We Like Making Our Own Stuff

The month of April has been a cold and snowy one here in Wisconsin, but finally, here in these last days of the month, Spring has finally decided to show her warm, sunny face.  With temperatures now hitting the sixties and seventies, I have taken to the outdoors and begun cleaning out my flower gardens.  I'm pleased to see some crocus bulbs coming up, and the green returning to my thyme.

Skip the corn syrup and low-fat milk found in store bought fruit-on-the-bottom yogurts, and make your own homemade version.  Making yogurt is actually quite simple--all you need is milk and a yogurt culture (either from a previous batch of yogurt or a purchased starter ) and a little warmth.

What do you got? A huge egg with two yolks in it?  A wrinkly misshapen egg?  An egg with a soft shell?  Or perhaps the all-inclusive just plain weird looking egg? Whatever it is, I hope to help clear up some of the mystery behind: Why Did My Chicken Lay That Strange Egg?

Here is a new spin on breakfast that's wonderfully simple.  You can leave the potatoes to cook as you get dressed for the day, while the eggs and sausage fry up quickly once it's about time to eat.  To save even more time in the morning, you can have all the ingredients pre-cooked the night before, and then just reheat everything the morning.

I looked at our weekly menu plan last night, and saw that my husband had written down "cheesy biscuits" as that evening's side dish.  What a perfect opportunity for me to bust out my grain mill.

If your kids are taking lunch from home to school, you may be running out of ideas.  I know I am!  Sandwiches and wraps get old after a while, you know? When looking for inspiration, many parents cross paths with a product known as Lunchables.  You know, the cool pre-made lunches sold at grocery stores?  The ones your kid begs you to buy every time you pass them in the store?  The ones that are highly processed and over-priced?  We pass on those, but I'm not above trying to copy them myself.

Looking for a good snack for movie night?  I have one for you.  But be careful, because good popcorn can be addicting! You can make a batch of delicious Cheesy Garlic Popcorn in about 15 minutes--not really much longer than it takes to make a bag of the microwave stuff, and this popcorn is much tastier and healthier (there's definitely no "natural butter flavor" in this popcorn, whatever that is). I used a trusty cast iron pan with its lid to pop this popcorn.  If you use cast iron, please note that you will not need to do your workout that day; just making the popcorn counts as exercise.  Seriously, that pan was really heavy, next time I'm using a different one.  Nonetheless, the popcorn doesn't care how heavy your pan is, it still tastes delicious!

Are you looking for ways to save money?  Who isn't nowadays? Every little thing you do helps and the small things really do add up.  Which is why I have a somewhat creepy tub of soap scraps in my bathroom. I admit, it seems a little weird to save soap scraps, but it wasn't always this way.  In fact, they used to have little contraptions for saving your soap scraps. But those days are gone.  Or are they? I think frugality is making a comeback--at least, it is around here, because I save all our soap scraps.  What do I do with them? Recycled Soap Scrap Bars If you are regular users of bar soap, a family of four can easily manage to get six additional bars of soap per year by saving soap scraps.  It doesn't seem like much, so I'll write it this way instead:  in ten years, that would be 60 bars of "free" soap.  There, that seems more impressive. Ingredients: Soap scraps Water Herbs (optional) 1.  Grate or fi...

I wanted to exclusively breastfeed my twins, I really did. And I thought I could.  While I was pregnant, I read books and articles all emphasizing the fact that the more milk you express, the more milk you will make, so there is no reason a mom shouldn't be able to feed twins or even triplets exclusively on breast milk.  For whatever reason, however, my boobies didn't quite understand this theory.  My babies were feeding constantly, but never seemed to get full.  And worse, they were barely gaining any weight.  I was starting to get very worried about my Baby Girl and Little Man. My pediatrician at the time was absolutely no help.  I was told that I needed to offer them the breast more frequently, though I'm not sure how that was possible since I was already constantly feeding them--seriously, I couldn't even go to the bathroom without them screaming because my boob wasn't in their mouth.  I was also told that they weren't latching...