RazNoggle

I must be ill if I actually wanted to do math! Ha ha! But seriously, every time I’d do laundry, (and today was a LOT of times due to the nature of the illness that’s been passing through our kids) I think, “I need to do the math and figure out how much it really costs to do this make-it-yourself-natural-laundry-detergent.” So, I finally did.

Okay, well…. I sorta did it. See, I don’t have the exact dollars and cents that everything cost, so I “rounded” which was something I learned about math many many moons ago. The castile soap was $10. I gave $3 for the baking soda (which I think is generous). And a $1 for the salt.

So out of $14 you get 4 gallons of natural laundry detergent that will wash 260 loads of laundry. So that works out to about 5 cents a load. Pretty good, huh? Yeah… I thought so.

Well, my first experiment in going natural was a success. So far anyway! I tested it on 2 loads of laundry and it seems to get the job done! Plus it was a fun experience to make my own. I felt so little-house-on-the-prarie-ish, ha ha!

Here’s what I used. Dr. Bronner’s Natural Castile Soap which I got at Trader Joe’s for $9.99, cheaper than Amazon. (by the way, I have NO clue about the label on this thing! It seems to be some kind of religious something or other written ALL over this label, but for the life of me I couldn’t make out what it was getting at or which religion it was, so if you know, do tell. I’d be interested to know.) Baking Soda, and Salt. Plus an empty milk jug for storage.

First combine the baking soda and salt with 2 cups of water in a pot and warm just to dissolve. Here’s the baking soda…

… and the salt…

… and because I didn’t pay attention, I put the soap in too, oops!

Finally, the water.

Stir it up and warm… I think I should have done this longer, but I was concerned about the soap being in there. Probably no biggie, but I wasn’t sure what the heat would do to it. Ha!

Pour into jug, and all over jug while you try to take a photo of it pouring. Next time I will use a funnel!

Fill the jug the rest of the way with water.

Voila! Detergent! You should get close to 65 loads out of this lil jug! Sweet!

A couple of notes and I’ll put the ‘recipe’ at the bottom. I used the hemp peppermint castile soap this time around because it’s what they had at Trader Joe’s. I have ordered Sal-Suds which, I’ve read, is basically the same concept. I can use the sal suds for dish detergent and other cleaning products too. This batch of laundry soap smelled NICE and minty! I liked that a lot, but I’d rather use this minty soap for personal care products down the line. The minty smell lasted through the wash, but disappeared in the dryer still leaving the cloths fresh smelling. Nice! Pretty sure I’m going to like this stuff. Oh, and I added a splash of white vinegar to the rinse cycle.

Here’s the “recipe” that I got from THIS blog.

1 cup castile liquid soap (Dr. Bronner’s or Mountain Rose Herbs are good choices as they are organic and main ingredients are coconut oil & olive oil) OR Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds
2 cups water
1/3 cup salt
1 cup baking soda or washing soda

Combine soda and salt with 2 cups water in a pot. Warm till mostly dissolved. Poor into gallon jug add soap. Fill jug with water. 1/4 c. detergent per load of laundry.

Try it, you may get hooked, like me!

I don’t think I will ever actually use the term “crunchy” when referring to myself, but I imagine others will when they read all this stuff. The first time I heard someone say they were a “crunchy mom” I had NO idea what they were talking about. I figured it out eventually, but never thought that I’d reach the point of being ‘crunchy’ myself. Especially since attachment parenting didn’t really work out for me. I put my babies on a schedule as soon as they came home from the hospital, and they nearly always slept in their own bed. I can’t sleep if they are in my bed.

BUT, there’s more to being ‘crunchy’ than attachment parenting, I’ve discovered.

I’ve thought for quite some time that processed foods, chemical sweeteners, fake flavors and such are bad, Bad, BAD for us. I don’t believe that God created our bodies to deal with and process chemicals. And since the rise of issues like autism, type 2 diabetes, and a whole slew of cancers have convinced me that we’re not doing ourselves any favors.

