Mustard and stock, with developments in laundry detergent

My big canning project this week was mustard. I used this recipe: http://smedette.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/recipe-spicy-beer-mustard/

I chose it because I wanted to be able to can it, so I can share some as gifts and also keep it shelf-stable as long as I needed it. I don't have a pressure canner so I needed a recipe with vinegar. Anyways, it was loads of fun, and pretty easy to do. I omitted the horseradish and onion powder, because the recipe said it was okay to play with these. I don't like my mustard too hot and the vinegar made it plenty tangy. The recipe made three cups of mustard, which I canned in one-cup jars. Exciting!

I also made stock this week. I make stock frequently so it didn't occur to me to share it earlier, but I realized that many people don't know how to make stock. If you can boil water you can make stock! I gather scraps from vegetables and chicken bones in a one-gallon plastic bag that I keep in the freezer. When that gets full, I dump it into a large pot that I fill with water and I add a couple of bay leaves and a handful of peppercorns, if I have them. Then I bring the water to the boil, then reduce it to simmer and let it do that for about an hour. Then I cool it and strain it. I usually use most of the stock I just made in soup that evening, with a little bit set aside in a two-cup container for rice pilaf, and a few quarter-cup containers for Chinese food. I freeze these containers until I'm going to use them. So you can do all this for basically no money because you are using what other people consider to be garbage. Seriously. The only thing I wouldn't put in it are fruit scraps and the peels of russet potatoes, which are kind of dirty. (You can dry citrus peels in the oven and use them for mulled wine and such, and the rest of your fruit scraps you can use to make vinegar. Vinegar!) So if you do nothing else, you should make stock. Soooo easy and it saves you a lot of money over storebought stock.

I am learning about making your own laundry soap. Holy crap! It's so easy and cheap! You need borax, washing soda (soda ash, which I use for dyeing), and bar soap. The best type of bar soap to use is fels naptha, which is really cheap. I'm going to check my nearby hardware store. You only need 2 tablespoons per load. It doesn't have nasty chemicals or scents and is much better for the environment and allergies. If you need fabric softener, you can use vinegar in your rinse cycle, but I don't usually use fabric softener and I think it would be a pain in our commercial machines.

We have been doing a bit of low cost decorating for the Advent/Christmas season. I made an advent wreath with floral wire and evergreen branches. We threw evergreen branches on some surfaces and made popcorn garlands to decorate the tree with. It's been very exciting. I have made a present for my husband (more on that later, once he's opened it). I'm also doing my Christmas baking now. I've made banana bread and will also make butter tarts, peanut butter cookies, and popcorn balls. Maybe oatmeal raisin cookies too if I have enough time and butter.

Happy holidays everyone, and happy homemaking!

A few items

We got up to a few exciting things this week. First, my husband and I made ginger beer. We fermented some ginger and sugar in water. Then we made a syrup with more ginger, sugar, and water. Next we added the two together and put it in pint-sized jars. We were going to do bottles, but to get the right kind of bottles would be $40, and we didn't have that to spare right now. They are currently undergoing their secondary fermentation. We put them in a rubbermaid tub with heavy stuff on top. This is because I heard many stories of ginger beer exploding and sending glass shattering everywhere. I hope that if they do explode, they at least won't damage the apartment (or us). We will be sad to lose that ginger beer though. We are really looking forward to it! We're not big drinkers but like a beer or a glass of wine sometimes. This way we get 10 pints from $3 worth of ingredients.

Today I made my own "maple" syrup. Not real maple syrup, which is what I grew up on, but sort of like Aunt Jemima's but better and cheaper. I've done this one before. I take some white and brown sugar and boil it in a little water, and then I add artificial maple extract. I'm not sure exactly but I think the whole thing comes to about $0.30 a batch. It's even cheaper if I make my own brown sugar, which I usually do, by mixing white sugar with a bit of molasses. That's all it is.

I have been very careful about trying to eat real food at every meal. Usually I make some kind of simple breakfast, with leftovers for lunch, and something for dinner. Today I made pork curry with coleslaw and rice. The curry mix was some of my spices and some spices mixed by the aunt of one of my friends. It was pretty good, and my husband ate it up, even though he does not like tomatoes. The coleslaw used some mayo that I had made earlier in the week, with some curry powder added, and then an all-natural dip mix added. So I "recycled" that mayo twice. I really enjoy making my own mayo, which again is about $30 a batch. Storebought mayo (and maple syrup, for that matter) aren't so expensive, but why not do it even cheaper and fresher?

I have put myself on a challenge of spending no more than $30 a week on groceries. In Canada this wouldn't have been possible but food is pretty cheap in the States, so you can save your money to spend on health care. It takes a lot of analyzing coupons, calculating, and sacrificing what you want now so you can have it later, or switching items so that you can have something that you couldn't normally have. I have figured out exactly what we're buying this week, and I am excited thinking about what we will make.

In clothing news, I have finished knitting a sweater and am seaming it now. The collar and the shoulder seams are finished, as well as attaching the arms to the body. Now I am trying to sew the sleeves together and close the body part. I have to unsew a bit because I did it unevenly and the armpit was going to be all lopsided. It's annoying to have to redo it but not as annoying as wearing something that I have worked on for almost a year to have it all weird. I was hoping I could wear it to church tomorrow but it doesn't look like that will be possible, unless I stay up until 5 AM finishing it. Oh well, there's always next week. Hopefully I'll be able to wear it when I volunteer at the museum next week. My supervisor saw me working on it and she was excited to see how it is going to turn out. She thought it was so cool that I could actually knit my own clothes. I think it's pretty cool too!

Finally, I made my own toothpaste today. I mixed baking soda and salt and a little peppermint essential oil. I mixed in a little water to make a paste. You can add glycerin too, but I didn't feel like going to the store. So that was my dental adventure for the day!

Rosehips and a skirt

Today was a very exciting day. My husband and I gathered wild rosehips at a nearby park. We originally found them when participating in Nature Day at the park. They were beautiful and red and abundant. We took them home and put some of them in the oven to dry for tea. The rest we made into rosehip syrup, which is apparently very good on pancakes and ice cream and such. Also, they are very high in vitamin C. I canned most of the syrup and refrigerated and froze some.

I also finished sewing my first skirt today! The sewing's not perfect but the fit is amazing. I'm very proud to have made a garment that I can actually wear, like in public! I made it from an old curtain. I don't have photos yet but I'll get my husband to take some when I wear it tomorrow. I'm going to take it out for a test run at church tomorrow. I'm very excited about showing off my handiwork to my friends. It's my goal to only get new clothing by making it for a while. There might be occasions where I need to hit the thrift store or even buy something new, but it's not like I need a lot of new clothes, so I for the most part, I can wait until I have time to make them.

In other news, my husband made dinner tonight but I made the mayonnaise. I love making mayonnaise and you should try it.

Also, I gleaned some apples this week. There is a house near ours that has an apple tree and I pick up the apples (if they're still good) that have fallen off the tree and over the property line.