Danielle's Homemade Products.....Previous tips of the day in one spot

Previous Tips of the Day Tip of the day....I am all for ideas that make life easier. I talked about my tip with ground beef yesterday but there is also another thing I do to make dinners a little easier. I hate cooking rice. When I make the regular rice it never turned out right, until I bought a rice maker. Mine is wonderful. It makes it again without me having to stand near a hot stove when it's 80 degrees out. I put the ingredients in and turn it on and it tells me when it's done. How can you go wrong with that? As a bonus, when I cook rice I make a large batch up. Much more than I could possibly need for one meal. I portion it out and put it in freezer bags and freeze for when time is just not my friend. Then all I have to do is thaw UT and warm it back up. Simply as can be when I'm in a rush or time has gotten away from me. Tip of the day…..Life is crazy and busy. Have you ever went to make dinner to realize that you forgot to take the ground beef out to thaw? I cannot tell you how many times this has happened to me. I am also bad about dinner planning so half the time I have no idea what I am going to make for dinner until I am scrambling around to find something. This does not help either. I solved this problem the last time I did a big grocery shop. I bought a five pound package of ground beef, brought it home, and cooked it up in my crock pot. Yes, I said crock pot. It took about 3 or 4 hours, of which I did not have to stand over a hot stove in 80 degree weather (BONUS), and I stirred the meat and broke it up every so often as it cooked. Ok, I cheated and used my potato masher to break up the meat as it cooked. After all the meat was cooked, I put it in my colander, rinsed the meat to get as much extra grease off as possible (make sure you run dish soap down your drain while you are doing this or you will have a nasty greasy blocked drain) while cooling the meat down. I then split the meat up between a couple of zip lock freezer bags and put them in the freezer. This tip came in handy last night as I was scrambling (as usual) over what to make for dinner. I pulled out a bag of the already browned meat, threw it in the pan to thaw and rewarm, and continued on with my dinner making. Time saved and last minute cooking ideas still possible. This is also nice for people who hate standing over a hot stove to brown meat (not my favorite thing in summer time, that is for sure). Tip of the day...I am not a morning person, any of my friends will tell you that waking me up first thing in the morning could be dangerous. I am especially grumpy if I have not had time to wake up or have coffee before demands of food have started before my eyes are open or brain is fully functional. I solved this problem one day with a few items. Instant oatmeal and an electric tea kettle. My daughter will be 7 in a few months and I thought it was time to teach her a few things that she could do without having to bug mom every 5 minutes on the days we don't have to be up at the crack of dawn (especially since she was always able to wake up early on weekends though weekdays are a fight). I started by rearranging my counter (very small counter) to move my coffee pot back and bring my electric tea kettle forward for her to reach. Then I mixed up a batch of my homemade instant oatmeal (you can use store bought too) and portioned it into half cup scoops into sandwich bags. I put the sandwich bags of oatmeal in a container I knew she could get open. Then I walked her through how much water to put in her bowl, how to fill the tea kettle and turn it on, and how long to wait to eat the oatmeal after she put the water in. I watched her go through the process a couple mornings to make sure she understood how to make it on her own. Now I am not being woken up every 5 minutes on Saturday morning starting at 7 (because she seems to only wake up by herself or easily on days she doesn't have school or that we don't have to be up first thing) to get up and make her food. And she doesn't have to deal with a grumpy mom because I've been woken up with no coffee and only demands first thing in the morning. Now she can get her own breakfast and has learned how to make her own instant mac cup in the microwave. I don't think she is ready for stove cooking yet but that may be next year's project with her. Hmmm...maybe next I should teach her how to make me coffee in the morning lol Tip of the day....Have you ever baked a cake and had that nasty flour taste from where you flowered the pan end up in the cake? Instead of using flour, use some of your cake mix instead. Butter the pans as normal and add a spoonful or two of the dry cake mix to the pan and tap to coat the buttered pan with the cake mix. No more nasty flour taste! Tip of the day....did you know that you can hard boil an egg without even boiling water? I didn't either until I started seeing different posts about it....so I tried it this morning. I preheated my oven to 325. Then put one egg in each well of my muffin tin. Then baked the eggs for 30 minutes After 30 minutes, I put the eggs in cold water for about 10 minutes. The eggs were pretty easy to peel after that, but I did have a few stubborn eggs (less stubborn ones than when I boil them though). Just a heads up, there were brown spots on the egg white where the egg touched the pan. I was making egg salad so they didn't bother me and didn't affect the taste. If your making deviled eggs, you can just trim those spots off. Over all, this was a success and I will be using this tip again especially when I have a large amount of eggs to cook at one time. Tip of the day...Both me and my daughter have naturally