Growing my own garden

Yes, I know what you are thinking, "but it's still winter". Yes it is, especially here in Northern Ontario where the snow is still waist high. Oh, how my dogs do love catching snowballs!

However growing vegetables indoors isn't really all that hard. I started my celery and lettuce a week ago already. They are one of the few that only need water to regrow.

Than of course, I went to walmart yesterday and obtained some sort of seed starter. So, why not?
I planted everything from corn and watermelon to turnip and onions. I even did double rows of peas and carrots. Carrots are used most in this house ( I have a pet rabbit, remember?) and peas well because I just love raw peas. Have eaten them with my mom and sister right from my parents garden for as long as I could remember!

Labelled everything with little popsicle sticks because my memory with things like this sucks lol and hopefully they'll start growing.

When spring rolls around and they start selling dirt at the stores. I'm going to build some raised garden boxes and then I'll transfer them outside.

I can't wait to not have to buy vegetables anymore :)

I also want to plant my own apple and lemon trees. I'll be saving my own seeds and drying them out to use.

Check me out being all self-sufficient and all :D

Butter

Yep! you read the title right.... Butter... not just any butter, but HOMEMADE butter!!! I actually just literally made my very own homemade butter, and I will NOT tell a lie.... It was awesome!!

I was making more bread this morning when I noticed I had no more butter or margarine. Since I am trying to be all frugal and stuff and remembered This pin and had all the ingredients, why not?

The taste isn't bad either....
So you start with your ingredients in the bowl of your mixer...
Literally just heavy cream and salt

Then you mix, and mix and mix even some more...
eventually you will get to the whipped cream stage..

And of course you can do whatever you want while you wait because it's a stand mixer and is doing all the work for you. Leave that awesome machine on for a little, actually a little is an understatement... this next part seems to have taken forever maybe like 20 or so minutes.... but once the cream gets all grainy in stuff you feel like you are a success!!

Oh btw you may want to cover it when it starts to separate, I had buttermilk flying in all directions when it started.

Look at all that buttermilk!!

It was tasty and spread nicely and was just plain fun to make!

Saving Money

According to Pinterest there are a lot of ways to save money, So I did my research.

These days you can basically make anything you want from toothpaste, to laundry soap and bread, to regrowing your own vegetables. I think they call it living "frugally".

I'm not sure how long I can last making my own stuff, well actually I think I'd do quite good, I might even stop buying dog treats and make my own. Andy on the other hand I'm not so sure he'd want to use homemade toothpaste. He does however love my homemade bread, and is totally on board with me growing/regrowing our own veggies. Since it's the middle of winter, I can't really do an out door garden... but there are plenty of foods you can just grow with water and sunlight from inside the house... such as green onions, celery, lettuce etc. I have some celery and lettuce that I am going to regrow.

I'm also going to start the garlic I have inside and then move it outside when the snow disappears.

Today I made bread, we ran out and instead of going to the store and paying like 4 dollars a loaf I decided making my own would help save money. Since my recipe makes like 7 loaves (I used to own a bakery so baking in bulk comes naturally) and since valentines day is coming up I decided on making 2 loaves of bread, 24 mini (like really MINI) rolls and about 6 heart shaped buns!

I'll post my very large recipe below. I ended up freezing one loaf and 12 of the rolls.

7 Loaves of Bread

Add to a large bowl 1 and a half tbsp of yeast, half a cup of warm water and 2 tsp of sugar. Let that sit for 5 mins till it gets all frothy.

Then add 4 cups warm water, 4 and a half tbsp of lard (I use Tenderflake), 2 tsp salt, 3/4 sugar, 2 eggs and mix until everything is melted and what not. then add 11 cups of flour 4 cups at a time until incorporated. (you may end up adding 12 if it's too sticky) Knead for a few minuted on a floured surface and then let rise until doubled in size, punch down and then rise again. Than you would mold into whatever you want to make. Loaves of bread cooks for 1 hour at 350 degrees, and my little rolls and hearts cooked for about 20-30 mins.

IT'S ALL IN T BOX

So finalllly I got my online store set up! you can buy boxes that are different themes and have different activities for you and your family and friends!

These boxes range from movies and books to craft time for children and everything in between!

I'm just starting out, so I just have a few different ones on the site, but I'm constantly coming up with more ideas and adding them. So come check it out and help spread the word.

IT'S ALL IN THE BOX

Just a few of the boxes you can buy at 1 month or 6 month or even1 year subscriptions.

Body scrub

Body Scrub.... It's one of those things that you get in bath gifts from people. Usually they smell good and maybe even leave your skin feeling nice and soft afterwards...
Well I made some the other day, only it didn't smell anything but oil, maybe of I would have had essential oils or something to put in it, then maybe it would've been different. It did still leave my skin feeling oily. Maybe if I added more sugar to absorb the oil a little more than maybe, it wouldn't have been soo bad... but I'm going to keep looking for a different recipe that might work better.

This recipe didn't have too many steps, making it fairly easy... This is my 2 cups of olive oil and coconut oil.  I melted it in the microwave, took maybe a minute and a half.

and then stuck it in the freezer....
And whipped er up...

It really does look like whipped cream.

