Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Quinoa Hot Cereal

Well the next new thing i have decided to try is quinoa.  Have never really paid any attention to it.  But my cousin mentioned it and told me it was full of protein, so that captured my interest.  So first I looked around for a bag, and it was really expensive so i waited and found some more my price at Winners.  I didn't want to buy a big bag until i tried it.  I have found different recipes on Pinterest and the one I went with was the hot cereal.  So here goes:

2 cups whole or low fat milk
1 cup quinoa, rinsed
3 tbsp light brown sugar (I used splenda)
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 cup blueberries

1. Bring milk to a boil in small saucepan, add quinoa and return to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered until 3/4 of the milk has been absorbed, about 15 minutes.
2.  Stir in sugar and cinnamon, cook covered until almost all the milk has been absorbed, about 8 minutes.  Stir in blueberries, and cook cook for 30 seconds.  Serve with additional milk, sugar, cinnamon & blueberries.
This is the kind I found.

Mix it in a pan

This is the finished product, I actually liked it and ate the whole thing!

Homemade Body Wash

I know, it was a busy weekend for Pinterest experiments and the next one was for body wash.  Very inexpensive.  So here goes:

You need: 16 cups of water, 8 ozs of bar soap, (I used 3 bars of soap I found at a local bargain shop 3/$1). I had to use 3  90g bars.  2 Tbsp glycerin.

First, grate the soap

Done, 3 bars.  At this point add water and glycerin.

Heat on medium heat until all melted.  Doesn't take long.

Take off heat and let cool for 10 to 12 hrs.  Of course my son was home for the weekend and did the finger test,  I let mine set for 12 hrs.

It was quite solid at this point, so I put a little at a time in my mixer, add water until it reaches desired consistency, it doesn't take much.  The only thing, I really didn't care to have smelly things in my mixer, just me.

Hint, have a funnel.  I got this much body wash.  It doesn't suds up like you would expect, but it worked fine and I have enough to last awhile, haha, so I will use it all.

Homemade Bath Salts

My next experiment was to make some homemade bath salts.  No big deal, just wanted something different then regular epsom salts.  So here goes:

Ingredients:  3/4 cup epsom salts, 1/2 cup sea salt, it called for coarse but all I had was fine.  1/4 cup of baking soda, 8 drops of essential oil and food coloring.

Mix all dry ingredients together in bowl.

Add desired amount of food coloring and essential oil.   I wanted pink so it took very little.

Pretty.

And you have it.

Solar Light Jar

This has been my weekend of experiments.  And of course I can give pinterest and their members credit for giving me ideas that I can do myself!  I love it.  So my next thing to do was the solar light jar.  They did theirs out of a mason jar.  I wanted to be a little different, so I went to the area I call "of no return", my basement.  And I found an old peanut butter bear jar that I didn't have the heart to throw out yet.  I took that, put in a bottle of sand I had (we like to get sand from our road trips) from Ormand Beach in Florida.  Put some sea shells I have found on local beaches, hot glued my light on top.  The idea is great especially for the solar lights that the stems have been broken and you have no use for the tops, now I do!  Except I should have made sure it was going to light up at night before I put it out but it comes off easy and I get to use my glue gun again, haha.  So here goes:

I say you should take your memories and use them, don't keep them stored away to forget.

Very few things needed for this.

I put glue around the top.

Make sure your light will fit your jar before you start.

Right now I have it in with my rocks I collect from different places, but that's not it's permanent home, I just want to keep it safe for now.