Reusable Gift Bags

Last year I decided to turn various bits of fabric that were leftover from projects, and which had been taking up space in my craft corner for at least 5 years, into gift bags.

I love them.

No paper to buy, wrap, and trash. No tape. The gift bags fold and take up very little space when stored. The ones I've made are lined and have a nice weight to them; lining fabric can also be scrap fabric, or from something like an old sheet (the flat ones never wear out like the fitted ones do). Bags can be pieced to highlight particular fabrics as well.

I've tried several different methods, including these:
Simple bag with ribbon tie
Unlined Drawstring Bag
Lined drawstring bag

Making one bag, from cutting the fabric to completing the drawstring, takes about an hour. Wrapping a gift takes 10 seconds.

Dairy-Free Meals

This is for my friend Jennifer, who has to cook dairy-free for a while due to her infant's potential allergies. These are some ideas for easy dairy-free meals.

Breakfast:
Just about anything you might have other than breakfast cereal, which you can of course prepare with soy or rice milk. Read labels as some nondairy "milks" contain a lot of sugar.

For pancakes or waffles, you can sub prepared nondairy milks in the recipe, or you can blend some cooked oatmeal or cooked rice with water and use that instead.

Lunch:

• Use bean spreads such as hummus for sandwiches or wraps; bean spreads can be made from almost any bean with varied seasonings. For instance, try black beans with cumin and salsa, or white beans with lots of parsley. Add your favorite veggies.
• Avocado sandwich
• Hard-boiled egg or an egg sandwich
• Leftover roast chicken or turkey sandwich
• Bean and grain salads
• Leftovers from dinner

Dinner:

• Beans and rice (Use canned beans, or cook a big pot of beans and use it for several meals). There are many ethnic variations on beans and rice.
  
• Pasta with sauce and veggies (Sunflower seeds or pine nuts add a big burst of flavor if you miss Parmesan).
• Tacos or burritos, just as good without cheese. I like to make a big batch of taco filling and freeze it in meal-sized containers. Making your own beans is easy, too.
• Stir-fry, and then fried rice with the leftover rice.
• Roast chicken and some veggies. Try quinoa for a change of pace side dish.
  
• Chili, stew, or soup and bread. If a soup recipe calls for lots of milk or cream, look for another recipe. Veggies have sufficient flavor on their own. My favorite veggie chili is from Cary Neff's book Conscious Cuisine, which our library has.
  
• Make-your-own pizza. Pizza is different, but very good and a lot less greasy, without cheese. Call it if focaccia it doesn't look like pizza to you.
• Sweet potato, white bean, and pepper tian. This is delicious.
  
• Moosewood's Chili Burgers and some whole wheat rolls
• Chicken sausages, sauteed peppers & onions, and rolls

Snacks:
Fruit
Veggies
Muffins (use juice or water in place of milk, applesauce, pureed white beans, or pureed oatmeal/rice in place of thick dairy stuff).
Hummus and pita bread

As I noted in a previous post, baking can be the most difficult. Try those substitutions, or look for dairy-free recipes. Oatmeal cookie recipes usually are dairy-free, for instance. Quick breads and muffins often use oil and no butter. If you need a cake, try making Six-Minute Chocolate Cake for the ultimate in fast and easy - seriously, it's easier than waiting in line at the grocery store.

Now - start experimenting!

Slow Cookers - Design and Cooking

One way I like to make my days easier is by not having to worry about dinner when I'm exhausted. Slow cookers seem to have undergone a revival in recent years, but, unfortunately, the design of 20 years ago seems to be better than today's.

I have a 5-quart Rival Crockpot that I purchased in the mid-1990s. It has a solid glass lid that is fairly heavy. I never knew how important that lid was until I decided to buy a smaller slow cooker for our 3-person family (the cooker must be filled at least halfway, or food will burn; 2.5 quarts is a lot of food, and I don't always want to fill up the freezer).

Today's slow cookers generally have glass lids as well, but they are not all glass. Most have a plastic handle that is attached with a screw, and the thin glass lid is framed by metal. The weight of the lid is significantly less than the old style, and presumably the cost to manufacture and ship is reduced, because this design seems to have been universally adopted.

The problem is that this new lid design does not seal as tightly as the heavy glass lids. Slow cookers spit out water and the lids rattle around as the steam pressure builds. Spilling water all over my counter is not something that I consider desirable in an electrical appliance!

