We have this really ancient apple tree in the backyard. It has Bramley apples on it, which are probably the sourest apples I've ever tasted. These are cooking apples, not eating apples. They do make a good applesauce, but you definitely have to adjust to taste. I thought I'd walk you through my process today, since making applesauce is one of the easiest things to make. You don't even have to can it if you think you can eat it up fast enough. But it's one of the simplest things to can, too.



Pick your apples (or pick them up if they are windfalls). For this batch I did as many as would fit in my eight quart crockpot, 14. Wash them well, particularly if you don't know where they came from. Peel them and cut them into pieces, cutting out the core. I end up with about six pieces. You can use one of those apple cutters that cores, but I've found that on oddly-shaped apples, or ones as large as Bramleys that it doesn't work well. It's faster just to cut them. Set aside your cores and peels. You should have a pretty large bowlful like this:



Fill the crock with your cut apples as you go. They'll discolor pretty fast but that doesn't matter as the cinnamon will make them brown anyway.



For sour apples start with a cup of sugar. You can adjust this later to taste if you need more. Sweet apples generally don't need sugar added at all.



Add the cinnamon. I use a TBSP.



I don't mix it around at this point, I just put the lid on and set it for four hours on low. After 2 hours I mix it up. The apples will be softening and it is easier to stir.

After 4 hours take a potato masher and mash the apples into sauce.



It'll be thick and goopy. Taste it and see if you need to add more sugar. We did to these super sour apples and ended up adding another 1 1/3 cups for a total of 2 and 2/3 cups. If there are still some hard apple pieces that can't get to mash you can let it go another hour or two until they do mash. If they all mash and you want it to be less chunky you can give it a quick spin in the blender. I just usually stir it after mashing it to get it to a better consistency.

Make sure your jars are hot and your lids and rings have been boiled for 10 minutes. Put sauce into jars making sure to run a knife through each jar to get rid of air bubbles. You want to have an inch of headspace from the top of the jar. Wipe the rim well to make sure there is no residue on it. Place on lids and tighten rings. Place in your boiling water bath canner and lower the rack down. Put on lid. Process for 15 minutes for half-pints or pints. Remove from the canner and place onto a towel on your counter and leave them alone for 24 hours. They will seal (usually in the first 30 minutes but it can take a big longer), sometimes even when you're taking them out.

I got 9 half-pint jars out of 14 apples. Your outcome will vary based on the size of your apples and the number. I've got 16 half-pints on the shelves now and 4 in the fridge. My shelves are looking nice.



I'll be making pear sauce later this week using the same method.

Now there are things you can do with that bowl of peels and cores. Making apple jelly comes to mind:

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-homemade-apple-jelly-peels-cores... Or you can make homemade pectin (just search for pectin from apple cores and skins).

Now I didn't do either of those things because I didn't have time this week. I gave the cores to the chickens and put the skins in the compost (they don't like the skins of these apples), but at some future point I may try the apple jelly recipe and I'll let you know how it goes if I do.

I have broccoli! I know that is a silly thing to be excited about, but I really did not think it was ever going to produce heads and what do you know, it did. Or at least two of them have and I think the others can’t be too far behind them. They have been taunting me for ages with big, lush leaves and were well past the 90 days it should have taken. Maybe the weird weather in July messed with it or something, but at least it looks like I am going to have a harvest.

I need to make some space in the freezer for some of it just in case each plant does actually produce. I planted an awful lot of it and I’d like to have some in the freezer for December to June when it’s expensive. It’s super cheap right now, even the organic, because it’s in season summer to late fall, but once the price jacks up it will be nice to have some frozen the day it was picked broccoli for meals.

When I was out watering tonight, I spied 3 cucumbers growing, 2 slicers and 1 pickling. The 4th plant is a pickling cucumber that has never even flowered. It was nice to see some cukes because I adore them and there is nothing like them freshly picked. I’ve only gotten 1 cuke so far this summer so I was really happy to see them.

I’ve got some red tomatoes that need a couple more days on the vine and I picked another kohlrabi
today. I also filled the harvest basket with Italian prunes and picked a few more handfuls of green beans. This green bean teepee has the little plants that could, I tell you. It will be ready to pick again in two days.

I’ve had enough produce picked this week that I haven’t had to buy anything from the grocery store except milk and pure maple syrup. And my mom gave us some lovely sweet corn that was delicious.

I am gearing up to do another major tomato sauce canning session this weekend. I am hoping to buy enough to finish our sauce needs for the year, but that may take another weekend as well.

I’ve nearly filled two big shelves with home canned food this summer and I hope to still do green beans, of which I’d like to have 52 quarts, total. That might not be possible, but it sure would be nice not to have to worry about our major low carb vegetable for a whole year. Canned green beans have gotten quite expensive in the store, to the point where it’s much cheaper to buy them fresh in season and do it myself. And it would sure make my future grocery budgets that much lower.

I’d also like to do corn, but I can still get corn for .79 a can from Trader Joe’s and it’s a BPA free can liners so it’s pretty low on the agenda. Plus, I haven’t been able to source organic corn. Not that corn is on my list of things that should be organic. I just prefer them to be not GMO, and that can be pretty hard outside of places like TJ’s or food co-ops. One of these years I’ll start growing some heirloom Bantam corn, but that’s also pretty low on my list of priorities. I have potatoes for the starch gap so as much as we like corn, it’s such a space hog and needy feeder that so far it’s not been worth it to grow much of it.

We built a new duck den today. Mom and I recycled the box springs that broke (right after the warranty was up) from the new mattress set DH and I bought in January. We were able to expand their habitat quite a bit and they seem happier having more space. There were Bungie cords and zip ties involved, because we are women and don’t believe in “man tools” like drills and screws unless we have to use them, but so far it seems very serviceable. And I’ve never met a raccoon that can undo a zip tie, while I have seen the results of one that managed to unscrew a screw. Part of the fence still needs repair, but hopefully that will come soon.

Mom managed to do a face plant at the end of the day, tripping over a windfall apple. She seems to be doing okay, though, but I imagine she’s going to be one big bruise in the morning. This is one of the reasons I am going to worry about her when we move out. She takes a lot of tumbles. She seems no worse for wear afterwards, but one of these days she’s going to break something. Well, once we’re going all I can do is make sure I check up on her every day so that I know she’s not laying out there helpless. And eldest sister might just move back in when we move out. She’s 11 years older than me, on her own, and she gets lonely. I would feel better if she did come stay with Mom. Mom’s 73 now and she needs someone around, but I have two other sisters and I can’t do it all myself forever.

Well, not really, but it feels like it. I picked a lot of berries today and I still have one and a half trees left. I know berries grow on bushes, but you haven't seen the size of these ones. Most definitely trees! I packed up several quarts for the freezer and then a quart bag full to take to my friend tomorrow and she will also get an 8 ounce container of blueberry jam.

This is what I am seeing right now when I close my eyes:



I still think I would have a lot more berries in the freezer right now if it weren't for the demands of this bunch:



The tub there is what we used for a brooder when they were babies. The plan is to dig a hole and sink it as a pond for the ducks. Right now they use an old, plastic turtle sandbox for their mini-ponds. Both the lid and the bottom are filled with water. Recycling.

This is Ecru and PipSqueak. Pipsqueak (along with Half-pint) was the runt, but you can see she is now bigger than the Leghorn. She's a black australorpe.



We are not sure, but we think Ecru (whose twin is named Eggshell) might be a rooster. We are hoping not since we can't have roosters in town. Personally, I think Pipsqueak might be a rooster, but they don't have combs yet and though they are loud they aren't exactly crowing yet.

Over here, Half-pint (black australorpe) and Henrietta (auracana) are napping in the sun after eating their fill of berries and finishing their dirt baths.



We are getting little eggs in brownish pink and white which means that one of the Leghorns (Eggshell or Ecru) is laying (the white ones) and one of the golden sex linked (the pinkish one) is laying. Not sure if it's Curious or Georgie.

Today we had four eggs (2 littles and 2 bigs). Queen is hiding her nest again, but I'm sure she's laying somewhere. She's not broody, she just doesn't like to give them up. In another week or two everyone should be laying. Then it won't be just chickens and blueberries coming out my ears, but eggs, too. As it is, we are no longer having to purchase eggs for this household, so yay. One more thing we can supply for ourselves and take out of the grocery budget.

Oh, I almost forgot! Silver will pose for blueberries now. She's our silver lace wing wyandotte and she's always been shyest. Not if there are blueberries at stake, though.

