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Smoothie gone bad: Do NOT try this at home!

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We make 2 kinds of smoothies at our house:

1. Smoothies for nutrition: These usually are heavy on the greens and veggies and low on sugary fruits or honey (and usually include some avocado or raw egg).

2. Fun smoothies: These are intended as “fun treats” and include varieties such as strawberry/pineapple/banana; and maybe some neutral tasting veggies or greens (like spinach) that you can’t really tell are in there.

THIS smoothie was definitely an experiment in the first category. But even for a “nutritious” smoothie, it lacked a certain appeal. Suffice it to say that arugala and broccoli sprouts don’t make for the tastiest drink. LOL! (Go, Chad!)

How to make YEARS worth of laundry detergent for about FIVE BUCKS!

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We’ve been using this detergent recipe for a few years, and it works great!

Here’s the “recipe” in this video (written details are also listed below)…

What you need –
-5 gallon bucket with lid
-long paint stick (can get from the paint dept. when you get a bucket & lid)
-bar soap (5.5 oz) that is not perfumed (look for hand-made soaps in local shops or farmers markets; you should be able to find soaps that contain only: “Saponified Oils of Palm and Coconut; Glycerine”)
-1/2 cup of Borax
-1 cup Washing Soda (not Baking Soda but by Arm & Hammer – buy it in the laundry aisle)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Cut bar of soap into small pieces or grate. I strongly recommend GRATING because it will melt so much faster!

Cook soap pieces in 4 cups hot water on cook-top – medium heat; stirring frequently until fully dissolved.

Fill bucket half full with hot tap water

Add the dissolved soap/water from cook-top.

Pour in the Washing Soda & Borax and stir until dissolved

Fill bucket with additional hot tap water – to 5 gallon mark and stir.

Place lid on bucket and let sit overnight to gel.

The next day, stir and pour solution into smaller containers. (Just use old liquid laundry detergent bottles, half gallon or gallon milk/juice/water jugs).

This solution is a concentrate, so be sure to add it to your machine water BEFORE adding clothes. Also, this soap will not form suds – don’t worry, it’s not the suds that do the cleaning; it’s the components of the soap 🙂

I give my jug a quick swish before each use, but vigorous shaking is not necessary.

To add to your wash, pour 1/4 cup per load for top load machines (320 loads) or 1/8 cup for front load or high efficiency machines (640 loads). Some folks have even used only 1 TBSP with front load machines and it worked fine (1280 loads)!!!

**I’ve been told that by adding 1/4 – 1/2 cup of white vinegar to the rinse cycle, this makes the clothes super soft and keeps your washing machine hoses clean as well as helps eliminate any odors on clothing….AND……fabric softener sheets in the dryer can be replaced by simply adding vinegar to the rinse cycle. If you don’t have a liquid fabric softener spot on your machine you could use one of those Downy balls and fill instead with vinegar.

 

“Cook on STRIKE” Night!

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Every once in a while, even I get fed up with cooking and (especially) doing dishes! Yesterday, my day did not go according to plan so I was finishing up my errands at 5:30pm (instead of 3pm which I had hoped). Since Whole Foods was my final stop before heading home, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to grab some pre-prepared dinner and take a break from meal preparation and dish doing. There are very few ready-to-eat meal options that I can eat without having some sort of MSG reaction, but I have found a couple “go to” options for such occasions. Here’s what we had last night. Cost of this meal was about $10 for the 2 of us (since we only ate 1/2 of the chicken), but we ate more beans/chips/veggies than show on this plate…

Smoked Chicken from Whole Foods deli ($4, since we ate half) – Contains: “chicken, garlic, sea salt, black pepper, thyme, sage, ginger, bay leaves, celery, brown sugar, onion, red bell pepper, parsley & canola oil”

Organic Canned Baked Beans ($1.50) – Contains: “organic white beans, water, organic sugar, organic tomato paste, organic molasses, sea salt, organic vinegar, organic brown rice flour, organic onion powder, organic mustard powder”

Baked Kettle Chips ($2.99 for a tiny bag; we ate them all) – Contains “potatoes, sunflower or safflower oil, sea salt”

Large organic cucumber ($1.65)

Organic baby carrots (from fridge)

Honestly, I’d substitute something else for the chips in the future, like a side dish from the deli. They didn’t taste very good, I didn’t feel good about eating them, and they were expensive! The chicken was REALLY good, though. Although it contains things we don’t normally put in our chicken (like sugar and oil….especially Canola oil!), at least I understood what all of the ingredients were, none of them were names that disguise MSG…. and the only dishes from this meal were a couple plates and a cutting board! Score!

What are your favorite “strike night” meals? Please share with a comment below, and maybe I’ll feature YOUR meal in a future post!!