A review of some slow cookers can be found on Slate.com . Cooks Illustrated has some commentary that is available without a subscription, and test results that require a subscription or a trip to the library.

After unsuccessfully scouring thrift stores for a model of the old design, and learning that my mother-in-law is planning to make use of the one that's been sitting in her basement for a few decades, I tested several different new models. I've finally located one that is acceptable, with only minor spitting of water, and only on the high temperature setting after several hours. The design to look for is a crock with small grooves in the rim where the glass lid rests, that allow the accumulating water to stream back into the crock. Also, the width of the slow cooker has an impact; I think it is likely that a round crock will spit less than an oval crock due to a heavier lid per unit area.

The one I found happens to be branded as a Rival, but not all Rivals have this crock design. I also located a smaller, house-brand cooker that has the same crock design and the same insignia on the bottom of the crock (and which does not spit at all, despite heating to the same temperature). I suspect that there is a huge factory in China that makes most of these appliances, no matter what the brand.

For the record, my favorite slow cooker cookbook is Beth Hensperger's Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook; she includes many reasonably healthy recipes, as well as many vegetarian and vegan recipes.

A few things that I like to cook in the slow cooker:

• Beans. Soak overnight, start on low in the morning, done for dinner.
• Soup. Get all the dinner prep done before noon and have some great soup for dinner. I like to do this when I have a busy afternoon scheduled.
• Chicken stock/soup. After roasting a chicken, I put the carcass in the slow cooker and cover with water. I leave it on low overnight, and strain it in the morning. If we will eat chicken soup for dinner that night, I add vegetables and let it cook on low all day, adding brown rice about an hour before dinner. We buy free-range, natural poultry, and I find them to be very low in fat, so stock made with the bones and skin is not greasy at all.
  

Reducing Meat & Dairy Products

You can read elsewhere all the reasons (take your pick: health, budget, environment, animal rights) why you might want to reduce meat and dairy products, but here are some things I've learned.

I was vegetarian and off dairy for about 10 years... now, I use small amounts of free range poultry in meals. I still prefer my vegetarian cookbooks, though: recipes that are designed to be vegetarian have a lot of flavor on their own, and it's easy enough to add tofu, poultry/meat, or nuts if a heavier meal is desired. Some of my favorite veg cookbooks:

*Jeanne Lemlin's Vegetarian Classics; her recipes are quick and tasty.

* Vegan Mediterranean Kitchen by Donna Klein (I like this better than any other vegan cookbook I've seen because it just includes recipes that are vegan without making substitutes for everything. Most vegan cookbooks rely too much on soy, in my opinion.)

* How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman (many vegan recipes)

* Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison (many vegan recipes)

Here are some websites with vegetarian or vegan recipes:
http://vegkitchen. com/recipes- galore.htm (by cookbook author Nava Atlas; most of her books are predominantly vegan)
http://www.molliekatzen.com/ archives. php (Mollie Katzen wrote the Moosewood Cookbook & others; her newer recipes use less dairy)
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/ recipes/ (searchable for vegan and other types)
http://www.drweil.com/drw/ecs/ common/recipe. html (mostly vegan)

I prefer ethnic vegetarian foods rather than ones that are modified meat & potato meals - for instance, a meal such as Greek salad and falafel with hummus vs something like a vegetarian version of meatloaf (however, homemade veggie burgers can be quite tasty). You can get a lot of ideas for veg food from ethnic cookbooks that aren't labeled vegetarian; some of the recipes might call for meat, but many cultures have a lot of traditional vegetarian meals, and when they do use meat, it tends to be in vastly smaller quantities.

Vegan is not difficult to do if you're already used to cooking without meat. When I was learning to go without dairy, the most difficult aspect was baking without milk products. Most vegan cookbooks sub soy or rice milk and other soy products. I don't like that for multiple reasons: first, it's a hassle to make soy milk; if you purchase it, the containers it comes in are non-recyclable. Second, I don't want to OD on soy. Third, it gets expensive to have all those subs on hand. We do eat soy, but I prefer to have it in its less processed forms, such as tofu and miso.

