Of April bargains & macaroni

Man is the only being – not angels, not animals – whose perfection is not preordained. Man must participate in his own perfection. (Adapted from LIVING EACH DAY, p. 168)

I hope that all of our Christian friends had a good Easter!





HOUSEHOLD HINTS:

If you are in the market for a used car, place notices on the bulletin boards of local senior citizens’ centers. Elders are more likely to have gently-used & well-maintained cars, compared at least to teenagers!

To counteract the truism that you lose one sock in every washload, try loading your socks UNDER the rest of your clothes in the washing machine. It works!

Your kids can develop a booming business by advertising through the Welcome Wagon that they will break down & cart away used moving boxes. Not only will the newcomers pay for the service, but the cardboard can be recycled for cash!

Vinegar – especially -- & baking soda cost money, isn’t it true? I am always amazed at how homemade cleansers utilizing these 2 household stalwarts are touted as being cheaper than cleansers designated as such in the stores. It’s certainly true that vinegar & baking soda are more environmentally sound, but cheaper? Not according to my calculations.

To keep your kitchen cutting board from slipping, place 2 rubber bands around it, at 2 kitty-cornered edges. (You may want to use the wide bands that broccoli comes in at most markets.)





GOOD BUYS FOR THE COMING MONTH (APRIL):

Groceries:

Artichokes
Asparagus
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Eggs
Grapefruit
Strawberries

Other Deals:

Exercise equipment sold by private parties whose New Year’s resolutions weren’t kept!
Home entertainment
Snow blowers
Space heaters
Winter sports equipment







RECIPE:

Cheesy Macaroni & Tomato Bake:

2 T canola oil
½ large or 1 medium onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced

In a small skillet, heat oil & then sauté onion & garlic, NOT browning it but keeping it crisp. This requires frequent stirring & a cooking time of 10 minutes. Meanwhile, boil the water for pasta (I always put a little salt & a little oil into the pasta water.)

Prepare 1 lb elbow macaroni, cooking for the least time that the package directs. (You can use the same Dutch oven for this & every step that follows in this recipe. Your Dutch oven must be able to contain at least 4 quarts.) Drain, & set aside the macaroni. Spray the Dutch oven with cooking oil spray.

Prepare the tomatoes by mixing together in a bowl:

A 29-oz can of tomatoes in juice, cut into small pieces using a kitchen shears, UNDRAINED
1 tsp salt
Freshly-ground black pepper to taste OR ¼ tsp ready-ground black pepper
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp basil

Prepare a cheese sauce:

2 T canola oil
2 T flour
2 c milk (soymilk or dairy)
2 c grated Cheddar cheese (sharp cheese will give superior results, but it IS more expensive!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat the oil in the Dutch oven. Add the flour, stirring constantly. You want to brown the flour slightly, but certainly NOT burn it. Add the milk slowly (2/3 c at a time), stirring frequently. Watch (while stirring) until the sauce becomes thicker. Add the cheese (1/2 c at a time), & stir until the cheese is completely incorporated in the sauce.

Break up the clumped macaroni with a cooking spoon. Return it to the Dutch oven (adding it to the cheese sauce). Then slowly add the tomato mixture to the Dutch oven. Stir thoroughly.

Bake for 40 minutes. Serves 8.

Of Kitchen Timers & Buckwheat

Tonight, Jews the world over celebrate Purim, which commemorates the triumph of faith in G-d over the forces that would annihilate us as a people. We read the Book of Esther, which involves the adopted daughter of Mordechai who became the wife of the King of Persia & Medea – the King did not know that Esther was a Jew. His executive, Haman, convinced him to slaughter all the Jews, starting with Mordechai. But Esther was able to persuade him to execute Haman upon the gallows that Haman had set up for Mordechai.

There are many customs associated with the holiday. Adults are supposed to drink “until they cannot tell Mordechai apart from Haman.” (This is the only time when being drunk is sanctioned in Judaism.) Children dress up in costumes. Everyone uses a noisemaker & stamps their feet when the name of Haman is mentioned in the Book. People exchange gifts of food, generally including “hamentaschen,” or delicious tarts with prune or poppyseed filling, in the shape of Haman’s hat.





HOUSEHOLD HINTS:

Hard cheeses that you don’t want to freeze keep better in cheesecloth that you’ve saturated with white vinegar. Then place the wrapped cheese in a plastic bag.

The most important skill in caulking is to start your work at the least visible place. You will improve in your ability to draw a straight, smooth line of caulking as you go along. So, you should terminate your work at the most visible spot.

When you’re driving, & need to brake suddenly, it’s preferable to use the emergency brake. Your rear brakes will engage with the emergency brake. This will save wear & tear on your regular brakes.

Plants need to be watered with water free of chlorine. To achieve this, let the water in your watering can sit out in the open for at least several days before you use it on the plants – all the chlorine will have evaporated.

