Doubling Up

How do you get twice the organic yogurt for the same price?  By fermenting it yourself.  Stoneyfield is the only organic yogurt option at the store down the street.  Their 32 ounce tub is $ 3.79.  I can buy 64 ounces of Nature's Promise organic milk for $ 3.69.  All I have to do is add some heat, then chill and ferment.  There is how:

You'll need some jars, some yogurt, some milk, a thermometer, a insulated cooler and hot water.

First . . . and this is the tricky part . . . don't finish your yogurt!  You need some to work on the new milk.  I've read you need to start with non-flavored yogurt with live active cultures.  This is important if you have people with food allergies and need to watch what additives are introduced by the flavoring.  When just beginning, I used Vanilla flavored yogurt and it worked just fine.

Second, measure out your milk into a pot.  Pictured are 5 12 ounce jars, so I put the whole half gallon in the pot.  The easiest way to measure the milk is to almost fill the jar[s] that you'll be fermenting in and pour it in the pot and heat the milk to 170 degrees F.

While the milk is heating, put 2 tablespoons of yogurt in each jar.  This is probably more than necessary, but I like to give the little buggers a fighting chance!  If you like sweeter yogurt, now is a good time to squeeze in some honey.  Keep an eye on the pot, it's about to boil over!

Next, let the milk cool.  I set the hot pot inside a bigger pot that has some ice in it.  Keep checking, you want the milk to be between 110 and 105 degrees F or you'll kill those little buggers!

While the milk is cooling put some hot water, not hotter than 120, into your cooler.  Make sure it is in a spot where the cooler will not get moved or jostled about for 6 hours.

Next, divide the 105 degree milk into your jars, stir, close and place in the cooler.  Pour more hot water in to fill to the tops of the jars, close the lid to give those little buggers some privacy while they are munching away on the milk.  After six hours or so you have a nice soft set yogurt.  What? You like the more expensive Greek yogurt?  No problem!  After you've fermented your yogurt you can drain away some of the whey and you'll have your own thicker version of Greek yogurt.

Lastly, mix in some of your homemade raspberry preserves and get ready to hand it over to your little one.  Once my little man sees me mixing fruit in he asks me for 'some' and I get an empty jar back.  Yogurt is also a nice substitute for the higher calorie sour cream on top of your homemade black bean soup!

Homeschooling?

Hubby has been saying for sometime that he values the public school system.  That homeschooling might not be the best choice because it depends on whose home it is done in and there is a concern of a lack socilization.  In the next breath of the conversation he agrees we will probably need to augment the public school's curriculum based on the little man's needs and strengths.

Well today is teacher development day and the little man is home with me.  So I thought I would do a few activities with him along the lines of what he does at preschool.  First we started with cooking, he helped me make our oatmeal and we had breakfast together.  Next we did housekeeping and he helped by putting the utensils away.  Right now he is practicing writing letters on his LeapPad which he was very lucky to get for the holidays.  After a bit, we'll do some crafting and he'll get practice using his scissors as I plan to have him cut some red construction paper to make little gifts for his classmates for an upcoming day in February.  Then try our hand at chemisty as I am planning on having us make some cottage cheese.

Gaining Nuts of Wisdom

One day hubby brought home some Nutella.  I didn't have it before because it is more expensive than peanut butter so I don't buy it.  Well, one morning the little man and I had toast and Nutella spread for breakfast.  Wow! That stuff was great!  It did not stay in the pantry long and Hubby didn't get any.

Finn ate the salmon that ate hazel nut and thus became a great Irish ruler.  I wonder if we take out the middle fish and eat the nut as a spread if we will still receive such wisdom?  Yes, if you eat the homemade version of spread instead of the store bought.  Nutella has 21 grams of sugar in 37 grams of spread!  That's right, almost 1/8th cup of sugar in just 2 tablespoons of spread.

The bag of hazelnuts in shell cost me $3.99 [shelled $4.39]; a 12 oz jar of Nutella also costs $3.99.  While 10 oz of my homemade version has a tablespoon of cocoa it has no sugar.  So, I can't make the hazelnut spread cheaper than the store bought, BUT I'll be saving a lot of calories!

Well, the little man tried my homemade version and SURPRISE . . . he did not like it like the candy version from the store.  I think what I'll do is add some sugar AND each time I make this spread reduce the sugar amount and retrain his, and my, palate.  Oh, and use the spread in my homemade rolls [see the Homemade vs. Pillsbury post].

Now if I want to save a lot of money on nut spreads, I'd be better off making almond spread!  $3.99 for a 12 oz bag of shelled nuts vs. $11.79 for 16 oz of spread!

