I really like this wall-mounted fireplace from Vauni. It can be hung on any wall and is apparently as easy to install as a flat-screen TV. It doesn’t need a flu since it uses a bio-ethanol burner that allows you to adjust the flame size.

The site is calling the fireplace “hemispherical shaped,” which just sounds silly, but I agree with them when they say that this fireplace would look just about as good off as on. It has a sculpture-like quality that would make for an interesting and romantic addition to a room.

This wall-mounted fireplace starts at $2,500 US dollars (€1840) and comes in both black and white. (Via Design Milk)

Last April, my husband made me a rotating compost bin. Here it is:

I proceeded to compost between April and December, about 8 months. I put everything in there that you should compost–grass clippings, moldy bread, egg shells, the remnants from beer making, coffee grinds, and so on. The compost never smelled bad, but it attracted a lot of bugs, to the point that in August, you couldn’t open the bin without flies swarming at your face. I knew this was part of the process of rot, but it was gross.

I stopped composting in December because, frankly, I was getting a little discouraged about the whole thing. I have never been around compost before and I wasn’t sure it was working. I knew everything was rotting, but I didn’t see how it was turning into something for the garden. So, I decided to let it rest for three months and see what the compost was like.

Fast forward to last weekend and me deciding to empty my compost bin. When I began digging it out, I discovered that the ends of waste from my kitchen and yard had miraculously turned into a brown substance that looked exactly like manure.

I couldn’t believe it. My kitchens ends had turned into this amazing, soil-like substance that bore almost no resemblance to their original state. It was so dark that it was black in some places. Plus, it seemed cleaner than manure–it didn’t smell as bad, at least.

I pulled 13 wheelbarrows of compost out of the bin. That is enough to thickly cover one of my 12X12 garden plots. Here it is after I spread the compost on the plot:

I would say we had 2-3 inches of compost on top of the soil, and all from 8 months of piling kitchen scraps in a wooden box.

After spreading the compost out, we dug it into the soil. Now I am ready to plant.

I can’t stress enough how astounding this process was to me. When I was dumping moldy vegetable ends into the bin every week, I often had thoughts like “this is never going to work.” I couldn’t connect the rotting stuff in the bin to my garden. How could that gross stuff ever be something I wanted around the roots of my plants?

Well, I was wrong. We produced all that compost in 8 months for almost no work, and it deeply enriched the soil of the garden. I am sold on compost now. I’ll never go back.

(Image from Chef Mom, who has a crockpot version of this recipe on her site.)

I like corned beef and cabbage as much as the next guy on St. Patrick’s Day, but I don’t enjoy the $2.79/lbs. price tag. Originally, corned beef was a way of making a cheap, unpalatable cuts of beef taste good by pickling it. So I balk at paying $14 for 5 lbs. of corned beef when I know that it was originally poor-people food. I can get some nice steaks for that price.

So I will not be making corned beef and cabbage this St. Patrick’s Day. Instead, I’m going with an alternative Irish dish: Dublin Coddle.

Dublin Coddle is a stew made out of sausage, bacon, potatoes, and, of course, beer. You layer the ingredients in a pot, simmer it for a few hours, and end up with a stew that is just as hearty as corned beef and cabbage, and more authentically Irish since it is actually from Ireland (corned beef is American). Dublin Coddle is a delicious comfort food, easy to make, and goes great with beer. I am making it on the stove top, but you can also make it ahead in a crockpot. Here’s my recipe:

Dublin Coddle
(Serves 4 people)

Ingredients:

1 lbs. sausage, in casing.
8 slices of bacon
2 onions
2-4 potatoes
8-10 baby carrots (the equivalent of two regular carrots)
1 c chicken stock, preferably homemade
1/4 c fresh parsley
Salt and pepper
1 12 oz bottle of beer (I use a heavier beer like Guinness or my husband’s homemade Scottish ale. Some people use apple cider.)

Directions:

Cut the bacon into pieces and lightly fry in a pan. Add the bacon to a soup pot.

Cut the sausage into bite-sized chunks. Some recipes leave the sausages whole, but I find that cumbersome. Fry the sausage in the pan. Add them to the soup pot.

Peel and chop the onions. Sweat them in the same frying pan, then pour the onions into the pot.

