Easy DIY Disinfecting Cleaner

I haven't posted anything like this in a while. Here is a recipe for a very easy DIY disinfectant cleaner. Only two ingredients! All that you need is regular white vinegar and orange peels. Put the peels in a container with the vinegar and let it "infuse" for a while. I used a mason jar because I think they are pretty, but you could always just put the peels directly into a spray bottle with the vinegar. Use this spray anywhere, especially in the kitchen. The orange peels give it a nice smell, and vinegar is one of the best cleaners out there, enjoy!

Read more »

The Many Uses of Baking Soda

I have been cleaning with natural products for quite some time now. Baking soda is one of my
favorite products for natural cleaning because it is cheap and it works great! I love baking soda for cleaning, but is is also a great bath and body product! I have a large box sitting in my bathroom, and I have been using it a lot. Before you get completely weirded out, just keep reading! It really works. 

Baking soda as a face wash:
I have been using baking soda, a little water, and some coconut oil to wash my face. The coconut oil removes makeup, and the baking soda is an excellent cleanser for the skin. You really do not have to use baking soda every day. Sometimes I just remove eye makeup with coconut oil and wash my face with water. The baking soda makes your skin feel extra clean and smooth.

Baking soda as a toothpaste:
You can use baking soda as a toothpaste! I ran out of my Tom's of Maine, so I have been using baking soda for toothpaste. Just make a paste with water and brush. It's really simple. Your teeth feel really clean, and it helps make them brighter. You can also use hydrogen peroxide mixed with baking soda. My mouth is really sensitive right now (pregnancy) so I am not currently using the peroxide. If you can use it, it will whiten your teeth! If I want some minty-freshness, I just use my Tom's of Maine mouthwash. 

Baking soda as a shampoo:
Is this advice getting weirder? YES. Use baking soda to wash your hair. Use just enough water to make a paste, scrub into your hair, rinse. It's easy, it works, your hair is clean. I have been doing this and my hair doesn't feel any weirder or more disgusting than when I used regular shampoo and conditioner. Oh, and it's CHEAPER!! You can get a big box of baking soda for less than $2. I use apple cider vinegar to rinse my hair after, and it feels great. he vinegar smell goes away within a couple of minutes. I don't really know why I would go back to using normal shampoo and conditioner, this works just as well!

I have heard that you can make deodorant out of baking soda. I haven't done that yet. I am pretty happy with my Tom's deodorant. If you think these ideas seem crazy, just try them! If it doesn't work for you, you aren't losing anything. I was very skeptical about using baking soda as a "shampoo" but now that I have used it, I love it! If you have any "strange" uses for baking soda, leave a comment and let me know what you use it for!

Read more »

Gluten Free Bagels and Freezer Meals

You want to eat these!

I went to Wal-Mart in a different town today and found GLUTEN-FREE BAGELS! I have been craving bagels since.. um.. always, so this was wonderful news for me. I actually had a regular bagel a few weeks ago and it was NOT worth it. Every now and then I get this genius idea that maybe I can start eating gluten again and I will be fine, it never goes well for me. Anyway, this Wal-Mart didn't have a dry gluten free section (I was looking for granola bars) but oddly enough, they had a small section of gluten free foods in the freezer aisle. Neither Branson Wal-Mart has anything like this, in fact I have never seen one in any Wal-Mart in the area. I don't shop at Wal-Mart very often.. I am hoping it is a new thing and will catch on. The Bagel's are Udi's brand. Udi's also has really yummy cinnamon rolls and double chocolate muffins, but sadly my grocery store rarely has them in stock. If you eat gluten free and can get your hands on some of these bagels, DO IT. I wouldn't call them healthy or cheap, but they are delicious! Udi's website even has a handy dandy store located here, so you can find a location near you that sells their products. Their bread is also pretty good.

