Finish it Friday: Pantry Organization
I’ve now joined the group of bloggers who do Finish it Friday. I’ve fought it, thinking and saying to myself that I don’t need to do a blog post on one thing I finally accomplish during the week just to make sure I get one thing accomplished in a week. I was wrong. I need motivation and someone(s) to be accountable to. This is something I’ve needed to do for quite some time, so I’m going to do it.
We have two pantries in our kitchen, and you know when you first move in you put things places and think, “I’ll organize that later.” And maybe you do do a few improvements and “organizing” but in the end you aren’t happy but you don’t want to spend the time to do more. Well that is me and my pantries. We have one that is quite shallow and one that is really deep. I had more stuffed into the shallow pantry than the deep pantry and decided that I should fix it, I HAD to. My main reasoning being that I like to have extras of essentials… hand soap, floss, emergency stuff, extra cooking oil, etc. Until today I had just been stuffing those all on the very top shelf in the shallow pantry. Well anyone who has met me in person knows I am vertically challenged, aka: short. I (especially in my pregnant state) could barely reach much less see the much prized and needed emergency/storage items. In fact two weeks ago I went without flossing for 3 days until I could get to the grocery store because I was too short to see the extra floss on the top shelf. Sad. And it wont happen again! It only took me about half an hour…
Before:
After:
Basically I moved all my everyday cooking/eating items to the deep pantry with the less-used items to the shallow pantry. And now I have more room to buy storage food/household items. And when you find a way to have more storage space isn’t that always a winner? Yay!
And don’t forget today is the last day to sign up for my 2010 Planner Giveaway!
Cleaning Tote = Easier Life
Say what? You heard me. I put my cleaning supplies in a tote and it has made my life SO much easier! No more hauling individual bottles around with several trips back and forth to the laundry room shelf or bathroom cabinet. I take my tote, set it in the doorway, use the duster, put it back, use my dust rag, put it back, all purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, etc. I never lose or misplace my cleaning supplies, ahhhh. It’s a wonderful thing. My cleaning supplies are in one place, and I always know where it is AND it’s easy to track when I’m running low.
Things in My Tote:
Duster
Toilet Bowl Cleaner
All-Purpose Cleaner
Glass Cleaner
Floor Cleaner
Rubber Gloves
Dusting Spray
Disinfectant Wipes
Magic Eraser
Febreeze
Things on My List To Put in my Tote:
Plastic Rinsing Cup (how else do you rinse the soap off the tile that’s above the shower head?)
Old Toothbrushes
Barkeepers/Comet
Random Thoughts:
If you don’t have a place to put your toilet brush put it in your tote! Professional cleaners do. Put them in plastic bags in your tote, you may want to put a rag under it. If having a toilet brush in your tote grosses you out, just remember to let it soak for a few minutes in bleach water to disinfect it.
When picking a tote, always go for bigger. I bought a smaller one before this and took it back, it was too narrow to fit all the different cleaning bottles.
*Don’t forget to enter into my 2010 Woman’s Success Planner Giveaway! You have until this Friday November 6th at midnight to enter.*
Halloween Candy Cookies
What is there to do with that extra Halloween candy? Well I decided to make cookies out of it. I got the candy bars that were left and added them into my usual chocolate chip cookie recipe, it ended up being really yummy and I have a few tips that will probably help make your cookies even better than mine!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
2 1/4 c flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c butter
1/2 c sugar
3/4 c brown sugar – packed
2 t vanilla
1 egg
1 bag chocolate chips/ 2 cups chopped Halloween Candy bars
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In small mixing bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt – set aside. In large mixing bowl cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Add vanilla and egg, beat well. Add dry ingredients, mix well. Add chocolate chips, mix well. (Personally I add chocolate chips in with the dry ingredients.) Drop about 2″ apart from each other onto un-greased cookie sheets. Bake 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven, place on cooling rack.
Halloween Candy Addition Information
First I mixed up my cookies like normal. Then I chopped up the candy bars. Remember when you chop them up you don’t want them too small.
