We’re Greedy Little Bears

Apparently there is someone who likes foraging for pin cherries as much as we do…bears. Luckily we’re only had one black bear sighting in Rhode Island recently so we weren’t too concerned as we returned to our secret pin cherry patch.

With the help of a boyfriend who was less than willingly dragged along we managed to pick another three quarts of pin cherries (which hardly put a dent in the crop, it seems no one else, animals included, has really caught on yet).

Since we already had pin cherry syrup we wanted a batch of pin cherry jam. We used a variation on the recipes we had for natural fruit jams (as opposed to those which use liquid or powdered pectin) and are thickened and stretched with the pulp from tart apples.

First we made our pin cherry pulp by simmering the cherries with a tiny bit of water, squishing them through a sieve, simmering the leftovers and squishing those again. We ended up with 6 cups of pulp.

We then peeled five Granny Smith apples. I cut out the cores and then chopped the rest and it all went, cores and all, into a solution of ¼ cup lemon juice to 4 cups water. When it was all chopped and treated to prevent browning it got simmered just like the pin cherries and the smooshed with our ricer. This yielded 3 cups apples pulp.

We then combined the pin cherry pulp, apple pulp and 5 cups sugar and simmered until it was thick enough that we thought it would gel.

I could say that we then immediately put it into jars with ¼ inch headspace and processed them for 10 minutes…but that would be a lie. Because by this point it was growing rather late in the evening so the pot of jam went onto the porch overnight (it’s getting cool here) and the next day we brought it back to a simmer and canned it. Our yield was about 56 oz. It’s nice and tart and makes an interesting addition to our odd jam collection.


Since we actually invented this recipe here it is:

12 cups pin cherries (which should yield 6 cups pulp)
5 tart apples (yield: approx. 3 cups pulp)
5 cups sugar

(Keep in mind that I only did this once so the amount of pulp you get might vary, even if your ratio was different I'm sure it would still be good. Also, you could always add more sugar if you like it sweeter, although I wouldn't do too much less because I think that's part of what preserves it.)

Pajama Pants

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier to make my own pajama pants (perhaps because pants in general are intimidating) but when my favorite pair began to wear out I was left with no other choice.

Since I wanted to duplicate the pair I already owned (and me and patterns don’t play so well together) I decided to just wing it. In order to copy the shape of the pants we just folded the pants along the inseam and traced the shape onto paper. Once we had the basic outline of the front and back panel of a leg we added seam allowances.

Once I had the pattern for the front and back leg pieces I cut these out of some cheap remnant fabric I found at a fabric store and sewed them together. I used a very wide piece of elastic for the waistband and covered it with jersey to imitate the style of the original pair.

Now all they need to be complete is for the bottom of the legs to be hemmed. Which I will…eventually…because I’m really bad about finishing projects.

The Original Pair: Note I left out the drawstring (since they fit so well) and the lovely but unnecessary velour detailing on my pair.

The New Handmade Pair: Note that the legs are clearly too long and still not hemmed. Also, the pattern of the two different legs doesn't match up at all in the front. It bugs mom but I don't really care. I don't usually look at my pants while I sleep. But a good thing to keep in mind if I ever make myself a pair of plaid pants (please stop me if I ever bring up that possibility again.)

Roasted Barley Tea

It is starting to get chilly here and in the spirit of frugalness (and by that I mean heating oil is bleeping expensive) we haven’t turned the heat on so we are turning to heating alternatives like baking cookies and drinking tea.

So this was the perfect time to try the roasted barley tea we bought at Asiana (a favorite local Asian foods market) this past summer. Mom had heard good things about it and at $2.99 for 2 pounds it was an affordable experiment. It also was recommended by the cashier at the market.


We followed the recipe on the back which called for 2 tablespoons to 2 litres of water and you boil the barley for five minutes. The smell is very familiar. We finally decided it smells just like burnt popcorn (but in the good way). It’s a very pleasant tea, although it is more reminiscent of coffee then of herbal tea. Our only complaint was that it maybe could be made a little stronger.

Apparently it can also be drunk cold although we missed the boat on that one, unless we get another warm spell I’m not going to be drinking any iced tea, at least not until we turn the heat on.

Frugal Shopping (But Only In Theory)

I recently headed to our local Salvation Army to do some theoretically frugal shopping. It is only theoretically frugal for two reasons.

1. (And this may sound ridiculous to any of you who regularly shop at Bergdorf Goodman, although I kind of doubt that if you do you’d be too interested in my blog. Vicarious frugality?) So the point I was originally trying to make: Salvation Army has gotten expensive! By this I of course mean expensive in comparison to other thrift shops. They want at least $10 for many of their hardcover books! My opinion is that if you are going to charge a premium for used goods (vintage etc.) then your selection should be only the best. But if I have to dig through piles of rubbish to find the one gem (like at Sallie’s) then I shouldn’t be paying premium prices!

2. And the major reason that thrift shopping is only theoretically frugal for me: I end up buying things I don’t need at all and still feel justified because at least they are used!

