Give a girl a fig.

I love figs. I haven't always loved figs. As a matter of fact, I didn't eat a fig until I was 25 years old. I rented a tiny little hole in the wall apartment about 7 miles outside of town and there was a fig tree in my driveway. I didn't even know what it was! But I took my grandmother out one day to see my new pad and she about came unglued because I had a fig tree.

"Is that what that is?!" I didn't know. Not to mention it was one of the ugliest trees I'd ever seen.

"Yes! Oh, I love figs! You'll have to pick some for me when they're ripe."

Eventually they ripened. And as promised, I picked some for my grandmother. I even delivered them! And we had a nice visit while eating figs. And I really, really liked them. A lot. Who knew?

Thanks to my grandmother, and my little apartment in the country, I would like to plant a fig tree someday. Our dream is to buy country property...someday. So, when we DO buy country property...someday...I'll be planting a fig tree.

And an orange tree.

And a Meyer lemon tree.

And a plum tree.

And a persimmon tree.

And lots of vegetables.

The gorgeous photo above is from Whole Foods. Go visit!

I love Thanksgiving.

I just finished putting the kitchen back together. I've got the dishwasher set to run while I sleep. I've got the coffee pot set to brew before I wake. Life is good.

Tonight I made a pumpkin pie with pecan streusel on top. This is my own creation. I made it for the first time a few years ago and have been making it since. Tonight I did something a little different though. After putting the streusel topping in the middle of the pie leaving about an inch of pumpkin filling showing, I took some pecan halves (courtesy of the huge tree in the backyard and my husband for painstakingly cracking nuts VERY carefully so I could have halves. He must really love me.) and arranged them carefully around the edge of the pie in between the crust and the pecan streusel. After I took it out of the oven I realized it resembled a sunflower! The best part is that I didn't mean to do it...it was a total surprise. I love it when that happens.

I'll take a picture in the morning. It's too dark in my little poorly lit kitchen so it will have to wait. Hopefully I don't forget!

I also made a Jell-o salad using my Aunt Mickey's recipe. It is so good. It's raspberry Jell-o, raspberries, raspberry yogurt, cream cheese, sour cream, walnuts and whip cream. I mean really, how could you go wrong with THOSE ingredients? It's pretty, too..beautiful pink and white layers in a crystal bowl...lovely. Maybe I'll snap a photograph of that, too.

Tomorrow morning I'll make the yams...again, my own special recipe that I made up a few years ago...and have been making since. I never used to like yams...and neither did my husband or my brother...but we all like these yams. Probably because I do NOT scrimp on the ingredients. Not the butter, not the spices, not the brown sugar, not the marshmallows. I go for it. I pile them high and season them well. It's basically dessert as a side-dish. Mmmm...my mouth is watering already.

I love Thanksgiving. I love the prep. The colors. The weather. The gathering of family without the stress of gift giving. It's just an easy, relaxing, fun time.

Have I mentioned that I love Thanksgiving?

Speaking of which...I hope you enjoy yours.

Teach your children well...

My son has taken to reading food labels when he's bored...and he is a bit TOO eager to show me ingredients in food that I've missed. Like the high-fructose corn syrup in our bread. Yes, in the BREAD. I thought I was doing a good thing switching to wheat bread...and amazingly nobody in my family complained. But, I have to confess, it was the cheap wheat bread. Not the good whole grain stuff. I did this innocently enough, however...and could only say that once I knew better, I did better. Now I buy whole grain bread....even though it's a bit more expensive. It's worth it. I'm learning that being frugal can't always equate to cheap. And, as we've all learned at some time or another...you get what you pay for. In the case of bread vs. frugality...buy good bread when on sale and store in your freezer. Voila! Cost effective!

OK...so back to my son and label reading. He found that jelly has high-fructose corn syrup in it. And honestly, I had never thought to even look! You know how you just get used to buying what you buy without paying attention? Well, that's what happened with the jelly. If it was on sale, I was buying it. Period. But...the REAL challenge now is to combine good, healthy, whole food AND cost-effectiveness. But really...back to my son...(man I sure get side-tracked)...his thought is that the only way we'll be able to get good jelly or jam without the additives is to make it ourselves. Hm. Novel idea, son. (My grandmother DID say I could have all of her canning equipment...hmmm..)

