Diapers on the Line

Yes, we’re going to attempt the crazy train of cloth diapering.

Thanks to Liisa, we have lots of cute Bum Genius All-In-Ones. This is the batch of newborn sized ones that will need to be ready sooner rather than later.  You have to admit they’re pretty darn cute.  Especially all hanging on the (temporary) clothes line.

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The Inner Wolf

Stolen from E, who stole it from some other folks.

An old Cherokee told his grandson, “My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies & ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, & truth.”

The boy thought about it, and asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”

The old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”

Which wolf do you feed?

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A Rant About Food

Pay day… It happens not nearly often enough and not nearly enough $.  Since I quit my corporate job, pay days seem fewer and farther in between.  How did we go from two incomes to one and still survive?  I learned to cook.  And I don’t mean boil water.  I mean really *cook*.  And I learned to shop to facilitate that cooking.  And I learned to make do.  Here are a few of the ways we make it to the end of each pay cycle with at least a few pennies in the bank account.

• Eat at home.  I know this sounds simple, but it really isn’t.  When you work full time or are out running around all the time, making it home to eat or remembering to bring a meal is tough.  I eat breakfast at home in the mornings;often hubby and I eat together.  He likes oatmeal (less than $1 of oats will feed him breakfast for a month) and I like bacon, eggs, and toast (not as cheap, but still cheaper than going out to eat).  For lunches, he takes the fixings for quesadillas because sandwiches are not his thing.  A pack of tortillas, some shredded cheese and a few chicken breasts cooked with an onion will make lunch for about a week at a time.  I generally make a fruit protein smoothie at work since lunchbreaks are just a pipe dream.  Leftovers also make good lunches.  Dinners are where we live it up.  I am learning how much fun it is to experiment with different recipes.  If you don’t have much knowledge of cooking, see the end of this post for a never-fail, super-easy dinner recipe.
• Cut down on the lattes.  I have been limiting myself to one coffee out a week and it has made a huge difference in my weekly spending.  When you think about it, the typical coffee is $3.  Multiply that by 5 days a week and that’s $15 a week or $60 a month.  Your wallet (and your waistline) will thank you.
• Buy food as close to it’s original state as possible.  I don’t mean go out and purchase a cow.  I mean buy things that haven’t been prepped or pre-cooked.  You will save lots of $ just in that alone.  Pre-shredded cheese comes with a premium price over a plain block of cheese that you shred yourself.  Why buy packs of instant oatmeal when you can buy a can of it for $3 that will feed you for at least 4 times as long.  Think of those things that have the most packaging and those are probably the ones you could find in the bulk section.  Which brings me to…
• Buy in bulk.  No, you don’t have to stock up on 10 years worth of deodorant.  In fact, I rarely buy non food items in bulk.  But find a grocery store with a good bulk section.  Just because you are buying from the bulk section doesn’t mean you have to buy a ton of it.  I have containers for certain things that we buy from the bulk section and that is as much as I buy at a time.  Things like flour, popcorn, oatmeal, etc. can be much cheaper when you purchase by the pound rather than by the container.
• Make it yourself.  Convenience foods are the downfall of our society.  (Ok, there are lots of other downfalls too, but this is the one that irritates me the most.)  I know that you can’t make *everything* yourself.  But you can make a few key things to cut your grocery bill.  Here are my top five.
1. Bread.  Find a good recipe that works for you.  My new favorite is the No Knead Whole Wheat Honey Sandwich Bread recipe from Baking Bites.  If you want white bread, the Homemade Sandwich Bread recipe from The Hungry Mouse is awesome too.
2. Coffee.  (See the rant about lattes above.) Buy a good coffee maker or an AeroPress and figure out your perfect cup o’ joe.  And yes, I grind my beans at home.  They taste fresher that way.
3. Yogurt.  This one is new to me, but I don’t think I can go back to store bought.  A half gallon of milk + a packet of stater (or a 6oz cup of plain yogurt) + 1/3 cup powdered milk = 8 cups of yogurt.  Rough price estimate is $3.50 total for the entire batch.  Last time I checked, even a 4 cup container of plain yogurt was around $5.
4. Granola.  This is another one of those convenience foods that’s soooo simple to make it’s crazy.  You can see my adventure with granola here.
5. Popcorn.  Homemade popcorn couldn’t be simpler.  And all the crap they put into microwave popcorn is awful.  Kernels + oil + heat = popcorn.  It’s that simple.  Throw some oil in the bottom of a tall pot, add the kernels and shake to coat.  Turn the temp to medium high and put a lid on slightly ajar.  Wait for the popping to begin and remove from heat when the popping stops.  Yes, it really is that simple.
• Shop local and seasonally.  If you have a farmer’s market, go to it.  If you have a co-op, go to it and (if you can) become a member.  If you know of a farm that sells fresh produce and/or meat products, visit it.  The closer food is, the less expensive it is (usually).  If you don’t have any of those things, shop the sales, especially for what’s in season.  Right now strawberries are in season, so I split 3 flats with a friend.  I am processing and freezing them to use later in the season when strawberries cost $5 for a pint.  The 1 1/2 flats cost me $22.50 and I’m going to have more strawberries than my freezer can hold.
• Keep a good stock of seasonings on hand.  You’d be amazed how many times you can eat the same key ingredients by just changing up the seasonings.  I splurge on seasonings from Pampered Chef, but also make some mixes of my own and buy many seasonings in the bulk aisle (Curry, anyone?).  Seasonings last a while and really brighten up a dish.
• If you love something expensive, learn to make it yourself.  For us, it’s almond milk.  My hubby is crazy about the stuff, but at $3.50/half gallon, it gets pricey fast.  I found an easy recipe online and learned to make it.  A big bag of almonds at Costco is around $10 and a cup of almonds makes a quart of almond milk.

That’s all the advice I can give you today.  No, I’m not perfect and yes, we still eat out.  But our grocery bill continues to shrink as I learn to make more things and make do more often.  And now, without further ado… The recipe that we use several times a week.

Chicken + Veggies + Carbs (Optional) = Dinner

What you need:

A large pan or skillet.

A splash of oil in said pan or skillet.

Enough chicken breasts or tenderloins to fill said pan or skillet.

Some frozen or canned vegetables that you like to eat.

Seasonings you have on hand.

About 20 minutes.

Carbs if you want ‘em (pasta, rice, potatoes, etc.)

What you do:

Heat oil up in the pan for a few minutes while you dig the chicken out of the fridge or freezer.  Set the heat to medium and toss the chicken in the pan, sprinkle with seasonings, put the lid on, and ignore for a few minutes.  Dump the vegetables into a microwave safe container.  If you’re cooking frozen veggies, add a splash of water.  If you’re using canned veggies, don’t drain them.  Microwave until hot (usually around 3 – 5 minutes, depending on whether your veggies are frozen or not).  Once the veggies are in the microwave, flip the chicken over and season again.  Once the chicken is cooked through, you can cut it up and mix it with the veggies or leave it whole and serve beside the veggies.  Serve with carbs of your choice if desired.

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Fromage Blanc

Two weeks ago, I attended a class at the Co-Op with Liisa on “Foods I Make in My Sleep”.  It was all about foods that require little actual time, but lots of rising/setting/etc. time.  The class focused on a few primary things: breads, cheeses, and dehydrated fruit.  I had so much fun, I decided to try out one of the recipes for myself.  So, I made Fromage Blanc!

Fromage Blanc is actually very simple.  You take milk, active cultures, add a little heat and a lot of time and ta da!  Cheese!

The Fromage Blanc draining whey into a bowl.

Finished Fromage Blanc (It’s a bit whiter in person, but my kitchen light makes everything look yellow).

To celebrate the successful cheese, I made pizza!  It had chicken, onion, yellow pepper, pesto, and Fromage Blanc on a homemade dough.  I used half the dough for this pizza and the other half I attempted to make mini pizzas for later use.

