A Throw Back to Thoreau

I began this test with a reference to Henry David Thoreau and our common call for a simpler life. Sometimes I long for the days of old when people struggled or thrived because of the grace of God and their own efforts. I don’t know if “simpler times” really ever existed for anyone. Even when things were relatively calm, it was always a hard-won peace and required a daily striving to keep it that way.

In our case, I think that as much as I rely on our efforts and God’s blessings, I look to my friends, family and neighbors for support, especially when I’ve run out of a key item like, dishwasher tabs for instance(thanks, Liz) and I need to go borrowing. Henry had the hang of this concept, if he was craving company or bread made by someone else’s hands, he went to his neighbors and was satisfied by what they had to share. This is my epiphany in this experiment. It isn’t about the hundreds of dollars I didn’t spend - I thought the money would be the most important thing I’d come away with. But now I’m realizing that the money comes farther down the list. I don’t want to spoil my top ten list of things I’ve learned, but I will say that I’m glad to have friends and neighbors (and blog commenters) who care and are willing to share. My family has been blessed with peace and plenty because of you.

Since we’re sharing, I want to share with you my favorite recipe I discovered this month. It is for home made tortillas. My sister says that if she ever has to rely solely on her food storage to get by, she’s not making bread, she’s making tortillas. Here is a variation on her classic tortilla recipe, I found this one here with the photos.

Recipe

Flour Tortillas

2 cups flour
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cup warm water
11/2 tsps salt

Mix all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, then turn the dough out onto the counter and knead the dough for about a minute. I stick mine in my kitchen aid and give it a whorl for a few minutes. Let the dough rest for about 5 min. Divide the dough into eight rounded balls. I double this recipe to have lots of leftovers.

Heat up a frying pan over medium heat. The heavier the pan the better. Sprinkle some flour onto the counter and roll out each ball of dough into a flat circle about 6 inches in diameter. If the dough is sticking to the table, just add more flour. Rotating the circle around as you're rolling it out can help you get that nice circular shape, but it really just takes practice; and they'll taste great even if they're not perfectly circular
Take a clean cloth and dust off any flour that's adhered to the tortilla, and place it onto the frying pan. You don't need to add any oil to the pan, they won't stick. When you see bubbles popping up all over the top of the tortilla, it's done. Take it off the heat and wrap in a clean dishtowel as you repeat the process.

Don't get discouraged if you're tortillas look funny, by the second or third batch you do you'll be a seasoned pro; and the whole process won't take more than about 20 minutes. Be warned though, once your family or friends get used to your hot fresh tortillas, there's no going back to store bought ever again!

These are great with butter and satl, honey butter, beans and cheese, or any other topping you can think of. The texture of these tortillas is amazing, you’ll be thrilled, just remember, DON’T HANDLE THEM TOO MUCH. That is THE KEY to tortilla success.

Enjoy, and when you’ve made them, go share some with your neighbors.

Nutritional Facts

So, I'm beginning to question the nutritional value of some of our meals, especially breakfast and lunches. We have been officially out of milk for a few days and are left to our moo juice substitute. They say you should have at least three food groups form the pyramid with your morning meal, but my kids will not have anything to do with the morning moo unless it is mixed into something that is then baked or heated somehow.
This week we began okay. Here's what we've eaten so far -

Monday we had hot oat bran (this is the grains family) and bottled peaches (thank you for the token fruit) but no dairy or protein to speak of at breakfast. The kids took home made bread, apples and a cookie in their lunches. Dinner was a potato bar eaten on the run as we hurried to the Trunk or Treat. Not too bad as far as a meal goes, but again, not a lot of protein or calcium to be found other than what was in the whole wheat bread and sour cream/cheese for the potatoes.


Tuesday, I already mentioned, Don made a scrambled egg skillet dish with bacon and cheese, plenty of protein, a little dairy. We also had hot chocolate, I'm sure that counted as a full serving of dairy. Kids ate the same lunch as they had Monday. Dinner was burgers and fries for lots of fun and fatty calories.


Today we got a late start and KC made pumpkin pancakes, no dairy but at least one good serving of fruit with the pumpkin. We had pizza for lunch at Costco, I went just to return a printer and didn't buy anything but lunch for the kids. Dinner was hurried again. I made rice earlier this afternoon. Good plan. Bren made potstickers and ate his helping on the run. Don, the little kids and I actually sat down together for a few minutes to eat. KC was coming in as I was leaving and hopefully this was the last crazy evening for a while.

So, dairy, or maybe I should say calcium and vitamin d, seem to be the lacking, but I think we're doing okay. I'm off for now. You can see what we've eaten this week so far. What we lack in quality dinner times we've made up in a few nice sit-down breakfasts this week.

The Best Laid Plans....

Notice the new quote on the side bar. I like to change it occasionally and I think the current quote is appropriate for the final stretch of our experiment. So, here I'll tell you about the day's plans, and then we'll see how they went awry.

