Making Noodles and Dumplings

I love noodles and I love dumplings and I love my neighbor Trudy. Trudy is what you would call a jack or jill of all trades.  Anyone who lives out in the country needs a Trudy in their life.  I am sorry but you cannot have mine.  God gave her to me.  And I praise Him daily for that.

Trudy taught me how to make noodles from scratch.  Somewhere deep in my mind I think I knew how, but she showed me and taught me and I did it and it was wonderful and easy.

This is what you need:

1 egg (i use duck eggs cause I can)
1 TBS of water
1 cup or so of flour
a pinch of salt


Process: mix your egg and water in a small bowl.  Take the cup of flour and dump it on a clean counter.  Make a well in the flour, add the salt in the well.  Then add the egg water mixture to the well.  Stir and work the ingredients together until it is a good dough consistency, add flour if needed.  Dough should be sticky but workable.  Then take a golf ball size of dough and roll it out with a rolling pin to about 1/8 inch thickness for noodles and a 1/4 inch thickness for dumplings.  Use a noodle cutter or a knife. Keep doing until dough is gone.  Separate noodles on paper towel.  Let dry for about an hour. Then add to boiling broth or water.  Or you can dry noodles overnight and put in baggies the next day and freeze.  This recipe is for about 1 batch or a cup of noodles.  I make mine in batches of 12 it is just easier.  When having company I make a 1/2 batch for each person who is going to eat. 

Blessings,  Tracylea

Hair Care

I want to start by saying that my hair is really more of this color normally.  My mother is a redhead and I like to think I have some of her red in my hair. The pictures below are in the sunshine.

And as these pictures show, I have very naturally curly hair, did I say VERY!

Hi!

Ok enough of the pictures, lol. 

About Christmas time I decided, through much blog reading, to start looking for alternatives for washing my hair.  I am a very lazy person when it comes to hair.  The Lord God knew this and gave me hair that is pretty easy to do.  I wash it, let it dry some and then blow dry it.  I usually pull it off my face with a headband or in a ponytail.  I was starting to notice that it was getting dry and a bit frizzy on the ends. Naturally curly hair is very hard to care for.  It gets too dry or too oily very fast and can very easily become a rats-nest?    About this time I bought my usual round of soap from my friend Leah Terry at River's Edge Country Store on Etsy.  I decided, after asking her if she thought it would work, to try to wash my hair with her Lavendar  Lace bar soap.  I loved it.  It did lather, it smelled good and my hair got clean.  Actually cleaner than normal, squeeky clean. But I worried that it might take some of the curl out.  As the pictures my dh took today prove,  not so.  If anything it has made my hair curlier.  I do still use a conditioner about every third time  (one made with goats milk) but I am so pleased with using this soap instead of store bought shampoo. 

This is a good example of thinking outside of the box, just not too outside of the box.  I had read about shampoo's not being good for you. Shampoo's drying out your hair and they can be very expensive.  So I decided to make a switch.  And this is where I landed. 

I want to encourage you.  Is there something you want to change in your life.  Just a little something.  Think outside the box. 

Ask yourself:  Can I do this different?  Can I be more healthy?  More thrifty?*

Wanna try something new?  Different?  Out of the box?  Go for it.   I hope to challenge you to try something new.  Like making butter, or washing your hair with natural bar soap.**  Let me know how it goes.

Blessings sweet friends,  Tracylea

*River's Edge Soap is about $5 dollars including shipping. I am still using the same bar I bought 3 months ago. I actually expect it to last at least 6 more months, with every day washing.

**I do want to say that I used this soap as shampoo all on my own. It is advertised as natural handmade soap. Not shampoo. If you try and don't get the same results, I will be sorry, but Leah is not making these claims I am. I have used River's Edge soaps for about a year and have had fantastic results from them.  You may make your own soap or purchase them from anyone, but I can only vouch for my hair and River's Edge Natural Soap.

Making Butter

Hello friends.

Yesterday we made butter, it was so easy, and so worth it.  Everyone should try!

Needed:

1 quart ball jar with lid and ring
1 pint organic heavy cream
1 TBS sea salt

To do:

Pour pint of cream into jar.  Seal jar tight with lid and ring.  Start shaking, shake some more, and more............... 20 minutes later........you should notice the cream getting solid.  Shake some more but much harder and faster..........5 minutes later...........you should see a large chub of yellow butter surrounded by butter milk. (we watched a movie and all took turns shaking) You are now done.   Pour the buttermilk into a clean jar and save for later in fridge, don't forget to label it with name and date. Take butter from jar and pat into ball under cold running water.  Place in sealed container in fridge, be sure to label with name and date.  Good of 7 days if it last that long.

Blessings Tracylea