Updates on Homemade Products

Here's an update of some of the homemade things I made earlier this year and my progress with them.

Deodorant: I'm still using my homemade deodorant. No one has made any comment about me being extra stinky. I've made it two or three times in 2015.
In the summer it was easy to use because the temperature kept the coconut oil soft. At one point it got too hot and separated the oil from the other ingredients. Now that it's winter, it's challenging to use again. If I heat it with my hair drier or hold it up to the heater in the bathroom for a minute, it's easy to use again.





Acne wipes: This is a new thing I've been using for two months. Put a bunch of cotton rounds in the jar. In a separate measuring cup, mix something like 1/3 c of straight witch hazel with 15-20 drops of tea tree oil.  Carefully pour it over the cotton rounds. I watched to make sure the cotton rounds at the very bottom got soaked too. If it doesn't soak through, just add more witch hazel. If it feels too diluted, add a bit more tea tree oil. I like to add it into the witch hazel before I pour it over the rounds because I feel like it helps get the tea tree all the way to the bottom of the jars.




Face wash: I love my face wash so much. My friend closed her website for a while and didn't have her recipe handy, so I had to make it up. I put it on the label. It's roughly a 1:1.5:2:6 drops ratio of honey : castille soap : vegetable glycerin : tea tree oil.




Dry shampoo: This isn't specifically dry, but I like to use it on days between washings. It's a 1:4:1 ratio of cornstarch : water : rubbing alcohol. This has to be shaken really well before it's used, and it needs to be sealed up pretty well or the rubbing alcohol will evaporate.


Headache salve: I've used it a bit, but honestly I forget about it most of the time. I don't know if I think it helps, but it doesn't hurt to use.

Face powder: I still have it and use it occasionally. Normally it just goes over my liquid foundation to set it, but I don't wear liquid foundation very often.

Body wash: I made body wash twice this year, once with peppermint soap and once with rose soap and cinnamon. The peppermint was lovely, but I was just glad to see the end of the homemade body wash once I was done with the rose. Overall, the soap was stressful to make thanks to fears of not having everything clean enough and contaminating everything. Instead, we're trying this Soap for Every Body. We're enjoying it quite a lot, tho I'd like to get a non-coconut scent next time.




This year was fun to test new homemade products. I'm hoping to make some lotion soon. We'll see how that turns out.

What a year it has been

What a year 2015 has been. It's been very busy between getting engaged then married, my sister-in-law's wedding, three deaths in the family, far too many wedding receptions, remodeling at work, a honeymoon to Harry Potter world, and in general living my life. I meant to update my blog for it all, but it was too much or too fast or too whatever. Here'a  quick look at some pictures from this year.

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February: My engagement ring. White gold and sapphire. It is beautiful and not too much of anything. My birthstone is a sapphire, and I've had an affinity for the stone since a childhood make-believe game with my best friend.

March: a peculiar combination of nail polishes produced the effect of nails covered in orange highlighter and dunked in glitter. I haven't repeated this combo, but it's interesting.

April-May: I made a blanket from old jeans I cut up. It was a massive project, but the blanket is pretty great. We use it primarily for camping or outdoor activities since it's durable. I also have far too many cut up bits of denim left, so I have to do something else with them eventually.

May 23: We got married. One of our friends performed the ceremony and only 12 people were involved including us, our photographer, and officiate. I'm so glad it was small. Sadly, my father-in-law passed away three weeks before the day.

June: My sister and her partner graduated college, so we went to Corvallis, Oregon to celebrate with them. We took a few extra days for a camping trip to the coast.

July: Fawkes' first two baths. Over the summer, the cat wandered around outdoors on his own. Twice he came back covered in too much dirt for us to let him inside or allow him to clean off himself. He really doesn't like baths and has a minor fear of the bathroom now.

We've been playing around with cooking a lot this year. This was for a stir fry we made using some cashew carrot ginger soup.

September: Fawkes hates his skunk Halloween costume. The cat is fine wearing things, but not if it has a hood and messes with his ears. He hides every time we put this on him.

October: Face masks from the co-op. I like them quite a lot, even though I look scary when I wear them. 

November: Honeymoon to Harry Potter world! We went to Universal Studios/Island of Adventure in Orlando, Florida for our honeymoon. Every time we started trying to plan the wedding, I just came to the conclusion I didn't want a wedding. I just wanted to be married and spend our money going to Harry Potter world. So we had a small ceremony, several receptions over the course of a few months, and went on our trip. It was a lovely week, though I now feel little desire to ever return.

November: Business Taco Cat. We got the taco costume on clearance after we returned from the honeymoon. This is one of my favorite pictures of my cat from this year. He is such a little businessman. 

December: 2015 ornaments finished. I used perler beads to create little candy canes for our families. Mine is the first one on the bottom row, my husband's is next to it, our cat's is the one next to that. I think they all came out pretty darn cute.

It's been quite a year for the books. Many times I've thought we deserve an award if we survive the entire year. Only a few more days left of this year, so I guess I better start thinking about some kind of award.

Homemade Tea Blend

My partner recently gave me the best tea ball (tea infuser) ever.

Yes, that is in fact the Death Star with TIE-fighter chain weight. This is such an awesome ball for so many reasons. Not only is the shape great, but it holds enough loose tea for a whole pot. It's just great.

For obvious reasons, I've become obsessed with the loose-leaf tea section of my local co-op. I recently bought a local tea called Moscow Mint that I'm excited to try (though I haven't as of writing this post). It has two mints, lavender, and lemon balm.

We spent some time in the bulk herb section of the co-op picking ingredients for my first ever homemade tea blend. Here's an image of all the beautiful ingredients.

Peppermint, spearmint, red raspberry leaf, orange peel, lavender, hibiscus flower, and lemon balm leaf.

I only blended a tiny bit up so far.

I used a regular small spoon to measure, so these are really not specific measurements, but here's the general idea of it. The number indicates roughly how much of the spoon I used in my first attempt (enough for two cups of tea).

1 1/2 peppermint
1 spearmint
1 lemon balm
1/2 lavender
1/3 orange peel
1/8 hibiscus
1/8 raspberry leaf

Why did I select some of these? Mostly based on smell and known-to-me benefits. It's a half and half of which were smells and which were known medicinal benefits.

I am prone to stress. No, I don't really have many reasons to be stressed, but I'm prone to feeling it more than I know I should. I'm trying to find ways to reduce stress. I've meditated before and really want to remember to do it again. Meanwhile, I try to keep myself calm in other ways. Like tea.

Peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, and lavender are all known for helping manage stress. Chamomile is too, you probably know, but my partner is allergic to chamomile. Since I didn't want him to end up with a scratchy, slightly swollen throat, I opted to leave it out of this blend.

I knew these were flavors I wanted to include. I let my partner pick out most of the others.

 The raspberry leaf he picked because it was an interesting name and because it smelled "better than marshmallow root". My only tip is that if you think about using raspberry leaf is that it can specifically affect pregnancies and pregnant women. I can't remember exactly what the affects are, but I remember you have to be careful about when you drink it. If considering adding raspberry leaf to tea and you're anywhere in the pregnancy stages, please consult your doctor (or midwife, probably) first.

The hibiscus flower smelled really good. It smelled way better than rose hips for this particular tea. I don't know what kind of health benefits or concerns it has. I used a very small amount.

The orange peel just smelled like it would help round out the tea. I smelled the lemon peel but thought the orange would be better. Again, I'm not sure what the health impacts are.

Anyway, this is really good. I'm pleased with the blend. I don't know if it's fluke or actually something in my tea, but shortly after drinking it, I developed a bit of a headache. Since I'd had coffee earlier in the day, I'm guessing it was fluke.

I look forward to blending ingredients in the very near future to see what happens. 

Quick Shot: Recent Dinners

I know it's not always great to brag about having success with making food. And I know that a lot of times I'm not specific enough in my instructions to allow perfect imitation. And, quite frankly, half the time my dinners aren't exciting enough for an entire post. So here are two (sort of three) recent dinner I wanted to talk about without getting too in depth.

The first dinner was steak with twice-baked potatoes, green salad, and garlic bread.
We used our George Foreman grill for the steaks (seasoned with garlic pepper and dried minced onion).
It was my first time making twice-baked potatoes, but they turned out so well! (Bake potato at 400° for 50 minutes, cut in half, scoop out inside, mash, add sour cream, butter, garlic powder, salt, pepper, freeze-dried chives, stick back in skins, cover with cheese, bake at 400° for 15 minutes.)
The garlic bread was the pre-made stuff from the store.
The salad is only notable because we didn't actually have many ingredients for it. We ended up doing green leaf lettuce, fresh spinach (my partner uses it on the sandwich he eats every work day), baby carrots, an almond-dried cranberry topping thing from a bag, Mrs. Dash table blend, tomato-basil feta (recently bought for gyros) and Vidalia onion dressing. The almond-dried cranberry thing was hidden in the cupboard but it and the feta helped us feel like we were eating something really fancy. Also, never underestimate the power of a bit of Mrs. Dash.

The second dinner was a truly amazingly delicious pizza.
The crust was a pre-made thing.
We used jarred pizza sauce first. Then we mixed together a jar of pesto with some of the frozen fresh pesto I try to have on hand and swirled that on to mix the two sauces up. (I use this recipe for spinach-basil pesto usually, but this last time I left out the spinach)
Next we added fresh tomato, fresh spinach, and fancy-ish fresh mozzarella.
We threw it all in the oven for a bit, then pulled it out, sliced it, and ate the delicious flavor.


I don't have a picture for the third dinner. Sorry. So this is super short.
I wanted to make stuffed shells, but trying to undercook the shells lead to them falling all apart. So I laid them in the casserole dish kinda like lasagna noodles.
I mixed together ricotta cheese and the remaining pesto mixture from the above mentioned pizza. That's it. I put that in on top of the pasta. Put a bit more destroyed shells on top of the cheese, cover in jarred sauce, top with mozzarella cheese, bake, enjoy.

I'm going to make my shell stuffing with just ricotta and pesto (maybe some spinach too) from now on. It didn't fall apart and was delicious.

Tip: How to Cut Onions (When You're Super Sensitive)

I have a tip for today!

I can't hardly cut raw onions. I tear up so fast it's almost like a magic trick. We only buy sweet onions because the fumes aren't as bad. Even when I make my partner cut them across the apartment with the oven hood on to sweep up the fumes, there are times I'm still wiping tears away for several minutes.

This is a problem since I really love cooking with onion. I'm not a huge fan of raw onion flavor, but if it gets cooked even halfway to soft, I'm a fan. 

I very recently discovered two things that help me cut onions with ease now. I've been an onion cutting fool since I figured it out, so I have to share.

Yes, I now cut onions with swim goggles on! These are fairly old goggles -- probably 6 or 7 years old now. I took a couple swimming classes in college, and my best friend (who was on the high school swim team) helped me get my goggles and hair cap. I remember being really surprised how snug the goggles were supposed to be. It's that snugness now that makes these the perfect tool in the kitchen. After all, science explains that it's the "fumes" from the onion that hits your eyeballs and creates watering (check this video if you want more info or other tips about cutting onions).

Since they're old-ish, not being used under water, and I have to wear glasses, they're actually kind of foggy when I use them in the kitchen. It's totally worth it, though.

I use those gloves just so I don't smell like onion for the next three days. Nothing is weirder than realizing in your Wednesday shower that your hands still smell like Sunday's onions.

If you have swim goggles and are super sensitive to cutting onions, try this! It may not work for you, but I think it has a really good chance. 

Chicken Soup Success

When we were trying to recover from our colds last month, I decided to make chicken noodle soup. I've had fairly average success making it before, but I like the idea of making it more than buying a can of it.

Here are my ingredients:

It's nothing at all unexpected. Frozen chicken breasts, a box of chicken broth (cut with a bit of water), frozen onion (I am super sensitive to cutting raw onion), frozen peas and carrots (because it's a nice shortcut on cutting carrots), thin spaghetti (I meant to use thicker stuff but accidentally bought the thin), fresh parsley (not often found in my house, but it was there for a different recipe), green onion, celery, garlic, and assorted spices in the jar on the left.

Years ago my mom went through all her spices and typed up this reference chart of spices down the side, types of protein and ingredients along the top, and a notes field on the far right side. Basically the chart just tells you exactly which spices go best with which ingredients based on what the spice can says. I forget I have it, but when it's time to experiment with things like soup, I pull out the chart and look for ideas. I don't remember what was in it, but I'd guess some salt, pepper, possibly garlic powder, maybe some cumin, and thyme. Maybe sage? I don't really remember. 

I ended up taking that peeled clove of garlic, the parsley, and bay leaves and wrapped them in cheesecloth tied with kitchen twine. 

My theory was that I definitely wanted the flavors but no one wants to get the whole clove of garlic in their soup or a whole bay leaf or sprig of parsley. Plus, I recently bought the twine and really wanted to see how it worked out. I'm very pleased with the results.

