Of bedtime prayer, hints, avoiding teapot drips, & a chicken-grapes salad

Like all other believers, Jews say special prayers in the evening as they contemplate sleep. This is my favorite:

Lay us down to sleep in peace, L-rd, our G-d; raise us awake, our King, to life, & spread over us the tabernacle of Your peace. Set us aright with good counsel from before Your presence, & save us for Your Name’s sake. Shield us, remove from us foe, plague, sword, famine, & woe; & remove spiritual impediments from before us & behind us, & in the shadow of Your wings shelter us – for G-d who protects & rescues us are You. Safeguard our going in & our coming out – for life & peace from now to eternity.








HINTS:

In the blog of October 7, 2004, I told you how I organize my shopping list. I forgot to tell you about the final righthand 2 columns of my table or spreadsheet. I mark how much each item costs singly & then the total cost for the number of the item that I will be purchasing. Sometimes I know the price from a previous shopping trip (& then mark it anew if the price has changed), but if I haven’t purchased the item before, I simply leave an empty space for it.

Simply Green™ is a great product that most of us know about, but did you know that if fabric is mildewed, it will clean off the mildew? Just soak the article in a solution of 1 oz (2 T) of the cleanser to each quart of water for 15 minutes, & then wash normally.

While your ice cube trays are being used for such things as tomato paste & herbs, there’s a better way to make ice itself. Just recycle a plastic or waxed milk carton, clean it, & fill it with water. Then freeze it. When you need it, take the carton outside & bang it on each side & on the end hard, against the sidewalk, & Lo! & behold, you’ll have ample crushed ice. A note to folks who keep kosher; use a Toffuti™ carton & you’ll have parve (neither meat nor milk) ice.

If you wear lipstick, you undoubtedly would love to get the last bits out of the tube so that you can merge them with bits from other tubes, & put the caboodle into one tube. This is how: freeze the lipstick tubes! Then take a small paring knife, insert it into the center of the tube, & the lipstick will come right out! You can melt all of the lipsticks together to get a uniform color.

An emergency measure that you probably haven’t thought of: Besides the 2 weeks’ worth of water & food that you should maintain for each member of your family (& you know to rotate those stocks, so that what’s being stored is always good & fresh), you should always have one clean change of linens, towels, etc. for each bed or bathroom. If this means an extra laundry session, so be it.









USE OF THINGS ON HAND: THE “TEAPOT DRIP CATCHER”:

Something that you never thought you might need, but that is actually a clever idea. At least, it’s clever if you’re like me, & often have to wipe off the counter after pouring tea from a teapot. BUT, since you need to rinse this doohickey out & let it dry between uses, you might want to sew 2 of them. You’ll be saving $4 for each one that you make.

Here’s how: Take your teapot & measure the circumference one inch towards the pot down the stem. Cut elastic to that length MINUS ½”. Find some old towel, washcloth, T-shirt, or any other absorbent material, cut off a 13” long piece of it and finish its edge. Sew that edge to the elastic. You now have a circle. Cut it off at the 2” wide mark (this does not need to be exact), & finish the outer edge. If you want to be fancy, take a coordinating scrap of oilcloth or vinyl (if you have this on hand), & cut a hoop that you can sew on the outside of the 2 inch wide circle. (Or, use a trim from your scrap basket.) If you really want to imitate the kind that is sold, use colors like fruit – the one in the catalogue looks like a lemon.










RECIPE OF THE WEEK: As you may have surmised, I use whatever I have in my pantry to devise the recipes I share with you. Here’s one:

POPPY-SEEDED GRAPES & CHICKEN SALAD:

(A little note about this recipe: Generally, I cannot afford grapes, which at their cheapest cost $0.80 per pound in my neighborhood. But, yesterday, I found 1-1/2 pounds at the day-old counter for just $1 – that’s $0.67 per pound! These were green seedless, but you can use any type of grapes in this recipe. I had developed this recipe when I was at my friend Ruan Frenette’s house, because she had the below ingredients on hand. I was delighted to be able to recreate it in my own home!)

