A Little Baking, A Little Crafting, And A Little Prepping

 Hello dear friends!  First I want to thank you all for all the kind comments.  I truly wasn't fishing for a compliment, just wanted to know if people were still interested in reading this blog any longer.  As I have written before, I do not monetize this blog or have any goals for it really, I just enjoy getting to know you.  I guess if I really wanted to set a goal for this blog it would be to make it a forum for like-minded people to congregate.  I think in a small way, it has become that.  So if you have any questions about any subject, feel free to ask in the comment section, if I don't have an answer, I'm sure one of you will.  Also, don''t hesitate to leave helpful suggestions.  Now then, look at this:

My camera is fixed!  Matty wanted to know what sort of curtains I was sewing for my bedroom.  Just these simple little tiers. And here's another picture for those that like a peek into my home sweet home. 

Do you see that strand of spinner gourds? For some strange reason, I am fascinated with gourds.  Each year I try to grow a different variety.  I love gourds so much that I made this "gourd" table runner:

I must admit, that I hate quilting and it is reflected in my craftsmanship so don't look too closely!  But no one is going to make me  one, so I have to make do the best I can.  I always start out these projects with the best of intentions, but somewhere along the way, things go awry and I get  bored with them.  Oh well, it's not like it is going to be an heirloom.  Sometimes "good enough" is good enough.

BAKING

Well, it's starting to feel like Fall at last!  We picked the last of the apples.  The first apple dessert made from my beloved Rhode Island Greenings, is always a celebration day here.  A few years back we decided to make up our own celebration days and not tell anyone when they were because crabby attitudes from others were ruining our joy during the traditional ones.  The Biblical feast days and Christian holidays are observed, just in passing; we pause and give thought to their significance on the day, but other than that, they are just another  day on the calendar for us.  Sort of Puritanical isn't it?  Anyway back to apple pie day, here's the recipe for apple pastry squares:

Apple Pastry Squares

Crust:

1 c. shortening

2 1/4 C. flour

1 tsp. salt

1/2 C. water

Combine flour and salt.  Cut in shortening until small clumps form.  Stir in water a little at a time until the flour is moistened and it holds together.  How much water you use is dependent upon humidity, if your flour is dry you may need extra, or if your flour is moist you may need less.  To become a good cook you must learn how things should feel and look and the only way you are going to learn that is to get out there and try it. Also pie crusts benefit from not too much fiddling with, it's those layers of fat and flour that make it flaky, so don't get carried away with mixing the water into the flour mixture or you'll end up with a tough crust.

Now fit 2/3 rds of the crust and fit it into a 10 X 13 pan.  I don't bother rolling this out, just press the crust into the pan in a thin layer along the bottom and half way up the sides of the pan. Sprinkle 1 TBSP of sugar over the crust.

Filling:

4-5 C. peeled and sliced apples

1 TBSP. flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

a scant 1/2 tsp. nutmeg

( I also use a dash of cloves and mace because I love them, but that is optional)

Combine all and place over the crust.  Dot the apples with 1 TBSP of butter cut into small pieces

On a floured surface with a floured rolling pin, roll out the remaining 1/3 of the crust very thinly and place over the apples. (I like to press the crust into the apples.)  And don't worry about rolling the crust out too perfectly as an older neighbor told me decades ago, " A patched crust is a perfect crust."  Again, too much fiddling with rolling and rerolling the crust will make for a tough crust. Take another 1 TBSP of butter and smear it atop the crust and sprinkle with 1 Tbsp of sugar.

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 45 minutes or until you see the apples bubbling.  Take from the oven and immediately frost with an icing of powdered sugar, vanilla and a bit of water or milk to make an icing that is thin enough to spread easily.  Refrigerate before cutting into squares.