I may have eaten four bagels today (yes, four.. don't judge me, there is one left!) but I also did something productive. I have decided to try making crock pot freezer meals. I use my crock pot all the time, but it seems so much easier to spend a couple of hours once a week prepping all of the meals. Some you can cook before hand and just re-heat, but most of what I did isn't cooked yet. This is what I made today:

Chili (cooked in the CrockPot, I will freeze half for later)
Taco meat (browned before freezing, made with home-made taco seasoning)
Hamburgers (not pre-cooked)
Orange Chicken
Brocolli chicken alfredo
Beef Stew
Marinated Steak
Chicken and Steak Farjitas

I will make another post in the next few days with ingredients and recipes. All recipes are gluten free. I am also working on eliminating GMO soy and corn, which means buying organic or non-GMO certified. I need to get some kind of system together, but ideally I would like to do this once a week or every two weeks. I think that the entire prep time took less than two hours. I had to run to the grocery store in the middle of prepping (ran out of freezer bags) so I didn't really time myself. I am pretty bad about following recipes and taking measurements, so I will need to figure all of that out before the next blog post. The only things that I pre-cooked were the chili and taco meat. If you make freezer meals ahead of time, I would love to hear about how you do it! Feel free to leave some recipes in the comments!

Read more »

Make Your Own Laundry Detergent - Part 2!

Back in 2010, Meagan wrote this post about making your own laundry soap. It was fairly popular, and we have sent several people to the post to check out how we make our laundry detergent. I made the liquid version once and I liked it but didn't love it. Meagan uses the powder version, and she swears by it. While I liked the liquid version, I wasn't completely comfortable having a large bucket of laundry soap on my laundry room floor. I used a lid, but it still didn't feel completely safe. I usually stock up on detergent during sales, but I had recently ran out and decided to make my own again. I found another variation on the homemade laundry soap recipe. It uses the same ingredients in similar quantities, but has a very different texture!

Ingredients:
4 cups of water
1 bar of Fels-Naptha
1 cup of Borax
1 cup of Washing soda

Note: you should be able to find all of these ingredients at any Wal-Mart, Target, or Grocery Store. Fels-Naptha is about $1 per bar. Borax and Washing soda are $2-$4 for fairly large boxes. They should last a while!

Materials:
2 quart sized mason jars
Medium-large sauce pan
Blender
Grater or food processor

Directions:
Grate the bar of Fels-Naptha. If you have a food processor, this should be easy. If you don't, use a hand grater. It's really a pain, but it works. I don't have a food processor so that is what I had to do. Now put four cups of water into a medium or larger sauce pan and bring to a boil. While waiting for the water to boil, mix the Borax and Washing Soda together thoroughly. Slowly add grated soap to the pan, it should look like this:

   
Turn the heat down to medium. Now you are going to stir. You will be stirring for a while, so I suggest you find something else to occupy yourself. I used Pinterest on my phone. You will need to stir until the soap dissolves. Don't skip this step. You will regret it. Don't ask me how I know. It is not "good enough" until all of the soap is dissolved, this took me about fifteen minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the dry mixture until it no longer feels grainy. This should take about five minutes. BONUS: Your house will smell really clean, and your pans will BE really clean. I use stainless pans and this one is sparkly now. 

 

Borax and Washing Soda

Now you will want to carefully pour your mixture into two mason jars. They will be about half full (or half empty, hahaha..) Add water to the jars until they are nearly full, leave about 1/2 in. Seal the jars and shake them, and then turn them upside down. Now leave them on the counter (upside down) for about a few hours. I left mine for four hours. The mixture will separate. Sorry I don't have a picture of that, my camera died. Open the jars VERY carefully, the top layer will be liquid and it can make a mess. Again, don't ask me how I know. I would put a towel (or prefold diaper) under the jars when you open them. Pour the contents of one jar into the blender. You may need a spoon to get the stuff at the bottom. Blend until you get a whipped consistency. It took less than a minute in my Cuisinart blender. Carefully pour back into the jar, and repeat with the other jar, You're done!