1-1/2 lb grapes, any type, stems & any seeds removed
1 c shredded chicken
2 stalks celery, sliced thinly
½ red onion, chopped OR 4 scallions (green & white parts), finely slivered with kitchen shears
1 T poppy seeds
¼ c mayonaise

So simple! Just stir all together & serve as an entrée to 2. Mmmmh!

Of annunciations, helpful hints, making instead of buying from catalogues, & a custard entree

AN ECUMENICAL THOUGHT:

This week, Jews read the portion of Genesis that includes the recounting of the annunciation that the matriarch Sarah, at age 90, would become “the mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be of her.” I have always wondered why this story hasn’t done more to improve Judeo-Christian relationships. For Christianity also starts with an annunciation, that of a virgin birth. Birth by parthenogenesis does not to me seem to be particularly much more outside the purview of G-d’s immanence than birth by a woman so very far past menopause ….




HELPFUL HINTS:

You’ll always be able to find the sheets that match a pillowcase if you fold the sheets & insert them into the matching pillowcase. If you have more than one bed in your house, it’s best to purchase linen in a different color for each bed so that you can identify it easily. Also, giving each family member his or her own color for towels helps to keep the laundry load down, as the towel will be more likely to dry between uses, so your family won’t always be raiding the linen closet.

A cancelled credit card for an account that you have CLOSED has its uses. (Note that I am NOT speaking about a reissued credit card, that has your on-going account number on it, for an account that remains open.) You can use it as a dough scraper when baking bread, as a scraper to get bathtub decals up, & for many other purposes where a razor blade would be too sharp.

We who sew on a machine are admonished by “the experts” to insert a new needle whenever we start a new sewing project. This is wasteful, considering that one needle costs a dollar or more. The better procedure is to continue using a needle until it breaks, & then replace it. (The experts do tell you one thing that is completely correct, & that is that you must clean the entire bobbin area, called the race, & get rid of all the thread & lint that has collected there, before you start a new project.)

To find out which gas station in your neighborhood is offering the best price per gallon, click on www.GasPriceWatch.com.

Aha! I didn’t tell you enough. In the September 24th issue of this blog, I told you how to use 2 ice-cube trays taped together to make a medications tray for yourself. I omitted to tell you the best part. Cover the trays with a plastic produce bag & tape it into place. Then, you’ll be able simply to cut away the plastic covering the one cube that has in it the meds for that day & time of day.




USE OF THINGS ON HAND: THE PLASTIC BAGS ANIMAL HOLDER:

This blog has a NEW FEATURE: How can we use things that we have on hand (or can buy very cheaply) to make items similar to those expensive doodads that catalogues sell? This will be a weekly contribution to THE PENNY ORCHID: THRIFT WITH FLAIR.

Take for example those handy-dandy animals stuffed with plastic grocery bags, into which you can insert the bags at the head end, & from which you can remove them at the tail end: Do you have a sewing machine & have you made patterns from newspaper or brown paper bags before? This project will be a cinch, then. Draw an oblong 8” wide by 18” long. Take a drinking glass and use it to round off each inner corner. What animal do you want to make? To copy the commercial ones, you would want to make the belly side of your animal. The animal that you select will probably be determined in large part by the colors you have in your box of scrap fabrics. You will also need contrasting scraps to put on the facial features & the feet. (Pieces of felt are particularly handsome; what’s more, there’s no need to finish the edges of felt.) Before you sew the side seams right sides together (leaving an opening to turn the animal right-side out), you may want to quilt a lining to the outer fabric. Use elastic at the top & bottom, leaving a 3”-round opening at both ends. With a scrap of bias binding, ribbon, or whatever narrow trim you have on hand, fashion a hanging loop at the top back of the animal. That’s that, & you’ve just saved yourself at least $11, not counting the tax, shipping & handling, & any insurance.




