Meal Stretcher Monday - Squash

Every year from the end of summer until at least Christmas there is a display of odd looking squashes in the produce department of the grocery store. They are all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colors, and run from cute to a bit frightening. It was actually only a couple of years ago when I realized that they are also delicious. All of them.

Recently a co-worker offered me a few of her extra home-grown squash. I leapt on that like a politician on a photo op.

I want to show you the ultimate fate of two of them: a spaghetti squash, and a buttercup squash.

Let's start with the spaghetti squash. Start by cutting it in half lengthwise.

Use an ice cream scoop to remove the seeds and guts.

Be careful not to scrape too far into the flesh itself - that's the part that you want to eat! Spaghetti squash is naturally stringy. Even if you are scraping into the flesh itself, you will still be seeing strings like you did for the guts. Just scrape it until you get a relatively even surface.

The same exact thing needs to be done to the buttercup squash. Or any winter squash, really. Just cut them in half lengthwise...

...scoop out the seeds and guts, and place the pieces open side down on a baking sheet.

Your baking times will vary, but these two squash together took about 35 minutes at 400 degrees F. They smell AMAZING, and you can see that the hulls caramelized a little.

After the hulls have cooled enough to touch, the cooked flesh is easily removed with a fork. The spaghetti squash pulls off in strings (like spaghetti)...

...while the buttercup is much creamier in texture.

The buttercup squash is ideal as a side dish (with just a little pat of butter). Even from this small squash I got over four cups of delicious goodness.

The small spaghetti squash yielded about as much, but I had already dressed it with pasta sauce and grated cheese by the time I remembered to take a picture. Yum.

Total cost: $0

Had I actually bought these in a store, the total cost would have been about $5.

Seriously? Suave?

I have frizzy hair. On its very, very best day, my hair can be described as "straight...ish". Maybe you remember.

Anyway, I have been trying increasingly expensive shampoos and conditioners and I STILL haven't been able to run my fingers - or even a brush - through my hair without injuring something. It's awful. I've been contemplating shaving my head. Daily.

I spotted these in Walmart for about a buck fifty each.

I was out of shampoo and my conditioner sucks, so I figured it was worth the three bucks to give it a try.

Twice. I have used it twice. I can now run my hands through my hair - wet or dry. It's wonderful! And it was three bucks!!

Here's a crappy self portrait to prove its efficacy.

At this rate, I won't have to shave my head. Always a plus.

Meal Stretcher Monday - Split Pea Soup

I love fall. I love the colors, the holidays, the excuse to wear sweaters...

I don't love the cold. I don't love the rain. I don't love the cold rain. I also don't love the hurried rush for dinner that comes from my return to teaching. When I get home, I want a healthy, hot meal that requires no actual thinking.

Soup!

Split pea soup is one of my favorite soups (because it's insanely easy, and I have been known to be lazy.

Here's how it goes:

Get a bag of split peas (I got this one at a discount store for $3.50). Do the whole sort/rinse/drain thing recommended on the bag (it takes about 3 minutes). Put them into a big soup pot.

Chop an onion and add it to the pot.

Now add your liquid of choice. Some use broth, but I chose to use 8 cups of water to two cups of peas, plus some vegetable bullion to round out the flavor. If you are so inclined, you can add ham. Due to the whole vegetarian thing, I didn't.

Now you just boil it on medium until the peas are soft (about 30-40 minutes). I finish mine up with the immersion blender to make it a little smoother.

Voila!

This bowl is larger than it looks and makes enough soup for a whole family, plus lots for freezing. I freeze mine in small zipper bags, so I can grab one and throw it in my lunch box and heat it at work.

The total for all of this? Just that $3.50. It works out to be about 20 cups of soup (so at least 20 portions), which is around $0.17 per portion. This is way better than a can of pre-made soup with about 2 portions for $2.

Enjoy!

Internet Shopping

Usually I am against internet shopping. I find that surfing sales out of boredom is perilous for my credit card balance.

Today is different. I need to shop for two things:
1) A winter coat for my older cub
2) A cardigan or two to layer with my work clothes.

(I am back to teaching, and no longer have a full wardrobe of 'grown-up' clothes. Somehow, I think my Batman t-shirt will be seen as a sign of professionalism.)

I decided to take a long time, find exactly what I like in each case, and then stalk the items until I could find the right price. As of this morning, I am proud to say that it worked!

For my son's winter coat, I decided on a Lands' End Boys' Squall 3-in-1 Waterproof Parka. His last coat was from Lands' End and it still looks new after three winters of hard use, so I suspected that this would do as well.

The only problem is that it's $139.00. Hm.

I kept checking back there about once a week to see if they might run a sale, and today I got a hit!

