Five Frugal Things ~ March 23, 2018

I hope everyone had a great week! Here is this week's Frugal Five:

•  I invested in a soaker hose to help cut down on water usage in the garden.  I will be buying a couple of more soon to place in other areas.

•  when cooking meats, I have deglazed the pans with water to get all the flavorful bits off the bottom of the pan, after draining off most of the grease.  I then save the delicious liquid to add to recipes in place of part, or all, of the broth that the recipe may call for.

•  made a new batch of laundry stain remover.

•  rearranged and organized our upright freezer that has been in a state of chaos for far too long.  This will allow me to easily see what we have and what we need when I am planning my shopping trips and not waste money buying something we already have plenty of.

•  made my own homemade ranch style and a creamy dijon Italian style dressing for salads and veggie dipping.  I have been making my own salad dressings for so long, I have a difficult time justifying the cost of store bought salad dressings.

I hope you enjoy your weekend and that the weather is Spring-like where you are!  Thanks for stopping by! ~TJ

Last Week and Beautiful Boiled Eggs!

bottle brush tree on our walking path

Last week was filled with time spent in the garden planting seeds and tending plants, taking walks, running errands and cooking as much as possible from our food stores.

In the kitchen, I made a yummy pork stir fry from meat leftover from the pork roast, using asparagus, rice that our DD brought home from a chinese restaurant when she ordered takeout, and other assorted veggies I had on hand.  Also from that pork roast, I made some sauteed cabbage and carrots to go with it, creating another meal. I froze the rest of the pork roast, still on the bone, and plan to make a pork green Chile recipe out of it and serve it with flour tortillas.  I also roasted some chicken legs that I found marked down, and after plucking the meat from the bones (which we enjoyed for dinner a couple of meals), slow cooked the bones in water for a couple of days to make a wonderful, rich chicken broth.  For a sweet treat, I discovered and made, a recipe for a no bake chewy chocolate chip peanut butter granola bar cookie.  I'm hoping to find, and add into rotation, more no bake recipes for this summer, to keep from heating up the house. Along that same train of thought, I'm also toying with the idea of cooking out on our grill more this summer.  But then that would mean that I  would have to be outside in the heat, so I don't know how that will play out.  It sounds good in theory though, as I sit here, comfy and cool in the artificially conditioned air of my cocoon.  We'll see.

Speaking of the kitchen, I found myself boiling a bakers dozen of eggs one evening and, silly as it may sound, I was giddy.  Why?  Well, because since finding a couple of techniques that have transformed the boiled egg process for me, I actually don't dread or mind, boiling and peeling eggs anymore.  

Occasionally, we like a nice platter of deviled eggs, or a vat😉 of egg salad (hey, I learned the art of bulk cooking when I had two hungry, growing boys to feed.  Can't go back now!) to eat in sandwiches, on crackers, or atop a beautiful bed o' greens.  In the past, my poor fingers would be sore from trying to wrestle the shell from the whites, and more often than not, hunks and chunks of egg white would be wasted.  What I would be left with is some mangled eggs that, when going into an egg salad, didn't make for an offensive presentation.  But for deviled eggs, well, you can only imagine the sickly sight. 

these eggs destined for egg salad, no egg flip involved

So, tired of the boiled egg debacles, I set off on a research mission.  Surely, there had to be a better way.  Many tips, tricks and techniques I had tried before.  But then...I found one, then two, that I hadn't.  With much trepidation, and on the verge of giving up boiling eggs for life, (yes, I am being melodramatic) I tried them.  Yes. Yes! YASSSSS!  Fool proof! Beautiful boiled eggs!

"So, tell us TJ!  Quit stringing us along.  What is this world rocking, boiled egg revelation?", I can hear you asking.  Well first, flipping the eggs the night before you plan on boiling them.  Twelve hours ahead of time will do.  It helps to center the yolk and get rid of that air bubble dent.  Just flip 'em upside down in the carton, stick 'em back in the fridge & walk away for the evening.  When the time comes to boil them, use The Pioneer Woman's Easy-to-Peel Eggs technique (thanks for sharing PW, you saved my boiled egg peeling life!).  That's it!  I will say, I would only bother with the egg flip for purty boiled eggs for deviled egg making, or any other time that you want perfect looking eggs.  

simply delicious. a couple of left over boiled eggs sliced on top of buttered, and pan grilled, homemade bread ends and pieces~waste not!

