After being laid up with some cold crud (no fever but lots of congestion and some killer headaches) I finally felt energetic enough to tackle a few of the projects I found while being laid up in bed. We were out of staples and living on take out and Valentine's candy.
After paying bills and running errands it was time to hit the kitchen. I was able to make apple sauce, granola and whole wheat tortillas. With the addition of hamburger, veggies, black beans and cheese to the tortillas we actually had a meal with all the food groups!
My last task of the evening was laundry detergent. I've been using a home made one that's gentle on everyone's skin and smells wonderful. The recipe I love is from The White Silk Purse: (http://thewhitesilkpurse.blogspot.com/2010/10/laundry-soap.html)
The only changes/suggestions I'd have for this recipe are:
- I use (2) 2 quart jars instead of (4) 1 quart jars. Just a preferance. I think the wider mouth of the 2 quart jar makes it easier to scoop out.
- For the soap grating step, remember to say you're still tired from being sick and you need your husband to handle it. (or you can use a food processor with a grater attachment, mine unfortunately died recently)
- When you get to the constant stirring step, let your daughter do it. She's shorter and wont get stingy soap steam in her eyes. It's much easier than rinsing your eyes and having her take over. (or you can just refrain from deeply inhaling the wonderful scent until it is off the heat)
I have no "in production" pictures of mine because by the time I was reminded that it might make an interesting blog post, I was already done and washing dishes. Now it's sitting on the counter waiting for the fluffy mixing step in the morning.
This soap is amazing! It smells wonderful and handles all of the child and mechanic messes in my laundry. We use it in our high efficiency washer. I keep a coffee mug in the cabinet above the washer and put a tablespoon of the soap in then add about 3 tablespoons of water. I mix it up and put it in the liquid soap cup for the washer. I know that there is probably an easier way and could make the whole thing liquid from the start, but this works for me. My brain does it on auto pilot and it's not really that much extra work. It would be more work to re-train my brain! My husbands method is to fling a scoop of the soap directly into the washer drum. While I can't make myself do that, both methods seem to get things clean.
In a few short hours, the results of my productivity sat lined up in the kitchen...
{All together the look kinda yucky, but individually they are wonderful!}
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