HJ Waxing Moon

If I'd known about this as a kid, my whole world would have been a lot different. You can put oatmeal in jars, add boiling water, and BOOM. BREAKFAST.   "Oh but Heather you need quick oats"/"It only works with some oats"/"You can't use other kinds of hot cereal." That's what they told me too, but they're wrong. I've tried it. I probably wouldn't use wheat berries, but any somewhat processed grain should do. Here's my recipe, you may need to tweak to your tastes. 1 pint jar 1/2 c oats 1/2 c toppings Dry sweetener if you're using it Pinch of salt Store at room temperature.  To eat: add boiling water to just below the fill line--I leave about 1/2 inch. Stir and rest for 5 minutes. Add liquid sweetener, butter, milk/cream to taste.  Cream of wheat/Farina plumps so much more than oats. I use 1/3c and no toppings.  What kind of toppings? Dried fruit like cranberries are easy & cheap Chopped or shaved nuts are great S...

Being pregnant has been a roller coaster. I've been sparing you details, hence the radio silence. One thing I struggled with early on, especially so early in recovery for a restrictive eating disorder, was eating "junk" food. It made me keenly aware how ableist and toxic our modern discussions are about food and food-health connections. I had been struggling already to follow my doctors' orders about eating whatever sounds good, however much of it feels good, whenever I want and need to. After a decade of self-imposed eating restrictions, it was a difficult adjustment. But one I needed to start before I got pregnant. Because I was already getting better at it when I was suddenly thrust into "morning" sickness and all my careful food choices became impossible to manage. I knew my OB was the right one for me when she said, and this IS a direct quote, "I don't care if you live on mashed potatoes and Sprite until the day the baby is born, just eat...

After our big food prep day, we just couldn't bring ourselves to set everything back where it had been. SOMETHING needed to be done to get some more functional pantry space and get my huge, honking microwave off the counter! I searched online for some microwave carts to replace one of our pantry shelving units, and didn't like what I saw. Baker's racks, however, might give us the depth I was searching for to get the microwave off the counter, and at a MUCH better price. But sometimes you just get that feeling, and you know what you've got to do. Out the door on a whim to hit the thrift stores. There's one right nearby, but the furniture section is usually a little lackluster. We enjoy going over to a nicer side of town with two major thrift stores, and besides, I just had the feeling that we shouldn't stop nearby first. We found something we thought we could jerry-rig to work, and went to the next one. Still nothing quite right, and we'd managed to tal...

The Challenge: Northwest Edible Life has a yearly Eat from the Larder challenge in April. I only read about it on April 1, but it had been a half-assed goal of ours anyway so I jumped onboard. Their rules are a ZERO dollar food budget and no intentional stocking up ahead. Of course without any forewarning I couldn't possibly have intentionally stocked up ahead, but I'm not interested in a $0 grocery budget--just cleaning out some of our excess pantry storage and being a little creative. We're having an issue with our freezer & fridge that requires us to minimize our perishable food stock before fixing it, besides the excessive collection of condiments and pickles in there. Our Rules: No purchasing non-perishable food items.  Minimal purchase of perishable items.  No opening of new condiments if they can be avoided (until after the fridge is fixed, whether that's in two weeks or May).  Be creative!  Keep it simple, right? Bonus goals: Use ever...

After we moved, my health took a sharp downward turn. There were a lot of changes that happened all at once, and so it was difficult to pinpoint any one particular cause. I thought most of it was just pushing myself too hard in the moving process, or maybe the fact that we had been in survival mode for so long and now I was allowed to give myself some more time for self-care. But that wasn't it. Shortly after we moved into our apartment, we noticed that a couple of our food items were freeze burned. We put it down to the old freezer which was not well-maintained, or some abuse during moving, and ignored it. Then we discovered brand-new food items were getting freezer burned. We checked to see if a vent was getting blocked, and checked for excess ice crystals. I checked the seal on the gasket on the door. We adjusted the temperature gauge with no change in temps or results. As time went on, I started noticing a metallic, almost anti-freeze flavor going on in our food. Everything b...

For our vacation, we rented a hotel room with a kitchenette. It did legitimately save us money on breakfasts and lunches and even a couple dinners, as we were able to do a picnic dinner the night we went sailing, and supply foods for a backyard BBQ another night. (And as the room was the same price as some of the other local hotels without kitchenettes, it didn't cost us any extra there either!) Of course, Seattle being about 30-50% more expensive for groceries than Portland/Vancouver, and seeing as we wouldn't be getting into town until after our first wedding of the trip, I didn't want to have to buy much food up there. Enter the cooler. Place food, insert ice, seems pretty simple. But what about if you have cardboard foods that could get soggy in the melted ice? I put a couple items in small garbage bags with good results! Unfortunately, there aren't many plastic-conscious ways of handling that, unless you want to transfer to glass containers. ----------------...

