Splurge! Solia Flat Iron

Ok, I finally did it. I bought a flat iron for my crazy hair. For those of you who know me, this is a HUGE splurge, as I really don't like speding money on girly things.

I have been hearing really good things about the reliability and function of this iron. It has tourmaline plates, adjustable temperature, and can be used on damp or dry hair.

This is a big step for me ladies! Once in a while we have to splurge!

Greenling Local Only Box

We recently decided to take a culinary adventure and get the Greenling Local box delivered. It is a giant box of organic, local produce. The great part is they pick everything for you. The bad part is if you are a picky eater you may get some items (like mushrooms!) that nobody in your house will eat.

This, our first box, came with items that made me realize how picky we are! The scary items were: eggplant (stewed it), asian eggplant (fried it), fresh black eyed peas (stewed it), mushrooms (gifted it to a neighbor), and sorrel...

I was a little frightened of the sorrel. I responded by immediately pureeing the whole bunch in my blender with some olive oil and putting it in the freezer with more olive oil on top.

On saturday, I made a stew with a lot of the random veggies. Big eggplant, sauteed onion, blackeyed peas, tomatoes, 2 potatoes, some left-over kabocha squash, salt, garlic powder and water all went into my crock pot for 20 hours. At that point, I added masala to taste and 1/3 of my pureed sorrel. In the future, I may add less. The sorrel has an incredibly intense flavor!

I don't know what I will do with the rest of the sorrel. This blog lists the items of the week and says I'm not getting any sorrel this week (whew!) I don't really want a back-log of frozen sorrel :)

Health Nut - Gelatin Shapes

This is easy and fun to do with your kids. And these jigglers are much more healthy when you sweeten the gelatin with fruit juice instead of sugar!

Recipe:
4 Envelopes Knox Gelatin
3 c Fruit juice heated to
1 c Cold fruit juice

Instructions:

In a bowl, sprinkle gelatin over cold juice; let stand 1 minute.

Add hot juice and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved.

Pour into 9x13-inch pan; chill until firm.

Cut into1-inch squares or cut out special shapes with cookie cutters.

Makes about 9 dozen squares

If you make shapes with cookie cutters, line them up in a row. As shown below, each row should be as wide as your spatula. Cut the width of each row with your knife so each row comes out cleanly. If you try to get your shapes as close as you can, you will lose quite a few to tearing :(

You can throw all your left-overs into a container and use your imagination to find shapes!

Toddler Tips: Tooth Brushing

My son is too smart for me!

Any tooth brushing trick works for a week (MAX!) and then we're at square 1.

The only thing that works for us with tooth brushing is to let him chew on the brush until he is done. Then when he is finished I "clean his mouth" with a thin cloth (Especially For Baby washcloths are perfect). I'm not sure why this works, but it does. He opens wide "like an alligator" and is full of cooperation.

I think brushing is an activity that he wants to be in control of. He does not like being dirty, so "cleaning his mouth" is separate from brushing, and is very important to him. He talks about his mouth being dirty with great concern.

I hope this helps some of you! Tooth brushing had been a nightmare for us!