Awesome SPOT cleaner!

As you well know, I am a big fan of making your own cleaners, especially specialty ones like Home Made Carpet Cleaner (see here) or Home Made Dishwasher Detergent (see here).

Not only are they extremely cost effective to make, but they usually work a lot better than the fancy brands out there and are a whole lot safer to use around kids and pets.  Add cheap and effective and safe together and PRESTO!  You have one happy Practical Pioneer!  :)

This is one of the very easiest recipes I've seen for spot cleaning.  Always check fabric and surfaces for colorfastness.

Thrifty Thursday -- CREPES!

'Leftovers' isn't a dirty word around here.  It's a rare one, but nothing to get snooty about.  On the rare occasion that my four voracious eaters don't actually lick every single serving dish clean, they actually love leftovers. Just as they were the night before.

But adding a little flare and creativity to turn yesterday's dinner into a culinary masterpiece of its own is more my kind of thing.  Plus, it can set the stage for a VERY thrifty meal!

Tonight, I had a few bits and pieces rattling around the fridge and I decided that they were the perfect components of a pretty easy meal:  Savory Chicken Crepes!

Here's what I did:

Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent! (No Grating Recipe!!)

This Practical Pioneer actually doesn't mind grating a bar of soap for my super-cheap AND effective Homemade Laundry Detergent (which you can learn about HERE).  I also don't mind the cooking procedure of regular home made laundry soap.  It's not hard, kind of cathartic, and fills the house with a lovely scent.

So I was puzzled to hear from a variety of sources how much people run from the huge savings of making homemade laundry soap simply because of that bit of grating and cooking.  Really, really, puzzled.  It takes a whole lot more effort to earn the money to BUY expensive detergents than to save the money by the few minutes it takes to create at home.  But I guess it takes all kinds.

All Veggie Lasagna - the Pictoral!

Utterly Delicious!

Last week, after making homemade cottage cheese (which you can find HERE), I mentioned one of my very favorite recipes that uses my luscious cheese.  It's an all-veggie lasagna (no meat OR pasta!).  A friend picked up on it and wanted the recipe, which I posted.

But, in doing that, I got a bit of a hankering for it and decided to make it for our family.  I thought you might like to see some pictures of it to get an idea of what I'm talking about!  Here's the recipe again: