So… that’s why they call you One-Eyed Willie… One-Eyed Willie.

Today’s Highlights

[FREE] Spearmint,peppermint,lemon balm & chocolate mint plants. I asked on Freecycle. I received.  I missed havng mint. You know, mint is an excellent deterrant to mosquitos and other pests. Everyone should have a potted mint plant in their patio area ( for easier access to mint leaves for making mojitos).

[BOOK]

Power and Glory by Emily Rodda

A fun read-aloud. A kid playing a new video game is continually interrupted by family members (represented by characters/monsters in the game) whle tryng to reach new levels. We noticed that no one n ths storybook family ever says please and they’re kind of rude…..sometimes a little bit like at our house.  Noted and will be worked on. Vibrant and kinetic illustrations by Geoff Kelly. Author Emily Rodda is most definitely a mother, probably of boys. I can tell wthout even reading her bio.

[Food] Curried Cauliflower & Chickpea Stew .Except I added broccoli,too.

[Family Movie]

[blog title from The Goonies]

Jupiter’s Recipes: Homemade Laundry Detergent

I have to confess – my nose is a little bit out of joint. Those who used to read my old now-deleted blogs seem to miss two things: some story I wrote about my kids chasing each other through the house pretending to be zombies or hunting zombies (I can’t remember which  but it seems to be referred to as That Zombie Story…With Your Kids…And You On The Toilet..)  and my recipe for laundry detergent.

5 years of blogging and those were my greatest hits?  Jeezus, I suck!

Someday,I’ll figure out what I did w/ the Zombie Story. The recipe is easier. I’ve made this detergent so many times, I could tell you off the top of my head how to make it.

What You Need

2 ½ gallon bucket to mix and store the detergent

½ bar of fels naptha soap

1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

Water

Optional: liquid fragrance (non-oily) or scented soaps for scent

What You Do

1. Grate the soap with a normal kitchen grater into a saucepan. TIP: Pick up an extra grater at a yard sale or thrift store  and designate this your soap grater.The soap does not rinse well and it’s kind of nasty to eat soapy-flavored mac and cheese.It’s a good idea to use a separate saucepan for this too.
2. Put enough water in the pan w/ the soap to just cover the gratings. Heat on medium,stirring occasionally until all the soap is melted.
3. Fill your bucket with hot water and add the Super Washing Soda  and melted soap. Stir to blend
4. Use about 1 cup per wash load.

When a new batch is made, it’s nothing but liquid but it is still fine to use right away.As it sits, it will have a thicker consistency.

The fels naptha does not smell bad as a detergent in my opinion, but sometimes I add little odds and ends of scented fancy soaps that don’t seem to have much purpose but sit in a soap dish and look pretty. The fels naptha seems to be a very gentle soap once it’s in detergent form and has worked great for myself and even the kids, who have extremely sensitive skin.

It’s ok to use liquid fragrance (like those you can buy at craft stores for soap making) but don’t use anything oily. It will stain or leave a residue on your clothing.

You can also use this same recipe with other detergent bar soaps and even a Baby Laundry Detergent version using your favorite baby soap. Just substitute the fels naptha with a soap of your choice.

I have been able to find fels naptha & Super Washing Soda easily at the grocery store (I shop at Wegman’s ) but if you can’t find them in your local grocery store, ask them to order it for you. If your grocery store sells Dial (the parent company of fels naptha) or Arm & Hammer products, this should be a piece of cake. Or, if that fails, just order them online.

Why On Earth Would You MAKE Detergent When You Can Buy It?!

Oh, I have a ton of reasons. Mainly ,it’s because I’m cheap frugal. I do laundry for 7 people. I can make 2 ½ gallons of detergent for somewhere around the $1.00 mark. Actually, I think it works out to be LESS than $1  per 2 ½ gallons.  It works just as well (or maybe even better) than any store bought detergent.

As a perk, it’s phosphorous-free and pretty friendly to the environment. Also, since you are using the same bucket every time, that reduces waste such as empty plastic detergent bottles.  Yes,plastic is recyclable but the idea is to get to the point where there is NO waste,even if it is recyclable. Also, detergent bottles are very heavy shipped in transit to the grocery store.Heavier items use more fuel to transport. Yes, there still will be truckloads of detergent shipped to stores everyday using valuable resources but the environmental cost  will not figure into your own eco-footprint.

The best benefit I’ve found in this detergent is that it is tough enough for cloth diapers and still gentle enough for sensitive skin.

Biggest Whiny Remark  I’ve Heard Time and Time Again: “But…wahh…I don’t have time to maaake it myself It’s tooooo haaaard ! “

 

Shhh,right now. Yes you do. It takes a commercial break to get it all done. Surely you can give up a potty and snack break to make yourself some detergent while your favorite show is having a commercial break.  It really is not hard or time consuming. At all. No excuses accepted here

Jupiter’s Twitter Files:Zucchini -Crusted Pizza

Twitter is a fantastic microblogging tool but sometimes I’m just a big blabbermouth who feels the need to elaborate pass the 140 characters…..

