Probiotics for Pennies

My homebrewed kombucha in 3 flavours: strawberry, pineapple and grape (the bottles are from IKEA)

It's back to school this week, and that means it's a perfect time for...probiotics.

Wait, WHAT?!?! You thought I was going to say a good stiff drink, right? :)

I'll admit the (alcoholic) drink sounds tempting, but there's another type of drink that will definitely have more long-term benefits than that bottle of wine you're eying. Better yet, it's one you can easily make at home for just pennies: a delicious homemade probiotic beverage.

Increasing your family's probiotic consumption at this time of year is particularly advantageous as probiotics are beneficial to both the digestive and immune systems. With the stress of the new school year (not to mention the exposure to a round of new germs in the classroom), probiotics can be a great support to help maintain optimal health for all your family members.

There are definitely some pretty extreme health claims for probiotics on the internet; research *does* support that there are a variety of health benefits to consuming probiotic foods on a regular basis - the exact benefits depend on which particular organisms you're ingesting. I have personally noticed that since I started brewing kombucha and drinking it nearly every day (starting early this spring), my seasonal allergies have improved dramatically this year - I've been using my homemade nettle tincture FAR less than I did last year to treat allergy symptoms. Your own experience may be completely different depending on which types of probiotics you consume and your body's own personal affinity for particular organisms over others.

While you can certainly purchase both probiotic supplements and prepared fermented foods, it can be a big investment (it can easily cost you $1-2 or more per day for supplements per person!) and you really have no way of knowing how active the supplement is when you take it (even if it came from a very reputable company, the way it's been stored and handled since production can adversely affect quality). The same goes for many fermented foods produced on an industrial scale. While there are certainly some quality products out there, they are going to be the pricier ones, and even paying a higher price is no guarantee of quality with so many companies jumping on the probiotic bandwagon just to make a quick buck.

The obvious solution is (as usual) to do it yourself! Making your own probiotic foods might sound intimidating, but keep in mind that people have been fermenting foods for thousands of years! Some fermented foods are quite familiar to most of us (e.g. yogurt) and some might sound just plain weird, but there's plenty of opportunity to discover some tasty, interesting and probiotic-packed foods in the middle.

A (not at all comprehensive) list of fermented foods would include:

Dairy-based:
Yogurt
Kefir

Non-dairy based:
Kombucha
Water kefir
Ginger beer
Lacto-fermented lemonade

Fermented vegetables (e.g. sauerkraut, kimchi)

Fermented condiments (ketchup, mustard, salsa, barbecue sauce, chutneys, etc)

Getting started with fermenting:
Based on my own personal experiences, the two foods I've found the easiest to start with are yogurt and kombucha. You don't need any special equipment to make either of them. You can find my basic yogurt making method HERE. I've since switched from putting the cultured milk in a Thermos to putting it directly into Mason jars and wrapping them with towels; that way I just pull them straight out of the cooler and put them in the fridge.

To start making kombucha, you will need a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) - as home brewing of kombucha has gotten very popular, you shouldn't have too much trouble tracking one down if you start asking around. A new SCOBY forms with each fermentation, so most people who make kombucha regularly are more than happy to give some away :) Kombucha brewing has a nice rhythm to it, as it takes about a week to ferment, which is a nice manageable time frame to be switching out batches.

One of the reasons I love kombucha is that you can have a ton of fun experimenting with different flavours - our favourite so far is definitely pineapple (which gets *very* fizzy); we've done strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, cranberry, grape, peach and lemon as well and I'm looking forward to experimenting with apples and pears now that they've come into season!

My family also loves lemon-ginger water kefir, which I wrote about earlier this year. I was initially very excited about it, but over time I found out that the 2 day fermentation cycle was burning me out, plus the water kefir grains are a lot more temperamental than kombucha SCOBYs so I ended up passing my grains along to a friend who wanted to give them a shot. I plan to give lacto-fermented lemonade and gingerale a whirl to see how they compare taste and ease-of-making wise.

The nice thing about fermenting foods is there are SO many options, so you can pick what works best for your family. Ideally, it's a good idea to eat a number of different types of fermented foods on a regular basis so you get exposed to a wider variety of beneficial organisms.

I'm going to be fiddling around with my fermented ketchup recipe this week, so I'll share that soon. It's super easy if you have some kombucha on hand! The first batch I made met with huge approval from my family so it disappeared fast; I have some ideas of how to make it even better, though :)

And since the jalapeno peppers are one of the few things that we got a bumper crop of this season, I'm going to be trying out this recipe very soon, too.

 Intrigued enough to give it a go? Some helpful resources to get you started:





The Cultures for Health website (great articles and instructional videos, plus you can order cultures from them if you can't find anyone to donate some to your cause!)

Kombucha Kamp - a great resource for all things kombucha-related.

(Yes, the usual disclaimers apply: Those are Amazon affiliate links for the books, and I am hardly an expert on fermented foods or gut health. I'm simply sharing my own experiences. You need to do your own research and make your own decisions about what is right for you and your family, and consult with a health professional if you have any concerns about why fermented foods might not be right for you.)

Are you already a seasoned fermenter, or just getting started? I'd love to hear your experiences with making your own fermented foods.

Love what you read here? Click HERE to see the ways you can help support this blog (many of them won't cost you a thing!) 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to sign up for my Cook with Karen newsletter (max 2 emails a month)

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

What's New in My Garden This Year: Herbs Galore & Some New Fertilizer Options

Spring has FINALLY arrived here in Southern Ontario, and the planting has begun!

