DIY

Warmth

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Some of you may remember that I purchased a great deal of yarn from my favorite Northwoods shop when we were visiting my husband’s grandparents last spring.  Well, the silky alpaca yarn has been sitting by patiently awaiting fall, and now its time has come.  I had been saving these eight skeins of yarn for something special for my little girls.

And now…ta da

…new hats and cowls!  Sure to keep them cozy {and stylish 🙂 } on the playground.  I love the idea of the cowl instead of a scarf because with the way these girls run around, a scarf wouldn’t last a day of tag-playing or swinging at recess.

Cleaning Day

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We all know the routine:  Pick up the dishes, and the clothes, and the books, and the toys.  Ok.  Now you can see the dirt and dust.  Now, find something to occupy the kiddos so that you can actually move around the house without hearing, “Mommy” yelled five thousand times, each time rising to a higher decibel because how could you hear them when the vacuum is on.  Next, lug out the rags, buckets, and the other miscellaneous cleaning supplies.  Whew.  I know, I’m tired already too.  And now…it is time to begin.  Ah.  Gotta love cleaning day.

One thing that is very important around our house when it comes to cleaning is to use little to no chemicals in our cleaning products.  The idea of having my little girls take baths in a tub that has been cleaned with bleach and other harsh chemicals makes me cringe.  And not only that, cleaning products can put quite the large dent in the pocket book.

Over the years I have tested a wide variety of all-natural cleaning products.  Some I have purchased and others I have made at home.  And I have to say that after nearly six years of being a mama, I have settled on a few homemade concoctions that I use on a daily and/or weekly basis.

I hope you find these as useful, safe, and affordable for your family as I have found them to be for mine.

All-Purpose Cleaner (I use this for everything from kitchen counters and table, to bathroom surfaces.)

In a plastic spray bottle, fill it with half water and half white vinegar (known for its strong antibacterial properties).  Then add 20 drops of grapefruit essential oil (known for its anti-viral and anti-microbial properties).  I also like to add about 10 drops of orange essential oil to add a bit more of a citrus kick to the cleaner.  Shake the bottle before each use.  Spray on surfaces and wipe with a clean cloth.

Wood Cleaner (Use this very sparingly.  I spray a very small amount of this on a rag when cleaning wood furniture.  I also use this to clean my hardwood floor.  Be sure to wipe the surface completely dry after each application.)

In a plastic spray bottle, fill it with half water and half white vinegar (known for its strong antibacterial properties).  Then add 20 drops of peppermint essential oil (known for its antibacterial properties).  Shake the bottle before each use.

Ceramic Tile Cleaner (I use this to wash the floors in my kitchen, foyer and bathrooms.)

In a large bucket, fill it with half very warm water and half white vinegar (known for its strong antibacterial properties).  Then  add EITHER 30 drops of peppermint essential oil (known for its antibacterial properties) OR 30 drops of lavender/tea tree oil (known for their antibacterial properties).  It just depends on the mood you are in.  Peppermint oil in more invigorating while the lavender/tea tree mix is more soothing.

Toilet Cleaner 

Pour about 1 cup white vinegar into the toilet bowl.  Then add about 1/8 cup baking soda (You will get a nice little science experiment in your toilet bowl.), and 10 drops of peppermint essential oil.  Then scrub by hand or with a toilet brush.  Flush when complete.

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A great resource I have found that contains a lot more DIY cleaning products and much, much more is Make Your Place:  Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills by Raleigh Briggs

Garden Renovation

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We have yet another project in the works.  In an effort to add more perennial and annual growing space, we are again (for the forth year in a row) expanding our garden.

We are trying to keep renovation costs to a minimum so we are repurposing materials we already had on our property.  We were also lucky enough to obtain reclaimed timbers from an old barn to create some raised beds.  (Remember the ones we were going to use for a new dining room floor?  Enter new idea.)

As you can see, it is definitely still a work in progress.  Hopefully, I will have pictures of the completed project soon.

Once A Year

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One of my favorite times of the year has arrived, and that my friends is peach time!  I love fresh peaches so much in fact that I only eat them when they are in season, in their absolute prime, in the middle of the August heat.

