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Christmas Cookies Redux, Part Five

December 30, 2025 //
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Today, on December 30, 2025, I frosted my last batch of pfefferneusse for the year. I baked them yesterday right before a guest arrived for tea and cookies (I served her previously baked and frosted cookies). Today’s cookies are sitting in a heated kitchen and I am hoping that the icing will set because I will be mailing out cookies tomorrow morning on the last day of the year. Perhaps some of them will arrive by “old Christmas” on January 6th.

Before I got to the pfefferneusse, I spent yesterday morning rolling and cutting ginger cookies with the usual kinds of trouble, including dough that stuck to my marble slab and cut cookies that wrinkled when I tried to pick them up with a spatula. I was working in an utterly cold kitchen — about 40 F — to minimize difficulties from warming dough.

As I began rolling out the last fresh batch of the last dough, a miracle happened: the dough did not stick to the slab, I could roll it paper-thin and, for the first time in eight days, the cookie cutters lifted the dough rather than leaving it cut in place. Hallelujah. The perfect amount of flour, the perfect room temperature, the drier weather — whatever it was — allowed me to cut out three trays of fresh cookies and do the re-rolling to finish the ginger dough. Whew.

I enjoyed cutting those last batches of cookies. I was on a roll, using up open bowls of lime green and red sugars, ferrying trays to the oven.

I was working on parchment paper and, when I attempted to remove the last baking sheet one-handed, the sheet of parchment slid off the baking sheet. The cookies fell to the oven floor and began turning to charcoal and the edge of the parchment paper burst into flame. I picked it up, dropped it in the sink and splashed dishwater on the burning paper.

My house had smelled lovely, scented with freshly-baked ginger cookies and sugar. Now it smelled like burnt offerings.

I discovered that I cannot reach the lock on the window over the sink — I should add a one-step step-stool to my kitchen equipment, so I pivoted and opened another window. My smoke alarm, which goes off when I fry bacon, remained silent through the entire episode.

With half an hour to go before company, I reduced the oven temperature to 300 F, rolled the pfefferneusse dough into balls and baked them, after scraping black carbon off the oven floor. I began the kitchen clean-up, thinking I was done, when I spotted a small tray of ginger-re-rolls.

Drat. When the pfefferneusse came out in twenty minutes, I cranked the oven back up to 375 F and baked the last ginger cookies of 2025.

This morning I located enough boxes to mail cookies in, found a few boxes and tins that would fit inside them and decided to sacrifice a few tins from my permanent collection to send to some friends. I will get them packed today or tonight and be ready to walk them to the post office tomorrow when it opens.

Next year: start earlier. Maybe collect some new small Christmas tins this week if I can find any.

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Categories baking, Christmas baking, cookies, Uncategorized

A Quince Experiment: Quince and Apple Pie

December 8, 2025 //
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A few weeks ago, one of the vendors at the farmers market had quinces for sale. I have heard of quinces but have never tasted one, so I bought one. I discussed with the vendor adding it to an apple pie or apple crisp. She recommended cooking it separately before adding it to a pie. She said the fragrance was wonderful.

The quince sat in the fruit bowl for a few weeks, next to a single orange and a few local apples while I looked at quince recipes on the internet. The most intriguing one involved cutting the quince in half like a squash, scooping the guts out, and baking it with spices and honey in the cavity. The day before Thanksgiving I bought a bag of Granny Smith apples at Grocery Outlet — not my favorites, but serviceable when I need cooking apples and local apples will soon be gone.

Yesterday it was time to use up two homemade pie crusts left from the holiday. I still had three local apples in the fruit bowl, plus the Granny Smiths. I pulled out my trusty 1956 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, my mother’s and my go-to cookbook for basic cooking, and flipped to the index for Q.

No entries for quince.

Okay. I went for my Deborah Madison cookbook collection. Madison makes tea from quince pips and candied quinces and uses quinces in filling for mince pies.

