Make Your Own Laundry Detergent!

http://www.mnn.com/your-home/at-home/stories/homemade-laundry-detergent

Today I made my own laundry detergent (which my cat promptly knocked off the washer).
Verdict after use: Cleans well, no heavy smell, clothes were softer than usual. Only used 2 tablespoons!
I'm trying to locate Dr. Bronner's Lavender bar soap for the next batch to give my clothes that wonderful lavender scent.

Making-Yogurt-Day!

The title says it all. The milk is in the crockpot on low until 12:30pm. Then it'll be off for 3 hours. The hardest part is watching the clock! I use these recipes from 365 Crockpot and The Simple Dollar .
More as the day evolves!

Unprocessed October

October is "unprocessed" month.

Recently it occurred to me that I'm eating a lot of salad and using a lot of store-bought salad dressings with lots of ingredients I can't identify or alter. So I purchased Ranch dressing dry mix and instead of making it with mayonnaise and milk, I made it with 0% fat plain Greek yogurt and 1% organic milk. It's not quite as rich as with mayonnaise but it's still pretty tasty and about 75% less calories per serving. This makes me super happy.

Today I decided to dive it a bit deeper and make French dressing. I used the recipe at http://allrecipes.com/recipe/french-salad-dressing/detail.aspx although I didn't use nearly the amount of sugar the recipe directs you to use. (Only had a little less than 1/4 cup on hand. I also used apple cider vinegar.) And  I used onion powder instead of fresh onion. All I can say  is ....... WOW is this good stuff! The yield is about 18 servings (yes, it makes a lot of dressing) and has NO added preservatives. The pictures do not do it justice. So yummy!

http://www.eatingrules.com/october-unprocessed

Shabbat Shalom...

and TGIF! I love being on leave on Fridays - I can get SO much done and then I have two glorious days to do whatever I choose.
Today is a rumbly-weather day. It rained during the night (which we desperately need) and to the south the sky is VERY dark and all rumbly with thunder. Such a perfect day to snooze and laze about! Alas, my body still wakes me up at 5:30am and my mind races with all the things I can get done. So, before noon I'm already up and about, having gotten the car inspected and its semi-annual maintenance done and gas tank filled with gold, I mean, gasoline, and back home to prepare a healthy breakfast and piddle about at home.

Good Shabbos y'all!
 

Guess What?

My son and I have taken our health and diet changes to heart. Since June 8, 2011 we have lost 34.7 pounds! We have been eating way less meat, more vegetables, cut the sugar, watching carbs like the criminals they are, drinking lots more water, and it's really paying off. I've been logging my daily food intake on myfitnesspal.com and even have it installed on my phone. If it passes the lips, it gets logged. Also I've been getting HUGE amounts of inspiration from loseit on reddit.com . It is simply AMAZING what people are achieving! Both sites are phone-accessible.

So in the spirit of accountability, I'm also tracking my progress on a ticker. I can't seem to get this blog to let me ADD the ticker to the template, so until I figure that out, here goes:





PS: I would like to add that steamed fish sucks. Save it for a cheat day and eat it fried.

Their quinoa and black beans:

My quinoa and black beans:

To A Healthier Diet: Quinoa and Sprouts

My family's made a conscious decision and full effort to eat healthier along with a new dedication to consuming less processed foodstuffs (are they really food by any logical definition?) and more fresh foods. This also means cooking more from scratch and from healthier, fresh food items. This week we discovered Quinoa (KEEN-wa), a grain-like crop grown for its edible seeds.



I have to say, quinoa makes a pretty tasty dish when combined with other proteins and some spices! On Sunday I made vegan quinoa and black beans. Yum!



The taste of the dish is southwestern due to the cilantro and lime juice, but it's very reminiscent of Cuban dishes, as the spice taste isn't overpowering, but rather, it's balanced with the cilantro and lime. The quinoa acted as a thickener to an extent, but the dish is high fiber, high protein, vegan, and pretty healthy! I will definitely make it again, and it'll be a regular dish on our table.

