From the incomparable Onion.

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Welp, it turns out there’s about a million ways to do it; here’s just one way to make your very own homemade granola.

Easy Homemade Granola Recipe

Here’s what you’ll need to make some scrumptious granola.

• 2 cups oats (not instant)
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 2 tbsp. brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup roasted peanuts
• 1/4 cup coconut flakes
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 3 tbsp. oil (canola or vegetable)
• 1 tbsp. water

I ended up reusing some old vegetable oil that I had in the fridge. So delicious-looking, yeah?

Mix all dry ingredients (except raisins and chocolate).

Simmer the wet ingredients together for a minute or two.

Pour into the dry ingredients; squeeze to form lumps. Put the mixture into a greased a 9″x13″ pan, and turn the oven up to 275 degrees, Fahrenheit if you will.

Bake 30 minutes, then chuck the raisins in.

Bake for about 14 minutes more, and retrieve the granola from the sweltering depths of the oven.

Cool the granola, then stir the chocolate in.

Sha-bam, your homemade granola is complete. Eat n’ enjoy©, or store it for a week or two.

There are MANY other ways to make granola; let me know any cool recipes you dig up.

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First, you gots to make your paper frame. Use some leftover wood and make a rectangle; whatever size this frame is is the size your homemade paper shall be.

Staple some old window screen across the frame, stretching it tightly. There, your frame be done. Now you’re ready to make you some homemade paper, hot dang!

First, get a bunch of scrap paper (some call it scratch paper, whatever floats your boat). Also, feel free to add some of the following:

• newspaper
• lint
• toilet paper (gently used)….. just kidding on that one!!
• paper bags

Remember, whatever you put in will affect the color and texture of your finished paper, so for the love of Pete, be careful in selecting your ingredients for your homemade paper.

Tear up the paper into lil’ pieces.

Put the torn-up paper into a blender, filling it about halfway. Fill the rest of the blender with warm water.

Blend the mess out of that paper, starting with short burts, and finishing with a 20-second blend that purees the paper into a pulpy soup.

Do this about three times, each time pouring the blended paper soup into a basin or tote.

Afterward, put in some more warm water, filling the basin about halfway. Add about two tablespoons of corn starch, too.

Stir the pulp around, then dip your wood frame into the pulp all the way to the bottom. Slowly raise it up, keeping it level. Your screen should be covered with pulp now.

Let it dry somewhere. Once the frame stops dripping, sort of peel the paper around the edges.

Next, gently peel the very wet paper away from the frame. Slap that bad boy on some felt. Fun fact: I got my felt for 20 cents, and it’s made from recycled plastic. Ta-dow.

Use a sponge and try to squish excess water out. Once you’ve done that, let it dry on the felt.

Let all the paper completely dry on the felt or some newspaper.

Voila, recycling old useless paper into new homemade paper is just that easy. If you want to get fancy (and these days, who doesn’t?), try embedding some crazy mess in your paper (feathers, leaves, pictures cut out of a newspaper). Your friends will be TOO jealous of your customized paper, maybe even jealous enough… to kill?

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But it’s not “all good in the hood”, as Mister Rogers would say. Over the last month or so, I’ve cleaned out a LOT of litter just from my small part of the creek. The litter has ranged in size from tiny shards of broken glass to a metal chair to a freaking stop sign.

After cleaning all that mess out, me and Tiff decided to make some creek animals out of the junk, since all the trash had come from the creek. What follows may shock and even horrify you. Prepare to look upon the creek creatures.
CLICK THE PICTURES TO SEE A BIGGER PICTURE

Glassy the Turtle

Tiff’s abstract masterpiece.

Turkey Thing

Made from a gen-u-ine 40 bottle (and maybe an old racquetball?).

Glass Frog

If you use your imagination, this pile of reused glass might look remotely like a frog.

Simple Snail

Another Tiff creation. My blurry picture does not do this glass snail justice.

Parrot with Coke Bottle Body

He’s all spirally and mess.

Snake made from Broken Glass

That’s his tongue on the left.

