Conference Candy

March 31st, 2012 | Posted by Kat in Ideas | Kids - (0 Comments)
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A tradition that our family has is to have “Conference Candy”. Twice a year, the worldwide leaders of our Church hold a 2-day televised conference called General Conference. It is 8 hours of instruction (four 2-hour segments) for all of the members, and then an extra 2 hours for the men. We have tried to find ways to keep our kids “tuned in” to what is being said – and eight hours is a long time, awesome as the lessons are.

Our biggest success has been using candy, or other treats (pretzels, nuts, popcorn) to help keep their interest level up. This is a good alternative to “Conference Bingo” – our kids are too young to keep interest in that for very long, and tend to just eat the candy. We just had four of the hours today, and my seven- and five-year old were both paying attention for most of the time. My two-year old even got into it for some of the time.

How does it work?

Step 1. Choose your “key words” and label your bags/cups/whatever. Six words seems to be a good number – it is enough that there is at least one of them being said on a fairly frequent basis, but not too many to keep track of and to lose interest.

The kids helped to pick some of these too (like “therefore”). For example, our first six words were: therefore, baptism, prophet, church, family and temple. Our second round words were: faith, prayer, prophet, therefore, gospel and quote (again, “quote” was chosen by my seven-year old).

Step 2: Fill ‘em up with candy/nuts/pretzels/etc. Pretty self-explanatory.

Step 3: Listen for the words, and enjoy! We kept the bags on the fireplace, and I would go get the candy whenever someone called a word out that was said. If you were in the room, you got the candy. My older two were engaged for probably 95% of the time, which was huge. And, actually, Elder Quentin L. Cook had a talk FULL of key words, which prompted my oldest to say, “Apostles are AWESOME! They want us to eat candy!” As long as we are getting a positive memory and learning something, works for me.

Words we might try next time: sacrifice, hope, love, testimony, blessings, service, covenants, commandments. I decided intentionally not to do Savior, Jesus or God just because I don’t feel comfortable with my kids screaming their names at the top of their lungs to get candy. That is my personal feeling. Also, the words in the songs count for us, but not the ones in the prayers. Again, I don’t want my kids shouting out words in the middle of a prayer.

Enjoy!! :)

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Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs

March 31st, 2012 | Posted by Kat in Recipes | Tips - (2 Comments)
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With Easter coming up in just over a week, I thought I would share my tip on how to get the perfect hard-boiled eggs. I had tried various ways to get them “perfect” – no grayish rings; easy to peel; etc. But I could not find something that consistently worked. I tried adding salt, adding vinegar, adding whatever – it did not work for me. So in total frustration one day, I just boiled some water, plopped the eggs in it, boiled, ran in cold water – and to my shock and amazement….they turned out perfectly.

This almost feels like cheating because it is easy, but it works. The shells come off in large pieces instead of in tiny bits; there is no graying; they turn out just right.

Step 1: Boil Water

Step 2: Carefully plop eggs into the water. The only time I have had eggs crack on me is when they crash to the bottom when I first put them in. If I carefully lower them in, they have never broken for me. They may just be well-trained over at our house, though. :)

Step 3: Boil for 13 minutes. This time may vary depending on your altitude. For us, this gets the yolks cooked, but not dried out.

Step 4: Dump out the boiling water and run cold water over the eggs. Do this until the eggs are consistently cool to the touch. You can also just keep the eggs sitting in cold water.

Step 5: Peel your eggs. See the large chunks coming off? That has been my result every time. Easy peasy. No screaming at your eggs because you have to pick off little tiny pieces. Nope. Love it.

There you have it. Nice and straight-forward. Easy. Yummy. Awesome.

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Fluffy (and Stink-Free) Towels

March 30th, 2012 | Posted by Kat in Cleaning | Tips - (2 Comments)

For any of you who have had towels or washcloths over time that have lost their fluff, or have gotten something of a mildewy smell – try this tip.

This is something that we do every time I do a load of towels. It works so well. I had a friend who had mentioned it, and thought I would give it a try. It is great, and is a cheap fix. Over time as you are using your towels, residue builds up on them causing them to lose fluffiness. Using dryer sheets can also add to the residue problem. And over time having something be wet consistently will cause it to be stinky. I think we’ve all been the unfortunate user of a stinky towel or washcloth, be it ours or someone else’s. This will take care of that problem.

Enter stage left: vinegar. That’s it.

Load your washer up with towels, and then instead of detergent pour in 1 cup of vinegar (or 2 cups, if your towels need some more help) and run it through a normal wash cycle. The vinegar will kill the yuckies and get your towels clean. When you stick them in the dryer, do not use a dryer sheet (or fabric softener in the wash) – this will start your film problem all over again. By nature of it being a towel, you don’t really have to worry much about static anyway since whatever is using it will be wet. Just sayin’.

