Project: TARDIS Baby Quilt

So, I know that of late Scrimpalicious has been much more heavily focused on cooking, food politics, environmentalism, and natural health than it has been on around-the-house stuff and crafts, but I just had to share. It's not every day that one of your best friends has a baby, and it's not every day that your best friend who just had a baby is also super into Doctor Who (and so are her kids). It's also not every day that two other friends offer to help pay for the fabric for you to make a totally awesome TARDIS quilt for your friend's new baby.

Well, the stars aligned and everything came together just right and just in time for me to make this awesome thing for my dear friend Stacie of Red Hog Farm.

TARDIS baby quilt? Oh yes.

How to Succeed at Homemaking Without Really Trying: It's Fine to Fail

Welcome to Part 3 of How to Succeed at Homemaking Without Really Trying! Follow the links to find part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Perhaps the title of this post seems like an oxymoron to you. If there is anything I have learned through years of attempting to learn how to be a successful human being, it is that success and failure are opposites.

Oh wait, are some of these pointing the same way? Hmmmm

When it comes to the day to day of "natural living" or "going green" or "environmentalism" or "eating organic" or "mindfulness" or whatever you want to call it, I reject that above statement. I say pshaw. Whatever. It's wrong.

Because it is ok to fail. In fact, it's important to fail. And it's important to understand how to fail and how to do it with grace.

So, I'd like to share some of my "failures" with you here and talk about why they really don't upset me.

Recipe: Coconut Flour Jelly Cookies (Paleo/Gluten Free)

It is not a secret among our friends that Mr. Scrimp and I are huge fans of Dr. Who. I know, I know, we can get in line behind the entire rest of the Internet. On a typical Sunday afternoon, we can be found having some sort of tasty Sunday dinner with family and/or friends and then settling in on the couch to watch the latest episode on Amazon.  This week is the season finale, which means no more episodes for six months, and I decided to mark the occasion by experimenting with a grain-free version of Jammie Dodgers (aka The Eleventh Doctor's favorite snack).

Basically, yum.

A jammie dodger is essentially an English linzer cookie. Or, in other words, a shortbread-ish sandwich cookie made with jam. My mom taught me how to make linzer cookies when I was a little kid and I have very fond memories of them. However, eating things with lots of refined sugar and wheat flours does not agree with me, so I had to come up with a way to express my nerdy devotion that did not involve gluten.

Enter coconut flour!

Home Remedies: Switchel (for Dehydration)

Here in Ohio, it's hard to say what is and is not seasonable in the spring. Last Monday it snowed. Today it's 80 degrees and sunny.

I made the silly mistake of thinking "Oh, it isn't that hot" and mowing the lawn at the very hottest part of the afternoon. Then I was sad and feeling a little sick. Fortunately, I know just the remedy for that!

Above: Syrup, vinegar, water, and beautiful alchemy

That, my friends, is a photo of a mostly-forgotten concoction known as switchel, swizzle, or haymaker's punch. What is switchel? If you've ever read the Little House on the Prairie series, you may already have heard of it!

Recipe: Cure Your Cold With Onion Quiche

I get the sniffles a few times a year, usually around allergy season. Because of the timing, I generally chalk it up to pollen and try to get on with my life, but there's something about the clogging of my sinuses that leads to a general clogging of the brain, which probably explains why, on a day when I was feeling all-around miserable, I decided that the only possible solution to my woes was to cook onions into some kind of pie.

Had I had my wits about me, I might have tried to get really fancy and make this a tart (or I would have put this project aside to do when I wasn't feeling quite so far under the weather), but it's really more of a quiche, due to the unashamed use of store bought pie crust and over-application of egg. Let's call it Onion Quiche, then. Whatever it was, it fixed my sinuses and it tasted delicious, so I win double.

Deliciousness!

Fortunately, I was present enough to take some photos, which means a recipe to share.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

A few months ago, Mr. Scrimp and I made the decision to break up with our CSA.

I wish we could say "Hey, CSA, it's not you--it's us." But that wouldn't be true. Well, not completely true, anyway.

The CSA model is wonderful, and I still recommend it if you are just beginning with real food/local food as an idea, or if you don't live in an area that is as local-food friendly as ours. I just think that for us... well, we've sort of moved beyond it. We ended up throwing out a lot of food last year because we had too much, or got things we didn't/couldn't eat, and we found new ways to eat locally and seasonably that didn't require a middleman.

And that--cutting out the middleman between my dollar and the farmer who grows my food--is a really important thing to me.

Cheap and Easy Recipes: Turn Tough Meat Tender by Braising

 Here in the Scrimp household, we braise meat at least two or three times per week. It is by far our preferred method of cooking. Why? Well, it's easy, it's quick, and it's a great way to make the cheapest cuts of meat taste mind-blowingly good. 