I'm getting a little overwhelmed by trying to keep up with the fruit production right now. I picked a gallon of raspberries and 2 gallons of blueberries today. Actually, I probably picked at least another gallon of blueberries, but that went to the greedy chickens. I swear for every two handfuls I put in the bag I was throwing one to the chickens. With 12 chickens eating them it was a lot. I don't mind sharing, I just wish they could pick, too!

They are getting very friendly, coming right up to me and demanding berries. Some will even tap me on the foot with their beaks if they think it has been too long since I've dropped some berries for them, cheeky little birdies. I really should take out my camera when I pick because they get so close and I could get some great shots.

Anyway, I estimate I picked about $50 worth of berries today, not counting what I fed to the chickens. Everything is in the freezer. It's too hot in the house to process right now and picking is done either before eleven in the morning or after seven in the evening, when it is cool enough to do the work.

My biggest brandywine tomato is moving from orange to red now. It looks so good. I harvested a quart of green beans today, but I think that patch of beans is just about spent. Maybe another handful left that needs to size up a bit. I need to poke a few more seeds into the ground. There might be just enough time left to get a late harvest.

I have two kohlrabi the size of tennis balls and 2 about the size of golf balls. I think the two bigger ones should be ready in about a week. I am really looking forward to them as there is nothing like kohlrabi fresh from the garden. Some of the smaller ones are starting to swell now.

I'm not sure what's going to happen with the cauliflower. It got hot at the wrong time. I am going to tie the leaves over the small heads tomorrow, at least on the ones that the slugs have not eaten the leaves too far down on, to see if they will blanch. Cauliflower is not one of my favored veggies. I will eat it, but I only ever make it because DH and the kids like it, so if it doesn't survive, eh... The broccoli is coming along nicely though.

I harvested the last of the old lettuce today and pulled the plants. The chickens were happy to get those, too, the greedy guts.

The garden has paid for itself about three times over now, plus paid for all the canning supplies and sugar I have bought this summer. I am happy about that. I will be even happier when I start picking tomatoes.

I am thinking about getting some sweet corn to put up at the end of August. We did plant some, but just enough for fresh eating. I just need to decide between freezing or canning if I buy some. I would freeze if I had the freezer by then, but I don't know if I will. So it may be canning by default. It would be nice to buy local corn when it is 10/$10. I guess it will depend on how well my tomatoes do, because if they don't do well, I will spend my grocery money on organic tomatoes to put up.

I can at least buy good canned corn from TJ's at a decent price all year around, but I can't do that for tomatoes. And also, with the corn being killed in the middle of the nation from drought, there may be a higher demand for Washington state corn and I might not be able to get it so cheap, either. Well, a year without much corn won't kill me, if it comes to that. Now a year without potatoes, that would be hard. But those are growing in our garden just fine. I may not even have to buy potatoes at all from September to May if they are as productive as they look like they are going to be.

I don't think we are anywhere near being able to provide all of our produce needs for the year this year, but we'll have grown a good enough hunk of it to take a major bite out our grocery budget, which will make it easier to save up for the protein in bulk from sustainable sources. I would love to get my grocery budget down to $400 a month if averaged over the year, even if it means buying a large portion of it up front.

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I redeemed two $5 amazon gift cards from swagbucks today and will do the same tomorrow. I wish I had done it yesterday, so I could have gotten 4 this month. Oh, well. Live and learn.

This morning was nice and cool and the perfect morning for making jam without heating the house up terribly. I used my new food mill on the apricots and the blackberries, but the blueberries just went into the blender.

The results of my 3 hours of labor.



I ended up with six half pints of apricot jam, a value of $48 (organic jam has gone up, I priced it last week), minus the cost of sugar and apricots, so a net value of $40.

I did 4 pints of blackberry jam for a value of $56. The blackberries were free, so the cost of the sugar was $2. So a net value of $54.

Last I did 8 half pints of blueberry jelly. Again the berries were free from the yard so it was the cost of the sugar, $2. So $64 minus $2, a net value of $62.

Altogether I spent $12 on ingredients and profited $158 by putting up this jam and jelly today. I will likely do at least one more batch of blackberry jam, one more batch of raspberry jam, and one more batch of blueberry jelly this summer and any other berries will be frozen. I think I'll have enough jam for the year. I may actually already have enough jam for the year, but some will be gifts.

And another look at my expanded stash. We have used up one jar of strawberry and are in the process of eating a second and also on the first jar of apricot jam, but there are two more rows added as well.



I can't wait until I can fill a shelf full of tomato products. Another month and a half for that.

Today I made homemade salsa. It turned out really well. I did the usual thing that I do when I want to make something that I either haven't made in a really long time or have never made before. I looked at a bunch of recipes on the internet and then made up my own. I don't think I could follow a cooking recipe line for line if you paid me. Baking, yes. That's a whole other animal, but not cooking.

Anyway, I started with the juice from one lime and threw it in the blender.



And diced half a yellow onion and 2 really enormous cloves of garlic (probably 4 smaller cloves would do from a non-mutant head).



I chopped up about a cup's worth of fresh cilantro.



And then diced 2 jalapeno peppers.



I took about 1/8 tsp of the seeds from the peppers and discarded the rest. You can use them all or more than I did, but I was trying to make a salsa my kids would eat.

I took 2 cans of organic diced tomatoes including the juice and added it to everything else in the blender.



I didn't want to pay the prices for off season organic tomatoes at the store, but I imagine about 2 pounds of tomatoes would substitute for the 2 cans.

I added in 1 tsp of freshly ground sea salt and 1 tsp of freshly ground pepper and blended the whole mess on low, level 4, for about 20 seconds because I wanted to keep some chunkiness to it. Now is the time to taste it and adjust your salt, pepper, and jalapeno seeds to taste.

And the tasty end result:



This made a little over a quart of salsa. Next time I will cut the recipe in half and just make around a pint, but I will definitely make it again. It's worth it in freshness, flavor, and I saved about $2 over the cost of buying the same amount of jarred salsa. That cost will drop once my own tomatoes are ripe.

We did some moving of stuff to storage today. We ended up emptying our 2nd unit at the one place. We got a bigger 2nd unit elsewhere for about $20 cheaper. I would like to change out our bigger unit, too, in time because we could save quite a bit on it at the new place. The only real difference between places is one is outside the city limits. So it's two miles further away, but that is worth it for that much less money. They also do not require extra insurance. Since our homeowners policy has a rider for storage items, this is a savings of $15 a month.

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The man who was supposed to come out and check the house for painting and estimate on the door repairs called to say his daughter had been hurt and rescheduled for Wednesday. *sighs* Will we ever get this done?

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I picked 2 pints of blackberries today. I have enough to make jam. Speaking of jam we finished off the first jar of strawberry jam and opened up the first jar of apricot jelly. It definitely is not jam like, but jelly like. It was so good. Everybody loves it. And it was perfect even without pectin.

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Those green onion bottoms that I planted have started sending up shoots. I count 3 so far. It worked!

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I did not make pot roast today as I had some food that needed using up so instead I made chicken/turkey noodle soup today for dinner. Well, yesterday before we went to the farm I threw 4 turkey legs and a bunch of chicken wings that were just starting to get freezer burn in the crockpot with 2 cups of water. I let it cook all day on low and last night I picked all the meat off the bones and returned it to the crockpot. I added all of the onion skins, carrot peels, garlic skins, bits of green onion that hadn't gone bad but no longer looked its best that I have saved in the freezer and the four chicken carcasses that I have saved in the freezer.

I chopped up half a bunch of fresh parsley, smashed five garlic cloves, chopped up one and a half onions (along with their skins), some celery leaves, and chopped two carrots. I added 1 tbsp of white peppercorns (what I had on hand) and 1 tsp of fresh sea salt. I filled up the crock to the top with water and let it go all night and until 5 o'clock tonight.

Then we put it through a collander, put the broth in a stock pot, and tossed the remains in the crock into the compost (we have a heavy duty rubbermaid plastic compost bin so the animals can't get into it. I usually don't compost bones but in this case I will). The broth was a rich brownish gold color (turkey makes it light brown).

I washed and peeled one onion and three carrots, saving the peels and skins in a new stock bag. I chopped them up and sauteed them in olive oil for about 15 minutes to make them soft. Meanwhile I boiled half a pound of egg noodles in the broth. After fifteen minutes I added the carrots and onions (I was out of celery or it would have been in there, too,) to the broth and then added 3 cups of the cooked chicken and turkey meat and let it warm through, about 3 minutes.

