Garden Update

Yay for a thriving Garden!  Look at these crazy pumpkins!  The vines have trailed all over and I had to trim them.  It's always sad for me to cut off growing things, but I didn't want them to suffocate the tomatoes..

Here are pumpkin vines coming through the tomatoes.

Here are pumpkin vines behind the tomatoes which are only visible because a tomato plant fell over.

So sad to see this blossom and baby pumpkin in the clipped vine pile.

I picked all of this last week.

The plants are thriving.

Tomato plant held up with bungee cords and hooks in the fence posts.

The tomatoes are heavy with fruit.

Varied pumpkins.

Second round green beans are finding their way up the grid.

The zucchini are going crazy!

This cherry tomato plant has been producing like crazy.

Another update soon!

Katie

Menu Plan & Goals

I need to use up lots of that free produce and our garden is going crazy!

Dinners:
M - Beef & Broccoli
T - Baked Pasta
W - Sausage Soup
D - French Toast
F - Potluck - veggie tray
S - Hamburgers
S - Dinner with Aunt

Lunches:
M - Waffles
T - Hot dogs & Corn on the cob
W - Nachos
D - Bagels
F - Leftovers
S - Barbeque
S - Lunch with Aunt

Goals:
Kitchen - Freeze tomatoes, green beans, & zucchini from garden. 
House - Move TV downstairs, get all camping gear stowed away
Garden - Tie up tomatoes, weed as needed
Life - Choose history curriculum, buy math curriculum

I did well last week.  DH didn't get the TV moved, but he did take the stacks of movies back downstairs to the movie shelves.  One step at a time!  

Katie

Weekly Shopping - $124.98

This week I knew I was buying peaches so I planned to shop very little.

Wednesday I stopped in at Haggen to see what kind of deals they had.  NOT MUCH!   Produce was reduced only 5% and dry goods were 10%.  The bulk foods were 20% and the candy aisle was 20 or 30% (don't remember).  There were also some 20% off things in the health and beauty aisle and eye car was 30% off.  I'm planning to check in this week sometime and see if there have been any big reductions.  Anway - I needed lettuce for a "new baby" meal I was delivering Thursday and I have been out of baking powder nearly all summer so I picked these up for $4.09.

I guess I didn't need to stop at the store Wednesday morning because later in the day all this was given to me by the kitchen director at our church.  There was a big receipt of gleaned food and much of the produce, dairy, & drinks was a few days past the "best by" date.   I know that food is good several days and sometimes even weeks past that date, so I was happy to receive it.  Especially since it relieved so much of my grocery bill this week!

 3 bags of lettuce
2 bunches of bananas
8 greek yogurt cups
2 bags of baby carrots
3 bags of brussel sprouts (gave away)
1 bag of snap peas (gave away)
3 bags of asparagus
6 bags of broccoli (went straight to the freezer)
package of bagels
2 packages of rolls (went straight to the freezer)
loaf of sliced italian bread (freezer)
loaf of regular bread
live basil
4 Simply Orange juices
1 Strawberry-banana 100% juice
5 sleeves of crackers
baggie of cheese sticks
lunch ham
lunch turkey
8 croissants
2 packages of cream cheese
7 ears of corn

Can you say BLESSED?!

Here are the peaches.  They were $15.50 per box, so $62.00 in total.

I went to Costco because I was considering a stop when a friend asked if I would pick up something for her there.  So then I had to go and I was glad I did.  I spent $25.40

$10.99 -5# mozzarella
$4.99 - 5 lb pears
$9.42 - feta

I stopped in at Safeway for cereal and creamer since we were low on both.  I found some clearance deals, too, and spent $16.33.

Cereal was $1.50 ($1.00/3 MC)($0.50/1 MC)($0.50/1 MC) = $1.10 each
Coffeemate - $2.50 each
Organic Greek Yogurt - $0.50 each on clearance
Organic Yogurt Tubes - $1.00 on clearance
Eggs - $1.39 on clearance

We had to drop in to a grocery on the way to a party and spent $7.50 on 3 bags of chips, then I bought two jars of pasta sauce for $0.50 each with a ($1.00/2 MC).

Milk delivery was $11.16
Eggs were $6.00

Total Groceries for Week 33: $124.98
Total Groceries Year-to-Date: $3,507.50
Average per week 2013: $106.29

Katie

Homemade Cards as Gifts?

The girls' night I mentioned in yesterday's post was intended to be for paper crafting.  We talked a lot and did a little crafting, but I spent the whole of that afternoon preparing some greeting card 'kits' for the ladies to make.

I am not very crafty, but I want to be.  These are the designs I came up with:

A baby girl card.

A paint chip card with choose-your-own-greeting stamps.  This one says "Thank You."

A layered stamp card also with choose-your-own-greeting stamps.  I made another "Thank You."

I way over-prepared these cards because the girls' night was for the ladies in my Sunday School class and I didn't know how many gals to expect.  I have 8 or 10 of each all cut, and have yet to assemble them.  Maybe some night when I watch tv and don't have piles of laundry to fold.  

I also thought I might make up the top, baby cards as a gift for a new mom.  She can use them for thank you notes, maybe?  I was very blessed with DD#1 when a friend made me a big batch of pretty thank you notes and I thought these turned out nice enough to give.  What do you think?

