Moving Day!!

Sorry, y'all!! We've moved!

Come visit us at The Betty Crockett Homestead Blog!

XOXOXOXO

Attack of the Killer Mold!!

No, not really. Unless you're incredibly allergic, this mold won't kill you. Its just incredibly disgusting, not to mention overwhelmingly embarrassing. Since I've moved out to the country, Hubby has calmed me numerous times saying that everything is "just part of life in the country". And he means everything--from cuts to bruises to mice, racoons, roaches, ants, and now--mold. Well, today I'm calling an all-out war.

Yes, this is mold

So if you find yourself thinking "is that mold?" and retorting with "no, not in my house; I'm a clean person". Lies, I tell you. All lies. I told myself the same lie about this time last year and have neglected to accept the horrible truth until now. And that is the hardest part--just accept the fact that you have mold in your house. It is very gross and humiliating no matter where you find it, but just accept the facts and move on.

So, awesome Hubby Crockett did some research for me and found that vinegar and hydrogen peroxide combined will help to kill mold on a semi-permanent basis as long as we keep up with monitoring and cleaning as necessary. Since we found mold in our kitchen (*screams in horror*) and the basement/garage walkway area, we gathered our supplies on a routine grocery run.

Step 1

Spray attachment fits!

Here we have some regular bleach, distilled white vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. Note to everyone making a list, get more of the peroxide than you think you'll need. Just in our small areas we went through about a gallon because you really need to ensure all of the surfaces are wet with the stuff. Also, get lots and lots of rags to wipe up with and some old play clothes to wear.
Make sure you aren't attached to these things because they MUST be thrown away ASAP after you're done if they come into contact with any solution.

 Unfortunately, as I was cleaning out the cabinets (step one), I found a little mouse had gotten into my food storage. As if it wasn't bad enough right? But everything was going to get thrown out or bleached anyways. I set up a solution of bleach in water as hot as the tub would get and tossed my cooking utensils and bakewear in the bucket bit by bit. Allow to soak 15-20 minutes. With each batch, I'd pull it all out, rinse it off and lay it out to dry on an old towel.

Bleach solution soak

Die mold, die!!!!

In the mean time, I pulled out all the drawers and sprayed them down with the peroxide. It was disgustingly magical to watch the stuff foam up just like on a cut. Each time I sprayed I felt better and better so I really went to town on the cabinets. The whole unit had to be swept out first of course, but then it got a very thorough drenching. Look at it all dying! From a few feet away, it could even hear the fizzling and sizzling. Glorious!!! Let everything sit for 15 minutes as you move to a different area.

When the time is up, wipe it all down very very well with your rags. I'm not at all ashamed to say I was on my hands and knees scrubbing like a madwoman with a toothbrush. Next, fill one of your spray bottles with vinegar and soak everything equally well. After another 15 minutes, wipe well and allow to dry. Being 4 months pregnant and with the nose of a blood hound, the vinegar was almost unbearable. It brought me back to the days of stripping wallpaper in my mom's old house in 90+ degree weather (I would not recommend it). "Just accept it and move on" was my mantra and it got me through five very stinky hours.

While I waited, I made some paper/duct tape patches for the holes my ever-so-friendly mouse was using to help itself to our food. Because I had some thick brown paper on hand, it will do just fine. Making a cross hatch with duct tape, you can be sure that mouse will know it is not welcome back. Mouse traps will be set inside just in case because let's face it, this is war!

If I had to summarize this ordeal into one concept, it would be the advice to scrub everything in your new home down to the last door nail. I found so many things under and behind the cabinets I moved I could have had a garage sale and opened a new pharmacy to pay off my mortgage. The mold and mice problems combined could have been prevented and resolved with much fewer tears and frustration if I had known what I know now. So that's my advice to any of my lovely readers--clean it all!!!! Before you put a single box in your new home, invest the extra day or two and scrub, scrub, scrub from ceiling to tub. Unless of course you're smarter than we were and you bought a house that's in great condition--but that's another post. I'll quit my whining for now.

I can't put anything back in the cabinets until I catch a mouse or two, but I know I will sure sleep better knowing that the mold and mice problems are being taken care of little by little.

**Update: Since this cleaning took place yesterday, everything is dry and ready to be put back. Also, I caught one mouse overnight!

