Frugal Friday

It's June and I've been done with school for about a week. Nolan graduated from Lancaster Catholic and the Lancaster Career and Technology Center. The parties are over. I deep cleaned the kitchen floor. The new school I'm starting (more on this later) is set up and the paperwork sent to the state.  What does all this mean? I'm a little bored. So yesterday it occurred to me that I used to love to blog. I think one of the reasons I stopped blogging was that I no longer had the time to do it. Well, this new found boredom has given me time to blog again!  So I went back to my blog and found this post that never got posted. I think it's a good one so I'm sharing it with you today. It is over a year old but still relevant. Enjoy this one and look for more this summer.

We're still eating the sauce we made from these tomatoes.

Here it is (from 2015. And, no, it's not Friday. Please don't expect me to post a Frugal Friday post each week this summer. This was the 2015 me, not the new and improved 2016 me who knows better.):

This is the first in what I hope will be a weekly Friday posting. Hope being the operative word here.

I've been contemplating voluntary poverty for the last few weeks. I'm not going to get into that topic right now because it would require more time than I want to give to my computer at the moment. We all know that there are people who live in terrible poverty all over the world, including the town you live in. 

I'm prone to a guilty conscience and so I have to be careful about my motives. I don't want to do something because it seems romantic at the time but is unsustainable.

What I have felt convicted about for a long time is to live more simply. To honor the beauty of the natural world that has been entrusted to us by our creator. What does this mean exactly?

Well, first off: waste not.

I guess that is my basic definition of frugality. So on this and (I hope) subsequent Fridays I'll post something about being frugal. We all know that when one can make a posting alliterative it has universal appeal. Right???

So, my first Frugal Friday post topic is PATIENCE. "Patience,"you may ask? What does that have to do with being frugal and eliminating waste?

1. Impulse buying. It is so easy, isn't it? Let me give you a current example. Yesterday a friend recommended the book 7:An experimental mutiny against excess. I was cleaning out my closet and lamenting the number of skirts in there that almost never get worn. My gut instinct after looking at the book was, "Hey, this is right up my alley. I'll buy it right now. I'm just one click away on Amazon!" Fortunately, the angel sitting on my other shoulder reminded me that purchasing a book immediately because I REALLY wanted to read it was just as bad as those 13 skirts sitting in my closet. Worse, actually, because I still had the option of NOT buying it. So, my friend offered to loan me the book when she was finished with it and my dilemma was over. I'll still get to read the book and glean the knowledge written inside while saving some cash and possibly having a moment to chat with a friend during the exchange. 

2. Savings. I think we all know the cost of buying on credit or buying more than we have income to sustain. Just take a look at the housing crisis in America. How many people were approved for loans that they could not sustain. My parents taught us that if you want something, save for it first. Chances are you may not even want the item you were saving for once you have the money in hand. Being patient about fixing up the house, upgrading the computer, or even that new pair of shoes pays off in the end.

3. Eat real food and cook it yourself. Yup. Cooking takes time. Cooking real food takes extra time. It takes patience to learn to make something from scratch, to use the oven instead of the microwave. No, dinner isn't usually ready in 10 minutes or less. To be honest, the cost of real food isn't always less than processed. Unless you look at the big picture. Most commercially available foods are subsidized by the government along the path from giant farm to your table. Where do the subsidy monies come from? Yup, taxpayer pocketbooks. How about your health? What is the cost in medicine, doctor visits and hospital stays that are directly linked to the poor quality of food that we eat? High. The cost isn't just in money but in time and quality of life. 

4. You. We are all human. We all have our faults. We all need to strive to improve our lives in some way. Be patient with yourself. Nothing changes overnight except the date on the calendar. Every experience in your life is forming you and often those around you. Waste not. Examen yourself but be patient with yourself. If you find you have blessings then give thanks! If you find you have faults, make a plan. If you have faulted your husband, your children, your friend, your coworker: ask forgiveness. Take the time to improve yourself. Give thanks for the many blessings you have in your life and find one area that you can improve upon. Continue practicing patience with it all.

