Apple Streusel Muffins

Alright so I know that we're passed all the apple recipes but, I still have an entire fruit drawer in the refrigerator that is full of them! While the boys love a good apple, in particular the toddler, there is no way they can eat them that fast. So, with no room for any other fruit like grapes, oranges, etc. something has to be done. 

So, it was down with apples day around here! 

I didn't want just an apple muffin though, mainly because I was going to make an apple bread as well. So, I immediately thought of The Girl Who Ate Everything and her Apple Muffins. She always makes good stuff and I knew that I would "tweak" it. Tweak is a constant term used to describe what I do to recipes around here! I tested her recipe a week or two earlier and LOVED it! I knew though, that the boys and some of the family I was baking for are big, no huge fans of cinnamon with apples. Hence I made an apple struesel muffin mix!

Apple Streusel Muffins!

Notice the cute Halloween papers? My oldest son said that they needed this to make them look pretty! :)

I stuck to to Christy's recipe pretty well (below):

Cream together:
2 cups sugar (I use 1 1/2 cups)
2 eggs
1 cup oil
1 Tablespoon vanilla

Sift:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 cups peeled, cored, diced apples (around 3 apples)
Brown sugar for topping (around 1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pan with paper liners.

Cream together sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Sift flour, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon (I never sift and they turn out fine). Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture and mix until combined. The batter will be very thick. Add the diced apples.

Fill paper liners almost to the top, about 3/4 of the way full. Sprinkle with brown sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-24 minutes. Makes 18 muffins 

Only I added of course, a bit more cinnamon to the muffin mix. I eyeballed it so I'm guessing about 2 /1/2 - 3 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. I added maybe about 1 - 2 tbs of extra sugar and then even a bit of brown sugar in the mix!

Plus you can't have a streusel muffin without the "Streusel"! So, the first batch or so I simply sprinkled brow sugar across the top, lightly dusted that with cinnamon and then a pinch of sugar to each muffin. For the subsequent batched I actually made a typical streusel topping. It didn't taste as good as the other one though so I added to it. I'll share the typical recipe for those who desire less of the cinnamon and sugar though. :)

Streusel topping:
1/2cp packed brown sugar
1/2cp of flour
1/2 stick of room temp or softened butter

*I added a bit of sugar and cinnamon to this though. 

You just mix until crumbly. Then sprinkle over the tops. Bake them per Christy's directions and they turn out AMAZING! P.S. I gave mine a couple taps of the muffin pan on the counter to remove any air bubbles in the mix. 

So far, so good, everyone has wanted to eat more, including the toddler! Who may have ruined his lunch by eating several in a row when my back was turned.

If you try them our way, I hope you enjoy them. Have a safe holiday! 

Cleaning Your House the Old Fashioned Way; Eco and Wallet Friendly Ways

Back in the day, my parents and grandparents and their parents and grandparents cleaned with normal household products. Some of us learned how to do some of it and as time has passed, and big companies have come out with all these brand new sprays, cleaners and soaps, we put the old ways aside. I was one of those people for a long time and while I cannot say that every cleaner in my home now is made of household products, I will say that a tightening the budget, can make you re-evaluate what you're willing to spend those last few dollars on! Is it worth almost $20 for something that will do 60 loads? Or can I spend $20 and do 2x – 3x that amount, (depending upon how much I use)? Or in those situations when you've been demoted or business is dropping. It means smaller checks and some households have had to choose between bills or food on the table. Worrying about how you're going to clean the bathtub or do laundry is last on their list!

So, I'm going to share my 3 favorite household things that I grew up using. I'll share what little I can remember. If you've got a great tip or suggestion, please feel free to leave it either at the end of this blog post or on my FB page, so we all can benefit from your knowledge!



The benefits of baking soda:

1. The one we all know, it helps keep away gross odors in our refrigerators, trash cans, etc.
2. Great for putting out grease fires. This was drilled into my head as a small child.
3. A great cleanser for just about anything.
4. My grandmother used to clean her silver with it. I have a house full of boys.....all pretty things like silver don't exist here though!
5. It is a great stain fighting agent or in the case of pans, is a great fighter of all things dried on.
6. It's a relatively cheap household product. That not only is in almost every house imaginable but, easily obtainable.
   
