Three tiny ways to save on your grocery bill...and sometimes help the environment

I am not going to pretend that I am the thriftiest shopper in the world. 

Despite my declaration that I wouldn't buy organic grapes again (see July 29 post), I've broken down and bought them a couple of times (on sale). And despite my continued efforts to clip coupons, I almost never manage to use them; a few days ago I cleaned out a whole drawer of coupons that had expired in 2005.

Still, there are a few things I do here and there that help a little. The added benefit is that such measures sometimes have eco-benefits. Here are three of them:

1. I make my own yogurt. A half gallon container of milk makes 2 quarts of yogurt, with a little milk left over. (For instructions on how to make yogurt, see May 11 post).

Cost benefit: A half-gallon of organic milk costs around $3.50, while 2 quarts of organic yogurt costs $7-8. (A gallon of organic milk is currently going for around $6, which offers greater cost advantages).

Eco-benefit: I'm not using or throwing away plastic yogurt containers. I make the yogurt in glass jars I wash again and again. (Making yogurt uses a minimum amount of electricity).

2. I make my own foaming liquid hand soap. "Make" is relative—I don't make soap from scratch, but refill foaming liquid soap containers with water and dish soap. It works fine and most people can't tell the difference.  Here's the recipe:

• 1/4 cup unscented liquid dish soap (I use Seventh Generation Free and Clear)

• 3/4-1 cup of water

• 1 tsp. of glycerin (you can get glycerin in bottles at the drugstore)

• scented oil, if desired (I've been using either lavendar oil or grapefruit oil)

• In the winter, I add a squirt of aloe vera gel, for my chapped hands.

Cost benefit: This is about $.25 soap, $.20 of glycerin and maybe $.10 of oil (at the most), compared to a store-bought container that costs $5-8.

Eco-benefit: You're not throwing away all those soap containers. HOWEVER, the foaming capability of most re-used containers seems to give out after 4-6 uses, so this isn't something I've been able to keep going perpetually; I have to buy new soaps occasionally.

3. I buy some of my household goods and bulk items through a wholesale distributor, Frontier. Some friends and I put our orders in together so that we don't have to pay postage (postage is free is you spend $250 at a time). The downside is that it gets pretty time-consuming for the person who puts the order in and sorts through all the items that are shipped since they are not separated per individual order.

Cost benefit: I just purchased 16 oz. of Frontier bulk Irish breakfast tea for $12.95 vs. ~$3/oz. in the natural foods store; 48 oz. of Seventh Generation dish liquid was $5.05 compared to $7-8.00, retail.

Eco-benefit: There's some slight benefit in that I don't use gas to drive to a natural foods store for the specific things I can order through the coop.

A cook's (deck) garden

The sun in our yard is limited mostly to our deck, due to the towering oak trees in our south-side neighbor's yard. We also have seven deer who visit our front and back yards at least once a day, eating hosta leaves (though not hosta blooms, for some reason), any other blooms they can find, even the pachysandra which they aren't even supposed to like.

So, my garden is limited to however many pots I can put on the sunny-side of the deck. The deer can't walk up the steps to my deck or I'm sure they would have eaten almost everything I plant there.

Since the sunniest part of the deck happens to face the kitchen window where I stand and wash dishes, I've added more and more flowers to my deck garden over the years so that now I have pink Asian lilies, marigolds, pansies, a large pot of pink hibiscus (yet to bloom in mid-July), and one Black-eyed Susan rescued from the deer.

Otherwise, everything I grow is to eat. Given the limited space, I don't bother growing most vegetables but concentrate instead on herbs. I usually have two pots of basil, each with several plants, one pot each of coriander/cilantro, parsley, spearmint and chives (which have lovely purple blossom heads in early summer). This year I've added a pot of tarragon and one of marjoram, but I've never had much luck in either of these as perennials.

I also have a small herb garden on the south side that doesn't get more than 3 hours of sun a day, where I'm able to grow sage, lavender, two kinds of thyme, rosemary and oregano. These are the only herbs I've found that the deer (or slugs) won't touch.

Since the rosemary in the ground probably won't winter-over in Maryland, I am also propagating/trying to propagate herb cuttings on the deck in smaller pots to ensure their perpetuity, including rosemary and tarragon. Last year the rosemary plant wintered over just fine on the deck, shielded by one side of the house, and I planted it in the ground in the spring. There's something satisfying in trying to keep the same plant growing, like nurturing the same yogurt culture in your fridge for months at a time.

