My husband's grandmother (my grandmother in law?) has recently been giving us a ton of old cookbooks that she has collected over the years after finding out that I like them. Well, I kind of feel like I hit the jackpot because there are some really really cool ones in there. There are also a lot of other ones, so we need to eventually go through them all (when I say a ton, I mean a ton, we must have well over a hundred by now). But in the mean time, I thought it would be fun to open one once in a while and try a recipe and post it if it is good. All of our Christmas Eve recipes that we made came from these books and we had a lot of fun with them. One recipe that I really like as a snack food was for "Chestnut Balls". I love chestnuts, but only buy them once a year because of their high cost. These remind me of a sort of baked falafal and I think you could do them with any nut. I followed the recipe exactly and added a little maple syrup to give balance out the dry taste that chestnuts have. Also, the recipe calls for "riced" chestnuts, but I just used ground.
2 cups ground chestnuts- I used a food processor
3 TBS butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
2 TBS heavy cream
some ground pepper
1-2 TBS maple syrup
Grind everything in a food processor and roll into size ball of choice, stick mixture in the fridge for a while first to help roll
Bake at 375 for about 20 min or until they feel solid
The recipe called for frying them. After an unsuccessful attempt at frying them in shallow butter, we reformed the and decided to try baking. That worked out really well. If I had lard or another appropriate deep fry fat I could have tried it, but I have never deep fried before and I like how light these tasted without lots of extra oil. We put them out with dinner and everyone kept asking us what kind of meatballs they were. I made them again later in the week to have on hand as snack. They are easy to transport and keep on hand and, I think, more interesting than plain nuts. I would like to try them with some crispy (soaked and dehydrated) nuts one day.
Revisiting an old idea here. I have recently and very excitedly accepted a summer internship working on an organic farm here in Maryland. The only real issue before I start is saving up enough money because I will not be able to work at my job while interning. I am thinking I could maybe work one night a week but I am not even sure about that. Saving money is never something I have never been good at. Granted, I only graduated from college last year and before that I was pretty much only making enough to support my lifestlye, BUT I would be lying if I said I never could have started saving a little at some point. I have implemented a flexible saving plan for the four months before my internship and am doing pretty well so far. Most of the time I make enough to afford to buy the food I wish to eat, i.e. organic whole foods, within reason. For instance, I don't buy a grass fed steak every week, but I can afford to buy one every couple of weeks. I think if I skimmed other places I could afford to buy even better food for myself and that is something I am just starting to realize and act upon. My husband and I spend a good amount of money on alcohol (wine), which is a topic for another post, but generally we are pretty good with staying within our means. The thing that I would say I have the most trouble not spending money on is clothing, but I would not say that I spend the most money on clothes because that will always be second to food. Like I described previously, my clothing ideals have not changed, I pretty much only buy organic or fair trade new clothes and will buy other clothes second hand. I would like to share some things that have helped me cut down on my spending in different areas:
Top One: Clothing
I ask myself a few questions before any purchase
- Can I afford it? Truly afford it as in "it is no big deal to spend the money on it", or do I feel like I have to scrape together some money and will really miss it when it's gone?
- Do I really need it? Will is improve my quality of life? If you truly need a new clothing item, it probably will, if not it is just extra and not necessary.
- Will I really love it and cherish it? Is it something I really love the design of, or am I just impulse buying?
Lastly, I try to picture myself in the item doing things that I might be doing in it. Is it flattering? Is it me? Do I actually even have time to wear it, or do I just want it? Is it too similar to something else I own?
Some of these can be applied to other things I spend money on, like kitchen gadgets and books. I have to ask myself if I TRULY need something. Also with all my books that have been piling up I can use a six-month rule; if there is no way I can get to a book within six months than I don't need to buy it right now. Keeping an Amazon wish list is great for that sort of thing I think, especially if the price goes down and all of a sudden something is a better bargain than it was.
I will say that shopping has actually helped my cut down on spending too, if that makes sense! Not actually shopping like going to the mall, but checking out some things online, but if I get tempted to buy something I can ask myself the above questions and normally I don't go through with it. Also like with Amazon, if I catch something on sale that I was tempted to buy a few months earlier, going to that site frequently paid off. I think it is a sort of "shock therapy", like if I constantly am being faced with cute clothing, it is not that big of a deal anymore. I knew a girl once who also helped herself stop spending money; one thing she did was take or get a picture of the item that she wanted instead of buying it because it made her feel like she still owned it. She was very into design, so I think she mainly meant things like furniture and decorative pieces. I always thought that was good advice, but not so much for clothing.
This has been a very long journey for me. Since high school when I would spend every last penny I could get on cute clothes to wear to school until now, I have changed a LOT, but I would like to keep improving my ideals and my actions. As always, any other ideas are very welcome!
