Review - Clearly Natural Unscented Liquid Hand Soap

NEW!

This is the first of a new addition to this blog.

Product  reviews.

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Clearly Natural Unscented Liquid Hand soap
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FU1ZAJK/
$14.99 for a pack of 3, plus s&h

This product gets - 3 stars

I have very sensitive skin, and have been fragrance free for many years now. For a long time, I used the Ivory liquid hand soap; for while it had a fragrance according to the ingredients, it was one I could tolerate. But one day they quit making the Ivory hand soap, so then begin my search for a replacement before I ran out of the other.

This was the first of my attempts to find something. And it is unscented. I ordered it from Amazon, as I couldn't find anything in the stores around where I live that fit my needs. Some reviews had commented about the condition of the product when they received it, but mine were just fine, in excellent condition.

My complaint against this product is that it is glycerine liquid soap, and it doesn't lather worth patootie. I'm still using it up, mixed it with what was left of my Ivory soap.

In conclusion - not a product I would recommend.

Recipe - Granny's butter pie

I was just scrolling through my posts for this blog and realized that I'd never shared with you my Grandmother's recipe for butter pie. We all called her Granny, and here she is:

She was a wonderful woman who I have extremely fond memories of. She knew I loved this pie, and we spent every Sunday evening after church at her house. We'd go to church at New Harmony Baptist Church with my grandmother and a lot of my family. Then we'd go to her house for lunch. We'd take clothes to change into, and spend the afternoon there. Her house was awesome:

It was a wonderful place to spend a Sunday afternoon. And she almost always made a butter pie because she knew I loved them so. 

For a good long while, there wasn't a written recipe for the butter pie; then my aunt's homemaker group put out a cookbook, and wanted her pie recipe in it. So, one of my cousins went down there one day and measured as she made one of her butter pies; and so we had a recipe. Now, I share it with you. Note that if you don't cook the filling part just right, sometimes it won't want to set up. Even my grandmother had that happen to her. But don't let it phase you, it still tastes good. Also, you will need a double boiler for this recipe.

Now, on to the recipe.

Granny's Butter Pie

1 to 1-1/2 cups water

1/2 to 1 stick margarine

1 cup sugar

1 t. vanilla

3 heaping T. flour

1 baked pie shell

In a double boiler, add the water and margarine; and cook, stirring frequently, until margarine is melted. Then add sugar, and stir until sugar is dissolved.  Then add the vanilla, and stir. Next add the flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring well. Continue to cook, while stirring frequently, until mixture is thickened. Pour into baked pie shell and cool.  Serve and enjoy.

Peanut butter, caramel instant oatmeal

In this day and age of the food networks hyping that you need to do fresh this and fresh that, some people have come to put down convenience foods. I am not one of those people. Ordinary people like me depend on convenience foods to put a good meal on the table, and there's nothing wrong with them. Those tv chefs are food snobs on camera, who probably chow down on all this 'bad' stuff they put down, when not on camera.

Having said that, this recipe uses a packet of microwavable oatmeal. I like the maple and brown sugar flavor. You don't have to get a name brand, as the store brand will do quite well. I myself get the Walmart store brand.

Now as to the caramel and peanut butter components of this recipe, I do go for name brands.

Hershey's caramel syrup,
and
Skippy creamy peanut butter.

Those are very important to the flavor of this. Using them, you can transform ordinary microwave oatmeal into something very yummy. So on to the recipe.

Caramel, peanut butter oatmeal

1 package of microwavable oatmeal, maple brown sugar flavor
Hershey's caramel syrup
Skippy creamy peanut butter
water

Take a microwave safe bowl and empty the contents of the oatmeal package in it. Add the water as listed on the packet. The ones I get say 2/3 cup of water. Stir, then put a 2-3 tablespoon size dollop of peanut butter into the middle of the bowl. Microwave as called for on the package; mine calls for 1 minute and 30 seconds. When you take it out of the microwave, give it a good stir, blending the melted peanut butter throughout the oatmeal. Then, drizzle over some of the caramel syrup, however much you like. Eat and enjoy.

If you wanted, you could also use chocolate syrup in this too. I use caramel because I can't have chocolate due to the caffeine in it.

Do you have a food question or a specific recipe request?
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Check out Sunny's sweet and sour ribs

I love sweet and sour dishes, and this one sounds really yummy and simple too. I like adding the sliced ginger to the boiling water. I'll bet that adds tons of flavor. I also like the little pouch that she put her spices in. Would love to have some of those.

Just did a bit of research on the spice bags. The thing to shop for is refillable tea bags or spice bags or loose leaf tea bags. Anything for handling loose leaf tea would also work for your cooking spices as well. I've even seen some metal devices for loose tea that would work for cooking spices too. They're called tea balls.

In fact, here's a video that shows how you can make a very simple spice bag for your cooking spices.



Hope you enjoyed this post,
happy cooking. -- jd --

No recipe cooking -- green beans

Hey there everyone! How are you doing?
I was just sitting here at my computer, and decided to put up a blog post here. It's the beginning of a series of posts that I've been thinking about for a while.

No recipe cooking

My mom cooked this way, and my grandmothers cooked this way; but I'm wondering - How many people still cook this way? Or know how?

So this is the first of a (hopefully) series of posts sharing my knowledge of no recipe cooking.

This is how my mom put meals on the table 7 days a week. And they were very tasty meals too. Stuff like vegetable soup, spaghetti, ribs, pork chops, chili, etc. About the only times we used recipes was on holidays when we wanted to make something special, and then it would only be about 1-3 recipes. Speaking of recipes, here's your first lesson in no recipe cooking:

green beans

Now for green beans, I like canned green beans the best. Frozen green beans just don't taste that good to me. So,

Take 2 cans of green beans and open them, then drain off all the liquid. You do not want to cook the green beans in the liquid they were canned in. For cooking liquid, add some water. I prefer bottled spring water, but tap water will be okay too.

Put your drained green beans in a pan, add enough water to barely cover the beans. Now for the seasonings:

salt
pepper
chopped ham

Stir this to mix in the seasonings, then add 2-3 pats of butter to the pan. Put it on low heat, and cook for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Other seasonings ideas are:
your favorite spice,
your vinegar,
bacon bits,
ketchup,
mustard,
steak sauce,
sweet and sour sauce,
lemon juice.

And no, I didn't give any measurements for the seasonings. That's part of no recipe cooking. You don't measure much, but know just from looking or tasting, what is just right.

In closing, I leave you with this thought:
Err on the side of too little seasoning rather than too much. You can add more, but you can't take too much out.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Till my next one.
If you have a request for my next no recipe post, just comment below.