Hi everyone! Here are a few things I've been up to lately. I wrote most of this last week when it was raining... then our internet didn't work, thanks to the construction project. But now we're all good. :)

1. Cooking: I made a yummy mock cookie dough with chickpeas, peanut butter, and a few other ingredients. It is really good, and only costs $1.50 or so per recipe. About half the cost is the chickpeas, and a majority of the rest is in the chocolate chips (I used fancy, expensive dark chocolate). I would like to try making some other varieties (ginger snap, chocolate, etc.) as well, at some point.

2. Garden: I'm using grass clippings again to mulch some of my garden beds. The straw is fast and easy, but it's harder to arrange around tiny plants. Not only that, but the grass clippings add nutrients to the soil, while the straw doesn't, really. In the past, I've loaded up wheelbarrows full of clippings and dragged them across our 5-acre property. This year I'm only collecting it from outside the garden and only mulching three beds with it. Hopefully after this mulching, those smaller plants won't need to be weeded as often.

​Hubs' parents are downsizing (it was their home prior to the remodel), so there is still some stuff left in the house. As it slowly empties out, sometimes we find things to just keep in there, instead of them donating it or selling it. Yesterday I found a little square basket for Princess' art supplies. I cut some sheets of paper in half (one side was already printed on) for little toddler-sized papers that fit into the bottom of the basket. The other day my MIL gave me a bird book that she no longer needed. What a great surprise! It's a little pocket-sized Golden Guide. Yesterday I was able to identify an Oriole. The new house has a massive porch that will be great for bird-watching. :) 

Til next time,
-Bethany

​Hey everyone! Guess what? More rain this week. 

1. Cooking: Rhubarb is ready! I made rhubarb crisp and rhubarb muffins this week. For the muffins, I replaced all of the sugar and 2/3 of the fat with applesauce. To replace 3/4 c. sugar and 2/3 c. sour cream, I just added 1 1/3 c. of applesauce. This cut down the cost of the recipe by over $0.50, since I made the applesauce from free apples several years ago. I loved the texture of the muffins, but they could have used some real sugar on top, or maybe some honey in the batter. But overall, I thought it was a real success. Rhubarb without sugar! What an idea!  

April and May have not been as busy as I thought they would be. Several weeks ago I bought some "convenience meals"—boxed, bagged, frozen and canned stuff. One of you mentioned that the flavor is lacking in a lot of the store-bought meals. Well, you were right. I like how easy it is to take something out of the freezer and put it in the oven and have lunch or dinner ready, but we tried two different lasagnas (cheap brands) and they weren't very good. I also tried some different boxed pasta meals. Those were good, but honestly not better or easier to prepare than what I normally make. Lastly, I tried some canned ravioli. I used to like canned pasta as a kid, but not any more. Hubs was happy with most of the convenience food, but I felt like the quality—and in some cases, the convenience—just wasn't there, for the amount of money you pay.

One change I'm satisfied with is using store bought bread and canned meat. Canned meat (both home-canned and store bought) eliminates the need for thawing and cooking meat, which isn't an option for last-minute meals. Store bought bread isn't healthier and certainly doesn't taste better. However, it's not that much more expensive than homemade bread ($1.00 instead of $0.50). Not only do I avoid flouring up the kitchen every week, but the store-bought stuff is more sturdy for sandwiches and travels better.

Apart from frozen leftovers, sandwiches are the best "convenience" meal I've found so far. I can put almost anything between two slices of bread: random bits of leftover meat, or garden veggies or eggs (which are plentiful this time of year). Canned and frozen meat cost about the same, so no budget increase there, and if we buy two loaves of bread per week it only costs $1.00 more than if we made it at home. Best of all, sandwiches always taste good!

2. Gardening: I harvested lettuce, spinach and a few radishes from the garden this week. I also potted up some self-seeded delphiniums and other plants to take to my sister. For anyone wondering, delphiniums are a great investment. I started about 8 plants from seed. The plants are perennials, so they come back every year. Not only that, but they self-seed and create little plantlets! I wouldn't call them "invasive" at all, but just productive enough to have some to share. They make a beautiful cut flower for arrangements, or just to enjoy in the garden. Lastly, I repotted some houseplants that had outgrown their pots.

3. House: not much is happening with the house project. The concrete company poured the foundation, so all that is finished. Now we are just waiting for concrete to be poured in the garage floor, and we can get to work on framing! 

See that green door to the left? That opens to a bathroom that was added on to the front porch at some point. We are going to be taking out the bathroom and bringing it back to its original glory as part of the wrap-around porch. Then the porch will extend past our kitchen/dining room addition and stop where the garage starts.

4. Trees: we did plant some trees along one edge of our property. We planted six maple trees and one Kentucky coffee tree (that I sprouted from seed!). The maples were just saplings from other areas of the property. They might survive, they might not—but at least they were free! We put an old tire around each tree to protect it from weed eaters, lawn mowers and pedestrians. We still have a big pile of tires out back to dispose of, but at least some of them are being put to use. In total we planted seven trees.

