Lack of Dishwasher Detergent Spurs Experimentation

So yesterday we ran out of dish detergent. Actually truth be told we ran out before we went on vacation over a week ago, but it didn't really matter until yesterday.

DH has forever been supportive of all homemade cleaning products EXCEPT dish detergent. I believe he had horrible nightmares of soap suds filling our entire kitchen :).

I had long given up on even thinking about making it at home, when all of a sudden what should I hear cross his lips? "Why don't you just make some?" - Huh? Wha? Who are you and what have you done with my husband?

But with my new found freedom I beelined it to the handy dandy internet to see what I could find.

The most helpful recipe I found here http://www.debtfreeadventure.com/2009/07/simple-effective-jabs-homemade-dishwasher-detergent-rinse-agent/.

Fortunately, earlier in the year I started making our laundry detergent using the recipe from this site http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/laundrysoap.htm (though I use Ivory soap instead of Fels Naptha) so I already had Borax and Washing Powders but I didn't have any citric acid or kosher salt. So I trotted off to the kitchen to see what I could substitute.

Here's the recipe I ended up with:

1/2 cup Borax

1/2 cup Washing Powders

1/4 cup Cream of Tartar

1/4 cup Lemon Juice

Combine and store- use 1 Tablespoon per load

For the rinse aid I combined vinegar and lemon juice at a 1:1 ratio.

We've run 2 successful loads so far and look forward to many more!

The Ugly Side

It has really been a trying last few weeks.

I am loathe to chronicle our failings but realize they must come with our successes or people might start to view us as super human and without challenges. We have had figs exploding in the pantry, and I can tell you those don't smell good. Some might imagine a liquor type smell from figs gone bad. I can promise you the reality is not so attractive. It is down right foul and rotten smelling. Blech! Oh and it leaches into the rest of your house! :P We won an auction on a Squeezo for the In-Laws from Ebay. It's suppose to awesome for applesauce and tomatoes.

Unfortunately, 2 of the bushings for the screens were missing. Fortunately, we can order a repair kit. Since the tomato screen was broken, we had to run our tomatoes through the berry screen. We ended up more with tomato juice than sauce. So the next go around we just used a recipe I had on hand that uses seeds and peelings and all :)

Our garden is looking horrible.

The tomatoes have dried up and died.

Our Cucumber is yellow and wilty. The weeds are knee high.

On the bright side our Bell Peppers have finally decided to fruit and our eggplant has put on new flowers!(which the stupid bunnies have since eaten!) I have put off starting new seeds, for the past 2 weekends. I could already have new sprouts up and growing but laziness has taken over. Even the wonderful cool weather we have been experiencing isn't motivating me to the garden. Nor the bees poor girls it looks like it will have been 2 weeks before we get back into the hives. Bad bee parents!

I'll go ahead and blame it on the canning. I am so sick of canning this year. The first few weeks we spent canning I was proud and delighted at the novelty. Now I just feel like a slave to vegetables. the prospect of stringing any more beans sends shivers up my spine. I really have to wonder just how many jars of tomatoes we really need. I'm sure I'll be happy in winter. As for now I'm just tired!

So far this year:

15 quarts Tomatoes

12 quarts Tomato Sauce
43 pints Tomatoes
20 quarts Applesauce
21 Quarts Green beans5 pints fig preserves
7 pints whole figs
4 pints Jalapeños
4 jam jars of salsa

Frozen-
28 ears of corn
7 quarts of creamed corn
8 quarts of okra
7 quarts shredded zucchini

My Favorite Cucumber Recipe

Last summer my cucumbers didn't grow- At All!

I sowed the seeds, they poked their heads out and then NOTHING!

They grew to be about 6 inches tall?! Poor little cucumbers.

So this year they got precious little garden space- I set aside about a foot for them at the edge of a row, in case they didn't grow, I wouldn't have dedicated an entire block to failure, again. You can't say I don't learn! And up came four little plants. And grew and grew and grew. Wouldn't you know with their little amount of space they are flourishing and are trying their darndest to escape the garden.

With happy cucumbers comes an abundance of cucumbers, and their are only so many cucumber salads one family can eat.

We have pickled some.

We keep cucumber water in our refrigerator (YUM!).

But one of my favorite uses is this recipe for Sauteed Cucumbers that we found in How To Cook Everything:

I have to admit there is really little "sauteed" about it- It turns out alot like our fried okra. I can't say its healthy but its super yummy!

