Most of my lunches are eaten in the car, either as I drive or while I’m parked between clients, and so some kind of burrito/quesadilla mash-up is one of my staple food items. Luckily, if you buy the low or non-fat beans, they’re quite healthy, but why buy it when you can make it yourself?

Oh, did I mention there’s almost no time or effort involved at all, and it’s cheaper AND healthier to cook them at home? Do I have your attention now?

** I took photos for this post the first time I made the beans, but I’ve since made them a few more times and simplified the recipe. However, that means that now my pictures and words won’t match! Oh well. You’ll get over it! And if you want to see the original recipe that I took the pictures of, you can find it here. **

Ingredients and Tools

• crock pot
• 3 cups dried pinto beans
• 9 cups water
• salt
• pepper
• taco seasoning
• mixer
• salsa (optional)

What I Did

I rinsed the beans and then threw them, the water, and the seasonings into the crock pot. I let it sit for about 10 hours (which is the beauty of the crock pot, of course! I’ve done it for much longer than that, and I suspect it would be fine if you did less than that, but 10 is the shortest I’ve tried so far. I think if the beans are hard, then they’re not done. Otherwise, you’re golden!)

The beans as they are cooking. I don't like the taste or smell of onions, so I didn't use them again after this first trial.

Once they’re done cooking, you have to get rid of all that extra water. I did it the first time with a ladle (too slow!), the second time using a sieve (better, but you definitely need two people to do it that way), and most recently, J just shifted the lid of the crock pot slightly and then tilted the bowl so the water drained out the slit. If you have the muscles, that was the quickest way to do it

This is why you have to drain them! Isn't this disgusting? Bleh!

Dump the beans into a big bowl and go to town with your mixer! Once they’re blended, all you have to do is season them to taste and then you’re done! The beans on their own are super bland (I suspect putting seasonings on them while they cook doesn’t do much to flavor them, but I do it anyhow). We like our beans kind of spicy, so we dump in a bunch of salsa, more salt, and sometimes some extra taco seasoning. Mix it all up, and that’s it! (See, I said it was easy!) We stick some of it in the fridge for immediate use and put the rest in the freezer for later (this recipe makes about 10 cups of beans).

MUCH more delicious looking!

The Results

Obviously we liked the way they beans came out, because we’ve made them multiple times since then They’re just as tasty as the kind you buy at the store, but what I like best about this recipe is that beans are incredibly cheap (it was about 60 cents for the pinto beans when I bought them in the bulk section of the store) and incredibly healthy in every way! Except for the salt (which I know, I use to excess!) there’s not a bad thing for you in this recipe! (I realized at some point that there is no frying involved in this recipe, so it seems weird to call them refried beans. Any new title suggestions? And why are they called that, anyhow? Did people originally actually fry the beans in oil? Why would they do that?) In any case, since I’m always concerned with the balance between the cost of food versus the nutritional content of it, and we go through a lot of beans, that is a win-win recipe for us

Has anybody else tried a variation that I might like better than this? Let me know, I’d love to try it!

So in keeping with the theme of the blog (for once!) I’ve been going outside of the realm of the ordinary to try to save some money. And the first thing I started with was laundry!
Before I get too far into this, I should say that J and I have always been laundry product snobs – unless we really can’t afford it, we’ve always bought higher end brands of detergent and fabric softener (Tide and Downy are our favorites, though with coupons or sales we might use All or Snuggle). So bear in mind when I get to our reviews of the products that we have some pretty strong opinions when it comes to washing our clothes.

Alright, end of the disclaimer, on to the actual recipes!

Cheap Fabric Softener

An eco-minded friend of mine recommended something to me that I’d read about before but never tried: replacing your usual fabric softener with white vinegar. It’s cheap and apparently not only makes fabric soft, but helps brights hold their colors and whites stay white longer.

My initial concern was that then all our clothes would smell like vinegar, and that is a really far cry from the fresh Downy scent we are accustomed to! However, I want to make it known that the smell completely dissipates after you put it through the dryer, so don’t let that scare you off!

The Verdict
To be honest, I’m still a little bit on the fence with this one. You just put the vinegar in the fabric softener dispenser in the washing machine, so you’re using the same amount of liquid but paying a LOT less (I don’t feel like doing the math, but my vinegar cost about $1.50 – I’ve never seen a good fabric softener cost that little!) And I like paying a less, so the vinegar has that going for it!

