Katie's 5 Commandments of Denim Quilting

Since this is my third quilt like this, here are a few things I learned along the way.

1. Bunched up fabric makes sewing a pain, especially when trying to ram it underneath the small space under the sewing machine.
The roughly translates into start by sewing smaller pieces together first. I look at my quilt as a series of rows. I line up all my fabric pieces for a row first. Once I know I like the color arrangement (remember I'm dealing in varying shade of denim) I begin to pin the pieces together but I only pin two together at a time.

So if my row has 14 fabric pieces in it, I start by pinning them in twos. Once the twos are sewn together, I pin two of these twos together and sew. Now I take the fours that result from this and pin them together. You get the idea. It's a hell of a lot easier than dealing with a 98" row of fabric that's pinned every 7 inches or so.

Once I have two rows sewn, its time to pin the completed rows together and repeat the process described above.

2. Do a good job on your seams.
I straight stitch the seam twice then zig zag stitch the unfinished end. I know this breaks some quilting law but I find its the best way to go when working with heavy fabric like denim. I'll explain more about this later.

In short nothing stinks more than a seam that's opening up so pay attention here and use good quality thread. I actually measure 1/2 inch down and draw a line on the back of the fabric where I want my seam to be. Red ballpoint pen works great on even the darkest denim and it won't bleed through to the other side.

3. If you don't have room to spread your work in progress out on the floor, take it outside on the lawn, driveway or deck.
Sometimes you need to see how things are coming together, if there's no space inside get creative and move it outside. Once you figure out what you need to, head back in with your project. I already know I'm probably going to have to pin the backing on outdoors.

4. Speaking of backing, bedsheets make the best backing.
Check out your local thrift store for a top sheet (flat sheet) in great condition one size larger than the size of your quilt. It's easy to find top sheets (flat sheets) in great condition at the thrift store because its the bottom ones that wear out.

5. Stagger your squares and no one will know that they aren't exactly the same.
This is the best reason for half squares. You don't have to be perfect and it makes the quilt look more complicated than it really is.

Don't be scared, you all can do this. Start with a small one if you're really nervous.

The other day I took my son to the doctor and she remarked on how my log cabin quilt was coming along really well. She said she'd never be able to knit anything like it. I just blurted out, "If you could manage med school, I'm sure you could manage knitting this."

I think its really true. We've all faced much harder challenges than learning to knit or sew and we've conquered them. We can conquer these skills as well.

Let's Make a Quilt Together

Start by choosing your material. My material of choice is outgrown or worn out jeans. Decide on the size of your square, rectangle or whatever shape you plan to use. My fabric is cut up as follows:

Rectangles 29" x 7"
These yield a finished 28" x 6" rectangle after allowing for a 1/2 inch seam.

Squares 8" x 7"
These yield a finished 7" x 6" square after allowing for a 1/2 inch seam.

Half-Squares 4 1/2" x 6"
These yield a finished 3 1/2" x 6" half-square after allowing for a 1/2 inch seam.

How did I arrive at these measurements? The rectangles are the largest piece of unmarred denim I can harvest from the back of my hubby's worn out jean legs. The squares are the largest I can harvest from the front without a lot of waste. The half-squares are used just so I can stagger the rows of the quilt because I like the way it looks. They also allow me to harvest small pieces that would otherwise get thrown out. Make your life simple and make a cardboard template once you settle on a size.

Next decide on the size of your quilt. I'm not into reinventing the wheel. I peeked at the label on my winter comforter and discovered it was 84" x 92". Now I had a goal size. With that in mind I got my calculator out and started playing with the numbers. Use the finished size numbers for these calculations.

I discovered that with the sizes of fabric I cut, 90" (15 6" width pieces) x 98" (14 7" squares or 9 7" squares plus 2 half-squares plus 1 28" rectangle) would work best. Don't panic about the stuff in quotes, I promise it's going to make sense soon.

Now it's time to grab your graph paper and sketch out your plan. Use a pencil to do this or you'll go crazy. Write everything you've calculated out, you won't remember why you chose a particular measurement unless you do this. Don't get stressed, this should be fun.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about translating your plan from paper to fabric. I'll also add pictures of my work in progress.

Quiet, Quilt Planning in Progress

I've finally made a plan for the denim quilt for our bed. (I've only been talking about it for 2 months!) I'm cutting my squares, which are actually small rectangles but let's not be picky. I'm about 40 squares away from having all my material cut. Then I can check my pattern and, if it doesn't stink, I can share it with you tomorrow!

Hey homeschoolers, there is a lot of math in this project, if you want a real life example of math.

Darn It!

The humidity has finally let up after some rolicking thunderstorms last night. I don't know what insanity posessed me to garden yesterday but I paid for it all day today. Whenever the weather gets that hot an humid and I spend a long time outside, I wind up with virus-like symptoms. I must be a slow learner though, cause I do it at least once every year. Then again, it might have been the three bean salad I made for dinner last night...

Tonight, I've surrendered my cooking duties to my daughter. She can make whatever she wants as long as it doesn't heat up the house or make me feel worse.

Everything looks so lush after a big rain. Our raspberry patch is once again enormous. The berries aren't ripe yet but the bush is just laden with them. The currants and gooseberries are just beginning to ripen as well. It feels good to be growing some of our own food, even in this limited way. I keep looking at my houseplants thinking, wouldn't it make more sense if these were edible rather than ornamental? That's definitely something to investigate. I think the African violets and ivy are scared.

Darn it! Sometimes you have to. Have to what? Darn socks of course! I've put aside my log cabin blanket to sew up the holes in Jim's socks. It's those steel toed boots he wears for work that ruins them but a few stitches and they're good as new. It's not the most challenging of jobs but it is one that is easily accomplished.

It's Hot Enough to Cook Chickpeas Outside, Literally

The forecast called for searing heat in NY today. There was no way in the world I was turning on a stove. I set up a pot of dried chickpeas and a pot of dried kidney beans in my solar oven. Neither type of bean was presoaked and I filled the pots with cold water. I figured the kidney beans would cook and the chickpeas could finish cooking tomorrow.

Imagine my surprise when the chickpeas were fully cooked after 6 hours in the solar cooker! I really was flabbergasted, chickpeas take forever to cook!

I also wanted to make a quick breakfast food. Using the scone recipe from The Tightwad Gazette as my base, I divided the batter into a cast iron muffin tin and topped with cinnamon sugar. Since there was no room to be had in the solar cooker, I put these in a black covered roating pan. Baked goods always come out a little on the gooey side in the solar cooker, its a lot like the slow cooker, but they were clearly cooked. A quick go round in the toaster oven tomorrow morning and I think they'll be pretty good.

So what to do with these freshly cooked chickpeas? I mixed up a batch of Sesame Miso Vinagrette from La Dolce Vegan (of course I was out of rice vinegar and substituted plain white vinegar...), shredded some spinach, finely diced a very small onion and tossed in a few of the cooked kidney beans for color. I mixed this well and served it over lettuce and whole wheat couscous. Everyone devoured it, and the kitchen stayed cool.

I'll bet you noticed the lettuce and spinach. All I can say is horray for the CSA! Now, I'd better start planning for tomorrow's dinner right now since its supposed to be hotter than hell again!

Listen Up All You Big Band Babies!

This is the story of a fourth grade boy who wanted to play an instrument. When the time came to write down his 3 choices, the flute was his first choice(hey no jokes, I dated a guy in high school who played flute.) We got word yesterday that he got his first choice. He was thrilled and I was on a mission.

Way back in the day, I played flute and two of my sisters played flute. Was it possible that this flute was still kicking around at my mother's house?

Sure enough, a quick phone call to my mother revealed that it was. There was just one more hurdle to overcome. Any instruments that weren't rented or bought from one of the three specified companies that the school dealt with had to be inspected and approved by the band teacher.

Rob left the house with flute in backpack. I always felt this was the perk of playing flute, it was small and easy to carry. Perhaps that's the wrong reason to choose an instrument...

Rob came home with good news, my old flute passed inspection. It just needs a bit of a tune up to get it back into playing condition. So let's see which would I rather pay, $20-$95 to have our flute refurbished or $31/month rental fee for the entire school year? In case you're unsure I'll give you a hint, we just got back from the music repair shop a few minutes ago.

So if your kid is at that age, ask around to see if someone might have an instrument taking up space in their attic that your child could use. If your child loves the instrument then you need to talk about a more permanent arrangement. Make sure you know if the instrument has been given to you or loaned to you.

