Vacations

Holy crap. I have been on three vacations in the last seven weeks. I spent one week in Florida, one very long weekend camping way down upon the Suwanee River, and a week plus in Martha's Vineyard. Thankfully, the grand total cost of all three trips was less than I used to spend on a single outfit for work, so I'm not tripping toward debtor's prison yet. What I do owe, though, are some blog posts. Sorry for being slack. It hurts me more than it hurts you, I promise, and I also promise that I'll get back on track this week. In the meantime, enjoy a sneak preview of my new project: www.frugalhostess.blogspot.com. This hasn't been officially launched yet, so there's still time to change the image, color scheme, etc. I would love to get your thoughts, and I'll be back here with mine soon.

Thrifty Thursday: Four Ways to Avoid Spoiled Vacation Food

S and I are headed to points north for a week, and we want to make sure none of our hard-won (some by purchasing, some by being the last people to leave the camp site) food goes to waste. We have devised some fool-proof ways to make sure that doesn't happen.

Way One: Eat it before you leave. We had leftover steak, ground beef, and assorted vegetables. We ate cheese steaks with onions and peppers on day one; ground beef nachos with tomatoes and lettuce on day two; and cheese-steak-nacho-casserole-surprise on day three. Delish.

Way Two: Freeze it. Duh, right? But did you know that you can freeze cheese and cheesecake? About the only thing you can't freeze is sour cream.

Way Three: Cook it down. We have six pears that are getting the Fruit Rescue treatment as we speak. We will then apply Way One (see above).

Way Four: Grind it up. Vegetables that would be weird to freeze, such as asparagus, are fine if you puree them first. Save the puree to make soup or sauce later.

Presto - more food for your belly and less for the compost bin.