"No Maintenance Home Grown Food"

Chaya!  Tree spinach!  Wow, the whole world should know about this…especially the world of warm climates where it grows well.

Protein, Vitamin C  and more..  Google it yourself to find out what a powerhouse of nutrition this plant is.

My sister gave me a stick of it from her yard. I stuck it in the ground, watered it a bit.

Forgot about it.

It's in partial sun, front yard, against the garage.  We live in semi-tropical climate.

A year later I have a huge tree!  Too much to keep up with.

I pick off the leaves when I get the time, boil them about 10 minutes to kill the trace amounts of cyanide websites mention just to be safe.  I puree the leaves in my Vita Mix blender, then freeze them in ice cube trays.

I add these cubes to smoothies, soups and casseroles.

Viola!  Totally free, no work-,can't kill, nutritious food!

Free organic fertilizer

The little white round dish on the grass below the composting barrel is full of "compost tea".

It is what drips out of my composting barrel especially
after it rains. I pour it around plants for frugal healthy plant feeding!

Dreamsicles. Easy!

Peeled cantaloupe. Liquified in blender. NOTHING else added! Delicious drink! Poured rest in ice cube tray. Frozen dreamsicles soon!
Healthy! Zero weight warcher points. Frugal! No wasted cantaloupe!


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Organizing Refrig and Freezer

Finally! Numbered containers in freezer and refrig. List of contents
of containers on refrig door.
No more frustration trying to find things!



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Yard progress!

Asiatic jasmine, liriope and blue flowering plumbago bushes!
All low maintenance replacement plants for our front yard. No more grass!! They are drought tolerant too!

Lawn Progress!

Hired someone to plant asuatic jasmine near curb. Next rows of liriope. Behind them, Bushes
Of flowering plumbego
Getting there! These are low maintenance plants!

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Yogurt - homemade using crockpot

Hi  Yogurt loving Friends!

This surely represents health, frugality and  happy  creativity,

 I googled "crockpot yogurt" and found the basic recipes.  I also looked up temperature details in some of my old cookbooks.



1. Pour milk into crockpot - 1/2 gallon.  I used nonfat dry milk for maximum economy. I believe you could use any type of milk probably including soy, rice, etc.  Super   healthy
choice  could be organic milk.

 2.  Heat until  almost boiling. Thermometer* is my favorite way to know for sure so I used it.

180 degrees  ( my crockpot took about 2 hours)

3.  Turn off crockpot and remove lid.   Cool back down to about 115 degrees.
95 degrees -bacteria will not be active       120 degrees, they will die.

4. Stir in yogurt starter. I purchased Dannon vanilla, 6 oz cup, since they were on sale.  Plain yogurt is usually recommended as starter, but my vanilla flavored one worked fine.  I believe any fruit flavored one would work too.  JUST BE SURE THE LABEL SAYS ACTIVE CULTURES.  I believe also, the more and varied the live bacterias contained, the better and healtheir
Now was the time to   add an optional  1/2 cup of additional powdered milk for extra
thickness and nutrition which I did.

5. I have an amazing thermos* that keeps hot tea piping hot for 24 hours!  Unbreakable too, I don't think it has a glass liner.  Found at yard sale for 50 cents!  

I filled the thermos with part of the milk/yogurt mixture and put lid on and let it sit all night undisturbed.

6.  Insulate* the crockpot well.  I put a thick towel around it, then a layer of newspaper, then a second thick towel.

7. Next morning I woke up to lovely thick creamy yogurt* in the crockpot and in the thermos!
I immediately filled a 6 oz  container with some for the starter culture for the next batch.
 I may look at a health food store for a small container of live active yogurt that has the most and varied types of bacterias possible listed on the label to use for starter yogurt.   But for now I'll use what I have on hand.
* photos are on my facebook page.  If you're reading this and not my FB friend, just request to friend me and let  me know you found me at this blog.  Then you can see the pics.

Happy eating! Love to hear in the comments how you did with making your own healthy frugal happy yogurt!

Patty
* I'm having tech troubles loading pics onto this blog.  Not sure why.  Iphone4  doesn't seem to be compatible.  Anyone know how to solve this?







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