Kitchen Experiment #3: Homemade Yogurt

Did you know you can make your own yogurt?

Before I started reading The Frugal Girl's blog, I had no idea that people made their own yogurt. The thought just didn't occur to me. Growing up, my mom always bought the store bought stuff--the single serving flavored variety. Though my taste for yogurt has varied over the years, I've always loved smoothies. In the past year, I've made around 3-4 yogurt smoothies per week, meaning I required 3-4 single serving yogurts per week.

All of those little yogurt containers add up to be more than you'd think. Each serving is 6 ounces and costs about $0.65. The single servings cost about 10.8 cents per ounce. On the other hand, homemade yogurt costs about 2.7 cents per ounce. A gallon of homemade yogurt is about $3.49. An equivalent amount of single serving yoplait would cost about $13.87. Since I eat so much yogurt, I could certainly save a lot of money by making my own!

The reason it is so much cheaper is because yogurt is essentially fermented milk. All you need is one gallon of whole milk to make one gallon of yogurt. Initially you need a starter of active cultures (one cup of unopened store bought yogurt), but once you make this initial investment, you can use your homemade milk as a starter.

We bought a quart of plain Dannon to use as a starter. It cost about $2.50, or $10 per gallon. While cheaper than single servings, homemade is much cheaper still.

I didn't think the homemade yogurt was too difficult to make. I followed this recipe from The Frugal Girl. She uses photography to illustrate her recipes, which I found extremely helpful.

I only made 3 quarts worth because I was worried we wouldn't be able to finish all four (plus the dannon we had bought) in one month. 

Boy, was I wrong. I absolutely love the homemade stuff--it is richer, creamier, and more healthy than the kind you get at the store. I feel good when I eat it because I know there are no artificial colors, sweeteners, or any other additives. Just milk.

Do you have any suggestions for my next kitchen experiment? I don't think I'll be making crackers like I planned (we have a surplus right now) and I'd love some more ideas! Leave a comment below!

Winter Break Update

So this might not be the most exciting post for you readers, but I've found that keeping a To Do List is extremely motivating. Whenever I got bored or wondered what to do this week, I checked my list for ideas. Making this list also helped me to remember other smaller things I needed to get done, encouraging me to get them out of the way so I could work on my list. I think the fact it's public pushes me to become more efficient. Anyway.

Here are the goals I listed about a week ago, along with a quick update on my progress.

Practice wheel throwing and finish some artwork. Since I will be teaching some ceramics classes in the spring, I need to get as much practice in as possible. I went the entire first semester without throwing, so I need to get back into the swing of things! I spent a lot of time this week wheel throwing! Though I didn't get as much accomplished as I would like, I feel a lot more knowledgable about what I need to work on. This will definitely help me transition to wheel throwing at Haverford.

Find homes for my artwork. I have a lot more artwork than I can handle. I'd like to find good homes for my sculptures, bottles, and pots. When I'm selling or giving away my work, people always ask me, "Well don't you want to keep that?" As much as I enjoy making the work, I could not possibly display and store all of the artwork I will make from now until eternity. . . I've looked through what artwork I have, and I was pleasantly surprised that I have less than I thought. I talked to my art teacher from high school, and I'll be able to display/sell some of the pottery I have left. What I want most is to find homes for my sculptures though. We'll see what happens.

Finish knitting my scarf. I've been working on the same scarf since Thanksgiving, and I'd like to finish it soon so I can start learning to knit more complicated things! I haven't made any progress on this one since I posted about it. I'll definitely work on it soon!

Practice my sewing skills and make more bags. So our sewing machine is getting taken to the shop, and I've been using the one at my Nana's house. Hopefully ours will get fixed soon--that will make it a lot more convenient for me to practice! We got the sewing machine fixed, thanks to my Nana. I haven't gotten a chance to use it yet, but I will!

(This picture is really dark because my basement has horrible light. Sorry!)

