After reading all of the wonderful ideas and suggestions that you shared in my reader survey (it’s still open, hint hint!), I have decided to start a new Friday series to share more day-to-day snippets of the frugal life. I’m calling it Frugal Feats, Flops, and Funnies. I am all about alliteration.
I’m excited to have a place to share tips and ideas, as well as frugal fails and humor, that don’t necessarily merit their own complete blog post. I think it will be a fun way to reflect on the week.
It’s not just about me though!
I am also excited for each of you to have the chance to share your frugal flops, funnies, and fortune from the past week. You don’t have to share from each category, just whatever stands out in your memory. My hope is that we can all learn from, laugh with, and be motivated by one another.
Here’s what I’ve got for this week:
Frugal Feat
This past week, we went to a U-pick farm and got 200 lbs of produce for $50! They weigh your car when you go in and weigh it again as you go out, then charge $.25/lb. It’s a pretty neat operation.
While we do have a garden, we were getting impatient for our own tomatoes to ripen. At the farm, we could got over 100 pounds of tomatoes that were ripe and ready to preserve. We also got watermelon, cucumbers, eggplant, zucchini, and green beans.
Of course we did have to pick it ourselves, which meant rummaging though lots of picked over plants with grossly overripe or under-ripe fruit. Plants that have been picked by and/or stepped over (on) by many different people twice a week definitely take a beating compared to our home garden.
The kids and I spent a lot of time this week canning tomato puree and salsa. Instead of just asking for help, I offered to “hire” them. They were all over that! We all worked together very well and the kids lasted a really long time!
In addition to canning 40+ quarts of tomatoes, the kids helped me shred zucchini and yellow squash with the food processor (it’s pretty fun) to dehydrate. We add dehydrated squash to soups in the winter. We also made some zucchini bread.
Frugal Flop
I can sum this week’s frugal flop up with one word: eggplant.
Eggplant is such a pretty vegetable. I just couldn’t resist grabbing a couple (or six) at the U-pick. I imagined my kids gobbling up all of my healthy and creative creations with the gorgeous purple treasure.
After several attempts, including Breaded Baked Eggplant and Eggplant Marinara, it was pretty clear that this vegetable wasn’t going to go very far at our house. I was even having a hard time faking it (because you know if I didn’t try it there was no way the kids were going near it). My husband ate it, but that isn’t really remarkable because he willingly eats everything I make (which is remarkable). I can think of two times in eleven years of marriage that he opted not to eat something (and of course I was already ready to toss it, so no hurt feelings)!
We decided eggplant was meant to be seen and not eaten.
Frugal Funny
Our vehicles are a constant source of humor for us. Mostly because we’d rather laugh than cry. 🙂
Last weekend on the way home from a scout outing, my husband lost his right blinker (turn signal light). It never had been quite right since the run in with the bear two years ago. A few months after the body shop fixed the car (which was technically totaled by the insurance company), the light housing came loose and has been held on by Gorilla Tape (that stuff is amazing) ever since.
When we were laughing about it with a friend who was with my husband on the scout trip, I joked that we should drive around together because my left blinker just stopped working– I could signal right and he could signal left and we’d be covered! Our friend (who drives nice new cars) joked that we could always just stick our arms out the window and do hand signals. My husband and I looked at each other and laughed– just days earlier the driver side window on the van stopped working! We couldn’t even do hand signals if we wanted to!
Just for the record, there’s no need to worry about us. 🙂 My husband’s new turn signal is coming in the mail tomorrow (thank you Amazon). And this van (unlike the purple one) has air conditioning, so the window issue is no biggie. And out in the boonies I don’t have to worry much about turning left. At least not having anyone witness my turning left. It’s all good!
It’s your turn!
I would love to hear about your week!
- What were your frugal successes and failures?
- Any funny frugal moments?
- Do you like Eggplant?
P.S.
If you haven’t taken a minute to answer to do so yet, I would really love to pick your brain on a few things. It would make my day if you’d complete my first-ever reader survey! Thanks! 🙂
I had no idea uPick existed. That sounds like a great business model, selling items for low by keeping costs very low. I also like your alliterations 🙂
As for being frugal, I have been cooking every day which allowed me to eat healthier, save money, and learn new recipes! I like to think of it as a triple win! I’ve also limited my time going out with friends, twice a week is enough but more than that and I get exhausted from being too much social.
Way to go with your cooking at home! Triple win for sure!
haha. Funny that you mention eggplant. I gave it a chance 3 times throughout the years and it was a total fiasco every time! Last time I got 2 prettiest ones I found. Once prepared one of them got thrown away and after 3 month when the other one was close to dying, T. dressed it with a tie and put sunglasses on it. It was pretty funny. It ended up in trash as well.
Ha ha! I love that you dressed up the eggplant. I’m not the only one that knows they’re just for looks!
