Making Laundry Soap

Recently, during a visit to watch a lady from our church make homemade bar soap, she shared a money-saving tip with me for making your own laundry detergent.  According to her calculations, it ends up costing about $2.00 per 5 gallon bucket.  For our family, that will be a huge savings.  It wasn't hard to make either.  Here is the recipe:

4 cups - hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha bar soap (in soap isle at Meijer)
1 c Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (in laundry isle at Meijer)
1/2 c Borax (in laundry isle at Meijer)

1.  Grate bar of soap and add to a saucepan with hot water.  Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted. 

2.  Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water.  Add melted soap, washing soda, and borax.  Stir well until all powder is dissolved.  Fill bucket to top with more hot water.  Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

3.  Next morning, stir up with your hands (will feel like jello) and then fill a used, clean laundry soap dispenser.  Shake before each use (will gel).
4.  To use for top loading washing machine:  3/8 c in each load.

Christmas Cookie Maddness

This year, I decided to make 3 different recipes of Christmas cutout cookies, so our family could decide which one they liked the best.  In the running was my Grandma Monroe's recipe, my neighbor- Amy Grice's recipe and Better Home & Garden's recipe that Ted has said he always liked.

So in the course of two days, we made about a bizzillion cookies and the kids were on frosting burnout.  We watched Elf and Voyage of the Dawn Treader while we frosted. Ben was the first to fall out and stop decorating.  He laid curled up on the floor with Maggie.  Madeline and Nate were close second, still sitting in their chairs, but unmoving with a dazed expression in their eyes, and holding their sticky fingers up as an offering to God.  Jake was the trooper, decorating until we had one cookie left and no more frosting!

 After the last cookie was frosted, I instructed the kids to choose a cookie from each batch and conduct a taste test.  If you can imagine, after stealing cookies and licks of frosting throughout hours of making them, my kids weren't that hungry to do a taste test.  But the results eventually came in:
1st place:  Amy Grice's recipe (Isaiah, Madeline, Nate, Charli & Ted)
2nd place:  Grandma Monroe's recipe (Jake, Ben)
last place:  Better Homes & Gardens recipe

I could kick myself because I didn't take any pictures of all the cookies we made or any pictures of the kids eating them in the next few days.  The sad part is that I don't think they even lasted a week!  The kids ate them all the time!

Here is the top two recipes:

Amy Grice Sugar Cookies

2 c sugar

1 c shortening

3 eggs

3/4 c sourmilk/buttermilk

1 t soda

3 t baking powder

1 t salt

4 c flour

Chill dough 4 hours or overnight.  

Roll out and bake @ 350 for 10-15 min.  

Iced with powdered sugar icing w/ hint of almond flavoring.

Grandma Nettie Monroe's Christmas Cookies

Mix - 3 eggs, 2 c sugar, 2/3 c milk, 2/3 c shortening

Combine dry ingredients and then mix with wet mixture - 1 t baking soda, 1 t nutmeg, 6 c flour.  

Roll out to 1/4" thickness and cut.  

Bake @ 350 for 6-8 min.  

Decorated with powdered sugar icing.

Chicken Tortilla Chowder

This soup whipped up so fast and tasted so good, that it will become a staple on Mondays when we have to hurry out the door for BSF.  We enjoyed ours with a homemade loaf of Italian Bread.

Total Prep time:  30 min.
Yield: 10 servings (2 1/2 qt)
2 cans condensed cream of potato soup, undiluted
2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
2 cups milk
14-16 oz chicken broth
1 can (11 oz) Mexicorn, drained **** I didn't have, so I just threw in frozen corn
~ 2 cups cooked, chopped chicken
1 can (4oz) chopped green chilies **** I didn't have, so I just pulled some serano chilies out of the freezer and chopped them and added till spicy enough
3 8"" flour tortillas cut into small strips **** I didn't have so I just broke hard taco shells up and added
1 c shredded cheddar cheese + more for topping off

In large saucepan, heat soups, milk, broth, stirring frequently.  Add corn, chicken and chilies; bring to a boil.  Stir in tortilla strips.  Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered for 5 minutes.  Stir in the cheese until melted.  Sprinkle each serving with add'l cheese if desired.

Who's in the Kitchen????