Clean up the backyard and tend to my compost. Before Fall Break, I said to my mom, "I wish I could come home. I'd rake the entire yard for you!" I enjoy yard work. Though my mom wished I could have come home (and not just because of my offering of yard work), it wasn't feasible. When I came home for Winter Break I got a surprise--my mom left the entire back yard untouched. So I get to rake up all the leaves for my compost. Yay! My mom and I raked up and mowed over the majority of the leaves. In the past, we've always paid someone to come and haul our leaves away. Using the mower breaks them up so they can be quickly and easily condensed into a manageable pile and dumped on the compost.

(Sorry for the photo's blurriness. The sun was actually in front of me, though the clouds obscured it! The quality of my photos is pretty off today, huh?)

Clean up the garden. Enough said. I did as much as I thought was necessary. I didn't worry too much about all of the weeds because it is still winter. I got the tomato plants and trellises out though!

Finish "The Tightwad Gazette II". The trouble with library books is that I can't take them back to school with me. I'd like to finish this one before I go back. About halfway through. I checked out another book though so we'll see if they both get finished!

Go to the Value Village monthly half off sale. Since it's winter, I can't go to garage sales and I've been itching to go. The storewide half off sale once a month at Value Village is almost as good. Hopefully I'll find some cool furniture for my mom to refurbish! Apparently I've been away so long I'd forgotten which Wednesday the monthly half off sale was on. It's not the first Wednesday of the month--it's the last Wednesday. Oh well!

Cook up some recipes I've been wanting to try. I want to try recipes for making my own crackers and other items people typically just buy from the store. I didn't make crackers, but I did make hummus and yogurt! I'll fill you in on my yogurt making experience soon.

Research internship opportunities and apply. Haverford pretty much has more resources than they know what to do with. I want to take full advantage of them. I found a program I am interested in and emailed the contact at Haverford with some questions. I'll tell you more about this later too!

So that's my list. I'm happy with how many things I've accomplished lately, both on and off my list.  I can confidently say making this list public has helped motivate me and organize my time. How do you help yourself get things done? Post a comment below!

Another Kitchen Experiment: Hummus

I know I write a lot about food and cooking, but I'm enjoying having access to a kitchen. At school, the only appliance freely available is a microwave on our hall. So I'm taking advantage of being at home--I find the stove, oven, blender, and freezer all very exciting. Seriously.

I find that when I cook up a homemade dish it is often fresher, cheaper, and more rewarding than the store-bought convenience food version. This is why I decided to try making my own hummus.

Hummus is actually extremely easy to make--you just blend the ingredients in a blender or food processor until well blended. However, you may not be familiar with all of the ingredients. One of the most important and obscure ingredients is tahini.

Tahini is a nut butter (kind of like peanut butter) that is make from sesame seeds and is often used in middle east cooking. It has an extremely strong taste, so you only need a small amount in your hummus, and one jar will last for several batches.

Tahini is considered an ethnic food and can be difficult to find at your typical grocery store. I could not find it at Schnucks and Shop n' Save only had a 2 lb jar for almost ten dollars. However, the Sappington Farmer's Market had three different kinds. This 16 oz jar was around 5 dollars. While 5 dollars might seem like a high price for an ingredient that is only used for hummus, I think it's worth it since I eat a lot of hummus. Store bought containers of hummus run between $3.50 and $5 depending on the store. After making a few batches, the tahini will pay for itself.

The rest of the ingredients are simple--garlic (cloves, crushed, or powder can all be used), lemon juice, and garbonzo beans (chick peas) create the base. The recipe I followed is located here. However, I deviated from the recipe, starting by adding less garlic and lemon juice, then adding more. This way I could make it as strong as I wanted.

After that, you can add whatever you want. My first batch, I added black and green olives. For my second batch, I added canned artichoke hearts. I personally preferred olives, but there are so many other combinations to try! Both of these flavors were inspired by similar store brand varieties. Other store brand flavors include things like roasted red pepper or roasted pine nut.

Have you ever made hummus? What other foods do you make from scratch that other people typically buy at the store? I'd like to hear about your own kitchen experiments. Comment below!

Experimenting in the Kitchen: 5 Minute Fudge

Before Christmas, my sister Nancy made really great fudge for my Nana's Christmas Party. I'm pretty sure she used an adaptation of a recipe on the side of the Jet Puffed Marshmallow Creme container. This recipe calls for one 14 ounce can of evaporated milk. When my Nana bought the ingredients, she accidentally bought sweetened condensed milk instead of evaporated milk. This is an easy mistake--both come in a similar, same-sized can.

