"Modern parchment paper is made by running sheets of paper pulp through a bath of sulfuric acid... a process which is reversed by washing the chemicals off followed by drying. This treatment forms a sulfurized cross-linked material with high density, stability, and heat resistance, and low surface energy – thereby imparting good non-stick or release properties." -Wikipedia
HEAT RESISTANT & LOW SURFACE (energy but I think they mean) TENSION.
Those words excite the engineering part of my brain that tangos with the housewife part of my brain. Nothing sticks to this stuff AND I can cook at very high temperatures... like for pizza or pitas. I think I fell in love with parchment paper around the time that I found artisan bread... but recently I discovered that I use this stuff at an alarming rate!
I joked that I don't turn my oven unless I have this in the house... and then I noticed it was on my grocery list a lot... then I figured that I was spending around $10 a month! On Paper I throw away each month! Ouch!!! What makes it worse is that I could just flour/oil a surface to keep it from sticking... or invest in one of these.
Ahhh.
So, I'm warning you not to get addicted as I have. For now I'm entering into a self inflicted weaning program.
I've been kinda interested in canning mainly as a way to preserve things we grow. We've never had enough tomatoes to warrant the investment, but I'm still interested. Once I found Mary Ostyn's blog I stumbled upon her canning videos. It seemed simple and I had most everything to try it... so.... I decided to try it today!
I thought jelly would be a great thing to start with (especially since our tomatoes are being stubborn about ripening this year). She has a great grape jelly video, but we aren't crazy about grape jelly. However, we do LOVE strawberry... especially the HEB more fruit kind. So I thought it would a be a fun project to compare the cost and see how hard it was.
I used my HUGE stock pot we got as a wedding present... I love that thing. And for the cans I had four 1/2 pint kind left over from Aunt Becky's friend's Thia Peanut Sauce... I miss that stuff... and one 1 pint jar left over from some local honey we bought a while back. For a jar lifter I use our kitchen tongs... but I went slow making sure not drop a slippery hot jar. It will be nice to get an actual can lifter, but I'll have to start producing more veggies so that it warrants the cost ($10 at HEB).
I ran to HEB to get the missing ingredients that I did need to make the jam. I thought about going to Sam's to ensure that I got a great deal on strawberries, but I'm often tempted to buy extra things when I go to Sam's because the prices are so good. So, I went to HEB and got strawberries ($1.5/lbs... not the greatest deal, but a good one nonetheless), fruit pectin and lids. I used the recipe that came with the fruit pectin. It was simple to follow and came with great directions.
Here are my humble jars processing. Canning makes me feel homey... and I like it!
And here is the final product! They were still hot in this picture and the pectin hadn't set up, but everything went like the website/recipe said so I'm sure they will turn out. They are so cute!
Okay. So how does the cost break down. The HEB fruit spread cost $2.50 for just under 1.5 cups. I made a little over 5 cups and the cost for 1.5 cups was $1.50.
So, it's not the hugest of savings, but it did work out cheaper. I think if I would have gotten a better deal on strawberries (like say grew them or picked my own) then I would see more savings. However, that being said it did save me a little over $3.00 and I made it the most expensive way. I know if I make grape jelly the way Mrs. Ostyn makes hers (she buy frozen fruit juice concentrate) I'm sure I'll save on that and I may try that once we run out of strawberry.
I'm planning on keeping it pretty simple. Canning can get scary if you venture too far outside of fruits, tomatoes & pickles. Anything other than that requires a pressure canner and you have to be extra careful not give your family food posioning. I would love to be able to make my own stews (& maybe cream-o-soups) and can them and to be able to can green beans or the purple hulled peas I grow. But for now I'll just make fresh soup and freeze my green beans and dry out my purple hulled peas. We don't have a huge back yard and it's best to start small anyway. I can just focus on growing berries, tomatoes & cucumbers to make jellies, jams, salsas, tomato sauce, barbeque sauce, pickles, relish, etc. Really I think I'll have enough variety to keep me busy. Just be warned family, you may receive can goods from us for Christmas :)
Now I'm super excited about our tomatoes... if they will ever ripen!