Since Mr. Moon and I have SUCH a busy schedule this week, and a VERY strict budget, we knew we'd better do something about snacking and meals on the go. We've found ourselves allowing a splurge now and again of fast food (albeit not the worst choices in fast food) because we're out and about, hungry, and need something fast. Having decided to do something about this, we put a list of snack ideas on our menu plan, but haven't been great at using it.  Enter the busy week. Now it's imperative that we have solid meal plans! And finger foods. And while staring blankly at the whiteboard, I suddenly blurted out, "Lunchables." Not so much exclaimed it, just blurted. And then I looked at Mr. Moon and said, "I don't mean buy them, I mean make our own." I think I could safely describe the look on his face as "ravenous" or perhaps "crazed," and he informed me that he had no idea what I had in mind but he knew it would be deliciou...

A friend on Facebook asked if anyone had ideas for freezer meals. Stuff you can make up and freeze for easy meals later. This is a project I've been working on for the last year, but felt I hadn't gotten as far as I'd have liked with it. Then I started typing... and realized just how much I'd learned! Well I spent 20 minutes writing up a list for her, and thought it might be a helpful reference for others. If I don't have a recipe for something and I'd like one from me, feel free to comment and I'll write one up. * Tip: When cooking casseroles from frozen, put them in a cold oven. It decreases the likelihood of your dish shattering.  Non-Soups: Broccoli Mac Sloppy Joes (in this house is usually lentil sloppy joe's because it's one of the vegetarian meals Pops truly LIKES) Marinara sauce (because I didn't have canning supplies until recently Sausage gravy! I love making a batch of sausage gravy and then being able to heat it up in th...

A few years ago, I made everyone in my family a gift basket for Christmas. This was the first time I'd ever given my own gifts to extended family, instead of letting my mom put my name on a tag of something she had bought for them. It felt very adult. I'd originally intended to make my own hot cocoa mix, give it in jars or bags, but I ran out of time to do that myself and bought packets of mix instead. In a basket with paper stuffing (in case of small children or pets), I included baggies of marshmallows, some cookies, and a mug for each person in the house. For the couple people who don't drink cocoa, I gave them tea. I made gifts for 27 people by spending $73, and was very proud of myself. This year, I wanted to do a reprisal of the hot cocoa baskets, though I was going to skip the mugs this time. I was going to make my own cocoa and perhaps help with the baking of the trays my dad and brother make for everyone in lieu of material gifts. However, looking at all the in...

Next week I embark on a three week vacation. I feel like we are completely on track for preparing for this, all the laundry is done (or is getting finished tonight) and most is even folded and put away. I'll be packing my suitcase tomorrow so I can't accidentally wear something I want to take with me--and subsequently if it does happen to be currently dirty, we have plenty of time to wash it. I finished the to-do list for projects Mr. Moon can work on while I'm gone, all prioritized and everything. There's a menu plan for each of the three weeks I'm gone. We're hoping after I get back to do a monthly menu plan system (at least as far as most of the grocery shopping is concerned), though we will still have to plan which meals are on which days weekly due to the nature of flexible scheduling. Week of Dec 9-16: Breakfasts: Cottage cheese & pineapple, smoothies, bagels with cream cheese. Lunches: Grilled cheese, Bacon Chicken Cheddar Ranch pasta salad....

In three weeks, I'm headed on vacation for three weeks to see blood- and chosen-family over the holidays. Mr. Moon will at that point be committing to commuting 13 miles each way by bike to work for what will presumably be 3 days a week if the schedule stays roughly the same, and so I'm anticipating he will be low on energy and definitely lower on time than we have right now. So we are spending these next three weeks planning ahead so that the meals while I'm gone are taken care of. Freezer meals that can be re-heated in the crockpot and oven as soups and casseroles, mostly. Things that even on the worst days, anyone can pull out and cook with less effort than picking up take-out. And only a couple that will require prepping sides to go with. Rather than make it more difficult on ourselves, it means that over the next couple weeks we will also be having some of these items for dinner. But it's a switch in thinking that I'd like to get everyone else used to doing, ...

Mr. Moon and I are testing out a new theory, that we can prep foods ahead of time for quicker turn-around on meals. Given how the schedule changes every week, we can't designate a specific day (or two) for it the way we would with a typical 9-5 job or steady set schedule. So it's a floating thing, depending on the schedule. Since Mr. Moon had the day off, today was that day. Problem was it was such a nice day that it was really important to get as much yard work done as he could. And my knee wasn't cooperating with much, so I was kind of down for the count. I was able to get some laundry washed and dried, though! I went to an appointment while he pruned butterfly bushes and trimmed them down for stakes (totally for vampires, not at all for tying back roses bushes). Once the sun went down, it was time to clean up from that project and get to work on food prep. Our list for the day: Chop veggies for soup; zucchini, tomato, onion Soak beans for soup Meatballs for soup ...

Jobs can be frustrating at times. I keep having to tell myself that Mr. Moon doesn't need to leave just because he has asked 6 times in the last 12 days when he should be expecting the schedule that starts this Wednesday. When they had the schedule week running from Monday to Sunday, they were receiving the schedule on Wednesday; 5 days before it started, and a reasonable length of time. Not being involved in this particular restaurant's decision to shift the pay and schedule week, I can't tell you their reasoning to change it, but I do know that when you have a Mon-Sun schedule, you risk either end up paying extra overtime or sending people home to avoid it during your busiest nights of the week. I don't have a problem with the shifted schedule week; I have a problem with him asking 6 times now and not receiving ANY ANSWER whatsoever about when the next schedule will be posted. He's been assured he's not on the chopping block to get fired, but it makes me anxio...

