Pioneer Woman’s UNREAL Nantucket Cranberry Pie

Very, very few times have I ever made a recipe and gone HOLY CRAP! Maybe it’s because I’m used to eating a primal style diet, so whenever I go “HOLY CRAP” about something it’s an apple, or a steak, or something that runs or grows.

I’m diabetic, so I have a serious limit on anything processed. I’m also a huge fan of Pioneer Woman. If you don’t know who she is, go look her up. She has amazing recipes.

There’s a little app on my IPad that lets me custom import recipes. So I was browsing through her site one day and came across Cranberry Pie. Interesting, I thought, especially since the recipe had no crust whatsoever. No pie crust I mean. It confused me. I asked a fellow PW fan about it, to see if she had made it, because we were both confused about the lack of crust. But ok, I thought, challenge accepted.

I like cranberries. I do. They aren’t my favorite, they are so dry. Most of the time I’ll take something strawberry over something cranberry but it’s the holidays and hell, it’s worth a shot. The recipe seemed fairly easy, which is why I didn’t really take pictures of me making it (sorry!).

As I was making it I was going “this is far too easy.” I expected it would come out “meh” or “good enough.” I was wrong.

This freakin pie made me go “HOLY CRAP.”

There is no way to describe it really except that it’s the perfect blend of sweet and tart. It’s just damn good. Good enough that I had an entire piece of it. A big ole my-vision-is-going-blurry-and-I’m-feeling-hyper-and-boy-do-I-know-the-come-down-from-this-is-gonna-be-hell-but-it’ll-be-worth-it blood sugar sky rocketing diabetic coma inducing piece. And it was worth it.

This recipe reminded me SO MUCH of a cake/pie type thing my Polish grandmother used to make with blueberries. I wouldn’t say it’s a dead ringer, but it’s damn close.

Here’s a pic of the pie half prepared:

Half of that is batter, the white stuff is pure sugar. Sugar. SUGAR I TELL YOU! And more sugar goes on top. But that’s what I love about her, she’s not afraid to half kill you in her recipes.

Here’s a pic of it done:

Yup, that’s more sugar.

This baby was GONE in a flash, didn’t even take a full night. Tex told me it was good with chocolate peppermint ice cream on top, but he’s weird, and I think that sounds gross. I didn’t even try it. But between 3 people, with me only having 1 piece, that bad boy scarce lasted 8 hours in my house.

It’s a new favorite. It’s a new holiday pie, it’s a new “ya’ll done good here’s a treat” pie and it’s one of my favorite sweet desserts now. That says A LOT for me because I generally, for all that I like to cook, tend to like eat simple things. Berries and cream are like top 5 on my list, simple and delicious. So you know it’s gotta be DAMN good for me to say that.

It’s orgasmic. Try it.

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From thepioneerwoman.com site. This is HER recipe not mine, and it’s GOD like. Apparently it’s adapted from a recipe by Laurie Colwin.

Ingredients:

butter for greasing

2 heaping cups of cranberries (I used thawed frozen, hers doesn’t specify)

3/4 cup pecans, chopped (measure, then chop)

2/3 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

2 whole eggs lightly beaten

1 tsp pure almond extract

1/4 tsp salt

1 T sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350.

Generously butter a cake pan or pie pan.  Add cranberries to the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle on chopped pecans, then sprinkle on the 2/3 cup of sugar.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, 1 cup sugar, melted butter, eggs, almond extract, and salt. Stir gently to combine.

Pour batter slowly over the top in large ribbons to cover the surface evenly. Spread gently if necessary.

Bake 45-50 minutes. 5 minutes before removing from oven, sprinkle surface with 1 TB sugar for extra crunch.

Cut into wedges and serve with ice cream or freshly whipped cream.

Cheap Ways to Organize Your S*#t

Clutter bothers me. Doesn’t mean I don’t have it, it just bothers me. I’m not completely anal when it comes to organizing or anything. More, it’s that I find when things are NOT organized, I waste SO much time. It’s a time murderer.

I hate digging through drawers to find the measuring cup, which adds 5 minutes to my already pressed schedule. I’d rather know where something is and know I can go get it at any time. It’s a glorious feeling.

I live with men whom, for as much I love them heart and soul, organizing is sort of lost. I find socks in my freezer. I’m not kidding.

I’ve started CLEARLY labeling things. I’ve gone a little apesh*t with the labelmaker you could say. This way there is no excuse. As long as you are able-bodied and you can read, you know where things go.

If you are anything like me, there are places in your house that just piss you off to no end because no matter what you do, they are chaos. I have a couple of those places. You know, the junk drawer or your bedroom closet. One of mine is my linen closet in the bathroom. It drives me insane, no matter what I do, it’s ALWAYS chaos.

I keep the change of bed sheets in there. So every time I go to change the sheets it’s a strange dance of me trying to find the fitted sheets and everything falling out of the closet when I finally grab one (which is inevitably at the bottom of the pile somehow). Then trying to find a pillow case and the same thing happens. It frustrates me. It makes me angry. I’M JUST TRYING TO CHANGE THE SHEETS!

I’ve tried nearly everything: Creative ways to fold them, rolling them, stacking them all nicely. One little blurb I read somewhere said something about tying your sheet sets together with “pretty” ribbon. Really? F*@k that. So that I can watch my beautiful sheet art that I so carefully wrapped end up on the floor of the closet, ribbon a-fray, because someone else wanted to just one pillowcase? NO WAY.

I needed something that would be functional and easy. And cheap. I’d RATHER it look pretty too, just cause I like aesthetics to a point, but it wasn’t a requirement.  I refuse to go to these “organize your home” sites because it’s a bunch of people with way too much money preaching nonsense most of the time, or trying to sell you something. I let it stew in my head for awhile and figured the answer would hit me. I knew baskets wouldn’t work, they were usually too wide for my shelves, not tall enough or not stable enough. Ditto on the plastic bins. And I really didn’t want to run to the damn store and buy more crap to store the crap I already had. I’m not a fan of consumerism.

It did hit me finally. It did.

It’s the holidays, so I have 8 million trillion boxes I got in the mail. You know the ones that you get your mail order stuff in. Brown ones, priority ones, all kinds of ones. I generally put them all in one place until recycle day, then they go to the curb. Or I use them as kindling in the fire. Then I had a little epiphany: I can use those.

