Freezing Soups

As the days get colder, I find myself looking forward to a nice warm soup. Plus, there is a lot of produce coming out of the garden that I need to use or get into the freezer so making big pots of soup and freezing it is a great use for it.

Organizing Children's Clothing

It is no small matter to keep children's clothing tidy. They are constantly growing and changing sizes so there is the matter of storing the clothing that does not fit and switching in the clothes that do. Then there is the matter of keeping the clothing that they have out tidy and organized and not all over the floor or overflowing out of the closets, drawers, and boxes.

Cinnamon Can Cause Diaper Rash

My 9 month old started getting really bad diaper rashes to the point of bleeding. I used zinc creams and coconut oil, but it wouldn't go away. I thought it was just a result of starting to eat more solids and that he was perhaps eating too much acidic food like tomatoes or berries. But after breakfast one morning I noticed that my older two sons as well as my baby all had redness around their mouths where their oatmeal had come into contact with their skin. It was the cinnamon I put in their oatmeal. 

Cloth vs. Disposables Revisited

We recently went on a 2 week trip and I had to switch to disposables since it was difficult to wash diapers while we were gone. The ease of the disposables had me asking myself again why we use cloth diapers. Is it because it's more environmentally friendly or because they're safer for the baby or because it's cheaper?

(You may be surprised at my conclusion!)

Freezing Uncooked Donuts for Fresh Later

Growing up, our family made donuts from time to time. When I was in high school, I made donuts on the weekends to sell. I'll have to post our family recipe and instructions another time so check back later. For now, I'm going to show you how I discovered that I could have fresh donuts every day without having to make the dough every time.

Washing Cloth Diapers

I've changed the way I prepare poopy diapers for the wash quite a bit. When I first started, I was really scrubbing out the dipaers with a scrub brush even when it was just the runny, mustardy breastmilk poo. And I think those first cloth diapers did take a toll for all my scrubbing and are wearing out faster.

When my older child started eating solids and the poo became clumpy, that was a really easy clean as the clumps came out into the toilet and left little on the diaper. No scrubbing necessary.

However, that changed and now it is not so clumpy and more like peanut butter, and my second child now has the breastmilk poo. This would mean a lot of scrubbing and I don't particularly like cleaning this with my hands. So you might say I've become lazy in this area, but I found that it works!

 I do absolutely nothing with the breastmilk poo. I put it directly into my diaper pail and wash it when it comes time. There is sometimes a bit of staining on the diaper, but that will happen whether you scrub or not. If I hang them out in the sun, that breastmilk poo staining comes right out. Mind you, with doing elimination communication with him, he doesn't often have poopy diapers.

With the solid foods poo, I take a wipe and scrape what I can into the toilet. I don't worry about getting it super well though. At times there is still quite a bit left on the diaper depending on how badly soiled it is. And I put the diaper directly into the diaper pail to sit until I wash them. The first time I tried this I was a bit concerned that I would find poo all along the inside of my washing machine, but actually I didn't. Sometimes if my child ate corn or grapes, I might find some skins on the side of a diaper, but they shake right off and were also adequately cleaned. And otherwise, they've come out really well through the wash. 

I got my diaper pails at the Superstore.

Freezing Bagels

I really like bagels, but I don't have them too often. I've tried making them before, but they are really a lot of work- maybe even more than making doughnuts. Not only do you have to make/knead the dough, let it rise, shape them and let them rise again, but then you have to boil them and bake them- cooking them twice. So every once in a while, I will buy a bag of bagels which cost 3-4 dollars for only 6. That's even more than bread, and I can get a lot more slices in a bag of bread. But when I saw them selling for only 75 cents a bag, I stocked up. How do I keep so many bagels fresh to use later? I freeze them.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Since I use cloth diapers, I actually go through quite a bit of laundry detergent to keep them clean. I had known others who made their own laundry detergent, but never tried it until today. It's actually really easy to make and doesn't take very many ingredients. My sister sent me her recipe on how she makes it and I also did my own research online to see what other people recommended. There are lots of different ways to do it.

Frozen Sliced Bread

 I know I've done a few posts now about freezing things, but it really does make my life easier if I can make things ahead of time and have it ready. 

I used to try not to buy or make bread too often because it would sometimes start growing mold before we ate it all. But since I started freezing presliced bread, I don't have that problem anymore.

Flash Freezing Fruit

 We buy frozen fruit sometimes for making smoothies. I like to buy a bunch of bananas and I usually end up freezing some of them before they go bad to make smoothies out of. I wanted to do the same with some other fruit, but I didn't know how to do that without having them all come out in one frozen lump. I then discovered the technique of flash freezing. By all the fruit not sticking together you can just take out however much you need at the time.

Getting Organized: Pantry

My pantry is one of many areas that I find hard to keep organized. Recently, I finally took the time to put my dry goods into containers and label everything. Things go much more smoothly in the kitchen when we can find what we're looking for.

Frozen Soup

Probably every other day, we have soup for lunch. Soups are great because they are very nutritious with lots of vegetables, everything is well cooked and edible for my toddler, they are nice and warm in the winter, and they can be a quick and easy meal when taken from frozen.