BTW, while we're on the subject of borrowing stuff, be a good borrower. Always return whatever you borrow in good condition. For example, if you borrow a car, return it with a full tank of gas.

Here's another real life example. My brother and his wife stored two bikes with us for the last four or five years and during that time they said we were welcome to use them. My kids used them a lot. This summer they're planning to take them back. But before they do, we opted to have them tuned up and have a flat tire fixed (with coupons at our local bike shop the flat fix was free and the tune up was very reasonable.) Did I have to do that no but I feel better knowing the bikes are in good working order. I'm a borrower, not a moocher!

Random Food & Gardening Notes

Our first CSA pickup is Saturday. I'm so psyched! I can feel the creativity hovering at the edge of my cooking conciousness just waiting to be reawakened. I'm fantasizing about fresh salads and stir fries.

With harvesting beginning, I'm also thinking about canning. Higher gas prices mean higher food prices. I'll be going through the fruit at our local farmers market with a different point of view this season. Frozen berries from some faraway state in the local store's freezer case are likely to be a much pricier choice this winter. Local foods are the way to go. I'm thinking about setting up a weekly goal for myself.

In really local gardening, our currants are just starting to ripen and it looks like we'll have quite a lot if we can just beat the birds to them. I suspect that we really need to think about some kind of netting to protect them.

There's a great article in Mother Earth News about how to plant a peach tree from the seed of one you've just eaten.

Getting Motivated

Motivation comes in many forms. Just a minute ago, my 15 year old tromped up the stairs demanding to know the location of the vacuum cleaner. Figuring something had spilled, she would never volunteer to vacuum otherwise, I ask what happened. Turns out, there's a family of spiders living in a large web under her bed. Nothing says its time to clean up like a big old spider or two under the bed!

Speaking of motivation, I finally got motivated to do the annual clean out the closet in preparation for summer routine with the boys. It took almost a whole week but the clothes for back to school are folded and waiting in the top of the closet, the clothes that no longer fit or won't fit in September have gone to the thrift store, and the summer clothes are in easy reach. Its rewarding when its over but I truly hate doing this job. So if you haven't done it already, get going. You'll feel so much happier when it's finally done.

Then there can be the problem of staying motivated. Some weeks I have trouble staying motivated to bake the bread we need to get through the week, or to plan ahead so the beans I need for a given recipe are ready when I need them or to cook dinner from scratch. Sometimes I don't want to do the laundry, actually a lot of times I don't want to do the laundry, or any one of a million other tasks of my daily life. So how do I stay motivated?

The answer is sometimes I don't but I usually regret it. It's a lot like eating a rich dessert when you're already full. It tastes great but you live with the guilt and the sick stomach for hours. Over the years I've learned, doing one laundry a day will keep me from spending an entire day in the laundry room, baking six loaves of bread at a time will give me a weeks worth of bread, making 4 dozen muffins will give me about 3-4 days worth of breakfasts and snacks, cooking dinner from scratch keeps hard earned money in our bank account...

You get the idea. Doing what I need to do, when it needs to be done is a lot like being granted parole. When its finished, I'm free to do what I want to do.

So now that my blogging commitment is over for the day, I'm going to knit!

Building My Log Cabin One Row at a Time

Here is the basket of yarn leftovers that I've been using in my log cabin blanket.


Here is my log cabin blanket.

If you look closely, you'll discover that there are colors mixed in some of the bands. Look at the yellow section. It starts out dark, then gets lighter and finally finishes out in white. Check out the maroon, beige, multi colored section. Or how about the section I'm currently working on, blue with two rows of multi colored in the middle.

So what's all this funky color combining about? Simple, I really want to see if I can use up all my yarn leftovers so I'm sneaking them in wherever I can. Sometimes it works perfectly, like the blue section I'm working on now. I had just enough multi colored yarn to create two rows in the center. Sometimes I screw up and badly misjudge how much yarn I have/need for a particular section, see the aforementioned yellow section.

In the end though, I like the way its coming together. Along the way something else has happened...

Somebody else is getting hooked on knitting! Rob's been on the waiting list to learn to knit at school. This past week I finally gave in to his begging and tested my knitting skills by teaching him how to knit. Now he can go to the knitting club at school because he already knows how to knit.

A Corn Trick & a Bedwetting Solution - How's That For an Odd Pairing?

As you might have guessed, things didn't go smoothly packing the car last week. In fact, it resulted in a trip to the emergency room for our youngest who tumbled down a hill in the melee almost breaking his hand. After Jim spent hours in the emergency room with Kyle, I gave up. We left Friday morning instead, grateful that Kyle's hand wasn't broken. Things got a lot smoother after that.

I was particularly pleased with the food I made. It was all very simple but a few experimental things worked very well. I cooked corn on the cob in the slow cooker on low with just enough water to cover the bottom of the pot. The results were fabulous, especially since I have no microwave, only a three burner stove and a very small oven to do all my cooking.

We had a lot of company on Saturday so I gave up on the standard burger/dog fare and instead made a baked ziti using Follow Your Heart vegan mozzarella. I served this with the fancy biscuit recipe from How it All Vegan and a vegetable that I can't remember (how sad is that??) For dessert I broke my own rule and tried a new recipe, Chocolate Upside Down Pudding Cake, also from How it All Vegan. (We needed a birthday cake ASAP, I had no choice but to break my own rule!)

This recipe was a big hit served with a scoop of ice cream on top. By itself it had a slightly chalky taste, although no one noticed except for me. I suspect if you incorporated some powdered soymilk into the pudding mixture the result might be creamier tasting. The leftovers of this cake, with a scoop of ice cream, reappeared at almost every meal much to everyone's delight.

I used the leftover biscuits as buns for the veggie burgers I made the next day. I used Isa's recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance. It's always a hit. In fact we eat a lot of the burger mix uncooked while we cook the burgers. Ah, the simple joys of vegan cooking! We served these with homemade oven fries, the aforementioned corn and baked beans.

So now that I've been back to reality for a few days, here's what's going on.

First of all, if you've got a bedwetter on your hands, listen up. This is my second go round with bedwetting and, as near as I can tell, the end result is always a ruined, foul smelling mattress. My frugal solution, in addition to the usual plastic sheet/absorbent pad/etc, has always been to give the bedwetter hand me down mattresses. So for example, this weekend we had to replace the girls mattresses. One was in just horrible shape with springs coming through, the other was ok for a lighter child to sleep on.

The ok one replaced a foul smelling one that was beyond repair (believe me I know, I've even used the carpet steamer on mattresses to give them a little more life). Here's where I accidentally made a frugal discovery. Bunk boards are the supports used in place of box springs in bunk beds. (If your bunk bed has enough support slats no bunk board is needed.) Bunk boards may be the most crappily constructed thing I've ever encountered. Aside from a wooden frame, they are made of cardboard and covered with low quality fabric. A piece of plywood would work just fine and probably be less expensive, but I digress.

When I removed the old mattress, I discovered the stink of it still lingered. The smell was coming from the bunk board. I dragged it outside, ripped off the fabric, removed the cardboard. This left me with just a wood frame, which thankfully didn't smell. Originally, I thought I'd have to recreated the cardboard and fabric cover but then I thought, "WHY??"

I put the naked frame back on the bed, topped it with the mattress and it worked perfectly.

I'm still working on my log cabin blanket. In an effort to use up scraps, or perhaps because I've gone nutty, I've taken to combining colors to finish out a particular patch. I'll post pictures and explain more about this tomorrow.

Finding Peace In the Madness of It All

Earlier I was running around like a loony trying to get ready to go away. Now I'm sitting here sipping a cup of coffee trying to regroup. The reality is, I'm a down to the wire packing up the car kind of a gal. So why am I trying to fight it? I know I'm leaving late and arriving late no matter what I had planned originally. It's part of the joy of living with four kids and many pets.

So I've decided to try and find the joy in the process of packing rather than continuing to run around like a loony trying to meet an arbitrary deadline. Perhaps my newfound inner peace comes from the yoga class that I had to stop and teach this afternoon. It really helped me come to peace with my task.

The food I cook this weekend will evolve from the staples I bring up. I have vowed not to stress over it. We are getting together to enjoy each others company not to be food critics.

I hope you all find peace and joy in your holiday weekend!

Must Focus!!

Has anyone else ever noticed that whenever you're up against a cleaning deadline, something (usually something that breathes) is often working against you? In just over 24 hours I'll be heading to the Adirondacks with the kids, 2 dogs and a car full of stuff. All I want is to leave a clean house behind but I'm starting to think it isn't meant to be.

