Persimmon Frost

As Glinda quite rightly pointed out to me last night while we were waiting for the bread to bake (Fair loaf, can't say I'd do it again.) the month is nearly over.  That means that unless I want to continue on with this project, I don't have to after next Monday.  The thing is, I'd like to.  It'd have to be a modified project; I really will have to buy some new stuff to replace what I've used or tossed (about which, more later) but I'm willing to give it my best shot.  I think what I'll do is limit my grocery spending; I'll need to check my expenses for this month to see what I'd need to limit it to.  Anything would be better than my normal spending.

I'm working on getting dishes and food swapped.  There's a load of dishes in the washer right now, and the counters are covered with packaged food.  In one case I mean covered covered.  The black rice bag was open.  I didn't realize it.  Yeah.  I'm also tossing out a prodigious amount of food, which chaps my hide.  But I had stuff that had "Use by" dates of 2006!  That's before I moved here!!  I'm so embarrassed.  I was going to make bread today but I'm thinking it's not going to happen, which is fine.  I do still have part of that so-so loaf I made yesterday which is a bit of a reminder that I need not to muddle up my work space, and my brain, when I'm trying to bake.

However, before I went to bed last night I made homemade chocolate syrup.  Why? you ask, when there are perfectly good syrups on the market.  Well... thing is, most of them use HFCS, which I try to avoid for a lot of reasons.  (I'm not really up for a debate on this subject either.  Let's just assume that everyone has the right to use or not use as they choose.)  So I googled on "homemade Hershey's syrup" and found a recipe that seemed cheap, easy and fast.  It took me a couple minutes prep time, and five minutes to cook.  Then I left it to cool, bottled it and put it in the fridge.  I have to tell you that this is the best damn chocolate syrup I have ever tasted.  The cocoa I used was a raw cacao powder from Navitas, and the flavor is just superb.  Yes, it's expensive but the two pounds I bought in July of 2008 have lasted me quite a long while.  I still have a cup or two left before I have to buy more, but I won't hesitate to purchase Navitas products again.  It made a glass of chocolate milk that was heavenly.  I'm going to guesstimate that even with the very pricey cacao powder, my 16 oz (approx.) bottle of syrup cost me less than a dollar.  Caveat: It cooks up thin.  Really thin.  Trust me, if you follow the instructions, you'll have a nice, thick syrup when it cools.

Tomorrow I'm buying really good vanilla ice cream.  The experience makes me think that giving a shot to homemade Nutella (which can contain palm oil, the thing that makes me not want to buy Girl Scout cookies in spite of wanting to support them.) would be a good idea.  You can control what goes into the things that you snack on and snack more cheaply.  The only thing that could be better is to not snack at all.  And honestly? I'll stop snacking when I'm dead.

Keep your fingers crossed that I can get my fridge cleaned out over the weekend.

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I am seriously sick of schelpping stuff from one end of the kitchen to the other and sometimes back again.  This week I've been rearranging all my cabinets, and in the process, washing every dish and glass, and wiping down the insides of the cabinets.  I've moved half the dishes into the cabinet where I kept my packaged food, and all my baking supplies and part of the packaged food over to where the dishes were.  It's really a much more efficient use of space, but boy it's a boring process. My friend, Karen, would say otherwise; she loves cleaning and organizing things. When confronted with a household task that chaps my hide, I ask myself, What would Karen do?

I did actually enjoy the part where I found jars for all the bagged spices and herbs I had sitting here, and then made labels for them with our Dymo label maker.  I felt so accomplished as I surveyed the rows of neatly labeled and stacked jars!  I also made an inventory list of what I have in that cabinet.  Karen would be so proud!

Needless to say, now virtually every flat surface is covered with stuff waiting to be put away.  I got the herb and spice cupboard assembled thanks to a new two-tier lazy susan I found at Amazon.com for $12.  Everyone was complaining it was too big for their cabinets, but because I was going to put it into the corner of a corner cabinet, it was exactly what I needed.  The cabinet holds two of the two-tiered lazy susans, and two one-tier ones, plus a lot of plain old surface space on the second shelf, so I've got all my oils and vinegars in there as well as extracts, salts and 
syrups.   The best thing is that now I have more room, so if I need some ground this or cracked that, I have a space to put it, and I won't lose it.  (I swear I had ground ginger at Christmas but I can't find the jar anywhere.  It's gone on my Spice House shopping list.)  I was sad to find that my vanilla beans had all but dried out so I'm going to be making a jar of vanilla sugar with them.

