Frugal Frolics and Life Happenings: Money Saving Recap

Well, hello again everyone!

It has been a time around here and I have to say having energy to do much other than day to day activities has been really hard to find. 

For one thing, we are just busy (like so many others) this time of year and it has been hectic getting the tree up, making Christmas cookies and all the things.  And then we had a couple of curve balls as well.

For one, my daughter is going through lifeguarding recertification, so she had a complete course she had to do online for her written portion of the test.  And, of course, her laptop decided to die in the worst possible moment.  I haven't had much of a chance to figure out why it is stuck on the blue screen of death, but I'll get to it.  So, to get her course done, I gave her my laptop to use.  Since it is newer it is WAY more reliable and easier to use.  It took her a few weeks to get that done, but she completed the course and I thought I could get back to blogging again.

And then my mom happened.  She took a bad spill in Wal-Mart back East and ended up with bleeding on the brain from the incident.  So, the last week and a half or so has been nerve wracking for me to say the least.  She's up and moving around now, grumpy and frustrated, and waiting on insurance to give the go ahead to move her to a rehab facility as she's still shaky and has blurry vision.  They ran a bunch of tests and they think the fall was due to really high blood sugar, although my mom remembers none of the incident, so it is kind of hard to tell if there was another issue going on.  

Then my mother-in-law took Armina out to the movies (which was fun and I'm glad she did it), but that night my mother-in-law started getting sick.  Turned out she caught Covid.  With Armina having to go through her physical testing for lifeguarding the next couple of weeks I've been watching her like a hawk and praying she doesn't get sick (so far, so good...knock on wood).

Top it all off with Alvah deciding to give up sleep with the exception of like a few hours a night and being really grumpy about it and dude...my brain has been shot the last bit.  I thank the good Lord that I started writing things down that I needed to remember YEARS ago or I doubt I'd remember to do essential stuff.  Phone calendars with reminder alarms are the best invention EVER!  

So, when it comes to money saving things, I did get a couple of them done and wrote down, so let's recap those really fast.

1.  I made sure we ate at home despite being stressed out and really tired because I knew we didn't have the money to go out to eat all the time (I get grey hair every time we eat out anymore...I mean it's nearly 80.00 to eat out now!).  Luckily, my husband is okay with eating left overs and I ended up punting and making tacos and things some nights, but we are doing okay overall.  I made a beef roast a few days back and I'm going to use some of the left overs (we've already had French dip sandwiches with the leftovers as well) to make beef fajitas for dinner tonight (if I have tortillas...I've got to check the freezer).

2.   I did end up taking advantage of the Amazon black Friday week long deal sale and was able to order some bras for the daughter and I at a significant discount.  I was even able to add them to Subscribe and Save for January, so I saved 5% off of the sale price and also put off having to pay for them for a little bit.

3.  I used some of my Amazon associate fees to order some things to fill in holes in my pantry (thanks again to those who order through my associate links.  I appreciate it!).  I was going to use said associate fees toward Christmas gifts, but I decided to stick with my original budget that I had saved and bought gifts through that instead of using the associate fees as well.

4.  My kitchen sink broke.  The sewer line was slipping and anytime I poured a pot of water down the drain it was surging up and over the pipe and into my sink cabinet.  It was a mess when I caught it.  My husband looked at it and this weekend got the parts and fixed it, which was a relief (I had a bucket jammed under the pipe to catch the water in the meantime) and while I had everything out from underneath the sink he put in the new kitchen faucet!  I had bought the faucet ages ago and the old faucet was leaking, creating water hammer problems (vibrated the pipes with a gong type sound when you'd turn off the tap) and would just randomly vapor lock and not work for a few moments until it decided to work again, so to say I'm thrilled to have a working kitchen sink again that is SO much less frustrating is no exaggeration!

5.  My husband changed out his headlight bulbs as one had burned out on him.  Always grateful to have a man with skills that can do the work himself and save us time and money.

6.  I got a check from our mortgage company because we had overpaid on our escrow (a lot of that was probably from changing insurance companies).  I ended up having enough from that check to pay off a credit card (it didn't have a huge balance), which was an upper to say the least.  I even had enough left over to buy a beef roast for Christmas dinner, which was great as it freed up some money in my grocery budget by doing that.

