Oh My, Oh My, Oh MENDING!!

Clothing repair and renovation is one of the tasks about which I procrastinate the most. While I find it satisfying to save items that would otherwise be tossed out, I find the mending process quite time consuming (I'm not exactly the most skilled seamstress out there, which probably doesn't help in the speed department).

So, let's just say I've been ignoring my mending basket for (ahem) quite a while now. I knew there were a lot of items in there that would be needed for the spring and summer season, so yesterday I finally dared to assess the situation:

Yikes! I didn't have a mending "pile", I had a mending *mountain*! After taking a few deep breaths, I decided I better dig through and prioritize the items that would be most needed for the upcoming season.

Things still look kind of imposing post-prioritization, but I think I can actually get through this pile in the next month or so, and we'll be good to go until the fall.

What's there:
-Five (yes, five!) pairs of my pants that have gotten a bit "floodish" but otherwise still fit okay; I'm planning to turn them all into capri-length pants.

-Three of my boys' swimsuits, which all need seams repaired. One of them also needs some new elastic cording put through the waist. These should be pretty quick to do.

-A pair of my younger son's pants that needs the butt repaired.

-Two pairs of my husband's pants that are frayed and/or torn near the cuffs. These are both slated to become shorts.

-A couple of T-shirts and pairs of shorts that need minor seam or hole repair.

In addition, several of the black items are on the faded side. I'm planning to try dyeing them with some RIT dye, (plus a couple of other items I have hanging around that aren't pictured). This will be my first time using dye, so I'll let you know how it goes!

I also need to do some repairs to our spring and summer quilt (at the left in the first photo). We received this as a wedding gift nearly 15 years ago and some of the quilted pieces have started to come loose. I shudder to think how long this might take me, however I really want this quilt to last as long as possible so I've got sufficient motivation to get it done.

Anyone else out there with a mending mountain? I'd like to think I'm not the only one!

Yard Sale Report: April 17th, 2010

It was one of those mornings that tested my yard sale devotion: freezing cold and looking like it could rain any time. Wouldn't I rather snuggle up in my nice warm bed for a couple more hours, then sit around in my jammies drinking coffee?

Fortunately, it takes a LOT to deter me from the prospect of finding some good bargains, so up I got! I knew that today's scheduled events included a moving sale and a church rummage sale, both likely to contain bargains galore. So out the door I went, sufficiently bundled up to withstand the brisk temperature as I made the rounds on my bike.

I was very well rewarded for my efforts. I'm a fairly discerning shopper, even at yard sales, but there are three things I can seldom resist: books (especially cookbooks), baskets, and clear glass/Pyrex. I found all three today!

Here are all the non-clothing items I hunted down. At my first stop (the moving sale), I got both of the baskets, plus that super-cool Pyrex platter (I have never seen one with a design like that before!), a set of glass candlesticks and a vintage Laura Second Canadian Cookbook (circa 1977). I love a good vintage cookbook, especially a Canadian one. They are usually good for a few laughs over the more bizarre dishes or recipe titles (Huskies-in-a-Drift or Baked Seal Meat, anyone?) I do find they are also an excellent source for classic recipes using basic ingredients, just the thing for any frugal cook! This one has a recipe for Rhubarb Relish which I'm hoping to try if my fledgling rhubarb patch yields enough this year. I paid a total of $2 for all of those items.

Next stop, an unadvertised yard sale across the road from the moving sale. I picked up that cute little pink stripey wallet (which coordinate perfectly with my summer tote!) and an umbrella for a total of a buck. Umbrellas seem to bite the dust pretty quickly at our house, so when I see one in good condition I grab it!

I was busy getting my bounty tucked safely into my bike panniers (I had to bungee cord the basket on top of my bike rack) when it started SNOWING!! That nice wet barely-snow. It may be the first time I've been snowed on while yard saling. For a split second I considered heading home rather than riding out the extra couple of kilometers to the rummage sale. But I just can't say no to a rummage sale :)

I scored the rest of the items pictured above at the rummage sale: small glass pyrex baking dish, another vintage cookbook (Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cookbook, circa 1965, first edition!), two hockey books for my younger son (already tucked away in the gift cupboard for holiday gift giving) and another book which is also going to be a gift (I have a particular recipient in mind, who sometimes reads this blog, so I'm not being any more specific than that!) I got all of the books for a total of $1.00. The small glass dish plus all the clothes in the next photo were another $6.50.

I could have taken a much more artful photo of the clothing but I was worn out from my morning of bargain hunting, so I just slapped everything down quick. I got a pair of black yoga pants, a white collared long sleeve shirt, light green camisole top, white T-shirt and a tank top (under the T). I also got my hubby a light blue Denver Hayes T-shirt which looks like it's never been worn; it's not in the photo because I'd already handed it off to him! To be honest, I wasn't sure if any of the clothes were going to fit right, but at rummage sale prices (much lower than thrift store prices) I'm willing to play "clothing roulette". Anything that didn't fit would go in our own yard sale pile (we're holding one in about a month). I got lucky this morning and everything fit me perfectly except the tank, which is a tiny bit bigger than I'd prefer it to be, but will probably still be fine for cycling in.

