Today's breakfast

A few months ago, I started taking pictures of some of the things Jack and I eat and posting them on Facebook. The idea was that I would save the pictures there until we made the time to write out the recipes for our concoctions and post them to the recipe section of the website. We generally combine things as we feel it when we’re cooking, so it was supposed to be a way to keep track of particularly good foods so we could duplicate them later. (Before, we tried writing out the basic ingredients on scrap paper and saving them in our recipe binder. We’re still waiting to revisit most of the things on those lists!) While it did serve as a visual reminder of some of our tastier successes, I still haven’t written out their recipes.

What surprised me about posting the photos on Facebook was the responses from friends. Many were impressed by what seemed like simple meals. We eat from pretty simple ingredients – we use whole foods when they’re at their cheapest, after all – but I gather that it was what we make from those ingredients that impressed people so much. Chickpeas become hummus, organ meats become pâté, chicken breasts become chicken parmigiana and so on. At first I found the oohs and ahs rather strange, and I eventually took the pictures off of Facebook in part because of it. Yet I have to say that I like seeing pictures of our work. In fact, I would like to think that people enjoyed that! Presentation is a major part of cooking; when done properly, it can make the difference between eating like a pauper and eating like royalty. Cooking should be overall fun (since we have to eat about three times a day), and I think food plating is a big part of that.

From now on I plan to post photos of our meals on this blog. Hopefully I’ll type the recipes out for the website, but if nothing else it will give me a place to keep these things. Sometimes they’re blurry and sometimes I can’t get things to look as good in photos as they do in front of us, but I’ll post my favorite pictures nonetheless. I found when I was posting them on Facebook that they helped me see when we’re weren’t eating very healthfully or not spending enough time to make good meals. Those times were easy to spot because I didn’t want to take pictures.

Today’s food photo is from breakfast. It’s scrambled eggs (one for each of us) on top of buttered toast made from bread Jack sliced and I put in the freezer from one of our last batches. I sliced tomato to have on the side and we each ate a green apple, a cup of coffee and water as well.

Did you plan a menu for this week? Maybe you could give me some ideas. Post the link to your menu blog post at OrgJunkie.com to share it with other bloggers.

P.S. I’ll receive a commission if you click either of the links for the cookbooks and buy something from Amazon while you’re there.

Thrift store bounty

Recently when my mother-in-law was visiting, she gave me the biggest compliment in the form of a joke. After asking us where we got the umpteenth item in our home, she prefaced our response by adding, “And don’t tell me you got it for $4 at the thrift store!”

Well no, not that.

I like that people enjoy our place when they come over. I think some of it – actually, maybe a lot of it – has something to do with the fact that we’re careful about what we buy. We realized early on that the more conservative we are with what we buy, the nicer the things we have and the more money we have for more nice things. If that means researching online for a few hours to learn what we should look for when buying, so be it. If it means going to thrift stores and discount store first to see if we can find classics at a low price, we do it. (We’re not big fans of hyper in-style stuff. We’ve found it to be more expensive and less durable than older stuff, whether it’s clothing or kitchenware.) Even with less stuff, if it’s nice stuff I’m happy.

That’s the idea behind my efforts to update my wardrobe lately. Over the last few years I’ve been trying to negotiate a balance between Young Woman and Sophisticated Wife in my clothing choices, which has been both fun and a bit discouraging at times. Before Jack and I got married, we were both very much aware of how we dressed. I would frequently miss the bus to school as a teenager by making sure to style my hair juuust right. (For reference, if you blow cold air on your curls it sets them and makes them fall more naturally than a fresh style.) Jack, at the same time, rarely wore jeans or sneakers. These things changed gradually until we realized several months ago that we had let go of a sense of style that we really enjoyed. We didn’t look like bums, for the most part, just… plainer. Plain is fine, but not when it’s not our style. It’s never a fun thing to look back on pictures of yourself in your teen years and think that you looked more classic and put-together then!

