I am now on Twitter

I've bitten the bullet, and you can now follow me on twitter at nutmegsgoodies. I will continue to speak in full sentences, no matter what! I think my technical writer husband would lock me out of the house if I started speaking text speak.

Being Crafty: Sewing!

I am not a seamstress. Sewing is a skill I am trying to improve. I can do the basics like sew in a straight line. But actually creating something is fairly hard. I decided on a project for myself. I was going to make a bag. Whether this was a simple grocery bag, or what, I didn't know. I had the fabric and I decided to go for it!
It took me probably about 8-10 hours of manpower to make but I finished it.


The material is just a simple blue canvas. I cut the hearts out of an old t-shirt. One side has 3 hearts and one side has 2.


I cut out each of the sides as a seperate piece which I will not do next time. The sewing is a little uneven, as are the sides, but for a homemade bag/purse, and my first attempt, I think it turned out great!
The inside has a small pocket and a hook for my keys.


I have some other fabric that I am going to make bags out of. Now that I think I've got the basic idea, I should be able to do this fairly easily the next time!
I think I leveled up on my sewing skills!

Web Tools: Good Guide

Every week I point the way to a website that makes life just a little easier.
This week I present: Good Guide.

From their website: Increasingly, you want to know about the impacts of the products you buy. On your health. On the environment. On society. But unless you’ve got a PhD, it is almost impossible to find out the impacts of the products you buy. Until now…
Good Guide provides the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home.

The website lets you type in products to see what affects they might have on your health and on your environment. Take that favorite lipstick. Are there actual toxins in it that are poisoning your little one every time you give them a kiss? But it's not just about the fear factor (POISON?!?! AGH!). Many companies have caught the trend of "green washing" which is making generic, no provable claims that their product is the best for the environment. It's hard to regulate this market and in fact, many products are not required to be tested to back up their claims. In this regard Good Guide just helps a person wade through the BS and get the truth.

I took my facial moisturizing lotion that I use twice a day, Cetaphil and plugged it into Good Guides search engine. Here is what I found. My lotion ranked a 7.7 out of 10 with 10 being the highest. It scored a 9.5 in health which means I'm not applying carcinogens to my face. 7.6 in environment. When I checked, it appears that Cetaphil hasn't allowed outside environmental studies of their product and doesn't have a clear conservation plan. Societal influences is where my lotion got the most points taken away, ranking at a 6.1. It appears they have problems at the corporate level with auditing, ethics, and a code of conduct. Each of these has a link to other websites so if there is something that truly bothers you about a product, you can investigate why it was scored that way and perhaps, how you as a consumer, can make a difference.

Play around with the website for awhile, it's addicting. I've heard that people have parties where they take turns putting in products to see who's lifestyle and purchases are better for the world. Go on judge yourself and see if there are better products you can spend your hard earned money on. Rumor is that Walmart has let their distributors know that they will start providing consumers with this information right next to the price tag and anyone who isn't up front with the information, won't be stocked. This affects all companies! So you can see if that bottle of Tide is really worth saving that dollar price difference.

Also, for mobile use, Good Guide is an iPhone app, so you can download it and take a look while you are shopping. Easy, easy. There is no reason not to use this website.

Sweet Salmon

I ended up creating a salmon recipe last night. Unintentionally, but there it is.

My cooking night started when earlier that day I decided to cook a salmon grilling recipe out of my Betty Crocker cook book. I love this cookbook. I enjoy the tips and use them most of all so I have been trying to find recipes that will work with my healthier life style plan. This salmon recipe was one of them. Of course later that night I ran across two problems.
1. I didn't buy all the ingredients needed.
2. The salmon has to marinate 48 hours!!!
Oops!
Not to worry. I grabbed my iPhone and used one of my apps called BigOven that has multiple recipes. Still I ran into the problems.
1. Missing ingredients.
2. Long marinating time.
What to do, what to do...
Create my own non-marinating recipe.
First I decided on my ingredients, then I decided how much of each one I was going to use, then I mixed it together and viola! It cooked well and tasted wonderful. So here is the recipe for what I have names Sweet Salmon.