If you have a can of hairspray on hand, here are 2 good ways to use the spray:
(a) Zap flying insects.
(b) Spray it on fresh flowers, & then turn the flowers upside-down, held together with a tie. They will dry with their natural colors intact.





THE GENERAL UTILITY OF THE SIMPLE KITCHEN TIMER:

I own three, each a different brand so that the sounds are distinct. (I also have an egg-timer that runs for just 3 minutes. The other timers generally will not ring if set for less than 5 minutes.)

Here are just a few of the increments of time that I measure:

When I am preparing 2 or 3 dishes of food at once, I can time each step easily, as I recognize the various rings.

In hand-washing, each soaking step takes 10 minutes, & the timer will remind you of the need to move on to the next stage. Similarly, in doing the laundry, there are various chores that are requisite at different points, & the timers come in handy again.

One set of exercises that the physical therapist gave me has to be done for at least 15 minutes a day. Frankly, I hate complying with that length instruction, but when I feel cooperative, the timer helps me out here, too.

Everyone knows that an egg timer helps in limiting the length of long-distance phone calls.

A timer can be used as a measure of how long something takes. Just set it to 60 minutes, & read it when the activity that you are timing has ended. This simple subtraction gives you the elapsed time.

When I want to go back to sleep for a while, I set a timer, so much more fluid in range than is the “Snooze” button on the alarm clock ….(Who wants to be awoken 3 times, when knowing that she needs a full 20 minutes of extra sleep?)

Until you have dropped a timer a couple of times, timers seem to work for many years. What other expenditure of $4-$7 (for each timer) will reward you with so many benefits?






RECIPE:

Baked Kasha with Veggies:

Raw buckwheat groats (“kasha”), (medium granulation is preferable), 1 c
Egg, 1
Stir together with a fork till all groats are covered with egg. Place in a dry Dutch oven & cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until groats are separate. Remove from Dutch oven & place in a small bowl..

Olive oil, 2 T
Garlic, 3 cloves, minced

Cook in the Dutch oven, over medium heat, until garlic is lightly browned. Remove the garlic to a large bowl.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Scallions, 1 bunch, whites only, sliced thin
Greens -- turnip, collards, kale, or mustard greens, chopped, 2 c frozen, & then defrosted
Corn, 1 can (14.75 oz), drained & juice reserved
Salt, 1 tsp
Freshly ground black pepper to taste or ¼ tsp ready-ground black pepper
Juice of 1 lemon (Since fresh lemon prices are often steep, I purchase the bottled variety – waiting till I have a good coupon. You’ll need 2 T of the bottled juice.)
Egg, 1, beaten
The cooked kasha from the small bowl.

Add to large bowl. Mix thoroughly

Water to add to corn liquid to make 2 cups altogether

Bring water/corn liquid to boiling in the Dutch oven. Pour in the veggies & kasha from the large bowl. Cover immediately. Bake for 45 minutes.. Serve to 6..

Of grocery savings & hickory smoke

A prayer attributed to Saint Francis: L-rd, make us instruments of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; & it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.





GROCERY SAVINGS & NOTES ON STORAGE:

Do you have a store (or several) in town that issue advertisements about the items that they want you to know are on sale this week? Those items are called “loss leaders.” The store expects you to come in, pick up some loss leaders, & then shop for everything else that your family could use. Duh! Why not just shop at each store FOR the items that are on sale. This works better & better as you purchase duplicates of the items on sale, & begin to build up a personal pantry inventory.

Work out a map that allows you to “hit” all of your stores in a logical order that minimizes driving time & gasoline. Of course, if you are using public transportation or walking, you will probably prefer to limit your hits to just one or two stores at a time.

Buying loss leaders in preference to everything else in the store becomes an even better deal when you have a coupon for a particular item that is a loss leader. Better still if the store doubles coupons. (But be careful. Ask exactly what the double-coupon – or triple-coupon – policy is before you purchase multiples of the same item. There may be a limit on units that will be given the double-coupon treatment – in which case you might wish to make multiple shopping trips to obtain as many units as you have coupons, or there may be a limit on how high the value of a coupon that will be given the double-coupon treatment can be.)

Don’t be afraid to stock up on loss leaders. .Just about everything can be frozen or otherwise stored. Most fruits & vine-ripened tomatoes can be canned using the water-bath method, which requires little equipment. (Watch for a late spring essay on canning. By the way, vegetables, having little acid, need to be pressure-canned.)

You may recall that I roasted 2 turkeys before Thanksgiving, for which I only paid a pittance per pound. Four months later, I still have 8 one-cup portions in the freezer (which indicates why you so often read recipes here that call for such).

