One. Tired. Frugalista.

I'm starting to wonder what happened to those supposedly long and lazy days of summer. In the last month or so since we got back from our camping trip, it seems like we've been going full tilt on any number of projects:

Getting a patio built in the corner of our yard. This involved digging a 10 by 12 foot hole that was 6 inches deep, filling it with a 2 inch layer of gravel, a 2 inch layer of screenings (really fine gravel), installing the metal edging around the sides, and then laying the bricks on top (you can see the before shots of this area of the yard here). There is still more work to be done to finish this off properly (sand-setting the brick and landscaping the beds around the side) so hopefully I'll have another update on this project before the snow flies!

 

Refurbishing our Muskoka chairs on the front porch;  they were in pretty desperate need of a new coat of paint. My hubby had built the footstools a couple of years ago, but never got around to painting them, so I spent a long day wood filling, sanding, priming and painting. The results are worth all that effort though, since it looks like we got brand new furniture for our front porch (the Muskoka chairs are nearly 13 years old now and still going strong).

Running a produce cooperative; this photo is from our August 20th exchange where we had offerings of Swiss chard, beans, peppers (red, sweet banana and hot), zucchini, cucumbers, rhubarb, carrots, green onions, lots o' tomatoes (beefsteak, Lemon Boy, yellow pear), parsley, sage, rosemary, dill and mint - all FRESH, LOCAL and FREE!

Keeping the veggie garden under control; the peppers are really starting to ripen fast with the colder nights we've been having! I'm going to slice and chop some of them for the freezer - being able to toss red peppers into a stew or stir fry in the middle of winter is such a treat.

Freshening up the flowerbed alongside our front walkway by transplanting a shrub and some perennial geranium, and popping in some mums for late summer/fall colour.

Add to that painting the front hall banister (I just now realized I still don't have a post-paint job photo of it!), various smaller projects (like reknitting the cotton bath mat that suffered a fatal injury in the wash - you can see it in a heap in the Muskoka chair photo), getting the kids registered for all their fall activities, and a trip to Value Village on 50% off day (more about that later), and you have a recipe for exhaustion.

I'd like to say things are going to slow down here for a while, but it doesn't look that way for the foreseeable future. We need to get a lot of canning done, as we're behind our usual schedule due to all the aforementioned projects we've been working on! We also need to get organized for the mid-September camping trip we're planning (which should hopefully be a nice restful week once we actually get there). Plus there will be the usual increase in busy-ness that comes with fall and a return to lots of different scheduled activities.

Has your summer been long and leisurely, or filled with lots of projects like ours?

Weekly Menu Retrospective #45

Welcome to my weekly roundup of the past week's eats. I prefer to report what we ate in the last week, rather than what we're planning to eat in the coming week. Why? The reason is pretty simple: although I usually have a general idea of what we're going to eat in the next week or so, life often unfolds a little differently than planned, and I adjust my menu plan on a near-daily basis to accommodate leftovers and other not-possible-to-plan-ahead circumstances. I find this is the easiest way to ensure that I minimize our family's food waste. I'm also willing to admit that I'm a rather spontaneous cook, given to preparing foods that strike me as the most appealing thing to eat right here and now!
 
Breakfasts: granola, toast, bagels, banana blueberry muffins (subbed blueberries for chocolate chips in this recipe)

Lunches: pizza, leftovers, sandwiches

Dinners:

Monday: Sausages, potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce, peas and carrots

Tuesday: Cheeseburger pockets (a kind of homemade pizza pocket using refrigerator bread dough), carrot sticks

Wednesday: Ate out at my niece's birthday party

Thursday: Lemon Chicken Pasta with Broccoli and Carrots (a variation on this recipe)

Friday: Leftover Buffet

Saturday: Pork Fried Rice

Sunday: Cabbage & Beef Soup, cornbread, Peach & Blueberry Clafouti

For more great meal ideas, check out Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com.

Budget Backyard Transformation, Part 1

Since we got back from our camping trip just under a month ago, we've been working away on a bunch of household projects that have been on our "to-do" list for what seems like forever. I shared a progress report on our front entranceway makeover a couple of weeks ago. Since then we've turned our attention to our backyard, as there is some major work we want to get done there before the warm weather departs for the year!

