Basic Bagel Recipe and Cost Analysis

It seems that my previous post could have been a lot more substantial. Not only could/should I have included the recipes for all of the things mentioned, but I could/should have included information about how much money each one saves me. While for some things, this would be hard to figure out, I will do my best to provide recipes/instructions for most of the items, as well as an idea of how much money you can possibly save. So here's the first one!

BASIC BAGEL

The following recipe is for use in a bread machine. I am sure you can make the same dough by hand, although I am lazy and did not look up how to do it. I will therefore just give you the ingredients and instructions as is and if you would like to make the dough by hand (if you don't have a bread machine), then I'm sure it's pretty easy to look that up.

A few things to note when using a bread machine-add the liquids first, then the dry ingredients. Level the dry ingredients, add the butter to the corners. Make an impression in the center of the dry ingredients and add the yeast. Make another impression away from the yeast and add the salt. The recipe should be baked on the setting for dough.

Ingredients for a 1.5 lb loaf

1 cup water, 80 degrees

3 cups bread flour

2 tbsp sugar

1.5 tsp salt

1.5 tbsp, cut into 6 pieces, butter

2 tsp active dry yeast OR 1.5 tsp bread machine/fast rise yeast

After dough is formed and the breadmaker shuts off, remove the dough from the bread pan and place into a lightly greased bowl. Cover bowl and place in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. After the dough is cooled, remove from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough in a 1/2 inch thick rectangle. Divide the dough into 8 equal sections, roll each piece into a ball and punch a hole through the center with your finger. Stretch the hole until it is about 1-2 inches in diameter. Place formed bagels onto a greased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Brush lightly with cold water, cover and set in a warm, draft free room to rise until they have doubled in size (1-2 hours).

Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil in a 5 qt dutch oven. Add 1 tbsp of sugar and stir to dissolve. Reduce heat to low and carefully add 2-3 bagels to hot water. Let simmer for 3-4 minutes on each side. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain, then place on the greased baking sheet about an inch apart. Sprinkle with garnish, if desired, and bake bagels in a preheated 450 degrees oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving.

How Much Does This Save?

This is going to be a tough one to figure out, since the ingredients are things that most people keep on hand always and each item lasts for different amounts of time. I will tell you however that the average price of bagels at my grocery store is $3.99 for 6 bagels. In those 6 bagels you also get things like high fructose corn syrup and other additives, preservatives, dyes and fillers. To be fair, there are brands out there that are a lot healthier and don't have these, but, they still cost about $4-5.

So say just one person in your house eats one bagel 6 days a week, that's $3.99 a week for bagels, so $15.96 a month. If you only take into consideration just the three main ingredients-flour, sugar and butter-here is the breakdown of the cost:

5lb bag of flour: $3.69

4lb bag of sugar: $3.89

4 sticks of butter: $3.49

Using these numbers, I figured out how many of this bagel recipe you can make with each of these, then divided the cost, getting the total cost for each of these items per recipe ($0.55 in flour, $0.09 in sugar and $0.16 in butter per recipe). That means each recipe costs $0.80, and each bagel costs $0.08 to make. So 6 homemade bagels cost $0.60, meaning you can save $15.36 a month on bagels...and that's just if only one person in your house eats bagels!

I will admit that this is one of the more involved recipes and we don’t make it all the time, but they are so cheap to make and can freeze well, too. I hope this at least shows you how a little time can save a lot of money.

Our Homemade Lives

No-Spend February went pretty well. We only bought one thing that was not food or an absolute necessity, and when I say "we," I mean Jared. He bought an ice-cream maker and tried to sell me on the idea that it was a Valentine's Day present for me. This was funny because A) we don't EVER do anything for Valentine's Day because I think it's a stupid holiday and 2) he has been telling me for a few months how much he wants one. Of course it's funny that he finally broke down and bought one during no-spend month, but what's done is done. It has turned out to be a really great thing to have, especially if you like ice cream but always feel bad buying it because it's expensive and has a lot of unnecessary ingredients in it. Now we have delicious ice cream that isn't chalk full of fillers!

No-Spend February turned out to be an eye-opener, not because we realized how much money we spend on extraneous things (because really, we only saved probably $50 last month) but because of how much money we already save making things at home instead of buying them. Because of this, there wasn't that much we could do to save more money last month. The one thing I did make this month for the first time was yogurt. I got a recipe about a month ago from a friend's blog and finally tried it. I will never buy yogurt again!

