Finshed Friday: Clutter to Art

It has been a while since I have done a Finished Friday post.

I want to share with you something we have been working on all year.

It is a process, and we are in the "worst stage". You know the stage where everything is in shambles before the calm.

It is driving me crazy.

I just want to pack everything up and toss it, but there are things I know we do not want to lose.

We had on our bookshelf a shelf devoted to nick nacks. Most of them were from our wedding, and just collecting dust.

Mr. Z is a climber and I wanted to try to make our bookshelf less of object of desire.

This year we are in a MASSIVE de-cluttering movement, and I didn't just want to box them up and store them. And to make the bookshelf less of an obstacle. I took the bottom shelf off and moved everything up.

Doing that, I had to find a new home for the nick nacks. This finally got me to make two shadow boxes, something I have been wanting to do for years.

I made one for Mr. Z of some of his items from the hospital, his homecoming outfit, and the notes on the birth from the doula.

Then I made a shadow box of some things from our wedding and honeymoon.

It took use a couple of days, but we found the perfect home for them.

Shadow boxes, are not cheap, actually the cost for them has put me off for years. But we wanted a nice way to display these happy memories and mementos.

Everything else, was from stuff we already had, the pins used, and even the background paper. They did take some time to set up, but we love them.

What is a recent project you have recently finished?

Discovering Health: Accepting Food Allergies

In November of 2011, I found out I have a food allergy. After YEARS, of being told my digestive problem was IBS, I finally found a real answer.

This one food allergy started me down a path of wanting to know more about the food I was eating, and how it was prepared.

I started reading about food, and watching food documentaries, and researching how to eat.

I felt like there was a different diet for every person who has ever lived on this planet.

Cutting out DAIRY has been hard, I still struggle.

A few months after having Mr. Z, I went on an Elimination Diet, I didn't stick with it long enough to find anything. After Mr. Z started solids, he started to show signs of food allergies.

I started back on the diet, and we started to find out what Mr. Z is allergic to.

I thought since I had this DAIRY allergy, I might also have a WHEAT/GLUTEN allergy. They tend to go hand and hand.

I ignored this for years, as I wasn't ready to go through the grieving process that would follow the change needed.

This last weekend my sister was visiting. And after being good for a few weeks, I lapsed, and we gorged ourselves. It didn't help any that she was pregnant and I have little to no will power.

As I write this, my gut is churning and gurgling. I have been farting non stop, and my joints ache.

It is time for me to mourn the loss of the staple of the American diet.

It is time for me to let go, and let my body heal.

I have cleaned my house out, and we don't allow any gluten into our house.

I have a menu planned.

I have groceries and full cupboards of SAFE foods.

I need to find the WILL POWER to be strong.

I have some great examples around me of friends who have made this change. I need to lean on them more. I hope they don't mind. I need some cheer leaders.

Here is to one day at a time, gluten free for a healthy body.

Yesterday, I had my last meal. It wasn't a healthy one, but sometimes you just need some comfort food. Goodbye, dear friend, Gluten, Goodbye!

A New Life to Leftovers

Sorry there were no posts last week, but I had a sick baby. He is doing much better and now I can blog!

Leftovers are a thing that contribute to refrigerator stink. They also, are one of the major contributors to food waste. That and not using food before it spoils, which reminds me I have a head of cauliflower...

This is a topic I hope to hit on a few times, there is so many directions it can go in.

Here are my 5 leftover tips.

1) Think Simple

Having a simple meal, not to extravagant on the spices and flavoring, and then you can easily reuse left overs. One of favorites is reuse spaghetti sauce for pizza.

2) Use the Freezer!

I really wish our freezer was twice its size... There is so much you can freeze! We freeze a lot of left over soup, we easily get two meals out of a batch of soup since there is only two of us. Here is a great resource on what and how to freeze a lot of common items.

Here is a link to a printable list of how and what to freeze. You do have to sign up for the email list to receive the printable.

Here is a third link on how and what to freeze.

