Category Archives: simple foods

It’s almost July.

Posted in California, camping, cooking, seasonal things, simple foods, Uncategorized, Walking by

Wow, where did the time go?? Tomorrow is July 1st. It’s been a very nice summer so far even without going out in the RV. This time of year I’d rather stay home than deal with everyone out in campgrounds and on the road. Right now the weather is lovely again and our temperatures will be in the 80s for the next week at least. We even sat outside after dinner last night.

I didn’t walk this morning. I just felt I needed a break from getting up at 4:45. But I am going down to the sports center to do weights. I’m not there yet, but I think a few more weeks and my muscles will be much stronger and back to where I was when I was going to the gym in Auburn(pre-Covid). It is a commitment though, that’s for sure.

Here’s an updated pizza picture, after the Ooni disaster. This one was perfect. As one person commented, Ooni is overly optimistic about the time it takes to heat up the oven to 900 degrees.

This was using OO flour too which made the dough very pliable and easy to work with.

The garden is doing well, and here’s some of the garlic harvest.

These were planted last about 6 months ago. A few bulbs are a really nice size. That’s one onion out of a few I’ve already used. I’m not sure how many onions will get with this second planting but I hope enough for a few months.

I dried some mint in the dehydrator and plan to do more so we can have mint tea. I also have quite a bit more parsley I will start today. The tomatoes are looking very good and I hope I get a bumper crop. I’d like to can some salsa and of course, do my freezer sauce. I’ve been watching a Youtuber” The Happy Homestead”, and she does a lot of pressure cooking canning. I’m kind of freaked about using a pressure cooker canner so I’m not sure that’s for me. But she does lots of broths and meat things which do need that type of canning. Does anyone reading here use a pressure cooker canner? and how does it work?? is it easy?? BTW, her youtube channel is very refreshing as she is honest and open with her information and quite informative. I’ve unsubscribed from a bunch of YouTubers, even my favorite Benita Larsson in Stockholm. When someone starts putting money ahead of content and adding the Patreon thing at 3 levels, I just see they’re doing it for the money. The content of her videos has gone way down the rabbit hole of now the ” 10 things to ……( fill in the blank). I find that supremely annoying. Of course, in her defense, she does say this is her job now but still. 😦

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, Political things, simple foods, Uncategorized by

I’ve been really down about the Roe decision. Those states like Mississippi and Texas have so many poor women of color and that’s who’s going to suffer. So awful. There’s an excellent opinion piece in the NYT by Michelle Goodwin, I don’t know if this will copy and paste but basically, she lays out that Alioto is wrong about constitutional precedent on abortion. She herself was raped by HER FATHER, and had to endure his sexual predatory abuse for years. It’s worth reading.

The week other than that has been good except for the heat we’re still having. It’s been 98 now for a few days and looks like it’ll be that at least till Tuesday. We had just a Caprese salad for dinner last night with a piece of homemade sourdough toasted with cheese. Tonight I plan on zucchini fritters with stuffed peppers I have in the freezer I’ll put in the Instapot. The rest of the week, who knows. Maybe some take-out tacos.

I put all the garlic in our closet hanging on nails so it can cure some more. The garden shed was great to dry it but now is too hot to store it so the closet is the only cool dark place I have. Most of the onions I planted with the garlic haven’t done well but the ones in the front garden are doing fine. I hope to get a good harvest from them. No tomatoes yet though although the plants look good. I went out to the farm stand yesterday and picked up lettuce,zucchini,red onions, radishes, and, a bell pepper. We’re lucky to have this farm so close to us and they are doing a great job. It’s called Foothill Roots farm, in Meadow Vista if you want to google it.

I’m loving going to the pool and adding in the weights at the gym. But with gas prices so high, it’s adding to the expense of my $40 membership. I’m hoping gas goes down some. I do get almost 27 miles a gallon in the Santa Fe and my daughter did say I could use her Honda fit which gets almost 50mpg but still it is adding to the cost. So I guess I’ll have to weighhit out.( no pun intended):)

Next Monday is the 4th of July and honestly, I don’t think we have a lot to celebrate. Sad really.

Frugal Friday

Posted in bread, budgets, California, reading, simple foods, Uncategorized by

So far, it’s been a frugal week as we haven’t done much. I went into Whole Foods (spent $45.00)yesterday because I thought I could get some Nicoise olives for my Nicoise salad recipe from my Le Creuset cookbook. Alas, the young lady didn’t even know what I was talking about and said she hasn’t ever seen them there. Except I have bought them there before, granted it was probably 2 years ago. So I bought some tiny olives that look similar to Nicoise and they were actually delicious. The salad called for fingerling potatoes and they didn’t have those either so I was batting 0 out of 2. When I came home I boiled some eggs for hardboiled eggs for the salad too. I had bought a piece of Ahi tuna from Trader Joe’s last time I was there so I put that in a bowl of water to defrost. Then my daughter grilled that on the Webber. All in all, it came out quite well.