RECIPE OF THE WEEK:

FRUITED BROWN RICE WITH SOY MILK CUSTARD:

1 large cooking apple, halved, sliced in 1 direction, turned by ¼ & sliced perpendicular to the initial slices
½ c raisins (break up any clumps)
3 dried apricots (that’s just 1,2,3, for economy), snipped with kitchen shears into small pieces
1 c uncooked brown rice
2 c soymilk
½ tsp salt
1 T honey

In a 3-quart or larger saucepan, place all ingredients. Over high heat, checking frequently, bring to a boil. Cover & reduce heat to low. Simmer for 1 hour. With lid still on, remove from heat & let sit for 10 minutes. Fluff with a cooking fork & serve to 2 appreciative diners as an entrée.

Of a prayer you might like, selecting produce, & a pot pie

A PRAYER FOR ALL WHO LOVE & FEAR THE ALMIGHTY:

From time to time, I will quote a prayer that I particularly like. I’ll quote from either a Jewish prayerbook or an Episcopal one. Here’s a Jewish prayer:

My G-d, the soul You placed within me is pure. You created it, You fashioned it, You breathed it into me, You safeguard it within me, & eventually You will take it from me, & restore it to me in Time to Come. As long as the soul is within me, I gratefully thank You, O L-rd, my G-d & the G-d of my forefathers & foremothers, Master of all works, L-rd of all souls. Blessed are You, O L-rd, Who restores souls to dead bodies.

HOW TO SELECT THE BEST PRODUCE:

Purchasing a 5 lb or 10 lb sack of potatoes may SEEM like an economy. But, in my experience, many of the potatoes inside will either have ruts or many eyes that have to be cut away, or will be tinged green (which tells you that they have become toxic.) What good is it to have to toss out so much of your “find?” I strongly urge you to select your potatoes individually. In that way, you can be SURE that they are of excellent quality. Indeed, this holds true for all produce that you can find bagged, such as apples, oranges, & grapefruit, as well as onions.

TOFU & CHICKEN COUNTRY PIE:

A reader requested that I develop a “pot pie” recipe. This one combines good-for-you tofu & soymilk with much less fat than any pot pie recipe that I’ve read -- & the fats that it does have – olive & canola oils – have “good profiles.” It also has a plethora of veggies. Instead of a traditional crust, it has a streusel-like topping. What’s more, it’s delicious. There are many steps, but hang in there. Essentially, you are preparing your ingredients before you start – the French call this “mise en place,” then you are making the white sauce, then you combine & place in the casserole dish all the ingredients except those for the streusel & refrigerate the dish. Finally, you make the streusel out of a “pat-in-the-pan oil crust” recipe, sprinkle it over the top of the casserole, & bake. You get 8 portions for all this work, so it’s well worth it.

Utensils needed:

A 9” x 13” pan, preferably Pyrex ™ glass
Cooking spoon & cooking fork
Rubber spatula
Sheet of plastic wrap large enough to cover your casserole
Measuring implements

Ingredients:

For the streusel: I have many recipes but all but one of them call for more oil than I like to use. This one is adapted from the 2002 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS NEW COOK BOOK. By the way, such recipes are called “pat-in-the-pan” because the dough is too brittle to be rolled out.