I just looked up the recipe again to find the link for you guys.... This is where I muffed up..
I added my sugar, but not realizing I doubled the oils, i only added half of the sugar I needed same with the corn starch. Which is probably why it's soo oily for me. I added blue food colouring to it to make it pretty, Not too much  because I didn't want to come out looking like a smurf!

I Think  I'll go add some more sugar and cornstarch to it and see what happens. I'll edit this post with my findings.

whipped body scrub

** Edit**
So I added an extra cup of sugar and It was a hell of a lot better! Still too oily for my skin; but if you have like maybe super dry skin or something it might be perfect for you!

Cheese Tortellini Bake

baked tortellini casserole

 I've been working on a website to sell stuff . So I've been pretty taking pictures of stuff I make to sell and getting everything done.

There's just one thing holding me back, but as soon as it's done. I'll post a link. 

I had to get a bigger pan at this point. Next time for 2 people maybe cut the recipe in half. 

 It's subscription boxes you can buy 1 month, 6 month or 1 year. like a bunch of different kinds of boxes. It's just for Canada tho.

My dogs lovedddddd the left overs. They are my biggest supporters <3!

The tortellini casserole tasted amazing, my Andrew even went back for seconds... That within itself should tell you how awesome this tasted, He never goes back for seconds, like ever.

Crock Pot Roast

I feel like it's been forever since I last wrote a post! Since my house has been freezing lately I haven't wanted to get out of my room with the heater and my blankets and my dogs lying on my toes, But Andrew went and got diesel so it's time to get back to life....

I'm trying to eat healthier and exercise a bit more... I have a wii with Zumba and just dance, and maybe one day I'll get the wii fit or something I dunno, so far zumba has me pretty worked up lol.

So I finally did a huge grocery shop with like 50,000 items.... okay maybe not that many but it was huge. Eating healthy is expensive! I tried to buy like a bunch of fruits and vegetables and OMG the prices were ridiculous... but anyways I shopped and then I made a roast in the crock pot the next day.

Click here for the recipe

I picked this recipe over the others because It says in the title "clean eating and Gluten free", Now I don't really care about the gluten part... but clean eating... isn't that what I'm trying to do?

I threw everything into my mini crockpot. You can't see any carrots but they are there just hiding under the roast. I also didn't have any beef broth to add because I forgot, oops. I filled it with water to cover and just hoped that the juices from the meat would add enough beefy flavour.

When it was done, I used the juice, which did taste a little watery... okay so maybe next  time I won't forget the broth. So I used the juice and added some powdered gravy to it and it was good, not great, but good.

Infinity scarf

Have you ever saw those tutorials on arm knitting infinity scarves? Well I finally got some chunky yarn (thanks mom <3) and thought I'd give it a try. I started with one video tutorial and ended up doing this one instead.

Now before you start just a couple of side notes....
A) If you have a small bladder, go NOW....
B) If your dogs have small bladders, let them out NOW....
C) If you have someone coming home for lunch and expects lunch, either make it NOW or wait to do the scarf until after....

It is not an easy thing to take off your arm and put back on several times...

This first video I started watching told me to start with 2 strings that were the length of 24 arm lengths, my arms must be short....

 Because that's not a lot of string...

 

Then I did the first loop. I didn't want to say anything, but I've never knitted before :) 

After my first row, I'm thinking this isn't that hard after all....

 

But then..... what happened? there's like a random loop at the end..... Maybe I didn't pull to tight? or maybe I muffed up when I had to remove it to go to the bathroom and then put it back on .....

Oh well onto attempt number 2...

 First row...

 Second Row.... Looking good....

 

Third row... Kind of loose....

That's when I tried the other video tutorial... This one clearly wasn't working for me...

Not bad.... looks good actually, but then I ran out of rope...

Man oh man... Just not my day or what... Good thing my mom gave me more than one yarn and I did another one yellow and white and It turned out pretty good.... Then again, I did have a lot of practice....

Maybe with even more practice I'll be able to make them tighter and a little bigger.

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Here's the link to the BEST cupcakes ever....

Salted caramel Cupcakes... My mom who never eats treats, devours these... My grandmother who would make sure everyone has something before herself, hides these....

I make these maybe once every two months (butter and whipping cream is kind of expensive here). My grandmother hasn't been feeling very well, So here it goes....

That's he filling... the best part.... Just be careful, when adding the butter and pouring the heavy cream in, as it's really hot and bubbles and steams up. Can definetly burn yourself.

The caramel for the icing looks the same, made a little different tho. and tastes a bit more saltier.

While they are cooling, that's when I start making the brown sugar cupcakes.

First you make the self-rising flour. I also like to make my own buttermilk and let it sit. Just 1 tablespoon of vinegar to 1 cup of milk.

Mix the brown suagr and butter until creamy...

There's Trigger picking up anything flying out of the Mixer....

Mix until nice and smooth and they add to your cupcake pan. I doubled the batch so I ended up with 3 dozen smaller cupcakes.

While the cupcakes are cooling I made the icing. make sure your butter is soft and room temperature.

Poke holes in the cupcakes and add the caramel filling. I wouldn't worry about if it turns out messy looking because the icing is just going to go over top anyways.

 Hey ma, I see some scraps there....

I had extra filling and extra icing So I iced, then drizzled filling, then iced again.

Sprinkled with a little sugar to balance out the saltiness.
Memere is going to LOVEEEEE these.