Spice of Life

 Yesterday was clean out the spice cabinet day and errands, oh how I hate errands. I had a few spices I was getting low on so before I placed everything back I restocked what was needed. I like to buy our most used spices in these large size jars from BJ's (Costco, Sam's) You can purchase one of these huge bottles for just a dollar or two more than the small bottles from the grocery store.

 A few spices I grow in the garden then dehydrate. I will run out of most home grown things this year as the garden was a bust.

 Ta Da, all nice and tidy for now. It won't take a skinny minute for things to be upside down again but I now know what I have and everything has been restocked for the fall. I did find some duplicates of things that I wouldn't use up before they were so old I would end up throwing them out. Those I sent over to DD's home along with "California Blend" garlic salt which I just don't like.

 I store the large jars of spices and back ups for the spice cabinet on the top shelf of another cabinet. We are getting into the holiday seasons, most grocery stores will be running sales on spices, there are usually some nice coupons to boot this time of the year. Make your list of what you need and get a deal if you can.

 In order to keep myself on track this month I am going to keep our grocery money separate in this zippy wallet. At the end of the week I will take what's leftover and move to another container then reload the zippy. If I have money in my real wallet it seems to disappear right now!

Homemade artisan bread from last nights supper. This stuff is so good it should be illegal!

I am not moving along on my kitchen clean out very fast, seem to be getting distracted with something else every day :( At least the spice cabinet was completed and I did get the cookbooks sorted and stored away.

I went to DD#1's yesterday to prepare a new recipe for dinner with her. We didn't really get to cook together as she or I were running defence with the little ones most of the time but I think she saw how easy the recipe was and will be making it again. Here is the funny part to me. I took all of the ingredients over other than butter and salt. Remember I have deemed myself as a "Queen of the pantry" so I have to eat from whats on hand all month other than dairy, eggs, and fruit.

First step on the recipe was to saute the chicken strips in 2 TBS of butter. Humm, wheres the butter? What no stick butter? Na, just the fake tub stuff. OK, I will "Make Do". After opening the tub there wasn't even 2 TBS in the durn thing. Where is the extra butter? That was all we had :(. DD sent Ty boy to a neighbor to borrow a stick of butter, how could we eat homemade bread without butter? DD's neighbor had REAL butter!! Be still my heart.

Once I got the pot of water on to boil I looked through her spice cabinet for salt to throw in the pasta water. Do you have any Kosher salt? No. Where is you regular table salt? Out! There was a tiny bit in the salt shaker but not enough to "Make Do". Ty was sent off yet again to borrow salt from another neighbor. Too funny!!

I really didn't think about bringing salt or butter as that was something I figure everyone has plenty of, I was wrong. We have maybe 25-30 pounds of butter in the freezer that I pick up at rock bottom prices from sales and coupons. Salt, ya got lots of extra....table salt, kosher salt, canning salt. BTW you can pick up canning salt right now for next to nothing in the clearance section of most stores.

Now I'm not beating up DD#1 for not having the staples in the house. I too had 3 rug rats running around many years ago. It ain't easy being a Mommy, I just found it so funny after spending a few hours cleaning out the spice cabinet at home. Note to self. Take some salt and butter to DD's on my next visit.

Her neighbor who shared the stick of butter received a loaf of homemade artisan bread for being such a sweet sharer, sure hope she didn't give us her last stick of butter!!!!

Who knew you could write such a long post on the lack of salt and butter!! So here is the new recipe we had for supper last night, Creamy Cajun Chicken, I also made the Cajun seasoning it called for. Turned out GREAT!! It was spicy enough to enjoy but not so spicy you couldn't eat it, you could always kick it up a notch by adding a little more of the seasoning.

On for today. Another cabinet or two, clean out the refrigerator, the house needs a lick and a promise, and prepare myself for a sleepover at Nanny's tonight with Kara. It's DD#3 wedding anniversary.