…and then sit down in the office to bury yourself in the task of updating Quicken and writing a monthly money report, you will wander out an hour later, feeling all pleased with yourself.

That is, until you walk into the kitchen and suddenly remember that you left bread rising.

With no timer.

Shoot.

No matter how quickly you get those loaves into the oven, they’re going to be pretty darn flat.

I see croutons and bread crumbs in my future.

(This is the French bread recipe I was using, and it does normally turn out lovely, crusty, delicious loaves of bread.)

Yesterday I:

-made a batch of homemade yogurt.

This stuff costs less than $1 per quart, which makes it a total bargain.

-used my honey-glazed roll recipe to make some big sandwich buns.

Making loaves of plain bread from scratch saves money, but the savings are much more impressive when you start making things like buns, English muffins, and cinnamon rolls at home.

Also?

Buns made from that recipe are really soft and delicious and you get to eat them fresh from the oven, which is most marvelous.

(I leave off the glaze when I make buns instead of rolls and I usually double the honey to make up for the lack of sweetness from the glaze.)

-packed reusable dishes and containers for a picnic lunch.

Not only are they green and frugal, they’re also much more lovely than their disposable counterparts (which is something I find to be true on a regular basis.)

-made a menu plan for the next two weeks.

I don’t like menu-planning, but it saves me so much money and time, I carry on pretty faithfully with it.  When I go without a plan, we don’t eat nearly as healthfully, I spend way too much time stressing about what to make for dinner, and my grocery shopping is really haphazard.

-helped Joshua look on eBay for a replacement camera battery charger.

We own a total of four Canon cameras, but sadly, none of my battery chargers work for his battery.  And since his charger hasn’t turned up for weeks (we’ll probably find it when we declutter his room this summer!), he’s going to buy a new one.

He was looking on Amazon, but I helped him find one that looks really promising on eBay, and we’re hoping the bid stays nice and low.

-mixed up a batch of my very favorite super-clumpy granola.

I have discovered that it still tastes really good if you halve the brown sugar, but it definitely doesn’t stick together quite as well that way.  It’s still very crispy, though, which is how I like my granola.

That photo is from last summer, and it’s making me very hungry for fresh, local peaches.

-made an easy dinner that used up lots of odds and ends from my fridge.

I pulled out the last of the Easter ham from my freezer, sliced it up thinly, and we made sandwiches, using the buns I made.  I also sliced up carrots and cucumbers to eat raw (I had so many of those in my fridge.) and I made a fruit salad that used up almost every last bit of fruit I had.

Fruit salad is great to make when you’ve got small amounts of all sorts of fruit.  When you mix it all together and add some lime, lemon, or orange juice to brighten up the flavors, it doesn’t look at all like you’re cleaning out the fridge.

Oh, and keeping some frozen or canned fruit around is really helpful for those times when you need a bit of something to round out the salad (canned or slightly thawed frozen peaches are great for this.)

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Did you do anything frugal yesterday?  Share!

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Joshua’s 365 post: I’m back!

You know the drill…a post full of random bits of things that don’t go together.

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I’m really happy that all of my tulips from Aldi came up.

I am not happy that the surround-the-bulbs-with-crushed-glass trick failed to deter the voles, and that all of the tulips except for those in pots are now dead.

At least I took a picture before they were eaten.

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I’ve been thinking about how grateful I am for the grace my kids show me.  Sometimes, I have a really hard time seeing anything but my mothering faults, but the four cards I got on Mother’s Day all said very lovely things, which I think were quite sincere.

I know good and well that I am not the world’s best mom, but I’m glad my kids somehow see me that way!
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I can’t manage to save every cute/hilarious paper thing my kids produce, so sometimes I just take a photo and then recycle the item.  Saves space and costs nothing!

I liked this exchange between Sonia and Zoe because of the juxtaposition of colloquial and formal language.

They’ve been writing fortunes (like you’d get in fortune cookies), and I’m hoping this one was meant for me.

(I think the other one says, “You will have a good time at the pool.”)

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On the food waste front, I recently rescued some wrinkly potatoes by making a half recipe of scalloped potatoes.

