"Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring and it has fresh peaches in it." ~Thomas Walker

So, today I got to spend a lovely morning with Meredith and Gabe at a Summer Market. (more on this later, I assume, in a post by either one of us!)  As we were driving to the craft market, Mere told me that I had to remind her to give me a peach; turns out, one of her good friends grows peaches and Meredith had a couple last night.  They were exquisite, they were so fresh, and she saved one for me!

After our morning of shopping and coffee (and Gabe!) we pulled into Meredith's driveway and she gave me the peach! There it was, ripe, lovely and beautifully pink and yellow. I instantly smelled it, as they recommend you do, and it was the sweetest smell.  I said to Meredith "This smells exactly like summer." You know how sometimes you say things, or something happens, and you know with absolute certainty that you will reflect upon it at a later date? I instantly thought of how it feels in the depths of winter...when Christmas is over and spring is a long way away, and I think I will remember smelling that peach in her driveway at the height of summer after attending a craft market on Lake Erie. That memory will probably bring a little bit of summer to me as blizzards rage outside!

Driving home, I couldn't help but reflect on how lovely the peach was, and how fantastic it is that Meredith saved it for me.  It was a small gift, but then again, what on earth is better than a freshly-picked peach given to you by someone who knows you will enjoy it?

And so I had to take a picture of the one perfect peach sitting next to me in the car.  And I love that I have a friend who thinks of me when she eats a fresh-picked peach and then saves one for me.  If that's not a friendship made in heaven, what is?

Check out this lovely peach! Thanks for saving it for me, Meredith! It was heavenly!

Why Choose Cloth?

The reason I chose to use cloth diapers for Gabe (and any other children that come are way) is 3 pronged.  And, yes of course, I will explain them all in a very detailed and exhaustive fashion. 

1.     Cloth diapers are much more environmentally friendly. Disposable diapers create 5 million tons of untreated waste and a total of 2 billion tons of urine, feces, plastic and paper that are added to landfills annually.At least 80,000 pounds of plastic and 200,000 trees are needed to make disposables for American children alone. And, while some brands of disposables flaunt the fact that they are biodegradable, in order for something to biodegrade it needs oxygen and sun.  So unless you're going to create your own mini-landfill in your backyard and properly irrigate it, it's highly unlikely for a disposable to decompose.   
       Now, pro disposable people question the amount of water used to wash cloth diapers, siting its wastefulness.  However, the manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2 1/3  times more water wasted than washing cloth diapers for their lifetime.
       Another pro-environmental aspect of cloth diapers that I never had given much thought to was where the waste went.  When you use disposables the waste goes into our landfills and the runoff goes into our water supply.  When you use cloth diapers you flush the solid waste down the toilet and wash in your washer; where both water sources go to a water treatment facility.  Let's keep our streams, rivers and water tables clean!
      The lifetime of cloth diapers is amazing as well.  Generally, you can use your cloth diapers on at least 2 of your children.  And for us, Gabe grew so fast that his first stash of diapers were only worn for about 4 months (less than half of the amount of time they 'should' have been used).
2.     Cloth diapers are a lot safer/healthier choice for babies.  I choose to feed Gabe mostly organic food and use only all natural products on his skin, so why, if I didn't have to, put a chemically laden diaper on him.  Did you know that disposables contain trace amounts of Dioxin, Tributyl-tin and sodium polyacrylate?  You didn't?  Me neither, until I decided to become informed.
        Dioxin is an extremely toxic byproduct of the bleaching process.  It's a carcinogenic chemical and is listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all chemicals linked to cancer.  Dioxin is actually banned in most countries.  Tributyl-tin is a pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.  And if that's not reason enough, the sodium polyacrylate is a type of super absorbent polymer.  The same type of poylmer that was linked to toxic shock syndrome in teh 1980's and is a catalyst for growing bacteria that produces toxins. 
       With all of the chemicals in disposable diapers, it's no wonder diaper rashes occur.  Speaking of diaper rashes, did you know at almost 1 year of age Gabe has never had a real diaper rash and has only had a little pink in his diaper area a handful of times.  These times usually occurred when he'd bm in the car en route somewhere. 
        Diaper rash generally occurs because of excessive moisture and cloth diapers are made of materials that expertly wick away the moisture.  "Wick away the moisture, " what does that mean?  It means that the material used in cloth diapers pulls the moisture away from babies skin and towards the outside of the diaper.  Even when Gabe's diapers are soaked, his skin still feels dry!  And this dryness leads to very little diaper rash occurrences.

3.     Choosing cloth diapers actually saves money!  And this was the reason that made my husband jump on the cloth diaper train! Say your child is in diapers for only 2 years (and we all know that it's usually longer than that) you will spend $1,600 - $2,000.  I have spent about $470 on cloth diapers and I have all that Gabe will need until he's potty trained.  Yes, only $470 dollars!  I 'need' 2 more wet bags (one for travel and one for home) so I'll probably spend a little over $500 dollars.  You can spend less than $200 if you choose prefolds and covers.  I chose the middle of the road route with contour/fitted diapers and covers.  I do have some all-in-ones and while they're great, they are not worth the price.  So, I'll spend about $500 for all of Gabe's diapering needs...and I can use them again on more babies!  It's estimated that cloth diapers will last for at least 200 washes, so we have a long way to go with our stash!

