Here is my post from last year about all of the wonderful, creative gifts you can make for the holidays. Crafty, inexpensive and filled with love
I have received so many responses from very creative mamas to my recent query about ideas for homemade or low budget gifts (mostly for children) for the holidays. With the economy being the way it is, this topic seems to be one that is on many people’s minds. I’ve divided the many ideas given to me into different categories. I hope there is something here you will find to make and give to your loved ones this holiday season.
Food Gifts:
Make your own peanut brittle, fudge, holiday cookies or another tasty treat and present it in a pretty tin or on a plate you’ve decorated that will also be part of the gift. If you are giving this gift to another from your child, have the child help make it as well as decorate the container – photo tins were suggested a few times, too.
The hot cocoa or brownie kit is another idea for either kids or adults. You can make “hot cocoa cones” by layering the separate dry ingredients in a cone shaped piece of cellophane or a clear frosting bag or in a mason jar and tie it with a pretty ribbon and add an instruction card on how to prepare the mix. Chocolate dipped spoons are another easy gift idea you can add with the hot cocoa cones. If it’s a cookie mix, you can include some cookie cutters. Caramel or kettle popcorn is another fun food gift to make.
If you are a gardener, giving away some homemade canned items from your garden is always appreciated. You can make different jams, salsa, tomato sauce, pickles, dilly beans, pickled beets, grape juice, etc. Whatever you have a lot of just remember to can more of it at the time to give out as gifts. You can even prepare a whole basket of assorted pint or quart sized jars of items that you have made. You can do the same with dehydrated items like fruit leather, apple or banana slices, dried herb mixes, herbal tea blends, spice rubs or jerky.
For Sewing/Knitting/Crocheted Gifts:
If you are a sewer/knitter/crocheter, you have a world of possibilities of things to make! Many suggestions given in this category included crocheting pot holders or dishcloths to go along with the food gifts, sewing fleece blankets or even fringing all of the edges on two pieces of fleece and tying them together for a 2 sided blanket – no sewing there, sewing aprons for kids to wear in their play kitchen – one mama said to use terrycloth material for the kid’s apron. If you are a good seamstress, sewing doll clothes, sun hats, dresses and all the other cute items that your child likes will save you tons of money if you do it yourself.
Knitted or crocheted hats, scarves, mittens, and knitted afgans are so appreciated in the cold weather. To be extra green and frugal, you can get some wool sweaters from the thrift store and unravel them and re-use the wool for your new knitted creations.
Felt:
Felt items are also another inexpensive, crafty and fun gift to make. You can make play food by cutting out the desired shapes and sewing two pieces together and stuff with batting or wool and sew closed or you can leave it single-sided cut to the shape of what you want and since felt sticks to itself, it will stick to a felt storyboard or you can make a felt pizza with toppings, a birthday cake with candles or a felt Christmas tree with ornaments. You can also make easy finger or hand puppets, picture frames and little bags too. Crayon rolls are popular with kids as well. There really are so many fun ideas for things to make with felt and it’s easy to use and dirt cheap!
Jewelry:
Make beaded jewelry – it’s fun and very creative. Go support your local bead shop, take a class or buy a how-to book, pick out beads that you like, a few basic tools, some wire and clasps and you can make inexpensive yet pretty jewelry, bookmarks, hair accessories, window shade pulls, light catchers, the list goes on and on. My step-mother-in-law is really into this and now works with more semi-precious stones and silver combos and she makes some really beautiful gifts. This photo is of some of her work that I received as a gift.
Photo Gifts:
This also is a pretty popular gift. All of those photos we take of our kids, dogs, vacations can be made into photo books, calendars, mouse pads, mugs, pillows, etc.We can also take actual photos and decorate the outside of tin boxes with them and fill the box with yummy treats, too. Kids love to see pictures of themselves so this is popular with them as well as the grandparents. It seems grandparents can never have enough pictures of the grandkids and making the calendars or other photo gifts are pretty easy, inexpensive and much appreciated.
Other Craft Items:
Make your own homemade playdough which is safe and non-toxic and you can even color it with different food coloring. Store it in little containers, tins or even glass baby food jars that you’ve saved. Simple cookie cutters can go along with the playdough for a fun and inexpensive gift.
You can make homemade soy candles in empty jars – using baby food jars again or jam sized canning jars work well, too.
Don’t forget about cardboard boxes! There is just so much you can do with them. We have in just about a couple hours’ time made our son a playhouse and a train car that he can sit in. Now I hear there is talk of a space ship happening soon. You can make the large stacking blocks like the kind that are sold that look like bricks as well as a play kitchen, too. Cardboard boxes, a sturdy knife, duct tape and paint (optional) are all it takes. We have even made him impromptu costumes – wings, a helmet out of a cardboard bucket and a shield we painted as part of his Halloween costume, too. There are so many, many things you can do with cardboard. You can find lots of ideas and instructions on this site.
