PANTRY STAPLE: BEANS

Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear.
     ~Aesop proverb~

 During my Sunday conversation with my mother, she once again worried about the rising costs of groceries.  Like many elderly, she lives on a fixed income.  Because we grow about 75% of what we eat (I canned  and dried over 500 jars this year), I'm sort of oblivious to rising food costs.  For the rest, I use my price-book method and buy at the lowest price and stock up.  Like a mini commodities trader, I always buy  low.  Meat is usually the most expensive item on the shopping list, so it makes sense to find substitutions for it.  Here's some ideas:

First, use meat sparingly.  More like a flavoring, rather than the main focus of  the meal. It is a tradition in New England to have baked beans and brown bread for Saturday night dinner.  A few rashers of bacon that wouldn't satisfy  one becomes a rib-sticking meal for several, with plenty left over. Does anything smell more wonderful  and homey than to come in from the cold and smell the smoky aroma of a pot of beans?

Another way is to add beans to stretch the quantities in soups and stews.  For instance, in chili, rather than using your usual amount of hamburger, halve it and add an additional can of beans.  We have always added kidney beans to our sloppy joes.  Makes it go from 6 skimpy portions to 8-10 servings.  Now days we completely eliminate the hamburg and make them with just the beans.  It is one of our favorite vegan junk foods.  You can add mashed beans to meatloaves.  Red beans and rice is a classic "poor mans" food.  Here's the recipe:

Red Beans and Rice

1 lb. dry red kidney beans
2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp.  pepper
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. cumin
1 quart water
1 lg. smoked ham hock (it's important it is smoked)
3 tsp. salt
1 1/2 C. chopped celery
1 1/2 C chopped onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
cooked rice

Sort and rinse beans.  In a large Dutch oven, place all the ingredients except the rice.  Bring to a  boil, the simmer 3-4 hours or until beans are tender.  Stir occasionally, adding water as needed to make a thick gravy.  Just before serving, remove the bay leaves and ham hock.  Remove and chop the meat from the hock and return the meat to the pot.  Serve over rice.

Note: We like to serve this with cornbread and our home-canned corn relish.  To make this vegan, we substitute two  Morningstar Italian sausages (a soy product) for the ham hock.  It makes little difference in the taste and reduces the amount of fat and cholesterol.
                                                            ~

Consider using beans as the main source of protein.  Because I have a thyroid condition I cannot eat very much soy (it interferes with the medicines effectiveness) so we make our own bean cakes.  They taste better than the store ones and  cost a lot less.  Here's the recipe:

Black Bean Cakes

1 1/2 C.  salsa (drained in a sieve)
2 cans black beans (rinsed and drained)
1  (8.5 oz.) pkg. corn muffin mix (we use Jiffy)
2 1/2 tsp. chili powder

Mash the black beans.  Stir in the remaining ingredients and form into patties. (Hint:  put the patties into the freezer a while to firm them up)  Fry in a small amount  of olive oil until browned and heated through.
                                                                      ~

Dried beans are the thriftiest way to buy beans.  I recently stocked up on a 15# bag of  of pinto beans for $10.  That's 66 cents a pound.  I also bought some one pound bags of black beans from the Dollar General for 69 cents.  They were on the reduced for quick sale rack. Dried beans will last forever if they are kept dry.  I do admit that it is a pain to deal with the reconstituting of dried products, so when I'm bored I can up a batch.  (my pressure canner is never put away).  Here's how:

Canning  Dried Beans

Wash and pick over bean.  Cover them with water and set overnight.  Drain.  Cover the beans with a couple inches of water (at least two) and bring to a boil.  Boil for one half hour, stirring to keep them from sticking.  Pack the beans into hot sterilized pint jars.  Add 1/2 tsp. canning salt to the jars. Pour cooking liquid over the beans.  Remove air bubbles.  Allow 1 inch headspace.  Wipe the rims and place hot steralized lids on jars.  Screw down the rings.  Process for 75 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.
                                                                ~

I realize that not everyone has a pressure canner.  You can prepare a batch of beans and freeze them in quart sized containers.  One pound of dried beans is more or less equivilant to 3-4 cans of beans.  At  $1.50 a pound that's less then half the price of the canned ones. They last about 6 months in the freezer.

Here's what a 1 lb. bag of dried beans will yield:

6 C.  black beans
7 1/2 C.  garbanzo beans
5 C.  pinto beans or kidney beans
6 C.  white kidney beans (cannellini)

Living Below Our Means

 Hello dear friends!  Firstly, I want to thank all of you that sent me get-well wishes.  I am getting better, but it is going a lot slower than I had hoped.  I am one of those sorts of people that thinks I can by  force of will to get better.  Nope. Ha! BTW, I went to the emergency room with an extreme pain in my side and thought perhaps it was my gallbladder or appendix.  I was concerned because my son had appendicitis and   his pain wasn't in the usual place. By the time the doctors figured it out, it started to turn to gangrene. So I thought I should get it checked out.  So off to the hospital I went.  After blood tests and a CT scan, they couldn't find anything wrong with me, and since they didn't have any diagnosis, they couldn't give me anything for the pain.  So I came home and while I was getting undressed I noticed a rash. Yep, shingles!  My mother told me I never had the chickenpox so I thought I was immune to them and came as quite a surprise.  The pain I was experiencing was nerve pain. If they only would have given me a physical exam they might have discovered it, but modern medicine is quick to use all their diagnostics instead of doing good old-fashioned doctoring.  A month later I'm still suffering from nerve pain, but it is lessening and I have my good days and my bad days.  I don't intend on letting the pain stop me from getting what I need and want to get done. Just have to work through it.   Anyhow....

Still, I managed to get some things done.  I managed to meet my goal of finishing the bottom half of a Beidermeier-style sampler I'm stitching.

The top should go much more quickly than the bottom half and I hope to finish it by the beginning of summer.  Just in time to hunt down a frame for it at a garage sale.  What sort of frame do you think would look good with it?

I also finished knitting this fischu.  

BTW, that is not a cobweb on the bottom left-hand corner, it's just some strands of my hair when I bent over to take the picture.  Some people are so critical!  My hair gets into everything and I'm sure I have knitted quite a few strands into my work over the years.    

Late Winter Jobs

February is a big month for canning here.  Foods that are root cellared must be canned before they spoil, so we canned potatoes and winter squashes.  We grew a lot of potatoes this past year.  I also canned all the organic grass-fed beef that I wrote about in an earlier post.  And we canned some dried beans.  Annieh asked if I would explain how to can, but really there isn't more than I can add to what is already written in a good canning book, such as Ball's Blue book, and by studying the manual that comes with your pressure canner.  For canning beans, I can them exactly (except I can mine at 10 pounds of pressure) as this lady does on YouTube.  She is very knowledgeable about canning and I would recommend her channel to anyone that wants to learn how to can. Always check the information you are given on any blog or channel with the Blue Book or a canning book written by an extension office.  There's a lot of very bad advice out there.  Unfortunately, a lot of people are attracted to slick looking blogs and channels, rather than those that are written by actual knowledgeable  and experienced people.  BTW, Ran and Jamie were a major help to me in canning.  They really could have done it themselves, but lack the confidence, I guess.  Ran even made up a batch of cranberry catsup (recipe in the Ball Blue Book) and all I needed to do was to fill the jars.   More things cleaned out of my freezer!  We are getting ready for the fishing season.

The snow is melting quickly and we have begun maple sugaring.  I wrote about how we do small-scale processing here.

