Barbara G's Two-Way Crockpot Cake

 
It's Christmas Eve and I am enjoying a good rest from everything in my pink plaid flannel PJs with the silver stud snowflakes--truly alluring.  I am sipping a cup of dandelion tea from a teacup that I curb-crawled from the former owners of Tiger, who not only mistreated her, but "forgot" her when they moved.  Tiger is the lovely, helpful kitty who graces this page's logo.  She has it just as good now with us as she had it bad with them before.  The gas fireplace has it warm and snuggly in here as I recharge my spirit with the Word of God at www.kcm.org.  God is good to this woman, who considers her own self a divine rescue many times over, and I am grateful!

This cake has two unusual things about it.  First of all is its method of baking.  You bake it in a slow cooker.  Second, you may obtain entirely different GOOD results by using one of two entirely different mixing methods.  This is usually NOT true with cakes.  I don't know the science of why this particular recipe works so well either way, but I'm just pleased as punch that it does.  Although plenty sweet to call itself a dessert cake, it is not overly so, and that's part of the success in this recipe.  Any more sugar and the cake will collapse.

The slow cooker method of baking a cake is fabulous for holiday time when you want a simple little dessert like pound cake with fresh fruit, fruit sauce or boiled custard, but do not want to take up oven space dedicated to other foods--like the turkey!  It also is a boon during power-outs for those fortunate enough to have access to a generator.  Compared to the massive draw of an electric oven (about 4,000 watts), a slow cooker draws little more power than a 250-watt light bulb.  It can run alongside the refrigerator or freezer easily.  In case you do NOT have a generator, it is also possible to string a big orange power cord from a friendly, cake-loving neighbor to run your slow cooker.  Power outage can be weird in a natural disaster, where one neighbor has power and the other does not.  This was a frequent occurrence after Hurricane Katrina hit us, when some had damaged meters and others did not.  Why would you even WANT to bake a cake during a power outage?  Well, to save all those eggs that are going bad without refrigeration, for one thing.  Further, because cake makes many a bad situation better.  Further--who needs a further excuse for cake?!  I mean, really!

I love happy accidents.  It was after the move and I was swimming in a cardboard box jungle of confusion.  I had a surfeit of eggs and a strong craving for the palliative powers of pound cake.  I wanted to use this recipe implementing the slow cooker, because the new oven was so filthy it looked like toxic waste had been cooked in there.  As it turned out, the previous tenants had started an actual fire in the oven which melted the elements, but I digress.  At any rate, I could not find my mixer.  I had the beaters at hand, but not the machine.  :::sigh:::  So instead of mixing my cake by the recipe directions of creaming the butter and eggs together first, I employed the muffin method of mixing.  This means I melted the butter, beat the eggs and combined all the liquids and solids separately, and then mixed all of the ingredients together all at once.  From that point, I proceeded with the recipe in baking it.  I knew it would at least be sweet and hoped it would be edible.

What I got was both unexpected and lovely.  The cake recipe treated this way is a firm, spongy cake similar in texture to the sweet little cake rounds found in the produce section alongside strawberries at my grocer's and are meant for strawberry shortcake.  The slices are firm and slightly rubbery in a pleasant way, and are extremely portable.  They make for virtually crumb-free, grab-and-go snacking for little ones to eat--even in the car.  Incidentally, they make a fine strawberry shortcake base.  This version is by far my daughter's favorite of the two, being of the grab-and-go tendency her own adult self.

Made the creaming way, the manner by which the recipe is intended to be made, you obtain a cake more like the texture of a normal pound cake.  I prefer the taste and texture of this traditional method myself.  It is still moist, but possibly not quite as moist as the one made by the muffin method.  The slight steaming involved in baking this in the slow cooker makes it reminiscent of pound cake I've had in good Chinese restaurants.

Besides its application in a just-moved situation where the moving-from oven needs to be kept clean or the new one is in question, slow cooker cake baking has other practical uses.  Keep this recipe on hand for when a hurricane is impending and you're using up your eggs in baking projects and cooking up your meats.  You can tuck the slow cooker cake in some out-of-the-way place and let it do its thing while you scurry about cooking other things.  It's also convenient during holiday time when you swear you need three ovens to cope with the volume of dishes that somehow need to be worked into the oven alongside that big honker turkey and/or ham, the myriad of casserole dishes and, heavens, don't forget the ROLLS!

Note:  This recipe has very specific requirements for success, but it is still not exact due to extreme variations in temperature from one slow cooker to the next.  Experiment on your own to find the equipment combination that produces results you like.  I used a large 7-quart Corelle oval slow cooker with an 8 1/2" x 4" Corelle loaf pan.  Look around your own cupboards for Pyrex and Corelle cookware that might fit your slow cookers.  Handles are problematic, as the pan really does need to sit deep in the pot.  At some point, I plan to try pairing Pyrex bowls with my slow cookers and see how that turns out.  If you do it before I do, please get back with me on any success tips.  I do NOT recommend baking the cake directly in the slow cooker liner.  The baking is too uneven.  It will burn the edges something fierce, dry out to Styrofoam consistency in patches and likely still be raw in the middle.

Barbara G's Two-Way Crockpot Cake

2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
5 large eggs
1/4 cup evaporated milk OR 1/3 cup instant powdered milk dissolved in 1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1) Traditional Pound Cake Creaming Method

Mist with non-stick spray an 8 ½" x 4" glass or Corelle loaf pan.  Fit the bottom with a rectangle of parchment paper.  Carefully place the loaf pan into the slow cooker, leaving an equal margin of space around the edges of the pan.  Put the lid on and turn the slow cooker to High to preheat for 15 minutes before mixing the cake.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, cream of tartar and salt.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add vanilla and mix until blended.  Add eggs one at a time, beating about one minute after each addition, or until each egg is fully incorporated into the batter.  Add milk and beat until blended.

Add flour mixture and mix just until well-blended, scraping sides of the bowl as you go, about two minutes.  The batter needs to be smooth without lumps, but be careful not to over-mix.  This needs to get into the slow cooker right away once the dry ingredients are incorporated.

Moving quickly so as not to lose much heat, remove the lid from the slow cooker and push out batter into loaf pan.  Spread it evenly in the pan.  Lay a small, clean, 100% cotton terrycloth hand towel over the rim of the slow cooker, taking care not to let it drape onto the batter in the loaf pan.  Replace the lid, pulling on towel if necessary to keep it pulled taut and completely straight across the rim of the slow cooker and not dropping into the cake pan.

Bake for 2 1/2-3 hours, or until cake has begun to pull away from the sides of the loaf pan.  It will be tricky to sneak a peek, as you must lift the lid and the towel simultaneously.  Do not do it before 2 1/2 hours have elapsed.  When it looks done, remove the lid and towel and CAREFULLY remove the loaf pan from the slow cooker and let it cool on a cake rack for 15 minutes.  Be mindful that all parts of the slow cooker lid, liner and loaf pan are extremely hot, and protect yourself from burns.  Run a knife around the edges and turn it out onto a rack.  Peel off the parchment paper and allow cake to cool before slicing.
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2) Muffin Method Spongy Cake

Mist an 8 1/2" glass or Pyrex loaf pan with non-stick spray and fit the bottom with a rectangle of parchment paper.  Carefully place the loaf pan into the slow cooker, leaving an equal margin of space around the edges of the pan.  Put the lid on and turn the slow cooker to High to preheat about 15 minutes before mixing the cake.

In a small microwaveable bowl, melt the butter and set it aside to cool for a few minutes.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, salt and sugar.  Stir until blended completely.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with the milk.  Add  the vanilla extract and stir to blend.  Stir in the cooled, melted butter and stir well to blend.

Pour the egg/milk/butter mixture into the flour mixture and beat by hand until batter is smooth and mostly lump-free, but do not over-mix.  Immediately pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan inside the slow cooker liner.  Move quickly so as not to lose too much heat and be careful not to burn yourself.  The loaf pan, lid and the slow cooker liner will be extremely hot.  Level the batter quickly with the spoon.  Lay a small, clean, 100% cotton terrycloth hand towel over the rim of the slow cooker liner.  Replace the lid, pulling on towel if necessary to keep it pulled taut and completely straight across the rim of the slow cooker and not dropping into the cake pan.

