I shared my list earlier in the week and my menu plans. I thought I'd continue with a second post of how I actually used foods each day, in case anyone else needs inspiration.
Sunday: I divided the remaining roast and braising sauce into two portions. I put a larger 4 serving size portion into the freezer. I'll love having a handy meal to pull from on a day that has been busy or when I'm not feeling well.
Grits
Roast with plenty of broth I just put half this in the freezer as a future entree.
A few mashed potatoes
Some green beans
In my home this week: I'm going to take a break from the vintage kitchen photos for a bit. I've shared almost all of my most favorite ones and I find myself now sharing those I don't really like at all. I can't do them justice with my dislike of them so I'll hold off for a while. If I come across an especially pretty design I'll be sure to share it with you.
In the meantime, what to add to this post to add a little extra interest? There are so many things I can't trim them down. Armstrong designer Hazel Dell Brown did more than kitchens. She also designed basements and bathrooms. Kohler's vintage bathrooms can be rather stunning, too. So I'll look for some of those to share with you as time goes on. Or a pretty set of vintage house plans. I'll keep my eyes open and add something in but for this week, we'll go plain and simple old weekly routine post...
Saturday: I promised John pancakes this morning, since I have no bagels on hand for our more usual Saturday morning breakfast. Though I am the one who insists on a constantly changing menu, on Saturday's we eat two things routinely: bagels with cream cheese or peanut butter for our breakfast and at some point during the day on a Saturday we have pizza. I started that bit of habit this year and it's easy enough that I can make a pizza from scratch in under two hours start to finish. I've developed quite a repertoire of different pizzas. I make Buffalo Chicken, a Bbq Chicken with Pineapple, Taco pizza, Sausage, Supreme, Veggie and Cheese, Four Cheese.
Well hello to you...and to Fall! Isn't it lovely to finally be officially in a brand new season? Yes, even though it mightn't feel like a new season just yet, at least not the days...But the mornings! Jacket wearing mornings. Snuggle into sweaters mornings and late evenings. Nights cool enough to pull up all the covers and snuggle together under them. I'm so glad to have it so!
Shall you join me for coffee? I'm full of random thoughts today and I am so ready to share a few of them. Have a seat, won't you?
I'm contemplating apple options...Shall I bake them, make a Brown Betty, or a pie or an apple cake? Or do I want a lovely spice cake with a broiled frosting? Oh the possibilities! What sounds good to you? I love to cook this time of year. I like to bake more often, something I really miss in summer when I really don't want to add unnecessary heat to the kitchen. I like slow cooked dishes, not just those I put in the slow cooker, but those simmered on stove top and the ones I cook in the oven for a long time. I like that they are often budget friendly and find them comforting and satisfying. There's just something homey too about having the house filled with the scent of good food.
Here's another Armstrong kitchen by my favorite designer. This kitchen is bright and sunny but I was puzzled by why so little space even by the 1930s or early 1940s standard. Well in the enlarged picture I can see that the window's view is a city scape with skyscrapers. Obviously this must be a city apartment kitchen but how cleverly done with that glass brick wall! And then again...Is it safe?!
Well it's most certainly filled this tiny kitchen with light and I love natural light in any room but most especially my kitchen work space. Of course, you know the yellow kitchen drew my attention easily, especially combined with that orange toned wood cabinet and trim.
Saturday: As I lay awake last night I realized some thing and it was a little bit startling to me. I've always felt I operate best on about 7 hours of sleep. I've always felt I was behind on sleep and that's the truth. But in figuring up how long I sleep last night I realized that I'm nearer 7 hours than I'd been thinking. It might be broken sleep but it generally averages around 7 hours total. On some occasions I don't get that much sleep and I feel dragged out and worn down but then I'll slip back into my more usual broken sleep pattern and I get about what I need to function through the days.
For my second shoebox supper attempt, I chose to make Bbq'd Spam. I use the Turkey Spam but certainly you might choose any flavor Spam which suits you. I'd seen this idea in one of the vintage magazines ads and thought it looked rather good. I mean if a recipe from 70 years ago still looks tasty, hadn't I ought to try it?
Menu: Bbq'd Spam and Beans, Coleslaw and Cornbread
I opted to do coleslaw because it's hot outdoors and I felt the cool slaw would offset the heat of the beans and meat. Honestly as a true Shoebox supper, I would have chosen fruit and gelatin or even applesauce as a dessert, any of which also might be a cool and refreshing item to go with this meal.
Even though you can't see the whole of this kitchen we can most certainly see enough of it to get a feel for the space. This is a late 1940's design from Armstrong floors. Armstrong kitchens can almost always be earmarked by the dramatic statement floors at this period.
The color scheme overall is unusual. A mix of green, yellow-green, black, pale baby blue, deep rusty brown in the open cupboards...I'm thinking the fabric at the windows might have been the inspiration for this color scheme rather than the flooring which we've seen used much more often as the jumping off point for color combinations.
Saturday: The Produce Staples That Are Always Cheap (and Available) | MyRecipes I was surprised that some seasonal foods are no longer considered seasonal....This apparently has to do with improved storage and better lasting qualities. Anyway, take a look at the article and tell me which of these surprised you.
