6 Little, Easy Ways to Be More Frugal

I like living simply, and I love doing things for my family with my own two hands.  I'm learning more and more every day, and I love the way that creating things that my family needs with my own know-how and with items that I already have in the house allows me to be more frugal.  This is especially important to me right now as I am going back to university in the fall, which is a pretty expensive prospect when you have little ones at home, and jobs aren't exactly growing on trees at the moment, particularly in the conservation field.

Some of these homemaking activities require (or will require, as I haven't started them all yet!) time and commitment and work, but for me, they are so rewarding that it doesn't matter.  It's actually kind of addictive, and Pinterest and blog-reading are fuelling the fire.  Oh--you make your own deodorant?  I should try that!  You have a recipe for homemade ginge rale? Sign me up!  You sewed your own apron which beautifully gathers so you can put your freshly plucked organic vegetables in it when out in the garden?  Where is the pattern?!

Obviously, I'm just starting down this path.  There are oodles of people WAY ahead of me.  And maybe, some people who drop by this blog are with me in the early phases or are just figuring out that they'd like to explore these ideas a little more, which is why I am including a few easy ways to live more frugally and do things for yourself, by yourself.  You can be kinder to the planet, have fun with items already in your home, and save a few pennies (or soon-to-be nickels, in Canada I guess!).  Some of these you've seen before in blog posts, but I thought it would be fun to do a quick review in a list format!

 1.  Make your own bread.  Really.  It isn't hard to do, and this recipe is super easy, forgiving, adaptable, uses less yeast so even less expensive, and it's no-knead.  You mix it up, leave it alone, come back, flip it around a few times, put it in a pan, give it a break, then put it in the oven.  Before you know it, your house smells like a bakery and you feel a sense of accomplishment.  It tastes way better than what you would buy in the store, for a fraction of the cost and probably even saves time in the long run because you don't have to drive to a store, pick out a loaf, wait in line at the check-out counter, get home and put it away. :)

2-3. Grow your own vegetables.  This one is sort of a frugality double whammy, are you ready?  Grow your own vegetables from seed (all of them) rather than buying the seedlings at the garden centre.  This is loads of fun, gives you an activity to interest your active three-year-old son and prevents him from endlessly, noisily crashing his cars around you, or colouring on your bedroom door, and costs less than buying the seedlings (which in turn costs less than buying the full-fledged vegetables).  Frugal tip number three: grow them in cut up toilet paper and paper towel rolls.  Save them and then plant in them when you need to.  They hold the soil, can be planted as they are in the ground because they'll decompose and you won't have to disturb the roots shaking them out of the pot, reduce household waste, and save you loads of money on unsustainable peat pots.

4. Save your eggshells for your garden.  Egg shells break down in the soil, add to the compost that you are hopefully already adding to your garden, and provide much-needed calcium to the most beautiful of all garden crops, tomatoes.  Also, slugs don't like to cross them so they can act as an effective barrier to those horrid slimy creatures (and as a biologist I say that with love and no discrimination against a natural creature of any kind).  If you eat lots of omelettes or angel food cakes, you'll collect quite the pail-full of these in no time at all, and your afore-mentioned three-year-old boy will love helping you crunch them up!

5. Use vegetable crisper compost to make new veggies!  Specifically, celery (above) and green onions (not pictured).  I don't know if there are other veggies you can do this with but these are the two I've tried.  When you cut them back to nothing and all you have is the bottom of the celery or the silly little white onion bulb from the green onions, just as you're about to toss them in your compost bin, think again and stick them in a glass of water.  They'll grow and you can harvest them again!  Gets you a lot more bang for your 99 cents (or $1.49, if it's the celery and it's on sale!).  It also provides a fun little experiment for your kids and it doesn't take long--those celery leaves are 5 days old.

6. Use orange peels to make your own environmentally friendly household cleaner.  Have you noticed yet that I save a lot of garbage?  Toilet paper rolls, egg shells, celery bottoms (what is the correct term for those anyway?) and now orange peels.  And it's not only me saving them, I have my parents and my sister saving them for me too.  And I require that my husband take home the orange peels leftover from his lunch.  But I like this cleaner, it's fun to make, smells better than cleaning with straight vinegar and it only takes a few minutes using something that would end up in your compost bin.

I love little tips like these!  Please share yours and I can delightedly add to my little rituals of using weird items to cut down on waste and create great new things.

Growing a Sourdough Starter from Wild Yeast

I should say before I write anything else that I am NOT a sourdough expert.  I have not yet baked a loaf of sourdough bread.  My sourdough journey is in its initial, tentative steps.  But I have successfully gotten a sourdough starter going from wild yeast, and I am quite proud of it.  I can get you at least that far, and then hopefully if you return to my blog I will have had luck with the baking step--if not, I'll be pointing you to other blogs and websites for further reference!