Dirty Nuts

So this foraged food falls into the "I could buy it cheaper" category.  I can buy a 16 oz bag of shelled walnuts for $8.49, which is about $2.26 per cup.

I lost track of the of time it took me to crack 2 cups of walnut kernels; much more than other nuts like hazel or acorn.  Also, the ration of meat to shell is not as high as other nuts.  So in regards to time value of money, this is not the best investment of time.

So why proceed with this experiment?  I feel the knowledge gained is as valuable, if not more, than the money I would have spent on store bought English Walnuts.  What happens when the distribution network is disrupted?  It will be very important to know where to get a variety of foods at different times of the year.

The down side:
1) the hulls release a dark liquid when decomposing, staining hands and any other thing it comes in contact withl black.  I've read that it was even used as ink.
2) toddlers do not appreciate the length of time it takes to crack a cup of kernels.  "Can you stop hitting and come play with me?"
3) there is a lot of clean up with processing this nut, unlike the aforementioned hazel and acorn.

Home vs. Pillsbury ~ Let's roll

Sunday's baking was homemade sticky cinnamon rolls.  The review from my foodie snob of a former chief . . . "not bad for a first attempt."

Some things I did not get by baking at home are: "Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oils, Corn Starch, Corn Syrup Solids, Mono and Diglycerides, Cellulose Gum, Potassium Sorbate, Polysorbate 60, Artificial Flavor, Yellow 5, Red 40."

But boy oh boy, I did get some belly bombs! Next attempt I will probably reduce the sugar and butter in the different components.  The topping did not melt and get all sticky because of a pan left on the bottom shelf.  One suggestion from my foodie hubby is to chop the nuts smaller or consider using a nut paste.  I think using a nut paste would reduce the need for some of those tablespoons of butter in the filling!

At first glance the cost comparison is very close, then I compared cost and calorie per ounce, a truer comparison which shows almost 1/2 the cost but 1/3rd more calories than the story bought.  Perhaps next time I'll only bake 16 oz of dough or make mini rolls . . . oh how ideas beget more ideas!

Ingredient	Cost	Calories
Sweet Egg Bread [but only used 2/3rds of the dough]
1.75 Cups Water	$0.00	0
2 tsp Yeast	$0.28	0
2 tsp Salt	$0.01	0
2 eggs	$0.26	94
1/4 cup Honey	$0.43	161
1/4 cup Butter	$0.32	268
3.5 cups Flour	$0.38	938
Topping
6 TBS Butter	$0.72	600
1/2 tsp salt	$0.00	0
1/2 cup Sugar	$0.16	360
Filling
4 TBS Butter	$0.48	400
1/4 cup Sugar	$0.08	180
1 tsp Cinnamon	?	0
1/4 tsp Nutmeg	?	0
1/2 cup Foraged Hickory Nut	$0.00	380
Totals	$3.11	3381
per Home Roll	$0.35	376
per ounce	$0.14	150
per Pillsbury Roll	$0.39	150
per ounce	$0.26	100

Saving the Empties

I am musing over making maple syrup vinegar this spring.  I am still undecided since I've read homemade vinegars may not have a high enough ph to use it in canning.  If I were to make a vinegar, it is recommended to use it as a dressing or marinade.  Reading these opinions does make me wonder how our grandmothers and grandfathers knew the vinegars they made were safe for canning . . .

Either way, I'll be ready as I've been saving empty juice containers for making vinegars or just for water storage for emergency preparedness. 

The other benefit to empty bottles . . . I've started taking a new juice and pouring half into an empty bottle the topping both off with tap water.  Just doubled my inventory and with how sweet these juices are to start with, the diluted versions are okay.

Looking For Sap

It happened about three weeks ago.  After using up some stale homemade bread to make bread pudding, I reached for my last bottle of homemade maple syrup.  I poured out the last bit onto the little man's plate and dug the few teaspoons of maple sugar from the bottom of the bottle for me.  It was all gone.  It was a bittersweet moment. 

I’d have to wait almost two months until the sap flows and we’d be getting our precious gift from the maple again.

In a self-serving move last spring, I gave my neighbor some homemade syrup; in exchange I received permission to tap her grand sugar maple.  She's HOOKED!

So, I’ve ordered more spouts for more taps.  For aesthetic reasons, I want to get a few buckets.  I figure if she is nice enough to let me tap her tree, it can be done a little prettier than hanging a gallon milk jug.  

On a good day, you can get about a gallon of sap from one tap.  Do you know how long it takes to boil sap down to syrup? So I’ll also need to get a holding bin.  Now I am looking longingly out my window at my maple . . . soon, dear friend, soon.

