Free Food!!

Last weekend we were gifted with an abundance of free food by my former pastor and his wife.  It was incredible!  There was so much, beginning with a crate of raspberries. Unfortunately they were beginning to go bad, which meant I picked thru them to get the good ones out before they were all tainted.  I can’t begin to tell you how much I LOVE fresh raspberries so believe me, I got as many as I could!  There weren’t enough to make jam so I froze them for smoothies or muffins.  After eating my fill, of course. 

There was also a crate of bananas.  I gave several bunches away, then made banana pudding, and sliced and froze so many trays of them I lost count.  We’ve been eating them constantly (hubby loves banana sandwiches), and now that they’re beginning to be overripe, I hope to make banana bread tonight.  I also want to take some of the frozen slices and dip them in chocolate, then re-freeze, for popsicles for Drake. 

And then there was the corn.  Oh my goodness, I have no idea how many ears of corn we were given!  I gave several of those away too.  I shucked and silked the rest, cut the corn off the cob, and cooked it in 2 LARGE batches, which were then broken down and frozen into 8-9 generous meal-sized servings, with one batch going into the fridge to eat immediately.

Two cucumbers were included in the bag with the corn, so I turned them into a simple tzatziki by dicing finely and adding to some homemade yogurt along with salt, pepper, lemon juice and garlic.  There were also a bundle of green onions in there, which I have so far not even touched. 

In addition to all that, my lovely neighbors heard I’ve been sick with an eye infection.  They decided to make dinner for the family one night, and was it ever delicious.  Blackeyed peas, cornbread, sweet potato fries, corn, and a cake.  I always enjoy their down-home cooking!  I blended some of the blackeyed peas for Zane, he loved them!  The boy has good taste.

Bento whale in a pool of curry

In my previous post I mentioned making a bento whale for my grandson.  Well, now I’ve had several requests for the curry recipe, so I’ll tell you what I know!

I make curry 2 ways, either in a base of tomato sauce or a base of coconut milk.  If I’m understanding the Food Network channel correctly, the coconut milk one is Thai, and the tomato based one is Indian.  This may be entirely too simplistic but they both taste good, no matter the origins.  Both begin the same way.  I put some rice on to cook and start dicing vegetables.  Pretty much anything works for this, but I always seem to have carrots, peas and onion on hand so that’s my base.  Beyond that I’ve been known to throw in some broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potato, white potato, fresh green beans, cabbage, whatever is fresh and handy.  The more variety I have, the smaller amount of each kind goes in.  In a little oil I sauté anything that needs it, which I everything except the peas.  I buy those frozen.  Once they’re soft I put in my seasonings.  For a tomato base I sprinkle some curry powder into the oil and let it cook a minute so the flavors will bloom.  Stir it while this is happening, it might burn!  Let it coat the veggies.  I don’t like the curry powder you buy in the little red and white can at the grocery store, but at Fresh market in Destin, they sell a Madras curry powder in bulk that smells good enough to eat like a Lik-M-Stick.  Not that I’ve tried that.  Yet.  But I digress.  After the spices are heated up and smelling fabulous, I add the tomato sauce and whatever protein I‘m using, usually cooked lentils, occasionally chick peas, even more rarely I’ll add leftover meat.  I also add the peas and a little garlic at this point.  At this point all that‘s left is to let it simmer for 10-15 minutes and serve it over rice.  I add salt to mine but some people seem to think that’s all wrong.  To each her own.

As for the coconut curry, it’s the same until I get to the seasonings.  For this I go to one of the local Asian markets and buy a can of massaman curry paste, it’s less than $1 and it comes in a yellow can.  You can go to this link to see what the little yellow can looks like, so if you want to try this, you'll know what to look for. 

Massaman Curry Paste

There are plenty of other curry pastes available but this is the one I like.  Not too hot and spicy, but very tasty.  At the point where you’d sprinkle in the dry curry powder for the tomato curry, here you will spoon out some paste and stirfry it in the oil and let it coat the veggies.  For the size meal I make for my family, I use about half the can.  This is totally dependent on taste, I’d say start with a small amount and if it’s not to your liking, stir some more in later.  Then dump in some canned coconut milk.  For my family I use 2 cans, a small family or single person wouldn’t need to use that much.  Salt (again) seems to be optional but I like it in mine.  Add the peas, protein and garlic and simmer, stirring often for 10-15 minutes.  Serve over rice.  Preferably with a bento sea creature swimming in it.   