They can be used just on their own, but I wanted to decorate mine. For a couple of reasons:

1. I had scrapbook paper I needed to get rid of

2. I needed a reason to take a break from baking cookies

3. I like the idea of my organization being home-made, and nice looking.

So, if you are the kind of person that’s ok with just having boxes there as storage, go for it. But I didn’t want mine to look like used Christmas boxes. Just follow me, you’ll see.

First I took a used mailing box, I do believe I got Mr. Super’s present in this one:

I then had a bunch of scrapbook paper, 12×12 size, that was just sitting in one of my drawers.

And then I cut them into strips and different sizes with a paper cutter, because I totally suck at cutting in a straight line.

Then I grabbed glue. I like this kind of glue

And I grabbed a strip of paper and put glue all over the back of it. I started with the corners of the box, because I figured those would be the biggest pain in the ass. They were.

The good thing about this glue was that it dried clear. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to be neat about it. I just kept putting strips of paper on the corners and worked my way in.

To fill up the sides of the boxes I used scraps, or cut the long strips in half. It really didn’t take long at all, maybe 5-10 minutes per box.

I then decided how many boxes I would need, and what they would be for. So I cut a little strip of paper, turned it over to the white side, wrote the name of what was to be in the box on it in black marker and glue that to the front. So it turned out something like this:

And about an hour later, I had boxes for all the stuff in my closet

That’s so much better! Much more organized, though by no means perfect. And totally free.

Except…do you see that on the top shelf? Do you see that? Next to the humidifier? The black and silver thing. You know what that is, dear readers? DO YOU KNOW!?

IT’S A COMPUTER MOUSE! AND ITS NOT MINE! Why the HELL is a computer mouse in the bathroom closet? Your guess is as good as mine. And THAT is part of the reason why I did this. Not that pretty labeled boxes are going to stop somebody from putting some DUMB shit where it doesn’t belong, but one can always hope!

Man, The Sh#* You Can Do With Orange Peels

I’m continuously amazed at some of the uses that I find for things. You see, I’m completely hell bent on having a homestead one day. Being a born and raised inner city girl who’s now in the suburbs, the idea never really sunk in that once we move there won’t be a grocery store within walking distance. Or I hope there won’t be.

I read and researched and flipping through homestead magazines and realized that these people all pretty much had the same thing in common: They used what they had. They didn’t make shopping trips every other day. Over the course of a few years, that’s what I’ve started to do as well. Call in in-house training. I’ve also come to realize that living on a homestead you have to second guess what you throw out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to save every scrap of paper, etc. The key to this is really to use less and hence waste less, not hoard garbage. But I’ve found some interesting uses for things.

First is my compost. Anything that can’t be turned into something else food wise gets composted. I have a massive twirly composter. It works great and I love it. So most kitchen scrap never really goes to waste. But tossing it in the compost isn’t the only way to go.

Mr. Super, my resident truck driver. used to work for a small trucking company that did odd loads from here to…anywhere really. One year right before Christmas he had a load in Florida delivering all kinds of citrus fruits. The owner of the company he was delivering to rejected a bunch of cases of fruit because they were blemished and the guy offered to let Mr. Super have it. I mean loads of it. Think about 100 pounds of fruit or better. Case after case. He ended up bringing it home with him. Being a country farm boy himself, he hated to see that stuff turned into the trash and he knew I could do something with it. Most of it was oranges, but in there were limes, lemons, grapefruits and tangerines.

So here I was, nearing Christmas, with a ton of citrus fruit scattered across my kitchen. Ok, first things first. Check to see if the insides were good and bingo, most of them were just fine. So I started canning them up. Orange slices and grapefruit slices, orange juice, lemon juice and on and on.

Course, then you are left with all the peels. Pounds upon pounds upon pounds of peels. Instead of crying my eyes out, I found some uses for them. I dried up most of them and used them like crazy.

To this day, I still dry the peel of an orange or citrus fruit when I use it because they are so versatile. They never go in the compost here. I highly doubt you’ll ever 50 pounds of oranges sitting on your counter, but it doesn’t mean you don’t eat an orange every once and again and drying the peels is really as easy as leaving them on the counter for a week or so. You don’t need a dehydrator, those that does make quick, even work of it.

You can slice the peel into thin strips or just leave it in chunks. It really doesn’t matter if you aren’t going to be eating them or using them decoatively, they’ll dry the same. If they aren’t for food use, you can leave the pith on too, makes no difference.

Here are some of the things I’ve done with DRIED citrus peels:

Put them on the stove in a pot of water in the winter time and simmer. Puts moisture back in the house and makes the house smell lovely. When they are spent, compost them or put them in the garbage disposal. They’ll freshen it up.

Make a potpourri with citrus peels, cinnamon sticks and a little cinnamon powder. Put it in a dish or a bag as a cute gift.

Grind them up with a coffee grinder. Grind it REALLY fine. You can then use it as a facial scrub once you add some jojoba, apricot kernel or very virgin olive oil to it. You can use the powder plain I suppose but it might be a little rough. You can also use the powder to scour counters, tubs or sinks. Ditto on making it super fine so it goes down the drain ok.

Put the peels in a jar next to your fire place, they make great kindling and smells wonderful!

Place a few in a bottle of vinegar and let it soak for a couple weeks. Replace it if needed. It’ll make a wonderful orange vinegar you can use for cleaning. Or add 3 tablespoons of the vinegar in a glass pint jar filled with water and use as a final hair rinse in the shower. No, you don’t have to rinse after using it. No, you won’t smell like vinegar once your hair dries. Works wonders for shine and removing build up.

Mix it in some baking soda as a carpet powder. Smells great when the vac hits it, again, make it super fine and soft though or it’ll clog.

Once powdered, you can also stick in a muslin bag with some cinnamon and nutmeg and make a spicy tea.

Zest the citrus fruit, removing all the pith, and dry them. You can store them in the cabinet in a jar this way.

You can make citrus sugar. Zest the fruit, like above, dry it and powder the ever living hell out of it, and mix some in a jar of sugar. It’ll flavor the sugar.