I love you because you save me money. I love having you around because you are made new with just one wash cycle. You are very versatile... I can use you as a diaper or a burp cloth or snot rag or a my-son-just-peed-on-the-floor-and-I-need-something-to-clean-it-up-with cloth. You are soft and fluffy. You look adorable on my baby and with all the colors you come in I can coordinate you quite nicely with outfits (not that my son cares).
But, dear cloth diaper, you cause me such grief.
Honestly, you make me want to scream sometimes.
Not because you are more work... it's really no problem to throw you in the washing machine. Not because the Daddy of the house is less excited about changing you... I'm faster anyway (no offence to Steven, I just have more experience since I'm home with John) and I don't mind that much. Not because you stain sometimes... nothing a little sun, oxyclean or bleach can't handle. Not because you wear out with use... really nothing last forever and I've definitely already earn my money's worth out of you.
Why you ask? Why?
But because I can NOT, for the life of me, figure out your yeasty ways.
I can't figure out if you are the problem or if I'm the problem or if my son is the problem. I've tried everything... from bleaching the living day lights out of you to using gentle soaps and grapefruit seed extract. John eats yogurt and probably has the healthiest diet of the house (at least the least amount of sugar for sure). I'm sure I'm washing you correctly because we never have stink problems or absorbancy issues. If it's not him or me it has to be you!
When John wears you he inflames with yeast after only three or four days. If he wears your arch enemy, Mr. Disposable, then his yeast clears up (even without creams). But if I even think about switching back to you, yeast flares us again. Why is that?
I can't bring myself to throw you out because of the start up cost if I decided to start again. However, I have literally committed you the Lord about once a month since John was five months old and I'm just so mad at you!
I'm stealing this idea from her. (if you haven't read her blog you should visit it... she's amazing!)
I love this song. It's my Monday song... usually. It may be poppy & annoying to some, but when I hear it I turn up the radio and sing along unashamed... ask the Hubsters ;)
A friend of mine wanted a baby quilt made so she sent me some fabric. I got to design it and I really like the way it turned out. I made a 'chubby pinwheel' inspired by this quilt. I think the chubby pinwheel goes great with the butterfly fabric she picked out because it kinda looks like a big butterfly flying in with the little ones... but maybe I've been staring at the quilt too long.
I decided to write out 'BABY' because I thought it would be a fun touch.... it was kinda inspired by this quilt. It wasn't very difficult, but I choose an easy font to applique around (I did machine applique).
Here is what the back looks like. You can see the actual quilting a little better. I did what I call "loopy loops"... it's a very technical term :)
Honestly, this was such a fun project for me. I love it when people hand me something and say, "Do whatever!"... that is just my kind of crafting. I understand if someone has something specific in mind and that is fun too, but I needed a project to be creative with.
I did this project as part of my etsy shop, I guess (I took down my etsy shop because I got tired of paying the fees... if you need something done then you can email me at fallonstar@gmail.com). I figured out that I really enjoy making things for people as they need them... not making a bunch of stuff and waiting for people to buy it. As long as John takes good long naps in the afternoon (and God continues to send people my way that need a quilt done or jeans altered, etc) I can be pretty productive. I'm still able to get some things done when he's awake, but things like basting... that must happen when he's asleep. It's been fun to work on (and get done) different projects for people.
A local pizza place has these wonderful things call peperoni rolls. They even have a special night when they are only 50 cents each. Sounds like a great deal, huh? Well, it is... for eating out. But not for penny-pinchin-I-can-make-that-(almost)-from-scratch-for-less people like me! The cost per roll for mine are about 22 cents.
