I am taking a break from the baby saga posts to bring you this important public health announcement: sometimes, leaving your milk out overnight so it spoils with bacteria is OK! That’s how yogurt is made. And when you make your own yogurt, not only can you enjoy the delicious product of your (very light) toils, but you can also rest assured that less plastic was used and discarded!

I have been struggling for quite some time to find alternatives to our very trash intensive lifestyle. Everything comes in small, and often plastic packaging. We eat a lot of yogurt, and although I love the flavored Chobani cups, we used to have about 10 plastic cups a week (if not more). I could only use so many for projects, and they would often just end up in the trash (even recycling would use a lot of energy, plus not all recycling centers takes that type of plastic). Then we moved on to the quart yogurt containers, cheaper AND better for the environment. I would simply take the yogurt to work in a reusable container. However, even these containers started piling up. We were eating a quart a week, and again, how many plastic containers can I use during my lifetime? It’s terrifying to consider, really, how much plastic we are all putting out there.  If we were to use a quart container a week for the next 50 years we would have thrown away 2,600! Even worse, when we used the small cups, 10 a week for the next 50 years would have been 26,000 plastic cups!!

Duly sobered by my calculations, I decided to look up how to make  yogurt at home and found that it was actually quite simple! I used The Kitchn’s recipe. It has more details and such, so be sure to check it out, but here is my short version of the process:

1. Leave milk out all night, and it will become yogurt. The end.

Just kidding! You need to do a few more things, but that’s the gist.

• You need a half a gallon of milk, I used whole for creamier yogurt.
• You will also need a half of cup of a yogurt you like, the plain un-sweetened version with no flavors added. I used plain Chobani.
• You will also need a pot with a lid, a thermometer and a cup or bowl.

1. Heat the half gallon of milk until 200 F. Apparently this changes the protein structure so that it creates a solid as it cools instead of just separating.

2. Let it cool to 115 F, then scoop about a cup out and mix that with your half cup of yogurt. This seems to slightly warm the yogurt so it dissolves better into the milk.

3. Pour the thinned yogurt mix back with the milk.

4. Cover the pot with the lid and transfer to the turned off oven, with the light on. You can also wrap a towel around the pot, which I probably should have done. Between the oven light, towel and insulated oven environment, the milk will stay around 110 F. I checked every hour or so and that was the case.

5. Leave the milk to become yogurt for at least four hours, although it says you can leave it over night. I took mine out after five hours but it was still very light, so next time I’ll probably leave it in longer so it gets thicker. If you want Greek yogurt, you are supposed to strain it with cheesecloth, which we also should have done.

6. Be sure to save some of your yogurt before you add any flavoring to it to use in your next batch! Then add whatever you’d like to the yogurt. We did one quart with vanilla and sugar, the other is probably going to be honey flavored. And of course you can add fruit, granola, chocolate chips, whatever you can think of!

It was relatively simple to make yogurt, and fun too! I am saving a fair amount of money by making it, since a half gallon of milk costs about $2 and makes about half a gallon of yogurt, which would cost me $8 when buying quarts (I am rounding for simplicity). Even though we will still have waste from it, I can buy the half gallon in a carton, which is easier to recycle, and will only be ending up with 1,300 containers in 50 years. It’s not perfect, but much better!

One of the fun parts of expecting a tiny human is all the fun stuff you can play with and learn to use. Baby stuff seems to be extra complicated to use, which is an oxymoron since it’s stuff meant for a small person with the mental processing capability of a chicken (actually, that’s insulting to chickens, I think they are smarter…please no hate mail. I also assume that as a new parent I will have the mental processing capability of a cabbage, but I’ll be entrusted with operating all these complicated things!!). Among the fun items we needed, was a crib. We decided it would be easier to just put baby in the crib from the start, since they have an infant setting in which the mattress is high up (plus everyone knows the whole separate sleeping arrangement is likely to be a nice dream like a sunrise hike on Hawksbill Peak with a newborn. Nice, but not likely). Hence commenced our search for appropriate cribs.