I have a surprising number of new additions to the garden this year - it wasn't something I really planned on, it just kind of happened :) The photo above is calendula seedlings which I was thrilled to see coming up; I was given a calendula plant by a local herbalist last summer and it did very well for me. I was hoping it would reseed itself vigorously and it seems to have done just that! If most of them thrive, I may actually be able to give a couple away myself. I dry the flowers all summer long to use for making salves and balms.

You may recall that I tried 2 new food plants last year: sorrel and ground cherries. While I loved the taste of the sorrel, it hasn't come back up this spring :( (it was a division from a friend last year). The ground cherries were a bit of a bomb, they didn't seem to ripen properly before the husks went all brown on me (they were probably in a less-than-ideally-sunny location, which may have contributed to the problem). They also took up a lot of space, and given that we didn't adore them, I don't think I'll grow them again.

Onwards to 2014 - here's a quick tour of what's new in my garden this spring:

Lots of herbs!

 On the top row are lavender and sage and the bottom are thyme and lemon mint (which was subsequently planted in the clay pot before putting it in the ground so it doesn't take over the entire bed!). The sage and thyme I picked up at the Mustard Seed seedling sale; the mint and lavender came from William Dam.

The lavender, sage, and thyme are all planted in my front bed that gets plenty of sun so I've got fingers crossed that they all thrive there! And I'm hoping these perennial herbs will finally fill out the bed along my front walk that's been looking a bit scruffy the past few years. The calendula seedlings are in the same bed with all these herbs, so I'm looking forward to a robust and great smelling herb garden along my front walk as all these plants fill in.

The lemon mint was selected by my 14 year old son - he requested a few plants of his own to grow this year and fell in love with this mint when we were at William Dam. He also picked out a few jalapeno pepper plants which are now in one of our raised beds. He has committed to doing all the care for these plants - we'll see how long it takes for him to get tired of the weeding and watering routine :)

I decided to give garlic a whirl last fall, and while it looks like critters got at a lot of it, I have 3 plants coming up strong. I was also given some lemon basil seeds by my lovely friend Roseatta, so a bunch of them have gone in the ground and I'm anxiously waiting to see how many of them germinate! The photo on the far right shows some of the perennial onions we were given last year by a colleague of my husband's. These are VERY robust - even after the brutal winter we had, they popped right back up in early spring and as you can see they are already producing huge amounts of green onion tops for us (which is good, because I put them in just about everything that isn't dessert).

For the first time ever, I broke down and got some lettuce seedlings so we could start enjoying our lettuce harvest a lot sooner. I picked these up at the Mustard Seed sale and I believe the variety is "Red Flame", but don't quote me on that because I have a terrible memory for that sort of thing :) I have direct sown some lettuce seed as well, so if all goes according to plan we should have a steady lettuce harvest for quite a few weeks (of course, things seldom go entirely according to plan in my garden!)

I was also gifted some strawberry plants, so in the ground they have gone, and a welcome addition they were, too. I haven't been tending to my strawberry patch very well since I transplanted them to another raised bed a couple years back, and the plants are looking far from robust. I am going to work on getting these guys back to good health this summer!

New Fertilizer Options

The plants aren't the only new thing in my garden plans this year. I'm going to be trying a few new ideas for fertilizing (something I've typically been not so great about). I have three new options I'm going to use, two of which are free and the third extremely inexpensive.

First up is this milk and molasses plant food recipe - super easy to whip up and something I might actually remember to do on a regular basis!

The next option is Freebie Fertilizer #1 and I might add I was quite relieved to discover this tip! As many of you know, I have been brewing kombucha for a couple of months now, and I am starting to get overrun with scobys (that's my scoby hotel on the left in the photo above). Of course, I am happy to give them away to friends who want them, but there are only so many takers (especially when each person who takes one starts getting overrun with them too, and my whole circle of friends is swimming in scobys). You can imagine my excitement when I discovered that people have had great success using them to fertilize their plants. Here's hoping my strawberries, tomatoes, rhubarb and raspberries all benefit from a little "scoby" treatment. Apparently many chickens go nuts for scobys, so if you are also overrun with them and know someone who has chickens, that might be another great alternative. I may just offer some to our egg farmer!

Photo courtesy of pd4pic.com

Freebie Fertilizer #2 is another one I just discovered after being given a comfrey plant (my plant is still looking a little worse for wear after being transplanted, so that's a stock photo). Comfrey can be used for fertilizer in a variety of ways; here's a good summary. I'm most likely going to go with the mulch option as it's the least involved and I am, after all, a pretty lazy gardener :)

I'll be sure to share how my fertilizer experiments work out later in the season!

What new and exciting things are happening in your garden this year?

 

Love what you read here? Click HERE to see the ways you can help support this blog (many of them won't cost you a thing!) 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to sign up for my Cook with Karen newsletter (max 2 emails a month)

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

7 Tips for Feeding Teenagers Without Breaking the Bank

Images courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net

 I was chatting with a woman at a networking event recently when she happened to glance at the cover of my book and exclaim “I spend $400 a *WEEK* on groceries – I have two teenagers to feed!”

Now, when you do what I do for a living, a lot of people confess their grocery bill to you :) and this is one of the largest grocery bills I've yet encountered in my neck of the woods. The thing is, I really got the feeling that she felt there was no way she could do better than that. I run into a lot of moms who appear to accept without question the fact that their grocery bills are going to be out of control during the years they're feeding teenagers (especially if they're blessed with boys!)