Little-known freezer storage facts concern dairy. Divvy up the milk into containers that you can use in 1 week or less, & be certain to leave head-room of 1” in each container, then freeze. Defrost in the fridge. As for the eggs, separate each white from each yolk, & place 1 white or 1 yolk into each cube of an empty ice-cube tray. There is no need to defrost if you want to cook scrambled eggs, but for most uses, you need to defrost the egg in the fridge. (You can then transfer the cubes to a storage bag.) Hard cheeses such as Cheddar also can easily be frozen -- & actually grate more easily in their frozen state. Yoghurt cannot be frozen, but it will last in the fridge for at least one month past its “pull date,” as will eggs for that matter!

Look around your house for places where you can store dry goods, such as cans or packages of pasta & dried beans. These may include under a bed, in a closet, under a table that is covered to the floor with a cloth, & so forth. Just be cautious to place all food that you are storing in secure containers (such as Rubbermaid® or Tupperware® that you can purchase at a thrift store, used). This is to avoid sharing your food with mice or other pests!

Using a coupon on a sale item is called a “double-play.” There are also “triple-plays.” These involve obtaining a rebate on a double-play item. Chains like Walgreen’s & Rite-Aid frequently offer rebates, although rarely on groceries (but often enough for paper & plastic goods). Sometimes you will be able to find rebate forms in your coupon circulars. While most of these nowadays are for so-called free gifts instead of money (you are asked to pay a shipping & handling fee, which defeats the purpose of obtaining a rebate in most cases), there still are cash refunds available. A typical one would be for March as Frozen Foods Month, with proofs-of-purchase & cash register receipts required for an assortment of products bought during March or another specified time period.





RECIPE:

Hickory-Smoked Tomatoes with Turkey:

1 T canola oil
1 T water
3 stalks celery, diced
1 medium onion, or ½ large onion, diced
1 bell pepper, seeded & cubed

Saute for 8 minutes in a Dutch oven, stirring frequently. Preheat cooking oven to 350 degrees.

28-oz canned whole tomatoes, each tomato cut in half (best done with kitchen shears)
1 tsp liquid smoke (I use Wright’s Concentrated All Natural Hickory Seasoning Liquid Smoke™)
1 c turkey, diced

Add on top of the sautéed veggies.

1 c fresh breadcrumbs (you can accumulate these in the freezer)
1-1/2 T canola oil

Mix & place atop the casserole. Bake for 45 minutes or until crumbs are golden-brown. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving to 6.

Of color-coded spatulas & enchiladas

Rabbi Moshe Leib said: “The way in this world is like the edge of a blade. On this side is the netherworld, & on that side is the netherworld, & the way of life lies in between.” (Martin Buber, TALES OF THE HASIDIM: LATER MASTERS, 1961 paperback, page 92.)





HOUSEHOLD HINTS:

If you like to bake muffins, here’s a way to save oven energy along with your time & trouble: just bake a double batch (yield of 24 muffins) in a 9x13” Pyrex® casserole dish (spread out as you would with a cake batter).

What’s more frugal than doggie biscuits? Try baby carrots – or, even more cheaply, carrot sticks that you cut yourself. Your dog will still get the desired tooth-cleansing effect. And she or he will be enthusiastic about the taste.

There are 2 good ways to make powdered milk taste delicious – actually, 3, as it needs to be very cold before you drink it. The other 2 ways have to do with the mixing process. You can use a blender, but that takes up electricity (not much, but every penny counts). The manual way to do it right is to mix it in a large jar. Fill up the jar half-way with cold water, & dump the water out into a measuring cup. Jot down how much water you have (pour out enough to round the total water to a certain number of full cups.). Pour the water back in the jar, & add 1/3 as much powdered milk as there is water in the jar. Cover, & shake-shake-shake-shake (did you get that vigor?). Then refrigerate (or drink right away, assuming your water is truly cold).

If you’ve equipped your car with a roof rack, take it off when you don’t need it. This can save you big on fuel economy.

A tasty & cheap Catalina-style salad dressing can be made by combining equal amounts of pureed tomatoes & yoghurt, & whisking in 2 T of canola oil per cup of the tomato-yoghurt mixture.






CLARIFICATION:

Remember to add lots of soil atop that absorbent material (the insides of a disposable diaper or sanitary napkin) in any container in which you are gardening -- & remember the necessary drainage holes!





ANOTHER CATALOGUE ITEM THAT YOU DON’T NEED:

For $12.99, a catalogue advertises “color coded spatulas.” These are as follows: a red spatula for retrieving the ketchup at the bottom of a bottle, a green one for relish, a yellow one for mustard, & a white one for mayonnaise. Stuff & nonsense. A regular spatula will work easily for the relish, mustard, & mayonnaise. The way to get the ketchup out that clings to the bottle is to fill the bottle halfway with water, cover, & shake. Then you can add the liquid to any tomato or pasta sauce. Results of these measures? $13 saved.





