Happy Halloween

Image Source

Have a safe a happy Halloween everyone! 

How to Clean an Oven: Part II

I found my camera, Wonderful Man brought it in before he left, He is Wonderful!

As I was looking thought the pictures I realized I had way more than I thought. So this two part oven cleaning tutorial, is going to me more like a three part.

So I added a few pictures to part one for your enjoyment, and here is Part Two:

Remember the recipe I made, if not here it is again:

1 cup Baking Soda

3 TBSP Borax

1/8 cup Liquid Castile Soap

1/4 cup distilled vinegar

extra Water (if needed)

Now that we have a recipe we need a process. (I think it is pregnancy brain, which is why I left this out earlier, but now you get two posts in one day!)

Step one: Scrape out the oven.

Before scraping

Get all that nasty charred on stuff out of there, it will only cause more of a mess while cleaning.

Nasty charred stuff

Looks, just a little better.

Step Two: Make the paste.

Mix the borax and Baking Soda. Add the liquid Castile Soap (you can use liquid dish washing soap, like Dawn instead.) Mix as well as you can. SLOWLY add the vinegar (I added an eighth at a time). If needed to make the paste, add a little HOT water.

Step Three: Paint the Oven.

I tried at first to use a pastry brush... I just gave up and used my hands. Be sure to coat the entire oven, sides, door and top too! I left a heavier coat on the bottom since there is more gunk burnt on there.

Step Four: Relax.

You are half way done! Let the oven sit open over night. I closed mine slightly, so that our cat wouldn't investigate.

Step Five: Look for Thursday's Post for the results and final cleaning tips!

How to Clean an Oven: Part One

*Sorry, No pictures at 9 am! Wonderful Man took the car, with the camera in it... :(
**11 am, Found it! He brought it in for me! Pictures added.

Have you ever cleaned an oven before?

Honestly, I haven't... Yet...

We have lived in our apartment/house for over 3 years now, and I have never cleaned our oven. Even if a pie spills over or something gets charred to the bottom.  I don't think it was cleaned before we moved in...

But, I have had this nagging in the back of my mind about how, I should probably learn how to clean an oven, before we move out. Mainly, because the longer I wait the worse it will get.

My never before cleaned oven

My oven has a self cleaning cycle, but that scares me a little. I am afraid of something catching on fire and burning our place down. I know some people, have no problem with this cycle, more power to you!

Being pregnant, I am a little more cautious about what products I am using. Honestly, if I wasn't expecting I might have gone to the store and just purchased some chemical based oven cleaner.

Monday morning, I went looking for an oven cleaner. I found five different 'recipes' that were similar.

They all say to make a paste, coat the oven, and let it sit over night.

All five of them say to use vinegar and liquid soap, either dish soap or castile soap.

Two say to use borax and the other three say to use baking soda.

So, what really is the best?

Well, I wasn't about to divided my oven into 5 sections to test, so why not try a recipe with all four ingredients.

Looking at the recipes I thought I would try my own recipe of:

1 cup Baking Soda

3 TBSP Borax

1/8 cup Liquid Castile Soap

1/4 cup distilled vinegar

extra Water (if needed)

Thursday's post, did it work?

Sources:
Recipe One
Recipe Two
Recipe Three
Recipe Four
Recipe Five

November is right around the corner.

I am sitting trying to type with a cat, who is trying to sit on my slowly shrinking lap. Why do cat's always want attention when you are trying to do something?

Anyway, I hope everyone had good a weekend. Our started with a wonderful date to a restaurant in town we haven't been to, which you need reservations for... Turns out being pregnant can get you into places, although we had to wait half an hour. The food was great, and the highlight of my evening was getting ID'd. The waitress heard my drink order wrong. Ha! That made me feel good.

Saturday, was a nice lazy day where we didn't get out of bed until 11, had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and a church activity was dinner. No clean up and no cooking!!

Lastly, the weekend ended with a birthday party for Wonderful Man's youngest brother.

It was a great weekend, and we hope you had great weekends too!

This week, I am going to clean my oven, and so you will get to hear all about it.

Next month is November, and we will have a focus on Giving Thanks. Also, I had this brilliant idea for a new Thanksgiving Day treat/snack. I am calling it Turkey Poop! It is great you will love it! So look for that in the coming weeks.

