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Sunday, February 25, 2024

Spring Fever

 Hello dear friends!  Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.!  As usual, I will start with the weather report. Ha!  Cold and windy.  But we finally got a few pretty snows.

Isn't it pretty?  Outside and in.

I do love a pretty snowfall!  In spite of the cold, we are thinking of Spring and have started collecting our maple sap.  We've boiled down over a quart of syrup already. Kind of odd weather  this year; a few days above freezing, than a couple days of bitter cold and wind.  Most of our snowfall has been that ugly slushy stuff, but I'm happy to have had a few lovely ones. 

We also started our onion seeds.  Starting seeds is sort of a bone of contention in our home.  In the Fall we purchase our seeds during the Black Friday sale and give great consideration to them, but by the time seed starting starts, Ran has the seed packets squirreled away throughout the  house and garage and mixed with older packets.  By that time all the varieties that I have given so much consideration into are all mixed up and we cannot remember what we bought or why.  So we never really have the garden we envisioned when we were planning.  We just kind of gather up as many packages as we can locate, and decide on the spot what to plant.  It usually isn't until July that I discover those special herb  and rare flower seeds I intended on planting. tucked away in a tin or cubby.  We are usually pretty organized and analytical people when it comes to most things, but when it comes to planning a garden, we tend to fly by the seats of our pants.

One thing I plant every year is gourds.

For some reason, gourds just capture my fancy.  I have them in bowls and crocks and hanging on knobs everywhere.  This year I will probably plant some spinner gourds. So cute.  And I'm going to try my hand at growing broom corn and making a handcrafted broom this year. BTW, Ran made that lovely pie safe for me.  If you can't afford an antique learn to make your own.  He sprayed the tin panels with vinegar and stuck them outside to  be rained and snowed on for several months to give them that authentic rusty, crusty look of the primitives that I love.

Crafting

Whilst we are still in the hibernation period, I've finished two more projects. This blue Scandinavian  sampler:

And this pair of red petticoat socks:

All the materials came from the thrift store including the cross stitch chart.  My word!  Crafting can be expensive!  I love to watch flosstubers  on YouTube and the  money they spend on their hobbies is unbelievable with their special linens, flosses and even cross stitch charts run around ten dollars.  Add in the cost of framing, for very few of them actually frame their work themselves, I bet they have almost a hundred dollars into each work by the time it is finished.  My little sampler cost $1.29 for the linen (it had the original price tag on it for over $14) 59 cents for the chart and 50 cents for the floss.  And I have lots of linen and floss left over.  So what does that add up to? $2.38?  And the frame was 50 cents picked up at a garage sale this Summer. So for less than three dollars and a month's worth of work I got the perfect sampler to fit over a little rosemaled shelf.  Couldn't be happier with it if I had paid a hundred dollars.  

BTW, see that pretty Meissen candleholder?  Paid a quarter for it a thrift store.  Ditto for the soft paste, two-hundred-years-old  blue and white cup next to it.  I have always loved antiques and it took me years to save up for my first "genuine" one, a Victorian mirror (ugh!). Although I couldn't afford any, it didn't keep me from going to antique stores and looking at them and going to the library and reading about them to educate myself, so I would be able to spot them if I ever came across the real McCoy at an unbelievable price.  And it's amazing how often it happened.  The other day I was telling Ran that we have become one of those people that we used to read about when we were younger that had so many antiques their homes were like a living museum.  How we used to read about those people and sigh.  It will never happen to us, we just weren't born to such good fortune. This happened the other day when I was cleaning out my linen cupboard and a pretty stoneware piece that I had forgotten all about fell out between the folds of a runner. How I love antiques!  It's such a thrill for me to see the potter's thumbprint in the glaze and think that two-hundred years ago he was putting it in a kiln. How many generations is that?  Just think of all the people that have loved and valued that simple crock!

Anyways, enough of me waxing on about antiques!  The socks were knit from Rowan felted tweed yarn.  I paid $1.50 for two skeins from my local thrift store.  I checked the other day and the yarn is still available.  It runs around $15 a skein.  $30 for a pair of socks?  Not I, said this cat.  I know many knitters that will only use the yarns called for in a pattern, but I love, love, love, finding some old vintage yarn and making a pattern my own.  And some of those old vintage woolen yarns are so much nicer than the new stuff.  Don't be afraid to try!


The Pantry

Well, we are still eating out of the pantry.  For those that are interested today's meal consisted of chicken and gravy on homemade biscuits, with a side of broccoli and strawberries for dessert. The chicken was  home- canned as was the broth to make the gravy.  The broccoli and strawberries were homegrown and frozen.

Basically, we are just trying to eat through the jars of 2021 and 2022 food to use them up and to make room for the coming canning season.  This isn't about saving money or anything like that.  Just rotating my stock. As space comes available, I'm starting to restock the shelves.  I canned 8 quarts of winter squash the other day.  We still had more, so I gave some to a neighbor and some to our friend Tyler for his chickens. Note to gardeners:  Mooregold squashes are very prolific! And wonderful keepers.  And I prefer them to pumpkin for baking.


Stocking Up

The other day Ran and I were reminiscing, as old people, we do that a lot. Ha!  We were chatting about back in the late 60s and early 70s everyone had spaghetti for dinner on Friday nights in our little village.  Back then Catholics were pretty strict with not eating meat on Fridays and the fixings for spaghetti could be grown quite easily even in a postage sized lot, which was the typical size of a village lot back then.  Just room enough for a fruit tree and a small garden, the kids played at the park or in a vacant lot.  It wasn't uncommon for Catholic families to have eight or more kids, so they ate a lot of spaghetti.  It wasn't long before the Lutherans on the other side of town caught on to spaghetti on Friday nights as a good and thrifty idea. So back when we were kids, if you were invited to dinner at anyone's house on a Friday it was a pretty safe bet you were going to be eating spaghetti. When we were first married we followed with that tradition.  Only I added a side salad and garlic bread made from the week's stale bread.  Often I would buy the sauce, because it made for a speedy meal  that way.  We always bought the cheap sauce that came in the can and was located on the bottom shelf in the grocery store. So the other day I was wondering if you can still buy spaghetti sauce in a can and if it is still so cheap.  Checked our local Meijers store and Hunt's sauce in a can was $1.37, then I went to Save-A-Lot and their store brand was even cheaper.  That with a pound of store brand spaghetti, which is what? about $1.50 a pound?  You have a pretty cheap meal.  So one of the things  if you don't can and want to stock an emergency pantry, is get yourselves some of that cheap spaghetti sauce that comes in a can.  You can always add meat or peppers or mushrooms or whatever you want to it, if you want something fancier and can afford it.


Well I suppose this post has rambled on long enough.  We are still in our quiet season and there isn't much excitement going on, not there ever is. I hope you all have wonderful week ahead!


Hugs

Jane

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Assumptions

 Hello dear friends!  I had planned to write something more fun, and I probably will, but today I was watching something on YouTube and it made me upset, so I thought I'd write about it .  

I have always made assumptions about the readers of this blog.  I assumed that you all were fairly intelligent and knew how to read, otherwise why would you be reading my long-winded blog?  Certainly not for the beautiful photography.  I see other blogs and YouTube channels where they teach people how to hang laundry and make oatmeal, and I think they are silly.  And quite frankly, insulting.  Anyone with basic reading skills, ought to be able to read the carton of oatmeal and figure out how to make oatmeal from scratch, and well even a four-year old child  can figure out how to throw clothes over a clothesline.  Maybe it wouldn't be the nicest, neatest job, but they could do it.  

So anyway, today I was watching this person say that my attitude  that people know how to do things, such as read instructions, is an "elitist" ( how I loath that term) attitude.  Elitist? Really?  I was born into an average blue-collar family and have been so poor at times in my life that I have gone to bed without any food.  I was never taught how to cook or economize while growing up.  In fact, my mother never did any of those things to teach me.  Just because you were "taught" one way as a child, doesn't mean you cannot change your thinking as an adult.  Until her dying  day, my mother ridiculed me for my old-fashioned  thrifty ways.  BTW, when my father died, my parents were in debt, so I paid off my father's debt, even though I had two children in college and could ill afford it, so that my mother wouldn't have to worry about paying the loan off.  I do not write this to talk ill of my parents, but just to illustrate the attitude about thriftiness I grew up with. Anything that I have learned in life, as far as home economics, I learned from reading. I didn't have some "elite" schooling that trained me in home economics. Back when I was starting out, there was no internet, I couldn't just look it up on my phone, I had to go to the library, use an old card catalog to locate the book, and read it.  If I bought a new appliance, I read the instructions manual before using it.  I am, by no stretch of the imagination, the brightest bulb in the pack, so I always assumed that if I could learn these things, so could you.

I think what it all comes down to, is the willingness to learn.  No one can tell me that any person with an average intelligence  cannot figure out that it is less expensive to buy a loaf of cheap store bread, some cheese and a can of tomato soup and make grilled cheese sandwiches and soup, than paying forty dollars for one fast food meal for their family of four.  Even a child can figure out that if they only have a penny, they cannot afford a box of Legos.  I know, I have experienced really hard times, when I wasn't sure where the next meal was going to come from, so I do know that sometimes things are just out of our control, no matter how hard we try to prepare, but I think, I assume, that a lot of people are just looking for an excuse  not to try. And yes, I assume it is because they are just plain lazy. After all, taking time to learn, takes away from time watching Tik-Tok videos or texting, or whatever people do these days to entertain themselves.

And you know what?  The more you learn, the more you want to learn.  Every skill you master, makes you want to master another.  Every lower bill I receive, makes me want to see what else I can do to make next month's even lower.  So anyway, if I stepped on anyone's toes, because of my "elitist" assumptions that you all are intelligent and willing to learn and are capable of figuring things out for yourself, well then perhaps you shouldn't be reading this blog.  The people I always admire are those that are willing to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and I hope that you, dear readers, are of the same ilk. So good or bad, let me know your thoughts.

Until next time!

Hugs

Jane



Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Baffled

 Hello dear friends!  Keeping warm?  Ha!  I guess April Fool's Day came early for me this year.  I decided to write  the last blog post because I discovered that more people were reading my blog the past few months then when I was posting regularly.  But you know what?  As soon as I posted the last post my readership flat-lined.  Oh dear!  But I don't care, because it was nice to reconnect with you.  So I will continue to blog, although irregularly if for no other reason that this blog acts as my own personal journal and it is fun to look back and see what I was thinking and doing at different stages of this old journey called life.  

I was going to write about what we were eating during our year of eating out of the pantry, but I don't think it would be helpful to others, because we have a rather unusual lifestyle (we only eat two meals a day), and because some of our pantry meals are not inexpensive unless you have someone in your family is an avid fisherman or you have such a well-stocked pantry that I have, which very few people besides some Amish have. Ha!  But here are some tips for stocking your pantry:

HOW TO HAVE  A WELL-STOCKED PANTRY

1.  GO SHOPPING.  So many people use those shopping services today, but you have to go to an actual store to discover the real bargains.  It really doesn't take that much time.  Ran and I go "bargain hunting" twice a month. We only shop the outer boundaries of the store; the dairy, produce and meat sections.  Things like flour, sugar and spices, we buy in bulk a couple of times a year.  We buy our coffee at the Amish scratch and dent store.  Sometimes we find coffee at the "reduced for quick sale" shelf which is usually tucked away  at a corner in the back of the store. We often find milk that is reaching its expiration date and thus the price is reduced, which we make into yogurt, which is then made into cheese.  Often there are unadvertised sales on meat. (We found a nice lamb roast for $4.99/lb. this past week!)  These bargains would have been missed if we weren't in the store to discover them.