Let me just say that this one sentence...well, and reading my bible from Genesis to Revelation (I'll go into this more at another time...)...and looking at country property...turned a light on in my head and led me on this wild goose chase of gathering information about sustainable living and organic gardening and preserving what I grow and raising chickens and equipping our home with renewable energy sources.

So...to make a long story even longer...this blog will not only focus on frugal feasts...it will also focus on frugal living in general. Simplicity, if you will.

And now...off to help Ian check labels.

"Mom, are you trying to kill us?"

My youngest son came into my room, holding our jar of peanut butter high in the air, hollering, "Mom, are you trying to kill us? Read the label!"

Yes. It contains partially hydrogenated oil.

"Good job, son."

Dangit. Why didn't I ever think to check THIS label? Maybe because I've been buying the same brand for years...and because it was the brand my mom bought...and because I pretty much just grab it out of habit? Hmmm..what else do I "just grab out of habit"?

I think this would be worth looking into a bit more...

And now...the hunt for a natural, good tasting peanut butter. These two requirements don't naturally go hand in hand. At least I've never found a natural peanut butter that tasted good, too.

I'll let you know what I find!

Additives I stay away from...

I have only recently, say in the past year or so, become aware of the dangers of some of the additives that are added to many of our favorite, popular foods. These are the few things I stay away from when choosing foods for my family: partially hydrogenated oils, MSG or monosodium glutamate, aspartame and high-fructose corn syrup.

• The first one that was brought to my attention by my dear friend, Elaine, was partially hydogenated oil. This is found in almost every snack cracker, cookie, chip...you name it. It is quite a challenge to find good, tasty items that do not contain these dangerous trans fats. Two good snacks that I found today are Triscuit and Fiddle Faddle.
• The second additive that was brought to my attention was MSG or monosodium glutamate. This is another dangerous additive that is in SO many of our popular convenience foods. What really got me going about MSG was a piece done about it on CBN's The 700 Club a few months back. They called it "the cancer fertilizer". And with cancer in my family, I just wasn't going to take any MORE risks that I already unknowingly do. You can click the link above to read an interesting article about MSG. It also contains a helpful list of other names MSG is listed as...in disguise, if you will...in cognito. Not good. You will be surprised at the amount of foods that contain some form of MSG.
• Aspartame, found in diet drinks and fat free foods, among other things, is another additive I avoid. I figured this one out on my own when I was able to taste it every time I ate or drank something diet or fat-free. Yogurt, for example, would leave the worst taste in my mouth...all I could taste was chemicals. I was never able to get accustomed to diet sodas or drinks...again, all I could taste was, what I eventually figured out was, aspartame. So I stopped buying anything that contained aspartame. Luckily for my husband, who loves his diet soda, Coke and Pepsi both came out with a diet cola containing Splenda rather than aspartame. It's taken him some time to get used to it...but he's doing it without much complaining. You can read a list of symptoms and diseases linked, or possibly linked, to the ingestion of aspartame. Some people say that aspartame has to be consumed in large doses to do damage...but I figure if my body can't break it down, eventually it WILL be a large amount. So why take chances?
• This last ingredient was only brought to my attention over this past summer. I was lecturing my brother-in-law on the dangers of Aspartame when he came right back at me with the dangers of high-fructose corn syrup, telling me that it tells the brain it's not full. This is especially dangerous for children...and unfortunately, it is in SO many, TOO many foods we've all fed our children: cereals, juices, juice boxes, granola bars, fruit snacks, candy, I even saw it listed in the ingredients of a popular snack cracker just this morning while trying to find bargains at Big Lots (which I did, thank you!). It's everywhere...and in way more than we realize...and many times, unknowingly, we are pumping our children full of sugar...then sending them off to school without a proper, healthy meal and THEN wondering why they're having trouble staying focused. (Not to mention the awful school meals they are now feeding our kids...my kids won't even eat them) I know my kids would LOVE a big, fat bowl of Cap'n Crunch each morning...but I just can't do that to them. I may as well just send them off with a kiss and say, "Bye honey...love you...hope you fail today!" I know this may sound dramatic to some of you...but I can see the difference in my own children. Especially my younger son who seems to be more affected by what I allow him to put in his body. Sugar really affects him. Really. I can literally watch him be unable to focus, to remember, to stay on task, to sit still, he can't fall asleep if he's had a sugar-y snack too close to bedtime...it's sad, really. Not my older son so much...in that it doesn't necessarily make him hyper or unable to focus...he gets more lethargic and listless, which is just as detremental as the other.