Bake for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or until cake has begun to pull away from the sides of the loaf pan. It will be tricky to sneak a peek, because you must lift the lid and the towel simultaneously. Do not do it before 2 1/2 hours have elapsed. When it looks done, remove the lid and towel and CAREFULLY remove the loaf pan from the slow cooker and let it cool on a cake rack for 15 minutes.  Run a knife around the edges and turn it out onto a rack.  Peel off the parchment paper and allow cake to cool before slicing.

I think you'll enjoy playing with this recipe and adapting it to your own equipment.  Once you get the technique down, I believe it will spark ideas on how to use it to your best advantage.  Think of baking a cake in the dead of summer...in your slow cooker on your patio table or front porch!  Your kitchen stays cool and you'll have fresh pound cake to serve with whipped cream and strawberries or whatever other berry is in season.  You are SO clever.  Then when everybody asks where you got that clever idea, you send them to my blog and we all share even more clever ideas, because we're cool like that.  And yes, at 59 I am probably way too old to use that expression and some of you young'uns are scoffing.  Scoff away, young'uns.  You only hope you look and feel this good at 59.  Seriously, God's richest blessings on you all as we close out 2011 and look forward to 2012.  This past year was marvelous, but 2012 is going to be even better!  Have yourself a merry little cake-eating Christmas!

Frugally yours,

Barbara Houston Garrett

www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/barbaragarrett

Deodorant/Antiperspirant Savings--Extreme Frugality!

All of these containers are destined for the trash as soon as I'm through with them this evening.  As best as I can calculate, this amounts to somewhere between $60.00-$70.00 worth of underarm odor protection.  These bulky stick containers all once held a relatively small amount of product inside, especially the orange ones, and still have a naggingly wasteful little bit of product left on the roll-up thing.  This is a little over a year's worth for ONE person.  Those plastic containers will go straight into a landfill.  But what to do?  I don't want to stink!

Before I go any further, let me be very clear: we ALL need to use some kind of effective odor control in the armpit area.  No exceptions!  No one stinks as an island unto himself.  Your stink liberty ends where my nose begins, you know.  Deodorant separates us from the monkeys.  My only quibble is that this odor protection comes in a highly commercially packaged, highly ecologically reprehensible form.  Perhaps there are safer, cheaper, greener options.

As for antiperspirants, I'm no longer as thoroughly Madison Avenue brain-washed that this IS an essential toiletry.  I'm no longer persuaded that it is a great idea to block the sweat glands any place on the body, but especially not wise for women to do so and especially not in that specific area.  God designed us so that the toxins come OUT of the body with the sweat, not stay locked in by some chemical so that they are reabsorbed into the body along with that chemical.  I don't know about you, but I want to be buried at a ripe old age with my "girls" fully intact!  A lady should not have to exchange body parts for sweat reduction.  That's way too heavy a price.  Possibly the risk is over-stated.  I don't know.  You make that decision for yourself.

If you're tied to the commercial type of odor/wetness protection, I understand.  I was, for many decades.  There are still things you can do to save here.  Namely, buy the best generic that affords the same amount of protection for the dollar.  I have found no better wetness OR odor protection with the big name brands as I have over the cheapies.  Check the labels and get the identical chemicals on your generic as on the high-priced name brands for sometimes less than half.  And yet, you can do even more than THAT.

Even if you buy commercial product, there's one MORE thing you can do along the lines of my favorite pastime of squeezing every bit out of every penny.  I save those little dibs and dabs that are left on the little roll-up stick thing until I get a good bagful.  Then I scrape the bits out into a microwave-safe Pyrex dish, melt them down and pour them into a couple of the roll-up things. 

I have found it best NOT to mix different types of deodorant, but to melt together only the same types and fragrances.  When you're microwaving the bits, be sure to put a cup of water alongside it.  Trust me and just do it.  Something about preventing arc-ing.  Melt in 30-second increments until the stuff is softened and nearly melted with a few solid bits in it.  Then take it out and stir the bits until they're mostly melted.  You want it semi-solid, not too liquid a mixture.  I've never noticed any difference in the effectiveness of the essentially recycled deodorant or antiperspirant, but I just feel like it's better NOT to subject the stuff to more heat than is necessary to accomplish the mission.  

Now screw the little push-up thing down to its lowest place and then pour/pack the semi-solid mixture into the plastic case.  Use a spoon to pack it down to remove any air pockets.  Prop the stick so that it doesn't topple until it hardens thoroughly, at least overnight.  

Cost:  It's pretty much FREE, except for your time. 

Now if you're like me and enjoy walking on the wild side of frugality, there ARE options outside of the commercial product.  You need not be in bondage to them!  Even if you want to use them on an everyday basis, consider some natural odor-eating ideas.  They're great to have in mind for use in emergencies when either your own cash is strained due to job loss or other financial crunch, or during a disaster situation where heading outside your home could be dangerous. 
 
Of course, when experimenting with any new product on your skin, even the natural ones, exercise some common sense.  Some people may have contact allergies to certain substances, so you might want to test the product on your arm or leg before applying it to the more sensitive armpit skin.  Also, some of these ideas might work best for you in combination.  Play with it.  It's your skin!  I would advise that before combining any products on your skin, you keep basic chemistry in mind.  For instance, I don't think it would be a good idea to dampen your armpit with white vinegar and then swab on baking soda.

Here we go, some ideas for natural odor-fighting:

1.  Clean more often.  Several times a day, give the underarm area a quick swipe with a cleansing solution.  Some ideas:  soap and water, rubbing alcohol and water, distilled white vinegar and water, apple cider vinegar and water, baking soda and water, witch hazel, water with a little lemon juice in it, radish juice diluted with water, baking soda and lemon juice in water, water with a few drops of rose water, water infused with sage, an ounce of water with  two drops of an essential oil known for neutralizing odors (like lavender, tea tree).  
2.  Drink a cup of sage-infused tea each day (1 cup boiling water, 1 teaspoon dried sage).
3.  Dust with baking soda.
4.  Dust with cornstarch.
5.  Dust with a mixture of baking soda and cornstarch (my current favorite).
6 .  Make your own deodorant cream with equal parts baking soda, cornstarch and slightly melted coconut oil, with or without a few drops of essential oil.  Of the natural options, this is probably the priciest, unless you already have it in your pantry.  I do, as a food item.  Coconut oil is better than butter for helping salt adhere to popped corn, and adds its own flavor that tastes nothing at all like coconut.  It also is shelf-stable in relatively cool room temperatures (no higher than 75 degrees).  Coconut oil, once maligned by nutritionists, is currently embraced by them as a superior fat.  You decide.  

As a cosmetic, coconut oil melts instantly at body temperature and absorbs quickly into the skin.  It rinses easily from the fingers, unlike the commercial deodorant gunk.  A bonus is that coconut oil is a mild antifungal, which happens to be a great fringe benefit in a deodorant!  

I made a batch of this deodorant cream over the weekend and have been using it ever since, applied with my fingertips.  I didn't even bother to put it into a stick, as the melt point is so low that one power outage or AC malfunction would reduce my cosmetics drawer to a greasy mess.  I have mine in a deli container at present, but am thinking of transferring it to a baby food jar.  Because it IS an oil, I do allow a few minutes for it to absorb into my skin before putting on any clothes.  I also do not apply too much.  Each armpit needs no more than a teeny-tiny piece of deodorant the size of a black-eyed pea! 

I plan to alternate using the cream with using the powder.  I will probably use the powder when I'm in a rush out the door and don't want to hang around for the cream to absorb.  For ease of use, I store the powder in an 8-ounce recycled deli container that an old talcum powder puff happens to fit exactly.  After my shower, while my skin is still slightly damp, I press on the mixture under my arms and under the "girls," where odor can be as big of a problem as under the arms.  In other words, I use it pretty much as I would talcum powder in those areas.  Now I would NOT put a baking soda/cornstarch powdered mixture near any orifice, as I believe we could be courting a yeast infection.  'Nuff said!  A precaution is in order, too, about not being too vigorous with fluffing the powder all over.  With any powdered substance, there is always a risk of inhaling it to the detriment of lungs and sinuses.

