Holy Guacamole, Batman!

Well I don't intend for this to necessarily be a recipe blog, I really wanted to share this recipe with you. I've never been a huge fan of guacamole, but to stay with the theme of being open to trying new things, I decided to revisit it when I discovered this recipe. 

For whatever reason, the idea of eating something somewhat slimy and green sounded more appealing with chunks of other vegetables mixed in. I originally found the recipe in a magazine about a year ago and, I apologize, I can't for the life of me remember which magazine. So cheers to whoever discovered it and, if you know where it came from, please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due! 

• 2 large or 3 small avocados
• 1 ripe tomato, chopped
• 2 tbsp diced onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• Salt & Pepper to taste

If you've never handled an avocado before, figuring out how to get it open can be intimidating. With a few easy steps, you'll have that avocado handled in no time! First I slice all the way around the avocado the long way. Then, I twist the halves apart. This should separate the two halves, leaving the pit inside one half. 

To remove the pit I stab it with the end of a sharp knife and twist a bit until it comes loose. Don't throw the pit away though. You may need it later! Once the avocado is split open and the pit is removed, I use a spoon to scoop out all the flesh into a medium sized bowl. The remaining skins can be discarded. Do this for all of the avocados. 

Add the diced onion, chopped tomato, garlic and lemon juice and stir until thoroughly mixed. Try a little bite and add salt and pepper as needed. Yum! 

The downfall of avocados is that they turn brown rather quickly when exposed to oxygen. So, if you plan to make this appetizer a bit ahead of serving time, you want to take some precautions to avoid serving up a brown bowl of mush. First, stick the pits back into the guacamole once it’s fully prepared. I don't know the scientific reason this slows down the oxidation process, but I know it does. 

Second, cover the top of the guacamole with saran wrap so that the wrap lies directly on top of the guacamole. In other words, you want the saran wrap to actually touch the entire top surface of the dish. These two steps should slow down the oxidation for you enough to impress your guests with a gleaming green dish of beautiful guac. 

I made this for a summer camping trip the Mister and I embarked on. I prepared the guacamole on Friday morning and we didn't get to enjoying it until dinner on Saturday. I actually stored mine in a covered glass Pyrex container with the pits stuck in and when I removed it from the cooler and gave it a good stir, it was still green and ready to eat! 

Enjoy it with a handful of your favorite tortilla chips and maybe a margarita or two! :) 

What dish were you once not so sure about but now love to eat? 

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Freezer Meal Friday ~ Honey Sesame Chicken

I confess, I love Chinese food. Despite that love, I don’t indulge in that deliciousness very often. There isn’t a great Chinese place close by our house and the ones we do go to are not considered “reasonably priced” in our small spending budget . That being said, I try to make dishes at home now and then that somewhat resemble something we’d get when dining out for Chinese. Enter Honey Sesame Chicken.

I stumbled upon this recipe at Baked In The South. This is a great recipe to make as a freezer meal.

Honey Sesame Chicken

• 1 lb chicken tenders (I used chicken breasts and chopped them into 1 inch pieces)
• 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 Cup Honey
• 2 Tbsp Sesame Seeds
• ½ Cup Soy Sauce
• 1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper

Just toss all of the ingredients into a freezer bag, mix it all up, and freeze. 

While putting this meal together is super easy, apparently taking pictures while doing it is not… I apologize for the lack of good pictures of this delicious meal. 

Anyway, I take the bag out of the freezer the night before and thaw it in the fridge. Put it in the crock pot in the morning and cook on low for 4-5 hours. I served this over rice with some steamed veggies. The Mr. ranted and raved about how good it was and I think he may have enjoyed it even more the next day as a leftover lunch. 

Cost to make:
1 lb Chicken - $1.99/lb on sale
Olive Oil – On hand
1 Cup Honey – $4.29
2 Tbsp Sesame Seeds - $.75
½ Cup Soy Sauce - $1.10
Sesame Oil – On hand
Salt – On hand
Pepper – On hand
2 Cups Rice – $.65
Total = $8.78

This recipe made us four good sized meals for only $2.20 per meal!

What eat out favorites have you adapted to make at home?

Taming Magazine Madness

I love magazines. The bold and bright colors, the anticipation of what's going to be on the next page, the feel of the shinny paper on my fingertips. In this digital age, many magazines are offering digital subscriptions in lieu or in conjunction with a paper magazine subscription. While I do own an iPad and enjoy reading certain types of articles on it, I just prefer a paper copy magazine so much more. 

That being said, magazines have a way of accumulating very quickly in our house. I make it a point to only subscribe to a select few to help reduce the clutter, but a lack of time to read, a lack of an organizational system to store, and an ongoing nagging feeling that one day I'm going to want to refer back to that one article on that one topic cause the piles to grow oddly fast. 

