Making a pie crust may be simple for our Aunt Joyce — but for the rest of us, getting the flour and fat to just the right consistency is still a challenge that creates a great deal of tension. And, as delicious as a flaky floured pie crust is, it’s not all that good for you.

Yet, I love pie. I just love it. I would eat it breakfast lunch and dinner if I could… and now, I think I will. I was reading the Raw cookbook, and stumbled across her pie crust, that uses nuts as the flour. Of course, I thought, this would definitely work. So, I adapted her recipe just a bit, and came up with this no flour, low-GI pie crust:

• 2 cups nuts (you can use almond, walnuts… whatever you have on hand)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup ground flax seed (this is optional… I always have this in my freezer and use it in everything I bake — very nutritious and loaded with omega 3s — and really adds no flavor, but lots of fiber — so if you don’t have it, I hope you’ll ge some.)
• 1/2 olive oil, coconut oil or grapeseed oil
• Salt to taste
• 

That’s it! No ice cubes, no patting and sifting — this is it. And these are all the things I’m sure you love anyway — so just add them to your pie. The raisins add a sweetness and stickiness that just brings the whole crust together. Just put them all into your food processor and pulse away.

Push the mixture into your pie shell… and you are ready.

No, this is not whipped cream…

it’s stiff and too soapy. But, if you just happen to have a bar of Ivory Soap in the house, go get it… right now.

Luckily, we have quite a bit of it stashed around in a collection…

Then, stick it in the microwave — two minutes should do it.

Then, surprise!

It grows into this amazing mountain, hollow on the inside. It’s still soap — you can break off pieces to use it to wash your hands.  Go to Our Best Bites, the inventor of this soap miracle, for more ways to transform this concoction — including a way to make “new soap.” Pinterest, of course, was where I saw the soapy mountain.

As much as he loves what happened, he’s hasn’t recovered from the shock of watching this transformation. Too afraid to hardly touch it — and certainly not yet willing to do this to “all of his soap.” not willing to give up any more bars of soap for this… even though it’s still soap.

After attending my first real “story time” at the library with my son, I felt as if I had stumbled upon the great renaissance of my entire life. There were so many amazing stories! For starters,  I had never heard of the book “Goodnight Moon,” until I heard it for the first time at story time, as an adult.  That was a revelation right there and then.  We would check out stacks and stacks of books, and I fell in love with the narratives, just as much as the illustrations. Pumpkin Moonshine, To Market, To Market, Blue Bowl Down, Owl Moon, My Lucky Day… and I found myself sitting on the sofa, opening up the pages just to “see what happened,” long after the boys went to sleep. Treasures, they were.

The bonus was having something to do, together, with the boys, that we both LOVED. We would spend hours going through the stacks of books.

One of my fondest memories is opening up the pages of Arthur Geisert’s “After the Flood,” and watching how Geisert’s imagination unfolded onto the page, re-creating how life was re-born as the waters receded.

If you remember correctly, the Ark landed on the top of a mountain. So, Noah and his family decided to move down the mountain to the fertile land below. To do this, they cut trees and built a

slide to move the ark down the mountain.

Noah, his family, and the animals all worked together.

Why, you might be wondering, would they need to bother with that heavy ark?

The answer is enchanting…

The book illustrates how the roof was removed from the top of the ark, and the ark was turned over to make a shelter. It would become their home!

The ending, like all children’s story books, is just as comforting and reassuring:

At night, stories were read to the children and to the animals…

Of course they were…And, I just checked out a whole stack of Geisert books to read with my kids. What could be a better Mother’s Day present?

The process was simply, really. I had read other stories of people using enzyme cleaners, like Bac-Out, to wash their floors and discovering that ants, bugs and lizards didn’t like the smell.  Surprising, really, because Bac-Out doesn’t smell bad it all — it’s smells like citrus, and does a great job of getting rid of bathroom odors. Really? Pine Sol smells worse — and even that doesn’t permanently get rid of ants.

I can’t help myself. If I see an ant, I grab it an plop it into a carefully prepared bowl of sugar mixed with a lethal dose of Diatomaceous Earth (not lethal to humans). Same thing I use to handle pantry moths. 

Inspired, and curious, I started moping my floors with enzymes. Within seconds of distributing the enzymes on my floor, ants that I didn’t even know I had, came scurrying out of the woodwork. I swear, if I could hear them, they were saying,  ”Get me outta here!”