You will notice that I do not mention the popular crystal deodorant of which so many are fond.  This is because it has the same aluminum in it that I'm trying to avoid in the store-bought antiperspirants.  

Oh, and there is no aluminum in baking soda, as some have mistakenly believed.  These dear souls are confusing baking powder with baking soda.  There IS some aluminum in the most popular brands of baking powder.  Even then, non-aluminum baking powder is available, but you'll have to hunt for it.  Regardless, do not put baking powder in these deodorant recipes!  Baking soda only, please!  I probably should not confuse you further by telling you that baking soda is one of the components of baking powder.  Ah, I guess I just did.

COST:  As with anything else, the cost on any of these alternative deodorant options will depend upon how cheaply one can obtain the ingredients.  A 50/50 mix of baking soda and cornstarch will run roughly $1.40 for 2 pounds of mixture.  I pay much less, because I get baking soda in 12-pound bags from the pool supplies department of my local box store, as we use baking soda for cleaning produce and general household cleaning, too.  

If you apply about 1 teaspoon of the baking soda/cornstarch mixture per day, then those two pounds will last you about 192 days, or a little over six months!  Now I don't care HOW cheaply you buy your deodorant, $1.40 for six months' worth (or about half of what's in the photo above) beats store-bought at any price!  If you add in a pound of coconut oil to make the deodorant cream, that jacks the price up fairly steeply by $5.00, so that would be $6.40 for six months' worth of deodorant, still a bargain over the store-bought kind.  On top of the savings, you're keeping all those plastic deodorant cases out of the landfill.

Of course, if this natural deodorant fails to stanch the stench, then all of this is a moot point.  So does it work?  For me, it does!  It's going on three weeks now that I've worn nothing but baking soda/cornstarch mix under my arms, alternated with the cream form.  I smell at least as good as I did when wearing the store-bought gook.  I don't even seem to sweat any more than when using the commercial product.  What is interesting to me, too, is that my underarm area no longer has that 24/7 greasy feeling to which I'd become accustomed all those many years of smashing store-bought deodorants and antiperspirants onto my skin.  This is true even with the cream formula, but especially with the powder.  I was not expecting the perk of actually feeling cleaner in foregoing store-bought odor and wetness protection! 

On another delicate note, if you suffer much odor and wetness below "the girls," you may safely apply some of the powder or cream there, but do use a light hand.  In addition to being a natural deodorizer, baking soda is a natural abrasive.  A bra band will chafe mightily if the powder is applied too heavily, despite the cushioning action of the cornstarch.  Ouch!

Let me add that up to the past few weeks, I have been wearing some form of commercial antiperspirant every single day for over four decades.  My underarms have been assaulted daily with all manner of chemicals in an effort to combat both sweat and odor.  It may well be that I stopped up my pores and glands to the degree that they are not working properly now.  It is entirely possible that one day my underarm sweat glands my open up with a fury and pour out vileness into the air around me.  Ugh.

At that time, I may well resume my expensive commercial deodorant usage, cost and ecology be damned.  Even so, I doubt I will go back to antiperspirants.  Until that day when I begin to stink and before I am reported for polluting the air, I shall continue to dust or smooth on my natural deodorant.  I will enjoy saving my pennies and feeling cleaner, to boot.  The fact that I'm cutting down a little on my daily exposure to strong chemicals gives me just a bit more peace of mind, too.  Can win/win be this easy?  Sometimes, yes it can.  : )

Frugally yours, 
Barbara Houston Garrett
www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/barbaragarrett

It's CURTAINS for ya!

Referring to my blog entry of 6/25/09 entitled Thirteen Quick Tips to Save Money, I want to expand upon one of the thirteen tips, the one about window insulating.  Although this idea is certainly nothing new, it is an important energy-saver.  Let me tell you about what we did recently.  

First, we already had wooden shutters up on most of the windows, which are marvelously energy-efficient, if not always exactly in style.  Pooh on that notion, because I like them!  Besides, wooden shutters have the highest "R" factor of all the customary window treatments.  However, several notably hot windows do not have wooden shutters, all three facing west.  I'm not sure we ever can put them there, either, because there's not enough open/shut clearance for them.  They're in the kitchen, which always got unbearably hot in the afternoons, even with heavy white canvas curtains.  Summer afternoon sun turns those windows so hot that a hand placed near them feels like reaching into an oven.  Even the cats avoid sitting in them mid-afternoon, despite the nice wide ledges, because the glass gets hot enough to burn!  

We pretty much avoided all kitchen activity in the afternoons, and could almost HEAR the electric meter racing, trying to keep our house cool.  Of course, that meant all daytime cooking activity ceased, because no way were we going to generate any more heat in there.  The air conditioner was struggling, as it was.  For us to eat the overwhelming majority of our meals at home--a conviction for us--that meant we cooked only late at night and/or early in the morning.  After two years of enduring the kitchen sauna and the accompanying high energy bills, I did something about it.  Finally!  

Now I will say that what I desperately wanted to do was to erect some sort of physical barrier outside to keep the sun from coming into the house in the first place.  That would have been ideal.  I had in mind a huge rose arbor that spanned the entire length of the kitchen and extended out from the roof enough that the kitchen was completely in the shade.  Lacking the funds and know-how to do this, I decided to work on what I could handle INSIDE the house.  That would be window treatments that prevented the heat that passed through the window glass from radiating into the room.

I added a second layer of curtains.  More nearly accurately, I guess they should be called window blankets.  I cut lengths of white Polarfleece to fit the windows with only a little bit of extra ease so they'd cover the window edges, too.  I edge finished with my serger and put a simple casing on one end of each panel.  Then I hung them on tension rods inside the window frames, behind the decorative curtains.  Oh.  my.  GOSH!  What a difference!  Even on the hottest days, the whole kitchen and dining area now stay as pleasantly cool as the rest of the house, without that open oven door feeling we always got in the afternoons.

I had a little extra white Polarfleece, so I made two more curtains for two East-facing windows in the office/sewing room that already have wooden shutters, but which catch the full brunt of the morning sun every day.  The difference has been felt here, too, as the room does not warm up the way it used to early in the morning.  I used to think it was the computer generating all that heat, but I was wrong.

All this got me to thinking about our enclosed garage/playroom that stays too warm in the summer and too cold in the winter, despite the air conditioner and gas fireplace in there.  Might the windows and glass doors there also be contributing to the heat problem?  We had wooden shutters in there, so I'd thought we were covered, but maybe not.  Maybe heat was escaping into the room at the shutter door edges.  One of the glass doors stayed oven-door hot, even with the decorative curtain hanging over it, so I knew we could improve there.  

Fresh out of Polarfleece and time, I picked up some cheapo plain insulated curtains from my friendly dollar store.  The curtains were $8.00 each, and I got five, one for each window and the two glass doors.  I cut them off, hemmed them and hung them and then fully realized why they were marked down--they were pug-ugly!  What I'd thought to be a lovely neutral taupe in the package looked like a pair of boring khaki Mom pants when hung up.  Boring would never do--not in the playroom!  We needed color!  We needed bright color!  So, fast-forward to a fistful of acrylic paints in primary hues and an afternoon of amazing mess and now we have these gorgeous hand-print curtains.  I think they're stunning, and fun, fun, FUN!  As a result, yes, the playroom now feels just as cool in the summer as the rest of the house.  Not to mention, those hand-prints make it LOOK cool.  : )

Now let's get down to brass tacks on the money part.  I did all of this curtain work at the beginning of the summer, about the first of June.  We made NO other changes in our electricity usage.  Entergy says that their per-kilowatt hour charges for the summer months this year have increased over last year's.  That means, even if we used precisely the same amount of energy we did last year, we'd be paying more for it.  That being said, our electric bills since I put up the curtains have averaged--drum roll, please--fifty dollars LESS each month than the corresponding months of last summer.  Yes, even with an energy cost hike, we paid fifty dollars LESS each month over last year!  Do The Happy Dance with me!  

What that boils down to is one month's power bill savings paid for the cost of the curtains I was compelled to buy for the playroom.  The rest of them came from my home "fabric store," with fabric I bought about ten years ago at ten-years-ago prices.  If I had to guess, I'd say that cost me no more than $20-$30 total, because I rarely ever paid more than $2-$3.00 a yard for fabric.  These curtains will last us for years and years of power bill savings.  They all machine wash in cool water, so no dry cleaning bills.  The store-bought curtains must hang dry to avoid ungluing the insulating layer, but the Polarfleece ones endure the dryer just fine.

Of course, it isn't simply about the outright energy savings of $50 each month, although that's fun enough to make me nigh unto giddy.  It's also more than saving on the wear and tear of our air conditioner, which, if you've priced central cooling units lately, is still nothing to sneeze at!  No, as much as anything, it's about the resulting immediate comfort factor in all these rooms, which are now more appropriately the hubs of activity of their created design.  

Moreover, what insulates against summer heat will also do the same for winter cold.  I cannot wait to see how the curtains help our power bills over the next few months of our schizophrenic weather where we may have alternating very cold and very hot days.  This is our typical Mississippi autumn/winter.  I expect the curtains will help keep those rooms more livable and cozy on the chilly days, too.

One more thing: there is a type of daily maintenance necessary with insulating window treatments like this, especially if you have cats and/or children who push the curtains back or even occasionally yank them down.  We call them "breakaway" curtains, because a good tug will bring the whole thing crashing down upon a head.  While the bright side is that nothing has been broken since the whole assembly is so lightweight, the dark side is that the tension rod must be re-installed each time the cat/child pulls it down.  It also must be re-installed straight or it looks really unkempt and trashy from outside.  

Also, for the insulating properties to be most effective, the curtains need to be flush against the glass and the curtains need to cover all edges.  Further, during the summer, it's best to keep the West side curtains, blinds, shutters or other window treatments open in the morning and shut in the afternoon.  On the East side, keep them shut in the morning and open in the afternoon.  Reverse that whole process through the cold winter months to maximize heat retention/heat gain benefits.  It also helps to put some kind of draft stopper at the bottoms of doors and windows, even if it's only a rolled up towel.

Yes, it is yet one more thing to do each day, this opening and shutting of curtains and shutters, and it can tend toward the tedious.  However, I find the routine most comforting, a necessary physical grounding.  It helps me start the new day when I open up the house in the morning.  I check the weather to gauge what to wear, and see the continuity of life with the birds and squirrels feeding outside my window.  It helps me keep track of the passing time and stay accountable.  When it turns noon and is time to make the window curtain switches on the East and West sides of the house, it reminds me when I'm off-track with what I'd planned to do that day.  I still have time to adjust, to reduce distractions, to re-focus and to change what I'm doing to make sure the truly important things get done. 

Then, as I shut down the house in the evenings, it helps me to "power down" myself.  As I go about closing curtains and shutters, I assess the day.  I decide what I need to do in order to meet my goals tomorrow.  I release the hurts of the day to my Heavenly Father, because I don't want to carry them to bed.  I thank Him for the day's blessings, because even on the most difficult days, the blessings far outweigh the trials.  Gratitude goes a long way toward sweetening even those.  An old, possibly eye-rollingly corny idea to some folk, but it recharges me, centers me and warms me...insulates me, if you will...just as shutters and extra layers of curtains insulate my home.  Some old ideas are worth clinging to, corny or not, simply because they work.  Selah.

Frugally yours,
Barbara Houston Garrett

www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/barbaragarrett

Microwave Cocoa Brownies and MYO Mix

A note about the little glass mug up top here.  This is one of two I have left that I collected many years ago from either peanut butter or jelly from some brand I now forget.  I love these glasses and wish I had more!  Focusing now on the plate:  BROWNIES!!!  Everybody has a favorite brownie recipe.  This is one of mine, adapted for the microwave.  Yep, they're quick.  To save additional time, I've given instructions for making it up as a mix.  Incidentally, you'll usually save a few bucks over regular, preservative-laden purchased mixes.  Oh, and did I mention that these are scrumptious brownies?!  They are the fudgy, chewy type with a slightly crackly thin crust, so if you want the cake type, look elsewhere.  

If you'll look closely at the photo above, you will notice that the brownie on the right looks slightly darker on top.  This brownie has actually been turned upside-down, to show you this especially delicious darker layer.  It's where some of the chocolate chips have sunk to the bottom and have melted into the batter there to make it particularly luscious and candy-like.  You will not want a frosting with these brownies!

Caveat:  Because of this luscious dark layer, you MUST prepare the brownie pan just as I say, or they will not release from the pan.  This particular recipe and method of cooking leaves the brownies with a thin layer of semi-solid chocolate on the bottom.  Although it is delectable, it is problematic when removing the brownies.  No amount of greasing or misting the pan with non-stick spray will help.  You must lay down some parchment paper, which neatly solves the "problem."  Not only does the paper make it possible to remove the entire block of brownies in one piece cleanly, but it frees up the pan to (what else?!) make more brownies without wasting time to wash a pan!

CAUTION:  Microwave cooking times vary slightly from one oven to the next.  You may have to make up this recipe several times to get the timing precise for YOUR appliance.  What takes mine 4 minutes and 24 seconds may take yours 4 minutes and 10 seconds--or more or less.

While you're practicing on getting the time right, be assured that even when the brownies are not the very BEST batch, they're still pretty tasty.  I advise erring on the side of under-baking them, as they continue to cook for some time after being removed from the oven.  The truly under-cooked brownies can still be scooped into a bowl and eaten with a spoon.  The hard ones can be dunked into milk or coffee to soften them so as not to break a tooth, as for biscotti.  However, the really burned ones are nasty and good for nothing but the trash.  Try cooking them 4 minutes first, and then add or subtract seconds to come up with the brownie doneness and texture you like best.

Barbara G's Microwave Brownies

1 stick (1/4 cup) butter
1 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons dry cocoa powder
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Put the butter in a small microwave-safe bowl and microwave for about 30 seconds, or until the butter is mostly melted, but not entirely.  You want to have some cool lumps, so that when you stir it, it forms an opaque semi-liquid that's merely warm.  Set it aside to cool a few minutes.

Prepare the pan.  Line an 8" square Pyrex dish with a strip of parchment paper so that it hangs off on both sides like "ears."  Fold the ears/handles down a bit so that you can easily pour in the batter later.  It is not essential that the strip extend up all four sides of the dish, but only that it cover the bottom well with an overhang on two sides.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients.  Whisk very well to distribute the salt and baking powder.  Add in the chocolate chips and eggs, using a wooden spoon to stir them into the dry ingredients.  Add the softened butter and incorporate it into the mixture completely until no dry spots remain.

Spoon out batter into the prepared pan, taking care not to dislodge the parchment paper.  Spread to the edges, trying to maintain an even thickness.

Microwave on High for about 4 minutes and 24 seconds, or until the top loses its wet appearance entirely (even around the edges) and looks matte and dull.  Leaving it in the microwave oven, lay a single paper towel across the top, pushing it down as close to the brownies as possible without actually touching them.  Let them sit there (or on a solid, heat-proof surface like a wooden cutting board) until completely cool, or at least an hour.

After about an hour, remove the paper towel and replace it with an air-tight cover like aluminum foil.  Alternatively, you may remove the brownies from the pan and cut them into squares.  The parchment paper makes this easy.  The chips will be semi-solid after an hour, but the brownies can be lifted out of the pan carefully by the parchment ears/handles and then cut satisfactorily, if not completely cleanly.  I recommend 4 across and 4 down, for a total of 16 brownies.  If you let them cool overnight, but well covered, the brownies will cut more cleanly as the chips will completely solidify and yet still provide a soft and luscious layer on the bottom.  By then, the top will have developed into the characteristic thin layer of dry, crackly brownie crust that we so enjoy.

Unless very tightly wrapped, these brownies dry out quickly, and are best eaten within the first 24 hours of being made.  In theory, they SHOULD freeze well, as do pretty much all cookies.  Ours simply have never hung around long enough to test them in the freezer. 

Yield:  16 brownies

Variation:  Instead of the semi-sweet chocolate chips, you may substitute white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, or peanut butter chips.  The texture is a little different, as you don't get that same fudgy bottom layer as with semi-sweet chocolate chips, but still plenty tasty. 

Cost:  About $1.25 for the entire batch.  If you're really penny-pinching, you CAN substitute a neutral-flavored oil like canola or even a solid shortening for the butter, as that one stick of not-on-sale butter cost me about 58 cents, a major expense of the recipe.  You might even prefer the taste and texture of brownies made with oil or shortening if you're accustomed to the flavor of commercial mixes, but I consider the butter a necessary splurge at whatever price I am compelled to pay for it.  

An avid couponer can probably get decent mixes for this price or occasionally even less, but then you must not mind the preservatives and what is to my palate a slightly stale, somewhat metallic after-taste.  If you buy the mixes straight off the shelf, you're looking at anywhere from about $3.00+ for the usual mix brands to $15.00+ for a frou-frou mix.

Now if you want to match the time outlay of mixes and yet have the full, rich chocolate and buttery flavor of homemade from-scratch brownies, make up your own mix!  It takes about the same amount of time to make up dry mix for four batches of brownies as it does for one.  Incidentally, these would be marvelous gifts.  Just attach the printed recipe to the jar. 

Barbara G's Make-Ahead Microwave Brownie Mix 

4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups cocoa powder
5 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients except for chocolate chips and whisk thoroughly, so that all ingredients are very well mixed and any lumps in the cocoa powder are eliminated.  Do it longer than you might think necessary, scraping the bowl several times.  There's not that much salt or baking powder, but they are essential.  To be extra-sure that you have it perfectly mixed, you might want to sift it several times.  

Divide mix among four pint canning jars, or recycled peanut butter jars.  Divide the chocolate chips among the jars--1/2 cup each.  Store in air-tight containers at cool room temperature and use the mix within two to three months. 

Yield: 4 recipes of brownie mix.  If using these for gifts, affix a nicely typed recipe as above for baking instructions OR do as I do if I'm making the mix for our own household and write on a piece of masking tape "Brownies--2 eggs, 1 stick butter, 2 t. vanilla."  I know what to do with them.  I'll bet you will, too.

Say, wouldn't this be a fabulous time to go to a big discount store and buy up economy sized packages of flour, sugar, chocolate chips and cocoa powder?  Round up all the peanut butter, jelly, mayonnaise, or condiment jars you've been holding onto to recycle (that hold about 2 1/2 cups) and clean them up thoroughly.  Then the next time you have the family together, put them to work and mix up a quadruple batch of the mix.  Have your computer geeky one to print out the recipe with a pretty Christmas-themed border.  Have your arty one to convert your newspapers into Christmas-themed wrapping paper with potato print stamps and poster paint.  

There you go:  Christmas gifts--DONE EARLY, and all without breaking the bank!  Bake up a batch of brownies to celebrate.

Frugally yours,
Barbara Houston Garrett

www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/barbaragarrett

Saving on Dill Pickles

I adore dill pickles.  I always have.  I liked them as a child when I helped Mama make them with cucumbers from our garden.  I remember happily chopping them up into my bowl of black-eyed peas at supper and then dribbling extra dill pickle juice onto them.  Good eating!  I seriously protested the sweet ones my grandmother preferred both to make and to eat, considering even her mildly sweet bread-and-butter pickles far inferior to my beloved dills.  

However, my fondest memory of dill pickles is during my college days, which was none-of-your-business years ago.  A tall, blonde hunk with the dreamiest blue eyes worked the sandwich counter and made THE best sandwiches.  He whipped out a fabulous tuna salad, among others, but I nearly always ordered the same thing to keep my focus:  grilled cheese with a generous side of dill pickles.  Keeping my menu simple gave me more time to flirt with Mr. Hunk, without trivial distractions like sandwich contents.  It also allowed him to go on complete automatic and to flirt back!  After all, he knew exactly what I was going to order and how I liked it, and he was eager to please.  And no, I shall not reveal his name.  He is happily married to a wonderful lady and I would not dream of embarrassing either of them...well, except for this much.  Besides, he is well aware of his gifts, and I'm sure she is enjoying some scrumptious sandwiches right about now.  :::sigh:::  My own sandwich guy will come some day.

BUT ENOUGH OF THAT!  Let's talk pickles!  Sometimes I make my own, but mostly I don't.  I buy them by the gallon jug, and I don't know why every frugal pickle eater does not do this.  It seems simple, but this is one area of saving on food cost that seems to be overlooked often.  I can buy an entire gallon of whole pickled cucumbers for about $5.00, whereas the same amount bought in smaller pints and quarts of slices and spears costs upwards of $20.00!  This is insane!  Pickles keep for ages as long as the opened jar is refrigerated and one is careful not to inject bacteria into the jars by doing naughty things like pulling out pickles with fingers instead of forks or tongs!

Of course, who wants a big gallon jug hogging valuable refrigerator real estate?  No problem!  Break it down!  We like mostly dill chips for burgers and other sandwiches (like grilled cheese!),  but we do enjoy the spears with meals.  So what I do is line up half a dozen or so squeaky clean glass jars recycled from salsa, olives, jalapenos and other condiments.  I grab my cutting board and a nice, sharp, thin-bladed, serrated knife and slice up the pickles into chips and spears.  It is messy, but one big mess and half an hour of slicing and I'm ready with several months' worth of ready-to-eat pickles.  I fill the jars with pickle juice from the gallon jug, and save the rest for pickled eggs.  I put one jar each of chips and spears to the front of the refrigerator for fast grabbing, and hide the rest of the jars in the very BACK until they are needed. 

Savings:  At least $10-$15 for every gallon I buy over the cost of the same amount of small jars of pickles.  For the two of us, that's 3-4 gallons a year, or $30-$45 we can put toward a special treat...or sandwich meat...or cheese!

About quick pickling eggs:  They're embarrassingly easy to make!  I peel the hard-cooked eggs, rinse off any shell bits, blot dry and drop them into a very clean quart jar.  I cover them with the left-over dill pickle juice and wedge a thick slice of raw onion on top to keep the eggs beneath the brine.  I screw on the cap and refrigerate them for a week and then serve them alongside black-eyed peas and cornbread, any bean meal or a country vegetable plate.  One of our favorite children enjoys pickled eggs for after-school snacks.  They'll keep well refrigerated about 2-3 weeks.

One thing I do insist upon for all of this is glass jars, both for the gallon jug of pickles and to store the re-jarred pickles.  I never buy pickled anything in plastic.  For one thing, I do not trust what chemicals the vinegar leaches out of the plastic and into our bodies.  For another thing, that pickle smell will NEVER come out of the plastic for the purpose of re-using the jug for storing other food items, and that is the second best reason FOR getting those glass jugs.  Now it will take a little doing to remove the pickle smell from the metal LIDS (baking soda, exposure to sunlight, wadded up newspaper, charcoal, whatever), but the glass jugs themselves are a cinch to clean.  

Yes, as if saving money on the pickles themselves is not enough, now you have this lovely, air-tight glass canister for FREE!  This is awesome!  Once thoroughly cleaned and dried, these glass gallon jugs are wonderful for storing all manner of food items bought in bulk, from flour and sugar to dry cereal, rice, whole grains and dried beans.  Low fat items store best, so that would mean flaked, puffed or the generic "o" cereals; NOT granola or anything with nuts or oily seeds like sesame or sunflower.  YES on the plain white flour, but NO on whole wheat flour.  It's best to grind wheat berries fresh before use, or simply cook them...OR make a batch of my blender pancakes.  The recipe is in my blog.  Do a search.  

If you intend to keep a food item for more than one year, you might want to add an oxygen absorber packet to the jug to help keep the product fresh.  Whole grains and beans won't need this nearly as much as any processed product, but they'll benefit, too.  One oxygen absorber packet added per gallon jug is the correct ratio.  Put a strip of packing tape on the lid as a low-tech prevention to curious little fingers breaking the seal and exposing the food to oxidation, thereby shortening the storage life.  

Now why would you bother to store dry cereal like this?  Well, I'll tell you why.  It's a great first line of defense toward feeding your family in a natural disaster, that's why!  This is not good for a long-term, obviously, but is an easy meal to fix while gathering one's wits after something has hit and the power is out, especially when served with dried or fresh fruit, or some rapidly defrosting frozen fruit.  After Hurricane Katrina hit and we were without power for about a week, it was hot, hot, HOT.  We could not even think of eating a warm meal, much less figuring out the logistics of preparing one.  We survived primarily on cold cereal, bananas, an assortment of dried fruit and nuts, PBJs, and two gallons of precious milk kept cold in a carefully insulated cooler with a juice jug ice block.  It was bliss having that cold cereal on hand!

