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Friday, August 31, 2012

*New* and *Improved* homemade rice milk

I like pretty. So I'm shallow, but I like pretty things. I drink my morning coffee out of a pretty cup, because it makes me feel good about my coming day. I have a pretty robe that I put on first thing in the morning, because it makes me feel pretty. I enjoy strolling through large botanical gardens, because pretty makes my heart sing. And I keep my homemade rice milk in a pretty little jug, simply because it makes me smile every time I reach into the fridge to pour some in my tea or coffee.

There's so much beauty in this world, it would seem a shame to drink coffee from a paper cup, or only wear tattered sweats in the morning (there are some days that I do wear my tattered sweats -- I'm usually not at all caring about pretty on those days).  I'd hate to see myself spend all day, everyday, cooped up and hunched over the computer screen, or keep my homemade rice milk in a repurposed cool whip container.

So, when feasible, I choose what is lovely to look at, over what is purely practical. Here's my pretty little jug for holding rice milk. I had it just sitting on a shelf for months. And I was storing my rice milk in the fridge in a canning jar. Then the proverbial light bulb moment -- the pretty things can have a practical use. Do you have some lovely things that you use everyday? Do you find satisfaction in indulging in simple pleasures?


For a bit more on rice milk. . .

More and more I am moving away from soy products. There's some question about whether or not they can be harmful. In an effort to just play it safe, until more is known, I've been relying on my homemade rice milk more often lately. I used to just make it in an emergency (yes, there are rice milk emergencies in my home -- if it means I can eat some of the cake I'm making for the family, I call that an EMERGENCY). But lately I've been using it as my main milk. The rest of the family still enjoys dairy milk (lucky them).

What this means is I've been tinkering with my rice milk recipe. I want it to be even more appealing. So I thought I'd share my *new* and *improved* homemade rice milk. (This is not required reading. You may click away at any time, should recipes on making rice milk make you feel grumpy, and sorry you ever came to creative savv today! I won't be the least bit offended if you leave the page right now.)

Here it is:

A Better Rice Milk


1 1/2 cups (288 g) brown rice, washed
4 cups (950 mL) water
1 1/2 teaspoons (7.5 mL) oil (any kind of vegetable oil)
up to 2 tablespoons (up to 30 mL) sugar
1/4-1/2 teaspoon (1.25 - 2.5 mL) salt
1 1/2 teaspoons (7.5 mL) vanilla extract

1)Wash rice, drain. Place in large container with water. Soak for 24 hours.

2)Pour some of water off, but set this water aside.  You'll need it later. Dump the remaining water and rice into blender. Process very well. Add oil, sugar, salt and vanilla, and blend.

Straining is a two-step process.

3)First step -- Pour blended rice through a sieve over a large bowl. Set rice pulp aside (to cook into rice cereal or add to muffins -- we make rice cereal with it. You could also just compost it, but I don't like to waste).

4)Second step -- Now, line your sieve with 3 or 4 layers of cheesecloth. Pour the strained milk through this cheesecloth. Pour the set aside water (from #2) through cheesecloth as well.

5)In a microwaveable container, "cook" (in the microwave) about half the milk, for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring halfway through cooking. Stir well. If there are any lumps, then run this cooked milk through the blender, along with some of the uncooked milk.

6)Blend in the remaining milk into the cooked milk. Add more water, sugar and vanilla to your preferred texture and taste. Store in the fridge for up to 10 days.

Rice milk can be frozen, too. So, if 1 quart is too much, you can freeze in portions you would likely use within a week's time.

This makes just short of one quart of rice milk, and leaves about 1 cup of rice pulp.

*a note* I've had differing results from one bag of rice to another, with regards to thickness of homemade rice milk. Some batches turn out perfectly, as directed in the recipe. Other batches require a bit of extra water, sugar and vanilla.



To use the pulp to make a hot rice cereal:

Bring about 1  1/2 cups (355 mL) of water to a boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the rice pulp, 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 mL) salt, 1 tablespoon (15 mL) sugar, 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 mL) maple extract. Stir, bring back to a boil. Reduce heat to lowest setting, cover and allow to cook for 20-30 minutes, until rice particles are thoroughly cooked. You may need to add a bit more water during cooking, to make it the consistency you enjoy.

This is a lot like cream of wheat cereal. I prefer to make this the evening before, then we reheat the next AM. I think it has a better texture the next day. And a large pot of this will keep in the fridge for several days. I eat it as an afternoon snack. Just spoon some up and reheat. Yum! It reminds me of my childhood.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

My morning of batch cooking

(Wednesday afternoon)
I am so, so tired this afternoon. This morning I did a big batch of cooking and made at least the start to a bunch of dinners for our family. While it was exhausting work, I really only worked for 4 hours. And I saved myself a lot of dinner prep during those first couple of weeks of school, dance classes and back to my paid and volunteer work.

What did I make? I made lasagnas (and had leftover cooked Italian sausage to add to pasta for a quick meal), pot roast, beefy vegetable soup, some vegan mexi mix (it's lentils, barley, onions, garlic, chili powder, cumin and dried red peppers) for tacos, burritos or bun tacos (tacos on a bun), and a pan of oven-roasted chicken pieces. Our freezer is full to the gills!

Big batch cooking doesn't have to mean an exhausting day in the kitchen, though. You don't really need any specific recipes. Just think through what you and your family like to eat, and make more than the usual amount. So, big batch cooking for a young couple might mean preparing enough lasagna for 8 servings. that would provide dinner on the first night, plus leftovers tucked in the freezer for 3 more nights. Or batch cooking may mean making a huge pot of soup for a family or singles, with leftovers for a couple of following nights.