And honestly, I had the idea of making pizza pocket type contraptions to stash away in our freezer for quick lunches for Steven or for dinner-on-the-go-kind-of-nights. However, I've found that these are easier for me to make and a lot less messy to eat than pizza pockets (you don't really need a plate with these). I'm thinking we are for sure going to fill our freezer with these when we have our next baby.
I looked and looked online for a tutorial on how to wrap these suckers up... but the best one I found was this video (don't ask me how I found it). I did a couple of things differently than he did but in general (aside from the weirdness that is a vegan zombie) I think it's a pretty good tutorial.
Here is what you'll need... Dough (I use artisan bread dough) Extra flour for dusting Some kind of sauce A touch of water Olive Oil Cheese Toppings (pepperoni, spinach, onion, chicken, etc)
Here's how to put them together...
Get you're dough out on a well floured surface.
And Roll it out like you are making a pizza.
I learned a little bit since I took these pictures and you don't want to roll the dough out too thin or the cheese will leak out. I've made them (several times) since this picture and have rolled the dough out a little thicker (roughly 3/8"... that's somewhere between 1/4" & 1/2") and it works much better. Sometimes cheese escapes, but most of the time it holds it all in.
Next Cut the pizza dough into slices
I was experimenting in these pictures. The optimum number of slices is 8! If you do 12 (like I did on the right) they come out too small. 8 is great. One pizza feeds our entire family for one meal... 4.5 pizza rolls for Steven, 2.5 for me, 1 for John. But make a second pizza so you will have left overs for the next day.
And then put on the toppings. Keep all the toppings in the wide section of the pizza slice. And keep all messy ingredients far away from little helpers... he kept bugging me for pepperoni slices.
Next, the tricky part. The roll!
So if you look at the bottom of the picture and work your way up you can see the stages.
The arrows are my attempts at making these pictures better. I've found that it's best to take the two flaps, in the very bottom slice, and bring them ALL the way over the toppings. Then press them down firmly (sealing it and preventing cheese escapes). Then start to roll. As I roll I like to seal the edges whenever I feel like there might be a spot where cheese will escape. It's not really as hard as I'm making it out to be... and if your cheese escapes you can just peel if off the cookie sheet and feed it to your cheese loving husband.
Then take some marinara and water it down a bit. Add some oil and whisk till it's all combined. Then paint over the pizza rolls on the baking sheet. I set mine on parchment because I put everything on parchment... I don't think I turn on the oven if I don't have parchment in the house.
The next batch I made was spinach. You can brush the top with olive oil and put a spinach leaf on it (or an our case a spinach leaf and a piece of cheese because I had to keep the plain spinach separate for John because he couldn't have dairy yet)... really just some way of identifying it so that you don't have to cut it open to figure out what is inside.
Like I said, they were a big hit and we have pretty much made them once a week since I took these pictures. You just can't beat feeding a small family of 3 for under $2!
I've realized that a quicker way (at least for me) to do a gardening update is with my handy dandy video camera! I love that thing.
Below is about a 10 minute video of what's going on in our backyard. And also included for Grandparents, and other John watchers, is a short segment of John playing in water. Just be warned... he's naked.
From last year (the year that I was pregnant/had a newborn) we've got a lot more going on. I don't think I took a single picture of the gardens last year... sad. I'm particularly thrilled about our tomatoes this year. I've never grown such good looking ones... even with the lack of rain I think our tomatoes are doing quite well. The Zinnias also make me happy... but then again, just being in our back yard makes me happy :)
We've been thinking about expanding our boxed garden. Maybe doing something with stone or brick we receive free (maybe from free-cycle... or a lovely blog follower who has extras :) ). We need to do something because the wood around the garden is starting to rot a bit... we didn't use weather proof wood due to the chemicals and we didn't want to invest in cedar. But, I also want to have a space big enough to do tomatoes and squash and peppers and pumpkin and beans and watermelon and... well... just more plants in our garden. However, it's not going to be the size of of our back yard... just maybe twice what the garden is now. Anywho... that is a project that is scheduled to start as soon as God blesses us with said free stone/brick.
