Recession Wednesday

A birthday present, wrapped in a cloth, tied with a pretty ribbon. Friendly for the environment and cost $0 as we already had the piece of silk and the ribbon. Re-usable too! 

More cool recession friendly ideas from our friends at NPR; they're doing a "How Low can you Go" challenge with a bunch of famous chefs, challenging them to create a meal for 4 for under $10.  You can check it out here.  Happy Recession Wednesday!

Recession Wednesday!!!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  Or at least that's what they say.  But how many of us are doing it, and in that order?  I know that in my house, I feel like I'm doing a real public service when I get my recycling out on time and didn't sneak in a few contraband items like the plastic bags that frozen vegetables come in.  Why can't you recycle those?  But then I got to thinking.  How much energy does it take to recycle this stuff?  What is the recycling process and where does the resulting glass-plastic-metal-paper go?  I'm not really sure.  

So I decided to challenge myself to:

A) Be more aware of what I buy and use.  (Reduce!)

B) See if I can give new life to the stuff I normally put in the recycling bin (Reuse!)

C) Then, if there are no other options, I separate my plastic-glass-metal-paper (Recycle!)

Here is my Recession Wednesday cool, money saving, earth lovin' hot tip: 

Make a Notepad or Drawing Book

My children go through SO MUCH drawing paper!  And it is so expensive!!  I've resorted to making drawing books for them as shown above.  They can be cut as above for travel size or usually I just staple a stack of my 8 1/2 x 11 pages that have blank sides and make a bunch of "books" for them.  They are used for doodling, cutting out, drawing and for illustrating their own books.  I wish I had a photo of an example, other than the one I just made for this post.  In any case, they're saving me a bunch of money, I'm keeping paper out of the waste stream and giving my children something to have fun with and use with wild abandon.  It's totally simple to do, here's how it works:

Take paper that has a blank back side from your paper recycling (mine is featured above),  or set it aside prior to tossing into the recycling basket as you read letters, pay invoices or print out pages from a website and get that annoying last page with nothing on it but a url.  Lay it written face down (picture #2) and just keep piling it up, thickness to be determined by what your stapler can handle.  If you're cutting a smaller size, such as a notepad or to-do list for yourself, do this before stapling.  Then staple on the top  or the sides and Voila!  Usable paper!  If you don't have children, give these to nieces, nephews or neighbors - I don't know any children who don't need paper!  (Just make sure there isn't any sensitive information on the written side that you need to keep private!)

Happy Recession Wednesday!

It's RECESSION WEDNESDAY!!!

It's RECESSION WEDNESDAY!!  The day we embrace the challenges of the economic mud puddle we're in and use innovation to make us stronger, happier and more resilient in the long run.  It's the time to turn to hearth and home and especially to ourselves and make some changes in the way we live and think.  

Save water, save money and help conserve our planet's water!  I was boiling an egg for breakfast this morning and normally I would just dump the water down the drain when I'm cleaning up from breakfast.  Then it occurred to me that this water is useful for something else, why waste it?  So I decided to take a glass milk jug, put it next to the sink and pour any water that (is clean) I would normally send down the drain and use it when I need to rinse dishes, water flowers and plants, need water for cleaning up child related stickiness etc etc.  I would love to hear any other uses you all can come up with!  

But ... Recession Fun can't be all work and no play, or we'd never get anything done (I don't know about you, but I need a balance in my life!).  And that is why I'd like to introduce you to my new favorite game:  MAHJONGG!

Although the initial investment isn't cheap (they range in price from $29.99 to $100ish, click here for the nicest games I've come across and the best prices), it will provide you with a lifetime of fun and family bonding!  We played compulsively all afternoon on Easter and I must say that the tiles made such a satisfying click-y noise as we played, the competition was fierce and the tea was hot ... So my Recession Entertainment idea is this:  Host a weekly Mahjongg game at your home!  Offer tea and even cookies if you want to (better yet, your leftover Easter candy), but you probably will be so engaged in the game you'll forget to eat the cookies.  It's the perfect alternative to going out to dinner, buying $$$ clothes for fancy dinner, the $$$ drinks before hand if that's what you're into and what's more, you're that much closer to your bed at the end of the evening!  Not to mention you're keeping one more car off the road and conserving gas.  What's not to love?

I have been remiss in not giving you a daily recipe ... here is one that keeps on giving, a recession recipe if there ever was one.

Make Your Own Yogurt! 

(without buying a yogurt maker - please, if the Bedouins could do it for centuries out of a Yurt, then so can you!)

1 Quart milk (can be skim, 2%, Whole, whatever you have)

2 TB yogurt or a packet of yogurt culture (you can get at most groceries, I've used Yogourmet with success  but there are lots out there and I encourage you to be bold and try them.

1/4 to 1/2 C. dried or powdered milk (Optional)

I am deliberately being general with temperatures in some places because I don't want you to obsess over this.  Just try it!  Don't worry so much about being perfect!  Just let the yogurt happen and channel your inner Nomad.  This is how I do it:

Pour milk into microwave safe container, I use an 8 Cup Pyrex measuring thingy which works well.  Microwave for about 5 minutes.  The idea is to heat the milk enough to kill the existing bacteria so they don't compete with the happy and beneficial yogurt bacteria.

Let the milk cool to a little warmer than body temp (inside of wrist is good indicator).  Ideal temp for yogurt culture to thrive is around 112 F ish.  Pour in yogurt starter or add the 2TB yogurt.  It is recommended that you take a little of the warm milk out and mix the starter in with it so when you pour it back in, the starter is dispersed throughout and not clumpy (which results in clumpy yogurt).  If you are using the dried/powdered milk, add this now.  The dried milk adds a protein boost to the yogurt and helps to thicken it.

At this point, I set my oven to 107F and pour the milk-starter mixture into a Le Creuset pot but any non-reactive pot will do.  I pop it in the oven and leave it overnight and I have yogurt in the morning!  It's really that simple!  The yellowy-greeny-liquidy stuff you may see when you spoon out your yogurt is none-other than whey, of Little Miss Muffet fame!  Whey looks icky, but it has lots of B vitamins and other good stuff so I recommend you mix it in and slurp it down.  You can also strain your yogurt for that great, thick style yogurt (like Fage) that is so delicious.  I just line a colander with a linen dishtowel (the older and thinner the better, but cheesecloth is too porous) and set it in a pie plate.  Pour the yogurt into the lined colander and check back in a few hours.  Should be nice and thick - refrigeration will also thicken the yogurt.

Please don't be afraid to try this!  You will feel so pioneer-little-house-on-the-prairie chic and super healthy.  If you don't like plain yogurt, try steeping a vanilla bean in the milk when you're heating it.  Or you can drizzle and mix with any number of toppings once in your bowl.  Enjoy!!