Clothes shopping trips this year have proved to be more fruitful for Jack than for me in terms of things that actually work. Whereas I might settle on an item that looks fine on the hanger, and even in the dressing room, I’d get it home and realize how disjointed it was from the rest of my wardrobe. Jack, on the other hand, has found a single store that caters to his tastes and looks great in everything he buys from there. The other day I got so fed up with feeling frumpy or childish in so much of my clothing that I made a sudden trip to my favorite thrift store. Usually we go shopping together and rely on each other’s sense of style, but I thought I was only going to buy a pair of jeans in a smaller size to replace the ones that look bad on me because I’ve lost some weight. I bought those. I also spent an hour or more venting my frustration by buying every nice thing I could get my hands on before I got tired. If I could tailor or dye it to perfection, it went in the cart (after careful consideration, of course).

By the end of the trip, I had amassed the items you see in the picture, plus a few that aren’t pictured. The total: less than $55. I’m the same woman who is appalled when a shirt costs $5, so though it’s more than I had intended to spend I was happy with the purchases, as was Jack. He was surprised that I had done that so unexpectedly, but he was glad that I was solving the problem that had been bothering me so much. I want to look nice as his wife, you know! I’ve always loved to design clothes so I’m also excited to really get into sewing soon to make some of the other things I have in mind. One of the first items on the agenda is to repurpose the clothes I’m tired of wearing.

In an ideal world, I’d be able to dress like a character from American Dreams without anyone batting an eyelash. For now, though, I’m content with having bought a lot of things that should last a few years at the least. What about you – how do you compose your wardrobe?

Today's lunch

I’m always looking for ways to get a quality job done in less time. Since we cook almost entirely from scratch (except for things like tomato paste and pasta), we can spend a lot of time in the kitchen if we don’t plan ahead. A few months ago I looked into once-a-month cooking (“OAMC”) and thought it was a nice idea, but I didn’t like the idea of eating so few freshly prepared meals and potentially having foods break down after thawing. Last week, I decided that with our new budget we should try preparing the week’s meals over the weekend. We want to trim $85 from our already modest grocery budget in order to meet some financial goals over the next few months, and in the past, having delicious food already prepared has made us more likely to stick to our menu and able to spend less time in the kitchen each day. We’d just never done so much cooking in one day.

We spent a few hours cooking yesterday and am happy to say that we did some prep work on almost everything we plan to eat this week. Here’s what’s on the menu:

Breakfast

• cinnamon vanilla biscuits and sausage
• banana corn fritters with yogurt
• savory oatmeal and fried eggs
• biscuits and eggs
• latkes

Lunch

• tacos burritos
• croquettes
• lettuce salad with boiled eggs and caesar dressing
• chicken turkey sandwiches
• spicy banana dip

Dinner

• ramen stir fry with egg and vegetables
• chicken tortilla soup
• pizza
• kidney bean loaf
• lentil, spinach and potato stew

Desserts

• banana bread
• watermelon
• nectarines

That’s from the scratch sheet of paper I planned the menu on, so since I don’t typically plan every meal down to a tee the list lacks side items and other specifics. Burritos are crossed off because we made the tortillas too small, spinach is removed from our typical recipe because it wasn’t on sale, and the watermelon that was on sale was bigger than we thought it would be so we didn’t buy it. I made enough bread dough for four loaves using a new recipe (with regular whole milk), half of which which Jack used to make three loaves and the other half of which I used to make 8 sub buns and 8 burger buns. I’m happy we’ll have smaller buns, because we love burgers but the last time we had them we used spongy, over sweetened buns from the store that we had left over from a 4th of July get-together. Jack made four jars of yogurt, twice as much as usual, so that we didn’t run out too soon. We’re pleased with the outcome because we have good, budget-friendly food in the refrigerator and freezer and more time to do other things throughout the week.

Have you ever done once-a-week or once-a-month cooking? What made it work for you, or not work?

P.S. I just joined Organizing Junkie’s Meal Plan Monday.

