Thursday, October 31, 2013

Adventuuures Iiiin Sourdoooough

My sourdough starter has been bubbling happily along for about a month now. I tried... um... breeding(?) my own sourdough starter from scratch once quite a few years ago and met a dismal failure. However, the instructions on Artistta made it really clear and simple for me. Hopefully they'll work for you, if you want to give it a try, too! 

After the first week, when it stopped smelling awful and started smelling how you would expect a blob of yeasty bread gloop to smell, I began saving the extra starter. To keep your starter active, you have to feed it with fresh flour and water every day to keep your hungry yeastie beasties alive. Each time it is fed, it bubbles up and nearly doubles in size, so you end up with way more than what can fit in your jar very quickly. You can put this extra starter in a container in your fridge and use that in many recipes. 

So far I've found sourdough recipes that fit into two categories:
  • the quick, foamy baking soda variety, and 
  • the long-rising, sour yeast variety
Here are the recipes that I've tried: 

Sourdough Naan


The naan is up at the top. This was also my first time making an Afghan recipe. It's called Kabuli Palau and has my stamp of approval. :)

This was my first try at naan, period. They were not very pretty, and they were a little more doughy than the ones I have tried in restaurants. I think this had more to do with my lack of experience than the recipe. A little butter, garlic, and parsley helped! Each one I made looked a little better than the last, so I'm excited to keep practicing this recipe until I feel competent with it. 

Quick Whole Grain Sourdough Waffles 


These use a lot of leftover starter up. Instead of letting the starter do its thing overnight, you add some baking soda to make the dough foam up and get fluffy. I was impressed with how light and airy these waffles were considering they were made completely from whole wheat flour and had flax added to them. It makes a lot of waffles. If you can't eat them all, you can freeze them or put them in the fridge and pop them in the toaster to reheat. They're really yummy with fruit, yogurt, and jam! 

Classic (Long) Sourdough Waffles

 

With apple butter and yogurt

 

 These take more planning, but you get more of the tangy sourdough flavor than with the quicker waffles. My sourdough starter is made with wheat flour, but I used all purpose for all of the added flour in the recipe. This recipe also calls for buttermilk, which I almost never have, because I don't go through it quickly enough. If you find yourself in the same boat, you can make a substitute by adding about a tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to a cup of milk and letting it sit for five minutes before adding it to your recipe. These were tasty, but they didn't crisp up very well. I think I'll try them one more time and leave them in the waffle iron for longer. 

Impossible Pie

 

This is supposed to be similar to biscuit mix impossible pie, which requires you to dump savory ingredients in a dish, dump the biscuit mix on top, and stick it in the oven (in technical terms). Again, it uses baking soda, so you can whip it up in a moment's notice (Well, ok, more like 40 minutes' notice). For some reason, the biscuit part of mine turned really dark in the oven. Not a pretty dark, either. Almost gray or green. I'm thinking it may have been a reaction with the cast iron pan I cooked it in. But we still ate it and it tasted good! I'll try it in a glass pan next time and see if that fixes the weird cosmetic issue. 

And finally…. 

Sourdough Bread!

 

 

Haha, yep! My first attempt turned out kinda sad. I can see why many of the recipes online call for added yeast, to help guarantee the long wait for this bread is warranted. But I wanted to try the real deal with just the yeast I had been cultivating in my starter. I think it would have worked, too, but I made the mistake of trying to do it all in one day. It rose really well and developed a great sourness! But by the time I got the loaves formed and was waiting on their final rise, I was soooo tired. I called it quits and went to bed. In the morning, the outside of the dough had dried out, but it still looked worth baking. It's edible, but, as you can see, it's very flat. It's also very sour. I'm looking forward to giving this recipe another try with that first rise starting the night before bake day!

Your turn! What are your favorite sourdough recipes? Have any recipes you would like to see me try out next? 


Monday, October 21, 2013

Garden! or Dog For Sale

Well, that lasted a long time... Let me start at the beginning. This weekend I planted a garden. I was playing around on SproutRobot, realized once again that we have a ridiculously long planting season in this part of California, and decided to go for it and see what I could learn. 

SproutRobot is a handy site that lets you plug in your zip code for information on what, when, and how to plant vegetables.