Aside from a lack of time, Biscuit's got a belly ache complete with diarrhea and farting. Actually, he's always tooting but now it's bad enough to make your eyes water. The pepto hasn't kicked in completely, although it is improving things so I'm on "doggy gotta go now" watch. This means keeping the dog in the same room with me and paying careful attention to his body language. I have to say, it's a little limiting, especially since he runs out of the room whenever I run the vacuum.

BTW, for anyone who's wondering why I don't just give the dog rice instead of pepto, it's because he won't eat rice at all. He just spits it out.

I'd also like to get a meal plan figured out for the weekend since we'll be having quite a bit of company. Must focus...

I Made Pop-Tarts - Sort Of

I guess it all comes down to this, if you hate rolling out pie crusts, why would you want to roll out dough for Pop-Tart like creations? Think of how many opportunities there would be for the dough to stick to the counter. If only I'd thought of this a few hours ago...

I confess, my attempted toaster pastries have been molded into one giant, crumbly, hand pressed toaster tart. It's baking right now. It's going to be a mess but a tasty mess. Being frugal means not throwing it out, it doesn't mean it always has to look pretty. I'm not even going to tell the kids they were supposed to be Pop-Tarts. It's just too embarassing.

So don't despair when your recipe comes out less than picture perfect. Why do you think I rarely take pictures of food? Now go cook something.

I'm in a cooking and cleaning frenzy. Much laundry to do, bread is rising, beans are cooking, pop-tart thingies are toasting away.

Cooking So the Cookie Won't Crumble

I made a delightful batch of oatmeal cookies yesterday. I started with the recipe in Simple Treats for Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and changed it to make use of what I had onhand. Here are the changes I made:

subbed granulated sugar for maple syrup (you need to increase the liquid in your recipe if you do this)

subbed whole wheat pastry flour for barley flour

subbed dried currants for raisins

There were no earth shattering substitutions but if you're new to cooking or just rigid in your cooking technique, these changes may seem shocking. The trick is to look at the purpose of each ingredient.

The barley flour binds the cookie together, whole wheat pastry flour will do the same. But the recipe already calls for you to grind up some of the oatmeal into oat flour. Why not just use oat flour in place of the barley flour. The oat flour will not bind things together well. You'll wind up with a very crumbly cookie.

The maple syrup provides sweetness and liquid. Sugar can provide sweetness and soymilk (or other liquid of choice, even water) can make up for the lost liquid.

The raisins provide a texture and a sweetness. Currants can do the same. In fact lots of dried fruits would work in this recipe. Use what you like.

You can do this too! Find a recipe that you have most of the ingredients for and go for it. Tell me how it goes.

BTW, I've finally taken down the Cut the Crap banner, a mere 16 days after the challenge ended. Thanks to Chile for inspiring us all. We're still crap cutting around here but I think its just an integral part of our existance. Once people know you're frugal they tend to deposit their excess stuff with you. This is a mixed blessing. Stuff comes in and we need to make sure that stuff we can't use goes out. I guess that means I have to come to terms with the fact that no one wants to pay for the karate sparring gear that I put on craigslist. Off to the thrift store it must go.

Where Does the Time Go??

The commitments of everyday parenting come to a demanding crescendo this time of year. We're knee deep in it and getting deeper everyday. There's not a lot of time for blogging, or breathing for that matter.

My oldest went to her junior prom last Friday. We drove to the prom and her date's parents drove home so we avoided paying for a limo. I was shocked how many kids actually did rent limos for the occasion. Then again, I probably shouldn't have been shocked when you consider the prom was held at the same place my brother had his wedding. My junior prom was in the high school cafeteria and we still turned out okay.

The dress was a bit pricey ($119) but we'd agreed my daughter had to pay half. All the other expenses were hers, including the $310 hair-do (she got hair extensions sewn in, a very pricey thing indeed!) In her defense, she had the money, she'd always wanted to do this and it will last 2 1/2 months. I don't think she'll be too quick to spend that much on her hair again though. She hated seeing her balance go down so quickly.

My cooking has been so basic it's boring me to tears but no one else seems to notice. My meal plan has been a real life saver. When I'm standing in the kitchen all brain dead and unmotivated, it does the thinking for me.

The book Cheaper & Better that I had mentioned, has some interesting ideas but they need to be veganized and I haven't had the time or energy to give them too much thought. There is a pop tart like recipe that my kids would love. I'm hoping to try it later this week.

Through it all, I continue to knit. It's like a crazy addiction. My mother in law just gave me a bunch of yarn leftovers which I've gleefully been using in my log cabin blanket. I think that was the best mother's day gift of them all, although the crocheted blanket she made ne was very nice too.

Why does knitting make me so happy? I'm not sure but I take it with me everywhere I go. Case and point, Jim had to drop his car off for service and I whipped it out while he was filling out the little envelope.

Now I'm off to a second grade spring concert but out of respect I'll leave the knitting behind, unless I get there early enough to get a row or two in before the singing starts!

The Bike

Wouldn't you know it, the laundry was gently swaying in the breeze and just about dry when the sky suddenly darkened and it started to rain. No sooner had I yanked 3/4 of it off the clothesline, the rain stopped and the sky brightened. Why was Mother Nature trying to toy with me?? I opted to tumble the laundry in the dryer rather than risk another shower. Sometimes practicality has to take priority over frugality.

I'm not getting anywhere on this quilting project and its really annoying me. I can't seem to find the time. It looks like Tuesday will be a good day to try again since I'll be off and alone all day.

Sometimes the promises I make myself drive me nutty. A while back I set myself a goal to not pay full price for anything unless absolutely necessary. Then your son's birthday comes sneaking up on you and you can't find what you're looking for...what then???

I was on a quest for a bike for my very tall son. I didn't want to buy a new one. After all, he's an 8 year old boy. Have you ever seen the way 8 year olds treat their bikes? The ones in my neighborhood don't understand what a kickstand is for. They just let the bike drop to the ground. The thing was, I couldn't find one in the size I needed. So I...looked harder!

I know that sounds snotty but its true. I expanded my search. I checked online tag sale sites, I checked craigslist, I was about to check ebay locally when the perfect bike popped up on craigslist for $20. So now it sits in my parents garage waiting for my son's birthday to arrive.

Now if I could just think of an idea for my other son's birthday which is coming up in July...

Frugal Overdrive!

Since the living room was emptied for the rug to be installed, I've had a bit of trouble putting stuff back in. It looked so nice empty. Its been a good opportunity to do a little unexpected craft culling. I've begun the tedious task of sorting through two boxes of buttons that I acquired a while back. Some are broken, some are hideous and there's an awful lot of linty ickiness in the boxes. My goal is to get it down to one box of useable, useful buttons. It could take a while though, I keep getting disgusted and walking away from the project.


My log cabin blanket is coming along. I know you're not supposed to do the same yarn on all four sides but its my project and I wanted to finish up this little ball of yarn so a big raspberry to anyone who doesn't like it! I've got quite a collection of little yarn balls that will become part of this project.

I just took Cheaper & Better Homemade Alternatives to Storebought Goods out of the library. I haven't had a chance to really look at it yet but I've heard good things about it.

I'm off to get the day started! Bread to make, laundry to wash & hang, dinner to get started. There's no room for unfrugality (is that even a word??) right now since we've begun the project of replacing our worn out deck. The cost of the supplies is enough to give me heartburn. Between that and the cost of gas, we've got to keep our expenses super low as we try to sock some money away for the two months that I don't work. Time to kick into Frugal Overdrive!

A Tale of Two Tapiocas

I wanted to make a dessert to bring on a visit yesterday but its hard to cook when your entire living room is in your kitchen. I needed fast and easy with ingredients that I could actually get to.

At first I thought a pudding pie, but then there's always a risk that the pudding won't set enough. You wind up with a tasty but unappealing looking mess. Individual custard cups with crust on the bottom and pudding on top would have been nice but they wouldn't transport very well.

Finally it clicked, make pudding and a crumbly crust that could be sprinkled on top of the pudding at serving time! I could even reach the tapioca that I wanted to use!

I used the recipe on the back of the box adjusting it to make it vegan. I made two batches, one vanilla and one chocolate. I subbed soymilk for milk, 1 Tbs ground flax seed for egg and 3 Tbs cocoa powder plus 3 Tbs canola oil for the 3 squares of baker's chocolate (that was not to make it vegan, it was because I didn't have baker's chocolate in the house).