Also, as a heads up, Engineering Homemaking will be taking a little vacation for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So no posts from the 19th of November to the First of the year. We will also be taking another vacation in February and March to welcome the newest addition to the Engineering Family.

Finished Friday: Elefant

Since my mother's passing I have been trying to come up with some simple and easy (not to mention easy on me) ways to tell our little one about its Grandmother. Other than hopefully getting a few knitted socks from her estate, there isn't anything that is specifically for our little one.

So, I have been thinking of things to make for our little one that it will treasure, and I can say, "Your Grandmother's favorite animal was the elephant. This is your special elephant to remember her by."

Meet Eleanor the Elephant!

Notes on the project:
I am not sure what the yarn is I used, but I like the way it turned out. This is one of the few patterns I have actually purchased (I am a poor college student still!) This is the second time I have made this guy and I LOVE the pattern. It is a little smaller than I was hoping for.

I have decided to split up my finished objects, so that there is one a week, instead of multiple items in one post.

Also, we know we are having a human baby, we just don't know boy or girl yet. We will find out in February!

Thrifty Thursday: Thrifty Meals

A couple of weeks ago we talked about budgeting meals to help make them thrifty. I had a reader ask about "meal recycling". This term always gives me a chuckle, but it means exactly that. Taking one meal and turning into another.

Now, this is something that I am not perfect at, but I am working on. I only have two meals I recycle... So in the mean time while I am working on coming up with recyclable meals, I need some quick meals.

My Wednesday is fairly busy, and now that our birthing class is on Wednesday nights ( I now have a 9 to 9 day!) Good thing it is fall, and a cock pot meal can solve that problem.

Many of you have seen many pins on Pintrest of freezer crock pot meals. It has been something I want to try, but my freezer is small, and usually full! Except, we recently decided to clean out the freezer to make some room for some freezer meals for later.

Though, with Wednesday going to be even more crazy than normal, and I am going to want to eat BEFORE our 7-9 PM birthing class, I have got to have something simple, fast, and planned out a head.

So I sat down on Tuesday before grocery shopping, and when to Pintrest (some times I think pintrest is going to become the next Google. Also, they need a way for you to search your OWN pins...)

I found this pin I pinned about crock pot freezer meals, looked through it and picked out 6 meals to try. Made my grocery list, and am not to excited about how much this trip is going to cost...

So after shopping, getting burgers for dinner and rushing off to our class, I made the 6 meals last night and into the freezer they went. At first Wonderful Man thought I was crazy, but when I explained the point of these meals, he more that willing to agree to cook rice or pasta on Wednesday nights.

I also wanted to see how much time it took to put the meals together. I labeled the bags with the information that was needed, and then gathered up all the stuff. I started a timer, and went to work.

All the food for 6 dinners

Just under an HOUR later, I was short one chicken breast, and had one bag leak pineapple juice all over the place, and the dinners were done!

6 dinners prepped and ready for the freezer!

Focus Wednesday: Brown Apples

Sorry this post is a little later than normal. When I scheduled to do it, I thought I had some apples... Opps!

We all have experienced the cut apple turning BROWN... It doesn't affect the taste as much as the appearance. I don't like to eat brown apples.

There are 3 ways that I have tried and know work to prevent browning.

Lemon Juice

Lemon juice is basically liquid citric acid. I feel that lemon juice versus using the powder leaves the apples a little more tart.

It is simple enough to use, cut your apple, add some lemon juice to the container, shake and go.

Citric Acid Powder

I use the Fruit Fresh powder found in the canning section of the store. Just like the lemon juice, add some to the container shake and go! (The bottle does say to mix with water, don't worry about it!)

The Rubber Band

I have seen this trick and always wanted to know, DOES IT WORK? Not as well as the first too. But if you don't have either on hand, or have a citric allergy (How sad!) This will do.

After an hour, I checked the apples I tested with the three methods to show how much browning occurred. 

Lemon Juice after 1 hour

Citric Acid Powder after 1 hour

Rubber Band after 1 hour

As you can see not much browning on the rubber band, but I asked Wonderful Man for his opinion and he said the lemon juice and the citric acid powder looked like fresh cut apples.

