Best of 2012

Doing a little end of year/beginning of year evaluations on myself. Overall I'm very happy with the changes we've been able to make around the house as well as our eating habits. There are still plenty of projects and goals for the new year, though!

Here are my personal favorite projects of 2012:

1) Dryer Woolie Balls: These had a minimal cost in both $$ and time. I still use them with every load of laundry (so pretty much every day). I love that I can add scent as needed, keeping a very, very light clean scent in our laundry w/o any softners or chemical additives!

2) Bye, Bye Papertowels: This project was also simple and cheap (is there a theme here?) I did have to go back and hem the cut edges of the washcloths I used, but that only cost me about 30 minutes or so of sewing. We keep these in a shoe box size bin right behind the kitchen faucet. Easy to grab and easy to refill. I have seen some people's "unpaper towels" projects with cute fabric on one side and terry cloth on the other side and then snaps on the ends. Then they roll the whole thing up on their paper towel dispenser. I love that idea but our little bin is soooooooo easy to refill (no snapping, no rolling) and if I hadn't wanted to cut the washcloths down to "select a size" paper towel dimensions (that we were used to using) there wouldn't have been any sewing at all. With a total cost of under $10, it also beats the pants of the cutesy ones. Now, I'll admit my cloths are just a basic beige (which thus far is hiding stains remarkably well) but no one is afraid to use them either as I've heard some people complain about with the fancy fabric rolled towels. I think the key to my long term success here is that I have a dedicated small bathroom size trash bin in the pantry to throw the dirty towels in. I have enough towels to fill my box 2x, so one set can be in use while one set is in the laundry.

3) Swapping coconut oil for processed vegetable oils: I wasn't sure if I would be tempted down the line to have a bottle of canola or vegetable oil on hand but once we used up what we had, I haven't needed to use ANY! Between olive oil, coconut oil and butter, I'm able to meet all of my cooking needs. No spray needed either! Silicone muffin liners have been a big help in this regard. I keep about half of my coconut oil in a oil dispensing bottle (that I got at the dollar store). I take the metal pour spout off and pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds and voila! liquid oil ready for pouring!



My Favorite Recipes of 2012:

We tend to go through cycles of eating a lot of one thing in particular and then getting into something else. But there are a few favorites that I tend to enjoy over and over again!

1) Muffins: I know I've done a few posts about muffins ( Pumpkin, Zucchini) but I also have a few favorites that I haven't posted up (like Banana nut).  I make a dozen or two with what ever fruit is on hand (or in the freezer) and use whole wheat flour. After they are cooked, I keep them in the freezer so they are always ready to go. They make a great, quick breakfast for me when I'm running late and  I also send them frozen with the little guy to school.  By the time he has is morning snack break, its defrosted and ready to go!  Right now in our freezer is whole wheat cranberry muffin with a cream cheese swirl. Yum!

2) Whole Wheat Waffles: I got a new waffle maker for my birthday (thanks Bro!) and I've been making lots of waffles since then (probably 4 or 5 huge batches). I get around 20 or so waffles from my mix , so I'm able to stock up the freezer for a few weeks at a time. Both little guy and myself have been enjoying them immensely. The last 2 batches have had chocolate chips stirred in and then we use strawberry or blackberry jam on top (instead of syrup) and its soooooooo good! But I'm almost out and that means I'll be probably be doing a big batch this weekend. I'm thinking that I might have to do the next ones blueberry!

3)Whole Wheat Baking Mix: If you grew up in a certain generation, Bisquick forms the basis of a lot of quick breads, breakfasts and dinners. But when you are trying to avoid processed food, things in boxes with lots of ingredients are incompatible. I love that my version of the baking mix uses ONLY whole wheat and that it mixes up in the kitchen very quickly.

4) Spinach & Basil Pesto: Maybe its because I just ate some last night but I love this recipe! I made a giant batch months ago and I still have cups of this stuff (which costs an arm & a leg at the store) in our freezer. Last night I wasn't too energetic, so I boiled up some whole wheat pasta, sauteed a salmon fillet (cut into chunks) and tossed the whole thing with 1/2 cup of pesto, delish! The whole prep was maybe 10 minutes of work (and that was mostly skinning and deboning the salmon!)

I'd love it if you left a comment below to let me know what was YOUR favorite post of 2012!

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DIY All Natural LemiShine Substitute

Sorry to be gone for so long. Between fall break (where we had an awesome family vacation) and being sick, its been a few weeks since I've posted but it's good to be back!

This is one of the green & clean projects I've been working on around the house. As you may recall, many many posts ago, I put up this recipe for a powdered dishwasher detergent. It worked okay but honestly with the super duper hard water we have out here (I once did a test kit and the result was higher than the enclosed scale :P) I wasn't convinced it was a total winner. When you add in the fact that my rinse agent dispenser (filled with vinegar, of course!) is a bit haphazard about dispensing at all, I was having some fairly regular problems with films & spots left behind on my dishes.

I had done some research and found that for hard water, gel detergents are recommended the highest. I guess since they are pre-dissolved they have less of a tendency to leave undissolved detergent behind???  My first batch of homemade gel detergent never gelled. Still not sure what happened there but it wasn't much thicker than pure water. Definitely NOT what I wanted. I'm on my second batch (different recipe) and it sort of gelled. It more resembles gel curds and whey. All the gel curds float to the top and clump up, so I have to shake it up before I use it. When I pour it out, it kind of looks like curdled milk (and splashes a bit when a big chunk blops out). So while its doing an okay cleaning job, I'm not super happy with the consistency of it. I will eventually get something worth sharing with you guys. In either case, whether I was using the powder or gel homemade dishwasher detergents, they definitely worked MUCH better when I added LemiShine to the other detergent compartment.

I discovered LemiShine when they changed the formulations of branded dishwasher detergents a few years ago. I had noticed that I was having a LOT of reside on my dishes. I thought maybe my detergent was bad, so I bought a new box. Same thing happened. I tried rinse agents, no change. I starting reading online to see if my dishwasher might be broken when I found some board posts about this very problem. The solution everyone recommended was LemiShine. You find it in the dishwasher detergent aisle at WalMart. You put it in with your soap and voila!! no more spots or residue. I fell madly in love.

Unfortunately, as I've been removing more and more chemicals from our food and cleaning products, I was a little bit uncomfortable still using LemiShine. It says that it's "all natural" but you know how misleading that can be. Also, they don't list ingredients. I finally stopped using it altogether when I started making my own cleaners around the house. But, boy was it sorely missed!!

In searching for a substitute or replacement, I scoured the internet. The only consensus I could find is that it likely contained citric acid (used in ethnic cooking and canning) and salt. I decided to start with a simple formula with just those 2 ingredients in a 1:1 ratio and see how it did. And, it worked wonderfully well! Sparkling glasses and no spots!! So, I upped the salt and did a 2 parts salt to 1 part citric acid. (Since citric acid is the "expensive" part of the formula) It still did great! I upped the ratio again to 3 parts salt and 1 part citric acid. This time it was okay. A few spots. Not horrible but not really sparkling either. So for me, I stick to a 2:1 ratio but if your water is softer you can probably get away with 3:1 ratio. I'd recommend starting at the lower ratio and seeing if it has enough power for you. If you're happy, then increase the salt to citric acid ratio-- stop when it gets ineffective!

As a note here, this is NOT an attempt to "break" the formula of LemiShine. But if you would like to cut costs or only want to use products that you know EXACTLY what's in them, this recipe will work well for you!

After using this regularly (probably 10+ loads of dishes run) in the last 2-3 weeks, I am confident that this should work consistently for others as well. I'm super excited to get this out here and see how it works for different city waters/different detergents.

Lemi Shine Substitute:

 

1 cup citric acid (find in ethnic markets OR in the canning aisle of Mart stores)
2 cups non iodized salt (usually right next to regular salt or near pickling supplies)

1)Place in an airtight container (a washed & dried recycled yogurt tub works great....) and shake to combine.
2) Use 2-3 Tbs in the detergent compartment of your automatic dishwasher (I put it in the open one and the soap in the closed one but you can do it the other way as well. See what works best for your machine!). If you only have one compartment, add 50/50 with your detergent.

Cost Analysis:
Salt: .59 for the whole tub.
Citric Acid: 2.97 for this 7.5 oz jar at WalMart. I used  a small amount of this for canning tomatoes. I've since made 2 half batches plus smaller "single serving" size testers of this mix and still have powder left. So you can expect 1- 1.5 batches maybe? per jar.

Total expenses: $3.56

If you get 2 batches out of it, this would be $1.78/batch.
If you get more like 1.5 batches then its $2.37/batch.
Typical WalMart LemiShine price (about the same volume as a 1/2 -3/4 batch) is around $4.00. So somewhere around 1/2 the price of the original (depending on where you source your citric acid...)

I'd love some feedback on how this worked with your water (hard or soft!) and your detergent (store bought or homemade!) Please comment below!!

