Moms' Cafe

When our children were very young we lived in a suburb of Washington DC in Northern Virginia. Often we would meet Daddy after work and stop at a fast food place for supper. Our children became VERY familiar with them. However, as our family grew to five children we decided that eating out was too expensive. The first time we chose to eat at home the children asked, "Where are we going to eat tonight?" And we answered, "At Mom's Cafe!" They were so excited to try a new place. Ha ha! We pulled into the driveway and they were totally puzzled. It only worked a few times before they caught on and didn't want to go to "Mom's Cafe". But we didn't care, we went anyway.

Hence, my kitchen became known as Mom's Cafe.

Fast forward many years and all the children are leaving home. They asked me to put together a cookbook with all the family favorites. I promised, worked on it a bit, procrastinated and promised some more. 

This summer I decided to get it done. 

Tah-Dah! (And yes, I'm inadvertently revealing my true identity, but hey, we're among friends here.)

Each child got a different colored book.

Each Section is labeled and on the other side (sorry no photo) is a list of recipes in the section.

On a few recipes I included photos.

The Housekeeping section is to remind them of what I taught them, plus a few things for grownups

such as defrosting a chest freezer and cleaning an oven.

That's a huge project completed and crossed off my list. Now on to some T-shirt quilts and photo albums. 

Oh my. I'm tired already!

The boys are saying: Finally!

There's something to eat in the house.

More Miscellany

Saturday was our community wide yard sale; we participated both with a "stuff" sale and a bake sale fundraiser for Dr. Hair's (I think he needs a new name) brand new high school film club. They made more than I did. How did that happen? But I cleaned out a bunch of stuff, and took the leftovers to the thrift store on Monday, restoring our living room to a useful state. Friday I baked from 9 AM to 9 PM making 5 loaves of white bread, 2 each of banana, pumpkin and poppy seed loaves, a double batch of brownies (from scratch) and a big batch of ginger snaps. The house smelled wonderful! All that didn't sell was brought back inside to fill up the hollow legs around here and give me a week's break from baking.

Sunday we had a wonderful women's meeting at church that helped to unify us and inspire us to do more in strengthening each other and building the Kingdom.

This week I've caught up on lots of things around the house. I had to take time to clean out the drain for the laundry sink, it was clogged and draining slowly. TopDad was too busy to help so I did it all by myself; well with the help of a bottle of drain cleaner, but I did take everything apart and put it back together. Now all the laundry is caught up, you know, sheets and towels and such. The regular stuff goes on forever.

Wednesday I wrote letters and took care of some Relief Society business (church women's group, I'm president). I attended the high school honors night where Dr. Hair and Dandylion both received awards. Both in speech and Dandylion lettered in Academics, he has maintained a 4.0 GPA for at least three consecutive semesters. I know many of the seniors because they are Dr. Hair's friends so it was fun to see them. The art department has their annual art show in the cafeteria so we get to see the student projects. This art teacher is fabulous! Having lived here for four years now, I wish I'd grown up in a small town where the students get so many opportunities to explore and try things. Our youngest sons have really done well here.

Our weather is hot, cool and in between. Last night we had thunderstorms and hail. Today began clear, but clouds have moved in and "tut, tut, it looks like rain." The grass is Irish green, the trees are leafed out and my big lilac bush is in bloom smelling like heaven. I spent some time outside yesterday morning digging out dandelions from the lily of the valley patch on the north-east side of the house. I hope they bloom this year as I love that fragrance too.

 So, how has your week been?

Ten Things of Thankful - Brought to you by the Letter H

1. Health - as in good; after last week's bout with the flu I'm thankful for good health and only the normal aches and pains.

2. Humor - Saturday night I said to TopDad, "I missed you last week." He replied, "I didn't know you were aiming." It felt so good to laugh!

3. Heat - We are still in a deep freeze here in Iowa; I wear three or four layers and still shiver. I'm thankful I'm inside and not crossing the plains in a handcart.

4. Hairspray - It's the glue that helps me grow out my hair. I thought today of a way to motivate myself to keep going: I'm growing historic hair. I like to dress up in historic clothes and long hair looks more authentic hence the need for historic hair.

5. Handkerchiefs - My old linen hankies are so much softer on a sore nose than paper tissues. I love my pretty hankies!

6. Harmony - As in the boys getting along and laughing together; as in beautiful music too.

7. Hats - To cover my ears when the wind is blowing; however, I'm not so thankful for hat hair, but one tries not to think of that.

8. Georg Freidrich Handel and Franz Joseph Haydn - two of my favorite composers.

9. Hindsight - which, of course is 20 20; unlike my current sight which is almost legally blind.

10. Homemade - Just smell that fresh baked bread!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a look around and I hope you'll be back.

The AHA! Moment; OR When the light finally comes on

The Tightwad Gazette was published from about 1990 to 1996 and helped educated a whole lot of people about being frugal. I was an early subscriber and one of those learners. Learning is an fluid process, rising and falling as our needs change and our understanding increases. Here's a funny example.