Wooden Crafts:
Since my husband has a small wood shop and makes unique furniture, last year he decided to make our son a play kitchen for Christmas and a play workbench for his birthday. Both required time but the cost of the materials was pretty inexpensive. He purchased a large sheet of plywood for each project that had a really nice facing on it, some small door hinges, some plexiglas for the oven and microwave door windows and a dowel rod for door handles. He used an older bath faucet he had and a steel bowl for the kitchen sink and faucet. Both the kitchen and workbench were finished with a non-toxic oil and both came out really beautifully and are heirloom quality pieces so we can pass these down to our grandkids. The actual cost of the play kitchen came out to less than $30 with everything – except labor! The workbench was even cheaper.
Easier projects to make with wood are wooden building blocks, a simple pull toy, different geometric shaped puzzle pieces called tanagrams, different wooden puzzles, doll cradles, and wooden memory game squares that you paint the matching pictures on. There are many websites with instructions on how to do all of this and I really like this site.
Gift Baskets:
You can take many different little things that fit into a theme and put them all together in a box or basket for a person or family to enjoy. Several mamas said they were making movie baskets for a whole family – a dvd, different kinds of popcorn and chocolate all packaged in a pretty basket with cellophane or shrink wrap. Pick a theme and go with it.
Stores:
If you don’t want to make much (or anything) but still want to save money on gifts, shopping the thrift stores, garage sales, Craigslist, Freecycle, eBay, Dollar stores and the dollar bins at Target for all inexpensive new or used items in good condition is a great way to get toys and things at a fraction of the price or free (Freecycle). And most children don’t know the difference and wouldn’t care anyway if they did. If it works, they are happy!
New items at greatly reduced prices are sold at many closeout stores such as Marshalls, Big Lots, Ross, TJ Maxx and Tuesday Morning among others. You may have to sweep through these types of stores periodically and keep your eyes peeled for the quality items you want. I’ve found some amazing deals this way including new German wooden toys (which are normally very expensive), nice puzzles and books for my son. It’s fun, too once you get the hang of it.
Wrapping Paper:
It’s fun to unwrap presents but we don’t have to use the commercial wrapping paper which is hard to recycle in many locations. What to do? – make your own!! There are so many options for this. If you get a Sunday paper, save the comic section each week and use that, buy a roll of butcher paper or brown craft paper or visit your town’s local newspaper and ask for their left over end of the rolls (it’s free) and have your kids draw or stamp all over it. Or buy some inexpensive play silks – a gift in themselves which can be dyed any color – and wrap the toy in that, too.
All of these “wrapping” papers listed can be easily recycled and can be a fun craft activity for you and the kids to do together. If you don’t want to do any of the above, try to purchase the wrapping paper that was made with recycled paper instead.
I hope this list has helped you find some new, creative and inexpensive gift ideas for this holiday season. There definitely are many resourceful and creative people out there and I thank each and every one of you for contributing your amazing, thrifty gift ideas! If you have other creative ideas not mentioned here, feel free to leave them in the comments section. I love hearing about other fun gifts to make.
I love hearing about tv shows promoting really healthful and beneficial information that can truly help people. And very economically and fast, too. Dr. Oz is a doctor who does just that. He’s explained to people about alternative medicine, yoga, nutrition – especially from plants – what a standard American diet does to our bodies, how our organs look when we die from different diseases, etc. Now he has his own show and he put a meat-lovin’ cowboy, Rocco, on a 28 day vegan diet to reverse his bad heart disease and diabetes. No meds were involved, just plant based foods and exercise. Rocco decided to follow the program for the month because his only other option would be to do nothing and die relatively soon from having 97% plaque build up in his arteries. He’s a 53 yr old man walking around with the heart of an 85 yr old!
Well, the results in just 28 days are astounding! You have to see this follow up clip of Rocco’s results:
See? We don’t need to be drugged up and spending a fortune on prescription meds that barely keep the health problems in check and that would have to be taken for the rest of our lives (not to mention the scary side effects that come with the drugs) when a simple, earth-friendly and very economical change in diet coupled with some exercise (Rocco walks) can do the same thing and do it permanently. This way of eating REVERSES these diseases over time!
