Pintrest Pastimes: Preferred and not

OK so this week I completed not one, but TWO, items that I found on pintrest. One was for a preferred activity (COOKING/BAKING), one was for a necessary evil (LAUNDRY).

So the first thing I did was DIY laundry detergent.  With a hard working husband, a hard playing third grader, an infant son, and me, the woman who chases after all of them, we do quite a bit of laundry. So i added up my cost of detergent and when I found it was approximately $180 a year. So when a friend pinned an online recipe for laundry detergent, I decided to read it and then after a little calculating, decided to try it. The cost was under $30 for all ingredients. It was successful, relatively simple to make, and surprisingly worked really well. And the best part, it smells AMAZING!  It cleans well and you don't use alot at all. You can find the recipe HERE: http://www.howdoesshe.com/cheaper-and-better-diy-laundry-detergent/
NOTE: I did sustain an injury grating the soap which took twenty minutes to stop bleeding.)

The second pintrest item I did was Easy Homemade French Bread. My family loves bread: cornbread, french bread, sour dough bread, white bread, wheat bread, etc, you get the point. So when I saw this recipe that promised about 4 loaves of bread for $0.25 each and I happened to have all the ingredients on hand, I thought why not give it a try?! So, I planned a simple soup I had made before, and proceeded with the bread.

(Side Note: The soup I made was Italian Pasta Bean Soup - so yummy!-  I cut the Recipe from Woman's Day magazine years ago but you can read it HERE:  http://www.womansday.com/recipefinder/italian-pasta-bean-soup-recipe-122748 .** I substitute Great Northern Beans for the cannellini beans, but any hearty white bean will do. This is a meatless soup that's a throwback from my vegetarian days**.)

The bread was easy to make, I followed the instructions exactly as it is on the blog. See the recipe HERE: http://www.dealstomeals.blogspot.com/2009/03/blog-post_09.html . However, when I went to make the loaves, mine weren't as pretty as hers were in the pictures on the blog. I went ahead and baked them and they smelled and tasted great, they just weren't pretty. All my boys and myself loved the taste (Well, except Lil' Tonka - you know, that whole no teeth thing gets in the way.), but they just weren't pretty to look at. So the next day, I looked for a better explanation on forming loaves which I found HERE: http://breadbaking.about.com/od/beginnerbasics/ss/makeloaf.htm . I will try this loaf forming method next time.

So, both pins were a success and if, like my family, your family does a lot of laundry, and eats alot of bread, then I recommend both items :) Happy laundry, baking, and pinning!

Peace and Blessings,
- Amanda