Our November Happenings!

Hannah making her brothers favorite pie

Making the crust for the pie

Ralph cutting and weighing soap

Christopher returning home for a while,

"What did I get in the mail?"

Filling capsules with Spirulina

Alicia cutting out handkerchiefs

Our dog

A tower of Peppermint Treat soap

Hannah shrink wrapping soap

More shrink wrapping of soap,

it was a busy month for our soap business

Alicia making cookies for Daddy and Christopher

Mom, finally finished my coat, just in time for cold weather!

Hannah wearing her new coat that I made her

Christopher, being silly when the girls wanted to take his photo

(Our camera broke so we have no photos of our hunting/fishing trip, target shooting or Thanksgiving. We hopefully will get one soon though.)

A GREAT Bread recipe

A friend of mine shared a great recipe for Challah (Jewish bread), so I decided to try to make it yesterday. It turned out pretty good for my first try. Although one of the loaves looks almost like a trussed up turkey (I think I need some work on my bread braiding:) and my wonderful husband felt it could have cooked a little longer. I brought it last night to share with our Home Church (we eat a meal before we worship). Both loaves were almost completely gone, of course, I think there were two boys (wink, wink) who ate a good portion of one loaf. I was so glad to see two young men enjoying home made whole wheat bread, rather than the white paste most children like. (I know that both of these boys are used to eating healthier food.)

Banana chips, Bread, Soap

This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. We had such a wonderful day today. The sun was shining and the rays were so warm. We started our day early. We weren't able to do laundry (our machine has been broken for 5 days), so we decided to just get to work doing our kitchen work before we headed outside. We started by making bread, we were fresh out so needed to get it made first thing.

Then we made some banana chips. We really enjoy bananas, but can't always find them, so we buy them in bulk when we can, then dry some, make some into smoothies and sometimes freeze them too.

My young ladies making banana chips

Once the bread was rising and the chips were in the dehydrator, we headed outside with all the makings for soap. This was a first for us, we have never made lye soap before. I was a little nervous, so I took a lot of extra time getting the ingredients and supplies together, and still I had the girls running in and getting things that I had forgotten.

I am melting coconut oil and palm oil

Here I am adding GSE for preserving

I am taking the temperature of the lye

I tried to take good notes so I could see exactly what I did, in case something went wrong, or even went right!

Here is the finished product. It will set for 24 hours, then I will hopefully cut it and set it to cure for 6-8 weeks. Isn't that a beautiful color!!

Well, it went smoother then I expected, except for the fact that I had gotten the oils TOO hot and had to wait for about 2 hours for them to cool down. Thankfully the lye stayed warm enough in the interim so I did not have to reheat it. Tomorrow I will open the soap and see how it is doing. I hope I will be able to cut it and set it to finish processing.

A Day Of Baking & Working in the Kitchen

Here I am making a Kefir smoothie for snack.
Alicia grinding wheat for Gingerbread Cake

Here I am stirring the batter for our Gingerbread Cake

Granola that Alicia and I made.
A Carrot cake that Alicia and I made yesterday.