Adventures in Cloth Diapering: The Post about Stripping

Trust me, this post isn't as scandalous as the title makes it sound.

When I first started researching about cloth diapers,  I kept coming across the term "stripping diapers". I had no idea what that meant, so, as with many things, I asked my mom (who had cloth diapered me and my three younger brothers). She had no idea, either.

I did some reading and found out that diapers occasionally need to be "stripped" to remove hard water buildup, detergent residue, and other oils from diaper ointments, lotions, etc. Mom had never heard of stripping diapers because she only used the old-fashioned 100% cotton prefolds (the best kind, in my humble opinion), washed them with detergent and a little bleach, and dried them on the clothesline. Stripping is mostly necessary for diapers with microfleece (and other synthetic materials) and diapers and/or inserts made with hemp.  Build-up isn't as much of a problem with diapers made with cotton or bamboo.

My next question: when do you do it? The same answer kept coming up: when the diapers get really stinky. This seemed a little confusing. I thought, don't dirty diapers always stink?  Then when I started cloth diapering, I realized that they don't really stink all that much, especially if you use Bac-Out on them and keep them in a good diaper pail . Granted, if you let them sit in the diaper pail for days, then they'll stink.

But then the day came when they really started to stink. Not so much in a gross, poopy kind of way, but an overpowering, make-your-eyes-water ammonia smell. It was bad. Plus, they weren't absorbing as well as they had before.  It was then I knew it was time to strip the diapers. (For other ways to tell if your diapers need stripping, check out this funny video. Oh, how I can relate...)

I read all sorts of methods to do this, among them boiling them in a pot on the stove or washing them in a bathtub.  Here are the two ways I went about stripping my baby's diapers; one of them did the job.

Attempt #1 -- RLR

As I read about the different diapering stripping methods, I kept reading about a product called RLR . It's not a bleach or soap or anything -- it just a powder you add to your laundry that is supposed to lift detergent residue, mineral build-ups, and other particles in material. Lots of people swore by the stuff, so I ordered a few packets.

Being a lover of all things retro, the packaging of this stuff made me happy. I love that the company hasn't changed the look of these packets in decades. It looks like something I would have found in my grandparents' laundry room.

Anyway...

I used a whole packet in my top-loading washing machine. It made everything more bubbly, so I did some extra rinses to make sure everything was out. I was pretty stoked to find that my baby's diapers didn't have that ammonia smell when I changed him.

The only problem: it was fleeting. The smell came back after about a week or so.

The verdict on RLR:  I think the stuff works, but I think it'd be better to use it early on, before the diapers get serious build-up. I think it'd be good use preemptively, like once every 1-2 months to catch the build-up before it gets bad. You can get each packet for about $1-2 (I got mine here).

Attempt #2 -- Dawn Dish Soap & Bleach

I hardly ever use bleach. I'm kind of scared of the stuff. Not just because of the fumes (though that's a concern too, what with all the vinegar I use in my house. The two don't mix.) and chlorine, but because I've had plenty of clothes ruined by it in the past. But those diapers stunk so I had to bring out the big guns. I figure that the diapers are rinsed so many times that there won't be much bleach coming in contact with my baby's adorable little bum.

To strip diapers this way, you'll need to use 1 tablespoon of Dawn dish soap (the blue, original kind) for top-loading washing machines (1 teaspoon for high efficiency washers) and 1/2 cup of bleach.  Wash the diapers in hot water, adding the dish soap and bleach during the wash cycle.

It will get super bubbly and reminiscent of cartoons or sitcoms when the husband or kids do the laundry.

Once that first cycle is done, rinse and then rinse again.

And rinse again. Keep rinsing until there are no suds in the water. That's it -- diaper stripping is no big deal, though it does use a lot of water. (For a great video of the process -- it's the one that helped me -- click here.)

Verdict on Dawn & bleach: it works!  The diapers not only stink way less, but they absorb better, too.