Quick Uses for Herbs

Chives

I use chives in cooking almost everything since I am somewhat allergic to white onions. PE likes to go and harvest it for me with small scissors and bring me strands which I cut in smaller pieces with kitchen shears. Good fresh on top of soups, potatoes, etc., but also added to sauces and recipes calling for onions.

Basil

I love having fresh basil in the summer. I start making pesto with it as soon as I need to thin my plantings, then make pesto every week or so using cuttings off bigger plants (basil will often grow back, so I try not to take the whole plant for cooking purposes until it's nearing winter and ready to die back anyway). I also throw fresh basil leaves on foccacia, both before and after cooking, and cut it fresh into any Italian sauce.

Cilantro/coriander

We use coriander in Thai cooking (not so much these days since kids won't eat it) and in making fresh salsa and guacamole.

Thyme

I tend to use thyme more in cold-weather cooking, which doesn't always jive with its growing season. Good with herb-roasted chicken, in soups and stews.

For more information on growing and using herbs, I strongly recommend Rodales Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs (listed in my Amazon widget on the web page for this blog).

What we ate: June 30-July 4

I got busy this week, with D out of town and PE getting a stomach virus mid-week, so I didn't write down what we ate every day. I vaguely remember leftovers on Monday and turkey meatloaf in the middle of the week (not a hit), then on to D. grilling chicken on Friday. So, I'll use this space to talk about the only memorable thing I made:

3 Things From the Same Dough

(This was on the same night as the turkey meatloaf; PE will not eat meatloaf, even when disguised as a hamburger in a bun; creativity ensued...)

Since I was making bread in the bread machine anyway, I put it on the dough cycle. When done, I took out and divided into 3 balls on a wooden board dusted with flour.

• The first ball was pushed into a small greased loaf pan, left to rise in the oven, set to "breadproofing" (100 degrees).

• The second ball was rolled out into a rectangle, then spread with butter and sprinkled with a little sugar and cinnamon, with a small handful of raisins pushed into dough. It was then rolled back up into a log and put in a small, greased loaf pan into the oven to rise.

• The third ball was rolled into a mini pizza, very thin crust, and set aside to rise a little while the the others were rising, until I could make the sauce for it.

After I rolled out the mini pizza, I made some quick tomato sauce in the microwave (see Recipe in previous posts). I took the two loaves out of the oven to rise some more and set the oven to 375. I added the sauce and shredded cheese to the pizza dough and put it in when oven was hot enough. I then added the 2 bread loaves when they had risen enough.

Lessons learned:

• Bread dough is not the same as pizza dough--it's less moist and thus less flexible. So, it was not a perfect pizza, but PE didn't seem to mind. She liked having her own little pizza. An adult might notice the difference.

• I've never figured out how to get raisins to stick to raisin bread. Once sliced, a few of the raisins always manage to fall out. Maybe I should add the raisins to the dough cycle in the machine, so they'll be more integrated, then add cinnamon and sugar as an afterthought? I don't know how Pepperidge Farm gets their raisins to stick...

Homemade granola

I have not yet mastered making excellent homemade granola. In fact, my homemade granola is often passable, at best. But with Naked Granola selling for $4 for 12 ounces ON SALE (that’s $5/pound) and other granolas nearly as pricey—as well as the fact that most commercial granola contains a lot of added sugars—I soldier on with my granola-making.

Part of my problem is that I always worry that the oats are too raw, so that most of my granolas verge on being on this side of burned.

So, this is a recipe in-process. I’ll post more tips and suggestions for refinement as I figure them out.

Tip: Though most recipes call for making granola in long, shallow pans, the easiest way to cook it is to use a large cast-iron pot. This way, when stirred, the flakes don’t fall out of the pot, as they’re likely to when using pans. You can also heat up the liquid parts of the granola in the same pot, on top of the stove. And there should be some nutritional benefit to using cast iron.

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 250-300 degrees. (250 degrees is about the normal temperature, but will require more intervention and cooking time. 300-325 will speed things along, but at risk for over-browning).

Ingredients:
-½ cup canola oil
-¼- ½ cup sweetening (honey, maple syrup, brown sugar, or any combination of them)

Pour these ingredients into a cast iron pan and heat on medium-medium low until they melt together. Whisk. Then add:

-4 cups whole (not quick) oats
-chopped nuts of some kind, around 1-2 handfuls (suggested: pecans, peanuts, sliced almonds toast well, whole almonds with skins do not—the same is true for hazelnuts)
-1/2-1 cup of some other grain with a different texture, for variety (like puffed millet or puffed rice)

Possible flavorings:
-vanilla extract, orange oil/extract or lemon extract (added to liquid ingredients, prior to adding dry)
-cinnamon, powdered cardamom or ginger—or a combination of all three (add to dry)

Stir well until coated with the sweet, oily goo, then pop into the oven (no lid).

