Bee my Valentine!

Don't bee shy! (the camera loves ya)

This post will be short and sweet, like its main characters. But it won't bee a quickie.

On our driveway, two bumblebees are celebrating Valentine's Day in the best way they know how: making the bee with two backs.

So as naturally nosy primates, we took some photos. (Also available on video.)

Try another angle - beeautiful.

While Valentine's Day in New Zealand was yesterday, I prefer to beelieve there may have been extended courting - some special nectar and pollen, perhaps - and foreplay.

Clearly they have adopted the theme song "Why don't we do it the road", by the Beetles. A bit of research shows bumblebees mating on the ground is normal, but they can continue for 10 to 80 minutes!  One observer reported mating bumblebees can bee moved, so I did.

While much of the public concern over bee populations highlights honeybees, we need all pollinators much more urgently than honey.

So I hope you'll join me in wishing the happy couple a much longer and fruitful...coupling...beefore they buzz off.

Further bee puns may bee left in the comments.

Vegan Chocolate Crumb Brownies and 3 more frugal bread crust recipes

I love to transform food so it is appealing and doesn't go to waste.  

My family eats lots of bread, but not the ends. (Good luck with this trick to get rid of them. Let me know whether your kids are fooled.)

So we always have annoying frozen bread end collections. Here's how to use them up and enjoy it!

1. We're Bakin' Brownies!

I've totally transformed a brownie recipe so it's vegan, delicious, and uses up heaps of breadcrumbs...

• 2/3 cup nondairy milk
• 2 Tbsp nondairy margarine (opt)
• 1 tsp vanilla (opt)
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 6 cups medium-fine soft bread crumbs (made in food processor, mine were quite chunky)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 3/4 cups brown sugar, packed (or 1 cup + 2Tbsp molasses + 1/8 tsp stevia)
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts or desiccated coconut (opt)
• 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips (opt)
• 1 mashed ripe banana (opt)
• 1 tsp cinnamon (opt)
• 2 egg (replacer equivalent)

They go quickly - here's one left!

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C) and (if not nonstick) spray a 8-inch square baking pan or similar (I used a round cake pan).
2. Melt nondairy milk and margarine and add sifted cocoa powder and vanilla - stir
3. In large mixing bowl, combine bread crumbs, baking powder, sugar and nuts/optional extras.
4. Stir in cocoa mixture and brown sugar; beat until combined.
5. In separate bowl, prepare egg replacer.
6. Combine with bread mixture until all ingredients are moistened. Add more nondairy milk or water if not moist enough to make smooth sticky batter (bread crumbs are hard to measure exactly).
7. Spread evenly in prepared pan. Bake 30 minutes or until done. Cool completely on wire rack.

Loved by the whole family (the brownies...and me, of course)!

2. Dipping Toasties

These are much quicker than croutons and make soup night a bit more special.

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C)
2. Cut at least 2 bread ends in half for each person eating
3. Spread with your choice of:

• Marmite or other yeast spread
• Vegan margarine or olive oil
• Refried beans
• Salsa
• Vegan cheese
• Hummus
• Herb/seasoned salt sprinkle

Place on oven tray and bake until just barely brown - keep careful watch as the edges can get burned easily

Serve with soup, spread with more goodies like guacomole....yum!

3. Vegan Fruit Pudding

This frugal pudding can be made with practically whatever you've got.
 

4. Vegan Stuffing

This savoury stuffing is great for the festive season or anytime it's chilly.

Holiday togetherness tips - with a difference

Credit: http://greywolf.critter.net

It's the time of year for families to get together - like it or not.

Usually I hang around with a bunch of people who share my interests and values. It's comfy.

Family holiday gatherings are a lot more random, with folks from all backgrounds, generations, and views. And this lasts for hours. Or days.

Even two-party political differences can be explosive. As an activist with an armload of causes, I'm an accident waiting to happen. What to do?

