Some sewing and cooking

So there have been a few sewing and cooking developments lately. First, I wanted to show a photo of the pajama bottoms I made for my husband. He loves them and wears them all the time. You would have thought that I gave him gold or something, but that's how much he appreciates it when I put effort into something and that's why I'm keeping him around! I also made some very successful tuna melts with my homemade mayo, a little dijon mustard, and some tuna, with various Christmas-gift cheeses on top. My husband also scored the bread for free at work. So really all we paid for was the tin of tuna ($0.88) and the cost of one egg yolk and some oil, about 15 cents. We got four sandwiches out of it. The recipes I looked at online called for more stuff, and claimed to make only 2 sandwiches. They must have been pretty thick with tuna salad because we had tons of toppings spread out over four.

I was craving a spaghetti dinner last week. I don't usually eat tomato sauce because my husband used to be allergic to tomatoes. He's okay now but doesn't really like how they taste. So I got a can of tomato sauce for about a dollar and fried up some sausage (we have a friend who makes sausage and gives us a lot. I cooked the tomato sauce with some basil and oregano and added a little red wine. I made my husband a white sauce from flour, butter, and milk. I divided up the sausage between the two sauces and roasted half of the bottom of a butternut squash. Then I just had to boil pasta and we had dinner! We had two dinners out of this one.

I would also like to report that I am the master of the $5 chicken. Some friends alerted us that there would be some whole chickens on sale for $0.86 a pound. So I bought one chicken and got nine meals from it. First, I roasted the chicken. We each ate a half breast for dinner. My husband took one of the other halves for lunch, and I made Kraft Dinner with a carrot and the other half. Then I made "pasta with stuff" with the meat of one of the legs. Next I made chicken salad with the with the meat of the other leg and the leftover mayonnaise from the tuna melts. Then my husband took off the remaining meat from the carcass and served it with potatoes and carrots. Finally, we took the carcass and made stock, which made a whole lot of soup (2 or 3 servings each, I daresay). So that comes to about $0.50 per meal for two people for the protein.

The final thing I have to report is that I did some sewing for decorating. I took some pieces of felt and cut them into triangles, and then sewed those triangles onto rickrack. I made a string of them and have hung them up as bunting above one of our windows. I hope to do a second one soon.

Merry Thriftmas

I had a great time with Christmas this year, in part due to having hardly any money. I spent a dollar on decorations (floral wire). We have a plastic tree which we decorated with ornaments we have collected. We hung our little string of Christmas lights. I made an advent wreath from branches that a nice man at the tree lot gave us for free. We made popcorn strings to go around the tree and paper cut-out snowflakes to go on the windows. So it looked very festive around here.

We decided on some new traditions. Those crafts were part of it, but we also decided to donate to the food bank. We don't have a lot to offer and I am scared to let go of food, but we did it and hopefully we helped someone. We also wanted to contribute to a toy drive, but we only had two toys, and they were used, and we either needed to donate new toys, or a truck would drive up to collect our donations, which hardly seemed fair when there were only two toys.

We got lots of food sent from our families. I did my shopping at the dollar store, the used book store, and the grocery store. I made my husband some pajama bottoms from a sheet that I got a while ago from the Salvation Army. They're Thomas the tank engine pajama bottoms. It would have been pretty funny to watch me sew, as I did every seam wrong at least once and ended up sewing the legs shut or something like that. Eventually it worked out and they look pretty good. I will try to get a picture soon. He seems really happy with them.

Then there was food. It was just the two of us but I put out appetizers of cheese, sausage, smoked oysters, smoked almonds, crackers, fig spread, antipasto, and pepper jelly. All these things were gifts! I also baked for a few days so we had popcorn balls, butter tarts, peanut butter cookies, and banana bread. For dinner I made roasted chicken legs with homemade mustard, mixed roasted veg, gravy, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. I am especially proud of the stuffing because I took breadcrumbs that I had been saving up for six months and made a huge amount of food. It blows my mind that people throw away their stale bread heels and then go out and buy dried breadcrumbs in the store. I put all my stale bread pieces in a plastic bag in the freezer. You never need to buy breadcrumbs again. You can either cut them up or grind them in the food processor if you want finer crumbs. Anyways, I had only made stuffing once before, and that was 10 years ago, so I was pleased with how it turned out. I also made my gravy from a mix because I have some mix, and I didn't know how much the chicken would drip. Anyway it dripped a lot so I put some of the fat into the gravy, which was a really good idea. I added the rest to the mashed potatoes. We ate this with our ginger beer and we were so full after we didn't have room for dessert. I had to put most of the desserts in the freezer, save the popcorn balls. I actually have decided not to make popcorn balls again because I cut my hands up pretty bad on the caramel.

We ended the evening by watching a wonderfully terrible movie, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Highly recommended if you like B-movies.

New clothing

Since I don't buy clothing anymore, you may think that I never get new clothes. Not at all. I just have to work for them. I told you about the sweater I finished last week, and here is a photo. I've worn it out and gotten rave reviews. I am very, very happy with how it turned out and can't wait to make a new sweater (can't wait is a relative term: it took me nearly a year to knit this one). I have also sewn another skirt. The pattern book I used this time was sooooo much easier to use than the last one. I cut the pattern pieces and the fabric one day and I sewed it all together the next. It was pretty easy. I spent $0 on it as I used some fabric I picked up from the thrift store a few years ago. I think I spent about $2 on the fabric then. It's very cheery. Please excuse the outfit in this photo: I looked much better put together when I was out and wearing boots and a scarf.

In knitting news, I am working on a lace cowl now. It's really difficult but I am enjoying the challenge. I haven't made a lot of hats yet, mostly because I have tried to make toques (beanies) and they just don't work with my hair. So this is kind of a hat. I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

The ginger beer is fermenting away now. We heard one jar make a loud noise today. We hope it hasn't exploded. I'm afraid to look!

This week's food project is mustard. I'll let you know how it goes. We are also making popcorn strings for a christmas decoration. I'm enjoying our no-budget Christmas preparations so far. They've been so much fun.

Rosehips and a skirt

Today was a very exciting day. My husband and I gathered wild rosehips at a nearby park. We originally found them when participating in Nature Day at the park. They were beautiful and red and abundant. We took them home and put some of them in the oven to dry for tea. The rest we made into rosehip syrup, which is apparently very good on pancakes and ice cream and such. Also, they are very high in vitamin C. I canned most of the syrup and refrigerated and froze some.

I also finished sewing my first skirt today! The sewing's not perfect but the fit is amazing. I'm very proud to have made a garment that I can actually wear, like in public! I made it from an old curtain. I don't have photos yet but I'll get my husband to take some when I wear it tomorrow. I'm going to take it out for a test run at church tomorrow. I'm very excited about showing off my handiwork to my friends. It's my goal to only get new clothing by making it for a while. There might be occasions where I need to hit the thrift store or even buy something new, but it's not like I need a lot of new clothes, so I for the most part, I can wait until I have time to make them.

In other news, my husband made dinner tonight but I made the mayonnaise. I love making mayonnaise and you should try it.

Also, I gleaned some apples this week. There is a house near ours that has an apple tree and I pick up the apples (if they're still good) that have fallen off the tree and over the property line.