Monthly Archives: July 2009

Kefir soda

food preservation, frugal strategies, lacto fermentation, nutrition, recipes

>>What do you guys drink? Just water, or do you make other drinks? What drinks do you make, and how? <<

This was a very timely question, since I was planning to post about our newest adventure in culturing. 🙂 

Generally, we drink only water.  That doesn’t include milk or kefir for breakfast, and we have herbal teas in the winter, but basically that’s it.  I very rarely buy juice – maybe twice a year at the most.  I never buy soda – never.  This past winter, I got some juice concentrate, thinking it would be the most efficient way to mix the vitamin C powder the kids take when they’re starting to feel under the weather; rather than buying and wasting a large prepared container of juice, I could just take out a spoonful at a time.  But BH, it was a healthy winter and we didn’t need to take vitamin C often so the concentrate has stayed in the freezer and I was wondering what to do with it, except use it to make juice sweetened jam.

It occurred to me that I could transform a very low quality food (the juice concentrate) into something of nutritional value if I cultured it.  Before Pesach, a friend offered me water kefir grains but it wasn’t until a few days ago that I got them.  Water grains are used for culturing juices or a water/sweetener/fruit mix.  I mixed up the grains with a can of concentrate and a quart or so of water, and let it sit on the counter for a day.  As it cultures, the sugar is ‘eaten’ by the kefir bacteria. Then we strained out the grains and drank it – couldn’t be easier!

This is a new project so I can’t give you lots of different recipes I’ve tried.  So far I’ve made it three times with orange juice concentrate, and the kids really like the results.  It becomes fizzy and less sweet as it cultures and turns into kefir soda (though you don’t want to leave it too long because it can become alcoholic).  How long you culture it will depend on the temperature in your home –  our house is pretty warm in the summer since we don’t use air conditioning so it cultures very quickly.  

 When I run out of concentrate, I’ll use the following recipe: 

  • 1-2 tablespoons water kefir grains
  • Filtered water (I didn’t use filtered water but it doesn’t seem like I killed my kefir grains; I’ll try to remember to next time)
  • 1/4 cup sucanat or sugar
  • 1 teaspoon molasses (only if you’re using white sugar)
  • Piece of an egg shell, rinsed (half of the egg shell will do)
  • 1/4 c. fresh or frozen fruit, whatever flavor or combination you like – there are lots of possibilities

    • There are a couple of ways to do this:  1) Some people like to mix all of the ingredients at once and do a one time ferment.  This means putting everything together in a glass jar and leaving it on your counter until it tastes ready to you.

    2) Others prefer to do two separate ferments.  That means first culturing all the ingredients except the fruit, straining out the grains and then using the fermented water together with the fruit for a second ferment.  Supposedly this keeps the kefir grains pure. 

    After the kefir soda is ready, I put it into a glass jar in the fridge.  If you want to be fancy you can get glass bottles that you can fill individually.  This is a good juice or soda substitute because it’s filled with good probiotics, so not only does it taste great but it’s good for you!  And it’s very inexpensive, too!

    Avivah 

    A movie, park, and nature center

    homeschooling,

    We’ve had a busy day today! Until now we’ve been so busy with work on the patio that we haven’t really done any trips or outings for Camp Wernerific. But today we did. We started off by going to the free movies – every summer theaters around the nation offer free showings a couple of days a week of two movies, one rated G and one rated PG.  The showings are in the mornings and filled with young children – none of the typical movie going atmosphere.  I’m not into movie watching – except for this, our kids have never gone to the theaters and I don’t plan to change that.  We don’t even watch videos at home very often – it’s hard for me to find videos that fit my criteria for our monthly video night, which is why it turns into having a family video night every two months or so instead.  Anyway, today we  saw Horton Hears a Who. We got there about ten minutes after it started, so we had to find seats in the dark, but everyone managed. It’s rated G but I didn’t really care for it; it’s like a lot of cartoony movies, overdone and kind of pointless.  I didn’t end up seeing the last 40 minutes of it, though, because ds22 months didn’t want to stay in, so I took him from ds16 and went out with him and the baby. We went into the empty theater right next door, which was very relaxing. I fed the baby while ds explored.  Then he wanted to go out, so we went into a couple of other empty theaters until everyone came out of the movie they were watching.  We’ll probably go to one other movie this summer – there’s one on the schedule that I’m particularly interested in because I think would be valuable – but we’ve never attended more than two in a summer.

