Homemade Washing Soda

A common laundry detergent ingredient :)

Well Mother Nature, you sure had your own plan for today and I really didn't appreciate our electricity going out because of you just as I went to go start typing my post for today!

The other day I went to go make another batch of laundry soap and found I was out of washing soda. I am about 50/50 between my homemade laundry detergent and Norwex laundry detergent ... I love the no fillers for some of the sensitive skinned family members but I LOVE the price of my homemade detergent. But since I was completely out of laundry detergent altogether and I couldn't wait for a new bag of Norwex to arrive, I made a point to run out over my lunch break the next day to pick some washing soda up.

However, to my disappointment our Target didn't carry washing soda, WHAT?!? Now most of you would have just grabbed some other laundry detergent but of course that would be way too easy for this girl! Instead, the crazy thought "I wonder if I could make it" entered my mind (oh ... Homemade Day by Day you have really created an addition here, heehee) and sure enough while standing in the laundry detergent aisle at Target I did a quick internet search and BINGO.

The initial recipe I found was from One Good Thing by Jillee but I really enjoyed Penniless Parenting's chemistry explanation! Now I am no chemist and I would like to do more research on this, but I did give it a try! This would for sure be a great alternative for when washing soda isn't available.

I'm sure there was a much more graceful way to do this :)

Homemade Washing Soda

2 cups of baking soda (1 - 16 ounce box)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spread baking soda onto cookie sheet (preferably one with an edge). Bake for 1 or more hours until all the baking soda has turned into washing soda. 

I baked mine for 2 hours after dinner one evening and I am thinking I could have gone longer according to Penniless Parenting's comparison, but for now I am pleased! 

Cost comparison - $0.50 for 2 cups homemade washing soda vs. $1.39 store bought

Homemade Biscuits and Gravy

the biscuits, melt in your mouth inside with a little crunch on the out

Hoping I've shared this early enough in the week for any of you out there that would like to give this a try come Saturday (or Sunday) morning this weekend! It’s not as quick as a bowl of cereal BUT it is much more time efficient than let’s say, oh … homemade cinnamon rolls … which I always have great intentions the night before, but when it comes down to it, my sleep is much more enjoyable! One of these days, I will find a recipe and process that works for us AND when I do, I won’t forget to share because everybody needs to enjoy a piping hot fresh homemade cinnamon roll every once in while! But until that post, these biscuits and gravy will definitely satisfy those taste buds :)

... and the finished gravy

A Saturday morning favorite around here for sure … even #3, this generation’s “Kara you need to stop talking and eat” girl (just a little inside fun from growing up at ‘the farm’ with a dear friend), loves gobbling this deliciousness up and almost always asks for seconds!

The first recipe feeds a family of 6 generously with seconds and leftovers … which is how I usually cook on Saturday mornings so it covers breakfast plans for Sunday morning also! If you don’t need this large of a recipe, check out the half recipe version at the bottom of the post (I know you all could do your own math, but I also know myself well enough that if there’s an additional step I would need to do in order to try something, its very slow to making it to the top of my priority list … and these biscuits and gravy just might make it to the top of that list once you have tried them!)

From start to finish, the kids can be eating these in about a half hour. To speed the process up, I always make my homemade buttermilk first and start preheating a large skillet for the sausage. The biscuit recipe is one from Foodie Friend on Food.com and the gravy recipe is a from a family recipe book “Breads of a Feather Cook Together”. I’ve shared about this great recipe book before that was inspired by my great-grandparents.

what it looks like before kneading

Homemade Biscuits 

4 cups flour

5 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ salt

2 tablespoon sugar

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

1 ½ cup buttermilk

Make sure you have already started your buttermilk if you are using my homemade version. Shred butter (yes, with a cheese grater J, SO much easier than cutting it into small cubes!) into a large bowl. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar to the bowl with the shredded butter. Using your hands, lightly toss the butter and dry ingredients together until the butter pieces are well coated. Pour the buttermilk over the coated butter. Using a wooden spoon (I like to use this because it makes me feel pioneery ... any spoon will do), stir for about a minute… it may not be completely combined. Pour dough out onto flour counter and knead for about 6-8 times until you have the dough forms a sloppy ball. Move the dough to a cookie sheet (one with edges is preferred). Work the dough to form a 1 ½ inch thick rectangle that is approximately 9”x15”. Cut dough into 2” squares (like you would bars) and do not separate. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.

before the baking

While the biscuits are baking, it’s onto the gravy. 