While I’ve been making changes in the way that we eat over the last couple of years, I know there is still room for improvement there. Baby steps tend to be the best because making changes slowly makes it easier on everyone to adjust. However, I’ve been inspired by a couple of other blogs and a slew of info online to make other changes besides diet. I’m going to de-chemical-ize our home.

If you follow me on pinterest you may have noticed a few of these natural products that I’ve been pinning. Over the next few months or year, I’ll be trying out some recipes I’ve found for natural beauty products and cleaning products. We like to ‘stock up’ on certain supplies so we’re going to work our way through those before we completely banish them. My frugal side won’t let me just chuck them all.

So I’m going to blog about this journey to chuck the junk that we don’t need in our bodies and on our skin. Some of the things that we’ll be testing (or at least me) will be, homemade and natural deodorant, tooth soap, dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, all-purpose cleaner, bathroom cleaner, and shampoo.

A lot of these products will have coconut oil in them as I have fallen in love with the amazing things you can do with that stuff! WOW! I’ll also be adding it to my daily diet due to the amazingness of this food! Seriously, look up the stuff, it’s fantastic.

Besides it’s actually pretty frugal! A lot of the products include ingredients like white or apple cider vinegar, baking soda and of course coconut oil. Some of the other products represent a bigger upfront investment, like the natural castile soap and essential oils. But those kinds of ingredients will last a very long time, even when using them in several different products.

So stay tuned for these experiments. I don’t know if they will all “take” or not. Some changes are more difficult than others to adapt to. But if they work the way that people claim they do, then I think we’ll be good to go. I’m excited for the process, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, and hopefully will help us eliminate even more of the icky, toxic stuff that we shouldn’t be around.

My first experiment will be natural laundry soap…. next week, wait and see!

I went a little bonkers this year with the turkeys. Safeway was offering them for $.59 a lb if you buy $25 worth of other groceries. Which is pretty easy to do. So so far I have 3 turkeys that I bought for cheaper than any other meat out there! I say “so far” because I got the 3rd one on Sunday after Thanksgiving, and if they are still selling them NEXT Sunday, I’ll get another one. My poor family will never want to eat turkey again after this. Ha ha ha!

So the bird that I cooked for our Thanksgiving feast was a 19 pounder…. which meant that there was a LOT of left overs since the only ones eating with us were Stu’s parents. I meant for there to be leftovers though because if I’m going to go to the trouble of digging out turkey guts (eww) and baking the thing then I want there to be plenty to show for it.

So far this week we have had Turkey Tortilla Soup, Turkey Shepherd’s pie (which was absolutely delish, by the way and used up all the “other” leftovers like stuffing, smashed taters, and gravy! Yum!!) and today I’ll be cookin up some BBQ turkey sandwiches in the crock pot!

Now not only do I have left over Turkey in my fridge, but left over Tortilla soup, left over shepherd’s pie, and we’ll see if we have left over bbq turkey.

My plans for today for whatever turkey doesn’t get sauced is to cube it and freeze it in soup sized portions that I can use for soups later. That way instead of pulling out the handy dandy canned chicken breast which is my usual “go to” for speedy soups, I can just grab a baggie of Turkey out of the freezer.

It makes my frugal lil heart happy to have such good meat stored away in our freezer at an unbeatable price, ha ha!! I have 2 “full sized” turkeys in my freezer that will be baked later, and one “itty bitty” one that I’m hoping to be able to fit in my crockpot at some point. But after this week, I’ll give my family a little turkey break.

So this post has been brewing for awhile, but I just haven’t written it down till now. I have said goodbye to Wal-Mart for good! Well, the one that’s closest to us at least. I have mentioned from time to time the issues with that store. From standing in the check out lane for 45 minutes to shelves that are completely empty, to incompetent employees that won’t put forth even the teeeeeeniest effort to assist a customer, to the outlandish number of vagrants that troll the parking lot trying to get change from everyone. Yeah, it’s a pit.

But my frugal side has been driving me to shop there because they typically are cheaper than any other grocery store in the area. Until I started thinking…. They actually are NOT cheaper on fresh food items. Their meat is always outrageously high, and their milk is always higher than Safeway. Their fruits and veggies are usually the same or higher than Safeway’s price as well. So what WAS cheaper?? The canned/boxed items.