I peeled the quince, and then cut into it, which was difficult: I had to sharpen my knife three times while removing the core and seeds and cutting the fruit into pieces. Are they always like this? The fragrance was underwhelming, faintly citrus-y. Was it even ripe? (The skin was bright yellow).

In the end, I threw it in a saucepan with a third of a cup of sugar and some water and let it cook while I rolled out the bottom pie crust and stuck the crust back in the fridge to chill.

Then I received a phone call that there was a ticket available for the last matinee of The Nutcracker. I turned off the stove, kissed the cat goodbye and hurried to town.

I watched half of the performance. I was shocked to learn that there was no live orchestra (I don’t go to The Nutcracker for the dancing, but for the music). The artistic director had set the piece as a local story in a barn, the Olympic Mountains and lavender fields. It still had the Rat King and the Nutcracker and plenty of corps de ballet.

I would have stayed for the second half, but I was meeting my friend Eileen to drive out for the annual lighting of Lake Crescent Lodge, a beautiful art deco building. There was a fire blazing in the fieldstone fireplace, a decorated tree, a Santa hat on one of the resident deer heads, carols by the Sequim chapter of the Sweet Adelines, costumed elves passing trays of cookies, and Santa himself, posing for photos with infants, children, teens, and bold old folks.

We drove home in the dark. I fed the cat and ate salad, vegetables and the last of the Thanksgiving stuffing for dinner.

Time to finish the pie. I put the oven on to preheat to 400 F, retrieved the pie shell from the refrigerator, scooped out the poached quince chunks with a slotted spoon, peeled and sliced the three local apples and one gargantuan Granny Smith, added half a cup of sugar mixed with nutmeg and cinnamon, piled the fruit and sugar into the crust, dotted the filling with butter. I rolled out the top crust and crimped it in place, popped the pie in the oven and started doing dishes.

I had my first slice of pie after lunch today. The quince’s flavor still reminded me of roasted sweet potato — not unpleasant, but not special in my opinion. Sometimes there was a faint rose-like odor. I’d just as soon eat plain apple pie.

Did any of you grow up eating quinces? What do you like to do with them? They are gone for this year, but next year I can do another experiment.

P.S. This morning, a week after I made the apple and quince pie, I used the leftover quince poaching syrup as part of the liquid in a three-day batch of oatmeal — one cup poaching liquid, two cups whole milk. I added dried apricots, dried sour cherries, almonds and grated fresh ginger, thinking those flavors would go with the residual quince flavor. I was right. I made a triple batch because the poaching liquid was quite sweet and I wanted to dilute the sweetness.

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Categories Uncategorized

On grass roots

October 15, 2025 //
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Dear Readers,

I have not written in a long time. I bought a house in June (for the first time) and it is taking much longer than I thought to get settled and to get things done.

I have been in Washington state for just over a year and I am learning a lot about the differences between Washington and my native California. One of the things I am learning about is the nature of grass roots.

Like many of you, I have heard the expression “grassroots,” as in “grassroots organizing” or “grassroots movement” to indicate organizations built slowly by engaging and connecting individual persons for a purpose.

Now, however, I am beginning to have a visceral understanding of grass roots as I work in my weedy, neglected yards.

There are different kinds of grass, of course, and different kinds of grassy weeds as well. I have not had much experience working with grass because my mother did not want grass in her yard: she filled the front yard with lava rock and the backyard remained soft dirt until she put in one flagstone area, a dwarf apple tree and a few iris beds. When I did not live at my mother’s house, I lived in rentals, some without yards. In my last California rental, I struck a deal with the landlord: he would maintain the lawn in the front yard while I concentrated on growing organic fruit and vegetables in the back.

I have many types of grass. One sends forth thin, wiry blades. Another puts up lush green blades that we think of as grass, but it tends to grow in clumps. To break apart the clumps, I tease the blades apart to see which way they are growing and pull in that direction.

Some of the green blades pull out that way, as do some of the dead or yellowed pieces. But we are not done: close to the surface, or right under the surface, are mats of thick roots in short pieces. Some of them have a hard bit like a knot on the upper end. Sometimes I can pull these out with a lot of effort, but sometimes I cannot get purchase on them (I do this with my bare fingers, which help tease out the direction each strand grows in).