Be sure to check out my Pintrest board, Leftovers, for more links to how, what, and what not to freeze.

3) Make Broth!

It is slightly cheaper to buy meats with the bones (and skin for chicken). Save those bones and some extra meat and make broth. I like to add some veggies to my broths, and I will save a lot of the skins, peels, and little leftover parts. I actually keep a bag in my freezer for them and when it is time to make broth I just dump it in the pot. You can also just make vegetable broth from the leftover scraps from everyday cooking.

4) Plan Ahead!

Similar to number 1, but schedule your leftovers. If I try to schedule them so that they don't just spoil. Here are a few of our meals that get a second life.

Ham to Navy Bean Soup
Roasted Chicken to Chicken Salad Sandwiches or taco meat or soup
Tacos to Taco Soup

5) Vegetables

Vegetable leftovers are a great way to "beef up" a meal. We have a side of steamed veggies with a lot of our meals. and I always steam extras to use in our next meal, just to help a make it rounder. You will be surprised at how great pasta sauce and broccoli and carrots go together.


What do you do with leftovers?

Green Smoothies!

I have a new morning ritual.

I love it!

So does my baby.

I think if I let him, we would drink that whole glass!

We love GREEN SMOOTHIES!

At first, I tried making up my own recipes, and I was having to choke them down, they tasted very earthy. Then a good friend, suggested adding some orange juice. It was life changing.

Then in December I saw a post on facebook, about the site Simple Green Smoothies and their 30 day challenge they were doing in January. It was free, they would send you recipes, and shopping lists! I signed up and I LOVED IT!

There were a few that I didn't enjoy, I am not a fan of avocados, or pineapple. But there were a few that were so delicious that they are now a staple in my freezer.

Green smoothies are great quick breakfasts or even a quick pick me up. There are about as many ways to make a green smoothie as there are "ratios" of greens to fruit.

If you are wanting to start doing green smoothies here are a couple tips that I have learned and have really helped me.

1. Start small. Don't jump right in with a bunch of greens to a little fruit. You won't enjoy it. Start with your fruit and then slowly add greens. I started with one cup greens to 3 cups fruit. Then after a couple of weeks, add an extra cup of greens and take away a cup of fruit, (or add and 1/2 and take away a 1/2 cup of fruit). I pack my greens down, but you can start by not packing, and then packing.

2. Prep. To make a big change in your life, prep work can help you stay on track. I like to prep all my smoothies for the week, for a quick, no thought breakfast. I use ziplocs, and store everything in the freezer. I keep prepped fruit one ziploc with anything that needs to added, ie liquid base. I also store greens in the freezer. I buy a couple of containers of greens, we rotate kale, spinach, and romaine lettuce. I measure my 2 cups packed greens and then label and into the freezer they go. No need to thaw before had, just dump and blend.

3. Blend your greens first. Starting with your liquid base, and your greens, blend them separately until completely smooth. This will help break them down, and keep you from having a lefty smoothie.

4. Have fun! Try new things and different combinations. I never thought of putting cacaco powder in a smoothie but it is now one of my favorite additives!

5. Follow this simple formula:

image from: Simple Green Smoothies

The Great Cloth Diaper Laundry Detergent Myth Busting Experiment

I am SO ridiculously excited about this experiment. Which is not like me, because I HATE HATE HATE laundry, almost as much as cleaning the bathroom...

In my post about why homemade detergent will not work, I said that I was going to do an experiment to show you that it doesn't work.

But because this experiment, most likely won't be done until the fall, I thought I would try to give some kind of regular update with it.

First off, the procedure, the most important part.

We have 13 cotton prefolds that we aren't using yet, and 15 microfiber (MF) inserts (I actually found more, but I already started the experiment... LAME)

So each load will consist of 6 prefolds, and 7 MF inserts.

Each load will be washed with a level two scoop of "detergent". The scoop I will be using if from our regular detergent.

