Making Some Peppered Vinegar

 

This last Christmas I made my fermented hot sauce again. As part of that "build" I decided to go ahead and make some spiced vinegar instead of using just plain vinegar in the hot sauce. One of my recipients has a wife who's very allergic to one of the ingredients, so I figured the spiced vinegar would have to do for them as a gift.......also, I like the stuff so good enough reason.

The spiced vinegar is essentially a "tea" made from white vinegar, dried peppers, and some garlic. That's it. Everything was placed in a clean 5 gallon bucket with a gamma lid and left to rest for a month. The initial "pull" of vinegar was just what I could draw off the top using a big ladle and a filtered funnel to keep out the inevitable pepper that got into the ladle. I'm not sure how much vinegar was left when I was done, but I essentially had a half-full bucket of wet peppers.

I knew there is a LOT of goodness still left in the bucket, so I went ahead and filled it back up with white vinegar and left it to steep for two months. I only got a gallon and a half or so out of the second steeping, but they peppers still looked good so I'm going for another batch of spiced vinegar. This time though I went ahead and ran all the vinegar-sogged peppers through a food processor, which shredded it quite a bit and compacted the lot quite a bit. I added a couple more heads of garlic, sliced roughly, and almost a pound of red pepper powder from the Korean Store here in town. I was able to get somewhere between three and four gallons of white vinegar into the bucket and I'll let this last bit steep for several months for a final batch.

One thing I did do though is reserve a good bit of the pepper mash, about 2 1/2 pints worth, added two heads of garlic and a little bit of the seasoned pepper and 1.6% salt. Blended well and packed into jars I now have some Garlic Chilli paste for cooking with.

Ok....I'm sure you've gotten to this point and have been thinking...."That's nice Chris, but you haven't really given me much to go on....."

True, but while the reason I was even screwing around with this second and then potential third batch is because one of my brothers asked me if I had any more of the vinegar because he was almost out, and another had asked me how I made it. I figured I'd go ahead and hook the former up with his own setup using a 2 gallon dispenser I literally had laying around:

Pepper Seasoned Vinegar

Ingredients

Dried Peppers

     1/3# Chile de Arbol

     1/3# Chile Puya

     1/3# Chile Guajillo 

4 Heads Garlic

1C Korean Powdered Pepper Flakes

2 gallons White Vinegar

2 Gallon Vessel (Bucket, Dispenser, etc)

The dried chilies, and the garlic, were purchased from the local Mexican food market and the dried pepper flakes were from the Korean market. The weights for the dried peppers are just approximate, but by in-the-bag volume I went with a ratio of equal amounts the larger Guajillo peppers and a combo of smaller Puya and Arbol peppers.  Do you need to use those exact peppers? Heck no. Grab what looks good, get extra, and just go nuts. These peppers and the garlic came out to $6.35. Now the powdered pepper flakes were $4.50 for a 1# bag and might be a bit much since I only used a cup. You could easily just grab some more/different dried peppers in its place....again, go nuts.

Peel and slice the garlic, and layer what you can in your vessel. I used an extra 2 gallon dispenser I had previously used for making Kombucha (which I learned I don't care for that much). Fill that bad boy up with your dry ingredients and then fill in the rest with vinegar. You should easily get a gallon in and probably more.

Total cost, including the jar and the extra vinegar that didn't go into the jar.....$24....and half the cost was the jar! If you want to be pessimistic and assume we only got in one gallon of white vinegar and were only able to get one infusion's worth of vinegar, then you get a cost of $12 a gallon, or roughly 10¢ an ounce. 

When you figure the cheapest peppered vinegar (only one type of pepper) runs 30¢ an ounce and the high-end stuff runs $3.00 an ounce, doing a little kitchen work not only pays off, but gets you some fancy-schmancy dividends, er vinegar.

Vermicomposting Take 3

Today I finally finished up one of my "big" projects: a new worm bin.

I've been playing around with vermicomposting for a little over a year now.  I started out with a simple Rubbermaid worm bin and a few borrowed worms.  The bin didn't work out as well as I'd like because it became overrun with small flies.  I kept the bin inside during the winter months and while it didn't smell, the flies were too much of an issue.

