Obviously, Scott and I have worked really hard to provide a clean diet and a house relatively free from chemicals and “additives” not only for A&B but for us. We still make yogurt and cleaner, see how here, but we have slowly been adding the what we do at home vs. buying.
Bread- pretty self explanatory that you can save money and get better quality with this DIY. While this can be very time consuming we have found homemade bread freezes very nicely, allowing us to make a months worth of bread in one day! We change up recipes but generally make a milk bread(using home made butter and buttermilk). 
Butter- another easy-freeze item. Butter, while less time consuming than bread, is still one of my least favorite to make. Whipping heavy cream until it separates/ gets chunky, then pouring the buttermilk into a container to save and finally rinsing the butter under ice cold water (least favorite part) to shape it into a mold. *as a side note it will slosh all over at the end so we also use siran wrap to cover the top of the mixer* We use about 4 pints of heavy whipping cream turned into butter and buttermilk in our house every month.
Ice cream-*admittedly*we are just learning about this… but, every recipe we have tried either involves cooking or is a cream-cheese-no-cook that tastes well…very cheesey (evidently Wisconsin dairy has spoiled me and I am now an ice cream snob). But, we’ll keep trying recipes and I will keep you posted!
Fruits(citrus)-I love the fruit not only because it’s tasty but we use every part of it! I use the attachment for the kitchenaid to juice them. We then use the rinds of lemons, oranges and grapefruit for the cleaner(with vinegar and cinnamon). I strain the leftover juice with diaper cloths. First, I should clarify by saying we never actually used them as diapers 😉 normal people would use cheese cloth though. I’m debating trying to grow the seeds and of course we drink the juice!
Shampoo/soaps- I know I’ve mentioned it before but soap berries are actually very handy! Recently, I attempted boiling 15 of them in water for about a half hour. The result? A pungent syrup like goop. Smelled rather earthy so I added a few drops of essential oils and viola scented soap(shampoo). The downside of this one is that it apparently needs to be stored in the fridge. I’ve resorted to freezing them in small portions, a caterpillar worth to be exact;) we’ve found that the silicone molds are VERY useful! thanks Fred’s for making fun brain and caterpillar trays!
In black and white to hide my dirty counter, the one on the far left is soap:)
Tag: Cooking
Play dough jello cookies
In the spirit of spring I’ve been planning away-picking out new activities, finding new places etc- but some spring days in the Midwest are too rainy and overcast to pull out summer stuff quite yet. So we enjoyed this inside activity the other day!
I had originally looked for jello play dough but once I saw the ingredient list I realized we could easily bake these into cookies once the boys got bored…a nice way to lengthen the activity;)
What you will need:
4 1/2 c of flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
2 3/4 c unsalted butter(softened)
1 c sugar
1 egg(and I added 2 tbs egg whites)
1 tsp salt
5 boxes of jello (3oz size)
You can add a flavor extract like vanilla, BUT the jello flavor is really intense so I wouldn’t recommend it.
Mix all ingredients except jello into a dough.
Divide dough into 5 chunks and mix one 3oz box of jello into each dough chunk.
The boys got a kick out of crumbling the dough and squishing it. But when that entertainment value was gone we just moved onto the baking portion:)We used two tablespoons to evenly measure and shape the dough into balls. After that A&B rolled them in sugar, placed on the cookie sheet flatten a bit and baked! Our oven runs really hot so we baked them at 325(ish) degrees for about 10-15 minutes.
And voila, Play dough jello cookies!
This recipe made about 30 cookies for us. It is definitely a kids cookie or for adults who like intense punchy flavors. All in all we had fun!
Share this:
Banana bread trials
I’m happy to say we had a rather productive past week! Aside from melting my seeds in the oven :0
-more on that later
But I did want to share the new banana-coconut bread recipes!
We tried 3 recipes and then made some edits to each. Here’s how they turned out…..
Recipe one:coconut banana bread for this one we substituted regular flour with coconut flour….and it ended up quite a bit heavier/denser than the pictured fluffy bread. But, the boys love it and with a little butter melted on a slice it has the perfect flavor, and it made for the perfect Saturday morning snack!
Recipe two:chocolate chip banana bread again we substituted flour with coconut flour. We also used homemade butter (yes, we make our own) and 2 tsp of cinnamon. Again, this is a heavier/denser bread but nice flavor and a filling snack!
Recipe three:banana bread this time we used coconut oil rather than vegetable oil, and didn’t add nuts. Before baking it was rather runny, but turned out quite moist! Scott really seems to like it and even the next day it was still very good! More of an adult snack as it falls apart instantly:)
Recipe 4: this one is less of a recipe and more of an easily adapted idea, and truthfully was more about not wasting the leftovers and using up some odds and ends:0 BUT it turned out really good! It's the perfect chewy bar type snack for the boys! I can't give you exact measurements (much to Scotts dismay I never measure when I cook) BUT like I said easily adapted
-whole milk
-raw steel cut oats
-wheat germ and flax
-cinnamon
-honey
-sugar
-4 mashed ripe bananas
Enjoy!;
The Indigo Hen Homestead 