Green Onions Grown in Water

I got this tip from watching Food Network's "Next Food Network Star" several months ago. The winner, Melissa D'Arabian, gave this tip in one of the episodes. She said that you can keep green onions alive in water and the green part will continue to grow. The tip caught my attention immediately, but I don't use green onions frequently, so I pushed it to the back of my mind.

This weekend it surfaced when I had to make a special trip to a grocery store that I rarely visit just for green onions. They were sold in bunches of 6 or 7 and I only needed a few, so I decided to give Melissa's tip a try.

I added them to a cute little bud vase on my counter on day one. They were perky and cute. All was well. On day 2, Mr. said, "Your onions are turning yellow and drooping." I had nothing to lose and decided to keep going.



Today is day 6. Look at the new growth emerging. It works!!! Maybe I'll use green onions more often if I don't have to make a special trip to the store to get them. And now that they're green, it feels kind of like Spring in my kitchen despite the frigid temperatures and piles of snow.

Homemade Christmas – Project: Cookie Sheet Advent Calendar

Remember these?



They can turn into these...



Yep…those old, ugly, beat up cookie sheets and tv trays can turn into these absolutely adorable reusable advent calendars. These are perfect for an early Christmas present to be mailed or given at Thanksgiving.

1. Start with old or new cookie sheet or tv tray. I found mine at a resale shop for $0.25 each. I was thrilled!!!

2. Drill two holes at the top of the sheet to hang later.

3. Paint your cookie sheet (wash and sand first if you have a used one) with spray paint that will work on metal.

4. Use coordinating scrapbook papers, construction paper or wrapping paper to decorate the cookie sheet.

5. Add a title of your choice using stickers or cut out your own letters.

6. Go crazy with embellishments. This is the fun part. On the blue and burgundy advent calendars, I made tiny envelopes. These are going to the grandparents and will be filled with tiny black and white pictures of Bug and Doodle for them to remove each day. I’ll collect the pictures on Christmas Day and use them to create a border for a color picture of the girls together…(Grandmas – if you’re reading this, please act surprised.)

On the red advent calendar I made origami boxes. These are the perfect size to hold a couple of Hershey’s kisses or a few M&Ms. I’ll post the instructions for making the origami boxes tomorrow. They’re very easy.

And yet another idea is to decorate small bead storage containers or tins like I’ve done here. Still have to add more detail to this one.



7. Add numbers and more embellishments.

8. Attach magnets. You can use hot glue for round ones or you can use magnetic tape that has a removable sticky back.

9. Tie with ribbon for hanging and you’re finished…I’ve been so busy decorating these sheets that I almost forgot this step – Oops!

The possibilities for this advent calendar are endless and they’re so darn cute you’ll need to get busy right away so that you have time to make one for yourself and for someone else.

Homemade Christmas Challenge Update…I mentioned when I started this challenge that I would be sharing ideas on where to buy homemade Christmas gifts. Please contact me at selfreliant101student@gmail.com if you’re interested in placing an order for your very own advent calendar.

Yuck, Yuck, Yuck….Yumm! – Butchering Chickens

I think I finally have everything related to Saturday’s chicken butchering cleaned up and put away. I will not lie to you…it is a lot of work, but well worth it. This is how the day progressed:

7:00 AM – Mr. heads out to string up the first 10. We have found (through our wealth of experience – HA, all two times) that the best way to kill a chicken is to hang it upside down by its feet and then cut its head off. This eliminates the whole headless chicken running around terrorizing the neighborhood. Could you imagine?!?! Let them hang for several minutes so that they bleed out.

7:30 AM – The plucking begins. We set up a propane turkey fryer and my large pressure cooker filled with water to scald the birds before plucking. The heat releases the feathers and makes plucking much easier. Trust me, it works. The first time we butchered chickens we didn't scald them. I found Mr. sitting at the counter in our kitchen with a pair of needle nose pliers trying to pluck a chicken.

The water needs to be very hot. They just need a quick dip. The best thing to do is to start plucking the feathers around the neck first. This allows the skin around the legs more time to cool so that you don’t rip the skin while you pluck those feathers.