Peel the potatoes and slice into 1/2-inch rounds. Chop up the carrots. Put in the saucepan.

Pour stock and beer over the other ingredients.

Bring the stew to a simmer and cook for 1-1.5 hours. Taste and add salt and pepper if you need it.

Transfer into bowls and garnish with parsley on top. Enjoy, preferably with a beer.

Cost of Dish: Sausage: $4 (cheaper if you make your own); Beer: $1; Bacon: $1; Potatoes: $.35; Carrots: $.10; Onions: $.10; Parsley: free from the garden; Stock: free; salt and pepper: free.
Total Cost: $6.55 or $1.64 per person.
Total Savings Compared To Corned Beef: $7.45.

You know, sometimes Drink of the Week and I have trouble naming these cocktails we come up with. In this case, the possible names included:

Patty McCelery
The Celery VirGIN
Cell Block
Luck O’ The Celery
Celery McGinington

Irish Spring, however, sounded about perfect for this little green cocktail, which is just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. It is a mixture of gin, lime, mint, and celery juice. The celery neither overwhelms nor gets lost in the drink, but adds a refreshing touch to the cocktail.

Here’s the recipe:

Irish Spring Cocktail
(makes one cocktail)

Ingredients:

1 oz celery juice from 1-2 ribs of celery
1 1/2 oz good-quality gin
1/2 oz simple syrup
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
5-6 mint leaves
Ice

Directions:

Grate the celery ribs into a bowl. Then put the celery in a sieve over the bowl and mash until you get all the juice out of the celery.

Juice 2-3 limes for fresh lime juice.

Muddle the mint, simple syrup, and lime juice in a cocktail shaker. Add in the celery juice, gin, and ice. Shake thoroughly for about a minute. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with mint.

Cheers!

Here’s a cool project on Apartment Therapy: convert an old chair into a stool. Reader Hilary Hahn took the chair from this:

To this:

It’s a pretty simply idea. Cut off the seat of the chair with a jigsaw, re-cover the seat with some fabric, and paint. Hilary uses the stool in her entryway for when people need to take off their shoes.

It hailed in San Francisco the other day. So Alcademics took advantage of the situation and collected the hail to make a Hailstorm Cocktail. Ha! Talk about waste not, want not.

San Francisco Hailstorm

Ingredients:

3 oz bourbon (Old Crow Reserve)
1/2 oz sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
1/2 oz Trader Tiki’s Don’s Mix syrup

Directions:

Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into a glass filled with hail.

If your New Year’s Resolution was to be more frugal in 2010, like many of us, you may be getting sick of it by now. There are good reasons for this. Being frugal is an exercise in discipline–telling yourself no over and over again for the benefit of a larger goal. This routine can become oppressive over time and lead to a sense of malaise, listlessness, and mild depression. There is a name for this phenomenon. It’s called frugal fatigue.

Frugal fatigue just means you’re tired of being thrifty. You want to have some fun and spend some money instead of always saying no to yourself. But experiencing this temporary emotional state doesn’t mean you have to fall off the frugal wagon completely. It just means that you have to acknowledge and deal with the feelings so that you can get on with being thrifty. Here are five ways I have found to battle frugal fatigue:

1. Remember Your Goals. It helps to reassess why you are doing this in the first place. Look at the positives, not what you can’t do–go out to dinner, go shopping, buy a new car, etc.–but what you will be able to do because of this lifestyle–save for retirement, go on a trip, pay off your debt (which, while unglamorous, means more freedom in your life). Look at what you have achieved so far and what you will achieve if you keep on with this.

2. Try Something New. Frugal fatigue comes from routine. You end up feeling trapped in your house and like you aren’t allowed to do anything. So, try something new. Cook a new recipe, try a new sport, go thrift store shopping with a tight budget, or have friends over for board game night. Make some fun for yourself that doesn’t focus on spending a lot of money, and you will feel better.

3. Get Some Frugal Inspiration. I just read the book Possum Living by Dolly Freed–who I recently posted a short documentary on–and it got me all gung-ho about self-sufficiency again. It’s important to have things like that. Read some frugal forums or The Tightwad Gazette or stare at growing your savings account or talk to your favorite frugal friend. Do something to get excited about frugality and it will feel more fun.