Ground flaxseed may not be the best choice esthetically because it does show in the vanilla, however, it looks a lot like shredded vanilla bean. No one complained about it and I would used it again.

Now for the crumbly crust. I took my inspiration from an apple crisp recipe and the crust in Company Pudding recipe in The More With Less Cookbook. It's a combination of oatmeal, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and canola oil. I had to make it twice though, since I burned the first batch to cinders. (I got distracted when the rug installers finally arrived and didn't hear the oven timer going off.)

Would you believe I even started to burn the second batch? There was just too much going on as we tried to move furniture back into place and rehang pictures on the wall. (If you're wondering why the pictures had to be rehung, the installers asked me to take them down so they didn't knock them off the wall when they used the kicker to stretch the rug into place.) Fortunately, I caught it in time to rescue most of it.

As fate would have it, the vanilla version was a bit watery so I was pleased with my decision. Topped with the crumbly topping, it was hardly noticeable and it tasted very good. The chocolate set up beautifully. Personally, I thought the topping tasted better on the vanilla than the chocolate but people enjoyed it on both.

Here's What's New Today

I should be emptying furniture out of the living room but I've snuck away to write a quick post.

I finally started cuttting some of the jeans into squares, rectangles actually, for my latest quilt. I opted for rectangles because I had quite a few pairs of Jim's jeans that had completely worn out front of the legs while the back was pristine. This allowed me to cut larger pieces hence the rectangles. I'll salvage squares from the fronts of the legs. The finished quilt will be a mix of the squares and rectangles. I'll post pictures as it begins to come together. Right now its just a pile of fabric.

I've got two knitting projects going right now. One is a scarf which seems goofy in light of the warmer temperatures. The other is a log cabin blanket. I need to finish the scarf because I want to use the leftovers in the log cabin blanket. I also need to set aside some money to buy Mason-Dixon Knitting because I can only renew it one more time!!

We're still living off food from this weekend. Lunch today was sliced baked seitan with guacamole on homemade bread. YUM! Later today I'll be making some desserty thing and a breakfasty thing, although I'm not sure what. I need to see what dried fruit I still have before deciding. I can't wait until we get a little further into the growing season.

Speaking of the growing season, check out this brief article at Mother Earth News on perennial salad greens. How great is that? Salad greens that just appear in early spring year after year.

Now I'm off to empty that living room!

I Need a Weekend to Recover From My Weekend!

Spring has officially sprung in the Hudson Valley. Just step outside and you'll hear the whir of lawnmowers, weed trimmers and the like. Signs for garage sales are springing up like early daffodils along the roadways.

This weekend we found ourselves dealing with our spring fever in an odd ADD sort of a way. We jumped from one project to the next in a way that not only defied logic but should also have prevented success. Instead, we thrived and managed to get a huge amount done.

Here's a peek at how the weekend went. We'll jump back to Thursday evening to start things, since that's when the lower element in the oven caught fire. That's when we learned that you could cook pizza on a cast iron griddle if you use a cookie sheet as a lid. Cast iron pans with the lines on the bottom work really well when covered too. Creativity is clearly born out of necessity around here. BTW, if you've hung around this blog long enough you'll know that this was my second fire in the oven experience.

Task 1 for the weekend: Find out where to purchase the oven element, buy it and replace it.

Then there was the problem of Mel, our leaky little bichon. He's 9 1/2 and he leaks. You could walk him to the moon and back but he still leaks. He wears doggy diapers in the house but he leaks through them with alarming regularity. He's already ruined the living room rug. In fact, it was so bad we ripped it up to get rid of the smell. But since you can't just have a plywood floor in your living room, a new one was already on its way (an eco friendly corn based product but more on that another time). The carpet store called Thursday to let us know that the carpet we ordered had come in and they were coming to install it Tuesday.

Task 2 for the weekend: Solve the Melly leaks problem without killing or rehoming the dog.

My parents had an outdoor dog pen that they weren't using. A quick phone call later and we had an outdoor pen lined up for Mel. In the nice weather, he can spend his days outside. The pen is even big enough for Biscuit to hang out with him. (Don't ask me about winter or bad weather, I haven't gotten that far yet.) He can spend his nights in his crate inside, which is where he likes to be anyhow.

Task 2 amended: Pick up pen at my parent's house.

We were having friends over Friday evening and Friday had been a busy day so Jim ran to the store while I waited for Rob to finish swim team. Last minute trips to the store are rarely frugal and this one was no exception. It happens. While our friends were over they told us about an appliance parts store in the area.


Task 1 amended: Go to appliance store and purchase oven element.

It sounded like things were getting easier but actually this is when things got screwy. Since it had been a hellish week, we slept in Saturday morning. This was obviously a huge mistake. When Jim called the appliance parts store, we discovered they had the part but they closed in 45 minutes and they were a 25-30 minute ride away. Jim ran out of the house without finishing his coffee but he got there before the store closed. Within two hours of the phone call, the oven was in working order again.

Thge rest of the tings we hoped to accomplished seemed pretty manageable. Mow the lawn, have the girls really clean out their closet, empty the living room in anticipation of the rug coming Tuesday and see if we couldn't clean out the garage a bit.

Then we discovered we would be entertaining on Sunday afternoon. Skip taking the living room apart. Plan a snack menu as well as a dinner menu, just in case. Another trip to the grocery store was required since our bulk food order wasn't coming until Wednesday.

The Jim tried to adjust the flood lights outside our garage door and the metal fixture broke off in his hand. I wish I had a picture of the look on his face but I was too busy saying something like, "I can solve this problem" to snap it. The perk of decluttering is you never know what you'll find along the way and sometimes, it's pretty useful stuff. I was pretty sure I had come across a motion detector floodlight fixture that we'd bought about nine years ago but never installed. Forty five minutes later, we once again had a working light fixture outside the garage doors and it was a motion detector too!

In between this madness, I started attacking the areas of the garage that are largely my domain, namely kids stuff. We had 5 pairs of cleats that fit none of my kids, 2 sets of training wheels that are gathering dust...the list grew everytime I turned my head. So I embarked on a freecycling and garbage removing frenzy while Jim worked on the light.

I won't bore you with the details of the rest of the day but it went on and on like that. So did Sunday morning. Sunday's snacks were prepared or purchased with the idea that they would easily become lunch snacks or part of dinner. For example, the veggie platter became part of the Jerk Seitan that we had for dinner last night, nuts were divided into containers to take with lunches. You get the idea.

As it turned out, our guest had to leave before dinner so the barbequed lentils that I had cooking in the slow cooker will be tonight's dinner. Since our guests left earlier than we'd expected we ran over to my parent's house, got the dog pen and set it up here before dinner.

Not the way I'd planned it, but everything got done and we had a lot of laughs along the way.

A Few Quick Notes

The almond milk yogurt is officially a no go. It doesn't firm up. No matter, it will be used in baking. I'll stick to making soymilk based yogurt, which firms up with amazing regularity.

The rag balls I mentioned yesterday take a longer to make than I thought so I'm still working on them. That also means I never got to cut any quilt squares.

Finally, the sparring gear pickup was a bust. The person did show but her school of karate uses a different type of sparring gear. Bummer!

Now I'm off to make some more rag balls and get to those quilt squares!

Things That Take Up Space & Serve No Purpose

There are things in life that serve very little purpose but take up a huge amount of space. The sparring gear that's been sitting on the top shelf of my sons' closet since last May is a great example of this.

The boys lost interest in karate when they discovered swim team this past September. I held onto the karate gear because there is nothing that pisses this frugal momma off more than having to repurchase something she's just gotten rid of. So I waited and waited and waited.

I finally asked the boys if they planned to return to karate last week. They said no. I ask if they would mind if I got rid of their sparring gear. They said no. I wanted to be really sure so I waited until yesterday and asked them again. They said, "NO!"

So, I listed the almost brand new sparring gear on a local tag sale website. Happily, someone is supposed to pick it up later today. The closet is emptier and my wallet will be fuller. (Unless of course, the person is a no show. Chile, I'm thinking of you!)

I was pondering the idea of a project log again. I had planned to make a summer weight denim quilt for our bed last year but promptly forgot about it when the cold weather arrived. As I lay melting under the heavy quilt last night, I had a eureka moment and remembered my original plan. Would a project log have helped?

At least now I have a plan for the massive amount of worn out jeans that I've saved. I have other clothes that I'm planning to cut into strips and wind into rag balls for future projects, like that nifty rug in Mason-Dixon Knitting.

