Get Knitty With It

I first decided I wanted to learn how to knit when I saw my sister-in-law knitting. It looked neat and I wanted to see if I could figure it out. So I started looking around online at websites about knitting, and I found learntoknit.com. I printed off instructions from this website and taught myself how to knit. That was three years ago.

Obviously my post today is about knitting. If you already know how to knit skip down below. If you do not know how to knit and would like to learn, you can try it on your own using a website like learntoknit.com or a book. There are plenty of knitting books at the library and bookstore. Your local yarn store (LYS in knitting lingo) should also offer knitting classes if you would like to learn from an instructor.

You can buy cheap knitting supplies at Wal-Mart, which is what I recommend when you are first starting out. That way you can see if you even like knitting before you spend a small fortune on supplies. For practicing stitches you should just use cheap yarn like Red Heart brand. Your LYS will have better quality yarn and knitting needles and once you are a more experienced knitter you can venture in there and take on a more challenging project.

For today though you will only need to know one stitch and will only need one kind of yarn. For my first post on knitting I wanted to write about something simple but still useful. This week I have been posting about useful items in the kitchen, and the one item you probably use every day is a dish cloth or rag of some sort. Knitting a dish cloth is very simple and knit dish cloths are very durable and will last a long time. It’s also a great way to practice your stitches.

You will need the following supplies:

One ball of worsted weight cotton yarn, any color – Sugar N’ Cream brand works well and is relatively inexpensive

Size 8 knitting needles

Yarn needle

Directions:
Cast on 32 stitches

Knit 72 rows of garter stitch

Bind off

Using your yarn needle, weave in all loose ends into the edges of the cloth and trim

So is it worth it? Dish cloths are relatively cheap to purchase so I’m not sure if making your own saves you any money. You can probably knit a dishcloth for around $1 not counting the cost of the knitting needles.

I like to knit as a way to relieve stress and unwind, and making these dish cloths are nice because they do not require a lot of thought. So the answer depends on your motive. If you make them because you like to knit and you need a project then the answer is yes. This is a nice quick project and you have something useful when you are finished. If you want to knit a dishcloth only to save money then I don’t think it is worth it.

You can also give these dish cloths as gifts. I gave three dish cloths to my mother-in-law for Mother’s Day along with some nice Bath & Body Works hand soap for her kitchen. I have also given these as gifts, but as face cloths. I made them a bit bigger and paired them with a locally made soap as a small gift for a friend. As gifts I think knitting these dishcloths or face cloths is worth it because it does not take much time or money and usually people appreciate something hand made.

Once you master the basic dish cloth you can venture out into patterns and start experimenting with different stitches.

Good Luck!

Homemade All Purpose Cleaner

As is the case with my natural curiosity for making everything at home, one day I decided I wanted to make my own cleaning supplies. I had heard about it before but had never actually done it. I did some research online and came across a neat website Mormon Chic. I am not mormon, but this website has some great tips under Deal Diva Chic and one of those was making your own cleaning supplies.

I wanted to make this week all about homemade items that are useful in your kitchen, but the issues with my car has thrown me off all week. Luckily my car (also known as Bert) just had a bad battery and is now fixed. Thank goodness! Car issues are always stressful when you depend on your car as much as I do.

Now back to the all-purpose cleaner, which I do make at home and use in my kitchen to wipe down everything. You will need a 16oz empty spray bottle. I bought one at the store for about a dollar. You can also use an empty one from a store-bought cleaner. You will also need:

Castile soap – I bought this at my local health food store. If you cannot find Castile soap you can use a mild dishwashing liquid such as Ivory or Palmolive.

Borax – available at Wal-mart or your local grocery store in the laundry soap aisle.

White vinegar

Essential oil – optional as this is for smell only. I found essential oils at my health food store as well. They are expensive for a small bottle but you only need a few drops.

Distilled or purified water – you will need this if you live in an area of hard water.

In a two cup glass measuring cup mix two tablespoons of white distilled vinegar and one teaspoon of borax. Add 1 cup of hot water and stir until the borax is dissolved. Let this mixture cool a few minutes and then pour into the spray bottle. Add more water to the bottle leaving enough room to add 1/4 cup of castile soap OR 1/8 cup of liquid dishwashing detergent. To scent, add 15-20 drops of your favorite essential oil. The scent will not be as pure when mixed with an already scented dishwashing detergent.