Since starting this blog, my magazine hoarding has increased substantially as I find blog ideas and inspiration for personal organization products and don't want to toss them into the recycle bin hoping I can find the information online later. So I decided to get a handle on this magazine madness by creating a magazine binder.

When I read through a magazine, I dog-ear the pages that offer some sort of information I'd like to hang on to. It may be a color scheme, a remodel project, a recipe, etc. I went back through some of the magazines I had already read and stashed on a shelf and ripped out all of the dog-eared pages. Then, I went through each ripped out page and gave it some sort of category like style, home colors, tips and tricks, etc.

I had some empty binders laying around in our home office and I found some three-hole-punched divider labels and some sticky tabs that I must have purchased for some other forgotten project. I made a tab for each category and stuck them onto the divider labels.

Then I three hole punched my ripped out pages and put them in the binder by category. As I read through more magazines and discover new categories, I can easily create another divider label and insert it into the binder accordingly. 

I will admit, it was very difficult for me to toss the read-through, ripped-out magazine into the recycle bin, but having just one binder to stash away is so much more open-concept than having a giant stack of dog-eared magazines that are timely to sort through when searching for the elusive one article about that one thing.

How do you organize your magazine madness?

DIY Laundry Detergent

There is a wealth of information online regarding homemade green cleaning products that not only protect the environment but also can save you money. In addition to the household cleaning products I made, I decided to try homemade laundry detergent. I found a variety of recipes online, some powder and some liquid, and after doing some research on reviews, ingredients, etc., I decided to go with a recipe I found here.

I did some price checking to determine the best price of ingredients. Between Walmart, our local grocery store Meijer, and big-box store Sam’s Club, Walmart came out with the best prices and I was able to find all of the necessary ingredients there:

• 1 box (3 lb 7 oz) Super Washing Soda - $3.24
• 1 Box (4 lb 12 oz) Borax - $3.38
• 1 Box (4 lbs) Baking Soda - $2.24
• 28 oz Fels Naptha Soap (or Zote soap) - $8.10
• 3 lbs Oxi Clean - $7.52
• 1-2 bottles (55 oz) of Purex Crystals Fabric Softener (not recommended for HE machines) - $8.96

I used the Fels Naptha soap because that’s what I could find. I understand that Zote soap works just as well and I’ve heard that it may dissolve a bit better in cold water, but I can’t speak to that personally since I haven’t used it. I haven’t noticed any build-up or lack of dissolving with the Fels Naptha so far.

The Purex Crystals are optional of course. They do add a fabric softening element to the soap as well as a stronger scent. I have an “old-fashioned” washing machine, but I’ve heard that the Purex Crystals shouldn’t be used in the newer HE machines. So if you have an HE, eliminate the Crystals.

Anyway, to make the laundry soap, you first need to grate the The Fels Naptha or Zote soap. There are many ways to accomplish this, but I chose to use a small cheese grater and that worked fine for me. It is a great arm workout! After a couple bars, my husband offered to help and he grated much faster than I could! 

Not Shredded Cheese!

Once the soap was grated, I combined everything into a large bucket by adding about half of each ingredient and mixing and then adding the other half and mixing again. This seemed to help the mixing process a bit. Once it was mixed sufficiently, I dumped it into two 6 Quart resealable containers. 

I use the Oxyclean scoop to measure the soap for each load. I use between 1 and 2 tablespoons per load depending on the load size and dirtiness. (The 1 or 2 line on the Oxyclean scoop).

I have very sensitive skin and was a bit leery making a huge batch of laundry soap that could result in an allergic reaction. But, I figured if it irritated my skin, I could always give it away to some of my not-so-sensitive-skin friends and family. I’ve been using this soap for about 3 months now and haven’t had one issue with itchiness, irritation, redness, etc.

At first, the soap seemed to work just as good as the store-bought stuff. However, after a few months, my husband started to notice that his white t-shirts weren’t staying quite as white. I decided to add in a second box of Oxyclean a few weeks ago so it’s still too early to tell if that’s helped. I don’t typically use bleach to wash our whites, but that may be another option if necessary.

After using the soap for about three months, I’m estimating this batch will last about 480 loads which in our house is about 27 months! 

On a side note, I read that putting a ball of aluminum foil in the dryer helps to eliminate static. Static is one of my biggest pet peeves, so I was hesitant to throw my clothes into the dryer without my tried and true Bounce sheets. But the aluminum ball actually works quite well. The only time I’ve noticed an issue is when I have a larger load of towels and/or sheets. I think the ball gets caught up in the fabric and seems to be less effective. 

Also, here is an amazing resource from Better Homes & Gardens for removing 1,000 different stains!

Do you have an adaptation to this recipe that’s worked for you?