Knowing Modern Domestica and her spouse, with past posts in which we made our own bed, you may assume we wanted to take up the satisfying task of making a solid wooden crib from scratch, ala Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. But this is actually inconvenient, based on the scary safety info I researched and the lack of cheap and environmentally friendly solid mahogany wood lying around. In a sweet gesture, some friends volunteered to buy a crib for us. But which one? All I wanted was a safe, efficient, straightforward crib with no extra frills that would contain our child in his sleeping. Basically what I dubbed a “baby jail.” IMPOSSIBLE. A plain “baby jail” is like a unicorn, easily imagined but hard to prove its existence with facts. Like the search for a unicorn, or a satisfying grocery shopping experience, the search for this crib was a little exhausting and may have caused me to pull my hair out. Everything was expensive, very frilly, too heavy, not great materials, not in stock, dangerous looking, etc. I had liked the Gulliver at IKEA but it was basically not being sold anymore. Finally, we settled on the Sniglair Crib fom IKEA, super simple and plain but with good safety ratings and exactly what we wanted. Finding a plain “baby jail” took searching through cribs that cost $800 rai stones and shipped from the small Micronesian island of Yap in the Pacific where they train raccoons to treat the plastic mixture that is poured into the crib mold.*

And here is the fun tale of putting together the crib. Because it’s IKEA, we are contractually obligated to make fun of it.

Putting together an IKEA Sniglar Crib (ie: baby jail)

Uno. Make sure you have a drink. But if you are pregnant, you can’t drink, so make sure you are relaxed and hydrated. There’s no way to know how bad this upcoming ordeal will be…

Dos. Track down a non-pregnant person if you are pregnant yourself. It is unclear how much lifting  and jiggling will take place, but at least get someone to carry the super insanely heavy box into the room you will be building the crib in. Also, freak out for a second when you realize the crib is too wide for a doorway and hence it will have to be taken apart to be moved anywhere.

Tres. Open the box, don’t cut yourself! Look for the directions pamphlet. Open the pamphlet. Interpret the pamphlet.

Cuatro. Gather the necessary tools. This may include going into the super hot, humid garage in the middle of the afternoon. Try not to pass out. This is why being hydrated is important.

Cinco. Open the package further to find the hardware included. Count the hardware, and make sure you have a quizzical look on your face to convey the confusion of what each hardware piece is for.

Seis. It helps to lay a towel on the floor to not scratch the hardwood.

Siete. Continue following directions, only to
find they are actually super simple and easy. WHAT? Simple IKEA furniture? Yes!

Ocho. Tighten everything well to make sure it’s sturdy. I don’t recommend leaning on it or standing in it. Just jiggle it a bit.

Nueve. Take a step back to contemplate the giant crib which will house a teeny tiny person. Baby jail complete!

*No, this is not true. I made this up. There IS an island called Yap and they DO use rai stones as currency, sometimes, but no raccoons or plastic cribs in sight.

I’ve been thinking a lot about patience recently. I’ve had to be very patient waiting for the baby to come, not knowing when he will but also understanding that it will happen when it is going to. I’ve also had to have patience with my body and some of the physical discomfort of late pregnancy, and of course I anticipate having to be patient after birth. I will have to be patient with myself, to give myself time to recover, to not expect to jump back into everything right away. And I think parenting will require a good dose of patience (I’m not completely sure, but it’s a gut feeling I have).

I’m not a naturally patient person. In fact, being mostly a type A personality that can never sit still does not give you much inborn patience. I have tried to cultivate it throughout the years and I find mindfulness has really helped me. Putting myself in the mindset to enjoy a task, regardless of how tedious it may seem, is a good way to practice for all the upcoming tedious tasks of life (life is full of tedious tasks, and if you were to skip them all you’d end up with a very short one). A task I find tedious sometimes is sweeping, but as I wrote in Sweeping is Zen I try to be mindful as I sweep the house and take that time to clear my mind, instead of being impatient over how long it is taking. Another of my less favorite tasks is folding laundry (I’m really not a great folder of clothing). But as I fold, I am trying to practice the art of folding and giving the clothing the respect it deserves as something we wear everyday.

It is very hard to be patient sometimes, and I’m sure my patience will be surely tested in the coming months as a new mom. All I can do is practice some patience through domesticity, as I await the incoming bundle of tiny human that is on his way, maybe now maybe later (it better be soon!). Until then, I will go back to folding some tiny laundry (folding baby clothes is mostly impossible).