And when we had many bananas ripen all at once, I did a little preemptive food waste fighting by cutting them into chunks and topping them with peanut butter.  My kids love this and they can down a lot of bananas this way.

I could have let them go until they were overripe and then made banana bread or banana chocolate chip muffins, but this was significantly easier.  And faster.

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You know I’m a big fan of hand-me-downs.

Well, I saved all of my very-loved childhood dolls, thinking that one day my then-hypothetical children would play with them. How fun to hand down your toys to your children, right?

Given that I have three girls, you’d have thought my dolls would be very popular. But somehow, none of the girls have been interested in playing with dolls.

Last week, though, Sonia and Zoe got inspired, and so my Fisher Price My Friend dolls have gotten some love.

I suppose these are considered to be vintage by now.

Oh, man.  I just looked it up on eBay, and yep, everyone’s calling them vintage.  Dear me.

At any rate, I’m glad my beloved (vintage) dolls are being played with.

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Signs of a good meal to come (in my opinion): Chopped onions and cilantro.

After trying some fish cakes at a restaurant a while ago, I was inspired to make some at home. I’m generally not a huge fish fan, but I actually like it when it’s made into a cake.

Basically, I took the crab cake recipe I use and tinkered with it a teeny bit to make it work for fish cakes. I’ve been making these on a pretty regular basis now and since they’re approved by the whole family, I thought I’d share the recipe.

I think you could use pretty much any mild-tasting white fish you’d like, but I use frozen tilapia, which you can buy in a two pound bag at Aldi for $5.99.

You know what my one complaint about tilapia is, though? Pretty much anywhere I buy it, each fillet comes individually wrapped in plastic. The trash-y part of that annoys me, but it’s also a pain to cut open each fillet, especially when you’re using a whole bunch of fish for a family of six.

I digress.

Where were we? Oh, the fish. You’ll need a pound of cooked white fish. I thaw my tilapia, season it with salt and pepper, and cook it over medium-high heat in a skillet (with enough butter to keep it from sticking). It only takes a few minutes on each side.

Let the fish cool for a few minutes.  Meanwhile, whisk together mayo, mustard, parsley, seafood seasoning (Old Bay), and an egg, and then stir in the bread crumbs.

I usually make my own bread crumbs by toasting dried ends of bread and then running them through the food processor, but you can use prepared crumbs instead.

When the fish is cool enough to handle, break it up into small pieces and add it to the mayo/egg mixture.  Properly cooked fish should flake really easily, so this isn’t a time-consuming task at all.

Gently fold the fish into the egg/mayo mixture until it’s all evenly coated.

Using your hands, shape the fish mixture into patties.  You can make them as large or as small as you want, but I usually go for something around the size of a hamburger.  Place the patties onto a clean baking sheet.

At this point, they’re pretty delicate and would fall apart if you tried to place them in a skillet.  To help them firm up, place them in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add 2 tablespoons of butter.  Add as many crab cakes as will comfortably fit in the skillet (leave room so you can easily flip them).

I’m not sure why there are only two in the skillet in this particular photo.  Please imagine another three or four.

Let the cakes cook for 5-7 minutes (depending on the size), or until they’re nicely browned on the bottom.  Then gently flip them over and cook ‘em until they’re golden brown on that side.

Repeat with the remaining patties, adding more butter as needed, and then dig in!

You can serve these as-is, with tartar sauce on the side, or they’re also good made into sandwiches, with tartar sauce, lettuce, and tomato.

Fish Cakes

serves 4-6

Printable Fish Cake Recipe

1 pound of cooked white fish, flaked
1 egg yolk
1 egg
2 teaspoons seafood seasoning
1 teaspoon prepared mustard (not dry)
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup bread crumbs

In a bowl, whisk together egg yolk, egg, seafood seasoning, mustard, parsley, and mayo until smooth. Stir in bread crumbs, then gently fold in fish.

Shape fish mixture into patties and place on a baking sheet. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes.