I know many of you already batch cook. Shara from Mama's Mission is cooking once to eat twice. Belinda from Frugal Workshop batch-cooked individual pizzas about a week ago. Carol from CT on a Budget cooks for the freezer on a regular basis. And, Sarah at Everyday Life on a Shoestring blogged about inadvertently batch-cooking cucumber sandwiches (a humorous look at how too many sandwiches come in handy with a hungry family). Batch cooking comes in many shapes and sizes. But the end result is the same. Cooking extra gives the home cook a much needed break from the daily grind of meal preparation.

I only big batch cook a few times a year. Once just before school starts up in the fall. Once just before the holidays, so I can have more free time to enjoy Christmas festivities. Again, in mid-March, just before the rush of tax preparation and spring birthdays. And maybe one other time during the year, if I'm feeling like I need a break from daily dinner prep. Otherwise my batch cooking looks more like a double recipe here, triple that there, cooking just a bit extra so there are planned-overs.

A few pointers to big batch cooking frugally
  • as I see things on sale or marked down throughout the month, I buy and freeze, as needed. The beef for the soup and pot roast were loss leaders items at Safeway a couple of weeks ago. The chicken Italian sausage was marked down to clear. The chicken pieces were both loss leaders and marked down (I bought one fam pack of legs and one fam pack of breasts). I had several other chicken pieces that I bagged up raw, and froze in meal-size portions.
  • I have a plan for first aid. I know what to do if I get a burn or cut, and keep bandaids and antibacterial ointment handy. Accidents happen. My knife slipped this time and I cut my finger. But I knew what to do. I turned off the stove, took care of the cut, and got back to cooking in a reasonable time. I do wish I'd had sanitary gloves to put on after treating the cut, as I still had meat to dice, and wouldn't want to introduce bacteria into the cut. So that would be an extra suggestion -- have food service gloves handy.
  • I use big batch cooking as an opportunity to use up odd bits in the pantry. As I was making the mexi mix, I remembered a dried chili pepper I had in the pantry, from a batch of enchiladas a while back. I soaked this and scraped the flesh to add to the mix. Used something up and gave extra flavor to the mix. I also like to use up dried spices that have been hanging around a while. For a rub for the chicken pieces, I used the traditional poultry seasonings of sage, marjoram, salt and pepper, but also added a bit of coriander, just to make it interesting, and use up some of the coriander. The beefy vegetable soup was a great dish to add all sorts of leftovers needing to be finished off, from pasta sauce, and barley to cooked garbanzo beans and lentils.
  • I cook the protein foods first. Once those are done I can assemble casseroles, stews, soups and fillings.
  • I use every cooking device I have. I admit, I have a great kitchen for batch cooking, with a 6-burner stove and 2 ovens. But for many years I had just a toaster oven and 4 burner stove (no main oven), and still batch cooked. If you have a crockpot, oven and stove top, you can have several dishes cooking at any one time.
  • I take a break mid way. I get quite tired after about 2 hours. This morning, I really needed that lunch break.
  • I allow cooked foods to cool at room temp for 30 minutes, then get into the freezer.
So, that was my day. I'm tired, but glad to have that done. And dinner for tonight is all taken care, so there's a bonus! And tomorrow is my day off. We're going to poke around in the shops in the vintage district we like so much. And treat ourselves to $1 ice cream cones at the general store. This has become a favorite leisure activity for the girls in our house!

Back to the cooking thing . . .do you have any favorite recipes that you like to double up on? I'm also wondering, how do the kitchen staffs, in fine restaurants, make it through an 8-hour shift?

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Grocery shopping at restaurant and institutional supply

I've mentioned before that I shop at a restaurant supply for many of our items. I thought you might like a better picture of what shopping at my local cash and carry looks like.

not a lot of parking slots, maybe 30 in total
The name of this particular chain is United Cash and Carry. There are others around the country, one other I know is Smart and Final. They specialize in large, institutional-size packaging. Imagine if you ran food service in a cafeteria, or you were planning a picnic for 200 people at your church, or you had a small bakery. This is the sort of place you'd shop.

this is what you get for a cart --
but actually, when you're maneuvering 50 pound sacks,
a flat bed is about the right cart for the job
And just so you know (so you don't look like the total dolt that I did as a first-timer), flatbed carts pull, and don't push (at least not in a straight line).

Most of the people I see shopping here have their carts loaded up with things like 40 pound boxes of chicken, a case of cabbage, 250 burger buns, 50 pound sacks of grains, etc. It's clear that they are shopping for some sort of business, or a very large gathering.

There are always a few carts like mine, maybe with a couple of 50 pound sacks of grains, or a case of butter. But there are telltale signs that I'm just shopping for a family -- like the 10 bananas, or single (normal-size) container of salt, or just a 2-gallon box of milk.

You can buy many items in packaging more consistent with traditional grocery stores, like a 1 gallon jug of oil.


Or, you can buy the econo-box of oil -- 35 pounds, or 4.375 gallons, for a savings of about $1 per gallon. Three years ago I did buy the 35 lb. box of oil. This was during another price spike in oil prices. I saved about $10 over buying the same amount of oil in a gallon jug. The only downside was dispensing the oil. I had to decant from the 35 lb box into a 1 gallon jug, to make it usable in a home kitchen.


Oats and cornmeal come in 25 lb. sacks. We eat a lot of granola, hot oatmeal cereal, and oatmeal cookies. A 25 pound sack lasts us(a family of 5) about 4 months.


There's no unit pricing in a wholesaler such as this one. You need to be sharp in math, or bring a calculator. I bring two calculators, my teen daughters, who need to keep their math minds sharp at all times! That $12.28, on the shelf edge, is the price for 25 pounds of cornmeal. That works out to about 49 cents per pound.