7.  I cut my husband's and my son's hair.

8.  While having a ladder out to hang up Christmas decorations, I took advantage of having the ladder to deep clean the high (and pretty big) celing fan in our living room.  I was glad I did that as it needed to be deep cleaned.  I regularly dust the fans around here, but they still build up dust in areas you can't reacn and get gross, which I'm always worried about how that will effect the motor in the fans.  So, it was good to get that fan deep cleaned for sure.

9.  I was able to get a free turkey for Thanksgiving dinner by spending more than 150.00 in one shopping trip (since I shop every two weeks, that's really easy to do).  I used the free turkey for Thanksgiving and then took inventory to see what else I might need.  I already had cranberry relish in the freezer from when I put together all of those freezer preparations a while back, so I didn't need to buy cranberries or oranges for that.  I already had potatoes that I could use for dinner as well and frozen green beans.  I even decided to go cheap and use dried herbs instead of fresh in Thanksgiving dinner this year (I just pre-cooked the apple and onion I stuff the turkey with some dried herbs and then for the potatoes au gratin dish I prepare I just used a bunch of dried herbs to season the cream with before straining and adding to the potatoes...it worked great actually!).  I found that the free turkey I had was a 20 lb bird and I couldn't fit anything but the turkey into my oven when I went to bake it, so I ended up baking the potato au gratin dish in the toaster oven...and actually that worked really well and was WAY easier to clean up when it overflowed a tiny bit into the oven than it would have been had it done that in my big oven, so I might just do that again next year.

10.  I started taking everything out of bathroom drawers and cabinets, going through everything and getting rid of stuff that was really expired and things to make things more functional.  I finished the upstairs bathroom this weekend and was super happy with the results, but still have some stuff to do down in the master bathroom downstairs.  I'm hoping to get things as organized as I can before the end of the year this year, since I failed to make it happen last year.  Here's hoping!

And I'm going to stop there as my son is super grumpy today (lack of sleep anyone?) and I need to take care of him.  I hope you all are having a great holiday season and are able to find an opportunity to relax a bit.

Frugal Frolics: Money Saving Recap

 Hey, I'm back!  And it hasn't been a month!  Lol!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween.  We spent a good portion of that evening worrying about my husband getting home from Anchorage in one piece as the roads weren't great, but once he got home we all had home made pizza and breadsticks for dinner, watched some Halloween movies, had some candy and were not surprised when trick or treaters did not show up again this year (roads were not great and we might get a surprise trick or treater once in a blue moon, but for the most part they don't come this way).  

We enjoyed Halloween treats and I made some popcorn (my son ended up eating it all, but hey, I tried *laugh*).  

I even made some Halloween themed chocolates, which was fun.  I've had the same candy molds for years and years and we try to make some chocolates every year as part of the holiday.  With the son's peanut allergy, buying Halloween themed chocolate doesn't work as everything is cross contaminated with peanut.  So, we make our own :).

It was a long, hard week last week.   The weather went to "nasty garbage winter" really fast for the first foray this winter and it was terrible out.  My husband had made an appointment to get new winter tires on his car the week before (the garages get backed up HARD up here during the first part of winter as everyone runs to get their winter tires on their car, so schedules get backed up fast), but he had to make it to the weekend to get them.  We ended up with a 200.00 tow bill to tow my husband up a hill in Anchorage on Monday evening as Anchorage roads ended up being polished ice between the weather and Anchorage road maintenance services (they are notoriously bad).  It was not a cheap bill (especially to get towed 8 feet or so), but we would have paid more as it was the only way my husband was going to get home safe without sliding sideways down that hill.  We made it through the rest of the week with him getting home in one piece (thank goodness) and he now has new studded tires on his car, so I feel a lot better about him having to commute now, especially with the temperatures hovering around freezing a lot.

Last week for me was also super busy, so let's get to what I was up to all week long.

1.  Lots of canning!

Well, okay, not lots.  But, I did get a bunch done around here when it came to that.

