>Avoiding Mother Hubbard Syndrome

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>I read a lot of news, and a piece that caught my eye lately was an article on people stocking their pantries with canned goods. Even as they buy seeds for their Recession Gardens, people who are nervous about possible layoffs are preparing to avoid Mother Hubbard Syndrome: the fear of “When she got there, the cupboard was bare, and so her poor dog had none.” No one wants the dog or the kids or the family as a whole to go without, so they’re buying foods that will last. If the family loses a paycheck unexpectedly, they’ll still be able to feed themselves for a while if the pantry is full.

I’m not sure if we got caught up in the widespread Mother Hubbard Syndrome or just lost track of our grocery lists, but the freezer in the basement was so full we couldn’t put another thing in it. I haven’t been formally Meal Planning in the way of so many frugal bloggers, but this week it helped keep us on track and use up some of what’s in the fridge and freezer. Sunday night I made a homemade pizza with spaghetti sauce, red and green peppers, & pepperoni from the freezer. Monday was teriyaki beef, Husband’s Chinese noodles (I’ll post his recipe soon), and steamed cauliflower. Tuesday: roaster chickens were on sale last weekend, so we bought one. No room in the freezer, so it goes on the menu ASAP. In the empty the freezer project, frozen veggies will join the chicken on the table. Leftovers will end up in soup — soup to cook this week, as there’s no room in the freezer for extra stock or meat scraps!
Next: there was a frozen container of tomato soup (from last fall’s garden) that’ll join leftover sloppy joe mix in a crockpot chili on Thursday.
Oops, missed a day. What to do today, Wednesday? Tacos! If we have any leftover meat, it can join the chili.
Friday? Friday we’ll be on the road to pick up La Petite which makes it another good crockpot day: time for the leftover chicken to surface in a soup. We’ll come home to the aroma of homemade soup and (if I’m on top of things) bread in the bread machine. What a great welcome for all of us!

It’s a great feeling to feed my family and still have food to spare. Many families aren’t so lucky. Please consider buying a little extra for your local pantry. Together, we can weather this recession by helping each other out.

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>Pork BBQ in crockpot – or something like that

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>I confess. As with many of my stock dishes, there is no recipe for this one. I start with the pork roast and add various ingredients until it seems right. Amounts? I usually build it early in the morning (read: pre-coffee), and I don’t take the time to measure very much. But it works for our family – except for Amigo, who isn’t fond of it – so I thought I’d share.

Crockpot Pork BBQ on a bun.

No, the crockpot doesn’t go on a bun! But I couldn’t think of any other way to phrase it.

Ingredients:
1 pork roast (a 4 lb roast serves me family of four with plenty of leftovers)
2 cups beef broth or 2 cups water + beef bouillon mix
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 cup onion, diced
These are the main components. Now for the sauce. Enterprising crockpot cooks can make the pork plain and add sauce later according to people’s tastes, add a commercial BBQ sauce, or create their own concoction. I combine the last two options.

Daisy’s add-ins
brown sugar
thyme
honey
molasses
ketchup or tomato paste or nothing tomato at all (I’m unpredicatable in the kitchen, and it’s okay).
Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ Sauce

Cook on low 8-10 hours or on high 4-6 hours. Baste periodically to keep meat moist. Close to serving time, thicken liquid with your favorite thickener (I like cornstarch and cold water mix, stirred into the hot liquid and then simmered for 30 minutes).

Serve on the best buns or sandwich rolls you can buy or bake. This meat is often heavy and moist and will soak through cheap buns. Go ahead: splurge!

I’ve considered doubling this recipe for a crowd, but I haven’t hosted any crowds lately. Hosts and hostesses could even make two kinds in two crocks: one plain, one BBQ sauce. The possibilities are endless! I’ve heard this works with chicken, too, for those don’t eat pork.

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>R & R; I think I’m getting this technique down.

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>I’m getting better at this relaxation concept. Today was much more low-key than yesterday.

Housework: not much. Made cinnamon rolls for breakfast to go with the coffee, made supper (with Husband’s help) – home made pizza. Put away the remainder of the clean clothes.

Schoolwork: none. None!!