A google search on winding fabric into rag balls, revealed the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, how to make decorative rag balls. Actually, a lot of sites had similar projects. I swear this is proof that civilization is crumbling! Then I remembered that Ruthie had found this rag rug tutorial which revealed how to cut the fabric into strips and wind them into balls. I also like her joining technique (knot the ends together).

So here's the decluttering plan for today. Cut fabric and wind into balls, making sure not to use fabric that's been set aside for the boxer short project. I'd also like to get some squares cut for the queen size denim quilt. Maybe I'll even write down a few plans for future projects.

I've got a batch of alomond milk only yogurt brewing. I was super careful with the temperature so this batch should tell all.

No-gurt & Gardening Plans

I did it! I cleaned all the crap out of the cutlery drawer. I also showed the newly cleaned drawer to anyone who walked in the kitchen, although most didn't care as much as I did.

I've been making yogurt regularly and using a bit from the last batch to start the next with great success, until this past week. I had it in my head to try making the yogurt from almond milk instead of soy, in the interest of variety and just to see what that would be like. For my first batch I decided to mix half soymilk and half almond milk. The mixture bubbled and fermented a bit but didn't make yogurt.

Never one to give up, I reheated the mixture, let it cool and added fresh starter. Still, some bubbles and a fermented smell but no yogurt. I'm left wondering if I messed something up in the preparation or if almond milk isn't a good base for yogurt.

I'll be trying again Sunday night. This time I'll do one thermos batch of soymilk and one of almond milk. I'll also be sure to pay very close attention to my thermometer. I confess, I often put the giant measuring cup with the heated soymilk and thermometer in it next to me on the coffee table to cool. I glance at it while I'm knitting or enjoying an old movie with Jim. Usually I catch it just in time but sometimes I lose track and it gets too cold. That might have been the problem with this batch.

BTW, a batch of yogurt that doesn't quite set works wonderfully in place of clabbered milk in biscuit recipes. If your yogurt does set, the whey that you drain off to thicken the yogurt works really well in biscuit recipes too.

The beautiful weather yesterday distracted me from my inside tasks and lured me outside so I haven't really decluttered much more. I've got the itch for summer. Fortunately, we're heading upstate this weekend. A quick call to town hall in our little Adirondack town yesterday revealed that there is still some snow on the ground up there. No planting this weekend but I'll hopefully be able to plan the new home for the currants since there are blueberry bushes in their original place.

My worms have been given strict orders to work overtime so I can adequately fertilize these thrice transplanted bushes!

Is Your Stash Worth Storing?

I confess, my kids are off from school this week and blogging is not a big priority for me. I have ventured into the garage for a bit of decluttering but just a bit. Here's some good decluttering news from the garage though. I was able to sell one of the guinea pig cages that we no longer use. (Decluttering for fun and profit?!)

I'm planning an attack on the cutlery drawer later today. Do I need a fish boning knife? (I'm vegan so probably not.) How many skinny rubber scrapers does one family need? (I hate skinny ones, they do a lousy job.) Is it time to get rid of the knives with the handles that have half come apart from broken rivets? (Probably yes, they were a wedding gift back in 1990. I think we've gotten enough use out of them.) What other mystery crap is taking up space in that drawer??

Meals have been pretty basic. I've relied heavily on my 14 day menu for inspiration. That's not so shocking since that's what it's there for. I guess what's shocking to me is how well it's working.

We've begun the great closet change up, where winter clothing is trucked up to the attic and summer clothing is brought down. This is a great opportunity to go through clothes and weed out the too worn items. Several of Jim's shirts are too worn at the collar and cuffs to be repaired but they'll make great material for the upcoming little boy boxer short project. Other shirts are being saved for rug making projects. The trick is to keep the useful, store it well and still get rid of crap along the way. This is the real challenge.

I save all sorts of things if I think they'll be useful down the road. For example, oversized envelopes with just my son's name on them get sent home from school several times a year. I save them and use them for shipping out my own stuff. I also save padded envelopes. You just put an address label over whatever was written on the envelope the first time. (In fact, I think Ruthie and Sarah have been the recipients of these preused envelopes.) These are useful and easy to store.

Unfortunately, not everything is so clear cut. Only you can look at your stuff and decide what is worth storing and how best to store it (without buying more crap to store it in!!) I'm wondering if a project log would be useful. It could be a place to catalog what you've saved for what project and maybe even to write down a goal finish date. Like the meal plan, would it help you get started on your next project and avoid the abandoned project piles of the past? Could you use it to help you clear future clutter? (If I don't start by this date, I'm never starting this project and these materials should be donated?)

What do you think?

Baby It's A Bib

The bib for my nephew's birthday sparked a lot of lively conversation among the party guests. It turns out people aren't as different as they may initially seem. There were a lot of closet crafters in the group. There was even a closet crafter who outed herself in a big way when she recreated her sons favorite baby toy for her grandson! I didn't know my mother had it in her!

There was also an almost universal feeling among the parents in the group that gift giving for children had gotten out of control. Most agreed that useful, handmade gifts were a welcome change. There was even talk of beginning mitten projects for holiday gift giving. It was really inspiring.

That's not to say I didn't raise a few eyebrows when I mentioned my penchant for unraveling thrift store sweaters as a source of yarn for my projects but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Just for the record, I love the simplicity of the bib pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I just need to work on my button hole technique. I think I created a new stitch while trying to make the button hole.

Pants as Packaging?

Today, I'm packing these boxes of clutter into my car and dropping them off at the thrift store after work. Another larger item that's been in my way for a long time is being donated to our swim team tonight. It feels good to declutter with Chile!

As for the birthday gift for my nephew, I'm about 1/2 way through the bib pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I'm using yarn from a sweater I unraveled a while back. I like the almost denim look the yarn has.


Speaking of kids, my son is learning to play recorder in school this year. He already had a decent recorder but he wanted to buy a new one so he'd have a case like everyone else. (Naturally, the case his came with has been missing for several years now.) I offered him this challenge. He could spend $5.00 of his own money and buy a new recorder or he could design a cover and I would make it for the existing recorder. He really struggled with this decision. For an 8 year old, its a pretty big one. In the end he decided to use the recorder we had. That meant I had to make a case for it.

Here's the pattern he drew. Notice the excrutiating detail he has included. He's very specific. I thought I really might be in deep trouble with this one.


I headed to the drawer of pants in need of a project and found the perfect pair of cotton black pants to use.


I did a lot of measuring as I tried to convert his desired pattern into a real one. Here's a hint for anyone embarking on a task like this, keep the object you are making the case for close by. This allows you to continually check to see if the size is still ok.

Anyone could make this or something like it. In fact, I think its a great project for practicing your sewing skills. Even the embroidery is just a very basic backstitch. Remember this: You can do great things with some basic skills!

Here's the finished product.


And here's the happy kid with the finished product.


Rob couldn't wait to show his music teacher his new case. There's an added bonus. He'll alway know which recorder case is his.

Decluttering, Knitting & a Challenge

I'm still decluttering along with Chile but I jumped ahead a little and began tackling some majorly cluttered corners of my kitchen cabinets. (Forgive me Chile, I had to, otherwise the boxes I'm using to declutter might have become part of the clutter!)

We've weeded out all of the plastic cups, as well as an insane number of coffee mugs and an odd assortment of champagne flutes. How many of any of these things do I really need?? We've packed them in boxes to be donated on Thursday. We're not done yet, the pile of boxes is still growing.

Using Chile's 10 minute technique as a jumping off point, we've been cruising through rooms, cabinets and drawers. Obvious clutter is removed and packed away to donate or just tossed if not donate worthy. Going through the house this way is a lot like pretreating a stain. I'm making the first pass now to make the final round go that much easier.

In knitting news, I just took Mason-Dixon Knitting out of the library. What a fun book. There are patterns in there for things I'd never considered, like a curtain or a hand towel or a rug or a super absorbent bath mat. I'm inspired! I did have to go online and look up what the devil yarn forward and yarn back meant, even though its totally obvious. I can't help it, I had to make sure it meant what I thought it meant!!!

Today's agenda includes washing tons of laundry, making a batch of chili for dinner and making bread. All the while I'll be peeking around for clutter to dispose of while making sure new clutter doesn't enter the house.

I've also got a birthday present to plan for my nephew who's turning 1 this weekend. Hmmm...maybe that bib pattern I saw in Mason-Dixon Knitting...I certainly have the yarn to do it. Actually I thought this post was over but the thought of my nephews birthday reminded me of something that's been on my mind for a long time.