While it certainly takes more focus to keep your food budget under control during these years, it's entirely possible to do so without resorting to beans and rice every day! I recently shared that our per-person food costs are the same as they were 20 years ago, and I'm now feeding 14 and 16 year old boys (a.k.a. perpetual eating machines). All of the tips I provided in that article apply to feeding teenagers, too.

Here are a few more thoughts on feeding this budget-challenging age group:

1. Junk food is a luxury, not a necessity! Nothing runs up a grocery bill faster than piling tons of snack foods into your cart. I know the pressure can be on to keep the house stocked with pop, chips, and other munchies (especially if there tends to be a whole gaggle of boys hanging out at your house like there is at my place!) I've made it clear throughout my boys' lives that we just don't buy those foods, except very occasionally for birthday parties and the like (after all, not only are they expensive, they're not the healthiest choices, either!) Now that they're teens, when they complain that we don't have pop and chips, I remind them that they are welcome to spend their OWN money on those items if they want them that badly. We always have plenty of popcorn around for stove top popping, and I will buy a bag or two of my favourite good-quality organic tortilla chips when they go on sale, so there are always inexpensive alternatives available to them.

2. Keep beverage consumption under control: Teenage boys are thirsty critters and if you're not careful, they can guzzle away several dollars a day in juice, sports drinks, pop, etc. As mentioned above, we just don't buy pop except as an occasional treat. Teens do love fizzy drinks, and we now have two inexpensive and healthful homemade options in our house: water kefir and kombucha (for those of you who are skeptical that your teens would go for something this "alternative”, I offered a glass of lemon ginger water kefir to a close friend of my boys the other day, and as I was walking away I hear him say to them, “I wish my mom would make stuff like this!”). We have a limit of a 4 ounce glass of juice each per day, and 8 ounces of milk (we get tons of other dairy in our meals). I have trained my family to drink lots of water so when they're thirsty it's the first thing they reach for.

3. Go easy on the meat portions: Just because they are “growing boys” (or girls), it doesn't mean they need insanely-sized portions of meat. Four ounce portions are about the maximum I typically serve at a meal. Yes, they will still get enough protein! Dietary surveys have shown that even teenage boys easily meet their protein needs (in fact, they typically get about double the protein they require) so don't feel like you need to provide massive meat portions to make sure they're adequately nourished.

4. Stock up on inexpensive, high protein snacks: While there's not much likelihood your teens will be deficient in protein, providing some lower-cost high protein snacks will help them feel full longer so they won't eat everything in sight. Scrambled eggs or omelettes, toast with nut butters, sunflower seeds, and roasted chickpeas are all great options that work well in our home (and the last two are great portable snacks for teens on the go). If you have a few minutes to whip together a batch of Chocolate Powerballs, your teens won't even realize they're having a nutrient-rich snack, they'll just think they're enjoying a chocolatey treat :) This recipe is actually simple enough that your teens can make them by themselves!

5. Get into the bread making habit: We typically go through a loaf of bread a day in my house these days, and that can really put a dent in your grocery bill fast! Even if you're buying sale-priced bread, you can save over $40 a month by making your own. It's very simple and convenient to do so using my Whole Wheat Refrigerator Bread Dough (seriously, I don't know what I'd do without this recipe.) No bread maker required! Added bonus: You can use this dough for pizza crusts and to make homemade "pizza pockets", which will make your teens really happy while keeping your budget in check :)

6. Make your own yogurt: If you have a lot of yogurt lovers in your house, it's well worth the modest effort to make your own yogurt, too. You absolutely don't need a yogurt maker or any special equipment to do so – I use this method and my complete detailed instructions can be found in my book (I've had MANY people tell me they had success making yogurt using my method; they are always so surprised by how easy it is!)

7. Granola is your friend: I've heard many horror stories about teenage boys polishing off an entire box of cereal for a bedtime snack. Boxed cereals are another budget-buster, and aren't very nutrient-dense for the cost. Homemade granola is much more filling and nutritious – especially when paired with some homemade yogurt and/or some fresh or frozen fruit, it's a very satisfying snack. My basic granola recipe is so quick and easy, we often get a batch in the oven while we're cleaning up the dinner dishes.

Hopefully, I've convinced you it's not necessary to just throw up your hands in despair and resign yourself to spending $350 a week on groceries during the last few years your kids are at home.

Do you have any great tips on feeding teens on a budget? Or maybe a challenge I haven't addressed? Let me know all about it in the comments!

 

Love what you read here? Click HERE to see the ways you can help support this blog (many of them won't cost you a thing!) 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to sign up for my Cook with Karen newsletter (max 2 emails a month)

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

Water Kefir: My Family's New Favourite Drink!

It's been one of my goals for the last year or so to add more fermented/probiotic foods to my family's diet. Of course, homemade yogurt (with all its beneficial bacteria) has been a regular part of our diet for many years. And I use a good-quality, raw, organic apple cider vinegar for all of our salad dressings.

Given all the benefits of eating fermented foods, I would really like us to be having 1-2 servings per day.  And of course, making them myself is a much cheaper option than buying ready-made ones! I'd tried my hand at fermented lemons and sauerkraut last spring but that experiment didn't end well and I got frustrated and gave up for a while.

Several months went by. Okay, okay, it was basically a year! And then all of a sudden I started seeing a lot of references to water kefir popping up all over the place and I got curious. I read a bit about it, but was feeling skeptical. Probiotic? Yes. Delicious? I thought not (my initial response to the concept was more along the lines of "eeew, that sounds gross!").