As for how to stock up cheaply, I always wait for my grocer's loss leader specials, where cereal sells for about $2.00 a box.  Also, dry cereal companies are really good about spitting out coupons.  If you hit a special AND have a handful of coupons, you could stock up super-fast, super cheaply and have a pantry full of dry cereal stored in glass jugs and all ready for emergencies.  The bugs will be unhappy, but they don't pay the bills, so they can go get fat off somebody else's food who doesn't know all these cool techniques of proper food storage like you do.  How about that?!  It all started with a humble jar of pickles!

Now if you're feeling adventurous and your family goes through loads of other pickled items like jalapenos, consider breaking down institutional sized jugs of those peppers into smaller jars.  I think you'll find the savings on those are even greater if you normally eat a lot of them.  Do wear gloves, open a window and put on some safety goggles to avoid painful spashes!  Eye injuries are not frugal!

Frugally yours,
Barbara Houston Garrett

www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/barbaragarrett

Blender Pancakes from Wheat Berries

Pictured are plain pancakes and blueberry apple pancakes, a single batch split in half.  Note how neat and symmetrical the plain ones are, but how raggedy the blueberry apple ones are.  The fruits are murder on the structure, plus they stick to the griddle horribly.  The important thing, though, is that they both taste equally delicious!

Today's blog entry helps you do two main things:  1) learn how and why to store wheat berries, both short-term and long-term; 2) learn a fun way to incorporate whole wheat into your family's meals painlessly by making pancakes in an unusual way.  Both can involve the children in important life lessons and skills. 

You'll see wheat berries in my line-up of stored goods above, third bottle from the right, next to the oat flakes, next to the storage "essential" multi-colored chocolate candies.  I do not attempt to maintain a year's worth of food and supplies as some religions teach.  It is not so much a religious practice for me as a practical reason for having a little "cushion" of food and supplies. 

As Hurricane Irene bears down on the Eastern coast of the United States, I am hoping and praying that they are ready for this thing.  I hope that they're already prepared, that they took to heart some of the lessons we've learned from facing similar disasters.  It is far better to be prepared and wind up not needing it because the hurricane was lighter than anticipated, than to prepare insufficiently and suffer.  The suffering is much too great.

On Monday, August, 28, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi dead-on and was my big wake-up call about the value of general preparedness.  While everybody was scrambling for basic necessities, we assessed what we had and decided to make-do with what we had rather than subject ourselves to the considerable danger of going out into the craziness that had become the metro-Jackson area.  Although we had SOME food and toilet paper stored, it was not nearly enough to have a comfortable margin of supply.  Even though I had cash on hand to purchase supplies, none were available, and an indefinite period of time loomed before supply lines could run again to our area.  Worse, since there was no electricity, we had to keep our windows open to survive the 94-100 degree heat.  Heat, humidity and insects claimed some of the food we had, primarily because it was improperly stored. 

I realized I'd made myself vulnerable by drifting too far away from my childhood farming roots.  We always preserved food to last from one growing season to the next.  In bumper crop years, we preserved enough to allow for bad crop years.  It was the height of foolishness to do otherwise.  Today we take for granted that whenever we want a certain food or ingredient, we can simply run out to the store to pick it up.  It's easy, so easy that it sometimes seems silly and perhaps even neurotic to plan beyond a week's worth of food and supplies...EXCEPT in times of personal or regional disaster when our normal supply lines are shut down.  Like Katrina.  

I determined to learn how to store things better, to learn which foods stored best and in which forms, and to set up a sufficient food and supply safety cushion.  Nobody around me seemed to know how to do that the way I remembered it done, so I turned to some folks who did--the Mormons, or Latter Day Saints, LDS, as they seem to prefer to be called.  Although the good LDS folk and I will be separated forever by our theology, we agree solidly on preparedness.  It is not an option; it is a commonsense necessity.  They have taught me much on the subject of food preparation and storage, and I am still learning.  I happily pass it on to you.

Let's talk about wheat.  The LDS are well-known for storing their wheat, and for great reason-- bread is made from it and bread is the staff of life!  One COULD live on just good whole grain bread and water, if need be.  In addition, wheat and other whole grains can be sprouted for use as fresh greens.

What kind of wheat to buy?  There are two basic kinds, soft and hard, and their best uses differ.  For things like pancakes and cakes where you want a more tender texture and need less gluten structure, you want soft wheat berries.  Flour made from soft wheat is what you buy as pastry flour.  For yeast-risen loaf breads, you want hard wheat, which yields high-gluten, higher protein bread flour.  Both grains are stored the same. 

Where to buy wheat berries?  I usually buy mine from Rainbow Whole Foods in Jackson, MS, but have bought from Honeyville Grains online and heartily recommend both as reliable suppliers with products of excellent quality and good service-- http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/ for those without a local supplier, or for the metro-Jackson folks-- http://www.rainbowcoop.org/  Ask Rainbow about quantity discounts. 

Do buy from a reliable whole food dealer.  Grain sold for livestock is NOT suitable for human consumption, so do not cut corners and buy at a feed store.  Look for what's designated as "triple-cleaned" for the best value and the least amount of work at prep time.  Even so, it is important to look through the grains before using them in each recipe.  I like to do this as I do for beans, by pouring them out in a single layer in a white plate.  Then I pick out things I don't want to eat, like weed seeds, tiny bits of dirt, assorted field trash, and mysterious little whatevers that simply are not wheat berries.  It is far easier work with triple-cleaned.  Most health food stores and wholesale suppliers have very clean wheat.  If in doubt, look at it. 

Why bother to store wheat?  Price, for one thing.  We're eating wheat now that we bought in 2006, which means we're eating it at 2006 prices rather than the much higher 2011 prices.  Another reason is that wheat berries can be stored for many years longer than flour, which can be stored only 1-12 months, depending upon the kind of flour.  Possibly the very BEST reason to store wheat, though, is that it gives you access to the vastly superior flavor of baked goods made from home-ground wheat.  Even if you decide you don't want to mill your own flour, cooked wheat berries are fabulously flavorful little nuggets of fiber in yeast breads and quick breads alike.  Wheat berries also make their own toothsome breakfast porridge that is tasty all on its own, they can be added to soups or stews, or they can be used like rice for various side dish pilafs.

Cost comparison to flour:  In my experience through the years, whatever commercially milled flour costs at any given time, whole wheat berries yield flour that comes in at roughly 40-50% LESS than that bought even in the box stores or on loss leader sales.  So even if you buy only one year's worth of wheat at a time, you're still saving substantially over the current market price of flour.  Estimate that 1 cup of wheat berries translates roughly into 1 1 3/4 cups of flour or 1 pound of berries will grind up to make about 4 1/2 cups of flour.   

Of course--BIG CAVEAT-- you'd have to make a LOT of bread to offset the cost of a decent electric grain grinder.  I still have one of those on my dream list!  I do have a far cheaper manual grinder, but the amount of work required to turn out only one cup of flour means I'd have to be on the hardest of hard times to use it.  I'm talking about 5 minutes of constant turning at a good clip of speed to turn out only ONE cup of flour!  When one recipe for two loaves of bread requires 5 1/2 cups of flour and I make six loaves at a time using about 17 cups of flour...um...yeah.  Forget it!  So does that little monkey wrench bring all this money saving on buying wheat berries to a halt?  Nay, nay!

For the pancakes below, you need no grinder at all.  You need only a blender!  You don't need a fancy one, either.  I use my 36-year-old Harvest Gold colored Hamilton Beach blender, about as bare bones as a blender can get, and it does just fine.  I am most careful not to let it overheat, as it can do while grinding the berries.  Even so, I can turn out several batches of pancake batter at a time.  Once you've tried them, I believe you'll see how a person could justify buying wheat berries in bulk simply for the assurance of many years' worth of delicious, inexpensive pancakes. 

