Valentine's Night In!

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!
Unlike last year, we actually got to celebrate it on the actual day!
I did end up having to be at school until 7, but we celebrated afterwards with a homemade dinner and a spa night!  For our dinner, we decided to do an Italian themed dinner with some bruschetta and spaghetti, all made from scratch.  We tend to have a bit of difficulty going out to eat if it's something that we can easily make at home, and since we were craving Italian cuisine, we knew making it ourselves would be much more fun and romantic for two kitchen nerds like us  ;)

so a couple of days before, we prepared the bread for the bruschetta!

mmmmm  jalapeno cheddar bread made from scratch and baked in our dutch oven!!  recipe here.

and in the process of being turned into the most amazing bruschetta!

and TADA!!!!

 It tasted soo amazing.  and I love how it looks all colorful and happy as well  =D

and we made the spaghetti sauce from scratch as well!

nothing too terribly exciting; just adding different ingredients and simmering for a whole day...  but it tasted incredible!  much better than any restaurant spaghetti sauces we've tried  ;)

and dinner is served!!

and then, of course, we had to have dessert.  so we made some cookies!  some aged chocolate chip cookies (I'll elaborate later in another post  haha!)   and it tasted amazing!  we are total fans of aging cookies.  mm hmm.

and we made a heart shaped one too because if you can't be cheesy like that on Valentine's Day, then when can you, eh?  but as you can see,,, it didn't turn out quite as we expected  haha

Before we started the movie, we decided to open our gifts, and!!!!!  this was in the bag David got me!!!  A new spiffy camera!!!   he knows me so well  =D  all of my blog photos have been being taken with the iphone 5, and while it has been ok, it is definitely not the best.  I've been meaning to invest in a better camera for awhile now, and he got it for me!  Such a thoughtful guy, and I am so blessed to have him in my life  =)

I got him a robe because he's always wearing a parka in his apartment when it gets a bit chilly (warm? yes.  comfy? no.), and also because we wanted to do a spa night, and you can't do a spa night without a fluffy robe!

so here he is modeling the robe and showing how he feels about putting green substance on his face  haha

and the transformation!!

yes, it may look weird, but it feels sooo nice when you wash it all off!

Then, we watched the movie Before Sunset to wrap off the night.  We really enjoyed Before Sunrise (the first of that trilogy) but we weren't as enamored with the second installment... we'll have to see how we like Before Midnight!  have you guys watched this series?  Did you enjoy it?

Anyway, we had a wonderful Valentine's Day, and we hope you all had a wonderful day as well!

 Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!
--Janny

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent and Laundry Detergent

Hello everyone!

Recently, Amulet informed me that we were running out of dishwasher detergent and laundry detergent:  

What a perfect opportunity to put my Pinterest action to good use

 and make these two detergents at home!!

Another reason I thought it was a good time to try this was the fact that Abers was visiting!

Our conversation went something like this,

J: Abers, you wanna help me make homemade laundry detergent?

A:  Oh My God...  Are we going to blow something up trying to do this?

If I die making laundry detergent, I'm so going to kill you in the afterlife.

But don't worry, the making of these detergents didn't include any dangerous activities,
they aren't dangerous to the environment,

and they were actually super easy to make!

For the dishwasher detergent, we used this recipe exactly.

Ingredients

1 1/2 Cup of Lemi-Shine (1 12 oz container of Lemi-Shine. it comes in powder form)

1 1/2 cup of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda

1/2 Cup Arm and Hammer Baking Soda

1/2 Cup Salt  (we used the pickling salt)

and some white vinegar as the rinse agent.

I found all of these at the local Wal-Mart because Target didn't have some of the items.

Once you measure it all out, mix it all together!

(except for the vinegar, this goes into the rinse compartment in your dishwasher)

Abers hard at work  haha

and VOILA!!

SO. EASY!

I put them into a spaghetti sauce jar, and the Lemi-Shine container.

yay for recycling?  haha

To do the dishes, we just dump some into the detergent compartment,

but the original recipe is more exact in telling us to use 2 Tbs of it per load.

Of course, don't forget the vinegar as the rinse aid!

I'm happy to report that our dishes have been coming out crystal clear every time!  =)

For the laundry detergent, I did some research and came up with a modified version of my own.

I wanted it to be a dry detergent because liquid ones required me to melt things over fire and,

well, you know...

Abers was going to kill me in the afterlife if we got blown up while making some detergent..   haha

So here's the Laundry Detergent Recipe

Ingredients

1 (4 lb 12 oz) Box of Borax

1 (3 lb 7 oz) box of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda

1 box of Laundry Zote Soap Flakes (2 bars worth)

1 (4 lb) box of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda

and again, some white vinegar for the rinsing cycle.

Again, we found all of these ingredients at Wal-Mart in the detergent aisle

The process is super easy for this as well.

You just mix it all together!

(minus the vinegar)

However, because there are much more ingredients to mix,

we would recommend pouring a little bit of each ingredient at a time and mixing them up in stages.

Even when we did this, by the time we got to the last layer of the mixture, 

it was pretty difficult to mix it all together...

mixing stages...  the 4th stage gave me a pretty good arm workout..  haha

And then, Voila!

It made so much, but I put some into a smaller bottle for easier access.

I put in about 2-3 spoonfuls of the detergent per load, depending on the size of the load.

Oh, and I also put in a bit of vinegar (1 spoonful) as well,

and I promise the clothes didn't come out smelling vinegary.

They say that vinegar is really good for disinfecting,

and I'm again happy to report that our clothes came out fresh and clean!!

I also read that you could put in a couple of drops of essential oils,

but when I tried that, my clothes didn't end up smelling like anything,

so I'm not sure I will continue to add the essential oils...

The clothes don't come out smelling like 'spring meadow' or whatever else the store bought ones claim to make your clothes smell like,

but it does come out smelling very fresh, so I personally like it much better this way  =)

It was a lot of fun making these,

especially since I really enjoy tinkering with DIY stuff,

and everyone tells me that this way is also a lot cheaper than buying store bought ones,

so that's an added bonus!  =D

Hope you enjoyed these recipes!

And let me know if these also work for you  =)

 Happy Monday!!

--Janny