Lost weight

Loosing weight has been an uphill battle since my last pregnancy. My son was 9 1/2 pounds and I gained roughly 25lbs onto my usual 130 pounds. It was sad. I was around 120 in high school, but when college started and dating my now husband, I ate again.

My husband and I have always eaten a somewhat well balanced diet. At first, we ate no salads with our meals unless we had people over. I mean, come on, who loves salad that much?

Recently, I've been adding salad to every dinner. Hubby and I have been wanting to lose weight. The salad is the main factor why I've been loosing weight. However, after eating everything on my small portioned plate plus a huge salad, I felt like I was overdoing it. So I decided to cut up a small portion of meat to add to my salad. It was really good.

Hubby went out of town and I wanted to watch something different. I ran across "Food, Inc.", "Food Fight", and a bunch of other food documentaries. All I can say is wow. It really makes you look at the supermarket/grocery store and government in a whole new light.

I haven't weighed myself in 14 days, so I thought I would see where I'm at after eating salad for lunch and dinner for the past week. I do have salad dressing, but its not allowed to have any oil in it. Not canola, not soybean, not even olive oil. Smash an avocado and add either a small amount of lime or lemon juice. You have your dressing.

Very little if at all meat and poultry. Whole grains. Some beans. No oils, fats, or sweets. You want to really lose weight? Fruits and Vegetables only. Plus water. Period. Some people don't cook their food (raw foods diet) and others don't eat fish because of the contaminants in oceans, rivers, etc.

I don't like beans, so beans are out. Although I may make them for the kids and hubby. I guess we'll end up throwing out the all purpose and bread flour since we won't be using them anymore! Its going to be a challenging challenge (actual phrase?) to invent and find recipes for the family.

It feels great to loose weight- especially when I have an extremely hard time doing it. All I had to do was change my diet. So in the last 14 days here at the Bako Depot, 10.4 pounds have disappeared. In a way I'm decluttering me and my family.

:)

Who knew heavy whipping had so many uses?

Heavy Whipping Cream
Heavy whipping cream isn’t just for coffee and chefs. You can make whipped cream, butter, and buttermilk.

“Butter? Seriously? Why not just buy it?” hubby asked somberly.
“Why not?” I said. “It’s not like I’m buying a cow or anything, but the fresh cream…”
“No.”
“But the neighbors said they would help!”
“No.”

Well, the kids love experiment just as much as mommy and I needed something to entertain them. As I was surfing the web, I came across Free Range Living’s blog on making butter. I knew we just had to try it once I saw how easy it was!

Making butter is very easy and quick. Most people buy butter because heavy whipping cream is just as expensive as butter itself-just no dishes to wash. Another convenient item from the grocery store. Even if you don’t make butter for your daily dishes, it’s a wonderful experience on homemade bread-white, wheat, cinnamon raisin, etc.

You can make butter either by hand or by Kitchenaid. By hand, you will want to check out this YouTube clip: How to Make Butter with Robert Krampf.

Although I haven’t done it by hand, it too looks easy. I knew my kids wouldn’t want to shake it vigorously for so long, so we used the KitchenAid (they never tire of moving the switch). You need: jar with a lid, a marble, a strainer, and salt. Place the cream in the jar, shake vigorously until the cream becomes a solid. It takes awhile. Did I mention vigorous shaking? For at least five minutes. I’ll let you watch the video and determine which course of action you want to take.

For the KitchenAid method, you’ll need: cream, a KitchenAid (paddle attachment), salt, raspberries or garlic (optional).

First step is to let the whipping cream get to room temperature. I’ve made butter when it’s cold, but its better if its room temperature. It also helps if the bowl is cold, but I found it doesn’t matter if it is or not. Some people use the whisk attachment, but to me, that’s one more thing to clean (by hand).

Turn on your KitchenAid (or have your helpers do this). After about 2-5 minutes, you will have whipped cream! No wonder my friend, A, doesn’t buy the can stuff. All those preservatives-yuck! If all I am making with my cream is whipped cream, I use the whisk attachment.

Before buttermilk seperated

If you don’t want/need whipped cream for your fresh berries, cakes, etc., keep mixing! After another 5-10 minutes, you’re whipped cream will turn into a dough-like substance and a few more minutes later, your butter will transform before your eyes! You’ll notice a liquid at the bottom of the bowl. This is buttermilk. You’ll need to take the butter out of the bowl and strain it. You can save the buttermilk for other uses if you want. Otherwise, it goes down the sink.