Since I didn't feel much like leaving home this past month and the weather wasn't cooperating anyhow, Jamie spent his down-time organizing and inventorying our pantry.  Such a big job!  I can truly say that we are well-stocked.  Taking inventory is a major aid in keeping a budget.  Ran is one for always wanting to buy more, but when he saw our stock list, he was finally convinced we didn't need to buy any more.  We really only need to spend a few dollars a month on groceries.  We prefer to eat our own fruits and vegetables that we either root cellar, freeze, dehydrate or can, rather than eat fresh fruits and vegetables from the stores during the winter.  We keep a jar of seeds sprouting during the winter to get our green leafies, as well as our frozen spinach, broccoli and nettles. We start lettuce in cold frames and we collect dandelion greens and nettles as soon as they show up on the lawn.  Lettuce, kale and spinach can grow late into the fall, so really there's only a few months when we don't have "fresh" fruits and vegetables.  My ancestors have lived like this for centuries and they were a long-lived bunch, most living into their late 80s and 90s and quite a few  centenarians.  So I guess it works for us.  

Ran has also started our onion seeds and sweet potato slips.  It is too early to start any other seeds, as our last frost date is in late May. 

Live Well Below Your Means

Ran and I sat down and made a bare bones budget.  We really don't enjoy spending money just for the fun of it.  It is just the way we are.  Some people might look askance at some of the things we do, such as we only have the minimal Medicare (no cost to us that you are required to take when you turn 65) that only covers hospitalization and hospice.  We simply do not believe in running to the doctor for every little thing.  Last month I made a trip to the emergency room (why does every emergency happen on the weekend?) Anyway, I had a CT scan and blood work.  The bill ended up being less than a few months of the "extra" supplements.  We have a fund for those sorts of things.  And the hospital and labs always give us a discount because we pay promptly and they don't have to file all the paperwork.  If we don't use the funds, which we rarely do, the money is put into savings.  When the doctor told us we needed to start coming in twice a year, because of our age, we told him no.  Ditto for the dentist.  When I see the sackful of medications the average oldster is using, I really question modern medicine.  A long time ago, the doctor said my cholesterol was getting up into the danger zone and suggested I might need medication.  I went home and started exercising more and eating more vegan meals.  Never had a problem with cholesterol since. Good food from the good earth grown by ourselves benefits our bodies, much more than anything the doctor has ever prescribed.  Our philosophy is to eat what the Good Lord has provided for us.  

We don't spend money on trips, dining out, or expensive hobbies  I am content to sew, knit  and embroider from supplies I find at thrift stores and not to be boastful, I think I make as nice of things as people that spend hundreds of dollars on their hobbies.  As a matter of fact, I find it a fun challenge to use "found" supplies rather than go out and buy precisely what the project calls for.  We are content to travel only within our county and the surrounding ones.  Our entertainment is going to church rummage and bake sales and an occasional church supper.  In the summer we like to stop at garage sales on our monthly trip to do our grocery shopping.  If an estate sale is nearby, we like to go just to poke about, but we do not feel the need to buy anything. We are content to garden and sit outside and listen to the birds.  We buy DVDs from the thrift store and have our favorite series that we watch sometimes for entertainment. There are some interesting channels on YouTube also.  No need for cable TV. 

We save on heating by using our wood stove.  We do have a natural gas fired boiler for our hot water and it supplements our wood heat also.  The highest bill we have ever had is $75, but in the warmer months it usually runs us $25.  Every three years we buy a truckload of wood which runs around $1000.  Our electric bill averages about $65 a month.  We do not have a lot of electronics.  We don't keep our house lit up like a Christmas tree at night.  

Our water bill is $100 a month, but includes sewer and trash pick-up. Our property taxes are low because our home is small and not grand.  It's about $1200 a year, but we just got a tax assessment and it is going up 20% this year.  And then there's house insurance and car insurance (Michigan has the highest car insurance rates in the country) and license plates and all those other little taxes that they tax us to death for, (sigh), no one is ever truly free are they?  Groceries and medical funds, etc. Anyway this is a long-winded way of saying that we figured that our bare-bones budget adds up to $950 a month that we could live on.  And that is what we intend to live on this year.  We intend to live well, well beneath our means.  If all this seems like misery to you, I can assure you that we are truly content We live such a blessed life!

11 And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;12 That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.

1Thessalonians 4: 11-12

I'm sharing this with you to be an encouragement.  Don't let others tell you how to run your life.  If you like spending money and can afford it, do it.  If you enjoy extreme thriftiness ( someone once commented that they thought that term was an insult) enjoy it.  Why do people feel the need to follow the crowd?  Wouldn't it be a boring world if everyone thought the same?  BTW, sorry about the font!  Professional blogger, I am not.  If these sorts of things bother you, please feel free to go elsewhere.  Well, I hope this long post makes up for my absences in February.   So as we bid adieu  to winter and March toward spring, I hope your days are pleasant and filled with contentment and joy.  It really was a beautiful winter.

Hope to see you soon!

Hugs

Jane

Hello!

 Hello dear friends!  Well, we've been busy here at the old Zempel boarding house, the garden is finally producing, and every day is filled with preserving and cooking. Been putting in twelve-hour days in the kitchen.  People like to romanticize the cottage lifestyle, but it's a lot of work.  Really, it is a lot easier to just grab a bag of frozen vegetables from the store's freezer section, than it is to pick, wash and prepare them from a garden.  And lately I have been wondering if I was just starting out at canning, if it would be worth it; jars run about a dollar each and the cheapest lids are running about 30cents each so just with those two items you have $1.30 into those jars, plus if you were to buy your vegetables at a fruit stand or farmer's market, there's that money too.  I think it would be more cost effective for the time being (and just for this time) to just look for a good sale and stock up on canned goods. The big caveat being, if you were just starting out at canning, but for me it makes sense because I've been canning for almost half a century, and we garden from saved seeds, basically all I have to pay for is lids.  When I started canning wayyyyy back in the 1970s, no one was canning.  Women's lib was in its heyday, and anything that had to do with a woman being "chained" to the kitchen was considered unfashionable. Which was a wonderful boon for me!  People were all too happy to give me all those old canning jars.  It didn't hurt that I looked about twelve years old although I was nineteen.  Many a time I would visit with an elderly neighbor and tell them that I was canning and the next thing to happen they would look astounded that "that little girl knows how to can!  Edna! We have a bunch of old canning jars down in the basement, don't we?" And the next thing you know I had an entire carload of jars. People were just happy to get rid of them.  

Vegetables aren't the only things we grow.  Here's a picture of a bouquet picked from the "meadow" that we started last year:

I'm really enjoying it, because no matter how many flowers I grow in my flower gardens, I hate to pick them, less the garden looks sparse, but I have no compunction about picking from the meadow.  In the spring I was disappointed to discover that is consisted almost entirely of asters, but once I yanked them out, the pretty wildflowers started to emerge.  Sorry about the quality of the photo, my camera has a scratch on the lens, it seems. And I am not a photographer. 

A FUN DISCOVERY

Every once in a great while, I replace my canning and pickling spices.  Not wanting to waste them, I asked Ran to plant the mustard seeds in the garden to see what would develop.  Although they were probably eons old, within days we had the loveliest row of mustard greens coming up. Now I'm eyeing the bags of green peas (organic) that have been sitting in my soup pantry.  Will definitely give them a try this coming spring. During the winter months we sprout seeds for our "greens" rather than buy store lettuce and such, we discovered that organic black lentils, which are a fraction of the price of those sprouting mixtures, worked dandy for sprouting.  Oh!  And you all the know the Bible verse about the "faith of a mustard seed"? Well, nothing will make that verse come more alive than planting a row of them.  I think it could be a good lesson for children (and maybe a few adults, too).

