Next Week: Soap Making and Body Butter

The makings of Body Butter

There's only a few more days left to sign up for a night of soap making with Hannah Barrington. Hannah led a similar workshop last year (you can read about it here).

I've been really pleased with the soap from our last workshop. After six months of letting it cure, the soap was mild, firm and really sudsy.  Hannah also made me a batch with essential oils that has made for nice showers.

Both the soap and body butter recipes are simple to memorize and execute. See below for the details!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011 from 7- 9 pm

If you've always wanted to move away from mass produced, chemical filled body products but don't know where to start, join Hannah Barrington as she mixes up a batch of gentle Olive Oil Soap and skin-honouring Body Butter. 

In this evening workshop, you'll make 10 bars of soap, exfoliating body rub, and learn how to make body butter (you'll take home a sample).

Fee is $25. RSVP to Carissa at carissahalton@hotmail.com and pay early to hold your spot. 

Cooking for a Month Attempt #2

We have spent a week eating some pretty fantastic meals from our freezer.

Once again, my childhood friend Katy and I teamed up for a day of cooking. Since my mom was out of the country, our good friend Hannah not only joined us, but hosted the marathon.

If you read about our last experience (check it out here), I gave it a 7/10. This time, I think we're nearing 9. The meals are better both in flavour and "freezability", we did it in less time, plus we added more  meat dishes and used sustainably grown meat and eggs purchased from our local friends Christine of Shooting Star Ranch (elk) and Arie of Ma-Be Farms (beef and eggs) at the Alberta Farmer's Market- for almost the same price as the last trial.

Katy's baby is due in two weeks! Mad lady trooper!

The Stats:

Meal Planning time - 2 hours
Shopping time- 4 hours
Prep/Cook/Clean up time- 10 hours

Meals prepared per family- 18
Servings prepared per family- 120

Cost per family- $220

Each meal averages out to less than an hour of time (including shopping, prep and cleanup!) and about $2 per serving. In the scheme of things, not bad for some damn good meals. Here's a sample of our line up:

-Chicken Manicotti
-Elk Meat loaf
-Italian Sausage and Mushroom Pizza
-Red Pepper Quiche
-Breakfast Burritos
-Beef and Spinach Lasagna
-Black Bean Salsa Soup

Each meal has easily been dinner and a couple lunches for our family of four (two of which don't eat anything but crackers and spaghetti).

How we changed it up:

There were a few things we did differently- and better- this time:

1. We chose recipes that we already liked and knew froze well. So each of us brought some favorites to the table and we worked with that. This took slightly more brain power when it came to creating the shopping list, however one of us wrote out the list in pencil (on five separate sheets of paper, each titled for different sections so we could divide and conquer at the grocery store) as the others read out the ingredients (x3) one at a time. It probably added half hour to the process, over using the book's recipes which were less consistently good.

2. We used locally source beef, elk and eggs. Though we paid slightly more than at Superstore, the meat stretched well. It also has proven to be a lot less fatty, with surprisingly more flavour.




3. We made a huge pot of tomato sauce and used it in a number of recipes. We bought four cans of 100 oz cans of spaghetti sauce at the Italian Centre, then I simply added a whole bottle of pesto. Delicious. it was used to make pizza and lasagna, plus was added to flavour a couple other dishes.







4. We doubled a few of the recipes- meaning we made 6 casserole dishes of Popeye Pasta and Enchiladas. It required significant counter space but shaved 3 hours off our cook day.

Popeye Pasta- lots of beef, spinach and cheese

5. We froze everything outside first, which meant it was less messy stacking the dishes in our freezer at the end of the night. We also used more Ziploc bags to freeze things which is more efficient for the freezer and better for the environment.  I do feel bad about the tin foil casserole tins, but I don't have enough glass ones to spare. We did manage to reuse a few from last month- so hopefully we can stretch the disposable ones over a few cook-offs.


I have just started back working part-time in paid employment and this has been a major treat for both Mat and I as we transition our family into a slightly busier schedule of life. Its taken the edge off, you know what I mean?

I've had a few people tell me they are interested in finding others to try this with-- if that's you, let me know and perhaps I can connect you to others for a blind-date type cook off!

Snowed in Buccaneers

While the temperatures may be inching up in this Northern city- I'll happily use the snow as an excuse to stay housebound all Saturday long.

On this cold Saturday, the females of the house found ourselves consumed by the tale of three well meaning, sea-faring thieves (call us Robin Hoods of the Oceanlands). Inspired by a map of Narnia (Madi has began the journey into Narnia! And her parents are saved from Dr. Suess re-runs), we constructed costumes, a ship, and scenarios involving desperate animals in need of heros.

Madi fixes her eye patch as I take time away from my telescope to check our coordinates.

Madi returns from a journey saving the animals of... err... the Serengeti of Narnia. The wheel is a master's carving, decorated with gems and fabric from lands that lay far East of the Silk Road (found at a dollar store nearest you).

Madi's idea- she wanted "a flag that flapped". I kept trying scarves, but they didn't flow to her liking. So we tried toilet paper. It fluttered in the north winds (aided by our summer fan dug from deep storage).

What is it about pirates and children? What do you think: Are they villains sanitized purely for our children's amusement?  Or is it our twisted way of empathizing with the marginalized who's basic survival is too often criminalized- and punished without impunity? 

Lily had a tendency to rip the ship apart, but she managed to play a critical part in Madi and my script: the baby lost at sea who we saved at the expense of ourselves (and our sanity).

Bed Bugs are Gross...

I am happy to report that we have yet to bring bed bugs into our home, despite their rampant takeover of most of Edmonton's condos, apartments and second hand shops. But I'm beginning to realize its not an outside possibility. I need to mentally prepare for the possibility.

"Even new clothing has been found to have bugs at varying stages of growth," said one expert speaking to my sister-in-law's inner city agency staff.

Last weekend, I had the misfortune of seeing all four stages of the bug- whitish eggs huddled around a dowel on a close friend's bed frame. Among the eggs were small, dark dots of larvae that moved ever so slightly. The larger stage 2 and 3 bugs stretched between 2 and 4 mm from head to bottom- and reminded me, not pleasurably, of the wood ticks I grew up fearing (being raised in the Rockies has its disadvantages).

The bugs had infested my friend's bedroom- and she was instructed that, until the sprayer`s came, she should stay in her room. That way they wouldn't migrate into other parts of her suite hunting for blood (who knew that our blood smelled so good- or strongly!). So she was supposed to camp out in the bed bug nest for the weekend? Waiting out the exterminators?

Instead, I convinced her to come to our place, where she stripped her clothes off in the garage and exchanged them for bed-bug free ones of mine.

We've learned a lot from this:

1. Mattress bed bug covers: Use them! It won't prevent bed bugs, but it will save your mattress if you get them.
2. Most people around the world just deal with pests like this since resources for fighting them are unavailable. One South American friend said that back home they rub bed legs with Vaseline. They also place the feet of their bed in bowls of alcohol (bed bugs can't fly or leap).
3. Heat all second hand AND new clothes or linens in a hot dryer for 20- 35 minutes.
4. Be careful buying second hand furniture. If you happen to have -35 C like I do, perhaps let the furniture freeze for a week or two (and hope the buggers don't go dormant!).
5. Bed bugs are gross. But they aren't the end of the world.

Just recently they've found bed bugs in our Edmonton Public Libraries. No doubt the tricksters are in our mall;s change rooms, school lunchrooms and bus stations.

I wrestle with the fear I feel of these tiny creatures. It makes me think twice about sitting next to the haggard guy on public transit or borrowing books- but what happens when our commons becomes infested?

Is isolating ourselves really the answer?

19 meals in 10 hours for 200 bucks

In our house, the witching hour begins at four pm. Perhaps you know the hour- when the pitch and volume of the kids' whining turns up a notch. When your spouse stomps about the house suddenly noticing the the mess. When you start slamming cupboard and fridge doors moaning, “How can the shelves be so full with nothing to eat?”

Welcome to “Low Blood Sugar Hour”. As a way to combat this time of day, and save some money, three of us gathered in my mom's kitchen to cook for a month. We surrounded ourselves with recipes, pots, and ingredients, and cooked from 10am to 10 pm with short breaks for lunch and supper.

Here's a review of the experiment that hopefully inspires you to try it too.

The Rating:

7/10: Success with room to improve

The Experiment:

On Thursday morning, my friend Katy Spane and I choose recipes and developed our shopping list. Instead of dictating a full month of recipes, like many cookbooks do, “Frozen Assets” provided cooking 'mini sessions' of 4 to 6 similar dishes. This allowed us more control over what we would be cooking and so more control over our budget. A quarter of the recipes we chose were chicken, another quarter were pasta recipes, and half were bean.

On Friday night, Katy and I shopped. We hit the Italian Centre, then Costco, then finally Superstore. Hands down, the Italian Centre offered the best deal on cans of tomatoes, cans of beans, pasta packages and vegetables. Not only were the prices the best, they packaged it all for us and packed the boxes into our car. At Costco we bought our chicken, Superstore we bought most of our cheese.  The total number of hours we spent shopping was just over 2- and the next hour was spent unloading it all!

Prep was quick with two food processors and six hands.