There are so many decisions to make when you become parents, and no matter what you choose people will judge you.  So many people are incredulous that we use cloth diapers but the more I learn the more I can't believe that people would choose anything else. 

But you need to choose what's best for you and your family, and for us, it's cloth diapers!

If the reasons above weren't enough, these pictures will change your mind.  Babies in cloth diapers looks so darn cute!

Some of the resources I used:

1. http://www.realdiaperassociation.org/diaperfacts.php
2. http://www.thenewparentsguide.com/diapers.htm
3. http://clothdiapers.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-would-you-want-to-use-cloth-diapers.html?

Summer Love

Recently I mentioned a foray into Blueberry Picking. 

Divine.

Steve and I drove out to a far off Pick-You-Own Farm.

The farm had eight acres of Blueberry bushes.

Eight Acres!

We walked through the Barn.

Grabbed a white Pail and headed out into the berry fields.

Amazing.

There were several families wandering around.

All talking, laughing, and generally being jolly.

Who can be angry in a field of Blueberries?

We picked, and picked, and picked.

Steve even went into a few bushes to get the cream of the crop.

Huge Berries.

The bigger, the sweeter.

And let me tell you...

these were the biggest blueberries I have ever seen in my entire life.

Giant.

We filled an entire pail.

Went back to the barn.

In all we paid five dollars and fifty cents...

for four pounds of blueberries.

Look up a Pick-Your-Own farm near you...

or far from you...

it's worth the drive.

Look Here.

When you get your blueberries

(But go quickly, the season is ending...)

put them in the glass, bowl, or container of your choice.

Cover them in milk.

Drizzle with a little Agave Nectar, Honey, Sugar,

or sweetener of your choice.

Enjoy.

It's heaven.

Divine.

It's what I want my children to think dessert is all about.


 

Late July, 8:30 AM, Peach Jam

Beautiful Mason Jars just waiting to be filled with peach jam!

So, I've been wanting to post about canning and making jam for quite some time now.  Over the past couple of months, I've made probably 4 or 5 batches of homemade jam.  The problem was, it was such a new experience to me that I never felt comfortable taking pictures during the process.  A few of the crucial steps take place in under 60 seconds, so I definitely didn't want to turn my back for a second and grab my camera!  Luckily, this morning I made peach jam, and I felt comfortable with documenting the experience.  But first, let me share a little bit about how I decided to start making my own jam.

This is something that I had wanted to try for several years.  Ever since I got majorly into cooking and baking (which was probably around 5 years ago) I thought making my own jam would be fun.  I even took books out about canning from the library.  The problem was, these books all made it sound tremendously scary.  You have to sterilize jars, process jars, cook the jam itself for a precise amount of time, and then hope and pray that your seals actually set, or else the whole exercise will have been for nothing.  Needless to say, I never ended up making any jam!


Then, last winter, Megan and I started talking.  She shared how Steve's family has always been big canners and how she, too, wanted to make her own jam.  Since it was winter and most fruits were out of season, we decided to make pepper jelly.  This was a pretty easy recipe for beginners, as it didn't require any processing of jars. (more on this soon)  We were amazed at how easy it was to do! All you do is chop up some peppers, add vinegar and pectin, boil it, ladle it into jars, and voila, you have pepper jelly!  Megan and I gave some jars of it out at Christmas, and I also put it on that old standby of pepper jelly, cream cheese and crackers.  Let me tell you, it sounds like a simple snack, but it is one of those things that is truly heavenly.  Similar to yogurt and honey...so simple yet it tastes out of this world.  

The pepper jelly that Megan and I made last December.  Note the cute little jars...these are great for jam but cost a bit more than your typical mason jars.  We were so proud of this pepper jelly! Yay for our first canning try!

This past spring, I started hearing a lot about The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.  Her cookbook came out and I read a review of it in People magazine.  Then my sister-in-law mentioned that she got the cookbook from the library and was enjoying it.  Meredith mentioned that she occasionally reads Ree's blog.  I decided to check out both the book and the blog, and I came upon possibly the best blog post I've ever read by Ree: how to make Strawberry Jam.  This post is very long, and it takes place in 2 parts.  What I love about it is that it covers ALL the bases of canning, but with pictures of her actually doing it and explanations of how it should look along the way, and why each step is vital.  Though these were the same instructions as seen in the books about canning I took out from the library, they were SO much more helpful.  I guess, as with most things, it really helps to see an ordinary, everyday person doing them.  I can't imagine how long it took Ree to do this series of posts, but after I carefully read over both of them, I decided I would be able to make my own strawberry jam! I followed her blog to the letter, and it worked out perfectly!