I work away at the most stubborn clumps, prising one piece after another out of the ground. Then I notice that some of these hardy clumps are bound with two other kinds of roots: one is thready and fine, light in color and the others look like classic drawings of roots in soil, indistinguishable in color from the surrounding soil, branching, no thicker than a human hair. Sometimes I can reach beneath a stubborn piece of grass and feel a u-shaped band of roots below the surface. When I yank that loose, sometimes the stubborn bit will come free at last.

And sometimes not.

I pull at the light-colored thready roots one by one, hoping to loosen them. Sometimes I am rewarded when a long root rips out of the ground, traveling several inches from where I have been working and loosening the edge of another clump.

There are also mats of the finest “classic roots,” which look delicate, but are nearly impenetrable and strongly bound together. And that is not all: should I dig a hole, as I do when I am going after a dandelion tap root, I will find the light colored grass roots threading themselves through the soil in all directions, moving laterally, penetrating deeply. If I am to ever be rid of weedy grasses I must get them all out.

So, grass roots: stubborn, persistent, interlocked, strong, hard to break apart without the utmost care and patience. And, did I mention, if you leave even a bit of one of these roots in the soil, the grass will regrow.

Take courage, my friends and countrymen. The No Kings rallies take place this Saturday in the United States, in Canada, and in other sympathetic nations. Those of us who support democracy, due process, the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution are legion. We are strong, powerful, tenacious, especially when we spread by word of mouth and weave ourselves together like grass roots.

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Categories gardening, Philosophy, Uncategorized

I Won!

August 10, 2025 //
4

Dear Readers,

Please excuse my long absence: I bought a house and moved and things are complicated and busy. I may not be blogging regularly for six months, but I popped in to say that I won Robert Reich’s Sunday caption contest last week.

Check it out. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-caption-contest-trump-advisors

Cheers!

Sharyn

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Categories Uncategorized

Reader participation post: The Kale Chronicles, “Chopped” style

June 6, 2025 //
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Dear Readers,

Please excuse my weeks’ long absence. No, I am not on early summer vacation, although the weather is beautiful. I’ve been busy because I just bought a house.

Back in the day when I moved in with Johnny Harper, the talented and deceased musician, it was the first time I had ever lived in a house with cable T.V. One day I discovered the Food Channel and the iconic show “Chopped,” where chefs are presented with four ingredients and a pantry and expected to make a first course, an entrée, and a dessert starring the ingredients. I loved it because it was a bizarre twist on cooking with what is in the refrigerator.

As I make the transition from a rented cottage to a home of my own, I am trying to use up the food in my kitchen, or at least reduce what I have to pack and move. I will be supplementing what I have with produce from the farmers market each week and with milk, half and half and fresh eggs, but the game is to use what I have in the house without the need to grocery shop.

So, here goes. Basket one: large red potatoes, andouille sausage, tomato paste, feta cheese. Basket two: white rice, dried pinto beans, half a yellow bell pepper, butternut squash. Basket three: canned sour cherries, dried cranberries, pecans, fig and anise bread (stale).

Your pantry: coffee, black tea, green tea, eggs, sour milk, milk, unsalted butter, sour cream, vegetable shortening, lard, cider vinegar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cornstarch, brown sugar, white sugar, white flour, bread flour, whole wheat flour, dry polenta, cocoa powder, walnuts, frozen blueberries, feta cheese, cheddar cheese, one pound block of mozzarella (frozen), tahini, onions, garlic, cooking celery (too old to eat raw), arugula, spring salad mix canned stewed tomatoes, corn oil, one can smoked salmon, frozen shrimp, corn tortillas, one roast chicken, baking spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, cardamom), chili powder, curry powder, smoked paprika, fresh dill and cilantro, chicken broth, tomato red pepper soup, half a can of refried beans (open) tamari, Tabasco, Cholula, red salsa, blackberry jam, lingonberry jam, raspberry hibiscus jam, apple butter.