Typically, you only need to strip the diapers every few months. My baby's diapers didn't need stripping until after his first birthday -- this may have been partly due to him being breastfed that first year (it's been my experience that breastfed baby diapers are really easy to clean) or maybe because we mostly used the cotton prefolds during his first year (we're definitely using pocket diapers more as our little guy gets older -- it's faster and easier with him always on the go!).  You can also help your diapers require less stripping by doing a few things:

• do a cold water pre-rinse (I just use the rinse cycle on my washing machine) before washing your diapers because this gets urine and other residues agitated out (plus, if you don't do it, your diapers are basically washing around in urine and poopy hot water, which is counter-productive).  
• use enough detergent. The ammonia smell in my baby's diapers got really bad after I tried using soap nuts (for my experience with those, you can read about it here) because our hard water made them less effective and not enough saponin (the natural soap in soap nuts) was being released. 
• detergents do matter when it comes to build-up and some are better than others. A great post about different detergents and how they rate when it comes to build-up can be found here (I just found out that I've been using a not-so-great detergent for microfleece diapers. Oops.)
• use ointments and creams that are safe for cloth diapers -- some have oils and ingredients in them that stain and stick to the fibers of cloth diapers, causing serious build-up. This link has a pretty good list of what creams to use and not to use on baby when cloth diapering. 

It almost always surprises people when I tell them that cloth diapering doesn't smell nearly as bad as diapering with disposables (I remember well the days when I'd empty my first son's diaper pail. Gag.), but only if you do it right. With the right supplies and methods, you can easily keep the stink out of cloth diapering.

Note: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. 

{This post is linked up to Homestead Barn Hop and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways..}

Meatless Monday: Greek Salad-Turned-Sandwich

I'll just come out and say it: I've already done a post on this recipe. I wrote it back in 2010 and used some pictures taken in terrible overhead lighting, giving the pictures a weird, yellow-green hue that couldn't even be fixed in Photoshop. So, that's one reason I'm revisiting this recipe: the pictures just don't do it justice. Even the pictures I have for this new post probably won't do it justice because it's really, really good.

Reason #2 I'm revisiting this recipe: I've improved it! This time, I made the dressing (an Italian dressing, but it's very similar to Greek dressing) from scratch. Holy cow -- it was EASY! I'm embarrassed that I mentioned in the post that I was too lazy to make my own dressing and that I opted for the bottled stuff. In fact, I sort of want to punch myself for ever buying bottled Italian dressing.

Reason #3:  You have to make this meal this time of year when garden produce (whether from your own garden or from the farmers' market) is so fresh and perfect. The homegrown cucumbers and tomatoes (especially the tomatoes) in this recipe make it sing. 

Like I mentioned in the original post, there's no set-in-stone recipe for this dinner, except for the dressing. You just sort of guess how much food you'll need to feed the people at your table and just go with it.

To make this meal, you'll need:

• Spinach -- baby or regular (just tear it into smaller bites if you use regular)
• Tomatoes, chopped
• Onion, sliced (the restaurant recipe my mom recreated this from uses red onion, but I've always seem to use white)
• Cucumbers, sliced
• Pitas or flatbread (alas, I didn't do this from scratch this time -- just pita wraps from Costco.)
• Feta cheese
• Dressing (see recipe below)

First step: make the dressing.

The recipe I used to make this dressing comes from one of my favorite cookbooks (review to come soon), The Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila.

In a pint-sized Mason jar (or any other jar that holds 2 cups), mix:

3/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 1-2 lemons)

4 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley OR 4 teaspoons dried

4 garlic cloves, finely minced

2 Tablespoons chopped fresh basil OR 2 teaspoons dried

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon salt

Black pepper, to taste

Balsamic vinegar (optional)

Screw the lid on the jar tightly and shake for ten seconds. If using dried herbs, let the dressing sit for 15 minutes to rehydrate the herbs. Adjust the black pepper to taste. 

