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Friday, October 22, 2021

Covid hits home

 Yes, yes.  It finally happened.  Dh and I have been down with Covid.  Hence the delay in a new post.  I haven't had much energy to do much more than sleep.  I'm amazed at how much I've slept these past 5 days.  

DH was exposed a week ago this past Monday, and he began to show symptoms a week ago this past Thursday.  This past Thursday was when he brought it home to me.  Home, you know that place where you don't have masks on?  He may have gotten his at work, but work came home with him.   I started showing symptoms on Sunday.  Sunday was DH worst day and Wednesday was my worst day.  Those were the days we were at our worst and our fevers were the highest.  Both of us had high fevers of around 102.  Everything about our two cases were identical down to losing our sense of taste and smell.  His loss actually came near the end of his bout with Covid.  Mine started around day 2 and crept in over time.  I say all of this to point out this:

DH is vaccinated.  I'm not.  Here are some other interesting things to ponder.

DH is a nurse in a clinic.  This is a clinic where everyone is masked, including patients.  These are healthcare workers using surgical masks correctly.  In addition, not only was DH vaccinated, but I would hazard a guess that the bulk of his coworkers were vaxed as well.  This is relevant because his clinic is shut down for the week because all but one of the staff tested positive for Covid.  If there was ever a case study into the efficacy of masks and the vaccines, this would be it.  

Now I'm not gonna lie to ya.  I would rather not have Covid.  We're blessed in that we didn't have a case that put us into the hospital.  But it's been rough.  If given the choice I would rather not have to ever experience Covid, but that wasn't the case.  Thanks China.  But, I'm happy to day our immune system mounted a defense and won.  The trade off for the misery we're enduring right now is that we now have natural immunity to this.  That is good as gold in my book.  Worth it?  Given my choices?  In my book, yes.  I made a choice to take my chances with Covid to obtain an immunity far better than artificial.  I made this decision in a well thought out manner, fully understanding what I was accepting.  Everything I believed in the beginning as all been proven out.

Everyone has to do what's right for them.  That's what it all boils down to.  I made a choice to risk Covid to obtain natural immunity.  I knew I would get it eventually.  I stand by that choice.  I know that's the right decision for me, but I'll admit, I'm ready to get past this thing.  UGH!  Worst virus I've ever had.


Monday, October 11, 2021

Better late than never! The long awaited Lard post!

 Hello my friends!  I finally got around to posting about how to render lard.  I know.  This is the be all end all "Tell all" article of the year....NOT.  

I have to say, though, when money is tight and you have limited resources, having a source of cooking fat in one way or another is a blessing.  So without further adieu, the "How to".

I'm using as an example, 5 lbs. of ground beef that's 80/20.  In other words 80% meat and 20% fat.  If you're using something like a roast or other meat, just use the fat you trim off.  You can collect it in the freezer if you want,  No matter if it's beef or pork you use: the steps are the same; well except for the browning the ground beef part.  

If using ground beef.

1)  Place a strainer or colander into a large pan.  Set aside.  Put about 2 quarts to a gallon of water on to boil.  

2)  Cook or "Brown" the ground beef.  As it gets cooked, you can remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon, and put it in the strainer lined pan.  Keep doing this until all of the ground beef is cooked. 




3)  Your water should be boiling by now.  Pour the boiling water over the now cooked ground beef; making sure you pour over all of the cooked meat.  Pour slowly and keep an eye on the pan underneath to make sure it doesn't get too full.  

4)  Once you're done pouring water over the meat, let it drain a few seconds.  Set the colander of cooked meat to the side.  Pour fat from the pan used to cook the beef into the larger pot as well.   


5)  Let cool, then refrigerate until it cools completely, the fat rises to the top and solidifies.  

***Make note.  When you remove the pan from the fridge the first time, the fat on the top will be more semi solid than solid.  It will harden as the process goes.

6)  Fill a smaller pan with clean water.  Remove the now semi solid fat from the bigger pan and put in the new smaller pan with clean water.  You're done with the big pan now.  You can dump the old water and wash the pan.  

7)  Place the small pan with the fat on the stove and begin to melt the fat on a low/medium heat.  Let it boil gently a few minutes and then turn off the burner.  Let it cool  then refrigerate.

8)  Once the fat  has cooled completely, and solidified; remove the pan from the fridge.  Remove the now block of fat from the pan.  Dump the water, refill the pan with clean water and repeat step 7.