The partially composted stuff-n-fluff that our dog had scattered around the yard seemed to make a good base/weed deterrent in the part of the garden that was not yet lasagna-ed. I picked up two 2 cu. ft bags of organic garden soil from the hardware store (for about $6.50 a bag if you're pricing it out). Then, I spread it out into three rows about 6' long by 2' wide by 3" deep. 

What bodies?? These are planting beds!

I planted parsnips, carrots, leaf lettuce, cilantro, arugula, radishes, and mesclun mix. Things dry out pretty quickly around here, so I also mulched over the top of them with some straw, and watered them really well. 

All tucked in and cozy

Oh, and I started another compost heap! This time waaay back in the corner away from the yard. No way could Sky reach through the fence and pull it out this time!

That bale of straw was a great investment!

It survived all day Sunday. This morning, I put Sky out while getting ready for work, like usual. When I went out to refill her water bowl, she had black feet! Urgh... I didn't put my beds far enough away from the wire fence. Within about fifteen minutes of being outside, she had reached through and stirred up the first few inches of one of the beds. But I could live with that, right? (I'm sure you've figured things out by now. Oh, Hindsight, my guileful foe!)

When I got home from work, I saw this...

*cry*

She managed to squeeze under the "gate" (a flap of wire fencing that I fold around the last fence post). This is the only section of the fence that I was not able to tie to the chicken wire on the ground, since I needed to be able to open it. The garden beds were all flung about, and the new compost heap had become the next layer of my lasagna garden. Oh... and she left me a lovely doggie surprise to top it off (I resisted taking a picture of that. You're welcome!). 

I have now wired an extra fence post to the bottom of my "gate" to make it less flexible, and sprinkled the ground generously with cayenne pepper, but this dog... this dog is so determined! I don't know how I can train her out of it since she only really gets destructive when I am not in the yard with her. (Here's a new internet meme! Passive Aggressive Pooch.) Unfortunately, I have to work! I'm so looking forward to the day when I can build something more permanent. 

I raked things back into place, more or less. Hopefully I'll still get a nice crop! Telling the plants apart will be a bit more interesting now. Can we just call it permaculture practice? Hehe.

Have you dealt with gardening with a dog before? How do you keep your hard work from being undone?


Sunday, October 13, 2013

Defeated

Ok, Dogbeast, you win this round...




This is what is left of my compost heap. Isn't our dog industrious? She keeps managing to push the cardboard aside and pull bits of compost materials through the wire fence. And then fling them wildly about the yard, eat them, and leave me piles of unhappy tummy on her bed.

On the plus side, she has not actually gotten through the fence, so I still have hopes for being able to plant a garden once I have the beds prepared. 

Well, back to researching inexpensive compost container options...


Saturday, October 12, 2013

Paradigm Shift

I've been studying up on nutrition quite a bit for the past couple of weeks. I've been interested in food and nutrition for a long time, but a few recent factors have gotten me to review some of my ideas with a more open mind.

First is the rising popularity of the Paleo diet. I've been seeing a lot of Paleo and gluten-free recipes on Pinterest for a while now. A few months back, I glanced through a couple of articles about the Paleo diet, gathered that it was a fad from the 70s, and dismissed it. Now, however, a couple of podcasters whose opinions I am gaining respect for are talking about how they switched to the Paleo diet and are feeling much healthier. It got me wondering about it again.

I was also under the impression that the gluten-free thing was mostly a fad. I know a couple of people who are allergic or have Celiac disease, but it's mostly a pop-culture trend, right? (Sorry, don't hate me for my ignorance.) I did a little more reading on that and learned that there has been a huge increase in diagnoses of wheat sensitivities in the past decade or so. Also, The National Institutes of Health concluded that Celiac disease is still "greatly underdiagnosed." There is a long, but very interesting and convincing (to me, anyway) article about wheat and why humans are developing problems with it here, if you would like to read more: 


The History of How Wheat Became Toxic


First time fermenting my own sauerkraut. So easy and so much tastier than the store bought pasteurized version! I'll take pics of the process next time I make it, but click the image for another site with good instructions.

Ok, that's nice and all, but I am too poor to eat grass-fed meat and cut out my cheap and filling grains and beans. So, the Paleo diet is out for now. (I'm still not 100% sold on it, anyway, but I am less skeptical than I was initially). And, thankfully for my budding aspirations to become a homebrewer, I do not believe that I have a medical problem with wheat or gluten. So, where am I going with this? Well, there are a couple more pieces to the puzzle.