2.  WHEN YOU FIND A BARGAIN, BUY A BUNCH  When you find an amazing bargain calculate how much you will need for a year.  We always reserve between $20-$30 a month for these sorts of purchases.  Most people can afford $20.  It might mean giving up some little luxury, like eating a PBJ instead of stopping at the fast food place because you are too tired to cook, or not buying that bag of chips and pop, or consolidating some errands and saving on a tank of gas, or doing your own nails instead of getting a manicure.  There's all sorts of ways to save $20 a month!

3.  BE OPEN-MINDED  The other day I was standing in the grocery store contemplating whether or not to buy some bags of frozen chicken leg quarters that were 39 cents a pound, when I overheard a woman say "oh gross!".  Now just why frozen leg quarters are gross and fresh aren't, is just not a concept I can grasp.  I guarantee that if I had bought 20 pounds for $7.98 and canned them up and made something and served it to her, she would have been none the wiser to whether they had started out with frozen or fresh meat to begin with.  And I would have had eight lovely pints of canned chicken and several pints of chicken broth in my pantry for a remarkable price.  BTW, if I would have bought forty pounds and canned it, that would have been enough chicken for an entire year and for less than twenty dollars.  A local thrift store gives out fruits and vegetables left over from their food pantry.  I like to leave those things for the truly needy, but the worker implored me to take them because they would just get thrown out at the end of the day otherwise.  You see, people are so privileged in this country that even those that are begging for free food, turn up their noses if it isn't exactly perfect.  So I gladly accepted the free oranges and made some lovely marmalade from it and the brown bananas were made into bread for breakfast, etc.  When eggs were so expensive, our friend Tyler started raising chickens and giving them out to friends and neighbors.  But being busy and a bachelor, he didn't wash them.  I was astounded at how many people complained and rejected his  free eggs just because they didn't look like they came from the grocery store, especially when eggs were were selling for over four dollars a dozen then.

4. LEARN TO COOK  So many of the recipes I see nowadays are not exactly cooking, it's more like assembling ingredients.  A can of this, a package of that. By just knowing a few basic cooking skills, you can eliminate the entire middle and frozen  sections (and most expensive) of the grocery store. Eliminating all those items, you'll have more money to stock up on the basics.  Learn to make a basic white sauce, which herbs and spice to use, with what,  what temperatures to roast, boil and bake at. (all posts I have written about in the past).  Learn how to make your own pasta, bread, baked goods from scratch by learning the ratio of fats, sugars and flours.  As I try to use up every last bit of things in the fridge that have been hanging around since the holidays, I have been baking with some unusual items.  I made oatmeal cookies last week using the last of the maple fudge for some of the sugar, pear sauce and a dab of sour cream  substituted for some of the fats, and diced up dried apricots instead of raisins.  Knowing that fat is fat and sugar is a sugar (except honey which you should use less and bake at lower temperatures), you can use every last drip and dab of food.  We come as close to zero waste as possible. BTW, the cookies were delicious.

5. USE IT ALL UP  Ran caught a lovely walleye last week so we had a our usual fish dinner with coleslaw and tartar sauce.  When  we were clearing the table there was about a tablespoon of tartar sauce and a quarter cup of coleslaw left over.  Now most people would probably have just tossed them, but then most people are not as parsimonious as me. Ha! I combined them with a the quarter cup of turkey I had leftover from the previous meal (turkey Reubens  made from canned turkey) and made enough sandwich filling for one sandwich, which I prepared, wrapped in waxed in paper and put in the refrigerator for someone to discover. BTW, aren't sandwiches tastier if they are cut corner to corner and wrapped in waxed paper? Mrs. Rachel Lynde, a character in Anne of Green Gables, always claimed you can tell a good homemaker by her bread management and would always check others breadbox to see if there was any stale bread in there.  Waste not, want not! 


So anyway, that is but a few ways I manage the grocery budget so I can stock my pantries.  Hope it helps!

BAFFLED


Well, we are going through a cold spell lately.  As many of you dear readers know, we live in a very old house, at least one-hundred and fifty years old and probably older than that.  Although we did our best to insulate it, it is still a cold drafty little place.  The upstairs is unheated and the only heat is via little vents in the ceiling  from the room below, basically it works on the theory that hot air rises.  This morning the inside temperature was 52 degrees (Fahrenheit)! But we stay toasty while we sleep because we dress our bed warmly.  I made quilts from scraps of wool, with old down comforters for the batting and flannel sheets for the backing.  I then hand-tied the top to the bottom.  The reason these quilts keep us extra warm as opposed to a regular quilt is because of the baffling.  The layers of top, bottom and batting are not compacted like in a pretty quilted quilt.  This allows air to be trapped between layers or to be more precise, baffled. Here's a link on how to make your own woolen quilt:

 https://hopeandthrift.blogspot.com/2015/03/sweet-briar-journal-lessons-from-my.html

I was too lazy to make all those little squares for the quilt on the bed so I just cut big squares and rectangles for the top and sewed and cut to fit the unusual sized bed.  It's a two-hundred year old rope bed and is shorter and narrower than standard beds.  Anyway, I find that woolen scarves from the thrift store (I wait until they have their winter clearance and buy them for less than ten cents) make quick work of this sort of quilt.  I was going to pretty the quilt up with some lace and hand-embroidery, but never got around to it. It works and gives me that primmy vibe I like.

