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Welcome to today’s edition of Book Beginnings hosted by Rose City Reader.  What’s Book Beginnings, you ask?  It is a very cool link party where bloggers write down the first few lines of the book they are reading and give you their opinion about it.  I hope you check it out and find a new amazing book or blog to try.

Today, I am introducing you to a type of book that I rarely read…nonfiction.  Except for the Bible and how-to books, non-fiction is usually not my thing, but something about this book caught my attention.  Just a few weeks before I read this, C & I were having a discussion about introverts and what exactly makes a person an introvert.  We both knew that we were, but what if what we thought makes us this way was not all there was to it.  Then I found “Quiet: The Power of Introverts In a World That Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan Cain.  I don’t think I can really say that this book changed my life, but it did change the perception of my life.  Here are the first few lines:

“Montgomery, Alabama. December 1, 1955.  Early evening.  A public bus pulls to a stop and a sensibly dressed woman in her forties gets on.  She carries herself erectly, despite having spent the day bent over an ironing board in a dingy basement tailor shop at the Montgomery Fair department store.  Her feet are swollen, her shoulders ache.  She sits in the first row of the colored section and watches quietly as the bus fills with riders.  Until the driver orders her to give her seat to a white passenger.”

Yep, the writer is talking about Rosa Parks, one single woman who helped spark the racial equality movement, but guess what?  She was not the most willing participant when it came to coming out publicly about this, but she did it because she knew it was the right thing to do.  I hope you will take the time to read this book.  I was amazed at the information and research that the writer put into it.  It is well worth your time.

Welcome to another Monday, everyone!  I hope all my readers had a wonderful weekend and are looking forward to a good week.  C & I had a nice quiet couple of days off and enjoyed it by getting outside with the dogs and taking a few long walks with a little yard and housework thrown in.  It just went by way too fast!

I am keeping it pretty simple this week with a couple of new sweet treats planned for the weekend so I hope to have plenty of time to enjoy this beautiful fall-like weather.  Have a great and blessed week!

Walking taco casserole (new)

Grilled hamburgers with oven fries

Basic buttermilk pancakes with bacon

Baked rotini

Pizza night

Homemade sloppy Joes with curly fries

Chocolate frosted sponge cake with frozen cranberry salad (new)

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

Around here, we love strawberries!  In fact, I can’t seem to get our little patch big enough.  Every year, I add a few more plants and we just keep on eating every one we can get our hands on.  C had requested that I try to make strawberry ice cream and it just so happened that the vegan ice cream book, “Lick It”, that I received as a birthday present last year, has a recipe.

C thought it turned out a little too sweet, so next time I will cut down on the sweetener, but it was so good and had such a strong strawberry flavor that I will definitely be making this again.

df strawberry

2 1/2 cups halved strawberries

14 oz. can coconut milk

1/2 cup granulated sugar or equivalent of agave syrup

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Note: I was out of vanilla.  I know…the horror!  Don’t worry though because I have since rectified the vanilla situation.

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Combine all of the ingredients in a blender and process until smooth.

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Cover and chill for at least 2 hours then process in your ice cream maker according to directions.

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I have been using homemade cleaners for several months now and I continue to be so impressed with how well they work.  My first attempts at making liquid HAND soap had not been very successful, but a little research told me I was using the wrong bar soap.  Dove unscented is the soap I use in the shower so, naturally, I tried to make liquid soap from it, but there is something in Dove soap that won’t allow it to thicken and you end up with soapy water.

I found Yardley lavender soap at my local Walmart and it was one of the brands recommended for homemade liquid soap.  It worked great!  I used lavender because both C & I like that fragrance and it’s not too overwhelming.  Next time I will try to find an unscented soap so it is easier on our allergies.  The “recipe” I used came from The Burlap Bag, and, of course, was posted on Pinterest.

liquid soap

8 oz. bar soap (I used two 4 oz. bars.)

2 tbsp. glycerin

1 gallon water + extra in case your soap is too thick.

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Grate the soap and add all ingredients to a large pot over medium heat.  Allow to cook, stirring often, until all of the soap has melted.  Turn off the heat and let the pot and contents set for 10-12 hours.  It is supposed to get thick and a little cloudy.  Mine got really thick so I just added a little more water and mixed it in with a handheld electric mixer.

