hurrayic

Yogurt Making: 3rd attempt

3rd time's a charm?  I suppose it is.  My foray into yogurt making has succeeded.  This time, I tried another recipe and followed a step-by-step tutorial (with photos!) from this frugal girl.  I made 4 quarts using 1 gallon of whole milk and 1 small container of Dannon plain yogurt.  It's not as sour as the Greek style yogurt that we love, but it worked.  Plus, I love the 'look' of it in the canning jars...sort of reminds me of the milk in glass bottles that the milkman delivered fresh each morning.  (Not that I'm old enough to remember...just imagining!)

So after burning a bagel beyond recognition under my broiler this morning, I ate a bowl of the yogurt, added some honey...yum!  I'm already thinking of my next foray: coconut milk kefir! Have you made it before?  Any tips?

 

Veggie Kicks

As a child, I used to be an absolute vegetable hater.  Yes, I ate iceberg lettuce, cucumbers (no skin on) and corn... your basic non-nutrient-providing vegetable group for many picky children.  At dinner, you could often find me studying my food like a scientist in a lab (all I needed was a high-powered microscope!), making sure the vegetables DID NOT touch other foods on my plate.  I became an expert at figuring out ways to make it appear that I had actually eaten my veggies: spreading out the evidence on my plate, wadding it into my napkin, feeding the dog beneath the table (a willing accomplice) the occassional feigning of a stomachache.  I'm sure my parents knew what I was up to, but that didn't stop me from my nightly routine.  Eventually, we arrived at a happy compromise...only take 1 bite.  You know, just TRY it.  That seemed to suffice.  I mean, I could mask the taste of the miniscule amount of vegetables with a whole mouthful of juice or milk!

In college, I began trying new food items.  I read cookbooks like novels.  An interest in 'gourmet' food had begun.  It's odd,really.  A gourmet menu on a college student's budget?  It didn't work.  The beginning of the month my roommate and I ate well; by the end of the month we resorted to eating rice and peanut butter...  But my love of vegetables was starting to flourish.  

Zucchini & Tomato Provencale Bake

After getting married, my husband became my very eager and very willing guinea pig to my food experimentations.  And he lovingly tolerated my feeding him the same vegetable night after night.  You could call it becoming fixated on one vegetable.  For example, within the first year of our marriage, I finally became brave enough to try broccoli again and discovered a very interesting thing: I actually liked the taste of it!  So what ensued, was several weeks' worth of eating broccoli with every meal.  Of course, I didn't subject him to just plain old broccoli; I doctored it with cheese and seasonings and changed its form.  The scary head of broccoli had become a work of art.  Okay, enough with the drama!

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Now, as I try to feed our children, I find my own loathing of vegetables as a child has come back to haunt me.  Actually, that's not entirely accurate.  3 of our 4 kids like vegetables for the most part.  Only 1 is picky like I was.  Now he's the one sitting at the dinner table when everyone else has left, trying to swallow the 1 bite of broccoli or 1 tiny slice of tomato (which by now has taken on the consistency of soup) in his mouth.  Oh well.  Maybe he'll eventually become a vegetable lover like I am.

Quinoa Chickpeas and Spinach Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing

Recipes of above vegetable dishes I made the past week are here:

Zucchini Tomato Provencale
very good! -I omitted marjoram because I didn't have any in the house

Broccoli Cheddar Soup
very very good!  I added 1 more cup cheese and 32 oz of low-sodium chicken broth along with some curry powder, garlic & turmeric (for color)

Quinoa, Chickpea & Spinach Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing
very very very good!  - I didn't have any mint, and I substituted garlic vinegar for the sherry wine vinegar Used chopped Romas since I didn't have any cherry tomatoes on hand.  I also cut the baby spinach leaves into strips.

Thrifting

Thrifted items of late:  basket: 25 cents, box: 29 cents, stapler: 50 cents.

I know I've mentioned before how I love thrift stores and tag sales and garage/yard/rummage sales.  The closest thrift stores are not the most conveniently located nor have the selection of tag sales been anything to write home about, so I really haven't been doing either recently.  However, that's not so bad considering thrifting takes time and effort, two things right now of which I don't have enough. 

Usually when I go thrifting, I'm in browse mode.  I might have some ideas in my head or a few words scribbled haphazardly, chicken-scratch style on a slip of paper.  Other times, I go in with a mission: black pants!  Spatula!  Costumes for camp!  More often than not, I find myself wandering aimlessly through the aisles trying to remember what size my 12 year old fits into or staring at a book on the shelf wondering if I already own it or not.  That's mainly because I go in unprepared.

