Use It Up Month

January in our house always seems to be a use-it-up month. After all the food buying around Thanksgiving and Christmas we usually still have a couple of very full freezers. I'm in extra frugal mode this month for several reasons:  just got an enormous repair bill (over a year of rent) on my rental house in Salt Lake City; we got planning permission to build a downstairs loo; we're in the process of purchasing another motor home, having sold our first one last summer.  This sort of out-go is well beyond anything I've ever experienced. We're probably OK, but I find that I'm feeling a bit of practically beside myself with stress at the moment.

Whilst some frugal habits are still ingrained - most clothes from thrift stores, eat at home, my house robe is 36 years old, I have drifted from tightwad thinking a bit.  So I'm stepping back into old ways:

Use it Up
If I go to the store hungry I risk coming back with unusual things like instant puddings or nuts we don't normally eat. These get pushed to the back of the cupboard, forgotten until the next frugal initiative. Actually, pudding and nuts are the happy surprises.  Others include pickled beetroot, some sort of white pepper gravy mix from Oklahoma (a gift when we visited, not hoarded for 23 years) and three kinds of flour I'm not sure how to use without some research.  

List vs Bulk
Instead of buying in bulk I've been shopping with a list. Only when we get low on a critical item like milk or toilet paper do I go shopping.  I buy singles of things like condiments but two or three of basic items to save a trip or two.  I still stock up on UHT milk and get the largest package of TP.  This lets me shop only once or twice a month. I'd like to get back to buying in bulk: a full pantry is my definition of personal food security. To do that I am working on updating my price book.

Price Book
I've listed all the supermarkets in our area and calculated the distance to each.  Our closest market, Morrisons, is less than a mile away, but their labels are misleading; no matter how careful I still get caught out with the wrong item now and then.  As much as is practical, I try to take my business elsewhere.  There is a cluster of bargain shops a mile away, but as always, not everything there is a bargain.  Therein lies the value of a price book.  I know the best fresh fruit and veg prices are 8 miles away in Seaton Delaval and the fish quay is less than half a mile from home.  By shopping at a different store each time I can learn again what constitutes a bargain or even just a reasonable price.  I don't go to every place each time I shop, unless they are directly en route. I wouldn't wish to waste the fuel or my time like that.  

Alternatives
Though I bought what was on the list the other day, I started thinking I could make different choices.  Instead of buying more yeast and strong white flour to make bread, we've been meaning for ages to try making soda bread. Since we have plenty of oatmeal on hand, we could have porridge (oatmeal) for breakfast.  That would also save buying more margarine and low-sugar marmalade.  I would try making marmalade, but I've never seen Seville oranges and doubt it would be economical anyhow.

Instead of buying more milk, we could break into those two containers of powdered milk.  No idea if they are still any good, but if they aren't we could trash them.  Makes no sense to keep them if they aren't still good and the longer we keep them more more likely this is.  Both really obvious ideas but because I readily dismiss use by dates on certain foods (OK, on most foods, but with more caution in some cases) they catch me up now and then.  I can handle using powdered milk as I did in Utah, but sadly here in the UK it is no cheaper.  

When tablet sweeteners were on sale for £1 a dispenser, I bought 5 or 6.  All but the one in my purse is not empty, but there is still a jar of loose Canderel that isn't as easy to use, just waiting to be consumed.  After that there is a container of odd packets of condiments collected from here and there, with at least a few servings of sweetener.  I would substitute sugar for sweetener except that my stomach doesn't tolerate more than a couple of teaspoons a day.  The consequences are sufficiently severe that I'd rather go without than eat sugar.  Fortunately, I have no strong preferences about my tea.

We have a lot of tea around, but we both prefer coffee.  We're down to two cups of instant coffee before switching to decaf; Bill loves strong coffee but his heart does not.  Tea is much cheaper and has less caffeine, but too much upsets my stomach (I must have a very tender tummy), even with milk added.  I have some herbal stuff and when that's gone I could experiment with other 'tisanes', starting with the rosemary and lavender I have in my garden. Becoming au fait with the difference between an infusion and a decoction sounds quite witchy, mysterious and altogether fun, even though I tend to joke that a lot of this stuff is just dirty water.  I have, when really cold and thirsty, appreciated just a cup of hot water. In fact I find that I prefer whatever it is I'm most familiar with drinking.  

The price of tinned salmon has doubled in the last few years. I don't think even tuna is cheap any more.  A Girl Called Jack has inspired me to see that it's like to cook with fish paste.  I also have a tin of pilchards waiting for me to work up the nerve to 'pattify' them, as suggested by The Tightwad Gazette.  Tinned mackerel and sardines are other options.