See that banner at the top? 40% off one item and free shipping? Oh, yeah.

A few credit card digits later and I scored a coat that will last through TWO sons for about $86 after tax.

I was so proud I decided to reward myself.

Through my shopping at Goodwill, I realized that I really like Christopher and Banks clothes (and that I want to hug whoever the woman is who keeps donating them new/nearly new in my size). I decided to stalk their clearance.

It's black (which is slimming) and long (awesome, because I'm tall), and CHEAP!! TEN BUCKS! Okay, after tax and shipping it was about $16, but seriously. I'm not quibbling.

And I didn't even leave the couch.

Meal Stretcher Monday - Pack a Lunch!

I've just returned to teaching after two years of being home with my kids. In addition to a whole lot of education reforms to get used to at work, I have a few new things to get used to at home. The last time I worked, I brought my then two year old son to a wonderful babysitter around the corner from my job. I didn't need to pack him anything, and only rarely bothered to pack a full lunch for myself.

Things have changed.

Now, I am packing two lunches at least.

My first born just started kindergarten and is clearly going for some sort of Picky Eater Award. Every day he needs a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread. This is, in his world, the ONLY acceptable food. I fill out his lunch bag by adding goldfish crackers (which I know he will eat), Wheat Thins (which I suspect he will eat), and some sort of fruit (which he is likely to gag at).

Since being home, I have gotten used to real food and refuse to return to the facsimile available in industrial cafeterias.

This is my lunch for tomorrow. Isn't it beautiful? What you are seeing is a piece of string cheese, two apples, a big container of lettuce and tomato salad, and a delicious banana muffin. This amount of food covers a morning snack, lunch, and an afternoon snack (possibly with something left over).

This also saves me from paying about $15-20 for low quality I shouldn't be eating anyway.

Now I am one step closer to mastering this whole working mom thing. Only seventy billion left to go.

Glasses Cleaning Kit

My 5-year-old son just got glasses. As it turns out he sees perfectly from one eye, but miserably from the other. The glasses are supposed to train his brain to take information from both eyes.

He was reluctant...until he discovered how handsome he looks.

Doesn't he look stunning eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich? So grown up!

Until he got peanut butter on his glasses. So I cleaned them. Then he got jelly on them. So I cleaned them. Then he got Lord-knows-what on them. So I cleaned them. Ten times in the first hour.

This is going to be difficult.

When we were picking up and paying for these glasses, I wanted to get him a little cleaning kit - something small that he can bring with him in his kindergarten backpack.

The kits in the store were $11.00

Seriously?

Time to make one!

What you see here is a 2 oz fingertip spray bottle from Walmart ($0.99) filled with awesome home made spray cleaner, and a square I cut from a flannel sheet I bought at the Salvation Army. (The whole sheet was $3.00 and I'm slowly cutting it up for things).

Even if I counted the cost of the entire sheet, this cleaning kit would have cost me $4. Let's be honest. I'm not counting the cost of the whole sheet.

Right now these are packed in a sandwich bag. If I see a cute little make-up bag or pencil case that my son can decorate, I'll pack it in that instead.

Now to get him to wear the glasses for more than 3 minutes...

The Posted Price is the Price

I used to work a thankless job in a lovely little retail clothing store. I would ring up customers, handle complaints, answer calls, and change all the sale and price point signs (that part is important).

One day my manager called me over and was displeased. I had forgotten to remove one sale sign with a lower price point than what we were currently offering.

"Oh", I said. "No harm no foul. I'll just fix it now". Wrong. She very patiently and kindly explained to me that since the sign was there, she just had to give the customer who saw it that price. "Couldn't you just explain that it was a mistake?" Nope. Apparently, if you are advertising a price in the store, you HAVE to give the customer that price at the counter, mistake or no.

I was much more conscientious. I never let the mistake happen again - BUT I never forgot it.

Remember the ceiling fan? I wound up getting such a good deal on it because they were still displaying the clearance price at one branch of the store (despite not having any in stock).

Today, this little lesson saved us money again.

While wandering through Macy's as a family (waiting on a pair of Lens Crafter glasses for my son), Husband saw a display of Champion sweatshirts. He loves those. Seeing that they were $17 each, he was pleased, but decided to wait (after all, we were dropping $200 on glasses).

On a nearby display, I noticed a sign that said $9.99. The display was a two-sided shelving unit with t-shirts on one side, and sweatshirts on the other. Both sides of the sign said $9.99. We mentioned this at the register, then showed the cashier. She was really nice about it, gave us the discount at the register, then mercilessly teased the person who was supposed to change the sign.

While I feel bad that the other employee will have to stand a little ribbing from his boss, I bet he'll be a much better bargain shopper in the future.