Things to do with Squash: Two Recipes, Sweet and Savory

Long live recession recipes!

Every other Tuesday, Capay Organic delivers our organic fruits and vegetables.  This week, we received the most enormous butternut squash we’ve ever seen, easily twice the size of a butternut squash that we’d normally say was “large.”  This butternut squash was larger than the largest spaghetti squash we’ve ever seen. That’s a lot of squash.

I’ve had holiday pies on the brain so I decided to make two at the same time, one sweet and the other savory.  The savory one turned into more of a casserole, as I made more filling than a pie pan could hold.  Here are my two recipes, the savory one brand new and just made up yesterday.  I’m proud of this, since we’re really working on avoiding waste and making a lot of food with what we have in the house.  It really has lowered our food costs.

I used Alton Brown’s pie dough recipe and just doubled it for two pies.  I left out part where Alton cooks the pie crust, since I baked the pies then and there.  It’s definitely the best pie crust recipe I’ve ever used.  Win!

For both recipes, you’ll need to roast the squash first.  This is nice because you can do other things while it roasts.

First, roast the squash:

• Preheat over to 400 degrees Fareheit.
• Cut the squash in half lengthwise.  Remove any seeds with a fork.
• Using an olive oil non-stick spray, or just olive oil and a pastry brush, lightly coat the inside halves of the squash.  
• Place both halves of the squash face down (i.e. exterior shell facing up and inside guts facing down) on a baking sheet.  
• Using a fork, lightly poke holes in the exterior shell of the squash.  This allows some steam to escape and will help the squash cool faster after roasting.
• Depending on the size of the squash, remove from the over after 40-60 minutes (our enormous squash took a full hour to roast; yours will probably take more like 35-45 minutes).
• Let the squash cool completely (I think we allowed a couple of hours for this while we ran errands).
• After the squash has cooled, use an ice cream scoop to easily remove the squash.

Butternut Squash Pie 
This is our family recipe for pumpkin pie.  I just used butternut squash instead.  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

• 1 1/2 cups pureed squash (Remove 1 1/2 cups from a roasted squash with an ice cream scoop, per above, and pulse in a food processor, or use a food grinder, until pureed).
• 1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed (If you want to go low-glycemic for this recipe, as we often do, use date sugar. The molasses flavor of cooked date sugar works really well in this recipe and is a perfect all-natural substitute for brown sugar.)
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup half-and-half  (I only had heavy cream and 2% milk on hand, so I used 1/2 cup 2% milk and 1/4 cup heavy cream to get my 3/4 cup.  It worked great.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used my coffee grinder to grind fresh cinnamon sticks we had.)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (Just use a cheese grater if you have whole nutmeg on hand.)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground fresh ginger (You can also use a grater for this.)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla or vanilla extract

Beat the squash and brown (or date) sugar together until fully blended.  Add everything else and beat for a minute or two until fully blended.  Pour the mixture into your pie crust.

Bake on center oven rack at 350 degrees Farenheit until fully set (not mushy or moving around when you move the pie pan) for 45-55 minutes (I’ve never needed less than 55 minutes).

Remove pie after 30-35 minutes and cover the crust with foil to avoid burning.

Cool completely before serving.  Serve with fresh whipped cream (the rest of a small carton of the heavy cream we had on hand, plus a TBsp of sugar, whipped in a chilled bowl).

Squash and Venison Casserole
Spray a medium sized casserole dish (10″ in diameter or close to it) with non-stick olive oil spray, or just use a paper towel to lightly wipe olive oil around the inside of the dish.  Line the casserole dish with the pie crust you made (make sure you rolled it pretty thin).  Reserve a small amount of pie dough to weave across the top. 

Casserole Filling

• 1 pound ground venison (That’s what we happened to have in the freezer.  You can also use ground buffalo, lamb or beef - and you could probably leave the meat out and do a vegetarian version instead).
• 1 1/2 cups squash (Mashing it with a fork is fine; the squash doesn’t need to be pureed for this and will cook down quickly to a softer texture.)
• 2 large carrots, diced
• 4 medium sized potatoes, diced
• 2 large leeks, chopped fine (or three small) (That’s also what we had on hand.  You can just use a regular onion or two.)
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• Salt and pepper to taste
• We also added a simple roux to this mix to create some gravy so you’ll need ingredients for that if you’d like.  You can also make any gravy recipe you like that’s suitable (i.e. chicken or beef based is probably best here), or a dry mix gravy if that’s your thing.  We just thought the ingredients looked a little dry without gravy. You may or may not agree.