Here are the substitutes that I prefer:
EGG: 1 tbsp flax meal in 3 tbsp water. Mix and let sit for a few minutes. It will become somewhat gel-like and works great in baking.
MILK: Cooked rice or oatmeal, pureed with water to a smooth consistency. These work well in baking, in smoothies, in soups.
YOGURT, SOUR CREAM, ETC: Pureed silken tofu. Pureed white beans (yes, even in sweets).
BUTTER: Use oil in about half the amount. You can experiment with mixing the oil with some flour and freezing it for recipes that require solid fat. (Non-hydrogenated, vegan shortening is available, and most vegan cookbooks call for this, but I prefer my method.)

Traveling with Kids

The holiday season approaches and many people will be traveling. Since we have family and friends spread out all around the country, we have done a lot of traveling since our daughter was born, including a cross-country road trip when we moved.

Here are a few things that make travel more pleasant for us:

* About a month before taking a trip, either by car or air, I stash away small, lightweight, portable things so that they will be "new" for the trip. For airplane trips, I pack thin paperback books, crayons, paper, random things that I find that are interesting, small plastic animals and toys, a favorite small stuffed animal, etc.

* Storytelling and singing are good past-times in the car. There are audio books that are appropriate for young children that can be fun for adults, as well. Games such as "I spy" are very popular with my daughter.

* Find fun things to do on stops. In the airport, look for an empty gate area to let a toddler run. Some airports have play areas or long hallways with little foot traffic. On roadtrips, some rest areas have short trails and playgrounds.

* For a couple years after potty training, we took the small kid potty in the trunk for long trips, just in case. Some highways have many miles between facilities - and some states have closed their rest stops.

* Establish a travel routine when possible on a trip. On our move, each of the 4 days was exactly the same, and while none of us wanted to get back into the car after lunch, by day 2 our 18-month old knew what was coming and made only minor objections. When we traveled overseas and hit a major heatwave with our 4-year old, we quickly set a routine of morning activity, lunch, then afternoon rest time until it was cooler outside.

* Don't forget to pack some healthy snacks and water. (Healthy snacks because no one needs a sugar crash when everyone is trapped in a small space.)

* Manage expectations. Know that the actual travel is likely to fall somewhere between passable and grueling! Hopefully, the time spent at the destination will make the travel worthwhile.

No time for what?

Recently, Nielson released numbers indicating that kids under age 6 watch an average of 32 hours of screen time weekly; school-age kids still managed to bank about 28 hours weekly (LA Times).

Let's take a look at a week: 168 hours. (168)
According to Dr. Sears, kids need, on average, close to 10 hours/night until age 10: 70 hours. (98)
School-aged kids are gone at least 7 hours/day: 35 hours. (63)
Eating must take about 2 hours/day: 14 hours. (49)
Getting ready for the day and for bedtime: 7 hours. (42)
Playing outside or inside: let's assume two hours daily of free play or activity during the school year: 14 hours. (28)
Homework: 3 hours. (25)
Personal hygiene: 3 hours. (22)

This is telling me two things:
1. Some kids must watch screens nearly every waking moment, because some kids watch none.
2. Our days are as busy as I felt that they were. After subtracting the additional time spent for school transit and sleeping in our household, we are in negative time. And we don't watch TV.

Granola: easy, frugal, delicious!

Instead of buying cereal in a big bag and box, make your own in less time than it takes to wait in the grocery checkout. Cost comparison: you can make 2 large batches of granola from 1 42-ounce oatmeal container, which runs about $2.50, which is the least that you'll pay for a one 15-ounce box of cereal. Taste comparison: no contest!

Granola
6-8 c old fashioned rolled oats
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 c honey (can increase if desired, but this is enough)
1/4 c canola oil (ditto)

Preheat oven to 300F and oil two baking sheets. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients and warm slightly in a pot or the microwave. Pour over the dry ingredients and mix well. Spread on the baking sheets. Stir after 20 minutes, and remove from the oven after 40 minutes. Let cool and store in a container in the fridge.

Optional additions:
1/2 c wheat germ: add at beginning to oats.
coconut: add toward the end of baking time (look for unsweetened, preservative-free coconut in bulk at natural foods stores).
nuts and dried fruit: add after removing from the oven.

Great combinations:
hazelnuts and dried blueberries
pecans and dried cranberries
coconut-pecan
dried cherries and almonds
dried apricots (chopped) and walnuts
any of the above with chocolate chips, preferably Ghirardelli's bittersweet