I used both frozen chopped white onion and fresh green onion. Since the flavors are pretty different (as far as onion goes), I didn't think it would really overwhelm the soup. There also wasn't more than maybe a 1/2 cup of chopped frozen onion, so it wasn't as much as it sounds like.

My partner doesn't like celery very much, but I love using it. Also, I'm aware enough of what cooking does to the vegetables he doesn't like to know how to incorporate them without overwhelming the dish. Mushroom, while delicious, wouldn't have been easy to mask in this soup, so I left it out. Anyway, this is what it looked like after I threw everything together. You can see the cheesecloth package of flavorings in there too.

I put two chicken breasts in frozen because I knew they'd thoroughly cook. I also like making soup with real meat flavor (in addition to broth) when I can.  After they cooked down a bunch, I pulled the chicken out and cubes it before I returned it to the soup. Everything ended up fairly similar sized in the end.

 I broke the noodles in half before I added them. I wanted to get them in thirds, but it was going to take far too much effort.

I honestly don't know how long I cooked it for. I think I probably cooked it without noodles for a half hour, then stuck the noodles in and cooked it another 15 minutes. I like doing soup that's really low maintenance like this. As you probably guessed, the starch in the noodles thickened up my broth.

That's pretty much what it looked like. I tried to make a small batch, but I still haven't perfected the cooking-for-two thing. We ate it off and on for about two weeks. It held up super well. The only issue was the noodles sucked up so much broth that it was almost not soup by the end. It was startlingly good, though. I think the thyme really helped. I wish I'd actually kept track of what I ended up putting in at the end.

I think it's the victories like this that really help me feel confident experimenting more.

Berry Smoothie with Kale

We're still on a quest for good smoothies. My partner still wants to use kale. While he was out of town in January, I tried a new smoothie that has kale but is primarily fruit.

We tried the second smoothie (kale and banana) on this page a while ago. It was good, but the cinnamon was too strong. This time I made the third smoothie. The instructions (such as they are) read:

If green drinks creep you out, give this recipe a whirl. Fresh raspberries and strawberries help disguise the kale and produce a pretty pink smoothie. Add pineapple, banana, a splash of milk, Greek yogurt, and protein powder to try it.

I had almost all the ingredients, but I made a few changes.

Firstly, everything was frozen except the milk, yogurt, and banana.
Secondly, I didn't use protein powder.
Thirdly, I used regular vanilla yogurt. I had vanilla Greek yogurt, but I'm actually not a huge fan of Greek yogurt. Sometimes I feel like it, but usually I just don't like it much.

My smoothie turned out so pretty!

I was pretty surprised it wasn't green at all, but that was the point of this smoothie, right? I don't know if the kale being frozen had anything to do with it staying so amazingly not-green, but it definitely made the process easier. With everything being frozen, though, it was crazy thick.

Without a doubt, this is the tastiest smoothie (read: no ice cream) I've made yet.
It made probably 24 oz of smoothie. I put most of it in my 20 oz insulated Klean Kanteen and took it to work with me. It was hard to drink because it was insulated so well the smoothie couldn't really melt.

I'm really excited to make this one again and have my partner try it. We have some frozen spinach, so I may throw a bit of that in there too. Or maybe that will be for the third attempt.

Shower Decongestant Tablets

As I've previously mentioned, we were sick in January. It was just a cold, but those things are fairly unpleasant. I saw a recipe for little tablets you make and put in the shower with you and as they dissolve, they release what smells like Vicks Vaporub into the air to help decongest you.
I thought I'd make them and see if they worked. I edited the original recipe a bit to suit us.

Ingredients:
3 parts baking soda
1 part water
12 drops each of essential oils: rosemary,lavender, eucalyptus, and peppermint

I believe I used a cup of baking soda because I really hate figuring out 1/3 of other measurements.

Directions

Mix ingredients together.
Transfer mixture to molds.
Let dry completely.
Remove tablets, store in airtight container.

I didn't have silicon molds to use, but I had a spare plastic ice cube tray that I stuck them all in.

They're a really strong scent as they dry, so we kept having to move them around. We left them in the bathroom with the light and fan on while we were awake, but we moved them to the kitchen counter for the night. I didn't want the cat to eat or lick any of them.

The original directions predicted they'd be ready by the next morning, but they definitely weren't. I wager it has something to do with me making them in the middle of winter. I ended up turning on a space heater and setting the tray fairly close to the heater to help the moisture evaporate. By the end of that second day, they were dry-ish. I popped them out and stuck them in a jar to store.

Because I didn't have a silicon mold, they actually came out fairly poorly. Only about half of them kept their shape. The rest crumbled. They also were not as dry as I thought they might be.

When I tried one, I wasn't that impressed. It smelled like something was happening for about three minutes, but then it had all dissolved and gone down the drain.


I've actually left them in the kitchen uncovered for a day or two and they finished drying out the way they needed to. I still don't know what to do about them not working super long. I'm thinking that putting one or two in a bath might do what they're supposed to do.

Overall, they're kind of disappointing.

Kitten-proofing a Box Spring (We Hope)

Back in mid-August, my partner and I moved in together. Part of us moving in included the promise that we'd get a cat (probably a week or two after we were settled in).

We officially took over the place on August 12 (a Tuesday). We planned to spend the first few days making sure the place was clean and ready for us, then we'd take Friday off to move stuff in our cars and Saturday we'd get the moving truck for the furniture.

Things worked out so that we moved in and 20 minutes after we were in, our new kitten arrived. He'd been a stray found on the side of the road in a tiny little town about 20 minutes north of us. He was fostered for two and a half days between his being found and his moving in with us. When we adopted him, he was about 4 months old.

It's an adventure living with a kitten. He gets into all kinds of trouble. The trouble I'm talking about is when he decided to tear up the felt lining the underside of our box spring. He was sleeping in and among the springs. I'm not a fan of that for safety's sake, but there was recently a story about a cat who accidentally got sold with a box spring. We're not going to be selling our bed any time soon, but I still didn't like the thought of this happening to my cat.

I won't bore you with too many details, but here's the summary:

We locked the kitten out of the bedroom and pulled the bed apart.
We took off the torn felt.
We stapled on one big piece of muslin, using a bunch of staples to make sure there's not a space for him to climb in.
We put the bed back together.

The kitten walking on the old felt. 97% of the damage was kitten-caused. The last 3% was from when we pulled it off the box spring.

