At least every fortnight, and sometimes every week, we’ll buy a six pack of craft beer to drink at home. This can add anywhere from $15 -$22 to the grocery bill. To brew beer ‘properly’ at home takes some considerable equipment and expertise and isn’t cheap at all. So when I came across this post, I was happy to learn that homebrewing cider is a very simple process indeed.

Ingredients

The key ingredients are: champagne yeast, great tasting apple juice with no preservatives added (preservatives would kill the yeast) and an air lock (to stop air getting in and turning the juice mouldy).

I didn’t really want to spend too much on equipment and ingredients just to try this out. After a bit more googling and searching, I found a supplier that could supply a very small amount of champagne yeast without a huge postage charge (try eBay) and an alternative to purchasing a brewing air lock – a balloon! Then I waited for a 2 litre bottle of Nudie apple juice to go on special at one of the supermarkets. And I was set.

Method

Not quite trusting that the whole thing wasn’t going to fizz up in my face and create a sticky mess, I took everything outside to set up the experiment. Here is everything you’ll need:

Prick the balloon four times with a needle to create some holes for the carbon dioxide to escape as the fermentation process takes place. If the bottle of juice you are using is very full, you could pour out a tiny bit of  juice to leave a little bit of space at the top for any fizzing action. Add a half teaspoon of the dried champagne yeast, replace the cap and shake or swirl the yeast into the juice. Remove the cap and position the balloon around the mouth of the bottle.

Retain the cap to reseal the bottle later (once it’s ready and you want to keep it in the fridge). If you’ve kept the juice in the fridge til now, nothing will happen for a few hours but the next day, you should definitely see some fizzing action.

Ten days pass… You’ll see that the fizzing has pretty much slowed to a halt. I think the number of days this takes will depend on the room temperature – longer in winter, shorter in summer. Remove the balloon, replace the clean bottle cap and keep in the fridge until it’s all drunk. There is a further step you can try to make a fizzy cider (the gas escapes through the balloon during first fermentation). Add a tablespoon of sugar, replace the cap and allow to ferment a little more before placing in the fridge. At this point, I’d definitely be moving the bottle to the garage in case of explosion, although you should be pretty safe with a plastic bottle.

How easy is that!

Cost comparison

The price of shop bought cider varies, but let’s look at Dan Murphy’s offerings. Monteith’s Heritage Cider comes in bottles of 500ml for $4.59, so 2 litres costs $18.36. A six pack of Strongbow cans (3,300ml in total) costs $19.99, so for 2 litres you pay $12.12.

To make 2 litres of cider at home the cost of the juice and yeast is $5 plus about $1 for the portion of yeast used and a few cents for the balloon. The cost of your time is negligible as it takes about 60 seconds to set this up. So let’s call the total homebrew cost $6.

If you made it regularly you’d invest in a couple of air locks at a few dollars each to keep the waste to a minimum. And if you have fruit trees or access to fallen fruit you could make this almost for free!

Buy it or make it?

At half the cost of Strongbow, this has to be a resounding MAKE IT!

Happy home brewing!

J

This experiment to compare the cost of store bought vs homemade banana bread will also compare any basic cake recipe that is easy to put together and doesn’t involve layers or icing.

I’m not a huge fan of bananas because they give me a cracking headache, but hubby buys a bunch every so often, and every so often a couple get left to rot in the fruit bowl. He also likes a treat sometimes with his morning coffee when he’s working in the city but cafes can charge $3-$5 for a muffin or slice of banana bread that’s bigger than you wanted anyway. You could also buy a banana bread in the supermarket – Coles sell one for $6. If I bake a banana bread loaf I reckon we’re killing two cost saving & waste reduction birds with one stone.

The recipe I use is adapted from Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to Be a Domestic Goddess’. I removed the alcohol soaked raisins and walnuts from her recipe, which that cuts not only the cost but the prep time, and I also factored down the quantities to suit the size of my silicone loaf pan (approx 18 x 8 cm at the base). I’ve made this so many times that it takes me maybe 15 minutes, or 20 minutes at most. You can add choc chips or nuts or alcohol into this if you want to spice it up, but as it is it’s a pretty nice basic cake that goes well with your coffee. You’ll get 10 – 12 thick but short and squat slices from this recipe (it’s a treat, not a meal!) and it lasts about a week in an airtight container.

Ingredients

130g plain or wholemeal flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 ripe bananas (approximately 200g without the skin but it doesn’t matter if it’s 50g one way or the other)

95g butter

110g sugar (not caster sugar, use about 80-90g if that’s all you have as it will taste sweeter)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 eggs

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C. Grease and flour your loaf pan. Mine’s silicone but it still needs greasing and flouring or it sticks, I think it’s the sugar content.

Melt the butter in a pan on the stove or the microwave and leave to cool slightly. Mix the flour, baking powder and bicarb of soda in a large mixing bowl using a wooden spoon.