We iced them down in a cooler while they awaited the final cleaning and bagging in the kitchen.

9:30 AM – First 10 are complete. We stop for breakfast…I know, how could we possibly eat after that? It’s a lot of work, but it’s really not that bad.

10:30 AM – Mr. heads out to string up the next 8. The water must have been the perfect temperature with this batch because the feathers came out with little effort.

11:30 AM – Mr. heads out to string up the last 7.

12:45 PM – Final cleaning continues in the kitchen and the cleanup outside commences.

2:00 PM – Everything outside is cleaned up and drying in the sun. All chickens have been cleaned thoroughly inside, have been bagged and are in the freezer.

6:00 PM – Dinner. And what do you eat on chicken butchering day? Only the freshest fried chicken you’ve ever had. Add some mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, corn from our garden and iced tea and you have the best, freshest comfort food you could imagine.

Reusable Duster – No Sew

I dusted! Since I showed everyone my dust here, sheer embarrassment finally motivated me to dust my house. It took me an hour and a half…no joke. And since dusting is the worst household chore in my opinion, that was torture. I decided that I needed to stay on top of my dusting and just make it happen – period. Surprisingly, I’ve been doing a much better job.

But by doing a better job, I’ve been going through the Swiffer dusters and I’m out. I refuse to buy more, so I came up with a reusable duster that has plenty of places to capture the dust like the Swiffer duster, but without the price tag.

To make this funny looking reusable duster all you need is some fabric – this is the perfect time to dig in your rag bag or clothes headed for charity. Find something soft; I used an old pair of pajama pants.

1. Start by making your pattern on paper. You’re making a mitten, minus the thumb. Trace it larger that you need.
2. Place your pattern on your fabric and cut it out several inches wider all the way around.



3. Cut ½-1 inch fringes around the entire mitt.



4. Tie the fringe from the top piece to the matching fringe from the bottom piece. Double knot.

That’s it. How simple is that?

Happy Dusting!

Making Your Own Baby Food

I know, you’re probably thinking what’s wrong with buying baby food? I know that’s what I was thinking when a nurse gave me a handout on the subject during my discharge after having Bug. Why in the world would I make baby food when there’s so much to choose from at the store?

I continued this thinking until it was time for Bug to start eating baby food and I looked at the beautiful rainbow of colors that lined the baby food aisle…and then I looked at the nice little sticker on that baby food. I don’t think so.

I haven’t openly admitted that I’m an El Cheapo, but it’s probably easy to figure out. So here it is…I’m an El Cheapo, especially when I could make the same thing myself. So the research began on how to make baby food. And everything I read sounded surprisingly easy. So I tried it and it’s surprisingly easy.

I take the food of choice – peas were on the menu for today – and I make in bulk. I started with two bags of frozen peas in my steamer on the stove. I steamed the peas until they were tender and bright green. Aren’t they pretty?



I then blended until they were the right consistency. If I need extra liquid, I use the leftover water from steaming since it has all of those good vitamins. I then spoon or pour into ice cube trays and freeze. When they’re frozen solid, I dump them into a zip lock bag and store in the freezer. When I’m ready to use, I pull out a few cubes, place in a microwave safe bowl and defrost them.


This is how I make pretty much every kind of baby food. Here are some exceptions:

• Meats – Cook in the crock pot until cooked through, puree with broth until correct consistency.
• Squash - Roast in the oven until fork tender, puree with water until correct consistency.

Seems way to easy, right? It is. Give it a try.

I’m Getting Sick – YUCK!

It’s creeping up on me slowly, but all of my attempts to ward it off are starting to be overtaken by this next cold that I feel I’m destined to get. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I ran out in the rain yesterday morning wearing only flip flops on my way to milk Daisy. Oops.

In true form of my self-reliant nature, I’m not a big fan of taking medicine. When I feel a cold creeping up on me I have several natural remedies that I try and try again before finally resorting to the medicine cabinet.

