Why buy it if I can make it?

After some delving into recipies in cookbooks and on line, and after various forms of inspiration I adopted a new slogan this past weekend. "Why buy it if I can make it?" My new mantra is formed by a desire to be frugal, to avoid preservative saturated foods, and to rise to the challange of making things with my own hands.

So, with my megarly equiped kitchen I made the following on Saturday: butter, multi-grain bread, cinnamon rolls, coca-cola cake, spagetti sauce, dog treats, and dishwasher soap. All without a food processor or stand-up mixer.

So here's the recounting of how my aspirations turn out.

The butter:

The recipe is simple: cold heavy cream & shake until it's butter. It actually called to put it into an empty jar with a lid and shake until the butter forms. Who actually has an empty jar with a lid around? I even looked in our recycling bin - but had nothing. So I used what i did have: a coctail/martini shaker. It seemed like a good fit to me - but i learned after about the 15th shake that it there's a reason you need a secure lid: pressure builds as the cream turns to butter. So much pressure that it will explode the top of a cocktail shaker right off. I had a buttery/creamy covered kitchen. Ellie was happy to help clean up. In the end I used my hand mixer (an updated butter churn) and I made some great butter!!

The bread:

The Ingredients


The dough


Rolled Dough


The finished product

With some recipe subsituting (after not wanting to back to the grocery for the fourth time) it was actually relatively easy. It requires a lot of patience though! All in all the bread took about 5 hours from start to finish. About 3 of those hours are spent waiting for the dough to rise. I did learn that making bread is a great stress releaver. You get to punch the dough and kneeding helps push away all those troubles :)

Cinnamon Rolls:

The yummy in my tummy filling


Pre-cooked - they looked even less professional once finished

Serisouly - I'm never buying refrigerator pre-made rolls again. The recipie i found was so easy! I did learn to read how many rolls a recipe yeilds - i ended up making about 16 rolls when it was all done - way too much for the too of us. They didn't look pretty or perfect but they tasted great.

Coca-cola Cake:

The hand-mixed cake batter

Finished Cake

The closest I came to failing in my baking extravangza. The failure came in not having a 13x9 pan - oh and the only pan i had to use was one of those stupid floppy pans. Whomever invented these is a demented sadist. It seems like a good idea - your baked goods won't stick - but the pan flops hot cake/icing onto my arm, my counters, and anywhere else it desires. The cake was too sweet for Kevin so now I have a cake to force-feed to people.

Spagetti Sauce:

Peeled - in the process of being seeded, fresh from the Kroger Vine tomatoes


The Finished Product

FROM TOMATOES ON THE VINE! I peeled and seeded about 3 pounds of tomattoes to my my sauce. I have to say in the end I think canned tomatoes would have tasted as good. It took about 45 minutes to peel, seed, & chop all the tomatoes. Tasty sauce, but not sure it was worth the chop time. (Maybe if I had a food processor and didn't have to chop by hand I'd have a different story.) The sauce turned out great though, and gave us less heart-burn than the typical sauce we buy.

Dog Treats:

Pre-Cooked Dog Treats

Ellie is a HUGE fan of these. She literally parked out by the oven, sniffing the air waiting for them to be done. They were supposed to dry out over night to be crunchy but she sat and whined for one and LOVED it hot out of the oven. I'm definetely not buying dog treats any more. The total cost for about 3 dozen treats was maybe a dollar, maybe. So easy too!

Dishwasher Soap:

A fairly simple mixture of baking soda, borax, & washing soda. It works well, but the open boxes of Borax & washing soda next to the bleach & vinegar in my cleaning cabinet make it look like I'm making bombs. The smell from the Borax & Washing Soda are slightly overpowering so I've had to bag them up and hide them away. Again though, for the frugal at heart this solution is very inexpensive for about $1 I have enough dishwasher mix to last for about a month.

So all in all I think my new mantra just might stick. Why buy it if I can make it?

