Bulk Spices

Do you love buying spices like me and want to buy them but sometimes hold back because of the price?  OR Do you have to buy spices and get the ones you have to but with an angry grudge because of the price? Either way....I'm on your side! 

On my days off, it's hard to get me out of the kitchen, I love to cook and just play in the kitchen, it's my mad scientist laboratory.  I like to try new spices and have TONS in my cabinet.  I had read about buying spices in bulk and that it's quite a bit cheaper but I didn't know where I could get them and sure as heck didn't think they would have them at my HEB (local grocery store). 

Before I start this story I'm going to give you a little bit back info on the fam.....

Here's Mama, Reggie and I and here's the truth of me and my Mama.  I am not my mother, I am my mother's sister.  My mom HATES shopping and while I some what agree with her on clothes shopping I DO NOT agree about grocery shopping.  HEB is my favorite place to be...I love, love, love it!  When I go, it's a wonderful, leisurely stroll through all of the samples and new items and old items and pretty much anything and everything that catches my eye.  My mom on the other hand can buy two weeks worth of groceries in about 8.7 minutes and that is when the lines are long! So when we go together it's a a bit of a combination of the both, I'm rushing myself and my mom does a pretty good job at not being impatient with me.  Ok, on to bulk spices...

Right before the holidays, Mama and I were buying our holiday stuff and the wonderful staff at HEB brought the bulk spice display out from hiding in the organic section!!!  WOOHOO!!!  So I start freaking out and running between the bulk spices with my phone calculator doing math faster than Einstein to compare the prices.  You can imagine what my  mom was doing, she just kept walking and I have no proof but I think she was rolling her eyes at me and laughing at the same time.  She loves me and does a great job at supporting me so I understand the laughs.  I don't have exact numbers on savings but it's SUBSTANTIAL!! Ever since I've been saving my old spice bottles and refilling them.  Pop them in the dishwasher and soak them in a little vinegar and water to get rid of the smell if you need to. 

Here's how it works:

1) Fill one of the supplied ziplocs with however much you want. 

2) Weigh it on the scale and and plug in the PLU# on the container and print out the sticker.

3) Slap that sticker on the bag.

4) Pay the few cents and walk out of there feeling very proud of yourself!!!

This is the oregano I bought today.

The bag is actually only about half full, the rest I put in the bottle and labeled it with my fancy-schmancy label maker that Mama got me for Christmas...she how she supportive she is of my insanity?!!?  So that bag is about the amount of two bottles that you buy on the spice aisle.  Judging by my calculations just from looking on websites, a bottle or oregano costs $2-$3.  Would you like to guess how much I spent on that bag that, remember, is equal to 2 bottles?????  $0.39......39 whoppin' cents!!!  WHAT?!?!?!?!  Can you even believe that?!  'Nuff said, yo!



Super Awesome Washing Soda

Yeah, yeah I know, I added awesome but I just call 'em like I see 'em.  This stuff seems to be almost as bodacious as Borax.  Here are the uses that I have found and on the box.

1) Laundry Detergent
2) Laundry booster for stains, ground-in dirt, greasy stains.
3) Sweat stains
4) Collar and Cuff Stains
5) Food stains (Mustard, chocolate, blueberry, cola, meat and grease splatters, olive oil)
6) Other stains (make-up, blood, grass, clay)
7) Other solutions

I've got to try some of these uses out myself!  The price is similar to Borax....3 lbs 7 oz for somewhere between $2.50 or $3.00. 

Bodacious Borax

Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. It is usually a white powder consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax)  Blah, blah blah....whatever the heck that all means but that's for all of those people out there that want to know what it really is.  Here's the (as my students say) fly part of it.