After that I adjusted the seasonings, adding about 1 tsp of black pepper, 1 tsp of sea salt, 1/4 tsp of ground celery seed, 1/4 tsp of onion powder, 1 tsp of thyme leaves and 1/4 tsp of garlic powder. We also added salt and pepper to taste at the table. Some of us like a bit more pepper than others of us.

I ended up with enough soup to feed the five of us 7 big bowlfuls (DH and DD had seconds) and I have a quart and a half leftover in the fridge. I think I am going to do up the rest of the chicken wings over the next couple of days. The bag was originally 10 pounds and there are about 7 pounds left so I think I will do it in two batches and make up more stock and then just pressure can the stock in pint jars so we have it on hand. I'd really like to do that. I had planned on it before but plans fell through. I would net about 8 pints of broth this way, I think, and that's about a canner level full.

Most of the things I put into the soup were foods that were looking worse for wear, too, especially the carrots and onions, but you couldn't even tell in the finished product. I'd say the expensive of it was in the fresh parsley and the meat itself.

Altogether the cost to me was about $6 for 5 quarts of soup. That's 10 pints, which is equivalent to ten cans of a big-noodled, chunky-style soup in the 16 ounce can. One with all organic ingredients is $2.99 at the cheapest place. So for an equivalent amount of organic soup I would have paid $29.90. That's a cost savings of $23.90. My son will eat a can of soup a day and he is happy to eat this instead.

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I also made two loaves of bread today. We ate over half a loaf with our soup with strawberry jam and apricot jelly. So very good. I will have to make more bread tomorrow. My neice is spending Monday night as we are taking her with us to the science center on Tuesday to see the King Tut exhibit as her birthday present. We will be taking sandwiches down with us so will need plenty of bread, but we will also be making French toast for breakfast that morning for her, DS, and DH. We will also have sausage and bacon and eggs and cucumber slices for those of us who low carb at breakfast. They can have jam if they want it on the French toast.

I am really looking forward to seeing the exhibit. I saw it when it came through when I was a little kid in the 1970's, but I really want to see it again as an adult. This is part of our "vacation" this summer, since we aren't having a real one.

So last night and this morning I got quite a lot accomplished. This:



and this:



The first is apricot jam and I totally used the blender to liquify it (so it's probably more like jelly than jam. It is such a gorgeous color. I made this one without pectin. I really don't like working with pectin and much prefer doing it without if the fruit has enough natural pectin in it and this did. The recipe was supposed to make 4 pints but barely made 3. It is very labor intensive (until I get a food mill) because you have to peel the skins off, half and pit, then quarter each half and even with blanching for 2 minutes not all the skins want to come off. I ended up using a potato peeler. (The chickens, by the way, love apricot skins.) Next time I will make the kids help me.

I spent $5 for 2.5 pounds of organic pence apricots and used $4 worth of sugar, so $9 total for 3 pints. A half-pint jar of organic apricot preserves is $7, so $42 worth of jam for $9 or a savings of $33 over store-bought preserves.

Then I finally made raspberry jam. Much, much easier. I thawed the berries out in the microwave, which made a little juice, so it was easy for the blender to get going. I got 8 8 ounce containers (or 4 pints) of jam. I made them in smaller containers because I am going to give some away as gifts.

The raspberry jam is just the cost of the sugar, since the organic berries are free from the yard, so about $5 to make. 1 8 ounce container of raspberry organic jam runs at $6, so $48 worth of jam for $5 or a savings of $43. Not bad at all.

This is my home canned food stash so far minus the raspberry jam which is still cooling:



The yellow stuff up in the corner is my canned homemade mustard.

I also have 3.5 quarts of refrigerator pickles which are good until December and lots of frozen berries. Doing pretty well on that front. I will be making blueberry jelly and blackberry jam soon and then I'll have a real pallete of colors on the shelf.

My Mom's handyman is interested in our old car. The other people who had expressed an interest in it have been trying to "come up with" the money for months. The handyman, who is a painter by trade, but far more than that by knowledge and experience (knows construction and electrician stuff), is ammenable to painting the entire inside of our old house in exchange for the car. I don't know if anything will actually come of this or not, but I definitely think it is a fair trade and certainly better than waiting on someone to have money they might never have to buy it. There was never any deal made that we would wait on selling the car for the other people, just the interest was expressed and price given.

You hear about good barter situations like this, but I never expected one to fall in my lap. He still wants to check out a couple of things about the car first before committing, but I feel he is far more likely to carry through than these other people.

You know how I said I thought I'd have a week before having to make jam again? Umm... Today I picked these and there's a lot more ripening:



That's about 3.5 pints and that's after just 2 full days of sun. And the next 9 days are supposed to be just as sunny and in the 70's. Which will be great for my tomatoes, but the raspberries will explode. I think by Friday I'll have to pick again and will have enough to make jam by then. We have about 30 feet of raspberry canes so you can imagine how many berries that is going to be.

I froze 1 quart of what I picked since they will go bad fast just in the fridge, gave 1 pint to Mom for fresh eating, and DS is eating the rest. When I have 4 quarts I will make jam and then anything left after that I will just freeze for smoothies. When I make raspberry jam I will make it in half-pints as it doesn't get eaten as fast as the other jams. Plus they are a better size for giving away at Christmas time.

After picking I sat on the old swing for a while. The view over my head:



Those Italian prunes were just on one teeny tiny section of one branch (I zoomed in). That whole big branch easily held about 50 fruits.

And the view before me, Patricia, out for a stroll:



The chickens and ducks are not liking the firecrackers. They will be in the chicken coop and the duck den tonight before it gets really bad. We will be letting some off ourselves, as far from them as we can get on the property, but not until they are safely in for the night.

I hoed the weeds up in the garden and got rid of some of the straw mulch. I will water tonight from the rain barrels when it's a bit cooler and the water won't evaporate so fast. Most of the broccoli has survived. I lost two plants, one just didn't have enough roots, and the other I accidentally hacked through with the hoe when I was uprooting some tansy. The cauliflower the slugs were eating on is coming back. I found a very natural remedy for the slugs...feeding them to the ducks.

After that I harvested some lettuce. I picked about $6 worth of organic lettuce (enough for the week) so that brings my costs down to $37.06 left to break even on what I've spent on gardening this year. I suppose I could add in the cost of the berries which sell for around $5 for a half pint for the organic ones, which would put me on a $0 footing. But since I didn't pay for those plants (they originally came free from my Mom's sister who had too many about twenty years ago) and I wouldn't actually ever buy raspberries from the store except once in a while in the dead of winter if my kids begged hard enough, I don't think that counts.

Still, at the rate I am going I think I will have met my costs by mid-August. Maybe sooner. The green beans are starting to climb the poles now. We might have some actual green beans before then, especially if this weather keeps up all month.

Yesterday I canned 5 more pints of organic strawberry jam. We got an even better deal on the strawberries this time because we bought day old berries for jam making instead of fresh. So I spent $10 for all of the ingredients in 5 pints. Not bad.

Then I canned 9 12 ounce jars of organic grape jelly. Since it is nigh on impossible to find organic grape jelly anywhere, and it is completely impossible to find grape jelly without corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup in it, I am very pleased with myself. I won't make any more grape jelly this year, I don't think. I am the only one who eats it, so those 9 jars should last me about 2 years, since I eat other kinds like strawberry, blackberry, brambleberry, apricot, blueberry, and huckleberry, too. Grape is just my favorite.

In doing the math I figured that I paid $19.90 for the grape jelly ingredients, and since I can't compare it to what isn't actually made, I compared it to the average price of a half pint of organic jelly of any flavor which would be $6. So the same amount would be $84, so a savings of $64.10 over purchasing something similar.

I probably won't make too much raspberry jam. Maybe one batch. I don't like raspberries. I mean, I will eat them if they are mixed in with other berries, but I won't seek them out. Shame, too, since we have so many growing in the back yard. DH likes raspberries, but not raspberry jam, so a few jars for the kids and maybe a couple to give away at Christmas should suffice. I will save some though in the freezer though to make brambleberry jam, as the blackberries override the flavor of the raspberries, and that everyone likes.

So plans for future canning, one batch of raspberry jam, one batch of brambleberry jam, 3 batches of blackberry jam, 5 batches of blueberry jam (and lots and lots of frozen blueberries) and if the grape vines produce this year, I might actually make more grape jelly after all. They have blossoms on them so it is possible they might make enough for jam, but I have a feeling it will be just enough for table grapes. I also plan to make Italian prune jelly as well as canning and possibly drying Italian prunes. Nothing tastes like them and the tree is loaded for bear.