Relaxation: afternoon nap. Ooh, that felt good.

Garden: It was mighty cold outside and very windy, so I didn’t spend much time on it. I just dug out another wheelbarrow load of compost and dumped it into the garden, and then I loosened what was left in the compost bin with a pitchfork. The compost is really compacted tightly; tough to get out and spread.

Reading material: Started Carry Me Home by Sandra Kring. She’s one of the authors coming to town for our Book Festival later this month. It’s a good book so far: strong story made unique by the point of view from which it’s told.

More reading material: Amigo has a braille copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard, so I sat with him (and my print copy) and we read together for an hour. I hope he doesn’t outgrow this simple pleasure anytime soon.

Simple fun: watched Country Music Awards with Amigo, chatted online with La Petite, sipped a beer with Husband.

Feels like a break, at long last.

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>Weekend Update, Spring Break R & R, Daisy style

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>Saturday summary:
Relaxation: slept in until almost 7. If you’re thinking “Only 7?” I need to remind you that I get up at 5:30 AM on school days. This means an extra hour and a half of rest.

Schoolwork: checked school email. Nothing urgent, deleted a bit of junk. Now I can let that rest for the remainder of break.

Housework:

  • Laundry. Lots of it. Typical Saturday in that way.
  • Cleaned bunny’s litter box and cage (see garden, below).

Garden:

  • Dumped compostable litter (very dirty) into garden. Spread it out on top of soiled paper, unrecyclable. By the time I plant in late May, this “garbage” will either decompose or be tilled into the soil.
  • Arranged overflow pipe from rain barrel so that any additional water goes directly into the garden plot. Used water from the rain barrel to rinse bunny’s litter box.
    Despite accomplishing very little in the garden itself, I am feeling very green!

Reading material: finished (and enjoyed) The Eyre Affair. Now I’ll start a few of the books I picked up at the local independent bookstore yesterday. One side-benefit to using Paperbackswap.com: I know I spend less on books than I used to spend, and therefore I can buy a few new ones now and then. I’ll keep those that warrant a reread, and I’ll post the rest on PBS. With those credits, I’ll get more books for me and audio books for Amigo. All that and stimulating the local economy, too — must sit down and take a breath.

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>R&R, spring break, Daisy style

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>It’s all about balance. Always. My balance for the just-begun spring break is part plan, part recipe, part goal/ to-do list.

Relaxation is top of the plan. Stressful job, stressful economy, potential stress at every turn of the newspaper page or channel change: letting go is important. Very, very important.
Keeping up with schoolwork is part of the break. Amigo has homework to do, too. Our plans include taking the long weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) off from schoolwork, and then working on a little each day. When he’s doing homework, I’ll work on schoolwork.
Preparing the garden is part of my plan, too. It’s too cold to plant, and will be for some time, but I can start getting the soil ready. This kind of work could be tedious, but it’s not. It feels good to get the garden ready to grow again. There’s a definite connection between the garden growth and my own feelings of contentment and competence and calm.
Spring cleaning usually happens in June in my house, but I’ll get a few things done. Mainly, I plan to bake and keep the kitchen in good shape! Amigo and I often make a laundromat trip with all the blankets and comforters in the house. It’s an easy chore, but one that can’t be done at home because the blankets are too big to fit in my regular washer.

Progress so far: Spring Break R & R update, Friday
Relaxation — slept past 8:00 AM, stayed in pajamas until 11
Schoolwork — nothing formal yet, but laundered the old socks I use as white board erasers
Gardening — removed stepping stones and trellises and tomato cages from garden, emptied two pots of dead herbs & potting soil over the fence, took “before” pictures of garden to use for contrast when I finally reach the “after” stage
Spring Cleaning — scrubbed kitchen (easier than it sounds; the cleaning service was here a few days ago. I just maintain what they’ve already done.) Mailing another Paperbackswap package could fit in here, too.
Relaxation, part 2 — had a Funday Friday lunch with Amigo and Husband at a local downtown diner. I had their Greek skillet with hash browns; delicious. After lunch we walked down the street to a bookstore (an independent, no big chains) and bought a few books related to the city’s upcoming book festival. The pleasure reading from these will last long beyond the week-long break.

