Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Feb. 28, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. 

This Week's Food Waste

I've been gone and while I was away, the lettuce decided to turn from nice, crisp leaves to something you could pour out of the bag. Luckily, there were no other causalities. 


 

This Week's True Food Confessions

This week, I enjoyed hospital cafeteria food again. Good variety, good taste, and good prices made it a hard combination to beat. The best thing was the staff serving it. Besides being friendly, they were generous with the food. Want a little more? Just ask and they'd give you another large spoonful for no charge. Want to taste something? No problem. They'd give you a taste at no charge. I got to sample their potato pancakes this way.

Now it's back to reality. The fridge is empty, so the possibilities are endless. I guess I mean that the possibilities are endless after a trip to the grocery store.

Until next time...

Family Stories

Okay, this is getting old. For the third time in a month and a half, I got the phone call. The one after which, I jumped in the car with my sister and met my mother in the emergency room three hours away. Usually, we get there about the same time, but this time she beat us because she got to go by helicopter. And this time was different in another way. After a couple of days, my mother was feeling better and started to act like her old self again. So, this meant her stories came out. My sister and I shared knowing looks with each one and occasionally we let the staff in on our family secrets. But sometimes, they just left the room with a puzzled look. 

We may get more puzzled looks soon because this recent adventure gave a whole new set of stories to share. We won't expect everyone to understand as we tell about the helicopter ride and the hammer toes. However, my mother, sister, and I will nod knowingly and smile as we remember.

Thankful Sunday--February 22, 2014

I am thankful I went to the theater.

Recently to combat cabin fever, Ward and I went to the local theater to see a play. The parking was easy, the production was top notch, and we didn't drive through any snow to get there. Hooray!

Spinach Quiche

There must be hundreds of recipes out there for egg and cheese combination dishes, and I've read many of them. But in my standard way of cooking, I made a quiche recently and made up my own. I used what I had on hand and a little common sense. The results were just what we wanted--an easy to make, hearty, good-for-you dish. Now it may seem strange that for someone who doesn't like to follow recipes, I usually write down what and how much I put in a dish that I don't make all of the time. That way I can make it again if it's a success. And that's what happened this time. The quiche was a nice combination of flavors without being overpowered by any one. Also, the texture was good without being too eggy or too cheesy. (I know. My husband has told me that there's no such thing as too cheesy.) I've made it a couple of times using this combination and now the recipe has gone into my files. If you'd like to give it a try or just read another recipe, here it is.

Spinach Quiche

Preheat oven to 400°F

Crust:

1 cup flour
3/4 t. salt
1/4 cold water
1/4 cup oil

Mix together dry ingredients. Mix together wet ingredients and add to dry ingredients. Stir until ball forms. Press into 9" pie plate. No need to roll out, just press into place.


Filling:

3 eggs
1 cup skim milk
3 strips of turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 cup shredded 2% cheddar cheese
10 oz. frozen, chopped spinach cooked and well drained

Beat eggs and milk together. Add cheese, bacon and mix. Add spinach and mix well so there are no large clumps of spinach. Pour into crust and bake for 30 minutes or until set. Enjoy!

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Feb. 21, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. (Thanks to Jo from Simply Being Mum for sponsoring FWF this week.)

This Week's Food Waste

Lettuce

I bought a bag of lettuce before I was called out of town and it didn't survive until I got back. Disappointing, but understandable.

This Week's True Food Confessions

 We did reasonably well this week with our food management. The only thing I would have done differently was not buy the very expensive roasted brussel sprouts from the grocery store deli. They were good, but no better than what we make at home. That's what happens when you go to the store tired and hungry.

One of the highlights of the week was the spinach quiche we had. I'll post the recipe soon. Now I have to get ready for work.

Until next time...


 

Life

Image credit

This morning we had a thunderstorm and this afternoon we had a rainbow. The weather is kinda like life. While we're going through the stormy times, we need to remember that there's a rainbow out there waiting for us.

A Second Look--February 20, 2014

We have had a week of snow with about two feet of accumulation. This has meant a lot of shoveling, work and school cancellations, as well as, doing a Second Look from the kitchen window. That means, it was a week of enjoying birds. 

Here are some things I saw this week during a Second Look.

Sometimes the view looked like this as snow changed to periods of sleet and freezing rain.

Other times, the sky was blue and sun was shining.

 The white breasted nuthatch spent most of its time at the suet.

White breasted nuthatches are known for having strong feet. I guess I can see that in this and the previous picture.

The downy woodpecker preferred to be alone at the feeder.

The juncos were happy to eat the feeder discards.

The starlings showed up at the feeder for the first time this winter. They are known to be aggressive birds that some don't like. However, so far they were behaving themselves.

