Giant Cookie

                                                         Week 40 ( Save $40 )
                                         Week 41 ( Save $41 )

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Everyone has their own favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe...why not bake a giant cookie to impress your friends or family!

Mix up your chocolate chip cookie recipe.

On a pizza pan, spread your batter on to a standard  12 " pizza pan. (I had to cover this pan with foil because this pizza pan had ventilated holes.)







Start by making the dough into a one round ball and place the dough on the lightly greased pan.

Start flattening the dough and spread the cookie dough evening to the edge of the pan. Do not spread any dough over the edge of the pan. 

Bake the cookie at 350 F for 22-25 minutes until edge begins to brown. 

Note: the cookie will rise and spread right to the edge of the pan.





Remove the pan and cool completely if you are planning to decorate the cookie. If not, start eating!!

I decorated this cookie with yellow cardboard  off a box. Cut some circles and drew some faces and TADA!!!... A Giant Emoji Cookie!!

I melted 1 chocolate chip per circle to hold emoji's in place. Clear wrapped the cookie and pan. 

What an awesome gift! Two gifts in one!






                                                      ENJOY!

  
 

Havesting flower seeds

                                                                      Week 38 ( Save $38 )
                                                  Week 39 ( Save $40 )

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With Summer officially ending, the foliage of colourful flowers are fading at the close of the season.  Nature has this way with perennials to either self seed if they are not picked. How about trying to harvest the seeds?  Collecting your own seeds is economical and cost efficient. Not only will you be ensuring your garden with new blooms from the seed harvest. You can also share your replants or seeds with friends and family. 

The best time to harvest the seeds should be on a sunny and dry day. Once the dead heads or seed pods have turned brown, you can clip and gather begin collecting your flower seeds. 

Zinnia seeds are located right under the stem.
Just break off the brown petals for the seeds.

I harvest the flower seeds by cutting the seed heads off the same flowers with a sharp scissors. I place the dry seed heads in a shallow box and remove the flower seeds and let the seeds dry for a week at room temperature.



Cone flower seeds are embedded..just shake

Sasha Daisies seeds...just shake

After a week of drying, I store the seeds in an envelope, label with flower type and year. I store the envelopes in a cool dark spot for the winter.


Now they are ready for gifting or for planting next year.






                                    Happy Seed Harvesting!



 

 

 

Fall potatoes

                                                                  Week 36 ( Save $36 )
                                                                  Week 37 ( Save $37 )

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With the fall season upon us soon the colder weather will keep us indoor more and that means less time outdoors in our gardens, which I will truly miss.

Fall means yielding your final vegetation and collecting next years seedlings.  Whether it be the last of the tomatoes, herbs, chili peppers, squashes or potatoes.

 I decided to plant potatoes in the middle of summer.  It was very late in the season because I had a hard time trying to get my potatoes to sprout long enough to plant.  It's ironic when you don't want your potatoes to sprout, they sprout like crazy and when you want them to sprout, they just don't.  I think next year with planning a few months ahead, I will get my potatoes into the soil earlier for longer and larger yield.  I was surprisingly happy with assortment fingerlings in different sizes. I cannot wait to cook them up!

I thought I took pictures with the planting process.  Because I did not, I tried to recreate the process after everything had been dug up. 

Here we go...to begin you will need two large planters.  Make sure one of the planter is a size down from the largest planter.  You want the slightly smaller one to fit into the largest planter.  Makes sure the slightly smaller planter is of a softer material so you able to cut the sides with an x-acto knife.

I made three cut outs on the sides of the slightly smaller planter.  I cut three inches from the top and the bottom of the planter. I call these cuts, windows.  The reasoning behind the cut outs is that once the potatoes are in full growth, you will be able to lift the slightly smaller planter straight out of the larger planter and dig out the potato yields in the windows cuts on the planter. 





Now you are ready to plant.  Place the window cut planter into the larger planter.  Place some rocks on the bottom of the planter for drainage.  Potatoes do not like a lot of water.

On top of the rocks, pour about 3 inches of soil into the planter.  Now place your spouted spuds on top of the soil in each of the window cut outs.  Now cover the potatoes with enough soil to cover up any of the sprouts.









Once the potato sprouts begin to peek through the soil, keep covering the sprouts day after day until the sprouts reach to the top of the planter.  This is a long process but the results are rewarding.

Soon the shoots will turn into green shrubbery.  Keep on watering and make sure the plant gets a lot of sunlight.

