Being resourceful

Halloween is here again and I must admit that I’m not much of a Halloweener. The recent commercialization of Halloween makes me a little crazy. There are tons of Halloween products and most of them are landfill bound. Maybe Halloween products should be renamed “Landfill?” Yes, I’m a Halloween Grinch (and my daughter agrees).

That said, my resourceful story for today is about my daughter’s costume. Yesterday my daughter (the Queen of last-minute efforts) decided to put together her costume. To do this, she retreated to her bedroom and emerged as a hippie.

Her costume was nearly complete. She had plenty of tye die and beads, but nothing with a peace sign. She asked if we could go to the party store, but I wasn’t really hip to this idea. So the wheels in her head started turning and she decided to make a peace necklace out of clay.

Perfect! Just what a true hippie would do. I applauded my daughter for being resourceful (and saving me a trip to the store).

 Happy Halloween!

The non-consumer Halloween

Tell someone what they mean to you

I just celebrated my birthday and received a few gifts that I really love.

My favorite gift is a homemade card from my daughter. Yes, a card can be a gift!

There are many fun things about my Beatles birthday card, but my favorite part is a section where my daughter listed qualities about me (frugal, kind, optimistic, computer geek) with reasons why she selected them. The card let me see myself through my daughter’s eyes. What a gift!

My daughter’s birthday card is a total keeper – keepsake box bound. Someday. For now, I’m still savoring the details. 

I can’t think of a better gift than telling someone what they mean to you in a note or card. 

Another favorite birthday gift of mine is a bag of chocolate cookies with a coupon for six months of cookies baked by my friend. Yum!

Looking for gift ideas? My friend Angela just posted some great handmade and frugal gift ideas. Tis the season….

Homemade banana bread

When I spy with my little eye something that begins with the letter O (overripe bananas), I think smoothie or banana bread. This morning I chose banana bread.

This loaf took 15 minutes to assemble and I think it was worth every minute. There’s nothing like homemade banana bread. Yum.

My Banana Bread Recipe (adaption of a Cooking Light recipe)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat together the following ingredients until well-blended: 

3 or so ripe bananas mashed
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup melted butter
splash of vanilla 
2 eggs

Now add the dry stuff:

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Butter a loaf pan and pour in the banana bread mixture. Bake until the middle is firmish – 40 minutes at 350 degrees (my kids like banana bread a little doughy). Let the bread cool for 10 minutes before attempting to remove from the pan.

If 15 minutes seems too time consuming for a single loaf, double the recipe. Then pop the extra loaf into the freezer for another day.

Homemade banana bread: A simple tasty treat.

Summertime, and the eatin’ is amazing

It’s summertime. Time for great produce.

This weekend my sister was in town and we enjoyed the summer harvest. We made our food and consumed everything outside, something worth cherishing in Seattle.

The weekend lineup? First up we had a caprese salad of sorts. I chopped up tomatoes, avocado, fresh mozzarella, basil and purple cabbage. I dressed the salad with a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. I never thought I would say this, but the cabbage was the critical ingredient because it gave the salad a much needed crunch.

 

Next up was another salad that included lettuce, three types of roasted beets (from the farmer’s market), apricots, candied pecans and herbed goat cheese. Again, I drizzled the salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

And finally, Sunday morning we enjoyed a stack of pancakes with fresh blueberries.

What a great weekend! There are many great restaurants in Seattle, but we enjoyed staying home and eating summer food al fresco. Our homemade meals where peaceful, complete with bird chirps and water trickling, tasty (not the birds, but the food), less expensive than a restaurant and the parking was free. You can’t beat that.

Ah… summertime. When the eating is amazing.

Cabbage

After getting some great cabbage suggestions last week, I’m inspired to eat more cabbage. Cabbage is cheap and has a wonderfully long fridge life; a great frugal vegetable.

Recipes

I adlibed the salads so I don’t have a recipe to share. If you don’t like goat cheese, gorgonzola or bleu cheese work great with the fruit and candied nuts in the second salad.

I added fresh blueberries to the Light and Fluffy Pancake recipe from Cook’s Illustrated (included in The New Best Recipe cookbook). Why buy a pancake mix?

How about you? Are you enjoying the summer harvest? Please leave a Comment or a recipe.