Glass Hell Monkey

Its tail is made from a LipSmackers brush. He is one menacing mamma jamma.

We recycled all the leftover broken glass and old cans and bottles. All in all, it was a good way to reuse some litter, and make some “art” from it. If anyone else has done cleaned up litter from a creek or stream and made something from it, por favor let me know!

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Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Let us begin with the pumpkin pie recipe. Now I’m not talking about pumpkins from a can, or frozen pre-made pumpkin pies. No. I’m talkin’ ’bout some made-from-scratch, down-home, honest-to-goodness, homemade pumpkin pie.
Pumpkin Pie Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons nutmeg
• one half teaspoon ground ginger
• 4 large eggs
• 3 cups stewed pumpkin, mashed
• 12oz of evaporated milk

Here’s whatchu do:
* Find a pumpkin (a jack o’ lantern will do). After appropriately mourning its brutal death, collect all the parts that were cut out (eyes, nose, mouth, the works).
* Skin these pumpkin pieces, and cut them into “manageable chunk” size.
* Boil these in a microwave or on the stove until you can easily push a fork through them.

* Mash up the boiled pumpkin.
* Add condensed milk, sugar, eggs, and spices.
* Dump it all into a pie crust (filling to about 1/4″ below the top).
* Bake at 425 F for 15 minutes, then bake for about 50 minutes at 350. You can tell it’s done if you stick a knife in it and it comes out pretty clean.

* Let cool on rack
* Eat the delicious pie made from the flesh of the defenseless pumpkins, or you can wrap it up using some reused foil from a restaurant, like so:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

* When you clean out a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern, save the seeds.
* Rinse the seeds, removing any of that orange, stringy mess.

* Add a wee bit o’ oil, some salt, and any other flavors you want (hot sauce, honey, curry).
* Bake at 275 degrees for 10-20 minutes (until they’re golden brown), stirring the seeds when they’re halfway done.

* Congratulations, you have now made a delicious and nutritious snack from the guts of a freshly killed pumpkin. I hope you’re proud of yourself.

These are great ways to use every part of the pumpkin, much like the Indians (these Indians, not these) used every part of the buffalo. Let me know if y’all know any other good pumpkin recipes. Thankee kindly.
Also, it is not too late to enter the free giveaway contest!! Click here for some details.

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First, I cut the floor and walls from some old wood I had from our kitchen remodeling. After some screws n’ glue, this is what I had:

I had some carpet left over from mi casa, so I cut out a lil’ chunk and oh-so-carefully fitted it to Charlie’s cat house.

Here you can see the roof (with insulation reused from Papa Spud’s vegetable box) attached to the back wall wit’ a hinge. This is so I can open up the back wall if I need to.

I had enough of that space-age insulation to insulate the WHOLE back wall, as seen in this candid, no-holds-barred photo.

So’s I popped the roof and back wall onto the rest of the cat building, and voila, a homemade cat house for Charlie stray cat. Also, I reused some old baseboard molding for a stylish yet understated awning to keep the rain out.

Finally, it was time to use some caulk and paint to waterproof this bad boy. Tiff pitched in and used her exceptional artistic skills to paint the cat house (using leftover paint).

Cha-ching, the cat house is complete. Charlie Stray Cat inspected his new home, and cried a single tear of joy. He was now the proud owner of his very own stray cat house, made from reused wood and some leftover paint.

This homemade cat house should keep Charlie warm this winter. And with its reused insulation, wood, and leftover paint, it is “green” as can be. I’ma keep on eye on it during the winter and see how it holds up. Also, I shall build an insulated front wall onto his house, once he gets used to being in it.

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After much Internet (and soul) searching, I decided to share this secret homemade strawberry jam recipe. Unlike my recipe for homemade protein bars, this actually requires using the stove, so get an adult’s supervision!!!!!

Get a Glass Jar

I was lucky enough to get about 6 glass jars for free off of freecycle. Maybe you have some old pickle or jelly jars sitting around that you could use. If you want to sterilize your glass jars, you can fill them about 3/4 full of water, put the jar in a shallow pan of water, and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

Get Strawberries

If you get some organic, locally grown strawberries, then congratulations, for you are on your way to becoming an eco hero. Get a quart of strawberries, and rinse them and chop off their leaves.

