Soap- Step By Step

Today I had my friend Melanie over and I showed her how to make soap. I learned a lot from my last attempt and it went really well this time! I made three batches that all turned out wonderfully. In fact they went so well that I added some extras to make some of them a little more fun! I love the way the kitchen smells when I’m making soap! No one else in the house does, but I think it is a wonderful home-y kind of smell. And I feel this sense of accomplishment knowing that my entire counter is covered with soap that I made all by myself!

If you’ve always wanted to do it, you should try it. It’s not that difficult and it makes you feel like a cross between Laura Ingalls and Dr. Frankenstein. LOL

First you gather all your supplies…

this is just some of the supplies 

Step 1- While your oils are melting in the crock pot, carefully mix the lye into cold distilled water. Be very careful with this stuff! (I don’t have pictures of the lye because I was too busy being very careful… LOL)

Step 2- Slowly pour the lye mixture into your oils in the crock pot while mixing it with the stick blender. You also need to be very careful with this step so that you don’t splatter it everywhere. (again this is why there are no pictures…)

 after the lye has been added and the soap is getting thick

Step 3- Continue to mix the soap with the stick blender until you reach “trace”. This is when the blender leaves a trail in the soap.

Step 4- Cover and cook until it starts to look “foamy”. Uncover and stir it down.

almost done… 

Step 5- Take a tiny bit of soap out of the crock pot and let it cool on the counter. It should become hard as it cools. You know when it’s done when it no longer “zings” when you touch it to the side of your tongue. (it kinda feels like licking a 9-volt when it’s not done and it’s not as bad as you think…)

Step 6- Spoon into molds lined with plastic wrap, wax paper or parchment. Slam mold on the counter to settle the soap into the mold.

silverware trays work great as molds

Step 7- You can speed up the cooling process by placing the molds into the fridge or freezer.

  Step 8- Remove from molds, peel off paper or plastic and cut into bars using a crinkle cutter or sharp knife.

Step 9- Let sit in a cool dry place for at least one month to let it “cure” and get hard. The bars last much longer if they have some time to dry first.

Step 10- Enjoy your homemade soap and give some away, too…

back row from left to right: plain, lemon-poppyseed, oatmeal

middle row: sweet orange & strawberry seed, milk n’ honey, cold relief formula (eucalyptus, peppermint and orange)

front row: oatmeal orange-mint, double mint, shaped plain

Frost Free Gardening

Last night was the first predicted frost of the season. Some of my gardening friends suggested that I pick all my remaining tomatoes and cover up my fall crops…just in case.

before winterizing

It was kind of sad to pull up all those plants that were so prolific and pretty, even though they were beginning to look a little pathetic… Now the garden looks strange and sad.

all snug and cozy

the last of the summer crop

I am hoping all the tomatoes ripen as nicely in the basement as they were on the vine. I threw in a couple of apples on the advice of a friend on Facebook. I hope it works!

I only picked the biggest of the green tomatoes

I was beginning to fear that I had done all that work in vain until Chris left for church this morning and his windshield was icy! Yay!

Our House Or Greenhouse?

Today I decided to finally move some of my lettuce and spinach into the house in the attempt to extend my harvest of leafy greens a little longer into fall. With all the beautiful sunlight in our front window and the apparent success of my herbs on the shelf, I decided to give it a try…

 

 lettuce and spinach behind the couch

the herb garden

cilantro

the basil is doing great but I can’t remember what the others are??? :o)

Here’s to a long a happy harvest!

Old Mother Hubbard

Today I warily cooked up the first of our four very large hubbard squashes from the garden. I was told from a pretty reliable source that hubbards were NOT good eating. So I was a bit concerned about what I had undertaken.

After finally getting the thing cut in two, I was pleasantly surprised to find large seeds perfect for roasting. I really shouldn’t have been that surprised, since it’s basically just a big, blue-gray pumpkin.

While it was baking in the oven, I cleaned the seeds and got them ready to roast in the oven using my favorite “sugar and spice pumpkin seed” recipe. Yum!

It baked up very nicely and after running it through the food mill, it remarkably resembled pumpkin.

