The Farmers Market is OPEN!

Tonight is the first night of our local farmers market. Since the season is early the produce available is slim.

We did score some delicious asparagus. We grilled it up and served it with a wonderful Old Asiago! Minimal yet quite satisfying.

Our excitement is growing for the mushroom farmer and pretzel bread baker to set up shop soon too! Let the countdown to next Monday begin.



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Basil, sweet Basil

Image via Wikipedia

Everyday I walk by my beautiful huge basil plants and a fear hits me. "How am I going to save these for the winter? I must do it quick!" Last year was a horrible year for my home grown herbs and this year they flourished. 

I have thrown fresh basil in the fridge-ick. Tossed it in the freezer stem and all-ick. My hubs does not like pesto so I can't make a ton-o that either.

This morning I opened my email to find my regular update from Frugal Living by Erin Huffstetler and wouldn't you know on the front page she has a link to freezing basil! Oh, today is going to be a great day!

Here are the steps, click here for more details:

1. pull leaves from the stems

2. wash

3 flash freeze: This is the secret step!!

4. after flash frozen, toss them into freezer bags.

Whoolah! Frozen Fresh Basil!

What other fresh herbs can be frozen like this? I've got some Thyme too!

FruGal August Update

We are into Day 5 6 of our August No Spend Challenge and I think we have the hang of it now. Only took a full month but hey, we're learning. The biggest thing we have a grip on is telling people "No, we can't go out to eat, we'll gladly have you over or vice versa for a homemade meal."

Couponing is going well. The issue is I don't buy most of the products there are coupons for. I'm a big advocate for store brands/generics and shop mostly at Aldi. Shoot, I'm the girl who while single ate yogurt for breakfast, salad for lunch, ramen for dinner, and a skinny cow ice cream sandwich for a nightly snack...for a year! Can someone say creature of habit? The lure of the  products with coupons is tempting, but I just cannot justify buying something just because there's a good deal. Am I thinking wrong?

Our Farmers Market is still going on but we have noticed the prices are not very good and our favorite stand isn't there anymore. Luckily, our garden is starting to birth some good produce so we're making up for the FM's slack.

I have been making some killer (as in good, not lethal) frugal "gourmet" meals! My culinary prowess astonishes me! Our kitchen does a happy dance when I make a dinner $8.00 or less for the three of us! Oh wait, it's not dancing, that's just the 100 year old floors creaking. I'll still think its celebrating with me.

Today we are utilizing our zoo membership with our sack lunches in tow. Another Free day for Me!

July Wrap Up

Tomorrow our No Spend July Challenge comes to an end. What an eye opening, liberating, and shameful experience it's been! We are starting the No Spend August Challenge now that we have a feel for things, and we really want to do better than we did this month.

July Wrap Up:

1. We haven't a clue what we spent all our money on before and are quite embarrassed by this.

2. It was nice spending more time as a family and focusing on us.

3. I received my FIL's yummy pizza dough recipe!

4. I still haven't fully decluttered the basement!

5. No one wants to buy our stuff.

6. My daughter will eat anything we put in front of her! (tonight she ate shark)

7. My daughter gets excited about broccoli!

8. We still spent too much $

9. I'm starting to feel like I live in Italy with my clothesline outside my kitchen window

10. We have all we need

11. It feels great to be in control of our lives

12. I'm starting to become a good cook

13. I've been keeping up with my blogging!!!!!!

I'm excited to start August! I'll keep you updated on how we are doing!

Frugal is the new Black baby!

Cumin Get Happy!

My culinary adventures are usually documented in my other blog, Becoming Italian, but I had to share this one! OMG!

Pretty much 90% of the food we cook is of some Mediterranean influence, with about 98% of that being Italian. Well, tonight I pulled out my bible of Med cooking, "The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook" by Nancy Harmon Jenkins and made the most delish meal so far to date!

Seriously, we are adding it to our weekly meal plan, it's that good! Let me share it with you!