RECIPE:

Deb’s Enchiladas:

My home health care aide, Margarita Recinos, who hails from El Salvador, says that this dish is delicious.

2 cups cooked brown rice (1 c raw)

Defrosted frozen 1-3/4 portion of black beans baked as explained in the blog dated 9/10/04 OR a 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 medium onion, chopped
3 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 T olive oil

4 scallions, white & green parts, sliced thin
1 large (or small, if you want less “kick” to your dish) jalapeno pepper, seeds & ribs removed, diced (wear gloves while handling)

28 oz prepared mild red enchilada sauce

1-1/2 c Monterey Jack cheese, grated
1-1/2 c cheddar cheese, grated

12 medium corn tortillas – 2 whole & 10 cut into fourths with a kitchen scissors

1 bunch cilantro, minced with the scissors

Prepare brown rice. Preheat oven to 400º. Spray a 9x13” casserole dish with cooking spray.

Cook onion and garlic in oil in a small pan until the veggies are slightly browned.

In a large bowl, mix rice, beans, scallions, jalapeno, and onion and garlic.

Place a whole tortilla in the casserole dish & fill in the spaces with 20 wedges. Layer all of the rice mix over. Distribute cheese over. Pour one-half of the enchilada sauce over. Place remaining tortillas, whole & wedges, on top. Pour balance of sauce over.

Bake until sauce is bubbly, about 25 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes & then serve to 6-8. Garnish with cilantro (if not serving all of the dish at this time, put the excess cilantro in a jar in the fridge, for later use).

Of savings & spaghetti

The You encounters me by grace – it cannot be found by seeking. But that I speak the basic word to it is a deed of my whole being, is my essential deed. (Martin Buber, I AND THOU, translated by Walter Kaufmann, 1970 paperback, page 62)






TECHNIQUES FOR SQUIRRELING-AWAY MONEY:

Savings! Everyone wants to have savings, few have good ideas for how to make savings happen. Here are some suggestions:

(1) Pay for everything with paper currency. Every evening when you get home, dump your pocket change into a special “savings jar.” Once a month, roll up the coins (the bank will give you special paper for rolling) & deposit them in your savings account.
(2) When you redeem grocery coupons, tally up your savings. Take that amount of money, & place IT (paper & coin currency) in your “savings jar.” Once a month, take the paper currency & all of your coin rolls & deposit THEM in your savings account.
(3) Have you just found a deal on anything – clothing, home furnishings, anything from small to large? You can guess what I’m going to tell you! Put the money that you have saved into your savings account (it’s probably too much to put into your “savings jar.”)
(4) Did you just receive an unexpected check or gift of cash? Guess what you should do with it!
(5) Have you spent less in one category of your economic life than your budget calls for? Now I’ll bet you know what my advice is …!






HOUSEHOLD HINTS:

Do you enjoy gardening in containers? This could be inside as well as outside. Take something that has synthetic absorbent material – this could be a sanitary napkin or a disposable diaper. Tear off the cover & place the insides into a container (remember that you need drainage holes.)

And where do you get the plants themselves, at a reasonable price? Of course, you could start with cuttings (perhaps from a neighbor), but what if you want a big plant? Try a rental agency. This could be either a furniture rental center, or a store that specializes in plant rentals.

In order to keep kitchen knives that you use only rarely rust-free, wash & dry them, & then coat them lightly with petroleum jelly. This works well for razor blades, too.

When you want to buy just a very small amount of grated cheese or chopped veggies, it might be cheaper to simply pick it up from the supermarket’s salad bar. But be certain to do the unit pricing math first!

I’ve told you before that, for elective hospital stays, you should avoid being there over the weekend. Another time to avoid – if your hospital is affiliated with a university medical school – is the month of July, when the new crop of house staff comes on board.






RECIPE:

Spaghetti with Turkey:

2 T olive oil
1 T water

1 medium onion, diced
2 large or 3 medium cloves of garlic, minced
1 stalk celery (including leaves), diced
1 carrot, grated

Heat oil & water in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the vegetables and sauté for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add seasonings as follows:

1 tsp EACH:
Oregano
Thyme
Sage
Parsley
Salt
Freshly-ground black pepper to taste or ¼ tsp ready-ground black pepper
1 bay leaf

Stir thoroughly. Continue to sauté for a minute.

Add tomato products & turkey, as follows:

28 oz canned tomatoes, including liquid, diced in can with scissors
6 oz canned tomato paste
a 6-oz can of water
1 c turkey, diced

Stir thoroughly. Reduce heat & cook, uncovered, for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, prepare spaghetti as follows:

1 lb. spaghetti, cooked according to package instructions, drained (I like to break the spaghetti into thirds before cooking it -- makes for easier eating!)

Return spaghetti to cooked pot of sauce, & stir thoroughly. Remove the bay leaf & serve to 6.