Easy Breakfast Cake

Happy Saturday :)  I didn't get much sleep last night.  Heidi (our dog) apparently knew that there was a storm headed this way, so she was up in the bed with us and refused to let us get any sleep.  I was up almost every hour (Is baby head down now?  Cause I'm always "goin"!).  Our weather alert radio went off at 5:30 to let us know that there was a tornado watch, and from that point on, sleep was just not happening.  The baby was constantly moving (which I can't say that I mind), and I was waiting on the sound of thunder.  I finally got up a few hours later and left Adam (and Heidi) to sleep since he was finally able to doze off. 

I love how quiet the house is on Saturday mornings.  The rain on the window made everything so peaceful.  I decided that I wanted to cook up a yummy breakfast.  I had some sort of coffee cake on the brain since I figured I probably had the ingredients on hand.  I did some searching and finally found this one here.  I followed it but adjusted the baking time from 20 minutes to 35 minutes since mine wasn't done.

If you would like to make it, here is what you will need.

2 eggs, 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 and 1/2 cups of milk (I used skim), 3 cups of flour (I used King Arthur's white whole wheat flour), 4 tsp baking powder, a pinch of salt, 4 Tbsp vegetable oil, brown sugar, and cinnamon.  I didn't measure the brown sugar or cinnamon.  It is used to sprinkle as a topping.  (Not pictured: butter)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Put the eggs, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder and salt into the mixer.  Mix ingredients together.  After ingredients are mixed, beat in vegetable oil for a minute or two. 

Spray a 9x13 pan or glass dish with non-stick spray.  Pour mixture into pan.

Generously top with brown sugar, cinnamon, and pats of butter.

 Bake at 350 for 35 minutes or until cooked through.

Pour yourself a cup of coffee, wake up your hubby, and enjoy!



Happy Saturday :)

Cleaning Up My Act- Fridge Style

If you were fortunate enough to be off work for Marthin Luther King, Jr. Day then I hope you enjoyed it!  For those of you that had to work, I'm sorry. :(  But I hope your day at work was productive! :)

On my day off, I caught up on a few household things that needed to be taken care of.  One of the things that needed to be done was to get the fridge cleaned out.  If you remember in my New Year's Resolution post found HERE, I said that I have wanted to cook supper at least 5 nights out of the week.  I have found a meal plan, which I will be writing about soon, that I believe will help keep me on track and save us lots of money!  But before I go grocery shopping and get us all stocked up, I had to face my fridge.  This guy has been neglected since we have been eating out.  He was in bad shape.  Here are some befores.

Looks pretty packed huh?  I bet we could get a lot of meals out of that....not.  I cleaned out all of the items that were out of date.  That turned out to be.....about 75% of our food.  Here it is with all the bad food tossed out!

Yep, it was a lot.  Next, I emptied everything else out onto the counters so I could give the inside of the fridge a REALLY good scrub down.

:::::Angels singing::::::

So much better!  Finally, I loaded everything back in, but this time I came up with a little bit of organization.  Not that there was much to organize. :)  Here is the after!

Not much left!  That jar on the top is an old spaghetti jar.  I save sauces that we don't use from fast food places, so I put them in there.  Adam doesn't understand it, but he will thank me when we come home from Taco Bell, and they left out the mild sauce!

This is what's in the top drawer.  Deli meat and cheese.

Nothing in the bottom drawers!  That's where the fresh produce should be...

Now for the door of the fridge.

Butter.  We don't use margarine.  I don't like the taste of it, and I don't want clogged arteries.  Butter in moderation. :)

Right below the butter is dressing and sandwich condiments.  Can you tell how many times we have attempted to eat salad?

Milk.  We like it skim. 

These are marinades and sauces.

Jams and Apple Butter.  Our staples. :)

I'm so glad that project is finished!  Now we can head to the store and stock up on food that we will actually eat!  Be sure to check back, and I will show you our fridge full of food and neatly organized to make meal time more efficient.  Thanks for reading!

Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner

Yesterday I was doing some cleaning up around the kitchen and realized that I was about out of my homemade cleaner.  I have been using this cleaner for over a year and have only bought 1 other cleaner since I started using it.  (That one other cleaner was a Clorox foaming cleaner for our nasty tub.  I don't recommend the foaming kind by the way; it wasn't very helpful.)  I found this recipe on Dr. Oz's website, so yes, it's doctor approved!  It's great because there are no toxic chemicals, which means it's ok to breathe into your throat and lungs.  Also, since you aren't buying a million bottles of different types of cleaners, it reduces waste.  Sounds pretty good, huh?  Here's what you will need.