Great blue heron. My new favorite bird.

Thankful Sunday--February 15, 2013

I am thankful for jigsaw puzzles.

During these snowy days when it's been hard to get anywhere except to shovel the driveway, I am thankful for an abundant supply of jigsaw puzzles. (Ward is a whiz at working them, so we go through them pretty quickly.)

Here, There, and Everywhere

Do you ever wander around on the Internet?  Start with a specific question, but wander around here, there, and everywhere and never quite reach the place your looking for. I had one of those times last night.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Theo picked up some flatware from a garage sale that he needed. After he got his spoons and forks home, he noticed that his flatware was stamped as coming from many different places--Montana, Utah, USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Germany, and Korea.  I checked all of our flatware and all I could find was the word, STAINLESS. I found the variety of place names on Theo's purchase fascinating. I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that all of the recently purchased pieces were pretty old. So I set out to see if I could find out some of the manufacturing history on any of them.

I did a lot of Googling and found out nothing about when they were actually made or the company they were made by. However, during my wanderings, I did find a few things that I thought were interesting. Here are some of them.


--Utah has a state cooking pot. It's the Dutch oven.

--Montana had the greatest temperature change to ever occur on earth in a 24 hour period. It happened on January 15, 1972, when the temperature went from -54°F to 49°F. That's 103° change. 

--Indonesia is comprised of 17000 islands of which only 6000 are inhabited. It's the fourth most populated country in the world.

--By custom, Korea counts birthdays and ages differently than we do. When someone is born, they are considered to be one year old. They count the time in the womb as the first year. Also, everyone "gets a year older" on New Year's Day regardless of when they were born. The western method, however, is often used for legal purposes.

--Brazil silver, German silver, Utah silver, and Montana silver are all alloys of different metals and contain no silver. However, they are silver in color.

Even though I didn't exactly stay focused, I did enjoy my wanderings of here, there, and everywhere both around the globe and on the Internet. Next time I want to kill some time, I may do it again. (Or next time I start to do this, I should check to see if I really have time to kill.)







Want to know more?

http://www.utah.gov/about/symbols.html

http://montanakids.com/facts_and_figures/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil#Climate

http://www.infoplease.com/country/indonesia.html

 http://www.lonelyplanet.com/indonesia

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daktari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea

Families

Unfortunately, I've been spending time at a hospital again. My mother had a fall, and I have spent the last few days with her in ICU. Thankfully, she is improving, but will require a lot of attention in the near future. If I'm absent then and again from here, that's where I will be.

The ICU is an interesting place. People who are there are quite ill and require a lot of medical attention. Because of this, there is limited access for visitors, and families spend a lot of time in the waiting room just waiting. And this is where in a very short amount of time, my sister and I got to know some other people quite well. We heard about others loved ones illnesses of stroke, pneumonia, car accidents, and gun shot wounds among other things.

There was one family that stood out in particular. We first "met" them when we arrived and heard one of their phone calls. The caller, a woman, was quite upset. She went on to talk about some complicated situations that we didn't understand, but didn't sound very positive. As the day progressed we understood better what she was talking about. They were there to support a middle-aged man who had had a very serious stroke. They included a couple of ex-wives, a present wife (the caller), and a present girlfriend. There were people of all shapes and sizes. Grandmas in wheel chairs, crying babies, and teens with studs in their body. Some had been sleeping in the uncomfortable waiting room chairs for days but they were all there--dozens of them.

As time progressed, the patient worsened and his 18 year old daughter had to make the very difficult decision of whether to operate or not. Both decisions had a high probability of death, but she chose surgery. We listened as the surgeon told them the operation went well and now it was a wait and see game. I cried along with them as they felt relief that their father, cousin, boyfriend, etc. had another day.

I don't know the final outcome for this man, but his family reminded me what families are all about. Families don't always get along--sometimes in a big way. But when it really matters, they put differences aside and do what's right. I am hoping for the best for this family and every other family I met during those few days in the ICU waiting room.

A Walk with Aunt Martha

Aunt Martha took me on a bird walk yesterday. We were in search of a Long Tail Duck, that is not common in our area, but had been sighted recently. This was not the first bird walk I had been on with Aunt Martha. Years ago, I used to go with her on some of her walks. She would point out a bird in a tree and would tell me to notice the white spot under its tail. Usually, I was trying to figure out what tree she was pointing to and had little hope of finding the bird or a spot anywhere on it.