What is the deal with gift giving for kids anymore? I'm especially talking about little kids. We give them more stuff than they could possibly use. Giant plastic toys, noisy toys, toys with gazillions of little parts that always are missing. I can't be the only parent who noticed that most of it just sits around once the party ends. This is the very genesis of some of the clutter parents are dealing with right now.

Trends start somewhere. If everyone who reads this blog vows to never buy another present for a child, just to buy a present and instead gives something useful and handmade, image the impact we could have over time. Maybe there are others in each of our circles who are dying to do the same. Our simple act might empower them to give more thoughtful and less consumption based giving a try. Not comfortable making things? What about a savings bond or a donation to a college fund? What about the gift of time? Can you spend a day doing something with the gift recipient that makes a memory rather than more clutter?

Come on people, we can do this!

Cutting the Crap with Chile

I've joined Chile's decluttering challenge, although I'm already running a day behind. No matter, in the spirit of casting off the bonds of winter, I shall dive into my paper piles

and basket of magazines/catalogs.


I'll tackle my file cabinet tomorrow, when I'm feeling braver!

What Kicked You Into Frugal High Gear?

I meet all kinds of people while sitting on the bleachers at your sons' swim team practice. No joke, some have trouble paying their bills and others are wearing sunglasses indoors while recovering from having the skin around their eyes lifted. You never know where the conversations may lead. One woman stands out in my mind.

She's a single mom with three kids. She's having trouble meeting her bills. She's even got pretty severe medical/emotional issues with her preschooler. She's got issues with medical coverage too. Her plate is clearly full, overflowing in fact.

In talking to her I discovered that her kids are a bit on the finicky side. They only eat the "expensive macaroni and cheese" and a particular kind of chicken nugget, as well as a laundry list of other things. Then there are the non-food things. She feels trapped. She doesn't want to deprive her kids but she can't afford to go on this way. On and on it goes.

The details are unimportant but the overall tone is. Why have we become so obsessed with keeping up appearances that we sabotage ourselves? Why are we unable to be honest with our kids when we can't afford something? Why do we give in to our kids demands? Why is it shameful to live within our means? Perhaps the biggest question, how do you effectively let people know there are other options when they aren't ready to hear about them? How do you bridge the gap between frugal and spendthrift?

What prompted you to become more frugal? Share your story so we can all learn and maybe help more effectively the next time we encounter a situation like the one I described.

Tote Bags & Meatos Recipe

I finished up my bag for the swap. Anytime I try a new pattern, whether knitting or sewing, there is a learning curve involved. I usually find myself in the slow learner category. I stare at the words trying to decipher their meaning. I often wonder, is this written in a secret code? Many times, on a second go round with the same pattern, I am wiser and more immune to slack jawed "huh?" of my first attempts. I'm sure this pattern will be no exception.

I do have one thought on the pattern that others might find helpful. The pattern makes a very strechy bag with a fairly narrow opening. This is great for preventing things from rolling out of your bag when you put it down but it might be bothersome if you're trying to pack quickly as the cashier scans your groceries. I suspect if you use larger double pointed needles, a wider opening would result.

Also, I need to practice kitchener stitch when no one else is around. I get distracted way too easily. Overall, I love the pattern. It's easy to follow and the bag really looks nice. (I'm not bragging, I'm just so surprised that it actually came out looking like a bag!)

So here's what the bag looks like empty:


Here's what it looks like full (we used balls of yarn to simulate groceries):


Some people were having trouble opening up the link to the Meatos recipe so I've cut and pasted it below. This recipe comes from Judy in the Vegetarian Group

Meato's
1 cup Peanut Butter
2 16 oz. cans Petite Diced tomatoes with Green Chilies or Jalopeno's
1 tsp. Sage
1 c. Onion, diced
1 tsp. Salt
3/4 c. flour(more or less)

Mix all the ingredients, adding the flour until it is thick like cake batter
mixture. Put into a sprayed casserole dish. Bake @ 350 for about 1 hr.
Check middle for being done.

I've used salsa in place of the tomatoes with green chilies. I've used plain diced tomatoes and added a teaspoon of chili powder too. I usually use 1/2 the amount of salt or skip it entirely. Everyone in our house loves this recipe.

Frugal Eco Wierdness!

We're about half way through Blue Vinyl which Beth Terry from Fake Plastic Fish recommended. Like Chili, lately I'm just left wishing I was blissfully ignorant once again, but I'm not.

So here's my plan to stay sane amidst all the bad news. I'm going to keep being that wierd aunt that gives the nieces and nephews homemade presents. I'm going to keep giving new life to clothing by mending or making it into something else I need. I'm going to continue to learn more about old ways of doing things that I can incorporate into making my daily life more green. I'm going to buy used whenever possible. I guess I'm just going to continue to be me with the hope that people will see what I do, take notice and make some changes as well.

We can make differences. When we first spoke about adopting all those years ago, we didn't really know anyone who had adopted. 12 years later (10 years after our first adoption) we know many people who have adopted. Many of those people approached us over the years, long before they began the process, with questions about our experiences. At this point, right off the top of my head, we know 4 families who have been collectively adopted more than 10 children after picking our brains about our experiences.

We are ambassadors of our beliefs and values, so wear your frugal-eco-wierdness proudly so the more cautious can pick us out in a crowd and learn more!

Lima Bean Bake

Ruthie asked for the Lima Bean Bake recipe that I mentioned here. This recipe was inspired by a recipe in Miserly Mom's by Jonni McCoy (Terry's Lentil Rice Casserole to be precise). I like it because it doesn't use tomato. Don't get me wrong, I love tomato in all its many forms. It's just that you can't have it in every meal and maintain any kind of a pantry.

When I make this, I triple or quadruple the recipe because we love leftovers and there are so many of us.

Katie's Lima Bean Bake

Combine in a greased casserole dish that has a cover:
about 2 cups cooked lima beans (you can use a bit more or a bit less)
1/2 cup uncooked brown rice
2 onions chopped
1 Tbs dried basil
1 Tbs dried oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp seasoned salt, optional
2 Tbs nutritional yeast
2 tsp dried dill
1 Tbs dried parsley
uncooked chopped veggies, your choice (I've used beets, carrots, celery, kale, collards or anything else I have on hand.)

Stir all the ingredients and add enough water or vegetable broth to cover the mixture. Cover and place in a preheated 350 degree oven for about an hour and a half. I serve this with biscuits and the Mighty Miso gravy recipe from How it All Vegan. If I don't have mushrooms on hand, I skip them and it comes out great anyway.

Although I haven't tried it, I would imagine this would work well in the slow cooker or solar oven as well.

What's Going On with Update

The kids are on their last day of Easter break. It's amazing how busy things get when the kids are home. It leaves very little time for blogging. I'll try to recap the last few days.

Our second pizza night was a stunning success. We opted to top one pizza with tomato chunks and tofu ricotta. The other was topped with tomato chunks and Fake Fake (a parmesan substitute that's a mix of ground walnuts, nutritional yeast, garlic powder and seasoned salt). We seem to have gotten in the habit of serving our pizza with soup, so I made vegetable soup as well. I've taken to adding dill to my vegetable soup. It adds a buttery richness that I love.

The Easter egg and Easter bunny washcloths were a big hit, although all the adults agreed that the egg pattern was more functional since it didn't require you to split your fingers into an alien salute (was that from Star Trek or Mork and Mindy? I can't remember!!) I gave these to the kids in baskets with brightly colored soap from Clearly Natural. These brightly colored soaps made a great jelly bean looking substitute in the baskets. I guess its official, I am that wierd aunt.

I'm now focusing on my tote bag swap commitment. I've begun working on this bag. I love the way its coming out. I hope my swap partner, Sarah, likes it too!

In sadder news, we lost two guinea pigs this weekend. I'm keeping a close eye on the remainig one. She seems fine but they can be so fragile. Although the little guys are really cute, the kids can't deal with their short life spans. We're sticking to cats and dogs.

UPDATE
Rachel B brought this to my attention
"The "alien salute" is actually a Jewish tradition, used by the priestly class when they bless the congregation."

When I said alien salute, I was refering to the V made with your hand by moving the ring finger and pinky away from the middle finger and index finger. If you were a kid in the 70's, chances are you spent a good deal of time mastering this maneuver. I'm sorry if anyone was offended.

