Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Feb. 1, 2013

 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

We had no food waste this week. How'd we do it? We went to the grocery store only once to pick up milk, and we continued to eat off our list of things that were in the refrigerator.

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This Week's True Food Confessions

Some of what we had to eat at home this week.

If it weren't for the pictures, I'd say that we have been very good and have been cooking at home every day for a week. That's what it feels like anyway. However, I can't seem to find the documentation for it on my camera. I do know that there are no pictures of the pumpkin bread I made, so maybe all of our other food creations are out there in Lost Picture Land. Now if I could just remember what they were.

I do know that we managed to have chicken and rice, spaghetti, this-and-that from the freezer, and an interesting pumpkin peanut butter soup. Tonight after talking about it for days, Wally brought home burritos from California Tortilla. 

So I say, if it feels like a success, then this week was a success. Now off to plan food for the Super Bowl.

Happy Eating!

A New Word

or What Does Velleity Mean?

I leaned a new-to-me word the other day that has all kinds of possibilities in all kinds of situations. It's usefulness makes me wonder why I didn't know about it before. 

Velleity---a noun that means to have a wish or desire to do something, but you are not interested in it enough to act on it.

To learn a word, you're supposed to use it in a sentence. Here's a couple of tries.

--My desire to take a walk around the neighborhood in the rain was more of a velleity than a real plan.

--Velleity is what keeps me from cleaning the lint out of the laundry sink. 

Can you think of a way that you could use velleity in a sentence?

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But wait, there's more.

Here's how you say velleity.

A Second Look--January 30,2013

This week, we've had a bit of snow, freezing rain, rain, sun, and temperatures ranging from the teens to the 60s. Enough variety for everyone, I think. I found a couple of more bone pieces this week along with a lone dandelion trying to bloom. Otherwise, it's been muddy and brown all around.

Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.

This dandelion is a little worse for the wear with all of the changing weather we've had this week.

Bunny tracks in the fresh snow. Notice the extra "track" to the far left. That was probably the rabbits tail.

These three house finches (one male, two female) were enjoying the feeder during the snow.

This is the second day of the snow when it was starting to melt. We only had an inch or so.

The female house finch and Carolina wren (brown bird on pole) visited the feeder during the freezing rain. The wren is a new visitor to our feeder this winter.

I think this lightweight bone fragment came from a bird. I don't really know, but I enjoy guessing every week.

You know what they say, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."

Thanks to Aunt Martha for help with identifications this week.

Pumpkin Soup

or This Experiment Turned Out Pretty Well


What to do? What to do? Saturday, I made a batch of pumpkin bread with my secret ingredient--chocolate chips. Delicious. However, when reading the recipe, I made a mistake and ended up with an extra can of pumpkin open. What now? I didn't want it to go to waste, so I thought I would try some pumpkin soup. However, most of the recipes included ingredients that one person or another in my family didn't like--mainly onions or pumpkin pie spices. Then somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my brain I remembered a sweet potato soup with peanut butter that my brother-in-law made several years ago when we were visiting that everyone liked. That's what I would do. Make pumpkin, peanut butter soup. Once again, the recipe with the right fit eluded me, so I did some creative cooking and came up with my own concoction. It was very simple and included pumpkin, peanut butter, and curry.

And now for the reviews:
Ward said that it turned out pretty well and the flavors blended nicely with no one flavor standing out. In fact, he said that he couldn't taste the peanut butter at all. Wally said it was perfect and wouldn't change a thing. He did taste the peanut butter, but that was okay considering that peanut butter is his favorite food. I, too, thought it was a good blend of flavors and was surprised at how filling it was. I like something to chew in my soup so I added croutons. The perfect addition as far as I was concerned. It was super easy to make. I just dumped the ingredients into the crock pot and let them slowly simmer throughout the day until we got home from our busy schedules to try this very hearty soup.

Here' a recipe if you want to give it a try. All of these ingredients can be used in more or less quantities depending on your personal tastes. The soup is rather mild, so I was surprised when Ward and Wally didn't want to add a drop or two of hot sauce into their bowls. However, I served it with that option available.

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Soup

3 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
2 cups pumpkin puree
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Whisk broth and pumpkin together until smooth. While stirring, add peanut butter and heat until melted. Add spices and simmer for a few minutes. The longer the better, but 15 minutes would be good. Be careful not to scorch.

Slow Cooker Method 
Whisk broth and pumpkin together until smooth. Add peanut butter and spices. Cook on low for six to eight hours. Stir before serving.

 Serve with croutons and enjoy!

from Live and Learn-Toss and Turn

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"Millions" by Frank Cottrell Boyce--a book review

What: Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce  This is a kid's book for readers 8 and up. And I think the "and up" part is very applicable. I'm much older than 8 and I didn't find the story suffered at all from being written to a lower reading level. The book has been out for a while (2005) and even has had a movie made from it, but I just recently discovered it.

The Premise: A young boy finds a bag with a lot of money in it, and he and his brother have many adventures while trying to keep it away from the bad guys that lost it. They also have many dilemmas and disagreements on how to spend the money.

The Back Story: The story takes place in England when Europe was getting ready to change to Euros. When this change happened, the old currency was to be cashed in and destroyed. Also, the two brothers' mother has died and they live alone with their father. They are all adjusting to this loss.

The Quirky Part: Everyone in the family likes quoting facts. The father likes general knowledge facts, the brother likes money and economic facts, and Damian (narrator) likes to talk about saints (and sometimes they talk to him.) You will learn a lot of interesting things about saints from this book.

Food for Thought: The book presents the moral, ethical, and practical matters of having a lot of money. There are also basic economic lessons thrown in.

Recommendation: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Boyce does a nice job of weaving the different parts of the story together without focusing too long on any one part. The story is both poignant and exciting with a little humor thrown in.The characters, major and minor, are interesting and well developed according to their place in the story. Let me summarize with this. When I think about this book, I smile.

What people who review books for a living said:
--"Witty and poignant. ...Readers will be racing to the finish to figure out who's conning whom. Brilliant." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
--"A joy for readers of all ages." Kirkus Review