There are 7 days in a week, right? Here are our goals for meal planning, in no particular order: 1: Fish day 2: Vegetarian days 2: Freezer meals 1: Salad day 1: Crockpot meal 1: Hearty meat dinner 2: Fend For Yourself days 2: Batch meals But that's 11 days! Oh noes! Let's see how that breaks down into a week. Remember, days are fluid but let's use them anyway for illustration purposes. Monday: Vegetarian Batch Crockpot meal Tuesday: Salad Wednesday: FFYS Thursday: Hearty Meat Batch Dinner--roast or crockpot Friday: Fish Saturday: Vegetarian Freezer Meal Sunday: FFYS That... was actually a lot harder than it looks. But I got all the requirements! I kind of want to put that goals chart above right onto my white board, so I don't forget what we're trying to accomplish--so I don't forget to plan meals that can be frozen easily, so I don't forget to schedule something to be pulled from the freezer. We'll see. Maybe I'll just write i...

With Mr. Moon's new job, we are finally able to get back to a Monday through Sunday mean plan again. I don't know why, but the Thurs-Wednesday week was making my brain hurt. The last couple weeks have been meaty goodness heaven for Pops, and it's time to get our routine and food choices back under control. I've still managed to make sure he's gotten one good vegetarian meal each week for the last month, but the rest of them that were planned he decided to take Mum to dinner--at Carl's Junior, or Wendy's, or what have you. I'm not really sure if this is rebelling against my cooking or the diet itself, but he insists everything I've made has been excellent, so I'm going to assume it's not me. In any event, with the heat wave, cold meals are a happy thing. However, I simply don't function well without a hot dinner--never really figured out why. Monday we're going to cook over the fire pit and have cold soup as a side. Crock pots do...

I previously discussed, without pictures, the food storage situation at our house. I didn't have pictures then for a lot of reasons, one of which being that I've never been much of a shutter bug, as evidenced by the fact that I forget a lot of the "Before" pictures for some of these projects. Also, it's one thing to show the before pictures of a shed in disarray, most people with a shed are probably in the same boat. But I don't want to shame people publicly for being behind on major household projects, especially when there's no real "fault" to be thrown around. This is why we're here. But! That won't stop me from bragging on all the awesomeness we've accomplished! These shelves were just full, stacks had toppled over, things were stacked in front of other things so we had no idea what we had, and I'll just skate right on past the details of the mouse infestation issue which has been taken care of, thank goodness. Of cours...

Happy Mother's Day!  Somehow I learned that to love people you feed them (in my family?? NEVER!), and my standards means I usually cook. I once created a new tradition for Christmas day in my family by being SUPER!Broke and giving the gift of Quiche for brunch. Since then, as I'm not a fan of Quiche, we have a tradition of me cooking the main dish for Christmas morning (usually french toast casserole AKA a less-sweet bread pudding). Everybody looks forward to it, and the gift giving becomes a lot easier. Along a similar vein, Mr. Moon and I decided that rather than a drab card or just a phone call, we would like to do something special for Mum. My family usually takes one grandma and my mom out to brunch, but we decided we'd rather cook ours. What was on our menu? Waffles (we have three waffle makers, it seemed like a good idea to USE them); quiche "of some kind"; biscuits & sausage gravy; ham; fruit salad (no whipped cream dressing--I'd never h...

Sure, maybe you've read elsewhere about how menu planning works, how helpful it is, how it can save you so much money because you're sticking to a list... But I can't tell you how many blog entries I've read where people basically say "This is how you do it! Just do it." Or where they skip steps in the process because they assume you know already. This is crap I had to learn myself, the hard way, and I figure if it helps one person figure out how to put together a meal plan then it's worth the time I spent telling you all about it. In our house, we've started a habit of menu planning on Sunday afternoons/evenings. I'd like to say it takes 10 minutes, but let's be real here: It takes longer than that once you add in all the extra steps. First I clean out the fridge. I try to make a habit of touching everything in the fridge except the stuff in the door, because the stuff in the door is either condiments that rarely go bad or beverages that ...

I admit with only a little shame that I am a food hoarder. I have, over the last year, increased my food storage supplies such that if I were to be unable to acquire new foods suddenly and had to live off what I currently own, we would be OK for a while. Fresh foods are currently limited, and we would have to start getting creative rather quickly, but the dry goods would last for weeks. I'm not ashamed of it because we do actually USE all of the foods I have stored, in a First In/First Out method whenever possible, and with the exception that we have more of it than is reasonably easy to store it's not been an issue. Well OK, I also have stored the very foods I am trying to cut down from our menu plans, which means that the length of time these foods would be getting stored increases. And yet in the grand scheme of things, these are not "bad" foods--brown rice, dried beans, whole grains, and some canned goods that (ignoring the health implications of the cans themselv...