Confessions of a Junkie

So... confession time I am a TOTAL junkie... Garage Sale Junkie that is! I LOVE IT!  The rush of running around town, never knowing what treasure is laying around the corner. What amazing deal I might score today.  I call it treasure hunting and I am doing all I can to get my kids hooked on it too.

On Friday and Saturday mornings during Garage Sale Season we'll wake up early have some fruits and juice in the car and head out on our treasure hunts.  Fridays I just have Bells and Saturdays all three of the monsters are riding along.  Some weekends the kids nag the whole time and I'll have to blast the tunes to drown them out (totally kidding... well only half kidding lol!), others they find great treasures and are so glad their mama dragged them out.  I do make a decent amount of money out of my treasure hunting by reselling things on ebay, but a lot of the money "made" for my family by garage sale shopping comes by way of how cheap we are able to buy the things we want/need for the home and family.  I am adamant about second hand shopping, with all the things already out there in the world there is NO REASON to add to the waste and buy new (except the obvious items for hygienic reasons).  That is why I love my ebay business, I take things that one person didn't want and might have discarded and find them a home again with someone who does want them, keeping junk out of land fills and putting some food on the table and maybe paying the light bill at the same time.

Sure we might have to wait a little longer to find the item we are looking for secondhand vs the immediate gratification of running out to Target and buying it now... but if you are patient and flexible (have a color pallet vs a single color for something in mind) and don't mind some "character" (a little scuff or scrape) you can almost always find what you want for ridiculously less than you would have paid new, and there will be ZERO packaging (unless you had it shipped) and NOTHING added to the landfills.


Anyway this this weekend has been a KILLER weekend for us!  I did score some great stuff to flip on ebay for some bucks but we also found some pretty kick ass deals on things we have been wanting/needing for around the house.   So I thought I'd share some of the deals we found:

Hubs found this super tall extension ladder that we have been in dire need of for $10! Now he can clean the rain gutters and put up the Christmas lights this winter without me fretting for his safety.

Speaking of winter I scored these Sorel boots for my husband for a DOLLAR, yea a BUCK!  Come on!  Yes they are leather and sheepskin... yes I am vegan.  I am also realistic in knowing that buying or not a used product that has already been purchased will do nothing to help save any animals or prove any points to manufacturers with my spending dollars.  But for a dollar they will keep my husbands feet warm this winter.

Gabriel needed a new desk chair for the desk in his room, they were asking $8 for this chair but said everything was half off (They REALLY wanted to sell their crap!!) Sure it's orange... but it's going in a 9 year old's room who cares!  It was $4!

The same half off garage sale had this desk marked at $40 making it $20.  My son Brandon has a kiddy desk just like this one in his room and will be out growing it in the very near future.  At which point it will go to Bella and he will be in need of a big boy desk (Thinking ahead SAVES!)

Bella planted a little garden along our front walk so she was searching the sales for little knick knacks to stick in her garden.  Daddy found her this little guy who reminded us of Lowly Worm for a buck, and she can even plant a tiny plant in his little tree stump!

Another find for her garden was this little pagoda house she also found for a $1, it's supposed to be a solar light and the guy said it would work if we put new batteries in it.  We like it just the way it is :)

I found a patriotic doormat to grace our porch this summer for a buck as well.

And Daddy found the hose hidey thingy he has been looking for to make the ugly hoses in front of the house "go away"  I think he paid $10 for that.

A few little decor knick knacks I picked up for .50 cents each

Manly stuffs Daddy has been needing... he bundled these together for $15 for both items.  He's a bundle master too like Frank... if you watch American Pickers you gotta know how to bundle!! ;)

A trash can... YES... A trash can.  We have been wanting to put together a compost bin for a while now but did not want to put more than $10 into it.  We saw the ones at Costco for $100 and thought no friggen way... we can do that for pennies!  Our first thought was those blue plastic drums people use as rain barrels but for some reason those are like gold around here and hard as heck to find.  So then I thought... ok a trash can would work, went to Home Depot... Holy Hell THEY ARE EXPENSIVE!  So we have been waiting and pondering and waiting... yesterday at the 1/2 off garage sale this was marked for $3 it's clean inside and is full of unused black garbage bags, that alone makes it worth the $1.50 then the guy says "take it for a buck."  OK!  Compost bin here I come!!!  Patience PAYS!!!

