Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

A long time ago, I wrote a Nalgene bottle post. I love that post because I *heart* Nalgene bottles.

This month, I have a new reason to love Nalgene bottles. I go car camping a few weekends a year. I usually don’t have to buy a lot of extra food, but I like taking things like soy sauce or balsamic vinegar with me just to add a little zing to things like instant cous cous. Camper food can be hit or miss so I like to bring instant foods I know I enjoy, plus I only have to boil water in a kettle instead of actually cook. But I digress.

Let me first put a disclaimer here. My website is not sponsored by Nalgene or its parent company. But I wish it was! You’re about to read more wonderful uses of Nalgene bottles. AND they sell replacement caps for their products so you can be frugally minded about using their stuff. (How cool is that?)

When you go to REI or any camping store, you can find Nalgene bottles in all sorts of sizes. Say, in 2 oz bottles for your toiletry set, the kind you can take onto the airplane in your carry-on.

I love Nalgene! They get sold in sets sometimes. I have a screw top jar for salt/pepper/garlic powder mix. I have 2 oz bottles for soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. Squirt top ones, wide-mouth ones, narrow-mouth ones. They even used to make red ones for fuel!! (But I can’t find those anymore.)

As many regular readers know, I usually buy my lunch. But this week I went to the farmer’s market and bought salad mix, which I’ve been packing for lunch. I hate most salad dressing, but I recently had an awesome balsamic vinaigrette. I was told the key to holding the emulsification of oil and vinegar was to add some mustard. So now, let me tell you how to make salad dressing for one or two and fresh butter.

BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE

Ingredients:
Prepared mustard
Balsamic vinegar
Extra-virgin olive oil (Green as you can get!)
Salt
Pepper
2 oz Nalgene bottle

Put about 1/2-1 tsp of mustard into the bottle. pour in a little vinegar till the bottle is about 1/3rd full. Pour in some olive oil until the bottle is about 2/3rds full. Screw on the lid very tightly and shake! SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE. Stop and look and see if the mustard has dissolved completely. If not, shake some more! Stop and dip your pinky in and taste. Does it taste right? Add a little salt and pepper to taste. But only a pinch at a time. DON’T pour directly from the big boxes of salt, or you are asking for trouble. (No that hasn’t happened to me… Well, at least not doing this.)

Now you have cheap salad dressing to take to work with you every day! Whenever I want more, I just add more vinegar and more oil. It’s stuff that doesn’t perish easily, but I store in the fridge anyway and have no problem just adding more to it.

Fresh butter! Yummy! I learned this recipe many years ago from my schoolteacher. I actually disliked her a lot, but she was a very sensible Unitarian woman, teaching at a Quaker school. So she lived well, but simply. Without her, I never would have known how to churn butter at home.

Ingredients:
1 pint fresh heavy whipping cream
8 oz Nalgene jar

Fill the Nalgene jar about 1/2 to 2/3rds full. Screw lid on tightly and shake. SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE. AND SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE SOME MORE. AND KEEP ON SHAKING. Your arms are going to hate you, but you are burning off the calories before you consume them in the form of butter. AND SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE. AND SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE SOME MORE. AND KEEP ON SHAKING. Seriously, this is not fun, but worth it. Trust me. Eventually you will see that you have whipped cream. You can stop and add some vanilla and some sugar to serve fresh Chantilly Cream with dessert/strawberries. But the truly persistent will keep on shaking till there’s butter.

Now here’s the special trick to going from whipped cream to butter. This is the part that’s hard to explain in writing. But eventually you have to ‘whack’ the cream so it separates out. Don’t even ask me how people did this with a real butter churn. I have no idea. Take the jar and fling it downward and stop suddenly. Do it again and eventually you will see that the cream is separating out and you are forming butter with whey in the jar. It’s amazing but tiring.

When you think you’re done whacking and getting all the separation out of it that you can get, stop. Open the jar, pour the whey out (Save it if you know what to do with whey. I don’t, but Asian people don’t have too many ancestral dairy recipes. Try drinking it. You might like it as a protein drink.) In the middle of the jar will be a nice lump of fresh butter, pale and delicate in its freshness and gorgeous texture. Well worth it. (If only I could write about food like Orangette does!)