Repurposed Plastic Spoons Rose @Craftzine.com blog.

How-To: Make Felted Rocks and Stones @Craftzine.com blog.

"This Old Guitar" (Photo credit: Tony the Misfit)

Yep, you heard right.  I made a new playlist. It’s a selection Grateful Dead (mostly their country/bluegrass stuff), John Denver and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Hope you like listening to it as much as I do.

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Ok, who’s thinking what I am? APPLE JACK, baby! lol. Seriously this couldn’t seem easier to make and the cider looks great, too.

Soooo trying this.

This is things to do with Apples.

Living Green on a String.

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Homemade “Grow Juice”

This sounds pretty interesting. It makes sense that it would work and once you had all the ingredients, it would last a really long time. Think I’m going to try it this summer.

Let me know if you try it, too, and how it works out.

Living Green on a String – March 19th, 2011.

My usual mail program (Outlook) has been taken over by another mail program (my isp one) and isn’t letting emails through. I have to go do the ISP one to read my mail and that one is horrrrible to use. So I’ve been a bit frustrated and have said “forget it!” more than a few times. I tried to get back to some, but I didn’t get to all. Sweetie will be fixing it this weekend since this is his weekend off.

So instead of something deep, pithy, insightful, brilliant or yummy today I’m just going to say a few things.

First, I want to thank all of you who have been clicking like on my posts, following my blog and just peeking in. This is my first blog. I held off for soooo long thinking it was a glorified twitter space but with more room to regale the world with your every move. I started reading a friend’s blog and realized it was so much more. The potential was staggering. So I started this one. When I look back on my first posts I realize now that they were mostly twitter-ish in that there was nothing very profound or useful in them. I’ve read the wordpress posts and how-to’s, noticed what other people do with their blogs and started to experiment.

Some experiments were not very successful, but some did pretty well.

While I know that my blog is not the philosophical equivalent of Plato nor am I a “master” of anything, but a student of many things so there aren’t any “Do This This Way” posts or “look how much I know” posts, I have been trying harder to make my posts relevent, somewhat witty, meaningful to me in some way, and creatively minded. Sometimes I want to get something off my chest and sometimes I want people to get a giggle. My goal with this blog is to keep learning how to make it more interesting to my readers, fulfilling for me to do and get my creative juices flowing.

Sometimes it gets discouraging. When it does I whine at my blogging friend Patsye   and try to regroup and see what else I can do to improve it.

So thank you for keeping me encouraged by coming and letting me know when you liked something. Thank you for your comments. I try to be pro-active in responding since I appreciate that fact that you took the time to come into my little corner of the internet to visit me.

If you have suggestions of things you would like to see, and if I am able to do those things, I will surely try to make this a place you like to sit and have a cuppa.

Myspace Thank You Comments & Graphics

To my surprise and great pleasure, it was a male ring-necked pheasant. I’ve never seen one of those before. I was very excited. The pictures have sun glare because the sun was ahead of me and I was taking the pictures through a glass door, but I still am pretty happy with how they came out.

I bet this is what the dogs are always carrying on about and looking in that direction!

I came into my room to put some distance between me and the worst of the fumes and started looking through homemade mix recipes. I used to have basics on hand all the time, but over the years I got lazy and just bought them pre-made. But the prices of food, and ingredients, has just gone up and up and I decided to start making my own again. That said, there are some things that its just worth the few extra pennies to buy than to make. Not all mixes are cheaper, or really even healthier, than the store bought ones. I think I touched on this in another post so I won’t go into it here.

I did find some that would be a good deal to make and am looking forward to having them on hand again.  I thought I would share a few of them here.

Chai Tea Mix

INGREDIENTS:

masala chai (Photo credit: Premshree Pillai)

1/2 cup powdered creamer
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 cup granulated sugar
15 teaspoons instant black tea (or pekoe)

PREPARATION:

Combine all ingredients together and store in a tightly sealed container.

To Make a Cup of Chai Tea:

1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon Chai Tea Creamer Mix
1 cup boiling water
1 1/2 teaspoons honey (optional)

Combine the Chai Tea Mix with the boiling water and honey, if using; allow to steep for 2 to 3 minutes. The Chai Tea mixture will dissolve much better when vigorously stirred into hot water.

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Creamed Soup Base

Use instead of condensed canned cream soups in recipes. Just add the ingredient that forms the basis of the soup. Chop mushrooms, saute in a bit of olive oil and add for cream of mushroom soup. Add chicken for cream of chicken soup. You get the idea!   Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients: •2 cups nonfat dry milk powder •3/4 cup cornstarch •1/4 cup instant reduced sodium chicken or beef bouillon granules •1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves •1/2 tsp. dried basil leaves •1/4 tsp. white pepper

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients and mix well with wire whisk until blended. Store mix in an airtight container.  To prepare as a substitute for one can of condensed cream soup in recipes, stir together 1/3 cup dry mix and 1-1/4 cup water in a saucepan. Cook and stir until thickened. Mix a total of nine cans condensed soup substitute.

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Onion Soup Mix  (I buy tons of this so looking forward to making my own in bulk.)

Make your own onion soup mix to use for soups or dips.

Ingredients:
•3/4 cup instant minced onion •1/3 cup beef flavored instant bouillon •4 tsp. onion powder •1/4 tsp. celery salt or celery seed •1/4 tsp. sugar or Splenda •1/8 tsp. white pepper

Preparation:
Mix all ingredients together well, and store up to 6 months in cool, dry place. Stir before each use. Five tablespoons of the mix equals 1.25-oz. pkg. of purchased dry onion soup mix.

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Cafe Bavarian Mix

Give this wonderfully sweet and rich coffee mix as a gift in a tightly sealed shiny new coffee tin and finish it off with a big bow.

Ingredients:
•1 cup powdered non dairy creamer •1-1/3 cups sugar •1 cup instant coffee granules •1/2 cup cocoa powder •10 hard candy peppermints

Preparation:
Place all ingredients in bowl of blender or food processor. Process until well blended and particles are fine. Store in tightly covered container in a cool dry place. To use, dissolve 1-2 Tbsp. of mix in 1 cup boiling water or to taste.

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If you try any of these let me know how they turn out! Do you have any recipes for homemade mixes to share?

Crayon Heart Valentines | dianne faw.