Cheap Yogurt !

This procedure comes to you courtesy of a crockpotting mom here on blogger.  I tried it yesterday and sampled the results this morning.  AWESOME yogurt for much less than cups of the stuff cost and much healthier too since this isn't laced with sugar, gelatin, and G*D knows what else.  

Pour half a gallon (8 cups) of milk into a crockpot.  A 2 quart will work but having some room to stir, a three or four quart crock, will work better.  Turn your crock to it's lowest setting, cover the milk, and leave along for 2 1/2 hours.

Turn off the crock.  Leave the milk covered.  Don't touch for three hours.

Now that the milk is warmish, scoop out 2 cups.  Mix in 1/2 cup store bought PLAIN yogurt that has "active cultures" listed in the ingredients.  I used the Great Value brand from Wal-Mart with no trouble at all.

Pour the milk/yogurt mixture into the crock.  Add up to 1 cup of powdered milk.  If you're using whole milk to start, you don't really need to add powder.  But use powdered milk if anything less than whole milk, and use the full cup of powder if you started with powdered milk or skim milk!

Now wrap the whole crock up, base and all, in a thick bath towel.  Leave it alone.  Forget about it.  Hopefully you're doing this part in early evening and you can leave it on the counter until morning.  That's best.  The longer the milk is left undisturbed, the thicker your end product will be.  After 8 to 14 hours, unwrap your crock and check on the results.  The milk should have thickened up (texture will depend on how much fat and protein are in the milk you used) and taste tangy.

You can serve it toped with honey or fruit or you can stir fruit in.  Growing up on homemade yogurt, I opt for the topping it with something option.  Mixing stuff in tends to break the protein chains and make the yogurt runny.  This is also the perfect yogurt to use in Middle Eastern and Indian cooking and it makes a rich substitute for milk in baking.  I used mine for the milk in biscuits this morning and my word!  They are they best biscuits I've every had.

New Discount Grocery in Town!

We have a new scratch and dent grocery in town and this one is close enough to where we live to actually make going there practical.  I am so excited about Extreme Bargains!  They advertise prices up to 70% off  regular grocery store prices.  Unlike Bargain Mart, which we have to drive twenty minutes to get to and which has a generous selection of sauces, dressings, and spices and very little else, EB had pasta, pasta sauce, flour, sugar, goat milk (!!!), and a wide variety of other items I would like to buy more regularly but usually don't have the grocery dollars to get.  I spent way more than necessary on our first visit but I won't have to spend much on groceries when Ba'al gets paid this week.  So we're all happy.

I've also finally gotten a sewing machine.  My last one got left behind in Wisconsin when we moved here from there almost a year and a half ago.  I did not get a new one.  I do not like the modern plastic machines that have to go to a trained professional for such simple things as a lube job and cleaning.  No, instead I went to a pawn shop and bought a 1960's model that's insanely heavy but can be lubed and cleaned by someone with few mechanical skills (moi) and then operated without spending hours hunched over a manual first (like the last machine I had which my dear Ba'al thought he was doing a good thing by buying me a brand new model).  That one ended up in the shop a month after purchasing because cleaning fabric fuzz under the foot plate was decidedly not a do it yourself project.  So we're very happy around here with the Dressmaker model S-3000 purchased for $60 (pawn shops are as good or better than thrift stores for electronics).  That price is about half what the same machine goes for on ebay so I think I got a pretty good deal.  

The same day, we got a gently used Philips DVD player from the same pawn shop.  Y'all know what that means?  Means that when we got to pay our cable bill this week, we're also taking in the cable box for the TV!  We are going to become a one service (internet) household, using the DVD player and the 'net to do all of our TV watching.  I have to put together a TV lineup this week so we know what shows to download for our viewing pleasure and what days to look for them.

Deodorant

Not only have I sworn off the shampoo bottle, I've also sworn off the deodorant stick.  I've even gotten Ba'al onto homemade deodorant.  It was easy to make, it's easy to use, and it smells ever so nice.