Today I planned to get up, shower and groom, get breakfast on the table, family scriptures read, lunches made and out the door in time to pick up kids for the car pool. All this was accomplished with the indispensable assistance of my supportive spouse. I had a class to teach this morning and I couldn’t have done all of the above without him.

Once at school I had an remarkable experience with the leadership education class my son is in. I have been team teaching all year and go in periodically for leadership in action events we’ve planned as a class. This week is the National Student Mock Elections and because it is a presidential election year, it is a big deal to be involved in the voting process with millions of other students around the country. Our leadership class voted early this morning so they can be election officials on Thursday when the rest of the school votes. You may wonder where this is going and how it applies to no more grocery shopping, and I’ll get to that. We spent the last ten minutes of class today in a mock debate and I have to say I was supremely impressed by the depth of character demonstrated by these young people. When it came down to my final question (I was the moderator), “How can YOU best make a difference for good NOW? In this class, with these peers, how can you effect positive change?” I have to say, their answers were simple but profound and they all knew exactly what their right answer was. I was so moved by their honest, specific responses that I have been pondering all day what my answer to that same question would be. Whether I look at it in the context of my home and family, my neighborhood and community, my country and the world. Or, just in context of this blog. How can I make a difference for good NOW? It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? It makes me think of great plans for this blog and the vision I originally began with. I’ll come back to that question before I close, but for now it brings me back to the title of this post. The best laid plans…..

Here’s a break down of the day after my glowing morning:

Best Laid Plan #1 - Help Tiff (accommodating sis-in-law extraordinaire) defrost her freezer.
Gone Awry - Nearly had a house fire caused by burning a pot of water over here, left the rest of the thaw process to Tiff.

Best Laid Plan #2 - Spend the afternoon writing because there will be plenty of time to clean and make dinner later.
Gone Awry - I forgot about my appointment to visit a neighbor and didn’t have time for either cooking or cleaning once the kids got home.

Best Laid Plan #3 - Savor my 30 minutes with the kids when they get home, then spend the remainder of the afternoon attending to needful things as they arose.
Gone Awry - The kids were 30 minutes late getting home (an honest mom moment of short-term memory loss), KC had to hurry off to an activity that would take all evening, Brennan was stressed and swamped with homework, with the hustle and bustle every kid needed something simultaneously.

Best Laid Plan #4 - Have the house straight & dinner under way before Don comes home.
Gone Awry - Don arrived 30 minutes early, homework took the entire time from when Bren got home until it was time for me to go. The positive side of this Is that he and I had some very meaningful exchanges on the topic of stem cell research and gene therapy that we wouldn’t have had if my plans had gone as I’d set them out. Needless to say, the huse was in disarray and dinner was no where near being under way.

Best Laid Plan # Fifth and Final - Make dinner when I come home from my visit to the neighbor.
Gone Awry - When I got home I had a bunch of hungry kids and a helpful husband who was not sure what I had planned for dinner other than my quick, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll do it when I get home,” as I went out the door. So, he picked up where I left off with homework.

Resolution - When your best laid plans go awry, pack every body up in the car and head for the closest burger joint. That’s what we did and everyone, including me, was happy.

Back to my question, and I’d love your comments on this - If you had the power to influence your little part of the world for good using your blog, what would you do? I’d love to hear all your best laid plans, don’t worry about what they say about those, whose to say “awry” isn’t right where you want to be?

Two Cheats

Okay, I have an occasions for cheating I have to fess up to right now. It's not exactly grocery shopping, but I do have to go into the grocery store to retrieve my needed item. The object of my requirement is DRY ICE and it is for all of the fun and festive activities we have planned for Halloween. Here are some things we are doing:

1. I am doing dry ice science in KC's class. Click here to see what I mean.
2. We are making a spook alley for our trick-or-treaters to enjoy and want lots of dense, rolling fog (the fog machine makes misty, slightly-opaque fog) to give a spooky effect.
3. My kids like to experience explosions as frequently as they can, and though it doesn't involve pyrotechnics, Halloween and dry ice science explosions make a great interlude between Independence Day and New Years.

The thing about dry ice is that you can only get it from grocery stores. so, Friday morn, I'll be at a grocery story, breaking my first rule, by the letter of the law. But, I do justify myself by saying I will still be in keeping with the spirit of the law because I will NOT be grocery shopping. So, there's my first confession.

My second cheat is that I've broken rule # 3 and gotten another infusion of cash. Between costumes, camping, produce from the farm (including six smashing pumpkins), and two dinners out (just sandwiches or fresh mex, but still) for the whole fam, I blew through my hundred bucks a week ago. I received an infusion of $50 and that should get me through the end of the experiment, cash wise.