EVERTHING

Almost everything reminds me of a Bible verse lately, I guess it is the way God speaks to me.  I'll see an old man driving down the road in convertible and I'll think of "when I was a child", when the president announced that there wasn't any inflation, I thought of "a loaf of bread for a day's wages, but do not touch the wine or the oil".  Although I no longer belong to the church I grew up in, it did prepare me.  I am so blessed to have that upbringing.  It seems to me a lot of people are anchorless these days.  

ORANGE ROSEMARY MARMALADE

Some dear person, requested the recipe for the orange rosemary marmalade that I had mentioned in the comments in the last post:  The recipe comes from The Herbal Pantry by Emelie Tolley and Chris Mead:

Rosemary Orange Marmalade

5 sprigs fresh rosemary

2 C. boiling water

4-5 oranges

3 C. sugar

3 oz. liquid pectin

Steep 1 sprig of rosemary in the boiling water for 3o minutes; discard the herb sprig.  Peel the zest from the oranges, removing as little pith as possible; julienne thinly and place in saucepan with water to cover. Simmer, covered, about 1/2 hour or until tender. Drain and reserve.

With a sharp knife free the orange sections from their membranes.  Seed the oranges and dice coarsely, then transfer to a non-aluminum saucepan with the rosemary infusion and the sugar and bring to a boil. Boil, stirring frequently, for 35 minutes.  Add the pectin and boil for exactly 1 minute. Place a sprig of rosemary in each of 4 half-pint jars and pour the marmalade over them. Seal.  

CHEAPER THAN THE DOLLAR STORE

I read or heard somewhere, that with the economy being what it is, people are turning to the dollar stores as their main source of groceries.  While there may be some healthy items at these stores, most of it is cheap processed foods that you could probably buy just as cheaply at your regular grocers, except for dried beans, $1/ pound is about the cheapest I can find, unless they are the reduced-for-quick-sale rack.  Here's a list of things that you can find a regular grocery store, that usually cost $1 or less, that would be far healthier: a pound of carrots, cabbage runs about 69 cents a pound, cans of tuna, a pound of regular oatmeal, a bag of onions, rice, pinto beans, most canned vegetables are still less than $1, potatoes, split peas, and check out the day-old bread rack.  The point being, you have to shop wisely these days, and pay close attention to the sizes of packaging (shrinkflation).  You really need to take your time and poke around.  The other day I was in Walmart and needed some salsa, I found some in cans on the bottom shelf for 98 cents a 16 oz can, half the price or less than the jarred salsas displayed at eye level. 

BOOKS

I'm always recommending people keep actual books or print out things from the internet that they want to keep.  You never know when the internet is going to go down and you'll need that information.  Or when your favorite blogger or Youtuber is going to shut down and all that information will be lost. Ha! Not to mention, what if we really do plunge into that deep depression that they are always predicting, and you cannot afford internet or smartphone fees?  No, it is good to have real honest to goodness books. Some basic titles on gardening, canning, a good basic cookbook, herbology, foraging, home repair, basic medical, sewing and mending, bushcraft and some nice ones just for entertainment.  I would include a Bible and an older book of US history (pre-political correctness).  The good thing is that most of these books can be found quite inexpensively at thrift stores and used, on-line. Here's a list of some of my favorites:

The New Self-Sufficient Gardener by John Seymour

Jackie Clay's Canning Book

Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health by Rosemary Gladstar

The Boy's Own Handbook

Betty Crocker's Kitchen Gardens by Mary Mason Campbell

Gold Medal Century of Success Cookbook

The Farm Journal Cookbook

Historical Documents by the Harvard Classics

And I prefer the New English Translation of the Bible rather than old King James 

Well, that's a start, maybe every post I should give a book recommendation?  Anyways, I've prattled on long enough, off to get some work done.  Hope you all have a terrific week!

Hugs

Jane

THE $20 EXPERIMENT: DAY 5

Hello dear friends!  Are you getting bored with these daily postings yet?  Only two more days, Yay!  Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, I'm getting a tad bit reckless.  Today I used up almost all of my barbecue sauce, save about a tablespoon. I took the remaining sauce and the rest of my fire-roasted tomatoes and simmered the beans in them.  So from here on out we'll have barbecue flavored beans, whether we want them or not.  I also got a bit more generous with the cheese. I still have about a third of it left.  The phrase for today was use it up! Ran went downstate to help our son with some building projects, so it was just Jamie and me.  So for lunch:

We used up the last of the tortillas and made a burrito with the dreaded rice and beans, some cheese, and I used that gravy I held back from yesterday to give them some flavor.  I really overstuffed them; two for Jamie and one for me.  And I served them on a bed of lettuce that I swapped out the taco shells for.  It was a good filling lunch.

Dinner:

I used up those three little biscuits that I made yesterday from the leftover dough for the pot pie.  We put  a few tablespoons of the barbecued beans over the biscuits and Jamie suggested that if we put some of the beans on the lettuce and sprinkle cheese over it, we would have a kind of taco salad, so that is what we did.

If I were carrying this experiment on to next week, I'd buy some inexpensive salsa.  We don't mind eating the beans, we eat a lot of them anyhow.  I had an orange for breakfast, as always Jamie skipped breakfast and had his coffee, which I didn't include in the challenge.

So Far

We still have the leftover pot pie to eat, we're waiting for Ran to get back to eat it, about 1 3/4 C. of the beans, a couple carrots, a bit of lettuce and kale, one-third of the cheese, five potatoes, one orange, two bananas, and the beans and rice. Oh! and approximately one tablespoon of the barbecue sauce and almost all of the oatmeal.  Again, if I were carrying on for another week, I'd buy a small box of brown sugar so we could enjoy the oatmeal.

I've also discovered that this way of eating is very time efficient.  Make one kind of meat at the beginning of the week and you're through for the next six days.  Ditto for the beans.  The rest of the meals were just a matter of assembling the ingredients and a quick pop in the toaster oven or on the griddle. I t would be perfect for single working people, there wouldn't be any excuses for not having the time to cook, you could do all your prep work in one evening.

What Else?

Here's what approximately ten hours of my time the last two days has gone to:

Canning the leg quarters that I bought on sale for 29 cents a pound. To can them I first roast them, then cut the meat from the bone, toss all the bones and skin into a pot and boil that to make a broth. Then strain the broth, cull the meat from the bones, refrigerate the broth so the fat will rise to the top and harden. Defat it, saving the fat for soapmaking.  Next I heat the meat with the broth that I season with parsley, sage, rosemary thyme, paprika, salt and pepper.  Then pack them into sterilized jars with 1 inch headspace.  Put on the lids and caps and process for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.  So you can call me lucky, or fortunate, or blessed, which I am all three,  but it is still a lot of work  on my end to fill my pantry!

Hugs
Jane

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

STORMY WEATHER

Hello dear friends!   Hope you had a pleasant week!  First, I'd like to thank you all for your kind encouragement  in my last post.  I truly do appreciate it.  Just want to let you know that it meant a lot to me.