Grand total for the morning? $10.50 for 18 items, or just over 58 cents per item. Yes, it *was* worth going out in the cold for all that!

Reflections on 5 Years of Microwave-Free Living

Image by Michelle Meiklejohn/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Our microwave oven kicked the bucket five years ago this month. At first, we were frustrated - the darn thing hadn't lasted nearly as many years as its predecessor, and a new microwave didn't fit into our budget! What on earth were we to do? While it's true we probably could have gotten one off of Freecycle, or possibly at a thrift store, after we'd calmed down a bit, we took the critical step of thinking "do we actually need to replace this item?" Heck, we'd lived without a car for three years (while we had two little kids, no less!) Surely we could live without a microwave?

We thought about what we actually used our microwave for, and the answer was basically 4 things:

1. Reheating half a mug of cold tea or coffee
2. Reheating leftovers
3. Thawing frozen foods
4. Melting chocolate

Not a whole lot, when it came right down to it. Surely we could figure out how to accomplish all of these jobs without a microwave? After all, we'd both been half grown before our family households even owned microwaves! And it sure would free up some extra space in the kitchen if we didn't have a microwave hanging around.

As it turns out, we figured out how to accomplish all of the above quite easily and have never looked back. We do get some house guests who are rather incredulous that we don't own a microwave (they seem to think we're leading them on, and we must have one hidden somewhere) but we don't mind at all!

In case you're wondering, here's how we do all of the aforementioned tasks in our microwave-free home:

Reheating hot beverages: We've learned to drink the whole darn mug while it's still hot! It's actually forced us to slow down and be more mindful of our cup of tea or coffee. At first I occasionally had to resort to reheating half a cup of cold coffee in a small saucepan on the stove, but I can't remember the last time I had to do that! I've learned to take the time to enjoy it freshly-poured.

Reheating leftovers: We purchased a thrift-store toaster oven for seven bucks. It's still going strong five years later, and has already outlasted that final (bought new) microwave of ours. I found some small baking dishes at the dollar store, which fit perfectly in the toaster oven two at a time. They are just the right size for heating up a single serving of leftovers. It takes 10-15 minutes to reheat food, rather than 2-3, but the quality is much better - the taste and texture are just like freshly cooked, and the food stays hot MUCH longer.

Thawing frozen foods: When possible, I take out the food I'm going to need for the next day the night before, and let it thaw overnight in the fridge. When I forget to do that, I thaw it in a stainless steel bowl filled with lukewarm water for 15-20 minutes (I only do the warm water thaw when I'm going to cook the food immediately afterwards).

Melting chocolate: I use an improvised double boiler; a stainless steel bowl placed over top of a saucepan of boiling water.

I know there are at least a few people thinking "but how do you make popcorn?" because I get that comment a lot! We've used a hot-air popper to make popcorn since long before our microwave died. You can also do it the good old-fashioned way in a pot on the stove.

Is there a common modern "gadget" that you've learned to live without? I'd love to hear about it, so please leave a comment!

A Satisfying Start to Yard Sale Season

Saturday was one of my most looked-forward-to days of the year: the official start of yard sale shopping season!! My neighbour two doors down had a big yard sale (he's moving) and while I didn't find anything there, my dh (who went before me) found a new handsaw and a baseball glove for my younger son. He paid a total of five dollars. Both of these items were on our list of things we were hoping to find; the baseball glove was particularly pleasing since my son's a lefty and that makes it harder to find him a glove.

My next stop was the rummage sale at a local church. I've been to rummage sales at this church in the past and always come away with some great finds, so I was jazzed up as I rode my bike over to check it out. Here's everything I ended up finding there (except the ball glove, from the aforementioned yard sale):

I got a 500 piece Lord of the Rings puzzle and a Harry Potter trivia game, which both look to be in virtually brand-new condition save for the lack of shrink wrapping. Both of these are going in my gift cupboard for now (they will probably be Christmas gifts for my boys). I also found 3 Bone books which I'm also tucking into the gift cupboard for my boys - they recently discovered this book series and are enjoying it. In addition, I picked up a Simpsons book which may end up being a gift for my dh (a huge Simpsons fan) and a book of "horror filled activities" which I gave to my boys. I usually try to pick up a small surprise I can give them right away when I've been making the yard sale rounds; they know I always find cool stuff and are always excited to hear about what I found that week!

Rounding out the haul were a couple items for myself: 250 Best Cakes and Pies cookbook, heart shaped silicone mold for ice cubes or candy-making, and a set of 3 matching wooden picture frames. The frames are really solid wood and have neat diamond shaped detailing around the edges. They are going to be part of our photo-archive project that we're planning for our front hallway. Total cost for everything from the rummage sale? Three dollars!

All in all, a great way to kick off the season!

