Embracing Him

The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. (Ecclesiastes 7:8)

I love to read and before Sweet Pea and Sugar Plum were born, I attended a monthly book club with several other teachers from my school district. I always looked forward to our gatherings as it gave me an opportunity to have interesting, thought provoking, and sometimes intense discussions with a diverse group of women.

Though book club was wonderful, it didn’t take me long to see that the demands of caring for young children was going to make it difficult for me to keep up with my book buddies. Likewise, I doubted most of the ladies wanted to discuss the books I managed to read on topics such as breastfeeding, toddler discipline, or potty training. Consequently, I left the book club a few years ago, but my love of reading has remained.

This week during one of my daily surfs around the blogosphere, I was thrilled to discover that Katrina over at Callapidder Days is hosting Fall Into Reading 2009, a low pressure (thank the Lord!) reading challenge from September 22 to December 20. Katrina has asked us to compile a list of books and start reading.

Over the summer, I read a couple of wonderful books but the start of our first year of homeschooling and a plethora of church activities has threatened to slow my personal reading progress. This challenge is exactly what I need to keep a fire lit under my fanny as the busy fall season unfolds.

I’ve compiled a list of books I’ve started or have been wanting to read. Reading them all before Christmas is quite an ambitious undertaking, but I’m determined to read at least half of them. I hope to include reviews of finished books in case fellow bookworms like my friend Monica want to read them.

Here’s my fall reading list, in no particular order:

Get Out of That Pit by Beth Moore
Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard
In Praise of Stay at Home Moms by Dr. Laura Schlessinger
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
The Way They Learn by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias

Is there a book you’ve been wanting to read? Pick it up and fall into a good book with me!

Can I ever find enough ways to prepare chicken? Certainly not! So whenever I stumble across a promising chicken recipe, I always make room for it in my menu plan. Today, I prepared another new chicken recipe and was extremely pleased with the simplicity of ingredients, ease of preparation, and taste!

If you’ve got a well stocked kitchen, you should be able to find every ingredient in your pantry, fridge, and freezer. If not, even the smallest supermarket will provide everything you need to prepare this dish. None of the ingredients are complex.

Once prepared, we found the chicken was tender, the sauce was sweet yet tangy, and the dish had great color and texture. Though I’ve only prepared the dish once, I’ve already got a few changes in mind for my next preparation. When I try the recipe again, I will omit the chicken bouillon, as we don’t need the extra salt. However, to ensure we still get chicken flavor, I’ll use low sodium chicken broth instead of water. I’ll also add some broccoli florets to make it a complete meal.

I suspect you could probably toss all of this into the Crock Pot as well. If you do, I recommend adding the peppers and pineapples during the last 30 to 45 minutes of cooking. I’ve found that if you add veggies and fruits to the Crock Pot too early, they become mushy and are not very appetizing. Also, I would cook the meal on low for about 3 hours and four hours at the most. Whenever I cook chicken breast longer than that, it becomes quite dry.

Sweet and Sour Pineapple Chicken is an easy, flavorful dish that has found a home in my permanent recipe file. Perhaps you’ll enjoy it too!

Sweet and Sour Pineapple Chicken
2 cups pineapple juice
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup vinegar
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons canola oil
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
1 (20 ounce) can pineapple chunks, drained
1 red green pepper, sliced thin
1 green pepper, sliced thin

In a saucepan, combine the pineapple juice through ginger and stir until smooth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Set aside.

In a large skillet, heat oil to medium high heat. Season the chicken breast with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and brown in the skillet.

Pour sauce over the chicken and simmer on low for about 5 minutes. Add pineapple and green pepper and simmer for an additional 10 minutes or until pepper and pineapple are heated through.

She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. (Proverbs 31:27)

Some of the ladies on the forums I frequent have long been singing the praises of homemade laundry detergent. The ladies claim their detergent is much more cost effective and works just as well, if not better than, supermarket detergent.