STORMY WEATHER

I had just finished canning potatoes and Ran had just bottled the last of his strawberry-rhubarb wine when the skies got as dark as coal..  Within minutes the electricity went out.  I swear they have a switch at the electrical plant and as soon as we have a storm, they cut the main switch. Anyway, to make a long story short, we were without electricity for the past eighteen hours, which I loved, but others, such as Jamie, were not as thrilled.  It's amazing what you can get done without the distraction of the internet and phones.  Almost completed a scarf I was knitting.  Hopefully it turned out nice, knitting by kerosene lamps, while very quaint and romantic, does have its drawbacks.  But the main lesson to be drawn from this, is be prepared.  Keep some flashlights handy, and have the makings for something to eat that doesn't require heating.  Oh!  And a deck of cards is always nice.  Beats twiddling your thumbs.


CANNING

This week I canned green beans, pickled peppers (good on sandwiches) and potatoes.  I want to encourage everyone to can, particularly pressure canning.  It's nothing to fear.  It won't explode like in the movies, they have release valves on them.  If you follow the directions precisely, you won't get food poisoning.  I like the  All-American pressure canner because it doesn't have a gasket and they are very well built.  I believe that pressure canning is easier than making jams and pickles in a boiling water bath.   Jams are so fussy with all that skimming of foam and the jelling is sometimes iffy.  But  most vegetables have just to be cleaned, placed in a sterilized jar with a little salt, boiling water poured over them and sealed.  Not a lot of fuss at all.  The general directions for pressure canning are:

Step 1:  Fill the canner with the amount of water required in the manual. (Different canners vary)
Step 2:  Fill the canner with the jars of prepared food.
Step 3:  Put the lid on, tightening the screws alternately.
Step 4:  Vent the steam for 10 minutes.
Step 5: Place the weight on the vent.
Step 6:  Begin timing the process once the weight begins to rock and rattle and the pressure gauge registers 10 pounds (might need 15 pounds of pressure if you live in higher elevations)
Step 7: Adjust the heat so the pressure keeps steady.  All canners have a sweet spot for this.  On my stove it is the 6 mark on the knob.
Step 8:  When you have processed the jars for the time required, remove the canner from the heat.
Step 9:  Allow the pressure to return to zero pounds of pressure. Remove the weight from the vent.
Step 10:  Unscrew the nuts alternately. Open the canner lid away from your face.  Remove the jars.

Sometimes I wish I had a Youtube channel to demonstrate how easy it is, but I'm sure there are already plenty out there.  Use your computer to learn new skills, whether it be canning, knitting,, or how to play the guitar, there's wonderful videos out there.

GARDENING

My New Dawn roses have come back from the dead!

This spring I had to prune them back almost to the ground, after the second dreadful winter in a row. I didn't have much hope for them.  But they are coming back with a vengeance.  Only they are training themselves to grow on the south side of the privet, where they will be protected from the wind off the lake.  They are telling me, "None of this training us up the trellis business, Miss!"   One of the secrets to a bountiful flower garden is to take a  laissez-faire  approach to gardening.  Just let the flowers be what they want to be; if the roses are happier climbing up the bushes, so be it!  If hollyhocks reseed themselves in the iris patch, let them be.  You'd be surprised at the unexpected beauty that will come your way.  But then I am a fan of cottage gardens, those formal ones hold little interest to me.  I call it the Disney effect, when they try to make designs with different colored flowers and have so many annuals.  I like a more natural approach.

PRUNING

This past week we did our light summer pruning.  This is just a light pruning as opposed to the heavier winter/early spring pruning.  The goal is to trim away any weak or broken branches or any branches that cross over each other. You want to prune any densely  limbed younger trees to allow light to reach the inner branches.  This creates sturdier fruiting branches in younger trees. In mature trees trees this  improves fruit size.  Also the  more sparsely branched trees improves the air circulation, reducing the risk of fungus.  Remember this is supposed to be just a little trimming not a  haircut; leave the serious branch removal for the dormant season.

HAVE FUN!

This week there were festivals galore in our area.  We attended the Pointe Aux Barques lighthouse  150th anniversary.

 There were storytellers, musicians, food tents, vendors and you could climb to the top of the tower.
There even was a very small Civil War re-enactment.

My point being, that every area has sources of entertainment.   You don't have to spend bales of money taking your children to those amusement parks, which shall remain unnamed, to give your children  happy memories.  It's a sad commentary on today's society that people equate spending money with having a good time.  When my grown children get together and reminisce about happy times, they speak of camping, or reading under the tree, or the time we stayed up all night watching the meteor shower (BTW, the next meteor shower is the Perseids shower on August 12th).  Never once do the mention the expensive trip we took one summer when we had a windfall.  As an adult, I actually prefer armchair travel, as many times I have traveled to places that looked so enticing in the brochures only to be disappointed.  As Emily Dickinson said,"There is no frigate like a book to take us to lands away ..."  And the advantage is that I can time travel, too!  I have some lovely books on New England by Samuel Chamberlain, that I can imagine myself right into, a world sadly, that is no more.

SAVING MONEY

I read a lot of blogs on thrift, and one thing that strikes me is how many write about buying things.  Sure they got a great discount on whatever it was they were buying, but the still spent money. An old-fashioned concept that you don't hear very often these days is the easiest way to save money is not to spend any.  Of course it doesn't make for a very interesting blog; we didn't drive anywhere so we didn't buy gas, we didn't eat out, we didn't use any coupons because we didn't buy anything, etc.

FORAGING

This week I gathered some mullien leaves to dry. The Foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains Blog has a great post on it.  Also gathering raspberry leaves and sage for medicinal purposes.  I'll write more about that later, as I'm in a crunch for time, as I have to get ready to go to the dentist. 


THRIFTY THING WE DID THIS WEEK

Canned green beans, potaoes and peppers.

Grated and froze summer squash.

Harvested brocolli, summer squash, potatoes, onions, pepper and green beans.

Collected the seeds from hollyhocks and mustard greens.

Gathered and dried mullien  and raspberry leaves.

Bottled up some strawberry-rhubarb wine.

 Began knitting a scarf from the yarn stash.

Bartered some work for a bag of oats.

Got a truckload of compost for free from the village.

Sorry for the abbreviated post this week. Between the electricity going out and the stupid dentist appointment, time is short.  Will try to make it up to you next week!  Have a lovely week!

Jane

Sweet Briar Cottage Journal: Month of Lean Edition

Hello dear friends!  I hope you are keeping warm.  This coming month is our month of lean.  Car insurance, doctor's bill, lab fees, car repairs, etc,, after we pay all our bills we'll be fortunate if we are not in the red.   But that is the life of a retiree.  I do earmark my savings for such events, but the strange thing about me, is that when I put money into our savings account, I'm very reluctant to take it back out.  That's how we were able to retire at age fifty-five.  I was thrifty before thrifty was cool!  So we'll be eating from the pantry and not going anywhere this month, which is fine with me because it is too darn cold!   But the snow is very beautiful, and if we didn't love snow we wouldn't be living in Northern Michigan.  So here's the second edition of Sweet Briar Cottage Journal, hope you enjoy!

CHEAP EATS OF THE WEEK

Kidney Bean Joes are a recipe I invented when we became vegans.  We are no longer vegans because we became bored with it, but we do eat 85% of our meals meatless and when we do use meat, it is sparingly, (less than a couple of pounds for the three of us a month) ditto for cheese.  BTW, did you know if you choose the sharper varieties of cheese you can use less because it gives you more flavor than the milder cheeses?   So given the choice go for the sharp or extra sharp Cheddar and cut back on the amount.