4. Count Your Blessings. You could just think about all the things you have in life, or you could literally count your blessings–for example, open your refrigerator and look at all the food you have, and then make a plan on how you’re going to use it up. Or look at all the paint cans in the garage and make a new project around them. The idea is to focus on what you have, the blessings, and then use them. Why? Using your resources makes you feel richer.

5. Buy Something. If frugal fatigue is really bad, go out and do something that costs money. That’s right. Treat yourself. Unless you are desperately poor, you can probably afford to go out to one dinner or buy yourself one item at the store. This could backfire and reignite your love of spending, but I’m guessing that if you have been wanting to do something for awhile and you’ve been telling yourself no, doing it will be enough to keep frugal fatigue at bay. Any discipline system needs small rewards as much as the big ones to keep you motivated. If you have been doing well, maybe it’s time for one of those small rewards.

Besides, it is cheaper in the long run to do something you really want and then go back to frugality than it is to fall off the wagon altogether because you feel discouraged. So, unless your goals are unbending, I say it’s time to bend a little.

And then, onward, frugal bunnies! You thrifty bees, you.

We are having fabulous weather here right now. It is very hard not to start gardening, even though I know we will get more frost before April and it is too early. (Okay, I already put in some potatoes and a fig tree. But that is all I am planting, I swear. Because it is too early.)

Anyway, at least I can plan the garden right now. I make a list every year–here is 2009’s list–and go from there. This is what I am going to plant in my vegetable garden 2010:

Plants Already In The Yard:

* Two artichoke plants –They have never done well. I am going to transplant them and see if they do better in another spot.
* Cherry tree
* Nectarine tree
* Apricot tree—This has yet to produce fruit. I am starting get concerned.
* Fig tree


(Courtesy About Garden)

* Orange bush
* Two lemon bushes
* Kumquat
* Strawberries
* Various herbs

Plants I Will Be Planting:

* Tomatoes—Three plants: a brandywine, a beef steak, and some other kind of tomato.
* Bell Peppers—You can’t have enough bell peppers. I am going to put in at least 6 plants, maybe 8.
* Jalapeño
* Some Other Pepper—Last year it was Italian sweet peppers, the year before, cayenne peppers. It depends on what the nursery has.
* Zucchini
* Winter Squash—Butternut or acorn.
* Peas—My husband wants English peas this year.
* Green beans—This year I am going to put in French green beans as well as Kentucky green beans.
* Beets
* Fingerling Potatoes—As mentioned, I cut up a potato and put it in the ground last weekend.
* Watermelon Radishes—I had some from Whole Foods and they are sooo cool.


(Courtesy McKenzie Seeds)

* Crane Melons—They are juicy cantaloupes and grow great here.
* Giant Sunflowers—These are so much fun and pretty in the garden.
* Leeks—Every year I plant these and love them. They grow so easily and are so versatile.
* Hops—My husband wants them for beer.


(Courtesy The Beer Life)

* Chard
* Garlic
* Marjoram
* Basil
* Parsley
* Stevia

(And since I have the room,) Plants I Am Still Considering:

* Corn—You get so little for so many plants, and fresh corn is cheap in the store. On the other hand, they are fun and easy to grow.
* Cucumber—I love them, but I am also tired of them. We haven’t eaten last year’s pickles yet.
* Carrots—I eat them all the time, but they are so cheap and they attract gophers.
* Fennel bulbs—I have one plant that I use for the leaves, but I want to grow it for the bulbs.
* Spinach—Every year I plant these and every year I have trouble getting them to full size. But darn it, spinach should be able to grow here!
* Arugula
* Radicchio
* Pearl Onions
* Shallots
* Celery

Others?

What are you thinking of planting?

Turns out a Erlenmeyer flask makes a great vase.

I always like the old suitcases I see in thrift stores, but they aren’t practical for today’s traveling needs. Well, here’s a great way to re-use them–turn them into a pet bed.

The idea comes from this Etsy site, Vintage Renaissance, where you can buy a pet bed just like the above for $70. It looks like they split the suitcase in half, glued stool legs to them (you can buy the legs in a hardware/craft store or take apart an old stool), and put a nice fluffy pillow inside for your cat or dog. What a great way to recycle.