We actually began in late spring by sprucing up this area alongside our patio, which could best be described as an eyesore:

 

That's our brand-new-this-year (and not yet installed) rain barrel lurking over in the left hand corner. Since I'm forever conspiring to find a few more inches of sunny garden space to grow more veggies, I asked my handyman hubby to build a raised bed in this long-neglected space.

Here's what it looks like now:

 

My killer zucchini plant is currently dominating the space! I transplanted my strawberry plants from another section of the garden to this raised bed (they're on the far side of the zucchini, closer to the rain barrel). I'm planning to plant some taller sun loving perennials around the base of the rain barrel next spring to brighten up that area a bit (hopefully I'll be able to swap plants with some of my neighbours). It definitely looks a lot nicer than when we started!

The rain barrel cost us $50 and other than a couple bags of soil and compost for the raised bed, I don't think we purchased anything else (the wood for the raised bed was all pieces we had lying around from other projects). So, the total for this part of the yard was under $60.

For the last couple of weeks, our attention has been focused on the back third of our yard, which has been in a really sad state for the entire time we've lived here. Joe had built a playhouse structure for the boys the spring after we moved here, so that's been up for the last seven years. The kids, along with their neighbourhood friends, got a ton of use out of the playhouse over the years, but its time has now passed.  My much larger, about-to-turn-12-and-14-this-fall-and-too-sophisticated-for-a-playhouse boys, are ready to move on. So we decided to tear down the structure and build a patio in the corner where it stood. This is a nice shady corner of the yard, so the patio will be comfortable at just about any time of the day, as opposed to the slice of patio over by the raised bed, which is inferno-like by 10 a.m. most days in the summer.

The "before" shots:

This ginormous weed-and-junk pile is where a decrepit garage once stood. It was well on its way to falling over when we bought the place, and we tore it down soon after we got here. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten around to dealing with this increasingly alarming-looking corner until now. We also needed to remove the tree stump you can see in the back left corner before implementing our current yard transformation plans.
 

The playhouse, halfway down

Here's what things look like after hauling a lot of wood and weeds out of the area:

Oh, and note the absence of the stump! It was located roughly in the middle of this photo. Joe was planning to rent a chainsaw and take it out himself. As luck would have it, our next door neighbour hired a guy to come remove some dead branches from one of his trees. When we saw him out there chainsawing away, we decided to ask him how much he'd charge us to remove the stump. He was asking only $40 which was an incredible bargain, since he hauled the thing away, too! Those last two corner posts are now down and we're waiting on the call-before-you-dig people to come out and make sure we're not going to hit anything important when we excavate the area for the patio. The brick we'll be using for the patio was all gathered for free from several sources. For the last couple of years, we've been seeking out the same interlocking brick that was used for the patio area and walkway we already have in the backyard and have finally amassed enough to proceed with the 10-by-12 foot patio we have planned. Once the patio is built, Joe will built a shed to the right of it, using much of the wood from the playhouse.

We hope to make some significant progress on this project in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for the next update!

Weekly Menu Retrospective #44

Welcome to my weekly roundup of the past week's eats. I prefer to report what we ate in the last week, rather than what we're planning to eat in the coming week. Why? The reason is pretty simple: although I usually have a general idea of what we're going to eat in the next week or so, life often unfolds a little differently than planned, and I adjust my menu plan on a near-daily basis to accommodate leftovers and other not-possible-to-plan-ahead circumstances. I find this is the easiest way to ensure that I minimize our family's food waste. I'm also willing to admit that I'm a rather spontaneous cook, given to preparing foods that strike me as the most appealing thing to eat right here and now!

Breakfasts: granola, English muffins with peanut butter, chocolate zucchini muffins, pancakes with peach slices

Lunches: pizza, leftovers, Toad-in-the-Hole, picnic on the beach (lemon garlic chicken, pasta salad, cherries, sliced carrots and cucumbers)

Dinners:

Monday: Sausage and Swiss Chard Quiche (I tossed some leftover sauteed green beans and tomatoes from Sunday's dinner in there too - chard, beans and tomatoes all free from my produce cooperative)

Tuesday: Peach & Salsa Baked Beans

Wednesday: Bacon, Egg and Potato Hash

Thursday: Spaghetti with creamy vegetable-tomato sauce

Friday: Fish & chips (we ate out for the first time in over a year on the way home from the beach - the kids were thrilled!)

