Bought 20 lbs of top rated flour for 14.90. That will bake 20 loaves of very good artisan bread, which is at least 2.50 a loaf at the store. Or more. So if I don’t screw up a loaf 🙁 —it will replace 50.00-60.00 worth of storebought bread. Which is pretty good for 15.00.
We buy our salad in bulk, though pre-prepared, in bags, because we found that buying veggies gave us some that went to waste: salad doesn’t. So we get it from Costco, and it’s a good price. Homemade bread at .74 a loaf, salad for lunch, with oil/vinegar dressing; supper usually stir-fry, at about 5.00 each. It is possible to live well without breaking the bank. Never mind the bread machine cost. I figure if it’s paying us back 1.75 a week, over its lifetime, it’s paying for itself, at the current Amazon price, in about a year. Next year is free. 😉
I am not going so far as to grow my own veggies, thank you: I get about 1 pint of strawberries a season off that strawberry plant that survived my strawberry-growing venture, and we have not yet seen even one blueberry off the bushes we planted. I count the strawberries pretty successful by comparison. 😉
Yogurt’s another thing that’s super easy to make, and ends up just costing a box or so of dried milk a month. A bit of frozen fruit and some honey and you’ve got a healthy, cheap smoothie every day!
What’s the recipe?
With dried milk, you just make 4 cups of milk (according to the kind I buy, that’s 1 1/3 cup milk powder, put it in a 4 cup measuring cup and then fill up to the 4 cup line with water), and pour that in a bowl.
Add another 2/3 cup of milk powder, to make it a bit thicker.
Add 2 T (roughly, I never measure anymore) or yogurt – for the first time, just use any plain or vanilla yogurt from the supermarket that says it has live or active cultures, after that you can just use some from your previous batch.
Whisk well, then pour into the cups of an incubator and let sit 8-10 hours. (10 hours it’ll be thicker and slightly more tangy.)
Chill for an hour or two in the fridge, and it’s ready to eat!
If you don’t want to buy an incubator, you can do it in a crockpot, but it’s a PITA since the ideal temp is generally lower than most crockpot’s lower setting.
I have this $30 yogurt maker: http://www.amazon.com/Koolatron-TCYM-07-Yogurt-Maker-5-Ounces/dp/B000MFFDXM/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1314369374&sr=8-8
I’ve definitely saved well over $30 since I got it, and when you’re making it at home you can flavor your yogurt however you want!
I’ve never had to do any of the heating the milk that other people talk about since I started using dried milk, which is fabulous because burnt milk is awful to clean out of pots! This takes maybe 5 minutes of hands-on time, you just have to make sure you plan ahead to be home and awake 8-10 hours after you start!
Using dry milk might be handy and convenient, but it is losing all of the best healthiest ingredients that whole and fresh milk contain.
if milk is heated in the oven, and not on the stove, burning shouldn’t be any problem at all.
Additionally, dry milk is far more likely to be milk from factory farms, bovine growth hormone and not from truly healthy cows. I suppose its the trade-off of easy, versus good for you. But it may also be a good first-foray into home production:)
I like that it’s skim, dirt cheap, and a lot easier to carry home than the equivalent amount of fresh milk. Also, I love that it keeps basically forever – I have a GI disorder that makes this one of the only ways I can have milk (the bacteria sort of pre-digest it so I can handle it), so buying a gallon of liquid milk is asking for spoilt. Also not sure where in this city I’d get milk from not-miserable cows!
(I’m not saying all this to try to be argumentative! Just explaining why I personally will still use dried for the time being.)
Haven’t tried the oven thing, I’ll keep it in mind if I ever use fresh milk in the future. =)
I can understand affordability etc. tough times and all that. re digestibility- you might try goat’s milk. Many of the people I know got into Goat’s milk for the very reason that they couldn’t digest cows milk. Goat’s milk is absolutely the closest to mother’s milk, and more readily absorbed and broken down by humans. Also, RAW milk, both cows milk and goats milk is FAR more digestible than processed milk. Pasteurising and homogenising removes all of the beneficial bacteria and components that support assimilation, absorption and digestion. Not sure where you are located, but chances are you can find a small farm somewhere nearby? I know there is a lot of guerrilla gardening taking root in many inner cities even. I just watched an inspirational video http://www.beingherd.com/310 about what some people are accomplishing in even the least “hospitable” places. Worth checking into:)
btw- nutritionally, it isn’t the fat that’s killing us. There is a really interesting book called nourishing traditions, that studied cultres and cuisines all around the world. up until this last 50 years, we ate plenty of hard fats, fat back potatoes, pork, beef etc- without the high instances of diseases western/ US society now faces in epidemic numbers. It is a combination of factors, but one thing the authors/ researchers noted. ALL traditional cultures have diets that include fermented foods. Those foods put back all the good healthy bacteria that allows us to break down food, digest, and remove toxins. US food is so sterile and dead, we not only do not get good nutrients from most foods, the toxins are building up in our systems and causing our bodies to break down ( get sick:) amazing things, our bodies- and since it’s the only one we get.. we need to treat them well:)
What kind of prepared salad? The ones I’ve tried have not tasted good at all.
