Exotic edibles

     I love this time of year, the approaching autumn, the harvest, the grass not growing! Almost every year I make some exotic sweet to enjoy during winter.  Yesterday I made yellow tomato preserves.  I had to buy the tomatoes as I was not successful in growing any in my gravel infested yard.  I am not sure it's that they taste different or just that I am influenced by the color, like little kids who like "red" candies.  Anyway, I dunked them in boiling water to make the skins slip off.

  
     Then I peeled them.  It helps if I remember to cut a cross in the bottom before putting them in.  I hold them on a large fork and peel them quick, quick before they burn my fingers.  Then I cut the cores out and chop them coarsely.

     Here they are all peeled, well half of them.  Then I boiled them with their weight in sugar and some lemon juice and rind and lastly some ginger.

I do think they are a pretty color and yummy to boot.  My fancy labels are on the counter waiting for the jars to cool.  Visitors sometimes say they won't like them but most people eat them happily.

     On another subject, today the annual letter came from the electric company offering to spread our electric bills out so that they are the same every month.  Sounds good but Hubby figured it up and it runs about $137.00 more per year, and that's if you accept their estimate of what we will use.  Our actual last year's bills ran about $10 less per month than their estimate.  No mention was made of refunds if you don't use all the electricity every month.  So we opted to keep our same old variable rate, large in January and February and almost as large in July and August.  But cheaper the other months.  It's hard not to be cynical about this company.

Less is more

     Less is more.  I've always liked that saying, even when I wasn't sure what it meant.  I mean who wouldn't like more?  And who doesn't think they have less than they want?  But they don't exactly seem to match up, those two concepts.  It's only as I've aged that I have seen a happy confluence of several ideas  which at last all seem trendy and "now".  Be Greener.  Save money.  Live well. 
   
     For example:  this morning my sweety suggested that we go out for breakfast.  And it's not as if we don't have some favorite places to go.  I admit that I was tempted.  But I had stayed up late reading an old Gourmet magazine (.25 at a tag sale) about finely minced rosemary potatoes and Swiss cheese and mushroom omelet .  So I suggested that we stay home and I fix a dandy breakfast here.  My first thought was not the cost of breakfast, it was that I have only 1/4 tank of gas in the car, and my part is I pay for gas, since I drive. I wanted to fill the tank on next months paycheck rather than on this month's tattered remainder.  What I don't spend goes into savings. 


Below are the preparations for breakfast.  The minced potatoes, two slightly spotty mushrooms,  Swiss cheese and vegetables sliced for last night's sandwiches. The coffee's made and yesterday's left-over coffee poured into a glass bottle for an iced drink later today.

      I regret to say that I was too hungry to take photos of the finished breakfast,  we gravitated to the table in our pajamas and inhaled the food, since it was now about half after ten. And lingered over coffee and good conversation.  An auspicious Sunday morning.  And I am happy to have saved the money we would have spent.  I have to say saving is often a lot of little decisions like that.

     One of the things we do is go grocery shopping every two weeks instead of every week.  In truth, my cupboards really are bare and so is the fridge by the time we go shopping.  My list is started at the end of week one as I notice things we need or want.  By the time we go shopping the list has been pruned and remade several times.  Our budget used to be the food stamp allotment for adults: $21 a week per person, according to our city council, who challenged themselves to live on that amount for one week.  Apparently they were unable to do that but I have done it for years.  Now I think that allotment is too little for us, either because food prices have gone up or because we have changed what we want.  Because its not that we don't have more money, it's the challenge of the thing!  So currently we are spending about$23.50 per person per week.  That includes dry goods like detergent, paper napkins, toilet paper, tooth paste and trash bags.
     During week one we have salads and fresh fruits more and I try to use up the mushrooms.  During week two we have more one-dish meals, chili and cheese sandwiches or John Marzetti, and use canned or frozen vegetables and fruits.  It makes for more varied menus, an advantage I had not foreseen.  I sometimes freeze milk so as to have the option of cereal during the second week but if we run out of milk, we are happy to have eggs or pancakes for breakfast instead.  On this budget I often buy sale vegetables or fruits to can or freeze.  Also dry beans as we like my home canned chili beans and pork and beans better than the store labels.  I have a pressure canner I bought at a church tag sale.  At present I have about 95 pints of canned goodies, including jams and jellies and pickles stored up for the winter. (See "Blueberries for Sal").  One thing I will say is that there is no room for prepared foods on such a budget.  Experience makes it easy to cook things "from scratch" and also having a crock pot!