AND! I decided I would begin growing my own bean sprouts. Started out this week with alfalfa sprouts. Super easy!! Look at my crop! I think it has a couple of more days until it's done. Does this mean I'm a farmer??
From this
to this

in 3 days!!

My Laptop Wireless Network Card Died

My wireless won't work, but the wired internet works.
I think I have gone back in time and entered the wireless network vortex from which no one emerges unscathed. At least, not if they're attempting to connect TO THE INTERNET.

The computer industry is the replacement for the automobile industry. It's bad enough that cars have to be replaced more often than intimate wear, now computers are taking the same route.



Fortunately for me I have my own Personal Network Administrator and Hardware Engineer (tm) to take care of these things. Unfortunately, it involves about 5,280 times as many things as just a wireless network card. *sigh*

Happy Ending: My PNA&HE installed Windows 7 and the problem resolved. Hurray!

My son's 20th (!!) birthday was yesterday. To celebrate his leaving behind his teenage years and entering into the formality of being a 20-something, I decided to make a non-traditional birthday cake. So I made him a pineapple-coconut upside down cake. The recipe makes two cakes (1 layer each) and were so good. The recipe also calls for yellow cake mix and sour cream, but instead I used carrot cake mix and vanilla yogurt. It was SO delicious! I'm not a coconut person but this topping is addictively good.


1 BettyCrocker yellow cake mix (I used carrot cake mix)
3 whole eggs
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup vanilla lowfat yogurt
4 bananas sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, divided
2 Tablespoons lemon juice

Directions

* Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray 2 (8 inch) round cake pans with cooking spray.
* With an electric mixer, beat cake mix, eggs, oil, and yogurt on low until combined. Beat on high for 2 minutes.
* Place banana slices evenly on the bottom of the two cake pans.
* In a small saucepan melt butter. Add brown sugar and lemon juice and heat until dissolved. Pour half of the brown sugar mixture into each of the 2 round cake pans over the bananas. Sprinkle coconut over brown sugar sauce.
* Pour cake batter on top of the coconut into the two pans, dividing equally. The batter is thick. If you have difficulty spreading it, try turning the pan as you hold your spatula still.
* Bake 35 minutes or until toothpick in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes. Invert onto serving dishes. Slice to serve.

If you use sour cream (1/2 cup) instead of yogurt you will have to reduce the oil to 1/4 cup and add 1/2 cup of water.

Happy Friday, y'all! Shabbat Shalom!

Looks like the Baptist school up the road's about to get some unwanted bad publicity.

On Thursday morning a former Wake Forest student will appear on NBC’s The Today Show to talk about an alleged sexual assault. According to the Wake Forest fan blog Blogger So Dear, the student will claim that she was raped by two members of the Wake Forest basketball team in 2009. The alleged incident occurred in Miami, Florida the night before the basketball team was set to play Cleveland State in the in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament. They lost to Cleveland State, 84-69.

This is an extremely serious accusation, and the fact that this young woman is going on national television to tell her story is huge. But there are two sides to every story and hopefully everyone has learned from the whole Duke Lacrosse case not to rush to judgement (sic), and no player has been named. However, if this turns out to be true….we will just have to wait and see what happens.

That team started off 16-0 and was ranked number one at one point during the year before collapsing at the end of the season. Dino Gaudio was fired as head coach a year later.

Every parent's nightmare!

Side note: If Gaudio's firing had anything to do with this, I can only say, "Take a hint, UNx (and Butch Davis)."

Sobering Thought in Trying Times

“Battle not with monsters lest you become one.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The Best Things In Life ...

Self-Reliance and Back to Basics

Lately I've been pondering over and reading some seriously disturbing articles on the ever-rising price of oil, our dependency on fossil fuels, the shrinking quality of raw foods, and the changing display of available foodstuffs in the grocery store. Two things have especially caught my eye today: Breyers has ceased production of yogurt (gasp!) and there was only 1 flavor of Dannon Yogurt on the shelf - coffee. Now, I heart coffee like many people do, especially Kona coffee which as we all know IS the true nectar of humanity. But coffee yogurt? To me that's like turnip cake, or string bean jello. I'm sure there are some people who thrive on it, but for the rest of us, that's just NOT right.