As you can see on the box it's been around since 1891.  I talked to a friend of mine who is about my parent's age and he was telling me how his mom was told that baby formula was better than breast milk.  As I began to really think about this (Don't freak, I'm not a deep-thinker, just mildly obsessesed with all of this craziness.) I realized that in the 60's-ish all of the convenient foods and products became really popular and frankly I can't blame them. They had to do so much stuff from scratch and in such a time-consuming manner that when the easy stuff came out I'm sure the popularity just sky-rocketed.  Now we all are going back to natural which isn't any new concept because as the Good Book says,

  "What has been will be again,
   what has been done will be done again;
   there is nothing new under the sun."  Ecclesiastes 1:9

The Big Man upstairs really is wise, don't ya think?  Ok, moving on...

You can read this all on the box you buy but I'm going to give them a little bit of free advertising here.  Check out all of these uses.
1) Make this awesome Laundry Detergent
2) Dishwasher Detergent
3) I accidentally discovered that it polishes my silver jewelry.
4) Wash baby clothes
5) Get stains out of clothes
6) Toilet bowl stains, we have an upstairs toilet we don't use much and we have really hard water.  There was a pretty nasty hard water ring basically growing in my toilet and I had no idea how to get it out.  I poured some Borax in and left it for about a week (oops!) and scrubbed the toilet bowl and up it came!! TA-DA!
7) You know how you get that funky smell in the garbage disposal and some people say to throw a half of a lemon down there?  Yeah, that idiots.  I'm sorry if you are one of those people and it works for you but I tried it and had the disposal on for like 4 minutes and it still didn't get ride of the whole thing so I just had this rotting lemon sitting in my disposal, which doesn't really help the stink much.  Pour about 1 Tbsp. of Borax down the drain, let it sit for about 15 minutes, run hot water and the disposal and WA-LA!! 
8) Washing delicates
9) Getting ride of hard water stains (see #6)
10) Getting rid of stains in carpet or rugs
11) Boost the cleaning power of your dishwasher
12) Laundry boosting aka improves cleaning power of detergent
13) Bathroom/Kitchen cleaning and deodorizing

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!  And the best part is that 4 lbs of this stuff costs about $3.50!!! WHAT?!?!?!  Yep, you heard me right......go getcha self some!!!

Joyful Jewels

We all know jewelry can be very difficult to organize and still remember what you have especially if you have the ridiculous amount of cheap jewelry that I do (don't tell Tito that I admitted to that!).  I also keep a couple of perfumes up there but I'm not as into that so it's not as big of a deal but I did want to try to keep them contained.  I didn't get a before picture of the entire dresser but here's what my jewelry box looked like....yikes!!!

After a little bit of internet research and getting the wheels turning in my brain here's what I came up with.  I bought the following for $7.83 at Hobby Lobby, the local art supply store.

I wrapped the fabric around the board and hot glued it on and then nailed in the nails and hung the bracelets.  You can put the nails in a random order or in rows.  Hang a bracelet on to measure where to put the next nail in.  Either hang it up or just lean it up against the wall like I did after I tried hanging it and it fell within .25 seconds.  Here's the finished product. 

So next, I needed to contain my jewelry so I found a container I already had lying around and wrapped the extra fabric aroudn and hot glued it on.  I could have hemmed the edges but I just cut it and didn't even measure it, I'm far from a perfectionist.  Here's the supplies:

And the finished product...

I have always put my earrings in a craft case....here it is:

And everything all put together....

Let me know if you have any cool ways to organize, I still have a lot of organizing in my house to do!

Chicken Stock Cubes

I'm very excited about this and I know it's something I can do long term.  I made the whole chicken in the crock pot and then made the stock as suggested.  I poured all of the stock into ice cubes trays and froze them in a freezer bag.  I can drop a few in anytime in any recipe and it's way healthier than boullion which we are addicted to here in my house.  Try it out!!!

Healthy Ramen?!?!

This was on my MSN homepage...gonna have to try it.  How to make Ramen noodles healthier...

Stacy habla español muy bien!

I'm a high school Spanish teacher and one of my favorite former students who is now at Stanford University and fluent in Spanish recommended me for an award....see article!