The piece of muslin we now have on the bottom of our box spring. It was a 72 x 90 inch piece.

My best friend said her three cats just tore up muslin when they did this same technique under their bed.

So far, he hasn't torn a hole in the muslin. I'm really hoping he doesn't ever get around to tearing a hole. We've been scolding him (and squirting him with a water bottle) every time we hear him under the bed messing with the muslin.


And here's a close up of our little troublemaker. He tries to pull off the innocent look, but we know better.

Fawkes MaxNaughty McBitey, age 9 months

Deviled Egg Failure

Since I've shared some successes in the cooking world, I thought I'd share a recent failure.

I tried to make deviled eggs. I really enjoy them, but my partner doesn't. Since he was out of town, I thought I'd try making some. Since it was new, I only did 6 eggs. Here's what they looked like:

The many reasons they failed:

I didn't cook them long enough, which means when I cut them apart the yolk wasn't good for this. To try to fix it, I scooped out the yolks and carefully microwaved them in 15 second intervals to try to get them done. When they got out of the microwave, the yolk was crumbly and no matter what I did, I couldn't get it to be that smooth consistency I wanted.

I used a recipe I wasn't sure of. The recipe, from my Better Home and Garden cookbook, called for mayo, prepared mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, and paprika. A couple weeks ago, my friend, S, kind of talked me through making them, but she said she only used mayo and mustard. There was no discussion of vinegar. And, as I've stated in the past, I dislike vinegar a lot.

I substituted an ingredient in that unknown recipe. S recently told me that she used dijon mustard when she made her eggs, and she recommended dijon instead of yellow. The recipe actually didn't specify which kind of mustard to use (other than prepared), but I'm inclined to think maybe they meant yellow.


I ate one or two of these little things, but I ended up throwing most of them out. I had hoped the next day I'd feel adventurous and try eating a few more, but the next day I just couldn't bring myself to eat another one. Since the ingredients may have equaled $2.00, I didn't feel bad getting rid of them.

I don't know how to make them better for next time other than make sure the yolk is cooked fully first. My family doesn't make deviled eggs, really. I'm also fairly reluctant to try making more any time soon. My pride and tastebuds have to heal first.

Homemade Headache Salve

I get headaches on a fairly regular basis. Most of the time it's just a small headache. This is a huge contrast to my partner whose headaches have an 85% chance of turning into a debilitating migraine if not treated quickly enough.

I don't really know what causes my headaches. Sometimes it's a lack of food. Sometimes it's a lack of water (which I hate most since I'm usually good about drinking enough water). Sometimes it's stress. Sometimes it's nothing identifiable.

Since I get them more often than I'd like, I'm disinclined to head straight for medicine. I try eating or drinking water. I try to wait them out. When I'm busy at work or I can tell it's not going away anytime soon or I just feel too tired to fight it, I'll take medicine. It's not my favorite thing to do, but I'll take it faster than my partner will.

I found a recipe for a homemade headache salve. It uses coconut oil and essential oils. Since I actually had everything the recipe called for, I decided to make some. When I was talking to my best friend about it, she said if I added beeswax, it could help keep the salve solid at higher temperatures. I actually had to go buy some beeswax, but it wasn't too expensive, I'd been thinking about getting some for a while, and now I have more than I can use this year.

I'd like to state that I didn't in fact measure anything. I'd guess I only made about 2 or 3 oz of the stuff total. My ratios are probably wrong, though.

The first thing I had to do was melt the coconut oil and beeswax. I stuck them in a glass ramekin and put that in a bowl with boiling water. As I suspected, though, the coconut oil melted and the beeswax didn't.

I ended up having to microwave it all when I determined the beeswax wasn't going to melt without more direct heat. By the time I pulled it out of the microwave after 30 seconds to a minute, it was practically spitting.

The original recipe called for using different kinds of oils depending on which type of headache I get most. Sadly, I can't identify which type is most common for me. I ended up using peppermint, eucalyptus, and lavender oils so I didn't have to worry. I didn't really count how many drops of each oil I used, but I think it was something like 6 or 8. I don't know that I was supposed to use that much, but the beeswax smell was a bit hard to cover plus the hot oil seemed to absorb the scent more than expected.

Here's a picture of it after it cooled a bit and was transferred into its permanent jar.

I used it a bit at this stage, but it was still so warm that I ended up rubbing liquid oil on my temples and the back of my neck. It wasn't horrible, but I wager a solid salve would be less messy.

This is a picture of the salve after it's had almost 24 hours to cool. I put it in the fridge for a bit to start the cooling, but I left it on the counter for at least 12 hours because I didn't want to shock it too much.

Since I don't work with beeswax ever, I don't actually know if I put enough in to stabilize the salve. I guess I'll find out this summer.

My favorite thing about this is that it's in a tiny 4 oz jar, which means I can take it with me to work fairly easily.

The headache I had when I made the salve didn't really go away until the next morning after I ate breakfast and had some coffee. I'm hoping it came about because I was sick, I hadn't eaten fantastically the previous few days, and my partner had been away for a few days on a trip.

I don't know how much I believe this stuff will work, but I'm willing to try it since almost all the ingredients were already at my home and this couldn't hurt to try. I'll let you know how it goes.

Triple Threat Fruit Smoothie

We're still working through recipes for smoothies to try to find something that we enjoy. We found a recipe for a smoothie that included only ingredients we had at home.

The recipe is:

1 kiwi, sliced

1 banana, peeled and chopped

1⁄2 cup blueberries

1 cup strawberry

1 cup ice cubes

1⁄2 cup orange juice

8 oz container peach yogurt

This one was very good. The orange juice and kiwi made it ever so slightly tart. I really enjoyed how many fruits we got into the smoothie.

Mexican Tomato Rice and Beans

Also from the new cookbook, I made this one night when my partner was at his weekly Toastmasters meeting. I personally found this recipe to feel somewhat incomplete until I added cheese to my bowl. I added mozzerella because I had very few choices in the house, but it worked (more or less).

Ingredients

1 cup uncooked medium-grain white rice       (I used Jasmine, actually)
1 14 1/2 oz can diced tomatoes (preferably "petite-cut")
2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
6 medium cloves garlic, finely chopped         (I threw mine in a mini food processor for this)
1 medium fresh jalapeno, cored and finely chopped (or, if you like spicy food, leave in the ribs and seeds)           (I threw this in the food processor with the garlic for ease of prep)
1 15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
Kosher or fine sea salt
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh oregano leaves and tender stems
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems

Directions

In a 1-quart saucepan, combine rice and 2 cups cold water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand covered another 5 minutes.