Remember, the game is to make as many meals from these things as we can for the next two and a half to three weeks.

You can supplement from the farmers market: right now you can get spring greens, arugula, kale, little gems lettuce, radishes, carrots, potatoes. No tomatoes or fresh fruit yet available here.

This last week I made breakfast muffins from flours, oil, sour milk, baking soda, baking powder, salt, an egg, brown sugar, dried cherries and pecans. I might make another batch on Sunday. The week before that I made polenta blueberry muffins.

Who’s up for the challenge? Post your meal suggestions in the comments, please. You may post options for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert, but remember that the meals are what I live on and I cannot live on sweets alone. I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

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Where did the sweet corn come from? Plus an amazing bread pudding.

May 9, 2025 //
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I went to the farmers market today, as I do almost every Saturday, but I went to Safeway first because I needed tissues and dishwashing liquid and jarred salsa. I vaguely remembered that there was something on special that I wanted, so I cruised the produce section, and there it was: fresh corn, five ears for five bucks. I checked to make sure it had been grown in the U.S. — I don’t believe in importing produce from Mexico.

I last ate fresh corn in October, so I bought five ears and started thinking about what I would make with it, starting with pizza and pasta. I bought a small jar of sun-dried tomatoes to go with the corn. By next year I will be growing and drying cherry tomatoes again once I have a yard of my own.

The new crop in the market today was asparagus. I don’t like asparagus, so I passed it by. But there was a potato farmer so I bought a bag of red potatoes to supplement all of the spring greens: arugula, spring mix, bok choy, radishes. I’ve been eating radish greens lately, sauteed with pasta or in eggs, so I bypassed the bunches of turnips as well.

I picked up a dozen farm fresh eggs, brown and blue. For those of you keeping track, they cost eight dollars, so you can still eat an egg-based meal for two bucks.

I made pizza for lunch with pesto, mozzarella, an ear of fresh corn, feta and some sun-dried tomatoes. While it baked I made a salad of spring mix, arugula and a sliced radish. Then I had not one, but two modest slices of my chocolate beet cake with sour cream frosting, my reward for carrying a heavy backpack all morning.

Tonight I’ll probably eat pasta with Italian sausage, feta, lime, sun-dried tomatoes and more corn. I might throw in bell peppers, bok choy or arugula if I want more greens.

After lunch I found an old Facebook post of mine from today’s date. When I lived in California I bought strawberries, apricots, peaches and artichokes on May 3rd. Sigh. One of Kelly’s friends brought me a basket of strawberries yesterday and they are delicious, but stone fruit is a long way off and I don’t know if we get artichokes in western Washington at all. Two of the things I miss most about my native state is the variety of fresh produce available year-round and the quality of that produce. Here, however, we have utterly beautiful autumns with turning trees and springs full of lilacs, peonies and rhododendrons.

I started researching trees for a home orchard again: I don’t have a house and yard yet, but I will, and I will want to start some trees as soon as I can so that I will be harvesting my own peaches and figs again in a few years.

This morning I turned my gift of strawberries into strawberry cornmeal griddle cakes. I have been making this recipe from Smitten Kitchen for several years (My former partner loved strawberries).

Since I started this post, I have been completing cooking projects: I candied all of the orange peels I had saved in the freezer. I used a vegan vanilla cake mix to make cupcakes and frosted them with some of my leftover sour cream chocolate frosting.

This morning, I needed breakfast because I finished the strawberry pancakes yesterday. I had some milk that is on the verge of turning that I needed to use. I remembered that I had some bread in the freezer. I pulled out the bread, which turned out to be part of a loaf of challah. Good. I would use it to make a breakfast bread pudding with candied orange peel.

I turned the oven on to 350 degrees. I cubed the bread and chopped up orange peel. And then inspiration struck: what if I incorporated the last of my leftover sour cream chocolate frosting? Chocolate-orange breakfast bread pudding was born.