Some things you can do with FRESH peels:

I’ve only ever done this orange peels but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with most citrus peel: Cut fresh peels into thin strips. Blanch them (dip them in hot boiling water , then cold water again). Make a super thick syrup of sugar and water. Think 1 cup sugar to 1/2 cup of water. Stir this on the stove over low until totally dissolved. Add the peels and simmer 3-5 minutes. Pour the whole thing, warm syrup and peels, into a bowl with a lid. Place the lid on and stick them in the fridge overnight. The next day, drain the peels or use a slotted spoon, and roll the peels in more white sugar to coat. You can use them in recipes, but I’ve eaten them just like that and people love them. Mind you you can’t eat many straight like that but you can freeze them. Try dipping them in dark chocolate too after you’ve covered them in sugar. So Good! (Diabetic coma time!)

Zest the peels and freeze them for use in recipes. This skips the drying step and you can just wrap them in a bit of foil and store them in the freezer nearly indefinately.

You flavor sugar using fresh peels too. Just stick a fresh peel in a jar of sugar. The sugar should dry the peel out and leave you with flavored sugar.

Use the fresh peels to flavor teas! Lemon is great for this one.

Make vinegars, just like above.

Make a flavored liquor. Pour vodka over some fresh citrus peels to infuse it with flavor. It won’t be sweet, but it’ll be seriously citrus flavored.

Put them down your disposal, it’ll fresh it up!

Rub the peels on your counters, lemon works great for this, it’ll clean them and give them a beautiful scent.

You can put some zest in a food processor with some sugar and olive oil for an awesome body scrub.

Stick a piece of peel, lemon works best for this too, in some brown sugar to keep it soft!

Ok seriously, I could keep going. And going. And going. But by this point you are either snoozing OR itching to go run to the grocery store and buy a bag of oranges. (HEY! Now’s the time! They are on sale this time of year!) But these little buggers are really versatile. So consider me the devil on your shoulder and go do it!

Really Tasty Fried Pork Thingees

I found this recipe on my Ipad recipe app. It’s called Jaeger Schnitzel. I have no idea what that means or why it’s called that, but I wanted to try it. So I did.

It was a little complicated if you are used to quick cooking, but totally worth it. TOTALLY. It’s a new favorite. The recipe kind of sucks in that it’s VERY vague and I think they may have left an ingredient or two out of the instructions. Every recipe I’ve tried that came with this app has done that, so I worked around it.

This is something to try if you are looking for something different. It sounds and looks fancy, it’s a little time consuming, but it’s not NEAR as much work as it looks like once it’s served. So good for dinner parties kind of thing. At least I think so.

This recipe has wine in it. Truth be told I’ve never been huge on wine IN dinner. With dinner, yes. In dessert, yes. But IN dinner, no not really. I tend to find that when people put wine in their food, that’s all you can taste. I hate that. This wasn’t the case here. Most of the wine taste was cooked off leaving only a hint and it really worked. Plus it’s fun getting drunk while you are making it.

I happened to buy a bunch of little bottles of wine, you know, the cheapy ones for like a dollar because I needed the bottles. I put all the wine into a 2 liter soda bottle (classy I know), so I had a “blended” wine. It was a mix of white zin, cabernet, pinot noir, and chardonay. Wasn’t bad either.

You can use either pork or veal for this. I used pork.

First things first, you need to dredge the meat in a flour and bread crumb mixture. So grab your flour and put it in a container long enough to dredge in.

Now add in the bread crumbs and mix it up

Now slice up some green onions and mushrooms and set those to the side.

Chop up some celery and carrots, and onion and add a little parsley. Put that to the side.

I like to prep everything before hand. Feels like it gives me a free hand once everything is really getting going. Now you need beef broth. I just made mine out of beef bouillon granules.

Now you are gonna need to beat one egg

Put your oil in your pan and heat it up nice and hot.

In a separate pan, start cooking some bacon until it’s crispy.

You don’t actually HAVE to do that. You can do that before you make it or use bacon bits. I just like fresh bacon.

Now dip your meat in egg, then in flour. You know the drill. You don’t want it BATTERED, just dredged.

Now put these in the hot oil, searing both sides. Not too long. Just enough to brown it slightly.

Remove the meat from the pan and add the celery, carrots, onion and parsley and saute.

Now add the wine to the veggies and cook until the wine is reduced by half. Drink some of the wine before you pour it in. You know, just to test it.

Once it’s reduced add the beef stock and simmer.

Now add your meat. It’ll be more like boiling it because there is so much liquid but don’t worry, it’ll reduce. You want to simmer the meat until it’s cooked through and tender. The amount of time depends on the cut of the meat, the type, etc. And don’t worry, they won’t get too soggy or gross, just trust me.

By your second batch, if you have a second batch, it’ll be reduced to like a thick sauce. It’s pretty cool. And it’s really good. While that’s cooking, go ahead and start the mushrooms and green onions and crumble your bacon if you’ve decided to make your own.

Heat some butter in a pan.

I used the bacon pan, so it had all the nice dripping and black bits from the bacon in it. Yummy. Now add your mushrooms and onions.

Saute those until they are tender. Put them in a bowl with the torn up bacon.

Take your meat out of the pan when it’s done and put it somewhere warm.

Now the wine sauce should be a true reduction. Kind of sticky, thick, and oh so good. So you are gonna add the mushroom-bacon-green onion mixture to the reduction and saute it a little bit.

Once they are nicely nestled into the sauce, go ahead and turn off the heat. Put the meat on a place and pour some of that sauce on top. Serve.

You can serve this with rice or noodles or mashed potatoes. I did mine without any, obviously, yet again, diabetes. But I didn’t mind at all. This was really excellent.

It’s kind of labor intensive in that it’s a lot of prep work, or rather, it’s a lot compared to what I normally make for dinner, but it’s so worth it. Every last bit got eaten and requests to make it again were abound!

So grab a bottle of wine. A couple of  bottles glasses of wine while you are making dinner never hurt anyone 🙂

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Jaeger Schnitzel

Adapted from Recipe Book Selections

20 oz of veal or pork, thin sliced

flour, bread crumbs and pepper for dredging

3oz olive oil

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1/4 cup carrots, chopped

1/4 cup celery, chopped

parsley

2 cups of red wine

1 cup beef stock

2 oz diced bacon

6 green onions, green and white parts

2 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced

1 egg

Beat egg. Combine flour and crumbs and add a little black pepper. Dip meat in egg then dredge in flour.