Now that you’ve chopped cathartically:

• In a large skillet (these chopped veggies pile up), heat the olive oil and garlic over medium high heat.  When warm..
• Brown the venison in the olive oil and garlic.
• Add the cumin and coriander, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• When browned, add the carrots.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes.
• Add the leeks (or onions) and celery.  Add a pinch of salt.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes.
• Add the potatoes.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes.  The potatoes won’t cook fully here, but they shouldn’t.  They’ll cook more in the oven later and prevent the pie from becoming too soggy.
• Add the squash.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes.
• Season with a little more salt and pepper.  Some of you may wish to add a little more cumin (we like cumin).
• If you’re adding a gravy, add it now.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes. 
• Pour the entire mixture into the dough-lined casserole dish.  Weave a few extra pieces across the top.  Brush the top pieces of dough lightly with olive oil or butter.
• Bake at 400 degrees for 45-60 minutes.  We covered our casserole dish for about 25% of the cooking time. 
• Cool for a few minutes, scoop out, and serve.

We had this with scrambled eggs and cider for a late lunch/early dinner.  It was great!  We’ve also made enough food for about four meals for two people with things we had in the house.

Catch as Catch Can

I am playing catch up on the credit cards, again.  I followed my plan, made easier by the fact that a bonus appeared in my Nov. 15 paycheck (and in everyone’s paycheck).  I work for a small company so “bonus” means “a few hundred dollars,” every penny of which is one I didn’t have before.  I’ll happily take it and it helps a lot - and most folks in the world right now would probably agree, and be happy to have a bonus of ANY kind.

But I digress.  I have:

• Paid off my $1,937 balance (today).
• Paid off my $420 balance.

That leaves about $200 on each card, all of which are business travel expenses that will be reimbursed in my Nov. 30 paycheck.  And that’s it.  No more charging.  It’s all debit card use for everything except business travel from now on.

Erudition

Here are some fantastic personal finance articles you should read, if you haven’t found them already.  I admit to being especially fond of stories about declines in consumption: w00t.

• Consumers Feel the Next Crisis - It’s Credit Cards (New York Times)
• Talk to Me Like I’m Five: What to do with your money now (Salon)
• American retailing: Left on the Shelf (The Economist)
• Economy Shrinks as Consumers Cut Back (for the first time in 17 years, apparently) (New York Times)

Discipline and Punish

Changing your behavior is tough.  Or rather, changing my behavior is tough.  I totally lack discipline about some things, like doing the Master Cleanse or fruit fast or, well, any kind of detox really.  I’ve never lasted a day.  I also buy product (i.e. make up, shampoo, especially Aveda anything) like nobody’s business - though I know it’s out of hand and periodically say “No more!”  

The bad news?  My lack of discipline has reappeared in my financial behavior. Since paying down all of my credit card debt and keeping it low enough that I can pay the balance in full each month, I tend to be very forgiving of myself when I’ve been overspending again.  Recently, for instance, I have taken money out of my emergency fund to pay off a credit card balance.  Yep.  

That act might not SEEM that bad.  I’m paying off a balance, after all.  But it’s very bad.  Touching savings is like shopping: The more you do it, the easier it gets.  And if I were to lose my job, as so many people are right now, I would want a nice big emergency fund over Aveda product.

Let’s take a look at how far in hock I am, again.

Credit Cards

• $420 balance, due 11/15
• $1,937 balance, due 11/17 ($1,250 of this is a 50% down payment for Invisaligns for my teeth.)
• TOTAL = $2,357 

 

I originally planned to take money out of my emergency fund to pay off the balance.  If I did, I’d have less than $4,000 in my emergency fund.  I hate that idea.

Then I told myself it wouldn’t be so bad, that I could just deposit the Nov. rent check from my tenant for $1,500 to bring my emergency fund balance up to $5,400.  I still didn’t feel any better - and every time I’ve failed to listen to my gut, I’ve paid the price.  I cannot, cannot get in the habit of using savings to pay for semi-frivolous spending.  Instead, I’m going with…

Plan B  

There are other ways to pay off my credit cards.  If I have to pay some finance charges, so be it.  It’ll be a good reminder to me to stop using my credit cards for most things.  I deplore paying finance charges, a huge inspiration in my paying down nearly $10,000 before.  

