/person for a box of organic, locally grown produce that was picked less than 24 hours ago.  The only way I'm going to beat that price is to grow it myself.  Even though I do grow some of my own food, I don't grow the variety of items that I find in a CSA box.

Some food for thought!

Shut Up and Eat It

No, I don't say this to my kids.

It's the name of the catch-all casserole that I make once every few weeks.

Over the course of a week, I save our odds and ends of meals.  Some of it, I take to school with me for lunch.

Some of it is eaten by the kids when they get home from school.

The rest sits quietly in containers in the fridge.  On a Thursday night, when the week is almost over, I put all of the leftovers into a 9" x 13" baking dish and call it dinner.  My affectionate name for this is "Shut up and Eat it!"

Tonight's combination has some leftover bean soup, chicken and rice, extra chicken broth to help thin the soup, and leftover veggies.  For this particular combination, I tossed two almost empty jars of salsa on top of the combination and a handful of Monterey Jack cheese.  (I had shredded a pound of cheese last week, and this was what was left in the container.  It really was just a handful.)

I stirred together the chicken & rice, beans, broth, and leftover veggies.  (This week, it was corn.)  I spread the salsa and cheese evenly over the top, and baked it in a 350* oven for 20 minutes.

The combination was surprisingly good!

In the past, I have used everything from leftover hamburgers, to hot dogs to make a decent dinner for the family.  I've tied it together with dried pasta to help sop up some of the liquid, or a can of cream of whatever soup. I've made a pot of soup from scratch, and then taken the leftovers and mixed them with other leftovers and a handful of pasta.   The possibilities are endless, and usually, the combinations are very good.  Some, well... you learn over time what not to mix together.

Over the 20+ years I have made this particular combination, I have learned that some things should never, no not ever be combined, and some things that are absolutely amazing.

In the amazing pile:

Leftover bean soup, with carrots, maybe a few extra onions.  Turn it out into a baking pan, drizzle with molasses.... awesome.

Leftover hamburger, mixed with corn and diced potatoes, covered with tomato sauce...very good.

Chicken or turkey mixed with rice, almost any leftover veggies, and a can of cream of... great.

Leftover baked beans mixed with cut up hot dogs and a drizzle of ketchup... very, very good.


In the not so good pile:

Leftover noodles, any kind of meat, and PEANUT BUTTER.  Yes, I found that in a recipe and thought it would be a good idea.  I was WRONG.. Don't EVER, no, not ever, try this.  It is a bad idea.

Fruit Loops mixed into pancakes.  AGAIN... it is WRONG... Don't EVER try this.  It does not taste good!

Like much cooking, this is trial and error.  You already have a decent idea of what combination of tastes you enjoy and which ones you won't like.  After a few attempts, you'll quickly learn what works best for your family. 

The ultimate idea behind Shut Up and Eat It is to use up the leftovers in your fridge, instead of throwing them out. 

By making one more meal out of food that you have already paid for and cooked, you are eliminating some food waste, and you are stretching your food dollar just a little bit further.  It's good for you, and it's good for your pocket book.

What is your favorite thing to do with leftovers?

How old are you?

When I was subbing in second grade yesterday, the class asked me how old I was.

"How old do you think I am?"  I asked, bracing myself for their answer.  I've played this game before, and I've been pegged as anywhere between 35 and 70.  (Hint:  I celebrated my 12th annual 36th birthday last year.)

The kids held an intense discussion, where every number from 16 to 35 was discussed. 

Finally, the number 29 was announced as my age.

I told them that they are my favorite class, EVER!

My Frugal Accomplishments

In advance of the bitter cold moving across much of the nation, we made certain we had enough firewood.  We had a half cord of wood at the beginning of the season, and we never run through that much in a year.  Surprise!  This is the year that broke those rules!  We have already run through that half cord of wood, and it's only the first week of January.  We ran out and bought a quarter of a cord over the weekend.  We need to get out and take care of this situation as soon as the weather warms up again.  This was poor planning on our part... we really should have made certain that we had a full cord of wood before winter hit.

