Sometimes the Best Things in Life are...

Homemade.

I discovered that shortly after moving to Turkey over two years ago. Back in the states I was totally a "Crockpot Classic" kinda girl. Here, not so much. While Turkey does have some pre-packaged/frozen foods, the selection pales in comparison to say...Walmart. And, honestly, it's not tasty stuff. The frozen pizzas rival cardboard topped with hot dogs. Seriously.

So, my hand has been forced to cook and bake from scratch. And I kind of (gulp)...enjoy it. Not just because of the fact that the food tastes better, but also because I love seeing how much cheaper it is to make it myself. Because let's face it, when I spend less money on groceries (and cleaning products: See below) I've got more money for hot dates with my husband and lunch with my girlfriends.

So, here are a few make-it-yourself things that I'm probably a little too excited about:

 I'm loving this book. It took me 10 minutes to make enough pea puree to last us for two weeks.Click on the picture to get more information.

This is homemade laundry detergent (and the second picture is of the ingredients) and I've been using it for about a week now. It cleans really nicely and only costs around 1 penny per load. Yep, you read that right. 1 penny. I made enough for 108 washes and that will save me roughly $30.  

Here's the tutorial that I used. The only thing that is "odd" about this detergent is that the final product is kind of congealed, but it runs through my front loading machine just fine. 

 

And here is a whole slew of recipes for other household cleaners.