   
   

The benefits of vinegar:

1. It's shelf life is indefinite. Occasionally you may see a not so appetizing substance on the top of vinegar that's been on your shelf for a while. This does NOT mean that you need to discard. It is a perfectly normal process and does nothing for the condition of your vinegar. You can strain it using something like a coffee filter and keep on using your vinegar!
2. It never needs refrigeration. So, if you've got a power outage. It's always going to be good for cooking or cleaning!
3. It's an organic and natural compound to have in your home. Safe for allergies and the younger kiddos as well. Even if it gets into their eyes, yes it will sting, but there is no chance of permanent damage. It's so safe to use and non-toxic that my mother used it to clean her coffee pots every month or so even!
4. It's a streak free cleaner for things like glass and mirrors.
5. There's no need to use gloves as it's not a harsh cleaner
6. Like the above mentioned baking soda, it's relatively cheap compared to many, many cleaners.
7. My favorite bonus of vinegar? It's an antimicrobial agent! That's right, if you use 5% acetic acid (vinegar) in your home, it wages war with a decent range of bacteria!
   
   
   

The benefits of lemon juice:

1. The smell alone is worth it's weight in the pennies it takes to buy some at the local market or better yet, to make yourself! As a bonus, if you make it yourself, we use to throw the rinds down the garbage disposal to make the drain all pretty smelling.
2. Because like vinegar, lemons are acidic, they provide some antibacterial and/or antiseptic properties!
3. It's insanely cheap and even cheap to make yourself at home.
4. When using vinegar to clean, adding some lemon juice to it, can help lessen the scent of the vinegar.
5. As my FB tip said earlier, it is a natural bleaching agent. So, it's great for that white load and also great for those stains on the counter that you can't seem to get rid of.

I'm going to break it down for you all, area by area.

Kitchen:

1. Countertop: For counter stains, you can use lemon juice and allow it to sit for ONLY a few minutes (Any longer, at it will actually bleach your countertop so keep that in mind!).Then scrub with the baking soda.
2. Cutting boards: Rub a lemon slice on top of your chopping block to disinfect. If you've got a tough stain, you can allow it to sit for about 10 min. or less, then wipe it clean. I've also heard that you can use vinegar to clean your wooden cutting boards as well. You're suppose to just wipe them down with it.
3. Coffee makers, coffee and tea stains: Let 1/4cp of vinegar, and at least 2cps of water (you can use more though, if you prefer) run through your coffee maker, as you would normally make coffee and your urn and coffee pot will be clean as a whistle. You can then use this hot rinse from your coffee maker to clean out any pans you may brew tea in as well. If you just have stains in your coffee or tea cups, you can use a bit of vinegar to your sponge or cloth and wipe the cup out.
4. Micorwave: To clean your microwave, use ½ cp of vinegar and 1 cp of water, in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave until it's at a boil. It will kill the odors and loosen any gross baked on foods left in there. Or, if you don't like the smell, a better alternative is to heat a bowl of lemon slices in a bowl of water between 30 secs. - 1 min. or so. It will make the stuck on food easier to remove and still get rid of those old smells, like microwaved popcorn!
   5.  A tsp or so of lemon juice added to your dishwashing soap, can help cut through the grease. 
   
   
   
   
   Bathroom:
   1. Stains: Use the ratio of 3 to 1, baking soda to water. Apply it to the stain and let it sit. Then wipe it clean.
   2. Toilet: To remove gross stains, spray with a solution of vinegar and water. Or, once a month, add 1cp of undiluted white vinegar to your toilet and let sit overnight.
   3. Showerheads: Soak in vinegar overnight to remove corrosion or build up.
   4. Mirrors: Vinegar with newspaper was always what the women in my family used.
   5. Shower tile: To get rid of mildew stains, use lemon juice and vinegar in a spray bottle. Spray the area and let it sit for around 10 mins. Then scrub with a stiff brush.
   6. Porcelain tub or countertops: Use baking soda, dusted over the surface and scrub with a moist cloth or sponge. If you're stain is a tougher one, use a bit of kosher salt to help get rid of it.
   