This one is my find of the week! SOOOOO excited about this buy!  EZ UP shade canopy for our deck.  We have bounced around the idea of spending hundreds on a gazebo like this but they were all square and honestly we didn't want to spend that much money.  Yesterday a guy had this canopy up at his yard sale,  I assumed he was using it for shade as they almost always are but then I overheard him say to another shopper that he was moving to Maine and not taking anything with him.  So I asked "are you taking the canopy with you?"  "Nope he says, give me $15 bucks and it's yours."  SOLD!!!  When we got it home it turned out to be the PERFECT size for the space we wanted to shade on the deck, we lashed it down so the wind won't pick it up and we kicked back and enjoyed the shade!! Now I need to find some of those corner plant stand things and a few other odds and ends to pull the deck together and give it that "my corner of the world" feeling.

Planning ahead SAVES!!  I like my kids to wear cute clothes and there was a time (only a couple years ago) when all I did was pay disgustingly high prices mainly at Gymboree or Gap (I am a TOTAL GYMBO addict!) for clothes for my kids.  There are times when I will have a moment of weakness when the outfit in the window is just TOOOO darned adorable to pass up or the sale prices are ridiculously low that you will find me in Gymboree.  But now for the most part garage sales and the occasional ebay lot are my fix and if I shop a size or two ahead of where the kids are now I can almost always keep them in top brands for next to nothing.  And the kicker is that there is such a high demand for secondhand Gymbo, TCP, GAP, Old Navy etc... that as long as I take care of the clothes when the kids out grow them I can sell them at my own garage sale and get back darn near what I paid for them.  Yesterday I scored a stack of tops and pants for Bella.  They are size 5 and she is only in 3s and 4s right now, also they are all long sleeves and warm pants and we are just getting in to summer so I imagine most people in my place would not even wasted their time looking at them.  I thought "When next winter rolls around these will be perfect for her"  They were Gymbo and Total Girl which is a JCP brand all in great shape and I got 8 items for 2 bucks!  Are you kidding me!! Hell yea, I'll store them for a couple months until they fit her :)

I found this little doo-dad for a quarter and it will do just the trick of keeping Bella's hats, belts and scarves off the floor.

Earlier this week we took Bella to Cat Tales a local big cat rescue just outside of town.  They have two white tigers named Apollo and Zeus and Bells was enamored with them, Apollo grumbled at Daddy but Bella still loved him.  So the minute we pulled up to the sale with this big guy she would not leave his side, APOLLO!!!!  They wanted $8 for him and would not budge a cent!  I tried to get him for $5 but they weren't haven't it, not $6, not $7... and I wasn't getting Bella away from there without him so now $8 APOLLO is our house mascot <3

My son Brandon is my little skater dude, so when he saw these skate ramps at a sale this morning he was STOKED... only problem they wanted quite a bit more than he could afford.  The kids have their own money from their chores and he had a rough idea about how much he had to spend.  They wanted $40 for the ramps which included a brand new in the box grind rail.  I teach the kids that when it comes to making offers on items "it never hurts to ask, the most someone can do is say no, or counter you back with a different price." Brandon had about $20 to spend which was a big drop from what they were asking but when a little dude comes up to you and says "I have $20 from my allowance and I really like the skate ramps" most people tend to bend :)  I know I did when I was having my own sale (when it came to kids spending their own money).  I would have been willing to kick in a few bucks if the guy had said $25 or maybe $30 but he was a skater type dude himself so I think he thought it was rad that they were going to a little skater dude.  So as you can see $20 later I have one happy little dude and one brave dudette!

For the $20 he got both of the black ramps and the grind rail, I added the boards to go across from some boards we have in the garage, we'll probably figure out something better eventually but for now this worked out ok.

Lil Skater Chick!

Told him to practice tricks and balancing on the rail over the grass first for a while to make mama feel better!

