Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Eating Free

March 1
Cereal for breakfast. We would never buy cold cereal, it's free on WIC. So is the milk.

Oranges and grapes for snacks. Those were free.

Pasta and sauce for lunch. Both the pasta and the sauce were from Food Net.

Tomato soup for supper. Made with soup from Food Net, and milk from WIC. We ate it with crackers that weren't free.


March 2

Breakfast was spiced apple-nut bread. It wasn't free (but the apples were).

For lunch we had alphabet soup combined with tomato soup. That was entirely free too.

Supper
Unstuffed pepper skillet

3/4 lb. brown rice
1 green pepper, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp. oil (oops, that wasn't free)
1 lb. sausage (8 patties, broken up)
1 can spaghetti sauce
1 can corn

Cook brown rice in rice cooker. Fry onions and garlic in oil until soft and clear. Then add green pepper. When it's done, add in the meat and the rice. Pour spaghetti sauce over. Add corn. Warm through and season to taste.

This tastes like stuffed peppers, but is less of a pain to make. And it's our supper tonight. Very nearly completely free.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Selfish Sewing

I've become addicted lately to the Selfish Seamstress blog. For years I've wanted, even intended to sew for myself. But I was too scared to start -- knowing that what I made probably wouldn't fit me right, or wouldn't be made well, or wouldn't look good on me.....

But reading Selfish Seamstress's snarky blog has inspired me, and given me the guts to give it a go. I figure if she can tear out a seam a dozen times to redo it until it's right, why can't I?

First up was sewing knits. I love to wear knits, but they're supposed to be nigh impossible to sew. My machine, though, is an excellent old Bernina, and I was convinced that if I did it right, knits would work great in the machine.

I was right. After three attempts, I have a t-shirt that fits the way I want it to. (It's made out of an old, faded jersey-knit sheet that I love). The red ribbing is some red ribbed-knit that I have in my stash too. And it works great for ringers.


Even better, I have a t-shirt pattern that works! That way, I can modify it to make pretty much any sort of t-shirt I wish, and it'll fit, right? Tonight I tried a cowl neck, and it's okay. I'll probably wear it, in spite of the armhole-finishing being a bit off.


Sorry for the blurry pictures. I'm still fiddling with getting my timer and my camera set up in a way that works....