And in that vein, Do you think a set of 8 homemade cards would be well-received as say a hostess gift?  Or a small birthday gift for a friend who doesn't want you to spend money?

Katie

Pantry Popcorn Explosion

A few weeks ago I had a couple of girlfriends over for a papercrafting night.  As I was in the pantry looking for or doing something I can't remember, a bunch of stuff fell of the top shelves. I just ducked my head and kept my hands up to catch anything I could.  

There were only two casualties: A cheap, circus animal waffle iron that my kids have loved for a couple of years and a bin of organic popcorn kernels.
 

My friend, Beth, rushed to my aid as the crashing began.  Here she displays the messy wonder.

It really was a huge mess, but I just closed the pantry doors and enjoyed the evening with my friends.

In the morning I pulled out some bins.

It turned into a good time to really clean the pantry floor.

I was able to save some popcorn that fell on top of the bins, into the KitchenAid bowl, and a couple  other random places.  The loose popcorn on the floor I scooped into a bin and labeled it "Wash First".  The next time I use the air popper I'll rinse the kernels and see how they look.  I can also use these for craft projects.  The ones I swept up with the broom and dustpan just went into the trash. 

Always a party at my house!

Katie

Strawberry Jam

I made strawberry jam several weeks ago and took photos in the process.  Thankfully, I wrote notes in my canning book or I would have no recollection of my measurements!  These are photos of one batch. 

I hulled 3 pounds of berries

It made about 5 cups of crushed berries

I turned on the heat and added a box of pectin and 1/4 cup lemon juice

I used my immersion blender to smooth out the bumps

Once it boiled - hard - I added 4 cups of sugar and let it boil again.  I skimmed off the pink foam and filled hot jars.

I immediately started another batch to fill the rest of my hot jars and turned on the water bath canner burner to warm up the water.  With jam in short jars, you don't really need a canner.  Any large pot will do if the tops of the jars are covered by about an inch of water.  When the second batch of jam was cooked the water bath was nice and hot. 

I put the jars in the water bath.

 

I took this picture of the jars in my canning closet today.

The six pounds of berries made approximately 18 cups of jam.

I really love my little canning closet and I don't miss my linen closet at all now that we only keep one towel for each person and one set of sheets for each bed.  A bonus is that I almost never have to fold towels or sheets.

Katie

Chip Cookie Tips

I saw this on Facebook and thought it was worth posting here.  The Facebook page it came from is called Solutions For Every Day Problems.  It's how your chip cookies are affected by various ingredients.

 Have you ever wondered why chocolate chip cookies can be chewy, crisp, soft, flat, thick, cakey, greasy, bland, flavorful, moist, or crumbly?

This shows how various ingredients and techniques can affect the taste, texture, and appearance of your chocolate chip cookies. This will hopefully help you understand how chocolate chip cookies work so you can make the PERFECT batch every time, whatever you consider to be perfect. This information will allow you to alter or create your own chocolate chip recipe that produces cookies just the way YOU like them.

Baking Powder:
Removed baking soda from recipe and used 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. This produced results that were more cakey and puffed while baking.

Baking Powder AND Baking Soda:
Used 1/4 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda. This produced results that were crisp at the edges, soft in the middle, with a good amount of spread. The combination of the two leaveners produced the best results in my opinion.

MORE Flour:
Increased the flour to 2 cups (250 grams) which created a more crumbly dough and very little spread. The cookies were small yet thick and relatively undercooked (ooey and gooey) in the middle.

MELTED Butter:
I replaced the room temperature butter with melted and cooled butter. Instead of creaming the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, I simply stirred the butter and sugars together then let sit for 5 minutes, until the sugar was better absorbed by the butter. This produced flatter cookies that had a shiny, crackled top reminiscent of brownies. They were also more crisp at the edges.

All Granulated Sugar:
I used 3/4 cup granulated sugar in this recipe which produced flat, white, chewy, and slightly crunchy cookies but with little flavor. Since baking soda (called for in the control recipe) requires an acid (such as brown sugar) to react, these cookies fell very flat as you can see by the way the chocolate chips protrude.

All Brown Sugar:
I used 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar in this recipe which produced thick, brown, and soft cookies with an intense butterscotch flavor. The original control recipe uses an even ratio of granulated and brown sugars. If you prefer your cookies to be flatter, chewier, or crisper, use more granulated sugar. If you prefer your cookies to be softer and thicker and have a pronounced butterscotch flavor, use more brown sugar.

24 hour CHILLED Dough:
I used the control recipe but chilled it in the fridge for about 24 hours before shaping and baking. This produced cookies that were slightly thicker, chewier, darker, and with a better depth of butterscotch flavor. If you have time, try chilling your next cookie dough for at least 24 hours, or up to 48 hours.

Katie

Haggen Closing Bellevue and Shoreline Stores

Somehow I missed the news that Haggen was closing it's Bellevue and Shoreline stores.  We were driving home from church Sunday when I saw someone holding a 40% off - Store Closing sign at the Bellevue location.  I commented to DH that Wal-Mart must have done some damage since they opened a grocery location about a year ago in the same area of Bellevue.

I found this article at the Seattle Times site discussing the closure.

I hope to go check out the deals, but I remember when the Redmond Top Foods closed and the "% off" was from regular prices.  I found a few things, mostly the larger containers and bulk items, but not much. 

Katie