tonight's dinner is taken from the weightwatcher's new 365 meal/menu cookbook. Apologies for not having it in front of me to crosscheck the actual name of the book; around here I call it my diet book. I took some liberties with the base recipe, roast beef braised in red wine. I started with the chopped onion, caramelized in some oil, then added my chopped carrots and some finely diced celery and garlic, then after that had gotten all nice and friendly in the pot I set in my meat and a mini bottle of wine. I didn't have a roast. I still have a freezer of individually flash frozen omaha steaks, and since the recipe is supposed to serve 8 I figured hey, what the hell... I've got 4 filet mignons and 4 strip steaks sitting in there.

Instead of simmering on the stove top for two+ hours, since the outside temp is going to rise significantly and I'm trying hard to keep this place cool so the AC doesn't kick on... I put the whole thing in the crockpot to finish out the slow long simmer. So we'll see how that works out, right?

Maybe this site should be more about how to stretch a dollar than how to be evironmentally conscious. Or it could be both. Both is good; of my choices the two are not mutally exclusive.

Anyone want a bread recipe? The one of the week is:
2 and 1/4 tsp yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
1 and 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup flour

stir in this a cup and a half of very warm water and 2 Tbsp melted butter. (Butter because you get what you put in. Good stuff in only makes it taste better) Let it rest until it's all bubbly and yeasty.

Then add the rest of the flour. Oh, say 1 cup and a bit -the bit is always variable depending on the dough. It should be like warm playdoh in your hands while kneading it through this step. And yes, your hands are going to get covered in large amounts of dough. You could try a spoon, or a heavy duty mixer, or whatever else seems good, but I've always had great luck with my hands. Better control over the dough.

Let your warmed kneaded dough rise until doubled in the bowl -I never really found a difference in whether or not it was oiled or not- but you need to cover it. Plastic wrap works. so do plastic shower caps (clean) or processing caps (from the beauty supply store) or even the elastic banded caps sold specifically for the purpose. When I was younger, a dishtowel served exactly the same thing with the benefit of being able to throw it in the washing machine.

Then you knead the dough again. Shape it into your finished product and put in the greased container it will be baked in. Cover again. Rise again until doubled. Then bake it at 350 for anywhere between 35 minutes and an hour depending on the shape and size of the product.

Recipe for today:

slice about 4 pounds of potatoes (I used red ones, buttery-colored flesh)
slice thinly one onion
put into crockpot, and pour over it one jar of classico classic alfredo sauce. Swish about a third of that jar with milk to get any stray sauce bits out, and add to the pot.
Brown up some strips of pork- I used boneless pork chops, three or four, seasoned with rosemary and paprika. Add the strips to the pot.
Add two cans of corn, with juice, to the pot

Cook on low for about 6 or 7 hours. This makes a scrumptious scalloped potato/pork/corn casserole, easy to reheat, easy to freeze, and easy on the budget. Lots of flavor, fairly low in sodium.

baking soda as toilet cleaner. I haven't tried this one yet, but I hope to. If I ever find the baking soda... Self-directed sigh and eyeroll. The boxes still aren't all unpacked from the move, and I am starting to doubt that they will ever be.

And yet... the mission goes on. How can I decrease our waste? How can I make this house cleaner with less toxins? When I get all the answers I'll let you know, but for now we're all in this together.

I've been seeing more and more commercials about laundry detergents again. They all say that they are new and improved to work so well; bleach alternatives to make your whites whiter and your colors fresher, and that it's hard to get stains out.

I used to have the sort of problems that these products promise a solution for. But ever since I switched over to the melaleuca stuff, for some reason I don't have this problem at all.

Now my husband told me to go out and get some bleach the other week. I don't like bleach. Why? It smells. It makes me lightheaded to use it. Somehow every bottle of bleach we've ever owned has ended up in a Bleach Incident... leaking on the trunk, leaking on the carpet, eating through the bottle itself... This was bad enough when it was just us. Now the Toddler's involved in the equation I am finding myself getting antsier about the whole thing.

Yes, I bought the bleach. I hid it in the laundry room on the highest shelf. Do you think it's ever going to be opened? Or do you think my husband is just going to forget he ever asked me to get some?

Today's solution to all my household woes is... duct tape.

