Bed Pillows - Toss or Wash??

What do you do with your bed pillows when they become flat as a pancake and not so fresh smelling?
Do you toss them in the garbage and go buy new?
If so, then you are like me.
I have always chucked the old ones in the garbage and bought new.
But, not anymore!
I never realized how easy they were to wash.
Not to mention the fact that they smell so good, look so clean and are all nice and fluffed again.

In our household we have a total of 12 pillows. Now keep in mind there are five of us so we each have two a piece but Mark and I have three each. Anyways if you have as many as we do then be prepared to spend ALL day washing and drying pillows or split them up over a period of a few days.

I placed two pillows per load in my washer to keep the load balanced. I added my laundry detergent to the water and filled my Downy Ball with my favorite smelling softener (Downy Clean Breeze). Toss all of the above in and let it do it's magic.
When the load was finished I took the pillows out and placed both of them in the dryer. Then I took two tennis balls and two tube socks and placed a ball in each sock. Then I tied each sock in a knot so the balls would not fall out. Toss the sock balls in the dryer with the pillows and dry on a low heat for  45-50 minutes. (The balls help to fluff the pillows up.) I thought they felt a little damp so I threw them back in for another 45-50 minutes and that seemed to do the trick. You want to be sure to dry them thoroughly so that they don't mold after you place them back in a pillowcase.
Most of the pillows that I washed were made of cotton/polyester. 
They don't recommend washing the foam filled pillows but I had one of those too and I decided to give it a try. I figured I'd throw it away if it got ruined. I'm happy to say that it was washed and *line dried* (in it's own zippered pillowcase) and it survived. I wasn't sure about putting the foam pillow in the dryer so I just hung it outdoors on my clothesline for the whole day.
I now have freshly washed and fluffed pillows on each and every bed in my house. 

Next time you need to freshen your pillows don't just throw them away. Give this a try and see how it works.

Once A Month Shopping and A Favorite Cuke Salad

Friday was my big Once A Month Shopping Day.
It takes me a week to plan for it and then it's an ALL day event. Shopping here, there and everywhere for the deals and filling up on the items that I know will make enough meals for another 30 days.
Just makes me tired thinking about it!
Anyways there is always lots to do after all the shopping.
There are fresh veggies to clean and repackage ~ some to be used now and others to be frozen for future use.
There is also bulk amounts of meats purchased and all that has to be separated and repackaged into meal size portions.
It's a full day (or 2) by the time I get all the shopping done and everything put away but hey, at least it only happens once every month.
The biggest perk of it all is that I do save money by shopping only once a month. Oh and I should say that I do still have to go to the store throughout the month to resupply milk and bread.

Since it's the season for fresh veggies I thought I'd share my favorite recipe for cucumbers.


Sour Cream Cucumbers


2 large cucumbers, peeled and sliced in rounds
1 onion, sliced in thin rings
3/4 cup fat free sour cream
3 tbsp. cider vinegar
2 tbsp. sugar (can use less)
*I have used Stevia in place of the sugar and it turned out just as good*  (a little less than 1/8 tsp.)
salt and pepper


Refrigerate and Enjoy!

Homemade Ant Baits

It's that time of the year again!
The time when the spring rains seem to push the ants indoors.  YUCK!
I don't mind ants being outdoors - after all God did put everything on Earth for one purpose or another.
However, they have NO purpose in my home.
                       S  P  L  A  T !
For the past 3 weeks I've noticed an ant here or there in my laundry room ~ no big deal!
I purchased a few store bought ant traps but so far they haven't worked their magic.
So I went to search the internet for a solution and this is what I came up with. *These are the measurements that I mixed together for a small batch.*

Homemade Ant Bait

1 1/2 tbsp. Borax powder
1 1/2 tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup warm water
cotton balls
an old glass or plastic container to mix everything in

Mix first three in container.
Place a few cotton balls in the mixture and let them soak for a minute.
Remove cotton from mixture and squeeze out the excess liquid.
Place cotton balls in places where the ants are being a nuisance however keep them out of reach of children and animals. When the cotton dries out you can submerge them back in the solution, squeeze and reuse.