When they are dry, you will have fluffy, fresh-smelling towels again. Hooray! Happy fluffing! :)

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Awesome Sweet & Sour Chicken

March 30th, 2012 | Posted by Kat in Recipes - (0 Comments)
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I found this recipe on pinterest, and decided to try it – it claimed to be “baked” and “impossible to stop eating”. Well, who could resist that?

First, a point of clarification – yes, it is baked, but you FRY it first. In oil. Enough oil to add 56 grams of fat if all of that ends up in your final dish. And some – if not all – of it will. Therefore it is not technically “baked” like a baked homemade french fry that is not covered in oil and therefore is healthier than a true french fry. This recipe is still fried, even with the baking afterward.

HOWEVER, it was AMAZING. Seriously. We even messed up the recipe a bit, and it still was hands down some of the best sweet and sour chicken we have ever tried.

 

Ingredients:

3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

salt & pepper

1 c. cornstarch

2 eggs (beaten)

1/4 c. canola oil

3/4 c. sugar

4 T. ketchup

1/2 c. vinegar

1 T. soy sauce

1 tsp. garlic salt

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Heat your oil in a large skillet. Rinse your chicken breasts in water, then cut into cubes. Season with salt and pepper to your liking. Dip the chicken first into the cornstarch to coat, then into the eggs. Cook your chicken until browned, but not cooked through (this is where we messed it up).

While you are browning your chicken, mix the sugar, ketchup, vinegar, soy sauce and garlic salt in a small bowl – this is your rockin’ sauce.

When chicken is browned, dump the chicken into a GREASED 9×13 baking dish and dump your sauce over the top. Bake for an hour, turning the chicken every 15 minutes. When you are done, you will get this deliciousness:

Here is where we messed up, which may not have been a bad thing. Both my husband and I worked on this one together. Here goes: one of us had put the oil on a mediumish heat initially, and the other one suggested that we turn it down to low. So down to low it went. So the breaded chicken never really “fried” properly, the chicken was definitely cooked through before we put it in the oven, and a good amount of the breading was in the sauce. Because the chicken was cooked through, we only kept it in the oven for 30 minutes or so, turning it halfway through. Still, it was fantabulous. Next time, though, we will keep the oil temperature up.

Initially the sauce tasted kind of like the Polynesian sauce from Chick-Fil-A (which I love), but it settled down to more of a sweet and sour flavor within a couple of minutes. The next time we make this, I will probably toss some drained pineapple and chunkily chopped green peppers and I think it would then be absolutely perfect.

This one is a keeper!

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Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

March 29th, 2012 | Posted by Kat in Cleaning | Tips - (0 Comments)

I found this dishwasher detergent, and decided it would be worth a try.

Ingredients:

1 c. Washing Soda (NOT baking soda – this can be found in the laundry aisle)

1 c. Borax (again, found in the laundry aisle)

1/2 c. Kosher Salt (the original site had used iodized, but recommended Kosher)

4 packets lemon Kool-Aid

Directions:

Dump all ingredients into a bowl and mix. Make sure to crush all of the lumps out. I found it was very easy to do with a fork.

Admire your handiwork. Pretty.

Find a suitable air-tight container to store it in. It only takes up 2 1/2 cups worth of space, so the container does not have to be large. I also had an extra 1/2 T. measuring spoon, so I stuck that in there as well.

You’re done! Congratulations – you just made your own dishwasher detergent. Put 1 T. (or 2 T. for heavily soiled loads) into your dishwasher and wash away.

I found this to work well – it seemed to clean everything well, and did not leave a residue. AND EVERYTHING WAS SHINY!! Woo hoo! I was kind of secretly hoping that it would magically take the hard water stains off of my glasses that have been accumulating for a couple of years, but alas. I’ll have to hunt down that tip another day. They looked shiny though….even with the water stains.

Also, if you are considering making this, but don’t currently have washing soda or Borax – there seem to be a TON of things you can do with them. Like make your own dishwashing detergent. :) It seems to be a good investment.

***Since this post, I have tried this detergent a few times. The first time it worked fantastically well. The second time, not so much. The third time I used half of this detergent, and half Lemi-shine, and that seemed to work well. This is a work in progress.

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Freeze Your Veggies!

March 29th, 2012 | Posted by Kat in Tips - (0 Comments)

Earlier this week when we made our soup, I knew that I would be needing to make another pot of it later in the week to bring to a friend whose husband had surgery. One thing that is a little tough about that soup (or any meal where you need to prep, honestly), IS the prep work. Specifically chopping the veggies. Since I had all of the veggies out, I just chopped enough to put in the pot of soup for later in the week, put it in a plastic freezer baggie, labeled it, chucked it in the freezer and VOILA! Easy soup later in the week.

It was MUCH faster to throw together  with the bag of frozen veggies – I just dumped them in the pot and we were ready to go. So if you have to chop veggies for one meal, take a couple of minutes and chop a bit extra and freeze it so when you make that meal again, it is much faster.