I love the summer so much because I enjoy growing things in the garden and being outside in nature as much as I can. This was our first full year with our expanded garden space as well as the additional garden beds added all around our house and using our greenhouse in warm weather. And chickens! Who lay eggs! It’s been an amazingly fun summer for me because of all of this! I don’t know if others would think it’s so fun, it does require quite a bit of work to upkeep a large organic garden and some livestock even if they are a small backyard flock. But this type of lifestyle resonates with me and I work hard for its success.
Now we are officially in autumn with the bulk of the harvest coming in and preparing & planting the garden beds for fall/winter gardening under the hoop house and inside the greenhouse. It’s a joint effort, both my husband and I have a shared vision for all of this, we secretly want to be full time farmers because we enjoy it so much. Real farming is such hard work, though! I feel part of the homesteader lifestyle even living here in the ‘burbs once again since my mindset is always about self-sustainability. I have learned so many skills to enable me to be self-reliant these past 15 years living this way.
I’ve been doing all methods of food preservation throughout the season and especially my most favorite method of all – canning. Some people find canning tedious but I still totally love it – both water bath and pressure canning. Looking at my various shelves filled with jars of produce picked at the peak of freshness ready to be eaten especially on a cold winter evening fills me with a sense of security, really. I know what’s in my food, who prepared it and the fact that it’s there means we won’t starve if ever there was a catastrophe of some kind. Most importantly, it reminds me that I’m self-reliant – one of the most important traits of a true homesteader.
I’ve been freezing and dehydrating lots of produce and prepared dishes, too so I have both a packed upright freezer as well as jars of dried herbs, fruit leather, dried fruit and powdered dried veggies (to add to soup or other dishes for flavor and nutrition) in jars on my shelves or vacuum sealed and stored in closed bins in my basement “root cellar” – a cold, concrete closet in my basement.
I try to process the produce as the season progresses, making lactofermented pickles & sauerkraut as we harvest it (or get some great deals on organic produce from local farmers), making a vinegar dill pickle and dilly beans (that requires no canning), bread & butter pickles, harvesting root crops to store in the “root cellar”, dehydrating some of the many greens we grow to powder them, drying herbs (always dry everything at low temps to preserve the most nutrients), freezing chopped fresh herbs with water in ice cube trays (and store cubes in freezer bags), freezing fruit, juicing veggies and fruits and freezing in ice cube trays for use in smoothies. By mid-October, we make cinnamon applesauce which is great to use in vegan baked goods. We also make pear sauce (but not for baking).
I especially love to make and can tons of tomato sauce – so much so that for our 10 year anniversary this past summer solstice, we got ourselves a ginormous pressure canner that can fit 14 quart jars at one time! Now that’s a lot of sauce done in one shot! A huge improvement over our little pressure cooker/canner that could only hold 3 quart jars at a time! Besides canning tomatoes either as sauce or as whole, peeled ones, we make & can jam throughout the season as the fruit comes in (I made lots of very low sugar plum, blueberry & peach jams since PB&J is my son’s favorite sandwich now), we can tomato salsa, tomatillo salsa, fruit salsa (just made some great peach salsa!), canned veggies like beets (some are pickled, too), carrots, hot peppers, etc. I can go on, there are so many ways we preserve the bounty and I look forward to doing it every single year!
Living this way is not only very inexpensive over a 12 month period but it puts me so in touch with the lifecycle of the plants, the Earth, the seasons, the feeling that everything is connected from the stars to the bugs. I’m part of the cycle, too and I can feel it in the high vibration of the food I eat whether it’s fresh and raw or preserved at the peak of freshness for future eating. It does require a lot of planning and effort during the growing season but I wouldn’t have it any other way!
After hearing about the recent passing of actor Patrick Swayze from pancreatic cancer, I wanted to pass along this link to a great website called The Cancer Project. It has lots of clinical research info on the disease but it mainly focuses on the details about how a correct diet can help you to prevent cancer in the first place. There is also really great info for all the survivors to follow to never have it re-occur in your life again.
I know first hand about the insidiousness of pancreatic cancer since I watched helplessly as my father suffered and died from it within 4 months of being diagnosed. I was 22 at the time and it really rocked my world. When he first got sick, I was living on the other side of the planet on a kibbutz in Israel having a great time. I came home to be with him and researched as much as I could about cancer and the nutrition connection since I had just graduated from college with a degree in nutrition. This was before the convenience of the internet so I relied on textbooks, alternative health magazines, the library and talking with various doctors like I was a reporter. No one really had the answers I was looking for.
The only book in print on the subject of cancer at the time was a recent book by Dr. Bernie Siegel called“Love, Medicine and Miracles.” It explained the mind/body connection and visualizing cancer cells being destroyed as well as the concept that “Love Heals.” Such a wise doctor he is!