I have brick on my outer kitchen walls and that is where the ants seemed to be coming from. These cotton balls worked well in those hard to get to areas. I was able to scrunch them up and shove them in between the bricks.
Within one day the ants were gone from my kitchen.

I can't say the same for my laundry room though.
So far I have only used the store bought traps in the laundry area and I still have ants.
So tomorrow I will mix up another small batch and see if that gets rids of them there too!

Remelt ~ Rescent ~ Reuse

Melted Candle Tarts

Do you know how many of these things I have thrown away over the past few years?

Way too many!

I've never messed with candlemaking before but I thought I might as well try since I've got all this melted wax. It just needs re-scented and it would be good as new.

After talking to Carmen about the flashpoint of wax (the only thing that really concerned me) I decided to give it a try.

I melted small amounts of wax in my double boiler, which consisted of an old stock pot and a coffee can. I placed my candy thermometer on the side of my coffee can so I could carefully watch the temperature.

Once the wax was melted I added the scent and then poured the wax into these silicone ice cube trays that I found marked down at our local grocery store.
They worked perfect!

I'm not so sure that I care for the scent that I used in these ones and the color isn't that great.
There are tons of oils, scents & dyes out there to use so I'll just have to experiment until I find the *one* for me.
But now that I know that I CAN do this I will be able to save tons of money.
I'll just remelt, rescent and reuse.

Now I just gotta find the right smell!
Anyone care to share their favorite candle scent
or even their favorite place to buy candle making supplies?

Stay warm!

Get Your Free Ticket

This Saturday, September 25, 2010 is Smithsonian's 6th annual Museum Day and many museums across the nation are participating by offering free admission.

Click HERE to see which museums in your state are joining in on the celebration...but hurry it's only good for this Saturday! 

We plan on using ours to take a tour of the Old West Virginia Penitentiary. My husband and I have toured it before but it was quite a while ago and not all of our children have had the experience so I think that they will enjoy it. If all goes as planned then I will have pictures to share with you all.

Homemade Italian Ice ~ Cool Treats for Hot Days

I don't know what the weather has been like in all of your backyards but let me tell you it's been hot & sticky here in my neck of the woods.
It's been so hot that I hate to even cook anything at all in my kitchen. I'm glad we got that new grill because without it we may not even eat.
Just kidding, we wouldn't go hungry but it is so nice to be able to throw something on without having to heat the house up anymore than it already is.  My AC already runs enough without the added heat of the stove.

I've been making some cool treats for the kids.

Flavored Italian Ice & Blackberry Frozen Yogurt

I love Italian Ice but it never lasts very long in our household. It gets all gobbled up in no time.
My favorite is WYLER'S . It comes in the form of a freeze pop and the flavors are to die for. The only problem is that I can only find them at our local Dollar Tree and they are a seasonal item so once they are gone they are gone till the next summer.

My MIL had a hand written recipe for Italian Ice in one of her recipe boxes so I thought I'd try it to see how they compared to the store bought.

Refreshing
Yummy
No artificial flavorings or dyes
More for your buck!

These are so easy to make... a must try!
Be creative with your flavor choices too!
I plan on trying grape, apple, Mt. Dew, orange, pineapple and so forth. You get the idea. A flavor a day!

Lemon Ice

4 cups water

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup lemon juice

1/8 tsp. salt

Boil water and sugar for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool.

Add lemon juice & salt and mix well.

Pour into small single serving bowls and freeze.

The other variation that I have tried was with Pepsi.

Pepsi Italian Ice

2 cups water

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups Pepsi

1/2 cup lemon juice

Boil water & sugar for 5 minutes.

Let cool.

Add Pepsi & lemon juice.

Mix well and freeze in single serve bowls.

I forget to get a picture of the Pepsi Ice before they gobbled them all up but I can tell you that they tasted like Pepsi with a hint of lemon in it. Next time I make them though, I think I will cut the lemon juice back to 1/4 cup.

If you have made these before then let me know what your favorite flavor is?