This break’s off to a good start, I’d say. Now I think I’ll take another relaxation break with my laptop, check Twitter and Plurk, read some of my favorite bloggers as well.

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>Musings with the remote control in the morning

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>On watching morning television, a pastime not usually on my list:
Local news is full of layoffs. I feel lucky to have a secure job — for the moment. Husband has to cover these layoffs in his TV news job. Tough to handle. I think I’ll change the channel.
Morning television can be ridiculous sometimes. The hosts just randomly called someone, asked them to name the presidents on Mt. Rushmore. They could only get two. My fourth graders can answer that! I think I’ll change the channel.
Spring cleaning advice! Vinegar water solution and crumpled newspaper to clean a mirror or a window. That’s old news, people. The cleaning staff at my school use a vinegar-water mix to clean chalkboards. I associate the scent of vinegar with clean — or with Husband’s German potato salad. Change channels again.
International news is talking about head injuries and kids. Sad, but useful information. I’m on break; I want something less stressful. Change channels!
Weather!! “Very nice weekend.” Now we’re talking! It’ll still be cold here. I hope it warms up enough that I can dig in my garden. Ooh, these commercials are really bad. At least I can laugh at them.
Click. Click. Click. Click. All these channels – and nothing on! More coffee, maybe I’ll turn it off and browse the blogs.
That’s the answer. I’m on break. No guilt, just relaxation. Browsing the blogosphere, here I come!

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>Dear Delia; Can you deal with impending death?

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>Delia is an advice columnist with attitude, a household how-to guide maven, mother of two young girls, and dying. As she faces her cancer-shortened future, she contemplates her future and comes to grips with her past.

From the proper etiquette of hanging unmentionables on the rotary clothesline to the erotic pleasure of watching the man in her life toss dirty clothes in the washer, Delia can solve any dilemma related to laundry. She advises a grungy bachelor to thoroughly clean his bathroom in order to keep his girlfriend in his life, an unhappy wife how to clean red wine out of a tablecloth while addressing her attraction to her husband’s assistant, and both ordinary and unexpected domestic dilemmas.

But the real dilemma for Delia is how to prepare for her own death. Coming to grips with her past, addressing a future without her presence, she decides to write her last How-to guide: The Household Guide to Dying. This guide makes sense to her because she’s writing from experience even as she goes through the process noted in the title. Her editor balks at first, then encourages her to continue. Writing this Household Guide helps “control-freak” Delia recognize that she can make an impact, but she cannot plan and control everything.

Readers meet Delia as she revisits her past in a trip to a tiny trailer in a tiny circus town that she called home for nine tumultous years in her early adulthood. Some memories are innocuous, some hurtful, some more complex than she’d expected. All are important in her emotional journey to seek answers to life’s peaceful and painful questions.

At times I felt like Delia and her family were much too calm. I was almost grateful when her daughters and husband broke down yelling and crying. “I hate you because you’re dying!” was much more realistic dialogue from an eleven-year-old than some of the other talk.

Ultimately, I found The Household Guide to Dying to be a pleasant and interesting story. I didn’t feel tears as it came to a close; rather, I felt peaceful. The novel isn’t so much a death story as it is a tale of life and personality, a tale that leads to closure. Don’t fear the potential sadness in the title: this is a novel to read and savor.

Mothertalk provided me with an early pre-publication proof to read for this review along with a small honorarium from Amazon.com.

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>Sweet Walnut Bread +

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>The basic recipe is in my bread machine’s instruction booklet. I took a chance and added to it. That’s risky with bread because so much depends on the chemical reactions of the yeast and the other ingredients. An ingredient that deactivates the yeast in any way can make the result more suitable for a doorstop than a sandwich or toast. This time, though, it worked.

Sweet Walnut Bread with Banana

1 cup water
1 1/2 Tablespoons oil
2 1/4 Tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 Tablespoons dry milk
3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Add all ingredients to bread machine as directed in your instruction booklet, of course. Do this part by the book.
At the beep, add 1/2 cup walnuts and 1 mashed banana. Daisy’s tip: place sliced walnuts (or any nuts) in a small zipper bag and crush them with a meat tenderizer or rolling pin.