I think the power of the mind over the body is second to none but when people are in a deep state of fear and wondering if they will live, it is difficult to keep the focus needed to apply these techniques. My father and I both read the book and he applied the techniques only to have various doctors at the time shoot down the idea when he mentioned that he was visualizing his cancer cells being eaten by Pac Man (remember that video game?). I can’t tell you what choice words I had for the docs (and others) who made him doubt what he was doing! So frustrating!
I would have LOVED a site like the Cancer Project (or a publication since this was pre-internet) so he could have looked at cold, hard facts and real techniques to apply to help himself heal along with using visualization. Sadly, there is no real recovery from this particular glandular cancer still to this day.
The key here, then, is PREVENTION. For pancreatic cancer in particular, the major studies that have come out on this disease show that smoking cigarettes, alcohol consumption, having diabetes, eating red meat – especially cooked well done (the way my Dad liked it), eating cow dairy products, obesity and even some genetic factors all greatly enhance your chances of developing this disease. Cruciferous veggies such as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts as well as other fruits and veggies consumed daily help to greatly decrease your chances of developing pancreatic cancer.
Daily consumption of fruits and vegetables has been shown to lower risks of developing all types of cancer. It really boils down to simple facts when you read the studies: diet, exercise, your stress level, your daily thoughts, words and actions all add up to how likely you will be to develop a disease like this.
I for one am grateful for the info. Now I know what to avoid and what to expand in my daily life to stay happy and healthy and never suffer the same terrible fate my father, Patrick Swayze and many others did.
I wanted to tell you about my favorite machine for making your own natural products at home – a.k.a. being a “kitchen witch.” If you are crafty and like to make your own things, you can save loads of money and create many different herbal remedies and beauty aid products for your own personal use or even to start your own little cottage business. That’s what I did with the help of my Vita-Mix 12 years ago.
I became a Certified Herbalist in 1995 and purchased my first Vita-Mix “Total Nutrition Center” machine then, too. This machine still performs amazingly well for me 14 years later even though I’ve now upgraded to the new Vita-Mix 5200. I formed my company, Magical Botanicals, Inc in 1997 and have sold thousands of handcrafted organic herbal products over the years both wholesale and retail. I’ve made the majority of my products in small batches with my Vita-Mix. I mainly used the dry container for grinding seeds, roots, bark, flowers and leaves to use in many different preparations such as tea blends, incense, bath salts, bath bombs and an organic herbal smoke blend. I used the liquid container for making lotions, creams, massage oils, edible elixirs and to mix tinctures.
A good kitchen witch knows that besides making all of her own herbal beauty aids, you need to eat a healthy diet, too. Beauty comes from the inside. The Vita-Mix 5200 helps you to easily achieve this.
My diet is all plant based and I make many raw vegan recipes. My Vita-Mix has helped me to quickly prepare everything such as green smoothies, salad dressings, sauces, soups, grinding flaxseeds, making nut milks, ice “cream”, frozen fruit sorbets and other delicious items in such a fast, easy way.
Making your meals from scratch is very economical and it’s also much healthier for you and your family. Whether you are grinding your own grain in the dry container for bread making or pizza dough or making a frozen dessert in the liquid container, the Vita-Mix 5200 processes your food in such a complete way that it uses the whole food so you are getting all the vitamins, minerals and fiber in your meals and you are not wasting anything. Its biggest asset to me though is really as a time-saving device! Cooking from scratch can take a while but that’s why I use my Vita-Mix 5200 which does the majority of the work for me!
As much as I loved my original Vita-Mix TNC, upgrading to the 5200 has been great. The hard plastic containers used in the 5200 contains no BPA, a known hormone disruptor. The material is also sound damping which makes the powerful motor sound quieter. The lids are easier to use and have a really nice tab over the container for easy on/off and the removable center lid piece actually gets locked into place much better than before. The handles on the containers are now padded and feel better in your hand, too.
I’ve put it to the test this spring with grinding different roots I wildcrafted to make tinctures, powdered dried leaves for capsules and made several batches of my best selling organic herbal smoke blend, Organic Smooth Smoke. As always, it performed beautifully.
Investing in a piece of equipment that is durable, high performing and long lasting that is able to create hundreds of healthy recipes quickly is a smart move for the do-it-yourself kitchen witch. You really can’t go wrong with owning the Vita-Mix 5200!