I canned up the big bags of strawberries I had in the standing freezer downstairs to help work toward getting it emptied and defrosted.  I then moved on and canned up the mixed berries as well and I ended up throwing random bags of raspberries that I had found buried in the freezer as well as some blackberries and a half empty bag of blueberries.  The mix turned out really yummy tasting!  The raspberries kind of disintegrated in the process, but I really don't care as my plan is to thicken the mixture when I open the jars to make either a syrup for pancakes and things or to make into a pie filling to fill a tart or other dessert with later in the winter.  The same with the strawberries.  I don't care that they get kind of mushy and don't hold up to canning well as we just use them to spoon over cake to make strawberry shortcake during the winter months.

2.  I ended up deciding to can up some beans.  I took stock of our food storage the last bit and realized that we have a TON of beans around here.  We ended up with a ton of beans over the years from when people have moved and by figuring out the weights of the cans of beans we had and the bulk bags we also were given...I'm drowning in beans.  So, it is time to start working our way through them slowly but surely.  I stuck to small batches of canning as I wanted to make sure that we would use what I canned before I can more.  I don't want to be drowning in cans of beans for years until I finally throw some away or something.  I'd rather just can them as we need them and that way nothing goes to waste.

So, in no particular order (I'll link to the recipes I used in case you are interested)...

• 4 Pints of Black Beans.  I canned these without salt (which was a mistake on my part), and am planning on using these to make home made refried beans (I prefer black beans to pinto beans in refried beans) later on.
• 5 Pints of Chili Con Carne. (I split this recipe in half as I didn't want 9 pints.  I also added some other seasonings to the mix, like more chili powder, some Cayenne pepper and a few other seasonings to make it taste the way we like it.  Overall, though, I"m happy with the results.

• 4 Pints baked beans with bacon.  I also halved this recipe as, once again, I didn't want 9 pints of baked beans.  I baked them in my bigger dutch oven in the oven for the recommended four hours before canning them up and had to add water a couple of times.  They don't say what consistency to shoot for when you go to can them, so I aired on the "soupy" side of the equation.  Worse comes to worse I'll cook them a bit on the stovetop when we go to eat them to thicken them up a bit, but I suspect they'll be fine.

Experienced canners might bring up the headspace on the above pictures to me and say my headspace was wrong, but the headspace was checked (and double checked honestly) as I am paranoid about those things.  The headspace was fine when they came out of the canner as well, but the beans absorbed liquid as they cooled.  So long as the liquid comes up at least 1/2 way in a jar the jars are safe to eat, in case inexperienced canners are wondering, so they are fine :).  

Now I just need to find room for the jars I filled.  Currently they are sitting in boxes on my kitchen floor until I can get the pantry rearranged a bit.  

3.  Once I had the freezer sufficiently reduced down, I transferred everything to my other two freezers, left the door open after I had cracked and removed the worst of the ice and just turned it off.  I left it for 24 hours before refilling it.  So far it is working fine after doing that and it has been over a week, so I'm hopeful I fixed the icing up problem for now.

I'll take a picture of the restocked freezer on a later post.

4.  A side benefit of the canning and getting the freezer emptied out was that when I put everything back in, I realized that I had enough room in other freezers to completely empty the small block freezer in the kitchen.  I emptied it, defrosted it and then, after talking to my husband, moved it outside onto the deck under the protection of the roof line and just left it out there, empty and unplugged.  We'll keep it like that until we need it as a back up freezer/an overfill freezer and save some money off of the electricity bill.  My husband wants to put a lock on the freezer for security's sake, but we'll wait until we need it for something to do that.

5.  I took inventory and realized that I didn't need to make cranberry relish this year as I still had some left in the freezer from when I made it last, so I don't need to worry about tracking down fresh cranberries and paying current prices for produce to make it (which is expensive).  So, yay for some pennies saved!

6.  Special Olympics changed their requirements this year so a physical exam isn't necessary unless you are traveling to participate in the Nationals.  I was thrilled as we were due to have a physical done on Alvah this year and those are always a lot of work to get him to sit still through it all.  I filled out the athlete paperwork and got it in so it will be logged in before swimming starts up again next year.  

7.  I was able to do a virtual check up instead of having to use up gas and time to go in person.

8.  I took the money I had budgeted for Christmas gifts this year and was able to carefully stick to that budget for my family (I started adding things to a "secret list" on Amazon and that way I could keep track of the amount of money I would need as time went on).  I placed the order and am getting gifts in early so I don't have to worry about waiting in line at the post office around Christmas time (lines get ridiculous up here around Christmas with how many people order their gifts and the amount of people who send and receive gifts in the mail period).  I am glad I was able to get shopping done without having to put it on credit card with how tight money has gotten since my husband's pay cut.  Luckily, most of the money I had set aside I did so when we were making more money then we are now, so that helped a LOT.  I start making Christmas lists for the kids and husband as soon as Christmas is over pretty much, so honestly I feel that helps as it gives you a lot of time to figure out what to do.