Unless you're making a lot of salad, you won't use up this whole recipe. This dressing will store in the fridge for 2 weeks in a covered container (just be sure to shake before serving).  Like I said before, making your own dressing is seriously easy.

Once you've made your dressing, fire up your grill. Brush the pita bread lightly with olive oil and grill the bread for a minute or so, just so that the bread is warmed up and you get those cool-looking grill marks on each side.

Toss the spinach, cucumbers, onion, and tomato together in a large bowl. Drizzle the dressing over it and toss some more, coating the salad with as much dressing as you like. 

Pile the salad on one half of the pita, sprinkle with feta, crack a little bit of black pepper over it, and give it a splash of balsamic vinegar. Fold the other half over and devour. The husband and I were going nuts over this the other day -- even our five-year-old liked it.  It's such a healthy and easy recipe and just perfect for these late-summer evenings.

Note: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. 

{This post is linked up to Homestead Barn Hop, Your Green Resource, and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways..}

Cookbook Review: Food in Jars

Can you feel it in the air? Canning season is upon us!

Sure, you can put food in jars year-round, but there's just something about canning in August and September. This time of year puts me in this sort of content yet industrious mood.  Plus, there are few things more satisfying than seeing jars full of delicious and fresh food in the pantry and thinking, "I did that!". I'm telling you, canning is good for the soul!  (Watch this to see what I mean.)

For a while, it seemed like canning was going out of style and becoming a lost art (I used to have older women gawk in line at me at the store, in my early-20s and with a shopping cart full of jars. Often they would say, "I didn't think anyone still did that."). Now there seems to be a resurgence and interest in canning (I went to the same store last week and found the canning supply shelves looking pretty empty). It isn't just for people with huge families, people with massive gardens, or people with tons of time (are there people with tons of time?) -- anyone can do it. Which leads me to one of my latest cookbook acquisitions:  Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan.

For years, my go-to (and only) canning cookbook has been the classic Ball Blue Book of Preserving and it's a classic for a reason. That said, I'm really enjoying this new book. Here are a few of the reasons:

1. The emphasis on small-batches.
I think a lot of people write canning off because they think that it's super time-consuming and that it isn't practical unless you have a big family and tons of room for food storage. I can see why they'd think that. Canning twelve quarts of peaches doesn't make sense if you're single.  A couple isn't likely to go through dozens of jars of homemade jam in a year.  Problem is, so many traditional canning recipes call for lots and lots of produce. I think that's one thing that turns people off from canning.

I went to the store to buy some pectin a couple weeks ago and saw that Ball has sort of ditched their boxes of pectin and have gone with a container (pictured below) instead.

I think this represents a shift in how canning is approached. Instead of using the pre-packaged amount of pectin, you can measure it out according to your needs -- you can make twenty jars of jam or just two. And that's what I love about Food in Jars -- the title says it all: preserving in small batches. This makes canning less overwhelming, especially for new canners. That said, experienced canners, those who want quarts of canned tomato sauce and twenty jars of jam, can enjoy this book as well. You can make as much or as little as you want.

2. Small batches mean more variety.

This book has all sorts of recipes, ranging from the basics (like strawberry jam, salsa, dilly beans) to more unique recipes (like blackberry and sage jam, blood orange marmalade, lemony pickled cauliflower). Instead of limiting yourself to month after month of a certain kind of jam (that was our case when I made, not exaggerating, 30+ jars of pluot jam a few years ago), you can have a variety in your pantry. Plus, with smaller batches, it doesn't feel nearly as risky to try new things. Take her recipe for cantaloupe jam with vanilla -- it sounds kind of odd but intriguing. I haven't made it yet but I want to. What if I make it and it's not what I hoped it would be? It only took 2 1/2 cups of cantaloupe, a packet of liquid pectin, and some sugar (enough to make around 3 cups of jam), so my losses aren't so bad. Say I made some other kind jam with bushels of fruit and pounds of sugar and didn't like it? We'd be eating it whether we liked it or not -- it'd be too much to waste.  This isn't to say I'm against big-batch canning (I would make gallons upon gallons of this salsa if I could), but small-batch canning does mix things up a bit and make eating more interesting

3.  All the recipes can be processed without a pressure canner. 
No expensive gear needed for these recipes -- just a pot to cook your food in, a bunch of jars and lids, a canning funnel, some ladles and tongs, and your boiling water canner. I have yet to learn how to use a pressure canner (I'm not going to lie -- I find it pretty intimidating), so I was glad to flip through the pages of this book and know that I could make every.single.thing. in there if I wanted to.