Homemaking Tuesday: Failures

There have been a couple of things on here that we have talked about that have FAILED...

The biggest one, being the shower experiment trial one. Remember that?

Currently, trial two is going great, YAY!

The Fail:

The actually fail, I want to talk more about is dishwasher detergent...

In April I told you about making your own dishwasher detergent.

I really liked this detergent, but there was ONE MAJOR flaw.

It turned into a ROCK!

I thought I had pictures, but I can not find them...

I thought, if I throw it in the microwave, the increase movement of the water molecules will soften it and I can try to salvage it...

That DID NOT WORK!!! It was bubbling!

So I let it cool, and harden again and then I chiseled out some for each load. 

Wonderful Man decided this was ridiculous, and told me just to buy some dishwasher detergent. So we now use

It is a little pricey for dishwasher detergent, but I made a list of what I wanted out of a product and this fit the bill. (Check out EWG.com's rating for this)

So what went wrong?

CITRIC ACID

The main problem, was that citric acid is a moisture absorb-er  and so when in a sealed jar, it took the moisture out the air. Every time you opened a new jar, new moisture rich air was added... This caused the the ingredients to soften and combine into one solid mass. Add enough water (not just moisture) and it would dissolve...

How to solve the problem?

Shake and stir OFTEN! One place I read (which I can not remember now to site) said, if you leave it open for a few days and stir it often, it will prevent the rock from forming. I also saw people saying if you a those moisture bead packs from almost any new item you buy, they help too.

If this is something you do, what do you do to prevent a solid chunk of dishwasher detergent from forming?

A new week, and a new day!

I hope everyone had a good week last week, sorry for not many posts last week. I had some things planned to get finished and posted, but one completely back fired and then I was out with the flu.

The flu sucks! and it totally caught me off guard.

Now that I am mostly alive again, after a week of not working on things that need to get done, it is time to jump back in.

Tomorrow, I will touch on some FAILED cleaners.

Wednesday, to go along with APPPLES, we will talk keeping them from turning brown.

Thursday, thrifty meals!

And Friday, I have some crafty items I finished while out with the flu.



Facebook, y'all want to posts to facebook as a reminder, and I will TRY to do that. I hope everyone has a good week and is healthy!!

Focus Wednesday: Apple ABC's

At work the other day I saw a paper bag with apples in it. Normally, a paper bag with apples is nothing to take note of, but this bag had the ABC's of Washington Apples. For today's focus on apples, I thought I would share it.

A. Is for Apple, great health food. 

B. Is for breakfast don’t miss it. 

C. Is for Calcium, apples are a rich source! 

D. Is for Delicious, try a Red or Golden 

E. Is for Eating fresh apples, always a great Idea! 

F. Is for Fiber, apples are a delicious source. 

G. Is for Gala, a tangy-sweet flavor. 

H. Is for Healthy benefits from apples. 

I. Is for Ideal, apples are. 

J. Is for Jonagold, a crisp sweet snack. 

K. Is for Kids, just love apples! 

L. Is for Love them apples. 

M. Is for Magical heart healthy food. 

N. Is for Nutrition, good nutrition helps keep you smart, strong, and healthy. 

O. Is for Original health food. 

P. Is for Pink Lady, a unique tangy-tart flavor. 

Q. Is for Quick, apples make a quick snack. 

R. Is for Real Foods, eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day. 

S. Is for Sweet, apples are tangy taste treats. 

T. Is for Tangy, delicious flavors. 

U. Is for Unbeatable, energy foods. 

V. Is for Varietals, how many apples flavors have you tried? 

W. Is for Washington, the best apple flavor on earth! 

X. Is for X-tra Crunchy, good apple snack. 

Y. Is for Youth, start healthy eating habits, when you are young. 

Z. Is for Zippy, Try all the zippy apple flavors.

Questions

Last week I asked some questions of you readers and got no response. So here they are again!

•  I have been asked if I can post to facebook when I do a post. Do you all like that? I go back and forth with it, but if you readers would like for me to do that daily I can work something out.

• Next, I just wanted to point out at the VERY TOP under the title of the blog are some links. Blog- which is like a home button. About Engineering Homemaking- which is just a little about the background of this blog. And then the last two are Recipes and Frugal Cleaning. These links take you to a list of all the recipes for food or cleaning recipes. On those pages the recipes are linked to the original post. I hope that helps you when looking for something.