I also use baffling to dress warmly.  As most of you know, I only wear skirts and people often ask me if I'm cold in winter.  Actually, quite the opposite.  I've tried wearing fleeced-lined pants when walking and frankly they don't work.  What does is wearing tights, a flannel petticoat and a skirt made from a natural material like wool or a heavy cotton. On top I wear a silk undershirt, a flannel or wool blouse and a wool cardigan.  The warmth from my body heat gets trapped within the layers. I'm warm.  Besides baffling, the other key is to use all natural materials.  Those blankets and clothes made from acrylics, won't keep you warm, so if you need to buy blankets, look for woolen ones and fortunately the thrift stores still have affordable ones.  BTW, don't waste your money getting used ones dry-cleaned, just wash as usual, if they shrink, you will have boiled wool, which is even warmer.

SPEAKING OF WOOL

This is my first project I finished for 2024:



A wool work sewing roll. I dislike having clutter about the house and craft projects always create so much clutter, so I made this sewing roll so at the end of the day, I can just roll up my project and tuck it away. And it keeps everything together.


BARGAINS

Besides the lamb I bought at a remarkable price ( I have another roast in the freezer so I might can them both up, we'll see) I spotted the store still had Christmas items for 90% off.  So I bought two packages of Hershey's kisses for 59 cents each, that I will chop up and use in chocolate chunk cookies sometimes in the future (cheaper than a bag of chocolate chips)  and one of those boxed  panetones  for a dollar.  Which I made into Skiers French Toast.

Skiers French Toast

2 tbsp. corn syrup

1/2 C. butter

1 C. brown sugar 

1 loaf of white bread (or in my case, 1 loaf of panentone)

5 eggs

1 1/2 C. milk

1 tsp. vanilla 1/4 tsp. salt

In a small saucepan, combine corn syrup, butter and brown sugar and simmer until syrupy.  Pour mixture over the bottom of a 9" X 13" pan.

Slice the bread in 12-16 slices and place over the sugar-butter mixture.

In a bowl, beat the remaining ingredients together.  Pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Uncover and bake for 45 minutes.  Serve hot.

Makes a nice family breakfast for the weekend.

THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX

Rarely do I use objects for their intended purpose.  Linen tablecloths become skirts and pretty blouse become napkins.  Wool skirts become blankets and rugs and woolen blankets become woolen applique pieces.  So the other day I was perusing the thrift store on our "bargain hunt" excursion when I spotted the prettiest linen blouse (made in Italy. Oh-la-la).  I was asking Ran what I could make with it.  I didn't need any more pillows, and it was too nice to stain up for napkins and I am through with making quilts.  'What can I make with this pretty fabric Ran?'  "Well, you could just wear it as a blouse.' Duh!  Sometimes I'm so busy looking outside of the box, I forget to look at the box. Ha!

EATING OUT OF THE PANTRY

Well, this has not been a hardship for us at all and I now have room in my pantry for some of my jars of home canned goods that have been sitting under the tea table in the living room.  Hurray!  Just to settle your curiosity,  today for lunch we had grilled baked  bean and cheese sandwiches and canned asparagus.  The beans were made from our own dried Hopi Indian beans, home-canned bacon,  homemade cranberry catsup and I used some home-canned apple syrup to sweeten them.  The cheese was purchased earlier this year when our Amish bulk store was selling the ends and pieces of deli cheese for $1.89 a pound.  We bought about twenty pounds, made them into packages and vacuum  sealed the packages and froze them.  I have also canned cheese, but it's an awfully fiddly process and it's a chore to clean the jars.  I wouldn't recommend it to you canners. So that is that for this week's life at the old Zempel boarding house.  Hope you all have a lovely week and stay warm!


Hugs

Jane







Sunday, December 31, 2023

Thank You!

 Hello dear friends!  I just wanted to come on here and wish you all the happiest new year and to thank all of you that have contacted me either via comments, e-mail, or by post, this past year!  It is so kind of you to remember me!  I'm still here on earth and still kicking. Ha!  Today I became officially a senior citizen.  Oh boy!  But even at my advanced age, I am still looking forward to setting  goals for the coming year.  I have an exciting challenge set, and that is to live almost completely from my pantry for 2024.  You know how other bloggers and vloggers have a "no spend" month?  Well, I intend to do that for an entire year.  Of course there will be times I will have to make a foray into the grocery store, Blackie our cat, is not willing to give up his daily saucer of milk, and I am sure at some point I will run out of flour, but mainly I will use what I have.  I assure you this is no hardship, as the past few years I have worked feverishly to stock my pantry.  I don't know how much of an aid it would be to you for me to record the weekly menus and my thought process behind the choices I make, but if it is of interest to you, just let me know and perhaps I will post my weekly progress.  

This past year has also been an exciting time of spiritual growth for me.  Our little family has been studying the Bible together and for some reason, many of my questions have been answered, where before they have eluded me.  Everything old is new again as each passing day I realize that the faith of my Puritan forefathers is the faith for me.  

It has also been a time of great creativity for me.  Whether it is taking scraps from the old rag bag or bits and bobs of leftovers, nothing gives me greater pleasure than taking those things and creating something if not wonderful, at least passable from them. Ha!

So that's what I have been up to in a nutshell.  Thank you again for all your kindness!  If there is any way I can be of service to you, just let me know! I do so hope and pray that the coming year will be kind to you and that each day will be the loveliest one.

