Medium Chunky Salsa

Salsa Recipe

(A tweaked borrowed recipe)

Little story about recipe

Ok I have never really done any canning with hot peppers before this salsa recipe so my first attempt I only used two large jalapeño and I took the seeds out did everything else the same. The salsa was good but a little on the sweet side and no heat. So my second try is the picture below. Everyone loved it and it was just hot enough to no you had some spicy (LOL) I was told after you refrigerate it will heat up more but haven't got to that step yet so I don't no if mine will. I would call this batch a success...

INGREDIENTS

8 cups peeled chopped tomatoes (it said to drain but I didn't also I used the blanch method to peel my tomatoes)

2 1/2 cups onions chopped (size depends on if you want it chunky or not)

1 1/2 cups green peppers (I used bell peppers I guess that’s what green peppers are?)

1 cup jalapeño pepper (I used a combo of hot peppers my son supplied from his garden)

6 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp. cumin

2 tsp. pepper

1/8 cup canning salt

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup vinegar (I used white distilled)

1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce

1 (12 ounce) can tomato paste

 

DIRECTIONS

(1) Mix all together and bring to a slow boil 10 minutes

(2) Seal in prepared jars and cook in hot water bath 10 minutes

(3) Makes medium chunky salsa. Cut smaller

(4) Yields 3-6 quarts or pints

Personally I wasn't real exact on my measuring. If I had more of something when I got it chopped up I went ahead and used it all. It turned out great.

Sorry everyone forgot to take pictures of the whole process

 

 

 Finished product



Why I decided to homeschool/ my curriculum choices.

Hey everyone, next week Olivia and I are going to try to start our new school year, since the beginning of May we have been doing summer school where we work on what Olivia wants to and when she wants to. The last couple of weeks she has not asked to do any kind of formal learning so we have not but we are both ready to jump back in there. I have a few fun things planned for the start of a new school year that I will share with everyone later; we will also have a busy week with doctor’s appointments and first time at a co-op function so I am not sure how much "formal" learning we will be doing. Since we are going to be starting our new school year I though I would share with you all why I want to homeschool my kiddos, there are so many more reasons but here are a few on the top of my list.

 

1. I know that I can provide a safe environment for them to learn
2. I like the idea of teaching my kids to love learning not just giving them an education.
3. I have been there “teacher” since the day that they were born. (why just because they turn 4 or 5 does that have to change)
4. It fits the way we choose to live our life. We like to be able to just pack up and go away for a few days whenever we feel like it.
5. I do not want someone else to be responsible for how my kids turn out.
6. I know that there are a lot of teachers out there that do fine by there students   but I don’t want fine for my kids I want spectacular.
7. I will be able to give my kids a personalized learning experience that no school or teacher will.
8. It brings my family closer together, If my kids were at school for 7 hours a day 5 days a week and my hubby is gone 12 hours a day 4 days a week we would never be all together. And when we would be together we would have to get all the “must do” stuff done and still not have time for the fun stuff.
9. Most importantly its fun!

 

Now onto my curriculum choices

 

This year Olivia who is 5 will be starting first grade up until now I have not really used a curriculum. And although I have chosen several curriculums for this year we will not be following them completely to the letter but it has been nice to have an idea of things we will be doing.

Math

For math we have decided to use Math Mammoth grade 1.  We have not tried this out yet but it looks like it will be a good fit for our family and covers everything that should be taught in 1^st grade math.  It starts with simple addition and subtraction and covers money, time, and calendar. We are very excited to try this curriculum out.

Reading 

For reading we are going to do a combination of phonics and sight words. For phonics I have decided to try out Explode the Code we are going to start on book 2 which covers consonant blends this is something else that we are trying for the first time this year. For sight words we will be finishing up the You Can Read lessons from 1+1+1=1. I am not sure what we are going to be doing after that I am thinking about this reading in 1st reading series from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom. Plus there will be lots of leveled readers and read aloud from me.

 Science

 I found this Elementary Life Science curriculum that I was able to download for free and include a text book, and teacher’s book. It has everything for a full 36 weeks of science with experiments worksheets and tests all included.  

 Geography/History

 We will be going thru the Road Trip USA curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler this includes a teacher and student books with everything they need to learn about each of our 50 states with coloring pages, games, creating a lapbook or notebook and even recipes from each state. She also recommends living history books to go along with each state. 