I don't remember why or how I got started using a square of wax paper to grease baking pans, but that's what I used. In an issue of The Tightwad Gazette someone mentioned using the wrapper from a cube of butter (or margarine) and I thought they meant that there was enough butter left on the wrapper to use in greasing a pan. I tried it and finding it didn't work indignantly shouted, as if they could hear me, "This doesn't work! There isn't enough butter on here to do anything." And I went back to using a square of wax paper. A few years later I was pulling off the wax paper from the roll and the idea hit me like a ton of bricks "Duh, using the wrapper from the butter saves on using up my wax paper!!! Of course you have to put more butter on it, it was saving the paper part you didn't understand." I felt about an inch tall for being so dense.

Ever have those moments? That's why I like to read other's blogs and books even though I do lots of frugal things, I don't know it all and I can learn something new to add to my bag of tricks. You can see some of my favorite sites right over there------------------------------------------------>.

I'm Back

That's right, the Practical, Frugal, Clever Mom is back. Over the weekend I read some pages from a "Frugality Journal" I kept for a few years. The entries inspired me to get back to basics and post some of the little things I do to be frugal.

Today I baked bread, five loaves of basic white bread. The kitchen smells lovely and my boys will arrive home to their favorite fragrance!

At the beginning of October I set a goal to bake ALL my bread. I made it all the way to the week of Thanksgiving and events overtook my good intentions. Still I made it through almost two whole months without buying a single loaf of bread, or other baked good. It freed up enough money to bulk buy some other things my pantry was lacking. The practice of making what we use rather than buying, will consistently free up money that can be put to other uses.

There are some caveats. I read on another blog about making her own lip balm for 12 cents a tube. Which sounds fabulous except she had to spend about $60 to make the first dozen tubes and she has enough ingredients left to make dozens more. So, unless she plans to sell the tubes, she's not saving any money, and it's possible that the leftover ingredients will spoil before they can be used up. Perhaps for her there are other uses for the leftovers and it won't be wasted. However, that is not a way I'd look at to save money.

Saving money means (to me) spending less (or nothing) on something I normally and regularly use, including gifts or materials to make gifts. Example: bread making. Last summer, while in Utah, I bought two hundred pounds of unbleached flour in 25 lb. bags for $10.45 each. That saved me a lot of money. It works out to $.418 per pound. When flour goes on sale here it is cheaper than that, but it comes in tiny five pound bags and there is usually a limit of 2 bags. That doesn't help me much as it is 30 miles to the grocery store so I can't go everyday and keep buying. Plus there is all the packaging to deal with. I like big bags!

I've been pondering how I will be able to restock. I can't justify driving a thousand miles to Utah for a couple hundred pounds of flour, although visiting family and friends would be wonderful too. Answers come to those who ponder! I was reading a book called Money Secrets of the Amish in which the author talks about the bulk buying habits of the Amish. Ding! There is an Amish community in south-central Iowa that I could easily drive to twice a year to stock up!

Oh, that bread smells good! I think it's time for a piece with a little butter and honey.

Baking

Day Fifteen of Count Your Blessings 2013

Ummmm, can you smell it? Bread baking in the oven. Heavenly!

I'm so grateful to have an oven! The house smells so good these days, what with bread, muffins, cakes, cookies, and such. It feeds both the body and the soul.

Weekly Grocery Total

Last week's grocery shopping consisted of two quick trips to the store for grapes, and a pizza for Dandylion's dinner while we went on a date, and then some green vegetables; total $14.28 bringing the monthly total to $314.64 for an average of $104.88 per week. This week I'll need milk and maybe a couple of other things, but not much.

I've been working hard at not wasting food and using what I have in the house rather than buying more.

Today I baked some banana bread with the mashed bananas from the freezer. Smells really yummy here!

Just for clarity--I'm only counting food for the family in these totals. I have spent more on pet food and toiletries on the same shopping trips, but those are different categories.

Science in the Kitchen

I mentioned that my oven is still not working properly. We have had to eat less than lovely cookies, oven fries and pizza.

Yesterday I conducted an experiment to see what the actual temperature is in the oven.

First I turned it, the oven, on to 350 degrees and waited for the beep to tell me it is up to temperature. Well actually, first I put the new oven thermometer into the oven and THEN I turned it on.

When it beeped I turned on the oven light and looked at the temperature through the window. It read 325. That's 25 degrees low, but I can compensate knowing that. Let's try a higher temp. I turned it up to 400 and waited for the beep, then looked again and it read approximately 375-380 (hard to tell). Okay, it's fairly consistent. Now, let's turn on a timer and see what the temperature reads after 15 minutes. I puttered around the kitchen for 10 minutes and then looked and saw it read 325, and when the timer dinged at 15 minutes the thermometer read 300. No wonder the pizza was practically raw!

This is not good. TopDad already replaced what he thought was the problem, the thermostat. But it still was not working right (I mean 30 minutes for cookies?) so I bought a thermometer and finally got around to testing it. IT failed.

I can do without a lot of things in a kitchen: dishwasher, disposal, counter space, cupboards, I'd even be willing to give up my microwave. But I CAN NOT do without an oven. For very long, or very happily.

It really is true that you never know how much you use something until you don't have it. I never realized how many times a day I washed my hands until we were five days without running water. YIKES! I didn't think I planned so many meals around baking until I can't do it anymore. YIKES!