John's Birthday was about a week ago, but we really started the celebration on the 4th... and didn't stop celebrating till the 7th. It was a crazy weekend and long naps occurred on Monday (2 hours for me & a 2 hour and 3.5 hour for John) but it was fun to celebrate our son's first year.
On the forth I made Knock You Naked Brownies in honor of birthday suits (really cuz I wanted them) for Homegroup. The sad thing was that John was sleeping while we enjoyed them. It was fun to think back... my water broke at this time... and we were going to the hospital at this time... etc. I'm not going to lie, it made me want another baby... then I thought back to nursing and I was content to wait a few more months.
Grammie (My Mom) came in the night of the forth. And on Thursday (5th = actual birthday) I took advantage of having her in town and did some yard work. For John's birthday present I took him to the doctor... I know, I'm such a great Mom, haha. The doctor kinda laughed at me for coming in exactly on his birthday, but it worked out well for our busy weekend. John got a TON of shots (more than he has had before) so he was pretty mad when we left... but Grammie was watching him the rest of the day so I wasn't too worried :P That evening Steven and I had a date... I highly recommend taking advantage of grandparents :)
Friday (6th) was our big Blue Bell day. I already posted a video (if you haven't seen it yet, go watch it ... it's worth the three minutes!) and there is a slide show below of some photos. That was the first day we turned around John's car seat. Since he's almost always off the charts he met the size requirements to flip it but lacked only the age. I know about the studies that say it's safer to have them backwards, but John is long and he is running out of leg room... in addition, I feel like our seat is more secure forward facing. We meet the requirements posted on the actual seat so I'm not too worried about it. He is still super stoked about being forward facing... I think he especially likes it when I turn around to peak on him while waiting at red lights. The major disadvantage of the forward facing is that naps in the car are now nonexistent... Major Bummer! (I'm nervous about our trip to Inks Lake coming up)
My Sister & Niece came in on Friday and John started to show the first signs of over-tired-ness at dinner. I've never had such a cranky baby in a restaurant... I was kinda embarrassed. But, I think the whole weekend was quite a learning experience for me. John is pretty flexible, but by only two days out of our normal routine he was not cooping well. My son loves his routine!
Saturday was the big birthday party day. We only invited family and church friends because we wanted to keep it small... our house isn't the biggest. Saturday morning involved a lot of cleaning... and last minute shopping trips. I also made John's cake on Saturday morning. The theme was Cinco De Mayo... go figure... and Steven wanted it to look like a chili pepper. This is what we came up with!
I saw some really cute mini three tier cakes for baby's first cake, but I can't find the site again... which is probably for the better, cuz mine did not come out as cute... it looks more like a mountain of icing. Steven & I wanted chocolate cake... but let me tell you, icing a chocolate cake that you have cut up and reassembled is not the easiest! It's super crumbly! I recommend freezing it before icing it if you have time... and pipe on the icing and then smooth it out after it's piped on... or just choose a white cake.
Our plan was to do cake and let the kids play in the water. The hope was that John would splash around and get most of the icing off of him before he came in. John liked his cake, but I think the sweetness got to him because he definitely came to a stopping point. The kids sure enjoyed the water (see video below) but John sure did not. I'm not sure what it is with this kid... He LOVES bath time, but put him in the ocean or a pool (kiddy or regular size) and he freaks out! Steven ended up hosing him off. Since it's getting hot already we may start doing pool time in the back yard more often, maybe then he will get it. I also think that by Saturday afternoon John was just plain done with being out of our routine. Definitely take my advice and don't plan too much for your little one at once.
Just plain Tired!!! I've never seen so much thumb sucking!
Speaking of the heat! It's May but the cake definitely melted. I used real butter to make the icing so a few seconds in the sun and the icing was dripping! Texas is brutal. It was yummy though.