Somewhere during blueberry and prune season I should have a boatload of tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, and green beans to can. I want to put up enough green beans for the year since my favorite brand has started using BPA in their can liners. Plus they have just gotten really expensive. $1 a jar, sometimes .75 on sale. If I grow enough to can what I want, it would be 104 quarts or 208 pints, since we eat them at least twice a week. I also am hoping that my tomato plants will produce enough to make sauce for the entire year. There I will need about 75 quarts of sauce or 150 pints and then also about 30 pints of diced tomatoes. I don't know if the weather is going to be good enough for me to grow that much this year. In the past Mom has grown tomatoes like that, but it was a hot sunny summer and that is not what we have been getting this year. I may have to purchase some from one of the sustainable, organic farms in our county that grows them, but it would still be worth it to do.

Then there will be a batch or two of applesauce in half-pint jars for DH who is the only one who eats it. DD and I don't like the texture and DS is allergic to apples. The apple tree at the old house is loaded. I haven't been into the back yard at the old house to check, but if we have pears I will put up pears as well and maybe some pear sauce, DS likes that, and definitely a couple of pear pies. And I'd like to can some nectarines, but only if I can find a not too expensive organic source. They spray stone fruit like crazy, so organic is a must. I need about 20 pounds to make it worth my effort.

I am really, really glad my mother has a ton of empty jars in her basement. I've already cleaned out Goodwill of canning jars and a couple of garage sales. There are three more thrift shops I want to check, too. Otherwise it's $10 for a set of 12 jars with lids and rings. I don't need anymore rings and lids you can easily buy on their own, so if I can find quality jars for .20 each, that's what I'm going to do. Canning shouldn't be expensive (except the lids, and even those are fairly reasonable). I need to keep an eye out for estate sales, too. You can often get boxes of jars there. I'm not picky, Ball, Kerr, Mason, I'll take them all.

Looking Forward--Since posting URLs is what apparently is making my blogs and comments not post, there is a website called Simply Canning that is really helpful for learning how to can. She gives a lot of good information and makes it less intimidating.

I came back from my appointment this afternoon and my mother had put chicken wire up on my garden fencing. I didn't even have to go buy any, because she had some left over. Some days my mother is awesome. LOL And the chickens didn't jump it, or if they did, they didn't dig anything up. I think Queen is still a bit disgruntled though. She thinks she can go anywhere and do anything (hence the name) and is a bit put out that she's not allowed in that particular playground anymore. Though I do think the cantaloupe made up for it somewhat.

I harvested a bunch of lettuce leaves this afternoon. I think I lost one lettuce plant. It's hard to tell, but I think there might be some tiny leaves coming up from the center so it might still come back for me. It got partially uprooted somehow. My guess is that it happened during Saturday's major rainstorm and I just did not notice. I think I have enough lettuce for the next four days, which should be about when it needs to be picked again. I love leaf lettuce. In the right climate it can go all summer.

I'd say I've now harvested at least $10 worth of lettuce. I've spent $59.08 on gardening this year, so I've now just to harvest another $49.08 worth of produce to break even. I may buy a packet of lettuce seeds though if it gets hot and this stuff bolts. So far I seem to be getting 3 sunny days to 4 rainy cool days in a week this growing season though, and we have it where it only gets morning sun and afternoon shade, so it's possible it won't bolt. You just never know with cool season crops around here.

I cut DS's hair tonight. I think that clippers has paid for itself 100 times over. We've had it for many years now. I always cut DS's hair or DH's hair (unless he does it himself because he gets too impatient for me to find the time. During the school year I usually give DS a 3/4 inch haircut with whitewalls around the ears, but since we are going into summer this haircut is a 1/2 inch one. That is what I generally give DH all the time. He likes his a bit shorter. DS generally likes his a little longer, but he gets too hot in the summer for that. It looks very handsome on him either way. His sister can't stop rubbing his head though. It's all soft and fuzzy now. We put his hair in the compost bin. He laughed about that.

On occasion I will trim DD's bangs or her ends, but she is more finicky about her hair now that she is in high school and mostly only lets me do that in the summer. I used to cut it all the time when she was little. Sometimes I'd be snipping a stray bit here and there for days afterwards to even it out, but generally I did a pretty good job of it towards the end. The trick (besides having good haircutting scissors) is to put the hair up and only cut one layer at a time. Otherwise it is just going to be a jagged mess. When I have bangs I cut those to, but most of the time my hair is grown out and I don't bother with it. I just put it in a ponytail. I get it cut maybe once a year, sometimes twice.

I forgot to mention in the earlier post today about Food Rescue that I also brought some honey back to liquid form. I simply put the glass honey jar in a container of very hot water and the partially crystalized stuff on top returned to liquid form. I will have to do it again the next time I need honey I am sure, but it doesn't take very long, maybe 20 minutes and since I rarely use more than 2 tbsp at a time it works fine.

I really need to do a payday entry. I did all my bills on Friday and updated my spreadsheet and even balanced my checkbook, but I haven't gotten around to pulling together a post about it. Maybe because I'm just so tired and it's fun writing about the other things that I do, but sometimes the financial housekeeping just makes me yawn.

I spent the morning at the doctor's office having my eye checked out. I have an infection of an eyelid gland, which explains why it is triple the size of the other one. I had to go to two different pharmacies to get both the antibiotic pills and the steroid/antibiotic eye drops. Well, I did if I wanted to start treatment today and it was hurting enough I didn't want to delay another day when I waited all weekend as it was. The drops are already helping. The swelling has gone down a little bit and the pain has gone down a lot. I spent a total of $20.39 on prescriptions.

This evening I got my plants out of their pots and into the ground. It seems like an awful lot of work for only having planted 7 things, but I still feel a good deal of satisfaction.

Here is a shot of the garden after it was weeded:



The entire area was covered in weeds and potato volunteers on Saturday.

Here are the three tomato plants and basil, oregano, and thyme:



The tall plants are the double pink poppies. One is about to open and bloom, maybe tomorrow or the next day.

The green thing, which you can see better in the first photo, is my compost bin. The white thing down by the chimney is a rain barrel that collects water off the roof via the drainpipe.

This is the zucchini, planted clear down by the rain barrel. It will sprawl into something huge in a few weeks' time so we gave it a lot of space off by itself.



Here are my window boxes full of green romaine and red sails leaf lettuces. These ones you can pick the outermost leaves of and they will continue to grow. I've been picking them about every other day.



And last, but not least, this perfect bit of loveliness is growing in the front yard next to the deck.



I hope to make it over to Joe's Garden tomorrow to buy some more starts. If I don't go tomorrow I probably won't make it until Friday. So far I have spent $15.23 on the garden. That includes some seed packets I have not planted yet. As long as we have a decent summer, that should pay me back within the first week of the tomato harvest. Even with more output for starts, I will still drastically cut my produce bill this summer.

Today I sat down with the last four books of checks and entered everything into my spreadsheets. I have been remarkably lax at doing this lately. Though I balance in the checkbooks themselves, I like to have a copy on the computer, too. I finished updating the information on the April Budget Spreadsheet and entered in everything on the May Budget Spreadsheet, then I set up the June Budget Spreadsheet. I still need to transfer everything medical off the budget spreadsheets to the HSA spreadsheet, but that should be relatively simple since it's now detailed on each month's spreadsheet. I really need to stay on top of that better.

I sent some money to ING, including things that are either paid for bimonthly or half yearly:

$100.00 to the Emergency Fund
_100.00 to the Vacation Fund
__72.00 to the Holding tank for Water/Sewer
_100.00 to the Holding tank for Property Tax
+_17.00 to the Holding Tank for HoA Dues
-----------
$389.00 total to ING

This is all out of last Friday's paycheck. Then I wrote down all of the bills that are due between now and the 15th, which will be our next payday after the one tomorrow. The one tomorrow is the small two day paycheck. How small it is depends on whether or not they take out June's medical. Usually they take that month's medical out of the first check earned that much, but for some reason, every once in a while they take it out of the first one paid of the month. So it could be anywhere from $800 to $1325.

I have $1200 left from last payday and the bills due between now and the 15th total $1006. I'll keep back about $300 for groceries and miscellaneous expenses. Whatever else it left over goes to the BoA VISA. It will at least be $500, but I am hoping this is the amount without medical, because then I could send a lot more to the VISA.

I know I said I would never do business with Chase again, but they keep sending DH these really good offers. This last one is a no-fee balance transfer and a 0% interest rate until August of 2013. It sure would be nice to get the interest off the BoA card and just be using it for the autopays and DH's travel expenses that we pay off every month. We would only use the Chase card for the balance transfer and then pay it off fast with no interest incurred.

When I thought we'd have it paid off by the end of this month and we would have had to pay a transfer fee, it wasn't going to be that big a deal, but now that we will likely have the balance until the end of the summer, it's worth it for three months without interest. And then we can cancel the card when it's paid off. I guess I'm okay with using Chase so long as they are not using me. And I can deal with their crappy customer service (or hopefully never have to) if it means no interest.

We had a cleaning service out to the house today. They will need a couple more days out there, but that will have to wait until the next time DH is home. I don't want to be making that drive twice in one day to unlock the house and turn off the alarm and then go back and reset it in the evening. But we will get it scheduled for the Thursday after DH gets back. Then we will need to get the carpet shampooed.

After that I'm not sure. We might be ready to sell it As is/Where is, as in "you take it as it comes and you fix anything that is wrong with it because we are done." Doesn't matter what they find on the inspection, doesn't matter if it needs to be painted or a new gutter put on or whatever. As is/where is, and it will be priced accordingly. I just want it gone, enough to pay off the mortgage, which will be just under $17K when I make the payment tomorrow, and have some money to go to a good downpayment.

We bought it for $65,000 in 1998 and it's assessed at around $110,000 and I'd honestly be happy at this point to get what we paid for it. Sure I'd like more, but you get what you get in this market. Once it's sold, it will free up each month:

$375.86 mortgage
__72.00 water/sewer
__41.25 house insurance
__20.00 power
_100.00 propane
+_44.89 phone for the security system
-----------
$654.00

and then when we move out of Mom's and into our own place we will have:

$154.00 from storage
$300.00 for the utilities we pay for here
--------
$454.00

$654.00
+454.00
---------
$1108.00

So $1108 freed up just by getting rid of that house and moving out of this one. I think that's worth a loss if we have to take one. And once the credit card is paid off there will be another $2000 a month free and clear. So $3108 will be available for house payments and running a household. And since we are looking at 1500 to 1600 square foot houses in the $219,000 to $250,000 range our house payment should only be around $1200 a month. More than enough to run a house and put some money in the EF. I really can't wait for that day to come. I am sick of throwing money away.

Oh, and our debt to income ratio is now under 45% so we will qualify for the really good mortgage loans when the time comes. Actually once that mortgage is gone and the credit card is gone we will be around 25% and that will put us in great standing.

So last night I made bread again. I swear there is nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the house. I had a minor disaster with one of the loaves. I had turned the oven on to preheat and apparently one of the loaves was too close to the vent that steam comes out of near the back of the stove. When I picked it up to put it in the oven I dropped that end, so of course the dough fell on that end pretty badly.

At first my thought was to just throw it out. One loaf was worth 25 cents worth of ingredients, but then I thought 25 cents is 25 cents, so instead I decided to just bake it anyway. If nothing else it could be made into croutons or breadcrumbs, and at the very worst fed to the ducks. They love it when you scatter bread on their little pond.

I'm glad I baked it though. What I ended up with was one light and fluffy, beautiful perfect loaf of bread and one denser, heavier, heartier type of bread. So the perfect loaf I cut up this morning (it's so much easier to cut thin slices with cold bread than with hot or even slightly warm bread) and we will use that one for sandwiches and toast, and the denser loaf, I cut into thicker pieces and that can be dinner bread. It's perfect for dipping in chili or putting garlic butter on or just smearing with jelly.

How often do you catch yourself thinking it's only 25 cents or it's only a dollar? When you do, what do you do about it? Do you throw the item out or do you tell yourself waste is waste and try to salvage it? I'm not talking about something moldy or icky, but just something usable if not in the way you previously intended.

I spent a lot of time trying to train myself out of the "it's only" mindset. If I had let that run rampant, I wouldn't have an emergency fund today. After all I mostly built it with ones and coins in the beginning and "only" $10 a month deposit. Now my montly deposit is $100, but at the start it wasn't. I had a lot of people who told me saving the little bits would never add up to something, but I've proven over and over again in my life that it does.

So yeah, maybe that 25 cent loaf of dough going into the garbage can instead of the oven wouldn't have been the end of the world, but I would have been wasting not only the cost of the ingredients used, but the time and effort to make the bread and also a place in the garbage can and eventually the landfill. Since I'm trying to lessen all of my household waste, not just food, that would have made me unhappy.

Speaking of lessening household waste, DH brought one of the compost bins in from the old house. We are going to try to get it reassembled today and then I can start on composting here. There are so many food scraps that the chickens won't eat and that the garbage disposal does not want to tackle, like onion skins, corn husks, cauliflower cores, cabbage cores, broccoli stems, pineapple skins, and long potato peelings. We probably throw out at least one kitchen-sized garbage sack full of that every two weeks (not that I save it, I'm estimating based on a little every day).

It'll be nice to turn those into compost. And with the straw that we clean out of the chicken coop and duck den (full of manure) each morning and the grass clippings from the untreated lawn, there will be plenty of brown and green waste to mix in with the scraps to have a healthy pile going in no time. And next spring we'll have a very big bin of compost for the garden. Now if I can just get DH to empty the other bin out at the old house and bring it in for my tomato garden, I'd be really happy.

I went back to Goodwill today to buy canning jars. They were 20 cents a piece and I ended up with twelve really good quart size jars and three really pretty pint size jars. Last time I went I got 12, a mix of both. And I have a dozen new ones that I got a while back in an unopened box at a garage sale. I have both Ball and Kerr jars. I don't think it makes much difference as long as it is one of those two brands. So I think I am set for a while. New, this many jars would have cost me a fortune. I was lucky I got there when I did. After I picked out the jars I wanted a lady came through behind me and cleaned out the rest.

I also popped over to Kmart to buy lids and rings. Some, but not many, of the Goodwill bottles had rings (2 were rusty and had to be thrown out), but of course you don't know if the lids were used or not and since I mostly want to can with these, I need good lids.

I filled up the entire dish washer with all of my jars and rings and gave them a heavy duty wash. Tomorrow I hope to make grape jelly using this recipe I found at Owl Haven:

http://www.owlhaven.net/2009/08/25/video-how-to-make-grape-j.... I can never find grape jelly without junk in it in the store. I can find literally every other kind of jelly known to man that is just fruit spread, or is just fruit, sugar, and pectin, but for grapes it's just impossible. With this recipe I can use pure organic grape juice and end up with exactly what I want in my jelly.

I am also going to attempt to make homemade yogurt following this method I found at The Frugal Girl: http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2009/10/how-to-make-homemade-yo.... I don't know if I will do that tomorrow or not, but I'd like to do it this week. I was actually looking into yogurt makers, but you still have to do all of the work involved with the process before putting it in there and then it just keeps it at the right temp. But this method uses stuff I already have, a cooler and hot water at 120 degrees. So why pay $25 to $50 for a machine that basically keeps the water warm and then beeps at you when it's done? And makes tiny little six ounce jars. I mean, one of the points of making your own yogurt is to have some fairly good sized jars of it to spoon out of and not to have a ton of little bottles to constantly wash out.

When I make it I am going to just do a half batch. I want to make sure my family will eat it, so using a half gallon instead of a whole gallon of milk makes more sense at the moment. If they don't particularly care for it I can use it up in fruit smoothies or try freezing it. It should be an interesting experience.

Mom gave me a space to use that gets a lot of heavy sun so I am going to pick up some more tomato plants. I really want to can tomatoes and tomato puree (for making sauce) this summer. Canned organic tomatoes are one of our biggest expenses and I want to see if I can cut that down by canning. Also with glass jars I can be assured of no BPA in the can liners.

I might even try my hand at canning some beef. There used to be a little old lady at the church I went to as a kid who canned beef and it was the tastiest stuff. I'd love to do that because sometimes it would be nice to just open a jar and heat and serve pot roast that way. On days when I am just far too tired to cook or something.

I am also thinking about canning green beans. I've not really liked green beans in canning jars in the past, but I think this might be because the beans were too mature, so if I pick them young it might make a difference. Also I may just attempt to freeze young green beans as they are great for stir-fry.