Braising is a type of slow-cooking that is best done in the oven but can also be done on a stovetop. All you need is a pot with a good lid. You can even braise in a crock pot, although my experience has been that meat braised in the crock pot does not turn out as well.

The best braising dish is a dutch oven. I have two of them, I swear by them, and I use them for just about everything. One of them is a discontinued Martha Stewart model that I got as a wedding gift, and one of them was a Christmas present last year from Mother-in-law Scrimp--the lovely red Food Network model below.

A dutch oven is made of enameled cast iron. It's heavy. It's a beast. It retains heat beautifully and it turns cheap cuts of meat into magic. If you're going to braise, I recommend getting one, because it just makes life in your kitchen better. 

Last night for dinner, I took a $3.99/lb cut of beef and turned it into something that we gladly would have paid ten times more for. And I didn't even need a recipe. All I needed to know was the secret formula of braising. 

Are you ready? Here it is.

Preparing for Winter

Winter is on its way and for the last month or so, I've been feeling this really strange sense of impending gloom and cold. The weather has been gorgeous--warm, dry (but not too dry), pleasant breezes and all the sorts of things that make you want to spend time sitting outside soaking up vitamin D and fresh air. I can't say why, when I go out into that, my urge is to run to the farmers market and snatch up every preservable fresh vegetable I see, but the urge is there nonetheless.

Can you eat these? I don't know but something deep inside of me wants to
pick them all and hide them in a hole in the ground. For later. Source.

And I know I'm not the only one. I've asked other people and, at least here in the midwest, it seems to be a pretty universal feeling among the seasonal eating crowd.

Part of this, I think, is that the more we settle in to a truly seasonal diet, the more aware we become of the lack of certain foods in the winter. Last winter we didn't really prepare much at all and, once the stored winter vegetables ran out at the market, we spent a few months living on pretty much nothing but meat, hydroponic lettuce, and the occasional bag of frozen vegetables from Whole Foods. I am still sick of lettuce.

So this year, we're preparing. We don't have the time, space, or ready cash to really put an entire winter's worth of food away, but we're doing what we can to buy up fresh vegetables now in order to save them for later. I've been doing some canning and we were very excited to find a brand new deep freezer at a yard sale a month ago for less than a hundred dollars which is letting us freeze and store lots more meat and vegetables than before.

What are you doing to get ready for winter?

Recipe: Cream of Kale and Leek Soup (GAPS-legal)

Mr. Scrimp recently got a new job that lets him come home for lunch every day, which means two things. One, I no longer eat my lunch at the computer while I work. Two, I had to start thinking a little more clearly about what my (now our) lunch was going to be.

You see, in the past, lunch for Mr. Scrimp has been dinner leftovers, and lunch for me has been... whatever I scrounge up when I remember to eat. It might be peanut butter on a spoon. It might be chicken alfredo. It just depends on what's in the fridge, what my mood is, and whether I care to spend my lunch break cooking instead of relaxing (or blogging).

I'm at the end of my first full week of the GAPS diet, working on healing some GI issues, so I've also had to find lunches that are GAPS legal. This one was quick, easy, and full of gentle, healing ingredients. Yesterday on the fly I came up with this: cream of kale and leek soup. It's delicious! Thick, warm, and packed with flavor that is just perfect on a gray, rainy fall day.

So green, so tasty

And the winner is...

According to the random number generator at Random.org, the winner of the Scrimpalicious 2-Year Anniversary giveaway is...

(drumroll)

Tammy!

Tammy, I'll be contacting you shortly about which of those five fabulous prizes you're going to choose!

Best of Pinterest: Pumpkin Pictures

For those of you who aren't on Pinterest (or who are, but can't get enough), I decided that today I was going to do something slightly different and collect a series of photos and links that qualify for the title of best of pinterest.

Call it my own spin on Wordless Wednesdays. Well, not quite wordless, but almost.

Circle Pumpkins

If you're looking for Halloween decor ideas, pumpkin carving inspiration, or just like looking at pumpkin pictures--today, this is the blog for you.

Home Remedies: DIY Raw Apple Cider Vinegar

It's apple cider season, and you know what that means, right? Well, for one thing, it means drinking tons of apple cider. But it also means making apple cider vinegar.

That's what I have brewing in that gallon jug right there.

You may wonder why I have it listed as a home remedy instead of a cooking ingredient. While this makes for a delicious cooking or salad vinegar, we started consuming (and now making) raw vinegar for health reasons.

The health benefits of raw vinegar are numerous, but the thing we were most impressed by is its effect on blood sugar.

