Category Archives: Eco Friendly Home

Frozen Homemade Baby Food vs. the Dead Microwave

I’ve posted a few times about making homemade baby food. It’s a process I’ve been enjoying.

Serving it, on the other hand, has been a bit more challenging of late. You see, my microwave died.

Well, not so much died as started sparking. Not a good thing, especially since it’s quite new.

Good thing it’s still within the return period.

But that does mean I have to plan a bit more ahead for when Selene wants her meals. It takes rather longer to reheat her food without a microwave.

How I handle it depends on what I’m doing. Fastest is popping it in a small pot and stirring the baby food until it’s about a safe temperature.

But sometimes I’ll put it in an oven safe bowl and put it in the oven to warm up. This is effective if I’m already using the oven for something else. Takes about 10-15 minutes or so, and if there’s a touch of ice still in the food when I take it out, that’s a good thing. Helps to cool off the parts that are already melted and too hot.

Reheating her food this way means that it often has to spend a few minutes cooling back down to a baby safe temperature. That’s no fun if she’s hollering for her meal now! You know how patient babies aren’t, especially when they’re hungry.

I’ll be glad when I get that microwave brought back to the store and get a replacement. It’s just so much faster and I know better how long to heat the baby food to keep it at a safe temperature so I don’t have to cool it back off.

Still, it’s nice to know how easy it is to cope without.

11 Tips for Saving Energy in the Kitchen

When you’re an at home parent, you probably make a lot of meals in the kitchen. At least, I hope you’re not eating out too much.

It’s easy to be a little inefficient with your energy use in the kitchen, however. Here are some tips to help you be just a little more efficient.

1. Check that refrigerator seal.

Is it clean? If not, wipe it down.

You can test how effective your refrigerator door seal is with a piece of paper. Close the door on the paper and try to slide it out. If it moves easily, your seal isn’t tight.

2. Full loads in the dishwasher.

Handwashing is necessary for many things in the kitchen, but wash what you can in the dishwasher. Most use less water than handwashing does. That’s less water and less energy from the hot water heater.

If you have kids, full loads are probably pretty easy to come by. The fewer people in the house, the harder this one can be.

3. Put a lid on it.

Your pots and pans come with lids for a reason. Putting a lid on as you cook makes foods cook faster and reduces the amount of energy lost. While this won’t work for all recipes, especially if you have to stir a lot, try to remember to use lids when you can.

4. Size matters.

Using the right size pot or pan can be a help in heating food faster. But that’s not the only time to think about size, at least if you have a toaster oven.

A toaster oven can be more efficient than heating up your full size oven for smaller meals. It’s not so great that I would necessarily say run out and get one, but if you have one anyhow, use it. And if you’re really going to use it enough, it may not be a bad purchase at all.

5. Consider the microwave.

I know some people aren’t fans of microwaved foods, but when you have one and it’s appropriate, you aren’t going to beat the microwave for energy efficiency in heating up food or liquids.

6. Pile on the pressure.

Pressure cookers aren’t exactly the same as they were in our grandparents’ time. Modern ones are pretty safe so long as you follow the directions. And they’re pretty fast at cooking up food.

7. Take it slow.

Microwaves are great for heating things up fast, but slow can pay off too. As in a slow cooker or crockpot.

I’ve long been a fan of my crockpot, especially when dealing with a baby. I can start dinner at almost any time of the day. First thing in the morning if I know things are going to get crazy or I just want to get dinner going. Middle of the day if morning didn’t work out or I think of it later. Just a matter of picking the right temperature.

It’s also great for getting meats soft enough to grind up for baby food.

8. Cut the cord.

Or at least stop using so many little electric gadgets for things that can be done by hand. It doesn’t take that much effort for most people to open a can with a regular can opener. Do you really need that food processor to do the slicing for you? What about a mandoline?

9. Keep it clean.

Clean ovens and stove tops can be much more efficient. They’re designed to reflect energy while you cook, and dirt changes where it goes and can cut the efficiency.

10. Shut it down.

Just because you turned off the heat doesn’t mean your food stops cooking. Whether it’s on the stove or in the oven, it takes time for things to cool down enough to stop the cooking process completely… especially if you use lids on the stove and keep that oven shut until you’re ready to take the food out.

11. Don’t cook everything.

Lots of fruits and vegetables are great raw. Why not take advantage and just not cook them?

Do you have any tips to share?

After This Revelation from Sigg, I’m Glad I Went with Klean Kanteen

Back when I bought my daughter’s Klean Kanteen (and we have one now for my husband to bring to work too), I took a long time deciding which brand to buy. Sigg’s a huge name, but in the end I chose Klean Kanteen because I would sooner trust stainless steel than coated aluminum.

Now that Sigg has admitted that their bottle liners do contain but not release BPA, I’m glad I did.

I thought they were wording things in a rather interesting way when I was doing my research. It was always about BPA not being released, very carefully avoiding answering the question of if it was present at all.