We buy our peaches locally from a family fruit farm where they grow all of their own peaches in their orchard, and they are to die for.  After the market last week, we ran home and got to work on my favorite pie on earth:  Grandma Dit’s Peach Pie.

I still remember being in about forth grade and I was home sick from school because I was running a high fever.   It was late fall, the time when most schoolchildren begin to fall ill, and I found myself buried beneath the afghan on the couch, watching reruns of Saved By The Bell.  My mom asked me if there was anything she could get me to eat that would make me feel any better.  I told her the only thing that would heal what was ailing me was Grandma’s peach pie.  There were no fresh peaches available in late fall in Rockford, Illinois, so my mom did what any good mother would do.  She improvised.  She went to the grocery store and bought a pre-made peach pie.  I took one bite, spit it out and said, “This is not right.  It’s not the same.  Never mind.”

I don’t know why this story has stuck with me for so long, but I think it is because there is no replacement for real, in-season peach pie, using my grandmother’s recipe.  So here goes…

I make my own crust (recipe found here).  Then I fill it with delicious sliced peaches.

I add about 10 tiny dollops of butter on top of the peaches, and then create a mixture of 1 cup sugar, 4 tablespoons flour and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.  I scoop this mixture over the peaches and butter so the entire pie is coated.  I then add just a touch (about 1/4 cup) of water to the pie.  This creates a delicious custard-like consistency.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then reduce the heat to 325 degrees for 45 minutes.

I truly hope you enjoy this recipe that I hold so close to my heart.  Enjoy!

Nook

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All of us mamas need our space now and again.  A place where we can just sit, and be still.  These times don’t seem to come often, but when they do arise it is so very nice to have a place to call our own.

Last week, my girls and I were completely worn out by the extreme heat, so we decided to spend an afternoon in the basement.  Once we were in this nice, cool space for an extended period of time, we realized the place needed a little pick me up.  We spent the afternoon organizing, all while Belle (aka Beauty) and her gang sang to us in the background.  When we were finished I realized that maybe, just maybe, there was a way I could set up my sewing machine in the basement in a permanent space.

The girls and I got back to work and moved furniture around a bit, which they loved because we discovered lots of lost treasures hidden beneath couch cushions and tables.  And we also realized there was, in fact, a bit of space available amongst the chaos for a tiny sewing nook.

I shared this idea with my mother and father-in-law and to my absolute surprise, three days later my father-in-law had built me an absolutely fabulous sewing table!  He is one crafty guy I tell you.  So I then went rummaging through my parents’ basement, found an old abandoned chair, painted it and now I have a cute little space to call my own.

I can’t wait to start my first project 🙂

Putting Food By: Pesto

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“Would you say your pesto is the besto?” ~Friends

Each and every time I watched Friends in college, snuggled up on the couch with my roomies, and heard Phoebe say this line, I roared with laughter.  Well, let’s face it, I pretty much laughed like crazy any time I watched that show.  But looking back, the funniest part is when I was in college, I had no idea what pesto even was!

Now that I have discovered the wonderful world of pesto, I definitely would not say my pesto is the besto, but by golly it is pretty darn tasty.  I love, love, love making pesto in giant batches and freezing it for use in the winter months.  It helps to bring that lovely basil taste that reminds me so much of summer to the table when the heat is on and the snow is falling outside.

The particular batch I made this weekend had toasted walnuts, basil, swiss chard, garlic, Parmesan cheese, olive oil and salt.  But the great thing about pesto is you can use a wide variety of nuts and/or greens and the pesto will turn out great.

When I freeze my pesto, I put it in 8oz, freezer safe, glass jelly jars.  I fill each jar to 1 inch from the top (to allow for expansion in the freezer).  It freezes beautifully this way, defrosts easily and allows for easy preparation when you pop it out of the freezer at a later date.

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Some of our favorite home preservation books are:

Putting Food By by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg and Beatrice Vaughan

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (There are some great canning recipes scattered throughout the piece.)