Meanwhile...

Set a fine-mesh sieve in a bowl and drain the can of tomatoes. Pour the tomato juice in a 1-cup liquid measuring cup and add enough water to the juice to equal 1 cup.

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat, pour in oil and stir fry garlic and jalapeno until garlic is brown and jalapeno is pungent. Add the black beans, cumni, chili powder, 2 tsp salt. Stir two or three times to incorporate the mixture and cook the spices (30 seconds). Stir in tomato juice and water mixture and bring to boil. Adjust heat to maintain gentle boil and cook until beans absorb much of the liquid (5-7 minutes).

Add tomatoes, oregano, cilantro, and cooked rice until everything is warm (1-2 minutes). Serve immediately.


I highly suggest the fresh cilantro. If you can find the oregano fresh, use it. Otherwise, I think dry probably will work. I'd say add it halfway through the bean cooking so it has a chance to absorb a bit of liquid.

Risotto with Peas, Mint, & Lemon

From the new cookbook, we tried this. I've only made boxed risotto, so this was a fun adventure. It was quite a bit more labor-intensive, which was a bit taxing that particular night. Overall, though, it was fine. I need to point out that it made a ton of food. We didn't finish it all before we had to chuck it for being too old.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture. I don't know how that happened. I could have sworn I had a picture. Oops. I'm so sorry. I did find this picture from the Fine Cooking website, though.

Ingredients

5-6 cups vegetable broth    (I used some leftover chicken broth mixed with vegetable broth)
4 Tbs unsalted butter
1 medium onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
Kosher salt
2 cups arborio rice (or other risotto rice)
1/2 cup dry white wine (like Pinot Grigio)
2 cups frozen peas
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
2 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano; more for serving

Directions

Heat the broth in a saucepan until very hot, then reduce heat to just keep the broth hot.

In another pan, melt 2 Tbs butter over medium heat. Add onions, generous pinch of salt, and saute until onion softens and started to turn lightly golden. Add the rice and stir until the grains are well coated with butter and edges become translucent. Pour in the wine and stir until it's absorbed.

Add another generous pinch of salt and ladle enough hot broth into the pan to barely cover the rice (about 1 cup). Bring to a boil, then adjust the heat to maintain a lively simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the broth has been mostly absorbed.

Continue adding broth in 1/2 cup increments, stirring and simmering until it has been absorbed each time.

After 16-18 minutes, the rice should be creamy but still fairly firm. Add peas and another 1/2 cup broth. Continue simmering and stirring until the peas are just cooked and rice is just tender. Stir in another splash of broth if it's too thick.

Remove from heat, stir in mint, lemon juice, lemon zest, remaining 2 Tbs butter, and parmigiano. Sprinkle with salt to taste. Serve immediately with sprinkling of extra parmigiano.



Next time I made this, I'll be cutting the recipe in half, I think. Or I'll serve more people.

Braised Sausage with Balsamic-Glazed Onions and Grapes

My sister gave me Fine Cooking Cook Fresh: 150 Recipes for Cooking and Eating Fresh Year-Round for Christmas. It's a really exciting recipe book filled with recipes I'm terrified to try but that look fairly doable. I went through the book and marked a bunch of recipes I wanted to try, then I made my partner look at those recipes and identify a few to try one week.

The first recipe we tried was braised sausage with balsamic-glazed onions and grapes. It sounds super fancy, tastes fancy, but was fairly simple to make. Here's the only picture I took of it (I didn't think to do so earlier in the process) plus the summary.

Salad, baguette, and sausage dinner

I'd like to give a couple little disclaimers:

• I really don't like vinegar that much. I like pickles, but vinegar itself is gross (remnant from my first job mixing giant vats of coleslaw at KFC). That said, this is good and doesn't taste like vinegar at all.
• We didn't use fancy anything. The sausage was the prepackaged store brand sausage from the meat department. I wager fancier stuff would taste even better.

Ingredients

3 Tbs olive oil
8 links (about 2 lb.) sweet Italian sausage, pricked with a fork
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup lower-salt chicken broth
2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
20 seedless red grapes, halved
2 Tbs chopped fresh oregano

Directions

Heat 1 Tbs olive oil over medium heat, add the sausages and cook, turning every few minutes until they're brown all over. Remove to a large plate.

Add remaining olive oil, onions, and salt and cook until the onion softens and turns light brown. Add the chicken broth and balsamic vinegar and scrape the bottom of the skillet to incorporate browned bits. Reduce to a gentle simmer.

Add sausages and grapes, cover skillet with the lid ajar, and cook until the sausages are cooked, about 25 minutes. Stir occasionally. Serve sprinkled with oregano.



I'd say the fresh oregano is worth it, but we had a ridiculously hard time finding it in stores right after the holidays. You can probably sub dried, which I'll do if I can't find fresh easily. It's actually suggested you serve with baguette and a salad, which is how we ended up with the above salad. If you need to stay gluten-free, don't do the baguette or substitute something gluten-free. The whole thing took maybe 45 minutes including prep (which includes slicing the onion and grapes). We ate leftovers for a week. When you eat the leftovers, just watch that initially some coagulated fat will be on the top. Just scrape it off and reheat.

The book has some commentary I didn't copy out. It's written so that someone like my partner, who can cook a bit but not much, can follow the directions. It describes how the oil should look before you add the sausage and what temperatures to use at which stage. It also tells you to cut into the sausage at the end to figure out if it's cooked. Seriously, this book is awesome. I recommend finding it.

Once upon a kitchen...

Cooking is easily one of my favorite hobbies. Perhaps because it's so important to me or perhaps because it feels like everyone talks about loving cooking, I've been reluctant to talk about it more. That's just silly. I have to remember to give myself permission to be myself, no matter what everyone else does.

A short history of me cooking:

Two of my earliest memories of cooking are from around ages 4-6. 

In the first memory, my mom wasn't feeling great -- either sick or tired, probably pregnant with my younger sister -- and I was set the task of making ramen from a package. I'm sure you know what I mean when I talk about those $0.10 packages of ramen you can get. She used to have me help make ramen with her, so it wasn't totally strange that she asked me to make some. Sadly, when I read 2 cups of water, I grabbed a drinking cup (probably 12 oz or more) and used 2 of those instead of a measuring cup. The ramen was pretty horrible, and while I felt embarrassed at the time, I now just laugh.

