Save your stale baguette

Can't finish the 1 or 2 baguettes you bought quick enough? Here is a little tip. Wrap it in a damp paper towel, and microwave in 15 second intervals checking for softness in between. This will give you fresh bread for just one more meal.

Forget about your baguette altogether before it went stale? Check out this recipe for Overnight French Toast!

Muffin Cup Pizza

I make homemade pizza thanks to my sister's recipe:

1 packet yeast
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup warm water
2 tbl olive oil
2 tsp salt
1 tbl sugar (optional)
plus seasonings

bake at 425 for about 20 minutes.

Well, my 2 year old is often finicky about the messiness of not handling pizza properly. So since the fad is everything in either muffin tins or jars, I decided to try muffin tin pizzas for him. I finely chopped the veggie toppings and put them between 2 layors of mozzerella cheese (he doesn't like big chunks of vegetables or surprises). Well he devoured 3 of them, I only offered him 2 but he asked for more!

The Happy Customer

The Many Uses of Vinegar

There are certain products that you can use for just about anything! Vinegar is one of those things. Most often I find that it is "white distilled" or "apple cider" that are the most user friendly. So I will focus on those 2. There are so many things you can use these products for but these are just a couple I have found so far...

1) CLEANING. I love, love vinegar for cleaning. It is a non-toxic disinfectant. I use 1 part white vinegar and 3 parts water for an all purpose cleaner. Great for counter tops, mirrors/glass, wood surfaces, and shining up stainless steel(including sink fixtures).

2) FOR YOUR HEALTH. You can use (organic) apple cider vinegar to boost your immune system. Drink a little a day and keep your body well cleansed and help prevent sickness.

3) PAINTING YOUR NAILS. This is a new one I just found! Put a little white vinegar on your nails before you paint them to help the polish adhere better.

4) CATCHING FRUIT FLIES. Those dumb bugs love this stuff... especially ACV. put a little in a shallow dish and I bet a couple fruit flies will be floating dead in there the next day. For best results use plastic wrap with some holes to cover the dish.

5) WARTS. I guess if you soak a wart (ACV more effective but you can also use white) a couple times a day for a few minutes -for a few weeks- you can clear up warts.

I could go on but I will leave it at that! Please share any more interesting uses.

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent?

The verdict is in....hung jury.


Here is the recipe:

1 cup borax

1 cup washing soda

1/2 cup kosher salt

1/2 cup citric acid (I used a non-sugar packet of lemon coolaide, made it smell awesome! But you can buy citric acid along with canning supplies)

vinegar as rinse aid


Here is my take on homemade dishwasher detergent. It was easy enough to make, and proves to be cost effective. It does get your dishes "clean" but like, really cheap dishwasher detergent clean. I read a lot of comments saying that it left a white residue on their dishes. I saw what people were talking about but its a very light residue that didn't mean the dishes weren't clean, just not sparkling, which I can live with. I mean, people are dying of drought in Somolia and we are complaining of a white residue on our dishes?

The other complaint was that it clumps after a few days. But who cares about clumping? You just throw the clumps in the dishwasher anyway. So that proved to be no big deal.

My complaint would be that heavy or greasy loads left a greasy residue on all of the dishes. Apparently it is due to the fact that the really poisonous and bad for the environment chemicals in traditional dish detergents, like phosphate, are the ones that help your dishes sparkle. I did not get to use white vinegar as a rinse aid, because our dishwasher is so old, it doesn't have a rinse aid compartment. Maybe that would have made the difference. That being said, I think I will stick with the poison stuff for heavy loads, and supplement with my homemade stuff, as it is cheap cheap cheap!!

Photog Mama

Ok, I am not going to pretend that I know what I am doing with a camera. I never took any classes, and I don't have any fancy equipment. Shaunna definitely has more experience and skill than I. What I would like to talk about are some pointers for the regular non-skilled photo taking mama. In my experience these have been the most helpful things....

1) Lighting. Almost always try to utilize natural light. A flash on a point and shoot camera will always lack something. It washes out skin-tone and leaves red-eye often times. I will even take pictures in the bathroom if the sun is shining in the window! Nobody can tell but your pictures will look amazing.

2) Textures. Mess around with different textures (and patterns) in your pictures. Notice the baby blanket against the grass leaves a pleasing effect.

3) Try a different angle. You don't always need to capture the entire person or object in the picture. Take some shots from all different directions until you find what looks best.

4) Take a lot. I have a regular point and shoot. Not all the pictures are winners. Just keeping snapping shots until you get one you like, you can always delete any fails. A personal preference of mine is also to remove any time stamp, I feel like it detracts from the photo.

Anyway, those are my tips for the day! Happy picture taking!

I can make bread??

And not just bread, good bread! Like even my toddler loved it, and toddlers are the true-est of all taste testers. I just always assumed to make bread you need a bread machine and a bread pan. A bread pan will definitely come in handy in the future if I want to make sliced bread, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I just figured out I can make any bread. The other thing I could have used was a stand mixer, something I hear that I need, over and over again. But what the bread machine or stand mixer can do in 2 minutes, I can do in 7 minutes of hand-kneading.

I used the recipe shown here from the dana-made-it blog. And if you go there, and start scrolling down, dreading all the complicated looking steps, fear not! Its really mostly how to braid and letting the bread rise.
*little side note* before you start realize that if you use regular yeast, you must give yourself enough time to let the yeast rise, It's kinda like, you complete the recipe, throw it somewhere to rise and bake it later. So don't make the same mistake I did and start it at 8 at night.

Shown below is the exact recipe except I used half white/half wheat flour, and I also did my own "veggie loaf" which actually came out amazing, just just have to add more flour to get the right consistency (doughy and stretchy, not sticky). For my loaf I used finely chopped red peppers, tomatoes and Hungarian peppers left over from our juicer, it gave the bread a full flavor which I made garlic bread out of.

Welcome

I don't know what I am doing, but I am figuring it out little by little. I have been married 8 years and have been a mom for 2 and a half, and I feel like I am just figuring things out. I can cook a fast meal without having to choke back dry chicken and wash it down with soda...quick. Now I know quick healthy recipes and easy rules that make my dinnertime not only edible but enjoyable. Learned "domestic" skills that help me stay a stay-at-home-mom. I have learned how to do these things mostly since I had my first baby and was forced to get good at my new "job". Since my mom has not been part of my life since I was 9, and I moved out on my own when I was 19, I wasn't prepared. Now I am trying to live healthy, frugally, and enjoyably. I wouldn't even say I'm good, just better. And I feel like sharing things I learn along the way, the fails too. My sister and I are in it together. Join us!