Connected

You don't really know how much you love someone or something until it's needlessly taken away. When we moved to TN we "borrowed" an Internet connection from a neighbor. Ok, we stole it - don't judge we were really poor!!! Then that neighbor moved away and took with them our internet. So, we broke down and decided it was time to pay for a connection. We had our very own bonified connection to the internet - wireless even. Then within a week our network card got "crispy fried" as the nice man at Geek Squad told us. Good thing we bought the warranty. Finally, now after nearly 3 weeks (who knows how long it actually took - it was like i was living in another dimension) our dear sweet computer came home with a new network card. It's all shiny and new feeling.

Seriously though, I LOVE the internet. To be honest I spend most of my time on line staying connected with my scattered friends. I've felt cut off and disconnected from the world. And now it's all back - so watch out! Soon my dumb comments will creep into emails, blogs, and of course the Facebook.

Welcome home little internet. You will be cherished here.

no internet = no updates

We've had no internet at home for what seems like a month! So no internet = no updates. I'm actually staying late at work to write this little tid-bit.

I love Donald Miller! Read his blog - it's in my blog list. The most recent one about riding across America really just slapped me upside my head. He says, "I think the inability to think rationally begins when we believe we know more than we are actually capable of knowing, and do not think objectively because our identities are tied to our ideas." How true is that! How often to we get upset when people don't agree with us. I think it's less about having to be right as much our ideas usually compile our identity so when people disagree we take it as a personal attack. I try
not to do this too often but i know i have more than i like to admit. How great would it be to live in a world where you are not known by a profession or your list of ideas, but are simply known for you - all the quirky things that make you you.

I have nothing profound of my own to write - only that we are alive and will begin to blog again once we have internet at home.

Finally...a permanent job.

It's settled. No more moving for a very long time. I am now permanently employed by the Williamson County Convention and Visitors Bureau as the Office Manager. WOOHOO!!

We've been throwing around the idea of moving back to DC for higher paying jobs (and higher cost of living to go with it) but have finally decided that we're happy, and why ruin that? We are settling down and plan to make a life in this fun and funky place. So come visit!

Meanwhile...God seems to be teaching new things all the time. Lately it's that I have limited control over situations while he has limitless power to meet all my needs. And I was reminded of a lesson learned earlier on...there is a garment of praise for a spirit of despair. I wish I would remember that in the throws of despair and not wait weeks for that to suddenly dawn on me in the midst of worship.
There's so much more going on than I'm willing to publicly post. I really am just trying to just trust and rest in the knowledge that I serve a mighty God.

But...tonight we're going to Bluegrass on the Harpeth which is sure to produce many a picture and maybe even a video or two.

One other tidbit: I learned a rather cool part of Franklin's history this past week. In 1864 as the Battle of Franklin finally drew to a close, leaving 1000s wounded or dead on both sides of the war a Confederate preacher began to have prayer meetings and write those prayers down. God used his heart felt prayers and service to start a revival in Franklin - the one of the first revivals in the "holiness revival movement" in the Methodist Church. (Holiness revival movement = what we think of as revivals today.) As some of my friends my guess it was quickly shut down by the powers that be and he was moved to a small church in Mississippi. (Sound familiar?) Two of his books were published while he was alive and about 6 more were published after he died. You can still buy his books on Amazon. His name: EM Bounds. Check out the full story at: http://clusterpaper.com/article/em-bounds.

Beautiful Day

Quite literally, it is one of the most breath-taking-ly beautiful day's I've seen. The sky is the perfect color of mystery blue, there's cool breeze, and it's about 85. It was hard to stay indoors today.

But the beauty of the day isn't merely a matter of the weather. Today is a day that no matter what ill news may come (Stupid IRS) my heart will still rejoice. Today is a day when Justice is introducing itself to our history.

After years of relentless violence and horrible massacre the world's courts have begun to open their sleepy eyes and see the genocide in Darfur. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking to press charges of genocide against the president of Sudan. (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/14/icc.transcript/index.html?eref=rss_world) If this warrent for arrest is issued, and President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is finally submitted into the earthly hands of justice, all should rejoice.