Hugs

Jane

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Purging, Prioritizing, and Parsimony: AKA Thrifty Thursday

 Hello dear friends!  Hope you are well and safe.  I used to feel I needed to address each and every tragedy that was happening in the world, but it seems so many horrible things are happening to so many people worldwide, that I can't keep up. My news source doesn't even mention a lot of tragedies that would have been headlines for days just a few short years ago. We are living in crazy times my dear friends!  That is why I just hope that you are well and safe.  Even in my own quiet life, I was thinking nothing happened since my last post and then I remembered we had a trip to the emergency room, a court hearing and a tornado watch in those few weeks!  

Well, we had a few days in the upper 70s and lower 80s, followed by two days of snow. I was watching a little robin outside of my kitchen window while washing dishes and he was just standing there staring at the snow on the ground in disgust.  I think I could read his mind.  He looked pretty perturbed. Ha!  But the warm days made the daffodils bloom.


And we harvested the first of the asparagus.
And a few days in the eighties reminded me that I really hate summer.  I know that the warmer weather is necessary for the garden to grow and that is necessary for our lifestyle, but it only took two days for me to long for the quiet days along the fireside. I've noticed that most people that enjoy summer spend most of their days inside their air-conditioned homes or lazing about beaches and golf courses. To me, summer means days of work, often from sunrise to sunset.  And the noise!  Lawn mowers, leaf blowers, motorcycles, and sirens. Most people have seasonal depression in winter. I would have to be different. Ha!

In order to cut down on some of the work, I been purging and prioritizing my garden. I cut down several rose bushes, they are just too fussy.  And Ran dug up my herb garden.  We will still have an herb garden, but it will just be in practical straight lines in a rectangular plot instead of anything fancy. Sometimes practical has to take priority over pretty. Last fall Ran pruned my hydrangeas, and they don't look like they are coming back to life.  Can't say I'd be heartbroken if they didn't.   If they don't, we will replace them with something practical and evergreen. And easy to care for!

In The House

We are still trying to make room in our freezer, so we've been having some rather unusual meals.  Each day, we just grab something out of the freezer and try to figure out a meal from it combined with what needs using-up in the refrigerator.  We've also been going through our pantry and trying to use all the things that have been sitting there too long, or that were purchased to make a specific meal that we have long forgotten about.  One day we will have Mexican food, the next Asian and the following German. It's a good thing we have cast-iron stomachs!

We did have a wonderful meal for Easter, however.  I bought a leg of lamb for a price I haven't seen in years.  The rest of the meal was typical "Jane" thrifty, however, with the remainder of our root-cellared  potatoes and winter squash roasted and we had banana cake made from bananas that needed using up for dessert.   I had forgotten all about this recipe.  It was the one recipe that people most requested, way back in the olden days before the internet, when people used to swap recipes instead of googling them:

1890 Banana Cake

1/2 C. butter
1 1/4 C. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 C. sour cream
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla 
1 C. mashed bananas
1 1/2 C. flour
1/2 tsp. salt (omit if using salted butter)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 C. chopped nuts

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, sour cream, lemon juice, vanilla and bananas; beat mixture well.
Add flour, salt and baking soda; combine well.  Stir in nuts.
Pour into a lightly greased 9 X 13 pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.   Especially good if frosted with a cream cheese frosting.

It's very important to use very ripe, brown bananas when baking with this cake.  And sometimes, if I have it, I will use a 1/2 tsp of banana extract.  As with all my cake recipes, this makes a very moist "country" cake.

While cleaning out the freezer, I found quite a few bags of cranberries, so I canned six jars of relish and eight jars of cranberry catsup.  We love our homemade grape catsup, so I thought I'd give cranberry a try.  It's a winner.  Weren't cranberries inexpensive this year?  I also had bags and bags of pecans in the freezer, so I canned pecan pie filling.  I love having pie fillings on hand, it makes for a quick and easy dessert.  Just toss the filing into a lightly greased pan and make a quick crumble like the topping in this apple crisp and bake it up while dinner is being served.  Although, I must confess that more than likely I just use the recipe on the side of the Jiffy yellow cake mix for a quick dessert.

Fruit Magic

1 pkg. Jiffy yellow cake mix
1 can pie filling (21 oz.)
1/2 C. chopped nuts (optional)
1/4 cup margarine or butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Select your favorite pie filling and spread into an ungreased 8" square pan. Combine cake mix and nuts. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over top of pie filling. Bake 45-50 minutes.  (I think I bake mine less, about a half hour, just until the top is lightly browned and the filling is hot and bubbling.)

Even someone that doesn't know how to bake can handle that recipe! It's a good "starter" recipe for children. Did I ever tell you the story of my first attempt at baking?  I was five-years old.  I had a gotten a cute little recipe booklet from the grocery store for free.  It was a tie-in for the Wizard of Oz, which yearly airing around Easter time, was a big event for us kiddies back in the early 60s. Anyway, I informed my mother that I was going to bake some cookies and back then children were pretty much ignored and unsupervised, my mother just said something like "That's nice".  So off to the kitchen I went!  At five, I could read but I hadn't gotten to fractions in school, so when the recipe called for 3-4ths cups of brown sugar, I figured it meant 3 to 4 cups of brown sugar! Well, you can imagine how the cookies turned out!  They ended up more like peanut brittle and were quite a chore to scrape off the cookie sheets.  But they weren't wasted, my sister's boyfriend ate them all.  After the first batch, my mother finally came into the kitchen and discovered what I was up to and sent me out to play while she tossed the batter. You'd think that first foray into baking would have discouraged me, but after learning fractions (ha!) I became quite the little baker, winning many a blue-ribbon at various fairs.  By the time I was ten, my father preferred my baking to my mother's (not the accomplishment that one might think) and I became the chief baker in the family.