And, yeah, I think I will call it good there as I have to get stuff done around here.  I hope your guys week went well.  Enjoy!

Frugal Frolics: Money Saving Recap

It has been busy around here, I don't know about you guys!

1.  I have been working hard trying to clean up the freezers so that I can empty out my upright freezer and figure out why it is icing up so bad.  I manage to get the ice out of the bottom and then more just starts to flow in.  The freezer is supposed to have an auto defrost function on it, so I need to figure out if there is a blockage or something that is causing it.  So, step one is defrosting it completely so I need to be able to empty it into my other freezers.  

So, step one is doing projects I’ve been putting off that we’re sitting in my freezers.  I made vegetable stock a few weeks ago and had frozen it to deal with later, and had chicken carcasses I had been saving to process into stock too.  

So, it was time to pull out the pressure canner.  I made chicken stock, put it in the fridge overnight, removed the fat after it had solidified, heated it back up and got it canning (seen above after getting out of the canner).  While the canner was naturally depressurizing, I got the vegetable stock defrosted and heated up so as soon as the chicken stock was done, I could get it out of the canner and get the vegetable stock in.  It worked well, but that was a long day of canning in between everything else I’ve been working on.  I canned the chicken stock in pints for a more convenient size to work with later and the vegetable stock I canned in quarts because those are slated for brine at Thanksgiving so canning in quarts was fine.

2.  Next up is a project I’m hoping to finish this weekend and that is canning a bunch of the berries I have frozen in the freezer.  I got two big bags of blueberries processed earlier this week (the big jars behind are the vegetable stock that I was keeping on the counter until I could open up a spot in the pantry for them, in case you were wondering) and then it is on to mixed berries and strawberries.  I’ve found over the years I really like having canned berries in the pantry for ease of use, so that is what I’m working on currently.  I’m still going to keep some small bags of fruit frozen for use in muffins and things, but I’m going to can the majority of them.

I am really scaling down canning projects to make what I know we will eat.  Things are getting too expensive to do otherwise.  Some things I have to buy (which I have scaled that variety back as well) but things like chicken stock are so cheap to can myself, that I’m definitely going to do that for the foreseeable future.

3.  I fixed my son’s closet door to close properly.  He got overly enthusiastic and ran into his closet (all 180+ pounds of him) and managed to knock the cheapy hollow core door all askew in its frame so the door wasn’t stopping when closed.  I hammered it all into place as best I could (cheap doors move so much and just suck) and got it to close right.  Hopefully the fix works for a while because I don’t want to have to buy new interior doors anytime soon.

4.  I got the cast iron Dutch oven rack in the mail.  I got it put together and got the Dutch ovens on it.  

Opinions and experience since some people asked for my feedback.  The shelf works.  It is heavy duty (so it is heavy to move around).  An absolute pain in the keester to put together as it flares in and out to hold different sized pots.  I got some bruises, some scrapes and back in touch with my ability to cuss like a sailor as I was working on it.  It does not fit into small spaces as well as I hoped as it twists slightly as an artsy type of flare in design.  Once it was up and in the kitchen, it just did not work in the space.  It just took up too much space and I wasn’t really gaining anything from taking down the kitchen cart to add that in.  If you have a decently big kitchen and like the look of the shelf, I would say it is worth the money (I would suggest having help to get it together though).  For a small kitchen where space is precious, was it worth saving up 10 months for?  No, no it wasn’t, unfortunately.

Luckily, my mother-in-law had come to visit and had really liked the shelf (and her kitchen is more modern and bigger than mine so the shelf would look better there), so I offered it to her.  She even offered to pay me what I had bought it for.  So the only thing I was out was my physical labor putting it together.  I’m calling it a wash on the frugal front.  Not a win, but not a fail.  It was, however, a disappointment.

