Stuffed French Toast: Breakfast of loved spouses

It’s easy but it seems hard and you’ll get credit for going the “extra” mile to make breakfast a delicious homemade experience.

For two “servings,” you’ll need..
A generous pad of butter (or a few tbsp of hazelnut oil for them vegan folk)
2 pieces of bread (I use honey wheat)
2 eggs (vegan substitution, 2 tsp of ground flax mixed with 4 tsp of warm water)
2 tsp of cream cheese (vegan substitution, 2 tsp of peanut or almond butter)
1 tsp of your favorite jelly, jam or apple butter
Pinch of nutmeg.
Pinch of cinnamon.
½ cup of fresh or frozen berries (optional).
Syrup to taste or make a berry glaze (recipe below).



In a large pan, heat on medium with a generous slab of butter or a few tbsp of hazelnut oil. While that is heating up. Beat eggs (or make flax goo) in a small bowl, square bowls are ideal. Add cinnamon and nutmeg to eggs. Dip one piece of bread at a time into the egg mixture until saturated and then lay bread flat in pan. Continue with all 4 slices. While bread is cooking put cream cheese (or nut butter) into a small bowl and microwave about 10 seconds, add jelly or jam and mix well. Flip the first two slices of bread once their brown and the egg is cooked on that side (about 2 minutes). On cooked side up place a dollop of cream cheese/jelly mixture. Put cooked side of other 2 slices on top of the cream cheese/jelly and then flip to the uncooked opposite side of the the bread you didn’t put cream cheese/jelly on and let the bottom slice cook until browned well.

Place in a plate and serve with syrup or with the berry glaze.

Berry glaze::
½ cup of fresh or frozen berries
1 tsp of sugar/agave/stevia /honey
¼ cup of water or fruit juice


Microwave berries, if frozen for 45 seconds.

In a small sauce pan, heat for a moment before adding berries and liquid, turn on high and let boil. Once boiling add sugar substance and turn down to low. Keep stirring the entire time. When thick either place over pancakes or in a small serving bowl.

Enjoy!!

Homemade Window & All Purpose Cleaner

Vinegar has no scent when it dries and most importantly for me, it breaks up dog drool like windex would never do.
The Babylonians discovered that vinegar stops the production of bacteria that spoils food and used it as a preservative, cleaning agent, in baths and as a drink.

Sure corporations do a great job of creating combinations of affordable yet effective chemicals to "clean" your house with catchy names, filled with “fresh” scented liquids enticing us to use them with their grand claims of a more serious clean. After a 2 month trial ditching the oxy, bleach, "powerful action" bandwagon I am very happy to announce that
I chose vinegar!
For years, I bought hundreds of dollars of horrible and strong smelling liquid danger and sprayed, spritzed, sprinkled and accidentally inhaled every brand on the market! No more!

And since I changed my cleaning habits, I breathe easier. I have no thick vapor of toxic crap in my chest making me feel nearly suffocated with burning eyes and dry skin. Now that I use vinegar, rubbing alcohol and baking soda for all my cleaning needs... I clean with a conscious awareness that I'm being safe!

Plus, you can buy a gallon bottle of white vinegar for under $2 and since you're only using a few cups for a bottle that lasts for months (depending upon how often you clean) you're making this stuff last! You do the math!

All purpose cleaner::
2 cups of tap water
2 cups white vinegar
1 tbsp of rubbing alcohol
10 drops of eucalyptus oil (optional)
Pour into an empty and cleaned out cleaning spray bottle.
I used an old "shower spray" clear bottle. I took the label off of it and removed the sticky label glue with peanut butter-- more on that later!

• White vinegar cuts grease and dirt on pots, pans, granite counter tops, stove tops, plastic and clothing!!! Yes, it removes clothing stains!!
• It leaves mirrors and windows (even with a ton of dog drool on them)
streak free!!
• It removes lime stains and mold marks from the toilet.
• It cuts grim in the shower.
(but does need to be wiped off. It has no built in bubbles with faces.)

