Cheap and cheerful hankies for the cold season

Posted on January 26, 2012 by jenn

I’ve always used handkerchiefs. When I was in school in England I had the best ones — very sturdy, basic, 5″ squares. As elderly relatives have died I have inherited a variety of lovely embroidered hankies. But the problem with those is that they tend to be thin. They’re fine for everyday use, but when a big head cold comes along I find myself going through many many hankies in any given day. I could use tissues, and yesterday I did, but they are rougher than handkerchiefs and they seemed really wasteful. What I needed was a smaller version of my husband’s sturdy handkerchiefs (the big men’s ones don’t fit in my pockets and are huge when held against a 2 year old’s face).

I had a old white sheet in the sewing room. Danny had appropriated a portion of it as a tablecloth for his little toddler table (it makes a great cave) but there was still plenty left over. I cut it into 6-8 inch squares and piled the folded squares into a decorative basket. Danny and I are using them all day and dumping them into a separate hamper (you could use a basket, a wetbag, or even a pillow case or grocery bag). Tonight I will wash them on hot, fold them in the morning, and we’re all set. The sheet is quite thick fabric so these hankies don’t soak through immediately. Because it was washed for years while being used as a bed sheet, the fabric is very soft which is great on our red noses.

In the future I can edge-stitch them so they don’t fray out. We can use them as hankies or for wiping up small children after meals. I’m very happy with these!

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Hot Cocoa, Budget Version

Posted on November 29, 2011 by jenn

Last winter I developed a hot cocoa recipe and tinkered with it a bit. This winter I’ve been streamlining it a bit more.

Today I wanted a cup of hot cocoa but noticed that we were running low on milk. Then I remembered the dry milk powder in the cupboard. Like the cocoa powder I use, this doesn’t have to be particularly nice or expensive. The box was an old dusty box of storebrand nonfat dry milk powder; not what I’d like to drink as milk but it does ok in baked goods. And apparently in hot cocoa!

Hot Cocoa on a Budget

  • 1/3 cup dry milk powder
  • 1 Tablespoon cocoa (natural or dutch process)
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
  • Dash of salt
  • 1/4 tsp almond or vanilla extract
  1. Boil water, and while the kettle is on, combine dry ingredients in a mug.
  2. Half-fill mug with hot water and stir vigorously until all the dry ingredients have dissolved.
  3. Fill mug with hot water and add liquid flavoring.

If you used vanilla sugar, you could store this mix in a jar. It would be a great gift for a coworkers or teachers. Then you would use 1/2 a cup of mix for each mug of hot cocoa.

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Black Bean Soup

Posted on October 25, 2011 by jenn

Black bean soup has been in the dinner rotation lately. This version is a little more time consuming than my cheater version, but since that one is faster than making a box of mac & cheese, most cooking is. :) When I remember, I like to soak the beans overnight first. This makes them cook faster, allows for certain antinutrients to be destroyed, and means that you can start the whole pot of soup in the crockpot first thing in the morning. Needless to say, I frequently forget.

Black Bean Soup
1 lb dry black beans
3 ripe tomatoes or about 1 14-oz can of diced tomatoes
1 onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
1-2 chipotles en adobo (keep the rest of the can in the fridge for future soups)
Salt & pepper to taste

Depending on how much soup you want, you can use the whole bag of beans, or like I did today, cook them all and then reserve about a quart for other uses (Drew loves black beans in his lunch quesadilla).
Sauté the onion and garlic in the fat of your choice. Combine them with drained beans, tomatoes, and the chipotle peppers. Heat the whole thing up and then purée.
Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, or tortilla chips.

High Speed Black Bean Soup
2 cans black beans (14 oz each)
1 16 oz jar salsa
Drain beans, combine with salsa in a sauce pan. When heated through, purée and serve.
Serves 3.

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Hot tip – new uses for Nature’s Miracle

Posted on July 12, 2011 by jenn

Recently Danny and I strolled down the road to Nutzy Mutz. Danny loves to visit the store cats, and I was picking up a bottle of Nature’s Miracle. Nature’s Miracle is an enzymatic cleaner designed to neutralize cat urine. Similar formulas are available under a variety of cutesy names.

“But Jenn”, you say, “you don’t have a cat. What do you need Nature’s Miracle for?”. Wetsuits and diaper pails.

Wetsuits

Neoprene wetsuits can get really stinky. Dive shops sell little packets of enzymatic cleaners with cutesy names like “Sink The Stink” for cleaning wetsuits. There’s just enough cleaner for one bathtub of water, and they can cost $2.50 a packet from a dive shop. It’s a convenient way to buy it if you dive once a year like we do, but it’s not as cost effective as it could be.

I bought a 16 oz bottle of Nature’s Miracle for about $5. I threw a couple of squirts into my front loading washing machine (do NOT wash your favorite wetsuit in a washer with an agitator) and washed our neoprene wetsuits, booties, and caps on a gentle cycle. They smell as good as new!

