Easy Peasy Tangerine Marmalade

 So I haven't given birth yet lol! I am currently 40 weeks and 2 days pregnant :) And in keeping with MY 'REASONS TO BE THANKFUL THAT I HAVEN'T GIVEN BIRTH JUST YET' post, I thought I would share with you what I made today for the first time!

I've only made jam once before and have never made marmalade. Now, I'm no Martha Stewart but I like to try new things and there is a family saying that goes back to my great-grandma..."Waste not, want not!"

We are in a local fruit and veg co-op (which we LOVE SO MUCH thanks to Kaz for getting us onto it!!!!) Anyway, we recently got a whole lot of tangerines. They are lovely but a bit bitter for the kids (plus they are loaded with salicylates and while they are all back onto a reg salicylate diet, we still don't like them having an overload of them!)

So...instead of wasting these lovely fruits, I thought I'd have a crack at making some tangerine marmalade.

I searched on the net for a good recipe but for many and varied reasons, couldn't find one that really fit (most were just too many steps and took too long to make. I know. Lazy. But really, I wanted to try something that was not going to be started one day and then have to be completed the next day when I could give birth overnight!!! lol!)

Anyhoo.

Here's how I tweaked a couple of different recipes (kind of choosing the best bits I liked from each and then appropriating it to my own needs).

Only 4 ingredients and 10 steps!

Ingredients:
10 tangerines
860g sugar
4 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 x 50g packet of Jamsetta (packet pectin mixed with some citric acid and a little caster sugar basically!) You get Jamsetta at Coles

Method:

Step 1:
Scrub and wash the waxy skin well in water

Step 2:

Cut 10 tangerines around the equator and remove all seeds

Step 3:
Peel away the flesh from 10 tangerines and put into a large pot...

NB: If you want a really smooth kind of marmalade, you could probably pulse these in a blender but I like mine chunky so I left the segments as is! See the pic below - chunky as!

Step 4:
Take the rind of 4 of the tangerines (so 8 halves) and cut into think strips. I read somewhere that the rind makes it quite bitter so feel free to cut back on this bit if you don't like your marmalade too bitter. Mine worked out just right for me but you don't have my taste buds so I guess it would be a bit of trial and error to kind of get it to your own liking! 

Step 5:
In a large pot, gently warm both the flesh and the rind...

Step 6:
Now add 860g sugar & stir well...

Step 7:
Add 4 Tablespoons of lemon juice and stir well.
Now is the time to also add your Jamsetta and stir well.
(I also read somewhere that instead of Jamsetta, you can pop all the seeds your took out into a little boquet garni and let the natural pectin from the seeds help your marmalade set. I might try that another time but for me, throwing in the pack of Jamsetta made life a little bit easier today!)

Step 8:
Bring pot to the boil on a gentle heat.
Boil for 5 mins stirring occassionally...

Step 9:
Allow your marmalade to cool...

Step 10:
Bottle into sterillised jars and get ready to enjoy some on toast or scones!

Well, that's it from me tonight.
Am going to try for an early night, you know...just in case tonight is the night (although I say that every night! lol!)
All is well here though. Had a check up with our lovely Midwife Hazel yesterday and all is great; blood pressure, bub is in an even better position than before and I am feeling good.
Can't really ask for more than that hey!
Thanks to everyone for your messages, thoughts, prayers and love.

Yah bless you.
Love,

Oh and I am linking this post up with THE HOMESTEAD REVIVAL BARN HOP :)

The week that was...

After visiting the local Grower's Market last weekend and picking up some herbs, we decided it was time to move the herb garden. We had been reading up more on herbs and how to care for them here where it gets quite cold. The spot we'd been previously using for a number of years gets more shade than sun. I was talking to Brett about setting me up with a potting station and instead he suggested that the table we were going to use for that be used as a herb station! It faces the sun and so we are hoping to have more success with our herbs that we have previously. We also decided to leave them in pots this time. Will let you know how it all goes ;)

It was time to make up some new play dough again as the old batch had gone right off.