I made it the usual way: put the cubed bread in a bowl. I added the frosting to the bread before beating the eggs in the frosting bowl so as to dislodge all of the bits of frosting and incorporate them into the eggs. I added the eggs to the bread and frosting.

Then I made a mistake: I know to scald milk for bread pudding, but I skipped that step and just poured the milk over the bread, frosting and eggs. I added vanilla.

Then I tasted the custard — don’t do this if you are afraid of raw eggs — I needed to see how sweet it was since I don’t usually put frosting in bread pudding. I added a scant 1/3 cup of sugar and stirred everything together.

The result of my mistake is that my pudding resisted setting. After half an hour, I stirred the top layer back in to absorb more liquid and continued to bake the pudding. Because I did not scald the milk, my bread pudding took nearly an hour and forty-five minutes to bake. But it did finally set.

And OMG is it delicious! I am not normally a chocolate for breakfast fan, but the richness of the sour cream frosting and the chocolate and orange flavors are marvelous.

I didn’t measure the milk. I used three extra-large eggs because that is what I had. The bread was about a third of a loaf of challah. I would guess there was about a cup of frosting — maybe a generous cup. Candied orange peel to taste. 1/3 cup added sugar. A generous splash of vanilla. If you want a better guideline for proportions or ratios, consult an actual recipe for bread pudding — I usually just throw it together free-hand. Tassajara Bread Book has a good recipe for breakfast bread pudding But do yourself a favor and scald the milk! It will save you time and energy.

Stay tuned for next week’s adventures.

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Categories breakfast food, frugal eating, home cooking, Uncategorized

Seasonal Eating in Western Washington

April 27, 2025 //
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My weekly trip to the farmers market is always an adventure: what will there be in the last week of April? After decades of farmers market shopping, farm box subscriptions and growing my own food in California, I had a pretty good idea what to expect in the markets there. I knew homegrown cherry tomatoes might be ripe on June 30, or Fourth of July and sweet corn would soon follow, but I have lived two states to the north for less than a year and do not know what to expect.

I’ll adjust, but I am not adjusted. The days have gotten long here and cavalcades of flowers are blooming: bulbs and shrubs and flowering trees: peonies, iris, tulips, lilacs, rhododendrons, cherries and plums. And yet the food crops are stubbornly behind sunny California or even foggy coastal California.

I got excited on Friday because the market newsletter had said there would be strawberries this week. I packed empty glass containers to carry them home in and got to the market just as it opened to be sure to get some.

I didn’t see any strawberries when I walked through the market. I stopped to buy radishes and spring salad mix and a loaf of whole wheat sourdough. I walked through a second time. No strawberries.

I stopped by the market booth. “The newsletter said you would have strawberries this week. Did the vendor not come?”

The woman in the booth looked at me.

“Strawberry plants,” she said, naming the vendor.

Oh.

I spotted some rhubarb. Perhaps it was dreaming of strawberries like I was.

I did not buy any rhubarb this week. Once, in an effort to try everything in a market, I bought a bunch of rhubarb and made all kinds of things with it. You can read about those experiments here. I may get so I crave rhubarb in the spring after a few years in Washington, but I am not there yet.

There are no root crops in the market except radishes. Where are the carrots, the spring beets, the new potatoes?

On my way out, I bought arugula with my last six dollars. I’ll be eating both salads and cooked greens this week: spring salad mix, arugula, radish greens, bok choy and the last of some savoy cabbage I bought some weeks back. The arugula farmer had cauliflower, but I do not like cauliflower (If I want some, I can get some next week).

Once home I cooked my last two beets: I will eat those in salads this week with walnuts, feta, various greens and a vinaigrette with pomegranate molasses (I found pomegranate molasses at the health food store this week and am delighted to have it).

I am beginning to long for fresh fruit. I have blood oranges, oranges, lemons and limes. I have frozen blueberries. I have canned sour pie cherries. I have dried cranberries and dried cherries and dates. I eat all of these things. If I were in California I would be feasting on strawberries by now. I can make wonderful cherry pie out of canned sour cherries. I can make candied orange peel and eat it in oatmeal with dates and cinnamon. I have jams and apple butter as well. I can make do.