   
   
   
   General Household:
   1. Windows: Use at least 2 tbs of vinegar to a gallon of water; You can go as high as half and half here, so there is no “wrong way” to do this! Put in spray bottle. Spray on your windows and use newspaper to wipe.
   2. Carpet odor: Sprinkle baking soda and let sit for about 15 mins. or so and vacuum.
   
   
   
   
   Laundry:
   1. To stop colors from running, you soak it in vinegar before you wash.
   2. Adding half a cup of vinegar to your rinse cycle, cuts down on lint fro your clothes.
   3. Vinegar is good for stain removal, like coffee, cola, wine, ketchup, chocolate and a few others. Just rub the stain with vinegar and throw it in the wash.
   4. To clean your washing machine, run it empty with one cup of vinegar. For the boys' father, I had to do this once a week because let me tell you, a mechanic really gets dirty!
   5. Speaking of grease, to get rid of grease stains, wash with baking soda, or pretreat grease stain with baking soda paste.
   6. You can use up to 1/2cp of lemon juice to your whites to get them whiter.
   7. Every once in a while, if not daily, add a bit of baking soda to your hamper to rid it of odors.
   
   
   
   
   Outdoor uses:
   1. Ants: To get rid of them, you're suppose to poor lemon juice around the areas that they frequent. Otherwise, vinegar in a spray bottle along doorways, windowsills and countertops is suppose to work just as well. Though I saw many of my family members use one of the two ways, I've never had to put it to practical use.
   2. Grease spills: Use baking soda to help get that up.
   3. Those blow up pools or little children's pools, from time to time need to be cleaned. Use baking soda and warm water.
   4. Lawn furniture: ¼ cp or so of baking soda and 1qt. of water will clean them right up, all shiny and new.   
   
   
   
   
   These are just a bit of what I can remember. Proof that you really don't need a big budget to clean your house thoroughly. Blue Collar households can be just as shiny, cleanly and smell as fresh as a house with a bigger budget. Not to mention, that you've not only saved a bunch of money but, you also can be green in your efforts! 
   

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

My toddler LOVES bananas. I mean he would eat them all day long if I let him, which is not necessarily a good thing. I mean most of us know what the BRAT (Bananas, Rice, Apples and Toast) diet will do to a person! So, every so often I have to commandeer the bananas. Unfortunately, in order to avoid the arguments over having another banana, I always hide them out of sight. Which, is really bad because, with so much going on, I'm on of those people that if it's out of sight, it's out of mind!  So, more often than not, I end up with either very black bananas or furry ones!

I would make banana bread with them but seriously, how many times a month can you eat banana bread?! I could dehydrate them and save them as snacks but, no one in the house will eat a crunchy banana! So, I brainstormed for a while and then remembered a recipe I read a while back from one of my favorite bloggers. I mean my FAVORITE! I have never shared him before, like I could keep him all to myself and then I wouldn't have to share him! :D I think he's only got about 1000 followers now, well more really, so my dream of keeping him all to myself is sadly....well, just sad! So, I have to share him now because these cookies are great, although, I made a slight alteration or two to the recipe. I hope Garret forgives me for it! (yeah, he'll never find this blog but, just in case!)

Garrett's Grandmother's Banana Cookies

This is Garrett's picture. 

Ingredients:
1/2cps of unsalted butter, room temp.
1cp of sugar
1 egg, room temp
1 cp mashed bananas
1tsp baking soda
2cps flour
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp ea. of ground cinnamon, ground cloves, mace or nutmeg
Optional - 1cp pecans, walnuts or chocolate chips or mix and match

** I added a little more clove and cinnamon to my batch (almost a tsp each of both). I also added just shy of 1tsp of vanilla. 
Vanilla makes any cookie taste better right?! :) I also didn't have an unsalted butter around for once, so I used regular. I simply had to forgo the salt. 