Oddly, they puffed up and baked hollow.  No matter… Pizza dough pitas it is!

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Alternatives

I love this post from Re-Nest on plastic wrap alternatives.  I’ve been trying to figure out good alternatives for plastic bags as well.  I can cut most of them out except for in the freezer.  Anyone know of a great alternative to plastic in the freezer?

(P.S. Switching to glass jars for storage can really save you a lot of money over time.  Especially if you find your jars on the cheap at your local thrift store(s).  I have found my best storage there, generally between $0.25 and $2.)

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Applesauce

I’ve been a slave to the canner this week.  Well, really only two days, but still.  I was so busy and tired I only snapped on picture.

Batch #2 of applesauce.  (I also made pear butter, but forgot to take pictures.)

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Adventures in Laundry Soap

I’ve been wanting to try making my own laundry soap for months now.  I’ve been stalking the Sufficient Self boards, grabbing things out of my RSS feed, and actively searching the interwebs for details.  I finally managed to locate some washing soda at my local Ace hardware store.  In fact, they are the only place in town who seems to carry it (and they had to order it in for me).  But once that was acquired, I was unstoppable!

All you need to make laundry soap.

Originally I was going to try the Bucket of White Slime method.  But then I decided to be lazy and try a powdered version first.  After an hour or so of further research last night, I concocted my own formula based on bits and pieces of others I saw.  Here is the basic recipe I came up with:

Laundry Soap Recipe

• 1 cup grated soap
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1 cup borax
• 1/2 cup baking soda

Sounds simple, eh?  Well it is!  First, I used a cheese grater to grate the lovely pink zote soap. (Zote also comes in white, but I opted for pink.)

The bar is ginormous and you hardly use any to grate that one measly cup.

The bar of Zote, before & after.

Then I threw all the ingredients in the blender and mixed it up.  (Next time I think I’ll try the food processor attachment on my stick blender.  The ingredients tend to harden as your blend and it really caked up at the bottom.  Nothing I couldn’t dump out and break up, but it was annoying.)

Will it blend?

Voila!  Laundry soap!  Once it was all mixed together, I put it into a container for easy storage and scooping.

Lovely pink laundry soap.

Now, the big question is… How does it work?  Well, being a lazy scientist, I used a dirty dish rag as my test subject.

Dishcloth before. (Ewww… scungy…)

Dischloth after.  (Ahh… much better!)

The conclusion: It seems to clean as well as my current eco-friendly $15/bottle laundry detergent from Costco.  It doesn’t smell like anything and it is *cheap*.  How cheap you ask?

Well, all the ingredients pictured at the top of the blog cost me somewhere in the $10 range total.  I used about 1/6th of a bar of Zote soap, 1/9th of a box of Borax, 1/9th of a box of washing soda, and 1/4th of a box of baking soda.  I could easily make at least another 5 batches with only the purchase of a small box of baking soda (and the baking soda is really optional).  I’m not exactly sure of the volume of loads I will get from this batch, but I’m estimating it at around 15 loads (I’m using about 1/4 cup per load right now, level for a normal load, heaping if it’s a nasty load). If I’d used to entire box of washing soda (which is really about 6.5 cups, so I could get 6.5 batches out of it) I’d be looking at just under 100 loads for under $10.  Compare that to my current detergent that does around 50 loads for $15.  Um, yeah.  I’m doubling my loads and cutting my cost by $5.  You can do the rest of the math.

So far I’ve done 3 loads of laundry and am pretty pleased with the results.  The towels came out fresh and I’m holding out high hopes for the sheets.  The dog’s bed doesn’t stink anymore, but it still smells a bit like dog.  I think next time, for something that gross, I’ll throw in some Dr. Bronners and OxyClean to give it an extra little boost.

The real test will be if I’m allergic to it. And beyond that, how will clothes fair down the line?  Only time will tell…

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