Simple Buttermilk Bread

So, I prefer this recipe with white flour only, but it can be done substituting 1/2 wheat flour and increasing the buttermilk by 1/4 cup.

Again, I use a bread machine and I LOVE it!  However, I NEVER let the machine cook my bread else I get something that's better suited for a dog because it's so tough and chewy.

So, the recipe is simple:

3 1/2 c white flour
1 1/4 c buttermilk
3/4 Tbsp bread machine/quick yeast
1 tsp salt

Dough setting on the bread machine.  Come back in about an hour and a half, shape the dough into whatever (makes 1 standard loaf or you can make rolls, whatever).  Allow to rise 1 more time, bake at 400* until top is golden.  Cover when cooling to allow the top of the crust to soften again.  Now enjoy a nice hearty, flavorful, fantastic and homemade loaf of bread :)

Good ranch dressing is no longer worth its weight in gold!

So, anyone want to guess what a half gallon of GOOD ranch dressing costs?  I don't mean that Great Value stuff, I mean something good.  Light House, Hidden Valley, or Wild Coyote good.  Well, to buy it from one of those companies, the cheapest you're going to come up with is about $20.  Probably more.  

So....what if you make it?  

A half of a gallon--64fl oz of homemade, creamy, buttermilk ranch costs about $4.

Here's what we will need:

What we have here is a quart of buttermilk, a 32oz jar of MAYO.  I do NOT advise using salad dressing!  

These are followed by:

black pepper

parsley flakes

thyme leaves

salt

garlic powder

onion powder

I have actually borrowed this recipe from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/dry-ranch-style-seasoning-for-dip-or-dressing/ but I felt it was a good one to repost because (1) this is Utah and we love our ranch and (2) that's a cost savings of nearly 80% if we make it ourselves!

• 1 teaspoon dried parsley

• 3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

• 1 teaspoon salt (allrecipes calls for season salt.  I just used plain sea salt)

• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder

• 1/8 teaspoon dried thyme (I liked the recipe better with about 1/4 tsp thyme, personally)  

1 C mayo

1 C buttermilk

Mix everything. 

Enjoy.

Keep refrigerated!  

FREE (or almost) cat scratch post!

Got a dividing wall or an door frame that's not frequently used?

Nails and a hammer?

What about a few old carpet remnants?

Yes?  Ok, lets go!  

Place carpet, nail to wall with sturdy nails and voila!  Beau has never had so much fun and I was even able to get my bratty cat to stop scratching that bottom stair!  With a little more time, this post can totally be more aesthetically pleasing too, but I just threw mine together in all of 2 minutes.  

This post stands about 5 feet tall.  If you were to buy this in the store as an actual post, you would spend what?  $100, $50 on a good day, so yeah.

1/2 priced chocolate bars, anyone?

So, we all know that convenience costs and here, I'm going to show you what I mean.  A 6oz Hershey's chocolate bar costs about $2.  A 11.5oz bag of Hershey's Milk Chocolate Chips costs about $2.40.  Can you see where I'm going with this?

If not, no words will be needed for this next part:

Oven 200* for 10-15 minutes

Yay for giant, cheap chocolate bars.  PERFECT for 24th of July S'mores :)

Teething biscuits

So, my little man has started teething.  It's LOADS of fun.... NOT!!!  Well, I really didn't want to buy him the messy, staining, store-bought teething biscuits, so I decided to make some.  I didn't take pictures of this one, sorry guys!

What you will need:

1/2 c Baby single grain cereal (I used rice)
1 c Flour (I used white, you can use wheat, but you will need to add a little extra water)
1/4 c oil (I used canola)
1/2 c applesauce (preferably unsweetened, babies don't need added sugar)
1/4 to 1/2c water

Preheat oven to 350*

Mix all ingredients.  Be sure to add water slowly.  You may find you only need 1/4 c you may find you need a bit more.  Just remember, you can always add more of something, you cannot add less.

Dough will look similar to pie dough, but softer.

Lay out on a lightly floured surface.

You can use a rolling pin if you'd like, but it's not necessary.  Dough should be about 1/8" thick.

Cut into whatever shape you desire/is kid safe and place on a non stick or greased baking sheet.  These won't spread, so they can be side-by-side.

Bake for about 10 minutes.  Check them.  If they still seem too soft, let them go a little longer.  If not, cool and happy teething to your munchkin too!

Mini not-so-chemical peel

So, this isn't quite the same as an actual chemical peel, but I can attest to the fact that it does make for some nice, bright, clean skin and even some bonus reduction of fine lines like crows feet.  It's super simple to make.  If you have really sensitive or really dry skin, I would NOT recommend trying this.