How to store wheat:  There are many ways, but I suggest low tech for simplicity and expense.  Unless you plan to store your wheat for much longer than 5-7 years, this method will suit you just fine.  My very favorite wheat berry storage is in transparent juice jugs, the gallon or half-gallon shelf-stable kind; NOT the refrigerated kind.  The shelf-stable plastic jugs are different and are made for long-term storage.  The refrigerated kind are not.  As a rule of thumb to determine suitability for re-use in food storage, check the bottom of the jug or jar for the letters "PET" or "PETE" embossed on the jug itself.  The best thing about using juice jugs is that they're FREE, but they're also air-tight and will float if the unthinkable happens.  With all the flooding here in Mississippi this year, a lot of us have been thinking about the unthinkable.

Another good choice for storing your whole grains is gallon and half-gallon glass pickle jugs or other "PET" or "PETE" containers like peanut butter jars, mayonnaise jars, and some chip jugs.  I'll bet you're already headed to your pantry now, turning over all your jars to look for those embossed letters.  I think that's great!  What you recycle for your food storage stays out of landfills, and that's better for all of us. 

While we're talking about storing wheat, all of what I say here applies to storing other grains and grain products, or any dry foods, for that matter.  You are not compelled to share your food with the bugs, but they will not give up without a fight.  The answer is NOT in spraying so much pesticide all over the place that you poison your family along with the bugs.  You simply must be diligent with your storage.  The main line of defense is storing everything in glass or hard-sided, air-tight jars and jugs.  As soon as you get them home, you must pour up all of your foods that are packaged in plastic, cellophane or cardboard.  That means all dry cereals, pastas, rices, pasta mixes, cake mixes, chips, crackers, instant potatoes, and dried potato mixes.  Cut off the instructions for use and tape them to the sides of the jars.  YES, it's a lot of trouble, but the time you spend now is money you save later when you don't have to toss out the scalloped potatoes, cake mix or beans because the bugs got to them.  Remember this ugly truth--you are in all likelihood bringing bug eggs home on or in some of your foods.  You simply do not know which ones.  Protect them all and contain the buggie problems by transferring them all to air-tight, hard-sided containers.

Detailed logistics on how I put up the wheat berries:  Regardless of source, the whole grains usually come to me in a big paper bag.  I scoop up the berries into the juice jugs, using a cut-off top end of a plastic milk jug as a funnel.  I cap the jugs and then wrap the tops with packing tape to help keep them from jarring loose in storage and attracting insect infestation.  Grain moths can be sneaky buggers.  Usually, that is ALL I do.  I do not put oxygen absorbers into the jugs and I do not give them the 72-hour Freeze Treatment.  I do store them at cool room temperature on a dark shelf and I check on them from time to time to make sure there is no movement in the jugs.  I've been doing this for half a dozen years in hot, humid Mississippi, where occasionally the AC strains to keep the temperature as low as 78 degrees.  So far, I've had no bug problem with my wheat, especially not wheat that I've bought through Rainbow or Honeyville Grain.  

Let me emphasize that it is critical to store ALL foods in temperatures that are comfortably cool, or no higher than 75 degrees Fahrenheit.  For every 5 degrees above that, the storage life and quality of any kind of shelf-stable food is dramatically shortened, no matter how it is packaged.  In near-tropical Mississippi, that completely rules out garages and attics.  Please do not keep food of any kind, packaged in any manner, inside your garage.

I did have bug problems once with wheat I got at a close-out from a nationally known grocery store with a nationally known product, both of which shall go unnamed.  Since I had it in juice jugs, the bug problem was contained and did not spread to my other foods.  I popped the jugs into the freezer before they'd done much damage and then sifted out the critters.  I have occasional bug problems with my beans, no matter what the source.  Thin plastic bags are not much protection, plus bugs just like beans!  What to do so they don't win?

The 72-Hour Freeze Treatment:  I almost always use this for storing beans, or any grain from questionable sources that I feel might possibly harbor bugs.  First, as soon as I get the beans home, I pour them up immediately into PETE jars or jugs and cap them securely.  Then I pop them into the freezer for 72 hours.  After that time, I set them out on a towel to catch the condensate WITHOUT OPENING THE JUGS.  I leave them there for 7 days and I check the jugs daily for any possible bug activity.  If I see any, I immediately pop the unopened jugs directly back into the freezer for another 72 hours.  I do this three times, even if I don't see any life at all.  If I DO see something moving, which is rare, I'll send it through another 72 hours of freezing. 

But here, back to the subject and reason enough for keeping wheat berries on hand, these scrumptious pancakes I adapted from one of the recipes the LDS gave me.  They're a little less egg- and fat-rich than the recipe I got, and they are fortified with the ground flax seed I put into about everything.  They're not big, puffy pancakes, but more of a thin, flapjack-style cake, my preference.  Because they're made with less fat, you need to watch them a bit more carefully that they do not stick.  Also, do not make the cakes larger than I recommend here.  

Seriously, though, if you do not tell your family before you serve them that they are whole grain, they will not guess.  They're that good!  So many of us decided that we despised whole wheat when we did not realize that what we had eaten was made with rancid flour.  Whole wheat goes "off" very fast once it's been ground.  If you've never had breads made from freshly-ground wheat before, then you'll really be surprised with how light and flavorful these whole grain pancakes are.  Enjoy!  Oh, and I highly recommend that you enlist the help of a child to push the blender button on/off, and with counting off the seconds that make up a minute.  It is far more fun that way, because you have to yell above the sound of the blender motor.  

Barbara G's Blender Pancakes

1 1/2 cup milk OR 2 cups buttermilk
1 cup soft wheat berries, NOT cooked and NOT soaked
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 egg
2 teaspoons baking powder (1 teaspoon, if using buttermilk)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (ONLY if using buttermilk)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons freshly ground flax seed*
2 tablespoons mildly-flavored salad oil like canola
1-2 tablespoons honey or sugar

In a blender container, add 1 cup of the milk and the wheat berries.  Blend for three minutes.  After one minute, check to see if  the blender motor feels warm.  If so, then let it rest two or three minutes, but no longer, or the wheat will absorb the water and will inhibit further grinding.  Consider blending in one-minute increments only.  Add the remaining milk and the rolled oats and blend two minutes, for a total blending/grinding time of five minutes.  Scrape down the sides, if necessary.  Do not shorten the grinding time, even if the berries seem fully ground before the time is up.  If you do, the pancakes will be unpleasantly grainy, as in sandy grainy. 

Add the egg, baking powder, baking soda (if using), salt, ground flax seed, oil, and honey or sugar.  Pulse about three or four times or until all of the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.  Stir to make sure there are no huge lumps.  The batter will be very thin.  

Using the blender container, pour out pancakes onto a medium hot (325 degrees) non-stick skillet or griddle.  These cakes do better on the small side, so aim for no larger than 3" to 4" in diameter.  Flip when the bubbles stay open and the cakes are golden brown on the first side; cook the other side.  Serve warm with fresh fruit sauce or syrup.

Yield:  about 20 three-inch pancakes

Variations: After grinding the wheat, add one of the following with the oats:
1 ) 1 large ripe bananas and 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger; blend until mostly smooth.
2) 1 medium apple, peel-on but cored and cut into chunks, and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon; blend until mostly smooth.
For both variations, add an extra egg for additional binding the fruited mixture needs; and use the smaller measure of sweetener or omit it entirely.
3) For additional interest, you may scatter a few blueberries, blackberries, chopped cherries or chopped nuts on each pancake immediately after pouring it onto the griddle.

*Because of its high oil content, flax seed (even whole) does not keep well in long-term storage.  It's best to keep it refrigerated or even frozen for extended storage.  If it's on a cool room temperature shelf, try to use it up within six months.  Grind up only what you're about to use in a recipe, as the oils dissipate rapidly upon exposure to air.  Alternatively, for ease of use, you may grind up a cup or two dry in the blender or food processor and then store it in the freezer in a hard-sided container.  Do not grind so much at a time that the ground seed gets warm, and then freeze it promptly as soon as it's ground.

Let me know if you try these, and if you have any comments on what worked well for you as far as technique.  Also let me know if you experimented with other additions or variations.  