Then one day my friend Anita happened to mention that she was looking to rehome some of her water kefir grains as she was getting overrun with them and I thought "what the heck - I'll give it a whirl". Although I wasn't yet convinced I was going to actually enjoy it, I thought I should at least give it a try because as far as fermented foods go, it's supposed to be one of the easiest to have success with, and it's also really inexpensive to make.

As it turns out, water kefir's a lot more pleasant than I expected. The thing that really gives it great potential is that after it has done its initial ferment for 48 hours or so, you can do a "second ferment" where you remove the kefir grains and add fruit or juice to the water kefir (in the photo above, the jar on the left is in the middle of its second ferment, the jar on the right is doing its first ferment). When sealed with a tight lid, you end up with a pleasantly fizzy beverage after another couple of days.

I have been doing the second ferment with lemon juice and fresh, chopped ginger (juice of one lemon and about 1 tablespoon of ginger to a quart of water kefir). I can't tell you how happily surprised I am by how fantastic it is! It tastes like a homemade lemony gingerale and is incredibly refreshing. My whole family loves it to the point where there might be some arguing about who got more of a particular batch :) I'm so fond of it that I already get upset by the idea of not having some around, and I only started making it a couple of weeks ago!

While there is a small amount of maintenance to making water kefir, it's a few minutes every 2-3 days and in my opinion it's totally worth the effort. Aside from the water kefir grains (which you can probably get by asking around to see if anyone in your area has some to spare), the only other supplies you will need are white sugar and some quart Mason jars, plus whatever you want to add to flavour the water kefir for the second ferment.

If you're interested in trying to make your own water kefir, I'd recommend checking out this video from Cultures for Health, along with their instructions on how to flavour water kefir. 

Have you tried water kefir? Do you have a favourite way to flavour it? 

 

Love what you read here? Click HERE to see the ways you can help support this blog (many of them won't cost you a thing!) 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to sign up for my Cook with Karen newsletter (max 2 emails a month)

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

Rising Food Prices *DON'T* Have to Mean an Increase in Your Grocery Bill!

Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

In the last 3 years or so I have seen many, many articles in the newspapers and online discussing the rising costs of food. Depending on which sources you look at, there are reports of staple food items like milk, bread and eggs increasing by up to 69% in the past two years alone.

Reading statistics like this can cause a lot of anxiety, if, like many of us these days, there's not a lot of flexibility in your food budget. And most of these articles leave you feeling like there's little you can do to cope with rising food costs except try to funnel more of your monthly budget towards them. Here's the interesting thing, though - the weekly cost per person to feed our family hasn't increased in 20 years.

Yes, you read that right. 20 years. 

Back when I was in graduate school in the early-to-mid 90's, my husband and I spent on average about $50 per week on groceries for the 2 of us, or $25 per person.

Currently, we average right around $100 per week for our family of four, or, yes, *still* $25 per person. And that's with 14 and 16 year old boys who are pretty much perpetual eating machines. Also, while we don't buy exclusively organic, we do regularly buy a number of organic foods, compared to 20 years ago when we didn't buy any at all.

If food costs have gone up so much in just the past couple of years, how on earth is it possible that we're still spending the same amount per person as we did 20 years ago?!?

There are a lot of reasons for this. One of them would be that while our food expenditures were certainly modest 20 years ago, we weren't the hard core uber-frugal food shoppers we are today.

The other major reason that our average per-person cost hasn't changed in 20 years is that there are a LOT of things you can do to help decrease your food expenditures, and most of them have been routine for us for many years.

7 Things You Can Do To Keep Your Grocery Bill From Rising

1. Make sure you're buying foods on sale at their rock-bottom prices.
While the *regular* prices of many foods has increased significantly, interestingly, the rock-bottom sale price has not risen nearly as much. Stockpiling foods when they go on sale at their rock-bottom prices has always been a big part of our savings strategy, and it's helped insulate us from rising costs.

2. Ditch unnecessary (and mostly unhealthy) extras.
If you're feeling really pinched, now is the time to stop buying pop, chips and other high-cost, low- nutrient foods. You may want to rethink cold cereals as well - in my opinion you're not getting very much nutrition for the high price (there are plenty of other things to eat for breakfast - try homemade granola or muffins, toasted homemade bread with peanut butter, leftover cornbread, French toast, oatmeal or eggs just to name a few!)

3. Decrease your food waste
The average North American family throws out 25% of the food they buy. This is heartbreaking for many reasons, but when every food dollar counts you need to get this number as close to zero as possible. Eat leftovers as soon as possible, and regularly assess fresh foods so you can freeze them before they spoil if necessary. Store and rotate bulk-purchased foods properly so you'll use them up before they go bad.

4. Buy in bulk
Buying staple foods in large quantities often leads to big savings (up to 50% or more). Some of the items we buy in 10-15 kg quantities are flours, oats, cornmeal, rice, coconut and raisins. We also buy 30 lb boxes of ground beef from a local supplier at an incredible price!

5. Seek out alternative food sources
This one often happens naturally when starting to buy more bulk foods. If you're used to shopping at one or two stores for all your food needs, there's a good chance you can be getting much better prices on some things elsewhere. No one store (even a discount store) has the best prices on everything! Combining this strategy of purchasing food from a variety of sources plus the previous strategy of buying in bulk means you can achieve significant savings *without* having to spend more time grocery shopping.
 