Heat olive oil. Sear both sides of meat in hot oil. Remove and set to the side.

Add carrots, celery, onion, parsley and saute in the same oil. Pour in the wine and cook until the wine is reduced by half.

Add the beef stock to the wine mixture and simmer 5 minutes.

Place the meat back in the pan with the wine/stock mixture. Cook until tender and no pink remains, turning once.

Melt butter in separate pan. Add mushrooms and green onions, saute until tender. Remove from pan, add bacon, stir together gently in medium bowl.

Once meat is done, remove from pan and place in a baking dish in warm oven.

Put mushroom mixture in pan with the wine sauce and saute 3-5 minutes until vegetables have taken on some of the sauce’s flavor.

Pour sauce over meat and serve with rice, noodles, mashed potatoes or alone.

Thumper Stew (Yeah, it’s rabbit)

I don’t know why some people have such an aversion to rabbit. It’s a great, lean, usually wild game meat and it tastes nearly exactly like chicken. I personally love it. I think most people just get caught up on the fact that it’s a rabbit. A bunny. Oh, look it’s Thumper!

Yeah, well, Thumper is tasty. And hamburgers used to be cows, ya know. So next time you turn your nose at eating Thumper, remember that juicy cheesy beefy thing on a bun used to be Francesca the cow once too. That Chick-Fil-A used to be Foghorn Leghorn. Not eating an animal based on how cute it is is a value judgement. A really shallow one.

If you’ve never had rabbit I suggest you try it. It’s actually really good and pretty forgiving. It’s versatile too.

I make a type of curry stew in which I usually use lamb, but it works just as great with rabbit. It’s a tomato based stew that’s really awesome over rice. And you don’t have to tell the kids it’s not chicken. They won’t know.

So first you wanna cut Thumper into pieces. They generally come whole or split. Do this with a meat cleaver, makes quick work of it.

Vulgar I know.

Now you wanna season the pieces. I use salt, black pepper, seasoning salt, oregano, onion powder, garlic and white pepper.

Once seasoned, you want heat a skillet nice and hot with some oil. We are going to seer Thumper just to make sure he’s nice and juicy once in the stew. Hmmmmmm…bunny….

You don’t want it to cook all the way through, you just wanna seal the outside.

Yummy. Blurry Thumper. Stupid IPhone.

Ok, now you are going chop up some veggies. I use my handy dandy food processor cause it makes quick work of this. I use onions, carrots and celery.

I wouldn’t be able to chop these by hand if I wanted to. You know those awesome cutting boards that are like hard plastic and supposed to roll up to fit in your cabinet. Yeah, those don’t work. They bend. And then they won’t UNBEND! See

Stupid cutting board.

After I was done swearing and attempting to hold the cutting board down with everything in site, I decided to be relieved I had the food processor and continued on.

Now, put Thumper in a large stock pot and pour a bunch of tomato sauce over him. Don’t worry. He won’t drown. He’s been a goner for awhile now. A tasty, tasty goner.

Now add the onions and the rest of the veggies.

Dump in a can of corn for good measure.

Now add the spices. Black pepper, curry, salt, cumin, white pepper, onion powder, garlic powder a some oregano. Remember, tomato really sucks the spice flavor out of stuff so don’t be cheap with it.

Stir it really well and bring to a boil, then turn it really low and simmer it about an hour and a half or so. Keep the lid on it and stir it every once in awhile because it will stick if you don’t. Then you’ll have sticky burnt Thumper. Yuck.

Serve it over rice. Don’t worry about deboning it or ripping the meat off the bone. I just serve it with the pieces on top and no one has ever complained. Like I said, tastes and looks just like chicken when it’s cooked.

I had mine sans the rice. Diabetic! DUH!

Now EAT it. LOL. Just get over the fact that it’s rabbit and try it, it’s spicy, it’s good, it’s kind of indian in flavor and it’s delicious! As a great woman once said “Do something everyday that scares the shit out of you.” Ok, she didn’t put it that way, but it’s the spirit of the thing…

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Thumper Stew

1-rabbit, cut up into pieces

2 TB olive oil

1/4 tsp each: salt, pepper, white pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, seasoning salt, oregano for sprinkling onto rabbit before browning

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup chopped celery

1 can of corn

3 tsp curry powder

1 tsp each: salt, pepper, white pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, seasoning salt, cumin, oregano, or to taste

4 10-12 oz cans of tomato sauce

rice to serve with

Cut the rabbit into pieces. Sprinkle with 1/4tsp each of salt, white and black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, seasoning salt and oregano. Heat large skillet on medium high heat with the oil. Once hot, brown rabbit pieces on both sides. Don’t cook all the way through, about 3-5 minutes per side.

Place rabbit pieces in pot and cover with tomato sauce. Add rest of ingredients, except the rice, and heat over medium until it boils, stirring constantly. Reduce to low heat, cover, simmer for an hour an half stirring every 15 minutes to prevent sticking, or until vegetables are tender and rabbit cooked through. Serve over rice.

Clean This…

I don’t know about you all, but I’m constantly wiping off my counters. The damn things don’t stay clean. And as soon as I do clean them, I’ve started cooking again, which means they are dirty again. I go through a whole lot of spray cleaner.

I generally make my own cleaner. It doesn’t take long and it’s super easy on the pocket book. I figure the $3.00 I would spend on some all purpose chemical laden cleaner at the store could be more well used buying something else like kitchen gadgets. Or beer. Or ammo. Or the new Conan The Barbarian. (Ok, TERRIBLE movie, but who cares when Jason Momoa looks like that?!?)

Every once in awhile I’ve been known to splurge on a store bought cleaner. Yeah, it’s pretty pathetic. But I’m a scent person. It’s what I do for a living. So I’m constantly in search of new smells and when I run across a cleaner that smells great, I’ll pick it up. About once a year I do this. Most of the time though, I just make my own and make it smell like whatever I want. Within reason.

The recipe I have calls for castile soap of the liquid variety. Now, I’m a soapmaker by trade (I’ll spare you the shameless plug) but I’m not a fan of making liquid soaps. I like making bar soap and although you CAN make liquid cleaner out of bar soap it’s far more a pain in the ass than just using liquid. And the liquid works better for this purpose.