I buy white sugar in 50 pound sacks. Sugar prices have come down just a bit in the last 4 months. A 50 lb sack of sugar was about $26 the other day, down from a high of $28.50 last May. I no longer buy brown sugar in 50 lb. sacks. I found my family was "snacking" on brown sugar, and wanted to cut that habit short. Instead, for brown sugar, I buy molasses in a 1 gallon jug and mix my brown sugar as I need it.


I buy both whole wheat and white flour in 50 pound sacks, as well. I bake a lot. I can go through a 50 pounder in about 3 - 4 months. I paid $16.48 for a 50 lb sack of whole wheat flour in June. That was a sale price. Yes, they do have sales at our cash and carry. The price on flour worked out to about 33 cents per pound. Interesting to note, some of the white flour labeled for institutional or hotel use is unsifted. It is not as lumpy as white flour once was, but it still needs a bit of whisking in the bin to fluff it up for accurate measuring.


Frozen vegetables come in 5 pound bags. I can often do better price-wise with loss leader sales just before Thanksgiving for frozen vegetables. But when I need frozen veg, and they're not on sale, it's nice to know they are here at a price I can count on -- roughly 85 cents per pound.



"Oats, peas, beans and barley grow, oats peas, beans and barley grow. . ."
I can't help but sing that song every time I go down this aisle. Dried whole grains, like brown rice and barley, and legumes are sold in 25 and 50 pound sacks. I buy pintos, split peas, lentils and garbanzos this way. Legumes keep well for at least a year. I have heard of other folks having a hard time getting old beans to soften in cooking, but I've never had that problem. Perhaps buying from a wholesaler I get "fresher" beans, I don't know.


Canned tomato products are a deal here. Canned tomatoes can be frozen. So when I open a can for a batch of chili, I package the rest into meal-sized containers and freeze. I also tend to big batch cook, so when I make spaghetti sauce, I  MAKE  SPAGHETTI  SAUCE. I use an entire big can (about 105 oz.) of tomato paste, for a big batch of sauce.


You can buy peanut butter by the tub . . . (35 pounds)


or by the more convenient 4 to 5 pound jar/can. But if you don't need peanut butter right now, wait about 2 months to see what prices do. This year's peanut crop looks very good, and prices should come back down to a not so crazy level this fall. Seriously, we were in Albertson's this morning and peanut butter, a 16 oz. jar, was selling for almost $5. Now that is crazy!


The dairy walk-in is not such a deal, with the exception of butter and margarine. Butter, in a 30 lb. case, sells for about $1.85 lb., and margarine, also in a 30 lb case, sells for about 85 cents lb. I will say, in fall, with all the baking sales at a regular grocery store, I find margarine for less. But the rest of the year, I buy butter and margarine by the case. Both freeze well, and will stay fresh tasting for 6-8 months if frozen.

Why would I shop here? Well, overall it's cheaper on the staples that I use in large quantities. They save by not having the fancy displays or ambiance. There are no shopping bags. They do have some boxes that you can help yourself to, if you want. They will get something down from a shelf, if needed, and offer regularly to help me out to my car (and I see them doing this for other customers, so I know they're happy to help). The line can get long. There's no "Three's a crowd" policy here. If you hit the store at just the wrong time, there could be 6 - 8 carts ahead of you. But most of the time, my wait is short. There's no coffee bar to get a quick fix of caffeine. Very rarely are there any samples offered. It looks like a warehouse inside.

And because of all this, they save on their overhead, and pass that savings on to me, the customer.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Our frugal lunchbox: sandwiches



We all know that brown bagging lunch can save money. In high school, a cafeteria lunch would cost my daughters $3.75 per meal. For 180 school days, that would come to $675 per daughter or $1350 for 1 year, for the two of them to buy their lunches. Our homemade lunches (consisting of a sandwich, piece of fruit, homemade cookies, water or lemonade) cost about 40-55 cents per lunch, or $72-99 for 180 lunches, or $144-198 for a year's school lunches. Brown bagging school lunches saves us well over $1000 a year.

For sandwiches, we do the traditional pbj. But we also have a couple of other frugal favorites -- homemade sunflower seed butter and jelly, homemade yogurt cheese and dried cranberries, and a veggie sandwich, featuring garbanzo bean spread on whole wheat bread. All of these sandwiches can be made the afternoon before, kept in the fridge overnight, and can remain outside the refrigerator for a few hours, the day they're eaten, with no ill-effects.



Here's my recipe for garbanzo bean spread, if you'd like to give it a try.

Garbanzo Bean Spread (yields just over 2 cups of spread, at a cost of about $1.25-$1.40)
2 (30 mL) tablespoons oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2  - 3/4 green pepper, chopped
1/2 cup (120 mL)  pasta/pizza sauce
1/2 teaspoon (2.5 mL)  dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon (1.25 mL)  black pepper
dash red pepper flakes
2  1/2 cups (about 410 g)  cooked garbanzo beans
1 tablespoon (15 mL)  minced basil, fresh
1/2 - 1 (2.5 to 5 mL)  teaspoon salt

Add oil to skillet, saute onion, garlic and green pepper, until translucent. Add pasta/pizza sauce, herbs and peppers, but not salt or basil. Simmer for 8-10 minutes. Puree garbanzo beans in a food processor. Add vegetable and tomato sauce mixture, puree. Add basil, and salt, according to taste, and pulse food processor to blend.



For sandwiches, we like to spread whole wheat bread with a bit of butter or margarine, then top with garbanzo spread, lettuce, thin sliced onions, tomatoes and/or pickles slices. This also makes a great filling for pocket bread.

Do you brown bag it to lunch? Does your family have a favorite sandwich filling?

For more on what to put into a frugal lunchbox, see The frugal lunchbox:alternative to potato chips and for a recipe for lunchbox cookies here's a freezer recipe that gives you 4 kinds from 1 dough.

