Two yellow Descoware Belgium crocks. Descoware was manufactured from the 1940s-1960s and endorsed by Julia Child as her official cookware.
These are cast iron covered in enamel. They’re in great shape, despite being from the 1950s or 1960s (I think). I can see eating some French Onion Soup out of these this winter. $4 each.
When perusing GardenWeb the other day, I came upon the following way to use up rotting tomatoes–let them rot and then plant the seeds:
I know an Italian family here in town that will go to the store to look for Roma tomatoes (in late December or January) – they look for the big meaty ones since this will hopefully produce big meaty tomatoes in their garden. Then they let them rot so the seeds are ripe. Then he plants them in pots and sets them in a warm place to germinate (like on top of the refrigerator). When they have started growing, he places them in his cold frame outside and keeps moving them to bigger size pots until it is safe to plant them in his garden. It is much cheaper than buying the seeds in packets. By the way, he is a retired chef, so he uses the tomatoes for the family meals. His wife makes some amazing homemade pasta and his sauce is out of this world!
I’m not sure if this would work, but I do have a few rotting tomatoes from my last harvest, all from the same super-prolific plant. I put the tomatoes in a container to let them rot. Once that is over with (ew), I will plant the seeds in pots and let them get to a healthy seedling size, then transplant to the garden in spring. If I start this now, the seedlings should be pretty big in time for May planting.
I have had poor luck at growing tomatoes from seeds. Out of one packet, I got one decent-sized plant that produced about 15 tomatoes. However since it’s either do this or throw the rotting tomatoes out, I have nothing to lose. Who knows, maybe I’ll get some free plants out of it.
My strawberry plants are suddenly producing beautiful big berries in the middle of November. Maybe it was all the tonic water I dumped on them?
These days, fees show up everywhere. My bills have them regularly, even though I pay every month and have good credit. Companies do this on purpose because a $40 fee here and there makes for big revenues. Therefore, I have no qualms in getting them removed–and I always do. I have saved us thousands and thousands over the years by fighting fees, both large and small.
In the last few years, I have noticed a shift in how companies deal with fees. They are less forgiving about removing them and ruder when you approach them about it. Nevertheless, they will remove them if you give them no other option.
No Debt Plan has a six-step plan for getting fees removed. I agree with it and follow the same pattern. But I have a few other tips I would add:
Be reasonable. Start out nice and gradually get firmer as you go along. You can be firm and still be polite.
Get the names and badge numbers of everyone you talk to. This makes them feel that their job is being questioned and they will be more likely to do what they can for you.
Keep a record. You may have to repeat what you have been told to other people, so write it down. Also, this will also help you determine any misunderstandings.
Keep going up the managerial ladder until you get the fee removed. I have called CEOs, no joke.
Technicalities don’t matter. In my book, if you pay your bill within a 30 day period, they are not allowed to call you late. Don’t let them guilt trip you because you passed their arbitrary payment deadline.
If you have passed their payment deadline, use it to your advantage. Have them move the deadline so that you can pay when it is convenient for you. Make sure they do this for free and on top of removing the fee. That way the situation won’t repeat itself and you have gotten your fee removed.
Know when to threaten to cancel your account. Never threaten unless you are prepared to follow through, and only use it as a last resort.
Remember: YOU have the power. You are the customer. Use it. Threaten to go to a competitor or complain about their customer service. After all, you are doing them the favor by giving them your business.
Finally, don’t give up. Call back, leave messages, and whatever you do, don’t pay the fee. It’s harder to get money back once you’ve given it. Trust me, if you’re a good customer, you will get the fee removed.
In all my years of doing this, I’ve paid maybe two fees. Both times I closed the accounts and the companies lost my business. I feel strongly that companies who charge fees to customers who pay them every month are out of line. So there’s my pep talk of the day: Don’t let them intimidate you–keep your money.
Along those not every green thing is good lines, here’s a lesson I learned recently.
Before I could afforded fancy things like a washing machine, I had to go to the laundromat. I hated dragging my clothes to the laundromat. It was an inconvenient and annoying chore that I tried to do as little as possible. Plus, I never had enough money–or quarters, really–to wash my clothes, which stressed me out.
So I tried to reduce my wash. I got in the habit of re-using clothes that weren’t dirty. I wore shirts several times in a row. I would use a towel two or three times before I washed it, always hanging it to dry in between. I had an elaborate system where I divided a wash cloth into thirds and used it three times before hanging it to dry and then putting it in with the dirty clothes. This system worked great and reduced the number of times I had to go to the laundromat greatly. And no I never smelled.
During this time of, oh say 10 years, I never had anything sour. I didn’t even know that laundry could sour, that’s how unfamiliar with souring I was. Then about three years ago, something changed. Although I now had a washer and dryer and could do laundry more frequently, my towels started souring. I thought it was because I had gotten lazy about moving wet clothes directly from the washer to the dryer and tried to be more on top of that. It didn’t work. One by one our towels soured until we had to replace them all with new towels.
Then a weird thing happened: Our new towels started souring too. I was perplexed. I started washing towels after one use, something I have never had to do before. Still, our new fluffy new white towels started to smell gross. What was going on here?
I thought back to what changed three years ago, and I figured it out. Three years ago, I switched to all cold water washing. This is a common frugal/green tip: wash all your laundry in cold water and not only do you no longer have to sort laundry into colors and whites, you save money on your electricity bill because you aren’t paying to heat the water.
However, soap alone is apparently not enough to kill the bacteria that was gathering in my towels. While they could take hanging for 2-3 days and then a nice hot wash, they could not take the repeated cold washes, which kept the bacteria alive enough to grossify everything.