I think I need to make a list and carry it with me at all times. But what do I put on my list?  Necessary items or extra things?  Obviously keeping an updated list of clothing sizes is good, especially after having spent a boatload of money on store-bought clothing (yes, on sale) because we were behind in checking our storage bins and needing certain items immediately. (Like my 12 year old wearing the only pair of pants that fit him while telling me that maybe he needs more pants for the winter time?).  When the kids were little, it was easier; I bought ahead (sometimes several years ahead) and the kids were not picky (well, except for 1 child who will remain nameless but who is also the only female child in our family). 

But what else do I put on my list?  Book titles and authors? Makes & models of certain small appliances?  Craft supplies?  Gift ideas?  I think my list would end up growing to such an extent that it wouldn't fit into my purse so therefore...I might have to add 'new purse' to my list. 

Seriously though, maybe backing up a step might be handy.  To be honest, thrift store and tag sales is something I enjoy doing, not something I have to do.  If our budget was so tight that I HAD to only go to thrift stores and garage sales, things would be very different.  My list would be concise, and I would visit regularly to find the best treasures that we NEEDED. 

I'm thankful to the Lord that we are not in that position.  That said, we do need to be better stewards of what He has given to us.  I guess I should ask myself...do I need this or that?  Or is it a want?  Do I want to bring more clutter into our house?  Or will it benefit us? more than a dust collecting, by the way The photo above is a good example.  All 3 items could be put into the benefit category.

A stapler.  Obviously helpful. Even if I do have 2 other ones.  But with 4 kids, it's nice to have reliable ones. 

How about these?  A basket & box...also helpful...(cough)...well they DO hold things...

Will I continue to thrift store and tag sale hunt?  Yes. In fact, right now, I'd like to look for a pair of pants for me, so 'pants' will go on the top of my newly created list which I still need to write...

If you thrift store hunt, what things do you look for?  Do you use a list?  Are there better days to go than others?  Do you look at an item and imagine what it COULD be with some stitching here and refashioning there, some painting here and some cleaning up there? 

Any helpful hints would be appreciated.

Warm Chickpeas & Homemade Pita

No, I will NOT mention anything about the lack of posts.  That would be boring.  Who wants to constantly read about a blogger's failed attempts at keeping up with a blog?  So...nope, I won't mention it. 

Alrighty then!

Last month, I tried several new recipes and a few old standbys.  Most were tasty.  Most in the family enjoyed them.  (We won't count a certain youngest member of the family who is also the pickiest person on the planet. Ahem.)  Two new recipes for me were a warm chickpea salad and pita bread. 

 

The salad tasted even better the next day as a cold salad.  It was a tad spicy due to the fresh ginger, but that was okay for 4 of the 6 taste-testers.  Taste-testers!  Yes, the members of my family are often fulfilling their dutiful roles in this arena.  They've become my guinea pigs in a matter of sorts. (Insert mad scientist snigger...) By the way, I'm not sure from where THAT analogy originated.  Were guinea pigs subjected to awful food?  Caged and fed all kinds of horribly tasting guinea pig pellets? For what purpose?

I digress. 

If you want to try this recipe, here it is:

Warm Chickpea Salad

2 Tbsp olive or canola oil
1 sweet onion, diced
2 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
1/2 tsp each: coriander, cumin, chili powder
1 tsp turmeric or more for more color
2 Tbsp tomato paste
4 cans chickpeas (15 oz each approx), drained
3 tomatoes, diced

Heat oil in pan over medium heat.  Saute onion until soft.  Add spices & cook a tad longer.  Add paste, chickpeas and tomatoes.  Cover.  Lower heat & simmer about 15 min.  Uncover.  May have to cook a little more if it looks too watery.  If too thick, add a little water & stir.  Adjust seasonings.  Things to add might be: fresh parsley, cilantro, substitute canned diced fire-roasted tomatoes for the fresh ones...

 

The 2nd thing new to me was homemade pitas.  On my bookshelf sits Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day.  Great book, or at least the cover is appealing. (I haven't studied it yet...)  They do have a pita recipe, but I used this recipe instead.  Although wheat was the recommended flour and would have been more healthy, I didn't have any wheat in the house at that moment and really really really wanted to try out the recipe, so white had to suffice.  I'll admit that I did have one snafu while making these.  A minor problem, really.  You'd think that I could get it right since the kind blogger even included step by step photos!

 

Would I try these again?  Absolutely.  But maybe just double or triple them.  Having a slightly larger family necessitates enlarging the recipe amounts.