The truth is I am tired of winter eating. I am glad of spring salads. And I wonder what we will have to eat next week in western Washington.

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Categories frugal eating, salads, seasonal recipes, Uncategorized

What Do You Really Need to Be Happy?

April 11, 2025 //
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The Trump tariffs have just been imposed, then paused, then changed. The stock market is tanking. All of us stand to lose something or many things in a completely unnecessary crisis.

I don’t know about you, but for me this seems like a good time to think about what I really want, what I value, what makes me happy from day to day. What things do I need to have in my life?

I’ll answer the questions — for me. You can answer the questions for you. We are all different: just like you may not want to eat or cook the things that I cook and my grocery list might be vastly different from yours, what it takes to make you happy will not necessarily be what will make me happy. Farmers markets make me happy. Restaurants and cafes I like make me happy, although I have been to few restaurants or cafes in the last seven months. Still, I like to be within reach of them, even for a rare celebration.

Off the top of my head. I like good quality things. I would rather have fewer things of excellent quality than lots of cheap or poorly-made things. I can dial back on variety if I like what I have. For example, I have kind of a uniform for everyday dressing. I’ve worn it for years. My basics are 100% cotton black jeans, preferably in a classic boot cut, crew neck long-sleeved 100% cotton shirts, cashmere sweaters (Yes, I know they are expensive, but I buy them on sale or at thrift stores, I hand-wash them and I mend them myself. I like them because they are light and warm). Fleece vests in bright colors and black. These are harder to find than they used to be and I know that fleece is controversial. Again, I like it because it is light and warm and bright. Also, I adore vests, particularly vests with pockets. Cotton socks and underwear because I prefer natural fabrics. I will mend and darn socks and underwear to keep them going. And I like hats. I buy wool berets. My summer hats are not as durable: I favor spangled caps and have two, both mended.

Shoes are expensive for me: I am hard on shoes and I have an odd gait from cerebral palsy. My favorite shoes as of last summer are these shoes from Stumble Stuff. They lasted nine months. I just bought my second pair before the tariffs arrived. I’ve bought other styles from this company, but these are the most durable. My other go-to pair of shoes are snow boots that I bought from Lands End some years back: they are good for rain, snow and rough terrain. They fit perfectly and I have kept them going by having them re-heeled and soled periodically. I own more dress shoes than I may need for the rest of my life because I bought them on sale when a local shoe store discounted them: they are all Joseph Seibel mary janes in black or tan. I love colored leather shoes (red, blue, turquoise, purple), but they are not usually on sale.

Anyway, wardrobe aside, what I need for a good life are means of communication: paper and pens, stamps, a phone, a laptop. I buy refurbished laptops and phones from Apple because I am a Mac user. I do not need the latest of anything to be happy. I like fountain pens, but good, cheap ones are no longer available (I grew up with Shaeffer cartridge pens) so I have gone to Pilot G-2 refillable pens for now. Unfortunately, Pilot is based in Japan, so the price for refills may go up soon. My notebook of choice has been the Blueline A9 for years. They were $10.95 last time I bought a stack and the manufacturer’s website says they are $13.35 now. Um, not sure what I’ll do about that: I like sturdy, hardbound notebooks and Blueline uses recycled content, which I also like.

I need books to be happy, books I have read and books I haven’t read. I own a lot of books, most currently in storage, but I have a library card as well. I make use of Little Free Libraries. I buy books at library sales. Sometimes, when I can afford it, or when I need it for a class I’m teaching, I buy a new book.

I need music to be happy. I attend a few musical Zooms each month. I try to remember to listen to music at a time when my listening diet is mostly political news. I am energized at protests when musicians sing or play or drum to keep us going, give us energy. When I am happiest, I sing. When I listen in silence, there is always a song in my head, which my former partner called “the internal jukebox” (We would ask each other, “What’s on the jukebox?”). I have a large collection of music that I have put on my laptop and I make use of YouTube to look for music.