I'm still happy with the no-cook recipe we use. Have you got a trusty playdough recipe you like to use? Here's mine...

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
1 tablespoon cooking oil
food colouring

Method:
Mix together the flour and salt in a large bowl.
Add water and oil to the mix.
Combine well and knead together.
Break off into large balls.
Pop each ball into a zip lock bag.
Add splashes of food colouring into each bag.
Seal bag (with as much air out of bag first as possible) and get kids to mush around the colour and dough in the bag until well combined.
Add a little extra flour if too sticky.
The colour will blead into the dough the more it is used.

Other happenings from our week...

Loads of reading done (as per usual!)

Stass is reading through the Anne of Green Gables sequel still and began reading Pollyanna too this week. She learnt how to record the books she is reading complete with page number, publisher and publication date this week.

We are still making our way through our new family read aloud, 'Stories for Boys' and the story this week was called 'Speckles'.

Liji read aloud THE USBORNE NEW BABY BOOK all by himself and got almost all the words correct. He's growing more in confidence with his reading which is so lovely to see.

I read aloud the Golden Book Classic 'A visit to the Children's Zoo'...

...which I LOVED to read as a child!

This lead to us looking up old photos of THE CHILDREN'S ZOO IN NYC BACK IN ITS HEY DAY on the internet and reading about how it was transformed in the 1990's. The kids LOVE reading about that kind of thing (probably because I do too!) Ethi asked when we could go visit the zoo. Hmmm...maybe one day!

Ethi and Liji are also continuing to read through their boy-spy series that they are loving.

Speaking of books, I got this cool books about the Human Body for only $5 from our local Angus and Robertson outlet. Very cool illustrations...

Zip got stuck into some water paints this week...

I love that our house often looks like this: paintings drying right next to our clothes lol :)

Tomorrow I'm 39 weeks pregnant!
Woohooooo!

We put together a funky SOLAR SYSTEM FLOOR PUZZLE which I scored this week for $7 and took turns to read aloud facts from it...

The SHEPHERD'S PURSE TINCTURE is ready to go now. It's a much darker colour. We just need to strain it off now.

We've been going without our microwave for a while now for a number of reasons.

Here is the little place where it used to live.

It is an excellent little space for our recipe books and our Family Planner on a plate stand...

We played a really simple game where we scrunched up scrap papers into balls and took turns at throwing them into a cane bowl we have. Stass recorded all the results and we are making a bar graph from the results together...

Doing some maths book work...

I made another pot of fresh veg stock.
What do you put in yours?

Mine today had:
all the leaves and offcuts from the celery
3 carrots
an onion
purple carrot peels
garlic salt
basil
parsley flakes

Oh and here's the purple carrot. We have seedlings to plant of these soon (this one was bought from Coles) after having read about the HEALTH BENEFITS OF EATING PURPLE CARROTS (note: we found many articles and videos about these but this was just one of them).

And Loz...this one is for you; the new look for the loungeroom :)

Had lovely phone catch ups this week with:

Bek, Elissa and my mum and dad :)

Got out to:

 an ABA planning meeting. Was lovely to see all the girls there even though I was feeling a bit out of it (headspace wise!). They are a lovely group and have welcomed me so lovingly.
Was great to catch up there with my Hazel too :)
Also got to chiro twice. My chiro is a l.e.g.e.n.d
I praise Yah for him because I know I wouldn't be walking now if it wasn't for the work he has done. Am so glad that I was lead to him.

And of course, as I mentioned in another post, got to catch up with Lori too this week along with the Vandors and Leonards.

Other learning activities included:

Playing a new reading/spelling game together which we kind of made up using some sight word cards that have different levels of words on them. Kids LOVED this game!

Liji had another dental visit and went with Brett.
We looked at this website this week called MOUTHPOWER.ORG. It was a FABULOUS website! It's set up so that the kids earn teeth with each activity and then can get a little certificate at the end (which my guys thought was awesome!). It touches on so many things from the Food Pyramid, the dangers of smoking to your mouth, to the older v's newer styles of dental tools and what they were/are used for.