The reason I was going down to Roseville is my library hold came in. It’s the Maus graphic novel that schools in the south and basically all Republican states want to ban. So I picked that up and a few other books to read. I’m up to 65 books for the year and with the 6 I picked up I’ll be over 70. Not that numbers count as I just always have read a lot.

I also wanted to check out the gym that is next to the library that I can use with my swim membership. So, a year and 3 months later I decided to go in and see the layout. Now with Covid, I probably wouldn’t have gone anyway but now I feel fairly comfortable going in. It was really great and I like that it seemed simple and had the machines I like to use. I did a quick circuit and felt that I will add this in to my weekly workouts.

Other than WF, I don’t think we spent any money. Today I going to the farmstand, that just opened for the season, and get some things for the week. I have cash for that. The only extra expense we have this month is the truck DMV, which I mentioned before. I haven’t paid it yet and will do so towards the end of the month. Other than that everything is covered. There’s not much leftover but that’s ok.

Cooking with Tahoe girl!

Posted in cooking, simple foods, Uncategorized by

Well, I decided to try something different so I videoed cooking a quiche.

It was lots of fun for me to do and I think I’ll keep videoing certain things like cooking and maybe some travel stuff.

Today is a lovely day and we are going to drive up to Tahoe. We haven’t been in ages ( all winter) so I’ll probably do some short videos. Anyway, it’s a new way to approach my blog, and plus it’s good for my brain to engage in something different.

My daughter has a tripod so next time I’ll use that instead of holding the iPhone.

Simple Sunday

Posted in books, budgeting, budgets, California, camping, cooking, Flylady, reading, simple foods, swimming, travel, Uncategorized by

It’s been a productive week with taking down the tree, shopping at Costco, swimming, the library and lots of cooking.

Out of the Le Creuset book, I made both the French onion soup and the cheese souffle. The french onion soup used a chicken broth as a base and I don’t think it had enough rich flavor. Next time I would do a homemade vegetable stock and/or a beef bouillon cube. Yesterday, my son surprised me after I got home from swimming by starting the Lodge and making biscuits and sausage gravy. We had fun together and he really likes Lodge cooking. I’ve actually never had biscuits and gravy and it was delicious.

Today is a home day with cleaning the living room zone and probably I’ll add the sunporch in. Actually, I think this week, which is a light week with no appts, I’ll do a whole house zone cleaning. I’ve done this a few times and I like it. I don’t do it all in one morning but 2-3 mornings.

I read Greg Mckeon’s book Essentialism this week and am finishing his latest book, Effortless. I liked them both and felt he has some really good thoughts on living simply and with your best intentions. I also read “Oh, William” by Elizabeth Strout. Very thought provoking, and written in a clever narrative.

Budget wise everything is paid for the month and the ginormous check for the tree is cashed. So it’s all good. I do hope the neighbor doesn’t decide to change his mind about the logs because then we’d be on the hook for them.

Our weather looks lovely and sunny for the next 10 days and then we leave Mother’s day morning to go down to Capitola. I still haven’t booked anything at Refugio and in October after were back at Capitola we are going to stay 3 nights in Napa at the Expo RV place we stayed in before and really liked. So I’m not sure at this point if Refugio is going to happen. I almost think I’d rather try and plan our trip to San Diego early next year. I’m not sure we could afford Refugio and San Diego. The camping spots are not expensive it would be the gas.

Update: I just got spot 35 which is on the beach and next to the one we had last year. It’s just as nice a spot as 34 although 34 is the best. Now we just have to figure out do we still go to Capitola and then Refugio or skip one. I think since we have both booked I’ll just wait on it and think about it. We would need a stop over going down and back.

I can’t quite remember when we got his poster but I’m guessing in the early 1970’s as the VietNam war was happening. Somehow this poster survived all our moves and was hanging out in the barn till recently. I asked B to bring it in so I could frame it. Right now it’s just on a bull clip.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, budgets, California, cooking, Flylady, simple foods, travel, Uncategorized by

We had a nice walk this morning. The sunrise was all pink and orange. No one else there but the guy who comes out of the woods( it actually used to be a Christmas tree farm when we first moved here in 1995.)