After reading that first excerpt, I was interested to read other parts of the interview. She also said, “You want to go into the most intense physical experience in your life (childbirth) unprepared? That doesn’t make any sense to me.” I began to wonder how she gave birth, and a little reading confirmed what I had suspected: Gisele gave birth at home with a midwife. Midwives practicing under the Midwives Model of Care emphasize preparation throughout pregnancy, to ensure that the mother is well informed about what’s going on and feels secure at the time of birth. They also emphasize the benefits mother and child receive from breastfeeding, and don’t leave after a birth until they’ve made sure that the baby is nursing. Gisele chose a water birth, referred to in the homebirth community as a “wet epidural”, and reportedly felt no pain. I don’t know much about her, but I hadn’t expected her to be such a natural mom!

I wrote an article on the site recently about homebirth titled, “Is a Natural Birth with a Midwife Right for You?” In it, I explain the basic reasons more mothers in the U.S. are choosing midwives for care during pregnancy and opting to give birth at home. Most mothers receive standard hospital care for pregnancy and childbirth because it seems like the safest (and only) option, while others find hospital procedure too intrusive and impersonal in most cases. What do you think – would you only give birth in a hospital, or only with a midwife? Have you had both experiences? Share your thoughts here or at the bottom of the article on the main site.

Last night's dinner

I have a confession to make.

I cook with Velveeta.

Actually, it’s worse than that: I cook with cheap Velveeta knockoffs I find at any grocery store. It started innocently last year when Jack and I didn’t want to spend $8 to buy a block of cheese we were only going to melt in recipes. From there, it became a habit. We started buying the generic boxed cheese spreads on a regular basis to use in casseroles, macaroni and cheese, sandwiches and more. It’s to the point now that we only buy real cheese when it really makes a difference, like the Swiss that goes on a Reuben.

Now that I’ve shared my dark culinary secret, I’ll explain what happened yesterday when I made dinner. Since we haven’t gone grocery shopping in a while (and don’t plan to for a few days), we were low on items to make a quick meal. Typically, for example, we might cook a meat and rice dish with chopped, sautéed vegetables, but we didn’t have enough produce for that. I looked to our old standbys, potatoes and cabbage, for the basis of the meal. I wanted to make a cheesy potato casserole but we only had one potato. Besides that, the only thing resembling cheese we had around was generic Velveeta. Not wanting Jack to sit down to a disappointing dinner, I added minced garlic, chives, paprika, salt, black pepper and butter to the potatoes before topping them with cheese and baking them. I was glad to have the red cabbage because I felt it added a touch of refinement to what would otherwise have been a very plain meal. When he took the first bite of the finished dish at dinner time, he remarked immediately how good it was – mission accomplished.

I’m not of the opinion, as many people are, that Velveeta and it’s cheaper counterparts are not real cheese. Boxed cheese contains American cheese and Swiss cheese as primary ingredients, in addition to milk, cheese culture and enzymes. As for its oft-cited shelf life, I don’t think it’s uncommon for cheeses to sit unrefrigerated and still be fine. (It makes me wonder how people have traditionally made cheese since before the invention of refrigerators.) I do know that Velveeta is not as rich or bold in flavor as cheddar cheese or even Swiss. Yet as someone who is mindful of the ingredients in the few processed food items she buys, I must say that it doesn’t really bother me to use this cheap cheesy ingredient for select dishes.

What do you think? Do you cook with Velveeta, generic or otherwise?

P.S. I cook mostly by feel, so I don’t write a lot of things down after I make them. I may add this recipe to the website later, though.

The interview appears to be from the 1990s, but the things Amy says are as true today as they were then. I especially like when she says, “We always do think frugality in bad times and I just wish people would do it in the good times, because if we would do it in the good times, the bad times wouldn’t be bad. We’d be able to ride it out.” That’s the basis of why I like saving money: it’s not that I can’t afford to spend now, but that I may not be able to spend later and I want to insure us against that. Overall, I was surprised by how down-to-earth the author seems, given how many reviews I’ve read calling The Tightwad Gazette over-the-top. (I was also glad to learn, with almost complete certainty, how to pronounce her last name. )

Here’s the interview.

P.S. The link to The Tightwad Gazette in this post is an affiliate link. I’ll be compensated if you buy something from Amazon while you’re there.