5.  I ended up getting creative and found this spot to stack my Dutch ovens on my counter.  I hated to lose the counter space, but it made Alvah happy to have more floor space opened up, so I’ll deal with it.  I put pieces of cardboard in between the Dutch ovens to stack them so that the one on top doesn't scratch up the one above it.  

6.  To try and make the rack work, I had hoped I could rearrange my hallway closet and put it in there.  It didn’t work in the end, but I eliminated the need for one of the grey shelves I had on the floor and got the school supply boxes out of my hallway and tucked into the closet instead, which freed up a bit more floor space for Speed Racer (the son unit) and eliminated more visual clutter.  So that, in the end, was a win to me.

7.  My daughter really wanted to dress up like the 10th Doctor (Dr. Who) for the Trunk-or-Treat to pass out Halloween candy to kids.  Costumes that we could find were really expensive for cosplayers (like 200.00 expensive) and I found nothing else, so my husband took Armina last weekend to the used stores to see what they could find.  They found enough clothing to make the costume work for less than 30.00.  And the trench coat is lined and can be used for day to day life later on.

8.  My husband really wanted Mongolian BBQ.  I had some chicken I could use so I decided to make some at home.  But I  was missing some of the veggies that normally went in it.  Instead of buying things special I just made do with the veggies I had fresh and in the freezer and just padded things out a bit more with spaghetti noodles.  It turned out really well and the husband was very happy with the results.

9.  I got work samples done and in for both kids and a bit early even.  I’m always relieved to get that job done as it is time consuming.

10.  I turned two pork roasts that had been sitting in the freezer for too long into different meals for later.  I partially defrosted them, removed the meat from the bones and managed to get enough meat to make German marinated pork, Korean fried pork (just pork in ginger to make into fried pork later) and some sweet and sour pork ready for dinners later.  Feel good getting cuts of pork I really don’t use too often (but were super cheap when I bought them) in the freezer and ready to rock for dinners later on.

11.  I finally uncovered the last ham hock that I KNEW was in the freezer somewhere and could never find.  It had been in the freezer a few years so I knew it needed to be used up.  I cooked it, removed what meat I could get off of it and made a ham and cheese quiche for dinner one night.  It was delicious!  

And there you go folks.  Some of the frugal stuff I’ve been doing around here.  Hope all is going well with you.

Enjoy!

Food Preparation Day Recap

Last weekend I had a pretty big food prep day so I thought I’d share what I made with you all to hopefully maybe give you some ideas or inspiration.

Let’s start with chocolate syrup.  Our supply ran out and we have found that Hershey syrup does not keep anymore.  We’ve had it mold twice and that was enough for us (used to keep indefinitely in the fridge…no longer).  We used up the other stuff we found on Amazon but the price on that stuff went through the roof, so I made my own this time around.

I used this recipe.  I ended up having to add more sugar and water than was called for to stop it from tasting grainy and getting the cocoa powder to incorporate completely.  But, it is tasty.  Richer and less sweet than Hershey syrup (not a bad thing to me), but good.  Hopefully it keeps well.

I then made a pot of Japanese style curry one night and froze the left overs in individual portions this day.  I love Japanese curry, the family doesn’t mind it but they don’t adore it like me.  So, I froze the left overs for easy and yummy lunches for me.  Note:  I just follow the directions on the curry roux box for portions of onions, carrots and such, but I do like to double up the curry roux to make a really nice, thick curry :).

I also made a big pot of cabbage roll soup and froze the left overs that day as well.  My husband loves Erbswurst pea soup when he isn’t feeling well…I love cabbage roll soup. I ran out of it in the freezer so I was thrilled to add it back for easy meals later :).

I made two types of no cook ice cream as ice cream is ridiculously expensive anymore.   I made chocolate and vanilla.  My daughter is delighted with the chocolate ice cream as it is her absolute favorite (a nice, rich, chocolate ice cream).

Side note:  I wanted to thank the kind soul who sent me this ice cream maker off of my wish list a few years ago (they didn’t include their name when they sent it).  It has a compressor in it so you can freeze the ice cream on the spot and not waste freezer space with a bowl that has to freeze beforehand.  Unfortunately (true to form) Amazon doesn't ship this to Alaska anymore, so I didn't do an associate link to the ice cream maker (just a regular link to share for anyone who might be interested).  I had wanted one and found one that actually shipped to Alaska but it was so expensive that I just figured it would sit on my wish list forever.  I got two uses out of my new bowl style ice cream maker before the bowl started leaking white stuff around the seal, so I was very grateful to get it! 