I also own musical instruments: a piano, a Celtic harp, a recorder, a couple of acoustic guitars. Right now I have just one guitar with me, but one guitar is all I need to practice, to play, to arrange songs. I used to be a busker.

And I need a musical community, people who love the music I love (or at least a portion of it — nobody will love everything I do). Since the pandemic, I have been missing opportunities to play live music with other people. Since I left my home town I have not had opportunities to hear live music. I am hoping that these things will change once I am permanently settled.

Good food, communications equipment, books, music, community. What else? I left my cat Onyx in California during my long transition. I hope to reunite with her, possibly this summer.

I need a permanent, stable place to live. Because of an inheritance, I am hoping to buy such a place with a door I can close, a yard I can garden in, fruit trees, room for my books and music, a place for guests to sleep. For now I am living in a lovely temporary furnished rental and, for now, that is enough. But once I have a home of my own I can redeem my books, records, CDs, furniture, and kitchen equipment from storage.

I need to be surrounded by beauty, to look on a pleasing aspect, to live in well-proportioned rooms, however few they might be. I need to be in water: ocean water, river water, pool water, bath water. I need to live among trees.

I need my country to be a country of liberty and justice for all, freedom of expression, religion, assembly, due process. And right now it is failing badly.

What about you? What do you need to be happy?

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Frugality and Eating, Week Eight

April 4, 2025 //
2

I thought I had started this week’s post, but I can’t find a draft. I start the post on Saturday because Saturday is farmers market day. I’m still buying and eating Brussels sprouts and kale each week. Will I always eat Brussels sprouts and kale? No. When will I stop buying Brussels sprouts and kale? When there are other things at the market to buy. Today there was purple sprouting broccoli — I didn’t know what I would do with that so I didn’t buy any. Total spending: $17.00. I didn’t buy a treat today and I’m doing less cooking and eating the same things over and over because I’ve been busy with protests.

When I got home, I made kale salad with lemon-tahini dressing and ate shortcake and tea.

Saturday breakfast: baked French toast with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, mixed berry shortcake, black tea; dinner: pasta with Brussels sprouts and pesto.

Sunday I had a Zoom meeting after breakfast and went to a noon protest: I carried a bag of crackers, cheese, dried cranberries and almonds with me, but did not eat it there. I stopped off at the health food store on the way home for staples: half and half, frozen blueberries and dried sour cherries. Total spending: $23.04 Sunday breakfast: baked French toast with blueberries, coffee; lunch: crackers, smoked cheddar, cranberries, almonds, kale salad, mixed berry shortcake, black tea; dinner: homemade bean burrito with salsa and sour cream.

Monday breakfast: French toast with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, homemade pizza with arrabiata sauce, kalamata olives, roasted peppers and Italian sausage. After Monday lunch I wanted to use some shortcake biscuits, so I made them into faux scones with cream and jam: I split a shortcake and put it in the oven that was warm from baking the pizza. Then I whipped plain cream. I spread the warm shortcake with lingonberry jam and topped it with whipped cream. There is a controversy whether you apply the jam or cream first to a scone (or faux scone). I like the jam on the bottom — if you put the cream on the bottom of a warm pastry, it melts. I like biting through the cool cream into the jam and biscuity base. I wanted something different for dinner tonight, so I sauteed half of an Italian sausage, some orange bell pepper and scallions and added a couple of scrambled eggs. I ate that wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla with a dash of Cholula and followed it up with an orange — breakfast for dinner, always an option if you like breakfast food.

Tuesday breakfast: last of the baked French toast with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, pizza, black tea; snack: shortbread with jam and cream; dinner: refried beans, salsa, corn tortillas.

Wednesday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, pizza, black tea, pumpkin blondie. I wasn’t hungry at dinner, so I just ate some almonds and dried sour cherries.

Thursday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, pizza; snack: shortbread with jam and cream, black tea; dinner: pasta with pesto and Brussels sprouts; snack: chocolate.