Gravy

the roux and milk ... love a good-ole cast-iron pot!

1 pound breakfast sausage

½ cup butter (1 stick)

½ cup flour

4 cups milk

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

In large preheated skillet, brown sausage until fully cooked and the delish crusties form on the bottom of the skillet. While the sausage is cooking, melt butter in a separate saucepan. Whisk flour into melted butter. Cook butter and flour (also known as a roux) for about 1 minute. Add milk to roux and whisk occasionally until sausage is ready. Once sausage is cooked and drained, add the milk mixture to the large skillet. Continue to cook gravy to desired thickness, being sure to scrap the bottom of the pan to incorporate the deliciousness left on the bottom of the pan from the sausage.

the finished product ... we love a little maple syrup to top things off :) 

½ Biscuits Recipe

2 cups flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ salt

1 tablespoon sugar

½ cup butter (1 stick)

¾ cup buttermilk

½ Gravy Recipe

½ pound breakfast sausage

4 tablespoons butter

¼ cup flour

2 cups milk

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

Cost for the meal: under $7 for full recipe. I'd love to hear from you if you give these a try!

Homemade Antacid Remedy

DISCLAIMER – There are a wide variety of essential oils on the market. Please be sure to check the labels on your oils so you are using them safely and according to their directions. Some are for external use only.

My intent was this will be a quick post … easy-peasy! And then there was a need to explain about the different oils available, so if you already have oils that are safe to be used internally feel free to skip to the recipe. If not, let me share some insight.

I’ve been using essential oils since early 2005 after receiving an ‘off-the-list’ Christmas gift from my sister. She had my name for the Christmas exchange and came across this book (be sure to check this link out for the free book sample); it sounded like something I would enjoy trying and BOY AM I GLAD she went outside the box! Now just so you know, I have not read this book word for word, but it has been in active circulation in our home ever since I received it … the worn edges and AMAZING smell that covers its pages from the variety of essential oils that have accidentally splattered them are a true sign of how well it’s been used!

The book sparked my curiosity and I started looking into finding the oils, but I was caught off guard by how expensive they were! I had NO background knowledge and at the time didn’t know anybody else that used them so I was treading through ALL of the endless information about essential oils on my own. I was an amateur essential oil user and found a reliable site that offered a wide variety of oils for a reasonable price (you know me … always trying to get a better product for the cheapest price); however, these could only be used externally which I thought was normal for all essential oils … little did I know at that time there was something out there that COULD be used internally also.

A few of the ones I started with were eucalyptus, lavender, chamomile, tea tree, thyme, lemon, vetiver, rosemary, rose geranium, and bergamot. Why those you ask? These were the ones that weren’t outrageous expensive and seemed to give me the most options when following some of the recipes from the book my sister gave me. Later I added: grapefruit, palmarosa, peppermint, spearmint, coriander, fennel, juniper berry, cypress, cinnamon bark, hyssop, and frankincense.

Fast-forward five years after I had started making bath salts with blends I had created for a variety of purposes and was completely satisfied with the essential oils I was using. One day my cousin shared she had started using Young Living oils, she liked the idea they were okay to be used internally since she would be using them on her children and it made her feel better to know if they would get a little of the oils in their mouth it would be safe. Truth be told - my first response was WOW, these sound great and then I looked at their price and my tuned went from I want to use Young Living oils to my oils have served their purpose well for the past five years just fine, I REALLY don’t want to spend that amount of money.

Fast-forward five more years, I just recently used some of my Christmas cash and bought a starter kit from Young Living … at this point I wished it hadn’t taken me 10 years to get my hands on essential oils that are safe for internal use. Before Young Living I would state, “I really don’t have any desire to use them internally, so what’s the big deal?” Well, now that I have them, I have changed my tune yet again and have been trying out the many ways to use my Young Living essential oils to support a healthier lifestyle.

