pretty treats

I'm the new seminary teacher for our building. That means I teach the teenagers the Gospel every school day at 5:30am. It is a privilege and more then a little scary. For our first meeting I wanted to do something a little special and I made these mini-cupcakes. I don't have anything to show how tiny they are, but they are about the size of a piece of chocolate from a valentine candy box. They turned out really cute. People went nuts over them. They are different from a normal cupcake because they are frosted with candy. So they are half way between a piece of candy and a slice of cake. I thought they turned out really cute, especially all put together on the tray like this.

soap room

With five kids off on their own I actually had a spare room. After raising seven kids in a three bedroom house this is sort of amazing. S~ preferred to stay downstairs (where she has half the basement as hers). With my DH's encouragement I took over the smallest bedroom and converted it into my business office/workroom. I bought a desk and chair at the thrift store and reassigned the wire shelving to myself. The boxes are all full of soap. The chemicals are on the white shelving. I call this my meth lab. It is really wonderful having a place to keep all this stuff. It almost feels like a real business.

It was so hot today

We finally have a miserably hot summer day. It's August and I think this is the first one. July set records for being lovely, it just isn't normal. It was pretty steamy today at the Farmer's market. People still showed up, but it was just hot, how else do you say it? I LOVE air conditioning. That is probably the biggest crack in my "naturalness." I could live without a lot of things, but summer in this part of the country air conditioning is needed. That year we lost electrical power for over a week in both the summer and in the winter everyone (EVERYONE!!!!) agreed it was easier to deal with no power in the winter. When it is cold you just keep putting on more clothes and blankets, but in the summer you suffer. But today we have air conditioning and it is truly a blessing.

The chickens are so funny when it is hot-- they find the coolest, most shady part of the yard and hunker down on the ground. I think the dirt helps to cool them off. They all become mouth (beak?) breathers. They hold their wings out from their bodies, I assume that lets their body heat out. And do they ever drink a lot of water!

soap business

This blog started out as a chance to chronicle my attempts to live more simply. Then a business happened before I even realized it. It just sort of happened. I'm probably spending too much time messing around with the soap business and not enough with the simple living business. I haven't gotten much sewing done ever since I started this business and I miss it. BUT I'm learning all sorts of interesting things in the soap/beauty products world. Soap? I've got that one down pat. I'm still learning, but I'm way past the basics. Beauty products? Whoa. That is a much bigger challenge. My goal is to make natural products that are good for us (me). I'm really having fun with this but the biggest problem is shelf life. It's easy to make products; it's hard to have them last. I could just put in a chemical preservative, but that would defeat the whole reason I got into this. The more water in the batch the harder it is to keep it fresh. I just made a lovely batch of lotion and I'm very happy with it. I'll be selling it on Saturday. See if anyone else likes it. I' d love to expand into all sorts of products, but the shelf life is my biggest thing holding me back.

love them eggs

We have chickens, chickens lay eggs, we eat eggs. Here are two dishes we make fairly frequently. The omelet is an .... omelet. The hamburger looking patty is a black bean burger. It is usually in a bun with tomato and lettuce and cheese. I'll give you the recipe because it is delicious, vegetarian and uses up my food storage and they charge a lot for it at the store. It is good cheap food.

Black bean burgers (no real need for measurements, just throw it together)

2 cups of cooked black beans, mashed
1 cup of frozen corn (or fresh)
Optional- 1/2 cup of misc. chopped vegetables
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1 Tablespoon whole wheat flour
1/2 cup dry potato pearls or flakes (more or less)
1/2 cup dry onions
2 eggs (more or less)
salt, pepper, red peppers, to taste

Mush it together like meatloaf. If it is too watery add more potato pearls, if it is too dry add more eggs. Drop, by plops, onto wax paper. Smoosh down into a burger shape. Fry in oil, on both sides, until brown. Serve hot on a bun with all the fixings.

July tally-ho

I've been weighing what we bring in from the garden and keeping track. It is truly impressive. In the month of July we brought in 80.7 lbs of food (that includes eggs). For the calendar year of 2009 we've brought in 363.1 lbs. I think farming my yard is well worth the effort, besides the food is totally organic and fresh. Fresh means standing in garden popping peas in my mouth. That's fresh.

bollywood suggestions

For those of you who haven't discovered Bollywood movies yet you are in for a treat. We LOVE them. Some of them have better plots then others but they all have great dancing/singing/fun stories. And they are "cleaner" than American movies. I don't think they ever get worse then PG. I prefer that.

Here's are suggestions from us Hodgson women.

Om Shanti Om-- I love the dances in this one. It's about reincarnation (I think).
Main Hoon Na-- Action, romance, family squabbles, comedy. This is the perfect "something for everyone" movie. I LOVE it.
Kal Ho Naa Ho-- My daughter's favorite. We're always singing the music from it.
Dil Chahta Hai-- Another favorite from my girls
Veer-Zaara-- An Indian man falls in love with a Pakistani woman. Problems ensue.
Jodhaa Akbar-- More historical, supposedly a true story. We couldn't film this in America, we don't have that many trained elephants on our entire continent.
Delhi 6-- More realistic, gritty. There is still singing and dancing, but it isn't a fantasy, like most Bollywood movies.
Lagaan-- I LOVE the rain music from this one. Set in the 1800's, it is about clashes between the Indian culture and the British culture during colonization. The good guys are so good, the bad guys are so bad.
And finally, an oldie but goodie-- Bawarchi. The only movie our family has ever watched that made my children want to do good deeds for each other. It is set in the 60's, so if you can handle it being a bit dated it is a great movie.