Kidney Bean Joes

1 (1lb.) can kidney beans, undrained
1 small onion, chopped
2 tbsp. brown sugar
3/4 C. catsup
1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

Brown the onions in a small amount of oil.  Add the catsup, vinegar, brown sugar and chili powder.  Stir in the undrained beans.  Add 1/4 C. water if you don't have enough "juice" from the beans.  Simmer until hot and sauce is thickened.  Season to taste.

You may have to adjust the vinegar to your taste.  Some catsups are very vinegary.  And of course there's always the matter of personal preferences.  When I make this my son always says it needs more brown sugar and my husband always says it needs more vinegar!   You can also add chopped peppers and/or celery if you like.  I just didn't have any handy when I made mine.

BTW, have you looked at the labels on kidney beans?  It's really hard to find any that do not contain corn syrup.  That's why I went back to canning my own.  Plus it's a lot thriftier.   You might want to read a  post I wrote about beans here.

NEEDLEWORK

 Bob-bob- bobbling along!  This weekend I knitted a cover for our hot water bottle, heavy with knitted bobbles.

The pattern is a free one on Ravelry.  Isn't  Ravelry wonderful?  Who would buy a knitting magazine or book when there are so many wonderful free patterns out  there on the internet?  Many yarn companies offer free downloadable patterns also.   The yarn is Coats and Clarks Royal Mouline Knitting Worsted in China Rose.  I don't think they make this yarn anymore.  I picked up a couple of skeins at the thrift store for fifty-nine cents each.  So the cost of this item was $1.18.  

Thrifty hint:  Hot water bottles are a wonderful old-fashioned way to keep warm.  And thrift and low-tech too! We fill ours before bedtime and slip it between the sheets.  When we climb in the bed is nice and toasty.  We find that if you can keep your feet and hands warm, you can sleep in quite cold rooms.  Our winters can be brutal here, this month we have hardly had any days in double digits and many days where the mercury has dipped below zero, so we have quite a arsenal of ways to keep warm. Here's a post I wrote about ideas for staying warm and cozy.

DON'T BUY, IT MAKE IT

We love the flatbread sandwiches at Subway, but at $7 a sandwich , it's a bit rich for a thrifty ways.  Especially since we get the veggie ones and they have about a quarters amount of ingredients in them.   For seven dollars we can make eight of our own.  And the bread is so much better than any we can buy in the store.

Soft and Fluffy Chewy Flatbread

Mix  1/2 C. yogurt  with  2/3 C. hot water to make a warm mixture.  (The reason you use hot water is because the yogurt is cold).  Stir in 2 tsp. yeast  and 1 tsp. honey.  Set aside to proof (yeast mixture is bubbly).

Once yeast is proofed add:

2 tbsp. oil (we use olive oil)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. rosemary (optional)
2 crushed cloves garlic (optional)

Next add:

1/4 C. wheat gluten (make the bread soft)
1 C. spelt (or whole or plain flour)

Mix well.  Then add:

approximately  2 3/4 C. flour to make a soft dough.
knead 5 minutes.

 Cover and rise in a warm place until doubled.

Then punch down and divide into 8 pieces.

Rest dough 15 minutes.

Preheat a griddle to medium heat and light oil.  Roll out your dough one at a time to an 8 inch circle.

Place on griddle and grill for about a 1-1/2 minutes on one side until you see bubbles appear in the dough.  Turn over and grill an additional 30 seconds to 1 minute until dough has some dark brown spots on it.  Should look like this after you first flip it:

 

There you have it!  Perfect flat bread.  Delicious warm off the griddle.  If you save them for later it is best to rewarm them .

CHEAP BEAUTY TRICK

We've been making our own facial moisturizer and it's really pretty terrific.   We use aloe.  Every house should have an aloe plant ; they are so handy for burns, bug bites, itches, rashes, etc. (although it's not the most lovely of house plants).

To make the moisturizer just combine;

 1/3 C.  Aloe Vera gel (the stuff you squeeze out of the leaves
1 tsp. vitamin E oil
2 tsp. jojoba oil
1/8 tsp. citric acid
a drop of your favorite essential oils for scent (we used lemon)

Put in a food processor and whip it up.  We keep a small jar next to the sink and apply it after washing our faces.  The rest we keep in the fridge.  Lasts a couple of weeks.  I've found this to be gentler than the much more expensive moisturizers I had been using and it really does make your skin soft and smooth.  Seems to minimize the pores also.  As a matter of fact, I like my skin so much now, that I've given up using foundation that I used to use to cover up redness.

FREE ENTERTAINMENT

Have you heard about Issuu.com?   It's a site where you can view magazines for free.  And there's lots of wonderful ones on there, such as British Period Homes, Mollie Makes, etc. , including many foreign magazines I've never seen before.  Aren't magazines expensive now days?  I used to have quite a magazine  addiction during the heyday of country magazines, but now with the advent of Pintrest, why would I buy a decorating magazine when I view thousands of images for free.  Why would I buy a cookbook or magazine when you can Google any recipe?  That's money I'll just keep in my pocketbook!

So that's this weeks edition of Sweet Briar Cottage Journal.  Hope you enjoy!

Jane

ORGANIZING AND PLANNING AHEAD

Hello dear friends!  Sorry I've been absent lately, between gardening and canning and working on some personal goals, there simply aren't enough hours in a day.  Missed you all. 

GARDENING

This has been a very dry summer.  And hot!  But it hasn't deterred the garden any, thanks to Ran's never ending watering.  Going to hate to see  our water bill.  Those free little raspberry canes I wrote about earlier have really produced and we picked, ate and froze several quarts  and still managed to have enough to make up half a dozen jars of jelly.  Now we are moving on to the blueberries, with blackberries soon to follow.  And would you believe it?  We already are picking tomatoes!  For years we have been crossbreeding a special tomato that is a mixture of German Strawberry and Opalka.  Each year we pick the earliest ripening, meatiest and largest to save the seeds from, and it looks like it's paying off!   It appears the garlic can be harvested early this year too. We finally got through the cauliflower, which is a blessing as we were running out of ideas on what to do with them.  And of course there's zucchini.  Isn't there always?

CANNING AND PRESERVING

Canning must be done in spite of the heat.  That's life!  I canned several half-pints of zucchini relish, raspberry jelly, and some broth from some lamb that was in the freezer.
There was a great sale on pork loins, so I canned nine pints of that.  We are freezing berries and peas as they ripen.  Our freezer is full.

ORGANIZING AND PLANNING AHEAD

Which brings me to my main point, that of  organization and planning; two things a  person needs to win at the thrift game.  I have several old family friends that love to can; every year they can hundreds of jars of green beans, tomatoes and pickles.  Hundreds, not dozens.  And a quick peruse of their pantry shelves will find jars that are at least a decade old that haven't been touched.  To my thrifty way of thinking it is folly to can when you already have more than enough on your shelves at the present.  You always must allow extra  just in case you have a bad year and your garden doesn't produce, but such excess is just wasting valuable time and energy.   Personally, I've had to toss jars of jams that just weren't being used, and I know the temptation to can because you don't want to waste anything.  But what good does it do to have jars just sitting on the shelves , wasting space and gathering dust?    Really, how many jars of pickles does a family eat in one year?   Each spring I take stock of our pantry and note what we are getting low on, and what we eat and don't and plan my garden accordingly.   Some things, I've discovered will never be eaten unless I make a concerted effort to use them, such as eggplant, so I'm not going to can that anymore.  I try to figure out how many times a month we eat certain things an plan accordingly.  For instance, in the fall and winter I know we go through at least one jar of carrots a week, so each month that equals 4 time the months of October through April, which is 7; therefore 4X7=28 jars of carrots, plus a few extra, just in case.  We only eat green beans about once a month, so I only need a dozen.  During the cold months we can go through several jars of those little half and quarter pints of jams and jellies a week, as toast with jam is one of our favorite thrifty snacks, so I keep a good supply and try to have a lot of varieties, but sometimes I get carried away.  How I hate to throw out old canned goods!  I know that the extension office has done research on home canned goods and discovered that even after decades they are still safe to eat if prepared  and stored properly, but psychologically,  I don't think I could eat anything that is over three years old.  That's my limit.