As an added disclaimer, I have only peeled the eggs immediately after boiling and ice bathing them, as per Ree's instuctions.  If you plan on using this info for your Easter egg dyed eggs, when they won't be peeled right away, I can't promise they will peel as easy.  I think that will be my next experiment with this easy to peel technique: leaving them in the shell for a day or two before peeling.  I will report back when I have need for another batch of boiled eggs...

Happy egg boiling and peeling! And...

Thanks for stopping by! ~TJ

Weekend Reflections ~ 3/17/18 - 3/18/18

curious squirrel at the top of this palm

Although all the weather forecasts had called for rain all weekend, Saturday was a beautiful day!  I took advantage of the wonderful weather and decided to sit in the garden while I called my daddy to wish him a happy 76th birthday.  We enjoyed a good, hour long conversation before hanging up.  

Afterwards, while reflecting on the joy of that phone conversation, I set about preparing a pork roast that I put in the slow cooker for the rest of the day and well into the night.  I loosely followed this recipe, leaving out the onion, using 1/4 cup of water, only one tablespoon of liquid smoke and one bay leaf.  The rest of the recipe, I kept the same.

Since the pork roast wasn't intended for Saturday's meal, I made a favorite of my husband's:

 

there's nothing like a time worn, handwritten recipe, bearing the signs of faithful service in many a meals over the years~

I have had this recipe for over twenty years (I'm sure you couldn't tell, right?😄).  I copied it from the book, The Tightwad Gazette when I was just a frugal tyke, learning at the knee of my sensei, Amy Dacyczyn.  I love that is so flexible and can be made in a multitude of ways.  ~*~  We like adding sweet peas (about a half a cup) to ours. ~ Hubby likes a good splash of lemon juice on top right before he digs in. ~*~  It reminds me of one of the dishes that was our assignment in home ec class many, many moons ago.  We love it so much that I always double the recipe so that we have leftovers, as it tastes as good, or better the second time around.  

For the rest of the day, I reseeded a few flower and vegetable seeds that never germinated.

Other than those few things, I read, relaxed and watched a few relaxing videos.  Thanks to a fellow blogger, Rhonda Jean,  I discovered a new Youtube channel, Li Ziqi Channel.  So many relaxing, beautiful videos!

the first "contender" green bean bloom in the garden!

 

red lilies preparing for a showy display 

On Sunday, I spent the day leisurely sowing more flower, herb and vegetable seeds, reading and puttering around the house.

the first husky tomatoes (one plant, two views)

 

After wrapping up dinner, I ended the day laying back in my outdoor chaise lounge, under the sheltering branches of our very fragrant tree and watched the sky as it turned from dove gray to charcoal.  Ducks and other assorted birds flew overhead.  I was hoping to catch a glimpse of a bat or two fluttering to and fro, searching for their evening meal, but there were none to be spotted.  The air and trees were eerily still as I listened to the distant barking of neighborhood dogs, and the occasional meow of my cat that was lounging lazily beside me.  And when the darkness overtook us, Galahad and I went inside to spend a little time with my daughter, who had just gotten in from work, and hear about her day.

Yes, it's a quiet, slow paced life that we have learned to embrace.  It's our new normal, a new season of life that we are trying to gracefully do justice to.  We are content.  We are happy.  Life is good.

I hope your weekend was fulfilling!  I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks for stopping by! ~TJ

Simple Living, Extraordinary Life ~ The Dailies 3/16/18

Today has been mostly cloudy, with momentary bits of rain and sun, each vying for it's rightful place in the spotlight.  I did my errands (Home Depot, Target, Dollar Tree, Walmart, Aldi & Walgreens.  Yeah.  The sheer memory of it exhausts me.) for the week yesterday, so today I am dividing my time between the indoor and the outdoor activities that wait patiently for me to tend to them.  Mostly though, I've been lounging.  That's the only drawback that I, personally, have with cloudy/rainy days.  They make me want to laze about.  Not that I'm complaining.  Luxuriating in laziness is my specialty.  But, there are things to do that won't be denied.  Laundry.  Meal prep.  Light housekeeping.  They will get done.  Soon.  Verrry soon😉.

Later that day...

The sun ended up coming out, rousing me from my cozy cocoon.  I happily set about checking on plants and seedlings and tried out my new spray nozzle that I bought at the Dollar Tree  (I got the green one~not bad for a dollar!).  I unloaded the five bags of potting soil and humus/manure mix from the back of the truck.  Rearranged some plants and empty plant pots.  I tinkered and piddled around and tinkered some more until I went inside.

photo credit:  Dollar Tree website (not affiliated with)

Indoors, I did a load of laundry, tidied the powder room and a dozen other little things that had me feeling like a busy bee, flitting from bloom to bloom.  And then my Avon order came in so I took care of that.

