LHL Recipe Review – Dish Soap

We are working our way through the Little House Living book of recipes (by Merissa Alink) for bath, body, and household products, and kitchen mixes.  You can read previous recipe reviews by clicking on “LHL Recipe Reviews” in the category section on the right sidebar.  We are not affiliated with Little House Living, nor are they compensating us for this.  We just wanted to work our way through all the recipes because they all look so great, and thought it would be nice to take you along for the journey.  🙂  All recipes are rated on a scale of 7 thumbs up, since we are a family of 7.

Summer has been chaotic so we have not done many of these reviews lately.  But now that we are back on our school schedule and routine, Sunshine and I will be continuing to work our way through this book and I will be posting the reviews here.

This week we tried Dish Soap.

The dish soap was made with a few simple ingredients and very quick and easy to mix up.  It was very watery compared to store bought which is more of a gel.  It does make it a little trickier to squirt on things that were being held on an angle, but that didn’t bother me and it didn’t seem to effect anything.

I bought several different types of containers and bottles to use as we worked through this book and this type of bottle seemed best for the dish soap.  It even came with a screw-on funnel to help fill it without mess.

There are some dishes I always hand-wash and others I put in the dishwasher.  So first I tested this on Mr. Smiles’ sippies and bottles (yes, Mr. Smiles’ is almost 3, but he is still on bottles because he has aspiration issues and thus can’t always safely and successfully swallow from a sippy).  I usually rinse the bottles and sippy right after use and then just let them sit until I have several to wash at once.  The nipples and rubber straws are usually somewhat greasy from whatever else was being eaten at the time he was drinking.

She warned in the book that this soap wouldn’t be as sudsy as one expects dish soap to be, and she was right.  I must admit, something about the suds makes one feel like it is doing its job and getting stuff clean, and the lack of suds had me wondering.  But everything came beautifully squeaky clean.

Next I washed a very greasy frying pan.  Here was the true test – could the soap cut the grease and really get it clean?  Yes indeed it did!  It too came squeaky clean.

So, the homemade dish soap gets a 7 thumbs up!

LHL Recipe Review – Hamburger Help Mix

We are working our way through the Little House Living book of recipes for bath, body, and household products, and kitchen mixes.  You can read previous recipe reviews by clicking on “LHL Recipe Reviews” in the category section on the right sidebar.  We are not affiliated with Little House Living, nor are they compensating us for this.  We just wanted to work our way through all the recipes because they all look so great, and thought it would be nice to take you along for the journey.  🙂  All recipes are rated on a scale of 7 thumbs up, since we are a family of 7.

I have a little secret.  Shhhhhh, don’t tell anyone.  When I first got married I had no idea how to cook and everything I cooked came out of a can or box.  I know, it’s surprising since now not only do I cook almost everything from scratch and avoid pre-processed foods like the plague, but I also grow and raise my own fresh food.  Big changes.  Life can change you.

But I must admit I was pretty well intrigued when I saw the Hamburger Help Mix recipe in the Little House Living book because we used to eat the store bought version out of a box often in our early years of marriage and I liked it.

We could tell by the recipe that one batch was not going to be even close to enough for our family.  So we quadrupled it.  The 4x batch fit nicely in a half-gallon jar in the pantry.

We cooked up half of it using her dairy-free instructions, and we cooked the other half with milk as per her instructions.

Both versions were quick and easy to throw together for dinner by just taking the jar from the pantry and adding a few wet ingredients to them.  It made for a great meal for those evenings when I just don’t have the time or energy to put together a whole meal from scratch.  And it was nice to know exactly what was in the mix and that it wasn’t anything that would be bad for my family.

Everyone loved it!  Both versions were delicious and there wasn’t a speck of food left when we were done.  We all went back for seconds and some thirds as well.

7 thumbs up!