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Pour the soap into dispensers or jugs for storage until you are ready to use it.  I’m not sure exactly how much all of this soap cost me.  I forgot how much I gave for the soap and glycerin, but this recipe makes a LOT of soap.

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Welcome to Menu Plan Monday!  It is hard to believe that another week has already gone by, but it has.  We finally had a cool down here in the Bluegrass and this past weekend’s weather was just perfect.  The sun shone, there was a awesome breeze and the temperatures were in the 80s.  I spent a couple of evenings just lounging on the deck reading a book.  Aah , the good life!

I also completed my first furniture refinishing project on Saturday.  There was a dresser and chiffarobe left in my late great-grandparents’ house that my grandmother very generously gave to me and I have painted them to use in our upstairs purple bedroom.  I put the finishing touches on them and packed all of the drawers upstairs.  Now, we just have to get the big pieces up there and then there will be a great reveal and how-to on here.  This project has been a lot of fun and if I had more free time, I would love to do more furniture like this.  It is especially sweet that these are pieces that have been in my family for generations.

Anyway, back to food…I also made homemade tomato sauce for the first time Saturday morning and it is delicious, BUT, after spending hours of time and using over four pounds of tomatoes, I only ended up with 3 CUPS of sauce.  Not 3 pints or 3 quarts…3 CUPS!!!  It is really good, but I’m not sure if it is worth the time investment or not.  Opinions?

Here is what I plan to cook this week:

Grilled pork chops with oven baked fries

Cheesy steak sandwiches with oven baked fries (2 nights)

Pizza (2 nights)

Cheesy meatloaf minis (new) with butter roasted potatoes

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

There is something about jams and jellies made at home with fresh ingredients that just can’t be beat.  I had never tried to make any myself since I wasn’t very knowledgeable and, to be honest, just a little scared of using a pressure canner.  When I found this freezer jam recipe over at Southern Plate, I thought that it might just be doable.

There is a peach tree growing on a farm owned by my in-laws, and for some reason it produced a lot of peaches during this odd growing season.  My FIL mentioned that he would like some “preserves” so I went looking for a recipe and found the one I mentioned above.  This was so easy!  Before I started the process, I sanitized the jars by using the sanitizing cycle on my dishwasher.  So simple!

Peach Freezer Jam

2 lbs. peaches (enough to make about 3 cups mashed peaches)

4 1/2 cups sugar

1 box Sure Jell

2 tbsp. lemon juice

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Peel, pit and dice peaches.  Mash these with a potato masher or fork.  The potato masher is a lot faster and easier.  Leave a few small chunks.  Pour the sugar in the mashed peaches and stir until sugar is dissolved.

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In a medium sauce pot, place 3/4 cup water and add the Sure Jell.  Bring this to a boil while stirring constantly.  Boil for one minute then pour this into the fruit mixture.  Stir well until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Pour into the sanitized jars making sure to leave about 1 inch of empty space at the top.  Clean the edges of the jars so the lids will not stick to them.  Place the lids on the jars and leave at room temperature for 24 hours.  Then put what you are going to use soon in the fridge and freeze the rest.  This jam will keep in the refrigerator for about 3 weeks and in the freezer for 1 year. 

This had the most awesome sweet peach flavor I have ever tasted.  The peaches that I used were white peaches so mine didn’t have that bright vibrant peach color, but the flavor was out of this world.

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Please join me and other bloggers at Rose City Reader for Book Beginnings where we list a book we are reading/have read/want to read and the first couple of lines.  Then we will give you our opinion on said book. 

This week, my beginning lines come from “The Recipe Club” by Andrea Israel & Nancy Garfinkel.  I received this book as a Christmas present so I had never heard of it before then.  It was good and a pretty easy read.  The neat thing about this book is that is contains the recipes that the two main characters talk about throughout their letters to each other as the only members of their “recipe club”. 

"Dear Lilly,

I’ve started a letter just like this about a thousand times.  "Dear Lilly," I’d write, as if I knew what came next.  But that was as far as I got.  I never knew what to say or how to say it.  And I wasn’t sure you’d ever want to hear my voice again."

Many letters ensue after this one and you will get to know all about the characters past and present.

I also want to thank Rose City Reader for a book giveaway she hosted a couple of weeks ago.  I won!!  Now I have a nice shiny new copy of “Even If I Am. an e-memoir” by Chasity Glass to read.  As soon as I finish the book I am reading now, it is next on my list.  Thanks again, Rose City Reader and Chasity Glass!