Mix equal parts cornstarch and baking soda.  Add a few drops of essential oils or some crushed herbs if you like (I used dried, crushed thyme, basil, and rosemary).  Mix all that together.  Then add a couple tablespoons of coconut oil or shortening.  All the recipes I've read say to use coconut oil and I'm sure it's very nice.  But the day I ran out of deodorant, I didn't have money to go out and get coconut oil so I used shortening and it worked just fine.  Both are solid to liquid fats that your skin absorbs just fine.  You want enough to make a nice thick paste:  Start with about a tablespoon and a half and add in increments from there.  Store in a pretty jar or an old deodorant stick.  Use by putting a small amount on your fingertips and rubbing in.  Within a few minutes it absorbs completely with no white marks to be seen.

What is a luxury?

I've been on a mission to cut grocery costs.  With three adults in our house now, it's a fight to keep costs down.  Cause you know, the more I can cut corners, the more I can sock away in our savings account.  A few days ago, I came across hillbilly housewife.  The site has all sorts of information on how to cut costs in the grocery budget and still feed your family filling, interesting meals.  Of particular interest are her forty-five dollar and $70 dollar a week meal plans.  I used the $45/wk shopping list this past week and got everything I didn't already have for $29, using Save a Lot.  It's a lot of food and will keep my men happy for the next couple weeks.

One of the talking points on the site deals specifically with the issue of using margarine instead of butter, though the same point applies to a lot of other foodie choices as well.  So she says that when you have to cut costs and make your dollar stretch as far as possible, it's best to go with the cheapest option available.  Yes, I can hear you saying but what about my health?  What about my family's health?  What about this, what about that?  The reason you're shopping on perhaps $50 or less a week is because you're short on money or want to save money.  So you make sacrifices now to reach some other goal.  The argument about margarine vs. butter is one of luxury economics.  When you can afford to make the choice, you choose the option that's more expensive, better tasting, and arguably better for you.  

Margarine gained in popularity during the Depression years when city people couldn't afford to buy butter.  It's time to return to that mindset.  I would love to have boughten two pounds of butter and a quart of olive oil.  Instead, I got two pounds of margarine and a quart of veggie oil.  I haven't boughten vegetable oil in *years.*  But I needed to make my grocery budget stretch and I didn't happen to have a coupon for olive oil and even if I had, it probably wouldn't have taken enough off to make olive oil comparable to vegetable oil.

Because I Can't Say it Anywhere Else . . .

First, hi everybody.  I just got back from an experiment in how much we can live without.  We cut our cable TV and internet service for a few weeks.  Decision:  Cable TV we can live without.  Internet, we can't live without.  So, I have returned.

Second, I'm going to stray from my personal determination to not get personal in this blog.  This is going to be the one time I get political here.  I can't say this anywhere else because my pregnancy group is determined to remain drama-free.  The same goes for the groups I belong to on Cafemom.  So this is the only place I can get this out.  After today, back to no politics or other personal issues.

I did not vote for Obama.  I did not vote for him because I don't agree with his politics.  I'm trying to forget about the election right now because the whole thing makes me mad.  I took a mandatory civics class my senior year of high school.  It was a run up to the election year and my teacher took great pains to instruct us in the electoral process.  He also took great pains with the intent of the framers of the constitution.  I walked out of that POD (principles of democracy) class with a profound respect for our nation's constitution and the thought the framers put into that document, to ensure that no branch of the government became too powerful.

So.  What makes me mad is not that Obama won.  Yes, I'm disappointed that my candidate didn't win.  I'm not mad that someone else won.  What I'm mad about is that not only did a Democrat win the White House but also the Democrats swept the House and Senate.  The reason this is bad is because of the checks and balances written into the constitution.  The Congress checks the power of the White House and the Judiciary.  But with the Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, they can do whatever they want for as long as they control two out of three.  Even if we only have a Democratic president for four years, the effect of his choices for the Supreme Court (four will retire in the next couple years), and the effect of any and all laws pushed through during Obama's time will affect us for twenty years or more.  I am dead certain that when one party can do what they desire without any check on their power, this is not a good thing.