Granted, it's an extremely cliched thing these days. It still works, though, and at the moment that's all I'm caring about. Not only will it seal baseboards and dishwasher leaks, it keeps diapers on my squiggly toddler. And is capable of fixing her screens. And is even, on occasion, useful for things like ducts.

I've never tried to duct tape a duck though. Sounds messy. Plus, as someone who once witnessed a grown man trying to blow dry a cat, I choose not to inflict that sort of mental image to my offspring. Or my husband. Or the rest of the Net.

motherhood is not for the faint of heart. Not only does it start with discomfort and then the Event known as childbirth, but it segues into dirty diapers, the endless rounds of laundry that CANNOT be put off if you expect to ever use those items again... Damn but it's fun though.

This morning my daughter has chosen to entertain herself by putting an empty cardboard tp roll into an empty kleenex box. Then she takes it out. Then she puts the roll over her forearm so that it looks like a little cast- she has decided to use that to whack things with.

Am I going to stop her? Nope. Am I glad that she's using her imagination rather than playing with some specifically designed play set that costs more than an empty cardboard tube? Yep. Money aside, she's learning to reuse things. She still has all those nifty and neat toys, but this? This is pretty cool too. It makes me happy to play all the same games with her that I used to play with my mom. Same sorts of stuff, empty containers that have been washed but I never threw out; and when she inevitably destroys it I can just toss without feeling like we're wasting or destroying expensive stuff.

Woo hoo for the Corelle! I'm thrilled, my replacement bowls should be here soon. Real soon. And I'm in heaven over it.

Also, woo-hoo for the latest thrifty diy project: I'm knitting up a set of kitchen towels and dishcloth. Will either send it to someone for a gift, or I'll just put it up with the next craft fair.

Today's discovery is that tough'n'tender, my favorite cleaning product in the whole world, so fabulous that I'm going to send it a posy of roses and build a small shrine in it's honor... kills sugar ants. Those little black pests that make me want to ARRGHH!

Spray, die near instantly, wipe up with kitchen rag, toss rag in washer, no more ants.

Repeat as necessary, although after I've been doing it for a while I've got to say that the population is Way down. Maybe they're learning? Hope so. I don't want to waste this yummy product on ants.

How do you tell the scams from the real workfromhome stuff? Is it really fair to paint all the websites with the same brush? Sure, there are legit things. There are also scams. I won't pretend to tell you what is good and what is bad and what is a product of the flying spaghetti monster's little green angels.

For myself I judge a site by what is attainable. I'm never going to make big bucks. It is never going to allow us to work a few hours a week and make millions. I can, however, make about a hundred a month through five or six different companies, and this can pay a bill or two. There are companies out there who do, in fact, pay a few cents for reading emails and clicking through to the advertisement. That's not going to buy a cup of coffee more than once a month, but I don't have to spend significant time with it and it costs me nothing out of pocket. There are survey sites that cost nothing to join, and if you just hang with them long enough there are modest returns on that.

Maybe the key here is to not expect an instant fortune. We all want that big payday, the one that means we'll never have to work again and have enough money for anything we want. All I want is a few cents here and there. Squirrel it away in the savings account or in a jar under the bed. Forget about it. And then when you need to buy a tire or two, or when there's something completely unexpected and you have to float a check just to maintain a bare necessity- you will still be able to put gas in the car and feed your family. Even if it's not much, it will be enough.

Thanks to the reader's digest for sending me an email thingie that I don't remember ever signing up for- but it landed in my inbox with some nifty tips about clothespins. The regular, straight, wooden clips that you can pick up in the dollar store for next to nothing.

Use them to mark your place in a book.
Fasten them to the wall, or a rack, to make your own cheap and useful bulletin board. I use a little piece of duct tape to do it. I have a pin for holding my bills together, my outgoing mail, my coupons; when my daughter was on a special preemie formula that had to be prepared a certain way with extra cereals and baby food, I wrote down the recipe of the week [that's how often it changed, sometimes] and clipped it to the inside of the cupboard where her supplies were stored. This came in as a priceless help during middle of the night feedings, and my husband felt more confident about preparing the bottles. -He hesitated before the clip system because I spent so much more time with her, and when only one person is in charge of the system there's so many fewer ways it can go wrong. And who wants to play that game with their firstborn?