This most recent trip actually had an explicit mission which was to find an item of clothing that could be used as material for a purse I have planned (look for that in the future…perhaps the distant future). I found it (a shirt for $7, not exactly cheap but it still had the tags on it and it was a rather large size so it actually contains a lot of fabric) but I also found a few other things…that I didn’t need at all.

The first was this adorable casserole. It’s so cute I don’t think I’ll be able to bear using it. I picked it up and examined it and then said to my mom: “Give me a reason not to buy it!” to which she unhelpfully replied: “I can’t!” Turns out she had already picked it up several times and wrestled with buying it herself. So for $3.99 that came home with me.


As did this set of 7 soup plates for $6.99. First I must tell you my justification for buying a set of 7 anything. While you may see it as a set of 8 with one missing, I see it as a set of 6 with a spare to break (which I inevitably will). And now for some praise of soup plates: they are amazing and everything looks way fancier in them. My mom recently found her own set ($6 for 8 at Savers, they are Crate and Barrel and would have been $64 new for the set) and now my boyfriend won’t eat out of anything else. So when I saw these I knew I had to get them, even if they are going into storage until we have our own apartment again.

So there you have it: frugal shopping is frugal if you only buy things you need.

More Foraging: Pin Cherries

This weekend’s hike turned into yet another successful foraging expedition. Although we had left equipped to forage (zip lock baggies) we only expected to find some more rosehips or possibly some bayberries, if even that.

Instead we stumbled upon something which Mom declared was a cherry, probably a pin cherry, before proceeding to eat some. I was a little more cautious and waited to see if she went into convulsions before trying one. They were juicy and tart with a small hard pit in the middle.

Since we weren’t positive what they were we only picked two cups before continuing on our hike. When we got home we did some research and as far as we can tell they most likely are pin cherries. And it’s a good thing we spit out the pits because they and the fall leaves apparently both contain cyanide.

Although we didn’t have enough to do much they were so delicious we wanted to do something so we simmered them with a tiny bit of water until they were soft and then squished them through a sieve (so we could discard the pits). We added sugar to the resulting pulp and ended up with some pin cherry syrup which went into the refrigerator for later use in tea and sodas.


We may go back to attempt to forage more but the birds may have already discovered our secret and it may be too late. In which case we’ll just have to get a pair of pin cherry trees for the yard, it's clearly the only other option.

What We Did With Rosehips: Part Two

Even after making syrup we had used only two fifths of our rosehip harvest so we decided the rest should become jam since mom had once before made rosehip jam and really liked it.

Although we consulted rosehip jam recipes and other jam recipes we ended up making up our own recipe. We started by preparing the rosehips the same way we had the last batch (taking off the stem and blossom end and chopping them). Then they went into a pan with a little water and simmered until they were all nice and soft. After a little time to cool we mashed them through a sieve with a spoon and collected the resulting puree in a bowl underneath the sieve. For good measure we took the pulp that had not made it through the sieve and repeated the process of simmering and squishing with it and got at least half as much pulp the second time around.

The pulp went into another pot to be simmered to a “jam-like” consistency but once we had added sugar we found it was already at the right consistency. How much sugar to add was a whole other matter though. The amounts given in some of the recipes we consulted just didn’t seem right so we used a ratio of sugar to pulp that seemed fairly consistent with most jam recipes in our canning book. We tasted it, decided it was perfect and poured it into sterilized jars and processed them.


From 3 pounds of rosehips we ended up with 2.5 eight ounce jars. Although this ratio seems pretty pathetic to me I just remind myself that since the rosehips were foraged the only real expenditure was time (and the negligible cost of sugar). And since we enjoy doing this sort of thing I’ll just have to think of it as a nearly free form of entertainment. (Otherwise I might go crazy thinking about the fact that I spent three days picking and preserving rosehips and all I ended up with was a few jars of jam and syrup.)

What We Did With Rosehips: Part One

This weekend we fell to the task of dealing with the rosehips we had picked. Our first project was to make rosehip syrup, which was a popular use for rosehips in WWII era England as a way to get vitamin C. In fact it appears that everyone is still using the WWII recipe. We used this version.

Since we don’t have a food processor we took the stems and flower ends off by hand and then chopped them. We put them in boiling water, let them sit and then filtered them through our jelly bag. We also did the second filter as the instructions advise, adding more water and letting it sit more, although I’m not sure it was necessary.

We boiled the resulting juice down to the recommended volume and then added sugar and put it into canning jars and bottles. The canning jars we actually processed but the regular jars are just going into the fridge since (as a result of its high sugar content) it will probably keep for quite awhile in there.

Unfortunately our syrup didn’t come out the bright red color I had expected, probably because some of our hips weren’t quite ripe. After tasting it I don’t think I’d put it over ice cream but I can see sweetening my iced tea with it or making a soda with it and seltzer.

And on a completely unrelated note: today we had a new visitor. Mom found this tiny snail on our compost bin (I know it sounds fancy but it’s actually just one of those big Arizona ice tea jugs with part of the top cut out where our compost lives until it can be carried outside). I’ve never actually seen a snail anywhere on our property so I can only assume he hitched a ride here on something.

He was so cute that I didn't mind him leaving a slime trail across my hand as I transported him outside.