In this post, I'm going to talk about making peach jam.  But, before I do that, it is absolutely worth checking out Ree's Canning 101 and Strawberry jam post here.  This is the link to part 1, but you will find part 2 at the bottom of the initial post. Seriously, there's no way I could ever devote as much time to beginning canning and in such ideal fashion as Ree has.  I can't say enough about this fabulous post, as it introduced me to canning!

So, in around May when strawberries were hitting their zenith, I made a batch of strawberry jam.  My lovely comrade Nicole let me have a case of leftover Mason Jars from her wedding. (she made adorable vases out of them to display gerber daisies as centerpieces at her wedding...Nicole, I think you should post about this sometime! They were some of the most lovely homemade centerpieces I've ever seen!) I gave a jar to my parents, Carl's parents, Carl's grandpa (who loves homemade jam) and left one for us to sample. (I used pint jars so the recipe only made 4...typically you would use half-pint jars for strawberry jam and end up with 8)  I have to say, homemade jam is fabulous.  And I'm not tooting my own horn, because all I did was follow directions.  Plus, the only ingredients are strawberries, pectin, sugar and a pat of butter.  So I didn't add any of my own personal flair to it.  On the contrary, you have to be pretty straight and narrow when it comes to making jam.  Follow directions and measure ingredients exactly, or else! (haha...but that's pretty much how canning books make it sound!)


In reality, it's not a big deal to make jam, and it's pretty easy.  I've made strawberry jam 3 different times, blueberry jam, and just this morning I made peach jam.  My plan is to take advantage of canning season now and make several batches of jam, of which I will arrange in baskets and give out as part of my Christmas gifts to family. (sorry if I'm spoiling the surprise to any of my family who are reading this...yes, you will be getting a few jars of homemade jam, but of course that's not all you'll be getting! The jam is one component of the gift....!)  

The first step in making jam is preparing the fruit.  This is the most time-consuming part, especially for the strawberries because you have to hull and chop each individual strawberry.  Blueberries are easier because it's just a matter of crushing them with a fork.  I thought peaches would be super-annoying, because you have to peel them, pit them and finely chop them.  So, I did an amazing thing this time around: yesterday after work, I prepared the peaches.  Turns out, it was really easy to do.  Peaches are so soft that they chopped easily under the knife and the whole job took maybe 10 minutes.  I then measured out the 4 cups I needed and refrigerated the fruit until this morning when I needed it.  Knocking out this step the day before made the actual jam preparation SO easy!! To give you an idea of the time frame, I woke up at 7:30 this morning and watched some TV and went online.  At 8, I put the jars and the lids in a pot of simmering water.  While they simmered, I had cereal and coffee.  At 8:30, I started making the jam.  By 9:15, I was done...and that includes the 15 minutes where the jam sits in a pot of boiling water and I do nothing at all!!  It's now 10 AM and I've been blogging about it for about 20 minutes.  So fast, so easy!

After preparing the fruit, you combine it with lemon juice (if needed...some recipes call for it, as the peach recipe does, because certain fruits need a little extra acidity.)  Then you add the pectin.  I whisk it in everytime to make sure it's fully incorporated.  An insider tip from Ree is to add a pat of butter to your fruit at this time.  It reduces the foam that could always show up at the end.  If foam indeed does show up, you end up having to skim it off before you ladle it into your jars.  Not a huge deal, but it's nice to skip a step!

Peaches mixed with Pectin...Note the pat of butter!

At this point, you bring everything to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly.  Once the boil can't be stirred down, you add your sugar ALL AT ONCE.  It's pretty imperative to have your sugar all measured out (in this case, 5 cups were ready and waiting) because if you add one cup at a time, you're disrupting the boiling process.  Once you add all the sugar, you stir it all in and return the mixture to another hard boil.  Once it's boiling violently, you time it for 60 seconds. (Ree says 1 minute 15 seconds...I find I usually add a few extra seconds onto the timing too, just in case!) Immediately take the jam off the heat.  At this point, it will look thick and jam-like...woo hoo!  If there's foam, skim it off.  Honestly, since I add a pat of butter to it, I never have a foam problem.  

The finished jam waiting to be ladled...ta da!!

Up until just today, I would ladle my jam into a spouted Pyrex measuring cup, then pour it into my jars.  Then I came across this fantastic kit at Walmart. (side note: I generally am not Walmart's biggest fan, but they carry almost an entire aisle worth of canning supplies.  This makes life easier for me, as I would much rather buy canning jars and pectin at a store versus paying for shipping on such heavy items!) There is an entire canning kit you can buy, but I think that's pretty ridiculous.  Up until now, I used my own stockpot and tongs to process jars.  This was fairly tricky though, because tongs never get a great grip on the jars and I was always afraid I'd drop one out of the hot water.  Last time I was at Walmart, I came across a canning tools kit.  For a mere $6.97, you get a jar lifter (which was worth the entire price of the kit, in my book, as it made lifting the jars in and out of boiling water a cinch!) a headspace measuring device that doubles as an air bubble remover, a magnetic wand to retrieve lids from the simmering water (again not an essential tool as tongs will do the job...but this did it much faster and with way less hassle!) and a wide-mouth funnel that can fit inside either pint or half-pint jars.  This time, I simply took my simmering jar and lid out of the water (you keep them in simmering water so they won't break or crack when hot jam is added to them) and ladled the hot jam into the wide-mouth funnel.  Genius! I made way less of a mess and I ended up having more jam at the end than if I transferred the jam to a pyrex measuring cup and then poured it into the jars.  I recommend buying this time-saving and anxiety-reducing kit, though I probably wouldn't buy an entire canning set since, truly, you can just use your own stockpot for making and processing jam!