 

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Easy-Peasy Sand Remover

March 28th, 2012 | Posted by Kat in Cleaning | Kids | Tips - (2 Comments)
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We have a turtle sandbox in our backyard and I love it. Mostly.

I love that it is an easy place for kids to go and have fun digging without digging up our backyard. I love that it seems to be a little refuge for my two-year old to go when her brothers are on the trampoline and she can’t get on.

But I don’t love the mess that can get tracked in. My five-year old loves to make little puddles in the sandbox to make wet sand, which is fun, but wet sand gets very stuck on little hands and feet.

I saw a tip on Pinterest with how to get sand off of your kids easily, and thought I would give it a try. I looked around for the original source, and was able to find this on ehow.com.

Enter the magic cure: Baby Powder. (Cue Heavenly Chorus.) This is AWESOME! I was a little skeptical, but it works amazingly well. You just take a little baby powder in the palm of your hand, rub it on sandy feet or hands, and the sand comes right off. I seriously was cackling in my backyard when I tried it the first time because it exceeded my expectations.

My two-year old is a little independent, so she would rather that I sprinkle it on her hands and feet, and then she rubs it on herself. I usually try and “help” as much as I can sneak in.

See? All clean. This is with no water, no nothin’ but baby powder. Awesome. This one is a keeper.

Scavenger Hunt

March 28th, 2012 | Posted by Kat in Kids - (4 Comments)
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Today my son asked if we could go to a local museum. It is an outdoor museum, and the weather has been perfect here, so I agreed that it would be just the thing. Until I realized that we had a repair person coming during the time we would be gone. !! Oh dear. Five-year olds love when their world gets shattered. So, thinking quickly I pulled together a list of things to find to try and pitch the idea to him.

I decided to try and find things that were easy to be found around here at this time of year, and tried to keep it relatively quick enough that we could get back in time for the repair person to come.

I told my five-year old that he could bring some of his “spy gear” that he had bought with his birthday money – this, thankfully, sealed the deal. We were off!

I would highly recommend this – it is an easy idea, totally free, and keeps everyone entertained and in the fresh air. It’s always fun to check things off too. See? I knew that we had an abundance of acorns down the street – it was the quick find to get us excited.

When we had found everything, he decided to make a list of his own for the way back to our house: a stick, a bird, a helicopter (one happened to be flying overhead) and an airplane.

My two-year old was happy to be collecting things too. (Pardon the hair – it was a bit windy….)

This was one of the first things my five-year old told my husband about when he came home on his lunch break, and was the first thing he told his older brother about when we picked him up from school. This is definitely something we will be doing again over the summer.

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Best Soup EVER. Pretty much.

March 27th, 2012 | Posted by Kat in Recipes - (0 Comments)
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We made this soup last night. And we have made it three times since we found it two months ago. I think we like it a little bit……possibly. I found it over at 365 Days of Slow Cooking (the link will actually take you to where the recipe lives now). It is so creamy and delicious, and yet feels light too and has a fantastic subtle crunch from the veggies. It’s awesome. We have made it both in the crock pot and on the stove – it is great either way.

Here is the recipe – I organized it a little differently than on the original site so it’s a little easier to follow:

Ingredients

2 cans diced tomatoes (14.5 oz. each)

1 cup carrots (finely diced)

1 cup celery (finely diced)

1 cup onions (finely diced)

4 cups chicken broth (or 4 chicken bullion cubes and 4 cups water)

1 tsp dried oregano (or 1 T fresh)

1 T dried basil (or 1/4 c. fresh)

1/2 bay leaf

1/2 c. butter

1/2 c. flour

1 c. parmesan cheese (freshly grated, if possible)

2 c. warmed half and half (or milk – will give you lighter flavor and will be a little bit healthier)

1 tsp. salt

 

How to:

1. Combine first eight ingredients (through bay leaf) in large pot. Start simmering. OR you could dump all of it into a crock pot and leave it on low for 5-7 hours. Yummy! :)

2. In another pot, melt the butter. When it is melted, whisk in the flour. Wisk continually for 5-7 minutes. Congratulations – you’ve now made a “roux”. If the rest of the soup is in the crock pot, you’ll do this step at the end of the 5-7 hours.

3. At the end of the 5-7 minutes, slowly stir in 1 cup of the hot soup. I like to move the “roux” pot over to the simmering veggies for this part. It will thicken up immediately. Then add 3 more cups of the hot soup. At this point you will have used a good deal of the soup mixture, and it will still be thick at the end.

4. Dump the “roux” mixture into what is left of the soup. Simmer and stir constantly until the soup thickens. Then wisk your parmesan. I actually prefer less than the 1 cup, but it’s up to you. Then add your warmed half and half (or milk) and salt. Simmer this over low heat for 15-20 min.

5. Serve up, and enjoy!!

 

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