Frugal cooking: When it doesn't work out

I'd mentioned that a friend gave me a huge bowl of veggies for Christmas/Birthday. Mostly they were root vegetables, which keep. I've used all of it except for two turnips. I'll make something out of them tomorrow.

I used the acorn squash last weekend. I'd looked up a recipe to use it in a different way than the usual 'cut in half-scoop out seeds, roast' kind of cooking.

So I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, and then sliced it into crescents. THEN I roasted! LOL, kind of the same but different. I thought the slices would make a nice side dish of portions that would be easy to drop in my lunch bag each day.

I followed the recipe, but maybe I sliced the cuttings too thinly, because they came out sort of dry. Hmmm. What to do.

The other day when I was home on a snow day, I peeled the skin edges off and I was left with a mound of dry-ish squash slices. I decided to make a soup. I had some good chicken broth left so I put a sliced onion into the pot and cooked until it was translucent, added an already baked potato, cut up into cubes, and the squash. I simmered that at very low temp with some spices. I put half of it into the blender when it cooled, and left the other half to make a texture of smooth chunks. It was very good! Saved the squash, I'm brilliant!

I then promptly ruined it by adding some milk (as the recipe suggested). It just tasted funny to me, squash and milk. It wasn't good like a bisque or a chowder. It was just funny. So I saved my squash only to ruin it again. I'm an idiot! I should know when to quit while I'm ahead! LOL.

What will I do now that it didn't work out, twice? Why, eat it of course. No waste. I'll live, it only tastes a little bit funny. Maybe I'll add a melted bouillon cube broth to it to think the milkiness of it. Anyway, tomorrow I'm making lentil soup. Back to familiar ground.

I'd bought some tilapia and I baked it a few days ago. I had one slice left yesterday. Without being able to eat bread, I couldn't make a sandwich out of it like I enjoy doing, with cheese and a tomato. (mmm). Just a slab of fish meat doesn't really appeal to me all that much. I decided to use my last two mushrooms and the rest of a tomato and make a little salad with the fish, cut up. I added Italian dressing to it and a bit of salt, and voila, a chilled salad that was easy to prepare, tasty and healthy. I enjoyed it. I'll do that some more. Tilapia is usually low-cost and available at the grocery store.

I still love a fish sandwich though, one of my favorite lunches.

I'll make the lentil soup tomorrow, and I have some green beans and tofu that I'll make into a stir fry with rice noodles. I also have a good bit of fruit which includes fresh pineapple, and with the ripening bananas I'll make two-ingredient banana-oatmeal cookies.

After an unusually frigid period of temps in the low teens and wind chills in the single digits, we have a reprieve of temps in the 60s. It is going to be a nice day. I went outside at sunrise and took a few photos of my yard.

This is my favorite view. I LOVE this birdhouse.