Been thinking about planning ahead recently because someone that stopped at our garage sale made the comment it was too hot to think about winter clothes when looking at some we had for sale.  Well then, he can pay higher prices for them come winter!  Such nonsense!   It's been in the nineties here, but that didn't keep me from buying a like-new Eddie Bauer down coat for $4.  I know I'll need it come November.  I'd much rather pay garage sale prices now and store it away, then pay higher prices in season.  There's so much children's clothing at these sales and most of it's like-new.  I swear children now days must wear their clothes only once.  A wise mother would buy now, while clothes are under a dollar, which is a far better price then even the cheapest of thrift stores or bargain centers, and store different sizes for when her children grow into them.  It's easy enough to keep a box marked with the sizes in the attic.  Planning ahead saves us a lot of money.  Whenever we go to an estate sale, we always head for the workshop, where we can buy lightbulbs, nails, screws, etc for pennies on the dollars.  We know we are going to use them eventually.  At one estate sale I bought enough lightbulbs to last us a lifetime for $3.  For almost a decade now, whenever a light burns out, I simply go up to the attic, rather than drive to the store.  How much does a pack of  lightbulbs cost?  Plus it's a lot more convenient.  At the beginning of garage sale season, we make a list of things to be on the lookout for, and it's amazing how many of those things we find. Organizing and planning ahead has saved us a boatload of money over the years!

THRIFTY THINGS WE'VE BEEN UP TO

Bought firewood from the village. Because we are loyal customers, they gave us almost an entire cord free!

Canned relish, jelly and pork.

Froze berries and peas.

Harvest peas, the last of the cauliflower, raspberries, blueberries, peppers, zucchinis, and tomatoes from the garden.

Made and canned broth from a lamb shank that was given to us.

Saved the seeds from our tomatoes for next year's garden.

Made all of our meals from garden produce and pantry items. In other words, didn't buy any groceries.

Received a $15 rebate from the vet's office.

Bought some clothes for less than a dollar at garage sales for the winter.

Used an offer for free shipping to purchase some things to be put away for Christmas presents from a catalog.

Sewed a purse from fabric from an old jacket that I was going to toss.

Reorganized our attic and found enough things to have a second garage sale.

Well, that's about it for this week!  Sorry if my writing has been spotty lately.  Just not much excitement going on at the moment and I think you can tell that my writing hasn't been up to par in the last few posts.  Hopefully, I'll get some Divine inspiration and have something more interesting to write about soon, but just wanted to post something to let you know that I'm still here! :) Have a good one and stay cool!

Hugs
Jane

Sweet Briar Cottage Journal: In The Good Old Summertime

Hello dear friends!   Hope your week went well for you!  We are finally getting our summer, a day late and a dollar short, but we'll take it!   There's so much excitement in our garden, as flowers are starting to bloom and vegetables are being harvested.  Everything is so tall this year!  The hollyhocks are well over six feet tall.  Here's the ones that we planted by our shed:

Don't they look like they belong  in a fairytale?  These were planted from free seeds that I gathered  from a neighbors house.  I love the old-fashioned cottage flowers the best.  Even the bee balm is towering over the hive!

We do our best to keep the bee population happy.  And here's the lilies behind the garage:

These are bulbs that I get at the 75% off sale at the end of the gardening season at the big box stores.  If you want to add value to your home, planting a flower garden will certainly do it.  And by starting flowers from seed, and buying discount bulbs and plants, it can be done quite frugally.  A neighbor remarked the other day that we have our own Paradise right here on earth, and we would have to agree!

Gardening is one of the things my husband and I like to do together.  He takes care of the vegetables and I do the flowers.  It's a happy marriage.  Speaking of marriage, we celebrated our thirty-seventh anniversary this week.  Ran made me this replica of a colonial bride's box to commemorate the occasion

More and more our home is becoming furnished in things that Ran builds.  I sew all the curtains, pillows, and tablecloths.  It's a very personal space.

SECRET TO A HAPPY  MARRIAGE

People have asked us what's the secret to a happy marriage and I always refer them to  this Bible verse:


  ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

~1 Corinthians 13:4-7~

CRAFTS
Speaking of labors of love, I finally finished granddaughter Tatianna's  sweater.  When she  begged me to make a sweater like her favorite cartoon character, Mabel Pines from Gravity Falls, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  There isn't a pattern for it, so I had to design my own..  And I have to say, knitting that hot pink color gave me a headache! Ha!

Now that it's finally finished, I can go back to knitting something in a nice earthy color.  I'm unraveling a Merino wool sweater that I bought at the year end sale at our Thumb Industries Thrift Shop for seventeen cents (that's the sleeve).

HOW TO RECYCLE A KNIT SWEATER
First, only use sweaters of good quality wool.  Look at the seams and look for those that are sewn and not overlocked.  Crew necks work best because you can use both the front and the back.  Undo the seams and lay flat.  Cut straight across at just below the armholes for the front and back.  On the sleeves cut across at below the armhole. Starting from the top , unravel.  Have patience, sometimes it takes a few rows to get to the point where the sweater will unravel smoothly. Where else can you buy a skein of Merino wool for seventeen cents?

CANNING

Our butcher had a good deal on boneless, skinless chicken breasts this week,  $1.89/ lb.  So I canned up eight  pints.

When people ask me questions about canning I always refer them to Jackie Clay's blog . That woman is a canning wonder!

ECONOMICS AND PREPPING

So have you been following what's been happening in Greece and China?  Did you now that the United States has a bigger debt to citizen ratio than Greece?  So why's  the U.S. dollar doing so well?  Because compared to other countries ours looks like the safest place to park your money.  Plus our markets are being artificially propped up by the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  But it won't last forever.  Liquidity is drying up and banks are starting to limit credit, particularly in Europe.  What does that mean to you?  Well, take a can of beans for example, before that can of beans reaches the store shelves, it goes through a series of credit transactions; the farmer, the elevator, the manufacturer, the trucker, the store employee, etc..  If one of those credit transactions freezes up, the food doesn't reach you.  So stock up now.  Besides, what does it hurt?  With the prices of groceries inflating, it's a good investment.  All of the economist are predicting a crash in the fall.  Historically that's when they happen.  I'd rather err on the side of caution than be a day late and a dollar short. Wouldn't you?

DON'T BUY IT, MAKE IT

OK. I admit it, I love potato chips.  Or I should say , I loved potato chips.  I hadn't eaten any for months, but I bought a small bag the other day and they were so salty and greasy, I  couldn't believe I ever liked them.   Plus they cost what? About three or four dollars for a bag.  That's a lot of money for ten ounces of potatoes!  So we figured out how to make our own healthier baked potato chips.

