Menu Monday on Tuesday - Again! and my Snickerdoodle Recipe

Life is almost normal again!  So excited to get back into my routine and enjoy the slow, easy, countrified life I love.  All of our visiting family has left.  It was a wonderful visit with them but I just do not do well without my routine.

Here's what I am planning on feeding my family this week.  It is a bit different for us because my mother in law requested we clean out her fridge and use up what she left behind.  

Breakfast: SMOOTHIES (a must -- the beets  need to be pulled out of the garden), eggs and toast or omelets

Our hens are still laying plenty of eggs!

Lunch and Dinner:  BBQ Beef sandwiches with roasted veggies, Pizza and Beans on Toast

Snacks/Desserts:  Pumpkin Bread and Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodle Cookies

 Snickerdoodles have a special place in my heart.  They were my dad's favorite cookie and the first cookie I ever made as a child.  Here is the recipe that I have been making for over 40 years.

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening (but I typically use all butter)

2 eggs

2 3/4 cup flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3 TBSP sugar

1 TBSP cinnamon (mix these two ingredients in a separate bowl)

Combine sugar, butter, shortening and eggs.  Mix well.  Add flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt and mix again.  Form dough into one inch balls.

Roll dough balls in the sugar/cinnamon mixture and bake 8-10 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 375 degrees.

Enjoy!

Menu Monday on Tuesday and Applesauce Cake Recipe

It's Tuesday and I totally missed Monday's post.  We had chicken drama yesterday and I spent the whole day ourside being a referee.  Yeesh...

This week is a bit different.  My mother in law is visiting and she has supplied us with her extra food and the mechanic will be gone a bit later in the week taking her to the city and catching her flight home.

But we still gotta eat so here's the plan:

Breakfast - Eggs (on toast and burritos), overnight oats and homemade granola

Lunch and Dinner - Smothered burritos, beans on toast, and pizza bites

Snacks and Dessert - Applesauce cake and snickerdoodles

All of it sounds so yummy!  While I have all the ingredients out I will make some quick mixes with the applesauce cake, snickerdoodles and pizza bites.

Here is my favorite recipe for Applesauce Cake.  It's wonderful with cream cheese frosting and I change it up by using cannned pumpkin.  I also use pumpkin pie or apple pie spice instead of measuring out all the spices each time.

Applesauce Cake

2 1/2 c flour
2 c sugar 
1 1/2 tsp baking soda and baking powder
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups applesauce
2 eggs

Combine all ingredients in a bowl.  Grease a 9x13 dish and bake 60 minutes at 350 degrees.  Easy and Delicious!

Homestead Happenings September 14

Every Wednesday I will  post what kept me busy during the week and share my pictures.  I admit, technically we do not live on a homestead but we have the mindset of one.  We endeavor to use our land and animals to sustain us and growing each year in faith, knowledge and developing a deeper, self-sustaining lifestyle.

It has finally been a relaxing week and I feel good (I knew that I would now)!  This past week I completely slowed down and enjoyed hanging out with Stormy and homeschooling and becoming a new chick owner.  So far we have four tiny, fuzzy butts in our hen house.

Horrible lighting and a fighting mama hen makes for a bad photo.

We started to clean up our yard and I dumped some leave in with the chickens.  They loved scratching through the pile.  I also started gathering up my flower pots to see if I can  harvest any seeds for next year.

With life so easy it was simple to keep up on fermenting the chicken feed and baking egg shells to feed back to them.

Free source of calcium.

Fermented feed saves money and is healthier for the chickens.

The past two days I have been taking inventory on our eBay store and started listing Christmas music.  So while I should be working on this...

I keep getting distracted by this, which is what I see whenever I look up from my computer...

Hen house and I know there are new chicks in there...

 So I made a big cup of this to keep me focused.  Mmmmm, english toffee cappuccino...

And I got to indulge in my love of Christmas music in September.  I just do not believe that wonderful songs like Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring should be limited to a season or anything by Trans-Siberian Orchestra should ever be limited.

Christmas music 

A very good week.