If you'd like to sew a lunch tote, give this article a read

Monday, August 27, 2012

Lunch bags on the cheap -- Martha Stewart, I'm not

Julia's new lunch tote
There are some things that I just don't feel warrant my extra dollars. Lunch bags fit that category. So, in case you don't know, I homeschooled all my 3 kids through the 8th grade. They went on to traditional high school (and my son went on to university, commuting from home). I have only packed school lunches for high school and university.

My son used brown paper bags, which we lined with a plastic bread bag, to keep the paper bag in decent enough shape to last a week at a time. They were pretty beat up by week's end. But the plastic did prevent leaky containers from wetting the paper, and then causing tears.

When my son moved on to university, I packed his lunches in plastic grocery bags. Those worked fine. He now is employed and has a snazzy fabric lunch bag, good enough that it'll probably last him several years.

My two daughters began high school with brown paper bags. We went through a couple of packages of bags per year for freshman and sophomore years, trying to make each bag last for a few days. We supplemented the brown paper bags with our astounding stash of fast food bags, which had accumulated over the course of 13 years of the occasional MickeyD's meal. (Back in the 90s, McDonalds had a 29 cent hamburger on Wednesdays. I think I took the kids there a couple of Wednesdays per month. Just the burgers. Brought them home and had milk to drink and a side of peas. For the first few years of my kids' lives they all thought everyone had peas with burgers.)

For my daughters' junior year, we thought we'd do away with the brown paper bags and use reusable bags instead. Dollar Tree had some that looked okay, so we bought 2. 'Round about March they began to tear. I kept them held together with duct tape for the last couple of months of the year. Disappointed, but not at all surprised.

Here we are, senior year in high school. Still wanting lunch bags on the cheap, I decided to sew bags, using fabric scraps and trims I already had. The basic idea is quite simple. I'm making sling-style back packs for lunch totes. I've let the girls choose their own fabric and trim, and how they want it used. They have very particular ideas.

One daughter has a very favorite old skirt, that she wore for many, many years. She wanted her lunch tote made from it, with a patch pocket from a dress her Grandma made for her. She wanted the ruffly skirt to be left ruffly looking. That was a challenge. I wound up affixing a block of the ruffly skirt onto a rectangle of muslin, to stabilize the pieces. This worked, thankfully. For a cord drawstring I braided some ribbon that we already had. I think I'll keep my eyes open for some better sort of cord, as I don't see how this ribbon could be durable enough to last the full year.


If a sling-style backpack suits you or someone you know. Here's how I made mine. I patterned it off of another sling backpack my daughter had. I made the blocks of fabric about 10 by 14 inches, on the first one, but will do the second one slightly larger, 11 by 15 inches. I think this will be a better size for what we need.

I cut the blocks out and stabilizing the skirt pieces on blocks of muslin, by stitching all around the edges, and through all layers lengthwise in two places.


I made the casing for the top on both pieces, turning the edge of the side seam under at the top, before turning the casing under (for a neater edge when finished).


With the casing in place, I pinned a small folded-over piece of strapping/webbing in the lower corners, which will be the end piece where my cording is secured. Then I pinned and sewed the two blocks together, right sides facing each other, sewing as close as my machine could to the casing. This left about an inch from the casing, unsewn. I could have stitched this closed by pinching the seam, and machine stitching very close to the edge. But it was just as easy to hand sew this unsewn 1-inch at the top of the sides.


Lastly, I ran cording through the casing, in such a way, that the cord makes a loop around the top edge of the bag through the casing. One cord runs across, through the casing to the other side, then back to it's original side through the other side's casing. This is repeated with the cord from the opposite side of the bag. By having this full loop through the casing, when you pull on the ends of the cords, the drawstring pulls tightly closed. The ends of the cords are then threaded down through the strapping loop, and tied in a large knot.

So far, barring any purchases of replacement cords, etc. these lunch totes are absolutely free. I keep reminding myself of that when I remember the frustrating afternoon I spent making them. I'm not the Martha Stewart type, where as I finish a project, I stand back and admire my handi-work. No, I see all the faults with my work, think about how difficult it was, and generally feel badly about both my work and my abilities. It's only after several hours, and realizing that my kids (for whom I'm most often creating things) love whatever I make, and don't see the faults that I do, that I begin to think, "okay, so that turned out good enough". And I think I'm more the norm than Martha Stewart where these things are concerned.

How does creative savv save money on plastic sandwich bags? Read here to find out

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Cleaning my paintbrush -- doesn't get more exciting than that

What does this. . .

virgin toilet brush, BTW, never seen the inside of a you-know-what


have to do with this. . .


this is after a soap and water clean-up.
the brush still has a lot of dried on latex paint

I don't know if this is the best way to clean dried latex paint from a paint brush, but it is the way a contractor, that we once hired to do some painting, cleaned his. So it's the way I clean ours. There are solvents out their to remove latex paint, but I prefer not to use them.

After a soap and water washing of the paint brush in the sink, I fill a large 1 quart container with soapy water. Outside, I scrub the paintbrush with the toilet brush. A clean grill brush would also work, but toilet brushes can be had for $1 at Dollar Tree.

after scrubbing with a stiff brush for about 8 minutes

About half the dried-on paint will come off with about 5-10 minutes of scrubbing with a stiff brush. That's when I get out my pocket knife. I use the large blade on the knife to scrape off the majority of the remaining paint. I only spend about another 5 minutes, with the scraping. And I'm done. I would say about 99% of the paint can be removed with these two tools.