Nancy didn't realize the mistake until after she opened the can. Though momentarily frustrated, she eventually obtained the evaporated milk and made her delicious fudge.


However, one problem remained--what could be done with the opened can of sweetened condensed milk?


To be honest, I wasn't even quite sure what sweetened condensed milk could be used for. On New Year's Eve, I researched uses for the milk. A lot of my initial search results were from websites like about.com and e-how. While those websites are sometimes helpful, I don't always trust their cooking advice.


But then I found a blog post on sweetened condensed milk by Lydia Walshin at The Perfect Pantry. Walshin is a writer and a chef who blogs about the ingredients in her pantry and how she uses these ingredients in her recipes. I find her concept of blogging about ingredients and what they can be used for--rather than just blogging about recipes--particularly useful for my sweetened condensed milk situation. I think her site will be a good tool to help me prevent future food waste, because I often find myself with this general problem: "I have X ingredient, it will go bad soon if I don't use it, and I have no idea what to use it for!"

Anyway, in addition to including her microwave recipe for Dulce De Leche, she links to a few other recipes that call for sweetened condensed milk. Since my goal was to use up ingredients I had--not buy more ingredients--I chose to make this 5 Minute Fudge Recipe. While fudge is not particularly healthy, I was intrigued by the idea of comparing this recipe with Nancy's recipe. Because hers was more time consuming and contained more ingredients, I assumed it would be better. I wanted to prove this hypothesis, so I tried it.


The recipe was extremely easy. It only has two ingredients--chocolate and the milk. But because there are only two ingredients, it definitely requires quality chocolate to make it good. Quality can be defined in many ways, so I won't tell you what kind to use. It's whatever kind of chocolate you like. Because I'm so waste conscious, I was excited to get to use up two different kinds of chocolate that I wasn't even aware we had until my mom pointed them out. One of them was some good baking chocolate, while the other was a ziploc bag of unidentified chocolate. I wouldn't necessarily suggest using random, who-knows-where-it-came-from chocolate for the best results, but I'm not picky. My main goal was just to use up what we had.


One thing to be aware of--the fudge turned out a bit hard around the edges. I'm not sure if this was because of the chocolate I used, or if it is just a result of the simplistic recipe. I'm glad I didn't cut the fudge up into smaller pieces. Because I left it in one large chunk, the middle was still soft and good. The hard edges might be rectified by covering it when you refrigerate it, or wrapping individual pieces if you decide to cut it up.


I'd show you a picture of the final product, but most of it has been eaten up. One of my mom's friends enjoyed it so much they wanted some to take home to their family. I also really liked it, but Nancy wasn't a fan, and my mom doesn't like sweets at all. It's probably not the best fudge recipe, but it was the best recipe in for my particular needs. It also would be a great recipe for my fellow college students, because you really only need a microwave to cook it!


Do you have any good fudge recipes? Have you discovered any new recipes recently in an attempt to use up unwanted ingredients? Comment below!

Making the Most of My Winter Break

I can't believe my winter break is almost half over! Now that I've had ample time to be with friends and family, there are a few things I want to get done before I start my second semester. Here's a list of some of those things. I'm hoping that making it public will help get me motivated!

Practice wheel throwing and finish some artwork. Since I will be teaching some ceramics classes in the spring, I need to get as much practice in as possible. I went the entire first semester without throwing, so I need to get back into the swing of things!

Find homes for my artwork. I have a lot more artwork than I can handle. I'd like to find good homes for my sculptures, bottles, and pots. When I'm selling or giving away my work, people always ask me, "Well don't you want to keep that?" As much as I enjoy making the work, I could not possibly display and store all of the artwork I will make from now until eternity.

I also really love the thought of my artwork making it's way into the homes of family, friends, and strangers across the country. I have artwork in Philadelphia, Virginia, Kansas City, and St. Louis (obviously). How cool is that?

