Barbara Simoes

Tereza, what a wonderful site; I remember hearing about it, but this gave me  a chance to check it out...no pun intended!  I slid it onto my desktop to peruse later.  Thank you for sharing.  The cookbook looks wonderful.  I have a wonderful Grapenuts recipe that I used to make that is spot on for taste, although the "nuts" are a little softer than the cereal you buy.  I suppose you could just bake it a little longer, but I like it the way it is.
https://www.seriouseats.com/diy-grape-nuts-cereal-recipe

I think the recipe for "Spanish Rice" came out much later than the Depression, but it was a favorite of mine growing up: Saute till brown, a lb. of hamburger, cook a cup of rice which will swell to two cups, toss it all together with a large can (28 oz. of tomatoes)  Sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top and bake for about an hour at 350 degrees. --So easy!  I know you'll be tempted to add more "stuff" to it, and I've tried myself.  It is much better with just these three or four ingredients!  One ingredient that does work is, believe it or not, pineapple, if you're looking to mix it up a bit.

Another easy recipe involves cooking a pack of wide egg noodles, draining them and then frying them until crisp on the bottom.  Just add a can of tomatoes.  OMG, this was a favorite.  Deceptively simple for what it tastes like.  I crave this all the time, but I am trying to keep simple carbs out of my diet.

Carbonara is another amazing dish.  Like above, you stir in a few eggs to drained hot pasta (Mom used spaghetti).  Saute onion, bacon and add a little white wine.  Toss it about along with the egg into the pasta and add in parm cheese--1/2 cup or so--I don't remember how much, maybe 3/4 cup.  I'm not a huge bacon fan and this doesn't take much...you can use a pound, but 1/2 that works.

Parsley Potatoes is another where the sum is greater than the parts: Chopped parsley, boiled potatoes cut in bite-sized pieces, salt and butter.  Of course, there is a fair amount of butter and salt!  I use almost an equivalent amount of parsley to the amount of potatoes (before it's pulled from bigger stems and chopped roughly.)

I grow basil like a regular vegetable and harvest leaves regularly through the season and make batches of pesto that I toss in the freezer in cup amounts to use throughout the winter.  I don't add cheese and I use walnuts.  I found that I really like it almost better when mixed in with rice than pasta, although I think any hardy grain would be good.  I find it mixes better if I toss it in as the rice is cooking rather than after.  I also will toss in a jar of tomatoes, measuring out the liquid as part of the needed rice water.

I also love Connie's zucchini "crab" cakes: a recipe that I found on Allrecipes. (https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/13938/connies-zucchini-crab-cakes/)  No crab is used, but it does use Old Bay seasoning.  If you grow your own zucchini and are looking for ways to use it, I highly recommend this recipe. Because salt will leach out water from the zucchini, don't salt until the patties are frying.  Also, you don't need so much oil or flour to coat the patties.

Well, that's just off the top of my head...I will add more if I think of any.  All of these are real winners!  Enjoy.

I will often go to the Allrecipes website, where I can enter single or multiple ingredients, and it will cull through thousands of recipes and pull up those that are relevant.  

Food pantries are always most grateful for fresh produce; I give away to friends, neighbors and the local food pantry if there is more than I can use.  For example, I have forty blueberry bushes that produce A LOT of fruit.  I invite friends over to pick and it provides a very casual way to catch up with friends...and, it saves me a ton of time and labor.  

I am lucky enough to have a wonderful pool, so that is part of the bribe to get people here!  Still, there will always be more than I can use, so I bring some to the food pantry, I freeze-dry, can and dehydrate and I make wine! I grow 50+ kinds of fruit along with a good sized vegetable garden.  Again, all is often shared with friends when they come over.

I have one friend who also grows a lot.  Last year, we traded; I gave her blueberries and she gave me cherries.  Yum!

Years ago, at our local co op, they sold something that was called maple sugar.  it looked like brown sugar but was maple flavored.  it was very tasty!  I guess, I would try dehydrating or freeze-drying it.  From there, I would powder it in a food processor and store it as another form of sugar.