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Sunday Savings Tip: Dryer Woolie Balls

I've enjoyed my time off the last week but its time to get back to work! I've got so many projects to finish up. And if I didn't have to post them to you fine (five) readers, I wouldn't have nearly so much incentive to get going! Let's talk about this week's topic:

      Dryer Woolie Balls!!

What's a woolie??
Several weeks ago, when I was researching recipes for dishwasher detergent, I saw a post from a green mama blogger (www.imperfecthomemaking.com) about her green laundry routine. One of the things she talked about was dryer woolie balls. I was very intrigued. What is a woolie?? It is a simple ball of wool yarn (felted) and thrown in the dryer to help speed drying, fluff clothes and reduce static.

Why use woolies??

1) Less waste
       I have a love/hate relationship with my dryer sheets . I love the light scent and static reduction but I loathe chasing these things around the house. I fold laundry in our bedroom and it seems like everytime I go in there, I find another one of those suckers to throw away. And, as I always throw them out when I find them during folding, I'm not exactly sure where these "extra" ones are coming from. Perhaps they are reproducing under the bed?? All I know is that I'd be super happy to never have to pick up another one of those things off the carpet again!

2) Reduce static
       The biggest hurdle to not using dryer sheets is that most of the laundry I have (especially for us adults) is what I call mixed media. Typically we have lots of different fabrics-- casual clothes are mainly cotton, my undies have a lot of elastic, nylon etc. and Hubby's work pants are a glorious 100% polyester. Drying up a load of darks without any static reducers pretty much insures one large ball of static cling.
       I had tried, in the past, a set of blue plastic dryer balls I got at some "as seen on TV" store many, many years ago. I found them to be fairly ineffective in reducing static and never really used them much for anything except cloth diaper laundry. I wanted to know why these woolies would be any different--- after investigating and reading around, I found that I was not using nearly enough. I had just two and the blogger above typically uses up to a dozen!

3) Personalize amount/type of fragrance
       One thing I also missed when using the blue plastic dryer balls was the scent. I love the soft "clean" scent of dryer sheets or detergent after laundry comes out of the dryer. Its a thing, I know. I don't like overpowering perfumes, just a light, simple, clean smell. In our traditional laundry routine, we like Tide detergent and Bounce dryer sheets which both impart a slight, pleasant, clean scent. In working to cut back on the chemicals, we've switched to a "free and clear" detergent. And if I give up dryer sheets, then there's no scents, nothing. That's just too much to give up! I found out though, that one of the advantages of using the woolie balls instead of plastic ones is that you can scent them! By adding a few drops of an essential oil, they will softly release the scent in the dryer, giving the clothes a slight fragrance (of your choosing) with no added knarly chemicals! Yay!

Getting woolies for yourself

 1) Buy
You can buy them online chiefly through homemade sites like Etsy. I saw them commonly as 4 for $20 (+ shipping). I thought that was a little expensive for my tastes, especially if I'm likely to need 2 (or more) sets.

2) Make them yourself!!
I followed the tutorial from the above referenced blog: homemade wool dryer balls. Here are the highlights:

• Get some 100% wool yarn. (this was the hardest part of the project!) It cannot be a blend or acrylic (as most yarns are). I got 2 1/2 balls per 3.5 oz of yarn. I used 2 packages of yarn and made 5 balls total.

• Wrap the yarn tightly in a round ball until its about tennis ball sized. Tie off/tuck under loose ends.

• Put into a old nylon or stocking (I used an old pilly trouser sock) to keep them secured until fully felted.
• Run through the washer & dryer a few times (I just ran it with the loads of laundry I was already doing....) until the wool is felted -- it will get kind of fuzzy and all the strands will be firmly adhered together.

• Add 3 or 4 drops of an essential oil of your choosing. Many people like lavender or tea tree. I really wanted a "laundry" type of smell so I found a "downy april fresh" mixed essential oil on Etsy. Don't know if it really smells like downy since I never used that but it does have a nice light "clean laundry" type of smell.
• Drop into dryer with wet laundry, proceed as usual!

How's it working??
       So far, so good!  I only made 5 yarn balls, so I threw in the 2 plastic ones to go with them, so 7 balls total. As far as usage, I'm finding its not any harder to sort out the balls from the laundry than it is to remove the used dryer sheets. The static reduction is pretty good-- about the same or slightly better than I had from dryer sheets. The scent is nice-- light but pleasant-- even the Hubby likes it. I'm not sure how often I'll need to refill the scent on the balls. I set them up last week and was having a hard time smelling the scent in the laundry in the garage (although for some reason I can smell it perfectly fine in the living room where I'm sorting...) so I refilled it. I expect that I may need to refresh the scent maybe every 2 or 3 weeks?

