Oster XL French Door Convection Toaster Oven Review

See also “Restoring Rusty Cast Iron Cookware”






Gorgeous Hydrangeas from Nature Hills Nursery

 

Cleaning Cast Iron In A Lye Tank


See also “Restoring Rusty Cast Iron Cookware”










Tips To Make Your Garden Grow…Quick!







The Best Part Of A Lemon Is The Rind!

Watch A Quick & Easy Recipe Natural Cough Drops






Restoring Rusty Cast Iron Cookware

You see a flower pot, I see a bean pot.


Cast iron cookware is often misunderstood in it’s purpose and misused in application. It is intimidating in weight, care and maintenance vs the much lighter off the shelf and into the dishwasher stainless and stickfree options. The truth is, cast iron is very versatile will outlive most owners with just nominal care, but it needs to maintain it’s seasoning, that layer of oil that keeps the surface smooth and protected. Without it, food burns, sticks and builds up and the inevitable begins-rust.

I won’t blind you with science, there are a lot of methods to restore rusted, flea market, discarded, scrap pile cast iron. Soaking in vinegar, treating with molasses, exposure to extreme heat and lye. The method I’ll cover here, using electrolysis is a simple method that isn’t labor intensive yet very effective.  Continue reading

Vegetable Gardens From The 1800s

Vegetable Gardening for Beginners


Product Review: Mussel Bound Adhesive Tile Mat

Muscle Bound 1

Tile: if only the installation were as simple as the customization process. It’s so easy to walk into any home improvement store and distract yourself with the endless possibilities among tile choices. Hundreds and hundreds of colors, sizes and combinations to choose from, as well as a large selection of grout color options. While style choices have continuously changed over the years, one thing has remained same: the installation process. Continue reading

Beautiful DIY Plank Wall On The Cheap

Adding Texture to a Room: DIY Plank Wall

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Spring is right around the corner and I have quite the honey-do list ready for our backyard, which means we need to wrap up indoor projects quickly! I want to be able to work on outdoor things soon when the weather is consistently warm; but for now, I’m excited that we have been blessed with two wonderfully warm weekends here in the Midwest. I have spent them working on updating a shared wall within our main living space using plank panels and wanted to share just how easy this project really was as well as its cost effectiveness. Continue reading

Quick & Simple Homemade Vanilla Extract





Quick & Simple Homemade Vanilla Extract
Nothing brings our family closer than spending the morning or afternoon stirring up an old favorite recipe in the kitchen. We really value our time spent together, therefore, our oven/stovetop is quite busy! From pancakes and waffles to cakes and cookies, we do it all and nearly on a daily basis at times. As a mother with an old-fashioned outlook on life, I find it crucial that my toddler understands the fundamentals when it comes to the importance of each ingredient as well as the science behind cooking.
Continue reading

DIY Kitchen Knife Rust Remover

DIY Kitchen Knife Rust Remover 
rusty knife

At some point or another, it happens. The kitchen knives end up in the dishwasher, despite conflicting “yes, you can” or “no you can’t” arguments about whether or not they are dishwasher safe. We haven’t had the greatest luck with avoiding food/contamination poisoning this year and I am determined to keep it from striking down another family member. Any knife that is used to cut raw meat goes straight into the dishwasher like a quarantined specimen and we don’t even think twice about it. Of course, it doesn’t help matters that our water isn’t fantastic either. We get quite a bit of build-up on our appliances from hard water residue, even with a water softener in place (Although, our water source isn’t from a well so really I shouldn’t say much!). All of these factors ultimately lead to build-up and rust our kitchen knife set. We cook A LOT, and we cannot prep our food knowing that we aren’t living up to our own code of standards. As you can see in the picture, we get little spots every now and again that can be “spot treated” in no time. Continue reading