Also, I do read all the comments and greatly appreciate them. If you ever have something you would like to see, just let me know.

Thrifty Thursday: Was it worth it?

On Pintrest awhile ago I saw this pin:

Reduce and Reuse! Rolled Kitchen Towels

What a great idea I though. So I went and got the items to make them.

Flannel, wash cloths, and snaps.

The snaps were $25 for what I needed.

I washed everything and took a couple months to get them made. Finally it was time to add the snaps and be done. By this time was a little burnt out on this project, and really wondering if this was worth it at all.

Then came the problem with the snaps... The tool that comes with the snaps wasn't lining the snaps right and I was tossing more snaps than keeping. Finally, Wonderful Man came up with a 3 tool process that worked, took 4 times the amount of time, but the snaps were being placed correctly.

Now that this project is done. I don't really want it any more. I am upset on the amount of time and energy that went into it, and not so impressed by the finished product. 

Focus Wednesday: Applesauce

This month's focus is Apples, and one of the many things you can do with apples is make applesauce. I am not going to tell you how to make applesauce, but focus more on what you can do with it.

Applesauce is great just to eat, but you can use it in baking too.

The number one thing people use applesauce for is reducing the fat in baked goods. We always have a bunch of unsweetened applesauce on hand just for baking. I do also tend to want to use the whole jar, so I end up with a lot of awesome baked goods.

To substitute unsweetened applesauce in baking, you exchange one-for-one applesauce for the oil or melted butter. Or 1/4 cup per egg. DO NOT DO BOTH! If you substitute the egg and the oil, you will get a flat baked good.

This substitution woks best in things like cakes or muffins, not cookies. Usually, I substitute in any 'quick bread' type recipe.

Of course you can always just eat the applesauce, or add some to your oatmeal or plain yogurt.

Now that it is fall, I am really looking forward to baking, hopefully my waist line doesn't expand too much!

If you are looking for why you can make this substitution look here.

Homemaking Tuesday: Oranges

About a month ago we talked about oranges and using them in cleaning. I started infusing vinegar with orange peels, and I have been saving orange peels and drying them for making an orange scrub. This week we will we talk about the infused vinegar.

As a disclaimer, oranges are not in season right now. Soon you can get those small mandarin or satsumas for the holidays. Being pregnant, oranges have been one of the few things I will eat without feeling gross (oranges and spicy food... Go figure), so have been buy oranges from Costco they aren't too bad.

 

Orange Infused Vinegar

• Collect enough orange peels to fill up the jar of your choice.
• Cover the orange peels with distilled white vinegar. Close and shake the jar until the air bubbles come to the top and top off with vinegar. Do that a couple of times until you can't add anymore vinegar.
• Then let it sit for a month. You can shake it daily or let it just sit and look interesting.

After it has set for a while is when the real work happens.

• Strain the mixture using a mesh strainer. 

This is what it looked like after just the strainer. So I decided to filter it.

• Then filter the mixture. I just used two paper towel over the mesh strainer. (You could do these two steps together, I didn't, but you could) The filtering takes time, I was impatient and squeezed it through.

After filtering it, no more black particles.

Now to make the spray.

• Measure the amount of infused vinegar you have and the pour that into a spray bottle.
• Make a 2-1 ratio of distilled water to vinegar (I had 1 cup vinegar, so 2 cups distilled water)
• Shake, label and use.

Couple of Notes:
I read that some people had very orangey smelling liquid and not so vinegary. Mine smelled like pickled oranges... Once I mixed everything it hardly smells like vinegar. I also hardly noticed any fragrant orange smell while cleaning.

I am going to try a different version of this recipe, which is just letting it sit longer. Maybe that one will be more orangey.

Also another site said that after they let the spray sit for a while the vinegar smell started to come back. We will just have to see what happens here.

And, below are links to the sites I used to make my infused vinegar. If you want to try something different look there.