First, I heard a story on my local NPR station in the last week or so about how people raised on farms have fewer food and seasonal allergies than people who were not brought up around animals. The story also said that maybe many of our  current problems with food and seasonal allergies are due to our food being TOO CLEAN. Our foods are so processed and sanitized that the only thing that most of us get any sort of healthy bacteria in anymore is yogurt. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a link to this story, but here are a couple of others I found about the benefits of healthy bacteria. If anyone else finds the one I'm talking about, please let me know so I can add a link.

NPR: Diverse Gut Microbes, A Trim Waistline, And Health Go Together


NPR: Staying Healthy May Mean Learning To Love Our Microbiomes



First time sprouting beans! I used dried garbanzos and lentils from the bulk bins at Winco. They added a nice crunch and lots of healthy enzymes to a salad and stir fry last week. Click the image for a great website to learn about sprouting.

And, lastly, I feel that I eat pretty healthfully. I prepare most of the food that we eat at home, and the vast majority of that is made from whole, minimally processed foods. We eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and lean meats.  However, my recent annual physical showed that I am low in some important minerals. Although I am willing to take vitamins when necessary, I feel very strongly that my diet should provide the nutrients that my body needs. This is the thing that really has me questioning what is healthy and nutritious.

Studying nutrition is very confusing.  I am a skeptical person by nature. I like to see things backed up by scientific studies, but so much of the information about nutrition seems to be contradictory. Also, it is difficult not to be suspicious when studies funded by a particular company get results that benefit that company. I guess I will have to learn to trust folklore and the experiences of individuals a little more. 


My latest attempt at a sourdough starter. It's looking promising this time! Click the image for a link to the instructions I used.


I want to start out by incorporating more healthy bacteria into my diet with fermented foods. It could be another health fad, but it makes sense to me that people used to eat more fermented foods, since it is a good way to preserve foods. Fermenting encourages the growth of healthy bacteria, like yeast and lactobacillus. Strong colonies of these healthy bacteria will kill off other sorts of bacteria which can make us sick. Also, I have read article upon article stating that sprouting grains and seeds, fermenting vegetables, and fermenting flour to make sourdough make them more easily digestible and make the nutrients more readily available. And, since I happen to like many of these foods, it shouldn't be too hard to try it out and see how I feel over the next few months.

What do you guys think? Am I kooky or am I just slow to catch on? Do you have any suggestions for foods I should make that incorporate healthy bacteria? What are your favorite nutrition powerhouses (oo, I feel so buzz-wordy)?



Tuesday, October 8, 2013

How Very Pinteresting!

Volume 1


This weekend I tried out several things that I had pinned on Pinterest, and I thought it would be fun to share my results with you fine folks! Also, I am hoping that making this into a new segment will encourage me to stop procrastinating on other pins that I have been wanting to try and not getting around to. So, here goes!


Cinnamon Roll Pancakes - Win!

Not too bad for my first try, huh?

www.recipegirl.com

This woman is a pancake genius. If you like cinnamon rolls and pancakes, make these. You won't be sorry. 

I had planned to halve the recipe, since there are only two of us and it says it will make 8 pancakes. However, after halving the cinnamon filling and the cream cheese glaze, I realized that it is difficult to halve an egg... so I made the full amount of pancake batter. It worked out. I guess my pancakes came out a little bigger than hers, even though I used the recommend 1/3rd measuring cup. It probably would have made 6 pancakes for me, but I did four 1/3rd cup and one larger one with the leftover batter. I had to skimp a little with the cinnamon filling on the last big pancake, and there turned out to be extra cream cheese glaze. I may have added a little too much powdered sugar to it, because I had to thin it a little bit with milk to get it to drizzle. Amazing. My favorite fella says these may be the best pancakes he's ever had.

Mom's Super Laundry Sauce - Win! (so far)

Maybe I should call it Laundry Butter, instead?

www.Budget101.com

 

Fairly easy to put together, even though the dust from grating the Fels Naptha made me sneeze. The initial cost was about as much as buying laundry detergent, but the box of borax and washing soda will last through many batches, so it will be very inexpensive from here on out. 
I didn't have anything really grubby to test it out on, but our clothes smell fresh, and I don't see any residue. The reviews were very good, so I have high hopes that we will continue to love this!