Here is a list of things that we make at home:

Yogurt
Bread, including bagels and rolls (using a bread machine)
Granola
Granola bars
Ice Cream (using an ice cream maker)
Sweets (I don't buy cake or cookies or anything of that nature. If we want something sweet, we make it)
Sweet Tea (using a tea maker)
Beer (thanks to Jared!)
Hard Cider (again, thanks to Jared!)
Popcorn (this one is cheating a bit, but what I mean is, we buy kernels and pop it in our own popper which is not only cheaper, but healthier than buying microwave popcorn)
Laundry Detergent

On my list of other things to start making is all other household cleaners, deodorant, soap, lotion and baking mix (like bisquick).

While I am sad that we didn't save hundreds of dollars last month, I guess it's good to know that we really do live pretty frugally already and that we are already doing (mostly) everything we can to limit our spending to things we truly need.

If anyone has any suggestions of things we can make ourselves to save even more money (or to just have something that's more natural and healthy), please comment below and tell me about it!

And for those who are interested, we are still living happily without a microwave :)

No-Spend February Begins

In this day and age, most people know someone who has done a "no-spend" month. While I usually feel like we do this every month anyway, we decided that for one month (notice, we picked the shortest month), we will literally buy nothing except food and necessities. I have labeled the following items as necessities:

-toilet paper
-wipes
-medicine (if needed)
-kleenex
-toiletries like shampoo or deodorant (because while we only buy these things probably every three months, this month is the month Jared will run out of both of these items and I didn't feel like it would be nice to tell him he had to smell for a month)

For food, we can only buy food at the grocery store, so this does not include buying food at Qdoba for example. While that is obviously food, the point is to not spend money unnecessarily. One meal at Qdoba is three meals I could have made at home.

We are doing this not only to see how much random things we spend money on but also because we know we will need to spend more money in March for a few things, and will use the extra money saved to compensate for this rather than have to change our budget or use credit cards.

~~~

And so we started three days ago, confident that this wouldn't be too hard due to our normal frugality and aversion to consumerism.  And then our microwave died.

This is very inconvenient. As part of our plan to not spend excess money this month, my hope was to spend less money on groceries by making a few larger meals and eating leftovers more often. It's very inconvenient to eat leftovers when you don't have a microwave. This also sucks because every morning I have to reheat my tea or coffee no less than 4 times before I am able to actually finish one cup (anyone else with kids will understand this). While I might be able to get over having to take 30 minutes to reheat all of my meals this month, it will be very difficult for me to drink cold coffee. And of course, I can't just not have tea or coffee in the morning (again, I have children...who don't sleep).

But it made us think: is a microwave a necessity? Can we honestly say that we need one to live and should therefore buy a replacement? We decided no, it is not a necessity. While this obviously will add another "hardship" to our no-spend month, we realized that it will also give us another reason to remember how blessed we truly are. It's such a first-world problem to contemplate how hard our lives are going to be without a microwave. On a night when it's -7 (with windchill), as I sit at my 27-inch Mac, sipping a pipping hot cup of tea, I think we can go without a microwave when so many people go without so much more.

I better go drink my tea before it gets cold.

Ever Wonder What I Do All Day?

Some days I feel like super-mom- the kids play happily, take naps at the same time and eat well while I am able to do laundry, clean, iron and get dinner on the table with time to spare. Those days, I feel amazing and accomplished and I wonder why I am not able to be that productive every day.

Other days, I feel like it's a challenge just to keep the kids happy, change their diapers and feed them and I'm lucky if I have time to go to the bathroom. On days like that, I often wonder, how do other moms do it? How is it that there are other moms with more children than me and they seem to get so much done? How do they keep up on a daily blog or do art projects or work from home? Some days I am surprised if I manage to get dressed and eat, let alone do anything else that is actually worthwhile and productive.

This leads me to wonder, am I just really lazy and tired some days while on other days I feel like being more productive? Why can't I do that every day? Well the answer lies in the middle. I have failed to mention what MOST days are like. Most days, I get some things done on my list, but not all. Most days, the kids overlap their naps at least half an hour, if not more, and I am able to eat lunch in peace. Most days, the kids play happily most of the time. These are normal days. And on a normal day, when I have a list of five things to do and at the end of the day, only two of them are done, it's okay. And if anyone ever wanted to know what I did all day that I couldn't accomplish five simple tasks while I was at home with my children, one day a few weeks ago, I wrote down what I did for an entire day before Jared gets home at 18:00 (honestly, this was more for my sake to see how I spent my time, but since I took the time to write it, I decided to share it here as well).

I included my list of things to do for the day. At first glance, it seems like it would barely take any time to complete these tasks.  See how long it takes me to complete them (or not to)!  Some days, I feel like putting "eat" and "shower" on the list, but I don't.  If this seems long and very tedious, it is. That's how most days are :)

List of things to do today:
-devotion
-make grocery list/menu for the week
-one load of laundry
-respond to three emails
-iron Jared's shirt
-make dinner

6:45 Wake up, go to the bathroom, get tea kettle going, pour bowl of cornflakes, get out devotion book.
6:55  Avery wakes up. Change his diaper, put on clothes, get him milk, put Sesame Street on for him.
7:10  Cornflakes=soggy. Tea over-steeped but still hot. Sit down to do my devotion.
7:20  Avery wants more milk and breakfast.
7:25  Ophelia wakes up one hour earlier than usual. Looks like no shower today. Go upstairs to get dressed, get her, change her diaper, ger her dressed. Put her on floor with toys. Sit down to finish devotion.
7:35  Tea is cold. Reheat tea. By this time, Ophelia decides she is not happy sitting on the floor playing by herself, so I put her in my lap and she plays happily.
8:10  Sesame Street is over and Avery wants to watch more. Some days I let him (depending on my lack of sleep that morning and/or how much I need to get done still), but today I say no and try to get him interested in some toys. I finally get him to play with his Noah's Ark. Meanwhile, Ophelia is on the floor crying because I set her down to go in Avery's room and get him to play with a toy.
8:20  Pick up Ophelia to nurse her while Avery plays on the floor. I used to be able to check my email or facebook on my phone while Ophelia nursed, but now she gets super distracted and constantly turns her head to see what I'm doing, and of course she turns her head without unlatching, ouch, so I now just let her nurse and watch Avery play.
8:35  Set Ophelia down to play with Avery so I can finish my devotion. Reheat tea.
8:40  Devotion finished (two hours after starting. I should note, it's a 10-15 minute devotion). Play with kids. Try to teach Avery colors using the balls from the toy Ophelia is playing with. He's not interested.
9:30  Manage to make tuna salad for lunch quickly in the kitchen while the kids play.
10:00  Ophelia is tired. Go upstairs to put her down for a nap; she is asleep by 10:10.
10:15 Avery is hungry. Get him lunch. Try to make menu/grocery list for the week while he eats. This is interrupted by the following: Avery wants water, then milk, drops his fork, spills his bowl of food and wants seconds.
10:45  Read books with Avery, continue trying to teach Avery colors. He's not interested. He'd rather practice counting.
11:15  Ophelia wakes up. Change diaper. Kids play on the floor while I try to write some emails. Get two of the three done.
11:35  Change Avery's diaper, get him milk, and put him down for a nap; Ophelia is crying on the floor the whole time because I left the room.
11:45  Put Ophelia in the high chair with some graham crackers while I get myself some lunch.  I eat while continuously picking up crackers and helping Ophelia eat.
12:00  Put in a load of laundry; Ophelia lays on the floor on her stomach trying to crawl. I try to read while she plays but after reading only 2 pages in 15 minutes, I give up and just play with her.