I stumbled somehow across THIS SITE during the week which has a whole list of links to cool website games about the human body. We took a tour of the brain and a quiz and learnt about a guy from the 19h century called Phineas Gage who had a massive brain injury in his frontal lobe and survived and the effects that accident had on his personality. The kids were intrigued by this story and asked if we could do more research and find out more about this man. There is a WEBSITE that we found on him and the kiddos were intrigued by the photos and stories there about this man.

The kids got into gardening with Brett, played UNO, 'Sorry' the board game, Zingo and Pilgrim's Progress again this week along with backyard cricket, making heaps of lego creations and using Fiskars stencils which Nanny brought around.

Stass has been offering to help heaps in the kitchen and around the house in general which has been lovely. She showed us this week that she could cover bowls of left over food with cling wrap by herself. She basically cleared the kitchen after dinner a couple of times by herself (aside from doing the boys' regular after-meal chores) which was a real blessing.

We got our journal out again (the one just the two of us girls share) and began writing in it after a good heart-to-heart chat this week. She really needed us to write again and I really needed to listen to her.

Craft-wise, I found a great MCN diaper tute on youtube and will be trying to make that this week (if time permits!)

And I'll finish off with the beautiful Psalm Brett read aloud to the fam last night before bed:

{A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah}
¹ You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
² I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
³ Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
⁴ I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
⁵ I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
⁶ On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
⁷ Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ I cling to you;
your right hand upholds me.
⁹ Those who want to kill me will be destroyed;
they will go down to the depths of the earth.
¹⁰ They will be given over to the sword
and become food for jackals.
¹¹ But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God will glory in him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.


Well I hope you had a lovely week and have a lovely weekend ahead!
Shabbat Shalom for tomorrow!
Much love and more to come soon,

Cleaning Naturally {Part 2} and a Free Printable

{You can read Part 1 in this series
HERE WHICH IS ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF KEEPING A CLEAN AND ORDERLY HOME}

Part 2 today is about some of the natural cleaning methods I have been using around our home.
Now please don't get me wrong; these things are NOT things I do each day or even each week. Some I use more often than others like my vinegar spray and my bicarb to clean the toilet but other things I mention here might be once-in-a-blue-moon kind of cleaning experiences.

Anyway, the reason I like these are:

* They are less toxic than store-bought cleaners which means they are safer to use in my home

* Because they are less toxic, it means my children can also safely use them and be involved in learning the skills of keeping our home clean and orderly

* They are MUCH MUCH more cost effective!

* They are MUCH better for the environment around us

So I thought I'd break down what I use to clean different areas.

Here goes!

I'm sure many of you already use these but thought I'd write them out here and share what works in our home in a kind of basic way.

ALL PURPOSE CLEANER:

My all purpose cleaner around here these days is vinegar and water.

In a spray bottle put 1/3 cup of white vinegar and about a cup and a half of water.

Vinegar is great because it neutralises smells, is an antibacterial and actually CLEANS so many surfaces from bench tops, bathrooms to mirrors and glass!

I have a spray bottle of it in each bathroom hanging over the shower screens plus one in the kitchen.

Because I don't have to worry about nasty chemicals that my children might breathe in when they use these, they can help by cleaning the glass windows or mirrors.

IN THE BATHROOM

TOILET CLEANER:

Sprinkle some bi carb soda (baking soda) into the toilet bowl. Scrub away with your toilet brush.

Spray the seat and surrounding areas with the vinegar spray.

The bi carb helps whiten, deoderise and stabalise ph levels which are all great things for the toilet bowl!

In our ensuite, I have a box of bicarb sitting on the window sill with the vinegar spray next to it.
Seeing it there reminds me to actually use it; to pour some into the bowl, swish it around with the brush and spray with the vinegar too.



TOILET CLEANER FOR TOUGH STAINS:

I use Borax and vinegar to shift really tough toilet bowl stains.
Borax is a natural mineral compound and is apparently a great mould inhibitor. I've also read that it has a Ph higher than baking soda!
You'll find Borax in the cleaning aisle at your local supermarket.
I poured about a half a cups worth into the bottom of the toilet bowl, let it sit there for a while (overnight is not too long) and then scrubbed with the toilet brush.
Once again, I used the white vinegar to freshen the toilet area once I'd finished scrubbing the bowl.