Sources:
http://cleaneatsinthezoo.com/index/2012/03/23/homemade-citrus-cleaner/
http://www.green-talk.com/2012/03/28/orange-peel-vinegar-cleaner-make-your-own-green-cleaner/
http://poppyjuice-poppy.blogspot.com/2012/03/vinegar-orange-peel-homemade-cleaning.html
http://www.vicariouslyvintage.com/2012/03/16/orange-oil-cleaner/
http://susangodfrey.com/orange-peel-vinegar/

Weekend recap and Questions

We had a great weekend. We went to our little niece's soccer game in the morning on Saturday. It was good, a little chilly but good.

Wonderful Man has started to clean up the garden and harvested an 18 inch long, 6 pound 6 ounce yellow zucchini. We thought it would be funny to put it in the crib we set up Friday night.

This weekend was also the semi-annual conference for our church. It was great, as always. It was streamed over the internet so we watch it from home and have a Waffle and Wisdom party between the two sessions.

We have been doing this for years! We invite some friends over for a waffle lunch, and then they can stay and watch the second session with us. It is fun, and we talk about what we learned and what we are looking forward to hearing about.

This year we had some friends over who are also photographers. We traded lunch and dinner for some halfway maternity pictures. They are pretty cute. I will share a couple after she is done editing them.

How was your weekends?

Time for some business, I have been asked if I can post to facebook when I do a post. Do you all like that? I go back and forth with it, but if you reader would like for me to do that daily I can work something out.

Next, I just wanted to point out at the VERY TOP under the title of the blog are some links. Blog- which is like a home button. About Engineering Homemaking- which is just a little about the background of this blog. And then the last two are Recipes and Frugal Cleaning. These links take you to a list of all the recipes for food or cleaning recipes. On those pages the recipes are linked to the original post. I hope that helps you when looking for something.

Also, I do read all the comments and greatly appreciate them. If you ever have something you would like to see, just let me know.

Finished Friday: The Stash

I have a HUGE stash of yarn. Honestly, TOO MUCH yarn. I have no clue what to do with it all. I also want to buy nice, wonderful, expensive yarn. But I do not have any more space to store more yarn.

So I have been knitting and crocheting to use it all up. Here are some of the more recent things I have finished.

 This is the horse/pony I made for one of the girls I nanny for her 4th Birthday. She LOVES IT.

I made these blocks for the baby. There were surprisingly easy and fast!

Lastly, this is the hat and socks I made for a friend for her adorable new little girl.

Thrifty Thursday: Meal Planning

Thrifty Thursday isn't just about thrift items, it is about being thrifty with your money. Meal planning is a GREAT way to save money, and one of the easiest things to do.

After my mother passed, my father and sister were at a lost as for what to for dinners. My youngest sister is 18 and had just graduated high school. Dad after 30 years of marriage, is now a bachelor again. About a month ago she asked me what to do for grocery shopping and for some recipes because she had no  idea what to make.

It got me thinking, that maybe not just the fresh out of the parents home people need some help with how to organize their dinners.

Some people when the meal plan the plan breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner for every day. I like to have a little wiggle room in the kitchen, so my meal planning is more like a meal guide.

1. Find a cookbook and flip through it for ideas.

This works great, because if I sit down with the purpose of planning our meals I draw a complete BLANK. The cookbooks help to get me thinking, and every so often we try something new.

2. Write down the dinners you want with ALL the ingredients.

This is probably the most important step. When I do our weekly meal calendar I do 5-6 meals, one night leftovers and one night Wonderful Man is completely in charge (usually date night). Writing down all the ingredients  helps you to make sure you have everything either in your kitchen or on you grocery list. There are a few things I 'skip' in this step: salt, EVO, pepper, and basic things I KNOW I have.

3. Make a grocery list.

From step two if it wasn't in the kitchen, it goes on the grocery list. That way it doesn't come to Tuesday, and you are missing cream for your pot pie or something important.

4. Grocery shop with a LIST.

Second most important step. With out a list you will wander the store and BUY MORE than you need, and stuff you can't make dinners with. So you just end up at the store more, spending more money.

5. Repeat.

Repeat weekly/bi-weekly/monthly/however often you want to shopping.

I think it is fairly simple, and question are always welcome!!

Focus Wednesday: Apples

With October comes the fall in full swing. Outside the trees are changing colors, harvest is almost done, and apples are at their peak!