Check the granola every 10 minutes or so and stir with a large spoon. You can go for longer stretches when the oven is at a lower temperature, especially at the beginning, but 20-30 minutes into it, you’ll need to start checking more frequently or turn off the oven for the last 10 minutes.

(Hint: during the 10-minute intervals, you can do a series of short exercises, or wash the dishes—don’t try to do anything that requires a long stretch of attention).

Pull out of oven when it reaches desired level of brownness. Cool. Store in a container with a tight lid. (I find large Mason jars the best.) Add raisins or dried fruit to container and shake in, if desired.

For breakfast, serve with unsweetened granola (especially if you used a lot of sweetening).

Granola snack: In a small bowl or custard cup, mix equal parts of granola and peanut butter; add a little honey, to taste. Little kids seem to like this. Leave it in the cup, to serve (don’t bother to shape). Add chocolate chips, if desired.

Foods to Make: Tomato sauce

The problem with most commercial tomato sauces is that they use cottonseed oil (which isn't that good for you) and an excess amount of sugar (which makes them taste too sweet). If you have crushed tomatoes (or canned tomatoes, which you can crush), you can make your own sauce in a few minutes.

Quick way: throw 1 large can of crushed tomatoes into a microwavable glass container, add 2-3 tbsp. of olive oil, garlic powder and a few shakes of dried oregano. Cover and microwave on high for five minutes. Add a smidgen or tsp. or two of sugar, if needed, to cut acidity.

Slow way: throw same things into a pot and heat on low for an hour or more. Take the lid off at some point if you want it to thicken.

Note: I've never had luck trying to pressure cook tomato sauce--it always seems to burn on the bottom. So, the microwave is the only quick way I know that works.

Homemade yogurt

I used to have one of those plug-in yogurt makers, but the frustrating thing was that it only made four cups at a time—and our family consumes lots of yogurt each week. Plus, organic yogurt at my local grocery is going for up to $4/quart.

It finally dawned on me that my oven's breadproofing function could be used to make yogurt since it maintains 100 degrees, the perfect temperature for yogurt. (I've heard you can just leave on an oven light and then wrap containers in towels, but I've never tried it).

You don't need any special tools for making yogurt, just somewhere to put the milk so it can be cultured. I purchased wide-mouth quart-size Mason jars for this purpose. They can be sterilized in a dishwasher. If you're paranoid like me, I sometimes take the extra precaution of putting the Mason jars (and the large measuring cup I use to transfer the hot milk into the jars) in the microwave, half full of water, and microwave on high for three minutes; cool before using.

Tools needed:

• pot large enough to boil milk (enamel seems to work best)
  
• quick check thermometer (digital best)
  
• sterile jars or containers to pour milk into
  
• (optional) a large sterilized measuring cup to transfer the hot milk from the pot into the containers
• oven or some place to keep milk at 100 degree for four hours
  

Directions:

• Bring however much milk you want to use to almost boiling -- 180 degrees.


• Pour immediately into containers or jars and let cool to 100-110 degrees. The cooling process usually takes 60-75 minutes in my house, depending on the inside temperature. (You might want to measure the average time a few different times so you can just set a timer and know when to come back).


• About halfway through the cooling, you'll need to warm up your oven to 100 degrees. When milk cools to 100-110 degrees, add 3 tbsp. of yogurt to each quart of milk.


• Transfer jars or containers to oven. Put some kind of top on them. Keep at 100 degrees for four hours.

Tip#1

The only tricky thing I've found with making yogurt is getting the milk to exactly 180 degrees. I have a tendency to poke a thermometer into the hot milk every 3 minutes, which really isn't necessary. The laziest thing to do is to put a lid on the pot of milk and leave it on low for 10 or more minutes, then start checking every 5 minutes or so after that.

Tip#2

Try to make yogurt at least once a week, to keep the culture fresh. When your (last) container of yogurt is getting down to the last 1/2 cup, it's time to make more.

Recommended tools

• You can culture the yogurt in any kind of container, but I've found Mason jars the best containers because: they store easily in the fridge; they're cheap (I paid about $.83/each for wide-mouth jars at the local hardware store); and the jar lids provide a little bit of a seal for the yogurt after it has cooled in the fridge.
  
  
• However, I don't like the two-piece lids that come with Mason jars because they're a hassle and the outer part of the lid tends to rust after a few go-rounds in the dishwasher. Instead, I splurged and got one-piece large Quattro Stagioni lids from the Container Store. They will fit other (non-Quattro Stagioni) jars.