I used to work a bit with stained glass and now mainly work with enamels.  My old tabletop kiln died after ten years of hard work, and so, I needed to get a new one.  This one is much easier to program to do different mediums: enamel, glass fusing, metal clay, etc.  Because of that, I've been thinking about getting back into working with glass and doing some fusing.  There are many videos on line about how to recycle glass into molds or shapes or slumped into other shapes.  The interior of my kiln is only 8.5"x12" which limits what I can do, but I've been watching videos about making snowflakes and other window ornaments and small vases.  With the price of "new" glass, this is very intriguing to me; I could then sell them and perhaps save up enough to get a bigger kiln for just this purpose.  I have a glass smasher or frit maker in my cart as I type this!

https://www.amazon.com/Crusher-Prospecting-Breaker-Panning-Pulverizer/dp/B08BHHGV4Y/ref=pd_ci_mcx_mh_mcx_views_0_image?pd_rd_w=pweb2&content-id=amzn1.sym.679481c3-2bf4-4843-80c0-ffb319282e84%3Aamzn1.symc.c3d5766d-b606-46b8-ab07-1d9d1da0638a&pf_rd_p=679481c3-2bf4-4843-80c0-ffb319282e84&pf_rd_r=JRHC2XZZ8JAGQAJ9496E&pd_rd_wg=PgyHL&pd_rd_r=c575846b-26c0-4fef-b3fe-358e88d16ada&pd_rd_i=B08BHHGV4Y

On Pinterest, I saw a recipe that includes 1 tsp. of dish soap, 1 tablespoon of rubbing alcohol and 1/2 gallon of warm water.  Does it work? I don't know, but I thought I'd put it out there and see if anyone has tried it.  I'm thinking some sort of sprinkler watering can would be the simplest way to apply if it does work....
In an apartment where I used to live, the shower drain used to freeze, so I would put a splash of rubbing alcohol and before long, the water would drain out.  I also used to have a car that had receding door handles--great for aerodynamics but terrible in an ice storm.  Again, I had to spray rubbing alcohol in order to have the handles release.  It always worked and never caused damage.

Any place that sells sewing machines often will also offer sewing classes.  Our local quilt shop is very active and offers tons of classes at all levels.  It's a great way for them to sell machines, material and notions!  

Carmen Sanchez wrote:I want to learn how to sew and upcycle clothes can anyone give a place to learn online?

Jen, I, too, have just an acre, and like you, live here alone, do everything, and I keep adding gardens!  I just discovered a great cardboard supply at a local coffee roaster place.  Their cardboard has no printing or tape and they have it in large flat sheets--some I have to fold to fit into the back of my car.  This fall, I picked up a few carloads to cover some grass out back and then put the leaves I'd swept up from the lawn on top of the it.  Woodchips would also be a great cover, but at that point, I'd already used this year's load of chips.  

The area is a really tight circle--10x10?, and difficult to get in to mow.  Behind it, I have some evergreens, and behind them, I have a place where I can dump debris throughout the year.  The evergreens, being wide at the bottom, hide the raggedy mess of sticks and vine clippings!  I have 40 blueberry bushes alone, and with annual pruning, that can really add up. The mulberries also add a lot to the pile, as do all of the other fruit tree and bush prunings.  I really like having an undisturbed dump spot for wildlife to feel safe in.  Branches don't break down quickly, so sometimes the piles can get pretty high.  

I had thought of planting something in that circle area, but having access to the dump site is more crucial, and now that I have a dependable source of great cardboard, easy enough to keep up.  When I'm in town, I'll swing by and get what I need...all told, the pick up, laying down of cardboard, etc., takes less than a hour a year.  That's a good return on my time to keep that area looking tidy and it helps to help build beautiful soil.  If you have any big box stores or appliance stores, I bet they'd be thrilled to not have to pay to get rid of cardboard, and it wouldn't be covered in tape and labels like Amazon packages are.  Also, it's probably already broken down and cut to size for recycling.  I don't make special trips to get the cardboard, but when I'm driving to town for something else, I'll swing by and pick up a load as needed.  

Right now, my garage has probably 100 large burlap coffee bags waiting for spring.  I had had a huge delivery of wood chips and so I used many of them in the pathways of my vegetable garden, but I found that I couldn't walk barefoot in there because the chips are pretty rough.  I'm thinking that I will cover them with the burlap, and then maybe some hulls on top of those. I will pick up as many large bags of the hulls as I can to store until spring as well--another great thing to layer onto the cardboard or through garden paths or around plants, too.  In season, the hulls are hard to come by, but I'm hoping that through the winter, they'll have more--chicken people use them for deep litter, but at least the gardeners aren't also grabbing them!

Jen, I don't think cotton sheets will work because light will easily penetrate.  The fabric is so thin that I think you'll be disappointed. Cardboard will keep light out and probably will last longer.  I don't know the size of your garden, but with that in the foot paths or wherever you're not growing something along with perhaps trenching along the edges might help.  I know with some weeds, I was seriously tempted to get one of those fire torches!