Still, I usually shopped there to get most of those things, and I’d jaunt over to Safeway to get meat on sale and milk. But I hate to go to a bunch of different places, and since it’s a 45 min drive to town anyway, it already seems like a chore, so I found myself shopping at the Wal-Mart for the convenience and cheapness sake and just swallowing my irritation every time I went. BUT that ever impressive straw that broke poor humpy’s back finally came. A few weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon (because that’s when we were already in town) I dropped off my men at the “depot” as Myles calls it (Home Depot) and Ella and I ran over to WM to get the groceries. Well, I got de Bella out of her seat and was making my way across the parking lot high stepping over piles of trash and filth! Seriously, it looked like a trash truck with a severe leak had been making it’s rounds through there! Just as I was about to step onto the sidewalk, I had to hop over a used condom. (insert fury)

I was beyond done with that place at that point. That store is making money hand over fist, if the hordes of people constantly in the store and shelves that they simply cannot keep stocked are any indication. They could put a leeeeetle effort into keeping that store presentable and decent. I’m done with them. I refuse, even going against my frugal bent (which is saying a lot) to shop at that store. I’m not going to put up with it any more! I will be writing the manager a letter, not that they will care of course, just to appease my conscience, and then I’m moving my business to Safeway.

I have decided in an effort to reconcile my thrifty self and my outraged sense of propriety to stock up on the nonperishable items that I would normally get at that store. That way, I can still feel like I’m getting the best deal for my money, and I can shop at Safeway for the meat, dairy and produce.

I will be going to wal-mart stores in other locations. While I feel like the quality of service has declined dramatically in Walmart, they do have good prices on a lot of goods, and not every store is as much of a slum as the one we have access to.

I’m anticipating my shopping trips to be much more pleasant now that I know I won’t have to deal with the multitude of irritations that are present in that WM store. Safeway has a clean environment, helpful and FRIENDLY employees, and security to keep the parking lot clear! Plus they have a Starbucks!!! Ahhhhh…. bliss.

Ever since I watched an episode (well part of it… I missed the end where the recipe was, of course) of a “Good Eats” program on the food network about casseroles and how terrible it is to use condensed “cream of whatever” soup in them, I’ve hated using them in my cooking. But I still do…

I just can’t get over the “convenience” of it. Ha! And since I didn’t see the end of the show, I don’t know what he used instead. I don’t used creamed soups a lot, but there are dishes that I use it for. The easy potato soup I love! Over slow-cooked beef roast! And, of course, the various and sundry casseroles. I don’t make casseroles very much, but I came across a couple recipes recently that I think I’d like to try.

Anyway, all of that to say that the other day while browsing on pinterest, I discovered a recipe for “Cream of Something Soup Mix.” Wow! I decided right away to make some, and since I was going to the store the next day, I got what I needed. I actually had most of the ingredients on hand so it all worked out well. I made a double batch of the mix, because I figure if you’re going to make a mess, you might as well have 2x as long before you have to do it again! It’s really not a messy recipe, but I make anything that’s kinda powdery a mess, unfortunately.

The mix smells yummy, and I’m pretty interested to see how it works! I’m a little doubtful of how it will do in the potato soup, because I like to use cream of celery in it. Maybe if I add some finely cut fresh celery or some celery salt it’ll still have the flavor. But for casseroles I think this mix is going to be perfect! I’m so thrilled!! Even if I didn’t get all the advice from Alton Brown, I still managed to find an “unprocessed” way of making the ingredients I need. Oh, and this is supposed to be much cheaper than buying condensed soups as well. Always a nice perk!

So in case you’ve decided to give it a go as well, here’s the recipe! Let me know if you use it and your “verdict.”