1-1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 T sugar (this does NOT interfere with the desired savory taste; &, it’s necessary chemically)
¼ tsp salt
¼ c canola oil
3 T soymilk

For the pie:

1 c shredded chicken
anywhere between 10 oz & 1 lb of extra-firm tofu, cut into chunks (the Mori-Nu brand is shelf-stable & has a hecksher [kosher seal of approval].)
6 T olive oil
6 T all-purpose flour
2 c vegetable broth
1 c soymilk
1 lb mixed vegetables, preferably corn, carrots, & peas. These can be either thawed frozen veggies or fresh ones that you prepare (the carrots should be diced.).
1 medium or ½ large onion, chopped
1 baked russet potato, chopped (you can do this with a butter knife, it’s so tender!)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried sage, rubbed in your palm
freshly-ground pepper

Mise-en-place:

Put the salt, herbs, & pepper in a ramekin or very small bowl.
Measure the vegetable broth in a quart measuring cup & add the c of soymilk to it.
Put the olive oil & 6 T of flour in a Dutch oven.
Put the other pie ingredients in a large bowl – DO NOT include the streusel ingredients.
Put the flour, sugar, & salt for the streusel in a medium-sized bowl.
Measure the canola oil in a cup measuring cup, & then add the 3 T of soymilk into that measuring cup.

Prepare the white sauce:

Put on the heat on high until the Dutch oven has warmed up enough that there is a slight aroma from the olive oil & the flour as it is being browned. Reduce heat to medium-low & stir constantly for 2 minutes. Add the liquid from the quart measuring cup, 1 c at a time, stirring occasionally. Add the salt mixture from the ramekin. Bring the heat up to medium & stir occasionally until the mixture reaches the simmering point (so you can see a few bubbles.). Stir occasionally & cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Prepare the pie ingredients:

Pour the contents of the large bowl (chicken, veggies, tofu) into the casserole dish. Pour the white sauce over. Place in the refrigerator for food-safety’s sake. After 5 minutes, remove the casserole from the fridge & cover it with the plastic wrap (top, clean side down on the casserole dish). Return it to the fridge. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees if using a glass casserole, or 400 degrees if you are using metal.

Prepare the streusel:

Pour the canola oil/soymilk blend into the medium-sized bowl (with the flour, etc.). Using a cooking fork, stir quickly (as though preparing a quick bread). Use your hands to form the dough into a circular loaf shape. Wash your hands.

Take the casserole out of the fridge & remove the plastic wrap (save it, though.). Pick up about ¼ of the streusel dough & rub it between your hands to sprinkle it atop the casserole. Repeat until you have used up the dough. Use a rubber spatula to even out the streusel.

Baking the pie:

Keep it in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes; you want the streusel to be golden-brown. Place the casserole on a rack to cool for 10 minutes. If you are going to serve it now, fine. If you plan to serve it later, move the dish to the fridge WITHOUT THE PLASTIC WRAP COVER (it could melt) for 10 minutes. Remove the casserole from the fridge & cover it with the plastic wrap & with an overlay of aluminum foil (It is not safe to place aluminum foil directly atop food. The aluminum could leach into the food.).

Enjoy!

Of prayer journals, washing produce, baking potatoes, & more

A PERSONAL PRAYER JOURNAL:

People of all faiths will benefit from being reminded of how the grace of G-d has given us so many blessings. And it is always nice to have a prayerbook that reminds us of whom we want to pray for & what we want to say, as it is overwhelming without one to remember every person we have offered to pray for, every desire we have for our country, our extended families, & our friends. Evangelical Christians have a solution: they keep prayer journals. A journal starts with a list of what they are thankful for. They update this as new blessings occur, & look it over when they are feeling down or on Thanksgiving Day. The other list they keep is one of personal petitions. Again, they keep adding to it, & they look at it every day to be reminded of what to pray for (of course, with many desires, they pray for only a portion on any given day.) When they need to see a miracle, they review this list & see how many prayers G-d has answered. They add to their thanksgiving list those prayers that were answered with blessings. I brought this idea up to an Orthodox Jew in my family, to see what she thought of expressing it to Jews as well as to Christians, and the idea excited her & she felt very favorable towards it.