In any event, the whole point of this is that I'm sick of arranging and incidentally also sick of editing.  I have four of the five sections on the Scrooge book edited and I think they're in good shape now.  The middle one -- Adagio: David Tarried at Jerusalem -- was the worst, but it was the last to be finished and the one that had kicked my butt right from the get go.  The emotions I'm trying to deal with there are difficult for me because I've felt them, and it's hard getting that down without making it sound whiny and self-pitying.

So what did I do to ease my ennui?  I baked.  When I was cleaning the cupboards I found a package of Bob's Red Mill 10-grain bread mix, and figured I'd give that a shot since I could just reach my mixer. I added millet, oats, chia seeds and raw honey to it, and for the oil, I used some herbs de Provence olive oil that Glinda's sister had given me.  It's in the oven on proof right now, and should be finished rising in another 30-60 minutes. Of course there was a lot of stuff added and I'm not sure how old the mix was so who knows if it'll turn out?  The dough was awfully wet, so I had to add about two tablespoons of flour.  Eh, what's the worst that could happen?  I could end up with a high fiber brick.

It actually looks pretty good, I think.  Now if it’ll just rise.

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The process is starting to get interesting because I'm almost out of the things I eat rather habitually (V8, Mrs. Grass chicken noodle soup, packaged mac and cheese, tuna) and am now having to force myself to take a good look at what's in the cabinets and ask myself, "What can I do with this that will be tasty and  economical?"  In other words, what can I fix that I will actually eat?

Over the weekend, I used up two pounds of oxtails I'd had in the freezer downstairs.  I'd never cooked them before, but I had  a recipe from one of the cookbooks I got at Christmas, so I ordered the fresh ingredients that I needed -- leeks, carrots; I had the garlic from what we grew over the summer -- and asked Glinda to bring home a bottle of red wine for the wine reduction that was the basis of the braise.

The result was very nice.  Oxtails are very fatty, and even after trimming them I ended up scooping quite a bit of fat out of the pot that had been refrigerated overnight.  Even then, the sauce was over-rich, in my opinion, and a little went a very long way for both Glinda and myself.  Jim liked them, so he got all the leftovers to take home.  I also made a loaf of semolina-cheese bread from a mix I'd bought a while ago from King Arthur Flour.  The bread was also a little over-the-top in terms of flavor and while I enjoyed the meal, it wasn't one I'll ever duplicate.  However I did manage to use up frozen meat and a baking mix, so it was a good end to week two of eating from the pantry.

Week three begins with my decision to use all the powdered milk I have stored in the freezer before I buy any more.  I saved an Oberweis glass bottle and mixed up half a gallon of milk this morning. I had to use the blender because dry milk tends to be lumpy, which is just a nasty surprise when you're drinking it.  This is going to take me a while, but it'll save me quite a bit of money which is all to the good.  While I pay off my Christmas debts, I really want to cut my grocery budget to the bone.  Tonight I'll be making a pan of gingerbread and mac and cheese.  Yes, Glinda will be buying a package of that today on the way home from work.  There is a reason; we'll be watching the last ep of season 2 Sherlock, and we both felt the need for comfort food.  Still, packaged mac and cheese is cheap; it's not going to dent the budget too dramatically.

Today is also Meatless Monday.  For those of you who don't know, there's a movement to eliminate meat from American diets for one day a week.  I know some of you are probably recoiling in horror right now, and okay fine, nobody is going to force you to give up you moo or oink at every meal habit.  But though I like meat -- yes, I genuinely enjoy much of it -- I'm concerned about various aspects of meat-eating and would like to cut my consumption.  It's nice to have one day where you know you're just not going to indulge.  The Pantry Project is fantastic for Meatless Mondays because so much of what's stored is vegetarian or vegan.  I even unearthed a can of vegetarian baked beans this morning.  I'd forgotten I had them, and was ridiculously excited to see them sitting there.