1. Expect the expected

Somebody is going to say something. Or do something. Whether it's Uncle Joe's (or Aunt Mary's) casually sexist comments, or the hilarious jokes aimed at the vegans over the dead animals, or the weird way you're raising your kids, or the shock and disgust when someone finds out you're still breastfeeding that big girl...

And most somebodies will be drinking.

If you have any buttons, assume they are going to get pushed. So plan for it. What are you gonna do?

Oooh, Christmas colours!

2. Attack 

Tempting, isn't it? Maybe if you get all your ammunition ready and turn the place into Ground Zero, nobody will bother you for the rest of the holidays in case they set you off again. Curl up with the vegan chocolate (that you bought) and your new book.

I don't really recommend this, as it will probably scare the kids. But most families will have survived bigger holiday dramas and you had to watch, so...? 

Fa la la la la, la la la la!

3. Ignore

This isn't wimping out. It's the real life equivalent of "Don't feed the trolls."

Family members know you pretty well, and some people enjoy starting a fight. Hey, sometimes I enjoy starting a fight.

Noncommittal grunts and pleasant smiles are a winning strategy that will bring Peace on Earth...and frustration where it will do the most good.

4. Educate

Don't expect to convert anyone in the silly season. Nobody's going to listen to the necessary lengthy background info - you'll be wasting breath you could be using to sing carols or something. If you trip and fall into a deep discussion, save your strength with this:

These are complex issues. I've done a lot of reading on this over the years - I'll send some stuff to you and we can talk about it later.

They may or may not read anything you send, but you're off the hook either way. You'll still have the energy to go back for that last bit of cranberry sauce before someone else does.

5. Hang around with the kids

Christmas magic is all about the kids anyway, right? They know how to have fun.

And you might get some ideas into their developing minds while their parents are away at the eggnog.

And More?

How do you plan for a Happy Holiday?

Getting away from it all, or the Hotel Effect

My kids will, out of the blue, ask if we can stay in a hotel.  This is unrelated to how close to home we may be.

And often, I wish I could say yes.

Why?

With a better than average home, with all the comforts of home, why oh why would we want to stay in a hotel?  We only choose the budget ones anyway, so what's so special?

Well, what do you see when you open a hotel room door?  No problems!

Uncluttered - mostly, you just see furniture.  Invitingly made beds, clear tables, tidy sink spaces....  You can only clutter it with what you've brought, and you left most of your stuff at home.  You probably brought so little you can pack it all in less than 1/2 hour - compare that to your last house move.  Yes.  I know.

Clean - someone else cleaned this already.  It's so uncluttered that it probably didn't take long.  If you have to wash dishes, there aren't many supplied anyway - about enough for one family meal. 

Cosy - Those dishes?  You can wash them a couple of steps away from the dining table, while still chatting to the slower eaters.

Easy!

Most of us don't want to live in a hotel all the time, although I am in love with tiny houses and The Everyday Minimalist did spend some time this way.  Most of us would eventually miss something that we can only find at home - and that might simply be space and privacy.

But we can get some of the goodness of hotel living in our own homes.

Declutter!

You can't say too much about decluttering, and most of it's been said before.  Having only what you really need is the key to sanity and cleanliness in the home.

Here's just a start on decluttering tips:

• Should it stay or....?
• Outsmarting your inner hoarder
• Zen Habit's tips and more Zen Habit's tips
• Down with clutter
• And almost anything at 365 Less Things 

Work on your entrance

You won't get the "ahhhhhh" factor if you open your door into chaos.  Try it for yourself - step outside and do a grand entrance and really look!

• What's there that doesn't need to be?
• What's messy that could be organised?
• What's visible that could be hidden? 

Retreat!

After you've made a perfect entrance, choose one other space in the house to keep as your "hotel away from home."

If you can't keep the entire house sane, make sure you have this one retreat where you can relax and unwind.

And if you sell enough of your unwanted stuff, maybe you can hire a cleaner for your "hotel"!

You gotta have dreams...

Have your say...

What are your favourite tricks to make your house look professionally fabulous?

Christmas wrapup - frugal and eco-friendly

My three year old daughter loves to paint.  She brings her paintings home for me and tells me all about them.

