If you need more ideas for homemade Christmas gifts, here’s a link with 34 ideas from Get Rich Slowly. Some examples: homemade truffles (pictured above) or granola or stuffed animals. There’s also some good ideas in the comments.

Get Rich Slowly also has a anti-stuff holiday guide, where you give people the gift of experience instead of stuff. Some of the suggestions include wine and cheese pairing classes, museum memberships, and spa services. These ideas won’t save you as much money, but they will probably be a hit. I know I would rather receive an experience than a knickknack any day of the week.

About two weeks ago, I had the most awesome cauliflower soup in a restaurant. It was perfectly done–creamy, but not too rich, and the flavors–cauliflower, garlic, mushrooms, and parsley–were beautifully expressed and distinct while still balancing each other out. The soup also had a piece of toast with sautéed mushrooms floating on top.

We liked the soup so much, we decided to try to recreate it at home. I came very close to the flavor of the soup in the below recipe. The restaurant soup was a little thicker than mine, but otherwise, this is pretty spot on. Here’s the recipe:

Mushroom Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower, chopped
1/2 lbs mushrooms
1/2 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, minced
3 Tbs butter
3 Tbs oil
5 c chicken or vegetable stock
2 1/4 c heavy cream
4 Tbs chopped parsley
Salt and pepper

For the topper (per serving):

1 slice of bread
1 tsp oil
3 additional mushrooms, sliced
salt

Directions:

In a large soup pan, add oil, butter, and chopped garlic. Cook for 1-2 minutes to infused the garlic with the oil. Add the chopped onion and cook until soft, stirring often. Add the mushrooms and parsley and cook until the mushrooms start to soften. Add the cauliflower, salt, and pepper.

Cook on high heat for about 3 minutes, stirring. Now add the broth. Bring the soup to a boil, then lower the heat to medium. Let it simmer for about 20 minutes, until everything is soft.

Stir in the cream.

Now it’s time to puree the soup. In batches so you don’t splash hot soup everywhere, process the soup in a food processor or blender until it becomes smooth. Taste the soup and add more salt or pepper if needed.

To make the mushroom and toast topper: Brush the oil and a sprinkling of salt on top of the slice of bread. Stick it under the broiler until the top is toasted, 3-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the mushrooms. In a frying pan, heat the oil and add the mushrooms. Cook until they are soft, about 3 minutes. Salt.

To assemble: Dish the soup into a bowl. Take the piece of toast and push it into the soup. Sprinkle mushrooms on top and a little fresh parsley. Enjoy.

Today I am enjoying this house tour on Design Sponge of artist Sophie Blackall’s house. Much like Ann Wood’s house tour, it’s full of whimsy and interesting details that probably wouldn’t make sense in someone else’s house, but give the rest of us permission to do whatever weird thing we want to do with our space. For example, put a collection of antique dolls on your wall:

Or hand mirrors (love this idea):

Or make a quilt out of 19th century bed sheets:

See the rest of the tour here.

As mentioned, one of my homemade Christmas presents this year are pot holders/oven mitts. I had never made them before, so I made a prototype first, pictured above. These are too sloppy to give away, so I’m using them in my own kitchen and will make a better pair as a gift. However, they aren’t bad looking considering that I had never quilted before.

To make the pot holders, I used some upholstery fabric I had lying around and an old towel from the rag bin. The towel was used as batting for the center of the pot holders.

I also used this how-to from Instructables to learn how to make oven mitts. Side rant: Instructables is getting money grubbing! You can’t see all the steps at once without paying them money, you can’t see additional pictures without paying them money, you can’t print without paying them money, and while you’re looking through the how-to, Instructables likes to put a pop-up on your screen asking you to pay them money.

It’s annoying, and it also prevents you from seeing an important step in the project–how to miter a corner, i.e. fold the binding on the corners of the pot holders. Luckily, About.Com has a diagram of how to miter corners that helped me with that.

The cost of this project: The material was free, the towel was free, and the thread was a negligible cost. The only thing I bought for the pot holders were the binding on the outside of the fabric. It was 1/8 of a yard, and cost $.75. So each pot holder was about $.38.

I suppose you could pay $1 for two pot holders if you shopped around. However, these pot holders are going to hold up longer than your average store-bought pot holders and I think they are prettier. And for a Christmas present, you really can’t beat a $.75 price tag.