This is why I don't use the whisk to make butter

People say to squeeze the buttermilk out of the butter, but I’ve never had any luck doing that. Squeeze if you can and rinse the remaining buttermilk out of the butter until you only see clear liquid draining off the butter. Make sure you get most of the water off the butter as well. See-not hard at all so far!

Butter!

Buttermilk

If you want unsalted butter, you’re done! If not, one more step. Wipe your KitchenAid bowl with a paper towel to get the remaining buttermilk. Return the butter to the KitchenAid with paddle (wipe that as well) and add salt. Add a pinch at a time. You do not want to oversalt!  Free Range Living says “add 1/2 a teaspoon of salt for every pound of butter (remembering that 1 quart of cream will yield about a pound).” I make butter out of leftover heavy whipping cream so my amounts always vary. This is also the time to add your optional ingredients (garlic, raspberries, etc).

Put in a container- I use plain ole Tupperware/glad containers, Free Range Living has a French butter bell. Amazon has a bunch of really cute buttersavers for $10+ dollars. What a way to present your homemade butter!

Check out how to make homemade whole wheat bread and enjoy!

You can freeze your butter- just make sure its sealed!



Free Range Living: http://freerangeliving.blogspot.com/2006/11/making-butter.html
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oropJD0CUxI
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com butter bell

Decluttering

Simplifying Life in General. It all starts with your house, your rooms, your cabinets, and drawers. Scary isn't it?

A few household items

De-cluttering. It seems like a scary word for most of us, but slowly and surely, we can make it happen! It takes one day at a time and a goal. My goal when I first moved to our new house over two years ago was to be organized and simplified- much unlike our last house of chaos. We've lived here for a little over two years and it seems the only organized room in the house is the guest/kids bathroom. 

I have so many projects and goals that I want to do with my life and to me, it seems, they all need done right away (please don't tell me I'm the only one who does this)! Then I get overwhelmed and give up. Well, not anymore. Let's look on the positive side. The guest/kids bathroom is organized. That's one less area/room that's done! 

I'm also trying to simplify my pantry and eat healthier. We don't buy junk food (I haven't bought potato chips over a year) and the pantry seems full of canned and bottled food. Olive oil, canned oranges (for salads every night), jello, and a TON of condiments. We are always buying fresh produce (patiently waiting for the garden to produce) and it seems we are always spending hubby's hard earned money on bills, gas, and groceries- in that order. 

I went to look in my pantry to organize it and under the kitchen sink. The twenty bottles and cans of cleaners, detergents, canned and bottled never-expiring food made me realize we have so much and waste it all! We really need to get back to the basics! How did people survive in the 1950s? They didn't buy bottles of ketchup or run to the store because they ran out of butter!

One of my cabinets

I'm determined to go green- maybe not 100%, but a little at a time. Do I really need to spend $30+ on Tide detergent or $20 on dishwasher detergent gel pacs? I would love to spend that $50 on a Christmas gift for my husband or re-plaster the house (stucco exterior).

Our four year old daughter is starting to think that everything you ever need is at the store and that Daddy will always be able to buy those things. That's not how my husband and I grew up. Our parents did buy most to everything (food and household cleaners) at the store it always seems a lot of money went down the drain, all over the floor, etc. I don't want my kids to waste their money and support the outrageous advertising for commercial products. So in order to save money (I'm a stay at home mom with a 2 and 4 year old) I'm willing to experiment and teach my kids (and husband) that homemade is worth the effort!

I've done a lot of online research and I'm not going to make all these tomorrow, but weekly. I will have weekly goals and other projects on the list, so please be patient with me. 

My monthly goals are practically a to-do list. I'm not forcing myself to work only on certain days or hours, but as long as I can cross it off the list (I love lists)! These goals will be done Monday-Friday only- unless I need hubby's help. 

Each month I will clean and de-clutter one room, garden and pull weeds (sections), experiment with a new household/homemade cleaner, a from-scratch food, and overall, teach my kids and hubby what its like to not be reliant on commercial products.

The overall goal is to become organized, de-cluttered, and somewhat self-reliant with a two- and four- year old mixed in! 

My weeds never seem to stop growing!