6. Make friends with low-cost, high-nutrient foods
I don't think it will be a surprise to anyone that beans are at the top of that list, but they don't have to be considered a punishment :) There are plenty of delicious meals that star this frugal food staple; try Chickpeas with Potatoes & Peas, Spicy Black Bean Bake, West African Style Baked Beans or Sausage and Lentil Stew, which stretches 2 sausages to feed 4 people! Carrots, green peas, eggs and sunflower seeds are a few other great examples of high-nutrient budget-stretching foods.

7. Build your skills
Making as many foods from scratch as possible will shave lots of dollars off your food bill. Learn to make your own bread and yogurt (no special equipment required!) or grow some of your own food (you can even swap some of it with your neighbours). None of these is particularly difficult or time-consuming, especially once you've mastered the basics.

Yes, these are all basic principles of feeding your family well on a tight budget. At a time when so many families are struggling with their food expenditures, more and more people need to learn these strategies. So, if all of these suggestions are "old news" to you, please pass them on to someone else you know who would be grateful to learn these concepts. And if most of these ideas are new to you, you may find my book, Cheap Appétit: The Complete Guide to Feeding Your Family for Less Than $400 a Month (While Eating Better Than You Ever Thought Possible) to be a valuable resource!
 

Love what you read here? Click HERE to see the ways you can help support this blog (many of them won't cost you a thing!) 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to sign up for my Cook with Karen newsletter (max 2 emails a month)

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

Homemade Christmas: Lavender & Calendula Face Scrub

 

I'm back with another DIY Christmas gift suggestion this week. This lavender and calendula scrub rocks on many levels: you can whip up a batch in minutes, it's perfect for all the ladies on your gift list, it's extremely inexpensive to make, and oh-my-goodness, what it does for your skin. Especially in the middle of a Canadian winter :)

I have been using one variation or another of this scrub on my face for a couple of years now instead of any type of commercial cleanser or soap product, and I've never looked back. It's very similar to those pricey "cleansing grains" you see in upscale cosmetics boutiques. Apparently my skin still has a dewy, youthful glow as a stranger told me a couple of weeks ago that she thought I was about 26 - you should have seen her jaw drop when I told her I had a 16 year old son!

But I digress...

Seriously, I don't think you'll be disappointed if you make this face scrub. It lends itself well to lots of variations (for example, you could use rose petals and rose essential oil instead of lavender for another spin on the floral theme). I would definitely keep the calendula in the mix, as it's used more for its healing properties than as a contributor to scent or colour.

I specifically went with the lavender-calendula combo so I could pair it with this lavender-calendula lip balm!

I use a spice grinder to grind all the ingredients - don't use your coffee grinder or your scrub will smell like coffee and your coffee will taste like lavender :)

Ingredients:
1/3 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup finely ground oats
2 tbsp finely ground coconut
1 tbsp ground lavender flowers
2 tbsp ground calendula flowers
10-20 drops lavender essential oil

Instructions:
Combine the rice flour, oats, coconut, lavender and calendula flowers. Add the lavender essential oil and stir until evenly incorporated into the scrub.

That's it!!

To use: Put about a teaspoon of scrub in the palm of your hand and add enough water to make a thick paste. Gently rub on face in a circular motion, then rinse off (I find it easier to use it in the shower rather than trying to rinse off in front of the sink).

Where to find dried herbs for making scrubs:
If you have a local health food store with a bulk section, check there first! My local store carries both lavender and calendula flowers.

If you don't have a good local source of bulk herbs, I highly recommend Mountain Rose Herbs. They have great prices on high quality organic herbs (as well as culinary herbs and spices, tea blends and many other wonderful things!) Their shipping costs to Canada are fairly steep, but their prices are so good that the overall cost is still lower than anywhere else I've found for comparable quality products.

If you missed the first installment of my Homemade Christmas series, check out Create Your Own Tea Blends. For even more holiday ideas, you can find my whole Christmas on a Dime series HERE. 

Note: The links to Mountain Rose are affiliate links and I will receive a commission from them (at no cost to you) for any purchases you make after clicking these links.

 

Love what you read here? Click HERE to see the ways you can help support this blog (many of them won't cost you a thing!) 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to sign up for my Cook with Karen newsletter (max 2 emails a month)

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

Fall Thrifting Extravaganza (and a mini fashion show!)

I think this is quite possibly the latest I've ever gotten around to posting about our Fall Thrifting Expedition, which we usually do in late August to stock up on all the fall and winter clothing our family needs for the coming months.

For one thing, we did our shopping in two stages this year: our usual late August trip to Value Village, plus a trip to Talize just a couple of weeks ago because my younger son still desperately needed to find pants!

As usual, we came away with a pretty good haul and a few really great finds. Here are some of the highlights and an update on our total clothing expenditures so far this year.

I didn't managed to snap a pic of every single item we brought home, as the boys have a tendency to run off with their treasures the moment they get them in the door.

Shown above:
1. A pair of Van's and a pair of sandals, both for my almost-16-year-old son Noah. The sandals were $2.00 and the Van's were $6.50 (I couldn't find an exact match online, but that brand generally runs $55 to 75+ a pair!)

2.  Tops for Noah - a Superman T-shirt ($3.50), Adidas hoodie ($2.00) and plaid flannel shirt ($3.50).

3. More tops for Noah: Patagonia hoodie ($4.50), Argyle sweater ($5.00) and striped sweater ($5.00). We were really excited about the hoodie, as Patagonia is a really good brand and it was in brand new condition!