CLEANING THE GROUT:

Now I confess to not having the nicest of shower recesses when it comes to mould stains in the grout.

And over the years I have tried ALOT of things to get rid of them. I've even tried to re-whiten the grout with a grout whitener...which did not work!
The number one thing I have learnt is that you can't get rid of the stains without re-grouting but you can kill off any live spores/bacteria there before they do any further damage.

I took some before and after shots of an area on our bath step that needed to be cleaned:

Here is the BEFORE shot...

I applied a thick paste made from bicab and vinegar to the area and left it to dry for about an hour or two...

then I wiped it off with warm water and toothbrush and cloth.
Here is the AFTER shot:

As you can see hopefully from this shot, it came up nice and clean!
However, this has not worked in my shower!I have read about replacing the vinegar with bleach but still haven't tried it as yet.
Keep in mind that the bicarb/vinegar paste will work on less mould-infected areas so if you see that pink coloured mould appearing, use it on there and see if it helps kill off the bacteria and maybe you can avoid the nasty black stuff that I now have! lol!

Below, I also mention a little about cleaning the soap scum ring in the bath and also what I find works best for cutting through nasty soap scum build-up on the shower doors.

Moving on though now, what about the kitchen area?

IN THE KITCHEN

Well my number one spray for counter tops here is the vinegar all purpose spray that I mentioned right at the top of this post.

Here are some other tips and things I use to clean my kitchen.

CLEANING GREASY AREAS

Some of you may remember when I posted recently about cleaning OUR VERTICAL BLINDS NATURALLY using cornflour and water and how stoked I was with the result!

I then tried out the spray (a spray bottle filled 3/4 of the way with warm water and 2 flat teaspoons added to the water - shake the bottle and there's your mix!!!) on a different kinds of greasy surfaces and was AMAZED at the result!

Here is my stove splash back after cooking a stir fry in an open wok recently...

and here is that same area after a few sprays of this cornflour and water mix!

What about the stove top after it's had a thorough cooking-workout?
This is how mine looks sometimes after one meals worth of cooking!
BEFORE:

and again, here is that same area AFTER using the cornflour spray!

No chemicals floating around the house.
No hard labour.
And it's SO cheap!

It keeps so well in the cupboard.
Once the warm water cools down, you don't need to add more warm water - just use as is.
The important part is just making sure you use the warm water at the start when you make your mix otherwise it will turn too thick and pastey.

OTHER PLACES TO USE THE CORNFLOUR SPRAY:

Walls

The top of the rangehood came up BEAUTIFULLY after using this to cut through the dusty grease that seems to accumulate up there!

The cornflour spray also cleans the top of the fridge too and of course the vertical blinds!

I've also taken to the soap scum ring in the bath with it and it shifted it extremely well.
I did try to use it on the soap scum on the shower doors and it did work to a degree but not as good as the CHUX MAGIC ERASERS do! They are incredible on cutting through the soap scum on the glass doors in the shower however they are expensive and I have seen warnings around about NOT letting children or people with sensitive skin handle them. That makes me slightly nervous because there must be something in there that is quite dangerous. I must say though that for now, I keep a stash in my cleaning box and I can't find anything that compares to them. My biggest tip is just don't let the kids use them, wear gloves or if you don't at least wash your hands well afterwards to get rid of that chalky residue.
I'll post another shot below of how the Magic Erasers are wonderful for taking permanent maker off walls!

CLEANING TARNISHED SILVERWEAR:

We don't have too many fancy pieces of silverware but we do have these lovely old forks. I picked them up from the op shop a while ago but they were quite tarnished with black marks on the prongs.
I picked up this cleaning tip over at RHONDA'S BLOG 'DOWN TO EARTH'. Click on that link and it will explain how she got hers clean. It's super easy + cheap too!
Thanks Rhonda for the tip :)

FOR BAD OVEN SMELLS:

Place a bowl of vinegar in the oven (fridge/microwave/whatever you are wanting to deoderise) and leave it there overnight.  The vinegar absorbs the bad smells like fish etc.