Have you had to deal with mold? How did you remedy the situation? What other "country life problems" do you deal with?


Thanks for reading,
Betty Crockett
XOXOXOXO

Betty Crack Corn and I Don't Care!

Yep, looks like you're out of cracked corn, ma!

Yep, this Betty cracks corn. Not for fun of course, but in the event that we are out of cracked corn and we have whole corn, I can just pull out my handy dandy grain mill and replenish the stockpiles.

I didn't know the simplicity of this concept a few months ago of course, when my birds refused to eat whole corn and instead started cannibalizing their own eggs, but that's beside the point. The point is that I stumbled on this awesome gadget here quite by accident. Through researching how to grind our barley into flour and how food mills work, I thought I might present you all a post about such a subject.

So here is our lovely grain mill scattered into the pieces I found in a bucket in the basement, discarded for just such an occasion. I won't bore you with the anatomy but if you're interested in being politically correct, check this website out. So, moving forward! I fumbled with the pieces a bit, but got it together and attached it to the kitchen table. Out of this first-time experience, I found you need to have a few things with you besides your bucket of grain:

• 9"x13" clean pan
• clean dish towel



Quality assurance, folks

• empty clean bucket (same size as your grain bucket)

 Set the pan under the grinder wheel and drape the cloth on top of the wheel (otherwise you'll be cranking at 1mph and still have a floor covered in corn). Below is a simple photo progression of how the grain actually gets cracked. **Don't think I'm talking down to anyone here; I did plenty of research and was REALLY frustrated at not being able to see the fine details of how it works. Keep in mind that my blog is meant for "them city folk" or newbies who are visual learners like myself.**

The left plate turns clockwise with the siphon inside. You can see some corn already cracking.

Too coarse; I had to adjust lots of times before I found what was going to work for the birds.

This is the ideal setup.

Top view from the hopper.

Cranking...

...cranking....

...still cranking...

...more cranking...

The process is incredibly simple so don't think cracked corn is anything special besides and extra drop of sweat. To the top right is a handful of the texture close to what my birds prefer, yours will be different if your birds are as picky as mine but its just about identical to the stuff from the feed store. I'm not crazy about cracking my own corn, but as I mentioned before, in the case that we have whole corn and none cracked, I know that I can sacrifice twenty minutes of my time and get a gallon done to toss in the mixture. Self-reliance is just a fancy way of saying that Hubby and I can improvise really well instead of buying the quick fix.  And as they say, "Happy hen, happy den" right?

Just for kicks, I sent the same handful seen above through the mill one more time (incredibly messy because the flour dust got everywhere) and then another time, each time adjusting the plates to be closer and closer. Nothing remarkable here, just a bit more powdery corn. It came out each time very dusty and still very coarse so I wouldn't recommend making any cornbread from this method.

Of course, there's tons of grain mills out there and this is only one of them, probably a much lower-end model too. We want to get another soon, and grow the grain to mill in it, but that's a long way off. For now, we are going to be growing corn and will likely post a video from start to finish once we finally get our corn shucker.

Does anyone else crack their own corn? What about barley or wheat? Any success? Any tips we can use?

Love,
Betty Crockett

XOXOXOX

A Visit from the Apothecary

Not that anyone has an apothecary anymore, but every once in a while its nice to be able to pamper ourselves with some homemade goodies!

On my awesome Pinterest page, I've been looking for all kinds of simple homemade products that you can make yourself with at least half of the ingredients already in your pantry. I've really surprised myself at how easy some of them are--like homemade Febreeze? Or homemade deodorant? I'll give anything a try!

What I found myself most interested in was making chapstick, but I couldn't order the essential oils in time for this experiment. "Why", you ask? Well, because this was yet another snow day that I was bored out of my skull and wanted to be crafty and learn yet another life skill because I'm crazy like that.

What I had ordered a week before this was a jar of shea butter, coco butter, and beeswax pellets from the Essential Depot via Amazon. The reviews online were a bit iffy on the beeswax and although they all have their own unique aromas, I personally did not find them offensive. The company sent them very quickly and I am very impressed with their quality.

So onto the research! In the many recipes I found, I knew I wanted to make at least one hand lotion and one hard lotion bar. My hands get horribly dry between dishes, yard chores and ceramics at work and there's only so much money in the grocery budget for Nivea Soft (which until now has been my lotion of choice). The recipes are very clear and leave tons of flexibility to experiment with scents.

