Thankful Sunday--February 24, 2013

I am thankful for brownies.

Gooey, Chocolatey, Simple Bites of Heaven

Today...

Today, I'm going to try not to be irritable and prickly.

Some days when I wake up, I feel prickly like this honey locust. I have to remember that my mood is my choice and I have to work on changing it. A walk outdoors is always a good start for me.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Feb. 22, 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

 None!

    None!

              None!

This Week's True Food Confessions

In the center is a cabbage roll--our new recipe for the week.

 
This week, when we had our favorite takeout pizza, I realized that we hadn't had it for at least two or three weeks. Remarkable, considering we had it at least twice a week before. And yes, it tasted as good as we remembered. We had the rest of our vegetable-rich meals at home. While the carnivores in the family would have preferred a big steak, they didn't complain when meat was only a condiment in most of our dishes. However, the best treat we had required no cooking--grapefruit. This is the time of year for citrus and these grapefruits were certainly proof of that.

The new recipe we tried was Stuffed Cabbage with Tangy Tomato Sauce. I got the recipe out of the latest Prevention magazine, but it is also available online. The recipe was good, but was not hit-out-of-the park good. Everyone had several servings, but gave it only decent reviews. Theodore and Ward thought it was too sweet. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of sugar and I would cut that in half next time I made them. And speaking of next time I make them, I would change the recipe quite a bit procedurally. There were entirely too many steps for me. You had to make the sauce and simmer it, and you had to cook the cabbage multiple times to get the leaves off to stuff, and you had to cook the rice, and you had to brown the meat and onion. And then you had to assemble it all and cook it in the crock pot for five hours. Golly, that's a week's worth of meal preparations for me.   However, we do like the combination of cabbage and tomatoes, so next time I will probably use this recipe as a basis for a cabbage stew. Or I'll just let Theo make it. He made an excellent cabbage-tomato soup recently with just a little of this and a little of that.


So how would I rate this week overall? Pretty good. However, I can feel that we're starting to slip a little. That's because I start too late to cook. Then I'm tired or something else I have put off is calling me louder than the kitchen. I'm going to try to get some of the prep work done before I go to work. That should help. Until next time...

A Second Look--February 20, 2013

We continue to have a little snow everyday or two, but not enough to last. Also, I haven't seen as many birds at the feeder recently, but I think that is because I'm not watching at the right times. They come in groups intermittently and you have to be watching at the right times or you will miss them. However, the crows come every morning around breakfast time, so I always get a good show from them. Ward and Theo went on one of the walks with me this week. I always find it interesting to see what someone else notices. Ward found another bone and Theo found an old ball, both things I would have missed on my own.

Here's what we saw this week during our Second Look.

Crocus pushing up through the mulch.

It was snowing very large flakes this morning.

This was the only feather in the area.

Sometimes when a lot of crows fly in, I feel like I'm in the movie, The Birds.

Fungus on a rotting tree stump

Something rooted up this clump of moss.

Theo's ball

I think this bone was part of a bird.

My Father's Garden

Most of my life I watched my father garden, and I learned a lot about life as I observed him adjust to the ever changing world that surrounded him there. He usually had an acre or more of vegetables growing every year and I watched as he spent hours and hours, days and days, and weeks and weeks planting the garden. He'd plant 20 rows of corn and the crows would eat 20 rows of corn. He'd plant beans and the rabbits would feast on the leaves. He'd plant tomatoes and the groundhogs would take one bite out of each one. And the deer—they liked EVERYTHING in the garden. So he put up an electric fence. That worked except for the things that could go under it like the rabbits. Then he put up a chicken wire fence inside the electric fence to keep those critters out. And that worked except for the creatures that burrowed under the fence like groundhogs. So, he buried fencing a foot underground and that worked for the digging critters. Now all he had left were the flying creatures. So, he put up scarecrows and shiny streamers and that sort of worked, except for the wild turkeys. And turkeys are like the deer, in that they like EVERYTHING in the garden. Turkey's are really smart and several years the turkeys did more damage to his garden that all of the other animals combined.

But yet he kept on. He would plant and plant again. He would hoe a row and he would weed a row. He would stake the tomatoes and build teepees for the beans. He would fertilize and he would carry water. And along about the middle of summer, the first of the bounty would need to picked and picked and picked. And my father was happy. That's where my main part, along with my sisters, would come in. Our job was to can and freeze all of the produce that was ripening. We had many all night sessions getting the peas or corn into the freezer before their natural sugars would change to starch. And although I complained at the time about how I had to do more work than my friends, I never complained when I got to eat the wonderful food from our garden.

As time went on and the kids moved away from home, my father still planted his huge gardens. He gave away most of what he grew, but he was happy. My mother finally convinced him that maybe the two of them didn't need such a large garden. It was hard, but he cut back. He adjusted just as he had when the crows ate all of his corn. And now, because of failing health, he doesn't live at home and he's not sure if there is a place to plant a garden where he is. However, he has adjusted and he is happy.

When I grow up, I want to be like my father and his gardens. I want to do things when they need to be done, just like my father did when he had to water his plants when they needed it, not just when he felt like it. I want to keep working on anything important until I get results, just like my father did when he had to plant his corn again and again. I want to adjust to changing situations just like my father did when he had to downsize his garden. And most of all, I want to find a way to be happy in any situation, just as my father did when he had to leave his garden and couldn't live at home any more.