9)  You will repeat steps 7 and 8 about 4 more times until your block of fat is hard enough for you to break it, white in color, and has no odor.  

*** you will have some stubborn bits that like to stay on the fat, these can be removed by either rinsing in hot water, or scraping with a knife.

I got about 1.5 cups of Tallow/Lard from this batch.  

By doing this I

a)  create a leaner ground beef and get it for much less than what it would cost in the store.  This ends up being more like 90-93% lean ground beef.

b)  cook up the ground beef ahead of time and so it's ready to use at the drop of a hat any time I need it.

c)  Save on buying 12 oz worth of a cooking fat at the store.

d)  Get more bang for my buck because I'm using something we normally throw away.

e)  Get a Tallow/Lard that hasn't been hydrogenated like all of the lards at the store.

If you are using fat trimmings from other cuts of meat, 

1)  Cut fat trimmings into tiny pieces-  In this case it would be prudent to save the fat trimmings in the freezer until you have a good amount to make this process worth your time.

2) Place trimmings in a pot of clean water,  Put on the stove at a low/med heat and let simmer until all or most of the fat is released.  

3)  Strain out any left over bits with a slotted spoon.  Let cool then refrigerate.

4)  Follow steps 7-9 repeatedly until it's the consistency you need.

So there you go!  Yes, there are a lot of steps so to speak, but really it isn't really complicated to do.  Worth a try.  Try it out and let me know how it went!







Sunday, October 10, 2021

A revisit to a previous post. Thought it might give some ideas in a tight time.

 Just n FYI.  I'm almost finished with my "lard rendering post".  It should be posted sometime later today or tomorrow.  

I can't speak for everyone, but money has been tight for us lately.  We did have a blessing in that our pit, Mona, will have surgery to remove her tumor and it won't be near as expensive as we thought.  WHEW!  That being said, we're still recovering from a line of hits to our finances that started about 8 months ago.  No, it isn't our current President...well...

Anyway, as a result we're having to scale back Christmas this year at least in regards to how much we spend on gifts.  Due to that, I've been thinking about this post from long ago.  I'm using it for inspiration myself, and thought I would share it with anyone else interested.  


Posted Nov 2016

No Money for Christmas, Now what?


I've always loved Christmas.  We put our tree up on Thanksgiving night after all the turkey eating festivities and to the wonderful tunes of traditional Christmas music.  Love, love, love Christmas.  Always have, always will I expect.  My parents always made it such an event and I've always tried to do the same.  Things were harder when the kids were little.  Money was tighter then, but we still wanted the kids to have a good Christmas.  Reminiscing about those times made me think about other young parents or other families going through a tight holiday or even an impossible holiday.  What do you do?  How do you celebrate this holiday without money?

First and foremost, just like the Who's down in Whoville, we know that Christmas is not about the gifts unless you count THE GIFT given.  It's easy to wax philosophical when you don't have kids.  Kids would argue with the Who's down in Whoville.  Christmas is about gifts, and Santa.  First off you have to be honest with them about what you guys are facing.  Be as honest as their age will allow.  I grew up with Santa coming down the chimney to bring us gifts.  I know there are some out there who don't do Santa.  If Santa doesn't make a yearly stop at your house, telling the kids money is tight will be easier.  We always knew there may be times when money would be tight and we never wanted Santa to "not come".  We did do Santa at our house.  However, because we never wanted Santa to be affected by a financial down turn, Santa brought 1 gift and the stocking.  Everything else was provided by us. That way if they only got 1 gift it was from Santa and they would understand Mom and Dad were low on money.  Not telling kids can actually make them worry more.  Kids are very perceptive and they'll know something is up.  Letting them in on this can actually help them because it will enable them to "Help "make the Holiday special.

So once you have the whole "telling the kids" thing out of the way; my first step is easy and fun.

1)  Decorate for Christmas-  You don't need to buy anything new.  Use what you already have on hand, but make it festive.  Play Christmas music and pull out all the stops. If you can't afford lights, no problem.  Decorations are just as pretty without.  Plus, no fire hazard or cords to worry about.  String popcorn,  Make construction paper garland,  Bring in some evergreen from outside.  Go on a pine cone hunt for cones to place in a basket.  Don't have a Christmas Tree?  Make a Christmas table to place what gifts there are.  You can put your evergreen from outside here and put out a few ornaments.  You can use other ornaments around the house as well. You can hang out the stockings over the table in a triangle shape on the wall.  Place your festive containers of baked goods there as well; like a bowl of individually wrapped popcorn balls tied with a ribbon.  These are just some thoughts.  The idea is to create a festive atmosphere.  Pintrest has great ideas for Christmas crafts from things you may already have on hand.

