Friday Favorites

Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
Excellent overview of Super Washing Soda, including what makes it an effective cleanser and two recipes featuring washing soda. This is actually part of an on-going Back to Basics series that also discusses 20 Mule Team Borax, Bon Ami cleanser, and a few others. Good stuff.

Tips for Washing Lingerie
Five helpful tips for washing your intimates. And if your intimates include corsets or cinchers, there are tips for how to wash a corset (and this one, too)

Garden Web
My go-to resource online for all things gardening. There's active forums, an excellent FAQ on a variety of topics from organic gardening to plant or seed exchanges to local seasonal gardening.

Orangette's Popsicles
Summertime is made for popsicles. And Orangette has a super yummy recipe for a raspberry-yogurt popsicle that is easy and delicious. (Actually, her blog is one of my favorite food blogs. Bookmark it while you are there)

Friday Favorites

ShopLocal.com - I like this site because it has all the ads for local stores in one place. I don't have to go to Target, Walgreen, Home Depot and so on to look at each of there ads. Instead of opening up several websites to look at ads, I open one and look at them all in one place.

Smitten Kitchen - Scalloped Tomatoes - This looks so good to me. And with a lot of gardens overflowing with tomatoes I am sure this recipe could come in handy as one more way to use them.

Action Complete - This is a productivity application based on David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology. It is available on the web and for Andriod cell phones. But is going to be available for Blackberry and iPhone/iPad soon.

Make Gift Bags from Newspaper - A green solution for wrapping gifts.

Best Natural Remedies for 15 Most Common Aches and Pains and Health Complaints - Most of the things they mention I have around the house. But I will say I know some of these haven't worked for me when I tried them in the past. But I still say it is worth a try - to be green and use things I have at home always anyway.

(I thought I hit post on this last night but of course I didn't. So Friday Favorites on Saturday)

Easy Grilled Chicken

4 whole Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
1 whole Lemon
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dried Basil
1 tablespoon Dried Tarragon
1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 teaspoon Black Pepper

Rinse your chicken and place it in a gallon-sized ziplock bag. Zest the lemon into the bag. Then juice the lemon and add it to the bag. Next add in the red wine vinegar and the herbs. Seal the bag very well, then shake and roll around the bag until all of the ingredients are combined and the chicken is coated. Lay chicken flat in the bag and place it in your fridge for at least 30 minutes or up to several hours.
Grill chicken for 5-8 minutes per side or until fully cooked and juice run clear.


NOTES:
* I used dried herbs, but if you use fresh herbs and garlic it would be even better.
* A teaspoon of black pepper is just a guideline. I use probably a little more then a teaspoon but we like pepper.
* If you don't have red wine vinegar, just add more lemon juice.
* You want the herbs to really soak into that liquid so make sure you have enough liquid. Up the lemon juice or red wine vinegar to get those dried herbs hydrated again. And to make sure the herbs really coat the chicken.

Friday Favorites

Just a few finds this week...
Monogram Retro Stool - crafting - creating pretty designs on plain wood stools
How to Caramelize Onions - an good how too
Mallowmores - home marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate - do I need to say more?
Get Canning - 3 recipes plus a tips link - some good sounding recipes for those that can
Furniture Refresher - This is a good idea for dressers and chests that have smoke or musty smell. I done this differently but Martha's way is better. Sometimes it has worked and other times it hasn't.

Bread Tags

I found this tip via Unplggd (yes it is spelled right) and started implementing around the house immediately. In our house we have so many things plugged in and when I want to unplug one thing I end up often unplugging the wrong piece. When it is a clock - that really annoys me as I will have to reset it and I am so bad about getting it to where it needs to be as those little numbers speed on by the time I need. So now I won't have that problem because I started using the little plastic tags that fasten bread and bagel bags closed(and other bread products and sometimes potatoes) to mark each plug. It has helped me so much. And so I am passing this tip on to you - hoping it helps you out too. And as the little article said it is recycling by repurposing.