I was recently diagnosed with diabetes and have had heart failure for a number of years.  Not really a big surprise, being I'd been pre-diabetic for a few years and have always been overweight.  I asked my doctor if there was any way to reverse it, and she said no, and that it was progressive.  I was not willing to settle for that.  The thought of losing a limb or going blind terrifies me, so I started to do some research.  I soon stumbled across a video by Dr. Jamnadas, who is a cardiologist in FL and prescribes fasting to many of his patients as a way to help rid the body of diabetes, heart issues, as well as treat the gut microbiome and a multitude of other issues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gryta3KZKU4&t=256s

Much has been learned about diet and food since this post began, but I was very excited to try fasting after seeing the above video.  I, too, find it easier to go without than to try to limit how much I eat. I will admit not eating for such long stretches did have me nervous, but he talks about easing into it by starting with a whole food diet, going on to skip one meal a day, and then two before leaping into a 72 hour fast perhaps once a month. I had always eaten well, using lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, and carbs were only complex carbs not simple ones like pasta, bread and the like.  I don't eat processed food and I've stopped having deli meats, bacon, sausage, etc. or (diet) soda.  I rarely drink, and when I do, it's usually wine that I've made myself from fruit that I grow.  "Slow food" or "Whole Food" has been the way I've always eaten for the most part.  Once in a great while, like maybe twice a year, I'd get a gallon of ice cream, but sugar has always made me feel terrible and I couldn't control it.  I was restrained if that ice cream lasted more that two days--not good.

What I hadn't known is that the idea that one should eat many small meals rather than one or two larger ones is horrendous for our bodies.  That was the last medical advice I'd been given around eating, but it turns out that that is horrible advice because your body releases insulin when you eat, and if it's never given a break, more and more will be released and hence, you become insulin resistant, and all of that food gets stored in fat cells or long term storage, making it impossible to lose weight.

After trying fasting, I quickly and pretty effortlessly lost 15 pounds--about five pounds a week. Thanksgiving has come and gone, which threw me off a bit, but I'm now back to it, starting again with 18:6 or 18 hours fasting and having a six hour eating window.  I've never liked eating first thing in the morning, so going without food until noon or one is not a hardship.  I do find it difficult to stop eating after dinner.  It is quite important to do so though, and especially in winter when it's dark.  It somehow effects out circadian rhythm.  Again, this was new information for me.  A sacrifice is to drink my coffee black.  I used to always drink it with real cream and it was so good, but it's a small thing and I'm adjusting. It would be silly to break the fast over that, and coffee has a much better medicinal effect without fat surrounding certain molecules.   As I'm writing this I'm drinking a cup of tea, also without cream--first time ever, and I'm realizing that I like it as well.  I cut open the tea bag and dumped it into a tea strainer to steep to avoid microplastics.  When did food become such a minefield?!

I'm still learning what works and what doesn't.  I'd been missing potatoes, so I got a bag to use in the annual turkey soup I make after Thanksgiving.  I've discovered that they must have too many carbs because in my eating window yesterday, I had some black bean soup that I'd thawed a few days ago along with a slice of sourdough bread and then for dinner, I had a bowl of hearty turkey soup: celery, onions, carrots, string beans and potatoes added. This certainly is not overeating, yet, when I climbed on the scale this am, I realized that I'd put on three pounds.  I'd heard that some simple carbs can be made into complex carbs by refrigerating overnight--This supposedly works with rice and a few other ingredients. (The loaf of sourdough has been in the freezer and has lasted much longer than I would have expected: bread=carbs=sugar=addiction.)

Maybe the weight gain was from the salt I added to the soup, but unlike every other time I've tried to lose weight, I wasn't discouraged to the point of  giving up, nor am I going to toss out the soup.  I will eat it and enjoy it, and then get back to low carb restricted eating because it works for me.  I had been able to fast for 24 and 48 hours and was trying to do a 72 hour fast, but didn't follow through on that one.  I will work up to that again, although I think it might be easier in the summer time.  Autophagy and mitochondrial health benefit abundantly so it will be worth it to try, but I'm not in a huge yank to get there.  The money I'm saving by skipping so many meals allows me to put that saved money toward better quality food like real ingredient, fermented sourdough or good seafood.  I am much more forgiving of myself with this way of eating, and for that I am grateful.