After fun with friends we came inside and opened presents. I did update John's wishpot list for family but I tried my best to not encourage gifts. There is no great way to do that, but here's the honest unedited truth. John has everything he needs... and I probably have enough stuff to have like two more boys and be fine. We are blessed to have TONS of toy entertainment, clothing (Thank you, Issac hand-me-downs) & diapers (although I would never turn down more Bumgenius!). I did update John's list because people in my family asked me what he might need.
John got new shoes, walker/scooter, big ball, tunnel, more bath toys & books. All of those things have been his new favorites so far this week. Also he has LOVE the maracas... the kid is living up to his cinco de mayo birthday. In the past three days he is often seen crawling around the house with one of the maracas in his hands.
Most of the toys he got are 'walking' themed... and I have good news in that department. As of today (10th) John has started to take more voluntary steps. I was sitting on the couch reading something when I saw John let go of the coffee table and take few steps on his own. He kept doing it while I was making dinner. I could see him gaining confidence with each step... re-balancing himself and stepping off. It was kinda neat to watch. I may get out the video camera tomorrow if he is still doing it, but I'm not expecting him to take off. If there is one thing I've learned about this kid, it is that you can't force him to do something early. He will give up army crawling when he is ready to... and he will walk when he wants to, not when you want him to. Somethings I will force, like keeping your bib on during dinner, but I think in the milestone department I can not rush John... even if I know he can do it!
The walker converts to a scooter for future use. A friend of ours has this one and John really likes it. It is a great toy and John plays with it often.
And of coarse the tunnel. I have a little confession: we have the tunnels in our nursery at church and I never was very excited about getting them out for the kids... until I saw how much my kid enjoyed it. I like it so much that I asked for one for his birthday. Something I've discovered I really like about our tunnel is that it collapses & it's portable... a great toy for a small house!
It was a great weekend. We are ridiculously blessed. By having John and by all the people that love us. John is so cute that he makes me want more babies (but I kinda wanted more babies before him so that really isn't fair). I love having him around even though the days are sometimes long. He's taught me so much about how God loves me. Through his fits I've seen how God sees me when I'm ridiculous. I've personally felt the hurt of disobedience from John that God must experience when I don't obey him. I've experienced pure joy when I look at him and he smiles back at me just because I'm his Mommy. Surely God feels that way when I praise him. I truly delight in his accomplishments as God delights in my successes. And I love watching him grow! It's amazing how God created us and gave us a peak into his character through parenting.
I've been a bad blogger... I didn't make a special post for my son's birthday.
Shame on me.
We have visitors in and lots of fun activities for John's birthday.... some fun for him and some fun for me (like date night with Steven & getting compost for our gardens).
However, I HAD to share this immediately because it makes me laugh so hard (as you will see in the video).
We went to Blue Bell today because I wanted John's first ice cream to be there ... and well, I wanted to go! Anyway, here is an AWESOME video of the experience!
I made a cake for a wedding shower today. The sweet couple go to my church and they are a lot of fun! I had so much fun thinking about them and praying for their marriage as I made the cake. Their wedding colors are teal & pink/red... and they also like vintage bikes. This is what I came up with!
Greatly inspired by i am baker's rose cake & this other cake she did. The only thing I'm not crazy about is how the pink/red came out (I went a little crazy with the spray stuff). I used the spray that she suggest, but she's right it looks best in white (see pictures below). I should have done pink & red icing roses but I though the spray would give a more textured look... I was wrong, now I know.
I love the way the teal cake came out. Both methods us A LOT of icing... especially the rose cake. On the teal cake I didn't quite make enough so it you look really closely you can see slight holes... I still really like it.
And what did I do with the extra icing?... teach my baby bad habits, of coarse!
Note to self: babies will scream when you stop the flow of icing... however, you can distract them with gold fishes :) ... they have a short memory.
So this was my morning. I had to take a picture because it made all parts of me happy. Icing a cake while my cute baby stared back at me. Lovely!
And here's a picture of the cake before I sprayed it. Also, lovely!