I then made up a batch of breakfast sausage and the next day made up a batch of pancakes (I make sourdough pancakes so they ferment overnight) to make pancake wraps to go with the husband’s breakfast options.  This time I only got three wraps because the sausage was local sausage I wanted to try and it came with less links than the store bought sausage (good stuff though), as each wrap takes two sausages to put together.  My husband raided a few links for breakfast that morning which helped to reduce the amount of wraps possible too lol. 

I cut up what was left of a loaf of bread and made French toast that morning as well and my husband ate some for breakfast with the sausage.  The other 3 pieces went in the freezer for breakfast for someone later on.

I had been putting off breakfast bowls because I’ve been very tired (Alvah not sleeping the last month) and didn’t want to cut up and cook potatoes, but when I was cleaning out my little veggie scrap bags out of the freezer to make some stock I found a bag of hash brown diced potatoes that I had made and had gotten buried.  So, I pulled out some ground sausage, a dozen eggs and some cheese and made the husband some more breakfast bowls.  Glad to get those back in the freezer because my husband loves them so much.

Then I pulled out the thing of bacon I had defrosted and made some Erbswurst.  My husband loves it when he has a cold (tons of protein in it), so I was glad to restock it as he was nearly out.

Next up I took some fresh Granny Smith apples that no one but me would eat, cut them up and used them to make a double batch of apple cinnamon crumble muffins as they were starting to go soft and needed to be used.  I made a double batch because that was exactly how much cut up apple I had.  I skipped the glaze for the sake of less mess.  These are yummy and come out super soft!  I kept out six to eat and put the rest in the freezer for easy breakfast fare some weekends.

Lastly I took some strawberries I had bought fresh at a good price but were not holding up well, at all, and macerated them in sugar so they would keep better for desserts or to eat on yogurt or something.  They are now in a quart jar in my fridge and I’m going to use the rest of them to make strawberry panna cotta with tomorrow.  Great way to hold fruit over (macerating with sugar) just a bit longer if you need a hack for that.

And there you go folks.  One full day of meal prep.  But, it stopped food from going bad and put a bunch more options in our fridge and freezer.  I call that a win!

Food Preservation Frolics and Follies

This year was an interesting one for food preservation.  So, let’s get to a few things I did so far.

First off, I did not plant a garden this year due to having to work on the house and deck this summer, so that was a failed goal to be sure.  I really did miss the fresh produce, especially lettuce, over the summer and I lamented the loss of my tomato plants and the potential for even green tomatoes to make into green tomato chutney (a new favorite around here), but it was what it was.

I did, however, want to preserve my rhubarb this year and I found a recipe for rhubarb chutney that sounded good and could hopefully take the place of the green tomato chutney that I had been planning on using this year in recipes.

Guys that recipe was an EPIC fail for me.  I followed the recipe exactly and really don’t know where it went wrong, but boy did it!  The rhubarb (might have been due to our crappy weather changing it’s texture or something, not sure) when it cooked, it turned out WEIRD!  The strings in the rhubarb became the same texture and consistency as fish bones.  It was disgusting and was hard not to gag on as it was like having a hair stuck or something in your mouth every time you tried to taste it! 

I tried to think how to save it.  First thought was to blend it smooth.  So, out came the immersion blender.  It chopped the pieces of stringy nastiness down but not even close to edible.  I then put the mixture through my food mill.  Twice.  Better, but pieces slipped through.  So, finally, I broke down and forced the mixture through a fine mesh sieve.  After tons of work I ended up with some pints of rhubarb chutney sauce instead of actual chutney.  I ended up freezing it versus canning it because I changed the consistency so much and plain had no idea what would be a good safe time to can it for.  I’m going to use it in the Hawaiian chicken marinade and hopefully it turns out okay, but yeah, that was not a fun experience.