Since an ordinance was passed in my town allowing backyard chickens and permits were issued, we went ahead and took the plunge and got ourselves 4 baby chicks on March 21st! We now have an expanded garden, made new garden beds on the side of our house, built a small greenhouse (8′x8′) last fall with all reclaimed materials and are going to be building a movable chicken coop (with reclaimed materials, too) to fit in next to our greenhouse. It will be like a coop/chicken tractor so we can move it around the yard and the girls can graze safely on grass. I will let them out inside the garden to eat bugs and let them run around the yard while I’m out there with them. I’ve noticed a red tailed hawk in my neighborhood recently which doesn’t make me happy!
My husband grew up raising chickens so I am getting lessons first hand from him even though caring for them on a day to day basis will be up to my son and I. My husband has lots of other projects lined up to do!
We also built our son a funky tree tower next to the greenhouse because there was an Aspen tree in bad shape that needed to come down. My husband decided to make the tree tower for our son’s birthday in February and built it on any weekend that was not frigid this winter – and we had lots of nice weekends, actually.
Here are some pix of the peeps from 4 days – 2.5 wks old:
The two golden colored ones are Buff Orpingtons and their names are Daisy and Lulu. The two brownish ones are Easter Eggers – Americana’s, specifically and their names are Iris and Acorn. All 3 of us named them. They really are so very cute at this age!
Here is a picture of our (still unfinished) greenhouse that will be painted this spring and the funky tree tower to the left of it:
It’s located right in front of our newly expanded garden space, that’s the garden fence behind it. The tree tower looks like it’s all open in the picture but there is lots of cable wire going through the Aspen branches and it’s a 4 ft tall fence so my son won’t fall out! It’s very secure and he loves it!
The greenhouse was built so we could walk in there through a door (on the left side), it’s about 8′ tall at the highest point and has 2 large beds on the ground as well as a big shelf on the back wall under another window that can hold 4 large pots (or 7 flats of seedlings). The roof windows open for ventilation, too. There is a sprinkler head inside it from our sprinkler system so we can run a drip line off of it to the beds. We are also hanging up heavy duty hooks to hold large hanging pots in there, too. I want to grow the upside down tomato plants to have a longer tomato growing season in the fall (I admit I’m a little obsessed with growing tomatoes!). We have also worked out our glitches from last winter’s trial garden and will use the back of the greenhouse to help anchor the hoop house for better winter gardening this year. We are pretty excited for all of this additional growing space we’ve got now!
Many seeds have been started indoors this past week and my husband just rototilled in a mix of compost and top soil into all the new beds we created so now we are ready to plant! We will be direct seeding the new greenhouse beds this weekend with several varieties of cool weather greens and peas. This growing year should be a good one since we are done with the hardscaping now and can successfully do year round succession planting.
Now with the chickens, we will have free range, organic eggs from happy birds (and my son & husband eat lots of eggs), new fun pets to hang out with and we will be able to feed them many veggie scraps from the garden and compost their waste and bedding to eventually be put back into the garden. The cycle of life. Love it.
The thing I love most about gardening is all that you learn from nature. Everything is trial and error and you find what works best for your individual space and then when it clicks, you get to watch the magic of nature unfold in front of your eyes and reap the bounty! I find this to be so much fun!
For the past few years I’ve been feeling like I need to join a food co-op again (I was part of a home based one 14 years ago then part of a store front one in the mountains for many years and again when another store front one opened in my current town but closed down). I did find a co-op group last summer that was located about 20 min away from where I live. It was what I was looking for but it didn’t work out for us for different reasons. I was left with the fact that I would have to take on this job myself and start something here in my town. I was given the different distributors’ info and set up accounts with them right away.I already had a group of interested friends wanting to do this and since I was doing all the coordinating work for it, I chose to keep it small and manageable for me to deal with – we have 11 families in our group and have had others ask to join in but have turned them down until we think we need to grow. We’ve been ordering about 2x/month. The produce selection changes with the seasons so it’s been fun for us to see what’s on the list each week.
I like the distributor we are with who provides the fresh fruit and veggies. They also carry all of Organic Valley’s dairy and eggs, too as well as locally made gmo-free tofu and locally made organic tortillas. For me, a co-op (or buyer’s club) is better than being part of a CSA (which I was part of for a couple years) because I can pick and choose which veggies and fruit I want and if it’s a price I want to pay. Since it’s a group buying these items, we all split the large cases they come in and get just how much we want for amazing prices. And the quality has been excellent for mostly everything. It’s a win-win for me personally since I really look to always save money especially in an unstable economy and still get to have the best quality food for my family that’s mostly local, wholesale and organic.