Kousbariya-A Lebanese fish baked in a tomato-cilantro sauce

OK, seeing it in a picture makes it look a bit scary, but from my mouth to G_d's ear it is good!

Want to try it yourself?

Here's the recipe (page 259)

2 pounds firm-textured white fish (I used cod)

a little flour for dusting the fish

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, chopped

3 very ripe tomatoes, seeded and chopped (I used one 28oz can of diced tomatoes)

1 tablespoon ground Cumin

1 cup minced cilantro

salt and pepper to taste

Cut the fish into serving size pieces about 1 inch thick.  Lightly dust the fish pieces with flour.  Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a heavy saute pan over medium to high heat and, when it is almost smoking, add the pieces of fish.  /saute the fish, a few pieces at a time, for 2 or 3 minutes to a side.

When all the fish is done, discard the frying fat, wipe the pan clean.  Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the pan and over medium-low heat gently saute the onion and garlic until soft but not brown-about 10-15 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes have given off their juices and started to thicken-about 10 minutes.  Stir in the cumin and cilantro.  Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper if necessary.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Arrange the fish pieces in a shallow baking or gratin dish and cover them with sauce.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until the fish is thoroughly cooked and the sauce is bubbling.

Then dig in!

As a side my husband made Bruschetta on French bread that I made yesterday. All ingredients from our garden...can't get any fresher!

Taking the time: Our Frugal Challenge Update

Nineteen days into the challenge. Seems like it's been a full month already! We've surpassed the naive initial budget I had set, but when we continue this challenge next month (yep, we are doing this again in August)  we know our needs better and can make a realistic budget that won't break the bank!

The biggest eye opener so far has been that being a good steward means taking the time. No matter what we do, there will always be 24 hours in the day, the quality of the time spent is the key! I used to think that going out to eat or ordering in saved us time and let us get to more important things quicker. What was so important? Sitting our butts on the couch watching "our" TV shows everyday! How sad. Today one of the important things is deciding when we are going to start cooking dinner and what is on the menu. I still don't have a good grip on menu creating but I'll get there.

The past 18 days we have missed many of our shows on TV, but we've spent more quality time together even if it was while drying the dishes, hanging the clothes on the line, or having a toy instrument parade through the house.

Some goals for the next couple weeks:

• Keep stockpiling coupons and getting awesome deals on necessities
• Use the dryer no more than 2 times
• Freeze our debit cards so we can't use them last minute-which we've done a few times so far
• Look into our cell phone and cable/Internet plans so we can lower those bills.
• Drink more coffee and eat less sweets! Being in the kitchen more has made access to sweets too easy!

Frugal Reality is Setting In!

Wow! Day 7 of our challenge and things are looking way uphill! After tallying all the cash we've spent in just 1 week and what we have left from the cash budget, the next three weeks are going to be FUN, with an F'n in front of the fun. 

What am I going to do this week to keep us on track? Tonight I'll work on our meal inventory and actually create a menu for the remainder of the month (sooooo not fun).  I'll also add more stuff to our online garage sale www.joliet.bookoo.com and I'll stop by Goodwill on Friday to drop off some things.

Maybe I'll find an extra $5 to buy a MegaMillions ticket for Friday's drawing....winning that would help with this frugal challenge 4sure!

Am I dreaming?

"Dinner is soooo good from our Farmers Market bounty, I must be dreaming!"






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FromTheFarm.com

I'm all stoked about our July No Spend Challenge. One of our new directives is to go to the Farmer's Market here in town on Monday nights.

Well, it's Monday night and I completely forgot about it! Seeing that I was lucky enough to just brush my teeth today all other hygiene postponed, the market will not be graced with my presence.

BUT, I found a virtual Farmer's Market,  FromTheFarm.com that sells seasonal produce, meats, flowers, all things farmer markety and ships it to you whenever you want it! From the luxury of my bedhead I can order what we need at Farmer's Market prices!

Check out their Weekly Specials! I'll post their specials regularly too!

10% off Peaches & Nectarines! 15-count only! Use code: JULY4