curly hair. It's a nightmare when we first get up at times. My cousin turned me on to a product called Biosilk. It is the best detangler I have ever found and beats out No More Tangles like you would not believe. It is on the pricey side but a dime size amount is all I use for my hair and it reaches halfway down my back. This was amazing stuff when my daughter's hair was long (think Albert Einstein especially first thing in the morning...and no no I am not exaggerating, my family still teases her). She hated brushing it or having it brushed. Well for the start of school, we cut off a good 4 inches on her hair and it stops just above her shoulders. We don't use the Biosilk as much but still run into issues in the morning. My daughter showers at night, she is not cooperative enough to get up early enough to shower before school and I don't like her leaving with a soaking wet head in winter time, so I had to do some adjustments. My solution....I use 2. Both involve a dollar store spray bottle. Right now I am using plain water with a hand full of lemon essential oil drops (lemon is her favorite by far). The other option I do is to put a squirt or two of conditioner in the spray bottle, then fill with water, shake and spray. The conditioner was good for when her hair was longer and worked well with the Biosilk I had put in after her shower. With her short hair, I find the plain (though lemony scented) water works just fine. Either way I was happy for one less struggle every morning. Tip of the day....my place is small and on short supply when it comes to storage. I did not have anywhere to put towels and rags in the bathroom and so I purchased a small shelving unit with six cubbies/fabric bins. After buying it, I realized that it would not hold all of the towels and things I needed it to hold if I folded my towels like normal. Now, I roll all my towels and fit more into the cubbies than I would have folded. In the picture, the towels on top are my hair towels. Long hair has to be wrapped to dry it out, as many ladies know, or it soaks the back of your shirt. My regular towels are in the top cubbies. I use the ones closer to the shower first and rotate towels over as I either use them or wash them. The bin on the bottom left has all my hand/kitchen towels, bottom center are my cleaning rags, bottom right are my wash rags. The unit is mounted to the wall above the toilet to give me storage and still be out of the way in an area that may not have as much space. Tip....roll your towels since they rake up less room and don't be afraid to go vertical with your storage. Tip of the day....Are you tired of buying dryer sheets? Then make your own reusable dryer sheets. To do this, I purchased a package of cheep white wash rags. Then soak them in your fabric softener (I used my homemade fabric softener), ring out any excess, and hang them to dry. Once they are completely dry, they are ready for use. I have marked each of mine in one corner with a fabric marker so that I could easily tell they were my dryer sheets when I was folding towels and clothes. I do not have to re soak them every time I use them. I tend to re soak them when I can no longer smell the fabric softener on the rag after I have folded my clothes (when they are still hot, I tend to not be able to smell it anyway so I wait until they are cooled down after coming out of the dryer). I think it was about 3 or 4 months of using them before I re soaked them. I keep them in a glass container on my dryer and I put them in a separate container (I use a plastic pitcher) after I use one so I am always rotating them and not just using one repeatedly. Once I have used all of the ones in the glass container, I check the scent on them in the plastic pitcher, if the smell is still there, I put them all back in the glass container and start over again. Here are some of mine hanging to dry after the dip I gave all of mine the other day. You do not need much fabric softener as you want to ring out any excess before hanging them to dry. Just a word, these do not completely take away all static issues, but then again neither did my store bought ones at times. Tip of the day....I don't know about you but it always seems like when I have sore muscles I can never find my heating pad. I had this problem just today. I had a good weekend spending time with family but after driving in the car for a bit, my body was sore and tight. After searching for about 20 minutes for my heating pad, I remembered a trick I had heard about some time ago. I took a long sock, one long since missing it's mate (I think the dryer ate it), filled it with rice, tied it closed, and stuck it in the microwave for 2 minutes or until it was hot. That baby was like magic on my sore back, conformed to my shape and can be reheated as needed. As an added bonus, put a few drops of your favorite essential oil in the rice and spend time relaxing with heat and aromatherapy at the same time. Tip of the day....One item that is valuable in my house is an ice cube tray. I use it to make my lotion bars and all purpose salve in bars when I am out of small containers. This nifty contraption seems to have no bounds. I use it to freeze excess chicken or beef stock. When my daughter was a baby, I would puree fruits and veggies and freeze then in an ice cube tray, before putting then in a zip lock bag once completely frozen. Then I would take one or two out and heat up for her meals. You can freeze extra tomatoes paste or tomatoes sauce. I have even put egg whites in mine, when I only needed yoke for a recipe, to freeze for later. I also use mine for crafts. I have used this for my daughter when I have mixed up body paint, each compartment as a separate color. What