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The optimist says the glass is half full.

The pessimist says the glass is half empty.

I say the glass is dirty, and needs to be washed.

We all end up needing to do dishes.  While it’s greener and gets your dishes cleaner to do them by hand, most of us opt to use the dishwasher.  I know that dishwasher detergent is one of the items I’m constantly scanning for coupons for.  No more.  I recently found this great little post on home made dishwasher detergent:

Brown Thumb Mama: Making Dishwasher Detergent

One of the things I really liked about it was that the only “unusual” ingredients are items I use in my laundry detergent anyway, so I have them around the house.  The stuff works great, and as noted in the post, costs about 9 cents a load.  Here’s the basic recipe:

1 cup Washing soda
1/2 cup Baking soda
1/2 cup Borax

Directions: Dump in bowl, mix well.  Use 2 Tbs per load of dishes.

Simple tip: as soon as the rinse cycle is done, open the door to the dishwasher.  The dishes are hot from the hot water, and will dry themselves in just a few minutes if the humidity isn’t trapped in with them.

The bonus?  This hits all of my big three - simple, frugal and green!

Did you know you can make yogurt at home? I was a bit surprised, as I come from an urban background, and things as complicated as yogurt and bread must require special factories, right?  As it turns out, not so much.  Homemade yogurt is cheap, easy and there is as big a difference between homemade and store bought yogurt as there is between home baked and store bought bread.

You can make a basic yogurt, or you can take it an extra step (which is my preference) and drain off most of the whey to make a thick, Greek-style yogurt.  Pictured here served over some fresh, pureed blueberries, it makes a great breakfast, snack or side dish.

Perhaps the best thing about this article is that I had to take that picture for the front page, and as a result, I’m eating my way through it as I type.  It’s still a bit amazing to me that just yesterday, that scoop of tasty goodness was regular milk!

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