You get the picture.  She can draw people and things, but she's still a creative abstract painter.

So what do you do with stacks of these paintings that only a mother could love?

Beautiful and useful

Using kids' artwork as giftwrap solves two problems:

• How do I wrap my presents?
• What do I do with stacks of paintings that all look the same to me?

Family and Eco-Friendly

Wrapping gifts in alternatives to giftwrap is not just quirky and frugal, it's important.  It doesn't take much imagination to see the built-in waste of producing, packaging, buying, and disposing of square metres of decorated paper every holiday.  According to Earth911:

As much as half of the 85 million tons of paper products Americans consume every year goes toward packaging, wrapping and decorating goods. Also, wrapping paper and shopping bags alone account for about 4 million tons of trash annually in the U.S.

So does it look cheap and weird?

You decide:

More like unique and colourful!

Don't own any small perpetual artists?

Of course, not everybody will have this alternative.  

If these other wrapping alternatives don't suit, you could offer to babysit for your favourite family for a few hours, buy some old newsprint and paints, and have a giftwrap making (I mean fun painting) session!

Secondhand Smarts - Merry Christmas!

In my last decluttering post, I reported acquiring from as well as donating to my favourite charity shop.

Here, I brag about my savvy purchases.


This pile includes:

• A brand new Dora Memory Game in original plastic (we have it already; this one goes straight into the present box for some other lucky kid)
• At least 50 Lego pieces, including three anthropomorphised animal figures
• 3 gorgeous butterflies
• A dressup mask (so I can play along with Labyrinth)
• Masses of sidewalk chalk
• Mini bubbles
• Alphabet craft stickers
• Coloured paper, decorative pencils, coloured pencils, modelling clay and crayons
• Bratz and My Little Pony activity books (Princess Bratz is leaving the house quickly, one way or another!)
• 2x goggles and surf socks in my son's size (both on our shopping list)
• Slinky
• Magnifying glass

All for $32!  I paid that much, even secondhand on TradeMe, simply for that amount of Lego.

These have been wrapped festively and frugally - stay tuned for family and eco-friendly wrapping help!

Make your own vegan holiday chocolates

Vegan specialty chocolates are expensive!  Making your own chocolates from molds is so easy I'm not sure I should share the secret.  Especially because we're trying to eat less sugar.

In less than 1/2 hour you can have a special yummy handmade vegan
gift for your mother, your child's teacher, or any other loved one.  

Got a whole hour?  You've got an impressively rich dessert treat for a party.  And your children can join in the fun.

You need:

• Chocolate molds
• Vegan chocolate

Chocolate molds

A chocolate mold is a tray with the shapes for your chocolate.  Each one will cost you less than a box of chocolates and you can use them to make hundreds and hundreds of chocolates over the years.

You can buy molds at homeware shops.  Novelty flexible ice cube trays can often be used as chocolate molds. (I want the strawberries and the Legos!)

Molds which have simple shapes and small to medium size chocolates are best for beginners.  General purpose shapes are good value for money.

My molds

• Easter eggs
• Flowers and leaves
• Santas, candy canes and snowmen
• Stars
• Train set
• Numbers and animals

So I can handle:

• Christmas - Santas, candy canes and snowmen/Stars
• Birthday Boy - Train set/Stars/numbers and animals
• Birthday Girl - Flowers/Stars/numbers and animals
• General Gift - Flowers/Stars
• Easter - Easter eggs/Flowers

Vegan chocolate

We have Pams brand vegan chocolate (which contains palm oil).  I recently scored a bargain on vegan Belgian chocolate from our bulk store, and I suspect I'll struggle to go back to Pams!

1.  Melt chocolate
I first melted my chocolate using an everyday bowl, plate to cover, and a few minutes in the microwave.  So easy!   

Recently, I had some failures with this method and the choc ended up dry and crumbly - unknown problem (new chocolate?  new microwave?  old memory?)  It was frustrating and wasteful enough that my husband created a double boiler with a small metal mixing bowl and a small saucepan.

