We're all are trying to cost when it comes to household budgets, which is understandable. One of those things you're trying to cut is your grocery bill. But when you walk into your laundry aisle you'll notice all those high prices for laundry detergent and fabric softeners, then there's the cheap stuff that are basically water more then anything, which you'll wind using double the amount to get the effect you want and in the end cost you more money, which you're trying to avoid.
My favorite budget cutting trick is making things homemade. About a little over a month ago I wrote a post about Homemade liquid laundry detergent, which works terrifically. Since it worked great, I planned to make up my homemade fabric softener, which I would like to share with you today.
You're going to need:
6 cups of water
3 cups of vinegar
1 (22oz) bottle of Hair conditioner (cheap one like Suave or VO5)
This is really simple there's no way you can mess this up. Just place all the ingredients in a large bowl, using a wisk to mix it -OR- place all ingredients in a large container and shake.
I told you it was simple...just store in a container. This is not concentrated, you'll need 3/4 cups per load. It equals out to about a penny or less per load
You can use this mixed in with my Homemade laundry detergent
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I don't know about you, but there has been plenty of times when I run out of something I need to make dinner with at the last minute. Since I do my major grocery shopping once a month, and make dough for breads once every two weeks and freeze it, I always run of buns, I always underestimate the amount I need. So I came upon a recipe for homemade buns that takes less then an hour, plenty of time for me to make and grill Hamburgers and ready to serve them both at once. These buns are sweet and airy, I make a few for the side so I can butter them and eat just like that, they're not just for hamburgers.
There's only one rising to this bread which makes it quick. The following is the ingredients you need
1 tbsp. Yeast
1/2 cup and 1 tbsp. of warm water (115*)
3 tbsp. oil
3 tbsp. sugar
1 egg
2 to 2 1/2 cups of bread flour
Preheat oven to 425*
Dissolve yeast in water, add oil and sugar and let it sit for 5 minutes. In a standing mixer with a dough hook attachment mix the yeast mixture, egg and enough flour to make a soft ball.
These buns will double to 2/3 the size you make it. For hamburgers cut the dough into 8 equal pieces and roll into a ball and place on a well grease baking sheets and press slightly (don't flatten). You can always make them smaller for dinner rolls. Let it rise for 25 minutes. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes, until golden.
Hope you enjoy them as much as my family does. :)
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Whether you live on a budget or straight out love to save money, we all look for inexpensive ways to do things. Food shopping and meal planning can be one of those ways to save money, yet eat healthy with good food. There are a few ways to do this, you just need to find ways that suit you and your family. Food shopping on a budget is a subject for a later date, today is an overall on how to save money in the kitchen.
One way to save money in grocery store is by planning your meals ahead of time so there's less trips to the store, unnecessary trips mean being tempted to buy more unnecessary stuff, which only means spending more money. You plan your meals weekly, biweekly or monthly. Double check what your recipes call for and whats already in your pantry/fridge and make a list accordingly and stick by it.
Another way to save money on food is making things homemade instead of always buying those canned food/TV dinners. Example, instead of buying biscuits in a can, you make them fresh the day of or make them and then freeze. Dinners you can make ahead and freeze, so you just have to pop them in the oven for those lazy days and not order out . You're probably looking at your freezer at wondering how you could do all that in that small spot. For a great investment of about $150 or more you can get yourself a freezer chest. Now you're probably thinking you wont make enough or have enough things to freeze to make that type of an investment. Think again. There's a lot more things you can freeze then most people realize. If you're thinking that it would be an eye sore, there's ways to dress them up to make them look like a regular piece of furniture...two purposes in one :). I'm in the midst of making somethings to disguise it, which will be a later date.
There's a little activity out there called Extreme Couponing. I never got into it, maybe I'm a little too lazy to look into the science of it, but it is what the name says EXTREME. Sorry there's is no way I'm going to use 20 bottles of mustard all before their expiration date, let alone finding the space to store all those items. But if you have that space and you will use all those items go right ahead and do the extreme couponing. If your new to Extreme couponing you can learn the basics here
I do ask those who enjoy extreme couponing, to be realistic, realize you might not be able to use all that sits on your shelves. So instead of letting things go bad and then throwing it out, DONATE, there are a lot of hungry families in this country who don't have the capability of buying enough food.
I start squirreling things away for winter during August and September. Starting with fresh produce. Farmers markets are great way to get fresh local produce, it also supports those local growers. The cheaper way is to grow it yourself. Free is even better. Once I saw wild raspberries growing on the side of the road so I jumped out and collected some and made Wild Raspberry Jam with it. Now I'm not saying to sneak into someone's backyard and take some from their garden, but there are some produce you can regrow from scraps, you can find info on it on websites like this one.
There's a lot of people out there, like myself, who do home canning. It's a great way to preserve fresh produce from your garden or farmers markets. Any soups, as long as there's no diary involved, you can preserve. If you're new to Home Canning and thinking of learning, you can read my post regarding Home Canning. My Wild Raspberry Jam has instructions how to preserve it. You can get more instructions and some recipes on Home Canning from Ball website. But as time goes on I will post more recipes with canning instructions.
I'll go into greater detail of each of these ideas as time goes on. I will post more recipes, so stick around.
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It's mid July and it feels like the sun is trying to toast me alive. But I really don't mind since my favorite berry, raspberries, are in season. Me being a cheapskate, I loved it, in my glory, when I found wild raspberries growing on the side of the road. So with a plastic tub in my hand I got to picking, enough for Jam and some for me to munch on while I'm making the jam.
The jam is pretty simple and goes as follows:
2 cups of wild raspberries
1 tbsp. Lemon juice
2~1/2 cups of sugar
1 tbsp of Classic Fruit Pectin Powder
Sterilize EVERYTHING, jars, lids..everything that will come in contact with the jarring process
Just toss the raspberries with lemon juice and also toss sugar with the pectin. Place both mixtures in a saucepan and heat on med-high. Continuously stir till a full blown boil is going at which point,stirring constantly, continue the boil for 5 minutes. Skim any foam that forms on top of the jam. Lower the heat to really low and do a jell test, by taking a small amount of the jam onto a saucer and place in the freezer for a moment or two. When you take the saucer out of the freezer, dip your finger into the jam. If the jam on the plate is too thin, add a 1/2 cup of sugar to the mix and boil for another 3 minutes and test again. If the jam on the plate is just right, continue to jarring it up.
Majority of jams and jellies foam up when cooking, my tip of the day is put 1/4 tsp of butter or margarine before it starts boiling, it won't effect the taste and the foam is nowhere to be found.
makes two (2) half pints or one (1) pint
In a waterbath canner, boil half pints for 20 minutes and/or pints for 25 minutes at full boil.
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Being it's the beginning of July and the heat is going up with it, my family has the taste for ice cream. Well then again my hubby has that craving all year long for ice cream, but more so during the summer. I don't even remember where I got this recipe, but I have it and no one is going to let me forget it.
The ingredients are simple
16oz Whipped Cream
16 oz Frozen Strawberries, partially thawed
1 egg white
1/2 cup sugar
In a metal bowl to a standing mixer you put the partially thawed frozen strawberries, egg white and sugar. Beat on med-low speed with the wire whisk attachment for 20 minutes, or until fluffy.
Place the whipped cream in a large bowl and FOLD the strawberry mixture in, DO NOT stir, if you stir you will deflate the whipped cream and deflate the egg/strawberry mixture, you don't want this since it gives the ice cream the smoothness.
Once fully combined you place the ice cream mixture in plastic containers and freeze for 4 hours before serving.
If you want extra strawberries in yours, double everything except the whipping cream
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Last thing I need is kids complaining on Rainy days that they're bored. So today we made homemade Play dough. There's a few recipes out there floating around, and I tried 2 basic recipes. I find the recipe I made with kool-aid the easiest. This activity, no matter which recipe you use, needs adult participation as well children, there's heating in the microwave involved and we don't want kiddies to hurt themselves with the temperature.