Crafts

Whenever someone asks me what I've been up to, I always answer, "cleaning out the freezer or cleaning out the attic" You'd think that one day it would come to an end!  I keep all my crafting items in the attic and my fabric stash is immense.  My problem is that I love fabric, particularity the pretty reproduction fabrics put out by quilting companies. I can't bear to waste a scrap.  So, I began this scrap quilt last winter.
I was thinking of making a quilt for our bed, which is a two-hundred-year-old rope bed and an odd size, but quickly into the project I decided that it was too busy for my taste.  So, I tucked it away and forgot about it. It was a shame, since I only had about five more squares to finish it into a nice lap-sized quilt.  Guilt got the better of me and I had to take it out and finish it.  I am glad to have it behind me, so I can get on to something more enjoyable.   While I was quilting and quilting (did I mention I hate quilting?) Ran kept me company by whittling these two adorable spoons: 


The larger spoon is a coffee measure, the tiger maple came from our firewood pile. And the little spoon is a little scuttle for salt. He used a dye I made from rose galls to stain the tiger maple piece.  I also used the rose galls to dye some cross stitch fabric for this picture on the left:
The little picture to the right is made from a scrap of fabric that was used in some strapping for an antique chair that I had saved.  We never waste anything! I used the oil some fancy olives were packed in to roast our asparagus in this week.  And to sauté some onions and peppers.  Rose gall dye, olive oil from a jar of olives, old upholstery used as cross stitch fabric, may seem like carrying thrift to extremes and some might think it is downright miserly, but to me, it is a fun adventure.  

So that is it for this Thrifty Thursday.  Stay safe and stay thrifty!

Hugs
Jane




Thursday, March 23, 2023

Small Scale Maple Sugaring and Other Thrifty Doings

 Hello dear friends!  Happy Springtime!  Several of you have written and told me that you have had problems with subscribing and commenting on my blog.  I'm sorry about that, unfortunately, I am the least techie person on the planet, bordering on full-on Luddite status, so I cannot fix those problems, but I do appreciate you making an effort to let me know. I truly do appreciate all feedback, even the negative as long as it doesn't get abusive.  Anyway, with that out of the way, here's what springtime looks like in my neck of the woods:


Not the prettiest season.  No forsythias, no daffodils, no green grass, those things won't come until May, just mud and the remainder of the snow. It always looks so bad this time of year.  So that is the reality of living "up North".  But on a happier note, the robins have returned, and the morning was greeted with a cheerful chorus of birdsong.  They are surviving on the wild grapes and crabapples left on the trees until the ground thaws and they can get at their worms. 

Small-scale Maple Sugaring

I just read a news article that this year has been one of the best maple sugaring seasons Michigan has had in a long time.  We are gathering a gallon of sap a day from the one tap on the maple tree in our front yard the past few days. We already boiled down enough to make a quart and a half of syrup. This year was just an experiment to see how we could do this efficiently, but next year we will tap more trees and put more than a single tap in each.  Here's how our tap looks:

We inserted some tubing into the tap and then into a pop bottle, then Ran rigged up some wire to attach the bottle to the tap. Then when the bottle is three-quarters full, we put the sap in an enamel-lined pot and put it atop our woodstove, where it evaporates down to one-tenth of its volume. This way we are not wasting any energy, as the stove is being used to heat the house anyway.  After that, Ran takes the evaporated sap out and finishes the evaporating process on our rocket stove.
You can get all fancy-schmancy and measure the temperature of the sap to see if it is at the syrup stage, but we just eyeball it.  When it is the right consistency to run off of a spoon slowly and it's that maple-syrupy color, we bottle it.  I will probably "can" the syrup for long-term storage in pint jars.  I use the term "can" but it more like bottling the jars.  Sterilize you jars in a 275-degree oven for ten minutes, .  (Normally I do not recommend sterilizing jars this way, but you want the jars to be dry inside, so that the syrup doesn't mold.)  Heat you syrup to the boiling point, pour the hot syrup into the hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace.  Place a lid that has been simmered and then wiped dry atop each jar and the screw the band on tightly, none of this fingertip tight business here, really jam the rings on.  Place the jars upside down on a soft dishtowel.  This should seal the jars. After the jars have cooled, turn them upright and check to see if the jars have sealed.  Any that haven't should be stored in the refrigerator for up to six months. I'm sure there's many articles on exactly how to do this out on the internet, if you want to do a bit of research, but it really isn't rocket science. Speaking of rockets, these rocket stoves are a wonder.  They take very little energy to get a large pot of water up to the boiling point.  We just use twigs we find in the yard and scrap lumber.  We've used our countless times when we have lost electricity for the umpteenth time every year. This is a purchased one, but again, there's lot of information on the internet on how to make one.  They are definitely a valuable tool to have on hand.

Taking Stock

March is the month that we take stock here at Sweetbriar Cottage.  We go through all our canned goods and see what we need to grow and preserve for the coming year.  More tomatoes for catsup and salsa but we are good on beets and carrots. (I'm still having nightmares about having the flu while canning those bushels and bushels of carrots.) And we definitely need to make more sauerkraut this year.  All the oddball canned goods and those that are reaching their expiration dates are put into a basket to be used for meals this month.  It makes for some interesting meals; I can vouch for that.  And we try to eat down our freezer, in anticipation of the coming fishing season.  My goal is to use only the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and not even use the small upright freezer we have (a goal I have yet to achieve). 