Cold brewed iced coffee

This year summer started in Seattle before July 5, leaving Seattleites joyful and a little befuddled. Coffee is a staple of Seattle, along with rain, moss, and socks with sandals. When the temperature creeps above 78, my coffee sports ice.

I’ve been making iced coffee for years and just tried something new. I made cold-brewed coffee. Yes, apparently hot water is not needed to brew a good cup of joe. I brewed up some coffee in my fridge. Overnight. In cold water.

I got the idea from Lifehacker, but a post by Rachel Meeks at Small Notebook inspired me to take action. (Thanks Rachel!) 

Rachel’s cold-brewed coffee recipe

1. The night before, add 1/4 cup coarse ground coffee and 1 cup cold water to your container. I made mine in a French press, but you could use a glass jar.
2. The next morning add 1 more cup of water.
3. Strain and pour the coffee over ice.

I add a generous amount of milk and a touch of sugar. That’s it.

With a little night-before planning you can be drinking iced coffee in minutes, without any fuss or a trip to a coffee shop. That is, if you like iced-coffee.

What’s your favorite way to enjoy coffee? Please leave a comment.

Possibly related link: Frappuccino alternatives

The miracle of baking soda

I had just nestled into my bed with my Kindle on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I started reading an article from the Chicago Tribune: A baking soda miracle by Supriya Doshi. 

Supriya wrote about her experience cleaning a stove top. I read - ”you know, the brown stuff that develops after pasta boils over?“ And I thought yeah, I know that brown stuff. Supriya described how she’d used miraculous baking soda to remove the brown stuff. Brilliant!

I instantly left my reading lair and went downstairs to work on my stove. I’m a little embarrassed to show you the before picture, but it makes for a dramatic comparison. Anything for the blog, right? Wink.

 

Yes, I know that brown stuff. I put on This American Life, grabbed my baking soda, added water and scrubbed. And scrubbed. I spent 15-20 minutes on this project, and found it oddly rewarding and meditative. My mind was captivated by the stories of This American Life, while I mindlessly scrubbed. I didn’t worry about the stove top getting scratched. I didn’t worry about what chemicals were in the cleaner. And it was all at no cost, since I already had the baking soda. My results:

Much better! My alliance to commercial cleaners is fading fast. I don’t need a special cleaner to clean my stove top. Baking soda works brilliantly. 

Why did I buy commercial cleaners in the past? Marketing. Packaging. Advertising. Convenience. I fell for all these traps. Now, I’d like to try a few homebrew recipes from the web. Why do such a silly thing? My motivations are non-toxic ingredients and less packaging.

What’s your favorite natural or homemade cleaner? Please leave a Comment.

Sixty uses of baking soda
*To clean more of the dirt, chemical residues, and waxes from fruits and vegetables, use baking soda.

Frappuccino alternatives

When it’s hot, I love cold coffee drinks: iced lattes and sugary Frappuccino-style coffee drinks. While I enjoy an occasional Starbucks Frappuccino®, I don’t make it a regular thing. Instead, I make Frappuccino-style drinks at home using a mix from Mocafé.

I’ve tried a couple different mixes and so far Mocafé is my favorite – with it’s Trinidad cocoa, Brazillian Arabica coffee, and a dash of cinnamon. I buy Original Mocafe Frappe mix at a restaurant supply store called Cash & Carry.

A 3 lb container makes 35 servings if you use the 2 scoop serving size, but I use 1 1/2 scoops so I get 46 servings. Using 1 1/2 scoops started as a calorie saving measure, and I found 1 1/2 scoops was sweet enough. So let’s see… $14 for 46 servings, or 31 cents per drink + the cost of milk (19 cents). 50 cents per Mocafe vs $4 per Frappuccino. 

Making a Mocafé Frappé

1. Add 1 1/2 scoops of Mocafé Frappé to your blender.
2. Fill a 12 oz glass with ice cubes and then fill the glass with milk.
3. Pour the milk and ice into your blender and blend ’til smooth.

If you can’t find Mocafe locally, Amazon sells it. Another frapp mix I’ve seen locally is Big Train.

