My Clean Kitchen

Today I am going to talk about a clean kitchen.  I live in a tiny house that was built in 1955.  The kitchen only has about 3 linear feet of counter space!  I was cleaning in there last week and got behind the stove, something that should have been done at least a couple of times per year but has not been done for at least two years.  I know, blech.  Anyway, I wanted to try using natural cleaning products again.  The last few times I wanted to do this I bought some baking soda, diluted it in some water, and found that it did not seem to do much other than remove odors.  Now that is great, but I wanted something that would remove grease, dirt, dust, etc.  This time I looked around on the internet and came up with this recipe for a multipurpose cleaner (it is not the same as any that I found, but if you do a search you will find many that are very close to this one):

2 teaspoons liquid Castile soap (I made this by cutting off 1/3 bar of KIRK'S Original Coco Castile soap and dissolving it in a mason jar with some warm water in it)
2 teaspoons Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
1/2 teaspoon 20 Mule Team Borax
4 cups warm water

Dissolve the Borax in a bit of the warm water and microwave it to get it hot enough if necessary.  Mix all of the ingredients in a 32-ounce spray bottle, putting the Borax water in first.  Discard any extra warm water.  If you want to make it smell good, add a few drops of essential oil.  I used Orange oil and Lemon oil, about 10 drops of each.

This stuff removed all of the grease on the wall behind the stove which had been there for a long time and it did it quickly.  

Here is the other part of this:  use one of those micro-fiber cloths.  I looked online and it was expensive to buy 12 of them, over $12 plus shipping.  But I went to a local store and found 12 of the same sized cloths for $7.95.  Done!  These cloths are amazing!  My mom sent me one last year and I have used it on mirrors and windows, but it works on everything.  The package that I bought comes with three different colors of cloths, so I am going to use the orange ones for the bathrooms, the green for the kitchen, and the yellow for the rest of the house.

Weekly Lunches

This is how I get ready with food for lunches for the week.  You can see a bowl of brown jasmine rice, some Japanese yams, kale, collard greens, frozen blackberries, and a can of black beans.  In the morning I just layer what I want into a reusable container, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, maybe some nutritional yeast, and take it to work with me.

It really can be this easy to eat healthy and stay inexpensive at the same time.

The top picture is a couple of the yams in a counter-top convection oven.  These ovens are perfect for baking potatoes!  You can see in the bottom picture what it looks like when I remove the peel from the yam; I then sliced the yams and layered them on top of the bowl of brown rice.

Farley's Bowl

Boiled potato slices, pickled beets, bok choy, 

water spinach, soy curls, and blackberries.

Soy Curls In A Wrap

I finally got around to trying the soy curls that I bought last week. Wow! They are really good!

I soaked them in hot water seasoned with soy sauce, liquid smoke, garlic, onion powder, and black pepper. Then I squeezed out as much liquid as I could without scalding myself and sauteed them dry in a frying pan. I used them on a HUGE piece of lavash to make a gigantic wrap along with daikon and carrot strips, a small spread of peanut butter, and fresh cilantro.It made a wrap big enough for me and 3 of my closest friends. This picture is before I rolled it up.

Tofu-Potato Pate; Black-Eyed Pea & Barley Soup

The top picture is of a tofu-potato pate that I made over the holidays.  It is savory and so very good on crackers or toast.

The next one is what we had for dinner tonight, Black-Eyed Pea & Barley Soup. 

 We make bean soup here often.  Just throw beans, water, diced onion and garlic, veggie bouillon, carrots, celery, peeled and diced turnip, kale, or whatever you have around into a pot.  I use my pressure cooker.  Then turn on, get to pressure, cook for 30 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!

Bean Dip Holiday Wreath

This is a bean dip wreath that I made for the holidays.  I got the idea from the McDougall Forums online.  It is just bean dip with broccoli florets and grape tomatoes stuck in it.  The original had a bow cut from red bell pepper, but mine did not turn out very nicely....

Baked Squash

These went into my oven a little while ago.  I am baking them, then I will cut them open, scoop out the insides, puree the pulp in my VitaMix, and make either pies or soup.  Yum!  There is a blue pumpkin, a pie pumpkin, and a butternut squash.

I used to cut squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and cook face down in a dish with maybe 1/4" of water.  My friend, moonwatcher, suggested a different way when I was preparing a Red Kuri squash a while back.  Now I just put a few cuts in each squash or pumpkin, turn the oven on to 350F, and bake until tender.  Then it is simple to cut and prepare.  moonwatcher wrote a wonderful post about it at Plant Based Slow Motion Miracle.