SOS Mom Saver: What Flowers Say "I Love You"?

I have to be honest here.  I think Valentine's Day is a farce created by Hallmark and FTD.  Isn't my husband lucky?

He's actually even luckier than that.  I don't like roses.  I'd much rather have carnations, tulips, or lilies.  I'm so easy.  And cheap.  (Okay...that didn't sound quite how I intended it to.)

There will be some women who expect flowers on Valentine's Day.  They don't just want flowers, though, they want the coveted red rose.  Except their husband forgot to order ahead.  Save for a lone, sad rose or two in the gas station, there aren't any available in the entire city.  What's a guy to do?

He can pick one of the other flowers that means love.  You can find complete lists at About.com and from Tara Florist in St. Joseph, Michigan.  I'll make it easy for you, though.  Here are several that stand out:

• White Chrysanthemum:  Truth, Loyal love
• Calla Lilly:  Magnificent beauty
• Orchid:  Rare beauty, love, refinement, beautiful lady
• Red Tulip:  Declaration of love
• Yellow Tulip:  Hopeless love, There's sunshine in your smile

If all else fails and you can't find any flowers, get her a cactus.  No.  Seriously.  It stands for "endurance".

(Disclaimer:  I cannot be held responsible for your wife's actions should you actually bring her a cactus for Valentine's Day.  I wouldn't actually advise doing this unless she has requested that you do so.  This is not official medical advice and I'm not the attorney general, but bringing your wife a cactus for Valentine's Day may be hazardous to your health.)

SOS Mom Saver: Affordable Healthy Eating

 
One of the best ways to eat healthy is to eat fresh fruits and veggies.  Um.  Duh, Amy. (Yes, I said "duh".) We kinda already knew that.  Do you KNOW how expensive that is, though? (Just ignore the Christmas tree in the pic.  This pic was taken a week before Christmas after we had just done our shopping for the week and had just gotten our co-op order from Azure.)

Honestly, if you're eating conventional produce, it's really not that expensive.  It's fairly cheap if you shop sales and shop seasonally.  A lot of people just don't have the time, energy, or desire to shop the sales every week, though.  Even if they can just price-match all of the other ads at Walmart.  (Which is, by the way, an excellent way to do one-stop shopping.)

An excellent way to eat the same regional, conventional produce you'd eat from the grocery store is to purchase your produce from a company like Bountiful Baskets.  The way they work is simple.  You pay them $16.50 a week ($15 + a $1.50 fee) for a basket of conventional produce.  They do all the work for you.  They find the best deals for the week, do your shopping, & put all of your produce together in a basket that you just go and pick up on Saturday morning.

The concept here is good.  They do the shopping for you saving you time and energy.  The get fairly good deals saving you money.  There are some potential "bads" to shopping this way, though.  You don't get to choose your produce.  If your family is  picky and only likes certain fruits and veggies and isn't willing to try new stuff...then you may not see the same savings as others.  On the other hand, a family who eats a wide variety of fruits and veggies or doesn't mind trying new foods would enjoy the convenience Bountiful Baskets can bring.

Is it really a cost savings?  Yes.  If you normally just go to the store and buy what you want that week and never shop sales then this will save you money.  If, however, you regularly shop sales or your family isn't adventurous food-wise then you'll likely do better shopping on your own.

What if you want organic produce?  Bountiful Baskets offers an organic basket as well.  They charge $26.50 ($25 plus a $1.50 fee) for that basket.  If you eat exclusively organic and only shop at local grocery stores, then you will likely save more money by going through Bountiful Baskets.  The downside of not being able to choose your own foods might hinder some and limit their savings, though.  If, however, you order your produce through a co-op (which I'll discuss in a bit), then you're likely to save more by going through the co-op.

Now...on to the organic options.

One of my favorite ways to get local, organic produce is through our local co-op, Azure Standard.  A There are three main co-ops in the US.  Of course, there's Azure.  There's also United Buying Clubs and Country Life Natural Foods.  I have personally used all three of them; depending on where we have lived and have been very pleased with all of them.  With Country Life, I actually went directly to their farm which was only 40 minutes from my home to pick up my foods.  They don't all offer fresh produce.  That will depend on whether they contract with a farmer in your area or not.  The only exception is Azure.  If you can get a co-op order from them, you can get produce.

I want to add here that some people have smaller health food stores in their area that are ALSO called "co-ops".  These are NOT the same as the co-ops about which I'm discussing.  In fact, the co-ops that I've mentioned are where most of those smaller health-food stores get their produce.  Some of them will also sell produce from local farmers, but often at a mark-up that's a good bit above what you'd pay directly from the farmer, at a farmer's market, or through a CSA.  Basically, these are just local health food stores.  They're the Mom & Pop version of Whole Foods.