Heat a 12-inch skillet over medium heat and add two tablespoons butter. Gently place crab cakes in pan and cook for 5-7 minutes, or until golden brown on bottom. Carefully flip cakes and cook for another 3-5 minutes, or until golden brown on both sides.

Serve with tartar sauce, or make into a sandwich with a bun, tartar sauce, lettuce, and tomato.
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Food Waste Friday is over at Simply Being Mum today.

Joshua’s 365 post: My Latest Origami

(And this one isn’t terribly serious anyway.  It’s about packaging colors!)

But here it is.

Due to this packaging, I feel certain that I am going to sprinkle cumin in my morning oatmeal by accident one day.

To be fair, they are ever so slightly different shades of brown, but when you’re grabbing one out of the cabinet in a hurry, nuances like that are easy to miss.

I’ve caught myself in the nick of time on more than one occasion, actually, and it’s a good thing because I really don’t think I could make my way through a bowl of cumin oatmeal.

You know what just occurred to me?  I should save a differently colored lid from another sweet spice jar, like a red one, and use that on the cinnamon.

Why did I not think of that until now??

I suppose this blog post is a bit pointless now, but I’m going to publish it anyway, since it’s all written up and everything. 

I rarely do roundups like this, but I keep coming across articles lately that make me think, “Ooh, I should share this with my readers!”

So, here ya go.

Yesterday, a reader shared a link to this article about American Giant, a new company who is making their sweatshirts and tshirts entirely in the U.S. (even the fabric is 100% U.S. made.)  I thought it was a fascinating read, and I hope there are great things ahead for this company.

Their clothes aren’t cheap, but it sounds like they’re manufactured with care and designed to last for years and years.  I think they’d make Elizabeth Cline, the author of Over-Dressed, smile.

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At Becoming Minimalist, there’s a practical guide to owning fewer clothes.

(which is one of the things I suggested in my follow-up post to my Over-Dressed review.)

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In light of the recent factory tragedies in Bangladesh, a bunch of clothing companies, including H&M, have now signed a factory safety accord.  I think this is a step in the right direction, but it hits me the same way Wal-Mart carrying organic products hits me.

On other words, I certainly wouldn’t discourage it, and I think it’s the right thing to do, but H&M is still a fast fashion store that carries poorly made products which have to be bought at great volume in order for the store to be profitable.  If they start to treat their workers properly, that’s awesome, but it still doesn’t fix the problems caused by their production of clothes that are, in essence, semi-disposable.

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Still on the clothing topic: I was encouraged to read this article in the New York Times, which talks about how consumers are beginning to demand change in the clothing industry, just like we’ve begun to demand change in the food industry.

The clothing problem, like our food problem, can seem overwhelming and impossible to change. But consumers have power, and though we can’t change things overnight, our collective voice is indeed heard.

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We’ve had several discussions in the comments of late about picky eating, so when I read Christine Gross-Loh’s HuffPo article about the way people parent around the world, the section about the way Koreans handle food and children piqued my interest.

The whole article is worth a read, though, and I was especially fascinated to learn that though Finnish children spend fewer hours in school than American children do, they generally rank above American students in testing.

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I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on any of these articles…do share!

Every now and then Aldi sends me a small gift certificate along with a list of seasonal projects or the option to go it on my own.  I chose the latter this time around, and decided to use my certificate to buy some ingredients to make this salsa, which has been my favorite thing to eat of late.

It’s a nice bit of a change from regular tomato salsa, it’s not expensive to make, and it contains nothing but raw produce (and salt.)

It’s also super delicious.

I cheated a teeny bit this time around, because the salsa does call for two ingredients that my Aldi doesn’t currently carry: cilantro and a jalapeno pepper.  I hear some Aldi stores do have these in their produce departments, though, so for some of you, this could be a 100% Aldi dish. 

I was all organized-like and took a picture of my ingredients.  Except, um, I forgot to include the red onion.  Please imagine one in the photo somewhere.

Just so you know, salsa is quite a flexible thing, so while I’m sharing the ingredients and proportions I use, feel free to change it up to suit your tastes.