2)  Found Money-  Okay, you've probably run the numbers and just thought, "there's just no way!".  There is, but you may need to think outside the box.  You may not be able to get what your normal budget is, but you might be able to get a little,  Think along these lines

a)  Do you or your spouse contribute to a 401k at work?  Maybe suspend the contributions for the next 2 months.  These are extremes I know, but we're thinking outside the box.  You'll be able to restart contributions after the Holidays.

b)  Would your family rather have internet and cable for the next two months or gifts on Christmas morning?  If the later, cancel for the next two months.  Many times your cable/ internet provider will be sending you deals to entice you back by the beginning of the year.  I understand it means no internet connection.  This is Black Belt frugality.

c)   There maybe family or friends that gift you with gift cards or money for Christmas.  If this happens, use the money for gifts under the tree.  The time for you to be able to spend on yourself (which is great) can come later.  Family doesn't need to know your situation if you aren't keen on sharing, but they can know that If  your family participates in a gift exchange, they will be homemade gifts.

d)  Do you have a skill or something you can make to sell that may raise a little money?  Can you watch kids for someone to run errands?  Help someone decorate their home for Christmas, bake Christmas cookies for someone too busy to do it their self?  Let people know your available.  Print out some signs advertising your availability to help: include rates too.  Just 8 x 10 printer paper, nothing extravagant.  You can hang it on community bulletin boards at post offices, grocery stores, schools (if they allow, ask first), your church, etc.

e)  If you haven't already changed your tax withholding now's the time.  It will be reflected on the next check that does come in.  Take those deductions!  Many parents with children will claim only one dependent when they have several in order to reap a large refund during tax time.  This works against you.  It allows Uncle Sam to use your money interest free until you file while you struggle to make ends meet.  Take the deductions.  

f) Dave Ramsey would have my hide, but some companies will let you skip a payment around the holidays only paying interest.  It's a last resort and not one I recommend lightly.  Really think this one through.  If you can avoid using this step, do so.

g)  If you haven't already, call around for better car insurance rates.  A lot of people will just keep the same insurance for years and years, never shopping around.  I was one of those people.  In one call I save $700 over a year!  Crazy!

What money you free up this way will be gold.  You want to use it very carefully.  What is the one "Wow" gift your kids would want?  What do you need to make this Christmas happen?  

3)  Christmas food with what's on hand-   So you probably can't stock up right now because of the financial hardship.  You can, however, work in a couple of extra basic items for Christmas.  The great thing is, if you already have flour, sugar, butter or margarine, you can make goodies for the holidays.  Add a bottle of corn syrup to your grocery shopping list and you can add making candies for stockings(see my recipe page for Butter Toffee Crunch).  Chips, cokes, cereal, boxed anything, and anything pre-made needs to go off your list.  Plan on making more casseroles or soups so you can free up the money you would use to buy a lot of meats.  Basics. You are looking for basics. This will save you considerably on your grocery list and allow extra for purchasing things for holiday baking or allow you extra money to go toward a few small gifts or stocking stuffers.  You can make your own biscuits and cornbread for making stuffing.  Make your own cream soup for casseroles (see my recipe page for the cream soup mix recipe).

Every Christmas we have a Christmas breakfast as opposed to a Christmas dinner.  The menu usually consists of Cinnamon Rolls, Sausage balls, Sausage croissants, Gorilla Bread, coffee, Hot Chocolate, and OJ,  We end up munching on this pretty much all day. I make the cinnamon rolls, sausage (see my recipe page), sausage balls, Gorilla bread, and hot chocolate from scratch.   I use the dough from the cinnamon rolls to make the Gorilla bread as well.  The only extra thing I usually have to buy is the OJ, Crescent rolls, and cream cheese for the Gorilla bread.  All of which could be omitted in a tight situation.  Here are some other recipes for you to try that don't take a lot of effort or expense:

Dinner Rolls ( This is what I use for Cinnamon Rolls, Gorilla Bread, and Raisin Bread)

4- 4 1/2 cups flour
1 pkg of yeast (or 1 TBS)
1 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, shortening or margarine
1 ts salt
2 eggs