Next up was a recipe that did turn out really well for me.  I took the raspberries I had left over from when my husband’s friend gave him some of his bumper crop last year and decided to make raspberry curd with them for cakes and things this winter after seeing Becky on Acre Homestead on YouTube do it.  The raspberries were REALLY tart so I hadn’t used them in much, so I did end up using a bit more sugar then the recipe called for.  But the eggs in the curd really helped to dull the flavor a little bit and it turned out really tasty.  I’m really looking forward to using it in desserts this winter :).  I froze the curd since curd freezes well (pumpkin pie, lemon pie and such for instance) and am hoping it defrosts well.

I took all of the little bits of vegetables, frozen and fresh, I had that needed to be used up but were a bit past their prime and I made a big pot of vegetable stock.  I wanted to make it for the turkey brine this Thanksgiving as vegetable stock is expensive now a days!  I managed to get 12 out of 16 cups out of what I made so now I just need to buy one box instead of 4!  Definite win!

Not really a preservation project, per say, but I did make our yearly aged eggnog and put it in the fridge yesterday to start aging for the holidays.  I used the alcohol I had on hand only again this year and just made the ratios work.  So far it is really yummy so I am hoping it turns out really good for the holidays!  Next year we will have to buy rum and bourbon again, but not this year, so that definitely saved me some money as well this year!

I harvested what chives I could when they were still growing well and froze them to use on baked potatoes this winter.  I didn’t get a ton (aforementioned crappy weather), but I hopefully got enough to last us a bit.

I did make erbswurst as well during a food prep day I did last weekend as well (more on that day later).  My husband loves this pea sausage and makes soup from it tons when sick.  We were nearly out of the last batch I made so I bought a pound of split peas and made him some more.  I used my old coffee grinder to grind up the peas into a coarse flour and it worked great.  So, Erbswurst done for a year or two!

I still have a few preservation projects to do (I got frozen berries yet to process for one...long story, but I'll get into it later), so hopefully I’ll have more to report on the food preservation front soon, so stay tuned for that!

Enjoy!

Frugal Frolics: Money Saving Recap

I want to start by saying how much my heart goes out to those effected by Helene.  I pray you are all safe and that you did not suffer any awful damage from the hurricane.  I know how terrible it is to recover from a natural disaster and I have so much empathy for those impacted by this one.

In my news, I had some “fun” on the home front.  The pressure tank for our well, located in my pantry/utility room, blew its pressure switch and sprayed an inch, or more, of water all over my pantry.  Thank God my husband was able to jam the switch back in its hole long enough for us to drain the tank or that would have been REALLY bad.  And might I say as a side note that wet dry shop vacs are the best invention ever.  Man, if not for one of those suckers, I don't know what I would have done!

Bright side of the train wreck...the pantry is very clean now.  I don't think the floor has ever been cleaner.

As is, it was not a fun week as I pulled everything out of the pantry, threw away pretty much every piece of cardboard that was in there (so waterlogged) and drying everything as it came out.  

Then it was the running of the fans to dry out the pantry as much as I could, running the carpet cleaner in the hallway (water leaked into the carpet from under the stairs, saturated the carpet and everything started to smell because it wasn’t drying fast enough) and then moving the fans to the hallway to dry out the carpet.  I nearly have everything rearranged (had to accommodate the new lack of cardboard boxes that used to house stuff) and back in the pantry, but man it is a slow process.  So, yeah, the pantry tour is a bit delayed.  I will get to it, though...it is just going differently than I had planned.

Bright side, we have been having problems with our well pressure for a while and my husband was worried it was the pump, but it was the nipple that fed the pressure switch that was just clogged shut that caused it.  We replaced the switch just to be safe as well and everything is working well again.  So, a 65.00 fix and lots of cleaning versus a well pump we’ll into the thousands of dollars?  I’ll take it.

Now onto some other stuff going on around here.

1.  I have been working hard on my kitchen this week, rearranging things, again, to make the kitchen more functional.  I am planning to eliminate the two kitchen carts in my kitchen to open the dining area a bit and get rid of visual clutter.  

A lot of this came down to my decision to get rid of some of my Tupperware.  I really do like the stuff, but it just takes so much room to store and at some point you just have to accept that your space is small, you have to maximize it or live in constant clutter, and clutter gives Alvah anxiety it turns out.  Every time I eliminate a bit more clutter, the happier he gets.  I already decluttered the living room a bunch and he’s been really happy with that too.  So, getting rid of Tupperware so I can store more in the hallway closet is totally worth it.