A 14 Day Menu - Sort Of

Here's the list of entrees we came up with for our 14 day menu plan. It's still a work in progress and I am aware there are more than 14 entrees listed. For now, I'm using this as a starting point whenever I get stuck. I've listed only the entree as the things served with it will vary based on what's in the house. I hope you find some inspiration in this list.

Cajun Black Eyed Peas

Jerk Seitan

Pizza

Lima Bean Minestrone or Lima Bean Bake

Turkish Red Lentil Stew

Cold Thai Sesame Noodles or plain Peanut Noodles

Chili

Cuban Black Beans

Split Pea soup

Pasta with Spicy Vegetarian Sausage or Russell's TVP

Baked Seitan Roast with Gravy

Veggie Burgers (to use up leftovers)

Red Lentil Roast I use less nutritional yeast now.

Meatos

Homemade Gluten hot dogs - this is a long story that I will save for another post.

I'm off to finish knitting another bunny washcloth.

Pizza & Food on the Road Rundown

Pizza night was a smashing success. The extra dough is packed away in the freezer awaiting this Friday's version, which promised to be a bit more elaborate since the kids are off from school.

I made two pizzas using large cookie sheets for pans. This is enough to feed the whole crew. Round pans never work when making pizza for large families like ours. We went cheese free this time, topping one pizza with Spicy Vegetarian Sausage that I simmered in sauce for a bit and tomato chunks and the other with beans and sauce. I should have followed the recipe for the bean topping as planned but I fatigued out after a long day. I promise to follow the recipe this week so I can give a better review. We served the pizza with French onion soup per Kyle's request. This Friday we'll also make a vegan cheese to top one of the pizzas.

We brought some of the leftover sausage and sauce to the swim meet for Saturday's dinner. Lunch was a simple pb & j. The hit of the weekend was the banana muffins from Veganomicon that I made for breakfast and snacks. I added some hemp seeds to them for a little extra holding power. They were really yummy and the recipe was super simple. They weren't crumbly and they traveled well, what more could you ask for? Between the whole family we must have eaten three dozen of these over the weekend!

Sunday found us a little burnt out as we had to once again drive out to Long Island. (Why would anyone want to live there, the traffic is perpetually awful!) We packed only sandwiches and muffins this time since this was to be a shorter day. Also, they were selling fruit cups at the concession stand and, although they were pricey, we wanted to show our support so we bought two of them to fill things in. It made me crave warmer weather and the bounty of fresh fruit it brings!

I guess I should also mention that we brought our own coffee and water but I think at this point, its probably understood. We didn't have a huge amount of variety but I think we did ok considering how little time we had to get things ready.

BTW, I've continued to make yogurt several times a week with awesome results. I can't believe how easy this is or how well it works. I've been using what's left on the side of the container from my last batch to start the next batch and so far no problems. We're totally hooked on this. Its so good topped with granola and currants!

Are They Bunny Ears?? No, They're Easter Egg Washcloths!

In a spectacular moment of creativity and gall (I mean honestly, who am I to create a knitting pattern??), I created a simple, functional and cute addition to my niece and nephews' Easter gifts. Its an Easter egg shaped washcloth!

I worked it in the round using multicolored cotton yarn. You'll need size 6 and size 8 needles, either double pointed or circulars. Here's the pattern.

Cast on 45 stitches on size 6 double pointed needles or circulars
Divide the stitches so that 15 are on each needle
Knit all rows until you have about 1 1/2 inches
Change to size 8 needles (again either double pointed or circular)
Knit all rows working until your piece is about 3 inches from beginning
Increase 4 stitches on your next row so you wind up with 49 stitches (I did this by knitting 10 and then knitting into the 11th stitch twice.)
Knit all rows until your piece is about 5 inches long. On your next row, you'll begin decreasing.
Knit 5, Knit 2 together, repeat to end of row
Knit the next 3 rows
Knit 4, Knit 2 together, repeat to end of row
Knit the next 3 rows
Knit 3, Knit 2 together, repeat to end of row
Knit the next 3 rows
Knit 2, Knit 2 together, repeat to end of row
Knit the next 3 rows
Knit 1, Knit 2 together, repeat to end of row
Knit the next 3 rows
Knit 2 together, repeat to end of row
Cut yarn leaving about a six inch tail. Using a large needle, thread this through the remaining stitches closing the top of your project. Weave in ends of yarn. That's it, you've made an Easter egg washcloth.

I have made one of the bunny washcloths that I mentioned last week but I needed a really simple pattern while I was crunched up in the bleachers at the swim meet this weekend. I'm planning to give one of each washcloth with some bubble bath to my niece and nephews.



I'll post about our food from the weekend tomorrow. Now get knitting!

Can't Get Enough Frugal Veggie Mama?

I've just set up a Feedburner account so now you can sign up for an email subscription or a feed of my blog. Look for the icons on the left to get you started.

What a simple yet exhausting process! Now I feel like I need a nap.

It's Pizza Night Vegan Style

Things don't always go as planned. Instead of mixing the pizza dough last night, Rob helped mix it this morning before getting on the bus. Fortunately, he's a early riser with endless energy and didn't mind one bit. The dough is rising in the bread bucket and pizza night is on!

I'll be making a batch of Spicy Vegetarian Sausages to go on top. I'm also planning to try a bean pizza topping recipe from The Greatest Little Bean Cookbook. I'm thinking about skipping faux cheese entirely on this batch. We'll see what the gentlemen think when they get home from school.

Also on today's agenda is planning food for our weekend at the swim meet. Aside from the food choiced being attrocious, even though its an ahtletic event, I can't bear the cost. Admission alone is going to run $6 per person, per day and then there's gas for the almost 2 hour ride. We can't bring food in but we can go out to the car to eat. Since there is plenty of down time at a swim meet, that's what we'll do.

Look for a rundown of our pizza and our swim meet food Monday. Now, I've got to get my knitting bag ready for the weekend. They'll be time to knit on the car ride down, during the meet and on the car ride back. Woohoo!

Happy Weekend to All!

Tell The Easter Bunny to Go Home!

Who decided Easter should come so early this year? It's always been a low key event at our house with mostly edible gifts and small ones at that. I'm not worried about my kids, a little organic, free trade chocolate and they'll be tickled.

That's the funny thing about your kids getting older. In many ways, the holidays are less work now. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, even the tooth fairy have been outgorwn in our house. My kids, even the boys, somehow recognize that the torch is being passed on to the littler ones. I think I'll savour this moment.

But, now that I have a niece and two nephews (the cutest ones in the world I might add) I want to do something for them. It has to be something small and useful if at all possible. Hmmm...

I'm leaning toward knitting a Bunny Bath Mitt but if I have time I might also make a Curly Purly Easter Egg. (Ok, the egg isn't useful but you could use it like a ball.) I have plenty of yarn for both of these projects and since this weekend is back to back swim meets for Rob, I have plenty of time to get started on them.

What are your Easter giving plans?

I'm still working on that two week meal plan. I'm aiming for a plan that will work around whatever ingredients I have on hand and that makes it a little more challenging. It doesn't help that I seem to use tomatoes in every other dish. Once I get it more finalized, I'll share it.

Robert Declares Friday Pizza Night at our House!

For anyone who was intrigued by yesterday's post about leasing an apple tree and is hoping to find a place near them who does this, give these links a try.

http://www.wilson.edu/csasearch/search.asp

http://www.localharvest.org/

You can also find more traditional CSA's at these sites. Now's the time to join one. I won't torture you with all the reasons why you should join one. Instead you can click on CSA in my topic list on the left and learn more. I will say this, joining a CSA is one of the best things we've ever done for our family's health. Now go join one!

After much ambivilence on my part, I've finally decided to put pen to paper and write out a two week dinner rotation. With the kids requiring so much of my energy lately, it will help keep me on track in the kitchen. I'll let you know how it evolves.

Robert has become very interested in certain spects of the kitchen, mainly making pizza. He has requested that Friday nights become pizza night and he's offered to help make the dough with his brother on Thursday night. He's even agreed to help make the cheese. (I hate spelling it with a z, or calling it uncheese, you all know I mean vegan cheese).

I've agreed but it makes me a little sad. Their sisters want no part of cooking and are rarely home for dinner since they joined the working world. Making dough and rolling it out is no longer part of their repertiore. Jim and I are beginning to re-experience what its like to have just two kids. Its hard to believe that this post is only just over a year old! At the same time, its nice to see the all the kids growing and maturing into new roles. It's also a lot easier to get two kids moving when you have to go somewhere than four.

