Making Your Own Bread

image: baobread on Flickr

Before Toby came along, I sometimes found myself with enough time to bake a loaf of bread from scratch. It was delicious and ridiculously satisfying. But since around October last year I haven't had time to think about it.

But the reality is that buying bread from the supermarket is expensive (up to $5 for a loaf of Helga's) and even pricier for good quality, locally baked bread ($6-8 from the bakehouse) plus lots of brands have additives, preservatives and loads of sugar/salt.  So I've known that making your own would be better and cheaper and more in keeping with our new way of living but, seriously, who has the time to bake bread once every couple of days? (And if you do, then hats off, my friend!)

Anyway, I've been stalking ebay for a few things for our house recently, and thought I'd check out the breadmaker situtation. $60 later we scored ourselves a big loaf bread machine!

I used it twice yesterday, to make a fruit loaf and a soy and linseed wholegrain loaf, and can I tell you how delicious and easy it was. Just add your ingredients, press a few buttons and three-ish hours later, yummy bread. I'll freeze half of each loaf so we can use it over the weekend.

The fruit loaf I did from scratch but the soy and linseed loaf I used a Laucke breadmix. Both ways turn out at around $2 per loaf, which is tops.

I know that breadmakers fall into that 'Christmas present you you use twice and then stick in a cupboard and feel vaguely guilty about' category (hence the number of them on ebay, I'm guessing) and I also know that they use a bit of electricity and are bulky to store. BUT its a matter of weighing up the pros and cons and we figured, considering we'll use it 2-3 times a week and save at least $20 off the groceries bill every fortnight, that it was worthwhile.

I'll let you know how we go, but for now, I've got a breakfast date with some fruit loaf and a strong black coffee. The kids have both been up since 5am. Eugh.

Green Cleaning Toolkit: The Whole Shebang

I've gone through the major elements in a good green cleaning toolkit over the past few weeks:

• bicarb soda
• castile soap
• white vinegar
• borax

and figured I'd add the remainder to this post, because they're not used as often as the four major ones above.

Washing Soda

Find it in the laundry aisle at the supermarket.

Laundry: Use it in your homemade laundry detergent.
Laundry Brightener: When washing with castile soap, I add a couple of tablespoons of washing soda for all loads except darks. It helps brighten and soften the clothes and I think they smell fresher.

Salt

Regular, household salt.

Laundry: Add 1/3 cup to your dark laundry loads to preserve the black in your garments.

General Cleaning: Combined with castile soap, water or lemon juice, salt makes a really effective soft scrub for sinks, basins and benchtops that need a good, deep clean. (I generally tend to use bicarb and vinegar for this though, but it's a good alternative.)

Various Essential Oils

Make sure to purchase essential oils, rather than scented oils, as the latter can be almost as harmful to your health as the chemical cleaners you're trying to avoid. It's also worth checking that you don't have an adverse reaction to any particular oil before using it all over the house. Additionally, pregnant ladies need to be cautious around essential oils as some can stimulate labour.

Laundry: Add 10 drops to your rinse cycle for beautiful smelling clothes. Plus some oils, like tea-tree and lavender, have antibacterial qualities, making them great to wash things like fabric nappies.
General Cleaning: Add a few drops to your homemade cleaners for a nice change.
General Cleaning: Add 20 drops to a spray bottle and use as a room freshener.
Dusting: A damp microfibre cloth sprinkled with a few drops of lavender oil makes the whole room smell lovely. Lame, but true.

Equipment

Cloths

Washable Chux cloths: Generally once they're done in the kitchen, I wash them and add them to the cleaning cupboard. They're reusable and do a good job of tackling most tasks.

Microfibre Cloths: $3 for a pack of four at the Reject Shop. Get some. I use a damp cloth to do all my dusting, plus they clean glass and make rinsing and wiping out basins, vanities, baths and showers super easy. They are brilliant. Plus you just throw them in the wash and use them time and time again.

Spray Bottles

Spend a little bit extra and get the good spray bottles from Bunnings or somewhere similar. The cheapies are fine for mild cleaners, but I found that when I put vinegar in them, the spray mechanism would stop working after a week or two. I bought some Oates ones about a year ago and haven't had any issues since.

There really isn't much involved in getting your green cleaning toolkit together, and it becomes second nature really very quickly.

Let me know if you have any specific questions or things you use in your green cleaning. I'd love to get some more ideas!

Green Cleaning: Make Your Own {Green} Laundry Detergent

Bubbles via NotTooCool on Flickr

One of my sisters gave me a bottle of her homemade laundry detergent a couple of months back and I was super impressed with how well it worked. I've been meaning to share her recipe ever since (hope you don't mind, Pangus!)

It's really easy and these quantities will make you 8 litres of liquid, so feel free to halve everything if you're not in need of so much. Although it does keep well over time.

You'll need:

1 cup Lux soap flakes
1/2 cup Lectric wsahing soda
1/2 cup borax
water
a large bucket
4 x 2-litre bottles or 5-6 empty vinegar bottles (try 2L milk bottles - as long as they're well cleaned)

1.  Using an old saucepan heat 4 cups of water with the Lux and stir until completely melted.
2.  Add washing soda and borax to mix and stir until dissolved.
3.  Add 4 cups of hot water to large bucket.
4.  Add the Lux, water, washing soda and borax mix to large bucket and stir. 
5.  Top the mix up with cold water till you reach 8L.
6.  Distribute mix amongst your storage bottles leaving enough room at top so you can shake your liquid. (The mix will settle and go claggy so make sure you give it a good shake before you use it.)

Tips: 

• For a front-loader, use around 3/4 cup per wash. A top loader may use a bit more. 

• In the fabric softener dispenser I always put 1/2 cup vinegar as a rinse agent/softener, and you can also add up to 10 drops of essential oil, to gently fragrance your wash.

• Still pretreat stains in the usual way (I use this natural stain remover)