Finally, a Kickstarter I can (and did) get Behind

I've long championed the cause against Kickstarter, saying that the majority of the campaigns are not so much fundraisers as pre-sales, or that the idea wasn't to raise capital as much as it was to generate funds in the hope of creating something.

Needless to say I was excited to see Reaper Miniatures come up with a Kickstarter campaign for their Bones Miniatures line.

Am I being hypocritical now that there is a Kickstarter that interests me?  No, I am not, and here is why.

Almond Milk Update

It had been a while since I had made Almond Milk, about two months, and when I went back to make it again I had to look up my blog to make sure I had the procedure/recipe correct.  I hadn't updated the blog with my new procedure/recipe, but luckily I was able to see where I had changed things up.

This is my new favorite way to make Almond Milk and the results are much better than what I had before....and I liked what I had before.

Wish List

I'm not quite sure how I got there, but I stumbled upon the Tabasco website and then on to their "country store"....

.....where I found out they sell my favorite Chipotle sauce in 1 gallon jars!

Now I realize that a 1 gallon jug of hot sauce might seem inappropriate, especially at almost $40 a pop, but if you like Tabasco, it is actually a great deal.  A standard five ounce jar comes in around $4 or so.  That would make this jug worth over $102 if you bought it five ounces at a time!

I'm definitely putting this on my wish list.

Chegg for School Books

This morning I was poking around the College of Southern Idaho's student portal to see if I had any advance notice of what books I would need.  Only one of my classes has a syllabus up already and it was dated for the spring of this year...not the fall.  I guess the professor is reusing the syllabus and forgot to update the term information.

No worries.....the syllabus was well written, aside from the typo, which tells me a lot about the professor and the class.

I really want to know what my books might be so I can decide if I want to purchase them at the bookstore or through Chegg.

Dealing with textbooks can really be a pain in the wallet.  You generally have to buy all our books and hope that you can sell them back at the end of the year without getting totally screwed....and there are a lot of ways to get screwed.

Karma

If you are like the average American you probably have some electronic device that can get online.  If you are like me you have quite a few of them.  Aside from my smartphone I have another smartphone (not activated with service), a Toshiba Thrive, a Kindle Fire, my laptop, an iPod touch, and and iPad.  I'm sure I have a few more devices if I think about it.....like I forgot my old Fujitsu tablet.

Unless I'm at home where I can use my internet connection I'm pretty much at the mercy of free wifi where I can find it.  My wife and I have an "unlimited" data plan with AT&T, but that covers my smartphone.  If I share that connection with any of my other devices I'm likely to get dropped by AT&T and slapped with a huge fee for "early cancellation".  Instead the big carriers would rather that I purchase a special version of my other devices and pay for additional data plans.

This data gouging has got to go....and Karma is stepping up to the plate to do just that.

Saving with Coupon Sherpa

For over a year now I've been keeping a small second wallet for the myriad of giftcards and store loyalty cards that everybody and their dog seems to issue these days.  Sometimes I keep coupons in there as well, but I have to remember to cut the coupons and then put them in the wallets before I go to the store.

There is no way I'm keeping them all in my wallet on the off chance I might be able to use one, the payoff isn't worth the effort.

I've been using Key Ring to help me get rid of quite a few loyalty cards and now I have Coupon Sherpa to help with some of the coupons.  The app has two components to it, a retail side and a grocery side.  I'm not getting much use out of the grocery coupons yet, but when I'm out and about shopping it is definitively worth checking out both the Key Ring Coupons and the Coupon Sherpa.  Sometimes the coupons are the same ones I could have clipped and carried, but also there tends to be some ones I hadn't ever seen and for places I normally don't get coupons for.

Worth checking out.

Ghetto Sprinkler System Works For Me

If you didn't already know, I live in Idaho....Boise to be specific.  Boise is at the edge of the high desert plains, just where it meets the mountains.  While it is known as the City of Trees, the only natural greenery is along the rivers and streams.

Even though I moved around a lot, I consider myself to be "from" Iowa.  Iowa is a lush tropics compared to Boise, with the abundant rainfall and even more abundant bugs.

