Creatively Frugal Library (Spending Less While Living Indulgently)

By Anne Baley

Being frugal doesn't have to mean depriving yourself of the fun and joy in life. These three books show how it's possible to enjoy life and indulge yourself in the finer things while keeping more of your money in your wallet.

Bottled Gifts: How to Make Liqueurs, Flavored Vodkas and Other Alcoholic Treats

Bottles of wine have long been a traditional gift for housewarmings, holidays and dinner parties. Whether you're taking a hearty red to a pasta party or wrapping up a special vintage for a couple's first Christmas, people love and appreciate getting thoughtful alcoholic gifts.

While wine is appropriate for many occasions, there are times everyone wants to give something a little more special and unusual. With this book, you can expand your gift inventory to include handmade liqueurs, flavored vodka in both sweet and savory styles, and even handmade meads.

From vanilla vodka to cranberry liqueur, from mint chocolate decadence to ancient orange mead recipes, you'll find dozens of drinks to make with these surprisingly simple techniques.

Grow Free Food! Feed Your Family With Ultra Frugal Gardening Techniques

Every healthy diet includes fresh vegetables each day, but if you're living on a fixed budget they may be difficult to afford. This book shows you how to garden and grow enough produce to feed your family using only discarded and recycled items from around the house. From vegetable seeds to fertilizer, you'll find everything you need to know about growing food for you family without spending a penny.

There's Nothing to Do! Creative Projects for Bored Kids

Summer vacations, long holiday weekends and rainy afternoons all may start out relatively peaceful, but if you're a parent, you know that sooner or later someone is going to voice that timeless phrase, “There's nothing to do!” You can aim your kids toward the crayons or tell them to go outside and play, but eventually they'll come back, looking to turn a boring afternoon into a creative, memorable day. If you're like most parents, you don't have any better ideas than your kids do right off the top of your head.

This book is designed to save you, every time this happens. You'll look like the coolest parent around when you come up with these creative projects to do with your kids. Instead of watching the same DVDs again and again, you and your kids can be:

~Making and using your own custom sidewalk chalk
~Going on a backyard camping trip, complete with nature walk and cookout
~Making homemade ice cream in a plastic bag
~Having a snowball fight in the middle of a summer heat wave
~Growing a playhouse

and many more fun activities. From quick art projects to crafts that take a weekend, you'll find something to do with your kids no matter how much time you have, and each project is designed to entertain your family without costing a lot of money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne Baley
• Release date: Nov 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781497750388

Book preview

Introduction

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Bottles of wine have long been a traditional gift for housewarmings, holidays and dinner parties. Whether you're taking a hearty red to a pasta party or wrapping up a special vintage for a couple's first Christmas, people love and appreciate getting thoughtful alcoholic gifts.

While wine is appropriate for many occasions, there are times everyone wants to give something a little more special and unusual. With this book, you can expand your gift inventory to include handmade liqueurs, flavored vodka in both sweet and savory styles, and even handmade meads.

Creating these drinks may seem complicated, but most of them involve very simple recipes and techniques. There are basic rules of sanitation and timing, just like any other recipe, but novice drink makers can begin creating their own special blends within minutes of reading this book. The hardest part is waiting for the drinks to be finished, as most of them take weeks to months before the flavors meld and are ready to drink.

Make bottles of Limoncello to give as summer gifts, create a batch of Irish cream for winter holiday gift giving or put up a batch of chocolate cinnamon mead to enjoy in the coming months. Don't forget to save a bottle or two for yourself and get ready for special requests for gifts throughout the year.

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Safety and Sanitation

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Making alcoholic beverages is like making any simple recipe, except the final product is meant to be stored on shelves for months to years. Because of the potentially long storage time, sanitation is extremely important while making any of the recipes in this book. Sealing a bottle and leaving it on a warm shelf for years is an invitation for bacteria to grow if you let them get started in your drinks. Even a high alcoholic content is no match for some organisms; skunky beer and mildewed wine are just two of the examples of how this can happen.

This is not the place for shortcuts. The sanitation methods here may seem overly nitpicky, but they're the best way to ensure you create drinks that will stay safe to drink and tasty for months and even years to come. No special equipment is needed, and you can use supplies from your own kitchen. Take the extra few minutes to completely sanitize everything you use to eliminate the chance of dangerous contamination.

Begin by washing all bottles, containers, funnels and any other piece of equipment you use. Run the pieces through the dishwasher or wash them by hand using ordinary dish soap. Rinse everything completely to remove all soap residue. Fill a clean sink with room temperature water and add one capful of ordinary household bleach for every gallon of water. Place all your bottling equipment in the bleach water and allow it to soak for 10 minutes. Pull the items from the bleach water with clean hands or tongs and place them upside down over clean paper towels to air dry. Don't crowd the sink if  you have a lot of equipment; do this in two batches if you need to.

Don't forget to sanitize ingredients such as whole oranges if you will be slicing them and adding them to the mix. Germs can lurk on fruit skins and can be transferred to your drink mix. The general rule is that if it goes in the drink, or the drink touches it, you should sanitize it. As with all other food preparation, sanitation beforehand can save you from disappointment weeks or months in the future.

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Flavored Vodkas

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One of the fastest growing segments of the alcohol market is flavored vodkas. From hot pepper to birthday cake, there is a flavored vodka for almost every taste, and often at a premium price. Flavored vodkas are the simplest of bottled alcohols to make, and yet the finished product is impressive enough for gift giving.

The act of adding flavor to vodka by using actual foods is called infusing. You can infuse vodka with as simple an ingredient as lemon slices, or make a complex flavor profile such as lavender basil. The method is similar for all the drinks; it's the ingredients and how you prepare them that makes a difference in the flavor of the vodkas, from delicate hints to all-out pow!

When you first start to experiment with infusing vodkas, it's a good idea to make a small batch to taste the results. Begin with about one cup of vodka and keep track of the amount of each flavoring ingredient you put in. When you taste the final results, you'll know whether to add more flavoring or take some away when you make a larger batch, if you know the ratio of vodka to flavoring.

You may be tempted to use very cheap alcohol for these recipes, but that's generally a bad idea. Just like in cooking food, if you begin with poor quality ingredients, you'll never rise above that quality in the finished product. Start with a middle-shelf vodka and pour it through a filtered water pitcher five times. This will remove most of the impurities that cause cheaper drinks  to taste so bad. Make sure you remove the filter from the water pitcher afterward and place it in a bag labeled vodka, so no one mistakes it for a replacement for filtering water.

Make a few of these recipes, then get creative and start experimenting with your own flavor combinations. Just remember to start with small experiments before moving on to a full bottle batch.

Wash and sanitize a smaller jar such as a pasta sauce or mayonnaise jar. Make sure you sanitize the lid and any equipment you will be using. Add the infusion ingredients, fill the jar with vodka, put on a lid and shake. Place the jar in a cool, dark place.

Leave the jar alone for the recommended time before tasting, except for giving it a good shake once a day. After the minimum time has passed, try tasting a spoonful of the flavored vodka. If you like the flavor, move on to the next step. If you'd like a stronger taste, replace the lid and try again in 24 hours.

When you've reached a flavor intensity you like, pour the vodka through a strainer into a bowl or pitcher. Bottle the strained liquid as you like, cap the bottle and refrigerate or freeze it until you're ready to serve.

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Skittles Vodka

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If you're in the mood for neon-colored sweet vodka, this is the one to try. Retro, tacky and fun to drink, Skittles vodka makes fun-colored martinis and mixes well with lemon-lime soda for a quick and fruity cocktail.

Pour 50 Skittles of one flavor into a jar. Add