Dehydrated Bananas

I found bananas on sale this week for $0.33 pound.  So I purchased the above bananas for less than a dollar and decided to dehydrate them to make a great snack.

This is my trusty Magic Chef food dehydrator that I purchased about 15 years ago on sale for around $20.  It works great for drying fruit and vegetables and making fruit leather, but it is a little noisy as it runs.

First I slice up the bananas about 1/8- 1/4 inch thick.  It's important the pieces are uniform in thickness so that they dry at the same rate.

Then soak the sliced bananas in a mixture of 2 cups water with 1/2 T. Fruit Fresh dissolved in it.  This will help keep your bananas from turning too brown (although they will be brownish when done drying).

Lay the bananas out on the trays. My machine has 5 trays, which I like to spray with cooking spray to make removing the fruit when it's dry easier.

Stack the trays onto the dehydrator base and start it up.  Depending on the thickness of your fruit and how dry you want it, it will take anywhere from 8-15 hours to dehydrate them.  I prefer my bananas to have a little chew and pliability to them when they are done.  This batch took just 8 hours to dry.

Enjoy your chewy, nutritious, and delicious snack!

Homemade Laundry Detergent - But Better!

I have recently been making my own laundry detergent for a couple of reasons. One, it saves a ton of money for our family of 6.  Two, when you are trying to store supplies, having a bunch of jugs of laundry soap is very space consuming.  The ingredients to make your own soap take up very little room.

So I was given a recipe to make the detergent, which is the one you find all over the internet.  They all basically contain the same ingredients in different ratios:  A bar of grated Fels Naptha soap, Borax, Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, and the option to add some drops of essential oils for scent.

So I made this recipe a few times, and although I felt good about the savings, and it was kind-of fun to mix up the recipe in a big 5 gallon bucket, I was feeling disappointed when I used it.  I love doing laundry.  I love the smell of the laundry soap, the fresh smell of clean clothes, and the satisfaction of taking a dirty wrinkly item of clothing and turning it into a fresh, clean and folded garment.  This homemade laundry soap was just kind of blah.  The clothes seemed clean-ish, but not deep clean.  I felt like my clothes were all getting dingy.  And the smell was good, but it didn't smell laundry-ish nor did the clean laundry smell linger on the clothes.

So I started experimenting with adding other ingredients.  I noticed that adding a scoop of oxy-clean to the washer along with my homemade detergent really helped eliminate the dingy look the clothes were picking up.  I can get a container of oxy-clean at my local Dollar Tree for, well, a dollar.  I decided to add a container to my recipe.  It was a good idea in concept, but I have never seen so much foam in all my life.  The foam billowed out of the bucket when I added water, and the detergent turned all lumpy.  In my trial and error process, that was definitely an error.  It also didn't solve my problem of making my laundry smell fresher.

Then I ran across this all OXI-Active detergent for $4.69 a bottle.  It already had oxy power in it, but the manufacturer had done all the science to prevent it from foaming up once it hit water.  It also smells fantastic and laundry-ish, so I decided to add a bottle to my recipe.  It is the perfect solution, now my laundry is coming out fresh and clean.  It did drive up the cost per load a bit, but I am still saving tons of money, and I once again feel good about my laundering results.

So, here's my recipe.

Heidi's Homemade Laundry Soap

1 bar Fels Naptha soap

1 1/2 cups Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (not baking soda)

1 1/2 cups Borax

1 cup Sun color safe bleach (I can find this at Dollar Tree)

1 bottle all OXI-Active detergent (28 load size)

(I can find all of the ingredients above at my local Kroger and Dollar Tree.  I have added the links in case you have difficulty finding one of the ingredients)

Grate the Fels Naptha soap and dissolve in a large pot with 12 cups of water over medium high heat.

Pour into a 5 gallon bucket and add the washing soda, borax and color safe bleach. Stir until dissolved.

Add 8 cups of hot water.  Stir and add the bottle of all OXI-Active.  Fill bucket to about 2 inches from the top with tap water.

Let sit for 24 hours.  Stir and use 1/2 cup to 1 cup per load.  I have an old laundry detergent container that I just keep refilling out of my big bucket.  I use 2-3 lids full per load.

This detergent is safe for high efficiency washers.  

Dried Black Beans - An All Around Winner

Dried beans are a wonderful and inexpensive staple.  They are also full of nutrition and easy to store long term in #10 cans.  For years I have used canned black beans whenever I needed black beans in a recipe.  When the cost of these cans of beans kept increasing, I looked for an alternative.  I noticed that I could buy a one pound bag of dried black beans for the same price as a can of beans, but my dilemma was how to turn those dry beans into what I was already used to using "prepared" in the can.  It is so simple (although it does take a few hours) and a one pound bag yields the equivalent of 4-5 cans.  When I'm done I just place them in freezer quart ziplocks and freeze until needed.

First, put your dry beans in a pan and sort out any rocks (I almost always find a rock or two, but not today) and any odd looking beans.

Then rinse the beans and cover them with about 6 cups of warm water. Now the beans need to soak. There are 2 methods for this 1.  You can let them sit in the pan overnight or 2.  Bring the water to a boil, boil for 2 minutes, then remove them from the heat, cover and let sit for an hour.  I almost always use the second method, because it's quicker and requires less planning ahead!

   

                    

After your beans have soaked, drain off the water.  You now need to cook the beans.  So cover them with water, again, and put them back on the stove.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 1-2 hours.  The older the beans, the longer they'll need to cook.  I start checking the texture of the beans after 45 minutes, and then I check every 15 minutes until they have the mouth feel I am looking for.

                    

Then drain off most of the water.  I leave some water in the pan and bag it with the beans in case I need some "bean juice" in my recipe.

Ok, so now you just need to let them cool and bag 'em up.  I put over a cup and a half of beans in each bag - I'm pretty sure thats way more than would come out of the can.  Just look at how much more you get for the same amount of money!

Use however much you need and freeze the rest. When you need to use one of the frozen bags, just defrost on the counter for an hour or two or in the fridge overnight.  If you need them quicker pop the bag in the microwave for 1 minute on defrost (60% power), and you're off and running!