How to make tomato paste

Yeaterday, beth made the comment on my post about making catsup that the tomato paste can has BPA in it. Of course, I never knew that you could make your own tomato paste. From the fantastic PICK YOUR OWN website- here is how to make your own tomato paste- and you can freeze it rather than can it.

The Pick Your Own site is a fantastic website with canning and preservation instructions, where to find U-Pick farms,pumpkin patches, corn mazes all over the USA where to find canning supplies- a vast plethora of preservation information!

How to make Catsup

THIS IS A REPRINT FROM MY ROB'S WORLD BLOG:
As accustomed as I am to not having original thoughts shut me up on this blog, today I think I will copy Fake Plastic Fish. Yesterday Beth made wonderful mustard and eliminated one more plastic condiment bottle from her clutches. Today I will make Catsup in an effort to eliminate a plastic bottle from mine!
This recipe is from the All Things Frugal site. I unashamedly stole it. First gather your ingredients:
1 Can Tomato Paste
1/4 Cup Water
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon Cumin
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves
2 Tablespoons Cider Vinegar



Mix together, cover and refrigerate. (Note the human power mixer I used whereas Beth used an electric blender). *Electric-power consuming Fake Plastique Fish? Fake plastic Fish is really an Electric Eel?

This is how much I got out one batch plus about enough to cover two weenies- Refrigerate and it should keep for a month

The taste of this is very similar to chutney I buy at Trader Joes. Very sweet and good. And while the initial expense of the spices seems far from frugal, I would imagine one could buy them in bulk for a fraction of what I paid. You should also note that keeping in the spirit of FPF, I tried not to buy too many plastic bottle spices- I chose Colman's Dry Mustard (In a tin) and used my Trader Joe's cinnamon (in a glass bottle)- Any way I can now say that i will not buy ketchup in plastic bottles again. Thanks Beth. As far as the frugal goes you use just a small amount of the spices that cost wise it should be good.

*I tease Beth unmercifully in this post. But she is one cool fish, and her campaign against plastic usage is important and sincere. Anything I can do to help reduce plastic waste is always OK by me.

Seattle Free School: where you can learn DIY yourself

Great things are happening at The Seattle Free School. Right now , their blog has a few free "quick" classes on doing things, one is how to make microwave popcorn, we looked into that yesterday and let me say it is genius! Imagine no more chemically laden microwave popcorn. No more plastic wrap on the package of microwave popcorn. A bag for about 20 cents!

Seattle Free School is just that- you learn from the experiences of others. The Seattle Free School is for the community by the community. All are welcome. No money ever exchanges hands- all that is exchanged are skills, knowledge and experiences.

I have taken a couple of cool classes put on by them- one for preserving food that I grow, and a class on Sprouting. Both are excellent classes. I notice their blog has a "quick class" on making your own Laundry Soap

The Seattle Free School- free lessons for free thinking people!

How To Make your Own Microwave Popcorn

I love pop corn but don't like all the chemicals and crap in the microwave popcorns- just when I thought all was lost along come Seattle Free School and How To make Microwave Popcorn Instructions on their blog!Popcorn for pennies! How cool is that?

And the neat thing, beside reducing those nasty chemicals in microwave popcorn, is you get to reduce the plastic wrapper from the microwave popcorn. And I'm guessing you can buy popping corn in bulk at some markets- reducing your waste even further!

How to make Compostable Starter Pots for your garden

Want to plant a garden this year and the thought of all those plastic seed starting pots got you down? Here is a nifty how to on making your own pots from newspaper
Here is a video on creating newspaper pots or you can learn orgami and fold your own pots.

Being orgamically-challenged I think I will take the easy answer- the easy answer is taking toilet paper tubes and making your pots from. They will breakdown beautifully in soil.
Even easier is taking egg cartons and planting your starts in the egg compartments- just remember to poke a hole in the bottom of the compartment first!And make sure it is a cardboard egg container not a styrofoam one!
You can get fancy and buy a "pot maker" But I think a glass or a spice bottle works just as well as a tool for making paper pots.

How to make a Bell Cloche out of a plastic Juice Bottle

I was bragging on Beth's Fake Plastic Fish Blog that I can reuse an entire juice bottle and not have any of it go in the waste stream. Well I cannot- I forgot the label is also plastic. But I can reuse a good 90% of it.

How to make the mini wreaths!