Yet another advantage that I'm discovering as I pursue this resolution (One which I may extend to two months, with a bit of alteration.) is that I'm learning what works and what doesn't.  I'm paying more attention to what I like, what's easy to make, what's more economical.  I'm eating smaller portions because I'm more aware of what each one is costing me.  You don't notice stuff like that as much when you've got a pantry filled with food.  Say what you will about stockpiling food when it goes on sale, the effect can be just the opposite of what you intend.  It can encourage us to waste food because there's so much left, and it can encourage us to eat larger portions for the same reason.  YMMV.  I'm starting to know where my head is at, and what I need to do about it.

My goal is to at least open and use everything that's sitting in my fridge, cupboards or freezer.  I don't have to like it; I should make an honest effort to finish it, but if I don't I'll know I don't need to buy it again.  I'll know what I should have on hand and what I shouldn't bother with.  I'll be able to plan my cooking more efficiently, and cut down on waste.  Who doesn't want to do that?

And then, once I've got those cabinets cleared out, there's going to be what my mother called a "Grand clearing up spell." They're going to get cleaned, things too old to eat will be tossed, and the storage will be rearranged. so it makes more sense.

The thing I'm happiest about?  I'm proving to myself that I'm not too old to change the way I live.  Go me!

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_____________________________

“Mr. Scrooge?’

“You have the advantage of me, sir,” Scrooge replied without looking up from the worn journal splayed across his desk. Time would tell if the stranger was worth the interruption.

The lightly accented voice replied, “If you please, sir, my name is Edwin Mayweather.”

Had Scrooge been afflicted with a sense of humor, he might have framed a reply along the lines of “And if I do not please, who shall you be, then?” But humor was a vice which Scrooge did not count on the debit side of his ledger. In fact, he counted no vices in that column having long been immune to lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath and all the rest. As for greed, he felt that it was an extreme position, in no way related to his wise and thrifty ways. He felt he did not so much love money as need it, as a man needs air and water. One could not live without money, at least not as God intended, so the need for it was hardly sinful.  No vices, a few mistakes, nothing more. His considered opinion was that the seven deadly sins could be neatly distilled down into a lack of good, common sense. And common sense he had in abundance.

“What do you want?” he asked, eyes still fixed on the words before him, seeking a clue, always seeking.

“You were recommended to me by Mr. James Tillman, sir, as a man with a good eye for value.”

Value was one of the holy words in Scrooge’s litany, and heeding the name and word of Tillman had never failed to enrich him. “Is that a fact?” Finally he looked up and found that the man standing before him was of middling years, quite tall and startlingly handsome with vivid blue eyes, dark hair lightly shot with grey, and a complexion the color of aged meerschaum . “Have a seat, Mr. Mayweather,” he said, closing the account book.

Mayweather made himself as comfortable as he could in Marley’s old leather chair. Scrooge never threw anything out, and when the seat gave way, he merely put an old account book between it and the cushion and pronounced it “good as new.” The added advantage was that no visitor stayed long in Scrooge’s office. In truth most were disinclined to do so in any event for neither the office with its uniform dark walls, heavy dark furniture and windows so grimy they let in a pitiful amount of light, nor Scrooge himself (a man so much like his surroundings that he seemed to absorb what little light there was) reassured visitors that they were in any wise welcome.

“Now tell me what sort of value we are discussing.”

“A business opportunity, sir. An invention...”

“It isn’t one of those damnable steam-powered contraptions.” he asked, the memory of Robert Cratchit’s horrible death coming back to him suddenly. Since Robert had been cooked alive in an explosion of one of those steam monstrosities, Scrooge felt a persistent unease at having the Pacioli Accounting Engine on the premises. He did not like steam unless it issued from a tea kettle, and only constant reassurances from Ada Cratchit, who Scrooge now employed to maintain her husband’s invention, and the certainty that he would lose money by going back to using clerks instead of the engine, kept him from selling it.

“Not at all, Mr. Scrooge. It is rather a case of the electronic stimulation of crystal which produces a luminiferous aether.  The aether in turn...”

“Is it an expensive process?” Scrooge asked.

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Taken from just past the laundry area and where we keep the freezer and supplies, so there's a good ten feet of basement behind me.

I'm telling you, it looks like hell.

This, as my mother used to say, will be worse before it gets better.  This is part of the work area.

More of the workspace.

So there you go, this is what we're facing over the next months.  It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.  BTW, I noted again when I went downstairs, what a terrific job Glinda did cleaning up the laundry area.  Yeah, the part I didn't show you.

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