Also enjoyed this article from BH&G about houseplants. Leftover Coffee and Other Kitchen Scraps Help Houseplants Thrive | Better Homes & Gardens (bhg.com)
Hello dear...We can sit on the porch if you can tolerate the flies that want to 'stick' as Granny used to say. We keep having little pop up showers but the sound of the rain on the tin roof of the porch is very pleasant. Or we can slip indoors and I'll offer you your choice of tea or coffee. I'm offering warm drinks today because if we sit near the windows it looks more autumn than summer out there and a warming drink feels like the right thing.
We were out this morning driving along the back roads and highways and there was golden rod tipped with palest yellow. Not quite in bloom but definitely showing it was in readiness to be on time for the seasonal change. The trees in the swamp along the River road were varying shades of color. Not quite colorful but definitely changing. The grasses that wave at roadside just now are the grasses of the autumn. And yesterday morning, for a spell, the sky overhead was the blue of autumn. It soon filled with big old cumulus clouds all over again but there was a promise of a new season in that sky. I think I'm ready for a new season. As always, now that I am older and aware of how the distance between where I started and where I'm headed has closed, I find I am sorry to tell summer "Goodbye" for another year. The fruits are done. The season has pretty much passed. Now we can only look ahead to what the new season has to offer.
One of the very first frugal things I did as a new homemaker who was also newly unemployed was to find out how I might make a savings in my home. It was the late 1970's when I found myself without a job during an economic recession that affected our household as it had many others. Books and magazines suddenly abounded with information on how to save money and I soaked it all up like a sponge.
I focused first on washing out the baggies that I put my husband's daily lunch sandwich in. It was a tiny savings at that time but times were desperate. It became a habit that I kept up for 43 years.
This kitchen is from Kitchen Maid cabinets. It was part of their 1953 campaign. Let me share what I like about it. The blue cabinets. The way the floor has flecks of blue and yellow in it on the brown background.
This again, was meant to be a step saving, most thoroughly modern kitchen. Note that the laundry, ironing and a television are all located handily in this room. I'm thinking the big monstrosity next to the TV is an oven. The cooktop is located on the other side of the kitchen, well away from the sink and oven. And the fridge is the last appliance on the sink cabinet wall, which means that there can be no further counter top. Indeed, looking at the stove top there's nothing there beside it.
Shoe Box Supper Menu #1: Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole
Green Beans
Fruit Cocktail
I've been making this casserole for years now, ever since a friend served it to me for supper one night. I followed her recipe though there are many variations online.
I know that we like this casserole, but I was curious to make it a pantry meal choice. And then I didn't quite follow my own intent, as I'll explain to you below, because I ended combining this with "Gathering Fragments". But first, here's the meal I served tonight:
Saturday: Katie had asked if I'd go with her to run to the stores yesterday and I had plans with John. She considered coming along with us but said no, she'd just wait. Then asked if I'd go with her today. I was more than happy to do so. For one thing, I wanted to take advantage of the digital coupon sale on butter at Kroger (use 5xs, $1.88 pound) which is a great price and a savings of $1.11 over what I paid at Aldi earlier in the month). I've also been fighting with my phone. I can't recall how long I've had it but let's say 5 years or so and here of late it would die suddenly, complained constantly that I was out of storage though I uninstalled every possible app, moved pictures to another device, and emptied the cache umpteen times daily. Katie had told her dad I needed a new phone and together they'd determined what we were getting for my phone.
No, no one asked me but really, all I care is that it's a smart phone, and that I can use it easily enough. We never buy the latest but only models that are about to discontinued anyway. Katie decided we'd go on to the phone center and get my new phone while we were out.
As I start this post it's less about what I have in the fridge that is on my mind at the moment and more about what is in my cupboards and pantry and possibly freezer. I'm not saying I'll forgo checking over my fridge. I have a tendency to forget things much as anyone else might do. So I'll definitely be checking that but likely not until sometime Sunday afternoon.
What's on my mind at present: marshmallows, peanut butter, some mixed nuts that we simply aren't eating, though I've no idea why. I don't want those to go rancid.
I had one bit of waste last week. I went to use the corn tortillas and discovered they'd turned a nasty shade of grey. I wasn't about to use them so I opened the flour tortillas I'd bought this past pay period. I like corn tortillas but I do not use them as well as I do flour ones. John will use the flour tortillas to make roll up sandwiches but not the cornmeal ones. So in future I think I'll stick with the flour tortillas. I almost always end up with some waste when I have the cornmeal ones on hand...so no more buying those unless I can find smaller packages of them.
It's been about four years since I last wrote about Shoebox Suppers and all of that time I've held that concept in the back of my mind. This month, with Annabel writing of disaster preparedness as well she might with things the way they are in her country, and our having already experienced our first Tropical depression of the season a whole month earlier than usual, as well as the increased activity of the C word thingy, it seems like a good idea to now revisit the idea of a tiny portion of preparedness work I'd meant to do long ago and get it done as one of my own bits.
So let's revisit the concept of Shoe Box Suppers briefly. I shared my ideas, as did a few readers in these two posts which I also linked last week. The first post is here and there was a follow-up post. I compiled a list last weekend of those ideas I'd shared, and those that others had shared in the comments. I visited the site Lana recommended on those posts, Southern Plate. She calls her meals Bags to Dishes meals. I wrote out all the ones that I wanted to try.