My other favorite way of getting local, organic foods is through a CSA.  "CSA" stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  They generally offer a certain amount of "shares" for sale at the beginning of the season.  People front a certain amount of money (usually around $300-$500 for 3 months).  The farmer uses this investment to purchase seed and other supplies.  In return, each "investor" gets a share of the harvest; equally divided.  There is a risk here.  If there's a flood or other natural disaster that destroys the crop...you're out of luck.  You've spent the money and you won't get it back.  However, I have never had that happen in several years of buying through CSAs.

Remember those local health food stores (also called co-ops in some cases) that I discusses above?  Some of these local stores will also be the "hub" for farms that are further out of town.  You'll meet there to pick up your CSA shares.  However, if you're not picking your produce up directly from the farm, the cost will often be higher so keep an eye out for that when signing up for the CSA.

And of course, you have farmer's markets.  I love being able to talk to the farmer from whom I'm buying the produce.  A hint here:  If you don't mind non-perfect produce, wait until the end and offer to buy the "seconds" or ends from a farmer for a discounted price.

To find local or regional farms in your area, you can go to Local Harvest.  They'll give you the names of local farms in your area that either sell produce directly, through a farmer's market, or through a CSA.

Eating healthy (even organically) doesn't have to be expensive.

How do you save money on produce?

How My Children Disappoint Me

Have you ever had that moment where you're just so utterly and profoundly disappointed in your children?  For some, it's when they hear their child is drinking, doing drugs, or having sex. 

If only. 

The other day, my teen says to me, "So, Mom, I was talking to my friends the other day..."

Sigh.

How many times am I going to have to tell this child?  We're HOMESCHOOLERS!  She's not supposed to have friends!

*Off to try and unsocialize my child some more.*  ('Cause based on the number of friends my children have, I'm clearly a complete and total failure as a homeschooling parent.)

Food Storage Saved Dinner!

That sounds so dramatic, doesn't it?  I picture a 6 gallon bucket with a red cape flying into the kitchen with a magic spatula.  (Some of you will get that.  The rest of you are trying to figure out why we would have a 6 gallon ANYTHING in our home.)

That's not really what happened, but it sounds so much more grand than my simple story.

I frequently fight with my 13yr old over who is going to cook dinner for the night.  By "fight", I mean she says, "Mom, can I cook dinner tonight?"  To which I respond, "Um.  No.  That's MY job! Get out of the kitchen!" "Um.  Duh.  Of COURSE you can.  If you need me, I'll be watching TV while eating bonbons cleaning something so as to look as productive as my 13yr old daughter who is slaving over dinner."  

Tonight was no exception.

Have I mentiond that I love that my 13yr old daughter loves to cook?  Because she does.  And I do.  You know, love that she loves to cook.

No.  She is not for sale.  Although she wants to own a restaurant or catering business one day...so she might hire out her cooking skills.

Anyway...she was cooking lasagna tonight.  That's her favorite meal to cook.  We order our cottage cheese from Azure Standard.  She'll typically make lasagna once a week for the next 2-3 weeks; depending on how long the cottage cheese lasts.  She also follows my "cook once, eat twice" philosophy & will double the batch making one to freeze each time she cooks.  

She's going to make some guy fat and happy one day.  My guess is, an Italian will taste her lasagna and marry her on the spot.  

Oh please don't tell her Daddy I wrote that part.  He thinks she's still of the "Ewww...I'll NEVER do THAT even when I'm married" belief.  Even though she's not.  But don't tell him that either.

So...she starts cooking lasagna.  She pulls out the ingredients and knows she has everything.  Except she doesn't.  Someone left the cottage cheese out overnight...and then put it back in the fridge hoping they wouldn't get caught...and it got moldy.  Thankfully.  You know, so we didn't all DIE from eating it!

She's starting to panic.  No worry.  Mom will find a recipe.  Surely there's  a substitute, right?  Nope.  No yogurt in the house.  Nope.  No tofu.  (Do people really eat that?  Or do they just say they do so their vegan friends will think they're cool?)

Now, back to where I look like a Mormon.  Without the cool underwear.  I have a friend who IS a Mormon.  I was griping about how I really wish there was a bouillon that was msg and soy-free.  I have several mixes I make where I had to leave OUT that ingredient because we couldn't use the store-bought stuff.  

She told me how one of her favorite companies, Shelf Reliance, had this line of food storage products that was largely free of artificial junk and soy.  A food storage company?  What?  What was that?  I mean, sure we buy our grains and some other things in bulk from Azure, but we're not Mormon.  I don't do that 8 years of food storage thing.  I don't buy freeze-dried pickles and hot dogs.  ('Cause that's what I thought Mormons did.  My friend laughed at me.  Come to think of it, she laughs at me a lot.  Probably out of pity.)

I was thrilled to find that their chicken bouillon was soy-free and msg-free.  While browsing their site, I also discovered a sour cream powder.  "How cool would THAT be?" I thought to myself. (Yes, I just quoted myself thinking to myself.  'Cause that's how I roll.)  I hate sour cream and thus never cook with or even buy it.  However, some of my family members DO like it.  This would allow me to give them what they want without having to worry about countless tubs of sour cream going bad because I forgot about them.  Not that this has EVER happened...

Picture courtesy of Shelf Reliance

And that...is where food storage saved the day.  I went online in search of an answer for my daughter.  After much searching, I found two recipes that contained ingredients that we had on hand.  I combined parts of the two...because that's ALSO how I roll.  (Read:  I have control issues and don't like people telling me what to do even in recipes.)  We had 1/2 a bar of cream cheese left and combined that with re-constituted sour cream powder to make the lasagna.

And it was good.  (I think that's a verse in the Bible, but I'm not quoting the Bible.  I'm saying the lasagna was good.  Very, very good.  So good, that we might even add sour cream to it in the future.  And I don't even like sour cream.  Go figure.)

And thus is my story of how food storage saved dinner! 

SOS Mom Saver: Homemade Oatmeal Packets

My family LOVES oatmeal.  This is great as it's incredibly healthy.  Unfortunately, they also like the convenience of oatmeal packets.

But..have you looked at the ingredients for those packets lately?  Yeah.  Um.  Not exactly healthy...or even pronounceable in some cases.  Even those that are organic or healthier are full of refined sugar.

Even if you did find a healthy packet of oatmeal with only good ingredients, I challenge you to find one that's reasonably affordable.

So...I set out to make the bulk oatmeal also convenient.  I have promised a couple of friends who have asked that I will detail out the process with cost and pictures the next time we make packets.  In the meantime, here's a basic ingredient list for each of our 3 favorite oatmeal packet "flavors" (which are pictured above):

Oatmeal Raisin:

• 1/2 cup oats (I put these in the food processor and pulse them a couple times to break them up some.  That's not necessary if you're using quick oats.)
• 1 TB ground oats (see note below)
• 1 TB ground flax seed
• 1 TB cinnamon (You can use 1 tsp to 1 TB; depending on your taste preference.)
• 1/4 tsp ginger 
• 1/4 cup raisins

Strawberries & Cream:

• 1/2 cup oats (I put these in the food processor and pulse them a couple times to break them up some.  That's not necessary if you're using quick oats.)
• 1 TB ground oats (see note below)
• 1 TB ground flax seed
• 1/4 cup freeze-dried or dehydrated strawberries processed in the food processor to your desired consistency (We've also used blueberries in this recipe instead of strawberries.  YUM!)
• 1/4 cup powdered milk

Apple Cinnamon:

• 1/2 cup oats (I put these in the food processor and pulse them a couple times to break them up some.  That's not necessary if you're using quick oats.)
• 1 TB ground oats (see note below)
• 1 TB ground flax seed
• 1 TB cinnamon (You can use 1 tsp to 1 TB; depending on your taste preference.)
• 1/4 tsp ginger 
  
• 1/4 cup freeze-dried or dehydrated apples processed in the food processor to your desired consistency

Put all ingredients into a sandwich-size baggie.  Close the baggie, shake to mix the ingredients, & you're ready to go.  I do re-open the baggie after mixing the ingredients so I can get the air out before storage to save space.   I'll typically do a couple hundred packets at once.  No.  Really.  That means I don't have to do them again for awhile.  We keep them in a food-grade storage bucket that we got from a local donut shop for $2.

To cook, you simply dump the oatmeal packet into a bowl and add 1 cup of hot water. (We use the hot water from our water cooler right now, but have used water from our stove-top kettle in the past.)  Stir and enjoy!  Yes, you MUST enjoy.  We also add honey to ours when serving.  We don't typically use much.  A 2 lb container that we use only for oatmeal lasts us a couple months.

A note on the Ground Oats:  You know that powder that you see in store oatmeal packets?  That's what this is.  It's a combination of the sugar...and some ground oats which helps your oatmeal be more "mushy".  If you like mushier oatmeal, then you'll want to add some of this to each packet.  (It doesn't take much.)

The thing to remember here is that these recipes are VERY forgiving.  You can add healthy things (like the flax seed) that your family likes and take away what you don't want or like.  You can add different fruits to suit your liking. Experiment and find what your family likes best.

Exactly HOW healthy is our oatmeal?  The oats, flax seed, and raisins that we use are organic.  The powdered milk isn't organic, but is rbgh-free. 

Like I said, I will detail out the exact cost in a later blog when I do our next batch.  The estimated cost here, though, is about 36¢/packet.  If you include the cost of the honey, it makes it a little over 38¢/packet.  Note that this is for largely-organic oatmeal that contains only ingredients you can pronounce.