Reader Tip - Pumpkin for Pooches

Dear Friend and Reader Nurse Hoo-Ha has shared another handy use for canned pumpkin, reinforcing the need to have this pretty puree in your pantry.

"1/2 can of pumpkin puree can cure a beloved pet's digestive troubles- ie loose stools.
I always have one on hand."

I have also heard this, but thankfully, have YET to need it. With that said, I am sure Dog 1 or Puppy 2 shall develop a case of the trots in the AM.

Thanks Hoo!

Vindication

I have been feeling a bit guilty that I spent $43.00 at Apple Annie's the other day. This fruity expenditure included 37 lbs. of end of season, Pick Your Own Cortlands that I only managed to get because I am 5'9". The entire time I was picking I was thinking of my grandmother saying to twelve-year-old me "Some day you'll appreciate being tall." and I would be all "Yeah, right.". I never believed her, especially since she was never taller than 4'10".
The rest of my purchase was 27 lbs. of what they call "sauce" apples. They are like seconds, small and maybe a bit imperfect. These are sold for .50 cents per lb and the PYO are .80 cents. So with my 64 lbs. of apples I am planning to make sauce, apple butter, misc. fall yummies like crisp and fried apples and also attempt to dry a significant amount for use during the winter when seasonal fruit does not exist in New England. I am going to try two drying methods. First I will see how it goes with a food dehydrator. At the bus stop one day, I noticed that my neighbor had one out with her trash. It was still in the box and she asked if I wanted it. Took it home and discovered it had never even been opened. Score! I will also string some up the old fashioned way and hang them above my newly drying jalapenos.
I wondered if I was crazy to lay out so much cash for apples, but on an emergency run to the dreaded Walmart tonight I saw the towering display of red, fall fruit by the door and the price was .79 cents per lb. When you average out the price of all my global goodies you get .64 cents per lb. Kiss my local, low spray ass Walmart!

Make breakfast an oat meal

I have to admit that there is many a morning when I just slap a bowl of cereal in front of my kids and hope they finish it in time to catch the bus. I, myself, am not a cereal fan as I grew up lactose intolerant and with a mother who only deemed two boxes nutritious enough to put in her cabinet - plain Cheerios (not even Honey Nut) and Quaker 100% Natural (which is delicious even if I always thought it was for old ladies). We pretty much always have store brand Cheerios (the honey nuttyish) that I buy in the big bags and also use as snacks and in trail mix. The other weekday morning choices are usually english muffin or toast with either peanut butter or our homemade jam or apple butter. Weekends are when I go all out and do pancakes, eggs, waffles and the like.
But once temperatures begin to dip into the 50's and the grass is crunchy when I step outside at 6:30am I begin to dream of oatmeal mornings. For some reason, oatmeal seems to have been marginalized to a packety powdery status or viewed as a bit of a hassle. Those little flavored oat pouches are sure convenient, but just about every bit of nutrition has been ground out of it and the excess wrapping triggers my gag reflex. Plus, the portions are ridiculous. It takes about three of them to make a decent adult sized meal. Hmmm...I wonder if they do that on purpose so you'll have to buy more? No, corporations can't be that manipulative. They always have the consumers best interest at heart. *Insert sarcasm here*

I was on a kick with steel cut oats for a while. If you've never had them, you should definitely give it a try. They have a chewier and coarser texture than rolled oats and are derived from the inner portion of the oat kernel, but have only been cut into two or three pieces. The only drawback is that the cooking time can be be nearly double that of rolled oats and on weekday mornings it is tough to get it done. Some people do prepare them the night before in their crock pot, but if I'm being realistic, I know that getting the oats ready as I am stumbling through my nightly chores is about as likely to happen as me hopping into the nesting box and laying an egg. In addition, the kids are not huge fans and so these nutty little oat gems only make an occasional appearance in our breakfast bowls.
That brings us back around to traditional rolled oats. Everybody has some, but they are often relegated to the shelf of Seldom Used Baking Ingredients. My love for these grains in apparent in my Homemade Chewy Granola Bar recipe and there are many more delicious treats that these come in handy for, but they can also be amazing when they fly solo. Additionally, they fall into both the eco and cheapo categories. I purchase the 100% Whole Grain Old Fashioned Oats in the huge 42 oz. canisters. Not only does this cut down on excess packaging, but these containers can be reused for a multitude of storage purposes. The store brand oats in this size cost me $2.28. I find the serving size on the package to be about right for us. The girls eat a little less than one portion and the rest of us a bit more so it evens out. There are 30 servings per container so that works out to less than .08 cents per serving. Consider ten minutes total prep time and I am compelled to quote Grey's Anatomy and say "Seriously."