do you use yours for, besides ice? Tip of the day...what is one way to make your significant other feel special? Massage. Yes I said massage. Touch is powerful. A massage can help relieve stress, easy tension, ease a headache or stomach ache, act as foreplay, and combat sore muscles. It can also help your partner feel special, sexy, and loved. The power of touch is amazing. Want to add something special to your massage? Add essential oils to the lotion or oils you use. Oils and lotion help the hands slide along the skin without pinching or snagging. Essential oils add aromatherapy to the massage, helping to create a mood or can even help with stress relieve. Add peppermint, for example, can help with headaches and upset stomach. Lemon can help relieve stress. Tea Tree oil can help with acne break outs. Lavender is soothing to the skin and will promote relaxation. Massage can also be done with exfoliating masks to help remove excess dry skin and promote relaxation, moisturize the skin, and help flush toxins from the skin. In what ways would you use massage? One word of caution, some essential oils, like peppermint, should be avoided during pregnancy so check your oils before using. Tip of the day… Since we are now experiencing the start of school again, today’s tip of the day is on one of my favorite essential oils. Tea tree oil. This little baby has many uses. The oil has anti-bacterial, anti-septic, anti-fungal, and anti-viral properties. It can be used to treat athlete’s foot, cuts and scrapes, treat acne, clean your house, prevent lice, prevent fleas, treat body odor, help loosen chest congestion, freshen fabrics that would have to go to the dry cleaners, and help with itching associated to insect bites. One of the many things I use tea tree oil in is my all purpose salve. You can read more about it in my previous post on it. A short recap of my previous post on my salve. I use it for just about everything. I put it on my hands and feet to help keep them soft and smooth (can be used like lotion or applied, covered with socks or gloves, and allowed to soak in overnight). The salve is also good for putting on cuts, scrapes, and burns. I use it on my daughter, one of the few things she will allow me to put on her scrapes, because it does not sting. I recently gave a jar away to a friend, who then had the unfortunate luck of stepping in a fire ant hill. His feet were covered in bites that itched like crazy. He put some of the salve on the bites and told me that the itch was gone almost immediately. I spoke with him today and he let me know that the blisters and bites form the ants was almost completely healed and no longer bothered him. I also watched the progression on a sore my aunt had on her thumb. She had been treating it for over a week with antibiotic cream and it looked red, angry and on the verge (if not already there) of infection. After a few days of putting the ointment on, the sore had lost the angry red look, had closed up, and within a week was almost completely healed. Another friend who I had given a jar to told me today that she used some in her daughter’s hair as a conditioner and it worked beautifully. I also let her know that because of the tea tree oil in the ointment, she was less likely to get lice while at school since lice do not like tea tree oil and it acts as a natural repellent. Other uses for Tea Tree Oil: Add to a steaming pot of water, breath in the vapors to help clear up congestion. Add to your bath to help fight body acne. Add to a bottle of shampoo to help prevent lice. Add to a spray bottle of water to make a natural anti-bacterial all purpose cleaner. Add to a spray bottle of water and spritz on fabric to help remove musty odors caused by storage (test in a hidden area to ensure color fastness) Add to a bath to help fight body odor. Add to a spray bottle and spritzing the body as a natural insect repellent. Add to the bottom of your feet, before wearing your shoes sockless, to prevent foot odors and athlete’s foot. This wonder oil can be found at most pharmacies. I get mine either from Walmart or Walgreens. It is usually found in the first aid section, but I have also seen it by the vitamins where they have fish oil and other oils for sale. What do you use it for? Tip of the day....yes I re purpose jars. My secret weapon...hold for drum role please...peanut butter. Yes I said peanut butter. Remove as much of the label as you can, then smear with peanut butter and let the jar sit for a bit. The longer it seems to sit the less elbow grease I have to put into scrubbing it later. The first time I used it on a jar, I went straight to washing it and had to scrub and scrub the sticky residue off still. The second time I let the jar sit for a while (actually I forgot about it and went on to do something else) and when I went to clean it, it was just a matter of washing the peanut butter off. I have only used this technique on glass jars so far, when I try it on a plastic container I will update my post. Tip of the day....Did you know that vinegar was a natural deotorizer? Mix equal parts vinegar and water in a spray bottle and spray carpets and rugs, even bedding. Yes it will smell like a pickle for about an hour or so but once the area dries, the smell dissipates taking any funky odors with it. For extra benefits I add equal number of drops of tea tree oil and lavender oil, this helps cover the vinegar scent until it drives and guess what...it's a natural flea repellent. BONUS. I have even been known to spray it directly on my dog since it is not harmful. Out in the country where sand fleas are big, this is a nice way to help keep that issue down, naturally and less expensive than store bought chemicals.