 It is finally warm enough to go up into the attic and straighten things up.  I can truthfully say, I needn't buy another skein of yarn or scrap of fabric for the rest of my life.  I will need to live to be a hundred just to use what I have, and that is after donating bags and boxes of yarn and bolts of fabric to the local thrift store.  I also go through my winter wardrobe and donate all the clothes that I have never worn all season and the ones that do not suit my lifestyle any longer.  There's no point in having pretty clothes that are not practical, I never go anywhere to get dressed up.  They are just taking up space and in a small home space is more valued than hanging onto things for sentimental value.  My thoughts on the whole matter are that it is better to pass on these pretties on to someone who might enjoy them, then it is to have them sitting in drawers going to waste.  Taking stock from time to time is a thrifty thing to do. After seeing all that I have, I can honestly say "enough is enough"!

But yet....

I say all that, but yet, it didn't keep me from taking a jog through the thrift store yesterday when I dropped off some donations. Ha!  I had this beautiful piece of an old overshot coverlet that I wanted to frame, so I was looking for a frame to cut down to fit the piece. And there it was!  For $5, less than what I'd pay just to have the glass cut.  I was going to paint the frame, but I thought the color brought out the golden browns in the fabric.  It took less than a quarter hour, for Ran to have it framed and hung.  

Even the mat worked out (it appears more bluish here than it actually is).  The only other thing I bought was a twiggy wreath for my door.  I toss my wreaths at the end of the seasons.  Usually, they look the worst for wear after a couple of months being battered about by the wind and the thrift stores always have more.  The one I bought cost 75 cents.  Speaking of twiggy wreaths, here's a woolen candle mat I made from some of my big box of wool scraps:
That was a fun one-day project.  And here's a penny rug I finished this month:

I am through with making those woolen tongues for a long while.  In March I decorate in a lamb and lion theme.  I don't decorate for Easter; all those bunnies and chicks are too cutesy for me. And I am not fond of pastels.  Besides, the lion and lamb have a Biblical connotation. Or so I thought.  I had a real Mandela-effect experience when I discovered that the Bible actually says, "The wolf will lie down with the lamb".  I thought it might be some modern interpretation, but I checked my grandmother's Bible that was published in 1911, and yep, it says wolf there too.

March Sales

March is a wonderful time to stock up on some items.  They've had great buys on corned beef.  At Aldi's I bought the cheaper cut for $2.99 a pound.  I would have bought some to can, when you can your meat it tenderizes the cheaper cuts, so don't be afraid to buy them for this purpose, but I still had plenty in my pantry from the previous year, so I didn't.  But I did buy two roasts, one we ate on St. Patrick's Day, and the other I roasted and cut into slice for sandwiches.  I still see corned beef on sale at Walmart.  

I saw lamb for less than $4 a pound at Meijers.  Unheard of price for lamb!  If I weren't being so lazy, I would buy some to can for stew.  Lamb is a rarity in this house.  I used to grind it and make gyro meat which I sliced and froze.  So nice when the cucumbers and dill are ripe for tzatziki sauce.  Oh, oh!  I'm talking myself into a chore!

And of course, ham and eggs are usually on sale this time of year.  I haven't checked the prices, but just a quick glance, I have noticed that the prices on eggs are going down. You can really make a ham stretch.  One of our favorite ways is with this ham and egg pie. Then there's always ways to use it in soups and omelets. Take all the little scraps and grind them up add some onion, mayo, and dill relish and make a sandwich spread.  And when you get down to the soup bone there's always a nice old-fashioned boiled dinner (with lots of cabbage which is on sale this month).  Goodness!  A family could survive an entire month on one bargain Easter ham!

A Question Posed

Recently, someone posed the question is self-sufficiency and preparedness Biblical?   This is usually followed by the verse about the lilies of the field.  I'd say, yes, while we depend on God to provide for us, He also give us knowledge and discernment.  I can point to just as many verses and parables about preparedness. We all read the news about bank closures and interest rate hikes; they should be telling you something about where the economy is heading.  It would be foolhardy to not watch your pennies a little more closely, in my opinion.  My attitude is not to go at preparing for hard times in a fearful manner, by going to grocery store and hoarding up enough food and making your home into a bunker, but it won't hurt to have some extra things put aside.  These days, no one can be truly self-sufficient.  Even centuries back, people were still dependent on others; millers to help grind the grain, neighbors to help shuck the corn, threshing teams at harvest time, not to mention most had large families that pulled together.  I dare say that a lot of those "preppers" I see on YouTube will find that all their well-laid plans are just that, when they have to grow enough feed for all that livestock and harvest it with a scythe because fuel and parts are not available for their tractors. Or if they have to haul buckets of water from a stream for that herd of cows.  They'll be downsizing their gardens when they have to turn over the soil with a shovel and till it by hand.  And what does one do when a drought occurs?  Or a flood wipes out your crops?  Then I dare say, we are not as self-sufficient as we thought, so we needn't be so smug about it.  Self-sufficiency is a goal, but I'd say we still need to have God's blessings to ever achieve any facsimile of it. Yet, I still say it is better to at least try attempt to live as independently as possible, rather than to rely on the good graces of others, or worse yet, the government, to provide for you, realizing that every tomato you pick, every piece of firewood you stack, every drop of water you drink, is a blessing and should be treasured and not wasted. What say you on the subject?

So anyway, that's it for this month's Thrift Thursday at the old Zempel boarding house.  Dear Regina, I hope this helps, and thank you for urging me to write a post!