No, the violence in Africa won't stop. But, the hell that is Darfur and all of Sudan will perhaps know the peace that has been prayed for by so many. The voices of thousands of protestors will be heard and not haven fallen on deaf ears.

Pray that the beauty of the moment of justice will come. That it comes quickly. That the evil that has drenched the ground blood red will be bound on earth. That the tiny bits of morality that hold our fabric of society together will hold strong and rightly punish the wrong. Because, if no charges are brought, or if a prosecution fails in this court - hope is lost for the remaining inhabitants of that region. Retaliation is the free cool-aid of Africa and everyone's thirsty, and if not they're forced to drink.

PRAY. If you've ever had tug at your heart for Africa or for Darfur muster it up, put your foot on the spiritual battle's front line and offer up all that you have. If you don't believe in God or that God has anything to do with the outcome of events, let's put debating aside. Offer your good thoughts, write your congressman, your senator, the President, DO ANYTHING BUT SIT IN FRONT OF A COMPUTER SCREEN AND NOTHING ELSE!

Tick Tock Tick Tock

Isn’t it funny how at 60 seconds can seem like the longest amount of time on earth and other times it’s way too short. Life is full of waiting, times when time seems not to be moving – or at least life’s not moving with time. Then there’s days when you wake up and realize that the memory you were just thinking about was actually 7 years ago!!!

In Philosophy of Religion that I took nearly two years ago (seems like a few months ago) we talked about whether we believe God exists inside or outside of time. I concluded that God exists outside of it, but as proven by history can step into it. (Jesus)

I want to exist outside of time. I want to not worry. And the more I think about it most of my worries and stress are time related, perhaps not on the surface but time plays a factor. I worry about money because I need it for future bills or other future needs. I stress over starting a family, my marriage, and so many other things – because of what might happen in the future or things that happened in the past.

Why do we feel that we have to measure our lives by time? By age such and such I should have done so and so. Ten years from now everything will be fine. Oh to be whatever age again when life was carefree.

Time consumes us. Literally, we’re eaten up one day at a time. I know in my head that it’s silly to worry about tomorrow or even yesterday – that all we have is right now. I wish I could teach that to my heart, my soul, to the thing in me that spends so much time wishing for things to be different, wishing for the future to be here now, wishing that I had done things differently in the past.

I can’t touch yesterday and tomorrow’s not certain. I want to learn to live right now. Not to think – ok I have an hour before such and such happens so I’ll just fill my time with something useless until then. Reliant K said it best in their song More Than Useless, “My datebook is packed full of days that were empty and now gone.” I’m tired of having empty days filled with nothing.

I don’t know how to fix it, though. Even now I’m counting minutes until Kevin gets home, days until I go to Tallahassee, months until we finally feel settled somewhere, and years for dreams to come true. I don’t want to be Hook – haunted by the ticking of the clock inside the crock that’s waiting to eat me. But, I don’t know how to get to the place Peter Pan found – where time stood still and he was a boy forever.

Tagged

Thanks so much lisa b. I have lots of different things blog about, but tonight i'm so congested and miserable I'll finally answer the tag. So I am supposed to share 6 things little-known facts about myself.

1 - I had radiation poisoning from the Chernobyl explosion when I lived in Europe as a child.

2 - I am extremely terrified of rodents. I am unashamed to stand on chairs and scream like a little girl.

3 - I have never been able to do a cartwheel or a flip - even now that i'm married to a gymnastics instructor.

4 - I prefer to eat nearly all vegetable's raw - corn, green beans, broccoli, green peppers, etc.

5 - I went to 11 different schools from Kindergarten to High school

6 - I'm so obsessed with Jane Austin novels that I named my dog after two of her characters: Elinor from Sense & Sensibility and Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice.

and now...I'm tagging Kevin because he likes to make me blog and then never blogs himself!