Coffee creamer part 3

I love a good creamer. Especially a good fresh, nice and thick creamer. I loved the sweetened condensed milk recipe, and I still do. But what if you want a more syrupy, coffeehouse style creamer? Well, this lady nailed it. From my old stomping grounds of Alaska no less. I can't wait to try her other recipes but first I'll share this one. Salted Caramel Creamer.

Chicken Stock

There just hasn't been a lot of time to write everything I've been doing since we decided to homeschool Aidan. The one thing I certainly didn't think of was having his curricula in order first. So I've been spending most of my time researching everything I want him to learn for first grade. Buying boxed curricula was definitely not for me.

Anyway, last week I made a big pot of chicken stock! I've tried this a few times and it never really stuck. I made a big batch and let the thing sit out spoil, or I added way too much parsley and the broth came out nuclear green, but in hindsight, I probably couldn't made another batch and mixed them together and had even amounts and a lot of stock. Oh well, live and learn.

Chicken Stock is one of the most basic, easiest staples you can make yourself, there is hardly anything you can do to mess it up, except going heavy on the seasoning that it :-). One of the most common tips I've learned is save your veg extras! Carrots, celery, onion, parsley are the most popular and you can make pretty good stock on those alone. Other good additives are parsnips, parsnips, whole peppercorns, rosemary, and well, most anything you want! I like to keep mine basic though, so I add the first four and some ground pepper, maybe some Italian seasoning and we're good to go.

First, clean your chicken! A good cold water bath and I always rub it down with a paper towel to get that weird filmy stuff off and maybe extra feather bits. Chicken in the pot, and fill with enough cold water to cover the chicken. Watch the top though cause if it's really full its boil out. Then add your veggies and spices, bring to a boil and you'll want to boil it for about 40-50 minutes. I have never had luck bringing to a boil them simmering for the remaining time, I always end up cooking way longer and the meat will be really dry. So this works for me. Sometimes I put the lid on for the last 20 minutes. If the water is getting low quickly, turn the temp down to medium-med.high, it'll still boil but not as rapidly. After your chicken is cooked, pull it out and turn the temp to low. Let your chicken cool, then pull the meat off the bones, and toss the bones back in the pot. Its ok if there is still some meat on them though, it'll help add flavor. Depending on the water level, you might want to add some more water at this point, enough to cover everything in the pot. Being to a full boil, cover and simmer for about 4-6 hrs. After it has simmered, take all the solids out. This part is a personal preference, to help boost the extra flavor, I like to reduce the liquid a bit by boiling for at least 20 minutes. It helps intensify the flavor, but it's not necessary to have delicious chicken stock. Using a fine mesh strainer, make sure you've gotten all chucks out, that shouldn't been before reducing, sorry! Ill have to come back and edit this... Pour into a container that you can cover and let it cool on the counter for bit, then refrigerate overnight. In the morning there will be a layer of fat on top of the broth, skim that off and put your stock into any kind of storage you like and it'll freeze well for about six months. It'll refrigerate for about 5 days. I like to put about 2-3 cups in quart size baggies so I can lay them flat to freeze, it helps with freezer space.

Homeschool vs. Public School

This thought has weighed heavily in my mind ever since Aidan started kindergarten. I didn't think I would be this parent but then again its not like a child comes prescripted either.  Everyone knows that some children learn differently and I'm beginning to really realize that our son thrives on more one on one contact.  Of course there are reservations, will he have interaction with other children, will he be able to meet the standard requirements, is this something I'm fully commited to. I've done the research and even looked into the specifics for our area and I believe with my whole heart this is what's best for him. 

Taking a break to catch up..

Things have been a little slow for me since Aidan has gone back to school and we're all getting used to the new routine. I'm trying to put together my list of things I've been waiting to try but I keep facing road blocks. I've been on the hunt for canning supplies but they are either a hot commodity or just not as popular as I thought.  Today I was out searching with no luck.

After catching up with my Grandma today, I've officially decided to take a step up to actual canning. I was going to stay lazy and stick with freezing everything but I think this could really add up to some savings.  So instead of hunting down plastic ball jars, I'll be looking for a nice big stock pot, which I'm sure I can find in the cooking supply section of Sam's Club for a pretty decent price, so be on the lookout for a post in the hopefully not to distant future. 