    Then we went to the a lovely park which is just a few minutes away from the theater. It’s perfect because there’s a very nice playground for the younger kids and also a large field where ds16 and ds10 could bat to each other. The weather was perfect for an outdoor day – sunny with a pleasant breeze, in the 80s. We had a snack-like picnic lunch there (apples, carrots, Wasa crackers, and granola bars) and after a couple of hours decided it was time to go.  

    Since we were so close by, I wanted to go look at the heritage breed chickens I remembered seeing three years ago at the nearby nature center in the outdoor coop.  (I’ve been reading up on chickens in the last couple of days.)  We drove to the center (just two minutes away), and as we started walking up the path to the center, we saw a deer just off to the side. It continued eating as we watched it, and it was interesting to be able to observe it so clearly.  Then we looked for the chickens, but at first only saw two turkeys. It seems that a fox got into the coop at some point and had a nice chicken lunch, so there are now only two chickens there.  The kids learned how to identify males and females while we were there. 

    After we looked at the turkeys and chickens, we noticed someone watering a garden nearby, so I went over to ask her about it. It’s a new exhibit called A Walk Through History that isn’t quite finished, with several different gardens each planted with native plants representing a different time period in this state. She gave us a tour and told us about the plants, a lot of which were medicinal.  I wasn’t familiar with a lot of them but was pleasantly surprised that I recognized some of them, as well as knowing how to use them. I have to learn more about native plants for my garden and she made a good suggestion for a website to explore.  So much to learn, so little time….. 🙂 

    While I was speaking to her, some of the kids were picking berries off the path we had walked down on (they were wineberries, which they learned to identify during last summer’s Junior Rangers program), and then they found a teeny tiny frog in the pond right next to the garden. It was so small that it was about half the size of the tip of your pinky. She also pointed out a 3 Sisters garden (corn, beans, squash), but I didn’t feel like going over to observe it since they got it started late and I’m already familiar with the concept.  

    Then ds4 needed the bathroom so ds16 took him into the nature center, and I figured once the two of them were there we might as well all join them.   On our way up the path, we found two dead shrews – I’ve never seen a shrew before. It’s about the size of a mouse but has a shorter tail and a longish snout. Very interesting.  The kids are in the middle of reading the Redwall series which is about mice and other small woodland creatures, and based on that immediately were able to identify the shrew.

    While we were in the nature center, the kids observed all the animals there, live and stuffed.  The volunteers are very good about telling you about the animals you see without waiting to be asked.  From one we learned about terrapins and another was holding a snake and told us about it (though none of the kids took her up on her offer to stroke it).  Ds3 is the perfect age to introduce all of this to, since he understands so much but is wide eyed and excited about all of it.  Ds22 months is happy just to be able to run around.  I haven’t been to this nature center for several years, and want to plan a trip for local homeschoolers there this fall.  I organized a couple of group trips there three years ago that were fantastic.  What I especially appreciate about trips like this is how seamlessly learning is integrated into a fun family outing.  No one thinks about doing ‘school’, but they’re all learning naturally and easily.  And that’s when learning is most effective, because it’s the most fun! 

    It was a really nice relaxed day, and everyone was so tired that they fell asleep in the car on the drive home.  I got my nap when I got home.  Tomorrow I hope I’ll be able to order several tons of sand and then we can go on to the next step in the patio – but I will have to spend some time in the morning calling around to places to find out who can deliver. We’ve hauled 14,000 pounds of bricks and 10,000 pounds of gravel ourselves in the last week and a half, and I’m quite happy to have a truck bring us the sand.  🙂

    Avivah

    Is it more important to be frugal or healthy?

    frugal strategies,

    >>Also, I notice that a lot of the food you eat is healthy, but not necessarily the most frugal. Like, mac and cheese would probably be cheaper to make than stuff with nuts, etc. And that soy bean oil is cheaper than coconut oil. But, for the healthy food you buy, you make sure to buy it in the cheapest way possible. So my question is this:
    Are you frugal because a healthy lifestyle is important to you, and this is how you make it affordable? Or would you be just as frugal if healthy food wasnt as important to you? If you had to make a choice between frugality and health, health would come first, correct?<<

    This is a hard question to answer directly, maybe because I don’t understand it very well.

    I often hear people complain that it’s so expensive to eat a healthy diet.  While healthy food can be more expensive, I don’t think that a limited food budget should equate with low quality food.   Right now I’m spending about $600 on food monthly for a family of 11, but that’s a pretty generous amount and it allows me to buy more than a month’s worth of food.  Since my monthly food budget is lower than most people, even those who don’t keep kosher or eat healthily, it would seem even if I wasn’t particularly concerned about health I’d have to be frugal to eat well on this amount.