On Saturday at 10 am, Katy, my mom Terri, and I started chopping and slicing. Thanks to a friend's food processor, the 30 lbs (!!!) of onions cut with fewer tears and cabbage and cheese grated with ease. We hadn't realized how important our equipment would be. Since we were multiplying every recipe by 3- we used all of our largest pots to capacity. The food processor was a necessity and good knives were essential. Thankfully Terri had a number of extra large metal bowls which we filled with chopped ingredients, ready for measure into pots. Around noon we started to cook, each of us was responsible for one mini session of recipes which meant there were lots of hands and feet in the kitchen. We ate a Hollywood Pizza delivery supper and finished cooking around 9pm. It took an hour to clean up.

We cut and food process 30 lbs of onions.

The Stats:

-      12 hours = average time spent per person on planning, prep, cooking and shopping

-      19 = Recipes completed (multiplied each by 3)

-      120 = Servings made per family (each recipe served 6)

-      $200 = total cost per family

-      $1. 65 = cost per serving

Success:

-      Pulling out a tray of stuffed manicotti, stuffed florentine shells, chicken chili, spinach quiche and lime marinated chicken has cut some of the stress of the supper hour. We don't eat a frozen meal every night, but probably every third night. 

-      It is critical that the recipes have lots of variety, and our choices did.

-      I had frozen meals to share with friends who had babies.

Stuffing manicotti- was delish and served 8!

-      The cost per meal was exceptional for the variety. I cut our family's supper budget by at least a third- maybe even half.

-      There is lots of leftovers for lunch (and sometimes supper) the next day.

Room to Improve:

-      While many of the meals have been good, about a third haven't been to my taste. Next time we'll use a website that allows us to pick each recipe specifically then it collates the shopping list. This will cut down on our planning time and limit the food wastage.

-      We need better freezer methods. We used freezer bags for most things, but some casseroles were frozen in dishes that did not stand up to being stacked (and froze together in blocks!)

-      Some of the recipes didn't freeze as well. Macaroni from the freezer to the pot is rather nasty.

That is bean puree on the tortillas- I swear it. Mat was roped in at the end.

The benefits are many and the problems surmountable. We'll be doing this experiment again soon, perhaps buying less beans and more elk meat from Christine at the Alberta Avenue Farmers' Market.

Ode to Home in Time for the Season of Nostalgia

As a self-proclaimed Homesteader, I’ve given some thought to the role Home plays in my life. Homesteaders in the traditional sense are concerned about the very basics of survival: food production, food preparation, shelter from the elements, food preservation, and propagating more humans to consume said food resources. 

Surely Home is a lot more than the sum of these skeletal parts. Screws and 2x4s, trusses and shingles, cement and hardwood: a house this makes- but a home?

The word Home has an emotional dimension that, when I imagine it, is the ‘meat’ (err: flesh) on the skeleton. Relationships, memory, expectations, and exasperations stretch over the structure and add warmth like that of new love or old love or bacon wrapped tenderloin.

There are many words that start with ‘home’ which are full of emotional associations. Let’s explore a few.

Consider the word: “Homemade”. Its very mention conjures the image of a crackling hearth and wafting scent of chicken soup and fresh bread.  Strange that this word doesn’t bring to mind those biscuits I cleverly disguised as ‘biscotti’ or the smoke from the hearth pizza that assailed the fire alarm until it shrieked like a cat fight.

Consider the word “Homemaker”. As a generation Y-er, I have a hard time detaching this word from snide ‘bare foot and pregnant in the kitchen’ comments. But the homemakers I’ve met don’t look much like their caricature. Women and men, fathers and grandmothers, they are involved in more than giving a house that homespun feel. Regularly they fuel the fire that is community action.

Say it, “Home.” I hear: Crackling fire (I don’t have a fireplace) and crinkle of Christmas presents (one day a year).

The reality is, at times Home sounds like me screaming at the kids to stop crying while they scream at me to stop screaming. Thankfully these off notes join the tenors of other sounds: the piano thunking, the girls wrestling on squeaky couch springs, the screen slamming with Mat’s entry, the bath tap pouring, the oven door opening, the forks scraping, and boots booming across the living room floor. The music of home, the real soundtrack and not the one created by advertisers and nostalgic storytellers, is dissident and soothing in even measure. It is as complex as a master composition: something to be enjoyed thoughtfully on a cold, snowy December Day.

Yak and Jammin

The ever-violent game of 'spoons'.

Yak and Jammin'

Kitchen Party

 

Murder Mystery Birthday party

Add caption

Back Deck Barber Shop

Green Clean- Recipes for Everybody

When I first set out to make my own cleaning products, the greatest inhibitor was logistical. When the spray bottle emptied, anxiety set in. Now I would have to gather the various ingredients from opposite ends of the house, pull out the recipe from yet another corner, then make the stuff. It seemed more of a production than it was worth. 

Then came the birth of my 'Green Clean Kit', and my family was saved my whining. 