The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol W. Costenbader

Putting Food By: Dilly Beans

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We have a few little friends who have again found an entry point into our garden:  the rabbits.  So before they could reek havoc over too much of the garden space, I picked what I could from our bean patch because that seems to be their vegetable of choice right now.  I was shocked to find, that despite this incessant heat we have been experiencing, I was able to harvest quite a hefty bean crop.  In fact, I was able to gather so much that I needed to find something to do with some of them.  Enter dilly beans.

For those of you that have never had dilly beans, they are just plain yummy.  A little hot from the chilli peppers, a little sour from the vinegar and a little spicy from the garlic…what more could a girl ask for?

This year I found a great recipe in Putting Food By (listed below with a link), which only required a hot water bath canning method.  There were very few ingredients required and the entire process did not take long at all.  Now we have some more great summer veg ready to go for the winter.

What do you do with your surplus of green beans?  Leave a comment and share ideas with others.

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Some of our favorite home preservation books are:

Putting Food By by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg and Beatrice Vaughan

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (There are some great canning recipes scattered throughout the piece.)

The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol W. Costenbader

Putting Food By: Pickled Beets

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Despite the extreme heat we have had the past several days, our beets seem to be absolutely thriving.  In fact, they seem to be the only thing in our garden these days that are not being absolutely devoured by Japanese beetles.  Ug.

But enough of the negative and on to the positive…these beets.  Yum.  We pulled up our first round of beets this week and we were thrilled to find they had filled out nicely beneath the thick layer of soil.  My favorite way to eat beets is to pickle them, so I used a very easy pickling recipe from Putting Food By (listed below with a link), and before I knew it we had jars full of tart and scrumptious pickled beets.

 

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Some of our favorite home preservation books are:

Putting Food By by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg and Beatrice Vaughan

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (There are some great canning recipes scattered throughout the piece.)

The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol W. Costenbader

Fresh

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Each morning I make a lovely cup of piping hot coffee and stand at my kitchen window overlooking my garden.  Even in the dead of winter, when the garden is buried beneath layer upon layer of snow, I do this.  It allows me to view one area of the earth, each day, and observe all of the changes that take place and often go unnoticed.

Yesterday, as I was conducting this every day task, I noticed that the mint in my herb garden had reached an all-time-out-of-control-I’m-goiing-to-take-over-everything state.  I now had more mint than any human could ever even dream of consuming.  I twiddled my thumbs for a bit, trying to think of what in the world to do with even a small bit of this mint.  Then it came to me.  On our trip to Champaign this past weekend I indulged in this exquisite homemade, flourless cake that was served with fresh mint ice cream.  Yummy.  So, that was it…fresh mint ice cream!

I used my normal ice cream recipe, but this time I added fresh, finely chopped mint at the stage when I add the vanilla.  I covered the pan with a ceramic plate and allowed the mint to steep in the mixture until completely cool.  This allowed the lovely, fresh flavor of the mint to infuse into the ice cream.

Enjoy!

Putting Food By: Black Raspberry Jam

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Is there anything better than homemade bread smothered in freshly made jam?  I really cannot think of a single thing that sounds better than that at this moment.

I have been eating freezer jam from as far back as I can remember.  Each and every time I went to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Dietmeier, I could be assured that there would be a fresh jar of homemade jam in the fridge just waiting for me to dig in.  My all time favorite treat was when my Grandpa Dit would give me a scoop of butter pecan ice cream with homemade jam on top.  Oh my.  My mouth is watering right now at the simple thought of it!

I want to be sure my girls have these same fond memories of delicious home-preserved food as I do, so I have been making freezer jam for the past four years.  I normally make my jam from strawberries I buy at the farmers market, but this year I whipped up a batch with the black raspberries we picked this past weekend.  It seemed to make the entire process so much more invigorating to know that we picked all of the berries with our own hands, and then made the jam as well.  Yummy!

Another first this year is that I switched away from the pectin I was using in years past and moved to Pomona’s Universal Pectin.  And let me tell you, I loved it!  I ended up using 6 cups less sugar than I would have to make the same amount of jam with the other pectin!  The taste was amazing because you could taste the tartness of the berries so much more than you could when all of that sugar is in there to cover up the natural flavor of the fruit.  I would recommend Pomona’s to anyone thinking of making jam this year.