It is my one bottle wonder for cleaning my bathroom. I spray my all-purpose-vinegar-blend in and on the toilet, tub, shower, sinks and mirrors and use a few rags to wipe everything clean. It’s an easy, cheap, healthy way to work magic in the bathroom. I sprinkle baking soda on some stuff first, but I'll get into that further later.

Nevertheless, my mirrors and granite counter shine, there are no cruddy marks left behind. The shower tiles and grout are impeccable. Don’t get me wrong, I do keep a bottle of Lysol wipes next to the toilet for those disgusting stray hairs (or weird pee stains that a husband may leave behind that I do NOT want on a rag that will go in my bathroom dirty rag bin) but I limit that to 1 or 2 wipes a cleaning session instead of the 25 wipes I used to use to clean an apartment that was 3,550 square feet smaller than the house I am in now. I am no longer a slave to the Lysol wipe and I have my friend’s vinegar and rags to thank for it.

I never knew before reading further on this long term food preservative but… Vinegar is magic for the microwave. The acetic acid in it make removing sauce and other stains as simple as the pie that might have left its mark in your microwave. Putting half vinegar and half water in a microwave safe bowl for about 4 minutes, carefully remove the bowl with a pot holder (it will be hot!) and just wipe down the inside of it with a rag… magically clean! I wish I would have known that in college when I shared a microwave with 17 busy girls!


For a list of other tips, check out::
http://www.vinegartips.com/scripts/pageViewSec.asp?id=7

Special thanks for tips to Jillie @
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/

Save a ton of trees, use these!

Facecloths! I pretty much have never used them for my face. But now they’re saving me and my husband plenty of $ and making a huge green movement right in my kitchen. We were going through 12 rolls of paper towels in 2 months when we were using them sparingly. But they were being over used for spills, basic cleaning, dinner napkins, drying hands, you name it… I was pulling 2 sheets off the roll and tossing it in the garbage before I knew it. I was unhappy with the precent of my garbage bag that was filled with paper barely being used but to wipe off the counter or to dry my hands. When I think about the amount of paper towels that my OCD-self has tore off and disposed of not considering the massive pile of waste in a landfill somewhere that my hands created... I feel a deep seeded guilt and a little desire to go hug a tree.

Instead...

I began this movement towards making my home paper-towel free and picked up a pack of 18 facecloths for about $4. I won't lie, the transition to facecloths was tough. At first we would both look at one another with wet hands wondering what to do but soon enough we adjusted. I keep the pretty colored rolled up cloths in a basket on the counter. I keep a small trash basket under the kitchen sink and just throw them in there when they’re dirty. I clean that small basket of small dirty towels in the wash machine whenever the basket it full and it takes me just a few minutes to roll them back up into the basket on the counter where they’re ready to make my life a lot greener.

I have not opened up a roll of paper towels since this movement started and I could not be happier! Today after my husband spilled his entire coffee on the ironically named coffee table he looked at me for assistance, I mentioned the dish towel hanging from the oven and it took care of the entire spill without using 15 sheets of paper. I then sprayed my vinegar mixture on the coffee table and wiped it down with a facecloth… instantly clean and environmentally smart!


Thanks to Jillie for the bright green idea! http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/

Berry Pumpkin Bread

I found this recipe as a regular, non-vegan, sugar laden fall delight and wanted to make it my own. It wasn't the most sugary delicious treat but it was autumazing! And I ate pretty much all of it in one day... pretty much guilt free.

Berry Pumpkin Bread Recipe::

1 cup of 100% canned pumpkin
1 cup of crystal stevia (you can use a cup of sugar, agave, honey, whatever)
¼ cup of water
¼ cup of hazelnut oil (or whatever oil you use for baking)
2 cups of chick pea flour (you can use regular starch-crap-white flour or whole wheat)
1/2 tsp of sea salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon of ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of ground ginger
¼ teaspoon of ground cloves
1 cup of fresh or frozen berries (you can use cranberries too!)
You can use 2 eggs but I used two tablespoons of ground flaxseed instead…
see flax egg-substitute instructions below

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a loaf pan—against better judgment I used Crisco but you can use spray or butter or whatev--- 8 ½ by 4 ½ by 2 ¾ worked perfectly.

