More Wintry Weather & Making Power

Hello, friends.  Last week, for a dinner, I sauteed our cabbage, steamed our potatoes, and roasted a jar of our green beans.  It's so nice to have a meal that's from our garden in the middle of winter.  On a quick trip to the grocery store, there were shortages for a number of things on my list, including organic carrots, celery, bananas, and apple juice.  I did a double take at the bananas, as the organic section was filled, but it was with conventional bananas.  I hope no one else was fooled.  However, there was an excellent sale on frozen blueberries, $4 less than the usual price, so I got three.  I use these in the MM smoothies I have most days.  Thankfully, after making a soap delivery later in the week, I found organic celery at Harris Teeter, as well as organic GF pad thai noodles on sale 2/$5, usually 3.49 ea.  They also had organic bananas, and I received the 5% off senior discount.

cleaning up Berkey stand orders was a little chillier than usual

Working on eating from the freezer, I pulled out black bean burgers and two partial bags of french fries one night.  I pulled corn out another night for J, which is something I can't eat right now.  There are several bags in the freezer, so I'll be more diligent about cooking it for him, to use them up.  Trends shift as to what sells in my online soap shop.  Last year, I sold lots of garden sets with soap, seeds and garden gloves.  I ran out of seeds shortly before the holidays, so had to take the set down from my shop page.  I was delighted to find seeds again at both Dollar General and Dollar Tree last week.  I was also happy to find bamboo toothbrushes and garden gloves at Dollar Tree.  These things are now $1.25, but still reasonable enough, I think.

Several  jars of homemade broth were used during the week.  I've been working on another bag of frozen peaches in my oatmeal.  Friday afternoon was happily spent with my sister, to celebrate her birthday.  After lunch, we thrifted a few places.  I found a large, heavy duty plant roller, and two pottery dinner plates to add to my collection at one store, nothing at another, and a T shirt for J at the last.  We finished up at Big Lots, and used a 22% off coupon.  I only found two items I needed there, but it was still nice to get the discount.  The last of our homegrown onions were used over the weekend.

A fb friend recently put up a post about her successful sourdough GF bread.  That inspired me, as I've yet to have a good GF bread.  On Saturday, I started a batch of sourdough, using brown rice flour, with these instructions.  In a week, I'll give her recipe a try, and hope for good things.  Our garlic, and jars of our tomatoes and squash were used in pasta sauce.  I harvested parsley, and used our dried oregano in a soup.  We've had some wintry weather each of the past three weekends, which doesn't happen often in these parts.  J has been working hard on our solar project, and has got the first row of panels up.  Though not hooked up to anything yet, he did hook two panels up to his meter, which showed them making power.  We're pretty excited to be getting closer to making our own power!