 

Since this is more a technique than a recipe, feel free to ask for clarification if there’s anything I didn’t make clear.  I hope you’ll try it, this is such a simple, fast and inexpensive meal.  It’s a vegetarian meal I know my family won’t complain about, those rotten die-hard meat eaters are such whiners sometimes but not when I serve this!    

I'll be linking this post to the Blissful and Domestic linky party, stop in over there and see what everyone else has been up to!

Blissful and Domestic

Stuff

We had a great visit with our extended family last week, the last one left on Friday so now we can get back to whatever passes for normal at our house.  They delivered our new shed while the kids were here, my step-son was a great help in getting it set up.  Since then, hubby and his employee have been hard at work fixing up the inside so it can be used as an office.  They’re coming right along!  It’s happening a lot faster than I expected.  I’ll post some pictures another time, I haven’t taken any yet but I’m sure hubby has.

As for me, I’ve been doing some sewing and cooking, and a very small amount of knitting.  It’s just too darn hot to knit, but I want to because I find it so soothing.  So now and then I pick it up and work a little just to calm my mind. 

I’m getting back into the groove of cooking, sort of.  This week I’ve made several meals, including a curry that included my second attempt at bento.  First I was going to make a shark, but it looked like some sort of mutant.  So I changed it to a whale, which looked a little better.  Drake said it was a dolphin so I must have been on the right track!!!

Doesn’t it look cute, swimming in a vegetable/lentil curry?

Last Saturday Tahnee and I went thrift-store shopping.  Waterfront Mission was having a 69 cents sale and I got a few items to be re-purposed into new clothing or quilts.  I made this tank top for Drake from one of those purchases:

 

Pay no attention to the blue plaid shorts, they actually matched what he had on before he tried on the new tank top.  I didn’t get a “before” picture of the shirt, sorry.  It was originally an Old Navy polo shirt, size medium. I was able to use the collar as the ribbing around the neck but there wasn’t enough to do the arm holes.  At first I tried just hemming the arm holes but it looked all stretched out and baggy so I went back and used a bit of the leftover fabric to do a sort of “ribbing” effect.  It worked.  You know, someday I’m going to have to learn to do sleeves….  All in good time.  

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Or at least elephants.  I'm learning the art of Bento, and I'll work my way up to other animals but so far all I've accomplished is an elephant out of a hot dog, and some vegetable flowers.

What do you think?

 

The elephant is resting on a bed of homemade lo mein.  Easy, easy recipe! 

 

1 lb spaghetti or rice noodles

2 cups broth

About 2 cups assorted veggies, diced

leftover bits of meat, optional

1 Tablespoon cornstarch

2 Tablespoons soy sauce

 

I used fresh carrots, peeled and sliced, half a yellow onion, and a handful of frozen peas in this dish.  I like broccoli or cauliflower in it but I didn't have either one.  Really, almost any veg will do.  I've even added leftover homemade eggroll filling.

 

Dice up the veg and start sautéing in a little oil.  Meanwhile, start cooking the pasta according to package directions.  Undercook it just a little so you can finish the cooking in the sauce and let it absorb all that yummy sauce goodness.  Once cooked, drain the pasta.

 

When the veggies are ready, add meat if using, then add the broth and bring it to a boil.  Stir together the cornstarch and soy sauce, then stream into the boiling broth, stirring all the while.  As soon as it starts to thicken, remove from heat and toss in the drained pasta.  Stir til all the pasta is coated and cooked thru.  Top with bento elephant and flowers, or not.  Serve with sweet chili sauce, if you have some.  That makes it FABULOUS.

 

This post is included on a linky party at frugallysustainable.com.  Go check out the other great ideas there!

Finally. Sewing success!!

I made a shirt for Drake out of an old tank top of mine, and some ribbing I bought.  It was plain, but it worked.  That is, until I tried to put it on him.  I had forgotten, this kid has the world’s most ginormous head!  I got it on him but some stitching came loose at the back of the neck.  He wore it anyway, it was his “favorite”, at least til Tahnee bought him a new shirt a few days later, now that one’s his favorite.  But that one has a “motorbicycle” on it, so I get it.  It would be my favorite too. 