I think mine is the lemon.

Or is it the raspberry.

Maybe the orange cream.

Well let's just say I love them all.

A Little More for a Whole Lot Less

Hi all! Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend. We spent Saturday getting some things done while the weather was a little kinder. We got our taxes filed and then I went outside to take some of the Christmas lights down off of the house. It's been so cold that I kept putting that chore off. I still have to wait for Mark to get the rest of them down with a ladder but he was busy working on one of our vehicles so that will have to happen another weekend. Sunday was spent just being lazy. So now I have a dirty house that needs cleaned. But I have three little darlings that are off from school today since it's MLK day so I've got help. :o)

Enough of my ramblings now and on to my post topic!

Here's something that I use to help to stretch a pound of ground beef a little farther.

It's TVP or textured vegetable protein.

If you are a vegetarian then you probably already know all about this stuff but if you are not then follow along and I'll tell you a bit about it.

TVP is used alot in vegetarian cooking but it can also be added to many meat dishes.

I use it when I am making sloppy joes, spaghetti,tacos, chili or any other recipe that calls for ground beef.

TVP is a soy product that provides fiber, iron, magnesium & phosphorous. It is a dry granule that you reconstitute in water and when you do this it will puff up a bit. When added to meat dishes it takes on the flavor of the meat and helps to stretch the quantity of the meal without changing the quality of taste. Thus, my picky eaters will eat it and they never notice the difference. (Kind of like sneaking shredded veggies into dishes. They never even know that they are in there.)

I purchase this in the health food section of our Kroger store but there are many places to find it.

You can find similar products in the frozen section. Our store carries Boca & Morningstar Farms flavored crumbles but they are a little more expensive. I prefer to stay on the *cheap* side ($2.99 for a 10 oz. bag) with the dry crumbles. I store them in my freezer and when needed I just toss a handful or two right into the meat that I am cooking.

Let me know what you think if you try this. Just curious if your family even knows it's in there.

Well I'm off to clean house so I'll catch up with you all later!

Homemade Tastes So Much Better ~ Waffles

Goodbye Eggo and Hello Homemade!

This was my first time of ever making homemade waffles and boy were they good.

Homemade Vanilla Waffles

3 tbsp. melted butter or oil

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

1 tsp. vanilla

Place flour in a bowl.

Make a well in the center of the flour and add the rest of the ingredients.

Stir well with a whisk.

Cook waffles according to your waffle maker.

Mine called for 1/3 cup of batter for each waffle.

I also added a dash of cinnamon to my batter but there are many different flavors and fruits you could add to this recipe.

Just expiriment and ENJOY!

Anytime I make pancakes I always freeze the leftovers so the kids have a supply to just heat and eat. The same now applies for these waffles.

( Just place wax paper between waffles and seal in a ziploc container & freeze.)

I have made this breakfast treat twice this week for dinner (a definite family favorite) so I have a good many leftovers stocked in the freezer now. I made double batches both times to ensure that I had plenty for freezing. When the kids want them for an early morning breakfast they just pop them in the toaster and sit down to eat.

I don't think I will ever buy another frozen box of waffles from the store again. There is no comparison in taste or price.

Homemade WINS on both!

**Sorry this post's spacing is so jumbled up. I have tried to fix it numerous times and it just won't work. This has happened in the past and it always seems to fix itself later. Must just be a blog glitch of some sort.**

Freeze & Bake Biscuits

Here is the recipe that I made to go along with the Breakfast Casserole. I made a batch and cooked half of them for supper and then froze the other half for another meal. I'll probably use those ones the next time I make sausage gravy.

Freeze and Bake Biscuits

6 cups flour

1/2 cup dry milk

1/4 cup baking powder

1/4 cups sugar

2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cream of tartar

2 cups shortening

1 1/2 cups water

In a large bowl, mix all dry ingredients.

Cut shortening into flour till it is in course crumbs.

Using fork, stir in water till just moistened.

Cut into biscuit shapes and freeze.

To Bake:

Thawed: 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees.

Frozen: 30-35 minutes at 400 degrees.