Coming to Boise one of the hardest lessons I have had to learn is that I have to water my lawn.  Normally in the beginning to middle of June I have to drag out the sprinklers and begin taking care of my lawn or it will die.  It doesn't die outright, just turns brown and goes dormant.  With the early spring we've had I really needed to start watering last week.

New Project Announcement

The next two days I have a lot planned, but I feel comfortable enough to announce my new project: FrugalGM.com

I've had an inclination for a while now to do a few things to a) make a little extra money and b) give back to the gaming community.  There have been ideas for some game products that I think GMs will find useful in prepping and running their game. I'm going to be selling these items through DriveThruRPG and it's sister sites.

There are also a great deal of good ideas and free downloads from across the web and many home tables that I want to make available for other GMs to use.

In the next couple days I'll have the first items up and will be able to share some of the things I have found useful.  Today however is a big Toastmasters day for me, so I have to get back to my speech.

Save on Brew (Cheaper Beer)

Who doesn't like saving money?  If you answered "me", then please shoot me an email and I'll give you an address to send some of your extra cash my way.

For the rest of us, those that like to drink beer anyway, there is an awesome website devoted to finding you deals on beer.  The site is simply SaveOnBrew.Com and it simply looks up a database of roughly 300,000 advertised "beer deals" from among 50,000 retailers.

They had me at "save on brew".

When you go to their website you have to verify that you are of legal drinking age and you should be forewarned that the site is definitely Not Safe For Work.  While most of the site is "clean" there is an integrated blog and the lead story shows a wet T-shirt contestant.

Shaving Some Dollars Off of Your Hygiene Budget

I stumbled upon a website that combines frugal with convenient wrapped up in awesome.

Dollar Shave Club will ship you new razor blades every month for a low price, much lower than if you went to the store (any store) and bought blades there.  They'll even throw in the handle!

If you want to change blades, they'll give you a new handle.  How awesome is that?  If you knew the markup on razor blades.....I've read upwards of 4,000% (?!!!) you'd see how these guys can do this and still make a buck.

Fuelly

For a while I was using an online "app" to keep track of my fuel mileage.  Actually, I intend on continuing to use the app, I just need to update the log with several months of records I've been keeping on my cell phone.

Fuelly is designed to help you keep track of your gas mileage, but it also lets you compare that mileage with other users.  The idea is to help you work towards better fuel efficiency.

Cooking up Some Orange Oil

Not all my "cooking" in the kitchen is edible....sometimes it wasn't intended to be either.

About a month ago I was using some diluted citrus oil to dissuade the cats from an area.  Cats don't seem to like citrus and the dog doesn't mind much so I was using it to spray down the area around the dog's bed.

If You Need a Hero

If you play RPGs like I do then you probably prefer to have a custom figure for your character.

The best is finding the perfect miniature and getting it painted up just right.

This is assuming that you are lucky enough to find an appropriate figure and have the skill needed to (possibly) customize the figure and then paint it.  The last time I did this it took me a few days to get the mini to look just right.....and then he was killed in the next session.

It happens.

Almond Butter

I'm always on the lookout for a new kitchen project that might save me a few bucks, especially since I've discovered that a lot of these projects yield better results at the same time.

I've got my sourdough pot and my almond milk maker, and I've recently started vermicomposting.

Browsing through the SquawkFox blog I came across this entry for making homemade peanut butter.  There was this brief, sudden flash of realization that I have a nearly full 2 gallon bucket of almonds that I could substitute for peanuts.  A couple of jars of store-bought peanut butter still linger in my cupboards until I find a home for them.  Last year I made the switch to Almond Butter and now the store-bought peanut butter tastes overly sweet and just "off".

Have you ever priced out Almond Butter?  It is expensive.  The cheapest pre-jarred stuff runs about $8 a pound on sale.  Both Fred Meyers and WinCo have on-site grinders that make fresh Almond Butter for about $6 a pound.  Since I can get sliced or slivered almonds for $4 a pound on sale, it makes a ton of sense to make it at home.

SoyaPower Plus Soymilk Maker

If you've read my blog much at all you know I try to be frugal when I can, especially when doing so not only saves me money, but gives me better results.

If you know me personally at all you probably know that I used to tip the scales at almost 280 pounds and I went on the HCG diet, losing 60 pounds.  While I've found some already, I'm working on losing them without the diet.  For the record, I went through a doctor, not some gas station clerk (seriously, they are trying to sell the HCG drops at gas stations?).

