Blended Coffee from YOUR blender!

Some mornings I need a little kick of caffeine!Wednesday mornings usually and Monday mornings sometimes...and any morning where the kids kept me up all night! I am not one to buy a coffee unless it is a special treat so I "invented" this recipe. It is yummy, diet friendly and best of all, you can add as much caffeine as you like!

Ingredients:

1 Cup Milk - I use fat free or 1%
6-8 Icecubes
2 TBL. Cocoa
2 TBL. Instant Coffee Crystals
3 packets of Equal or Sweet~N~Low
2 TBL Peanut Butter

Any of these can be adjusted, I usually leave out the peanut butter altogether.

Blend and in no time at all you have this!

And that my friends is a VERY good way to start the day! 

Homemade Pretzel Recipe

Today is Pretzel Day! Fun right! Here is a tried and true recipe for homemade pretzels. We will be making these for after school snacks today!

Pretzel Dough:

1 1/4 Cup Warm Water
1 Tbsp. + 1/4 tsp. yeat
3 3/4 C. All Purpose Flour
3/4 C + @ Tbsp Powdered Sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vegetable oil

Bath:

2 C. Warm Water
1/4 C. Baking Soda

In a small bowl or cup dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let sit for a  few minutes.

Combine flour, powdered sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl.

Add water with yeast and the vegetable oil.

Stir with a spoon and then use your hands to form the dough into a ball. Knead the dough 5 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Dough will be smooth when its ready.

Place the dough into a oiled bowl, cover and store in a warm place until doubled (about 45 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Remove the dough from the bowl and shape . I always do pretzel shapes but you could just do strips too. They taste just as good!



Make the bath for the pretzels by combining  the baking soda with the warm water and stir until baking soda is mostly dissolved. The baking soda separates from the water easily, so stir it up every couple of minutes as you are dipping the pretzels.

Dip each pretzel into the bath solution. Blot on a paper towel and arrange on a cookie sheet. Spray with non-stick spray. If you want salt sprinkle with kosher salt (we just use regular salt or sea salt, whatever we have!)  Don't salt pretzels ifyou are going to coat with cinnamon and sugar!

Cinnamon Sugar Topping

1/2 C. Granulated Sugar
2 tsp. Cinnamon

Bake one baking sheet at a time. Bake for 4 minutes, rotate the pan and bake another 4 or 5 minutes till lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes. Brush with melted butter if you are going to sprinkle with Cinnamon Sugar topping. Sprinkle generously and enjoy!

Recipe is long but it is not complicated at all! I pinky swear it is simple and yummy!

Homemade Wash Soap

A recipe for homemade laundry soap! My sister made some of this for us, we loved it, and I made some more last week. It cleans wonderfully and your clothes smell heavenly after using it!

2 Cups Wahsing Soda
2 Cups Borax
1 Cup Color Safe Bleach
1 Bar Fels Naptha Soap Grated

Grate the bar of Fels Naptha Soap and mix with rest of ingredients, I dump everything into a two gallon ziploc and use. Grating the bar of soap makes your whole laundry area smell clean and fresh!

I use about 1.5 Tablespoons per load of Laundry! Yep thats all! For really soiled laundry use a little more. It was fun to make but my hubby was questioning if it really was cheaper. So I did the math.

2 Cups Washing Soda - $3.09 (I used .90 cents worth)
2 Cups Borax- $3.36 (I used .71 cents worth)
1 Cup Color Safe Bleach- $1.97 (I used .54 cents worth)
1 Bar Fels Naptha Soap - 1.45

$3.60 - about 53 loads comapared to Tide which is $18+ for approx. 50 loads*.

Or 7 cents a load compared to 36 cents a load.

 Or $48.91 a year compared to $262.80

 For a mom like me who is trying to save money where I can, it is worth it. Plus I like it better!

The best part of making my own soap, no more ugly orange bottles on my laundry room shelf! :)

*The first time I figured the cost savings I used 90 loads per bottle of Tide but then I read the fine print which said 90 loads to the first fill line, since I do mostly large loads I use it to the second fill line. REALLY changes the math!

Linked Up to Alicia's Homemaking Here!

White Chocolate Popcorn!

I just love to share the love around Valentines Day! I had heard about White Chocolate Popcorn and how good it was to make but never would I have imagined just how EASY it is to make! Are ya ready? First pop a bag of microwave popcorn. Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper.

Dump the popped popcorn out onto the pan and then take big handfuls and dump into your mixing bowl. Make sure to sort out all the unpopped kernels. Dump those into the garbage or if you have an unhealthy habit of eating them like me snack away!

Melt two squares of White Bakers Chocolate or Almond Bark in the microwave. I melted mine for 20 seconds, stirred, melted again for 20 seconds. Now I added three drops of red food coloring and gave it a quick stir.

Dump the melted chocolate over the popcorn and stir it up, making sure that you are stirring gently, you don't want to crush the popcorn kernels.

When the popcorn is evenly coated with chocolate, pour it back onto the waxed paper. Let sit for at least 20 minutes.

 Package up pretty and give, or toss in a bowl and keep it for yourself. Yum Yum! I got about two bagfulls out of each batch. Making each gift about 40 cents. I used cutout paper hearts for labels, on the front  I wrote White Chocolate Popcorn and on the back I wrote the recipients names. I also made some extra so that if I ran into someone I knew  I had a sweet little gift to brighten up their day.

Salt Dough Recipe

I am going to be posting a few projects using good ol' salt dough here on the blog soon. So to save myself from typing the recipe again and again I thought I would just post it once and then link over to here when I needed to.

4 Cups Flour
1 Cup Table Salt
2 Cups Water

Mix thoroughly, Knead 4 to 5 minutes until the dough feels smooth and not sticky. When the dough is properly needed you should not be able to feel the salt crystals.

Bake at 325 degrees. The recipe says for 1 hour but honestly it just depends. I usually bake for 20 minutes and check, and repeat until my pieces are sufficiently baked.

Notes:

*This recipe should not be doubled or halved.