I guess it was kind of a slow week here. It's one of those "hurry up and wait" situations. When the weather is nice, there are a million things to do. When the weather is bad... there are still (albeit less pressing) things to do. I spent a lot of the week cleaning, reading, catching up on laundry and making some changes around the house. 

5. Robot-proofing: I put boards along the bottom of our couch so the robot vacuum doesn't get stuck under there. If I'm not utterly exhausted, I like to pick up and run the vacuum (which is more like a sweeper) at night in the kitchen/living/dining room of our house.

6. Kid stuff: I also moved Princess' mirror up a bit so she can see herself better (I first hung it when she was still crawling). I  made family picture magnets with old Christmas cards and unused business card magnets and put them lower on the fridge where she can see them. First I used contact paper to cover the photo, then used a glue stick to attach the photo onto the magnet. I like the idea of business card magnets, but they can't hold up so much as a postcard. I got frustrated trying to keep family photos up, which is why I decided to just glue the magnets and photos together. Each business card magnet made two photo magnets: 

Hey, guess what? It rained most of the week! That means I actually have a few accomplishments to share.

1. Cooking: I cooked one of those cheap hams I bought last week. It was a shank ham, and a bear to cut up. The meat was good roasted, but it came off the bone hard because it was very fatty. It took me a long time to cut off the fat in order to get non-gristly meat. Finally I decided to cook it again in the Instant Pot, hoping for fall-off-the-bone meat. It still don't come off easily. Finally I got a good portion of the meat off and decided to just leave the rest on the bone in order to make broth. When the broth was finished cooking, the rest of that meat finally came off. So I'm pleased to announce that none of the meat was wasted—I used the broth meat in soup.

I also made yogurt this week in the Instant Pot. I have been using yogurt starter from the previous batch for several weeks now, and it's still going strong. So that's $0.25 per week or so, saved. Here's a secret: making yogurt is so easy, I feel guilty calling it an "accomplishment". It's literally dumping milk into the Instant Pot, pushing some buttons. Then when the pot beeps, you take out the inner pot and set it in a sink of cold water. Stir a couple of minutes until the temperature goes down, then add some yogurt from your last batch, stir, and put it back into the Instant Pot. Push some more buttons. The next day, the yogurt is done. So easy, and I've never had any failed yogurt this way, even with homemade starter.

2. Shopping: I know, I said I was going to stop telling you our grocery spending. But I was curious to see how much our bill would go up. Would it double? Would it triple?? Or would it spike and then gradually come back down?

For the first two weeks, we spent about double. The next week, it was less than double. Last week we still had a bunch of groceries left from Aldi, so I bought fewer groceries; carrots, onions, frozen produce, bread, tuna, etc. We even got off-brand ritz crackers, organic celery and a mango (all no-nos on a bare-bones budget), and the total came to just $28.78. So who knows? Maybe we won't end up spending much more, after all. Maybe a simple $10.00/wk. increase is all it takes to ward off boredom and have a healthier standard of eating.

3. Thrifting: I went to the Sharing Corner (basically a free neighborhood garage sale). I dropped off two garbage bags full of stuff before the sale, and brought home half a bagful of new-to-me treasures: clothes and one book for Princess, and two belts for myself. 

​4. Gardening: I planted four tomato plants, chives and Bells of Ireland (a flower) in the garden. I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't freeze, but if it does, I still have back-up tomato plants in reserve. Earlier this year I planted radishes, lettuce, Swiss chard and spinach in one of my greenhouse beds. In another bed, I planted parsnips, beets and garlic.

​So far, the spinach is looking the best! This will be my first year growing greens (besides lettuce). I started cooking with spinach recently, adding the frozen, chopped variety into soup, casserole, pasta and smoothies. I'm even more happy to be growing it myself now; not only will I save money by not purchasing the frozen bags, but I'll have almost-free organic spinach (for those who don't know, I'm trying to avoid the Dirty Dozen. Organics are so expansive. *Sigh*).

Organic celery costs twice as much as conventional (not to mention the stalks are smaller) so I think I'll start replacing it with the almost-free spinach and other garden vegetables. One package of celery can last a long time if you only use it for mirepoix.

My garden is like my husband. Every year I fall more in love! At the beginning of 2019 I was worried about how I'd take care of the strawberries AND vegetable garden, along with all of the other stuff we have going on. Well, I'm pretty proud of myself. The strawberries are looking great! Every afternoon I get a chance, I'm out there with a spade digging up weeds. Unlike last year, the paths between the rows are fluffy with straw, so it's not so hard on my knees (we used way too much straw to cover the berries, but that's better than too little!). Since we put a fence up last year, deer have not been a problem... so far.

I also dragged a little play structure out by the patch, which keeps our daughter busy while I work. That gives me a good 20-30 minutes out there, in the morning and possibly the evening if needed. I think this year is going to be SO much better than last, even though we have all of the extra construction work going on.


House Update

And of course, this post wouldn't be complete without an update on our house project! This is where we left off last week (minus the chimney, of course):

And this is today: