Short On...? Carry On: Part Five, Easter Candy

We could have bought some Easter treats earlier at the store, but we didn't, and today all the grocery stores are as crazy as they're allowed to be right now. So it looks like I'm responsible for filling our household baskets.

What do we have?

250 g dark chocolate chips
300 g butterscotch chips
1 lb. (454 g) butter
1 cup milk powder
1 bag sweetened, flaked coconut

Miscellaneous things like quick oats, cocoa, eggs, milk, flour, sugar, green and multi-coloured sprinkles. Yes, I know how fortunate we are to have some of these things.

What would you do with these ingredients? If peanut butter weren't an issue here and if I needed a lot of something, I'd probably make peanut butter balls and dip them in melted chocolate chips. My grandmother might have made cocoa-oatmeal macaroons. But we need only small batches of any one thing, and I have only that one cup of milk powder, so I'm thinking half a batch of chocolate cheater fudge, half a batch of coconut candy, and a batch of butterscotch-oatmeal cookies or squares ("Scotchies"), some of which we could freeze for later.

We have to start by making the equivalent of one can sweetened condensed milk. I got this version in a "living on one income" workshop at my very first homeschool conference, twenty-five years ago.

Sweetened Condensed Milk Substitute (makes equivalent of one can)

Ingredients: 2/3 cup sugar, 1/4 cup melted butter, 1 cup milk powder, 1/3 cup boiling water

Mix in blender, let thicken a bit in the refrigerator.

Half Batch of  Canadian Living Quick Fruit and Nut Fudge, without the fruit and nuts

Half the amount of sweetened condensed milk
225 g chocolate chips (turned out to need the whole bag)
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Heat chocolate and milk mixture together until the chocolate melts (I did this in the microwave, it took only a couple of minutes). Stir in vanilla. Spoon into foil-lined pan or mini muffin cups. Top with sprinkles. Refrigerate until set, cut in squares.

Half Batch of Coconut Candy, from a recipe found at The Gold Lining Girl

Ingredients: Half Full bag of coconut (her bags must be twice as big as ours), half the amount of sweetened condensed milk. Follow the recipe at that link, cutting amounts in half. Bake candies and let cool. Optional: melt remaining chocolate chips, stretching with butterscotch chips if necessary, and partially dip the candies as shown at The Gold Lining Girl.

Short On...? Carry On, Part Four: Potato Things

Some people have written way more extensively than I ever have about ways to cook potatoes. I do not claim to be that much of a potato expert. 

Often the two of us settle for instant potato flakes. If you're buying potato flakes, look for Idahoan brand in a box, no flavouring, no additives. We have never found anything else that comes close.

But here are a few sort of different things we've done with real potatoes.

Baked Potato Soup: Mentioned here multiple times over the years. Cut the recipe in half if you have a 3 1/2 quart slow cooker, and in half again if you have an even smaller family and smaller slow cooker. Vegetable broth works as well as chicken broth; you can eyeball the amount of liquid if you're cutting the recipe.

Potato Casserole #1:  Making a potato casserole uses up as many potatoes as you have...and "potato casserole" could be as simple as cooking cut-up (sliced or chunked) potatoes in some broth or milk, and adding a little seasoning...and that could be in a pot, in the oven, or in the slow cooker.  Add some of the carrots and an onion, and you're on your way to stew.

Potato Casserole #2: If you have a boring ground-meat or vegetable casserole in the freezer, you can thaw it, maybe add a bit of extra seasoning, and top with mashed potatoes to make Shepherd's Pie.

Pizza Potatoes: cut-up potatoes, pizza sauce, pepperoni, and cheese, baked in a casserole or done in the slow cooker. Optional toppings: sliced olives, green peppers.

Mexican Potato Casserole, which we found in Company's Coming Kids: Lunches, but which is almost identical to the one on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook, and they say they got it from a church cookbook.  So it seems like one of those recipes that's made the rounds.  You coat cut-up potatoes in melted margarine and taco seasoning and bake them in a casserole; then, about ten minutes before serving, you add browned ground beef mixed with salsa and chopped peppers, and cheese on top. I just used the amounts of everything that we had on hand, including homemade taco seasoning and mild Cheddar instead of Jack cheese, but we thought it was pretty good.  (The recipe says not to peel the potatoes, but we prefer them peeled.)

Ranch-Spiced Potatoes in the Slow Cooker  This is pretty much Mexican Potato Casserole without the meat on top, and with different seasonings. You can also use homemade Sloppy Joe seasoning mix.

Perogy Casserole, Treehouse Version

Cook 15 lasagna noodles in a big potful of boiling water.
Prepare 2 cupfuls of mashed potatoes (you can use the same pot).
Grate or chop 2 ounces (at least; we like more) Cheddar cheese and mix this with the mashed potatoes; add some pepper and 1/4 tsp. onion powder. You can also add salt at this point; when I first wrote this out, we were trying to cut back on sodium.
Mix 1 cup cottage cheese with 1 egg or equivalent replacer, and another 1/4 tsp. onion powder.
Melt 1/2 cup butter or margarine  in a small skillet or pot; add 1 small onion, chopped small; cook until onion is soft.

Grease or spray a 9 x 13 inch pan; if you have one with a lid, use that; otherwise you'll have to cover the pan with foil.
Line the bottom of the pan with 1/3 of the noodles.
Cover with cottage cheese mixture.
Cover with second layer of noodles.
Cover with mashed potato mixture.
Cover with third layer of noodles.
Cover with hot cooked onions-margarine/butter mixture.
Cover the pan and bake for 30 minutes.  Let sit 10 minutes before slicing.

Short on...? Carry On: Part Three, The Food Hamper Gourmet (Archives Post)

First posted January 2007. Edited somewhat.

In the mid-1990's, I trained to be a Community Nutrition Worker. CNWs are “peer support workers” (rather than professionals). They’re usually hired by community centres or outreach programs to run co-op kitchens, do supermarket nutrition tours, and lead healthy-cooking classes. My career as a CNW was fairly short-lived, but I did learn quite a bit—not so much from the nutritionist who taught the course, but from the other women taking the training. Which is probably the way it should be.

One of the training assignments was to take the contents of an emergency food hamper and explain how it might feed two adults and two children for three or four days. (I think the original assigment was three days, but I wrote menus for four.) 2020 Update: It tells you something about changing attitudes that, at the time I did the assignment, it was assumed that food hamper recipients would just take whatever they were given. I know that (at least under normal circumstances) our local food bank now operates on a "shop the shelves" system, allowing users to choose the foods they want.

Most of the recipes I used for that assignment came from a 1975 book called The One-Burner Gourmet, by Harriett Barker. (You can borrow it here.) I don’t know whether, years later, I’d produce the same menus I did then. I wasn’t allowing for what I think of as the “ick factor,” meaning that some people would not care for the idea of mixing things together the way I did. Even in an emergency, I’m not sure I’d be able to eat canned peas straight up, knowing how relatively little nutrition they have for the amount of stomach-clutching it takes to swallow them. But this is what I came up with, plus my notes from then and now. 

Contents of a Basic Food Hamper 
[The goal would be to have all these things in each box, but that would depend on the food bank's supply at any time.]

Pork and Beans, 2 [cans] per person
Vegetables (Green and Yellow), 2 per person
Mac and cheese, 2 per person
Jam/Honey, 1 per hamper
Soup, 2 (cans?) per person
Juice (48 oz), 1 per hamper
Peanut butter, 1 per hamper (size unspecified)
Cookies, ½ (1/2 of what?) when available
Crackers, ½ (ditto?) when available (I guess they broke open the packages)
Fruit, canned, 1 [can?] per person, (fresh when available)
Potatoes, 5 lb.
Powdered milk, “1 per hamper” (size unspecified, I assume a supermarket-sized bag or box)
Margarine, “1 per hamper” (size unspecified, I assume a pound container)
Pasta/sauce “when available”
Cereal, “1 when available” (size unspecified)
Meat, “3 lunches, 3 suppers, when available” (kind of meat is unspecified—Spam? Tuna? Something not canned?)
Bread, “1 per person” (1 loaf?)
Donuts, when available
Buns, when available

Baby needs on request.

There were rules about including three out of four food groups in the breakfasts, and all food groups in the other meals. I don’t remember whether we were allowed to assume that there was any food already on hand or whether there was some cash allowed to buy a few groceries; but I did end up including a few other things which I noted.

Grocery list: peppers or celery, onions (or dried onion), rice or pasta if they weren’t in the box, and tomato sauce if it wasn’t in the box. [I think a dozen eggs would have been a good addition as well, but I was trying for bare necessities.] 

Food on hand: Mayonnaise-type salad dressing, salt and pepper.

We were supposed to suggest snacks, but there wasn’t a lot to work with beyond the obvious bread, crackers and cookies in the box. I said that if honey was provided, they could use it with the dried milk and peanut butter to make peanut butter balls.

Wednesday

Breakfast: 4 oz. juice (per person), cereal with milk, toast and jam or peanut butter

Lunch: Macaroni and cheese (2 or 3 boxes), with 1 can meat (Spam, tuna etc.) chopped in; 2 cans peas. (The One-Burner Gourmet suggests browning the Spam or similar product in margarine first, with fresh or dried onion if you have it, and then adding it to the cooked macaroni.)

Supper: Bean Chowder, made of 2 cans of pork-and-beans, 1 can of tomatoes or tomato sauce, a green pepper or celery, an onion, some margarine (to saute the vegetables first), and salt. Serve with bread (or toast) and milk.

Thursday

Breakfast: 4 oz. juice; toasted peanut butter and jam sandwiches; milk

Lunch: 2 cans soup with crackers; sandwiches made with a can of fish or other meat plus mayonnaise

Supper: “Lunch Meat and Noodles,” a recipe from the One-Burner Gourmet. You cook these things together: 1 can cream soup, ½ cup milk, 1 can of luncheon meat (cut in strips), ½ a green pepper, chopped (or celery), 1 tsp. dried onion (or some fresh), 1 can peas (use the liquid to add to the dry milk), and 1 tsp. salt. Simmer all this while you cook some noodles or other pasta (you could save out some of the boxed macaroni), and add this to the pot as well. Rice could be substituted. 2 cans of fruit for dessert.

Friday

Breakfast: Fried lunch meat and potatoes; toast; milk

Lunch: 2 cans pork and beans; boiled potatoes; bread, milk, cookies.

Supper: “Soup and Vegetable Chowder,” another One-Burner Gourmet recipe. The success of this would depend on what cans were in the hamper. The recipe calls for 2 cans cream soup, 2 cans chicken soup (like chicken noodle, chicken with rice, etc.), 2 cans corn, 1 can lima beans, 1 can milk (or dry substitute), salt and pepper. You are supposed to add everything together except the milk, simmer for 10-15 minutes, and then add the milk just before serving but don’t boil it. Dessert is something I used to make when I was younger; you cut the crusts off bread, [update: flatten each piece with a rolling pin or something similar], roll them up with jam or peanut butter, secure with a toothpick, and spread a bit of margarine on the outside. Bake them in the oven for a few minutes until they’re toasty. Not fancy, but little kids like them. (Think jam burritos.)

Saturday 

Breakfast: 4 oz. juice; cereal with milk; toast and jam or peanut butter

Lunch: Tuna and Green Bean mixup: A can of cream soup, a can of tuna, a can of vegetables, and enough milk to moisten; doubled if enough food is left in the box. Serve with toast and cookies.

Supper: Whatever’s left: could be potatoes, pork and beans, canned vegetables, and bread. Milk if there’s still some left.

Short On...? Carry On, Part Two: Breaking the Soup Rules

The best soups in the world may be made with bones and the ends of vegetables, but not all of us have those things all the time. You too can make soup, which as others before me have pointed out, is just wet food.

But even wet food tastes better with some stuff in it to give it a) ballast and b) flavour. These are some soups created and eaten by the Treehouse squirrels over the past many years. I've chosen the ones with the shortest and/or most flexible ingredient lists.

It Appears to Be Soup

Ingredients: 4 cups of chicken stock, 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup green lentils simmered in the stock/water, then some cooked rice, leftover chopped potato, and frozen mixed vegetables added and cooked until it was soup. 

Directions: Simmer it all together. You know it's soup when it stops looking like a potful of water with vegetables and lentils floating in it.


"We Are Never Going to Use This Coleslaw Mix" Soup

Ingredients: 1 bag pre-shredded cabbage, carrots, barley, canned pinto beans, sloppy joe seasoning (homemade mixture), and a few lentils (since we had them)

Directions: Simmer it all together.


Freezer Minestrone

Ingredients: Several small containers of leftover pasta sauce and beans that had accumulated in the freezer, along with a box of chicken broth, a bit of frozen spinach, a bit of pasta, and a few mushrooms.

Directions: Simmer it all together.


Sort of Mexican Soup

Ingredients: Leftovers from the Hillbilly Housewife's Lentil-Rice Taco Stuffing; enough water or broth to make it soupy; one can pinto beans, drained; some frozen corn, half a cup or so of salsa. 

Directions: Simmer it all together. Add corn and salsa near the end of cooking.


Lentil Soup Isn't So Bad 

Ingredients: 3 cups chicken broth plus an equal amount water; Some green lentils--maybe half to two-thirds of a cup dry; 2 carrots, sliced; 1/2 bunch celery, including some leaves, sliced; salsa 

Directions: Rinse the lentils and check for pebbles. Bring the broth and water to a boil, and add the lentils and vegetables. Turn down the heat and simmer until the lentils are soft enough to eat and the vegetables are cooked. I poured in some mild salsa partway through--maybe half a cup, just enough to season it up and add a bit of onion and tomato.  Add more water if it needs it as it's cooking.


Dead-easy Navy Bean Soup (slow cooker) (Adapted from Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely)

Directions: Soak one pound navy beans (half a 900 gram bag) overnight.

When you get up in the morning, discard the soaking water.  Throw some frozen chopped onion, the beans, a couple of bay leaves, and 1 litre (quart) chicken or vegetable broth into the slow cooker, and turn it on high.
Later, when you're feeling more awake, add in sliced carrots and/or celery.  I didn't have celery so I put in some celery seed.  Keep the soup cooking all day, on high for part of the time if your day is getting short.  When the beans seem like they're pretty soft, add in salt and pepper; I also added a bit of cumin. Add a little water if it seems to need it, but don't add TOO much.

You can turn it off and let it sit for awhile before you eat, to let it thicken and cool a bit.


Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup We've Been Making Forever

Adapted from a recipe in The Perfect Basket, by Diane Phillips. Can be halved and cooked in a smaller slower cooker. If you don't have fresh vegetables, you can substitute frozen "spaghetti mix" vegetables (a mixture of onion, celery, and pepper).

Ingredients:

2 cups yellow split peas (one of the little bags from the grocery store)
1/2 cup brown rice (optional)
1 bay leaf
2 tsp. dried marjoram
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper (I didn't have any so I used black pepper)
1 quart chicken or vegetable broth plus more water as needed
Some chopped frozen onion
A couple of carrots, peeled and chopped
Three stalks of celery, chopped

If you weren't going to do this in the slow cooker, you could start by sauteing the vegetables in a bit of butter or oil, then adding the split peas, broth, and seasonings. I just put everything into the 3 1/2 quart slow cooker, adding water to fill it maybe three-quarters full. I set it on High for a few hours, then turned it to Low partway through the afternoon when it was bubbling hard. I think it would work fine to leave it on Low all day.

Hamburger Soup #1 

This is what I did: browned a pound of ground beef, drained off most of the fat, added in some chopped onion and celery and let them cook a few minutes.  Added a can of pasta sauce and several cans of water; when it boiled, I added a cupful of what the grocery store packaged as "soup mix." That is, a mixture of lentils, grains, and small beans.  I let that simmer for a couple of hours, stirring it to keep from sticking, adding water if it needed it.  You could probably do it in the slow cooker too. Later I added chopped zucchini, a few mushrooms, and pasta bowties, along with extra basil, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  That's it, and it made a lot. 


Hamburger Soup #2

This recipe is descriptive, not prescriptive: don't go cooking one potato to copy this.

Ingredients: 1 lb. extra-lean ground beef; splash of olive oil for flavour; salt, pepper; lots of sliced celery (or part onions); 3 fat, ripe tomatoes; 1 cup leftover pasta sauce and half a can tomato paste (plus maybe a cupful of water, or two cupfuls--depends on whether you want it to be more like stew or more like soup); 1 cooked potato and about a cupful of cooked yellow beans; 1 cupful frozen peas (add at the end)

Directions: In a large pot (I used a Dutch oven), brown the ground beef; drain if necessary but I didn't because there was almost no fat left in the pan. Add a little oil if necessary and add in the celery; cook until softened a bit. Add salt and pepper whenever you want. Add in tomato ingredients plus as much water as seems right, plus cut-up leftover vegetables. Mama Squirrel left the beans in nice long bean-sized pieces.

Bring it all to a boil, turn down and let simmer for about an hour. (Low enough so it doesn't burn, but just enough to bubble a bit.) Add the peas right at the end.

This doesn't have much seasoning in it (other than the salt, pepper, and what's in the pasta sauce) and you might think it's too bland; feel free to doctor it as you like.

Short On...? Carry On: Part One (Archives Post)

First posted 2007, edited slightly

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking of frugality only in terms of getting good bargains. What is important to remember is that often we can save the most money by not spending at all.--Crystal in "Saturday Savings Smorgasbord" at Frugal Hacks 

Sometimes, frugal as we Squirrels are, it's hard to wrap my brain around that. I have a hard time understanding how those pioneer families managed on their infrequent trips to a store for sugar, salt and shot...or how people concerned with simplicity (who haven't engineered the whole thing ahead of time, stocking up on every possible thing they might run out of) manage to go on one of those no-buying-anything-at-all shopping unbinges.

I mean, some things are obvious to me: if you need to wrap a present and haven't saved up all the bags everybody else has given you presents in, you find some creative wrapping, even the thoroughly-clichéd colour comics. If you're short on baking powder, you can combine baking soda and cream of tartar, assuming that you do have cream of tartar. It makes more sense to use up the getting-dusty bag of split peas to make soup than it does to complain that the canned stuff hasn't gone on sale lately. If you don't have a crib, you can use a playpen (we did). And the list of ways to amuse children and improvise free toys and games can and does go on for pages. That, I get.

But it isn't a toy famine that we're usually experiencing here, nor a lack of furniture. We have more than enough kitchen equipment, lots of books to read, and a flip of the switch provides us with free radio entertainment and edification. What we run out of are the small things. Socks that fit growing feet. Tape. Printer paper. Working ballpoint pens; and I don't think the backyard crows would lend me any quills. Flour (and therefore all the things we make with flour). Toilet paper; and I have no burning desire to start substituting catalogue pages in that regard. Baking powder when there isn't any cream of tartar around. Foil. A VCR that quit working and that Mr. Fixit can't resuscitate. How do you manage without spending at all when life today seems like one big pile of little receipts?

"'What do we need to get in town, Caroline?'

"Ma said they did not need anything. They had eaten so many fish and potatoes that the flour was still holding out, and the sugar, and even the tea. Only the salt was low, and it would last several days."--On the Banks of Plum Creek

Could I actually go any length of time without buying anything? I know there are so many things you can improvise, and many more that you can just do without. But then there's the really good candy corn for Thanksgiving from the Bulk Barn...and some classical CDs from Dollarama that will make great stocking stuffers and Secret Sister gifts...and the purple sweater I found at a rummage sale Friday night (I do need sweaters). And the Turkish Cookbook I got there for a quarter, and a spool knitting set as well. (Crayons thought those were both awesome.) And dancing-class shoes for the younger Squirrelings, because their last-years' pairs are worn out (call them the 2 Dancing Princesses); those cost more than a couple of dollars, but we didn't want them to have to dance in their bare feet.

And that aseptically-packaged apple juice from Giant Tiger for 77 cents a box (amazing deal)...and, if you don't think we should be eating candy and drinking juice (too much sugar), how about the pumpkins and apples and squash and broccoli and the most excellent popcorn that will be gone all too soon when the farm stand closes up for the season? And we just bought a hot-air popper at a yard sale for $2...and a couple of VCRs for about the same price, no kidding. I said VCRs, not videos. See, you have to admit, sometimes spending is just fun. And smart; check the big box stores, VCRs are quickly disappearing from the shelves, and then how are you going to watch all your Star Trek videos?

So while my preferred way of dealing with don't-have-that problems is trying to see another way around it, I'm not going to stress out with guilt over the things we do buy. 

"And in the lean-to they found a boughten broom! There seemed no end to the wonders in this house."--On the Banks of Plum Creek