4. So far, all the recipes I've tried from it are good!

My mom brought a gallon-sized bucket of tomatillos from her garden to my house last week (Mom and I have fun canning together this time of year), so we decided to try out the recipe from this book for tomatillo salsa. It was yummy! Sweet and tangy and little bit spicy -- it's a really nice salsa verde. Another recipe I've liked out of the book is the peach jam -- her recipe has cinnamon, nutmeg, a little lemon juice, and lemon zest in it. The result is a peach jam that has a warm, almost fall-like taste to it. After I'd put it in jars, me and my little baby (18 months old this month! Where does the time go?!) kept scraping the extra in the pot onto pieces of toast. So tasty!

5. Not all food in jars is fruit and/or vegetables. 
Though there are plenty of recipes for canned and processed produce, there are also recipes for things you can store in jars without any processing. McClellan includes lots of other kinds of recipes -- bread mixes, nut butters, chicken stock, vanilla, and more.

6.  It's pretty.
Maybe this seems superfluous, but for me, a pretty cookbook goes a long way. When a cookbook is laid out well, has lovely photography, and an appealing look to the text, I'm more prone to cook from it.

7.  It's not just recipes. 
I read cookbooks like I read novels. I love them. I especially love cookbooks that aren't just cookbooks. I like it when they're wordy, when recipes have a sort of preamble. I like to read about how the recipes came about, what thoughts the author had as he/she was making them, what the recipes remind them of, the memories associated with their food, that sort of stuff. It makes me feel like I'm right there cooking (or in this instance, canning) with them, like I know the author personally. (A perfect example of a cookbook author who does this well is Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman -- if I saw her in person, I'd probably just start a conversation with her like she was one of my neighbors, completely forgetting that she had no idea who I was.). Food in Jars has just the amount of wordiness I like.

8.  The book conveys a sense of confidence, energy, and fun.
So many people think that canning is scary, that one risks killing the people you love with a botulism-tainted jar of fruit. I would like to state for the record: canning does not need to be scary. Other people think they can't make it work in the space they have-- the author is proof that anyone can do it, no matter the size of your home or kitchen (here's a picture of her kitchen).  Marisa McClellan makes canning not only seem completely do-able, but fun. Her book, like her blog, has this feeling like she's right there with you, helpful and attentive (speaking of helpful, she pretty much answered any question a person left about her book in the reviews section on Amazon. Awesome.).

I recommend this book to both experienced and novice canners. Pick up a copy and start putting up all the great summer produce. 'Tis the season, after all.

Note: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. 

{This post is linked up to Your Green Resource, Little House Friday, Homestead Barn Hop, and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.}, 

Remi's Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

The pile of zucchinis on my kitchen counter is verging on ridiculous.  Almost every day, I'm bringing in yet another zucchini from the garden (as well as cucumbers -- hooray for pickles!).

Not that I'm complaining or anything...

If you've got a zucchini plant in your garden, I'm willing to bet you're in a similar situation. I've been grating them, freezing them, baking them, cooking them --  but there's still the seemingly unending pile of them. (I like how Barbara Kingsolver describes the pile:  "the pyramid of excess vegetable biomass that was taking over our lives.") 

What's a gardener to do with such a surplus? Foist them upon others, of course! As is the joke, a plastic grocery bag full of zucchini isn't always a welcome gift. Some people even shun this garden offering. But I know a sure way around this: give your zucchini away in loaf form.