Generics
Jack also opened my eyes to tinned potatoes.  We can get four servings from a 14 pence tin from Sainburys.  We make our own soups and prefer fresh fruit and veg, so there are whole areas of supermarkets I've not explored for a while.  I plan to make a list of the generic items for the main supermarkets near us and reconsider some choices.  For example, a tin of tomato soup is 24p compared to a tin of tomatoes at 34p. Passatta brands come and go, but it might be worth comparing the three tomato products. Good fresh tomatoes are never cheap here; bad ones are worthless to me. I'd rather eat tinned tomatoes than tasteless ones.

Free Foods
I finished off the blackberries in the freezer, but still have a lot of sloes and elderberries.  The latter are poisonous uncooked and so I'll need to be careful.  I can buy jam I'm happy with for far less than the sugar to make preserves, so it looks like these free foods will be for recreational beverages, currently a low priority.  On the other hand, I still have a bag or two of the apples Vivien gave me this summer (Thanks again, Vivien!).  Apple pie and spice cake come to mind.  Also fruit smoothies for breakfast and possibly dessert, but I'll have to experiment with that.

Not Just Food
I have two packages of hair colour I'm not that thrilled about. One is a darker ash blonde than my current colour, the other a strawberry blonde my hairdresser recommended (She comes to my house and only charges me £15 for a cut; she understands my tightwaddery well).  I've used the darker ash blonde and put in the usual streaks.  I now have 'frosted' hair, if any one remembers back to when that was popular.  I can live with it.  I may save the strawberry for when we go away next, in case I don't want to be seen!

Is your January a use-it-up month?  Or does the first month of the year have other significance for you?

Glad It's Today

Yesterday was truly awful. You know it's a terrible day when your dentist appointment turns out to have been the high point.  At least I have healthy teeth and I finally seem to have found a dentist I like. He actually performed a check up, a scale and a polish.  And then he thanked me for taking good care of my teeth, saying it was nice to see that for a change.  

Just before going in, I'd got a receipt from a parking machine to display in the car window for an hour and a half.  I was perplexed by the date on the receipt and began to convince myself I'd gone in on the wrong day.  All the receipts along that road had the 14th instead of the 16th and I thought it very peculiar.  So I went into the library - it being run by the same people who do parking meters, the local authority - and reported this.  They didn't seem to feel it was their problem, but she lifted to phone to call upstairs to customer service so I could get on to my appointment.

When I was done at the dentist I went back to the library to make sure this was reported.  The man at the library front desk couldn't tell me anything.  I went upstairs and told the lady at the reception of customer service, but all she could tell me was to take a number and wait to be seen by the proper person.  It would be 15 minutes so I thought I could return some books and lighten my back pack.  

The lady at the upstairs library desk said there were only machines on that floor for checking out.  I would need to return to the ground floor for checking-in machines.  She could only help me if those machines were busy.  As I headed for the stairs I mumbled 'useless people!'  When I returned up the stairs I went to look for something to read to pass the waiting time.  The lady who'd sent me downstairs directed another person to the shelves I was perusing and she apologized that she hadn't taken my books for me. I thanked her.

I found a book, took a seat and waited to see a customer service rep.  I explained that the parking meter on the north side of the road had the wrong date:  every car along that side of the square had receipts for the 14th.  On the east side, the receipts had the correct date, the 16th.  My complaint was logged, she phoned the parking people as I sat there. She told me that if I did have a ticket to bring it straight back up and she'd take care of it.  By the time that was all done I didn't have enough time left on the meter to do anything else useful and so I drove up to Seaton Delaval to do grocery shopping.  

I went to three stores, first to one 8 miles away (where I managed to drop some eggs and break them) and then on to two other stores on the way home.  I had two near misses, one car seemed determined to side swipe me and some man stepped straight out in front of me in the car park, never even looking. Fortunately I was creeping along trying to decide where to put the car in this unfamiliar car park. I had little luck with the self-service check out machine.  Road works made the route home a maze to squiggle through.  I was trashed by the time I got home and unloaded the car.

When I went in, Bill was at the kitchen table eating his lunch. He apologized for not helping with the groceries but said he had a headache.  He had re-organised some things on the overhead shelves in his office.  The weight distribution was wrong apparently and the shelves came down on his head. Not directly I gather, but one shelf onto another and all the contents sliding off onto his head and shoulders and on to the floor around him.  He was just grateful his new computer hadn't been damaged.  I worried that he might have a concussion but he was sure he didn't and there was no blood anywhere.  He took the car keys off me and was going to a DIY shop to get supplies to fix his shelves.  