PREPPING

Every time we hear or read of a calamity, we should try to think of what we would have done in that situation. Obviously, if a flood comes and washes away your home, there isn't much you can do about it, but now being without water and electricity, that's something different.  I beg all of you to learn how to make a simple water filter from sand and charcoal (not the kind used for barbecuing) and gather the supplies for it. There's plenty of videos on YouTube to teach you  how.  Even if you choose not to make one, you will have the knowledge.  The other thing you should learn how to do, is how to make a rocket stove (or purchase one).  Develop an alternative way to get your water other from your city water of country well.  Wells usually need  electricity to pump so they are pretty useless when the electricity goes out.  Generators are fine but they run on gas, propane, or natural gas.  What will you do when those things run out and you can't get any more.  Think long term!  When the electricity goes out, gas stations can't pump gas or run their credit card machines.  The longest I've been without electricity has been one week, but my neighbors that lived out in the country have gone as long as three weeks without it.  That's a long time to run a gas powered generator!  How many preppers have I watched on YouTube brag about how the are prepared because they have a freezer full of meat they raised themselves?  How many had to throw it all out after a week without electricity?    That is why I always advocate canning your meat.  I never have any more in my freezer than I am prepared to either can or to lose.  I keep a propane cooker and a canister of propane for this purpose and I don't use it that propane for any other purpose, just emergency canning.  A good cast iron Dutch oven is all that is needed to prepare meals over  the above mentioned rocket stove or an open fire.  The reason I advocate rocket stoves is because they use less fuel (wood).  You can heat water to boiling with just a few sticks.

 The key to survival is knowledge and being resourceful.  And being independent.  I would not expect any government agency to come and help me, and as beautiful as it is to see all the wonderful people coming to the aid of the flood victims,  if everyone is struggling, you can be sure everyone will be looking out for their own and goodwill will be hard to find.  Depending upon others goodwill is a pretty poor survival strategy.  Start today building your knowledge.

I believe learning to be resourceful is a skill you can develop, but  you have to exercise it.  Every time you make a meal from bits and bobs in the fridge, rather than run to the store or fast food you are developing it.  Every time you you jerry-rig a piece of machinery and get it to work, rather than replace parts or call in a repairman, you are developing it.  People have become too complacent.  There's food pantries everywhere,so why learn to budget and learn to eat cheaply?  (Before someone gets their dander up, I do realize some people are in desperate situations an need the services of a food pantry) Why try to figure out how to make something that is broken work when you can just go down to the store and put a new one on your credit card?  The reason is because some day those safety nets may not be there.  So you better learn how to make-do at your leisure rather than when you are stressed out because you must.  I saw a picture in the news of a man that lost his house in the flood, built a shelter from all the debris from the flood.  Now that's resourceful!  He wasn't waiting for anyone to come and take care of him.  That man is a survivor! I'd like to meet him and shake his hand.

Anyway, I will step off my soapbox now to wish you all a wonderful, safe week ahead! And try to develop a skill or learn something  new every day.  It's never too late!

I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence  cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved, he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber  nor sleep.

The Lord is thy keeper, the Lord is thy shade upon thine right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil, he shall preserve thy soul.

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this day forth and even forevermore.

Palms 121

Hugs

Jane

Just A Note

 Hello dear friends!  By now, I am sure you all have seen the devastation that hurricane Helene has wrought on the North Carolina and Tennessee area.  One of my dearest friends lives in that area.  So I wanted to write to you make everyone aware of this; I have lived through floods, tornadoes , a fire, financial difficulties, and even getting the dreaded call from the police that someone in the family has been killed, so I can empathize with what those people are going through, but every tragedy is personal, and everyone reacts differently to it.  I am sure everyone wants to help those poor people.  And I am sure there will be lots of donations, which is wonderful.  But what most people don't consider is what happens after the news cycle stops making it the number one story and moves on to the next big issue.  Maybe it is just me, but I felt so isolated and alone, after all the excitement (not the correct word for it,I know) is over  and people get on with their lives while you are still left with the clean-up and the fears and the trauma of what has happened to you.  You feel so alone in the world. So I want to remind everyone that if you have friends that have been affected by the hurricane, check in on them often to see how they are psychologically and spiritually  doing and keep doing it for a while afterwards.  Be sensitive when talking to them.  So what I am saying is be the compassionate, loving people I know that you are, and care for the victims long after the world has moved on.