I have to say that it does take more time at the store to do my shopping since I take the time to read the labels. But I find it to be worth every extra minute knowing that I am feeding my family as healthily as I possibly know how. This is not to say that we don't have the occasional treat that contains something that is less than good for us...we do. I have to admit, I haven't conquered my love of coffee creamer. But for the most part, we are careful. And my sons are even reading labels now, too! (And my husband, too!) My boys and I were at Big Lots earlier today and they were wanting a snack...they saw me reading labels and followed suit. After some complaining, "How come everything that tastes good is bad for you?!", they were finally able to agree on a sweet snack that didn't contain anything unsafe...that we know of anyway!

Sometimes it seems like I can't find anything that doesn't contain something that is bad for our health. And it seems like the only thing I could do to ensure total safety would be to move to some remote mountain region...build a cabin...grow my own food...water it with purified water...can it...freeze it...raise my own beef...and fowl...and do everything like they did back in the day.

But, since I don't see that happening anytime soon, I'll continue as I have been...something is better than nothing. Right? We can make a difference...one small change at a time.

Soups On for Under $7!

Last night I made a popular favorite around my house...New England Clam Chowder. I was always somewhat intimidated to make this...for whatever reason...until I tried a recipe from Dave Lieberman of the Food Network. I really like his philosophy behind cooking and preparing food...basically that you can eat well AND on a budget. Last Christmas I got his cookbook, Dave's Dinners, from my sister-in-law and, after working up my nerve, decided to try his chowder recipe. It was amazingly simple...and amazingly GOOD. I made a few changes to suit my taste and my health choices...and this is what I came up with. Enjoy!

New England Clam Chowder
6-8 servings

3 tblsp. olive oil
1 tblsp. butter
1 medium onion - finely diced
3 celery stalks - finely diced
3 tblsp. flour
2 cups fat-free chicken broth
2 (6.5 oz.) cans minced clams in juice (chopped work too!)
1 cup milk (I used 1%)
1 bay leaf
1 lb. russet potatoes - peeled and diced into 1/2" pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and celery and saute until softened, mixing often. Add the butter and stir until melted. Add the flour and stir to distribute evenly. Add the broth, clams and juice, milk, bay leaf and potatoes and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer, stirring often, then reduce heat to medium-low and cook 20-30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender, stirring often to prevent the sop from sticking to the bottom of your pot. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with crusty french bread and butter.

Or, to make it really fun, serve in sourdough bread bowls! My kids really enjoy it this way. It's like being on the wharf in San Francisco!

This recipe is so delicious...and really, truly simple. It originally called for cream, 2 bay leaves and didn't call for any butter. I added the butter and changed to 1% milk (I've also used fat-free and it was just as delicious). I also chose to only use 1 bay leaf as I thought 2 was way too strong, it was all I could taste.

The tally for this meal, with careful shopping, is as follows:

2 cans clams in juice 1.98
4 potatoes .50
celery and onion 1.00
chicken broth 1.00
milk .25

sub-total $4.73
(4) day-old mini sourdough loaves 1.99

Total $6.71

This fed my family of four a hearty dinner and left enough for a more than decent lunch for me the next day!

Proverbs 31:15

15 She riseth also while it is yet night,

and giveth meat to her household,

and a portion to her maidens.