And just when we think we're getting ahead and going to have some breathing room in the budget and actually put something away for savings, the darn oven goes. Well, who said life was supposed to calm and easy. How boring would that be anyway.

Have a great weekend! And I'll just enjoy the rain without cookies to go with my hot chocolate.

Progress

Just a note to say I'm making progress on the transformation, but I don't have any pictures. I've done two coats of bright white on the ceiling and the first coat of pale pink on the walls in the master bedroom and it looks almost lovely. (It definitely needs a second coat.) And the old "if it's not one thing, it's another" is in operation. I left the windows open over the weekend which was not the best choice when it rained! The carpet is wet. . .but who cares as it is coming out tomorrow, after I get the second coat of paint on the walls.

In other news, our oven is dying. I made roast vegetables for lunch yesterday and after an hour and a half they still weren't completely done, at 425 degrees! Dr. Hair made cookies later in the evening and each batch took about 20 minutes. So. We'll look into it when we get back from vacation but I'm not doing anything now. This will be another episode of making do. My sister lived without an oven for how many years was it, D? Lots, at least it seemed like it. I know it is doable.

Tomorrow after the second coat of paint in on I'll take some pictures. Patience.

Nevertheless, Wheat for Man

Guess what I did today!
That's right, I ground some whole wheat flour. Thought I'll show you a little about that.
I set everything up--you can see my grain mill, five gallon storage bucket, can opener and a #10 can.

This is wheat I canned in Washington state twenty years ago, but actually the wheat was purchased sixteen years earlier than that. I was eighteen and the ward (church congregation) placed an order for some Montana hard red wheat and I bought 150 pounds. My parents kept it in their storage until I retrieved it in 1992 and took it home to Mount Vernon, Washington, where I then took it to the church cannery and put it in steel cans. This is the best wheat I've ever had.

This is my grain grinder that I bought while living in Dale City, Virginia in 1999 for $181.00. Today the company is called Blendtec and the same grain mill sells for $179.95.

Here's a peek at the whole wheat berries. They are yummy just chewed up straight from the can.

Here's what the flour looks like: above is in the mill bucket, and below is in the five gallon bucket.

PW wanted to make some bread so I showed him my recipe for Fast and Easy French Bread and let him go to it. Here's his bread ready to rise.

And here's the finished product.

While the bread was baking I made up some Black Beans and Tomatoes to go over leftover brown rice. It is one of my favorite lunches.

For dessert Paul served me half of one of his round loaves spread with Dulce de Leche he brought home from Argentina. It was the perfect ending.

What would a blog be without a couple of recipes:

Fast and Easy French Bread

In a large bowl place: 3 cups warm (hot tap) water
                                   2 tablespoons sugar
                                   2 tablespoons yeast
                                   1 tablespoon salt
                                   2 tablespoons olive (or other) oil
When the yeast blooms, ADD 6 - 8 cups flour to make a stiff dough (I use half whole wheat and half unbleached)
Let rise 20 minutes.
Shape into loaves (whatever shape you like) and place on a greased baking sheet (or in greased loaf pans)
Let rise 20 minutes.
Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.
For shiny bread, brush on egg wash made of a whole egg and a tablespoon of water.

Black Beans and Tomatoes
1 small onion (or part of large one) chopped, saute in 1 tablespoon oil
Add 15 oz. can of stewed tomatoes, and 15 oz can of black beans, drained, 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder. Simmer until heated through. Serve over brown rice.

Today PW requested the addition of a little chili powder and it was a good choice.

We have been counseled for many decades to store wheat. I was raised by a mother who not only stored it but used it for bread. Her mother had made whole wheat bread too and it is her recipe that I use today.(Not the French Bread, I got that at a Relief Society Activity)  I not only bake bread, but I use whole wheat flour for pancakes (my husband won't eat any other kind), rolls, biscuits, muffins, sweet or nut breads, cookies, cakes, pie crust, and pizza. I like the texture and flavor of the whole wheat flour. At times when I've had the money and/or it was readily available I've used whole wheat pasta also.

It's all a matter of what you get used to. I'll share an example. I grew up eating General Mills brand Cheerios; I didn't know there were any other kind. Until I had children of my own and decided that I couldn't afford Cheerios and bought some Malto Meal Tasteos (or whatever they're called). They tasted different, but after a couple weeks I got used to them and that's all my children ever had. When we visited Grandma and she served Cheerios my children DIDN'T LIKE THEM!!! They tasted different from the ones they were used to.

Moral of the story: Give your taste buds a couple of weeks to adjust to new tastes and textures. When beginning to use whole wheat flour start with adding 1/4 of the total amount of flour, after a couple of times, up it to 1/3, then 1/2. Experiment. I found that in dark things like gingerbread or pumpkin cake I can use 100% whole wheat flour and nobody complains. In fact, the first time I made pumpkin cake using all whole wheat flour Topdad said it was the best cake he'd ever eaten!

I believe the Lord when he says "All grain is good for the food of man; . . . Nevertheless, wheat for man," (Doctrine and Covenants 89:16-17)