Spaghetti Night---Yum!

Hi! This has been a confusing January so far, hasn't it!

Last night when I went to bed the temperature was 54 degrees! The previous night it was 11*. I suppose it's better than snow, but what to wear, how to cook, etc.---confusing, right?

Today dawned beautifully cloudless and seasonably 30s, but the wind was howling again at 30, 40 MPH. And maybe that snow, or sleet will finally arrive Thursday night?  Saturday? This uncertainly leads to constant checks of the Weather Bug, lol.
So I decided to make a big pot of spaghetti sauce. Yummy and comforting and will nicely stock up my food supply Just In Case.

I think it's safe to say I have never served jarred pasta sauce here at the beach. I just really dislike store-bought sauces. I always make my own, either classic marinara, with or without meatballs...or traditional Bolognese sauce---meat sauce. My mom taught me to make these sauces when I was about ten years old and they've been good friends over the years.

Tonight, however, when I was opening the tomato paste it occurred to me that this is not an particularly economical meal now, in modern times. My little grocery  only had small cans of Contadina paste...and they are now $.95 each! I need at least six...

Here's the breakdown:

tomato paste   5.70

homemade Italian sweet sausage, 4 links,  5.53

ground sirloin 7.26 , ground chuck 4.93

lrg Vidalia onion, garlic 1.00

parm   4.50

box of white mushrooms 2.99

I won't count the seasonings...garlic, parley, basil, oregano, pepper, sugar, fennel seeds. Or the olive oil. And the pasta itself was on sale 2/1.00! Mueller's, an old favorite brand from when I lived in Ohio. (wonder if I'll still love them? Or now I'm used to Italian imported pasta?)

And I won't count the essential but leftover red wine, a mediocre red in a charming bottle/ label....

So the big pot of sauce costs $31.91 + to make!  [3 or 4 dinners for 3 people..say 10-12 servings= about $3.25, including pasta,  a serving. Okay that sounds thriftier, doesn't it.)

Hmmmm....it's worth it.

Any economical faves out there you want to share?

love

           lizzy

          gone to the beach   

  

PS I didn't put the recipe but I can if anyone wants it, very simple!)

Stormy Weather

Hi! We've been having quite the wind storm the past few days! I feel pummelled, just doing local errands (yay! sewing machine is fixed! I hope...). Sustained winds of 40 MPH, much higher gusts...and those readings are taken inland, so it's a lot more extreme here. 
The winds are from the west, so they don't hit an exposed side of my house...but the blowing sand makes the beach impassable. Like being sandblasted, especially painful on my eyes!

Friday night when the wind started howling I had to put on my Crocs and go out to rescue my large driftwood finds. I had them drying on the deck.

These are all rare circular pieces, either keg lids/ bases or spool ends. One is a hoop, a produce basket stave with a crescent section of the base still attached. These become angel wings, signs, Man in the Moon folkart or vintage jacko'lantern faces. This is a big haul! I've found only maybe six more in all my years here.....

This isn't from my beach, below, [oh, I wish!, sigh, HomeGoods...] but I am trying to age it outside in the sun. It's a repro soccerball sized fishing float, handblown clear, pale green glass with rope. I didn't want it to sail away in the wind! 

Otherwise very little to be discovered on the beach right now...

a few shells, some pebbles..

And, amazingly I found a camera! Washing around in the incoming tide. I took it home and even more amazingly it works. The person has 600 photos, from the past four or five years. All over Greece and, perhaps, Turkey? and England...what wonderful places this camera has been! At first I thought it had fallen off a cruise ship and floated onto my beach but the last pics are recent, of a big adorable dog on my beach at sunset.
I feel like it is a karma thing...Someone found my camera and returned it, now it's my turn. Shall I post notes on the sand fences? Ask the other dog runners? Craigslist Lost and Found? A note in the post office and at the little Italian grocery store? I've never seen the dog before, but you can bet my eyes will be peeled for someone walking that distinctive puppy!

                     

love

  lizzy

........................ gone to the beach

Flea Market Blues

Hi everyone!
This past Sunday was the first winter weekend without a flea market! I woke up with---gasp!---nothing [fun and exciting] to do!

Well you know, not nothing-nothing...lots of in-house Christmas disassembling and cleaning to do, a gorgeous beach for walking...but No Flea Market! I was sad. In fact I am so enthralled by the weekly hunt that I drove by the train station just in case some vendors were out taking advantage of the glorious spring-like day. But no. All so rule abiding, I guess.

But then! I remembered my blog friend Michelle told me her Goodwill thrift shop is open on Sundays...hmmm, I pondered. I've never been a thrift shop shopper except in Cape Cod where the shops [and even the Dump!] have wonderful treasures and are fairly clean, lol. But in early December my friend B visited me and we went on a little road trip to find this bead shop which had moved. I had never been there yet, the new premises is in a busy spot on a highway full of strip malls. I needed my friend to look for the shop while I fought the traffic. Nope, no bead shop...but we did find a Goodwill store! My friend said, Oh, let's go in, let's just take a look.
So we did! And it's a really fun big thrift store, quite clean (my big bugaboo: cooties!). And...great treasures! I'll show you a few in a minute.
So anyway, back to this Sunday...Goodwill is just the next highway over from the flea market at the train station, maybe 1/4 mile! And yes! Open, though not as well stocked as on  weekday afternoons. I found some sweaters to felt, for a project seen on Purl Bee ....a felted wool, or cashmere throw: here
my colors! The bottom one is really a citrus-y pale chartreuese, not yellow]...

My first foray into re-purposing via felting. Isn't this amazing!

The striped t-shirt is a normal adult size, and similar to the sweaters' "before" dimensions. Look how tiny they shrunk to! Not much fabric yield per sweater....I'm pretty sure I could buy a cashmere throw for what this is gonna cost me to "thrift"!

The woolens got kinda thick and tough; the two cashmeres [top two] got smaller but are still soft. If I decide to make the Purl Bee throw I'll have fun checking back often for more sweaters...and other finds, won't I!

Other goodies too, mostly inspirations for my crafty etsy stuff. Things like very useful S hooks for crsytal ornaments....

A fun wooden display box for my lavender  hearts:

A vintage sheet, an experiment for a possibly cost effective quilt backing. [I just love the pansies, so sweet!]

Some household things too...a new olive oil decanter, for when I buy the mammoth gallon jug at Costco...

Etched! So pretty....

Great white serving pieces...a shell! stars!

and a wonderful monogrammed platter! Limoges! c.1910-20s? Wow! Love it.

And this interesting lantern...

As soon as I saw it I knew it was a perfect container for a snow baby vignette. I made this little lady right away!

After she dries a bit she'll get an outfit made from vintage lace and linen scraps, and a sparkly coating of vintage snow-glitter.
The etched stars just said Snow scene to me...but this would be great on my deck with a candle, or filled with precious sea glass...

There's more! For another time...
I think Goodwill is going to be a fun new inspirations source! How about you, where do you find inspiration and new fun ideas...?

love

               lizzy

gone to the beach