No More Shampoo!

There are so many chemicals in our personal hygiene products now a days. Sodium Laurel sulfate; Laurel sulfate; carregenan; parabeans. All potentially cancer causing chemicals. I bought a chemical free shampoo from Whole Foods market, but I found that my hair did not feel clean and itched more than usual. Desperate for some answers I turned to the internet. I found a great solution, but before I advertised its amazing effect I knew I needed to experiment myself because it sounded so different. Here it goes......drumroll......... Baking Soda and Apple Cider Vinegar. Yikes! I was nervous at first. This was a little weird for me. It worked! I no longer have oily hair or dandruff. My hair is shiney clean. I can go quite a few days. I washed it with my new discovery on the 4th day because I had been dehydrating and pickling and didn't want my hair to be stinky out it public. Here is how you do it. I bought two water bottles at Target (the squeezable kind). In one bottle add 2 Tbsp. of baking soda and fill the rest with warm water. I think these are 14 oz. bottles. The other one has 2 Tbsp. Apple cider vinegar and fill the rest with warm water. Now to try it out. Get in the shower and wet your hair thoroughly. Add the entire bottle of baking soda water to your hair and massage it in. Rinse out. Now squeeze out a good amount of the vinegar water over your hair. Leave for a minute and rinse. Done. I have also just put straight baking soda on my hair. Make sure your only put a Tbsp for short to medium hair. I tried the straight vinegar. That burned my troubled scalp. I will never do that again.

Cinnamon Apples

1 5lb. bag of apples
1/2 cup of light corn syrup
1/2 cup cinnamon candies
1/2 cup cinnamon
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/2 c white vinegar
2 cups of water
red food coloring
Slice apples horizontally. Remove center from each slice. Add apple circles to a bowl of water with 1/2 cup lemon juice. This helps to prevent browning. In a pot combine remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil to 5 minutes. Add drained apples to cinnamon mixture and cook for about 4 minutes. This will soften them up to fit in the canning jar. Fill clean heated jar with apple slices and pour hot cinnamon sauce over top. Leave 1/2 inch of space at top. Cover with lids and boil in water bath canner for 10 minutes. It is good to wait a few days to eat these so the apples turn bright red and absorb all the flavor.

Salsa Verde

5 pounds of tomatillos
1 bunch cilantro
2 yellow onions
2 jalapenos
juice of 4 limes
1/4 cup canning salt
1 tbsp garlic powder

Bring to boil 5 pounds of tomatillos which have had the outer leaves removed. I also like to boil the jalapenos (cut and seeded) with them. While those are boiling, removed leaves from cilantro stems, place in blender. And chopped up onion to the blender. Add about 1/2 cup of water. Blend all together until smooth. Add blended green mixture to empty water pitcher. Once tomatillos are done, laddle them into the blender along with jalapenos and blend until smooth. I add about 1 cup of the water the tomatillos and jalapenos were cooked in to make it easier to blend. Add this to the onion/cilantro mixture. Mix together. Pour this into a pot. Add salt, garlic powder and limes. Bring to a slow boil. Poor salsa into clean heated jars. Add lids. Process in water bath canner for ten minutes. This should give you about 6 pints of salsa.

Capital Punishment

I used to be so adamantly FOR the death penalty. 100% stick it to them they deserve to die. An eye for an eye was my motto. Do it now....don't wait for twenty five years. My thought on this changed this week. You would think that I would feel a strong desire for revenge for the person who killed Scott's aunt Carol. I want justice, but my heart tells me that taking another life for a life is wrong. I feel forgiveness and mercy for this woman who so clearly lost her mind that day. However, this does not mean that I think she should not be punished for her crime. I just wish our government would create a prison system that people would fear to have to end up. How compfy to have three square meals a day; t.v.; college education and a roof over their heads. I once read of a Sherrif in Arizona who made his prisoners wear pink and eat balogna sandwiches everyday. They live in tents with no air conditioning and worked hard labor everyday. I wonder how his town did as far as a crime rate?

More Canning

Today I canned 15 pints of green beans and 8 pints of diced tomatoes. There is a sale on sweet corn, so I might need to go to the store tomorrow and buy a bunch. My bread and butter pickles turned out well. There is only 5 jars, but we do not eat them too often. It is the dill pickles that Maddie and Mary love. My back is hurting and I can barely stay awake. Time for bed.

Making your own Deodorant

Here is a great recipe for homemade doedorant I found

3 Tbsp. Shea Butter
3 Tbsp. Baking Soda
2 Tbsp. Corn Starch
2 Tbsp. Cocoa Butter
2 Vitamin E capsules
Essential Oil- Ylang Yang & Orange

Melt all of the ingredients (except essential oil) and it a good stir. It is easier to melt in the microwave for 30 seconds. Add essential oils, stir again, and pour in a small jelly jar (1/4 pint) then place in the fridge to set. If you make a large batch and quadrupel the recipe, just keep any extra jars in the fridge and take one out one at a time. The lady who made this recipe said next time she was going to add a little vegetable glycerin next time she was going to do a batch to make it easier to use.

Canning and dehydrating

Today I found pickling cucumbers on sale at Super-Fresh for 10 cents each. I bought about 30 of them and made Kosher dill pickles (13 pints). I think that was the first time I have ever made them. We will see how they taste in 6 weeks. I also bought zuchinni for 10 cents each and decided to dehydrate them sliced. They will be perfect for minestrone soup and chopped up more will be great for zuchinni bread. And since they were on sale, it is even cheaper than growing them myself. I bought 5 lbs of carrots to dehydrate. I bought many cans of carrots a few years ago and I just do not like them canned. It makes them too sweet. I also bought roma tomatoes to can, but they still feel a little firm, so they are in the cupboard ripening. I am also going to do sweet potato and regular potato in the food dehydrator. I am thinking that this is a whole lot easier than canning. Not to mention less expensive since you do not need to by so many canning jars. Peas would be nice dried as well. I just do not like the mushy peas in a can. We also have seeds to plant this week of green beans, red sweet corn, peas and finger carrots. It would be nice to do more. There is never enough time in the day.