12:30  Nurse Ophelia.
1:00  Switch laundry to the dryer.
1:30  Avery wakes up. I put on Jake and the Neverland Pirates for him.
1:40  Go upstairs to try to put Ophelia down for a nap.  She fights it and I finally have to nurse her down and she's asleep by 2.
2:00  Do the dishes
2:20  Lay down on the couch to take a break while Avery finishes his show and Ophelia is sleeping.
2:30  Ophelia wakes up. Grr. Super short nap. Change her diaper. Avery wants me to get out his zoo. We all play on the floor with his zoo.
3:10  Feed Ophelia food in the highchair. Avery asks for a snack. I give him some celery and carrots that he eats while he's playing. Then Avery decides he wants to help me feed Ophelia so he sits on my lap eating his snack while I try to feed Ophelia.
3:35  Avery starts bringing Ophelia toys to play with on the highchair.  This amuses her for 5 minutes while I'm cleaning her and the tray up from all the spilled food due to Avery "helping."
3:40  Watch an episode of Colbert Report while holding Ophelia on my lap on the floor and playing with Avery.
4:15  I remember that the laundry is done and sitting in the dryer. I go and get it and fold the laundry while the kids play. I have to stop several times to stop Avery from stealing toys from Ophelia and to pick Ophelia up after falling over repeatedly.
4:45  Ophelia is tired again due to her short nap. Bring her upstairs and nurse her to sleep.
5:00  Get puzzles out for Avery so I can make dinner.
5:30  Dinner is cooking. Ophelia wakes up. Avery wants me to do his puzzles with him.
5:50  Set the table and do last minute dinner preparations.
6:00  Jared arrives home to a table set and dinner hot and ready!  Success!

I finished everything on the list except one email and ironing the shirt. It was a good day.

How to Make an Anglofile...?

I have no qualms admitting that I am an Anglofile. I love just about everything that has to do with our Imperial cousins. And so, as any mother would wish, I would love it if Ophelia wound up loving England as I do, so that we can share this love for many years together. So this begs the question-do I let my daughter decide if she likes all things British herself, or do I "brainwash" her from an early age to love Jane Austen, Downton Abbey, Colin Firth and of course, Harry Potter? Is that even brainwashing if it's awesome?

Growing up, most kids at some point feel like their parents are pushing them to like or pursue things that either they liked or did, or what they themselves wished they could do when they were growing up.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing as sometimes it just makes sense. For example, I wanted to be in band, so I was encouraged/made to play the trumpet since my dad did and they had a trumpet. Band, and playing trumpet, turned out to be pretty much the only thing that I liked about high school. Sometimes a dad loves a particular sport and naturally wants his son to play that sport so that they can have something in common. If the son wants to play sports anyway, a push in one direction isn't a bad thing.

But when is it a bad idea? I think sometimes it's obvious if you are making your kid do something they hate or despise. But what about when it comes to what they like? Can you "brainwash" them at a young age to have the same interests as you? And if you can, is that okay? Obviously it's impossible not to influence your child at all- you will inherently be a part of their lives, and they will see and experience what you expose them to. How far can a parent go though? Is over-exposing your kid to something at a young age brainwashing or is it just a natural part of growing up?

Basically, what I'm getting at is, is it bad that I hold my daughter while standing five feet away from our 44" TV and watch Downton Abbey for an hour? Or is that too much?

Because I've done this multiple times now. She wants to be held. I want to watch Downton Abbey. So I hold her, while I watch, and she is mesmerized, and inside I am bursting with excitement when I think about how we will watch Jane Austen movies together when she's 5 and how much fun we will have together when she is older reading great British novels and enjoying BBC miniseries together. Am I naive to think that I can shape and mold her interests this easily? Or, is it really that easy?

~

On a related note: no, my left arm is not ridiculously bigger than my right, although one would think that holding a 22 pound child for hours on end would build up certain muscles. Sadly, after two children that needed to be held a lot, I have found this not to be the case. My arm and back, instead, suffer greatly from extended holding of said heavy children. However, I wouldn't trade that for anything :)

7 months later...

The last time I posted, I was about to have a baby. Ophelia Maize is now over 7 months old. Some would say that it is excusable to not make writing a blog a priority when you have a newborn. Others would say I'm lazy. While I'm sure my reasons for not continuing lie somewhere in between, I would still like to make the effort to write again. When I started thinking about continuing this blog, I toyed with a few different ideas of how I could write about something different, or choose a different focus...but now it's been months and this lack of focus or direction has led me to do absolutely nothing. So instead I have decided that I just need to start writing and see where it takes me. I'm sure a lot of my posts will be filled with anecdotes about my children or incessant complaining about their sleep schedules (or lack there of), but I am hoping to also fill it with new things I learn as well as generic observations and adventures.

So to begin: If you know me at all, you probably also know that my wonderful son Avery doesn't sleep well. And while I try not to complain about this, I often do. I have to remind myself of all the things he is awesome at (which is everything else, really). So today, I'm going to praise Avery's eating habits. Lately, he has taken to walking to the fridge to ask for something to eat, asks us to open the door, and then looks in the fridge, pondering what to eat. Today, he picked out the following meal: string cheese, turkey, blueberries, broccoli and grape tomatoes. I then put it all on his plate, showed it to him and he said, "oh boy!!" and ran to his chair in the dining room. He was SO excited to eat. This scenario is an almost daily occurrence (with the food varying of course).

It's these little victories that remind me that while Jared and I can't do that much to control his sleep issues (sometimes I think I might have done something wrong, or not done something, to contribute to this problem, but we did nothing different with Ophelia and she has no problems), we have done fairly well when it comes to things we can help control, like helping him develop and create healthy eating habits. I am so thankful that he is a good eater :)