 I also have a book of mini lessons for writing and we will be pulling art projects from all of our other subjects. Wow typing this all out it  looks like a lot and like I have said we have not tried to follow a curriculum before so we are just going to go with the flow and the only thing that really matters is that we keep on learning.

If anyone has used any of the above curriculum I would love to hear how it worked out for you. Leave a comment!

linked with

 

 

-Becca

 

 

Links to the blogs mentond above. All 3 blogs have lots of freebees for homeschoolers.

 



The Water Blob

    
This project has been one year in the making, well for me anyway, last summer my husband and I were trying to think of some fun DIY water ideas. I ran across this idea for a water blob and really thought that it would be fun for us to do with the kids and when I showed my husband and he already had an idea for this water fall sprinkler made out of pvc pipe and we already had all the supplies so we made that and forgot all about the water blob.

Last week my hubby was telling me about this great idea he found on Facebook for an outdoor water bed for the kids to play on. He said someone pinned it but he could not find it. When I found the pin that he was looking at what do you think that I found? The water blob idea that I had last year. So after a trip to Wal-Mart for a roll of plastic and some duck tape we had everything that we needed. That’s it! Well that is not all we bought because who can go to Wal-Mart and just gets what they ran in there for?

So while the little one was taking a nap hubby and I rolled out the plastic and folded it in half and got to taping. Boy was that fun, in the super hot Texas afternoon (said no one). After getting all the sides taped up we duck taped a water hose into one corner and laid it out on a tarp so that hopefully we would not get a hole in it, and filled that baby up. At first we were trying to tape up all around when we found leaks, but really it was not too bad even with a few leaks the water stayed in pretty good, and the water that came out onto the top of the bed just made it more fun.

The cool water in the blob made for a wonderfully wet afternoon of fun in the sun. We rolled and jumped and watched the waves. The kids tried to slip n slide on it but were not to successful. After a while even my 8 month old nephew was enjoying himself.



the kiddos playing while the blob is filling up

we all had a fun afternoon playing

 

We have been able to use this a couple of times plus use it as a slippy slide (and still able to use it) so it was well worth the 25 or so bucks we spent on it.  We have spent more money than that onstore bought water toys and sprinklers that did not last one time of using it.

 

What do you think? Is this something that you or your kiddos would enjoy?

 

-Becca

 

Fireplace fire starters

My sister in law Michelle first introduced me to the egg carton and dryer lint fire starters a couple years ago. With all the laundry that I do I have no shortage of laundry lint. This is also a good way to recycle all the egg cartons I throw away. So off I went saving lint and egg cartons.

What I used for this project

Paper egg carton

Crafters wax

wax scent from warmers

Today I made 60 fire starters using a 30 count paper egg carton. I used the top and bottom. I save lint in a plastic coffee can and bought crafters wax (you can use any kind of wax you like). This year I decided to add some scent. I have scentsy warmers so I decided to try the scented wax that you buy for them. I combined scentsy fragrance (cozy fireside) and Better homes and garden brand I bought at Wal-Mart (Sparkling Berry Garden) my house sure smells good!

I started by melting 2 lbs of wax and a couple of scent cubes on the stove over low heat.  While that was melting I took the lint and stuffed it in the egg sections of the carton (stuff it in there tight) When the wax was melted I poured it over the lint. That is it!

Just let it cool and store until you are ready to use. We love these for our fireplace they work perfectly, it really only takes one to start a fire. Just put your wood in cut or tear an egg section and put it under the wood and light. Even my husband loves them. So if you are looking for something to do with all the drier lint and egg cartons try this. It is a great way to recycle something that everyone has. Happy crafting!

-Debra

First hot process homemade goats milk soap with recipe

Our first batch of cold process soap (see here) still has about 3 or 4 more days before it is ready but Mom and I could not wait to try out hot process soap so today we got all of our stuff together and spent the morning making another batch of soap.  With hot process we are going to be able to use the soap alot sooner.

