Homemade Laundry Soap

Homemade Powder Laundry Soap

 Ingredients:

1 grated/shaven bar Fels-Naptha

1 cup Borax Laundry Booster

1 cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda

Grate Fels-Naptha and mix thoroughly with washing soda and Borax Laundry Booster.  Use 1-2 Tablespoons per load.

Humingbird Cake

Hummingbird Cake

 

1 package (18.25 oz) plain yellow cake mix

 1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple packed in juice, undrained

2 medium or 3 small ripe bananas, peeled and mashed (1 cup)

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil, such as canola, corn, safflower, soybean, or sunflower

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 chopped pecans, toasted

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  

Lightly grease two 9 inch round cake pans with solid vegetable shortening, then dust with four.  Shake out excess flour.

Place the cake mix, pineapple with its juice, mashed bananas, water, oil, eggs, vanilla and cinnamon in a large bowl.  Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute.  Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.  Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed.  The batter should look thick and the fruit well blended.  Divide the batter between the prepared pans, smoothing it down with the rubber spatula.  Place the pans in the oven side by side.

 

Bake until golden brown, about 30-32 minutes. Cool them on wire racks.

Prepare the cream cheese frosting. 

When cakes have cooled completely, frost with frosting and top with toasted pecans. (or toasted almonds if you don't have pecans and don't want to run to the store...again.)

 

 Cream Cheese Frosting 

 1 package cream cheese, at room temperature

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

3 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Place cream cheese and butter in large mixing bowl.  Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until combined, 30 seconds.  Stop the machine.  Add the confectioners' sugar, a bit at a time, blending with the mixer on low speed until the sugar is well incorporated, 1 minute.  Add the vanilla, then increase the mixer speed to medium and blend the frosting until fluffy, 1 minute more.

Dutch Oven Artisan Bread

Dutch Oven Artisan Bread

RECIPE:

3 cups flour

1 3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon yeast

1 1/2 cups water

Mix dry ingredients and then add water.  Mix thoroughly. 

Cover and let sit 12-18 hours.

After it sits overnight, plop it out on a heavily floured surface then into the Dutch oven.

Bake at 450 Degrees F. for 30 min lid on then 10-15 more with lid off.

GastronomyTrickery. Green Tomato Jam

Maybe you've heard of  soda cracker pie, vegan burgers and black bean fudge brownies? 

Well, my version of gastronomy trickery today is green tomato jam. 

Since mother nature forced me to harvest my tomatoes, rather than have them freeze, I happily plucked them all off their bountiful vines.  I'm up to my eyeballs in tomatoes of varying shades of green, pale orange and red, but since green is the predominant color of the 6 bowls I picked I needed a creative way to use them up.

 We were a little skeptical that letting them ripen indoors would result in anything other than the perfect vine ripened sphere of goodness so my husband recommended making jam. 

 Jam from tomatoes. 

Jam from tomatoes that looks like jam from raspberries.

The process is really very simple.

 Here's the recipe from Food.com. I searched many different recipes and determined that I'd just stick to the ratio's of this recipe.

READY IN:  35mins
YIELD:  2 jars	UNITS:  US

INGREDIENTSNutrition

• 2cups green tomatoes, ground or grated
• 2cups sugar
• 1(3 ounce) package raspberry Jell-O gelatin (or strawberry, etc.)

DIRECTIONS

1. Grind or grate tomatoes.
2. Mix tomatoes and sugar.
3. Bring to a boil.
4. Boil 15 minutes.
5. Remove from heat.
6. Add jello and stir well.
7. Seal in jars or freeze.
8. Enjoy!

I made 6 quarts of "raspberry" jam until I ran out of sugar, but I could have made probably 16 more. I had plans to make strawberry as well until the sugar shortage, but really the flavors are as numerous as the JELL is O. 

*Editors note: I would recommend really grinding the green tomatoes well and cooking longer if needed to make sure the texture is that of soft raspberries and not of unripe tomatoes if you get my drift. 

Chair do over

So our kitty and puppy love to chase each other.

A lot.

They usually end up under my vintage chair and consequently have torn the underneath to shreds.

Well not to shreds exactly, but did a good enough job on it that I just decided to jump in, gimp finger and all, and disassemble it so I can reupholster it.

So I grabbed the closest butter knife and went to work. Now I know that there are tools made just for the disassembling of a chair, and I have one...somewhere, but a butter knife and a pair of needle nose pliers work just fine.

This is the point I'm at and I'm struggling whether or not to use a patterned fabric or just go neutral.

Leaning toward this little yellow and grey/taupe number.

Whaddaya think?

*To see the chair before, click here*

Fences-to keep some things in and some things out

So we let our chickens free range during the day and it's wonderful. They are fun, and funny and friendly and they roam around our ranch (hubby disagrees with the title hobby farm) and eat stuff. They come running when someone throws veggie scraps to them (except asparagus- they won't eat that) and they eat bugs and worms after it rains. They really eat everything (except asparagus) that we feed them, but that's also a problem because they would eat the garden if we let them. IMO there's no reason to go to all the work of planting if our lovely chickens just think our garden is there very own personal smorgasbord.

So I went all trump and built a fence.

Coconut Chicken Curry

This chicken curry dish has been added into our dinner rotation.

My hubby could eat Chinese every night and I could eat Indian every night. (Okay, for like three nights.)

Here's the link to the recipe that our whole family loves, gobbles up and asks for more.

I heart curry. 

This recipe could be converted into a slow cooker recipe, buuuuuuttt

not if you're in a hurry...

...for curry.  :)

processing wild game - tutorial

Moose!  It's what's for dinner...

So if you have wild game meat to process, here is one way to preserve it.

Bottle it!

homemade pickled beets

Gardening in Swan Valley is turning out to be more challenging than either me or the hubs thought. BUT, the beets are doing GREAT!

magnetic storm

Ok, so in our new place, double wide haven--yes, I'm queen of my double wide trailer, we have a small kitchen. When I say small, I mean small. Really small.

So I've been all over the internet trying to come up with ideas to make it all work. I mean, we're kitchen people! Have you seen my blog?! I have canning equipment up the wazoo, Dutch Ovens and cast iron pans galore. Two slow cookers, an electric griddle and frying pan. Mixers and blenders and choppers oh my!  I have three boxes of spices people. And I'm talking full size boxes. Full size. Did I tell you that I have five (5) different kinds of choppers? Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head! I might have more somewhere. In a box that hasn't been unpacked yet--BECAUSE THERE IS NO ROOM TO PUT THEM IN MY KITCHEN.

So. In my realization that I have five different kinds of choppers, I thought to myself, "ya know, all I really need is a knife and a cutting board." "I don't have the room for five different kinds of choppers." "Well, at least not four." "Downsizing is GOOD."

Enter, fridge knife magnet. Excellent idea! Free up counter space from my knife crock AND cupboard space from my three choppers!

Where does my mind go always? DIY. Do-it-yourself. Always.

*sigh*

Pretty good idea in theory, but in my naivete, this is what happened...

And then this happened...