He came straight back in, grinning.  He said 'I know I shouldn't but I can't resist'.  He handed me the parking receipt and pointed out the time and date:  09:55 16 Jan 14. The right date after all.  I wasted all that time and effort to sort out a problem and all along it was me being dippy.  I did tell the clerk that 'when I saw the date was the 14th I thought I'd lost my mind'.  Well, it turns out that I actually had...

My only excuse is that stress makes me stupid. I'm sure I'm not the first idiot they've seen in that office.  I only wish I hadn't insisted on leaving my name and address so that they could make an official record of my foolishness.   

Did you ever have one of those experiences that makes you doubt your own mental faculties?

This Year's Stack - Part II

Right, this is the slightly more light-hearted end of the books I got for Christmas.

Affordable Spendour, by Diana Phipps.  I've already read this cover to cover - I read the fluff first, you'll note.  It wasn't on my wishlist, Bill just found it on Amazon when shopping for others I did request, and I'm so glad he did!  It practically qualifies as another Harry Potter book, it's so completely fun and unexpected.  It is a detailed 'how to' decorate your house in very grand fashion but on a shoe-string, Amy Dacyczyn style.  What Phipps didn't have photographs of, she drew charming sketches to illustrate, just like Dacyczyn, a graphic artist.  I don't know if anyone these days would cover their walls in fabric, though Phipps says it's more economic in the long run than paint, particularly in older houses. Other tips include how to paint surfaces to make them look like various types of wood, how to make concrete blocks look like ceramic tiles and so on.  This woman has had an interesting life, born Countess Sternberg, living her 'formative years' in a castle in Czechoslovakia (now in the Czech Republic) to which she has returned thanks to the post-communist government's restoration programme. Her marriage into a wealthy American family in 1957 was short-lived. I'm reminded that, after all, if a life has only 'ups' and no 'downs', it can hardly be called 'interesting', can it? Makes me think all her hard work is all the more admirable.  It sounds as though her mother (also a Countess) was equally as artistic.  Thanks to a link at the Frugal Scholar (who also likes Phipps' books), you can see what her London living room looked like.  

Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench and Maria Clayton.  My friend Lucy owns this book, but I didn't figure I wanted to borrow it long enough to do any of the projects.  I'll probably regret this selection - the projects in this sort of book get dated quite soon - but at least I didn't pay for it!  If I actually make anything out of here, I'll be sure to let you know!

Material World:  the Modern Craft Bible,  by Perri Lewis.  I think I got the idea for this book when browsing a book shop in Cockermouth last year. Given that there are a couple of craft groups I attend and contribute to, anything else I can learn and share will be brilliant, a way to give back to all those lovely women who enrich my life. Looking at the Table of Contents on Amazon.com (because I did an 81 minute run this morning and I can't face another trip up the stairs just now) I can tell you what crafts are in it.  I already know quite a bit about: Embroidery - Cross-stitch - Macrame. I know a tiny bit about Patchwork and even less about Tailoring or Jewellery making. I've never gone near Decoupage - Printing - Encrusting (gluing stuff on, I think) - Quilling - Millinery - Embellishments - Paper cutting - Leatherwork - Applique.  

HINT:  The 'Look Inside' feature on Amazon can satisfy a lot of curiosity and sometimes save you buying a book (or make you want it more).  If you can't 'Look Inside' on Amazon.com, try Amazon.co.uk and vice versa.  It's just now occurred to me that Amazon.ca (Canada) might also work for this.

One Summer, by Bill Bryson.  This was given to us by Vivien and Steve.  I've only read the first few pages.  It's a double score in that Bill and I both love Bryson's books and it happens to be about the summer of 1927 - splat in those inter-war years. Thanks so much, Vivien!

Couture Sewing Techniques, by Claire Schaeffer.  This is rather a laugh, given that I'm not that conversant with regular home sewing techniques.  One thing (one of many..don't get me started) that has been disappointing about the sewing class Lucy and I are taking at Newcastle is that the teacher is very much from the 'short cuts' school. Lucy and I are both a bit suspicious of some of her means and would rather learn the 'long way' first.  I don't think I'll try too many of these ideas right away, though I'm dead keen to practice thread-sewing the stitch lines of my patterns.