You're going to need these:

Uncoated aspirin (you can use coated in a pinch, but you're going to have to crush them)

Lemon or lime juice or something of similar acidity

A little bowl

Baking soda

Cotton balls 

A little water

You're going to take about 10 aspirin.  If they're uncoated plop them right in your dish.  If not, crush them, they may take a little longer to dissolve too.  Add a little lemon or lime juice (I personally like the smell of lime), just enough to get on all of the tablets so that when they dissolve, they make a paste.  If your paste is too thick, then add a few more drops of lime juice.

 

Your paste will look something like this.  Fair warning, this facial can sting a little.  If it does, it's normal; think about it.  Salicylic acid and citrus juice... pretty wicked

So, smear it on, do NOT get it in the eyes and let it dry.  

Now, you can either use the rinse in the next paragraph to remove the paste or you can do what I do and just rinse it with water first, then follow up with the baking soda rinse.  Depends on your own preference.  

Now, either get a new dish or rinse the old one and put a bit of baking soda in it. Add a bit of water.  You're going to make a thin baking soda rinse.   

Using cotton balls or a wash cloth, dab the paste onto your face.  This part more than likely will sting!  Again, it's normal!  You're just put some pretty wickedly acidic stuff on your face, and now you're using a base to neutralize it.  There's a bit of a chemical reaction there.  

Rinse your face (again) and pat dry.  

When I do this, I usually opt to follow up with a light moisturizer as well since this can be a little too drying around my nose, but otherwise I LOVE the way this works and how my skin looks and feels afterwords :)

Make your own liquid hand soap

So, we live by this recipe in my house.  My husband is OCD about handwashing (anyone else wash their hands 40 times a day?  Not me....)  and I'm cheap, so the fact that this recipe costs about 90 cents a 1/2 gallon is very appealing to me.

I also love it because it's easier on hands.  I find a lot of the commercial liquid soaps to be really drying and they were leaving my husband's hands cracked, bleeding, and ashy.  Neither of us have had that issue since I started making our hand soap.

It's also quick.  Like, it takes about 5 minutes to prep it.  The rest is wait time.

I've played with this recipe a few times and you probably will too because the amount of water you need varies with the bar of soap you choose.  This particular recipe has been used very successfully with Dial Gold, and Ivory

To start you need.... 

A pan that you never intend to cook in again as the soap will never fully come out of it.

Cheese grater

Cutting board or plate

A bar of soap of your choosing

A bottle to put the finished product in

A funnel

A spoon that won't be used for food again

And this cool little guy:

I suppose you can make the soap without it, but it leaves the soap WAY more moisturizing and allows for a friendlier viscosity.

Alright!  Are we ready?  Let's begin.

Measure eight cups of water into your pot and begin to heat it.

Grate your soap 

Kind of looks like cheese, I know.  If you chose to use Ivory, it grates as easy as cheese too :)  Now, some people prefer a finer grate, but honestly I'm lazy and this one works fine for me.  It just takes it a couple of extra minutes to melt...

On to the hard part!  Well, not really, it's easy, but there's a word of caution at the end of this.  Into your boiling or near boiling water, you are going to dump in 2 Tbsp of glycerin and mix.  You don't need to return your water to a boil, just go ahead and add the soap flakes now.  

Assuming your stove is on high right now, let me strongly encourage you to TURN IT DOWN!  Oh sure, you can leave it on high.  It won't hurt the soap.  What it will do is cause an unstoppable boiling over that will cake to the inside of your stove and take FOREVER to totally get out of there.  I speak from experience here.  The goal here is simply to melt the soap flakes.  Once they're melted, shut the heat completely off.

Congratulations!  Your soap is now complete.  You will need to wait until it is cool enough not to melt your container for the next step.  Once it is, grab your spoon to give it a final stir first, then grab your funnel and place it in your container, which we're going to assume you've placed in the sink to avoid spills.

Go ahead and cap your bottle.  It will be a few hours before you can use your soap since it has to be completely cool in order to thicken.

When it's done, it will act solid in the container.  Now, you don't HAVE to do this next part, but it saves a LOT of vein -popping squeezing of the soap into a dispenser later, so save yourself the trouble and just do this.  Shake it.  A LOT.  The more the better.  It breaks it up making it pour much easier.  

So, there we have it.  Enjoy!

For the Love of Vinegar!

Vinegar is a rather versatile thing.  It can be used as an all purpose cleaner, window cleaner, to deodorize, it works WONDERS on glass and works fantastic in the place of Jet Dry even plus you can use it in place of fabric softener.  I'll admit, the smell takes some getting used to, but here's something that can help:

Anyone like oranges?  What you do is save the peels.  This is a spaghetti jar with the peels of 2 oranges in it.  I filled the rest of the jar with vinegar, let sit about a week and voila!  You can still tell it's vinegar, but it's far less pungent when mixed with a citrus fruit (my personal favorite is mixing vinegar and lime).