Today's walk was much the same because I was still trying to find the trees Aunt Martha was pointing to. Although occasionally, I thought I saw a bird. I supposedly saw a belted kingfisher, nuthatches, and Canadian geese among other things. Unfortunately, even with her trained eye, Aunt Martha didn't find the Long Tail Duck. However, we both considered the afternoon a birding success because we spent it with a Great Blue Heron (Blue). He started the same place we did and for the next two hours, Blue followed the water's edge as we walked on the path above it. I don't know how much you know about Great Blue Herons, but they are the perfect bird for me to watch. First of all, they're big and easy to see, and next they move very slowly. We saw him looking for fish, flying gracefully along the top of the water, and perching in a tree. Great Blue Herons are my new favorite bird.

Here are a few pictures from our walk.

We were walking along the tow path to the C &O Canal. We had the canal on one side and the Potomac River on the other. We first saw Blue along the lock entrance to the path where we began our hike.

 

Blue was checking for fish all the way down the bank.

There was still some ice on the water, so I guess Blue has adapted well to the cold.

The river water was moving pretty fast. Herons prefer calm waters, so Blue spent his time in the canal.

We all returned to the beginning of our hike where we were able to see Blue from above as we crossed the lock bridge.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--February 7, 2014

Food Ramblings

I'm not sure how interesting it is for you to read my ramblings about our food endeavors last week without any pictures. On second thought, I'm not sure that they would make this post that much more riveting. Have you figured out that I didn't take any food pictures this week? Now to the rest of the world, that sounds kind of normal. However, in the bloggers world, it seems kind of strange.

I am continuing to try to do major grocery shopping every two weeks and last week was no exception. After I returned home with what I thought we needed, Ward went out the next day to get ingredients for his once-a-year cheesy Super Bowl dip. And the last week, we made an extra trip for Popcicles when I was sick. So what this is starting to look like is that we will do major shopping twice a week month and do fill ins when needed. So far, I think it is saving us time and money.

As for food waste, I had some grape tomatoes that got shriveled and mushy before they made it into my salad. I knew that they didn't have a very long life when I bought them, but when I am buying a treat of vegetables instead of cookies, I go for it. I did eat most of them and they did not disappoint. Otherwise, we are eating what we have in a timely manor.

Eating and cooking at home this week seemed like a chore as it often does because our minds were focused elsewhere. But just as with our poor man's lasagna last week, our avocado roll ups this week proved that it doesn't take much effort to put together a tasty, interesting meal. (That's a meal that's a step above a peanut butter sandwich which is not a bad offering either.) The roll ups included a tortilla with a layers of humus, Swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, avocado, lettuce, and Italian dressing. Tasty, filling and not too bad on the health front. These were made by looking in the fridge to see what we had to work with and the forethought to buy avocados when they were on sale last week. We also had takeout Chinese which will also service us tonight and into the weekend. And this time we used a coupon.

So that's the ramblings for this week. Until next time...

A Second Look--February 5, 2014

This is the winter that just keeps on giving. Today it is an ice storm with freezing rain and below are a few pictures from it. They look dark and dreary because it was still raining when I took them.

Ponderings of Theodore--the Early Years

The Joys of Winter

by Theodore

Snowflakes falling onto the ground,

Into your yard without a sound.

When you wake up, they will

Cover the ground to your window sill.

Break out the shovels, winter has come.

Clouds have just blocked out the sun.

Backbreaking labor, isn't this fun?

It's snowing again before you're done.

Scrape the ice off your car

Then start cursing when it won't go far.

Lose your key and get locked outside,

Winter time, it's so divine.
_________________________________________________________

Theo's thoughts on winter when he was nine.

January No-Low Spend Wrap Up

This January I decided to follow Carla in her No-Low Spend month. The idea was to cut out all unnecessary spending.

Did we have a low spend month? Well, no. Did we feel comfortable with our spending? Well, yes. The first day of January started with unexpected events and the whole month seemed to follow suit. This included a lot of eating out while traveling and hotel bills. It also included a visit to a museum for a much needed mental health break. Each one of these expenditures was considered carefully and was decided to be necessary.

Ward mentioned that he thought that the low-spend month was a success and wanted to extend it into February. I think that's a good idea. We aren't big spenders anyway, but this may keep us from the extra purchases that we don't need like cheese curls. (Love those things.) Or maybe it won't. But it will least it will make me stop and think before I put that bag of the ever-so-light, crunchy, tasty, yellow balls of fat and salt on the counter on the counter to buy. :)

Thankful Sunday--February 2, 2014

I am thankful for our local parks.

Although we didn't see any geese on our hike, these prints showed us the path they like to take out of the lake.

I am thankful for the great set of parks we have here. Ward and I enjoyed a hike yesterday at one of them taking advantage of the warm weather we were having (49°F).  Another snow storm is predicted for tonight so we especially enjoyed the interlude when the sun was on our backs and our mittens were in our pockets.