But are the floors clean? One person commented that the grout on her tile floor gets progressively whiter every time she cleans with enzymes. Guess what? My grout, is now  back to “cream-colored” so bright and pretty.  I’m talking about the grout in our first floor bathroom that gets a tremendous amount of traffic from the boys and their friends, constantly. I had accepted it would be “gray” forever.

So, you know where this is headed, don’t you? I couldn’t resist. I bit the bullet and started making my own, garbage enzymes. I just wanted to see if I could do it — you know, kind of an experiement.  How hard could it be? I’m already saving citrus peels for my own do-it-yourself Citrasol.

Why do this? I know, you can simply go out and buy Bac-Out. But, making your own garbage enzyme makes a “mash” that is so good for cleaning the sludge out of your drains, which also eliminates fruit flies.

More on that in the coming weeks. In short, the benefits of the “mash” is worth the trouble. In the third-world, Garbage Enzymes is the latest craze to save the environment. A  Study of the Garbage Enzyme’s Effects in Domestic Wastewate by the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, helped me sleep better. Garbage Enzymes are the “new compost.”

“It makes good use of kitchen waste which would otherwise end up in landfills and generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas. It is something that housewives can do. And the enzyme also reduces our reliance on chemical cleaners, detergent. The Star.

Yet, The whole time I was preparing the materials, I was saying under my breath, “You DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS,” but the other voice kept saying — “but enzymes are so powerful, you need the extra cleaning power, and making  your own is practically free!”

The battle raged in my mind for two weeks, until the first batch of garbage enzymes was completed. That battle stopped once the first batch of garbage enzyme was done, and I saw for myself how simple it was to make. The whole process, hands-on time, was probably about 10 minutes, tops. Now the enzymes “make themselves” over a period of two weeks. Think of it as yeast rising a bread, except this takes longer.

I know this sounds terribly complicated, and most of you have already stopped reading by now. Who wants to go to all the trouble to “make” a cleaner.  But, if you’re still with me, keep reading. Again, this is pretty much a “hands-off” process, and one that I highly recommend.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started.

• A plastic container with a lid, large enough to hold 2 liters. Plastic is best. I used an old pickle jar… but be sure to leave the lid slightly ajar, as the gases in the concoction need to expand. This goes for plastic and glass.
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon yeast. Without this, the garbage enzyme will take 3 months to ferment.
• 1 liter water
• 2 cups citrus scraps. Technically, you can use vegetables and fruits. But, let’s be honest. Do you want to clean with tomatoes? Let’s keep it sweet-smelling by only using citrus.
• If you don’t have 2 cups of citrus peels, just keep adding them to the container until you have two cups. The enzymes will start being created on the day you have the full two cups.

1. Mix all the ingredients together.
2. Mark the date you created the mixture on the container.
3. Shake once a day for one week.
4. After one week, just let it sit.
5. Keep the lid slightly loose, to let the gas escape for the first week.
6. After two weeks, strain the mixture and store it in an empty container. Once, I let it sit an extra 10 days, and it was still in perfect shape.
7. Keep the leftover pulp, the mash. Flush it down your toilets to clean out the drains.

This post has a lot of information. But this is not the last thing I have to say on the topic. I’ll continue to give updates on how great it is to have your own garbage enzyme around your house.

They say we need 8 tall glasses of water everyday… and it will make us look like a tall glass of water. Or do we? A report on NPR identified the Five Myths of drinking water — I was starting to believe it, until I got to Number 4. It states that other non-calorie options to drink are fine — such as diet sodas. What about those being full of sodium and other chemicals that mess up your metabolism? Hardly an equal substitute for non-calorie water.  Then, I found another study from Scientific American, that states the 8-glass a day is actually a miscalculation:

a person should consume one milliliter of water (about one fifth of a teaspoon) for each calorie of food. The math is pretty simple: A daily diet of around 1,900 calories would dictate the consumption of 1,900 milliliters of water, an amount remarkably close to 64 ounces. But many dietitian and other people failed to notice a critical point: namely, that much of the daily need for water could be met by the water content found in food.

Still, we need to drink some water… whether we believe that 8 glasses is a myth of not.  For many of us… this is difficult. Water is bland. They also tell us that lemon water is even better for us. This can be sour.

I’ve found a solution — it may work for you.

I drink my lemon water warm. I warm up the kettle, as if I’m going to make tea… but I don’t let the water get too hot. Then, I pour the warm water into a tall glass, squeeze in some lemon juice… and just for fun, sometimes I had a bit of ginger. Then, I add a splash of Stevia — a bit of sweetness that makes it taste like warm lemon aid. I’m not sure why warming the water tastes so much better than cold water… but it just does.