Cut the top, bottom and peel off of the pineapple (I do mine kind of like this, except I’m not as careful about the eye removal!) and then chop it into small pieces.  The smaller, the better.

If you’re skeered of cutting up a pineapple (though really, it’s not that hard), you can always use canned pineapple.  I prefer the texture and flavor of the fresh stuff, though, and hey, a fresh pineapple has zero packaging waste.*

Which is always marvelous.

*assuming you compost the peel

Ok.  You’ll also need to chop up some red onion and jalapeno.  Depending on how iron-clad your mouth is, you may want to remove the ribs and seeds of the pepper (that’s where lots of the heat resides) before you chop it up.

The family FG, we are wussies, so I remove the seeds and ribs.

Lastly, you’ll need to dice some red pepper and chop some cilantro.  If you loathe cilantro, you can leave it out.  I like cilantro in pretty much everything, though, so I always add it.

Bring on the cilantro!!

Mix the pineapple, veggies, and cilantro together in a bowl and add salt to taste.  I usually start with 1/2 teaspoon and go from there.

We like to eat our salsa with corn chips, and I always have a bag of Aldi tortilla chips around (I eat them with guacamole all the time.)

You can refrigerate your salsa and eat it later (it’ll keep for a few days in the fridge) but if you’re too impatient, you can dig in right away.

Oh, and you don’t have to just eat this with chips.  It’s also lovely on top of grilled meats, in fajitas, on tacos, or in a burrito.

Go make some, k?

Pineapple Salsa

4 cups diced pineapple
1/2 cup diced red onion
3/4 cup diced sweet red pepper
1/2-1 jalapeno pepper, diced (remove seeds and ribs if you want less heat)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2-1 teaspoon salt

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Taste and add salt as necessary.

Disclosure: Aldi sent me a gift certificate, but they have not bought my adoration (that’s 100% natural!), they didn’t come up with this recipe, and my opinions and words are all my own. 

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Joshua’s 365 post:  My latest origami

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

I wanted to ask you about your approach to the strategic placement of things in grocery stores or department stores that are meant to appeal to young kids. My daughter is eleven months old, but already I am anticipating the time when she will see the candy/gadgets/toys in the stores that are unnecessary, unhealthy, cheap junk, etc. How do you deal with this? Do you simply try not to take your kids shopping with you if you can avoid it? How have you taught them that these things are just extraneous junk, and how do you deal with the inevitable occasional “Mommy, can I have that?”
Thanks!
Sarah

When my kids were young, it was never very practical for me to avoid taking my kids shopping with me, and besides, I’d have hated to feel constrained like that.  Children can indeed be taught that they can’t have everything they want in stores.

It’s great that you’re thinking about this now, because you can make this a whole lot easier on yourself by never getting your daughter into the habit of expecting extra things at the store.   When I go shopping, my kids know that we’ll be buying what we set out to buy and that “extras” are generally not going to be purchased, and because of this, they tend not to ask.

(We do occasionally buy something fun or extra when we’re out, but because it’s not expected and isn’t a regular occurrence, it’s more delightful for everyone when it does happen.)

As with so many parenting situations, consistency is key here.  Your daughter needs to know that if you say no to a request, you mean no. If she has any inkling that you’ll give in and say yes if she keeps asking, she will almost surely keep trying.

Our kids also know that if they want something, they can feel free to spend their own money on it.  When they’re spending their own money instead of mine, it makes them think about the purchase a whole lot harder.

I do try to help them make wise purchasing decisions with their money, but I also think that it’s important for them to find out what it feels like to buy something that’s a piece of junk.  So sometimes, if they insist that they really, really want to buy something that’s sort of a dumb purchase, I say yes.  For instance, one of my girls wanted to spend her money on one of those vending machine sticky hand toys, and she got a rude awakening when she realized how tiny and junky the sticky hand was.

So, to sum up, don’t start a precedent, be consistent about saying no, and when she gets older, let her make some dumb purchases with her own money to help her learn some money lessons.

What kind of knives would you recommend? I know you can easily buy cheap sets of knives at Walmart, but those wear out so quickly, and easily also spend upwards of $2000-4000 on a high end set of knives. We had a Cutco demonstration in our home recently and really liked their product, which seems quality and reasonable when compared to other high-end knife sets.