4. Jeans for me: Jones & Co., Coupe Galbee "Curvy Fit" and Contrast, $5.00 each.

5. Nathan's haul: T-shirt ($2.50), plaid flannel shirt ($4.50), long sleeve gray knit top ($4.00) and jeans ($4.00)

All of those were from Value Village on 50% off day, and the last one is mine from Talize:

6. Mexx top ($4.99) (this had a pink tag, which was 50% off that day, otherwise it would have been $9.99)

More shoes:

From left to right:

A pair of Clark's for me ($9.00). This was a near-miraculous find - they fit my size 10 narrow feet *perfectly*, are in brand new condition, and cost over $70 new!

Faded Glory slip-ons ($4.99), also for me. They are super comfy for walking in!

Sneakers for Joe (hubby), $6.49.

Our total spent at Value Village with tax was $93.23 for 18 items of clothing, or an average of $5.18 an item. We spent another $97.52 at Talize for 11 items, or an average of $8.87 an item (I spent $20.00 on a coat there, which jacked up the average - more about that below!)

The boys came away with a good haul of American Eagle items (their favourite brand) and Nathan (13 yr old) found an Abercrombie hoodie which made him *very* happy!

Since clothes always look better on than in a pile, I did a little min-fashion show, and managed to convince Noah to let me snap a pic of him, too!

Outfit #1:

Hoodie, $9.99 at Talize (brand new condition), jeans $5.00 at Value Village, shoes $9.00 at Value Village, Gap T-shirt (under hoodie) bought a couple years ago for about $3.00, earrings (hard to see, but I am wearing some!) around 50 cents at a yard sale a couple years ago.
Total cost for outfit: Approximately $27.50

Outfit #2:

Gap turtleneck sweater, $6.99 at Talize, jeans $5.00 at Value Village, shoes $4.99 at Value Village, earrings homemade from a broken wooded bead necklace picked up at a rummage sale (?25 cents?)
Total cost for outfit: Approximately $17.23

Outfit #3 (Outerwear):

Coat, $19.99 at Talize (I'm not sure what it's made of as I can't find a care label, but it's really soft and fully lined), fleece hat, $1.00 at a yard sale a couple of years ago, fleece gloves free from a yard sale free pile last year, scarf hand knitted by me a few years ago (about $5.00 for the wool-silk blend yarn).
Total for outfit: Approximately $25.99


Outfit #4:

Patagonia hoodie, $4.50, jeans, approx. $5.00 from last year, T-shirt, approx $3.00 from a couple years ago, shoes, $6.50 at Talize (they were marked 50% off).
Total cost for outfit: $19.00

Annual clothing budget update:
After these last two thrifting trips, we are up to $419.09 for the year.  We generally aim for around $400 per year total for the four of us ($100 a person, although usually more of it goes to the boys as their clothes need replacing much more often!) We spent $455.86 last year, so we should come in somewhere in the same neighbourhood again (Nathan could still use a new pair of sneakers!) The last couple of years, with the boys fitting into men's size clothing, it's been more of a challenge to stick to the $400 annual budget, so I don't mind going a little bit over if necessary.

Have you found any great fashion deals this fall?
 

 
Love what you read here? Click HERE to see the ways you can help support this blog (many of them won't cost you a thing!) 

 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to sign up for my Cook with Karen newsletter (max 2 emails a month)

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

About That Closet...

Right around (gulp) four and a half months ago, I gave a quick update on our (sloth-like) progress on our Great Room Reshuffle project and haven't shared anything about it since.

Between all the TV segments, cooking classes and demos I've been doing in the last few weeks, getting dinner on the table has been a lot more of a priority than getting anything done around the house (except keeping the bathroom down to a sub-toxic level).

At the rate we've progressed on this project so far, the boys may have moved out of the house before we get it done! Having a friend visit us from Albuquerque in the middle of August did at least light a bit of a fire under our bottoms to get another small piece of this huge project accomplished.

We got the closet in what is now Noah's (almost 16 yr old ds) room and slated to become our TV room/den stripped of wallpaper, repaired the walls and primed and painted them. Joe then built a shelving unit to try and maximize the storage space in there.

We have finally taken it from this:

to this:

 

Although it took us a lot longer to accomplish than we'd hoped, it was basically an "elbow-grease only" project that we didn't have to spend any money on to complete. We already had all the painting supplies, and Joe built most of the shelving out of an old bookcase that had seen a lot better days. Now all our games, puzzles, Lego bins, Nerf guns and assorted art supplies all have a new home.

I'm not sure what the next step in this plan is as the logistics are pretty complex when we are switching bedrooms of all 4 family members and each room still has plenty of work to be done in it before it's ready for its new use. At any rate, it's a safe bet that one or more of us will be sleeping on the (queen sized) air mattress in the exercise room/spare bedroom at various times throughout the rest of this DIY adventure!

We're scheduled to pick up some furniture (a couch, chair and "media centre" type unit) on Saturday from my dad, who is also doing some shifting around of the room layouts at his place. Hopefully this will give us a feeling of urgency to continue focusing on this project, as we're starting to accumulate donated furniture much faster than we've been able to get it into its designated spaces!

Anyone else out there have a DIY project that's taking WAAAY longer than you planned?

SOME EXCITING NEWS: I have a brand new website at cookwithkaren.com! Don't worry, the blog will still be here and I will still post on it regularly. If you're looking for more information on my book, menu planning service or classes & events, this will be the place for you to go. And I'll be sending out a Cooking with Karen newsletter once or twice a month as well (you can sign up for that on my homepage or just go HERE).