As for flavoring these grainy goodies, I like to keep it fairly traditional. My hubby enjoys consuming them al natural (gross), but the rest of us like a little more sweet lovin'. I typically go with either maple syrup/brown sugar/raisins or brown sugar/cinnamon/chopped apples with a little milk to cool it and add creaminess. Tomorrow I will be drying some of the apples that I just picked to utilize in oatmeal this winter as we try to ween ourselves off of foreign fruit. So let's say these add ins even double the cost per bowl, that's still only .16 cents per person and I'd like to see a sugar laden, packaging nightmare, crappy toy promoting box of cereal top that. So dig into the back of your cupboard or glance to the right or left of your normal breakfast aisle purchase and discover the warm and frugal goodness of a hearty bowl of oats.

Halloween History

Let's just put it out there right now - my mother is amazing. Not in a baking cookies-cleaning your room for you-white glove test- kind of way, but in a stay up all night to help you finish a project and still go to work the next day- Girls Scout leader/Sunday School teacher- teach you to love others as you would love yourself- "I am so proud of you"- should be canonized- sort of way. She was and is the best and although she wasn't super crafty, one of the things I will never forget is that she ALWAYS made our Halloween costumes. Even if it was out of poster board or assembled from old clothes, we never had a store-bought get up. So when I became a mother and had no vision of what kind of a parent I would become, I at least knew that I wanted to carry on this tradition. One of the most special things about doing this was that when my son was born, my Dad had already retired and since he was the only one in the family who could operate a sewing machine, we worked together on many of Noah's costumes. These have become the most cherished of memories as my Dad passed away over 4 years ago. Although my girls did not know him, when they don one of the costumes that he helped to create, we can talk about how wonderful he was and we all feel him close to us once again.
Even though Dad is not with us to help sew buttons or cut fabric, we are still carrying on with our commitment to do Halloween Homemade and now I try to give it an ecological twist, as well, by repurposing things we have and purchasing as much as possible from the thrift store. This year, I am making a Joker (a la Batman) for Noah, a ladybug for Josie and a spider for Ms. Caroline. These are a work in progress and as soon as I am done I will detail how they came together and, of course, add photos.
Until then though, I decided I would post some of our earlier costume creations and possibly get some folks unstuck if they are still trying to figure out what they can put together and are feeling the pull of the plastic guises on the rack at Walmart. I am missing a few years that were pre-digital camera, but let's see what we've got.

AHA! Noah as a musketeer at age 4. Not a single stitch in this thing. Just printed out a fleur de lis, traced it, cut out felt and glued it together in the form of a smock. Add an eyeliner mustache, David spray painted a dowel and made it into a foil and all the clothes were pulled right from his drawer or dress up box.

He wanted to be a vampire so I pulled this cape out of the dress up box and just put the rest together from things around the house. Did have to buy the fake teeth and some black hair spray. We also invested in a cheapo makeup kit that year. It is still going strong and noone's face has fallen off yet. Josie spent her first Halloween as his bat which is made mostly out of a hooded sweatsuit and was transformed from Noah's baby costume as a black cat. I ditched the tail and made wings out of cardboard covered with felt.

Stop! You're under arrest for continuing to crank out kids! After two babies in 18 months I did break down and buy the police hat and night stick. Again, the rest of his outfit is from clothes we had. I took white sweatsuits that I had for the girls along with baby hats and drew the lines with fabric marker. My favorite part was the ball and chain that each girl had. Painted a Styrofoam ball and made a pipe cleaner chain. Noah was six here and that was the last time I could con him into the group get up.

The gender neutral costumes were making their rounds this year with Josie wearing the Elmo costume my Dad and I made for Noah (he sewed, I dictated and made eyeballs). Caroline revived the bat and Noah went as a Highland Bagpiper. We are Scottish and that was my grandmother's kilt. He had the hat already and I made the sporin (that pouch thingy) out of a men's shaving case, some faux fur scraps, and a ladies chain belt I found for 50 cents. This was his idea and was one of our favorites!

And here is the crew last year. Poor Caroline is the eternal recipient of the hand me down and is sporting  Elmo (no choice given here). Noah wanted to be someone from Star Wars and my limited crafting and sewing skills led us to compromise on being Luke Skywalker as a Jedi knight. All the black clothes came from the thrift store, those are my black boots and he pulled the saber out of his toy box. Josie as the bag of jelly beans has got to be one of my all time favorite creations and was certainly the easiest. Two clear plastic trash bags (which I later reused) a bunch of colored balloons (not so ecofriendly, but they had a ball with them later) and the headpiece top of the bag was made out of a paper plate that I wrapped with cellophane and tied with ribbon. I then velcroed the plate to an old hat and attached a ribbon that I tied under her chin to keep it straight. Paint a few jelly beans on those cheeks and we had Halloween heaven.