This sweater, again, made from lambswool, (quite warm) had a very awkward v-neck. The neck used to droop, right under the point… like I said awkward.

But with a trusty pair of scissors, and a cut right up the middle, the droop has now disappeared.

Instant cardigan… in green.

Remember that awesome line from the 80s, shouted out by the B-52s, “Tin  Roof… Rusted.” That’s what I say now when I pick up one of those hot house tomatoes at the grocery store in the middle of Winter. Except, now  I say, Tomato: Roasted.”

I say that in my head, not out loud, because the people in the produce department know me now… they point me out as the lady who can’t wait till she gets home to eat the radishes. As if they need something else to talk about.

When you’re eating “skinny” you must find a way to replace those fatty condiments… butter, the salad dressings, the mayonnaise. The Roasted tomato just may replace all of those unhealthy fats. You need more veggies… and something that will make you want more of them. The Roasted Tomato could be it for you.

Roasted is the only way to eat a tomato when you cannot find one fresh from the vine. Roasted tomatoes bring out a caramelization in the tomato that is “other-wordly”… and, they become “spreadable” and work their way into your food like a good mayonnaise.

Contrary to what you would expect… it’s really quite easy to roast a tomato. Normally, I just throw slices into an olive-oiled skillet and just fry them up… just with salt… until the edges turn nice and brown.

If I’m doing a big batch of them, I put them on a big sheet of parchment paper, coated with olive oil and sea salt, and stick them into the oven under the broiler for just a few minutes. If I have lots of time… I turn the oven up to 400, turn off the oven, and stick the tomatoes inside and let them sweat for an hour — or two. Just keep checking until the tomato is as soft, or as crispy, as you prefer.

I also learned a thing or two about dried Basil. Turns out, chefs like the stuff. I know — we’ve all heard that the only Basil worth eating is fresh, or in Pesto… but dried Basil, the kind you find in the grocery store in the bottle, is actually very good, and gives a nice finish to a roasted tomato…

Before indulging into your tomato, give it a splash of vinegar — or lemon juice. It needs some kind of acid — not sure why. But that is my preference… taste and experiment. Next, you can save your tomatoes to top an egg, or a sandwich, or a salad. Spread it around like butter. I keep a stash of roasted tomatoes in a mason jar in the fridge, and pull out exactly the amount I need. I find that the richness of the roasted tomato helps me avoid using salad dressings… the roasted tomato stands on its own as the perfect, low-fat condiment.

How I love cardigans… I can never find them in just the right colors…and too often they have jewels and rhinestones embedded in them, and all I want is just an everyday cardigan.

This royal blue wool sweater is warm and cozy and soft to the skin. It’s warm. Did I say that? I am always cold, and any sweater that does it’s job of keeping me warm is worth gold. Yet, I almost gave this sweater away. The crew neckline was too high… it was too far from being a turtle neck, and not low enough to ever look normal.

Since I was going to give it to Goodwill anyway, I did an experiment. I measured the center, and used a straight edge to draw a line right down the center of the front of the sweater. And I cut it.

The edges rolled back, hiding the “cut-line”, and I had an instant cardigan. I could embellish the edges with seam binders tape… add some cool buttons…but so far, I’ve been too busy wearing my new instant cardigan.

I had no intention of doing this, until my littlest one challenged me to do something with that big tub of Easter Eggs I bought. He was expecting “decorations” as in Christmas. And Jello eggs… He wanted some traditions.

So, I bit the bullet and started growing my own grass… like everyone else is on Pinterest. I liked Delia Create’s tutorial the best — it involves no soil.

The boys have arranged the eggs around the grass several times now… it’s an “interactive display.” This is day 5… they say when the grass starts to grow you can almost “watch it” it grows so fast. Like kids. So, by Easter, this should be lush and full… if not, we’ll keep growing it.

The grass seeds? Believe it or not, it’s just barley. Barley that I have sitting in my pantry… un-pearled barley.. it tastes nuttier, and is way more healthier than pearled barley. Truly… it tastes more like nuts than a grain.

While the barley was growing, I threw some of the barley “seeds” into a pot of water and cooked them.

I put some whole beets in the oven and cooked them like baked potatoes… when they were soft, I rubbed off the skin, and chopped them up with some avocado… added some balsamic vinegar and salt… and had a feast. Just so you know… I was the only person in the house who thought this was king’s food.