So, again, that was all in the spirit of full disclosure. Just trying to be accountable, even if only to myself. Thanks for all of the words of encouragement and interest. Look for some of my great successes and failures in the home stretch of our experiment, to be posted soon.

The Curse of the Blog

Okay, I’m killing myself trying to keep up with this blog. I want so many things for it it’s becoming like another pet, which I never said I’d have because it’s all I can do to keep four little bi-pedal creatures going in a day. Why would I ever take on the four-legged kind that may be house trained but certainly don’t flush. Yet, I do have two cats who live in the garage. No one pays them much mind until I tell the kids it’s time for our pets to find a more loving home. Then there are tears and demonstrations of genuine concern, that lasts about a day until we all find something else to concern ourselves with. Anyway, I am trying to play catch up. Ever since our crazy campout, life has been much altered. We discovered some key ingredients are missing from our preparation plans and I’ve been trying to fill in those holes. Anyway, sorry to neglect the blog. I really do have such great plans for it.

Maybe I need a blog consultant to advise me on how to move forward. I learned several helpful skills while preparing for and experiencing our three days in the wilderness, look for these in posts to come:

Season the Dutch Oven
Make a cardboard box oven
Make tortillas from scratch
Make banana bread without using electricity

On the other hand, you are really all here, not because you want to hear about us roughing it in the wilderness, but because you want to know how to get by without going to the grocery store, so, maybe I’ll stick to the topic at hand and that is the best advise of all. Maybe what I should do is address all these fascinating topics in future blogs when I’m back to grocery shopping, but moving on to avoiding some other necessary addictions, like electricity.

Oh, this is good. You are such a great listener. Let’s keep going with this. So here’s my idea. I’ll stick to mostly no more grocery shopping content this month. If I get a chance to write some little snippets about other things I’m learning along the way I’ll reference them in the blog and you can always access them on the sidebar under topics like “Tips and Tricks”, “Cool Tools,” etc. That way, people coming for menus, recipes and day-to-day ideas that are on topic will not be disappointed. But, here’s my plan for the blog after November 4.

November 4 -December 25 will be “No More Holiday Shopping” days. Rules and guidelines for this idea will be posted on November 4. The blog’s official url will remain “no more grocery shopping,” but the title page will read, “No More Holiday Shopping.”

January will be “No More Eating Out,” month. After the hefty holiday meals and usual expenditures (though this year is bound to be leaner due to the “no more holiday shopping,” experiment,) I’d like to have a month long fast food/restaurant food fast and get back to some simple, soulful home cookin’. Maybe you don't eat out much, we don't either. But, I do rely on a quick pizza pick-up and a date-night out occasionally. This experiment will be good for my bank book and my recipe repertoire.

February is going to be “No More Electricity,” month. I’m not sure exactly what this is going to look like, but I will be selecting a block of hours in the day where we will live nearly off the grid. Stay tuned for more info.

Wow, I appreciate all of the good advice and ideas. Thanks for helping me through that. I’ll quit trying to play catch up and get out of the glory days of the campout, come back to the day-to-day life outside of the grocery store and see if I can’t make my way successfully through
the rest of this experiment. Thanks for sticking it out with me.

Home, Sweet Home

I’m back! We went camping with our cousins for a few days. We did some awesome archaeology, explored old Indian ruins, slept out in below freezing temperatures, and ate a lot of food. Some meals were better than others, but we fared pretty well considering it was 3 days, 7 meals, and 12 people to plan for. I’ll share our camping recipes/menu later, first, let me recap the rest of week 2….Scroll down and look for the back dated entries.

Week Two Menu

A Work in Progress until the week is over. Look for recipes on corresponding week's recipe post.

Sunday
Breakfast - This Sunday was Fast Sunday, where we fast for two meals and donate the amount
Lunch - we would have spent on those meals to charity.
Dinner - Cheesy Potato & Bacon Soup, followed by Pear Crisp

Monday
Breakfast - Cold cereal, juice
Lunch - Fresh fruits and veggies - the kids have been loving apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar with their lunches
Dinner - Canned soups, corn bread muffins, hot chocolate

Tuesday
Breakfast - Cold cereal, juice
Lunch - Corn bread muffins, carrots, chips
Dinner - Dracula's Chicken Paprika

Wednesday
Breakfast - Cold cereal, juice
Lunch - Fruit, carrots, chips, boiled eggs
Dinner - Chicken Tacos

Thursdays
Breakfast - Mountain man potato skillet
Lunch - Sandwiches
Dinner - Potato cheese soup and pumpkin muffins

Friday
Breakfast - Oatmeal and hot chocolate
Lunch - deli meat, cheese, boiled eggs, fruit
Dinner - Italian Mountain Man Meal, green beans and peach cobbler

Saturday
Breakfast - Hot chocolate and cold cereal
Lunch - Hot dogs and fruit
Dinner - Kids, pizza; Mom & Dad, date night at Thai restaurant.