In a small saucepan, add your milk, butter, sugar, and salt.  Heat milk mixture just until the butter is just about melted.  While that heats up, put 2 cups flour and yeast in a large mixing bowl and mix together.   Once milk is hot (120 degrees) dump into the flour mixture and add the two eggs.  Mix all together for about 100 strokes.  Stir in as much remaining flour as you can with a spoon.  Dump out onto a floured counter.  Knead dough 10-12 minutes adding just enough flour to keep dough from being sticky as you work.  Once dough starts to tear, it's time to stop kneading (or if the timer goes off).  Place dough in a greased bowl, turning once to coat.  Cover, Let rise no more than 30 minutes.  Punch down, shape into desired rolls.  Place in the pan you will use.  Cover and let rise until double.
Bake 350 degrees for 15-20 min or until golden on top.  Or you can just put the whole thing in the bread machine; liquids first, sugar, salt, flour, yeast being last.  Put on dough setting and go read a book.  Then shape how you want weather it's dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, or Gorilla bread

Don't have yeast?  Try this for cinnamon rolls

3 cups self rising flour
1/3cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup milk

In a mixing bowl place your flour and sugar (mix well)and cut in the butter until it make a crumbly mix.  Add milk and fold in until well mixed.  Turn out onto a floured surface and knead exactly 8 times (  that's basically just to shape it well into a ball).  Roll out thin(about 1/2 inch) and rectangular.  Spread with melted butter and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon and sugar.  Starting with the long side, roll up the dough and cut into "cinnamon rolls".  Place in a baking pan and bake 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees.  Once out, you can milk 1 cup powdered sugar with 2 Tbs milk and 1/2 tsp vanill extract and pour over the top.

Just had an interesting idea in trying this for Gorilla bread too.  Hmmm.  Yea, I am my own worst enemy when it comes to eating healthy.  Hey!  It's the holidays!


Hot Cocoa 

1/3- 1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
4 cups milk or 1 1/3 cups dry milk powder plus water to make 4 cups
1/2 ts vanilla
dash salt

Mix your sugar, cocoa powder,and dash salt in a pan.  Stir in the milk and continue stirring frequently while it warms to hot.  A whisk works best for this, but if you don't have one, no big deal.  Once hot, remove from heat and add the vanilla.  Serve hot.  If you have marshmallows, great.  A small peppermint stick would be good too.


Easy Fudge


1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/3 cup water
1 box (16 oz) powdered sugar
1/2 cup dry milk powder
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
dash salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts (if you have them)

*** If you don't have dry milk, omit the water and dry milk and use 1/3 cup of evaporated milk.

*** Don't have evaporated milk?  You can evaporate it yourself by taking 2/3 cups milk and simmer until reduced by half.  

In a small sauce pan heat together butter/margarine and water just to boiling, stirring to melt the butter/margarine.  Sift together (whisk together) dry ingredients.  Add the melted butter mixture.  Stir til well blended.  Stir in nuts if you have them.  Turn into a buttered 8x8x2 inch pan.  Chill several hours.  Cut into squares.

You can make popcorn balls, peanut brittle, the fudge, toffee, etc for very little outlay of funds and these can go in stockings.  If you have peppermint sticks, you can crush one or two (to taste) and stir in the fudge or sprinkle on top for a festive stocking stuffer.


4)  Make gifts   - This can be a difficult one if you don't really have a crafty side.  I'm not gonna leave you hanging I swear!  My next post will be a how to on making a hobby horse.  I'm actually making one for my grandson for Christmas this year along with a Superman or Super hero cape.  Neither of these will require a pattern.  Do you have some scrap wood; ends of 2 x 4 or 2 x 2's?  Cut these into different sizes and shapes.  Sand them smooth and voila, Blocks to play with.

Here comes another recipe for Playdough!!!!

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup salt
4 tsp cream of tarter
2 cups water with food coloring adding in whatever color you want
2 T oil

Mix all ingredients together in a pan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it forms a hard ball.  I'll try to include more over the next few weeks.


You can sew doll clothes, pajama pants, super hero capes, etc.  Don't have fabric?  I buy sheets (King size flat sheets in solid cottons or flannel) for fabric at thrift stores.  If you can't afford that you can always sacrifice a sheet or two (done that before too).  I mean how many sets does one person need!  (smile).  I will have another post soon containing some ways to save on sewing in general.

