Consider how the wildflowers grow....Luke 12:27 NIV
Living small in our 880 square foot cottage and micro farming on approximately an acre of land.

Monday, October 13, 2014

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.



Thursday, October 9, 2014

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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