Cream of “something” soup recipe
1 cup non-fat dried milk
3/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup bouillon cubes
4 Tablespoons freeze dried minced onions
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried thyme (I couldn’t find the thyme so I used dried parsley instead)
1 teaspoon pepper
(For the equivalent of one can of condensed cream soup, mix 1/3 cup dry mix with 1 1/4 cup water. Cook until thick)

Some time ago, you may recall, I swore off the chemical creamers in favor of a more economic and “real” homemade option. Well…. I have stuck to that. I generally use fat-free half/half with a bunch of honey a splash of almond extract and a bunch of vanilla! I like flavor! It’s been working well. I enjoy not buying the expensive stuff… but still, I just couldn’t quite get the homemade stuff just perfect. It was good, and works great, but somewhere in the back of my mind has been this slight dissatisfaction with the stuff. Something wasn’t working, and while it hasn’t in any way curbed or ruined my coffee drinking, it’s left it just…. ho hum, I guess. Hard do describe a vague nagging little bit of a thought that’s never really been defined.

I’d probably still be in a ho-hum coffee relationship had I not stumbled upon a second blog post about the “perfect iced coffee.” I had seen it once on Pioneer Woman’s blog, but this was someone else and the photos of the coffee just totally sucked me in and I knew I wouldn’t rest till I had made that “cold brewed” coffee! Actually, I did rest though. I had to wait till I got a gallon sized pitcher I could use. The cold brewed coffee is splendid, but this is NOT about the coffee. It’s about the creamer!!

With the iced coffee instructions was also the ‘recipe’ for “sweet cream” to go in the coffee. It’s so simple!! A can of sweetened condensed milk and a can of evaporated milk. That’s it! Once I tasted it in my first cup of iced coffee, I knew. I had found IT! Now I’m going to be using it for my regular creamer. That is after I finish up the other “stuff” that I have. My frugal little soul can’t bear to waste it, but I’m already drooling over the thought of my sweet cream that I will be enjoying after this!

I’ll probably still throw in some vanilla and a splash of almond, just because I love the flavor! But the “new” creamer recipe is so much sweeter and thicker, I know I won’t have to use as much. YES!!! I’m super excited about this. I know it’s just a coffee creamer, but it’s the little things that make ya happy!

So you all should try it and see what you think. Oh, and if you ever want to taste an amazing, smooth and lovely iced coffee, you have to try cold brew! It’s awesome!!!!

Have I told you all just how much I love Hawaiian bread? I do!! Not only is it simply delish, but it has very warm memories attached to it for me. I got the recipe from an amazing older lady who was one of the friendliest people I knew while we were in Greenville. She was such an enormous blessing to me!! I think of her often when I make “her” bread. She was amazing and of course made it the old fashioned way while I cheat and let the bread machine do all the mixing and kneading. After I had Qade and was struggling with baby blues and packing our apartment to move, and nursing issues, and sleep deprivation, this lady was an angel of mercy for me. I can’t remember the number of times that she ‘stopped by’ with some of her amazing bread or some fresh strawberries from the farmer’s market in those few weeks after Qade was born. I’ll never forget her kindness and often think back to that experience when people I know are having babies and try to pass it on to them.

Anyway, I’m making some bread today and it got me thinking again of Mrs. Nutz. I’ll put the recipe on here, since I’m not sure I’ve done it before. If you bake bread at all, you really need to try this! It’s like no bread you’ve ever had and will completely spoil all that store bought stuff forever. If that’s not incentive to try it, I don’t know what is! I thought that Stuart would have a hard time switching from store bread to homemade when I first got the bread maker, but after tasting this stuff he said (more than once) that he NEVER wants to go back! Ha ha!! Today will be my first trial run since our oven came home, so I’m anxious to see how it turns out. Also I ditched my dollar store bread pans after the black bread incident, and splurged on some sturdy glass ones, and this will be the first time using those. They are larger than the others, so I only got 3 of them. I think it’ll work out fine with the amount of dough that this recipe makes. That’s the thing, this does make a LOT of dough, so if you’re using a machine, like me, you need to be sure it can handle this much. Some of them are smaller, so you’d need to probably half the recipe for one of those. If you do decide to do it by hand it won’t matter. Ha!

So here you go, from Mrs. Nutz, via me, King’s Hawaiian Bread:

You’ll have to put the ingredients in the way your bread maker suggests. This is what I do.