Whipped Body Butter

1 cup shea butter

1 cup coconut oil

Melt everything in a double boiler

Put your mixer bowl in snow or ice water to bring the temperature down

Mix well until it is the consistency of Neosporin

Whip the mixture on high speed and remember to scrape the bowl about every 3-4 minutes to prevent lumps

About halfway there...

This is when I added my EO drops, but you can do it at any point after it is chilled a bit. I continued whipping the ingredients about 3 minutes past this point, when it was no longer soupy, but held its shape firmly in the bowl.

This recipe gave me three and a half half-pints!

Whipped Body Butter Recipe

• 1 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup shea butter
• essential oils (to preferred scent)

After adding the lotion into jars, they started to firm up rather quickly. My house is somewhere around 65 degrees F, so if your house is warmer it might take longer. Of course when its hot outside, you're going to want to keep these in a cooler area. I've opted to store my extra jars in the cellar room in the basement where it only gets up to the high 60's in the summer.

 *credit for the original inspiration for this recipe goes to Hens and Honey (who also has a stellar blog, so check her out!!).

All Natural Hand Lotion

Add 1/3 cup corn starch

This next recipe also calls for 1 cup coconut oil and 1 cup shea butter, but it calls for an additional 1/3 cup of corn starch. The reasoning is that the starch takes away some of the "greasy" feeling most people complain about with natural products like this, but I'll be straight with you, I've not noticed any difference. If you take a common sense moment to think about it, you're rubbing plant oils all over your body, so of course there will be a bit of a greasy feeling. The "greasy" feeling doesn't bother me at all and its only really noticeable when I'm slathering it on after a shower at the gym when I'm rushing out the door in a barely-clean sweaty mess. And even better, even if I've put too much on accidentally (you need barely the size of a dime for just your hands) it never shows up on my clothes. I've been using this stuff regularly for two months now and I've yet to see a grease mark on anything!

My recipe made 3 3/4 pints!

All Natural Hand Lotion

• 1 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup shea butter
• 1/3 cup corn starch
• essential oils (to preferred scent), I used tea tree, eucalyptus, and cucumber

Using the directions above, I really cannot stress enough that when you are chilling the mixture you must stir constantly. If not, it will become lumpy and you will have to spend extra time at your double boiler remelting the mixture. Then you just whip it, whip it, whip it! With my mixer it takes maybe 5 minutes or so, and I really don't know how long it would take to mix by hand, but by golly you'd have the best arms for miles!

**credit for the original inspiration for this recipe goes to Dena at Back to the Book Nutrition (she's got literally tons of other great recipes on her page too).

All Natural Hard Lotion Bars

This is the recipe that I'm dying to tell everyone and their mother about--hard lotion bars! I hate to whine and mope about having cracked hands, but it becomes torture for me and I have been known to get quite grumpy about it. So here is to all the other folks out there who love soft, nourished hands, this one is for you!

1 cup coconut oil

1 cup shea butter and a tiny bit of coco butter for kicks

1 cup beeswax pellets (I added more later)

Put all ingredients in a double boiler (the block is additional beeswax)

Add EO's, mix quickly and pour solution into molds

All Natural Hard Lotion Bars

• 1 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup shea butter
• 1 cup beeswax pellets
• 1 Tbsp coco butter (optional)
•  essential oils (to preferred scent) I used lavender and vanilla

These bars are an absolute life-saver! They take a few second to warm up in your hands, but once it starts getting all melty and awesome, its game time! I will warn you however that using coco butter will give your product a slightly chocolatey smell to it (and chocolate and lavender are not the best of buds as far as scents go). If you want a chocolatey smell, then I would recommend using a ratio of 1:3 or 1:1 of coco butter to shea butter and only add a tiny bit of vanilla scent. Use your best judgment, because the coco butter (for me anyways) is really overwhelming and takes only a little bit for that smell to take over. When I was sharing my bar at work, someone said we smelled like we had just left a candy shop! But I cannot rave enough about these bars, they are so fantastic I'll probably give them as gifts just so I can make more with different scents.