This was another killer deal FIVE bucks!!  It's HUGE!!  The lady I bought it from lives up on the prairie where the winds are ferocious so it was more trouble to her than it was worth, but I have been wanting to up my Christmas arsenal and summer time garage sales are just the place to do that!!  

Another silly Christmas find.  He was only $1.50 I couldn't resist!

You see he looks like any innocent Christmas tree....

RAWR!!  But he's not!! He's a talking, singing, caroling tree and he is motion activated... which means I get to bring a little Halloween scare into my Christmas cheers when I stake this guy out on my porch this year!!

Little skater dude is also Star Wars OBSESSED and mama scored these ships at a sale on Friday for $3 each for him!

And finally Gabriel is just as OBSESSED with Giraffes as Brandon is with Star Wars he has quite the collection and has been begging me FOREVER to buy him a giraffe Pillowpet and I have flat out refused.  Well today he not only found one, he found the JUMBO one... you know the one they want SIXTY bucks for on TV... for a buck.  He was THRILLED!

Oh... and lest you think my home is destined for an episode of Hoarders we do a yearly purge and have our own garage sale.  We actually JUST had ours it was MASSIVE! Our community sale is known in all the neighboring towns and they bring in porta-potties, and the crowds of people are so thick I couldn't see across the street to my neighbors house most of the weekend... people drive around on their ATVs or in their little golf carts... Lots of folks pulling wagons.  It was great and we purged!  AND we made almost $1,500!  Most of which was from top brand, clean, and well displayed kids clothes, TONS of toys, my daughter's entire collection of Little People (it was HUGE), and our DVD collection we decided we didn't need cluttering up our life anymore... we cleared out a TON of stuff.  I was too busy with the selling to think about taking pictures when we had our sale. I did take one pic, this was the table with all of Bella's Little People stuff on it because first thing in the morning I thought "Oh I should put a Craiglist ad to tell people I have all these Little People things here for sale today, people are crazy for them, I know we were..." and then BAM! We were slammed with shoppers and I didn't give it a second thought.

So what do you think?  Killer deals huh?  Did you hit any garage sales this weekend?  What were your scores?

My Tale of Cat Tales

Today we took our daughter Bella to Cat Tales, it is a local large cat rescue/zoo just outside of Spokane.  It's zoo like, in that they charge admission and let people in to gawk at the animals, but that is about all that it has in common with a zoo.  They don't have any government funding or grants, from what I understand they operate solely on their Adopt an Animal program, donations, and what they make from admissions and gift store sales. Most of the animals at Cat Tales are big cats, though they do have a few bears and birds.  Some of them are rescues that were either taken away or surrendered from private owners who could not adequately care for them or who didn't want them once the "cool" factor of owning a tiger wore off.  One or two are retired "entertainment" animals. 

Some of them, like one bear we met today named Oscar, were picked up by animal control as orphan babies and brought in so they would have a chance at survival.  Oscar was found as an orphan cub far from home rummaging through trash looking for food.  He has been at the zoo ever since. 

Today they were introducing a brand new lion cub he was rescued from an amusement park in Ohio where he was being used as a photo prop.  Apparently people where paying $30 or something to have their photo taken with a baby lion cub, but once he got too big to sit still for the photos he had to go and another baby cub took his place.

We have been to Cat Tales in the past and I am sure we will go again, though every time we go it is just unbearably heart wrenching for me.  You see another way that Cat Tales differs from your average zoo is in the manner in which the animals are kept.  Don't get me wrong they are WELL cared for, LOVED, not abused, and alive which is more than could probably be said were they not at Cat Tales.  But they are kept in chain link fence enclosures, some cats like the prized white tigers Apollo and Zeus are lucky enough to share an enclosure about the size of my back yard when they are on display and then they have a private den when not.  But there are others like Romeo whose enclosure is about the size of my garage if not a bit smaller.  I know that they are a rescue and they do a LOT for these animals simply by providing them a safe place to live out their days.  But when I see a majestic white tiger behind a fence and know that is his whole life... that pen... those four walls... I cry for him.  When I see a bob cat in what equates to a bedroom and know she will never race up a mountain... never chase prey... never even actually break out into a run... I cry for them.  I cry for the leopards, the cougars, the tigers, bears... they can never be released into the the wild and they will live out their days behind those fences and it just rips at my heart.