I'm okay getting junk mail!

I've seen calls to 'occupying' our mailboxes by mixing up and sending response cards back to different companies to protest the waste of resources used to market by mail.  But then I think, what are those different company mail-rooms going to do with other companies' junk mail?  Probably just throw it away.  The only thing this call to action does is financially punish a company one stamp at a time.

But I'm okay getting junk mail and unsolicited magazines.  I use these to make paper bricks by combining with cardboard shipping boxes and my neighbor's newspapers to get nearly free combustibles for the fireplace.  The one thing I could do to make the paper bricks really free [after depreciating the cost of the mold] would be to use grey water in the manufacturing process.

When I bought it from Lehmans, they offered a four in one brick maker for $34.  So four times as many bricks in one pressing for only double the price . . . SOLD!

Now the only bad thing I've noted about using these bricks is I can't get a nice hot fire using only paper bricks. So this fall I went and gathered dead fall from the woods and got three truck loads of wood from a Freecycle listing.  Free, well seasoned wood in combination with a few bricks here and there is just the trick!

For some reason hubby was sure I could not safely weld our axe to split the logs and asked me not to, then grumbled about having to rent a log splitter.  So, being the resourceful Scorpio I am, I went and found a foot operated log splitter.  Here is a picture of my Fireplace Friend, there are other manufactures.  For softer woods using this is more frustrating then helpful, but it cracks open a hard wood log very easily!

So when Swiffer came out with their mop I felt the same way as the author Chaya about 'disposable' products, but I'm intrigued by her modifications . . .

How to Eco-Hack Your Swiffer Mop

Time Value of Needlework

I really don't enjoy clothes shopping.  Shopping does not fill the Hunter/Gather drive in me to prowl the aisles, stalk the latest trend and find a 'killer' sale.  I usually go shopping once or twice a year for clothes.

That being said, we needed  new funeral attire since the last few I've gone to were in the summer and the little man had [surprise] grown out of his suit.

This sweater's price tag was $54.  That is a bit high for my budget but it was on a 50% off the lowest ticket price clearance rack.  Well $27 was a bit more reasonable.  At the register it rang up for $7.54!  Okay, I did feel a SCORE rush there.

Next came the little man's suit, $52 for either the size 4 or 5.  So I bit the bullet, rationalizing that by getting the size 5, cuffing the pant legs and taking the waist in just a bit, he'll be wearing this suit to many events, parties and photo settings!

So the time value of these items?  
Time value can be thought of as 'what can you earn / hour' times 'how many hours it takes' plus 'cost of materials' to make the item.  Is that greater than the ticket price?  Then you've 'made money' by purchasing instead of making.  Of course that calculation only works if you have the interest and/or skills to make the item.

I could not even buy the 6 oversized buttons for $8 let along the cost of all that yarn!  And the last time I tried to knit a sweater?  Well let me just say after failing to attached the overly long selves, I had made a sweater vest.

I could probably have purchased the materials for the little man's suit for under $50 but how long would it have taken me to sew the suit?

Thyme Infused Batard

Today’s baking attempt was technically not a success for two reasons. First, a Batard is like a fat Baguette. What I ended up with was a cross between a Boule and a Ciabatta. Secondly, I was expecting more of the herb flavor to permeate the crumb. Easy fixes perhaps: roll the dough instead of stretching, bake for 5 fewer minutes and steep even more herbs in the water like tea before adding to the flour. So while it was not a true Batard, this small loaf still made a nice sandwich. I’ll try an herb infused Batard again, I beat it would make a great base for a vegetable muffaletta! 

The Research
Economics ~ These small loaves where made of approximately .8 cups of all purpose flour, water and 1 Tbsp each of; yeast, salt and herb. Approximate cost: Flour 13 cents; yeast 50 cents; salt 2 cents; herb free from my herb bed = 65 cents / loaf.

I can buy an 18 oz Batard for $ 3.79 that is double the size of my pseudo Batard; so at the comparable cost of $ 1.90 I saved $ 1.25 by baking myself!

Nutrition ~ my one small loaf is approximately 357.5 calories, compared to the 630 calories of a comparable size for the store bought Batard.

The Fence

There used to be a stockade fence between the two properties.  I lost many fruit trees when that fence started to fall apart.  Now with this new light weight vinyl fence, my fruit trees can handle the snow plow pushing the panels at them without sustaining much damage. 

Pain d'Epi

Sunday, 1/15, I baked fresh Pain d’Epi for breakfast, but this time I used the Rye dough.  My little one’s review . . . “Mmm, that’s tasty!”