Thursday I stopped at Grocery Outlet for some basic supplies. Here’s what I bought: a gallon of whole milk ($3.99) five pounds of all purpose flour ($2.49), salami ($9.99), pizza crusts ($3.79), pasta ($2.38), lemons ($2.76), canned pumpkin ($3.79), canned sour cherries ($3.98) and toilet paper ($5.99). Total for groceries: $33.68.

Friday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, pizza (arrabiata sauce, kalamata olives, roasted red peppers and salami), black tea, coffee shortbread; dinner: pasta with pesto and Brussels sprouts; snack: candied almonds.

Another frugal week starts tomorrow with a visit to the farmers market, and a Hands Off protest and then I will tackle a new topic: in hard times What Do You Need to Be Happy?

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Categories frugal eating, home cooking, Uncategorized

Frugality and Eating, Week 7

March 28, 2025 //
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I began my week of frugal eating on Saturday morning with coffee and baked French toast with blueberries to fuel me for a trip to the farmers market. Breakfast is one of the meals I reliably cook for myself: I am a morning person — by dinner time I often do not care what I eat. The other thing I will almost always do is make a bowl of salad every time I run out of it: because I have been eating kale salad, which is pretty much indestructible no matter how long it sits around, I usually make salad twice a week.

By Thursday last week I was out of greens and jonesing for them, so I bought two bunches of kale and one bag of Brussels sprouts. Total spent: $17.00. I had just run out of eggs, so I picked up a dozen farm fresh eggs for $7.00. Lastly, I stopped by Pane D’Amore bakery for my new Saturday lunch treat: a slice of focaccia and a chocolate-walnut cookie for $7.25 — I am particularly liking food-to-go on these busy Saturdays of demonstrations. On days other than Saturdays, I am likely to pack up salami, cheese, crackers, containers of homemade kale salad, nuts and/or oranges to keep me fueled while I stand in public spaces holding signs.

I was out all morning — at the bank, at the market, at Hollywood Beach for a native American water blessing ceremony and march. Once home, I ate my focaccia before running off to the library sale. The focaccia is filling and I rested and napped most of the afternoon and evening. I don’t like to eat heavily in the evening, so I nuked a bowl of Brussels sprouts, added a spoonful of pesto, followed that with a homemade pumpkin blondie for dessert and called that dinner.

Saturday meals: Breakfast: cardamom French toast with frozen blueberries, coffee; lunch: focaccia; dinner: Brussels sprouts with pesto, pumpkin blondie.

Sunday meals: Breakfast: homemade pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; Lunch: leftover homemade pizza with pesto, kalamata olives, roasted peppers; black tea with evaporated milk; Dinner: kale salad with feta, dried cherries, roasted almonds and lemon-tahini dressing.

Monday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, homemade pizza, half chocolate walnut cookie, black tea with evaporated milk; dinner: whole wheat burrito with refried beans, salsa and sour cream.

Tuesday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries; lunch: kale salad, homemade pizza with arrabiata sauce, feta, kalamata olives and roasted peppers, black tea, pumpkin blondie; dinner: burrito; snack: dried cherries, roasted almonds.

Wednesday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries; lunch: Brussels sprouts with pesto, homemade pizza, pumpkin blondie, green tea; dinner: homemade burrito; snacks: chocolate with nuts, roasted almonds, dried cherries.

Thursday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, roasted strawberry shortcake*, black tea; dinner: pizza, kale salad, whole wheat tortilla.

Friday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, homemade pizza, roasted strawberry shortcake, black tea; dinner: pasta with Brussels sprouts and pesto.

* If you should find yourself with underripe strawberries, you can cut them up, sprinkle them with a bit of sugar and roast them in a 350-degree oven to concentrate their flavor. You lose the raw character, but they taste better. I made the shortcake biscuits with 2 and 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of rolled oats, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup butter 3/4 cup evaporated milk, a pinch of salt and 2 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder.

Total weekly food spending: $31.25, including my Saturday lunch treat.

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Categories desserts, frugal eating, grocery shopping, home cooking, Uncategorized
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