After a dinner of low carb turkey chili (this recipe, only with ground turkey), I settled in, contentedly, for the evening.

Whewww!  And you thought I was going to hibernate all day, lol!

Thanks for stopping by and sharing the day with me! ~TJ

Five Frugal Things ~ March 16, 2018

This past week, to flex my frugal muscles, I:

•  snipped some mint from the garden to add to tea, drinking water and just to nibble on (healthier than breath mints!).  I also snipped some parsley to add to dressings, my dog's food and also to nibble on, among other culinary uses.  Speaking of tea, I also took the little bits of tea at the bottom of my cups that I couldn't finish, and added/combined them in a canning jar and stuck it in the fridge for my later, iced tea drinking pleasure. (I mix whatever flavors I happened to be drinking to do this and have rarely had a "concoction" that I didn't care for.)

I wish I knew what this plant was.  It came with the house and has never disappointed with its showy display of snow white flowers!
UPDATE! Miss Jeannie told me this is a spirea, thanks Jeannie, I appreciate it!

•  cut and brought in some flowering branches to cheer up my housebound hubby.  (And me, I love fresh flowers!)

•  FINALLY baked the no knead French bread!  It's a keeper, and so much easier than the recipe I used to make when my dough bowl was intact (rip dough bowl😭).  I will still play around with the recipe until I get it juuuussst right for us. (I will take a picture after I have gotten it more to our liking.)

•  hung to air out my gently worn clothes after one wearing.  When the weather isn't too hot or humid, I find I am able to get more than one wear out of some garments.  I just hang them inside out so I know they have been worn.  It saves wear and tear on the garment and lightens my (laundry) load, saving water, detergent and energy (mine and utilities).

•  bought, blanched and froze 17 1/2 (*+) pounds of asparagus that I stocked up on when Kroger put them on sale for .88 lb.  Asparagus is one of my very favorite veggies and I have not seen it at this price in recent memory.
* the + is for the few stalks, here and there, that I may, or may not have, *wink* eaten as I was processing them.  I used the blanching and ice bath water (after it had come to room temp) to water plants.

I hope my frugal five encourages you, as others have encouraged me!

Speaking of encouragers, here is a favorite blog that, if you don't already follow, I thought you might enjoy.  I have been reading Miss Rhonda Jean's earthy, well rounded blog, off and on for years! >>> { Down to Earth }  Why don't you run on over there & say "howdy!"?

photo credit:  Down to Earth blog

I hope you love it as much as I do!  I'd love know what you think!

Thanks for stopping by! ~TJ

Gorgeous Weather!

Today, as much as I love a good, stormy, cloudy, cool day, is probably a reflection of my second favorite type of weather.  A weather sweet spot, if you will.

I have been busying myself with indoor tasks lately, as our weather has warmed a tad (I know, I know.  Cry me a river, my northern brethren are thinking. Yes, I feel compelled to add that disclaimer to all my grouchy weather commentary.😉) and with the combined humidity that makes me wilt, I thought it would be a good time to do a bit of Spring cleaning.  So, busy I have been.  Well, that and napping (did I mention this weather makes me wilt?  Oh yeah, I did.  Sorry.).

I haven't been a total garden slouch though, nor a total hermit.  I do have to go outside long enough to tend to my tender seedlings so they don't succumb to the warm winds that have been blowing things around in our yard lately.  And I have been busy planting bulbs, asparagus and blueberry bushes (to name a few).  I am determined to be more diligent in the garden this year.  Determined, I tell ya.  I am no master gardener, and am still learning.  With what feels like more failures than successes, each year I feel like throwing in the towel.  "I will never garden again!", I declare, in my minds loudest voice.  And then, after a brief sabbatical, the soil and seeds beckon me to try...One. More. Time.

Our FoodSaver is an older model but here is a similar one.
The Roll Combo Pack was purchased a few years back at Sam's Club and has lasted for.ever!  Here is a comparable pack.
Hubby and I both agree that it has been an excellent investment.

But today, OH TODAY (!!!)  our weather is perfectly PERFECT!  So, the baking (no knead bread experiment~still haven't made it. And a hubby requested cherry dump cake.) and putting up of the poundage of asparagus I snagged on sale at Kroger (.88 lb!) I planned to do today may have to wait.  (I did manage to blanch & freeze five pounds last night)  At least until the sun goes down.

Now I'm off to wander the (postage stamp) property and play with my plant babies...

Thanks for stopping by! ~TJ


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