The recipe I use for zucchini bread comes from my sweet friend and canning buddy, Remi. She gave me the recipe years ago and I'm not sure where she got the recipe or if it's something she came up with herself, but I'll just say that it's so good and so easy to make. Best of all, it makes two loaves -- one to give away and one to keep for yourself!

Remi's Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon orange or lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 9x5 loaf pans (Remi put a note on the recipe that she often does three mini loaves and 1 9x5 loaf with this recipe).

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda.

In a large bowl (I used my KitchenAid), beat the eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar and continue beating until well blended.

Stir in oil, vanilla, zucchini, pecans (if using), chocolate chips, and zest.

Stir in the dry ingredients.

Pour the batter into the greased pans. (I love my new baking mold on the left --  I got from Ikea. Works so well, the bread pops right out!).

Bake for 50 minutes or until tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Remove loaves from pan and cool. Let them cool completely before slicing.

Wrap the bread in some plastic wrap (or do something cuter if you're crafty and gifted at packaging things up -- that is certainly not a talent of mine) and give a loaf to a neighbor, teacher, friend, or anyone else you think deserves a loaf of the moist deliciousness that is this zucchini bread. It's a nice way to make the pile of zucchini on your counter a little smaller.

{This post is linked up to Your Green Resource, Homestead Barn Hop, and  Little House Friday.}

Abbey's Award-Winning Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I wonder who first thought to add zucchini to chocolate cake. I mean, who thought that chocolate and vegetables could mix?  Well, whoever it was, it was a smart move because the two mix up wonderfully, especially in this recipe.

My friend Abbey sent me this cake recipe after seeing all the zucchini recipes I'd been pinning on Pinterest.  Abbey is a marvelous cook and baker -- everything I've eaten that she has made is so delicious. She does all sorts of fun and interesting things with food (she just made her first wedding cake this past weekend). Once, she inspired me to make a fruit bouquet for my sister-in-law's bridal shower after she brought one to a dinner at my house. In fact, Abbey is the person who introduced me to Nutella (how crazy is it that I didn't have Nutella until I was an adult?!). A friend, indeed.

Her recipe for chocolate zucchini cake is A-MAZ-ING.  No wonder Abbey won first prize with it at the county fair years ago. I always struggle a little with cake because mine always turn out a little on the dry side. Not this cake. Every bite of this cake was perfectly moist. I also love it because it's sweet but not too sweet.

I'd better start freezing some grated zucchini because this recipe is going to be my go-to recipe for chocolate cake. I can totally see myself making it year-round -- for birthdays, for special occasions, whenever I have an excuse to have chocolate cake. It's that good.

To make this cake you'll need:

Cake:
1 cup oil (I used canola)
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup milk
2 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini

Frosting: 
3 Tbsp. milk
2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 - 3 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.

In a separate bowl (I used my KitchenAid), mix the oil, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and milk.

Add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet ingredients.

Add the grated zucchini.

Pour the batter into the greased pan and bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Move the cake to a wire rack to cool. While the cake is cooling, start making the frosting. Don't wait too long to do this -- you want to pour the frosting on the still-warm cake so that it soaks in some of the frosting. Oh, baby, this cake is goooood. 

In a medium saucepan, boil the milk, cocoa powder, and butter until it's incorporated and thickened a bit.

Pour the boiled mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer (or you could pour it into another bowl and use a hand-held mixer). Add the vanilla and powdered sugar. Mix everything together well.

Pour the warm frosting on top of the cake.  Let the frosting and cake cool and set before cutting.

Once it has cooled, cut a big piece out for yourself. Bask in the moist, chocolaty goodness of it. Then share it with someone, announce on Facebook to your neighbors that you have cake to give away (that's what I did), because you're going to want to eat the whole thing.

And to think that adding something from your vegetable garden makes chocolate cake even better...