So I’ve got a tiny bottle of Dr. Bronners Castile Soap. Lavender scented. Beautiful. They also make Peppermint which is awesome. It works great in the shower too. Makes you feel clean especially in summer when you’re all sweaty. Course, I think Mr Super said it best when he used it for the first time. He said to me

“I don’t think I like that peppermint liquid soap in the shower. Can I have more of your soap instead? That peppermint soap feels like someone blew me with an altoid.”

Classy. But kinda true.

ANYWAY, vulgar side notes aside, this recipe is super easy and it works really well. You can always opt for unscented liquid castile soap and add some essential oils to make your own favorite scent.

So first you need your liquid castile

Like I said, I opted for lavender. But you can do any scent you want, or no scent at all, or add scent later. So versatile!

Now you are going to measure about 1 tsp of this stuff into a bowl.

Once you’ve done that you want to add 3 TB of lemon juice. Man, Lemon Lavender. That smells sooooo good.

Mix that up a bit. It’ll look a bit funky, that’s ok, don’t worry. It’ll incorporate. If you want to scent your cleaner, do it now by adding 10 drops of essential oils like lavender, orange, or time. Edible essential oils are best (if you are going to be cleaning counters), and stir that up a bit too.

Don’t worry about the funky consistency. Just stir it up a bit. Now add 1/4 cup of white vinegar and 2 cups of warm water. And stir that too.

Once that’s nice and mixed up, go ahead and pour it into a spray bottle. I just reuse an old sprayer bottle from some natural cleaner I bought awhile ago. Whatever works for you.

And you’ve got yourself a bunch of all purpose cleaner!

When you do the math on this it’s really super cheap. When you figure a 4oz bottle of that liquid castile soap is about $5 and will last you FOREVER considering this stuff only uses 1 tsp of it, vinegar is cheap, lemon juice is cheap, etc, it’s a great deal. It’s also totally customizable.

And don’t worry. You’re kitchen won’t smell like vinegar. The scent dissipates. Truth be told you could use straight vinegar and water and have the same effect, but this is fancier. It has a nicer smell. And I just like it more damnit!

Here’s the recipe

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All Purpose Spray Cleaner

1 tsp liquid castile soap, scented or unscented

3 TB lemon or grapefruit juice

10 drops of lavender, thyme, orange or peppermint essential oils–optional

1/4 cup of white vinegar

2 cups warm water

Combine soap and juice. Mix well, consistency will be a little cloudy. Add essential oils and stir.  Add vinegar and water, stir well, pour into spray bottle. Shake before using. Label the bottle well.

Satanic Chicken

I don’t remember where I ran across this recipe but I do remember I modified it a little bit. I’ve got picky eaters in this house. Don’t get be wrong, I don’t let that stop me. I go by my mother’s old motto:

If you are hungry enough, you’ll eat it.

One doesn’t like curry, the other doesn’t like creamy. One doesn’t like sweet, the other doesn’t like salt. What’s a girl to do? Tell them to shut the f&#k up and eat it, that’s what.

Anyway, I came across this recipe appropriately named Deviled Chicken. It sounded weird. After a moment’s contemplation I decided “eh, what the hell.” I find that’s the answer to most things in life.

Before you judge once you hear the ingredients, please don’t toss it aside. It’s actually VERY good. Even people who don’t like these ingredients tend to like this chicken. It’s super easy and it’s really good. Sinfully good. Just…trust me. Don’t bitch until you try it.

First, get some chicken. The recipe calls for a fryer chicken cup up. All I had were chicken quarters so, that’s what they get. Mind you make sure you line a cookie sheet with foil. And just a friendly tip: Make sure the cookie sheet has sides, like a lip on all sides. Yeah, I totally forgot about that. Chicken juice all over the oven floor.

Now sprinkle some seasoned salt on the chicken.

Now you are going to mix together some curry, butter, honey, mustard and salt. And I’m not showing you a picture of it because it looks like baby formula poop and you won’t want to make it. But seriously, trust me, it’s really good.

Ok, so spread the sauce on the chicken and bake the hell out of it brushing it with sauce once or twice before it’s done, and once more once it’s out of the oven. It turns a wonderful, tasty, juicy golden color when you are done. Man it’s so good!

See?

It’s one of those things you’ll have to trust me on. It’s delicious. And aside from the honey, it’s pretty diabetic friendly too. Ok, so the honey is really NOT diabetic friendly but it’s such a minimal amount.

Or that’s what I tell myself anyway.

I’ll stop pestering you and give you the recipe. Cause really. DO IT!

——-

Deviled Chicken

4 servings

1 fryer chicken, cut up

4 TB butter

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup prepared mustard

1 tsp salt

1 tsp curry powder

1 1/2 tsp seasoned salt

Preheat oven to 375. Place chicken in large shallow baking pan or deep lined cookie sheet. Sprinkle chicken with seasoned salt.

Melt butter in large bowl. Stir in honey, mustard, salt and curry powder.

Brush sauce on chicken before placing in the oven, meaty side up. Bake for about an hour, basting with more sauce once or twice and again before serving.

Another Gamer Gift…that I want to keep for myself

My mother was huge into plastic canvas. I inherited her trait for having to learn the hell out of something. I don’t just learn something, I want to learn everything about it (selectively of course)! She was the same way with certain things, crafts namely.

I always remember her cross stitching, crocheting, sometimes sewing, macrame. When I was maybe in 3rd grade, she started plastic canvas. And boy did she roll with it.

She started off with things like magnets or tissue boxes. In no time at all, the woman was making Barbie furniture and her biggest project? An entire barbie FURNISHED house. Yes, it was a barbie doll HOUSE. HOUSE. It was like 4 feet tall and just as wide. Needless to say, between crocheting and plastic canvas, she’d made me tons of Barbie stuff. I was a happy child.

I still have a couple pieces of her handy work. One of my favorites is her Christmas village. Some of the pieces went missing, but this one is a gingerbread house tissue box. Check this thing out:

The top comes off to store a tissue box. The doors and shutters open and close.

Look at the freakin’ detail of this thing!