In my second memory, my mom went outside to work in the front garden. I wanted to make cinnamon-sugar toast (something I was totally allowed to do). Being so small and enjoying the first piece so much, I decided to make more. And more. And more. Let's just say I probably made half a loaf of cinnamon-sugar toast, all the while not understanding that I'd be full long before I finished what was in front of me. I just thought it was so tasty. I remember realizing at some point that I had far too much toast in front of me and regularly glancing out the door to make sure my mom didn't come in and see how much I'd made. I can't remember if I actually ate it all before she came back in or if I threw some away or if maybe she came in and helped me eat the last couple pieces. Apparently I didn't think she'd notice half a loaf of bread gone in a couple hours.

Needless to say, as I grew, I helped my mom more and more in the kitchen.

As a teen, I made more dinners for my family. My mom loves baking. While she definitely can cook, she doesn't enjoy it as much as she enjoys baking. So I helped out and made dinners, especially on nights when I had youth group and we needed to eat by a specific time. In high school, I took two cooking classes. It was thanks to the cooking labs in those classes that I started to really enjoy reading recipes to decide if I wanted to try making the food.

I guess that all leads up to where I am now. I've been experimenting more as the years go on. I don't claim to be exceptionally great at cooking, but I think when you enjoy something and practice it regularly, you get better. So I'm not fantastic, but I'm fairly decent and adventurous. 

My sisters are a bit experimental and good, but they're more like my mom: they love baking more than cooking, though they're capable of both. Overall, though, they're impressed with what I tell them I've made. To be fair, they only hear what I've made, not tasted it.

Something I really want to share is my cooking experimentation. I've had successes and failures. It's kind of stupid what I fail at when I succeed with other things. Before I share what I've done, I wanted to share some of my favorite cooking youtube channels.

SORTED Food: This is easily my favorite cooking channel. The guys are from England (which makes conversions for me really challenging), so they have a different outlook on food. I love it because they share things more common to them and less common to me (like Indian-inspired cooking). Some recipes are intimidating, but most are fairly approachable. Plus, they've inspired an entire community on their website sortedfood.com where people share recipes and just talk about food.

Raw. Vegan. Not Gross.: I'm an omnivore, but I don't know huge amounts about eating vegetarian or vegan. I know it's super healthy, so I try to incorporate more of that kind of cuisine. Laura Miller shares these amazing raw vegan recipes. She discusses the health benefits of whatever main ingredient she's talking about so you understand it's not just "fad" stuff. Even if I've never eaten sauerkraut, her discussion of it and its health benefits makes me want to make it. I've made fewer of her recipes solely because it uses more expensive ingredients (like the sheer amount of nuts she uses!), but I absolutely love watching and learning more. I plan on trying more of her recipes this year. As a note, this show is on Tastemade, a channel of a bunch of cooking shows. I haven't watched many of the other shows because I don't find them as easily approachable as Raw. Vegan. Not Gross.

My Drunk Kitchen: Hannah Hart is around my age, which makes this approachable from the outset. She drinks (usually wine) and cooks in the kitchen. By the end of the episode, she's fairly tipsy. This is fantastic particularly because it means half of her food doesn't come out well. Something goes wrong (usually a lack of measuring ingredients or improper ingredients), but she's totally positive anyway. Half her food comes out great, it needs to be pointed out. She has guests on all the time. Sometimes it's other famous youtubers, sometimes it's actual celebrities like Mary Louise Parker, Lance Bass, Jamie Oliver, or Sarah Silverman. Hannah also does a great job of talking about issues of the day using food as a metaphor.

You Deserve a Drink: Mamrie Hart (friend but not relation of Hannah Hart) makes drinks. She's been a bartender. She attends mixology classes. She creates drinks. And she's vegan, so all her recipes are vegan. It's actually really neat. I've made pretty much none of her drinks, but I love watching what she does. I find it fascinating. Plus she makes more puns than you'd think a person could per episode. She also has special guests on sometimes, but usually they're youtubers (though she did recently do a drink for Jamie Oliver). Even if you're like me and not much of a drinker, you'd probably enjoy one or two of these.

Cooking Fast and Fresh with West: This can barely count as a cooking show. Misha Collins (who plays Castiel on Supernatural) has posted 4 videos where he lets his son, West, pick all the ingredients for a recipe and tell him exactly how to make the food. Then Misha eats the dinner. West is three or four, so the recipes are weird. It's more an example of amazing fathering than cooking, but the episodes are hilarious. I'd recommend watching them if you're ever feeling blue.

I watch other things, but mostly it's one-off recipes, not channels. These are far more inspiration than actual sources of recipes for me. 

I'd love suggestions of other channels to watch!

Transform

A couple years ago, I learned about a music group called Steam Powered Giraffe. They are both musicians and actors. Each band member has a steampunk robot persona.

From left to right: The Spine, Hatchworth, and Rabbit

I haven't been to a live show, but all their videos on youtube depict how amazingly the inhabit these robot forms. They move and talk only like robots during their shows and for publicity. If you're familiar at all with groups like GWAR or Lordi, this band has a similar attitude.

Today, the musician who plays Rabbit posted a beautiful video that depicts Rabbit's transformation through the years, focusing heavily on the gender change Rabbit underwent in 2014. I find the video so touching that I have to share it.

The actress, Isabella Bennett, is transgender and currently in her first year of hormone therapy. She is the twin sibling of The Spine, David Bennett.

I am moved by the way she documents her transgender experience with all the ups and downs included. If you're interested in her journey, I encourage you to watch her monthly videos.

Take Care of Yourself

Considering all my gifts for Yule and Christmas, the theme for 2015 is probably "take care of yourself". From friends and family I received the magic bullet I've talked about, cough drops, rubber duckies and bubble bath, luxurious scented bath salts, and an entire at-home spa kit. I'd just like to take a bit to talk about the spa kit because it was so incredible.

It contained:
Foot bath, marbles, scented epsom salt, oil vaporizer-diffuser, oils for  diffuser, gel facial mask, fuzzy socks, shower head, head massager, and an exfoliating shower pouf.

I've only used everything once so far, but I've used several of the pieces multiple times. I've been sick lately. I should probably have tried the spa kit to help me feel better but I felt too sick to even think that far.

I've loved using the oil diffuser. It lights up in changing colors, so it's pretty. It automatically shuts off when it gets too low, so I don't have to babysit it. And it makes the house smell great, which can't be wrong.

The shower head makes every shower fun. I really can't express how much fun it is. It changes color by temperature. Basically it's green when the water is cold, blue when warm, and red when hot. Since it's the middle of winter, I've been showering almost exclusively in red, but I'm sure I'll shower in blue when it's spring and during the summer I know I'll take my cool-off-before-bed showers in green.


