Monday, January 30, 2012

Good Day Granola

I promised you guys some good recipes and this definitely qualifies as one. A couple of weeks ago my beautiful sister in law..... who I probably could write a whole post on, gave me a jar full of this granola with the recipe and some other goodies for my birthday. It was gone in about week. I used it on my yogurt and for breakfast with some Almond milk. It's so good that I found myself grabbing a handful of it when I went into the pantry for other items....dangerous I know. I'm going to give you the recipe as it was given to me.

Good Day Granola
8 c. Rolled Oats (not the instant kind)
1 1/4 c. firmly packed Brown Sugar
1 1/2 c. Unprocessed Bran
1 1/2 c. Natural Wheat Germ (not toasted or honeyed)
3/4 c. Chopped Walnuts
1/2 c. Raw Sunflower Seeds
1/2 c. Vegetable Oil (I'm going to try Coconut oil next time)
3/4 c. Honey
2 Tsp. Vanilla Extract
2 c. Raisins (I left these out. We're not big raisin fans here)

  • Step 1: Preheat oven to 325 degrees
  • Step 2: Stir oats, brown sugar, bran, wheat germ, walnuts, and sunflower seeds in a large bowl (this recipe makes 16 cups).
  • Step 3: Put vegetable oil, vanilla, and honey in a small saucepan and heat until bubbly.
  • Step 4: Pour liquid over the oat mixture, mix it real well. You want everything to be coated



  • Step 5: Divide oat mixture evenly and spread onto two rimed cookie sheets. Bake for 15-20 minutes, stirring once half way through baking time to keep granola evenly browned.
  • Step 6: When it cools, stir mixture several times to keep it from sticking together.

  • Step 7: When it's completely cooled add raisins. Store in an air tight container.
Enjoy!!!!



Update:  I added 1 cup of natural unsweetened coconut to the mix and substituted coconut oil for vegetable oil and it came out perfect.

Friday, January 27, 2012

~This Moment~

-A Friday ritual. A single photo -no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment that I want to pause savor and remember



.If your inspired to do the same, leave a link to your "moment" in the comments for all to see. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Homemade Laundry Soap

One of the joys of motherhood is doing the laundry. I get to enjoy two loads of it a day with my family of six. That's 60 loads a month and a grand total of..... hold on let me get the calculator or my husband whichever is closer. OK a grand total of 720 loads a year at the very least. WOW!!!! That's a whole lot of sorting, folding, and putting away. That doesn't include the extra loads from sliding down dirt piles and bedding. The detergent adds up too. So since last summer I've been searching the internet for a good laundry detergent recipe. I think I have finally found a good one and I wanted to share it with you. I've been using this detergent for about a month now and It works great. It even works on my husbands work clothes. It has a nice clean smell to it. It's very faint so if you want a stronger smell you'll have to use fabric softener along with it. Now I want to make it clear that I did not come up with this recipe. I want to give credit where the credit is due. I found this recipe over at Being Creative to keep my sanity. She has a great post there complete with pics. So here it is..... drum roll please....

Homemade Laundry Soap

(1) 4lb12oz box of Borax

(1) 4lb box of Arm & Hammer baking soda (that's the big box not the little one that's pictured)

(1) box Arm & hammer Washing Soda (55oz)
2 small or 1 large tub of Oxy clean. The store brand is ok too. Just try to have a total of 3.5lb.

3 bars of Fels Naptha


You can find all these things right at Walmart in laundry isle. Except the baking soda...that's in the grocery section. I paid around $20 for it all. 

Get a 3 gallon bucket or a garbage pail lined with a plastic bag and dump all your powdered ingredients into it. Now get a cheese grater and  start shredding those Fels Naptha bars until your arm falls off.  Now add   the shredded bars into the powdered mix and give it all a real good stir.Pour the finished mix into a Reusable container with a lid. I used an old cheese ballz container. I also saved the scoop that came with my Oxy clean. Your going to use about 2 Tbl per large load of laundry. That's it....start washing.


Friday, January 20, 2012

~This Moment~

-A Friday ritual. A single photo -no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment that I want to pause savor and remember.


If your inspired to do the same, leave a link to your "moment" in the comments for all to see. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

More kale please,mom.