    My food budget is what it is because that’s what I have.  I can spend it any way I want and on whatever foods I want, but in the end, that’s the limitation.  I choose to buy foods that nourish us because I think health is important.  But staying within my financial constraints is primary to me – I believe in living well with whatever you have, so having limitations doesn’t denote deprivation to me.

    I’m frugal for two reasons – 1) my financial resources aren’t unlimited; 2) I believe our resources are sent to us by H-shem (G-d) and it’s our responsibility to use them well.  There’s no joy for me in spending more than I need to just because I have it.  My dh once asked me if we were millionaires if I’d shop the same way, and I told him there’s very little I would change.

    By being careful I have fewer choices to make between health and frugality in regards to the foods I buy.  But if I didn’t have as much money to spend as I do – if the choice was between going hungry and having healthy foods – rather than let my family starve I’d feed them cheaper and less healthy foods.  (But as I said above, I don’t think this is usually the choice.)  I already make this choice to a degree – my strong  preference is to eat only grass fed meats, pastured eggs, and raw milk from grass fed cows.  Also, I’d like to only use organic produce from local farmers.  If I had the money, I’d gladly spend more for all of these choices, but I won’t financially overextend myself for them.  I do the best I can and I’m okay with that.

    Avivah

    Stop competing and comparing

    homemaking

     >>thanks! your answer really makes me feel more adequate :)<<

    >>i am moving- gradually- from being totally intimidated by you into being inspired to do what i can and realize that i can’t do everything overnight.<<

     I wanted to respond to both of these comments, because they touch on an important issue.  I think we all sometimes fall into the trap of competing and comparing ourselves to others to our own disadvantage.  I would hate to give anyone a reason here to feel inadequate.  A danger of the internet is that when you don’t get to see someone in person it becomes too easy to idealize him/her, imagining them to be successful in every area of their lives all of the time.  But as a friend once said about a very great man who her husband was close with – “he puts his pants on one leg at a time”.  That’s wasn’t said as a put down but a reality – everyone is flesh and blood, no matter what they’ve accomplished. 

    My dh was chatting with our accountant in the pool a few days ago, who said something like ‘your wife must be superwoman’; my dh really didn’t like that.  Though it was meant as a compliment, he didn’t feel it was at all.  He said to me that when a person makes a statement like that about someone else, it shows that they really don’t know them, and if you don’t know someone, how can you truly value them? He’s right.  I don’t think there is such a thing as superwoman, do you?  Maybe she’s just an illusion we all use to beat ourselves up with.  

    My truth is that I’m an average person doing the best I can, sometimes succeeding but lots of time feeling like there’s so much more I could and should be doing in every area of my life.   I love sharing with all of you on this blog, and I love that I can be honest and don’t have to worry about upholding an image of always having it together.   

    At times when I think about what I should be doing and pressuring myself, I have to mentally step back and remind myself to stop ‘shoulding’ on myself.  We moms tend to push ourselves way too hard and give ourselves too little credit for what we do.  It’s as if by virtue of doing something it’s no longer an accomplishment.  Telling myself that I need to do more and that whatever I’m doing right now isn’t enough isn’t exactly a positive motivator.  It’s that kind of attitude that gets me stuck in negativity. 

    I find it lots more helpful to recognize this voice as the negative influence it is,  and consciously release it.  It’s always this voice that causes me to procrastinate, and it’s always when I let go of those excessive and burdensome expectations of negative judgements that I free up energy to enjoy living life and paradoxically can accomplish much more.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that being enough is enough – it is, you know.  I’ve embraced the concept of being average as a positive.  It’s very freeing when we can let go of all of those expectations of ourselves. 

    Today I spoke to two women in different stages in life, both of whom had the internal voices shoulding on them.  One was struggling with not wanting to start dating for marital purposes, feeling unready but because she was a certain age she should get herself moving.  The other felt it would be a disservice to her family to have more children because she was overwhelmed, but felt that because her youngest had reached a certain age, she should be ready to have another baby.  Sometimes we say it’s the people around us who are pressuring us, but I’ve realized that it’s usually because those same voices are playing in my head that I think others are placing expectations on me.  Why do we pressure ourselves so much?  Why don’t we trust our internal messages and listen to our inner voice?  Why can’t we love and accept ourselves as we are right now?  That’s the voice of balance and reason, the one that leads us to a happy life. 