Tub Scrub - Win!

Tub Scrubs Scrub Tubs!

 www.marthastewart.com

Our bathtub is terrible. It might be the original from when our house was built in 1950. In any case, it is in dire need of a reglaze. Just days after a good scrub it looks like it hasn't been cleaned in months, since stepping into it with any dirt on your feet guarantees stuck on foot prints. I have tried Comet, scouring pads, Barkeeper's Friend (liquid and powder), various combinations of bleach, baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and dish soap recommended by the Internet, and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Some worked better than others, but all required excessive elbow grease to get the tub white again each week. This cheap, non-toxic cleaner blows them all away.

Well, the first round came out better than I expected! Not all of the links I have found through Pinterest have worked out so well for me. Do you have any Pinterest gems or flops to share?  



Monday, September 16, 2013

How to Cut Up A Whole Chicken


I like buying whole chickens for several reasons. They're usually cheaper per pound than trimmed chicken pieces. I've gotten leg quarters or half breasts with skin and bone for cheaper, but have you noticed they usually have big chunks of skin tucked underneath? I'm not sure how much weight that actually adds, but it feels sneaky to me. I think the thing that I like the most about this is that I can get the most possible use out of the whole chicken. The only thing I don't know what to do with is the skin. Any ideas?




There you have it! With some practice, we might be as fast as Yan someday!

A few notes:
  • Save those giblets! If you aren't a giblet gravy person, your cat or dog will love you for them. I like to cut them up into treat sizes and flash freeze on a tray with wax or parchment paper. I have also heard that chicken liver makes good fish bait.
  • Sorry about the pic for separating the leg quarter into drumstick and thigh. I somehow missed that one! You can see the line of fat in the picture I used for now. I'll update this post the next time I cut up a chicken.
  • A post on making chicken stock with the lovely chicken carcass is forthcoming. :)
Please share your favorite ways to prepare chicken! Do you have any special tricks to make it extra delicious?



Sunday, September 15, 2013

Update: Lasagna Garden and Compost Heap

Well, it isn't much to look at just yet, but here is the progress I have made on my lasagna garden. I started out by chopping down the biggest weeds (some of them literally required a saw... ). Then I trampled the rest down as much as I could. 

A rainbow of grasshoppers went flying in every direction from the tall grass when I sprayed it down! First time I've ever seen a pink one. That was really neat. However, a friend of mine taught me that grasshoppers can be very destructive to a garden, so I'm glad that there seem to be fewer each day. 

Next step: papier mâ ché the ground with pages torn from an old phone book and spray it with water to keep them from flying everywhere. I scattered a thin layer of grass clippings on top of that for the "green" layer and then a few inches of straw on top of that for the "brown" layer. 

Sorry about the finger in the pic 
I covered about a third of my garden with one phone book

I plan to build it up layer by layer as we generate more materials. Mostly, it will consist of layers of grass clippings and shredded paper, since we have an abundant source of junk mail delivered to our house on the regular. :) Shredded newspaper, grocery ads, and credit card offers make great compost! Just be sure to rip out the little plastic windows first and avoid glossy things like magazines since some of their inks contain heavy metals that you won't want your future veggies soaking up. 

I started a compost in the other corner on the same day, and it's coming along nicely. It amazes me how much we used to throw away that we can put in that compost heap! I got it started with a small pile of about 1/3 grass clippings and weeds and 2/3 straw, and I'm trying to keep that ratio of greens to browns. Maintaining it only takes a few minutes to make sure it's as damp as a wrung out sponge and mix it up with a shovel.

Just added that cardboard in back today to keep the pooch from pulling straw through the fence. She thought that was a great game!

Since then, we've started keeping a labelled container in our fridge for scraps. The cold keeps things from getting smelly, and I only have to go mix it into the compost heap every day or two. Here are some examples of what we have been composting so far:


What you can and cannot compost seems to be a matter of debate. I've read a number of lists and some say you can compost anything organic up to roadkill (blech). Buuuut I haven't been able to generate a lot of heat with my compost heap yet. I'm guessing that's because it is small and not contained. So, although I have seen things begin to break down in the few weeks that I've been doing this, it's not as quick of a process as it could be. I'm going to stick to the safer stuff, which means no meat or dairy products.

