4 Sweet Sisters

For some reason I've been thinking there is sunflower seeds in 7 grain mix. Anyhow I finally looked it up and here is what is really in 7 grain mix. Hard wheat, soft wheat, oats, triticale, barley, rye and spelt. I like using this mix for granola/cereal bars. Here's my recipe. 1 1/2 sticks butter (melted or softened) 2 teaspoons vanilla 1 teaspoon sea salt 1 cup honey 1/2 raw sugar, sucanat etc. 2 eggs 1 cup of re hydrated coconut (very wet) 6 cups 7 grain rolled cereal mix or rolled oats 1 cup raisins 1 cup sunflower seeds 1 (scant) cup chocolate chips 1 cup (approximately) oat flour (grind up oats quickly in blender) You can add or exchange all these ingredients. When I'm going Gluten Free I just use oats and seeds. The mixture should be wet. Pat into a large cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Cut bars, let cool in pan. Wrap individually or box up. I love them out of the freezer! Enjoy, Julie

I know I'm getting behind in updates again, but the Great Room Swap of 2011 has wiped me out. I've almost condensed 3 room into 2! I'll show pics once I finish getting this next school year wrapped and ready to go. That being said I wanted to share with you what happened this Sunday. As you know from my last post we have been testing and taste testing kefir soda and water. Friday night Superman and I put together a batch of each. Tinkering with the flavor of the soda. He was excited to have a taste on Sunday after church. As you can see from the first photo things did not go as planned! Sunday after church we opened the front door to the the stinky smell of sweet, cherry cheese. My first thought was, "wow that kefir is really fermenting strong this time". Until I reached our kitchen and found this..... Praise the Lord no one was in the kitchen when it happened. The bottle as you can see was shattered with shards strewn into the dining area. What a stinky me...

Take a look at the results of our first try at making Kefir Cream Soda. So simple and only to 2 days to go from kefir water to soda. Have you ever made Kefir Soda and do have a favorite recipe? Julie

I've used coupons here and there ever since we've had children. As I mentioned before we do most of our shopping through co-ops and warehouse stores, but there are some things I just can't get there or I have to buy to much of said item. That's were coupons come into play. With coupons, sale prices and BOGOs sometimes its a better deal at my neighborhood grocery store. Last week I had the privilege of attending a free True Couponing seminar. It was wonderful timing with our buying club taking a break for the whole summer! Basically I learned that I need to be getting more papers so that I have more coupons to work with. I don't have the time or inclination to go dumpster hunting for extra coupons, so having extra papers delivered to my door step at 50 cents a piece is a much better option for me. I also learned a super easy way to store these piles of paper. I had all the needed supplies to make my storage unit an immediate success ! That's one of the things ...

Does anyone remember my lovely craft room that Superman created for my birthday a couple of years ago? Click here , if you need a reminder. Well today my lovely room that has been continually abused and misused is changing. It's becoming the School Room. Superman still isn't sure about all of this...the house is torn apart and quite frankly I'm a bit nervous myself. I'll post the finish projects (there are 3 intertwind) next week or so. My goal is to have the two and 1/2 basics done by Saturday! See you Soon. Julie

I've deciced to link up with the Shabby Nest for this post. Read here and fly over and enjoy all the frugality there ! I started thinking about this post months ago and have just not gotten around to it. Back in winter sometime our 2nd microwave went on the fritz (we've had 2 in 7 years-different models). Maybe it was due to poor quality or maybe it was because of all the rice bag wraps we were heating up before bed. I tend to think it was the first though. Our first thought when this happened was google it up and check the best deal on a microwaves. We did and found one for about $160 new from one of the box store. We would have to take the money out of our emergency fund and we were okay with that. I mean not having a microwave is an emergency in the biggest way! Right? Uh, no. I'll admit for about 5 minutes or so it was (ya know when we were googling). But then I decided to try and live without a micro. for a week and see how we did. The week turned into two and I star...

I was reading over at Heavenly Homemakers yesterday about using coconut flour in place of whole wheat. Hmmm . I am wheat grinder from way back and the thought of trying new lower carb flour substitutes wasn't very appealing to me until about a year ago. (I mean why fix what isn't broken right?) Then some close friends of ours had some of there children diagnosed with wheat gluten intolerance and now I've been thinking of ways to make healthy treats for them. I'm a baker at heart. Anyway, Laura at HH was discussing how much she loves Coconut Flour. (She's a wheat grinder also) So I was wandering if I could take my unsweetened coconut shreds and grind them into flour? I googled it and found some amazingly looonnng process. Not for me! So I went for it ( because I really didn't want to go and clean the school room out). Here's what I did: -I place about 1 cup of shreds into my blender and blended and blended. *I had thought about my wheat grinder because...