• Here are a few of the natural remedies that I use prior and during:
  
• Vitamin C tablets
  
• Hot Tea with lemon and honey (The acid in the lemon clears your throat and the honey soothes it.)
  
• Orange Juice with honey (I gave this to Bug the last time she got a sore throat/cough and it calmed her cough.)
  
• Vick’s on my chest and under my nose. If the cold has really settled in my chest, I put the
• Vick’s on my chest and then put a warm towel (I heat it in the microwave) over my chest and then drink the hot tea.
  
• Vick’s on the bottoms of my feet and then socks (This is for a cough. I have no idea why this works, but it does.
  
• Homemade chicken noodle soup
  

I’m not sure why some of these work, but they seem to help so I’ll keep using them. If you know why they work, I’d love to know.

What natural remedies do you have when you’re sick?

Homemade Christmas – 10 Week Challenge

Can you believe it? Only 10 weeks (70 days) until Christmas. I knew it was coming, but I hadn’t given it much thought until a couple of days ago when I was reading my friend Christina’s blog where she brings up the subject of Christmas shopping.

Unlike Christina, I have already started shopping. My yearly goal is to be finished with shopping by Thanksgiving and be able to spend the month of December baking and just enjoying the time of year. Besides, it never fails, I forget something or someone else forgets something and this way I’ve built in a huge window of error.


Since I was a little kid, some of my Christmas gifts have been homemade. I know some people feel that this is cheap, but I believe that time is the most precious gift you can give someone. And making something for someone takes time.

My challenge to you this Christmas season: Give one more homemade gift this year than you did last year. If you bought every single gift last year, you have it easy – one. Just one gift should be homemade or at the very least, buy something that someone else made.


During my 10 week challenge I will be posting frequently on the topic and be giving you step-by-step project instructions, recipes, practical ideas and timelines to keep your homemade Christmas gifts on target for the big guy’s arrival.


Your first step is to create a list of your gift recipients. Be detailed. What do they like/dislike? What advantage do you have over this person? Are you a stay at home Mom with plenty of time on your hands, but your oldest sister is a mover and shaker corporate type with not a moment to spare? Your advantage over her is your time. Is your Mom a far superior cook than you, but can’t bake if her life depended on it? Write it down.

"The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value."

- Charles Dudley Warner

I Think it’s Time to Dust

Yep, that’s my dust.

I am a creature of habit; plain and simple. I have a schedule/list for everything, including cleaning. It has its advantages but there is one big disadvantage: my house rarely gets dusted. How, you ask. It’s really quite simple.

I clean on Mondays. I pull the sheets off the beds and while they’re washing, I vacuum the entire house. I then clean the bathrooms, sweep the floors and then mop. And what’s left? Dusting.

Just last Monday, I looked around my house and said this house is gross, I have to clean. What was I referring to that was gross? The dust. Did I start with dusting? Nope, I pulled out the vacuum. And guess what happened? By the time I got the whole house cleaned and was ready to dust, I got sidetracked. Before I knew it, it was Wednesday and then Friday and I finally had a chance to dust. But I didn’t because I thought, it’s almost Monday; might as well wait. And there you have it.

And because I wait so long I can’t dry dust because there’s just too much. I have to use a spray to be able to capture all of those nasty little dust particles. I can’t seem to find the time to dust, but I have time to make my own dusting spray…go figure.

It’s very simple: 2 parts olive oil to 1 part lemon juice. Combine in a new spray bottle. Don’t forget to label the spray bottle so you know exactly what’s in it when you finally find the time to use it again. Shake well before each use. It doesn’t take very much and I’ve found that it’s much more effective to spray the rag instead of the furniture.

My dusting cloths are also very simple: Mr.’s old t-shirts. It seems his t-shirts multiply and it just so happens that they’re about to jump out of his drawer at the exact same time that I need more dust rags. And since I don’t dust very frequently, the few that I take from his drawer seem to last me quite some time.

When I find the time to dust, my furniture loves it. The olive oil feeds the wood and it looks like new. If all else fails, you have the recipe for a great base for homemade salad dressing.