What you will need:

Crockpot

Bowls, spoon, spatula, wisk

Good digital scale

Stick mixer

Mold (we used a can food box from grocery store it was 8.25x12 inches divided in half with another piece of cardboard covered in plastic wrap)

Plastic garbage bag (cut into single layer to cover the box to protect from oils)

fragrance oil or essential oils (we used  Something Fabulous brand from Hobby Lobby)

Oils we used

3.2 oz sweet almond oil         10%

9.6 oz coconut oil                   30%

6.4 oz sunflower oil                20%

11.2 oz olive oil                      35%

1.6 oz stearic acid                   5%

You can use whatever oils that you like just make sure to run through a lye calculator (this is the one that we used) to verify how much lye/water to use

12.16 oz water

4.569 oz lye

4 scoops powdered goat’s milk

*Our goat’s milk came with a scoop if not use 8 tablespoons

*also when making soap with milk it will be darker in color

Extras

Fragrance oils

            Japanese louts blossom

            Lilac

            Honey almond

Honey

Oatmeal

*This recipe uses 2 lbs of oil, if you want to make more or less just plug the % into the lye calculator to get the correct amounts*

Directions:

If you have any solid oils turn Crockpot on low add in oils and stir make sure all oils are melted then turn off

Go outside and add lye to water stir until clear

*be careful with this step lye is very dangerous and will burn if it touches you skin use protective gear

*if you get lye on you, you can use vinegar to stop the burning.

* be sure to always pour lye into water not the other way around.

Pour lye water into oil
Add in stearic acid and goat milk powder

Stir with spoon or Wisk until everything is incorporated then use stick mixer until your batter is at trace (i did not time this but about 20 minuts)

trace

Set Crockpot to low and put lid on it stir occasionally to keep batter cooking even 

Our Crockpot cooked really hot and ended up separating the batter so next time we will try to cook it on warm (if this happens just turn down and keep stirring until back together)

Our booboo

When done batter will look like waxy mashed potatoes test with “zap test” (take a little and put it to your tongue if there is any sting it is not done)  to make sure the saponification process is complete. (This took 1 hour even with the mess up)

 Transfer batter into another bowl and stir for a few minutes to let soap cool add in extra’s

Put in molds and cover let sit for 12 hours then cut into bars

This time we halved the batter, in 1^st half we used

¼ oz of Japanese lotus blossom fragrance oil

¼ oz of lilac fragrance oil

The other half we used

¼ oz of honey almond fragrance oil

1 tablespoon of honey

 ¼ cup of oatmeal that we chopped up in a processor

            With this batch we got 9 bars of lotus blossom and lilac and 9 bars of honey almond  (2.75x2 inches)

Add in any fragrance you like at no more than 1oz of fragrance for 2 lbs of soap

Add dry items at no more then ½ cup for 2 lbs

Soap will be ready to use once it hardens.


Would you try making your own soap?

-Debra and Becca

New school year, getting ready!

The new school year for The Clowers bunch is quickly approaching, it’s time for me to get ready and I have oh so much to do. This year we have an extra room that I'm trying to make into our homeschool room.  I have started organizing but still need to move the  desk and a computer in.   My kids usually do school on our dinning room table, which I like because I can sit with them, but having this extra room has made it so much easier for me when it comes to having our school stuff in one place.

Now to curriculum. So many curriculum to choose from!  I'm going through all the books that I have in my shed and trying to decide if I want to use Rod and Staff or Abeka for math and English  for my 13 year old. Either way I still need to purchase a few books that I'm missing, but I want to make sure I spend my money on the right curriculum. For my 6 year old I think I'm ready, besides the books I already have, Becca has shown me so many websites where I can find worksheets and different things that I can use for him. Cheaper, fun and you only need a printer.

So yes instead of this momma thinking about what my kids should wear for public school, brand name, Wal-Mart, and buying endless school supplies for the entire class lol I'm just trying to make sure that I have the right books and an organized room for my kids! Btw the first month of school is always so exciting new books, organized, but off course that wears out pretty quickly hahha!

If you have any ideas ,suggestions or just anything don't forget to leave me a comment!

Some of our curriculum 

our school room 

more books and things in our school room 

Could we be Soapers?

 

     For a while now my mom and I have wanted to try our luck at making our own bath soap.  We have talked about how much fun it would be, and how we could make it look and smell exactly how we want it to.  Plus do you know how much money we could save?  There was one thing stopping us though, I think it was the shear amount of information their is out there on the subject. Do we use cold or hot process? Is their a right combination of fats that we should be using?  What is saponification anyway?


     Fast forward a few months in April I took a trip to visit my husband's family in Idaho and while there I bought some homemade goats milk soap. We fell in love with it, so rich and creamy and it smelled heavenly plus after using it I did not have to use lotion anymore.  I mean how great is that?  That gave us the kick in the butt we needed to get this soap making thing on the roll.  So again we began scouring Pintrest and You Tube for an easy goat's milk soap recipe. Then we finally found this You Tube video that made the process look perfectly doable for two newbie Soapers.