Because this cleaner does contain a small amount of borax it is slightly toxic. Be sure to label it accordingly. When ready to use just give the bottle a little shake to activate the suds and spray away!

So is it worth it? I haven’t done the calculations, but according to Mormon Chic, making this cleaner only costs you $0.31 cents per bottle. Store-bought cleaners usually cost at least $3.00 per bottle so that’s a significant savings. It doesn’t take up a lot of time to make either. My verdict – YES it is worth it. I have been making my own cleaning supplies at home for almost a year now and I love it. It’s all natural so it’s better for the environment and better for you and your family. Plus it saves you money! The ingredients you buy like Borax, white vinegar and castile soap are useful in other ways around your house as well and will be the topic of future posts. Stay tuned!

Sorry...No Post Today!

Hi Everyone! Sorry but I won't have a post today. I usually write my posts the night before and last night my car wouldn't start when I was leaving work. Arg! So I was running around last night trying to get that straighened out and got home late.

I will try to have two posts tomorrow to make up for it! In the meantime, here's a link to an interesting article I read yesterday on how to eat for $15 per week. Sounds crazy right? Read on and see what he has to say.

How to Feed Yourself for $15 a Week

Enjoy! See you all tomorrow!

Mission Organization: Recipe Book

As a cook and a baker, I am constantly looking for new recipes to try. I not only find them in my cookbooks, but I also print them from websites, rip them out of magazines and jot them down on scrap pieces of paper. I also get a lot of recipes from friends. Some recipes I try and end up making frequently and some I never get around to making. Nevertheless I end up with a pile of random pieces of paper in my kitchen, a stack of recipes shoved in the junk drawer, random recipes stuck in with my bills or stuffed in my purse. Whenever I did actually want to make something I could never find the recipe!

So how to solve this problem? Create your own personalized recipe book. Your own recipe book allows you to store and organize your recipes in a manner that suits you and also allows you to edit and update your recipes over time.

To start you will need the following supplies:

3 ring binder, any size. I use a one inch, polka-dot binder I got at Target for $4.99 (see picture above), but any binder will work just fine.

Sheet protectors. These will keep your recipes safe while you are cooking. If you splatter spaghetti sauce on your pages you can just wipe it right off.

Cardstock or paper

Dividers. Any number or size for however you want to section off your recipe book.

Recipes! Gather together all your loose recipes.

The first step is to sort through all the loose recipes you currently have. If you have had a recipe for over a year and you haven’t made it yet, throw it out. You’ll probably never make it. If you come across recipes that you did make but didn’t like, throw those out too. No sense keeping a recipe that you’ll never use again!

The next step is to sort your remaining recipes into categories. The categories can be anything you like. You can sort them by meal; breakfast, lunch, dinner or desert. You can sort them by food type; vegetables, meat, or grains. You can sort them by number of ingredients. You can sort them by how often you make them. Anything goes here.

Now start putting your book together. Recipes on a full page can go directly into the sheet protectors. Recipes that are smaller can be grouped together and glued or taped onto cardstock and then slid into the sheet protectors. Place the sheets into the sections of the binder, label the dividers and voila! Your own personal recipe book. Whenever you get a new recipe from a friend, magazine or the web, you can add it to the book.

Every couple months or so, go through your book and pull out any recipes you don’t want anymore. You also may want to put your go-to recipes at the front so you can find them quickly.

One final tip – when making the recipes from your book, pull them out of the sheet protectors and write notes on them. For example, if you made a recipe for 8 people at a party, write down if people enjoyed it and if there were any leftovers. If there were tons of leftovers then next time you’ll know that you might only need a half recipe instead of a whole recipe.

So is it worth it? Yes! It was well worth the time and money I spent to make my kitchen more organized and eliminate recipe clutter. My personal recipe book has all my favorite recipes in it so I use it all the time. I keep it above my stove with all my other recipe books so it is easily accessible.

Now print out the recipes I’ve posted during the past couple of weeks and add them to your new recipe book!

O - R - E - O!

I have a fantastic recipe for homemade Oreo cookies. It was given to me by my friend Katie who also gave me the pizza dough recipe and pizza sauce recipe. These cookies taste more like those new Oreo Cakesters cookies than traditional Oreo cookies, but Katie was making this recipe long before those imposters came out.