This June I will be going out to get a bunch of organic strawbrerries for freezing and jelly and then of course I will pick our own raspberries in July for jam, and our own blueberries in August for making blueberry jelly and frozen blueberries (we are still eating some from last summer!), and if we get enough blackberries, maybe I'll do jam for those, too. The brambles were pretty small last year, but they are over a bigger area this year, so I might have enough. Mom is also hoping her grapevines are old enough now to produce grapes. I'd love to have some frozen ones on hand, though I'd prefer not to make jelly from grapes, though we could juice them and make the jelly from the juice.

I am also considering making pickles. I've been wanting to grow cucumbers anyhow. At the very least I can make the ones you don't pressure can, but just keep in the fridge up to a month. I won't even get into how much junk is in commercial pickles. Yellow #5 is enough to turn me right away from them. If I want yellow pickles I can use tumeric, but I don't see the point in my pickles not being greenish white like the actual food it comes from.

I might not have enough jars for all I want to do! But then my mother has several jars herself and she seldom does much more than make freezer jam anymore. And she has the canner so I don't have to buy one, though they had those at Goodwill, too.

So I sat down and figured out the food for the week, based on what I already have in the house. Except the corn. I will need to buy more corn, but they have been having sales left and right. I also need to buy some bananas, but I think that is it, so my grocery spending should be minimal. I may need to buy milk mid-week, also, but otherwise I think I'm good. So maybe I will spend $25. Which is good as I am intending to spend $300 on sustainable beef, chicken, and pork on Saturday.

Oh, my lettuces are big enough for me to start harvesting leaves, so I think I am done with buying lettuce for the next month or so until the plants bolt. And my heirloom brandywine tomato plant shot up during the three day heatwave. It almost doubled in size. It's started setting blossoms. I need to plant a few more things now. Cucumbers, green onions, and green beans. Just need to do it.

I have pizza dough rising for dinner tonight, have shredded up a 2 pound block of mozzarella cheese, and have prepared garlic butter. I am feeling particularly domestic diva-ish this week with all of this baking and whatnot. Later tonight I am going to make up some homemade turkey corn dog. DS likes to eat a corndog after school to tide him over until dinner. Actually, I might make corn puppies instead, as I don't think we have any sticks. Anyway, here is the food plan for the week.

Monday:
Pizza with ham, pepperoni, yellow onions, red peppers, mozzarella cheese, a sprinkling of cheddar. I will also make my homemade pizza sauce, which basically consists of half a can of organic tomato sauce sprinkled with basil, oregano, marjoram, and thyme.
Homemade bread, toasted, with homemade garlic butter
Leftover organic broccoli/cauliflower
Organic strawberries

Tuesday:
Tropical Chicken Stir-Fry (carrots, snow peas, bean sprouts, celery)
Rice

Wednesday:
Spaghetti with homemade sauce (I have some in the freezer)
Three cheese garlic meatballs
Homemade bread, toasted, with homemade garlic butter
Organic salad

Thursday:
Organic, pasture raised roasted duck
Roasted potatoes and carrots
Green beans
Organic bananas

Friday:
Organic, pasture-raised beef Ribeye steaks
Homemade buns
Organic Broccoli/Cauliflower
Cantaloupe

Saturday:
Fried Chicken
Fried potaotes
Leftover organic broccoli/cauliflower
Pineapple

Sunday:
Organic, pasture-raised beef chuck roast
Organic mashed potatoes with beef gravy
Green beans
Whatever fruit needs to be eaten up

As many of you here at SA know, gardening can be expensive. And as many of you here know, it doesn't have to be. I have been wanting to get a spider plant for the bathroom for a while now. They are good at preventing mold and mildew from developing and now that the bathroom remodel is over I'm all for anything that will prevent that from being a problem.

I've priced them and the nice, lovely, huge ones at the garden stores are very expensive. And they don't seem to carry little ones. But my chiropractor has a beautiful large plant sitting on his front counter and I am forever eyeing it. Today he saw me looking at it and offered to let me take a start off of it. It's a prolific beast and he gives the babies away on occasion to prevent it overrunning its pot.

So I dug one out of the middle (you can't even see where I took it from) and wrapped it in a paper towel and brought it home. My mother gave me a pot to use that my cousin had given her full of some coleus that she brought home from a recent trip across the mountains and she'd just transplanted that. I cleaned out the pot and she gave me some potting soil she had and I planted it. It's been grown completely free of chemicals since he purchased it years ago and the potting soil I planted the baby in is organic.

This is what my little baby spider plant looks like now:



But with proper care it will one day look like this:



And for no out of pocket cost to me. I have exactly what I wanted for free and in time it'll be a thriving, gorgeous plant. I love how gardeners, or even indoor ones, are so generous with their plants.

I looked into the local food co-op today (or at least looked at their extensive website) and think I might join. There is less and less I want to get at Costco anymore now that we are moving more towards sustainable food and living, etc., and I think it might be the way to go. It's fairly large and it has a one time fee of $90 and then a $5 a year annual fee. Umm...yeah, better than Costco and it's 90% organic.

Plus, I was looking around on their website and they had a picture from their mercantile department and they had wooden spatulas and wooden flippers or turners or whatever you call them. The things you flip pancakes over with. I'm wanting to get away from plastics and their leaching effects as much as possible as I'm starting to suspect that may be where a majority of my health problems may be coming from. I have five different wooden spoons that came with my wok, but they don't help with everything. I also want to find wooden tongs.

They also have additive free roast beef and turkey in their deli. The one sandwich shop in town where we can buy that you have to buy a pound of each at a time and since it's $9.99 a pound, you then have to divide it up and freeze it because you don't want it to go to waste at that price (or at any price, but especially that price). If I can just purchase enough for that week's sandwiches it would be so much easier. Even if I will still have to freeze part of it because it only lasts about three days, that will still mean much less work on my part and fewer containers tied up in the freezer.

I do want to make a visit in person though, because if the prices are outrageous it may not be worth it. Still, I remember going there sometimes with my friend and her mom when I was little and I know that her mom always thought the prices there were reasonable and I know they didn't make as much in their family as my parents did and they were pinching pennies, so if it's still reasonable like that it could be a viable alternative and a less expensive source of organic foods. You don't have to join to shop there, but you can get case discounts and special prices on certain things if you do.

Yeah, I know, me. I like Costco for a lot of reasons, but lately I don't even want to go there. The parking lot is always crammed, not just with Washingtonians, but also with Canadians coming across the border to get deals on food. And gas. For a long time Costco has been the cheapest gas station around, but the wait over the last year has gotten to be so ridiculous you can spend a half an hour in line waiting for gas and that's not even during peak time. In fact it takes less time to drive to the Costco in the next county and get gas then it does to go to the one in my hometown. Of course there's the return trip so it's not worth it, but that shouldn't be the case. It shouldn't be this bad. We aren't California.

I think it would help if they had county or state resident only hours of operation. It would be nice if there were an hour in the morning or an hour in the evening where if you were from out of state or country, you weren't allowed to buy then. Even if it was only one day a week.

Not even the handicapped parking spaces are vacant there. In the past year and a half that I've had my permit, I've parked in a handicapped slot there exactly twice. And after navigating the innards of this Costco and then waiting in the checkout line for 20 minutes or longer, my body is so messed up I need to have parked close.

We're not buying our meat there anymore since switching to grassfed beef and chicken, I can buy toilet paper and cashews somewhere else, but there are certain items I can't get anywhere else locally. 50 pound bags of flour, the organic tomato sauce, tomatoes, paste, and sauce. They have changed so many brands to their store brand, which is sometimes good but sometimes really, really not. They have stopped carrying the peanut butter my son can eat.

I don't know. We more than made back our money on our membership this year, and the thing renewed in January so I'm not in a rush to make up my mind, but the lengths at which I go to avoid going there (I usually send DH with a list) make me think maybe it's time to let it go. I think if before it expires I go and buy a year's worth of butter and freeze it and tomato products and store them, I could be perfectly happy without the membership at this point. With our new bed we could completely fill the underneath with tomato products and not have them sitting out in the way. Maybe that is the way to go.

I'll really have to watch my pattern of use for the rest of the year and if I'm avoiding it more than I'm going then there's not much point in keeping it any longer.

It seems like all I'm seeing these days in the mail is offers for spending so much and getting so much cash back. What I don't seem to be seeing is the offer I really want, 0% interest for a year or six months. After tomorrow, we'll be down to between $6000 and $7000 in credit card debt at 11.4% interest. It's our BoA airmiles card so it also has a yearly fee of $75. Not too bad, considering how much DH flies, and he can get 3 to 4 free round trip coach tickets per year and several first class upgrades. But it will be the card with the balance on it.