Diaper Pails

As most of my readers know, my toddler has used cloth diapers his whole life. When he was a baby I washed diapers every other day. Now that he’s older he doesn’t use as many diapers, so I wash twice a week. But in the summertime this can result in a stinky pail. You can buy or make air fresheners for diaper pails, but that doesn’t eliminate the built-up odor, it just covers up the smell of the current batch of diapers. Now when I wash diapers I spray down the inside of the diaper pails with Nature’s Miracle. It’s designed to eliminate the odor caused by cat urine, and it does a nice job on human urine too!

 

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Cloth Diapers On Vacation

Posted on June 6, 2011 by jenn

We use cloth diapers with Danny whenever we are at home and when we visit anyone with a washing machine. While I’d love to use cloth all the time, after an experiment or two we found that it just didn’t work well for us in hotels. But this week we are on vacation and we have three things that let us get diapers dry: sun, wind, and a washing line.

The first year we cloth diapered on vacation I packed flats. Flat diapers are like flour sack dish towels, and in fact we have 2 dozen that were sold as dish towels. They dry very quickly and are a great choice for a young baby. Flats are very easy to get clean but they dried stiff.

The next year we brought prefolds. Those got clean just fine but again they dried stiff. When we got home I had to strip the diapers to get the soap residue out. But otherwise they worked just fine.

This year we made pocket diapers out of old t-shirts using a pattern from Fern and Faerie. They take a longer time to dry but they dry soft, which is a big plus. We put snaps on some of them, which makes them more grandparent-friendly. Since Danny is 2 now I figure the snaps can also make them useful for potty-training.

I pack a little laundry kit in my suitcase. It has a soft bristled brush, a small bottle of Dr Bronner’s soap, a universal drain plug, and a jar of my home made diaper soap. I also have a camping bucket that folds flat. In the future I will put a bar of laundry soap in as well, but the hotel soap works ok. I try to make sure that the soap I use is biodegradable; many of the kitchen sinks here drain directly into plants.

To wash diapers I begin by rinsing them in a bucket of cool water. When Danny was younger and had softer poo I would segregate the diapers so that the pee diapers were washed first. After the rinse I agitate them in a bucket of soapy water using the diaper formula soap. I wring them out individually. Any diapers with stains get scrubbed with the Dr Bronner’s soap and the scrub brush. Then they all get rinsed out again, wrung out, and hung out to dry.

It is best to wash diapers first thing in the morning so that they can hang on the line all day. On this trip I’m having trouble doing that, so I’m going to try washing them at night and then hanging them out in the morning.

This method is pretty easy and is a good choice for camping or visiting somewhere where the environment is the main attraction. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving disposable diapers on my favorite island. Washing diapers uses water, but I imagine it compares very favorably to the amount of water we’d be flushing down the toilet if Danny was potty-trained. I think I use 10-15 gallons a day washing diapers.

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Spring has sprung at the dinner table

Posted on May 9, 2011 by jenn

We got our first CSA box of the season this weekend. It’s a little early for Wisconsin, but we are very lucky to belong to a great CSA that has a long season. This week we got ramps (a type of wild leek), sorrel, parsnips, and chives. I’ll use the chives later this week in twice baked potatoes.

Tonight for dinner I made pasta and greens. I developed it over the last few summers, and it works with just about every summer green there is, from dandelion greens to kale to sorrel. Tonight it was ramps and sorrel.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat pasta, dry or fresh
Garlic, minced
Olive oil
Greens
Romano cheese

Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and cook the garlic lightly, being sure not to burn it. Add any stems or other thick parts like the bulbs of ramps. When those are tender, add the leaves and cook until just tender, just a minute or two.
When the pasta is cooked, toss it with olive oil. Combine the pasta with the cooked greens and serve with grated cheese.

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Brownies

Posted on March 25, 2011 by jenn

I love brownies, nice dense fudgy ones. This week I’ve had a hankering for peanut butter and chocolate, not so much a peanut butter cup but more like a sundae with a peanut butter ripple or sauce. So I’m going to try doctoring up my usual brownie recipe with a peanut butter swirl, a la Martha Stewart.

First I need my usual brownie recipe. It was stored on our recipe wiki but the spammers have made that resource all but unusable. So here’s a recap of my variation of Barb Schaller’s Famous Orgasmic Chocolate Brownies. If you’ve got cake flour in the house, use her recipe, otherwise you can do it my way.

Brownies

  • 1 cup unsalted butter (8 oz)
  • 4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
  • 2 cups granulated sugar (15 oz)
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract — increase to 1 Tbsp if you omit the almond extract
  • 1 tsp almond extract (optional)
  • 1 1/3 cups less 2 Tbsp & 1 tsp flour (6 oz)
  • 2 Tbsp and 1 tsp Cornstarch
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Note: The flour and cornstarch are a substitution for cake flour. There are 2 simple ways to measure them. Either put the cornstarch in the bottom of a 1 cup measure and then scoop the flour on top, or put the cornstarch in a scale and then add flour to make 6 oz.
In microwave oven, on medium-high power, melt butter and chocolate in 2-quart microwave-safe bowl, about 3 minutes. Stir until smooth. Mix in granulated sugar, then beat in eggs, one at a time, with wire whisk. Mix in vanilla and almond. Combine flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt and fold into chocolate. Spread batter in 9×13″ pan lined with baking parchment and bake in preheated oven at 350°F for about 33-35 minutes. Do not overbake; toothpick may have fudgy crumbs on it, but not wet batter.