Menu Monday - Quinoa Lentil Chili Recipe

It's Menu Monday or the day in which I contemplate what my family will eat this week.  We have most of the leftovers eaten from the freezer so it's back to the pantry.  I may do a bit of restocking in the pantry this month.  The freeze on our funds is over, the eBay case that went into dispute was found in our favor so I no longer need to sit on all our extra funds.  

Breakfast:  yogurt with oats, nuts and dried fruits, eggs and toast, breakfast burritos

Lunch and Dinners:  Spicy Quinoa Chili, beans on toast,  turkey sandwiches,  beans and rice

Snacks and Desserts:  ice cream, fried bread with honey, rhubarb crisp

I decided to share my recipe for Spicy Quinoa Chili.  We love it and it's healthy and frugal.  Be warned that it makes a large pot!  I like eat it as a dip with tortilla chips but this week we are eating it over fried bread, topped with shredded cheese and raw onions.


Spicy Quinoa Lentil Chili (adapted from gracefulabandon.com)

1/2 TBSP oil - I like coconut oil for high heat
1/4 cup diced onion (or dehydrated from food storage)
1 1/2 cup lentils - rinsed and soaked if you remember
1 cup quinoa - rinsed
28 oz crushed tomatoes
1/2 - 1 TBSP chili powder - but I use more
1 tsp cayenne or to taste - I use more
1/2 TBSP tumeric
1 TBSP smoked paprika
1 tsp pepper
1-3 tsp salt - to taste depends on your the broth you use
1/2 TBSP oregano
8 cups broth or water or a mix.  
1 lb ground meat or 2 cups pre cooked beans

I just dump everything in my crock pot in whatever order I find my ingredients.  Here is the instructions if you want to make it on the stove top.

1.  Heat soup pot with oil, add minced garlic and onion.  Stir until fragrant.
2.  Add in quinoa cook with garlic and onions for 2 minutes.
3.  Stir in crushed tomatoes and add in lentils.
4.  Add in spices and stir.
5.  Add in 8 cups of liquids.
6.  Add in ground meat or beans
7.  Bring to boil and reduce to a simmer for 45 minutes.  This makes a thick chili and if you would like it thinner add more liquids.

Optional toppings:  sour cream or greek yogurt, cheese, onions, parsley, jalapenos

My Frugal Reading List for September

Ahhhh, I love reading books in the Fall season.   Blustery winds and rainy days make it easy to curl up with a book and eat everything pumpkin flavored.

My new read aloud book with Stormy is On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  We just finished Little House on the Prairie and are moving on through the series.

I am still reading Dune by Frank Hebert.  Almost to the halfway mark and still enjoying it very much.  Before bed I am reading Grace in Africa by Kay Marshall Strom.  My book is actually on the Kindle that I downloaded free.  So far I am enjoying it as a guilty pleasure romance read, set in the time of the African slave trade.  I finished Trance-formation of America and have not chosen a new non-fiction book yet.

If I can finish up these two books this month I will be satisfied.  Next month is soon enough to pick out something more educational.

'cuse the language but too cute not to use

My Frugal Reading List for September

Ahhhh, I love reading books in the Fall season.   Blustery winds and rainy days make it easy to curl up with a book and eat everything pumpkin flavored.

My new read aloud book with Stormy is On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  We just finished Little House on the Prairie and are moving on through the series.

I am still reading Dune by Frank Hebert.  Almost to the halfway mark and still enjoying it very much.  Before bed I am reading Grace in Africa by Kay Marshall Strom.  My book is actually on the Kindle that I downloaded free.  So far I am enjoying it as a guilty pleasure romance read set in the time of the African slave trade.  I finished Trance-formation of America and have not chosen a new non-fiction book yet.

If I can finish up these two books this month I will be satisfied.  Next month is soon enough to pick out something more educational.

Frugal Friday and Homestead Happenings!

Wowza, what a busy week we had.  Apparently way to busy to do a Homestead Happenings post on Wednesday so I am combining it with Frugal Friday, which works because it all melds together for this family.