My husband called me a wet blanket and said to "just get over it and enjoy my day with my daughter."  We teach our children that animals should not be in cages, so how do we explain what a rescue is?  That these animals are in cages because they probably would have been killed otherwise?  My older kids get it, but Bella just wanted to get in and play with the animals she didn't understand why they were fenced up.  I tried to explain to my husband that, I am thankful that we have rescues, that we have shelters, that we have people who dedicate their time and money to helping to make these animals' lives better but I still won't EVER stop hoping for one day when all the damn cages will be empty.  When there won't be friggen idiots with disposable income who think "hey wouldn't it be cool to have a pet lion!?"  When there won't be retired circus tigers.  When there won't be a need for the animals to be rescued in the first place.  He just says to me "Mama, you can't save the whole world"  "I know you want to but you just can't."  Well... sure... no one can... if no one tries. 

If you want to find out more about any of the animals at Cat Tales just click on their names on the Adopt an Animal link and you will be taken to their full bio.

Oh... and one cool thing I found out today is that they do take donations of frozen meat (if it is still in the store packaging) to feed to the big cats.  So as I am helping others to make the switch to a healthier more compassionate way of life all that meat in the freezer does not have to be a total loss.

Mama's Magic

Dunno if it was too many germs all in one place from all the kids at Gabriel's birthday party on Saturday (we had about 20 boys) or too much sun out at the lake yesterday but both of the boys felt icky today. Gabe even had a bit of a fever this morning :( So I kept them home from school today.

My husband took our van to work this morning, so I had to put my daughter in the bike trailer and ride over to the market to buy some veggies I needed to make the boys a magic soup.

I made myself a big green juice to fuel up for the ride and headed out.
Green juice = 1 bunch kale + 1 large cucumber + 3 apples!  Into your juicer and ENJOY!!




When I got back from the store I got to chopping and dicing.  I always make a big pot of roasted veggie soup whenever anyone feels a little ill these days.  It always makes us feel better, like magic... mama's magic :)  It is a different pot of soup every time I make it and it is always yummy!

Today's soup was made up of:

• 2 large tomatoes
• 1 head of red cabbage
• 4 small zucchini
• about 8 carrots
• 1 head of broccoli
• 1 large onion
• about 10 baby bok choy (these were not roasted, just thrown in the pot for the last 10 mins or so)
• 1 head of garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons miso paste
• about a lb of silly noodles (the sillier the better!)
• some veggie broth (2 boxes broth or 1 box and the equivalent in water)
• salt and pepper

Heat oven to 450.  Rough chop all your veggies and spread them out on a sheet pan.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and put in the oven to roast for 30 minutes.

In the last 10 minutes get your broth going to a boil.  Once boiling add your noodles and the bok choy.  When the roasted veggies are done add them to the pot, be sure you get all the bits of garlic and all the good bits that might be stuck to the pan. 

Serve hot and enjoy!

VEGANIZED! Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana

And now as promised: 

Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana

With my vegan twist!

When I first conjured up this recipe I had not tried my hand at making my own vegan sausages, so the recipe below calls for Field Roast Italian Sausage.  If you have a few extra minutes I HIGHLY recommend you try yesterday's homemade Spicy Italian Sausage I only ever use my own homemade sausage in the soup now and I usually make up two batches one mild without the red peppers for the kiddos, and one heavy on the red pepper and sometimes I even use hot chili oil in place of the olive oil to really kick up the spice in them!!  Seriously go check em out! Here is the link again in case you missed it :) Spicy Italian Sausage!!