I have seen recipes for sourdough online, and in my favourite cookbooks, and most of them start with a "cheater" starter using commercial yeast.  That's ok, if it turns out for you and you like it, but being a biologist I thought it would be a lot more interesting to start my own.  When I read that you could "capture" wild yeast to develop your starter, it sounded infinitely more exciting to me!

It is so easy to do, and I am glad that I tried.  I even abused my poor starter a little bit, and it is still going.  It needs to get a little stronger before I attempt bread again (my first shot at it was pretty miserable) but even the fact that it is living on top of my fridge seems amazing to me.  I got the instructions/recipe for one technique of getting a starter going from this post on The Fresh Loaf website and followed the directions with the ingredients that I had.  It takes time to develop a starter, it is certainly not closely related to instant or even regular active dry yeast.  It takes patience, clean dishes and hands, and a lot of love.  But you can totally do it in your kitchen!  All you need is some whole grain flour and pineapple or orange juice.  So let's get started:

As you can see, I used regular Robin Hood whole wheat flour.  I think if you can get organic stone-ground rye, like I have since purchased from the Bulk Barn, it would be better.  However, mine worked with the flour I used.

Day 1
Combine 2 tablespoons of whole wheat or rye flour with two tablespoons of juice. Mix well, and cover lightly (I used a piece of cotton dishtowel held in place over a mason jar with the screw band).  Keep it in a warm place, like on top of your refrigerator.

Day 2
Add another 2 tablespoons of w.w. or rye flour and two more tablespoons of juice.  Mix well again, and re-cover.

Day 3
Add yet another two tablespoons of both flour and juice.  Mix it up, cover it up, sing it a little song.

Day 4
Open up your starter, stir it all up, measure out 1/4 cup and then discard the rest.  Wash out your jar, and return your 1/4 cup of starter to it.  Then add 1/4 cup of unbleached all-purpose flour, and 1/4 cup of warm filtered water.  Stir it all up nicely, cover it back up, and put it back in its warm little nook.

After Day Four
Continue the Day 4 steps of stirring, discarding, and adding flour and water to it until you start to see some really bubbly action, the starter begins to expand, and you smell a characteristic yeast scent when you give it a sniff.  I'd keep it going for a while.  I noticed my starter took off in the evening of day 5, but I am now at day 15 and still have it on my counter, feeding it at least once daily and sometimes twice if I think it seems hungry.  You want to get it strong enough to to really be able to leaven your bread when you use it to make a sourdough loaf, and it takes a little while to get there.  Some people recommend at least two weeks.  Trust me, you want it strong.  I would show you a photo of my horrible first attempt at loaves if I hadn't been so ashamed of them that I threw them out to the birds and didn't take a picture!

My sourdough starter on Day 7, ready to be fed.

According to SourdoLady (the user who posted the procedure on The Fresh Loaf), when you feed it you can actually keep less starter than even a quarter cup, for instance 1-2 tablespoons.  I personally keep holding onto 1/4 cup because I am worried that something will happen and I will have thrown it all away and have to start over again.  But you should give it more water and flour in order to feed it properly.

To feed your sourdough starter, it is basically the same as the Day 4 step.  You discard most of your starter, mix it up with flour and water, and let it go crazy eating and growing.  From what I have read, you should feed it equal portions by weight water and flour, which comes out with a quantity of almost double the flour if you measure using cups.  Basically, when you mix it up, it should look like thick pancake batter.

When your starter stops expanding, starts to sink back down, begins to smell more like alcohol than yeast, and gets a layer of clear or yellowish liquid near the top, it is hungry and really needs to be fed.  After your starter gets going and becomes strong, you don't have to keep it at room temperature anymore.  You can feed it, put it in the fridge, and leave it.  Weekly feedings are recommended but if it's strong, it can go even longer than that and still be revived when you take it out to get it ready for baking.  I really should have taken before and after photos to show you the difference in volume from where it starts before a feeding and ends up later; I may edit this later and add one in. :)

Starter on Day 10, ready to be fed.

The way I have described feeding it, you'll never really have more than about 3/4 cup of starter, and when you bake, you'll probably need at least a cup plus some left over to keep your starter going for the next time.  If you want to increase it, the feeding before you plan to use it (say the night before), just give it a bigger feeding.  That will increase its volume to what you will need.  And when you feed it, the quantity that you discard can be put to use; it doesn't absolutely have to be thrown away. You can give it to a friend to start his/her own starter, or you can use it in a recipe like sourdough pancakes (note: I haven't made these yet, they're on my to-do list and if anyone is interested I'll post the results up here when I do it).