The Power of Style, by Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins. This book is almost embarrassing to admit to but it isn't quite as daft as the title might suggest and if women's magazines are going to dumb themselves down into adverts, pablum and more adverts, a person has to feed this hunger somewhere. OK, the internet should be sufficient, but I still love books, and this one is read and bookmarked!  The reason I don't think this is a foolish book as that it gives short biographies of 14 women, some of the names were very well known, others completely unfamiliar:  Daisy Fellowes, Rita Lydig, Millicent Rogers, Pauline de Rothschild, Mona Bismark, Slim Keith, Babe Paley, Gloria Guiness, C.Z. Guest, Elsie de Wolfe, Diana Vreeland, the Duchess of Windsor, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Coco Chanel.  These women led incredibly privileged and artful lives but there is much in their stories which is heart-breaking.  I was reminded that very rich men are often very not nice; several of these women weren't particularly nice either.  What else did they seem to have in common?  A decided preference for white flowers...

HINT:  If Amazon won't let you Look Inside, the reviewers' comments are often very revealing.  Also, if the book has been out a while, Google the title, and some nice blogger will tell you quite a bit (like the whole list of women included in this book).  Also, you may get more ideas for other books, ie The Power of Glamour about a whole host of screen stars from the 1930s...

The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter.  Or should that be 'Tails'?  I wrote about visiting Hill Top Farm, Potter's home in the Lake District, last  Gosh! Two years ago, I was sad to admit I'd never read any one of her stories.  Now I can read them all...

The Art of Manipulating Fabric, by Colette Wolff, Robbie Fanning and Rosalie Cooke.  I'm not sure if this counts as a sewing book, it might be more of a textile artist's book.  I've yet to try any of the techniques so I can't say as yet how well they are described.  I have already read large chunks concerning tucks, darts, quilting, smocking and cording...and that's not even the beginning of it.  An amazing book to grow into, hopefully.

So that's it, the book gifts.  I can't even remember all the books I've bought myself this year...

This Year's Stack - Part I

As usual, I had loads of books on my Amazon wishlist and family and friends all know reading is almost as necessary to me as breathing or eating. So here is the 'brain food' for the first few months of 2014:

In Search of England, by H. V. Morton. Morton's name was on my inter-war reading list (from The House at Riverton) and the local libraries were no help.  As I recall, Kate Morton, the author - any relation, I wonder? - didn't specify a particular book. This one came highly recommended on Amazon.co.uk, in fact they said he was such a good travel writer this book probably made Bill Bryson cry. It was first published, funny enough, in June 1927 - See Bryson's book below. Can't wait to start!

Castle, a History of Buildings that Shaped Medieval England, by Marc Morris.  I read this, back in 2008 and have always remembered it.  I wanted to read it again but the libraries here are shrinking and it's disappeared.  Now I can keep and enjoy referring to it.  

Abroad, by Paul Fussell.  I stumbled across Susan Partlan's old blog where she talks about many different things that interest me but somewhere in the posts about 'History of American Money Values' or perhaps in comments or links that derived from there, Paul Fussell's name came up and his books were recommended. I put a number of them on my wish list.  Abroad probably is about travel rather than class and finance, but I'll find out eventually and let you know.

Paris, 1919:  six months that changed the world, by Margaret MacMillan.  This is another from the inter-war reading list and though I gather MacMillan has written fun things about the shopping habits of Victorian ladies, this is probably not a fun book.  I think it is likely about the Treaty of Versailles, which I know had knock on effects resulting in WWII.  Her books have also disappeared from libraries, sadly.

So far the list sounds quite serious and intellectual, even. The order is actually from the least tall and increasingly tall, as the were stacked for the photograph...which I'll hopefully get to share when I remember what I did with that tiny little thing that links my camera chip with this computer .  {sigh}

Well, I did find it - almost where it should have been.  More about the Stack in another post.

Happy New Year!

A friend posted this on Facebook.  I love the quote:

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."  Eleanor Roosevelt

Grandmother's Birthday

I was browsing my Ancestry.com family tree, trying to think of something new to write about Grandmother.  I saw my note that her marriage to my grandfather was nullified in 1943, a few years after she married her second (or possibly third) husband.  There's no doubt Grandmother was a complicated person who lived an 'interesting' life.

A few years ago I asked the Coal Country Genealogical Society for a number of marriage records, including one that showed her marrying someone I never heard of before I found it and noted the name Sartor.  They gave me the record and I was about to dismiss it as a coincidence involving someone else with Grandmother's name, when Bill pointed out that the name of one of the witnesses was my grandfather.  That's too big a coincidence in a small town in Oklahoma.  What on earth was she playing at, I wonder?  It does seem that it might have been some weird game or something.  Apparently that marriage was annulled - she wouldn't have been of legal age yet. A couple of years later she married my grandfather, Bernard.