HOW I WASH VEGETABLES & FRUITS:

You know, I’m sure, that before you cut an avocado, a melon, an orange, or any other fruit or vegetable that you aren’t going to peel (such as is my habit, potatoes), you need to wash it thoroughly to remove both soil & any pesticides that were used in growing it. (If you were not to, you’d be moving pathogens from the peel to the inside when you cut the produce.) This is my method. I fill a dishpan with a tad of dishwashing liquid & lots of warm water. I immerse the produce & swish it around. Then I toss out all the water, & repeat the process twice, but without using any soap the 2nd & 3rd time. Finally, I dry off the produce with a tea towel.

BAKING GREAT POTATOES:

Before I set the oven at 350 or 400 degrees for some other purpose, I begin to prepare baked potatoes. As anyone else would do, I wash them & use a fork to poke them so that they will not burst in the oven. Then I place them ON THE FLOOR of the oven. I bake them for an hour at 400 degrees or 90 minutes at 350 degrees (I may have to keep the oven on after removing the other dish I’ve prepared .) The result? Wonderfully soft inner potatoes with crispy skins. Wow!

A SPECIAL TABLE PLACE-SETTING FOR A SPECIAL PERSON:

Beverly Nye, a homemaker who has written 3 books explaining how members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (pejoratively called “Mormons”) take care of their families, suggests that a special china plate, unique among your possessions, be placed where a particular member of your family will be sitting. Such a person may be having a birthday that day (if you have twins or triplets, you’d better purchase multiple special-china plates!), have done something special that day such as being on the team that won a soccer game, OR have had a particularly bad day & could use some cheering up.

THE MANY USES OF A COMPUTER-GENERATED GROCERY LIST:

Before I go grocery-shopping (which I do on a monthly basis, except for picking up the odd produce – in this way, I avoid going over my budget), I use my computer to come up with a grocery list that I set forth like the example just below. As I shop, I fill in the prices that I don’t know. Then, when I come home, I post the finished list until the next time that I am to prepare a list, so that I can fill in more prices. I also:

(1) Enter the prices into a “price book,” so that I can see how much the various stores are charging, & I note whether the price is a sale price, a loss-leader, or a regular price,
(2) Post a new to-buy list, so that during the ensuing month, I can add items that I want to purchase when I go shopping the next month, &
(3) In the ensuing month, I delete items for the previous month that I have enough of on hand.

Grocery Shopping – Date: October 1, 2004 Store: Big Apple

There follows a table, which I cannot reproduce in this blog. Imagine that each set of entries runs horizontally across a row in the table.

Item
Notes
Amount
Price Each
Total Price





Black beans

2 pounds




Red kidney beans

1 pound




Scallions

Bunch
0.49





Hope that this has proven helpful to you!

RECIPE OF THE WEEK:

Here’s a recipe that will make your family feel cozy & warm as the leaves fall, that’s a good change from saturated fats (& trans-fatty acids) that you don’t want to be feeding them every day:

Yummy Vegetarian Chili

This recipe is loosely based on one from the Physicians’s Committee for Responsible Medicine.

½ c boiling water
½ c textured vegetable protein
2 T canola oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 bell peppers (red if you can afford them – they are more nutritious than the green ones)
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 of your frozen home-cooked-in-the-oven containers of beans (thawed – use 2 types – it’s nice if one type is pinto or kidney beans) – this is 3-1/2 c or 2 cans of beans if you don't have the home-cooked ones on hand.
2 cups frozen corn, thawed
1 can of tomato sauce (15 oz) or 2 c of your home-made tomato sauce
1 tsp chili powder
1 heaping tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
¾ tsp ground cumin
1/8 tsp cayenne

Put the textured vegetable protein in a small bowl & pour the boiling water over it. Let stand while you sauté over medium heat in a Dutch oven (boy! Do I enjoy my Dutch oven!) the onion, peppers, and garlic in the oil till soft, stirring occasionally. Add the remaining ingredients & stir thoroughly. Bring to a boil. Then turn the heat down to low & cover the pot. Cook for 45 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Serve to 4 people with hearty appetites – cornbread is a nice, but not necessary, accompliament. You’ll get kudos.