Love what you read here? Find out how you can help support this blog. 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

A Tale of Two Price Points: One Example of The True Cost of Convenience Foods

All photos in this post courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Anyone who's been to one of my presentations or workshops (or read my book) knows that I'm always harping on about calculating per-pound (or per kilogram, depending on your preference) costs for food items. For many types of foods, it's a big eye-opener to see just how much more you're paying for a convenience-type product versus buying the whole, unprocessed food.

There was a good illustration of this recently in the sales flyers, so I thought I'd share it here as an example of why you shouldn't buy into the convenience product paradigm.

This example is for a really basic food that is a staple in most frugal households: carrots. On the same week, there were two different "deals" available:

 
At first glance, store #2's offering seems like a pretty good deal to a busy mom who has to pack school lunches: single-serving bags of precut "baby" carrots - no effort required, just drop a bag of carrots in the lunchbox and you're done - and only 25 cents per individual serving package! Processed food manufacturers are clever, and they price point items so they *seem* like a good deal - just $1 to save the trouble of having to do it yourself!

Let's take a closer look, though, and calculate out the per-pound cost for each deal:

 Suddenly, things aren't looking so great for deal number 2: It's over NINE times the cost of deal #1! But it's SO convenient, right?

Well, let's see :)

I went into my kitchen and weighed out a pound of carrots on my digital scale. I then got my husband to time me while I peeled them and cut them into sticks. Total time? A whopping 4 minutes!

With this information, we can easily calculate the "hourly wage" of slicing our own carrots. We're saving $1.59 per pound doing it ourselves, and the task takes 4 minutes, which means you could complete it 15 times in an hour. That works out to an hourly wage of $23.85 ($1.59 x 15).

That's a pretty good return on your time investment, considering that that is $23.85 an hour with no taxes or deductions (if you've ever calculated what you actually earn per hour from a "real job", you'll know that's a pretty decent rate of pay).

This type of return for time invested on food-related activities is typical. In fact one reader of my book calculated that she saved $300 on groceries in one month by spending 5 hours using some of my techniques and strategies - an hourly return of $60 an hour! I don't know about you, but I've never earned close to $60 an hour after taxes and deductions from a "real job" and I have a Masters degree :)

What this clearly demonstrates is another point I always try to drive home: Most people considerably OVERESTIMATE how much time convenience foods are saving them, and severely UNDERESTIMATE how much extra they are paying for that little bit of convenience.

Those little bags of prepackaged carrots also spoil very quickly (since they're peeled and have a lot of exposed, unprotected surface area). Not to mention the fact that they have a horrendous amount of packaging per total volume of carrots (outer bag plus 4 inner bags). The 10 lb bags of carrots keep very well in my experience (we often buy 3 or 4 of them in the fall when they go on sale and keep them in our second fridge in the basement). If you don't have a lot of storage space, you can split a bag between 2 or 3 families to create very manageable amounts.

The moral of the story? Investing little bits of time here and there on he right types of food-related activities has a HUGE payoff. It really is worth it to do it yourself! 

SOME EXCITING NEWS: I have a brand new website at cookwithkaren.com! Don't worry, the blog will still be here and I will still post on it regularly. If you're looking for more information on my book, menu planning service or classes & events, this will be the place for you to go. And I'll be starting to send out a Cooking with Karen newsletter once or twice a month as well (you can sign up for that on my homepage or just go HERE).

Love what you read here? Find out how you can help support this blog. 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

A Mid-summer Yard Sale Report

It's been much longer than usual since I shared an update of my yard sale finds. It seems the Yard Sale Gods have been conspiring against me for the past few weeks, and either there haven't been any good sales to check out, the weather has been uncooperative, or I have had something else that I've absolutely had to do on Saturday morning.

Nevertheless, I have managed to score a few good deals and I figured it's time I got around to sharing them!

First up is this wintery-themed story book, which I picked up for 25 cents. It's already tucked away in my gift cupboard for Christmas giving.

 I found some more adult-oriented reading material later on. I knew this book on the history of four of Hamilton's heritage neighbourhoods would be right up my husband's alley, as he's a huge Hamilton history buff, so it was totally worth the $2.00 asking price. I debated saving it for our anniversary (September) or Christmas, but in the end I just gave it to him straight away and he pored over it for hours and hours that weekend :) I think we'll be doing a number of the walking tours from the book, lots of fascinating details about so many of the buildings!

It's been a while since I succumbed to my basket addiction, but at a neighbourhood moving sale I couldn't resist snapping all of these stylish containers (two baskets and a wooden box with some nifty curlicue detailing) up for a total of $2.00.

At a church rummage sale, I stumbled across something I'd been on the lookout for since just about forever (well, okay, maybe not quite that long, but it's definitely been a while!):

 A Pyrex loaf pan, for which I paid 50 cents. I have one, but two is much better so I can bake two "normal" shaped loaves of bread at once (rather than one normal and one round loaf, which is what I have been doing). Yeah, I know I could have gone and bought one on sale at any number of stores, but where's the fun in that? :)

My final find was 4 of these Ikea baskets for $2.00 each. I have 4 of the taller version of these baskets (which we incorporated into the storage unit we built in our front entranceway) and this size of square basket seems to come in handy for so many things that I snapped them up. My 13 year old son claimed one as soon as he laid eyes on them, so I'm sure they're all going to be put to good use.

That's it for my latest round of yard saling adventures!

Grand total: $12.75 for 10 items, or an average of $1.28 an item.

Have you made any great yard sale finds lately?

A couple of things I wanted to let you know about:

1. I'll be blogging sporadically for the rest of the summer as we're going on a family vacation for a week and then I have a friend coming to visit from Albuquerque for 10 days in August!