2 pounds thawed salmon fillets, cut into 8 pieces.
1 1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce (I used a low sodium soy sauce and think it tastes just as good as it would have with regular soy sauce.)
2 tablespoons honey

Lay salmon out on sheets of tinfoil. Mix all other ingredients together in small bowl. When mixed, spoon mixture over salmon fillets. Flip Salmon and apply to other side. Place another sheet of tinfoil over salmon.
Meanwhile, heat up your BBQ to 350-400 degrees. Place tinfoil packet of salmon on grill with cover on for 15 minutes. Remove from grill, salmon should be flaky when done.


I served the salmon with a regular salad with a nice Asian flavored dressing. Complemented things well.
I love creating food, this was a really fun little meal to make and I am glad/relieved it turned out well.
BTW, you can munch on the orange used for the orange zest while you mix everything up. Yummy, yummy!

New Tool!

I have a new tool that I am completely enamored with. It's an online tool. Ok, i'll just tell you. It is The Krazy Coupon Lady.
I am on this website every day it seems. My favorite feature is the "coupon" tag where it lists all products with online coupons that are available for print. Sometimes these coupons are not available in your area (I'm looking at you Angel Soft and Jello) but the majority are. Idaho even has available some generic "Any kind of cheese" coupons.
This week I saved 10 dollars in groceries and I wasn't even trying!
My project is to get a master list and track prices and such at various stores. Sometimes, Krazy Coupon lady will do some comparisons. She did a good one on meat products with Wal-mart vs. Winco vs. Albertsons. That's the kind of stuff that I like. She has many links which are a big help, I found another coupon blogger in the Boise area that has posted about multiple sales going on. Example: 79 cent liter's of Coke last weekend at Albertsons. We might have stocked up on Coke Zero. I might have cleaned out the store. I might have only spent 5 dollars.
I hope that if you have not discovered this website on your own, this link helps. It is AMAZING how much money you can save. Plus, I have started to try out some new products that are less expensive with the coupons than what I normally buy and found new products I like!
So let me know if this helps or if you use this web site. I'm still learning all the lingo and how I can better use the coupons or store discount combinations. But right now I have the time so I might as well save our family some money!

Birthday goodies

My birthday was a few months ago. I decided to have some fun decorating and making cupcakes! I wanted a simple theme so I went with M&M cupcakes, both inside and decorated on the outside!
I made one batch of cupcakes from this recipe from Cookies and Cake Recipe's.

Ingredients:

• 1 package yellow cake mix
• 1 package vanilla pudding mix
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup oil
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup mini M&Ms
• 1 container of frosting

Directions:

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 12-cup muffin pans and one 6-cup with paper or foil liners.

2) In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, pudding, flour, milk, oil, and the eggs. Beat the mix with an electric mixer on low speed for about 30 seconds. Then, beat the mix for 2 minutes on medium speed, being sure to scrape the sides.

3) Fold in 2/3 cup of the mini M&Ms and then transfer the batter into the separate muffin cups filling 2/3 full. Drop a few more of the M&Ms over the cupcakes and the bake them 18-20 minutes, or until cupcakes are fully risen and golden brown on the tops.

4) Let the cupcakes cool thoroughly and then frost each cupcake with a dollop of the pre-made frosting. Sprinkle remaining M&M’s on top and then enjoy!

Sadly, these cupcakes came out quite dense. So I made a normal batch of yellow cake cupcakes and threw in M&M's.

The regular batch tasted much better. I had a blast dying the frosting and making the M's out of white chocolate that I froze. Hard work all in all, but these were a big hit. Except the red ones. I had to use a TON of the coloring to make it that red and it made the frosting taste a little funky. But this was fun over all.