*The one disclaimer I should put out there is that my kids are not allowed to just pick any costume. It has to be something I can actually figure out how to make. Noah started off wanting to be Batman this year, but after some discussion we decided that the Joker was more doable. I gave each of the girls a choice between two different bugs that I knew I could pull off and let them choose. To get a closer look at any of the costumes just click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.

I put together this photo retrospective for two reasons - to show that someone who can't sew, knit, paint or craft at all and really does not have any artistic inclination whatsoever can get a little creative juice flowing and find a way to put something together AND to further show that costumes can be gleaned from things you already have and second hand sources and need not cost more than a few dollars. Sure, there is a time investment, but trust me, it pays in spades. I know that when my kids are 30- somethings, these are the things they will look back upon and remember that their mom did it because she loved them. I know this because every Halloween I am reminded that my mom was the greatest and that the memories of her creations have lasted far longer and are sweeter than any cookie she could have ever baked.

Ecothical Dilema #1 - Halloween Candy

I am struggling. Struggling to find the balance between adhering to my environmental preferences and not making my children the Halloween outcasts of the neighborhood. In recent years, I have been growing increasingly uncomfortable with the large bowl of garbage wrapped goodies that I put out for Trick or Treat. Aside from my aversion to candy on the whole (we use individual M&M's for behavioral rewards if that tells you how rare candy is in my house). In fact, at this moment we have no candy in the house outside of the super mega 4 lb. bag of the afore mentioned melt-in-your-mouths that is out of kid reach.

I tried a search of ecofriendly Halloween candy and came up with lots of Fair Trade and organic options that, while better on the whole, made the blood pressure of my inner tightwad start to rise and didn't solve my packaging problem. I also searched for Trick or Treat alternatives and got many good suggestions for needless junk that would ultimately create even more trash and cost more, as well. The one idea that fit my bill was to give out change, but I had flashbacks to birthday parties when my mom would give out pennies for the game prizes and I tried to envision how much the disappointment of child faces in 1984 would rise in the year 2009. Maybe not.
Of course, I would love to put out a big plate of homemade baked goods or even some of the Halloween molded chocolates that the kids and I always make, but I hear the voices of my youth saying things like "razor blades" and "cocaine" and it makes me wonder if anyone would let their kids take them. In reality, the treats should be individually wrapped to keep things sanitary. Could I get away with wrapping up my new little Pumpkin Whoopie Pie gems? Although this would be some waste, at least I would feel better about what was wrapped inside. I may take a bus stop survey and see what people think. I don't mind being different and I think a lot of kids would appreciate the change, but you never know. Maybe a move like that would finally put me in the "crazy lady" category. I could live with that. I'm not so sure about my kids, though. I'll have to pitch it.

Falling In Love

John Travolta and Olivia Newton John can keep summer lovin'. For me, it's all about Fall. Although I have grown more fond of the dog days since I became a gardener, I remain an Autumn girl at heart. It is fairly easy to appreciate Fall when you are from New England. It is a season that touches all of your senses. A description of fall reads like some wine label; full-bodied, a wonderful aroma. It has notes of the upcoming Holidays with just a hint of the waning days of August. It also gets better with age. Now that I am an adult, and even more so a mother, I have a new appreciation for "back to school". Fall has the promise of quiet moments and routines and strict bedtimes. Fall is a mothers best friend.
More than anything, I love Fall food. You can fire up the oven without thinking about the sweat pooling in your bra. You can make heavy, comforting meals that are simple and satisfying. Things are still coming in from the garden, but you don't have the hassle of rapid weed growth and insect control and scorching sun. The onset of Autumn always motivates me in the kitchen and I bust out some of my best recipes. I have four words for you. Pumpkin. Chocolate. Chip. Cookies. Wipe your drool and get out your mixing bowl. You may have to run to the store for a can of pumpkin, but it will be so worth it.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies*

2 cups sugar                            2 eggs
4 cups flour                             1 can pumpkin (15 oz)
4 tsp baking powder               1 cup veg. oil
2 tsp baking soda                    2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp cinnamon                        2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp salt                                 12 oz chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all the dry ingredients then mix in the wet, adding the chocolate chips last. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto greased cooking sheets a few inches apart. Bake about 10-12 min. They will look a bit soft and undercooked at first. Wait a minute or two then remove them to a cooling rack. These are a very cakey and filling cookie, but they will get gobbled right up.

*This recipe was given to me many years ago by one of the women I can credit with my Domestic Goddess Transformation. Margie "Gorgeous" Brennan is an amazing mother of seven who, among other things, really turned me on to the essential nature of homemaking skills in the quest for a frugal life. Cue "Wind Beneath My Wings".