When I was about 12, she taught me and my BFF (Pookis) to do some simple projects. I didn’t really keep up on it, but I still remember the basics. It’s not hard, the simple stuff isn’t anyway. Any pamphlet can teach you. I’m not going to because it doesn’t translate well to text. But it really is SUPER easy. Like kid easy.  It’s a lot like cross stitching, but the patterns are bigger, so is the canvas, so it’s a little easier I think. Until you get to the insane projects like above. No way I could do that. No way. I can’t even make a tissue box. So I’ll stick to magnets. I will NOT be learning the hell out of plastic canvas.

Which is what brings me to my next point. Gamer gifts. A previous post of mine already discussed how much of a pain in the ass it is to get hard core gamers gifts. I’m a gamer myself. I freakin’ LOVE my Xbox. But hardcore? Probably not, no. I have too many hobbies to be hardcore anything, really.

Now, you probably won’t find a Left For Dead 2 plastic canvas pattern anywhere on this planet. But, have no fear! There’s a program for that!

Snag a picture or logo of whichever game you wanna stitch up. I did Gears of War. (YEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Sorry…got excited)

Do a google search for “plastic canvas pattern software”. You’ll come up with a bunch of stuff. Also, type “free” in there somewhere. That way you don’t have to pay for it. These programs are pretty damn easy to use. Pretty self-explanatory.

Once you’ve got your pattern, you’ll need the following things:

Yarn, in appropriate colors. Regular worsted acrylic cheapy yarn is fine. You don’t need freakin’ special yarn.

A sheet of plastic canvas

A strip of magnets, you can get this at a craft store

Felt in a matching color

Scissors

A plastic canvas needle

Glue gun

Now it’s time to cut out your pattern. This is easy enough, just follow the little squares on the plastic canvas pattern. It’s a lot of counting. And it’s really annoying. And make sure you cut on the OUTSIDE of the little squares not the inside, or you’ll have jagged edges and will have screwed up your pattern. Ask me how I know.

After swearing up a storm trying to cut out this damn pattern (mine was a little complicated to cut) I used a sharpee to outline the pattern on the canvas before I cut. I messed it up anyway, but it created the illusion that it was easier. And THAT’S what matters.

So cut out your DAMN pattern and try not to throw it across the room.

Now thread your needle. Sounds easy. Should be easy. Pain in the ass. I hate threading needles of any kind. I don’t care if I could fit my freaking hand through the eye of it, I’d find someway to mess it up. Anyway, yeah, now that that’s done.When you start doing your stitches, just hold the tail of the yarn in the back for a few stitches, so you are wrapping your work around the tail. That’ll secure it with no knot. Don’t knot it. If you knot it it’ll be lumpy in the back. Ditto when you are done with that piece of yarn. Tuck it behind the stitches and cut it. Don’t knot it. Did I say that enough times?

Start working your pattern. Plastic canvas patterns are color coded and generally the easy ones have you working in only one direction. So like you’ll be making only right to left stitches so it keeps it nice and simple. Do this where it’s quiet cause you’ll have to count. A lot. And it gets confusing when you lose count. Then you get frustrated, like me. And you f*(k up your pattern and start again like 23 times before you decide that you’ll just have to work around the fact that you cut the damn thing wrong.

Martha Stewart doesn’t tell you this shit. But you know it happens to her.

Jumping TOTALLY ahead to when you are finished with the damn thing. Yeah I know, that’s jumping ahead.

I was so pissed at this by the time I was done, and I have plastic canvas-ing in my blood. But as a knitter, as a baker, as a soap maker, I don’t think I’ve got the patience for this shit. Maybe I’ll try it again after the holidays. It was totally gratifying, just like I remember, because the work is quick, but still. I think maybe I was just pissy.

So this is what it looked like

Stupid plastic canvas.

Ok, now you are going to trace the piece onto some felt with a sharpee. This is the easiest way to make sure you get the back even. Plus, you can always cheat and carefully trim excess once it’s glued on it needed.

Stupid felt

Now go ahead and glue the damn thing on. This part sucks because it requires a glue gun. I hate glue guns. The glue dries so freaking fast and the glue stick falls out and I just hate everything today ok? GOD!

Stupid glue gun

Make sure to glue a little at a time, I usually glue in a straight line across. That way the edges are glued right and the middle is glued nicely and it doesn’t dry on you like it does if you try to glue it all at once.

Stupid glue.

Stupid lining it up to glue it.

It would be wonderful if you were done with the evil glue gun now but you aren’t. No sir. Now you’ve gotta glue the stupid magnets on. Well, that is, if you want to make a magnet. I suppose you could make an ornament too. Just glue a loop of yarn under the felt. Or you could make coasters. Then you would have make four though. Good luck with that. I’m doing a magnet, screw that.

So glue your magnet strips on the back

Stupid magnets.

Now, before giving your gift to your gamer, make sure you take all the little glue strings that inevitably got stuck to the felt and the yarn because the stupid glue gun doesn’t get glue hot enough for it not to dry on CONTACT and leave STRINGS of GLUE everywhere!

*Deep breath*

Actually. Come to think of it. I kind of like this magnet. I’m a huge Gears of War fan. Maybe I’ll keep it for myself…

That’ll teach my gamer buddies to make me make them annoying gamer gifts for Christmas. They didn’t actually ask me, they actually had no idea I was doing this but too bad. It’s too good a justification to pass up…

Hershey Kisses Cookies Can Kiss My…

I actually really love Hershey Kisses cookies. My mother made these every year for Christmas as well. Being diabetic however, it’s another coma inducing cookie. But hell, what’s Christmas without a little diabetic coma here and there!

Problem is, Mr. B really likes these too. So, I have to be sneaky with these as well. Make a couple dozen, freeze the rest of the dough. Because if I were stupid enough, AGAIN, to make the 30 or 40 dozes I normally do they’d be all gone by the time Christmas came around and my loved ones would be cookie-gift-less.

Must be nice to be a person to whom sugar is not a poison but a source of fuel…..

Just kidding. It’s a poison to everyone. A yummy, yummy, poison.

There’s nothing about these damn things not to love. It’s chocolate. It’s peanut butter. It’s rolled in sugar. And it has a big ass dollop of chocolate on top. Hmmmmmmm. Coooommmaaaaa.

So let’s do this.

First, put in your sugar. Mind you I make like double batches of everything, the recipe is for a single batch. If you don’t have a stand mixer then you are a lost cause. I’ve been bugging you to get one for the last 10 posts!

