Being frugal

Bill has a coworker that is working on her Master's, and as an assignment she has a "week of poverty," where she has to live on a grand total of $2 a day. It got me thinking, forever the frugal being that I am, how I could cut my living costs even further. Food is one area that I refuse to cut nutrition, so whole grains, fruit and veggies, and organic items will always be worth the extra money ... but I have the money to spend on these items.


Anyway, I am going to be contemplating this issue for awhile. The concept of having a mear $2 a day for EVERYTHING is both intriguing and disturbing to me. I have had very lean times in my life, but I lived alone, with no one else to support. And with the hard economic times in front of us, this is a reality I see being thrown at more and more people.


I count our blessings often! Having reliable food, housing, and health care available to my family is not a given, I do realize this. But I still feel that living frugal is a necessity to prevent loosing this reliable stream of food, housing and health care. Keep your eyes peeled for more thoughts on living frugally while still living fully!

I want one!!

I just saw this baby product, but I want one for lunches!! It'd be perfect for me!!

Tomatoes from, ?Heaven?

Well, if you plant a tomato plant (or dozen) you really should expect tomatoes. And, yes, we have tomatoes of every size and shape coming out our rears!

I have taken to being ultra domestic and canned some this week. I made salsa, and canned 6 1/2 pints. I made three batches of spaghetti sauce and have canned 8 1/2 quarts. (we ate one quart...maybe two actually)

Wow - what a lot of tomato products I have in my house now!

My Latest Food Obsession

Yumm Yumm Yummm!

What do you do with tons of cherry tomatoes, chard, & zucchini piling up from the garden? Well .... I saute this in olive oil with some onions and garlic and it is good in just about ANYTHING! (Or on its own!)

I add an egg for breakfast. Add it to pasta, rice, couscous. It is even good with perogies. This is my newest, yummiest, "base" to add veggies to meals.

Only problem, everyone but me is tired of it. Sigh ......

And, it is HIGH in vitamin K - I read that one cup of boiled chard has 716% of VK! wow! I probably eat a total of 1/4C a day. It really shrinks down when cooked!!

More Bento Fun to Share

I actually have a neighbor that is now curious as to what (and how) I pack for lunch for the girls. When we were talking about school lunches, and I mentioned I did a more Bento style, she was intrigued as to exactly what that was.


So, here are two more of my very simple lunches. Nothing creative here. The first is for the garden, and I believe I added a small container of yogurt for the girls too. They seem to eat a second breakfast as well as lunch while we are there, so I have been packing more and more food for them. Bagel and cream cheese, apple slices, and cucumber slices. Flower ice-cube packs help keep it cool and look pretty too. OH! I have my new purchase in here too; I purchased some silicone cupcake liners to help compartmentalize and keep moist foods from the other foods. I cannot believe I waited so long to make this purchase!!!



The other lunch was for our recent canoe trip. PBJ sandwich, carrot sticks (from our garden) and pretzels. I threw in some cherry tomatoes more of a space filler to keep things from moving around. The girls are tired of tomatoes, and they were upset that I put them in there. Oh well. What I really needed was one of my cupcake liners to keep the pretzels from getting squoggy.

Yummmmmmy!

I just returned from the garden with a glob of veggies - tomatoes, chard, zucchini mostly. I decided to make a fritata type meal for lunch. Sauteed some onion and garlic with the above veggies and then mixed in an egg. YUM! Wow was that good!! I just might have to do that again! Anything yummy to help use up the abundant plethora of veggies in our house!

Ichiban Kan

I have read about this Japanese-style online store, but finally decided to visit it. Well, I visited it shortly after it launched, and it was not inspiring to me. But now it has more bento gear on it! And at quite the reduced price compared to my current e-bay sources. Momma might have to make a few fun back-to-school purchases!!

For those of you who are interested in this whole bento style lunching (with or without an American twist) check out the site.