LHL Recipe Review – Pancake/Waffle Mix

We are working our way through the Little House Living book of recipes for bath, body, and household products, and kitchen mixes.  You can read previous recipe reviews by clicking on “LHL Recipe Reviews” in the category section on the right sidebar.  We are not affiliated with Little House Living, nor are they compensating us for this.  We just wanted to work our way through all the recipes because they all look so great, and thought it would be nice to take you along for the journey.  🙂  All recipes are rated on a scale of 7 thumbs up, since we are a family of 7.

We love pancakes and waffles in our house, and I have sometimes made up the dry ingredients of the pancake recipe I use ahead of time so that I can more quickly and easily make them in the morning.  But we decided to try out the LHL recipe and see what we thought.

The dry mix makes about a half-gallon jar worth of mix.  We tried it as both pancakes and waffles.

Pancakes

The pancakes were good, but they were not as good as the pancakes we normally make.  They were a bit chewy instead of fluffy.  We all ate them and finished them all, but everyone agreed that my regular recipe for pancakes had better texture and flavor.

4 thumbs up for the pancakes.

Waffles

The waffles were delicious!  We cooked them with our electric waffle iron and they were crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and very very yummy.  We only made one batch and it definitely wasn’t enough.  In the future we need to triple the batch.  Everyone was very pleased with the waffles.

7 thumbs up for the waffles!

So I think we will be making this mix and labeling it “waffle mix” and then I will take my regular recipe and use the idea of pre-mixing all the dry ingredients ahead of time to make them easier to make.

LHL Recipe Review – Muffin Mix

We are working our way through the Little House Living book of recipes for bath, body, and household products, and kitchen mixes.  You can read previous recipe reviews by clicking on “LHL Recipe Reviews” in the category section on the right sidebar.  We are not affiliated with Little House Living, nor are they compensating us for this.  We just wanted to work our way through all the recipes because they all look so great, and thought it would be nice to take you along for the journey.  🙂  All recipes are rated on a scale of 7 thumbs up, since we are a family of 7.

This week we tried out the Muffin Mix.  It is simple to premix the ingredients and there was a GF option in the book as well.  The bulk mix took up about 3/4 of a half-gallon jar and stored nicely.

When it came time to use the mix to make a batch of muffins we perused the many different flavor options that the LHL book included, as well as discussing some of our own.  Since our rhubarb was ready, we decided to make strawberry/rhubarb muffins with our garden rhubarb and store bought strawberries (because our strawberries are just now flowering).

They turned out beautifully!  They were moist and delicious and we all really enjoyed them.

Another 7 thumbs up recipe!  We will definitely be keeping this pre-made mix in the pantry so we can easily make muffins for breakfast whenever we want to.

LHL Recipe Review – Non-Petroleum Jelly

We are working our way through the Little House Living book of recipes for bath, body, and household products, and kitchen mixes.  You can read previous recipe reviews by clicking on “LHL Recipe Reviews” in the category section on the right sidebar.  We are not affiliated with Little House Living, nor are they compensating us for this.  We just wanted to work our way through all the recipes because they all look so great, and thought it would be nice to take you along for the journey.  🙂  All recipes are rated on a scale of 7 thumbs up, since we are a family of 7.

This time we tried the Non-Petroleum Jelly recipe.  We don’t use petroleum jelly ourselves, but Pops (grandpa) uses it every day and after reading about how it is made in the factory and how questionable it is to use it on your skin, we decided to make some for him to try out.  This recipe says that not only does it not contain the negative ingredients of regular petroleum jelly, but it also helps heal the skin, not just provide a moisture barrier.

One batch fit nicely in one 250 ml short, square Ball jar.  We like this type of jar for the lotion we made because it is easy to access what is in it because of the wide mouth and the shape of the jar.  The texture felt very similar to regular petroleum jelly.  We closed it up and sent it off to be tested out by Pops.

Here is what he had to say about it:

“I love it!  It is way better than store-bought and I have places that are healing so fast now.  I started using it for the dryness on my face, which is how I was using the store-bought, but it felt so good and worked so well that now I use it on my arms and legs too.  It is working so great to moisturize and heal my skin.”

Another success!  7 thumbs up!