Preparing meals for my family has been one of those things I either love or hate and usually it is hate.  Many times I've whined, 'I just wish I had a cook to make our meals and I could just sit down with the family and be served!'  Day after day, thinking up breakfast, lunch and dinner for 6 hungry mouths, month after month, year after year.... It NEVER ENDS!!!  Needless to say, it's not my first love huh?  Instead of having a grateful heart each time I contemplated what to make, thankful that there is food in the fridge and pantry (usually), thankful for each day I have with my husband and my dear children - instead I've usually whined.

But God works in funny ways .... because of our commitment to chew on the FOOD that truly SUSTAINS & NOURISHES after eating this earth's food, I first had to START serving this earth's food.  Funny huh?  But yet where God leads us, He always provides and encourages.

BSF set the ground work for me, because this past month or so, I've been chewing on what it means to be a servant as He spoke of in John.  Serving selflessly to my family, my first ministry.   It's so easy, as a mom, to somehow end up at the thought of "What about me?  Who's taking care of me?"  This world and the deceiver love it when we set up our camp in this thought too.  And over the past 4-5 months, God has been reassuring me time and time again that HE is taking care of me and every time I serve my husband or my children because I love them and set my desires aside, He reminds me that I am living out John 3:30.  And God has blessed me in abundance when I think of how relationships are being strengthened in our home, I love more and the love just multiplies.

Next God gave me the successful bread experience, giving me the boost my ego needed that maybe I could truly do this thing.  And then God led me to another blogging mom, who homeschools, and cooks for her family and loves it.  Loves it so much that she posts recipes online and has a cookbook out (that I want to get!)  The Pioneer Woman has a recipe section and step by step pictures that made me excited to give some recipes a try.  I chose a recipe that I thought my spice-loving husband would enjoy, Cajun Chicken Pasta.  I quickly took stock of what I had for the recipe and what I could substitute and what I would need Ted to pick up on his way home, and I began.   Isn't there a saying like, "No better time like the present"?  I doubled the amount of chicken (b/c we're carnivores here in the woods) and I decided to not get the peppers and onions (b/c moneys tight) (or maybe b/c it scared me) and I kept calling Ted, hounding him to find out when he'd be home with tomatoes.  He was a little annoyed I think until he walked in the house, smelled the cajun and he said, "My wife's a cook!"

The verdict from everyone was yummy (except Ben, who had a loose tooth and just sat at the table looking at his plate afraid to eat).

I am so thankful that we have a God who never stops growing us, even in the mundane - day in, day out duties of our lives!  (notice the homemade french bread on the table too, my mom would be so proud!)

Homemade Bread on the Rise

Baking homemade bread has always sound daunting and with the exception of the "I wanna be a perfect wife" days right after I was married, I've always told myself it's just less hassle to buy a loaf at the store. The more busy our daily lives have become too has just reinforced the idea "keep it simple".  But one of my goals for this year has been to cook more "meals" for our family and less "fend for yourself" nights, so I requested a free Taste of Home magazine and looked through it hoping to be inspired. One page caught my attention, it was about a mom who loves to make french bread with her kids! Our family loves french bread - it has been known to be a meal for us, so I decided to give it a try.

I enlisted Nate & Madeline's help and carefully followed the recipe. Maddie kneaded the dough for 8 minutes like a trooper! We were so excited when we finally had it ready to pop in the oven.

Fifteen minutes later and whoola..... the most beautiful homemade bread I have ever made!

It just about killed us all to wait for friends that were coming over so we could try it and then to hold back and only eat one loaf was more torture, but I insisted we had to save one to show Dad so he wouldn't think I was just making it all up!

Since that day, that has been the highlight around here, always a willing pair of hands to knead the dough and always willing mouths to gobble it up.

 Try it yourself - it is so easy and so delicious!  And if you have a Kitchen Aid Mixer, you can use that to knead the dough if you don't having willing hands!

Here's the recipe:
Prep time (30 min + rising Bake: 15 min)  Yields 2 loaves
2 Tbsp active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (110-115 .... I once heard the example that it should be like the temp of water you wash dishes in)
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
4-1/2 to 5 cups bread flour (I've only used 4)
1 tsp cornmeal
* we add melted butter (brush onto tops afterwards)

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water.  Add the salt, sugar and  2 cups of flour.  Beat until smooth.  Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.  Places in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top.  Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down.  Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half.  Shape into 12 in long loaves.

Place seam side down on a greased baking sheet.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.  Sprinkle with cornmeal.  With a sharp knife, make four shallow slashes across the top of each loaf.  Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.