Good luck!  I am still learning, and my starter has in the last couple of days had a couple of near-death experiences.  If you check out the post I linked to earlier where I learned how to do this and have a look at the enormous comment thread, you'll get loads of help.  Also check out this post by Tamatha at A Flock in the City; she is amazing and knows all sorts of things about baking and fermenting and looking after various cultures.  She actually posted a sourdough bread recipe today, than I plan on trying as soon as my starter seems a bit more hearty!

This post is shared with Simple Living Wednesdays, Frugal Days Sustainable Ways and Homestead Barn Hop #58.

Another Multigrain Bread to Try

We ran out of bread yesterday and I had to (gasp) buy a loaf.  I actually really mind doing that because I am very rarely pleased with what I bring home.  My parents buy bread at the bakery in Kensington and I really like that bread, but otherwise, I am pretty picky and only like homemade.  However, I had a lot going on and kept putting off the (easy and fast) dough making process, until the point where we ran out. Then this morning, our bought loaf was almost gone.  I didn't really have time to wait the 15 or so hours for a loaf of my no-knead recipe, so I dug out a recipe book and tried a regular "knead and have bread in two-three hours" type of recipe.  Here are the results.

Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook 15th edition; Mixed-Grain Bread

Mixed-Grain Bread

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 packages active dry yeast (4 1/2 tsp)

1 1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup cracked wheat (I used Red River Cereal)
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp (1/2 tablespoon) salt

1 1/2 cups additional whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats

1 1/2- 2 cups additional all-purpose flour

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup each of whole wheat and white flour with dry yeast, set aside.

In a saucepan, combine milk, water, cracked wheat, cornmeal, brown sugar, oil and salt.  Heat and stir over medium-low heat just until it becomes warm, between 120 and 130 F.  Add this warm milk mixture to the flour mixture, and beat on low speed with an electric hand mixer for 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl.  Then beat on high speed for three minutes.

It's weird for me to use a hand mixer during the bread making process!  Not entirely unpleasant, however.

Using a wooden spoon, stir in the next 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour, and the 1/2 cup of rolled oats.  I used quick oats this time.

Then mix as much of the remaining white flour as you can into the dough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead in enough of the remaining all-purpose flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is almost smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes of kneading should do.  *I used about a cup of the all purpose flour after mixing in the whole wheat and oatmeal.

Shape the dough into a ball, and place in a lightly greased bowl, turning over to grease the whole surface of the dough.  Cover, and let rise in a warm place until double in size, about one hour.

Dough immediately after kneading.

Dough after an hour sitting in the sunshine on the floor in the dining room.

Punch the dough down, turn onto a lightly floured surface (mine wasn't floured, it didn't stick) and cut into two equally sized pieces.  Cover them (I used plastic wrap that had been over the bowl) and let them rest for ten minutes.

Shape each piece into a loaf and place in greased 8x4x2 inch loaf pans.  Cover again and let rise in a warm place until double in size, about 30 minutes.  While you're waiting, preheat the oven to 375.

Brush tops of loaves with water and sprinkle with additional rolled oats.  I used large flake oats for the top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until bread sounds hollow when lightly tapped.  Immediately remove bread from pans, and cool your luscious loaves on wire racks.

My loaves. You may notice a slight discrepancy in size and shape--the second one fell victim to a small plastic jar of car-shaped gummy vitamins falling on it during the second rise.  I gave it time to recover, and put it in the oven when the first one came out, but it never quite regained it's proper shape or stature!

A shot of freshly sliced bread. 

Overall, I think this is a nice recipe.  When I first started baking the no-knead recipe, I wasn't sure how I felt about it.  It tasted different, it was denser and heavier, and it seemed almost a little TOO rustic.  But now that I'm used to it, I prefer it.  Now when I bake more "regular" homemade bread, I find it tastes really yeasty and sweet and is super soft.  That might be just the kind of bread you like--my sister tried it and liked it, and my husband (who isn't exactly effusive in praise about most homemade products) said it was really good.  So I do think it is a nice recipe, but I enjoy the other one more.  I find the "bits" in this bread more obvious when you're chewing it, because in the no-knead recipe, they have hours to absorb some of the dough's moisture and become softer.  Maybe you like your bits a bit bittier.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.

However, when I'm short on time and can't wait an entire day (or night) to have bread, I think this is a pretty tasty recipe and it's nice that it makes two loaves, rather than one, even though they are a little smaller than the loaves I'm used to.  If you have a favourite multi-grain whole wheat recipe, please pass it on!  I love trying new bread recipes.

This post is shared with Homestead Barn Hop #57 at Homestead Revival.