Anyway, so I did a lil net surfin' and what do I find? Why, you can make yogurt at home in your very own crockpot! Who knew?? The first place I found this was on The Simple Dollar - a blog I follow where I get lots of "do it yourself" advice. This led me to the instructions on A Year of Slow Cooking where there was a bit more detail (to satisfy the overly-analytical side of me). Then I found this totally awesome video on YouTube!



I'm almost to the 2 and 1/2 hour mark in the instructions. I'm going to follow the original recipe using only whole milk and 1/2 cup of starter (plain) yogurt - I'll be leaving off the powdered milk for this batch. We'll see how it ends up later tonight!

Update at 8pm: Peeked at the crockpot - smells like yogurt!!

Update at 11pm: It worked! It isn't as thick as store-bought full-fat yogurt but the taste is MUCH smoother and it's most definitely yogurt! I didn't even cringe at the taste of warm yogurt. It's yummy! It made enough yogurt to fill 2 large yogurt cups and another container. In the morning I'll check to see if it thickened more in the fridge overnight. Best part: WAY cheaper than store bought and NO additives or preservatives. I'm psyched!
Next batch I think I will try adding the powdered milk.

My Her Strange Addiction

I stumbled onto this television show tonight while channel surfing. Now, I have quirks just like most people do, but this? This is too much. I don't think these are quirks.

No, I take it back. THIS is too much!

It's the 26th day of the month. At least *I* am still pretty much happy and healthy. No toilet paper or laundry soap munching for me! Hope you're having a Happy New Year!

2011 - Day Three

I'm tempted to say, "Another wonderful holiday/vacation ruined by a return to work" but that would be negative, wouldn't it? So instead, I will say, "2011. Day Three. So far, so good!"

After being away from work for so many days (not that many, really. Just more than the normal 2 days per week) it's clear that if I didn't work, I'd be an inactive, crippled blob within a month! It is true that work keeps you active - so there is a positive view on the return to work, 2011.

In the "Trying To Be Happy and Healthy 2011" mode so far I've made a decent stab at it.

Can't ask much more than that on 2011 Day 3! At least the whole "mode" hasn't been chucked aside.

Happy and Healthy 2011!

Yesterday, New Year's Eve, was my birthday, celebrated in fine style with my son who is home from college for break. Our original plan was to visit Myrtle Beach, SC, but since we didn't have any particular place to go, I decided instead to make it a quiet birthday and take in a movie locally. I picked the Coen Brothers remake of the movie "True Grit." Turned out to be a fine choice indeed. This movie should rightfully get Academy Award nominations for costumes, dialog, and screenplay, as well as an Oscar nod for Jeff Bridges (as Rooster Cogburn) and a nomination for newcomer Hailee Steinfeld (as Mattie Ross). The scenery was breathtaking, and the juxtaposition between the innocent resilience of Mattie Ross and the tarnished competence of US Marshal Rooster Cogburn was riveting. The final product was an enrapturing tale of violence and justice set in the Old West. Recommend this one!

Next we moseyed over to the Texas Roadhouse for a steak dinner. Wow! The place was packed but thanks to call-ahead seating we were at our table in about 20 minutes. We each selected our own Ft. Worth ribeye. They were phenomenal and cooked perfectly - the best steak either of us have had in recent memory. It was a grand dinner and a terrific birthday!

So now here we are in 2011. I didn't make a laundry list of resolutions - never have been one to do so - but I have given some thought to what I would like to achieve this year. I came up with two things: To be happy, and to be healthy. They are simple goals, but all the work is set in the journey to obtain the goals, not in grabbing the final result. So, there you have it. Here's to a 2011 that is both happy and healthy - time to get to work!! Happy New Year!

PS: Yes, I know I slacked in 2010. I was busy!