Don't have a Sewing machine?  It is harder to do if that is the case, but not impossible.  In a day of google we can pull up how to's on hand stitching and sew your items by hand.

There's no time to sew!  My sister and I, many years ago, put up a sheet to block off an area of her house normally open to the rest of the family.  We named it "Santa's Workshop" and all our creations were hidden from the crowd.  We sewed in the evening.  She sewed at night after I had gone to my home.  To this day my niece says the sound of a sewing machine lulls her to sleep.  It is comforting to her because she would go to sleep to the sound of my sister sewing for her family.  Aren't good memories great?!

Speaking of Thrift stores!  They, as well as Yard Sales can be resources for Christmas gifts.  Books can be found there cheap that are in great condition.  Other items can be found that may need a little TLC to be like new again.  Great thing is in this age of Google there are a slew of "How To" videos or articles to help you take a thrift store find and revamp it to be like new.  Little secret.  I have never bought a brand new video game or DVD.  Nope.  I always purchased them from either Amazon or a thrift store.  In fact when my kids were young, and we didn't have a lot of money for gaming systems, we bought a used system for all three kids together.  It wasn't the latest and greatest, but the kids loved it.  I found a Play mobile Castle with all the characters at a yard sale for $5 for the whole thing!

I realize this may not be the coolest Christmas, at least on paper, but it can still be a great Christmas.  I hope some of these ideas can help.  I will try to add to them over the next few weeks.  The idea is to be able to still celebrate even in the midst of financial hardship.



Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Stretch what you have! A life of "Hmmm I wonder"

 Morning all!  How's everyone?  Come on in an sit a spell.  I have coffee.  Join me!  

So it's no surprise, prices are going up!  And up and up!  It's crazy!  In addition to all the prices going up, availability is going down for certain things.  

Whenever you order something from Walmart, they very nicely (insert sarcasm here) keep track of your purchases.  You know to help you buy them quicker next time.  I will admit it's more convenient, but I would rather not have every purchase I've made saved for posterity.  I digress though. Yesterday I pulled up my Walmart "reorder" list and, while I should have been surprised, wasn't really surprised to see the bulk of my past purchases "Out of Stock".  Walmart is one store, but you will find this just about everywhere.  Products from outside the country have a hard time disembarking from their ships,.  Products within the country have a hard time finding enough truck driver's to make the trip to their destination.  If the product does make it to it's destination, it's having a hard time being unloaded and put on the shelf.  This is the problem for products once they're made!  These same "out of Stock" scenarios hamper a products ability to be created in the first place!  

It's a never ending cycle.  For that reason, and to save money during increasing prices; things we already have need to last longer and spread further!  Thinking out of the box is a must in this day and age.  Both my Dad and Grandmother (my Dad's Mom) held onto things "just in case".  We used to shake our heads at them, but now?  They would look at us with a smug "I told you so look".  My grandmother grew up during the Depression.  My Dad was born in 1939 near the end of the depression and was old enough to remember WWII and the subsequent rationing.  There's a reason they held onto things thru their life.  The things they held onto had the potential to be used in a variety of ways should the need arise.  These items were and are assets!  Utilizing these assets is a skill who's time has come around again.  Making the most of what we have in our possession, and seeing things in a new way are a must!

For that reason, I wanted to give a few examples of both.  These may or may not be useful to you specifically, but they are listed as a means to hopefully inspire you to look at your own assets with a new eye.  What can you do to make things go further, or be useful in new and different ways?  As you read, I hope you'll begin to formulate your own plans.  Let's begin.

1)  Meat-  Meat is becoming expensive.  My family likes their meat, so full on vegan ain't happening.  For that reason, I stretch it to go further without losing the pleasure and nutrition of meat.  

a)  Use less in a recipe.  Instead of a piece of meat with sides, I try to use meat in casseroles, and soups.  Even then I use less meat than the recipe calls for.  Half is a good starting point, but keep reducing til someone complains!  Lol.  In some recipes you can throw in lentils or beans to still bulk it up.  You can also throw in more veggies to fill in for the missing meat.  

b)  Make the most of bone in meats.  Many times you can get bone in meats cheaper than boneless.  This is actually beneficial on multiple accounts.  Bone in meats have a better flavor, texture, and make great broth!  Save the bones!  Use the bones to make bone broth!  Here's an impromptu "How to" .  Bone broth enables you to add much needed nutrients and minerals to your meals while also reducing the amount of meat in the recipe.  It's also great for what ails ya!  Season it though!  Unseasoned bone broth is ick by itself.  

