Orange Julius Smoothie

We have had this particular blender that I got from walmart for quite some time and we really love it.   The best thing is that it's not the big blender so you can make individual serving size drinks and clean up is so much easier and faster.   We drink our smoothies right from the cup we mix it in.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/GE-17-Piece-Single-Serve-Rocket-Blender/17780929

Tonight we experimented with making our own single serve Orange Julius.  Remember that refreshing vanilla orange baby asprin tasting beverage!


Here is my recipe.  Since I use my scale for crafts I find I like using it for cooking as well.   It sure beats trying to measure some things in measuring cups that's for sure.   I just zero out my scale each time I add an ingredient so I'm not messing up any other dishes to make clean-up faster.  I also prefer to weigh in grams because it's more accurate than ounces.  There are 28 grams to the ounce.   If your a little over or under it's no big deal at all. 

85 grams frozen orange juice concentrate
115 grams skim milk
30 grams of sugar (more or less to taste, or use splenda to taste since it has a different weight than sugar)
Small dash of vanilla about 1/4 teaspoon but you don't need to dirty a measuring spoon for this
115 grams CRUSHED ice *

We have an ice machine that crushes the ice cubes it makes.  Don't try this in this small blender with large ice cubes, it's not made to handle that load.   Use a large regular sized blender instead.

Once you measure all your ingredients, blend until smooth.   Pulsing as needed and taking the canister off as needed to shake.   It's all contained with the lid so you can do that with this type of blender.    Wash the top part with the blending blades right away and let air dry for the next time it's used. 

Best of all enjoy a cool refreshing smoothie !!!

What A Guy !!!!

As many of you have experienced unusual weather patterns so far this winter.  North Dakota is no different.   It didn't start out so bad, but we have experienced a fair bit of snow this year.   And winter is just starting!!!

We have lived in this house for 13 years and this is the first time we have had to shovel the snow off the roof.   It's that deep.  In one storm we got 15 inches alone !!!!!

So that is what my guy is doing today.  Clearing the snow off the roof of our house.   It's pretty deep.  Overall about 2 feet deep and deeper in other areas where it usually catches.

As you can see the size of the shovel he is using.   And his feet aren't even on the shingles.....

Now for the after picture with the shovel plunged into the snow.  This particular section is over the garage.

Now for one last picture of Willy in action shoveling the roof off.

Thanks hunny for shoveling the roof off !!!!!   Considering our roof line that's a lot of snow to move.  He's still up there now as I type this.  But I'll have a mug of hot sipping chocolate ready for him when he comes in.   

Just click the pictures if you want to see them enlarged.

Oats, they arent just for breakfast anymore

Quite some time ago a friend of mine and I were determined to add oat something or another into our lotions, with the exception we didn't call it oat milk. We simply cooked up some old fashioned oatmeal in water and used the liquid. Once it cooled it was a thick gooey mess. But we were proud of our accomplishments at the time. I didn't make it again as it was a mess to work with and make. Instead I opted to add a certain percent of colloidal oatmeal directly into my lotions or creams.

With soap, I add in the colloidal oatmeal directly into the soap. This has a powder fine texture so it doesn't add much grit into the soap. For those that prefer something that exfoliates just a little more I use the old fashioned oatmeal and run it through a food processor to break it down.

I don't use baby oatmeal, quick cooking or instant oatmeal because I feel that the process that they have gone through breaks down and removes the goodness of the oatmeal that you need.

The FDA has approved colloidal oatmeal as as skin proctant.  After all this is what the AVENO company has based their product line off of.   For many people it helps to relieve dry and itchy skin.

But this has recently been something I have been thinking more of lately. So I began looking more into what is called Oat Milk. This has a liquid consistency or sometimes the consistency of heavy cream but not thicker than that. People use it to drink in place of actual cows milk when they can't drink that for health reasons.

I looked up some recipes and found where some people cooked there's while others just amounted to steeping the oats in hot water for 8 to 10 hours then to continue with the process. I learned from before that cooking makes a mess of things, so I wanted to try the steeping method. But I didn't have the old fashioned oats in the house and I didn't feel like running to the store. But I knew that colloidal oatmeal was ground up oats and I did have plenty of that. I also found a recipe on the net that used the colloidal oatmeal and water but it didn't give any measurements. So I guessed. I believe I figured on the heavy side which benefits the oat milk even more. I strained it almost a dozen times to get out as much of the grit as possible and I was quite pleased with the results. Now my oat milk has the benefits of the oats without the grit. I'm so very excited about that.

So I used my oat milk in a batch of soap along with some heavy cream and I'm really pleased with the results.  This first batch as created with a friend in mine with very dry and itchy skin.  So I also added 6% PPO colloidal oatmeal to the soap batter at trace for additional oat goodness.

After I prepared my batter I was surprised to see it turn a pumpkin orange color which you can really notice the difference in this photo.  I used 16 ounces of oils and a lye concentration of 35% and a 7% superfat.   This filled 5 1/2 of the round soaps in my round silicone mold.