My amazing $6.97 canning kit from Walmart that makes my life so much easier.  Also, a packet of pectin!

The fantastic wide-mouth funnel that fits inside your jars.  Simply ladle the jam in this way! (sorry for the specks of jam on my stove...canning can be a messy process and since you work so quickly, I just clean-up everything at the end!)

Once the jam is ladled into jars, take a knife and run it along the inside of the jam to remove air bubbles.  This time, I used my headspace tool, which is pretty useful because it precisely measures how much headspace you've left at the top of the jar while removing air bubbles from the jam.  Then, you run a wet cloth along the outside of the lid to make sure there isn't any residual jam left outside the jars that could ruin the sealing process.  Finally, you place the lid on the center of the jar, then affix the bands to a "fingertip-tight" level.  Basically, this means that you're not tightening so much that you can't easily remove them.

Once all the jars are ready, you use your handy dandy jar lifter and place the jars into the stockpot of simmering water.  Once they're all inside and the water covers them by an inch or two, turn the water up and bring the jars to a gentle boil.  Once boiling, cover your pot and process for 10 minutes.  You will hear the water boiling like crazy in there, which is exactly what you want to hear.  During this process, the boiling water is killing all germs and bacteria inside the jar, creating a vital seal that means you can keep this jam on your pantry for up to a year without it spoiling.  Basically, you're preserving it the natural way...without any chemicals!

Here are the fully-processed jars in Nicole's stockpot on my stove.  Note the bubbling and steaming.  This is what you want to see! This is just at the point where I took off the lid and let them sit for 5 minutes to equalize the pressure inside the jars.

After 10 minutes, take the lid off the pot and let the jars sit for 5 minutes.  This allows the pressure to equalize inside the jars, or so I'm told! (Basically, canning, like soap-making, is a science lesson unto itself...creating air-tight seals, adding ingredients to turn fruit into a gel-like substance that can keep for a year, etc...I wish we had done this in school because it really helps you understand chemistry!)  After 5 minutes, remove the jars using your jar lifter and set them somewhere where they can be undisturbed for 24 hours.  During this time, you will hear little "pops" coming from the jars.  This is your seals setting...and it's such a fun noise!  In the past, sometimes I've made jam and then gone out shopping or to run errands while they've been sitting on my counter and I've missed the popping sound.  In this case, after the 24 hours, you can test if your seals have set in a couple of ways.  The one I always use is simple to press my finger on the center button of the lid.  If there's no resistance, the jar has sealed.  If you can press on the lid and feel it go down, it hasn't sealed.  Luckily...and I say this while knocking on wood...all of the jars I've made have sealed.  But if they don't, you can either re-process them in boiling water and hope to create a seal, or simply put the jar in your refrigerator and consume within 3 weeks!

I really, really love making my own jam. It tastes amazing, first of all.  It's also free of chemicals and additives, which is another huge benefit. And also, it's a sustainable hobby: you can re-use the jars and the bands over and over again.  So you aren't constantly buying new jars or throwing away old ones.  Even if you don't re-use your mason jar for jam, guaranteed there's another use for it.  Mason jars are so cute...you could use them as vases, like Nicole did, to put pens or supplies in, or just generally as a catch-all for various office or random items.  The only parts of the jar you can't re-use are the lids.  But you can pick up replacement lids, and I think they go for something like 8 lids for $2!


One last note: I find it ironic that you make jam in the sweltering summer, when it's really hard to stand over an entire pot full of boiling fruit.  You definitely get your face steamed by the boiling sugar and fruit, and it gets pretty hot in the kitchen.  But, the beauty of canning is that you're preserving fruit when it's at its natural peak and zenith.  Definitely wear an apron when making jam, especially if you're making strawberry or blueberry.  And keep your hair tied back so that your hair doesn't get damp and hang in your face while you're furiously stirring!

I plan on making perhaps another batch of peach jam, another batch of blueberry and a batch of hot pepper jelly (this one I will give out to friends and family who I know love hot things!) In the fall, I came across a recipe for a glorious jam called Apple Pie in a Jar that I can't wait to make!

Yay for canning!!  On a side note, I know I've mentioned the jam I made and talked about some of the ingredients...if you want the full recipe, simply buy a package of pectin.  Inside is a recipe booklet with instructions for making all types of jam. I've bought different brands of pectin and they all have their own recipe packet! Check out my finished jam below!

The finished product!

