A Green Fire

Recently, I boiled a five pound chicken.  I had a great recipe for a 3 1/2 pound chicken, but my five pounder was too big, so I just cut it up and boiled it.  This gave me six meals.  I shredded some, and had a super yummy salad.  I mixed some with barbque sauce and had a sandwich for lunch.  I ate one leg and thigh for supper the night I cooked it.  Last night, I shredded the last of it and made chicken enchiladas.  It made enough for  three meals.  Also, I saved the water I boiled it in, and I have plenty of chicken broth for future cooking needs.

I think six meals from one bird is pretty darn good.

Another frugal meal was a box of generic stroganoff hamburger helper.  I cooked a medium onion, a heaping tablespoon of diced garlic and one pound of ground turkey together.  I followed the box directions for the rest of the cooking.  That made 5 meals.  I ate one portion for supper, and refriderated the rest in single servings.  I have four lunches.  I also cut up a cucumber, and a garden fresh tomato.  I put them in single serving containers with a little bit of italian dressing.  Now I have a great lunch for the rest of the week, with raisins for a snack.  I only needed four meals for this week, since I have Friday off.

Best of all, I don’t have to cook again until Thursday night, and even then, I already have a plan.  I have in the freezer, filleted fish, caught this past weekend.  A nice side salad and I’m set for at least two more days.

The best way to stretch your food dollars is think beyond one cooking.  How can you stretch it?  How can you make leftovers interesting each day so you don’t get tired of them?  One new thing I will be doing is smoothies for breakfast.  Usually, I eat the same thing every day, a granola bar and a piece of string cheese, and coffee.  Well, the blueberries are ripe, and I’m getting a blender.  Soon, it will be smoothies for breakfast.  I’ll let you know what I’m blending up, and how they are turning out.

Do you have a favorite cheap meal? I’d love to read about it in comments.

I thought this article was interesting, and thought I would share it with you.

Yes, We will have no bananas

Go read it, I’ll wait.

I certainly learned a lot from this.  I knew all bananas were the same, but I never really questioned why there are different apples, different potatoes, different onions, and different varieties of all the other fruits and veggies I shop for, but only one kind of banana.   It makes sense to me now, but now I’m extremely curious as to what those other flavors of banana tastes like.  Unless I travel to where they grow, I don’t think I will ever find out.

I don’t think I will miss bananas too much if they are no longer shipped here.  I don’t eat them that much now.  I am moving in a eat locally direction, and bananas sure aren’t ‘local.’  I wonder if the prices go up to truly reflect the effort that goes into their production; the demand will drop so much that shipping will cease long before the fungus kills them off.

How about you?  Will you still eat banana’s if the price dramatically rises?  Will you miss bananas if they are no longer shipped here?

Yesterday, I found a site with plans for all kinds of solar ovens. Actually, the site has all kinds of information about solar cooking. Solar cooking is something I first encountered years ago on 3-2-1 contact, a PBS science show.  I am interested in it now, because I really like camping, and another way to cook food without having to find wood and build a fire, or to bring charcoal sounds wonderful to me.

Also, memories of hurricane Katrina are still fresh with me, and seeing all the flooding going on in Iowa reinforces that disaster can happen at any time, anywhere. I was lucky after Katrina, my power came on pretty soon. What if it happens again, and what if the disaster is more widespread? Having another way to cook will be pretty darn handy.

So, a solar oven is basically concentrating the sun’s rays onto a pot or cooking vessel by using several reflective panels. These can be incredibly simple or fancy. I was so excited to find that you can make a solar oven using the silver sun shade that usually sits on your car’s dashboard. Another example was made from a large umbrella. Basically, almost anything can be made to work.

Looking at videos on youtube, a man showed how he turned an old satellite dish and some mylar into the reflector for an oven.  I also have an old satellite dish and some Mylar, and glue.  I sense a weekend project coming up.   Once it’s finished, what should I cook first?

I barely knew you.

My lettuce is being devoured by tiny green worms.  I thought it was just a few worms, and that I had gotten rid of them, but no.  There are LOTS and LOTS of worms and they are FEASTING on my lettuce.  All the leaves are infected.

I am so bummed.  It was just getting big enough to really look forward to eating.  This weekend I’m dumping the whole thing in the compost, washing the planter, and starting over with something else.

Part of growing my own food is learning, and this is a good lesson.  Don’t plant all your lettuce in one basket.

I mentioned before that I started some lettuce in a hanging basket. It has come up wonderfully.

It is crowding the basket, so I thinned it down and planted nine of the strongest plants in my raised bed. I did have cucumber planted here, but an armadillo ate it. So, I bought chicken wire and put that over the plants hopefully to deter any intrepid armored mammalians.