    If you read something here that inspires you, I’m thrilled.  But please, please don’t use anything that I write to beat yourself up with.  There are stages of life when we do more and stages we do less.  Don’t compare who you think someone is or what they do to who you are.  Remember, we’re all just doing the best we can, one day at a time.

    Avivah

    Canning and kashrus questions

    canning, food preservation

    I’ve gotten this question several times; since I posted the answer in a comment a while back, I think most people haven’t seen it. So I’ll put it up as  a post to make it easier for everyone.

    >>so, i have a few preliminary questions for you, when you have time to answer. first, how do you deal with kashrus with used mason jars? i will ask our rav, but i am wondering how you hold on kashering, etc. <<

    We kasher used jars – you need to make sure they’re spotlessly clean and then completely submerge them in boiling water.  It doesn’t matter what they were used for before.  This was what we were told by Rav Moshe Heinemann, who is head of the Star-K kashrus agency.

    >>second, do you know if a pressure canner can be used for both meat and dairy? again, i will ask our rav, but am wondering what you do.<<

    I don’t use it for both, only for meat, because the jars don’t seal until after they’re out of the canner.  Until then, juices leak out and make the pot very definitely meat.  There’s very little that most people would can which is dairy, so only using a canner for meat doesn’t present much of an obstacle.  The only dairy thing I’ve canned is butter, and that doesn’t need a pressure cooker, just a standard large pot for water bathing. 

    >>third, have you found a use for the screw on lids for the mason jars? when i buy new round things that seal the jars, they always come with the screw on parts too, so i am getting an increasingly large pile of gold bracelet things. do you do anything creative with them?<<

    Oh, good, now I can help you save some money. thumb.gif  Stop buying the packages of lids that come with rings!  You only need to do that in the very beginning, since the rings are resusable.  More of them just creates clutter, and who needs that?  What you need to look for instead are the boxes that have only lids – they contain 12 lids each and average in price at about $1.50 – $2; they look like this (this is an affordable online source – I bought a case from them last year).  Since it sounds like you’re aquiring a large collection of bands, put most of them away in storage, and bring them out when the ones you’re currently using start to get rusty and need to be replaced.

    Avivah

    Pumpkin Pudding

    recipes

    Here’s a yummy breakfast food – it seems like it should be a dessert but it’s so good for you that we serve it for a regular meal!

    Pumpkin Pudding

    • 1 – 2 c. pumpkin puree (can use any kind of winter squash)
    • 2 T. coconut oil
    • 1/2 t. cinnamon
    • 1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice (I use a splash of ginger and nutmeg)
    • 2 eggs
    • 1 T. honey/agave nectar

    Blend everything together, and put into a greased baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Simple and yummy!

    Avivah

    How to dry clothes on clothesline

    frugal strategies, homemaking, , ,

    I don’t know why, but every time I feel inspired to write about hanging laundry outside there’s something to keep me from doing it.  At the beginning of the summer it was thunderstorms every night.  We haven’t had any rain for a couple of weeks, but now I have a huge mound of dirt covering my yard right under my clothesline from the excavation of our new patio area, so for the last few days (and presumably more than just another few to come), I’ll be using my dryer.

    But times like these are actually exceptions for us once the weather is warm.  I used to hang laundry outside year round when living overseas – I didn’t have a dryer until right before my fifth child was born.  In the winter I was very aware of the weather – when the sun shone, my priority was getting my laundry out right away to take advantage of it.  When it was rainy for a few days, I’d hang the clothes inside.  

    Then I moved back to the States where our rental home had a dryer but no clothesline.  While I appreciated the convenience of a dryer, I missed hanging the clothes outside and finally asked dh last year to put up a clothesline for me. I’d tried two or three different drying racks over the years but found them flimsy and their holding capacity was so small that when I used them I wasn’t sure if they were a  help or hindrance.  I hung some things on hangers indoors, and while it lessened my dryer usage, it wasn’t very practical for small items. (I found a solution to this several months ago, though – you can clip small items onto hangers with clothespins and it uses the space very efficiently.)

    So here are some tips for how to hang your clothes on the clothesline.  They may be obvious to many of you, but they weren’t all obvious to me and they sure aren’t obvious to my kids! 

    – To start with, elevate your basket of wet laundry so that you’re not unnecessarily bending repeatedly and wasting energy – I put mine on the Little Tikes kiddie picnic table we have in the yard.