Each load will be washed, with the following washing machine settings:
Water level: Medium
Water Temperature: Hot (machine will only do initial filling with hot, so the rinses will all be done in cold)
Wash Cycle: Quick wash (aprox. 10 min agitation cycle)

The loads will then be line dried, and every 5th washing, dried in the dryer, on high for 50 mins. (This is to save on our energy costs)

Any noticed differences in texture (feel) will be noted.

I have a spreadsheet to note the washes, dries, and any other things noticed.

We will be using the homemade detergent and Arm and Hammer Perfume and Dry Free.

100 washes each, goal is to wash twice a day, and to alternate the two loads every 5 washes or so.

When it come time for the test on how the detergent affected the absorbancy of the diapers, I will get you the details on that.

Homemade detergent, the scoop, and Arm & Hammer

Diapers drying. (I marked one load, so that if they ever get mixed, we can tell the difference)

Cleaners and Grades

Wow! I never thought I would get so many pageviews! I hope that post about using detergent helps someone! And that if that someone needs help finding a new laundry detergent, I hope with helps you too!

When I was researching a better way to wash our cloth diapers, and I looked up detergents to try on EWG.com to see how the rated.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) put out a data base of cleaners and their ingredients and graded them. From their website:

Environmental Working Group’s mission is to use the power of information to protect human health and the environment. EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning gives you practical solutions to protect yourself and your family from everyday exposures to potentially harmful chemicals. U.S. law allows manufacturers of cleaning products to use almost any ingredient they wish, including known carcinogens and substances that can harm fetal and infant development. And the government doesn’t review the safety of products before they’re sold. To fill those gaps, EWG’s staff scientists compared the ingredients listed on cleaning product labels, websites and worker safety documents with the information available in the top government, industry and academic toxicity databases and the scientific literature on health and environmental problems tied to cleaning products. They used that information to create EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning, which provides you with easy-to-navigate safety ratings for a wide range of cleaners and ingredients. (source)

I love checking out my cleaners. When we stopped making our own dishwasher detergent, we looked up different bands and the grade Seventh Generation got, made our decision easy. (Seventh Generation's Grade)

So when we were changing our cloth diaper wash routine, I looked up detergents to research. I took them to EWG.com to see how they were graded. 

I looked up Rockin' Green, and they weren't in the database, but it wasn't working for us, so I didn't really care to look up the individual ingredients.

The database has a few categories, one being laundry. When you are looking at just the laundry category, you can look at cleaners based on grade. I wanted to just look at detergents that ranked at least a "C" so I opened up a new tab for each grade, "A", "B", and "C". And then did some more research on the different brands and we decided to get Planet Laundry Detergent.

One of the most important things one our list was were we able to buy it local, We can buy Planet local and at a reasonable price. We also wanted a fragrance free detergent, and for it to be powder.

We also, picked a backup in case switching to Planet wasn't working. We decided on Arm and Hammer Perfume and Dye Free.

Here is a link the the grades for Planet, and the Arm and Hammer.

Some people claim that the EWG using arbitrary criteria for the grading scale, and if you feel that why, please read the info the EWG has, and do your own research. Always make the best decision for you, and your family. If you need to pick price over grading, that is ok, just make informed consumer decisions.

Peanut Butter and Blenders

I know we talked about nut butters last week, but I have a few quick things to add. 

1. Wonderful Man thought I needed to add that if you want make the same amount of nut butter you currently purchase, you will need to buy AT LEAST that weight in peanuts.

For example, we buy the large Adam's, which it's 36 oz. So I need about 36 oz of peanuts to make the same amount of peanut butter.

2. I got a new, and totally awesome blender for my birthday, and I can use it to make peanut butter in about 5 minutes! So if you have a professional grade blender you can use it instead of a food processor.

Here are some photos of this week's batch of peanut butter.

My new blender, the Oster Versa

36 ounces of peanuts

Blender doing its thing

Notice the volume difference between here, the finished butter and the previous picture

Can you tell which is store bought?

I did do the whole 36 ounces of peanuts in two patches, in my food processor, it would have been four. Sometimes homemade takes more time, but if you have to decided do you have time or money?