So I reasoned that if it looks like pumpkin, has seeds like pumpkin, is textured like pumpkin, smells like pumpkin and tastes pretty similar to pumpkin why can’t I use it like pumpkin.

Our first test was Zack’s preschool recipe for pumpkin muffins. (see link http://carriesbestrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/11/pumpkin-muffins.html ) Warm out of the oven they tasted pretty good! Next test: pumpkin pie…

Pantry Shelves

Our laundry room had a giant pegboard wall that backed the wet bar in the family room. We tore it out and Chris finished putting up shelves in between the studs.

part of the pegboard is gone

taking out the rest

 

putting up the shelves

With a garden and me doing so much canning, we needed a place to keep all that stuff. I love it! Now I can do more canning… :o)

Thanks honey, it looks super!

More Canning

The garden keeps producing and I keep preserving. It seems like every day I am drying, baking, freezing or canning something.

Today it was salsa and pepper jelly. I had to start using up some of the tomatoes and peppers.

I bought some tiny little 4oz jars that I love! They are the perfect size for those specialty items that you don’t need much of. The pepper jelly looked beautiful in the jars but wasn’t spicy at all! :o( I am beginning to think that my jalapenos are VERY mild. I may make some green pepper jelly tomorrow with the other peppers.

So now I’m a little concerned about the salsa…

Mountains of Mint

Today I harvested the mint. Most of it had gone to flower and it was time to do something with it.

Much of it got zapped in the microwave to be used as tea later in the year.

But some got made into mint jelly. Mmmm! I’ll be making thumbprint cookies this Christmas!!! Ooo, and maybe we’ll have lamb? Nah!

 I love how pretty it looks on the gingham towel on my stove!

Garden - Round 2

Who would have known you could grow stuff in your garden this late in the year? But ya can! And we are! Or at least we’re going to try again.

This morning I went out and picked the last of the cucumbers and zuchinni, some beans, peppers and more ripe tomatoes and then after school the boys and I went to work cleaning and clearing out some space for the fall crops.

 

First we took out all the stepping stones that we getting buried under compost, weeds, grass and very large garden plants.

Next we removed all the old plants to clear up more space.

Then we turned all the dirt and broke it up with the Garden Weasel.

Then we added some poop (steer manure) and planted carrots, radishes, broccoli, onions, spinach, lettuce and cabbage.

 

lettuce, spinach and cabbage

last round’s tomatoes

broccoli

carrot and radish patch

Because I have been finding slugs in the garden again I also put out the broken egg shells I have been saving all summer. I really hope they work because they look sort of ridiculous…

I don’t know what I’m thinking when we’re still not done with Round 1??? :o)

Microwave Magic

I hardly ever use my microwave. It is the one appliance in my kitchen that I would easily give up, even before my under-the-counter cd player/radio. But today I learned that you can dry herbs in that thing.

I cut all my chives this morning (and there were LOTS) and wasn’t sure what to do with them.

Freezing them all seemed like too much work. The dehydrator was going to take 24 hours. Then I saw in my gardening book ( I LOVE this book!) that you can dry them in the microwave in small quanities in just 3 minutes!

first chop them up

 

Layer a single layer of herbs between 2 paper towels in microwave

cook on high for 2-3 minutes

store in a jar in a cool dry place for up to 1 year

I did it and they turned out great! I can’t wait to cook something with ‘em! Next I’m going to try some mint…

Buying In Bulk

With all the canning, freezing and baking I hope to do this fall I realized that we would need a LOT more flour and sugar. So I headed over to the Cash and Carry (restaurant supply) and priced the stuff there. After about an hour, I came out with 25 pounds of sugar, 75 pounds of flour, 10 pounds of grated cheese, 10 pounds of meatballs, 8 pounds of sausage, 6 pounds of butter and other misc. items.

I think the boys were a bit surprised when they went to unload the van when I got home.

Now the only problem was how to store all this stuff. So I went out and bought a storage bin and found some stuff around the house I already had. I wonder how long it will all last???

the cheese got bagged and put in the freezer

  our flour bin (it was fun to mix the white and wheat flours together with my hands in the giant bin)

this ice cream bucket worked perfectly for the sugar (now I just have to go to the Tillamook cheese factory and get some more. And eat some ice cream while we’re there!)