    – Make sure you have lots more clothespins than you think you’ll need.  They disappear quickly.

    – Sharply shake your clothes made of a material that holds wrinkles before hanging them so that they dry wrinkle-free – like denim skirts. 

    – Hang clothing so that when it’s dry the mark of the clothespins were isn’t visible: hang shirts upside down or on hangers, skirts at waist, pants at the cuff.  If you’re using a dryer rack, place items so that the dryer line isn’t in the middle of them. 

    – To avoid fading, turn dark clothing inside out.  I learned about the bleaching power of the sun the hard way when I did my first load of laundry in Israel as a seminary student.  I hung my dark cotton tops on the clothing rack, and when I went out to bring them in, I found the sun had bleached the half facing it lighter than the side not facing it.  Also, hang the item so that it’s evenly exposed to the sun, not like what I did. 

    – On the positive flip side, the sun is a wonderful whitener!  I schedule my laundry washing so that we hang the light loads first, when the sun is strongest.   If I get busy or go out for hours, it doesn’t matter if they end up hanging for hours.  Then I hang the darks in the later part of the day, when the sun isn’t shining directly on my clothesline for hours.  If something has a stain, hang it so that it’s facing the sun.

    – If your neighbors will see your hanging laundry, for privacy’s sake hang undergarments on an inner line, and large things like sheets and towels on the external lines.  Try to be sensitive to what they’ll see from their window when you decide where to hang your clothesline – we put ours to that it runs parallel to the fence between us and our immediate neighbor.  Other neighbors don’t have to look at it, and because of the positioning of our neighbor’s windows, it’s not something that ruins their view of the outdoors, either.

    – Here’s a tip I recently learned about but haven’t yet had a chance to try because of the patio preparations.  Before you hang up your clothes, see if you can tell what direction the wind is blowing in.  When you identify that, hang your clothing so that you’re only pinning one side to the line, and the air will blow through the clothes and dry them superfast.  (To clarify, imagine you’re hanging a pillowcase: instead of clamping both parts of the opening together so that it’s hanging closed, put a clothespin on each end but not on both layers –  does that make sense?)

    – Some things will dry kind of crunchy, like towels.  You can run clothes after they are mostly dry through the dryer for 5 – 10 minutes to remove that, if it bothers you.  I don’t care about towels but I do care about scratchy cloth diapers on my little ones’ bottoms, so usually cloth diapers go in the dryer. 

    Why bother with the effort of hanging your clothes?  Well, using free solar energy to dry your clothing instead of paying the power company for the same result is a frugal thing to do!  I suppose you’re getting some exercise, too.  But for me, it’s more than that.  I really enjoy hanging clothes outside.  It may seem that I’m spending time on something that I could do more quickly with the help of an appliance, but while I’m hanging the laundry, I’m enjoying the air, the sun, the sounds of the birds….It’s a time that I can combine doing what I need to do while being able to relax and be more mindful, to think instead of rushing from one thing that needs to be done to the next.  Time to breathe deeply and enjoy the world around us, to slow down without feeling guilty, is something every busy mom can benefit from on a regular basis!

    Avivah

    Visiting day at camp

    miscellaneous

    Late last night my dd12 got back from camp visiting day.  This is the third year my dd14 has been to sleep away camp, and the last two years the entire family went to visit her.  I told her this year that I wasn’t going to go, since it’s a five hour drive and it’s too much for the family with the three littles in tow.  She said she didn’t mind, and I know she meant it.

    But her younger sister and she are very close, so all last week dd12 was working on arrangements to get there to visit her.  It’s not so simple since it’s so far away, and no one we spoke to was going directly there.  Most were spending Shabbos in an area closer to the camp, and most were also not coming directly back for the same reason.  She found out that a friend of hers in NY who has an older sister in dd’s bunk would be going for visiting day, and they were happy to give her a ride from NY with them.  They live two blocks from my sister in law, so she made arrangements with my inlaws to go together with them for Shabbos to her aunt’s house (leaving her Thursday morning).  She spent Shabbos there, and went first thing Sunday  morning to her friend’s house (who was in camp).  Then coming home, we found a family from our city who was coming directly back who brought her.

    Dd14’s friends couldn’t believe that she made all that effort just to come see her sister – they said half in disbelief, “You must really like your sister!”  It’s true, she really does.  Dd14 really appreciated her coming; she called me in the evening yesterday because she was feeling homesick, but said it would have been much worse if dd12 hadn’t come.  I think that’s the nature of visiting day – when you see everyone’s family visiting them but yours isn’t there, it makes you miss them more. 