Homemade Oreo Cookies
makes about three dozen

2 boxes devil’s food cake mix
1 1/3 cups shortening
4 eggs
Cream cheese frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix all ingredients together except the cream cheese frosting. The dough will be stiff. Once dough is combined, roll dough into balls of any size. I usually use a teaspoon to dip out the dough. It is best to try to make the dough balls approximately the same size. Place dough balls on cookie sheets and bake for approximately 8-10 minutes or until done. Allow cookies to cool on cookie sheets for a couple minutes then remove to cooling racks or paper towels.

Once all cookies are baked and cooled, frost the backside of one cookie with as much cream cheese frosting as you like and top with another cookie to make a sandwich. Voila!

I have made these cookies several times and I ALWAYS get tons of compliments on them. They are really rich so you can only eat one or two.

Variations? I have not tried this yet, but I imagine these cookies would be fantastic with peanut butter in the middle instead of cream cheese frosting. If someone tries this please let me know how it goes.

It is my goal to make these cookies completely from scratch sometime in the future. I would not use the cake mixes or canned frosting. The frosting part would not be too hard, but figuring out the cake mix part will require a little time and perhaps a few batches of cookies to work out the kinks. But I will repost this recipe at some point that doesn’t use any prepackaged items.

So is it worth it? These cookies taste excellent, but they take awhile to make. They are great to take to barbeques, parties or to the office for someone’s birthday and they look and taste a lot better than packaged Oreos. However they are not really any cheaper to make compared to buying a pack of Oreos at the store.

Bottom line – make these for a large group gatherings. Depending on the size of your family, if you made these just for eating at home you might not eat them fast enough because they are so rich. You could also freeze them individually and then stow these special treats in lunches or picnics.

I will admit that I still buy Oreos on occasion. There’s something about an Oreo that’s comforting to me. However I will only buy double stuffed Oreos, which taste best dunked in a cold glass of milk (of course!).

Homemade Chocolate Fondue

The only way to follow up cheese fondue is with a yummy pot of chocolate fondue. The picture on this post is of the chocolate fondue I made just this past weekend. To make it yourself, follow the recipe below. You do not need a special fondue pot to make chocolate fondue.

Milk Chocolate Fondue

1 bag milk chocolate chips
1/3 cup whipping cream

Some suggested dippers:
Strawberries
Pound cake
Big marshmallows
Bananas
Brownie bites
Pineapple
Oreos

Place the chocolate chips and the whipping cream in a small crock pot or sauce pan on low. Stir occasionally to combine. If using a saucepan, transfer fondue to a heatproof bowl once ingredients are melted and combined. Dip and swirl the suggested dippers or anything you choose in the chocolate fondue. If fondue seems thick, reheat or add more cream and stir to combine.

A few yummy variations to try: stir in a glop of peanut butter, a handful of white chocolate chips, a drizzle of caramel, or a spoonful of marshmallow fluff.

So is it worth it? Of course! If you look at it from a cost perspective, it is much more cost effective to make chocolate fondue at home. Chocolate Fondue for two at the Melting Pot costs $14.95. When you add in two glasses of wine at $8.00 each and 7.5% tax and 20% tip the total comes to approximately $40.

The cost of making chocolate fondue at home will vary depending on what dippers you choose. Strawberries will raise your total cost. When I made chocolate fondue last weekend I spend $1.58 on a bag of milk chocolate chips, $1.23 on a half pint of whipping cream, $3.12 on a frozen pound cake and $0.99 on a brownie mix which I made into brownie bites. I already had a bag of big marshmallows in my freezer, so I pulled out a few of those. I only used half the pound cake, so I put the remaining half in the freezer for next time. That makes my total cost $5.76 when you add 7.5% sales tax. Add in a bottle of wine and you are still way below the cost of chocolate fondue at a restaurant.

Chocolate fondue is even easier than cheese fondue. It’s really fun to serve for special occasions. You can make a meal out of cheese fondue and chocolate fondue together! You can serve chocolate fondue after a dinner at home, or make chocolate fondue at home after a dinner out instead of ordering desert at the restaurant.

If you have any other ideas for fondue variations or dippers or have made chocolate fondue at home, please leave a comment!

Cheese Fondue? It’s a Fon-DO!

So I took about a week off from posting due to the holiday. I had a few days off work, spent a lot of time with the family and now I’m back and ready to go! I’m still getting used to this blogging business as well. I know I’ve only been posting about cooking and food so far but don’t worry, I have a ton of non-cooking and non-food ideas up my sleeve if that is what you are looking for. I’ve just been cooking a LOT lately and I’m very excited to share my recipes with you all.