As mentioned in my previous post, there will be a mini-Modern Domestica running around soon (well, he won’t run much for a while yet). As such, we have purchased and mostly received large baby items that facilitate everyday tiny human needs. Of course, all these items must pass a thorough safe inspection when being made and safety regulations are being updated yearly. As a new-to-be parent, nothing freaks you  out as much as reading about these safety precautions, recalls and worst case scenarios. Did you know that a tiny human could suffocate on a sheet wrinkle? Yes. A wrinkle on the bed sheet could potentially kill your baby. A screw missing from a pack n’ play could mean the whole thing collapses on the poor tiny human. And let’s not even get into harmful chemicals, rash-producing materials, exposed wires or splintered wood. It’s like a giant, scary Ninja Warrior course in which your child is purposefully trying to trip and fall into the water (according to things I read. I don’t really know this first-hand. So far I’ve only been responsible for fish and cats).

Putting aside the fears, it is fun to read directions and figure out how some things work by playing with them. Definitely want to get acquainted with the stroller features before there’s a tiny human in it who could get folded inside. It’s nice to test the softness of fabrics by washing them ahead of time and making sure tiny lint particles don’t rub out on the poor tiny human’s face and nostrils. Testing everything out is the fun part! And what better way to do it than using your cats!

***NOTICE*** No cats were harmed in the taking of these pictures. They may have been slightly humiliated, but for the most part they volunteered their stunt-work services and were rewarded with treats and extra petting.

And there you have it! Come back in a few weeks when we test out the diapers, car seat, baby food, swaddling a baby and baby bath-time products on the cats*.

*I AM JOKING.

As some of you may know, Modern Domestica is about to become submerged in a whole new world of domesticity that involves a tiny human. Tiny humans, or babies* as some people refer to them, come with a whole variety of needs: being fed, being clothed and diapered, entertained and comforted. It is a good time to use some domestic ingenuity and come up with simple, efficient, and hopefully inexpensive and environmentally friendly ways to satisfy these needs.

Once we knew we were expecting a tiny human, I had some questions (well, I actually had about a million and a half, but we’ll stick to the domestic side of things). What do babies need? And how do they affect the routine domesticity of the home?

The first question I have mostly answered. Here is a basic list of things we have that the tiny human will need:

• A place to sleep: crib, pack n’ play, bassinet, etc. We were gifted a crib and then someone happened to give us a used pack n’ play so we have a travel option as well!
• Feeding: If breastfeeding this is easier! Just need a nursing cover and a nursing pillow, which I made. Later on may need pump and bottles and accessories (but I will worry about that later).
• Clothes: Keeping it simple, and trying to get lots of hand-me-downs. Tons of gifts as well.
• Diapers: Cloth vs. Disposable, possibly a pail or wet bag, a fancy changing station or a towel on the floor, wipes (homemade, disposable or reusable). We decided to give cloth diapers a try, and make our own disposable wipes. For now, towels on the floor as a “changing station.”
• Car seat: no discussion there.
• Traveling method: strollers, baby bjorns, baby wraps. We bought a used stroller for $30 that is compatible with the car seat and can be used by itself, plus someone gifted us a ring sling.
• Bath time: towels, soaps, shampoos, bathtubs, etc. We decided to use the sink, and have been gifted all the other essentials.

This is the most simple list, without the toys, traveling devices, accessories and giant plastic things that make life easier. Once the tiny human arrives, I am sure this list may change a bit. 

We decided to give the tiny human a room of his own, mostly as a storage room for his stuff (being honest here, doubt he’ll sleep or spend much time in this room until the age of 1 or so). First, we had to clean up the room, which was previously being used to store other stuff. Then, painting! Picking a color was difficult. At first we wanted green. Animals painted on the walls, safari, then jungle. Then a tree. Then the color became yellow. And birds. Then we ended up with blue, but mostly because the theme became the ocean. Why the ocean, you’d ask, especially if you know of Modern Domestica’s irrational fear of whales? Well, first of all my husband grew up near the ocean, and I didn’t, and the ocean is cool (those statements are more intelligent than they appear to be). Also,  aquatic life is much easier to draw and paint than the more complex muscle and hair of many land animals.
If I ask you to draw a jellyfish, you can probably do that. If I ask you to draw a convincing ant-eater, well…Lastly, the ocean is the ocean… It’s just the ocean. Whereas if I ask you to draw me some land creatures, then we have all kind of complicated questions- is this a rain forest or a desert or a tundra? Land animals don’t just float there, so there has to be a horizon or grass or something.  A zebra floating next to a goat is…strange. Too complicated.

Once the room preparations   were complete, we could start arranging furniture in the room and putting things into their places. It is very hard to decide where something should go if you have never used it, and won’t be using it for a while. But I did my best to guess the most accessible places for things I’d need in the middle of the night while completely overwhelmed and possibly  hallucinating. It’s a fun exercise.