I just get the ones that offer lettuce, cabbage, carrot in a bag. If you know what days they restock, it comes in fresh, and all they’ve done to it is wash and chop it—handled only by robots, to judge by the occasional chunk that come in uncut. The fact it comes in washed is huge with me: I absolutely detest watery salad caused by too recent a washing, and those salad spinners don’t do a good enough job of drying it out. Now, if I had foresight I’d prepare it when I come in from the store and bag it myself, but by the time I get back from a shopping trip I should not be trusted with knives.
I don’t like prepared salads much either, although our local Safeway deli can put together a good one. If it’s been trucked cross-country with too much done to it, it’s verging on tasting all the same.
It’s scary to know that the local Costco, which has a big turnover, has veggies that last 2x as long as what I get from supermarkets. There’s apparently that much lag in distribution—one too many middlemen as the produce goes through the local distribution system…about which I know a wee bit. My grandfather went from cowboying pre-statehood to being a salesman/traveling rep for the Schuler Fruit Company, that got fruit into towns with train service, and saw it to the local groceries. Back in those days everything was boardwalk porches, and they’d offload a batch of bananas being shipped up by train from, say Galveston or Houston, and you’d see a plate-sized tarantula walking down the boardwalk…
That was of course before my time. I’m a child of pavement, and the last bit of boardwalk was right around the train depot/ice house. I kept hoping for tarantulas, but never saw any.
But it does say something that the distribution now goes through more steps for most stores than they were doing back in 1910.
I thought tarantulas were native to Oklahoma. I think that I remember seeing some on the rifle range at Fort Sill (well, maybe not plate size ones) — or was it just rattlesnakes…
My dad, who used to work on that loading dock, swears the ones from South America that came in with the bananas were bigger. So there may be a native one and an import.
we talking bananas or tarantulas here…?
🙂
yogurt recipe:
first suggestion, find a local farm where you can buy fresh raw milk. contrary to the FDA, it is healthier for you, assimilated better by the body, less allergic, and more nutrient dense. goat milk, is far better than cow’s milk, particularly the swiss dairy breeds, sanaan, oberhasli, french alipine ( okay, not swiss. don’t say it;), etc. Nigerian dwarf also good milk. A lot of goat dairy use Nubian, for the slightly higher fat content ( nominal, but makes a difference for cheese), but the nubian milk tastes goaty- which is probably why a lot of goat milk has gotten a bum rap. Mostly, you shouldn’t be able to tell the diff between goat and cow- except, a little creamier, and- no after-slime in the mouth. goat’s milk doesn’t make mucus- thereby being better for any sort of inflammatory conditions. raise goats now- recent addition to the horse-herd.. a very love-annoyance-love relationship:) goats love the garden.. and while I am a vegetarian ( mostly)… one way or another I WILL get to eat my kale and chard.. either directly.. or indirectly as a goat-kabob:)
ANYWAY- get a gallon of raw milk, or half gallon. It is usually about 5.00 depending on whether its organic.
go buy a small container of commercial yogurt. You CAN go to the healthfood store and buy yogurt culture. But don’t bother. I usually get some really awesome yogurt, that I wouldn’t other-wise buy. Use a solid teaspoon-ful as a starter.
NOW, there are two ways to go about making yogurt. If you’re starting out with regular dead milk.. a little different.
I make raw milk yogurt, so as not to lose all the good stuff ( and there’s a lot:). so, I warm the starter to room temperature, ditto with the milk. heat the oven to low, around 95-11-ish. I use a candy thermometer for this. I let it sit overnight. in the AM. yogurt. easy. About 8 hours. I think there are slight differences between the temp/ time to silky/ smoothness consistency. It seems to vary with weather, temp/ dampness and whether or not there was a rerun of the brady bunch…:)
NOW, if you want to make “safe” yogurt, you want to heat the milk on the stove, up to around 140, which is the temp at which germs and any yuckies are killed ( also the good stuff). After heating it to 140 degrees, you let the temp come down to around 90. From there, add the starter culture/ yogurt. You can also add a little vanilla at the same time.