Today we are talking about cheese fondue. Mmmmm. I love cheese and a big pot of melty cheese is especially tasty. About two years ago my husband and I went out for a special anniversary dinner at the Melting Pot, which is a chain fondue restaurant. We went all out on the four course dinner, complete with wine for each of us. It was so good, but boy was it expensive!

We wanted to have fondue again but could not afford to hit up the Melting Pot every time we had the craving. So I decided to make it at home.

But wait, don’t you need a special fondue pot to make fondue? The answer is no. All you need is a saucepan and a mini crock-pot. Mini crock-pots are very versatile kitchen tools and can be purchased just about anywhere for relatively cheap. You can find one at Target for around $16.99 by clicking here. When looking for a mini crock-pot make sure you get one with a removable inter pot, which makes it much easier to clean.

You’ll be able to use this kitchen tool for lots of recipes rather than the fondue pot which is just used for fondue and usually ends up taking up space in your kitchen. How often will you really make fondue? Although it’s really yummy and easy to make, it’s not something you make every week. I’ve made it only twice this year so far.

Let’s get started:

Cheese Fondue, from Betty Crocker’s Big Red Cookbook

4 cups shredded Swiss cheese
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 clove garlic, cut in half
1 cup dry white wine or white cooking wine
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons kirsch, dry sherry, brandy or white cooking wine
1 loaf French bread, cut into bite size pieces

Place cheese and flour in a resealable plastic bag. Shake until cheese is coated with flour.

Rub garlic on bottom and side of saucepan, discard garlic. Add 1 cup wine. Heat over simmer setting or low heat just until bubbles rise to surface (do not boil). Stir in lemon juice.

Gradually add cheese mixture, about ½ cup at a time, stirring constantly with wooden spoon over low heat, until melted. Stir in kirsch, sherry, brandy or wine. Once liquid is incorporated, transfer cheese fondue to a preheated mini crock-pot.

Spear bread with forks; dip and swirl in fondue with stirring motion. If fondue becomes too thick, stir in ¼ cup to ½ cup heated wine.

The trick to remember with cheese fondue is to use LOW heat. I kept my burner at two or lower the entire time. If the heat is too high and you try to melt the cheese too fast, the whole thing will curdle and be ruined. It will be a yucky, clumpy mess. Just ask my husband about the time I tried to make broccoli cheese soup from scratch. Poor thing even ate the yucky, clumpy mess to be nice. To this day he claims it was not that bad – ha! I tasted it and it was that bad. So don’t be in a hurry. Slow and steady will get you better fondue in the end.

Once you have mastered the basic fondue recipe, you can start experimenting with other cheeses and flavors. Betty Crocker recommends using 2 cups shredded Swiss cheese and 2 cups shredded Gruyere cheese. I have found Gruyere to be quite expensive so I have not tried it yet due to cost.

Besides bread, other dippers that are excellent with cheese fondue are Granny Smith apples and assorted vegetables.

So is it worth it? Most definitely!!! Traditional Swiss cheese fondue for two at the Melting Pot costs $14.95 per person. Add in two glasses of wine at an average of $8 per person and then 7.5% tax and 20% tip and your bill will total approximately $40.

The cost to make cheese fondue at home is relatively inexpensive depending on the ingredients you use. Four cups of pre-shredded Swiss cheese cost me $3.33 (on sale at my local grocery store). A bottle of cooking wine costs approximately $3.00 and you won’t use the whole thing in this recipe. A loaf of French bread at my local grocery store was $0.99, and I only used half the loaf for this meal. The other half I put in the freezer for the next time I make fondue. One apple is plenty for two people and it cost $0.64. The other ingredients (flour, garlic, and lemon juice) are all so slight that the cost is negligible. Then add in an entire bottle of wine for two for about $12.

So the total cost to make this fondue is $3.33 for cheese, $2.00 for 2/3 bottle of cooking wine, $0.50 for half loaf of French bread, $0.64 for an apple and $12.00 for a bottle of wine, totaling $19.85 when you add in 7.5% sales tax. That’s a 50% savings and you get an entire bottle of wine!

I really enjoy making fondue at home and recommend it for everyone to try. It’s a fun, simple and inexpensive meal for special occasions. The picture above is of the cheese fondue I made myself last Saturday night. If I can do it – you can do it!

Stay tuned for the only fondue better than cheese fondue – Chocolate Fondue!