A few weeks ago, I was thinking about buying this book ‘Cool Beans‘ as it’s the latest cookbook release about cooking beans. Since that’s what I plan to do more of, cook beans, I thought it would be a good addition to my cookbook array. The hardcover version runs about $22-$25. The Kindle version runs about $8.99 for me from Amazon due to the fact I’ve got some stored reward credits ($4) which can be applied to the total cost of an eBook only (not the hardcover version). I decided to rent the book from the library instead. Needless to say, Amazon came back to offer me the book at $4.99. Once I applied my Reward Credits, my final cost was .99 for the eBook version. This time I agreed and bought the digital copy because I liked the hardcover version and yes! I’m going to utilize the bean recipes.

So, it was a huge Frugal Score for me this week! Woo Hoo!

Here are some of the library books I’ve been reading these past few weeks. I keep renewing The Tightwad Gazette. That book is impossible to read in only 2 or 3 weeks. It might take me 6 months to fully absorb all the knowledge that book contains. I couldn’t put down Nomadland. That book is excellent! Each sentence draws you in to the story. I actually felt as if I was there! Cool Beans, well, see above. Milk Street I just thumbed through. I’m not a good fan of Christopher Kimball since he left America’s Test Kitchen on PBS due to his divorce. Kimball was ordered by the court to give his wife half of everything. He quit the show instead and went out on his own, giving his ex-wife less than she was entitled to. OK. Enough gossip for now!

Here are some of the things I cooked up this past week: Italian Wedding Soup (with little beef meatballs, orzo pasta and fresh spinach in another one of my home-made chicken broth soups), sheet pan chicken thighs with roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts. Friday night, since its still Lent, hubby made some oven-baked fish fillets and put them into a sandwich (hamburger bun) topped off with home-made tartar sauce and pickles. It was delicious! Saturday night we had our usual flat bread veggie pizzas (spinach, red onion, mozzarella). Sunday hubby made his traditional pasta sauce, only this time he sauteed some hot Italian turkey sausage. I picked up two pounds of fussili pasta for $2 at Odd Lots and we enjoyed a perfect Sunday afternoon dinner.

Lastly, it’s spring and I bought myself this beautiful bouquet of tulips. Original price was $7.99 but I got a dollar off. It has lasted over a week on my counter and has cheered me up immeasurably.