FOR CLEANING THE OVEN:

I must say that when my oven is semi-clean, all I do to keep it that way is the following:

1. Wipe down the oven with a cloth while it is still warm (not hot of course but just warm!)

2. Then if there is some baked on stuff say on the inside of the glass door, I put some cooking salt straight onto it and let it sit for a while until the oven cools right down. The salt, with a little elbow power, acts as an abrasive.

3. Rinse the area well and wipe clean.

Ok so that's what I use when the oven is semi-cleaned. But when it's got real baked on stuff in there, the only thing I have found to work brilliantly is SELLEYS OVEN PLUS HEAVY DUTY GEL. I would love to find something less toxic that REALLY works (I've tried heaps of natural things when it is really bad and nothing seems to shift it like this gel stuff. Anyone got any ideas to share for when your oven has REALLY baked on bad? Please share!)

CLEANING WOODEN CHOPPING BOARDS:

We have this great wooden chopping board that came from Ikea a while back. It has a lip over the edge and can be moved to sit over the stove top easily to create more bench space. However, it gets so much use that I needed to work out a way to clean it well.

I must say here that I never cut raw meat of any kind on this board.

Ok so to clean it, I do use a little warm water intitially but i try and wipe it dry straight away. Too much water can warp a board's shape and undo the glue.

I then deoderise it by rubbing a half a lemon over it. You can also use bicarb soda with this but I usually just use the lemon. It leaves it smelling nice and helps to lift stains too.

OTHER GENERAL CLEANING

DUSTING:

The best thing I ever did with dusting was ditch the feather duster which just seemed to spread the dust everywhere in the air and invest in some microfibre cloths.
I bought these from Coles (supermarket here) for about $5 a pair. I hung one of them on a hook on the side of our freezer which is also where we store our vacuum cleaner and broom and dust pan and brush. It's kind of a concealed area but still accessible....especially to the children!
Dusting is one of their daily rotational chores and the microfibre cloth is easy to reach, easy to use and doesn't make them sneeze! These are also machine washable so just chuck them in the machine when they are very dusty and they'll come up like new again!



WALLS

Well as I said earlier, I do use the Chux Magic Erasers to clean my shower doors of soap scum but I also keep them on hand for times when, say, I don't know....you put a permanent marker up high on top of the computer desk, leave the room then return to find your two year old has pushed a chair to the computer desk, climbed up it and reached with all her might until she has said marker in her hand, takes off the cap and doodles on the wall and computer desk to her heart's delight!

Like what happened here:
BEFORE

(notice that she got crafty on the desk top too?! )

I was so MAD - mostly at myself for leaving the marker around.

So here is the AFTER shot once I had gone through 2.5 boxes of chux magic erasers!

At least it got it clean!!!

REMOVING STICKY LABELS:

I rub some tea tree oil into a cloth or onto a tissue to take off sticky labels from jars and other places. It really removes that residue very well and then I just rinse it off under warm water.

CLEANING THE WHITEBOARDS:

We have a couple of whiteboards in our home and so far the best thing I've found that cleans them is alcohol free baby wipes. Wiping them regularly would probably help too but um...i kind of forget that bit! lol!

Ok, so I don't know about you, but I tend to read these kind of posts and then either:

a) get overwhelmed by what is shared or

b) forget it as soon as I've read it!

Please don't be overwhelmed! As I said at the start of this post, I don't use all these cleaning ideas every day - but I do use them when I need to.

I thought I'd try and help out by putting these things into a little pdf which you can print off.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE PRINTABLE.

If you do print this off, can you leave me a comment just so I know that you might have done that? I'm keen to see how many people print off the printables that I have shared.

Thanks!

Well, more to come another time.

Have a lovely day!

Love,

Linking up with HOMESTEAD REVIVAL BARN HOP :)