After 30 days, you could lift up the window planter and see if there are any fingerling potatoes to pick.  Leave some small potatoes for picking when the green shrubbery starts to die down as the summer turns into fall.
 




This is all I yield this year from two potato.  A variation of different sizes of fingerlings. There is nothing fresher than potatoes grown organically by moi!

P.S. They were delicious! 

Next year, I will start my sprouting potatoes earlier and maybe try to grow them in a larger bin.










                                                                  ENJOY!


 

Hemming Jeans

                                                                          Week 35 ( Save $35 )

I hope you are saving away weekly without my postings.  It has been a very busy summer and with the summer whining down, I hope to keep up with the blogs.

Recently, I had a request from a reader requesting if I could write a post about hemming jeans.  Sending your jeans to a professional can be costly but if you can do it yourself with a little patience, you can save yourself anywhere from 10$ to 20$ per pair!!

If you have been able to buy a pair of jeans off the rack and having no alterations, you are very fortunate.  For most of us who are not as lucky, alterations are a must.  When buying jeans, always consider fabric thickness especially if you are planning to hem the bottom.

If you own a sewing machine, it will speed up the process.  Hand hemming may take longer especially with denim but works.  Best to find a friend who owns a sewing machine and have them stitch it up for you.

I will show you 2 versions to hemming a pair of jeans:  with pins or hand basting (Note the RED thread)

Figure out the inseam or length you want to shorten your jeans to.  If you are unsure about the length, use an existing pair of jeans you would like the length to be.  If you measure the jeans from the crotch to the length, that is your inseam length. 

In this post, the jeans that I will be hemming a finish length of 26 inches.

Add 1 inch to the length for hemming.  Mark the both legs for cutting.  Remember an important rule: Measure twice, cut once!  I always measure from the finish edge just to make sure I have marked it correctly.  Use either tailor chalk or pen ( my favorite marking tools are pencil crayons).

Cut one of the pant bottom.  You can always throw the cut piece on top of the uncut bottom to measure again or to mark.  Now cut the other leg pant bottom.

Turn under 1 inch of the raw hem and pin to secure. 

      or

I like to machine or hand baste with a different color thread on the finish hem line (which would be at the 26 inch line to avoid sharp pins





Press the seams to form a clean creased hem.

Remove the pins














Fold the 1 inch hem under to the creased hem (this will give you an 1/2 inch clean seam)

Pin the hem and give it a good press with the iron or crease it with your finger nail.

or

I like to fold the 1/2 inch seam under to the basted 1 inch and hand baste it down.









With the jean's turned on the right side.  Thread your sewing machine with either matching thread or orange thread.  Don't forget to change your sewing machine needle to a denim or heavier needle to avoid breakage.

Start stitching from the inner or side seams ( these are the thickest seams, go over the seams very carefully by hand wheeling the stitches).  Sew very close to topstitch the seams for both legs. 

                                                     or

Sew the hem by slip stitching thru all the fabric with same color thread.  Make sure the stitching on the finished side (front) are invisible.  

Remove the pins and basting threads.  Clip the threads.  Give the hems a quick press
















                                  Tada! Your jeans are ready to GO!

 

Note: When buying skinny jeans, always check for possibilities of hemming issues.  Sometimes, its just impossible to hem with the skinny tight diameter of the hem by machine.  


                                                            Practice makes perfect!

Simple formula for Living

                                                                                Week 31 ( Save $31 )
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Long Weekend

                                                           Week 29 ( Save $29 )
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ENJOY!!

Summer herbs

                                                            Week 27 ( Save $27 )
                                           Week 28 ( Save $28 )


 
 

There is nothing like picking fresh summer herbs right from your garden to liven up any recipe.

IF only it was only available for the picking during the spring, fall and winter. It actually is possible to have fresh herbs right from your kitchen window stilt all year even when the weather outside is sub minus temps.
 







Simple clippings from rosemary, cilantro and basil can yield into freshly potted herbs for the picking anytime. Let's get started on your new indoor herb garden.  Clip your herbs long enough so the ends sit into a jar of fresh water. Keep changing the water until rooting begins. 











Once the roots looks strong enough, plant the herbs in separate pot of soil near sunlight.  Now watch the fragrant herbs thrive for the pickings.

I have not had any success with the rosemary for the cilantro rooting.  The basil was a success that I ended up planting the basil in an outside planter.  There is still a lot of summer left for the herb to thrive outdoors and I will remember to do my herb clippings before the fall weather is amongst us for rooting and drying.





                     






                                            Happy Harvesting!