Homemade Baked Potato Chips

Slice the potatoes very thinly.  And immerse them in a bowl of cold water for a few minutes.  Rinse off the potatoes.  Throw the potatoes in a pan of boiling water.  Time them once the water begins to boil again.  Boil for 1 minute.  Throw the chips in a colander and rinse with cold water.  Pat dry with a towel.  Coat with 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil until evenly coated.  Spread on a  parchment paper lined baking sheet, making sure they don't overlap.  Bake at 400 degrees until the chips start to brown.  Watch carefully, once they brown they brown really fast.  Remove from the oven.  Remove all the crispy ones and return the ones that need to bake a bit longer to the oven. Remove.  Sprinkle lightly with salt.  Tasted great and they were free, as we grow our own organic heirloom potatoes!

THRIFTY THING WE DID THIS WEEK

Harvested peas, broccoli, peppers, cauliflower, strawberries, and raspberries from the garden.

Dried cauliflower and broccoli

Canned 8 pints of chicken.

Unraveled a thrifted sweater for the yarn.

Finally found a cast iron pot with legs and a flat lid for our campfire cooking at a good price at an estate sale ($15).

Put it to use right away.  Fun and economical.

We had to travel to the big city to do some banking so to make the trip worthwhile we stopped in at a huge thrift store.  I bought 3 Ralph Lauren sweaters, a Ralph Lauren skirt, an Eileen Fisher sweater and a really cute vintage corduroy skirt for $13.  They were having a sale and several of the items were only 69 cents!  Have  most of my fall wardrobe now.  Which is good, I really got sick of my fall and winter clothes last year, when we had cold from September through mid-June.

I also bought a like new winter coat at a garage sale for $5.  I'm so tired of my gray one.  I've had it for several years.

We've been diverting our washing machine water to a bucket and using it to flush the toilet and water the flowers.  Also using the dishwater and the water left over in the canner.  Or water is so expensive here, mainly because the charge 5 times the water amount for the sewer, so by reusing the water, I hope to beat the system.  Especially when you consider that most of our water use comes from watering the garden which goes into the ground and doesn't even use the sewer.

Ate from the garden and a had  lot of meatless meals.

Plus all the usual things that you are probably tired of reading about!

Well, that's it for this week.   If you have a question or just want to say hello, please leave a comment.  Let me know what you are doing to make end meet.  I love learning new thrifty  ideas!  I also love to meet  like minded people.  I'd love to hear from you!

Later Tater!

Jane








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ANTIQUES AND MENUS

Hello dear friends!   Hope all is going well your way on this fine Sunday!   The reason I sound so chipper is because we finally had some rain and the temperatures have dropped.  Whew!   Friday was steamy!  Today's post's subjects have been suggested by you readers.   I love it when you make suggestions and requests, sometimes it's hard to come up with something new to write about.  How many times can I show you my canning?  Ha!

ANTIQUING

Ryan suggested that I write a post about antique hunting this week, which came at the perfect time, since this was the weekend of the Blue Water Garage Sale Trail, that runs all along the tip of the Thumb to southeast Michigan.  This year the sales were few and far between compared to other years, but we still managed to score some treasures.

The first tip for would-be antique hunters is go often to estate sales, auctions and garages sales and carry lots of cash in smaller denominations.  Oh! and drive a big truck!   The things I passed up this weekend because I didn't have a truck or anyone to help me haul them.  I'm still feeling a bit sad that I couldn't take an antique icebox home, something I've been looking for forever.  (still dreaming of living off-the-grid)  Anyhoo, it was in wonderful condition, the only drawback being someone had done a sloppy job of stripping the varnish off the oak.  Nothing that couldn't be set straight with a bit of stripper.  And only $150!   And a beautiful wood cookstove.   Oh dear! If wishes were horses all men would ride!

Here's a picture of Ran, checking out a guitar.

It was a nice good quality mahogany one  with a wonderful tone.  It also came with enough equipment to warrant the $75 price tag.  See that window on the left hand corner?  It had pretty leaded and beveled glass.  I bought it and hung it in our back room (the one with the "found" wood wall).

The windows in that room are boring replacement windows, so that helps make it more interesting.

The second tip for antique hunting is to get off the beaten path.  We went down a lot of dirt

and one-lane roads.

It's quite a thrill to come across and old centennial farm sale with a barn filled with junk! Another tip is to dress so that you can climb and get dirty.  I've climbed up in hay lofts and up ladders into attics before, so on hunting days, I leave my skirts and flip flops behind and where pants and sturdy shoes.  And carry lots of wet wipes!  Antiquing is dirty business.

Sometimes there's some real treasure to be found.  Over the years I've discovered that in towns, the best gems can be found in the older middle-class neighborhoods.  New subdivision, usually have young families, and a mostly  newer things.  And strangely, the wealthier people rarely have any antiques, or if the do, they usually have a high price tag.

Estate sales can be a great for collecting.  The usually are listed in the newspaper on Thursdays.  After you go to a few, you'll discover which estate sales agency have the most reasonable prices.  Around here, there are a few businesses that I never attend their sales because I know they always are over-priced.  If it's a sale that takes numbers, arrive at least an hour early to get a place in line before everything is picked over.  On the other hand, if you wait until the last day and hours of a sale, you can sometimes snag a bargain, because the dealers are ready to haggle and they usually offer half-off.

For auctions, never bid on the first items.  People are usually excited and hyped-up and bid too much for them.  If you're lucky, the items that you want will be offered at the end of the day, after everyone has spent their money and become tired.  You can pick up some real bargains then, if you're patient. If you're new  to an auction, just sit back and observe for a while before jumping in and bidding.

 If you spy something, while out garage sale-ing it doesn't hurt to ask.   While I was paying at one, I spotted an antique wool challis throw on the davenport and asked if it was for sale.  The man holding the sale, looked surprised.  "That?" he asked.  "We use that to cover the couch so the sun doesn't get on it.  I guess I could sell it to you.  Does two bucks sound good?"  Yes, it sounded very good to me!   I have a weakness for these old shawls and throws.  It wasn't until I got it home that I discovered how long it was, about eight feet.  This was one of my best buys of the day.

Read all you can about antiques.  Go to antique stores and get a feel for them, so you can recognize a true antique from the imposter when you see it.  Look in all the nook and crannies.  I found this

signed, numbered and having a certificate of authenticity from Mt. Nebo Gallery,  Will Moses (Grandma Moses' grandson, and an artist in his own right) serigraph for $20 tucked under a table.  On Ebay these sell for $150-$650.  This is a larger and earlier one, so I suspect it is on the higher end.  No matter, I love it and am going to keep it. I wonder how many people walked pass it and didn't even notice it or know what it was?

So I hope these tips help you, Ryan, uncover some treasures of your own.  Antique hunting is just like any other skill, the more often you do it, the better you become!


MENUS


Dana suggest that I write a post about what we eat during the week.  I know there are people out there that are curious as to how we spend so little on groceries.  To be fair, one of the reasons our grocery bills are so low is because we garden and I preserve a lot of food. To me, canning isn't a cute little hobby, where I wear a frilly little apron and put up pickles and jam, it's a serious part of our path to self-sufficiency. Gardening isn't something  I do when I have the time, gardening is almost a full-time job for us and we produce tons of food on our little 4/10ths of an acre plot.  I'm sure our tab would be a lot higher if I had to go out and buy a lot of the items that come from my pantry.  The other thing that saves us a lot of money is that we avail ourselves to a wonderful bulk food store.  But anyhow, even without a well-stocked pantry, we eat pretty thriftily, so here goes!

