A Reward For Sticking To My Guns! (Recipe too)

 I almost did it guys!  I almost gave in and shopped a sale!  WHEW!  Close call.  So far this month, counting chicken feed, pet food, cleaning, etc; my total has been $309.  I may have to buy more flour, and maybe some cheese, but technically could do without cheese.  Breakfast options are limited with no flour when you have someone who can't have eggs!  So, yeah, flour.  

Anyway!  I had my cart full of stuff ( my online cart) when I asked myself " Do I really need all of this?".  I had Cheese, Flour,(okay, okay.  No too bad)Perdue chicken thighs (cause they were .99 lb Duh!), Body Armor drinks( slipping), Breyers Ice cream (not looking good), and Outshine bars!  I could have justified these purchases with either a "It's on sale", or a "I need to get up an order big enough to pick up for free!".  As I asked myself that question; I couldn't say I did need them.  They were  nice.  Would have been a nice splurge.  They were a decent price ( for today's prices).  I originally told myself the frozen treats were in lieu of baking.  I thought it would be a nice summer change from cookies.  

Then I wondered; can I make these at home?  I have a popsicle mold, but they alway turned out hard; not the nice slushy biteable straight from the freezer bars.  So I went to Chat GPT.  I know!  I've been sucked in!  He has been handy though.  I told him what I was wanting to do and he helped me out.  So rather than have you dip your toe into Chat GPT for this; I will share the recipe for fruit bars and Fudge pops!

FRUIT BARS( STRAWBERRY)

1 Lb of strawberries

1/3 cup sugar

pinch of salt

2 TBS corn syrup

1 TBS Lemon juice

Wash and hull your strawberries.  No need to cut them up.  Place berries in a bowl.  Add the sugar and salt then let sit for 15 minutes for it to release it's juices.  Add the corn syrup, and lemon juice.  I use an immersion blender to blend it in the bowl, but if you have a standard blender that will do fine.  Try not to add additional water.  If you have do, add a Tbs of water at a time.  Just enough to make it blend well.  Don't use more than 4 Tbs of water.  They will be harder the more water you use, so if you don't need it, don't use it!  I used no water with the immersion blender.  Once blended, I poured the mixture into my popsicle molds to freeze.  It made 7 Outshine bar size bars, and they were WONDERFUL!  I used strawberries from my garden that I had in the freezer.  Chat calculated my cost (using organic non GMO corn syrup) at .6 a bar!  He said even using store bought berries it would be cheaper than buying the box of Outshine Bars.

Then I moved on to Fudge Bars!  These turned out equally marvelous.  At this rate I won't need to buy frozen treats at all!

Fudge Bars

• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp corn syrup
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• vanilla + salt

Put the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch, pinch of salt into a saucepan.  Whisk it together.  On Medium heat, gradually add in the milk and cream, whisking as you go.  Keep stirring until it starts to thicken.  Once thick (it will look like a thick gravy consistency) remove from heat and et cool 15 minutes.  Then add vanilla dn stir in.  Pour into popsicle mold and freeze.

This is the mold I have and I like it!

popsicle mold

I ended up buying NOTHING!  I walked away.  Still need flour and cheese, but I'll grab them later.  Now I've added new recipes that put power in my hands, because it's one less thing I have to buy from the grocery store in order to treat my family.  

So what does my grocery list basically consist of?

Meat, milk, butter, sour cream, cheese, flour, some frozen vegetables, some fresh or frozen fruit, onions, potatoes, some condiments, oats, cream, sugar, raw honey, yeast, cocoa powder, coconut oil, nuts, some spices, tea, lemon juice, pet food, chicken feed, vinegar and baking soda for cleaning along with dish soap, laundry and dishwasher soap, toiletries, toilet paper,   These aren't all bought each month, but rather part of a master list I pull from.   Some of these items I put together to make our "convenience food".  Some of the fruits and veggies I don't buy because I grow them.  Of course our hens give us eggs.  There's a method to my madness that works for my families needs.

I've had many people tell me it takes too much time and effort.  My response is that we all will work for somebody.  We can work for an employer or we can work for ourselves.  I choose the later.  

A tale of 5 Uh 6 kittens!

 Morning all.  Before I begin my tale, I wanted to just show you what joined me yesterday evening.

"What do you want to do.  I don't know.  What do you want to do?".  Comment if you know where that line comes from.  That's a vulture sitting on our deck.  He's been hanging around here for a few weeks now.  I think all the new construction took away his house.  He's decided we're the hip place to be.  

