I’d like to have 250 LIKES on the Green Anthropology Face Book page, and once we reach that number, I’ll start the Give-Away. This is how it will all go down:

1.Watch for the announcement that we have made it to 250 Likes and that I’m starting the Give-Away.
2. Post a comment under the Announcement post with one thing that you love to do to help the environment.
3. The Give-Away will be open for 24 hours. At the end of 24 hours, a winner will be selected at random and notified. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours of being notified, a runner-up will be selected and notified.

I’m really excited about this! But we can only do it if we get 250 Face Book Likes, so go LIKE if you haven’t already, and tell your friends!

All you need for slow cooker brisket

I have had a curse all my life: the ability to turn any fine-cut of meat into hard shoe leather. I never could figure it out, how most everyone else could end up with perfect, tender, melt-in-your-mouth meat! But a tip from my 93 year-old grandmother changed all that…

Granny says, ” First of all, NEVER add water!”. Okay, so there was my first mistake. “All you’re going to do is boil the sh** out of it.” Alright, Granny, so I’ve been a bad girl. Can we move on, please?

To put all of Granny’s advice in a nutshell, follow these instructions:

1. Simmer 1 quart of water and 1 cup of salt (Granny says use the cheap stuff) in a saucepan until salt is dissolved.This is called a brine.

2. If you prefer, you can add a tablespoon of pepper corns, a teaspoon of ground mustard and a teaspoon of ground cloves at this point, but it’s totally optional.

3. Allow solution to cool, either on the stove or put in a container in the refrigerator. However you like.

4. After solution (brine) is cool, put your cut of brisket in a gallon -size zip-top baggie with as much of your brine solution as will fit. Support it with a dish of some kind, just in case you have a leak. Put in refrigerator for at least 24 hours for brisket, or if you are daring, leave it there for approximately five days to create Corned Beef.

5. When you are ready to cook your brisket (or corned beef), remove from baggie and discard brine. Wrap meat with aluminum foil TIGHTLY, and as Granny says, “Cram it into the crock pot!” The juices from the meat will collect in the bottom and that’s just fine- they make fantastic gravy later!

6. Cook on low for eight hours.

This yields the most amazing, super-tender meat I’ve ever tasted. My husband’s eyes rolled back into his head, and then he asked me where I bought the meat from. He He! The Curse of the Shoe Leather Meat has been lifted- thanks to some pearls of wisdom from Granny.

I love the little girls tees that have puff sleeves and scoop necks- they just seem so much more girlie and look like a better product. But they always cost more than basic, plain tees. This is a great way to give your little girl a better t-shirt from an okay one and it will save you some serious money- just in time for back to school. I snagged several plain tees from Hobby Lobby when they were 50% off- no one can argue with $1.75 for a shirt, right!? Now if you compare that to some of the cute tees at Target or GAP, the savings is substantial. I really believe this is worth the little bit of time and patience you will put in to this!

So without further digression, let’s get started!

Select your victim t-shirt. You will be working on the sleeves and neck for this project, and you will need a sewing machine, coordinating thread, scissors and sewing pins.

First, cut the sleeves at a slight angle to shorten them. Make it longer at the top of the sleeve and shorter at the seam, but leaving about 3/4 inch space- you need enough room to work and the seams are tricky to work around if they overlap (they become too thick to sew over). Keep your cut straight and smooth so that the edges are easier to work with. DO NOT discard the bit that you cut off! You need this for the next step!

Carefully trim the sleeve scrap along the stitches, without cutting the thread.

Cut on both sides of the seam, removing about a one inch section from your bias tape piece. You will make a new seam in the next step.

Power up that sewing machine, Honey! Assuming that you are familiar with your machine and know the appropriate steps to changing your thread, tension settings and stitch length for knit fabric, you are ready to start sewing. Make a new, approximately 1/2 inch seam in your bias tape piece you cut in the previous step. I don’t worry about the raw edges- this fabric doesn’t seem to fray hardly at all and it’s not noticeable.

Next, using a fairly long stitch length, straight stitch very close to the raw edge of the sleeve, starting and stopping about 1 & 1/4  inch from the seam. Pull the top thread and slide the fabric to gather it. This creates the “puff”  and functions to fit it in the bias tape binding that you made earlier.

This step is the one that requires a little patience (for me at least) because you are working with small pieces. Place your bias tape piece and the new gathered sleeve together with seams matching. you will fold the tape over the raw edge of the sleeve, with the finished edge facing outward. The existing stitches that you were careful to not cut will face the inside of the sleeve and function to prevent any possible fraying. Using your sewing pins, pin the folded tape to the sleeve. Use the gathering thread to ease the sleeve in.

Slowly stitch the tape to the sleeve, removing the pins as you go. When you have stitched completely around the sleeve, do a little back-stitch to finish it off. Trim off any excess threads.

Voila! A puff sleeve! Now, repeat the above steps with the other sleeve.

The scoop neck is super easy- just fold the neck edge over to the existing row of stitches. Beginning at one of the shoulder seams, stitch the edge down. I don’t even bother with pins, I just fold it over as I sew. I made my row of stitches about 1/4 of and inch from the edge.

Done!

I recommend pairing these instructions with the tutorials at Make It and Love It. The ideas she has for re-purposing girls tees are fantastic and amazingly simple. With a little creativity, you can rework your little one’s wardrobe this fall for little to no money. That’s something I can certainly live with!

I’ve had the most delicious cantaloupe smoothies from my favorite smoothie shop this summer,  and it dawned on me that I certainly could do that one at home. It turned out great and so refreshing at the end of a day of Triple Digits!

