Weekend Update,

I will do my best to be

honest and fair, 

friendly and helpful, 

considerate and caring, 

courageous and strong, and 

responsible for what I say and do,

and to

respect myself and others, 

respect authority, 

use resources wisely, 

make the world a better place, and 

be a sister to every Girl Scout.

The Girl Scout Law

The funny thing is, I nearly edited the Girl Scout Law. That is, in order to quote a Girl Scout's oath to use resources wisely, I nearly offered an abridged version of the 52 word law- because the Girl Scout Law is so wordy! Contrast it to the 16 words of the Boy Scout Law, which aside from the sisterhood bit, says pretty much the same thing:

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, 

courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty,

brave, clean, and reverent.

Let's leave off wondering whether or not any of us have ever met anyone of any age who could abide or abide by either law, and let's leave off wondering what sort of jail girl or boy scout law breakers go to. 

Instead, let's delight in the fact that even when we're trying to come up with an easy-to-remember-and-stick-to code of behavior,

we still use more than three
times as many words!

 This is maybe why it's a good thing that God didn't bother to get in touch with His feminine side before issuing the Ten Commandments-  not only would they have been really hard to carry out, 

they would've been really, really hard to carry.

This week, our dinners did their best to make use of the food already on hand; they have been, in a single word, resourceful. 

"I", I thought, as I surveyed the menu line up, " am being resourceful. I would have made a great girl scout."

"If I hadn't dropped
out of Brownies"

Then, to find out whether indeed resourcefulness was a mark of a good Girl Scout, I read the Girl Scout law. And then the Boy Scout law. And then the dictionary. 

And resourceful may not be the right word. 

The right word might be frugal. Or thrifty. Or perhaps it's the sort of word that distinguishes the people who like you from the people who tolerate you: to the people who love you, you are resourceful. To those who merely tolerate you, 

you're a cheapskating miser.
(This is Hetty Green, who was once either
the most resourceful or the most
miserly woman in New York.)

Whether they were resourceful, or frugal, or thrifty, or cheap, there were a few dinners this week that were great, and  a few that were, well, maybe bad is not quite the right word.....

Here's what happened:

Stir fried rice was nothing unusual- a great stand-by idea for using leftover chicken  or shrimp or beef or, in this case, pork. the cool thing was finding a new way to like cabbage- this quick stir fried cabbage recipe would be great with Teriyaki chicken or ribs, or tempura anything, or...well, it's just good:

there it is, hiding behind the rice.

Next the risotto that set out to use up the tub of mascarpone that was wearing out its fridge time. It should have been fantastic, but you know what? 

It was just okay.
The mascarpone made the risotto creamier, but also
heavier.  Save the money on mascarpone and gruyere and risotto will
still feel like an indulgent treat.

the two nicest surprises?

This black-eyed pea salad- I had expected something like the once omnipresent Texas Caviar black-eyed pea salad, but this was much nicer- the chickpea dressing was fantastic! It's a substantial dressing that would be right at home on any kale or spinach salad. A great find! Here it is, made not with the canned black-eyed peas suggested in the recipe, but with peas from my (generous) mother's (generous) garden:

those are black-eyed pea fritters in the background.
I'm trying to forget those.
I think you should too.

And if you're a fan of butternut squash soup, and you wish there were something just as tasty and nutritious, but maybe easier and cheaper, here it is:\

carrot ginger soup
I am not kidding. This was great. Maybe even better
than butternut soup- and did I mention cheaper and easier?

Then the vast universe of great recipes available to all of us collided with my mind, which was (and is still ) pondering the shades of meaning that lie between the words resourceful and thrifty.
Cookies.
No matter what laws of character she may try to abide by, a girl scout, her friends and all her family abide by the laws of cookie. In fact, while I was considering the difference between being resourceful and using resources wisely, between thrift and frugality, a real girl scout in Oklahoma set a brand new Girl Scout Cookie selling record!  So, since in addition to an abundance of black eyed peas and carrots we had a surplus of butter and chocolate chips, I did the natural, frugal, resourceful, thrifty thing.

I made cookies

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip cookies.   A very tasty way to use available resources. If next week you find yourself serendipitously faced with a half pound of butter, a bag of chocolate chips, and a bag of chocolate covered caramels, consider giving them a try.

 Frugality, as it turns out, is not about getting things on the cheap,but about being careful not to waste the good things that you have. To be resourceful, the dictionary says, has even less to do with with the spending or not spending of money-  a resourceful woman (or man)  is one who can deal "skillfully and promptly with new situations and difficulties".

And that's what I'm hoping for you this week-I'm hoping that your week is somehow filled with good thingsInside and out.I hope that you feel your wealth-all the way from the shoes on your feetto the food in your tummyto the love in your heartto the knowledge in your head.and that you use that wealth wiselyand thoughtfully make the most of your every natural resource.
So that even if your day crumbles your cookies

You'll gather the best of who you are and what you have

and deal with it.

Like the true scout you are.