The next morning I was pleased to see the color of the soap had toned down into a pretty tan color.  Shown just out of their mold.

Now a few days later.  It's still a neutral natural looking beige color which I think is appropriate for the oat goodness in the soap.   I plan on letting the soap sit for another few days before taking it for a test spin with the partial bar. 

This batch was scented with a scent called Capri Olivo.  It was a scent I purchased just an ounce of to test.  It's described a. . . . . . . 

A Luxury Spa fragrance!  Wisk away to Capri Island; a breath-taking paradise overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.  Your mind will embrace this cultural encounter, while your soul attains pure harmony.  Capri Olivo is a culturally complex aroma of tart Japanese grapefruit, Fresh Osmanthus (Sweet Olive), and dew-covered watercress;  followed by middle notes of rose, jasmine,  and cassis.  To create subtle ecstasy, Capri Olivo sits on a dry down of fresh amber and myrrh. 

I look forward to adding more oat milk soaps to my store to benefit your skin even further with the goodness of oats without the grit.   In a soap that will be gentle to your skin with a well formulated soap recipe. 

Lavender Soap

A customer who is also a friend has found a lot of relief to his skin problems with a simple bar of soap....

This is a recent batch that I made for him scented with Lavender.

This recipe is available for anyone and can be found here.
http://prairie-creations.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=45&products_id=1412

Ingredients :  Tallow, Goats Milk, Palm Kernel Oil, Castor Oil, Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Fragrance, Unscented Shea Butter, Lanolin, Colloidal Oatmeal, Egg Yolk, Sugar, Sodium Lactate, Kaolin Clay and Raw Silk Fibers

Goats Milk was the choice of liquids but there are several other liquids that can be used instead.
The oils are saponified or changed into soap with lye but no lye remains in the finished product.

Busy Day Making Soap

Today was a busy day in the world of making soaps as I made several batches today.

Cotton & Blossom 

A sweet and subtle blend of jasmine, violet and gardenia with a sparkle of lemon zest on a dry down of vanilla.
This soap contains 25% Unrefined Shea Butter !!!!
Ingredients : Saponified Oils Of Coconut Milk, Unrefined Shea Butter, Tallow, Castor Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Fragrance, Hemp Seed Oil, Palm Oil, Canola Oil, Kaolin Clay

Sweet Grass

The ozony aroma of fresh cut grass, clover with a hint of wisteria. 
This batch was put into my small rectangular guest mold for free samples with orders.
Ingredients : Saponified Oils Of Coconut Milk, Palm Oil, Tallow, Castor Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, Lanolin, Fragrance,  Canola Oil, Kaolin Clay and Coloring.
Then I had a little extra batter after pouring it into the mold so I added a little more coloring to the soap batter and drizzled it on top.

Magnolia

The aroma of the blooming petals of a magnolia tree.
Ingredients : Saponified Oils Of Palm Oil, Coconut Milk, Olive Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Coconut Oil, Unrefined Shea Butter, Fragrance, Canola Oil and Kaolin Clay.



I made two batches of shampoo bars as well today.   These were put into round molds so they are easier to use. 
They both contained the same oils of Tallow, Palm Oil, Olive Oil, Castor Oil and Shea Butter. 
But one of the batches also contained some stearic acid to see the difference.
But both batches had the added Wheat Protein as well as Panthenol B5. 

• One was scented with Mango Passion and colored a peachy-orange color but it was also made with goats milk.  

• The other was scented with Caribbean and part of the soap batter was colored an aqua color. This batch was made with coconut milk.

I'm really looking forward to trying these out.   And once they are perfected offering them.  I can think of many advantages to using a solid shampoo bar, or having the option of a head to toe bar for less clutter in the shower.

Deer Tallow Soaps

My oldest daughter harvested her first deer this past Friday.  The season opened at noon on Friday and when her dad got home from work that evening they went out together.  We had put up a blind on some pasture area out behind my uncles farm.  We have harvested many deer back there so we hoped she would as well.

Sure enough she was lucky enough to harvest a beautiful doe.  It was a perfect textbook shot and I'm so proud of her.  I should also mention the bullets were made by Willy.  They were made just for that gun, with a load specific to shooing a deer.

That's my girl !!!  She fired only one shot this deer hunting season.  That shell will be made into a keepsake for her.   Last season the weather was really weird and she didn't fill her tag.  But then later in November the weather was still really weird and neither Willy or I filled our tags either along with many others in the state.

We boned out the deer and Willy saved me the tallow from the body along with saving me the tallow from around the kidney as well.   Today I rendered down that tallow.   I've only done the first straining (I strain it about six times to make sure it's clean) so far so I don't know how much tallow I have yet.  But I'm really excited about making soap with the tallow from this critter.

I'll also be using other supporting oils to make a well balanced bar.  I'll also be using palm kernel oil, coconut oil, unrefined shea butter, castor oil and canola oil.   Kylie decided she wanted this batch to be scented with lime fragrance oil.  Perfect for both males and females.  She wants to give her grandpa a bar.  He couldn't be around for the hunt or hanging of it but she did call him with her exciting news.  But she isn't quite convinced that she wants to wash with the soap herself.  But after she see's it, I think she might be convinced.