*If you are going to be making the sausages you want to have them steaming before you start the rest of the soup*

So on to soup... Anyone who knows me well knows that the Olive Garden has been my favorite chain sit downy restaurant for pretty much forever.  Well Olive Garden is NOT very vegan friendly so I decided to make my all time favorite Olive Garden dish the Zuppa Toscana soup veganized!  Mike and I LOVE this soup it is a creamy potato base with kale and Italian sausage pretty much a vegan nightmare lol.  Years ago we paid to subscribe to one of those "Restaurant Secrets REVEALED!" websites just to find the recipe for this soup and after much tweaking we had been making our own (much tastier!) though not vegan version of this soup at home now for years.  So about a year or so ago the time came to try to convert this much loved dish to a vegan version.  The conversions were very easy to make, and this soup was FANTASTIC!  There was a moment at first taste where I thought this is not the same, but then I tasted again and thought no... it's not the same it's better! It is delicious, healthy (ish), and 100% cruelty free what could be better than that? The recipe below makes a HUGE pot of soup, enough for 8-10 servings but really it's just enough for dinner for a family of 5, for seconds and to have a little left over for lunch the next day.



This is the original Olive Garden Version of Zuppa Toscana
 
This is my vegan version.
 
You will need all of the ingredients shown. 

• 2 boxes of Not Chicken Broth *veggie broth will work just fine too
• 1/2 container Soy Creamer *soy milk works fine in a pinch if you don't have any creamer, just add a little corn starch to thicken it up a bit
• 1 Package Field Roast Italian Sausage or my homemade Spicy Italian Sausages!
• 6-7 Organic Yukon Gold Potatoes (the original Olive Garden recipe called for russets but over the years we found that using the golds is much better! They have sort of a natural buttery flavor to them) 
• 1 bunch of organic Kale (I have 5-6 stems of purple kale and 5-6 stems of curly kale, I like to use lots of colors when I cook.) 
• Salt 
• Red Pepper Flakes

 
1. In a large pot heat over med heat both boxes of broth, and 1/2 container of soy creamer. 

2. Wash potatoes. Leave skins on. Slice and then quarter. Add to pot.
 
3. Remove spines from kale and coarsely chop. Add to pot. 

4. Add salt and red pepper flakes to taste. I usually add about 2-3 tsp of salt and 2 tbsp of red pepper, but you may like more or less. Start with a little then taste and add more as you need.
 
yuummm... it's coming together! 

5. Keep pot at med heat so it's at a mild boil (not boiling over but a little higher than a simmer)
 

6. While soup is boiling, remove sausage from package and put in oven @ 350 to heat until warm (about 15/20 mins). When they are warm remove from oven and slice or crumble. 

*If you are using my Spicy Italian Sausage they should be done steaming about now. Carefully THEY ARE HOT unwrap and slice them up.

Add to pot.
 

7. Turn down heat and let simmer another 15 mins or so. Then serve hot and enjoy!

Spicy VEGAN Italian Sausage

Tonight I am making a favorite dinner of ours: our vegan version of Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana.  This soup is so good, it's creamy and rich and spicy!!  Check back tomorrow and I will share the full recipe for the soup.  Today I'm sharing the KEY ingredient in pulling this soup together.  Spicy Sausage!

SPICY Italian sausage is one of those things that we LOVED before we went vegan... and the store bought vegan replacements (Tofurky, Field Roast, etc...) have been passable but quite expensive and just didn't have the same spicy taste that we love.

I looked at couple different people's versions of  homemade sausages and sort of pulled from them what I liked and mixed and matched to make my version.  I really liked the idea of wrapping them in foil to maintain a uniform sausage shape, as anyone who has made seitan knows it just kinda does what it wants shape wise when you boil it.  The same person whose blog I got the idea about wrapping in foil also steamed them which I think really lended to the correct DENSE texture.

These are VERY easy to make, you can turn the heat on them up or down by adjusting the amount of pepper, they are CHEAP and most importantly they are DELISH and have a fabulous texture.

