Some New Soap for the New Year

Happy new year everyone and welcome back from the holidays! Okay, so my return is a bit belated. Sometimes mommy life takes over and the vacation leaves you a bit more behind on housework than you counted on. To help out with all that work I did have a great cleaner. Home made liquid Dr. Bronner soap! That's right. The "magic" soap that so many people swear by.

I tried Dr. Bronner's Magic soap for the first time about 2 months ago. There is a reason that "Magic" is in the name. I really love this stuff. I use the bar in the shower and I had bought liquid for cleaning around the house and for dishes. Then I remembered that I have read about 3,000,000 accounts of people turning bar soap into liquid soap. Could I make myself a gallon of my favorite liquid soap?? Do I really need to grate the silly thing first?

Turns yes I can make my own soap and no I don't have to grate it! All you need is a crock pot, 1 gallon of distilled water, and a bar of your favorite Dr. Bronner soap.

Put your water and your bar (yes the whole bar) into the crock pot and then turn it on low. Come back every couple hours and stir it. Once it's all dissolved, turn off the crockpot, let the soap cool, and put it back in your gallon jug from the water. SO EASY!

I have 2 gallons of soap sitting in my laundry room as we speak. You can add some more essential oils if you want the scent to be stronger but when I did that it made the consistency change. Suddenly I had booger soap, not liquid soap. It still works well, but it behaves in strange and mysterious ways.

Now it's time to go back to my housework and hope that my sleep deprived Jellybean decides today is a good nap day.

Happy eating cleaning!
Tori

Sweet Potato Pudding

This is easily one of my favorite side dishes of all time. What is so fantastic about this one dish? It's dessert hiding out next to the main course. But it doesn't stop there, the sweet crispy brûlée combined with the spicy cinnamon and ginger wakes up your tastebuds to the airy splendor that is baked pudding. Have I convinced you yet? This dish takes sweet potatoes to an entirely new level.

I have always been a pretty big fan of sweet potatoes. Give me a garnet yam, some butter, and a sprinkling of cinnamon. That combo makes for a happy tummy. (My only request, no marshmallows! Ugh!) My sister does not like them. Don't put anything remotely orange in front of her. Something about sweet vegetables makes her metaphorical boat hit rock bottom. I wanted to change that. I wanted her to ask for more of an orange vegetable just to prove I could do it.

You see, a few years ago my sister made an off hand comment. It was probably completely out of the blue, and she may not remember saying it, but it stuck with me. She told me, "you know, Mom's food is okay, but you are a really good cook." I was, pretty much, floored. I was 17 or 18, my culinary experience involved watching far too much of the Food Network and saving up my paychecks to buy extra groceries. I may have fiddled around in the kitchen some. I was going to be a choir teacher, not a cook.  Little did I know you can sometimes end up with two passions.

I still love teaching music, and writing music, I really love anything involving music. I am still saving up to go back to school and become a music teacher. But I love cooking too. This is now one of my sister's favorite side dishes at holiday meals. I proved her orange.

You'll Need:
2 eggs, separated, room temperature
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
a dash ground ginger (fresh is best)
1 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes

In a small bowl beat your egg yolks

In a mixing bowl cream together your butter and sugar. Add in your egg yolks, milk, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and sweet potatoes. Mix until everything is fully incorporated.

In a separate bowl beat your egg whites until stiff peaks form. Then gently fold your egg whites in to your sweet potato mixture.

Pour your mixture into a well greased 2 quart glass dish and bake at 350 for 40 min. Or separate into brulee ramekins and bake for 30 min.

After fully baked sprinkle lightly with sugar and melt sugar with a brulee torch until a crispy crust forms.

Happy eating!
Tori

The Swamp Creature

I'm going to share a dark and dirty secret with you. I never thought about cleaning my daughter's humidifier until now. I am putting this one on the "fail" side of my parenting checklist. I know that I have probably made some pretty spectacular parenting faux pas, but as of right now this one takes the cake.

Here's the deal, Jellybean has been sick for months. I'm not exaggerating. I know that sometimes it can FEEL like your kid has been sick for months and it's just multiple colds. This was 13 straight weeks of cranky, snotty, puky, coughing, multiple antibiotic taking, multiple doctor visits, and finally corticosteroid taking mess! That's 3 months, a little over 1/8 of this child's entire life. Ouch!

When all of this started I turned out the trusty humidifier and put on my cape. That's right, super mom had the humidifier set up in the room just for this sort of occasion. All we needed were the little pediatric Vicks vapor tabs and we were set for toddler cold season. Or so we thought. You see, the reality of the situation is this; we were spraying mold into Jellybean's room. Just look:


Ack! It's the creature from the deep!! This is what I have been spraying in the air for my kid to BREATHE. No wonder she wasn't getting better! She was breathing poison!

Needless to say I whipped out my best cleaning friend, white vinegar, and got to work. I took apart every piece that is supposed to come apart and soaked anything not connected to electricity in a 50/50 vinegar/water solution for about 10 minutes. I then went after every nook and cranny with a bristle brush, and yes, more vinegar. I scrubbed for over an hour, at some point I got and old toothbrush and some pipe cleaners to help with the trickier bits. While I was scrubbing I let the tank sit full of a much more diluted vinegar solution. Probably about 90/10, the majority of it being water that was as hot as my faucet could get.

After I got as much scrubbed as possible (there is a part I can't get to) I rinsed it all with cool water (as there was no hot water left) and started putting pieces back together. After that I emptied the tank and scrubbed it, inside and out. Then I refilled it half way with water and a generous squirt of hydrogen peroxide. I swished this around, emptied it, refilled it, and it is back on the shelf in Jellbean's room.

This has been a public service announcement. Please clean your humidifiers!

Happy breathing!
Tori