Totally Obsessed Tuesdays

Ok, so I'm totally obsessed with this new store that just opened in town. We are acquainted with the owners, but I would have been obsessed with this store anyways.

Here's their website http://www.townhomestudio.com

We went to their fabulous open house party last week.  I entered the raffle they were having and I won! I seriously never win anything, so I was so excited to find out they drew my name. I won a beautiful hand blown glass birdhouse. It's pretty unique. When I went to pick up my winnings, I picked up these super cute woven tote bags. 

Here's the birdhouse with the tote bags. These bags are a steal...only $14!  I love, love, love them, so cute and versital.

These guys at Town Home really know what they're doing and have a great eye for this unique design style. 

Here's their showroom

They carry local, handmade furniture and art

Town Home's niche is a new take on the mountain rustic look.  Check em out!

Blooming Blueberries & Blackberries

Well it's getting to be that time of year again, when the blueberries and blackberries start blooming. 

 

More and more berries ripen each day. I love this time of year, because it's fun to check on how bountiful your berry harvest will be this summer.  However, the blueberries always seem to take longer than the blackberries. 

We definitely have a few more blackberries blooming than the blueberry bushes at the moment, but by the end of August the blueberry bushes will have caught up and beat out the blackberries. 

I love these wild flowers that just popped up in our blackberry thicket. I have no idea what they are, but this picture doesn't do it's brilliant red color justice. They're gorgeous!

The hubs searching and picking out the best blackberries. I guess we should try to cut back and thin out our blackberry thicket. It's starting to get a little out of control and overrun with some briars and weeds. Also, if we cut it back we'll yield a bigger crop next year. 

We didn't get much on our first pick, but that will change very soon.  That little bowl will turn into gallon freezer bags full of berries. I can't wait to start making jam. I love a good blueberry or blackberry jam. For now I'm just putting the berries in smoothies, pancakes or just munching on them for a quick snack. So check back later this summer when I'll be making jam and other berry favorites with my insane amount of harvested berries! 

DIY Laundry Detergent

Making your own laundry detergent is super easy and extremely cheap in the long run. I have always read stuff about making your own soaps and cleaning products and thought, yeah I could that, but laziness got the best of me and I'd end buying the in store products anyways.  It was really my husband who motivated me to actually make the detergent. He looked up several recipes online, found one he liked, bought the ingredients and made the first batch.   I watched him do the whole thing and it was stupid easy.  So that was a little over a year ago and I've been making detergent and other cleaning products ever since. 

Here's what you'll need

This fills up a 5 gallon bucket about halfway

2 boxes of borax

2 boxes of arm & hammer washing soda

1 bar of fels-naptha

1 bar of regular soap...it can be scented or unscented. It's personal preference at this point

Then you dump the borax and washing soda into a mixing bucket, stir together to combine. Next bust out your regular ole cheese grater and grate the fels-naptha and bar of soap into the detergent mix. This is the only slightly time consuming part of this project. It's not bad though. Once everything is grated up, just give the mixture a few good stirs to make sure everything is combined.  

It'll look like this with the fels-naptha and soap shavings mixed in

You can find all these ingredients in the laundry detergent isle at the grocery store or walmart. I had never even heard of fels-naptha or even seen it. That's because they hide it on the bottom shelf at the store. So you can't even hardly find it.  Anyways, all these ingredients are gonna cost you $15.39 and it lasts for months.  I made my last batch in April and I still have a little less than half left

It's already lasted me about 3 months and I've got plenty left. Also, it's not like I never do laundry either. I have a 2yr old boy, a husband who is a builder, 3 dogs and 9 chickens. Trust me, the laundry piles up quick. 

You can customize your detergent any way you want, like adding scented soaps or essential oils.  In my current batch I have lemon scented soap and it smells great.  This homemade detergent isn't only practical and economical, but it's not full of all the weird chemical ingredients that you can't even pronounce like in the brand name laundry detergents.  The homemade stuff cleans well, gets out stains and leaves your clothes feeling fresh. 

I love making my own laundry detergent. I love how cheap it is and how long it lasts. 

Beet Greens

The other day my good friend let me harvest whatever I could get my hands on in her garden. It was awesome. I can't wait until her peppers and tomatoes ripen up. We're already planning a canning party. Yes, I did say canning party and I'm pretty excited about it.  I know it might sound dorky and I'd have to agree and say it kinda does, but it fits into my becoming completely domesticated lifestyle and I love it. 

Some of my loot from Jenn's garden

In my venture of domestication and homesteading, I'm trying new things in the kitchen. Like, Beet Greens. I didn't want to waste any of the veggies I harvested, so I cut the tops off my beets and got to cooking.  Check out these greens

I love the bright, vibrant color of these greens. They were really easy to cook with and only required minimal prep. 

First you just wash, then separate the stems from the leaves and lay greens out to dry. Of course, if you have a salad spinner you could use that and they would dry faster. However, you don't have to have the greens completely dry before cooking. 

The rest of my veggies for dinner

Here's how I made my greens

I started with melting butter in a medium size sauce pan, then added half of a white onion, coarsely chopped. Just sweat the onions out for about 2-3 minutes and then add the stems of the beet greens. Cook the stems for 5-7 minutes until they become tender and bright shiny red in color.  Toss in the leaves and season with sea salt and fresh black pepper.  Cook leaves for 6-8 minutes or until wilted down to your liking. I also used a splash of apple cider vinegar and homemade chicken broth because that's what I do with collards and chard and I thought it would taste good. Turns out that was a good idea, they tasted great. 

Finished product. The stems of the beet greens turn everything a pretty ruby red color. 

These were delicious. I was pleasantly suprised and will definitely be making these again. 

Zucchini Pasta

Recently my husband and I decided to change up our diet in an effort to eat healthier.  We are doing a combination of a Paleo/Gluten Free "diet."  I use the word "diet" loosely, because we aren't sticking to all the rules of each diet. We're using them as guidelines and just tweaking it to our likings. 

My latest obsession, zucchini pasta. I already love all the other types of squash, but zucchini is definitely my favorite. It's such a versital vegetable. Stuff it, bake it, grill it or string it. Since my new diet doesn't include pasta, this is the perfect substitue. I actually like it better than pasta and it's 10 times faster to make. 

First thing you're going to need is one of these awesome veggie peeler/stringer tools

Then the recipe kinda goes like this

 

2-3 medium size zucchini

Use your peeler to string each zucchini

This is where you can get creative because you can add anything you want to the zucchini noodles. Just for example, I've added garlic, onions, and diced tomatoes. 

I've also cooked the zucchini noodles in a pan on my stovetop and in a sheet pan on my grill. Both ways are easy and fabulous. 

Once you have all the ingredients you feel like eating, take your noodle concoction, throw it in a pan with the fat of your choice, I usually choose butter or olive oil and sautée your zucchini noodles for 3-5 minutes depending on how tender you like your veggies.  The "pasta" portion of your meal is done. You can eat it plain or top it off with your favorite protein.  

Here's my chicken zucchini pasta with a tomato pesto sauce....delicious.