I haven’t tried adding any sugar in advance. I think most people add fruit, honey and flavour after the yogurt is set. ut- you get a gallon of yogurt for about 5.00. Add whatever makes happy yogurt. It’s also great as a base for smoothies:) I like to sweeten with honey or agave syrup. I used a little of the hazelnut agave. heaven!
And for the lazy folks amongst us there’s always Nancy’s organic non-fat yogurt with live cultures. I’m lucky in that I have no inflammatory response to the cow milk used to make this kind of yogurt, or from raw cheese or kefir. I spend enough time making other foods and go through tubs of yogurt weekly so I’m not apt to try to make it if I can buy a satisfactory product. No sugars added and it’s got a texture and taste I love. I tried some organic goat milk yogurt prior to having my IgG panel done to make sure I’d been exposed to it…bleh….nothing special.
Thank you! 😉
naaah… thank YOU. I know have a back-up blog post:) gotta love the double-dipping;)
btw- a way off-topic Q. when you cross-post via goodreads… can you track what traffic follows the thread back to the site? granted.. being a near-literary genre deity.. probably doesn’t take effort.. but I was curious about whether better to post a partial with link, or post entire entries;)
let me know how the yogurt comes out. :)) I also have recipes for making your own cheese that are very easy to follow, mozzarella, panir ( aka queso blanco) that are pretty easy/ user-friendly and quick. I started feta-cheese.. it was great as far as I got with it. then I forgot to transfer it to the brine to age. oops and my bad:) but is also extremely simple-easy to make:)
if you’re interested, i can probably track down a goat dairy in your area… I don’t know how most states are, in VT, farmers can sell raw milk direct from the farm. Only small quantities, but that offsets the price fixing on milk by the hundred weight. it’s fresher, healthier and cheaper. PLUS- it puts 1000% more profit directly into the hands of the farmer:) esp if its a small local dairy- and those are best.. you can see the animals, pet them etc and know they are well kept and pharmaceutical-free;)
btw- you can grow greens nicely right in a window box, and have fresh stuff for salads right at your finger-tips. arugula, red lettuce, mesculin mix. a pack of organic seeds costs about 2.00/ 3.00 and salad greens take about 25 days for harvest. keep 2 boxes going, trim them down/ harvest.. and you have access to fresh greens on a regular basis. the lettuce will re-grow/ grow back in/whatever the hell lettuce does:).. WAY more affordable and WAY more healthy, PLUS… is always good to have a direct experiential connection to where our food comes from;)
Tomatoes are easy to grow – at least in the Midwest. Just water them. Once they are up, it is almost impossible to over water. They also need to be kept off the ground.
The Xerox plant – if the squash bugs don’t get them, and Zucchini is so prolific one might wish they did, is also easy.
If you can protect it from blowing over or the critters getting it sweet corn is good. Unless you are framing, plant them in hills of three or four seeds. About twenty seeds (kernels) should be plenty – one ear per plant.
Green beans. Blackberries are easy but take few years to bear. They have stickers, so plant them among the corn. Blueberries take a cool climate with excellent drainage.
By the way, strawberries are fruit, as are all the above mentioned. Cabbage and Lettuce are kind of tough to grow. Lettuce needs to be planted just after the last frost, or maybe a smudge before. Carrots grow well, but need deep, loose soil, even the little ones. You need to plant a lot for potatoes to make difference.
Unless you have more space than I think you have, you won’t be able to grow enough to help financially, but the quality is better. Most people here who have gardens wind up having to give tomatoes and “Z” away, so it doesn’t spoil first.
Buy the seed from a garden “center” until you’ve had some experience and know what grows in your area and in the soil you have. The people at Walmart and the grocery store know how to use a cash register and that is about all.
My rule of thumb is if the plant is “cool” it’s probably hard to grow.
Hmmmm…..my blueberries have no thorns (is that what you meant by ‘stickers’??) but the my gooseberries do.
If oven can’t be set low enough see if oven light will keep it warm. Or a heating pad.