Mexican Chicken & Rice Saute

I am sorry I didn't take a picture of this dish to be able to add a visual to this recipe, but I was playing around in the kitchen on Friday trying to use up ingredients that we had (I needed to go shopping), and this is the dish that I came up with.

Mexican Chicken & Rice.

It's a one pan dish, super easy to make, and extremely yummy to eat. It will definitely be a keeper in our house.

Ingredients:
1 pound chicken pulled off the bone. If you don't want to pull your chicken you can cut it up into one inch strips instead, but I pulled mine.
2 tomatoes (chopped up)
1 small can tomato paste
8 ounces of chicken stock
1 jalepeno pepper (diced finely)
1 advocado (sliced into thin slices - optional)
1 cup of uncooked rice (quick cook rice)
1 tsp. saffron
1 clove garlic (minced)
3 tbsp. butter
1 red pepper (diced)
1 cup cheddar cheese shredded
sour cream (optional)
1 cup corn (I cut mine off the cob but you can use canned or frozen corn as well)
1/4 enchilada sauce

Directions:
Cook your chicken and let it cool. Once cooled, pull chicken off the bone and set it aside.

In large saute pan melt butter and then add minced garlic and saffron. Add chicken to the saute pan and coat well with butter mixture. Next add rice, tomato paste, chicken stock, and enchilada sauce and let simmer for a few minutes.
Then add in remaining ingredients (except for cheddar cheese, advocado,and sour cream)

Let the entire mixture simmer on low heat for about 20 to 25 minutes. You don't want the rice to be mushy but you want all of the flavors to blend well.

Once fully cooked serve up and top with advocado, sour cream, and cheddar cheese.

You can also serve with a side of tortilla chips or fresh tortilla's.

It's a quick, easy, kitchensink type of recipe. It was a hit with my family and hopefully will be with yours as well.

Friday Favorites

Well, it seems most of us are stuck right in the hot, humid dog days of summer. If you're anything like me (in that you are too cheap to pay for central air), you're probably looking for ways to beat the heat.

Don't sweat it! (get it? sweat it? Ha!) I got you hooked up right here.

First, since I mentioned the dog days of summer, remember your pets out there in their non-removable fur coats. If you are hot, imagine how hot they are. Keep them cool, too! Keep your dog cool and keep your cat cool.

Now for us. Here are some links for soothing DIY summer skin care. Tomato Facials, Make your own rose water, and Make your own refreshing tangerine body spritz.

DIY linen spray to keep your linens summer-time fresh. Creamsicle (!!YUM!) and basic spray.


Home Remedies for Sunburn for when you go outside without planning to stay out there but you get distracted with weeds and flowers and what have you- and end up rather red and sore.

Just some simple tricks to keep your house cool, including jedi mind tricks. ;-)


Awesomely yummy-sounding summer drinks. Honeydew lime?! Watermelon mint!!?! Nom!

Summer drinks aren't complete without good old iced tea and lemonade. Here are some recipes to jazz up your lemonade.

With all these tips, we should be able to keep the AC off all summer! Which is easy for me since I don't even have one. :P

Friday Favorites

I just started playing with this website but it could be of use Evernote.com. You can "clip" articles, websites, photos, pdf's, documents to save so that you can access from computer, mobile phone or ipad. It is like a cataloging system say your Sir/Ma'am likes a certain bottle of wine take a picture of it and upload it to evernote.com and then when you are shopping for wine the next time you will be able to access it from your mobile phone to see which one it that is liked.

Fresh Chamomile Sun Tea - this just brewing in a jar in the sun has to be pretty as well as tasting good

Collar Stays - for Dress Shirts - Now the thing for this is to make them now while you have the collar stays and then have these as the back up stash when you can't find any of the ones that came with the shirt

How To Swap a Two-Prong for a Three-Prong Outlet

Envelope Book - they are doing it for receipts for taxes but I can see it for saving receipts for gifts and coupons