There is another distributor located near our produce distributor that carries all the bulk organic dry goods such as: nuts, dried fruits, grains, flours, legumes, etc. If we don’t have enough items to meet their minimum order, we can pay a markup on the price of our dry goods items to the produce distributor and they will go and get it for us and deliver it with our produce order. It really has been great having this option for all of us! Last summer I replenished my dry goods depleted stock here at home and split a variety of grains, beans, flours and nuts and we have been eating from our stores all year making fun and delicious ethnic food and other recipes – even homemade pizza night! Since I eat all vegan (and about half raw) and my husband eats an omnivore diet, we agreed to make vegan family dinners from all this bulk and preserved food we invested in and we’ve been really enjoying the variety of recipes we’ve tried out. The fresh produce we get 2x/month is a really nice addition, too.
Since we live in CO, in winter there isn’t that much growing here on a large scale besides potatoes and indoor herbs, sprouts & mushrooms so more items are brought in from organic farms in CA and other states like TX or even Mexico that we will buy (like citrus, greens & now artichokes!) but during the warmer growing season, our distributor really tries to work with as many CO based organic farmers as possible – several are even from the town I live in which makes me happy to support those farms as well as other organic farms from the surrounding 100 miles of our town. And CO is known for its amazing western slope fruits like peaches, nectarines and cherries and they distribute these as well!
Even though there are 2 large farmer’s markets near me, the exact same produce from some of the same farms are carried through our distributor at much better pricing for us. We only have to meet this company’s minimum order of $200 and they deliver the order to my home for free (where a few of us divide it up for the group) since we are on their delivery route for stores. Since everything through the distributor is sold by the large case or pound sacks (50#), we are actually buying bigger volume from the farmers than if we just bought a pound or two at the farmer’s market or if I had a CSA share. I still like to support other farms and enjoy the farmer’s market atmosphere so we go to the really big market on Wednesday nights in summer and buy assorted items from the booths for a picnic dinner and watch live, outdoor music performed nearby.
We are also growing a much larger garden this season, too. I’ve been trying to figure out how much I might want to purchase outside of the bulk buying of certain fruits and veggies for preserving for winter. We increased the amount we preserved last summer (by canning, drying, freezing & lactofermenting) and have been really good about using our frozen veggies, canned sauce, salsa and pickles and other lactofermented foods like sauerkraut. Even the dried produce and herbs are being used up well. The seasonal food cycle really makes such logical sense to me to live like this and eat really high quality food all year. You can totally taste the difference – even my frozen veggies still have such good flavor and crispness when we cook with them. The frozen fruits (mostly used in smoothies) have been delicious, too.
Don’t believe that eating organic food has to be more expensive – for us, it’s cheaper than buying conventional produce & dry goods at the supermarket. We are also supporting organic farmers from our state as well as a few other locations by buying large quantities from them. Our distributor even gives back to the farmers they work with through their annual profit share program. The more we buy from the distributor, the more the farmer’s make.
And what about me and all my hard work in coordinating all of this? In lieu of payment for me I’ve asked that the co-op members chip in and buy an extra case of fruit each time we order to donate to the food bank in our town. It’s our way of giving back to those less fortunate and who pretty much rarely if ever get to eat fresh fruit or veggies. I am very lucky I don’t have to worry about that so I wanted to donate my “fee” and give fresh, organic food to those who desperately need it.
I saw this recipe posted on a blog this week and wanted to try it out. I have a few butternut squashes left from an organic produce share from our co-op (that I bought in November) and this looked like a perfect recipe to use some of that squash. I love risotto and did I mention that this dish is vegan?
The author said he intentionally left out the white wine that is traditionally included in risotto dishes because he was on a budget and he didn’t even notice it was not in there when eating it. Bonus! A gourmet Italian dish that’s also low cost. And organic. Eating organic does not have to mean expensive.
Butternut Squash Risotto
Serves 6
1/2 (large) Butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2″ pieces
2T olive oil
3/4t salt (1/4t for squash and 1/2t for risotto)
1/2t pepper
1 shallot, finely diced
2T garlic, minced
2T rosemary, roughly chopped
16 oz Arborio rice
64 oz (8 cups) vegetable stock
Juice and zest of half a lemon (I used 2t of juice)
Heat oven to 400*F. Toss squash in 1T olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in oven until fork tender, about 25-30 minutes.
Meanwhile, bring vegetable stock to simmer. Heat medium pot over med-high heat and add 1T olive oil, shallot and garlic and stir frequently until shallots are translucent and garlic is fragrant, about 2-3 minutes. Add rice and rosemary, stir to coat with oil. Add enough stock to cover rice (about 2 ladles) and stir rice until the pot looks almost dry. Repeat this process several times until rice is cooked. Risotto should be done in about 30 minutes.
Once squash is removed from oven, place half of cooked squash in a blender with 2 ladles of vegetable stock. Puree until smooth.
