Jan 1…first day of the make it from scratch challenge. Down South black-eyed peas and greens is the traditional New Year’s Day meal, so I soaked the dried peas overnight and cooked them for about an hour this morning with some bacon pieces. Ham hock is the preferred seasoning but I didn’t have that so substituted smoked bacon. Greens are “kickin” collard greens. Cayenne pepper provides the kick. Yummy. And made from scratch cornmeal muffins. Noticed that toothpaste tube will soon be empty and though I have toothpaste in my pantry reserves, I’m planning to read up on how I might come up with a substitute. Seems like I’ve read something about baking powder as a tooth paste. Yucky taste…Spent some time working on January budget and plan to avoid purchases for anything….will be interesting to see how I manage without being able to buy fresh veggies….checked on spinach today and will definitely be able to harvest baby spinach leaves next week…cool….looks like heat source and light cost me about a $1 a day….This new activity that gets me up and moving is well worth the extra cost for electricity.
