Posted on 07/07/2015 11:57:05 AM PDT by Kartographer
If you’ve made yogurt, then you’ve made cheese. Dump that yogurt into a colander lined with paper towels and in a bowl. Leave in the fridge overnight and you’ll have a type of cream cheese. Use the whey to make ricotta or in other cooking or feed the chickens.
“. It took me years to get over my jam anxiety.”
I’m sorry, but I thought that was really cute!
Sourdough is just yeast. I guess dry yeast looks a bit less scary ;) But a properly cared for sourdough starter won’t let anything bad grow in it. It’s like having a pet to take care of!
I guess that’s my fear: will my starter be kept properly? I always have a fear of killing my entire party at Christmas when I serve the homemade chutneys and jam...
Where are the coupons??? I rarely see them in the paper and my local market gives out about two a year - usually on something I no intention of ever buying.
“I always have a fear of killing my entire party at Christmas when I serve the homemade chutneys and jam...”
Again, you are adorable!
As long as your sourdough starter is kept in the frig and fed every so often, it will be just fine.
I’ll have to try it. The starter looks kind of disgusting, doesn’t it?
I’ve gotten to like it, since it’s like a living, breathing pet. It can smell icky sometimes though ;)
It won’t ‘go bad’ unless you don’t feed it often enough. As long as it can eat and reproduce, it won’t develop any mold or anything. It seems it’s when I forget to feed it that spores or whatever it is can grow on it.
Now you’re making me laugh! I’ll add it to my collection along with my dog and cat.
The coupons are usually in big-city Sunday newspapers. Red Plum, Smart Source, and P&G are the main inserts. In my area, the Washington Post is the go-to paper. Most are for brand-name, prepared food items - which isn’t always useful for people like us, who mostly cook from scratch. But we still get a lot of savings out of it.
I’ve noticed that areas in the Mid-West and South tend to do a lot better at couponing; that could have something to do with the grocery chains that operate there.
You can also sign up to websites like Coupon Mom (so far, that one doesn’t put a toolbar on your computer). My experience is that the ones you print out from websites don’t double in the stores, as many of the newspaper-clipped ones do.
There are even places you can go to on the web that are basically clipping services; they clip newspaper-insert coupons and will send them to you. I’ve used those a couple of times: when a coupon for something I use routinely happens to show up in the paper, I order a bunch. It’s helpful to notice, too, that many times when a coupon is in the weekly paper, soon thereafter there will be a sale to combine the coupon with. But when using clipping services, you just have to balance your savings, with the cost of the coupons and mailing.
And make use of the rewards-programs that your favorite stores have. We get 20% off of almost everything, at our local drugstore, and have for years, simply because we use the card and shop there routinely.
Some people get really obsessive about it, and I’m not suggesting that. I spend perhaps an hour a week on clipping coupons, looking at the ads, and planning my shopping. It saves us significantly - especially, as I said earlier, if you have already built a basic stockpile so that you only need to buy the things that are available at a bargain.
Signing up on the websites for products you use a lot, will also fill your email box with frequent printable coupons.
Couponing isn’t what it used to be; there used to be more and better deals. But it can save you a lot. You just have to start, and you’ll get better and better at it - you’ll develop a strategy that fits YOU. For instance: we use Scott 1000-sheet rolls of toilet paper; and I love Yardley English Lavender soap. I only buy these things under certain conditions: I won’t pay more then $.50 a roll for the Scott; and no more than $1.00 a bar for the soap. I’ve managed to get such stockpiles, that I can keep to those rules.
It just takes a while to get there ;-)
-JT
A while back, while looking at prepper and food-storage Youtube videos, I saw a guy who was suggesting saving things like rice and beans in cleaned 2-litre soda bottles, with oxygen absorbers.
People who do this freeze the food very well before storing, to kill bugs; and then funnel it into the bottles and stick in an oxygen absorber. I’ve been thinking of trying that.
-JT
When we moved cross country, I moved my 4 cats, dog, and sourdough in a cabover camper over 2300 miles. The sourdo did ok in the frig that was off during the day and on at night. The other pets weren’t happy but got here!
hmmmm, the plastic will ‘breathe’, letting in oxygen. Mylar is metal coated - so it has the flexibility of plastic (almost), but not the porousness. That’s why places like Emergency Essentials puts mylar in their plastic buckets - the buckets are just for structural support since they too will let oxygen in.
Yeah - I’ve frozen beans, rice, etc - to kill the bugs and larvae. For 48 hours. Then I’ve heated them at a low temp in the oven to remove the moisture. (170 for 1 hour). This also kills the bugs, I hear. But I’m one to always overdo anything I try! Then the oxygen-depleted environment will also get rid of anything still alive. If I find any bugs, I will be very upset after all those methods ;(
We’re probably eating bugs all the time, in fresh store-bought food...we just don’t know it ;-)
I once got a big sack of Basmati Rice at a bargain; and in a couple of weeks it was full of bugs. Wish I’d known about the freezing idea back then!
-JT
I try not to think about that ;(
Now that I live where it is humid, i’ll see more bugs in grains and such. yuck!
I think part of getting rid of bugs in items packed for long-term storage is also Southey don’t eat the items. Imagine opening a superpail of wheat and finding half of it gone with bugs in its place. (shivers)
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