6 c. flour (I usually do 4 AP and 2 Whole wheat)
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. ginger
1/2 c. margarine (I used butter one time and it was a dismal failure, if you do use butter be sure to really soften it first)
3 eggs (recipe calls for beating them, but I just chuck em’ in)
1 t. vanilla
1 c. pineapple juice
1 c. water
2 pkg yeast. (I use bulk yeast from Costco so I put in about 4 t.)

I always do it on dough mode and then shape loaves and let them rise before baking them in the oven. So they rise for about 45 min then bake at 350* for 20-30 min. Makes 3 9×5 loaves or 4 8×4 loaves.

Let me know if you try it and what you think of the bread. You can also use the dough to make delish clover rolls by putting 3 small balls of dough in each cup of a muffin tin. Bake and brush with melted butter after baking. YUMMERS!!

Have I posted this before? Not sure. But anyway, it’s worth talking about again. My sis-in-law and I were talking about menu planning for a minute today and it got me thinking. You all probably already have your own systems for grocery and meal planning and such, but I’m going to share mine and if you’re struggling with finding ways to save moolah and make nummy meals AND get rid of that “what to fix for dinner” panic that hits around 4pm every day.

Here’s what I use. I got the calendar off of frugalmom.net. I don’t visit that site much, but if you’re interested I’m sure there are some tips there that can help you! One problem is that it seems to be a daunting task to fill in a whole month of meals. I try to simplify it. I only actually “plan” dinner on my menu. Our breakfast and lunch options are pretty standard. Oatmeal and PB&J or ham and cheese make up a lot of it. But there is plenty of room if you do want to do a B: L: D: on each day… or if you’re from the south it would be B: D: S: Ha ha ha!! Sorry… couldn’t help myself.

So I generally begin by filling in the “leftovers” day that is the same each week. I always want a leftovers day!!! Mine happens to be Thursday, because it’s my favorite day and I feel that it’s nice to “take it easy” that day. Ha! So that’s one day a week down. I usually put at least 1 crockpot meal on each week… sometimes 2, because those are also low-maintenance. Another thing I do is to have one meal a week that is “easy” like grilled cheese/tomato soup or pancakes (yes for dinner!). So that takes care of 3 meals a week. In the summer months I schedule one “grill” night a week. That way Stu gets to take care of the meat and I just fix veggies or chop fruit to go with. That’s 4 down. Now I fill in the holes with recipes that I know are family favorites or things that I find easy to cook like spaghetti, quesadillas, fajitas, or casseroles of some kind. After that I will chose one or 2 meals a month to experiment with a new recipe or make something that’s a little more complicated. So this is what my menu for this month looks like. IT’s a little ratty, sorry about that. And yes, there are gaps on Sunday because it’s difficult to plan for that day when they are so crazy. We usually end up doing something simple like nachos or leftovers on that day as well.

I know some of the chicken scratch is illegible, but ya get the idea. I make notes to myself on there where to find the recipe. That’s why you see AYOSC on there because as I mentioned before I’m using recipes from that blog “A Year of Slow Cooking” yum!

It might still seem daunting to put that much thought into what you eat. Here’s the deal. Start slowly!!! Do only ONE week at first if you’ve never done this before. Then fill in the next week and so on. In a month you’ll have a month’s worth of meals. Do it again for another month or 2 and you’ll have 3!! Then it gets really easy! Most people eat the same meals over and over anyway…. seriously. So if you end up with 3 monthly menus to go through it’ll make each months planing easy because you can just transfer the winners over. And you always have the flexibility to swap something out with a “new” item if it floats your boat.

Now how does all this planning pay off???? Thanks for asking! First off, it’s going to shrink your grocery budget because you’ll know EXACTLY what you need for the whole week of groceries! Make a list and stick to that… no, you don’t need all the extras… you don’t! You’ll be surprised how this cuts down time and money in the store! Next it will save you time in the long run because you won’t have to scramble each day to find something to fix for dinner. Cool and calm will reign. LOL!!!

This is getting longer than I meant so I’ll wrap it up for now. Tune in next time to read about shopping in your own pantry and freezer.

Toodles!