In blender, combine:

2 cups cubed fresh cantaloupe

1/2 cup 2% milk

2 TBSP sugar

1 TBSP honey

Blend the dickins out of it for about a minute…. and voila! A smoothie as beautiful as it is cool and refreshing!

combine all ingredients

blend the dickins out of it!

Aahh! Refreshing!

I do. I especially love those no-brainer cleaning wipes, but they are NOT great for the environment and usually contain chemicals that are harsh (I had a case of contact dermatitis from one). So here is my answer to this conundrum: Make your own cleaning wipes. It’s less expensive and more enviro-practical (is that a word? I think I just made that up ) than conventional wipes once you have your supplies set up. I think it is well worth the minute or two of set-up work. Here’s what I did:

Homemade Cleaning Wipes

I’ve put several wash rags that have seen better days in an old baby wipes container (left over from the Munchkin) and soaked them in a cleaning solution that is not so harsh for my fam and me. I can get a lot of cleaning miles out of one wash rag and, when it is done I just chunk it in the washing machine (Sometimes it helps to mark the wash rag as a ‘cleaner’ in some way so it does not end up in the ‘regular’ pile).

To do this, you can follow one of the three recipes below. Just make enough solution to keep the wipes moist, not soaked. If you do put too much in, no worries, drain out excess liquid or squeeze the wipes a bit to adjust.

MULTIPURPOSE WIPES

~ Use equal parts white vinegar and tap water.

OR

~ Use 1: 1/2 parts water and an environmentally safe multipurpose cleaner ( I like Mrs. Meyer’s… they all smell so good!).

GLASS CLEANER

~ Use a 2:1:1/2 ratio of water, white vinegar and isopropyl alcohol.

DISINFECTING/ANTIBACTERIAL  WIPES

~ Make a 3:1 solution of water and any disinfecting/antimicrobial product. I like using a scented antibacterial hand soap.

Now have fun cleaning house!

Pill pockets, ready to go!

We have an old, chauvinistic dog that has developed food allergies this year. He has absolutely refused to take his antibiotics with the stubbornness of Archie Bunker…. Until we discovered Pill Pockets- they are soft, hollow, flavored “treats” to put your pet’s medication in. But at $10 for a quantity of 30, the ol’ fart is going to break the bank. So it was time to get creative and figure a way around this.The treats reminded me of something vaguely familiar…play dough!

Enter: a modified homemade play dough recipe!

It works great! Here’s what you need and how to do it:

¾ c. flour

3 tbsp any kind of steak seasoning

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 TB. Cream of Tartar

1 cup water

1 TB. oil

Mix dry ingredients in small sauce pan, add liquid ingredients and heat over medium -high burner. Keep stirring without stopping or it will burn; dough will start to form a ball and keep stirring until it is no longer wet and sticky. Turn off burner and dump the ball of dough on to a sheet of wax paper to cool. When it is cool enough to handle, start pulling off pieces and rolling into little balls- make them big enough to hide your pet’s pill in. Store in a zip top baggie in the fridge.

Sneaky, sneaky!

BUT here comes redemption for you and me, folks. The best part is that in the amount of time it takes you to read this post, you will have skipped all the figure-it-out-for-yourself-dum-dum process that it took me. You will be healthier, richer  and greener…. and… drum roll, please……

Make your pizza at home!

Triple benefit! 1. You have control of the ingredients on your pizza (better for us calorie counters) 2. It is WAY cheaper to use what you’ve got in the pantry/ refrigerator than to have it brought to you (and no one is burning gasoline… oh God, another soap box) and 3. NO greasy box.

Here is what I do on pizza night: You will need a mixing bowl, spoon, pizza stone and rolling-pin.

I make my own crust with this recipe. You could tweak the type of flour you use, I suppose, to make it a tad bit healthier, but my family likes it as-is:

1. 2 & 1/2 cups flour
2. 1 cup warm water
3. 1 tbsp sugar
4. 2 &1/4 tsp dry active yeast
5. 3 tbsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
6. 1 tsp salt

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in mixing bowl and allow dough to rest 10 minutes.  Start oven to preheat to 425 degrees F.

In the ten minutes that the dough is resting and oven is heating, I dig out all the toppings I will use. It’s never the same twice because I typically use leftovers from the last couple of days: spaghetti sauce, shredded cheese, chicken meat from a rotisserie bird, spinach, basil from the garden, fresh tomato, a couple of slices of pastrami, and those last two strips of bacon that weren’t enough to cook at breakfast. You get the idea- be creative!

Get ready to assemble the pizza: I use a pizza stone, but I think you could use a greased cookie sheet as well (just watch it to see if you need to adjust your cooking time). Sprinkle some flour or cornmeal on the pizza stone to prevent sticking. Scoop the dough out of the bowl it has been resting in and knead it out for a minute on a floured surface. On same surface, use your rolling-pin to shape it into a circle that will fit on your pizza stone ( For those using a cookie sheet, I think you could just press it into the sheet with your fingers, just be sure to not poke a hole in the crust). Gently pick up your shaped dough and place it on the pizza stone and start adding your toppings. Baking time is about 20-25 minutes, less time with fewer toppings or more time with thicker toppings. Allow pizza to set for five minutes or so after taking it out of the oven to let it cool and coagulate.

This yields one medium/largish pizza with an “original” thickness crust, approximately 12 inches in diameter. If you want it thicker or thinner, larger or smaller, just play with it and decide how you want it. I even separated the dough into three small personal sized pizzas once and fit them all at once on the stone and they turned out fine.

There you have it, people. Economic, eco-friendly, and easier on the waistline.

Muah! Enjoy!