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!

LHL Recipe Review – Lotion

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 out the lotion recipe.  We tried this recipe a few years ago when it was posted on the LHL blog.  At the time, I felt like it was too greasy for me and didn’t use it after the first try.  It did, however, work really well for our middle son’s skin, but I never made another batch.

So this time I decided if we were going to make it we needed to give it a good try.  Everyone in the house needed to use it for a week and give feedback.  We would go the full week, unless it caused a negative reaction, of course.

It was simple to mix up and make.  We split the recipe into three jars, so everyone would have easy access to it.  But had we not split it, one recipe would fill one 250 ml jar.

 Speaking of jars, I liked putting it in these short square ball jars with wide mouths.  It made it very easy to get the lotion out.

We deal with very dry skin up here because our climate is so very dry.  The humidity in our house is usually between 6-20% in the winter, even with steamer pots boiling on the wood stoves.  We all struggle with dry skin problems, especially in the winter.  Working out on the farm in the freezing weather and wetness doesn’t help either.  And some of us have issues with our hands cracking and bleeding because of it.  So a good lotion is so important for us.

Here’s what we thought after using it for a week:

It does go on kind of greasy, like I had thought before.  However, I found that if I used less and rubbed it in well, the greasy-ness was gone in a few minutes.  The moisturizing power lasted MUCH longer than store bought, and the texture felt better than store bought on my skin after the greasy-ness soaked in (I have sensory issues, so texture is very important for me).  My hands did much better and the cracking is healing up.  So I was very happy with the lotion and glad I gave it more time than last try.

I have struggled to find a baby lotion for Mr. Smiles that would last longer than a few hours.  His skin dries out very fast and just a couple of hours after applying store-bought lotions he is dry again.  That didn’t happen with this lotion, I was able to apply it just once a day and it lasted until the next day.

The other kids, and Mtn Man, are all happy with it too!  I am excited to have a homemade lotion that is more natural and works so well.  We will be making another batch and filling those three jars all the way up!

The lotion recipe gets 7 thumbs up!

LHL Recipe Review – Baked Oatmeal Mix and Instant Oatmeal Mix

We are working our way through the Little House Living book of recipes and today is our first post!  You can read the introductory post here.  All recipes will be rated based on a scale of 1-7 thumbs up (because we are a family of 7).

The first thing we decided to try was the Baked Oatmeal Mix and the Instant Oatmeal Mix.  I love the idea of making our own kitchen mixes so that it is quick and easy to cook.  I love the convenience of mixes from boxes and cans, but I don’t love the extra unnecessary and unhealthy ingredients that are often in them.  Also, since we are Gluten-Free because of Celiac disease, our options are limited, expensive, and often not very tasty.  So the concept of making our own kitchen mixes so we know exactly what is in them and can save money was very appealing to me.

We eat a lot of oatmeal for breakfast in our house.  We have a recipe for baked oatmeal that we enjoy, and we sometimes are able to find instant oatmeal packets at the discount grocery for a good price.  But the instant packs are too big for some of our kids and too small for others.  So I was interested in trying out these two recipes.

Baked Oatmeal

Even though we have our own recipe for baked oatmeal, I was open to trying out hers.  I made the pre-made Baked Oatmeal Mix.  Each recipe for the base mix fits on one quart jar.

I made four of them because that used up the oats I had.

I added less sugar than suggested because I could tell by the amounts it would be a bit sweeter than we prefer.

Then you take the premixed jar and add some wet ingredients and your choice of fruit to it, mix, and bake.  You can do it the night before and then just throw it in the oven in the morning, or you can do it in the morning too.  Either way is pretty fast with the premixed dry ingredients ready.

We chose to use some of our home-canned apples in honey syrup as the fruit for our first batch.

It turned out delicious!  All the kids loved it, and they even said they liked it better than our other baked oatmeal recipe.  The only problem, for our family of 7, was that it was too small of an amount.  So we decided that when I mix up a bunch more I will double each recipe and use half-gallon jars for storing the mix.  That way it will feed us all.

First recipe gets 7 thumbs up!

Instant Oatmeal Mix

We like the single-serving instant oatmeal packs from the store, but they are never the right amount in one package.  Some kids can’t finish a whole pack, and some want more than one.  They also are expensive and have extra ingredients we don’t want.  So I loved the idea of making bulk instant oatmeal mix so each kid could just scoop out the amount they want, add water, and have instant breakfast.  Three of the kiddos’ favorite flavor is apple cinnamon, 1 of them likes plain with just brown sugar, and 1 of them likes either of those choices.  So I decided to make some of both options.

The results were again excellent.  The kids loved it and they really loved the freedom to make the amount they wanted.  And I love a quick and easy breakfast that they can make independently (except the littlest, of course).  Another recipe that gets 7 thumbs up from us!

So it looks like we will be getting some big bulk bags of oats and instant oats so I can mix up a bunch more of these two great recipes.

Homemade Body Products, Cleaning Supplies, and Kitchen Mixes

I have followed the Little House Living Blog for many years and enjoy reading what Merissa has to say.  When I saw her book on the shelf at the library I was excited to check it out.

It didn’t take very much perusing of the book at home to realize I really wanted to own it myself.  It is a culmination of all sorts of bath & body product, household cleaning supply, and kitchen mix recipes.  Her family has skin and food allergies and she wanted to have a healthier household and know all the ingredients that were in the products they used, so she tried out different recipes and found ones that worked well for them.  Of the almost 150 recipes included in the book, there are only about a handful that I am not interested in trying out – which means I have A LOT of recipes to try out.  A few years ago I tried out a couple of the recipes from her blog (before the book came out) and for the most part we really liked them.

My oldest daughter, Sunshine, saw the book and fell in love with the idea as well.  So she and I decided that we will spend the rest of the year working our way through the book trying out the recipes.  And I figured I would take you on the adventure with us and see how it goes.  I will not be sharing the recipes (obviously), you can buy the book for that.  But I will be sharing how we like them and whether they work or don’t work for us and why.

So watch for LHL Recipe Review posts and join us as we work on making our own home products and kitchen mixes.