So I learned a hard lesson: Washing everything in cold water doesn’t work. At least, it didn’t for me. It took me three years and two batches of new towels to learn this lesson. On top of that, I never noticed much of a difference in my electricity bill from using all cold water. This is officially an expensive lesson, folks. It’s back to sorting and hot water washes for the Savvy Housekeeper.
I can’t stand chemical flavoring in vodka. I can taste lemon flavoring no matter how well-mixed the drink is–it burns my tongue. Chemical flavoring is so silly, really, because apparently it’s easy to infuse vodka with flavor. Therefore my next experiment around the house is to take the large bottle of vodka in my freezer and infuse parts of it with different flavors. According to WikiHow, all you have to do is pick your flavor, cut it into the vodka, and leave it sit for awhile to infuse the flavors. Here’s how you can tell how much to put in your vodka, according to them:
* If infusing fruit, use 1-3 good sized pieces.
* If infusing herbs, use 1-2 fists filled of the herb (depending upon the potency.)
* If infusing berries, use 2-4 fists filled with the berries. You may also want to bruise (squish a little) them first.
* If infusing peppers, use as many as you want. The more you use and the longer you infuse, the spicier the vodka will be.
Sounds simple enough. I will probably try about three flavors. Here’s the ones I’m considering:
Lemon vodka
Basil vodka
Pumpkin spice vodka
Vanilla vodka
Pear vodka
Chocolate vodka
Pepper Vodka–Although I’m not sure what I could do with this besides use it in Bloody Marys.
Side note: Although I’m not likely to make this, I’m morbidly curious about bacon vodka. Hmmm….
I’m fascinated by people who can turn trash into beautiful things. PointClickHome has a slideshow of furnishing designers have made from trash. According to the site:
We want décor that pushes the limits: where found objects dangle as chandeliers, melted plastics are woven like textiles, and newspapers stack like seating—not garbage. For some designers, green design is not just the end goal, but the beginning: a no-holds-barred way to rethink what exists. And with re-use as their mantra, trash becomes treasure, ugly becomes beautiful, and the line between sensibly sustainable and stylishly sexy becomes forever blurred
That sounds fancy! And I do like some of the examples they came up with. For example, check out these awesome lights made from plastic bottles.
“It’s made from the cut bottoms of clear bottles strung together and hung in a circle.”
Lovely. Or how about this chair:
“The RD (Roughly Drawn) Legs Limited Edition chair turns excess plastic into innovative art. Without the use of glue, this chair is crafted from 100 percent domestic recycled plastic waste. The stretched and hand-woven plastic creates a look that is at once chaotic and beautifully organized.”
I like how it looks like it is made out of rubberbands. And finally:
“Dutch Designer Anneke Jakobs collected discarded cartons in the street during her days as a student at the Utrecht School of Product Design. Ten cartons make up the luxe chandelier.”
This is my favorite. It has a pop-art feel to it and I could almost see it in my house.
As I mentioned before, I have a bottle of flat tonic water in my fridge. I don’t want to throw it out, so I took a look around for other ways to use it.
Tonic water is different from club soda or seltzer water. Seltzer is water and carbon dioxide, the stuff that makes the bubbles. Club soda is the same thing with minerals added in. Tonic water is different because it includes sugar and quinine, a substance that comes from the bark of the Cinchona tree in the Andes. Quinine is poisonous in high doses, but it is also anti-malarial and known to reduce fever, which is why it showed up in all those old-timey medicines back in the day. Now we mostly use it for gin and tonics.
I say that because I’m not sure that you can always substitute tonic water for club soda in household uses. However, after looking around, I came up with seven solid uses that I’m willing to try.
1. Fresh flower preservative–Mix one part tonic water with two parts water to preserve flowers. (Although I have a better way to keep flowers fresh here.)
2. Glow-in-the-dark–Tonic water glows in the dark when beside a black light. I can think of some spiffy party decorations you could make with this—put the tonic water in different vessels, maybe suspend something in it and make a kind of glowing lava lamp …
3. Cleaner–It can be used to clean glass or counters. Just spray and wipe down.
4. Stain Remover—Like club soda, tonic water should get out stains. Just dab on the stain and rub to remove.
5. Stop Muscle Spasms–Some lady on a forum said that when you have a leg or another kind of muscle cramp, drinking tonic water it will stop the spasm. Hmmm…
6. Rust Remover—Apparently tonic water can be used for loosening rusty nuts and bolts. Pour it on top and allow to soak.
7. Water Plants—For me, this may be the ultimate use because my tonic water is flat. Once it is flat, tonic water works as regular water on the plants, plus the added minerals and sugar is good for them. I’m not sure how the quinine will affect them, but it probably won’t hurt if I don’t overdo it. Who knows, maybe it will be good for them.
Any others?
Tuesday-Thursday: Left-overs.
So now you’ve got this big vat of chili, what do you do with it? Never fear, chili is very versatile. Here are some ways you can vary the menu for the rest of the week.
Chili Dogs
Directions: Cook the hot dogs, put warm chili on top, put cheese on top of that, zap in the microwave to melt the cheese.
Total cost: $1.42, or $.71 per person
Chili Burritos
Directions: Heat enough chili to fill two burritos. Add taco seasoning to the chili. Line the tortilla with cheese and chili, wrap, and cook in an oven at 425 degrees. It should take about 15-20 minutes. Chili is dense and takes longer to heat up than regular beans.
Total cost: $2.30 or $1.15 per person
Chili Spaghetti
Directions: Cook spaghetti. Heat up chili. Put on cooked spaghetti, toss, add some cheese on top.
Total Cost: $.80 or $.40 per person.
Total cost for (most of) the week: $10.29
What do you do with your leftover chili?
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