Canned pumpkin is on my seasonal pantry list, but I always manage to have some leftover from winter. As soon as September hits, the little cans of pumpkin mush start calling to me, "Use me. Love me. EAT ME." This year I only was able to get one smallish pumpkin to grow in my garden and it was not of the edible variety. Next year I will absolutely be pursuing pie pumpkins in the hopes of making  these delightful treats even more satisfying. In  the meantime, I am continuing to expand my pumpkin recipe repertoire and decided to try Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. I mean, who doesn't love whoopie pies. First off all, any excuse to throw the word "whoopie" into polite conversation must be taken advantage of and "pie" is always a good time. So put that together with some pumpkin and you have the potential for a frenzy of Fall fun. I checked out a ton of recipes online and finally decided to try the one posted on Martha Stewarts website. I wanted to do one with a cream cheese based filling rather than the Fluff I typically use. I usually find Martha's recipes overly complicated, but this one was pretty straightforward. I linked it rather than post it because I will need to do a bit more experimentation before I decide if it's the one for me. However, I can report that 5 out of 5 Ecocheapo family members ate more than one tonight and already have dibs on some for tomorrow. I may have just found my new Autumn lovah.               

Good to the last pop

I don't know about the rest of the country, but for New Englanders, this was not a banner garden year. Summer didn't even get started until July and was over by mid-August. The deluge of rain that was the month of June caused my tomatoes to get a fungus, my strawberries to drown and, in general, got everything off to a soggy start. So what successes I did have, I really tried to savor. By far, one of my best crops this year was jalapeno peppers.

In our first garden season, I grew one small, hot pepper plant. I can't recall the variety and I put it in quite late to replace something I had to pull so I only got a few fruits before it quit on me. This year, I decided to put in six jalapeno plants and see how they would do. Little did I know that every one of those would take off and begin to shower me with lovely, green goodies. Supposedly, if you leave them on the plant they will turn red and continue to get hotter, but ours never made it that long and since we are feeding three youngsters with these, we didn't want to trip the oral fire alarm.
Yesterday, I had to finally admit that it is too cold and getting too dark for my spicy babies to produce much more so I harvested the remaining peppers and set about making my last batch of Homemade Jalapeno Poppers. We are huge popper fans and now that we have grown and consumed our own we have sworn off the frozen turds we used to pick up at Sam's Club.
Now that it is October, you may not have access to a quantity of fresh jalapenos that hasn't traveled many miles to get here, but maybe this will wet your appetite and get you thinking about cultivating your own hot beauty patch next year.

* A recipe disclaimer - With the exception of baked goods, I rarely follow a recipe exactly. I usually look at one or two recipes for something and then tweak it to suit my culinary style and limitations. So in the case of the poppers, this is just a guide. Experiment and see what works for you.

Jalapeno Poppers

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
two handfuls shredded cheddar cheese
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp cilantro (fresh chopped is awesome, but dried works fine too)
1 cup flour
5 eggs
a squirt of lime juice
2 cups bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
approx 15 -20 fresh jalapenos
vegetable oil for frying
ranch dressing or salsa and sour cream mixed together for dipping

Start by prepping your peppers. Slice of the top and then scoop out the guts. I use a small corer that looks a bit like a peeler. A paring knife would work too. BE CAREFUL not to touch your eyes, pick your nose, etc. until you have washed your hands thoroughly Those pepper innards are hot! After cleaning them, rinse them inside and out to get out even more seeds. A few remaining is fine and will spice it up a bit more.
Next, get your filling ready. Combine the cream cheese, cheddar, cumin and cilantro and mix well.
Now prep your breading station. You'll need three bowls. In the first put the flour. Then beat the eggs and the lime juice together in the second one. Lastly combine the bread crumbs and salt and pepper.
To fill the poppers, slice them in half length wise and then use a knife (I like a small butter knife) to smear filling into each side. Put the halves back together and give them a little press. Go around with your knife and wipe off any filling that has squeezed out. Resist the temptation to cut all the peppers first. I did that and then had a heck of a time matching the halves back up.
Once all the peppers have been filled, you can begin breading. The following process should give you a nice coating that will hold up during frying.
Step 1 Flour
Step 2 Egg
Step 3 Bread crumbs
Step 4 Egg
Step 5 Bread crumbs
Heat about 1-2 inches of oil in a deep sided pan until a few drops of water sprinkled in the oil start to sizzle. Carefully place the poppers into the pan and cook 3-4 minutes or until browned and then turn them over. I like to turn the heat down a bit to give the peppers more time to soften without burning the outside. Remove with a slotted spoon or spatula onto a paper towel to drain. Once all the poppers are cooked, remove them to a plate, serve with dip of your choice and prepare for the WOW factor.

I will really miss these over the winter months. But every successful meal that I produce using the bounty from my garden only makes me want to plan more ways to bring my favorite ingredients to life in my own backyard. Whether you have acres or inches, there is something that you can grow. In patches or pots, maybe jalapenos will be "popping" up for you in the not so distant future.