Anyway, after going through the diet where I really didn't consume milk or cheese for a couple of months I found that a lot of dairy didn't agree with me.  Milk and ice cream were right out.  Cheese is ok and while I've never like yogurt (except frozen yogurt), I've been having better luck with small amounts of Greek Yogurt.

I started trying out milk alternatives.  I'm not a fan of soy milk, but I tried it anyway.  Meh.  I did try rice milk, which was ok, but I really liked almond milk.  Fred Meyer carries quite a variety.  It took some experimenting, but what worked best for me was to mix one container each of the sweetened and the original to get the right amount of sweetness.  These quart containers cost around $2.25 each, depending on brand, which means that a gallon was close enough to $10.  Yikes!

There has to be a better way.  A little internet research showed me it would be easy enough to make my own almond milk, but it seems rather time consuming and messy.  Somehow I stumbled across the Soy Milk Maker website. I wondered if I would like homemade soy milk.....but I'm not spending $100+ to find out.  I poked around the site some more and found that the machine could be used for making rice or almond milk, or even a combination of nuts and grains.  There were a couple of videos on the site that have been submitted by "professional" bloggers and general users.  It did seem simple enough to use, maybe I could get one as a Christmas present.

I put the SoyaPower Plus on my Christmas list and figured that was that.

Around Thanksgiving I went through my list, copying pictures and links to create an offline list I could give to my family.  When I came to the SoyaPower Plus I noticed they had some returned/refurbished models at a big discount.  Instead of hoping I'd get the machine I just figured that I should buy one for myself and make sure I get one.  In my experience "refurbished" usually means the buyer had second thoughts and returned the item, often unopened.  I've yet to have a problem with a manufacture's willingness to stand behind their product in case there was a problem.....and I've yet to have a problem.

My SoyaPower Plus arrived Wednesday and I was just shy of giddy about the prospect of making my own almond milk.  I had to wait until the next morning since I had to soak my almonds and give the machine an initial cleaning.  In anticipation I had already purchased some raw almonds and some agave nectar for sweetness.

The process was just as simple as the videos had depicted.  I soaked 100g of almonds in warm water overnight.  The almonds I bought (the cheapest) were sliced raw almonds and I used a digital scale instead of the measuring cup they included.  After rinsing the almonds they went in the machine with a specified amount of water.  Latch the top part on, press a button and wait about 15-20 minutes.  The SoyaPower Plus beeps non-stop when it is done, which I found slightly annoying.  The instructions recommended letting the machine cool down for a few minutes before removing the top.  Afterwards you just have to strain the almond milk to remove the solids.  They give you a nice strainer and pitcher just for that purpose.  When the milk has cooled a bit you can (I'd say have to) flavor it.

My first batch of almond milk wasn't very good.  I expected this since I had no idea what I was doing, even though I had instructions.  What one person considers good is not necessarily going to work for me.  My first batch was too watery.  The amount of water you use should be between 1300 and 1500.  I'm assuming milliliters, but I'm just going off of the marks inside the machine that read 1300 and 1500.  I went with 1500 on the first batch.  The agave nectar wasn't really my style either.  It's not bad, it just is missing something.

I started soaking some more almonds and figured I'd give it another go when I got home from a meeting last night.  On my way home I stopped at the store and looked at the labels of some of the commercial almond milk available.  Most had added vitamins and what I assume were ingredients to prevent the almond milk from separating (more on that later).  The sweetener that was common to all the varieties I liked was evaporated cane juice, which I just so happen to be using lately in the kitchen.

My next batch I used 1300 units of water and instead of using the Soy button on the machine I tried the Soy+ button.  I'm still experimenting here, so why not?  After the milk was done and filtered, but still quite warm, I flavored it with 1/8 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 3 tablespoons of evaporated cane juice.  The whole batch went into the refrigerator and I had to wait until this morning to test the results.