I have been working on food preservation this year, after a break of a few years, as well.  I’ll cover that in the next post (well part one of a few posts I'm sure), and I’m still working on things, but slow and steady wins the race.

2.  I’ve actually been doing this for a while, but thought I’d share this “frugal hack”.  We have stopped eating out as a family every week due to costs and schedule, but we do get Alvah French fries from Red Robin after swimming once a week as a treat (he is over 6’ now and starving all the time).  Every time we pick up his fries I ask for seasoning salt and I put up any extra they give us in my spice cabinet.  When I get a big enough pile I sit down, tear them open and put the salt into my big Red Robin salt container I bought years ago.  Doing this I haven’t had to try another copycat recipe for the stuff or had to buy a fresh bottle in years.  A benefit to getting take out if there ever was one.

3.  I finally broke down and made an appointment with the eye doctor to get new glasses.  The anti-scratch coating was breaking down on my current pair (still is as I’m waiting for the new ones to come in) and it is impacting my ability to see clearly now.  This time when I went I took the daughter too as she’s never had a full on eye exam (just the basic ones in the past and even that she hadn’t had in a few years) and since it is covered by insurance I figured it was time.  So glad I did that as it turns out the bad eyes on both sides of the family (my husband has great eyesight but he’s the exception not the rule) caught up with her and she needs glasses.  At least we had our tiny savings as I was able to take the cost out of that instead of having to put it on credit card.

4.  I mended a few pairs of underwear, a bra and a shirt.

5.  I saved 10.00 a month the last 10 months to buy a cast iron Dutch oven rack (associate link) to hold my Dutch ovens (I use them nearly every day, it seems) so I could eliminate one of the kitchen carts that is being used to just basically hold said Dutch ovens.  It is a lot smaller than the cart so I am hoping it will work well (Amazon shipped it slow speed so I am two more weeks out to getting it, which annoys me as it was supposed to be here by their original estimate last Monday). I’ll let you know how it goes.

6.  I took advantage of having to run into the store to get milk and picked up a pumpkin for Halloween while I was there.  I scrubbed it with rubbing alcohol and oiled the pumpkin after it dried to hopefully keep the pumpkin from rotting before Halloween.  Worse comes to worse and we’ll carve it early.  I’m not sweating the small stuff at this point.

7.  I fixed a ceiling light.  Alvah jumps on his bedroom floor a lot and the light in my bedroom ceiling managed to vibrate out of its bracket over time and fell from the ceiling and was hanging by the wires when I found it.  I had to take it the rest of the way down, rewire it and rehang it.  My husband was stuck in a traffic jam on the way home, so I handled it (he is a Journeyman electrician so I tend to leave that type of thing to him).  I worked as an apprentice electrician years ago, so it was interesting doing that work again on my own home.  I now know to check said light from time to time as the way it is constructed the problem could occur again.  

8.  Alvah managed to break the new support system my husband had installed in the loveseat.  This time when we fixed it we did a two pronged attack on the problem.  My husband put a piece of unistrut across the length of the loveseat and then I went and made sure the spring steel system of “springs” the loveseat had were snapped into their brackets properly and then I took lengths of rip stop nylon belt/strap material I had bought years ago for some projects and I basically wove an entire new seat with it, being sure to weave it in and out of the existing steel frame and the spring steel “springs”.  So far, so good.  The loveseat has been holding up well to daily abuse and I’m hopeful that this time we fixed it for a while.  Here’s hoping!

9.  I finished up Alvah’s TEFRA renewal paperwork and got it sent in for the year.

10.  We hung up Halloween decorations later than normal due to us being busy, but we got them up last week.  Last week we made Halloween themed sugar cookies.  This week we’ll make some more treats.  I really didn’t want to feel rushed this year so I am glad we are getting things done slowly but surely.  

I'm also working on food preservation projects this week to get my upright freezer emptied and defrosted properly as it is still building up ice flows in the bottom of the freezer.  I am hoping it's not slowly dying on me (I mean it is 15 years old, so it might be something bad coming my way there), but I want to see if I can take care of this problem as right now I can't use the bottom bin in my freezer or everything gets frozen in the freezer with ice, which leads to a bunch of frustration and wasted space.

And yeah, I think I will leave it there for now.  I’ve got other stuff to cover, so here’s hoping I can get some other posts done!