Now this makes a lot, perfect for a few children not to fight over all the different colors. Today we made two different colors one that was red and the other which was on the pinkish side. For each color you'll need:
1 and 1/4 cups of Flour
1/4 cup of salt
1 package of kool-aid drink mix ~ color of your choice
1 cup of boiling water, slightly cooled
1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of oil
In a large bowl combine all your dry ingredients and mix well, at this moment you wont see the color of the kool~aid.
Add the oil and water and stir with a wooden spoon.
Your play dough will look like a big hot mass of gooey mess, that's fine, just mix till well combined and you don't see any lumps of flour.
This is when the adults come in. Place the bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds. When you take it out of the microwave don't waste a second and throw your hands in and knead for 2 minutes to incorporate everything, you have to make sure nothing hardens because of the heat. My hands can handle hot, but if your hands are sensitive use a spoon, but it's best to your hands.
If the play dough is still sticky after 2 minutes of kneading, throw it back in the microwave for 30 seconds. take out and start kneading again right away and continue until it's warm enough for the kids to handle and let them take over on kneading till cooled.
There you go you have play dough that smells terrific...hopefully that can entertain them for awhile
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Time to whip out my beloved crock-pot, I love them so much I have 2. Yes I know it's the last week of June and you're probably wondering why I'm crazy enough to use a crock-pot with all the heat and humidity. Well crock-pot cooking is not just for winter, in fact it's a perfect solution to cooking dinner on a hot summer day. The crock-pot doesn't put off much heat, you just have to throw everything in it and run off to the beach or pool instead of worrying about standing over a hot stove. It makes the summer enjoyable.
Yes I also know I'm not Italian, far from it, but I do love my Italian food. So my recipe is a combination of 2 recipes that came from two Italians I knew...I just love it ♥
2~28oz cans of Tomato sauce
2~28oz cans of Tomato puree
2~12oz cans of Tomato paste
1~28oz can of water
1 and 1/4 cups of table wine of your choice (or substitute with 3/4 cup of sugar)
1 cup of grated Parmesan Cheese
4 Garlic cloves, diced
1/2 cup of Fresh chopped parsley, chopped finely
1/4 cup of Fresh chopped oregano, chopped finely
5 large fresh basil leaves, chopped finely
1 med. size onion, diced finely
Olive oil
Saute diced onion and 2 chopped basil leaves in olive oil until onion is tender and translucent. Add onions and remaining ingredients in the crock-pot. I prefer to use table wine in the recipe, even tho the alcohol wears off with the cooking, it cuts the acidity taste of the tomatoes and gives it a deeper savory taste, compare to sugar which gives it a sweet taste which why I dislike about jarred sauce. But the choice is yours. Cook on low for 4 hours, every hour or two remove the cover and stir the sauce away from the sides. If you have crock-pot has a warm setting, place it on warm for additional 4 hours. If your crock-pot doesn't, just continue cooking on low for another 2 hours.
This makes a lot so you can freeze what you have leftover or home can it in Mason jars.
Whether you're looking for a replacement crock-pot or you're looking for your first one I suggest Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker, you'll find an Amazon link to the right. I personally love Amazon because you can find a range of prices the item.
If you plan home canning it and are new to it read my post about it here
Sterilize all jars and lids
For every pint size mason jars you use add 1/2 tsp. of lemon juice along with the sauce, for quart size jar you add 1 tsp. of lemon juice along with the sauce. Don't worry you will never taste the lemon juice, it's just there to bring up the acidity level enough to do the waterbath method for sealing the Jars.
Thanks for stopping by, Become a Fan and follow My blog for more fun ideas~ Thank you, Carleen
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We're all are trying to cost when it comes to household budgets, which is understandable. One of those things you're trying to cut is your grocery bill. But when you walk into your laundry aisle you'll notice all those high prices for laundry detergent and fabric softeners, then there's the cheap stuff that are basically water more then anything, which you'll wind using double the amount to get the effect you want and in the end cost you more money, which you're trying to avoid. 