I use the large blade on the knife and scrape for about 3 minutes,
flip the brush over and scrape for another 3 minutes

As you can see, I don't worry about paint on the handle part of the brush or on the metal sleeve that holds the bristles in place.

clean and ready to put away till the next painting job

And, I can check off painting the garden chair, from my August to-do list! Woohoo! No more painting for a while for me -- painting's definitely not my favorite thing!






Saturday, August 25, 2012

Using leftover pickle juice

What can you do with pickle juice and leftover pickle brine?


I know it's about pickling time of year when I have a fridge full of jars with just the pickle juice, no pickles, just the juice.  This is how I've been using them.

Just a note, and an important one at that, all of the following pickle recipes are for refrigerator pickles only. They can not be canned. Reused pickle juice products should be consumed within a week of making.

Sweet pickle juice

  • Mix half and half with vinegar, then add oil, for salad dressing for tossed salads.
  • Mix with mayonnaise for cole slaw dressing.
  • For refrigerator pickles (not canned), slice a raw cucumber, halve raw mushrooms, thin slice raw onions, thin slice blanched carrots, add blanched whole green beans, or cut into florets, blanched cauliflower, then add to pickle juice and refrigerate for 24 hours. Instant pickles. But only keep for 5-7 days, so eat right away.
  • Pickled eggs -- drop whole, peeled hard boiled eggs into pickle juice. Marinate overnight in fridge. Especially nice with beet pickle juice, then slice to lay over a salad bowl.
  • To marinate cooked, cubed potatoes overnight, before adding to remaining ingredients for potato salad.
  • To marinate cooked pasta overnight before adding to remaining ingredients for a pasta or macaroni salad.
  • Add to mayo, sour cream, a bit of chopped pickle when making tartar sauce.
  • Use as a marinade for meat.
  • Use as part of the liquid when making gravy.
  • Use as part of the liquid when making home cooked baked beans.
  • Use a spoonful in tuna or egg salad for added flavor.
  • "Pickle" cubes of cheese.


Dill pickle juice

  • Heat in a stainless saucepan and simmer until reduced 50%. Then use half and half with white vinegar to make an oil and vinegar salad dressing.
  • Heat in a saucepan just until boiling. Pour over cored, quartered green tomatoes, in a clean jar. Refrigerate for 3 days. Eat within a couple of days after the 3 day period. 
  • Slice a cucumber and add to pickle brine. Allow to stand refrigerated for 24 hours for "new" pickles.
  • Use to sprinkle over French fries, instead of vinegar.
  • Use as a marinade for meat.
  • "Pickle" cubes of cheese.
  • Blend with softened cream cheese or yogurt cheese for a dip. Add a bit of chopped fresh dill.
  • Make beef or turkey goulash. Brown beef or turkey in oil, add onion, garlic, carrot, paprika, pepper. Add stock and tomato sauce or canned tomatoes, bring to a boil. Add cubed potato, chopped dill pickle, several tablespoons of pickle juice and simmer until meat and potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes. Season with salt as desired. Serve over egg noodles, or as soup (depending on how much stock you used).
There are also recipes online for Polish pickle soup and a pickle bread. I have yet to try either of those but they do sound interesting. Do you reuse pickle juice? If so, what have been your favorite ways to savor every last pickle-y drop?


Friday, August 24, 2012

Why my water bill was so high this last month

This last week we received our water bill, which covers the last 2 months. My first reaction was "Whoa! What happened?!" Our bill was about $40 more than I had expected. My first thought was, "do we have an underground leak somewhere?" That's a scary thought, because that would mean we'd have to have some of the property torn up, likely at our expense, and a pipe repaired. It's not totally out of the realm of possibility. Our home is 35 years old. Things do go wrong.

Next thoughts, "who's been taking the super long showers?" and "are we just running more laundry loads now the kids are bigger?" But the jump in water usage happened in just one billing cycle, so that's likely not the cause.

So, I went online and googled "water bill high". Enlightening, to say the least, and memory jogging. We actually did use all the water they said we did, and here's how.

One of the questions they ask is "did you have a house guest during this billing cycle?" Answer -- yes, my father-in-law, for one week. On average, an individual uses between 40 and 80 gallons of water a day. It isn't that they're taking super long showers. But just the additional laundry, extra water used in cooking and consumption, the dishes to be washed, toilet and sink use, combined with showers/bathing. It all adds up.

Now, I do not, for one second, regret having my father-in-law stay with us that week. And actually, with all of our water usage this summer, even the excess, I do not regret a drop. This post is merely to explain how much water can be used.

Next question, "did you fill a swimming pool?" Uh, guilty! We have a pop up swimming pool, about 15 feet in diameter and 3 feet deep. Yes, it uses a lot of water to fill it, compounded by a leak that occurred and we had to top off the water a second time. Your typical hose, (1/2 inch diameter) delivers about 600 gallons of water per 24 hour day. We had our hose running for about 24 hours, maybe a bit more, due to the leak for which we had to refill the top few inches of our pool. But the pool has been used a lot, and added to our enjoyment of the summer.

"Did you run a pressure washer?" Ooops, well. . .um. . .yes. Remember the driveway refinishing project of last month? Before it could be caulked, patched and resealed, it had to be cleaned. The pressure washer ran for about 9 hours that day. Our driveway had years, and years of moss built up on it. A pressure washer uses about 4 gallons of water per minute. Multiply that by 9 hours, and washing our driveway used 2160 gallons of water!!! Oh, wow! I had no idea it would use that much water!

So, our water consumption, when compared to this same time last year, was about 3000 gallons more for same period this year, according to our bill. However, the pressure washing, the pool filling (no pool last year, too cold), and having a guest should have added 3180 gallons. In actuality, we did better in our water use, this year over last, if you factor out the water used for the driveway, pool and guest. So, I think I'm supposed to not feel so badly about the high bill. Sort of, well maybe. I guess I'm just bummed that I didn't plan ahead for this higher bill. I'd at least have been more prepared mentally for that shocker of a bill.