    My talk with her last night wasn’t very satisfying because she called me from her supervisor’s cell phone, and because campers aren’t supposed to be using cell phones, she was speaking very quickly and quietly so no one would hear her.  But it was nice to hear her voice – I don’t think it mattered if the conversation was meaningful or not because all she wanted was to connect with us. 

    Whenever one of the kids is gone, it feels like something is missing.  It’s nice to have dd12 back with us (even though no one but dh and I have seen her yet – she got back after everyone was asleep).   For once she’s sleeping in – usually she’s the first one up in the morning! 

    Avivah

    Strawberry plants

    gardening

    Well, we’ve gotten probably 15 – 25 strawberries from our 25 strawberry plants this year, and the strawberry season has come to an end!  Looked at from the perspective of just this season, the plants weren’t a very frugal purchase.  However, I planted them with the long term in mind, and hope that these plants will produce for us for years to come!  (And my two littles enjoyed picking them and popping them right into their mouths!)

    Strawberry plants send out long spidery looking tentacles that are called runners.  To expand your strawberry patch for free, it’s easy to replant these and they will grow into new plants.  You take the stem part of the runner, and halfway along the runner cover it with soil (if there’s room in your garden bed you can do this near the mother plant, if not, you can put it in a small potting container).  After about a week, the plant will have established itself and then you cut the runner that attaches it to the mother plant.  Voila – a new plant!

    Since this is the first year I’ve had these plants, I chose to cut off the runners off most of the plants.  The reason for this is then the plant will use it’s energy to make more berries in the year to come, instead of spreading it’s growing energy more thinly along new plants. Next year when they are better established, I’ll plant all the runners to make new plants; this year I only did it with a few. 

    Avivah

    Weekly menu plan

    menu plans

    With the summer here, light and simple meals are once again on the menu!

    Sunday – breakfast – rice and milk, cherries; snack- watermelon chunks; dinner – chicken rolls ups, roasted red potatoes, eggplant curry

    Monday – b- pumpkin pudding, kefir; s – celery and peanut butter; d – succotash, tri color pepper salad

    Tuesday – breakfast tacos (beans, vegetables, cheese); s – green popcorn; d – sauerkraut bean soup (will use some of the curried carrot sauerkraut)

    Wednesday – b – muesli, milk, fruit; s – celery and peanut butter; d – chicken tacos

    Thursday – b – coconut flour pancakes, homemade strawberry preserves ; s – sauerkraut bean soup or cheese and nuts; d – CORN (clean out refrigerator night)

    After seeing how the last couple of weeks I didn’t make a lot of the meals that I planned, I realized I need to adapt how I’m making menus for the summer.  So I’m doing two things this week – cooking extra of each dinner meal so there’s something filling for the next day if anyone wants it at around lunch time, but planning snacks instead of lunches.  Because our summer schedule is more relaxed than during the year, everyone goes to sleep later and wakes up later.  We end up having a late breakfast and by the time lunch rolls around, no one is interested in eating, and it makes more sense to have a snack instead of a meal late in the afternoon.

    Today I’m soaking 4 pounds of walnuts, and will dehydrate them overnight.  I’m also hoping to discover where 5 pounds of cheese disappeared to – my freezer is malfunctioning and forming a thick wall of ice over the foods, so it’s hard to find things that I know are there – when it’s time to take something out, I send the kids down with a hammer to chisel the ice away!

    Last month I spent a big chunk of my monthly budgeted funds towards expensive bulk goods (lots of nuts, nut flours, and dried coconut), so I don’t have much left for this week to spend on fresh fruit.  That’s fortunately not a big deal, since we have all of the canned fruit that I put up last summer to enjoy now – peaches, pears, apples, cherries, and blueberries.  I also have some frozen blueberries and strawberries (yes, in the ice encrusted freezer :)), so there won’t be much opportunity for deprivation in the three days before I restart my monthly budget.   This is one way I see the benefit of shopping and cooking the way I do – even when the money budgeted for food is finished but the month isn’t, I’m never out of food.

    After I go vegetable shopping this week I’d like to make a couple more fermented vegetable recipes.  I haven’t made pickles yet this summer and my kids love those.  If I find some inexpensive tomatoes and peppers then I’ll make tomato pepper relish from Nourishing Traditions – that was also popular last time I made it.  These supplement our dinner meals as written above, even though they aren’t noted.  Fruit and milk or kefir supplement the breakfast meals.

    Avivah