A Little Something Sweet
Just in time for Valetine’s Day, the weather turned into perfect sugaring weather. Yesterday, the temps rose above freezing, so we tapped all of our maple trees. Just as we suspected, the sap started flowing.
Last year the season only lasted five days and we ended up with a little more than a gallon of syrup. This year we’re hoping that it lasts much longer so we can get several gallons of syrup to use throughout the year.
We’ll be spending our Valentine’s evening emptying sap buckets and starting to boil it down into sweet delicious maple syrup. Not the typical romantic fare, but right up our alley.
Do you do anything special for Valentine’s day?
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Vanilla Meyer Lemon Tooth Powder
As part of our No Buy February Challenge, I’m going to be posting Make Your Own how-to’s on Wednesdays. Learning to make things yourself from scratch is a great way to save money.
I blogged about making homemade toothpaste last October. That recipe used vegetable glycerin, which Mr Chiots and I weren’t really fond of. After we used up that batch we’ve been using tooth powder instead, which we like much better. I’ve been trying different recipes, cinnamon tooth powder being our favorite so far. Since it was time to make another batch, I decided lemon would be a wonderful flavor for the coming spring months. I made up a batch of Vanilla Meyer Lemon Toothpaste. It smells heavenly, like a delicious lemon cookie. The recipe for toothpowder is basically the same, you can add various essential oils and spices to customize it to suite your tastes. I often add peppermint oil if I don’t have lemon. Cinnamon is also a great addition.
LEMON VANILLA TOOTH POWDER
4 Tablespoons baking soda (I use aluminum free)
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 Tablespoon of grated lemon peel (from one lemon)
10 drops of vanilla
Stir together ingredients and whir in a food processor to pulverize the lemon peel. Store in a small jar. Put small amount on toothbrush and enjoy and non-toxic delicious tooth brushing experience! As with all tooth brushing make sure to rinse well after brushing, especially with the citrus as it’s slightly acidic. Rinsing well gets rid of the acid.
For my cinnamon recipe I simply omit lemon peel and vanilla and add 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Sometimes I also add a few drops of peppermint essential oil.
This recipe is simple to make and really inexpensive as well. An SLS free non-toxic toothpaste can run $4-10 per tube, since this costs less than 50 cents per batch you’re saving a bundle!
I really enjoy learning to make things for myself so I don’t have to rely on heading to the store when I need things like toothpaste, brown sugar, bread, crackers and other things. All you have to do is keep a few staples in your pantry and you can save a bundle buy learning to make your own.
Have you ever made homemade toothpaste? How’s your No Buy February going?
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A Busy Weekend and a Winner
On Thursday afternoon the mail lady honked her horn in the driveway to deliver a few packages. When I went out to get them I realized it was 10 lbs of meyer lemons from the Lemon Ladies Orchard and 20lbs of organic olives from Chaffin Family Orchard. We had plans on Thursday night and yesterday was spent working and getting my taxes ready to go. I also spent some times reading up on brining and preserving olives.
That means today I’ll be spending my time cutting olives, soaking them, salting them and working my way through the entire box (most likely I’ll be doing it again tomorrow as well). I’m planning on using three different preservation methods, water curing, brine curing, and dry salt curing. That will help me decide which kind of preservation method I like. I’m a really big fan of Kalamata olives, so I’m thinking I’m going to like the water cured olives the best. I’ll post more about the process later next week, although sadly I won’t be able to talk about the outcome for quite a while, olives are a definitely a SLOW food! Just in case you’re interested in information about brining your own olives at home here’s the link to a great booklet from UC Davis Home Curing Olives.
Are you doing anything exciting this weekend?
We have a WINNER!
Congratulations! Head on over to Morgan’s blog Grounded and read about things like: making your own seed balls, how to build a worm bin and what life is like in Southern California.
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Quick Last Minute Gifts
This time of year it seems like you get invited to parties and last minute activities and you end up needing a quick hostess gift or a little something to take along. I like to have a few gifts ready for such occasions so I’m not scrambling or I don’t have to buy something.
Of course there are always my homemade jam, I always can some in nice jars just for giving. In addition to jams & jellies I like to have a few other options, each year I make something different. A few years ago I made pancake mixes in nice little bags and had little jars of maple syrup to go with them. Last year I made maple glazed pecans to hand out. This year I decided to make some little jars of mulling spices, I blogged the recipe over at Not Dabbling today if you’re interested. Next year I may make jars of Herbes de Provence with homegrown herbs.
I also like to bake a lot of fresh bread, because who doesn’t love receiving a loaf of ciabatta from a friend? A loaf a bread is also a great thing to go with that homemade jam. 
Next year I may also think about buying a box of olives to cure myself, what a wonderful gift a jar of home cured olives would be! I’m always keeping my eye open for things I can make for quick gifts and I bookmark or try to write them down when I find them.
Do you keep things around for quick last minute gifts? Any great ideas for the rest of us?
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My Neighbors Must Think I’m Crazy
Why? Because I raked all the leaves from the driveway onto the front lawn and spread them out in an even layer.
Last week I started making mulch for my flower beds. I collect the leaves when they fall and chop them up with my mower. I then mix them with grass clippings and use this mix as mulch on my gardens.
Leaves make the best all natural mulch for flowerbeds and your edible garden beds. The worms love it and it does a wonderful job of keeping weeds at bay and it does wonders to help retain moisture. Leaves also help improve the soil over the long term as the worms turn them into the soil. The best part is that they’re FREE! I’m lucky that our gardens are surrounded by giant trees so I have leaves in abundance, but we also collect leaves from our neighborhood leaf drop off center as I don’t think you can ever have too many!
Do you make use of the leaves in your garden? Do you have any great free things that you use in the garden?