Oh yeah, and remember the chicken wire I put down to dogproof the garden? It's working... but she's not giving up!
Right at the edge of the chicken wire... Yep. She's getting a snootful of cayenne next time.
What do you guys think? I'm new to composting, so I I'd love to get advice from my more experienced readers. And if you're new to this, too, I hope we can learn from each other's successes and mistakes as we go!


Thursday, September 12, 2013

Chicken + Ham = Chickham?

My favorite fella likes to tease me about how specific my food cravings can be sometimes. But I use it to my advantage when it comes to meal planning! When the billboard for the new Wendy's pretzel burger was making my mouth water, I got some pretzel buns and made my own! (Not to mention, taking the time to make extra burger patties to freeze for easier prep next time.)

Anyway, I've been craving colcannon for the past couple of weeks. It's an Irish dish I discovered a few years back that boils down to (ha! I'm keeping that!) mashed potatoes with shredded cabbage. It goes really well with salty, cured meats like ham, bacon and corned beef (mmmmm). 

However, I'm not buying a lot of those pricier meats until I get my credit cards paid off. Time for some creative internet searching...

Enter torihamu!
Thank you, Japan!



I took my first crack at it, and it's quite good! This article at JustBento.com explains the process much more thoroughly, but, basically, you brine the chicken breasts in a mix of honey and salt in the refrigerator for two days. You can also add seasonings of your choice (I used a bit of garlic and clove to make it more ham-ish.) Then you rinse it really well, and steam or bake it at a low temperature. I went with baking, since the author of the article liked it best and seemed to know what she* was talking about. 

It ends up with a texture very like country ham! It got a big stamp of approval from my guy, so I can definitely see this being repeated, and it complimented the colcannon nicely!

  
Maybe this blog will force me to learn how to take nice photos someday

P. S. I made colcannon with red cabbage, since someone nabbed the entire crate of green while I was wandering the produce section. It tastes the same, and looks like purple Easter grass! Kinda fun. :)

*Please correct my pronoun if need be, maki!


Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Milk Jug Watering Can

What a wonderful idea from A Journey to Dream! I had thought to turn an empty milk carton into a watering can by cutting the top. Before getting started, I did a quick search to see if someone had come up with a better method than what I had in mind, and look what I found!



Please visit her blog for instructions on making this very simple recycled milk jug watering can. 

I made my own using a pin, but I think I'll have to dig up a nail or a larger needle to make the holes wider, because I'm not getting water flow as good as hers is in the picture.

What are some creative ways you have recycled common household items in the garden? 

Monday, September 2, 2013

Guiltless Freezing

I just recently discovered that freezer bags are recyclable! I have yet to try it, but it sounds like you can turn clean and dry freezer bags in at grocery stores that recycle plastic shopping bags. 

Washing them can be done inside out in a dishwasher, or by hand. We aren't lucky enough to have a dishwasher in this house, but it's only a matter of seconds to squish some soapy water around in it and hang it in my drying rack on a spatula.

I was looking into alternatives for freezer meal containers that are better for the environment. There are some affordable options out there...

For example:


Wide mouth mason jars
Freezer paper
 Plastic wrap and aluminum foil
...but I still feel that zippered freezer bags are the most flexible for most freezer meal applications. They allow you to reduce freezer burn by pushing out air, and can be stacked neatly and tightly together if frozen flat. 

However, I am hardly ever able to reuse them. They develop pinholes and leak when defrosting, get contaminated with raw meat, or sometimes I just get impatient and rip them open to defrost things (like soup stock) in a pan. Now I don't have to feel as wasteful because I can take them in to be recycled!

Ziploc even has a rewards program, which you can check out here (no, I'm not affiliated with them in any way):



I'm still interested in getting some reusable freezer containers eventually. What are your favorite ways to store your freezer meals?

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Freezer Meals 1

So, I mentioned a while back that I'm in freezer cooking mode, right? I loooove the idea of Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) which has been a big deal in the circles I frequent on the internet (*cough*Pinterest*cough*) lately. However, I haven't quite leveled up to the point of making 50 meals in 2 hours, or whatever these amazing women do.