I caved and bought one of those giant cat scratcher things. It was super cheap, but it’s also taking up a lot of space in the living room. I don’t see it being there for long. So I am still searching for attractive cat furniture that doesn’t cost a fortune. Something like this:

Square Cat Habitat costs $50, which is a steal for anything pet-related that isn’t hideous. It is a carpet insert inside a bamboo frame that you hang on your wall at a height the cats can reach. Best of all, the carpet is replaceable, so you do not have to throw the whole thing out after the cat has shredded it. You just put a new insert in.

It seems like an especially good solution if your cat loves scratching the sofa. (Via Sunset)

I have been watching Project Runway and I keep noticing how the designers use wrist pincushions. It seems practical, like you wouldn’t have to wonder where your pins are–they are always with you while you sew.

Personally, I use a little turtle as a pincushion (which you can see on this how-to on making fingerless gloves from an old sweater), but it strikes me that making a wrist pincushion would be a great way to use up a small but pretty piece of fabric.

For example, Green Kitchen uses German ribbon in the wrist pincushion pictured above, which is from a tutorial on how to make a wrist pincushion. It looks awesome. Hmmm… maybe if I find the right fabric…

It’s soup season, all right. And so, I have been making a lot of soup. Last night I recreated a cauliflower and mushroom soup I had at a restaurant (post upcoming), and now I am thinking of making one of my favorite soups: Spicy Carrot Peanut Soup.

I like this soup because it is thick and creamy, flavorful, but also chock full of vegetables and protein. It’s a very satisfying soup, especially if you are a vegetarian.

On top of that, it’s insanely cheap to make–$2.30 for an entire batch of soup! (That is considering you make your own vegetable broth.) Here’s the recipe:

Spicy Carrot Peanut Soup

Ingredients:

2 Tbs vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 lbs carrots, peeled and chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 Tbs parsley
1 spicy pepper–jalapeño works fine.
2 garlic cloves
4 c vegetable broth
2 c water
3.5 Tbs peanut butter
3 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs fresh lime juice
1 Tbs salt
pepper

Directions:

Prepare all the vegetables. In a soup pot, warm the oil and add one at a time the garlic, onions, carrots, celery, parsley, and chili. Sauté on high heat for 10 minutes until the vegetables start to soften. Add the water and broth, cover, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the carrots are soft, about 25 minutes.

Next, stir in the peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, salt, and pepper. In a blender, puree the soup in batches. Taste and adjust seasoning. If you want it spicier, add a little dried red pepper. Enjoy.

This makes a large batch of soup. I usually separate soup into single-serving containers and freeze for an easy lunch.

Cost of Dish: Oil: $.05; Carrots: $.99, Onion: $.20; Celery: $.02; Parsley, garlic, lime, and chili pepper: free from the garden; Vegetable broth: free; Water: free; Peanut butter: $.84; Soy sauce: $.20; Salt and Pepper: practically free.
Total Cost Of Dish: $2.30 for the batch, or $.23 per serving.

(Photo depicting 2 million plastic bottles – the number of bottles used in the US every 5 minutes.)

Since I started composting, I have become aware of how much plastic I use. Once I started separating my organic waste, and recycling all my paper, it became clear to me that every week I was basically throwing out a (plastic) garbage bag of mostly … plastic. Sure, there are other things in there, but the majority of actual garbage my husband and I produce is plastic. You know, things like bags, bottles, wrappings from meat or cheese, packaging, and so on.

So I was interested in ReadyMade’s Week Without Plastic experiment. Katherine Sharpe decided to try to not use plastic for a week, and quickly encountered how difficult that is. Here are some sample questions she asked during the experiment:

• Is the lid of my ‘I Am Not A Paper Cup’ made of silicone? Is silicone plastic? Are there any 100% plastic-free on-the-go coffee container options?
• Are rubber bands made of plastic?
• Are mason jars microwaveable? (The glass parts, not the metal lids.)
• What did meat used to be packaged in for sales and serving—before, say, World War II? When did plastic come in for meat? What is meat sold and stored in other countries?
• Is there any place in this city where I can buy some raw meat without its being packed in plastic?
• Are the little stickers on fruit made of plastic?
• How can I store vegetables and fruits in my refrigerator and not use plastic?
• Is there any viable alternative to plastic garbage-can liners for my kitchen?
• I buy a lot of foods like rice and nuts and beans that come in plastic bags. Are there ways to get and store these in other types of packaging?

