Frugal Friday--"Purple Soup"

As we continue packing, I am trying to use up the food in the pantry/refrigerator/freezer. Last night we had "Purple Soup". The first time I made this, we called it "Frugal Soup", but Thomas was a little guy and misunderstood (it was kind of purple), thus "Purple Soup" was born.

The idea is to throw in the crock pot or soup pot any combination of dried beans, barley or rice that you have in the pantry. Add about 4X the amount of water or stock. After this has cooked a while, add any vegetables you have on hand. I always add carrots or bell peppers for the sweetness--it's just no good without them--and onions, leeks or chives for flavor. Also add any combination of herbs and spices that you have and that smell like they would go well. Italian herbs such as thyme, oregano, basil, marjoram or parsley are always good choices. Boil until beans are cooked through, adding water if necessary. When they are done, add bouillon, salt or pepper to taste.

Another tip: I usually keep in the freezer a bucket of meat and veggie scraps to make stock with. Just boil until the kitchen starts to smell really good, then strain and it's ready to use!

Frugal Friday--An Evolution in Scrapbooking

In prepping for our move, I found a couple of boxes of photos and scrapbooking paraphernalia that I absolutely did *not* want to follow me and haunting me any more! So I arranged a scrapbooking date with a friend. I have already greatly simplified my pages, but she gave me more ideas to simplify. Here is a sample of one of my earliest pages (the event took two pages).

This is a later one.

The first thing I did was sort through and toss *at least* half of the photos. Then we finished the rest very simply. It takes much less time and supplies and looks much classier. I also am only using the very best photos. Here is a sample of the new method (I know, I know, it needs labeled...).

The oldest kids worked on their own books, while the younger kids played with scrap paper and tossed photos.

Then we discovered an even simpler way. We had tons of digital photos on the computer of our vacation and decided to use iPhoto to make a slide show and save it to DVD instead of making a bunch of pages.* It took about the same amount of time as making three pages. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to journal it.
Lauren thinks she has a way, we'll see...

Anyway in just a couple of days, we have almost finished archiving the entire box of photos, have pared down to minimal supplies and have devised a system of maintaining it all. Not bad!

Kim

*Lauren will be posting a slide show to her blog soon.

Frugal Friday--going bananas!

Today at the store we ran across nearly 50 pounds of bananas that were quite brown. It looked like a deal to me! So I asked the grocer what he would charge if I bought them all. His first price was $12, but I got him down to $8. It came out to 16 cents a pound--quite a good deal, they were marked at 69 cents a pound and are normally 79. Don't think I took advantage of the grocer--he asked for my number to call me when they had more!

When I got home the 5 oldest kids and I worked to preserve them*. We cut them into thirds, peeled them and put them on trays to freeze (this takes several hours). Once they were frozen, we bagged them and left them in the freezer. The hands-on portion of work took about an hour and a half. We process them this way so that we know three portions equals one banana and so that we can pull them out separately. The first time we tried this we didn't freeze them separately and ended up with huge lumps of frozen banana that were unusable until thawed. It's worth the extra time and effort to do it well.

An added note: We use frozen bananas in banana bread, with other fruits and veggies in a Vitamix to make shakes or run them through a heavy duty juicer to make what we call ice cream (nothing added, just banana and occasionally frozen berries). On our road trip we were all feeling "general malaise" and realized that we hadn't had shakes in a few days. We stopped by Whole Foods and purchased some. It wasn't as good as homemade, but we all felt much better!

*Lauren was helping, but broke to take a photo. "Mom, you have to put this on your blog!" she said. She keeps me on my toes.

Confessions of a Bibliophile

Today we went to a homeschool used book sale. This is like a alcoholic going to a bar. Worse yet, I had an envelope of money put aside for the purpose. I was hoping to find three specific books, but came home with a wagonload (literally) of books that I had been hoping to find and a few nice surprises. Good thing I restrained myself! Seriously though, I spent very little and got some really great books. The great thing about homeschool book sales is that homeschoolers have such great taste in literature! It's much better than the big box stores and a much better price. At the last book sale I got rid of everything I wanted to sell and so was free just to browse this time, nice!

Lauren has already started A Chance to Die by Elizabeth Elliott (about Amy Carmichael). Thomas is looking forward to a curriculum we found called Applying the Bill of Rights to Real Cases. Pierce is enjoying Art Fraud Detectives, and the little ones are anxiously awaiting being read to. As for me, I'm looking forward to reading TULIP, The Five Points of Calvinism in the Light of Scripture or The Ballad of the White Horse by GK Chesterton; I'm not sure which I'll read first. Although we don't use much in the way of formal curriculum, we are all looking forward to jumping into a geography curriculum we found called Map the World by Heart.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.  ~Charles W. Eliot


I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.  ~Anna Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991

Making Laundry Soap

One of the most frequent questions I get about having a large family, especially living in the SF Bay area is, "How can you afford it?" So I thought I'd share more of the things I've learned.

Today I made laundry soap. Here's how:

You will need Borax, bar soap (I use Kirk's Castile; we like it for bathing and laundry soap and order it by the case) and washing soda or baking soda (washing soda is supposed to be better, but baking soda works great).

Shred the soap.

Add the soap slowly to a quart of boiling water. Use a large pan as it foams a lot! Stir occasionally with a  beater until the soap is fully dissolved.

Meanwhile, add 1 C of baking soda and 1/2 C of Borax to several gallons hot water. I use a 5 gallon bucket and fill it nearly full. When the soap mixture is dissolved, add it to the bucket.

 That's it. After a few hours, the mixture will gel on the top few inches. It won't gel completely, so keep a beater on hand to mix it before use. I use about a 1/2 C for a full load.

All of this is very flexible. The five gallon bucket costs approximately $2. I've found that it works as well as the pricey name brands and much better than the discount versions.

Haircuts

The boys finally got so shaggy that I had to cut their hair. I really don't like cutting hair, but as you can imagine it saves a lot of money with so many of us. So I do it as often as I need to. Now, you have to understand that I've never taken a class in this.

Here's how I learned:
When Thom and I were a young couple with no children, he was in the Marine Reserves. It was about midnight and he was getting his things ready for weekend duty the next morning when he realized that he needed a haircut. Not wanting to fail inspection and have extra duty, he was in quite a bind. So he found a solution--we would go to the 24-hour Walmart, pick up a set of hair clippers and he would talk me through the process. All else fails, we could just shave his head completely (not within code, but beat the alternative). I cut his hair from that day on.

Thom and I in his Marine Corp days

When we had kids, it just made sense to cut theirs too. To be perfectly honest, sometimes the cut turns out well, sometimes not so much, so when the kids are getting their photos taken or going to visit relatives, I usually pay someone else to do it. And if you're wondering, Thom trims my hair except for twice a year when I have it cut professionally.

Grocery Day

Wednesday was grocery day. The pictures above are of our favorite grocery store. No, I didn't post the wrong pictures. We order online with a co-op called Azure Standard and have food delivered once a month. I love not having to buy so many small containers from the stores. Have you noticed they keep getting smaller and smaller? Also, the food is fresher and the quality is better. We bought onions and potatoes from the co-op and the store at the same time--the produce from the co-op lasted all month, but the store bought produce was moldy within a week. It makes me wonder how long the food we buy in the store sits around before we buy it. Another bonus is that the boys love to lift the heavy bags and boxes for mom showing off their muscles while the little ones play with their friends. Who knew grocery shopping could be so much fun?