I've not found the divorce record for them - he's pretty elusive in most public records - but she married her last husband, Larry, in Tennessee in 1939; her previous marriage was made null in 1943.  This would have been about the time she wanted to adopt children from Catholic Charities, which she did:  four children in fact.  The strange thing, well, one of them, is that both husbands Bernard and Larry were raised as Catholics and I'm pretty sure Grandmother was raised as a Baptist.  I never saw her attend either church, but her favourite TV preachers and her own - very strong - views were definitely along the Southern Baptist lines. And yet she married two Catholic men.  I know from experience this is marrying into a different culture.

The other thing I noticed on her overview was that she lived in a lot of places:  

Booneville, Arkansas (AR)

Coal Hill, AR

Comanche, Oklahoma (OK)

Lehigh, OK

Oklahoma City, OK

Shreveport, Louisiana (LA)

New Orleans, LA

Mabank, Texas (TX)

Ft. Worth, TX

Miami, Florida (FL)

Ft. Lauderdale, FL

She definitely got around. Happy Birthday, Grandmother!

Cornbread Dressing - Part of My Heritage!

This is for Julia, my lovely neighbour who actually reads this blog - I'm so honoured!  We had our Thanksgiving party last night and it all seemed to go reasonably well.  Twenty-one of us devoured the usual food and drink and there is the usual enormous amount of leftovers to go into the freezer.  As I sit nursing my second coffee, Bill is in the kitchen working his way through the stacks of dirty dishes.  I'm leaving him to it, bless him, and Sarah is helping him out. 

Thanks to cousin Sandra for sharing this on Facebook!

Jules said she'd dreamed of my dressing since last year and wanted the recipe.  This is the dressing I grew up eating at Grandmother's house and then at Mom's.  I was sure I'd published it somewhere on this blog, but apparently not.  So here it is:

First you make corn bread.  This is from my first ever cookbook (Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, published 1976), a wedding present from my Grandmother:

Perfect Corn Bread
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup shortening

Sift flour with sugar, baking powder, and salt; stir in cornmeal.  Add eggs, milk, and shortening. Beat with rotary or electric beater till just smooth (Do not overbeat).  Pour into greased 9x9x2-inch pan. Bake at 425 degrees F (220 C) for 20-25 minutes.

Some small adjustments:
When it lives here in Britain, cornmeal is called polenta.  I buy it in bulk at the Asian shop in Brighton Grove, Newcastle; you could just come over and 'borrow' some of mine.

I have substituted a heaping tablespoon of soya flour and a tablespoon of water for the eggs, as suggested in The Tightwad Gazette - it works!

You can use oil instead, it's easier; or, melt the shortening in the microwave before adding, another thing that makes it easier.

I don't bother dirtying a mixer - I just stir it with a fork, which is do-able if you use oil or melted shortening.  I've poured this into cake pans, the recommended square pan, into muffin tins or whatever loaf pan was handy.  As long as it isn't too deep it cooks just fine.  Even over cooked a bit it's still tasty.  I recommend eating hot with butter on it.  But this is for the dressing...

This is where it's a bit hap-hazard, as I have always made dressing in quantities of 20+ cups. The ingredients are:

Cornbread
Stale bread 
Onion
Celery
Butter
Oil
Chicken stock cubes
Hot water
Salt, Parsley, Thyme, Rosemary (I don't like sage, but if you do, you can add it as well).

You'll need to buy some cheap bread (I like whole meal) and pull it apart into bite-sized pieces. Most recipes seem to call for 'stale' bread, but I can't tell much difference.  Crumble the cornbread into similar sized or smaller pieces.  

Dice equal amounts of onion and celery and cook in some oil with butter added (butter burns easily so keep an eye on it).

Boil the kettle and make a cup or two of chicken stock and add a slice of butter.

In a large bowl, add equal amounts of the bread pieces, the cornbread, and the sauted fried vegetables. Gradually add the buttery chicken stock, mashing and mixing with a fork until the bread and cornbread are blended and mushed. You want it moist but not sloppy wet.  I tend to shake out each of the herbs into my palm - maybe a tablespoon of each? - at this point and add.  Salt to taste.  Mix it all up again.

My equal amounts are two-cup measures and then I start again adding more in these proportions until the bowl is full. I transfer this to an oven-proof dish and bake for about 20-30 minutes at about 180 C. It doesn't need cooking - all the ingredients are already cooked, but I like a crunchy top on my dressing.  It's a lot of work for one dish, but I think it's worth the effort once a year.

Health warning:  By my rough estimates using www.nutritiondata.com, a half-cup serving of this dressing might have as many as 500 calories!