Let's make jam!!!!

I love jam.  It's good on toast, with ice cream and on crackers with peanut butter (maybe even some cookie butter.)

I had a ton of blueberries and blackberries and I needed to use them up before I could no longer.

I decided to make jam, because, why not??

Jam is pretty simple to make.  You have fruit, pectin, sugar and possibly some lemon juice.

For this recipe I had 5 cups of the blueberry/blackberry (with 5 TB of fresh lemon juice) mixture.

Here it is cooking for a couple of minutes.

It already looks good.  After it cooks and gets to a rolling boil that can't be stirred down it's time to add the sugar.  I think I added about 5 cups of sugar (and this is the low sugar recipe.)

It's starting to look like jam.  Bring it back to a rolling boil and cook for one minute more. You need to stir this whole time!

During this time I like to heat the water in my water bath (for canning the jam.)  I also sterilize the jars in that water. At the same time, I put the lids and rings in some very hot water to sterilize and get the glue on the lids soft.

Once the jam is done, I used a "canning kit" to funnel the jam into the jars.

After the jam was canned, I cleaned the rims, added the lids and rims and into the bath they went.

Let the water get to a simmering boil, put the lid on the canner and process for 10 minutes.  Once the 10 minutes is up, turn off the stove and let the jars sit for 5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes take the jars out with a jar lifter and place them on a towel, not touching, for 24 hours.  The lids will "pop" down sealing the jars.  After this is done, they can be put in the cubbard for a year I believe until opened.  I don't think they will last that long though. ;)

This batch made 6 half pint jars.

Try it someday, and thank me later.  Keep some, give some as gifts, save some!

-April

Blueberry Waffles

I went to Costco the other day and stocked up on a lot of fruit.  I love this time of year!

I came home with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, pineapple and bananas.  

This morning I woke up and wanted waffles (again) and the first thing I thought of were the blueberries.

I searched online for a recipe in which I had all the ingredients for.  I also wanted to make my own syrup.

The whole process took less than an hour, and they were delicious!

Blueberry Waffles (recipe adapted from here)

2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups milk (I use almond)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoon white sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1.5 cups blueberries

Preheat waffle iron. Beat eggs in large bowl with hand beater until fluffy. Mix in flour, milk, vegetable oil, sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon just until smooth. Let sit 10 minutes then fold in blueberries.


Spray preheated waffle iron with non-stick cooking spray. Pour mix onto hot waffle iron. Cook until golden brown. You may need to spray the iron in between waffles as the blueberries tend to stick.

Homemade Syrup (recipe from here)
1 cup water
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon maple extract (I got the Archer Farms brand at Target)


Bring water to a boil.  Add sugars and mix until they dissolve.  Let cool and enjoy.


Have a great Sunday!
-April

Waffles for any meal

I'm not much of a breakfast person.  I am not 100% sure why, but I'm sure it is partly because I'm so lazy in the mornings on the weekends and I don't really want to make anything until at least 2pm.

I do love waffles though, and for a while now I have been wanting to get a waffle iron, so I did.  I was at Target the other day and they had a pretty good iron on sale.

Knowing myself I couldn't wait to try it out, but it was dinner time.  Who says you can't have waffles for dinner??  I whipped up these cheese waffles and threw a tasty over easy egg on top.  They were pretty good!

This morning I was thinking about breakfast, and how easy those cheese waffles were to make.  I looked in the refrigerator and remembered that I had tons of strawberries.  I decided on strawberry waffles with strawberry syrup.

I did a quick search online and found some good looking recipes.

First I made the syrup.  It called for a lot of sugar, but this is a treat, so I was ok with that.

See

After cooking the sauce for about 10 minutes I had a very tasty looking topping for the waffles I was about to make.

The waffles themselves were very easy to whip up.  I also liked that there wasn't a lot of sugar involved, especially since I used so much in the sauce.

I added a good amount to the waffle iron

A few minutes later I had a golden waffle with strawberries running all though.

Now let's top it :)

If you like strawberries and waffles, please try this.  They were the fluffiest waffles I've ever had, and they didn't take that long to cook.  Also, they are much easier to make than pancakes...and they are prettier :) 

Homemade Strawberry Syrup from here.

2 cups strawberries
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup water

Wash the strawberries and remove the stalks

Mash the strawberries to the consistency you want. I threw them in the food processor for about 30 seconds.

In a pot place the strawberries, sugar and 3/4 cup of water.

Bring to a boil over medium low heat, stirring every now and then for 10 minutes

When you have 5 minutes left in the cooking time, dissolve the corn starch in the 1/4 cup of water and add it to the syrup while stirring. This will thicken the sauce and give it a beautiful consistency.

Strawberry Waffles adapted from here.
(this recipe made about 9 large waffles, I froze half.)

2 ½ c all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
2 Tbs sugar
2 eggs
2 ½ c milk (I used almond)
½ c vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 c chopped strawberries.

Heat the waffle iron.

In a medium bowl, sift the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar. Set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla. When the waffle iron is ready to use, mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Stir until just combined. Stir in the strawberries. Do not overbeat.

Pour batter into center of the waffle iron (amount will depend on the size of your waffle iron). Bake until lightly browned. Serve with powdered sugar , syrup and/or sliced strawberries.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

-April

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I finally ran out of my store bought laundry detergent.  After many washes, my large tub is empty.  Normally I would be upset because I knew I would have to shell out anywhere from $10-13 for more detergent, but not today.

I was very excited.  Why, you might ask?!? Well, because I can finally make my own HOMEMADE detergent.  The recipe is simple:

Grind up a bar of soap.  I used Dr. Bronner's Peppermint bar soap.  I just chopped it up a bit and used my food processor to grind it down pretty fine.  I know $4 seems a bit steep for a bar of soap, but I do believe in the brand.  Also, in the end, you get a lot of soap!

1 cup each of washing soda and borax.  I found them both in the laundry aisle.  Please note that washing soda is NOT baking soda, it's this stuff.

Mix all together and use 1 tablespoon per load.  I have used it for 2 loads already, and it smells wonderful.

I'm guessing I'll get about 60 loads out of this, for a cost of about $4.50.  That's .075 a load.  Tide will run you $12 for the about the same amount of washes.  Also, you know what's going in your detergent!

I put my detergent in a liter size mason jar.

I haven't run out of fabric softener, but when I do I have some orange infused vinegar that I am going to start using in the rinse cycle.

I hope that if you try this out you like it.  It's nice to save a little cash for the savings account.

-April

Molasses cookies

I love to read, I really do.  I tend to read several books at a time. For instance, at the moment I'm reading New York, a novel, The Knife Man, Pride and Prejudice and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  I'm also usually re-reading one of the Harry Potter books as well.


Years ago I read all of the Little House on the Prairie books, and enjoyed them very much.  I love history, I love homemade things and I love the simplicity of life.


I saw a recipe for Laura Ingalls Wilder's molasses cookies and I had to make them.

I think molasses is amazing.  You can use it in sweets then use it in your favorite BBQ sauce (which I have.) 


The cookie recipe is pretty simple, we take our ingredients, cream the butter and sugar, add the egg and molasses, mix the dry ingredients, mix everything together and we are good to go!


The ingredients, minus the tasty coconut (don't you love the different measuring cups I have??):

Mix it all up and get it on a pre-greased cookie sheet:

Cook for 8 minutes, turn, and cook for another 5.  What you get is a tasty treat.  Believe me!

This cookie is slightly sweet, and you will feel good because it's "healthy".  Come on, it has oatmeal and coconut!  We all know how much I love coconut.


I hope I made Laura proud.  Someday I'll have a farm with a garden a chickens... someday.


Laura Ingalls Wilder's Molasses cookies (adapted slightly from here,)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup unsweetened grated or flaked coconut dried
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and grease two cookie sheets. Pour the coconut into a small bowl and cover with cold water. Let the coconut soak to rehydrate while you're working with the other ingredients.

In a medium mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the egg and molasses.

Drain the coconut.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry along with the coconut and vanilla. Stir together till a batter forms. 

Drop the batter by heaping tablespoonfuls onto the greased cookie sheet. The cookies spread quite a bit, so make sure you leave enough space between them. I was able to fit 12 cookies per sheet.

Cook for 8 minutes, rotate and cook for another 5.  Cool on  rack and enjoy right away.

-April

The many uses of coconut oil

If you've been reading the blog you will know that I've been researching and trying a lot of new recipes for household and beauty items.