Instead, when I sit down to do my weekly meal planning/grocery list composing, I try to make one or two of those meal ideas something freezable. Then I just make double or triple and freeze the extra. It hardly takes more time than cooking the meal in the first place, and having those meals ready to go has been helping us quash the urges to eat out on those lazy nights.

Here are a few of the things we have frozen lately:

Sausage and Jalapeno Chili
I've made a few tweaks to this recipe to suit our taste. I leave out the ground beef and use 1 lb beef kielbasa, sliced into about 1/4" thick semi circles. I change out crushed tomatoes for diced. I cut the brown sugar in half. And I add 2C cooked kidney beans at the end (about a can). Defrost in the fridge and serve with warm corn bread. Mmm.
Indian Chicken Curry
This is my favorite fella's specialty. He also dices the chicken, adds diced potato and carrot, and uses tomato sauce in place of stewed tomatoes. Serve over rice, and feel free to add extra veggies (zucchini is good).
Chicken Enchiladas
There are tons of recipes for enchiladas out there. Mine are pretty basic chicken with (usually) canned green sauce. I bought a few cheap 8x8 metal pans for freezing stuff that can go straight into the oven. Just prep, line with plastic wrap and then foil, and write the baking instructions on the foil. No need to thaw (just make sure you remove the plastic), and I like that they aren't disposable.
Poverty Meal
This one made me laugh because my family ate it all the time when I was a kid, but I never had a name for it. Pretty appropriate! I "fancied it up" a bit by using rotini instead of macaroni.
Spaghetti Sauce
This chunky, vegetarian spaghetti sauce is so easy to double or triple and freeze. The only change I had to make (to make my fella happy) was to shred the carrots so they weren't as noticeable. I have also been experimenting with adding hot Italian sausage seasonings, such as garlic, fennel, and red pepper flakes. I'll post a recipe if I ever figure out the best measurements. :)
Soup Stock
It's soooo easy to make and freeze your own broth. I've used this vegetable soup stock recipe a few times, but it's really as simple as learning what you like in broth, cleaning and rough-chopping the veggies, chucking it all into a soup pot with herbs and seasonings, covering with water, and simmering for a few hours. Strain out the solids, and you have broth! I save bones from roast chicken and meat in my freezer for when I have an afternoon at home to keep an eye on the stove. You can also add (clean) eggshells to add calcium. 

Do you have any favorite freezer recipes? I'm always on the lookout for new healthy and tasty recipes. Please share!

Monday, August 19, 2013

Dog-Proofing and Lasagna Gardening

My Dog Likes to Garden


When I first started this blog, my intention was to chronicle my attempts to learn to garden. Then we got a puppy. 

A puppy who liked to dig. 


What dirt?

She dug under the wire fence I had so carefully built around my new garden, and trampled and gnawed every last plant. Needless to say, I was pretty discouraged at that point. Fast forward to two years later... I've been daydreaming of having a garden, but there were a couple of obstacles keeping me from starting. The first was still the dog. I filled in her holes, but the lure of that mysterious, off-limits place was too much for her, and she'd just dig them right up again. 

Finally it occurred to me to dig-proof the base of the garden fence the same way I had the fence at the back of the yard. I bought a cheap roll of foot-wide chicken wire and some long metal stakes with hooks on one end from the local hardware store. 
Chicken Wire and Wire Stakes

I rolled the chicken wire out flat along the base of my garden fence and staked it down. Then, after she still managed to dig between the fence and the chicken wire the next day (gah!), I filled the dirt back in and used some more wire to tie the near edge of the chicken wire to the base of the garden fence. It's been several months and, as far as I know, the garden area has remained untouched by canine paw. 

Taming My Jungle


Next roadblock... weeds that are taller than I am. And yes, that leafy thing to the far left is a tree. Did you know trees could be weeds? I sure didn't! 


And this is after I spent an hour hacking at it earlier this week
I've put off starting a garden so far this summer because of the immense amount of work I imagined it would take to pull up all those weeds and turn over all of that heavy soil. I don't know why I didn't think of searching the web for an easier way to prep a garden bed before, but I'm sure glad I finally did! 