     We have found our recipe!  It was a first step, a step that threw us into high gear. We got all of our ingredients and tools together, just waiting for us to both have a morning free so that we could get this soap making show on the road.


     We waited for a morning when she was not to busy and both of my kids were gone and we watched the video one more time to check our recipe. We gathered all of our stuff and went outside and started mixing and measuring and pouring. Do you know what? It seemed to work, everything the video said would happen did and we got our soap mixed and poured into our mold and it hardened like it should. Now we have to just wait 3 weeks to see how our soap turns out.

Have any of you tried to make your own soap? What was your experience like for you?

Becca

Am I a hoarder, prepper or just a try everything person...(is there a name for that)

All my life I have been a collector of things LOL! My kids say I have hoarder tendencies, I say I just have a lot of different things I am into and need supplies for each thing which ends up being a house full of stuff... hence the hoarder wrap I have gotten. I think that comes from not being organized. I try but every time I go to getting things together I get side tracked with another project.

Some of my projects or things I like to do are any kind of craft, if I see it and like it I want to try it. From the time my kids where small I wanted to learn to crochet so I got my mother in law to teach me. Can't even remember all the stuff I have made through the years. My mother in law and her mom quilted so I got into that. We used to have so much fun. They had a quilting frame set up in an open shed and we would all go out and talk and quilt. I tried knitting but after one scarf I found that wasn't my cup of tea.

 Later when my kids started school I was a crafter maniac. Anything I could figure out to do for every school party or function. I think the teachers loved me for that. Now all my kids are grown and I have grandkids. My girls finally told me they have enough blankets LOL.

I love to make cakes and cupcakes have sold a few which leads me to my latest addiction which is canning. I have found that I love it! It takes me a long time because I am slow at getting my stuff together. My husband bought me a pressure cooker and I have been going to town. I have canned potatoes, corn, jam, tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, and salsa and on and on....

My oldest daughter Becca and I are also interested in making soap. We have made one batched from a recipe from Misty Prepper's friend (on you tube) and have a week left on it. We really liked that and intend to keep going and try some different recipes. We have also been making our on laundry soap for some time now. We started with liquid ivory and decide it took up to much room for our taste so now we do powder. love it...

Anyway I guess you can tell from my first post I am just all over the place so I will end my first blog and hope this is something else I enjoy and will return with some interesting tales to tell... until next time... God bless and be happy in what you do no matter what it is called.

-Debra

Meet the ladies!

Debra

Hi! My name is Debra I am 50 years old. I am married to my high school sweet heart for 34 years now. I have 4 kids, 6 grandkids and 1 on the way due in September 2013. I am a very proud mom and Grammy. I love my family, cooking, and crafting. I have a very busy life and try to enjoy each and everyday that I can. I believe in God and I am happy to be one of his children. I love nature and I am trying to get back to more natural living. I do love my modern conveniences and I am working on how to us old and new ways to make my life more to my liking. I would like to believe I could adapt to what ever life has in store for me and my family.

 

Me and the love of my life Brian

 

Becca

Hey everyone, I am a stay at home mom to Olivia (5), and Edward (2). My Husband Garry and I have been married for 4 years. We are a homeschooling, camping, DIYing type of family. Recently I have been obsessed with everything happy homemaker-ish. (I know not a word but its fun to say) and hope to share some of my obsession with all of you.

My husband Garry, Me, Edward, Olivia

 

Charmaine

Hey I'm Charmaine, I am 32 years old, and I was born in Panama but moved to Texas 15 years ago. I'm married to Jeff and we are the proud parents of Aaron 13 and Ryan 6. I homeschool my kids, and take care of my house. I love the Lord, I'm a children's church teacher, I speak Spanish and love soccer, I'm never on time, I talk a lot and I am very expressive! Coffee is my weakness!

Aaron, Ryan, Me and Jeff

 

Sarah

Hey I am Sarah the youngest of the ladies. I am a little bit of a scatter brain (well more than a little) but somehow these ladies put up with me. I am a working single mom of 2 kids Karli (4) and Kullen (8 months). I work a lot so when I am off I am a complete homebody. My all time obsession is books. I honestly believe for me reading is the best therapy.

Me Karli and Kullen

Festive Treats

This year  for the 4^th of July I wanted something festive for me and my daughter to do together. I wanted it to be cute enough to bring to our family party and to give to my co-workers but it also had to be easy enough for a 4 year old to help with. So I searched the internet for different ideas and discovered the cake pop. After checking out several cake pop recipes online, and got the basics of making them I decided it was the perfect project!!!!!