The cost of laundry detergent and fabric softener continues to rise and even with coupons and sales I’m still spending more than I want to spend on laundry supplies. Yesterday I decided to make my own detergent and see if all the hype was worth believing.

I found recipes for both liquid and powdered detergents but opted to create a powder because I didn’t feel like boiling soap and water on my stovetop. Before yesterday, I couldn’t remember the last time I used powdered detergent, but from now on I’ll definitely be using my own. The ladies were right. It works well, is easy to make, and is cost effective.

Because I wanted to make a large batch of detergent (15 quarts!), it took me a couple of hours to make the detergent. You can make much less in a much shorter amount of time. I found all of my ingredients in local stores, though I couldn’t find everything in one store.

Homemade Laundry Detergent
2 bars soap, finely grated (Fels Naptha)
1 cup washing soda (Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda)
1 cup borax (20 Mule Team Borax)
1 cup Oxyclean (my own personal addition)

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Store in an airtight container. Use 2 tablespoons for a regular load of laundry and 3 tablespoons for a heavily soiled load of laundry.

While shopping for ingredients, creating the detergent, and using it I learned a few things that may help should you wish to make your own detergent.

1. You may need to stop at a few different stores to find the ingredients. I found 20 Mule Team Borax at WalMart in the detergent aisle ($2.98 for a huge 4 lb 12 oz box) and also picked up a generic version of Oxyclean called Sun Oxygen Cleaner ($1.96 for a 30 ounce tub). I purchased the Fels Naptha soap ($1.09 per bar) and Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda ($3.98 for a 3 lb 7 oz box) at Wegman’s. Both were in the detergent aisle.
2. Grating soap can be challenging.  I began by using the box grating method others recommended but quickly ended up with a clogged and useless grater. I abandoned the box grater, cut the soap into smaller chunks, and grated it in my food processor.
3. Some soaps grate more easily than others. It all depends on the hardness of the soap. Harder soaps are easier to grate than soft soaps. Fels Naptha soap and the Zest Ocean Spray are hard and grated much more easily than the Dial soap I first tried. I ended up using them all so as not to waste, but in the future, I’ll stick with hard soaps.
4. Choose a soap you like. Most recipes recommend Fels Naptha (I didn’t care for its strong odor), but you can use any type of soap you like. Just stay away from  soaps with oils or extra moisturizers (such as Dove) because they may leave stains or residue on clothes. Some ladies even save soap slivers and later grate them for use in detergent.



5. Don’t worry if all of the soap isn’t finely grated. Grate it as best as you can. Even after whizzing through the food processor, my soap still had a few stubborn lumps. This wasn’t a problem as the soap completely dissolved even in cold water washing.
6. Clothes won’t be heavily scented, but they’ll be clean. Since there aren’t lots of perfumes and dyes in this recipe (aside from what’s in the soap), your freshly laundered clothes won’t have the heavy perfume odor you may be used to. You’ll be able to look at the clothes and see that they’re clean and they’ll smell fresh too. They’ll just be lacking the familiar and heavy laundry scent.

My Downy Dependency was starting to pack a punch in my purse, so I also made homemade fabric softener. This was extremely easy to make and worked well too. The recipe does call for vinegar, but don’t worry. Your clothes will not smell like vinegar. In fact, the only person who’ll know it’s there is you!

When I use 1  1/2 times the recipe, it makes nearly 64 ounces of softener which is enough to fit in my old Downy bottle. When mixing the ingredients be sure to add the vinegar to the baking powder slowly. It will fizz (remember those grade school volcano experiments?) and may overflow if you don’t pour slowly. The essential oil is optional but lavender, rose, or grapefruit would be wonderful additions to the softener.

Homemade Fabric Softener
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups baking soda
4 cups water
5-10 drops of your favorite essential oil (optional)

Combine slowly and carefully pour into a plastic bottle. Place a lid on the bottle and shake. Shake well before each use.

If you’re looking for a homemaking challenge or want to save a few dollars, give these recipes a try. Your clothes and your wallet will thank you!