Welcome to the first Monday in August, everyone.  Wow, where did June and July go?  School started back in our county last Thursday, so C is hard at it again making sure all of the computers and other technology work for the teachers and students.  We may not have kids, but we still feel the crunch of back-to-school time just from a different perspective.

Today is a first for me…I work in the judicial branch of government in our local clerk’s office and, like all government agencies, the budget is TIGHT!!  So tight, in fact, that during the last six months of this year, all non-elected judicial employees are being forced to take three unpaid furlough days to help balance the budget and today is my first one.  I don’t mind having the time off, in fact, I love it.  The problem is we don’t get paid for them! It wouldn’t be so bad if waste in government wasn’t so obvious and it seems like it should be easier to find ways to trim the fat without furloughing lowly office workers like me.  Oh, well. 

I plan on spending this furlough day going to the grocery.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?  I haven’t been to Wal.-.mart in two months and we are running dangerously low on some household essentials so today is the day.  Last week, I sat down with a calendar and made a rough menu plan for the whole month, so hopefully I can get most of what I need except for some perishable items.  Here’s what is on the menu for this week…

Grilled pork tenderloin

Grilled steakburgers with oven fries

Baked ham slices with butter roasted potatoes and fresh cucumbers

Italian sausage bake with fresh cucumbers

Hot ham and cheese rolls with quick and easy veggie pasta salad

Pizza night

A-1 Swiss steak

Chocolate chip comfort cookies (new)

Orange fluff Jello salad

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

I guess this title might be a little misleading because these hamburgers are just good ol’ ground beef, but I use steak seasonings and sauce to give them a little kick.  This is my own original recipe so feel free to adjust the flavors to suit yourself.  You could also use taco seasoning with taco sauce for a Mexican flair.  Hmm, I might have to try that one.

The recipe results in 4 quarter pound burgers.   I had made a double batch for a Sunday dinner at my grandmother’s house so the photos show that.

grilled steak burgers

1 lb. ground beef

1 tbsp. olive oil (I use really lean ground beef so this adds some healthy fat for texture and flavor.)

1.5 tbsp. A-1 steak sauce

1/2 tsp. Montreal steak seasoning

4 hamburger buns

butter or butter spread (Oops, the buns and spread didn’t make it in the photo.)

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Mix all of the ingredients together and form into 4 same sized patties.  If you have time, let the patties chill in the fridge for an hour or two.  It makes them easier to work with. 

Preheat your grill to medium heat and lay the patties on the hot grill.  Cover and allow to cook for 5-6 minutes.  Now here is a great tip that I have learned in my limited grilling experience…once the patties are on the grill, DON’T MESS WITH THEM!  Turn them once and only once.  Don’t mash on them because you will just lose all of the good juice and flavor.  Leave them alone!

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Flip after 5-6 minutes have passed and cook for another 4 minutes.  While these are finishing, butter both sides of your buns because they are going on the grill, too.

Once the burgers are done, move them to the cooling shelf of your grill if you have one and put cheese on them if desired.  The cheese will melt with the residual heat.  Place the buns on the grill and cook for a couple of minutes.  Check to see if the butter is melted and you have a few grill marks then flip and cook the other side.

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Assemble your burgers and add your favorite burger toppings.

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Please join me at Miz Helen’s Country Cottage for Full Plate Thursday.

If you read my blog regularly, you will know that C & I are dog lovers.  Major dog lovers!  We have a Siberian Husky named Ellie that has us wrapped around her paw.  My in-laws have a Border Collie named Roy, that we help out with, too.  He is a ball of energy and loves attention.  I was browsing Pinterest one day (shocker, I know) and found a recipe for a homemade frozen dog treat on Hub Pages.

We had bought some frozen dog treats in the past, but when you check the ingredient label, you will find that most of the things on there are almost unpronounceable.  This homemade treat has only whole, simple ingredients that are good for your pets, especially during this extremely hot weather we have been having. 

All three dogs we have given these to (Ellie, Roy and my aunt’s dog, Maggie) have loved them! 

Frozen Dog Treats

32 oz. plain yogurt

1 mashed ripe banana

2 tablespoons peanut butter

2 tablespoons honey

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Put all of the ingredients in the bowl of your mixer and combine thoroughly.  Fill up two ice cube trays with the mixture and freeze until hard.  I emptied them from the trays and kept them in one container in the freezer.

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