There may be some of you hard-core folk who'd like to store wheat or other grains for up to 20 years.  If so, then I suggest you invest in some oxygen absorber packets, and use one of these little packets per air-tight gallon jug or bucket of wheat berries.  They are marvelous!  You may also buy the whole grains pre-packaged in buckets from places like Honeyville Grain and Walton Feed (http://waltonfeed.com/).  It's usually going to be more expensive to buy grain that way, but keep checking back with them until you find what you want on sale.  

You know, maybe I won't ever return to the farm again, but I feel more closely connected to the farmers now that I'm simply paying more attention to the rhythm of the seasons and the years of plenty and lack.  No, I'm not hoarding, because we'll eat every bit of what we store, even more so than when I did not know how to store and rotate out things properly.  Now we have a safety cushion of good, wholesome whole grains that will keep until we want to use them, without spoilage or contamination.  Now we can have a reliable supply of bread, no matter what else is going on around us.  That, in itself, gives me a certain degree of peace of mind.  In these crazy times, I'll take all of that I can find.

Frugally yours,
Barbara Houston Garrett
www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/barbaragarrett

Stretching Toilet Paper and Going Paperless

One glance upwards to my logo photograph and you'll see how important toilet paper storage is to me.  Yet and still, I've been reconsidering that staple as a fixed expense.  Even THAT expense can be trimmed, and relatively painlessly, at that.

Since I live in Mississippi and Hurricane Katrina is still fresh on my mind, hurricane season turns my thoughts to stronger preparedness.  However, no matter where you may live, any number of personal or natural disasters can knock you off a regular supply of food and toiletries.  It pays to have a safety cushion of essential supplies.  In the civilized world, one of them is toilet paper.  Stock up whenever it's a loss leader and every time you get a coupon for it.  Don't wait for the need.  Get it now!  But where to put it all?

Toilet paper is the type of thing to store way up high in a closet where nothing else can be stored.  Stack it all the way to the ceiling!  Even if you have to get a broom to knock down a 4-pack, it won't hurt you or itself when it falls.  You may also tuck some under beds, in suitcases, in the back of all the clothes closets (where nobody can find anything, anyhow), in the garage or even in the rear of the car trunk.  It's so lightweight that it won't affect gas mileage and won't go bad in the heat or cold.  If you have small children, there are other benefits to traveling with toilet paper, but I digress.  If the toilet paper will be stored where rodents occasionally roam, you'll want to keep it in a hard-sided storage container with a tight-fitting lid.  Mice adore toilet paper bedding.

Besides cheap peace of mind, the beauty of stocking up on toilet paper now is that you get your choice of toilet paper.  For some who have allergies, this is important!  There's nothing like a rash in a sensitive area to intensify an already-miserable disaster situation.  When you stock up in non-emergency times, the stores can restock the shelves immediately.  With your family's needs out of the way, the stores can then furnish the unprepared and those directly hit by the disaster who may have relocated to your area.  

Yet again, I call to remembrance the Friday BEFORE the Monday that Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi directly.  The population of metro-Jackson, Mississippi doubled overnight and we were out of all manner of supplies by Saturday.  Toilet paper was one of them.  After the hurricane hit, all of the toilet paper and many other toiletries (even underwear!) that dribbled in through the crippled supply lines were diverted to shelters.  Any toilet paper to be had was scrounged off shelves of drugstores at a premium and after waiting in long lines.  This went on for weeks.  Have I sold you on stocking up on toilet paper?

The question becomes, then, how MUCH toilet paper is enough?  Of course, that varies with the family and even the gender make-up of the family.  Besides that, there is another option for cleaning up after toileting besides using toilet paper.  The best time to explore this option is in non-crisis times so that we can move seamlessly through crisis periods with the least possible emotional upset.  

Let's say that you are a roll-a-day family, you have ignored my advice to stock up and now you have only six rolls left.  Something has happened and now you cannot get more toilet paper for possibly several weeks.  Either your budget is bare or the grocery and dollar stores' shelves are bare, or they're destroyed or closed after a disaster.  What now?  How the heck do you ration toilet paper?

You do it by going paperless, or at least partially paperless, in the interim.  You will substitute washable cloth wipes.  Besides getting you through the crisis, you will lighten the load on your plumbing system, as toilet paper is a big strain on it.  Saving on paper means you'll also save on water if you flush only after bowel movements, as each flush requires 5-7 gallons of water.  Save an average of only THREE flushes a day, or 15-21 gallons, and you've saved 450-630 gallons of water in one month's time.  To give you some perspective on this, a top-loading washer averages about 40 gallons of water per full load.  So, crisis aside, using less toilet paper is a good budget cutting strategy even for normal times!

Let's do a little math on the water savings.  Consider the extra flushing as "leakage."  According to the Jackson, Mississippi's Department of Public Works, 21 gallons of daily leakage costs $70.00 per year.  Wow!  Could you have used that $70 to take the family to a Japanese steakhouse, fill up the car with gasoline, get a full body massage for yourself or at least use it for something more fun than flushing a toilet?  I know I could!  Hit the meat counter and rack up for several months!  Here's where I got my numbers--  http://www.jacksonms.gov/government/publicworks/sewer/

Let's do a little more math, this time on the paper itself.  Let's say you're a one-roll-a-day household.  If you use from a 4-pack of toilet paper that sells for $2.50, then you're paying $.63 per roll.  Over the course of a month, you'll use 30 rolls of toilet paper and you will spend $18.90.  What if you could cut that usage dramatically by one simple change of routine?  If the best you can do is to cut your toilet paper use in half, then that's still $9.45 you've saved, or a nice large pizza.

If you have a larger family, your savings will be considerable.  Further, a houseful of females will naturally use much more toilet paper than one with males.  It's how we women are made.  We have to wipe after every elimination, bowel movement or urination.  Men generally have to wipe only after the bowel movement.  Therefore, a houseful of females will see a significantly larger dollar figure on savings with going even partially paperless. 

Let's talk logistics.  I highly recommend a soft, absorbent fabric for the wipes, like 100% cotton flannel.  There's no need to rush out and buy, though.  Glean fabric from the good parts of your family's old flannel pajamas and shirts, which will be softer and kinder to the nether regions and FREE.  Old cloth diapers are also perfect for this.  A good size to cut them into is 6"-8" squares, a bit smaller than most washcloths that run about 11 1/2" or so.  The wipe cloths do not have to be perfectly square, so cut them out to make the best use of your old pajama or diaper fabric.  If you have access to a serger, it won't take long to edge-finish a few dozen squares.  Alternatively, you can use pinking shears to cut up the squares.  Any other edge finish is liable to scratch in a place on your body you'd rather not be irritated.  Without any edge finishes, you'll have to spend a few minutes each laundry day clipping loose threads, which is still not a big issue.

I keep a rectangular wicker basket on the back of my toilet.  I store bath toiletries on one side.  On the other side are two stacks of cloths, one each of washcloths and wipe cloths.  I use a wipe cloth, rinse it at the sink and then hang it on the tub to dry until the next load of undies and towels laundry is due.  I use my wipe cloths for wiping urine only and the quick rinse takes care of any possible ammonia odor.  If you intend to use yours for wiping after bowel movements, then proper hygiene dictates that you keep a closed container beside the toilet for the soiled wipes, like a diaper bucket.  Keep a borax soaking solution in the bucket to combat bacteria growth and odor.  Then simply treat it as you would a diaper bucket and do separate loads for these wipes from your regular laundry.  On laundry day, dump the cloths into the washer, spin out the water, rinse them and then wash in hot water with detergent. 

For those of you who are already going totally paperless, I welcome your input on logistics.  Some of my readers who are braver and thriftier than I am about this may want to follow your lead.

For all the rest of you who want to try going at least partially paperless, but who know you'll get resistance from the ranks, just do it yourself!  Even if you are the only one in your family to go paperless or partially paperless, you'll still save significantly on water and toilet paper.  We do in my household!  Then, if/when a disaster hits and supplies are cut off, your paperless system and routine will already be in place.  You won't have to panic and risk your life going out to find toilet paper.  You will be potty-ready, and you will think of me.  You're welcome.

Frugally yours,

Barbara Houston Garrett

www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/barbaragarrett