End of the Month Recipes!

No food left in your cupboards til the next month? No problem! Here's what I've been doing to stretch dollars I don't have!

Breakfast Ideas: Fill a bowl with water and pretend it's cereal! Use a spoon to create the same monotonous motions of eating cereal. Splurge and refill the bowl!
Scramble ice cubes and act like you are making eggs for breakfast! Great way to get in some imaginary proteins.

Lunch Ideas: Liquid Lunch! Bring pot of water to a boil and serve with some make believe crackers :D

Supper Ideas: Casserole dishes are often soaked in water to clean them so why not fill them up with water to create meals instead! Use ice shaves to create whatever topping you may have used on dishes in the beginning of the month.

Wordless Wednesday: Poison Cooking Edition

Fall Soup Favorites

I know it's still August but the one thing I look forward to about the end of summer is fall/winter soup season! During the summer months I've made some soups but most were light (mainly because of lack of ingredients) but still wholesome nonetheless. I'm hoping in the near future to be gainfully employed so I may continue making my kitchen a mess with these recipes.

Ina Garten's Sausage Lentil Soup is something that I've made variations with and I hope to continue to tweak in the fall. One thing I really like is using hot sausage and adding kale to the mix too. Makes it feel hearty and is a way to add in more veggies. Her recipe calls for kielbasa, I'm hoping around the holiday season if its on sale I'll be able to experiment and see how it would taste with leftover kielbasa.

Emeril's Split Pea Soup is pretty easy to prep and goes over quite well in my household. If I have leftover ham I like to chop it up and add to the soup but this is tasty without it as well. I'd like to try making this in the fall with some milk alternatives to see if it will lower the calorie content but still keep the nutrients. I'm not a big fan of milk but I'm the minority in my household.

Miso Soup! This is one of the easiest soups to make and great all year round. One of the items I want to keep on hand in the fall/winter season is miso paste (shiro is my fav.) Tofu can be pricey at times but the soup still maintains it flavor with or without it. I like to cut my tofu up in small little cubes to make it stretch even further. I also want to learn more recipes that use miso paste.

These soups are some of my favorites from last fall/winter but I am hopeful that I will be creating even better variations soon! Aka adding kale to everything! ;)

Gratitude Post

Bam! I've been pretty good the past few week's in actually remembering to write a post!

1. Water: I'm grateful that I have filters left for my Brita water pitcher for at least til the beginning of Fall. Filtered water is important in my household especially during the summer months when I'm mixing up tea, lemonade, and constantly filling up my water bottle.

2. Rain: I'm so glad that this week I didn't have to go out much to water my garden. I went overboard with applying for jobs this week so I barely had any time to spare to worry about my poor veggies! I'm hoping the rain from this week will help those whose end of summer crops are still going strong!

3. Aloe Vera Gel: I love walking around the farmer's market but I tend to get sunburned easily so I'm glad for the existence of aloe vera gel. It helps soothe my skin and is also great for all the bug bites I get whenever I step on my front porch for longer than ten minnets.

4. Iced Tea: I'm grateful that I have something other than water to drink during the hot days of summer. Will my tea supply run dry before I get a new job? Who knows! But at least for now I have a few cheap choices for cool drinks :)

5. First Interview for August!: Though it didn't take place just yet, will be Monday afternoon, I'm grateful that I got called in for a part time interview for a retail gig. I applied back in the beginning of July so I was happy that I was still in consideration for a position there. I put down on the application that I would be willing to be a regular or temporary employee, more than likely it is temp for the holidays but I'd be grateful either way at this point.

Wordless Wednesday

Open Letter to Kale

 
 
 Dear Kale,

I know it has been too long. We haven't seen each other since I was working back in May. I miss sauteing you with garlic, coconut oil, and a splash of rice vinegar than piling you on a bowl of brown rice. Remember last winter? All the soups we made together? I'm hoping we can create even more delicious meals together this winter, that is if I can afford you.
During the summer I tried planting seeds but alas none grew this year. The harsh weather conditions and above normal temps are partly to blame. But I plan on trying to plant more seeds this weekend to try for a fall harvest!
I hope that we are reunited soon but right now I'm focusing on lesser vegetables that are in season and affordable at the farmer's market. Though while walking up and down the market my eyes are always searching for you, always!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Yeah I totally just Google Searched for an image ;)

In the spirit of using up what is in my cupboards I decided to make chocolate chip muffins since I have half a bag of chips left!

I tinkered a bit with the one recipe I use a lot when making blueberry muffins and think these came out not  too shabby.

1 cup of milk
1/3 vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 sugar
2 cups of all purpose unbleached flour
2 tsp baking power
1/2 of chocolate chips

Grease muffin tins and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 20 minutes. Stare at for 5 minutes til cool enough to tear into.
I always mix my wet ingredients first and then slowly incorporate the dry. I also splashed in a bit of vanilla extract mainly because I have one bottle that I'm trying to finish before I crack open another I found in the cupboard the other day.