We both stopped on the way home from work tonight and filled the gas tanks in our cars.  Full tanks are less likely to freeze overnight in this cold.  Before winter set in, we had winterized the house by turning off the outside water spigots from inside the house, and unhooked the garden hoses.  Tonight, we'll leave the doors under the sinks open to make certain that heat can get around the pipes so that they don't freeze.  If I had pipes in my ceiling, I would be up in the ceiling, making certain that they were covered by the insulation before they froze.  (Do you have water sprinklers in your house?  Then you have water pipes in your ceiling.)  We have exposed pipes in the laundry room in our basement.  We plugged the space heater in down there earlier today, to keep the pipes warm.  Now, we're going to cross our fingers and pray that the power doesn't go out.

We went out to our favorite produce stand and bought a 50 pound bag of potatoes for $20.
I spent $1.00 on two giant bulbs of Kohlrabi.
I spent $1.00 for three pounds of beets.
I found an awesome bag of produce on the seconds shelf, with two heads of lettuce and six bell peppers for 50 cents.

I made a huge pot of bean soup with a portion of the ham bone leftover from Christmas.  The ham bone was jointed, so I cut it in half.  I'll use the other half to make another pot of soup tomorrow.  The ham soup made two separate dinners for all 5 of us.  I packed the leftovers up into three bowls, which I sent back to college with oldest child this morning. 

We made Red Flannel Hash with the beets and a head of cabbage that was in the fridge.

We made a stir fry from some of the bell peppers, kohlrabi, mushrooms, and two bags of frozen broccoli I had in the freezer.  The sauce was a home-made sauce made from a recipe I found in my cookbook that we've been using for years.  It is a spicy sauce that is reminiscent of Szechuan, but not quite that hot.

We had a salad for lunch made with the lettuce from the bag of seconds.

Tonight's dinner was a vegetarian lasagna. I cut up all of the rest of the odds and ends of veggies we had sitting in the fridge and put them into the spaghetti sauce to go into the lasagna.  A bell pepper, spinach, an onion, a handful of mushrooms, and a carrot went into tonight's pot. 

We made a Shepherd's Pie. Made with ground beef, a bag of frozen mixed veggies, and a whole bunch of mashed potatoes, this was a quick and easy dinner.  The biggest disappointment was that we had no leftovers!

I finished sorting our digital pictures from 2011.  They've been stored on my back up drive, and on a third party host.  I've put them into the 2011 folder and sorted them by event.  My next goal will be to get them organized into an album before the end of 2014!

We spent a lot of fun time together as a family, we played Monopoly, Apples to Apples, 4 Kings in a Corner, and Pathway. 

We celebrated my husband's birthday with the broccoli stir fry and a cake, and then we watched Sherlock.  Our birthday present to him was a scrapbook that we put together of our trip to the Pacific Northwest over this past summer.

What did you do to save money this week?

Trapped, by God! I was trapped!

I briefly mentioned our hall bathroom yesterday.

Last night, I used that bathroom.  As usual, I shut the door behind me.

When I attempted to leave the bathroom, the doorknob would not turn, and when it did turn, it didn't turn enough to clear the metal plate in the door jamb.

I banged on the door, and husband came running.  He attempted to push the door open.  He attempted to throw himself against the door, and it still wouldn't give.  I guess hollow core doors were made of higher quality stuff back in the seventies!!

Husband got his toolbox and began trying to remove the doorknob.

Meanwhile, I was in a toasty little room where I had access to water and (even more important) the toilet.  If push came to shove, I could curl up and sleep in the bathtub.

I was sitting there, listening to the sounds of tinkering when I heard a knock on the window behind me.  Oldest child had come around through the outside of the house and was going to help me.

