Checking The Closet First

We have a wedding to attend this weekend and of course I have waited until the last minute to pick out or plan what we are going to wear. I bought a beautiful dress for Big Girl for $2 at a garage sale so she's covered. But, she has outgrown her fancy footwear and unless I want her to show up in dirty tennis shoes, flip flops, or crocs with Simpsons jibbitz on them I'm going to have to find something for her to wear. You know I stockpile clothes and shoes for the kids. Maybe you also know how very bad I am at keeping track of what I've bought. So, it's off the closets I go.
I printed out a 20% Gordman's coupon just in case. Hope I don't need it.


Glad I checked her closet first. I found many pairs of suitable shoes that I am sure will fit her.
I also found 4 pairs! of size 1 tennis shoes for the start of school in Fall. I'm going to donate a pair to the food pantry/thrift store. I am annoyed with myself for not keeping up with my inventory list.

The Best of My Garden 2010

My new favorite frugal flamboyant flower is the Nasturtium. I sprinkled many packages of outdated (by like 3-5 years) seeds and the Nasturtiums were the clear winner in the heartiness and longevity category. I also like how big the seeds are so they are easy to plant and the unusual roundness of the leaves make it easy to discern it from weeds. I'm sure this packet didn't cost more than a quarter.

Here are some volunteer pumpkins from last years Halloween decorations growing right on our front stoop. I don't know if we'll actually get a pumpkin or not but I think the foliage is nice.
This is my first year attempting to grow zucchini. This is in front of our house but isn't visible from the street since we have some large bushy plants for coverage.

Once You Shop You Can't Stop

Shop N Save- yesterday

Groceries & Food Bank Donation at Check Out Minus Coupons & Discounts= 41.04


Dierbergs- Today

Groceries, Cold Medicine, Gifts, Laundry Detergent, and Fabric Softener Minus Coupons= 47.03

(I found Tide on clearance for $3 and Tylenol Cold PM for $2 and bought some detergent for my Mom)


Two Things Going on Here-
1. We're all suffering from some low level sinus thing. I took Big Girl to the Dr. today and she has a double ear infection. So my throat is sore and I have a minor headache.

2. My cats are refusing to get along and pee (and poop) fighting over territory. I'm almost sure that I'll have to return Sarah to the pet rescue where I adopted her from. To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. I don't even put my steam cleaner away anymore and I just can't live like this even though it's tearing me up to give her back. My first priority is to my old baby Fusty.

Pizza Dough for Bread Machines

Taken from Better Homes and Gardens Best Bread Machine Recipes

Basic Pizza Dough for a 2 lb. loaf (or to make two big crusts)

1 1/3 cup water
2 tablespoons olive or cooking oil
4 cups of bread flour (works well mixed half/half with whole wheat too)
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp yeast

Add ingredients according to your machines instruction manual. Select the dough cycle. Remove the dough from the machine and punch down. Cover and let it rest 10 minutes.

I normally use half the dough immediately and freeze half for later. I prefer the thawed dough over the fresh because it is so much easier to work with.

Make it do- Pizza

This is my kind of convenience food- frozen balls of scratch pizza dough made into pizza using whatever ingredients I can come up with in my fridge.

Tonight we're having pizza topped with:

A can of tomato sauce with a bit of sugar and spice sprinkled in
1/4 cup of sprinkle Parmesan cheese
Last 2 slices of provolone

1 aging piece of Gouda- grated

1 aging pepper from the crisper (veggie crisper is now officially empty)
1 can of Aldi mushrooms (juice drained and frozen for soup broth)
1 can of olives rummaged from the back of the pantry
Basil leaves from my window plant
Morningstar sausage sprinkles


We're following it up with a Impossibly Easy Cobbler made with Aldi baking mix and a combination of foraged dewberries, frozen blackberries, and salvaged cherries from the fruit bin.
I had no eggs for the pie mix so I used two tbs of soy flour/water combo. It worked.
We have no ice cream but I found a frozen container of Cool Whip leftover from Easter.
How come I'm always so surprised that we can eat this well when I don't go grocery shopping?

Still haven't made it to the grocery store

Breakfast- Instant (store brand) oatmeal packets & organic pop tarts from basement pantry. Cherry limeade (out of juice & milk), cocoa, and instant latte mix to drink.

I think I have some powdered milk in the basement. I'm tempted to go a few more days and see what I can come up with for meals. I can always make baked goods using soy flour/water instead of eggs.

This recipe for Scottish Oat Cakes does not need eggs and might be a suitable replacement for bread with our meals. I have everything in my pantry to whip this up.

There are a few pieces of fruit left in the fridge and I have some clearance/dent&ding cans of fruit when we run out of that.

We have half a jar of peanut butter (my kids favorite protein snack) left. When we run out I have half a jar of roasted peanuts that I could whir in my blender and make more spread.

We're out of pop. I'm not going to cry about it though. I plan on making some sun tea and kool-aid when we run out of limeade.

Update: I found three cans of pop in the garage and dry milk in the basement. My Mom is bringing my girl home today and is bringing some dew berries they picked off a wild bush growing by her yard. We're making a crumble top pie with a no roll pie crust. I'm thawing a frozen chunk of pizza crust for dinner. I think we're having crackers, bread, cheese, chopped fruit and a homemade creamy spread for lunch. I'm making this recipe I found in Yankee Magazine's Living Well on a Shoestring.

Herb Cheese Spread:
4 ounces cream cheese
1 tbs. butter
1 tbs. white wine or balsamic vinegar
2 cloves of minced and mashed garlic
Fresh herbs
Black pepper to taste

Mix it all together and serve.

I'm out of garlic so I have to use powdered. I do have fresh basil growing in my windowsill though.

Does anyone know if dewberry bushes transplant well? I'd like to move one to my backyard.

Trips and Pantry Eating

I've been gone for the past week with Hubby on a business trip to KC. While I was gone I:

Watched way too much Bravo tv in the hotel
Swam with my boy
Spent a great day catching up with a friend and her children
Cleaned out the clearance racks at a Gymboree Outlet (lots of school clothes!)
Finished reading a book
Napped a lot
Ate at our favorite restaurant

Last night we attended a wake for a friend's grandma. I know it's wrong to have a great time at a "funeral" but there was lots of story telling and raising our glasses to the departed. I think Nana would have been pleased with her memorial.

Anyway, this morning I woke up to a kitchen pretty empty of our standard perishables. I made a grocery list but I have to say that I have not been inspired to shop at all today. In fact, it's 6:30 and I haven't showered and am still in my pajamas. I have done a lot of laundry, dishes, cleaning, and hanging out with my two men. My Big Girl is with her Grandma this week and she comes home tomorrow. I'll go grocery shopping then.

I've had to get creative with our food as we ate the last of our eggs last week, our milk was sour, and our last piece of bread was moldy.

Breakfast: Little Guy had a packet of instant oatmeal. Hubby ate peanut butter on graham crackers. I had a bowl of veggie soup and crackers.
I made a loaf of whole wheat onion bread in the bread machine.

Snacks- more graham crackers and yogurt. Slices of onion bread with pepper jack cheese.

Lunch- Mac N Cheese with four chopped up hot dogs. I was out of milk so I had to use Italian dressing for the sauce. It worked okay but I prefer milk.

Dinner- I had two organic potatoes. I cleaned out the crisper too. We had wilted celery, half an onion, a red pepper going soft, and a package of firm tofu. I chopped them all up and fried them in a little butter, water, olive oil, and seasoning salt. It made for a pretty satisfying meal.

Now I've got to finish folding laundry and work on cleaning out Big Girls disastrous room while she's gone.