Homemade Laundry Soap Day

I'm back to making my laundry soap again. Jay bought me a beautiful Whirlpool Duet front loading washer and dryer














a couple years ago and I have been buying that HE stuff ever since. THAT stuff is more expensive dagnabbit!

I'm tired of paying so much more for something that obviously has less of something else in it. Sort of like diet or low fat foods. They're always more expensive than their higher fat, higher calorie cousins.

Here's my recipe for homemade laundry soap (which is also HE since it doesn't suds up much). I've actually doubled my previous recipes active ingredients and kept the same amount of water creating a stronger mixture, thereby resulting in less being used per load.

1 quart Water (boiling) (4 cups)

2 cups Bar soap (grated) I use Lavender Ivory (2 bars)

2 cups Borax

2 cups Washing Soda

10 - 15 drops of essential oil for scent for every 2 quarts (optional)

1 large stock pot, enough to hold 10 quarts (40 cups)

• Add finely grated bar soap to the boiling water and stir until soap is melted, turn down heat and stir in Borax and Washing Soda. Stir well until all is dissolved.
• Add 8 quarts of water, stir until well mixed.
• You can either pour all of this, while warm into a big bucket with a lid and scoop out what you need or do what I do which is...
• Let sit in pot overnight till cooled and gelled. Stir with hand blender until liquified and pour into empty laundry soap bottles or whatever size bottles you want.
  
• Use 1/4 cup for each load of laundry. Shake or stir the soap each time you use it as it will gel up.

Some pics of the ingredients needed ...


















The hot mixture...

RECIPE & Herbs : We had frost last night...

Thank goodness I brought in my herbs.

I decided yesterday to take the last of the herbs in for drying. Amy and I hung them up in the kitchen/classroom window.

The house smells divine and it's really nice to see all these little bundles just hanging around. I've asked hubby to make me a rack for the kitchen ceiling for next year. I'd like to hang my pots from it and it would be perfect to hang the herbs next year.

I think I'll take all the sweet and greek basil and make pesto to freeze for the winter. I love this recipe.

Basil Pesto

1/2 pine nuts, toasted
1 cup packed basil
1 cup packed flat leaf parsley
1- 2 cloves garlic (to your taste)
Ground black pepper
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
1/2 tsp lemon juice (if freezing to prevent discolourization)

Add the basil, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper to food processor. Pulse until finely chopped. Stream in 1/2 cup EV olive oil and pine nuts, pulse until combined, transfer into a large mixing bowl and stir in the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

Since I'm going to make a big batch for freezing, I will omit the cheese and just add it in when I'm ready to use it. I find the cheese doesn't take to well to freezing and thawing.

I freeze my pesto in small ziploc bags, pressed flat for easy storage in the freezer. I also make a batch or two in ice cube trays for when I just want a small amount for a recipe or meal.

RECIPE - Perfect Pizza Dough

SORRY, NO PICTURES YET, LIFE IS GETTING IN THE WAY AND WON'T LET ME MAKE PIZZA! SOON, I PROMISE :-)


Our family are big pizza lovers. Number one son is a very plain pepperoni pizza guy while myself and Amy are huge fans of everything goes. Jay on the other hand is somewhere in between as long as there's lots of meat on it :)

After years of buying store bought doughs and never being really happy with them, I decided to try my hand at homemade *gasp* from scratch dough.

Now realize, up until maybe 10 years ago, scratch for me was a boxed cake. I've come a long way since then baby. Many attempts, mediocre results, and sometimes downright disasters (be very careful when using recipes off the net, and read them very carefully) I finally came up with what I consider TA DA! "The Perfect Pizza Dough" Woot woot! I'd like to share that recipe now with all my friends in blogger land :) Please let me know what you think once you try it. So far the response has been very positive with my friends...one even calls me the "Queen of Pizza" haha!

One note though: I have a Kitchenaid mixer that has a bread kneading hook. My friend who makes this often does not. It works well both ways.

If you have to make it by hand, just follow the instructions and try to enjoy the gooey hands. It might help to have the flour pre-measured in a bowl to save fiddling with flour goo covered hands and measuring scoops.

So here goes...

Vic's Pizza Dough Recipe

Recipe make one really large thick crust pizza or 2 large thin crust pizza's, we personally prefer the thin crust.

1 1/4 cups warm water

1 tbsp honey

1 pkg. yeast or 2 1/4 tsp

3 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp salt

3 cups flour

1. Mix first 4 ingredients and then add 2 cups flour. Mix well.

2. Add 2 tsp salt (never allow salt to touch live yeast or it will kill it) and the last of the flour. Mix on medium speed 6-8 minutes.

3. Let rise till doubled. Punch down and shape onto greased or corn meal covered pizza stones.

4. Put on toppings as desired.

Bake in preheated 400 degree oven for 15 for thin crust and 20-25 iminutes for thick crust.

Watch those thin crusts!

**Check back tomorrow for photos of the process and final product as I will be making this tonight for dinner and will take pictures of the steps**

Recipe: How to Make Brown Sugar

I am sooo excited. I needed some brown sugar for my cabbage roll sauce and didn't have any :(

I was definately not running to the store to buy any since I started reading this blog.

So I went on the internet and found this fabulous recipe (tip?) and wanted to share it.


Light Brown Sugar

To 1 cup granulated sugar, add 1 Tablespoons molasses. Stir together until evenly mixed with a fork.

Dark Brown Sugar

To 1 cup granulated sugar, add 2 Tablespoons molasses. Stir together until evenly mixed with a fork.

















Too cool eh? Yup, I'm a dork :-)