tiger's candy

My mom used to make these things called Tiger's Candy when I was little. I remember them being amazingly delicious, and even better because I was allowed to have them almost anytime I wanted one.

I'm mentally getting ready for camping season (one more month maybe??), and I have begun experimenting with different ways to get more protein into Sophie without a fight. Protein = energy = kids who will hike without fussing (as much). This is my theory anyway. So I found the recipe for Tiger's Candy online and made a test batch while Sophie was at preschool today.

I rolled them in cocoa powder since Sophie loves chocolate, but next time I will try rolling them in shredded coconut.

In my opinion, these aren't as amazingly delicious as I remember, but then again everything's better as a child. I'll have to ask my mom what substitutions she used.

Here's the recipe - adapted from Diet for a Small Planet:

Tiger's Candy

1/4 cup peanut butter

2/3 cup ground sunflower seeds

1 tablespoon wheat germ

1 tablespoon ground flax seed

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 cup finely chopped raisins

cocoa powder

Blend peanut butter and ground sunflower seeds together, then add wheat germ, flax seed, honey, and raisins. Blend well. Form into balls and roll in cocoa powder.

The original recipe calls for powdered milk, but I looked all over the grocery store and couldn't find powdered soy milk to substitute, so I just threw in some wheat germ and flax for fun instead. I'll have to look at the health food store, because that seems like a good way to add protein to just about anything.

beetle

A few weeks ago, Sophie found a beetle on the kitchen floor. At first she was a little scared of it, but once she realized it wasn't a spider she decided that it was her friend. She convinced Papa to put it in a jar for her so she could keep it as a pet, and she fed it lettuce and watched it for a couple days. Eventually she decided Beetle wanted to go back outside to play with its friends, so she let it go on the wood pile.

A couple days ago, Sophie was playing in the kitchen while I got ready to leave in the morning. All of a sudden she got super excited - "My beetle! My friend beetle come back!" - and ran to get a jar. She plopped the jar down on top of the beetle so it couldn't get away, and started singing a song to Beetle (she's constantly singing a narrative of her play). Part of it went like this, "My beetle, my beetle my friend beetle name is Beetle, he come back to play with me again, and I saw him on the floor and I almost step on him, but I didn't! And Beetle be my pet beetle, and I keep him in a jar..."



Unfortunately Beetle's jar got knocked over and Beetle got away, but she's still on the lookout in case he comes back to play again.

peanut butter banana oatmeal cookies

Sophie and I are home together today. I have the day off of school, and she's on spring break from preschool.



She's a very good helper. I struggle with being patient and letting her actually help me - especially if the oven's already done preheating and we're not ready yet. I'm getting better at it, and she's getting better at helping, too. She cracked the egg today and didn't get any shell in with it!


My rule is that you can't eat any cookie dough until the first batch is in the oven - this is her "hurray I get to eat dough now!" face.



After the first batch came out, Sophie decided that the rest really needed to have chocolate chips in them.

Delicious! We used this recipe, and substituted half whole wheat pastry flour.

owls

The owls have emerged on my o w l s sweater!



I'm almost done, just have the rest of the yoke and the neck to do now. I think these owls look pretty cool! I want to make a kids version for Sophie, but I think it will have to be in cotton because of her fussiness about itchy wool (she thinks everything is itchy). Even though cotton is death cloth in a wet climate, I do want her to wear the things I knit for her...

You are supposed to sew beads on for the eyes on all the owls, but I think I'm just going to do two pairs - one in front and one in back. What do you think?

off the needles/on the needles

A pair of socks are off the needles and completely done! Another one in the Christmas pile.



I love knitting socks. I've only knitted plain ribbed socks, though. I want to try a pretty pattern like these or maybe these.... someday. I do appreciate a good solid plain sock though. Mostly I keep knitting the same socks over and over because I have the pattern memorized, so they make good tv-watching or Sophie-watching knitting. The endless stockinette is broken up enough by the heel and the toe to make them interesting, and they're pretty fast to knit as well. Always a plus. I always have a harder time with completing the second sock, but for this pair I split them up and knitted the cowl in between. I think the two socks fit better with having done something different in between - usually I knit the second sock just a little bit tighter than the first, and that didn't seem to happen this time.

Hand knit socks are so much more comfortable than regular socks! It feels like getting a massage every time you take a step. Try it, you'll love it! :)

On my needles now is the second sleeve to my o w l s sweater, which I can't believe I have never posted about before.


That's the body which I did last summer, and at some point I knitted one sleeve. Now I'm about half way up the second sleeve and then I have the yoke to do. This goes super quickly, with chunky yarn and size 10 needles! I'm excited to finish this and wear it. I think this will be my camping sweater - it's 100% wool, and it will be pretty warm. The yarn isn't the best quality though and I know it will pill pretty quickly. That's ok with me - I love camping clothes! I plan on wearing them a lot this spring, summer, and fall. Can't wait for the snow to melt!

second saturday at homesteader's cache

Tomorrow there will be a soap making demo from 1-3pm at Homesteader's Cache - right around the corner from Mommy N Me. I love this soap! I'm hoping to make it there on Saturday with Sophie at least for a little while, it sounds neat. I've been using her soap and shampoo bars for over a year now and they are wonderful. The shampoo bars are my favorite - they last forever, smell good (I have the rosemary one) and my hair has way more body and wave than with regular shampoo. I went 'no poo' for a while (using baking soda to clean my hair), and while that worked well and I was pleased with the results, I went back to using the shampoo bar because I like how it smells and it's more fun than dumping lukewarm baking soda/water on your head in the morning. Yay for hippies and nice soap!

smoke ring

I wanted to knit something that was fast, easy, and pretty.... and for some reason I was in an old lady-ish mood and wanted something a little bit fuzzy and plain. I have strange tastes sometimes! Anyways, I found the yarn I wanted to use and then looked it up on Ravelry. I love looking through other people's projects with a specific yarn, it always gives me inspiration. What I found this time was the Old Shale Smoke Ring - and here it is!





Sorry for the bad iPhone pictures, I was too lazy to get off the couch, get my camera, find good lighting... You know.

Little miss took a 3-hour nap yesterday so I already finished this! And washed it and uh, stretched it out on a towel. I wouldn't go so far as to call it blocking. Again, lazy. Just need to weave in the ends!

I don't even know who this is for, I just wanted to knit it. I think it will go in my gift stash, I'm already stockpiling for next Christmas! I figured it's really more realistic to start now if I expect to have anything finished in time.

I can't believe that by next Christmas I'll be done with nursing school! Hurray! I better get back to paper writing if I want to finish though... :)

homemade hippy stuff

This is my laundry detergent:



I've been using it for..... well, over a month now and I love it! I'll definitely be making another batch when this one runs out.

I switched from the generic eco-friendly, unscented liquid detergent from Costco and I haven't noticed any difference at all - my clothes are just as clean as ever, and as a bonus they smell nice coming out of the washer because I used lavender soap in my concoction. The smell is gone once the clothes are dry, but if you like scents then I'm sure you could experiment with adding essential oils to the mix.

I found my recipe online somewhere, but I don't remember where. Sorry. But here's what I did:

2 cups washing soda
2 cups borax
1 bar of Dr. Bronner's pure castile soap, grated with a cheese grater

Combine all in a big bowl and mix with a fork, then transfer to a container for storage.

I'm using one heaping tablespoon per load of clothing, and two heaping tablespoons for rags and extra dirty stuff.