As we want to make a good investment in the future, and you are excellent at choosing lasting products of good quality materially and financially, I though I’d ask your opinion!

Liesl 

I think it’s awesome that you’re looking to buy well-made knives instead of a cheap set.  Yay!

Cook’s Illustrated, my favorite source for kitchen recommendations, suggests putting together an a la carte knife set rather than buying a packaged set. That way you can buy only the knives you actually will use.

They’ve put together two a la carte knife sets, one that’s more pricey, and one that’s more budget-minded.

Because these recommendations are available to subscribers, I don’t feel quite right sharing all of knife set lists here, but I can tell you that the budget minded set is made up almost entirely of Victorinox knives.  The more expensive set is a combo of Victorinox and Wusthof knives, so based on that, I’d recommend looking for those two brands.

The Victorinox Swiss Army 8-Inch Fibrox Straight Edge Chef’s Knife, which I own, is the recommended chef’s knife for both the expensive and budget-minded sets.  I also own a bread knife that’s very similar to this one, by Victorinox. (Here are some photos of my bread knife.)

I’m not really very happy with any of my paring knives, so now I’m eyeing the Wusthof paring knife. Could it really be worth $39.95? Should I spend my birthday money to find out?

Decisions, decisions.

I am getting paid exactly $0 to say this, but if you need help finding kitchen items that will last, I strongly recommend subscribing to Cook’s Illustrated’s website.  With your membership, you get access not only to all of their magazine recipes but also to every single equipment review they’ve ever done, and I cannot recommend this highly enough.  Cook’s is always my first stop when I’m looking to replace some type of kitchen equipment.  It costs $35 a year, which is totally worth it if they save you from even a few unwise kitchen purchases.

Kristen,
Just the other day, as I was throwing out the 1 millionth wax cereal bag, I wondered how it compares to “real” waxed paper? Can it go in the microwave? Be used to line baking pans? Is it even really “waxed”?

Robin

Generally speaking, cereal bags these days are made of plastic, not waxed paper (though waxed paper cereal bags are a definitely childhood memory for me!) So, I wouldn’t recommend microwaving or baking with the bags.

There are several ways you can reuse them, though.

With the addition of a rubber band, I use them in place of plastic wrap

I also use them to freeze food on a short-term basis.  I just fold the open end over several times and use clothespins or chip clips to keep them shut.  You wouldn’t want to store food like this for months, since the seal isn’t as airtight as what you’d get with a zippered plastic bag, but it works for a couple of weeks.

When I need to make graham cracker crumbs and don’t feel like hauling out the food processor, I put the graham crackers in a cereal bag and crush them with a rolling pin.  The cereal bags actually handle this type of pressure a lot better than regular plastic bags do.

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Readers, it’s your turn!  Feel free to share your thoughts on any of today’s questions.

Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. Why do I do this? Because in March of 2008, I finally got fed up with the amount of food I was wasting, and I thought that showing my waste to other people would motivate me to use up my food instead of wasting it. Because this often embarrassing practice was so helpful for me, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.

It’s three containers, but none of them are full.

At the bottom, there are some booze-y smelling pieces of pineapple, and the stainless steel bowl is holding somewhere around 8 black beans.

(Whyyy did I not just finish those up the last time I ate beans? That was dumb. I mean, really, who doles out all but 8 black beans?)

At the top are two pieces of lime. Joshua cut one up to squeeze into his smoothie, and he put the rest in a container, which slowly made its way to the back of the fridge.

Happily, everything here could be dumped into the compost bin.

Another happy thing? My fridge is now all cleaned out and organized, so at least for the moment, nothing is lurking in the back!

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How did you do this week? If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the widget below. You’ll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog! And if you don’t blog, you can still share about your food waste by leaving a comment.

Those of you who participate in Food Waste Friday can now grab a fancy-schmancy button to perk up your posts. If you copy and paste the following code into your Food Waste Friday post, this little graphic will appear.

