Blue Dog’s Blog

I’ve been a busy beaver! I’ve been writing TESL lesson plans, working on the on-line loom< –>needle conversion app and finishing the knitting board section for Loom Knitting Help. I hope to have a beta of the conversion app available soon but in the meantime, you’ll be able to enjoy the rest of the knitting board section. For those of you looking for TESL lesson plans, they will be added to TESOL Help shortly. Stay tuned for the launching of ESOL Help for our local ESL Book Club.To make up for the time I’ve been away, I thought I’d post two fun ways to save money and be kind to the environment at the same time. Make your own laundry detergent! Both the liquid and the powdered version are gentle. For my loom knitting friends out there, they work great on knitted fabrics, whether you use synthetic or natural yarns. The cost comes out to about 3¢ per load and it’s very simple to make. Neither detergent “suds up” very much but don’t let that dissuade you. Your clothes will come out very clean, better than with commercial detergents. Combined with 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar (or 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar and 1/2 cup baking soda) for your fabric softener during the final rinse and you have an earth-friendly, cheap way of doing laundry. This is also supposed to make a great dishwashing detergent but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet as I’m still working on the Seventh Generation that I currently have. I will post how it works after I’ve tried it. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work in the dishwasher, though, since it doesn’t “suds up.” Add 1 1/2 cup to 2 cups white distilled vinegar in the bottom of dishwasher along with this soap and you’ll be all set.The two recipes below are sans frangrance. If you would like to add fragrance to your detergent, add 1t-2T of essential oil and stir/mix after step 6 for the liquid version and step 1 of the powdered version.

Liquid Laundry Detergent Recipe

Ingredients & Tools

• 4 cups tap water and 3 gallons hot tap water
• 1 bar Castile or Marseille soap, grated
• 1 cup Sodium Carbonate (aka washing soda or soda ash)
• 1 cup Borax
• 5 Gallon Bucket with lid
• Old laundry bottles washed out well, enough to store 3 gallons of the final product
• 1 long wooden spoons
• Pair of rubber gloves (optional)

Directions

1. Bring 4 cups of water almost to a boil (do not let it boil).
2. Turn down the heat to low and stir in the grated soap with the wooden spoon. Congratulations, you’ve made very soapy water.
3. Pour the 3 gallons of hot tap water into the 5 gallon bucket.
4. Add the very soapy water and stir for about 5 minutes with the wooden spoon.
5. Add the sodium carbonate and continue stirring for 2 minutes.
6. Add the borax and continue stirring for another 2 minutes.
7. Cover the bucket with the lid and let it sit overnight (about 24 hours).
8. Mixture will thicken and will be a slightly lighter shade of whatever color the soap was that you used. Pour into the empty laundry detergent bottles for storage.
9. Use 1/2 cup of mixture per load for a total of 48 loads.

I prefer to use filtered tap water for this recipe but you don’t have to.You can use any kind of soap that you’d like. I prefer all vegetable soaps since I’m vegetarian plus I try to buy soaps that are handmade locally (check out the PCC). I’m told that milk-based and tallow soaps work well too. If you use Fels Naptha, you should use only 1/3 bar instead of a whole bar due to its size. Sodium Carbonate (Washing Soda) and Borax can be found in the laundry section of the grocery store. Both can be used for cleaning around the house and their boxes can be recycled. By making your own detergent, you help cut down on the fossil fuel needed to make commercial laundry detergent and its packaging. Two boxes of Sodium Carbonate and one box of Borax will make about 12 recipes (a total of 576 loads)!

Powdered Laundry Detergent Recipe

Ingredients & Tools

• 2 cups Castile or Marseille soap, grated
• 1 cup Sodium Carbonate (aka washing soda or soda ash)
• 1 cup Borax
• 1 quart container with lid
• Rubber gloves (optional)

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients and place it a container with a lid.
2. For light load, use 1 T. For heavy or very soiled load, use 2 T.