And also:

• Why can I recycle #1 and #2 plastic containers, PET and HDPE, but not other kinds of plastics, even when they have chasing-arrow signs on them? Is there any place that recycles plastics #3 through #10?
• Does all the plastic that I put out at curbside actually get recycled? How “good” is plastic recycling, anyway?

All good questions, although someone needs to introduce her to butcher paper. Still, plastic is an environmental problem. For one thing, it takes a lot of energy to produce. For another, as mentioned above, only two types of plastics are recyclable (as far as I know)–#1 and #2, the tiny numbers you can find on the bottom of the container. Numbers 3-10 are not recyclable, which automatically makes them waste.

And finally, there is a garbage patch the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean–the marine litter tends to accumulate in one place. Most of that garbage is plastic. And that plastic will never disappear. It just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, which means fish are eating it along with plankton, which in turn means that plastic is entering the food chain. Also, plastic is increasingly strangling and killing sea life that gets tangled in it.

Depressing, right? Ugh. Anyway, the point is, I have been cutting back on plastic. I’m not extreme about it. After all, plastic is not a bad thing in and of itself–it is just overused. I don’t know how I would store food without it. However, I have noticed that over time, my consumption of plastic has lessened. It wasn’t hard at all. Here are some changes I made:

• I pick paper over plastic bags.

• I re-use plastic bags at least once (saves money).

• I have a re-usable drinking bottle for water (also saves money because I am drinking free tap water instead of paying for water).

• I re-use plastic tubs (saves money because I buy less Tupperware).

• I am slowly replacing all my plastic cooking implements with wooden or metal ones.

• When I make a food purchase, along with price and where the food came from, I now consider the packaging it comes in too.

Plastic is mind bogglingly commonplace. I mean, I am typing on a plastic keyboard right now. The pen sitting on the keyboard is also plastic. My phone is plastic. The heater beside me is plastic. So is my treadmill. And my fax machine. And my mouse. And the bottle of lotion on my desk… It really is amazing how much plastic is in our lives. It’s practically impossible to avoid. But I am still going to try to resist it where I can–at least when it comes to the easily disposable kind.

It’s the second of November, which means it’s not too early to talk about Christmas, especially if you are thinking of making your own gifts. I certainly am. I seem to be taken with idea of making as many gifts as I can with craft stuff I already have around the house. I have a lot of material, beads, yarn, and whatnot that I am on a mission to use up.

Making your own gifts saves money. It’s crass to say, but Christmas is expensive, and making gifts cuts down the bill considerably. On top of that, homemade gifts are thoughtful, meaningful, and reduce the gross consumption that makes Christmas seem so tacky.

But, as I have mentioned before on here, there’s one important catch: the key to a DIY Christmas is to give gifts that people actually want. Most people don’t want tiny pieces of knitted sushi or a toaster cover shaped like a rooster. In fact, it’s gifts like those that make people fear homemade presents.

So, my rule of thumb: If I can’t make it look as good as it is in the store (or better), then I don’t give it as a gift.

Here are some categories of homemade gifts:

1. Food–candy, spice rubs, roasted nut, etc.
2. Liquor–homemade flavored vodkas, apple cider, etc.
3. Wearables–knitted hats, socks, jewelry, purses…
4. Beautiful Things–art, sculpture, etc. (Only attempt if you are good at making something beautiful.)
5. Useful Things–Pot holders, soaps, candles.
6. Decorative Gifts–Boxes that have been covered with material, Christmas ornaments, placements, etc.
7. Plants–Herb starters, shaped shrubs, etc.
8. Children’s Stuff–Clothes, toys, blankets.

Any other categories?

Personally, I am considering making the following gifts this year. (If you are a family member, read on at your own risk:)

1. Purses.
2. Necklaces.
3. Earrings.
4. Smoked Salmon.–We are going to try to smoke it ourselves.
5. Homemade Vanilla.
6. Vanilla Sugar.
7. Lavender Oil.
8. Christmas Ornaments.
9. Pot Holders.
10. Spice Mixes–Using herbs from the garden.
11. Homebrewed Beer.

What are you making this year?