Directions: 
Preheat the oven to 350 degree F. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat until well mixed. 


Mix the mashed bananas and baking soda in a bowl and let sit for 2 minutes to froth a bit, this gives the cookies their rise. 

Mix banana mix and butter mix together. Combine the flour, salt and spices, then mix into the wet mix, until just combined.

Fold in your pecans, chocolate chips or whatever you chose as an optional ingredient. Then dollop onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 11 - 13 minutes or until nicely golden brown. Then remove them to cool on a wire wrack.

**Sidenote here: You can use that nonstick foil to line your pan but, there is a reason Garrett says to use parchment paper. Even with the foil, these cookies are soo cake-like and moist that they actually stick a little to the foil. If you're careful and give them a minute, you can remove them with no issue. I learned this the hard way the first time I made these!

These are mine. Not bad looking, nothing like his but, still not bad! 

I swear these are seriously the best banana cookies ever! I stay away from nuts because of allergy issues but, I HAVE to put chocolate chips in there! Though I will say, these cookies could stand on their own without a nut or chip in it. 


Here is Garrett's blog because you quite literally have to check it out! When I post this to Facebook, I will of course include his page on there as well because he really is an amazing baker, chef, food lover and I seriously love his humor and outlook a lot of the time. 

Space matters and How to Make a Spreader

Here it is Saturday and instead of relaxing, I've developed spring cleaning fever.....er well, fall cleaning and organizing fever. I have my printer/laminator area all organized and set up. The boys' homeschool area all set up and organized. Their game/play room, almost completely perfected to my liking but, there was one big monster to tackle. The boys' movies!

They had a tendency to go grab a movie, and either throw the case onto the side of the TV or the window seat area (because it's next to our TV) or throw the movie from the DVD player there. Which always made me slightly cranky! So, I'm going to show you my Blue Collar to solution to this. One, the house we live in is almost 100 years old. 96 years old to be exact. Not a big house by any means and houses built in this area around that time had little to NO closets. Yeah, that's right ladies, NO CLOSETS! In fact when this house was built, there was no kitchen or bathroom even! I try not to lay awake at night imagining where on the property the outhouse sat. Oh the nigtmares I've had over that thought!

Anyway, so the point is that there is VERY little space in this house for storage or for storage of items that need to be kept out of the way but, that we use everyday. So, every little nook and cranny matters. On our window seat area though, there are little insets on each side of the row of windows. Coincidentally, about the same width of a DVD case when standing on it's end. :)

 This is the right side. 

 The left. 

How ingenues is this? I didn't paint it or anything yet, I wanted to get a feel for how it would work. Anyway, it was really simple. I measured between the edge of the window to the beginning edge of the window box thing - yes, that's a technical term. I measured the size of a DVD case standing on end. Downstairs I had some extra shelving from another bookcase I got for free and cut them to size. Actually about 1/4 bigger so that there would a little lip in front of behind the cases. I then took them to the boys' grandfather and had him drill just a little bit into the shelves so that the dowels would fit into there nicely enough. I glued them into place, and let them dry. They were a tight fit into the space, like I wanted and I had to kind of hammer them back in a bit. I'm sure it's marred my wood around the window but, that's ok. When or if they every come out again, it will be time to refinish the wood or paint it anyway. Yes, I should've painted it ages ago but, I'm kind of in love with it now. :P

The spreader is a good idea if you've got small children who like to help when cooking and baking. Not to mention if they say, break an arm! Yes, we've already been down that road! A friend of mine is handicapped and can only use one hand and my mother's neighbor is unable to use her one arm as well. So, this comes in handy for them as well.