If you blog on WordPress, just make sure you’re in html mode when you copy and paste the code, or it won’t work properly.

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Joshua’s 365 post:

So.  Yesterday I wrote about Elizabeth Cline’s book,  Over-Dressed, but I didn’t have space to really delve into how the information in this book should practically affect our lives.

Though it’s nigh onto impossible to find clothing that’s not made in an overseas factory, there are some things we can do to start shifting the tide towards a more sustainable clothing culture.  And not all of them require buying uber expensive clothing.

(This is a blog called the FRUGAL girl, after all.)

Here are some ideas, from Cline’s mind and mine:

1. Buy fewer clothes.

The average American buys 68 pieces of clothing a year (that’s more than one per week!) Unless you’re a growing child or are changing sizes quickly, there’s no reason you need to obtain that much clothing in a year. Buy the amount of clothing you can really use.

(That’s a good principle for plenty of things other than clothes, by the way.)

2. Buy better quality.

If you’re buying fewer items, you can afford to spend more on each. Though it’s frustratingly difficult to find fair trade or domestically-made clothing, you can still look for quality. For instance, there’s generally a difference between a $4.99 shirt from China and a $29.99 shirt from China. Even though both may have come from a poorly run factory, a better quality shirt will last longer, and when you own items that last longer, you don’t have to support the clothing factory industry as often.

Plus, environmentally speaking, it’s much better to buy things that last.

3. Don’t follow fads.

The odder the item, the more likely it is to go out of style quickly.  I’m not saying one should never purchase a fun, trendy item, but the more you stick to classic styles, the longer you can wear your clothes.

Classic clothes also tend to be pretty versatile, so you can get a lot of mileage out of them.

4. Mend.

I’ve talked before about how mending can save you some serious cash. Sadly, mending is a bit of a lost skill, and there are many people today who throw away clothes simply because they don’t know how to sew on a missing button. A hole in a seam is also a super easy fix, and patching isn’t overwhelmingly difficult either.

Shoes can even be fixed if they’re of fairly decent quality (If the problem is beyond the help of Shoe Goo, use Google to find a shoe repair shop in your area.)

4. Modify.

If you get a hole in the sleeve of your long-sleeved shirt, take a scissors and turn it into a short-sleeved shirt. Remove a collar that you hate. Replace buttons that are dated. Turn worn jeans or pants into a skirt.  Throw faded clothes into a bucket of dye.

Or you can outsource the modifications. For instance, if you lose weight, you can hire a tailor to alter your wool coat so it still fits you. It’ll still probably be cheaper than buying a new one.

5. Make your own.

In days past, people actually made their own clothes, as unthinkable as that might seem to us. This might not be a practical solution for everyone, but if you enjoy creating things, consider sewing some of your own clothes. You can make something that fits you perfectly and that’s much higher quality than what you can buy.

(One should note, though, that you do have to obtain fabric somehow, and that may open another can of worms.)

6. Look for fair-trade clothing.

This is infuriatingly difficult to do, because companies like Walmart say they care about worker conditions and point to their regular audits as evidence. But according to Cline, what Walmart doesn’t tell you is that they announce up to 3/4 of the audits ahead of time, which makes the audits pretty meaningless (of course the factory workers will get lunch breaks on the day the auditor is there.)

If you’re buying from a large corporation, I think you’re pretty much not going to find fair trade items, no matter what they say. And generally speaking, if a company who sells super cheap clothing says they care about worker conditions, they’re being deceptive because it’s not possible to produce cheap clothing while treating workers fairly.

Fair trade clothing is going to cost more than the stuff you can find at Forever 21, and that’s that.

7. Buy second-hand.

Sure, a lot of the clothing in second hand stores came from horrible factories, but the fact of the matter is, those clothes have already been produced and sold. When you buy them, no money goes to sweatshops, you’re making use of something someone else didn’t want, and you’re also helping to make a dent in the glut of clothing second hand stores receive.

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What do you think?  I’m sure there are more good ideas that haven’t occurred to me, so please share your ideas in the comments.

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Joshua’s 365 post: Flare