I finished up all my canning projects.  My water bath and pressure canners are all cleaned up and polished waiting for next year.  My goal was to use up every canning jar in the house and this year it was close.  I am left with one case of quart jars and one pint and a half jar.  That's it!  I'm not sad about the quart jars because I will use them for fermenting foods like yogurt and beets when I harvest the last of them from my garden.  

I was able to process all the frozen foods out of our large freezer and unplug that energy sucking machine down.  I dehydrated the frozen veggies I had and vacuum sealed the flours and let's just say then animals are eating very well this week.

Dehydrated veggies from freezer

Expensive flours and nuts vacuumed packed.

It  was our anniversary this month so we did our typical date.  I love a road trip so we always take an exploration drive.  This year we did it in the mechanics "Big Truck" and took a drive on the beach and then around the North Fork which is a beautiful drive up the mountain on dirt roads looking at Fall colors.  We also picked up lunch from our favorite take out but not until the next day.

Stormy learning to drive Big Truck on beach.

Driving all by herself!

Anchor Point Beach on a cloudy day.

North Fork Road.

My mother in law is up visiting for the rest of the month so we are slowing down enough to enjoy spending time with her and this week I am anxiously awaiting the birth of chicks.  Both our broody hens should be hatching their eggs soon but I gotta admit they are terrible broody hens.  Many a night I have to chase them on the right nest after finding cold eggs.  If any chicks are actually born, it will be a miracle.

Lazy Wolf Dog

Not a frugal pet but very good company.

Canning, Preps and Storage - August Journal

For the past year I have been meaning to start a canning journal that would include my preps and food storage.  I tried to put in on paper and in a spreadsheet but I just wasn't keeping up with it.  To increase the excitement level, I will try to place it here in this blog, which is largely my personal journal anyway.  I'm shaking my head too.  We all know how sporadic I am with this blog.

August is a busy canning month for all canners.  The gardens are producing and it's time to put things up.  My garden pretty much took care of our needs so I did purchase some veggies and plan to purchase more.  Next year I will put in a larger garden including a potato patch where the chicken run is right now.

I was motivated to do a bit more canning after we received our last electric bill.  It was up on a month where it should be low.  One of the things that I noticed was our big chest freezer always seemed to be running.  My first step was to defrost it but my goal is to unplug it for good.  Hello smaller electric bill!

Later that night I had a sink full of various meats that I canned up the next day.  For my family, canning our meats is smart.  We do not eat a lot of meat and I really do not like touching, cooking or smelling it.  I loved that I cooked up a sink full of meat in one canner load.  

Next, I was honest with myself and turned the items we were never going to eat into chicken food.  A couple large bags of carrot pulp from our juicing days, a small bag of frozen grapes, some lentil soup that turned an ugly color of gray, all mixed up with a bit of oatmeal fed the chickens for days and made delicious eggs.

I am making an effort to use up the frozen veggies.  Thawing and canning them would destroy them so veggies are on the menu.  In the future I plan to can only the veggies that we enjoy, not the ones that I think we should be eating and never do.  

From the chicken scraps and a bag of frozen vegetable ends I made up bone broth in the crockpot and canned it.  I still have 2 whole organic chickens in the freezer that I will cook and eat and make and can up more broth.  It's like free food for us and more chicken food.  I wonder if it's considered cannibalism to feed live chickens dead chickens?

I canned up pinto and white beans because I love having them on hand for a quick burrito or refried beans or easy soup.  Here's what I canned in August:

Garlic - 14 half pints
Hot peppers - 8 pints
Pickled Beets - 5 pints
10 pounds Hamburger
10 pounds Chicken Breast
3 pounds Fish
8 quarts Pinto Beans
8 quarts White Beans

Menu Monday - Labor Day!

Here's is my menu ideas for the upcoming week. This past week I cleaned out and unplug a freezer that seemed to be running all the time and I know that means my electric bill is running up as well.  Our fridge is stuffed with food to be eaten, so it's like leftovers all week kind of cooking.