The one thing I have been using a lot is coconut oil.  I have found many ways to use it, and have had a while to try them out.  I would like to share my recipes and reviews with you now.  Keep reading if you want to save money and chemicals in your body.  It's just true, remember, I'm a bad lair ;)

The most simple things I have been using coconut oil for are for cooking and moisturizer.

In cooking in place of butter, mostly:

In cooking I have been very pleased.  I have used it to fry up veggies, in bread in place of butter and to fry up eggs.  Now I have read some reviews online where people don't like it to fry eggs, but I haven't noticed a bad flavor.  They didn't taste like coconut eggs, but I felt more healthy!  In bread I didn't notice the difference not using butter.

All in all I'm very pleased.  Pleased enough to purchase a 54 oz jar from Vitacost.com.  If you are interested in getting a $10 off coupon, click here.  I am not getting paid to endorse them, I am just very happy with the product and love to share!  Also, who wouldn't like 10 bucks off??

Moisturizer:

I really like it for  a face moisturizer.  I won't lie, I haven't been pimple free, like I usually am, but I've maybe gotten 2 or 3 since I started using it.  I can live with that.  I do know that your body does go through a detox period when changing any beauty product, so it might be that.   If you are wondering, I have combo skin.

It could also be because I stopped using traditional shampoo/conditioner for 3 weeks now, and my body's adjusting to that as well.  People call it no poo, but I think that's silly.  Maybe one day I'll will write about my experience, but if you are at all interested, it's going well!

All in all I do like it as a moisturizer, and my skin feels much more smooth.  I use it on my body too, no more store bought lotion!

Deodorant:


I have read a lot about aluminum in deodorant, and I'm not terribly happy about that.  I decided to do some research, and what do you know, you can use coconut oil to make deodorant!

Below is the recipe I've been using.  They claim it's just a deodorant and not an antiperspirant, but for me I notice it works for both.  Just in case, I keep a tiny jar of it in my purse, but I have yet to use it.  I'm doing ok, unless my co-workers are nice and not telling me!

6 TB coconut oil
1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup cornstarch

I just warm up the coconut oil and mix everything together.  I leave it in a small jar and just use it with my fingers.  The coconut oil is very moisturizing and it will kill any bacteria or odor.  It's antibacterial and anti fungal.  I'm not a scientist, but I believe the cornstarch is what makes the sweat stay away!  Do be careful though, in the summer it will liquefy due to the oil, but it won't affect the way it works.  I've read of people putting it in empty deodorant containers and keeping it in the fridge in the summer, it's up to you.

Toothpaste:


We all know that baking soda is good in toothpaste, it whitens teeth, but did you know coconut oil is good for them as well?  As I mentioned before, coconut oil is antibacterial, it's also great for your gums.  When combining the 2 ingredients, it gets exciting!  I haven't used this long, but since I have my teeth and gums feel great and I'm liking the results so far.  I will try to update a few months down the line to let you know how it's going.

Equal parts coconut oil and baking soda (I started out with 4 TB each)
25-30 drops of peppermint essential oil

Mix all ingredients together, dip your toothbrush and brush away!

Well, so far that's all I've tried, but I do intend to try more.  If you are interested in trying any of these, please do, and please comment and let me know what you think.

I hope that I have helped some of you to save a little money and your health!

Until next time...

-April

Canning

If you have been reading my blog, you might know that I am in the process of trying to make anything I can homemade (see here for an example.)  Not only do I want to try to save some cash, but I really want to know what I'm putting in/on my body.

Recently my husband told me about a conversation he had with a friend of ours about canned goods.  I won't go into detail, but needless to say, I will no longer purchasing them (I may be a bit over-dramatic, but if you read my last post, you know I like being a grown-up and I can do what I want!) :P

Anyway, I have been wanting to get into canning for some time now, and it seems to be the best time.  I have been all over the Internet learning about it, and it seems I am very close to starting.

I bought a couple cases of jars today and ordered this pressure canner (and got 5% off as well as free shipping using my Target red debit card.  Get one, seriously.) I am SO excited to get this and start canning.

Since we joined the CSA, I am looking forward to trying new things and canning what I like so we can enjoy it when it's out of season.

I think the first thing I will try is canned tomatoes, since we use that most.  I will probably process some seasonal fruit as well.  Let's not forget pickles!  I do love pickles.

So, if you are interested in learning what I am, stay tuned and you can learn with me.

Until then...

-April