Like the liquid version, you can use any kind of soap that you’d like. You can also use 2 cups of soap flakes such as Ivory Snow those of you interested in making vegan/vegetarian products should avoid this.

For the past month, I’ve been using a Mrs. Pegg’s handy line to dry my clothes. It easily holds a large load of laundry and I’ve found that most things dry within 2 hours. The few that don’t (towels, very heavy blankets) are dry within 8. The added bonus is that I no longer have to worry about ironing. If you don’t take your clothes out of the dryer immediately, you know what a pain it is to deal with wrinkles. Now I no longer have any! Plus my clothes will last longer as a result of not using a dryer (what do you think makes the lint?).For those of you who aren’t quite ready to take that plunge, Care2 has Twelve Laundry Tips for Maximum Energy Savings that you may find useful for cutting down electric/gas costs and saving CO2 pounds. For those of you who’d like to take the plunge or at least look into it, here are two other links to get you started.

• Terrapass Energy Tip #4
• Project Laundry List

This isn’t something you have to wait for good weather to do. I live in a wet part of the US and I put my Mrs. Pegg’s handy line up in my living room or bathroom when I dry my clothes. For those of you who need to use a humidifier during dry times of the year, the moisture from the clothes drying in the house may eliminate the need. And during the summer, the cool moisture may help lower the overall temp in the house. For those of you working, hang your clothes before you go to bed at night to wake-up to wrinkle-free, dry clothes or hand them before you go to work to come home to the same. It’s a way to help the environment and your pocket book with little effort.

Vinegar

Looking for an environmentally friendly way of softening your clothes? Try adding 1/2-1 cup of white distilled vinegar to your rinse cycle. No joke! It does a great job of not only softening your clothes but also breaking down laundry detergent. Once vinegar dries that “vinegary” smell is gone too so you needn’t worry about smelling like a salad all day. This is also a great way for folks with sensitivities to detergents to keep their clothes nice and soft.Looking for other ways to use vinegar in the laundry or around the house? Check out The Vinegar Institute’s Uses & Tips.

Today I went to one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants to celebrate a friend’s birthday: Cafe Flora. Anyone who thinks you can’t have a good meatless meal should try their French Dip sandwich. Very yummy! We had a wonderful dessert, a nectarine tartlet, to celebrate her birthday as well. It was a sinfully wonderful meal.

Did you know that you can save 2.675 pounds of CO2 for each day you eat vegetarian for every meal? Vegetarians save 976.375 pounds of CO2 a year. Don’t think you could do it every day? Not a problem! If you were to eat vegetarian meals all day once a week, you’d save 139.1 pounds of CO2 a year and if you were to eat one vegetarian meal a day, you’d save 325.4 pounds of CO2 a year (based on 3 meals a day)! No cheating and doubling up on meat with your next meal.

It’s not always easy to find good vegan desserts. The “ice creams” tend to be chalky and the pastries tend to be dry. I have found four wonderful cookbooks that give lots of great tips for getting around the problem:

• Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
• More Great Good Dairy-free Desserts by Fran Costigan
• The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
• Sinfully Vegan by Lois Dieterly
• Vice Cream by Jeff Rogers

So no more excuses about eating vegetarian meals! You help yourself and the world as an extra bonus.

I’m a big fan of yogurt but because of my allergies, I need to eat soy yogurt instead. Since I make my own soy milk with a Soya Power, I decided the next step was to make my own soy yogurt. The results were a resounding success!The initial problem I had was finding probiotics that were vegan. Since most probiotics are made from dairy, this is a problem if you have an allergy or if you choose to avoid all animal products and by-products. I found three different vegan probiotics between the PCC and Whole Foods: Natural Factors Mega Acidophilus, New Chapter All-Flora, and Solaray Multidophilus Powder. Because yogurt needs both Lactobacillus bulgaricus (or occasionally L. acidophilus) and Streptococcus thermophilus, I ended up using two different vegan probiotic formulas to make it work.