The first thing I noticed after using the vinegar for a little while was that the clothes ended up being a bit stiffer than I remember them being with Downy, but not in a course or scratchy or uncomfortable kind of way. I actually liked the sheets being a little bit stiffer because they felt really crisp when I got into bed (is that why people like to starch their shirts?) So that wasn’t a deal breaker for me.

What does concern me though, after doing this for probably about a month now, is that I feel like the fabric is degrading – the collars on J’s polo shirts have more of that “pilling” effect going on (I don’t know how else to describe it) and my tee-shirts look like the fibers have all raised up a little bit and gotten fuzzy, which makes the color look dull. I only have a few tee-shirts and I wear them to work all the time, so it is kind of a big deal to me that suddenly all of them look really worn and old.

I don’t know that J would have been able to pick the clothes that were washed with vinegar versus softener out of a visual line-up, but apparently he has a super nose (more on that later), so I know the lack of Downy fresh scent bothered him. (He didn’t come out and object to my using the vinegar, though, so it can’t have been THAT bad).

At the end of the day, I really WANT vinegar to be our go-to fabric softener (it’s so cheap!), but I think taking both of those factors into account, we’re going to keep being snobs and buying the name brand.

Laundry Detergent

I love making random stuff, so I’ve been wanting to try this since a friend recommended a book with cool household stuff that you can make yourself years ago. (I love that book, I am fascinated by it!) My issue was that a lot of the recipes called for stuff I’d never heard of and didn’t know where to get, so I didn’t pursue the detergent issue for very long (I made a great window cleaner, though!)

Stumbling around on the internet a few weeks ago, though, I found the post that inspired me to hunt down the necessary ingredients and give it a go!  This is my version of it!

Ingredients
* The original recipe made a 5-gallon bucket worth of soap, but I only had a 2.5 gallon bucket so I modified the amounts. If you have a bigger bucket and REALLY struggle with math, you can certainly refer back to her post for the original amounts!

• 1/2 cup Washing Soda
• 1/2 cup Borax
• 1/2 bar Fels-Naptha
• A 2.5 gallon bucket

As I mentioned earlier, I’d never made laundry detergent because I could never find the ingredients! I ended up buying all of these items off of Amazon.com because, with the exception of Borax, I’d never even HEARD of them before. (Apparently they are all items that are sold as laundry detergent enhancements, so I guess it makes sense that if you put them all together, they’d just enhance one another!) After ordering the Borax on Amazon I did finally see it at a grocery store, but I already can’t remember which one. Apparently, all of these ingredients can be found at some store called Winco (that I’ve never heard of, it might be an East Coast chain), and when I looked online a lot of people said that you can usually find the products at small, locally owned stores. I didn’t have time to make a lot of phone calls, though, so since I couldn’t find them at Target, Wal-Mart, Albertsons, Vons, or Lowes, Amazon seemed like the way to go!

What I Did
The original recipe said to grate the Fels-Naptha (which looks and feels like a big bar of Dial soap), but again, I didn’t have time for that! (Or, come to think of it, a cheese grater either. I think we lost that in a move or something). J just helped me chop it up into small-ish chunks and I threw it in a pot with 6 cups of water and set it to simmer on the stove! I watched a movie, ate dinner, did some dishes, ate dessert, and every so often just wandered back to stir it again a little bit more.

• What I’d Do Differently: I recommend cutting the soap into much smaller pieces, unless you are extremely patient and have a lot of time to kill. It took a pretty long time for the soap to dissolve, and I ended up needing to go to bed so there were some teeny tiny chunks left when I decided to move to the next step.

Next you stir in the washing soda and borax and mix it up. Nuff said for that step!

• FYI: Even if you think you dissolved all the soap, this is where you see how wrong you are! Adding in those two ingredients thickens up the solution, so suddenly little soap chunks that you didn’t even know were there end up floating on the surface. I don’t think it matters, (it’s all going to the same place for the same purpose, it’ll be fine!) but it looks kind of gnarly!

Put the solution into the bucket and fill it up with water. The original recipe said to go until about 3 inches below the rim of the bucket, so I did the same (though it did drive me nuts that I didn’t know exactly how much that was).