There are other causes for higher than usual water consumption, for your reference, should you get a surprise of a bill some month.  Consider this:


  • Running a lawn sprinkler for just 1 hour will use 400 gallons of water.
  • If you have an automatic irrigation system, a leaky pipe underground can use up to 6300 extra gallons per month.
  • A running toilet (one whose little flap in the tank fails to shut properly) will use an extra 1 gallon of water every minute, or 1440 gallons per day. Or if there something wrong with the shut-off valve or the  float is set too high, and water continues to fill the tank and then pour into the overflow tube, 7000-8000 gallons of water can be poured right down the drain.
  • Faucets and shower heads that drip can use 1000s of gallons per year, just in those little drips!
Eye-opening, yes?

Information on water consumption from the city of Kirkland, WA, Dept. of Public Works

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Sometimes, doing something really dull pays off in $$$

My husband has been pestering me to do my online health assessment with our medical insurance. This just sounds so, so dull, so time-consuming, and you know how these online things are, sometimes the page loads fine, other times everything freezes up, and you have to start all over. So, I've been dragging my heels on this one. I've got loads of other more interesting projects on my list that'll save us some money. But this one would save us quite a chunk on our annual insurance costs.

After procrastinating for many weeks, this morning, I procrastinated a bit more -- did some painting, got a haircut, cleaned up the kitchen, had an extra cup of coffee -- yep, I was procrastinating big time! Then, finally, I grabbed a handful of crackers (my bribe) and sat down with the computer and went online.

Things I'd rather do than this health assessment


take a walk on the beach, well, duh, who wouldn't rather do that?

play in the garden and dance with the flower fairies

pick fruit,  any kind of fruit

bake cookies

do a jig saw with my kids

even paint the chair that goes with the garden bench

Okay, so I've got the computer in front of me. It took me almost 15 minutes to even get to the health points section, as it had been so long, I could not, for the life of me, remember my user id or my password. I got locked out at one point, due to too many attempts to log in. About to give up and move on to something else, I told myself I'd stick with it for another 5 minutes. And, yes! I finally got myself unlocked, and logged in.

This kind of boring work is difficult for me to do. I'm not terribly self-disciplined. If I can't find some fun in a task, it's very hard to propel myself forward. So, I grabbed another handful of crackers (more bribe), and thought about what we could do with the $500 we'd save by my doing my half of the health points deal. Our marriage is a joint partnership, after all. And I'd be peeved to no end, if my husband would not help me to save some money. So, that thought helped to motivate me. And I kept thinking about fun stuff $500 would buy. Extra fun on our vacation this winter, dinners out, spending sprees of all kinds. Yes, I bribe myself with the thought of pleasures to come, to get myself to do dull work.

And all this bribing (in my mind, as well as with those crackers) worked. I filled out the online forms. It took about an hour (slow loading pages online are frustrating aren't they?). But my part will have helped us to save a lot of money on our insurance. I will still have to go back and add info over the course of the next month, but I've committed myself to doing this now.

This sort of task can be difficult to motivate oneself towards. How about you? Is there something you've done lately, that you really didn't want to do, but you knew it would save you some money, and you just made yourself do it anyways?

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Kids learning to cook

One of the best things I ever did for myself was to teach my kids how to cook. One of the best things I ever did for each of my kids, was allow them to learn how to cook.

my daughters wanted fry bread one day,
we all benefited 

By learning how to cook, my kids have been able to contribute to the general welfare of our family. When my twins were born, my son was 7 years old. For the first few months, my son and I survived on his cooking during the day. That probably sounds unbelievable to many folks nowadays. A seven year old doing the cooking every day. From 6 AM to 6 PM, I had my hands full with 2 colicky newborns, for the first 3 months of my girls' lives. Chris, my son, cooked pancakes, scrambled eggs, frozen veggies and kept our glasses full of juice.

When Chris was five years old, he was like most kids, eager to make stuff. I just carried this over into cooking. He loved standing on a chair at the stove making pancakes. I would mix up the batter, then let him do the rest. He soon progressed to scrambled eggs. He loved cracking the eggs into a bowl. So what if a few shell pieces got into the eggs. We'd just fish them out and all was fine. By the time he was  seven, he was following recipes that I clearly and simply printed onto recipe cards just for him. By age 8, Chris had a repertoire of chocolate chip cookies, hot fudge pudding cake, and lentil-vegetable soup to add to the pancakes and scrambled eggs. He was proud to contribute his efforts to sustaining our family.

My two daughters, Julia and Grace, also started with pancakes, standing on chairs at the stove with the bowl of batter I mixed for them. By age 7, I pretty much stayed out of the kitchen on Saturday mornings, after I'd mixed the batter. So long as the house didn't catch fire, we were good. I think it would've frustrated me to actually watch them, as they so carefully made all the pancakes doll-sized. I kid you not, all our pancakes were the size of dimes. And this took them up to 2 hours on Saturday mornings to make the family breakfast.

When they were about 9 or 10, they were allowed to mix up the batter themselves. They had many, many mishaps with the measuring, mixing and general remembering to add ingredients. One week, all the pancakes had to be scraped out of the skillet, as they'd forgotten to grease the pan first. Other weeks, large clumps of flour riddled the pancakes. And they often forgot to add something. But we all sat at the table, with smiles on our faces, as we ate those pancakes. Maple syrup has a unique quality, in that it can turn the most inedible food item into something very close to palatable. And, as with my son, preparing food for the family gave my daughters a great sense of satisfaction and pride. 

Allowing my kids to make mistakes along the way has been critical to their learning. They learned how to fix something after a goof, as well as now have that mental reminder of what not to forget or do for future reference in the kitchen. Once you've forgotten to butter the skillet for pancakes, you never forget again.

