Day 49, we pull out the stops for a celebration with Jane and Ray and with Mercy and Charity back, we have the whole 10for10for10 crew, along with Emily's friend Elyse

Jane and Ray couldn't stay for Easter, and they have a long drive home, so our big holiday dinner was today at 2pm.  We served thirteen people.

Prior to that, we breakfasted and brunched on orange rolls and cinnamon rolls with coffee or tea.  The rolls provided a relaxed, yet special morning meal.  The aroma of coffee added to the atmosphere.  There were so many sweet rolls that we had enough to share when Neil stopped by, when Carrie came, and when my friend Tammy dropped off Elyse to decorate eggs with us.  I am so glad I baked those rolls yesterday!

At 11am we decorated eggs, a family tradition, which our friends shared with us.

What is this thing?  It is an egg being colored.  Those smiling girls are actually newspaper advertisements spread out on our table to protect it from the dyes.  Why, you might ask, would anyone color an egg brown, when we have a fridge full of eggs which the chickens have already made brown? 

We were a whirlwind on Saturday-----

We put rice on to boil, took a trip to the store for flowers, peeled and boiled potatoes, baked a salmon, heated up green beans, and prepared a beautiful table all between noon and 2pm, when we ate.  I'm quite amazed when I look back at the time frame.

The salmon was wild caught, no color added, and only cost 1.99 per pound.  How great is that?

Mercy stirs the gravy for me.

Trudy sets out the green beans.

We set a proper table.

with beautiful additions

Elyse is having fun.

There is is, a USA wild-caught salmon about to grace our table

Everybody is holding hands for the prayer

Toasting with martinelli's makes dinner fun.

Homecooked mashed potatoes, with gravy...delicious and inexpensive.

We usually serve rice with salmon.  Brown rice today.

Yummy jam I made last summer of blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries I traded for at the farmers' market.  Look at those hands!  They are dyed from the egg decoration.  They have been scrubbed, I want you to know.

Here are a couple of sample plates from the feast.  We had lots of leftovers to snack on in the evening.  For me, that adds up to cooking only once.

Spring flowers cheer me.

    
     breakfast menu:  cinnamon and orange rolls, coffee and tea
Cost:  $3.67
1 batch cinnamon rolls (about 30 small rolls):  1.21
1 batch orange rolls (about 30 rolls):  1.46
milk for tea:  1.00

   Celebration dinner menu:  salmon, brown rice, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, dinner rolls with jam and butter, strawberries and oranges, sparkling cider and cranberry
Cost:  $18.17
salmon:  7.29
1/2 cube butter:  .13
garlic and onion powder:  .10
salt:  .01
24 dinner rolls, whole wheat:  .78
5 cups brown rice:  1.15
potatoes, 6.8 lb:  .68
green beans, 3 cans:  1.00
1 cube butter for rolls:  .25
strawberries:  1.50
2 oranges for slices:  .60
3 gravy mixes:  1.19
organic chicken broth, for gravy, marked down:  .30
1 cup flour to thicken gravy:  .10
6 oz jam:  .50
sparkling cider:  1.25
sparkling cran/apple:  1.67

supper menu:  leftover dinner rolls, leftover rice, leftover gravy, apple pie made by Emily, with whipped cream
Cost:  $2.56
pie (apples are free):  .89
whipped cream:  1.67


Today's total price tag:  $24.40  This fed 13 people, plus several more stop-in friends throughout the day.  I'm borrowing from my slush fund, but it was totally the right time to do that...isn't that what slush funds are for? 

Emily and Elyse wanted to do a project in the afternoon, so we made pies after the dishes were done.  We made three big pies, one for tonight, one for tomorrow, and one for Elyse's family.

There is Elyse, slicing away!

We ate Emily's pie hot out of the oven with whipped cream, another holiday splurge.

Emily shows off her creation.

How much money have we saved up in our slush fund for a feast? I'm going to find out.

Every day of our 10for10for10 project we aim to spend only a dollar a day per person on food here in Boothieville.  Whenever we have a few pennies left in our $10 budget, I am adding up the savings for special treats or special meals.

Since we are eating for a dollar a day, when we have fewer people we have a smaller budget.  When we have extras at home, as when our college kids were home on their spring break, we expand the budget one dollar for each person.

Here is a look at our budget situation since week 2:

Day 15:  5.71  ------------------4.29
Day 16:  10.71 -----------------(.17)
Day 17:  9.80  -----------------.20
Day 18:  7.33  -----------------2.67
Day 19:  9.52  -----------------.48
Day 20:  10.06  ---------------(.06)
Day 21:  5.08  -----------------4.92
Day 22:  7.46  -----------------2.54
Day 23:  9.71  -----------------.29
Day 24:  8.36  -----------------1.64
Day 25:  8.99  -----------------1.01
Day 26:  9.71  -----------------.29
Day 27  9.75  ------------------.25
Day 28:  4.02  -----------------5.98
Day 29:  9.59  -----------------.41
Day 30:  13.67-----------------(1.67)    12 people this day
Day 31:  11.98-----------------.02    12 people  home
Day 32:  11.85-----------------1.15    13 people here, with Grandma B
Day 33:  13.14-----------------(1.15)   13 and then 12 Boothies today
Day 34:  9.77 ------------------2.23    12 people home today
Day 35:  10.59-----------------.41     11 Boothies home today, Peter leaves
Day 36:  10.70----------------- 00     11 Boothies until Annie leaves
Day 37:  9.07 ------------------.93     !0 Boothies home, back to normal
Day 38:  9.84 ------------------.16
Day 39:  9.75 ------------------.25
Day 40:  9.50 ------------------.50
Day 41:  9.22 ------------------(.22)   8 people today
Day 42:  4.90 ------------------2.10    7 people home
Day 43:  7.10 ------------------ 00       7 people and then 8 when Rodger returns
Day 44:  7.90 ------------------.10     8 people home
Day 45:  7.90 ------------------.10     8 people home today
Day 46:  7.61 ------------------.39    8 Boothies home today
Day 47:  11.31----------------- (.31)  8 Boothies plus 4 guests
Day 48:  6.59 ------------------1.41   8 Boothies home today, twins arrive after dinner
____________________________

The saved pennies add up:  $31.56  is the total from the right hand column.  I subtracted the numbers in parentheses for the days I went over budget. 