So I never thought in a million years that I would be making homemade yogurt and swapping out all my boxed goods in my pantry for homemade foods but lately that's exactly what's been going on in Teresa's Pantry. It all started just after Christmas when I watched a movie called Forks over Knives. It hit me like a ton of bricks. All the food that I've been feeding my family is slowly poisoning their bodies and putting them at a higher risk for cancer. Now I know your probably thinking "wow she's finally lost it.... she's going off the deep end". I know that's what some family and friends are thinking right about know. But trust me, I've done some research on this. The basic point of this documentary is that animal based protein is what's causing the rise in cancer and a plant based protein diet greatly reduces your risk and can even cure diabetes and high blood pressure among other things. If you add that to all the garbage that the meat industry is pumping into our food like hormones and antibiotics and not to mention the condition that these animals are kept in and the treatment of them is horrendous. I wont even get into the effects on our environment and the amount of trees that are cut down to support these animals. The grain alone that they are fed would feed every hungry mouth in the world. Isn't that sad.
Kale

  So... we are now a proud family of Vegetarians. Ovo Lacto Vegetarians to be precise, with the hope of becoming Vegans soon. Now before you say "are you sure that's healthy?" "what about protein and calcium?" I have done my research and I am in no way depriving my kids of these life sustaining nutrients. They can get all of these things from a plant based diet. I am still using eggs and dairy for the time being until I feel that we are ready to take that leap. I have found that the younger kids don't even realize that they aren't eating it. My oldest prince is slowly getting used to it and My knight could use a little healthy in his life anyway. :)  I took out some books from the library with all kinds of info on a vegetarian diet and the internet is full of lot's of tasty recipes to try. Not only have I removed meat from our diet I'm also replacing our pantry items with more whole foods and trying to get rid of all the high fructose corn syrup in our lives. That stuff is in everything.... blaaah!! So be prepared for a lot of new recipes in the near future. Right now I'm working on perfecting my homemade granola bar recipe. Imagine the possibilities.

Friday, January 13, 2012

~This Moment~


 - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.




If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. Inspired by Soule Mama

Friday, January 6, 2012

~This Moment~

 - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.




If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. Inspired by Soule Mama

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Something Crafty

Time for some crafty goodness. 

One of my greatest obsessions is with old things. I  just love to repurpose things!!! I'm not sure if I've mentioned before that my knight in shining armor is a contractor so sometimes his garbage becomes my treasure. So a couple weeks ago he came home with a truck load of old windows that were on their way to the dump. So I intercepted and calmly explained to him of the many uses for old windows. So being the loving husband that he is, he piled them in the barn for me. Then a few days ago my Ezer friend came over and we each grabbed a window and went to town on them with screw drivers,hammers and scrapers and whatever else would give them a pleasant distressed look . We took out all of our frustrations on these poor window frames and made them look fabulous. Our children roamed the house like free range chickens, we crafted our little hearts away and this is what I ended up with.


So what do you think? I have many more ideas floating around for these windows and other crafty goodness. My plan is to post "Something Crafty" once a week.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Teresa's Pantry needed a face lift

It's a new year and one of my goals for this year is to organize  some of the problem ares in my house. I'm starting with the kitchen and working my way through. So I took a trip to our local Dollar store with my Ezer friend and purchased some containers, shelves and contact paper and some other unrelated crafty goodness (that's another post). I emptied all my baking supplies into glass and plastic containers and put other things like chocolate chips and nuts into plastic shoe box containers.I placed things like instant oatmeal and hot chocolate packets into a wicker basket. I used three tier shelves for my cans and I took a rolling shelf from another room of the house and put my potatoes and onions on it. Being we're a family of six there was a lot of food that I just couldn't do much with. So it wasn't exactly how I pictured it in my mind. Probably because I had all these beautiful pictures of immaculate pantry's that I found online in there. So enough talking and on with the pics.
                                                               
                                                                           Before:


                                       

                                 After:

                                                                             Before:



                                                                   After:


                                                                 
I even made some labels with the left over pieces of contact paper.

So what do you think? You probably had this image in your head of my pantry being this fabulous room because of the name of my blog. Sorry to disappoint you. This is the internet and things aren't always what they are in real life. It's like the size of a small closet.Or maybe your thinking "wow she's a slob". Whatever the case I  now have piece of mind knowing that  I can walk in my pantry and find what I need and not have things fall on me when I take something off the shelf. It was not a pretty picture people. It was a bad scene for everyone.

Oh yah and I also bought one of these things to put my the lids for my pots and pans in. Before they were just laying on the shelf in my cabinet piled on top of each other. I know, I'm a genius. Right!