I’ve tidied the house and the bedroom zone is done. I washed and ironed the closet curtain( an old Ikea canvas one). Then I made the sourdough bread that had done a slow rise in the refrigerator. This one is just sourdough, no jalapeno or olive.

Then I put a chicken in the oven to roast and now that’s done sitting on the counter. I also have cut up 2 delicata squash that I bought at the farm last fall, russet potato, and sweet potato. Then I washed all the dishes and put them away.

This week is again not too busy. We need to get buggie( the VW) smogged this week. I plan on swimming Tuesday and then going to Winco. I do need a few things but not a huge amount. My menu for the week includes the roast chicken, tortellini with Rao’s sauce, potato and sausage bake with scrambled eggs, pizza night, and the rest will be ‘fill in the blank’.

I’ve been using my daughter’s old Coach bag as my purse and decided to buy a Coach wallet. I doubt I will replace my Louis Vuitton. I’m just in a different place now than I was then. Even though I never thought of it as a status symbol or anything like that because I dress in jeans and T-shirts. But I loved it and because it was the monogram one it always was discrete. Plus no matter how the settlement goes, a new Louis is @ $2,500. So I really doubt I would/could justify that. When Barclay bought that for me, I was 6 months out from my SCT and it was kind of a life reaffirming gift. I think he paid less than $1000 for it then. It has gone to many places including Florida, Hawaii, all our camping trips, Seattle, and lots more. Now unless I can find a used one, I sort of doubt I would buy anything new. Unless I win the lottery, which I don’t play, … so??

My sister had a number of LV’s but of course, they are all probably going to the daughters as they should. Although, I used to joke with Heidi to ‘bequeath’ me her LV wallet which I did love.

I’m working on another small load for the hospice thrift store. It worked out great to drop off the Fiesta ware there and they were very friendly. I plan on giving them my two vintage fans and my original Waring blender circa 1985( which still works great).

some cherry blossoms from our tree.

The Pantry Challenge

Posted in budgeting, budgets, cooking, meal planning, simple foods, Uncategorized by

I always like a bit of a challenge so I decided to do a $100 a week grocery challenge. That’s for 4 adults. Usually, my grocery bill averages $700 for the 4 of us so that’s a $300 difference. So that means using lots of pantry and freezer items. We’re in a good place to do that as both are filled although the freezer is only about half full that’s ok. I think if you didn’t have a well-stocked pantry $100 a week for 4 adults might be hard.

My plan is to keep a list of what I’m using and where I’ll replenish it like Costco or Winco.

So far I’ve spent $30 at Winco and .48 at Bel-air. The Winco shop was almost all veggies and salad stuff plus milk and a half and half.

The meals this week have been:

Smokey Lentil Soup with cheese quesadillas. The lentil soup is a favorite from NYT.

Sheet pan nachos. This is a new way( for me) to make nachos that I took off of Mavis Butterfield’s blog. She makes her nachos this way in the oven. It’s a great way to do it and very easy and clean up is a breeze.

An Ina Garten recipe for Bouef Bourguignon. I made it in the crockpot and that was a winner too.

Tonight is a big salad and grilled chicken /tofu. We use to call this the Kitchen Favorite because back in the 70’s the original vegetarian restaurant in Auburn was called “The Kitchen’. Of course, it didn’t have chicken but basically, it was salad, grilled tofu, and avocado slices. They made the best blue cheese dressing which I’ve never been quite able to duplicate but Trader Joe’s blue cheese dressing is close.

Tomorrow will be homemade pizza. I have everything I need.

Saturday, I’m planning tofu burgers with all the fixings and fries.

Sunday will end the week out or begin the week depending on how I look at it. Maybe a spaghetti night.

Midweek Musings

Posted in books, cooking, simple foods, swimming by

B’s dental appt for his wisdom tooth extraction went well. He does seem to bounce back from these things very well. His next appt is to try and reattach the crown that fell off. I’m not sure about a new crown since they are expensive. The co-pay on the extraction was just over $500 so not cheap.

We’re almost done watching Season 2 of The Witcher. It’s a great series if you like that kind of stuff, which we do. I also just started reading the book and the author is Polish and the writing is good. We need a new series to watch as we finished what we were watching. I guess we could go back and rewatch some things.

Our beautiful weather continues and afternoons are really nice. I didn’t swim yesterday as I wasn’t feeling 100% for some reason. I plan on swimming tomorrow though.

I made another boule of sourdough this time with asiago cheese. It came out perfecto!! Last night I made a chile Relleno casserole with some of the hatch chiles I froze this summer. It was quite good and much easier than traditional rellenos that require whipping the egg whites first. Tonight I plan on a simple meal of burgers(impossible and maybe meat) and spicy coleslaw.