Get Sugar

Let me take this time to say that this is not a diabetic-safe strawberry jam, no sirree. This recipe calls for a quart of sugar. They recommend that the sugar is warm; I put mine in the oven at a very low temperature for about 5 minutes.

Boil Them Strawberries

Put all the strawberries into a big (10 quart) pan, and begin simmering them. If they seem too dry, mash up a few of them to let their juices out. Once some juice is in the pan, then it’s time to…

Add the Sugar

Pour the warm sugar over the strawberries, and stir the heck out of this sticky mess. Once you get the sugar and strawberries and juice integrated into a homogeneous mixture, cover the pan and let it simmer.

Boil for 15 Minutes

This is a dangerous step in this homemade strawberry jam recipe that has killed dozens, if not hundreds, and it answers the question of why you need such a big pan for such a small amount of strawberries and sugar. I found out the hard way that if you boil strawberry jam, it gets HUGE, and it overflows if you take your eyes off it. I had to lift up the lid and turn down the heat some to control the rising bubbling mixture.

WARNING: Cleaning strawberry jam out of the inside of a stove isn’t as fun as you might think.

Cool it and Plop it in a Jar

Turn off the heat after 15 minutes and let the pan cool on an oven mitt. You can add a tablespoon of lemon juice if you want (it gives it some “kick”, if you will). Hopefully you’ll see it slowly thickening. Once it’s pretty cool, you can put your new homemade strawberry jam into the sterilized glass jars and bah-bam, you are done.

P.S. I used a recipe out of the 1960 version of The Joy of Cooking. Apparently, we know more about germs than they did back then, so the open kettle method of canning is no longer considered safe. This here article explains why in vivid, shocking detail.

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Make Your Own Protein Bars

Thanks to Krista’s protein bar recipe, I was able to make some protein bars of my own. Follow along with this picture essay, and you will learn the secrets of how to make some cheap, homemade protein bars.Here are the ingredients. If you want to use some eco-friendly protein powder, or organic bananas, or what have you, then by all means do. I opted for the cheapest ingredients for this demonstration.

• Banana
• Whey protein
• Oats
• Peanut butter
• Raw Peanuts (optional)

The whey protein, oats, and peanut butter will be in a 1:1:1 ratio. As for the nanner, I just used one. Measure out your oats.Grind up them oats in a blender or food processor. Sadly, I have no food processor, so I was forced to use this blurry blender to make some oat flour.Voíla. You should now have some oat flour. Mix the oat flour with your whey protein powder, using a 1:1 ratio. Hopefully it’ll look like this:Plop some peanut butter down into the oat flour, and try your best to mix it in. Since I used a cup of oats, I’m using a cup of peanut butter also (remember the 1:1:1 ratio).Go ahead and blend up that nanner. If you want to save some electricity, you may mash the banana by hand or foot.Mix the mashed banana into the whey protein powder/oat flour/peanut butter mix. Here I had to use a fork AND spoon to mix this all together.Wash yo’ hands, because it’s about to get messy up in hur. Lay some wax paper down in a pan, like so, and begin spreading your mixture onto it:Pat it down, hit it with a fork, whatever it takes, until you have a good, (sort of) even layer:You can stop here if you want, or you can take it one step further if you dare. I dared, so I pushed some raw peanuts into the protein bar batter to give it some extra *crunch*.Put this bad boy into your freezer for a few hours. Wait ’til it gets nice and cold and firm, then take it out. It is now time for the FINAL PROCESSING. Slice your frozen square of mess into homemade protein bars. I used a pizza cutter and it worked like a charm.When you’re done, you can wrap the protein bars individually, using that same wax paper, or just put them in a tupperware container. Either way, put them in the freezer when you’re done.Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of some cheap, homemade protein bars. Remember, you can customize the taste (with cinnamon, honey, cocaine, etc.), so if they taste like crap, then change it up.EDIT:  Taste – My first bite was no good, but either they got better with time, or the taste grew on me.  It tastes like peanut butter, with some graininess.  Next time I might add in some other flavors…

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Since me n’ Tiff bought and moved into our bodacious townhome last summer, we’ve changed a lot about it. A big thing we changed was the kitchen; with the help of Leon, Bil-lay, and 10, we took out a lot of old and put in a lot of used (new for us) things. I saved a lot of what we took out (nails, wood, etc.), and have reused those materials to make some new things.