In another bowl, measure out the sugar and then beat in the melted butter. Ideally it will change consistency and become lighter and fluffier but if you’re doing it by hand, don’t worry, it won’t change the outcome too much. Beat one egg into the butter/ sugar mix and then the other. Mash the bananas and then mix them in, along with the vanilla essence. Then add the flour mix one third at time and stir it in well.

You should have a slightly runny gloopy cake mix. Pour this into the loaf pan and place in the oven for 1 hour. After 50 mins, check it’s not burning by looking though the oven door as all ovens are different.  After an hour, the loaf should be well browned on the top but not blackening. Remove the cake and check it’s done all the way through by inserting a skewer or tooth pick – it should come out clean. If it’s not done, give it another 10 mins.

Leave the loaf in the pan to cool on a wire rack because if you cut it when it’s warm it will fall apart. Then dust with icing sugar if you are about to take a photo for your blog – otherwise skip this, it’s for eating not looking at!

Cost comparison

I used the Coles online shop to estimate the cost of the ingredients and the total comes to $3.22. This assumes you’ll use Coles home brand products where available, free range eggs and non-organic bananas. Given that so little is used and to make things easier I ignored the cost of the baking powder and bicarb. When bananas are cheaper than $4.50 a kilo then obviously the price of ingredients will come way down!

My time – 15 minutes @$25ph – is worth $3.75.

Given that the oven is on for an hour and 15 minutes for this recipe, I think we should add the power cost. For most other sweet baked treats  that take 20 minutes or less I think I can argue that they could be put in the oven at the same time as something for dinner and ignore the power cost. At a rate of 2.4kWh power use for an electric oven, at a cost of 25c a kWh, the power costs 75c.

The smell of banana bread filling the house… priceless.

Total cost: $7.72

Buy it or make it?

Compared to paying $3 for a slice from a cafe, or $15 for a week’s worth, it definitely makes more sense to make banana bread yourself. You can also freeze half the loaf if you don’t want to have a sugary treat every single day.

I’ve never tried supermarket banana bread and maybe it’s ok. So feasibly if you need your morning fix, you could buy a loaf for slightly less than it would cost to make at $6 and cut a slice to take to work each day. But if  you don’t want to eat preservatives, mysteriously named ‘raising agents’, cage eggs and you want to be able to choose how sweet your cake is, then definitely make it yourself.

Verdict: Make it!

Of course, we could all save money by not eating cake and goodies at all, but then what would our lives be like? I say, everything in moderation..!

Happy baking!

J

Buying it

The best muesli bar I have ever tasted was Carman’s Classic Fruit Muesli Bar. I tried most of the varieties when they were half price at Coles for a time and the classic bar was the best. But that Carman lady doesn’t price her stuff cheap, she knows how good it is and the ingredients are all real things you could use to make you own, not hydrogenated this and soy that, which would no doubt add to the price.

So – is it possible to make a bar at home that is as tasty as Carmen’s or even just more satisfying than the Nice and Natural range, and make it for the price of the Nice and Natural range ($1.04 / 100g on half price special) or less?

Making it

I have tried previously to make cereal bars but found that they fell apart when I tried to eat them so ended up with rather nice toasted breakfast cereal. The only time I managed to get them to stick together was when I added a shit load of honey and syrup, but then they were too sweet for my taste.

Then my friend offered up her recipe and swore it would work:

1 cup oats (rolled or quick oats)

1 cup pumpkin and/ or sunflower seeds/ chopped nuts/ chia seed

1 cup dates (or other dried fruit, but dates are nice and sticky which helps the bars to stay together)

1 heaped tablespoon honey

1 heaped tablespoon coconut oil

The method is too easy. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a deep sided baking or cake pan (approx. 20x20cm or equivalent area) with baking paper but leave a bit sticking out the sides to enable you to lift the bars out later.

In a small pan or in the microwave, heat the honey and oil so that they become a thin liquid. Chop the dates as finely as you can or use a processor if you have one. Mix the dry ingredients and then add the honey & oil, mix again, and then press the mixture into the pan.

Use the base of a drinking glass and another bit of baking paper to really press the mixture together – you want to really squash it down. This is really important if you want to make bars not toasted breakfast cereal!

Pop the pan in the oven for about 20-25 minutes or until the oats have browned a little. Remove from the oven and set the pan aside on a wire rack to cool totally. If you put the pan in the fridge for an hour or two once it’s cooled it will set harder.

Lift the lining paper out and place the solid square of oaty goodness on a chopping board. Using a large sharp knife or cleaver, chop the mega-bar into the size bars you’d like. You should get about 10 bars that are 10cm long by 4cm wide.

To be honest, you’ll still get crumbly bits on some edges (see my latest batch below – I was rushed!) and a couple of the bars might break sometimes, but if it happens often, add more honey or try adding a spoon of brown sugar. You can fiddle with the amounts of oil and honey to your taste or try butter instead of coconut oil but be aware that it could alter the stick-together-ness. Cinnamon is a great addition for flavour.