Finished Product

Use 1 TBSP per load of laundry. It is safe for top loaders, front loaders, and YES, it is safe on cloth diapers! I didn't want to post anything until I had actually used it. I have washed both blankets/towels and diapers with this today, and it works great! This recipe will make two full jars and only using one tablespoon per load, they should last a while! The entire recipe cost less than $2 to make I didn't count the entire cost of Borax or Washing soda since 1) I already had them and 2) I didn't use all of it! I love this recipe because it is less messy than powder, but safer and less of a hassle than liquid. I am posting a video below to exactly what it looks like. Let me know if you make this and how it turns out! Make sure to clean your blender and pan right away to avoid any big messes later! What other home products do you make yourself? We'd love to hear about them in the comments!

 
NOTE: This is NOT my original recipe! I found a few different sites that had tweaked the original recipe and kind of combined them.

Read more »

VIDEO - Thirty-One Gifts Summer 2013 Add-on Kit

Large Utility Tote - One of my favorites and shown in the video!

I know this is something a little different! I just added this to our YouTube Channel. I have been a 31 Consultant for a couple of months now. I really enjoy it, and wanted a way to show customers and others some of the products. Check out my 31 site here to take a look at some of the items that I show in the video!

Read more »

VIDEO - My Favorite Cloth Diapers

This video is about my favorite diapers, and what I use right now. I have done a few blog posts about diapers that I like, but this is my first video. I tend to ramble a lot. Sorry :) My favorite diapers are AI2s and Hybrid Fitted diapers from Bumstoppers (right) and BumGenius Elementals. Feel free to comment with any questions!

 
 

Read more »

Gluten Free Beef Stew

Don't mind the cell phone picture. :)

This is another Crock-Pot recipe that I make pretty often. It tastes good, requires minimal effort, and everyone loves it. I am a decent cook, at best, so minimal effort is important to me. :) It is really simple to make a gluten free beef stew. Simply skip the breading of the meat entirely, or use tapioca starch (or cornstarch) instead. When I use frozen stew meat, I don't thaw it or "bread" it at all. I just throw it in the crock pot as is. Today I did (using tapioca starch) because I had stew meat that wasn't frozen.

Ingredients:

Beef stew meat (I used just over a pound, I usually make more)
Potatoes, Carrots, Celery, etc.
Tapioca starch
Garlic, minced onion
Parsley, Bay leaves, salt, pepper
Chicken or beef broth

Slow cooker (I think mine is 4 quarts)

Coat the stew meat in tapioca starch (you'll need less than 1/2 cup) and brown in a pan on the stove. Don't worry about "cooking" it, just brown it a little. Put it directly in the slow cooker, chop up your veggies and add them too. I used 5 regular carrots and 5 small yellow potatoes. I use more veggies if I have more meat. Use 1-2 boxes of chicken or beef broth, depending on how much you are cooking. I used one today, but with two pounds of stew meat I use two. I didn't put much broth in my bowl, but there was plenty in the Crock pot. The picture just doesn't show much! I always use chicken broth. I buy an organic store brand chicken broth, and I feel like it has a lot less "crap" in it than beef broth. The beef will cook in the broth all day, I promise it will taste like beef! Add your seasonings. I use a lot of garlic, some minced onion, parsley, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. I try to cook on low all day (6 hours minimum, more for frozen meat) but you can cook on high for a shorter time, just check the meat. Today, I cooked it for about 10 hours on low.


 
Just a side note, make sure that your broth does not contain gluten if avoiding gluten is important to you! Some of them do. 

Read more »

VIDEO - Cloth Diapering a Newborn, Is it worth it?

This is a "quick" video that I did about cloth diapering a newborn. I share my experience as well as some of my favorite diapers and what I plan to use this time. I was told that I haven't been doing enough cloth diapering posts lately, so I will change that! Thanks and feel free to post here if you have any questions! In case you are wondering, no, my house is not always so quiet! I had to wait until Miki was napping, Kainan was playing Sesame Street on the Kinect and the dog was trying to get in my room. :)

Read more »

Gluten Free Bread Recipe

 --Edit 4/19-- I made this again with three slight changes. I used 2 whole eggs instead of 3 egg whites. It seems less wasteful and the results were even better. I also used apple cider vinegar instead of regular white. I accidentally used a lot more than was recommended, but it was still delicious. I greased the pan with olive oil spray, and the bread came out a lot easier.--

