Apple Juice Used Three Times

My children had apple juice as part of their lunch.  I gave them each a generous cup-full in hopes of using up the last of it in the jug.  I filled their cups with a bit to spare in the bottom of the jug...

You know that bit.  Not enough for a full cup.

And then I left the jug on the counter.

And when I cleaned the living room (they were picnicking), I found unfinished apple juice in the bottoms of cups.

All together, I had a generous cup of probably no longer safe to drink apple juice on my hand and a great pitying not to dump it down the drain.

So, I poured it into my tea pot along with a cinnamon stick and a few cloves.

It's been simmering nicely for a while now, ever so slowly reducing and filling the kitchen with a potpourri scent!

I found a second use for the apple juice.  Potpourri!

But, that's not all it's good for.  Once it reduces to 1/2 a cup of concentrated spiced goodness, it became a confection, apple cider donuts!

Not bad for some humble, old, abandoned apple juice.

Considering Butter

While grocery shopping yesterday, I encountered sticker shock when conventional butter was $3.99 a pound. For a family who can go through 1 1/2 lbs of butter a week, that's a huge chuck of our limited grocery budget.

Of course, being Nourishing Traditions-esque health-minded, margarine is an absolute no-no.  Crisco, vegetable oil, canola oil, corn oil - no no no no no!  But, if I can find ways to stretch our butter, I'm going to.  Here are some ideas:

1. Save the bacon grease from the nitrate-free bacon.  I rarely buy bacon because the nitrate-free is so pricey, but by saving the grease for frying eggs and potatoes, stretches both the bacon and the butter.

2. I look forward to lard.  Our pig will provide plenty of lard for biscuits and pie crusts, which I usually use butter for.

3. Cut back the butter portion just a little.  Yeah, I'm known to drop a full tablespoon of butter onto my oatmeal in the morning.  I can get by with a little less.

4. Coconut oil for pancakes and waffles.  (Hmmmm....maybe I should compare prices, though I tend to buy my coconut oil with free amazon gift cards and not grocery $$).

5. Applesauce for quick breads.  This is a great way to use up the bits and bowls of half-eaten applesauce my kids leave behind.

6. Speaking of quick breads, quick breads and muffins often take less butter than cookies (and less sugar).

7. I also save the butter wrappers.  There's often scrapings of butter left on the wrappers.  I fold the wrappers in half and stick them in the fridge to use when I need to grease a dish.

8.  A pound of local cream is often cheaper than a pound of butter.  I could make my own butter if it came down to it.

9. We have looked into a cream separator for goat's milk.

Do you have any butter-saving ideas?

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