I also need to subtract the 5 dollars which I donated to the church for their snack budget (read about that on my post for Day 22), so 31.56-5.00=$26.56 in the slush fund.  This is the amount I have saved up for treats and holidays.

This is much better than I thought!  Wow.    $26.56 in the slush fund.

I also have $1.56 left in the slush fund from our first two weeks of 10for10for10 .   Read about that on my early blog post on March 4th.

26.56 + 1.56 = $28.12.  There you have it!  I'm excited.

I'm using some of my slush fund for the Easter Holiday, one of our most important celebrations.

Day 48, Good Friday brings home more Boothies and snow, no joke!

Noah put his shorts on this morning, but it was the wrong choice for the day.  A look out our front door tells the story...

 This is spring break!  Not going to mow the lawn this morning.
 

My little daffodil bowing under the weight of the snow.

My first tulips

  bordered in snow

I was planning to plant my garden this morning, but here is what it looked like in the a.m.  Changed my plans...I just hope it is dumping snow in the Cascades today.  We really need more snowpack to help the irrigation situation around here for the summer.  Without significant late-season mountain snow, a drought is predicted this year. 

This weather was crying out for a warm fire.  We gathered around the fireplace with hot cups of tea and the newspaper this morning.  Not your usual spring break.

breakfast menu:  cold cereal and milk

Cost:  $1.59

9 servings honey smacks:  .84

milk:  .75

Another vegetarian meal on the cheap.  Before this week garbanzo beans haven't been on the menu here in Noah's memory.  In the olden days of Sarah, Jane, and Hilary I had a friend from North India who taught me how to cook traditional Indian cuisine.   I'm resurrecting those recipes today.

Grill-toasted hoagie rolls are one of my favorite foods.

8 oz of sliced cheddar to top the hoagie rolls.

A kettle of curry

A picture of our living room with nothing on the floor except the dogs.  We had to memorialize the accomplishment with a photo.

Since the last of the retreat leftovers have been consumed, it was time for me to make bread.

I'm scraping the dough out of the mixing bowl. We do things on a large scale around here. 

Emily is helping me make 1/4 of the dough into orange rolls to celebrate the return of the twins, and the Easter holiday.

Orange sugar tops the dough, waiting to be rolled up and cut into orange rolls.

While Trudy baked the rolls, I went to sign my tax forms.  When I returned it was already time to eat, so I switched into high gear.  We ate boiled cabbage, garlic potatoes, fresh crescent rolls (thank you, Katie) and fried apples.  Vegetarian again.

Potatoes can be prepared so many ways.   They don't have to be boring.  These certainly weren't.  The entire house smelled richly of roasting garlic potatoes.

I had a few moments before the potatoes were done baking, so Kate and I had a contest about who could do apples the fastest.  I peeled and quartered, and she sliced up 7 apples before the fry pan was heated!  I fried up the apples in 1/4 cup butter, and added a few shakes of cinnamon and 1/4 cup of sugar, with a couple shakes of salt to bring out the flavor.  

 The apples stayed on low heat until we finished supper, then I dished them up with a touch of whipped cream for decoration.  A simple treat, but very special.

Twins are home.  Eppie gives a thousand licky kisses. 

Ray and Jane and baby G brought the twins safely home after a week's visit.  Our house is filling up tonight. 

 Noah is a tired boy, resting on his sister Sarah.  He had a big morning in the snow, and then a big afternoon after the snow melted, and then a big evening at the Good Friday Service and the Secret Lenten Society, and topped it off with the arrival of four family members and presents from the twins.  He sang an operatic rendition of "Edelweiss" for us all before he finally couldn't keep his eyes open any more. 

lunch menu:  curried garbanzo beans, bread and cheese with lettuce

Cost:  $2.09

garbanzo beans (2 cups when dry):1.00

hoagie rolls, toasted:  no charge, the last of the leftovers

8 oz cheddar cheese @ 1.50/lb:  .75

butter for toast, 1/2 cube:  .13

spices:  .20

salt:  .01

sliced tomato for Rodger's sandwich:  no charge, also leftovers

supper menu:  cabbage, baked garlic potatoes, dinner rolls, fried apples with whipped cream

Cost:  $2.56
cabbage, 1 head, chopped and boiled:  .78
chicken broth for cabbage:  .20
5 lb potatoes, diced and baked:  .50
1 tsp onion pwdr:  .05
1 tsp garlic pwdr:  .05
salt:  .01
3 tbsp canola oil for coating potatoes:  .09
crescent rolls, 1 batch:  .39
butter for the rolls:  .10
apples:  no charge, from orchard, held over in cold room
butter for frying apples:  .13
1/2 cup sugar for apples:  .04
cinnamon:  .02
whipped cream:  .20

Today's total, for 8 people:  $6.59
This day seemed like three days all wrapped into one.