**credit for this recipe goes to Laurie at Common Sense Homesteading.

So thanks for hanging in with me everyone, I know this was a super long post. I'm really beginning to fall in love with the idea of making my own products at home, not just because I know what's in everything, but it also eliminates the middle man and I can custom make my own line of whatever I like. Any questions or problems with the recipes, send me a message!

Keep it real!

Love,
Betty
XOXOXOXO

Thrifty Missy Part II

 Like I mentioned in a previous post, I'm a terrible cook. Like terrible....Like "I just burnt the water" terrible. But God blessed Hubby Crockett with unending patience and an iron stomach. Slowly I'm gaining ground in the housewife category (without the housewife part) with my awesome Crock Pot meals. They have all been edible and some were downright scrumptious--like the Beef and Lime Chili that Hubby wolfed down before I got home!!

The hardest part about meal prep has been finding the time to stand in the kitchen for hours on end with raw hands and piles of dishes, especially when I'd rather be cuddling with Pork Chop on my lap while I play World of Warcraft (don't judge me!).
 
 So lucky me, I got two snow days in a row and I jumped on it! After setting the puppies in order I ran to the store, lists in-hand and got home right as the "White Death" descended upon us. I took about an hour to clean the kitchen but if your kitchen is always clean, good for you (now go away because I don't like you, clean-kitchen-person). Here's a picture of nearly all my groceries minus the extra piles of canned beans I pulled from the cellar.

On the list to make, I had a couple of repeats both Hubby and I love and brought in a few new ones. This time around I made a point to have more freezer bake meals because I don't always remember to put a meal in the Crock Pot as I'm running out the door. A freezer meal is super easy for Hubby to pop in the oven, even if they take an hour and a half to cook.

So, how do I do it? I line up all the ingredients (although you're going to be opening the fridge and various cabinets about a thousand times no matter how prepared you are). Then I tape up the recipe cards on the cabinet most convenient for me. With a sharpie, I clearly write names and then put easy numbered instructions below that on gallon sized freezer bags. I stack the bags in the same order that the cards are posted, but of course I wasn't too strict about that. I ordered them mainly because of two reasons: one, because last time I felt like I wasted a ton of time trying to find the right card and then couldn't find the right bag; and two, because I had to make the beef and lime chili last because the beef was still thawing.

Just because I've learned a thing or two, this is the BEST way I've found to make tons of casseroles to store in the freezer. You just leave them in the freezer for an hour then pop them out and stack them on top of something flat as they will still be floppy. After they've frozen solid, I just stack them together.

The bagged meals, however, I stack with paper towels between each bag that way they don't stick to each other. And once those are frozen, I stack them vertically in rows with all the names facing one direction so I can grab one easily.

All of these meals came from a grocery bill around $200, but that includes a ton of dairy products and meats that I bought in bulk and will be able to portion out and use for a few more weeks after the meals are gone. And considering that eating out for the two of us is around $12-$40, I don't feel too bad about spending $200 for 22 meals. But you've gotta shop smart in the stores and around the house...

Here's how I cut a bunch of corners:

• canned chicken broth--boil a bird carcass with stock veggies and take the extra time to pressure can it yourself
• canned pinto and black beans--one 15lb bag of pinto beans only cost me $6.18 at Sam's and I canned 16 pints that were quickly gone and still have half of the bag
• mix up powdered stuff--taco seasoning and chili seasoning are super quick; I made a big ole batch and still have tons leftover (in the link to All Recipes, you can change the final amount made so you can mix up enough for all of your recipes)
• powdered milk--gross, I know, but it saved me a lot of money in the next one...
• Cream of Something Soup Mix--I'm biased because I LOVE the Hillbilly Housewife, but this was really helpful to me to whisk together really quickly with hot water and pour
• homegrown eggs--there's nothing else like the stuff!

Call me whatever you like, but I didn't go to college for nutrition, so if I don't know what it is then I'd rather not have it in my food. Canning all that good stuff myself just makes me a little more certain that I'm serving something quality.

Overall, this is my messy process. There's plenty of room for improvement, and I can't say I like doing dishes the whole time, but its comforting to know that we can have hot food ready to eat when we get home and food for lunches for the next day.

What does everyone else do for batch cooking? Are you able to use coupons? Any requests for some of the recipes I used just give me a shout!

Love,
Betty Crockett

XOXOXO!