Breakfast:
French Toast with homemade syrup
Yogurt - Homemade in the crockpot
Eggs and toast

Lunch and dinner:
Sloppy Lentils
Chicken pot pie
Beans

Snacks and desserts:
Applesauce cake
Banana Bread with chocolate chips made in my bread machine (I never made this last week)
Ice cream cones

I did not follow the plan last week.  I've been too busy to keep the fridge stocked like I usually do.  I love Fall but it is by far the busiest time of year.   My kitchen is a disaster but in a canning way of disaster.  

  

August Food Cost Breakdown

Canning and Food Storage

White wine $3.47 (used for the pickled garlic recipe)
Beets  $7.16  (only made 5 pints of pickled beets, I will pickle more when I pick from my garden in food storage)
Canning jar lids $10.92
Pickling Spice $3.33
Peppers $14.21 (made 8 pints of pickled hot peppers in food storage)
Garlic $8.99  (made 14 half pints of pickled garlic in food storage)
Bananas Case $35.15  (Froze the whole case)
Peanut Butter $26.78  (2 large containers put in storage)

Total cost of food toward Food Storage $110.01

Pet Supplies

Black Oil Sunflower Seeds 50 lbs  $33.88 ( I use BOSS in the chicken's fermented feed.  This bag should last 6 months)
Layer Pellets for chickens  23.99 
Scratch for chickens 38.99 (way too expensive, will only buy in the city from now on)
Dog Food 50 lbs  $24.49

Total cost for pet supplies: $121.35
I spent more than budget allowed but the hubby was in town with me and he can throw around those 50 pound feed bags in the car much easier than I can so I bought them before I really needed them.

Monthly Groceries

Milk $65.71
Half and Half $9.08
Butter (organic) $27.47 (bought extra should last most of next month)
Kale $2.29
Birthday cake and frosting $7.27
Peanut Butter $10.59
Cheddar Cheese $15.99
Mozzarella Cheese $12.79
Pepper Jack Cheese $10.19
String Cheese $18.78 (bought 2 bags and should last more than a month)
Cottage Cheese $10.58 - for smoothies
Diced Tomatoes Case $8.99
Frozen Cherries  $9.49 - for smoothies
Ice Cream sandwiches $3.99
Corn Tortillas $5.59
Amazon Sub and Save (Bulk shopping)
Cream cookies (6 pkgs) $16.14
Allspice $4.16
Sriracha (6 bottles) $26.58
Coffee (8 pkgs)  $37.78
Zevia Soda (24 cans) $24.09

Total cost of monthly groceries $327.55

Household Items

Black trash bags $7.79 (to bag up sawdust for chicken coop) Toilet paper  $17.99 (large pack from Costco will last 2 months)

Total cost of Household Items $25.78

Total August Food and Household Cost $584.69 over budget by $84.69

Officially I am over budget but I'm confident September will be a different story.  In September I will not have to buy any chicken feed and my Amazon Sub and Save order is only for more coffee and sparkling water.

Frugal Friday - Steel Cut Oats and the Wonder Oven

Oatmeal is a staple in our diet and I rotate different recipes throughout the month.  Typically we eat overnight oats made with yogurt, dried fruit, chia seeds and a sprinkle of nuts or quick oats made in the microwave.  This week I made steel cut oats in my wonder oven.

I adore my wonder oven.  I use to dread making grains because I often would burn the bottom.  With the wonder oven all my grains, even jasmine rice, cook up perfectly with out burning and with very little effort or fuel.  I bought my wonder oven from Amazon but you can find instructions online to make your own using a rubbermaid container and bean bag pellets.

To make steel cut oats I use one cup oats, one cup milk, one cup of water and some dried fruit.  This week it was currants.

Bring to a boil on your stove top and cover.  Simmer five minutes with the lid on.  Place you pot in the wonder oven, tuck it in and forget about it for a few hours or overnight.

Perfectly cooked steel cut oats.  I will sprinkle in  nuts and drizzle syrup or honey on it before eating.  If I feel the need to add protein, I will stir in some protein powder. 

This recipe makes us 3-4 servings.  The put the leftovers in the fridge and heat up in the microwave for quick meals during the week.

Lovin' life with comfort food and my wonder oven!