What I really want is to just use that card for airfare, hotel, and other travel related expenses for his job, which will then be paid off in full each month so interest won't matter, and a new card with no interest that we can transfer the balance onto and pay off over the next six months. So are there any good card offers out there for the 0%? I really don't want Chase, as we have a history with them being (as my children say) jack donkeys, but any other bank (except BoA as they won't let you balance transfer between cards) would be fine.

Our last FICO score check had us at 780 and I imagine since we paid off $15,000 since we last checked it has gone up since then, so we would probably qualify for whatever is out there.

I'd appreciate anyone steering us in the right direction.

So I was pretty much off the internet yesterday (see previous entry) and didn't get to put in my pantry quest info. We had frozen hamburger and buns and cheese on hand, so last night we made cheeseburgers for dinner. I add about 4 tbsp of tomato sauce to my burger meat. It keeps the meat a bit moister while cooking. We had 1.09 pounds of meat and made five burgers with it (Mom ate with us). Each patty is sprinkled with onion salt and Lawry's seasoning. Delicious.

I also made up some simple cole slaw. Cabbage keeps for a long time until you cut into it and I have several in the fridge, so when I need a quick go to veg for dinner I make cole slaw.

DS added some dried mango slices, but no one else was really in the mood for fruit or had filled up too much on the cole slaw.

My favorite store has started one of its stupid game promotions. Now is a good time to be spending less time in the grocery store, that's for sure.

I will be paying my medical bill in full today as well as sending a payment ot AMEX and the mortgage and maybe one or two smaller bills as well. I wish I'd done this before my laptop screen busted. Now I will have to transport the Excel file into Open Office and set up the March Budget template in it and then transer it all back when I get my laptop back. If I hadn't procrastinated and done it earlier in the week that wouldn't be an issue now.

I forgot to blog about this yesterday as DH came home and we were running around a lot. DS had a doctor's appointment in the middle of the school day and another appointment after school so it was just hectic.

But we had chicken from the freezer, green beans from the pantry, and some fresh corn from Florida that was on a really good sale when I bought produce.

There is leftover chicken so I think lunch is going to be quesadillas today (or after school snack for the kids). I have tortillas in the fridge and plenty of cheese and it's such a fast, go to option.

Dinner tonight I'll have to think about a bit, but I am definitely saving money by doing this. I did finally remember to buy peanut butter and brown sugar when I got milk yesterday so now we should be good for a while.

I had the leftover crockpot soup for lunch today while my daughter had her standard take to school lunch (whatever leftovers look good to her plus a wrap) and my son had hot lunch. He has it three to four times a month on nuggets, green beans, and mashed potatoes day, so every six or so weeks we deposit $15 into his account. I don't consider this outside the pantry challenge as the money was already in his account. Oh, and pancakes and eggs were for breakfast.

Today I made a simple pot of cappellini pasta for dinner. I almost opened a new package, but my sharp-eyed daughter noticed we had an open package with half a pound left. We used two cans of tomato sauce from the pantry and a pound of hamburger from the freezer. Not very fancy, but the kids like it more plain. We have leftovers and the kids eat pasta leftovers more readily than any other kind. I also made my simple cole slaw and opened a can of pineapple. At one point I must have bought two cases of pineapple from Costco so we have quite a bit to get through.

Tomorrow I really do need to remember to go to the store and get brown sugar and peanut butter. I will remember to get the milk, but I am sure I will forget the brown sugar and peanut butter, two things we actually need pretty desperately.

Tomorrow's breakfast is going to likely be cold cereal. I have three boxes of Joe's O's, but really only the space to keep two, so one of them needs to get eaten up. We'll have eggs with it.

I am really proud of the chickens. They are still laying well despite the cold and dark weather. Mom is talking about getting some new chicks soon and buying a brooder. She would keep that in the garage until they were big enough and the weather was warm enough to introduce them to the rest of the flock. It would be nice to extra eggs again. When DH is away, we do okay on eggs but when he is home we tend to run out and have to actually buy them sometimes.

The kids are trying to convince her to get ducks again, but they are really such a big pain and they don't behave as well as chickens. I think she should get a turkey. There are a couple of people in town who have small turkeys and they do really well in a chicken flock apparently. I want her to get more bantams, since of the four types we have the bantam's eggs are the tastiest, but she wants to get some chickens that are different colors than the ones she has. She wants a pretty flock. Oh, well, they are hers, so I guess she gets to decide, but I would go for the yummier eggs, if it were my choice.

She gave me the seed catalogue today and wants to know what I want out of it. It's Johnny's and boy do they have such a huge selection it's going to be tough. I know I want lettuces, radish, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, basil, oregano, majoram, thyme, rosemary, parsley, green onions, green beans, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, snow peas, mini-cabbages, corn, carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes, but really, the specific types may be harder to narrow down. Faster growers, certainly, but other than that, I don't know. I should see if there is a variety of sweet potato that will grow here. It probably doesn't get warm enough for long enough, but it's possible.

So last night I threw all the ingredients in to make the soup Frugal Foodie posted last night, only I used quinoa instead of barley, and instead of two cans of diced tomoatoes with garlic, I used one can without garlic, 2 cloves of minced garlic, and a small jar of salsa, because that is what I had. I also used multi-colored baby bell peppers instead of one green bell pepper because I had a bag of them, so about a cup and a half of that diced.

I had about a pound of leftover pot roast so I didn't add any stew meat to start with and I threw the cut up pot roast leftovers in during the last hour of cooking. I also added a tbsp of dried basil and oregano each,1/2 tbsp of dried marjoram, and 1 tsp of fresh ground black pepper to adjust it to my tastes. It leaned more heavily towards Italian flavors after that. It was salty enough from the broth, tomato sauce and tomatoes to not need to add more.

It turned out really well. I put it in containers to cool for an hour and then put it in the fridge. I will freeze half of it, and the other half put back in the crockpot to warm up right before I pick up the younger one from school and run a couple of errands and it should be heated through by dinner time. I'll start a batch of bread going in the bread machine later and have its baking finish up about a half hour before dinner time so we can have fresh bread with the soup. If the kids decided they don't like it they can always have canned soup and I'll just freeze the excess for me.

I am really enjoying the challenge of eating as much as possible from what is already on hand in the house. I think it will make not only a difference in the pocketbook, but in the waistline. We've been eating out a bit lately and it's starting to show.

So my bid to eat mostly from the pantry or freezer, supplementing with fresh greens/veg and fruit for the next month or so is going well so far.

Yesterday I used one of my Rustic Crusts to make a pizza. Not quite as good as a homemade crust, but about ten times better than anything else out there and certainly better than that other really well known pre-made crust in a plastic wrapper. It was a parmesan herb crust which I like even better than the plain one.

I made my own sauce by adding basil, oregano, thyme, and marjoram to a cup of tomato sauce. I have plenty of cheese on hand so used 2 cups of shredded mozzarella and a sprinkling of extra sharp cheeddar. We had some Canadian Bacon in the freezer so I thawed that out the night before. I ate the leftover slice for lunch today and the kids ate leftover baked potato soup.

For dinner tonight I thawed out a pot roast and threw it in the crockpot. It'll be done at 6:00. When it is around 4:30 I will throw a couple of potatos and a sweet potato into the oven to bake. Then about ten minutes before the roast is done I will make the broccoli. I'll slice up a couple of oranges for the table and that should round it out nicely. There will be leftover potroast for lunch tomorrow.

I am hoping to only have to use half of my grocery budget this month by relying mostly on what's on hand. If I didn't want fresh veg and fruit and milk I could do better than that. We just really don't care much for frozen veg (other than frozen corn on the cob or frozen potatos) and the only canned veg we like is green beans. I do have some canned pineapple and pears that will get used up during this month, though.

I do need to go buy some brown sugar and peanut butter though. I forgot to get them both and they are pretty necessary to our monthly cooking/eating habits. I will buy some tomorrow when I pick up milk for the week and hopefully I will be able to keep it to that until next week.

I am just glad we don't have to buy eggs. The chickens keep us well supplied and homemade pancakes and eggs or toast and eggs or muffins and eggs never seems to get boring. I do need to sit down and figure out meals for the rest of the week. DH comes home on Wednesday so amounts will have to go up. I'll probably do one spaghetti with my special homemade sauce and my special meatballs and then I can do meatball sandwiches on the next day with the leftovers. I'll have to make homemade buns, though.

I'm going to make blueberry cornbread muffins this afternoon. The house will smell so wonderful and make staying in on this cold, snowy day so much nicer.