Menu Planning Monday: Week of October 10

I've been having a rushed weekend and Monday so it took me a while to get this menu plan out. You'll notice that lots of soup is on the menu again. I love soup in the fall! Fortunately, so does Mr. Scrimp.

For a free printable version of this
menu planner, go here

Don't Forget: Giveaway!

Have you signed up for the Scrimpalicious 2-Year Anniversary Giveaway yet? You still have until October 15th to enter for a chance to win one of these five neat prizes!:

• On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, by Harold McGree
• Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1, by Julia Child
• Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, by Michael Ruhlman
• A scarf, t-shirt, or cardigan from Maggie's Organics
• Roma Traditional Style Pasta Machine 

DIY Pottery Barn Anchor Paperweight/Bookend

I was reading the most recent Pottery Barn catalog a couple of days ago when I saw this photo:

Honestly, I'm not a giant fan of the idea of covering a couch with denim, and that coffee table has too much glass for my preference. But... do you see the cute anchor on the second shelf of the table? The little cast-iron bookend-looking one?

I certainly saw it, and I was taken with it immediately. It isn't for sale, though (and it would be out of my price range if it was). So, I had to come up with a way to make a copy for my own space. It worked out so well that I figured I'd share the how-to with all of you!

The Pottery Barn version isn't even for sale, but I can't imagine it being cheap. My version isn't quite as sturdy as cast iron, but it only cost me about a dollar.

Five Dollar Decor: Maps

I have a longstanding love affair with maps. I particularly like the pretty antique ones, but the ones pulled from the atlas are just as good, if you ask me. I like to look at them. I like to think about them. I just like having them around. They are cool. I am a map enthusiast.

I would do this

And you know who else was obsessed with maps? Winston Churchill. So you can wipe that condescending look off your face, smartypants. Maps are awesome.

I haven't done all of the projects in this week's Five Dollar Decor post, but I think I can honestly say that is only because I don't have the time to do all the projects I want to do. Someday, though. Someday.

Recipe: Pureed Cauliflower (Mashed Potatoes Substitute)

So, I know I've mentioned before that Stupendous Man and I eat a low-carb, primal diet. Primal here means cutting out sugar and grains (we still eat dairy) and we modify that further by making it full low-carb.

So far, we've both seen a lot of success with it. We've each lost about two pounds a week since we started, with no hunger and not really any stress to speak of. But the weather has been cold, and sometimes you really just want something warm and comforting and salty and buttery and... well, let's just be frank. Sometimes all I want to eat is mashed potatoes.

But, since I can't eat mashed potatoes, I've had to find substitutes. Enter the humble cauliflower.

I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that pureed cauliflower tastes exactly like mashed potatoes, but I will say that it honestly tastes close enough that if you can't or won't eat potatoes but are missing some of that delicious mashed potato goodness in your life, this is a totally acceptable and delicious substitute. 

Five Dollar Decor: Upcycling

This post was supposed to go up on Friday, but automated posting failed me, so here it is now!

"Upcycling" is a word I love. It has a nice ring to it, and is my favorite example of modern word invention. We aren't merely recycling something. Oh no. We are taking it and elevating it. We are upcycling.

One man's trash is another man's awesome oil lamp.

But, when you get down to brass tacks, upcycling just means "taking something and making it somehow awesomer," doesn't it? Exactly. And nothing could be more appropriate for the theme of "Five Dollar Decor" than taking things you already own and turning them into new things.

Menu Planning Monday: Week of October 3

Well, October is here and here with a vengeance. It's cold and wet and I have a throat tickle that is making me very suspicious of its long-term intentions.

This is going to be a weird week for us, food wise. We're continuing to eat low carb, with great success. Mr. Scrimp has lost about 15 pounds since the beginning of August and I've lost 17 1/2. Yep, it's true. By and large, it hasn't even been difficult. But some weeks are easier than others when your groceries are chosen at the whim of someone who doesn't know about your dietary restrictions.

Scrimpalicious Anniversary Giveaway - CLOSED

Hey friends! I just checked my calendar and I'm shocked and amazed to realize that it is almost the two-year anniversary of the beginning of Scrimpalicious.

The first logo was nowhere NEAR
as cute as this

This has been a wonderful two years and I've loved writing my blog and sharing my thoughts, projects, recipes, and ideas with all of you.

So, to thank you for sticking with me through it all, I've decided to have a giveaway. There will be one winner, who can choose one of the following fabulous prizes. Each one of these has been chosen to celebrate one of my favorite blog entries from the last two years.

• On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen - Menu Planning Monday
• Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 - Julia I Ain't
• Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing - Bacon, by Mr. Scrimp
• A scarf, t-shirt, or cardigan from Maggie's Organics - Why Organic?
• Roma Traditional Style Pasta Machine - Recipe: Homemade Pasta

So, what do you need to do to enter?