Combine risotto, squash pieces, puree, lemon juice and salt in pot and stir to mix evenly. Serve immediately and garnish with lemon zest.
We made it for dinner tonight and yeah, it’s really good. I used rosemary that I dried from my garden this summer and there is a lovely yellow/orange color to the rice from the squash puree and the bright orange cube accents made this dish look so pretty.
One thing about risotto is that you have to stir and add liquid for about 30 minutes so I made a double batch of this to freeze some for other dinners so I don’t have to stand and stir again for a while. It did take me more than 30 minutes but not much more and now we get to eat all this creamy risotto goodness for several more dinners.
Well this should be good news to women everywhere – both gardening and yard work helps to boost a man’s sexual performance according to a study by the Medical University of Vienna. Hear that men? Now not only can you be helping both the planet and your wallet by growing some tasty organic veggies in your backyard, you will be improving your sex life and making your partner very happy at the same time. I say that’s a win-win for everyone!
As little as 30 minutes a week tending the garden or allotment can dramatically improve men’s performance in bed, according to the experts in the field.
Digging, weeding or mowing the lawn for half an hour reduced men’s risk of failing to live up to expectations in bed by more than a third, the survey found.
I find this news very promising for the women who may have to deal with issues in either category. Your man too lazy to want to garden? Tell him it will improve his sexual performance in bed. Ditto for men who have any kind of performance issues in the bedroom.
Not only does the act of gardening benefit a man’s health in so many ways, it also benefits their partner who would like free, local, organic produce out their back door and more intimacy in the boudoir. Whoever said that women were less interested in sex than men clearly does not really know much about women!
And for the record, both my husband and I like to garden….a lot ; ) And the phallic tomato pictured above grew in our garden last summer!
Happy holidays, everyone!! As you can tell, I have not been blogging much this month of December. Besides all of the craziness and hoopla of everything involved with the holidays, I had a major muscle spasm this month that had me on my back on a heating pad and taking muscle relaxers for almost a week then I was still very limited in what I could do.
I also have scar tissue in my knee for many years and it has steadily been getting worse as I age and all year I’ve been going to physical therapy to deal with it so I could exercise more without so much pain. After all of these sessions with not that much change they tell me at my last session that I may need surgery. Ugh.
I went back to the orthopedic surgeon who occasionally gives me cortisone shots in my IT band in my leg so I can exercise without so much pain (and he also told me to do PT) and as my last ditch effort before surgery he decided this time to stick a giant needle directly into my lump of scar tissue.I thought I was going to die from the pain that night. It was almost as bad as when I was in labor and my son got stuck and caused ligaments to tear inside my hip. The only thing that helped was icing it for 48 hours straight to keep it numb and immobile until the injected fluid was absorbed into my leg and away from expanding the scar tissue. It took several days of no moving and icing it but at least it was over a few days before Christmas and we were able to enjoy a really fun family day. Now my knee feels great and I am hoping it did something in breaking up the mass and I can avoid surgery!
We also had a really nice winter garden of hardy greens under a hoop house and big cabbages ready to be harvested when my back issues were going on and my husband was crazy at work. He was going to harvest lots of it that weekend and one morning early in the week he says, “I think the digital outdoor thermometer is broken, it says it’s minus 15 outside.” We both were like, uh-oh and turned on the weather and sure enough, the arctic cold front came down overnight and I was too distracted with pain to watch the news that week and the sub-zero temps basically ruined our lovely winter crop!! We were sad. The cabbages were huge, too. At least we started growing our indoor sprouts again but I was really looking forward to the spinach, kale and collards that were doing so well out there. Damn Arctic cold front!!! We did finish building a new, little greenhouse by late November but didn’t get anything planted in it before the cold came so we decided to just rely on the hoop house this winter instead. Ha! Now we know better for next year.
Another change that happened this month was for my husband. He received a surprise call in November from a consultant that had worked for him this past year. It was for an unadvertised position at a good company in his field that is poised to do even better in a recession. This consultant became a full time employee there because of the economy and because it’s such a good place to work he said. My husband was not looking for a new job, his was pretty safe even though his present company has done a few rounds of layoffs this year. He decided it was something to go for and he fit the bill perfectly for what they wanted. We think it was meant to be since they chose him and he starts next week. The only downside to this is that he now has to commute 20 minutes instead of working down the street. He gets a better salary, more paid time off, better job security and more exciting work to do so that was the trade-off. He’s really excited for his new adventure.