No matter what, making Fridya night pizza night sounds like a good idea.

Planning for Spring & Keeping Warm in the Interim

After the rain of Friday and Saturday, it was great to finally spend some time outdoors yesterday, even if it was spent splitting and stacking firewood. Spring seems to be in the air here in NY. It's that time of year when you look in the garage and wonder what demon was unleashed inside it when you weren't looking. When perusing the yard, you wonder how all those things the melting snow keeps revealing were left there before the snow came. How did I miss those, you ask yourself. No matter, the newfound warmth of the midday sun gives us new energy to pick all this garbage up and resolve to never let it get like this again. This could be the year.

In a homage to the impending spring, I checked my worm bins. The one in my laundry room has chubby worms while the one in my garage has skinny ones. I suspect the temperature difference plays a role in this. We'll start adding to them soon to build up the worm population a bit.

In the wake of our gigantic beehive in the compost bin disaster of last season, we've taken to just tossing what would normally go in a compost heap into the bushes behind our house. That sounds so trashy but there's only woods and a creek behind my house. We've never had a raccoon problem and it doesn't bother the neighbors. Really, I swear!

Speaking of yards and gardening, we checked out the Seed Savers table at the farmer's market this weekend and got some heirloom tomato seeds. Rob is really into the idea of planting, growing and especially harvesting tomatoes. It's interesting to see him make the connection between garden and food. I'm hoping he will be my gardening buddy this summer.

Over the years we've been planting an edible landscape but because of limited yard space fruit trees haven't been part of the plan. Just this weekend I learned of a local orchard that is offering a CSA type arrangement with its apple trees. For $50 you get to lease an organically grown apple tree and harvest fruit off of it. The website states the average yield of an apple tree is 80-120 pounds which works out to about 50 cents per pound for organic apples. I think this sounds like a great way to support the local small farms and while providing ourselves with reasonably priced organic produce. I'm signing up!

As much as the cold weather is waning midday, we're still freezing our buns off at night (although not officially since we never actually signed up for Crunchy Chicken's Challenge). Actually, the thermostat is set at 55 degrees but the heat never comes on because we've been using the woodstove to heat the house. (The exception to this is our daughters' downstairs bedroom which is on a seperate branch of the heating system and totally out of the reach of our woodstove.) It's usually about 59 degrees when I get up in the morning, although, the temperature in the bedrooms is noticeably colder. We use extra blankets and warm jammies to make sleeping toasty.

When I lamented the skinny quilts last year I assumed I needed to make new quilts for the boys. When I didn't get around to doing that, the boys came up with their own solution. They use the denim quilts (these are summer weight) with the skinny quilts on top like a throw blanket.

See the denim quilt poking out from underneath? Are my boys brilliant or what?

How to Be A Kitchen Magician with Bonus Bathing Suit Rant!

When planning yesterday's dinner, I had to accept the fact that a great number of leftovers remained in the fridge from earlier in the week. There was a kidney bean and beet concoction, some of the quickie chick peas (although none of the kidney bean spread), some BBQ chickpeas and bulgur too. I get to the point where I want to cook from a clean slate, so these leftovers had to go.

Into a bowl everything went. I mashed it all with a potato masher because I couldn't face cleaning the blender! I added a scoop of peanut butter, a handful of oatmeal and a bit of water to bind it all together. In just a few minutes, burgers were cooking away.

I made a simple cream of tomato soup to go with the burgers. Here's a tip, don't add soymilk, or any milk for that matter, to hot soup. It curdles and although it tastes fine, it looks icky. I covered this screw up by making some home made croutons to toss into the soup. They are so simple I'd hardly call it a recipe.

I heated a cast iron frying pan while I cubed some bread. Once the pan was hot, I tossed the bread in and sprinkled the top with onion powder and a bit of seasoned salt. The nooks and crannies of the bread hold the seasoning in without any added oil. Just let these toast up a little and you're done.

To really cover my screw up, I served the soup in cups with croutons on top, thereby covering the little curdles completely! No one noticed. In fact, Kyle asked to take the leftovers for lunch today.

So the fridge is devoid of leftovers and today we start from scratch...

Speaking of scratching, nothing makes me itch (or is it bitch?) more than the thought of buying a new bathing suit. Why must the ones we love wear out?? I hate it for all the standard female reasons. I often wonder if I'm the only one in the world with boobs that want a little support in my bathing suit. How come you can find bathing suits to tuck your tummy, slim your hips and cinch your waist but none are marketed to hold up your boobs as if you were still in your teens?

If anyone's got a great bathing suit website (you know, bathing suits for women with real bodies but not granny suits) let us know, I can't be the only one who's wondering.

Has anyone made a bathing suit? Share, we want to hear about it!

Gardening Gripes

The garden, source of inspiration and aggravation all at once. Longtime readers will recall the currant bush snafu.

As it turns out, the law making my currants illegal in the Adirondacks was changed back in 2003 although no one seemed to know about it, not even the good folks at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Warren County who are reputed to be the be all end all on answers to questions such as these. Here's a link that outlines the new law which now considers only my white currants outlaws.

Since the currants were thriving in the acid soil and partial shade of the Adirondacks, we've decided to move them back, except the white ones of course. I don't anticipate any problems with transplanting because these are such hardy, forgiving bushes.

However, there is one problem, I can't tell which bushes are which until they have fruit on them. It looks like they won't be moving until June! Not ideal but not impossible either.

This Saturday marks the last of our Winter Sun Farm pickups. I plan to check out the Seed Savers Exchange table that was there last month.

Beans on the Brain

My kids like chickpeas way more than the average chickpea fanatic. Just yesterday Leen came home from school and made this perennial chickpea favorite.

Quickie Chickpeas
Put a little olive oil in a pan, dumped in some chick peas and seasoned salt and let it all brown for a few minutes. Eat and enjoy! The trick is to use just enough olive oil to prevent sticking but not enough to make your fingers greasy should you choose to eat with your fingers.

This is essentially an "I'm too hungry to wait" version of Chickpea nibbles from How it All Vegan.

Although the boys love this concoction, they were begging for some homemade hummus. Sadly, I had plans to use the remaining chickpeas in a stir fry last night. Not to worry another big batch of chickpeas are soaking as we speak.

Speaking of last night's stir fry, I essentially used the quickie chickpea recipe (if you can call that a recipe) and added some onion powder and balsamic vinegar. Once they were browned, I removed the chickpeas from the pan. I gave a quick toss in the pan to some mung bean and broccoli sprouts (less than a minute). I mixed the sprouts and chickpeas together. I deglazed the pan with a bit of water to get all the yummy bits that were left behind. I poured this over the chickpea-sprout mix which I served over bulgur.

In other bean news, I created a kidney bean spread that was inspired by a recipe from The McDougall Program for a Healthy Heart. This is a classic case of not having all the ingredients in the house and coming up with something yummy in spite of it.

Katie's Kidney Bean Sandwich Spread
2 cups cooked kinedy beans
3 Tbs nutritional yeast
2 Tbs lemon juice
1/2 Tbs tamari
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp seasoned salt

I mashed everything with a potato masher but a whirl in the food processor would work well also. I thought it tasted bland at first but after sitting in the fridge overnight the flavors seemed much more pronounced.

When I was little, my dad used to call me Katie Sue Beanie, perhaps he could sense my impending love of beans even back then?

Simplicity

Jim really liked the home made yogurt so I made another batch. I had run out of vanilla soymilk so I tried using plain. Interestingly, although it became yogurt, it didn't make as firm a yogurt as the vanilla did. Or maybe a better way to look at it is there seemed to be more whey created in the plain batch. This is fine with me. I've used the whey in pancakes and biscuits with great results.

I did everything the same, even using Silk yogurt as the starter, rather than using my yogurt. I wonder if the higher sugar content of the vanilla might be responsible for the difference. Either way, the results tasted good. We're currently enjoying the yogurt with dried currants or dried blueberries thrown in. The simplicity of making yogurt is amazing. I'm really enjoying this process.

Speaking of simple living, I just finished reading See You in 100 Years by Logan Ward. Thanks to Annmarie for suggesting it. I think what I take away from books like this and shows like Frontier House is the desire to live more simply not necessarily by replicating the past. Instead, by taking the best pieces of the past and the progress made in the intervening years I want to create the most frugal, fun and eco friendly future I possibly can.

For example, I love baking bread but using a bread bucket, which is non-electric but didn't have its unvieling until the 1904 World's Fair, is a lot easier than hand kneading.