Make Your Own Buttermilk

It's funny...when we started this blog, I thought I had a long way to come in terms of being green, embracing handmade/homemade and just generally living a more sustainable life.  It was only after racking my brain for ideas to write about that I realized I've been doing certain things the HHH way for several years now! One of them was making my own vanilla, which I posted about already.  Another is making my own buttermilk!

Once I realized how easy it is to make buttermilk, I was incredulous that I ever bought it in the first place and that, indeed, it's still available for purchase and people actually buy it.  I have several recipes that use buttermilk as an ingredient, and it was always a pain to buy it specifically for the recipe.  First of all, it comes in a milk carton, and most recipes only call for 1 or 2 cups of it.  So then I'd have the buttermilk carton sitting in my fridge and I'd feel compelled to rack my brain for other recipes that feature it as an ingredient and then to promptly make those recipes before it expired.  Not anymore!

Cookbooks are a comfort to me, and they're among the only books I actually buy anymore.  The library is my best friend, and I get almost all my reading materials from there.  But cookbooks are different...sometimes there's nothing better than paging through them idly, or furiously ripping through them when you know you need to cook something or take something somewhere, but you don't have the faintest idea what to make.  A couple of years ago, while paging through a Gooseberry Patch cookbook, I saw a tip in the margins about making your own buttermilk.  It said to add 1 tablespoon on vinegar to 1 cup of milk, let it sit for 5-10 minutes and, voila, you have buttermilk.  Skeptical, I turned to (where else?) google and did a search for homemade buttermilk.  Sure enough, there were listings upon listings for adding a tablespoon of vinegar to regular milk in order to create buttermilk!

The rest, as they say, is history.  I've been making buttermilk in my own kitchen ever since! No more buying massive quantities of it when I only need 1 or 2 cups.  This makes me want to cook with buttermilk even more frequently, because it is less of a production to do so!  I simply add my vinegar to the milk and let it sit while I get to work preparing the other ingredients.

So, for this installment of Random Recipe, I thought I'd include 3 recipes in one! The first is the actual buttermilk recipe, as detailed above, and the other are for my 2 favorite buttermilk recipes...one main dish, and one dessert!

The first recipe is for Buttermilk Roast Chicken, courtesy of Nigella Lawson, who happens to be my favorite TV chef and cookbook author of all time!  I first came upon this recipe in her cookbook, Nigella Express, but it's also available on Food Networks's website right here.  This recipe is amazing...the chicken comes out unbelievably moist and flavorful after soaking in the buttermilk marinade overnight!  It's also very inexpensive to make, and it feeds a lot of people.  What's better than that? (as a side note, don't let the small amount of maple syrup in the marinade scare you....I was weary at first, but it really adds a great taste to the chicken!)

The other buttermilk recipe comes from a favorite blog of mine and Megan's....Smitten Kitchen.  I can kill an embarrassing amount of time on this blog, but it's all worth it! I've come away with several amazing recipes from it, and each one I've tried has been fabulous! I first came across Smitten Kitchen while doing a search for, of all things, Irish Car Bombs.  (brief background information so I don't appear psychotic: Carl turned 30 in the spring and he always enjoys drinking Irish Car Bombs with friends for celebratory events. In a moment of boredom, I did a google for them, since they are pretty crazy.  You have to consume them in one huge chug because the shot of Bailey's dropped into the Guinness, combined with the whiskey, makes the whole concoction foam up and overflow.  Weird, huh?  Anyway, a listing popped up for Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes.  Get this: you bake chocolate guinness cake as the base, insert a chocolate whiskey ganace into the cake, and frost the whole thing with Bailey's cream cheese frosting.  Yumm!!! Smitten Kitchen has this recipe, and I emailed it to Meg in the hopes that one day this fall she'd make them with me.  We both got hooked on the blog!)  Anyway, here is the Raspberry Buttermilk Cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen.  This cake requires few ingredients, is incredibly easy, and tastes so fresh and lovely.  I've also made it with strawberries and blueberries in place of the raspberries.  It's a wonderful cake for a light dessert or to eat with a cup of tea or coffee. Not fancy at all, but perfect in its simplicity.

And don't forget, to make your buttermilk for these recipes, just add 1 tablespoon of vinegar (officially my all-time favorite household substance!) to 1 cup of regular milk.  Now, get cooking!!

This is for you Sara

This weekend Steve and I had the pleasure of having some lovely friends over for dinner and games at our house.  I love visits from people, I love cooking, I love eating, I love showing off our new house, I love games, I love laughing, and I love Mike & Sara.  Needless to say, I was beyond excited to roll all of these things into one grand evening.

I chose this weekend to bust out some of that amazing pesto I made last week.  Steve grilled Pesto Chicken for us, and we also had Roasted Rosemary Potatoes, Grilled Lemon Asparagus, and Fruit Salsa with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream for dessert.  It was a feast beyond words, everything was mouthwatering; I adored and savored every bite (I told you, I love eating).

So here we go, I'm going to enlighten you so that this weekend you may enjoy quite the summer feast.

First, Make Pesto.