The Tweet

“making Zucchini-Crusted Pizza, one of my kids’ faves… http://www.recipezaar.com/6…” about 20 hours ago from web

Beyond the Tweet

The page in my Moosewood cookbook with the recipe for Zucchini-Crusted Pizza looks like it’s … Well. Encrusted with Zucchini-Crusted Pizza. Once upon a time, I was not the Domestic Goddess that I am now and didn’t know that “Put your cookbook/recipe in a big plastic baggie while you’re cooking” trick.

I was young. I wasn’t raised in a household that actually cooked their food. I was figuring it out as i went along.

The Moosewood Cookbook was a yard sale find. The Kid Timeline I judge time by tells me it was probably about 14 or 15 years ago. It was when the First Kid was little …but before the twins were born. Most mother’s are familiar with this sort of timeline. It’s like B.C. and A.D.  but with your kids names substituted for where the Christ part goes.It’s helpful for parents who can’t remember where they put there car keys or what today’s date is ,let alone how much the third kid weighed at birth .

This recipe has been used frequently in our household, whenever zucchini is in season especially. Have you ever noticed that at the end of the summer everyone has a ton of zucchini they’re trying to give away but nobody ever seems to know what the hell they’re supposed to do with it?

(don’t worry…I’m not going to turn this into another sex with phallic shaped veggies post.I promise…)

This is THE solution to what to do with zucchini. The genius part of it is that once it’s covered with sauce and regular pizza toppings, the green bits are cleverly disguised and any kid will devour it. The link to the recipe included in the Tweet is flawed.it is not the original recipe as written by Mollie Katzen and it’s also a little different from how I make it. Over the years,I have adapted the original recipe to suit my own tastes so here is what has become my version:

Zucchini-Crusted Pizza

Preheat oven to 350°

The Crust:

One good sized,zucchini,grated. It typically turns out to be about 3-4 cups

3 eggs,beaten

1/3 cup flour (I use whole wheat)

½ cup mozzarella

¼ parmesan

¼ cheddar

1 tbls basil

salt

Do this:

Salt the zucchini lightly and let it sit for 15 minutes. Squeeze all the excess moisture out of the zucchini. What I do is, squeeze it in handfuls over the sink and transfer the squeezed gratings to the mixing bowl

Combine all the rest of the crust ingredients with the zucchini and spread into an oiled  9 x 13 baking pan. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it will cover the entire bottom of the pan but if you use a rubber spatula, you can make it stretch.This is a thin but soft crust.

Bake 20-25 minutes,until the surface is dry and firm.

Put all your desired pizza toppings on and throw it back in the oven until heated thoroughly and cheese is nice and melty.

Jupiter has leftover squash

Squishy Squashy Muffins

2 cups yellow squash

2 eggs

1/2 cup honey

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 flaxseed

1 tbsp. plus 2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

3/4 c. oil (or applesauce)

Grate the squash and add salt to it. Let it sit for about 5 minutes and wring out any excess moisture. Add eggs,honey and oil. Then add sifted-together dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly and spoon batter into muffin tins.Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes.

Jupiter Sinclair cooks “Not in My Twat Stir-Fry”

Carlos laid a long,green-skinned vegetable on the counter. “I brought you something”.

“Ok,enlighten me…what is it exactly?”.

“It’s something for you to have fun with.See?”. He grabbed the veggie off the counter and placing it between his legs, thrusting it back and forth at her.

Jupiter rolled her eyes and mocked disdain. “Yeah,ok.But with this food crisis, I think we should be putting food in our bellies instead of in my twat. I would feel guilty.”

“It’s an Opo Squash. Some little old Indian lady gave it to me.She says they’re delicious with green peppers and onions.” ,he finally explained,putting his squash/dildo-thrusting antics away.

“Oh,that’ll go over well with the kids.They don’t do peppers,remember?”.
Normally they weren’t picky about food.The children had been raised with real food from birth, fresh veggies from the garden,fruit from the orchard or Farmer’s Market. They knew where their food really came from, unlike a lot of kids Jupiter had encountered in her years of teaching. Most kids seemed to think food magically appears at the grocery store, laying on styrofoam trays and tightly plastic-wrapped ,waiting to be taken home.

Jupiter observed that these kids were the ones who were most likely to say,”Ew, I don’t like that!” (before trying it) to anything not resembling a chicken finger or given to them in an over-processed,sugar-loaded plastic single-serving size container.It was all part and parcel of Nature-Deficit-Disorder.Kids who were raised seeing their food from seed to harvest were less likely to turn their nose up at anything edible. Their kids were like this too…except when it came to peppers. Peppers were a no-go,no matter how fancy Jupiter cooked and disguised them.

“I’ll figure out something to do with it,without peppers,”she said. “And if I don’t figure something out, we might end up doing something fun with it after all”.

Jupiter’s Not in My Twat Stir-Fry

1 lb Ground Whatever – turkey,beef,lamb,pork,crumbles tofu

1 Opo Squash (save the seeds to plant in the spring)

2 nice sized tomatoes

A bunch of mushrooms

handful of bean sprouts

splash of soy sauce

splash of vineger (or vinaigrette dressing)

Brown meat first. Add veggies and cook until everything is tender. Add water or vegetable/chicken broth if needed. Serve with rice,noodles or inside a pita or wrap bread.