Here is  one little guy that needs a home:

Finish knitting my scarf. I've been working on the same scarf since Thanksgiving, and I'd like to finish it soon so I can start learning to knit more complicated things!

Practice my sewing skills and make more bags. So our sewing machine is getting taken to the shop, and I've been using the one at my Nana's house. Hopefully ours will get fixed soon--that will make it a lot more convenient for me to practice!


Clean up the backyard and tend to my compost. 

Before Fall Break, I said to my mom, "I wish I could come home. I'd rake the entire yard for you!" I enjoy yard work. Though my mom wished I could have come home (and not just because of my offering of yard work), it wasn't feasible. When I came home for Winter Break I got a surprise--my mom left the entire back yard untouched. So I get to rake up all the leaves for my compost. Yay!

Clean up the garden.

Enough said.

Finish "The Tightwad Gazette II". The trouble with library books is that I can't take them back to school with me. I'd like to finish this one before I go back.

Go to the Value Village monthly half off sale. Since it's winter, I can't go to garage sales and I've been itching to go. The storewide half off sale once a month at Value Village is almost as good. Hopefully I'll find some cool furniture for my mom to refurbish!

Cook up some recipes I've been wanting to try. I want to try recipes for making my own crackers and other items people typically just buy from the store.

Research internship opportunities and apply. Haverford pretty much has more resources than they know what to do with. I want to take full advantage of them.

So that's my list. Hopefully typing it out and making it public will help me get more done! What's on your To Do List?

Simpler Christmas Giving

Happy two days after Christmas!

I know these days after the holidays can be a drag--especially for parents and grandparents, the ones expected to buy all of the gifts, host the holiday parties, bake the christmas cookies, and make the holidays extra special for their family and children. This year, as I watched my mom stress over what presents to buy, as I went from store to store with my exhausted Nana (my grandma) to buy supplies for Christmas dinner, I felt sorry for these overworked women. The holidays had become a time of tiredness and anxiety for them. There must be a better way to do this, I thought.

For the past few months, as I have been reading frugality blogs and books like the Tightwad Gazette, I've picked up a few tips and tricks for making the holidays more simple and enjoyable. Since I'm not at a point in my life where I have to host parties or parent kids, but I do enjoy giving gifts, the concepts I learned about gift giving stuck with me the most. I'll share with you my refined process of gift giving this year.

I decided I wanted to change my process in these ways:

1. Simplify my gift recipient list. Instead of giving presents to a lot of people, I wanted to give a few, meaningful presents.
2.Plan ahead. Instead of doing all my shopping in December when I got home from school, I wanted   to start early. That way, I would have more time to spend with my family and friends during my short month break.
3. Look out for sales and coupons. I wanted to get quality presents while saving as much money as possible.
4. Be conscious of where my money is going. Instead of sending money to large factories in China that under pay and exploit their workers, I wanted to support businesses and causes of integrity.
5. Avoid making extra trips to the store, specifically for buying gifts. Shopping trips waste time and energy which could be expended in better ways.
6. Give a gift the recipient will actually appreciate. Oftentimes my siblings get gifts and want to return them. This also wastes energy and time. I want to give gifts that are cherished, not rejected.

In summary, I wanted to be thoughtful about my gift giving. In my mind, this is the most important part of gift giving, yet it is often lost in the frantic shopping around the holidays. Gifts become thoughtless obligations. In following the listed guidelines, I thought I could renew the thoughtful meaning behind gift giving and make it a more simple, enjoyable process.

How did I do? I'll let you be the judge.

For my mom, I bought these "Infinite Dance" earrings from Novica.

Novica is an organization associated with National Geographic that supports artisans around the world, providing them with fair compensation and loans to build their business. Some of the products on this site are pricey; however, they are quality handmade products. I feel good about supporting these artists in need, as opposed to sustaining large corporate factories. The jewelry is also much more unique than anything you can find at department stores, so I got to get my mom something really special!

Because Novica jewelry isn't cheap, I looked around for deals all through the fall season. In October, The Frugal Girl posted an awesome Novica coupon at Living Social Deals--buy the coupon for $20, and get $40 towards your Novica purchase. Though I didn't know what I was going to get my mom at the time, I knew I could find something for her at Novica in my price range thanks to the coupon I found. Instead of paying about $48 for the earrings, I paid only $28.