Breakfast:

As we all arise at different times, there is no specific menu for breakfast.  This week, we've had a lot of berries, so we've been eating yogurt and fresh berries from our bushes fairly often.  Eggs are cheap (50 cents for a dozen medium) so Jamie has made himself eggs on a nest (cut a hole in a piece of bread,place on a greased griddle, break an egg into the hole and fry on both sides.  Brown the circle that was cut from the bread and brown that too).  This was the first thing I taught to boys to cook when they were six years old and Jamie still likes making them.  We often eat oatmeal, which we buy in bulk at $17.99/50 lbs.  Nothing gets cheaper than that.  If I'm near a bakery outlet, I like to buy inexpensive English muffins  and freeze them.  An English muffin with a smear of orange marmalade is one of the finest breakfasts there ever was, in my opinion.  Jamie likes them with peanut butter and a few mini-choclate chips sprinkled on top.  My mother used to make plain white rice and sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar and a bit of butter.  We all know how cheap rice is. Plus it can be made ahead of time and just needs to be warmed up, maybe with a splash of milk.  There's plenty of things to have for breakfast besides expensive  boxed cereal. We all drink coffee.  Whenever we find a great price, I buy it and freeze it.  We recently discovered an Amish-owned scratch and dent store that sells K-cups for 5 cents a piece.  They're slightly out of date, but taste fine to us.

LUNCH

Lunch is our main meal of the day.  Usually we eat the leftovers for dinner.  I guess we are not "big eaters"  because a lot of time we skip dinner completely or just have some hummus, or cheese and crackers.  If we get hungry later in the day, we might pop up some popcorn, or again toast an English muffin and spread some of my home-canned spaghetti sauce on it, sprinkled with a bit of cheese and toast it until its heated through and the cheese is melted.  I also can lots of soup, chili, and things like barbecued beef, hamburger patties, etc.  that can be made into a quick meal for anyone who's hungry.   Anyway, here's what we ate this week:

Monday

Bean burritos made from our own refried beans , tomatoes, peppers,  and onions, from our garden, home-canned salsa, and just a bit of cheese.  Just because a recipe calls for 8oz. of cheese, it doesn't mean you need to use that much.  We also added rice to stretch them even further.  This made a lot and we had plenty left over for dinner.

Tuesday

Panzanella made from tomatoes, onions, basil and peppers from our garden. I bought a loaf of French bread from the discount cart at Wal-Mart for the cubes for $1.49.  For dinner I made some sandwich spread from our home-canned corned beef, home-canned relish, mayo, and mustard.  We ate these sandwiches with some sliced tomatoes from our garden and icebox pickles (from our cucumbers and dill).  Only thing we purchased for this meal was bread, again from the discount rack  ($1)and lettuce.  Need those green leafies, ours have all bolted. Sure miss being able to go out to the garden and pick our own.

Wednesday

Turkey Joes.  The hamburger buns were another purchase from the discount rack for $1.  The ground turkey was a trade for an electric meat grinder.  I gave my son my electric meat grinder and he gave us some ground turkey.  Also had to buy a can of chicken gumbo soup.   We served this with a side of roasted green beans from the garden and some of our carrots made into honey-glazed carrots.  As we always do, I added a jar of home-canned kidney beans to make the meat stretch.  Turkey Joes were something I made quite often when the boys were little, as ground turkey was cheaper than hamburger.  Here's the recipe:

Turkey Joes

1 lb. ground turkey
1 med. green pepper diced
1 med. onion diced
1 can chicken gumbo soup
2 tbsp. catsup
2 tbsp. mustard
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp. chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

Brown the meat with the peppers and onions.  Add the remaining ingredients and heat through.  Serve over buns.  You might have to adjust the brown sugar and vinegar to your taste. Anyway, this made a lot (I think there was more than 1 pound of turkey in the package), so we plenty for dinner plus some to freeze. The catsup was home-canned, and the peppers and onions came from the garden.

Thursday

On Thursday we were out running errands, so we grabbed one of those $5 hot-and-ready pizzas (even though they're advertised for $5,the cost $6 here).  In the evening we reheated the leftovers and had some salad with it.  I think later that night Ran  reheated some of the Turkey Joes.  In the evening I baked some carrot nut brownies (using our carrots and last year's foraged nuts that we froze).  We had one with some tea.

Carrot Nut Brownies

1/2 C. butter
3/4 C. brown sugar
1 egg
1 C. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1 C. grated carrots
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C. chopped nuts

Melt butter.  Combine with brown sugar and blend together.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Stir in dry ingredients.  Fold in carrots and nuts.  Spoon batter into a greased 8" square pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  Cool and frost with white frosting.

BTW, I think these would be good with raisins in place of the nuts.  The plate is an example of  knowing antiques.  By the feel and weight of it, I could tell this was a very old piece, which I snagged for 25 cents!





Friday

Friday was our big garage sale-ing day, there are no fast food joints out that way, so we packed a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit, those brownies, carrot sticks and some nuts.  We had a thermos of lemonade and one of water.  When we arrived home in the evening, Ran and Jamie heated up some home-canned barbecue pork and ate it on some bread with some of our tomatoes.

Saturday

Zucchini crab cakes (recipe is a few posts back), oven-fried sweet potatoes and coleslaw.  The zucchini came from our garden.   The coleslaw was that bagged shredded cabbage and carrots to make things easy.   We had hunt and peck for dinner.  Ran  baked these soft pretzels in the evening, which we ate with mustard and some of our icebox pickles.

Sunday, Today

I had every intention of making a nice brunch today with omelets made from those 50 cents/dozen  eggs, peppers and onions from the garden.  Roasted potatoes from the garden, cranberry spritzers made from my home-canned cranberry juice and some fresh berries and yogurt.  But, Ran brought in a bushel full of tomatoes and I started in canning.  Everyone got hungry, so I made up a quick Big Mac salad  with the remaining lettuce, home-canned hamburgers and pickles, tomatoes and onions from the garden.  Soon I'll have to figure out something for dinner as the natives are getting restless!

All, in all, I spent around $20 this week on groceries, including the take-out pizza.   I need to restock my pantry with brown sugar, bread flour, lemon juice (for canning tomatoes), canning lids, baking soda, and canning salt.  I hope to spend less than $50 for this.

NEEDLE-CRAFTS

Hello?  Are you still with me? Ha!  I finally finished the never-ending shawl!  I got bored with the pattern after knitting 10 inches and needed to knit 60 more!  The yarn is Madeline Tosh Silver Birch, which my dear friend Mary gave to me.  She found 4 skeins  for 99 cents each at a thrift store!  It runs $30 a skein in the stores. 

Here's a close-up of the pattern:

The pattern is called Criss Cross Lace shawl and it can be found on the Lion Brand yarn website.  (For some reason it wouldn't let me link to it. Sorry!)


THRIFTY THINGS WE DID THIS WEEK

Harvested tomatoes, potatoes, onions, carrots, eggplants, green beans, herbs and zucchinis.

Canned more tomatoes.

Bought some antiques at the garages sales.

Bought 2 skirts (one a pretty Ralph Lauren and one a vintage circle skirt) a pair of vintage silver and enameled earrings and a cute green sweater from the garage sales for my fall wardrobe for a grand total of $8.

Packed our lunch rather than dining out.

Ran gave Jamie a haircut.  (I always cut the boys and Ran's hair, it must have saved us thousands of dollars over the years.)

Made icebox pickles.

Working on some bowl fillers from a free pattern on-line.

Well that's about it!  Was quite a gad-about this week.  Hope this post answers some questions.  If you have any more just leave a comment!

Hugs
Jane