My Plan B is nothing new to anyone who has read basic books on personal finance: I will pay the minimum required payment and as much additional as I can, for the next (mid-November) payment deadline, out of my “regular money” (i.e. salary income, not any sort of savings account.  That means:    

 

• $38 minimum payment (on the $1,937 balance card)
• $24 minimum payment (on the $420 balance card)

That’s doable.  

There will also be a Nov. rent check from my tenant waiting for me in a few weeks, when I get back from working overseas (also a reminder to test direct deposit with my tenant!  There’s money I don’t have access to that I could really use right now!).  All of the Nov. rent check will go to the card with the largest balance and highest interest rate (that’s the $1,937 balance, in case it wasn’t obvious), leaving a $437 balance on that card.  

Also doable.

That payment strategy will leave me with a maximum of $800 in credit card debt (less, since I plan to pay more than the $38 and $24 minimum payments).  

Finally, I will throw a few hundred dollars at any remaining debt on two upcoming pay days (11/15 and 11/30) and use the Dec. rent check from my tenant to pay off any remainder (though there really shouldn’t BE a remaining balance come Dec. 1.)

On Gettin’ Hitched

A less refined way of saying: Mans and I are engaged!  (And no, though I may be 31, I am not knocked up… or rather, with child).

This means we’re going to have a wedding.  Mans and I were stunned at how quickly everyone around us moved from happiness over our engagement and a very celebratory atmosphere to wedding planning - and spending.  We even received bizarre questions like “So are you moving to a new apartment?”  Because… we’re the same two people, who already live together?  Zuh?  

Believe it or not, we’ve been engaged for one week and we’re about finished with our frugal yet elegant wedding plans.  Now we just have to execute on our frugal wedding plan.  So far, our frugal wedding plan consists of:

• Recycled Rings: An engagement ring circa 1935 (that means Deco! Yay!).  It belonged to Mans’ grandmother, one half of a very successful, 50+ year marriage.  Good luck symbols don’t get any better than this. A small chipped diamond needs to be replaced, the prongs need to be checked so I don’t lose my stone, and the band needs to be re-plated in white gold.  All told, this will cost much less than a brand new engagement ring.
• Inexpensive Bands: Two simple white gold bands for each of us (no additional diamonds, please - save it for an anniversary) - $200-$400/each.
• No New Dress: Fortunately, I already own a handmade, custom, floor-length silk charmeuse dress I designed four years ago, for some black tie weddings.  It cost $300 total, as part of the cost was barter (I did a business plan for a designer/seamstress friend opening a boutique - and yes, she’s still in business nearly five years later!).
• Small Guest List: I know, we’re weird.  We want our wedding to be comprised only of the people closest to us, with whom we are in regular contact.  This means our total guest list is 34 people (us included).  
• Wedding at Home: Most places don’t have any extraordinary meaning for us.  Mans’ parents, however, have a small home in the Napa Valley (near us) that is filled with nothing but happy memories for all.  I can’t think of any other place as near and dear to my heart (and also wedding appropriate) as this one.
• Few to No Flowers: We’ll be standing in a backyard garden with roses in it.  Enough said. 
• Inexpensive Invitations: Mans’ brother is a graphic designer.  We’ve asked him to design our invitations, which he now wants to make his gift to us.
• No Gift Registry: We don’t really need anything and can afford what we need.  We both thank our lucky stars every day that we’re some of the few people on this planet who can say that, and that’s enough for us.  In lieu of gifts, we’ll ask for donations to two nonprofit organizations we already support.

That was easy, no?  Now we just need to schedule the caterer and arrange for a small cake (we already know who will do those), and find out who handles things like tables and chairs.  

Done.  No stress, no drama, all in cash, all paid in full by us, not our families.  We’re in our early thirties.  We have wonderful families who raised us well enough to secure steady, gainful employment and not act like spoiled royalty longing for “our big day.” Our families have done more than enough for us, and now we just want to thank them for getting us this far.  Yes, I realize we’re in a unique position not to need help to finance our wedding - and we’re grateful for that, and for everything.  

I can’t tell you how happy I am to have found someone who shares my values.  I can’t wait to just be married to him already!

Money Making (and Taking) Coin Machines

My change jar was half full yesterday, so I decided to risk an experiment with one of those coin sorting machines at our newly Whole-Foodsified Safeway.  Think spot lighting, lowercase fonts, and faux wood, just-like-a-hipster-barn entry.  I’d never used a coin sorting machine because they used to advertise how much of your change they took.  The machines at our local Safeway, however, are devoid of any notice about the fact that a fee is taken - and yes, I looked for all small print.

Anyway.  I had just over $40 in my change jar, and the machine levied an 8.9% fee, taking about $3 worth of my change.  This left me with a voucher of $38 to use on my groceries.  The voucher had to be used at Safeway within the next 24 hours.  Since we’ve just returned from Maui and needed groceries, that wasn’t an issue for me.

So - that’s how the coin machine at Safeway works, for the unfamiliar.  I was willing to spend $3 to experiment this time around.  Next time, though, the huge change jar goes to the credit union for a deposit.

Because cash goes where my calendar shows…

And nobody knows… but me.

I tracked 30 days of cash expenditures in my handy little paper calendar during September.  I don’t believe September was exactly a representative month, given my renewed focus on savings, but if not the most accurate data it’s at least some data.

First, I was curious as to how well my expense tracking would stack up to cash withdrawals from the ATM.

• According to Mint.com, I pulled $520 out of the ATM slot during September.
• According to my calendar, I tracked $524 spent.  I may be a control freak but at least I’m diligent.

So, where did it go?

• Eating out: $353
• Taking cabs: $35
• Buying a dress: $39 (slap)
• Buying makeup: $42 (slap)
• Buying yarn for knitting: $12
• Sight seeing (things like park entry fees): $13
• Miscellaneous (homeless guy, friend IOU, and tailor):  $30
• TOTAL CASH: $524

Let’s see how October goes.  It will be another outlier due to the Hawaii vacation with which I kicked off the month, but I have to stay in the habit.

Heuristics and Biases

The title of this post comes from one of my favorite books on my favorite topic, behavioral finance.  Heuristics are mental shortcuts (not always rational ones, though they seem rational to us) that affect how we think about and behave with money.

This keeps me on the prowl for mental shortcuts I might be making or biases I might have.  One example is the difference between what I think (through quick mental calculation) that I spend on something vs. what I actually spend on something - like most people.  Here are some differences I found in my Mint.com trends today.

Air Travel
I think I spend a lot more money on air travel than I actually do.  In my head, I add up the domestic flights I take at about $300-$600 per flight, with one or two $900-$1,400 international flights thrown in, and I easily arrive at about $4,000/year. But I’ve actually spent less than $1,500 on air travel in the past 12 months, which includes all of my plane travel through the end of 2008.

Food
This is tricky: I am sure, very sure, that I spend a lot more money than Mint.com says.  I think I have a good sense of when I’ve been eating out too much and not packing my lunch enough.  But, I’ve only recently started tracking cash expenditures diligently again so I have to trust what Mint.com says for now.  I know a lot of my “ATM Withdrawals” are for food.  Let’s see if I’m right in another month or two.

For May 1 through July 1, 2008 I spent $893 on Food and Dining; from July 1 through September 1, I spent $827.  That’s oddly even keel.  I will bet myself a non-Friday cup of coffee that I spend at least an additional $800 month in cash on food expenditures - eating out, groceries, coffee, wine.  We shall see.

Shopping
This was an easy one, and my mental assessment of “I am bleeding money out of all pores” was dead on.   From May 1 through July 1, 2008 I spent $173 on shopping.  From July 1 through September 1, I spent $647 on shopping - almost exactly $500 more.  And remember, my Mint.com Shopping category doesn’t count the $663 for 50% of the blinds for my condo, which I classify as home improvement and maintenance for my tenants.  This means that, more accurately, I spent $1,310 shopping for the past two full months - without cash expenditures taken into account since I wasn’t tracking them.

I mean YOWZA!  That’s BAD.

Of that $500-more-than-usual that I spent in August…

• $86 was in the Books category (now you see why I’ve banned myself from book buying for the rest of the year)
• $127 was in the Hobbies category (AKA the I Love Fancy Knitting Yarn category), and
• $424 was in the Clothing category.  Now, you’d think I’d have a whole shiny new wardrobe to show for that, but you’re wrong, because one item was a $190 pair of jeans.  Hey!  At least I ADMIT it!  I’ll even tell you how I rationalize it: “But I would think nothing of spending $190 on a fancy dress for a wedding that I would wear once, and I wear jeans every day, so $190 seems strange only because it’s jeans, but it’s far stranger to pay $190 for a dress you wear once, right?  I also bought my now-worn-through pair expensive jeans in 2004, and now it’s 2008, so I need this new pair because I wore almost no jeans except the first pair of fancy jeans and, because I did that, buying another pair of $190 jeans is OK.  If I spent $50/year on jeans every year and multiplied it times 4, you get $200, which is what I paid for one pair instead.” See how that goes?  I don’t even know if that qualifies as a mental shortcut; I think it probably just counts as meaningless crazy babble.  And to think they’re going to give me a Ph.D. in May…

Car Share (Transportation)
Like air travel, I also over estimate how much I spend on my car share program (since I do not own a car and, fortunately, have not owned a car for nearly five years now).  I feel like I spend about $100/month on car sharing, but… I am happy to report that Mint.com tells me I’ve spent just $217 on car sharing from May 1 until the present.