I'm sure there are more areas where patience and frugality meet. If you've got an idea, comment or facebook or post! Send me your links. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Deadly. That's my opinion of this book. Well, if you love bread like I do, anyway. I bet I've eaten more bread in the last week than in the last month since I read this book. Do I recommend this book? Absolutely. If you want to make tasty, homemade, easy, daily bread, this is the book for you. If you want to stay slim and healthy, than I'd recommend you stay away from this book! When it comes to bread, I can't moderate. Thus, I'm taking it back to the library this week.

I did want to show you how it works. So here's Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day in pictures:

Here's the last of the mix. I mixed up the batter on Friday night. It rose on the counter for 2 hours then was transferred to the refrigerator. I made bread Friday, Saturday and today from this one mixing.

You do really need to have a few pieces of equipment. Those pieces being a pizza peel (shown with flour on top) and a bread stone in the oven.

Here's the bread sitting for 40 minutes out of the fridge on the pizza peel.

The bread goes into the oven (450 degrees) onto the stone with a pan of water above. About 10 minutes prior to being finished, I move the bread from the pizza stone to the rack above. Otherwise it isn't brown all over.

After 30 minutes, here's the finished product. I highly recommend farm fresh butter to complete the meal.

Putting Up....again

My mother froze corn every year of my life. In fact, she is still doing it. She makes the BEST chicken corn soup EVER with the frozen corn. To be honest, I refuse to eat corn that comes from the grocery store. It has to be fresh or frozen fresh or I'm leavin' it behind. That being said, I love a warm cup of soup for lunch during the winter and decided to get my corn on the cob this morning. 

Here's Mike helping me husk. We probably should have done this outside but it didn't make too much of a mess in the sunroom. The husks went right into the compost.

Yummy close up. I bought 4 dozen ears.

 I realized that my kitchen is perfectly set up for blanching the corn. Above you can see the pots that are not quite boiling and the corn ready to be added.

 Turn to the middle and we have two sinks full of ice water (Mike was on the ice run when I took the photo).

 Finally, the draining section to the right.

 We set up the card table just outside to cut the corn off the cob. I wanted to get a photo of Nathan and I cutting and Nolan and Mike blanching but my fingers were too messy.

Here's the bounty for the freezer. Just over 8 quarts. That'll be enough for 4 pots of chicken corn soup this winter. I wonder if that's enough?

Putting Up

What a strange phrase that is. It is, however, one used to describe preparing your food for winter when there isn't any fresh garden from which to pick.

Above you can see what we've been doing today. Nolan and Mike went to the Tomato Barn (isn't that the best thing you ever heard of? A Tomato BARN?). They used all of our homegrown large tomatoes, the tomatoes from our CSA (3 pounds) and a large box of 'maters from the Tomato Barn to make a double batch of sauce. Yum! After dinner (which was cooked on our new charcoal grill) I threw on the mass of bell peppers from the CSA. They are lovely and roasted to perfection. My good friend Connie recommended grilling them whole and throwing them in a freezer bag as is. After defrosting, peel and seed before using. What a GREAT idea! Thanks, Connie! This was the easiest ever. Since we already had the grill going, it was a cinch to add the peppers when the food was finished. 


Finally, I mixed up a batch of bread dough from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Of course, this is a library book. According to this book, you can mix up a pot of bread dough in minutes, let it sit on the counter for 2 hours, put it in the fridge and cut a loaf's  worth everyday for fresh bread. Each day the bit you cut off needs to sit on the counter for 20 minutes and then bake for another 20. Wow. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out. It is sitting on my counter at the moment.


Just when I think I can't be a stay at home mom and work full time I have days that so many things get accomplished. Did I mention I cut both my boys hair tonight, too? That's at least a $40 savings. I'm glad we brought those boys up right. They sure do make life easy now that they are teens. 


I'm off for an ice cream run. We're eating healthy but it is summer.....gotta have some 'cream. Have a wonderful weekend. I may hit the sewing room when I get back from the store.

Quest

What is my quest, you ask? To make. To make what? To make IT. What, you ask again, is IT? IT is just about everything. I'd like to learn to make everything myself. 


Why? Because that's just the kind of girl I am. Actually, I want to make it all myself for a variety of reasons. I want to know what's in my food and my shampoo. I want to try to eliminate as much packaging as I can.


Thus, my quest. Today's quest is Mustard. I LOVE mustard. I love that it comes in so many flavors. I love those little cute glass jars you can put it in. I love that it isn't too caloric.


So.....etsy of all places posted this video this week. Enjoy.