Actually, if you don’t have a stand mixer I envy you. You are one of those people who doesn’t have a kitchen gadget habit and you feel like doing things the old fashioned way is really satisfying. So do I actually. I’m just exceptionally lazy.

Right, so, sugar.

Now put in your butter

Blurry butter. The best kind. Ok, now add in your brown sugar.

Now you are going to add your peanut butter. Peanut butter is a BITCH to get out of the measuring cup. So, there’s a trick for that. Line your measuring cup with a nice spray of Pam. Then measure the peanut butter and it’ll slide right out. In a strangely vulgar way actually.

Now you are going to cream all those together until it’s a really disturbing, creamy, lovely consistency. I usually do this with my paddle attachment on speed 2 for about a minute.

Now you need to add your egg and your vanilla.

Mix that together until nice and creamy.

Then you want to add in your flour, salt, and baking soda. Here is where the stand mixer comes in handy. The dough, once you add the flour, gets a little difficult to mix.

But once it incorporates it turns into a lovely, heavenly dough

Now you roll the dough into balls and roll them in sugar. Bake them. Press kisses into them. And bake them again. In just a few minutes, you have coma inducing material that’ll have you singing all the way to your saline drip.

See? Book your passage to the ER now all my diabetic friends.

You can freeze the dough on this too, especially if you live with cookie stealing gluttonous mongrels like I do. Again, it’s a softer cookie dough, so you want to store it in a freeze safe bowl with a lid and wrap it in some foil so it doesn’t get freezer burn. Then just defrost, roll in sugar, etc. etc. It’s that easy. And if those grubby fingers try to sneak cookie dough you’ll know because they will have to thaw it out first! HA! See! You’re smart, you got this…

Here’s the recipe. I sincerely hope you enjoy these. They are a classic and there’s a reason why. They should call them F&*@ ME THESE ARE GOOD cookies…just my opinion.

—–

Hershey Kisses Cookies

(from my mom’s recipe book that she no doubt probably got from the back of a bag of hershey’s kisses or something)

Cream together:

1/2c sugar

1/2c brown sugar, packed

1/2c peanut butter, creamy

1/2c margarine or butter

Then add:

1 egg

1 TB of vanilla

Stir together

Blend in:

1 3/4c flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix until well blended.

Shape into balls, roll in granulated sugar and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 8 minutes.  Remove from oven. Press unwrapped hershey kisses into cookies and return to oven for 2-3 minutes.

Have A Chuck Fest & Other Nonsense

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a very strange reaction to any drama in my life. Some people drink. Other people cry. Even some other people shop. I have what I call “chuck fests.” I start throwing shit out, donating it, all together getting rid of it. It’s a reaction. It’s an odd one.

I could be in the middle of an argument, in the middle of some emotional or financial drama, and all I can think about is all the crap in my house I could get rid of. My BFF has told me that makes sense to her: A sudden need to eliminate things out of my house as a metaphor for eliminating things out of my life, including the current drama. Ok. I’ll buy that for a dollar. I also have random chuck fest itches when nothing is going on. Just…out of the blue.

I do hate clutter. It breeds. It also means shopping. No one gets clutter without shopping. Shopping in this country, consumerism as a whole, has gotten WAY out of hand. WAY out of hand. Let’s go buy some cheap (or expensive crap) that we “need” because we don’t know what “need” means and because it will somehow fulfill my life (it won’t). I’m not judging, I’ve done the same thing myself.

But now in my 30’s, I’ve grown to HATE shopping. I HATE IT HATE HATE IT! Truth be told I never really “liked” it, but now I despise it. The only time I really like shopping is if I’m at a farmer’s market or a natural food place because I’m a foodie. It’s also depressing cause who the hell can afford $21 a pound steak.

Yet people continue to buy and buy and buy. Then they complain about their debt, their clutter, their mess, their unhappiness.  When you are surrounded by crap, packed into your own house like a rat, you aren’t going to be a happy person. Everything is going to take longer to do and it eventually takes a toll on the psyche. We are animals, make no mistake, and most likely meant to live most of our lives outdoors in the open, not surrounded by dollar store junk from Ikea.

The toll it takes on the pocketbook, on the environment, on the psyche, on the workers who have to produce this stuff has all but made me not go shopping unless I have to and always check thrift stores before I head to a mass retailer. That’s not the only reason. I too have a lot of clutter.

I went through a “I could use that” phase several years back. Tag that on with all the stuff I inherited from my mother when she passed, a love of all things crafting and cooking and a weekly trip to the thrift store, a coupon addiction AND a business at home…well, you get the idea. Not pretty.

I started giving in to my chucking instinct. Give this away, toss that, get rid of that. I don’t need it. And I don’t miss it either. Feels good to have the negative space, the room in the cabinets and drawers. It’s easy to clean and organize. I’ve still got chucking to do. I will always have chucking to do.

Mr. B thinks I’m insane when I do this. He keeps telling me that the house does NOT have clutter. The Texan tries to explain over and over that the less stuff in the house, the easier it is to take care of. BINGO! There it is. I’ll admit, the holidays are NOT the best time to have a chuck fest itch with everything else going on. But I’ve learned chuck fests need not take long.

The following tips are just that, tips. Maybe they will help you. Maybe not. What I WON’T do is push some sun shiny happy slappy self help bubble gum psychology you’re ok I’m ok rainbows up your ass. That stuff never helps, all is does is sell books and make people feel bad for not being a shiny happy person. I live in reality. I am not a shiny happy person. I am not a miserable person. I am pretty damn happy, actually. I don’t need to look in the mirror and tell myself that I’m beautiful and that I’m “worth it.” Worth what?! I know I’m awesome. And you should know you are awesome too (provided that you are…just kidding). Screw all the shit in between. I don’t think giving someone tips on decluttering their house has anything to do with teaching them how to have confidence. SO many organizing sites I’ve been to have the M.O.  “Throw it out cause you are worth it!” WORTH WHAT?! WHAT THE &#(@ ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ME HAVING TOO MANY #*$&@* BATH TOWELS?

I have faith in humanity enough to say that I don’t think MOST people need someone to take them by the hand and whisper sweet ego boosting bullshit in their ear to get them to throw away a fallen apart make up case they’ve had since 1989. I don’t know, guess it just doesn’t jive in my head or something. If someone is a hoarder and truly has a psychological issue (which I think happens more than we think) ok, I can see getting some real help in there. But blowing sunshine up someone’s butt isn’t helping, it’s just being cheesy. Most likely for a buck.

