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Freezer Cooking 2014: Broth

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Did you enjoy my post yesterday talking about prepping meat and organs for quick and easy dinners ? I hope so. Today we are talking about BROTH!  Besides getting wonderful meat, organ meats, and tallow from Indian Creek angus , I also get lots of bones. Speaking of bones, I am a fan of any type of meat that is bone-in that require a long slow cooking time. Because the bones add lots of flavor and tenderness to the meat, it adds minerals, and dissolving the connective tissue in the cooking process fills the dish with easily absorbed amino acids and soothing collagen that benefits our skin and joints. Seriously, you are missing out if you only eat boneless skinless meat! Okay, back to the bones. I had an assortment of marrow and joint bones that I wanted to use to make broth. I was excited because they had lots of fat and connective tissue. First I loaded them into two pans and roasted them for an hour and a half at 375 F. Roasting gives them a great flavor, and renders o...
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Freezer Cooking 2014: Meat and Organs

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I hope you guys are ready for a slew of posts in the next 7 days. School starts back a week from Monday and I have been cooking up a storm and doing everything I can to get ahead for when things get crazy. That means that it is the time of year for freezer cooking!! I have done this every year for the last 3 years. You can read about freezer cooking 2012 ( Part I , II, III , IIII ) and 2013 by clicking on the links. I somehow accidentally erased the second freezer cooking post from last year. Oops.  As you can tell from those posts, normally I make a lot of sauces, some blanched veggies, and lots of chili and spaghetti. This year I am doing things a little differently.  Many times, when I am scrambling to figure out what to make for dinner, it is because I haven't defrosted any meat. Generally, with frozen and easy to prepare veggies and starches, meals are easy on the fly, except for the meat portion. Chris can only take so many eggs for dinner, so having an as...
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Energizing Rosemary Eucalyptus Soap

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My husband has used the same soap for as long as I have known him. Orange Dial. He loves the scent and everything about it. After I made my lavender rosemary soap, I took on the challenge of creating a more manly bar of soap. Or at least something that didn't smell like flowers. I wanted to go for something energizing with a cool pattern. I think I succeeded.  I used a pringle can as my mold, and sliced the log into rounds to make my bars.  I wanted a color in this soap so I took 1 tsp of blue oxide pigment from my DIY makeup stash and mixed it with a tablespoon of oil to dissolve the pigment. It was probably more than I needed so I would do half that amount next time. I will reflect this in the recipe.  I went to  soapcalc.net  to create my recipe. You can take any oil you want and type in the percentage you want to use and when all your oils add up to 100% you click 'calculate recipe' and it shows you how much lye, water and oil you...
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Lavender Rosemary Soap

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Hello, my name is Noelle and I am researchaholic. I have an idea and then I spend hours and hours researching before I finally take the plunge. Case in point. A year ago I got it into my head that I wanted to make soap. Six months ago I bought the lye and essential oils. 3 weeks ago I finally made my first batch. The crazy thing is that it didn't take long at all and was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I have already made four different batches, and I will be posting a series of recipes. But today we will start with my first ever batch of soap. Lavender Rosemary.  Actually, before I walk you through the steps, lets cover the basics so you know what is going on. To make real soap (not the melt and pour kind you get at your local craft store) you need two things. Sodium Hydroxide (Lye) and Fat. The lye is mixed with water to create a solution that is then mixed into melted fats and blended together. The measurements are extremely important and can be calculated on a sit...
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