Of anthropology of religion, bras, ring-around-the-collar, & apples

You certainly don’t need to be Jewish to read this blog, but you might anyhow appreciate an anthropological view into the religion. Right now observant Jews are celebrating Sukkot, which is both a harvest festival & a commemoration of the wandering in the desert for 40 years. Today, Jews eat (on the first night at least) in three-sided booths covered with a natural material & decorated with a harvest theme. The special foods for the week are stuffed vegetables & streusels. An unusal citrus fruit, the citron, is an important part of the special prayer services for this week.

It’s a lot of fun to read old cookbooks, & you can often find thrifty recipes in them. The one that I have has a special story. It’s the NEW SETTLEMENT COOKBOOK (1954 edition of a book that started its history in 1901). A number of society ladies, mostly German Reform Jews & all living in or near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were startled by what they saw as being the bad manners of immigrants, including Russian and Polish Jews, & wanted to educate them. So this cookbook includes such details as how to wash dishes in a sanitary manner! Its theme is that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, old-fashioned but still true in my experience.

To save tomato paste or any other liquid leftovers – or herbs that you can cover with ice -- in the freezer, it’s helpful to apportion the substance into small amounts. A tablespoon is ideal. Well, did you know that if you get the kind of ice-cube trays that have 16 cubes (2 rows of 8 cubes), each one, when filled about ¾ full, will contain exactly a tablespoon! (If filled to the brim, each one will contain 4 teaspoons.)

If you’ve had a mastectomy or know someone who did, you probably realize that special bras are both quite limited in styles & cost about twice as much as regular bras. I’d like to direct your attention to great instructions for altering regular bras to accommodate prosthetic pads. They are on pages 107-109 of Karen Morris’s SEWING LINGERIE THAT FITS: STYLISH UNDERWEAR, SLEEPWEAR, AND LOUNGEWEAR FOR EVERYDAY LIVING. If you can’t find it in your local library, just Inter-Library Loan the book.

Speaking of clothing, we’ve all wondered how to get that darned ring-around-the-collar out. It turns out that, for washable clothing, chalk is the answer. Yes, good old white chalk. Just apply it heavily to the ring, wait a few hours, & then launder as usual. Presto, the ring will have disappeared… & the chalk will have dissolved & floated away.

It’s apple season again, & I’d like to share with you some apple tips. First of all, you can soften brown sugar by placing it in a canister with half an apple (it will take a few days to soften.). Secondly, to make apple tea, dry the peel of one apple & pour a cup of boiling water over the pieces that you’ve placed in a mug. Thirdly, you can scoop out the flesh from an apple that has had its top quarter cut off, & use it as the container for a salad (perhaps for the Waldorf salad below). In that case, be sure not to waste what you’ve cut away – use it for applesauce. Finally, if you like to peel & core your apples when you make applesauce, make a juice from everything you’ve cut away (except the stem!). Cover these leavings with water in a saucepan & bring the mixture to boiling. Reduce the heat & cook until soft. Then strain the mixture through a strainer that you’ve lined with cheesecloth or a clean old nylon.

Here’s a recipe using apples:

Deb’s Chicken-Waldorf Salad:

(Traditional Waldorf salads are made with the expensive ingredients of raisins and walnuts. Here is an inexpensive version, suitable for an entrée due to the addition of chicken.)

1 c shredded chicken
1 chopped large apple (I like Pink Lady best; you can also use Fuji – or whatever kind of “eating apple” as opposed to “baking apple” – or your choice of what you have on hand)
2 stalks of celery, cut lengthwise into thirds at the bottom & then sliced thinly
1 medium carrot, cut lengthwise into thirds & then sliced very thinly
¼ c mayonnaise
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground allspice OR ¼ tsp ground cardamom

(1) Mix veggies and spices together.
(2) Mix in the chicken.
(3) Add the mayonnaise.
(4) Mix thoroughly.