Use clothespins to seal up bags of chips, and to fasten up the innards of cereal boxes or any similar item. Use them to create impromptu bibs for messy meals- faster than tying on an infant bib and the best part is that the child won't outgrow the size of the towel!

It seems that those plastic hair caps are even more useful than I told you... I used them yesterday to cover plates in the microwave, cover rising bread (didn't need to grease the bag and the dough didn't stick), and the one I decided to throw out is now doing coffee ground duty by the sink -invert grounds, dump, no drip trail across the kitchen to the trash can.

On today's list is coming up with uses for stained and ratty looking onesies. How many things can you use them for before having to throw them out? I've chopped off the top and bottom so that I now have a decent tubular rag. There will be minimal lint, so maybe I can use it for wiping down my silver before putting it away? I've started trying to enforce the lack of spots on my forks and spoons. I could also use it for wiping down a computer screen? Or in place of a paper towel wipe?

Does anyone have hints about what to do with the collection of empty milk gallons? They're not recyclable.

sounds a bit odd, but works really well.

Those nifty elastic-rimmed saran wrap covers? Forget paying 2 or 3 dollars for a box. Just go down to the local beauty supply store and look for processing caps.

It's along the exact same lines; a clean plastic cover, elastic band around the edge. Fits over my mixing bowls, my dutch oven, and for everything smaller than that I can gather up the excess and tuck it under the dish. I got about 10 tens as many as are in a box of the other kind for the same amount of money.

Did you know that Sally's offers a military discount? Show the ID when you fill out the form and the card is free. I didn't know it, they may not advertise it widely, but it's both encouraged me to shop there and it will save me even more money through the non-label uses of products.

My goal over the next three months is to get our family down to one bag of trash per week. This should not be hard. I tell myself that if we have another child, we should switch over to cloth diapers... But will it happen? I don't know. I could certainly try it.

The battle of cloth or disposable diapers is not an easy one to judge. Each side has their pros and cons, and they are not always judged the same for every family. For apartment dwellers who must seek a laundromat every day to wash the diapers, for families who choose a diaper service, for the families who find it easier to boil their diapers on the stove to achieve "proper" sanitation. It's really a huge tossup.

Disposables have been demonized as creating mountains of non biodegradable landfills. A single child in disposables will produce hundreds of these a month, thousands before they're potty-trained. The advantage being that they're easy to use, when you change the baby the diaper is tossed and you never have to see it or touch it again, and the child is always in a clean and germ-free environment.

Personally I refuse to say that one is better than the other. I can see both sides. If I had all the things that would make cloth as easy for our lifestyle as disposables, I would switch. Unfortunately I have to live in reality land. We just don't have the setup for cloth diapers. We don't have the money for a service, and there are certain instances where neither my husband nor myself can cope with what a cloth diaper entails. Next time? We might. We'll talk out the decision all over again.

I'd been toying with the idea of a low-impact, low-budget life for quite a while. Does this mean that I'm all environmentally conscious? Nope. Just on a budget so tight that it might scream if I winched it any tighter.

It doesn't have to hurt. There are all sorts of things out there, and ideas can be had in any "older" book. Shopping? String bags. Or tote bags that can be had easily in thrift stores and yard sales -look for the promotional ones. If you just can't stand the logos and advertising on it, pick up a fabric marker or some fabric paint. Or an iron-on applique. Or even a sharpie. It won't hurt, it might sting a little, but it will take care of things.

No time to bake bread every week, and no money for a machine, and you just get tired of the pre-processed, preserved to within an inch of it's life, store-bought loaf? Yeah, it's a little bit more work to make your own. Cheat by mixing the first half of the dry ingredients ahead of time and store it in an empty [and clean] peanut butter jar. When you're ready, add the warm water to proof the yeast, then add only as much more flour as needed to attain that wonderful elastic dough.

Kneading dough is good for stress, too!

Old t-shirts? Old washclothes that are just too gross to use on your skin? Downgrade them to cleaning rags. I keep a roll of papertowels on the shelf for when I just need one for something, but for all my kitchen wipeups I've been able to switch over to a stack of old kitchen towels. They're so old I don't even remember where I came by them, but I'm fairly sure they were passed down from an older relative shortly after I set up housekeeping. They are older than I am. I am fortunate enough to have a washing machine now, so I can toss them straight over the side of the washtub after I use them.

More ideas when I get online again. Don't want to use them all up tonight.