The double boiler method is quick and just about foolproof.  I don't even worry if the water touches the bottom of the bowl - it works anyway.  Make sure water doesn't get into your chocolate as you stir it into smooth perfection.
 
2.  Spoon into molds

You don't need to be perfect - you will still get nice chocolates even with slightly under or overfull molds.  Nobody has complained yet.

Less is more when you're first learning.  Fill about 2/3 of the mold and gently tap the tray until the chocolate settles into the shape.  Add more slowly as needed. 

If you overfill, don't worry!  A bit of flat edge around the shape is no big deal.  And you can either wipe away spills on the tray or leave them to crack neatly away after the chocolate is cool.

3.  Chill out

Make some flat space in your freezer (recommended) or fridge.  This can be on top of other stuff.

Put any unused chocolate back into the double-boiler while you wait.

Chocolates will be ready after about 10 minutes in the freezer.  Look for a smooth surface all the way across - partially chilled chocolate will look different in the middle.

4.  Tap out your treasure

On a clean surface (I use a plastic chopping board), turn over the molds and gently tap and wiggle until the chocolates fall out.  (This can be the trickiest part.)  You may want to use a clean paper or cloth towel so the chocolates can't break when they land.

Store immediately in layers separated by paper towels or waxed paper.  Store in a cool place - in this climate and season, the fridge is the best bet.

Then watch everyone try to get on your "nice" list!
5.  Cleaning up

Warm water is vital for cleaning hardened chocolate from bowls, trays, and utensils.  Don't scrub!  Apply warm water and then wipe away the chocolate like magic. 

1. If you used a double boiler, you will have some warm water all ready.
2. If you lick... I mean scrape all the chocolate off your bowls and stuff while it's warm, cleanup is much easier!
   

Constant decluttering

These left us a month ago.

When I feel like I never want to see X again, I'm going with that feeling! 

OK, I'm not throwing all the toys away just yet, but there are plenty of other candidates.

Remember that things keep coming in, so things must keep going out.

I probably should have let someone else drop off the donations bag.  Continuing the Christmas spirit, I did not leave the charity shop empty handed.

These left today (note this bag is wider than half the sofa!)

Girl clothes on their way to another family

I've continued my paper decluttering successes and reduced some major stacks with a new resolution:  Keep Some.

I have some company stocks and a long-held bank account, both of which have generated many years of statements (back to the 80s!). 

I've been afraid to get rid of anything just in case I get into trouble without the records but also haven't yet decided what I want to do with them.  So the statements pile up.

My triumph

I've kept one statement from every year, plus anything that looks tax related.  So I have records in case someone should demand them, and I also have much much less paper!

Left: gone!  Right: kept

Challenge

Find 10 things today that you will never use again - bin them or put them in your donations bag.  (Start a donations bag!)

Your Thanksgiving Turkey - now in living colour!

I grew up with turkeys on my dinner plate or as cartoon figures drawn around five little fingers.

Like any animal, there's always so much more to learn!

Like the Native Americans (Indians), turkeys are another victim of colonial naming confusion so great that I hope you can explain it to me. 
 
400 years ago, the English market confused the American bird with an African bird that they already called a turkey - because it was shipped via Turkey.

Turkey life....

Wild turkeys live in woods in parts of North America.  They were introduced to New Zealand (where I live) around the 1890s.  The large park near my parents' house generally hosts a flock of wild turkeys.

They spend their days foraging for food like acorns, seeds, small insects and wild berries.  They spend their nights in low branches of trees.

Yes, wild turkeys get to fly!

They weigh about 8 kgs and can live up to 13 years (average 3-4 in the wild).  Turkeys have sharp full colour eyesight and fast evasive action when in danger including running (up to 29 km/hour) and flying (up to 88 km/hour).

Turkey talk...

Wild turkeys communicate using a wide array of different vocal calls, including gobbles, clucks, putts, yelps, and whistles. Strutting is also used by males as a form of communication, to attract females and intimidate other males.

Turkey love...

Each spring male turkeys try to befriend as many females as possible.  Male turkeys puff up their bodies and spread their tail feathers (just like a peacock).