Got my 3 chickens yesterday!! Orange-yolked eggs soon! (I hope)
Chickens are so much fun! I’ve had them since the mid 80’s. The extra eggs are popular with co-workers and neighbors. Since I moved to my new place (bringing poultry along), 2 of my neighbors have started keeping chickens as well. Luckily, I’m in unincorporated county land so I don’t have to worry about local ordinances regarding farm animals….so have a rescued rooster as well as 9 hens.
i’m on the way into chickens. have a coop half finished. I am also thinking about trying some meat birds. esp as chickens can free range and pick up what horses and goats don’t eat.. and- the other big bonus with chickens.. is they eat bugs and ticks from the yard/ lawn.
no idea how cost-effective raising a meat bird would be, other than the healthy-factor. from what I understand a meat-bird grows to maturity within 2 months… at which time the commercial breeds are hideously fat to the point of not being able to move. kind of gross, actually. I have zero interest or stomach for doing the deed, but I have a deal with someone who will take care of them when they are full size. looking into some heirloom breeds. layers are a little easier.. although i gather they rarely lay their eggs where youre gonna find em:)
I’ve never kept any of the meat-breed or egg-breed chickens but dual purpose breeds are well grown at 5-6 months of age. They keep filling out for several more months, but start crowing/harassing the hens around 5 months. Mine free-range in a fully fenced area with geese and lay their eggs in the coop (unless they are going broody, in which case they start laying in the blackberries or under the laurel hedge). I typically have a coworker come get my cockerals at roughly 5 months of age and get an empty dog crate back the next day. I do keep one rooster (light Brahma….very mellow).
Geese grow very very fast. I have toulouse, pilgrims and embden (and mixes). I have a young-of-the-year gosling this year who was hatched in mid May and is now full grown. They do a great job of mowing (usually) and you’ll never have dandelions with geese around!
I decided early only to go for eggs 🙂 My older one ought to be about laying age. Hope for some before days too short.
Ive been told you can extend the laying season by keeping a good light in their cage/pen/thingy. It isn’t warmth, so much as some chemical reaction to light or lack. same reason animals shed. It isn’t the temperature, as much as the additional light or loss of sunlight. I know horses can be brought into season by putting them under the lights, as they say. This is particularly essential, unfortunately, in the racing industry, as they want the yearlings born as close to 1 jan as possible.
so try a full spectrum lightbulb for the chickens when the days get shorter:)
this is beginning to feel like one of those bar conversations ( or so i’ve heard) where the person you came with hangs out in the middle, getting more and more snockered.. while the guests talk over the top of their head and around them… has anyone checked to see if the host is still conscious….?
😉
somehow I get the feeling people are going to know way more than they needed or wanted, about making yogurt:)
also- raw milk does not need the yogurt starter. I have made raw-milk yogurt without adding anything. all the good healthy enzymes that convert it into yogurt are all right there in the milk naturally. and yes- i lived to tell the tale;)
I have a dehydrator that works great for making yogurt. All you do is mix your milk with a bit of starter culture, and put it in small containers on the drying tray overnight or until its done. Tricky part is getting the lid to fit over the containers, but I found the glass pudding bowls (errrrrr, Pyrex makes them, I think) work perfect. Added benefit is that you can use the dehydrator for its intended purpose to dry any surplus veggies for soups and such. Or if you’re a carnivore, home made Jerky is really easy and good!
btw/FYI.. the longer shelf life of some foods may not be due to freshness, but due to irradiation, which is designed to “give longer shelf life.”
aka cold pasteurization- end point.. NOT healthy. and probably less than safe.
“Food irradiation acts by damaging the target organism’s DNA beyond its ability to repair. Microorganisms can no longer proliferate and continue their malignant or pathogenic activities. Spoilage-causing microorganisms cannot continue their activities. Insects do not survive, or become incapable of reproduction. Plants cannot continue their natural ripening processes.” wiki
it is questionable enough that the EU has been trying to limit application:
The Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) of the EC has given a positive vote on eight categories of food to be irradiated.[12] However, in a compromise between the European Parliament and the European Commission, only dried aromatic herbs, spices, and vegetable seasonings can be found in the positive list. The European Commission was due to provide a final draft for the positive list by the end of 2000; however, this failed because of a veto from Germany and a few other Member States.” wiki
— unfortunately, there is a LOT of corporate, Big-ag/lobby money behind pressuring countries and governments to allow this. they profit. we are less healthy, get sick. need big-pharma ( win-win for them?:)
Just refigured how often I’m baking: works out to almost twice a week, replacing a weekly 5.00 worth of storebought bread with better bread for a weekly 1.58. The cost of yeast and oil and sugar probably brings it up to 1.60. Water and electricity—nah, I’m not figuring that. I’ll say the machine has probably already paid for itself. 🙂 So the bread is ‘free’ in terms of the machine cost.