Second, Slather the Pesto on your chicken.  I used a recipe from here for the grilled chicken.  But basically you just slather the chicken in Pesto.  Let it sit for for an hour or two, grease your grill, and cook.

Third, while letting the Chicken marinate, start your potatoes.  

Now let me say that I had decided to make Pesto chicken, but had no ideas as to what I should prepare to go with said chicken.  Enter Sondra.  I simply sent her the query "What goes with Grilled Pesto Chicken?"  She replied Roasted Rosemary Potatoes or Lemon Asparagus.  I simply couldn't decide so I made both!!!  (Also, I totally whiffed on the picture taking, I was too busy fawning over my meal)

Okay, back to the potatoes.  I "used" a recipe from Ina Garten (Because I wanted to make Sondra Proud).  But again, I simply looked at what she did and then threw it all together.  In a bowl I put some Sea Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil, Garlic, and Rosemary.  Quarter your potatoes (I used red skinned) and throw them in a bowl.  Mix everything up, place the potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet and throw into a four-hundred degree oven.  I set my timer for twenty minutes and when it went off I flipped all the potatoes.  I set it for twenty minutes (again) and when it went off I flipped them (again).  I set the timer once more for twenty minutes and when it sounded the potatoes were ready to serve.  Seriously, they were to die for, I am so wonderfully thankful for Sondra's suggestion.

Asparagus - I trimmed the stalks and skewered them together to "make a raft."  In a small bowl I mixed olive oil, lemon zest, a few squirts of lemon juice, and pepper.  Place the rafts on the grill and brush them with the olive oil mixture, keep brushing them periodically until they're done.  (Note: to make an asparagus raft lay a bunch on stalks side by side IIIIIIII  [like that] now use two skewers to spear each stalk sideways = [like that], thus connecting them and making a raft.)  I hope you appreciated the full use of my keyboard on that demonstration.

Lastly, for dessert I made Mere's fabulous Fruit Salsa (have you become obsessed with this treat?  Because I certainly have.  I've made it at least four times in the last six weeks.) I've been sticking with the core ingredients but also throwing in whatever else I feel like slash have on hand.  For example, we went blueberry picking recently (more on this later) and so I smashed up some blueberries and threw those in once.  Another time I opted for a handful of raspberries in lieu of the raspberry preserve.  Pretty much this dish is delectable no matter how you slice it.  Thanks Mere!  We had a bowl full of Ice Cream, topped with Fruit Salsa, and a side of Cinnamon Chips for dessert.  Everyone had seconds.

I hope you have as fantastic of a summer fest as we did this weekend.  Happy cooking!

Burp Cloth Makeover!

When Gabe was born I loved how white his burp rags (flat diapers) were.  To me, a bright white burp cloth epitomized clean! 

However they didn't stay white very long, and once Gabe was put on soy formula that slight discolorations became even more noticeable. 

I hated being out in public and pulling out an ugly, stained burp cloth.  I desperately wanted to buy new ones but hated the idea of being wasteful; spending money on something we already had and didn't really need.  

And then one day I was browsing through Joanne Fabric and saw this:  

While I wish I would have been slightly less impulsive and checked out some more natural dyeing solutions, I bought the RIT and after an extraordinarily easy and quick process, VOILA! 

Beautiful teal burp clothes!  Some of the really dark stains turned a darker teal but they look a million times better.  And the teal color works perfectly for our little man and if/when we adopt our little girl, a little pink or fuscia ribbon sewed on the end and they'll be little girl perfect too!

Easy Peasy Pesto

Basil...mmmm...don't you think it smells like Summer?  We purchased two Basil plants at Trader Joe's a few weeks ago, and they're growing like weeds!  In the span of two-three weeks they went from puny-little Basil plants to ready-to-harvest Basil plants.  It's really quite amazing how the stinkin' things grow.  You want to make sure you harvest your basil before it flowers, which for us was right about now.  

We took some kitchen shears to our plants, brought them inside and decided to make pesto.  Easy Peasy Pesto to be exact.  Here's how I make it:

 On the Left is my giant basil plant before being sheared...well kind of.  I forgot about taking a picture until Steve had already sheared one, and halfway sheared the other.  I started yelling "No! Stop!  Please Stop!" whilst running to get my camera.  So this is half of one pesto plant un-sheared.  The picture on the Right is on of my poor little plant all short and nakie.  Don't worry though, this little guy has already grown several inches in the three days since I snapped this picture.  Just imagine all the basil I'm going to have this summer!!!  And all for about six dollars.  Unlimited Basil for six dollars...it sounds too god to be true...but ti's not!

Pinch off all the Basil leaves and wash them.  Shake them off a bit, jam as many leaves as possible into your handy dandy little chopper slash food processor and pulse away.  Add some Olive Oil, Garlic, a pinch of Salt, Parmesan cheese, and some TOASTED Pine Nuts.  Ta-Da!  Seriously, that's all the work required.  (So I was going to give you an actual recipe, for those of you who love following step by step instructions.  But I think I'll save the hard core actual recipe for another day.  Seriously though, it might sound deceptively easy...but there is absolutely no deception on how easy this pesto if to make.  Scouts Honor.)  