It is a fairly slow moving week for me. Things have been on hold a lot since we are still in the process of our loss. Without going too far into detail, I'll just say we are on week three of the ordeal. So I've been trying to stay on top of my prenatals and bumping up my iron. A good nights sleep would be great but is unlikely thanks to teething... My poor daughter cannot catch a break. :-\

I'm kind of surprised of the things I've gotten accomplished and have been able to post about. But my goal is to try and get back my strength this weekend and be ready for some projects next week. Take care y'all!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

No doubt you've seen it all over.  Homemade laundry detergent is making a comeback.  And for good reason too. For one, it'll save you a ton.  Another good reason is its better for you and the environment.  But is it too good to be true? I'm going to try it out and see for myself!

I found a few articles with basically the same recipe. Here are the ingredients:

-Washing soda
-Borax
-Zote (Fels Naptha or Ivory are common alternatives)

Other additives are:
-Baking soda
-Oxiclean
-Essential oils
-Fabric softening crystals

(There are other recipes that make liquid detergent, I feel powder washes better so a search can find you liquid if that's what you prefer.)

The hardest part is grating the soap bar. You'll want a finer grate but I've heard a regular one works fine too. I chose Zote and grated two cups. I mixed it with my hands to break it down a bit more, but that's because I have a dinky little dorm grater. (Some have used a food processer to grate but I've heard its not worth the mess.) Then its a basic 2:1:1 ratio with washing soda and borax.  I decided to just make a small batch to see if I'd like the results. I'm confident though because I have used borax before added in laundry and in the dishwasher and had good results, and I've heard good results with washing soda added to regular detergent as well. Mix well and store in an air-tight container, and that's it! I had a sample of Unstoppable crystals so I threw those in my batch, and I've decided I'm going to get the oxi and baking soda too. The oxi is in most cloth diaper homemade detergents so I thought I might as well.

Here is a link to another homemade recipe. I wanted to post it because she goes into detail about why the basic ingredients are good and how they help get your laundry really clean.

I'll update later with my results!

Coffee Creamer Part Two

I wanted to try the basic coffee creamer recipe you see a lot online. Its basically sweetened condenced milk and milk or half and half. Then you can add flavors.
Here is the link. I went the full yard and made the sweetened condensed milk as well. Basic recipe is:

-1/2 cup boiling water
-3 tbls butter
-1/2 cup sugar
-1 1/4 cup dry milk powder

Put everything except water into blender, pour boiling water over ingredients and blend until thickened. 

I then added about 3/4 cup whipping cream and a cup of 2% milk blending to combine. I halved this base mix and put half in the fridge cause I'm not sure what flavors I will make.  With the other half I added about 2 tbls caramel sauce and about 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract.  I think for the other half I will make a chocolate cinnamon flavor, but I have to say this is a much richer creamer then the first recipe.  Good thing I needed the extra coffee today!

Chicken and Noodles

Slightly modified from The Pioneer Woman. Her recipe is here. I love her recipes.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find any good sales on cut up whole chicken or even a whole chicken so I had to settle for just whole chicken breast pieces. Still good just not as much "omphf" going into the homemade broth. I followef her recipe but instead of just boiling the chicken, I added about 1/4 an onion, 2 stalks of celery, 3 carrots, and oh about 4 sprigs of fresh parsley. I let it boil for about 40 minutes, pulled the meat off the bones and put the bones back into the pot and let it simmer for about an hr. Then I strained the broth. 

Everything else I followed. Except I wanted fresh homemade noodles too. I followed her recipe here. I did everything down to the T. But come time to put the noodles into the pot, they were horribly stuck together.  So a warning, lay for fresh cut noodles on a baking sheet and not a bowl and go heavy on the flour. GoodNESS. So I ended up re-rolling my dough in quick little batches, and then using scissors (clean, of course) I snipped little strips right into the pot. I wasn't sure at this point how they would turn out but oh my, this was some awesome, awesome soup. Next time we have a cold, this will be made.