To make a Green Clean Kit, find a crate (a green or blue bin works great) and fill it with the items pictured above:

1. Vinegar 

2. Baking Soda 

3. Castile (ex. Dr. Bronner's) or Pure Glycerine Soap (buy at Grocery/Health Food Store or Online)

4. Oil (olive or otherwise)

5. Borax (found in Laundry aisle)

6. Washing Soda (found in Laundry aisle)

7. Tea Tree

8. Rags

With these ingredients you will be able to make most of the homemade recipes available on the internet or plethora of books on the subject.

To be honest, I use only two recipes for just about every cleaning emergency. I have numerous spray bottles around the house, most marked in Sharpie with the recipes so everyone in the household can make up a new batch of cleaner.

General Purpose Cleaner

(For use everywhere, but on marble. If using on mirrors, experiment with amount of soap.)

1 Cup Water

1 Cup White Vinegar

1 teaspoon Castile Soap (or detergent if that's what you have)

5- 10 drops Tea Tree Oil (optional antibacterial)

Disinfectant

2 Cup Hot Water

3 teaspoons Borax

3 Tablespoons Castile Soap (or detergent if that's what you have)

3 Tablespoons White Vinegar

More oversight is required of this one if kids are cleaning. Borax is a natural mineral, however use it carefully as its highly toxic for animals and children. It is used here for its disinfectant properties in place of bleach.

I've also stumbled onto super cheap liquid hand soap!  Use 1 part Castile Soap to 7 parts Water. Works like a charm and for pennies (okay, maybe it'll cost you $1 to fill a standard soap pump).

Happy Cleaning, Guys, Gals and children of all ages. 

Hanging my skivies

Our new dryer was replaced with a second model exactly the same as the first, after four months of me complaining to customer service that the dryer didn’t dry my clothes. I was informed that these new LG dryers were set up to not dry clothes completely- so to save wear and tear on fabric.  Silly me, I could not accept this idea that I hang my clothes to dry AFTER placing them in my $800 dryer.

Turned out that the second dryer was the same as the first. Back to the warehouse it went and the nice folks at LG were going to send us a third dryer, exactly the same as the second, when Mat called and said, “No thanks, we’d like a refund.”

“Sir, a refund can’t be issued until your machine has been logged in our warehouse database.”

Fine. That tiny step has taken over two months. We have been without a dryer for TWO MONTHS! My whole life, I have been an avowed dryer- advocate. Sure I’ve been known to use the clothes line on those picture perfect ‘clothes line days’ when nostalgia gets the better of me, but at the sight of rain or a busy day I non-apologetically use the dryer.

Until two months ago that is. Surprisingly for such a dryer addict, I report here that using my clothesline and indoor drying rack has presented a shocking number of positives:

1. Everything in our closets is folded! It’s much easier to fold items directly off the rack because they have dried partially folded. I’m ashamed to admit that with my dryer I regularly pulled all the items out into one knotted mass in the ‘clean’ hamper. We then proceeded to dress from this tangled mess.

2. Having such a clear visual of every piece of fabric in our home hanging in the back yard, I am more aware of our family’s clothing inventory. Therefore, I buy fewer clothes. Even a $1 skirt at the thrift store isn’t worth the increasing my laundry pile.

3. My clothes, especially my thin cotton shirts, aren’t nearly as worn out. And at press time I have shrunk zero of Mat’s wool sweaters.

4. Lily’s diapers, Madi’s paint shirts, and my whites are stain free thanks to Mr. Sun.

5. Our towels have morphed into beautiful pumice stones! Due to the crisp air-dry our towels receive, my skin has never been better exfoliated.

6. We’re forced, in a good way (as in, I’m not resenting it yet), to be on top of the laundry. In our past days as dryer-owners, we often had washdays on Sundays. Eight loads through the machines, few folded. In this current regime, there is space for three washer loads on the line and rack that means we do the wash every couple days. I’m not nearly as daunted by the laundry as before when faced with piles of textiles from every closet in the house, barfed out at the foot of the basement steps.

7. I’m saving some money. Granted its not really a lot considering the time it takes to hang a load of wash (approximately 5 minutes per day). The clothes dryer is typically the second-largest electricity-using appliance after the refrigerator.  It costs about $85 to operate annually, so I’ve saved $14. Or rather, I’ve paid myself $7 for 2.5 hours of labour per month… 

8. But how can I quantify the spiritual benefits? I’m not a smoker, so there are not many times when I take a break to breath in some fresh air, release some tension in my shoulders, and pause. Hanging the laundry has been just that for me. It has offered me opportunity to pause.

And in those times of pause, I’ve been faced with the fact that my dishcloths are in disgusting shape. The whole lot of them must be purged.

And so, until we buy another dryer and I resort to my old habits, I will continue to hang my clean laundry while wondering if the neighbourhood boys are laughing at my knickers.