My "chocolate chips"

Yesterday I wanted to surprise Jack with chocolate chip cookies. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know who wouldn’t love coming home to warm, moist cookies and dough set aside specifically for them to eat. The only problem was that we didn’t have chocolate chips in the pantry. Greeeeat.

What we did have was Whoppers. We had gone on a $10 junk food “spree” the night before and bought some candy that was on sale at the grocery store. I couldn’t think of anything more chocolate chip-like than crushed Whoppers so I put them in a plastic baggie and smashed them with a mallet. Here’s where I messed up: We almost always put less sugar in our food than what recipes call for. I knew from experience that chocolate chip cookies need the right amount of “stuff” to keep them from melting into crisp butter discs, so I substituted an equal amount of flour for the sugar I left out. I realized my mistake almost as soon as I added the flour.

The cookies aren’t bad. I think maybe I should put a little less flour, though, and a bit more butter, vanilla or both for more flavor. I’ll post the recipe to the site when I get them right!

I also plan to post a weight loss article to the website later today. With so many people trying to slim down for summer, I want to share some simple tips that help me lose and maintain my weight. It seems that people make it much more complicated than it needs to be. Check back later for a link to the article. [Update: "The 5 Biggest Weight-Loss Mistakes"]

The dining table centerpiece

What kind of flowers do these look like to you?

Give up? They’re fake flowers.

This seems pretty obvious to me when I’m sitting in front of them at our dining room table, but surprisingly, we’ve had at least two guests react in surprise when we told them that the flowers were fake. I guess that means we did a good job choosing them at the dollar store!

When we were first decorating our home, Jack and I decided on a new theme for the dining room. As you can see, the we chose blue, white, black and yellow as the main colors. (Our napkins are black but they were in the laundry when I took the picture. ) For the yellow, we went with an, um, everlasting bouquet as the centerpiece. I was concerned about the flowers looking terrible on our table, but fortunately Jack has an eye for what looks good. We settled on the flowers there in the picture and trimmed them down to the right length to fit in the small glass vase we had on hand from my old office desk. The vase was probably less than $2 at a crafts store, so this “everlasting centerpiece” cost about $3 total.

Maybe I do more than I realized to convince guests that the flowers are not fake (not that they’re real, just… not fake). I had essential oils on hand and chose a honey almond scent to drop onto the flower petals. So, this fake bouquet has a real scent. Granted, I’ve never smelled a flower that reminded me of honey and almonds, but really I don’t think people expect any scent to come from flowers unless they’re real. The essential oil probably cost between $3 and $8, so the surprisingly convincing bouquet costs less than $12 and will last indefinitely. To me, that beats having real flowers on display that I have to change every few days.

Do you use fake flowers to decorate in your home?

Our Ooma Telo

Last week we finished porting our home number from our old phone service provider to Ooma. Ooma recommends you wait a day before calling your phone company to cancel service, so though we bought the Ooma Telo a few weeks ago, we’ve only used Ooma by itself this week.

If you don’t know what Ooma is, here’s a quote from their website:

Ooma is a revolutionary device that allows you to call anywhere in the U.S. for free. You pay only applicable taxes and fees. You can also make international calls for next to nothing. You don’t need a PC. Simply connect the device to your high-speed Internet and your existing phone, and that’s it. You’re ready to start calling and experience Ooma’s great voice quality.

We found out about it a few months ago while looking for an alternative to our home phone that didn’t involve using VOIP. (VOIP requires you to keep your computer turned on to make and receive calls, which makes your phone dependent on your internet speed and connection.) We’ve been paying about $40 a month for phone, in addition to our internet from the same company. The price for that package has crept up about $20 over the past year, due to strange little fees that Jack says don’t mean much except that the company is charging us for the cost of charging us.

So far, we like Ooma. The Multi-Ring feature allows to you decide which phones ring when someone calls. You can make your cell phone ring when someone calls your home, or have both phones ring. It comes with call log, voicemail and other features I won’t mention that allow you a bit of leeway concerning the calls you receive. We’ll save close to $500 on our phone service over the next 12 months alone, and even more money over time. If you don’t use Ooma, it would be worth your while to look into it.