Flavor wise it is spot-on for what I like.  It is clear to me that I have my base recipe, which is odd since it only took two tries.  The consistency of the milk is good, but you have to shake/stir it up before pouring and drinking.  The milk looks kind of like it is curdling, but it tastes great.  I'm sure if I wanted to play around a bit with some additives I could, but I don't see the appeal of that.  With some of the commercial almond milks, even with their additives, there would be a residue on the side of the storage container.  Since I was mixing two types to get the appropriate level of sweetness, I could see this.  Most users probably wouldn't have noticed this in their cartons.

I haven't done the detailed math yet, but a quick Google check and price comparison means I'll get just barely short of 5 batches of almond milk from a pound of almond.  If I assume that each batch is 1300 ml, which equals .343 gallons, then I'm getting 1.7 gallons of almond milk per pound of almonds. when I do this type of math I tend to round against my favor.  Let's say we get 1.5 gallons and that almonds are $5 a pound where I get them.  I actually get them for under $4 a pound, so I really shouldn't have to worry about the cost of the salt, vanilla, cane juice, or electricity.  That means I pay $5 for an amount of almond milk that would cost me $13.50ish at the store.

Continuing my lopsided math a little further, that means if I purchased a brand-new SoyaPower Plus for $100 (shipping is currently free), then my break even point is just about 58 batches of almond milk made.  Wow....this is even with the numbers skewed away from reality.  I'm guesstimating that in my case I'll be ahead no later than next February!

Biokleen Laundry Detergent

I'll be the first to admit that I like saving a buck or two on things I have to have so I can spend it on stupid stuff I probably don't need.  I'll also admit that like most folks some things I care about brand selection and other things I don't care.

When it comes to laundry detergent, I don't care...give me the cheapest stuff that won't make my skin itch.  Usually that means some brand off the bottom shelf that I've never heard of.  If I'm lucky, they have a "perfume & dye free" variety.  This is how I've lived for years...simply grabbing a bottle or two of the cheap stuff whenever I need some.

Lately I've come to learn that sometime the allegedly more expensive stuff is far better than the cheap stuff.  If my foray into wet shaving with a double-edged safety razor taught me anything it's that sometimes going barely out of your way can pay dividends.

My wife works at Fred Meyer and I do a lot of my shopping there.  We get an employee discount on wide range of products.....except groceries.  Grocery discounts are limited to Fred Meyer/Kroger brands and the nutrition center.  I don't know if you've shopped the Nutrition Center, but they've got a lot of good stuff.  Expensive stuff, but pretty good.  I'm not one to spend big bucks for some items because they have an alleged quality I'm not concerned with.  Some stuff is not worth paying a premium for....and some brands have one helluva premium.

Cleaning supplies in general are way over-priced in my opinion, and the stuff in the Nutrition Center sometimes borders on hippy AND ridiculous.  I don't need a product shat out of a panda's arse, picked up by trained rehabilitated circus monkeys and packaged by blind orphans....even if the product buys carbon offsets and donates 10% to some Charity (unless Charity is the name of the CEO's favorite stripper...then it's just no instead of hell no).

At the local Fred Meyer's Nutrition Center, there is a little workstation for the employee of that section.  We had to inquire about a now-discontinued product and while she was looking up some information I noticed the Biokleen.  It was on sale for 25% off and with the employee discount I figured...what the heck.  Now I should mention that I looked at the product because it was a) there at eye level and b) perfume & dye free.  I'd been itching a bit lately, presumably due to the cheap laundry detergent additives.

Holy cow this stuff is great.  First of all, we get 128 HE loads of laundry out of a single bottle!  I did the math.  Discounting any.....well, discounts, the "cheap stuff" normally runs $3.00 a bottle.  You get 33 loads with that bottle, which means the detergent cost for a load of laundry is 9 cents.  This "expensive" stuff retails for $10 a bottle, which means at 128 loads the detergent cost is 7.8 cents per bottle.  Add the fact that with so many loads per bottle you can probably wait to buy a bottle when it is on sale....and the fact that this is discountable for us, and our normal cost comes to almost half of what the "cheap stuff" costs!

Biokleen products are also about as hippy as you can get, but it still appeals to my quality and cost-sensitive sides.

*Some of these links can/may/will take you to consumer websites.  You can tell them I said "hi", but they won't know who I am and I won't profit off of anything you choose to buy.  Tell them I said hi anyway.