I don't know if you can see it here or not but, it's flat. Flat as a pancake! I simply bought a cheap spoon, placed it between two towels and then took it outside. I hammered it flat. Pounding one side, then turning it over to pound the other. I did this over and over again until it was flat enough for me. Now, the boys can easily keep their Vegan butter on it, to butter their bread. I didn't have to spend an arm and a leg for it either. Just a quick idea to maybe give you a hand or your kiddos an easier tool to use to help them be more independent.

Have a good weekend!

Zucchini Bread

Growing up, I was not a fan of anything other than white bread. Wonder bread to be exact. I mean it had all those colorful circles. How could any kid not like that? I never ventured to wheat bread, and banana bread was a huge no no. I mean bananas actually in bread?! That was just wrong on so many levels in my sweet, young, little mind. Not to mention my avoidance of anything fruit or vegetably (yes, that is a word!). So, zucchini bread, there was no way you could've paid me enough to eat that!

Then I grew up. Well, I should say my taste buds grew up, kind of but, at least they were willing to try new things. :)  So, in came banana bread, then my yummy pumpkin bread (from Alton Brown), made without the pumpkin seeds cause I eat them all! And now, Zucchini Bread!

I got this recipe from my mother who got it from a friend of hers. Now, I loved the recipe as it was but, if you've not figured out by now and in case the new followers don't know, I like flavor! I like being able to bite into a piece of something and taste a little nutmeg, vanilla or clove. So, I adjusted the recipe. I will give you the recipe as it was and let you know where I changed it. It just needed a little dressing up for me was all and when the house filled with the flavor of the bread, I knew it had turned out alright. :)

Ingredients: 

2 2/3cps of sugar
2/3cps of shortening
3cps of shredded zucchini ( I used about 4cps - using a "wet" ingredient measuring cup, not dry)
**P.S. A side not here, shredded zucchini means that you peel it first and then put it into your food processor or you can painfully do it by hand with something like a cheese grader if you have no, food processor. Yes, peeling it would seem obvious to some but, my girlfriend tried my recipe and didn't peel it! 
2/3cps of water (I actually used about half of this)
4 eggs
3 1/3cps flour
1/1/2 tsp of salt
1tsp of cinnamon (I used about 1 1/2 - 2tsp)
1tsp ground cloves ( I used what my mother refers to as a rounded tsp, I tell the boys it's a spoonful with a small hill on top!)
2tsp vanilla (I used about 2 1/2 tsp)
1/2tsp baking powder
optional ingredients:
2/3cps of chopped nuts and/or raisins

Directions: 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

The recipe calls for greasing only the bottom of the loaf pans but, I just used parchment paper. I cut it to the size of the bottom and left it long enough to drape over the sides. So, that when it was done baking, I could loosen the ends with a butter knife, grab the ends of the parchment paper and lift. Below is a picture of what I'm talking about. It's blurry because there was a 3yr old under foot trying to peek in there too! So, I turned and snapped. Alas my photo skills are seriously lacking.

Cream together the sugar and shortening in a large bowl (2qt. or so). Stir in the zucchini, water and eggs. Then mix in the rest of your ingredients. I did the whole "baker" thing and slowly added the dry ingredients in, a little at a time but, the recipe doesn't actually call for it. If you've opted for nuts or raisins now is the time to add them in. I used neither of the two.

Divide evenly amongst both pans evenly. And bake for 60 - 70 mins - this is what the recipe called for but, mine took considerably longer. Mine looked considerably runny though, most likely from the added zucchini. So, it needed a bit more time to cook. To check when yours is done, do the toothpick thing or a butter knife coming out of the center clean, will do just as well too.

Let it sit for at least 5 min. Then remove from the pans to cool onto a cooling rack.

Again I apologize if these pictures are not up to par but, I was also using someone else's camera because I forgot to unload the pictures from mine and both memory cards were full. :P

I of course had to sneak a bite while it was still warm and it was delicious beyond belief! My mother loved it, I was making all the yummy noises one does when they're eating something so good, which included a little happy dance. Though not the full on happy dance, just a little shimmy or two! :)

Anyway, hope you all make some of your own soon, because I'm being mean and NOT sharing!

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