OR - bag the mix and make your own Frappuccino-style beverages. Try a variation of this recipe:

 Do-It-Yourself Frapp

• A 12 ounce glass filled with ice (about 2 cups)
• ½ cup espresso or strong coffee
• 3/4 cup milk or use a mix of milk and half-n-half 
• 2 teaspoons sugar or whatever your sweet tooth desires
• 1 tablespoon chocolate syrup or 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• a couple shakes of cinnamon
• a scoop of vanilla ice cream (optional)

Add everything to your blender and blend ’til smooth. 

If you like Frappuccino-style drinks, it’s worth tinkering with the DIY Frapp recipe. When you make your own Frapps, you can control the sweetness and the quality of the ingredients. You can also make sure that nasty things like corn syrup solids and partially hydrogenated oil don’t slip into the blender.

Homemade coffee blended drinks are simple, refreshing and inexpensive. Why not blend some up?

Do you have a favorite cold coffee drink? Please share anything remotely coffee related in a Comment.

The best gifts in life are free

Let me first say that I’m a big tie dye fan. While tie dye may not be high fashion, I love how each dyed piece is unique. One of a kind. Like the people who created them. Speaking of…

Last summer my daughter went to summer camp and was instructed to bring something to tie dye. She didn’t have something, so she asked me for something. “Mom, I want to make you a tie dye shirt.” I thought great, I love tie dye.

Not having many white t-shirts, I quickly came across something perfect. A shirt with a stain. I had been meaning to try bleaching the shirt, but it hadn’t happened. This would be perfect. Take something worn and turn it into something new.

So I entrusted my stained shirt to my daughter and off she went to camp. A week later, she returned with much excitement about the shirt she created for me. With visions of decoupage pencil cups dancing in my head, I took a peek at my new shirt. I was blown away. It was simply beautiful. 

The shirt pictured here has been my favorite for the past year. I’ve worn it again and again, and each time I think of my daughter. The splashes of color and the unique white rings are her creation. She deliberately chose warm colors for me. And she created the rings by gathering rocks and tightly winding rubber bands around the rocks again and again, so that the dye couldn’t permeate.  

There are a number of rings on the front and the back. This creation took some time. When I look at the rings I imagine her wrapping the rubber bands round and round. Each time I see the shirt I smile and each time I wear it my daughter smiles too. She knows how much I love the shirt that she so carefully made just for me.

It was the perfect gift and it didn’t cost a penny.

What’s your favorite homemade gift? Please share.

Next time you’re at a thrift store thumbing through white shirts, don’t be afraid to buy something stained. With a little dye, you can turn something worn into something new.

Got vegetables and water? Make broth

After buying vegetable broth for let’s see… my entire life, I decided to save a few bucks and some packaging by making my own. I always have vegetables and water, so why not give it a try? 

Making vegetable broth

1. Find some vegetables and put them in a large stockpot. 
   Look at the back of your fridge. Veggies that are a little past their prime are good here. Use whatever you have. Use some vegetable pieces that you might normally discard. Things like the center of cauliflower, the thick stems of broccoli, or the tops of leeks. Plan ahead and save your vegetable trimmings in the fridge.
2. Smash some garlic cloves and add them to the pot.
3. Add some big onion chunks if you like.
4. Add salt, pepper, and any fresh herbs that you have on hand. I used parsley and some cilantro.
5. Fill the pot with water.
6. Heat the water til it boils, then cover the pot and let the veggies simmer for an hour or so.
7. Let things cool a bit and then pour your broth through a colander.

That’s it! Pretty simple huh?

Homemade vegetable broth is great because it’s simple, economical, and green. Green? Since vegetables don’t typically come in packages, making vegetable broth saves a package or two. For me, I get excited anytime I can save packaging and money. Also, I love the idea of using something I already have (vegetables) to make something I used to buy (vegetable broth).

In an hour I made a big pot of broth. Not wanting to waste my efforts here’s what I did:

1. Made matzah ball soup later in the day.
2. Drank a warm mug of the broth right away.
3. Filled a jar with broth and popped it in the freezer.
4. Drank a cold glass of broth the next day. I read about someone doing this every morning. Fountain of youth? Seems like a healthy thing to do, although I can think of tastier cold beverages. 
5. Added some leftover Korma Simmer Sauce (from Trader Joes) to my broth - yummy lunch.

Do you make your own broth? What veggies do you use? Please leave a Comment.