I calculated the cost of ingredients using the Coles online store prices for the cheapest per unit brand available, but you can get all of these things on special if you prefer another more expensive brand. I recently got coconut oil for 40% off and I think my big bag of oats was also on special.

Total cost of ingredients: $4.59

Total weight of finished bars: 415g

Total cost per 100g of finished bars: $1.10

Well, that’s just as good as the cheapie supermarket brands! But I also like to put a value to my time as well, since I am self employed and in theory I could be earning money when I’m not cooking. Time to make them: 20 mins at $25/ hour = $8.33

Total cost per 100g including my time: $3.11

Ok that’s 150% the price of the Carman’s brand. But, buying muesli bars in the supermarket doesn’t fill your house with the smell of baking, which is priceless… And knowing exactly what you’re eating is pretty priceless too. And hey, you can always ignore the cost of your time.

Muesli bars – buy ‘em or make ‘em?

MAKE ‘EM! Homemade bars are so yummy you’d be mad not to.

So the only thing to figure out now is how to safely transport the home-made muesli bar so it is convenient to have on the go. I generally put one or two in a plastic takeaway box or in a ziploc bag, but the box is not great as I don’t want to pick the bar up with my hands (I work with animals and I’m always dirty), and the ziploc bag ends up getting thrown away after a couple of uses. I guess I could take the bar in a box along with a tiny pair of tongs or chopsticks! If you have any great ideas I’d love to hear them.

Happy grocery hacking!

J

Green soup.

Wait! Don’t go! It’s better than it sounds.

This week I had this assortment of random things to use up – the middle of a cos lettuce, a bit of tired cucumber, a box of very tired and dry rocket, a bunch of kale, and a box of something called organic supergreens (containing MORE rocket, MORE kale and spinach).

Green soup ingredients

The exact recipe will vary depending on what you’ve got, but here’s a guide:

Big nob of butter or a glug of olive oil

Leafy green veg – you want about the equivalent of a whole lettuce, give or take

1 cup of peas – keep some in the freezer

1 teaspoon oregano

2 cloves garlic – I use two teaspoons of chopped garlic from a jar

1 litre chicken or vegetable stock – I just make it up from stock powder

Optional items, not essential but are really good for the flavour:

a few sprigs of fresh mint if you grow it in the garden or windowsill

small handful of parsley – ditto, but I have found the massive bunch the supermarket sells you also freezes well.

a leek or onion

a potato

I timed myself today and the preparation took about 35-40 minutes, including the cooking time, but not including the time on the couch thinking ‘I really should make that soup’.

First, wash any leaves and tear them up into smaller pieces. Dice any other veg.

Heat up the oil or butter in the largest pan you have. I’ve got the Circulon stockpot which is huge. It’s bigger than you need but it’s handy for later when you are trying to blend the soup without splashing yourself!

Stockpot

Add the garlic to the oil or butter, followed by the veg and herbs but not the peas. Stir into the butter and allow to wilt down on a medium heat for 5 or 6 minutes. Then they will look something like this:

Wilted greens

Then add the peas and stock and simmer for 20 minutes.

Allow the soup to cool a bit so you don’t hurt yourself and then puree it either in a blender or using a handheld stick blender. It will look something like this:

Blended soup

Put the soup back in the pan to heat it through again if necessary and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve in bowls with a swirl of cream to finish or some grated cheese if you don’t have cream handy.

Ta da!

Green soup

The great thing about this is, if you use bits from the fridge that were going to get chucked, it’s kind of free, or maybe a few cents for the stock powder, garlic and herbs. This is not a substantial soup, it’s more of a starter than a meal so I can’t really compare the cost to those pouches of tasty fresh soup you can buy. We ate some of this tonight and the leftovers will get eaten tomorrow and the next day in place of cup-a-soup which hubby and I often have as a snack. The cheapest cup-a-soup in Coles is $1 for two sachets when it’s on special, which is dead cheap, but it also contains these things (this is the ingredients list for Continental Spring Vegetable):

Maltodextrin (from Wheat), Vegetables (32%) (Onion, Carrot, Green Peas), Maize Starch, Salt, Tomato, Flavour Enhancers (621, 635), Parsley (1.5%), Hydrolysed Corn Protein, Vegetable Oils (Soybean, Sunflower), Sugar, Flavours (contain Milk Derivatives), Colours (Carotene, Turmeric, Caramel lV), Garlic Extract, Spice Extract, Herb Extract.

Flavour enhancers, ‘Flavours’, Sugar (!), hydrolysed things. Not all that appetising, eh?

So homemade green soup saves us only a couple of dollars but also stops us eating a bunch of odd stuff and chucking away veg we’ve paid for. So I’m chalking it up as a WIN.