Then you let it sit for a while and thicken up. As it cools down it does separate a little bit, so before you use it you need to stir it up again. I use a huge slotted spatula (because that’s what I’ve got!) but she recommends a whisk, or better yet, saving up old laundry detergent bottles, filling them up with the new detergent, and then just shaking them really well before measuring out the detergent so it all gets mixed up. (I’m in the process of saving some bottles, but in the meantime, my bucket and spatula just sit in the closet on top of the dryer!)

The original recipe says to use 1/2-1 cup of the detergent (so I compromise and use 3/4 cup at a time) and that it is safe for HE machines (not an issue on my end, but I’m passing along what I’ve heard – don’t hold me to it!) Her 5 gallon buckets makes about 75 loads, so I’m going to round slightly and say that mine makes 38.

The Cost Breakdown (All Prices Taken From Amazon.com)
* Just for the record, I’m no mathematician – let me know if you see an obvious error in my calculations, but if I rounded up when you would have rounded down, or if my unit conversions aren’t entirely precise, cut me some slack. I’m just going for an estimate, here.

Using a bottle of standard Tide detergent (as listed on Amazon, because I am not going to the grocery store right now to research prices!) you will pay approximately $0.28 per load.

Using my recipe, the breakdown is as follows:
Fels-Naptha: $4.11 for a bar, 1/2 bar per bucket made = $2.05
Borax: $6.49 for a 76 ounce box, 4 ounces (1/2 cup) per bucket made = $0.34
Washing Soda: $9.15 for a 55 ounce box, 4 ounces (1/2 cup) per bucket made = $0.67
Grand Total For 2.5 Gallons of Detergent = $3.06
Approximately $0.06 per load! That’s a great deal! If you tried I’m sure you could find the ingredients cheaper, too.

The Important Part: How It Turned Out!
I liked it quite a bit, actually! I had a blast making it, the bucket of detergent itself smells really nice, and I like to swirl the spatula around the goop just for kicks every now and again. I know, great way to judge a detergent, right?

Here’s the thing: J and I don’t get all that dirty. We don’t have kids, play outdoor sports, or even sit in the grass (we’re pretty much just indoor people). So the clothes we’re washing have about the normal amount of sweat and grime that a person accumulates as they sit (or in my case, run and dance) around the house all day. I’ve never tried it, but I’m willing to bet that you could put our clothes through a wash with no detergent at all, and J and I wouldn’t realize the difference. So the cleansing factor is good enough that I haven’t noticed anything being unclean, and while I have no way to prove this, I feel like the clothes feel nicer when I wear them, like they fit better. I can’t explain that (I don’t think I lost any weight!) but I’ll take it!

The major debate right now has to do with scent. I know, also a great way to judge a detergent

The detergent itself smells like soap – it has a strong, clean, soap-y smell to it. By the time the clothes come out of the dryer, though, the fresh scent is gone. So when I asked J for his review of the soap, he said, “Well, it makes the clothes smell bad”. Upon further questioning, it turns out that he was unhappy with the fact that all of the previously scented products we had used on the clothes (I’d done that load with the vinegar) had been removed, and we ended up having to agree to disagree with my statement that, “A lack of scent does not mean that something smells bad“.

At the end of the day, J’s clothes are being affected by this process, so I want to make sure he is pleased with the end result. So far I have tried:

• 3/4 cup of detergent and vinegar softener (that was the original load that didn’t pass inspection)
• double the amount of detergent with vinegar softener (that didn’t help anything)
• the original amount of detergent with Downy fabric softener (that’s currently in the dryer, so I don’t know yet how it will turn out!)

I read that you can also scent the detergent with essential oils, but I don’t know how well that smell would last through the dryer either (and essential oils are expensive, which defeats the whole point of this recipe!)

The Verdict
For our household, the decision to continue making detergent or return to store-bought detergent will ultimately be made based on how this load smells when it is done in the dryer (ahhhh, the pressure is on for it to smell good! I want this to work, I have fun feeling like a chemist!) If you don’t have issues with clothes that smell like nothing at all, and you like to feel like a mad scientist with your bubbling pots and buckets of goo, I totally recommend this!

If anyone has any alternate recipes, suggestions for mine, or just other random stuff that they make at home, I would love love LOVE to hear about it! Otherwise, have fun and let me know how it turns out if you decide to try it yourself!

UPDATE – 6/23/10

The homemade detergent with the Downy softener is what is working for our household at this time. I still use the vinegar for towels and linens (because softener actually makes towels less absorbent over time, and I like the way the bedsheets feel when they’re crisp) but for our clothes, we save with the detergent and splurge on the softener.

