Suncat

What a nice sounding day.

Oh something else you might look for in "bars".. I have a friend who makes lotion bars. I haven't tried any myself (she's a few states away) but you might keep an eye and try some if you keep lotion on hand.

I've got some fresh from the oven "Dried Fruit Cookies" aka "Fruitcake Cookies".

Advent is such a busy season since we do special reading time every evening with the lighting of the Advent wreath.

The twine looking balls I think are considered "crochet thread" and you'd make doilies and more lacy types of stuff (I've used it for doing blanket stitching on woolens). I think my favorite is the Lily Sugar 'n Cream (I get it at Michaels). It's a 2 oz size but it makes 1-2 dish clothes depending on the size/pattern.

My number one favorite project to crochet is a dishcloth. So I mainly use cotton yarns now. I finished up one last night and rather than starting a new one I rolled up a bunch of skeins that I had so that I can pick and choose when I next sit down to make a dishcloth.

In the meantime and when I can process the directions.. I'm making some boot toppers for my almost 8 yr old. Good way to pretty up some utilitarian snow boots. I hope to get at least one set made for her birthday in not quite 2 weeks.

There are tons of dairy farms in CA.. also they grow a lot of the feed that would feed dairy cows probably not just in CA.. and without water you can't grow stuff so..

We have a store here that got some blocks of unsalted european style butter.. a bit different flavor than we're used to.. but not bad.. and it's only $1.99/lb we'll adapt

One of my dh's favorites in college was bean burritos. You could even make the beans from scratch and freeze in small batches.. but just heat up the refried beans and toss in cheese.. spread on a tortilla and add toppings if desired. Fast and cheap.

I've added radishes to cucumber salad (vinegar and sugar and dill) and they were good.. the red does "bleed" if I remember right.

I got a box of apples today for $.50 a pound.. haven't seen that in a while. guess we're going to be processing apples here. Oh and I was offered a couple of homegrown cooking pumpkins today.. I'll get them later in the week. So lots of apple and pumpkin stuff going to be made here.

partially using leftovers here too.. making homemade pizza.. used a leftover alfredo sauce with sausage and veggies in it on one of the pizzas.

Corned beef and cabbage(home grown) with mashed potatoes

yeah we have a few green tomatoes left that I want to fry.. and we tried out a green tomato pie that was really yummy (sweet, almost like apple pie)

the glass bulb of an LED is cooler but they still have parts that can get hot.

I'm still using fresh tomatoes.. these ripened in the window after being picked green (scalloped tomatoes as a side with homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight).. but I picked the few cabbages we had today. They'd be ok for a bit longer but they weren't getting bigger and I've wanted to use them before my mom moves to my sister's house for the winter. (she's in a warmer area).

Yep.. I use it to inform myself.. so that when I'm at the store looking at stuff, I can have a "feel" for the true difference in cost.. and can balance that along with the work of dealing with something like a whole chicken, and whether or not I want to mess with broth at that time.

That's true but you could compare things like a whole chicken vs just the bone-in breasts for the cost of the meat serving.. you'd still have bones to make broths.. It's just a tool to help you compare the cost of a serving a meat across the various ways they're sold.

I find it helpful.. in the for instance I gave above.. both of those just happen to work out to $0.50/serving.. but it really helps me in knowing that what looks cheaper may not be.. or what I think isn't too much more.. maybe really is.

You input the information from your area.. so like if you know the price of a whole chicken at your store is $1.25/lb and the boneless skinless breasts are on sale for $2/lb you can see how they compare by the number of servings you get from them.

So, I don't know if this has been shared here.. but for a straight cost per serving (doesn't account for things like using bones for broth) this is a great little calculator.

http://www.cheapcooking.com/costperserving.htm

This will let you compare things like bone-in chicken breasts with blsl chicken breasts for the amount of meat you'd get.

There are dual purpose chickens.. not sure about ducks

I've discovered things like.. you can easily slice a boneless pork loin roast into lovely pork chops.. and when you get it on sale it easily undercuts buying pork chops (and you can package up for the freezer in amounts for your household). Also I can take a pork shoulder roast (cheapest cut currently) and hack it into long chunks and bbq like ribs and it's very close to the boneless country style ribs that were easily running twice the cost of the roast. I try and only get beef when it's clearanced and get it right into the freezer..

Nothing like eating today for yesterday's prices

Nice! My grammy would make a pear and pineapple jam that was really yummy.. I think she also did the spiced pears (they're sorta pickled I think)

the most basic of soap can be made with lye and fat.. and lye can be made by running water through wood ashes.

that sounds like what I ran into getting here.. I bypassed it by coming directly to the forum url instead of the main page.

I've read some stuff about diseases essentially having a cyclical pattern.. so that they'll "die out" and come back.