{This post is linked up to Homestead Barn Hop, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Little House Friday, and Your Green Resource.}

Summer Zucchini Bites

After sort of...well...hoarding zucchini recipes for about a month or so, I finally got my first zucchini from my garden a couple weeks ago. I didn't know what to do with it because I had so many options. Then I came across a recipe for zucchini bites and decided that they were a good way to start using my zucchini crop.

I found this recipe on a blog called The Way to His Heart and the author of that blog got the recipe from The Naptime Chef .  I realize that it's not so original on my part to be re-posting a recipe that was re-posted from another blog, but these little bites are so good and so easy to make that I had to share. They're a great addition to any meal -- you can serve them as appetizers, as a side dish, or as good finger food for kids. This was the first zucchini-laced recipe I've given to my kids and they both liked it. Even my husband who professes to not like zucchini (I say professes because he has liked everything I've made with them so far) liked them. Plus, they're meat-free, so they make a great addition to a Meatless Monday menu.

To make these zucchini bites, you'll need:

2 large eggs
2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup grated cheese (the recipe I followed called for cheddar, but I used colby jack)
1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
pinch of freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Butter a muffin pan (I say skip the cooking spray and use butter for this one - the butter gives them a nice flavor and it makes the exterior brown and crunchy).  You can either use a regular, 12-cup muffin pan like I did or you could use a 24-cup mini muffin pan.

I would like to state for the record that if you're going to be making a bunch of recipes that require grated zucchini (or grated anything, for that matter) that you should consider using a food processor. It makes the whole process take just a couple minutes. Way better than that old box grater.

Lightly beat the eggs with a whisk. (I just have to mention that these eggs came from my ladies in the backyard. Hooray!)

Add the zucchini, onions, cheese, parsley, breadcrumbs, salt, and pepper to the beaten eggs. Mix with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. The mixture will be sticky and loose.

Using your hands (or a measuring cup if you don't want to get your hands messy), fill each muffin cup to the top. Not all of mine were to the brim of each cup -- it seemed a little bit of a stretch to fill all 12 cups of my muffin tin. Maybe my eggs were on the smallish size, who knows.

Bake for 15-18 minutes or until tops of the bites are browned and set (the center of each shouldn't wiggle when the pan is shaken). 

Let the zucchini bites cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to let them cool completely. The egg, cheese, and zucchini combination is great -- this recipe has inspired me to try adding grated zucchini to omelettes and fritattas.

Such a simple recipe yet such a tasty end product!

Note: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. 

{This post is linked up to Homestead Barn Hop, Little House Friday, Your Green Resource, and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.} 

Announcing Zucchini Week!

Last week was Shark Week (I've since vowed to never go in the ocean again). Though I highly doubt it will garner the same sort of popularity, I've decided to dub this week Zucchini Week on my little blog. Sure, zucchinis are not as exciting or interesting as a man-eating fish, but I'd say they're more versatile and much more useful -- and definitely less scary.

Anyway....

This is my first year growing zucchinis in my garden. It's kind of an odd thing since I've had my own garden for about seven years. Zucchinis are the foolproof gardening staple, but I've never grown them. I think it's because they take up a bit of room in the garden, especially if you're doing the square foot gardening method. I guess I always figured I'd rather use the garden space for green beans or tomatoes. But this year I had some extra space and decided to give them a try.

As is the vegetable's reputation, my zucchini plant has gone crazy! It grew so fast and the pile of zucchinis on my countertop just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I realize now that I should have been growing zucchinis every season -- they're this sort of gardening self-esteem boost. Even if nothing else worked in my garden, at least I'd have zucchinis!

Ever since I planted them, I've been collecting all sorts of zucchini recipes. There are a ton of them out there! Every day this week I'm going to share a recipe that I've tried out lately. I hope you like them. And I would love it if you shared some of your own zucchini recipes, either by leaving a link to your own zucchini blog posts in the comment section of each post or by emailing them to me {parsimoniousprincess(at)gmail(dot)com}.

Hooray for the vegetable that keeps on giving and giving!