To be honest, this number does not reflect our household level of car share use (Mans pays for his too) but this is what I personally have spent.  And so, every time MUNI hates me and crushes my spirit, and I am tempted to buy a car, I will say “$217!” to myself.  A few years ago, $217 was two months worth of car insurance alone! As long as I can get away without having a car, I will continue to do so.

I wonder why I over estimate transportation costs (air travel and car share) specifically… I’ll mull that over…

Oh, how far the mighty have fallen.

Or, Why I Do Periodic Financial Check-ins And Apparently Need To Do Them More Often.

In my post of May 27, 2008 I had $12,000 in three savings accounts - a Roth IRA and two basic savings accounts (my credit union and ING). As of today, I have made no headway (except in retirement savings in my work account, which have increased by almost $3,000 since May).

But it’s worse than not making headway: I’ve had the dreaded backslide. Those same three savings accounts now total $10,017 - a reduction of almost $2,000!

This is bad.  This is very, very bad.  So what’s the emergency remediation plan? And it IS an emergency remediation plan.  This is my own personal Superfund Site, right here.

• Every single rent check for the rest of this year is going into savings, for a total of $4,500 by Dec. 31, 2009.
• This will be in addition to my usual savings deposit of $250/paycheck, for $500/month or $1,500 total by the end of the year.
• More importantly, I will NOT touch my savings.  Once I started doing that (for faux wood blinds for the house) it became too easy to just clicky clicky on the big old ING “transfer” button.  No more.
• Everything I wrote in yesterday’s post.

Old habits die hard.  I’m just so disappointed in myself, and that the habits I worked so hard to change for a year are rearing their ugly heads again.

“You made me promises…

I knew you’d never keep!”  Oh how I loved dancing to that on Tuesday nights at Industry in poor little Pontiac, MI.  And it’s so very me right now.

Did I say I was back on the wagon?  I did.

And then… Did my best friend come to town to visit me?  She did.
Does my best friend have cancer?  She does.
Do we ever have any idea of how much time we have left together?  No.
Does anyone?  No, but we’re more mindful of it than usual.
Does this affect my spending?  Absolutely.

I think absolutely nothing of buying a tee when she buys a tee.  Or the $39 dress we both fell in love with today, so we both bought one.  I think nothing of paying $150+ for car share hours so we can drive to the Napa Valley, Stinson Beach and Muir Woods, or eating out daily.  And do I expect to regret a penny of this?  Never.  I could lose my job tomorrow and I still wouldn’t regret the time (or money) I’ve spent with her.  Every moment is perfect, but all moments are really.  Each moment is ephemeral and perfect.  And if some moments involve spending money, that’s fine by me right now.  Many of them don’t.

Still: After my friend returns to the Midwest, I need to buckle down.  I respond to rules I set for myself, so I’m going to lay them down and commit them to binary here, so I’m accountable to anonymous others:

• I will not buy new clothes or shoes for myself for the rest of the year (underwear and socks being the only exceptions).
• I will not buy any new shampoo, conditioner, salt scrub, sugar scrub, scented oil, or other lovely smelling but unnecessary product until my existing product is gone, gone, gone.
• I will not purchase any books for myself for the rest of the year.
• After I pay off my credit cards (during the next cycle and in full, per usual), I will not use them for anything except plane tickets or other Southwest purchases (which get me Southwest points to visit family).  It’s getting to be a little too easy to swipe that plastic again.
• I will resume taking my lunch to work at least three days per week.
• I will resume buying coffee (vs. taking my own) only on Friday mornings.
• I will resume putting at least $1300 of each rent check, and $1500 if possible, directly into my savings account, rather than spend them (as I did with the first one).  Exceptions are major purchases like vacations and home improvements, which is the same rule I followed last year (i.e., it’s better to use cash to pay for vacation than charge it up)

This I vow.