For Valentines’ Day, I made Tiff a kitchen island with these saved materials. I started with not much, but with a lil’ gumption and elbow grease, the kitchen island was completed. Here is its story…

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. With this handy advice in my noggin, I drew out the plans for the island. I wanted to make it the same height as our counters, and also make sure that there was enough room for our trash can to fit in it. Before I show you my plans, please remember that they are copyrighted, so if you copy them I’ll sue your pants off.

The top of the island came from the piece of countertop that we cut out to make a hole for the sink.

I reused nails that I had taken out of old pieces of wood. Some (most) of the nails were bent, therefore I had to straighten them out to use ‘em.

I used some old wooden posts to build the top frame.

Here’s the wood I saved from the kitchen remodeling. Yayo is guarding it.

I took that giant piece o’ wood and trimmed it down so it’d be the right size. Note the clamps holding it to my flimsy card table, thus enabling me to saw the heck out of it.

I also had to use the ol’ saw to cut lots of 2×4s — two-bys, as we say in construction lingo, but I digress…

To attach the posts to the bottom platform, I used the unbent nails and some ol’ fashioned glue.

And voila, we have half of the bottom platform. The other half will be a mirror image o’ this one.

The next step wasn’t too hard. Just put the above platform onto a frame made with 2×4s, nails, and love.

I then figured that the middle of the platform might be weak, so I engineered in a special wooden piece to exponentially increase the middle of the platform’s strength. Apparently, I took this next picture as I was running by, hence the blurriness.

As you can probably tell, by this point it’s getting dark. Luckily I can expand my pupils at will. So I pressed on, and finished the other half of the bottom platform. I then connected the top frame to hold the whole thing together.

Here’s a picture where I actually USED the flash.

By now this beast of a kitchen island was almost done, but I wanted to make sure that it was muy fuerte. So I built some side supports out of our old door frame. Speaking of the old door frame, here’s part of it now.

I used some clamps to hold the side supports in place after I glued them. While they were clamped, I used some screws to attach them securely.

Phew, that was a lot of work. The next day, I primed the whole thing, and then painted it white. After that, I screwed on the wheels (they were the only non-reused thing I used to make this).

Finally, the last big step was to use construction adhesive to glue down the old counter top. After letting the adhesive dry for about a day, I presented the brand new homemade kitchen island to Tiff for Valentine’s Day. Here you can see a picture of it in all its glory, as Yayo does a quick walk-by inspection of it.

In conclusion, ’twas fun to reuse all the old wood, nails, and the old counter top, and turn them into something new and useful. I hope you enjoyed this presentation, and may you have a t-riffic day.

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Look above. That used to be a yellow cheese school bus! Man, when I first saw this, I was too interested. I read all the steps, and looked at all the pictures of what Jake Von Slatt did. What he did was buy a cheap school bus (a little more than $2,000) and transform it into a beautiful, homemade RV. I like his homemade RV for a couple reasons:

1. He did it cheaply. The bus cost about $2,000, he did most of the work himself (or with his friends), and he got a LOT from the dump, craigslist, or freecycle.
2. He reused a lot of materials, thereby creating his RV in a very “green” way (reused bus, materials from dump, reused mess off websites).
3. You can see the process of the bus’s conversion. Seeing all the steps it takes is really interesting, and makes me want to (one day) attempt something like this. It’s really cool, so por favor take a look at it.

Anyhoo, enough with my thoughts. Enjoy this video of Von Slatt giving you a tour of his homemade RV that came from a lil’ ol’ cheese bus.

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