N.B.: In case someone has suggested ProGurt to you, it is NOT vegan so if you’re after something completely dairy-free, this isn’t it. From their website:DAIRY AND GLUTEN FREE: The highest quality and pure LAB cultures are used in this formula. The yogurt strains are recognized to have exposure to some dairy peptones (broken down molecular structures) during their fermentation. The final culture is filtered and has less then detectable levels of dairy proteins. Considered dairy-free based on the standards established in the nutritional industry. No gluten containing ingredients are used in the production of this product.

Soy Yogurt

Ingredients

• 1 liter freshly made plain soy milk using 1/2 organic soybeans with water to the halfway mark of the Soya Power*
• Pinch of salt (for the soy milk)
• 1-2 T sweetener (honey, agave, maple syrup, sucanet, etc.)
• 1 t New Chapter All-Flora (vegan)
• 1 t Solaray Multidophilus Powder (vegan)
• Agar Agar bar

* Store bought plain soy milk can be used instead. If you use store bought soy milk, be sure to bring it to a boil in the microwaveOther items to have on hand:

• 1-2 liter glass container for the soy milk
• Gold coffee filter
• Salton Yogurt Maker
• Plate, spoon or 2, whisk, food thermometer, measuring spoons, small glass bowl
• Boiling water

Directions

1. First, you need to create a sterile environment. Use the boiling water and pour it into the liter glass container, through the gold coffee filter, and over the spoons, whisk, plate, the measuring spoons, the food thermometer and the internal Salton container & lid. You don’t want to mix your own bacteria into this process! I normally sterilize the plate first and put all of the other objects on top of it except the glass container which will sit to the side.
2. Place 1/4-1 bar of Agar Agar in the small glass bowl and pour enough boiling water over it to soak it through. It shouldn’t take much water to do this.
3. Next pour the soy milk from the Soya Power through the gold coffee filter into the glass container. If you took the skins off the soybeans before making the soy milk, this may not be necessary. I usually do both to ensure a very smooth milk.
4. Add the pinch of salt. Animal milk has sodium in it naturally so you need to add in a little to the soy milk.
5. Add the sweetener of your choice. Animal milk again has the necessary sweeteners built in so it’s important to add your own or the probiotics will have nothing to eat. The sweetener that you choose will greatly change the taste of your soy milk.
6. Plug the Salton Yogurt Maker in. You are allowing it to heat up while you get the rest of it together.
7. Pour the soy milk into the internal Salton Yogurt container that is sitting on the plate. Place the food thermometer in the Salton Yogurt container. I usually use the clip to attach the thermometer to the side of the container so I can see the temperature drop.
8. Wash your hands thoroughly. Then squeeze out the Agar Agar and rip it into tiny pieces placing them in the soy milk mixture in the Salton Yogurt container.
9. Let the temperature drop to 50-55ºC (122-130ºF). While you are waiting for the temperature to drop, occasionally whisk the soymilk mixture to keep the agar for gelling to quickly.
10. Once the temperature has dropped to the desired range, stir in the probiotic powders. Do not put the probiotic powders in the soy milk mixture if the temperature is greater than 55ºC. Anything hotter will kill the bacteria. The best temperature for incubation is 50ºC.
11. Place the lid on the container and put it in the Salton Yogurt Maker. Let it sit for 6-8 hours, checking at the 5 hour mark and each hour beyond for tartness and gelling. When the yogurt reaches your desired tartness and gell, unplug the Salton Yogurt maker and place the yogurt in container to put in the refrigerator.

Soy Labneh

If you’re interested in making labneh (a Middle Eastern cheese), you’ll need either unbleached cheese cloth or a Donvier cheese maker. If you are using the cheese cloth, place it inside a strainer that sits over a bowl. Put the yogurt inside the cheese cloth and wring out the initial liquid. Tie the cheese cloth putting it back in the strainer in the bowl and place all of it in the refrigerator. Check on it 1-2 hours later and all of the liquid should have drained leaving you with soy cheese! It’s even easier with a Donvier cheese maker. Simply put the yogurt inside and check on it 1-2 hours later. Labneh tastes wonderful on bread, crackers, and fruit. You can use it on bagels in the morning or in place of recipes that call for cream cheese.