On Tuesday afternoons, I feel like a queen. This summer, Tuesday has been my daughters' day to cook dinner. I have the long hours of the afternoon stretched out before me, to do as I please. 


My two daughters are 17 years old now, so I just give them free reign to prepare what they want. They will run their menu by me, mostly to make sure we have what they need, and to prevent them from using an ingredient that I have planned for something else. Otherwise, they understand basic nutrition. They know they need to include a carb, some protein and a couple of servings of fruits and/or vegetables.

Last night's dinner consisted of sausage and vegetables in pasta sauce over spaghetti, apple-rhubarb sauce, and cole slaw. They also made Ritz-style crackers in the afternoon, just because they wanted to.

I have no doubt that all my kids will be able to cook for themselves when they're on their own. They won't be part of the generation that eats cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner, because they can't cook anything else.

These last couple of generations of kids, are the first in the history of man, to not have daily food preparation responsibilities. We are becoming such a specialized society, that we are failing to teach our children basic self-care skills, like cooking, basic carpentry, basic sewing and mending, and growing or raising food. While it's true, we can procure any of these services in such a specialized society, there are some very good reasons to learn to do these things ourselves.

homemade Ritz cracker, anyone?

My kids have an advantage in learning to cook that I didn't have. They have the internet. There's a recipe online for just about anything one could want to make. I was limited to what my mom knew, or what was in her cookbooks. Not so, today. My kids wanted some Ritz crackers, so they made a batch. Julia and Grace want to make Hostess cupcakes next. I told them "sure, when we've gone through some of the treats in the house". The only drawback we have here, is too much food, ready to eat at all times. Oh, the life of a queen is a tough one.

In addition to teaching our children how to do things for themselves, there's a side lesson in all this. We adults could learn from kids' enthusiasm and lack of intimidation, when it comes to cooking new things. Kids see something. . .they want to try it. They don't think, "oh I could never make that" or "that looks too complicated". They see, then they try. And they tend to laugh off their little kitchen goofs. It's just all part of life to them.



Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Frugal haircuts

Do you stealthily make your way down back alleys, ducking into that dark doorway, in the name of getting a frugal do?

I am opening up a very controversial topic here. There will be some in the camp of "don't do it, or you'll regret it for at least 6 weeks of your life", and others who will be of the position, "sure, give it a go, save a few bucks, what could the harm be in trying?"

My two daughters have long hair that just needs a trim from time to time. I can do that, and am now considering letting them trim each other's. (They should learn the skill at some point.) My husband and son have short layered-type men's haircuts. We have one of those razor trimmers with comb attachments, that works well on men's hair. Up until my son became an adult, I did his hair with that thing. Not too bad, but definitely looked home done (I've never quite gotten the hang of it).

For my hair, I must confess, I've trimmed my own on numerous occasions. *gasp* And it doesn't turn out all that badly, either. I also do the cheap haircut every couple of months when I can find a deal. I don't think I've paid more than $15 for a haircut in the last 25 years. And I've gotten cuts recently for as low as $7.99.

I wait for places like Hair Masters and Great Clips to offer coupons. Currently, Great Clips has a coupon for $9.99 for adults, and $7.99 for kids. I just found it in the weekly ad circular this last week. It's good till mid-September.

I went online and found that many Great Clips around the country are also offering this deal right now. Some coupons are available through retailmenot.com (a coupon site fairly reputable for having valid coupons). If a Great Clips haircut would interest you, you might try googling "Great Clips", "coupon" and the name of the town nearest you, where they have a shop.

I understand, some hair just seems to require special handling, and you might have a particular stylist who can manage your hair type.

But for those who have found ways to reduce the cost of hair maintenance, could you share? Have you tried a cosmetology school? Do you have a friend or family member trim up the edges? How do you feel about the cheap places? Do you feel your haircut looks cheap afterwards? Any tips on getting a good haircut from these places? I'll be going in to Great Clips (coupon in hand) later this week. I hope I get the guy who did it several months ago. I don't know his name, but he did a good job.

Monday, August 20, 2012

A thought, a question, and something easy to make

Do you enjoy the writings of Emerson? I've been pondering a famous quote of his this past week.

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." 

I had occasion to do something for someone else, only to be the recipient of a greater reward than the effort that I laid out. It just reminded me of this quote, and I thought I'd share it with you. That's my thought.

My question: my two daughters need long-sleeved plain white t-shirts for something they're doing this next week at church. the rest of the costuming (a skirt and a colorful collar) will be provided. Not wanting to go out and buy new shirts for them for just this one occasion, I'm trying to brighten 2 shirts of my own, and will take them in in the sides and hem the sleeves to give them a fresh look. I feel they look a bit dingy. I did a bleach and water soak a week ago. They look a bit better, but still I'm wondering if there isn't a better product for brightening whites. Have you had any success brightening a white cotton item that has grayed over time? I know, if I just can't get them white enough, we'll just go out and buy new shirts, with the idea that we can dye them colors that they'd rather have, afterward. I welcome suggestions.

And now, the easy to make thing.

"Herb Vinegar Sampler

Variety is the spice of life! Four of our best selling herb vinegars each in smaller handier size bottles. Recipes and pour spouts included. Shipped in an attractive gift box. (375ml)
Our price: $36.00"  from Sottovoce.com

Did I get your attention? $36.00 for 4 small bottles of herb vinegar. When I saw this I just said to myself,  "humph, $9 each bottle, for something so easy to make, humph". Well, I'm sure someone is out there, right now, ordering a package of these. Good for them. They're keeping that company afloat and some lucky soul employed. But for the rest of us, I say, how would you like to spend 5-7 minutes, and save yourselves $35 (figure $1 for the cost of the vinegar, assuming you have some herbs or know someone with herbs).