Lessons Learned from My First Yard Sale, Part 2

(If you haven't read Part 1 of this series, you can find it HERE.)

The next morning came. I was up around 6:30, feeling oddly nervous. Was this going to be a huge waste of time? Would anyone buy anything, let alone even come? The signs were affixed to telephone poles around the neighborhood. I hurried and started moving things out into the front yard, wishing I had at least another table for all the stuff.  Right around 8:00 AM, the cars started coming. It was go time!

Things got off to a fairly steady start. The books and DVDs were the first to get bought up. One thing that helped was that I priced the books so that people would get a better deal if they bought more. Paperback books were 25 cents each but five paperbacks went for a dollar; hardcovers were 75 cents each but you could get two for a dollar. Lesson #5: Quantity discounts work really well. More stuff gets sold and people like getting a deal.  The books went quickly and I wasn't really out that much by giving a discounted rate (I was out a quarter by selling 5 paperback books for a dollar). The quantity discount thing was sort of a last minute idea (can you tell by the sign I made really quickly?) -- I wish I would have applied it to the other items there, like the clothes and toys.

As people came and looked through everything, things got disshelved. As I reorganized things between lulls in yard sale traffic, I realized I could have organized the clothes much better. I had lots of cute baby and little boy clothes, but I ended up not selling nearly as much as I thought I would. I should have had a better system for keeping the clothes separated by sizes. Lesson #6: Clothes can turn into a heap quickly. Find a good way to organize them. I currently do not have any creative ideas for this and I am open to all suggestions.

Back when I was in the gathering stage, I was collecting things to sell and I'd have these moments where I'd think, "If I don't want this, why would anyone else?"  I felt slightly guilty charging people for stuff I considered clutter. But I got over that pretty quickly the next day.

Lesson #7: The saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure" is true. This isn't to say I'm in favor of peddling garbage to people -- I just mean that something you don't like may be appealing to someone else. That bright blue and yellow argyle baby sweater vest I got at a baby shower years ago wasn't my cup of tea, but someone else liked it enough to buy it for their baby. I even had an older man pay a quarter for an old CD single I bought in high school that I found in a box in my garage. Who knew?

Lesson #8: Getting the neighborhood involved is the way to go. I knew I wanted to do a yard sale, but I asked the neighbors if they wanted in on it before planning anything. It's much more of a draw if you can put on your ads and posters that there are multiple families involved. We each did our yard sales in our own yards (to keep things orderly, separate, and less confusing) and it worked out really well. We had people stop at ours (since we were on the corner), shop, sometimes buy stuff, and then move on to the other houses. Plus, it creates a fun sense of community.

Lesson #9: A designated sign waver on the corner works quite well to bring people by, especially if said sign waver is in costume.

The day before, we were driving through town and saw a dude dressed as the Green Lantern holding a sign for a BBQ restaurant. Max's face lit up and he said, "I could do that for the yard sale!" So that evening he used some of the extra poster paper and wrote "yard sale" on it (you can get a better view of it in the picture at the top of the post).  The next morning, he donned his pirate clothes and headed outside with his sign. (He's going through a bit of a pirate phase right now. The picture above was taken mid-"arrrrrrgh.")  He even tried a few tricks and flipped the sign around. Sure, enough, many of the people who stopped by commented on how cute our little sign waver was.  I say it totally helped!

Which leads, finally, to Lesson #10: Just have fun with it. Get the kids involved. Turn on some music. Don't stress about it too much. Chat with people- you get so many different types at yard sales. Spend time with some neighbors. Chances are, you're not going to reclaim the money you spent on all the items or even make a profit. Just go with the flow (this, coming from the woman who almost never "goes with the flow". But I did with the yard sale!). Be flexible. Don't let it stress you out. A yard sale is not worth stressing over, in my humble opinion.

In all, all the stuff in our yard -- which was some of my things and some of my parents' stuff -- sold for around $160-$170. We made money and I have less cluttered house. In all, it was a good way to spend a Saturday summer morning.