In some sense I feel like I am starting all over with my essential oils because there are so many more uses for Young Livings oils than what I was used to, so to help with my learning curve I attended a Young Living class about the chemistry behind essential oils and the instructor mentioned how peppermint essential was great as a dietary supplement and helped support the digestive system. LIGHTBULB! The Mr. struggles with heartburn on a regular basis, so my wheels started turning and it was worth a try. I am not opposed to over-the-counter and prescription medicine by any means, but if a simple natural solution would bring health benefits then I am open to giving it a try and if it works for us I am willing to make that lifestyle change if not then as least we tried and no harm was done. As we all know, everybody is different so may have different results, but we will be trading in our antacids for some Young Living peppermint oils. If you are would like to see how you can benefit from these oils ask me for a free sample, how you can get them at wholesale price, or how you can get your own starter kit.

Homemade Antacid Remedy

1 cup water

1 drop Young Living peppermint essential oil

Bottle with lid

Add water and peppermint oil to bottle. Shake well. Drink.

Cost comparison: $0.07 for one dose of peppermint water vs. $0.04 for two tums

The Deep Dish on Life

It's really much more simple than it is deep, but it's always so interesting to me that the simplest things are sometimes the hardest. So often I get caught up in all the distractions of life ... the pile of coats and shoes that often greets me at the door when I arrive home from work, the mile long to-do-list that only seems to get longer, and of course the unlimited access to all sorts of social media ... through all of these I often forget to focus on all the things that are much more important than any of these. The things that soothe my soul and make me happy. Now, as most of you could figure out one of my happy places is when I am creating anything from scratch; however I am fully aware this could have the complete opposite effect on some of you (!$#&...hair pulling...%@*!%...tears). Simply put, just because I find joy in doing something does not mean everybody else will also, but we can find joy in helping one another find our happy places and encourage each other go to those happy places when we need a break! :)

My Happy Places
my morning devotion
a cup of hot tea and honey
Jamie Grace on Pandora
essential oils in my diffuser
the corner of the couch with a good book
creating pretty much anything
a nature walk
snuggling with the kids and the Mr. to watch a movie
getting others to smile
crossing something off of my to-do list
date nights
sharing on my blog

Some of my happy places are visited daily and others are less frequent, but no matter when I visit any of these it brings me joy, happiness, and peace SO why shouldn't I visit them more often instead of allowing all of life's distractions to keep me from them!

Which is why I am going to commit myself to sharing a new post every Wednesday. So be on the lookout for Item No. 79 coming next Wednesday!

What makes you happy? I encourage you to make your own list and see if there is anything you would like to make more time for!

Kitchen Chalkboard Project

To be a plate rack or not to be ... 

Yet another project from start to finish that took should have taken well less than an hour of active participation. This void used to be a plate rack that rarely was dusted which meant the plates never were used since it would have required washing them before AND after eating off of them. Uhh ... double the work or use different plates ... bingo, the second choice :)

the BEFORE

I had a quart of chalkboard paint leftover from another project and thought it would be fun to have place to use all those cute chalkboard ideas off of pinterest. I love the the idea of chalkboard decor and being able to change it with the seasons or holidays ... although I know this will never happen as often as I intend it to. :)  Jess at 'Mom 4 Real' shares a simple way to make chalkboard paint in any color, can't wait to find an excuse to try this!

wet paint ... do not touch

Since the space was small, the painting itself didn't take long, but with three coats needed and the dry time in between, the start to finish time was a couple hours.

The chalkboard paint needed 2 to 3 days to cure before drawing on it, so it needed a few days before the finishing touch ... which actually turned into at least a month for me... oh life, why must I let you distract me from these fun projects.

the finished project

I'm loving the cute little nook for my cookbook stand, our 'garage-sale-find' change jar, and the much needed napkin holder for our family of six. However, the picture above is very deceiving since I so conveniently cropped out the extremely messy counter. This, my friends, is real life around here more often than I would like to think ... the mess I had to push through (mentally and physically) to get my kitchen chalkboard project completed!

 I would prefer to work in a clean and organized environment which when you have kids usually means - clean first ... then create ... then clean again, ugh! Through a life with kids I have come to realize life will always bring with it distractions, sometimes those distractions need our attention and we need to be interruptible ... other times we need to put on the binders and keep pushing through.