1 empty spray bottle (I found mine in the dollar section at Ace Hardware last year.  I'm sure you can find them at the Dollar Tree, Walmart, etc), 2 Tbsp of Borax, 6 Tbsp of white vinegar, 4 cups of water, 2 Tbsp of dish soap (I use Ajax cause it's the cheapest at my grocery store), and 2 drops of essential oil (optional, for fragrance if you don't want it to smell like vinegar.  Peppermint essential oil would be a good, clean scent.) Not pictured: funnel.

I acually cheated a little bit on the essential oil part.  This is what I use for $1.00 from Dollar General.  It's not technically essential oil, but it's an oil that's scented. :)  You can make several batches of cleaner from this tiny bottle.



They have different scents.  The one I am using is called Ocean Breeze.  If you are trying to find Borax, it looks like this and can be found at Ace Hardware and other home improvement stores.  I would say you could also find it at Walmart.

Using a funnel, measure and pour the ingredients into the empty spray bottle.  Make sure you use a funnel, otherwise this is going to make a big mess and most of the products won't go into the spray bottle.

Make sure you put the products into the bottle in the order that they are listed in the ingredients above.  If you put the dish soap in before the water, then you will have a big bubbly mess when you put the water in. :)  After all of the ingredients are in, screw the lid on and give it a good shake.  Now you're ready to clean!

Don't forget to label your bottle.  I just put some clear tape on the bottle and wrote "All-Purpose Cleaner."  That way everyone in the house knows what it is and what it is for (basically anything).  I use this cleaner for daily kitchen cleaning, daily bathroom cleaning, etc.  If you need something more heavy duty if the tubs get bad or if someone has been really sick, then I would go for something with bleach in it to get all the nastiness out. 

Happy cleaning!

Homemade Laundry Soap

This has been a long awaited post by many of my friends!  Today I mixed up some of my homemade laundry soap.  I got this recipe from a friend as a wedding gift, complete with all of the supplies.  (If you are wondering what to get someone who is about to get married, this is a very thoughtful/useful gift!)  This laundry soap lasts us several months, probably about 5-6 months, and it only costs $0.02 per load (depending on the type of soap you use.  This price is for the Fels-Naptha). I think everyone has a slightly different version of how to make homemade laundry soap.  I'm sure there are a bunch of ways, but this is how I make mine.  Here is what you will need!

You will need: 1 bar of soap (see of good soaps to use below), 1 cup of Borax, 1 cup of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, about 4 gallons of water.  Not pictured: grater, pan, 5 gallon bucket, measuring cups.



This is Dr. Bonner's Peppermint soap.  I picked this up at Walgreen's since I was already in there.  This is the first time I will be trying this particular soap.  I usually use Fels-Naptha, which you can find at places like Ace Hardware, Home Depot, etc.   

I have also heard of people using Ivory soap or a brand called Zote.  It's really just whatever is your preference.  I can tell you that the Fels-Naptha smells sooooo good!  It almost has a fruity scent to me, fruity but very clean.  I really like it. 

The type of soap you choose will determine the consistency of your laundry soap (detergent).  After making this recipe with Dr. Bonner's soap, I found that the consistency is a little more watery than if you make it with the Fels-Naptha.  It all works the same though.  Either way you make it, it will turn out slightly clumpy.  Doesn't change how well it works though.  If the clumps bother you, give it a good stir.  Dr. Bonner's soap makes a less clumpy mixture than the Fels-Naptha soap.

In case you have never used Borax or Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda and aren't sure what to look for, here is what it looks like.

Now we're ready to get started!  To set up, go ahead and put your pan on the stove and set it to medium heat.  Then go ahead and fill your 5 gallon bucket with 2 gallons of hot water.  You can use an old milk jug to measure.

To shred my soap, I used a grater attachment for my KitchenAid.  If you don't have a grater attachment, a regular grater will work just fine.  You want to have a fine shred so that the soap will melt quickly and evenly. 

This is how much soap it turns out to be when it's all grated.  This is very fine, if yours isn't as fine, it's ok.

Make sure your pan is nice and hot. 

Pour the grated soap into the pan and then pour in just enough water to cover it.  When you do this, it will clump like so.  That's ok.  Just continuously stir until the soap is completely melted.