One frugal feat for me was that I learned how to make my own Washing soda. Baking soda spread out in a baking pan cooked at 250 degrees for 1 hour. The heat changes the chemical make up of the baking soda. It is easy to feel the difference before and after. It works great.
Awesome! I’ve heard that making your own washing soda is easy, but I’ve never tried it!
I got an eggplant from a friend this last week. I have tried eggplant in the past with my family with no success. This time I blended it up and hid it with some other veggies in a hamburger mix that I used for meatloaf, burger patties and meatballs. It worked!
That sounds like a good way to handle the eggplant. I blend other veggies up with ground beef, but I haven’t tried eggplant!
love this! Thank you!
I’m going to second Susan and ask if you “sweated” the eggplant? Either a salt bath or direct salting on a towel/paper that can be thrown away afterward is necessary to get the bitterness out before it’s eaten. We always make eggplant parmesan with our eggplant (we get 3-7/year from our CSA). I peel and slice the eggplant and then lay it out on paper toweling and then salt, flip and repeat after an hour or two (depending on how distracted I am!). A TON of oil comes out and then we finish the dish! Delicious!
Your vans sounds like our van. Hoping we can replace it with something that actually has all working parts soon!
Lea
Hi Lea! I’m sorry that your van has “character” too! The recipe I used did have me sweat the eggplant with salt , so the flavor was okay (not too strong), but the texture kind of weirded me out! 🙂 I didn’t peel it though, so maybe that’s where I went wrong.
I tried to make eggplant parm a long time ago and I absolutely hated the taste. However, a couple of years ago, when my Greek sister-in-law showed me how to make moussaka (greek eggplant dish) she told me that you have to soak eggplant in a salt bath to get rid of the bitterness. I can’t confirm that that is why the moussaka tasted so delicious, but I can tell you that I ate WAY more servings than I should have.
If you have some more eggplant to cook, try moussaka. Soooooo gooood.
P.S. I’ve heard you can also “sweat” out the bitterness with salt.
The recipe I used had me sweat the eggplant with salt. For me, it wasn’t as much a flavor issue as a texture issue though. I have never heard of Moussaka!
We went camping last week and forgot so many things! Including life jackets for the kids, a first aid kit, paper towels, batteries for my son’s hearing aids, only one pair of pants for me that had a huge rip on the backside that I had forgotten about… It *would* have been a frugal flop (we went camping to save money for our family vacation) but we decided we didn’t truly need any of the stuff we had forgotten and made do with what we had. Including me wearing my husband’s basketball shorts the whole time! 🙈 (My son also signs so he did ok without his hearing aids!)
Last year one of my son’s hearing aids broke the first day of our holiday. If we’d been in Australia it wouldn’t have mattered because Australia has a great, nation-wide audiology network so we could’ve been served anywhere. But we were in New Zealand, so we were out of luck. He managed the week just fine, poor kid. Thankfully he’s very clever and very good at coming up with strategies for himself!
That’s awesome Lisa! Way to make do!
Random note: I was on a field trip with my son’s class last year when I discovered that I had a huge rip in the seat of my pants. I have no idea when it happened or how long it had been there. At first I was embarrassed, but then I decided that it was hilarious instead.
Over here, U Pick prices are more expensive than grocery stores. They seem to think people should pay a premium for the experience! About once every six or seven years I think, Hmmm, I’m in the mood for eggplant. So I’ll buy one and make up some eggplant parma and after about half a serve I’ll remember why I don’t buy eggplant very often
Glad I’m not the only one! 🙂
I’ve heard of upick places where you pay more for the experience, but I’m definitely too cheap for that! We get plenty experience in our own garden!
My moment needs a frugal fine-tuning (to stay in line with the alliteration): last night I decided to try my hand at homemade hamburger buns. The flavor and the easy-ness of the recipe guarantee it’ll be one to make again, but I made them too large. By the time we finished eating our chopped beef BBQ sandwich I felt so bloated (and since I’m such a sucker for fresh bread I certainly couldn’t let it go to waste!). Next time I’ll make the buns about 2/3 the size I made last night, which means the one recipe will actually stretch further. So, success in that the recipe itself is a keeper and can be tweaked, failure in that portions were too much (which is a total first-world problem indeed!).
That’s great Karen! I’ve never made hamburger buns before! I’m glad they turned out yummy!
Have you tried using the eggplants to make baba Ghanouj? There are tons of recipes online and you can use peanut butter instead of tahini to make it more budget friendly. (It sounds strange but they do taste very similar!) It makes a great dip, condiment on sandwiches or salad dressing.
Thanks for the tip about peanut butter! I never have tahini and have often wondered if there’s a substitute.
I have never tried (let along heard of) baba Ghanouj! Maybe I’ve been living under a rock. Thanks for the idea!