You will need:

Equipment:

• Large mixing bowl
• Small mixing bowl
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Fork or whisk
• Something to steam in pot/steamer/rice cooker.... whatever you use for steaming
• 8 pieces of foil that are about 8-10 inches long *hint* tear these off and set them aside before your hands get dirty ;)

Dry Ingredients:

• About 2 cups of gluten and 1/3 cup chickpea flour sifted together
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• 2 tbsp vegan chicken or beef flavor (I used chicken)
• 2 tbsp dried onion flakes
• 2 tbsp fennel seeds
• 2 1/2 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 - 2 tsp red pepper flakes (more or less depending on how hot you want them)
• scant tsp oregano
• pinch of all spice

Wet Ingredients:

• 10 minced garlic cloves (I like a LOT of garlic, you can scale this back if you don't)
• 2 tbsp oil (I used olive)
• 2 tbsp tamari
• 1/8 - 1/4 tsp liquid smoke (a little goes a LONG way with this so use sparingly!)
• 2 - 2 1/4 cups COLD water (MUST BE COLD!)

So mix all your dry together in a large bowl.  Then whisk all the wet together in a separate small bowl and add into your dry.  Combine this gently you do not need to over process this, do not knead it like you would for regular seitan.  You want it to come together easily and have a nice spongy texture, it should not be overly wet and should not be crumbly dry... you can add more gluten or water a pinch or two at a time to adjust if you need to.


Start your water boiling if you are using a double boiler type steamer like me. Lay out your foil and divide your sausages up into 8 pieces.


Then roll the foil around them tightly and twist the ends.  Don't worry about making them perfect sausage logs as they expand from the steam they will turn out perfect!


Place them in your steamer, cover and let steam for 30 mins.


After 30 mins take them off the heat and let them cool or you can be impatient like me and burn your fingers opening them up too soon because you are just so excited you can't wait to see and taste them lol!
Finished Spicy Italian Sausage

You can slice them and add to soups and sauces, serve whole over pastas, eat them as links on buns, or just be like me and sit there and revel in how delish they are until you look down and they are all gone haha
mmmm.... these taste better and cost WAY less than Field Roast!!

If your kids don't like spicy heat you can leave the red pepper flakes as the very last ingredient.  Once you have everything else mixed in separate out your sausages into spicy and non spicy, and then mix the red pepper flakes into the spicy ones.  Make sure you mark the foil on the ones without the spice!  You little ones will thank you :)  Be sure to check back tomorrow for our vegan version of Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana using these spicy sausages.

To Menu or Not to Menu... That is the Question

Sitting down to plan this week's meals before heading out to shop and I was wondering... Do you guys plan menus?  Do you use online meal planners or just good old pen and paper?  Vegweb.com has a great meal planner that integrates the recipes on their site. I LOVE Cozi aand their site has a shopping and and meal planning page, I also really like the printable worksheets from Laptop Lunches.  But when it comes to crunch time I like good old fashioned pen and paper.  But with a twist of course!!  I put the worksheets inside page covers, you know like the kind we used to protect our book reports with?  Print out a few slip them in the covers, and keep the covers together with a report holder both are super cheap and then use dry erase markers for your planning :) 

Usually I am neater and a bit more organized but I am still in "full steam ahead" mode with one more party to go this weekend before I see the finish line.  Anyway just thought I would take a second to share, on my way out, and see what methods you guys use, if any, for planning your families' meal planning. 

Here are mine so far:

Oh... btw *side note* those "fish tacos are Tempeh Fish Taco's from my friend Rhea's Blog
http://theveeword.blogspot.com/2012/05/tempeh-fish-tacos-zesty-lime-corn-and.html you should check her out!

Mabuhay! or Hi... in Tagalog :)

I have not fallen off the face of the Earth, I promise just been CRAZY busy over here.  April-May is always a mad dash in my life... both of my sons' birthdays are within a 2 week span. I have already thrown one massive Star Wars Jedi Training Academy party and an equally massive blog post with all the deets is planned!! I still have one birthday party coming up, the oldest is crazy about Beyblades this year so we are having a Bey battle tournament for his party.  Of course we also had Easter, then the boys had a Cub Scout camping trip and last we had the most epic community garage sale you have ever dreamed of.  So I've got lots and lots of blog fodder... just no time to do they clickity clackety thing at the keyboard.  So please... Stay tuned!!