The USDOE claims that 75% of the average home’s electric bill comes from phantom load. I decided to see if I fell into the average home statistics and have discovered a lot of appliances that have phantom load that I never thought about. Some I can’t do anything about (like the refrigerator) but other I can. Here’s the list that I came up with for my house. Your house may be similar. Last month, I was able to decrease my electric bill by 18% from the previous year by changing things for only the last 2.5 weeks. It will be interesting to see how much lower I am able to get it each month as I discover more places of phantom load and other ways to conserve energy.I have many appliances set up in two different ways now. Hard to reach outlets are equipped with a power strip that the appliances are plugged into. I try my best to use power strips that don’t have phantom load. Then I turn it off when the appliance isn’t in use. For those outlets that are easy to reach, I simply unplug everything from the wall. Sometimes I’ll combine the two so I’ll only need to unplug the power strip. Not sure which appliances to check in your house? There are a couple of questions that you can ask yourself: does a light stay on and does it retain memory. For example, your VCR and TV both have instant ons. They remember your local channels. Before you say that you don’t want to reprogram your TV every time or push in the channels, think about how you use it. For example, if you have a satellite dish, how hard is it to press 3 or 4 and have all of your channels at your fingertips? So once you think about it, you may find that it’s not that big of a deal. Just think of all the money you’ll save in the process.

Phantom Load

Appliances in my house that have phantom load:

• VCR
• DVR
• DVD player
• TV
• Xbox
• Air filters
• Security system
• Light wall plates (mine has lights on it to indicate dimming level)
• Microwave
• Stove
• Refrigerator
• Bread machine
• Rice cooker
• Washing machine
• Dryer
• Computers
• Printers
• Treadmill
• Chargers — cell phone, tooth brush, iPod, etc.
• Garage door opener
• Doorbell

In addition to these, be sure to check your toaster, toaster oven, coffee machine, hair dryer.

Other Ideas

Here are some other easy ways that you can lower your bills without much cost:

• Unplug appliances you are not using from the wall. You can put them on a power strip but keep in mind that some of them also have phantom load.
• Lower your thermostat in the winter and raise it in the summer! For every 1 degree you lower your thermostat in the fall/winter or raise it in the spring/summer, you’ll save 2% of your energy costs. In addition, consider lowering your heat 5-10 degrees while you sleep.
• Wash & rinse clothes in cold water. 85-90% of energy use in washing clothes is spent on heating the water and 10-15% is used to run the washing machine.
• Air dry your clothes. Not only does it save energy (5-10% of the average electric bill is from the clothes dryer) but your clothes will last longer. I use Mrs. Pegg’s Handy Line in the house and am very happy with it.
• Don’t run the dishwasher’s dry cycle. Instead, open the door and let the dishes air dry.
• Turn down the water temperature for your dishwasher to 120ºF if you have a separate heating tank otherwise turn down your water heater to 120ºF. The average home runs it at 150ºF.
• Run only full loads in the dishwasher and the washing machine.
• Insulate your attic, walls and crawl space. 10-50% of a home’s energy loss is through improper insulation.
• Plug up holes and put draft dodgers at doors; this can save up to 10% of energy costs.
• Change your shower head to low flow. The new ones don’t trickle! They have great pressure unlike their predecessors. The less water that flows through, the more you save on both water and heating it.
• Don’t put warm food in the fridge. Allow it to cool down first. It takes more energy to keep the fridge at a constant temperature when you put hot food in than if you were to put in room temperature food. Also, don’t overfill the fridge and block airflow. Remember to clean the grill and grate every three months and set the temperature for only as cold as you need and don’t go below.
• Use compact fluorescent light bulbs. Dimmable and 3-way CF bulbs are available so no excuses! 11% of the average electric bill comes from lighting.