Easter Treat Photos

Just a quick post today to share photos of the yummy Easter treats we enjoyed yesterday!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Eggs:


Homemade Hot Cross Buns:


Cream Cheese Brownies:


Pavlova with Lemon Curd, Strawberries and Whipped Cream:

Links to most of the recipes are in my previous post. I decided at the last minute to make these Peanut Butter Easter Eggs instead of the cream cheese mints - and I'm VERY glad I did because they turned out to be fabulous! I also ended up devising my own cream cheese brownie recipe after I read the reviews of the Black & White Squares on Martha Stewart's site (lots of people were commenting that they didn't turn out properly). This recipe is pretty close to what I did and they were easy and delicious.

Needless to say, after all that I took a day off from cooking today. Leftovers are a wonderful thing!

My Easter Game Plan

I've been procrastinating like crazy about finalizing my plans for Easter basket goodies and meal menus. There are so many delicious looking ideas out there and I've changed my mind several times already. Now that there are only five days left until the big day it's time for me to decide what is making the final cut and get busy putting it all together!

Here's how it's shaping up:

Homemade Easter treats for baskets:
-chocolate dipped marshmallows on a stick coated in Easter "quinns" (those cute little bitty sugar thingies shaped like bunnies and chicks)
-cream cheese mints in spring colours, cut into "flower" shapes

These will be supplemented with store-bought chocolate eggs (for hunting) and probably a couple other treats like jellybeans to put inside hollow plastic eggs for the baskets
-I'm also going to make up some "coupons" for the boys for things like ice cream cones at McDonald's, playing a game of cards together, a game of catch at the park and other inexpensive and free "treats" that I know they really like - I'll tuck those into plastic eggs as well.

Easter breakfast:
Mimosas
Homemade hot cross buns
(plus lots of chocolate, lol!)

Lunch:
light nibbles - fruit, cheese, etc
Strawberry Lemonade (I use regular lemonade concentrate for mine)

Dinner:
Roast turkey with stuffing
Turkey gravy
Baked ham
Roasted potatoes
Roasted asparagus (if I can find some that's grown in North America!), otherwise I'll do green beans instead
Carrots in honey butter
Whole wheat rolls (made from Whole Wheat Refrigerator Dough)

White wine

Black and White Cheesecake Squares
Pavlova with Lemon Curd and Strawberries

Whew! Now that I've got that all sorted out I need to make a prep schedule so I don't go nuts doing everything at the last minute (not that I would ever do that ::ahem::). I ended up picking desserts that I can do most or all of the prep for a day or two ahead. Most everything else I'm making is a tried and true recipe so I expect things to go fairly smoothly!

I will post picks of the finished products after the event.

If you want more Easter dinner inspiration, check out what Christy at Southernplate.com is making - I think she's going to be spending even more time in the kitchen than I am!

Happy Easter, everyone!!

Sunday Dinner: Pork Roast

This week, Sunday dinner seemed determined to be the Dinner of Disaster. I am one of those cooks who usually sails smoothly through meal preparation without too much drama, so when I hit a few bumps I tend to get a wee bit irritated.

Right off the mark, there was a problem with the Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies (it's a great recipe from a Fry's Cocoa booklet, I just spent 20 minutes trying to find it on the internet and came up dry!) This is one of our "go to" dessert recipes - easy, fast, tried and true. My hubby and I were working on the batter together, and he was finishing it off and putting it in the oven while I moved on to other things. He asked me what size pan it needed, and I told him 9 x 13 and recommended using the glass pan instead of the metal one. Half an hour later, I pulled the brownies out of the oven when the timer went off and discovered they were in the lasagna dish, which is nowhere close to 9 x13. Yikes!! I put them back in for another 5 minutes as they seemed a lot squishier than brownies should be, and hoped for the best.

Onward...

While the brownies were baking, I had gotten the pork roast (purchased for 99 cents a pound!) ready for the oven, so out came the brownies and in went the roast. Timer set for 45 minutes. I busied myself washing dishes and chopping carrots, and got the carrots started cooking when the roast was about half way done. With 15 minutes to go, I peeked in the oven and discovered that the roast looked, well, not done. At ALL. In fact it looked just like it did when I put it in there. Then I noticed the oven didn't seem that hot. OH CRAP!! The oven was OFF. The pork had been sitting in there for half an hour doing nothing! About then I happened to notice that I hadn't started the rice that was supposed to be on the side either, so I guess it's a good thing the roast wasn't cooked after all.

I got the oven heated up and the roast cooking and the rice and carrots simmering, took a deep breath, poured a glass of wine and got to work on the orange glaze for the roast - thankfully this at least went off without a hitch!

In the end, it all worked out. Everything was properly cooked, hot and ready to go at the same time. But by the time I got it all plated out, I didn't have the wherewithall to snap a pic!

Final menu:

Pork roast with orange glaze
Carrots and green beans
Rice

White wine

Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies

(Oh, and as it turns out, we actually like the brownies better in the smaller pan - they're thicker and more satisfying. Sometimes what looks like a disaster ends up being a gift!)