Sauteed Cucumbers with Lemon

We make some personal adjustments :)

About 1 Lb Cucumber (this is really good for those Gigantic cucumbers that you missed when they were normal size suddenly appear from no where)

1 Lemon

2 TBL Veggie Oil

2 cups All Purpose Flour for dredging (I use half flour and half cornmeal)

salt and pepper to taste

Peel the cucumbers, if waxed (of course we can skip this step)

Cut cucumbers in half

Scoop out the seeds with a spoon

Cut into 3/4 inch chunks

Zest the lemon you will need about 1 tsp of zest

Cut lemon in half and section as you would an orange (we usually only use half a lemon)

Heat oil in large skillet over medium high heat

Place flour in large plastic or paper bag

Add cucumbers to the bag (we use a large plastic container for this)

Shake well

Add dredged cucumbers to the skillet

Cook for about 10 minutes until the outsides are crispy and the interiors can be easily peirced with a thin bladed knife

Stirring occasionally (we let them cook without stirring for the first 5 minutes)

Add the lemon zest and sections

Cook for another minute

Serve :)

Canned Figs and Fig Preserves

What happened to all those figs?

One of the interesting parts of trying new things are the little tidbits of information you learn.

I learned that figs are low in acid and you must add acid in order to can and preserve them. So if you change the quantity of figs in a recipe you must adjust the acidity level as well.

Who would have thought?

We also learned that figs+port=YUM!

All the prettiest figs, those with no skin splits or blemishes, went on to become whole canned figs. We ended up with 10 pint!

Figs getting washed

After they have been blanched

In the jar

All finished and pretty :)

All the rest got turned into 5 pints of Fig Preserves!

Before

After

This is super yummy stuff!

We adapted a recipe from this forum to suit our tastes and needs:

5 lbs Figs (washed and stemmed and quartered)

2 1/2 cups Sugar

1 1/4 cups Port

3/4 cups Lemon Juice

1 1/2 TBL Orange Zest

Dash of vanilla extract

Place figs in sauce pan (I didn't want to quarter the figs, but I did anyway), mash if needed (I tried but they didn't mash much)

Cook for 30 minutes (We did but next time I think we will cook them a bit longer and then mash them)

Stir occasionally to prevent sticking (this wasn't much of a problem; maybe we should have had them on a higher heat?)

Add remaining ingredients

Cook for an additional 15 minutes (ours took a bit longer to obtain to correct consistency)

Stirring occasionally

Remove from heat

Spoon into sterlized jars

Cap securely

Place in boiling water bath 10 minutes

This stuff is REALLY good served over vanilla icecream :)

Figs!!!!

Okay, so here is a concept that is completely foreign to me, having a fruit tree and not harvesting the fruit! Because free food is good right? And free good food is even better! And free ripe figs?! Well!

Yesterday, while my family and I were driving, DH spied a fig tree completely covered in ripe figs. He insists the people who live there are not using their figs and that we should ask if we can have the figs.

Sidenote: I have to say I have a bold husband. He doesn't think twice about knocking on a stranger's door to ask for what they are not using. One of the most amazing things is that people almost always say yes!

We pull over and off goes DH to ask if he can pick the tree. Apparently the tree is no longer used, the woman's ex grandfather in law (hee) use to make fig preserves but now they don't use it at all! DH is welcome to come and pick all the figs he wants! YEAH! Free figs!

30 lbs of figs later, it is now up to me to figure out what to do with this new found bounty :)

I think I'll be canning some, but might also have enough to make some fig butter, YUM!

Backyard experiment

What we are doing-

I am a wife and mother living in an older suburban Metro Atlanta neighborhood.

About two years ago, after being laid off, I redefined my 10 year goal. After reading an article in a magazine about a small restaurant in England that was almost completely self sustaining, I knew that was what I wanted to do. While our family has had vegetable gardens in the past, this year we decided to start playing around with ideas and concepts we might use on a farm.

My thinking was if we try it on a small scale, any mistakes we make will be on a small scale too. In early February, we attended a local bee school, for beginner bee keepers. In March, we brought home 12 chicks. In April, we installed 2 bee hives. This is definitely a learning adventure.

I should add I'm pretty lazy and frugal. Anytime I don't want to go to the store, I try to find alternate ways of getting what I need.

Many of our friends and family have suggested we write about our small homestead effort. So here we are.

I hope others will be inspired by our efforts and share their own.

We are not extraordinarily talented, just curious enough to try things out.

We look forward to feedback from our readers about their own experiences.