Thorns and Thistles

 Be thankful for the

          thorns and thistles which keep

       you from being in love

    with this world.

     - Charles Spurgeon -

Hello dear friends!  I had never intended to write a post again, but  a rather odd thing happened the other day, I guess you could say it was an answer to a prayer.  You see, the other day I was thinking of something I wanted to tell you all (I've forgotten what it was) and during my conversation with my Heavenly Father, I said "Lord, if you want me to continue on with this blog, you will have to give me a sign, like someone leaving a comment."  Well, within twenty-four hours I received a comment from Old Fashioned Rose, so Old Fashioned Rose, if you are reading this, you are an answer to a prayer!  

These past several months have been a time of thorn and thistles here at Sweet Briar Cottage, as I am sure this year has been for you all also.  It began with the gardening season, it was such a cold Spring everything was so slow to germinate and many seeds needed to be planted and replanted.  I know a lot of you had very hot weather, but we can't complain here, on the contrary, there were quite a few times that found us reaching for a sweater in July and August.  What we did have, was a drought.  Most of our days were taken up with watering the garden and keeping the intense sunlight from blighting the vegetables.  BTW, we discovered that hanging mosquito nets over the plants, helped with that.  We bought  our netting at a garage sale, it was intended for hanging over a king-sized bed, it netted (no pun intended) quite a bit of yardage perfect for protecting the plants. So that was that.  Never have we worked so hard in the garden.  It took Ran, Jamie and me many hours everyday to keep it going.  But we were blessed.  While we didn't enjoy the huge yields we have in the past, but they were sufficient for our needs.  Our philosophy is to eat what the Lord provides, so if a crop fails or doesn't perform well, we just say it wasn't what He intended for us to eat.  Evidently, He didn't think we needed much in the way of cauliflowers or Brussels sprouts,  but now broccoli, was coming out of our ears. Ha!  Seriously though, we do take this conviction with the utmost solemnity, and it has stood us in good health for many years.  You know you are on the right track when you visit the doctor and he queries you on what you are doing to stay so healthy and takes notes.  But alas, we are getting downright elderly and there is no cure for growing old.  We have noticed that the days of being a weekend warriors are over for us.  Things still get done, but at a slower pace.

On a personal note, I have just been shutting myself off from the world.  Just don't seem to have the patience any longer for people that want to bring drama into my life. So I've been letting one-sided friendships slip away and even this blog, which always has its "contrarians"  (comments you don't see), has been put aside. The few friends that remain, tell me they are doing the same.  Do you feel the same?  I once heard a sermon by Tolver that spoke of a believer's path being a solitary and lonely one, and I am finding that to be true.  It is difficult to live in this world and not be of it.  But oh the peace, dear friends, that comes from such a life. 

SELF SUFFICIENCY

I a big proponent of being a self-sufficient as one can possibly be.  We grow all our vegetables and fruits, and Ran catches (he holds a "master angler" award from the Michigan DNR) most of our meat in the form of walleye, salmon, pike and bass.  Other than that, our protein comes from beans and nuts.  Once in a very rare blue moon, we will find lamb  or some grass-fed organic beef on sale and stock our larder.  And at Thanksgiving I do buy an extra turkey to can, but on the whole, we eat between  one to two pounds of meat a week for our family of three adults.  A lot less than the national average, the average American consumes over 224 pounds of meat a year.  Yikes! No wonder everyone is complaining about the price of groceries.  Meat is becoming a luxury item, that's for sure.  I just spied a grocery store ad for a sale on hamburger at $4.88 a pound.  Even lowly ground turkey is over three dollars.  I can remember for years it was a cheap option for meat at  ninety-nice cents a pound.  Even dried beans are selling for over two dollars a pound.  So I can understand how all this inflation is very scary for a lot of people.  