I was a little mad at myself for not looking around for more coupons when I made this purchase. A few days later, I saw a $5 off coupon. Though not a huge savings, every little bit helps!

For my sister Lacey, I decided to buy silk long underwear.

While this might seem like a boring or too practical gift, these are quality garments and a necessity in the cold Minnesota winter she has to endure at school. They are also more expensive than she or my mom could typically afford--at prices of about $50 for the top and $50 for the bottoms, totaling a hefty sum of $100.

If you know me at all, you know I would not pay full price for these. While she really needs them, I can't really afford $100 presents. Just when my mom had given up on this gift, I found that Lands End was having an awesome before christmas sale--40% off your entire order plus free shipping. In addition, certain colors of these silk long underwear were a reduced price--the lavender was $25 instead of $50. Though Lacey would have preferred black, she completely understood my choice of lavender when she found out it was half price! With all of these discounts, my total ended up being about $31--a savings of almost $70! This was by far my best Christmas steal. The only downside was that the product was Made in China from an unknown source. I didn't realize this until after I bought it.

I left Nancy's gift a little more open ended. In November, a group at Haverford had a fair trade sale, selling products from an organization called Serrv (similar to Novica). Again, I could feel good about supporting artists who were hand making their products and getting fairly compensated for them. At the sale, I discovered this elephant puzzle box:

I was immediately intrigued by it--I couldn't open it! The puzzle has four separate parts. Since Nancy loves elephants, this was a no-brainer. Though it isn't practical, I thought it was special and a good price at only $15. Before I wrapped it in my homemade cloth gift bag, I put a note inside redeemable for a $15-20 present that she really wanted but didn't get for Christmas. I think this made the gift a little more fun and interesting. It also helped me achieve my goal of spending similar amounts on each family member's gift.

I think I did a pretty good job of addressing my goals--to simplify my recipient list, to get gifts ahead of time, search for sales, know where/how the gift was made and feel good about it, avoid extra time consuming shopping and return trips, and most importantly, be thoughtful about my gifts. This has definitely been the most enjoyable Christmas giving experience that I've had. Next year, I plan to start my gift search in January--to maximize my thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, and savings!

What process or system do you use for gift giving? How do you maximize the quality of your gifts while minimizing the cost? Comment below!

A More Sustainable Christmas

Hey everyone!

I've been home for over a week, and time has flown by. I've been busy seeing old friends, going to church, working on art, being with family, and cooking my own food. I'm really glad I started thinking about my christmas presents before I got home, because I've had so many other things to do. I can't tell you what my presents are, but I can tell you I thought a lot about how I wrapped them.

I never thought of wrapping paper as wasteful. We only use it  once a year, so it never seemed like a big deal. But if you think about how many presents in the world get wrapped in paper every Christmas, the amount of paper waste is likely astronomical.

This fall, I read about making cloth gift bags on the Frugal Girl's blog and in Amy Dacyczyn's The Tightwad Gazette. It made me think about all of the packaging that is thrown away at Christmas. Even if you wrap gifts in reusable bags, many bought products come in cardboard boxes, plastic, and styrofoam. Wrapping paper is waste that can easily be avoided.

Though I didn't have much time or convenient access to a sewing machine (ours is broken), I managed to make and use one good cloth bag. My other three presents are wrapped in bags too--bags that we'd saved from years past. While they aren't cloth bags and they do require tissue paper, the bags can be reused by the recipient. Because two of these paper bag presents are for my mom and sisters, they will just stay in our family.

Out of all of these bags, the gold cloth bag is my favorite. I think cloth is just a little more classy--I've seen some really beautiful cloth bags by other waste-conscious people. These bags are also really easy to make--I was learning to use a sewing machine while I made this bag. If you have any experience at all, or even no experience, you can do this too!

Before you set out to buy that wrapping paper during after Christmas sales, why not try making some cloth bags instead? For a good set of instructions, check out the Frugal Girl's blog post on cloth gift bags.

How do you prevent wrapping waste? Comment below!