They grunt, make a "gobble gobble sound" and strut about shaking their feathers to attract females for mating.

Turkey family
After the female turkey mates, she prepares a nest under a bush in the woods and lays her tan and speckled brown eggs.  She incubates as many as 18 eggs at a time.  It takes about a month for the chicks to hatch.
 
When the babies (known as poults) hatch they flock with their mother all year (even through the winter).  For the first two weeks the poults are unable to fly.  The mother roosts on the ground with them during this time.

Turkeys protect their poults from predators by hiding them in long grass.  Turkey mothers will band together to attack hawks.

Basically, turkeys are large, intelligent birds.  They are as varied in personality as dogs and cats.

Your holiday turkey
No prizes for guessing that farmed turkeys get the same raw deal as other farmed animals.  Yes, the story is horrible.  There is no happy ending...or beginning or middle.  If you buy a supermarket turkey, you owe it to him to read this.

Factory Farm Turkey Life

Your turkey was bred, fed, drugged, and genetically manipulated to grow as large as possible as quickly as possible.  He needed to be market size when he was slaughtered at 5 months - a tiny fraction of his natural lifespan.

Turkey feed generally contains antibiotics and animal by-products, and commercial turkey feed is designed to promote fast growth.

• In 1970, the average live turkey raised for meat weighed 8 kgs. 
• Today, he weighs 13 kgs.

According to one industry publication, modern turkeys grow so quickly that if a 7-pound human baby grew at the same rate, the infant would weigh 1,500 pounds at just 18 weeks of age.

He never once got to fly.

Factory Farm Turkey love

Your turkey's mother was artificially inseminated because her male partners were too big to mate with her.

Factory Farm Turkey family

Your turkey was hatched in a large incubator and never saw his mother. When he was only a few weeks old, he was moved into a filthy, windowless shed with thousands of other turkeys, where he spent the rest of his life.

To keep your turkey from killing others in such stressful conditions, parts of his toes and beak were cut off, as well as his snood (flap of skin under his chin) - with no pain relief.

Factory Farm Death

Millions of turkeys die in the first few weeks of life in a factory farm from "starve-out" - they stop eating because of stress.  Others die from organ failure or heart attacks because they're unnaturally big and fat. And slow-growing turkeys get killed right there in the shed by farm workers - so that unsaleable turkeys won't waste any more food.

Your turkey survived long enough to get to slaughter.

Factory Farm Slaughter

He was thrown by his legs into a large crate packed with other turkeys.  He was lucky because his legs didn't break like other turkeys in the worker's hands.  He also avoided dying during his truck trip with no food, water, or temperature control - millions of other turkeys aren't so lucky.

At the slaughterhouse, he was hung upside-down by his weak and crippled legs and his head was dragged through an electrified "stunning tank," which immobilized him.

Your turkey should be thankful to be successfully stunned - some of his neighbours dodged the tank and were completely conscious when their throats were slit. If the knife misses, they are scalded alive in the tank of hot water used for feather removal.

Conscious choices

If you struggle to feel thankful for that bad taste in your mouth, remember that these millions of turkeys are only mistreated because people keep buying them. 
 
Even if it is a long family tradition, you still have other choices.

Free range/organic turkeys
I don't wholeheartedly recommend this, because:

• I'm vegan
• You won't always know how much better a free range or organic turkey is, compared to the standard factory farm product.  You will need to do your research.

But investing in an alternatively raised turkey is a blow struck against indefensible factory farming.

Go easy and cheap - go vegan
Yes, you can skip the bird and still celebrate until you burst!

Here are just a few samples:

• VegWeb recipes
• PETA recipes 
• VegKitchen recipes

I'm a huge mushroom fan, so these huge mushrooms get my vote! 

And of course, you can't go past my Frugal Vegan Stuffing - anyone can make this.

Happy Vegan Thanksgiving - Frugal Vegan Stuffing

Just in time for Thanksgiving and early enough to plan for Christmas - my other easy "use it up" bread crusts recipe:  Yummy Vegan Stuffing.