There are a few things I look forward to with season changes, in spring it is Blood Oranges, in the summer it is the sun, in the winter it is snow, and in the fall I can not get enough APPLES!

Most of us eat apples year round, thanks to modern shipping and agriculture practices. I personally think apples taste better in the fall.

My love for apples wasn't something I always had. When I was little, in the south, the only apples we got were the Red Delicious variety.

YUCK!

They are so mealy and soft. I shutter thinking about eating them.

My absolute favorite apples, are Pink Lady's. 

Crunchy, slightly sour, and oh so delightful.

These also happen to be the most expensive type of apple, year round. I will settle for: Fuji or Honeycrisp.

However all apples were not created equally. So apple varieties are better for apples sauce, others for eating, and others for pie. Like the Granny Smith apple, sour to eat, but in a pie, YUM!

Most orchard's will help you find what apple you need for what you want to do with it. At our local orchard, Bishops' Orchard, we usually get McIntosh apples for apple sauce and Summerred, Liberty, Empire, and Spartan apples to eat. We also usually go multiple times each fall.

This year we are not canning any apple sauce, and so far only got a small harvest of Summerreds. I will be using some of them for a dessert tonight and for the levain I am restarting.

Borax, Safe or Toxic?

I decided to look into Borax because I started seeing things about how is it has “high” developmental and reproductive toxicity (source). I as I was doing my own research, I found that most people are confusing Borax with Boric Acid.

First off, these two substances ARE NOT THE SAME! It is almost like the difference between water and hydrogen peroxide.

There is this basic chemistry joke about the difference between water (H2O) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).

Borax chemical formula is Na2B4O7•10H2O or Na2[B4O5(OH4)]•8H2O 

Boric Acid chemical formula is H3BO3 

Different? 

HUGE DIFFERENCE! 

Borax is a Salt. Boric Acid is an ACID.

Both are white crystalline solids, usually found in powder form, by the consumer.

Boric acid comes from the reaction of borax with an acid (reduction).

Chemically borax is safe compared to boric acid. But what about using it for cleaning? This is my main question.

According to the Environmental Working Group, they say get rid of it, it is not a ‘green cleaner’. But if you look at boric acid on their site, it gives the same rating of F to both. (Source: Borax, Source:  Boric Acid)

Most sites you look at with information about borax interchange borax with boric acid, AGAIN NOT THE SAME THING!!! So it is hard to decipher what is what.

Borax.com and 20mulelaundry.com (both manufactures of Borax) are very clear about the difference of the two. They also say that borax is something that should be kept out of reach of small hands. Which makes perfect sense; you want to keep most cleaning products out of small hands.

Greenfootsteps.com and Crunchybetty.com do the best to try and inform use about borax, but the decision to use borax for cleaning is up to you. I am not going to tell you to stop using anything, but for me I am going to keep using my Borax.

Other sources not linked:

Material Safety Data Sheet

Mother Nature Network

National Cotton Batting Institute

Wikipedia.org-Borax

Wikipedia.org-Boric Acid

October = Apples

It is October! In our house that means, APPLES, APPLES and APPLES!

Living in the Pacific Northwest it is hard to get away from apples. We aren't quiet lucky enough to have a crab apple tree in our yard, but we are lucky enough to have a WONDERFUL orchard just half an hour away.

This month I plan to make something with apples, at least every week. Today, I am restarting a levian I made last year, and forgot about which exploded in my refrigerator...

The recipe comes from William Alexander's 52 Loaves, a great read if you love bread, and love to make it too. Wonderful Man recommended the book after hearing about it on the Diane Rehm Show a couple years ago. After sitting in our local bookstore for a couple hours reading it, I decided I needed this book. We had wonderful artisan bread for a few months before the exploding levain... This year we hope to keep it going for a lot longer.

Some of the other things I plan on making this month include a couple fresh apple pies, an apple tart, apple cake, and an apple strudel. I know they are all desserts, and I might make apple pork chops, if I can find good pork chops.

For this week, I plan to have more than just a Monday and Tuesday post. Tuesday I will try to answer some questions about Borax, Wednesday will be able Apples, my focus this month. Thursday, we will take a moment to look at menu planning, and Friday, I have some fun knitting and crocheting projects I have finished lately.