After the soap is completed melted in the pain, pour it into the bucket. 

Then stir, stir, stir until it's as smooth as you can get it.

All stirred up.

You can see that it's bubbly at the top and that there are just a few clumps in it.  This is fine.

Lastly, add 2 more gallons of hot water and stir.  Put the lid on to store.  Make sure you keep the lid on it tight, otherwise the water will evaporate.  You will notice once it sits, the consistency may turn gel-like on the top.  That's fine, you can just stir it up.  Some recipes say you need to let it sit over night and then stir it the next day, others say you can use it right away.  I usually don't wait overnight and all is well.  

This recipe is a HUGE money saver at 0.02 cents/load. (This price is for the Fels-Naptha soap.)  For a regular load of clothes, use 1 cup of the laundry soap.  (For more heavily soiled loads you can use up to 2 cups.)  If you really wanna see how much you are saving, look at this price comparison borrowed from NaturallyThriftyMom.

Planet- 0.44 cents per load

Deft- 0.43cents per load

Seventh Generation- 0.36 cents per load

Tide Pure Essentials- 0.35 cents per load

Tide Free- 0.26 cents per load

Cheer- 0.25 cents per load

Gain- 0.23 cents per load

Homemade- 0.02 cents per load!!!!!!!!!!

So....if you do 30 loads per month (1 load per day), you will be spending .60 cents a month on homemade detergent compared to up to $13.20 if you use the other brands!  Putting that into perspective over the course of a year, you will spend $7.30 on homemade detergent, as opposed to $160.60 on the fancy stuff!  That is crazy!  I'm not sure why anyone would pay that much.  I hope this recipe was helpful and will save you lots of moolah this year.  Thanks for reading!

Getting Crafty: DIY Initial Plate

I am thoroughly enjoying my 3 day weekend!  Thank you, Martin Luther King, Jr! Adam and I started things off with some breakfast at IHOP this morning.  We haven't been there in a while.

 It was fun to get out and enjoy such a pretty day with him.  After we had some breakfast, we went to my FAVORITE local shop (The United Gift Shop) and did some browsing.  Adam and I love to go in there and look around at all the vintage and antique things.  It's obviously not something he would do in his own spare time, but we always have a good time together just talking and walking around.  While we were there, I came across this little plate that I loved.  It had a verse on it that is very near to mine and Adam's hearts right now. 

So we picked it up for $4.00.  Normally I would only pay $2.00 at most for a smaller sized plate, but with the verse I was willing to pay more.  The center of the plate is blank, but I had a plan for it!  I have been looking for a plate that I could put mine and Adam's initials on.  I saw a project on Pinterest that I have been dying to try found HERE.

To do this, I used one of the napkins from our wedding. The groom's napkins were black with white initals, and the bride's napkins were white with black initials.  I had 2 different fonts in the bride napkins since there was an error by the printing company who ordered them.  They ordered the wrong font (the block font), so they had to re-order it in the cursive font.  We got all of the block font napkins for free.

I decided to go with the cursive fancy font because it is bigger and would take up more of the blank space on the plate.  To do this project, here are the materials I used.

Plate, small craft brush, decopauge, scissors, and an inital napkin. 

First, I hand washed the plate so I could make sure that I had a clean, smooth surface to work with.  Next, I unfolded the napkin out like so.

Then, I peeled back the top layer of the napkin that had the monogram ink on it.

Don't rush when you are peeling back the napkin, otherwise it will tear.  When you're done, you will be left with this.  I just cut out the square of the top layer.

Next, I cut as closely as possible around our initials.

Then, I was ready to decopauge it to the center of the plate.

I should really get a manicure.....j/k.  That's my lovely hubby assistant. :)  I was going to let him hold it down while I started decoupaging, but I decided it would be better to spread the decopauge on the back first, then lay it down and decopauge over it.  So that's what I did. Here it is wet.  You can't tell that much that the napkin is whiter than the plate.  The plate was really more of a cream or off-white.

And here it is all dry!  I need to get a small plate stand for it.  It's going to go in the kitchen I believe.

I really like it!  Since I already had all of the supplies on hand, this project only cost me $4.00.  (Thank you to my parents who bought the napkins for the wedding!)  I'm sure you could do this same project using Word on your computer and then print off your initals in whatever font you would like.  It would also look good with a plain plate, or you could decorate your plate how you like.  I'll let you see it when I have it on the stand in its home.  Thanks for reading!