We’ve been experimenting with sourdough recipes for a while now and this one has been a favorite of ours. It’s super easy to make but does have a bit of time required for rising so we usually start these the evening before we need them.
You can mix them by hand, use a stand mixer with a dough hook, or even mix them up in your breadmaker… we’ve tried them each way and they all turn out great. I like to put the dough in the oven for its long rise… be sure to leave the light on for it to keep it comfy!
These work great for breakfast sandwiches, mini pizzas, or with a bit of butter and jelly… yum!
This recipe may look a little tricky but once you made it a time a two you could probably do it in your sleep! If you don’t have a sourdough starter you can find tons of easy recipes online to start your own or you can buy some starter like we did HERE.** (Yes, that’s an affiliate link but it won’t cost you a penny more to use it.)
Homemade Sourdough English Muffins
Ingredients:
1/2 c. active sourdough starter
1 T. sugar or honey (we prefer to use local honey but that’s not really necessary)
1 c. milk (I haven’t tried using milk kefir but it would probably work as well)
1 t. salt
3 c. all-purpose flour (may need a little more or less depending on the climate)
I read about this Plastic-Free Challenge earlier this week but haven’t had a chance to post about it until now… If you’ve been following the blog you’ll know that I’ve mentioned that we’ve been extraordinarily busy this past couple of months and hopefully we’ll be able to share what we’ve been up to sometime later this month… it’s really exciting!
Back to the post though… part of my New Year’s goal was to start using less plastic and disposable items in our house. I know we probably won’t be a zero waste household anytime soon but I know that we can have really cut back on single-use plastic items in our home.
Just the other day I realized that our plastic storage containers have been disappearing. Where have they gone? Well, that’s a question that may never be answered but I do know that I really need to replace them. I’ve been looking at a few Plastic-Free options on Amazon and Walmart but haven’t decided what to get yet but I will need to find something soon.
I know that some things will not be replaced soon like our favorite lunch boxes but I have found some replacements for some time in the future. I have also been looking for non-plastic/non-glass replacements to the kids’ water bottles that they use at home. We do try our best to use reusable shopping bags when we go for groceries.
Here are a few ideas of things we’ve replaced recently:
Cleaning cloths/rags instead of paper towels and napkins which come wrapped in plastic.
I know that there are some items that might hard to replace but there are new solutions coming out every day. Making these changes one at a time will make a difference and you may find that it saves you money as well!
So many places around us are putting bans on plastics as well so this is something that everyone really needs to adjust to. It’s crazy to see the numbers on the plastic pollution crisis and our family wants to do our part to help out with this. With the Plastic Free Challenge, you can choose where you will be going plastic free, what you choose to refuse, and how long you choose to go plastic free.
This week I got an email from Life Without Plastic about their Plastic-Free Tooth Tabs which can replace those plastic toothpaste tubes and are packaged in a paper box. They also talked about their new Plastic-Free Lunch Boxes which were funded on Kickstarter. They also have a wide variety of Plastic-Free Containers for packing those delicious lunches in.
Here are a few more interesting articles I’ve found about this topic:
**This post does contain affiliate links to products and/or services that we use. We may earn a teensy weensy small commission (at NO EXTRA cost to you) if a purchase is made through these links. These links help to support our family, our blog, and our homeschooling mission.
I know I haven’t posted a menu in a while but I figured I could post the one I just made up. This was made using the free printable meal planner I have HERE. You will see that we have certain things that rotate on a set schedule but we do try to keep our dinners a little varied to keep everyone happy.
Some days are left blank to allow us to use up some of our pantry and freezer supplies. You can check out some other meal-planning posts HERE and HERE.
Y’all I’ve been so busy and haven’t had time to post but I had to quickly let everyone know about this little gadget that has saved us so many headaches and has probably saved the life of our washing machine on more than one occasion!
As you know we’ve had one issue after another with this house and I mentioned before about our well issues. We get A LOT of sediment in the water lines… I mean beaucoup amounts!!!
We use our Berkey to filter our drinking water and that works wonderfully but some of the appliances, mostly the washer, can’t cope with all the sediment. Our washer would constantly give us the ‘LO FLO’ error message. I knew that meant that I needed to clean/replace the filter in the washer hose.
**This post does contain some affiliate and/or referral links to products and/or services that we use. If you happen to click through a link and make a purchase we may earn a teensy-weensy small commission (at NO EXTRA cost to you) if a purchase is made through these links. These links help to support our family, our blog, and our homeschooling mission. This means that we can keep bringing you great recipes, ideas, and tips for FREE! Click HERE for a full disclaimer. –Thank you!
Last year, when I wasn’t able to be here very much I couldn’t predict when this would happen. Thankfully I found this in-line filter system which has saved us so much time and hassle.
When the error message pops up I can instantly check the filter without needing to pull the heavy washer out from the wall and wriggle behind it which is very awkward and painful.
Yuck, can you see all that sediment? All I had to do was to cut off the water supply, unscrew the filter, rinse it out, and then put it back on. Once I turned the water back on then the washer was ready to go again. I’m so glad that this catches all of that before it makes it to the washer because changing the washer hose filters takes me a lot longer to do.
It’s hard to see but the water is nice and clear in this picture and hopefully I won’t have to do this again until next year. There was a little bit of sediment back in there as soon as I turned the water on again.
I seriously hate to think what all this is doing to our other appliances like the hot water heater. When it gets bad I end up replacing the tank kits in the toilets and everything as well so we keep a couple of those on hand… this is not normal but apparently there is nothing we can do unless we had a ton of money to drill a new well and hope it didn’t have the same issues.
We probably need to look into buying a larger filter for the whole house so we don’t have to keep replacing shower heads, toilet kits, and the such but I just haven’t had a chance to research them yet.
Just this week we’ve had issues with our AC which was installed new but apparently was never registered by the company and therefore the warranty was never put into effect so that means we will most likely be out of pocket for the repairs. We never received the paperwork for anything as we didn’t sign off on the house being completed because it really wasn’t ever completed properly but that’s a story that may never have a happy ending.
We are currently under a tropical storm watch as we have a crazy storm headed our way. Sending major prayers to all of those down south of us that are still dealing with the devastation that Ian left behind!
Anyway we hope you are all having a great week and staying safe!
We ran out of mayonnaise today but I’ve already placed an order for some more… Sam’s was out of our usual super sized containers though.
The delivery hadn’t arrived and we found ourselves down to the last little bit which wasn’t quite enough to finish up a batch of potato salad that I needed to make.
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