2 Egg substitution::
In a small bowl add 6 tablespoons of water and 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed.
Stir it together until it’s turns into a gelatinous goo.

In a big mixing bowl with an electric beater, mix pumpkin, stevia, water, oil and flax goo (or eggs).
Sift in flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and spices and stir until the batter is well mixed and all orange and you can’t see any more flour.
Stir in berries and then spoon batter into the loaf pan and spread it evenly.
Bake the bread for an hour and 10 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean. Put on a rack for ten minutes. The bread can be put on a plate, covered in the fridge for up to 5 days. It was nice when it was warm but better when it was cooled.

I didn't take pictures of the icing mixture lol but here is a little vision of quick clean up from the batter.

Pumpkin cream icing recipe ::
(of course you could go the non-vegan way and buy some or mix some melted cream cheese with pumpkin but I feel like things shouldn’t be so simple lol so here’s what I tried)

½ cup of 100% pumpkin
1 cup of crystal stevia + 1 tsp of arrowroot in a blender until powdery
(not a food processor – a blender!)
1 tsp of hazelnut oil
1 tsp of almond milk

In a medium bowl add pumpkin, hazelnut oil and almond milk. After blended stevia and arrowroot to a powder in the blender, add to the medium bowl mixture. Fold until well mixed. Put on a cooled berry pumpkin bread and enjoy!

Dog drool removal

Apparently, my dogs bowls hadn’t been cleaning for years before I showed up as their new adopted mother. Turns out they needed to adopt me just as much as I needed to find purpose in the continuous pleasing of two practically puppies and a middle aged neglected puggle. Our baby puggle had a terrible case of gingivitis and breath that could kill a smaller living creature and had been the culprit of my gagging time and again. She had a recent teeth cleaning which made a HUGE difference and was put on antibiotics for a while (I obbbbviously gave her daily acidophilus to protect her tummy and it did wonders… but that’s another story!). I wanted to be sure that even if she was licking her brother and sisters bowls clean for them she wasn’t licking up weeks of wicked nasty buildup. But after months of just dishwashing my dogs bowls to find them still left with a slimy film making me feel as if the rest of my dishes had now adopted a bit of their own dog problems, I sought a healthy solution. Though I am not fond of using our pot and pan scrubber for :please excuse the grossness: snot filled, slimy, crumbs left behind, stainless steel, I found a way to fight the slobber without much scrubbing and minimal hassle.

After just 1 meal this is what the bowl looks like.. ew...

So, after dinner clean up or before bed I place the water bowl and three dog bowls in the sink, two on the bottom and two resting atop. After putting the two bottom bowls I spray some HOT water on them just get them wet and then generously sprinkle baking soda. Same goes for the top two.

In the morning I give them each a light spritz of my all-purpose-vinegar-blend and then lightly scrub and rinse the bowls-- usually while my husband’s coffee is brewing, omelets setting or bagel is toasted, and then I squirt an inch or so of rubbing alcohol onto one of my rags (usually one that’s resting on the side of the sink having already dried and wiped something) and wipe each bowl out, including the bottom. I might re-alcohol the rag between bowls but it’s almost not necessary. Not only does the alcohol-rub dry the bowls but it’s certainly disinfecting them in a very natural way. Then I toss the rag into the dirty rag bin, stack the bowls and feel clean and accomplished.

My dog-babies have truly become my children and keeping their bowls clean helps me sleep at night and most definitely doesn’t hurt their chances of a longer, healthier life. Now if only brushing their teeth were so easy…

Rubbing alcohol: Streak free stainless steel secret weapon!