This is a wonderful all purpose cleaner, but please remember.  Vinegar does NOT sanitize on contact!  It takes about 10 minutes for vinegar to sanitize, so I would not recommend using this on any surface that came in contact with raw meat, or any other thing that could be crawling with lots of yucky bacteria.

Pizza Dough

So to start this one, I'm just going to say that I have found my bread machine to be an invaluable tool in the kitchen.  I make all of my own bread products as a rule.  So, here's the star of this post:

Yeah, he's second hand and works fantastic.  I think I paid like, $8 for it after a discount.  These seem to be really easy to come by in thrift stores.  

Ok, so on to the pizza dough!  This is SO easy to make.  4 ingredients.  The push of a couple of buttons and leave it alone for an hour.  

What you'll need:

3 1/2c flour (I prefer all-purpose white for pizza)

1 tsp salt

1/2 HEAPING Tbsp of yeast (a measured 1/2 Tbsp isn't quite enough, but if you heap it, you'll be in good           

     shape).  

1 1/4 C lukewarm water

So, hard part: dump everything, in no particular order, into your bread machine.

Now push a couple of buttons.  If your bread machine has a "pizza dough" setting, awesome.  Use that.  If not, use a regular dough setting.  The biggest difference is rising time.  So if you have to use a standard "dough" setting, pull the dough out after a 30 minute rise.  Your dough will look similar to this when done.

Have two bowls/bags/whatever you have that's air tight ready and greased.

Divide dough in half and shape into balls.  Place one dough ball in each container. 

 Seal, freeze.  Take out the morning before or even the evening before you need the dough and put in fridge.

**Please note that dough WILL rise in fridge.  It retards the raising process, but it still means that the dough will need to be used in a time-sensitive manner.  If it sits too long, you'll end up with a sticky, over-proofed, flat mess for a pizza dough. **

Once dough is thawed, stretch/roll out the dough to about a 12" round.  It will raise some in the oven as well, so if it seems a little thin, don't worry about it.  I like to use a baking sheet that was sprayed with a little olive oil and dusted with corn meal.  Neither step is necessary, but I feel it gives the dough better texture and also assures me that it won't stick.  With both traditional and thin crust pizzas, be sure to poke a few holes in the center of the dough to prevent those pesky air pockets that cause bubbles.

If you want a thin crust, roll out larger.

If you want a pan crust stretch dough to fit into a baking dish (I've used a standard 9x13 pan most of the time).  Add 1/3c oil to the dish before putting in dough (yeah, that yummy "pan taste" takes a LOT of oil to create!).  Place dough, make pizza as desired.  

So there we have it.  A little effort and about 10 minutes of actual "work" and you can have your own pizza crusts.  Preservative free, organic if desired, and a LOT cheaper than those silly $5 Digiorno crusts!

This recipe is very similar to the one you'll find over at Homemade Mamas

Body Butter/Lotion

¾ C oil (this one is canola oil)

3Tbsp bees wax (I like using the pellets for this, they melt easily)

1 C cool water (original recipe calls for distilled.  I just used tap water)

Optional essential oil for fragrance

In microwave safe dish, warm oil and bees wax only until melted, overheating makes the lotion take a LOT longer since it thickens as it cools. 

Pour water into a blender with essential oil and blend.  Slowly add in oil mixture.

Blend until creamy and no more water sits at the top when the blender is stopped. 

Once cool, spoon into a dish to store it.  If water rises to the surface of the lotion later on, just pour it off.  The lotion will still work just fine.

Sadly, cleaning your blender is going to be a rather unfun part of this; Lots of soapy hot water and some patience.  I had a little luck using steel wool to wipe everything down. 

The next time I make this, I’ll have to post pictures of the process.  

Hi guys!  My name is Kendra and this is my frugal and environmentally conscious blog!  This is the place where I'll be posting all of my concoctions from laundry soap, to  bread, to lotion, to whatever else I either hate paying for at the store, or want a better alternative for.  In addition, I may share some tips on the various things from how to stop a bad nose bleed--jello anyone?--to emergency preparedness--do you know how to get fresh drinking water from a water heater after an earthquake?

The main motivators for me when I come up with these ideas are:

Is it cheaper for me to do it myself?

How can I make a non-chemical ridden version of this?

Can I find something that works better?

Can I make a healthier alternative to traditional, store bought foods?

Is it something that's good to know?

If so, I try the idea and if it works, I share it with you lovely people!  If it doesn't and you're on my facebook, then you'll probably hear me complain about the mess whatever it was made and how I freaking hate cleaning up after things like that ;)  

So, stay tuned. First up!  Homemade body butter!