Hugs
Jane

 

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Thrifty Thursday

 Hello dear friends!  We are shoveling out from our snow "storm" today.  Why is any measurable amount of snow considered a storm these days?  Afterall, we live in Michigan, it's winter, we should expect snow in February.  Our son and family that lives downstate are without electricity, but they are prepared with a backup generator and a wood pellet stove, so no harm there.  Most of the people that live in this neck of the woods, know enough to be prepared for such things, it's just common sense.  Which leads me to a dilemma; what to write about for Thrifty Thursday.  I assume that you all have common sense too, and much of being thrifty is just common sense.  So many of the YouTube "thrift and prepping" channels have such nonsense, such as how to wash your hair without running water or how to hang your laundry on the line.  Well, I assume you know how to do those things or if you don't, you'd figure it out pretty quickly on your own, after all it doesn't take a Philadelphia lawyer.  To me, it is kind of insulting to think people are so dull that they need instructions on such things.

The other thing that bothers me about many of these channels is their clickbait like "I saved $1000 a week, and you can too!" Then proceed to show you something they purchased on sale or used for fifty dollars, then show you the retail price from some fancy-schmancy catalog.  No, they didn't save a thousand dollars, they spent fifty.  Unless it is something you are truly in need of, say a refrigerator because yours went kaput and the food is spoiling, you are just spending money.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good thrift store buy as much as the next person, but I am not under any illusion that no matter how cheap the thing is, it is still spending money.  The biggest thrift tip I can give anyone is to learn the difference between a "want' and a "need". 

Practicing what we preach is hard though.  Ran and I have been trying to practice that we will eat only what the good Lord provides for us.  He does a pretty good job of it, too. Our small bit of land provides us with all the fruit and vegetables we need and Ran, an avid fisherman, catches enough fish to supply us with all the meat our little family needs.  Technically, about all we really need to purchase is flour and oil and a bit of sugar.  And this year we are tapping our maples, which if we needed to, could be done on a larger scale to provide us with a sugar source.  It would be meager, but enough to bake a loaf of bread every few days.  Our friend Shane supplies us with honey also, and neighbor Anna's son, Tyler, gives us eggs in return for plowing her out and helping her till her garden in the spring and fall, so we are provided for. But yet, on payday, we still go to the store and buy groceries.  This month the only thing on our shopping list that we need is salt, but of course, if there's a good buy on something else, you know I'm going to pick it up.  Lately our little Amish cheese factory has been selling it's ends and pieces for $1.68 a pound, so we've been restocking our cheese "cave".  Is cheese a need or a want?  I suppose with our German, Swiss and Dutch ancestery, it's a need. Ha! Well, we'll just justify it by saying cheese is our source of calcium.  Coffee is a luxury I need to remind myself.

Speaking of which, we love history, so are always experimenting with what the early settlers did to get by, so we collected, dried and roasted dandelion root for a substitute for coffee.  It looked like coffee and had a pleasant smell while roasting, but at the end of the day, I would rather go without rather than drink that.  But then I don't like tea so don't let me dissuade you from trying it. It tasted like a very earthy green tea to me, so if that is something you think you would like, there's plenty of dandelions out there, so enjoy!  

Well, in spite of getting snow yesterday, we have begun our gardening.  Last year we had very good success with our onions, as a matter of fact we still have a bushel in the root cellar.  The one thing we figured out is that you have to start them very early, much earlier than the seed packets instruct and instead of going under the grow lights, they grow stronger just by being in our south-facing windows. We are also starting some gourds this week.  Each year I attempt to grow a different kind of gourd.  Last year it was luffas.  I only managed to harvest one!  So much for the idea of growing free scrubbies!  I'll have to stick to my old standby of using the netting from store-bought turkeys and hams for pot scrubbers.  

SOME RECOMMENDATIONS

I've been cleaning out my bookshelves and came across a few books that are wonderful resources for prepping and living the thrifty lifestyle. The First one is The Home Workplace, a compilation of how-tos put out by the Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine. It has all sorts of information on how to build structures for self-sufficiency. The other book is, How To Do Things, published by the Farm Journal.  What a gem!  Everything from how to garden and build things, to how to raise livestock and process them.  Even has ideas for how to have fun without modern conveniences.  Love that book!

A YouTube channel I really enjoy is Three Rivers Homestead.  Her thought process is very similar to how I come up with meal planning and watching that sweet mama working with her children in the kitchen reminds me very much of my life when my children were youngsters.

RECIPE FROM THE PANTRY

Pumpkin Cake

1 C. pureed pumpkin

1/2 C. applesauce

1 C. sugar (I used a bit less because my home-canned applesauce was already sweetened)

2 eggs

1 C. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. cloves

 1/2 C. raisins or nuts (or both) optional


Combine wet ingredients.  Then stir in the dry ingredients.  Fold in the nuts or raisins if using them. Pour into a greased 8-inch pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until done.  This cake is particularly good with a bit of cream cheese frosting.

This cake is a dense, what I call, country cake.  Kind of akin to a quick bread. Growing up, my mother always baked cakes from mixes and used that canned frosting.  Blechhh!  So, I never really liked cake until I started baking these country cakes.  But if you enjoy those chiffon-type or angel food style cakes, this recipe may not be for you.

So that is it for another Thrifty Thursday.  This is the time of year when there isn't much excitement going on.  Oh!  Did you hear about the "UFO" that they shot down over Lake Huron?  That was probably less than fifty miles from us as the crow flies.  We had a good laugh over it until we found out that the first time they took a shot at it, they missed!  That missile could have landed in our front yard.  And it's not very reassuring that our missile defense system can't even shoot down something hovering over a lake on the first attempt.  I tease Ran that he better not go trolling for salmon this spring, his luck he'll snag that missile lying at the bottom of the lake.  I guess that's where it is, they never did say if the recovered it, or the strange octagonal object they were shooting down.  So I guess we did have some "excitement" around here.  Anyway, whatever will be, will be.  Here's hoping your days are filled only with the fun sort of excitement.!

Hugs

Jane