A trip to Hobby Lobby, Wal-Mart and $20 dollars later (My mom had the food dyes and a white cake mix already so I didn’t have to buy that. I kinda “borrowed” it) we were ready!!! Karli really enjoyed mixing the dye into the cake mix and icing, but I think she liked to eat it more than anything else, and of course putting on the sprinkles. The biggest problem I had with making these was they wanted to fall apart when I dipped them so half of them were not very pretty (but tasted just as good).

There are limitless ways to decorate these yummy treats but I got my ideas from good ol’ google (Google is my best friend I google everything J) We used white cake mix and icing dyed red and blue, dipped in  red and blue candy melts and decorated in sprinkles……I bet you can guess what color….. yep red and blue. We made an American Flag for our family get together and a cake pop bouquet for my co-workers.

This project was quite messy but completely worth it. I would definitely do it again (maybe around Christmas when I forget how much of a mess it was).

                                       Directions and Little Tips

1.      Bake a cake (just follow instructions on box)

o   Litte Tip- I  made cupcakes because I wanted different colors and didn’t have enough small cake pans…the downfall to this was there was too much crust and it made it very hard to roll into balls

o   I did 2 cake mixes I am glad I did because I messed up a lot of them and clumsy me dropped some.

o   You can dye them any color you like before you bake it

2.      Crumble the cake mix into a big bowl

o   Try to get out all the crust if you can

3.      Add icing and mix together by hand until it is kinda like play dough

o   Dye the icing to match the cake mix

o   Little Tip-add small amounts of icing at a time mix then add more some of mine were hard to roll because I put too much icing

4.      Roll into whatever size balls you want and put on a tray covered in parchment paper

5.      Melt about a ¼ of a bag of candy melts dip ends of lollypop sticks into it and stick it into the rolled pops

6.      Put in refrigerator to chill for an hour

o   This is a good stopping point if you’re running short on time

o   I started late so I left mine over night and finished the next day

7.      Dip them into your melted candy

o   I would do only a few pops at a time leaving the rest in the refrigerator because some of mine did fall apart and that may have been the reason

o   If you are making a bouquet stick them into a piece of Styrofoam. I put mine back on the parchment paper except the ones I was making a bouquet out of.

8.      Decorate!!!!!

o   Before it hardens…. my first couple I let get hard trying to rush

Sarah

My Homeschool Reasons

Homeschooling my children have been by far one of the most rewarding things I’ve experienced in my life, yet the most challenging. When I first made the choice to homeschool my kids, my mind was filled with so many questions, fears and a lot of what ifs. Homeschool is not for everyone, but it is for me! I went from, “can I do this?” to “how can I not do this?”

So with that said, my personal reasons why I homeschool my kids are…

Love,

 

I love my children and I know that I’m the right person to give them their education, morals, and the tools that they need. My kids are not just a number, a task test result, a school system. They are my number one priority, my life’s work, our future! Not just because I love them but because I love to get up every morning with them, Love bible time, Love to see their faces, Love to spend the day together, Love to learn with them, Love to bond, Love to see my 13 year old child’s face when he doesn’t want to do something and my 6 year old child telling me he is sick so he doesn’t have to do school (which he tries almost everyday lol). I Love the times when my patience is stretched to the limit lol. I just LOVE it all.

 

Freedom,

As the mother of my children I have the right and the freedom to say what, who, how and when in my kids life. I feel that God has given them to me to protect, for me to decide who they are going to be around, who will influence their lives and what they need to learn.
The Bible and Prayer is a freedom that my children and I have in our home that we couldn’t get in public school.
Freedom because we are not bound to a bell ringing or a fast I don’t care if you didn’t get it learning system, Freedom to discover their own passion, to take each lesson and learn it without a time frame, Freedom to take our time, take time off if we need to for a family vacation, a sick day or daddy is off day, Freedom to be free.

Education

Devotion
Unity
Caring
Achievement
Tools
Inspiration
Options
Necessity

 

I want to be able to give my kids the best education possible. A good curriculum, responsibility and a routine is a must. It’s about growing as your kid’s teacher that makes it great, not being the perfect teacher but the perfect teacher for my kids, a teacher that can have some patience to go day by day and make each day a different experience. It’s not easy but it’s worth it!　  

-Charmaine