Now I'm a strange one here.  I am very "green," and for all intents and purposes aligned with the environmental goals of the Democratic party.  But I am also basically conservative.  I don't think one party, or one branch, should have that much power.  So I'm not mad because a black man won the presidency.  I'm proud of my country for being able to look past race.  I'm mad because one party can effectively dictate its policies to the rest of the country.  I don't think that's a good thing.

No 'Poo

I recently joined several groups on Cafemom about homemaking, self sustainability, and so on.  A common thread on all of them is going no 'poo, i.e. ditching the shampoo bottle.

A few months ago, I was looking at shampoo bars as a way of cutting down on the amount of packaging coming into the house.  Well, I'm still going to be getting the bars because I have two adult males in the house, one of whom will refuse straight out and the other of whom will most likely roll his eyes and tease me about it for a few weeks.  And then give it a try himself.

I have had the worst dandruff since I was a teenager.  The sort of dandruff that does not go away no matter what I do.  And strangely enough, it's the sort of dandruff that actually seems to get worse with regular frequent washings.  In reading the afore mentioned threads, it seems that many people who think they have dandruff are having an allergic reaction to chemicals in shampoo.  The cure, of course, is to ditch the bottle (or bar, although the bars tend to have fewer harsh chemicals in them).

One of the things I learned early about curly hair is to wash it as infrequently as possible.  Apparently, this is the hardest thing for people making the switch.  Using the following formula, hair should only need to be washed about once a week.  The way shampoos are constructed, they basically train your scalp to "need" washing every day or two.  So the "detox" often makes people go mad, nearly, because hair gets greasy, seemingly faster than usual.  But after about a month, it gets so much better.

So the formula is:  1/2 T baking soda dissolved into a cup of water.  1/2 T vinegar (white or apple cider) mixed into a second cup of water.  Get your hair wet.  Pour over the baking soda solution.  Rinse.  Pour over the vinegar solution.  Rinse again.  Hair can be rinsed in clear water as often as needed in between washings.  My hair is soft, shiny, the plaques of dandruff on my scalp are already (!) gone, and I don't have any of the itching that normally accompanies washing my hair.  This only needs to be done about once a week.

Clean Green

I've pretty much stopped buying chemical based cleaners.  I'm working through the remains of what I've got on hand but that's it.  Instead, I'm mostly using baking soda, kosher salt, vinegar, and borax.

My basic cleaner is vinegar and water.  I mix it up by the quart - 4 cups of water, 1 cup of vinegar.  It cleans, well, just about everything.  I use it on glass, chrome, mirrors, counters, the stove - everything.  

To conquer soap scum, add 1/2 C kosher salt to the basic cleaner and mix to dissolve.  Or spray on straight vinegar, let sit for a few minutes, and scrub clean.  Or scrub with baking soda or kosher salt in hand, then clean with the basic cleaner.  Some people have good results putting kosher salt on a cut lemon and scrubbing.  Which works best seems to depend on how hard or soft your water is.  Some experimenting may be in order.  Keep in mind none of these will clean as quickly, with as little elbow grease as, say Scrubbing Bubbles.  But they're A LOT better for the environment.

For the floor, dishes, and in the dishwasher, I use a mixture of 1 C borax, 1 C baking soda, and 1/4 C citric acid.  Essential oils can be added for scent too but I'm not using any at the moment.  About 2 T per wash cycle.

To clean out the dishwasher, I put baking soda in the detergent cup and fill the rinse cup (where Jet Dry or something similar would normally go) with vinegar.  Heck, I use vinegar for the rinse all the time.

Oh, and non-gel toothpaste polishes silver beautifully.