c)  Speaking of bone in, reminds me to not forget the fat!  I've trimmed off fat from roasts ( back when we could afford them), and even saved the fat from cooking up ground beef, and rendered it into a nice white Tallow ( lard ) useful for anything from biscuits and pie crusts, to sautéing. Tallow is even used in candle making!  Haven't done that though.  I've cooked chicken skin in a pan and saved the resulting fat for cooking later.  The skins are a treat for my dogs then.  They love it when I do this.  Most times I use this fat in the dog treats I make for them, but I've also used the chicken fat to sauté the veggies for a chicken dish when oil is called for.  If you're interested in rendering Tallow or Lard, I'm about to cook up a 5 lb package of ground beef.  When I do, I'll do a post on rendering lard or Tallow.   

d) Left over roast becomes beef stew.  Left over meat loaf becomes the ground meat in Chili or spaghetti.  Any left overs become the meat used in another recipe!  

2)  Veggies-

a)  Use as much of the vegetable as possible.  I leave peelings on my potatoes.  I do wash them, and all my veggies.  When I need to peel carrots, celery, or onions, I save the peelings to use in my bone broth.  That way I'm not needing to sacrifice an actual vegetable to make the broth, but getting the nutrients and minerals anyway.  I also use the celery leaves and tops.  I do draw the line at any bad places on my veggies.  FYI.  

b)  When you have left over tidbits, but not enough for an actual serving to be consumed later, throw them into a decent size container.  Make sure you include any liquid the veggies were cooked in.  Once you've collected enough, you use them to make vegetable soup!  

c)  Repurpose those veggies!  Add some flour, an egg, and a little milk to mashed potatoes to make a think batter, then fry in a pan to make potato pancakes.  These are great with sour cream.  You can also add some chives or chopped onion to the batter.  Mashed potatoes, oatmeal and rice can be added to muffin or pancake batter to stretch the number of muffins or pancakes made.  Usually about 1/2 cup to the batter to start with.  Left over baked potatoes for dinner can become fried potatoes in the morning.  Left over cooked carrots or sweet potatoes can become a sweet breakfast muffin come morning.

d)  When buying green onions from the store, replant the ends where the roots are.  Keep them well watered.  They will begin to grow another onion.  Keep that going and you'll never have to buy green onions again!  

3)  Fruits- a)  As with the vegetables, use as much of fruit as possible.  Left over bits of applesauce or banana can replace some of the fat used in baked good like muffins, quick breads, etc.  Apple cores and peelings can be used to make apple jelly, or even vinegar!.  Apparently watermelon rind can be used for mock apple pie filling or sweet pickles.  Orange rinds can be dried and powdered, or grated and dried (depending on preference) to use in recipes calling for grated orange peel.  The same can be said for lemons, and limes.  Orange peels can also be placed in a pot of water with a cinnamon stick and whole cloves to create your own home fragrance, or placed in oil for a while to make orange oil to polish furniture.  

Milk and Eggs-  

a)  There's no crying over spilt milk, well unless you were needing it for something, but you should be at least a little concerned to throw out spoilt milk.  Even milk that has soured is usable.  In fact soured milk can give baked good the flavor of Buttermilk baked goods.  I've had milk sour and chosen to freeze it in cup measurements to use in baked good.  I just thaw it out and use it  in biscuits, pancakes, etc.  In fact you can use soured milk in any baked good.  

b)  To make milk go further, and cut calories at the same time, buy whole milk and mix it half and half with water.  It will produce milk with a 2% milk consistency and taste, but at half the cost and calories! 2 Gallons of milk for the price of one!  This is fine for kids over the age of 2.  Before two, keep the whole milk full strength.

c)  Yes you can freeze milk!  So when you find it on sale grab a few extra to freeze.  Also, milk is good  for a week after it's expiration date.  So when you see milk marked down because its close to it's expiration date, buy some to use and freeze.  I will bring it home and pour it into quart jars and freeze.  Then I only have to remove a quart at a time to use.  It means I will go thru that quart before it has time to go sour.  Just make sure if you're using glass jars/container, to leave the lid off until it's frozen to give room for expansion as it freezes.

d) As for eggs, I'll have to use an eggs wash for bagels or French bread, but I'll use the left over egg wash in another baked good as the egg called for in the recipe.  Same thing applies when making French toast.  The left over egg milk mixture will be added to flour, sugar and oil to make muffins,  Those are put in the freezer.  FYI, 2 eggs yolks are equal to 1 regular egg.  

e)  Yes you can freeze eggs!  Take a 12 cup muffin pan.  Crack about 20-24 eggs into a bowl.  Beat them with or without salt.  I add salt to mine to save a step later, but you can opt to not.  Once the eggs are beaten, fill up the cups of the muffin pan.  Cover with plastic wrap and freeze.  Once frozen, submerge the bottom of the muffin pan in cold water.  Once the eggs loosen, pop them out and into a gallon size freezer bag and freeze.  

Miscellaneous-

a)  I get my flannel and polycotton fabric from flat bed sheets at thrift stores.  I can use this fabric anywhere I would use flannel or poly cotton; pajamas, scrubs for dh, shirts, etc.  

b)  I've taken ratty ole t shirts and cut them into strips which I use to tie up tomatoes.  I've even used them to crochet hot pads for the kitchen!




c)  I'll remove zippers, buttons, etc from clothes I have to throw away.  I can then use them in new clothes I make.

d)  Empty pill bottles make great storage containers for seeds


These are just a few ideas.  Ironically in this day of being environmentally aware, we sure do throw out a lot.  It's all designed to be disposable now.  However, our ancestors were much more environmental then than we are now.  Clothes hung on a line.  Clothes handed down.  Things mended and worn as long as possible, then converted to something else.  During the depression, grain and flour sacks were made of fabric that was then used to make dresses for little girls.  My mom told me once that people could tell how long a couple had been married by the age of their appliances.  I guess the same could be said today in some cases, except now it's because marriages don't last as long and appliances are built to last about 5 years.  Sad to say on both accounts.



The idea is to not pigeon hole an item into having only one function.  It needs to spread it's wings and fly into something new!  Always be willing to try, especially if you aren't going to be out anything by giving it a go.  


Sunday, October 3, 2021

All the best laid plans....

 Ya know there are always exceptions to every rule.  Who else believes 2021 is an exception to a lot of rules?  Apparently it is on multiple levels.  

So all the things I've written before on knowing your sales and season doesn't apply under the current..uh adminis...uh circumstance.  Ahem.  What I've written about before regarding sales and seasons to get the best deals on your groceries, hinges on

1) A workforce staffed to insure a decent supply line

2)  Ships able to deliver their goods to the US

3)) Inflation less than 5%.  Less than 2 or 3 % would be best. 

If you're in charge of the grocery shopping, I know you've noticed how prices are rising.  At least I hope you've noticed.  I can't fathom not knowing the price of what is bought.  That's just foreign to me.   Anyway.  I know I've noticed.  YIKES!  

This morning I went to add something to my "cart" on Sam's website.  I had a bag of onions in my cart to purchase at the end of the week.  It was for a 10 pound bag.  The price was 4.68 yesterday.  It was 7.98 today!  Almost double in price!  I looked at other stores to see if I could find a cheaper price.  I couldn't until I called a local produce store near me.  I had to buy a 50lb bag to get the same price I would have gotten buying the 10 lb. bag of onions.  I had to buy the 50 lbs though.  But!  I got it and got a decent price on it.  

While talking to the owner of the store, I heard how hard a time he's having staffing his store, and stocking his store.  He told me this time of year he usually has stacks of applications, but this year he has had not a one.  I told him how I had planned to wait until the holiday shopping season to stock up on other grocery items.  He said the price more than likely won't go down because stores will be afraid to sell out of items.  So I may be looking at catching what I can when I can.  

1)  I will be assuming "rain checks" aren't in effect anymore.  That means I get to a sale in the beginning and not wait til the end.

2)  I will be rethinking a lot of items which have now become splurges.

3)  Growing food is not optional

4)  Raising chickens is not optional

5)  If I can make it, I make it, no exception

6)  EVERYTHING gets used in some way.  

7)  Courtesy always; leave some for others when finding a good deal.

8)  I'm thinking already of getting any items I may need for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  That's not just food items, but Christmas shopping.  Even our Fearless VP has said to do your Christmas shopping now.  That's pretty bad when even they aren't trying to hide it.   

I wrote this post about 9 years ago.  Check it out to read some tips and tricks for money saving.  I'll be adding more!

25 frugal tips