Why is it just when you finally get one kid well enough to be back in school for a day or two, the next kid in line thinks it's time for them to be sick, too? All I really want is one day to myself right now. One day. Really. Is that so much to ask. One day where maybe I can sleep and get well and not be running around with a low grade case of the yucks? Or even, you know, one night of uninterupted sleep?

I am very glad payday is here. Not for any specific reason other than that it means another step forward on my march towards financial freedom. I have the propane bill to pay, but most of the money for that has been set aside already. The water bill for the old house is due I wish they would switch to metered already, they said they would five years ago when they installed the fancy new meters we had to pay extra for and we are still on a straight rate out there. Since no one is out there more than once a month or so the water almost never gets used. I'll turn it off as soon as we're done cleaning out there.

All of the autopays will come out the first few days of the month, the insurances, storage, and security system. I'll pay the AMEX and the mortgage. And I'll see what I can squeeze out for medical.

I need to do a minor grocery run for things like milk, brown sugar, yeast, potatoes and some fruit (still have most of a case of oranges from the last trip to Costco). Also a quick run to Trader Joe's for dried mango slices, additive free bacon, and additive free all beef hot dogs. I am well stocked on fresh veggies (red and green cabbage, lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, peppers, broccoli, onions, scallions, celery). My freezer is doing great on protein. I am well stocked on chicken. I am well stocked on hamburger. I have one beef pot roast and some stew meat (for either stir-fries or chili). I have a couple of game hens.

I would like to get some codfish since they are having a major seafood sale for whatever that thing is that the Catholics do right now where they give stuff up (a lot of times beef, apparently) for a month. I was hoping for a good beef sale, but that's not in the cards right now. Maybe there will be a marked down for quick sale steak or two, but otherwise my grocery dollars are going to be as stingy as I can make them the next four weeks.

I think I will make baked potato soup today. I have all the ingredients and it is such a feel good food for such a nasty, rainy day with under the weather children. Either that or my all meat chili. Another feel good food for a day like today. If I make the potato soup today I will at least char the peppers as well for the chili.

I started my quest to eat mostly from the freezer/pantry right now last night. I made two Cornish game hens. We cut them in half and everyone ate half of one. We also had canned corn and canned green beans to round it out and an orange.

Last night I assembled some homemade stir-fry kits. These are similar to what you can buy in the store, generally in the Asian section of the freezer aisle, but of course I get to choose the ingredients and make sure that everything is just to my liking.

Because I happened to have 5.5 pound bag of stir-fry veggies on hand I used that, but any fresh veggies cut into strips or any pre-frozen veggies will do. First I will show you how I made my kits and then I will add some recipes for making them from scratch.

First I started with 3.5 pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs (after shrinkage this will make 3 packets). You can choose white meat if you prefer it. We like dark.



Grill chicken pieces or cook in a pan. I used a George Foreman grill. I seasoned with salt and pepper only, however much you'd normally put on. Then I cut the chicken into bite sized pieces.



Once the chicken has cooled, place approximately 1 pound in a baggy. You can use a freezer baggy, but I used sandwich ones because they will be placed in a larger freezer baggy at the end of assembly.



Put two cups of your vegetables into a baggy.



Put one baggy of chicken and one baggy of veggies into a gallon size freezer bag.



For your sauce you have a couple of choices. For a dark sauce combine 1 cup of soy sauce (I use a gluten free, low sodium, no preservatives type), 1/4 cup of honey (or 1/4 cup brown sugar), 1 inch of fresh ginger peeled and grated (or 1/4 cup ground ginger), and 2 large cloves of garlic peeled and minced (or 1/4 tsp garlic powder or 1/2 tsp dried garlic). I usually use fresh on the garlic and ginger, but I was out of fresh ginger. I had some leftover sesame seeds from the last time we got takeout so I dumped a tablespoon of those in, too. For a light sauce use chicken broth instead of soy sauce.



Combine ingredients for sauce in a bowl and whisk together. Whisk the sauce for each packet by itself. If you combine it all together you may not have an even distribution of ingredients as the honey can make things sluggish. You can either dump this into a baggy or pour into a 1.5 cup plastic container. Freeze the sauce upright before placing in the gallon size Ziploc with chicken and veggies. Your kit is complete. I don't have a photo of this final step as my camera batteries died.

When you are ready to make this, first take out the sauce and put it in a hot water bath to thaw. It probably won't be completely frozen if you use honey. Heat oil in a wok or deep saute pan on medium high heat. I use peanut oil or olive oil depending on what I have. When oil is hot add the frozen chicken packet and stir for 3 to 5 minutes until chicken is thawed and hot. Add frozen veggie packet and stir for about 3 to 5 minutes until veggies are thawed and hot. Your sauce should now be thawed. Dump into pan and stir for one minute. (If you want a thicker sauce you can add a tbsp of corn starch now, but I don't bother). Turn heat down to low and cover, simmering for 2 minutes. It's done.

For my family one of these stir-fry kits would be enough to feed me, my 15 year old daughter, and my 11 year old son. If DH is home I would make 2 packets and there might be a little left over for his lunch the next day.


Other recipes to prepare the same way:

Pork Stir Fry

1 pound cheap pork loin or boneless chops, grilled (s&p) and cut into bite sized pieces
4 green onions
6 ounces snow peas
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut thin on the diagonal
8 ounces fresh or canned bamboo shoots

Sauce:
1 cup low sodium, gluten free soy sauce
¼ cup brown sugar
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes


Beef and Peppers Stir-Fry Kit.

1 pound chuck steak, grilled (s&p) and cut into bite sized pieces
1 white onion cut into strips
2 cups of bell pepper strips (red, yellow, orange)

Sauce:
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 cup low sodium, gluten free soy sauce
¼ cup honey
2 tbsp sesame seeds


Chicken and Vegetables Stir-Fry Kit

1 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs, grilled (s&p) and cut into bite sized pieces
2 cups mixed vegetables (snow peas, carrots cut on the diagonal, broccoli, cauliflower, celery cut on the diagonal, 1 can water chestnuts)
1 regular yellow onion cut into strips

Sauce:
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 large clove garlic, peeled and chopped
1 cup low sodium, gluten free soy sauce
¼ cup honey

They said it could take up to 8 weeks to fix my computer as there are three things wrong with it (and it might require the screen being replaced and parts being ordered from Japan, yikes). I'm not going to go that long without a computer or the internet. So, I've been putting money aside again in a laptop fund and we used it to buy a cheapie. It's a bit more than a Netbook, but it's an off brand so it was quite inexpensive. It has a great keyboard though, so I can keep up with my book writing and short stories, as well as this blog, my diet support group and online tracking software, and all the financial spreadsheets.

I downloaded Open Office. I'm not going to buy another MS Office program and the one I had can only be installed on one computer, and hopefully can actually be reinstalled on that one. But at least Open Office works for my writing and my financial spreadsheets, so yay.

The laptop cost $379 plus $33.35 in tax. It wiped out my laptop fund again, but I will start adding to it again next month. It came with a six month free trial run of Kaspersky anti-virus and I installed my free malware program as well.

DH and I are considering dropping the gym membership. With my knee the way it is, I have a hard time even swimming right now and he's in an off exercise phase. Maybe we can pick it up again after my knee heals from the next surgery, but for now it seems like a waste of money. We aren't on a contract anymore so no cancelling fee. Our other option is to opt out for three months. We'll figure it out.

We are really eating up the leftovers this week or making use of some of our free items (like eggs, blueberries, gifted jelly). I froze some of the leftovers a while ago and have thawed them to get them eaten up. I only count the cost of something the first time I serve it, even if it does not all get consumed as it is too hard usually to break the price down into individual servings of casseroles, soups, or stews.

Breakfast:
Free eggs (from our chickens)
Milk $1.50
Cornbread Muffins with (free) blueberries .79

Total: $2.59

Lunch:
$3 DS Hot Lunch
DD Peanut butter and apricot jelly (free, homemade from aunt) sandwich .75
apple .50
small baggy chips .50
DH leftover pizza (free)
Me porkchop (.75) and salad (.25) with cheese (.25) and basil infused olive oil (.10)

Total: $6.10

Dinner:
Milk $2.00
Leftover ravioli and leftover lasagna (free)
Leftover meatballs (free)
green beans ($1.00)
salad (.50) with dressing (.50), cheese (.50) and sunflower seeds (.25)

Total: $4.75

Grand total: $13.44 Doing well today because of all the leftovers. No temptation to break the No Eating Out challenge today, but boy did I want to yesterday.