 My Giant pile of Pesto.  yes, I plan on cramming all of this into my chopper.

 All My leaves, cleaned and ready to be squashed into my chopper.

I generally mix the Basil, Oil, Garlic, and Salt first.  Once that's the

texture I like then I add in the Parmesan and TOASTED Pine Nuts.  
Seriously folks, you'll make me proud if you toast the nuts, and you'll 
incur serious scorn from Sondra if you don't... Remember This?

Now you're done, your kitchen smells wonderful, and you have

lots of lovely, easy to make, versatile pesto.

This time around I took a page from Mere's book and froze my

pesto in ice  cube trays.  Now i can pull out the perfect amount 

whenever I feel like having pesto.  And trust me, it'll still taste 

amazing and fresh, you just can't lose that lovely basil flavor.

I love making Pesto because it's so fresh and easy, and amazingly versatile.  You can put it on some nice toasted breads, make a big, slather it on chicken before grilling, or ye olde pesto standby: Pasta.  I do love pesto with pasta, and I recently found a recipe that makes me love it even more.  

Simply cook up some linguine.  Mix some of the Pesto with hunks of feta cheese.  Lightly cook a bunch of peas.  And toss it all together.  Steve and I were kind of skeptical of the peas slash pesto slash pasta thing...but we were willing to try it because we A) love pesto and B) will eat just about anything if one of the ingredients is Feta.  I'm super glad we tried this version of Pesto Pasta because I am completely in love with peas in my pesto now.  And this recipe is nice because although it is a pasta and it is about ninety degrees  outside right now the dish is still light-ish.  Especially when paired with a nice white wine, and some patio furniture.

Laundry LifeSaver Part 2

So, in the first part of this series, I talked about the joys of homemade laundry detergent. (3 ingredients, no fragrances or unpronounceable ingredients and completely clean and soft clothes...what could be better than that?)  Now, I have a tip for an annoying laundry issue I came across this summer...that horrible musty smell that sometimes arises.

We've all experienced it.  Sometimes you might get to your load of freshly-washed towels a bit later than you intendend; before you get around to throwing them in the dryer, they smell musty.  Or, sometimes you dig something out of the very back of your closet and the smell arrests you. 

This happened to me a few weeks ago when I was cleaning out our bedroom closet.  Carl and I have lived in our condo for almost 7 years now (sheesh! Time flies...) and while I routinely pull out things I no longer wear or don't want anymore and donate them, there are the few residual items of clothing that have found their way to the back of the closet, never to again see the light of day, despite my frequent weedings-out.  I finally pulled out all the old stuff and decided it obviously needed to be washed before I could donate it. 

Typically, you would use bleach to get rid of mildew and odd stains or smells.  Clearly, you can't do that with a load of clothes.  Knowing that vinegar is a disinfectant, I added one cup to the washing cycle....voila!! All mustiness was totally gone....naturally, to boot!

I now keep a ginormous container of vinegar in the laundry room and periodically add it to my laundry when it first goes in.  In the middle of summer, humidity like we frequently experience can often lead to increased musty smells.  I like throwing it in there to prevent any musty smells from emerging.  Plus, vinegar softens laundry (Megan adds it during the rinse cycle of her laundry instead of fabric softener) and I notice increased softness from using it at the beginning of the cycle, too.

Once again, vinegar is truly amazing and I am so surprised at how often I use it around the house....uses as varied as conditioning my hair with it as a rinse to putting it in my laundry to get rid of mustiness!! Vinegar is awesome!

REpurposed vhs cases!!

I work in an Outreach Services Department of a public library – which means I get to drive the big bookmobiles! This also means I have to organize all the books inside of the big bookmobiles – which can be a lot less fun than one would think. We visit child care centers and elementary schools and have limited time with the students while they are on the bookmobile, making it virtually impossible to help every single student find the perfect book. Many of the students come onto the bookmobile knowing exactly what they want – these tend to be the students who want the Barbie, Disney, Spongebob etc type of books – not always the greatest of literature – but at least they are reading! Anyway, I tried to come up with ways of organizing these books that made it easier for the students to find the books on their own. I also had zero budget for this project, so I knew the fancy series labels I dreamed about were not going to ever become a reality.

I decided to use the large amount of old empty VHS cases (remember those) to turn them into beautiful series labels.

I printed labels with the title of the series and a picture of an easily identifiable image that goes along with the series (to help my not yet readers). I taped 2 VHS cases together long ways – taped the label on one of the spines and viola! a series label!!!

They ended up looking spectacular and the students just loved being able to find their own book.

 

I was also happy that I was able to reuse something that would have typically just been thrown away!!

Laundry LifeSaver Part 1

So, due to the fabulous schedule I work at the CDC (4 day weeks working 10 hours per day) I typically get a 4-day weekend once a month.  Loveliness....this happens to be my 4-day weekend!