When bread machine’s cycle is finished, remove loaf and set on cooling rack for an hour – or less, if your family is hungry. Slice, then serve.

I’m tempted to add raisins or dried cranberries to this bread. Maybe next time I don’t have a ripe banana handy, that’ll be the day we try a new bread!

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>Piece of (green) cake.

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>The email subject line at work said “It’s time to go green!”

What? I scoffed. I’m a green teacher; greener than most. Go green? Easy.

So I signed up for our wellness coordinator’s Green Planet Wellness program. I registered by email so as to save paper. Good start, I’d say. Starting on Earth Day, April 22, I’ll “…select from a list of 100+ reasonable, achievable green living activities segmented into 5 categories — Home, Work, Exercise, Nutrition, and Miscellaneous. Each activity is assigned a value of 1-4 green points, depending on its potential effect….There’s something for everyone — from simple steps like buying reusable grocery bags and trimming shrubbery manually, to more involved activities like installing low-flow shower heads and taking public transportation. Big or small, each step contributes to a healthier world and a healthier you.”

Ms. Wellness implies that we’ll learn new green habits that will help us live more “healthfully.” Is that a word?

Well, Ms. Wellness, I’ve been re-using copy paper for several years now. When the principal complained that “No one is making half sheet copies or copying on recycled paper!” the paraprofessionals in the copy room said, uh, wait a minute. Daisy has been doing both for a long time. I gather plastic shopping bags and pass them on for re-use. My white-board erasers are old socks, washed in Borax to remove as much of the color as possible. I’m using spelling activities copied two years ago and fitting my instruction to these, rather than making new copies to fit to my instruction. Penmanship? When the class finished using the copied pages, I began using manuscript paper from the supply room and writing the copy material on the chalkboard.

I’m faithful about turning off computers at night. I teach the kids to turn off the lights when we leave the room. Many of the materials I provide, from crayons to color pencils to correcting pens, are scavenged from years past when I prevented kids from throwing these away in June.

Green living? I enjoy learning new ways to act locally while thinking globally. But “go green?” Sorry, dear Ms. Wellness, I’m already green.

I’ll get a t-shirt for participating, and there are prizes along the way. Prizes or not, this looks like fun. I can feel successful at this program, even as I’m feeling less successful in teaching my challenging class.

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>Whether the weather…

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>It’s shovel ready. The economic benefits may be localized (okay, merely personal), but it fits the times. As soon as the weather cooperates, I’m on it.

You guessed it: Daisy’s small but wonderful backyard garden.

I’ve never formally defined it as a Kitchen Garden or a Recession Garden. It is what it is: a backyard garden of vegetables for the family, both human and rabbit residents of our fair home. The plot has grown a little each year we’ve planted it, and we’ve added simple environmentally-friendly tricks along the way. This year our goal is to use the space efficiently and get a better yield.

Here’s the to-do list.
Move walkway boards out of the dirt. These are re-used from an old fence. When it started to fall, we knocked it down the rest of the way and used the boards as stepping “stones” between the veggies.
Move trellises and tomato cages. I’m still doing the research to find better and taller supports for the tomatoes now that I’ve discovered some of the techniques for nurturing them well.
Spread the compost. It’s still in the bin, and I’m eager to get out the soil-ready batch and start anew.
Till. Husband does this. He now has his family’s old rototiller, so we don’t need to rent one any more.
Hook up rain barrel. It’s ready to use; we need to set it on its blocks and direct the downspout into it. Painting optional: I would like to paint it, though.
Buy the seedlings. I have the seeds; the tomato, pepper, and broccoli plants will come later.
Sketch the new layout. I know what I want; I just need to make sure I’m putting it all in the right place this year.
Plant!!

Ta-dah! list:
(That’s the “finished” or “outbox,” for new readers to Compost Happens.)
Make rain barrel! It filled with water during a rainstorm earlier this week; it’s “shovel-ready,” too!
Buy seeds!
Get excited and motivated! Okay, that’s always a given. I’ll never be a farmer, but I do enjoy my tiny plot in the backyard. Playing, er, working in the dirt feels good. Feels right.

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