Also, I just finished making my second batch of detergent and I took my own advice from last time: J used the Magic Bullet to grate the Fels-Naptha up really finely, and it dissolved SOO much faster! I went from empty pot to full bucket in 30 minutes (most of that time I spent at the computer while it was simmering, so that’s even less time making it than it sounds!) I should note that I think I saw people on-line commenting that the soap is really bad for you if you inhale it, so try not to do that (or at the very least, don’t blame me if something bad happens to you!) but making detergent is totally feasible for a busy person if you find a way to grind it up like we did Enjoy!

** This post contains Amazon affiliate links. All that means is that if you use my link to access Amazon and buy something, Amazon gives me a kick-back. I don’t even think it matters if you buy what I’d linked to in the first place, they’re just happy that you ended up buying something from them at all! So if you need to purchase anything at all on Amazon, use my link to access the site, and help me afford a baby, by golly! Or not. It’s your choice, and I’ll love and respect you either way. But it would be cool if you did

So tonight was my second attempt at making the green beans with cheese, and let’s just say that it is still a work in progress (Click here for the first chapter in this story).

What I Did Differently
This time I decided to be fancy, and for the first time in my life I bought REAL green beans! There is this little place near us that’s a cross between a farmers market and a grocery store, and they sell some WEIRD stuff there, but their produce is super cheap and really great. So, I walked in, shoveled a bunch into a bag (J asked me if I got enough, and I said, “I don’t know, I don’t even know how much this is going to end up looking like when it’s cooked. Do they shrink?”) and then put them in the fridge for the week (if that’s not how you’re supposed to keep green beans, somebody let me know. I’m helpless!)

Then I realized that I had no idea what to do to prepare real green beans! Do you have to snap them in two? (They’re always doing that in movies, but are those peas, or just special green beans that you have to open to get the peas out of?) Do you cut them up? Do you have to cook them longer? I felt like an idiot.

But then I realized, “Well, I might be an idiot, but I’m an idiot with a friend who knows a thing or two about cooking!” So I emailed my old friend Becky, because not only is she a great friend, but she’s a super fancy chef person now And she gave me great advice about how to make beans!

Except that she gave me great advice on how to make beans depending on how I like my beans to be cooked. Do you remember that scene in “Runaway Bride” where she realizes she doesn’t know how she likes her eggs cooked? That was me with green beans. In fact, I didn’t even understand what the terms she used meant! But that’s why the kitchen is a school in and of itself.

Becky said that if I like my beans al dente, I should just toss them right into the pan with the olive oil and garlic in it until they looked green and yummy (and I’d like to say right now that while I had a vague idea of what al dente meant, since I had only ever had one kind of firmness of green bean, I didn’t have anything to compare them against! Maybe the way I had them was as firm as they get, or as mushy as they get! I’ve never felt like such an ignoramus about anything, particularly as simple as a tiny vegetable!) So I went with that cooking method though, because it was as good a place to start as any, and I used more lemon juice this time like I said I would (I put it in right at the beginning of the cooking process too, instead of right before it was done) and we grated some fresh parmesan instead of using the kind in a shaker

The Results
Well, it turns out that I don’t like my beans al dente! I had no idea green beans could be so crunchy. SO, next time I do it (and I’m going to keep doing it until I perfect it!) I’m going to do like Becky said I should if I want them softer and blanch them (another new word for me! I’ll take the time to explain it when I actually do it, next time. Or maybe all of you are smarter than I am and know what that means, in which case, aren’t you super cool!)

It also ended up having LESS of a lemon tang this time, even though I’m pretty sure I used a lot more lemon juice. So next time, I’m going to put it in at the end of the cooking process again and see if that makes a difference.

And finally (and surprisingly!) I don’t think the fresh parmesan was as good! (I know, I’m super shocked, myself). We grated it up to a powder, but the powder ended up melting and clumping together, so you had to scoop up some cheese and then stab the beans, and it was just annoying. Maybe it’s because the cheap kind in a can has more preservatives or something else bad for you in it, but it didn’t clump as much and so it spread over the beans more evenly. Whatever it was, I’ll save the fancy cheese for something else and go back to the cheaper kind next time

Reviews
I give it a 3/5 stars (which is down .5 stars from last time) but hey, it’s a work in progress! Next time I hope to get the right consistency of bean with more lemon flavor and cheese that doesn’t end up in the bottom of the mixing bowl.