I found this poem by Mary Oliver on someone else’s blog. I mean, how wonderful is that!

Snowmageddon

Posted in California, cooking, home stuff, prepper pantry, simple foods, swimming by

I am now going crazy with NOT being able to go swimming much less walk.

SNOW, SNOW,SNOW……….

I had planned to go down to Roseville today to swim but again it’s snowing and I don’t want to be on the freeway getting stuck with a billion semis that are lining the on-ramps. Oh well, not much I can do about it. Maybe later we will walk from the house down to the park. The main reason we don’t do this regularly is our driveway is about a 45-degree angle. I can easily walk down but coming back up is difficult. Oh well, I guess since there’s nothing to be done about it, I’ll just accept it as Mother Nature’s way of saying take a break.

I made some yummy black bean burgers last night for dinner. The recipe is PioneerWoman’s and is simple and quite excellent. Everyone liked them.

I did a pantry check and wrote down what I have in the house and what I need. I still have to go out to the barn to do the prepper pantry. I have used most of what’s out there except a few things and I need to go check that out as I don’t quite remember. I think I have 2 bins of food plus the long shelf life of dried foods. Those I won’t use as they are true emergency food items. I’m not sure we will ever need them but they’re fine in one bin. or two. Most of the cleaning/non-food items I’m moving into the laundry room. Since it’s been redone it has two nice big shelves for those items. I still have some beans and oats in mylar bags and those too are long term so they’re fine in the storage bucket.

I’ve definitely gone thru some mental change in regards to a prepper pantry. I don’t feel the need to hoard a year’s worth of food or even 6 months. If the apocalypse is coming well, then it’s coming and me having a year’s worth of food isn’t going to matter. That being said, I have always ( 47 years now, since1975, have bought in bulk. Back then it was rice or beans, honey, flour, etc. I just always felt it was easier to have a supply on hand and then I didn’t need to think about it. So plus this last year really helped me focus on what we eat and what was just ‘hoarding’ or ‘what other people were doing. So that’s that.

I plan on making some scones this morning. I have a King Arthur Eggnog scone mix that’s definitely holiday-ish. I think I’ll do spaghetti with sauce tonight maybe a meat sauce but probably not as that means defrosting something. I’ll see how I feel later. I have some salad stuff that needs to get used up and some garlic bread. Yeah, that sounds good for tonight. Less thinking about it and it’s there to be used from the pantry. I have a nice bottle of red wine too!!!

Snow…

Posted in budgeting, budgets, cooking, ikea, minimalism, seasonal things, simple foods, swimming, Uncategorized by

Whoo Whee…it is cold. We woke up to snow on Tuesday morning and it kept going off and on. We usually get a sprinkling of snow at our elevation a couple of times during winter. This was a big snowstorm for the Sierras and is much needed. Needless to say, I didn’t venture out to swim. I probably would have been fine on the freeway but with Caltrans discouraging any travel, I didn’t feel I needed to add to it.

It’s bright and clear this morning and 27degrees. So the trees in the park were very frosty.

I went into Winco after swimming yesterday for a few things. And next week I’ll hit Trader Joe’s for a few things including fondue, which is our traditional Christmas eve dinner. So far even with Costco, I’m under budget for food/alcohol( mostly wine). If my calculations are correct, a total of @ $550 is really quite good. So if I add the TJ’s trip at about $100 that brings me under budget. Of course, there will be the run to the market here for the odds and ends before the end of the year but usually, that’s not too much. Shopping at Winco and the new Trader Joe’s, and of course, Costco has definitely made a difference from shopping just Safeway.

Other than that there are no unusual budget expenses for the rest of the month. January is a NO SPend month so no projects or Home Depot trips. Anything that the house might need is excluded like vacuum filters or the filters for the air filter thing.

Today I’m planning on taking the couch covers and washing them. I do this around every 3 months. This Ikea couch has been absolutely fabulous and I love it. When it’s time for a new one I’ll definitely do Ikea but maybe a bit more of a midcentury look. I’ve been waiting for the two chairs forever( since the beginning of the pandemic). The Poang chairs still look good and quite comfortable.

My son is headed to Yosemite today and is going to be there a few days. It should be quite beautiful as it got a lot of snow.

I need to go make some pizza dough and I was going to make bagels but the Barley Malt I ordered from Amazon was lost in the mail so I need to find it in a store. I haven’t been too inspired with cooking lately but maybe over the Holidays or not???

My minimalist Christmas decor.