Finally, attempting to figure out a new domestic routine with the new person in the house. This one is much harder to do in advance, but there were a few things I could do to prepare. For example, much more laundry! Especially with cloth diapers. Also, freezing a ton of meals so we don’t have to cook for a few weeks. And keeping hallways and doorways clear of furniture and obstacles, in preparation for zombie-walking in the middle of the night (or day?).

These are just some of the projects that Modern Domestica has been working on. Stay tuned for more Baby Sagas as we explore this whole new world of giant plastic things and complex terminology!

*Searching for the definition of “babies” on the internet could lead one to believe the term applies to a type of shopping or product, since everything that comes up is related to retail. But in reality, a baby is actually an infant, or a young version of the species. Who knew?

As a recent project I decided to replace all the lightbulbs in our house with LEDs. I was inspired by Mr. Money Moustache’s article about cutting your electrical bill by 80% even though most of the things he listed were things we simply can’t do in our house or are already trying to do. Something we didn’t have and could definitely change was LED bulbs.

For this project, I first researched a little about LED bulbs. They are all sold with good clear labels as to which wattage they are meant to replace, and most have a good guide for the type of light they produce. Not only are they labeled as “natural daylight” or “soft light,” they also have a chart on the back that gives you where they place in a range of Kelvins, from warm to cool and a value of “lumens” for brightness levels.

Furthermore, they all have a calculation of how much each bulb costs per year. Most of these calculations are based on the household, cost of electricity, etc. so I will leave it up to you to see how much you spend. But let’s just take a look at the basic fact that each LED uses between 8.5 and 9.5 W instead of their 60W counterparts. Even though each lightbulb may cost between $6.25 and $14.00 (for the more specialized sizes) the amount of money and energy they save on the long run is worth it.

After researching, I counted how many I needed. We have 18 regular 60W E26 base bulbs, five 60W bulbs with small bases, two 40W small base bulbs, and 4 specialized bathroom ones. That’s 29 bulbs! And our house is relatively small. Makes you think about how much electricity we use… I went to trusty Lowes and bought 30 bulbs, one extra in case I needed it. At my Lowes, they sold each bulb individually so there was no mass purchase savings. I spent $273.50 on our 30 bulbs. Seems shocking until you consider that each bulb will last 22+ years, and spend 50 times less electricity.

When I got home, I dumped out my gazillion bulbs and got to work. I found that LED bulbs are heavier, interestingly. I also noticed that there is a half a second of delay between turning on the light and having the bulb actually light. I guess this may be an LED thing, it’s not annoying but just something I noticed. Finally, as in all lights, there is a big difference between “natural daylight” and “soft light.” The natural daylight is a 5,000 on the Kelvin scale whereas the soft light is 2,700 K. They are both 800 lumens. Just another thing to consider when replacing the usual bulbs with LEDs.

Hope this helps if you are considering making a change to LEDs. Since we’ve just done it, I have no numbers yet for the difference in my electrical bill but I’m certain it will have been a good investment.

I really love pies. Who doesn’t? And the best part seems to be the dough. Flaky, crunchy, delicious dough. Once you’ve had homemade, store bought doesn’t always cut it. But unless you’ve got a hired chef hanging out in the kitchen, homemade means you have to do it yourself. And I honestly dislike rolling dough.

Some people (like my husband) enjoy the meticulous patience required to do it.  I, on the other hand… don’t. I don’t like rolling anything for that matter, whether it’s cookie dough or pie dough or even clay for ceramics. I always get frustrated. It sticks, requires so much flour, and makes such a mess. Plus it’s time consuming. It’s a messy, anger-management time in the kitchen for me. So if you have that problem, here’s a trick that helps:

You can roll the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap! The same wrap you used when you refrigerated the dough. Just make sure the two layers aren’t bunched together on the ends so the dough has space to fill out. There is no mess and the dough won’t stick to the rolling pin. It’s such an easy solution, but one that doesn’t always come to mind.

Winter has been busy and Spring looks like it will be the same, but busy means more projects! Soon it will be time to garden and time to clean and organize. But for now, I leave you with the first crocus of the season coming up in our yard.

We recently got back from a trip to Argentina where we did a bunch of awesome things including beautiful parks and historical sites, road tripping, hanging out with family and friends, and generally taking in the summer sun and other culture. It was a great trip!