When I fixed the neckline the next day, I enlarged the opening.  I had made the pattern myself so I enlarged that too.  And it seemed so plain…

Note to self: Decide on embellishments BEFORE you make clothing.  They are hard to add once the garment is finished!  But I got this pocket on, despite the high degree of difficulty.  I think it enhances the shirt, and it cost me nothing.  I cut it out of an old pair of baby pants.  This whole shirt cost me about a quarter.  And now that I know what to look for in ribbing, I can scavenge that from used clothes as well instead of buying it.    

 

 

On to other news...

Next week I’ll have a house full of company.  Relatives will be sleeping on every horizontal surface in my living room for a week.  I’ve decided to break out that last turkey I bought at Thanksgiving, that’ll provide a lot of meat with no additional outlay, and give me more room in my freezer.  Addition menu items for the week are bean burritos made with homemade refried beans, fried rice, Cajun chicken pasta, nachos, and possibly chicken strips marinated in Italian dressing.  All are inexpensive and easy, good for a crowd and good for the cook.       

This won’t sound very frugal

But in the long run I think it will be.  I just took out a loan and am going to use it to build a storage building in the back yard.  Let me explain:  For the past few years my hubby has been working out of our house.  He had a nice office for his business but we reached the point we just couldn’t afford the rent anymore.  That BP oil spill DID affect the construction industry, no matter what they would have you think, and anything that affects construction affects hubby’s business.  So it’s been pretty lean for us the past few years, just like it has for almost everyone else in the world. 

When he gave up his office he put a bunch of stuff into storage and has slowly been using up and selling what he has, to the point where his large storage unit isn’t really necessary anymore.  For the past year and a half we’ve also had our daughter, her husband and 2 kids living with us, they all share one room since hubby has his office in the other room and he must have an office to work from.  So I had this idea, what if we built a storage building and turned that into his office, and used part of it for storage?  Turns out monthly payments on this loan will be about $50 less than what he’s paying for the storage unit!  And in a year and a half or so it’s paid off, where as if he continues to rent a storage unit, that’s just ongoing, forever and ever and ever.  And eventually he’d start looking for another office to rent, but now he won’t have to.  So yeah, taking out a loan might not sound like a great idea.  Doesn’t everybody want to be debt free?  I know I do!  But this is an investment in our future, and one I feel certain will pay us back for years to come.  Plus it‘ll give us a little more space in our small, overcrowded house, which is a good thing!

I’m in a cooking slump

For me, cooking is normally a no-brainer.  I can look at a pile of humble ingredients and throw them together to make something at least edible, and usually pretty tasty.  But I’ve lost my mojo.  Oh, I can still cook, I just don’t want to.  There’s no fun in it for me right now.  I know it’s because I’ve been feeling a bit burned out and stressed, the past few months have been pretty monstrous.  And I‘m tired.  I got a bit of a mini vacation last week, my BFF was in town for 3 days.  I stayed with her at a hotel in the evenings, I had to work during the day but she spent her day doing the things she needed to do, then we spent the evenings together.  It was refreshing.  I hope it was for her as well.

So now, no excuses.  Back in the saddle, as it were, time to take advantage of this little bit of momentum I have going and get busy.  I’ve been looking at recipes on the internet and found a few new ones I want to try, like this:

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/05/japanese-cabbage-and-vegetable-pancakes/#more-10070

Looks simple, reasonably healthy, and delicious.  With this on the side:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Japanese-Restaurant-Cucumber-Salad/Detail.aspx

And if I didn’t want to make the pancakes as the main dish, a nice roasted chicken would be a good meat to serve with them, yes?

And of course here in Florida, the heat is nearly upon us, so it’s time to stop using the oven and start relying on stovetop and crockpot recipes, so there’s this:

http://realmomkitchen.com/167/slow-cooker-steak-fajitas/

Is it just me?  Do others get bored with cooking, or with eating the same recipes over and over?  Do people appreciate your culinary efforts, or would they rather blow their money on the Dollar Menu?  And it’s not just cooking, I’m feeling restless in all areas of life, not sure what’s going to fix that but maybe it’s time to shake things up a bit.  Watch this space.