I came across something called Lasagna Gardening. It requires no digging and sounds just about my speed. Start out by chopping or ripping out the biggest weeds. Then, put down a layer of newspaper (I'm going to use phone book pages, since we have several of those laying around that I haven't quite gotten to recycling). The paper kills the remaining weeds and prevents new ones from sprouting up by blocking out the sun. Plus, it is biodegradable. And, my favorite, free! Then, you put down layers of "green" and "brown" plant clippings and vegetable scraps to form a compost lasagna. 

Depending on what time of year you start your lasagna garden, you can plant your seeds right in it or let it break down into fluffy, nutrient-rich soil for a few months first. My first attempt at a compost heap did not go so well, so I will leave the details to the experts. Here is the website that explained it to me. 

Have you ever tried lasagna gardening? What do you do to make gardening less work and more fun?

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Cleaning A (Really Yucky) Stove Top

This one's a mini post. I wanted to get some pictures to add to my hamburger post, and realized that my stove top was pretty gross! I'll save you from a picture, but just know it had a few layers of stuff baked on around each burner.

I got started on it with my favorite cleaning method, and thought I'd share. This is a very simple technique I ran across a couple of years back using household items (table salt, white vinegar, and baking soda). Take a look! There really isn't anything that I need to add to this video. Thanks so much for sharing, autonomess!


Wednesday, July 31, 2013

How To Make Regular Ground Beef Leaner

The last three months have been full of celebrations and travel. It's been so fun, but I still haven't quite got the hang of budgeting for special occasions. So, now we're going into frugal mode while our finances recover. That means lots of Googling for money-saving DIYs and freezer food recipes, so I can take full advantage of the small deep freezer I bought a few months ago.

I rarely buy ground meat since it costs so much more per pound to get lean ground beef or turkey than it does to get (unground) chicken. Plus, I assumed the high fat content of regular ground beef outweighed the lower price tag. 

Google to the rescue!


I found two great articles on lowering the fat content of regular ground beef on Hillbilly Housewife and Democratic Underground. The first article is cool because Mrs. Housewife posted a chart that shows how much weight each type of ground beef loses while cooking (regular to super lean). It turns out that even though regular ground beef (30% fat and 70% lean) costs less than half as much as super lean (7% fat and 93% lean), you lose less than 2 oz. more per pound while cooking (12 2/3 oz remaining versus 11 oz). Half the price for 90% of the meat? Sold!

Stock pot filled with regular ground beef

Hillbilly Housewife Method


Her method is to brown the meat, drain the fat, then put it in a colander and run hot water over it to get even more fat out. You could then season it or put it back in the pan to cook with your favorite aromatics (garlic and onions <3) and/or freeze for later use.

I was also impressed by the comment left by Damie about running the cooked beef crumbles through a food processor along with your favorite meatball ingredients, forming the resulting mixture into balls, and browning them in a pan. I am planning on trying this out on freezer meatballs for lazy dinner nights.

Boiled hamburger spread out on a cookie sheet to cool


Democratic Underground Method


I liked lildreamer316's method on Democratic Underground for defatting ground meat even more for its frugal creativity. She (had to guess on the pronoun here) puts about an inch of water in the bottom of a pan, adds 5-6 lbs of ground beef, brings it to a boil, and stirs it around until it is no longer pink. 

Less work and clean up is good. But I liked even more that she reserved the broth. I make soup stock pretty regularly, and will likely post about it another time. In case you haven't done this before, when you cool the broth in the refrigerator, the fat floats to the top and will form a solid layer that you can easily lift off and throw away.


Look at the amount of fat I lifted off the reserved beef broth the next morning!

Your Method


Do you have a favorite method to make your ground meat healthier? What other frugal food tips do you have to share? I love hearing about this stuff!

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A New Beginning

I think I might take another crack at this blogging thing. It's been floating around in the back of my mind for a while now. My interests have always changed pretty quickly (hence the boxes of various crafting tools and supplies around my house), so I think I may have limited my subject matter too much on previous attempts. This time I'm just gonna have at it with whatever my favorite topic of the day is, and see what happens.

This is a blog about learning. And probably about mistakes, too. I love finding out how things work, how things are made, and why things are done. I have really always been that way, but these days technology makes it so easy that I sometimes wonder if it's becoming unhealthy... 

Naaaaah! 

Does anyone else get twitchy when you aren't able to Google random questions that pop into your head?