These weekends are delightful at any time of the year, but they are especially welcome during the summer.  I love having a few extra days to read, swim, eat out, and just generally enjoying living easy.  However, before I could get to the relaxing part of the weekend, I had to do some chores.

Last night I went to start some laundry and realized I was almost totally out of our homemade laundry detergent.  No worries...I was able to mix up a new batch in less than 5 minutes.  I know Meredith blogged about making this for the first time back in the winter, but this laundry detergent has truly changed my life! First of all, I love not having to go out and buy detergent all the time, spending $6-$8 each time.  Also, think about how much detergent you have to use each time you run the laundry machine...that huge scoop in there is pretty serious!!  That's why I was always running out in the past....you use a ginormous amount each time, and if you're like me, there always seems to be laundry that needs to be done.  

With the detergent we made, there are only 3 ingredients and you use, get this, ONE TABLESPOON per load.  So it truly takes a long time to deplete your supply.  

I love this detergent.  My stuff comes out so clean.  Here was the ultimate test: earlier this spring I washed my car on one of the first nice days of the season.  I used a variety of white rags (I only buy white towels, rags, sheets, etc so that I can bleach the living daylights out of them without worrying about ruining color....working with small children everyday trains you to constantly wage war against household germs!) Imagine what the rags looked like after washing away an entire winter's worth of salt and grime from my car...yuck! This detergent made them rags white again...without me adding bleach.  If that's not a cleanliness test, I don't know what is!!

Initially, I was afraid I'd miss the scent of my laundry, because I always bought detergents that were heavily fragranced.  I still sometimes miss that scent, but I end up getting clothes that are enormously clean and soft without chemicals.  So it's a fair trade! Plus, in the future I'm thinking about using a chamomile-scented soap to add to the detergent to give it a scent!

I can't say enough about the softness of my clothes, towels, sheets, etc when they come out of the drier from this detergent.  It's like using fabric softener all the time, and I never have to do that anymore.  Yet another round of savings!

Here's the recipe again for those of you who forgot it from last winter! (You ARE committing all of these recipes to memory, right?? Haha)

1 cup Borax

1 cup washing soda

1 bar mild soap, grated (I've adjusted this amount in subsequent batches...I wash my laundry in cold water for a variety of reasons, chief among them being energy savings. Sometimes the soap flakes don't fully disintegrate in the cold water like they would in hot water.  The same thing would happen when I used regular detergent from the store...I would often see residue after washes.  Scaling back the soap flakes still gets my laundry clean, and I see virtually no residue from the cold water! Woo hoo!)

Truly, this takes all of 5 minutes to put together. 

The washing soda is the only ingredient that's hard to find.  We ended up ordering it from drugstore.com  If you are a first-time customer, you get free shipping, so Meredith and I each ordered 2 boxes of the washing soda to stock up.  You only use the 1 cup each time, so I think our boxes will last awhile!

So, there you have it...last night I started doing my chores, realized I was out of detergent, and promptly whipped up my own in the kitchen...all within 5 minutes!! If this had been a year ago, I would have had to grumpily march out to Target, buy detergent, THEN start laundry, thus postponing the fun of my "do-nothing" 4-day weekend! Disaster averted!

In Part 2 of this installment, I will discuss a great tip about getting musty smells out of laundry.  And trust me, I never thought I'd have any laundry tips, period.  This going green thing is really pretty fun...otherwise how could I possibly have a blog series on laundry?? :)

A Recipe for Smiles

Okay so perhaps this is a bit of a stretch as it isn’t really a recipe, but more of a craft project.. but hey.. who’s keeping score!

A girl I work with at the library was recently diagnosed with stage 4 leukemia and is in the hospital indefinitely in the ICU. The library organized a care basket to be brought to her, but because of her illness, no live flowers were allowed in her room. I think that flowers are so fun and cheerful, I thought I would make her these lovely tissue paper flowers instead!

The flowers are really easy to make and can be made in a variety of sizes/shapes/colors all depending on what you want. I decided to make a bouquet, and use “funky” colors and patterns because I thought that is what my friend would like best.

Materials:
Tissue paper

Pipe cleaners (which are now called fuzzy sticks.. how weird is that)

Instructions:
You can pretty much use as little or as many sheets of tissue paper as you want for this, depending on how big or full you want your flowers to look. I probably used 5-8 pieces per flower…

1. Cut tissue paper into rectangles of desired size).

2. Stack the pieces of tissue paper. Use the same color or different colors.

3. Accordion pleat the tissue paper working from the long side.
 

4. Wind one end of the “fuzzy stick” around the middle of the accordion pleated tissue paper.

5. Trim the ends of each side to give the pedals a unique look. Trimming the ends into a point (like a triangle), or a bump (like a half circle) will look very pretty.

6. Gently separate each layer pulling upwards toward the middle of the flower.

 

7. You can fluff the flower as needed. I made a bunch and put them in a vase with blue glass beads - but they could be used for a lot of different things! I've since used them as the decoration on a present too!

I've never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful.

Author Unknown