2. You can catch me at a few live appearances in August: I'll be on CHCH Morning Live on Tuesday, August 6th at 8:20 a.m. EST discussing my book and budget menu planning service, and preparing a couple of simple, inexpensive and tasty recipes using local and seasonal ingredients. I'll also be doing demos in the Community Kitchen at the Hamilton Farmers' Market on August 24th and 31st (more info will be available HERE soon).

Love what you read here? Find out how you can help support this blog. 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking

Ten Things To Do with Fresh Herbs

When I talk to people about starting to grow some of their own food, herbs are one of the things I encourage them to start with. They are generally really hardy and will survive with less-than-expert care, they can be grown in containers (even small pots on a sunny windowsill), many of them will tolerate shadier conditions, and, most important of all, they provide meals with some major pizazz with little time or money invested.

In a good growing season, you will likely end up with way more herbs than you know what to do with!
The herbs in my garden all seem to be getting bigger by the minute with the onslaught of heat we've had the past few days. While sharing them with family, friends, and neighbours (or your produce cooperative) is always an option, there are plenty of ways you can make use of them in your own kitchen.

Here are some of my favourite ways to use fresh herbs: 

1. Salads and salad dressings: You can toss chopped herbs into just about any kind of salad, whether it be a leafy green salad, a grain-based salad like my Southwestern-Spiced Barley and Vegetable Salad, or a chunky vegetable and bean salad like my Build a Bean and Cucumber Salad. Of course, fresh herbs are perfect for salad dressings, too and can be tossed into almost any kind of dressing - they are delicious in my Buttermilk and Herb dressing or my Honey Mustard Vinaigrette.

2. Egg dishes: Eggs and herbs are fantastic together. Fresh herbs are an absolute must in a summer omelette at our house, and they are also a wonderful addition to a quiche.

For both of the above purposes, I'm particularly fond of using a random blend of parsley, chives, basil and oregano.

3. Teas: Fresh mint makes a fantastic tea and couldn't be simpler to make. Stuff a few large sprigs of mint in your teapot, fill with boling water and steep for about 15-20 minutes (for lots of other ways to use mint, check out this post). Other fresh herbs good for making tea are lemon balm, lemon verbena, chamomile, catnip and raspberry leaf (if you have raspberry canes in your garden). If you want to try making your own herbal sun teas, check out this YouTube video.

4. Pasta toppers and pestos: Many pasta dishes can be elevated to a new level of deliciousness with a sprinkling of fresh herbs over top. Creamy sauces such as Alfredo or other cheese- or cream-based sauces are particularly tasty this way. And of course, there is the classic heavy-on-the-herbs pasta dish: pesto. You don't have to make it just with basil, though! There are many recipes for pestos using other herbs. Try using parsley and toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds) in place of the basil and pine nuts in your favourite pesto recipe!

5. Meat marinades: Adding fresh herbs to marinades is a great way to enhance the flavour of all types of meat and poultry. For a really easy chicken marinade, stir about 1/4 cup of chopped herbs (thyme and rosemary are particularly good with chicken, and parsley, chives, basil and oregano will all work, too) into 3/4 cup of buttermilk and pour over 8 chicken thighs, turning to coat. Let sit several hours or overnight in the fridge.

6. Fancy iced drinks: Make herbal lemonade by using one of your favourite herbal tea blends in place of the cold water in any basic lemonade recipe (you can find an easy one here). You can also freeze herb leaves in ice cubes to add to your cold drinks, or simply toss a fresh sprig of mint or basil right in the glass.

7. Vinegars: Herbal vinegars are an easy way to add the taste of fresh herbs to your salads throughout the long winter months. They are quick and easy to make, too - check out this post where I show you how I make mine (I'm going to try making them with apple cider vinegar rather than white vinegar this year).

8. Honey: Herb-infused honeys are delicious, and can also be medicinal, too. I make a lemon-thyme honey that I pull out whenever we've got a cough or cold - it could also be used for culinary purposes, too. If you have lavender growing in your garden, it makes a wonderful infused honey perfect for stirring into tea or drizzling over pancakes

9. Oils: Herb-infused oils can be used for either culinary or medicinal purposes. When using fresh herbs, simply combine about 3/4 cup chopped herbs and one cup of oil (I prefer olive) in a clean glass Mason jar and let steep for 2-3 weeks. Strain the oil through a fine mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth. A lavender or chamomile infused oil is great for making an all-purpose salve or adding to your bath water; use your favourite combination of culinary herbs to make an infused oil you can use for dressings and marinades.

10. In the bathroom: Fresh herbs elevate a hot bath to new levels of relaxation! Lavender, mint, chamomile, lemon balm or lemon verbena are all wonderful additions to the tub. They also make great room fresheners - simply gather up a bouquet of fresh herbs and place it strategically in a vase in your bathroom.

I'm sure I could find many more uses for fresh herbs, but I'm going to stop there for now! At least I hope I've conveyed just how versatile they can be and given you some new ideas to try.

If you find yourself as hooked on herbs as I am, I highly recommend the book The Herbal Kitchenby Cami McBride, which is just packed full of recipes using both fresh and dried herbs (yes, that is an affiliate link!).

What are your favourite ways to use fresh herbs?

Love what you read here? Find out how you can help support this blog. 

Want to stay connected in between blog posts?

Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest 

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter

Click HERE to like Abundance on a Dime on Facebook and get updates and tips on living frugally

Click HERE to like Cheap Appétit on Facebook and get updates and tips on frugal eating and cooking