I really love projects like these. Once everything is all set up, you are DONE!! I don't have anything else to buy (unless I need new fragrance, although this is supposed to last me about a year). If I use these and don't buy any new dryer sheets, I'll probably recoup my basic costs (about $14 in yarn-- should have remembered my coupon, darn it!) in the next 4-6 months. I know if you are a savvy shopper and have time to search out sales or good prices AND remember use your coupons (still kicking myself here), you can definitely do better. Unfortunately, I was only kicked in the butt inspired to complete this project when I realized I only had about 5 dryer sheets left. So a bit of a time crunch!

Comment below and let me know if you've used these before, or are gonna give it a try!

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DIY Dishwasher Detergent

As we've been trying to increase the quality of items we put into our bodies, it seems a natural extension of that to also consider the chemicals we surround ourselves with in the home.

I have a cupboard full of cleaners: sprays, powders, wipes & detergents. I have slowly been replacing some of the ones I knew had a lot of chemicals with greener products-- I've especially become fond of products by Greenworks & Method.

But as good as they are, I still don't know exactly what is in them & how safe they REALLY are. I also have a few tough cleaning problems to deal with-- mostly related to extremely hard water. I was finding mineral build up in the shower head, tub drains, drinking glasses, & even the water dispenser in the door of the fridge. Some of these things needed to be cleaned with something I KNEW would be safe around food & children-- the answer??? VINEGAR!!  Plain, old ordinary white distilled vinegar! You can buy it by the gallon for about $2.50. You can use it straight (I dip a sponge or paper towel in it and swipe hard water stains) or dilute (mix 50/50 with water in a sprayer for general clean up).

I had such great results with this that I started asking myself, what else can I make?? It turns out that with a few simple ingredients, you can make a wide variety of cleaners for the floor, counters, bathroom, windows, even laundry detergent! 

I decided to try making my own dishwasher detergent first for a few reasons- cost is certainly one of them, as is greener cleaning, but honestly I just hate my dishwasher detergent. I've used Cascade all my life with generally good results but with the major detergent reformulation a few years ago, nothing seems to clean like it used to. I haven't found a brand that works better than "okay". I am currently using Cascade lemon liquid with adequate results-- most dishes come clean but anything caked on usually needs a separate scrub-- forget those commercials with the crusty lasagna dish! 

 

Dry Dishwasher Detergent:

1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1/2 cup non-iodized (kosher) salt
1/2 cup citric acid







You can get Borax & Washing soda in the cleaning or laundry aisle at stores like Walmart. I paid $3.38 for the big box of Borax & $2.24 for the big box of washing soda. Borax is a mined mineral and has been used as a household cleaner for over a century-- I actually visited the main Borax mines which are about an hour or so from my city while chaperoning a field trip with a high school chemistry class. Washing soda is NOT the same as baking soda but it is made from baking soda and is a similar chemical. These big boxes also form the basis of other cleaners like laundry detergent.

The standard salt cylinder sized container of kosher salt cost .59 and the citric acid was the priciest at $1.99 for a measly 6 oz. The citric acid was the hardest to locate, I found it in the ethnic foods/spice section of a more ethnic grocery store. You can substitute Lemishine, which is mainly citric acid & salt for this and its found in most Walmarts, next to the dishwashing detergents.

To make the detergent:
Add all the dry ingredients to a 4 cup container with a tight fitting lid (I used a cleaned, recycled yogurt container). Mix well. If you aren't using it regularly, be sure to stir occasionally to prevent caking. Don't forget to label-- its not just for organizing but for safety!!

To use the detergent:
I've found that 2 tbs in the main wash and 2 tbs in the prewash (basically filling the compartments) works pretty well.

For best results:  FILL YOUR RINSE AGENT DISPENSER WITH VINEGAR  (you can even do this if you don't make your own detergent) you will get a great, chemical free, spot free finish!!

Final Thoughts: I've run a few loads of dishes and I'm finding that the homemade detergent is performing about the same as the store bought with one exception-- I have these white plastic cutting boards I use for food prep and the staining that normally comes out in the wash isn't. I might have to resign myself to doing a little bit of extra scrubbing on this one item but everything else seems spic and span! I'm also very happy about the cost. Because you have so many ingredients left over, the cost per batch is a little over $1. Big savings from $4 a bottle at the store!

Have you tried this?? How were your results?? Comment below!!