The lettuce looks a little puny right now, but I hope once it soaks up some water, it will perk right up. Also, I expect my plants in the basket to grow bigger now that they have a little more space and less competition for nutrients.

My other plants are also doing very well. Here is my outside dill.

I don’t know what this is. It doesn’t die. I thought it was dead and threw it “away” twice and it came back. This year I broke the roots apart making four different plants. It is by far the most hardy plant I have ever had.

My flowers are doing ok, my ivy is growing beautifully and my inside dill gets bigger every day. Maybe this year, I will have some gardening success. I certainly hope so.

I haven’t talked to much lately about how to be frugal.  I recently combined several methods.  1-I made a vegetarian meal 2-at home, and 3-I ate all the leftovers over several days, many of those as 4-lunches I brought to work.

I made this soup in the crock pot.

One cup of dried lentils

One can of string beans, black-eyed peas,  English peas,  black beans,  and diced tomatoes.

One tablespoon diced garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

I used frozen chicken broth (made myself earlier in the month) as the base, and added just a little bit of water.  I put it all in the crock pot and put the lid on.  I cooked it on low for around four hours, then I added the tomatoes.  While the tomatoes were heating through, I cooked cornbread.

When the cornbread was finished, I crumbled a piece in my bowl and spooned the soup over the top.

YUM!

This made seven servings.  If you are the kind of person who cannot eat leftovers, this would easily freeze.  Just store the soup in single servings and you can then reheat on the stove later.

SAVINGS:

If you figure I would have spent $5 a lunch for 5 days, that’s a savings of $25 dollars.  Also, I stayed in one place, instead of driving to buy lunch.  That saved 30 miles for the week.

Monday I cut the grass in my back yard.  As I was making my first cut, I saw a snakeskin next to where I park.  It was at least four feet long, but I could not tell what kind of snake it was from as the skin was already somewhat dried out and flaking apart.  Part of the last of it was all bunched up, like you bunch up a sock when you take it off.  So, I think the snake was in fact longer.  I was so glad I only found the skin.

I have noticed a lot of little scratchings in my yard and all around my house.  I think these are from a possum.  Fortunately, I am not in the running for yard of the month, so it does not bother me that my yard is now decorated with all these very small bare spots.  My thought is, as long as it (possum, rabbit, or coon) is digging here, and not in my garden, that is fine with me.

I’m surprised my dog has not killed whatever creature this is, but so far, it has evaded his mighty hunting skills.  Or maybe, he’s a lazy dog.

On my way into work yesterday, I saw a hawk swooping down and chasing a squirrel.  The squirrel was darting hither and yon, and I had to turn a corner, but I think the hawk did not go hungry.

On the way to work today,  bird committed birdicide by flinging itself into my windshield.  I guess the horrors of this world were just to much for it.  Poor bird, at least it was quick.

When I get home today, my plan is to cut the front yard.  I hope the snake has moved on.

Today for lunch, I went to a grocery store to get a hot lunch.  I like that option b/c usually there are several vegetable choices and there is a small line, and I like to take my food to the park afterwards.

This was my first time at this particular grocery store and after she put my food in a Styrofoam container, she then wrapped it in plastic!?! I had never seen that done before and I was quite surprised.  My tea was in a Styrofoam cup and came with a plastic straw. Sheesh.  I felt like a walking garbage pail kid, spreading filth where ever I stepped.

Well, I get to the park and open it up and inside the plastic sleeve with my plastic fork and knife are my tiny salt and pepper packets.  I checked just because I was curious.  The pepper packet said ingredients, ground pepper.  The salt however contained, Sodium chloride, sodium silicoalum? (last letter or letters torn off because I opened it before I read the back) , dextrose, potassium iodide, and sodium bicarbonate.  Whoa.

Just what is all that?  Well the first ingredient is, well, salt.  The second is a mystery, the third is a form of sugar, the fourth is added to table salt in small quantities to make it “iodized”.  Lastly we have sodium bicarbonate, more commonly known as baking soda.

That’s a lot of stuff for a tiny packet that is boldly labeled SALT and instead is much more.  I did not sprinkle it on my black eyed peas.  I went with the ground pepper instead.  I’m not sure why this salt packet has so many ingredients.  My salt at home is labeled, salt.

I am unhappy with how much plastic and Styrofoam I encountered with this lunch as well.  This has inspired me to reinforce my goal of bringing my lunch as much as possible.

This garden is illegal has a great post about the lovely magnolia. Magnolias in Full Bloom

Go check it out.

In the interest of balance, here is an interesting commentary that aired on NPR today. Please check it out.

Right to Tumble Dry addresses why we should tumble dry our clothes and shun the clothesline.