There is a SERIOUS lack of sites out there for what I call “people like me.” I can’t stand Oprah. I have nothing against the woman as a person, but ok really. “Aha moment?” I kept hearing that every time her show got flipped on. She had an “AHA” moment. So?! It’s called an epiphany, which I’m guessing the networks think is too long a word to use for us stupid Americans? But one cannot POSSIBLY have a GRAND life changing epiphany every 5 seconds like this woman. Even if you did, would they stick? I’ve gotten those before, and they are all grand and beautiful in the moment, and then 2 days later you’ve forgotten cause either it wasn’t as important as you thought or it was too damn hard to keep up with.

How about just telling it like it is. I’m going to give you tips on how to declutter your living space. Period. That’s it. I’m NOT going to tell you while you do this you are going to lose tons of weight, be more attractive, be absolutely happy, and it will get you on the road to the life you want. Maybe you have the damn life you want, have they ever thought of that? Or maybe you don’t want somebody giving you stupid ass promises they can’t keep and you just want some real life tips on HOW TO DECLUTTER YOUR DAMN LIVING SPACE. Really? When did pop psychology become so pervasive. ANYWAY.

I shall teach you, dear reader, how to have a chuck fest that doesn’t take up all your time.

Rules for a chuck fest

1. You don’t HAVE to be in the mood. If you have things that need chucked, get to chuckin’, it won’t take long.

2. Decide on a time frame. Do you have ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? Grab your cell phone and set an alarm because you aren’t doing it for longer than that alarm. If you do you will get tired, eventually burn yourself out and not want to do it ever again. Trust me on this.

3. Don’t pick a project that’s going to take longer than your time limit. If you set your time for ten minutes it’s probably NOT a good idea to go through your closet. Maybe part of your closet.Pick something small like a shelf or a drawer. Don’t start just pulling shit out willy nilly because you’ll just overstimulate yourself. You can even go room to room with trash bag and pick stuff up randomly without ever having to “take something apart.”

4. Do not be afraid to chuck. Donate. Throw away. Whatever. No excuses. No, no one on ebay is going to want your mustard green hair dryer from 1981. You are having a psychological response to reason with yourself as to why you would keep such a thing and then giving yourself desperate excuses to keep it, because we all know you’ll never sell it on ebay. Even if you did, you wouldn’t get anything for it by the time they take out their seller’s fees, paypal fees, listing fees and shipping. Get rid of it. You’ll like the empty space it creates. If it is not truly beautiful or useful, toss it. You don’t need it.

5. You don’t owe your stuff anything. So you bought 5 bottles of conditioner on sale and you realized half way through the first one that you don’t like it. Get rid of it. I would tell you to give it to a friend but it’s too easy to leave it sit there until the friend comes to pick it up (a friend who probably doesn’t want your crap anyway), so just toss it. Either throw it out or give it to a thrift shop (they will take personal care items). You don’t owe your conditioner anything. You made a mistake. You wasted money, ok, granted, but now you know now to do it again. The “I can use this” mentality is dangerous because you also never DO use it, no matter how much you promise yourself. You can’t USE everything you claim to be able to use. Deal with it.

6. Do not attempt to organize anything right now. “Organize” is a fancy excuse for most people to go buy more shit they don’t need like dollar store plastic bins and BS like that. Just put things back neatly for now. Wipe a shelf or two. Then once you get that whole area properly chucked (NOT IN ONE DAY!) you can go back and decide if there is something you can do to make it a little more palatable to you, if it needs it.

7. Go take all the crap you just got rid of and either put it in your car to donate or put it in the trash. Do it. Now. Because you won’t do it later.

8. Be satisfied in the knowledge that you really didn’t get rid of anything you are going to cry over and absolutely need one day. You have more sense than that. You aren’t going to get rid of your mother’s wedding ring or your kids first pair of shoes or your fridge or anything. I wager that you are smarter than that.

That’s it. That’s the start at least. Do this a little everyday. Every other day. When you can fit it in. It’ll get done, just pace yourself.

Please, for the love of god and everything holy, don’t use this as an excuse to go buy or download organizers and worksheets and nonsense of the like. I mean, if you do need an organizer, yay for you. You can get one on your phone. If you need an organizer and actually USE one, you likely already have one and are using it. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t have one but would like to be one of those people who DOES use one.

I’ve always been in love with the idea of having an organizer for everything. I’ve even tried that. Scheduling and organizing everything from my business to my home life to my cleaning to my crafts. Quite a bit of money and a lot of guilt later I figured out: I am so not that type of person and I was using creating that little organizer as a way to procrastinate thinking about the house I had to clean, the work I had to do and the thought that maybe I didn’t WANT everything in my life scheduled that way. I kinda like doing what I feel, and as long as my house isn’t trashed, my closets aren’t brimming over, my finances are in order, I’m healthy and happy, well, that’s good enough for me. My life really isn’t in chaos. My life is pretty normal and has a natural organization to it actually. But MAN will those life organizing sites make you feel like you are living in total chaos! Like you’re a dirty, dirty person if you don’t have everything from your dishes to your daily shower gripped by the balls and written on the dotted line. What if life throws you a curve ball? Where’s your damn organizer now? What if you LIKE the curveball? Are you gonna feel guilty because you didn’t check off everything on your list or are you going to exhaust yourself doing it instead of taking that extra half hour to lay in bed and veg out to Mythbusters?

GEEZ Whatever happened to helpful tips, not complete Nazi style overhauls of other people’s lives. I’m not appealing to hoarders here, and I doubt those sites are either. Those people need real help. They live in a dangerous situation. But how about some friendly, down to earth, reality based tips that makes reading these things fun and informative, not overloads of guilt inducing information?

Maybe after reading all those sites you find this particular post boring. It’s possible. Hell, it’s likely. But I’m sincerely trying to keep it simple. I don’t want a window into your life. I don’t want to tell you how to be, what to think, what to create, or how many times a day you should schedule cleaning your toilet.

Just a simple post (well NOW it’s not, thank you very much. NOW it’s a rant!) with a couple tips. Hope you can enjoy the simplicity of that.

If not…well, who the #&$( asked your anyway 😛