Good enough to clean your cuts, best way to clean your kitchen stuff!

It is a task to find a product that works well for stainless steel (even “stainless steel wipes” suck!). Who knew this little bottle of shine magic was in my medicine cabinet the whole time?!

On top of being a stainless steel miracle solution, it is also a great way to streak-free-shine your microwave, stove top, counter tops, coffee pot, etc. etc. I’m seriously amazed every time I use the stuff! Just a squirt on a rag and a wipe down makes dull appliances look like new. Although the clean, shiny appearance always seems to be the best part about it … the affordable disinfecting and the nature of the product is most impressive. We know rubbing alcohol is the go-to for disinfecting cuts, scrapes and other bodily injuries so to see if shine up my kitchen for the first time, I almost cried. A lot of the stuff goes a long way. I’m serious, just a quick squirt on a rag and a rub down does wonders.

Who knew?!

For most stainless steal, granite, linoleum, metal or plastic just rubbing alcohol and a rag are sufficient but for heavy duty cleaning like very dirty showers, outdoor projects, glue, paint, nail polish, heavy grease or dirt... Use a combination of some stuff you probably already have!

Mix:
1 tbsp of alcohol
1 tbsp of baking soda
1 tbsp of white vinegar

** It is flammable so don’t go cleaning lit candle jars or anything else silly! Use caution. And do NOT drink it, either… it isn't safe to ingest large amounts! Plus, you’re better off with vodka for that.

Powerful homemade carpet cleaning powder

I no longer feel worried that I’m inhaling a dangerous “tropical fiesta” every time I’m about to vacuum. I’m also not scared that one of my dogs will let their tongue hang out and touch the surface they're on because there's nothing deadly dangerous in my homemade cleaning/deodorizing powder!

The store bought stuff can be filled with formaldehyde or pesticides and some smells shockingly similar to JWH-018, rat poison. There are also long term affects speculated of some of the ingredients like “phthalates, which have been linked to cancer, birth defects, infertility and disrupting the body's endocrine system. They also can set off dangerous reactions in individuals with asthma and other breathing disorders. Other chemicals commonly used in fresheners are linked to pulmonary and lung problems.”

Read more: Is Carpet Freshener Safe? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_12036646_carpet-freshener-safe.html#ixzz27QjUDm5w

In the time it takes to sprinkle the powder and vacuum the majority up, one of my dogs may find a spot to lick for that minute and how could I live with the worry that I'm slowly poisoning them in attempt to keep my house smelling less like them?

I couldn't, so I changed my ways and decide I love my dogs a lot more than I “Love my Carpet.” And now, I control the amazing smell I sprinkle and the healthy way I keep my fabrics smelling fresh and clean!

I was using a recipe I found from someone that was borax based but after reading that inhalation was no good for the respitory system I’ve found that with washing soda in place is just as good (if not better!) and not as aggravating to the lungs--- although borax has never bothered me (but it does kills ants!).

In a old natural peanut butter jar I VERY CAREFULLY poked a few holes through the lid with it on the jar. This felt dangerous and stupid but it works very well. Some use an old, cleaned, grated cheese jar. That seems to have very big wholes making for much more powder being sprinkled, but whatever works for you! If you do chose to poke holes in a metal top… PLEASE, be very careful!

Homemade carpet powder::
½ cup of washing soda
1 cup of baking soda
5 drops of essential oil or a sprinkle of cinnamon or any other spice you love (I’ve used oil burner oil from yankee candle and it is amazing!!! A lot goes a long way, just 3 drops and then mixed well with a butter knife and my house smells like “Autumn Wreath.”)

I sprinkle it onto my carpet or couch and let it sit about 10 minutes before vacuuming it up. I don't let the dogs in that room during this time. Even though it's a safer solution, I don't want them eating it anyway!

If there is a stain, I rub it with a rag and a little tiny bit of water, the washing soda works as a stain remover-- depending upon the stain. The house smells great and the fabric is now cleaned and deodorized!