So now onto my saga.  We have a colony of feral cats that live in our back yard.  They've been here for years.  We've tried everything we can to trap them, lure them, etc. to get them fixed, but success has been hit or miss.  The colony was down to three females.  There's a grey male that keeps coming around, but he doesn't live here.  He just knows it's easy picking.  I think he belongs to someone, but they haven't fixed him.  So we deal.  Nature seems to keep the colony small.  I don't say that to sound cruel.  My dream is that they would trust me so that I can get them fixed as well as the kittens and them live happily ever after.  That isn't the case, and the places the mother cats choose is less than stellar.  Case in point.  A few days ago I noticed kitten cries coming from what I thought was the new duct work under our house.  Not cool ( pun intended).  They would cry and then it would stop.  Then it picked up again under our house over by the front door.  Good news, they weren't in the duct work.  Bad news is I can't get to them.  The crying continued for 3 days.  At first I thought the mother was coming in to them, but soon realized she was absent.  I called a friend of mine who lives close by and he, bless his heart, crawled under the house and retrieved 5 kittens aged 2- 3 weeks.  The eyes were opened, but they weren't walking very well.  I left them outside for 2 hours until dark to see if mom would show.  She didn't, so I brought them in.  They stayed with me while I looked for a rescue that could take them.  I found a wonderful rescue called Whiskers on Wahoo; a non profit rescue.  Please follow them on facebook.  She's full to the gills, but knew this was an urgent situation.  We met at a halfway mark between our homes yesterday afternoon.  WHEW!  Crisis averted! 

During the evening I kept hearing what sounded like a faint cry.  Not enough to be for sure.  Then last night around 10 PM( because it couldn't be at a decent hour) I heard a stronger cry and knew one was left behind!  I have to say I'm very proud of myself.  I had no choice but to get into the crawl space myself.  Crawled all the way across to the other side of the house and found this little one crying and alone.  I grabbed it and brought it into the house.  I contacted the rescue and we met again around 11:30 at night to reunite this little one with it's siblings.  I was 12:15 am getting home and into bed.  Woke up at 6:30.  Needless to say, under my house is now sealed off to any wanna be mama cats that think that's just a dandy place!

I thought I'd include a few shots of "The North 40" garden.  This is the garden to the side of my driveway.  The last picture is of the bean trellis my dad built years ago.  Some of the joints broke and had to be replaced.  I tried to keep as much of his work as possible.  Very happy with the result.  It's not in the North 40.  It's in the South 40 which is the garden in the backyard.

Oh The Humanity!

 Morning all!  How's everything?  Doing well here.  Making progress.  Making progress.  Each day is another step closer to having everything planted.  The soon to be new workshop is coming right along.  All that's left to do is sand the spackle, paint, and lay the flooring.  Going to pick that up once they're ready for it..  

I had a not so minor complaint with the guy who did the mudding of the walls.  It's been addressed and I'm assured it won't happen again.  It still breaks my heart though.  Here in Ga; we're in an Extreme Drought.  Droughts and Gardening can be tricky.  Last week we got rain and I managed to squirrel away multiple buckets stored in the greenhouse and a 30 gallon rubber trash can full sitting next to the house.  Well between the house and greenhouse.  The guy that did the tape and putty put his motorize mixer thingy in my 30 gallons of rain water to clean it!  To add insult to injury he dumped all of that saved water out when he left.  I messaged the contractor (nice man).  Told him what happened, and nicely asked if he could spread the word to his guys to please not use any water in containers out there as this is for the garden.  I was heart sick.  Now I'm scrambling to use things like water caught in a bucket while showering, dish water, and bath water.  Bath water is a workout as it's hauling heavy buckets of water to the garden.  If my ancestors could haul water; I can!  We have rain, hopefully, next week, but it doesn't look like much, and may fizzle if it keeps the same patterns as in the recent past.  So time to be creative! 

As for the garden, each day I'm putting plants in.  Doing as much as I can to use every nook and cranny I can find.  I'm even utilizing the chain link fence.   Gardening can be as expensive or as cheap as you want it to be.  I try to keep my costs to a minimum.  Utilizing my own dirt for raised beds or opting for  inground when needed.  I save my seeds from year to year so buying seeds is rare.  My chickens provide compost and manure for fertilizer.  I use manual tools rather than tillers or other items that require gas and maintenance.  Anything I have to buy is covered by the plant sale I hold each year.  This has allowed me to add a few things I normally wouldn't have been able to purchase: 4x8 galvanized raised beds; potting soil for starting seeds, pots, etc..  Although in a pinch I've used my own dirt, empty yogurt, or sour cream containers, and foraged cinder blocks.  Even with the help of a plant sale to fund my garden; I still make a point of making do with what's available at the time.  I'm currently in the process of spreading 2 loads of wood chips in the walkways of my garden and in the chicken coop.  cardboard on the bottom topped with wood chips in my walkways suppresses weeds and keeps the soil around my plants cooler.  It also holds moisture which is a must this year.  I can get these free wood chips by being on a list with a tree service; Chipdrop.com, or going to the landfill and loading up the truck.  This time a tree service brought 2 loads and so I have a mountain to bring down.  