The food inspiration I had while in Argentina was beets! I know. Out of all the awesome culinary experiences we had, I decided to write about beets. But keep in mind that I was fascinated by how many beets I ate while I was there without even realizing it. Beets are sometimes difficult to love, but so prevalent during winter. All you need to do is get inspired and add beets to recipes that you would have never considered adding them to. We ate beets in salads, sandwiches, even on pizza! My favorite salad was delicious and wholesome, and it included rice, carrots, peas, potatoes, hard boiled eggs and beets, all chopped up small and mixed with oil, mayo or even salsa golf (which is mayo, lemon and ketchup). I loved one sandwich so much I even took a picture of it! It seemed like a good winter sandwich since it involves some root vegetables. Here’s the recipe:

Veggie Sandwich with Beets

• French bread
• One carrot, shredded
• Lettuce, shredded
• Red cabbage. shredded
• Cheese slices, whatever you’d like
• Mayo, oil, vinegar, or whatever is your favorite condiment

I also found myself wanting something sweet the other day and we had four small beets left over.  I decided to try this chocolate cake which has a surprise ingredient: beets! You’d never know, because you can’t taste them.

Here’s the recipe. I usually half it to make less cake:

Surprise Choc Cake

• 2 cups of cooked and mushed beets
• 1/2 cup of applesauce
• 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar (sometimes I do half white and half brown for added flavor)
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup of baking cocoa
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• 2 and 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup of pecans or walnuts (optional)

Mix the mushed beets and applesauce in a small bowl. In a large mixing bowl, mix the sugar, oil, yogurt and eggs and beet with a mixer for 2 mins or until well mixed. Then add cocoa and vanilla, and beet/applesauce mix and beet for another minute. Add the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and stir with a spoon until just mixed. Finally fold in the choc and nuts if using, pour into 9×13″ pan and bake at 350 until knife inserted in center comes out clean. It usually takes between 45 and 50 minutes.

You can serve with sprinkled confectioners sugar, or frost it. Even serve with cream or ice cream.

Hope this helps you eat your beets! Just be adventurous!

It’s been a while! I could lecture myself on time management, motivation, etc. But I could also use excuses like “end of year is busy” and “I was working on setting up my new site.” As you’ve noticed, Modern Domestica is now its own domain woohoo! Thanks to my husband who is good at purchasing sites and managing my technological affairs.

Since it’s been busy, I’m doing another post on a good quick meal which still feels semi-healthy and gourmet. Pizza is, like, seriously the best food invention. Throw anything on bread and bake it and it’s going to be awesome, unless of course you throw some rotten vegetables on moldy bread. But who knows, maybe you’re into that kind of gourmet (blue cheese is, after all, covered in mold).

But I digress. Here is a recipe for a bruschetta-like pizza that I got from my mom, who cleverly thought of it herself.

Ingredients

Sliced Italian bread (ideally the big round loaf that makes long narrow slices)

Sundried tomato bruschetta or paste

Onion, julienned

Capers (if you are like my husband, these are definitely optional and most definitely not appreciated)

Sautee onions in a little bit of olive oil until they become transparent and set aside. Spead the Sundried tomato paste or bruschetta on the bread slices, then place onions and capers on top. You can also add cheese if you’d like, but it’s perfectly good without it. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 mins.

This is awesome because you can substitute and experiment with different options like using basil pesto instead of sundried tomato pesto. If you add a salad, it becomes a meal.

Stay warm out there! And Happy Holidays!

I’ve been thinking about pumpkins a lot, especially so close to Halloween. The whole month of October seems dedicated to these wonderful orange fruit that have so much character. According to the top paragraph that appears when you Google pumpkins, they “are members of the enormously diverse Cucurbitaceae family, which contains more than 100 genera and over 700 species” including other squash and gourds. Continuing with my research, I discovered that gourds may have been planted and carved as early as 8,000 BCE. Our American Jack o’ Lantern tradition comes from Celtic Irish traditions of carving scary faces, but they used turnips and other root vegetables. It wasn’t until colonists arrived to the Americas that pumpkins were used as Jack o’ Lanterns. Can you imagine carving into a turnip? It sure would be difficult, but then again maybe a better use for turnips than actually eating them… (no offense to turnip lovers!). Here are some more pumpkin facts from the History Channel.

Glorified squash really..

Don’t mind the mate in the background 😛