Taking care of myself is something I struggle with. I'm not saying I'm bad to myself, but I forget that I'm allowed to pamper myself. I was recently talking with a friend about how hard it is to feel like cooking something really nice for yourself when you're single (or your partner is gone on a trip, like mine was recently).

It's hard to remember that I'm allowed to just stop and play around with soap and moisturizer and nail polish. I actually can put on makeup for no reason other than I feel like it. If I want to take myself out for a nice meal all alone, I can. I shouldn't worry what people at the restaurant think about me. I can take long baths just for myself.

Have you ever heard of HALT? It's hungry, angry, lonely, tired. If you feel any of those, stop and take care of yourself. It's hard to remember sometimes.

One day I felt bad and was beating myself up. My mom said, "Be nice to my daughter." It really hit me that I'm not "just me," I'm someone special to people. I'm my parents' daughter and my sisters' sister and my friends' friend and my partner's partner. That seems like something people should remember, but it's easy to forget. I don't want my friends to beat themselves up. I want them to take care of themselves. They feel the same for me. Sometimes I can't take care of myself for me but I can do it for them.

I can speculate why this is the case. It ranges from I'm a natural caretaker of others to I'm a woman and society has historically given us very little permission to do things for ourselves. It's strange to realize that at some point I was conditioned that I'm not worth it because I'm me, I'm only worth it because I'm something to someone else.

When I was younger, I was really proud of myself for taking like 5 minutes in the morning to get ready. Do makeup or special style my hair? Why? I'm not vain or shallow like so many girls in my middle and high schools. My looks don't matter. People need to like me for who I am, not what I look like. This, of course, had direct connections to the fact that I've been overweight (and ruthlessly teased) for a good chunk of my life.

Now that I'm past the years of middle and high school (and sorority life), I've finally come to realize several things.
One is that the person who was meanest to me and teased me most was me. Sure people said stuff sometimes, but I said it to myself far more than anyone else.
Two is that it's okay to spend time doing your hair or makeup or whatever you want, and it doesn't automatically mean you're vain. It means that you want to take any pride whatsoever in your appearance. You do it because you want to do it, not because society demands it or because someone else needs you to do it.
Three is that there's a good chance any negative comments made to me when I was younger was based on my personality. I'm a decent person, okay? But I was a know-it-all. I was a bit like Hermione from Harry Potter. People didn't hate her (you know, after that first Halloween), but before the troll situation in book 1, Ron and Harry thought she was pretty snobby or know-it-all. Well, that was me. It took me longer than her to stop being that way, but it eventually happened. In the meantime, I had socialization to learn. And I was always nice, but I've known a lot of people who are nice and smart and not know-it-all.

If I could talk to my younger self, I'd try to encourage me to relax, don't stress, stop trying to impress everyone, just be a bit more open. I judged people as much as they judged me.

I'd also tell myself that even though there were hard and really horrible things ahead, we all make it to the other side. And those things are what will really make me a better person, so stop worrying about that particular group of girls in high school.


Now that the hard, horrible stuff has mostly passed, it's time to learn to take care of myself. How did everyone else learn how to do it? It's not easy or intuitive.

Two tips

As I wrote about my health and beauty products experiments, I decided to share a couple tips I've found particularly helpful to me.

The most important thing to tell you is:

Ask the experts
What most people don't know is that librarians really love to help answer questions. We don't think most questions are stupid, and we don't tell you even if we think it's stupid. We want you to have the right information. We've been trained on identifying sources. We have advanced search techniques. Chances are, the librarian you're talking to is sitting there because they like the challenge of finding information.
Likewise, ask sales associates or other employees if you can't find what you want in a store. I had to ask to find green clay. I should have asked to save myself time finding glycerin. Recently I had to ask a co-op employee to help me when I wanted to taste a goji berry to check if I had an allergy (I do). By asking the employee the last time, I was just given two little berries to try and I didn't waste money or product with something I wouldn't, couldn't, or shouldn't eat.
The best lesson I learned at library school was that it's totally okay to say "I don't know". Follow it up with "let me find that answer" or "let me ask a colleague" or "let me look around and get back to you". The liberation I now have knowing "I don't know" is a completely appropriate and acceptable answer is something I can't even explain. I wish I could tell teenage me.


The other tip I can share is use Google drive or cloud storage. This is especially good if you have a smart device. I have an ipod touch and an Android phone. My phone is designed to work with Google, but I know iphones aren't. Still, here's my tip.

Create quick reference documents or spreadsheets on Google drive. When I went to get ingredients from the co-op, I ended up in a weird headspace due to my car not working. I had all the recipes I wanted to try in a document online so I didn't forget something (like guar gum).

I love this option because I can access all my drive documents on a computer or my phone. I type up shopping lists in drive on my computer, then read the list on my phone when I'm at the store. Using drive also allows me to change those lists from work, home, or the store. If I want to use it on my ipod, I just make sure I pull the document up before I leave an internet connection so it's there when I'm not online.


I know neither of these are ground-breaking pieces of information. It's just a reminder of what you probably know. There is no reason to make your life harder than it has to be.

Homemade Face Wash

On my harrowing adventure of walking to the co-op in 19° F weather I mentioned in my body wash post, I talked on the phone with my best friend. I've mentioned her apothacarian tendencies already. I told her all about the recipes I was going to try, and she told me about things she's done. She told me about the face wash she uses.

Needing to stay away from gluten like she does, she tries things I don't. While talking about face wash, she told me this anecdote.
Her partner doesn't forgo gluten and he's not particular about avoiding certain chemicals. For years, though, he used face wash with salicylic acid to help his acne. She made her minimal ingredient face wash and told him it had salicylic acid in it so he'd try it. After a couple months of using it, when he was totally convinced it worked, she revealed that it doesn't in fact have acid. He's still using the face wash she makes.

I know her partner, so I know what kind of testimonial this actually is. Since you probably don't know him or understand the weight of the story, just go with me on this. I thought if her partner uses it and likes it, I can try it too. Plus, I love the fact that it's such simple ingredients.

The vegetable glycerin is the only thing that will be a challenge to locate. I knew it must exist at my co-op, but I didn't know where. I wandered around and around and had to check all the shelves before I finally found it.

Let that be a reminder to myself: you know it's better if you just ask for help. It's as true in stores as it is in libraries. Ask experts.