I ended up not using the Baby Ruth bars, and now that I’ve done it I would probably leave the Butterfingers out as well. They basically turned to dust when I chopped them up and then make the cookies stick to the cookie sheet after they were baked. I’d save them for homemade milk shakes instead of cookies. Also, I would suggest (if you can) doubling the amount of candy bars. I ended up add some chocolate chips, but by the end wish I would have added more.
Then I balled up the cookies and baked them. YUM!
“Love Comes Softly” by Janette Oke
A friend of mine introduced me to this book and I really enjoyed it. It is a Christian book series so there is a lot of talk about faith and God of a family and community of frontier people. I really enjoyed this book and continued to read (and enjoy) the entire series. There was also a Hallmark series done on these books. I’ve only seen the first one, it was nothing like the book. I thought the book was much better. Below is the overview on the book from Amazon. I hope you enjoy and check it out. Also, don’t forget to sign up for my 2010 Planner Giveaway this week!
Love Comes Softly introduced the characters of Marty and Clark Davis, whose tragic circumstances brought them to a “marriage of convenience” on the frontier prairies during the mid 1800s. The story of how Clark’s patient, caring love mirrored that of the heavenly Father, drawing Marty to faith and to love, has captured the hearts and imaginations of over one million readers on Book One alone!
“The Success Choice” Discount
I’m excited to let you all know that The Success Choice made a coupon for my readers. If you decide to order from their site, you can save 20% off your order with the coupon code DOMESTIC. The coupon expires Jan 1, 2010. So check it out!
Giveaway!
I am so excited to announce my very first Giveaway! The Success Choice has donated a year’s worth of their “The Woman’s Success Planners” for this giveaway. I am so excited not only to do my first giveaway but as a person who has used these planners for almost a year I can vouch for them! I love them and was telling my husband that I’d like another set for next year. These planners come in quarters which for me is nice because it makes them thin enough to fit into my purse, but big enough that I have plenty of room for notes and scheduling. These planners are a $38 value! Some pictures of my Fourth Quarter planner are below.
To enter the Giveaway leave a comment on this post for one entry. If you mention the Giveaway on your blog/Twitter account leave a link in the comments and you will get 2 entries. You can enter through this Friday, November 6th at midnight with the winner announced Monday November 9th! We’ll be limiting this Giveaway to the US and Canada. Thanks!
Front Cover
Month Overview
Beginning of the Week with Grocery List and Meal Planning
Week Planner
Inspirational Quotes Each Week
Health Tracker
End of Week Notes, Ideas and Inspirations
End of Planner Business Card Holder/Handout Holder
Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix
I saw the Betty Crocker Cookie mixes at the store a long time ago and bought (and loved) the chocolate chip cookie mix. I thought I would try the sugar cookie mix this go around and make some pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies.
I have to say that it was really hard to knead the butter and egg into the mix, but with a little patience I prevailed!
I think that this mix is more ideal for rolling balls of cookies rather than rolling it out because it ends up pretty sticky. If you do roll it out you need to be generous with the flour.
I used my pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter since Halloween is around the corner.
I did have to use a spatula to help get the cookies off the table because they were so sticky.
I would suggest giving them more room than I did because they do get quite a bit bigger while cooking.
Place on cooling rack.
Frost and decorate when cool.
I ate a frosted and un-frosted cookie, and the un-frosted left something to be desired, ie. sugar. I think these are pretty good cookies but they definitely need frosting. Like I mentioned before I have make the chocolate chip cookies in the pre-mixed package and loved them. But then again I’m not really much of a sugar cookie fan myself… mmmm chocolate.
BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Okay talk about deliciousness! I’ll been in what I call a “cooking rut.” So I spent an hour or two looking through recipe sites and through my e-mails looking for yummy recipes to try. I found one… BBQ Pulled Pork from my mom. Hers end up as fajitas but I wanted a much less complicated approach.