And since the homemade bread is actually a meal a day—count it against the commuter’s special, McDonalds’, at about 5.00 a swat—or 10.00 a day for 2 of us, and compared to a shared slice of homemade bread with jam, we’re just rolling in saved-cash, here. 😉 I love it when a replacement is better than what it replaces.
my first loaf of bread at 14(? which makes me think I was genetically deviant from my family to homestead:)- my sisters comment: keep it up. I want a fireplace. so yeah- getting the yeast right.. kind of important;)
the savings adds up… little here, little there:) thats a big part of homesteading ( in case you haven’t adopted that term for yourself yet lol:. the other part, a movement known as slow foods.. which I don’t wear all that well.. is more about the connection we have with our food, diet-nutrition, etc. From the Andean work, I have a lot of concepts ingrained- first dro of water to pachamama, or “spirit plates” etc– all of which are likely the anthropological instillation ( correct word???:) of environmental relationship- every one of their acts is intended to reinforce and re-mind that EVERYTHING that supports us.. comes out of the earth. to nurture the soil, and give thanks for the offering.
but yeah- growing food is way less expensive.. done on a small scale is not that time-intensive. A lot can be done with box gardening, window boxes and large flower pots:) fresh herbs, too. in fact, medieval houses, the herb garden, or kitchen garden was kept right outside the kitchens. most cooking herbs are womens health herbs, to boot ( coinkidink? ..? 🙂 so added bonus:) and most herbs, will grow with very little care, don’t need rich soil etc. and used fresh are HUGE health assets:) so instead of having a pot of petunias.. have a flower pot with oregano, thyme,sage, basil etc:)
re the breads- just wait til you get experimental with some really cool flours, too. spelt, buckwheat, seeds and nuts. and you can usually buy flour in bulk from the co-op/ healthfood store. WW organic flour is 89/pound. the rest range up to around 2.00 (?)/lb.
keep us posted:)
I’ve toyed with trying some flatbreads using nut flours which I tend to metabolize more easily. Just picked up some chestnut flour (can’t do almond flour…IgG allergies)…but inertia is an enemy and I’m afraid I’ll eat all in front of me cuz I like those kinds of carbs way too much.
If anyone tries quinoa flour for bread…let me know how it turns out. Most recipes call for tapioca flour as well but that’s a thyroid menace, so arrowroot is all I can find as a replacer.
I’ve thought of building an outside wood-burning bread oven like they have in Italy etc….in an ideal world it would function as a pottery kiln as well (dream on). Flatbreads/organic pizzas etc…what a FUN party that would be!
I’ve used quinoa flour mixed with other flowers for making biscotti. Have not made bread with it. it is a nice flour to work with, but a bit cost-prohibitive. I do like it, and want to do more with it. hhmm.. speaking of biscotti.. I have some left over from sat farmers market.. gtg:)
@haika, years ago I had friends in Maine who had a combo raku kiln/sauna. I don’t see why you couldn’t do a wood burning kiln with an oven. You could plan on a major baking time with friends etc. and fire the kiln. It would have to be one of the fairly quick firing types rather than an anagama or a climbing kiln but I bet it could be done. (Something else for me to contemplate in my free time.)
@weeble you should direct people here to your pottery on your Facebook page; unless you are feeling shy. (It’s really beautiful stuff, people.)
I have not baked with quinoa flour, but I have seen many recipes calling for it. Look in gluten free cookbooks.
The baking oven/kiln idea is one of those maybe-someday things. I just got a small electric test kiln to work with small pieces in the interim since the studio I was taking classes at moved (grump). Playing with clay is fun and something even those of us with hand problems can do if you focus on slab built projects as I have done. I’m always interested in looking at what others have done with clay….and peek in regularly to see what’s happening on the beads-of-clay blog.
Gluten-free cookbooks – I have quite a few of these although I’m not a gluten-intolerant person. I do enjoy playing with alternative grains/seeds/nut flours. However, so many receipes require tapioca flour (which I avoid for reasons related to thyroid function) so I have to juggle alternatives like arrowroot flour. Just haven’t gotten sufficiently motivated yet….knowing it’s best for me to stay away from breads entirely. It’s a portion control thing….a fat builder in MY body, eat least. But when you folks start the bread talk….I start drooling (sigh).