Saturday: Black Bean Chili

Sunday: Barbecued pork chops, creamy cucumber salad, corn on the cob, chocolate zucchini cake

For more great meal ideas, check out Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com.

Yard Sale Report for August 13, 2011

All of you regular readers of my yard sale reports will probably remember that I struck out last week. Fear not, this week I got my yard sale karma back and came home far from empty handed!

My first find of the morning was these old-fashioned prints of ads for Mennen's "toilet powder" and Pears soap. They are printed onto metal rather than paper and will be perfect in my bathroom (I've been looking for decorative items for my bathroom wall for the last 5 years since we redid it - I never dreamed it was going to take me this long to find something suitable!) I paid $3 for the large one and $2 for the small one.

The two pairs of pants are for my hubby, who seems to have a special knack for getting stains on light-coloured clothing! I hope they're going to fit him - I decided to take a chance since they were $2 each and are good quality pants (one pair is Tilley brand). He hasn't been around since I got back to try them on, so I have my fingers crossed :)

Later on in my travels, I found a few more treasures. The set of stainless steel stacking mugs was $3 and will be perfect to add to our camping equipment stash. I got the ladybug garden ornaments at the same sale ($5 for the set) and the mesh strainer and tea ball got tossed in for free. I didn't notice til I got home that one of the ladybugs is missing an antenna. I'm wondering if it got broken off in my bike pannier on the way home, as normally I'm pretty good about noticing those sorts of things - I'll go rummage around in the bottom of the bag and see if I can find it later on. My last find for the day was a CD of relaxing classical music for $2 (good to throw in the CD player on days when my nerves are a bit shot!)

Grand total for the day: $21 for 11 items, or $1.91 an item 

(counting the mug set as one item)

Did you find any great bargains this weekend?

RECIPE: Peach & Salsa Baked Beans

Photo by Suat Eman/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My family loves baked beans and I'm sure glad they do! They are such a simple, filling and inexpensive meal. I'm always looking for a new "twist" on the standard to keep things interesting.

I make an apple and bacon baked bean dish in the winter. Now that peaches are in season, I was inspired to do a summery version of that recipe, and Peach & Salsa Baked Beans was born. They were a big hit around here, so I hope your family will love them, too!

Note: This recipe calls for 6 cups of cooked white beans. I cook large quantities of dried beans and then freeze them in 1 1/2 cup portions, as that's roughly the amount in one can of drained beans. Using cooked-from-dried beans is much cheaper than buying canned, but if you don't have any cooked beans on hand, you can use 4 cans of drained white beans instead.

Ingredients:

6 cups cooked white beans (such as navy beans)
8 slices bacon
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
4-6 peaches, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp dry mustard powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
3/4 cup salsa
1/4 cup ketchup

Instructions:
Place the beans in a large casserole or bean pot. Cook the bacon until crisp, reserving drippings. Saute the onion in the bacon drippings until it starts to soften; add peaches and cook about 5 minutes or until very tender.

In a medium bowl, combine Worcestershire sauce, mustard powder, salt, pepper, brown sugar, molasses, salsa and ketchup. Crumble bacon and add to mixture, then stir in peaches and onions. Pour over beans, stirring gently until well combined. Add 1-2 cups of water, to just barely cover beans (amount of water will depend on size and shape of baking dish you're using). Stir again to blend water into sauce.

Bake at 375F for 1 1/2-2 hrs or until sauce has thickened and a crust has formed on top of beans.

Makes 6-8 servings.

I shard this recipe at Recipe Swap Thursday, Full Plate Thursday,  Frugal Food Thursday, Fat Camp Friday and Friday Favorites.

Weekly Menu Retrospective #43

Welcome to my weekly roundup of the past week's eats. I prefer to report what we ate in the last week, rather than what we're planning to eat in the coming week. Why? The reason is pretty simple: although I usually have a general idea of what we're going to eat in the next week or so, life often unfolds a little differently than planned, and I adjust my menu plan on a near-daily basis to accommodate leftovers and other not-possible-to-plan-ahead circumstances. I find this is the easiest way to ensure that I minimize our family's food waste. I'm also willing to admit that I'm a rather spontaneous cook, given to preparing foods that strike me as the most appealing thing to eat right here and now!

Breakfasts: pancakes, pumpkin and cherry muffins, toasted bagels, granola, chocolate chip banana muffins

Lunches: leftovers, sandwiches, pizza

Dinners:

Monday: Spaghetti with vegetables and creamy tomato sauce

Tuesday: Pork fried rice

Wednesday: Thai-Style Peanutty Pasta

Thursday: Hamburgers, corn on the cob, lemon blueberry polenta cake

Friday: Black bean chili

Saturday: Leftover Buffet

Sunday: Lemon and Garlic Chicken, potato salad, green beans sauteed with cherry tomatoes

Snacks & Sides: popcorn, cherries, cantaloupe, grapes, peaches, bananas

For more great meal ideas, check out Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com.

Yard Sale Report for August 6th, 2011

Today's yard sale experience can be summed up in one word:

STRIKEOUT!

I had only two yard sales on my list when I headed out this morning, and managed to find two more along the way. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything worth purchasing at any of them, so I came home empty handed - I think that may be the first time that's happened this season.

Hopefully, I'll have better luck next week!

Did you find anything great this weekend? Please tell me all about it!

Green Beans and Tomatoes and Zucchini, Oh My!

It's been a challenging year weather-wise for gardening: first we had an exceptionally cold, wet spring, then Mother Nature did an abrupt about-face and it's been extremely hot and dry since June. I don't think my poor veggie plants knew quite what to do with themselves!

Despite these weather-related challenges, the garden eventually rallied back and we've had a reasonably decent harvest in the past few weeks.

The green beans (as always) were dependable and I had beans, beans, and more beans for a couple of weeks there:

Now the green beans are starting to peter out (I just did a second planting of them late last week, so hopefully I'll get another good harvest in a few weeks' time) and the tomatoes and zucchini are starting to kick into high gear:

Our cherry tomatoes and yellow pear tomatoes (hubby's favourite) are doing well. Unfortunately, the romas are not; many of the tomatoes have blossom rot and I'm wondering if we're going to have any edible harvest at all from those plants. The baby tiger zucchini is a variety I'm growing for the first time this year - aren't they pretty? So far the zucchini plant seems to be holding up pretty well against the heat, and it's setting a bunch more itty bitty zucchinis, so hopefully I'll get a good yield from that plant by the end of the season.

The pepper plants seem to have recovered nicely, too. They were looking totally pathetic earlier in the season, but since the heat kicked in they appear to be enjoying life a lot more. The hot pepper plants have started producing, and my Gypsy sweet peppers are cranking it into high gear. There are a lot of peppers on the plants, I just have to wait for them to turn red now (it's definitely worth the wait - they are the sweetest red peppers I've ever tasted!)

What's growing in your garden right now?

July Food Stamp Challenge: It's a Wrap!

Photo by Grant Cochrane/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As today is the first day of August, that means the July Food Stamp Challenge is officially over. In my last post, I mentioned that we'd spent $393.83 as of July 25th.

Since then, we've spent another $6.28 on milk and eggs, bringing our grand total for the month to $400.11, just a hair under the $404 goal for the month.

All things considered, I'm impressed we pulled it off. And I still have a freezer loaded with cherries, pork tenderloin, turkey and a few other goodies that were purchased but not consumed in July.

I'm also fully aware that if I really needed to, I *could* have spent more than I did, as there was money available to do so. There have been times in my life when I absolutely HAD to make the money go as far as it could, as there wasn't any more when it ran out. Knowing you have a bit of a financial cushion makes the "challenge" of a small grocery budget a whole lot less stressful. I'm fully aware that there are many families out there who have to live within the constraints of a minuscule food budget each and every month, whether they like it or not...and I appreciate each and every dollar I have to spend on food, along with all the food skills I have that allow me to stretch those dollars pretty far while still feeding my family well.