We've just this week polished off the rosemary vinegar from last summer. I've washed the bottle and it's time to make this next batch of herb vinegar.  Last summer I just did rosemary vinegar. This year I'm making rosemary and thyme vinegar.

If you want to give it a try, here's what you need:

this is all it takes
glass bottle and cork or cap (pictured is my "nice" bottle, purchased a few years ago from World Market, but I also use a cooking wine bottle, about 10 oz capacity, label soaked off for berry vinegar. Also, any empty bottle, such as a wine bottle with cork, would look nice and work fine.) -- must be washed in hot, soapy water, rinsed very well, and totally dry inside

wooden chop sticks, coffee stir stick, or wooden skewer (for poking the herbs down into the bottle; don't use anything metal that will come in contact with vinegar)

plastic funnel, for pouring in vinegar

fresh stems of herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, tarragon, dill), rinsed and patted dry on a clean cloth or paper towel -- must be totally dry

white distilled vinegar, 5% acidity


So, now I'm ready, here's how I make my vinegar. I washed my bottle with hot soapy water, rinsed and allowed to dry completely. I picked my herbs, rinsed and patted dry.

the bundle of herbs was so fat
they just barely fit through the neck
I bundled all my herbs together, and poked them through the neck of the bottle using the wooden skewer to get through the narrow neck. I like a flavorful herb vinegar, so I used many stems of herbs.

Using a plastic funnel, I poured in white vinegar, until about 1/2 inch from the top. I sealed with the cap and left in a cool, dark place (in a corner on the counter, away from the cook top). 

It takes about two months for the flavors of the herbs to infuse the vinegar, and will keep for about a year. I have heard that you should keep the herb stems submerged beneath the level of the vinegar at all times, refilling with vinegar as needed. It seemed to me that this would eventually dilute the flavor of the vinegar. So I opted to decant the vinegar into another container, straining out the herb stems, as the vinegar level became low enough that the herbs would no longer be beneath the level of the vinegar.

In addition to this rosemary-thyme herb vinegar, I'll be making chive blossom vinegar. A few weeks ago, I cut back the chives rather severely, and now they're sporting new blossoms for me. Chive blossom vinegar is new to me. Input is appreciated. I'll let you know how it goes. I still need to find a bottle for it. Plus, I have a bottle of berry vinegar, that I store in the fridge. I like the berry vinegar for a slightly sweet dressing on spinach salads.

ta-da!  the finished product
To make a salad dressing with herbed vinegar, simply combine vinegar, oil and a pinch of salt, if desired.

You could use other vinegars for your base, wine vinegar, champagne vinegar, apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar. But I'm cheap -- white distilled vinegar works just fine for me. (And frankly, with all the herbs tucked into the bottle, the subtle flavors of the more expensive vinegars would be overshadowed.)

Some people use garlic in their vinegar. I prefer not to. I err on the side of caution when canning and making food items. I remember stories in the news about homemade garlic oil and botulism. Now, some argue that the vinegar will inhibit the growth of botulism, but I prefer not to even try this. I can always add garlic to a batch of salad dressing as I'm preparing it.



Sunday, August 19, 2012

Painting the garden bench

by Lili Mounce

This has been one of those projects that I put off, and put off, and put off. But what really got me to do it, was to put this job on my public August to-do list. There's a certain sense of accountability when you broadcast to anyone who will listen, or in this case "read", that you intend to do something. It's like joining Weight Watchers. You know there are others, who will be there, to see if you stick to your resolve or not. Well, I can say this worked for me. My garden bench is painted!!!


I really did not enjoy this job at all. It was most definitely work. I still need to paint the two matching chairs (but only one to do this month, as Mr Hubs still has to repair the other). I learned quite a bit from this job that will help me with the other two chairs.


  1. Clean the surface very well first, with soap and water, plus a scratch-less kitchen scrubby, such as a bundled up onion bag.
  2. Prime all surfaces. Here I made an error in judgement. I only primed the bare wood repairs, and not the previous paint. This bench was a sage green. I thought it would be light enough in color that the white paint would provide good coverage. Not so. I put several coats of paint on this bench, when I could've probably gotten by with 2 coats paint, 1 coat primer. Oh well, I know better for the other two pieces.
  3. Use good quality paint. Here again, an error in judgement. I used what was leftover from another project. It just didn't go on smoothly, or cover well. Finally, today I bought a quart of good paint. And guess what? It was smooooooth as silk going on. And in just one coat, it completed the bench. I'm hoping to really save myself some time and work on the chair next week.


So, the bench is painted. I also learned some things about our weather, how to winter store this sort of piece, and where in the yard it's suitable to have a wood bench.

It's wet here 9 months of the year. This quality (read "not" quality) of wood furniture needs to be under cover for the wet months. I'll pick up a tarp or a proper cover in September. This quality bench should not reside on soil. It had been in the garden itself, sitting on soil. If I want to put it in the garden in the future, it should be on a concrete, stone or brick base. For now, the bench is destined for our deck. And that's why I've chosen to paint it white, to go with the other white furniture on the deck.


I need to admit, this is far from a perfect paint job! There are the odd runs here and there. But they don't matter. I'm not selling the bench, just sitting on it. And any little goofs in the paint job will go unnoticed once I get some cushions on it.

A lot of our house is like that. Not perfect, but no one notices. Striving for perfection would intimidate me from doing the job, as well as take double or triple the amount of time to complete. In my mind, I'd rather be perfect at loving God and my family, than perfect at doing chores. And even there, I'm still not so perfect : )

I think I need a new folder in my Labels, Things I'm Not So Perfect At. So, what do you do not so perfectly?

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