Since he used to eat lunch at home almost every day, I decided to get him a rockin’ lunch box of some sort that he would love and where I could make him some interesting, healthy lunches in. I did some research and ordered him a Mr. Bento Stainless Lunch Jar – aka a “bento box.” I gave it to him as one of his xmas gifts and he loves it. It has 2 insulated containers for hot or cold food (one even holds soup) and 2 for cold or room temp food. It stacks inside this steel, vacuum sealed cylinder and even has a carry case and comes with a spork but he added chop sticks, too. There are several bento box “food p*rn” sites and blogs to get ideas of what to make from simple to gourmet and we being the gourmet types are geeking out a bit over it, I have to say!
He gave me as one of my gifts Veganomicon, an amazing (cooked) vegan cookbook. There are so many great recipes in there and even meal ideas for the different recipes so I’m sure I’ll be making him lots of good food from that book (plus sneaking in some raw recipes, too!).
Right now while he’s on vacation til the new job starts, we are trying to finish up some house projects and major re-organizing. It feels good to move stuff around and get rid of things. He is building some new shelving in our multi-purpose rec room to make it more user friendly for each of us that uses that room for different activities. I am ready to start doing yoga again there now, I figure that won’t hurt my back if I start slow and build up again.
I’m sure I’ll be back to posting more after the new year and settling into my family’s new daily routine.
I hope you all have a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year!!
The hot cocoa or brownie kit is another idea for either kids or adults. You can make “hot cocoa cones” by layering the separate dry ingredients in a cone shaped piece of cellophane or a clear frosting bag or in a mason jar and tie it with a pretty ribbon and add an instruction card on how to prepare the mix. Chocolate dipped spoons are another easy gift idea you can add with the hot cocoa cones. If it’s a cookie mix, you can include some cookie cutters. Caramel or kettle popcorn is another fun food gift to make.
If you are a gardener, giving away some homemade canned items from your garden is always appreciated. You can make different jams, salsa, tomato sauce, pickles, dilly beans, pickled beets, grape juice, etc. Whatever you have a lot of just remember to can more of it at the time to give out as gifts. You can even prepare a whole basket of assorted pint or quart sized jars of items that you have made. You can do the same with dehydrated items like fruit leather, apple or banana slices, dried herb mixes, herbal tea blends, spice rubs or jerky.
If you are a sewer/knitter/crocheter, you have a world of possibilities of things to make! Many suggestions given in this category included crocheting pot holders or dishcloths to go along with the food gifts, sewing fleece blankets or even fringing all of the edges on two pieces of fleece and tying them together for a 2 sided blanket – no sewing there, sewing aprons for kids to wear in their play kitchen – one mama said to use terrycloth material for the kid’s apron. If you are a good seamstress, sewing doll clothes, sun hats, dresses and all the other cute items that your child likes will save you tons of money if you do it yourself.
Felt items are also another inexpensive, crafty and fun gift to make. You can make play food by cutting out the desired shapes and sewing two pieces together and stuff with batting or wool and sew closed or you can leave it single-sided cut to the shape of what you want and since felt sticks to itself, it will stick to a felt storyboard or you can make a felt pizza with toppings, a birthday cake with candles or a felt Christmas tree with ornaments. You can also make easy finger or hand puppets, picture frames and little bags too. Crayon rolls are popular with kids as well. There really are so many fun ideas for things to make with felt and it’s easy to use and dirt cheap!
Make beaded jewelry – it’s fun and very creative. Go support your local bead shop, take a class or buy a how-to book, pick out beads that you like, a few basic tools, some wire and clasps and you can make inexpensive yet pretty jewelry, bookmarks, hair accessories, window shade pulls, light catchers, the list goes on and on. My step-mother-in-law is really into this and now works with more semi-precious stones and silver combos and she makes some really beautiful gifts. This photo is of some of her work that I received as a gift.
Don’t forget about cardboard boxes! There is just so much you can do with them. We have in just about a couple hours’ time made our son a playhouse and a train car that he can sit in. Now I hear there is talk of a space ship happening soon. You can make the large stacking blocks like the kind that are sold that look like bricks as well as a play kitchen, too. Cardboard boxes, a sturdy knife, duct tape and paint (optional) are all it takes. We have even made him impromptu costumes – wings, a helmet out of a cardboard bucket and a shield we painted as part of his Halloween costume, too. There are so many, many things you can do with cardboard. You can find lots of ideas and instructions on this site.
Easier projects to make with wood are wooden building blocks, a simple pull toy, different geometric shaped puzzle pieces called tanagrams, different wooden puzzles, doll cradles, and wooden memory game squares that you paint the matching pictures on. There are many websites with instructions on how to do all of this and I really like this site.
Butternut Squash Risotto