J gave the beans a 2/5 stars this time (down from a whole star from last time!) and said, “eh, they weren’t that good”. (But I’m sure he also meant that he sure does love my dedication and willingness to experiment in the kitchen, and can’t wait until I make them again!) When asked what I should do differently next time, he said less lemon juice and olive oil (hmmm, we might end up with a difference of opinions when I head to the kitchen next time . . . oh well, she who POURS the liquids decides how much goes in!)

All in all, though, green beans have very little flavor, and as far as I’m concerned, you can’t have too much cheese, salt, or olive oil, so even if it wasn’t very good, it was still pretty edible I’ll keep you posted on my endeavors!

I tried this new recipe the night before I made the blog, so I don’t have any fun photos or actual websites with the recipes that gave me the inspiration for the dish In the future, I will though, I swear it! For now, all I have is a vague recollection of what I did, and what I will do differently next time.

Ingredients
* I don’t remember the measurements, but this is one of those things you can probably eyeball.

• Green beans (the frozen ones, not the canned type. A lot of recipes I referenced didn’t specify, so you can do whatever you want, but canned green beans really gross me out!)
• Butter (well, margarine really)
• Olive oil
• Rosemary, pepper, salt (sea salt, because I’m just super cool that way)
• Minced garlic (I use the kind in the jar, because who has the time or patience to go mashing up garlic cloves all the time? We go through a lot of garlic!)
• Lemon juice
• Parmesan cheese (the kind that comes in a big shaker bottle, i.e., the cheap kind!)

What I Did
So, I’m no fancy chef, but I do have fun playing in the kitchen (when I get to, anyhow! J prefers to do the cooking, which is fantastic but means that I am a bit rusty these days). What I realized right away, though, was that I am very ignorant about green beans! I’ve only ever eaten them steamed, and all the recipes I looked at talked about putting the beans in the pan with the oil. I could not for the life of me figure out if that meant I was supposed to throw them in the pan where they would cook, or if I was supposed to cook them first and then put them in the pan . . . And this was for our Valentines Day dinner (mashed potatoes and filet mignon cooked in a cast iron skillet, I’ll have to pay more attention next time J makes it and share how it was done, cause it was AWESOME!) so, the pressure was on!

I decided to cook them briefly in the microwave and then throw them in the pan, where the butter, olive oil, rosemary, and garlic were all simmering. I don’t know if it is because of how I cooked them in the microwave or if they just had freezer burn, but some of the beans were really weird. I threw those out before eating them, easy fix I stirred those around for about 8 minutes before tasting one, and thought it was really bland. On a whim, I threw in a dash of lemon juice. After another few minutes, I poured it all into a bowl and doused it with parmesan cheese. Then I stirred it up and gave it another good douse. And then again (what can I say, we really love cheese!) Then we ate!

The Results
I have to say, the addition of the lemon juice (which was NOT in any recipe I saw!) was a stroke of brilliance The beans were good with all the cheese on them, but every once in a while you’d get a bite of some of the beans that soaked up the lemon juice, and those bites were GREAT! It somehow stopped short of being sour and just gave it a really tangy flavor that meshed well with everything else. I’m not sure how I managed that one, but I really loved it! So next time I’ll skip the rosemary (nothing against the herb, it’s actually my favorite, but I just couldn’t end up tasting it, and it seemed fine without it) and add more lemon juice. J thinks it might end up better if we use fresh beans next time, too.

Reviews
I give it 3.5/5 stars (to be upgraded once I get the amount of lemon juice just right so that ALL the beans have the same level of deliciousness) and am eager to make it again.

J gives it 3/5 stars (his exact answer was, “The beans? Um, I don’t know, a 3 maybe? Or a 3.5? I don’t know”. I think it’s important to go with your gut, so I’ll say he gave it a 3!) and when asked if I should make it again sometime, he said, “If you want to, babe, then whatever”. (You’d never know that he’s usually an extremely opinionated guy, particularly when it comes to his food!)

So there is my first recipe review! I’m awfully hungry after writing it up, so I’m going to eat J’s food experiment of the day (chicken cooked in homemade hot sauce with an extra coating of a sweet hot sauce) which he has already proclaimed to be a disaster Ahh, the joys of cooking!

Update: Read about my second attempt with this recipe here.