Frugal Living Updates

I kicked off our spending freeze by making a few batches of granola, several loaves of Barbara's Whole Wheat bread, and several loaves of Cornell Bread. The Cornell Bread makes a great quick grab breakfast. To veganize the recipe in the link, make the following changes:

use 1 tbs flaxseed meal for the egg
use blackstrap molasses instead of honey
use extra soy flour or Better than Milk in place of powdered milk

I also began to peruse Use It All: The Leftovers Cookbook which I found in a thrift store on our trip to Ithaca. This cookbook is arranged by main ingredient. Its not a veg cookbook but so far the recipes seem to lend themselves to veganizing. I made Pineapple Pecan Loaf but substituted walnuts for the pecans since I didn't have pecans in the house. I chose this recipe because of the plethora of pineapple juice I had in the freezer.

I also made a few batches of the pumpkin muffin recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance and Baked Seitan .

We tried the baked seitan in Isa's Jerk Seitan recipe from VwaV. It was amazing. I also served it with a container of Tofurky gravy that had been hidden at the bottom of our freezer. This was equally delicious.

I'm sure one or two of you are scratching your heads trying to figure out if I've gone carb crazy with all the breads and muffins. Actually, I'm just getting our staples in place. All the extras have been tucked into the freezer for future use. Jim's stash of summer bachelor meals is growing nicely.

The sprouts are nearing completion. They sprout more rapidly in the warmer weather which is a nice bonus.

I'm relieved to report that the check engine light was an emissions problem not a transmission one. The repair bill came to $400. I'm grateful, I thought it was going to be much worse. Of course it doesn't change all the other expenses we have so the spending freeze continues!

I'm wrapping up two projects I've been working on. The baby blanket is almost done. I just need to make the hood portion. I'm finishing up my sister's birthday present, a creative endevour involving an unwanted pair of jeans, as well. I'll post pictures of these as I complete them.