A few newer soaps!!

Trying some different techniques...except for the first one which is of course an IPS which I normally do. But I also attempted a funnel swirl and have used embeds on the watermelon (which turned out surprisingly well if I do say so myself.) :-)

 

Blue Sugar

                                           

Fresh & Fruity

Mandarin Mint

Watermelon

One of my all time favorite recipes...especially on cool Autumn days is one that I found years ago in a Marlboro cookbook. It's a little spicy, a lot meaty, and loaded with good stuff. I wanted to share it here because it is one of my favorites, and because I took a picture this morning as I was putting it together. :-)

And here it is:

Ingredients:

• 12 oz thick-sliced bacon, chopped (I use 16 oz)shopping list
• 3 lbs lean boneless beef chuck, cut into 2" pieces (I use a London Broil)shopping list
• 3 TBS all-purpose flour shopping list
• 1 TBS each salt and paprika shopping list
• 3 med onions, coarsely chopped shopping list
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed shopping list
• 3 1/2 cups beef broth shopping list
• 28 oz can peeled tomatoes, undrained shopping list(I use 1quart of my tomatoes)
• 4 poblano peppers, seeded, cut into chunks shopping list
• 1/4 cup chopped canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce shopping list
• 3 TBS ground cumin

How to make it:

 

• Cook bacon in a large chili pot or Dutch oven over medium heat until crisp. Transfer bacon to a large bowl; set aside. Pour off and reserve all but 2 TBS bacon drippings from pot.
• Coat beef in combined flour, salt and paprika. Brown 1/3 of beef in drippings in pot; transfer to bowl with reserved bacon. Repeat twice with remaining beef, adding reserved drippings as necessary to brown beef. Add onions and garlic to last batch of beef, cook 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
• Return beef and bacon to pot. Add beef broth, tomatoes, peppers and cumin; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 1 1/2 hours. Uncover; continue to simmer 30-45 minutes or until beef is tender and chili is thickened.

shopping list

 

 

Some Newer Soap Pics

 Austrailian Bamboo

 Blackraspberry Vanill

Cherry Almond

 

 Kentucky Springs

 Love Spell

 Manly Man

 Miss Behaving

 Pepperberry Wreath

 Vanilla Bean Noel

Water Lily

Refinishing my Kitchen Chairs

So after much reluctance, I decided to go primitive. I mean I've always LOVED old stuff, and my daughter is a rustic/primitive guru, so the transformation was really inevitable. Anyway, I had a lot of changes to make and refinishing my chairs was only one, but it's what I'll share here. I've had these chairs for years, and they had seen a couple coats of oil base paint, so the first think I had to do was apply a thin coat of stripper and wait. Next came the fun part (and I use that term loosely)...the scraping:

 

I had to reapply stripper to some of the tougher spots. But after I had scraped all the paint off that I could I use my little sander on them, and smoothed everything as much as possible. By the way the top coat of green was no problem, but that bottom layer of blue OMG that was some seriously good paint. LOL!!

 

Then after repainting them black, and redoing the seat covers, I again used my sander to distress them a bit and here's the finished product.

 

Converting old china cabinet to primitive stepback

As I considered redecorating and changing over to the primitive look one of the things that kept holding me back was wondering what in the world I'd do with all the colorful glassware I'd been collecting for years. Since much of that glassware had a lot of sentimental value, I knew I would never get rid of it. So, what I finally decided to do was convert my china cabinet to a stepback cabinet. I did this by framing up the front and cutting doors that would set inside the frame. It took careful planning and precise measurement, because 1x12's are too expensive to make mistake on. ;-) I don't have pictures of the remodel, but I do have before and after pics. (also not the best quality, but I just had to share this I was so proud of the outcome)

Not a full length view, but this is how it looked with slideing glass doors on top and sliding wood doors on the bottom half.

 

And this is how it looks now with closing doors to keep all my precious glassware tucked safely away, only displaying what I choose:

 

 

 

So with the transformation of the cabinet, refinishing of the chairs and a few shelves and hand-framed prints I now have a wonderfully prim little dining area. :-)



Home Rendering Lard

Okay, I've got lots of stuff to share as I've not added anything in FOREVER, but I guess what I'll share first is my experience with rendering lard. I scoured the Internet and read up on the subject as much as possible before beginning. I learned that lard is much healthier than shortning and margarin, which wasn't too surprising. I also saw that there are different ways you can render lard, so I tried 3 of them to see which worked best. After cutting the (groung) fat into cubes I placed some with a small amount of water in my crockpot, some in a roasting pan in a 225 degree oven and some in a pot on top of the stove over low heat.

 

 

 

Now I just began to heat them slowly, and watch them very carefully as I didn't want them to get too hot and end up with a piggy smell. When the fat began melting the solid materials would seperate: 

 

 

(it works best if you remove the solids now with slotted spoon) then pour the liquid fat through a double layer of cheesecloth.

 

I stored the lard in jars and allowed it to cool and I was very pleased with the outcome.

 

 

I couldn't beleive it turned out white as snow! I almost hated to use any of it in soap. LOL! Also, I deciced that I liked the oven roasting method better. The crock pot was too slow and the stove top was too fast...but the oven was just right. :-)