This calls for a lot of meat and is great for get-togethers. Or feel free to freeze half of it and pull it out for a quick yummy meal!
Ingredients:
2.5 lbs pork loin or the like (I used pork loin chops)
2 cups BBQ sauce
3/4 cup Salsa
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons (dried) minced onions
1. In a bowl mix BBQ sauce, salsa, chili powder and onion together well.
2. Cover bottom of crock pot with sauce, then put pork in crock pot, smother in sauce. If you are doing chops then put some sauce in between your layers of chops.
3. Turn your crock pot on low and cook all day (while you’re at work) or if you need it done in a few hours cook on high.
4. Once meat is done cooking, shred pork with 2 forks. I moved my chops to another bowl to do this. Stir back in with sauce in crock pot.
5. Let simmer for about 30 minutes then eat!
Pumpkin Seed Drying and Roasting
I think if I hadn’t already tried to save a rotten pumpkin and been totally grossed out by pumpkin insides I would have rummaged through my good-pumpkin’s innards and roasted them. I however only had the stomach to save enough to dry and plant next year in my garden. It is fairly easy process that I hope you do!
1. Pick out seeds from pumpkin innards.
2. Put in colindar and rinse off innards.
3. Dry with paper towel.
4. Leave on paper plate to dry. Be sure to shake these every day or two to ensure they do not get stuck to the plate.
5. Throw any cracked or moldy seeds away, put the rest of the dried seeds in envelope to plant next year.
If you would like to roast pumpkin seeds:
To roast: take dried pumpkin seeds and toss with oil and or salt and roast in a preheated oven at 250 degrees F for 10 to 15 minutes.
Or a more in-depth recipe that I found is:
Preheat oven to 250°F.
After removing as much pulp as possible from the pumpkin seeds, place the seeds in a colander in the sink and run cold water over them as you work to remove any remaining pulp. When the seeds are clean, drain them and place between two paper towels to dry.
In a large skillet, sauté 2 cups pumpkin seeds, 2 tablespoons butter or 1 1/2 tablespoons peanut or safflower oil and 1 teaspoon salt. (For an interesting flavor variation, try Morton’s Hot Salt or use Seasoned Salt.)
Stir 3 minutes until seeds are well coated with butter.
Spread evenly on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes.
Take a few out to try at this point (watch out-they will be hot so let them cool a bit first!)
Some seeds are larger than others and will take longer to bake.
If necessary, continue to bake 15 minutes longer or until lightly browned.
Place on a paper towel to cool.
Variation: After washing the pumpkin seeds, soak seeds for 1-2 hours in a mixture of 1 quart of water and 1/2 cup kosher salt. Be sure salt has dissolved. Remove seeds from water mixture after soaking and dry. Proceed as above.
From Cooks.com
Pumpkin Carving
If you haven’t already done it then you probably will in the next few days. We went to the pumpkin patch last week and got 2 pumpkins. One was to be a traditional jack-o-lantern and the other a cookie-cutter pumpkins cut out of a pumpkin. Unfortunately the big pumpkin (20-something pounder) didn’t make it. I discovered it had started rotting on Saturday. 
I did try to save it but it was too far gone and all I got was a sick stomach and a house that smelled like rotten pumpkin. So for the smaller pumpkin we did a face on one side and pumpkin cookie cutter on the other. I think it turned out pretty well.
Because most people have made jack-o-lanterns before I’ll just give a quick picture step by step without instructions with just a few comments.
I always clean the top of the pumpkin so you don’t have pumpkin hanging down by the flame.
This pumpkin was really thick so I trimmed down the walls.
Scooping out the insides.
Like I mentioned earlier the walls of this pumpkin were super thick, I couldn’t push the cookie cutter through so my wonderful husband did it. But we had to finish getting it out with a knife.
By the way, to get the permanent marker off the pumpkin when I was done I used Goo Gone.
Tune in tomorrow to see how to dry and roast pumpkin seeds!