So this batch will just be for personal use and gifts for special friends.  Once I get the soap made I'll post some pictures.

Now I'm even more excited for deer hunting in November for the adult season......

3 new scents

I needed to place an order for some supplies, and somehow three scents just happened to fall into my cart. 


Bay Rum
Aromatic Notes: Blend of Bay Leaves and Orange Peel


I am not overly thrilled with my current "Tobacco" scent as I find it fairly weak.  Just as a reminder that tobacco doesn't smell like a burning cigarette but rather the tobacco leaf and usually has hints of cherry in it.   So I found this one.  It has some really good reviews so I hope it's a better choice.
Aromatic Notes: Cherrywood, Raspberry, Vanilla, Tobacco


This one caught my eye and I just had to order some to check it out. 
Barber Shoppe
It is a new scent for the company and doesn't have a written description of it, but it does have one review so far and this is what that person had to say about it. "Reminiscent of olden day barber shoppe aroma. A very sexy manly scent. Scent stays very strong in soap and is a good seller."


There is another company (one i haven't ordered from before but many of my friends have) that I am trying to figure out what new scents I want to order and I hope to get that figured out soon.   As there are a few feminine and a few masculine scents that I want to acquire.  If there are any scents in particular that you would like me to consider adding please reply to this blog to let me know. 

Baseball ~ Twins VS White Sox

Last weekend we had tickets for a baseball game in the twin cities.  We had amazing seats and we sat in the first row behind the dugout for the White Sox team.   Right in front of us was where the video camera and the media sat to the left of that was the dugout.   It's the blue area in the box marked 11 where our seats were on the photo below. 

Having such awesome seats made it a lot more fun.  All the pictures that I took were taken with my camera either with no zoom or with very little zoom.   The twins won that night which made it even more fun.

Here are some pictures of our evening.....
Pre-Game in the hotel in Bloomington waiting for the taxi to take us over to the Mall of America where we took the subway over to Target Field.   This kids were really excited !!!! 

At the ballpark right after we found our seats.  It had just stopped raining, so it was pretty wet.   The kids are leaning on the roof of the dugout for the White Sox, or seats were to the right of that.

Before the game, the twins mascot making his rounds on the field as they did their pre-game activities.

They uncovered the field and were smoothing everything out to get it ready for the game.  I never realized so much went into preparing the field.  While they did that a lot of other pre-game activities were going on. 

Ok so I snuck my camera out during the national anthem.   But I had never been to a pro-ball game before so I just had to.  I'm sure I wasn't the only one who did that.  The White Sox players.   Whooo hooo no zoom either.

And singing the national anthem was a group of people.   This was taken from my seat, to which there were two seats to my right and then the wall.  *grins*  No zoom for this either.

Getting ready to begin the game !!!!  No zoom as you can see the media pit right in front of me.

More getting ready for the game......

Very little zoom used for this pict.....  You can tell which picts I used zoom and which ones I didn't.  I didn't crop any of these pictures except the very top one of the kids sitting at the hotel waiting for the taxi.   How cool is that !!!

^^^^^^ Check out the size of his camera lens ^^^^^^

And The Twins WIN !!!!

Post game interview.  I don't know the guy who is doing the interview but he was in the box in front of us for awhile until the game was over and he was holding an ESPN mic.   He's partly blocked by the player.

And they light up the sign, you really can't see it well in the photo but it has lights shooting through it and would light up.  Really pretty.  The sky was getting nasty because of the storm moving in.  I won't go into details about the storm that hit minutes later, but least to say we could hear the city tornado sirens going off and we got soaked to the bone from the rain.

Now for the fun stuff.  We came home with three balls.  Each of the kids got a ball.  Case was the first.  The manager of the Sox kept making faces at Case to get his attention, when he couldn't do that he resorted to throwing sunflower seeds at him.  Then they exchanged facial expressions for awhile before he tossed him a ball.  It was new with just a few scuff marks so we wondered if it wasn't used in practice.  They were about 3-4 feet apart.

Then Lizzy in a way came away with two balls but she gave Kylie one.   The people behind us mentioned how it paid to be cute at this game.   They had a ball on the field and the umpire threw a new ball at the pitcher and there was a ball on the field close to home plate.  The one they had been using.  So rather than pick it up they just rolled it off the field and it went right in front of the guy who was running the tv camera.  He picked it up and gave it to Lizzy.   I showed her the ball and told her that it had dirt on it.  She calmly responded with "that's ok, I'll wash it when I get home."   Then not long after that they pulled another ball off the field in the same way.  But this time it rolled over to where the next batter for the sox was warming up.   He looked around and made it a point to point at Lizzy and threw it to her.  She was busy eating her sunflower seeds so Kylie caught it for her.

Once we got back to our hotel room we ordered some awesome pizza and talked about the game and how much fun we had.