Two tips

These were two tips that Mom probably told everyone. She read them on another blog.

1. Make all the sandwiches for sack lunches for a week or two and then freeze them. Becky says this works when they do it. PB&J works fine, as does some meat and cheese, if you aren't too fussy about frozen/thawed cheese.
2. Take all the clothes from one child and wash them in one load. You can use a cold water wash if there is anything that will bleed. Then you don't have to sort and wash and then sort again. I've sort of tried this with some children's clothing and it does make it easier. I remember this used to be called a "throw up load" when we were growing up (as in, after the kid throws up, you take everything and wash it all together).

Smelly dishes from the dishwasher--no more

Two years or so ago we still had our ancient dishwasher. It appeared to clean the dishes, but when we took them out of the cupboards afterward, the glass dishes would smell like rotten fish or bad eggs or stale milk. So we would wash them by hand. Finally the dishwasher broke and after six months we got a new one. This one also cleaned the dishes, but after a while the dishes started to smell. I did research but found no help, even on the helpful Internet. I had several repair guys come out since the washer was under warranty. Nothing seemed to work and their suggestions didn't solve the problem ("clean the dishwasher" "clean the filter"). Finally the plumber replaced the pipes under the sink--after I put my finger through one of them and the duck tape over that hole started to leak. The smell vanished. Aha! The smell in dishwashers seems to come from disposals and plumbing. When the smell started to come back (probably from the old disposal), I began to clean my disposal at least once a month with the Wal-Mart disposal cleaner. No more smells. Since Wal-Mart didn't have cleaner the last time I went, I started dumping 1/4 cup of Comet down the drain and running the disposal with some water going. I would also pour in a bit of dishwashing liquid to make sure I got lots of suds. The smells haven't come back so far. I think when I get a new disposal, that will also help. Have you discovered how to clean something that seems impossible to clean?

Just a thought

What I really would like with this blog would be to have at least eight authors (women I know and trust). We could make it a useful place for us to swap ideas, recipes, and advice. We could even rename the blog. Anyway, think about it and let me know if you want to participate in a project where you would post something once a month, or more often, or less often depending on stress and life things, so we could maybe help each other. In the meantime, I'll keep posting a few things here as I find them.

Perfect Cookies

I recently started to read a book on the search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. I saw two suggestions that were interesting: (1) if you want to have a cooked, but soft, cookie, substitute about 2 Tb. of corn syrup for 2 Tb. of the sugar; (2) you can reduce the amount of shortening by 1/5. I tried this in a chocolate chip cookie and didn't notice too much of a change, probably because I used a recipe that included oat flour and that always does different things to cookies. Then I tried it with a standard peanut butter cookie. For the 1 cup of fat, I used 1/2 cup butter and 1/3 cup shortening. I substituted the corn syrup for part of the white sugar. I baked the cookies for 11 minutes and could have gone a bit longer. Now, even a day later, the cookies are still crisp around the edges and soft inside. These cookies always went hard on me by the time they cooled. If you try these techniques, what happens to your cookies? Is is different close to sea level versus a high altitude?

Cleaning

I was thinking of five things I really appreciate when I am cleaning my house:

1. Toilet cleaner and brush
2. Windex and paper towels
3. Vacuum
4. Lysol disinfecting wipes
5. Rubber gloves