So anyway, I encourage everyone to get out there and grow some of your food, don't be discouraged by bad weather and nay-sayers.  At the very least, it's good exercise.  And get the whole family involved.  In our family we say, "if you don't work, you don't eat".  To grow a productive garden takes a lot of time. and work.  Too many people become discouraged if their first attempts don't produce.  The other day, once again, someone told me how "lucky" I was to have such a nice garden, and was bemoaning the fact that they weren't blessed with a green thumb.  I was too polite to say it, but what I wanted to say was that luck had very little to do with it.  I didn't see them out there hoeing at six in the morning before it got too hot.  I didn't take a week-long vacation and leave my garden to its own devices.  I didn't see them out there hauling buckets of water, or picking potato bugs off the plants.  I don't see them studying up on how to get rid of garden pests organically.  I don't see them composting, then carrying heavy shovels of compost into the garden to amend the soil.  Yes, I am blessed, but lucky I am not.  It definitely doesn't feel lucky when I'm standing in a ninety degree kitchen peeling and canning beets while they are sitting in the air conditioned living room watching TV.  So to get off my soapbox and get back to self-sufficiency, the other day I made a list of everything I would need to purchase for a year in addition to what Ran catches and we grow.  Here's the list:

2 gallons cider vinegar (canning strength)

1 gallon white vinegar (canning strength) 

12 pounds of cheese ( 1 pound per month)

12 pounds of shortening (for use in baking and frying)

1 gallon cooking oil (we use olive oil)

50 pounds of sugar (mainly to be used in making jams, jellies, and wine)

100 pounds of flour ( this may seem like a lot, but we bake everything from scratch and I only bake sweets once a week)

24 pounds of coffee (what can I say, we love coffee)

50 pounds oatmeal (oatmeal is our staple breakfast)

100 pounds dried beans (2# a week)

10-20 pounds cornmeal ( beans + a whole grain make a whole protein, thus beans and cornbread is a common meal among the poor)

2 quarts of molasses (no need for brown sugar add 1 tablespoon to sugar, plus black strap molasses has a lot of minerals in it and is very healthy for you)

Baking powder and baking soda, a couple containers

12 jars of organic peanut butter (a jar a month)

2 pounds canning salt (not just for canning but also for cleaning cutting boards and possibly for curing meat)

1 pound of cinnamon ( cinnamon is good for keeping your blood sugar level, hence we put a big spoonful into our oatmeal every morning)

Even at today's prices I think I could purchase these things for around a thousand dollars or maybe even a little less, if I shop carefully at the bulk food stores and our Amish discount stores.  And yes, if I really needed to, I could go without the coffee. Ha!  I could resort to my own herb tea, while tea isn't my jam, I have given some to several of my tea-drinking friends and the say it is very good tea.  Basically, I just put everything in my garden I know to be good for you into it; raspberry leaves, chamomile, peppermint, rose petals and hips, anise hyssop,  lemon balm, and dried blackberries and raspberries.  It's a pretty tea, if nothing else.  So any way, I hope the list helps you, if you live as we do.

 There you have it.  My camera bit the dust, so I cannot share with you any of my creative endeavors, but the period I have been away from blogging has been one of my most creative periods I have experienced in a long time.  Will I write another post some day?  I'll have to see how this one goes, I'm aware blogging is sort of a dying medium, and those that do read them prefer style over substance.  So will anyone even look at a blog without some sort of pretty photography?  Well, all that will depend  upon you dear  readers and the prompting of the Good Lord.  So whether we meet again or not, I  pray that you all have a peaceful and fruitful life!

Hugs

Jane

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

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

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

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