Anyway, I had to get additional castile soap for this experiment. My body wash took all the peppermint castile soap I had. By the time I finished buying the ingredients for all this homemade health and beauty, I considered buying stock in castile soap. This time I got citrus orange scented soap. It's for my face, so the scent won't linger the same way my body wash will. I also chose orange because I figured it would help me wake up in the mornings. I'm already a morning person, but I think this helps a bit.

This, like the deodorant, doesn't really look fancy for photos. I took a picture anyway.

See? It's a slightly different picture than what's on the instructions page.

I have mine in a small mason jar. It's okay, but it'd work much better in a pump bottle. The travel section in the grocery store doesn't have baby pump bottles though. Maybe I'll actually buy a bottle for it. As I've mentioned, until I'm sure I'll commit to something, I don't want to go out-of-my-way-crazy for supplies. (I bet you didn't realize buying a generic pump bottle was such a commitment, huh?) For right now, I have the lid on the jar, shake it to make sure everything is mixed, and use the insert part to smear the stuff on my face. Otherwise I use my fingers to pull out a tiny bit.

This isn't particularly soapy feeling or lather-producing. And it doesn't make my skin tingle or anything other soaps can do. I'm a bit underwhelmed by the application of it, but I like the smell and I like that it feels like my face is probably cleaner. I'm giving it a chance to work on me.


As a note, I've decided I really like Dr. Bronner's for castile soap. The biggest difference I notice is that the scents don't make me sneeze. I had to use sensitive skin fragrance-free soap usually because I just sneeze all the time with typical soap. My partner's Irish Spring soap makes me sneeze every single time I use it. I haven't sneezed due to fragrance since I started using any of my homemade stuff. That's a plus in my book since I really enjoy the scents I'm using.

Homemade Mineral Makeup

I've been seeing recipes for making your own Bare Minerals-esque makeup for years now. Why didn't I ever try it? Green clay.

I'm disinclined to order a bunch online when I don't know what the results will be. If I order a giant tub of it and don't like the makeup, what do I do with all that green clay? Besides that, I don't wear makeup every day and even if I do, I don't use much.
The instructions I used mentioned finding the green clay at Whole Foods. I correctly suspected my co-op would sell green clay. It was in the bulk section, so I not only bought the clay, I bought only enough to make two or three small batches instead of enough for several years.

I'll also mention that while the green clay was organic, the rest wasn't. I already had cocoa powder and cornstarch. I'm not inclined to go buy giant amounts of organic (or any extra) if I already have the supplies. When I'm not sure how I'll feel about something, I exercise caution.

I mixed up the powder like the instructions suggested. The biggest challenge I had was figuring out the cocoa. "A bit" isn't great measurements, especially when I'm making so little. Also, I'm pale. I sometimes joke that in northern Idaho we come in a few natural shades of pale, paler, palest and I'm glow-in-the-dark. I'm not the palest person I know, but I'm good at helping my friends feel like they have color.

I wish I remembered how much I made up so I could help others judge their cocoa needs. It was probably like 6 oz. To this mixture for 6 oz, I added maybe two literal pinches of cocoa. It's just about exactly what I needed. Judging your cocoa needs isn't easy when your makeup starts out green.

This is what mine looks like. First off, the color is a bit wrong, but it's fairly close. My green clay wasn't overtly green to start with. Secondly, yes, that's an 8 oz jam jar I've cleaned up and am storing it in. Thirdly, yes indeed, this stuff is basically nothing but get-everywhere-I'm-free! powder. I've taken to washing my face, applying lotion, waiting a minute or two, and then applying the powder. I make it stick to my lotion, which is really weirdly thick.

I've applied it so it looks green, but it was also very thick. When I work it in so you can't see the powder easily, it's totally fine.

I'm enjoying this makeup and its lightness, but I'm not sure about future batches. I'll probably make a bit more, but I'm fairly hesitant to say this is it forever and ever. I'll let you know.

Homemade Body Wash

Something else I made over my Christmas break was body wash. I'd thought about making some for a while, but this, more than any other recipe, involved a few too many ingredients I didn't have. What were those ingredients? Citric acid, liquid castile soap, and guar gum. Luckily, my co-op stocks all those ingredients.

The citric acid was the one thing I wasn't sure I'd be able to find. Both it and the guar gum were in the bulk section, though. I have a bit of citric acid left, but I'll probably just order more from Amazon since it'll be a slightly better deal than $9.55 a pound. 

I knew I could find castile soap, but I didn't realize the variety of scents I could find. In case you didn't know, Dr. Bronner's comes in quite the range of scents. I probably had 8 to choose from. I stood looking at scents for a long time before I found the mild unscented version. At the last minute, though, I remembered one of the best body washes I've ever used was peppermint scented. Sure enough, there's a peppermint Dr. Bronner's. I was close to choosing the citrus blend, but my partner has a few peculiar opinions about when to use citrus. We share a bathroom, so I thought I'd go with the scent he'd tolerate more. The benefit of choosing a scented soap is that I didn't have to worry about adding the essential oils at the end.

I infused with oats and dried rosemary even if the original recipe called for fresh. Any added oil benefits may have been missed, but since I let it infuse for a good long time, I feel like I probably got a good bit of benefits anyway. 

The thing I didn't understand was the thickening process. Since step 3 of the original recipe talks about the guar gum thickening so quickly, I was fairly worried when mine just wouldn't thicken as much as I wanted. It felt more like soap I should use in a foaming soap pump because it was so thin. After the body wash sat around for an hour or two, it thickened right up. I'm actually a bit startled how much it thickened. It's now almost on par with lotion instead of soap.

My finished product is quite nice. It doesn't foam up very much at all, but I still feel like it does a great job. That peppermint is an amazing smell in the shower. It helps open up my sinuses and feels luxurious.

As a fun side story, the day I decided to make everything, it was probably 19° F (-7° C). I'd hadn't started or moved my car for 11 days, which normally isn't an issue. I'd forgotten that northern Idaho in the winter can cause real car problems. When I went out to the car, it wouldn't turn on. I heard a sort of clicking, like something was trying to work. This didn't discourage me, though. Not only was I totally stir crazy and needing to be productive, I'd told my partner I'd drop off our rent checks at our rental company. The office is only a few blocks from our place, but with it being so cold and icy, walking to drop off the checks was a bit of an adventure. I didn't stop at that, though. I then walked approximately a mile to the co-op and back home again. It's important to note that I wasn't wearing my Yak-Trax, which made it a dangerous and probably foolish walk.

The next day was a weekend, so my partner and I put some Heet into my gas tank and jumped the car. It's been working fine ever since.