I found this recipe and it seemed to have some good reviews. I followed the recipe almost exactly. I tried to use my mixer, but it kind of sucks. I really need a Kitchenaid stand mixer. It is on my list of things to buy. Despite the crappy mixer, I made it work. Here is what I did:

2 cups rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
2 tablespoons fast rise yeast
2 tablespoons butter
3 egg whites, beaten slightly
1 teaspoon vinegar

If you check the original recipe you will see that I left out the xanthan gum. I found that gums give some people bloating issues and aren't necessary for most gluten free baking. I don't even buy them. I also used REAL butter (of course) and skipped the egg sub because it seemed like a weird thing to use (and it's not something that I buy.) Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly, which is something that I rarely do. I mixed the flours and salt together first. Then I mixed the sugar into the water and added yeast. I let it sit for about 5 minutes then I put it all into the mixer plus the egg whites, butter and vinegar and mixed on "high" for a while. Fortunately Josh was home to separate my eggs for me. I am not very good at that. I need to add "egg separator" to me things to buy list. I guess one of the kids is getting egg yolks tonight, I wouldn't want to waste them. Organic eggs are expensive. My crappy mixer made a huge mess all over my kitchen, but everything seemed to mix together okay. I only had a normal loaf pan, so I used that. It seems like many other people who commented on the recipe did the same thing. I let the bread rise for 25 minutes and then baked at 400 degrees for 45 minutes.

THE VERDICT:

It smelled good, so that gave me some hope. It looked.. well, not so good. I did grease the pan with coconut oil, but apparently I didn't do a very good job. I practically needed the jaws of life to extract the bread from the pan. After doing all of that, it didn't LOOK pretty.. but it tastes good! It tastes like plain white sandwhich bread. The only other gluten free bread that I have tried was Udi's, it was good, but not $5 for a small loaf good. I'm not really sure what this cost to make, but even though most of the ingredients are organic I'm sure it was MUCH cheaper than that. I will definitely make this again. Next time I will grease the pan better, and I might end up trying a few new things. I will definitely update here when I do!

See? It was STUCK.

Read more »

Gluten Free Chicken and Rice Soup

This is one of our favorite meals. Everyone in my family likes it a lot. I have been making this for quite a while and sometimes I do slight variations but I make this soup almost once a week! It makes enough for leftovers (unless you have a large family) and it is fairly healthy and inexpensive. If you can't have chicken noodle soup, this is a really great alternative. I am not a huge fan of most gluten free noodles, so I prefer the rice. Here is what you need:

• About 2 lbs of chicken. I typically use boneless chicken breasts but you can use whatever you have one hand.
• 1 1/2 - 2 boxes of chicken broth. I use store brand organic, but you could use homemade with a little extra salt (1 box = 1 quart)
• Fresh or frozen veggies, whatever you have on hand, I normally use carrots and celery
• 1 cup of brown rice
• Spices
• Lemon (optional)

Put your chicken in the Slow Cooker. I have used both fresh and frozen. Throw your veggies (1-2 cups) in a blender, add some chicken broth. I like to make somewhat of a puree, to make the broth thicker. You can do this or you can just chop it up. You could also chop them up yourself and just throw it in if you don't mind a very thin broth. You can also puree half and chop the other half. Dump the veggies into the slow cooker and cover with the remaining chicken broth. If you have a smaller amount of veggies, use only 1 1/2 boxes of chicken broth, use more for more veggies. Add one cup of brown rice. I used white rice once, it doesn't make a difference. Season however you like your soup. Check that all spice blends are gluten free (they should be.) I always use parsley, but I usually throw a few others in too. I will occasionally add the juice of a lemon or two, which gives it a different (but nice) flavor. You will definitely need to add salt if you are using home made chicken stock. Cook on low for as long as possible, I usually leave mine on all day. Use a fork to shred the chicken before serving. The rice tends to "explode" after being cooked all day. I really don't have a problem with this and neither does anyone in my family. If that is something that would bother you, I wouldn't advise making any kind of rice soup in a slow cooker. I think it makes the soup better! Like any soup, this one is even better the next day! My kids both love this, I hope you family loves it too!

  

Read more »