BPA doesn’t worry me that much a lot of ways, but there are enough questions about it that I would just as soon avoid it out of principle. Besides, you damage the coating you get exposed to aluminum, which has its own problems.

Now Sigg has admitted that they’ve had to change their liner formula to get rid of BPA. There are some really great articles on how all this went over on Z Recommends, Tree Hugging Family and Non Toxic Kids.

This kind of thing is a huge mistake for any company to make. Just because your evasive answer may have been technically accurate doesn’t mean people won’t feel betrayed when more information comes out. No one likes to feel as though they’ve been tricked.

Sigg’s going to have to do some repair work on their reputation after this mess.

The Good and The Bad of Our New Home

It’s a bit of a switch moving from Poway to Yucaipa. It may all be southern California, but there are a lot of little changes.

Like apparently no watering restrictions. That was one of the first things I asked about, and was told there are none. Considering that all the neighbors are watering at just about any time of day, no matter how hot, I can believe there aren’t any.

Add in that the owner had put the sprinklers to 15 minutes of watering twice a day every day, and I’m just about tearing my hair out.

I think she did it because the lawn was going brown in spots. Well, that happens with poorly adjusted or broken sprinklers, and adding time doesn’t help that problem at all. We’ve dropped the time way down already, and this weekend my husband should be able to figure out where the problem sprinkler heads are and get them fixed.

On the plus side, Yucaipa is surrounded by great hiking. We’re near lots of mountains. Even walking around the neighborhood with all its hills makes for a pleasant workout.

There are also some really nice parks for the kids.

The weather is just a little hotter than in Poway, and there’s some definite humidity, especially in the evenings when the thunderheads over the mountains collapse.

I have tons of unpacking to do, and my husband is getting quite the “honey do” list. I need my clothesline up… discreetly so it doesn’t bother any neighbors. I’m not sure of HOA rules on that one, but I think we can be discreet enough about it. Not like any part of our yard is easy for anyone else to see into. Cloth diapers just do so much better drying in the sun rather than the dryer, in my opinion.

So do some other clothes, but it’s a more pronounced effect for cloth diapers.

The HOA seems to be pretty mild. I still need to get the realtor who’s handling the rental to send me a copy of the rules, which she seems to have forgotten. But lawns are decidedly imperfect in front of many homes, and cars get parked in driveways and on the street pretty regularly around here. I consider those to be good signs. Time will tell.

The house is huge in my terms, although not as gigantic as many newer homes, being 2200 square feet. That’s still close to double what we had before, and since we do want to move back closer to family we will try hard to not buy new furniture. We may need to fit back into a smaller home in a year or two, after all. Not to mention a sheer lack of need.

But the kids sure appreciate the space and the stairs for running around when it’s over 100 degrees F and humid outside.

I hope to get back to regular posting soon. I’m still unpacking and of course dealing with the kids. The older two have been fine, but the baby’s dealing with a cough and is up a lot at night, so I am too. But that should be better soon.

Despite all this, I am so much less stressed now that my family is under one roof again. There’s still way too much to do every day, but it really helps to be together.

How to Get Rid of Ants Naturally

Ants are a big problem around here. Sometimes we can’t even tell what attracted them as they wander randomly around. It can be pretty frustrating when it’s not something that can just be cleaned.

We’ve blocked a fair number of holes, but they keep coming in. It’s great when you can seal the holes, though.

Cleaning is the most basic way to control ants, of course. No food or drink to attract them means they lose interest. I find it can be hard sometimes with kids to keep up, as little bits of food do end up in the most random of places. But the cleaner you keep things, in general, the less of an ant problem you will have.

That said, the day we moved into this house we got an ant trail going to a box full of clean clothes in a bedroom. Never did figure out what attracted them. Sometimes ants are just random, I guess.

If pet food is an issue, think about how much you put in, and keep the dishes clean. You may also want to consider putting the food bowl in the middle of a slightly larger container filled with soapy water.

My favorite method for any place the kids can’t go is the corn syrup and borax mix. The ants love it and it slows them down pretty well. You can buy this as Terro if you prefer.

Some ants prefer greasy foods to sweet.

The ant problem in this area is such that slowing them down is about the best we can hope for. We joke a bit about the entire city being built on an ant hill.

Once a particular trail has been poisoned by the borax, vinegar is great for breaking up the scent trail. I clean regularly with vinegar anyhow, so it’s nice to not have to buy anything special.

Some say diatomaceous earth works too. I’ve also seen recommendations for using dry grits, active dry yeast, baking soda or cream of wheat.

Peppermint oil and cinnamon oil are also supposed to discourage them.

If you know the location of a nest, pour boiling water over it… obviously with all kids and pets well away. You may need more than one pot of boiling water to really do the job.

Depending on where you live, you may just be out of luck on getting rid of ants for more than a short time, but you can limit the trouble they give you.