I started the process of pickling fish.  Not the uber awesome lacto fermented though.  I’m going to save that for when I have some whey.

The first step is putting a very strong brine on a quart of fish pieces.
Done.

Tomorrow, drain and cover with white vinegar.

Then drain again after twenty four hours and cover with vinegar, sugar, spices.  And don’t forget the onions!

  See?  Just beautiful, potato plants are.

And for a little gratitous baby and dog action:

See you soon!

Penny

www.copperwyre.com

Anyway, please come back tomorrow, and I’m sure I’ll have something posted.

Penny

My sanity.

Over Thanksgiving break, we stayed with friends in Maryland, butchering pigs on Wednesday and Thursday of that week.  We drove back on Thanksgiving evening, then arose very early Friday morning to catch a plane from Philadelphia to Vermont.  At which point, we rode with friends about three hours into Canada. Then, Sunday, we did it all again, only backwards. We ended up with a considerable amount of dirty laundry.

I attempted to do laundry on Monday, only to discover that the washer wouldn’t spin.  My stepfather couldn’t make it out until this Sunday to fix it.  As you can imagine, I ended up with a nearly insurmountable pile of laundry.

To expedite the process, I have been using the dryer, despite the fact that it costs more to use.  Up until recently, I would have tried to catch up only hanging clothes, because I would feel this insane guilt for doing something that I knew was not frugal.  I would inevitably fall further and further behind on my housework, because I would feel distraught over the piles of laundry.  The feeling of upset would drive me to spend money to console myself with takeout pizza or a new DVD.  One day, I came to the conclusion that a few loads of clothes in the dryer are far more inexpensive than the inevitable consolation splurge.

You have to know your audience, yourself, and make decisions based on you, not generic advice and adages.  Most of that type of advice is logical, but, as you know, people do not always base their spending decisions on logic. Emotions are often what get us in trouble, especially with spending. Be self-aware, and you’ll find your emotional spending decrease.

Sometimes, you’ve got to spend money to save money.

Is there anything that you do that defies typical frugal advice or, even, logic? And, am I the only one who feels guilty about decisions and frugality?

Soups are great for winging it.  Just decide if you will have a broth base, tomato base, cream base or some combination thereof.  I always start with sautéing the almighty trifecta: garlic, onion and celery. For the broth or tomato base, it’s just a matter of adding the liquid of choice.  Cream is a bit more complicated, because you would need to make a roux and add the cream for a cream sauce.  However, I’ve cheated on the cream sauce, more than once, by adding straight milk to the soup and thickening with cornstarch-water mixture.  After that, you just add whatever vegetables, meat bits, or grain you have on hand.

Slow cookers and meat can make for great experiments.  Remember that the key component to a tenderizer is an acid.  Therefore, when working without a recipe on a hunk of meat, make sure you add something acidic as the liquid base.  Beer, apple juice, pineapple juice, or orange juice can make for delicious meat.  By the time the meat is cooked, the sweetness is largely gone.  Plus, the leftover juice makes for a great gravy or soup base!

Learn some basic cooking techniques.  If you don’t know what I meant by roux, it’s time you got yourself a basic cookbook and learned.  A roux is a thickening agent for everything from a cream soup to gravies, so is very useful to know for building recipes.  Once you know how to do basic things, you’ll be able to create your own casseroles or soups.

Keep in mind that spices are your friends.  Spices take a dish from good to sublime.  Make sure you don’t add conflicting spices to the dish.  For Italian dishes, I add garlic powder, onion powder, oregano and parsley.  For Mexican dishes, I add garlic powder, onion powder, cilantro, and chile powder.  For Indian, I add cumin, curry powder and cayenne powder.  Generally speaking, so long as you stick to one “category” of spice, it will taste good.

Be Brave.  It can’t possibly be all that bad.  Really.  I’ve had very few experiments that didn’t turn out well, but they were still edible.  Providing that you don’t burn it or add far too much cayenne, your free wheeling meal should be fairly tasty.

The ability to work without a net in the kitchen is a valuable one.  It makes it possible for you to use up leftovers that might otherwise go to waste.  By building your kitchen muscles, you’ll find the idea of dinner far less daunting, which is a blessing, indeed.