Bits and Pieces

I've been pretty busy and haven't posted as much as I would like to. I'm still testing out the liquid detergent I made about a month ago. It does pretty well with our clothing, but I've passed it off to my daughter Rebekah to test on her laundry which includes the clothing of an 11 month and 3 year old. One thing I've noticed is that things come out of the dryer nice and soft w/o the use of dryer sheets or liquid fabric softener.

Rebekah also passed on a recipe for energy bars that I really like. I can't seem to keep myself from tweaking things so I replaced 1/4 of the crispy brown rice cereal w/ the granola I make as well as adding 1/2 cup coconut and 1/2 cup sliced almonds. I've also added chocolate chips which got rave reviews from my boys. I've been wrapping the cooled and cut bars in aluminum foil and leaving them in a bowl for the kids to grab for on the go snacks. Here's the basic recipe;

Crispy Peanut Butter Rice Bars
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup brown rice syrup
4 cups crispy brown rice

In small sauce pan over medium low heat stir brown rice syrup and peanut butter until smooth. Pour over crispy brown rice and stir gently. Pour into 9x13 well greased pan and allow to cool. Cut to desired size.

Mushrooms, Laundry Soap Update

Well I've been a  mushroom farmer for just under two weeks and have harvested my first crop of wonderful, heavy shiitake mushrooms. The mushrooms started appearing about two days after I received my mushroom block from mushroompeople.com and started watering it. I harvested the first mushrooms 4 days after receiving the block. Tonight I am going to soak the block to start the next harvest. The mushroom have been much heavier than the bulk mushroom I buy in the store and after leaving a mushroom on the counter over night I was amazed at how much weight it had lost as it quickly started drying out. I've enjoyed the process of "mushroom farming" enough to sign up for a local how to clinic at the end of the month where I will learn how to inoculate a block (or log) myself.

Making my own laundry soap has also been an adventure mainly because I have a tendency to look at the recipe or formula for something and start wondering how I can "tweak" it. When I looked at the laundry detergent recipes I was most interested in the liquid ones since I have a front loader and do most of my laundry using cold water. When I've used powder in the past I have have had a problem getting the powder to dissolve and go from the detergent cup to the washer unless it is very concentrated like Charlie's Soap. What I ended up doing was taking the Duggar's liquid soap recipe since that had been recommended to me and tweaking it by making a half batch, making it more concentrated and also by using a vegetable based soap instead of the Fels Naptha they use since it is made w/ petroleum products. I've been using the detergent for over a week now and after a bit more consumer testing (handing it off to my daughter Rebekah to use in a top loader and w/ baby items in the laundry) I'll share the recipe.

I have one other new thing (or maybe I should say old thing rediscovered) I've been playing with this week. I just bought a pressure cooker. I grew up with my mom's pressure cooker being used to make wonderful soups and tender roasts so I'm excited about my experimentation. So far I've made an incredible chicken vegetable soup, an equally good bean soup and tonight I'm making black beans to serve w/ tacos. Crazy thing cooked them in about 1/2 hour from start to finish. I'm hunting for a good grass fed piece of chuck roast to see if I can duplicate the roasts I remember from my youth...