I’ll let you know if the peanut butter worked!

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Easiest jam ever!

Posted on March 11, 2011 by jenn

I’ve tried my hand at jam a time or two but thanks to a blog post from King Arthur Flour, I’m adding it to my usual repertoire! Just last week they posted about making jam in your bread machine. My bread machine has a jam setting and I adore strawberry jam, so I thought I’d try it. It was so good that we finished the pint of jam in about a week! It was a little runny since there’s no pectin, but that made it a very good topping for waffles.

For the real recipe, see the KA post. But here’s my off-the-cuff instructions.

  1. Open a bag of frozen strawberries. I thought I had some left from strawberry picking, but I ended up with a 12 ounce bag of Trader Joe’s organic strawberries.
  2. Defrost the strawberries and mash them.
  3. Put mushy berries in the bread machine with sugar (3/4 to 1 cup) and a little lemon juice.
  4. Select jam cycle and let it go!

I love knowing exactly what is in my jam, especially when I’m feeding little kids. And if I pick enough this June next winter’s batches will be cheap too. It only makes a scant pint, so there’s no canning required. Instead the strawberries are preserved in the freezer until it’s time for the next batch.

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Why I threw out my toilet brush

Posted on March 5, 2011 by jenn

Well reason #1 is that Danny would not leave it alone, even when it was stored in a closed closet. And it’s a major hassle to keep chasing a toddler around saying “Yucky Danny, yucky!” and then trying to wash his hands. Again.

Reason #2: I no longer use caustic chemicals to clean my toilet. Since the cleaners are safe for my hands I just use a rag and put my hand in the bowl. So there’s no reason to keep the cleaning at arm’s length on the end of a toilet brush. I clean the toilet with baking soda and vinegar (sprinkle, scrub, pour, flush) with the occasional spray of tea tree oil for extra bug killing. It’s working for us.

Now if someone knows of a great way to childproof the plunger in a bathroom with a pedestal sink, I’m all ears!

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Tuna Noodle Casserole

Posted on February 28, 2011 by jenn

I grew up eating my Mum’s tuna casserole, both the hot version and the cold pasta salad version. But while they were delicious and fairly healthy, they aren’t what most Midwesterners think of as tuna noodle casserole. Mum’s versions were heavy on the beans: kidney beans, chick peas, and canned corn.

Today the weather is cold but in a spring-like way, with a biting wind coming off the snow. I was scheduled to make cabbage & noodles for dinner, but I want something creamier and more stick-to-your-ribs. Something like tuna noodle casserole. I don’t stock cream of mushroom soup in my pantry, so I’m going to adapt this basic recipe and replace the soup with a white sauce.

Jenn’s Tuna Noodle Casserole

  • 6-8 oz egg noodles (half a bag), cooked
  • 1 can tuna, drained
  • 4 Tbsp butter
  • 4 Tbsp flour
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • A little ground pepper
  • 1 cup frozen peas
  • 1/2 cup grated cheese (cheddar or similar)
  • 1 cup buttered bread crumbs (optional)
  • Grated Parmesan/Romano/Asiago cheese to top (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Start cooking the noodles in boiling water according to package instructions.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan on medium heat. When it has completely melted whisk the flour and salt in. Keep stirring until it turns a very pale brown. We don’t need a dark roux, we just need to cook the flour. Slowly add the milk, whisking all the while.  Once the sauce is done, turn the heat off and stir in a little pepper.

Drain a can of tuna and stir the tuna into the sauce. Add the peas and the cheese to the white sauce and tuna mixture. I used a blend of cheddar & monterey jack cheese that I keep around for making burritos. Turn the heat on a low to defrost the peas. and maybe to melt the cheese.

Once the pasta is cooked, combine the pasta and the tuna mix. Put it into a greased 3 quart casserole. Top with buttered bread crumbs and grated pasta cheese. The quality here isn’t too important; even Parmesan from the green can will work.

Bake in a 350F oven for 15-30 minutes until it’s heated through. Since we’re starting with a hot sauce, it shouldn’t take as long in the oven as the recipes that use an unheated can of cream of mushroom soup.

After Dinner Report

The bread crumbs were unnecessary and didn’t go well with the rest of the casserole. Maybe with store bought ones that are more bland, but the flavor of our molasses-sweetened brown bread really didn’t go. We couldn’t taste the cheese on top. Since pasta topping cheeses like Parmesan, Romano, and Asiago tend to be expensive, I’ll skip this in the future.

We loved the casserole! Danny was a big fan. It had some of his favorite foods: noodles and peas. It was very satisfying, tasty, and cheap. Without the fuss of topping it with breadcrumbs it’s a very simple proposition and should go together in 20-30 minutes or as long as it takes to cook the pasta. I’m not sure if it really needs to go in the oven since everything starts out warm, but I’ll give it a blast in the oven for a few more times.

I can see why this is a classic!

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