Not for the birds!  This is the dish to take to your family Thanksgiving so you can give thanks for vegan food. 


After all, stuffing is the original alternative to fill up tummies so you don't eat so much of the expensive meat - happy to help out there!

Overview

You need:

• any size oven-proof dish with cover
• enough vegetables to quarter fill the dish
• enough starch (wholegrain bread crumbs, oats with a bit of flour, etc) to fill to the top (or a bit over)
• liquid, herbs and salt

My stuffing
I used a large dish (my new/old Corningware 2.5L) and:

Vegetables

• 1 thinly sliced courgette
• 1 cup creamed corn

Other good stuffing vegetables:
Use mild vegetables that will cook into softness easily

• celery
• mushrooms
• peas

Starch
It's been long enough since the Frugal Fruit Pudding that we have collected more bread crusts in the freezer.  And these are 90% wholewheat crusts (thanks to our supermarket instore loaf range). So hooray - we are gradually eating more whole grains! 
I grated these into crumbs using the food processor.

I also used 1 cup of dry oatmeal.

Other good stuffing starches:

• Cooked rice
• Wholewheat flour (no more than 1/2 cup)

Add the starch and mix in the vegetables.

Extras
Add richness (if desired) to your basic stuffing.

I used a handful of sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

Other good stuffing extras

• Sesame seeds
• Chopped cashews or walnuts
• Slivered almonds
• Olives
• Chopped meat replacement

Liquid/Salt
In a small bowl or jug combine:

• 4C (approx) liquid - water or vegetable broth
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice (fresh from my friendly neighbour's tree)
• salt to taste

• oil (optional) If you use some of the healthier rich extras listed above, you may not need any oil.  The richer the stuffing, the more "normal" this will taste, but it will still taste great without any rich extras  Up to you...

Herbs 
(Stir into the liquid)

• 1 Tbsp onion powder
• 1 Tbsp garlic powder
• 2 Tbsp dried oregano
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (optional - I happened to have a little bit of parsley from the garden)

Later, I'll show you what happened to the rest.


Pour combined liquid over the mixture in the dish.  The starch should be all wet but not floating.  Add more plain liquid (water or broth) if needed.

Cover and cook in the microwave on high for about 10 minutes.
I put the cooking dish on a dinner plate to catch bubbly drips.
You can brown the top in the oven before serving.


Sorry, I can't photograph how good this smells!

And I highly recommend Lani Muelrath's Forks over Knives Mushroom Gravy on the side!

What's your favourite animal-friendly holiday dish?

Secondhand smarts - on display

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we've practically been on a spending spree over the last few months.  TV, food processor, car...

All of it secondhand, of course!

This was another serendipitous peek in the back room at ye olde favourite charity shop in the hope of finding...exactly what I found.

History

In our previous home, we had an broken tile fireplace and brick chimney.  We demolished that ourselves and installed a beautiful built-in rimu wood, mirror, and glass display cabinet.  The new owners loved it too, so we made a quick and cheap purchase to hold our lovely things in our new house.   It has featured in previous posts, but here it is again.

From a distance, it is OK - the top is fine but all the bottom cupboard doors are poor replacements and don't close well.  It doesn't fit in the dining room but everything in it gets used there.  And it crowds that corner.

But for $50, it did the trick.  My decluttering left quite a lot of empty spots.

Looking here, looking there...
We had been halfheartedly seeking a corner cupboard on TradeMe but it was hard work. 

But in the charity shop, I could look at my new prize, and send DH to look at it, and we agreed that it was just perfect! 

Out with the old (sold for $51) and in with the new.

Now these beautiful things are in their natural home, the dining room!

Moving so many lovely things from one cabinet to another got me wondering how many quality wine and other liquor glasses of different shapes we actually need - we rarely drink and only ever drink wine with company.  (It seemed like a grownup thing to do to have wine glasses on the wedding register.)  Stay tuned.

So another after picture is now a before:

 We can now enjoy our whole lounge window.

Light and bright - success!