Country Bread for the Urban Mom

When I was growing up, we lived down a long lane in one of the most beautiful rural communities in Prince Edward Island.  One of my absolute favourite memories is the feeling of walking up that long, red clay driveway after school, opening the back door, and being overwhelmed by the heavenly aroma of baking bread.  In addition to making regularly sized loaves, my mom would bake a mini loaf each for my younger sister and me.  They were still warm when we got home from school and the melted butter in that soft, chewy, bread is one of the most delicious experiences I can imagine.  In fact, when I dropped by my parents' home one day recently after a play date with a friend, that was the smell that greeted me.  There was even a mini loaf for my darling James.  So she's still at it, that mother of mine.

I have never made my mom's homemade white bread recipe, partially because I don't think it can turn out just the way it should if my hands, rather than hers, are the ones kneading the dough and forming the loaves.  Also, as gorgeous as that bread is, we try mostly to eat whole grain bread when possible.  Additionally, since having two busy children I find that bread making that requires a few hours of commitment and lots of kneading is just a little too much work at this stage of my life.

Enter this bread.  I find that this is the best bread recipe I've tried thus far for busy and working moms trying to make homemade bread on a tight schedule.  I first got the recipe from Chef Michael Smith's Chef at Home cookbook and then modified it to suit our tastes.  What I find so great about this recipe is that it requires very little kneading and depends instead on a long first rising period.  You mix the ingredients together, let it sit for 12-14 hours, then briefly knead it, let it rise, and then pop it in the oven.  So the first rising can occur while you're at work, or while you're sleeping, depending on which suits your schedule more conveniently!



It's also a very forgiving and flexible recipe that allows you to change up the ingredients, depending on what you have on hand or prefer to use.

So here it is:

Country Bread


2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups white flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/3 cup 12-grain cereal mix, sunflower seeds, or Red River cereal
1/2 tbsp (or 1 1/2 tsp) kosher salt
1/2 tsp of active dry yeast (slightly more than an even 1/2 teaspoon)

2 cups of very warm water

In your second largest mixing bowl, whisk the flour, oatmeal, cereal/seeds, salt, and yeast.  When it is mixed thoroughly, pour in the warm water and use a wooden spoon to mix it well together.  Use this opportunity to get the frustrations of your day out of your system.

The dough will be very sticky and you will wonder if it needs more flour.  It doesn't, don't worry.  Generously oil your largest mixing bowl with your hands (I use olive oil but canola and sunflower oil work well too) and transfer your dough to the oiled bowl.  Flip it over once to coat all sides.  Then cover that bowl with saran wrap and leave it in a warm-ish place for 10 to 12 hours.

The dough needs lots of time, but it's flexible.  If you only have eight hours, that's fine; if you went shopping and then decided to have lunch at your mom's and forgot about your dough and it went 14 hours, that's ok too.  You want the dough to double in size.

When it's time to knead your dough, sprinkle some flour on the kneading surface.  Generously oil a 9"x5" loaf pan and use your oily hands to get the dough out of the bowl and onto the counter.  Knead for a minute or two (really--all it needs is a few flips) and form your loaf and pop it into the pan.  I lightly oil the top and then drape a clean dish towel over it.

Allow to rise for 1-2 hours.  Depending on how warm your house is, you might want to keep an eye on it as you don't want it to rise too high.  Since the dough is so soft, if you let it over-rise it will droop over the pan and end up looking somewhat like a waterlogged mushroom after it's been baked.  Still tasty, but not pretty.

Once it is good and risen, preheat your oven to 400 and then bake your bread for 45 minutes.  Take the bread out of the pan right away and allow to cool on a rack.  Enjoy!

*I mentioned above that you can do substitutions with this recipe.  Within the parameter of using four cups of flour, I've changed it various times to include the following:

-3 cups whole wheat, 1 cup white
-2 cups whole wheat, 1 cup kamut, 1 cup white
-1 cup whole wheat, 1 cup kamut, 1 cup spelt, 1 cup white

Use whichever flours you most enjoy, but I would make sure to have at least one cup of white flour to maintain a decent consistency in the dough.  Lately I've been doing the 50/50 whole wheat to white simply because white flour goes on sale more regularly than whole wheat.

I've also substituted wheat germ for the oatmeal.  I like it, but like the oatmeal better.  And make sure to change up the "bits" part of the recipe!  For this particular loaf, I used sunflower seeds but I generally use multigrain cereal mixes.  Sometimes I really mix things up with a blend of poppy, flax, and sesame seeds; other times I skip the seeds/grains altogether and go for a smoother loaf.  It's up to you to have fun with it, and bulk barn is definitely your friend when it comes to bread baking!