In My Home This Week: Why Plan?

In my home this week:

...I don't know why I even bothered to plan my menu last week.  I didn't serve even one meal from it.  I didn't even use any of the ingredients meant to be in even one of the planned dishes.  I don't know why it all went kaplut but it did.   Why plan? That's what I asked myself this week.  I plan because it is a money saver.  Fortunately none of the meals we did eat were pricey ones.  I just didn't remember my own plan to thaw food for the next day the night before.  So what did we eat?  We ate leftovers of an entrée I made last week and had forgotten and I found in the fridge one day and John bought ingredients to make dinner at home one day.  I pulled a prepared frozen entrée from the freezer another day and we bought a half priced steak as a treat  and had a nice steak dinner.  Oh and we cleared the refrigerator of all leftovers at the end of the week.  We had dinner at church one day.  All in all we had a week's worth of food and never went over budget not purchased too many special items.  So yes, meals were largely unplanned because I didn't follow my plan.

Frugal Friday

A frugal life, built around saving and not spending, often means being very creative.  First attempts might not work but keep tweaking and rethinking and remembering to 'use what you have' and you'll eventually come up with something that is both attractive and pleasing.

Saturday:  I opened curtains just as soon as I got up this morning filling the house with light.  No electricity needed.

Made a breakfast of breakfast sandwiches for us.  I used the last of a box of sausage patties.  I had just three patties but halving the third one netted us each enough meat to fill our sandwich which consisted of toast, cheese and fried eggs.

I rinsed dishes and stacked in the dishpan in the sink.

For dinner our entrée was leftover meatloaf.   I pulled some frozen cooked summer squash and shredded zuchinni from the freezer and made a squash casserole.  I made butterbeans from the feezer ,too. 

I made piecrust from scratch and then filled with three apples that no one was touching.  They had some weird looking brown spots inside, sort of like rust, not spoiled, but it was unappealing.  No one seems to mind those spots in pie.

More on 'Salad Days'

I thought of several things after my post yesterday and then you readers chipped in with some hints that are too good not to share.  So here goes with my thoughts and then your additions.

I generally wash only one head of lettuce at a time unless of course, I'm serving many. For just John and I the standard head will do us for about three or four salads each.  I wait until I'm ready to serve salad for the first time and then I wash the head of lettuce.  I cut off the root end (and if I'm being smart I set it right away in a dish of water or pop into soil).  Then I wash well and set to drain on my drying mat.  While the lettuce is still damp, I cut what is required for our salad.  If I've planned to have salad the next day I'll go on and double up on what I cut up.  I wrap the remaining lettuce in a clean cotton cloth which I keep just for this purpose.  I like old solid cotton napkins and flour sack towels for this purpose.  Then I pop the damp bundle into a zippered baggie and close it and place in my vegetable bin.  Lettuce will keep up to a week this  way, though I admit we seldom have any last that long.

I've found if I'm planning to have salad the next day I'd better not put it on the table.  John will absolutely eat every bit of it!  I generally make a large enough salad that I get about 2 cups and he gets about 3cups.  Lettuce is one thing that is a 'free' food for most diets, meaning you can eat up to 4 cups of it without noticeably impacting your carb count.

More on Homemaking

Tammy shared her routine with us and I thought you'd like to see that comment.

Monday - kitchen day - clean out the refrigerator, quick inventory of the pantry, prep food for the week including baking, then cleaning of counters, floors, and straightening cupboards and drawers as needed.

Tuesday - deep cleaning day - weekly rotation of concentrating on "zones" which include living/dining, bedrooms, bathrooms, porches/garage/car.

Wednesday - laundry day - we do laundry daily, but this is the catch-up day. I do our sheets, rugs, any odds and ends in the laundry room. I also take this day to clean the laundry room and check inventory of supplies.

Planning Convenience Meals - An End of April Challenge

I've been reading a lot about the food services that now box up produce, meat and fruit for a home and sell it at an average of $20/meal for 3 meals.  Not saying it isn't a great idea, especially if you happen to be in a big city with limited access to shopping and must walk or transport food without a car.  I'm pretty sure under those circumstances I'd be utilizing the same services myself!

I can't help, however, recall that in one of my vintage women's magazines a woman made a suggestion for 'shoe box meals' and these services remind me of that and have made my brain wheels turn.

Now this woman happened to be paid once a month.  In those months in which there was a fifth week she struggled to make her grocery budget stretch.  So she settled down with the calendar, noted when the fifth weeks occurred (twice a year usually in May and November) and then she made out a menu list of meals that she could make from canned foods and basic pantry items only.  She purchased a few extra items during the four week months.  She set up seven shoe boxes with a menu card on the front and into each box she put the components for those meals.   Personally I thought it was a great way to insure a few convenience meals were on hand.

Salad Days

Angela asked me last week to share salad topping ideas.  Well that made me think of all the wonderful things you can do with a bowl of lettuce.  I mean it's basically a blank canvas!

First let's look at the types of lettuce.  I personally like a hearty leaf lettuce.  Romaine is one such, leaf lettuces both red and green, Boston (or Bibb), frisee...I suggest you try any leafy type lettuce at least once.  Romaine is the least expensive and the most easily found.  Often you can find a pack of three 'hearts of Romaine, which is the inner parts of Romaine for about $3.  A proper loose purchased head of Romaine has a lot of coarse dark green outer leaves.  When I mention they are coarse, I do not mean they are tough but they have a sturdiness that is not at all like iceberg lettuce, which is pretty flavorless compared to the leaf lettuces.  Then there are the bitter lettuces, like arugula and endive.  They can be a bit pricey but to add to a bowl of green leafy lettuces the price is somewhat absorbed.  Personally, I'm not terribly fond of bitter lettuces.

So experiment and try different lettuces.  If you end up going back to Iceberg because you like it best, then you've at least tried something new.  Iceberg does have it's merits.  Usually it's quite inexpensive and it's almost always a nice crisp lettuce.  It has less chlorophyll and more water content and essentially is flavorless.  It does well as a finely shredded lettuce (cut very thin with a sharp knife) or torn by hand.

Freshening the Outdoors: The Porches

We've been hearing rumors of change for months now at John's job and some are easier changes than others. It's very easy to get the mindset just now that 'Best spend the money while we've got it," but that is a silly thought, truly.  I am not saying it's best to save it all, either.   I do believe in an old adage Granny used often, "Best start as you mean to go on."    I'm not in the least sorry we've spent money on flooring.  Should opportunity present itself, we'll do more work on the house, though I don't know if we'll actually do what I'd mentioned for April.  Likely that will get done a little further down the road.  It's finding the balance between spending and saving, between making the best of what we have and knowing when it's time to purchase.  It's all about understanding what is priority (for us) and what isn't. 

Like my new cushions for the porch furnishings.  No, it's not necessary, it's nice.  It's a pleasant extra.  If I were going to spend $60-$75 just now I'd much rather put that towards purchasing paper products or stocking up on the vitamins and supplements the doctor has ordered us to take, or plants for the pots on the porch and yard, or even pushing it to a sub-fund for the St. Augustine vacation we've booked.