On the kitchen front ,I'm still making due with what's on hand.  I need to get in the kitchen and make up some bread, granola, and chocolate syrup.  The chocolate syrup will be used to make yogurt pops.  I have some yogurt I need to use.  Last month, before I knew my she shed would be ready so soon, I purchased a silicone popsicle mold.  I love it!  A few days ago I made pineapple yogurt pops.  I'm thinking this is going to be my stand by for desserts this summer.  I have strawberries coming in currently an so think I'm making some strawberry pops today as well.  I can make them and then remove them from the mold, put in a freezer bag, and back into the freezer.  This way I can do a variety of popsicles.  

WELL JUST DARN!

This is the view now from my garden to the left side of my driveway.  While it used to be pasture, the back of the pasture held these wonderful old but healthy hardwoods.   Now they've been pulled up by the roots to make way for 150 townhomes!  Every single one.  They've cut trees up to our property line in the backyard.  I used to could lay in bed at night and look out my window into the backyard and see fireflies so thick it was like lights on a Christmas tree.  Not any more.  I'm told the developer has to replant in the 35 foot buffer between existing homes and the new development, but how long until they grow to make up for this monstracity?  This makes me sad, and all I can say to all of you people fleeing your blue cities for greener pastures in red states lie ours; In this case, crapping on your new town by voting how you always have, isn't going to help.  And keep your mitts off my chickens!  If you don't want to hear chickens I suggest you stay in the city.

Starting off my day with a "Use up" philosophy

 Good morning!  I hope everyone is doing well.  Plant sale is over, after shoppers have come and gone, and now I will be rushing (after my coffee of course) to get as much planted today as possible because we have rain in the forecast for tomorrow.  Not a great amount last I checked, but seeing as how we're in an extreme drought; I gotta make adjustments as necessary to succeed.  In addition to planting, I've been collecting rain water, when it does come, to help during the dry times.  When we put gutters on the house, we asked that the down spout would come down into a rain barrel.  It's been great over the years, but I really need extra barrels for overflow.  It's on the list.  Until then I scoop the water into other barrels to allow for rain to refill the main one.  So all in all, garden is top of the list today.

Planning meals for today is a "use up" kind of day.  This mornings breakfast was some french toast made with a half a loaf of sandwich bread that I needed to use up.  When the french toast was done, I had a good amount of the egg milk mixture left.  I added baking powder, a little more salt, flour, and oil to turn it into pancake batter.  Cooked up the pancakes as well and my family can choose what they prefer.  I have enough pancake syrup made for today's breakfast but will need to make another batch to restock the fridge.  What pancakes and french toast are left over can be frozen for later breakfasts.  These recipes use eggs too so that's wonderful.  We're getting about 15 a day from our chickens. 

Lunch will just be hubby and I and I have some leftover taco/burrito filling.  I'll make up a batch of flour tortillas.  We'll use those for lunch then freeze them for another meal.  I have cooked chicken in the fridge and think I'm going to make chicken and dumplings for dinner.  I have two chicken thighs left over from making the Buffalo Chicken thighs the other night, and need to start doing something with that pork loin.  I may cook 3 lbs of it in the crock pot as chalupas and can use the flour tortillas I make today to go with it.  Hmm.  That's an idea.  

"Using up" is a wonderful traditional old fashioned way the food budget was managed.  It's not poor mouthing.  It's smart.  Not wasting is a wonderful thing to do.  Below is a Dump cobbler I made to use up some canned pineapple that would expire soon( it's good for at least 6 months after sell by date.  Just sayin).  The recipe is easy.  1 stick melted butter in a 9x13 pan.  1 cup sugar, 1 cup self rising flour, 1 cup milk.  Mix it all together and pour in the pan now coated with melted butter.  our a can of whatever canned fruit you desire.  Bake 350 for 20-25 min. 

What was it Benjamin Franklin said?  "A penny saved is a penny earned".  He was right, but I'd argue it's even more than a penny earned now because that penny is a penny earned untaxed.

Can you think of things in your pantry or fridge that needs to be used up?