Somehow, he managed to squeeze his six foot frame through the tiny window over the toilet.

As oldest child began working on the doorknob from the inside with a pair of scissors and a scout knife, there came a soft tap at the window, and middle child heaved himself into the bathroom, quickly followed by youngest child.

Picture if you will, a hall bathroom with four people squeezed inside.   My kids aren't young kids, either.  They're 16, 18, and 20!

It was awesome family togetherness time!

The boys finally got the door opened, and we all tumbled out of the bathroom into the hall.

Making memories together.  Yep, this one will go right up there at the top of the  list!

My New Year's Resolutions

These are my big goals for 2014.  I sat down yesterday and thought through many things, and I came up with this list of ten goals to shoot for in the new year.

1) 365 Grateful. 
Have you heard of this?  This is a project where you take one picture each day, every day of something you are grateful for.  You document why you are grateful, or the significance of this picture. 

I have decided that I need to focus on the things in life that I am grateful for every day.  Not just the big things, but the small things, too.  My phone has a camera with it, so I should be able to snap quick pictures as they occur, whenever they occur.

If you'd like to find out more about this project, you can visit their website at: http://365grateful.com/original-365-project

2) Lose 10 pounds. 
Okay, I know that sounds trite, but the doctors say that losing even 10 pounds can make a difference in your overall health.  After my health scare a few weeks ago, I am determined to lose 10 pounds this year.  I need to lose many more than 10 pounds, but every little pound makes a difference.  

3) Run.
 I've walked a lot of 5K's over the years, but I've never actually run one- run the entire distance.  4 years ago, I walked the Marine Corps Marathon 10K.  I finished in 1:55. (That's one hour, 55 minutes.)   The cut off time for the 10K was 2:15.  I beat that time.  This year, I will participate in the 10K.  I'd like to finish much faster, and I'd like to run larger portions of it.  (Although I will NEVER be able to run the 14th street bridge.  That is a wicked, wicked obstacle!)  So, by the end of this year, I would like to RUN one 5K, and walk/run the Marine Corps Marathon 10K.

4) Get out of debt.
I want to make our mortgage go away.  There's only one way to do that... pay up.
We're still working out the numbers, but hopefully we can take a big chunk out of our overall mortgage balance this year.  We're ten years into a thirty year loan.  I'd like to pay that off in the next 5 years, if we can.

5) Finish cleaning out the basement.
I know, I keep listing this as a goal.  I think the only way you could understand the horror of how much stuff is down there is if I were to post a video.  I'm not sure I want to do that! I've gotten a big chunk of it cleaned out this fall.  I'm currently working my way through materials that were left in my basement by the robotics team.  Keep in mind- my son is graduated from the robotics team, and I have no more children on the team.  I really, really need to get that stuff OUT of my basement.  I've thrown out trash, and I'm now sorting through team history.  I've been giving it to the lead mentor of the team as I sort through it all.

6) Finish oldest child's quilt.
I started cutting this for him when he received his Eagle Scout 3 years ago.  I will piece it and quilt it this year.  It would be nice to give it to him in time for his college graduation next summer!

7) Spend more time with my family.

8) Finish writing that book I keep saying I'm going to write. 
Honestly, all I need to do is proof read one more time and add pictures.  What is my problem?  Why do I keep putting this off?

9) Finish the hallway bathroom.
This is a long story for another day.  We are currently saving money so that we can have someone finish this professionally.  It is well beyond our skill set, and probably, we shouldn't have attempted to fix this ourselves.  Oh well, live and learn.

10) Get back into my music.
The last 4 years, I've pulled back from music.  I haven't been able to sing in the choir.  This year, I will get back into choir.  I'm going to start with the church choir. 

For me, music is tantamount to worship.  It is how I spend time with God.  I don't know how or why I let it slip in the first place.


These are my resolutions for 2014.  Will I keep them all?  I would like to think so. 

Do you have any resolutions for the new year?